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Dave’s Epic Garbage Battle
If there’s one thing about living in Japan that boggles my mind, it’s how many different types of garbage there are. Y’see, Japan has decided to become more eco-friendly in the last couple of decades, so they now recycle A LOT of garbage. Here’s the thing though:
YOU MUST SORT IT YOURSELF. In my case, the garbage is sorted into
EIGHT.DIFFERENT.CATEGORIES.
These categories each have different days for collection. Some happen every week some fortnightly. Because all of this is RATHER complex and hard to remember, I was handily issued with a Garbage Collection Calendar when I arrived at my Apartment. After a month or so, I had a handle on everything. I could sort garbage pretty decently, or so I thought. But last month, something went awry.
My Garbage Collection Calendar expired. This caused me a small dilemma which, I explained to a lady in my office. She helpfully printed me off a new calendar, and off I went. The next week something strange happened. My burnable garbage wasn’t taken from the curb. ‘Oh well,’ I thought to myself ‘guess I need to sort it a little better, I did have a few out-of-town visitors last week.’ (often the garbage system differs from city to city.) So, I took it back in, resorted it, and waited for the next collection day. A day or so later, my plastic garbage was taken, so I assumed I was simply doing something wrong. The next burnable garbage day came around, so once again, I put my resorted garbage out, and came home to discover it had not been collected again. A day later, I noticed my bag of aluminium cans had not been collected either. I thought this was rather odd. Getting annoyed, and being POSITIVE I was sorting my garbage correctly, I lined my burnable garbage bag with white paper, so the garbage men couldn’t see the contents inside. Once again I came home to find it had not been collected.
This was starting to REALLY bug me, I sorted my garbage again, and had several IM chats with other ALTs in the area trying to work out what was going on. I sorted my burnables for the THIRD time, and once again, they were not collected.
I was at the end of my tether, so I sent an email to my Prefectural Advisor on the JET program asking for assistance. Was my garbage not being seen? Had the bags changed? Did we have new garbage men? Had my apartment complex been put on some sort ‘garbage detention for poor sorting’? Being a Friday, there was not a lot he could do, but he said he would try and resolve the issue.
As soon as I read the reply, I had an epiphany. I wandered over to my Garbage Collection Calendar. I looked at the title, and did a rough Japanese translation: ‘Garbage Collection For North Sadowara Area.’ my heart sank. I live in the SOUTH Sadowara collection area. I had been putting out my garbage on the wrong days. The only type of garbage that has the same collection day in North and South Sadowara is plastics on Wednesday.
I sheepishly sent off a apologetic email to my Prefectural Advisor. Found a SOUTH Sadowara Garbage Collection Calendar, and chuckled. I was not fighting the garbage men. I was fighting myself.
Let’s Graduation!
So, today was the first day for me to back at school after the graduation of the third year students, and it feels weird. Why? Because I teach at three different schools, and they all chose to have their graduation ceremonies on the same day, at the same time. This means that I could only attend one ceremony, at one school. Where I CRIED LIKE A BABY. But today, I am not at that school, I’m at one of my other schools and it’s VERY quiet. It’s kind of sad to know I never saw my students from this school graduate, and not hearing them moving around makes a profound difference on the place. Additionally, the third year teachers aren’t here either. So the whole place feels sort of…empty. Additionally, I noticed in the top floor where the third year homerooms are, they have pasted the message in GIANT Japanese characters that reads: ‘thank you for (life) so far’. As I looked at that, I got something in my eye for a second, and even now, I still feel rather empty inside. It’s a very odd feeling. I hardly even knew these kids, I taught them for maybe eight weeks total over six months, but they became a part of my life, and I hope that the same was true for them. It’s just going to be hitting me for a couple of days. Also, today might be my last day working with some of the teachers at this school, because in Japan, at the end of the school year, teachers are often rotated to different schools in the area, or end up teaching different grades. This also is sad for me, because I feel like I work with some of the greatest teachers who not only speak English really well, but also like to have fun, both inside and outside the classroom. This has made my arrival in Japan very easy, and to have that disrupted in my life is a less than desirable outcome. People will find out today whether they will be leaving or staying. I can feel a nervous sort of tension in the air in the staffroom. I am hoping for good results today. Either way, I just have to pick up and carry on. These kids aren’t going to educate themselves. LET’S ENGLISH!
EPIC weekend.
As you a probably aware, I am a MASSIVE geek. more specifically, I am a massive RETRO GAMING GEEK. I am so much a geek, that I have in fact now investigated the majority of retro game sellers / second hand stores / second hand book stores around where I live. So, what does one do when he gets to this point, and craves MORE GAMES? Well, he gets his fellow geeky mate and road trips to the NEXT PREFECTURE! Why? MORE GAMES! That’s why!! So, on Saturday off Kieran and I went, searching for games! We decided that if we saw something, cool, we’d stop. As such, our first stop was a HARD-OFF store reasonably far from Kieran’s. Sadly, we made REALLY good time, so we had to wait for the store to open! where did we go?
Game Paladaise!! (Engrish FTW! This is supposed to be ‘PARADISE’, I think….)
That place was epic, for one, it had a SONIC THE HEDGEHOG POPCORN MACHINE!
AND, it had VS SUPER MARIO BROS!
Happy Dave is Happy!!
We also took a drive along an awesome private road at the top of some mountains, it was a real driver’s road, so it was a LOT of fun. Here’s me on top of a monument at one of the rest stops:
We also, stopped at a lake, which had a Japanese version of Nessie,
this one is named: ‘Esshi’. Even has it’s own statue!
So, we ended up hitting 5 stores, (our original goal was 3) and this was our final haul:
All in all, an epic weekend! GEEKS FTW!
More nice things my students wrote about me. (Side note: this was at the suggestion of the Japanese teacher I work with, NOT me.)
Dreams Of The Children…(Part 2)
Here are some of the more inspirational dreams some of my students have:
This is DECIDEDLY rock n’ roll!! YEAH!
Despite the spelling mistake, this makes me smile. This kid seriously looks like he could do it too. What a trooper!
This is GREAT! Go a kid who wants to be a GOOD FATHER. There aren’t enough of them in the world.
The next couple are AWESOME because they have AMAZING art:
Simple idea, but this picture BLOWS my mind. I WISH I could’ve drawn like this when I was 14!
Great Dream! and FANTASTIC art.
Seriously, these kids never cease to Amaze me.
One I wish I could’ve posted up was the following:
“In the future I want to travel all over the West Coast of the USA, because I am a big fan of the Fallout games” - LEGEND.
Dreams Of The Children…(PART 1)
Ok, so I have an activity I do with my second year Junior High School Students. We discuss what they want to to in the future. First off, here are some more “interesting” sentences.
This girl has a dream that I share in. I think this is an awesome goal!
This guy, while he has a simple sentence, has some EPIC art. Is this an AWESOME fight HAPPENING ON TOP OF A SPEEDBOAT? WIN!!
This is a true dream for many of the kids I see every day. Up early, into bed late. I do not envy the lack of sleep they must suffer from.
AND FINALLY:
This is an interesting one to say the least. I think it’s a cool idea to want to be likeHatsune Miku, it is such a TRULY JAPANESE dream :) Wikipedia link for those who are interested. :)
UP NEXT: INSPIRATIONAL ANSWERS
