The End of the Death Machine

Huzzah! I have survived the flu! I am victorious!

And while most people realized I was sick, they didn't realize I had the flu. After all, if I had had the flu, I obviously would have been wearing a mask, right? Well, no. Because those masks are worthless by the time you realize you have the flu. I explained this to those who asked, but I don't think my explanation was really accepted. The reaction seems to have been more of a "stupid gaijin is going to make us sick, but we don't really want to insult him, so let's just nod our heads."

Well, whatever. I didn't make any of them sick, so they can... go be not sick. Yeah! *Makes GRR face*

In other news, we recently had a meeting in which I was forced to finally inform the people here that I am not renewing my contract. That's right, Jeffles will no longer be in Japan in six months. :(

But it's the right choice. I've discovered since coming here that, (un)surprisingly, teaching isn't really my thing. I never really thought it would be, but I had to try. After all, if there's one thing I know, it's the English language.

I have, however, since discovered what I think I would like to do for a living. It's hard to say that I'll still want to do it ten or twenty years from now, but it certainly seems to be a job that fulfills all the things I want to do. What is it exactly? It's the US Foreign Service!

Now, now, I can hear what you're thinking. "But Jeffles! You're not even American! And since when did you care about politics?"

Well, to answer the first point, you forgot a key word. I'm not American yet. I do have a Green Card, ya know. And I have sort of been living in the US for nearly 17 years, so I practically am American. I just have to spend a couple more years in the US, then write the citizenship exam and BAM! Problem solved.

And to the second point... I do care! I care a great deal! I just tend not to actually say anything for a variety of reasons. First, I don't want to accidentally piss someone off. Second, I've always been slightly paranoid that people are watching me and waiting for any sign of dissent in order to deport me. O.O And third, the only people who actually ask my opinion tend to be asking my opinion on stuff that they've looked into extensively and I haven't. Like the status of the current debate on the validity of the thirteenth amendment. (I just made that up. I don't know if there is such a debate or what the thirteenth amendment is... though I will certainly find out.)

(Huh. Maybe I should have chosen a different amendment. Apparently the thirteenth amendment is pretty much uncontroversial. Way to go, Jeffles, implying that the abolition of slavery is controversial. >_<)

So yeah, Foreign Service. I think it would be pretty cool. Travel the world, be a diplomat, be a PR agent for the United States, learn languages... cool stuff. Speaking of which, I've started learning Mandarin Chinese. So... if you wanna help me out with that, please let me know.

I can hear you. You did another double-take, didn't you? Yes, I'm living in Japan and studying Mandarin Chinese while trying to function in Japanese. Don't be confused, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Why not Japanese? Well, you apparently don't get a lot of points on the Foreign Service Exam for speaking Japanese. And if the Foreign Service thing doesn't work out, Mandarin Chinese is going to be pretty damn useful for me anyway. So it just seems like a smart thing to do on the whole.

In fact, Mandarin Chinese is not the only thing I'm studying. I'm going to have to probably get a Master's degree in something if I want to be competitive for the Foreign Service, so I'm doing a little self education to fill in a few gaps before beginning the applications. Mandarin Chinese, US History, US Civics, and Finance and Economics. Got a timetable and everything.

If anyone knows things about the above topics, please get in contact with me. I'm currently using Wikipedia, FSI, and Khan Academy to inform myself about the above stuff, but the reality is that I'm just pleading with the internet to inform me. If you or someone you know actually is informed about this stuff and can point me in a helpful (introductory) direction, please let me know!

Oh yeah, I have a working electric heater now. No more propane death machine for me. Life is good. Damn good. :D

Cheers,

~Jeffles

Attack Of The (Killer?) Flu!

The flu has come. The season has arrived. And are we ready for it? Maybe.

On the one hand, Japan seems to take this stuff seriously. Every day at the office/teacher's room, I overhear phone call after phone call talking about influenza. For weeks, teachers have been asking me, "How are you feeling? You know, the flu is going around." I've heard that at some schools, teachers are even showing kids videos on how to defeat the evil flu monster, should they encounter it in their travels. And of course, there are veritable hordes of people wearing those oh-so-effective face masks.

At some of my schools, classes are running at minimum capacity. I say minimum capacity because there actually IS a minimum capacity. If more than a certain percentage of students call in sick, that entire class is told not to come to school. I'm not sure what the exact percentage is, but let's just say, for the sake of this example, that it's 40%. If more than 40% of grade 5 students call in sick, no one in grade 5 is allowed to come to school. But grades 1-4 and 6 would still have to come to school. The threshold hasn't been passed at any of my schools yet, but I know of a few other towns nearby where it has been.

This in particular is kind of interesting to me. Usually it's impossible to take kids out of a classroom. Suspensions and expulsions, for example, simply don't exist here. At least not in Elementary and Junior High School. This is because, in Japan, children have a constitutional right to be in the classroom. (Senior High School is the exception because mandatory education ends after Junior High School.) So when I say that the Japanese really seem to take the flu seriously, I mean it; they'll break the fucking constitution in the name of the flu.

On the other hand, they seem to lack many basics. For example, it's considered extremely rude to blow your nose in public. Even if you happen to have a packet of tissues on you, you'll have to find some way to excuse yourself every time your nose starts running. And when you're in the middle of teaching a class, that's pretty damn difficult. And god help you if you sneeze and have end up with a booger hanging loose.

Also, I have yet to see a single Japanese person so much as possessing hand sanitizer. But I suppose that's not too surprising given that most people's idea of washing their hands is to splash a little water on their palms and walk out the door. Actually, I exaggerate. Usually they just walk out the door.

Anyway, strange hygenic practices aside, it's certainly been somewhat interesting to be in Japan during a flu outbreak. Unfortunately for me, I have also become a victim. Today is day four and, while I'm finally starting to feel a little bit better, it's probably going to take another two or three days before I'm feeling up to scratch. Which sucks, because I was planning to go to Tokyo this weekend.

Poop.

I have noticed something interesting, though. All of my schools appear to have been forewarned as to my sickness. Allow me to illustrate with an example.

It was about two days ago. I had just finished up lunch after teaching all morning and was heading to my afternoon school. It's a pretty cool place, one of my favorites actually, but it's a twenty minute bike ride in the cold. And half way through it started to snow. While I was shivering from fever.

I suppose I should have just taken a sick day, but you should know that things are never that easy in Japan. Taking a sick day means first taking off vacation days when I call in to say that I can't go to work. Then I have to go to the hospital to get a doctor's note saying that I'm too sick to go to work. After acquiring such a note, only then am I allowed to exchange the used vacation days for sick days. Unfortunately, I was neither convinced that I possessed the Japanese skills to get the correct note nor certain that I was sick enough to be excused from work. And given that I only have five vacation days left, I didn't exactly want to give them up. So instead, I gaman'd.

I arrived at the school and, as normal, proclaimed a loud "konnichwa!" to let my presence be known. I slid open the door and, almost immediately, was asked by the head teacher if I would like some miso soup for my cold.

Remember, this was only the second day of my illness. I had barely told anyone that I was sick, and absolutely no one I'd told was connected to work. So how did she know? And clearly she did know, because she'd been waiting for me with miso soup which had clearly been prepped and cooked in advance of my arrival. I can only surmise that one of my coworkers had noticed I was sick and spread the word.

This soon proved to be the case at every other school I went to. While no one else had prepared miso soup for me, they had all clearly been forewarned. There were cough drops and cups of tea waiting for me on my desk, that sort of thing. Which is kinda creepy when the only way they could have known that I was sick is by either stalking me or being told by someone else who knew.

Life in a small town, eh?

At any rate, I hope that this time next week I'll be feeling great again. I'll let you know then (yay another blog post!).

~Jeffles

P.S. As far as I know, no one has died yet from this outbreak of flu, which has spread all throughout Japan. But I'm probably just poorly informed and lots of old and already sick people have kicked the bucket. The title is just a bit of dramatic flair. Because flair is COOL.