Wednesday, February 02, 2011


Thursday February 3, 4:53 p.m.
Well, Doraemon was either mightily caffeinated that day or he was doing his best Clint Eastwood impression.
It's been a busy day...even humpier than yesterday's Hump Day by an extra class. Luckily, The Patent Attorney counts as a nice walk in the park in terms of lessons.
I've got The German in about 5 minutes. And then it's the usual lineup of Mrs. Thursday and The Music Man. My little bout of food poisoning has pretty much gone away but I think that anti-diarrheal medicine has been working too well....now, I'm just simply not...going. This may lead up to a Mt. Shin-Moe eruption in the next few hours if I lay off the meds.

Wednesday February 2, 9:12 p.m.
Yup, that's the guy, your honor! It's Kojak. I saw a rerun of Telly Savalas' detective drama from the 70s last night on cable whilst I was recovering from a bout of 24-hour food poisoning from a rogue salad. It's amazing how counterintuitive CBS was in getting Savalas cast as a good tough cop when he had been regularly cast as psychos or amoral bastards like Blofeld on "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". So, I got to see and hear all those "Who Loves Ya, Baby?" and lollipops for the first time in over 30 years.
As for today, I managed to survive the gauntlet of students on what was a Hump Day. This, considering I'm not totally out of the woods of my Montezuma's Revenge quite yet, but I'm getting better. I have a bit of a cheat in the form of some medicine that I bought at the nearby pharmacy; but that's better than having to rush out every few minutes from a student.
Let's see...I had The Artist (who's now much better herself), The Overachiever, Miss Prissy, 001 and finally, The Businesswoman should be coming in about 10 minutes for the last slot. I've got even more folks tomorrow. I like all of my students but I'm not gonna miss these super full schedules when I leave in June.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Wednesday February 2, 3:17 p.m.

Looks like I was the latest to be felled by an ailment. Back on Monday night, after I'd eaten my salad, my stomach started making some unusual mewling noises which continued into Tuesday. By the time I got home between The Beehive and the juku, I was kinda feeling rather unpleasant, though it wasn't enough to dive into the toilet headfirst. So I actually had to call the juku boss up and informed her that I wouldn't be able to come in. She'd called me earlier to state that Mr. White couldn't come because he had been taken down by the flu, so I didn't feel too guilty since The Milds were the only other lesson of the night and as their code name would suggest, they're pretty cool about it. Plus, I think it was the first time in my history with the juku (5 or 6 years) that I'd actually called in sick. The boss at first thought I was calling to resign from the place...she's so paranoid about that happening.

In any case, I stayed on the couch tending to my sore stomach and had a very rare Tuesday night off. I ended up watching an old rerun of "Kojak" on cable (yep, "Columbo" is apparently not the only show in town for 70s American TV detectives) and just watched a lot of the situation in Egypt.

And for the first time in several months, I actually 9 hours of sleep. That's about as rare as a cockroach in a sushi bar in Tokyo. This country is not known to be the birthplace for karoshi for nothing. But I hit the hay at about 10 p.m. and got up at 7 a.m. this morning. And I felt a whole lot better although the rumbles come and go in my tummy. Kinda tells me something about how I need to change some things to my lifestyle.

Which reminds me about the fact that I finally dropped the bomb on the bossman at Speedy's late on Monday night. Yep, I did inform him that I would be working only up to the summer. As expected, he took the bad news (for him) pretty calmly although it was obvious he wasn't too happy about the prospect of losing me. And this morning, as expected, he tried to see if he could squeeze in some regulars into my morning schedule....after all, since I'm now on limited time and all. Uh....no. However, I did acquiesce to a possible student after 001 since Miss Sony has finished her time with us.

Monday, January 31, 2011











Monday January 31, 9:27 p.m.
Well, yesterday after my lesson with Yajima, I made my way on the Hibiya Line all the way up to Akihabara to partake in the 2nd hokoten after it had been reinstated for the first time in 2.5 years. The people were definitely out there in droves walking around on the pavement usually meant for vehicular traffic. But as the sign said: No performances, no selling, no handing out of tissues. I think the sign also should have said: No Fun. Yup, it was pretty devoid of any excitement (save one rather lonely character in the guise of some pig walking down the main strip), but I'm just happy that the street has been blocked off at all. It's kinda like a patient only just coming out of a fugue-state coma...it'll take some time for the place to get lively again. According to the sign, this pseudo-Akiba hokoten will be in its current form until the end of June, and if everything works out, the term will be extended into the summer. Perhaps then we may be able to see dancing anime characters.
Still, the hokoten is coming back to Akihabara when changes have taken place. JR Akihabara is now brand spanking new and trendy after some years of remodeling, doner kebab has become the area's unofficial food, and AKB 48 has claimed the crown as the darlings of the neighbourhood. I kinda celebrated the return of the pedestrians' paradise by buying the doner kebab at the corner where they were made. That corner was liberally populated by noshing visitors and pigeons. There's no other place (save McDonalds) that has so much food for so little price.
Strangely enough, I ended up in Akihabara again this morning after Cozy's lesson in Toyocho, since I had an urge to have some kaiten sushi for the first time in a few months. Monday morning in Akiba is a far cry from yesterday's relative hijinks. It's not filled with folks...vehicular traffic seems to be more active on the street than people are on the sidewalks. Basically, I just walked around the area for several minutes before making my way into Yodobashi Akiba and going up to the 8th floor where Sushi Zanmai was located. Since I got there only 15 minutes after they had opened, the conveyor belts were doing minimal business. Basically, I had to work it like at a regular sushi bar and ask for my sushi. Service was a bit off, too. First, the waitress brought over tepid miso soup before she hurriedly and apologetically replaced it with a far hotter variety. Then, the nearest chef to me forgot my one order of negi toro. Now, I'm pretty laid back about that sort of thing, but I think the staff missed a bullet. Mistakes like that can be absorbed easily back in the States or Canada, but I think the staff over at the Zanmai were lucky that the customers were very laid back and that it was early. If it had been later in the day with a fuller house, there would've been demands for low bows of prostration from a few hardheaded customers.