The elementary schedule is pressing on - which really should only mean one thing to me; my impending return to the home of the brave, land of the free. But, it doesn't just mean that. It means saying goodbye to all the friends I've made, it means packing up all my shit, and having to sort it all out beforehand. Most importantly, it means that I'm dead tired more often than not. Which gives me little to no energy to appreciate/figure out everything else that ails me. I've been doing alright for the past month, but this week has already been a nightmare, and I've got an extra special Friday at one of my least favorite schools to pull this week, while being monitored by "important" people. Weeeeee!
The classes this week have just been amazingly bad - kids are totally misbehaved, lesson plans are shit, I'm feeling horrible every morning before I even step foot in the schools, etc. Today, even while working at one of my favorite schools, I just couldn't manage to get my shit together, no matter how hard I tried. That is, until I met TioVita.
TioVita (pronounced "Cho-Bee-Tuh") is peculiar Japanese curiosity. As the clip shows, TioVita comes in a tiny little brown bottle. What the commercial doesn't tell you (in English, anyway), is that it's jam packed full of vitamins and other things. What other things? Well,, special things! Like caffeine! And taurine! ...and nicotine? Wait. What the fuck? Nicotine? Seriously?
Yeah. Seriously. My principal saw that I was dragging ass, and being the nice guy that he is, he gave me a bottle of TioVita and told me it'd make me feel better. And, it totally did. Almost crazy better (sidenote: Taurine+caffeine [three cups of coffee and whatever is in TioVita]+nicotine=laugh for no reason in class alot). So it worked ... but it's probably hella-bad for me. I'm still tempted, you know, just to help me make it through the next month. ...Not that I'm addicted or anything. I could quit anytime I wanted.
The school I was teaching in today is such a nice place. The teachers are friendly, classes are small, the kids are usually cooperative. All the kinds of things you'd want in an elementary school. Before I headed out (I've got a date to keep with a good friend who's going away. Yakitori, away!), I had a nice long chat with most of the office staff, during which it was discovered that I am celebrating my 23rd birthday on the 24th of this month. I was also talking about going to yakitori in Ogawamachi to see my friends, and hang with Brian for one of the last times in Japan, during which my drinking habits came into question. Before I knew what was happening, the principal asked if I had plans for the night of my birthday, a Wednesday. I told him no, and he told me I needed to come to his house and get drunk with him! So, that's it. I'm pretty tied into it. And, truth be told, I'm kind of looking forward to it, in a crazy way. I mean, he can't speak more than 5 words of English, and my Japanese, while partially intelligible, is not good enough for long, drunken rambling. And, anyway, it's a Wednesday! So, I have school Thursday morning, anyway. But...it's awkward to cancel, and he didn't seem to want to take no for an answer.
And, after school, he followed me out and said "Car, bike, my house, okay." And I smiled and said "okay." What I didn't realize at the time is that he wanted to follow me back to my house, so he knew where to pick me up on my birthday. What I thought was that he was either going to have me follow him to his house (presumably nearby), or that he would load my bike into his car and take me home, for some reason. Well, I thought I was following him, and he thought he was following me, and we just followed each other for a while, right through some nice farmland. It would've been a shame if it weren't such nice weather, and if I hadn't just drank the liquid equivalent to crack cocaine. As it was, we just laughed it off, headed the right way, shook hands and headed our different ways. I'll let you know how Drunk-Principal's-House-2009 turns out.
In the meantime, I need to pretty myself up, so Brian's got something nice to look at while we eat ourselves into a coma. Until next time.
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2 comments:
Hey Jake! Just stopping by to say hi, and to give you Jason's e-mail address. jaysonryder@gmail.com - He's having a grand time in Afghanistan (that would be Moffitt sarcasm there). Please e-mail him if you get a chance, he would absolutely love to hear from you! Missy
tiovita contains ニコチン酸アミド, or ニコチンアミド on some product labels. it's nicotinamide. it's a type of b-vitamin; not nicotine. it's the same stuff that's in blackblack chewing gum.
common misinterpretation for gaikokujin to make. i made it for years and refused tiovita and blackblack and all the other dozens of japanese products that contain nicotinamide because i thought it was nicotine. i was wrong and now it's all good:)
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