Monkey Fun

Sunday, January 08, 2017 :::

... and OMG it's been a very long while, with no guarantees that it won't be just as long a while again.

Life became stressful and lacking in time and then energy. Also in 2012/2013 may have had a small emotional breakdown diagnosed as "exhaustion caused by overwork and stress" which sort of explains my complete lack of time for fandom or online friendships (or any friendships actually - I'm lucky that people have been patient with me...). I chose a stressful profession and then had a stressful boss (with passive aggressive tendencies) and had to move jobs. Still stressed but less so now than before (although have moved from one stressful boss to another... such is life).

One more set of exams (yes, I'm already qualified but this is an additional set of exams for an additional qualification. That my workplace requested of me and which I (foolishly) agreed to without any qualifications or requests) and then I'm done with putting myself through that stress at least!

On more positive news, have acquired a flat! Downside - mortgage. I have a near-phobia of debt, it really stresses me out. But this seems manageable for the time being so I will live with it for now.

Have lost the website but that does not surprise me - I wasn't maintaining it properly from 2004 onwards and didn't look in at all for a very long time. However, new job is nearer to home which means more time at home after shorter commute which means perhaps finishing at least one story... no promises to anyone, least of all myself, but it would be good to complete something.

Love to the ether and all in it.

::: posted by Saru at 2:14 pm

Saturday, January 08, 2005 :::

Uhmm… I’m alive? Plus I have broadband at my house now (just got it on Friday so I’m super happy), which means I may actually, time permitting, update my blog, my site and my livejournal account. Maybe even once a fortnight – perhaps more, depending on things I’m doing and so on. This is an improvement. I’m certainly hoping to do nothing but web stuff next weekend – this weekend is a bit of a write-off what with cleaning up after my brother’s three week visit to Japan, and all the laundry left over from that as well. Blegh.

Not that we didn’t have fun while he was here, and he got to see a lot of different places. Not everywhere I wanted to take him though – we couldn’t do Hiroshima for lack of funds and didn’t see much of Kyoto due to pressing need for presents and shopping for said presents. But he saw a lot, had a great time, indulged his and my love of anime and figurines and general geekdom while still being cultural and interested in everything. Here, for posterity, is a list of places we saw, some of the things we did and so on;

*local temples around my town,
*Himeji castle
*Nara, the giant Buddha & temples
*Osaka
*Tokyo
*Koyasan (in snow, which was beautiful)
*Homestay with a Japanese family over New Year
*a little bit of Kyoto

I got him on the train to Kansai airport in Kyoto, rushed to get my train back home and didn’t cry. At all. Though I wanted to. I really miss him now, even if we did get into little spats. It was really nice having him around and doing things together and just generally being with a member of my family for a while. In six months I’m definitely going to be ready to go back home and catch up with people. I’ve loved it here, really enjoyed myself, made new friends and learnt many new things. But it’s almost time to go back. I’m already planning on travelling around Europe though – I can’t believe I’ve lived in England all my life and have yet to see the neighbouring countries!

Methinks I’ve caught the travel bug…

::: posted by Saru at 3:39 am

Sunday, January 04, 2004 :::

Well, Christmas is over and I'm heading back to the Land of the Rising Sun tomorrow morning. For my last meal I get roast lamb with all the trimmings - not that I haven't been gorging on food since I got here. My mother definitely believes in the "feed 'em up" philosophy. I could detail all the food I've had since I arrived - the beef olives, roast beef, roast pork, game pie, turkey and general Christmas food - but I won't. I'll just reminisce briefly when I'm back in Japan without all the food you lot in the UK and elsewhere take for granted. What I wouldn't give for a proper butcher...

I've managed a ton of Christmas shopping, sale shopping and shoe shopping, so I'm all set for my next 18 months (shhh! Don't tell Daddy I'm gone for that long, he thinks I'm back at the end of July - I'll tell him when I'm safely back in Japan and he can't do anything about it!). I also have presents and the obligatory omiyage for a few people - hopefully no one will expect too much since I have absolutely no room in my suitcase or in my weight allowance. And here I was, hoping the I would go back with less than I brought!

I'm not taking many of my presents back - I'll take a few of my DVDs but none of the books. And of course; the shoes. My mother, being a wonderful, generous person, bought me three pairs of expensive shoes in the January sales as a sort of belated Christmas gift. I'm very happy with them - two black pairs and one brown, elegant with a slight heel and very comfortable. The suede pair don't need breaking in at all but the two leather pairs do - that's always the way with shoes. Especially for me; wide feet are the curse I must bear. Sigh... But they are lovely shoes.

Two new suits and a new black skirt/top outfit - the skirt is cut on a bias and falls beautifully to my knees and the top is boned. It's in a lovely black velvet and the skirt has a sequined pattern - it can be so easily dressed up or dressed down with jewellry or the like. It's a ruddy good thing I saved the money for this trip - I'm absolutely skint now. I have enough money in my bank in Japan to pay the bills and see me through untill payday and then I'm on to saving - have to start sending money back in earnest now since I've very little left in either my current or my savings account. Fooble; I'm going to have to be sensible and grown up about things.

Actually, I'm quite looking forward to getting back to Japan - I've got used to being completely independent and doing my own thing. While I love my parents dearly and it was great to see them and two of my brothers, it was still a bit difficult to be in the house with them all the time. I've changed and they can't see it, especially my father. Nevertheless, we all got on quite well and managed to enjoy a really good Christmas together. New Year I spent at the house of my brother's girlfriend and we had a really good dinner party, saw the New Year in with fireworks and had quite a lot to drink. It was great. Mum and Dad went to a restaurant in London and made merry there. They had a bit of trouble getting home, because the train timetable was altered sometime between them asking about it and them heading home. Or they were told a complete lie from the beginning. Anyway, they got the train to within a few stops of our station and then had to wait around for ages for a taxi. But they got home safely, around about the time I was collapsing in bed. Incredible stamina those two have. We have nothing on them...

Anyway, off to eat, finish packing and hope I haven't gone over the weight limit!

::: posted by Saru at 10:28 am

Friday, December 12, 2003 :::

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!. I uploaded a ton of stuff to this about a month ago and absolutely nothing has come up. I want access to this blasted thing while at school - I hardly ever get to the Internet cafe in time to write anything coherent.

Anyway, returning to England for Christmas, am scurrying around like a mad rabbit trying to clean the house, get the laundry done, wrap the presents, write the speech... Yes, I'm doing a presentation in January. They want the outline by Tuesday next week. They tell me this a fortnight before said deadline when they know I have my Japanese Proficiency test and am going to the handicapped school again during said fortnight. Why did I agree to this?

On a positive note, I have now managed to upload half (why, oh why does the digital world do this to me?) of the next chapter of Shattered Heart. The end is missing. Don't ask me how that happened. On the disk it's all whole. Blergh.

Oh, and Christmas part tomorrow for which I have nothing to wear. Nor the Secret Santa present required. Why me? What happened to the time I was hoping for when the exam was over?

Phooey.

Anyway, am actually feeling very cheerful and accomplished despite time difficulties. I have finished three loads of laundry, scrubbed down the kitchen and the bathroom twice (once with bleach and once with ordinary cleaner) and it all smells lovely and clean. The trouble with my place is that it's so old and grotty that, even if it is clean, it never looks it. So four hours of work and I just get a nice smell. Oh well. At least I know it's been cleaned.

Got to run and sort out more stuff before collapsing in bed.

::: posted by Saru at 2:46 am

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 :::

Right now, where did we leave off? Chuutan School... last day there was Thursday, so that will be down at the bottom of the list. As for now; today!

Today was a normal, summer holidays day of work. This means that I went in to work and sat at the computer the majority of the time, lamenting my inability to in get to my website in order to update it, or in to my blog in order to update that. It also rained the entire day, this being the rainy season. Most annoying. I had a few encounters with my students who were all in fine fettle and heading off for their club activities and so on. Great chats with them, but overall a rather boring, useless day. But then! Then! I returned home, and found in my post-box a little post-card from the post-office, telling me I had a parcel and could I please come and pick it up? Well, I was off like a shot, puzzled and excited - who would be sending me parcels?

Present from Joules. Brilliant, wonderful present from Joules. I was so excited I opened it in the car and proceeded to startle a passer-by with my squeals of excitement. In this parcel, I have a sweet little monkey toy, with an ear-to-ear grin, a cute little nose and a soft tuft of hair on the top of his head. He also has the most enormous hands and feet and is just utterly adorable. He will be my mascot for all time. Now, he just needs a name?E

But this was not the end of the bounty. For inside this wonderfully wrapped package - silver and black and entirely too sleek - there were three, yes three sachets of Clipper organic hot chocolate, two of them orange chocolate and one double chocolate and, and, and there was a bar of Cadburys Fruit and Nut. I'm being good and restraining myself from gorging on them, but it'sdifficult. The temptation is almost too much to resist.

What else have I done today? Ah! I have successfully made my first loaf of bread, admittedly in my bread-maker, but 'twas something I feel I should be proud of, considering my very first loaf was not good. This loaf is Italian Herb bread, with nary a taste of sugar in it, although sugar was added, of course, in order to feed the yeast. I'm very pleased with it. It's scrummy, proper bread with a scrummy, proper bready sort of taste. Plus it smelt delicious this morning - I left it on the timer overnight so I was awakened by the smell of fresh baked bread this morning. I do believe that it is the reason I got to school on time - would have been early if I hadn'tmisplaced my keys in the other bag.

Today, what did I do? What did I do? Argh! What did I do? I misplaced my hanko (signature stamp thingy) in the wrong pocket of my bag?Espent an hour trying to find the darn thing. I swear, writing your signature is so much more practical, although having a hanko is actually kinda cool. Sort of like a signet ring. Only less so. I also managed to start sorting out my days off and business leave days and so on and so forth. Very pleased, although I'm annoyed that they're telling me I have to use one of my holidays to get paperwork done in Kyoto.

I'm thinking of pulling a sicky instead, probably on Thursday. It'snot as though I do anything over the summer holidays other than use the internet and get bored. I'll probably start leaving early as well, considering I'm told that'swhat everyone else does. Much better than sitting there doing nothing, and the few times I've done it before I've even had teachers smile at me on the way out and give me the traditional greeting for people leaving at the end of work. I think it'saccepted practice.

Ow. Hangover. Nasty hangover. The party last night was incredible, but the hangover is something I could really have done without. Some of the others were heading off for a bashing watermelons contest in Kumihama but I certainly didn'tfeel up to it. Drove home - with a brief stop at Itotome to pick up some foreign style food, like olives and proper mustard - watered the plants, lay down and was out of it for the rest of the day. Opened bleary eyes at 4.30pm, made myself some dinner, drank about a gallon of water, then went back to bed again. Of course I didn'tsleep too well, having slept the entire day, so spent a large portion of the night playing on my computer. But still didn'tmanage to get anything constructive done. How do I manage that?

Today is the day of the Desert Island Party. I sent Katherine off from the station at ten, then rushed about getting packed and ready to meet the others in Mineyama before heading off for the party. Still managed to get to M's half an hour late, but that didn'tmatter because we weren'tleaving until 4.45 anyway. We got the earlier boat - there being an option of two, one at 6pm and one at 8pm - after a small detour in the wrong direction, and landed on the island all of five minutes after we left the shore. Then we dumped our stuff in a random cabin, and proceeded to endure the absolutely torrential rain while eating a traditional Japanese style barbecue on a covered platform. The extra straw protection screens on one side of the platform kept on being blown down, but some brave souls (myself included) jumped into the ankle-deep water and heaved them back into place. I took my shoes off for this little exercise, not that it mattered that much. They were already soaked.

We proceeded to get rather drunk and merry, ate far too much and talked about random things - like racism, the cultural similarities of Mediterranean societies, British comedy shows, rain, other people around us, the brilliant invention of onsens and so on. Then we proceeded into the hot tub - wearing swimming costumes - and soaked for a while. When we came out it had stopped raining, the waitresses and owner of the island were gone and much beer was had by all. This resulted in some people (be it know that it was all boys) stripping off and running around naked for a while. They realised the error of their ways when the girls all started laughing, and got themselves clothed again. We repaired to the hot tub briefly and then someone (psst, it was S) got it into her head to see what the outside pool was like. I was stupid and followed along. It was FREEZING. The sea was far warmer. Yes, I braved the sea as well. Though not for long. Just long enough to tell that it was warmer.

Of course, during all this we were undoubtedly being stung by mozzies, but we were too drunk to care. By morning, everyone cared. Those bites itched. I have upwards of thirty, but no-one can outdo M. She has over sixty. Vicious, horrible little beasties.

Today, while I was doing laundry Katherine watched part of Akira - I don't think it was to her taste really. She was under the impression it was about the environment and environmental issues, which it is but only allegorically. The actual story and the speed of it didn't appeal to her - she said she doesn'tlike action films. Which is fair enough. Although I adore them. After I had finished I took her out to the Oomoto shrine in Ayabe and I marvelled at its vastness once again. We strolled around its garden, then headed back, had a yummy lunch at the Italian at Isa. I love that place - especially the Viking special. Fill your bowl as many times as you like with salad, and your plate with bread, and get delicious pasta on top of it all. Mmmmm.

Next place we went to was Sandanike Park - Three Corner Lake park I believe is the translation. We wondered around the perimeter of the lake, admired the ducks and other wildlife, then rushed to pick up some fruit and drinks for N's barbecue under Otonase bridge. Had a great time, ate scrumptious food, including a really sweet watermelon, then headed home, having been bitten alive by mozzies. Have I mentioned how I hate mozzies?

Closing ceremony at school, nothing too exciting going on. Managed to miss the proceedings by keeping my head low at my desk and pretending I didn'tnotice everyone else filing out. Plus managed to get some more Japanese study in, so am rather pleased with myself. I will conquer this language yet!

Katherine arrived this evening and we had a nice chat - it's rather odd to be having a stranger in your house and trying to entertain them. She seems like a nice girl, pretty laid back and easy-going. Sounds very Ozzie. Of course, she says I sound stereotypically English, which I suppose I do...if the boarding school accent is stereotypically English.

My last lesson before the holidays, and we do Harry Potter. Not only that, but I made them do a transfiguration spell and all - by rhyming it, but nevertheless, it gave their imaginations free reign. We were going to play battleships but ran out of time. Fiddlesticks. Maybe after the holidays. Please note, this lesson was blatantly ripped off from S, the person to whom I turn for all my inspiration.

Managed to get 100 % on my kanji test today, and on my vocabulary test. No spelling mistakes or anything! And K managed the same with her English vocabulary. Very pleased, but really have to study the grammar harder, or else I'll fail the national exam in December. Must work harder.

We had a Sayonara party for all the people leaving this year, which was actually quite upsetting. I hate saying goodbyes. I stayed for a bit but a headache had been plaguing me all day so quietly gave up and left - it was a bit of a drive to get home anyway, and by the time I arrived I was only fit for sleep. Goes to show what four nights of bad sleep and weird dreams can do to a person. Good party though, and I got to buy R his birthday beer, say goodbye to a few people I'm probably not going to get the chance to see again and meet a few people I've been wanting to see for a while.

Last day at Chuutan, and it wasn'tnearly as bad. I didn'tteach the muscular dystrophy class in the end - they changed their minds - and instead had the Junior High kids, some of whom were obviously 18 or over. But they were energetic, cheerful and lively and it wasn't so bad. Then I had a special lunch, which means I was photographed for our local newspaper - again. I swear some people are going to know me intimately by the time I leave and they'll have met me only through the local news. Lunch was nice though - barbecued eel in some sort of sweet sauce and the usual pickles and rice. Very tasty.

At the end I watched their mini High-School Festival, joined in the dancing and so on then headed off back to Fukuchiyama. It wasn'tso bad, but it still left me exhausted and upset, particularly towards the end of the last hour. Oh well. I'm probably just not cut out for this sort of thing, although I have the feeling that I'll be back in December.

::: posted by Saru at 4:57 am

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 :::

Found my local internet cafe - yaay! So can now start writing meaningful things rather than leaving this to stagnate on the web.

I'll be writing up what's happened to me, working backwards from today, as an update to myself more that anything. Also in the hope that it will be cathartic or some such nonsense - you never know.

Anyway, we begin with today, Wednesday the 9th of July, with my second visit to Chuutan School for Handicapped children. Which was, as things go, both fine and unbearable. Fine in that I coped with it quite well when I was there, except for the last hour, and unbearable in that the instant I switched my upper cognitive functions back on I essentially entered a huge muddle of emotions, very few of them good. Don't get me wrong, it has very little to do with the children (who are, one and all, sweet natured and cheerful) or even with their conditions. It has more to do with the lost potential. They are so cheerful and sweet-natured that I can't help wondering about how they would act, what they would grow up to be, if they weren't handicapped. And it's upsetting. I don't think I'm cut out for this sort of thing?E

I had to teach an eighteen year old lad with muscular dystrophy today, and it just made my fingers ache and my neck freeze into position. Fortunately my smile stayed with me all the way through, and I managed not to once show my complete horror. This is a boy whose mind is entirely perfect. He's clever and probably articulate (my Japanese is not really good enough to tell), he wants to go to University, he has ambitions. And he's trapped inside his own body, unable to move anything more than his fingers and his head. It is, in my opinion, the ultimate and most horrendous prison, and the worst thing is that he's completely aware of it.

And after that I had to go eat lunch with the younger versions, who can't even talk, let alone run around and play. They communicate via screams, cries and movements of the head and eyes. There(s nothing wrong with their minds either. It's just their bodies that have them trapped. But they're so irrepressibly cheerful that it's impossible not to smile at them, which is great. At the same time it makes the whole experience worse than anything I can possibly describe. Their carers have my complete admiration; I couldn't look after them day in and day out. I'd go mad.

Today was my first day at Chuutan, and I can't say it was a terrible experience. The kids were all mobile, even if a few were simply not "here" during the lesson. Most of them could talk, most of them could walk, most of them could understand. Some of them couldn't. But the lesson - if such it could be called - went well, some of the kids had a high old time, and kept on giggling during the lesson, while others stared blankly at walls and things. Lunch time was an experience - I left one boy with my name written on a piece of paper - some sort of autograph I believe. And one of the lads I ate with was inclined to hitting things, which was not so great.

But all in all nothing too traumatic happened. Except that it was obvious to me, throughout the whole morning, that all of these kids were well below their own mental age level, some with additional problems, and I couldn't really cope with that idea. So I turned off, became a smiling marionette and played at being cheerful while inside I was dying slowly each time a bright and happy face looked up at me with the correct answer and I wondered how far he would have gone if he or she didn't have whatever condition he or she has. And tomorrow it's going to get worse. Tomorrow I'm teaching a boy with muscular dystrophy. A perfect mind trapped in an unresponsive body. At least these children are, for the most part, pretty unaware of the fact that they are "different" from other children their age. I sincerely doubt that will be the case tomorrow.

International Ayabe actually felt like a chore today, especially so since my friend S (who usually is there with me) managed to lock her keys in her car for about one and a half hours, and thus could only be there for the last half an hour. Fortunately we both have the entire summer holiday away from this so this was the last meeting until September. Which is great because it frees up my Tuesdays, and gives me something less to worry about.

S is considerably less stressed today, despite the key incident - documents and stuff are moving along a bit and her bf's picture now has the improvements done and dusted. She's still not sure if she wants to show it to him, but he did ask for it, and I told her he wouldn't be disappointed. She's so good at drawing, how could he be? I'm not sure that she's convinced, but at least I tried.

Today was the second day of oral exams at Oe, and though they did well, they were not so good as the classes on Friday. Much less expression and intonation, virtually no body language?Eactually I'd say their main teacher has not been giving them any help or hints as to where they could improve before the test. Which wouldn't surprise me - he doesn't seem to have much involvement with the students except on a superficial level, unlike the lady who teaches the other lot. It's a pity, because several of them have it in them to be really good with a bit of encouragement, but there's not much I can do since he really does control the class entirely.

In other news, I'm really chuffed with both myself and S - we both got our Iaido Shoudan belts today! First black belt! Yaay! We had thought that we weren't being graded on the 28th and 29th, but obviously we were, and there was probably some paperwork to be done before we could get our certificates. So now I have a shiny new certificate saying I've got my Shoudan, written in kanji of course. And it certainly makes up for the headache I'vee had all day.

Of course I'm stressing out about the whole thing tomorrow - I'm really hoping the main teachers have everything planned out well, because I don't have a clue how to teach handicapped kids and I doubt I can learn in three days. Really need to get some decent sleep, but of course I won't. At least I found my hanko today, so I'm no longer worrying about that. I just have to sort out my Japanese drivers licence now, and that's it. I do pity S - she's really been quite stressed about the whole visa business. I can't believe you can't do it by post. Absolutely ridiculous. But on top of that she's biting her nails over showing her bf his portrait that she's drawn for him, and she has to sort out her Japanese licence, her brother's birthday present and various other things. I think she has too much on her plate. But she always does, in my opinion - she really does need to learn how to say "No."

Well, I spent far too much money today. Not that I regret it, but the substantial pile of manga illustrations I now have possession of hardly seem to be a suitable sort of thing to have bought. Although I could plead innocence and point to the two new dictionaries claiming them as my primary purchase. Which isn't entirely true - they are outnumbered by a considerable amount by the manga, but they were more expensive... sort of. But I'm very happy with my stash, and am not giving it up! Especially not the Dragonball books - all the way from 1 to 16, excluding 13, which wasn't there. So now I have from the beginning of the whole original saga through to the beginning of the Saiyan Saga, complete with some very nummy pictures - Yamucha, Vejiita and Radditsu are my favourites. I'lll have to scan them in and show them off to some people.

The only problem is that they are all in Japanese and therefore will take a bit of study to understand. Most of the kanji have furigana next to them though, and I have my handy kanji dictionary for the rest - although it is only a beginners one... As to the rest of my stash... I have random artists illustrations, including one yaoi one - which S almost caught sight of. Lucky escape there - being the good Catholic girl she is, I don't think she would have approved of it. She's already voiced her opinion that yaoi manga are weird, and people who buy them are even weirder. I kept my opinions to myself - she's a great friend, but we've only known each other for less than a year and I don't want to create tension in our tiny community. I'lll find more like-minded people later on in my life, when I'm more settled and have a large enough stack of manga to act as a comfort blanket...

On a related note, she's stressing about her visa - her passport expired this year, so she got a new one, but the Japanese end of things will not transfer her perfectly valid visa from her old passport to her new one. Nor will it transfer her re-entry permit. So she has one passport that's out of date and one that is no help as to staying in this country. Of course there are procedures that you can go through to ameliorate this, but they take ages and have to be done in person. Nothing, it seems, can be done by post - not even the filling in of forms. Which is ridiculous, especially since they want her there, in person, for a whole day each time, even if it's just the whole form-filling in nonsense. Absolutely insane. And here I came over with the stereotype of Japanese efficiency fixed firmly in my head.

In related news, I believe I've lost my hanko (signature stamp thingy that one uses in place of writing one's own signature). Which is a bit of a bugger to be honest, but not the end of the world. Of course I'm anxious out about Chutan School visit already, so this is just one more, tiny niggling thing that isn't really helping the situation. I'm going to to console myself with manga now.

Today was my quiet day in - doing lots of coding for my site. I'm hoping to upload some of it tomorrow while I'm in Kyoto. The international centre does Internet, and there are a few Internet cafes as well. I know there's one in my hometown somewhere, so I'lll have a go at finding that and see how far I get. Surely it can't be that hard... I hope!

Well, today was the first day of the first oral exam I've held in Oe Senior High, and it went really well, if I do say so myself. The students had all obviously practiced hard, had their body language down pat, put intonation in, and had virtually perfect pronunciation. It's scary to hear yourself speaking out of someone else's mouth however...

::: posted by Saru at 2:35 am

Wednesday, May 14, 2003 :::

Let's try this again. The first message was lost in the wonder that is either; a) blogger or b) my school network. I am left guessing which.

Much fun and frolicking was not had today. Why am I not surprised? Although it all started rather well... considering I was late for work. Charging my car along the roads at the dizzying speed of 30 kilometres per hour, I was muttering to myself about being late. It didn't help that the car ahead of me was slowing down unpredictably along an empty road. A road whose speed limit is 40 kph. Obviously there had to be a reason for this bizarre behaviour, since not even Japanese drivers are that bad. So I looked more closely.

There was a ball of long, pale hair on the back shelf of the car that abruptly moved and resolved itself into the shape of a toy dog, possibly a Pekinese. I couldn't see the face so I couldn't tell. Disregarding this living car ornament, I looked closer, only to see a dog of the same breed, with the same topnot, driving the car. It had a pair of hands and what looked suspiciously like a woman's head peeking above it, but it was definitely the one driving the car. It even had its paws on the wheel. A third dog sat in the passenger seat, peering through the windscreen, no doubt giving directions. That would explain the hesitant driving then.

As to my current irritation; I have just been told that I will be working in a school for handicapped children sometime in July. For a few days, nothing permanent. I have also been informed by my supervisor that the Vice-Principal agrees to this. Well, that's all well and good for him, but when was I ever asked about this? Or even informed that such an idea was being bandied about? It's been in the works for quite a while, considering the arrangements have all been made, right up to my bloody itinerary. How lovely. Of course, I don't know the details, but they do. I don't even know how handicapped these children are, which more than concerns me. Considering that the few instances I have interacted with handicapped people have been unmitigated disasters, leaving both me and them upset and depressed, I really rather think this is an important factor. And I know it might sound selfish, but I have very little ability to deal with either physical or mental disability - I've never experienced it first-hand, never had a relative or friend with any sort of condition more serious than dyslexia and I am not happy about the whole affair. In fact, I am annoyed and worried in equal measure and I want to have words with my supervisor. Unfortunately that is not how Japan works. So instead I will grit my teeth and endure and probably become very upset about it all. I don't cope with that sort of thing well. Some do. I'm not one of them.

And I've just spent the afternoon shouting my voice hoarse, trying to get some reaction out of students who really couldn't be bothered. And some who are evidently about as cooperative as a sea slug.

Do I sound annoyed?

Ooops.

I am loving it here really. Today was just... a bad day.

::: posted by Saru at 11:22 pm

Ooooh! It worked. Maybe tomorrow I can figure out how to make my own layout. Should I not screw up then everyone will be able to view my small artistic ability. Possibly.

::: posted by Saru at 12:45 am

Uhmm... Oh dear. I just took the advice of one Joules. I really should learn to say no.

This is a test. Lets see if it works. At least I will have some sort of interaction on a web-level with people I cannot otherwide get in touch with. Assuming this works...

Heh. I really should be doing work. Oh well.

::: posted by Saru at 12:42 am