The Toxic Smell of Age

Old Lady English Teacher 

She was no Marry Poppins.

They made the other gaijin (foreigner) who worked at my school go to Mr.C's school (saying we had too many foreigners). So the other foreigner teacher leaves my school and I can't go to every single class cause both Japanese English teachers have classes at the same time.Then shortly after that the school felt they didn't have enough English teachers. They were down to one gaijin (foreigner) teacher, which was me. They hire this older lady to be an assistant and to help out in the classroom. I thought she had some history of English (perhaps been an English teacher a long time ago), but when I found out she couldn't speak a word I realized this wasn't going to be fun.
I recall one day sitting in the staffroom and she was staring at the clock. I wondered if she wanted to leave as much as I did. She started furiously going through English dictionaries (that were super dated perhaps from the turn of the century?) and asked if she could use my electronic Japanese-English dictionary (she never figured it out). After about an hour she came up to me "Can you teach me an English word?", "Of course", I answered. She asked me what "Seiko" meant. I answered "Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about". She pointed to the clock which had the word Seiko written on it. I tried not to snicker. Ummmmm.... Seiko is a Japanese company that makes watches and clocks. I wasn't sure how to answer without offending her. After all even though I am a foreigner she is still a senior citizen, I do have some manners. She looked at me intensely and asked, "Its English so I'm wondering what it means". I informed her it was a Japanese company that produced clocks and watches. "Oh, isn't that interesting", she answered. Not really I thought.

Seiko is not an English word FYI.

She was also socially awkward. By socially awkward I mean she was an old lady that was much older than all the other teachers, perhaps 3 generations older than the oldest teacher. She must have been a teacher at some point, retired, realized she needed to keep working and came back as a assistant teacher (but with the mindset she was the main teacher, in a topic she couldn't speak no less). 

I didn't mesh well with personality and her breath seemed like death. I remember her bringing in these weird herbs and saying that's what kept her so healthy looking, young, and smelling so fresh. I wanted to tell her, "Lady you look so old (like 90 even though you are 60) and you smell like manure, but I didn't. Yes very mean I know, but maybe I should have told her. I did try one of her herbs onetime and I felt super sick, I almost threw up.
We had a couple students that had constructed gas masks. Due to her breath being so toxic they would put them on during class. I couldn't stop laughing more than once. They weren't nice about it and asked her to move away from them cause she smelled so bad. I don't think she ever got the hint, cause when she stood within three feet of someone they would pinch their nose. I often wondered if she also was one of those people that drink their urine in the morning or wash their face with it. If the bad students had forgot their gas masks they would use a scarf and wrap it around their nose and mouth. I wondered if I could get away with doing the same.
I did my best to keep my mouth shut (literally and figuratively) about her smell and her personality. She drove me nuts due to 2 main reasons, she did not listen to the main English teacher, who asked her to not harass the worst students who would yell "YOU STINK, GET AWAY", but I would have to undo anything she taught the students one on one as it was incorrect. "Seiko" is clock in English she once said. I hope that student isn't still going around repeating it! I also heard her spell family as famiri one time. Good lord!

After her half a year at the school she was about to leave. She said she was going on a trip to Canada and since I was leaving that year, she was hoping I could drive her to Niagara falls.

After her repeated requests and invading my private space (right in my face), I finally told her, "Lady I told you already that I live in Vancouver. Do you know how big Canada is?" She thought Vancouver to Niagara falls was a twenty minute drive.

I told her Canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world. It would take days to reach that. Just to go to Alberta takes one full day! She was like "Nooo, it can't be that far. We can spend more time together and have a road trip". Trapped in a closed space with her, with no where to run, no way to escape a nose pinching smell that invades ones nostrils, I couldn't even imagine that.
I told her I didn't have a phone in Canada and left it at that.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Students Disassemble Prank

Students Play a Trick

Hahah funny! I like saran wrap on toilet too, its always good times.

For once this trick wasn't played on me! Woohoo, I'm lucky for once.

This story is from my memory (which is not too good) about Mr.C from Texas. As you may recall from previous stories Mr. C is an average Joe.
Mr.C was at a school not far from mine. From what I understand I had the school with the worst kids, but he had a few really bad ones as well. Not like the 90% that my school had, a but really idiotic ones.
He taught with this Australian girl who was very persuasive (by that, I mean thinks they are always right and usually was) and would take no prisoners (just like me girlfriend hahah, hope she isn't reading this). I'm going to be in the doghouse tonight.

Mr.C didn't like to plan lessons, well to be honest who does, except for this Australian girl. I remember a few times she showed me the activities and games she had created and I wondered how many nights she had spent burning the midnight oil. Don't burn it too much the houses in Japan are made of paper MWAHAHA!
This is just a metaphor to get you to catch my drift, but if I made a gingerbread, she would make a gingerbread house. She would cover the gingerbread house with icing and top off parts of it with 24K gold.

So essentially she was a great English teacher and Mr.C and I look like bums compared to her. We were nothings and didn't enjoy working hard work for our students.
I enjoyed finding a game online 5 minutes before class making 30 copies and running like a madman to get to class. For the remaining time between my classes I enjoyed playing online games or playing poker (not strip though, it is a workplace after all).

Mr.C was similar to me in this way as well, except he liked to saunter to class instead of rushing. He took it easy until he had to do something.
Well a few of the students took a liking to Mr.C and called him Harry Potter, which I can vouch for he does look a lot like. No scar in the forehead but we can fix that easily.
A bit of a sidetrack but a few students called him Spiderman, which I don't get. How does glasses and curly blonde hair equal Spiderman? That's like saying the HULK is pink.

At the same time a few students did not take a liking to him and I assume the Australian girl as well.
One day they came out after school looking for their bikes. Yes, everyone rides granny bikes in Japan.

In the location they had left their bikes were two piles of bicycle parts laid out neatly.
Mr.C laughed. The Australian girl was not impressed whatsoever and demanded the bicycle be remade to the teachers.

I'd probably laugh if my bike became this.

You gotta hand it to them, those kids work fast.
It seems like it was the hood and they were trying to get hubcaps (rims) off the cars!

I never had that happen, although more than once my tire frames were bent, which is also pretty funny, although is sucks when you try to ride and you bike keeps turning to the right.


Stuck in an endless circle. Sounds like my everyday life, what else is new!

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Broken glass and Accidental Hatred

Broken Glass at Saizeria, I swear an accident

OK, so I guess I should do a break down of Saizeria. It is a cheap Japanese FAMILY restaurant. Its sort of like Denny's. It has a lot of food that is relatively cheap but not aimed at mostly breakfast foods like Denny's. They have a drink bar where you pay like $1.20 / 120 yen with any food and can drink all the coffee, tea, pop you want. Because of this its popular for Family's to just hangout especially for gaijin (Foreigners).  

Mmmm yummy and cheap. The two things important in life.

Ever since I started going there with either Anthony or someone else, we always somehow managed to confuse the waitress'. More than once Anthony would do his order in English and not use any Japanese, which confused them immensely. Sometimes the order was wrong and we would complain and ask for the correct food. So we totally screwed them over more than once.
I always felt like a jerk, cause in particular one girl seemed to get the brunt of the problems. I thought she hated my soul. I imagined that on my last day in Japan, I would go the restaurant give her $50 worth of yen and say, "Sorry for the 3 years, my friends are aces".

This story is about Nick and I. If you don't remember Nick I spoke about him in an earlier post of two. He is the Italian American guy that thinks he is a rap Superstar and crashed my scooter into a cement wall. Read above for that story.

Cheap wine, who doesn't like stained teeth?  We drank big1.

So one night Nick and I are studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Nick convinces me to go to Saizeria and then Nick comes up with this good idea to drink wine. I'm like uhhhh... OK. Wine + Study = Great results maybe? Or not!? We order our first massive bottle I think 800ml bottle for like 790yen /$8  and started to drink. I was giggling a bit, and not from the drinking. Nick had chosen the cheap red, I guess it was so cheap his teeth had turned purple. It didn't occur to me that my mouth may look like BARNEY the dinosaur inside. "Hey kids, let's have an drink, and its not apple juice har har".

Har Har kids, don't drink and study!

So we start drinking our wine and Nick thinks it would be funny to hit on the waitress. "Hey, what's your name tag say?". He says it in English and she doesn't get it, so he repeats it in Japanese. She is like "My name is Umeda Takako". He is like oh OK, cause I thought it said umi (ocean). "No, its Umeda", she answered. He said "Ok, that's nice. Can you get me some kancho (poke in the butt)?". She has no idea what he is talking about, but he wanted kanacho (spelling?), a hard Italian style bread dessert thing. In Italian its called biscotti, in English apparently we call it double baked bread, although I've never heard it called that. She doesn't know what he is saying cause he keeps repeating poke in the butt. He is laughing. Well the thing about Nick was he has this deep kind of evil laugh, so people usually laugh based on his laugh, or they get scared because they think he is going to murder them.
I can tell the girl was scared and not sure how to react. Finally Nick says "Ok ok, one more wine."
So the next wine comes out and I'm slightly intoxicated, not to mention my teeth looked like someone rubbed a purple crayon on them. I don't know if Nick was at that point, but he asks the waitress how to read some kanji (Chinese characters) on our study sheets. Then he looks up a pervert kanji and asks her how to read it. I think it was a male body part that produces 50% of the DNA to make life. I'm sure you can guess it.
I was really embarrassed but couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't only the wine, Nick was pretty funny, if not extremely rude.
Eventually after Nick harasses her all night, we decide to go. I swear I was tipsy which explains the rest of this story. I am not an evil person at all I swear! As we are leaving the table my hand slips on the glass and it starts falling to the ground, I tried to grab it and it slipped out of my hand went straight up into the air almost hit the ceiling and then fell down and smashed all over the place. I think the waitress was sure I did it on purpose. I felt so bad.
I tried to clean it up but she said its OK (typical Japanese style). There were pieces of glass everywhere. Nick starts laughing (which makes me look like I did it on purpose cause his laugh was more evil then normal and we left. She must have hated me.
We did go back a few more times in the next coming months. I didn't see her again, I hope I didn't cause her to quit. I never gave her the $50 worth of yen either.
Whoops! Then again she may have been confused again and thought the $50 was for Nick's poke he kept requesting for anyway.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Student Attack Uses Ultimate Weapon on ME!

If you don't know I was placed at a school in the hood.

I have a few stories about getting jumped by students. Here is one of them.

One day while watching soccer, I got attacked by one of my first year students.

Now, I don’t want you to think that by getting attacked, I mean verbally attacked. That was everyday of my life for the three years I was at that school. I’m talking physical abuse.

You are probably thinking how can a little kid hurt a muscular, top physical conditioned athlete like myself. Well, I’m neither actually I just mean hypothetically. The answer was by using a weapon.

As I was watching soccer, that little bastard ran his bike into my leg at full speed. Had I been a normal person I would have grabbed by his throat Terminator Style and crunched his windpipe. Or had I not been in a Zen state I may have sidestepped the bike, close-lined him, and followed that up with a quick knee to the nuts.

Unlike the Terminator “HE won’t be back!”

Subtitled above "ROSE PINK". It might not look dangerous, being a grandma style bike but trust me it hurts.

As it happens, I am a mellow person, despite what I said in the last paragraph. As he hit me in the leg and my knee started to bend the wrong way my first thought was rage. I couldn’t believe it. This kid had hurt me. I know that even babies can hurt people. They poke eyes, pull noses, have fists of rage that hammer into momma’s face. In a nutshell they can be demons. If you have a 12 year old with a weapon, like a bike, then you are in for an awakening. Introduce speed and a soft part of the body and you have max damage.

After my rage thought, I breathed in deeply and grabbed his handlebars. For a second I wish I was the HULK and could HULK SHASH his bicycle or at least handlebars into little pieces. Let him try to ride his bike with no handlebars, see how cool you are now.

How can I get Hulk's Power? Someone tell me!

I tried to push his bicycle away as he continued to peddle at full speed pushing against me. “What are you doing?”, I asked him. “Die foreigner, die!”, he answered. Not a very thorough answer to my question but nonetheless I know what he wants at least.

As you probably know in the animal kingdom the animals on top are the ones that look their enemy in their eyes and attempt to scare them off with intimidation, if that doesn’t work they eat them. In my case, I had no option to eat him, so I decided to go inside the school so he can’t attack my with his bicycle weapon. As I walked inside I saw him carrying his bike up the stairs. WTF? I hoped he wasn’t planning to bring it into the school, apart from attacking me, he’s going to get the school dirty. He just had his bike on the field (which is made of sand), so the sand will make a massive mess. I’m not cleaning it up. I’m a teacher (or perhaps a punching bag), not a janitor.

Yes you guessed it, the little demon started coming after me with his bike again inside the school. This time, he decide to mix it up, instead of going to my knee he he hit my ankles with his tires. I contemplated murder for about 5 seconds, before a teacher yelled in Japanese at the kid, “Don’t bring your bike in here!”. The kid answered, “Die, Mr.Impotence”. At least I have to give him props for that. Mr.Impotence? Who says that? Seriously, it is kind of funny. And as a bonus at least he doesn’t want only me to die. Although I do detect a bit of a theme going on here though with wanting others to die. Maybe he needs some counseling or better yet, perhaps I can suggest he take his bicycle to the highway and see if he can hit some cars with it? Yes, that sounds good.

Insert very evil laugh here.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva