Ho Ho Ho! Here comes Tony Claus?!?

Nothing makes Japanese kids cry like me in a Santa outfit.

Sorry about the quality here, I took pictures of pictures...I think you'll enjoy them anyways! (Click them for a bigger, easier to see picture.)




I love the kid fixing his hat.



I sure wish they'd have given Santa a chair. He hates sitting on the floor!!!

Two posts for the price of one.

That's right, two posts in one day. I'm prolific.

Anyway, another rough day for me today. I was going downtown to meet a friend for her birthday party. I got downtown a little early to get my haircut and do some shopping (best haircut I've ever had in Japan, worst hair styling to date...I looked like Farrah Faucett).

Just before the agreed upon birthday party meeting time, I realized I couldn't find my keys. Now, I'm a pretty, absent-minded person (by pretty, I mean attractive), so there was always the possibility that I just left the keys at home and never locked the door.

Nevertheless, I retraced my steps downtown, but turned up nothing. I was already late, and had a decision to make (it was 8pm). Do I go home and try to sort out the key, or do I go to the party. I went home, and boy, am I glad I did.

I got there, and as you can guess, I was locked out. Most of my neighbors are on holidays, so I went to a downstairs neighbor I had never met, and knocked on her door. She came to the door, but wouldn't open it. We had a 15 minute conversation about my predicament...she never opened her door!!!...I have never seen this woman's face! Eventually I was able to procure a ladder and break in through my balcony - a difficult procedure on a normal day, made more difficult by the fact that Sendai received its first dump of snow today. Also, the Japanese consider a sliding glass door to be a window, which caused some major conversational confusion.

Anyway, I am safe and sound now, and happy to once again be inside my frigid house.


By the way

Two more sleeps until I go to the "Pride Man Festival."

Chew on that for a while.

Pretty big quake tonight.

Tonight was probably the biggest earthquake I've felt so far in my time in Japan. Nothing too scary, but quite a bit of shaking and banging around. I never really know what to do when the earthquake is actually happening (they last for what seems like 30 seconds). I usually just sit very still, and hope the floor of my apartment doesn't fall through and swallow me up.

In case you were wondering...I couldn't feel the massive, awful quake that did so much damage in countries near the Indian ocean.

I knew this would happen.

When I started my last post with, "This should be interesting..." I knew how it was going to go!

Alright, here's a repost of the video!

link

The Audio decoder link is still working.

Good luck everyone...boy will it be anticlimactic when you see the video - if you do see it, 6 of us slept in the room.

Tony

Time for some video.

Okay...this is going to be interesting.

I went to a Japanese-style hotel this past weekend and shot some video of the room.

You can download the video here:
http://s7.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=02A920FB5E43175EBD216B152DEC67CE

I have a feeling you will see a picture, but not hear the sound.
You need a very specific audio decoder. Download the audio decoder here:
http://s13.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=FD738E35C941A96E801F585D01AC4D95

Good luck to all. Let me know if you get the vid working.

These links will die in a week.

Tony

An eventful shower

The other day I was in the shower. It was early so I was rubbing my eyes; while I was rubbing I felt got a strange feeling, and I heard an ominous pop.

"This is it", I thought to myself, "I have somehow manged to pop my eyeball out of its socket". (I have been fearing this day would come for quite some time.) I cupped my hand over my right eye (to hold the potentially dislodged organ (is the eye an organ?) in place). I got out of the shower dripping wet and stood in front of my mirror. I must have stood there, buck naked, for about a minute. I was mentally preparing for the horrific scene that was to ensue when I removed my hand. Would the eye come tumbling out? Surely it's attached by sinews and nerves, so how far would it drop, and when it reached the end of the slack, would it bounce back, bungie style, or rip right off. My mental image was that it would drop about a foot, then bounce around hanging by thick, pink sinews.

Finally, I removed my hand. To my relief, this website would not be seeing any business from me.

I returned to my shower, heart racing...and went on to have a decidedly average day.

The Mystery Present

I referenced my Secret Santa gift in my December 10th post. I have now opened it and am still coming to terms with what I found inside. It's like a riddle, wrapped in an enigma.

The following post may not be suitable for young readers...

Scroll down at your own risk...

































Well, if you guessed sausage stuck inside a cermaic Christmas tree...you win a prize!

What do you think the person is trying to tell me?

Is a bad post better than no post at all?

I really didn't have much to talk about today, but I still managed to ramble for a few minutes...what do you think...if I have nothing to talk about should I even bother?

Your feedback appreciated!

Lovingly yours,

Tony

Some Negative Feedback...

From my inbox tonight...


"... giving poor Japanese kids milkshakes instead of eggnog? You have reached a new low. If lowness were mysteries, that stunt would be the pyramids. If lowness were gayness, that stunt would be Richard Simmons in Pink Spandex. If lowness were roughness, that stunt would be rest-stop toilet paper.

I clearly hope you express my disdain/berating on your message board... and perhaps then the rest will give you the denunciation your actions deserve. I am beggining to think that people such as yourself are here to teach us boundaries we are not transgress - it was a milkshake NOT eggnog.. Frank is so not impressed."


The person who sent me this mail wished to remain anonymous, so let's give him (or her) the pseudonym Frank C.

Listen Caputo, and any other would-be critics out there. It was the best teaching move ever. It got my students excited about Christmas, and interested in learning more about international cultures. The success was so great, in fact, that I actually brought in "eggnog" for all of the staff. It was a hit and a morale booster for the great staff at Takasago Junior High.

I am proud of my behavior in this, and frankly all of my teaching endeavors and I stand behind my decision 100%.

Eggnog sucks. "Eggnog" rules!

Tony

P.S.

We did Secret Santa's at the English teacher's meeting today. Check out the note that was on mine!




Pretty mysterious, eh?

Christmas Lessons Stink!

Christmas is in the air. In Japan, Christmas is a time for love, and for shopping…but Christmas brings with it more than just rampant commercialism and romance, it brings the dreaded Christmas lessons!

I hate teaching soft topics – ie no grammar, just culture – I feel like a rudderless ship. With grammar it’s pretty straightforward: model the grammar, then do a fun activity where the students use the grammar. Culture is more difficult I feel like it’s me standing at the front of the class saying, “In Canada, we do this…in Japan what do you do?” (Then the other teacher translating what I have just said.) It makes for a pretty boring lesson, and I always need to bring some sort of gimmickry to the table to get through it.

This year’s gimmick was eggnog. Eggnog doesn’t exist in Japan…nobody’s even heard of it. So I thought to myself, “Self, why don’t you make a huge batch of eggnog and bring it in so all the kids can try it.” Easy enough, right? My first attempt at eggnog was awful! I followed the “easy” internet recipe to the letter…unfortunately it tasted disgusting (I don’t really like eggnog anyway). After several failed attempts at eggnog, where each batch was worse than the last, I concluded that my problem was one of two things: 1.) I can’t make eggnog and/or 2.) I can’t stand eggnog. Likely both 1.) and 2.)

Anyway that’s when I had a brilliant idea. Why don’t I make a tasty drink, and pass it off as eggnog, it's not like they'll know! Here’s what I did: I bought a bunch of vanilla ice cream, let it melt, added milk, topped it with nutmeg and served it chilled. Voila…milkshake!….errr…eggnog!

The only problem is that when kids love it and ask for the recipe I’ve given them the real eggnog recipe, not my vanilla milkshake recipe, so if they make it at home it’s going to be bad. Oh well, they’ll just think they messed up the recipe I guess!

Tony

My sleep loss = Your listening gain

So, It's 4:15am and I can't sleep. Why, you ask...check the audio.

This update includes my reason for being up at this ludicrous hour, and a description of the Japanese barbershop experience. If you're interested, click here:

If you are not interested in these topics, I would recommend listening "Das Hit" German radio instead:

(This may not work for those of you at work).

Enjoy!

Tony

Now everyone can comment!

Just a quick note to let you know I changed my settings to allow anonymous commenting so you wont need to sign up for an account!

Thanks to Nicole for pointing it out to me (4 times!!)

I'll do a longer post late tonight...

Tony

I'm not a T-Man

My friend Jonny, a very funny British ALT, recently pointed me in the direction of t-nation.com. In case you're wondering, the T in T-Nation stands for testosterone. He also suggested that I might be lacking in the T department, and could use some tips from the site. He even went as far as to suggest that I may have some *gasp* E tendencies. (Whilst trumpeting himself as the pinnacle of t-men - you can see his posts on T-nation.com under the user name "Glute Alors!")

This got me to thinking about myself...do I really have E tendencies? Am I not a T-man? The answer was an undeniable yes...errr...no...okay I've phrased things poorly...yes to the first question and no to the second. Although I may be having some sort of double negative issue with the second question.

To clarify: I am not a T-Man.

Last weekend I was at the bar, and all the guys at my table started comparing their pecs (pectoral muscles). They would pull their shirts tight and try to flex their pecs, comparing movement and flexing styles. This is the truth: a segment of my life was devoted to proper vs illegal arm movement when flexing one's pectorals. (For the curious, even the most minor of arm movements, is a gross breach of pec flexing protocol.)

I have other friends who occasionally like to wrestle around with eachother. As a non T-man, I really don't understand it, and frankly it makes me very uncomfortable. I'm always concerned that it's going to spill over and somehow jostle me into the fray. Can someone explain to me what 20-something dudes are out to prove by wrestling? I understand there's something animal going on...but I understand it much better in nature shows - when too rams are banging heads, doesn't the winning ram get some action? This is a room full of dudes, there are no women to be impressed...and yet wrestling in some form still occurs on occasion. It's deeply troubling to me, but it seems to be accepted. Why is that?

I'd love to get a shout out from someone with some insight into the T-Man. What motivates this strange but common individual? Why does he need to flex pecs, and wrestle? And most importantly, why is he always offering to go skins in basketball when we have perfectly good pinnies?

I need answers.

Tony

P.S.
If you are looking to up your T-Level...don't consume soy.

Starting over

I was ao inspired by my cousin Bryanna's awesome blog, and my friend Hien's great blog, that I have decided to start my blog anew. (Actually I didn't want to start a new blog, but when I tried to post to the old one, it didn't work!)
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In case you have forgotten me, (and really, who could blame you?) here is a recent picture taken from my cel phone:
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Here's one of me with some students. (I am in the middle)
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The students normally wear school uniforms, and the skirt length on the left wouldn't fly in junior high school, but high school girls wear RIDICULOUSLY short skirts.
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So I had an especially hairy day today, but since I love new fangled gimmickry, I have decided to do an ~~ AUDIO UPDATE~~.
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Perhaps the audio was not the best idea, let me know what you think.
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Peace!
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Tony