i saw lord of the rings yesterday.  it finally came out in japan.  it was good, but damn it was freakin long!  three hours and thirty minutes is like on a cultural nite level, which is unecessarily too long i think.  i think two hours and maybe sometimes slightly a little longer is just enough for a human to stand er sit rather...depends on how you look at it i guess.  good luck to all those cn people by the way.

ive been trying to think of what to write in my entries.  some people tend to write what happens everyday and freely write their thoughts no matter who might be reading them.  other people just use it to vent.  still some others are super vague and are only understandable to just to themselves and maybe some other people that are in the know.  this is all okay i think.  just for me, i guess ive been trying to figure out how i would like to use this thing.  before it was just to report my thoughts for the bus, but now that that trial of my life is over, what to do next really.  reporting things in japan is all cool and all, but i havent been going out much to really report much of anything.  writing deep thoughts or trials of life is all interesting too, but it just gets too heavy sometimes and i feel like its not something i really like to share cuz i like to keep that private sometimes.  it feels good to vent to the online journal and all, but i think if anything it should be done in a controlled manner.  you dont know who might be reading the stuff you write. 

so yah, i guess i should write more about japan and stuff.  just really cant find anything interesting to write about at the moment.  ive kept going out to a minimum i think for a number of reasons such as saving money and being lazy and whatnot.  one big thing i think is i just did the whole have fun thing in college...a bit too much to the point where i like staying home and just watching tv and not really doing much of anything.  im not sure if people understand that or not.  going out takes a lot of energy out of you and it just gets old sometimes.  but then, if you dont go out, you dont get to experience so i guess its all about balance.  

a key device to be social here is a thing called a keitai.  keitai is the japanese word for cell phone and the cell phones here are dope.  they are highly advanced and you can take pics, play games, write mail, check the web, shoot laser beams at people...nah.  but yah, just about every person here in japan has one and i am one of the few who dont.  i really just dont need it cuz i dont go out you know.  but i guess ive been feeling like getting one lately cuz its a necessary item if you wanna be social i guess.  i just wish i could be social the way id like to though, which is to do something creative with other people.  i just really cant do that here like how i was able to do that back in los angeles.  thats one thing i miss besides the friends and family and that is being able to be creative.  i just would like to have other people to bounce ideas from time to time and have an audience, but cant really do that here cuz your audience dont know what the fuck youre saying...dammit!    

today i played pictionary with my junior high kids.  actually it was the second day worth of it and it actually went really well.  i would like to play more of these type of games, but as ALT stands for the "assistant" language teacher, i merely follow the head teacher's lead.  anywho, apparently they never played this game before, so i gave them relatively easy things to draw.  for example, hamburger, picture, present, etc.  i guess for a native speaker of english this would be no sweat, but for a japanese student who doesn't study english so much, it might be a rough ride.  so yah, the students drew the pics well, so i gave them a little more harder words like laugh, student, headache (they didnt actually know what the word was).  the great word that i gave was love.  one of the boys started out drawing two stick figures facing each other.  one stick figure was purely normal in stick figure standards, but then the other one, he proceeded to draw breasts on it.  hahah i laughed so loud.  he then decided that wasnt such a good idea and erased the breasts and took a red colored chalk and drew hearts for its eyes.  that was dope.  one of the students, obviously a girl, proceeded to give the correct answer:  love or otherwise in japan, "rove".  bad joke, but im japanese so i can make fun of my own people.  so there.

i like all my students.  theyre real cool.  there isnt really any problems at all except maybe some of them (who knows maybe a lot of them) arent what you call the most studious students in the world, but yeah i wish i knew what a lot of them were thinking.  like why some of them dont study at all and stuff.  i would talk to them more in the limited japanese that i know, but i just think i should use english cuz i am here for them to practice english and all.  so yah, i dont know.  i used to study all up to high school, sorta didnt happen much in college, but i knew the key was really education if you wanted to get anywhere, so when i see students who dont even try at all and give up immediately, i wonder what the heck is up.  i actually think about that a lot and i get real concerned.  is it because they have a different way of learning or is it like they dont feel like it applies or is it something else like the way we teach or something?  i have no idea.  i would like to motivate them, but i realize i cant motivate or even express myself properly to them because of the language difference.  that frustrates me and what frustrates me more are students or people in general who have so much potential and dont utilize it, even if its just a little.

ugh.  i get worried sometimes when i get too engrossed or concerned in the lives of these students.  i dont want them to fuck up, but i realize i am a key figure in causing them to fuck up.  its tough to have that responsibility to be able to motivate, direct, advise, teach, and almost every other important educational verb in the world.  it makes me realize or not so much realize cuz i already knew that, but confirm how important teachers really are and how much i respect and admire the teachers that ive had and the ones that are out there, busting their ass off on so little pay.  i just know that teaching isnt for me though.  if theres any life im going to fuck up, i know its going to be mine and no one elses.