Entries this day: AM_meeting_Helma Computer_blues However Komatsu_lesson Worrrrrrrk

AM meeting Helma

11:38am JST Wednesday 30 July 2008 (day 14007)

Met Helma in Shibuya for a bit to give her bags back. I held them in my apartment while she was in Holland. She got a picture of me on top of Hachiko, but I must say I don't really like it cause I'm not big-smiling. Pbbt. I was happy to jump up there, but I guess too embarrassed to be all "Take Me!," Ah well. Next time I'll be more exuberant.

While there (at Hachiko, not on Hachiko), Russell, who came to vegan night at Pink Cow saw me and said HI. I probably shoulda remembered his name, but didn't, though I did offer up a few names from that evening as options. But now that I think about it, I realize I thought "of him" yesterday in that I remembered something we had discussed: "a howdy is met with a good howdy." or some such oft spoken line in Aggieland.

Computer blues

6:08pm JST Wednesday 30 July 2008 (day 14007)

This morning when I plugged in the external monitor to my computer, it's got no red signal, so everything looks heavily blue. We confirmed the monitor is okay by plugging it in to Andrew's computer. Gah. So either the adapter plug (from my computer to the monitor cord) suddenly broke when it was riding around in my bag, or the visit to the Mac Store broke my computer's red-output ability.

Coda locked up today; I had to Force Quit it, and then I rebooted for good measure. Then I think Coda locked up again. Maybe it was Firefox 3. I was switching between apps and then back again and then again and it broke. My app switching was faster than "normal," but it doesn't take me too long to hit alt-tab a couple times in sequence to get to the correct app. I'm guessing one of those two programs barfed when paging in or out of memory, but I couldn't tell which one cause I couldn't do anything but move the mouse. Couldn't get Force Quit window to pop up via keypress. Couldn't get dock to appear via mouse. Gah.

However

6:16pm JST Wednesday 30 July 2008 (day 14007)

The good thing, though: my computer's battery slash power management is quite better than before. I'm quite happy to have received a new battery, even though I thought Apple won't replace them fo' free.

Earlier today my computer went from 100% battery to 5% battery (while unplugged (I didn't time the drop, but it was probably over an hour)) and told me it was on reserve battery power, and I let it go down to 4% and then plugged it back in. Got to 100% and left it plugged for a bit, but now have unplugged it and it's slowly dropping. 74% at the moment (6:19pm)

7:16pm JST

40% now.

7:34pm JST

29%

8:01pm JST

11%

8:09pm JST

6%, and it just told me to switch to power adapter.

Komatsu lesson

7:17pm JST Wednesday 30 July 2008 (day 14007)

Today, Mr Komatsu said something like, "you audience me presenter," and when I suggested he say something like "You be the audience. I'll be the presenter," he informed me (in Japanese) that, according to Mr Tanno (who asked me to come teach Mr Komatsu), Mr Komatsu doesn't have to be 100% perfect in English, but just understandable. Then summarized by saying (in Japanese) 30% or 50% correct is fine.

Then he asked (in Japanese), why, in English, do we convert "I will" to "I'll," "we have," to "we've," but "I will not" to "I won't"

I answered that I didn't know, but that he should simply memorize those (though obviously he already had). And of course, there are some strange points in Japanese: する changes to できる, and 中 is sometimes なか and sometimes ちゅう.

He said the first one was just something we have to memorize, and of course, regarding 中, that one was the Japanese reading and the other was the Chinese reading.

I said, "yeah, and we just have to memorize it." I told him I have the same problem with Japanese as he does with English; there's stuff we've just got to memorize.

He seemed to get the point, and then came up with his brilliant presentation on Phillippean bars in Japan, about 80% in Japanese.

But that's not why I'm writing.

After the lesson, Mr Tanno asked me how Mr Komatsu's studies were going.

I didn't say "Um,.. terrible?" but didn't lie, either. I don't know what I said. Anyway, I just got an email from Mr Tanno:

Dear Rob,

Could you make arrangement for Mr. Komatsu to try TOEIC test?

Thank you.

And I'm like, "um, no?" cause I don't know how to make such arrangements, and I'm pretty sure it would be a slaughter if he tried to take it.

HI Mr Tanno

What would be the benefit of him taking the TOEIC test?

From what I have seen, Mr Komatsu would severely fail the TOEIC test.
I don't think he should try it.

 - Rob

Pretty much what I think is happening here: I'm working as a teacher for a company that has less than no idea how to teach. Mr Komatsu is simply an employee of one of this company's big clients. Nothing to do with teaching English.

I'm getting 4000 yen per hour for this. I wonder who is wasting all that money?

Worrrrrrrk

9:58pm JST Wednesday 30 July 2008 (day 14007)

Gar. I'm just stuck stuck in this crap. Trying to get some select lists to talk to each other, and trying to get mootools to talk to the server to get the updated data... perhaps I should forget about that part and just try without mootools.

Brain is getting tired. I'll have to do it tomorrow or later.