24 Hours

Its 1am. Ive just logged onto the internet to check my mail, update the blog and see whats happening in the world. Everything here is in Japan; the news, TV, newspapers, magazines. Sometimes I feel isolated and disconnected and reaching out across cyberspace help me to remember where I come from, where things are going and what I have left behind.

2am. I return home and have some Baileys. Bottles cost \2000 or just over $20. Ive almost finished my second for the week, whiling away the dark hours chatting politics, movies and music with my canadian flatmates. We laugh as we quote Muriels Wedding, debate the meaning behind the Cube and argue about which Lord of The Rings movie was better (I still say the 1st).

3am. Time to crawl into bed. I start my first day of Kids Training tommorrow (or is that now today). Im nervous yet tipsy. Sleep comes quickly and easily.

10am. The alarm clock kicks in auto-pilot. Shower, shave, coffee. Im at the train station before I rememeber what Im doing. Tide is High plays in my ears. My mp3 players is in a strange 70/80s mood today, 99 Loft Balloons follows, then Time Warp. A jump to the left indeed, as I float through the station, changing between the Hankyu railway to Midosuji Subway.

11:30am. Damn. I forgot to do last nights homework. I flick through the training manual and assimilate as much as I can. An empty quiz sheets calls to be complete as I grab a pen and furiously write. 17 teaching techniques, ideal warmup length, how to motivate a class, cultural skills I can partake on the students.

12:00pm I barely finsish as the next trainer wanders in. First up is a game of Charades, designed to show non-verbal communication skills. We laugh, scream with fustration and go wild as 2 teams complete, ultimately its a close tie.

3:00pm. We cover the teaching material, bit by bit. Soon, all the text headings have been discussed and modelled. We demo various activities through the afternoon. Im a plane, a car, a watermelon. We teach sentense structure and vocab. Questions and answers.

4:00pm. Singing. Ugh! We dance around the Mulberrry Bush (the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush). Oh yes, we dance around the Mulberry Bush, early in the morning. We put our right hand, we put our right hand out. We put our right hand in, and shake it all about. We do the Hokey Poky and turn ourselves around. Cause that what its all about.

5:00pm. Im exhausted. We danced and sang and danced some more. We scatter out from the office block and I head home to change.

8:00pm. Ive broken even in the poker game. Theres a line of empty beer cans, and Im on my 4th baileys. Tommorrow is my first day off since Tuesday and Ive got 6 days of training on the other side. Time to let our hair down. Baby J (my flatmate) and I continue our movie discussion, breaking occasionally to bluff each other out or curse at at the cards that can so cruel sway the tide of the game.

10:00. We were suppose to met a canadian and US couple but they havent showed up. We do a quick run to McDonalds and head back. The McChicken is fresh and hot and for \100 is far too convient after a few drinks.

11:30pm. They arrive and we're sitting in a local bar. Theres 5 of us now, up on the mezanine level, looking down on a sea of black hair. The barstaff know some broken english and Baby J teaches him a handshake so convuluted and involved that I can barely keep up.

12:30am. We head back to the couples apartment, buying alcohol, chips and TimTams (oh yes, Im an aussie and can smell them a mile away). You can drink alcohol in the street and we stumble along with Ruskies, Chu-hi's and beer. We grab a laptop from their apartment, wander down to the river and watch episodes of Southpark until the battery runs dead.

3am. Bed is inviting and warm. Sleep comes quickly and easily ....