Entries this day: Dream_Louise_Gaba OM Satoko_and_Daniel daniel_and_Rene daniel_and_jen

Dream Louise Gaba

4:31am JST Sunday 28 November 2004

I was being interviewed for a job at Gaba. I was on the hot seat with all my peers watching. Louise was one of the leaders. I was not given clear instructions on where to sit, etc, but I figured it was all part of the test. The first question was read, "Which is vowels, given at the beginning of the lesson?" and then as I was asking, "is this a grammatical quiz as well as a question?" Louise interrupted, saying, "you read the wrong question," (not "you read the question incorrectly"), and there was general chaos for a bit cause someone else said something. I found myself not able to see the group, as Lousie kept blocking my view. I finally got to say my peace, "if there is an unintentional grammatical error in the first quiz given to candidates for an English teaching job, I don't want the job." and David was like, "blah blah blah" basically telling me I was wrong. I listened to his claim and I responded, "I hear that you believe it is best if we do our best no matter what tools we are given. And I definitely agree with that. But, (and I think you'll agree with this) (*), I think that we can do better work if our tools are better." but Louise was stretching her arms in front of me again, blocking my view of the room.

(*) For some reason I said this parenthetical part even though I as simultaneously thinking, "this is not appropriate to say!" cause I was otherwise making a perfect I-statement as taught by my mens' group, but I was still saying it, partially motivated by my desire to test differences to see what worked best, like learning by mutating things to see what worked best.

While writing this dream, I wonder about two things: 1) does this represent that I let (my love of) women block my life task? (Louise blocking my view as I was trying to explain my point), and 2) I think my life path should be something that computers cannot conceivably do in the foreseeable future. That means it won't be anything to do with language (teaching (translating), writing). I think it will be something to do more with how the mind works, or with soul/spirit.(**)

Funny: I wrote "or with soup/" instead af "or with soul/" at first.

OM

11:21pm JST Sunday 28 November 2004

Work today was super busy; probably the busiest day I've ever seen it. Got all the quintarks done and all the flimflarks (I just made up that word) finished.

Satoko and Daniel

11:23pm JST Sunday 28 November 2004

Met Satoko after OM at Sakuragicho station. She didn't really want to rock out to Shibuya, but we went out there anyway cause it was becoming apparent that I wouldn't be able to successfully guide him to anywhere he could meet us in our area.

ChattyMcChat with Satoko on the train and then met Daniel at Hachiko. We chowed kaiten sushi, which Daniel had been craving since the first time he came to Japan last week (and then went to Hong Kong for a few days). He did not like natto. He was surprised to hear that his bag would be fine; the staff just had us leave it on the steps that led to the rarely used upstairs area. "If they take your bag; I'll buy your dinner." "That's a 3000 dollar camera; that would be a lot of sushi."

We chowed a lot of sushi (but well less than 3000 dollars worth) and then went to Haagen Dahz for ice cream. Woooo yum! Satoko had vanilla scoops with espresso, which I assured her I hated; Daniel had as much chocolate toppings as possible given that no pure chocolate ice cream was available. I had cookies and cream, vanilla, banana, custard pudding, and maybe something else. Satoko said, "ぶたみたい" (like a pig), which I thought was pretty funny. I assured her that since I had been in Japan longer than she (strictly speaking, this is true) I could be trusted as more of an authority on the point that "ブー ちゃんみたい" would be equally appropriate. She didn't agree, but she's only been in Japan for 2 months (since she got back from LA (for a year, during which time she obviously forgot all her Japanese)).

We told Daniel a bit about the beautiful mustang Sally in LA, and we told Satoko a bit about San Francisco.

Tired-time, so we headed back home where Satoko gave me excellent advice about running around Hakone. (Take Acti to Odawara; _______ is the best sweets place in Hakone; and where to find the boiled eggs in Hakone.)

daniel and Rene

11:38pm JST Sunday 28 November 2004

Showed Daniel the way to my house and Jen suggested he bunk out in one of the free rooms. I went over to Rene's at 9:30pm (after his office hours) and paid my rent (for December and January) and then asked if Daniel could bunk out in one of the empty rooms.

Short version: Rene was like, "no problem," and came over with fresh futon covers and set up Daniel with fresh futon covers, fresh curtains, and a key, all the while apologizing for not having been ready more quickly. He had no idea Daniel was coming!! We apologized proffusely and tried to have him not worry about it; ("Rene, don't worry about the curtains; it doesn't matter." "No no; if you are paying money, and you are not have curtains, this is not good," and shooed us out of the room until it was done and perfect.)

Rene works so hard around here. Wow.

daniel and jen

11:43pm JST Sunday 28 November 2004

Ikumi never came down, but Daniel and I went down to Jen's room and chatted while the end of _Life of David Gale_ was finishing on Jen's VCR while she was officially packing for her trip home tomorrow. She assured us that she only panicpacked (I brought the term over from Maggie and Molly from UH days) and wouldn't really be packing tonight.

I learned about Jen's sister Karen's three world trips, about Daniel's secret to staying alive during The Running with the Bulls in Pamplona (he's been three times and has all his bodyparts intact), and about how Jen's someone's parents killed themselves after 54 years of marriage when they were terminally ill.

The movie ended and Daniel and I headed up to let Jen sleep; I saw Daniel off at his room and wrote this.