Excerpts from the last few days

As you can imagine, not much has been happening in the last few days that would interest anyone.  However, in my compulsive need to garner attention, I offer the following:

I tried cocoa from the vending machines. It was cold and it tasted like bog sludge, but I kept trying it to see if that might have changed in the last 2 minutes.

I met my bosses at the Board of Education and, in attempting to explain the concept of having two families (consisting of a mother & stepfather and a father & stepmother) I ended up convincing them that I have two mothers and two fathers all living together in a communal home. Oh, and that I'm not allowed to drink anything--at all--because of my religion. No need to thank me, LDS missionaries stationed in Japan! Just doing my part to make sure the people of this country know we're perfectly sane!

My forays into the world of cooking have so far been disastrous.  I was already an abysmal cook, but without even the comfort of English recipes on the backs of packages I've been reduced to adding ingredients until the consistency looks somewhat familiar. So far this has resulted in "cabbage chowder," and I think you can all draw your own conclusions from that.

Yesterday all the other ALT's in the area kindly invited me to go out to an all-you-can-eat buffet with them. Never have I felt so distinctly like a foreigner than I did in that restaurant, shamelessly loading up my fourth plate while all the Japanese around me hesitated to even take second servings of anything.

After dinner we went bowling, but it was too expensive so I sat out. It turned out to be a wise decision because it gave me plenty of time to watch Japanese music videos that were broadcast next to our scores. If you've never seen a Japanese teenager singing mournfully with eyes shut while surrounded by a bride, a cowgirl, and a Vegas showgirl on motorcycles, then you haven't lived.

 A few guys brought along a truly disturbing little beer called "Slat" (I have photographic evidence of this) that had fruit bits floating around in it (my gag reflex would not permit me to gather photographic evidence of this). Imbued with fruity confidence, some guys started making plans to go to a bar later with some Japanese girls. "What girls?" I asked. "You haven't talked to any Japanese people all night....oh, what, you mean THOSE girls?" I looked across the length of the bowling alley at a group of girls who looked firmly entrenched in the "underage" camp. Of course, that may have just been because they're Japanese and they ALL look underage.

"Have you even TALKED to those girls?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"No," said one of the guys, grinning. "But it's like a game! You lose sometimes, but sometimes you win!"

I watched incredulously as the guys marched over to the girls and boldly told them to accompany them to a bar--and were promptly shot down by the girls, who were neither interested nor drowning in Slat.

"Oh well we lost that one," the guys informed me on their return. Better luck next time, fellas.

 Don't do Slat, kids. Stay in school.