18 - Ice Fang

The holiday season’s here, then. It’s times like this I realise that times like ‘the holiday season’ come about whenever the shops like the Loft or Daiso want them to, irrespective of weather or actual time of year. It’s a little sad to think about, really. And occasionally infuriating. I’m looking at you, Loft, with your… jingle! Probably have to force your employees through weekly counselling just to keep them sane!

And how DARE you shift all those Dragon Quest figurines, which I was gonna buy for my family, the day I come to your shop with the money to buy them?! You doing that on purpose, Loft?! Yeah, I’m calling you out, you yellow brick corporate monstrosity!!

And why is it so insufferably hot?! Didn’t think I’d be capable of complaining about the heat these days, but somehow you did it! Maybe if it wasn’t so meltingly hot your customers would have the energy to not get in my way when I’m browsing your tiny, labyrinthine aisles!!

No, no… I didn’t start writing so I could smack talk the Loft. I’m doing this to tell you about the last few weeks.

So Halloween came and went. After getting all excited about my zombie film survivor costume I ended up coming down with a nasty bug the day of the party and couldn’t make it. The same bug which affected pretty much everyone in Hanayama over the next couple of weeks, and is still hurting others to this day. The silver lining is that I now have an unused costume to bring to my joint birthday next week. Lucky, that.

Halloween isn’t all that, I have to say. My teachers at elementary were all excited about having something to build a lesson around, but in the end there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. All the kids knew the phrase ‘trick or treat’, but did not know that both choices involved events transpiring in the asker’s favour. They seemed to think that if they chose ‘treat’ that they got something. Fools. It seems the only real custom that people in Japan get excited over is dressing up, which they take to one extreme level.

So I have to say that my favourite part of Halloween would be the Steam sale that came with it. Picked up Home and Lone Survivor for less than a tenner, have since finished both. The former is awesomely atmospheric the first time I played it, not so much the second. Still working on mustering myself up for a third. I will find that safe combination! Survivor was ace, but suffered from Resident Evil/Silent Hill-itis, whereby I played all the way through and defeated the odds by living til the end, only to be told I was rubbish! F-?! That’s not even a real grade! ‘Tortured Hank with the flashlight’?! That was an accident!! Goodness me!

More on games later, but now let’s move on to school matters.

This week’s-

Oh! I never told you about Culture Day, did I? Well, remember how I said the kids were gonna do a production of Run, Melos and I was excited ‘cos it was an existing play and so wasn’t gonna be really weird? Well, that as apparently very naïve of me. Run, Melos was weeeee-ird. I do not remember the bit in the novel, nor the bit in the Greek epic, where a number of caricatures of Japanese comedians run out pretending to be in a marathon and deliver what I assume to be famous pop-culture references. Nor do I remember the bit where Melos’s mate is gonna be crucified. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think crucifixion was a Roman thing, not Greek. And then there was the bit where Melos is stopped by bandits, and has to fight them to get past, and he looks like he’s winning until he puts down his kendo sword (sticks in silver foil is the way to go!), delivers a pun that I didn’t get, and then someone plays the French horn and the bandits fall over in exasperation. And then they beat the snot out of him. And then Satan tells him to give up!! Satan?! The Lord of Darkness, in a Greek play?!

Long story short, it felt a little bit like I was delirious with fever watching that play. I’m not allowed to complain, though. I remember being a fabricated bit-part in a school play. And the reasoning was the same: they need as many roles for students as possible so they can all feel like a part of the proceedings. To complain is selfish of me; in the end, it wasn’t for my benefit. It was for theirs. And I’m sure they took great pride in their… their ‘play’.

Right, moving on. This week is the big testing week for second semester. After this it’s the last stretch before finals, and then graduation. I haven’t had a whole lot to do this week. Yesterday especially was well boring, as English wasn’t even being tested. Made a nice poster, made a nice lesson for next week… That’s about it. Today I was able to do some marking, which is something of my specialty. My third-year teacher has even started writing the tests with more multiple choice and sentence-writing questions, ‘cos I can mark them – and I do, incredibly fast. Tomorrow’s less busy, though I will be listening test-ing the handicapped kids live in the morning. I’m curious to see what they have on their test. I taught them animals, months and telling the time this semester, but my class is only half of their weekly English. I was surprised last term to see they’d learnt country names, for example.

I’ll tell you what else is tomorrow. Kobe Man Night 2012! Now, I know a lot of people are morally opposed to the two gender-segregated JET events in the year, but I for one am really looking forward to it. Spent my lunch break today reading up on man facts. Things like car parts and action movies I’ve meant to see but never got around to. Sports knowledge I’ve pretty much given up on, and military history. And remember, if it sounds like a girly question you’re better off getting it wrong on purpose. They can deduct points for girly answers. Well, even if they do, we’ve still got the greatest team name on the planet going for us. To type it here would no doubt cause heart attacks among some of my lower constitution readers, but rest assured it’s awesome with a capital A.

What else? See, it’s been pretty dull lately. I spend my time playing games, and though that’s pretty exciting for me I can’t write too much about it here for fear of… certain people making… certain comments. Oh, I got asked to join the music group at my church. That was ace. Nice to see all that karaoke’s paying off. Yeah, that’s right, I’d be vocals. But I’m not joining the music group because practice starts at 8am on Saturdays and Sundays. Taking travel into account, I’d have to get up at 5 just to make it on time, thereby sacrificing all lie-ins until the end of time. As tired as I am now, I don’t think I’d make it sane through to the end of the year. It’s a real shame though, I am seriously gutted. It’s irritating not being able to be a more involved member of the church because I live too far away to be of help. Still, they changed the venue of Wednesday night Bible study to somewhere more central, so Steph and I are going to that fairly regularly. It’s pretty great, actually, though I need a couple of strong coffees to keep me going until the end time of 9.

Does anyone out there actually think that the world will end next month? Wouldn’t that me be something. I remember a story a while back of a church claiming Jesus would return some time in May, you remember? Couldn’t help but wonder, what if they’re right? What if He is coming back in May? Well, we know how that turned out. I feel bad for those guys; they sounded really confident about it. Funny, the sort of things God can ‘say’. Not funny ‘haha’, either. Funny frustrating.

So I learned this month that November is novel-writing month. Did you know that? There’s this thing called NaNoWriMo, which sounds like something you need to hit in the glowing red bit to defeat, that gets people to write 50,000 words (which is the definition of a novel) and submit it for a nice certificate. Wish I’d heard about it at the start of the month, I’d love to do something like that. And I’ve spent a lot of time writing this month without realising I could be using it. In my free time I tend to go through my old story, which I can tell you is actually more than 15,000 words, and check it for errors. Only wrote some of it a year ago, and it’s not pretty in places. Needs the check-up. But I sure am proud of it. Next November, for sure. Someone remind me.

It’s cold. Did I mention that? Apparently not as cold as last year, but I don’t remember waking up this miserable last year. Afraid to cry tears of sleepy fury for fear of them freezing to my face. Got a few new bits of winter clothing last week, and they’re working out nicely, but it’s not perfect. A bit of coffee in the morning keeps me going, but only just. The weather’s causing problems all across the board. On Tuesday my larger elementary school (always feel bad saying that; how is it mine, I didn’t build it) put on something they called the Kobe Kids Festival 2012, which was an hour of games involving the whole school. The quiz game went off without a hitch, but then it started raining. ‘Sorry, kids, we did try! Maybe next year!’ It was too bad, they were really enjoying it. Whereas I was happier huddled up in a coat in the staff room, reading Earthsea.

Gooooood books! I remembered reading them when I was little, but I’d forgotten pretty much everything about them. But they’re good! Finished A Wizard of Earthsea the other day and loved it to bits. It’s a style of writing you don’t see these days, like you’re actually being told a story rather than reading it yourself. The second book, though, isn’t available on Kindle. What is up with that?! You can get the audio version, which I do not want ‘cos it’s expensive and audio! Bizarre thing to omit from your catalogue, book two of a four-book series… Still, the series is four separate stories following the same characters, so it doesn’t ruin anything that I skipped two and went on to three. Ged’s older than I remembered, and he’s done some stuff that they hinted at him doing in the first book, but that’s it. Nothing to be spoiler’d. Probably finish that next week some time.

Yep, think that’s it. So now I’ll talk about some games.

The Walking Dead is simply the be-… the second best game I’ve played all year. Doesn’t quite top Borderlands 2, which I enjoyed far, far more than I thought I would. But it’s just amazing, in ways B2 can’t be. I was a little frustrated when I learnt that each chapter started with a recap and ended with a preview, seems silly when I already own all the chapters and can just play them all. But the beauty of the game comes from how self-contained all the chapters feel. When I got to the end of one, I needed a break. My emotions couldn’t handle it! And this game tugged at my heartstrings like no other game ever has, and that’s no exaggeration. Certain characters, certain events… I genuinely felt like part of the story, capable of changing it with my intelligence or folly. That’s one of the things I found hardest to take with the game: there’s never a right answer so everything you choose will upset some people, or cause some trouble. Made me angry, y’know, having characters get all up in my face with ‘where’s my food, Lee? Why aren’t you taking my side, Lee?’ As though they were actually getting at me, and not this poor Lee guy. And then the game really pushes you by giving you a chance at killing them! My poor moral compass is bent possibly beyond repair. A friend of mine once said that the game’s about a zombie disaster, but the actual heart of the story has nothing to do with the shambling, brain eating villains that give the game, comic and show their names. Actually, I had a theory about that. You ever think that maybe The Walking Dead isn’t the zombie at all, but the survivors? They’re dead, their deaths are inevitable (and all three mediums go to great extremes to tell us that), so they are dead men and woman still walking about. Think there’s something to say for that? But yeah, the heart of the story is the bitter struggle of tempers and politics between survivors, in a setting that just happens to involve zombies. We agreed that the disaster could have been a tsunami, or a meteor hitting the earth, or aliens. It didn’t matter. And that was the way it should be. Not with the survivors as the frame to the zombies, but as the painting itself.

Also been playing a fair bit of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Went free to play this month, which is generous of it. Have to say, though, that there are a few problems with the game that I’m finding difficult to accept. Some of its players, for example. No, most of its players. There are some real jerks in that game, real scumbags, and though there are plenty of decent, funny folk in there as well you gotta wade through scum just to find them. People who insist that you be an expert in your given class the day you begin. People who blame you and your slow fingers for not being able to defeat enemies twice your size. People who are very vocal about what they like and dislike hearing in the chat feed. Lord of the Rings is a harder game to party up in, but at least the people playing it are generally decent and generous with their time. Today I may even start a Sith character in a roleplaying server. Never tried that before, and I wonder if it’s any fun. I do like being the character, after all. Maybe I’d be better suited to a server that prefers storytelling over pwning n00bs.

But the star of the month is without a doubt the new Pokemon. Finally, finally got my hands on White 2, and I sure am loving it. It’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t rank it about White 1 just yet. I mean, a fair bit of the game does feel a bit flat. Things like the movies, and that stupid musical thing. But at its heart it really is an excellent game, and very much true to the heart of Pokemon. I’m loving being able to find old first generation Pokemon out and about, and train up the ones I never got a chance to try out before. Currently got my Koffing at level 30, which I’ve never been able to do before, and my current team leader is Steelix, who was a living legend back when Gold and Silver first came out. I know, I know, Scizor’s probably a better use of a Metal Coat. But I’m loving my Steelix, and he’s a really strong backbone to the team. Let’s see… Also got Geiger the… argh, the second level of Teppig. Forgot the name. Also Grills the Azumarill, named after survivalist Bear Grills because Imma stick him full of HMs. And don’t let his HM-ness fool you, he’s strong as any other in the team! Koffing, like I said, and Steelix. Then Minipete the Emolga, named after the Pokemon of the same name available in the English version of White 1, and lastly Darwin the Eevee, who I’m making happy enough to turn into Espeon or Umbreon, haven’t decided yet. It’s the pride, you see? Such a strong sense of pride for the Pokemon I helped raise. It’s really something, a real rush. And getting Steelix to knock out all nine other Pokemon in a tournament without ever succumbing to his injuries is just awesome!

And now I’m tired. Time for dinner, I think. Thanks for reading.