Yawn!

That Night

In winter, the normally gray sky over Tokyo clears. Today for example, there was a perfect New Mexico sky: Intensely blue and remote, an intensely blue and remote sky punctuated by billowy white clouds that wisped away at the edges.

New student after new student filled my classes today. Classes have been shifted around so that I teach the function-based (versus the grammar-based) courses. It's not that I don't love grammar. It's just that students have eight years of grammar under their belts when they hit my class and I try to remind them that they need to practice the syntax. Enough with the grammar. Please use it in a sentence. Yes, that grammatical construction is perfect, but no, it doesn't sound natural to an ear accustomed to American English. Sorry. No, I can't explain why. The why has nothing to do with grammar. Sorry.

A young man turns a conversation about how to make plans in English into practice asking a girl out. He says, "I have two tickets to a concert on Friday night. Would you like to come?" She begins her reply with, "Well, actually..." I teach him the phrase "shot down." It's very casual, I explain.

Another lesson is about stating one's opinions. I mention tattoos to a very high level student. I introduce the term "body modification." She asks if braces are a kind of body modification. Braces, like you put on teeth? No, we don't consider those a kind of body modification. I explain about pierced tongues and noses and eyebrows and belly buttons. She shudders. She has never had her ears pierced--or her teeth straightened. She says she would allow her daughter to straighten her teeth, but not pierce her ears. She would never ever allow a tattoo. She avoids overtly mentioning my own large, dangling turquoise earrings. I avoid mentioning the nose piercing I had two years ago (and which I accidentally ripped out one fine morning in mishap involving a washcloth and a pair of pliers--don't ask). I avoid mentioning my tattoos--or my parents' tattoos--or my grandmother's tattoo--the one on her face, I mean.

Japan is a very conservative place, yo.

Ah. And tomorrow I have to go to Shinjuku, to The Kaisha Head Office. (Head offisu ne? So ne.) I don't hate that place exactly, but I'm not thrilled much by it either. But, having gotten up so early--four ayem, yo--I'm ready for bed now.

Goodnight all!

The Next Morning

This is very early the next morning:

If it's four-thirty ayem in Tokyo, what time is it where you are?

I just stepped out onto my balcony. It will be light shortly but it's dark now and the sky is still very clear. There are actual stars over Tokyo, stars that I have been looking at all my life. (Tokyo is on the same latitude as Santa Fe and Los Angeles, so the night skies are exactly the same, don't have that dizzing effect that unfamiliar skies in the Southern hemisphere have on one's psyche--if, that is, one had a completely Northern hemispherical existence.)

Please ignore the grammatical and logical inconsistences of that last sentence. (See also: It's very early in the morning.)

I begin the morning coffee marathon, the rush to consume six or eight cups of coffee and at least three liters of water before heading off to Shinjuku, a place where I am not particularly keen on going. After work, I'm definitely gym-bound as last night's dinner consisted entirely of Seven-Eleven fare: raisin bread and onigiri and, yes, chocolate.

My diet in Japan is shite yo. Shite. Ben has the obliging Japanese girlfriend to cook and package his lunch for him, so he shows up with homemade gyoza on rice with kabocha on the side, all prettily wrapped in a cute little furoshiki--and I watch him enviously as I eat my Natural Lawson's salad and low-fat yogurt. I need to find me a Japanese girlfriend, I think. (See also: Never has to learn the Japanese for "Will my dry cleaning be ready by Tuesday?")

Yawn.