This past week was an interesting one at work. The kids classes, as i mentioned, weren't as bad as I expected and I actually got a chance to talk to my boss a lot. I think that maybe he's trying to make me happy as I'm the only fulltime guy now that my co-worker got fired and is out of here now. The other native speaker is an argumentative New Yorker who doesn't mind showdowns with Japanese culture. "If you want me to come to work next Thursday, you need to tell me my schedule now." THat sort of stuff doesn't really fly so well here.

Anyway, since I'm the only guy there full time now, my boss sat me down and offered me a raise and a contract until next year in April. If you'd have asked me on monday about it, i would have said, "Hell No!" but after eating dinner with the woman who had my job before me and bitching about all of the various bitchable things, my job miraculously improved. The office attitude was more convivial, my japanese co-workers seemed friendlier and the classes went just fine.

After talking with my boss a lot this week, my biggest question is, "How come he still acts like a boring Japanese guy half the time?"
I heard him say shisse (sp?) which is German for "shit" as he was grousing about something and i responded, "Wow, you must know swear words in 5 different languages."
"Yeah, maybe 7," he responded.

In addition to living in Holland for 2 years as a teppanyaki chef following his college which was spent in the US and in Japan, he lived in Spain for a year working somewhere, i don't know where and here's the kicker; My tiny japanese boss lived on a kibbutz near Tel Aviv for a year where he studied Hebrew and farmed vegetables.

"Yeah, I was 26 but most of the Swedish girls were about 18 or 19. What a crazy time. Sometimes you would wake up and look at the person next to you and say, 'Who the hell is that?' I should bring in pictures of me with my long hair and earring."

That's crazy shit if ever I've heard it.