Happy Birthday Big Bro!!

Sorry i couldnt be over in Oz to celebrate it with ya and sorry i havent sent u a present but its coming soon! It was good to hear that everything went well with ur missus! chat to u soon

One of the most embarassing yet interesting days of my life

Last Sunday, was um.... how can u put it......quite an uncomfortable day for me. The days leading up to this were quite nerve racking as i knew what it had to comprise of...... Yes, everyone, it comprised of me having to wear one of those stupid looking sumo diaper things and to participate in my villages local sumo tournament! Yes, urs trulywas hanging on by a sheer cloth, and oh yes, thankfully nothing came out to say hello in front of everyone. I think the most difficult part of sumo wrestling is getting the guts to wear one of those things. I was definitely glad tho that i wasnt the only one who looks like a complete gumby in one of those things. Anyways, the day kicked off to me waking to a fone call from my supervisor saying that he couldnt make it to the tournament. He was in my team, so i was quite pissed but the guy had a good excuse so its all good! got to the tournament and they told me to get changed. Now, all week i had been dreading whether or not to brave it out and wear it or wear some shorts underneath but as soon as i got there, one of my 3rd year junior high kids came to help get changed and immediately said, with him standing directly in front of him to drop my dacks all the way. I mean come on, couldnt he at least buy me dinner first...hehe. He then proceeded in doing the thing up and it was quite uncomfortable to say the least. never sit down properly in one of those things. then i was directed out to join the other competitors and wait for the thing to start. the opening ceremony came and we all had to stand on the stage in nothing but our diapers and freeze our balls off listening to the long speeches. then the individual competition started and i went into my first match with absolutely no practice and obviously was kicked out in the first round. This tournament was against adults from around my village, the local fire brigade from Tosayamada and from my senior and junior high school teachers and students. one of my 2nd year junior high students, who was a sumo club member at school, won the individual comp. broody brilliant.
Then came the group comp, i was in the junior high teachers group with the art teacher. we did alright considering it was both our first time at sumo. i came out with two spectacular wins and an unfortunate loss. All i can say is that the good old rugby takle can into good use in this sport!! So that made it in total 2 wins, 2 losses, so i was safe! The senior high kids won the comp beating the fire brigade team 3-0 in the final. after awhile they held the closing ceremony which once again consisted of us all standing there pretty much in the nuddy listening to the Japanese drag on with their speeches. then all of a sudden, my name gets called. i apparently won the "fighting spirit award" and was given a nice glass trophy along with two huge bottles of sake!
After the ceremony ended i was one of the first to get changed back into normal peoples clothes and proceeded on to an enkai and nijikai with my junior highs principals and some of the locals! got quite drunk and staggered home to pass out and go to work the next day!! still feeling it even now! ughh!
All in all, to my surpise i had a fairly good day and was glad that i did it! no regrets. i came out of it with a trophy and two bottles of sake so i cant have been that bad! next year i definitlely wanna get together a team of JETs so im not the only one who loos stupid. its really a good experience and surpisingly enough, noone really gives a shit what u look like.

On an unfortunate note today.....

While i was sitting at my desk this morning at my senior high, passing time away, one of the teachers came in saying that when he was walking back toward school from his house, he saw that some old guy had lit himself on fire and that he had put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. I dont know who or why this person had lit themselves on fire but everyone believes it to be a definite suicide attempt. the burns on the persons body were obviously quite serious and this person actually passed away. There were ambulances, police cars and fire engines everywhere! Yet, the most upsetting thing was that it didnt affect anyone at all at work. U'd think in small village like where i live, where everyone knows everyone, that someone would be the least bit sad about this poor person taking his life.....but who knows.....

classic find

went clothes shopping last saturday and found this little beauty of a jumper at a shop in Noichi's Fuji Grand! It's classic! the fine print says as follows,

"Luscious red tomatoes, fine table butter - It's America's favourite soup!"

WHAT THE......?!?!?

and it only cost me 1000yen (10 bucks)

ever had one of those situations...

...where you go out on the piss, drink with some of the locals and then they invite you home with some of their friends to drink some more. well this happened to me on Friday after work! but it just so happens that this mate of mine has a daughter whos a 3rd year student at my junior high school. once we got to his, she was still awake, only to see her english teacher a little bit drunk. i thought, shit better not let on that im pretty pissed so sat down, up straight and tried not to act pissed! it was quite an uncomfortable situation to be in coz u dont really want to show to ur students that side of u......but hey, most of the people in my village think im an alcoholic anyways so who gives a shit, eh! seriously, u drink somewhere a couple of times in two weeks and everyone automatically assumes that u drink every bloody day of ur life. ive literally had to tell people that, "No, i do not drink everyday, i am not an alcoholic". that is the truth........hehe

FOOTY FOTOS

The boys, all looking in fine form, even after just losing all three of our matches on the first day! bring on the drinks!
me and anthony, a west side JET. he bought this classic shirt off the Japanese guy in our team that night for 4000yen (40bucks). worth every penny
yes look at me mum, im drunk!! hehe.
me trying not to pull a stupid looking face sorry to matt for borrowing some of ur fotos. please dont ask what made me do this! i have no idea! i dont even remember the reindeers name...hehe.

An Awesome ALT Soccer Tournament.....except for the shitty accomodation

G'day folks! Well i had just about one of the best weekends ever thanks to all the members of our Kochi Prefecture soccer team! We sucked on the first day but came back to form on the second day!! It all started when i picked up Jess and Dom afterwork on Friday night. after getting a vid out, we hit the hay, only to wake up 3 hours later and head into Kochi City to meet up with some of the other guys who knew the way there. After about 3 or so hours of driving (give or take half an hour thanks to the lack of direction we all have), we got there on time only to lose all of our matches that day! We tried our best but we were definitely up against some of the most serious teams (ie. those wankers from osaka who gave us the wrong directions and abused the shit out of themselves even when they were up 4-0). Thankfully Mika came with her friend from Kobe to visit for the day and then left back for Kobe just before dinner at our shitty little hotel. But hey, none of that shit got us Kochi boys down as we soon started to do what we are famous for, yes thats right, get well pissed and worry about the rest in the morning.
Now, I havent had a chance to meet most of the Kochi boys and girls but they are all legends! We all got to the club and had a blast! cant remember most of the night. Tho i do remember Aaron sticking his Duncans beer coin where the sun-dont-shine (can i shake ur hand?), there was a meat raffle (or so we thought), there was the local village ho, the why-the-hell-did-i-do-that tequilla shot, me helping some guys try tune these 2 hot j-chicks, and me kissing a reindeer. anyways, next topic....
We all eventually woke up the next morning with bad hangovers, only to have some sorry ass excuse for breakfast before heading out to our next match. I think our team plays better hungover, as we managed to win all three games thanks to our penalty goal kickers and paul, the human wall. Thy fury was definitely released and i managed to not injure anyone, including Erics family. Sorry about ur wrist eric. After our last match we got into 9th place, which is heaps better than being dead last like we were the day b4. Then we got our beer trophy and did the drive back home. Once i finally got home, i took a long hot bath and headed off to bed.......classic weekend.

The 2005 ALT Soccer Tournament

Yes, thats right u pommies, I said SOCCER! hehe. anyways, this upcoming weekend most of us fit Kochi JETs will be getting in their respective cars and heading out to Awaji Island, an island south-west of Kobe for two whole days of soccer. I go there now with more confidence due to the fact Australia has now made it into the World Cup proving to the world that we're not as shit as everyone thinks. anyways, the Kochi ALT soccer team, or KFC, has been getting better every training session, and all i can say is thank god there are a handful of soccer mad english guys in our sqad who know what theyre doing. Hopefully, if the gf can get off her ass and figure out how to get to the ground in awaji, shes gonna come watch for one, or possibly even the two days. im looking forward to the saturday night party and then seeing how everyone is feeling the next morning for soccer. post later

WORLD CUP, HERE WE COME!

U'd better watch out, coz us Aussies have finally made it into the Soccer World Cup for the first time in 32 years! Check out this link for more info:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17273286-2,00.html

AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE!! OI, OI, OI!!!!

Woke up this morning.....

.....with a frickin cold! Luckily its not too bad at the moment but i think im finally gonna have to get my winter clothes sent over from Australia soon, but i dont think Gold Coast winter clothes are going to cut it in the mountains of Japan.

The weekend and my little bitch for the day

This weekend was spent meeting new people, seeing those people snogging each other mid-song during karaoke, poking my head in at my senior high's Culture Festival, playing soccer and overall, consuming a crap load of beer. Didnt really spend anymore than a few hours at home. I am quite tired! On the way home yesterday from the city i stopped by at Aeon and bought a PS2 and a couple of games! its great! tho i probably shouldnt have stayed up till late playing games on it. But hey, at least i can watch DVD's and actually play games. the XBOX i bought from my predecessor (bastard...hehe) was, to put it simply enough, fucked. yet another item he gave me that had something wrong with it.






This is Sallie, Jay and myself at some club called Siruto i think. It was pretty good, 1000yen entry and i got a free corona on entry......score!!

Two words for the weekend

I'm buggered!

Are mental problems common in Japan or something?

Recently my JTE at my junior high school reckons that some of the students have a mental problem if they arent properly paying attention in class or are sleeping in class. This to me is a load of bullshit!

A coulpe of the students that have these so-called "mental problems" are probably the best students in the english class. One of them recently participated in an English Speech Competition and managed to remember a 3-4minute speech and speak in a fairly fluent manner. So i think id like a definition of what is classed as a so-called mental disease. someone who is mentally challenged is defined as:

"a person that has a problem with their brain, often from the time they were born, that affects their ability to think or control their body movements"

If these kids really do suffer from something, im sorry, but I think it is a cop-out excuse to say that ur students have some kind of mental disease if they dont feel like paying attention in class. Or if the student has problems with their social skills doesnt mean they have a mental problem. if they did, then most of the kids in school back home in oz or around the world would all be in the special school. We have only one kid in my school who is actually mentally challenged and he takes special classes by himself so why is there so much talk about problem students having mental problems. The Japanese education system really needs to deal with this. Teachers really need to discipline their students into paying attention in class and to try and get them to actually think for themselves a lot better. since ive got here some of the kids here could almost get away with murder. kick em up the arse if they give u shit and they'll respect u for it.....hehe. anyways thats just what i think anyways.

SUPAA DODGY BALL-RU!!!!!

Did it. Loved it. Sconned one of my 2nensei kids in the head! I'd do it again!

Dealing with the little people

Today I did my usual visit to the Kindergarden to teach the little boys and girls some english. But instead of class we went for a walk around my village. We took paths that i didnt even know existed and collected these little nut shaped things that are supposed to be used for kind of tea. It was quite a cool opportunity to just hang out with the kids and get to know them a little better. Once we got to the local public park, the kids even sang the Anpanman song for Ishikawa Sensei and myself. it unfortunately ended tho with one kid kicking someone else and making them cry! but hey....kids will be kids.

The day after that i had a class for at my JHS then had lunch at mine and said goodbye to Mika, who was going back home to Kobe in the arvo. After lunch, went to the primary school to teach the genki 5th graders. Was just about to enter the classroom, only to be welcomed by my teacher who told me in a hurry that i was doing the class by myself today! YAY! GEE THANKS MISS! luckily i was prepared and can actually speak Japanese otherwise i woulda been screwed. To my surprise, the class went pretty well and everyone looked like they had a good time....phew! Gee, u gotta love it when teaches do that to u dont u!!!

Chinese whispers........or complete jibberish

Today i tried out the game "Chinese Whispers" on my 1st grade Senior High School students. Mind you they're the lower class but still you'd expect their english to be ok in some standards. So we tried very very simple sentences on them to see how theyd go. this is how it turned out:

The dog is big. = You stop you.

Today is sunny. = お宅 (otaku= house)

We like English. = Mirror, mirror, mirror hip.

WHAT THE........?!?!?!?

Finally Getting To Know The Neighbours.....everyone needs good neighbours

Last Thursday, Mika came down from Kobe to visit for a week and will be leaving tomorrow.......dammit. anyways, its been good to catch up with her. On Friday night, i finally got my neighbours to come out for a few drinks, from all 3 apartments. they brought their significant others along and id have to say we all had a pretty good night (except for how expensive it was). Next time we are going to be have a party at one of our apartments, coz itd be a lot cheaper and easier to get home if ur too drunk.

the next day wasnt too heavy on the head. i took Mika down to kochi city with me to watch us ALTs attempt to kick a round ball around. of all things to forget, i forgot my shoes, so i borrowed a spare pair off flinty which gave me some killer blisters....bastard! hehe. so apart from my constant bitching on the field, and all the people who missed training altogether, we had a pretty solid session. Will definitely be heading down again this week for our final practice session before the tournament in Awaji Island.

Afterwards, Flinty and Karen came round to check out where i live and of all days for the weather to turn to shit, it was on sunday. but we still managed to go check out a few red leave trees that are in season at the moment. definitely have to go back again when its a clear day.