The weekend before last, the agency that refers students to me called and asked if I'd accept a 13-year old girl as a student. The girl had lived in the U.S. for awhile and (they're guessing) has relatively advanced English ability. The agency hadn't had any direct communication with the girl herself. They negotiated through her mother so they couldn't tell me much about her. They speculated that she was probably studying so that she could maintain the level of fluency she acquired while living in the U.S.
After about a week, the agency said that they'd confirmed a trial lesson with the girl and gave me her mother's name, e-mail address and phone number. They didn't, however, tell me the girl's first name so I asked them what it was. It's at this point that things get a bit strange. They told me that the mother wouldn't tell them the girl's name because she was too "cautious".
The trial lesson is scheduled for this afternoon and I'm not sure what to expect when the girl is supposed to show up at my front door. I have a suspicion that the mother will show up with her and may even ask to sit in with the lesson. If I were teaching in a classroom where the mother could unobtrusively observe from the back of a large room, I wouldn't care about this, but that isn't the case. I teach in a 9' x 9' room which is closed off from other rooms to air condition it more efficiently. There is no "unobtrusive" way for anyone to observe.
Of course, I could be wrong about the mother horning in. I have quite the tendency to panic and extrapolate the worst in any given situation. I'm one of those people who thinks I'm going to prick a finger, get an infection, be given drugs that damage my other limbs and end up a quadruple amputee. It's a tendency I've been endeavoring to reign in for years now with some success. In odd or very uncertain situations, however, I tend to gravitate back to this type of self-defeating tendency.
I know these situations are supposed to be growth experiences and I try to see them in that light, but sometimes it's difficult. In 98% of situations where I play out the worst outcome in my imagination, things turn out to be just fine. In one particular case in my past though, it was as bad as the worst I imagined and I think that still haunts me. That was a situation which I talked about in my former blog where I feared refusing to work on my day off might get me fired, and it very nearly did.
Ultimately, this tendency is part of a defense mechanism which I'm sure I developed as a child growing up in a family with a lot of emotional instability from a depressed and neurotic mother and an alcoholic father. If you can predict the worst possible outcome at the beginning of a situation, you can defend or protect yourself. Though such behavior served me well as a kid in a family with problems, it no longer serves me in most cases and tends to cloud my judgment. It's like an old battered shield that I still raise in times of uncertainty even though I no longer live in the heat of a battle.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
About Japanese Food Review Posts
I just wanted to let everyone know that I've decided to farm all of the food reviews over to the other blog (Japanese Snack Reviews). There are several reasons for this. The primary one is that I've found I want to make such posts with a greater frequency than I'd like for this blog. I want this blog to be mainly focused on my musings and daily life and not to turn it into something else.
The secondary reason is that I'd like to try and build it into a niche blog with advertising to see if it goes anywhere. The posts I do for food reviews are time-consuming and challenging (though enjoyable) to write, so I'd like to see if I can get something back from it (though frankly, I doubt I will). If you're interested in those posts, please subscribe to the other blog. Thank you. :-)
The secondary reason is that I'd like to try and build it into a niche blog with advertising to see if it goes anywhere. The posts I do for food reviews are time-consuming and challenging (though enjoyable) to write, so I'd like to see if I can get something back from it (though frankly, I doubt I will). If you're interested in those posts, please subscribe to the other blog. Thank you. :-)
Chinese Whispers
If you're not familiar with what "Chinese Whispers" is, it's the game where you say something and whisper it to another person who in turn whispers it to another and so on. By the time the phrase reaches the last person, it's distorted and incorrect. The less ethnically insensitive name for this game is supposed to be "Telephone", but I've never heard it referred to as such. My apologies in advance for using a name which may be offensive, but I didn't want to name this post "Telephone" because it'd be very misleading.
This game came to mind recently because I foolishly swung by one of the better-known and more widely-participated in foreigner forums. I had forgotten the forum was around until someone recently recommended that Joseph at Tame Goes Wild visit it as a resource for information about some aspects of life here. I have also been shackled to the computer on and off today doing telephone tests and ran out of things to read so I ambled over to see what was shaking. I won't give the name of this forum, but it begins with "G" and ends with "t" and has a word for a cooking implement as part of its name. You'll recognize it if you've heard of it before. If you don't, you really don't need to know what it is and I'll tell you why in the remainder of this post.
First of all, the forums are full of people who have nothing better to do with their time than to post about their contempt and derision for various other people. You name it, they hate someone for it. Most of all, unsurprisingly, they hate other foreigners and those who teach in particular. Presumably, the teacher haters live in Japan and aren't teaching so one must wonder what sort of profession is allowing them to waste their valuable time making angry posts about other people. I'm guessing such non-teaching jobs are not very fulfilling or they'd be a bit nicer people and have less time on their hands.
The primary reason for not bothering with such forums isn't the angry people. The big reason is that they are chock full of misinformation. I would assume that people aren't simply making up all of the "wisdom" they are imparting about all things related to life in Japan. I believe that all of the incorrect "help" can only be the unfortunate consequence of the equivalent of "Chinese Whispers". Someone read or heard something then told someone else who told someone else and so on until it reached the end of the line and no longer bore any resemblance to the reality.
I knew that the forums had this unfortunate tendency before (which is why I stopped reading them... that and all the ugly attitudes), but my memory was refreshed when I did a search on the name of my husband's current place of employment out of curiosity. I found about 5 posts about his employer and all of them were largely or completely wrong. I don't bother to correct such people because I've decided not to do that anymore, but also because there is no way for an astute reader to tell whose ship is sailing straight in a sea of misinformation. There would really be no point. I just want to caution anyone who visits forums for foreigners living in Japan to take anything they read with a giant vat of salt.
This game came to mind recently because I foolishly swung by one of the better-known and more widely-participated in foreigner forums. I had forgotten the forum was around until someone recently recommended that Joseph at Tame Goes Wild visit it as a resource for information about some aspects of life here. I have also been shackled to the computer on and off today doing telephone tests and ran out of things to read so I ambled over to see what was shaking. I won't give the name of this forum, but it begins with "G" and ends with "t" and has a word for a cooking implement as part of its name. You'll recognize it if you've heard of it before. If you don't, you really don't need to know what it is and I'll tell you why in the remainder of this post.
First of all, the forums are full of people who have nothing better to do with their time than to post about their contempt and derision for various other people. You name it, they hate someone for it. Most of all, unsurprisingly, they hate other foreigners and those who teach in particular. Presumably, the teacher haters live in Japan and aren't teaching so one must wonder what sort of profession is allowing them to waste their valuable time making angry posts about other people. I'm guessing such non-teaching jobs are not very fulfilling or they'd be a bit nicer people and have less time on their hands.
The primary reason for not bothering with such forums isn't the angry people. The big reason is that they are chock full of misinformation. I would assume that people aren't simply making up all of the "wisdom" they are imparting about all things related to life in Japan. I believe that all of the incorrect "help" can only be the unfortunate consequence of the equivalent of "Chinese Whispers". Someone read or heard something then told someone else who told someone else and so on until it reached the end of the line and no longer bore any resemblance to the reality.
I knew that the forums had this unfortunate tendency before (which is why I stopped reading them... that and all the ugly attitudes), but my memory was refreshed when I did a search on the name of my husband's current place of employment out of curiosity. I found about 5 posts about his employer and all of them were largely or completely wrong. I don't bother to correct such people because I've decided not to do that anymore, but also because there is no way for an astute reader to tell whose ship is sailing straight in a sea of misinformation. There would really be no point. I just want to caution anyone who visits forums for foreigners living in Japan to take anything they read with a giant vat of salt.
Monday, September 8, 2008
I only make it look easy
Over the past month, I've been teaching a woman who will soon head off to a European country for an extended period of time to work in the head office of her company. To prepare for this time, she is taking a series of 5 intensive lessons with me. We spend two hours on Sundays practicing possible real life conversations.
When I say "real life conversations", I don't mean small talk or actually having a chat, I mean short exchanges at the drug store, train station, office, etc. If you've ever taught from the plethora of textbooks on the market for learners of English as a second language, you know that these are the least popular lessons in the books. In fact, when I used to work at Nova conversation school 18 years ago, teachers would repeat the same lessons 6 times over with students before teaching the lessons centering around pragmatic exchanges at the market, a hotel, etc. While the content was useful, it was often a teaching cul-de-sac for the teachers and repetitive and uninteresting for the students. Even doing the dialog once where you're essentially saying, "Hello, I've got a headache. Could you recommend some medicine?" and getting a response and thanking the other person isn't all that interesting. Doing it enough so the student gets it down and can say it correctly is a slog through deep mud.
My particular student is advanced in level, but imperfect in her speech patterns. That is, she's too high level to need a textbook to tell her what to say in a particular context, but her grammar is sloppy enough that she needs to practice. That means we really couldn't use a book. The lessons have been just me using all the power of my brain to continuously come up with new scenarios to practice until she grew weary of that one and wants to move on to another. Imagine if you will how many one to two minute exchanges I have to take part in to fill up 120 minutes of time. Add into that that she wasn't even interested in any preamble to the lesson with chat. She just wants to dive in.
I'm sure from the student's viewpoint that I seem to be effortlessly tossing out scenarios and taking part in practice, but I only make it look easy. I was really exhausted by this as it's been a lot of improvisation. I had a fairly long list of real life situations and she had 4 that she had come up with, but I still was almost out of steam by the end. There just aren't that many things you need to do and she rejected some of the scenarios I had written down (like going to the bank).
People think teaching is easy because all you do is follow a book or just make small talk. It's not in the least like that. Books offer frameworks which you have to expand upon. Smalltalk only gets you so far, and it takes you a shorter distance the better you know someone. Students have goals and you have to be able to make a plan to meet them. It's not throwing things at a wall and hoping they stick or flying by the seat of your pants. You have to be able to think on your feet and make sure you're smoothly traveling down the right roads. You also have to make it look like you had the route perfectly mapped out all along or the students lose confidence in you or don't respect you. If you stumble, pause too long or lose your focus, the students know you don't know what you're doing at that moment.
Anyone who thinks that teaching is easy should have to sit through the same sort of grueling 2-hour sessions of short, pragmatic conversations I've been going through. Their opinion would change less than halfway through the lesson. I guarantee it.
When I say "real life conversations", I don't mean small talk or actually having a chat, I mean short exchanges at the drug store, train station, office, etc. If you've ever taught from the plethora of textbooks on the market for learners of English as a second language, you know that these are the least popular lessons in the books. In fact, when I used to work at Nova conversation school 18 years ago, teachers would repeat the same lessons 6 times over with students before teaching the lessons centering around pragmatic exchanges at the market, a hotel, etc. While the content was useful, it was often a teaching cul-de-sac for the teachers and repetitive and uninteresting for the students. Even doing the dialog once where you're essentially saying, "Hello, I've got a headache. Could you recommend some medicine?" and getting a response and thanking the other person isn't all that interesting. Doing it enough so the student gets it down and can say it correctly is a slog through deep mud.
My particular student is advanced in level, but imperfect in her speech patterns. That is, she's too high level to need a textbook to tell her what to say in a particular context, but her grammar is sloppy enough that she needs to practice. That means we really couldn't use a book. The lessons have been just me using all the power of my brain to continuously come up with new scenarios to practice until she grew weary of that one and wants to move on to another. Imagine if you will how many one to two minute exchanges I have to take part in to fill up 120 minutes of time. Add into that that she wasn't even interested in any preamble to the lesson with chat. She just wants to dive in.
I'm sure from the student's viewpoint that I seem to be effortlessly tossing out scenarios and taking part in practice, but I only make it look easy. I was really exhausted by this as it's been a lot of improvisation. I had a fairly long list of real life situations and she had 4 that she had come up with, but I still was almost out of steam by the end. There just aren't that many things you need to do and she rejected some of the scenarios I had written down (like going to the bank).
People think teaching is easy because all you do is follow a book or just make small talk. It's not in the least like that. Books offer frameworks which you have to expand upon. Smalltalk only gets you so far, and it takes you a shorter distance the better you know someone. Students have goals and you have to be able to make a plan to meet them. It's not throwing things at a wall and hoping they stick or flying by the seat of your pants. You have to be able to think on your feet and make sure you're smoothly traveling down the right roads. You also have to make it look like you had the route perfectly mapped out all along or the students lose confidence in you or don't respect you. If you stumble, pause too long or lose your focus, the students know you don't know what you're doing at that moment.
Anyone who thinks that teaching is easy should have to sit through the same sort of grueling 2-hour sessions of short, pragmatic conversations I've been going through. Their opinion would change less than halfway through the lesson. I guarantee it.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Scon Japanese Barbecue Flavor
I'm not a fan of Japanese salted snack foods because many of them are bland (consommé) or come in flavors I don't care for (like seaweed). As I mentioned in a previous review, barbecue salted snacks are not what you'd expect because "barbecue" in the U.S. usually means some sort of super spicy tomato or ketchup-flavored potato chip. In Japan, it tends to mean the snack is meant to resemble barbecued meat.
The ugly granny mascot for Karamucho chips. She may scare you off, but they do make pretty good chili snacks. Image pinched from the Karamucho web site.If you learn one thing about "Japanese tastes", it's that there is a general tendency to prefer mild flavors over intense ones. Therefore, it's rare to find a new product which is exceptionally spicy when you see the words "barbecue" (or in this case "バーベーキュー"). This isn't universal, however, as there are some super spicy treats out there like habanero rings and Karamucho (カラムチーチョ) hot chili chips and potato sticks. Karamucho, by the way, has what I believe to be one of the ugliest cartoon mascots ever. "Chili" and "barbecue" are worlds apart usually in terms of overall punch in spiciness with the former saltily beating up your tongue and the latter passively lying down and surrendering.
The same company that makes the Karamucho-brand chips, Koikeya (コイケヤ), makes the Scon snacks I'm reviewing today so I had hopes that they'd be strong enough for my American palate. I've seen corn snacks named "Scon" (pronounced close to "scone" with a long "o" as many Americans pronounce it) for decades and never bought them because the I couldn't work out why they'd be called "Scon" instead of, well, "corn". What was that silly "s" for? Was this going to be related to British tea time fare? At any rate, a look at the ingredients list reveals the "s" stands for "sweet" as in "sweet corn", which is the first ingredient. That fact that sweet corn is the first ingredient is encouraging, the fact the the second one is animal fat is far less so. The seasonings are not all spelled out, but, unsurprisingly, meat flavoring is one of them as is soy sauce. Stevia (a natural low-calorie sweetener) is also on of them.
The corn twists in the bag are very similar to Cheetos in appearance, but they're a bit lighter and airier in texture. To me, this is a good thing as Cheetos are a bit too hard for my tastes. The first whiff doesn't betray much. These have the same light scent of a non-descript bouillon cube as many Japanese barbecue-flavored snacks. The first bite has a bit of a chemical edge to it which is hard to pin down. This disappears after the second bite which leaves you with an intense, savory flavor. These are very spicy without heat. The flavor is meaty, though it doesn't taste like meat. It's also quite salty, and after you eat them for awhile, the sense of how salty they seem starts to pile up on the tongue. I can see where a beer-drinking sort might find these a really good accompaniment to imbibing.
I really liked these and have actually bought and consumed three bags of them in the past month. This is quite a bad thing as an 80 gram bag (2.82 ounces) has 446 calories and it's easy to eat half a bag at one sitting. That's a lot of empty calories to put away. Also, honestly, even though I like these because they're strongly-flavored, by the third bag the novelty was wearing down a bit and I was thinking that I had burnt out on them and probably wouldn't be tempted anymore. The sense of salt and soy sauce felt stronger the longer I ate them. Nonetheless, I'd still heartily recommend giving them a try if you're in the mood for something salty and tired of the "blander" salted snacks on offer in Japanese stores.
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As an aside, I've decided to mirror the food review posts on a separate site. I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but I think it'll help me keep tabs on how frequently I make these posts. I'd like to do them weekly as a means of encouraging myself to translate the packaging as well as sample new things. If you run across the blog, I just want it to be clear it's not a rip-off of this one, but intentional duplication. It's just started and needs to be tweaked, but it's starting up here.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Words on Shirts
One of my students showed up for a lesson with big numbers on the front and back of her shirt. The numbers were "69". Since I've seen plenty of shirts in Japan which contained words or content which have a different meaning in Western culture than they do in Japan, I didn't know if she knew what the implication was. In this case, she did and said that the same connotation was attached to the numbers in Japan as the U.S.
After discussing her shirt, she told me that she saw a shirt being worn by an American at a military base which had the Japanese characters (kanji) for "kichiku bei yei" (鬼畜米英). According to her, this means Americans and the British are like animals. Another student told me that he felt it meant they are "devils" (the first part of the word contains the Japanese characters for "oni" - 鬼 - which means "devil"). The first student indicated that seeing an American wearing the characters for a World War II epithet used by the Japanese made her wonder why he was wearing it. We both pondered whether or not the wearer knew what the characters meant, but leaned toward believing he probably did.
To frame this in a manner which may resonate a little better with those who aren't living in Japan or don't have any experience with it, I'd like to say that this situation is similar to seeing a Japanese person walking around with a shirt that says "gook" or "Jap" on it. My guess is that, if the American was aware of the meaning on the shirt, it was an attempt to co-opt the words much in the way African Americans have co-opted the "n" word which cannot be spoken aloud by any Caucasian nor written out in its entirety by one.
The other student who I discussed this with said that he didn't believe that Japanese people were particularly self-conscious about seeing epithets about foreigners being displayed so much as being reminded about World War II. This fits in with an experience the CH had when he wore a cap with the characters for "kamikaze" on it to work one day and the secretary at his school said he shouldn't wear it because of what it said. When I related this story to the student, he said he felt that it made people uncomfortable because it also harkened back to World War II, though he said that there was another meaning for "kamikaze" in Japanese history (where hostile ships were wrecked by a typhoon) so it depended on the interpretation the person placed on the characters.
It's been my experience that the Japanese are only too happy to talk about World War II as long as the focus of any discussion is on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's only when they are reminded of Japan's aggression or alliance with Adolf Hitler that makes the situation become uncomfortable for them.
After discussing her shirt, she told me that she saw a shirt being worn by an American at a military base which had the Japanese characters (kanji) for "kichiku bei yei" (鬼畜米英). According to her, this means Americans and the British are like animals. Another student told me that he felt it meant they are "devils" (the first part of the word contains the Japanese characters for "oni" - 鬼 - which means "devil"). The first student indicated that seeing an American wearing the characters for a World War II epithet used by the Japanese made her wonder why he was wearing it. We both pondered whether or not the wearer knew what the characters meant, but leaned toward believing he probably did.
To frame this in a manner which may resonate a little better with those who aren't living in Japan or don't have any experience with it, I'd like to say that this situation is similar to seeing a Japanese person walking around with a shirt that says "gook" or "Jap" on it. My guess is that, if the American was aware of the meaning on the shirt, it was an attempt to co-opt the words much in the way African Americans have co-opted the "n" word which cannot be spoken aloud by any Caucasian nor written out in its entirety by one.
The other student who I discussed this with said that he didn't believe that Japanese people were particularly self-conscious about seeing epithets about foreigners being displayed so much as being reminded about World War II. This fits in with an experience the CH had when he wore a cap with the characters for "kamikaze" on it to work one day and the secretary at his school said he shouldn't wear it because of what it said. When I related this story to the student, he said he felt that it made people uncomfortable because it also harkened back to World War II, though he said that there was another meaning for "kamikaze" in Japanese history (where hostile ships were wrecked by a typhoon) so it depended on the interpretation the person placed on the characters.
It's been my experience that the Japanese are only too happy to talk about World War II as long as the focus of any discussion is on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's only when they are reminded of Japan's aggression or alliance with Adolf Hitler that makes the situation become uncomfortable for them.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Making a Colbert Special
A B.L.T., heavy on the T. and L.With food prices going up, people are constantly going on about not wasting food and how much food is usually wasted in developed country. I read that about 1/3 of all food in the U.K. ends up being thrown out for various reasons. I'm sure that the statistics are similarly high in the U.S.
Some wastage of food is hard to avoid. During transport, things are damaged, rot, or are infested. It's impossible to avoid wasting some food on the production end. A lot of food is also wasted by restaurants and markets because of the higher standards and early sell-by dates they have to deal with. It's only on the consumer level that waste can be more actively avoided as we only need to apply our own standards and care to make sure we use things up before they go off.
I try to make sure to never waste food because it's so expensive here. Sometimes I can't keep on top of things which ripen faster than expected, especially in the summer, but I do try. The worst situation though is when meat spoils because it's so high on the food chain that you know that you've just damaged the environment for no benefit whatsoever.
Generally speaking, meat never spoils in our home with one exception and that's bacon. The main problem is that we can't eat it fast enough once a one-pound package is defrosted and opened up. I'm not a huge bacon fan and my CH is not a big eater so we tend to get through half the pack on the weekend and then it becomes a struggle to incorporate the rest of it into meals during the weekdays to finish it up before it gets nasty.
The only way to make sure it doesn't go to waste is for me to try and eat some of it for lunch. Up until Stephen Colbert reminded us that a B.L.T. is his favorite sandwich, I hadn't even considered using bacon in this way. It's one of those things which may be common enough back home but you forget is an option when you've been away from the food culture for awhile. I'm guessing some people would say that's probably a good thing since this isn't exactly a richly nutritious lunch. That being said, I think people are sometimes a little too hysterical about bacon. Yes, it's bad for you, but a little now and then won't kill you.
So, if you're not the hysterical type and you've got a taste for a B.L.T., I've got a few sammich-making tips for you.
Point 1: Toast the bread and leave it to cool in the toaster oven.If you toast the bread and put it on a plate, it'll get "toast sweat" on the underside and get soggy on the bottom. If you use it while it's still hot, your mayonnaise will melt into it.
Point 2: Shake the grease off the bacon, but don't blot it on paper towels.This may be slightly controversial but I believe it is best to use the little bit of bacon fat left on the slice after a few good shakes to act as a "dressing" for the tomato and lettuce. The acidity of the tomato and the oil from the bacon combine very well.
Point 3: Salt the tomato slices.
Even though bacon is salty, the sandwich is going to taste bland if you don't salt the tomato. Tomato can hold up to a fair bit of salt so I salt the slices normally and don't factor the bacon's saltiness into the equation. I also advise using very thin tomato slices to keep the sandwich from getting unwieldy.
Point 4: Apply mayonnaise thinly to one slice of bread and place it in contact with the lettuce.
The general rule with delis and sandwich-making is that mayonnaise must come in contact with the meat. However, since the bacon is oily and the mayo is oily, it just makes a slippery sandwich. Of course, you can just eat it on dry toast, but what fun would that be? Also, the mayo forms a thin oil-based barrier between the moist lettuce (though you should try to dry it as well as possible after washing) and the bread won't get soggy.
Point 5: Don't overdo the bacon.
The bacon should be just enough for flavor. This isn't a bacon sandwich, it's lettuce and tomato enhanced with bacon. I use as many slices as needed to cover the bread with about 1/4 inch gaps between the slices. If the bacon slices are touching or overlapping, you've got more than you need and the bacon flavor will overwhelm the vegetables. A really nice balance is more like a bacon salad flavor than a bacon sandwich.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Weird Things
After about 6 or so years in my former company, my boss (D.) and I were talking about the upcoming busy season and the temporary teacher pool he'd be hiring from. Each year, it seemed that we were getting fewer and fewer applicants and many of them were completely inappropriate. That is, about 30-50% weren't native speakers of English and therefore not qualified. If their résumés were any indication of ability, all of them weren't even close to being fluent in English either.
During the time we worked there, we hired a lot of people with little problems or who were just plain weird. One Australian girl, for instance, sat in her cubicle and meticulously "painted" the cord connecting the telephone receiver to the phone red with her pen (much to the irritation of D. who shared a cubicle with her). Another was rather anally-fixated on hygiene and when she ate any salted snack wouldn't put her hand down into the bag to grab bites. She tore the bag open along the top and back seam so it was flayed open and bits could be picked up from the exposed pile. This same co-worker was once aghast that my husband and I brushed our teeth at the kitchen sink as she thought it was appalling that we spit out our toothpaste in the same place where we washed dishes. However, somehow that became okay when we told her we only have one sink in the entire apartment and had no choice. Yet another temporary teacher ate a bowl of breakfast cereal at his desk upon arrival one day and was shocked that this would be considered inappropriate. When the president witnessed this behavior, he was incensed and docked the fellow's pay so we had to tell him the obvious - don't eat breakfast at your desk when you arrive, eat it at home before coming to work.
As we were discussing the parade of strange people we'd seen pass through and pondering what sort of oddballs might be coming our way in the future, I remarked that we really had to expect everyone to be weird because the truth is that we're all weird in our own ways. D. and I had worked together for so long though that we'd grown accustomed to each other's weirdness such that they didn't bother us so much anymore or seem particularly remarkable.
Sometimes I think it's useful to sit down and think about one's peculiarities just to be mindful of the fact that peculiar isn't only the purview of others. So, I present you with some of my particular weirdnesses at present. You may feel free to laugh at me or judge me harshly. Just don't tell me about it:
During the time we worked there, we hired a lot of people with little problems or who were just plain weird. One Australian girl, for instance, sat in her cubicle and meticulously "painted" the cord connecting the telephone receiver to the phone red with her pen (much to the irritation of D. who shared a cubicle with her). Another was rather anally-fixated on hygiene and when she ate any salted snack wouldn't put her hand down into the bag to grab bites. She tore the bag open along the top and back seam so it was flayed open and bits could be picked up from the exposed pile. This same co-worker was once aghast that my husband and I brushed our teeth at the kitchen sink as she thought it was appalling that we spit out our toothpaste in the same place where we washed dishes. However, somehow that became okay when we told her we only have one sink in the entire apartment and had no choice. Yet another temporary teacher ate a bowl of breakfast cereal at his desk upon arrival one day and was shocked that this would be considered inappropriate. When the president witnessed this behavior, he was incensed and docked the fellow's pay so we had to tell him the obvious - don't eat breakfast at your desk when you arrive, eat it at home before coming to work.
As we were discussing the parade of strange people we'd seen pass through and pondering what sort of oddballs might be coming our way in the future, I remarked that we really had to expect everyone to be weird because the truth is that we're all weird in our own ways. D. and I had worked together for so long though that we'd grown accustomed to each other's weirdness such that they didn't bother us so much anymore or seem particularly remarkable.
Sometimes I think it's useful to sit down and think about one's peculiarities just to be mindful of the fact that peculiar isn't only the purview of others. So, I present you with some of my particular weirdnesses at present. You may feel free to laugh at me or judge me harshly. Just don't tell me about it:
- I haven't listened to music of any kind for at least 4 years. It's not that I hate new music or never liked music. I just have zero desire to listen to anything. This may be related to the fact that music has profound effects on me emotionally. I'm not sure, but it's odd even to me that music is just not a part of my life. That being said, sometimes I find myself singing songs to myself when I'm alone. This is very disturbing.
- I don't like freshly made pasta, but I do like it reheated as leftovers.
- I love being around people and talking to them, but I hate answering the phone and the door. I don't mind talking on the phone or having people visit. I just have an aversion to the unexpected and intrusive nature of either of them ringing.
- I can't recall wanting to be considered "cool", even when I was younger. I'd rather be a dork (or dorkette if you prefer). I'm guessing I'm pretty successful at this.
- I'm not embarrassed by my unavoidably "human" qualities and habits. For instance, I snore sometimes. Sometimes I snore loud enough to wake myself up. This does not embarrass me at all to admit. One of my coworkers once stated that everyone picks their nose (whether with a tissue or without) and anyone who claims he does not is a liar. This statement struck me as his having a refreshingly good attitude about the less savory aspects of being a meat sack with many unpleasant realities.
- I don't like the use of the word "race" when describing people of different skin colors and ethnic origins so I always speak of "ethnicity" rather than "race" as I feel culture is a larger factor than blood in determining what people are like.
- Despite never having lacked any of the basic necessities in life, I remember everyday that I'm very lucky to have clean and safe water, abundant food, a job which doesn't require hard labor, and comfortable, clean shelter as well as a husband who loves me. I take a moment to be thankful for these things at least once a day. I believe this contributes greatly to my happiness and satisfaction with life.
- I love cats, but I enjoy looking at pictures of puppies more than pictures of kittens.
- I haven't left for my local neighborhood for the past year. In fact, I think I haven't left it more than 5 times in the past 2 years. I used to travel all over the place every weekend and I think I'm utterly burned out and disinterested in travel now. This realization strikes even me as surprising, but it doesn't trouble me.
- I'd rather go to the effort and hassle of cooking my own food and cleaning up after it than go to a restaurant where the environment is unpredictable and the meal experience might be ruined by smokers, bad air conditioner settings, loud or crappy muzak or poor service. I'm sufficiently annoyed at the idea of paying for a good experience and being letdown that I prefer not to even take "the risk."
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