Oh, Holy Jesus. I have internet. And Happy Birthday.

So, I got the best Christmas gift I could wish for. A Japanese man sitting on the floor of my apartment installing my internet on Christmas Eve. I switched companies LAST WEEK and already had my internet installed by the following weekend! I wish I had done it a long time ago! I'd like to say I'll miss my friends over at the net cafe... but that would be a lie.

Christmas in Japan is weird. People kiiiinda celebrate it. But it's only considered a commercial holiday here and most people don't recognize it's true meaning. And you still have to work. Working on Christmas probably would have felt weirder if it had actually felt like Christmas. But being so far from home and everything I associate with Christmas, it really didn't. We held a special Christmas lesson for our kids where I taught them some dumb Christmas song I had never even heard before and had to learn the night before.

The only time it ACTUALLY felt like Christmas for me was when I video chatted with my family late that night (their Christmas morning) and got to "be there" for the whole opening of presents and whatnot. It really felt like I was there at the time! But now, looking back it doesn't feel like a real memory. Just like having watched a movie. But it was still awesome to be a part of it and have Christmas with the fam in some way. Even if I had to keep jumping around just to keep from falling asleep.

This week was counseling week so we gave only private lessons and special lessons that we had to come up with on our own. I did a music special lesson. One class was called "Music Through the Ages" and taught about the differences of music through the different decades in the 1900s, and the other was about genre. I taught the genre one today and it didn't really work. Stuff I though would be SUPER easy (like classic examples of genre, Bob Marley = Reggae, Dylan = Folk) the students weren't really getting. Surprisingly they all understood Earth, Wind, and Fire as disco though. I guess some things just transcend all cultures. Scary that it's disco.

Now, my winter break begins and I don't have to go to work for a whole week! AND I have a special visitor coming who I am very excited about. All in all, things are looking good. I've got internet, no work, and good company on its way.

I could go the traditional Japanese route and have a quiet New Years Eve full of ceremony, at-home family goodness, and ringing of bells at shrines. Or, I could go to a club the whole night and dance my dice off. We'll see what happens. (try and guess) ;D Miss you all. Happiest of holidays!!

ROBOT ROCK

Daft Punk was AMAZING. When I got to the place (Makuhari Messe) I started by waiting in a long line to pick up my tickets. It was pretty much ALL foreigners in the line so I mentally dubbed it the "gaijin line." I guess there was only this one English website providing tickets, so that's where all the foreigners were lined up to get their tickets. I ended up talking to the guys in line next to me and they were really cool! One was from Argentina (Gabriel) and the other was from France (Antoine) and they were roommates in England together, touring Tokyo for the first time. I ended hanging out with them for most of the concert and they were very nice and normal (you never know when you meet random ppl at concerts).

The opening acts were mostly DJs that were pretty good and fun and then there was this one Japanese band, "Boom Boom Satellite," that was pretty awesome! I guess they're really huge here so I may have to get one of their CDs.

So, we decided to get right up close to the stage before Daft Punk came out, which ended up being the most uncomfortable thing ever. About a half hour before they came on EVERYONE started pushing for the front and I was literally being pushed and crushed from all angles. Daft Punk started and it only got worse. We hung out at the front for a few songs hoping the crowd would settle down, but the insanity persisted. I couldn't move and was being pushed and jostled all over. We finally decided that sucked and we wanted to dance, so we moved back about 25 feet and it was fine. We could breath, dance, see better, and enjoy the music. So there we stayed still with an amazing view for what had the be one of the best concerts of my entire life.

I left a sweaty, happy mess. I got a sweet Japanese Daft Punk poster from Antoine who got it free with his CD purchase too. Gonna put a little color in my apartment finally! I also got to walk around the Makuhari area after the concert and explore my old haunts from when I studied abroad. Went the the convenience store I went to daily when I went to school there and enjoyed a beer outside the Sumitomo building, where the IES center was located, in the techno garden.

Harder, better, faster, stronger.

Christmas in the Air

After a brief hiatus, I am back on the blogging scene! I still don't have internet in my apartment and am starting to think that I never will. My punishment for being a foreigner. I called the internet place again and after a long and complicated conversation that was a 3-way talk between me and the English speaking staff who translates and speaks between me and the Japanese cable person. Only the English speaking chick clearly has been living in Japan waaay too long because it takes her forever to say anything and she is annoyingly polite while not actually accomplishing anything I need done. And I can hear her talking to the Japanese person the whole time and can tell she is using super-formal Japanese, which takes three times as long to spit out, and is eating up my phone and break time at work in the process.

All this for her to tell me that they tried to deliver the initial letter to me and it got sent back. For some official reasons the next step in my internet set-up process is getting this official letter in the mail. But I guess because I don't have a "name plate" on my mailbox that might be the problem. But I honestly think that's BS because the girl who lived here before me never had a name plate and neither do any of my neighbors because the mail goes through a slot in the door. But I went ahead and put a name plate on my door, just in case. Anything to get on the grid sometime this year. So, now if my neighbors didn't already know they were living by a gaijin, they know now whenever they walk by my door and see "Barber, Dawn (バーバー　ドーン）

Work is going pretty well and I think I get more into the swing of teaching every week. My kids classes are still the most challenging, especially one that I have on Tuesdays of 11 year olds that are blatantly disrespectful, seem pissed to be there at all, and pick on this one poor Chinese girl in the class. I think she actually transferred out of my class this week because they were so mean to her. It really sucks and makes me sad because I felt so helpless. Even if I scold them, it doesn't really mean anything to them in English and they don't seem to care. But I am constantly reminded that I can't use Japanese in the classroom ESPECIALLY in kids classes (which, coincidentally, is where I need to use it the most). I'll fess up that I regularly break that rule. Better they think I can speak Japanese so they're afraid to stay bad stuff about me or the other kids while I'm around.

Outside work, things have been getting a little better as well. Last weekend I went with my friend Tessa, another Aeon teacher at a different school who I know from when I studied abroad here in 06, to a "Mexican party" a bunch of her friends from training were throwing. Let me tell ya, it was pretty nice to eat tacos and guacamole because you can't really find that stuff anywhere in Japan! I continued my consumption of delicious foreign food last weekend by going to an amazing Indian lunch buffet in Shinjuku. I almost missed it because I got super lost because Shinjuku is insane and I always get lost there. Didn't help some British dude decided I needed his help and tried to take me to the wrong restaurant. But I finally found it and it was an oasis! Later, I met up with Allen and Tessa at the Hub in Shinjuku for drinks and reminiscing.

So, interesting thing about the Japanese. They don't actually celebrate Christmas day much and none seem to know what it really means, but they have been playing Christmas music in ALL the stores here since mid-November. It's so strange. They will all be working like usual on the actual day (myself included) but they seem to hype it up with the music and advertising campaigns just as much as we do in America. A lot of my recent kids lessons have been teaching about Christmas. I don't know how many times I had to explain what eggnog is because it was one of the vocabulary words...

But I must admit that despite the music, it's kinda sad to be so far from my family at this time of year. I am so used to being home and doing family Christmas stuff around this time and planning our Christmas break and vacation, and what to buy everyone... it is just weird to not be a part of it this year and to not get to see the grandparents and eat Beth's Christmas cookies, etc... Lately I miss the family a lot.

On a big positive note, I am going to see Daft Punk in concert tonight, which may just be a turning point in my young life. I absolutely can't wait. I will robot-rock and dance my socks off. I am going alone, but I don't mind because this way I don't have to worry about anyone else and can just wander the crowd and dance or take breaks as I please. Maybe I'll even sneak backstage. :D