Die wunderbare Welt des Taryn H.!

31st August 2009

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Holy crap.

So a scale magically appeared in the common area at my guesthouse since the last time I was in there.. According to the lady who does some of the cleaning, it belonged to someone who died about a week ago, but she’s kind of hard to understand so I didn’t get the full story.  Anyway, I haven’t stepped on a scale in about 6 months.  I’m used to weighing myself every day or so, but I never got around to buying one here. I get really paranoid if I don’t weigh myself for more than a week, so I was kind of expecting the worst after all the junk food I’ve eaten this summer.

But evidently, I’m 59.8 kilos, which in non-jibberish is 131.8 pounds.  HOLLA.  Pretty much exactly the same as when I left, I am pleased. 8D

Just had to share that.  Time for some celebratory cake!

15th August 2009

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コストコへの大冒険

So on Thursday, Kaz and I went to the Costco in Makuhari, because apparently they sell a lot of American stuff there and it’s where all the other foreigners shop.  We took a really roundabout way to get there, though, so it ended up being like an all-afternoon outing.  We had to change trains twice, wait for a bus once we got to Makuhari, and then cross a giant moat filled with lava and crocodiles to get to the place.

Costco itself would have been a lot less amazing if we were still back home, it was almost exactly like going to Sam’s Club, but the selection wasn’t quite as impressive.  But when you’ve been away for a while, you get a lot more excited over the little things, like Swanson’s chicken broth.  We ended up buying an enormous bag of Riesen’s, a huge bag of Ruffles potato chips (sadly they did not carry sour cream and cheddar flavour), and some really cheap steak.  We would have bought more, but we had to make the same arduous trek to get home, and carrying a case of Campbell’s chunky soup would have probably made people on the train stare more than they usually do.  It’s also about 8000 degrees Celsius here lately, makes going outside way too much of a hassle.

Yesterday we didn’t have anything to do again, so we decided that one trip to Costco simply wasn’t enough, and that we should make a second trip.  But this time, we went to the one in Saitama, which was actually a lot easier to get to.  The internet misled us into thinking that the Saitama Costco was right by an Ikea and Lalaport…those two always seem to co-exist in Japan, which I find weird, but that’s not the point.  After buying some Act II popcorn, mashed potatoes, and Nutella, we were going to do some non-grocery shopping at Lalaport, but when we asked the guy directing traffic how to get into the building, he was all “Um, Lalaport doesn’t open until the end of September, it’s still under construction.”  We somehow managed to walk by all the obviously incomplete storefronts and neither of us noticed that it wasn’t open yet.  I think the heat here has gradually cooked my brain. D:

It does look like it’ll be a pretty cool Lalaport once it opens, though, and less of a labyrinth than the one in Funabashi.

Oh, but getting back to the main reason I wanted to write this post!  So, now that I am a seasoned expert on all things Costco, I can officially say that Japanese people completely fail at shopping American-style.  People here are so used to just going to the store and buying a few things at a time that when you give them a shopping cart the size of an SUV and stick them in a very crowded store, they seem to lose the ability to function.  They’d just stand there in the middle of the aisle, completely oblivious to the fact that their carts were effectively barracading the way for everyone else.  I don’t think they should be allowed to use the big shopping carts unless they can pass some kind of test and get a license first.  Both stores were packed, even on a weekday afternoon, and the efficiency level was considerably lower than that of a Wal-Mart.  In the south.

But oh, Ruffles, you were so worth it. ♥

Later, we watched Reservoir Dogs and went to Shirokiya with another ALT that works for our company, it was a pretty awesome day overall. 8D

31st July 2009

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wat.

Hmm, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve written anything here, I fail so bad at internets.

I don’t have a ton to write about, mostly because I’m going to watch some Rifftrax in a few minutes and can’t be bothered.  Later I’ll try to write something with a little more substance if I have time.

I really just wanted to bitch about the fact that there are now cicadas just chilling on that telephone pole outside my window.  It was bad enough when the crows were using it as their hangout, but these cicadas are so loud that even if I shut my window it sounds like they’re inside my room! D:

Just another reason I’d like to invest in a sniper rifle. =/

18th July 2009

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Prompt #175: What movie do people give you a hard time for not having seen?

I’ve kind of been meaning to do this for a while but haven’t had time up until now.  Everything I post here is pretty similar, so instead of always just writing whatever thing pops into my head, I’m going to try to occasionally pick one of these prompts and write an answer for it.  So without further ado…

Q: What movie do people give you a hard time for not having seen?

There are too many movies that fall under this category for me to count!  I’m not much of a movie-goer in the first place, they cost too much and my attention span is far too short.  I tend to only go to the movies when it’s something I’m sure I want to see, basically.  On the other hand, once I know I like a movie, I can watch it ad infinitum and rarely tire of it.  Jurassic Park, Flight of the Phoenix, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, or just about any movie with Richie Ren (regardless of whether the movie is actually any good) are all examples that come to mind.  When we first got the Lion King on VHS, I think I watched it enough times that I had every line in the movie memorized.  But back to the original question!

First of all, I have never seen Monty Python.  I don’t even really know anything about it, so it’s especially confusing when people go around quoting it.  Which they always do.  I’m not sure how I have gone this long without ever seeing it, but then again I made it 23 years without ever seeing Indiana Jones so I guess this isn’t too much of a stretch. People don’t so much give me a hard time for not having seen this, it’s usually more a reaction of total disbelief and occasionally pity.  I don’t really get it.

Next, I’ve never seen Napoleon Dynamite.  I’ve filed this one under “Movies I now refuse to see because I’ve gotten so tired of people trying to force me to watch them”.  This is something I do a lot, and it’s not one of my most endearing traits.  I’m almost always wrong when I do this, being as I also refused to watch The A-Team, EekStravaganza!, Star Wars, Flight of the Phoenix, MST3K, etc., and then ended up really liking them once I eventually caved.  It’s one of my brattier tendencies, and while I fully acknowledge it, I do nothing to change it. D:

Continuing on, Harry Potter!  And on a related note, Lord of the Rings.  Both immensely popular, but I think I’ve seen bits and fragments of both, if anything at all.  I really dislike fantasy books/movies in general, frankly.  Chances are, if it’s got elves in it, I won’t like it.  Both of these also fall under the aforementioned “Won’t watch because I’m too belligerent” sub-category, as well.

I’ve never seen Twilight, and probably never will, unless it’s to watch the Rifftrax of it.

On a more unpredictable note, I have never seen Jurassic Park II or III.  Okay, well, I saw a little bit of the third one on TV a few months ago, but I fell asleep so it doesn’t count.  As far as The Lost World goes, I have too much respect for the book to see the movie, since everyone on the face of the planet has unanimously agreed that it is awful.

So those are the ones that come to mind first, I’m sure there are others but I’ve still got other stuff to do today. 8D;  Oh yeah, and the drinking party for my one school last night wasn’t too bad!  It was really uncomfortable though, because I can’t sit seiza-style, no matter how hard I try.  The teachers were asking me a lot of awkward personal questions, but that seems to be the norm here.  And they invited me to go to DisneySea next month sometime, so hooray!  Anyway, I’m out, gotta go try to get my laundry done once and for all.

Cheers!

15th July 2009

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Something has survived.

(Wrote this earlier today, posting it now.  For the wolf.)

So it’s been like a week since my last entry, but I am indeed still alive.  I  actually started feeling better the day after I wrote about being sick, which was good.  I’m all better now, anyway.  I’m writing this in the teacher’s lounge, actually, because all my classes are done for the day and I have nothing else to do.  I wish I could go home already, but it’s not even 2pm yet. @_@  I have to sit here until 4:30, but I think I may go insane before then.  I really need to start bringing more to keep myself occupied with when I know I have so much free time.  It’s not helping that I’m SUPER thirsty and tired.  I want to take a nap on my desk, but somehow I doubt that would be a good course of action.  Ugh, everyone has drinks but me in this room, I’m about to mug someone and take their CC Lemon, straight up.

My classes lately have all gone pretty well, and yesterday was my last day at my Monday/Tuesday/Friday school before summer holiday.  I have four 6th grade classes tomorrow, and then I’m home free!  Until September, anyway.  I’m really excited about having so much time off, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself for all that time.  I might be sick of it and wishing I were back at school after a week.  If that does end up being the case, let me just make a note to my future self right here and now: You’re full of SHIT, you do not want to be back at school, because that means sitting in the teacher’s lounge for hours with nothing to do.  But at least it’s air-conditioned.  Sort of.

The rainy season appears to be over, which is awesome, but now it’s gotten really hot here.  It’s always a million degrees and windy, so I still end up looking like a bag lady every day.  Japan’s weather hates me, I can’t win.  It’s sabetsu, is what it is.

I don’t have school on Friday, so I’m stoked about that, but I do have a drinking party for my one school on Friday night.  I can’t decide yet whether I’m dreading it or not, though.  My co-workers at that school are nice to me, but they aren’t all that outgoing when we’re at work.  They generally don’t talk to me unless they have to, so I hope it’s not super awkward.  Oh well.  Can’t be much worse than that last nomikai I went to!

Wow, there was just some cherry-picker outside, it was kind of far away but I saw it go up with 2 people in it… why would you go up in a cherry-picker when it’s this windy?  It was visibly swaying, even from here, that can’t possibly be safe.  They had hard-hats on, but that seems a little pointless.  If you’re planning on falling from that far up, there’s no way you’d survive anyway, so you might as well just not wear the hat at all.  That’s the equivalent of elbow pads saving you from a plane crash.

Soooo sleepy.  Still have almost 2 hours to go!  Wtf.  The teacher’s lounge is like some parallel universe where time goes by extra slow and everyone has popped collars.  Popped-collar Cruella is living up to her name again today, no surprises there.

Another fashion-related mystery that never ceases to baffle me here is the way so many people are wearing long sleeves right now.  They’re all mental, you couldn’t pay me to walk to work in long sleeves in weather like this.  It’s summer time!  I’m ready to die of heat exhaustion because I have to wear something with sleeves to work.  They must be immune to the weather, and I want to know how they are doing it!  Yet they’re all complaining about how hot it is, so maybe they really are just insane.  A lot of people take it as far to wear ridiculous huge visors, gloves that go up to the elbow, and the ever-popular sun-umbrella.  All this, but everyone is still shocked when I put on a pair of sunglasses.  My kids are actually confused when I wear sunglasses.  What is surprising about that?  I can understand thinking it’s unnecessary, but on days like today when there’s not a cloud in the sky,  what is confusing about that?  My gaijin eyes can’t take that kind of brightness, I’m like a mole-person if I go outside without them. D:

Hah, so today, I had my 5th graders play a game to practice “I like ____” and “I don’t like ____”.. I had one person be It, and they had to stand at the front of the room and say something they liked, like “I like cats.” or whatever.  Then everyone else had to try to guess whether or not the person was telling the truth or not, and move to either side of the room, which I had marked with a O and X.  If they guessed wrong, they had to sit.  The person at the front got 5 tries to get the whole class out, and they had a lot of fun with it.  In one of the classes, this one boy was like “I like… TENNIS!”  Of course, being the 5th grade boys that they are, his two friends were like “What?  You like penis?” because the two words sound a lot alike in Japanese.  Then they just kept repeating it for the next 10 minutes, and I should be ashamed for laughing, too.  I’ve always known I had the maturity of an 11 year-old boy, this just proves it.

Complete change of topic again, but I think I want to try and find a different place to live over summer holiday.  The guesthouse I’ve been living in isn’t horrible, but I’m really just tired of the lack of space.  I’m never motivated enough to cook in the kitchen because it’s so dirty all the time, and the rules about having people over are retarded.  I wouldn’t really be surprised if the reason I got sick last week was because I eat nothing but cup noodle and microwaveable shumai, and I see myself cooking a lot more if I actually have my own kitchen area that I can clean to my liking.  So if I can find someplace with comparable rent around the same distance from the station, I may just try to find a real apartment this time.

Well, I have like, 50 minutes left, and I think I will spend it playing minesweeper and reading this e-book I found about weird survival tips.  Like what to do if you get chased by a mountain lion.  Never know when you might need that.  Cheers!

7th July 2009

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This is the worst.

Since, I dunno, Sunday morning, my throat has been hurting, and now it’s progressed into some kind of full-blown plague.  I haven’t felt this crappy in a really long time, and I still have 3 more days of work this week.  My throat has gotten exponentially more sore, my nose and sinuses feel like I spent the last 3 days being kicked in the face, and my entire body aches like I’ve been hit by a truck.  I enjoy using similes, don’t hate.

Furthermore, I have no appetite and I’m exhausted all day.  It’s only 7pm and I think I’m just going to go to bed after I finish this. :C

I got through today somehow, but none of my 5 classes went all that well.  I did manage to get this magic patch thing from the school nurse that you stick on your skin and it makes it cool.  It was so awesome, I went out and bought some of my own after school.  They’re not doing all that much to help the searing neck pain whenever I turn my head, though.  And trying to talk loudly in class just made my throat feel worse, I think.  I have 4 tomorrow and 4 Thursday, and I might at least try to leave after they’re done.  If I have to sit in that teacher’s lounge from noon till 4:30 feeling like this, I may just say screw it and crush my own skull with a blunt instrument and be done with it.

Sorry this is super whiny, I’d like to say it’s to make me feel better, but I think I need something a lot stronger than self-pity for that. D:

If this is the last entry I write, then it’s safe to assume that the fever reached my brain and I had to be destroyed.  Cheers!

4th July 2009

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I took this in 2005..

Advanced Global Personality Test Results
Extraversion |||||||||| 34% Stability |||||||||||||||| 70% Orderliness |||||||||||||||| 66% Accommodation |||||| 22% Interdependence |||||||||||| 50% Intellectual |||||||||||||| 54% Mystical |||||| 30% Artistic |||||||||||||||| 70% Religious || 10% Hedonism |||||||||||||||| 63% Materialism |||||||||||||||| 63% Narcissism |||||||||||||| 56% Adventurousness |||||| 30% Work ethic |||||| 23% Humanitarian |||||||||| 36% Conflict seeking |||| 16% Need to dominate |||||||||||| 50% Romantic || 10% Avoidant |||||||||||| 43% Anti-authority |||||||||| 36% Wealth |||| 16% Dependency |||||||||||||||| 63% Change averse |||||||||||||| 56% Cautiousness |||||||||||||||| 70% Individuality |||||||||||||| 56% Sexuality |||||| 23% Peter pan complex |||||||||||||||||||| 83% Family drive |||| 16% Physical Fitness |||||| % Histrionic |||||||||||||||| 70% Paranoia |||||||||||||||||| 76% Vanity |||||||||||||| 56% Honor |||||||||||| 50% Thriftiness |||||||||||| 50%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality test by similarminds.com

Let’s see, my work ethic, “need to dominate”, narcissism, paranoia and avoidant scores have all gone down significantly, but my peter pan complex score has skyrocketed!  Wonder what that means, ha.

4th July 2009

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I'm pretty lazy about writing in this thing.

I’m tempted to take a page from Bridget’s book and start making weekly posts that have actual substance here, but my writing style is generally just to record whatever fragmented thought pops into my mind so I don’t know how long that would last.

This week was decent, my classes were good for the most part.  I even had a few where my homeroom teachers had to leave the room to go do 研究授業 somewhere, leaving every aspect of the lesson up to me.  Granted, for the most part that is not at all different from when they’re in the room, because the majority of my HRTs are about as useful as a head wound.  Whatever that means.  It went surprisingly well, though!  If the HRTs aren’t going to help me at all, I’d almost prefer it if they weren’t in the room, then at least I know they’re not taking any credit for the class.  In any case, I’m pretty proud of myself for being able to successfully teach an entire class to a room full of 6th graders and not have them be completely confused or disinterested.

Yesterday I was having lunch with one of my second grade classes, and they were actually sociable for once.  In Japanese elementary schools, the kids eat lunch in their classrooms.  The classes are usually broken up into about 6 groups of kids, and they use those groups at lunch and when they play games in class or whatever.

One of the other teachers (I don’t have a nickname for him yet so we’ll just call him K-sensei), was eating with the same class, but sitting with a different group than me.  About halfway through lunch, this one girl from the other group comes over to me and is like “How about K-sensei?” and of course I had no idea what she meant because second graders always just say random shit completely out of context.  She elaborated by saying that they were trying to fix him up, and that we were a perfect match because we are both single.  Also that we could get married in the gym.  7 year-olds, such hopeless romantics.  It’s cute how they’re more interested in my love life than I am.  So after I gave her my usual “I’m 24, that’s way too young to be married!” spiel, this little boy from the group behind me turns around and is like “Taryn-sensei.  I don’t think you should marry K-sensei.  Because, like, he’s Japanese, and you’re not Japanese, so if you had kids, they would be half Japanese.” or something to that effect.  That is not at all something I expect to hear from a 2nd grader.  Then I had to do the whole “Now now, it takes all different colours to make a rainbow!” speech, although I think he was saying it more in the sense of “You can’t colour the sky orange, the sky is blue.” than to be racist.  In any case, I think K-sensei is like, 22.  Practically jailbait, and I don’t do JB.  But I digress.

Yesterday evening I was invited by the Board of Education guy to some drinking party (bad translation, I think) for all the ALTs in Urayasu.  My first instinct was to say no, but I figured I’m in Japan and I shouldn’t fall back into my old habits of avoiding being around new people.  And since I didn’t have any other plans for the evening, I agreed to go.  It was 3,500 yen for 2 and a half hours of all you can eat and drink, so that seemed like a reasonable price at first glance.  BUT IT WAS A TRAP.  Yeah, it was all-you-can-drink, but they only had like 4 things on the drink menu!  That was fine for most of the other people there, since they were pounding back draft beers like it was the elixir of life, but I’m far too classy to drink beer.  They had ume-shu, which tasted like a liquid raisin with all of the sugar cane in Brazil dumped into it.  They also had lemon sours, which not only is redundant, but also lacking in flavour and volume of alcohol.  Also some oolong thing, but I hate tea with the passion of 1000 burning suns, so I was shit out of luck.

The only people who even showed up besides me (around 15 people) were almost all really old.  Like over 30.  There was only one other woman that showed up, the rest were all 腐男子 or ojisan with the exception of one guy.  In any case, my fears that it would be very lame turned out to be true, but I’m glad that it didn’t keep me from going.  If nothing else, I get the smug satisfaction of knowing that I was right.  So ha!

In other news, my landlord is kind of creepy.  I wish he would just send me an SMS when he gets here and I could meet him downstairs to pay my rent instead of him actually coming to my room.  I have a picture of me and Shay on my computer desk thing, and he did like a weird double-take when he saw it and was like “Wow, is this your friend?” and I was like “It’s my sister.” and he was all “Very pretty!”.  I’m not sure if I’m offended or relieved that he thinks she’s the pretty one.  Okay, scratch that, it’s definitely relief.

Oh yeah, happy 4th of July!  I hate not being able to celebrate holidays properly over here, but I’m going out drinking with Take later so that’s something.  Time for TF2 now though, so cheers!

28th June 2009

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Rainy again..

Had another awesome weekend, but the downside of that is that it makes me hate Sunday evenings, since the weekend is over.  Went to Shirokiya with Take on Friday after work.. the food there is really good, and even though they don’t have 1000 yen nomihoudai anymore, their drink prices aren’t bad.

On Saturday afternoon, I met Bridget in Tokyo and we went to the Korakuen next to the Tokyo Dome.  It was really cool!  It’s like an old-fashioned garden, and it just looks really aesthetically pleasing.  I think every insect in Tokyo bit Bridget at least once, but I managed to only get one or two bites since I had bug spray on.  I still have hives, though, which is just as bad.  We took some pictures, but I didn’t get a chance to look at them yet.  We saw a butterfly, and Bridget was scared of it, so I laughed.. but we also saw a bee that made me scream and run away, so I guess I have no room to talk.  Of course, no one has ever been killed by butterflies.

Afterwards, we went to Shin-Urayasu and shopped for a few hours, and had curry at Cocoichi’s.  Bridget stayed over, which was cool despite my super-tiny room.  This morning, we made french toast, it was pretty much the most delicious thing ever.  Later we met up with Take and went to Kasai Seaside Park, where the aquarium and gigantic Ferris Wheel are.  The park is really nice, but the weather isn’t that great today, and it started raining as we were leaving.  We rode the Ferris Wheel, though, it’s the biggest one in Japan!  Kind of scary, but pretty ace.

We had lunch at Jonathan’s, then went home, and now I have to plan my 3rd/4th grade lesson for tomorrow.  It sucks that the weekend is over, but really Mondays are not all that difficult.  I only have one first grade class, and one 4th grade class, and they’re only 20 minutes each.  The other 7 hours and 20 minutes usually consist of me sitting around in the teacher’s lounge trying to look busy or planning other lessons.  Lately I’ve been studying my JLPT books when I have a lot of free time, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be annoyed if they see me doing non-school work.  Who knows.

Okay, no more procrastinating!  Time to plan!  Cheers D:

24th June 2009

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Popped collars

There’s nothing quite as simultaneously tragic and hilarious as the popped collar.  But for whatever reason, people in Japan just can’t get enough of it!  First off, polo shirts look retarded on at least 80% of the human population.  To then pop the collar is just basically coming out and saying that you not only lack fashion sense, but also do not know how to correctly put on a shirt.

Back home, I usually only see guys doing this, but here there are just as many women that do it, and it affects all ages.  It cracks me up to see little old Japanese women looking like they stole their wardrobe from a frat house.

For example, there’s this one teacher at one of my schools.. I don’t know her name because I have never had a conversation with her.  I think she teaches math, so right from the get-go you know she’s batshit insane.  Anyway, she always has this expression like she’s scowling, and overall she looks a lot like a Japanese Cruella DeVil.  But every single day, she wears a polo shirt, and pops the collar.  She obviously does it intentionally, but I can’t understand why.  Since I don’t know her name, I have dubbed her Popped-collar Cruella.  Pithy, I know.

I just wanted to mention that.

Also, I still have hives.  Fuck! D:

22nd June 2009

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Annoyances

The weather here is disgusting lately.  It’s hot, humid, rainy, and windy, and everything feels gross and damp.

The wind is being really loud and making like, a noisy wind tunnel through my room, and yet the air manages to feel totally stagnant.

My laundry won’t dry, because it’s too humid.

I’ve had hives since Saturday, I have no idea what they are from and they haven’t gotten any better.  It’s driving me crazy!

Not a real post, I know, I just had to bitch somewhere.  This is making me cranky. =/