THE TOOTH HURTS

So we had our monthly foreign teachers meeting yesterday at the town city hall. It was the first time seeing all the company folks for the first time since winter break. I talked to Richard, from NYC, and the only other African-American in our crew. He was telling some us a recent horror story about his recent emergency visit to the dentist:

It seems he had a wisdom tooth which needed to be pulled--don't know if he had a cavity or not. Anyway, he gets to the dentist, and they give him local anesthesia to numb his mouth, but the dosage was ineffective and he didn't go numb--it turned out that the potency of Japanese anesthetics is much weaker than what's used in the U.S. So they started working on his tooth, and he could feel everything. He started screaming in pain, so they gave him more doses of the anesthetic. He ended up getting a total of about 9-10 shots in his mouth to induce numbing, and it STILL wasn't enough to numb him up. Another problem arose because the amount of anesthetic he'd received was way above the normal recommended limit, and the dentist told him he was afraid to give him more because it would pose a danger to his heart. At that point, they'd already sawed away at his wisdom tooth, and even broke it partially to drill a hole in the center to inject the anesthetic directly into his nerve. They had hacked the gum away around his tooth, which left his root exposed. He was in so much pain during the process that 2 female dental assistants had to hold his arms down and were yelling "Gamba! Gamba!," which translates to English as "Endure! Endure!" Finally, he begged the dentist to just yank his tooth out in one last effort to bring the agonizing pain to an end. He said he'd rather have dealt with the temporary, excruciating pain of the extraction and the subsequent bleeding than have to had taken anymore of the injecting, sawing and drilling. But it was just too much. In the end, he had to leave the dentist with his tooth and gums cut up and exposed. Afterwards, he was in so much pain, that he had to go to the hospital emergency room from work, where he discovered he had contracted an oral infection, due to the exposed nerve and roots. Now he has to take a bag of antibiotics and painkillers everday until he's able to get to another surgeon! Whew!

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I must have been making the ugliest face ever when I heard that story. It almost hurt just to listen. Geez. That is exactly why I was wary about getting any dental work done in Japan. I do not trust Japanese dental care. Sorry for the international bias, but truth be told, I've seen the most rotten and crooked teeth in my life in Japan. It's quite common to see people with 2 and 3 layers of teeth, pointing in multiple directions. Japanese brands of toothpaste do not contain fluoride. Almost no one flosses, and orthodontics are not even close to being popular. Even the cutest of my students have rotten teeth--I even have first graders with crowns. Being in Japan has made me SO thankful for American dental care. All you Westerners should be thankful. I think the UN should make the availability of fluoride mandatory for all free world civilizations. Just the sheer paranoia of having to go to a dentist here has made me a brushing and flossing fanatic since I've been here. I'm on it everyday, even at school. I am SO glad I was able to get to the dentist before came back. Thank the Most High. Okay, enough ranting.

Just remember to count your blessings and count your teeth, cuz a lotta folks in the world are lacking both. Amen.

COLD THAN A MUG.2

Yesterday was the coldest day of the year thus far--the temperature was definitely close to freezing when I got to school in the morning. There were ice patches on the ground, plus there was a slight wind, which made it more excruciating. Junior high was unbelievably cold. I could see my breath in the hallways and in the classrooms. As cold as it was, they still had the windows and doors cracked open "to keep fresh air circulating." I was looking at people like they were crazy. I mean, I appreciate fresh air as much as the next person, but I think we can breathe a little so-called stale air if it means we don't have to freeze half to death. Afterall, we are mammals.

At home, I've been eating a lot of curry rice lately, and it's pretty damn good. Last night I made chicken and potato curry, with carrots, onions and mushrooms. It was great. Curry rice really makes for a tasty, hearty meal, plus I always have leftovers from each time I make it, so I can get at least 2 meals out of every batch. I really think I'm gonna eat this stuff until I get absolutely sick of it. I used to make yakisoba almost every other day, for months, until I suddenly got tired of making it. I haven't had soba in months. As a matter of fact, I still have an unused pack of soba in the fridge that's been in there since I don't how long.

WORK IT OUT

I went to Capoeira tonight. Practice was pretty tough--I could tell that I definitely got weaker over the holidays. We did an exercise where he had to squat with our knees locked in 90 degree positions; that was murder on the thighs. In addition to that, Z put together these super-long Tekken-like sequences of attacks and evasions which simply wore us out. With such intense practices, I should be back in shape in no time.
Before the workout, though, we practiced the instruments, and I got to beat on a tambourine for the first time. It was good. I got the basic rhythm down pretty quickly and about 15 people were jamming between the pandeiros, or tambourines, the berimbau, the one-stringed percussive instruments, and the atatabaque, the big congo drum.

When I got home, I finished off the fish curry I made last night. It was pretty good; i added potatoes also. I'm not 100% sure, but I think the fish I used was salmon, from Chile. The curry smelled really fishy, but it was quite tasty.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

Yesterday, during 4th period, the vice-principal interrupted class over the intercom to have a moment of silence for the 6,000 victims who died in the Kobe earthquake of 1995. When he made the announcement, I didn't understand everything being said, then soon after everyone in our class stood at attention and bowed their heads toward the ground for about a good minute it seemed. I pretty much did the same, figuring it was some sort of moment of silence, I just wasn't sure for whom. The homeroom teacher explained it to me immediately afterwards. Not to be facetious, but if they had a minute of silence for the kobe victims, they need to have like a day for the near 30,000 Iranians who died in Bam.

I had a pretty interesting day at school, overall. I had a class with the 2nd graders, which I taught by myself. The teacher had asked me to run the class solo, because she had to leave school during that period to go to the hospital to get a shot, I think. the class went pretty well, with no problems. that particular 2nd grade class is my favorite, because we get along so well and most of the kids are pretty bright. Actually, I wasn't completely alone because the principal had come in to take pictures for the school newsletter, which was published by that afternoon. It's kind of cool that some teachers trust me enough to run their classes on my own, especially considering the language barrier between myself and the kids.

Lunch was pretty good. Part of the meal was some kind of breaded curry-flavored lotus root. I was skeptical at first, thinking it was a slab of fried pork, but it wasn't--It was pretty good, actually. I think this was the first week where I could eat just about all the school lunches everyday, without plucking alot of stuff out; although, there was one day where I had to fish some weiner sausages out of my soup.

After lunch, one of 4th grade teachers asked me to come outside and play jump rope with her class. I was reluctant to go outside in the cold. Inside the school was cold enough. But I threw on my jacket and went out there anyway. It was pretty cold outside, but I had fun. Most of the kids were wearing short sleeves and even shorts, which is their P.E. uniform. They didn't really seem to notice that they were freezing half to death. I had on long pants and a leather jacket and I still felt nippy.

Wow. It's actually snowing yet again today--however, it's not sticking.

IT'S THE INSIDE THAT COUNTS

So school was a little bit less cold today, although i could still see my breath in the hallways. Some of the teachers asked me if I was cold. I suppose that was a rhetorical question. They asked, "Isn't it cold in Chicago?," as if to suggest I should be immune to cold weather. I was like "Yeah, but only OUTSIDE." We tend to have indoor heating in America. Sheesh.

After work I met up with Cooper at my home station. I hadn't seen him in a while, since last year. Once I realized I didn't have to catch the train so early to be on time for school, I started riding the earlier train less often, so I'd see Cooper much less. He called me up yesterday and said he wanted to meet. We went and sat in a nearby cafe in my neighborhood to get out of the cold and talk. He told me he'd just gotten married over the holidays, which solved his visa problems, and that he wanted to change jobs, so he could spend more time off; he's tired of working incredibly long hours and they're starting to affect his health. He asked me about jobs teaching English, and if I could put in a word at my company on his behalf. I said I'd do it. I definitely wouldn't want to be in his work situation, so I'd do what little I could to help him out of it.

WARM IT UP

Oh man. It was so cold at school today, it actually hurt to walk thru the hallways. On top of that, all my classes were in the big, cold classroom, so I was struggling to get through. I taught the 3rd and 1st graders today. The 3rd graders learned about weather and the 1st graders learned how to make polite requests. They're pretty bright, so they did well. With the 3rd graders, I did the 'Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes' song, which involves a lot of moving while singing. I was so cold, I had us do it twice just so I could warm up more! The kids didn't seem to be fazed by the cold, but my hands were freezing. By my second class, I had to borrow one of the space heaters from the staff room to take to the classroom to help keep my hands warm. I was shuffling around like a hobo trying keep my extremities from going numb. It was ridiculous.

The 1st grade teachers came to me today and told me that the 1st graders will be putting on a special event in March, to show off what they've learned during the school year to their mothers. The kids had written some simple questions in Japanese and wanted me to translate them into English, so they could recite the questions in English to their parents. I helped translate all of their questions, but some were pretty long questions, things like "What are a rabbit's favorite food?" and "Which animal of the Chinese zodiac is this year?" My goodness, "zodiac?" The friggin' teacher didn't even know the word zodiac. We were wondering if they would be able to memorize such long questions. They're only 6 for geez sake. But they tried really hard to recite the entire questions on their own, with no inhibitions. It's funny, because if I asked any of my junior high schoolers to recite these questions they'd wet themselves, even some of the Japanese teachers would breakdown. But the little ones are awake and ambitious. It's almost like, people get dumber the older they get.

SUSHI-SICLES

Brrrrr! It's officially winter off in this piece. It was quite cold today, plus there was a little breeze that was biting my face when I was riding my bike to the station from school. And by the time I got home, it was snowing--big, flluffy flakes at that! It almost felt like the CHI for a second, but the snow didn't stick.

Coming off of a 3-day holiday weekend, today, was my first day back at elementary school--and the love continues. Most of the kids seemed happy to see me, although the one 5th grade girl who hates me (for some unknown reason) gave me a scowl, as usual. One of the assistant principals presented me with a gift box of manju, smashed rice and bean pastries from his home prefecture of Fukui. That was pretty nice.

Again, the no heat thing is killing me; it was so cold today, even the principal was rocking his winter coat over his suit and tie. We had to move one of my 4th grade classes to a different classroom because the room we usually use was too cold. Instead, we had class in a classroom with a space heater. Some kids were bundled up in hooded sweatshirts and coats. But some kids are still being sent to school in shorts and skirts. I totally don't understand that.

I made apple-chicken curry again tonight. I added a lot of apples, so it was really sweet, and it was tasty. Me and my girl finished off the first batch for dinner yesterday. She, too, said it was good. I know I'm gonna cook this stuff until I get sick of it, but it's really good. I might have to experiment with some different flavors. Hmmm.. fish and potato curry sounds yummy.

APPLE CURRY

I went to Capoeira class last night. It felt good to be back, as it'd been almost a month since I last worked out. It was a full house, and there were a fair amount of new people. I could tell the prolonged absence due to the winter holidays softened my body up a bit, as I had to catch my breath after some of the drills. Once I get back in my regimen, I'll be all good. At the end of class, there was a good roda, although Z said he wanted all the new heads to get a chance to play, so I only had time to jump in once.

I wanted to go to Sunday's class, but I was running late, and by the time I was ready to go, I realized I hadn't gone to the grocery store yet. I wanted to get a number of things, and since the store closes at 8p, I decided to just skip practice instead of being incredibly late and do my dinner shopping, because I knew I would be really hungry after exercising--it's kind of like Rock, Paper, Scissors: food beats exercise everytime.

Tonight I'd decided I wanted to try to make curry rice, for the first time. Curry dishes are very popular amongst the Japanese, and since living in Japan, I've really come to like curry and rice; actually, it's one of my favorite meals. There is even a fast-food curry rice chain in Japan called CoCo Ichiban. Besides all that, my cooking repertoire had recessed as of late; I lost my zeal for making yakisoba (fried wheat noodles), and ckicken ramen for dinner had gotten redundant.

I decided I was going to try my hand at curry, but not just any curry--apple & chicken curry. I'd seen a box of a brand of apple curry at the store some time ago, and just the thought of apples in curry sounded really tasty, so I'd been dying to try it. Until now, Aaron had been the resident curry rice master; he made really chunky curries with potatoes, mushrooms, and onions. At the store to the grocery store and got my ingredients: golden green apples, carrots, white onions, chicken breasts, rice, adn fo course, the curry. I bought a pricy 2kg(4.5lb) bag of rice, which came to about US $14. This actually was the cheapest, smallest bag I saw. There were like fifty different types of rice, and they had 10kg bags for about $60. Dang. The Japanese are serious about their rice. Back in the day, rice was used as money. You really feel that when you pay 14 bucks for a 5 lb. bag of rice. I rarely eat rice at home, so this 2kg bag should last me a good while. It's a LOT of rice.

It's actually very easy for me to grocery shop in Japan, because I usually don't have to speak to anyone; I just collect my food, check out, pay, and be out. I go into that grocery store everyday and rarely have to utter a peep, so I'm sure I shocked the checkout girl when I asked for a price check:

(translated)
"Wait. How much is that curry?" I always watch my items being rung up.

"It's 218 yen," the checkout girl said.

"isn't it 198 yen?," I asked. Before she could answer, I went back to the aisle to check for myself, with checkout girl in tow.

Pointing at the display tag, I say "Look. It's 198 yen."

(With a surprised look) "Oh, I'm sorry! I'll correct it."

Oh yes, Japanese stores make mistakes, too. It feels good to catch those kind of mistakes which save you money, even if it was just 20 yen. It's the principle, right?

Anyway, I got back home and diced up my chicken fruit and veggies real good. I usually like to follow written instructions when I cook, but that's rather difficult when the instructions are in Japanese. I had to solicit the resident curry master for a little guidance. It all seemed pretty simple, and after about 45 minutes of careful mixing, simmering, and adding I came out with decent and CHUNKY curry. I steamed some rice in the rice cooker, and I was good to go. Next, the taste test: It was the "the bomb," as my little cousin used to say. Or it was "the beezy fo sheezy," as Snoop would say. Actually, it was REALLY delicious; the apples gave it a nice flavor. And considering it was the first time I'd ever made curry, it was dangon' good! Even the curry master dug it.

Brotha got a brand new bag. Culinary skills upgraded.

ON MY BEHALF

Man, they weren't BS'ing about the whole speech deal. We walked into the meeting room and there was a table for Aaron and I to sit at, which was facing the multpile tables full of the 40-some-odd teachers and principals from both my junior high and elementary schools. All of them were facing us like it was a college lecture of some sort. Gee, for a culture that breeds aversion to singling-out individuals, they sure do know how to put folks on the spot!

Admittedly, I caught a case of the pre-performance shivers when I sat down at the table. On second thought, that may have been due to the fact that we have NO HEAT at school. Have I mentioned that before?

Anyway, the vice-principals from both schools gave some opening words, then it was light cameras, action for me and my cohort. Aaron did a great job on the translation end. He most definitely has a notable level of fluency. We had a system where I would speak just a few sentences at a time, state a key idea, then he would translate. I also slowed down my normal rate of speech and amped my voice a bit, so the handful of English-speaking teachers could try to follow along. This made things easier on my translator. I also monitored my vocab for his sake.

I was worried beforehand that I wouldn't have enough substantial specific things to talk aout, but to my pleasant relief, it turned out that I had a fair amount of opinions and ideas to share about the state of English education on the local and national level, even. Before the meeting, Aaron and I briefly discussed what I would talk about, and that got to jogging my brain for ideas. I think the crowd appreciated what I had to say. Afterwards, there were some questions from a few teachers in the audience. While most inquisitors stayed on course, asking questions directly to the topic of English education for the Japanese students, my elementary school coordinator and assistant vice-principal, Asano-sensei, ventured down her own little off-trail of curiosity: She was more interested in Aaron and I's respective Japanese ability. She seemed enthralled by the fact that we could speak Japanese at all, not to mention Aaron's fluency. She asked us how we learned the language, and if we studied currently. She made light of the fact that Aaron and I are roommates, information she'd discovered somehow, some time ago, which most others weren't aware of. She then went on to ask "Do you speak Japanese to each other at home?"

Aaron and I just looked at each other, thinking the same thing:

"What kinda dumb-behind question is that? Do you think we're so fanatic as to abandon our native tongue when communicating with each other in the privacy of our home?"

We answered with a polite "No," and moved on.

All in all, it went over pretty well. The principals and the teachers who were still paying attention by the end of the meeting offered "Good job"'s and "Thank you for your work"'s, typical business sayings in Japanese. Afterwards, Aaron said he had a headache from all the language conversion.

I THINK I CAN TALK MY WAY OUT OF THIS ONE

Okay. First day back to school. I'm at junior high today. I said my little Happy New Year greetings to all the principals.

As the new school gymnasium is currently under construction, the 3rd term opening ceremony was outside, in about 50 degree F weather. I was rocking the leather jacket for sho', while the youngsters shivered. Po' little thangs.

I spoke to the vice-principal, Tomita-sensei. He reminded me that there's a special teachers' meeting this afternoon, and I'm supposed to be giving a speech about my opinions concerning the current local English curriculum. All the teachers from both my elementary and junior high schools will attend, so that'll probably be about 40 teachers. Now, the vice-principal told me about this meeting and speech right before winter break, but I was surprised then because usually the schools clear important matters like this with my company first. This time around they "volunteered" me into giving a speech, without me even knowing about it. Before vacaation I'd asked one of my company's staffgirls about it, but she hadn't heard about it. Although the vice-principal claimed to have to cleared it, to this day, I still think they never told my company, simply because my company didn't tell me, which they're suposed to do. On top of that, the school (vice-principal) also compulsorily selected my roommate, Aaron (who also teaches in the same city) to translate for me because 1) He knows me well (?) (I'm using their logic here) and 2) His Japanese speaking ability is better than mine (although this makes some sense, they could've had one of the Japanese teachers who speak English perform translation duties. Again this is their logic). I'm not really worried about giving a speech so much as the fact that I'm unprepared. I have general opinions, but I don't know if they will or should, even, constitute a speech. Hmm. Even though no one really would understand a dang word I'd say anyway, I still would feel weird getting up in front of everyone without having prepped my thoughts. In theory, I could get up there and recite Snoop Dogg lyrics and they probably wouldn' know the difference; actually, it's really more of a burden on Aaron, because he has to translate pretty much everything I say. I doubt he wants to translate a sporadic, broken "speech" on my behalf, or even have to fill in the gaps where necessary. It would make us both look pretty dumb...

..Gah, what am I pothering about? I'm sure this won't be difficult; I've been solicited for "educated" opinions in previous meetings--this should be no biggie.

Hm.

Did I mention that there's an open Q & A session after my speech? (gulp)

With the meeting less than 3 hours away, I may just have to wing it and freestyle this babdboy... I dunno. We'll see how this goes.

Thought gathering...

THE GREAT TRANS-PACIFIC JOURNEY

In a nutshell. After about a day of travel, plus the 15 hour time difference, I've lost an entire day. I'm finally back in my cozy yet chilly apartment. My 3rd embarkation to Japan was lengthy but went pretty smoothly. Mind you, when I left, I hadn't slept in over a day:

Sunday morning. Packing done. Take shower. Get dressed. Wake moms up. Eat breakfast. Load up car. Hit road. Fall asleep. Arrive at airport, quite early at that. Unload car. Kiss, hug moms. Check in, clear security. No probs. Take 400m stroll thru O'Hare terminal to departure gate. Wait. Watch airport CNN. Starts snowing. Board plane. Snows harder. Plane delayed at gate. Snows even more. Plane delayed even more. Waiting, dozing off, wake up. Still parked at gate. Doze off again. Wake up, plane inches to runway. Still snowing, more delay to clear runway. Sit at runway for awhile. Finally take off almost 3 hours after scheduled departure time. Doze off again, but not before catching the first round of drinks and peanuts--it wouldn't be flying without the peanuts. Get the first meal. Hit the lavatory to brush chops. Grab standard issue pillow & blankie, go comatose for 6 hours. Wake up, flip on personal tv. The words "Finding Nemo" displayed on Channel 3. Looking forward to watching Nemo. Check back several times. No Nemo. Guess they couldn't find him. Ah well, listen to radio channels the rest of the flight. Get another snack/meal. Land in Tokyo (actually, airport is an hour away from Tokyo). No gate bridge, so we had to get off on the tarmac and take a shuttle bus to the terminal. Go thru customs. Get luggage. No problems. Buy train tickets. Catch express train from airport to Tokyo--had a nice little convo about Japanese culture and the U.S. economy with American businessman sitting next to me on the train. At one point, he was describing the racial demographics of his company's technical personnel; he used the term "WASP," which I thought was interesting. Arrive at Tokyo. Catch bullet train to Nagoya. Catch more Z's. Finally arrive at Nagoya. Catch commuter train to my home stop. Walk 10 minutes with heavy suitcase in tow. Arrive home Monday night. Job done.

IN THE SKY AGAIN

Whew. I finally finished "micro-packing", which was quite a precise operation, I must say. Plus, my peoples were still ringing me up through all ungodly hours of the night. I didn't even bother going to sleep tonight; I slept well last night, plus I'll have plenty of snooze time on that 13 hour flight back. I leave in about 2 hours for the airport, then I'll be on my way back East.

I feel good about this winter's little vacation home, overall. It started off a bit slow and dry, because of the 1-week jetlag handicap. Although I missed a few heads, I got in touch with most of the people I'd intended to. Oh, and I FINALLY found a dentist yesterday(Woo hoo!) And no root canal for the kid! What a RELIEF. After calling up crazy amounts of dentists, I got some leads from some periodontal insiders who gave me the skinny on a slick tooth doctor on the Southside who accepts cash only. No, but really, I literally ended up walking into a local dentist's office off the street and he hooked a bro up on the spot. I was his last patient of the day, and I paid for the work only, no emergency charges or anything, didn't even bill me for the X-ray. Dr. Getty did me right. Props to Dr. Getty. I did NOT want to be fumbling around overseas trying to get dental work in Japanese. There's no telling what would end up happening to my mouth if I mistakenly spoke the wrong phrase; I'm not interested in finding out either. It's not that Japan doesn't have dentists, or even good ones for that matter. It's just MUCH more convenient to get your business handled in your home country, in your native tongue. Ya heard? Glad that's over and done with.


Well, I must take a shower now and dress. See you tomorrow on the other side of the Pacific. Peace.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's Day was pretty enjoyable. Got a chance to reconnect with my folks. Earlier in the day, I went to visit one of my elder neighbors who used to give me odd jobs for cash back when I was in high school. Her daughter had graduated from Howard before I'd went there, and I hadn't seen her since before I'd left for Japan in March '02. She was happy to see me and we chatted for awhile in her dining room. Amongst other things, we talked about the economy and Bush, which seems to be on everyone's mind these days.

In the afternoon, I went to my grandmother's for the second family gathering since I've been home. I got to chow down and visit with my folks, including one of my aunts and my younger cousin, neither of whom I'd seen in person since I'd gone overseas. My aunt started cooking some dope creole for me, with shrimp, turkey sausage, okra, sauce seaaoned with pepper and bay leaves, but it wasn't ready to eat at the time of dinner. She'd instructed me to take the crock pot home and how to finish cooking it there. I showed my folks the Bob Sapp ice cream wrapper I'd brought back with the picture of him eating bananas, and showed them a video of Capoeira. Both sparked some interesting discussions.

I missed one of my cousins and his family who were on standby waiting for their newest baby to be born. His mom and dad, my aunt and uncle, who were at the gathering, had to leave early when they got the phone call that my cousin's girlfriend had gone into labor. It seemed like less then an hour after they'd left, we got another phone call from them announcing the birth of the latest addition to our family, a New Year's baby girl, and my grandmother's third great-grandchild.

On another note, one of my childhood friends just came in town from LA for her brother's funeral, and came over to visit. Her brother had been found murdered in his apartment the weekend after Christmas. Although the circumstances of her visit were sad, it was good to see her and catch up. We shared some laughs and ate some of my aunt's creole, which had finished cooking while my friend was over. We hooked the creole up with some steamed rice and crackers. It was DELICIOUS!