The Chrysanthemum Journal, Week 40
Well hello again, everybody.
Technically, since this is Sunday, I guess I'm a bit late on this one. But not much has been happening lately, so I kinda needed that extra time to let some extra activities crop up. Certainly hope you don't mind, but, hey, this is my journal, and I'll run it the way I want to.
Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has sent me some kind of birthday thingamajig, be it an e-mail, present, first-born child, what have you.
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Last weekend, I managed to get an Indian man upset with me after I kind of insulted his cooking. At the usual bar I go to on Saturdays, I'm accustomed to getting some really tasty kebabs, but I mentioned that it would be nice if they were spicier. This made the cook raise a few eyebrows, so he made one with quite a bit more spicy sauce than is the norm.
Unfortunately, this one, too, was not really up to snuff, and I made that known. So, the owner of the bar went behind the counter to talk with the cook, and after whispering for awhile (which I didn't see a need for, as they were whispering in Hindi), they seemed to have formulated a game plan. Apparently, the plan was to marinate the beef in special sauce from some secret blend with additional powder added in, and then topped with extra powder and more sauce.
In the end, it required something like 20 minutes to prepare. However, the end result was certainly appetizing. One person actually had to move away from me in order to get away from the smell, which was spicy enough to set his sinuses ablaze. And sure enough, it was num-num tasty. Spicy enough to kick my tongue where it counts, but meaty enough to leave a filling feeling. I was a bit surprised when the spice flared up again a few minutes later, but fortunately I could handle it. Still, I had to give my thumbs-up to the chef.
Form that point on, the Chado-kebab was born. To date no one has been able to handle it except for me, but if any of you'd like to give it a shot, you're welcome to try.
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One thing that kind of caught me by surprise is when I got a call from one of the sub teachers about someone who had just arrived in Japan. I was given a kind of rushed explanation that basically involved a place and time to be but no other real details except for a name.
So I arrived at the appointed location at the appointed time and met the appointed person, but unfortunately this was not the person who had just arrived in Japan. Apparently the two of us were supposed to meet the girl, but we really had no idea when she would be arriving because she still had to wait for her luggage to arrive.
Luckily, the two of us didn't have to wait very long, and in the meanwhile we chatted about our favorite PC and console games. When she finally came, we scootedoff to help her buy some necessities for her apartment. basically, this involved buying food for the next few days. The funny thing was that, despite the supermarket being right down the main street, we managed to get just lost enough that we had a mini-adventure that involved quite a large amount of twists, turns, and dead-ends. If we had been trying to invade the city, I'm sure we would have failed rather quickly.
Afterwards, we zipped down to the heart of Kyoto to enjoy ourselves by first invading the school where the new teacher would be working and getting a small tour. It was amazing to see a school that took up an entire building. Much bigger than our 7-room suite, to say the least. Of course, they also have something like 5 teachers working there. Then it was off for a bit of gnosh at MOS Burger, where we had fun playing around with the placemats and answering the quiz challenges.
Of course, no first visit to Kyoto should go without a visit to something cultural, and so we proceeded to Yasaka shrine for a nice walk and an evening view of the city before finally returning to our respective homes.
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Our new manager arrived on Saturday, a day after she was originally supposed to. The computer at her previous school had busted up a bit and she'd been forced to stay an extra day.
I have to say I am absolutely ecstatic that our new manager seems to be almost exactly like the old one. She doesn't have the exact same sarcastic sense of humor, but she went to the same university, was part of the same training group, likes the same kind of music, etc. She also has some differences, such as being a big fan of karaoke. Seems like this is going to be fun.
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So, my birthday was on Thursday, as many of you already know. Unfortunately, it was not to be celebrated with drunken revelries and the like. Instead, I was fated to spend my special day of the year in Osaka, doing some training for the Big Jump program.
Of course, as I've stated before, I really do like to go to training, so this wasn't really a bad day for me. Got to hang out with other teachers in the area, have a break from the routine of teaching every day... Plus we got to finally give our presentations, so that was a nice big weight off of my back. I do so enjoy the theory of Multiple Intelligences, though, so I certainly won't be giving up on the research completely. But there is an old rule that when you're supposed to do a project for work or school, it tends to drain some of the fun out of it.
Anyway, one really nice birthday surprise was that I was made aware that I'd received a promotion for my work up to this point. Basically, this means I will be getting an extra 10,000 yen per month. That's about a 4% raise. It's not exactly a reason to break out the bubbly, but considering I already make enough to pay all my bills and keep quite a fair amount set aside, I think this is great.
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As far as my personal life goes, there really isn't much to tell. I've been rather busy due to this month being the big semi-annual book sale we have (I've managed to make it as the top native teacher in the region thus far, but apparently it's a pittance compared to the Japanese teachers!) In addition, we're doing a lot of counseling with the students, so this requires a lot of extra time for preparation and such.
I guess the only thing is that I've been getting back into watching Justice League again. I never had much of a chance to watch it while in college, so it's great to catch up on all of my favorite heroes. Of course, Batman could never possibly be topped. Here are some quotes to prove it:
"Next time I let Superman take charge, hit me. Real hard." - Batman
"The closer I am to someone, the stronger I get. I can go inside your brain even if you're wide awake." - Doctor Destiny
"My brain's not a very nice place to be." - Batman
"You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues." - Batman to Wonder Woman
And last, from Static Shock: "Wow...Batman playing /good/ cop..." (referring to the future and present Batman interrogating a thug)
The only thing I've wondered about is..why's Batman almost never involved in space missions? Even Flash has been to places like Oa! C_C
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So that's it for now. See you next week, and though it's the same Bat-channel, I'll try to make it a different Bat-time.
Technically, since this is Sunday, I guess I'm a bit late on this one. But not much has been happening lately, so I kinda needed that extra time to let some extra activities crop up. Certainly hope you don't mind, but, hey, this is my journal, and I'll run it the way I want to.
Also, I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has sent me some kind of birthday thingamajig, be it an e-mail, present, first-born child, what have you.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Last weekend, I managed to get an Indian man upset with me after I kind of insulted his cooking. At the usual bar I go to on Saturdays, I'm accustomed to getting some really tasty kebabs, but I mentioned that it would be nice if they were spicier. This made the cook raise a few eyebrows, so he made one with quite a bit more spicy sauce than is the norm.
Unfortunately, this one, too, was not really up to snuff, and I made that known. So, the owner of the bar went behind the counter to talk with the cook, and after whispering for awhile (which I didn't see a need for, as they were whispering in Hindi), they seemed to have formulated a game plan. Apparently, the plan was to marinate the beef in special sauce from some secret blend with additional powder added in, and then topped with extra powder and more sauce.
In the end, it required something like 20 minutes to prepare. However, the end result was certainly appetizing. One person actually had to move away from me in order to get away from the smell, which was spicy enough to set his sinuses ablaze. And sure enough, it was num-num tasty. Spicy enough to kick my tongue where it counts, but meaty enough to leave a filling feeling. I was a bit surprised when the spice flared up again a few minutes later, but fortunately I could handle it. Still, I had to give my thumbs-up to the chef.
Form that point on, the Chado-kebab was born. To date no one has been able to handle it except for me, but if any of you'd like to give it a shot, you're welcome to try.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
One thing that kind of caught me by surprise is when I got a call from one of the sub teachers about someone who had just arrived in Japan. I was given a kind of rushed explanation that basically involved a place and time to be but no other real details except for a name.
So I arrived at the appointed location at the appointed time and met the appointed person, but unfortunately this was not the person who had just arrived in Japan. Apparently the two of us were supposed to meet the girl, but we really had no idea when she would be arriving because she still had to wait for her luggage to arrive.
Luckily, the two of us didn't have to wait very long, and in the meanwhile we chatted about our favorite PC and console games. When she finally came, we scootedoff to help her buy some necessities for her apartment. basically, this involved buying food for the next few days. The funny thing was that, despite the supermarket being right down the main street, we managed to get just lost enough that we had a mini-adventure that involved quite a large amount of twists, turns, and dead-ends. If we had been trying to invade the city, I'm sure we would have failed rather quickly.
Afterwards, we zipped down to the heart of Kyoto to enjoy ourselves by first invading the school where the new teacher would be working and getting a small tour. It was amazing to see a school that took up an entire building. Much bigger than our 7-room suite, to say the least. Of course, they also have something like 5 teachers working there. Then it was off for a bit of gnosh at MOS Burger, where we had fun playing around with the placemats and answering the quiz challenges.
Of course, no first visit to Kyoto should go without a visit to something cultural, and so we proceeded to Yasaka shrine for a nice walk and an evening view of the city before finally returning to our respective homes.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Our new manager arrived on Saturday, a day after she was originally supposed to. The computer at her previous school had busted up a bit and she'd been forced to stay an extra day.
I have to say I am absolutely ecstatic that our new manager seems to be almost exactly like the old one. She doesn't have the exact same sarcastic sense of humor, but she went to the same university, was part of the same training group, likes the same kind of music, etc. She also has some differences, such as being a big fan of karaoke. Seems like this is going to be fun.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
So, my birthday was on Thursday, as many of you already know. Unfortunately, it was not to be celebrated with drunken revelries and the like. Instead, I was fated to spend my special day of the year in Osaka, doing some training for the Big Jump program.
Of course, as I've stated before, I really do like to go to training, so this wasn't really a bad day for me. Got to hang out with other teachers in the area, have a break from the routine of teaching every day... Plus we got to finally give our presentations, so that was a nice big weight off of my back. I do so enjoy the theory of Multiple Intelligences, though, so I certainly won't be giving up on the research completely. But there is an old rule that when you're supposed to do a project for work or school, it tends to drain some of the fun out of it.
Anyway, one really nice birthday surprise was that I was made aware that I'd received a promotion for my work up to this point. Basically, this means I will be getting an extra 10,000 yen per month. That's about a 4% raise. It's not exactly a reason to break out the bubbly, but considering I already make enough to pay all my bills and keep quite a fair amount set aside, I think this is great.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
As far as my personal life goes, there really isn't much to tell. I've been rather busy due to this month being the big semi-annual book sale we have (I've managed to make it as the top native teacher in the region thus far, but apparently it's a pittance compared to the Japanese teachers!) In addition, we're doing a lot of counseling with the students, so this requires a lot of extra time for preparation and such.
I guess the only thing is that I've been getting back into watching Justice League again. I never had much of a chance to watch it while in college, so it's great to catch up on all of my favorite heroes. Of course, Batman could never possibly be topped. Here are some quotes to prove it:
"Next time I let Superman take charge, hit me. Real hard." - Batman
"The closer I am to someone, the stronger I get. I can go inside your brain even if you're wide awake." - Doctor Destiny
"My brain's not a very nice place to be." - Batman
"You're a princess from a society of immortal warriors. I'm a rich kid with issues. Lots of issues." - Batman to Wonder Woman
And last, from Static Shock: "Wow...Batman playing /good/ cop..." (referring to the future and present Batman interrogating a thug)
The only thing I've wondered about is..why's Batman almost never involved in space missions? Even Flash has been to places like Oa! C_C
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So that's it for now. See you next week, and though it's the same Bat-channel, I'll try to make it a different Bat-time.