What I learned yesterday in school

On Sunday a friend told me of her wonderful new method for combatting back pain. It really works, she told me. She did not have back pain any more. And when she went to her acupuncturist on Saturday, and he was giving her a massage, he commented, somewhat surprised, that her body had changed shape and her back was stronger. Because she knew that I suffered from back pain (particularly when I'm working and on my feet all day) she thought she should tell me about it.

I asked her if she learned her new trick from the Internet, but no, she learned it from a book.

"How old-fashioned of you," I said.

The method is not complicated, but is easier to understand if someone is showing you rather than just telling you. It's the ten yen coin trick. I remember reading about it somewhere (probably on the Internet, because I'm a modern person), except that wherever I read it, it was a credit card trick.

You pretend you're trying to hold a ten yen coin (or a credit card) in your buttock crack.

That's not all, though. You also tense the muscles in your upper thighs and stomach, so it's not all about your bottom. You do this while you're standing, sitting, or squatting. And at the same time as you're doing this, you relax your upper back and shoulders.

My friend had only been doing it for three weeks and it has already made a huge difference.

Yesterday I tried it in my classes.

What I learned was that it is impossible to clench an imaginary credit card (or ten yen coin) in your bottom while you are teaching. There are MOMENTS when you can do it, but they are few and far between.

It was the first day of classes for this particular university. (I started back at the other place last week.) I was sitting behind the podium, sorting through class lists and trying to figure out how many of the students in my class were actually supposed to be there, and at the same time trying to clench my bottom and stomach and thighs, and relax my shoulders. I remembered for whole seconds at a time, but then I'd notice that I was doing it the wrong way around – my shoulders were clenched and my bottom was so relaxed it was almost around my knees. Yesterday I had to get rid of a total of about fifteen students who were registered in other teachers' classes but had come to mine because they had assumed they would be in the same class as their friends. I also had even more than that suddenly appearing about thirty minutes into each class, after going to another teacher's class who doesn't check as quickly as I do. (Seven turned up suddenly in my last class. SEVEN!)

These disruptions make it hard to concentrate on bottom clenching.

I thought I might do better when I was standing. I stood up to write on the board, resolving to clench my bottom while I did so. Then I had second thoughts. I imagined what it it might look like from the back if I suddenly clenched my bottom. Students watch teachers very closely on the first day of classes, and I'm fairly sure bottoms do not escape their scrutiny.

Then I thought that MAYBE I could do it, if I did it while I was behind the podium and kept my bottom clenched when I moved sideways away from the podium, That way it would be the same shape all the time.

I stood behind the podium, bottom (and tummy, and thighs) clenched, writing on the board. It was hard to concentrate on clenching and writing, and even harder to keep my shoulders relaxed while I was writing. Then I had to move over to the side because I had run out of board space, and discovered that shuffling over while clenching my bottom AND remembering what I was writing was too much for me. I can multi-task like mad most of the time – that's what teachers DO, after all – but apparently not the bottom-clenching thing.

My bottom sagged.

Bottom clenching requires a lot more concentration than I expected, and I will have to practice a lot harder before I can do it on a regular basis during classes. For now I will have to confine my bottom clenching efforts to when I am on the train, strap-hanging.

That was the other thing I learned yesterday, as I was coming home. Strap-hanging on the train is the PERFECT time for the bottom clenching thing. When you are coming home after being confined in a classroom all day you are past caring what it looks like from the back when your bottom suddenly changes shape as you remember to keep that ten-yen coin gripped tightly. Why should I care? It was just a bunch of random strangers behind me. Most of them were pretending to be asleep anyway, because they were in the seats reserved for the old, the handicapped, and the pregnant. They were too scared to open their eyes in case they were confronted by the sight of a ninety-year-old pregnant, handicapped person hunched reproachfully in front of them, wheezing.

So I am safe from bottom-scrutiny on the train. As long as I stand in the handicapped seat area I will be able to do my bottom-clenching exercise as much as I like.

Today I also tried walking while doing the bottom-clenching thing, and discovered it was a lot harder than I'd expected. The first time I tried it I goose-stepped a few paces until I remembered I was allowed to bend my knees. Also, I had to keep reminding myself to relax my shoulders.

I'll get it right eventually, I'm sure. My friend assured me it gets easier. After two days of it I'm not quite convinced it will ever be automatic, but I think I might eventually be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

All your hair are belong to me

Today I had a haircut. My hairdresser looked at my hair, picking up strands and running it through her fingers.

"Spring is coming," she said. "I think I'd like it a bit shorter."

"Whatever you like," I said.

I'm not sure whether it is just that she uses English with me and her English has certain idiosyncrasies, or whether she really thinks like this, but I must say I rather enjoy the way she talks as though my hair belongs to her.

Taking the bus

The other day I had to take a bus. I was in a coffee shop beforehand, and asked where the bus stop was. I was pointed in the right direction. As I started walking towards the bus stop, I had to cross a wide and busy road. The light was green, so I started crossing, expecting to pass the old lady in front of me. I usually walk faster than old ladies.

But not this old lady. She was an old lady in a hurry, and she hurtled across the road far quicker than I did, and galloped towards the bus stop. As she approached it I realized why she was running. A bus rounded the corner, stopped at the bus stop, and then took off again, not noticing the old lady waving her umbrella and shouting. The driver should have seen her, but either he didn't, or he did and ignored her.

As I approached she turned back. I caught her eye, and shrugged. She burst into an annoyed speech about missing the bus, apparently not even out of breath. I sympathized, panting slightly.

Then I asked her where that particular bus had been going, and she informed me that it was, in fact, going where I wanted to go, too, and not only that, there was only one bus an hour.

I was a little confused. I thought my bus was on the other side of the road, and going the other way. Had I been turned around again? My internal compass isn't very good, but I thought I knew where I was. I asked her about it, and she told me that yes, the bus went to the same place from the other side of the road too, and in fact that was where she had been waiting when she realized the other bus was coming soon and would be quicker even though it went all round the houses first.

I thought about taking a taxi, but the old lady seemed like good company. We walked together back to the other bus stop, where I discovered that the bus would be coming in twelve minutes, not such a long wait.

The old lady pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Then she told me how much the bus would cost.

"But it's not that much for me," she said, smugly. "I'm old!" She took out her bus pass to show me. It was a senior citizen bus pass, and had her age on it. She was 81.

I had only glanced at it when she took it back, covered the age with her thumb and asked her how old I thought she was.

"Um... seventy, er, something...?" I asked.

She moved her thumb off the card.

"I'm eighty-one!" she said, triumphantly. "See?"

"Really?" I said, and looked suitably impressed. "I thought you must be younger, you were going so fast."

"Oh, I'm pretty healthy," she said, taking another drag of her cigarette.

We stood there for a while in companionable silence. Then she said,

"I have three children. They're all in their fifties, of course. My son is a police officer, like my husband was."

"Really?" I said.

"And so are both my daughters," she said. "Even though they're girls!"

This fact seemed to still amaze her, even after what must have been at least a couple of decades. I congratulated her on her accomplished children.

"That's a lot of police officers for one family," I said.

She looked at me sideways. "I have four grandchildren, too," she said. "And one of them is a police officer as well!"

I was running out of ways to express astonishment in Japanese.

"I'm surrounded by police," she said, with a twinkle in her eye, then delivered her punchline. "I can't do ANYTHING naughty."

I laughed. "But that's probably why you can run so fast!" I said.

Taking the bus is not just cheaper, it can more entertaining as well.

Intellectual

I have been watching foreign language YouTube videos, inspired by one a friend sent me: this one (although I'm not entirely sure I should call it foreign language). That led me to the original (which is almost as good! I mean bad!), and from there I moved on to a video which contained a mysterious button-pushing woman with a floating chandelier, a lineup of multi-coloured (but uniformly dull) suits, and an amazing portable music player. Aside from the portable music player, that one left me feeling baffled – but also entertained. (In an intellectual way, of course. Everybody knows that if you enjoy foreign videos you must be an intellectual.)

To finish off, I listened to some foreign music, and was surprised.

Yes, surprised is the right word, I think.

Over six million people have seen that last video since it was uploaded four years ago (and I can totally see why) but somehow it had passed me by.

Had you seen it?

Genius

I talked to my lovely sister-in-law today, mother of two young adrenaline junkies. The youngest boy is having a birthday next weekend, and she told me he'd wanted to go to some water park with all his friends, which would have been very expensive. He has been once before, and was particularly enamored of the water slide.

My brother's solution was to buy several cheap inflatable lilos, line them up into a slide (I'm supposing on planks or something similar), throw a big tarpaulin over the whole thing, and stick a hose at the top end. Apparently he's made it quite steep.

The boys have been using this contraption extensively in preparation for the birthday party. They have adapted it so that instead of landing in the grass, the aim is to go so fast they bounce off the fence. The party promises to be very, very messy, and possibly dangerous.

No wonder those kids think their dad is a genius!

A reassuring theory

A couple of days ago I had a phone call from a friend who has suddenly found herself very, very busy. Not because of anything that has happened to her, but because of things she has made happen to herself. She has booked herself up for the next two weeks with music performances, a marathon, and goodness knows what else. She also has two small children and a very busy husband.

"I've started talking to myself when I'm alone," she said, worriedly. "Out loud. It's getting quite scary. 'Put the rice on, kiddo,' I tell myself. 'Good girl. Now you can do some practice, but don't forget the sheets are in the washing machine and need to be put in the drier after they finish. And while they're drying, you need to start on the veges. You can go for a run after the kids have eaten.'"

She sighed. "I hope I don't start doing it in public. I think I might be going crazy."

"You are not going crazy," I told her. "You are talking to yourself so that you DON'T go crazy. If you start talking about the weather, THEN you can worry."

"What do you mean?" she said.

"You're slowing yourself down," I said. "Inside your head everything is on fast forward. There is too much going on, and you're trying to think about it all at once. You think faster than you speak, so saying stuff out loud slows it all down."

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed. "That's it! It keeps me focused!"

"That's right," I said. "You are not going crazy. You are carefully NOT going crazy, by slowing down the babble in your head."

By the time we hung up she was feeling quite reassured, so I decided not to tell her that this was a theory I had just made up.

Besides, I think it's quite a good theory.

Hey, wait a minute!

A few days ago I was sitting in the park enjoying some spring sunshine when a man with a clipboard approached me.

"I'm conducting a survey," he told me. "Do you have time to answer a few questions?"

"I'm very sorry," I replied. "But I don't understand Japanese."

"Oh, I see," he said. "Where are you from?"

"New Zealand," I said.

"I hear it's very beautiful," he said.

"Thank you," I said. "Yes, it is."

"Oh, well. Excuse me." He wandered off to accost someone else.

Today the phone rang, and it was some woman selling something. I responded in much the same way.

"Sorry," I said. "I don't understand Japanese."

"You're a gaijin?" she said, surprised.

"Yes," I said."

"Oh. Sorry. I can't speak English."

"That's too bad," I said.

She excused herself and hung up.

Both of these conversations were held entirely in Japanese. I have had similar conversations so many times that I have stopped expecting the penny to drop. Perhaps, when someone tells you politely that they can't understand while at the same time demonstrating that they understand perfectly adequately, it's just too much to handle. Perhaps it causes a brain freeze. I imagine a little spinning wheel in their heads, like the one on my computer when it gets hung up on something and everything stops working.

But I sometimes wonder if the little ball ever stops spinning. I wonder if any of them ever wake up in the night and say,

"Hey!"

Okra

I have a problem with okra. My problem is that I consistently forget what it's called. If I want to say something about okra, I start off perfectly clear what I want to say, but as the word approaches it fades and disappears, leaving me saying stupid things like, "You know, that green vegetable..." I cannot think of any other word that this happens with. It's just okra.

Today I went out for lunch and the waitress told me the 'healthy plate' was tofu and okra burgers. That sounded good, I thought, and later when it arrived I thought to myself, "Ooh, what a good mix! Tofu and ... er ... um ..." This was just five minutes or so after the waitress had used the word okra. I stared into space until my burger went cold, trying to remember what it was.

I am hoping that now that I have typed the word okra six times (so far) in this post, perhaps it will stick, finally. My okra forgettery has gone on quite long enough. The Man is sick of me asking what that vegetable is called and gets quite testy when I forget yet again. Why do I forget okra? Such an easy little word. I should be able to remember it.

Am I the only person who forgets a specific word like this? (As far as I know it's only the one word, if you don't count people's names, which I forget on a regular basis.)

Okra.
Okra.
Okra.
Okra.
Okra.
Okra.
Okra.

Strange things

Last night I was sitting out on our front step after dinner enjoyng the rest of my glass of wine, and two strange things happened.

First, off to the right somewhere, somebody laughed maniacally. It was a man's laugh, entirely deranged, and went on and on and on. (If you have a Mac, you can hear more or less what I heard if you do this: Go to System Preferences, select Speech, select Text to Speech, then for the Voice choose Hysterical. Then open TextEdit, type HA HA HA HA HA , highlight it, and hit F1. Turn your speakers up, but not too far up.)

A few minutes later, off to the left, in an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT HOUSE, someone else laughed maniacally. It was a woman's laugh, entirely deranged, and went on and on and on. (There is no woman's voice on the Mac that sounds anything like it.)

As I was sitting there wondering if our neighbourhood had suddenly been hit by laughing gas and wondering why it had skipped our place, a van pulled up across the road. Someone got out of the van – I couldn't see who – crossed the road, and dropped something in our letterbox. Whoever it was then got back into the van and drove off.

I checked the letterbox. There was a flyer for an expensive restaurant. Why had this flyer been delivered only to us?

The laughter had stopped. Everything was quiet except a few cicadas and one lonely-sounding frog. It was peaceful and cool. A cool August night? That's spooky even without maniacal laughter and mysterious restaurant flyer deliveries.

It turned out the restaurant flyer had been delivered only to us because the owner of a camera shop near here knows the owner of the restaurant, which he recommends, and had promised to let us know where it was. I guess that must have been the camera shop guy on his way home from work.

The demented laughter, on the other hand, is still a mystery.


In other news, this is my new favourite cartoon: Estimation. It made me laugh. (Because Macs do that, too.)

Thwarted

I am going mad. It is the end of semester and I am frantically trying to grade, and being thwarted at every turn. Yesterday things kept happening, and I was busy with other routine chores, and then late yesterday afternoon I had finally settled down to do some serious marking of student papers when the phone rang. It was my brother. I haven't spoken to him for a long time, so felt obliged to continue talking to him even when we'd already said goodbye twice, I had run out of things to say, and he was starting to repeat himself. It was lovely to talk to him, but his timing was horrible. When I finally put the phone down it was time for dinner.

To make matters worse, I have caught a cold. After dinner I remembered to take my medicine, took it, and almost immediately felt sleepy. I don't usually take cold medicine, but I am trying to suppress the symptoms so I can get some work done. This is obviously not working. I went to bed right after writing this. (It is now Sunday.)

But it was not just because I am sleepy. I had had enough for the day. I am not sure what I had had enough of, because I hadn't achieved much, but perhaps it was just that I had had enough of not achieving much.

But on another topic, as I am taking a break from grading, let me tell you about my embarrassing new mobile phone ringtone. Perhaps you remember the frogs I had before, as my ringtone. I hate ringtones, usually, and had recorded the frogs down at the paddy field on the corner so that I could have a sound I liked. That worked worked well. The frogs were not very loud, but just loud enough, and I've been using them for a year. I usually have my phone set on silent mode anyway, but on the rare occasions I didn't, and my phone rang during class, or in a quiet bookstore, or somewhere, everybody was puzzled except me. The frogs worked PERFECTLY.

They continued to work perfectly until summer rolled round again, and the frogs started up again down at the paddy field. Recently, whenever I've been expecting a call or message and had the phone on, I've been scrabbling for it every time I hear frogs. I was scrabbling for my phone far too often, even when it was in silent mode. The real frogs down at the paddy field were confusing me. They don't sing all the time. They start and stop.

So I decided to change my ringtone, and a friend sent me some birdsongs I might like. They were lovely, and I was very pleased with them. I chose the song of the hototogisu (Japanese cuckoo – click on number 10 to hear its song).

I've had my new ringtone for about three weeks now, but for some reason I cannot get used to it. I just can't seem to remember that I have changed my ringtone. I still jump up to find my phone when I hear frogs, and when the hototogisu starts singing I stare around the place like an idiot, looking for the bird. I do this for AGES before realizing that the song is coming from my own bag, or pocket. It is embarrassing, especially when I am in the middle of a complicated conversation with one of the administrative staff at work. I felt like such an idiot.

How long does it take to get used to a new ringtone if you hardly ever use it anyway? I am thinking of restoring the frogs.

Bless me

Early this morning I was woken by sudden and violent sound. I lay in the dark with my eyes wide open, and had the bewildering and incoherent impression that my face had just exploded.

My face was still there, however (although a little damp), so I played back the sound in my head, and eventually came to the conclusion that I had sneezed in my sleep.

I didn't even know that that was possible, although I suppose there is no reason why it wouldn't be. It just seems odd. I certainly don't remember it ever happening before, even when I've had a cold.

Actually, would I even know if I had done it before? Would it always necessarily wake me up?

Have you ever sneezed in your sleep, that you know of?

Pleasant wind

Yesterday a couple of the bad guys in one of my classes asked me where I was from. I realized I had not given that information when I introduced myself at the beginning of the semester. Usually I do, but for some reason this semester I forgot.

I stared at them, and they stared at me, grinning cheekily. It was obvious they had some naughty comment prepared for me, and were waiting for my reply so they could use it. I thought of telling them to guess where I was from, but decided that would be too depressing. That conversation usually goes like this:

"America!"

"No."

"England!"

"No."

(Silence for a few seconds while the students try to remember other country names.)

"Italy!"

"No."

"Cuba!"

"Eh? Cuba? No! It's an English speaking country."

"Er . . . Greenland?"

"Huh?"

Usually the entertainment value runs out around this point, and I give up and just tell them rather than be further tormented by their appalling lack of geographical knowledge. And yesterday I was too tired to bother with any of it. I decided to tell them right away.

"New Zealand," I said.

I waited for the cheeky comment, but it didn't happen. The two boys continued to grin cheekily at me, but their grins started to look a little frozen when neither of them said anything. They glanced sideways at each other somewhat desperately. I smiled at them and waited.

Finally one of them hissed to the other, out the side of his mouth,

"New Zealand? Where's that?

"Europe," his friend muttered back.

I laughed.

"I'll give you a hint," I said. "It's not in Europe."

I continued my perambulation around the classroom to the sounds of one cheeky student beating up the other cheeky student.

---

And speaking of cheeky students, I have noticed this year the continuation of a fashion that started a few years ago but seems to have suddenly become more extreme: of boys wearing their trousers so far down you can see their underpants. It used to be that you could see the tops of their underpants, but now you can see their entire underpant-clad bottoms. You can see the LEG OPENINGS of their underpants. Their trousers are so far down the trouser waist is around their thighs. They look like they forgot to pull up their trousers after Number Twos. When they walk, they have to hobble.

I am not a fashion critic, usually. I don't normally concern myself much with what my students wear (and it's just as well, really). But whenever I see this particular fashion I get a terrible urge to take the victim aside and place him between two strategically placed mirrors, so he can see what he looks like from behind. This is a tasteless and rather unfortunate look at the best of times, but should be PARTICULARLY avoided if you are skinny, have no bottom to speak of, and have short legs. As far as I'm concerned any fashion choice that causes kind onlookers to want to offer you a wheeled trolley so you can rest your poor stumps is a Big Mistake.

This style should also be avoided if you are wearing underpants with funny Engrish on them. I am fairly sure that the 'PLEASANT WIND' emblazoned across my student's bottom was false advertising. Also, things like that make me stare and laugh. Teachers should not stare and laugh at their students' bottoms, but this particular fashion is making it very difficult for me to maintain a professional demeanor.

I wish they'd stop it.

How was your day?

Today I was fantastically well-organized. I woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm was due to go off, feeling alert and refreshed. I had time to take things easy this morning. I organized my bag nicely, and made sure all that marked homework was in there and that I hadn't forgotten a single thing. I'd marked and prepared a lot last weekend, and it was all in there. Then I managed to catch an earlier train than usual, and at work had time to relax and chat with colleagues, safe in the knowledge that everything was ready in my bag.

You are waiting for the other shoe to drop, aren't you. HOW DID YOU KNOW?

When I organized my bag nicely and made sure I had everything I needed and hadn't forgotten a single thing, I did a fantastic job – for my Friday classes. And, in case it has escaped your notice (as it did mine), today was not Friday. Today was Thursday.

I do not want to write about how the rest of my day went. I do not even want to think about it. I prefer to focus on the positive. For this reason, I have decided to remember only those blissful couple of hours before my first class started, and to erase the rest from my memory.

I had a lovely day. Thank you for asking.

Washing

On Wednesday I went to the laundrette, to use the driers. Twice, actually. I had one of those cleaning fits that start off with, "It's time to wash the sheets," and progress to "And that underblanket thingy," then "And the duvet covers and that bedspread that has been in a cupboard for five years," and then suddenly the curtains look dirty. Not that we have curtains, but you know what I mean. Our bedding is now totally clean. I have aired and beaten the crap out of the duvets and the pillows, and I have also beaten the mattress. I don't think beating mattresses actually does anything helpful, but I was in a beating mood by then and didn't want to stop. Also, I had a feeling it was all the mattress's fault.

That wasn't what was I going to tell you about, though. I was going to tell you about the very old lady I encountered at the laundrette.

When I went there the first time, she was sitting on a low stool in front of a washing machine, leaning forward and peering in, her nose almost touching the glass as her washing went round and round and round. She stayed in that position the whole time I was there, apparently hypnotized.

The second time, about two hours later, she was sitting beside a drier, nose up to the glass, watching her laundry going round and round.

I went away, and half an hour later when I came back again to pick up my dried washing she was still there, apparently on to her second load. (She had several piles of laundry sitting around her, in large bags.) I started hauling my things out of the drier, and I guess there was something acrylic in there because I got zapped rather dramatically. I yelped.

This caused the old lady to look up at me, surprised.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Static electricity," I told her.

"Is that dangerous?" she asked, looking worried. "Maybe we should phone the laundrette people. The number's over there."

"No, no," I said. "It was just static electricity. It always happens. It's not dangerous."

"Will it happen to me?" she asked, looking at her drier suspiciously.

"It might," I said. "But don't worry. It won't hurt you. It just gives you a surprise sometimes."

"Oh," she said, looking doubtful. Then she brightened up, "This is the first time I've come here. Isn't it amazing!"

It turned out that someone had suggested the laundrette when she complained about how hard it was to do her washing properly, so she had decided to try it out.

"At first I thought it was a bit expensive," she said, "Three hundred yen for one load of washing, but . . ."

"Well, yes," I said, "But it's a lot easier, and you can do the big things."

"Yes! And the washing is so clean! Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to use it again! I didn't even know this kind of place existed!"

She was wonderstruck by the laundrette. The machines! Those magical machines that cleaned her clothes so well! And then dried them, too! I don't know what she had been using at home before, but I guess it must have been fairly primitive.

We chatted a little more while I folded the rest of my washing. Then I said goodbye, and she went back to watching her laundry go round and round.



I told a friend about this encounter today. She said,

"I wonder if there's something out there for us like that? Something we didn't know existed, that would magically transform our lives the way her discovery of the laundrette has done for her? Something that other people take for granted and we just somehow missed finding out about. . . "

We tried to imagine what that might be, and failed.

(But if there is something fantastically convenient in your life that seems not to be in mine, you will tell me, won't you?)

I am going to be intelligent

I was going to tell you about tits and petty one-upmanship, wasn't I? Well, here goes.

Remember the cysts I grow, on my boobs and wrist? Well, I grew another one. When I found it, in my left boob, I was a little puzzled.

"What side was my biggest cyst?" I asked The Man.

"The right side," he told me.

I checked the other side, and discovered that the biggest one was still there, except it wasn't the biggest one any more. My new one on the left side is the biggest one. How did it grow so quickly without my noticing? Of course it is possible that I did notice it before, but just thought it was the old one because I forgot which side it was on.

It would be inaccurate to say that this new cyst hurts. 'Hurt' is the wrong word. It is, however, uncomfortable.

Now I am going to tell you another story, and not a particularly flattering one to myself.

At one of the places I work there is a woman who also works there part-time, but has a full-time position somewhere else. I do not know her very well, even though she has been working there for years. I see her now and again, but she always looks terribly serious and busy and academic, and is often in the boss's office, having terribly serious and academic discussions with him. I don't think I have ever seen her smile, at least not in a spontaneous way. She sometime gives a strained sort of forced smile when somebody greets her, but she doesn't come across as very friendly. She is always far too busy and serious for small talk.

I find this woman slightly intimidating. I don't know whether she intends to make me feel frivolous and silly, but that is the effect she has on me. She makes me feel as though I am not a serious and academic person, and I should not be teaching in a university. Whereas she, on the other hand, is academic and serious and deserves to have tenure.

I know this is ridiculous. I know I am a reasonably good teacher, and that quite frequently my teaching is most successful is when I am being frivolous and silly. I am probably as knowledgeable as she is about the academic side of teaching, and a part of what I have learned from my study and experience is that frivolous and silly is useful in the classroom. I will use whatever works. Sometimes my frivolity and silliness leaks into the breaks between classes, but who cares? Just because I do not have serious discussions about curriculum design with my boss (who cannot design his way out of a paper bag) does not mean that I know nothing about it.

See how I'm defending myself? Why does that woman have this effect on me? Why do I need to defend myself? Am I really so insecure? Besides, she has never said anything to confirm the impression I've managed to get from her. It is entirely possible that she is a perfectly nice person who just happens to not smile very much or be very sociable. Maybe she is not critical of my frivolity and silliness at all. Maybe she thinks I am terrifically intelligent. Her criticism of me is, I will freely admit, all in my head. But I do always feel that she looks down on me.

ANYWAY.*

The only conversation I have ever had with this woman was shortly after my boob cysts were diagnosed. It was a very short conversation. I was telling someone else about my cysts, and she happened to be passing and overheard us, and said something about how she had some too, and how annoying they were.

"I bet mine are bigger!" I said. (Frivolously, I have to admit.)

"Mine are ten centimeters," she said. "They're really painful."

"TEN?" I said. "You win!"

"It's not something I want to win," she said.

"Are they painful all the time, or just at certain times of the month?" I asked.

"All the time," she said, gloomily. (She is always a bit gloomy, come to think of it.)

"So why don't you get them aspirated, if they're so painful?" I asked.

She shuddered. "Let them stick needles in THERE?" she said. "I'd rather have the pain!"

"Oh, yeah, the needle thing," I said, thoughtfully. "I know what you mean."

We both dashed off to class.

But later, when I thought about it, I thought I did NOT know what she meant. If my cysts were painful all the time, I'd get them aspirated. I also have a horror of needles, but would rather pass out and make a fool of myself once than suffer pain all the time. (Is that why she is always gloomy?) Living with the pain because of a fear of needles is not intelligent at all.

I decided that if my cysts ever got that painful, I would get them aspirated. And that would make me a more intelligent person than Ms More-Academic-Than-Anybody-Else.

HA!

I cannot think of a sillier reason to get my cysts aspirated. It is highly likely that all of this is in my head and the woman does not look down on me as a frivolous and silly person. It's probably just her manner, with everybody. But since this new cyst has turned out to be often (but not always) uncomfortable, I have decided I will get it done anyway, to prove how intelligent I am.

I have informed The Man of my decision, and that makes it final. He will not let me change my mind. Well, he will, but if I change my mind he will not let me complain about how uncomfortable my boobs are, and basically that means I HAVE to get it done because I am not capable of suffering in silence. I am not in the least bit stoical about pain or discomfort. I like to whine and complain, so everybody knows how brave I am being.

Now I am worrying about the squeaking thing. One of my friends had a needle stuck in her boob once, and told me that it didn't hurt, really. But, she said, it sort of squeaked. Well, not squeaked, exactly, but felt as though it would squeak if you could hear it. It made the sort of squeak a needle would make if you stuck it into polystyrene. Her description was very graphic, and when I think about it my boobs want to crawl off my chest and go hide somewhere safe.

But I'm going to do it. Maybe next week, even. I'll let you know.




*I taught four brilliant classes yesterday, in which all my students learned how to use the word anyway. They loved it. I don't know why everything went so well. Perhaps it was because yesterday was only the second class meeting of the semester for my Tuesday classes, and they're still keen. I just hope it lasts. At the end of one of the classes, one of the students came up to me and thanked me.

"I could understand everything!" he said (in English!), sounding somewhat surprised. "It was interesting."

"That's good," I said, and smiled at him.

He smiled back. Then he sighed, and said,

"Anyway, I have to go. I have another class."

He started to leave, then turned back. "Was that right?" he asked.

"It was perfect," I assured him.

And it was.

Why?

Why can't I remember all the things I was going to write about?

Why was this week so long? Did someone insert an extra month or so when I wasn't looking?

Why is my last class of the week always my most troublesome one?

Why can't I ever get a humane, civilized work schedule for Thursdays/Fridays?

Oh, I've remembered two of the things I was going to write about. One is about dreams and mother-magic (not mine), and the other is about tits and petty one-upmanship (mine).

Tomorrow!

Bananas

Today I popped into a little shop I sometimes visit on my way home from work on Tuesdays. It is the kind of shop that is hard to classify. It has costume jewellery and accessories. It has kitchenware, but usually kind of novelty kitchenware, the sort of kitchenware you'd have if you wanted a nice looking kitchen but didn't actually cook. It has baby accessories. It has chocolate, and cosmetics. It has stationary, but not usually very useful stationary. It is a fascinating little shop, and sometimes I buy something cheap there, like a notebook with a silly picture on it that will amuse my students when I am waving it around and being strict with them.

Anyway, while I was looking around tonight (it was a fly-by window shop to see if they had anything new and interesting), in the beauty products and cosmetics section I spotted something labelled, "CELLULITE PANTS."

I almost stopped to see what "cellulite pants" were, but hesitated. Then I carried on. I realized I did not actually want to know. In fact, I thought, I already had too much information. I did not want to know that something called "cellulite pants" even EXISTED in the world.

But now I can't stop wondering about it. What ARE cellulite pants? I am fairly sure they are not pants made out of cellulite (eek!), but I cannot imagine what they actually are. I don't REALLY want to Google them.

But talking about cellulite, here in Japan it seems that most women are, most of the time, on a diet. The latest fad is the banana diet, which was apparently on TV recently. According to whoever dreamed up this particular diet (probably a banana importer), if you eat two bananas for breakfast every morning, you will lose weight. The rest of the time you can eat what you like.

That, at least, is the version of the banana diet I heard from the loopy professor yesterday, when I was bemoaning the fact that all our local supermarkets seemed to have run out of bananas at the same time. I did not know that bananas were being snapped up by dieters. I always thought bananas were full of energy. That's how they work for me – they give me energy when I don't have time to eat properly. Bananas and yoghurt are my staple food at lunchtime when I'm working. If I have time for nothing else, at least I will have energy for the rest of the afternoon. Banana energy keeps going and going. I assumed they were full of calories, and it never occurred to me that they could be considered a diet food.

But on Sunday afternoon there were no bananas left at the supermarkets for my Monday lunch. Instead I had to have a couple of convenience store onigiri. They did not work nearly as well, and I ran out of energy halfway through the afternoon. I blame those stupid banana dieters, who I see have even made the news overseas.

How bloody annoying of them! Why don't they just get some cellulite pants, and leave my lunch alone? I'm sure they are just as effective.

Forgettery

I had a forgetful sort of day today. First I forgot to take my lunch to work. Then, when I got to my first class over on the other campus (the university has two campuses across the road from each other) I discovered that I had left my class rolls in my locker over on the wrong campus. At this point it had started to rain, and class was about to start, and although my umbrella was one thing I had not forgotten I couldn't be bothered running back for the roll sheets. Instead I did an impromptu dictation exercise, collected it, and used that to check off the roll later. (Actually, the dictation was so successful I used it in all my other classes as well.)

Having forgotten two things before nine o'clock was bad enough, but then when I was going back to the main campus for lunch, or rather for lunchtime (because I'd forgotten my lunch) I forgot about the treacherous automatic flush toilet I encountered last week, and used it again. I only remembered when it was too late that I had sworn to myself to avoid it in future.

It is a very enthusiastic toilet, until you want it to be. You sit down, and FLUSH! Bum cheeks clench in shock, FLUSH! Adjust position very slightly, FLUSH! And so on. Then you stand up, and it doesn't flush. You have to wave various bits of your anatomy at it for five minutes before it will deign to flush again.

Most of the automatic flush toilets work more or less OK (although I never quite trust them, suspecting them to be secretly providing jobs for otherwise unemployably creepy little perverts behind peepholes with their finger on a FLUSH button), but that second floor end cubicle automatic flush toilet is a particularly untrustworthy specimen (or employs a particularly sadistic pervert). I have used it twice already this semester, which only started a week ago. Today I vowed (again) not to repeat my mistake, not matter how tired and forgetful I am.

The good news is that all my classes went very well indeed despite all my forgettery. In the case of the difficult second period class it may have been because nine of the guys were absent, so I had a manageably-sized class for a change. I'm not sure why so many were absent. It could have been because after the first class back last week they suddenly remembered how close they had come to failing my class last semester, and decided to quit, but I suspect it is more likely because it was raining and they were worried about their hairstyles.

Then a student in fourth period made my day by telling his friend that during the summer vacation he had visited the Yasaka Shrink, thus demonstrating, once again, the dangers of learning words in alphabetical order. Funny how the two most memorable examples of this I have encountered both involved the same place.

The last class went well, too, for a change. That one is particularly large and boisterous, and usually my biggest problem is getting the students to shut up for long enough to actually hear what I'm saying. Starting off with the short dictation thing sorted that out wonderfully. I have done dictations before, of course, but generally towards the end of class. Doing it at the beginning had interesting results. The students went utterly silent during the dictation, and remained unusually well-behaved and attentive for the rest of class.

I might have to give that class surprise dictations at the beginning of class every week. (I realize that it doesn't seem to make sense to call it a 'surprise' after the first three or four weeks, but I gave mini-tests in most of my classes all last semester, and telling the students that there would be a test AND telling them the questions and answers in advance did not seem to prevent it from being a weekly surprise test. I don't see why dictation would be any different.)

Oh, and I did get some lunch. I had a cheese sandwich from one of the university cafes. It wasn't wonderful, but it kept me going.

All in all, it wasn't such a bad ending to the week.

Serial fainting and competitive sleeping

Yesterday at the supermarket an elderly woman standing in front of The Man at the checkout at the supermarket suddenly collapsed. She was holding out her money for the checkout woman to take when her hand shook violently and she went down like a bowling pin, totally rigid. It happened too suddenly for The Man to catch her, and the sound her head made hitting the floor is not something I will not forget in a hurry. I didn't see it happen. I was occupied with staring mindlessly at a display of toothbrushes at the time, and just heard the awful thud when her head hit the floor. To give an idea of what it sounded like, at first I thought someone had dropped a heavy carton. That's what I heard. And this woman was tiny, one of those old ladies who is nothing more than a twig. It turned out she was 86 years old.

An ambulance was called, and there were plenty of staff there taking care of her, so after making sure they put something soft under her head we left. At that point she was capable of giving her name and age, so at least she was conscious, even if she couldn't get up.

Today we were back at the same supermarket, so asked if anybody knew how she was. They told us she was fine, and looked a little puzzled. The Man explained that he'd been standing behind her when it happened. They thanked him for asking. I thought they seemed a little casual about the whole thing, but then they added,

"She does that all the time."

A serial fainter! How worrying. I don't suppose you can expect everything to be functioning perfectly when you're 86, but still, I hope someone is taking care of her.

The Man's health is slowly improving. He is still sleeping too much, and has problems with his stomach, but all the tests the doctors have done have come back showing that he is in perfect health. One of my friends suggested that he might be depressed.

"Depressed people sleep a lot," she said.

Later, I told The Man what she'd said. That made him snarl a bit, so then I told him what I'd said next.

"Yes, but depressed people don't get grumpy and bite people's heads off!"

In any case he is much better than he was before (and more cheerful). He is now only sleeping ten or so hours a night. And instead of lying perfectly still and corpse-like, as he was before, he is now sleeping more actively. He has become a competitive sleeper. Last night I got elbowed in the ribs, kneed in the bum, rolled over, shouted at, sung to, and eventually shoved out of bed for a little while. Through all of this he never woke up.

It's been far too long, but I think he's finally on the mend.

Ribbet (ribbet ribbet ribbet)

The other day I was in a bookstore, up on the third floor, when I suddenly heard this sound.



That was surprising, to say the least. I looked around wildly, trying to figure out where the frogs could be. It took a couple of moments to realize that the sound was coming from my bag, and to remember that I had changed the ringtone on my phone to this sound file after recording it one evening down by the paddy field. I usually have my phone set to silent, and had forgotten.

It is not a very loud recording, and is not really suitable for a ringtone if you actually want to hear it, but that's all right because most of the time I don't. In any case, it turned out to be the perfect volume for a quiet bookstore. Only a couple of people noticed it. They glanced around, looking vaguely puzzled, and then when it stopped they went back to their browsing.

The frog chorus is what we hear at night after the paddy field is flooded, if our bedroom window is open.