Nope, I will not excuse myself for taking a little while with this post. Who am I, some kind of military comms man, calling in on every last little detail of my day? “2:58 and all’s well”, or something?
No, that’s not who I am. I am a man who thrives on monotony, who basks in the gloriously cool waters of routine. I get a certain thrill from blending in, and from not drawing attention to myself.
So sometimes whole weeks go by without anything really happening. That ain’t just me, though, that’s life.
I’d better stop; this is starting to sound like some kind of rubbish excuse.
So my parents are here this week. Good stuff. It’s been a long while since I last saw them, and to have them here in this new life of mine is really rather exciting. Today was a good example of that, as today was their visit to my school. I tip my hat to my whole staff, who all worked hard to make them feel welcome and to explain what was happening. Even the kids - the tight-lipped, shy little critters - even they tried their best. And I reckon everyone enjoyed their England chocolate, too. Bit of bribery never hurts.
This afternoon is a bit of a slow one, I think. Steph and I will return home ahead of our folks, who are Arima Onsenning for souvenirs, so there may be some sweet, sweet karaoke on the cards before they get back with our house keys. I do love karaoke. If you find that good song (and I’m of the opinion that the more good people you have with you the easier it is to find), there’s a sort of rush that only a really severe sugar rush can top. It has to be easy enough that you’re comfortable singing it, but challenging enough that you don’t just think nothing of it. Once the folks get home we’ve got to sort something for dinner. Not sure what yet. Steph and hers are bound for Fisherman’s Market tomorrow night, which means Team Family Veggie has to find itself a couple more meals.
So I see there’s a new Old Spaghetti Factory in Kobe Central. I reckon it won’t be quite as good as the US and Canada ones, which prided themselves on the sort of staff that are anathema in Japan. Friendly, chatty staff, I mean. Maybe we’ll go there and test the waters. Oh, and I bet it’ll be more expensive than the US ones. *sigh*, I do love me a bit of value.
Cheese! I have so much cheese in my flat! It’s amazing!
Now let’s go over the week so far. My parents arrived on Frida-
- And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the true price of meaningless tangents. Cut off from writing mid-word. Mid-word! This time I’ll concentrate and get this all done.
So now it’s Monday, and my family has gone home. It was sad to see them leave. One of the things I realised was that with them here Japan felt that little bit more like home. I found it difficult to stress about anything (and let me tell you, stressing is usually as easy as breathing), and every day I woke with that little rush, that little boost you get in Mariokart if you start accelerating between the second and third lights, that made mornings, dare I say it, bearable. Even that dumb tourist stuff I’ve done before, like walking the waterfront or… or something else, feels like I’m doing it for the first time. Except this time I’m way better at appreciating it. Y’know?
Alright, I owe you guys an itinerary. Friday they arrived, meaning I had to go meet them at home after work. Only, thanks to my vice principal being a legend, I was let off early to go see them home safely, and ended up meeting up with them as they were struggling over subway tickets. Divine work, I tell you. We went home together, and I showed them round the place. Then we went to get some okonomiyaki. Next time you go to Nan-puu and they have jaga cheese corn, you can thank me and my whining.
Saturday morning we awoke to find that Marsha was sick. Such misfortune, eh, that you get sick as soon as you arrive before really getting to experience anything… The rest of us spent the day in Sannomiya, looking around at stuff, and grabbing lunch/dinner at La Pausa. I think… Struggling to remember. This is why I should have finished this thing last week. Oh! Of course! Saturday night was Steph, Tony and Paul’s surprise birthday! The whole thing went down superbly, due in no small part to that chocolate I brought, I like to think. Unfortunately Steph‘s present won’t be here for a few weeks yet, so I’m hoping to hold back the tide of her impatient present-rage with Curley-wurleys until it gets here…
Sunday was church for mum, dad, Steph and I. Jess decided to stay home and keep Marsha entertained. Church was good; mum and dad introduced themselves impeccably, especially since the folks before them had these really long self-intros about how they’d been in Kobe several years ago and blah blah blah. Lunch was Saizeriya, on account of World Buffet being full as full can be. Stopped by for home-cookable pizza for dinner, and had a relaxing evening.
Monday morning was a KEC-sponsored seminar run by some of our more experienced ALTs. This time it was Creative Writing in the Classroom, and went down exceedingly well. I got some genuinely inspired ideas for warmups, and even some full lessons. Events were marred slightly by Steph contracting her mother’s illness, and spending the seminar ice-cold and feeling rotten. After that she returned home, taking the rest of the day off, and I went to Sannomiya to meet my parents for their lunch. After some persuading, I eventually got them to go to Freshness Burger, where we were set upon by chatty Aussies. After that I showed them Harbourland (without a ‘u’) and, sleepy from all the walking, we went home.
Tuesday was a free day, so… we did something… It’ll come to me later.
Wednesday we celebrated Steph’s pre-birthday as a large group, and ended up at Chalte Chalte in town for dinner. Goooood stuff, even though the birthday girl was feeling sick the whole day through. I think Wednesday was also the day I bought RPG School 4 for the Playstation, but I could be wrong there.
Now, Thursday was the school visit I mentioned in the first half. All that’s left to tell you of that day is that we got home and went to okonomiyaki again for dinner. Jaga cheese corn. Ace.
Friday was our second seminar, this time regarding IT. Unfortunately, due to the seminar room being quite unbelievably hot, I ended up feeling real sick towards the end. It’s a shame, the whole day was a lot of fun. Back home, I ended up cooking dinner with my parents for our last meal together. And when I say ‘cooking’, I mean they cooked and I played Mass Effect. Too many cooks, and all that. Jess and Marsha stopped over for a bit before bed to say goodbye, and to make use of the internet. And then it was to bed.
Saturday morning I escorted my parents to Kansai International, and said a teary farewell. After that it was a matter of waiting a couple of hours for Steph to finish doing the same, and we were off to Osaka for a short afternoon of shopping and lunch. Turns out it’s still a long way to Osaka from KIX… Must have taken us over an hour. We had lunch at ye olde Caprichosa, or however you spell it, which was sweet. Unfortunately, fatigue plus food plus emotional distress equals Pete being a bit on the off-side, so I may not have enjoyed our afternoon as much as I could have. It also took us a lot longer than it should have. We planned to be home about 6, but ended up home about half-8. Also, much to my dismay, they don’t have Pikachu hoodies in my size at the Pokemon Centre, and their watches aren’t battery-changeable. Still, I did snag myself an Ultra Ball, which is now hanging from my iPhone like some horrendously technological kendama.
That’s about it. Now you’re up to date. Sunday was eventless, though we did our best to try and get Steph on track with Game of Thrones. No luck there, we’re still three off the finale.
So, change of topic, let’s talk about games. I mentioned RPG School 4 earlier, and I may as well talk about that first. The RPG School franchise has been going on some time now, not that we Europeans would know anything about that. This 4th one, I am told, marks the start of the downfall of the series: from here on out they get a bit naff. Still, though I haven’t had a lot of time to try out 4 properly, I’m enjoying it. I played through the remarkably easy trial game they included with it, and it looks like you can do some clever stuff with the program. I saw roulettes, pushable blocks and a funny class system that I could apparently incorporate into my own games. So far I have just finished drawing up the character sprites for an old Chrono-era RPG based off of those stories we wrote on that wiki. Feels a little like trying to game-ify some classic piece of literature, it’s been so long. Not having all the stuff we wrote, I may have to make up or edit a little bit, and that ending’s gonna have to come right out of my own head. But hey, who knows, maybe we will write the ending by the time I get around to finishing the game. For all I know, it could take me years. Fingers crossed.
But also I’m playing Mass Effect 3, which is well cool. I like the new features, and the new characters are quickly growing on me. And the scenery looks immense. It’s buggy, though. Bug-gy. I remember storming some kinda space school and having to take out a whole ton of guys in this big hall area, only if I wanted my companions to help me out I needed to stand in the flipping doorway and tell them to move through it, so it doesn’t close on them and leave them trapped. That was pretty dumb. Also, Sheppard keeps looking at the wrong things in conversations. Once she even looked over her shoulder in a really nastily unnatural way, when she was supposed to be looking straight ahead. Unpleasant. I also don’t like the way people run down inclines as if they’re just running straight forward. Surely Bioware could have found a way around that! I’m sure I’ve seen characters in games angle down when they go down stuff. And everyone looks well different. I recently bumped into Miranda again, and she looked fairly similar to how I remember, but she must be the only one! Anderson especially! He was well unrecognisable when I first saw him! And to top it off, the game had the gall to take the save file from Mass Effect 2, where Sheppard is a pale skinned lass with short, black hair in a bun, tell me it hasn’t got a clue, and then ask me if I’m happy with an olive-skinned, freckled girl with long blonde hair and eyes like a freakin’ caveman. It was the stuff of nightmares. Pretty disappointing. I’m currently playing my way through Hardcore, as I thought it made more sense, but let me tell you, Hardcore is Hard. I’m wondering if I made a mistake; the more sniper-Sheppard dies from a strong breeze or a harsh word, the more I fantasise about a meatier, heavy-armour soldier-Sheppard. But that won’t do! Sniper-Sheppard is, until I finish this trilogy, the first and only Sheppard in my heart! I can’t betray her… Fortunately Galaxy at War is proving a sweet way to try out those other classes, and I’m enjoying it immensely.
What else… Well, though I haven’t been keeping up quite as much as I’d like with the current season of anime I did finish watching the show Another the other day. After Higurashi I’ve been very cynical about new horror anime, but even a clone of a show that should have ended several years ago is head and shoulders about any dating-sim inspired shows I could care to mention. What I really liked about Another was that it really did set you up to believe one thing, so that when clues about the truth came along you didn’t spot them until the end. Like that magician thing where if you’re looking in the right place it’s obvious what’s going on. But the characters were nice, it looked good, and there were enough genuinely stomach-churning deaths to make me respect it as a show for the older generation without going so far as to seem ridiculous. I also couldn’t stop shaking the knowledge that the kids in the show were supposed to be the same age as the oldest kids I’m teaching right now, and that made everything a bit creepier. Along with this and that dumb Armed Junior Highschoolers nonsense, it looks like middle school is the new high school for the anime world.
I guess that last fact helped solidify the respect I have for shows like Love Hina (yes, I just said ‘respect’ and ‘Love Hina’ in the same sentence) which incidentally Steph and I are watching when we’re not racing through Game o’ Thrones. You don’t get a lot of university adventures in anime, you see, which makes pretty much anything in a show that does feature uni novel and interesting. I’m surprised, and impressed, that even this time through I’m struck by how likable pretty much all the characters are. Maybe it’s just the nostalgia talking, but now more than ever I’d rank it in my top few shows of all time. At some point, though, she does still have to finish Gurren Lagann. I cannot abide by not watching all of that.
Urgh, stomach hurts a bit. I hope this ain’t something serious. It’s making it a notch difficult to concentrate.
So I’m told that tomorrow is gonna be a busy one. In the morning I need my suit, as we’re taking the big staff photo for the coming academic year. After that I gotta change back, ‘cos we’re cleaning out our desks and shuffling around. I was told today that I’d be staying as a name-only 3rd Year teacher this year, which I guess is okay. It does mean my new seat is closest to the door, facing away from the centre, which is not too shabby. It also means I get to sit next to my 3rd Year English teacher, who is ace, and is also staying a 3rd Year this year. 2 years of graduation in a row, the lucky guy. I still haven’t met my new 2nd Year teacher, though, the only one to change this year. I’m hoping they’re cool, though I’m sure we’ll get on whatever happens. I also need to formally meet my new vice principal, who I’m told is really cool.
Right, that’s it, I’m done. Time for a break. Think I’ll read for a bit.
Thanks for reading.
