Friday's Lesson Plan

Friday's plan looks like this:
4th period:
-Interview and writing (Reviewing of Verbs)
-ALT explains Michael Jackson to Students (25 min.)

Lunch

5th Period:
-Game (Using to + infinitives)
-ALT explains Michael Jackson to Students (25 min.)

-Other notes: I'd like you to explain Michael Jackson to the students.

Great lesson plan, or Greatest lesson plan?

Shred That (G)nar

This is yet another spoken-for post, going out to a friend here in Good ol' Aomori. Read, then cast your vote. You decide the fate of this court case. *The only knowledge I have about court cases comes from TV shows that I don't watch, and Sci-Fi shows that I do watch, so just roll with it.

"Order in the court!" Judge Whip R. Snapper bellowed from her bench hitting her gavel as hard as she could against her platform. The courtroom settled down.

"Let's see," she looked at her paper. "Today we have Captain Slowtoad of the SS Kart prosecuting, and 'Kid with Klinefelter's Syndrome so be nice to -' err...I mean, DKizzle defending. You two may janken for who presents their case first to the jury."

"Saissho a gu, janken PO!" Rocks and scissors, the prosecution would give their case first.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury," the Captain's lawyer began, "we believe that 'gnar' as in 'shredding the gnar' and 'shred the gnar-gnar,' among other uses, not only deserves a G in the front, but it's very use in words such as 'gnarly' mandate it as a requirement. Furthermore, omitting the G paves the way for confusing and needless homophony, as in 'Do you understand this? Nar.' or 'Are you ok? Narp.' With this in mind, we submit that gnar, spelled correctly with a G in front, is necessary in this day and age. Thank you."

"Defense may rise," Whip said.

"We, as the defense, disagree wholeheartedly with the prosecution. Putting a G in front of nar will invariably lead to people pronouncing it phonetically: 'guh-nar,' which ruins the flow whilst one be shredding said nar. And imagine, if you will, ladies and gentlemen, little nar-shredders riding a wave or carving down a mountain telling their papas and mamas 'look mom, I'm shredding the guh-nar guh-nar.' The defense believes that adding a G will ruin correct pronunciation, leading to the inability to explain what one is shredding, which will eventually lead to the downfall of the United States of America by way of decreased exports of America's number 1 shredded commodity, nar. The defense rests its case."

"Ok, the prosecution may call up its first witness. The author, creator, and giant panda that secretly controls the world's dictionaries, 'The Japanda formerly known as JishoPanda,'" Whip intoned.

The prosecution confidently strolled to the platform as The Japanda formerly known as JishoPanda was sworn in. It's belly undulated in pleasure at the eucalyptus-printed book.

"Japanda, is it true that you control all of the dictionaries in the world?"
"Yes, every single one."
"For how long have you been in control?"
"Ever since I inherited power from Jitenarwhal in 1850."
"Wow, you must have seen a lot of changes, right?"

"OBJECTION!" The kid with klinefelter's screamed. "Unnecessary small-talk!"
"Objection over-ruled, you may continue with your questioning, prosecution."

"As I was saying, you've seen a lot of changes. Now, have you run across the word 'gnar' in any of your dictionaries?"
"Yes, I have. There are two entries with different spellings in my urbandictionary.com site. It makes me hungry and aggressive."
"Please, tell me, my gracious spotted roly-poly biped, how many entries are there for 'gnar' with a G, and 'gnar' without a G?"
"There are 35 with a G and 20 without a G. Of the 20 without a G, numerous ones are for 'nar' meaning 'a negatory response meaning 'no'.'

"OBJECTION!" Klinefelter's screamed, "Negatory isn't a word!"
"Objection, sustained. Witness's validity is under question."

"Oh really?" Japanda asked. "Have you checked all of my dictionaries? I'm like a hippopotamus/my entries are bottomless/ bubbling from my throat like phosphorescent phosphorous/can you check it like Kid Rock's proctologist?/I write-sleep-eat and quiz-it like Stephanopoulos."

"Objection over-ruled. The Japanda has a point." Whip R. Snapper was entranced by the hypnotic circles on it's belly that moved in time with the rap.

"The prosecution is finished. 35 entries to 20."

"Defense has no questions, but calls philosopher and linguist Noam Chompsky to the platform."

The panda hip-hop kibbles-and bits'ed off the platform, only to be replaced by cunning linguist and philosopher, among other accomplishments, Mr. Chompsky.

"The defense would like you ask you a few question, Mr. Chompsky."
"Much Obliged."
"Sir, could you explain the etymology of the word, specifically in BCUva philosophy?"
"Much Obliged. Clearly 'nar' comes from the thing which one must shred. Now, this shredding can happen in both a physical and metaphysical sense, and in many times, occurs in both simultaneously. However, and this is an important point we will return to, the 'nar' which one may or may not shred is not necessarily a material object. Depending on the speaker and the topic, 'nar' may encompass a wide variety of objects, emotions, though nearly all are positive, and actions."
"Would you consider 'nar' to be related to gnat, if it were to include a G?"
"While both contain the silent G sound, that is their only similarity."
"Thank you, the defense rests." The Klinefelter's kid shot the Captain a look filled with malice and minor mental disability.

"Prosecution."
"Yes Madame Snapper. Now, Mr. Chompsky, it is interesting that you bring up that gnat and gnar have only one similarity. Can you think of gnar, with a G, having similarity with any other word?"
"Much obliged, but not off the top of my head."
"What about 'gnarly?'"
The court gasped.
"Ahh yes, gnarly, one of it's alternate definitions bears much in kind with 'gnar.' I supposed there is quite a number of geographic and usage similarities, it must've slipped my mind."
"Furthermore, when something is 'gnarly' in the gnarled up sense of the word, how might one fix the problem."
"I'm not sure what you're-"
"Would someone, perhaps, grate or slice it?"
"Well yes-"
"Or perhaps, one could do both at the same time and shred it, wouldn't you say so, Dr.?"
"Well, that is certainly true."
"And, in the context of a mountain, which one might say is a gnarled up ball of dirt and rocks, couldn't one philosophize that it's natural form would be as 'plains,' Dr.?"
"I see what you are getting at, if one was to shred gnar, the gnar in this case being a mountain with snow, one could be performing the action of shredding a gnar that is both related to something 'gnarled,' as well as something that derives from the Californian slang 'gnarly.'"
"Yea brah, yea. Prosecutions rests, Dawg."

"Ok, you have both done a good job of presenting your cases. The jury will take time to deliberate the answer and return with a verdict."

Ok, whoever is reading this blog, I want your votes. It will determine the outcome of this story. Which is it, gnar or nar? Feel free to discuss in the comments.

Snow(boarding, ball-fight) and How to Distinguish the Crazies

Hello Readers,

'Tis a fine day in Hachinohe. The weather is hovering around -4ish (Celsius, so maybe mid to high 20's Fahrenheit) and there is a small layer of snow coating the ground. And I'll be heading to Okunakayama tonight for some snowboarding. Yes, life couldn't be better. I also had a fulfilling weekend last weekend. I finally snowboarded on the infamous Mount Hakkoda! The snow there was perfect. It was so powdery that, when I fell, it felt like I was being cushioned by a big marshmallow pillow. And you what what it means when you're not afraid of falling, right? You aren't afraid of learning! Yeah, going off jumps, no problem, carving down a slope, no problem.

Perhaps the best part of Hakkoda is that it's back-country. This means that the 2 courses (the rest are back-country, and you go down at your own peril) have trees, interesting, windy courses, and are so much more fun. It's so much better than a regular downhill course. Going through the trees and along small paths is wicked intense!

On Sunday was the Shichinohe White Battle. Here's the gist of it: 3 minutes to pummel your 7 opponents from your stockpile of 90 snowballs, or capture their flag. Oh yeah, this is a serious thing, there are even umpires surrounding the fields. It was more fun than it sounds. We annihilated the first team. We only lost one of ours compared to all 7 of them; even successfully defending against a rush to our flag at the end. The second game...not so good. Half of our team was out within 30 seconds. Yours truly was gone before he could even get behind the first barrier! It's really too bad it ended so quickly, it was wicked fun.

So, that was a good way to spend a weekend- it was super satisfying.

You wanna know what else is satisfying? This here Q&A session. I'm not sure why the Republicans agreed to such a thing, and why they bowed under pressure to air the entire Q&A when they were originally going to air only Obama's opening speech (though, depending on the spin of the site you go to, some will say they bowed under White House pressure to air it, others will say that it was a GOP idea to air it). Why am I confused why they would air such a thing? Because it gives a direct outlet for the President to refute all of their spin in front of the American people. When you can have nigh-unlimited control of the message you are sending the people, why would you ever let an intelligent leader come and prove the core of your messages wrong? Obviously, I loved it, especially when the President deftly refutes Congressman Pence's loaded question on the economy. If you would like to see exactly what he was refuting, so you can get a clear, unbiased look at the GOP's viewpoints, please, look at their 30 page (well, around that much, I guess Cover Pages and Table of Contents shouldn't really be included...) "solution" on their website http://www.gop.gov/solutions . Maybe you should read that first and then watch the video, so you can get a look at where the logic is faulty. (And yes, the solution to all of the problems we currently have in the USA need only 30 pages to fix!).

Ok, done with politics for now.

As a frequent reader of news on the interwebs, I run across many people with opinions who've commented on articles by equally opinionated (yet payed) people. Some of them sound ok, until their logic begins to devolve into a meaningless mash of falsities lying somewhere between Barney the Magic Dinosaur and your 10 year old cousin's book of funnies. I present to you part of my short guide to vocabulary for the crazies are on the internet:

Noplanhagen, Plight House, other random mix-mash of famous events/locations that belie conspiracy- These people are the conspiracy theorists. They are the ones who think that the moon is sending gamma waves to affect the brains of politicians around the world in order to get them to trash the earth and force a move to the moon, because it's so lonely (to those learning English and are reading my blog, that sentence is probably gonna be a toughie). Usually their posts start off ok. Many times it's with an easily proven fact, such as "Most humans have 10 fingers." From there, it is a downhill conspiracy theory spiral: "But after the 'climate short-change' meetings at Noplanhagen (for those not in the know, there was a big climate-change meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark recently), soon we're all going to have 13 fingers and 14 toes due to the increased emission of nuclear power plants." Once you hit one of those signals, just stop reading, it's just better for your health that way.

Bass-ackwards- Oh how clever and witty you are, with your swapping of the first letter on bass-ackwards! These people are also part of the crazies. They're usually the ones who write something like "it's people with degrees who got us into this problem, so why don't you try letting the people WITHOUT degrees try solving it." There is something charming about the logic. These people, like conspiracy theorists, can be found all over the internet. Again, once you hit this keyword, just ignore the rest of the comment.

That ends the very short guide to the crazies on the internet. Keep on the lookout though, you might just be reading a crazies' blog! Japan? More like Joe'sPan, ohh!

Gender Relations

The state of gender equality in Japan can be summed up in this video of "Eigo de Asobou" or, "Let's play in English."

Here.

Stream of Consc-...Nope, Politics.

Another week has come and gone, and I don't really know what to write about now. Another stream-of-consciousness entry? Ok.

I use WolframAlpha for cool things. It's pretty cool. I only wish it had a list of functions on the side, because I don't think I'm using it to it's full capabilities yet. I do like that it includes how far the weather-station is that it pulls data from when I ask for the weather. I don't trust most weather sites because they just don't tell you that info.

Speaking of trust, and lack thereof, let's talk government, briefly. I'm a "damned liberal." As opposed to conservatives, who don't have such readily-available labels (I call discrimination!). So, obviously, I am disappointed with some of the recent happenings. I am also (still) disappointed with humans. And when you put the two of them together...ok, where to begin. Let's start with humans, for no particular reason. Well, maybe we'll start with Americans. X > 50% of the people lack the ability for long-term thinking (fancily known as delayed gratification). If our elected official isn't automatically doing well (or their party isn't) and hasn't fixed all of our problems, automatically kick him out and replaced him with someone who hasn't disappointed us yet. When they fail to fix everything, just kick them out, and elect another guy. Let's take that whole theory of mine, and label it as "A."

Next, we have politics. I just want to scream at the Democrats! Abandoning the Health Bill because they lost their supermajority by 1 seat. To roughly paraphrase from memory Jon Stewart's succinct analysis, "Hey, Democrats, you still have more senate seats...than George W. Bush ever had in the Senate when he did whatever the fuck he wanted to." (Here, you can find the clip at the bottom of this page, because I'm nice enough of a guy to look it up online). Granted, things are a little more complicated than that, Bush didn't have 100% of the opposing party always voting against him. But then, I find it hard to imagine that 100% of the republican senators fully disagree with everything Obama is doing. Hmmm... Wait a sec, I've found the secret to this game! Dear God, just put away all of your actual preferences and vote across party lines! I'm actually not kidding. Hey, Democrats, Republicans are willing to do so every single time an important vote comes up, why can't you do the same? For the love of- just forget about all of your whining on what is fair and what isn't fair, you can change those things AFTER the bill is passed and huge reform is working through. I obviously haven't read the bill, just like most Americans and portions of the government haven't, but I would imagine that a less-flawed, new system, is better than a hugely flawed, 16% of GDP behemoth (taken from wiki, and the first couple of links in google, which hopefully aren't all colluding together against us, oh critical one). You know what, while you're at it, pass through a few more bills with your supermajority. The longer you spend going back and forth over the bill, the fewer and fewer Americans will like it. So, just push it through, stop wasting time, and fix it after you are 100% sure it will take effect. You know what, people aren't going to like it at first, but I bet, if it does even half of what you are saying it will, that people will begin to like it after they are done being angry about it. In case you aren't clear, I am arguing, willingly, for Democrats to stop being the bigger person, and step (very far) down to the level of Republicans, if they want to get anything done. Just this once? Then you can go back to, oh, how did Jon Stewart put it again, something about a nurse's office and glue... Ok, take all of that and label it B.

So, in short, we have this new equation: A + B = extremely frustrating for me. Oh wait, as of this morning, there's a C! Great, now corporations can directly influence even more in our lives, now that they "have similar rights to individuals to participate in elections." So, A + B + C = over the top frustration. For Mr. Glenn Beck, in the 0.01% chance you read this blog, I just- I just miss my America. *tear* There's a whole group of people who are destroying the America I grew up in. *tear, close-up shot of watery eyes* They keep saying they are the "real America," but the real America I grew up in doesn't like guns so much or drive huge gas-guzzling cars.

Ok, that stream-of-consciousness post got really political all of a sudden. And, I'll end it there, as I've said enough on the topic for now.

End

Nonsense

Ladies and Gentlemen, this post is spoken for. I promised a friend of mine that the next post would be directly influenced by him. In order to protect his identity from the feral Chinese hackers who hate activists , I will not put his name, but instead use the much manlier Vagbar Korst. I will try to write this in a style different from my usual in the hopes that it will appeal to this non-named friend.

Vagbar studied manliness at the University of Man, on the Isle of Man. However, he was born so manly that he graduated on his first day of arriving, with a double-major in manthematics and philmanthropy. Accordingly, he was offered a teaching position at the university, but turned in down, as he didn't have enough time between wrasslin' alligators and boxing bears to teach. Every day he drank 3 jugs of cider, and every day he made important decisions in a confident manner.
Yes, Vagbar seemed to live a charmed life. According to the laws of manliness, which seemed to obey his every whim, he dominated in many areas.

But, his manliness came at a price. He was unabashedly aggressive. He had a tough, macho outer skin that hid his true, sensitive, unconfident, and unstable inner self. And, most tragically, he could not control that highest pinnacle of manliness, the hair on his chest.

"At this rate, he has only 9 days left to live" the doctor gravely said. Vagbar's many children, surrounding his bed, shuddered. Vagbar laughed. "His chest hair will slowly strangle him until he is unable to receive enough oxygen. And there is nothing we can do about it."

"But, can't you cut it, or tie it up somehow," a child asked.

"No, young Billy, we've tried diamond-plated chainsaws and we can't even make a dent, there is no hope. No. Hope."

Vagbar cackled at this. "Yar! When death comes, I'mma grab it by it's brittle little bones and use it's own leg to beat it. Then, I'mma take that tharn sickle and carve it an intricatedectedly (he sputtered on this polysyllabic word), intricitically- I'm gonna carve it a trashcan out of it's own bones, and put it's cloak inside, then use it as a thunderbucket!" Vagbar continued rambling, switching to even less coherent vocabulary until he was a murmur of thinly veiled threats against the grim reaper. A very manly vein of anger started popping from the side of his forehead.

8 days left. Vagbar hereby named them the 8 Days of Manliness, in which he would perform great feats of masculinity, until he defeated death as his ultimate feat. On the 1st day, he climbed Mount Everest, then jumped back to the bottom. Bored, and still with 18 hours left in the day, Vagbar proceeded to fight the mountain with one arm tied behind his back. He knocked the mountain into the pacific ocean with his left hook, and now we call that island Guam.

On the 2nd day, Vagbar wooed all of the women in the entire world, and then turned all of them down because none of them were strong enough to raise one of his children. He then had tea in the middle of the Saharan dessert, just because he could.

And so, Vagbar continued his 8 days of manliness, until every super-manly deed had been completed. He moved buildings, ate copious amounts of food and drink, wore differing types of cologne, and did incredibly foolish acts. He even forced himself into the dictionary, where his picture would be the definition for manliness for years to come. No, for eternity. No, for eternity + 1. His achievements would more than stand the test of time, they would define time.

Finally, his chest hair became too much for him, and he began to choke on that last day. Yet, his choke was manly! Wild animals all over the world heard his guttural cries and bowed their heads in his direction. Then, the moment of reckoning came. Death, on his black chariot, with his black, featureless dog, came riding towards him.

It came of wheels of pure destruction and fire! The brimstone carriage, with neatly trimmed curtains and racing decals, rushed forwards on a cushion of hot air. Death's bone-white smile, accented by all of the bones, widened.

"Finally, your time has come," it cackled. "We have been waiting for you for a long time."

"I gave your mother a long time!" Vagbar screamed his most manly of one-liners, and charged death's chariot.

{Warning, what happened here was so gruesome and manly that the author had to forgo description in order to maintain the sanity of his readers}

Vagbar held Death's pearly white fingers in one hand, while he felt the chill of its palm on his heart. He should have realized that death's leg, ripped off and used to beat it into submission, would have hidden rockets in the femur. It was Death he was dealing with, not any normal skeleton. That explosion temporarily disoriented him, and now here he was, with Death's hands on his heart.

"It's over, Vagbar, you are coming with me." The skeleton's raspy voice echoed in his skull. Vagbar hunched over, it appeared his energy was draining from his heart through death's hand. His mind churned back through the years, a flashback of epic, nay, god-like proportions. He thought about his toddler days, when he first started lifting weights in repetitive movements, like other manly men. Then, his pre-teen days, when he discarded books in favor of arm-wrestling lions. His teenage days, when he decided angst wasn't manly enough, and punched it in the gut, wounding it and giving 1/2 of the teenage population an identity crisis. He continued to think and ponder, until he realized he was drawing strength from his manly memories. He began to straighten, confident in his waxing strength. He grabbed Death's wrist and pulled it out of his chest. Then, he lifted Death and threw him into the chariot. The wheels, made of a polyurethane blend of destruction and fire, imploded with the strength of 3 atomic bombs. Minutes later, Death, regretting investing in the wheels made of a polyurethane blend of destruction and fire, landed on the ground next to Vagbar.

Vagbar looked down. "YARRRR! I win," he said. Death, too stunned to move, acceded. After awhile, it slowly crawled through the ground, back to the underworld.

Vagbar looked around. He didn't know where he was. The cold landscape around him was barren but for a few mountains in the background. Another dimension perhaps? In the end, it didn't matter, there was only one thing he knew; regardless of where he was, there were manly feats to be done, and he was gonna do them.

The, End

The 問題, as I see it.

In a drastic turn for this once dead and now revived (does that make it a zombie?) blog, I won't even mention a thing about Japan. I will throw in Japanese words, though, so get google set in the next tab. It seems my readership has died off, so now is the perfect time to write something a little more controversial.

The Problem with Problems.

The problem with problems is this: too many people rely on messages and morals as opposed to methods. I am thinking mostly of two areas: psychological problems and the way some religions tell us how we should live our lives. So, for example, if I am having a psychic problem, say I procrastinate too much, I think far too many people will stick with the message "I shouldn't be so lazy/I should get motivated/etc. etc. etc." that they repeat to themselves over and over, thinking it will somehow change them. Guess what, it won't. It frustrates me so much when I hear a friend or family member who is having a problem say "well, that's something I have to work on," and leave it at that. You don't know how to "work on it." Saying "I'm going to work on it" and not having a method is the equivalent of saying "I'll build a house" without the architectural plans. In order to fix things, you must have a method. And not just any method, but a psychologically approved (this means it went through rigorous meta-analysis) method. Without that, at best you will be less efficient in fixing your problem, at worst, you will make it even worse.

*Let me specify here that when I write about people who say "that's something I'll work on," I mean people who actually have identified a problem and truly want to work on it.

This concept is also extremely frustrating in the arena of religion and how it tells you to live your life. Obey the 10 commandments, listen to the stories of the apostles, do what Jesus/Muhammad would do. I am not making the argument that there aren't good messages in the stories of the bible. Some of the stories provide great narratives for an ideal of how one should live their life. BUT, again, it is providing you with a message, not a method. Be good. Don't covet thy neighbor's wife. Do this, do that, be this way, not that way. How? HOW? Us humans have this incredible amount of variation. I like pickles, Bill doesn't. Mary likes men, John likes women and men, Matt is into furry fandom. Putting aside the tangled mess of "what is it to be good?" and "what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' (which religions try, to varying degrees, to codify)," the method, the HOW, the "in what ways can I 'walk a mile in my neighbor's shoes (i.e. how can I be a compassionate human being)?'" is totally absent. In the best case scenario, people don't put much belief into religion and aren't affected by it. In the worst case scenario, people who strongly believe in their religion are doomed to never live up to the message, then "sinning," which leads to depression and/or more fervent, extremist beliefs.

I would like to take exception to Buddhism right now, because, from what I've read so far, it provides you with both a good message (extremely good, in my opinion), and methodS. There are many other religions I haven't researched or know much about, that may also fit into this category.

It seems that the main crux of my argument is this: From the message (religious texts, morals handed down by parents, etc.) alone we are unable to truly live a good life or solve a problem. We, by and large, do not have the capacity to spontaneously take the message and turn it into a good method.

*As you are reading this, oh cynical viewer hoping to catch the hyperbolic and extreme, keep in mind the following assumptions I used when writing this. 1) There are always exceptions. I am writing about a majority (X>50%) of the time. 2) Obviously people are able to live satisfying, healthy lives without needing specific methods to solve their problems. But, for those with any sort of problems in the 現在, the most efficient and least-harmful way to solve these problems is with a meta-analytically tested method. Furthermore, there is a distinction between living your life, and living your life in an optimal way for yourself and those around you (which, the author humbly thinks, is with compassion in the psychological/Buddhist sense of the word [both definitions are very close to one another]).