cold

For some reason, housing insulation is regarded as optional out here or something. Most houses I've been in have it, but most apartments (especially if they're more than 10 years old) don't. Our apartment is, of course, uninsulated. It's 4 degrees centigrade (about 39F) downstairs in my kitchen right now. My olive oil has congealed into an opaque yellow blob.

what is it with japanese kids?

I was just downstairs washing my hands (our schools have long troughs of sinks in the hallways), something I do frequently at work. Just as I was walking away Hisamitsu, a young lad in the second grade, burst out of the boys bathroom laughing quite loudly. He saw me and, while pointing back to the bathroom, announced, "Big unko!" I'm pretty sure I've explained the meaning of unko before, but here's the definition from Jim Breen's Japanese-English Dictionary:

うんこ (n) (col) shit; faeces; feces

my japanese is so random

After two and a half years, I can competently get through my workday speaking mostly Japanese. Granted, I screw up the grammar left and right, but I get my points across. Still, I have some very basic deficiencies that probably would have been addressed in a 100-level course if I'd ever studied the language formally. But every once in awhile, I realize that even though I can't give directions, I still know some really weird random words. Examples:

平行線 - hei-ko-sen, parallel lines
酸素 - sanso, oxygen
ホウ酸 - housan, boric acid

And just now in 4th grade science class:

蒸発 - johatsu, evaporation

Ugh

The quote button doesn't work. I don't know.

Anyway, from September 2005:

"It's payday so I have to look at our bills and figure out what to send home. The exchange rate was 113.36 to the dollar when I checked this morning, the highest it's been in 6 months. I'm hoping it's going to drop to like 110.00 overnight. We may just get by by the skin of our teeth."

Current exchange rate: 120.65

WHY?!

I'm bored at work.

"Update 28th May; Wah! I found out this originally NUCLEAR DECONTAMINATION TRUCK!!! My God! Maybe based in Lop Nor? No problem... Chinese Government say "radiation dose good for you". Proved by exploding many nuclear bombs in China, still 1.3bn people alive. Will truck glow in dark on side of A1 road? Aha! I find out by home science test. Did you know I have BSc in Organic Chemistry and also MSc? I not stupid! Here is how I test radiation...
1) Breaking egg of chicken on truck mudguard.
2) Egg not cook so Alpha levels OK.
3) Chicken with 3 legs not grow so Gamma levels OK.
4) Truck OK, not hot despite nuclear decon use.
Most people too stupid to apply common sense solutions."
-Ling's Cars

So I am surfing the internets today and I came across a terribly funny link. It's for a car leasing service in the UK run by a woman from Changdu. Her site is the funniest thing I have ever read in my life. Don't browse casually, read closely. She apparently parks a truck that is meant to look like it has a nuclear missile on it with her business name on the A1, she sends out a free lunch to 10 website visitors a day (noodles + unhealthy marshmallow cone or healthy dried plum that is "delicious but may cause big shit." and tea or coffee. She will send you Chinese money... she'll even send a copy of Mao's 1960 Little Red Book. If this woman opened shop in the States I would totally lease a car from her for the LOL factor.

Ling's Cars

photos from last week

Here are some photos from last week's eikaiwa taiken (literally something like "personal experience with English conversation") at the airport.

From left to right: Yuuki (6th grade), Emer (an interviewee from Ireland), Takumi (4th grade), Asami (2nd grade) and Wakana (1st grade).

Takumi speaking to Wade, a gentlemen from New Zealand (And yes, that's me in a suit. Don't laugh.)

Wakana and Asami speaking to Yolanda and Darren, from New Brunswick, Canada.

Left to right: Takao (1st grade), Marina (2nd grade), Akane (3rd grade), Kent, their interviewee from Vancouver, BC, and Shota (6th grade).

i don't think he could wear this at home

As many of you are by now aware, despite the best efforts of teachers like Samantha and myself, the adult Japanese population has a less than stellar command of the English language. Most of the time this is harmless, but every once in awhile they produce newsstands called "Let's Kiosk" and shirts like this:


That's Naoki, one of my ever-jubilant first graders, wearing a shirt that I'm pretty sure would get him sent home from an American school. Peeking out from behind him is Shuuka, a girl in the second grade.

成田空港英会話体験

Every February our entire school (last year there were 29 of them, this year 34 - we're growing!) hops into a bus and takes a short drive over to the airport, where they spend an hour or so scampering around the terminal in yellow hats hunting for foreigners to interview. The older kids are surprisingly adept, and the first and second graders are just damned cute.

Anyway, after about three weeks of nonstop practicing we drove over to the airport this afternoon, and everyone actually surprised me by doing so well. That's a nice feeling when you're a teacher.

I'll try to put some pictures up later.

attention geeks

Once again, work has distracted us from the business of writing regularly. However, when watching our illegally obtained American television programs last week (μtorrent + high-definition video rips + RSS = happy expats) we couldn't help but take note at the guest appearance of George Takei on Heroes:


On this week's program, we caught a brief glimpse of the car used to ferry Takei's character around New York, and both fell over laughing.