April 1, 2009
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Just Older!
So, like I said before, busy month. First, I reluctantly turned 29 on March 10th. Second, my first year at my current schools came to an end and with it the graduations of my 3rd graders and 6th graders. Third, my brother, Chris, came to visit for 1 short week. Fourth, I finally got my PS3 back online and reintroduced myself to the dubious pleasures of online gaming. Fifth, I met up with the karate guys for some nomikai action. Sixth, my swearing rate has tripled, largely due to the fourth point.
Being 29 is much like being 28. Which was much like being 27. Which was much like 26. And so on. The number of orbits since my inception has become more and more meaningless with time and I’m largely past the point of caring. At least I thought I was till this past week. Maybe I’m having a 3rd Life Crisis or something but I’ve been introspectively pining away for my NUFS days, which happens from time to time, but also for my Preston days (4th year pain and workload excluded.) Wishing I could just be in that place again, that life. But now I’m 11 months from 30 and that life is long, long ago and I know, in a way, I’ve outgrown it. I really wish I hadn’t. Depressing.
What’s not depressing is that my contract was renewed for another year so my job is safe again till next March. What is depressing is that I’ve had to say goodbye to a lot of kids I’d become inexplicably attached to. Especially my junior high 3rd graders. How I came to feel so big-brotherly, even parental, for other people’s 15 year olds is one of the great mysteries of my recent life but I shed my share of tears along with several of the students and faculty at graduation. I gave them my e-mail and received several replies. I don’t expect to in the future and I know their old ALT will be a distant memory in a few months but…. I miss them. I care about them. I’ve bugged Nichola at Ena Minami High (whose getting a few of them) with names, pictures and brief personality profiles and realised I’ve turned into an overprotective parent to teenagers I’ve known only a year. How, when, why did this happen? No idea. Maybe cos my kids are awesome!
My brother and I at Outback Steakhouse. The Master Replicas box you see to my right contains my present to our other brother, Richard; Yoda’s lightsaber, size and colour-appropriate. These are the kind of gifts you get when your brothers are much older and way cool! So Chris’ visit was a little hampered by time (only a week) and the fact that much of that week I had to be in work. Chris ended up touring Japan alone for the most part though I did accompany him to Nara and had him come into school with me, as my fencing coach, Paul, and Calex have done before, which is always fun!
Me and guys only Sarv will recognise. Yoshida (Masato) and Yamaoka (Seiya) formerly of NUFS karate club. Yoshida (left) was back in Nagoya inbetween stints ryugaku-ing in China so the 3 of us had a mini-nomikai, along with a classmate of theirs named Aya. These guys were both ichinensei white belts when Sarv and I started so we were all in the same boat (though Sarv and I had it a bit easier, being able to pull the Gaijin Card!) They’re also really cool guys and it’s been great to see them again, now and previously at nomikai and engagement parties with Sarv. Yamaoka and several of the girls who were white belts back in the day have now graduated and I’m really hoping they don’t get sucked into the soul-crushing sarariman/OL work so many Japanese seem to. I really miss these guys and the karate club and nomikai, jouge kankei not withstanding! Wish I’d had better Japanese at the time too, so I coulda got to know them better before now!
Online gaming is highly addictive, highly over-rated and highly rage-enducing. On the plus side, it’s good to be able to play anyone, anywhere and match your skills against others. On the minus bad connection can pretty much destroy game-play and so very many of the people out there are cheap, sad fucks and it all causes me to get so uncontrollably angry I’d punch through a giant Buddha or rip the head off a puppy if either were in my direct vicinity at the time. Oh, and I fucking hate Blanka now. I really, really hate him….!!! I hate him more than a truck full of…. yellow lightsaber-wielding…. Fat Boy Slims… biting the chocolate off a kit-kat then eating the wafer on its own…. and talking about “emo” when they mean “scene kids….” With Hitler.
Still, the other day I was playing Ken (Ryu is my favourite, but Ken is my best character) and I finished someone off with one of my speciality combos; cross-up flying medium kick > crouching medium punch > Hadoken > Shoryureppa. The Hadoken scored the finishing blow so the Shoryureppa kicked in just as the “KO” came up and everything went into slow-mo. You could actually see, in slow motion, Ken’s mouth forming the words “Shoryureppa!” It was awesome. Street Fighter 4 rocks!
Time to go. Till next time… “Wasted youth and a fistful of ideals, I had a young and optimistic point of view…”
Comments (10)
I cant help but feel slightly targetted when you talk about yellow lightsabers and eating the chocolate off the kitkat first… Good thing I’m not hitler, else I’d really think there was a message in there for me!
Yeah, Ive grown attached to most of my(?) kids too, and its kida sad that theyre graduating. But, yeah. Life goes on. Being Shogakkou, I cant really give out my e-mail like you do
Happy birthday, BTW.
Huh? First post? Is this Blasphemy? I think I have only had this once before!
I don’t feel any different every time I have a birthday after the age of maybe 20. Age means nothing, as I have learnt (from Yoda and others…). No really, its dumb that in asian countries age means so much and even the difference of a single year determines seniority. I’d go crazy if I had to speak in keigo to every 26+yo! I could easily name just as many people older than me that I respect for their actions, achievements, experience, etc. as I could people I don’t think deserve any respect for their maturity level/personality, etc. So in the end 29 doesn’t mean anything at all.
Its great that you got the opportunity to form such strong bonds with these kids, and although it is sad to part, all you have to know is that you have made an influence and given great memories for at least one of them, probably many more. Now you get to do it again this year with a new batch of kids. Just think what an affect you could have on them and how they might grow and change with you just being there. At such a young and impressionable age even the smallest comment from you could encourage them to follow a life path that they might not have considered with only the pressure of typical Japanese society.
Having a cool older brother must be awesome!
Did Yamaoka get a girlfriend yet?
@ShinRaijin - NOOOO!!!! I shouldn’t have spent so long typing my comment!
@ShinRaijin - those things have bugged me for years. You shouldn’t consider it personal since I was irritated by those things years before I met you!
@sarven - yeah, looks like Calex pipped you to the post whilst you were typing! Nope, Yamaoka is still single, as is Yoshida right now. BTW there are a couple more photos of our meeting in my photoblog.
@ShinRaijin - No worries, Calex. I do the eating in parts thing AND I actually enjoy a couple Fatboy Slim songs. If Dave’s going to target someone, you can rest assured that it will be me
Online play is indeed all of those things. It’s really smooth with this Warhawk game, though. No lag at all. Wish I could say the same for Little Big Planet. Every tijme Bryant and I try to play together the lag renders it impossible
Congrats on the re-contracting, papa Dave-sensei.
Lightsabers, Outback Steak House, swearing! Aw, I wish I were in Nagoya….
Maybe it’s actually good you’re depressed about your students leaving — it would be more depressing if they were all so jerky / lame that you didn’t you mind at all, right?
Wow I’m in lala land…happy freakin birthday!
Welcome to the online world of SF4 and the idiots and jerks that consume it. Just j/k but there are definitely some butt heads on there. However, I can be at blame for it too. It’s just when you get in a really hard match and do something stupid it gets at the core. My neighbors probably think I’m a psycho.
Also, it’s funny how you are better with Ken but Ryu’s your fav. Akuma’s my fav but I’m much better with Sagat. Congrats on the contract and on getting old! I’ll be catching up in a few
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updaaaaaate! you have two blogs you’re slacking on. shame shame.
So you live in Japan? That, I must say, is quite awesome. Does you speaks t3h language as well?
You sir need to update!