As usual, this was another busy week, and I find myself with the energy to write only on Monday night.

Of course, there was nice news with last week officially ending the dark reign of George Bush. Work was extremely busy as it has been since last fall… and I officially told the HQ that I will not be renewing in July (or was that last week… either way). Oh yea that was the other week, because I went to Hello Work last week. Man I can’t believe January is almost over! This month flew by, and I know from now on it will only get busier: busier at work, busier looking for a job, busier looking for a place to live after I leave this apartment (it’s Aeon’s apartment after all), busy worrying about Hitomi’s surgery, et cetera.

Yesterday Echizen city had a tiny cultural festival. It was the equivalent of the thing that I went to last year when I made my presentation about Philadelphia, except this year I did an English discussion circle about Obama. Unfortunately, hardly anyone came. One woman who was very good at English stopped by and we chatted for a long time, which was nice, and some of the folks from the local English conversation club “Hello World” were there the whole time, as staff but also participating in the discussion.

The “festival” was tiny, but nice. Near me there was a tea ceremony group, and a few Chinese women doing a Learn Chinese thing with this really annoying yet catchy CD that shouted out Chinese phrases to rhythm and music. I’d say 90% of the people at the festival were part of Echizen’s Brazilian community and basically stuck to the Brazilian party (basically bible dance class) and basic Portuguese language lessons (good morning and thank you). Some of the ALT’s came as well, and it was nice to see them outside of Facebook and have a short chat. Unfortunately they got roped into doing some ad hoc volunteer work when they just came to see the event, but they were good sports about it. Some parts of the festival were really disorganized, unfortunately.

Two people who I always see at every cultural event came to my booth too. One of them is an Iranian woman who I see at every Echizen International Association event. She was interested in what we were talking about and we chatted in Japanese for a while, though some of the other folks there seemed not to be happy that she was only asking questions in Japanese — but what did they want? She can’t speak English. Eventually it was awkward though. She was outwardly friendly enough but whenever I answered her questions she gave no reaction whatsoever. Where most people would say, “Oh I see,” or, “Okay,” or, “Huh…” she simply stared directly into my eyes with a burning intensity. A burning intensity that I can only guess was some sort of private declaration of war against me and America. It would’ve been nice to talk to her more but the staring was just so intense, and everyone was throwing me questions out of turn and in different languages that things got confusing.

The other familiar face was not quite as pleasant as a hate-filled Iranian death gaze. It was an absolutely insane Japanese man who I instantly recognized from last year’s event, he having had a lengthy 1-sided conversation with me that I couldn’t understand one bit of at my Philadelphia booth. I was busy explaining English pronuciation to the Chinese ladies who were genuinely interested when one of the organizers ushered me over to this man and told me he wanted to debate about Obama. I was having fun talking to the Chinese women because they were really friendly and genuinely interested in talking, but I figured I’d better go as I was really there to talk about Obama. The ridiculous part is that the insane man once again couldn’t speak a word of English, nor could he use simple enough Japanese for me to be interested in what he was actually saying; so while I, with native pronunciation, could actually be helping the Chinese ladies with their pronunciation, and the two Japanese volunteers could have understood and handled this insane jerk better than I could have, we ended up reversed. The crazy man had no interest in debating whatsoever; he wanted to argue — not even about Obama specifically; just about politics in general. He demanded that I tell him what Obama will change and what he won’t change, and then he told me I was wrong and that politicians all lie, and I said I hoped Obama wasn’t lying, and he said I was wrong again and that change can be bad or good, and I said he was right and I hoped Obama would change the country for the better, and he told me I was wrong and that politicians and lawyers are word magicians. And he asked me why Obama will torture Cubans, and I told him that Obama ordered the Guantanamo Bay prison to close, and he told me I was wrong and demanded I tell him what Obama will change and what he won’t change… and this cycle went on for about 45 minutes until I decided my volunteering committment was over, and I got up and walked away. He continued to argue with a piece of paper for a while.

Later on he found me in the kitchen and started to ask me about all the ALT’s there; if they were getting money from the government, if they knew this or that, and if they had children and families.

Why me??? And why does it seem like all of the crazies want to learn English???

Anyway… today I spent the whole day in Fukui city shopping for a big thing, and then later on Hitomi’s friend from Osaka came to visit and we had sushi and I came home on the late train… and I just got home and started to clean and do laundry. Probably I’ll be exhausted tomorrow when I start my work week, which is great because this week is going to be busier than last week (as usual).

Okay, but one cool thing about this week was that Lost started again. And I really, really liked the first 2 episodes; and it totally confirmed that I was exactly dead-on right with my theory about the island’s time/space traveling that I had at the beginning of Season 4. Yes!!

Ahh, I really want to redesign my blog. I had been working really hard on a re-design since December, but in early January I scrapped it all because I didn’t like the way it turned out. So now I’m turning ideas around in my head again. I hope I can get a good plan formulated and executed before I finish at Aeon.

Bom Dia!