This is an odd photo for the robot. I thought the robot was closed. This is me at the fair.

I remember it like it was yesterday

The end.

This is it. The last post from Japan. Tomorrow I will get on a plane and fly home. This year has flown by and as I look back I remember many good times and just as many bad ones. I don't know what I was expecting when I came to Japan, maybe a vacation, but it has been very different than I thought it would be. I never turned into a robot, although I saw a few at the world's fair. In fact, I think a better name for this blog would have been "a fish out of water", because that has been me. Some days I have felt like this place is really awesome, other days I have just wanted to attack every person that I see. I feel that I have grown as a person over here, I certainly feel more independent, which is strange as I am totally dependent on others for most things here. I don't know. Its hard to describe. I think I am going to leave it there.

The middle of the end

I have now entered that weird time when I feel like I don't have enough time left to do anything before leaving. Sort of like the concept of "lame duck". I don't really want to buy anything, because then I just have to haul it home. I don't really want to go anywhere because I want to spend time with the people that I know here. Nevertheless, it is a fun time here full of parties and partings. And just in case you thought this was going to be a weepy entry full of stuff that you don't want to read about, dear reader; think again. Thats right, you guessed it, upon my triumphant(?) return from Japan, there will be gifts. Oh and not just any gifts. No, these gifts are of the most sought after in Japan. Yes, you are correct in your thinking once again, FROGS! You may remember the frog drawing from the last time I was home. But that is not the best part! The best part is that now, instead of only 8 frog banks, I have acquired 24 frogs of an entirely different (and forgive me) less exciting function. You can now start wondering which one will I get? Snow Frog? Hot Frog? Or even the mysterious Kagamimochi Frog?! That is only three! There are 24 total unique frogs! The possibilities are endless!!! Well, maybe not endless, but there are 24 possibilities!!! Only I know them all, and of those I only know what less than half mean! FROGS!!!

On a side note as I was walking home today I happened to pass a UFO catcher arcade in the covered mall (an arcade inside an arcade, oh the irony. Or is that a coincidence?). Anyhow, front and center in this UFO catcher arcade was a UFO Catcher (or claw game) whose only prizes were large plush breasts, complete with plush nipples. And if you caught two plush breasts you could try again for a large plush brazierre. That way you could protect the modesty of the large plush invisible woman that you could pretend that they belonged to. Its nice to know that after a year here I can still be dumbfounded from time to time.

Let your conscience go to hell

Fun times in Japan, as three birthdays fell in the same week and combined into one giant party this last Saturday. It was like some sort of something that would fortold in prophecy. To no ones great suprise, I got hammered. But thats not news. What is interesting about this night is the strange occurances of the next day. You see I woke up the following afternoon with that horrible I am so late for work feeling. But I check my phone and there have been no calls. My first instinct says: "Mike, just fuck it man, go back to sleep." My first instinct, however, is an idiot, so I don't listen to him. So I call the head office and speak to a confused Canadian dude (actually I have no basis for his nationality, but I feel like this spices things up a bit). Getting ready for work when you are late and hungover is always a strange mixture of horrible sensations, but I do it anyway. After I get out of the shower I see that I have missed a call, and lo a short time later the phone rings again. It is my Canadian overlord calling to see if I have the day off. I reply that I do not (as if I did I would certainly not be calling in late). He commands me to head to work, despite some mysterious confusion. Turns out, by some beautiful miracle of the cosmos, I mean truly the act of a kind and loving creator, I had been left off the schedule that day on a fluke. As such, if I had listened to my first, idiot instinct, I would have not only not gotten in trouble for being late, but also would have been paid for a full day of work that I didn't do. Now how much better of a story would that have made? But hey, whatever, at least I can say I did the right thing. *gag*

The beginning of the end

So, it has began to occur to me that my adventures in Japan will soon be coming to an end. I will spare you the long and nostalgic talk about this (for now). Anyhow, today it is official. I walked into work this morning and looked at my schedule. Pretty rough, lots of students, several of whom I don't like. No sooner do I walk away, however, than our staff lady walks over and adds two new students to practically fill my schedule to maximum capacity. I was a little upset at this (not at the staff lady, she has very little to do with sign ins other that writing them on the board) as I am coasting off of a small ammount of sleep thanks to finishing the new Harry Potter last night. "I quit!" I say in a loud voice, fill out my resignation form and hand it to the staff lady. Now this is not quite as dramatic as I would have it sound as I had already expressed in writing to my area supervisor that I had no intention of signing a new contract. That, and I already had my resignation form ready to go in my drawer. Nevertheless, its official, and the red lights in the robot's eyes are beginning to fade. Yes, its almost over now. Japan has not always been kind to me, nor have I always been kind to Japan, but I still feel a distinct pang of sadness at the thought of leaving. Still, this is just the beginning of the end and I still have more than a month of Japan to go, and I will save my nostalgic thoughts for the exciting conclusion to "On becoming a robot"!!

More tales of the bizarre

Things have pretty much returned to normal in Japan. I just got my phone back from the shop. Payday is coming up, and I am chilling on a wonderful 6 day weekend. Nevertheless, there are still things that I see that are not so "normal". Maybe a month or so ago I was walking home from work and there in the middle of of a busy intersection was a tiny kitten stumbling back and forth between cars that are doing their best to avoid it. Being a compassionate human being who has no desire to see small cute things come to harm, I dashed out into the intersection and snatched up the little guy. Now it was a stray so there really wasn't much to do with it but set it loose in a safer part of the street. Luckily, it would seem that the kitten has fallen in with the gang of local strays that lurks around my apartment. Anyway, on Friday night, I was walking home from the bar, and unless I was halucinating, I saw an elderly Japanese man standing in the street in his underwear. Now, I thought about recreating my kitten heroics by grabbing the old fellow and carrying him to safety. I decided against it though, as he was a full grown man and can take care of himself. Thats about it. I did have another close encounter with nature yesterday. I was walking to the convenience store yesterday and a little bird landed next to me. I looked at the bird, and the bird looked at me. I got the distinct sensation that the bird was trying to talk to me. So I cocked my head to the side and said, "hello". "Chirp!" the bird replied cheerfully, and I felt a little happier. I also realized how weird the whole situation was. But hey, it was good for a laugh.