A Whiter Shade of Pale: January 2011

Friday, January 21, 2011

この時を生きて

What's new? I've been slaving at work mostly. It's really nice to start seeing more familiar faces who take my lessons on a regular basis. I really enjoy chatting with them while helping them learn English at the same time. I'm glad I'm not stuck with a monotonous desk job, being in the rat race back in Singapore. I think that teaching is a really meaningful job, although I have to admit that, for the most part, I am doing it for a living. I like my job but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have any demerits. I must say that I'm really very grateful for the opportunity to be here in Tokyo, starting life anew in a new country, immersed in a new culture and language, hanging out with new friends and freezing my ass off in winter.

Anyway, it helps that I had some really interesting lessons lately too - one lady who worked in the city liked me for my ability to talk with her about economics and finance, the complicated business stuff. She probably knew more technical things than I did, but I was the one who could phrase things in English. Haha. It was such a coincidence that her company is offering a post-grad programme to study the MBA in SMU, so that's her ultimate purpose for improving her English. I will be so elated if I can help her achieve that! Another client have business conferences regularly and he always had trouble trying to figure out what the Singaporean representative said, so he wanted me to speak in the Singaporean accent, so that he can get some practice! He told me that he was surprised that I didn't have the infamous accent, because he chose me based on that assumption. Haha, so I told him that I can prepare something to read in the Singaporean accent in the next lesson. Last but not least, I have to help a doctor who is going to take a medical exam in the U.S. this coming March. How I can help is to pretend to be a patient, while he asks me some questions in our role-play. I thought that was very unique and I think I'm learning a lot about some medical symptoms now.

On the other hand, work is definitely not god's gift to mankind. The pay is not the best for what we do, so I hope that it'll increase in the near future. Moreover, work is mentally and emotionally intensive. You need to keep your energy levels high to motivate your students to work hard with you during lessons. You need to maintain 100% attentiveness to your clients and thus I've been trying to yawn on the sly, with my eyes open while my client is looking away. Also, the hours I have to work is not that desirable. I go to work when people are heading home and I have to get up to go to work on weekends and on bank holidays. Not exactly a morale-booster. Haha. At least there are lots of nice (ENGLISH-SPEAKING) people at work to chat with when I'm taking my breaks.

Nevertheless, I'm enjoying myself so far. I've been here for almost 2 months now and it has been eventful! No doubt about that. I haven't done much traveling to be honest, I blame the freezing weather and my awful work schedule. Still, it's been a fabulous experience just living the Japanese way of life... mostly. Let's see... Well, I take bentos to work and I eat too much onigiris for my own good. I enjoy living in a wooden house with zero insulation, and listen to the mice scamper across the roof at night. Stuff like that. A good part of my happy times here are owed to my lovely housemates. I feel that we're becoming quite a family here. We hang out regularly to chat, celebrate special occasions together... mostly by drinking if you were wondering. Haha. In fact both of my neighbours, the couples living on my left and right have gotten married very recently. I'm so happy for the 2 couples as they are such nice people and I'm comforted to know that people can find happiness anywhere. Apparently, they have designated me as the potential babysitter now. (not!)

Hmm, so yes. 10 days to home and I'm really looking forward to seeing most of my friends again. Catching up, feeling the familiar warmth (or rain-soaked feet), drowning myself in frothy teh tarik and using all the Singlish in the world without feeling self-conscious. Home sweet home. x

Monday, January 03, 2011

明けましておめでとうございます

G & I headed to Akihabara today and the New Year sales were going at full steam. I didn't buy a lucky bag as there was nothing that appealed to me. However, I did buy many other items, when I wasn't planning to shop. Although I'm wrecked with guilt, I thought I scored many good bargains. For one, I finally got myself an electric heater which will probably save me a bit on electricity bills and save myself from numb feet and hands. I got a really sweet super-duper mini speaker, and a pair of in-ear earphones for my ipod as well. Plus a gorgeous & warm fur coat at 2990yen, which was originally 7990yen. YATTA!

Against my will, G has been trying to influence me to be a gaming geek like him. I spent most of the day looking at retro game consoles, game cassettes and anime merchandise. I was stopped from entering the Men's section at an adult store though. I'm upset at that. WHY??? My friend reckoned that it's because of the chauvinistic culture. Perhaps they think it's too disturbing or offensive to females. Maybe. I'm still annoyed. In fact in some of the shops which sell DVDs of semi-naked girls, some of the girls featured were barely 12 years old!!! THAT was well disturbing. Sorry boys, no soiled underwear though. Just tons of cosplay costumes or wannabe sexy outfits. I was hooked on this awesome retro zombies ate my neighbours game while we were in Super Potato.

Well maybe I should describe my NYE experience in Japan. It's my second time spending NYE outside Singapore. My first was the surreal experience in Prague in 2008. Now I spent it in Shibuya. Before the party, I had dinner with A at a restaurant nearby, complete with a unlimited drinks buffet for an hour. That was good, although i was so full by the time we left. We polished off quite a few glasses of beer, wine & sake with our pizza & pasta. So we went back to wait for the countdown to happen, but I was merely just being pushed around by a quickly swelling crowd. I've never seen so many gaijins in Tokyo until that night. Every tourist is out and about, and the crisp winter air is thick with anticipation. I was stuck in the human jam for the longest time and I was merely trying to stay alive in the madness. Finally, some people pulled the tabs off their beer cans & cheered Happy New Year! I checked for the time and it was already 12:05am. THERE WAS NO COUNTDOWN. ZILCH. What a waste of our efforts!

On the bright side however, the atmosphere was electrifying even without any celebratory events. The crowd just went crazy and everyone was screaming Happy New Year at random strangers. Some people decided to take off their clothes in the freezing cold and dance around with their friends. It was just good to stand by the side to watch the entire spectacle. I moved on to a bar with A soon after. It was another good random night, even though he left me alone for about half the time. I was chatting with random people in the narrow bar and I found myself dancing with random people. It was really nice because everyone was just friendly and high. Not long after, this American boy spoke to me in japanese and I had to explain once more that I'm not japanese. The gist of his opening speech was you're a great dancer... blah blah blah. Haha, not very original but I gave him my number anyway. (I know he wouldn't contact me, because when A came back for me, American-boy-who-works-as-a-model had his arms around another girl.) His friend said the same thing to me again when American boy ditched him to give full attention to the aforementioned girl. Haha. Overall, it was a good night. Bless Tokyo for night trains on New Year's Day. I left the bar at 2.30pm and I got home at 4+am.

New Year's Day was really nice too. Everyone was tired from the NYE activities, so we mostly stayed in. My mates from the guesthouse suggested we go for a dinner that night, so we set off for Kichijoji. We were all starving and thus we settled for Yakiniku for dinner. I haven't laughed so much in ages, it was a really really good evening spent with good company. Pei (my SMU schoolmate who crashed at my place for more than a week here) joined us too and it was just really cosy, sitting around the grill eating barbecued meat, drinking beer and talking in a mixture of Japanese and English. I felt really at home. Well a lot of the laughter was due to my japanese- i had brought along Pei's Lonely Planet phrase book and I tried the pickup lines on my Japanese friends. They were utterly tickled by it. I also found out that I really enjoy screaming SUMIMASEN to get the server's attention. I also managed to order beer AND also requested for less foam/head successfully. It was textbook I must say. A pat on the back, thank you very much.

Thankfully, boy issues seem to be sorted for now. My fingers are crossed for 2011. All the best to you too.