yomumon

yomumon

Read English news, do listening and question practice.
英語 ニュース、 リーディング、 リスニング、 問題。
Three levels, from beginner to native!
ビギナー、　中級、　ネイティブレベルの英語。

http://yomumon.com/

Goodbye blog

So yeah, don`t think I`m gonna update this thing anymore. Bye

So I shaved my bum

Fear not, this episode will not feature photographs.
But yeah, today I lathered up both hands, applied it to my cheeks, and went in with a razor. It was surprisingly easy, because down there the skin is smooth and the hair is soft. I just deleted two puns from that last sentence, can you guess what they were?
Tensions flared up suddenly at approximately 3pm this afternoon. After decades of peace, sudden unprovoked attacks from the Ryan syndicate decmated much of the hair population. Several thousand hairs retreated deeper into the mountain crevice, and a spokesperson for the Ryan syndicate has already hinted that further violence may be neccessary to secure this region as well.
Anways, the whole thing left me feeling a little too feminine. Not the final result, but the act itself. I know kobody likes hair on the bum except monkeys - and I'm not allowed to go near them anymore since the court order - but something about taking a razor blade anywhere near my legs made me a little uncomfortable. So in an effort to make a skinny man feel more masculine, I decided to grow a beard, starting now. Not shaving my face also prevents me from mixing up which of my blades is for my arse or my face.

John Spencer Blues Explosion

I haven't seen this gem from the ABC's Recovery in a long time. If you think it's lame and wanna stop it, just stick with it for a while. It gets better.



God I miss Rage.

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Yes I like the Bowie song. Yes I am sad.
Anyway, this entry is about changes that have happened to my personality, I guess. This was sparked by a recent incident. You see, I bought a bag recently. Nothing special about that. It's a cheap, $3, pocket-sized foldable bag you can use instead of plastic bags at the supermarket. Then I realized that I'd have nothing to put my trash in before I put it out on the street on Mondays and Fridays. So I wondered why I bought it in the first place. Was I trying to be kind to the environment? Not really, that's more Dan's shtick now .... was it just because it was cheap? Then it hit me. I bought it because it had a cute picture of a dog on it.


What have I become? I thought to myself.
The answer is, slightly Japanese, I really think so. I don't think I would have bought this bag in Australia, but I don't know if it's because I've changed, or my circumstances have ... would the checkout chick think I was gay? Or would I think it was gay?
Anyway, I tend to like much cuter, dare I say girly things than I did before. I want to buy the new Suzuki Swift. I like babies with tomato sauce.
Other evidence points towards my general easternization. Everyone who comes to visit me here says I'm more polite now. I had to delete the word ketchup from the last paragraph before I put the hyperlink in. Eating rice with a spoon seems like a very strange thing to do, and I wonder how to eat anything on my plate that isn't big enough for one mouthful.
I've started exercising daily. That's a good change.

I always thought I didn't like Japanese music

... but it turns out I was just a decade or two late. Welcome to my new favorite song.

bullet points

• people don't work for money, they work for respect - which is why I can work for peanuts and be happy
• my new Junior High job is lots lots of fun, and I have a lot of down time so I can study Japanese at work
• women is bitches
• I can now watch a Japanese TV show and understand 80 percent of the dialogue and 100 percent of the story, but only if the show is about a little boy who likes baseball a lot and on is on channel 3 at 9:30 Saturday mornings
• junior high school students in Japan are weird. Everyday they practice sports until 5pm after school with all the discipline and regimen of a military unit
• three junior high school students like me, one says she loves me and the other two asked me to sign their books like I was some kind of rock star or something. I was both disturbed and flattered by this
• women my own age are decidedly less interested in me than junior high school students. I should be a pervert or something.

Analyse my dream

So I had a dream last night. There's this girl that I like. She hits all the qualities on my top five list. Anyway, last night I had a dream about her.
Not that kind of dream.
Anyway, we were with a bunch of people hanging out somewhere, when we see this lake and decide to separate from the group and go onto the lake on two inflatable mattresses, for some reason. Suddenly it becomes clear the lake is part of some trash dump - there's a pile of trash over on the side and some things floating in the water. I realise the floating things are actually futons (foldable Japanese floor beds), and they are still wrapped in the original plastic packaging. Figuring they are new, I decide to get a couple because I'll have some guests staying at my house soon. As I'm trying to fish them out of the lake, I see a look of disgust on her face - she has totally lost all respect, and anything else she had for me.
Analyse that, Freuds! Post comments. Hi Hiroko, if you're reading this. Sorry I'm a tight ass.

I fired the bird

I find many Japanese people frustrating. Not for any real reason ... my beef is all about their inability to communicate, to simplify their spoken Japanese so that I can understand it. Here is a guide:
1) Speak slowly
2) Use simple words
3) Use short sentences
That's it. It ain't rocket science. But the average conversation goes like this (translated into english)

"Hey man, did you get up to much today?"
What? Could you speak more slowly please?
"Sorry, ah, did you get up to much today?"
Get ... up ... I got up at 10AM.
"No, I mean, did you do this or that today?"
You're speaking fast again. Please speak slowly, and use simple words. Imagine I am three years old.
"Ok, ah, what activities did you do today?"
Acutibity ....

ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS SAY THIS:
What did you do today?

It's not hard. But almost nobody knows how to do it, because they've never had to do it before. The reason I get so frustrated, is because I can, and have, had english conversations about the internal components of nuclear power stations with students whose english vocabulary was about 150 words. I can communicate any meaning using about four words and gestures, and I can understand almost any broken gibberish sentence thrown at me. For example (and these are all taken from reality):
"Yesterday, I sleep the car."
This means the student slept in his car yesterday.
"I eat the restaurant and very bad toilet."
The student got food poisoning.
"I fired the bird."
This means the student cooked a chicken dinner. They have a gas stove, and the cooking referred to was probably frying.
"I used the stove."
The student used a heater because it was cold in their apartment.

If I can do it, why can't they? Oh right, 'cause they're not professional teachers. I realize most Australian's can't do this either, but speaking to a foreigner is a two-way street. They're trying their best to understand you, you have to try your best to make yourself understood.
The reason why it really frustrates me is this. Because my level of english communication is off the scale, and most Japanese people lack the ability to communicate effectively in Japanese with learners like me, I end up speaking English to people all the time. Even with people whose English is clearly worse than my Japanese. Just so we can understand each other. Then because they understand, they think their english is much better than my Japanese. STFU, buddy.

And I didn't even mention the people that say an easily understandable sentence to me in Japanese, but too fast, and when I ask them to repeat it they resort to their completely unintelligible english. I mean unintelligible. Compared, "I fired the bird" is a model of english proficiency.

Even worse are the people that know their english is shitter than my shitty Japanese, but still talk to me in english in social situations because they want to practice. I'm an English teacher - you wanna waste my time, get out your wallet. I never talk in Japanese to people whose english is better than my Japanese. Communication is what's important, not which language it's in.

Blind date

So I had my first ever truly blind date on Friday night.
There's not much I can say about the whole experience, except comment on the almost complete lack of chemistry between us. She was Japanese, but her English was good so that wasn't the problem. In fact if I have to put it down to just one thing, I'd say it was her laugh.
You might think I'm very strange, but for me the laugh is right up there with .. actually it's top of the list. This is because out of everything I bring to the table, which isn't much, I think my humor is the biggest selling point. But Miyuki used humor as a defense mechanism - not in the brilliant I'll tell jokes when I'm nervous way, but in the I'll laugh and smile when I'm nervous and have nothing else to say way. The kind of person who smiles all the time, and who hides behind it.
I feel I'm unfairly attacking her ... most people would mention her good looks and sexiness, but I'm a strange human being indeed. In fact, my list of most desirable traits in a woman are as follows:
1) Good laugh
2) Wears sneakers and NOT high heels
3) Glasses
4) Short hair
If you know anyone like this, and they like tall skinny blokes with bad hair, send 'em my way.

Living in a winter wonderland

Woke up yesterday morning, and saw this on the street.
Everytime it snows I feel like a little boy. I mean, in the I feel like I am a little boy way, and not in the I feel like a beer I feel like a little boy way. You sicko.
'Twas Sunday, and not even the fact that I had to work could dampen my enthusiasm. Not even the fact that I slid and fell on my arse about 10m from my door, with all the grace of a fisherman picking his nose, could dampen my spirits. I was wet, but I was undampenable. Unlike snow in most of the world, snow in Japan's Kanto area is wet, and makes you wet. Everyone uses umbrellas. But not me! Like a pedo or a flasher, I had a raincoat and a smile.
On the train I emailed my apartment mates and said "let's make a snowman when I get home!" They made one without me the bastards. I stayed out and went drinking instead.
Next Sunday, I'm going skiing for the second time ever, more snow and winter fun awaits.

I went to shopping

This post is about teaching english, ESL style.
You learn things about language teaching it. Speaking your native tongue is like fucking voodoo, I swear to god. You can use these things called words perfectly everytime, only you have no conscious idea how they actually work. Much like ESL, this can only be explained with examples. You are a teacher. Your student has a question.
"What's the difference between bring and take?"
What do you say? You look up and to the left. You open your mouth slightly, but no words come. Six seconds is an eternity, but still not long enough for you to find the answer. You're supposed to be a professional english teacher.
The impatient student asks, "So do I say "Take it to the party" or "Bring it to the party"?"
"Both are ok," you say. "They're the same."
And you'd be wrong. A really fucking good teacher will say:
"Take is like go. Bring is like come."
There's evidence. You can come to me. You can bring me that book. You can't go to me, you can't take the book to me.
Have you ever thought about that before? I swear teaching english is like being asked how to walk. You just do, you don't know how. Only english isn't like walking, it's like moonwalking - it often doesn't make logical sense, and there is no why, no reason other than pure lunacy.
For example, at 60km/h, why can you be riding on a train but not riding on a taxi?
Why can you make a new friend but not make a new girlfriend?
I swear, I'm switching to Esperanto.

It's too loud, I'm too old

This new years eve I went clubbing in Shinjuku.
It's been a long time since I've been clubbing. It's something I really enjoy, although most people wouldn't expect that from me. I'm not cool enough I guess.
So my friend Peter and I arrived at Shinjuku station at about 9pm, after having drunk several cans of chu-hai (girly sugary booze drinks) on the train. We were to meet two of his friends at the station but of course they were late, 'cause women are always late.
Their names were Emi and Guri (not her real name, her real name is Midori, which means green, so she got the nickname Guri, which is short for Gureen, which is how Japanese people pronounce the colour.) Anyway, immediately I got the cold shoulder from Guri, and Peter stuck to Emi as they knew each other already.
So we get to the club, pay the 4000yen entry fee (ouch) take off our warm winter jackets, and put them into the lockers with my glasses. One drink in and a few songs later, Guri says I look much cooler without my glasses.
I think that's only half the story though. I'll let you in on a little secret. I can dance. Techno-raver dancing, not proper ballroom/salsa dancing like my brother can. It's obvious who'll be getting more in their thirties.
So yeah, I think my dancing (and the dim lighting, and the booze) made me a tad more attractive and we danced and talked together. About three hours later and I'm pretty drunk. The club has filled up, the new years countdown is over, and I fight my way past at least ten Japanese people wearing sunglasses to get to the toilet. Why people wear sunglasses at night, let alone in a dim club lit only by green neon and the occasional flash of strobe, I'll never know, but it's a goddamn epidemic in Japan. Next time I see someone wearing sunglasses in a club, I'm gonna stab 'em in the face. They won't even see it coming.
I get to the toilet, and being too stingy to pay 600yen for water, I have drink from the sink's tap. About halfway through I look down at the hand that I'm drinking off of, and see a spattering of cigarette ash everywhere except for the path the water has made to my mouth. I don't even care, and don't stop drinking.
Anyway, a few more drinks and some more dancing later, it's 4:30am and I decide to leave the club. I get Guri's mobile phone email address, and walk through the cold winter air to get the train home.
To be honest, I don't think anything will happen between Guri and me, if only because of the fact that she can't speak any english. It's ok to shout at each other and have half a conversation at a club, but outside that I fear the communication barrier will be insurmountable, and unfortunately so will Guri.

All is right with the world

A recent strange-but-true series of escalatingly catastrophic financial events has left me poor. You wouldn't believe it all if I told you. And I'm not gonna, so don't ask.
So it was the final straw today when I went to the bank, punched in my pin code then 50,000yen ($500) on the keypad, took my card and receipt and left the bank.
Read that sentence again, let me know when you find the problem.
I left the money in the machine.
I only realized my mistake after a 1.5 hour Japanese lesson and 30 minute lunch. I went back to the bank, hopeful that if the do-the-right-thing Japanese nature didn't prevent anyone from taking it, then the security cameras and national fear of public shame might. I was wrong.
I'd forgotten that because 90% of Japanese people are engineers (the rest are children), machines here are vastly superior to us meatbags. The ATM, once it realized I wasn't taking the money, closed its plastic mouth, chewed and swallowed those clean new notes, then re-deposited the money back into my account.
It's times like this that I'm glad that I live in such a technologically advanced country. At a time when many fleshwalkers making bad business decisions cost me a lot of money, all it took was one smart machine to restore my faith in the future and my financial stability. I stand in Tokyo's grey center, arms outstretched, welcoming the coming robot apocalypse.

Home is where the toilet is

I moved into a new apartment about three weeks ago, because my old apartment was a company apartment, and the company went bankrupt. Anyway the new apartment's pretty nice. Cheap, clean, and I dont even have to clean the toilet. Every weekday a cleaning lady comes and scrapes my skid marks off the bowl.
I'm not rich, I live in a new style of apartment where I have my own room, but the showers, bathrooms, giant kitchen and living room are shared with everyone in my building. As they can't trust us to keep anything clean, all the public areas are cleaned by said cleaning lady. I really like living here, because I can socialize in two languages with 60 people from seven different nations. Eighty percent of the residents are Japanese, but other nations represent yo. Unfortunately we have one New Zealander.
It's quite a nice looking, somewhat upmarket place. Everything is white.
Which is why my feelings were hurt when my ex-roomate came for a visit and said "It's basically just a glorified backpackers." Fuck you Peter! You live in a shithole. I know cause I was responsible for most of the holes and at least half the shit.
But he's right in a way, because even though my toilet is cleaned, has a heated seat and a push-button operated nozzle for cleaning your asshole, it isn't really my toilet. Everything, from the little door with the latch that turns to red to show it's occupied, to the cheap toilet paper rolled up inside a shiny metal dispenser, points to the fact that everyday I have to shit in a public toilet.
Okay, so everyday might be a slight exaggeration. My whole family has this problem. My mother drinks boatloads of Metamucil daily to prevent what doctors call anal fissure. I myself didnt shit for almost a week when I was travelling in Germany, living off wurst and sour crout. My sister Melanie exclaimed on her wedding day that she hadn't taken a dump in four days, despite receiving suppositories administered by her soon-to-be husband. Saving it for the honeymoon I guess.
Anyway, even if I do have to shit in a public toilet, I really like my new place.

So I have one of these blog things now

So hi, I'm Lion, as everybody here likes to pronounce it. Here is Japan, with everybody of course being Japanese.
This is probably going to be one of those blogs where I use lots of italicized Japanese tango (words) followed by parentheses with an explanation of the meaning, in order to teach you something about japan (demonstrate my inferiority complex).
I'm an english teacher in a conversational school. As usual most of the companies suck balls but teaching is really fun. I'm two years in, and I've even decided to make it one of those career things. Which is a bit like saying I've decided to be a manager at McDonald's or something, only with better uniforms and slightly less grease.
Anyways, congratulations to me, because starting in March next year I'll be working in the Japanese public education system. I'll probably be teaching high school / junior high school as my parole still doesn't allow me anywhere near elementary school students. That all said I'm still gonna look for a better job in the meantime, as I'd rather teach adults.

In conclusion, funny things I've heard from learners of english. I'm not making fun of them, learning a language is really difficult ... I've made some pretty bad mistakes myself in Japanese.

"Please, shit down."
Beginners often have problems differentiating "S" and "Sh" sounds

"I was walking on the street, and I attacked a car."
Um.... same student after some correction:

I was walking on the street, and I hit a car"
Needs anger management? No, she just needed a was and a by

"I went skiing and broke my uncle."
Even advanced students have problems differentiating "a" and "u" sounds, as in "ankle" and "uncle."

"I need the fucks. Please give it me."
Again, like the ankle/uncle thing

"Tonight, I'll eat out my wife."
Need a with there buddy.