April 2007 Archives

Back before the Japanese teacher editorials, I used to check my Outpost Nine email everyday, hoping for a little reader feedback. I was always disappointed to find none. It was like finding a fire-truck shaped present under the Christmas tree, only to unwrap it and find a sweater with a yellow duck on the front.

Then I wrote the first 6 school teacher editorials. I posted the then-unfinished link on a message board I frequent, in response to a "What's your job?" topic. The next day, I checked my email, expecting to find nothing as usual, and was surprised to see thirty new, shiny emails. It was a lot like finding a fire-truck shaped present under the Christmas tree, only to unwrap it and discover a Playboy Bunny.

However, it would all go snowballing out of control from there.

Happy to have people reading, I made my best to reply to every single mail. But as more people started reading, the number of mails I got in a day increased. My ability to answer mail started to decrease as well, and before I knew it I had a huge backlog. Before I stopped counting, I was over a thousand emails behind. I think it was at that point where I threw in the towel and conceeded that my mailbox was bigger than I was. Like I was Little Mac, preparing to take on pre-crazy Mike Tyson. Or like I was Mega Man trying to take on Magneto. ...Not old ass Magneto from the X-Men movie franchise, not even comic book Magneto either. I mean video game Magneto, who is a Jewish ninja mutant on crack.

Nevertheless, I DID manage to at least read every mail I received. It was nice reading all the messages of praise, inspiration, and the handful of people who understood some of the obscure references I made (such as the MvC2 one above). I got a LOT of questions, and I tried to answer what I could. I also got some hate mail too - but really, that was more humorous than it was offensive.

Incidentally, for all readers who weren't with me at Outpost Nine, you should really read the hate mails. They're extra special. I'll list them here for your convenience -

Hol 'On Boy
Last One, I Swear
Black Man Lies
You Don't Need to be Around Kids
More Mailbox Goodness

More catch-up again today.

Next week is the holiday season in Japan, called Golden Week. I have no idea why it's called Golden Week, the name is just about accurate as Apple Jacks. There's nothing particularly Golden about it...and it's not even a week! Though the form of the vacations fluctuate every year, this year how it works is - Monday, Thursday, and Friday are holidays. Cool, right? But Tuesday and Wednesday are not. Yep, two actual working days in the middle of what would be a glorious week of vacation. If you want it to be an actual week, you use your paid vacation time for those two days, as I suspect most sane people will. However, for those unlucky suckers who don't have any utilizable paid vacation (such as myself), we have to go to work. Only the Japanese would have two working days in the middle of what would be a week-long vacation. I'm guessing its part of the Japanese drive to always be suffering in some way. "Well, this is my week long vacation...but I'm gonna work two days anyway."

What I'm trying to get at is that as next week is vacation time here in Japan, I might put the site on a week-long vacation. To catch-up with things, to enjoy a little time off, and last but most certainly not least, to try and preserve some scraps of sanity I might have left (I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I'll take what I can get). I'll let you all know.

Back to today's article, along the same lines of Taste The Golden Spray Week, Japan is well known for using English in unconventional ways. Anyone who's been to Japan in the summer has enjoyed seeing the garbled English printed on T-shirts. And there are plenty of Engrish sites to bring you snapshots of the oddity. However, if you live here long enough, you may actually start to hear it being put to use in conversation. That happened to me in this classic entry, "Waist Shake", as a group of boys invented a new English term that nobody - English or Japanese, knew what the hell they were talking about.

Although, it does kinda sound like one of those 1950-60's era dances, like the Electric Slide or the Tighten-Up. "Do the Waist-Shake!" And then you can have girls in bee-hive haircuts and knee-high boots dancing on a platformed stage while a groovy young guitarist describes exactly how to do the "Waist-Shake" in his song. ...This would be the best sex ed class, EVER. Even better than that one time our 6th grade teacher started playing the Magic Johnson educational tape, and unknowingly left the room, as Magic Johnson's voice boomed out from the stereo - "Hi kids. I'm Magic Johnson. I have AIDS. Do you know why I have AIDS? I had sexual intercourse. I put my penis in the vagina of a woman who had AIDS. But that's not the only form of sexual intercourse from which you can get AIDS. Here, let me list them all..."

...Wow. I knew my sanity was slipping, but I never knew it was this bad. I TOLD YOU I WAS CRAZY, BUT YOU DIDN'T BELIEVE ME! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME?!

...*Ahem*.

Thank you Grammar Police.

This is my own personal website. I write most of the content in WordPad, or straight in HTML (I don't like MS Word's auto-formatting). So I don't run a spell or grammar checker. I do this for fun in my free time. So I'm not sweating it too much. You shouldn't either.

And yes, I have intentionally left some errors/mistakes as is, just to further piss off those of you who get pissed off over grammar on the internet.

Besides, live here long enough, and your English starts to deteriorate. It's happening to all of us, we're stumbling over pronunciation and forgetting simple words, and just making crazy blunders. As one of my friends said once, "And that's a factual fact." You know, as opposed to the fictional ones. He was being completely serious when he said that.

Looking back over the archives (which are chronologically correct now, stop hating), I noticed that there are a few entries that somehow got left out. Perhaps quality control decided they weren't up to my usual literary excellence? Through, compared to other entries on this site, I'm not quite sure what that literally excellence is. "When Az talked about getting his dick grabbed by 13 year old Japanese boys, I felt as if I knew exactly what he was going through! Even though I'm Norwegian! And female!"

Anyway, I kind of like these entries, so I'd like to repost them. I have gone through and updated the writing to meet my quality control standards though (at least one obscure Transformers/Street Fighter reference in every editorial. Damnit). So if you've never read these before, enjoy, and if you were a fan of the Outpost Nine site, why not give the new sexy revised version another spin? It's like your girlfriend comes home one day and her breasts have gotten one cup bigger. Its not like the sex changes any...but hey, it's a lot more bouncy, and there aint nothing wrong with that.

Additionally, the re-post here will give me time to work on other things that desperately need my attention now. Such as my book proposal, which I have not given the attention it deserves for far too long.

This is the "Skanks 'R Us" story. It originated from my "In-Defense FAQ" where I casually mentioned having been propositioned for sex from some underaged girls. Silly me, I thought that people would just read that and kind of forget about it. Somehow, I didn't realize that this was the ultimate bait. It's like the biggest, fattest, juiciest worm on that hook, and I somehow expected the fishies NOT to bite. Or, you know, its like waving a picnic basket in front of Yogi Bear and expecting him not to lunge for it. So my bait became an editorial, and really, it was inevitable.

In true Rocky & Bullwinkle style, this editorial is "Skanks 'R Us", or "How Az Ran Away From a Foursome...and Why That Was The Right Call".

Usually, when JET ends, the war-weary soldier goes back to their home country with a nice ticket paid for by the Japanese government. I figure this is either a "thanks for your efforts" gesture, or a "hurry up and get the hell out of our country before you do any more damage" kind of thing. For some JETs, I lean towards the latter. At any rate, just the fact that JET pays for the return ticket home, kind of assumes that the retired school teacher actually does go home. While this is generally the case, there are a select few, thoroughly crazed and mentally unstable folks who decide that three years of Japanese torture *just* wasn't quite enough.

Guess which camp I belong to, eh?

I won't try to excuse my insanity, I'm fully aware of it. I will say though that there wasn't anything in particular pulling me back to America, and I seemed to have a few good reasons to stay in Japan. So I did. A simple decision based on pros and cons. But, me staying in Japan would mean that I would have to find a job in Japan, for as you can imagine commuting to and from America everyday would not only be a bitch, but would be The Biggest Bitch in Human History. Even greater a bitch than Kyle's mom. As Japan is the most expensive country in the known universe (I think even God gets taxed here - which is probably why the majority of Japanese people are Buddhist), of course I had to work. The Japanese government wasn't just going to give me money for being in Japan. ...Actually, wait, no, they did. It's just that my time at JET ended, so now I was going to have to do actual work for less money. Bummer.

So, I had to go on the job hunt. More specifically, I had to go on the Japanese job hunt. Not like your ordinary job hunt, no no. As a Gaijin, you have to find a job that's either specifically directed towards Gaijin, or find a way to convince a Japanese person that you are just as capable as - if not more than - all the other Japanese people who are applying for the job. ...I imagine this is a lot like trying to convince a seven-year-old that the carrot you're waving in front of him is much more delicious and mouth-watering than the Oreo cookie he's holding. If I were female, blond, and had a nice set of D-rack tits, I could probably get a job as a Japanese rocket scientist. Not that I could do rocket science, much less rocket science in Japanese, but at least the guys could enjoy putting me in a skirt, having me make coffee for them everyday, and fantasizing about having brief, emotionless sex with me without ever doing anything to achieve that goal. But no, as a black male, I didn't really have much to offer except a fresh dark-meat cock-slap to the face. And while I'm sure they would have loved the opportunity to measure the imprint left behind, it's not quite enough to land me any decent jobs.

So, as with any good job hunt, first I had to find out exactly what it was I could do in Japan...

I'm sorry to report that the entry for April 17, 2006 is cancelled. Its not that I didn't write it, I just don't want to post it anymore. There's a good reason why...but some things should be kept private.

Anyway, please check back here on Thursday, April 19th, for the next entry.

Meanwhile, my thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims and families involved in the Virginia Tech shooting. There are no words to ease the pain at such a tragic and nonsensical time.

When she said that I wasn't in a position to do anything. I've decided if she says anything like that again, I'll offer to help, but I'm not going to intentionally pursue it. After all, I didn't fly across an ocean just to bang co-workers. Could have done that at home.

All good things must come to an end.

Three years ago, I came to Japan under the pretense of being an English teacher. When I decided on this course of action some 8 years ago, who knows what I was thinking. Unlimited access to anime and J-pop? All the Pocky I could eat? A loving and obedient wife just waiting for me at Narita Airport? Whatever the reason, I decided my freshman year of college to do JET, and 5 years later while the rampant Japanophilia was changed, that plan never changed.

The job of the Super Genki Trained English Teaching Monkey (often abbreviated as ALT) is not a very hard or even serious job. I mean, what other jobs on Earth will freely accept any college grad with little to no training in the field whatsoever? I think even McDonald's these days has training. McDonald's has to have training. It's just not the same anymore, what with ladies complaining about spilled coffee, and other folks coming in and saying that the Big Mac value meal that you specifically sold them made them fat. While ALT training is provided, they do a wonderful job of telling us nothing but useless and oftentimes inaccurate information. I remember one particular mantra we heard a lot was "now, since they are Japanese, your students may be a bit shy..."

..Riddle me this - in the three years I've been doing this, have my students EVER struck you as the shy type? Sure, in all the ass poking, dick grabbing, breast shouting/exposing/fondling/accidentally bury your face in, skits involving heavy forceful shits, skits about favorite porn actresses, and confessions of sex and sin, I'm sure we can find some shreds of shyness. In the same way I'm sure we can find some shreds of nutritional content in a Twinkie.

She's not bad. And no, I will not post pictures. And if there are already pictures up, I will not point out who she is.

Sorry about the missed Tuesday update. I've been terribly busy with work. I hope to have the next entry up by Thursday, but I really can't make any promises on that. If not Thursday, then next Tuesday for sure.

Again, sorry about that, and please wait just a little while.

Sometimes, it's easy to forget that kids can be little cesspools of germs and disease.

I don't know why I forgot this, it certainly held true when I was a kid. We didn't have the proper shame levels or appreciation of filth that we do now as adults. Something itchy down your pants? Well, scratch away! Front or back, it doesn't matter. Out of tissues? Your hand is not only an acceptable substitute, your fingers can get to those hard to reach crevices that Kleenex just cannot. Washing your hands after using the bathroom? Pfft. And really, that only scratches the grimy, nasty surface.

I'd sort of forgotten about all this, but I was harshly reminded one day in an ichinensei's class. I was standing near the front of the room when I noticed a girl on the far right picking her nose. Not the discreet "oh, let me just scratch my my nostril here - oops, a finger slipped in!", not the skilled Ninja Thumb Penetration maneuver, no. This was full on Pointer Finger Excavation. She finished with one nostril and went right for the other one as well. I suppose this wasn't too bad, I mean everybody goes gold-digging at some point. Most of us just prefer to do it in the privacy of our own homes with at least some tissue paper nearby, not right smack in the middle of English class.

It turns out though that this girl was hungry more than anything else, as she proceeded to take the fruits of her labor...............and eat them.

Fortunately, I'd skipped breakfast that morning. Had I not, I would have projectile vomited over the remaining 34 kids who weren't eating their boogers right in the middle of English class. Man that was the foulest thing I'd ever seen since Paris Hilton's debut music single. This was a whole two periods before lunch, and not only did I skip lunch, I barely felt like eating dinner too. (The New Azrael Diet Plan - just watch some kids eat their own boogers. See if you still want to eat that cheesecake for dessert) This girl could grow up to be the hottest Japanese supermodel, and still all I'd see when I look at her is a little girl chowing down on her nose goblins.

And yes, I know I'm being squeamish. And yes, I don't give a flying fuck. She ate her boogers, man! All possible cries of "man it up!" go right out the nearest window. And if you disagree with me, next time you go fishing for slime fish, I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU to eat one.

In my three years here, I never actually came up with a nickname for the third school.

Nicknames weren't just for you guys' benefit. I sometimes thought of the schools as "Ghetto School" or "School of Peace", and often times used the nicknames with friends. The third school managed to elude a re-christening though. The Ghetto School and the School of Peace were two ends of an extreme - harmony and chaos as it were. The third school simply fell somewhere in the middle. Things were, for the most part, good. While the kids were not as angelic as the School of Peace kids, they were nowhere even near the level of Professional Hellbringer than the Ghetto School kids were. In fact, the only real thing that stands out about the school are Watson's antics.

This school also gets the honor of being the one school of my three that really didn't change much over the years. The faculty, for the most part, stayed constant, and though there were many interesting personalities among the students over the years, no one group of kids really stood out over the others.

If I were to give the school a nickname, it'd be something along the lines of "The OC" or "Kyoto 90210". This school happens to be in the good part of town. I mean, the really good part of town. There's a big Kansai Science City down here, and as a result the area is rapidly growing. Everything, including the school itself, is relatively new. And the people who live in this area are fairly well-off. So most of the kids live in pretty nice houses, and never have to worry about money or anything like that. In school, the vast majority of them seemed to play it straight - skipping class was rare, most everybody did their work, rarely did anyone ever talk back to a teacher.