Eleven days out of Ireland-it couldn’t have gone wrong. No way. Not with this lady’s unrelenting cabin fever that a weekend in the wilds of Leitrim could do nothing to ease, in fact that weekend in Leitrim only aggravated the itch. And so I was uncharacteristically patient with the over-abundance of dodgey male jewelery and the whole camping thing, the sitting on a child’s stool to eat and the fecking heat. (Japan taught me that a fortnight’s roasting, sizzling and baking, lying on the flat of your back for days on end purely to be awarded a few watery ‘Jaysus! you’ve a great colour!’comments upon your return is just not worth it. I’m deathly white, and accepting of this. At best the colour will last a week. Oh! How times have changed from the factor five bronzing oil sported for three months on Greece and the protection-free cooking during the summer in Nice. ) Anyway, the male jewelery, twas tragic, Aye it was and so far from chic that you couldn’t even see ’style’ on the horizon and you looking through a pair of top-of-the-range binoculars. Awfuler-than-thou ‘gold’ chains, thick enough to double up as a sturdy pull should your car break down and you find yourself in need of a tow; knuckle-trasher rings diamonte-ordained; and well they’re not quite jewelery but i feel that they’re just as tragic, white socks. I left France fearing for the reputation of it’s inhabitants as being sophistiated in a fashion sense. Yes we did encounter some well-dressed ladies, but for every one of these there’d be a mutton-dressed-as-lamb ensemble to water your defiance that French women had ‘it’. Their one saving grace was their leaness and sun-kissed glows. Short black dresses, hot pink nails, a buffoned-hair-do, ‘Chrsitian’ hanging from one ear and ‘Dior’ from the other would have been met with ear-pounding sirens signalling the arrival of the fashion KGB had it been seen on a muffin-middled pasty Irish girl. Thank God our Mammys know when to give in to cardies and slacks and a nice Sean Creamer set and just be middle-aged. The food was good though. I’ll give france that.

or should I say ‘NO MEN(’S) LAND.’

The planned euphoria of finishing college was exactly the opposite. I felt as though I’d been launched out onto one of the great lakes, moody and angry it was splitting and tossing me, aboard a dingy, the safe green shores a blur on the horizon. It’s the six-month break down when everything is wrong. You’ve no job, you’ve little money and less and less hope. Your life is the life of the poor creature on the St. Vincent de Paul ad. Nothing is right. and you’re vulnerable. And what’s expected of you is to take your weary self to the firing range of interview boards, of recruitment agencies, of smug secretaries who tell you that after years of grind, you don’t have what they need. That you have to sit there and let them unpick the final stitches of your ever-unravelling ego, your life in it’s present state a used ball of wool, which could be made into something if only you had the compulsion to take the time to create. He didn’t help either. A month ago he never stopped liking me. I said the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. Why was I so nice? He made the moves. He charmed, he complimented, of course I was going to be a great teacher, and it bothered him when I implied otherwise. He was the he I had liked, I had fallen for and this shone through the cloud of moodiness, and arrogance that has settled around him of late. He assured me he hadn’t been that drunk. Just wait til the exams were over. Then we’ll see. And I did wait. I waited through the flirty texts, the teasing, the assurance that i would do well because he knew I couldn’t do any less. I was all expectant to meet him, the him of old, the nice him.
The niceties had ecplised, vanished. He was stressed, cold in manner. He looked but from the side of his lady admirer friend. I tried to convince myself that it’d be fine , that there was nothing going on when he left with her, without so much as a goodbye. I waited my turn. Afterall he’d said, ‘ after the exams….’ My messages were responded to but without warmth. He had shut down again. And so I asked. I had to. The waiting game was killing me.
‘ Don’t be massaging his ego’ I was told.
‘I care little whether I massage his ego or not. I just need to know!’
I asked. He said he didn’t. Your loss I relied.
But really, it was mine.
and it was heartfelt.

There’re shite but who the feck cares. It’s been nearly five months since the last entry. Is it not enough that I’ve posted something?!huh? Isn’t it not?
I was so busy sitting with my head hung in shame that I couldn’t see the keyboard right. (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)
Decompressed ever so slightly this weekend in London. Twasn’t until Saturday afternoon that it hit me how bloody fantastic it was to not be in Dublin, actually, why stop there, to not be in Ireland.
Friday was tainted ever so slightly by snotty email from a Mister far-too-smooth-for-this-world hoping i understood the distinct absence of a “spark”. No darling I was too busy counting your wrinkles and wondering how long it’d take to jog around your gut to have noticed, so thank you for having waved the magic wand of clarity. Ladies and Gentlemen I have just stopped crying purely because there’s a big “sold-out” over the tear department, but am not yet convinced i should remove the noose from around my neck-NOT!
What a twat, in all seriousness.
Just deliberating now whether or not to go the mature route and not respond or do i take the fun bitchy-bitter-passive-aggressive “so-why-was-it-exactly-that-your marriage-failed-again?”

Whatever.
Twat.
(and again)
Twat.
(and again)
Idiot.
(and breath.)
Feel better already.

You have to ask yourself why.
What in blessed name allows us to open up, to give up?
What switches off the skeleton-boned “toxic-don’t touch” mechanism, sending us into the wilds of danger, and vulnerability?

Burned, by the big love poker is what happened. schlapped on the behind by a red-hot “Yeah right!” inferno, a paw mark in the face to leave no doubt that it wasn’t to be, and who knows if it ever will be.
ever.
because why would it be?
God forbid, you’d be let be happy. God forbid you’d personify the smile. Heavens forbid, you’d ever get that notion of yourself, that out there someone thinks, that, out of all the dollies and the leggies and the brunettes, your hand is worth holding above all others.
Because if it is worth holding, it ’s only worth a feeble grasp, not enough to drag you through the turmoil of the bad times, and out the other side, to have your face held up to a pair of doting eyes which are resolute in the aftermath that you were worthy extra baggage.

Lying in a collapsed heap, and there’s nothing soft, lovable or euphoric about the pavement. Nothing. but it’s safer to stay there. no one looks down.

it won’t happen again, says the meandering tear.

I’m always bloody well logged in to this site. That used to be my excuse of old for not writing more often- I can’t log in (don’t know the password, and they won’t let me pick another one.)
Anyway, i’m sick of the teaching.
the burst of September has wavered and now I just can’t imagine myself having to gripe about missing copies, and swinging on chairs, and stupid 12 year-old comments, for the rest of my life. This week i don’t care if they never learn a thing, i just want to get the forty minutes over with and get out, and let Friday just arrive. i think it’s a combination of the isolation of the classroom and the vagueness of it all. As long as they’re in their seats and there’s some semblance of learning going on, you can breathe a sigh of reliefeven if the bossman is hunkered outside your door, listening for the meltdown, with a crowbar in his hands, that he won’t have to intervene, at least for today. I’ve gotten it into my head that i’n wishy -washy now, and it’s all that I hear when i’m teachering. “wishy-washy, this is SHITE, you’re shite, wishy washy!”. The rise and fall of my enthusiasm and the care, the quick tumble of the energy.
You’ve twenty-seven fecking lettered authorities teaching at you, and mostly conflicting, and mostly, you don’t really want to listen, because you want someone to bloody well listen to you.

It’s starting to feel like Japan never happened.
Seven weeks on Sunday.
(See how wishy-washy that was? Now you believe me!)

twenty-three sixteen

Seven hours and 14 minutes of potential slumber if I can stop my brain having mini giving-out sessions to students who have forgotten their books, or those incessant “Miss, do we skip a line/do we write in pen?/ what page is it? / Is french a language? from whirring about the bloody environs of my skull for long enough to let some REM wash over me.

The black lines have graduated to my ankles.

I’m tired of feeling tired.

I have nothing to report apart from a new watch.

One from the men’s line, if you don’t mind. I would feel a little hypocritical buying a watch for a lady, being someone who never manages to eat anything without wearing half of the ingredients, who finishes class with more marker marks than the bloody whiteboard, and who would put any red-blooded man to shame in a birping contest.
That’s right, half-man, half-beast I art.

or so my Mother says.
“Willya not just write something on the blog there, now?” I’m asked.
“I will, of course….”
and then we shoot a blank ( a literary one of course. )

Little time for reflection these days, little time for noticing the little things I used to pick up on when sitting at my desk, reading my novel or updating my personal journal, or just general head-on-the-desk-post-weekend fatigue as was the case in Nihon.

The only thing which has struck me of late is this, and forgive the potential stupidity of it, but as I sat on a homeward bound train in Saturday, and the sky covered ove with menancing charcoal-like clouds, the carriage felt sombre. But who decided that black would represent gloom, and that the-end-is-nigh feeling…
that big light switch up there in the heavens, sometimes barely illuminated by a single 30 watt solas, and sometimes flourescent.

I’ve a sore back. I think it’s from lugging around secondary school books with me and a mother-fucker pencil case. I take the backpack to class with me, but I can’t help but feel that to be a “proper’ teacher you’d have something a bit more boxy and official to keep your things in.
I said to P. once, I think I’ll know that I’ve finally transcended the adult world when I lose the backpack. It definatey defies the clickey court shoes, sensible monocrome shirts and cardie look.
Still though, with all due prespect to the old North face ensembe, I will certainly be giving it a proper burial, as a symbol of my eternal gratitude of having been stuffed to the gills far too many times yet managing to “keep its mouth shut!”. Yep, I’ll have a big wake and you’re all invited!

while I’m at it, I might as well, throw up another few.

and one from Thailand.

I have a huge space where I could type a litany of excuses as to why I’ve been so neglectful but they all amount to a few things: the stress and heart-annoyance of shipping out of Japan; a weird two-weeks in Thailand and a month’s worth of readjustment in the Mother isle.

I thought I’d put up some pictures of things I miss, there are other things of course, but at ten at night and two five-page lesson plans to prepare, I throw up just a few. Here goes:
Oh Nihon, how I pine for thee so.

The simplicity of it, and no battling for your life on O’Connell bridge as you attempt to orienteer on a bike.

Now, not him specifically, as if I recall, this young chap was quite the pain in the arse, wannabe -yakuza type, more the students.

And herself, of course, young Misako, me auld pal, the regret at mistakes made and time lost, came out through tears in the end.

A going away present from a little lady I teach.
I love that my hands are bigger than my waist.

And so it continues this topsy-turvey journey of finishing up.
It got suffocating tonight.
Maybe it was the fullmoon outside that taunted me, but something was willing me to leave. It’s too much this expectant mood, this need for you to be the pinnicle of entertainment and round-eyed foreignerness for one last time, that you’ll buoy the party and throw a shovel-load of soil onto their barren lives. They don’t know why you needed to escape the send-off party. It’s all they want to do, to pack up and leave and there you are doing it, right before their straight-jacketed eyes. Where were the exclamations of delighted surprise at the delicacies served and exorbant interest in their pidgen english efforts you hear them wonder? In the laundry with a sweat-drenched t-shirt, reeking of “one last game”; caught up in the folded futon you’ve been so neglectful of; between the closed novel pages you don’t have time to finger; written between the lines of the “to do” list.
And you wonder how you’ll even get through this gluttanous feast on your energies, energies that are for the moment, seemingly unrenewable.
maybe it’s a good thing, because at this rate your memories of the place will be tainted with tiring duties, so that you’ll run to the plane, in a temporary release.
Be gone you gorging pariahs-I want a day, a day of my life for me, the person living it.
Up and down like a whore’s pants.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(and no we`re not laughing)

I just finished a marathon english interview test session with my first years, two hundred and bloody eighty something “are you hot?”, “do you play tennis?” “Is this my pen?” and Lord knows that after the first hundred you start to lose sight of the great ideal that is to send out a band of students capable of reponding to a name-telling request. So, far too many fake smiles and lip-prompts later, a revelationary thought crossed my mind. Images of giant pliers were eclipsing through my head. I think I developed a momentary fettish for dentistry.
Nothing less that taking a saw and ripping those fugitive teeth out would have satisfied me.
I had thought and I was confident in this assumption, that teeth were intented to grow in one`s mouth. Alas no! Japan, the great nation, set apart from everywhere else, which stiffles so much expression, signals a defiant no to orthodonical constraits. Why have teeth in your mouth when they can hang from your nose, and never was it more trendy than to have an extra canine suspended from your ear lobe. It`s a permanent woodstock for these teeth, to hang as they like where they like, thrusting a middle finger to the homogeneous shoulder to shoulder stance, bra(ce)less and free, “you go north and I`ll go east and we`ll meet tommy tooth round the back near the throat exit.”
Seriously, what a mouthful!

By the way “ha” is the Japanese for “tooth”.

(Apologies to those of you you`ve heard it before, some people were interested to have a gawk. )

dignitries, a very good evening to you all.
On behalf of those of us who are leaving I’d like to say a few words.
There’s nothing like the eleventh hour to get things done. I’ve known for eighteen months that I would be leaving in July 2006, yet, growing lists remind me of my procrastination. . I’ve known for almost three weeks that I’d make this speech, yet it’s at ten to one on the eve of the party, in full panic mode, that I sit down to compose, and we use the verb “compose” ever so lightly.

( You may have found a glaring discrepancy between the English and Japanese versions of this speech. For those of you, who make love to the Japanese language with every sentence you speak please, Thank you for resisting the urge to fling tomatoes at me when I launched headlong and haplessly into my Japanese speech. Glad that bit is over.)

Two runways diverged in an airport and I, took the one bound for Saga. It wasn’t the place where many of us listed as a preference but, I for one am glad that I ended up here. In the cities you can easily avoid Japan, and live in a cocoon. In Saga with little other choice but to penetrate the culture, you find yourself riding a bicycle through mud, pounding mochii, picking strawberries, planting rice, and earning the title of one of four foreigners in a town of thirty thousand. Living in japan isn’t always easy, with the sometime unwanted celebrity status, even today an ichi-nensei shougakko student chastised me in the supermarket for buying two ice-creams, “ Are they both for you?” he asked disgusted at his teachers gluttony…..” erm…yes I mean NO!” he ran off and told his mother on me. I hope she doesn’t ring Mary Flynn.

It can be challenging to figure out the many differences between each of our respective cultures and Japan. “Excuse me why are you trimming your toenails in the staffroom?” The isolation, the loneliness, the feeling of being that one unhammerable nail, contrary to the Japanese proverb, “ the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” But, living is not always easy, no matter where you are. I lost a friend to suicide this April. It’s our greater fear, losing someone when you’re this far away. My Kyoto-sensei suggested that she and I go for a drive. We drove to the coast in Omura together. She said that she wanted me to feel closer to home, by seeing the water, that the water would carry my feelings back home. I don’t know if it was seeing the water or feeling her radiating comfort that soothed me that day but something did.
I hope in the same way when we reach our respective shores, that we’ll remember what we learned and achieved from our time here in Japan, from those special moments that pass so quickly, but which we forever hold in our heads. So for our time with each other, with our students who, personally speaking brighten up my days, with their hilarity and who I will find it most difficult to say goodbye to, “ Mister Aine, new half desu ka?’ over our lunchtime meal (and that’s funny because it’s so NOT true!); for the soldiers of patience at the Boards of Education who tolerate much pidgen Japanese and frayed tempers; for the staff at kencho, who keep this ALT boat afloat; for schools colleagues and their attempts to figure out the conundrum that is “Iceland” and “Ireland” , and exactly how much beer can this speaker hold; for friends for being there, for being who they are; and for the randomers in the community, who enter your life in the most bizarre but endearing ways and you come out of it with a kimono in your hand and a belly full of free food, let’s share a toast for Japan and Saga, and for those who made this experience possible.
I thank you and good night.

I handed over a cake and he handed my a styrafoam box of tomatoes. The door opened and in a troop of yukata-clad girls waddled.
“Come with us Aine-teacher!”
The tomatoes were a present from the principal, from his own garden. He told me that he was embarrassed because they were more obsese-cherry tomatoes, or verticallychallenged ordinary tomatoes, who were burning with envy, yet embarrassed to admit it or loyal supporters of Portugal. I hope I eat them, because I hate to waste things that are given with such good intentions.
He`s a nice man. He feels much more like a teacher than the stiff, liver-beaten keigo-stiffled other principals you meet on Primary school visits. There were less than flattering handdrawn barely recognisable portraits beneath his coffee table, screaming “I am the artwork of a five year old”. There`s a warmth about him, and he remembers where I`m from. My visits seems appreciated, so when I received the invitation to my Sayonara party, I was touched.

I followed my guides.

Pretty yukatas, Irish flags and expectant smiles abound, I looked around the gym at those who had awaited my arrival. I recognised their faces, some had stretched and matured from their 3 nensei days, some three years previous. Some faces you remember. Why is it that some people have such memorable countances?

We played games and told Aine-sensei facts about her own country, and had a small tea ceremony, but this time there was no shouting at the stupid foreigner and i learned that not all tea ceremony teachers are massive Bee with Itches, and pictures were taken to freeze the time forever.

And I inhaled a needy fix of decency and kindness and goodwill, and cast aside the toxic angst that can invade us in times of stress, reminding myself to pass it on, and also making a mental note to bookmark the conclusion that people are good.

Good article. Going to buy myself a big curtin.

I hope the sun appears today as I used my last hand towel to dry myself after my shower this morning.
I`m not looking forward to what tomorrow`s “necessity is the mother of invention” harvest will yield. I trimmed my nails last night. It had to be done, They would soon start to curl. I wasn`t purposely growing them but such was the novelty of not having to trim them weekly once I finished up my pottery course, that I was in no way ashamed of how claw-like they had become.
Porn star teacher is wearing an almost transparent pair of white tracksuit bottoms today. Not for the faint hearted.My eye is itchy. Don`t have a tissue to blow my nose. Think I`ll just snort it up instead.
Wonder what I`ll do next class.
I`ve been told that my voice has changed. Do I have a cold one wonders? Naw. I`m just a bit low on energy.
Glad that today is today and not yesterday. Yesterday was a dark day. I was empathising with the reasoning of those who end up in death row. Bludgeoning sounded beautiful. A nail-spiked hammer in the face. There were no prisioners to be taken. Yesterday was all out war. Is it the weather, or the hormonal circus, or my imminent departure? Or a bloody irrational hot fondue of them all? Emotions are tall now. Watch out for constant interruptions, and comments pertaining to the neglectful parenting of your bike, and you thank the comets that your thoughts cannot be read, “yeah, I`ll look after my bike and you can look after your…” whatever.
Some people like to preach to others instead of listening to their inner selves.
My little first year boys. I fall for one or two a year. They *almost* make the volume on the biological clock turn up from mute. I sometimes wish to mother them. Statements I`ve regretted. “I just want to breatfeed them!”
Dry throat.
The watermelon a la lemon is nice.
Thought about offering it around the staffroom. Maybe I`ll do that. Naw…walked back to my desk and chickened. Fed it to myself instead. It`s weird that I do that sometimes.
There`s a strong genetic component to how we handle trauma. Learning to see a calm side to things can be learned but there`s evidence to show that we`re mostly genetically predisposed. The more self-validated you are, the more comfortable you can be wherever you are, but the less you fit into the group because the group wants to be the validating force. The more alcohol in your system the more your self-validating system is depressed.
I`m annoyed that for my last class ever with my first years the teachers wants to do an interview test. I think I`ll give them all an A. Just for the fecking laugh. If I`m nice to someone they should be appreciative. It would be nice if people were always appreciatve but this isn`t realistic. They will often be appreciative but sometimes they won`t be.
It is my thoughts that create my anger and not my teachers or students behaviour. I hate how this computer underlines my spellings because it reads only American Spellings. America. Nuff said about that. I`m dreading going home.
Someone beside me is grumbling at the printer. It`s been working really slowly of late.
I hate talking about and watching films. I`m not watching another film for a year. That`s going to be my prize to myself. Action must come first and the motivation comes later on.
“ I`m Mr. Eguchi, from Seibu. I just sent you a fax, did you get it?” Taking responsible for things I`m not responsible for.
The speech tomorrow. Don`t want to make it .I did before, but now I don`t.
There`s going to be a typhoon at the weekend. So that`s the decision made on the beach party. Drip, drip, drip. I never asked to be a woman. I said a prayer this morning, for the first time in ages, “Father in heaven you love me, you`re with me night and day, I try to love you always in all I do and say. Bless me through this day amen.” It sounds so wrong. I don`t try to love him in all I do and say, in fact I rarely think about him when I`m doing thing. Bloody mosquitos. Now if ever there was a waste of space/oxygen oxygen George Bushesque animal it`s the mosquitos. Oh and rats. Let us not forget rats.
That`ll be my tummy looking for food. Have I neared a page yet? It doesn`t make sense. Grey trousers. The eighties. Giggle. The end.

Himself.
Yeah we all remember who.
Haven’t really mentioned what became of eeeeeeeeertyuiop[
(sorry, just wanted to clean my keys with my new key-cleaning-wipes)
teacher, and the few pints and the food I laboured over for three hours.
So I invited him with about three weeks notice . We bade each other no “howareyanow”s or “well!” or “is it yourself is it?” when traipsing down the coridoors, nor a “thank you for tiring yourself out with all your hard work and cigarette smoking Sensei. ” Sweet nada.
Friday arrives, over he trots. He makes an “x” with his arms , says “not coming” and wanders off. You can be sure that you ain’t coming dahling. (I realise that it’s spelt with a “u” but i like to feel like i’m not swimming in the dank sodden sewers of obscenity ALL the time)
I’m not quite certain but i don’t think he even said sorry.
I should’ve given him lines. “Where are your manners?” ten thousand times for Monday.
But I didn’t.
I picked up my worn and bruised ego, and wondered what to do with it.
i put it in my pocket for safe-keeping.
the dinner went ahead.
it was the dullest evening I’ve ever spent.
three hours of school chat.
there’s eight hundred and fifty odd students in the school and i think a comment was passed on all of them.
And for the timeth time i don’t even want to know, I watched two hearts find each other, aross the dinner table.
They went home together.
And i did my dishes.
best to get them out of the way for the morning.

When I was lying in bed last night fretting over the torrential rain and booming thunder, concerned that there’s no where in my apartment far from a window, I ought have been thinking about the North koreans and their decision to go “testing”nuclear weaponery 600 miles out in the japanese sea.
What can you say.
Yet another wonderful example of the good men do when they’re in power. And don’t anyone come back with a “What about maggie Thatcher?”. there’s a definate ratio of about 10,000 idiotic male leaders to each Maggie Thatcher.
What was that quote about when women are depressed they either eat or go shopping, when men get depressed they invade other countries.
Bless.
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours.

Anyway, the mood os quare and mixed up at the moment. There’s now just a pair of shirts hanging in the wardrobe that once wouldn’t close; the books on my shelves are out of date Lonely Planets and an encyclopedia on japanese Pop culture; and there’s twenty-six days to get my head around the fact that this will never be again.
Fucking life.
Makes me want to shed a tear.

I`m supposed to be writing a speech. As you can see I`m feeling really inspired at the moment. This bout of inspiration is so great that it has overwhelms me. I have fallen victim to its immensity, and am unable to channel it. Too bad it`s not of the divine kind. More bovine, I`d say.

I`m so so tired. Tired in general. I havne`t been sleeping well, clocking a miserable six or so instead of my former nine-and-a-half hours. “I can`t be bothered” has been etched on my soul by the god of procrastination, during one of these half-a-dozen short-hand clock spasms. Packing up your life is strange. Pizza-esque is what my existance has become. People round and about wanting a bit of me, an equal slice, but when I come back to the plate for my helping there`s nothing left.

sigh.
and another one for the journey.
sigh.
and why have two when you can have three,
sigh.

It’s going to have to be one fucking comeback, isn’t it, something so great it’ll erase the three week long silence.
I’m working on it.
(?)
I promise.

Not sure whose children these are, but the important thing is that they’re not mine.

Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, sure it’s only 76 degrees down there.

This is a porthole from which protectors of the castle would throw stones at invaders. Tempting, oh by God, it was tempting…but I resisted.

For the Irish Taxpayer who so kindly pays for our university education, it would be a tragic day for them to wittness the depts to which some ex-patriots have sunk.
I came to Japan armed with a degree, (a fairly mierable one I confess, but still, it took a bit more effort than simply collecting seven biscuit-wrapper barcodes to get through it. ) and a year of teaching in Quebec.
Three years later, as I stand in a classroom, holding myself up with the help of the wall, masking my mind-numbed yawns with my textbook, I am as useless as a used lightbulb in a cake recipe.
I am nothing but a human-taperecorder. My one true value is that I need not be rewound. The teacher also can play with the speed.
This is what this idiot of a teacher thinks team-teaching is.
This lady who I so often chat to about the importance of education, and of incorporating the four elements of language in one class, and of this and of that, draggs me off to class, to stand there. And then she wonders at the end why my look is censured, why I frown?

No more than the American dream now so dissipated and miserable in the eyes of those it has lied to, the Japanese ideal is sure to collapse soon. No other country would take the wonderful language tool that a native speaker is, and leave them standing in silence, circumscribing the students advancement in the English language learning, and hence rendering them incapable of ever leaving japan and discovering that a much nicer world exists elsewhere.

And now she sits sulking, this lady who was annoyed when I declared that there was no point in my coming to her second class, to stand and and survey and frustrate myself even further tot he point of wishing yo furl the book in my hand and smash across something or someone.

apartfrom that though…it`s a grand day.
Good drying.

” like…yaknow..kinda..like…eh….sorta…it`ll be shite…and you don`t have to…like it`s grand if you don`t want to…23rd of June…just with a few of us…like a few pints just…nothing big…ya probably don`t want to but willya come? ”

I saw him down the hall as I stumbled out of the ladies. Today is not a day of coordination. It was a stumble. It was a stumble perfect for day when you suddenly discover you`ve been wearing two tampons all day and wondering why you`ve such an unmerciful headache. I deliberated. It was now or never. I stood my ground, louring in the dark of the doorway for him to enter.
He turned the corner and I spun round.

(When Mary-poohs phones of a Sunday night and she leaves me her message, it is with her “there was an accident. I had a pain in my knee and I went to see Doctor Burke. It`s SuperAids and the blessed Council found out that you got one too many children`s allowances after your graduated so they`re taking the house and this morning after the breakfast your brother murdered Paddy Honeyman with a pitchfork….” voice. Every time she gets me. That part of you that lurches in askance, “oH jesus, they`re gone! Lord, have mercy on them all”…before the “but apart from that, everything here is grand. Father Doyle got food poisoning so we had the priest from Mohill, so there was no sermon , I was back at home with a cup of tea in my hand at five to twelve. grand day, great drying ” assurance that all is fine.)

I went with this style theatrical mourner whisper my mother is oh-so-good at.

“Sensei?”

Part of my plan was to do it in the most discrete way possible. So, with all the enthusiasm of a 22 year old dog with a watermelon-size tumour growing ut of his arse, I invited him to a “drinks thang.” (oh you, you unsuspecting handsome thing you!)

My bludgeoning of his language during my lengthy disquisition of how ordinary and dull this event would be, made him frown, and the frown lasted a good twenty seconds. I thought to panic. Then..with the…” please come “, a benevolent smile appeared. This lasted long enough for me to consider would I ever be able to kiss something with such rancidly coloured teeth.
He nodded that he`d come.

I plodded off, with the swiftness of a catamaran dying to break into a little skip, smiling inside in the manner of a lummox.

He said he`ll come

DA-DA-DA-DA-DAAA-DA
DA-DA-DA-DA-DAAA-DA
He said he`d come-DAA
He said he`d come-DAA!

(Wrote this two years ago for the local website)
Wellington-boot throwing competition. Cock fights. Standing with a vegetarian friend and gaping at an atrocious parade of slain moose mounted on the back of pick-up trucks. Sleeping rough in St. Mark’s Square, with nothing but a box of tic-tacs for nourishment and torn pages of a magazine for warmth. Up until the last weekend of May, I was content with my repertoire of absurd experiences. Not bad, ne? I hadn’t expected to add to the list. Well, not in Japan, and certainly not whilst living in my new adopted home called Kashima.

But, as a recent importee to this fair town, locals were persistent in their attempts to explain all that Kashima has to offer. The Yutoku Shrine (the third largest in Japan), the onsen and many pachinkos for the gamblers. I’d heard mention of an olympics of some kind and immediately thought “agggggggggg!” There’s nothing like the hint of a participatory sporting event to put the fear of God into comatose muscles.

“Oh, Tatami-san, I can barely contain myself until the end of May. A sports day! And in the sweltering heat, bring it on (?)! Dehydration; sweat-saturation, (linguistic) frustration, isolation, exasperation, (shogakusei) inundation. Don’t make me go!”

It had slipped my slippery mind to inquire as to what gata meant. Gata, blah, potatoes. Lie low, they’ll forget about it.

Well, gata, I discovered, means mud. And olympics is fairly obvious: images of leaping ensembles of finely tuned muscles triple-vaulting, steeple chasing, playing chess. What in the name of shrouded Afghans has mud got to do with all this?

Let us fast-forward ourselves to the day of the spectacle. Suitable attire? Nothing you’d deem valuable or ever hope to wear again. Setting? The shores of the Ariake Sea (any beach scene works; imagine the collection ground of the excesses of a diahorea epidemic and you have the picture). Mud took the place of sand.

The list of events to be considered: surfing, 100m swim, lady’s wrestling, tug of war, cycling, Tarzan jumps. The 100m mud swim could be equated to those dreams where you’re trying desperately to run but whilst tied to a burdensome hundred pound weight. You’re going nowhere fast. Able-bodied men mounted bicycles, looking out to the mud-soaked subversive fifteen-inch wide ramp of danger they must attempt to orienteer. It’s an achievement to manage one full pedal rotation before veering into the chocolaty waters. The mud’s subliminal urge to derail contestants could neither be subdued nor defied.

Six hours later, none of the participants were recognizable. A menagerie of sea-urchin-like athletes posed for pictures under a crepuscular sun whilst waiting to be hosed down by firemen.
I just can`t do the regality of the day justice .I pledge though that it toppedthe yardsticks for harebrained and hilarious of events. I think the photos speak for themselves. (of which there soon will be more, I promise)

This year I was entered under “yakuza fighting” unsuspecting this this in fact translated into ladies wrestling. I did the wrestling last year and did frighteningly awful, lasting only a mere two seconds on the podium before my previously delicate and smiling opponents all ganged up on me. I did a wee bit better this year, but GOD! the photos are embarrassing. I fear one too many fights with big bro over the remote control left me skilled in this kind of combat.

I mentioned yesterday about the man at the pool who came to my front crawl`s rescue with his internet-achieved swimming excellence.
He just dropped by school today with a print-out of what he had been trying to explain.

So here`s how to do a flip:

In both hands, pull a jaw at the same time as moving to the head from the position of the hip and bring a head close to the chest. This movement be sharp and let`s do. Here the important thing is to be slipped under the leg to bend only the upper part of body, turning a body.

(how many bodies you got? Then, choose one and turn it, ok?)

It bends a body from the place of the stomach.
It puts a leg to the wall.
It refuses a wall. ( best to kick the gift-wall in the mouth by all accounts)
It changes into the posture of the turning-down which strikes the posture of the looking-up.

Without being flurried, it does each operation surely.
When giving going wrong, too, isn`t flurried.
Indeed, never a truer word said.

It`s all so much clearer now. let me just have a whirl at it now…..

BANGWALLOPBOOOMOUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Goodneess, WELL, that`s a whole lot better judging by the clapping of my colleague on the right of me who is seated at his computer.

Fancy a dip anyone?

Tall and smiling.
Seemed like a nice man, a really nice man.
Despite the language barrier you could tell from his smiles and efforts to communicate that he cared.
I didn`t know him really. Just a few brief exchanges over the past year. I culd barely remembered his name, so when the news came that a Mister Nakahashi had suffered a brain haemmorage at work last Thursday, I had to make sure I had the right face for the name.
He rang the ambulance himself apparently.
I find that errie.
“so what seems to be the problem Sir?”
“Erm…I think my brain is bleeding. ”
“Oh, we`ll ve there in five.”

Last Sunday was the infamous Mud olympics which my town hosts. I organised a team of ALTs to go which was why I was down in the city hall offices several times in the past week. I`d pop in to ibd cordialities to my boss and the gand at the board of Education.
I chatted about the mud games to Mister nakahashii. He told me to have fun. I assured him that I would.

And I did. It wasn`t until Monday morning that the news arrived that he had passed away on Sunday morning, his last few words to pass on the message to all his colleagues who would volunteer at the mud games, to go ahead with the event.

The wake was on Tuesday. The irish are obsessed with death as far as I can see. I don`t know how many funnerals and removals I have been to, but it`s a lot. More than I can count. And I`ve see a lot of corpses, kissed them even. Dead people lying there don`t freak me out. So, I was interested in how the Japanese conduct such a ceremony.

Everyone wore black for a start. Conversation was a no-no. Little or no exchanges took place. Mourners took an envelope with 3,000YEN and signed a book. We received some kind of a “present”.
There was chanting, which I took talked of his life. Somewhere in my warped awful mind I couldn`t get the song “born slippy” out of my mind, the “larger, larger, larger” bit. It turned and turn around and round in my mind. I studied my shoes and thought of startved Ethopian children.

57.

May he rest in peace (or float with the wind as the case might be.)

I should confess. The reason behind my stagnated posting is this. I don`t actually know my password for this blog. Every so often this computer at school and my own laptop log me on automatically and this allows me some tapping time. Otherwise, I`m confronted by a big red “enter your password” intimidations. Yes, I have tried several times to log on as a different user but it doesn`t seem to work. Something to think about before I hit the high seas.

The progress resport on semi-to-demi hot teacher is that we haven`t spoken since my return from Bangladesh. About five weeks of silence, going on six. It might actually make for an ideal relationship. The nerves borne of knowing that there`s only two months, out of a total of thirty-six to go, are making me desperate. He must realise that I stare at him. a lot. And boy, does he look good in a fitted shirt and tie. If only those trousers were a size smaller, and then you could…

Have to see what`s under there, must…once….see…glimpse…hair….gasp!…free…HELLO DOCTOR!

I did get to hold hands with a Japanese boy yesterday.
Ok, so truth be told, he was no boy. He belongs to that fifty-to-one-hundred-years-old group-who really cares how old they are once they get to that age. anyway…the random intimacy took place in the pool.
And the hand holder was someone who took me aside to critique my strokes.
I appreciated his interception as it is hard to know where you`re loosing speed, and good to know why exactly your shoulder cracks every time you move your arm thesedays.
So, I`m sure you`re wondering, just as I wondered of him, if in fact he once was a swimming coach, maybe in charge of a school swimming team?
OH NO!
He learned to swim three years ago.
OH!
Well, I (and the first time I`ve ever used this expression, and it scared me to hell once I said it) “I first started swimming twenty years ago” (TWENTYFUCKINGYEARSAGOSHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIITE! she exclaims to self. surely such expression should be reserved for people looking forward to retirement, or getting nostaglic about a grandchild…not for me…) back to the original stream of chat.
“Did you take lessons dear sir from a retired Olympic coach to warrant your confident critiquing of others` styles?”
“erm…no…i-ta-ne-to…kara.”
Pardon?
“from Interneto”.

Did y`all hear at the back?
He learned to swim sitting on a chair, on dry land, reading from a computer screen.
How big is your bath Mister?

Inside every older person is a younger person — wondering what
the hell happened.
>> >-Cora Harvey Armstrong-
>>
>> >Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can
>>usually shut
>> >her up with cookies.
>> >(Unknown)
>> >
>
>> >The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
>> >-Helen Hayes (at 73)-
>> >
>>> >I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as
>>>stray eyebrows.
>> >
>> >-Janette Barber-
>> >
>
>> >Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
>> >-Lily Tomlin-
>> >
>
>> >My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first one being
>>– hitting
>> >my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
>> >-Erma Bombeck-
>
>> >
>> >Old age ain’t no place for sissies.
>> >-Bette Davis-
>> >
>
>> >A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he
>>can’t.
>> >
>> >-Rhonda Hansome-
>
>> >
>> >The phrase “working mother” is redundant.
>> >-Jane Sellman-
>> >
>
>> >Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in throu gh the
>>windows.
>> >
>> >-Jennifer Unlimited-
>> >
>
>> >Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be
>>thought half
>> >a s good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
>> >-Charlotte Whitton-
>> >
>
>> >Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your
>>body starts
>> >falling apart.
>> >-Caryn Leschen-
>> >
>
>> >I try to take one day at a time — but sometimes several days
>>attack me
>>at
>> >once.
>> >-Jennifer Unlimited-
>> >
>> >If you can’t be a good example — then you’ll just have to be a
>>horrible
>> >warning.
>> >-Catherine-
>> >
>> >I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m
>>not dumb
>> >– and I’m also not blonde.
>> >-Dolly Parton-
>> >
>> >If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
>> >-Sue Grafton-
>> >
>> >I’m not going to vacuum ’til Sears makes one you can ride on.
>> >-Roseanne Barr-
>> >
>> >When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men
>>invade another
>> >country.
>> >-Elayne Boosler-
>
>> >Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
>> >-Maryon Pearson-
>> >
>> >In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want
>>anything
>>done,
>> >ask a woman.
>> >-Margaret Thatcher-
>> >
>> >I have yet to hear a man ask for advic e on how to combine
>>marriage and a career.
>> >-Gloria Steinem-
>
>> >I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep
>>his house.
>> >-Zsa Zsa Gabor-
>> >
>> >Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
>> >-Eleanor Roosevelt-

This is so ridiculous it’s funny. It discusses the Irish prime Minister’s costly make-up services which he regularly avails of. Read here.

God bless the lovely little first years. Oh God, how lovely they are. Even though it`s starting to get hot, and the entire staff is supposedly indisposed with mid-may depression (don`t know how they can specify months to be depressed in Japan-if i were an actual teacher in japan I`d have the blues every month of the year) anyway…my little first years are lovely. Truely.
They`re so full of energy and bless their cottom-mix socks they get so excited when Aine pops in for her weekly class with them. You gotta love a bit of hero worship, it wears off far too soon. The giddier they get, the giddier I get and before you know it, it`s a competition to see who can act the bigger goat. My team teachers hate me for it, but feck them! A girl has to get her energy from somewhere.
We were learning “nice to meet you” today.
Teacher was drilling (a hole in their hearts to be soon filled with an undeniable hatred of the english language) “nice”. Repeat after me, “nice”.
Next thing you know there`s a yelp.
“AHHHH sensei, nice body!”.
Funny.
a 4 foot high, 6 year old cleverly disguised in the body of a 12 year old, proclaiming to a teacher who`d surely win the ultimate prize in the coveted biggest head-to- small body ratio and for a bonus trophy, greenest teeth competition.
He looked around bewildered.
What on earth was the foreinger laughing at?
“What does it mean miss?”

Teacher wasn`t amused. Some issues there perhaps.
She told him.
He cowered.
His classmates got a good 2-minutes pointing and gaffawing before the teacher`s screams to “shut-up” became too great to ignore.
Poor lad.

I met him in the coridoor at lunch time and said to him, “nice body”.
He pleaded.
“Ah Teacher, PLEAAAAASSSSEEEEE forget that i ever said it, PLEASEEEEE!”

(I just realised that i`m not sure I can get away with retelling the story without looking like a fabuluosly dirty paedophile. )

I`ll risk it.

So busy was I celebrating good old Rogation Sunday that I completely forgot to prepare an entry. Still though, it`s a grand excuse isn`t it, this feast of all feasts. The wonder of it.
The whole idea of it being the start of the three day countdown to the Ascension, makes me dizzy with excitement. Thursdsay! Well there`s no knowing how gleefully I`ll spend that day, the joy of knowing that jesus has finally made it home, to see his Pops. People dancing in the streets, fairy lights everywhere, illuminated giant plastic Saint Peter`s with plastic pen in hand to stroke off Jesus` name as “arrived”, people dressed in angels, bobbing through the streets.
I`m marking in a rogation day for August. In the same manner,`twill be the countdown to aine`s return home, to the isle of Saints.
There`d better be a good long mass that day, and no dodgey chalice work PURREEEEZE!