That's the museum, that's all I've got. Hey, sometimes when you live in a big city for awhile, you get used to it and you get bored and you forget about all the cool shit that big cities get, like in museums, like paintings and fossils and artifacts. I try to get out once in awhile and catch whatever's in town. Or just the dinosaur bones in the Nature and Science Museum.
It was just getting cold that day.
Valentine's Day in Japan is when girls give boys chocolate and love. One month later on White Day, 3/16, boys return the gesture. I would tell both holidays to blow me but, as you know, I like any holiday that calls for arts & crafts so I spent all last evening making rocky road and no-bake cookies and all this morning hand-making and -painting paper boxes to wrap it up in.
Last week a student asked, "Ms. Roeser, how many boyfriends do you have?" "About 507," I replied. That was a lie. I have a lot of extra chocolate in pretty boxes. Who's lonely? I can help.
Tokyo Moe Jared already posted this but it's not like we can have too much. HELLO! Look at it! I thought it was pretty dorky when I just saw the flier on the left, but when I saw the full-body ad a couple days later, I realized smoking is the coolest thing on earth. Who is the target demographic here? My co-worker said "Gays, duh." I was still surprised. I mean duh this is gay but I didn't know it was something any significant number of Japanese men would go for and I didn't know a major cigarette brand would brand itself so 100% gay in a blanket ad campaign. And it's not like I've ever known Japanese concepts of GAY to match my concepts of GAY. If someone told me this was going for the tween girl demographic I wouldn't even be surprised. Whatevs. Go Winston Japan. I love this ad.
I'm really sold on this waiting room, they look like they teach the science of chill.
STEP IN TIME, STEP IN TIME!
This poster looks like it was fun to put together. I've never seen a tipsy businessman with moves like that, though.
The sad poster is still my favorite thing I've ever drawn for school, while the Michael Jackson shows that I'm really no good at all! I can't put any motion or tension into anything, ever. But it's okay. I like to draw and being able to do it all the time and learn to develop an actual style for school materials has been the best part of working in Japan. Better than eating school lunch and dancing with children? Yes. Oooh. Someday soon. Someday soon I might tell you a thing or two about teaching English in Japan.
I had higher hopes for this. Look at that guy's weird emotionless arms. Haha. The kids like it, though. They are not very discerning critics. Who is? I plan to fall in love with a discerning critic someday.
I hate being sleepy at work. When I'm on the verge of passing out I make posters and drawings to keep myself awake. I draw weird when I'm exhausted and those ones are sometimes my favorites.
This would have been a FEELINGS poster, like hungry, sleepy, happy, bored, sad, nervous... but I don't remember drawing it and can't figure out what the fuck I could possibly have been trying to illustrate.I don't know if you can see it but this fellow in his winter hat seems to be holding a closed hand to his chest while staring at... what?
It was freezing cold today, but so clear and pretty. The train ride home was nice.
I didn't consider the weather when I moved to Japan and it's been the most pleasant surprise. The amount of sun I've seen this year is astounding (I'm from Oregon, though).
I had such a relaxing day. I substituted at a junior high, just grading speeches until 3PM. I was in the mood for nature poetry. I've barely studied Wordsworth at all! It's absurd. The preface to Lyrical Ballads had a predictably terrific effect on me, so I don't know how I've neglected everything else he did. I love Dorothy Wordsworth, his sister. She kept beautiful journals, and her descriptions of the landscapes they traveled through fed his poetry. So far I've been much more absorbed in her journals than his poems. But today I got into "Lines Written in Early Spring" so maybe I'll have a W. Wordsworth phase now.
I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughtsBring sad thoughts to the mind.
To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.
Miku, the rad-looking girl in my takoyaki party post, drew this picture of Rimbaud for me. Thank you, Miku, I love you. You don't read this blog, but it don't matter.
This is not a very good one (eyes!) but I was having a hard time this day. I was trying to take ones like I was falling out of the closet and that was tough! Then I thought about getting under the bed but abruptly got so grossed out by my creepiness that I had to quit, which is what always happens. I'm thinking this is less weird to share because it's almost October, so, almost Halloween! Creepiness = A-OK.
There's usually a theme to each of my severe bouts of poverty, according to what activities I find I can entertain myself with for free. In Newport it was "Let's read Plato!" In Yamagata it was "Let's climb mountains!" In Tokyo I guess it's "Let's be morbid and sullen all day and then go out and get sleazy with strangers in strange places!" But that's not what kind of blog this is. What kind of blog is this? I don't know, friends. I'm pretty sure it's no secret that I love me some trouble and sleaze, though.
I saw Patti Smith: Dream of Life in Shinjuku with Aya. What a beautiful film! It touched me in the right places, anyway. So I'm in a good mood and naturally cutting back on the serial killer documentaries and illicit activities, for now.
That's what I'm doing here. I was teaching at a junior high school in Yamagata, but I ended up in an elementary school in Tokyo, which I did not want. The night before my first day of work I ended up on the balcony chain-smoking, cradling a wine bottle, bawling to my friends through the open sliding door that being child-friendly would destroy my soul. But I've learned to deal with it and I get to do arts and crafts all the time. These are the things I've had the most fun making this year. I made the shopping exercise after Michael Jackson died. The students had to buy each item of clothing with their shopping vocabulary and then color it in. I love the vegetables because they look so delicious like cartoon food. And I'm not sure what I like so much about the sad poster but I think it's one of the best things I've ever drawn.
Once you get there you can ride a famous old train called the Enoden to get to all the interesting spots.
The Kamakura Daibutsu is the second-biggest Buddha statue in Japan. It used to be inside of a temple but a tsunami washed the temple away in the late 1400s and now he kicks it outside. I really love his face.
You get a little bored of temples and shrines after awhile. I like them and all but after you've seen a few you kind of like, get the idea. So I was surprised to find Kamakura's religious sites really awesome and unusual. If you wash your money at Zeniarai Benten Shrine, it'll double. Tokeiji Temple was once a refuge for abused wives. The Hase Temple (Hasedera) has an intense statue of Kannon, and a shrine to unborn children.
Each of these little jizo statues represents an unborn soul.
My favorite shrine in Japan is Bentenkutsu. It's this dark cave with statues carved into the walls of Benten, an ancient goddess of the sea and fine arts, and other minor gods of art and industry.
I lost all my atheist cred stumbling over myself to write my name on a candle and light it in front of Benten and praying my ass off but what else would you expect? I'd go there every morning and night if I could.
Deeper in the cave is this small cavern where you can buy a small statue of Benten to dedicate to a medium statue of Benten.
It cheers me up that so many other people want to be on her good side.
Kamakura is unreasonably beautiful in the springtime when the wildflowers and cherry blossoms are in bloom, but it's probably beautiful all the time. There are also beaches and an island and hiking trails and stuff. If you go to the Odakyu counter at Shinjuku Station you can get the Enoshima Kamakura Free Pass for 1,430 yen, which gets you round-trip from Shinjuku plus unlimited rides on the Enoden and Odakyu trains in the Kamakura area all day. That's a good deal. You can have the best day trip ever for like, nothin.
Hedi Slimane Diary
