Jamaicans in Japan - Spring Ting 2013 Part 1 (Go Green)
Japanese Sentence of the week - namae wa nandesuka? 名前はなんですか？- What's your name?
Days 1859 - 1865
Sunday, April 21 - Saturday, April 27, 2013
Day 1859 ( )
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Since I broke up with the Japanese girl I wrote about 2-3 weeks ago, I haven't played a PS3 game that we used to play together. We broke up in January of 2010.... We used to play this game name "Little Big Planet" and I stopped playing it for a while. Since I ended "Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood" I decided not to buy any new games and just play the ones that I have now. So I decided to revisit Little Big planet. It is a very difficult game to play alone. I made several outbursts of anger while playing it.
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Day 1860 ( )
Monday, April 22, 2013
Had lunch with my Uzbek friend today. We spoke for a bit about our jobs and studying Japanese etc. I also learned some Russian.
I then went to teach a class at the YMCA. Jeez, these classes are difficult.
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Day 1861 ()
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Had 2 classes today at my "once per week" high school, then 2 business English classes at Komatsu. The advanced students sometimes ask some very difficult questions. I gave them an exercise to do about "tag questions" .... The first problem was that I had no clue what was a tag question before preparing for the lesson. One of the questions they attempted was to complete the following sentence, ending it with a tag question..... "I am sitting next to you----------" The answer should be "aren't I?" A student then asked, why couldn't it be "am I?" I honestly wasn't sure how to answer him. But these things challenge my thinking so I like it. I told him "Because that's just how it is......" lol
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Day 1862 ( )
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Had 3 classes at my main High school today, then 2 classes at the YMCA, then my private student. Yeah, my usual tiring Wednesdays recently. The second and third year girls at this school seem unusually excited to see me there. Its not the same at my other school though.
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Skype Account Hacked
When I went back to Jamaica in December of last year, I realized that some weird stuff was happening to my skype account. Even my photo was changed. So I changed my password and thought everything was ok. When I returned to Japan, my account was de-activated by skype. I contacted skype online and file a complaint. I chatted with someone online who helped my through the process of re-activating my account. I did, and still thought that everything was fine.
Today, I decided to log in on skye via my computer (I usually use my i-phone). I checked my account details and realized that I had some strange subscription for Pakistan minutes???? I know only 1 Pakistani and we aren't that close. For this service, I had to pay US 29.99 per month. I instantly unsubscribed from the service. I then checked my skype bills and realized that since December last year I was being charged US 29.99 per month for this strange service to Pakistan. I then checked my credit card online to see if this was being reflected. And yes it was... My credit card was charged US 29.99 From Dec - April.
I quickly contacted skype and chatted to a member of the support team online. Luckily the person instantly understood what was going on. So I got back the money on my credit card. I was fortunate that I found out after 4 months.
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Day 1863 ( Documenting My Xenophobic Experiences)
Thursday, April 25, 2013
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Mentally Documenting My Xenophobic Experiences
2 times in Okayama (1 male maybe in his 20s, 1 female also possibly in her 20s) and 3 times in Yokohama (2 females over 60, 1 male in his 50s or way older). This is over a 5 year span. Based on this very small sample, it seem that the younger persons in the rural areas are less open to foreigners or black foreigners.... While in city areas, older folks are more xenophobic. I got my third experience just recently while actually speaking to a Japanese lady who I taught English briefly at the YMCA. I sat next to the older dude and in the space of 3 seconds he got up and sat on the opposite side, diagonal from me. In my previous 2 cases, the women who got up, gave me a nasty stare. In my recent case the man just got up and went on his phone.
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Day 1864 ( Strange Sports Day Preparation Activity / One Way Trip To Mars Available )
Friday, April 26, 2013
Went to my main high school today again. I should have started class at 9:50 am but the scheduler didn't confirm with me. Luckily the class had a medical check up so it was cancelled anyway.
Today, they started the process of selecting which house/team each student would be in. Sports day will be all the way in September but they are starting from now????? So they did some quiz and other activities to determine what colour their team would be. Each class will be on a different team. For example, class 1-1 will be red team but class 1-2 will be blue team. There are only 4 teams, so eventually some classes will be on the same time.
Anyway, one of the activities involved the third year guys dressing up like famous Japanese "Female" actors.
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After this, I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. They gave me an x-ray and saw that both my wisdom teeth had tartar. So they had to clean it out.... Oh was it uncomfortable and painful. Lots of blood was involved (sorry about the imagery). I then went to teach at the YMCA for 1 hour.
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Day 1865 ( Jamaicans in Japan - Spring Ting 2013 Part 1 )
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Woke up at 5 am this morning and headed out to Ikebukuro in Tokyo. Its easier to get to this area now from Yokohama. They changed the train system recently. I met my Japanese friends Yamato, Rumi and Rumi's sister Mari. Myself, Yamato and Rumi drove down to Spring ting last year. So we are doing it again this year. They both lived in Jamaica for 2 years. Yamato lived in St. Ann while Rumi lived in Westmoreland then Clarendon for a while. Mari visited Jamaica twice.
When we arrived at Ikebukuro, we had to wait on Kevin, another Jamaican who frequents spring ting. We then took turns driving to a very rural prefecture name Toyama. In all it took about 8 hours.
We saw some beautiful landscape while driving down.
When we got there, we ate then did self introductions. We were all placed on different colour teams, based on the Jamaican flag, which is the norm at Spring Ting. I was placed in the green house. Last year I was in Yellow and we won overall in cheer leading and sports day. But based on the make up of green house this year, it seemed very likely that we definitely weren't going to win. So I spoke to the persons who arranged the teams and complained about the lack of male presence on our team. The coordinators tried their best, but everyone already meshed with their teams. And we Jamaicans just don't corporate in certain situations. This was one such case. :-) So I was stuck with a team of only 1 Jamaican male.... yours truly.. Anyway no big deal, its just fun anyway. But our my competitive spirit couldn't see this and not complain.
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Thanks for your comment. Yeah, I think people should be free to make whatever choice they want. If God wants to punish anyone, let him do it, not us.
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