There are a few days left in 2004 but I thought that before we get into 2005 that a review of sorts is in order. Today is where I holler my Shout Outs to things that made this year memorable.
Best Buy
I look at our year together as a lesson in humility. Sure, I was called incompetent by managers, was told to lie to customers (FREE MAGAZINES!) was demoted to the check lanes. But ours was a give and take relationship. I gave you about 6-8 hours everyday from my 25th year of life in this world, and you gave me almost 7 dollars for each one of those hours. You gave me a discount (5% over cost) and I became a source of slightly cheaper cds and obscenely cheap computer cables for friends who paid me back later. You taught me that absolute retail insanity is at it's most vile and potent at 5am the day after Thanksgiving. On the other hand, you did also pair me to work with some really interesting people and for their friendship, I do thank you. The lessons I learned will stay with me for a while 'cause I have not been able to forget them yet.
Gallup
Thanks for teaching me the truth behind all of your journalistic integrity in your poll results. Your polls say things like "51% of Americans are for/against blah blah blah" but instead of "Americans" you ought to correct it by saying "American people who were willing to take our poll ". Now, I admit, I only spent 5 weeks calling people around the country at random on behalf of walmart's marekting department as your employee, and I have never gone to Gallup University or whatever you call your school, but (and this is amazing) Not everyone likes to take polls. I don't like to give them but I will take them. I don't care for telemarting calls though.. but after my time with you my demeanor to those who make telemarketing calls is a lot more refined. Now I just hang up without saying anything, because believe me, they MUCH prefer that than to excuses as to why I can't talk right now. But I do take the surveys when they come, because those kids have insane quotas to meet.
My 1989 buick Le Sabre
Baby, I didn't let that left front quarter panel dent and slightly shifted bumber stop me from driving you off the car lot. Your 1,200 dollar price tag became the rose colored glasses that let me see past things like smooth finishes and protruding buckled steel. I loved your tight red vinyl top... It went so well with the wire hubcaps on those sexy, smooth bald tires and that sassy little plastic chromed "luggage rack" on your trunk. Even after that idiot in his Jeep on campus backed into you on R street while I was watching Good Bye Lenin and put a dent in your left cheek, we still kept on riding.
My sudden jump in popularity
When I was in Junior High the first time, girls never ran to me from across the school yard screaming my name. Nor did they ever ambush me with hugs saying "I love you" in two languages. The cool kids never came up to me for high fives in the hallway on the way to math class, and not once did I get asked to play soccer with the jocks. My, how things change. Don't get me wrong, this is not bragging. I know that any other Assistant Language Teacher has had the exact same experiences at schools here in Japan. Having the admiration of the 12 to 17 year old crowd is great- Ask Britney Spears- but if it is only based off of simply being Not-Japanese then it kind of tempers one's ego. Good kids though, and I likes them all.
White guys in tokyo who get uppity when they see me
Hi fellas. Tokyo is great isn't it? The big city. Culture, shopping, and all those Japanese people. But wait- whats that? Did you see me? Whoops, we made eye contact. You better look away real quick. . . And is that a cell phone you are pulling out of your bag? Wow! So that means that you must live here! A cell phone! Cool! whoa now- whats that you are reaching for? is it.. is it-- IT IS! A book in Japanese! Neat! Where did you get that? Ok, now--- thats it- show me the cover in a slightly subtle way-- Yep. I see the kanji. We have Kanji Conformation. Hey! You just opend to a page at random! B..But your book mark was in different place. . . Oh, and I see you just closed the book after 5 seconds. You must have found the information you were looking for right away. And-- your girlfriend! she is totally staring at me. So are you, when you think I am not looking. She has such nice eyes- I really like how they glare at my female friend with whom I am out with. Yeah, I know.. my friend happens to be japanese too. What are we going to do? ha ha ha.
Come on guys. Tokyo is a big city, and Japan is a big country. There is enough Japan to go around, ok? I am not asking for a self introduction when we meet. I don't even care if you say hi or anything. If we do make eye contact, a simple head nod or something would be acceptable. None of this frontin' thing that goes on. Besides we probably have more in common than we realize. Look at me for example- I am a homely white guy from middle America who liked anime enough to take japanese at my state university and came to japan for a 12 week fall study abroad program with my light colored blue jeans and a dragonball t-shirt. Now I am an ALT in a tokyo suburb who dresses in darker colors, traded the eastpack backpack for a shoulder courrier bag and puts wax in my hair to make it look edgy. Mine is a story that could be shared by many many other young white twenty-something males in Japan's capital. There is no reason to try and show others how much better you can "Do Japan" than someone else. Let go of that stress and try to be more like 75% of the other gaijin here. I promise you will have a better time.
See you around.
My bank's atm hours
Thanks Keio bank for your ATM operating hours. I try to be open minded. I do my best here in Japan. I don't over simplify things by saying Japan is Wacky or Crazy- but man... I can't take out money from an ATM at 7am in a convinence store that is open 24 hours a day? I am headed to Kamakura! I need another ichi-man yen! Jeeze-- what do I have to do? Plan ahead financially? I am an American after all.
Lucky Camera
On this one street in Shinjuku there are two spots of interest that I always look out for. One where I stop and look, and at the other spot I slow down and pretend like I am not actually looking. The place where I pretend not to be leering is the doorway to an adult movie theatre that has suprisingly frank posters that are well lit at night. The place where I do stop and also leer is at the front windows of Lucky Camera. They have probably a few hundred cameras in a store the size of my living room. Most of them are displayed in the two large front windows. This is where in 2002 I bought my gently used Bessa R2, and my M6 in late August. As I mentioned before, the top plate has come loose and it sometimes jams. Warranty in hand I took it in this week to get looked at. My heart jumped just a bit after the clerk rooted around under the counter and then plunged a pair of very ordinary looking needle nose pliers into the film chamber. They did not look like special inported german camera repair pliers. They looked more like the kind you use to bend coat hangers or build a chicken wire sculpture with. After a few (tense) seconds, He said he might be able to fix it, but if I want he could send it to someone who really could. This was the option I liked best, and now my camera is somewhere out there, maybe being looked at and all I have that connects me to it is a slip of paper that they have that has my name and number on it. This is called Faith In Humanity.
United Airlines
Thanks for haulling my sorry butt to Japan after I left my passport on the plane that brought me to Chicago from Omaha. But my passport came back a few hours later And hey, I got to ride on one of your Boeing 777s. Not bad except for the non-working tv screen and being in the middle seat of the middle row. But that was pennance for losing my passport I guess. Good thing I did get it back on the same day though. Sometimes if I want to scare myself I try and imagine what would have happened if I did not do a final passport check before I boarded my originally scheduled American Airlines flight.
The local 7-11's copy machine
I frequent my local 7-11 for two reasons. The first is for those damn fine niku man things at the front counter. The second is to use their amazing color copier by the front window. I can get better color copies at 7-11 than at an American kinkos at half the cost. This lets me make the Art that I do in a flashy vivid way, and so this lets me think I am an Young Up and Coming Artist.
AMPM
Across the street from school is our local AMPM convenience store. This is our breadbasket. A place to grab a can of coke and a salmon onigiri. A place for pizza-mans and cell phone bill payments. This is a store that is not even 100 feet from a Junior/Senior High AND kindergarten that sells cans of cold beer and hard liquor. I love how this is not even an issue here. People freak out in Nebraska at the university level if someone trys to sell beer 500 feet or closer to the campus. AMPM gets several hundred yen of mine each day. I NEED those choco-chip bread sticks.
kenshukan.net / this blog
I was so sure that a "blog" was never something that I would try and partake in. I was wrong I guess. Now with the help of www.kenshukan.net, Nick Lahm, and moveable type, All sorts of things that would have once been too banal for words suddenly can be photographed and written about to post on the internet! I PUT CURRY ON TOAST????? I BETTER WRITE ABOUT THAT!