The best part of this weekend was driving through downtown Mutsu City blasting Talib Kweli

A quick note on how the Japanese dress: take American fashion sense, get it drunk, watch it stumble into the street trying to hail a cab and then get hit by a bus. I stole this phrase, but it's a little like they get dressed in the dark.

This weekend was a little lonely. All the other ALTs were at a JET soccer tournament in Nagano or something, so I just hung out by myself most of the time. Played a lot of/guitar/violin, studied Japanese, did a lot of cleaning. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have such a clean house if I didn't have oodles of free time (that's right, I used the word oodles. Deal with it).

Remember how I mentioned that the least senior female teacher serves coffee to everyone? Today I caught myself lacking coffee and thinking to myself "oh man, she's really behind schedule today..." I chastized myself, but still, this country is definetly infiltrating my psyche.

Discipline!!!

So at one of my schools the other day, one of the special ed students was brought into the teacher's room, where it was announced that he had been striking another student with the handles of a jump rope. He was made to stand next to the vice-principal and the third-in-command, both of whom traded muttering... something, I couldn't really understand. Soon, of course, the kid starts crying. He cries for the rest of the day, as he takes his classes in the principal's office, away from the rest of the students, so that he might be shamed for his action.

This is a big difference between Japanese and American school systems. Whereas Americans punish their kids through the deprivation of the freedom of choice (detention, suspension, etc.), the Japanese have turned shame into a powerful weapon. In such a group-oriented, conformist society, public shaming and ostracization (sp? who knows...) is a pretty damaging punishment. And, since they don't have detention etc, it's pretty much all they can do.

I got a haircut

It's no so bad. I thought I would end up with the Asian bowl cut that pretty much all Japanese dudes end up rocking (think anime characters meet the Gap). It's wicked short, I miss being a curly strange dude, but I think everyone here likes me better the harder I try to look like I'm from the 1950s.

I also went to the drycleaner's

Not as exciting, but I'm still proud of myself for figuring this out.