An American Still in Tokyo-The Second Year

"If you did it then, then you`d proabably f**** again..."

-Lauryn Hill


I`m so silly...

At Chit-Chat Club...

Me: Besides Japanese and English, what other languages can you speak?
Student M: (pauses) Osaka-ben*

That was beautiful


*Osaka ben=Osaka dialect

A few Saturdays ago, I had been teaching some of my students at Berlitz a certain lesson on resumes. I would point to a picture of a resume and ask them, "What is this?" and if they didn`t know, I would say, "This is a resume" and then I`d ask them "What is a resume?". Well, for one of my Japanese classes this past week, we saw in our textbooks, of course, a picture of a resume in Japanese. And of course, our teacher asked, "What is this?" and "What is a rirekisho (resume)?" I got a kick out of how my roles were reversed in such a short period of time. Rarely will I ever get to be both teacher and student at the same time...:-D

"One month ago today, I was happy as a lark.

But now, I go for a walk, to the movies, maybe to the park.

I have a seat on the same old bench, and watch the children play.

They say tomorrow is their future, but for me, it`s just another day.

They all come gather around me. They seem to know my name.

We laugh, tell a few jokes, but it still doesn`t ease my pain.

I know I can`t hide from a memory, though day after day I try.

I tell myself, `She`ll be back`. But today, again I`ve lied..."


-The Temptations "Have You Seen Her?"


I usually don`t like to rub in people`s faces when I`m down, but I`ve always liked this quote (which I know by heart) and thought it would be appropriate to post...

The following is from Gaijin Pot, a website for foreigners in Japan. It sums up relationships in Japan for gaijin (foreigners) in this way:

Heaven: For GAIJIN men.

Hell: For GAIJIN women.

Monkey park: For everyone.

Wonderful. I guess that explains everything... ;-) ;-)

I would see these places called "snack". I would wonder what kind of places they were until I found out that "snacks" are hostess bars, basically, places for men. Anywayz, on Saturday, I was giving a lesson to Mr. F, practicing conditionals so I asked him: If you want to have a snack after class, where will you go? And he answered, "When I want to go to a snack..." I stopped him right there and corrected him. I think he realized what he had just said because he started laughing...so I laughed along with him. I guess you had to be there ;-)