So, graduation season has passed, and we are now in the midst of transfer season in Japan.

It seems like most of my favorite people are being moved. My favorite elementary school teacher, the Hawk, MT, and, of course, all the high school teachers (including Sophie). At the middle school I will have taught with three different English teachers in two years. The soon-to-be third years will have had a different English teacher each year.

I�m sad to see the Hawk go. We work well together, and we have a certain rapport. She told me that, though she�s been teaching for twenty years now, somehow teaching with me this last year made her more confident in her teaching. I wrote her a letter telling her how much I appreciated her, as well.

Unlike last year, I�m not particularly uneasy about who will show up to take her place. Maybe it�s because I�m out of here in four months time.

The farewell dinner/drinking party was last Thursday. It�s always interesting to see Japanese school teachers get drunk off their asses. It�s even more interesting in cases like these, when they do it with the parents of the children they teach. The Hawk got roaring drunk, and was shouting and yelling. When I finally left (around midnight), she asked me to kiss her and wasn�t satisfied with the peck on the cheek I gave her. She swatted my ass as I left. Good ol� drunk people.

Oh, one of the middle school teachers is getting transferred because he�s getting married, to a woman who�s 21 or 22. I�m not sure how old he is, exactly, but I�d guess he�s pushing 40. I found out over the weekend (from someone who works at the Board of Education), that his fianc�e is one of his former students. Eww.

I got the final and long awaited graduate school rejection last week. They went and bamboozled me by sending me a mass email a few days before that inviting me to take classes summer term in order to get a good start on my graduate career. But they were just messing with me, man! Cold.

Sometimes I think I should have recontracted for another year on The Rock. I love it here, and I love the kids I teach. At this point, I know how to do what I do here. But I suspect that the things that annoy me about it will only increase if I stay longer, and I�d rather leave while I�m still in love with it. It�s time for something new.

I will miss getting paid so much for so little, though.

Nokia has been making astounding progress lately. I think she�s surpassed Rah Rah, even. I�m really proud of her.

It looks like a few other kids are going to start showing up to my evening conversation class, too. In a way I�d rather they didn�t, since they�ll slow things down and dilute the amount of one on one each kid gets, but� English is not the privilege of the elite! English is the right of all people! Down with the English bourgeois, power to the English proletariat! Or something like that.

I went to Kyoto the weekend before last. It was almost exactly one year after WTF and I met. We revisited the Inari Taisha Shrine, where we took our first picture together (and where she lied to me about her age). We took another picture together in the exact same spot. I had taken pains to be wearing the exact same clothes as in the original picture, and she was annoyed with me that I hadn�t reminded her to do the same. (I had thought she would find such sentimentalism to be silly, but I should know her better than that by now.) We also went to the Osaka Aquarium again. She talked to the fish again. She asked them for a favor (which she didn't specify), but apparently they weren't sure if it was doable.

Things went really well.

We saw Brokeback Mountain, which is set not far from where I grew up. It was really good. And I have now seen the breasts of the Princess of Genovia (not to mention Jean Groberg). 3 stars, with potential to mature to four.

I also talked with an interpretation company about studying interpretation and working in the field, and it�s looking like that�s a go. It�s unclear how long it�ll be before I�m actually making money doing it, though.

Maybe I�ll look into being professionally good looking, as well.

News Nook

Emerging Christian Left to Challenge the Right Good luck to them!

Billy Madison, perhaps the greatest comedy of all time, has found its way into our nation�s courts. That is awesome.

So, apparently atheists are America�s most distrusted minority. That makes me feel really paranoid, somehow. Interestingly enough, non-religious Americans are less likely to approve of torture, though. (Catholics, on the other hand, frickin� love torture. Surprise, surprise.)

From the man who brought you Fuck the South, here is Fuck South Dakota.

GLOBAL WARMING. You know, he makes a lot of sense when he says it�ll be much harder to make changes and fix things later than it would be right now. But you know nothing�s gonna happen as long as Dubya et. al are running the show. What are we, you ask? Why, I�ll tell you. Fucked. That�s what we are. Good luck to us!

the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls,

greyarea

Diaryland