Looks like I fell off the perverbial boat (parenthesis)

Hey there lads and lasses, guys and dolls, dodecahedrons and polychronopoli,

Just thought I'd take a moment (late is better than never, right?) To write something up on last weeks topic, which for some reason I had been convinced I was supposed to write every week on Sunday rather than simply after Jen, who writes before I do (should I always wait till she has finished? (don't worry Jen, not blaming this on you... just had a helluva crazy weekend (now I just wonder how many parenthesis it's gonna take to give enough excuses that everyone would actually forgive me (its like one of those Russian dolls now (guess whats in the middle (can hardly wait can ya? (po(;p)op))))))). I'm pretty sure I've gotten the hang of it now though. Anyway, as far as this whole job thing, Jane certainly left a difficult post to follow (as did everyone(but hers is about teaching english in a foerign country)), but I'll go ahead and give my best effort at a somewhat logical continuum of uninterrupted thought.

As far as I'm concerned, its not entirely about what you DO when discussing the world of work, and although "how much?" is not irrelevant, it ranks just above the question "how often?" and right below the question "how satisfying?" in my book of employment makers and breakers. For example, I'd be perfectly happy to be payed in three healthy (but not square... hep maybe) meals a day and an occasional bath if the work was snowboarding all day every day or holding down the beach with a library of good books at my fingertips. But then again, another key obstacle on the way of finding peace with one's "career" is the element of repetition. I mean, I don't care how much cash I'd get to work at a toll booth (A LOT) or to mindlessly put labels on bananas, or stamp stuff on things all day, I don't want it. Unless I'm stamping my seal of approval on beautiful Swedish girl's asses (I can't believe I gave up that high paying dream job to work at the GAP! Stupid stupid stupid!)

But thats about enough of the hypothetical "which work works for my great work on reworked workmanship" work. Its high time to lay down a bit of what I know, rather than what knows me (not to mention what I know now verses the knots I knew not in the then now of not knowing... then).

Yeah. I said I'd TRY to be logical.

So after having worked a number of interesting gigs through my formative highschool and college years, which ranged from GAP soldier (yes, that part was true... fortunately I got out before they made all their employees wear sniper walky-talkies and have buttsex) to server at a plethora of restaurants from the most simply minded family restaurant to a real classy joint where people danced Salsa till 3 in the morning and the champagne flowed like really really thin funnelcake batter that was carbonated and golden in color and not in the least bit opaque; cake batter in fact, exactly like champagne.

Then of course, was the summer of a thousand jobs, most of which I got somehow or other due to my wonderful friendship with Seargent Arch, the peace loving but willing to bust some skulls Semper Fi painter poet who can do just about anything if you've got a wrench, a cigarette, and a beer. Yeah, that was the summer of catering gigs, building ramps for handicapped access, and installing and fixing home elevators all across the coast of Florida, pretty much most of the time with a beer in one hand, and a smoke in the other (none of which I was actually qualified for... except maybe the catering and the drinking).

After that there was a brief stint at a hippy restaurant where I could pretty much drag my ass out of bed at noon, pick the lice outta my beard (I didn't really have lice), roll into my bandana and birks and be at the restaurant serving up a delicious mix of whateverthehell stuffed with stuff, while clouds of sweet smelling smoke (it ain't cilantro) wafted into the dining room from the meat locker... and everyone wondered why the bread pudding was so damn good. And then, somehow, after this akward medley of hodgepodge jobs, I ended up in Japan, as a (somewhat) respectable teacher. And I LOVE it!

Which brings me to the real meat of the topic (although this is getting a little bit ahead of myself, I'd like to mention that I am writing this while I am sitting at the school computer at work. So basically I'm like, making more cash than a large number of writers and still getting payed to write. Sure the lack of recognition hurts from time to time, but bottom line is that I'm making decent money to do what I love. More on this later.) which is (the real meat of the topic) my first job in Japan working at the shittiest language school company in the entire universe (maybe this is actually the appetizer of the topic, the mere toss salad of the topic, as my current job is intended to be the MEAT of the topic.) I'm not making sense again aren't I? Or am I... The eye: the beholder:: the candle: the stick. Sorry, I've been studying for the GRE.

But seriously, this first English teaching job was shit. If you want an idea of what my mindframe was like druing this time, just check out my other blog "skyhookery," where I'll post one of the stories I began while I was a NOVAtron. If I had to choose between the two least savory things in Japan, which are Natto, a kind of fermented bean paste that is made by burying soybeans for a number of months and then digging it up, a concoction that smells like unwashed bumfeet, has the consitency of really runny but kind of sticky snot (whale sperm), and tastes like regurgitated (from the mouth of a crack addict) babyfood, and working at this company where you are encouraged to rat on your friends, where you have to pay more to live in their shitty apartments than you would pay to live in the Ritz, and end up in a room with twenty Brazilian stowaways (nothing against Brazilians), and where you have to sit in a room and entertain four old salarymen who have either been eating natto or chewing on each other's socks all morning, I'd take the Natto experience any day over the thinly veiled bag of ass known as NOVA.

And now, the main course, the vit a la vit (I'm pretty sure I just made that up, but it sounded kind of Fratin (Fratin is used in the book "The Power of Babel" to label a kind of hybrid language which is the preverbial missing link between French and Latin, somewhat comprable to Old English (but even older), which was the language spoken while French was still crawling out of the preverbial swamp that was Latin)) the bee's knees (didn't make that one up, but its still pretty lame. I mean for an expression. Pretty lame for an expression.)

Okay, enough of this Psycho babel, its time now to talk about why I love my job. For me, its not as much even what I do as where I live that I love so much. The job in itself is wonderful, working everyday at Elementary School and Junior High School, essentially being payed to come up with and emcee English games day in and day out, then to go out on the playground and relive my childhood (while learning Japanese language and culture). Not to mention that I spend pretty much all day every day with a huge smile, just from the things these kids say, the honesty, the blatant open truths which are often the opposite of adult Japanese culture.

But I live in Kyoto, which probably ranks up there in the worlds top 5 coolest cities. Imagine Portland with 5000 years plus of history behind every shrub, with the spirits of ancient soldiers and poets lurking in every shadow, with surrounding mountains that home to Japanese Mountain spirits. Imagine a place where you can walk ten minutes in any direction and stumble upon a shrine or temple that has been there for a thousand years, a place where they literally still light the mountains on fire once a year to everyone can imagine the times when warring monk soldiers would attack each other in the dead of night, leaving streaks of burning forest for the villagers like the hotwinded breath of dragons. A place where, walking up the mountain from a particular temple, one comes across a waterfall still used to perform purification rites, where one can walk a bit further up and discover a cave filled with buddhist sculptures carved into the rock, a place where if one kneels down and quiets the mind, one is almost capable of communicating with the long passed monks who have been meditating in that very space for thousands of years, capable of drinking in through the skin the vibrations of a thousand and one (representing the eternal and the finite) sutras spoken throughout the ages. And then there are the boddhisatvas carved into the sides of buildings, the great Buddha of Nara, the Kites that swoop down and steal sandwiches of unsuspecting bbqers. There is the river, where on summer days children play and families BBQ, where couples walk at night and watch the reflection of stars try to push their way up from under the water and back into the night sky. There is the "floating world" of geisha and teahouses, the foreign bars, the izakayas. There is the night. God is there the night and the mornings that follow! The coolest bar in Kyoto, which in order to get there you have to already know where it is, the monkey park and the trains to know where.

So this is all part of the job for me, inseperable as conjoint fetus twins... the place and the thing that allows me to live here, the work to live and not the other way around. Perhaps I'll write more sometime about the details of my actual job, but for now I am so in love with this city that I have trouable seperating the menial tasks of living with the ancient and initial split of the mind and the earth (perhaps the very sound of the first heartbeat, the skies ripping). And so on that note I bid you all adieu. Much love, and sorry again it took so long to get this out. I'll try to be more punctual next time.