Saturday Jan. 24, 7:07 a.m.

Well, another one of my favorite restaurants fell by the wayside apparently. My suspicions were unfortunately proven correct when I went down to BEMI in Hiroo and discovered that they had gone under even earlier than the Farm Grill. Too bad, since I did want to take a couple of the students for dinner tomorrow; and there were a group of current students who also wanted to go there as well. Ah, I guess it'll just be COCA in Yurakucho from now on.

Since I was in the area, I decided to take a look at the much advertised National Azabu Supermarket. I must admit that it is pretty impressive; it has even more of a foreigner's feel than Kinokuniya, probably because it is totally enclosed within the diplomats' enclave. I even saw a car with the familiar diplomat's plates in the parking lot. Quite a number of the foreign population were there, and there were some pretty huge frozen turkeys which made me wonder how big those diplomats' ovens were. There were a lot of cans of real American Campbell Soup types such as Chicken Noodle. In my supermarkets, the Campbells varieties are just restricted to Minestrone, Corn and Onion. I was very tempted to buy a couple of cans.

I met up with my Friday afternoon student for the first time this year at the Tea Room. It wasa good lesson. She informed me that one of her old classmates at the school was heading over to London all of a sudden because of her husband's transfer there. We both agreed that this classmate's temperament was such that she may be a bit overwhelmed and homesick, so I decided to give The Ballerina a heads-up about the situation. Perhaps if she has time, she can give her a call sometime.

Afterwards, it was up to Shinjuku to meet up with the old Tea Room ladies for dinner. It had been a few months since I've seen them...one I haven't seen since September, but she's been busy jetsetting all over the world on business. We went off to El Torito where unlike the last time I was there, we did have to wait quite a while. I was a bit annoyed internally at the friendly maitre 'd when he asked me if we had reservations since I had been told that I couldn't make them on Fridays. However, he was the consummate professional at how he handled the customers. The food was indeed good, and the bottomless basket of salsa and chips was the overall theme. The size of the fajitas was a bit disappointing considering the one-pound version that I used to have back in T.O.

Woke up a bit earlier than usual since I have to teach my kids an hour earlier than usual. Then I have my monthly get-together with the former night students at the Tea Room. Hopefully, my stomach will be pretty empty by that time. I'm still digesting last night's fare.

Tomorrow, Movie Buddy will be coming by in the morning to see The Two Towers. He must have a destiny with that movie; he's seen the thing five times in the theater here and yet he wants to catch the extra scenes on the DVD I borrowed from Chip Guy. Then, I head down to Ginza to meet up with the two students for dinner. As an alternate to BEMI, I've decided to go for COCA. At least, it'll be closer to get to than BEMI was.

I watched a video that my fellow Diana Krall fan from the school had lent me. It was the modernized verison of GREAT EXPECTATIONS with Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert De Niro. I was frankly not all that eager to watch it, but as a favor to my student, I did. And the verdict is that I don't particularly regret having seen it, but I just shrugged my shoulders after all was said and done. I don't think updated Shakesperean movie adaptations have ever really done all that well. My student even gave me the CD for the movie; I think I'll pass on that one.

Well, off to the salt mines.

Thursday Jan. 22, 7:42 p.m.

My student cancelled tonight so I find myself with an early night. So I just indulged myself at the rolling sushi place. Not a whole lot of variety but it was cheap. Pretty darn cold tonight; it's supposed to be hitting the big zero. I may just take my shower just before bed just so that I don't face any frozen water lines in the morning. I can always eat and do the toilette elsewhere but the shower can only be done in one place.

I've been kinda striking out on the restaurants seemingly. I'm supposed to be meeting with the former Tea Room ladies tomorrow for dinner at El Torito but they won't take reservations on Friday nights so there's a bit of a risk factor going there directly. And I tried calling up a Chinese restaurant in Hiroo to make reservations for Sunday night but noone is picking up; that's not a good sign. I'll have to come up with alternatives.

Wednesday Jan. 21, 9:32 p.m.

Met up with my ex for the first time in 6 months. She took me to a hidden tonkatsu place nearby which was really very good if tiny. It looks like she's moved on very comfortably with her life, and she even gave me some good advice about my taxes. I also got some insurance advice from my other student tonight. I may try to cover myself a bit more; however, the earthquake insurance will still have to be a separate issue.

Monday Jan. 19, 11:13 p.m.

Just about ready for bed here. That powwow between the Iconoclast and the boss turned out unexpectedly well although it lasted a good 2.5 hours. The main reason was that my interpreting skills were primarily needed just to take care of some simple requests that the boss had for my friend. All in all, it was probably my smoothest attempt at interpreting. The only tragedy is all of this smoothing over of ruffled feathers has taken place about a month before the Iconoclast's scheduled departure from the company. If this had taken place three years ago, things would probably have been much better in the office. Well, in any case, I'm just happy that I didn't suffer any major nervous breakdown.

I made my first purchase on Amazon for a Star Trek book thanks to GC's present of a gift certificate. The whole process to get the product was a real pain in the butt, though. I'm just happy that I only needed to do it once.

I guess with all of the exertions today with the meeting and the fact that I couldn't get much sleep last night, I'm feeling pretty exhausted right now. It serves me right for having Starbucks coffee last night. That stuff becomes so much sludge in the coffee urn; I can only imagine how much caffeine it must have.

Got confirmation from my newest student that Wednesday morning starting from February is a go. Some more income in the pot.

I may have averted a close call, relatively speaking. I was in Shibuya this afternoon having lunch. Just on the NHK news, I heard that police cordoned off a certain area there that same time due to a couple of unexploded firebombs in some buildings.

Sun. Jan. 18, 10:14 p.m.

A nice quiet Sunday in advance of my first really busy week this year. It'll be good to have one considering my low take from the school this month. Basically I spent it on watching some more episodes of 24, and helping out my friend with some translation work. Over dinner, I watched my Diana Krall concert DVD. Great music, but I have to admit that one has to be a real patient jazz aficionado to sit through a jazz concert. Since there are minimal pyrotechnics and no choreography, the eyes tend to wander or just glaze over at times; the music is so soothing at times, it can lull me to sleep. It didn't help that dinner was well on its way through digestion.

We may be getting a second chance at precipitation tomorrow, but the choice will be better. We may get snow, rain or just plain sleet.

Sunday Jan. 18, 1:12 a.m.

Well, the horrible storm that was supposed to hit us is so far a bit of a bust. We've been getting steady wisps of flakes coming down all day and night but nothing has accumulated. Methinks that this whole thing will quickly become a meterological memory by the morning. However, the pundits did forecast more white stuff for Monday. Now I'm really hoping that there will be a huge whiteout then so that I can avoid that interpreting session between the Iconoclast and his bosses. Quit, already!

The kids were OK today along with my lesson plans. I managed to keep things relatively fun but I made sure that they got a good grounding in past tense. At this point, I'm willing to sacrifice some fun for some solid work.

For the next 6 hours afterwards, I had free time so I made my semi-regular stop at that great ramen shop in Shinjuku Station that the Iconoclast had introduced me to months ago. It not only has a great ribsticking ramen with roast pork cutlet, but it's non-smoking and it even plays jazz in the background. Perfect! Then I went on a bit of a spree and picked up another movie mag along with the Diane Krall DVD of her concert in Paris and a CD of an old semi-successful 80s band, GO WEST. I popped on the subway and headed down to Omotesando to scope out the restaurant for that New Year's party later in the evening. It was just across from Aoyama Gakuin University. Intriguing name...SYDNEY BLUE. Sounds like a female detective.

I then spent a better part of an hour searching high and low through Omotesando, Harajuku and Shibuya for a cafe. But given that it was a Saturday and it was cold, there was no chance that I would get a seat. I ended up at Towers doing some browsing all over the floors before I made my way to the corner McDonalds. I ended up having a snack there. That particular branch had a bit of a fascinating schizo interior decor. The front half was decked out in an off-white Grecian decor while the back was decked out as a 60s pop art mondo lounge. I think some photographer ought to take a few shots.

Finally, I made my way up the road in the gently blowing snow back to Sydney Blue where I already found a few familiar faces...and some surprises. Within a few minutes, I found out that a couple of the folks sitting there had gotten engaged. One of the two, The Big Guy, was eliciting some shocked looks when he made his announcement. He had known his newly-minted fiancee for a few years but only dated her officially for a week before he decided to pop the question.

Over the next several minutes, more of the gang arrived. As I may have mentioned before, i was never a great fan of mingling in big parties, and things didn't really change to make me change my mind. However, the good thing was that they were willing to let me just listen in on the conversations with a few chances for me to insert some comments. It had been close to a year since I'd seen any of them. I met Spunky for the first time in ages. She was always the mother hen of the gang...making sure everybody was OK and holding annual Thanksgiving parties at her apartment. Although the name and some pamphlets on a table may have pointed to some vague reference to Australia, the food was most definitely Meditteranean. It was good and very plentiful; in fact, I rather gagged after munching on smoked salmon, pasta and stuffed shells to see platters of glazed fried pork come out as a last course.

The strange thing about the entire evening was that Chip Guy, the man who had told me about the party in the first place, was a no-show. Spunky alluded that it's possible that he and the missus may have had a spat. But I think that's unlikely since he was supposed to have brought two Canadian friends in tow. In any case, I sent him a query about his absence.

Well, I'm glad to be home after a long day, and if this snowy weather continues into Sunday, I'll be just as happy to stay here as well.

Friday Jan. 16, 11:05 p.m.

Enjoyed a highly unusual wakeup of 12 noon. Don't know how long it's been since I woke up that late. I think the last time I did that was back around Xmas 1987 after a major hangover. Nothing as painful as that today.

Since I had no classes today, I just focused on getting some ironing done and prepping for my kids' classes. I also started watching the second season of 24 on DVD. Still a visual pageturner. Unfortunately, my sinuses decided to clog up as well, which provided me with several hours of sneezing and other misery until I bought some medicine tonight along with the fixins for dinner.

Well, we may have some snow in the forecast tomorrow. I love snow but I hate the fact that it tends to screw up public transportation so badly in this city. And I have to head out fo r the kids' place tomorrow morning and then I've got a New Year's party in the evening. In a way, I hope that the alert is a false alarm.

Friday Jan. 16, 12:49 a.m.

Sure enough, when I checked my bankbook for my montly stipend from my school, I received just enough to pay for a fairly good dinner in Tokyo. Looks like I may suffer my first loss when I do the books next month. Well, I look at it in perspective. Back 6 years ago, I busted my ankle just a few months after having started my full-time gig, so I wasn't exactly filled with money at that time. In fact, because I was out of it for 3 weeks, I was in such dire need that I had to borrow money from a friend for a short while. Naturally I appreciated the help but still, it was an ego-bruiser. Right now, even with the risk of going minus next month, I will still have considerably more in my account than I did at that time. I guess optimism is still good for something.

However, on the good side, my regular Tuesday night gig got expanded to Thursday from tonight with theaddition of a student. And another old student of mine informed me of a friend of hers who wants to enlist for lessons. Well, this could be another potential boost to the income here.

My lone class at the school wasn't a great one, though a few of the students seemed OK and all of them laughed uproariously at times. I'm always rather tough on myself.

Looks like I've got another head start on the weekend. My lone Friday afternoon student cancelled out due to work. And I haven't heard from Chip Guy concerning a possible dinner date on Friday evening. So I assume that I'll just be catching up on some ironing and then working on the kids' classes for Saturday.

I met up with Movie Buddy this afternoon at the school for the first time since that rather foul row last Saturday. He didn't mention a thing about it but did mention about the fact that we had all disappeared in the huge crowd. I didn't bother telling him the real reason I escaped. I told him about the fact that I'm borrowing The Two Towers. An initial attempt to meet up has been dashed due to plans on both ends.

Then, the Iconoclast left a message on the machine, sniping about yet another little snit with a staff member he hates with a passion. So I'll have to interpret that on Monday afternoon. I'm not going to be looking forward to that, though I am mindful that the Iconoclast has given me some very nice food. All I can say is that I hope he will keep his promise to leave the company in 2 weeks.

Wednesday Jan. 14, 10:50 p.m.

I did my montly budget check. It looks like even with the lack of income and the heavy expenditures, I was able to still save a nice, if not great, amount. However, I am dreading my miniscule payday tomorrow.

My long day was curtailed a bit when my final student of the day called up to cancel due to extra work. I wasn't complaining too much since I am feeling rather rundown. Perhaps it is some lingering effect of last night's Hirohito's Revenge or the cold bug has finally hit me in earnest. It was pretty chilly out today and much of northern Japan got majorly walloped by a huge snowstorm.

Looks like my social calendar could be shaping up some more. Once again, I got the lion's share of good e-mail and a few former students have contacted me about getting together for New Year's parties in the next couple of weeks. And I thought that the Holidays were finally over.

I made a pickup at the Iconoclast's company today between classes to pick up that massive fruitcake he doesn't like. It ought to be good as a prize for tomorrow's class at the school. At the same time, I also got that Chinese fake meat made from tofu, ZAI, a hard block of maple sugar and even a bottle of Bit and Bites. The ZAI is definitely an acquired taste; I could take it though not exactly savor it. It was a matter of not quite approximating real meat in terms of taste and texture, but I was game enough to devour it with some hot rice for dinner.

Wednesday Jan. 14, 8:02 a.m.

Rather busy yesterday with classes spread throughout the day. My first Tsudanuma class of the year went quite well along with my first class at the old school. Some of the students had wondered if I had finally cut all ties. During my 4-hour break between that class and my regular night gig, I got into a nice conversation with a student I hadn't taught since Halloween. We share a common interest in jazz, especially Diana Krall, so we ended up deciding to swap some CDs on Thursda y since I'll be teaching then as well.

The night classes went pretty smoothly although my last class was one of those somnabulant affairs, and the past perfect tense is definitely not one of the more exciting lessons to teach. I also learned that there is a reason not to drink orange soda past its expiry date. To wit, I was very thirsty even after the first cup of coffee so I raided the fridge in my teaching room. My boss is not exactly the most conscientious person when it comes to maintaining what's in the fridge. There was a carton of Tropicana which had expired back on December 27th; there was no way that I would touch that, but I did go for the orange soda. Even the expiry date of Jan. 7th, I thought that with soda being soda, there would be no problem. However, I did get a tinge of Montezuma's Revenge later when I got home...or perhaps I should say Hirohito's Revenge.

After several days of very low real e-mail traffic, I rather hit the motherloda last night with a good 20% of my inbox consisting of true messages. One was even from my former girl; apparently, she's moved just a little east of me for some reason. I'm not sure if that means she's gotten her own little place or if she's moved in with her new beau. However, she has invited me for a bit of lunch next week.

I've been going over The Two Towers DVD little by little during my relatively brief periods of free time. It will take some time to get through the extras since there are so many of them. This morning was devoted to the making of Gollum. I think, in a way, it's good to go through the extras very gradually since the self-congratulatory tone can be awfully grating beyond a certain period of time.

Today should be another busy one with three different classes spread out over the day. Plus, I've got another pickup of food from The Iconoclast in between classes. Looks like it'll be another chilly one today.

Monday Jan. 12, 10:35 p.m.

Nice quiet day at home. I managed to get through nearly 4 hours of the special extended DVD of The Two Towers. Much better than the theatrical version. Just kinda wished that Jackson got off that "Longest Closing Credits Sequence in History" kick, though. Now, I've gotta get through the special features which should take just as long.

Well, tomorrow is back to work. Tuesday and Wednesday ought to be my busiest days since I'll have to be out of the apartment most of the time.

Monday Jan. 12, 12:31 p.m.

Well, sure enough, the news this mornng showed a few of those malcontents crashing Adulthood Day ceremonies in Okinawa and Miyagi Prefectures. Although those punks did steam me, I also realized that there are a whole lot more ceremonies going on around the country which were probably a lot more peaceful if boring, and perhaps in a few rare cases, even truly inspirational (oops...I caught a whiff of optimism there...gotta check that).

Forgot to mention that the Ballerina called all the way from London last night and left a greeting. She stated that she tried to reach Movie Buddy on his cell but he wasn't picking up. I recollected that he once said the Ballerina was just a bit too dependent on him (she's had a major crush on him) and that he would refrain from talking to her for a while. And especially with Saturday night's events, I don't think it would help matters having any mention of the Ballerina into their relationship.

I borrowed The Two Towers Special Edition DVDs and the second season of 24 from Chip Guy. Looks like I'll be busy today but I've got some housework to do. Plus, I've got to devour the Iconoclast's BBQ pork that he so kindly brought back from HK for me.

Monday Jan. 12, 12:55 a.m.

Well, another Adulthood Day is here..the time when the new 20-year-olds dress up in their kimonos and suits, drink LEGALLY for once and heckle the mayor during the usually boring speech that he makes to the so-called mature adults. As you might imagine, I take a dim view of any day that celebrates a set border between adolescence and adulthood. Plenty of immature adults well into their 20s and 30s out there.

Luckily, the past evening was a much more serene and pleasant experience than that logistical and emotional fiasco of Saturday night. I made my first pilgrimage to Chip Guy's house this year, and enjoyed his company along with that of his wife and kid. The only source of caterwauling just came from Chip Guy's daughter and THAT I could understand.

Over dessert, I watched one of those "Only In Japan" variety shows. I think this program belonged solidly more in the National Geographic channel than the Food Network. It was about a few celebs who dared to enter unknown lands and find out what some of the natives were eating. Among the "delicacies" were: mosquito patties stewed in cow urine, sauteed termite queens and deep-fried spiders. Chip's wife was marveling at how I could keep on munching chocolates while watching this program. Hmph...I can distinguish between the two things!

Sunday Jan. 11, 1:33 a.m.

Well, it was one for the entertainment books tonight. It certainly made me wonder whether I should have even bothered lingering around Shinjuku for 6 hours before meeting up with Movie Buddy and the bunch. First of all, our trip to Shidax, our first choice for karaoke, was short-circuited by one of those young hucksters hawking half-price karaoke around the corner in Kabukicho. I was pretty suspicious to begin with, but MB got hooked by the promise of all-you-can-drink.

As it turned out, the place we went to was no better than the really cheap karaoke box with the dingy walls and the torn-up seats. The karaoke system was slow in responding and had this weird gimmick of being in random selection mode so that we could never find out when we would be singing. Plus, the drinks and food (miniscule and mediocre) were late in coming and some of the orders were never processed. But the worst part of it was that it looked like MB and his girlfriend had been in the middle of a lovers' spat even before tonight's event, and it boiled over in the middle of the session. While some of us were singing, MB and his girl decided to continue their argument in the room itself until MB suddenly stormed out with his girl following. He came back all pouty for a little bit but it looked like the two had patched things up...initially. Finally, when we were on our way back to the station, I was walking beside them when the girlfriend decided that she would give him the cold shoulder with him trying to catch up and make up. I'd had enough and just left them alone...easy enough to do in the usual tumultuous crowd which always clogged the area around the ticket machines and gates. One thing I hate is getting into the middle of a crossfire, especially between two lovers. Mind you, the whole thing reminded me of some of the dicier moments between me and my ex, albeit it was in more private situations. However, I have blown up in the past in public places, so I can sympathize to a certain extent with MB.

As it is, though, I could've avoided all this and just stayed home with a good meal. Ah well, these things do happen from time to time. I just hope that my meeting with Chip Guy goes a lot better.

And as a further conclusion, witnessing all of this ugliness illustrated to me that I'm happier being single again.

Friday Jan. 9, 11:07 p.m.

Always nice to take a shower after a day of eating very spicy food. I went down to Roppongi as scheduled and went to First Kitchen, one of the local fast food restaurants, to meet that acquaintance of mine. I had a chili dog set which added the first aromas to my clothing. We shifted the venue over to the family restaurant, Janathans, across the street. It seems like there was a reason that he wanted to change places. He's a macrobiotic type of fellow so nothing on the First Kitchen menu would ever be chosen by him. He just uses the place as a study hall, much to the staff's chagrin.

Afterwards, I went up to the Iconoclast's company and met up with his boss' nephew. Unlike in my first report, his nephew turned out to be a pretty decent fellow. He asked me a lot of questions about living in Canada which I was happy to answer, and we continued our conversation over to dinner at a tiny yakitori place in East Shinjuku. Of course, the smells of the dishes there managed to permeate my clothing. I was broiling in my own juices with the extra layers on, but as it turned out, my decision was a good one. It was cold walking back home but the layers kept most of it out.

Well, gotta make the plans for the kids.

Friday Jan. 9, 11:14 a.m.

It may be -20 before the wind chill in Toronto but it was still plenty cold here in Tokyo despite it being 22 degrees warmer. I can thank the lack of central heating for that. Luckily, I've had a 10-year-old ceramic heater that's still working. The wonders of Japanese durability.

The salarymen are crying the blues here. Not because of the economy which is actually showing a rise, but because of the ban on beef imports from the US and probably Canada. We have a very popular restaurant among the salaried types here called Yoshinoya whose fare du guerre is GYUDON or beef on rice in a bowl. In fact, there are other similar chains as well but Yoshinoya is the representative restaurant. Salarymen love to go there during lunch or even dinner since the dish comes out hot, quick and cheap. With the restrictions on beef, Japan will deplete its American beef supplies by March which means that all of the gyudon restaurants will have to drastically change the menu. Substitutes include salmon roe, chicken or other stuff on the rice. Some of those salarymen when interviewed cited a lot of regret if that were to happen.

Well, today, I'll be headed out to meet a couple of folks. One is a guy who I only met once or twice back in Toronto several years ago. For some reason, he's tried to maintain contact with me over the years by e-mail, so we've finally decided to meet in Roppongi for a bit of tea. Then, I head back up to Shinjuku to meet The Iconoclast and his boss' nephew. It seems the nephew wants to head off to Canada to study something. His English is not too hot, and since The Iconoclast's Japanese is minimal, I'm being brought in again as intermediary. Oh, man...I just hope he's not one of these young punks with an attitude.

I may have another get-together in the works. One of the Tea Room girls contacted me for the first time in several weeks since our disbanding to see if we were up for a New Year's party. Then, another one of my school's alumni who actually has her current job thanks to that aforementioned Tea Room lady contacted me for pretty much the same thing. Hmmm...after that Xmas fiasco, I'm wondering if I should let one of them do the planning.

My weekend will be spent with my closest friends. I've got my first class with the kids tomorrow, but then I'll be meeting up with Movie Buddy and his friend from Oz for a goodbye dinner before Oz takes off for home. Then, I'll be meeting up with Chip Guy and the family on Sunday for dinner with him.

Wednesday Jan. 7, 11:17 p.m.

I felt pretty worn out and limp by the time I returned home tonight. I think one factor in that was my fashion overreaction. Again, I judged the weather outside by how cold it felt inside in my pyjamas, so I threw on the scarf, the gloves and the longjohns. Of course, the temperature today was 7 degrees...cold by Tokyo standards, but for a supposedly coldproofed Canadian like myself, I should've just laughed it off. Instead I lugged all of this stuff on my person like a portable sauna. Without getting into too fine detail, I resorted to peeling off my longjohns. My legs will probably be the envy of a lot of young ladies right now.

I ended up getting a 1000 yen pass since I had quite a few stops today which involved paying bills, doing some shopping and then teaching my two classes. The two of them went by fairly smoothly. But they will end up being the only two classes of my work week, aside from my kids on Saturday morning, since my new class on Thursday nights cancelled out and we've got that Adulthood Day on Monday.

That Starbucks card I got from my Wednesday nighter has been a godsend. No reaching for bills and change for my lattes and cinnamon rolls. Just a swipe and the staff person takes care of that aspect of manual labor.

I gave my afternoon student a bit of a scare when I admitted my past as a former otaku. I had to reassure that I no longer go nuts when it comes to purchases of music CDs and any anime purchases are a thing of the past.

The Iconoclast has returned from his vacation in HK with a nice slab of BBQ pork for me. Now all I have to do is try to secure it sometime this weekend.

Well, now that I have nothing tomorrow, I can just sleep in and just get a few errands done.

Tuesday Jan. 6, 11:55 p.m.

Another smooth night in front of the students, although that one student is once again making some groans about having to work with a less-advanced book. Well, I did offer that she could start a private class with me since I will be teaching 2 Thursdays a month from this week. However, my boss told me that the student had related to her that she is loathe to do that since it would be too expensive. Well, if she wants to paint herself into a corner with her own brush, that's her business.

I still received a few more New Year's cards today, one from a surprise source, The Joker. After a silence of several years, he, or his wife actually, sent over a card. Well, I tried to find some remaining New Year's cards at the convenience store but it looks like the season is now officially over; I couldn't find a single one. I think it's a bit chintzy, but I decided to send The Joker and the two other parties e-mail cards instead. The other ones came from that family whose kids I teach on Saturdays and a couple of former students who had become a married item a couple of years ago. They just opened up a flower shop of their own; it should look very nice since the husband is a former set designer. I must admit that the address of the place is intriguing. Although it was written in the katakana syllabary, I swear it reads as "Phil Collins Musashino". I wonder if the building itself is called "Genesis".

I also received a phone message from the Ballerina. It sounded rather final so I gather that I won't be meeting her at the school after all. I am a bit disappointed by that but at least it saves me an extra leg on my journey and I can get at least one more hour of sleep. Speaking of the school, I guess the staff is pretty desperate in trying to find teachers. I have told the folks there repeatedly that I cannot work on Fridays, and yet they sent me a fax asking if I would be willing to teach at the Funabashi City Hall on Thursdays and Fridays for the next several weeks. For one thing, I said that I would only teach the in-house classes at the school, and for the second thing, when I taught there last year, the organization and the materials for the class were so lame. Nice students, though, so I was rather ashamed about teaching that crap to them.

Tuesday, Jan. 6, 11:48 a.m.

Got a good 10 hours of sleep today. One thing about these holidays, I'm very happy for the down time. I also heard the garbage guys come by for the first time in over a week. Looking at the pile that was there last night, it looks like they are going to be needing the Ben-Gay tonight.

Well, that was indeed a computer worm which attacked me yesterday. But damage was minimal. It tried to make another attack today but luckily I was able to filter it out now that I knew what I was looking for.

I received a bit more traffic of real e-mail as well. Chip Guy is back in town so I'm looking forward to dinner with him this weekend. GC and another old friend got back in touch as well, so I was able to have somewhat mroe meaningful exchanges other than the usual one-line responses.

Well, I've gotta get prepped for my three classes tonight.

Mon. Jan. 5, 9:36 p.m.

Well, I know that the Holidays are truly over when regular civic services are back online. I had a couple of bags of burnable garbage just hanging around my kitchen for a week until I finally could dump them outside. No problems with smell, though, thanks to the fact that I have no central heating.

Heading out to Tokyo wasn't too bad. I made a stopover in Akihabara today to pick up one last calendar for the Anime King. I must admit that it felt rather weird being in the anime emporium, GAMERS, surrounded by folks who could become my surrogate children. But I was able to find a calendar which should keep the King happy. A lot of people milling through the electronics district.

The class tonight went by pretty smoothly. I got the impression on the way back to Shinjuku Station, though, that there was still a period of transition going on between the Holidays and the regular work week. Not too many people walking outside of the huge hotels in the West Shinjuku district.

The weather has gotten noticeably colder again after a balmy New Year's week. I wonder if there will be a repeat of that fateful Adulthood Day several years back when the kimonoed and suited 20-year-olds got socked by a major snowstorm in Tokyo.

Looks like the BBS traffic has been burning up a streak on the J-Pop forums about the Morning Musume graduations and the Kohaku Utagassen. If I were ten years younger, I probably would jump in instead of being a harmless lurker but considering that a lot of messages have the words "Mom" and "Dad" in them, I would feel somewhat sleazy doing so. I am impressed, though, at the origins of some of those messages: New York, Louisiana, Texas.