"Dude, where's Sexual Harassment Panda?"

This was one of the funnest weekends I've had in a long time. I am actually funned out, but in a totally good way. I think what may have made it so excellent was that I hardly thought about the weekend at all, really, until it was time to leave for Obihiro... I was a bit preoccupied with the last day of school, and thinking about money, and posting my parcel. The ride to the station on my Bicycle was quite a lot of fun actually... the parcel was way too big for the basket, and was basically just balancing with one corner inside it. It took all my mad mamachari skillz to keep it from bouncing out onto the street. And I totally managed it! Sweet.

Well, off to Obihiro I trained, and met Erin at the station, we headed over to Sara's place. Bret's in Cambodia right now, doing volunteer work for a school or something, so we had her all to ourselves. And that's when she introduced us to "trapped in the closet"(R. Kelly's hip-hopera, and a work of staggeringly genius awfulness). We decided that this would make an awesome drinking game, the rules being:

Drink whenever he says closet
Drink whenever he rhymes a word with itself
Drink whenever he threatens anyone with his Beretta
Drink whenever there's a "cliffhanga"

Stephen finally arrived from Taiki-cho, and then Dan came over too, so we all went to the Brazilian place to have some din-dins. unfortunately it was full, so we went to Heiwaen for some Yakiniku (gettin kinda tired of strips of meat by now, would really like a thick steak, preferably one I don't have to cook myself...).It seems we are no unable, as a group, to get through a meal without sillybuggers: there was much playing of the moustache game (don't ask) and demonstrating the full body zombie shrug, which got us some attention from the next table, for a change. Steven told Dan to tell the waitress that she looked foxy in her (vaguely Swiss/ Austrian) plaid uniform, and he surprised us by actually doing it...of course, with dinner done, we walked to Mos burger (being sure to dance an Irish Jig when we went past Galway's, of course), and got some dessert, well actually some people just got OniPote sets.

We decided that it was time to attempt the drinking game, so (it being almost midnight) it was time to invade the local 24-hour supermarket. I feel a little sorry for the security guard. As with most guards here, he was a retired salaryman-type who looked to be in his early seventies at least. His uniform was neatly pressed and he had his cap but he was NOT prepared for an influx of giggly Foreigners making fun of the whisky (Black Nikka? Hi? 　 How could we not)

The drinking game went well... a little too well, in fact, since the abovementioned rules meant that we each drank three beers in less than 20 minutes. We all felt extremely sober after that, so sober, in fact, that Erin decided that now would be a good time to investigate the trapdoor in her Genkan. It was, as expected, dark and cobwebby, but what freaked her out were the two individual children's shoes rotting in a corner. After that, Stephen refused to go to the toilet, insisting that he would pee in the sink, but we told him to stop being a chicken, and shoved him out into the Genkan of doom.

The next morning at 6am there was an earthquake. After that there was a little dialogue:
"Did anybody feel that earthquake?
"I felt something"
"I feel really cold"
"I feel legacy"

Thankfully it subsided and everybody went back to sleep before I had to bust some heads.

The next morning Stephen left at around 10 do do snow things and we girlses headed out to Rokatei, because I had a craving for Gorgonzola pizza and cake. The best part was, of course, cutting them with the scissors. It was such a beautiful spring day (10˚ c!!!)And there appeared to be some sort of festival going on outside Fujimaru, so we sorted out our point cards and took a stroll over there, to work up an appetite for our cakes. Turned out working up an appetite meant being handed free stuff, including rice snacks and sticky mochi. There was a lottery and I won a box of gigantic potatoes, that later turned out to be Chinese yams that I seem to be allergic to (zannen!)

Flushed with the thrill of having won produce, we strutted back into Rokatei, ordered cakes, got our free coffees and sat down to nosh. thereuopon it was decided that the rest of the day should be spent in a badass fashion. practising our badass poses and taking a few photographs for practise, the three of us got in the car and badassed our way over to posful.

to Clair's, where we became a little sidetracked by their "10 accessories for \500"sale. It took a while but we finally picked those shelves clean of the last few decent itty bittses, which was pretty darn exhausting. Dan called while we were paying, and we met him downstairs in the food court. Either Erin or Sara decided that there should be an accessories race, and whoever got all of theirs on the fastest would win ( Erin did). Naturally, we needed to photodocument the occasion. We rounded off the day by doing an hour's worth of Pirikura (not to mention scaring some of my Ikeda students, who saw us and ran away), and then meeting up with Steven and then Jonah for some Misdo Action.

We said goodbye to Dan, then drove back to Erin's, where we finished the evening off with another great dumbass movie, and another "trapped in the closet" drinking game (although with slightly refined rules). On Sunday, we slept late (except Stephen; yeah more snow thingy), then headed to McDonald's and Toys 'R' Us in our Most badass makeup.

all in all, a good, if tiring, weekend..

Some Photos, for to make it Pretty.

"Amanda-sensei, do you like type?"

Yesterday at Ashoro it was my final visit for the school year. It might even have been my final visit ever, as they are stopping the train service through to Kitami. During my class with the second-years, we finished early and being the lovely, kind women that I am, I told the kids to relax. So, of course, they started to gossip about me. Finally, having worked up enough courage (not to mention the requisite English), one of the genkiest "naughty boys" (naughty in the sense of cheeky and excitable, not future yakuza-rejects) asked me the question above.

Naturally my response was a little confused.
"do you mean... Do I like typing?"

Much hilarity ensued. Sugawara-sensei looked sheepish and explained that they intended to ask what my "dating type" was. I raised an eyebrow, mainly because I can.

"It's a secret!", I insisted, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth from both boys and girls. I think nihonjin got a bumper crop of the nosiness gene. anyway, I continued:" but I will tell you this, a university degree is the absolute minimum" (which is sorta true although i will make exceptions for self-made men. However it's really an age issue here... as in; No, teenage boy, you truly have no chance, not ever, that would be weird nuh-uh, ew; only not as potentially damaging to their psyche).

Well, this would not do. They insisted that I had to at least tell them one thing...So I thought about it... And thought a little more... And was vaguely stymied. I managed to come up with :"he must have good taste in music", which is true and which elicited a chorus of "I love you"s from the boys (they are so easy to please)... But I started to wonder why it was so hard for me to answer the question.

I mean, if you'd asked me ten years ago what my type was, I would have been able to answer you in a second. Totally. Snap fingers, whoosh! Just like that. Skinny poetic types. Bam. Easy answer.

of course, I've dated a few more people since then. And mostly they've been pretty different, although there are a few vaguely common strands... They are usually "alternative", non-mainstream types, intelligent, good with computers, good taste in music, and usually way too tall for me (no hard, really).

oh and psychosis. The last few years, i seem to have attracted an endless stream of losers, users, psychological abusers, pathological liars, commitment-phobes and arseholes (except the one, who knows who he is). So apparently my type is: psycho arsehole. Although I like to console myself that at least they have mostly been hot psycho arsehole, with one exception, and I'm not saying who, so you can all worry, hahahaha. Ahem.

anyway, I think it's best that I no longer trust my instincts (sorry, Sprite), or possibly enquire about Jewish nunneries.

Weekend Pervert Experience

so. apparently god has a sense of humour, eh? Erin and I were on our way to do our good deed bit by reading stories to small children, which, admittedly, is not exactly a sacrifice on our part, but hey I did spend hours doing the illustrations.

nonetheless. so there we were, pleasantly full fro our pleasant Donut-and-nikkuman (Chinese meat and bread dumplings) breakfast at Mister Donut, and chatting away. we got to a red light, and more chatting, with Erin now facing me.

then she started screaming.

after I shat my pants, I turned to look at what she was screaming at, not all that concerned because she had already screamed blue bloody murder at the "evil
demon ghost cat" outside her house that morning.

anyway, what had made her scream was the guy in the car next to us, a pleasant enough-looking fellow, aside from the fact that he was masturbating with both hands, while simultaneously lifting his body up so that we could see his (surprisingly gigantic) weiner.

now, my thought process at this point went something like:
"oh, a penis. right"
"waaaaaaait."
"what the HELL??!!??"

now I am sure you realise I have seen a penis before. What shocked me was that this guy was:

a) doing this
b) doing it on Saturday morning
c) seeming so pleased with himself
d) dude! seriously!ew!

anyway, Erin stopped screaming, which was good, and then we gave him the middle finger, times four, which encouraged him to one-hand it, while giving us a thumbs-up. so, apparently that didn't do much good, so we got out our pens and planned to get his License plate number when the light changed (by the way, soooo the longest red light in the whole of Japan!). he obviously saw our pens of power, and being a freakin' genius decided to escape by reversing--- thus giving us a clear and extended view of his license plate number.

anyway, long story short, we called the police who sent THREE guys over to the international centre(where we were by now preparing frantically for the onslaught of teensy children)- one uniformed and two "plain clothes" (although they both had the bitchinest "dude I'm a total mercenary" coverall things) who seemed to share our view that this guy was a total toolshed, and not particularly bright. we had fun acting out the situation a few times ("so, how exactly was he holding his penis?") and they seemed very motivated to go find his arse.

anyway, here's hoping they catch him. I totally want compensation. he totally ruined my Donut experience.

I AM the dog of abject despondency...