Sensei! Sensei!

On Tuesdays last semester I had a rather weird student who came to all my classes instead of just the one he was enrolled in. On Tuesdays this semester I have a NEW weird student. Is a trend emerging? Will I always have a weird student on Tuesdays from now on?

The new student is weird in a different, and rather more irritating way. He does not worry me quite so much as my last semester student, but he has his own little quirk, and is potentially far more annoying. His quirk manifested itself in the first class.

I was explaining the rules of the course to the students. These rules are also written in the handout I had just given them, and I was writing the very important bits on the board as well, and telling them to read the handout. I have found that quite frequently my students do not read handouts. This does not bother me until towards the end of semester when I am explaining to a student why they are failing, and point to the relevant parts of the handout.

"What's that?" they ask, and I explain that it is the handout that I gave them at the beginning of semester, which is written in both English and Japanese.

"I don't have it!" they say, and I point to where it is stuck in the front of their notebook, where I had told them to put it on the first day. They stare at it blankly.

"But I didn't read it!" they say, and seem to think I should pass them because HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY KNOW that being absent for a majority of classes and not doing any homework would cause them to fail the course? They hadn't read the handout! It's not their fault!

Convincing them that ignorance is no excuse can be time-consuming, so I try to avoid it. This is why I make a big production of the handout on the first day.

This new weird student, however, whenever I opened my mouth to speak, started speaking as well, raising his hand slightly and looking confused. This is what he said:

"Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai. Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai."

Wakaranai means, in case you didn't know, I do not understand.

He did not say it very loudly, but he continued to say it every time I said anything AT ALL, even when I pointed to the Japanese on the handout. He responded to my helpfulness by staring at me pathetically and saying:

"Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai. Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai."

Somewhat baffled, I smiled at him sweetly and carried on around the class. After a while he stopped Sensei! Wakaranai-ing and stared at the handout instead of at me. Then he was quiet for a while. Perhaps he had noticed it was in Japanese.

The next week he was pretty much the same. I give very simple instructions in low-level classes, and supplement my instructions by writing the gist on the board as well. Even if students cannot understand what I say, they understand what I write on the board, and they understand my gestures. In fact students who do not understand a word of English are surprised to discover that they do, in fact, understand my instructions. I have become very good at giving instructions that require no English at all, but which make my students think WELL FOR GOODNESS SAKE I JUST UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING IN ENGLISH! It makes them feel clever, and that is a good thing.

My weird student, however, the moment I opened my mouth and before I had completed a five-word sentence, raised his hand and started with his little chant.

"Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai. Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai."

His chant is not a very loud one, but it is irritating. However, instead of ripping off the arm he had raised and beating him around the head with the soggy end, which is what I felt inclined to do, I did what any sensible teacher would do. I smiled at him encouragingly.

"Don't worry," I said, soothingly, and thereafter ignored him. Eventually he stopped, and along with everybody else copied what I had written on the board. This is what I had just instructed them to do, and which he had wakaranai-ed.

Then he stared at what he had written, and his hand went up again.

"Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, Sensei! Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai. Sensei! Wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai, wakaranai." he said.

I pretended not to notice. I answered another student's question, set them to work, and eventually he settled down and did the work, too, with no more difficulty than any of the others as far as I could see. He behaved himself, more or less, for the rest of the class, with only a couple more fairly quiet outbursts, which I ignored.

This week was the third time this class has met, and I am happy to find that my policy of ignoring his pleas is working. He is actually starting to use some English. Today, when I issued some new instructions and then wrote them on the board, he raised his hand and said,

"Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult! Sensei! Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult! Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult!"

I smiled understandingly at him. Then I carried on around the class, making sure the other students understood what they were supposed to do. They did, and got on with the work. So did he. I continued to perambulate around the classroom, helping out where needed. Every time I passed him he raised his hand and said,

"Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult! Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult! Sensei! Sensei! Difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult!"

"Yes, and you're doing VERY WELL," I replied, and carried on.

This happened several times.

What a fabulous teacher I am. I now have a student who can be weird and annoying in two languages instead of only one!

The GOOD news is that the rest of his class of science majors, my only very low-level English class at that university this semester (not because they are science majors but because I happened to end up with the low-level English end of that bunch), have decided collectively that they will cooperate with me and speak English all the time – but in silly voices. It started with two or three of the more extroverted students, but has spread to almost the entire class, so that it sounds at times as though I've had them all sucking on helium balloons. This makes me very happy because it means they might actually learn something.

So although the sounds that emerge from my classroom in the third period are utterly, utterly bizarre, I am pretending that it is perfectly normal to speak English in a silly voice and interrupt every five minutes with,

"Sensei! Sensei! Difficult, difficult difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult, difficult!"

Today, amazingly, the whole class used only English for the entire ninety minutes of class, something none of my supposedly higher-level classes ever manage. I was solemnly professional. They were overcome with hilarity most of the time, making wonderful and ridiculous progress in horribly mangled English.

I am hoping that this trend continues, because if it does there is a chance that some of their English will become unmangled. When I can hear what problems they are having, I can do something about preparing lessons that address those problems.

In that class, at least, it looks like it will be an interesting semester.

Happy card

Today in one of my classes the students, who were supposed to be writing answers to a list of questions, were discussing my weight.

"I wonder if we can ask her how much she weighs?" said one.

"I don't think so," said another. "She might get angry."

"But she's funny when she gets angry," said the first student. "She only pretends."

I pretended not to understand. It requires less energy than pretending to be angry, and anyway, in that class I am maintaining the fiction that I cannot understand anything they say in Japanese. Besides having perfectly good pedagogical reasons for doing so, it's more fun that way. Also, today I was feeling particularly cheerful.

I like listening to the students. I guess they'd heard about the recent survey about height and weight in Japan, and were wondering where I fit in. (The height figure made me realize why I feel tall here, and what a freak The Man is.)

But I didn't worry about my students' lack of application to their study of English. I've stopped worrying about it, especially at that place. That particular class is in the 'Human Nutrition' department (and no, there is no 'Alien Nutrition' department, I am sorry to say), in which many of the students want to become school nurses. They will probably never use English in their lives after they finish my class. I help the ones who want to learn, and with the others maintain the polite fiction that we are seriously working on the acquisition of English, while having as much fun as possible.

The ones who want to become nail artists instead of school nurses will likely never use English again, either, which leads me to a little digression. What is Japan going to do with all the university educated nail artists it will suddenly have a few years from now? If my students are anything to go by, there is going to be an awful lot of them. What is a nail artist, anyway? Perhaps, eventually, Japan could send a rocket containing nail artists off into space, to look for another habitable planet where there is a dearth of nail artists. (I am channelling Douglas Adams, in case you hadn't noticed. Badly.)

But the main reason I didn't worry about my students' complete lack of interest in what I was supposedly teaching (and their corresponding interest in my weight) was the interview I had listened to on my way to work. I have been catching up with the August podcasts from the Saturday Morning with Kim Hill show, on Radio New Zealand, and I'd just listened to an interview with Alexander Waugh. (Sadly, this has now dropped off the bottom of the list on the site. It was a good interview.) Near the end Alexander said, explaining his father's habit of communicating in jokes:

"Seriousness is a form of deep stupidity."

He then added:

"I think the whole modern world is in grave danger of taking itself too seriously and taking everything in the world too seriously, and thereby not understanding it at all."

I was cheerful today because I had just found out what my life is all about. I realized that at an early age I dedicated myself to being a very, very intelligent person who understands the world, and I have never swerved from this path.

It is a wonderful thought. I had always thought I was rather pathetically unambitious, but it turns out that I have been a goal-oriented person ALL MY LIFE.

When I went back to the teachers' room after class I discovered that the students at the front had not just been plundering my pencilcase in order to borrow things, as they usually do. One of them had also left a note:


I have chosen the perfect career to help me to achieve my life's goal. My job is helping me to understand the world better and better every day.

A tiny wee man with a feather

Pharyngula directed me to an article called The Top 5 Nasty Creatures Getting Stronger Due To Climate Change, and has scared me horribly. Yesterday and today I had a horrible itch inside my nose, which made me want to stick my finger up there and SCRATCH. This is not something I can do while I'm working. Teaching with your finger up your nose is generally frowned upon. Even between classes it is awkward. In the teachers' room, if I dig around inside my nostrils to get at that tiny wee man who is tickling the inside of my left nostril with a tiny wee feather, nobody will believe my story about the tiny wee man. They'll just think I'm being gross and unladylike.

But if you read the first item on that list, you'll know why I have been worried.

However, there is good news. I have just noticed that according to one of the commenters on Pharyngula, the amoeba lives in warm FRESH water. I was swimming in warm SALT water in Malaysia, so it's more likely that I'd get the LAST one on the list, not the first. And as far as I can see that one doesn't do the nostril thing.

Which means, I suppose, that the tiny wee man hypothesis is more likely correct.

The hazards of using translation software

While I was collecting homework today, which had been done over the vacation for myself and for the Japanese professor who has my students every other week, I came across this sentence:

It was not clear and lived in every day whether I want to become thing and what which I wanted to do without can have what dream.

I think I must have been here too long. I actually understood what this meant. I know how computer translation software works – not because I use it, but because so many of my students do, thinking I will not notice.

I do notice. Most of my students, however low their level, write better than computer translation software can. At the very least they garble shorter, simpler sentences.

I wonder now whether the Japanese professor realizes that all (yes, ALL – I checked) the homework she has been given has been translated by computer? I looked through what the students handed in before passing it on, and it was perfectly obvious to me that the students had simply copied and pasted from translation software. As I passed it on I also assumed that their professor knows that and has decided to ignore it.

But just now, as I was typing that horrible sentence, it occurred to me that the professor might NOT know. One of these homework assignments was written on the back of an old homework assignment, similarly written by computer and similarly garbled, and the professor (who has a PhD in linguistics) had given it quite a high grade and had written the comment,

Very good effort!

When I saw it I thought, Ha! An ironic comment! How funny!

But just now I thought of the professor, who has never shown any inclination or talent for irony, and started to have serious doubts.

COULD SHE REALLY HAVE NOT NOTICED? I thought. And yes, I thought it in capital letters.

And now I am thinking (in smaller, chastened letters),

In fact it is entirely possible, even probable, that she has not noticed.

This puts me in a very difficult situation, as this professor is my boss and has a PhD, whereas I only have a lowly M. App. Ling. These things matter in Japan.

Should I tell her?

One day I will get a better camera

This picture illustrates perfectly why I want a proper camera one day. Imagine how good it would have been if I'd been able to focus on those amazing eyes! But my camera, with its stupid autofocus, simply refused to do that. No matter what I tried it focused on the wings instead.

The shirt

Another first day back at work today.

A couple of years ago I came across an article about teacher evaluations. I bookmarked it at the time, but just now tried and the link did not load for me. (You can try it for yourself, here.) However, I was able to see the cached version (thank goodness for Google) and find the phrase that impressed me so much when I first read it:

students arrive at opinions about teachers within seconds of being exposed to these teachers.

Armed with this information, last semester I decided that on the first days of all my classes I would wear bright colours and bounce into class being insanely cheerful, to see what would happen. I did not change my actual teaching. Of course my teaching always changes, but I made no substantial changes, just the usual adjustments I make in response to what each particular class needs. I wanted to see if my effort at changing the first impression would change the way the students responded to me and to language learning.

I am fairly sure that it did. Of course the students probably thought I was mentally unbalanced, but that didn't seem to matter. Or maybe it did matter. Maybe that was the point, but whatever the reason, the students seemed to enjoy classes more and participate more freely. I suspect that since for most people speaking a foreign language badly is an exercise in embarrassment, having a teacher who embarrasses herself so freely and apparently unconcernedly makes it easier for them to let down their own hair.

And I am convinced that the bright colours are at least partly responsible. My students paid more attention (perhaps because they couldn't avoid it) and were more cheerful.

I did not have even one negative comment on my evaluations last semester. There is always one, at least, but last semester there weren't any. Even my elective class of third year students, which I had hoped would shrink this semester (I have never given so many well-deserved Cs to a single class before) wrote nice things about my classes AFTER I told them their grades. Annoyingly, most of them have come back for another dose of my demented cheerfulness, too, I discovered on Friday. I'd been hoping for the 'no more than sixteen students, more often less than twelve' classes that all the other teachers who'd previously taught this course had assured me I'd get. "It's fun!" they told me. "You can actually teach because you only get motivated students who are quite good at English! And the classes are small!" Last semester I stupidly based my syllabus planning on this information, and was horrified to discover I had thirty-five students who could barely string two coherent words together but were determined to have a party. I suspect there must have been some kind of scheduling glitch.

Most of the students for the second semester course, which started Friday, turned out to be the same masochists back for another helping. I'd expected a new lot, since I know none of them need more language credits. (It's an EXTRA language class. They have to have done all the required ones to even enroll in it.) I overheard a couple of them talking about their grades on Friday as they were (supposedly) doing a written task I'd given them. (It totally eludes me how they can possibly think they are studying English when they are writing in English AT THE SAME TIME as they are chatting in Japanese. Why are they so surprised when I tell them that what they wrote makes no sense?)

"I only just scraped through," said one. "Giri-giri! Only 62%! I've never had such a low grade!"

"Me, too," said the other. "Except I only got 61."

"Dangerous, eh? Maybe we should have chosen a different class this semester."

"Yeah."

(Pause for thought.)

"Nah."

"Nah."

They went back to mangling the English language.

Bollocks! I thought as I moved on. The grade thing didn't work! Maybe I should try wearing only black and never, ever smiling.

But I don't want to do that. The colourful demented thing is SO much more fun.

On Friday I was wearing a particularly bright and almost garish shirt I bought while I was in Malaysia. It is an interesting shirt. It looks like a respectable, nicely designed shirt, perfectly suitable for work, but at the same time it causes people to put on their sunglasses spontaneously without quite realizing why. The colours themselves are innocuous – purplish-blue and a sort of crimson red, and not particularly bright in isolation – but something about those particular shades in combination makes your eyeballs vibrate gently. I think that shirt leaves a psychedelic trail behind me when I walk.

When I first spotted the shirt in a store in Kuala Lumpur it struck me as a perfect first-day shirt, and I am pleased with the effect it has had so far. I wore it again today and my (new) students were, apparently, hypnotized into loosening up and getting playful with English while at the same time being perfectly obedient. Every time I spoke they shut up and paid attention to me, even the notoriously uncooperative I-can't-do-languages science majors. Some of them went a little cross-eyed, but at least they were paying careful attention. It's magic!

I'll be wearing it again tomorrow, and after that I'll send it off to the dry-cleaners. My new shirt is hand-washable, but it is hard to iron, and I'm afraid if I stare at it for as long as it takes to iron it properly I'll have a seizure.

Coloured food

Lia wanted to see photos of the violently coloured cakes and drinks I wrote about. Unfortunately I did not get pictures of those particular cakes, which were the most luridly coloured ones we saw on our trip. However, I did get a picture of some others which were not QUITE so bright. As Lynnylchan noted, the green ones are perfectly safe to eat (and delicious, I can attest), but she said she'd love to see blue ones.

Well, here they are:

Blue ones included!



Also, the pink drink is rose syrup? I would never have guessed, even after I tried it. It tasted pretty revolting, although The Man claimed to quite like it.

In this picture the pink doesn't look as revolting as it did in real life, but that is partly because it is beside my watermelon juice, which is also brightly coloured. The watermelon juice colour is, however, entirely natural.

Island life

Scary

Last time I was in Malaysia I noticed these scary mannequins, and posted a picture. I took some more pictures this time. In that second one, I think the guy on the right bit off the head of the one on the left, but that's all right. He was provoked when the one on the left bit off his arms.

Bird bath

Remember I mentioned the swallows dunking themselves in the swimming pool on Kapas Island? I tried to take pictures of them. Unfortunately I never quite managed to get one when it was hitting the water, but I got some just before and just after.

It looked like a lot of fun.

Other ways to spork

Today I gave my classes some questions to write answers to while I was filling in forms.* The questions were about what they did in the summer vacation. (Nobody had nearly as much fun as I did, in case you were wondering.)

One of the questions was,

Did you speak English during the summer vacation?

Nobody responded in the affirmative, but one of the students wrote,

No, I didn't. I only spork Japanese.

I was fascinated. I had previously thought it was only possible to spork foring. It seems I was wrong.




*Incidentally, between the email messages about the new forms and the actual new forms that appeared in our mailboxes, someone evidently had a DUH! moment and did some last minute revisions. We only had to write how many students we had, not how many students we did not have.

Muddled

What do you call that little plastic stick thingy like a cocktail stirrer that chain coffee shops give you to stir your coffee with, instead of a spoon? Because in Japan it's called a muddler, and if it's the same in English I need to update my vocabulary.

Ouch

Lynnylchan commented on a previous post about the potential danger of train doors closing between, say, a mother and toddler, leaving one or the other stranded on a platform. Is she psychic?

She was referring to Malaysian trains, but coincidentally something similar happened on an Osaka train yesterday. A woman was injured when the door closed on her toddler's stroller. The child wasn't hurt, but the woman was slightly injured.

It doesn't sound like much fun at all.

More stupid forms

I start back at work tomorrow, but something is wrong. I should have reached the 'needs chemical adjustment' level of panic by now, but I haven't. It must have been a good holiday, because I feel, instead, calm and . . . resigned.

Also, I have not prepared. This is not because I am a completely slack teacher (I'm only completely slack SOME of the time), but because I have finally realized there is no point in preparing a lot of materials I will not be able to use. Tomorrow I will be spending the entire first class sorting out administrative problems and doing the office people's work for them. This is always the case at this particular university. There is no point in even THINKING of starting to teach until the second or third week.

My plan is to get the students writing something, which I will collect to check later. During class I will be far too busy with paperwork to oversee anything more than that. When you get over thirty students turning up, which I do in most of my classes there, just getting them to write their names and student numbers without too many spelling mistakes takes up most of the class time, and I have also learned to send the form around again and get them to double-check their student numbers, because they so often get those wrong too. (The university does not give us the official registration forms until the first third of the semester has already finished, so we make our own.)

I have had three emails from the university already. The latest thing is that the office wants to know, after the first class, how many registered students did not turn up. They have created a special, complicated form for just this purpose, which we are required to fill in right after the first class meeting.

There are two problems with this, but if I point them out I will be told I am being a difficult gaijin part-timer who doesn't know anything, so I will not point them out. Except here.

The first problem is that, as I mentioned, the office does not give us the class registration lists until well into the semester, so we cannot actually tell them how many enrolled students did not turn up because we do not know how many were enrolled. (I have tried to find out enrollment numbers in previous years, for purposes of lesson planning, but have always been told the lists are 'not available yet.' When I plead for 'just an approximate number,' I am told that nobody knows the numbers yet. This is a mystery to me, because if I ask students when they registered for class it was so long ago they can't remember. This means it was AT LEAST a week previously, and it all goes onto computer. I can only guess that right after the information goes onto the computer it goes into a black hole to mature for a few weeks.)

The second problem is that class numbers in the first week are extremely unreliable. A lot of students miss the first class. There are always a few who go to the wrong class, and don't notice until the next week. And the ones who drop out usually drop out AFTER the first week, in any case.

The reason given for this new form is that the university is getting strict about the 'five student' rule. Previously, if there were fewer than five students enrolled in a class, that class was cancelled (and the teacher was not paid). Now they have apparently decided that they will take care of the problem of students who enroll but do not come to class, by making sure that all classes with fewer than five students ATTENDING are cancelled, rather than all classes with fewer than five students ENROLLED.

So the administration is creating a yet another useless form for the teachers to fill in, and destroying another forest in the process. We will not be able to fill in the column under 'number of students registered,' and I am guessing most teachers will fill in the column under 'number of students attending' by making up an approximate number equalling more than five.

I know I will.

In the meantime, I'd better get some sleep. I have a lot of form-filling to do tomorrow.

ID?

Can anybody identify this little bird? It flicked its tail, like a wagtail, and was quite friendly.



(Seen at Kapas Island.)

Added later:

I found it. It's a white-rumped shama. You cannot see the white rump in this picture, but in one of the others (which is not as good) it is clear.

I think this one must be still a baby, because they are supposed to be shy, and this one definitely wasn't. It sang beautifully, though.

Sun halo

After we went snorkelling at a little beach on Kapas island, we saw this enormous halo around the sun. I just looked it up, and found a lot of other pictures of the same sort of phenomenon.

It was weird, and beautiful. I wish I'd taken more pictures, and especially wish I'd taken one that included the whole perfect circle, but I didn't really expect them to turn out this good.

Beach volleyball, anyone?

(Picture taken at Kapas Island, Malaysia)

Naughty monkey

Do not feed the monkeys because the monkeys are perfectly capable of feeding themselves.



These (and the previous post's photo) were taken at Bako National Park.

Rude nose

This is a picture from our first week away, when we went to Bako National Park, in Sarawak. This was one of the first things we saw at the park. We assumed it was all going to be like that, but it turned out that our sighting was a lucky fluke. About five minutes after this sighting we came across people tiptoeing around and shushing each other because they had spotted a group of proboscis monkeys way off in the trees. I showed them the pictures I'd just taken, and their guide said he'd never seen such a big proboscis monkey close up like that, and got all excited. I felt a bit embarrassed to tell them we just sort of ran into him before we'd even got to the beginning of the trail, and had stood right under his tree and chatted while taking pictures. I guess that particular monkey hadn't read the guidebooks either.

Although we then walked for three and a half hours, much of it vertical (what WERE we thinking?), this guy and the distant group at the beginning were the only proboscis monkeys we saw.

But you know that old wives' tale about nose size? I think it must be wrong.

Thanks, Mum

Hanging in there

We're back. Exhausted, but hanging in there.

Gaps

It is our last full day in Malaysia today.

This morning The Man and I were rushing around making sure we had done all the shopping we intended to do, and wore ourselves out a bit (although I am pleased with some of the teaching materials I found). We decided to stop for a break and something light to eat, and since we were close, went to our favourite wantan mee hawker stall. After we'd been eating for a while The Man looked up and said,

"You don't really like me, eh?"

I stared at him. He grinned wryly.

"Pardon?" I asked.

"You didn't really write mail, eh?" he said.

I stared again. He wasn't making sense at all.

"WHAT?" I said, and leaned forward to listen.

"THIS ISN'T REALLY A LIGHT MEAL, EH?" he shouted.

I looked down at my bowl.

"NO, IT'S NOT," I answered. "BUT IT'S A GOOD ONE!"

Chinatown is a very noisy place.

------


In the afternoon we went to KLCC, which felt a bit like culture shock after Chinatown, where we're staying. It is a fabulous place, though.

When we were coming back on the train, at one station a young Chinese couple were running for the train as the doors started to close. They were holding hands. He jumped on the train, pulling her behind, but the doors closed on their clasped hands. To my great surprise, unlike in Japan (where the doors would then open and close again) the doors stayed closed. The couple pulled their hands out of the gap and stared at each other through the glass. Then they waved and shrugged. As the train pulled out of the station the guy pulled out his mobile phone.

The funny thing, though, was that when the doors didn't open several people around me moaned quietly, "Oh, no!" So did I. It just came out. It was like watching a mini-drama with a tragic ending. We were all involved.

He got off at the next stop, presumably to wait for her. If this were a novel she would never arrive and it would be a great mystery, only cleared up in the last chapter. But since this is real life and I don't know what happened next, you can make up your own ending.

Attack

Just a couple of days to go, now. We're back in KL. We've just come back from eating too much (as usual), and I think all the blood from my brain has had to move to my stomach. All I can think of to tell you is something that happened a couple of days ago that is still making me laugh.

What happened was this.

We were walking past a food stall where some guy was cleaning up using one of those hairy brooms (you know the ones, made of some sort of twigs or stiff grass or something). He was sweeping away methodically, and suddenly a ball of fur burst out from under the counter and attacked the broom ferociously. It was VERY SURPRISING. The guy did not seem very surprised, though. He just put a bit more push into his next sweep, and the ball of fur (which turned out to be a cat) got swept away just as suddenly as it had appeared. It skidded under the counter, and as we walked away I looked back and saw it was bunched up for another assault, bottom wriggling furiously.

For some reason we were in a hurry, so I didn't get to see the next attack. I could imagine it, though, and was still giggling a couple of blocks later. It was so surprising.

I'm sure I could think of more to tell you, but I am sitting right under the air conditioner, again. Sorry.

Penang again

I don't seem to be doing very well with the blog this trip. How long since the last time I updated? Oh, well. When I have the pictures to show you as well it will make more sense anyway. And I'll only tell you the interesting bits.

We had a few days on the east coast, three of them on an island and one in Kuala Terengganu. Actually that was where we intended to go from KL, but couldn't because of Merdeka, a few bus accidents and scandals, and the resulting fewer number of buses and greater numbers of travellers. All the buses were full, so we came to Penang first. After Merdaka we flew to Kuala Teranggenu by Firefly, a new little airline, and went from there to Kapas Island.

The island was lovely, as usual, and we snorkelled, and rested, and did not eat as much as usual, because the island food was, as usual, really sub-standard compared to food on the mainland. (I do not know why this is so, especially considering the mainland is just 15 minutes away by boat, but it seems to be a rule here. Perhaps it is just because if you are in paradise there has to be a snake, and in this case, the snake is the food.)

There were lots of monitor lizards (but not snakes) and I got some good pictures, I think. Monitor lizards never fail to amuse me, especially when they run. Their legs go all over the place. The island lizards did not run much, however. I think they have become complacent. It felt a bit Jurassic Park-ish when one went wandering down on the beach and peered out to sea, like it was planning the eventual takeover of the mainland.

I learned two interesting things while we were on the island. One is that swallows like a dip in a swimming pool as much as anybody. At the first place we stayed (because our favourite place was full) there was a little swimming pool, for kids. In the late afternoon The Man and I were sitting in the restaurant looking over the pool when some swallows started circling round, swooping low, doing a little plop! into the pool, and swooping up again. They did this over and over. At first I thought they were trying to catch insects near the water surface, but there were no insects, and they were definitely dunking themselves on purpose. That was really fun to watch. I tried to take pictures, but I am not sure whether they really worked.

The other thing I learned is that when you hear something crashing down the jungle behind your bungalow, if there is cursing it is a person, and if there is no cursing it is a monitor lizard. Monitor lizards are very unsubtle in the way they move around the jungle.

Kapas has the biggest bats I have ever seen, but I knew that already, from last year.

Back in Penang now we are staying in our usual (favourite, cheap) hotel, which has lovely big rooms, air conditioning and ceiling fan, and hot and cold running water (not always at the same time). We got back here yesterday, and are catching a bus tomorrow back to KL, where we have five (I think) more days before flying back to Japan. It all seems to have happened too fast, and I am not ready. I am especially not ready to give up the food, although I am ready to give up the traffic. I like most things about Malaysia, but there are three things I do not like so much. Traffic is one of them.

But I will tell you about the other two later. Right now I have to pick up my washing.

Penang

Five days since I posted anything? How slack of me. And again, this will just be a quick one.

We came to Penang from Taiping this afternoon. Since we got here, we've been eating, mostly, although we managed to bump into a book sale at some point which will cause a weight problem if we can't get some stuff sent back to Japan soon. (The food could cause a different kind of weight problem.)

(Penang food so far: Fried mee hoon, fish ball noodle soup, sui kou, fried rice, ais kacang. Drinks: soy milk, teh tarik, teh o limau, Chinese tea. We had breakfast in Taiping, so I'm not counting the roti canai.)

Taiping is full of swallows. I'd forgotten about that. We were only there for a day, but managed to visit the Lake Gardens again (and didn't get TOO wet when it inevitably rained), and The Man was provided with the perfect excuse not to go back up Bukit Larut when it turned out that after heavy rains the road had collapsed in some parts under landslides. If the rain was considered heavy even in Taiping, then it must have been impressive. Taiping has heavy rain every day. It is normal. Heavy rain is what Taiping does best.

But still, even though we didn't really have time to do much there, I'm glad we went back. We walked and walked, and the gardens were utterly gorgeous, and we saw a huge lizard thingy swimming in the lake. I think we may have discovered the Taiping Lake Gardens Monster. My photographs will probably make it look like that, anyway, as it was a bit far away. Actually our skills at identifying various bits of wildlife are so poor that when we saw it I declared confidently it was a nutria, then The Man declared confidently that it was a really huge snake because he saw the forked tongue, and it was quite a long time before we decided, rather less confidently, that it was some sort of er, um, lizard? We didn't know lizards were that good at swimming, and this thing never got up onto land the whole time we were watching it. We did see a smaller one, though, and when I tried to get close to photograph it, it jumped into the lake. When we saw it swimming the similarities with the Monster were obvious, except for the size.

Must go. I think I may be hungry again, and there's a new bunch of hawker stalls right opposite our hotel that we can check out on our way back.

Two days to Hari Merdeka!

KL

The view from our hotel window is of KL Tower and the Twin Towers. This morning we woke up, got out of bed, and looked out the window just in time to see somebody jump from the tower. THAT WAS PRETTY SURPRISING.

A few seconds later the parachute opened.

This continued to happen all day. Every time we went back to the hotel, I'd look out the window and somebody would jump. Perhaps it wasn't all day, but it seemed like it. We couldn't actually see the tower from most of the places we went today.

We have discovered that, like it or not, we are stuck in KL for the next couple of days. The school holidays end on the 26th (that's Sunday, right? I've lost track) and so all the buses to anywhere we wanted to go were full. If we really, REALLY wanted to go to Penang (which we don't, not yet) we have the choice of taking a bus that leaves at midnight. After the accidents that have been in the news recently, we are not really keen to take a night bus. We have decided to stay in KL for a couple of days, and shave a couple of days in KL off the end of the trip.

We have been eating a lot. While Kuching was a lot of fun, I have to admit the food here is a lot better. Not that it was bad in Kuching, just not as good or as varied. Today I had roti chanai for breakfast and The Man had tosa, and we both had teh tarik. Then for lunch he had fish ball noodle soup (no, that is not what you think. Think 'meat balls')and I ... wasn't hungry? What happened, did I eat something and forget? Maybe the soy milk drink we had in between filled me up. For dinner we had nasi champur, and it was wonderful. (I ate more than The Man did, which is unusual for me, so perhaps I did miss lunch by mistake.) And after we've finished here we'll have a post-dinner dinner, probably noodles of some description since we're in Chinatown.

I wish I could eat this well in Japan.

Today wasn't a very interesting day to write about, aside from the jumpers. It was a maintenance day. I don't suppose you want to hear about getting the washing done, or The Man's haircut, or all the other little things you have to do now and again even when you're on holiday. I also replaced my Palm battery charger, which had been playing up. It is the second one I've had problems with, both bought from the same place here, so I took it in and showed them. They took out a new one and plugged it in, and it had exactly the same problem. The battery charge indicator flicked on an off when you wiggled the cable, and would only stay charging if you had it in exactly the right position. This is a Palm travel charger problem, not my problem, it turns out.

They replaced the cord part of the travel charger with something tougher, and now it works perfectly. They didn't charge me, either, even though I did not have the receipt for my original purchase. How's that for good service?

What was not so nice is that The Man had his pocket picked on the way back from that mall. This is the first time it has happened to him in decades, he told me (doesn't that make him sound OLD?) and he was most indignant. But there was no point beating him up over it (he was managing quite well himself, I suspect) so I told him it was just one of those things and since there was nothing we could do about it, never mind. We are now, however, being a bit more careful.

I suspect it happened because we were on a very crowded train, at the station of a very big shopping mall full of tourists (school holidays, remember?) and also because he was wearing his other trousers. The good travel trousers, which have harder-to-pick pockets, were at the laundry.

So it was a slightly less good vacation day, today. We had trouble at the Post Office (which closed suddenly because of a power outage), did not get our bus tickets, we lost a bit of money (not a disastrous amount, more an ouch! amount), and had to rethink our plans because of the lack of available transport. But our plans were so loose they were practically immoral anyway, and we can bear the ouch! Also, good food makes up for almost anything.

It's almost midnight and I'm hungry. I'm out of here.

A quick one

Crocodile! Irrawaddy dolphin! Fireflies! Orangutans!

We had an exciting last couple of days in Kuching (and thereabouts), and are now in KL. I have just spent about an hour unsuccessfully trying to transfer photos to CD, and have given up. I will ask someone at a photo shop to do it for me tomorrow.

We are here for a couple of days and then down the east coast, where Internet access might not be so easy. But I have been keeping extensive notes on the Palm every evening, so full reports (with photos) will come when I get back. In the meantime, I am sitting right under an air conditioning duct and I think I am growing icicles. We're off for a hot drink.

Just one question before I leave, though: how come in most hotels the shower head is so bloody high? In our hotel today I stood under the shower and all the water shot straight over my head, leaving me dry. Luckily the shower is the sort you can hold and direct, but still. Sometimes I want both hands free.

More tomorrow, I hope.

Rainforest

A forty-five minute stroll, I thought. That will be nice! Except that when we got to the rainforest and looked at the various trails, we had been talking to a couple of young Dutch guys on the boat who told us they were coming for the second time in three days, and they did the three-and-a-half hour trail and it only took two hours. That sounded reasonable, we thought, so we decided to try that one.

We should have taken note that they were a couple of very young, tall, healthy and fit Dutch guys. They had legs about as long as I am tall.

Still, it was a lovely three hour and twenty minute walk. It was a very HOT walk. I was drenched in sweat after the first ten minutes. I had not expected so much of the trail to be vertical, but still, it was lovely. Plus we got to see some rare proboscis monkeys. They have very rude faces.

Actually, we saw these monkeys right at the beginning of our walk, and didn't realize how rare they were. We were just wandering along the boardwalk at the beginning, and there one was, a big guy, just sitting there up a tree next to the boardwalk. We stood there photographing it, and chatting about how rude its nose was, and then carried on.

A bit further up the trail we came around a corner and three people were there. We started to say hello and the woman said, "Shhhh!" and pointed. We looked up into the trees and couldn't see anything at first, but eventually spotted three more proboscis monkeys, too far away to photograph well. I whispered to the woman,

"If you go a little further there's one up a tree next to the boardwalk, much easier to photograph."

I showed her my photograph, and she looked a little deflated. Then she laughed, and off they went.

There were a lot of naughty monkeys, too. I took photos of them stealing bits of cucumber. I also took pictures of lots of pitcher plants, pointed out to us by the pitcher plant scientists and enthusiasts who we passed going the other way on the trail - seventy of them! - who are here for a conference. That was fun. We passed all kinds of conversations, and they were almost as interesting as the monkeys. Scientists get all excitable when they're in rainforests, and even the very large one who was carrying a lot of weight up the steep bits was being remarkably cheerful about it. I was impressed with his enthusiasm, especially when I saw how steeply that end of the trail started off. That bit must have almost killed him. I suspect that if The Man and I had started off at that end instead of the gently sloping (but longer) climb from the other end, we would have turned around and gone back. It was STRAIGHT UP. Some of the steps provided could more accurately be called 'ladders,' and there were a LOT of them.

The bus out to the park was amazing. We took an ordinary local bus rather than one of the nicer (but expensive) tour buses, and it rattled and shook so much it was a bit like riding in a portable earthquake. The boat ride after that was fun. We all got a little wet.

The walk, though ... that was HARD, mostly because it was so hot. There were places up the top where there were very few trees, but (weirdly) lots of sand. Those bits were very exposed, and very, VERY hot. I was the only person prepared for this, as I had brought along my folding parasol. I may have looked like an idiot carrying a lacy parasol along a rainforest trail, but I was a greatly envied idiot. I was the only one with shade. An Irish woman we'd met on the boat did the same trail the other way (it's a loop) and told me afterwards she started to get worried she'd collapse around that exposed bit. She'd run out of water by then, and was starting to feel a little dizzy. I told her she should invest in a parasol.

Tomorrow, I suspect, we will be resting, and any moving about we do will be done rather carefully.

I am taking photos, but will have to post those later, perhaps from KL. I asked about doing it here, but the woman told me that they sometimes have problems with the particular card my camera uses (xD) on the rather old computers here, so she didn't want to risk it.

Cat City

I have been remiss in posting the last few days. That was because I was (a) packing, and (b) flying, and then when I went into an Internet cafe the second day we were here I promptly got my first mosquito bite of this summer, and left without posting anything. Japanese mosquitoes do not seem to like me much, but Malaysian Internet cafe mosquitoes do. I haven't been bitten outside yet, though.

We arrived in Kuching on the 16th, and have been having a lovely time. Today we had a lovely but somewhat bewildered time, as we decided to check out the other side of the river. This turned out to be easier than we expected, because there are very cheap water taxis dotted along the various piers, but we decided to see the orchid garden the brochure from tourist information told us about, and that was when we ran into trouble. We got off at the other side, bought disgustingly coloured drinks from a stall there, and then wandered around aimlessly for a bit wondering where to go. One path petered out to nothing, and there was a sort of boardwalk arrangement which had broken boards and a viewing tower thing that was closed, and finally we went back to the stall and asked them where the orchid garden was.

"Gone," they told us.

"Gone?"

"Yes. Gone."

"Oh. What about the Istana?"

"It's over there," said the guy, pointing.

"Can we walk there?" we asked, hopefully.

They weren't sure. They thought it was too far, but here everybody uses a car and thinks practically anywhere is too far to walk, so we set off anyway.

Unfortunately it was a very good road, which meant that it was perfectly designed for cars but was horrible for pedestrians. There was no shade, and it was very hot, and when we got to the first bend and saw how long it was without shade we turned back.

We went back to the jetty, and ... well, to cut a long story short (there was one more boat trip in there somewhere) we ended up asking a boatman to take us somewhere interesting on this side of the river. He decided that 'somewhere interesting' meant 'somewhere weird tourist types would be interested in,' and took us to Fort Margarita, which I may have spelt wrongly. This entailed dropping us off at a jetty that was clearly not used very much, and which apparently lead nowhere. He told us to take the path, which looked rather overgrown. In fact I couldn't see it at all, at first.

There was a sign. It said, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. The Man did not see it.

"What did the sign say?" he asked.

"It said, 'If you have an accident or kill yourself it's your own stupid fault," I said.

We entered at our own risk.

At one point we had to cross a bridge with missing planks. We crossed it anyway, and eventually ended up at the fort, much to our surprise. We read the sign, which told us the history of the fort and said that it was now used as a police museum.

"Another museum!" said The Man, despairingly. (I dragged him to two yesterday.)

The fort, however, was completely empty, aside from the courtyard where there were some rusted cannons, and also a door up in the corner of the courtyard which had a skull painted on it. That was kind of interesting. Out the back we could see some guy washing a motorbike, but other than that there was nobody. The Man signed the visitors' book. We shouted hello to the motorbike man, out the window. He was very friendly.

"Can we go upstairs?" I asked, and he said we could. We went upstairs and found a large room. It was empty. We went up another flight and found another room, also empty. Then we went up on the roof, and enjoyed the view.

After we came back we asked the man (the curator of the non-existent museum?) if we could reach a kumpung from the other direction, instead of going back to the jetty. He said we could, and pointed in the general direction. "Can we get a drink there?" we asked, and he said we could, and also that there was another jetty, so we could get back to the other side of the river.

To cut a long story short AGAIN (because The Man is waiting for me) the only place open in the kumpung was a cake shop selling violently coloured cakes. There were lots of stalls along the waterfront, and not one was open. Some small children wanted me to take their pictures, so I did. Some other kids told us that the stalls only open at night. We passed a few foreigners looking for the fort, who had come from the kumpung jetty and got lost, and pointed them in the right direction, telling them that it was very interesting in a nothing sort of way. They laughed, and I got the impression that had already experienced quite a lot of interesting in a nothing sort of way on this side of the river. We also told them that to get a boat from the fort jetty they'd have to yell and wave to the boatmen on the other side of the river, which was what our boatman had told us to do.

Tomorrow we are going to visit a rainforest. It will be a day trip. We are not adventurous, daring, tough travellers. The particular spot we are going to we chose partly because of the easy 45 minute walking path. All the others seem to entail four or five hours of hard slog, and a guide. We want to see the rainforest, but not THAT much of it. We are also hoping to see orangutans.

Did I spell orangutan right?

Oh, and the post is entitled 'Cat City' because that is Kuching's nickname. In fact there are not many cats.

Must run. More soon.

Local festival

Here are some pictures and a couple of short videos to make up for the lack of blogging recently. It has been too hot, and I have been uninspired. On the first and second of August, however, I did manage to drag myself to a local festival. This is a danjiri festival. It is not famous, but it is rather dangerous. Last year, I was told by a student who lives in the area, the danjiri fight was cancelled because two people were killed. (Accidentally, I mean.) This year there were police all over the place trying to get people to behave. I don't know whether they were successful, but as far as I know nobody died.

On the first day they only paraded the danjiri. I took some pictures, very few of which turned out any good. I have not mastered the art of taking good pictures at night from a distance. I suspect this art may involve the use of a tripod and a good vantage point, neither of which I was able to manage. This is not a famous festival, but it is popular locally. A friend and I were the only foreigners there that we saw at least, but there were plenty of locals making it difficult to get a good view, especially later in the evening.

The daylight pictures were better, partly because of the light and partly because the crowds weren't very big yet. The floats paraded through the streets, which were not cut off to normal traffic, leading to some interesting situations with costumed festival-goers rushing around and helping the police to direct cars and other traffic. I raced around on my bicycle trying to get good pictures, occasionally getting directed out of the way. I was a nuisance, but so was everybody else, so that was all right.

This first picture shows a danjiri on which someone is holding a photograph, presumably of one of the people who were killed last year.


This next one shows a danjiri waiting for some traffic to get out of the way.


Here is another traffic jam. There are two danjiri in this picture, but neither of them are moving.


Some of the performers (I'm not quite sure what else to call them) got a little bored, waiting for the road to clear. The guy in this next picture had hair to match the carving on his danjiri

Trendy young cool guys take part enthusiastically in this festival (i.e. that is his everyday hair, not a part of his costume), and as far as I could see there was no alcohol involved. They seem to manage to work themselves into a frenzy without any artificial aid. I always find this interesting. They lose their cool completely and go berserk. This picture shows a trendy young cool guy between attacks of berserkness, however.


This is the same danjiri, paused alongside the elevated railway tracks.


Here is another danjiri.


And here is a danjiri moving along beside the podium thing along the street where the fight would be held the next evening.


As you may have noticed, I am not giving very much information about the background or the format of the festival. That is because I didn't really understand what is going on, and everybody I asked seemed rather vague about it as well. Perhaps I am asking the wrong people. From what I do understand, though, each float represents a different shrine. I think there are eight, or possibly seven or nine. I tried to count them but they were all over the place, and when I tried staying in one place and getting pictures of them all as they came past, I lost count. It all took rather a long time, and I forgot which number I was up to. There was also one very small float, which I suspect represented some sort of shrine god or something. It used a different, deeper drumbeat, and went past rather soberly and sedately compared to the others. Also, the people carrying it did not have to do the dramatic maneuvering the others did on corners, because it was so much smaller. They didn't dance, either.




I tried using the video function on my camera as well, and on the first day got one good shot of the guy on top of a danjiri going into a frenzy. This video is only fifteen seconds long, for which I apologize. It is short because of my fabulous skills as a cameraperson created such terrible camera wobble right after this that it looks like a UFO crashed while I was having an attack of nausea. I cut that bit.

Unfortunately, on the second day when the danjiri fights happened it was much darker, I didn't have a very good vantage point, and the videos I got were mostly lights swaying in the dark. This was the only one where you can get an idea of what was going on. It was not the most dramatic clash, but it was the only one I got decent video of. In fact, for the most dramatic one (where one of the danjiri tipped sideways and almost fell, then crashed back down as the crowd went OOOOOH!) I was pointing the camera RIGHT AT THE WHOLE THING. Then I realized I'd hit the wrong button, and had taken one still picture of a couple of lights in the dark.

What you can see here (I have to explain because the video is so dark you probably can't tell what is going on otherwise) is first a danjiri moving forward, then back, on the right. Then there is an amateurish cut to get rid of a lot of nothing, and then you see another danjiri approach from the left side. The two move together and do the equivalent of, "Who do you think YOU are?" then back off for a good run, and then charge. They rear up, clash, bump back down, and then there is a little general messing around where nothing much happens.

Before you ask, I do not know how you can tell who has won. In several of the fights they clashed several times, so perhaps it's hard for anybody to tell. It's possibly something like pirates boarding a ship, though, because although I was a bit far away to see properly, I saw some guys clambering up the poles and across to the other danjiri while they were head on, in one of the fights. I could easily be wrong about this, though. It's possible they'd become so tangled they were just up there to untangle themselves.

Anyway, see for yourself, if you can. This video is way too dark, but perhaps you can at least get an idea from the sound.



I'm afraid that is all there is. I know it's not very good, but at least you can see why I enjoy this festival so much. I am sorry about the poor quality, though. The video function on my camera is rather limited. Maybe I will try to borrow a real video camera for next time.

In which I prevent a cranial explosion

On Wednesday I had my final dentist appointment. There was nothing new. The Man was there in the clinic while I was getting the treatment, which this time consisted of only finishing up the cleaning once the dentist had checked again and couldn't find anything else wrong. I told The Man he didn't need to come after the first time when I realized there was nothing to worry about and the dentist and I could communicate, but he said he wanted to help, and I quite enjoy him being there. I think, actually, he likes to watch. It is the curiosity of a man who has never in his life needed any dental work.

He certainly watched very closely, and I hoped that he was noticing that the new dentist is much, MUCH better than his friend was.

He and the dentist talked about what I should watch for and when I should take the antibiotics I've been given for if the inflammation, wherever it is, comes back when we're on holiday. I could not join in this conversation because there were hands in my mouth, so I just listened. The dentist asked about our holiday, and they talked about travel a bit. It is nice to have some distraction at the dentist, and I enjoyed listening.

Then the dentist said,

"I have a friend who lives in Malaysia."

"Really?" said The Man. "Which part?"

The dentist tried to remember.

"Something like 'Madagascar,' but . . . no, that's not it, is it?"

"Madagascar is off the coast of Africa," I didn't say, because of the hands in my mouth.

"No, I don't think so," said The Man, diplomatically. He tried to think of Malaysian place names that sounded similar. They both tried, but neither could come up with anything that might be it.

And that's when it stopped being so much fun for me, because the conversation had stalled and I KNEW WHAT THE ANSWER WAS. I willed The Man to say it, but he didn't. He frowned, wanting to be clever but unable to come up with the right name.

There was a long, thoughtful silence, as they both tried to figure out which town it could be and I became more and more frustrated. Finally I couldn't cope any longer.

I waved my arms.

Here I should explain that earlier, when the dentist was trying to locate the source of the twinges, he tapped on various teeth and asked me if it hurt. When I said, "Uh-huh," he had to take his hand out of my mouth to find out whether Uh-huh meant Uh-huh-yes or Uh-huh-no. After doing this a couple of times we settled on a hand signal instead. If it hurt, I was to raise my hand.

This was the first time I had moved my hands, but I was not just raising a hand. I was flapping both arms furiously. I may have waved my legs as well.

The dentist instantly stopped and peered at me worriedly.

"Did that hurt?" he asked, puzzled. He removed his hand.

"MELAKA!" I exploded.

There was a surprised silence.

"Your friend probably lives in Melaka," I explained, a little more calmly, but I suspect I may have failed to not roll my eyes.

The dentist stared at me for a moment, then his face cleared and he started laughing.

"Melaka! Yes! That's it!" he said, and turned to The Man. "My friend lives in Melaka!"

He turned back to me.

"No pain?"

"No pain," I said. "I just couldn't stand it any more."

And it was true. I couldn't. They may have laughed at me, but it was totally worth it. If I'd had to hold onto the answer any longer I am fairly sure the top of my head would have blown off.

How?

I just received a spam email. I did not open it. I sent it straight to the wonderful Death2Spam for reclassifying. That way I will not get it again.

It had an interesting subject line, though:

incinerated bubble bath

How do you incinerate a bubble bath?

Glock

I had my second visit to my new dentist today. Last week he told me that I had a very small bit of decay on a back tooth, but he only did cleaning. Today he told me that he didn't think that decay was what was causing the little twinges of pain I've been getting, which are not serious but were which prompted me to visit in the first place. He looked at my X-rays again, and said that my wisdom tooth on that side, which has not come through, is pushing a bit on the tooth next to it, but he didn't think that was the cause of the trouble either. He can't pinpoint what it is.

He tapped my teeth, and asked me to tell him if any of them felt different, or painful. None did. Then he checked my lymph glands, and discovered that one was a little tender on that side. There is some sort of inflammation somewhere, but he can't figure out where it is.

Since I am going away, he wants to find it quickly, but there is nothing he can do, really, except give me antibiotics to take away with me for if the pain comes back. He said he'd continue with the cleaning, which he hadn't finished, and off he went.

While he was doing this, suddenly I felt pain, and waved my arms. He laughed and said, "Almost finished!" and two minutes later he had finished. The little cavity had been filled. That was a big surprise, but he told me after that he didn't want to use painkiller because it might interfere with the other, unidentified problem. I don't think I have ever had such a fast filling. It was amazing. The Man had told him I was a total wimp about pain, and that's why he did it that way - no warning, just do it and get it over with. I deeply appreciate this. I had been dreading the eventual filling of that tooth, but because I didn't expect it to happen today I was relaxed, and then it was suddenly done.

What a tricky man! Tricky can be GOOD in a dentist, I've decided. I LIKE fillings to be suddenly done. There is no fuss, and especially not from me.

He wants me to go back tomorrow, when he will finish the cleaning (I have never in my life had my teeth cleaned quite so thoroughly, nor so cheaply - I don't know how this guy makes a living if he charges everybody like this) and to see whether the lymph gland is still tender and whether there's anything else he can spot. Aside from that there is not much he can do, he said, but wait and see. The pain is not bad, just the occasional twinge, at night mostly, when I am not distracted and tend to notice it more.

Oh, and I told him about the one-third wisdom tooth on the other side, which had been left there when it broke off and refused to come out that horrible day four years ago. He was surprised, and peered closely at the X-ray.

"It has become a part of the bone," he said.

After a while he added, and I thought I detected a hint of disapproval,

"Did that happen in Japan?"

He did not comment further, but I suspect he was thinking what I was thinking:

If that tooth was so firmly embedded in the bone that means her old dentist was trying to REMOVE HER LOWER JAW. For FOUR HOURS. No wonder she doesn't like going to the dentist!

In other news:

The duck is well, and looked happy, puddling around in the back there. Its name is Glock. The dentist didn't say, but I think the duck told him so. I think the conversation probably went something like this:

Dentist: "What is your name?"
Duck: "Glock."

Makes sense to me, anyway.

Dangerous

The Man and I are going to visit Malaysia again later this month, and are looking forward to it very much. This time we are going to Sarawak, in Borneo, first, for a few days. We have never been there before, although we have been to Peninsula Malaysia many times. The Man told his mother about our plans the other day.

Just now the phone rang, and The Man answered. I did not know who it was until he started shouting.

"THAT'S AFGHANISTAN! THE TALIBAN ARE IN AFGHANISTAN! WE ARE GOING TO BORNEO!"

"....."

"NO! IT'S NOT CLOSE! IT'S A PART OF MALAYSIA! LOOK AT THE MAP ON YOUR WALL!"

"....."

"NO, WE HAVEN'T BEEN THERE BEFORE! THIS IS THE FIRST TIME!"

"....."

"NO! WE DON'T NEED IT! IT'S NOT DANGEROUS!"

Okaasan has the idea that The Man and I are daring adventurers. I don't know where she gets this idea from (our idea of 'daring' is to try some local dish we haven't tried before), but it leads to some interesting conversations. She has obviously been watching the news.

I just hope that nobody gives her some outdated information about headhunters.

Brakes, ears

Last week I got the brakes on my bicycle fixed. They had become soft and spongy, and when I wanted to stop I merely slowed down, which could be rather surprising when I was approaching a red light at a busy intersection. And when you are gliding down the slope under the railway station, which has metal bars to slow cyclists down (although it would be MUCH more fun to speed up, to make up for having to push your bike up the other side), and you are heading for the metal bar faster than you intended to and cannot swerve because someone else is coming up through the way-too-small gap between the bars, you do not just want to slow down. You want to stop.

That hurt a bit, and was what made me decide to get my brakes fixed.

Since I got my brakes fixed, I have become more than ever convinced that there is no such thing as Intelligent Design. If we were intelligently designed, we would be able to close our ears and still keep both hands free for the brakes. New bicycle brakes squeal, and I am not talking about a timid, mouse-like squeak. I am talking about a squeal that actually hurts your ears and makes you scrunch up your face in pain. Nobody should have to listen to what sounds like a pig being castrated every time they want to avoid crashing into something hard.

If ears were intelligently designed there would be a mute button.

Quack

I have a new dentist, and I went to see him today. He was recommended by my doctor, who also recommended the breast cancer specialist, and the skin doctor I saw recently (but did not tell you about because I was not in a writing mood that day). A friend also went to this dentist, and liked his work.

My doctor often recommends me to people who are a little odd but are always very, very good at what they do. The breast cancer specialist was not odd, unless being extremely kind and cheerful is odd (perhaps in Japan it is), but the skin doctor was a total otaku (in the sense of being obsessed with his work, I mean). It was obvious that he knew what he was doing, but I could not help noticing that he lacked a bedside manner. He lacked a manner, come to think of it. This was a man who was totally absorbed in his work. He showed us close-up computer pictures of my skin (there was nothing much to worry about, by the way, even though everything looks freakish when it's that magnified), and mumbled to himself in an interested way. I couldn't understand a word he said. I thought it was just me and my awful Japanese, but The Man couldn't understand much of what he said, either. He spoke in mumbled medicalese, and apparently did not know how to speak in normal human language. And he never looked directly at us, although he did examine my skin very carefully. I will go back to him if necessary, because I trust him.

My new dentist . . .

Let me tell you why I have a new dentist, first.

I have a new dentist because my old dentist scares the crap out of me. I last went to him about three years ago, or was it four? and he took three hours, or was it four? to fail to remove a wisdom tooth. After that I went home, relaxed, and after half an hour or so, passed out from delayed shock. The painkillers did not work properly during the operation, and afterwards I felt the way I imagine people feel after being physically attacked. I thought I was all right, because I wasn't in pain any more, but discovered I wasn't all right when I had a sudden encounter with the tatami. He had put things that looked like garden implements into my mouth, and despite my total cooperation (I was gripping with my arms to stop myself from rising out of the chair), failed to remove more than two thirds of my wisdom tooth. The rest is still there, but since that is the part that did NOT have decay, and he stitched it back under the gum, it is probably all right.

But that was another problem - the stitch was supposed to fall out or dissolve or something after a couple of days, and didn't, so I spent the next week, while he was away on holiday, on a liquid diet, because the bloody thing pulled, and hurt, whenever I opened my mouth more than about half a centimetre. It was New Year, and I was surrounded by delicious food. I do not think I have quite forgiven him for that, yet.

So that, and a couple of other unfortunate experiences, was why I hadn't been back to my dentist for about three, or maybe four, years.

The biggest problem with switching dentists is that my old dentist is also The Man's best friend from university days. The Man does not have any dental problems, and never has, which means that he has never personally experienced his friend's treatment, and he kept insisting that his friend was a good dentist. Fat lot he knew.

So when I started to get the odd twinge and remembered that I hadn't seen a dentist for a very long time I was a little nervous. How could I break the news to The Man that I ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT GOING TO GO BACK TO HIS FRIEND?

I approached the matter cautiously.

"I think I have a tooth problem," I said. "I keep getting little twinges in this back tooth, where I have a very old filling, from when I was about ten... I probably should go back and see Ko-chan . . ."

"Really?" said The Man.

"Yes," I said. "But actually I'm scared to."

"Then why don't you try the guy Dr S recommended?" he said, and added that our friend had tried him and liked him.

That was a lot easier than I had expected! I think I understand what happened, though. The Man sat through that marathon session last time, and saw how bad it was, and perhaps, although he wouldn't say so out loud, he also finally decided that his friend wasn't the absolutely best dentist out there. I do not think he enjoyed watching me suffer. After all, he was the one holding my feet so that I did not kick the dentist accidently when he yanked on the tooth. He SAW how bad it was.

So that's how I ended up with a new dentist.

My new dentist is another otaku, and has a reputation for being extremely good and extremely fast. I can believe it. Today he checked my teeth, and cleaned them. I don't think I have ever had a dentist concentrate quite so fiercely on my mouth before. It was amazing. His bedside manner was a bit better than the skin doctor's (but not much), in that he even tried to use English with me. That was nice, but a little confusing. When he took me into the X-ray room he instructed me,

"Put your knee here."

"Pardon?" I asked.

"Put your knee here," he repeated, and I wondered whether I was quite flexible enough to be a cooperative patient. But it was easy really, once I'd mentally substituted 'chin' for 'knee.'

Mostly, though he was just working REALLY, REALLY HARD, and REALLY, REALLY FAST. I am going back on Monday to have the problem tooth fixed, and while I am not exactly looking forward to it, I am happy that whatever happens, at least it will be quick. Another advantage is that, according to our friend, his fillings do not fall out after a couple of months. (She also used to go to The Man's dentist friend.)

Quite aside from anything else, though, it was perfectly obvious the moment I got there that he was the right dentist for me. He has a duck. Yes, you read that right. My new dentist has a duck! How could I resist a dentist with a duck? His clinic has a little garden right outside the large windows, and in the garden there is a small pond and a large white duck. From the waiting room, and from the clinic itself (as long as I was sitting up, which was admittedly not often), I could watch the duck. When I was reclining in the chair I could not see the duck, but I could IMAGINE the duck. It was the duck that made me feel that I was in the right place.

As far as I'm concerned, a dentist with a duck can call my chin anything he wants to.