Whoops!

I've had lots of things to blog about, but while I've been keeping notes I haven't actually done anything with them, as you might have noticed.

Here is one. Others will follow, eventually.

The other day I had to sign a form. This is not unusual, in itself. I often have to sign forms. But this one had an addendum at the bottom, kindly translated into English. It said something like:

I hope K___ University will not use my personal information except when necessary for work-related matters.

I did not actually have a choice about whether or not to sign it, at least not if I wanted to keep my job. But I didn't mind. In fact I giggled as I signed it, making several Japanese teachers in the teachers' room look at me, startled. I did not try to explain. That sort of thing is hard to explain.

But it was true! I really DO hope they do not use my email address for nefarious purposes, and was happy to sign something saying so, even though I wasn't quite sure why I needed to put my official signature to a 'hope.'

Besides, it is not often that a form makes me laugh.

Gossip

41 Gossip


The accepted idea is that conversation is a means to communicate ideas, practical information and intentions, for a useful purpose, with some gossip and self-serving showoff here and there to enliven it. Yet most conversation is gossip and self-serving showoff, with ideas, practical information and intentions here and there to justify them.

I do not understand everything, or even very much, of what is written at Opacity, but I love this one.

It is TRUE.

Fully charged

It's that time of year again. You can tell summer is over, because I am, once again, fully charged. I noticed it yesterday after screaming and tossing chalk in the air, and today, again, my students were enormously entertained by my occasional sudden eruptions of fright as I went to write on the board and got shocked. And when I say shocked, I mean SHOCKED.

They all learned the words static electricity. After that, the idea was that they'd know what it was all about and take it in their stride. Instead, I became, apparently, 'cute.' Every time I screamed and threw chalk in the air the students thought it was funny. "Kawaii!" I heard them saying. This is my third week with them and apparently I am keeping them interested,

But I am NOT kawaii. I am SHOCKED.

The (only) good thing about this problem is that it keeps the students focused. When they're all chatting happily and not paying attention to me or staying on task, at the very least my screams serve to jolt them into consciousness that there is a teacher in the room, who is expecting something of them, and who is writing something on the board that they should be paying attention to. They stop talking when I scream, and look at me. Then they see the board. And, sometimes, they continue to pay attention to what i am writing, which is quite frequently the instructions for what they are supposed to be doing.

I have to think of this as a good thing. Getting shocked on a regular basis is not pleasant, but at least it is pedagogically sound.

Solar light

I love this idea. It's so simple, cheap, and extraordinarily effective. The cheapest light bulb EVER.

Translator

I am 'watching' the All Blacks vs France Rugby World Cup game on Twitter. It is not on Japanese TV. This means that I have been reading tweets in English and French, and I must say I am enjoying discovering that I understand French.

Take this, for example:

Franchement il sont courageux et ont du mental. Ils n'ont rien lâché malgré ces terribles essais intérieurs assassins.

That was really easy to understand.

The French, they are courageous and mental. They are not lazily malingering against the especially terrible interior assassins.

I'm thinking of becoming a translator.

RIver visit

Today I went for a short bicycle ride, and visited the river near where i used to teach. I hadn't been there for a long time. I did not stay long, though, because it turned out hotter than I expected and I was getting a headache.

I met some of my old friends, and a few new ones.

I met a heron. 

Then I met an egret.

Then I met some ducks. They looked at me funny. That made me pretty sure we'd met before.

A carp surfaced to say hello and ask if I had any food. Sadly, I didn't.

I also saw a grossly overweight Garbage Fish, sulking grumpily in the shallows. These are fairly common and I don't usually bother photographing them.

 Next I saw a Tin Can Fish. I have seen many of those before, too.

I also encountered an elderly woman feeding pigeons and sparrows.

And as I was leaving I had the great good fortune to spot, across the road, the rare and colourful Brassiere Bird, draped languidly in a tree.

 

While it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of the Brassiere Bird in the wild, it is unusual to see them out in the open like this. 

 

It must have been the heat.

Lethal

I am currently lethal to red-headed vultures.

(Well, my neck and shoulders are, anyway.)

Rain

This tropical storm has been moving so slowly it has lasted three days, or is it four? For two days we had warnings issued by the Met Office, but nothing much happened. Then yesterday afternoon I went out to get an acupuncture treatment and then have dinner with a friend, and was relieved to see the warnings had been downgraded to 'advisories.' We had a lovely Chinese meal, in one of the big covered shopping streets in Osaka, and then I went down to the underground station to catch the train. The train went underground until two stops before mine, and when we came out above ground I was surprised to see it was raining hard. It had been raining a little when I left the acupuncture clinic, but nothing serious.

At my station it was raining very hard indeed. I stood under cover, waiting and hoping it was one of those brief squalls. Finally I got sick of waiting, and made a dash for my bicycle. I had an umbrella, but this was not umbrella sort of rain. My head stayed dry, or at least dryish, but when I got home the only option I had, really, was to strip off just inside the door and make a run for the bathroom to grab a towel for myself and a bucket to put my clothes into to get them to the washing machine without dripping water all over the floor. It was THAT sort of rain.

It's raining again now.

It has been a lot worse in other areas in Japan, and there have been mudslides and flash floods and so on. So far twenty-one people have died and fifty-four are missing.

It was not raining when I took this picture. I wish I'd had my camera instead of my phone, though. (For those who know Osaka, this is the crosswalk between the JR and Hankyu stations.)

Typhoon Talas

A typhoon is due to hit us tomorrow and/or Saturday. It is really just a tropical storm still, and not expected to get much more powerful, but still, it is very large and is expected to make landfall in the Osaka/Kyoto area. I don't think we've had a direct hit here for quite a few years, so the next couple of days could be quite interesting.

It's already raining.

Blah

Haven't been updating much because it's too damned hot and humid. Also, I have a problem with my neck and back that makes my neck hurt sitting at the computer. I am working on rearranging my desk setup to make it more comfortable, but part of the problem with getting it done is that it's too damned hot and my neck hurts.

I just watered the garden. Today I timed it, because I was sure I wasn't spending THAT much time out there, so how come whenever I water the garden I get four mosquito bites? Our garden is small. 

It takes two minutes to water the garden. That means that out in the garden the mosquitoes bite at a rate of two per minute. Perhaps it is worth spraying myself before watering the garden after all. I always think it won't be worth it, because I do it so quickly.

The most enjoyable part of watering the garden is the bit where I spray water around randomly and watch little bits of plants detach themselves and launch skyward. Those little frogs are good at hiding until they get watered. Apparently they don't like it.

Or perhaps they do. Perhaps they're jumping for joy.