The West

My post about my recent vacation will be broken into two parts since that equates well with the vacation. I may update with pictures later. The first part of my vacation, as you can guess, happened in West Japan, where I live - the Kansai area.

Most of the JETs go home for Winter; a practice so common that one of the teachers tried asking when I was flying home - she had just assumed I would be. By this time I had already decided not to renew, though I hadn't signed the papers yet. It was sitting on my desk, so they didn't know. But I did, and it meant this would be my last year here. Which meant I needed to see everything in Japan fast. Plus Japanese New Year was supposed to be a big event, so I wanted to see it.

I had figured this was my chance to see the big cities. I had come to the realization that Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara (also Kobe, but I didn't notice in time) were so close they practically shared a subway. I decided I would spend the first third of my vacation there and then my second third in Tokyo. I could finally see my friends from Germany. Towards the end of the planning stage, I was talking to my Chinese friend and she was passing through Beijing. I took it as an opportunity to go myself and have someone that could speak the language guide me, if only for a bit. So rather late, I booked a flight to Beijing. I didn't notice until much later that I lost a lot of time due to overnights at the airport. I was also unaware of a critical piece of information everyone neglected to tell me until much, much later. But that's later in the post.

While I was still planning, my girlfriend at the time wanted to travel with someone. I eventually let her into my plans and we planned together. While talking to one of the teachers about my plan, she mentioned staying at a temple in Kyoto. It sounded very adventurous. No heat, no meat, waking up early to chant with the monks. I really wanted to do it. However, the only viable day was Christmas Eve through to Christmas. This sounded even better to me. I could have a memorable Christmas.

Well, my girlfriend didn't like this plan. She wanted to spend time in a hotel and Skype her family. The disagreement turned into a fight and we ended up breaking up. This was very close to departure time so everything had to be rapidly rebooked. As a male, I have far more (especially cheap) options in Japan. So I was able to find places. The hard part was the temple.

Of course the websites (if they even have one) are all in Japanese. I tried having my coworkers help. I looked through a long list of temples. They all sounded great - if you wanted a hotel. They had wifi and air conditioning and all kinds of amenities. But I didn't want any of those things. When I did find Spartan accommodations  they were either booked or busy getting ready for the New Year. Eventually I did find a temple to stay at. It was far from my first pick, but I had hoped it would be an experience.

I finally set out to Osaka. Sometime before I set out, I had heard that a bunch of other Yamaguchi JETs would be in Kyoto, so I decided to drop off my stuff and rush over and meet them.

I got to Kyoto rather late, like 2 in the afternoon or so, to meet them. However, instead of the large group of people I discovered only the one JET from my city and her boyfriend, who was sick. They had just finished touring a castle (so I didn't get to see it [not that I particularly cared, but still]). So we decided to get food.

That wasted a lot of time.

Then we did actually meet the others. One had forgotten his bag and had to go clothes shopping. Then we did some walking around. No one knew what they wanted to do. Eventually we decided to go to an Irish pub. Enroute I decided I had better get back to Osaka.

By the time I got back to Osaka I was really upset at myself for having wasted an entire day I could have seen Osaka to see nothing in Kyoto. Especially since I had scheduled more days for Kyoto anyway.

So capsule hotels sound like something out of sci-fi. And it might initially look like it. But I can assure you toasters are more technologically advanced. You (and everyone else in the building) have to check out of your room every day. Fortunately they hold on to your luggage (at least this one does), but it's still a huge hassle. Also, there are no showers, just a huge public bath. But the worst part is the lack of outlets. This became a problem the next day.

I had used up most of my battery the previous day and was able to charge only one of my batteries by using my laptop. Yes, I was at 100%, but that only meant a few hours. That's how awful my battery life is. So I decided it was worth buying a third battery. Unfortunately the store didn't carry it, so I ended up buying and external. It was surprisingly awesome and a huge help the rest of the trip and presumably into the future as well. Still I was very stressed out up until then.

I didn't do much research as to what every city offered, so I was very happy when I had discovered there was a Weihnachtsmarkt still in town for Christmas. Osaka has a lot of Germans or something, I don't know. I got there too early and wandered around a bit before it finally opened up. It was cool to see Japanese girls (the ones working) using German as well as the actual Germans working there, too. Probably every German in Osaka (all four of them) were there, working. I bought some Christmas presents for my friends and ate some vaguely German food.

Then I set out to find my next goal, the aquarium. Shimonoseki also has an aquarium so I wanted to see how this one compared, and more importantly - I wanted to see whale sharks. When I arrived near the aquarium, I saw a ton of people carrying a One Piece bag. Everyone had one of two types of bags, so I knew something was happening. When I got even closer, I saw next door was a giant One Piece banner with the word "Exhibit". I was a bit confused because it looked like the aquarium was maybe working with this exhibit or something so I figured I'd check it out after the aquarium. I arrived in time (well, a bit early) for some kind of penguin parade. Which was exactly what it sounds like. It was mildly entertaining and then I got in line for a ticket.

Inside was super crowded. I had not thought ahead and had gone on a Sunday during vacation season. I couldn't see anything. Though the only things I cared about were otters and whale sharks. The otters hid by the time I finally got close enough to see. But the disappointing part was how small the whale shark was. Sure, I guess you can fit in its mouth, but it's not impressively large in my opinion. Maybe it was a baby or something. So I left, disappointed a bit, and went to the One Piece exhibit across the street.

Except apparently tickets were sold out for that day. And if you want to buy tickets for the next day, you need to come the next day. But the next day was Christmas Eve, and I had plans to be in Kyoto. Temples have early check in times, too. In order to actually buy a ticket, it would have to be after tomorrow, and it would have to be from a convenience store. Because convenience stores do everything in Japan that normal people of the world use the internet for. So I got my ticket for the 26th. Except the machine didn't like my name so I had to be Corbin Yamada.

Then I decided to head to Osaka Castle. Except by now, the sun is setting. I don't make it very far around the outer courtyard before I decide to leave. I decide I can go early in the morning and see it before Kyoto.

I head back and try to find a restaurant that is both takoyaki and okonomiyaki - Osaka specialties - to create my own super specialty - otakonomiyaki. When I finally do find a place and explain I want to combine them, the guy tells me it's "impossible". So I order them separately and do it myself. Unfortunately it didn't earn as much attention as I hoped, but I can tell the students I was successful.

I went back to the hostel to play games and charge my stuff. I had to listen to the insufferable sound of some dude constantly smack his lips/tongue around for hours while weird things happened on Japanese TV and some dude read a porn magazine in the common room despite the women walking around or even standing next to him.

In the morning, I set back out for Osaka Castle. This time I had more time. Sort of. I should definitely have left much earlier. Again, I wasted so much time on the outer courtyard, I didn't actually go see the castle. As time wore down, I got worried about making it to Kyoto to check in on time so I rushed back, got my luggage, and went to Kyoto.

It turns out this was probably unnecessary. While some of the other "temples" might have had early check ins, I got the feeling this one didn't. I walked past a temple up to some bland Japanese-style (ie bland, square, and bland) building and checked in. The place looked like a fancy hotel on the inside. And that's all it was. My room looked like any other hotel room (albeit, I did get the Japanese-style room). The only thing of note was there was a Buddhist book in English.

I had paid for a dinner, so I went to go eat it. I had hoped that, at the very least, it would vegetarian. Not that I don't love meat, but I wanted to feel like something - anything - was templeful about this place.

No. First thing they brought out was fish. And then more and more various sea creatures.

Again, the shower/bath was public. With people that like to spend strange amounts of time there.

There was no praying in the morning. There was nothing.

I checked out the shops they had, which were the closest things to Buddhist in the whole place I guess. Then I checked out and left for my next hostel. I had only booked Christmas Eve there for the experience, but there was none to be had anyway. My next place was also in Kyoto, but much cheaper and more convenient.

I spent the day looking at temples. Kyoto has a great tourist bus system. Kyoto has like a billion temples. I went to four of them. I was really angry at myself for not moving my photos the night before, so near the end, I was getting frustrated.

On my way back for the night, I managed to run into my ex. She decided to also travel a similar route, if a bit mirrored so we didn't run into each other, but it seems our Christmas plans were similar. And since our hostel was the cheapest, it's no wonder we both booked the same place. I saw her on the street, heading back and talked to her. She was really really really mad at me, but oh well. Haven't heard from her since.

The next day was the day I had tickets for the One Piece exhibit so I headed back to Osaka.

I left early so I could go see the castle. And hopefully this time, actually see the castle. Despite this, I still went around the rest of the outer courtyard. I even paid to enter the "garden" which was nothing more than dead grass because it's Winter. Needless to say, I was the only one in that section.

However, I did actually manage to get up to and see the castle. Then I even decided to go in it.

After that, I went to see my exhibit.

It was cool. Like really cool. Things were even in English sometimes. Pictures were prohibited, but I got the book version of the exhibit. Next store was a One Piece shop so I bought myself a strawhat.

Then I returned to Kyoto and did pretty much nothing. At some point during that night I decided I wanted to try to find geiko (geisha). Unsurprisingly, they weren't walking around outside at that time of night or I was just unlucky, but I couldn't find any.

The next day was Nara. I had a friend in Nara I was supposed to meet. I eventually found the right train station and we met and ate the closest thing we could find to German food. Then we set out to pet deer and see the giant Buddha.

The deer were awesome. They'd headbutt you until you gave them treats - special deer sembei. It was fun to watch them chase people, too. Some of them would even try to bow to you.

We saw the Buddha. And I climbed through the hole in a pillar said to be the size of his nostril. Which means I'm lucky or something. Then we wandered through the forest and pet more deer.

I decided to try to taste one of the sembei despite my friend's warnings and tales of her friend getting sick. Sure enough, it tasted bad, but I didn't think much of it. Then I left and went back to Kyoto.

Somehow my friends I had met at the hostel had managed to find geiko without me.

This was also when one of them had revealed to me - to enter China you need a visa.

Now I have traveled a lot, but never to a place like China. The thought of a visa never crossed my mind. Why would it? I've been to some 11+ countries and never needed one. No one had ever mentioned it to me despite all the time I talked about this trip.

I immediately tried to reach my Chinese friend and searched all over the internet for an answer. A big problem was that it cost money. I had already invented way too much into just going for such a short time and now it would cost more. And I had just foolishly sent most of my savings to America and had just spent a ton on the first 2/3rds of my trip, as well as my giant electric bill I still had to pay. I was apprehensive about spending yet more. The ticket itself was expensive since I bought it so short notice.

I had discovered though that it is possible to get a same day visa, and it was fairly common. I soon discovered I had left my passport at home because I had intended to fly out of Fukuoka, which meant I would be passing by home anyway. I had first thought that I could get it on the 2nd, the day of my flight since it was in the evening. But then I realized they took every Japanese and Chinese holiday off - and New Years was a big holiday. So I had to do it before the holiday began. But I couldn't figure out how to. Eventually I devised a plan. I would express mail my key the next day home and have my friend enter my house and mail my passport. I would then go to the Tokyo embassy and get it done there.

The next morning, I mailed my key and went to Tokyo.

To be continued.

Reinforcements Have Arrived!

...or not.

So, not being fluent in the language means you're at the mercy of what the English teachers decide to actually tell you. Important things like "You have a class next period" might reach your ears seconds before you have to suddenly and rapidly do something, if such information arrives at all. It's not too common of a problem at my schools, but it happens.

But this time, they actually told me in advance. Mostly. A teacher informed me that we were getting study abroad students. She gave me a list of names and abbreviations for countries (one of which I still think is made up) and eventually I was able to talk details out of her. Apparently it was the first time my school had study abroad students.

I was super excited. I was looking forward to helping our new students adjust to living here. I told her I was ready to help them whenever they needed help, too. Nothing of what I said ever made her realize I was missing a key piece of information - they weren't study abroad students (nothing I'd call study abroad), they were there just for the day.

So I spent a few weeks thinking we were getting new students. I thought it was strange that while they all spoke English very well, none of them had any real Japanese experience. I wondered how they would take classes.

They arrived Monday and I was right on time to meet them as they were waiting in the office I first came into. I was expecting them to have school uniforms and everything, but saw they certainly were not - one was not even appropriately dressed by school code. But I thought they must be getting them later or something. All the events that were planned, too, seemed strange and a lot more than what they did for me, but I thought they were just welcoming events.

The students were divided up among the many ESS members and given classes. Some of the teachers said it would be nice if I came and helped them, but they disappeared when I wasn't paying attention and just left me in the room. When they got back from homeroom, the math teacher joked that it would have been good if I came. So I said I'd come to his next class when I was free. I was supposed to help out with the two calligraphy classes and then later the after-school tour / tea ceremony.

The calligraphy class wasn't as much a class as a demonstration, but most people seemed happy with it. Most of the students knew zero Japanese so drawing was difficult. The Malaysian student, however, had no problems and made many great drawings. The vice principal taught them how to write 友 (friend). Well, he showed them how he did it and then had them try at least. So everyone tried a few times, then he'd evaluate them, then eventually they got a special square to write their final versions on. Then he made them one himself of a word of their choice and signed and stamped it with his calligrapher's name. Which is apparently a thing. The Malaysian student donated his artwork to the school.

I went to the math teacher's class, which was apparently a computer class. The students had made gifs. The teacher attempted a few minutes of English before rapidly giving up. The students all found it hilarious. The study abroad students basically just sat there and watched the animations, but the student's presentations weren't very enlightening anyway. Japanese students are not very good at explaining things or giving reasons; they make strange assumptions about what everyone knows already or something.

I decided during this that I, too, wanted to make a gif to show. So I tried to get the student next to me to show me, but I think I just ended up bothering her slightly and she seemed confused. I ended up watching what another student was doing and made a short animation of explosion and text. When we ran out of presentations, I showed off mine. The class found it funny.

Other than that, I was not very helpful at all.

After school was the tour. I was still operating under the assumption that they were actually study abroad students, so I thought it was a good idea. The older woman that came along as a "teacher" insisted that someone (not her for some reason) wear the traditional Thai dress she brought. I said she could just do it another day, but she said she was going home the next day, but I assumed it was just her. I did think it was strange to have a study abroad teacher. Eventually fingers were pointed until one of the ESS girls was stuffed into the dress. She wore it for a while in the room until we were actually going on the tour, a total of maybe 5 minutes. The Thai lady seemed disappointed when she took it off, but what did she really expect?

Everyone was split up and led around the school. I ran around, changing groups, but was not helpful at all. I did manage to find new parts of the school I never went to before. We also heard a few songs from the band.

Then we had the tea ceremony. The sitting style was difficult for everyone, so we were allowed to relax. There was a flurry of camera pictures, even with flash on. I thought the poor old lady trying to run the tea ceremony must have felt a bit strange, having her picture taken so often without anyone asking at all. Honestly, a few of the "study abroad" students were pretty rude most of the time anyway. They seemed to be acting more like they were on vacation.

During the tea ceremony I found out one of the students was staying with the principal and apparently he had taken him to an onsen. He said it was very awkward. I guess there was probably nudity involved, which would definitely make any non-Japanese person very unsettled.

We drank tea, did some bowing, and filled out the questionnaire the teacher made. Then everyone was heading home. They had told me they were going to Tokyo for the night the next day, which again I found strange, but still figured they were coming back. It wasn't until they were leaving that I finally pieced it together. I finally figured out they were only here for a day, and only even in Japan for a little less than a week. I was pretty disappointed.

Oh well, at least for a moment there were some new, interesting people at the school. Maybe there's a way to arrange it to send our students abroad or get new, actual study abroad students. Or maybe a kitten. That'd also be nice.

It's Not Up For Debate!

I should have wrote this post a little less than a month ago, but I thought there'd be a follow up to it, so I was going to wait for that. But as always, ESS is very busy, so we won't have our own debate until next term.

So, one day early on, I got an email about a debate competition. One of the JETs was training his students for debate and wanted to hold a competition for practice. I thought it was a good idea to try to participate, but I guess I ended up forgetting about it. Then some months later, a follow up email came. It sounded like he was pretty desperate for schools to participate. I knew we didn't have much time and we were busy, but I asked around and there was interested so I told him my school would be in.

Then I started looking over my calendar...

Every week was either tests, speeches, I wasn't there, or Halloween parties. We had to use the Thursday before the competition to just learn the rules. There wasn't even time for practice. The competition was Saturday so the students had almost no time to prepare, and the day I explained the rules, I was kind of learning them myself and had to change my mind and explanations a lot. The students had a lot of difficulty understanding it seemed and I was getting really worried.

I got to school a bit before we were scheduled to head out so I could eat breakfast. I figured if I had to be awake early on a Saturday, I might as well eat McDonald's breakfast. Some other competition was going on, and the teachers from that let me into the building and told me how to close it when I was done. I had the office all to myself, so I was finally able to get some pictures of this place - and eat McDonald's without my supervisor scolding me for not eating vegetables. Eventually the teacher and students showed up, we locked up the place, and drove off.

On the car ride over, we worked on making their opening statements more grammatically correct. When we started to get car sick, we pulled over to a rest station. There was a vegetable stand and eventually we all wandered over and gathered there. One of the students picked up a giant melon she intended to buy for some reason and asked me what it was called in English. I didn't recognize the fruit, so I asked the teacher what it was in Japanese. She replied with some word, and I parroted a slightly different word which apparently meant testicles. This was rather funny to the students. On the way back to the car, one of the girls asked what the word I said accidentally meant; her innocence was cute.

We then resumed talking about the debate. Everyone was very nervous, and I felt pretty guilty because I knew I had not prepared them at all. Probably because of the guilt and nervousness, I was acting more hyper than usual, and using a lot of Japanese - an ability I usually hide from students.

We got to the school and we greeted and showed to the waiting room. I think. I saw some people I hadn't seen since Kudamatsu, including "Howdy", as he liked to be called.

We had an opening ceremony, as all things in Japan do, and heard some speeches or something. One guy explained the style of debate in Japanese which was probably very helpful to the students. Almost certainly better than my explanation. I was able to understand a lot of it and learned some new ways to explain the two teams and their goals and methods. One of the speakers explained that our main goal was "Making friends", which I told the students at every opportunity after that. Like when one of the students returned someone's pencil that rolled away, I told her, "Make friends!"

After that we ate lunch. No one told me or maybe I just forgot to bring a bento, so I had no food. But I ate a ton of McDonald's in the morning, so I was still pretty fun. Still, the teacher and students insisted on giving me food. I fought the good fight, but eventually accepted something small and a drink. But then after rapidly drinking the drink, I said, "They always make these too small, huh?" to which the teacher said, "Well, sorry!" in a joking manner.

But the students seemed to be getting annoyed with my jocular attitude. I wanted to reassure them that they were mostly there for the experience and not to worry about winning (also to "make friends"), but it's only natural that they'd worry. Of course, I didn't realize just how bad it'd be.

They were short judges, and having unlimited ambition, I wanted to do some judging. The teacher said she'd judge the first competition so I could watch my school and I'd judge the next one. We got taken to the judging room and had pen colors explained to us.

I then went to go watch my students try to debate. The room had a camera man and everything, I'm sure the students were very nervous. My team was the negative side. The topic, which was decided a while ago and announced so the students could prepare was "Japanese universities should begin their term in September" (as opposed to now in April). Even I wouldn't be able to argue effectively against that. When the debate started, I realized how bad it was going to be. The affirmative team was the team that practiced every day for a year - you know, the team with graphs. They had stop watches and everything. They rattled on so fast, even I didn't know what they said. They had tons of research and were well-prepared.

Then it was my team's turn. Now, one of the rules is that you have a certain amount of minutes for each section, regardless of if you use it. So after my team read their few lines at 1/10th the speed as the other team and sat down. The remaining 2 minutes were painfully slow and maybe a bit embarrassing. The follow up question time was mostly "You said _____. Do you have evidence?" "...... No."

The rest of the debate went on like this. The affirmative team attacked with their full strength, and my team did what little they could, but mostly just confused the other team. I guess it might have worked in Pokémon, maybe they'd hurt themselves in confusion.

Needless to say, my team lost by unanimous decision. I felt awful for them, but when I saw them outside, they were in a flurry of action, trying to improve their argument for the next round. But before I had much chance to talk to them, I was pulled off to judge a different competition. I was a bit nervous to judge. These two teams were much weaker and would have probably not so brutally destroyed my team. I announced a winner and went back downstairs to see how my team had done. They lost again, but it was still good experience for them I think. They were finally done competing at least.

I thought we were finally done, but then I found out I had to judge another competition. I tried to tempt the teacher to take my place, but she was all too happy to let me do it instead. So I judged that, too.

Then I thought I was finally done.

No.

I got drafted to judge the final round, too. It was the ultimate team from the host school versus the West version of my high school in my city. I think the hyper team was on the negative this time, so I got to hear them arguing the opposite of what they argued originally  which is kind of strange. It was actually a pretty intense debate. However, I really could not understand a lot of what the ultimate team was saying. It was either too fast or just unclear enough that I could not understand. And even though they showed graphs, they only lasted a few seconds. The opposing team put up a good fight though. I was secretly rooting for them, but they ended up proposing something as important in the opening, then essentially said it wasn't important, thus destroying a large chuck of their own argument. The super team also made a bunch of mistakes, but I ultimately felt their mistakes were less than those of the underdogs.

I was given the task of announcing the winners for some reason. I was also told to give my advice and said since I was a native speaker, my advice would carry the most weight. I announced the winners and made sure to tell the super team that it's all fine and great to have that much to say, but if even a native speaker can't understand you, you can't hope for anyone else to and to slow down and speak clearly.

Afterwards, one of the students told me she was impressed to see my rare serious side. Not sure if it was an insult or a compliment, haha. The students told me they wanted to practice, improve, and try again. And that they wanted to teach the club how to debate and have their own mock debates. I was pretty moved. It was a pretty good competition overall, and I was happy in the end we went.

We had a closing ceremony and announced winners. One of the students told me, "Make friends!" So I guess they eventually had fun, too. As we were leaving, the teacher tried to convince me to change my major to teaching, but I told her one day I need to return to my one true love - programming.

Since the teacher's mom's house was nearby (which isn't that great of a reason), we stopped there for a bit. Her mom lives in a mansion... Like big even by American standards. It's huge! She gave us some fancy cakes, and we talked about the debate a little with her. One of the students needed to be home soon, so it was a short stop.

Then we drove home, and I talked with the teacher the whole way.

When we finally arrived, we all set out for buses and trains. One of the students told me she wanted to study abroad in Canada (or maybe America [she added because I'm American, but she totally means only Canada <my predecessor's home country>]), which is pretty awesome. I'm all about the encouraging study abroad, wherever one goes.

Overall, it was success I guess. But the follow up won't be until next term. Next time, we'll win! (Okay, probably not, but it'll be fun to try)

P.S. The school is getting some foreign exchange students Monday. I said it was exciting and one of the students replied, "Make friends!"

Monkey See, Monkey Do

So, in addition to my three main schools (of which one is even more main by being my base school), I have a once a month special needs school (a former blind school, but now includes other special needs students [also apparently Helen Keller visited once which is pretty cool {it's a 107 years old school}]). I went again today.

It's not a particularly fun place. Not that any of my schools except Minami is (though Tuesday, the Chuo kids would quiz me on One Piece whenever I walked past). However, today was some kind of assembly. I actually participated a bit. There was some kind of quiz game where you had to run to the true or false side. I decided to be the lone person standing on the wrong answer to "Is Doraemon a robot cat?" and got out immediately. It was funnier that way, not trying to be a slacker.

Then I joined in on the rock-paper-scissors tournament. We had a bit of difficulty deciding when to shoot. I ended up winning round one, and after a vicious battle of ties, lost round two. The loser had to join his chain of people behind an every growing chain of people following the last winner. The prize was a person in a box (well, actually the blanket she was holding, but I would have preferred the person).

Classes sizes are incredibly small. One is four students or so, and the other is two. I only teach two classes there and spend most of the rest of my time on my phone. This time I at least brought my Russian book to study. Today was the election, so it was especially fun watching Facebook posts. Sometimes one of the teachers tries to invade my room they throw me into because they have no desk for me and make conversation.

The classes are mostly just talking about whatever pops into my head. There are "lesson plans", but it's basically "talk about semi-relevant stuff". Usually the classes break down into Japanese anyway. At some point (albeit last time) I invented a new food concept - tako + okonomiyake = takonomiyake. I want to try to make this.

I was supppppppposed to go to Minami afterwards to protect my promise that I would show the second half of the movie last week to the ESS. So I left early after my last class and went straight to school. The ESS teacher had tried to talk me out of it (as she does most things she is afraid would be a bother to me) and mentioned how she wouldn't be there today - but neglected to mention today was a shortened schedule. By the time I had arrived, club activities had already gone on for 30 minutes. I searched the whole school, but the ESS members were already gone. This makes the third time I have missed an ESS event where I said I'd be there because of various miscommunications. Tsubura's going to kill me...

At least I have pecans for a potential pecan pie for Thanksgiving. Slowly converting the club into a baking club...

Hello, World

So, I started programming my new game, more or less. I have been writing out the design for over a week now. I'm reviving an old idea I had when I was running the game-making club at DePaul. I'm also reusing our studio name from my senior capstone.

That's not the exciting part. Well, it is, but even more exciting - I have a server. It seems Amazon has some kind of cloud server service which, to make things even better, will probably be free for me for the first year. All my files are already up on my very own Perforce server. It might not seem like a lot, especially for people already very familiar with the internet, but it gives me a warm feeling.

I've actually wanted my own server for many many years now, since I first started gaming online. I temporarily had some server space when I was playing Minecraft. That also made me feel warm and fuzzy. But this server, I am the admin. I control everything. It's kind of fun. And it's free so far.

I only have a few files up, and I haven't really programmed anything yet. Once I get the programming and design in a more final state, I'll enlist the help of artists, sound designers, and more programmers. But for now, I want something solid to start with.

The game is a tower defense, nothing too fancy. It's multiplayer with a single-player campaign (maybe it can be made into multiplayer). You can attack as well as defend. It'll be styled like a pop-up book. That's the jist of it right now. I plan to release it for free on XBox Live and maybe (hopefully) Steam. Then I'll make some DLC that adds more units and some bonus campaign missions. That'll probably also be free. Or maybe I'll charge a tiny amount and donate half of it to science.

Shibafu

So, you're probably wondering by now what's with the lawn? Well, you see, when I moved in my place needed a lot of cleaning. And then I realized outside my place also needed a lot of cleaning. The stairs were coated in leaves, bugs, and above all else - sand. It wasn't long after I cleaned it that I needed to clean it again. I was getting tired of sweeping up the sand and generally considered the front of the building to be terrible-looking. In front of the building was nothing but sand and weeds. I decided I wanted to put something done, even if not the whole thing, to prevent the sand. Not just my building, but all of Shimonoseki seems to have this neglectfulness about the land and plants, everything is weeds and sand. I decided I'd put down some grass.

I was unsure the landlord would be okay with me altering the property and there was a building meeting coming up, so I waited for that. I showed up late (the address was in kanji, I just figured the circled thing on the paper was the location of the meeting), but was able to interject during the "Anything else?" part at the end of the meeting. I struggled to explain in Japanese what I wanted to do. I learned an important word in the process:

芝生 (shibafu) - lawn

I went to the local hardware store and eventually decided on using sod instead of seed because seed requires both more effort and more skill (and some equipment). I also bought a bike (a rather flashy one, but I kind of felt bad having the clerk take it down from the shelf for me to look at), so I put the sod and dirt on the seat and walked it all home. The people are the store were pretty helpful and were probably a bit amused.

This is the result of laying down the bushel of grass I got. I definitely didn't seem like enough.

I went back and got more, this time carrying two bushels. I had a nice old lady try to help for like 20 minutes or so until we ended up doing exactly what I was going to do in the first place. Though at least I figured out I can get plastic rope stuff if I asked. The store people were somewhat amused to see I had come back to get more.

This seemed like a good place to stop, but I decided maybe a little further would look nicer.

At this point, I had spent a ton of time and effort. And watering was becoming a pain. I quickly decided that the other plots weren't getting any grass. Though at least they are coated in weeds so it didn't matter so much.

Eventually I decided it was worth bribing a friend into helping me. She had a car so we just loaded it with the remaining grass and dirt needed. We worked into the evening and finished up the lawn. Though we got a bit lazy, so there was quite a bit of rocks and weeds under the grass. Some old man tried explaining to me something presumably about the weeds, but in a difficult accent, so I didn't understand. He even seemed pretty mad.

The end farthest from my stairs was the worst part. The area by the pipe was actually almost all solid stone. The stone had been tunneled into by years of water. This area was also brimming with rocks. I decided not to try to wrap around the building or anything and make my lawn a rectangle.

To formalize my barrier, I added some bricks. I eventually relocated some of the grass at the ends and used up the extra two squares.

I also added seeds between the edges and throughout the lawn. I think they are the random extra tall blades that have been popping up, but the edges of every rectangle tended to do better already anyway. Which causes my lawn to retain lines of green which make it obvious it was patched together.

I actually got a lot of praise and encouragement from the other people in the building that walked by. I watered every evening, so a lot of the other teachers coming home would see my lawn. They were also at the meeting when I said I was going to grow a lawn, but I think most of them were surprised when I actually did. I even got visitors like this guy!

The gaps between the squares eventually started to fill, but the green lines between the spaces still remains.

Still, the lawn got greener and greener at time went on. The newer the grass though, the less green. So the initial grass, which was planted with a large gap between the next set was noticably greener, but everything except for a few squares started turning green. Hopefully the non-green squares heal.

I eventually added what I hope is fertilizer. I asked the store clerk if this was "lawn food" and she said yes, so it should be good at least. The picture is a bunch of grass, so it's probably right. Also it has a dog and a rainbow on it, so that's something.

Watering was a pain. I made many improvements to optimizing watering - leaving the door open, filling the tub and just dunking the can, using my old shoes like sandals, taking them off while facing backwards so I can just slip into them, and finally only yesterday I realized I could water three times as fast if I used a bucket to refill from downstairs. My life would have been so much easier if they hadn't removed the spigot over my lawn and paved over it. But now that it's November, I've stopped watering for the year. Hopefully my lawn makes it through the Winter.

Also, you can follow my lawn on twitter! https://twitter.com/CorbinsLawn

Halloween

Boring title, but get over it.

So the last few days have been full of candy and costumes. Also pie.

On Halloween, I decided to reward trick or treaters.

The teachers tried it out first, then started telling students that told other students. My desk became rather busy. Fortunately, I had a ton of candy. They all got to use their new "Trick or Treat!" phrase.

I decided early on that I wanted to have a Halloween party, but then one of the students told me they wanted to eat food at the party and that I should get some kind of Halloween food. The only thing I could think of was pumpkin pie.

Fortunately for me, that wasn't foreshadow of a terrible event. We arranged a day to bake the pie, and on that day, the ESS (English Speaking Society [I didn't come up with the name so don't blame me]) teacher and I went and bought pie ingredients during school, which was pretty fun. Then after school, we prepared the pie for baking the next day. Here are some preparation pictures. Enjoy. Or don't. I guess I don't care what you do.

A lot of pictures have to be omitted for boringness or because a student's face is visible. Japanese law and all that.

It's not a particularly exciting story.

I had been thinking for a while that not cooking the seeds would be a waste and it seemed simple. So I looked up the recipe while we cooked and I realized it was. So I ran to the store and got the only thing missing - butter. I decided to completely disregard measurements and poured a stick of butter over everything. We also severely compromised the temperature and baking time. The result was pretty awful. I tried to throw them away, but two students forced me to distribute them to the students and staff. Most of them managed to pretend they were delicious. Of course at this time, everyone was studying or in club activities. We somehow managed to get rid of them all.

The pies turned out much better. We had to cook them the next day, and they actually came out. We served the up, along with a ton of bags of candy I made.

It seems I don't have a picture of the result, but it was quite a few bags.

I wore my fugu hat in the office and to the third year's class. The teacher wore an orange witch hat we got at the 100 yen shop while looking for pie supplies. I also distributed some more candy.

We had as a warm up (which turned into homework), writing out ghost stories on the pumpkins I drew for the kid class.

At the ESS Halloween party, we ate pie and distributed candy. Then we were going to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We couldn't seem to get the door open to the A/V room. I managed to break in using a secret technique a bit before the teacher showed up with the right keys. I can now no longer be contained by sliding doors, locked or otherwise. 

The movie went well (though I forgot speakers), but some students had to leave early, so there'll be a reshowing Wednesday. 

Other than that, Halloween is finally over.

Still need to get real pumpkin seeds to undo the damage I've caused...