So get this.....
One year ago today I woke up in a hotel near LAX a little cloudy from the night before and within a few hours was on a big o' jet airliner bound for Japan. It will be tomorrow before I can say I actually arrived, though; this due to the international date line. But anyway, you get the idea, right about now I have been here for a year........and I still can't speak Japanese!
Should I attempt to write "My year in review"? Nah! You don't want to read that. Besides, you can just read this entire journal for that. Instead I will tell you it is damn hot here, and humid, but that my building at the Kencho finally has some air conditioning. It's still hot as the thing obviously isn't turned down enough, but it's better than nothing. I think Japanese people like to appeal to the one who is willing to suffer the most. And what I mean by this is that they tend to work extremely long hours. It seems a point of bravado if one can say that he or she worked 10 hours on some particular day. "Yeah, well, I worked for 13 hours on Tuesday." "Oh yeah, well I showered, shaved and ate breakfast at my desk." "Hell, I haven't seen my wife, kids, or the dog since Spring."
And this really isn't too far from the truth from what I've read and observed on my own. These people take pride in overworking. But here's the catch. I don't think they are overworking. I think they are just staying at work and doing other things. I could be wrong here, but it sure seems like a few of them will wonder off to talk, or read the paper, or possibly smoke in the bathroom (that's not true, they go out to smoke in the hallway and they do not hide it).
Anyway, back to the air conditioning. It is my estimation that we are all sitting in air the temperature at which one guy said, "Ok, it's too hot." And the others said "Ha! You wuss! I'm not even sweating and I've been working here, at my desk, since three this morning." "Yes, but you've been sleeping." "BUT I'M AT MY DESK!"
So instead of being human and admitting that we are all hot and would like the air conditioner turned down so that the sweat might freeze to our butt cheeks, we sit very still in the hopes that we might be able to feel any slight breeze that might come along. Let me tell you that a body walking past your chair can stir up enough air so that for a spilt second you feel as if you've stepped outside in the cool Autumn air. Wait! Here comes Tanaka-san. Ahh! Relief.
The point to all this: if one guy can take the heat, we all can (or are expected to).

In other news, I have been asked to give a short talk to the newbies at our local orientation in a couple weeks. What will my talk be on? Okaayyy, I'll tell you, but you're going to laugh. Let me clear my throat here.......attitude.
I heard that!
Yes, my friends, I was asked to give a little talk about attitude. This puzzled me so I looked it up on an online dictionary. "Attitude--the orientation of an aircraft's axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon." "Hmmm," I thought, "this puzzles me even more." So I looked up the next definition.  "A position similar to an arabesque in which a ballet dancer stands on one leg with the other raised either in front or in back and bent at the knee." WHAT!?
But, you'll be relieved to know, that I solved the mystery with the next definition, "A state of mind or a feeling; disposition: had a positive attitude about work. An arrogant or hostile state of mind or disposition." Of course, the mystery is solved but that doesn't make it any easier on me. What do I know about attitude? And I assume they want me to talk about the right attitude as opposed to that attitude (by the way, all this is related to work) that says "Damn it all. I hate this country. I hate my job. Those kids are just stupid. My teacher is a jerk. And why can't they speak English?!"
Here's my problem. I know the wrong attitude when I see it; that part's easy. But how do I instill the right attitude in these new teachers? If I have the right attitude it is not by any sort of effort on my part. It just is. I've had enough crap jobs in the past to know that this one is nice and cushy, that any bad day here will likely be followed by a good one, and that if all else fails there's always the beer vending machine on the way home. Actually it doesn't take the all else fails scenario to utilize the services of the BVM, all it takes is the realization that "hey, I'm thirsty," some change in my pocket and a quick stop.
So I have yet to figure out what I am going to say to these young and fresh teachers. I, myself, am still a young and fresh teacher. I'm supposed to talk for 20 minutes which might not seem like all that long a time, but trust me when I tell you that the sentence "Buck up and bear it cause you got yourself into this" doesn't take even close to 20 minutes to utter. I've tried slowing it down but so far the longest I could get it to go was 8 seconds.

Ok, and thus ends my one year anniversary essay.