Day 5: Mystery Solved, Sleep Overwhelming

We have decoded the heater. Maybe decoded is the incorrect word. We, I, found the correct combination of buttons to press. Now we can sleep semi-comfortably in our small beds with their super thick sliding blankets. Rapture.

Day 4: Training Begins

Ok. That previous entry was destined for failure the moment it started. I was surrounded by my training peeps and could not really concentrate. This morning is really no better though. I’m sitting in my room waiting to get ready to go to training. The reason that I am waiting is because my roommate, Steven, and his wife, MeiLei, are copying some worksheet for our training. They were supposed to bring it when they came to training but they left it in their other suitcases. (We had to send the bulk of our luggage to our branch schools and only bring about a weeks worth of clothing to the training center in Okayama.) SO now I’m waiting for them to finish that.

I’m also waiting for someone to shed light on the secret of our heater. We have this gorgeous little heater attached to the wall that neither I nor Steven can figure out. The damn thing is entirely in Japanese and the crappy instructions that our first trainers (the ones who released us into Okayama with a bad map and a prayer) are horrible. The instructions give like a one word explanation of the heater. Actually it’s the Kanji symbol for heater followed by the English word “heater.” Truly a useless means of instruction when you are cold… ice cold… possibly on the verge of dying from hypothermia because this fucking building does not include central heating. Oh GAWD to be back in the U.S. were people understand that instructions for heat are best detailed in English. One word explanations should be the title for your instructions. NOT, the instructions themselves. Personally I for the most part can deal with being cold… most of the time, but today I find that I am craving a little heat and this heater mystery is proving to be to much for me and my needs.

I’m going to go take a shower now and frown at my wrinkled shirt that I refuse to iron. I’ll frown it into straightness.

DAY 3

I’m starting to think that I should have endeavored to maintain this thing daily. Well that was the original plan, but due to set-backs things were changed. The power situation here in Japan is pretty weird. I don’t think they use three prongs ever. They just let their electricity just flow willy nilly all over the damn place. At any rate I purchased a funky looking extension cord so that I could finally charge my computer up and get a few things done. I was finally able to chat with Rasha and assure her that country to popular belief I did make it across the ocean. I called my parents. They were worried. They tried to call my branch school, but were not able to get through.

We’ve been walking all over Okayama, which is the city in which I’m doing my training before I travel to my school in Ogaki. We went to a castle today. We, of course, is my training class. My trainers let us loose upon the city for like two days. IN my class there are about ten people: David, Rennel, Dayo, Tracy, Naho, Archie, Steven, Danielle, Meilei, and me. Ta-da.

Hour 11: Feeling Like a Caged Animal

To say that this day is not exciting would be a bit of a lie. I am so buzzed, kind of. At least I was. I feel like a caged animal. This “flight,” this torture seems determined to never end. !4 hours from Dallas to Osaka. I’ve been on long car trips, but in those situations I always knew someone. Today I know no one. I know that there are five other people on this flight who are going to Japan for the same reason as me. I also know that aside from the requisite Japanese people all the foreigners look normal. Normal may be the wrong word. They don’t look unusually remarkable. No one stands out as being one of the elect few.

Truth be told this type of job is common nowadays. So, the elect few is just a myth that exists only in my head. Kind of like W.E.B Dubois and the magnificent 10 or some shit like that. Anyway, I’m bored and I’m still reeling from the insult I was dealt today at the hands of this old…. GUY! This guy who is from Amarillo, Texas is a finance consultant. He talked my ear of during my flight from Mobile, AL to Dallas. Al 77 minutes of it. He would not shut up. He made me give him my sister’s phone number so that he could offer her some help with refinancing her shit. After he talked to me for about an hour, during which time I ran to the bathroom and tried to feign sleeping (he could not be shook), he says that I look older than what I really am, He says that he would have pegged me as thirty and not 23.

That old bastard my heart break. 30? Thirty? THIRTY FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never been so hurt. I mean thirty isn’t a bad age. I’m hearing more and more reports of people coming into their prime at thirty. I’m not near my prime though. I’m not even on that downward (or upward) spiral to 30 yet. Naturally I played off my hurt. I made it into a joke. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to knock those liver spots straight off his sorry ass. I know a poorly veiled insult when I see one. He was saying I looked bad, But who wouldn’t? I have only had two hours of sleep today. I’m tired and it freaking shows. He caught me at a down moment. But I’ll get him. I’ll show the world that I am only 23 and I look great!


Not really, but I’m gonna see if I can get some sleep in. I have this creeping feeling that the trainers are gonna try to take us out to eat tonight. To turn them down or not to urn them down? That is the question.

I hate packing.

Damn Cats Rejects

I'm 23 now and for the most part pretty well adjusted for someone coming from He... I mean Mississippi. I say for the most part because of this show. This show, Zoobilie Zoo, screwed me in the head when I was younger. When I was seven or something close to that my aunt used to babysit me. This show came on everyday right in the middle of her soaps. It was like General Hospital, Dallas, Zoobilie Zoo and then All My Children. The schedule was perfect. Everyday my favorite show came on, until one day things went horribly wrong. Zoobilie Zoo was my favorite show. On this horrible day things changed. The cute characters (which now appear freakish and just plain disgusting) sang their songs, did their dance, and proceeded to teach me something special. On this day the something special was about the solar system. The characters explained the way that gravity works on earth and in the solar system. They explained that the sun is our solar system's center of gravity and that all things are pulled towards it. They explained that all the planaets in our system are slowly being pulled towards the sun and that one day all of the planets will fall in.

That shit shocked me. I was seven, very impressionable, and very aware of how the sun worked. I watched the discovry channel. I knew that the sun was hot. I knew that nothing could live on the sun. Nothing dammit! Nothing. The little giggling happy character on Zoobilie Zoo made me leave my room. I almost cried after watching that show. I sat outside my aunt's trailer and refused to look up. I just sat there and sucked on my blue frozen cup and wonder just how soon we would all burn up. After that day I could never watch Zoobilie Zoo again. I just didn't feel right. My stomach churned and my heart grew weak.

They Basically told me that I was gonna die. That is never cool on a children's show. I just wanted to say that and let every one know about another one of the many 80's shows that contributed to my fucked up nature.

no focus

Dear God,


Blah blah blah something. I've always wanted to start an entry this way. Writing as though I were consulting God. Even if I don't really believe in any one religions stance on God. I should start all my entries like this:

Dear you or ya'll,

I like that.

Anyway its kinda late. About 12:35 to be exact. Yep, I'm staying up late and writing this entry with a sheet over my head so my parents can't see me. yeah bitches i'm bold! It is officially two days until I leave and I have nothing done. Nothing. No clothes packed. No decisions made. No final instructions given to my family. Nothing. I want to chicken out. I want to call that bastard who recruited me and say, "Hey! This shit ain't gon' work!"

Ja-fucking-pan. What the hell am I thinking. I'm not ready for this. I don't know how to speak. I don't even have faith in my abilty to teach english. Sure my job is to simply tell them how to speak and I'm sure I can do that. That much should be easy, but if any one asks me about the finer parts of sentence structure I will fix them with my best deer in the headlights stare. I never learned that crap. I declared it useless the moment my teachers started trying to bang it into my head and truly it is useless. Who worries about conjunctions when writing a paper? I don't. I learned to write by reading. Of course, after looking at my writing here that doesn't appear to be saying much. I assure you though, I am a good writer. But I digress. Who cares about grammar? I don't and I never will. I learn by doing. Not doing willy nilly. I need structure but I don't need concrete rules that make no sense to be the structure by which my learning is directed.

hmmm, am i talking myself into going. cause i really feel like I can handle it now.


I haven't packed a thing. Did I mention that? My room looks like a junkyard.

Dirty Harry

Love the Gorillaz

lesson of the day

Sometimes things are broken.
Sometimes they can be fixed.
Sometimes... a lot of the time it is neccessary to know when to give up on the broken items.


thats it

Reason 2..Since flightplan didn't work

Mountains, hills and forests cover over two thirds of Japan, while residential and industrial areas account for less than ten percent of land area. This is a little known fact among foreigners, who tend to visit mainly the heavily urbanized and industrialized regions around Tokyo and Osaka and along the Tokaido and Sanyo coasts. The Japanese fauna varies from brown bears in Hokkaido to tropical snakes in Okinawa. Japanese monkeys live throughout the country except in Hokkaido. Other famous Japanese animals include the crane, the Japanese deer, the fox (kitsune), and the raccoon dog (tanuki). Don't go...because all these animals will eat you. And the forests will grow and block your apt. Ok, now you can stay!

I was always taught that when writing something, anything really, you should start with a shocking statement. Something that draws readers in and makes them say, "What!?" I think I have one of those statements now...

I can feel my bowels loosening. Not because of diarrhea or some obvious need to poo. I wish that were the case. Today. This week I've felt my bowels moving because of apprehension, anxiety, FEAR. I'm scared. Plain and simple. And when I get scared my body tenses but my bowels enjoy a wonderful sense of freedom that ultimately only serves to heighten my tension and further intensify my fear. It really is a bit of a... Um... I'm not sure what should go here. Maybe self fulfilling prophecy, but nothing is being predicted.
As I was saying this week has been kinda nerve-racking. I'm quitting my job next week. After 8 long months of dealing with the idiots at Cingular I am getting away. Most of the idiots in surrounding Cingular don't really work there, but pay for services there. I'm not gonna talk about that though because soon it will not be my concern. Anyway I'm leaving and I'm in a bit of a precarious situation. I've been written up so many times at Cingular that I fear that I might get fired any day now. That doesn't really bother me. I have a job lined up and could care less about Cingular. I just don't want them to steal my joy away from me. On my last day I want to go off on one customer. Just one. Then I'll be able to quit happily. I've been dreaming up ways to tell a customer that I think they're stupid and not deserving of a cell phone. I have a pretty good script memorized in my head. I just need time and that one bitchy customer. I can't get fired yet. I have to quit on my own terms.
Cingular isn't what's really bothering me though. I'm leaving the country just about two weeks... Exactly. I'm nervous. I've never been on a plain and I've never left the country. I'm the only person in my family to leave the country for reasons not associated with the military. I don't have any relatives to give me words of wisdom or offer to write me letters of encouragement. Not that I really need those words. My relatives really haven't provided me any real encouragement over the years. I'm just that weird nephew or the strange cousin. I at least know them. I'm not gonna know anyone in Japan. I'm gonna have to like make a family of my coworkers.

too piss them off or not to piss them off? that is the question.

My flight to Japan is gonna be the longest day of my life. I leave mobile, Alabama at about 6 in the morning and arrive in Japan the following day at around 5 pm. I'm gonna spend the day chasing the sun over the US and eventually across the ocean. I wonder will the birds sound the same there. Will they sing or chirp in some strange, clipped, screaming voice.

Can you scream and chirp at the same time?
People shouldn't chirp anyway.


I know the trees will be different. And the fish. And the smells. And the people. I'm moving into one of the most homogeneous cultures in the world! What the hell am I thinking? Am I even thinking?

sigh. there go my bowels again

ho hum

I wanted to link this entry to my friend rasha's blog, but she isn't accepting links or something. That's beside the point though. I'm not gonna do a whole friend introduction thing like she is doing but I would like to mention one of my friends, Christina. I actually feel kinda bad about mentioning her here. It is not really my style to mention someone by name before I thrash them. (i've always wanted to say that. "i'll thrash you!" ha!)
Christina for some reason has ditched me. She's done the same to Rasha, but I can't really speak for Rasha about that. Anyway, she ditched me. I can't really say that I'm shocked. She has a new man who she is actually planning on marrying. It only seems right that she remove a few distractions from her life and I guess that is what I have become to her.

Am I too demanding? I don't think so.
Am I too judgmental? Maybe. I have opinions which may clash with others sometimes.

The reason that I ask these questions is because that is the only reason I can imagine for Christina ditching me. Apparently she found our 7+ year friendship to be too demanding in the face of her impending marriage or she found that may disapproval of her crappy little boy-man was just too negative for her life. At any rate she hasn't called me or returned my e-mails in about 3 weeks. Maybe more than that.
Normally, I wouldn't be bothered by this. If she doesn't want to talk for awhile I usually understand and am more than willing to give her her space. Its just that I am on the verge of leaving the country and I would like to get to see my friend, my good friend, just one more time before I leave. At the rate she is going I may never see or hear from her again.


That is really all I have to say about that right now. I'm actually pretty pissed at her, but my anger never translates well. It always comes off as me being some kinda calm and controlled person. I'm actually the most out of control person I know. (i'm sure we all say that. for me it is actually true though.)

Flightplan

Tommie, I thought you knew that I changed your flight plans. Yeah, you will be leaving on August 13, 2007. I'm sorry, but we need you here longer.

Silver Hawks

This is like the best show of all time. It is totally respnsible for all that is wrong with my head.

web videos

My friend rasha has been trying for a while to get me into waching videos on line. you know like weird shit and stuff. Well truth be told she hasn't been trying. she just occasionally sends me stuff. i think she was trying. She's evil. I know it. At any rate I've spent like half the night looking at weird movies and laughing or going "Omigod!"

Here are some of the movies I saw.
http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/musicvideo.html
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/annoyingasians.html
http://www.jokaroo.com/funnyvideos/chinesebackstreet.html