"We the dope boys of the year, drinks is on the house."

I never wrote about my 24 hours of fame, so I'll do that now. Here. I will combine the twenty-six agreed upon drawings in order to tell you how I feel. This way, you can access my thoughts from a box that sits in your home. You're doing it right now. I can see you, %n.

At the end of November, the teachers of Nirasaki Technical played Nirasaki High in its annual rivalry soccer match. "Your kids might be smarter than ours, but let's see who can kick a sphere into a rectangle! With your feet!"

Like most things in Japan, the game started exactly as scheduled (16:45), so I missed the beginning due to working at Norin that day. When I arrived, a fellow teacher took off his jersey and handed it over. He gave me the shirt off his back. I warmed up and stretched, but I wouldn't be going in until the second half.

We were down 1-0 at halftime due to a blown call by the referee, one of our own students! He signaled for a free kick as a result of a defender passing the ball back to our keeper who allegedly handled it with his handlers. But he didn't! He crouched down to pick the ball up before he remembered the rule and backed away! I was flipping out on the sideline while everyone else was passively accepting the call. This is no time to be Japanese, Japan. Think of the stakes. Does Nirasaki High deserve the kids who perform better on standardized tests and the teachers who perform better at organized sports?

The momentum shifted in the second half after I scored the equalizer. The soccer team's assistant coach played a nice through ball that I cut across the keeper's body before slotting it into the open net. The crowd went wildish. I was lifted into the air by teachers I had shared only a handful of words with.

"Nice shoot," they said.

Ignored tense confusion, I did.

Actually, "nice shoot" is just one of many mistranslated phrases that have entered the Japanese vernacular. It's the same reason people say "see you" rather than "see ya" or "see ya later." (Trust me, it's quite jarring when you hear it.)

We possessed the ball for much of the second half, but we couldn't score another goal. Which is why we went into the penalty shootout. This being Japan, the penalty shootout would more closely resemble a row of five women from each school lining up to play rock, papers, scissors. By closely resemble, I mean this is exactly what happened. We lost the first round. We lost the second round. We lost three rounds in a row.

But there's always the after party.

Teachers from both schools caravan'd to a local izakaya, and we kampai'd for the occasion.

Several dishes were set before us, including a fried appetizer described as kaki aka persimmons. I bit into it expecting refreshing fruit only to get oyster. Ah, yes. Kaki can mean either.

I have mentioned this before, but it is uncustomary to refill your own glass in Japan. This is code for: If you're a foreignor, you will never see the bottom of your cup because teachers and principals who rarely ever say a single word to you will constantly come over saying "nice shoot," pour you more beer, produce English that has never been heard before, give you food, call you a friend, say they like you, ask you if you're married, ask you to stay another two years, be really surprised that you like sushi, make you take your glasses off and hand them to a fellow teacher because apparently there has been an inside joke for several months that you look exactly like this guy, only he wears crisp suits to work while you wear sweaters over your wrinkled dress shirts to avoid having to iron them and he doesn't wear glasses so you should let him try yours on so that everyone can laugh at how similar you two look.

The next day at school, several students who watched the game approached me to say "nice shoot." I appreciated the sentiment, but a bitter taste lingered in my mouth because of both the bad free kick call and the whole deciding-the-game-by-rock-paper-scissors thing. I stared at my supposed twin and decided that he doesn't really look like me. He doesn't even wear glasses.

Say anything.

In Japan, there's a narrow lexicon of phrases that are used ad nauseam. Before you eat, you say itadakimasu. In the morning, it's always oyaho gozaimasu. Around 11, the greeting switches to konnichiwa, and then to konbanwa around 5. You say atsui desu ne (it's hot, isn't it?) until winter, then samui desu ne (it's cold, isn't it?) until summer. It's a rare event when someone veers from the script, and this strict adherance to social norms makes teaching English in Japan an interesting task. To learn the English language, in many local opinions, is to memorize what you should say in each context.

So it's not surprising to hear "i'mfinethankyouandyou?" when you ask how someone is doing.

And it's not a shock to Japanese English teachers that this is a problem.

I just love how one of my co-teachers addresses the issue.

Me: How are you today?
Teacher: Oh, Kevin. Terrible, terrible.
Me: What's wrong?
Teacher: The students here... they're crazy.

There's a lot of heavy sighing, yet he smiles throughout the whole conversation.

I almost spilled my ramen after this exchange on Tuesday.

Me: How are you today?
Teacher: Terrible, terrible. Kevin, yesterday I took the day off. I went to the park with my two-year-old daughter. It was heaven. *pause* This is hell.

The best part of the whole situation is that I genuinely think he likes his job. He's always in a good mood, and he's super enthusiastic in class. Then again, sometimes he plays this game of chicken in the teachers' room to see if I will tell him it's time for our class together. I kind of stand next to his desk until he turns with this look of astonishment. "Us... now?" *Rolls up sleeve to look at watch.*

I am sorry. I'll try not to make the lesson terrible.

Boys will be boys.

In the spirit of globalization, a few of my students' English vocabulary is entirely limited to what they hear in American rap songs. These students might produce a blank stare if I ask them what time it is, but they can recite the entire Marshall Mathers LP. I've literally had a conversation that went like this:

Student: "Jay-Z?"
Me: "Yeah, he's good!"
Student: "Tupac?"
Me: "Yeah, I like him too."
Student: "Eminem?"
Me: "He's also good."
*Student walks away smiling with his thumbs up.*

The other day, a student and I left school at the same time. I was a little ahead of him on a bike, and I heard from behind, "Hi, my name is... What, my name is... Who, my name is... zicka zicka zicka Kevin!"

Sometimes this same student brings his rap game into the classroom, which consists of him yelling random, expletive-filled rap lyrics at unsuspecting students. It'd seem violent if he weren't quoting.

To top it off, he'll occasionally type a naughty word into his Japanese-English speaking dictionary and have it recite the word throughout class. I sort of died inside when I confiscated it from his mischievous hands.

But sometimes these kids with their hippity hop can save the day. A few weeks ago I was having trouble getting a class started. It was the last class of the day, and the kids were hyper. One student, in all the ruckus, yelled, "Shut the f*** up!" They did.

I'm not here. This isn't happening.

I have a third year elective class that I see once a week. It's made up of eight girls and one guy, and I get to try lessons that wouldn't fly with, say, thirty first years. This past week I split them into two groups and had them write a story in twenty-six sentences. The first sentence had to begin with A, the second one with B, and so on and so on. I did this myself back in the seventh grade, and our group's story involved Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk fame) escaping the giant's grasps while golden toilet paper spindled from the roll.

On Wednesday, this was the sentence when we reached the letter K:
"Kevin is crazy."

This was followed by:
"Look at his hair!"

As a pair, the sentences are funny. Coupled with events that occurred just the previous week, well, you decide.

As a primer, here is some personal information about my grooming habits. Sometimes I shower at night and sometimes I shower in the morning. If I shower at night, I spend the next morning trying to flatten my Van de Graff-ed hair. If I shower in the morning, I spend the post-shower period trying to, umm, volumize? But on this one particular day a week before the A-B-C stories, I had clearly failed to flatten.

A co-teacher greeted me in the morning with a smile. She then made a "pointy" motion with both her hands and said, "Your hair!"

In first period, I tried to make small talk with a student who had shaved his head since last I saw him. He misunderstood my comments and thought I was talking about my own hair. He spoke Japanese to my co-teacher, who then looked at me and said, "He wants to know what happened to your hair." Now, let's pause to think about how insane I must have looked to these people in a country where this is normal. And now we continue. For the rest of the class, something was different. I may not understand Japanese, but I understand students 1) pointing at me, 2) waving their hands above their heads, 3) looking around at other students, 4) laughing, 5) trying to cover their laughter with the hands that were just above their heads.

I had a break in second period, so I went to the bathroom. After a few minutes of dousing my head with water, I remembered another thing about Japan. There are no paper towels/napkins here. So, like any normal human, I scurried to a place where I could hide while my hair dried without the aid of processed trees. The only place with privacy happened to be the copy machine room, so I stood around dripping wet pretending to copy the invisible papers in my hands. A few awkward minutes later, I was home free.

But gossip spreads.

In third period, two girls in the back of the room were play-fighting before the bell rang. This actually happens quite frequently, but I walked to the back to see what was going on. I regret doing that. The two girls were fighting over something in one of the girl's hands. She stopped as I got closer and presented the object to me with two hands. "Present!" she said, as a plastic headband appeared before my eyes. I wish I could make this stuff up.

So how did the A-B-C story end a week later?

Apparently I use "expensive conditioner," but it's all a lie because I'm bald and wear a wig. And how can you tell?

"Zoom in."

Don't go breakin' my heart

Just the other day, I noticed a student attempting to bend something back-and-forth between his fingers. On closer examination, he was trying to break the head off of a small keychain figurine. As his technique proved unsuccessful, a fellow classmate opened his pencil case to reveal an x-acto knife with a five-inch blade. This classmate then proceeded to saw the head off the toy. When he finished, he handed the decapitated body back to his friend who then gave it to me. "Present," he said.

I now possess the above pictured toy (which just happens to be a boy in a school uniform), and the gift-giver now has the boy's head dangling from his keychain. It's a lot like those BFF heart necklaces, only not at all.

Frankie Goes To Onsen

Lauren deemed Saturday the kick-off to "Relaxation Weekend," so who am I to argue? The day (afternoon) started with a DS party, which is a very social way to describe a very non-social activity. Lauren, Dave and I gathered in my cold-ish living room to play the recently-released Mario Party DS. Nerds can't wait two weeks for the English-language version, so nerds play the Japanese version without understanding the rules. It adds to the suspense and gives the all-ages AI an edge! In related news, it has come to my attention that my droll, sarcastic gameplay trash talk would have a place in non-existent, perfunctory pornography. As a result, I am now self-conscious when I utter gems such as "Do you like that?," "Do you like what I just did there?" and "Why am I on top? Oh, because I'm dominating." Since we partied all afternoon, we met some non-nerds for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant.

The great thing about the JET Program is that it attracts such a diverse group of people. Among the particular diners, someone or another could speak English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Portuguese. And when I travel with a group such as this, the nice waitress will look at me and ask if I speak Japanese. Gabe turned it around on her and asked if she spoke Portuguese. The response was something along the lines of "Beautiful!" And then the rules were explained.

1. Various meats will come to your table for a duration of 90 minutes.
2. There's rice, salad, soup, etc. at the bar area. Help yourself.
3. The price for hombres is 2000 yen. The price for mujeres is 1500 yen. Sexist? Probably. Care? Care not.

I put a stop to the delicious tried-and-true pairing of meat and rice so that I could save room for more meat. Each selection tasted as if it had revolved and marinated on skewers for half a day, which is likely exactly what happened. By the end, there was really no other option but to veg-out at an onsen.

The onsen was located on the fifth floor of Hotel Crest. Like many establishments in Japan, you cannot pay the nice ladies standing directly under the large CASHIER banner. Instead, you must put money into a nearby vending machine and then hand your ticket to the aforementioned non-cashiers. They'll ask if you have your own towel. At this point, I will yada yada over the details of what goes on inside the onsen because it's really just a bunch of naked men sitting in hot water. There are different temperature pools to appease your nuanced desires. There is also a sauna room where men watch women's volleyball on TV, and I went in mainly so I could use the line "It's like a sauna in here."

The next day, I told Lauren I used the Seinfeld quote in the sauna. "Which one? 'They're real and they're spectacular'?" No. Because that would've been weird.

Can I dress you up in my love?

This past Saturday was Morgan's third annual Halloween party in Kunado. This is my first Halloween in Japan, but I'll just trust that the event took place in the two preceding years. I picked up Lauren aka Marty McFly at her abode, then swung around to Ryuo station to get Dave the Devil and Charlotte the Cat. As strange as it may sound coming from a country where Cosplay is common, Halloween is not celebrated here. Thus, the costume selection at stores tends to revolve around various animals. That's not to say it isn't funny to see a herd of them standing around on a tatami mat. But back to the drive at hand.

After a bit of backtracking and possibly scaring a fellow driver by following him/her down a narrow side street at an awkward looking-for-a-place pace, we reached a crossroads. By crossroads, I mean Cha wanted to eat at McDonalds' while the rest of us wanted KFC, where we'd never gone before. Majority ruled, but the chicken did not. I put into question the availability of all 11 herbs and spices. But the biggest disappointment was the non-existence of mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits I am so accustomed to. KFC without gravy is like beer without alcohol. Why would you do that?

Now onto what my four and a half readers have been waiting for: the party points of interest.

1. A car pulled up while Dave and I were changing into our costumes up the street from Morgan's house. Fortunately, Dave had just enough Japanese prowess to explain why his pants were down and I had blood all over my arms.

2. People kept calling me Owen Wilson even though I went as Luke Wilson from The Royal Tenenbaums. They said it was tactless and too soon to be making wrist cutting jokes. But riddle me this. Why would the actor Owen Wilson dress up as a 70s tennis star wearing one sock?

3. Jake won the fictional best costume award by showing up as Quailman from Doug. I take some credit for supplying him with the BVDs that I originally bought with the intention of doing this.

4. Lauren carried a picture of Michael J. Fox the whole night to validate her costume. "Look, guys! I... I'm wearing his exact outfit from the movie! Guys?... Guys?" *Tumbleweed.*

5. Bex wore a costume called toilet paper man, but she really looked like the Noid. Remember the Noid? Avoid him!

6. The brim of the party cups were noticeably prominent. I made sure each person was aware of this.

After all the partying, I'm still left with one question. Did anyone know it was Nick's birthday?