So I bought this antenna, right? To make my reception better for my iBook, and I have to wire it into my Airport Extreme card, which, according to the directions, is incredibly simple.

I ordered the antenna, the one that says, "For all white iBooks" yea? Figured that would work.

Of course not. The one that I have is the newest version of the iBook, and apparently they reworked the internals of the thing and the AE card is no longer accessible from underthe keyboard like it used to be. In fact, it's not accessible from under the lower shield under the computer either, much to my chagrin.

Stupid thing. I had it shipped out here to Japan and the thing is pretty much useless. I posted my problem on a couple of message boards, three to be exact, and none of them have had any responses, nor many views either. It's entirely frustrating, cause all I want to do is hook the damned thing up and have some better internet, but it appears that no one upon no one has tried to take this thing apart since they redid them and so there are no posts anywhere on the internet, which I have searched exhaustively in the last day or so for a diagram or a walkthrough or something of the sort.

So, after however much the antenna cost, and the price of a Torx driver set which I needed to take the back off the iBook, and the warranty which is doubtless void now, I am stuck right back where I was a day or two ago, with a crappy internet connection and a hole in my pocket. Such is the way of things I suppose. All projects have a snag.

What hacks me off though is that when I placed the order there was a mandatory field for what kind of computer specifically I was running to ensure compatibility, and then when it arrives, it doesn't work. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it.

So maybe in a day or two if someone decides to get back to me from the store or from the message boards I will have an answer and maybe even an installed antenna. Who knows. I suppose I'll let you know.

So after the fiasco of my previous entry, I got ready for work yesterday and made absolutely sure that Mallage Kashiwa was were I was supposed to be. I checked all my cover sheets, and went over everything again and again just to make sure. Finally, confident in my choice, I headed out to Mallage for my 1:20 shift.

I walked in and Dave and Allen are in the office, and the first thing they say is, "See? I told you, and he's not even on the schedule." Oh Lord. So there I was, not on the schedule, but for some reason Dave had been brought out from Kashiwa. Why is beyond me. I thought I was supposed to have observation yesterday.

Just as I am taking this in, I turned on my phone to call HQ and get a text message from Bryan saying that I'm on the schedule for Kashiwa that day at 1:20, as a heads up. So when I called HQ and told them what was going on, they asked to check my coversheets, of which I had none, and then Mallage branch had no record of giving me a cover sheet, so I was off the hook on this, it wasn't my fault. So then I had to find a way to get to Kashiwa as soon as possible, and wound up taking a taxi which Nova is going to pay me back for.

I got to Kashiwa about ten minutes into when my first lesson should have been, they had to move my lesson to another teacher whose student was a no show. So thankfully again no one had to be cancelled, but all the same. I got a free period then, which was nice, and then my student after that no showed, so I had a lot of free time really.

The rest of my day at work was interesting and...fun filled to say the least. I got to explain to people over and over again that it was not in fact my fault for not being there at the start of my shift.

After work was much better, in that I got a call from Greg saying that he had his interview for the job he wants as an actual public school teacher, and that it went really well. So I ment up with him in Kita Matsudo for drinks and sushi, and all was well. We had Toro, the very most delicious of tuna underbelly, and basashi, which is raw horse. It was amazing. Fantastic, and I felt like a terrible person for eating and enjoying it so much. Horse is just one of those meats that, as a Westerner, I wouldn't think would be alright to eat raw. Apparently I was very, very wrong. Deliciously wrong.

Oh….dear Lord, how to put the last 24 hours into words. As I type this, I am exhausted to my core. Every inch of me is weak, stressed, and tired. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I had a great time getting to be this way, but….oh man. I’ll just get started with it.

So, yesterday, the 22nd, I’m kickin it around the house, getting ready to go meet Greg when he gets off work for the Armin Van Buuren show we’d been looking forward to. I get all dressed and ready, and I head out. I meet up with him in the train to Kashiwa to meet one of his friends, and have a quick drink. His friend doesn’t come through, so we chilled outside the station and drank Yebisu and whiskey.
A bunch of kids were sitting around playing guitar and singing, and one guy was singing that “Last Christmas I gave you my heart” song so we started singing along, and I remarked on the irony of hearing that song here in Japan. You’re never safe from that damned song. It really is everywhere.

So we got on the train and headed to Shin Matsudo, where we hopped on the Musashino line express train to go to Shin Kiba, the location of the venue: ageHa @ Studio Coast. The problem apparently with that line is that it forks, with little warning which fork it will take, and according to Greg, it sometimes just stops at a station then goes back the other way, again with little warning. But we made it to Shin Kiba without a hitch by about 11pm, and walked towards the venue, when we saw four giant skylights and a massive building across the river. Sweet action. This was a huge event.

Anyway, he played some amazing music, and we all danced a ton and it was great. When 4am finally came along and Van Buuren handed off the tables to Yoji Biomehanika for the closer set, Greg and I took the chance to get some water, and crash on the steps for a bit. It didn’t take long for us to realize it was time to head out, we were beat to shit.

We got our stuff, and made our way back to the station, which still hadn’t opened yet since being closed for the night. We popped into a little rice bowl shop and had something to eat, and hopped on the 5am train to start heading back towards Shin Matsudo. Well, hopped isn’t a good word. Hobbled…dragged ourselves, something like that.

I got home at about 6:40am. I set my alarm for 2pm since I didn’t need to be at work until 5pm, and crawled into my very most comfortable of beds, now that I’ve figured out how my bedding is actually supposed to work, and went to sleep.

WRONG. I wake up at 10:58am to what I thought was my alarm. But no, it was Nova Personnel. “Is this David? Yes? David, why aren’t you at work? What? Yes, you were supposed to be there at 10:50. No, not 5pm. Do you have your lesson cover sheet? Yea. Well, when are you going to be there? Ok. You realize of course that there will be a deduction from your salary as a result of your absence from however many lessons you miss. Alright. Bye.”

Yea. I booked it out the door and caught a taxi to work. $20 and 40 min later I was at work, and only missed one lesson. Fortunately Allen had a free period to start, so he covered my lesson, and I had a free period after that, so no one’s lesson was/would have been cancelled. I felt really stupid, and bad. I remember looking at my schedule on my phone and seeing 10:50am on Wednesday and saying “why did I put that in there wrong? I work at 5 on Wednesdays” and changing it. Ugh. I worked my lessons, came home around 3pm, and slept for another 4 hours. Now here I am, writing this, and I will go back to bed as soon as I finish. Every muscle in my body is sore from 5 straight hours of dancing, my mind is a wreck from the stress and I’d do it all over again next week if I could. Minus the part where I missed work.

I had a dream that I was going to be shipped to Tokushima for work. Like, all the time I spent here was just waiting for my flight, and that ther ewas another envelope in my welcome packet that had the information about my departure for the island of Shikoku. I woke up this morning, and was very confused, and then wondered if my shift swap that I signed for yesterday was in fact for today, and tore apart my room looking for the cover sheet just to make sure. Fortunately it was, so I have a few more hours today to get ready rather than having to go to Mallage at 10:50, only to leave an hour into my shift to go back to Kashiwa to finish my day.

I find myselff getting pissed at well, myself, for setting my alarm so early every day, until I realize half an hour after getting up that waking up 3.5 hours before my shift starts is much, much better than just 1.5 because I actually have time to wake up, get ready, and eat breakfast at such a pace that I'm not a zombie when I arrive. That, and I hate the thought of my life here being like it was in Eugene working at the MOC, waking up as late as possible before my shift at 3pm and then going to bed shortly after getting home. What a wasted life.

I had my first real voice lesson yesterday, and I learned the benefit of telling them it's my first voice lesson. I think that since I will only have voice at Kashiwa, and the people there don't all know me yet, I will just always tell them it's my first voice lesson as long as I don't recognize anyone. Brilliant David, Brilliant.

It is so sunny right now. This is insane. It was getting to be cloudy and miserable, but, these last few days, it's so nice. Cold at night, but so nice. I can't wait to be getting steady income so I can go out and do more. I want to go to Hokkaido for New Years I think.

Whoops!

Yesterday I was at Mallage Kashiwa all day, and the only other person working there with me was Greg. What a recipe for hillarity. We had a really good day, much laughter came as a result of our shared place of employ.

But in my final lesson, I had a hard time picking out which lesson to teach, and when I did, I grabbed the lesson notebook and went into class with the bell. But I got in there, and realized I hadn't marked which page the lesson was, so I tried to open to it and realized that less on wasn't in the notebook I had grabbed. So, I apologized, ran back to the office, grabbed the other book for that zone, went back, and then opened it to realize that they were in a completely different zone altogether and that somehow I had grabbed the wrong book twice.
So, after a third trip back to the office, I got the right book, and proceeded with the lesson that went fine after that. But good God am I glad there was no one else there to see that.

I'd be seeing you all much sooner than expected.

Then I went and drank with coworkers from the Kashiwa branch and hillarity once again ensued.

I’ve been here three weeks now, today. How weird is that? But then again, I’m gonna say that next week too, and probably two weeks after that, and so on down the line.

I think what really catches me up is that it feels like I’ve been here longer than that. I took a look at the calendar today, and realized I’ve only worked 11 days since being here, 3 of which were OJT. So I’ve had 8 days on my own. 8 days. Feels like I’ve done so many more than that. Cause, for the most part, I have the lesson teaching part of this job down. I still need some extra focusing and technique, but for the most part, I’ve got enough of the essentials down so that I can walk into a lesson, open to a page, and say alright today we’re gonna do this. Which happened to me actually the other day at Kashiwa, where those bastards are notorious for losing files. I had a one on one lesson with a guy whose file didn’t even exist as it turned out, and I had to go up there with absolutely no knowledge of this guy or what lessons he’s done and just open the book, randomly pick a lesson and teach it, all the while hoping he hadn’t just done it the day before.

Turns out he was a newer student despite being an advanced level, and had only done one other lesson before. Lucky me.

Yesterday I had my first voice lesson. No one showed up for the first couple of minutes. Then a little girl showed up, part of Club 7, the level 7 group for voice, the least advanced, and we talked one on one for 40 minutes about foods, and the world, and other things. I was nervous, and I hated that my first voice lesson had to not only be Club 7, the hardest of voices, but one on one, which meant that I had to lead the discussion the entire time. Ugh. Oh well, I don’t really care it went alright and I haven’t been fired for it yet, so, no worries there either.

This was right after I was woken up by the earthquake. My heater started making weird noises, so I shut it off. When I layed back down, boosh. Earthquake. Weirdest feeling. Quite small though.

I had the weirdest dream last night.

Anyway, I cleaned the shower room today, because the landlord was coming to check out the rotten wood in the bathroom. When he came, we spoke briefly, and he went to his car to get his tapemeasure. After he left, the other roommates came out and were talking to me. Ash couldn't believe the landlord had come, but then again we couldn't believe his teal and black striped sleeping tights, with black fuzzy socks. So we all got a good laugh this morning early on.

Now I'm waiting for my bank boook to be redelivered, and then I am going to go on a mission to find a pillow. And maybe do the rest of my laundry. My slacks are all dry clean only, so I washed one pair last night to see how it turned out. They are ok, but are in desperate need of a fierce ironing.

Yea. Weird night. Weird day.

The One Week Review

Today was my one week review. Dara came out from Kashiwa to observe me, and give me some pointers on my lessons.
I went to Kashiwa today a bit early to exchange the rest of the American money I had in my pocket for yen. I had about $140 sittin around, and I got about 16,400 yen back. So, now I have enough to last me a couple of days. I got my bank book today too, so I will be able to make withdrawals too, so now I'm a whole lot more stable than I was 24 hours ago. Now I'm just waiting on my ATM card to arrive so I can do my banking more conveniently.

The review went well, but it started off on something of an awkward note. I was getting on the bus today to go to Mallage, and I saw another white guy. What are the odds, right? I knew right away that he was someone from another branch coming out, and I turned out to be right. So then we had the awkward small talk on the bus while waiting to get to work, which was of course the most fun imagineable.

After that though, he came and obsreved one of my lessons, for which I got good reviews. It was a solo lesson, and he complimented me on switching the roels around and making the lesson work for only one person, something which apparently the other new people seem to have a problem with. So, I got the obligatory couple of things to work on, which I assume he just kinda ticked off on the checklist because something HAS to be on the first review, and we talked a bit about life here to make sure that I was going to get on my feet alright. Then he got into the talk about how I shouldn't call in sick unless it's really serious, because of all the negative effects it has on the branch, and morale, and most importantly, sales. So yea, blah blah blah play nice jump through hoops mission accomplished. By the end of the day I think he had warmed up to me a bit and things went smoothly. I think most importantly he figured out that I wans't a tool, and that I could keep up with the topics he was talking about on their more significant and meaningful level, i.e. money. As if they aren't making enough to begin with.

For a company that has increased its workforce twicefold in the last year alone, hiring thousands of new employees and opening offices in dozens of new places, you would think that they would be a little less than money grubbing, but, alas, such is the nature of man and business alike.

Anyway, I'm scheduled for more kids training soon, and before long I will be well on my way to becoming in charge of the kids program over in Mallage. Yeeeehaw.

When I was in Kashiwa today, looking for a place to exchange money, I saw another American guy, older, walking around. When I was in the exchange shop, I saw him again coming to buy some yen. We got to talking after having been seated next to one another, and lo and behold, he and I are both from Texas, and from neighboring cities as well. He made a comment which stuck with me:
"Amazing how you can travel halfway across the world and still run into someone who grew up in your backyard."

How very true. What an odd world we live in anymore.

11-10-05 11:20am – Falling Into Step

I realized this morning that it’s been a few days since I updated my journal. Generally speaking, this is a sign that I am getting used to my surroundings, and that my routine doesn’t allow for much time in retrospection. Two weeks now I’ve been here, and I think that’s what’s going on. I’ve gotten the hang of the routine I’m capable of at this stage in my training, so, it’s just a matter of doing it day in and day out. Well, that and on Tuesday, I was busy hanging out with Greg, and yesterday I was busy, um, I dunno really, doing whatever it was I did. I updated my photo albums and things like that, but I didn’t feel up to updating my journal.
I’ve been really tired most mornings and evenings, so I think that has a lot to do with it. I’ve finally started sleeping in until a more appropriate time, which puts me at a point where I should start getting ready for the day rather than writing.
I need to stop by the money exchange today, have to rather, I’m essentially out of cash. I should be receiving my bank book at work in the next couple of days, but I need money to get to and from work, and I certainly need money to eat. I realized yesterday that I was out of cash when I reached into my pocket and pulled out a wad of American money. I’ve got around $150 in cash, so I will have plenty of money after the exchange to last me until I get my checkbook and subsequent salary advance. This is a good thing, as eating has become an increasingly important issue.
When I went to Harajuku, and then out with Greg the next day, I spent a good amount of money on some comfort items for my place, like my super adorable Gloomy doll, and my Ueno-Eki Tokyo Hard Rock Café shotglass. I couldn’t say no to it, the shotglass, I am on a mission to collect as many of them as I have Zippos at least, so I’ve got another 5 or so to go. I’ll have to hold off, however, on buying things like that until I’ve started receiving a steady stream of income.

Today was the first day of my first official weekend. It was nice to relax, or, at least, not have to go to work. I was going to do laundry today, but it appears as if I will be waiting to do that until tomorrow.

I went to Harajuku today, to have a look around, and see if the things I saw last time I was here were still there. Lo and behold, two years wasn't long enough for the entire city to uproot itself and move. I saw the old familiar Condomania, KiddieLand, and the Shop of the Orient, where I got the puzzle box I've had, and the one I got for Greg. Oh, and this adorable little Puran Puran doll. Look at him. Awww....I just smile every time I look at him. He's saying, "Whaaaaaaat?" Look at those claws...he's so cute. If I didn't know he'd claw my eyes out given the chance, hehe.

I walked for a long time today, and it was rpetty tiring. But, all in all I had a good time. I picked up al ittle gift for my buddy Neil back home, and when I got back I had an email from Chris, my friend Amanda's older brother who's been working on Shikoku, near Matsushige. That was where I got stuck in a typhoon.

I also discovered that my phone takes pretty darn good photos. Most of these have been subjected to my inept photoshop batch processing skills, and are consequently of a lesser quality than they were before, but, the damned phone takes great pics.

But, best of all, when I got home, after eating the most interesting of mystery dinners, I got a call from none other than Mr. Bethell himself, who has finally returned from his trip to Mexico. So, tomorrow morning sometime he's gonna give me a call and we're going to get togehter and romp around like us gangstas do. It'll probably be a couple of straight hours of "Gregregregregregregreg!!!!!!!!" "Davedavedavedavedavedave!!!!!" But ya know, sometimes that's just how it goes.

Yes, oh yes, do I ever work in a mall. I spent how many years of my life avoiding working in malls like the plague? Yea. 23. The irony is unnerving.

But, it's a really nice, clean, upscale mall. Not that it's any consolation, but at least we get to listen to pretty much anything we want. We listened to Basement Jaxx all morning, so I was happy. My coworkers today were Sean and Arthur. Sean is a hell of a cool guy, who I hope to hang out with more before he leaves in a month. He knows Greg, incidentally, and Arthur ran into my roommate Ash at the station today on the way to work, and lives with Travis Flynn, who I went to high school with. This world is getting smaller by the second.

I was only scheduled for 6 lessons today when I arrived, so I was looking forward to standing outside and handing out tissues to passersby, but unfortunately I wound up teaching lessons in all 8 spots. I taught 6 one on one lessons, yeeefreakinhaw. Most of my lessons were level 7s as well, so that was even better. There are a lot of new people there, being a newer branch, and I, on my first day on my own, taught someone's first official lesson at Nova. What are the odds? At least she'll never know my inexperience.

All my lessons went well today. I had a really good time. If I stay there, and don't get stuck doing kids stuff all the time, which I know I will, being in a mall and all, I am going to have a lot of fun. If this is in any way representative of the days I have ahead of me, this is going ot be a fun job.

Starting tomorrow though, I become a pinball. I have 4 lessons at Moraju, then I have to go to Kashiwa for the remainder of my day, and I have much the like for the rest of the week, and next. I imagine it's because the bosses don't come out to Moraju much at all, and they want to observe me teaching. So I am going to have a lot of expensible travel, and a lot of free blocks due to it. Not so bad, I don't really mind, except for the busses, which are weird. I got to my branch alright today, no problem, aside from getting to work over an hour early thanks to getting there ok the first try. If the lessons which are observed go as well as the lessons I taught today, then I should be fine.

Things are going well, I will keep my fingers crossed that continues.