Stupid Cupid

Top to bottom: Horse-Deer. Baka. Stupid.

 

It's Friday, November 22, 1991.
In the movie version of my life, I would have Jeff Goldblum play me. He's not the most handsome man in the world, but I respect that he was able to bag Gena Davis.
In 2011 it would have been Seal for Heidi Klum... but that one is over. I hate his music, still think he looks horrible, but he got Heidi!

Today is an office day. That means I go to the Ohtawara Board of Education Office (OBOE) next to City Hall here in lovely, bustling (?!) Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken, Japan.
Monday through Thursday I visit one of my seven junior high schools to team-teach English with a Japanese teacher of English (JTE).
Hired via the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme, I probably should state that I actually respect the organization, but down at the lower levels, they have been something less than helpful.
Regardless... thanks to JET... I am here in Japan and generally having a wonderful rife. The work, if one can call it that, has been relatively easy. I know there are some people who have worked their collective ass off teaching as a foreigner in Japan, but not me.
My biggest struggle is not being bored and wondering what my school lunch will be. Really. And this is me saying this after spending four days at my hell school of Kaneda Kita Chu Gakko (aka Kita Chu) where I experienced some great highs and lows as a quote-unquote teacher. Yes, I know I could have used quotation marks... but I did that to emphasize how I really do not feel I have earned the right to call myself a teacher.
The highs? A student asking me to teach him Scrabble. Another student - the main bully - teaching me Shogi (Japanese chess). It almost makes me wish I was a real teacher. Almost.
The lows? Grade 7 students trying to stick their fingers between the crack of my ass. At least they got caught by a member of the OBOE who were there to investigate the bad stuff I keep writing about in my weekly school reports.
Anyhow... at the OBOE today... no one talks to me about the students doing crack (mine). No one tells me what they are doing about this strange school - if anything. I assume (ass of you and me) the students who were jabbing my ass with their digits were disciplined by the school itself. I mean - I have no idea.
I did ask one of my bosses Hanzaki-san if he could tell me what the fallout was from all of this... well, the normally talkative Hanazaki-san smiled weakly, though his normally mischievous eyes looked as dead as mine when I am pissed off at some woman (Ashley, my ex-girlfriend here).
He said: "This school... this school is baka."
Baka means stupid. To create the words stupid, you combine two different chinese letters or Kanji, as they are known in Japan. The "ba" kanji used is the exact same one used to denote a horse. The "ka" kanji used denotes deer. This means that the word "baka" is made up of kanji that in English translates to 'horse-deer'.
So... Hanazaki-san said, if I may translate fully into English for you: "This school... this school is horse-deer."
Now perhaps I am just not with-it enough to know such things, but could there be another meaning of the deer kanji, that would actually make it another word? Like "baka" should really say 'horse-sh!t'. Now that I could understand.
Horse-deer equals stupid? No wonder I'll never figure out this horse-deer language!

And... just in case you were wondering - instead of putting it in the order of horse-deer (baka), what if it were put in reverse: deer-horse (kaba)? Kaba means hippopotamus.
And people wonder why I can't read Japanese yet after 16 months.
Anyhow... Hanazaki-san did say that the OBOE is looking at ways to try and figure out how they should go about resolving the issues at the school. There was also a lot of sucking in of air while saying that double - or was it triple-speak - so I'm sure it's unpleasant business.
Christ... I hope no one gets fired over my ass.
School work aside, I write a few letters, take off at lunch to post them and send off some Christmas presents for people back home. I then catch up on my diary.
I have no idea why I am writing or even keeping a diary. Will I ever reach a point in my life when I will sit down and re-read this crap? Will I want to? Will I like who I was? God help me then.
Still... I once read that a writer should write every day. I think it was Grant Morrison who said that... or at least it was him that I learned it from. The diary writing was my way of assuring myself that I was writing everyday.
After 'work' (should have used the 'quote-unquote' phrase), I go shopping for some food.
Ashley (the ex) comes over. Why? Because it's Friday, and she likes spending time with me. Apparently when we were a couple, I was crowding her when she would come over to my apartment four times a week. I didn't specifically invite her - I had just always said to drop by whenever you want. That sounds about right for a guy wanting to get laid, right?
Ashley and I talk, eat a lasagna I make with four cheeses - from scratch by the way (okay... I didn't make the lasagna shells or make the cheese or grow a cow... but you know what I mean).
For dessert, we have pears covered in chocolate sauce with ice cream, watched two rented movies: The Russia House and He said She Said.
Of course... this is all conjecture. It's currently only 2PM as of this writing and I am still at work. This is just a test of my emergency broadcasting system to see if I can predict my evening.
Also... I have just planned dinner and dessert, so now I know what I am shopping for.
You can tell I like to plan ahead and really hate flying by the seat of my pants.
Of course... me supposing that Ashley will come over like she usually does on a Friday night... well... that means I won't see Junko.
Junko has radar. She knows when I'm alone and when I'm with someone. She's the ultimate secret girlfriend - she's the only one I have, so have very little to compare her to - and doesn't get jealous as long as she gets what she wants. Which is fine, because it usually involves me getting what I want. Did I say 'usually'?
Anyhow... all things happened exactly as I predicted.
The movies were okay, the lasagna was great and the pears and chocolate and ice cream gave us too much of a sugar high. Still... we ate like pigs.
If this were a made-for-television movie... right now the scene would cut to Junko peering through my door's peephole watching Ash and I having fun together. Oh yes... it should be raining and Junko's mascara should be running down her now maniacal-looking face.
Now this piggy like to pork. So he offers his sow a razorback rub, which turned into a tongue massage (Pig joke: I got nothing here). Ashley loved it (except for the pig analogies)... but as soon as I was totally horny and ready to be makin' bacon, she was sleepy. So she fell asleep in my bed while I watched television. It's 11PM. Bitch.
She over to my place as my ex-girlfriend, gets fed a meal that cost me a small fortune, I cook the the meal, gets sit around and watch a couple of movies I had rented rent, drinks my pop, gets a massage, gets off!, and then falls asleep when its my turn.
Wow... when did I get married?
If this were a made-for-television movie... right now the scene would cut to Junko peering through my door's peephole laughing her head off while she sharpened a knife on a whetstone. Oh deer!

Somewhere waiting for the door to burst open to rescue me,
Andrew Joseph
Hey... want to see what Junko looked like? A friend of mine recently posted one of my articles up on his blogsite and added some photos. The first photo has a girl who looks a whole lot like Junko! It's NOT her, but I did a double take when I saw her. You can see quote-unquote Junko HERE. It is an adult site, so only click thru if you are an adult. Don't worry, kiddies. Go ahead and click thru, too. I won't tell. It's only an adult site because of the author's raw language - though I think my story remains unscathed. How To Survive Women is a pretty good site - full of comedy and some really insightful pieces all men should read to better enable them to survive women. I wish I had something like this back in 1991.  
Today's blog title is sung by the gorgeous Connie Francis: