Journalists - the scourge of the Earth?

Lindsay is now all over the TV all the time, along with Lucy Blackman and the press are behaving like total utter total complete utter *******. According to Eleanor, a reporter from The Times (who should know better) went skulking around the bars where Lindsay and her friends used to go - offering people blank cheques in exchange for gossip. Lindsay's flatmates have been moved into another apartment but it seems they have decided to go home. One of them may come back later. I am now thinking about doing the same. Except not coming back. I think I have had enough and all this business has just about sent me over the edge. I don't know what is worse; 15 seconds or constant news coverage.

Oh and I had a dream that Pastor Barry was killed too, and we had to go back to the drawing board and I was forced to re-join the Pastor Idol contest....
Either I need a holiday or I need some serious psychiatric help...

Rest in Peace

A NOVA teacher was murdered on Sunday. She was 22. Her name was Lindsay and she worked in Koiwa which is just up the street from where I live. I did not know her personally but my colleague, Eleanor, used to live with her. No one knew she was missing until last night and they found her on the balcony in a bath tub. The prime suspect is a man who was a private student she taught. They caught him today. Lindsay merited exactly 15 seconds on the news at prime time between a story about a frog and the sports news.

Sometimes I really really really hate this country.

I actually laughed so hard today that I cried. That hasn't happened in so long, I can't remember... So of course, I have to share.
The powers that be, decided to organise a series of fixed events in VOICE rooms across the country as a way of attracting more visitors to the schools. These events were to be aimed at very low level students and would introduce language for travelling.
Obviously when the staff thrust papers under my nose while I am in the middle of something else, I have the unfortunate tendency to either, completely ignore them or to sign them, say "Yes, whatever you want is ok." and ignore them. In this case, that happened to be a bit of a mistake as it meant that I had not realised that one of those events was today. On the upside, I was doing overtime which meant I was on hand to prevent it being a disaster. I quickly nominated Frank who is the VOICE coordinator to do the one on shopping and said I would do the UK one next time as it was difficult to rearrange the schedule due to Gio not being KIDS trained and Eleanor despising kids even more than I do. So we got the lesson management plan off the computer ran through it and did the preparation and Frank was all set to go. Then Ken arrived. Ken is an extremely difficult very high level student who likes to come to VOICE and stick his nose in a Korean study book - don't ask. So Yoshimi, our manager came running in and said "Oh no what shall we do?!" and I said very firmly "Well, it's been advertised and we can't guarantee that no one else will come so Ken has a choice. He can either do the shopping VOICE, or he can come back later." All of had to really stifle a smirk, I must say, when word came back that Ken had elected to do the shopping VOICE. So then Frank started having a spack attack... oh no what do I do if Ken refuses to do it etc etc... now the thing is, Ken is actually known for doing exactly that but we all told Frank had to put his foot down.
So after the shopping VOICE, we asked Frank how it had gone and he said that predictably Ken had tried several times to get out of doing the games and Frank had made him do it. Now one of the games had featured anagrams of clothing on the whiteboard and Ken had done the activity in 2 minutes flat. Not known for being quick to think on his feet, Frank hadn't made it difficult for him, and when I asked him why he hadn't made it more difficult, Frank had said he didn't think of it and asked for some examples. Before I even thought about it, the word pantaloons had come out of my mouth, Eleanor started guffawing and said doublet and hose, I quickly followed with knickerbockers and before we knew it, the staff room had degenerated into raucous shouting and laughing as we all yelled out slightly dubious clothing words. Amongst the classics were, spandex, truss, brassiere, hosiery and diaper but what really made us all howl and brought tears to my eyes as I fell off my chair was when I heard the words incontinence pants come out of my mouth...
Probably you had to be there.

Also on the plus side, as a cheer up exercise, we all thought of rap names for ourselves

Gio = Vitamin G
David = Doctor Pegg (his family name) aka the Peggmeister aka the Peggmeister General
Eleanor = Aefro Chique
Frank = Frank the Fridge aka The Fridge aka Fridgeman
And me, B Tez B

Guess who the real rappers are!

But who is the Smo King....?

And if he's not at Oshiage Station, where can we find him...?

Send three and fourpence; we're going to a dance..

So I was trying to explain to Kouji, my private student today, why, when his homework was to think of five questions about a face ie What colour are her eyes? What shape is his face? etc, the question "How long are his fingers?" was a tad strange. Kouji decided to measure his fingers using a set square. Quite why he decided to use a set square and not a ruler, I have no idea, but when I got tired of watching him measure his fingers, I said "Alright Kouji, put the measuring stick away now." Quite why the words "measuring stick" came out of my mouth when it was clearly a set square, I have no idea, but I had to laugh when Kouji looked at me utterly bemused and asked "Stick wiener?" Send three and fourpence....

On the upside there has been some excitement at this end, I went to pay my rent this evening and the landlady had to give me a new rent book. It's green. Not just any green you understand but the most lurid shade of green I have ever seen. Imagine it, a lurid *green* rent book....

What the hell is wrong with my life?

Absolutely nothing. So why the hell is the general dissatisfaction I have been feeling since I was about 13 only growing? I always imagined that I would have it all figured out by now. Or at least reached a tired acceptance of what is to be. And if I were on the outside, looking in - I would think my life was totally cool. I live independently in the middle of what is hailed one of the most exciting cities in the world. I essentially get paid for sitting around and chatting, although there is *slightly* more to it than that. I am quite well-read, reasonably articulate, I can hold a conversation and write a letter in Japanese. I will never become a Diva of international status but I can more than adequately carry a tune - (provided you like classical arias) And I get to stand in for Kumiko when she is on holiday, which considering that when I joined the choir, if Kumiko was away on a Sunday when a soprano solo was required, we did a different piece - now I do it- is progress, especially if you know anything about Japanese culture. I've been to several other countries and have stood on the Great Wall of China. I will never win a beauty pageant but that's ok, having to look gorgeous all the time would be tiresome. I will probably never win the Pullitzer, although I think I am more than averagely eloquent, but that's also ok. I get to do 24 hour karaoke whenever I can be bothered and am blessed with a huge number of people who are crazy enough to want to be my friend. I have the best hair (!). I have everything I could possibly want. I even have religion, although at best I suppose my relationship with God could be described as tempestuous. So why the hell am I not HAPPY? Why can I not just look at my life and go "you are damn lucky"? What the hell is wrong with my life....?

Well it was pointed out to me the other day that it has been a while since I blogged anything. To be honest apart from the hamsters both running riot (mary-the-hamster has taken to escaping at odd hours of the night now, too)- there really is nothing to report. It's all the same old crap and frankly I can't be bothered writing about it every day. All the things that were bothering me before are still bothering me. They won't go away, it's all still in my face.
The only bit of light relief I have to offer is the episode of my first experience at the gym. I decided to actually join a gym with the intention of getting some exercise--- yes, yes, I know---when you've finished laughing you can continue reading if you want!
So anyway, I had a horrible cold all last week so I really wasn't up to going and last night I decided I simply had to go otherwise it was a total waste of money. I wanted to go swimming... yes well, that was the beginning of the disaster.
First off I forgot my towel, I was under the (false) impression that I could use the gym's towels so I'm sure we can all imagine where that led me. Second, I couldn't find my way around as the place is like a rabbit warren, although to be fair, the staff are incredibly kind and helpful when you find one- they've all been primed and speak very slowly and don't use difficult words for me which is nice cause I can't take my dictionary down to the pool! The real problem is the locker room. I was imagining that it would have the choice of cubicles or communality like my local swimming pool at home. Oh how wrong I was, no choice at all. Well, no, you do have a choice, get changed in the communal area or don't go...It was horrible, and the thing is that Japanese people don't speak to people they don't know so the whole place is absolutely silent. So Japanese people won't talk to each other but they are happy to parade about starkers as if they were fully clothed, absolutely no inhibitions whatsoever. And here's the thing right, when you can't communicate with people, you learn by watching other people which is a bit hard when they are all in various states of undress since you'll probably get yourself kicked out for watching too closely!! And it's kind of difficult to ask someone to help you when they are in the nip. It was highly embarrassing, oh and I forgot the shoe rule too.... Next time I am going to put my cozzie on under my clothes before I go. If I go back.....