…finally I’ve got round to documenting it.
The night before, I went out for dinner with HF to a bistro in Hamada, I suppose it’s considered a cool place because they play rap and hip hop music straight from the American charts. But the food was good, most notably a loaf of bread that had been hollowed out, the inside diced, slightly toasted and drizzled with honey. But it doesn’t finish there! The diced bits of bread drizzled with honey were then returned to the bread shell along with some vanilla ice cream. It was good. To the power of six. Discussed with HF some finer linguistic details, namely trying to identify the exact point at which hot rolled up towels change from being “n long cylindrical things” into “n one flat things” when being unrolled, for purposes of counting. Click that link and education yourself. Met by chance at the bistro ALT Leah and her gaijin dining companions, her birthday is two days before mine.
My birthday started with me waking up with a feeling of maturity, and a sense that I was considerably more capable of owning a firearm, gambling, drinking, smoking, voting, becoming a prostitute or client thereof, buying porn or being a “model” [wikipedia] than I was the day before. Not. Childhood innocence, goodbye!!!
Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t gain any of the above privileges until I leave Japan as Japanese people come of age at 20. I had to reply to the Transport Department’s advice for curing a hangover by saying that I in fact did not get drunk that night (it was also in the middle of the school week). I think that news might disappoint a few people.
Received over the course of the day:
- Bag from Ashley in banana style. Included in the bag was a pair of chopsticks, plastic cup, 1.5 litres of milk tea, two more bags, a letterset and a beautiful letter.
- Best card ever from Karen (“and some birds”), 1 pack of timtams. Will investigate where she sourced them.
- Second best card ever from Trixie.
- Two lettersets from Takezaki-sensei
- More???
Ashley informed my favourite class (3-3 Oral Communication) of the fact of the day and made them sing a certain song for me. I won’t mention its title. Guess. 3-3 kids who had had their birthday this year were asked what they did/received for their birthday, and then had to wish the same for me.
“CosmosPostman, I hope you can play water polo championships all day”
“CosmosPostman, I hope you get money from parents”
“CosmosPostman, I hope that she get cake from her friends”
Went out for sushi with the gaijin club as per usual, followed by bowling as per not usual.
ESS [English Speaking Society] club on Friday afternoon held an “Autumn Party” (it was Hitomi’s birthday on the same day as mine, but she doesn’t observe birthdays due to her religious beliefs – thus the Autumn Party naming convention). Attended by Ashley, Hitomi, Mayu and Megumu (who left half way through due to reasons to complex to report here). I married Mayu and gave her a ring worth about 20 yen. Mayu then revealed that she actually had a boyfriend in Hiroshima, a 20(?) year old bar tender, who she much preferred over me. We divorced:
“So Mayu, seeing how we’re getting divorced so soon, could you please give me the ring back so I can give it to someone else?”
“OK, here you go” (with a smile)
“Thankyou”
“Your welcome”
Mayu always makes me laugh inadvertently because her conversations usually almost converge to the topics of senseis Komatsubara and Seiyama, the two young male teachers who are quite cool (news of the week: the former is getting married, what’s poor Mayu going to talk about now?). I think there’s a photo of them singing in the entry about the school culture festival if you want to see what I mean. She always finds a way to mention one or the other, no matter what we’re talking about.
A few days later, I was invited to cake and tea with the Sasaki-senseis (both of them), the home ec. teacher, Mira-sensei the nurse and the tuckshop [intl. English: School Store] lady. I really appreciate their consideration and don’t discount their kindness when I say… it was incredibly awkward making polite conversation with five women (some of whom I don’t know really well) who – let’s face it – like talking to “cute” (I quote) young foreign guys.
Here is something beautiful that I found in the gutter. Go create some sentimental meaning for yourselves.
This entry’s excuse for incoherency is the fact that I’m just getting over a very weak cold. I might add one or two pictures later, check again soon.
