The Awful Truth About Japan

So, apparently my dear mother has taken some time in the last un-updated month to take a peek at the blog....

This is, unfortunately, a time where I have foolishly left a half-assed post about some friend of mine who is ensuring that the average virtue level of the middle aged ladies of Japan retains its "tarnished" character.

oops. my bad.

Anyway, there has been some me-related drama over the last month, but thats still no reason for me to neglect this highly important documentation of personal history. Right? Right.

Soo... lets start with clearing up some misconceptions that this blog may or may not be attempting to highlight.

Now, those of you who have met my mother know that she is an entirely wonderful woman, who has bouts of wackyness that I firmly believe are genetically responsible for at least 60% of the fun that I am able to bring to any given party. Of course, she is also my mother, which means that between bouts of wackyness** (Wackyness Anecdotes follow the end of this post) she is also given to bouts of crazy things like "worrying about me", "trying to support me from the other side of the world" or "caring that I exist." sheesh! what the heck!

Anyway... here is part of the email...



Hi Hon!

...

I find your blogs sometimes difficult to read in the sense that I worry
about your lack of sleep, your apparent heavy drinking, and the fact that
you loosely share sex comments... Would you please
just send over regular emails with some attached pictures once in awhile.
Then Gramma and I can read them. Call me old-fashioned, but I worry about
issues of privacy and about your liver and about your aging process due to
lack of sleep.

...

Love,

Mom!

So... as I see it there are a few key problems...

1) I am unhealthy

2) I drink too much

3) There are too many humping jokes on this website.

4) I won't be able to run for political office with any sort of moral fibre

5) #1-4 will probably upset my grandmother.


In light of this, I would like to share with you....

The Awful Truth About Japan

There are these entire strings of pesky times where I don't drink, party, get lost, fall alsleep on stairs, fall down stairs, fall alseep on trains, or even get felated by santa claus! (see December 2005).

These times are called "Weekdays". which is why I only update about once a mon...cough...cough...WEEK.

ish.

Anyway, to help sweet mums feel better (and becuase I am enjoying this post as well) I would like to detail a REGULAR day.

Come back!


I'll try to make this funny. Seriously. and I won't make it a habit.

To add to the incredible excitement that nearly matches the glee on all of your faces when you realized that I was (indeed) not dead, but being a posting slacker! The first part of this was written by CELL PHONE, with no predictive text)


well, im a bit sad that you only think im talking dirty and drinking, but this just happens to be the stuff i find most amusing.... and since i only write one post each week, you are definitely getting a skewed view...
actually, most of my days sound like this....


1025 get up
1045 turn off snooze and get up for real
1055 ok. seriously, youll miss the train if you dont get up!!
1057 get up, shower, eat toast, walk to train station.
1133 see train crossing gate descend, sprint the last 300 metres, including two flights of stairs.
1135-1139 pant heavily while being stared at by disgusted japanese people.
1150, change and prep/review first lesson.
1200-2100 teach

(ok... I'm typing with a real keyboard again. that might not look like much to you - but that was TWENTY FIVE MINUTES of my life that I'll never get back! I could have been bored, or staring out the window, but instead I spent my precious train-transit time concocting that wonderful bit of awesomeness for YOU dear reader.)

Anyway...

teaching:

40% actual instruction of students.
10% prep of props, highkighting lesson plans,etc.
10% walking to get food, getting food, reheating food, eating food.

10% - wasting time/ reading the newspaper, magazines and goofing off.
5% paperwork
5% doing company stuff, emailing my schedule, answering email, aggregate of attending meetings, etc.
2% being a wiseass to students standing in the lobby waiting for lessons.
8% explaining said wiseassness and comments like "turn down the suck!"
mean, as well as answering straightforward questions like "I have a two part verb question, sensei... you go in, and go out, but do you go down?" while not cracking a smile. (I seriously almost lost it, and if that came from anyone other than a 50+ year old housewife, I would have answered "whenever possible")
10% pooping. (not really, but I realized that the rest only added up to 90%, and this seemed like as good a time as any for a poo joke.)

/ Aw crap. We can officially declare that I have failed in my attempt to disprove #3 above. Shiat.

Anyway: 900 - 915: finish paperwork, get changed, leave work.

fun night: meet a friend for dinner. two of my best friends here are not heavy drinkers, actually - one doesn't drink at all and the other drinks the odd glass of wine now and again, so usally we don't drink, but do enjoy healthy chat and fun times.

I do drink sometimes on weekends, about as much as I did in Canada, but now it leads to wakcy adventures, instead of just going to sleep, etc. Generally if I drink, its about 1 night a week of sizable drinking, and maybe a beer or a glass of wine or two on another night with dinner. Actually, health wise, I am doing a lot better - my weight is down a lot (about two inches off my waist) and my hair is growing back from lack of stress. The sleep still needs tweaking, I guess, but I am generally getting no less than six hours, and most often about seven. Weekends, I get 9-10 hours, actually, as I stay in bed until the afternoon.

This weekend, for example, I did stay out all night on sunday, and that is/was a VERY funny drinking story, but I feel that presenting it now would undermine the main point of this post. You can look forward to it soon though.

ANYWAY.

On most nights, I actually just come home, snag a bit of action on teh intre-web and/or watch a movie or something. Contrary to popular believe and the evidence presented regularly in the Weekly World News, my life really isn't that exciting. But I have bouts of funnyness, and these are the ones that I would like to contribute to posterity.

So, dear reader (I'd add an "s", but I'm suspicious about the fact that I may need to do some active work to earn that s back after the latest hiatus)... let us make a pact.

I will continue to have shenanigan-filled adventures and I will share them on this site. They will of course, be interspersed with bits and pieces of other-ness that we can call "weekdays"...but I'll try not to mention them on this site if I can help it.

I will also attempt to send at least pg-13 rated emails to the rest of my folks. They don't want to hear that I got plowed (in any sense of the word... )

You... well.. shit. promise whatever you want. I'm still making a pact with you and you can't stop me.


OK! lets do an update on those 5 points!!!


1) I am unhealthy
Ok... I didn't address this one at all, but my pants are not wear-able without a belt, and I can see a noticable lack of additional chin-ness on me. I'm not that much lighter, but I'm certainly thinner. I am also de-balding after removing the stress-madness that was my old career. Sleeping more is a work in progress, but I am doing my part by sleeping in uber-much.


2) I drink too much
Well, lets call this one 23% de-bunked. I drink too much on some weekend days, but mostly I am a good boy. Unfortunately, I suspect neglecting to mention these nights in glorious "worstpossibleinterpretation-o-vision" would make for a blog about as exciting as a Reality TV show populated with honest, upstanding individuals with a healthy amount of self respect. (or perhaps "as thrilling as Jerry Springer with all the chairs nailed down...")

Anyway... I do drink a decent amount, but I don't ever find myself NEEDING to drink. I'm happy to go out w/o the booze too. ...

Where is "rationalizing" on the 12 steps again? Somewhere after "admitting it", right?


3) There are too many humping references on this website.

This point is entirely without any sort of penis.



4) I won't be able to run for political office with any sort of moral fibre.

With all of the "baby" jokes that D and I make, I have bigger problems than this blog.



5) #1-4 will probably upset my grandmother.

I am currently in negotiations with Fox News to report this blog as the result of the "liberal bias" of the internet, and that since the Internet was invented by activist judges, it is actually reinterpreting the wholesome conservatism that I think.




So, to conclude, out of a possible 5/5, I scored...

1.23/5

So... I really didn't accomplish anything. nice.


GIMMIE A P
GIMMIE A R
GIMMIE AN IORITIES!!!!

Thats right!

I hope you found this all at least 123/500 as amusing as I did.


Welll... thats it. sleepy time!!! More soon!




** As promised. the post script!!!

My Current Top 5 Merry-fam Wackyness Incidents

1) any Merry-fam Christmas dinner when the uncles start making naughty jokes and our dear Gram does the "Sweetest, nicest lady-chef + matriarch in the world/Rush Limbaugh Cheerleader" Jeckyl/Hyde thing.

2) That time we all split about eight bottles of wine (including the best and most misspelled gwertstrameiner bottle ever) and went out for indian food.

3) Family Ski trips. 'nuff said.

4) That time we replaced my sister with my brother's (ex) girlfriend for Christmas Tree decorating. I mean... we called! but she was on the phone... and it was just one decoration to start... and she'd be down soon... oh... lets just take a few pictures... oh! hi! don't worry... we saved you some tinsel....

5) Summer friday nights, when I arrived last to find the whole fam half in the can and all the way in the pool. JEALOUS. gah.


Feel free to offer your own suggestions if you have witnessed any.

Runner up: oldie but a goodie - that time in high school when the rest of the fam showed up after letting me host the prom after party HAVING ALREADY ACQUIRED A NEW CARPET ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT ONE WOULD HAVE BEEN RUINED DURING THE FESTIVITIES.

Somebody slap me for daring to use caps lock. seriously.