Audience Without Joy Teacher Bringing Anger

Leave a reply

Yesterday I mentioned a failed business and how I ended up teaching the classes I’d hoped to teach, sort of. I also mentioned there were some issues. Today I thought I’d talk about those issues.

Basically, you have to keep in mind that although Japan managed to reduce its workers unions to empty, somewhat  noisy shells, the teachers’ union still maintains a certain amount of influence and prestige. The mandatory four skills classes were, essentially, a shot across the bow from the government to the teachers’ union that they’d be facing new rules and, possibly, regular evaluations. They also took place during summer vacation.

I taught the classes in two phases. First I was called in as a substitute on weekend for a shortened proto version of the course I still don’t understand. The Japanese English teachers were polite enough but there was a lot of sighing and eye-rolling every time I said it was time to do an activity. (It was a lot like telling a teenaged daughter to clean up her stuff and/or a lot like me when I’m forced to attend such workshops.)

Not a lot happened, to me but one of my friends came back from a break to find “Fuck You” written on the blackboard–remember what I said about teenaged daughters. He went through their handwritten assignments and using handwriting analysis figured out who wrote it and then strangled the guy and threw his corpse out the window. (So I heard; my friend may have simply discussed the issue with the guy but that doesn’t seem as plausible to me.)

Eventually the courses went “live”. They were Monday through Friday six hours a day. At first the students were actually pleasant because the ones who went early were keeners/ass kissers apparently intent on impressing someone. I came away from the first classes with several friends among the students until the voice came down from on high “Thou shalt make no friends among thy charges! Neither shalt thou have any friends amongst these masses which are around thee!” (Something like that.)

Towards the end of the four years, as the deadline for teachers to complete the course came closer, we got the diehards. We got the teachers who’d fought the course as long as possible and when I arrived to teach my class you could feel the anger and hatred.

Oddly, they were not the ones I managed to piss off.

I started class by saying I appreciated them being there because I was sure there was nothing they’d rather be doing on a beautiful summer’s day than sitting in a room in a school having some foreign guy tell them how to do their jobs. I then told them that I sympathized because there were a lot of things I’d rather be doing too–I just left out the part about me being there voluntarily, which is not, technically, lying–and that I hoped I could give them something to take away and that I didn’t waste their time.

Everything went well after that. They relaxed and participated, even when the curriculum was clunky. While I and the other teachers taught, we had a woman from the Tokyo Board of Education office roaming around listening in on us. At some point I told them my students were lucky. Because they teach at public school and when the students asked “Whey do we have to study English?” they could just say “Ask the Ministry of Education”.  (I said it with it’s Japanese name “Monbukasho” This brought some laughs. I said because I was at a private school I couldn’t say “Ask Monbukasho.” This brought more laughs.

Then, at the start of lunch time, I was told by a Japanese staff member from my company that there were some issues about my class making fun of the Ministry of Education. I said that’s not what happened and I’d talk about it after lunch. By the time I got back from lunch things had hit the fan. The staff member panicked and high level people from my company were already there. Apparently the woman from the BoE, who’s English wasn’t that good, heard:

Me: blah blah blah blah Ministry of Education. (snort)
Students: LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL They suck.
Me: blah blah blah blah Ministry of Education. (snort)
Students: ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO They are evil.

I explained everything and apologized and during their brief interviews/interrogations–yes, this is how things are done where I work–my students vouched for me as well.

Luckily for me, other teachers were doing worse. The course was supposed to be conducted only in English and one guy was holding a major graded discussion in Japanese, which actually did make his students angry. In the end my students rocked their final presentations much to the delight of the woman from the BoE. I praised the students but she said they had a good teacher. I thanked her and said “Do you have any BoE positions available?”

Apparently she didn’t, but I was invited back the next year, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

 

Business Dreams and Breaking Down

1 Reply

Because I tend to dabble in writing, put off doing a lot of stuff while I over think it and, until recently, had way too many hobbies, the handful of business ideas I’ve had usually end up filed away somewhere until someone else does them. However back in the early aughts, a year or so after I moved to Tokyo, I attempted to start a small side business. This is miraculous enough, but that I attempted to exploit connections to do it is also a small miracle.

Not much else about the endeavor was miraculous.

What happened is I learned that teachers in Tokyo were going to be forced to attend “Four Skills” training. (Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening) and the company I work for was planning on competing for the contract. My mad idea was that such things would probably happen in other prefectures and if I could get organized enough, I might be able to get similar courses started in Niigata. The teachers could then tell the government: see, we already did that.

I contacted a friend from Niigata who besides being a good Japanese English Teacher, was also very well connected in the prefectural education department. I pitched the idea to her and we started working on the preliminaries. I put together fliers and the curriculum (in my free time, of course, not on company time) and she was going to contact her contacts in both the prefectural and regional education departments and get back to me.

She didn’t get back to me. I sent her a copy of the fliers and information and waited. I didn’t want to be too pushy partly because I knew she was usually rather busy.  After a few weeks I received a letter dripping with, well, nervous breakdown.

I won’t get into details but let’s just say, as a rule, it’s a bad omen when your future business partner begins decrying money and materialism in what is supposed to be commentary on future business propaganda materials. I called her and it’s the second time in my life I’ve spoken to a person who was so upset her voice had changed. (The first was a good friend who wasn’t having a good time in her first year of teaching in my hometown.)

I was able to determine that my future former business partner had encountered some direct verbal bullying and had suffered a whisper campaign that had pretty much freaked her out and more or less caused her to burn her bridges with her prefectural connections.

The business never happened, as I suddenly found myself without any contacts in the prefecture. Luckily it only cost me some postage, a couple phone calls, some time and some printer ink. I realize that I should have immediately gone to Niigata and said “take me to its leaders” rather than letting things get put off. Although I have my moments, I don’t know if I could have pulled that off, but at least it would have been an active mistake and perhaps left me with a few contacts of my own. (If that makes sense.) I also realize that I needed to be more aggressive in pushing my business partner.

I did end up teaching a lot of the four skills classes when my company got the contract. (Those will require another post to describe. Preview: huffing and sighing, “Fuck you,” and “I’m sorry you misunderstood.”)

Also, for the record, my curriculum was better.

 

The Long Way Home From Farthest Away

Leave a reply

When I first got to my schools in Niigata the first thing I noticed was that a lot of my Japanese English Teachers (with a couple exceptions) were young. In fact, a good percentage of the staff were young. At the end of the year, I also noticed that a lot of the young staff went away and were replaced with more young staff. (With exceptions.)

This is partly the result of the way a lot of prefectures in Japan treat their teachers. They tend to do military style assignments of three years before moving on. In the case of Niigata, the prefecture tried to send young teachers as far away from home as possible for their first job. Since Nou-Machi was hell and gone from Niigata City, it got a lot of young teachers.

After three years, the teachers moved to a new school a little closer to home for another three year assignment. After that the explanations got confusing and I started to get a headache trying to understand it but the gist was that by their third assignment teachers began to have some choice in where they wanted to go. There is also some politics involved because the school boards also get some say in who they want.

This system had a lot of odd effects. First, it guaranteed that every district, no matter how small and/or undesirable could get teachers. (This would solve a lot of problems for district in Western-Kansas.) On a personal level it also forced the teachers to be less dependent on their families for support which was great for their personal development.

On the other hand, it also meant that Nou-machi was full of new teachers suddenly discovering that a couple weeks of practicum (not a joke) with little time in front of the class didn’t really prepare them for teaching.

The other effect was that, because Nou-machi was rural and out of the way (I could get to Tokyo just as fast as I could get to Niigata City), not a lot of teachers volunteered to work there once they had enough experience to make a choice. The school boards then played some politics and a lot of older teachers ended up having their choice taken away and were sent to Nou. That also had some interesting effects.

When I was working with younger JTE’s I could pretty much raise them up in the way I wanted them to go. They were also really good at speaking English. My last year though, Nou Junior High School was issued two older teachers who very much wanted to be some place else. Because they were older, it was difficult for me to raise them up in the way I wanted them to go and that led to a bit of tension. I, of course, was very flexible and did my best to support them. Well, not really, I didn’t get along with them at all. I don’t remember a single class I taught with them even though I can remember at least one class from every teacher I worked with. I don’t even remember their real names.

The first I remember only as The Airhead. I all fairness, she  was much more concerned about her pregnancy than dealing with a loud foreigner and/or doing much teaching. She did her best to fit in but she was distracted.

The second I remember mainly as the Bitter Bitch. She resented being in Nou-machi and was convinced that everyone and everything in Nou was backwards and illiterate. (Especially the loud foreigner, who I’m pretty sure she remembers as “that self-righteous asshole”.) I would try to show her that the students already knew the alphabet and the days of the week, etc. but she just went ahead and taught as if they didn’t. The tension eventually led to swearing (the f-word was involved at one point) but we learned to get along and just do our own things.

Eventually, I was the one who went away. My successor, who was a heck of lot nicer than I am, said that the Airhead improved a great deal and that he pretty much kept his head down around the Bitter Bitch and they got along to get along.

 

Responsibility the Oldest Boy and Quiet Desperation

1 Reply

My in-laws and She Who Must Be Obeyed are currently engaging in negotiations that can only happen in families in ways that can only happen in Japan. As Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed undergoes a second surgery, this one for a hip replacement, it’s clear that someone is going to have to be close by to take care of her and Father of She Who Must Be Obeyed.

They’ve asked my sister in-law to watch over them and, if possible. to move into the house. The problem is that her husband is the oldest in his family and they may someday be expected to move into his family’s house to care for his father or mother. My brother-in-law lives in Yokohama and it would normally be his responsibility to move back but he can’t drive, which makes him less useful if he moves back. That leaves She Who Must Be Obeyed, who is the second oldest child, but she’s also the only one with kids and the only one married to someone with familial responsibilities in another country.

It’s all very complicated and I personally suspect there’s less to worry about than everyone thinks, but how it works out is how it works out.

However, it has reminded me two of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard that didn’t involve death.

When I was in Niigata, after my first year, my Japanese English teachers switched out and I started working with Mr. Oguma. He told me that he originally went to Tokyo and became a punk rock musician (I’ve got his CD somewhere in the Variety Closet. It’s okay.) But when his father died it was his responsibility to come home and take care of the family.

In his case, he may have actually found a calling. Not only did he improve the crappy boys rock band that all junior high’s in Japan have, but he was also one of the few JTEs I worked with who was concerned that everything he put on the board was correct. For all his energy, though, he did seem to be rather sad and on a lot of pills as I think he lost his second love as well. I’ve mentioned before, that he seemed to want to work in crappy schools. Being in a school where he was dealing with pettiness and family conflict was clearly eating away at him.

The other sad story involved Mr. I, one of my JTEs at my other junior high. He was in every stereotypical way imaginable the cliche Japanese English teacher: old, male, always in a suit, bad English, conducted class mostly in Japanese and didn’t seem to care about anything other than the book which made my classes, to him, useless distractions. He was one of the few teachers I ever got angry with in the teachers’ office.

Then, at his retirement party, out of the blue, he came up to me and said with a wistful laugh “I never wanted to be an English teacher.” He explained how after university he’d gone to Tokyo to work in a major company as a “salary man” (office worker). Then, after his father died, he moved back to Niigata to take care of the family and about all that was available was teaching. He then said that he’d told the officials involved in his hiring that he wanted to teach social studies. They told him there were too many social studies teachers and he had to teach English even though he didn’t speak it. He then spent the next 35 years or so doing a job he wasn’t trained for and never wanted to do.

It was one of the few times in my life I was so deeply moved that I was speechless and to this day the story makes me sad. Mr. I and Mr. Oguma are the few true examples of Thoreau’s “lives of quiet desperation” I’ve ever seen.

I don’t know where they are now. I hope they’re doing well.

Quite Comically Droll Really

Leave a reply

I have a couple hundred things I could and should have done today but rather than waste time playing World of Tanks or other games, I decided to waste it binge watching Inspector Morse and that has me thinking about British television and the odd influence it’s had on my life.

When I was growing up, I would occasionally catch snippets of British TV on PBS. Please remember, we only had four channels at the time, one of which was “educational” The first show I remember seeing and being freaked out by was The Tomorrow People. which is basically the X-Men with annoyingly perfect people and lots of 70’s hair and clothing.

There was also bits of The Benny Hill Show, which I’m still not actually sure I was supposed to watch. I mostly remember him not speaking very much and him being surrounded by lots of occasionally clad women. I also learned the many meanings of “crumpet” from that show.

The other comedy show was Monty Python’s Flying Circus which I mostly remember for the Spam sketch and people getting hit with fish. Later I would see all the Python movies. Yes, I can recite them all word for word, and no, I’m not going to do it now. The best part about Python was revisiting the shows years later and finally getting the jokes.

I also remember, a late 70’s series called Blake’s 7 which was gruelingly pessimistic, full of moral ambiguity, didn’t have seven people, got rid of Blake for a while and wasn’t afraid to kill off main characters. That said, it’s the kind of show that I suspect I’d hate if I watched it again. (Which means I have a moral obligation to watch it again. I’ll add it to the procrastination viewing list.)

The biggest show, though, was and remains Doctor Who. It was another show that I’d watch in fits and starts because, in those days, a week was a long time to have to remember the time something was on. It was also the first show I remember triggering a “What the hell is that?” when I saw a version with a different Doctor. (I didn’t yet know yet that Time Lords regenerate as a new person when they die/ask for more money per episode.)

The first Doctor I saw was Tom Baker and, quite frankly, he’s still the best Doctor. David Tennant did a great impersonation of him as did Matt Smith, but only Tom Baker could properly deliver a line like “I say, what a wonderful butler. He’s so violent.” He was also good at being the clown and then suddenly getting dark and moody. The worst Doctor was Colin Baker followed closely by the guy who had celery on his jacket.

Since then I’ve seen, I think, every available episode of Doctor Who and a couple webisodes. I’ve even watched bits of The Sarah Jane Adventures, based around former Doctor Who Companion Sarah Jane Smith after Elisabeth Sladen’s dazzling return to Doctor Who.

I’m not sure why I liked British TV. I think it was just different enough to count as vaguely exotic and I tended to latch on to things most other people didn’t like or didn’t yet get (Styx; dark beer; sci fi; mustard on French fries; potato chips on sandwiches; peanut butter on celery; Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more Inspector Morse to watch. I just wish I had a pint of real ale nearby.

 

Hard Work With Mere Fantasy

Leave a reply

One of the things I’ve generally tried to avoid, partly because it seems too much effort for the pay off, is participation in fantasy sports leagues. That said, I have participated in two leagues before and have been recently been persuaded to join another one.

One of the things that’s kept me from taking part in fantasy leagues is how serious some of the participants take it. The first time I remember meeting a serious player was when an acquaintance of mine used paid holidays to fly back the USA from Japan for the fantasy baseball draft.To me this seems like something you don’t do unless lots of money, drugs or hookers are involved. Whatever was involved, the most surprising part was it made perfectly good sense to him to spend real money to fly back for a fantasy draft and his wife was supportive of it, in a kind of “you boys” sort of way.

A few years later I would be coaxed into joining a fantasy hockey league with a few Canadians and a couple Scotsmen. It is important to understand that despite their reputation for being nice, when it come to Hockey (they always capitalize it) they are as ruthless as the most bloodthirsty people you can imagine, even in a fantasy league. When they discus teams like the Leafs (Leaves?), Canadiens (Canadians?) and the Senators (Crooks?) which are the only teams I’ve heard them discuss, they lose all sense of humor but retain all their snark.

In the league, they started by stacking the rules to favor them: you select a team and you are only a allowed a few trades. (The game we joined allowed unlimited trades.) This hampered those of us who’d been on skates only once, thought you dribbled the puck and actually thought the highlighted puck on US sports channels was a good idea. Despite this, I managed to finish second in the pool. I was first for a while but a trip to dial-up land (my in-laws) prevented me from making an important substitution.

The next year we played again, but allowed unlimited trades. Once again I was first towards the end and once again was sabotaged by my in-laws (who I suspect were bribed by Canadians). Once again I finished second. Both years I had the Canadians (Canadiens? Habs?) worried but in the end one of them prevailed which is why I am still alive to write these posts.

Now, for the first time, I’m part of an NFL fantasy league and actually had to participate in the draft. Proving, once again, that I’d rather be lucky than good, my team is picked to win our league.

This means I won’t even finish in the top five in our league of four teams. I’m optimistic that way–and not that good at math.

Half Done is, Well, Begun

Leave a reply

Today marks blog post 183, which means by the end of it I’ll be over half done with this daily project. 183 down; 182 to go. I’ve tried to write at least 400 or so words each time (more or less) which means I’ve already got at least 72,800 words on this blog (some of which actually make sense and are spelled correctly.)

I remain shocked that I’ve been able to keep up with it. For the last few weeks it’s been a particular chore. A bunch of posts were written, quite literally, in front of the in-laws, who didn’t seem to understand why I was swearing at myself and telling them to shut up so I could concentrate. (At least one of those statements is not true.)

My rules remain the same: Post before midnight Japan time (10 a.m. Kansas time) and spend no more than one hour writing the post. Unfortunately, life and life related things–and computer games–generally have pushed back my start time until after 10:00 each night, which is not always the best time to write, especially if it’s been a hectic day. I also don’t always have a clear topic.

One time I was playing World of Tanks about 10:00 at night and, via TeamSpeak, one of my friends asked me what the topic of the day was. I said I didn’t know yet. I’m not sure he realized I was serious.

I’ve opened up the “Add New Post” form at 11:15 at night still not knowing what topic I wanted to write about. Quarter by Quarter Dollar By Dollar and The Politics of Work Sustaining Energy Shots came out of nowhere. Others went nowhere. Some were just strange although I kind of liked them. I still don’t know where The Application is Half the Battle came from.

Some of them have been pleasant surprises. I’m especially happy with the recent No Good Idea Goes Unpunished and Let’s Have a Drink and a Chunk of Your Wallet which also came out of nowhere. (If you have any favorites, please tell me which ones they are as my goal is to assemble the best posts into a book when this year is done.)

I, too, have been shocked at the large number of drunk blogs.

I have about a third of a small notebook full of possible topics, but I’ve been holding off on those. Some of them are seasonal and some are for the dark places when all other lights go out.

I’ve also been holding off doing other kinds of posts on the site–photography, hobbies, reviews, random bits of randomness–mostly so I don’t mess up the nice and neat post count. However, the long term plan for this site is to start doing things like that.

I’ve made feeble attempts at monetization. I have PayPal donation button and, at the suggestion of a friend, included a Bitcoin donation plugin, but I didn’t like that the Bitcoin donation link was almost as large as some of the posts so I pulled it. (If I learn how to adjust the size, I may put it back on.) Instead I’ve added a wallet number in the sidebar for those who 1) find it and 2) understand it. For the future, I may add a page of recommended books with Amazon Affiliate links and encourage everyone to shop through those.

I’ve also noticed that I tend to go in phases in posts about Japan. I’ve tried to stagger those out more, but, well, 11:15 p.m. and no topic. My long term goal is still to modernize The Crazy Japan Times which right now can’t be read on most mobile devices and start a daily Japan related post there.

Readership has been small but consistent, but that’s partly because I’ve not been expanding the subject matter beyond myself. Some of the random posts about pens and notebooks have been picked up by the Pen Addict but that’s only provided short bursts of new readers. Russian spammers remain my most loyal commenters.

I remain torn about how honest and revealing to get in the posts. There are topics I’ve been putting off because they might dredge up unpleasant history even if I don’t name names, but, well, we’ll see. There are also topics that push the edge of political, which I’ve also been avoiding. (Hint, think of where I live and the big events that happened in August in 1945.)

That’s an hour, now, so it’s time to stop. For those who’ve stuck around since the first post, thanks. I hope I haven’t wasted your time and I hope you’ll stick around until the end.

Slow Rumbling Freakout in Camp Green Hell

Leave a reply

About this time 18 years ago I was invited to join the Grade 3 (9th grade) Camp at Nou Junior High School. Unfortunately, at that time, I had ears but couldn’t ear English spoken in Japanese. I also didn’t know how to ask the right questions.

Because I was still in the honeymoon, Japan is wonderful phase of moving to Japan, I agreed to go to the camp. Thinking back, I’m trying to remember the exact moment when my colleague told me what to bring by telling me it wasn’t necessary. I was told the teachers would be sleeping in cabins but when I asked what I should bring, I was told I didn’t need to bring anything.

Now, I’m not sure if this meant that because we had cabins I wouldn’t need to bring a tent, or she assumed I understood what was meant by “camp” and “cabin” and would know what to bring. I also pointed out I didn’t have a sleeping bag and that didn’t seem to be a problem. Either way, I went minimal–the camera and a book to read being the most important things I was carrying–and was surprised when I arrived at the gathering point and saw students and teachers loading fairly hefty bags and sleeping kits into a truck.

At that point, if I were smart (and if you’ve been reading regularly, well, you know) I would have hurried home–I only lived a few minutes a way–and assembled a blanket roll but, well, you know. Also, with no evidence whatsoever, I convinced myself there’d be futons in the cabins. We took the train two stops and then began hiking. We went through town, crossed an expressway, went through a field and then followed a road into the hills. The hike itself wasn’t that difficult but it was Japan in August and the humidity was two percentage points away from liquid.

The camp itself looked nice but had apparently been located in the most humid place possible. I, of course, had only one shirt, now sweaty, and it didn’t dry completely while we were there. The cabins did exist, but they were empty rooms with no cots or futons and I would be sleeping on the bare floor.

The preliminaries were fun. The students cooked Japanese style curry for us and there was a bingo game–with the only prizes being a completed bingo–around a campfire. Bingo was followed by everyone heading off to their tents or cabins for sleep. At this point, I was still damp from my hike and, because the camp was in spitting distance of the ocean, it was cool enough to make me feel cold. I figured I could fashion a pillow out of a towel and my pack and eventually fall asleep.

However, the last card had yet to be played. One of my cabin mates, who also happened to be a colleague, also happened to be one of the world’s worst snorers. If I’d had a pillow I probably would have smothered him. I would discover after a manly attempt to suffer through it that he could be heard dozens of meters from the cabins. My usual panic “What have I done” freakout started and went down near the showers and restrooms, which had electric lights, and started reading my book to calm myself down.

I was seen by the chaperones, who would report what I’d done to my colleague who would apologize the next morning even though I was more angry at myself than anything else. Eventually I calmed down enough, and got sleepy enough, that I was able to get a couple hours sleep. The next day we went home and I was never invited to another camp.

The funny part is, as I write this and think back over what was said and what wasn’t said prior to the camp, I’m not actually sure I was actually invited to the camp in the first place. I may have misunderstood what was being said invited myself, which is why I didn’t get any information about what to bring to the camp.

 

No Good Idea Goes Unpunished

Leave a reply

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this today, but suddenly I’m reminded of an unpleasant moment when I was in the Boy Scouts back in Hayden, Colorado. It was one of those moments where personal initiative met personal ambition in a storm of politics. (Warning, some language below not safe for work and/or sensitive types.)

For reasons I don’t fully remember, but some kind of troop exposition was involved, our troop (Troop 193?) had to come up with an information booth based on one of the various merit badges. The idea was to put together a booth so impressive and so full of information that grown men would cry and your troop would win prizes (something like that). For reasons I also don’t remember we either were assigned or chose “Astronomy“.

On the way back home after our weekly troop meeting, my friend Bobby and I started talking about the booth and, in a sudden flash of inspiration/evil (depends on your point of view, as you’ll see later) we suddenly started rattling off ideas about how to make the booth. We’d have slideshows of celestial features–basically our own planetarium–and diagrams of various constellations. I remember us being really excited about the possibilities and wanting to volunteer to run the planning. Keep in mind, neither of us were particularly ambitious at the time, but the Boy Scouts is/was supposed to be about training young leaders and we suddenly had the leadership bug.

The next day I brought our ideas up to our Senior Patrol Leader, let’s call him EJ, while we were at school. He mumbled something about needing troop permission or something or other but he clearly wasn’t as excited about our ideas as we were.

I told Bobby what happened and we went about our school business. At the next troop meeting I had my first experience with what I would later realize is called a “shit storm of petty bullshit” (that’s a technical term). Although because I was just a teen all I could say was “it fucking sucked” (another technical term).

One of the senior adults in the troop, let’s call him DJ, also happened to be the father of EJ. Rather than simply saying “no” to our ideas, he’d actually spent the week calling other high level Boy Scout leaders in the area to all but accuse Bobby and me of beating his son to get control of the exposition. It was all part of a plot to undermine the leadership of the Senior Patrol Leader and to kill children in Asia with unwashed spoons. (Hey, I was only a teenager, that’s about how much sense it made to me at the time.)

We then spent pretty much the entire rest of the troop meeting explaining how we were excited about our ideas and thought we were helping out the troop and no offense was intended. The approximate response was “Well, you’re fucking not helping and offense was taken!” (Well that was the tone anyway and I wish it was an exaggeration.) I was right at the edge of walking out–and learned later at least three people would have gone with me–but it all got resolved by a troop vote and suddenly Bobby and I were the equivalent of a dodgy interim government after a coup when were were voted in charge.

We then got to work putting together the booth. This involved photographing celestial features and making posters of the merit badges requirements. Every time we asked DJ for advice we got “you’re in charge, you tell me” (remember, DJ was the adult, EJ was the teen.)

Somehow we got it all put together and assembled at the exposition. The job was then to occupy the booth and answer questions about the merit badge requirements. If our show was good enough, our troop would win the prize.

We did a pretty good job–we even knew most of the celestial features in the slide show–but one judge walked up and asked “What is the altitude for geosynchronous orbit?” This is roughly the equivalent of asking a kid showing horses at the county fair what the air speed velocity of a laden swallow was. Yes, it had a connection–both are animals and geosynchronous orbit is in space–but we weren’t supposed to be experts in space, just in the astronomy badge.

In the end we didn’t win, a much more politically connected booth that only handed out a few pamphlets did–once again, I wish that was a joke–and EJ and DJ both pretty much scoffed at Bobby and I for the rest of the year four our failure.

At that point, Bobby and I pretty much resolved never to take any initiative or to show any leadership or to try to implement any good ideas ever again. I still haven’t– I think Bobby enlisted in the Air Force so the jury’s still out on whether he has or not.

Temporary Friends Forever And Also in My Head

3 Replies

Some of the best friends I ever had I knew for only a few days or a few minutes. One of them didn’t technically exist.

Back in my graduate school days I had the opportunity to attend a couple graduate student conferences in Columbia, Missouri. In each case I fell in with a group of fellow travelers based simply on being at the same place at the same time. I still do not understand how  groups like these form, but at the second one I was best friends with a university Marxist, a cute basketcase from somewhere in California, a Canadian guy, a guy from California carrying a rather potent thing some people refer to as “weed” and a guy who did “meta” criticism which I didn’t actually understand but he was really cool.

We hung out for the few days of the conference and I quickly learned that when I said something was “only a couple blocks away” I had to clarify if I was using coastal or mid-Western blocks. (Mid-Western blocks are apparently larger than coastal blocks and, according the complaints I received, the difference is apparently several miles.)

We all promised to keep in touch, which means we exchanged exactly one email and then never contacted each other again. Still, they were a fun group and I’m glad I got to know them for a while. I don’t even remember their names.

The ones I knew for a few minutes I met whilst waiting in some sort of endless line, probably university related, or at a ski slope. Misery loves company, especially when you’re all in the same miserable line.

One year, though, while I was still an undergraduate, I went skiing in Colorado with my friend Steve and his friends. I quickly encouraged them to abandon me as they had skiing skills and I didn’t. While I was on my own, and oddly before any alcohol was involved, I decided to pretend I was English and started speaking in an English accent. “Do the queues, I’m sorry, the lines, do the lines always move this slowly?”

I was worried at first when the lift attendant–some random blonde ski bunny–simply mocked my accent when I asked a question. I didn’t know the proper response: “Bugger off? Go #@$% yourself? Suck it, bitch?” I’m still not sure what a proper Englishman would have said, but then, technically, I wasn’t a proper Englishman.

I quickly developed a back story for my character. He was from Bath (which I had actually visited recently and still remembered some details about)  but he had an American mother, which would explain any pronunciation slips and odd phrasing. I chatted with a father on son during the gondola ride and remember talking about how humiliating it was to be falling about on the course whilst five year old children raced past with little trouble. I skied with them for a bit, but they were heading to a smaller lift that would take them to courses with names like “Widow Maker” and “Death’s Door” or which were so terrible they only had codes like “K1” (which means Kills One Each Day. No really. Look it up.)

The main thing the English accent got my friend, er, me was beer. I was still only 20 but I went to the bartender and asked “Which of your American beers do you recommend?” I got beer with no problems.

I said goodbye to that friend by the end of the day and never met him again. I never actually gave him a name–it was safer to use my own as “Dwayne Lively” is somewhat English sounding–but I always wish I’d thought to give him a name. I’m funny that way.