The Mars Volta- Roulette Dares (Live in London)

Sorry! Its another vid! I love this band at the moment, ever since i saw them in japan 3 years ago. They are not a band made to produce hits but moments. They are really experimental live and are great musicians. If anyone had ever heard of the band, At The Drive-In, then u would know that the two guys with the mean afro's started this band after they quit ATDI. Even though they quit, i am glad that they started The Mars Volta. I think they will be releasing their thrid album next month sometime so i am looking forward to getting it! anyways, enjoy the vid! if not, its on my blog for me to check out whenever i want to...hehe.

Odochi Junior High's Swimming Class Match

It was the first time in a year or so where ive actually been able to swim in a pool so i was quite chuffed! But sunburt as from last weekends activites.

It was a competition between the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years. there are only about 13 2nd year kids so i joined their class as a temporary member!!

They have some weird chants to cheer along their friends but i took part nonetheless!!! GANBARE GUYS!!

They had a cool game where each grade has a teacher sitting somewhere around the pool with a bucket and the kids have to try and throw the ball into their own bucket. i was soon appointed goalie of the other buckets and managed to stop heaps. but i ended up having to protect our own goal coz one of the bigger kids kept stopping us from scoring. I soon put him into place! hehe.. GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!!!!!

I know its hard to believe but, yep, thats all my kids in Odochi Junior High School. A grand total of 40 now! Another random fact is that the deepest part of that pool is only 1.3m. bloody joke huh?

Australianisation!!! Aussie Rules style!!

Instead of Japanese kids doing meaningless sports like seeing how far u can throw a small soccer ball (stupid idea)........

...I have had time during my lessons with Norihisa, a special needs student, to teach him a real sport, that he's never heard of before, AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL!!!! Doesnt he look cool with all that aussie footy gear on of my favourite team. Shame though, i didnt tell him that that team is quite shit at the moment......must have slipped my mind.

it took him awhile to stop calling it rugby and how to handpass a footy, but he got the hang of it. he even learned english while we played.

Thats not how you handpass a ball! This is how you handpass!!!

The kicking part was quite difficult to get the proper spin from a drop punt, but he did manage to kick some good ones and take a few speccies over the JTE!

Arent i a good teacher?

Next challenge is hopefully being allowed to teach the whole school soon! Too many Australians forget about Aussie Footy and instead opt out to teach cricket or rugby, both English sports, so it is good to show the kids something new and challenging!

Can i get a REEEEE-WIND?!?

Here's a pic i found recently of one of the nights at the recontracting conference. It was mika and my friend Steph's birthday so 30 foreigners got together in the basement of a karaoke parlour, blind drunk and loving it. Notice Simon, being the smooth operator as he is! How many numbers did he get again that night?

Am I homesick?

As I was faced with paying for another months full spew-shoku (school lunch) fees, of which i ate maybe less than half, I began to ask myself the question, "Am I really homesick or not?" Most times i have come to Japan, i couldnt be more happy to get away from family and friends for a bit but now that i am to stay in Japan for one more year, am i?

I dont believe that i am fully homesick, i just miss some of the things that we take for granted in our own country. Recently, my predecessor came back to Monobe from Australia to visit and was showing people pictures of what he had been doing. I saw a picture of a proper beach and immediately wished i was swimming in the beach there. I dont know if thats a common reaction or a homesick reaction.

What i really miss at the moment is Australian food. I miss being able to enjoy my lunchtime meal and having to substitute it for some pickled salad shit with eyes. I know i should try it as i might come to like it but if i were to show some Australians i know what we eat here, they would be in the same shoes as me. Us Australians are simple creatures, we dont divide our lunch into three parts, we have one plate, and one meal that will fill us up nicely. However, the fact that i live in the sticks doesnt help. The nearest Subway, which i often used to go to in Australia is probably in Hiroshima, over 2 hours drive away. The nearest convenience store is only 15 mins but the food in those places are really any good. Meat here is too expensive (as we all know) and we are forced to eat cheap chicken to survive. If not, u can go over to the dark side and eat fish and seafood....YAY!!! thats the ticket......

I do miss my family and friends a little but they are all busy with families of their own or have been overwhelmed with work so they dont have any opportunity to come to Japan to see us.

I know what i dont miss tho is australian tv, especially with all them stupid reality based tv shows.

I kind of miss Australian roads and how they are wide and usually have two lanes everywhere so u can over take the small cars. damn those Japanese K cars!!!!!

Seeing as tho a lot of the people who read my blog are living in japan, i wonder what kind of things you have been missing since u have lived in japan????

The little things.......

Mostly i just write good news on this blog, giving everyone the impression that everything is all peaches and pears over here in japan. As much as i would like to say that everything is like that, there are days here where u find that even the smallest of things piss u off. Lately, little things have been getting to me and i dont know why. Maybe its the heat, maybe its the fact that my workload has trebled in the last few months, or maybe it is the fact that its been two and a half years and im still in a long time relationship (soon to become a normal relationship by the end of the month).
I love Japan, dont get me wrong, but i think once uve lived in a country for a period of time like most of us JETs have, u get to see the not-so-good-anal-retentive side of Japan that they dont tell u about in the brochures. Things that have been pissing me off lately have been:

1. japanese people who make u feel guilty if u dont eat spew-shoku (school lunch) and who watch u eat something and ask u straight away if its good or not. LET ME EAT IN PEACE!
2. the same people reminding u that u havent eaten spew-shoku and then ask if ur okay

3. my retarded new supervisor who is so stupid hed fuck a golf club if u gave him one. he honestly doesnt know anything when i go to him for help. he goes straight on the phone to the BOE main office to ask them, and even they rarely know what to do either. INCOMPETENT knobs!

4. schools who dont inform me of timetable changes and continually keep doing the same thing week after week offering me their lame apologies.

5. when kids who are usually genki as hell turn into dumbasses and think that english is a waste of time.... but kids will be kids i spose and i have been lucky that i have pretty well mannered kids.

6. my eikaiwa class where people only come when they feel like it, leaving me trying to teach to three people after preparing material, with games that would ideally suit the original numbers. Then those students who have no confidence in their ability even when u tell them that theyve done really well. Or those other students who only go to class to listen to english and when u ask them a question they turn into a tree stump and make a stupid grin!

7. this computer at my boe.....fuck, it takes like 10 minutes to load up when u turn it on

8. when no matter how many times u teach people about australian football, they think its soccer or rugby. and when u show them an australian football, they still call it a rugby ball!

9. my girlfriend when it comes to returning videos. oh boy is she a video nazi. shes worked at a video store for 5 years and cant stand it when u dont return a video by the due date. my god she gets so worked up about that shit! hehe

10. how quiet it is where i live and how everything is over a half an hours drive away

11. kids blank faces when u ask them questions uve practised with them for so long! it gets frustrating at times

12. the fact that my JTE never has the time to sit down with me to prepare for lessons and shit. like the other day she comes up to me and says, "i want u to make the speaking test for grade 1 and 2." thats all she said to me and then pissed off to let the kids rape her or something

13. getting red notes on garbage bags if u dont take all the coke labels off a bottle

14. when my JTE keeps making grammatical errors and then making the kids learn it that way

15. the fact that my JTE gets me to do the same routine at the start of every english lesson. "Good morning! how are you? hows the weather? what day is it?" and then i have to read a passage of the textbook for the dictation followed by chanthing out the words in the kids' bingo books!

16. or when students question my pronunciation of words and tell me im wrong. fuck off, what the hell do they know. or even when my JTE asks me if u can really say things that i say sometimes.

thats all i can think of for now! im sorry to bore u all with this but i need to get some of this shit off my chest coz the english ability of the people in my village can be compared to a tree stump... and boy, there are a lot of those around here!

Awaji Soccer Tournament II

Well about a month ago now, I turned 24 and spent it playing soccer again in Awaji Island. As usual, brilliant banter was had by everyone and we all seemed to enjoy ourselves. Even the girlfriend decided to get off her arse and spend some time with me! YAY! On the Friday, the night of my bday, most of us had a few celebratory beers but those who were serious about playing soccer had an early night. no complaints but lets face it, we only had maybe one practise session together with only 5 people and a big piss up after that so we were never going to win the cup!! hehe. harsh but true! anyways, the next morning we staggered out of bed and drove down to play some soccer. We played three games and only won one (but it was a great victory!). We had some chances to win another but failed to find the back of the net. After that we went back, had a shower and put our beer hats on and had a good night on the piss! It wasnt as good as the last time we were in Awaji but still enjoyable. Silly Mika lost her wallet somewhere along the way on her way back to our hotel room so we had to spend most of the next morning driving around trying to find it so i missed out on our first game of the day. shame we lost tho coz we got kicked out of the running for the trophy. All in all it was a good weekend spent with mates, which is what i really wanted to do.

me kicking back leading the banter on friday night.......say, what would u rather wake up to in front of ur face?

its safe to say that there was a sumo tournament held on a bunch of futons not too long after this....hehe

The Kochi Boys after Day One. Still in high spirits after an exhausting day coming out with only 1 win from 3. say "TITS!!!"