Which season do I like?

Another essay for my secret masters. Feel free to laugh, as long as you point out what's wrong where.

さあ、実はアメリカでは秋が好きだった。
でも日本には春がなかなか好きになっちゃった。
なぜなれば、日本の春は植物がきれいなみどりになる。
泣けるほど美しいさ。さらに、その頃、雨が多いので、
苔がしげている。苔むした神社やお寺が大好きだ。

つまり、古い場所に行くことは僕の趣味なのだから、
春だろうが、いつだろうが、行ければいい。
春は僕の趣味とあっている。

It just keeps going up

I love being an egomaniac.
From the chat logs:

J: dude i just noticed you're now up to 308 subscribers
me: yeah
I'll make a self-congradulating video soon
;)
J: your subscribers demand it to be so

Have snorkel, will mail

This is pretty cool, and has inspired me to make a trip (does anyone know if you need training to snorkel in Japan?). One can send mail underwater off the coast of Wakayama.

on Japan's southeast coast, there exists an underwater mailbox. It's not a sunken relic that now serves as an artificial reef. Rather, it's an actual, working mail collection point officially recognized as part of Susami's postal system. Evidently, the mailbox is 33 feet beneath the water, and divers are required to use special waterproof plastic postcards. Each day, the contents are collected from the box, which reportedly contains as many as 200 pieces of mail on the busy days.

Not that far away, Malaysia's Reef Dive Resort has set up what it believes to be that country's first underwater mailbox. Any mail sent through this mailbox is sealed inside plastic bags and is postmarked with a special stamp.

Read the whole article.
And while you are there, why not use an edible, squid-flavored post stamp?

How to legalize it

I don't smoke the wacky weed, but for years I've been wondering why juries convict people that do. Why? Because juries have the right to judge a law or sentence unfair. It's why prohibition didn't stick. Anyways, I found an article that reminded me of this principal, and it warmed my semi-libertarian heart. Read.
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Also, I've wondered why medical marijauna cannot be administered in pill form. What's the deal with that?

Your word of the day

屁理屈　(herikutsu) means sophistry, quibble, or nonsense. 理屈 means theory, and 屁 means fart. I find this very funny, because if you say someone is a 屁理屈屋 (herikutsuya, or sophist), you are saying they are full of hot air in more ways than one.

What words have you made up?

Which is more complicated, Japanese or English?

Every once in a while, a Japanese person will pose this question to me. They always seem flabbergasted that I think English is more complicated. Actually, I try to clarify that I think English is much easer to learn. Learning Japanese often feels like learning four or five languages at once.
To learn Japanese, you have to cover:

Two sylaballaries

about 2,000 standard Chinese characters

maybe about 1,000 more if you want a specialized job

stroke order, if you want to be able to write

the multiple readings for Chinese characters

the local dialect

familiarity with major dialects

slang

common punchlines

old Japanese is a plus

idioms are a plus

Humble, middle, and honorific language

How to juggle in-group to out-group speech

Katakana words from other languages

Learning which words are too technical/archaic to be used (often after you have already memorized them).

So I think it's a challenge to learn Japanese in the first place. But I still think the grammar is ridiculously simple. Only two verbs in the entire language are irregular. The spelling is fairly simple. And most of the elements reinforce each other. I am actually thankful for kanji, cause sometimes it's the only way I remember a word's meaning, and there can be nice nuance communicated through them (見るvs.観る for example).
Anyways, I don't really think I need to go into why English is harder. But I will share this link with you. Maybe you'll see my point through it.

Lessons

Long ago, I was an art teacher. I was also the pottery teacher, but I've never been good at throwing. It was like "Wow that's... better than anthing I can do! Okay!"
My first session, which was a short visit of a couple weeks, went pretty well. I made one, I feel, major mistake during my second session, which was a whole semester split between two schools. My mistake was following the lead of the real teacher and being a disciplinarian. Hardcore. I punished bad students, albiet half-heartedly. I think the students could sense I wasn't really feeling as strict as I acted, and it was not exactly smooth going.
Then I got to the junior high and leared that 1)most rules are arbitrary and should be ignored 2)ultimatums are a stupid thing to utter, cause if you follow through half you class could end up in detention that period, or you could just undermine your own athority if you don't follow through (for this reason don't be a disciplinarian in the first place, you have to follow through from then on) 3)Special ed students love you; regular students hate their lives and project that on to you.
So, I feel I am a much better teacher these days. I don't discipline; it's actually a very interesting experiment, this Japanese Education system. I don't really reward either, beyond a "your team won!" There is some guy I learned about in pedagogy classes that advocated this system. Basically, students will learn if they want to, and that is what happens here.
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Also along nostalgic lines, today on my "radio show" I will teach the students how to use "in'it", just like my Native American students used to do.

Troll 2, the review

A b-quality review of a B movie

A vid response to my invitation

This is a response to one of my vids. I thought it was intentionally hilarious; the interaction between the mom and kids. You'll see.

Let me tell you about ananonanonano-merica

Sorry esoteric title there. Anyways, enjoy the vid.

Japanese Tradition Videos Still Comin Out?!

I've shown this playlist before, but it is now updated to include all Japanese Tradition vids I could find.

Thanks to Reda for bringing it to my attention.