Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Daily Minutiae
The Japanese are Trash Nazis. Seriously. Here's a brief summary of the garbage regulations in Kawasaki: garbage must be carefully divided into burnable, recyclable, glass, bulk, and used battery piles. The burnable garbage can only be disposed of before 8 AM on every weekday but Wednesday. You have to carefully bag it up, take it to the garbage dumping area, and cover it with plastic netting. Recyclable garbage must be rinsed out and taken out before 8 AM on Wednesdays. Glass must be wrapped in small, clear plastic bags labelled 'Hazardous!' in Japanese, and it can only be put out on Wednesdays too. Used batteries must be put in small, clear plastic bags labelled 'Hazardous!' and can only be put out on Wednesdays. If you have bulk garbage (anything bigger than, say, a cereal box) you have to call a Japanese-only phone number and arrange for a special pickup on the first or third Fridays of the month.
Confused yet? It gets worse. Because if you slip up and put something recyclable in the burnable bag, your neighbors will literally DIG THROUGH YOUR TRASH to find proof and REPORT YOU TO THE POLICE. I've met several Nova teachers who have gotten stern warnings from the city because a neighbor complained about improper trash disposal. Neighborhood Watches in America have NOTHING on bored Japanese housewives. How bored would YOU have to be to dig through your neighbor's garbage to prove they aren't recycling? But it's a perfectly everyday occurence around here.
One of my favorite lessons in on daily routines. Basically, I'm trying to teach the students to say, "Every day I wake up at 8, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to work. After work ends at 6, I run some errands. Then I go home, eat dinner, and watch TV." Stuff like that. But it's fun to teach the lessons to housewives because their daily routines go something like this: "I wake at 7 and cook breakfast for my family. Once the kids have left for school and my husband's left for work I spend a couple of hours watching TV or studying English. Then I eat lunch and shop at Shimokitazawa for a few hours. After that, I go to Nova or meet a friend at the public baths. Then I go home and cook dinner for my family and tuck the kids into bed."
The mind boggles.
Taking care of this apartment is totally different from caring for a dorm back home. First, if you don't regularly air out the rooms and bleach it from top to bottom twice a month, black mold starts growing everywhere. To keep mold and various nasty creepy-crawlies from taking up residence in your bed you have to take the futon outside and beat it with a plastic wand at least once a week. (This is actually rather fun, and great for relieving stress.) I'm not sure where it comes from, but all sort of random hair and fuzz collects on the floor. At home, I could go months without vacuuming and you couldn't tell the difference, but here if you don't vacuum once a week the stuff's EVERYWHERE. Maybe the humidity leads to static buildup in the carpet, which attracts random lint? At any rate, I've cleaned more in the past month here in Tokyo than I did any four back home.
So, Things I've Learned So Far in Japan:
1. My new ambition in life is to be a Japanese housewife.
2. NEVER forget to put the trash out by Friday. Because otherwise it will be stinking up your kitchen until the next pickup day, i.e. Monday.
3. Bleach is your FRIEND.
I'm on the weirdest eating schedule lately, maybe because my work schedule changes from day to day. Usually I eat breakfast about 9-11, lunch around 1-2, dinner around 5-6, and a second dinner around 10-11. I've actually been good about cooking meals at home and carrying my lunches to work with me, so despite the four square meals a day I haven't gained any weight, but even with the ten million stairs between my apartment and the train station it's all I can do to maintan my current weight. On the plus side, I now have Calves of Titanium!
I need suggestions for things to do with cabbage, because I've had about all the yakisoba and okonomiyaki a person can stand, and every other green vegetable costs an arm and a leg. Well, every other green vegetable that I recognize. There's all sorts of strange Asian cabbage-y sort of things in the grocery store; feel free to let me know what those are and what you do with them, because they're pretty cheap.
I also haven't bought fresh fruit once since I got here. It's 100 yen for a single orange or apple, and those are the older, picked-over ones at the 100 yen store. At the regular grocery store it's not uncommon for them to cost $150 apiece. So I stick to dried fruit: I eat raisins and banana chips on my cereal in the mornings or in trail mix between classes. Once I splurged and got jello with mandarin oranges in it, which was simply the single most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life. All in all, though, I'm not really missing fruit. I've always been rather particular about fruit--I'd rather go without fruit entirely than eat one I'm not in the mood for--so I'm quite happy just upping my vegetable intake. They have wonderful carrots here, and more varieties of mushrooms than I ever imagined was possible.
Is it just me, or is downloading a file very similar to Zeno's Paradox? The closer you get to a completed file, the slower it downloads. The countdown says 1 hour remaining, but when you come back in an hour it still has 30 minutes to go. 30 minutes later it has 15 minutes to go. No matter how long you wait--no matter how long the percentage completed hovers about 98%--the file never finishes.
Oh, yeah, and I need to take a minute to plug Death Note for all my anime-watching friends. Death Note is the new huge thing right now--the train stations are plastered floor to ceiling with advertisements, the fifty-foot-tall TV screens in Shibuya are always showing the previews, and if you walk down a busy street for more than 30 minutes a truck will inevitably drive along blaring the theme song. There's a reason it's so popular, too:
It is INSANELY good.
I've seen the first episode about 4 times and it still sends chills down my spine.
The basic premise: Imagine you had the power to kill anyone simply by writing down their names. Imagine that all you had to do was write a name, and the worst dictators and serial killers and murderers and rapists in the world would drop dead, quickly and painlessly. As you would never actually meet these people face-to-face, there would be no evidence tying you to their deaths, and you could kill them with impunity. Would you do it?
The story's brilliant, the characters are just as intelligent as the author claims they are, the music's gorgeous, and the animation's unparalleled. Seven episodes in and I don't have a single complaint, except that I hate having to wait a week between airdates.
So, why are you still reading this? Go download! Shoo!
Oh, yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
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Confused yet? It gets worse. Because if you slip up and put something recyclable in the burnable bag, your neighbors will literally DIG THROUGH YOUR TRASH to find proof and REPORT YOU TO THE POLICE. I've met several Nova teachers who have gotten stern warnings from the city because a neighbor complained about improper trash disposal. Neighborhood Watches in America have NOTHING on bored Japanese housewives. How bored would YOU have to be to dig through your neighbor's garbage to prove they aren't recycling? But it's a perfectly everyday occurence around here.
One of my favorite lessons in on daily routines. Basically, I'm trying to teach the students to say, "Every day I wake up at 8, get ready, eat breakfast, and go to work. After work ends at 6, I run some errands. Then I go home, eat dinner, and watch TV." Stuff like that. But it's fun to teach the lessons to housewives because their daily routines go something like this: "I wake at 7 and cook breakfast for my family. Once the kids have left for school and my husband's left for work I spend a couple of hours watching TV or studying English. Then I eat lunch and shop at Shimokitazawa for a few hours. After that, I go to Nova or meet a friend at the public baths. Then I go home and cook dinner for my family and tuck the kids into bed."
The mind boggles.
Taking care of this apartment is totally different from caring for a dorm back home. First, if you don't regularly air out the rooms and bleach it from top to bottom twice a month, black mold starts growing everywhere. To keep mold and various nasty creepy-crawlies from taking up residence in your bed you have to take the futon outside and beat it with a plastic wand at least once a week. (This is actually rather fun, and great for relieving stress.) I'm not sure where it comes from, but all sort of random hair and fuzz collects on the floor. At home, I could go months without vacuuming and you couldn't tell the difference, but here if you don't vacuum once a week the stuff's EVERYWHERE. Maybe the humidity leads to static buildup in the carpet, which attracts random lint? At any rate, I've cleaned more in the past month here in Tokyo than I did any four back home.
So, Things I've Learned So Far in Japan:
1. My new ambition in life is to be a Japanese housewife.
2. NEVER forget to put the trash out by Friday. Because otherwise it will be stinking up your kitchen until the next pickup day, i.e. Monday.
3. Bleach is your FRIEND.
I'm on the weirdest eating schedule lately, maybe because my work schedule changes from day to day. Usually I eat breakfast about 9-11, lunch around 1-2, dinner around 5-6, and a second dinner around 10-11. I've actually been good about cooking meals at home and carrying my lunches to work with me, so despite the four square meals a day I haven't gained any weight, but even with the ten million stairs between my apartment and the train station it's all I can do to maintan my current weight. On the plus side, I now have Calves of Titanium!
I need suggestions for things to do with cabbage, because I've had about all the yakisoba and okonomiyaki a person can stand, and every other green vegetable costs an arm and a leg. Well, every other green vegetable that I recognize. There's all sorts of strange Asian cabbage-y sort of things in the grocery store; feel free to let me know what those are and what you do with them, because they're pretty cheap.
I also haven't bought fresh fruit once since I got here. It's 100 yen for a single orange or apple, and those are the older, picked-over ones at the 100 yen store. At the regular grocery store it's not uncommon for them to cost $150 apiece. So I stick to dried fruit: I eat raisins and banana chips on my cereal in the mornings or in trail mix between classes. Once I splurged and got jello with mandarin oranges in it, which was simply the single most delicious thing I've ever eaten in my life. All in all, though, I'm not really missing fruit. I've always been rather particular about fruit--I'd rather go without fruit entirely than eat one I'm not in the mood for--so I'm quite happy just upping my vegetable intake. They have wonderful carrots here, and more varieties of mushrooms than I ever imagined was possible.
Is it just me, or is downloading a file very similar to Zeno's Paradox? The closer you get to a completed file, the slower it downloads. The countdown says 1 hour remaining, but when you come back in an hour it still has 30 minutes to go. 30 minutes later it has 15 minutes to go. No matter how long you wait--no matter how long the percentage completed hovers about 98%--the file never finishes.
Oh, yeah, and I need to take a minute to plug Death Note for all my anime-watching friends. Death Note is the new huge thing right now--the train stations are plastered floor to ceiling with advertisements, the fifty-foot-tall TV screens in Shibuya are always showing the previews, and if you walk down a busy street for more than 30 minutes a truck will inevitably drive along blaring the theme song. There's a reason it's so popular, too:
It is INSANELY good.
I've seen the first episode about 4 times and it still sends chills down my spine.
The basic premise: Imagine you had the power to kill anyone simply by writing down their names. Imagine that all you had to do was write a name, and the worst dictators and serial killers and murderers and rapists in the world would drop dead, quickly and painlessly. As you would never actually meet these people face-to-face, there would be no evidence tying you to their deaths, and you could kill them with impunity. Would you do it?
The story's brilliant, the characters are just as intelligent as the author claims they are, the music's gorgeous, and the animation's unparalleled. Seven episodes in and I don't have a single complaint, except that I hate having to wait a week between airdates.
So, why are you still reading this? Go download! Shoo!
Oh, yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
|
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Just Checking In
Can't type for long because I need to get ready for work. But I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and well.
Went to Kamakura last weekend. It was wonderful! Kamakura was the capital of Japan about 1,000 years ago, so there are dozens of 1,000-year-old historical buildings and temples. It's along the coast, so I walked across the bridge to Enoshima island, which had temples and old caves and grottos filled with ancient statues of gods and magical creatures. I only scraped the surface and I can't wait to go back again and see more!
I got trained to teach kids last week, and this weekend I had my first kids lessons. Ack! I'm going to DIE of the adorableness! THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! Some of the little boys can be rambunctious, but generally if you play lots of games that involve jumping around they'll stay involved. At least they obey when you say in your 'serious voice', "No, I mean it. Stop that." Kids lessons break up the routine, too--with kids and adults and Voice I have a little bit more variety in my day now than before.
Got my first paycheck last week. Ugh. You know that old joke, about how everyone's a Republican after they get their first paycheck? What are you supposed to do if you're already a Republican? Become an anarchist? I'm about at that point myself. First, I'm still on probation, so there's a nasty salary cut right there. Then, what with income taxes in both the US and Japan, and resident taxes here in Kawasaki, there goes another 20% of my salary. Plus I have to pay $280 for my health insurance 'registration fee'. Take out 10% for tithe, 10% for savings, and I'm left with... Well, it's enough to live off of, but I won't be eating out this month. I may not be able to meet Kei in Osaka for Christmas, either.
So now I *really* have to resist the urge to shop. Okay, I can justify buying comics, because they're really good Japanese practice. But I guess I'll hold off on buying a new pair of boots. My nice, warm pair that I brought with me lasted about five days, before the heel suddenly started falling off the right boot. The shoe repair store down the street from work says there's nothing they can do, so I guess no more boots for me. I really liked those boots, too!
I wonder how my boss feels about me wearing sweats and tennis shoes in to work, and changing in the bathroom when I get there. Some of the other teachers I've chatted with say it depends on who your boss is, and mine is pretty laid-back. It would be nice not to have to walk around in the cold in my knee-length skirt and heels.
On the plus side, I just figured out how to make the heater in the apartment work. Yay, heat! It's so nice not to have to choose between wearing gloves or typing at the computer anymore. :P
Okay, now I'm *really* behind schedule. Everybody let me know in the comments how Thanksgiving goes!
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Went to Kamakura last weekend. It was wonderful! Kamakura was the capital of Japan about 1,000 years ago, so there are dozens of 1,000-year-old historical buildings and temples. It's along the coast, so I walked across the bridge to Enoshima island, which had temples and old caves and grottos filled with ancient statues of gods and magical creatures. I only scraped the surface and I can't wait to go back again and see more!
I got trained to teach kids last week, and this weekend I had my first kids lessons. Ack! I'm going to DIE of the adorableness! THEY ARE SO CUTE!!! Some of the little boys can be rambunctious, but generally if you play lots of games that involve jumping around they'll stay involved. At least they obey when you say in your 'serious voice', "No, I mean it. Stop that." Kids lessons break up the routine, too--with kids and adults and Voice I have a little bit more variety in my day now than before.
Got my first paycheck last week. Ugh. You know that old joke, about how everyone's a Republican after they get their first paycheck? What are you supposed to do if you're already a Republican? Become an anarchist? I'm about at that point myself. First, I'm still on probation, so there's a nasty salary cut right there. Then, what with income taxes in both the US and Japan, and resident taxes here in Kawasaki, there goes another 20% of my salary. Plus I have to pay $280 for my health insurance 'registration fee'. Take out 10% for tithe, 10% for savings, and I'm left with... Well, it's enough to live off of, but I won't be eating out this month. I may not be able to meet Kei in Osaka for Christmas, either.
So now I *really* have to resist the urge to shop. Okay, I can justify buying comics, because they're really good Japanese practice. But I guess I'll hold off on buying a new pair of boots. My nice, warm pair that I brought with me lasted about five days, before the heel suddenly started falling off the right boot. The shoe repair store down the street from work says there's nothing they can do, so I guess no more boots for me. I really liked those boots, too!
I wonder how my boss feels about me wearing sweats and tennis shoes in to work, and changing in the bathroom when I get there. Some of the other teachers I've chatted with say it depends on who your boss is, and mine is pretty laid-back. It would be nice not to have to walk around in the cold in my knee-length skirt and heels.
On the plus side, I just figured out how to make the heater in the apartment work. Yay, heat! It's so nice not to have to choose between wearing gloves or typing at the computer anymore. :P
Okay, now I'm *really* behind schedule. Everybody let me know in the comments how Thanksgiving goes!
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