China Babies and Surprise Perfection

Alright, wow. Time to actually get this posted. Sorry as always for the lateness. Things at work are starting to calm down a bit finally, so maybe I'll have more free time. I had to cut down the number of pictures I put in this post by a LOT. Between the past two weeks, I have about 350 pictures, and it's a pain in the ass to upload them to this thing. If you're still curious when I come back, I can show you some of them ><

So, one of the first times Naoko and I hung out, we went to this 100 yen shop called Daiso (I read it as Daino at first because katakana is a bitch and Naoko still laughs at me for it ><), and we saw these little coin banks you can throw your spare change in. At the time, she mentioned it would be fun to get one and save up for a trip somewhere. We didn't grab one, and I've been looking for one off and on since then. Long story short, no dice, so the weekend before last, I decided I was going to find Daiso again. With nothing but a vague suspicion of where it might be, I hopped on my bike and headed off. Three hours later, I was about to give up when I miraculously ran into Mika out of freaking nowhere and she guided me there... that counts as a victory, right? >< Well, I picked up the bank and had some Mos Burger on the way back (it was pretty damn meh). This was the result of my Daiso trip and about an hour of trying to write Kanji and Katakana in block letters...

While I was out and about, I saw a lot of stuff that I didn't take pictures of. After finding my third random temple, I decided to take a break.

This temple had a bunch of these little statues. It took me a full minute to figure out that they were the Chinese Zodiac.

It's me!

Also, best billboard ever.

Random shit from last week:

1.) I got to talk to a crazy guy. I was at lunch, minding my own business, and he decided to pop a squat next to me and start speaking to me in (admittedly decent) English. During the conversation, I was personally thanked for both the American aid to Japan with the earthquake and the money donated by Americans. That's right, I took all your credit. It's mine now. You can't have it back.

2.)

I'm constantly amazed by how much of the Engrish I see here that is in my office. It makes me pretty smaily.

3.)

Now, ostensibly Greg here is getting a checkup for a dislocated collarbone. Really, I think he's getting his brokeback checked out if you know what I mean. Manlove.

4.)

Baby samurai gonna fuck you up.

5.)

Don't worry, me and creepy statue got your back.

6.)

Unless I'm being crushed by a super small doorway.

Okay, truncated version of last week DONE. This week. Oh man, this week. Well, first I rode the train to meet Naoko near her house so we could head to Izumo Taisha! Finally. Seriously, I've made plans with like three different sets of people to go to this damn place before now, and they've always fallen through. The train ride was... pretty uneventful, really. Here, have some pictures!

This is Naoko's angry face. It is achieved by repeatedly taking pictures of her when you know she hates it then telling her it's not safe to try to cover her face because she's driving. I have just given you the recipe for adorable. You can thank me later.

The main gate of Izumo Taisha! We actually took this picture near the end of our visit because we went in through a different gate... :D

The main building of Izumo Taisha. That rope is fucking huge. Also, sorry for my really non-photogenicness breaking your eyeholes.

You're supposed to make a wish then throw a five yen coin into one of the three hanging ropes. They're made out of straw packed super tight together. I saw one person maybe succeed while we were there. My coins just bounced off ineffectually. Naoko... well, she threw like a girl ;)

We found an almost completely abandoned side shrine! Hooray!

Hey, look! A waterfall! And a Naoko!

I really like this picture. It should be pointed out that it was complete luck that I got it. I'm really not good at taking pictures.

These were the men and women signs for bathrooms there. So awesome.

That sculpture opposite the dude? It's a wave with a metal ball on top. 

Looking up the pathway to the main gate from the shrine area. The walkway is much longer than it looks here.

Cherry blossoms!

After Izumo Taisha, we went along the coast a little bit to go to another shrine. Lots of people were out fishing. It took me a minute to notice, but there were people way out in the ocean on this tiny spits of rock. There were no boats there, and I highly doubt they swam. The only conclusion I can draw is that they walk out at low tide and just fish all day... what happens if they have to go poop?

A tiny shrine on a big hunk of rock near some docks. I can only imagine the shrine is for the kami of bird poop. Wow, two poop references in a row. My inner child is overjoyed.

Here you go dad, I finally got a decent picture of the hawks that are all over around here.

A really cool dragon carving near the side temple. Naoko found this. As well as that abandoned shrine earlier. Apparently she excels at finding things I like.

Except for this. I found this. Well, I saw it first at least. It was along the road while driving to the shrine. I even saw where we could stop and walk up an old path to it. Naoko wouldn't let me. She insisted it was too scary and that there were ghosts. It looks so cool though... :(

After that, we went to a big mall in Izumo then returned to Matsue. While driving through town, we went past Masashi's bar and Naoko mentioned we should visit him that night. I should have realized something was up, she never suggests we go to bars. Mainly because she doesn't drink. So, we played some games for a while then headed out. She was texting before we left, and refused to tell me who it was. She did the same thing when we got there. I was still oblivious. It was only when we got to the top of the stairs, where Masashi was outing outside of his own bar and couldn't even say hello to me without breaking into a big grin that I suspected something was up. He ushered me into the bar, and this happened.

I would like to make the excuse that I have never, not even once in my whole life, thought even for a second that someone would throw a surprise party for me. It kinda caught me off guard and I just stared at everyone in confusion for a few seconds. I guess their deception was also aided by the fact that my birthday was still a week away, but I'll be in Kyoto then.

They had nachos. Real freaking nachos. With sour cream and cheddar cheese. You have no idea how hard those things are to find in Japan.

This is, as always, an awful picture of me and I am 110% positive Naoko would try to murder me with a pillow if she found out I posted it, but it does a good job of showing the mood. I was glad that they pulled one over on me.

They also got me ice cream cake. Everyone involved in this endeavor has earned my eternal love through beer, nachos, and ice cream cake.

I just like this picture, to be honest.

As if that wasn't enough, they also gave me presents. They gave me an awesome party, delicious food, AND PRESENTS. Not pictured are the sweets that Sarah got for me because we ate them all.

These are the presents that Naoko got for me. That picture is fucking legit. Just sayin.

We were going to go cherry blossom viewing at Matsue Castle on Monday, but it surprise rained on us. Sorry, no hanami photos this year :(

Random shit from this week:

1.) Remember those students I mentioned before? Well, they were still on break until the start of this week, so I've seen them around a few times since then. Normally we just wave, but one day they decided to talk to me. My Japanese was better this time, which caused A BUNCH of their friends to gather around to talk. A few of them actually spoke decent English. The conversation was mostly nice, but the awkward part came at the end, when I had a group of girls on one side asking me questions like "do you have a girlfriend?" and a group of guys on the other side asking questions like "do you play breast massage?" (pronounced as "do you play blest massage?") and "do you play masturbation?". That was about the time I excused myself and went back to work ><

2.) That's not the end of the saga, though! That mall in Izumo? There's a reason I mentioned it. While Naoko and I were eating there, the girl in the Minny Mouse jacket came in with her mom and friends. I got the most awkwardly scathing look ever from her mom when I waved at her. Whatever.

3.) The adorable little girl that I gave a Starburst to was at the office again this week. I didn't have any candy, but I went out to talk to her a little bit. I was rewarded with such awesome things as her running around waving an American flag and chanting "go Thomas-kun! go Thomas-kun!" and "I love you Thomas-kun!". She also stopped mid-conversation at one point to pull a bottle of juice out of her bag and tell me she liked that kind of juice like it was very important and timely information. I almost died from cuteness overload that day.

4.) Something that wasn't cute? The dude that decided to just drop trou and take a piss right in front of the post office, on the sidewalk in front of a busy street. Okay, his pants didn't technically come down, but he definitely whipped something out of them and a stream of liquid followed suit. Luckily, he was facing the opposite way from where we were driving. Naoko got VERY embarrassed when I exclaimed loudly, "Welcome to Japan!" :D

5.) I got Little Big Planet 2 recently because I figured it's something I can get Naoko to play with me. I was right. Anyways, you can dress up your character, and yesterday Naoko discovered she could put her's in a diaper with a pacifier. This spawned a series of "soandso baby!" in English. It finally culminated in her adding a fez to it and proudly exclaiming "China baby!" You know... looking at that in text, it seems like one of those "you had to be there" moments. Whatever. I couldn't stop laughing for like five minutes, and I now have a new catchphrase.

That's... holy crap, I think that's all I got. I'm sure I missed things, and the writing is probably rushed. Whatever, it's 1 AM and I have work tomorrow. Peace.

Norse God Baby!

The week where posting wasn't

Did anyone really not see this coming? Seriously? This week is too damn busy. I haven't even studied Japanese for 4 days now, and you know things are serious if I'm neglecting studying. Saying "this week" is a misnomer. More like "this month and a half", it's just this week that I seriously can't find time. It's one of those work situations where I go into the office every freaking day thinking "holy crap, I have so much to get done, I have no idea how I'm going to do it all", then I get to my "desk" area and, SURPRISE!, I have some extra work piled up there to add to the list. Thomas is tired and frustrated. Next week I'll post all my crap from this week plus some other stuff. I promise. It might be a day late. Peace.

Edit: after posting this, I went and checked my email. I had mail from Naoko wherein she said that my Japanese has been getting much better lately. She said this completely unprompted. We weren't even talking about language at all. I've been feeling miserable about missing out on studying recently, and this instantly made me feel better. Yeah, yeah, you don't care. My blog. Deal with it.

Wilderness Survival and "B" Movies

Looks like this month is ending just as busy and boring as it started. Only got one day off this week, and I spent it doing chores, so I really have nothing to say here... Guess I'll just jump right to the random stuff.

1.) Another adorable kid at work this week. She was probably 5 or 6, and she was one of the students' children. This kid sat in the lobby during a 50 minute lesson without making even a little bit of a fuss. When I finished my lesson (different class than the one her mother was in), she was sitting in the exact same spot as when I had started the class with her hands crossed in her lap. Luck had it that I had brought in some of the candy my mom sent to snack on that day, so I grabbed a pink Starburst and gave it to her. I just held it out assuming a kid that young wouldn't understand English. In response, she gave me a perfectly pronounced and very polite "Thank you", took the candy, and put it directly into her bag (maybe it was her mom's purse. I don't know). I imagine there was a conversation later in the day that went along the lines of "Mother, I was given a piece of candy today. Is it alright if I eat it?" Because this kid was that well behaved. If I ever have a child, I'll be happy if it's half as well-mannered as that little girl.

2.) I had to use my Japanese "in the wild" twice this week. Both times were highly embarrassing for me. School's out this week, so there's way more students than usual when I'm at lunch. The first occasion was just some students asking if they could use one of the chairs from the table I was at in the food court. I panicked and couldn't manage anything more than a couple of quick nods. Go me. Second time was a group of kids that were trying adorably hard to dress G. I can only assume two of them were a couple, because they were wearing matching pink and black track suits. The girl's had Minny Mouse on the back (is that how you spell Minny? It suddenly occurs to me that this is the first time I have ever spelled that name). Anyway, one of the kids started talking about how tall I was and pointing at me a lot, so I smiled in their direction. This was a cue for them to start asking me questions. I stumbled through the answers very awkwardly, but at least my mouth formed sounds that may or may not have been words this time.

3.) I have noticed an interesting occurrence. Lately, there have been a lot of small tremors between midnight and 3 AM. They're small enough that I probably wouldn't notice them if it wasn't for the fact that my space heater is kind of wobbly and makes noise with even small vibrations. They're definitely big enough that I recognize them as tremors, but yeah. I guess the plates are still grinding ever so slowly. I think it's interesting at least...

4.) You may be tired of hearing this, but Naoko is amazing. So, I was having a shitty day at work this week and, as I tend to do, was complaining about it to the people I know. One of those people was Naoko. When I got home, I saw a bag hanging on my door (I also smelled her perfume from the bottom of the stairs. I think she sprayed it to add to the present or something, but she must have drenched the freaking staircase in it. Seriously. It smelled like her perfume for the rest of the week. Adorable effort, but damn that smell was strong. Anyways, let's get back to what I was saying. No, I don't care if it was boring. Read it anyways). This is said bag.

Now, since you cannot see the entire contents, let me give you a list of what was in this container of joy. Beer, donuts, food, chocolate, an incredibly girly little Pokemon doll thing, and a card with a puppy on it and a very long message that took me way too long to translate inside. I think it bears mentioning that Naoko lives thirty minutes away and also only got one day off this week. Now, I don't wanna brag, but my girlfriend is better than your girlfriend.

That's all I got.

PS - Kudos if you understand the second part of the title and how it relates to this post.

Shabu Shabu and War Faces

Back to late posting, yay! -.- This month is... hectic. Super busy every week at work, all kinds of overtime, and my free days are mostly spent inside because of the bad weather, trying to study Japanese and recuperate from the work week. This isn't bitching so much as offering a weaksauce explanation for why my blogs are so boring of late.

This week I went to a shabu shabu restaurant with Naoko. She found out I'd never had it before and insisted that we go. It just occurs to me now that I forgot to take pictures, but it was delicious. Really, it was a lot like the nabe I had before, so it wasn't quite the "new" experience I was hoping for. Whatever, still good and different enough to be interesting. I am routinely delighted to have Naoko with me at restaurants. For the company, of course, but also for her ability to order things. When we're looking at the menu and discussing what to get, I always think to myself, "Yeah, I could probably order this stuff if I needed to. I mean, I'm talking to Naoko about it with no problems." Then the waiter/waitress comes and Naoko starts speaking something that I'm not even entirely positive is Japanese. It's similar to Japanese. It's Japanese-esque. But the words come out so fast and use so many sounds I can't recreate that it all becomes a blur and suddenly there's food in front of us. Usually it's what I thought we were going to order. Sometimes it's a surprise.

I also started to play Disgaea 4 this week. In Japanese. With kanji. I don't understand the conversations so much as stare at the screen in abject horror and resist the urge to run screaming into the night. Sometimes I get the overall meaning of what they're saying. The main character talks about sardines, promises, and sardine promises a lot. It's a learning process. Naoko says the Japanese they use is strange and difficult. I say I'm just not good enough at Japanese.

I also handed out flyers this week for work. Again. And got shafted on the overtime pay. Again. This time it was sunny, at least. There were also about 4-5 other groups of people handing out flyers... the poor students were just there to see their results for entrance exams, but first they got barraged by people shoving flyers in their faces. I felt horrible as they tried desperately to find room for our flyers while they were already holding a stack of other flyers. Yuko said they're used to it though because it happens all the time.

Random shit!:

1.)

One of my students gave me a present because she knows I like sweet food! It was decent, but I have no idea what was inside of it. Some kind of green paste with what I first thought were bits of chocolate, but were actually a seed of some sort. I think.

Naoko made me adorable rabbit cookies! Because she's awesome. She even put them in an adorable bag with Engrish on it! "Have a tea time with me." I'm pretty sure she doesn't realize that second part, or the fact that I love Engrish, but it still counts.

I have come to the conclusion that Naoko enjoys making faces out of food. Pistachios that my mom sent to me because she rocks. The eyebrows on this thing make me believe that this pistachio face has impure intentions. Probably toward your daughter. Just sayin. It looks like that kind of pistachio face.

Apparently this comes from a shrine. Naoko says parents get them for their children so that they'll grow up strong.... Parents buy penis lollipops with girl faces on the wrapper for their children? WTF Japan?!

 And now for some much-needed motivation for my six day work week. Show me your war face!

PS - Holy crap, upon review of this post I just realized that every picture involves faces even though almost all of them are of inanimate objects. That was not intentional. I officially declare this to be the war face post.

Strep Throat and Saintly Drinking

Holy crap, a blog post from me that's on time?! Impossible. So, you're not gonna believe this: I'm still fucking sick. Yup. 3 weeks now. This time, though, it's a new sickness. I got me some strep throat! I haven't had it since I was a kid, and I definitely never got it this bad then. Swallowing hurt (I can think of at least three specific people who are now going to make a stupid joke about that. It's okay, I would too. You are forgiven.). Not just food, but water, even saliva if my mouth was watering or whatever. At one point, breathing even hurt. For realsy. I wasn't able to get enough sleep for about 4 or 5 days this week because I would wake up at random times and not be able to fall asleep again because my throat hurt so bad. Insane. 

Anyways, I didn't want to call in to work so soon after last time, so I toughed it out for a bit. Pain started on Tuesday, and it wasn't until Friday that I threw in the towel. Friday started with 4 back to back private lessons. After the first one, I left a note for my head teacher (who was busy during the five minutes I had between classes) that I had to go home after my next class. Why? Well, I was rapidly finding myself unable to speak. I would randomly lose my voice during class, and when that happened I also kind of lost my ability to breathe for a few seconds. I was a little dizzy as well. But my second student was already there, and I wasn't just going to tell her to go back home, so I finished up that class too. Mayumi took my temperature and sent me to the doctor, who informed me I had a fever of 101 and strep throat. I've never had strep described to me, but apparently my case involved a throat that was "extremely inflamed and red, with white and black covering the tonsils". O.o White and black? That was enough to terrify me a little. I got five different kinds of medicine this time, including one that I have to gargle twice a day. Fun. On the up side, it has definitely helped my throat, and I feel a lot better. On the downside, when I went back to work to tell my head teacher and manager, their responses (both entirely separate from each other) were along the lines of "So it's not the flu? Good. You need to come back this evening to teach your classes. If you had the flu, you wouldn't be allowed to work." Sadly, that's barely paraphrased. Basically, I got to go home for 2 hours, then come back and teach for 2 and a half hours. With a bad case of strep throat. They were only worried I had the flu because company policy says it's too contagious to teach with. Do they realize that strep throat is about as contagious as the flu and more serious? Whatever, if any of my students are sick, it's not my fault.

Stayed home on Saturday, and Naoko already had plans to come over in the evening. I was really worried about getting her sick, but she didn't really seem to care... Anyways, there was an early St. Patrick's Day party and parade this weekend in Matsue (parade was cancelled, probably because of the quake and everything associated with it), and Naoko has been wanting to go since last year, when she couldn't go because of work. I didn't want her to miss another year because of me, and I knew she wouldn't go without me, so I put on my big boy undies, manned up, chugged a lot of medicine, and spent about 4 or 5 hours at a St. Patty's day party! Luckily it ended at about 10:30, at which point all I wanted to do was go home and drink more medicine ><

The coolest thing about the party? The location of the bar. It was in an old, historic building, and apparently it used to be a bank. This was the entrance, so I guess it's down where the vaults used to be. There was another, smaller vault inside, but it was too crowded for a picture.

There was a lot of music. Didn't get a picture of the first two guys up there when Naoko and I arrived, but the dude on the left with a shirt on his head was really into it. Occasionally he let out a really folksy shout. Awesome stuff. Also, sorry for the stuff in the way in these pictures. Crowded place, and I did NOT have the energy to get up and find better angles for these shots.

Fantastic Guinness pictures.

Violin time!

Then some Irish singing time!

Then it was harp and guitar time! These two had a little flyer on all the tables with a picture of them that was probably 15-20 years old... we didn't even know it was them at first XD

Suddenly, bagpipe!

And dancing!

Yeah, the dancing was pretty much the end of things. Really pleasant evening aside from the strep throat part of it. That's really all I got for you this week :/

Random shit!:

1.)

Wow, look at this awesome ceremonial dragon helmet. That would be an interesting souvenir to buy...

Oh. About $1,000? Yeah, never mind.

2.)

Leave it to the Japanese to make a Predator adorable.

3.) During my discussion class this week, we discussed whaling (which they later said wasn't that interesting, but they were talking way more than normal, so now I'm confused). Anyways, the resident old man was trying to theorize on why Americans felt the need to protect animals, and he uttered this gem "All Americans have cute, little pets like monkeys and dogs." Oh man, resident old man, how I wish that first one was true. 

See ya next week folks. Well, cat critics, what did you think of this week's entry?

Indubitably 

Edit: I suppose I should say something about the earthquake, and that something is that it really hasn't crossed my mind all that much. Honestly, I feel about the same way I felt about 9/11. I'm aware that it's a tragedy, and I truly do feel bad for the people who have lost their lives or homes from it, but it hasn't affected me directly in any way, shape, or form. Matsue is too far away for me to have felt anything (it happened on the day I went to the doctor, so I wasn't aware anything was wrong until I checked my facebook when I got home for my two hour break and saw all the "are you okay?" messages) and we're on the opposite side of the coast, so tsunamis aren't really a problem either. I've donated twice (both the times I've seen donation boxes), but beyond that, I don't really follow it much. Most of you in America know more about the situation than I do. I think the fact that I'm saying this in an edit about a half an hour after I posted this update says all you need to know about how much this has been on my mind.

Taco Parties and Angry Rants

Another late blog post. I need to get out of the habit of this. Whatever. I'm still sick. This cold is like some kind of freaky mutant disease. It keeps changing. After last week it changed into just a headache. Then just a full-body ache kind of deal. Now it's a horrible sore throat. It's like it threw all the symptoms at me at the same time, and now it's going to go through them each one by one before it goes away. I hope it goes away at least...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back outside...That's right, more snow again this week! The weather here just can't make up its mind.

Hung out with Naoko this weekend because it was one of the rare times that our days off matched up completely (she works a 4 days on, 2 days off schedule. That means we only have the same days off every month and a half about). Went to McDonald's and she made a french fry happy face :D

We also went to Mr. Donut, where we found more happy faces. These ones, however, are just freaking creepy.

Dear god, why would you put that on something you were selling to people? That is the most terrifying thing ever.

Well, that kind of makes up for it I suppose...

Monday was taco party time! Just as a bit of backstory, there is almost no Mexican food in this country. I've been informed that I can find some in Tokyo, but that's about it. Because of this, most Japanese people I've met have never had any kind of Mexican food. The grocery store I shop at sells some taco shells and seasoning (although they're kind of expensive), so a few of my friends have expressed interest in a taco party. Sidetrack in my sidetrack: there's a party for everything over here. Seriously. Nabe party, takoyaki party, etc... Anyway, on Monday we finally decided to go for it. We only had about 2 days of notice and it was on a Monday afternoon/evening, so I invited about 9 people thinking most of them wouldn't be able to come. Of course, this meant that all but one or two accepted. Shopping for this stuff was a nightmare. Naoko and I had to go to four different stores (thankfully, she has a car), mainly trying to track down avocados, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. We found them, but the avocados were super green, the cheese wasn't really that suitable, and the sour cream had the consistency of cream cheese. Apparently all sour cream over here is like that. I also ended up spending about 5,000 yen, or around 60 dollars.

We found this amazing statue at the second store we visited. Naoko informs me that it's a "lucky boy"... okay.

Snacks! Naoko and I actually ate a fair chunk of these ourselves waiting for people to show up. The thing was supposed to start at four... first guests arrived at about a quarter after five. Whatever, we had movies to watch.

Taco stuffs! I actually made all of this aside from the guacamole salsa myself! I know, I'm amazed too. I say guacamole salsa, by the way, because the avocados we found were too hard to make into actual guacamole. Instead, Sarah just kind of put the ingredients together and roasted them for a little bit to soften it all up. No one complained, but I don't like avocado so I have no idea how it tasted seeing as how I didn't try it. Everyone said they had a lot of fun though, and it was somewhat hilarious watching Mika trying to correctly eat a taco. At first she tried to bite into it vertically, so Mac and I had to stop her before she cut her mouth up. We told her to bit into it with her head tilted, so she tilted her head... and the taco. I think there were some other pictures taken that had actually people in them, but they weren't taken with my camera.

Warning: long rant ahead. Don't bother reading if you don't want to hear a lot of bitching.

This picture actually has a lot of rage behind it. I purposefully put off posting last night because I was absolutely fucking livid and didn't want to say something I would regret. Sleeping hasn't helped the situation much. Long story short: management bullshit. Cherry blossoms bloom for a very short time in Japan. You can see them before or after, but they are only at their peak for about 7-10 days. Naoko and I have been planning a trip to Kyoto to see them during this time period. Right at the end of it, actually, because my company has certain "blackout days" where you can't request any of your paid days off, and they fall right in the middle of this period. 

That's fine though, the 12 of April is after those blackout days, and I have the 10/11 off as my normal weekend. Naoko has the 11/12 off, so I figured "hey, that's perfect. I'll get the 12th off and we'll go." So I asked my head teacher and manager about it a week or so back. That's a month and a half of warning; well beyond the one month requirement for asking for days off. Their response was "we'll see what we can do", which set off alarm bells in my head, but whatever. So a whole week goes by without them saying anything. Finally, yesterday I just ask them about it. They told me that it's a really busy time of year and they don't really think they can give me the day off; most people can't really get days off at that time.

On its own, this is pretty annoying, but there's already a few things that made it worse for me. 1.) Why the fuck is it outside the blackout days if you won't let people take time off? Seriously. I based my schedule on your stupid fucking calendar assuming the blackout days were there for a reason. Apparently that's not the case. If it's such a busy time, you should alter the calendar to show as much. 2.) They weren't going to tell me. If I hadn't asked, they just would have kept ignoring it. For me, these escalate it to really fucking annoying.

But wait, there's more! March is a really busy month in Japan. It's the start of a new fiscal year, the school year is ending, and all kinds of things are happening. Because of that, everyone is really busy; including my school. This means they're asking me to work a lot of overtime. I'm scheduled to work on my day off in a week or two, yesterday I worked from 6 AM to 9:30 PM (had to wake up at 6 to hand out flyers in front of a high school in the freezing cold and rain, then go to a meeting in Yonago, then go to work), and I have another flyer day scheduled for the 18th. They're also weaseling their way out of paying me for this overtime in the following awesome ways: Saying I'm only working about 1/3 of the time I actually am. For example: the flyers this morning. I had to get up at 6 and didn't get back home until 9. That's three hours. They said I worked from 7:30 to 8:30. One hour. The meeting? Had to catch a train from Matsue at 10:30, didn't get back until about 3. That's four and a half hours. They said I worked 2. Part two of this "screw Thomas over" deal is them telling me to just come into work an hour later this Tuesday and next Tuesday. The meeting also partially overlapped with my normal work time, so they used that as well. So, I got to start work seven hours earlier than normal and I'm getting exactly zero hours of overtime because I get to come to work at 1 instead of noon two days this month.

Despite this absolute bullshit, I have not complained once. The way I see it, if I can help them out during a busy time, it's alright. I would still be doing the same thing even if I wasn't trying to get time off, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that was also thinking that they were going to be helping me with some time off, so it's only fair that I help them with some extra work. So much for that idea.

How does this all factor into the picture? Well, when I got back from the meeting, my manager had left the chips and the note on my desk. Don Tacos is something we've talked about before when I first mentioned tacos; they're a kind of chip. At the time I thought it was a pretty nice and thoughtful gesture. After my head teacher's reaction when I asked about the time off though, I see it as a cheap way to try to soften me up. They know they're fucking me over; it's really obvious from their body language and tone. Especially when my manager asked me to hand out flyers for a second day. He legitimately seems to feel bad. That doesn't change the fact that they're screwing me over though. And how do they try to make good? With a fucking bag of 89 yen chips. Yeah, I'm still pissed.