This is going to be a great day.
I'm teaching at Wakakusa Chu Gakko (Wakakusa Junior High School) this week. I'm an assistant English teacher (AET) on the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme living in Ohtawara-shi (Ohtawara City), Tochigi-ken (Tochigi Prefecture), Japan.
Yesterday I volunteered to purchase a bunch of goldfish for an aquarium that was being set up for a class of special education kids. It's my way of making the kids feel good about their local gaijin (foreigner - me!), and I suppose it's a way to make myself look good in the eyes of the local Japanese. It's not that I need to make myself look good - the folks here already think I'm a nice guy - and I am... but perhaps it's more to make myself feel good about myself.
I've not been all that happy lately. I've been quite lecherous. Aside from hitting on anything in a skirt, I broke up with my girlfriend Ashley Benning of Augusta, Georgia a couple of weeks ago. To get over that, I flirted with a Japanese university student who was at Ohtawara Chu Gakko (Ohtawara Junior High School) last week who was there on a week-long internship. It was an amazing week of sexual depravity that ended with the beautiful Junko (pronounced Junn-co) falling hard for me. So much so that she stalked me - following me first to Tochigi's capital city of Utsunomiya, and then down to Tokyo Disneyland. While she was all up for dropping out of school and having my children (really), I couldn't let her do that after only knowing her for less than a week. It ended badly down in the Fantasyland section of Disneyland.
I was down there with my flaky ex-girlfriend Ashley and a couple of other AETs - and I suppose Junko was jealous. She had every right to be jealous, because my plan was to get Ashley back to have sex with - not to have her be my girlfriend. I guess I wanted to have my flake and to eat it too.
Add in a fair amount of drinking that had been going on for a few months topped with a lack of sleep, and I wasn't exactly the person I used to be when I first arrived in this country. Besides... while all of this was going on, I think I still had a major crush on Kristine South... a beautiful American woman of Japanese descent who lived 500 kilometres away from me. I was actually too afraid to tell her I liked her, as after nearly one year here, all of the women I have slept with or been out with have asked me out. I suppose I can wait until Kristine asks me out for a visit. It's only a matter of time, right?
All I could think of was myself. But... I was too full of myself to see that. Hindsight of 20 years is far clearer, however.
Early in the morning, I catch all of the goldfish I had in my own aquarium and place them in a container to take with me to Wakakusa. I take them to school, and after saying ohaiyo gozaimasu (good morning) to the principal and vice-principal (and showing them my present to the kids), I march over to the special education room to present them with my great gift.
The kid's teacher takes the bag of fish and dumps them into the aquarium.
There's no fanfare. No thank-you's. No gathering of the kids to stare at the fish. Nothing. I'm so completely surprised that all I can do is smile, bow and take my leave back to the teacher's office.
I have to teach four classes of English today. Each class is long and I'm exhausted by the end of the day. Oh well... at least I have my dinner date with Ashley to look forward to tonight.
I arrive back home at 5PM, with Ashley arriving at my door an hour later. She looks pretty nice to these horny eyes.
We head out to a local restaurant called Tsubahachi - at least that's what I think it's called. I can't read my writing in my diary!
We eat, but talk very little. There's no drinking either except for the complimentary water. I pay for dinner. We come back to my apartment. Watch an episode of Designing Woman I have on tape. And then she leaves.
There was no small talk at my place. No hug or a kiss good night. No thank-you for dinner. Nothing. She rode home back to Nishinasuno-machi (Nishinasuno Town) where she lives about 25 minutes away to the northwest.
When we were dating I always rode back with her to her place to make sure she was safe, but tonight she wanted no such help from me.
What a piece of crap day. I'm also out of booze at my place. So I go downstairs to the local liquor store located directly below my third-floor apartment and pick up a large bottle of sake (Japanese rice wine).
While watching more videos of Western television sent to me from back in Toronto, I finish the bottle. I clean up my apartment but am so drunk I think I make more of a mess. Naturally, now that I'm drunk, I figure it's time I gave my bonsai - a Japanese Maple tree - a trim. I accidentally cut off a limb that may have been growing for 70 years.
The phone rings at 10PM, but when I answer it, there's no one there.
I'm in bed by 12 midnight wondering why everything sucked today.
Somewhere a tree is falling in a forest,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by Canada's Rush!: OPPRESSION. I think the lyrics fit.
PS: Your author seems to be having a pity party and no one showed up except himself.
PPS: Yes, that's my photo of a raindrop hitting a barrel of water containing some downed Japanese red maple leaves in it. It seems to fit the mood of today's blog.
