Author Archives: DELively

Music and Performance

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I missed last year’s show because of bad information and photography, but this year’s show was pretty good. Long, but pretty good.

Today was the annual performance of our oldest’s brass band club. They rent a city auditorium and there are tickets and expensive programs involved.

Last year, because of bad information (no one told me about it),  I missed the show because I’d made plans to meet a friend to take pictures of a big Buddha.

This year, though, the information was both good and timely and I made plans to go. I even managed to take our youngest to lunch before the show.

The show itself was good. The band puts on a good show and we managed to get decent seats that allowed me record the entire show and actually include our oldest in the video.

The first act was all band performance and included the third year students. The second act was a series of comedy skits that according to She Who Must Be Obeyed were superior to the skits I missed last year. (Translation: I dodged a bullet last year.)

The third act involved slower music (my only complaint about the show) and tears. This is because there was a long farewell to the third year high school students (12th graders) who are getting ready for university entrance exam hell. For me the hell was the four hour speech (some claim it was only ten minutes) given by one of the retiring 12th graders.

Next year, of course, I’ll have to go again, as our oldest will be retiring.

There will be lots of tears.

The Perils of Golden Week and Fifth Seasons

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Except for our oldest, we all enjoyed a lazy first day of the Golden Week holiday.

I finished my Babylon 5 revisit and came away remembering why I found the fifth season annoying. Tracy Scoggins was better as Captain Lochley than I remember and the season had a few interesting moments, but it suffered from being tacked on to fourth season that resolved all the main conflicts and plot lines. Season five didn’t have a unifying story, just a lot of stand-alone scripts that felt a lot like spec submissions from new writers.

The makeup still looks impressive, especially on G’Kar and the other Narn, but the computer special effects look a lot like 90’s computer games. In a bad way.

The main problem though: Singing Hippy Telepaths. I’m being serious. Singing Hippy Telepaths.

I also managed to get some printing done and start work on the revision of book two.

Book three, which is partly written, continues to taunt me.

 

 

A Room Full of Blank Stares

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The lower level classes at the school where I work seem to get lower every year. Today being the day before the Golden Week holidays didn’t help much.

After a ho-hum year of classes last year that even I felt were boring I’ve decided to add more games to my classes to add some competition and some fun. The problem, and this is why I stopped doing games years ago, is that lower level classes often require explanations that are longer than the games and I can only simplify my language so much before using Japanese, which I won’t do in class.

Today I thought I had the perfect game: it was based on something in the textbook and it only required the students to copy numbers printed in the textbook and show them to me. I would then state how many they had correct and send them off to make changes. (It was, in essence, a simpler form of Mastermind.)

However, after having it work in two other classes, albeit both higher level, I was surprised when no one in the class understood what I wanted them to do. Usually one student gets it and educates the others. This time I explained it four times and no one moved. I got a couple uncomfortable snickers but no one even bothered to pick up a pencil. (Note: that’s not an exaggeration; every student sat as if he was frozen in place.)

Also keep in mind that this is the kind of class that prefers to complain that they don’t understand what I’m saying when I talk rather than actually listening to what I’m saying. They are the kind of class that answers “How are you?” when I ask “How are you?” despite them having had at least a year of English.

I abandoned the game and told them to practice a conversation. I also assured them there would be no games in the class.

If they don’t want any fun, I promise I won’t give them anything fun to do.

Enter Golden Week

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As bad as it was today, it will be worse on Saturday, but that won’t be my problem.

This week is Golden Week in Japan. Three holidays mash together with a fourth provided for free between two of them.

This year the three-in-a-row fall on Wednesday through Friday giving Japan–or more specifically ME–a five day weekend.

However, last Saturday was the start of Golden Week and although it didn’t effect me because I have Saturdays off, it did give my students a day off. Then, they had to come back to school for two days before getting a long break. This means that, with a few exceptions, they were mostly useless. Those who weren’t useless were noisy and a select few, well, actually a majority, were both useless and noisy. Some of them only see me once this week and they consider me an interruption in their holiday.

The payback, though, will happen next Saturday. They will have school whilst I loiter about at home pretending to do stuff. Or more specifically, listing all the stuff I want to do and ignoring the stuff I need to do.

 

Pack and Repack

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Things like this happen in my life now: We get a box full of rice and vegetables from our in-laws and my first reaction is “That box is mine”.

It says a lot that She Who Must Be Obeyed understood why I wanted the box, although she wasn’t real keen on me just tossing the rice and vegetables aside. (My reaction was: the floor looks clean, but just in case, make sure you cook the rice and vegetables thoroughly.)

Then I had the task of cutting open the box I’d already packed perfectly and feel kind of sad as I both undid and admired my handy work.

That said, I did a pretty good job of repacking, and even managed to get all the new ink (which prompted the repacking) in with room to spare.

Now I get to deal with the post office which in any part of the world, isn’t always fun, especially as I’ll be carrying three different packages all being sent different ways. That always makes for an interesting time.

Wasted Days Etcetera

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For reasons I don’t fully understand, I decided to accomplish absolutely nothing today.

In truth, this was not a conscious choice; it was the result of migraine hangover and a bad habit of enjoying the first day of the weekend way too much.

I managed to clean and re-ink a pen, and to pack a box and an envelope for shipment, but otherwise I did nothing else.

And I made lunch for our youngest and myself and then did dishes. Eventually.

Sundays are usually more productive, but Saturday’s have become my day to play vegetable. I didn’t even bother to schedule anything.

Sunday has been planned, though, and a with a little bit of follow through, I’ll get all of it done.

 

There Can be Only One Bully

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My bad first year junior high school student had a decent class last time. This time he was bad. He came in late, wasn’t carrying a book, and tried to play dumb until I mentioned that he’d have to stand all class if he couldn’t answer “What is your name?”

He answered and got to sit down.

Later, he put his head down and the students near him confirmed he wasn’t sleeping, he was just bored.

I do worry about students getting involved in such things. It’s too easy for them to cross the line from “helpful jerk” to “straight up bully.” This is not good as, technically, it’s my job to be the bully, which I define more along the lines of “bad cop”.

My form of bullying, though, only lasts during class (and maybe a lunch or two) then goes away. It will even go away in class once a student’s work is done.

Classmates, though, are always around and can continue bullying long after class is over.

Eventually we’ll have open classes where parents can visit. I kind of hope his show up.

Until then, I’ll be the bad cop.

Traveling and Waiting for Traveler’s

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What I would have done would have been rather different. What I did was act cranky and that may have earned me 20 minutes. It didn’t win any friends though.

An acquaintance asked me to run down to Tokyo and buy a special edition of a notebook cover that was released as part of the grand opening of a shopping center.

Although I’m not a big fan of the notebook cover, I agreed to head down to Tokyo.

After locating the shop, I tried to implement my usual “play dumb” tactic to get in past the ropes but failed. (Yes, the notebook shop, in anticipation of big crowd, had ropes to keep the public out. (They are visible at the very bottom of this photo:)

However, the staff, many of whom spoke English, informed me I’d have to wait and gave me a reservation time for three hours later. This surprised me as I expected that getting there late would mean I’d miss out on the notebook covers. Instead, the shop had apparently not actually opened yet (although some people seemed to be shopping) and I’d missed out on a convenient shopping time.

I said a few choice words in two languages and went in search of a snack and some bourbon. (There’s a liquor store near Tokyo station that lets you pay for two small samples of even expensive booze.) I also found a surprisingly good coffee shop that served coffee in cups larger than samples. I stayed there for a while and read a fairly average book.

In the end, I returned to the shop about 20 minutes before my time, and someone who recognized me from before managed to get me inside early. I asked if they had a package deal and got more apologies as I selected the notebooks and assorted paraphernalia individually. I was surprised they hadn’t considered a package. As it was a grand opening, I’d have assembled a number of bags of samples of the new goods and given out numbers to interested parties until I ran out bags. It would be a bit like Fukubukuro Fighting in April but with less violence.

Instead, all I got was a complimentary box of coffee flavored candy. (Famous conundrum: Coffee is delicious. Candy is delicious. Coffee candy is not delicious. #whatevilisthis)

Now I send it all on with a bunch of ink.

Hopefully Approaching the Probable End

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If I tried to run a restaurant, it’s the dishes and daily cleaning that would do me in. If I ran a restaurant it would have to be a questionable dive in the middle of nowhere. Never look in the kitchen and don’t ask what that is staining the table top.

In my current low volume, low margin side hobby/business, it’s boxes, packing and forms that get to me.

What I hope is the last batch of ink a client has ordered arrived today and I now have the job of once again performing packing magic. I’m not looking forward to this.

To get the box to its currently packed state I performed advanced Tetris level packing that I now have to undo.  I also will probably have to find a new box as the current one is at its volume limit. Luckily, I won’t be able to ship anything out until Monday so I’ll have a lot of time to work things out.

At that point, when I go to the post office, I’m looking forward to seeing the looks on the faces of the post office staff when I hand over boxes of different shapes and sizes and envelopes of different shapes and sizes all going to different countries and all with different shipping methods.

They, however, will get to enjoy the look on my face as I fill out several different types of forms, some of which I’ll never have seen before and at least one I’ll have to fill out twice.

This kind of minutiae is why I suspect that many young business fail. Owners like handling the stuff, and some like selling, but very few like keeping track of inventory, boxes, packing materials and money. Similarly, it’s probably more fun to be a cook at at restaurant than to be the restaurant’s owner. At least as long as dishes aren’t involved.

 

 

 

Parts of Three Equals None

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Today I’m going meta as I managed not to finish three different projects for this daily bit of blather. In my defense, I did actual work, which is not something I usually do on days off.

My plan was to go out and do stuff but eventually I realized that all was planning on doing was going to lunch. Instead I stayed home and worked on a couple worksheets for the school where I work (and for future house arrest days).

I also took some photos for this bit of blather but only wrote part of the actual text. Granted, I wrote part of the text for three different posts but didn’t actually finish either of them.

This is the curse of enjoying your days off a little too much. Eventually I finish all the posts. Eventually.