abecedary.org

2007 is the year of the pig! Some sticklers will insist that is undignified and maintain that this is the year of the boar. Either way, I want bacon!

40.

I made it this far. Not bad.

Attack of the flabby fascists!

abecedary on Flickr.

February 11 is Constitution Day (建国記念の日) a national holiday in Japan. This is a perfect excuse for wannabe yak lunkheads, loser bootboys, and tubby skinheads to hit the streets in their sound trucks. Et-chan got these photos in Shibuya on her way home this afternoon.

These uyoku make everybody’s life hell, but they are in cahoots with the yakuza and the cops, so nothing ever happens.

Today they helped to keep Japan pure by whacking on some tourist who thought he would take a picture of the crazy parade.

But, then why in hell do they have a gaijin videographer? The guy with the video was riding in one of the vans with the ultranationalists! Makes no sense at all to me.

I finally saw it. Unbelievable.

I’m gonna watch it again. for the third time. It’s a whole ugly beautiful part of my life.

17 Ramones shows: 1982-1989.

Public address system

Originally uploaded by abecedary.

One of the perks of being a full-timer is that now I get an office. Actually, I get two– one at each campus. This is extra-special. Most people only get a cube at the celestially named Planet Fuchinobe Campus. I got an extra one at the main Machida campus.

It is empty and dangerous.

You know that Republican lawyer chick on the West Wing that got exiled to the steam pipe distribution venue? My office is like that: click through to the set for more empty office goodness. But, that is not why it is dangerous.

The office doesn’t fit the university addressing scheme because it is on a landing between floors. No office number. I like that. I can hide and nobody will know where I am. Even the facilities guy had a hard time trying to remember exactly where it was when he handed me the key. But, that is not why it is dangerous.

Look carefully at the photo. It has an ancient mic handset. It also has a line-in on the bottom left. Somebody gave me the room with the emergency broadcasting public address system for the whole dang university as my office. That is why it is dangerous. I can just picture patching my iPod through and cranking Turbonegro through all of Obirin. Or, I could just tell everyone to knock off and go home early.

Dangerously tempting sometimes.

Happy Horny Guesthouse

Originally uploaded by abecedary.

I’m sitting at work with Simon showing him this Flickr thang. This was an OK photo to throw up here.

I was looking through the JALT website for some other info, and came across a gallery of photos from the national conference last November. Flipping through the slideshow, I turned up this gem.

From L-R Ken, Minako, Ted (not abecedarist, another Ted), Julie, and Alan. The two students, Minako and Julie, did an outstanding job presenting their newspaper club activity. The original plan called for them to assist Alan with his presentation, but his move to Thailand over the summer made that unlikely. They took up the slack and did the presentation themselves. Seeing third and fourth year university students present to teachers and answer questions all in English was tremendously motivatiing for me as a teacher. Too bad I never had Minako or Julie in class! On the other hand, I have had some wonderful students at Keisen over the years. I’ll miss them.

Indeed, what is blog?

Ryo said:

What’s blog??

Hello!
I am not good at using computer
…and I always fight against a keyboard and monitor.
…I almost hate it.
But I started this blog without any knowledge!
It’s a big challenge for me.

She then went on to blog very well thank you very much: better than your humble narrator has recently.
(more…)

Looking for a job is ten times worse than working. Interviewing is by far the worst part of job hunting. And, interviewing again is worse than the first time around. At least that is over and done with for a while.

So, I put on the interview suit yesterday and trudged over to Obirin very early in the morning. Students who never even see me wear a tie were pretty shocked to see the transformation from scruffy teacher to presentable teacher- maybe even more than presentable. After all, I was going to be interviewed by the president of the university. (more…)

Et-chan and I had to run some errands out in Nishi-Ogikubo yesterday, so we decided to take advantage of something we’d done by mistake once before; we went to Takadanobaba for dinner. (more…)