today's random rant...social life

Yesterday I got my first Japanese haircut. 'SHORT PLEASE' I said in Japanese, and she showed me a magazine of all the latest J-boy fashions. Not for me...so I just said 'SHORT'S FINE' again. So, she did just that and made it - very - short...and somehow, she very skillfully was able to cut it so that it revealed the exact progression of my steady balding pattern. THANKS A LOT LADY. But it was cheap. Most Japanese haircuts will run you between $30 and $50 bucks but this one was $16.

So, my students crack me up. One came up today and asked me how to say "okama" in English, which is essentially a male transvestite (which I thought was strange that I had just learned that word last night in a slang book). So I told her it was "crossdresser", which she couldn't prounounce all that well. Then, she went up to a female teacher and said "Mister Yoshizawa, you are closs dessa!"

Last night I stopped in at Alex's friend's bar...Nate has been spending a lot of time there and practicing Japanese, and I have been looking for a new place to drink and meet young people other than Lupin. I was happy that this place opened up...It's sort of Nate's place but I'll be stopping in a lot too.

I'm noticing here how people can start creating social circles and being protective of them...sort of keeping them to yourselves so your new Japanese friends don't get distracted by the other foreigners in town, and it seems that they want to fullfill whatever agenda they have with them on their own...either just making friends, practicing Japanese, meeting other people, learning about how to live in this country, etc. Occasionally I feel resented for wanting to just be friends with everybody I meet and overlooking who doesn't like who and who's cooler than who, who should be excluded from a night out, etc. Immediately when I came here the locals were telling me who I should like and who I shouldn't like and that sort of rubbed me the wrong way because I don't always appreciate people telling me what to think about others before I've even had a chance to meet them. Small town politics I guess, same as anywhere. I don't even want to know what weird fictitious gossip is going around about me in this town...for instance when people see me walking around with a girl...ERIK THE SKINNY BALDING AMERICAN HAS 6 GIRLFRIENDS starts or something...

NEWS FLASH: I'll be going out Monday night with Judas Priest, the Buddhist Priest who sings Judas Priest (as Jodi aptly named him). Please check back for possible humorous karaoke photos.

As for me, I've finally gotten my Japanese to the point where I'm not fully bewildered and I can follow along in basic stuff. Last night after seeing Nate I stopped at Lupin...only one other customer came in that night so Master popped in a fishing video (not that exciting but made me want to go flyfishing in a serious way). But as I sat and sipped on a Chinese apricot wine, I talked to the guy that was there and I felt like I'm in a stage of my language learning where it's going to increase in an exponential way...I understood about half of what he said which was pretty good. And, now I can say male transvestite too.