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i teach. it's what i do for money. i teach a right wing spiritualist cram school owner, three gay men, five young women and a host of high school students. each of them has taught me something about the Japanese people: the right wing spiritualist nut believes that the emperor is descended from god and that the Japanese people are "different" from the people everywhere else, the three lonely, closeted gay men studying english as a form of escape or in ORDER to escape... someday... maybe, the five young women enjoying their jobs but finding them difficult and also finding it difficult to advance WHILE trying really hard to be pretty, and my high school students who know that all that matters now is the tests they'll take when the graduate--the tests that will determine their university which will determine their job which will determine the rest of their life. what else will i learn...

i've been reading Sophie's World, the supposedly children's book that mixes philosophy 101 with a cheesy YET entertaining twist that I won't ruin for you, and thinking about, well, existence. i guess i've been doing that a lot lately--people have been telling me that i "have an old soul," that i am "really mature for [my] age," and things like that...which makes one wonder what an "old soul" is and how mature are 23 year olds supposed to be? i think that people often mix "maturity" and "composure" and I can be fairly composed when i'm not lubricated and lurching around the dance floor. so i guess this leads me to my latest introspections: art in japan, life in japan, life, what's next for me, and why the human mind is not very trustworthy... Art in Japan is not for the masses. Only someone in the upper tax brackets can afford more than 4 concerts or shows a month when each show costs between 3500 and 10000 ...