Hey there, I'm going to a bloggers' party tonight, on the invitation of the virally net-famous
Danny Choo (he's the dancing stormtrooper). So I thought this would be a good time to post this screen grab from a website that compiles a multimedia wall of youtube content based on keywords, in order to have something to present tonight. My keyword was, of course, Claytonian. Have a look:
I do pleading eyebrows quite often, don't I. And to think, I laughed at the same eyebrows on Natalie Portman when she said, "You're breaking my heart, Anakin!" Hey, back on Starwars already. Annnnd... off it.
--
I make cheap copies at a local bookstore for my freelancing. I think the owner doesn't like foreigners or something; I've seen her talk nicely to other customers but she treats me like dirt and avoids polite language beyond the bare minimum of masu-form when I have a problem with the machine, which is often (it's an odd machine). Now, it's a bit late in the game for me to realize this, having just turned 28, but I've come to feel that I get really stressed when I don't have a good relationship with someone (I am also a perverse blend of instigator and peace maker--what a meddler I be). So I am trying to get this lady to warm up, for my own sake if nothing else. "Hello," I say each time I come (in Japanese of course). She has yet to change, so I get more stressed and try to be more friendly. And I could probably--nay should-- take my business elsewhere, but this odd thing of a Japanese person being rude really gets to me and I
have to try...
Along the same vein, some of the members of the English club I work for have complained that my lessons are a bit too hard. I really stress out when I hear that sort of thing, thought it shall be a simple matter to change things (my plans are already in motion, and my simpler reading materials arranged). So I am worried. While I know what is like to not get things in a language learning situation (boy do I ever know), I am a little unsure of what a retiree wants out of an English club. It seems they are in it more for something fun to do than to improve their skills, and who am I to dis that idea? When you retire, you wanna take it easy right? My instigator-side isn't happy with complacency though...
Oh, one more thing about the copy lady. She sells
magazines with little girls in bikinis on the cover (work safe link, I swear) in her store, so at the end of the day, if I can't charm her, I can at least feel
superior. And that, folks, is, in a nutshell, how to lead a successful lifestyle in a foreign land!
a cha cha!
High grammar on a urinal.
A Tanabata tree. Kind of like a mid-July Christmas tree. But totally not.
Okay, this and the next one aren't panoramas, but are in fact my graduation messages for my graduating kids last go around. All funny-looking kanji were done by my own blighted hand. This is why I came to Japan, so I could do these two specific graduation messages.
One reason why I take bike rides.
So I says to him, I says, "that's some handsome hay."
From Nagasaki's artificial Holland. Expensive town; you have to pay just to walk around it. Two more:
Tara, the sea, and the mountains.
This picture is so perfectly melodramatic! "I can use it this much for free you say?! A moving English study site" I try to make jokes with this flavor all the time, but whooosh! Over their heads.
Someone, I beg you, tell me where in Japan this restaurant is.
I get the impression that everybody else considers her hat to be funny. Gotta zoom this one.
I know this is in Japan somewhere as well, but even I can't imagine the road being built so incompitently.
Degree of look-a-likeness: 100%. My 1st graders call me Mr. Satan instead of Mr. B. Or Mr. X or H.
I threatened the making of Japanese LOL cats a while ago, but these are all I got through.
I couldn't be bothered to find the originals or give credit.
And the child-speech I choose as a LOL-speak equivalent hurts my brain.
I finally got a working bike and rode up into the mountains to take in spring. Spring mountains always restore my love of Japan. Highlights included meeting the old woman, impressing some kids, and seeing the old man after a long time.
After the "fight," the students started calling me a hero. I found this image when I went into the announcement room to do my show; they said it was me punishing. Well... they got the bright red eyebrows right...
Students have huge problems with creativity. So I thought this worksheet I made would be a failure (they choose the panel order and write the dialogue) but a surprising number came through on it.
A girl made this. Not only the first time I've seen a girl use a traditionally male pencil case design and make it into something else, but then she attached lucky charms like it was a cell-phone.
