Payday Priorities

QUICK!
What do you do one week before payday with only one dollar sixty in change?

Run out to the local grocery and buy the highest volume + cheapest chocolate available.
Or that's what I do.

It's all about priorities.

Yes, I shouldn't have bought that twenty dollar imported magazine last week but I was irritated and really mad. And like most frustrated women in that state, I SHOP.
I just don't buy CLOTHES or makeup like most women.
It's books and chocolate or fruffy coffees for me.

So when I was forced to pay cash instead of paying by credit card last week, I was stuck with the reality that I had only ten dollars left. And ten more days to go. After dolling out money for a few absolute necessities like veggies and a last carton of heavenly sweet black bean soy milk, I coasted into this work week with only $1.60 to my name.

And as of Monday night, it is now 0.20 to my name – thanks to being able to find a cheap chocolate bar and a mini bag of chocolates which I promptly ripped open and dumped on the living room floor. After hastily unwrapping and popping three pieces in my mouth, I divvied up the rest of the week's chocolate allocation. Satisfied with my successful acquisition, I tucked my goodies into their respective bags and rolled out my bed for a cozy nights sleep.

Yes, most satisfied.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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One last fling!

As the North Korean missles move into place - Japanese TBS news reports "Obviously preparing for countdown" - the US army moves into position in the Japan Sea and the Japanese are moving warships and army towards Northern Japan where I used to live and several of my friends STILL live.

So what are the South Koreans doing?

Apparently on vacation.
I see one or two military personal every day as I walk the streets but TODAY, this Friday, I'm seeing them in groups of three and four, or pairs.

I'm guessing it's one last 'short leave' before they buckle down. :P

I know I'm having a drink tonight.
But then I"m ready to drink by every Firday night.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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the NICE-teacher

That's me.

Why, you wonder?

Why am I the choosen nice-teacher?

What great thing did I do to inspire young minds to greater effort?!?

I let them sleep.

And, it only took me eight working days to institute this rule.

Seriously. You finish the assignment – go to sleep.

PLEASE.

At first it was met with mystified expressions and tenative hopeful questionings - “Really?? We can sleep?“

„Yes, sleep!“ {And BE QUIET for *$%$&@#$ - sake.}

Before you stick up your noses and tut-tut me for my lackness, consider this:

☆~The reality is that these are elementary students to tenth graders that have been in school since 8 AM in the morning. It is now 4 or 6 or 8 PM {My latest class is 8-9:15, but that is NOT necessarily the last class for THEM.}

☆~There is no dinner time for these growing weeds bearing the heavy burdens of the future. They keep going on sugar and snakes like the rest of us here.

☆~English academy – unlike what one teacher told me – really IS just like Japanese after school lessons. No one is there because they want to be but because EVERYONE else is. {I had no idea the Koreans shared the whole group-mentality like the Japanese.} Why should I make them anymore miserable then they already are?

And, frankly, I'm just not getting paid enough to create anymore work for me or them.

So if they do their work they can have their blessed sleep – heaven knows none of us are getting enough of it in the first place. This also allows me to help the slower students in relative quiet which I could NEVER do before as the early finishers were too antsy just sitting there.

They rest. My ears rest.

Peace is maintained and another day passes without someone being reduced to tears for being sent to detention for irritating the hell out of me.

„You are nice teacher!“

Damn straight I am.

Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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Waylaid in Wxnderland I

or,

'is that a body in the road?'

So that was the start of my Monday walk to work.

Now we had just been joking – us newcomers – just last Friday about being careful about not getting sick or hit by a car since we did not have health insurance until we got our ARC (Alien Registration) card. That might sound overinflated, but the drivers here are ALL INSANE ASYLUM ESCAPEES. The road to my temporary dwellings is one turn and a then straight shot from there. You'd never know it though between all the shifting, brake-slamming, hitching, jump-starting and outright swerving. It's literally like being thrashed about on a boat at sea during a heavy storm. And that's just the bus drivers as the car drivers have no reservations watsoever apparently about driving up onto and parking on the sidewalks. Truly, when you as a pedestrian walk the streets you really are taking your life into your own hands.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Today, five minutes outside my workplace at the middle of the hill, in a place I always thought was dangerous to cross as there is no light for us, sat several slient ambulances, a handful of perturbed, somewhat irriated looking police officers, and a woman sprawled like a beaten bag of flour on the ground.

At first, coming up from behind, I thought she was one of the many crazy people I have encountered with disturbing frequency here in the middle of throwing a fit or some crazed, drunkard of which there are also quite a few. Even under the bright sunlight of high-noon. But as I approached I could make out the distinct sound of a broken, ceaseless wail coming from the woman. And then a heavy plastic sheet in the middle road jumped into my line of vision. A large blue plastic tarp covering something equally large and non-moving.

On the one hand I was not terribly surprised by this sight, but equally was I too horrified to look very closely. however I couldn't help wondering if it wasn't maybe her large pet dog-which I have YET to see even one- and not her child – which I FREQUENTLY do see ESPECIALLY at this hour. A furtive side-glance as I passed showed no sign of blood smears or other dark tell-tale spoltches, nor did it give any hint to what was slumped beneath the blanket – just a mass under a sheet, no particular shape that would say, 'this was an arm'.

...

Today was indeed butsumetsu* for all.
And to think that was just the beginning.



Cheers! (^_-)-☆



* butsumetsu is part of the shared Chinese and Japaense six-day rotational calender: daian　（大安）, tomobiki　（友引）, senpu　（先負）, senshou　（先勝）, shakkou　（赤口）, butsumetsu　（仏滅）. Butsumetsu is the day for failure. Utter failure. Not even a silver of a chance, not a single ray of hope like the second worst, shakkou when you are alloted some 'relief' time exactly at noon. Oh no, on butsumetsu, don't bother leaving home. Better yet don't even leave your bed. Although, given that it IS butsumetsu, you'll probably just slip and drown in your bathtub.


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SNAKES ON THE LOOSE!!!

It goes without saying, no pets in class. Please, people.

I walk into my rowdy, overcrowded {“never more then ten students per class” so why do I count fifteen?} but not unpleasant mid-day class today only to have “Di” jump up and proclaim loudly that “Ray” has snakes!

“Snakes?” I feel my eyes bugle.

“Yes, snakes! Snakes!” “Di” pronounces with that giddy, unhinged excitement only tattletales can manage to exude.

The first thought in my head was "You have got to be sh^%#ng me. Someone brought their pet snake to class?!?"
On the heels of that came a rushed apologetic thought - "Not that I have anything against snakes. I like snakes. I have a tendency towards fondness for long slinky things with sharp teeth – sharks, ferrets, snakes. Ferrets."

Inwardly I felt myself rolling my eyes as I approached the podeum.
I scanned the floor as "Ray" and "Di" and frankly most of the class behaved like a scene out of danse macabre.

"Di" points again. More directly this time at "Ray's" bag – "Snake! Snake!"

In the bag – nothing moving.
Bag – cleared.

On the floor...
...
"Snack?!? You mean snack?!”
I peer in disbelief at the long curly fry on the floor NEXT to the bag.
"That's a snack. Snake is animal."

Draw snake on board.
SNAKE.
Point to floor.
SNACK.

Order, or what passes for it here, returned to class as students took their seats when the bell rang.

And for the rest of the class, the nice-teacher turned a blind eye to the occassional yet repeated consumption of the hapless snakes.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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