Higo Blog

One more day in the office, and then it’s vacation!

This hybridized spatula/fork (I guess it would still be a spork) was used to dispatch some okonomiyaki at a restaraunt in Umeda. The rounded tines proved utterly useless. This is a design that is unfit among sporks and spatulas, thus is destined be selected out of the gene pool. However, the existance of this freak utensil will be preserved here, as a random image in the footnotes of obscure culinary history.

Mark Fingerhut, the last of our group to stay on the JET Program, is leaving Japan. He’ll be off for two months, vagabonding around SE Asia, and I expect he will have some interesting posts to come over at Champon Adventures. Mark, It’s been a blast- hopefully we can meet up in the States sometime for a special edition hash…

The color schemes used in Japanese propaganda work really well to romanticise the image of war, in all venues. The men pushing artillery through the jungle (not pictured), the arctic soldier, and the pilot all look so cool depicted as monochrome prints with the color imposed like a wood block print.

In winter fatigues.

An aviator.

Herman proves that a black man can indeed ski (though I am yet to see this in person). Stay tuned in to The Gunn Nihon Chronicles to see if he can snowboard as well…

Who knew that Excel spreadsheets could be such fun? I’ve been waging a naval war against Huw for four days, and the score is now 2/2. Today will result in glorious victory for one of us, and crushing defeat for the other.
Is Battleship really that fun? It is when you play with special weapons. Here’s a list of the ships in our armada and the firepower that they’re packing:

Aircraft carrier– 2 airstrikes. An airstrike takes out 9 blocks in a solid 3×3 chunk.
Battleship– 2 shotguns. A shotgun blast takes out 9 squares in a spread pattern.
Destroyer– 2 depth charges. A depth charge covers a 6×6 chunk, and if it touches the submarine, the submarine’s location is revealed.
Submarine– 2 torpedoes. A torpedo can be shot across the length (from right to left, or from left to right) of the grid, or vertically along a column (from top to bottom, or from the bottom to the top). The torpedo will continue across the grid until it hits something, otherwise it will continue to the end of the grid.
PT Boat– 1 teleport. A boat can be teleported anywhere on the grid that hasn’t been fired upon previously.

The special weapons are only viable as long as the ships to which they belong are still afloat.
By the way, Battleship: Special Weapons is only played during break time in case you were wondering. During working hours, we are diligently working to produce the best quality lesson plans in the greater Kansai area.

This is a new game I’m going to test out next semester.

The bright lights, fast pace of life, and massive crowds of people make visiting Osaka like visiting a foreign country for anyone who has lived a year or two in rural Kyushu.
My successor on the JET Program left for her home in Canada yesterday, ending a chapter of my stay in Japan. This was a special moment for us because I was the first one to introduce her to life in Japan, and one of the last to see her off.
It was interesting finding out how my former students are all doing, and hearing about her experiences. I think that all of us who go to Ubuyama as ALTs come away with very similar perspectives and memories. It was strange to be able to talk to someone who understood exactly what I was talking about, and vice versa. Ubuyama can be a very testing, lonely place to live, but it is undoubtedly a great place because of the people, especially the children.
So in a few days, the new ALT will move into the apartment that has sheltered 4 previous JETs and start his tenure without someone to be there to show him the ropes, though he has been thoroughly briefed by Jane. The old Civic, still running like a champ, is patiently waiting to be driven by its 5th foreign owner, surely a new Kumamoto record. I miss that car and driving those mountain roads even more than I thought I was going to!
I hear the new guy is from California, and that he requested a small community. Sounds like he’s going to fit in well. I hope he takes good care of the kids.
I think that the JET Program is working especially well for Ubuyama, because the JETs have a visible effect on the attitudes of the students towards foreign cultures and learning English, as well as interacting with the community. From what I have seen, the children in this mountain village have purer minds and better values ingrained in them than the children in the city. As a result, their high levels of motivation and curiosity make teaching there a lot easier than the students in the city who exhibit classical signs of over-stimulation and inadequate parenting in general.