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So, I signed up with T-Mobile. Now I'm trying to figure out how to use my new BlackBerry Pearl. 

Who writes these user manuals? I think someone should hire me to write them because I know how to explain things much better! Most user manuals are an exercise in frustration. Of course, I know most people don't bother reading manuals, but that only works when gadgets are logically designed. 

After visiting numerous user forums, it appears that most fully-loaded devices are neither logically designed nor intuitive to use.

In a rut and feeling bored

My life in Vegas is definitely in a rut. I go to work, come home and work on my lesson plans for several hours, read a few of my favorite blogs or latest news, fix dinner with J., watch a little TV, write some email, and go to bed. So, what's the big deal? What seems so different from my life in Tokyo where I did almost the same thing, with the exception of fixing dinner with J. and watching a little TV?

I've been mulling that over for quite a while now, and still don't know for sure what the difference is. All I seem to come up with are a couple of things. The first is that in Tokyo I taught many more lessons a day than I'm teaching now, and there was so much more interaction with students and other teachers. In our tiny teachers' room (about 4 feet by 12 feet and filled with lockers, bookcases, 2 miniature tables and stools, and 2 very small sofas) usually anywhere from 5 to 20 teachers were climbing over each other to get to their lockers, books, or fridge and catching up on the latest gossip or discussing politics, books, students, restaurants, travels, expiring visas, Japanese bureaucracy, and a million other subjects. It was amazing how much could be discussed during those meager 5-minute breaks. I miss all that chatter and laughter. 

No topic seemed taboo, which may or may not have been such a good thing. Nevertheless, with so many personalities, there was always something interesting going on and I usually went home chuckling to myself about something funny that had happened at work that day.

Not so much in Vegas. Even though we now have 5 teachers (all women), we have very little interaction. Usually the teachers just stay in their classrooms during their breaks or make a quick dash to another building to use the restroom (yeah, it's a bummer that we don't even have a restroom in our building) or have a smoke.

Another strange thing is that, while so many people come to Vegas because it's "such an exciting place," I find it all very boring. I mean, after you've hit the strip, done a little gambling, seen a few shows, the "real" life here is just about making it from one day to the next--putting up with the rude people, horrible traffic and even worse drivers.

Rant alert. This is just one of the many things I see almost every day: Picture 3 lanes of traffic in one direction, I'm driving in the far left lane, a school bus is in the right lane. The school bus puts on its flashing lights, extends its "stop" sign and stops. I stop in the far left lane (as is required by law) and suddenly this car in the middle lane blows past me--and the school bus--doing at least 50 mph! But wait, there's more! By the time I approach a very busy intersection up ahead, where the light has just changed to green, I see the same car that had just blown past me in the MIDDLE lane cut another car off at the intersection to pull a RIGHT TURN right in front of the car that was just starting to accelerate from the green light! Fortunately, the driver in the right lane hit his brakes in time to avoid hitting the car. This is the way people drive in Vegas! End of rant.

So, aside from trying to stay alive while driving, another realization about the rut of living here is that this city sucks. There are no interesting or quaint streets to meander through on foot. There are no tiny bakeries where you can catch a whiff of something wonderful baking, no chocolate shops, no corner flower vendors, no cute, hole-in-the-wall places to explore, no sidewalk cafes, no open-air markets filled with today's fresh produce, no independent bookstores to wander through, no cute park benches from which to people watch while eating a freshly-baked croissant and sipping coffee, no street vendors selling quick and inexpensive yet delicious and nutritious meals for office workers. Everything here requires a car (which my international students complain about) and miles of driving down seven-lane-wide boulevards to go to large chain-stores located in even larger strip malls that all look alike and include at least one fast-food franchise. This is the heartless, soulless look of modern America in a so-called modern city. What an empty, empty place. 

I think living in such a place is an assault on the senses and can easily make one jaded and bitter. I already see it happening to me and I don't like it. In just a few short months, work has become drudgery, and I think it's because there aren't the things here that can smooth the rough edges off life, like those things I mentioned above. It's those little, seemingly meaningless, things that soothe and enrich our lives.

Even though I have the wonderful and often hysterically funny companionship of J&T, two adorable cats to get my critter-fix, a lovely home in which to live, my own flat-screen TV (a very generous Christmas gift from J&T), I feel a longing for a city that offers much, much more to stimulate the mind and nourish the soul. 

Working at last!

Las Vegas Skyline

I haven't written about it yet, but six weeks ago I started working for a worldwide language school that just opened at one of the local colleges here in Las Vegas. We've been very busy getting the new school running smoothly and getting familiar with procedures, courses, and materials. I was so surprised to find out that this new company is affiliated with the one I worked for in Japan, as I had never heard of them before. So far, I'm the only full-time instructor but there are several part-timers. The director was, in his words, "extremely impressed" by my teaching credentials from Japan, so I'm happy that my adventure in Tokyo paid off.

It feels great to be back to teaching and earning an income again. I had been unemployed for several months and it was really starting to worry me that I wouldn't be able to find work here in the U.S. After all the resumes I sent out, including individualized cover letters, I hadn't gotten so much as a "thank you for your application."

Rant Alert: It's one of my pet peeves that businesses don't have enough consideration for the hard work people do to apply for a job to at least send an automated email reply:

Thank you for your application. If we feel your qualifications match our requirements, we will contact you for an interview. Please do not reply to this email.

It takes so little effort for a company to reply to applicants. They should be ashamed of themselves for such callous disregard. On the other hand, I suppose it's a good indication of how well those companies treat their own employees, so maybe I wouldn't want to work there anyway.

Since the school is so new, we only had a handful of students for the first 4-week session. We still have all of those same students plus a few more for our second session which just started this week. Most of the students are from Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam and as of right now I have only had Korean students. Since Las Vegas is known for its hospitality industry, many of these students come here hoping to enter UNLV and study hotel management. Before they can enroll in an American university, however, they must become more proficient in English. Our students range from the lowest levels of English to quite high, and currently I'm teaching the highest level—which requires a lot of extra preparation.

The commute is the worst part about being employed, but it's not as bad as when I lived in the Seattle area. I had just gotten so used to the convenience of Tokyo trains that I forgot about the reality for most Americans—having to commute to work by car in rush-hour traffic.

I seem to have adjusted well enough, and now my life is starting to feel more familiar. While it can be wonderful to have an extended "vacation," the reality is that it's not too enjoyable when you're wondering when your next paycheck will arrive.

Glad to be back to work!

Why am I even surprised?

There's a good reason why so many people are employed in Japan. Many of them have been given jobs that do nothing more than make it extremely difficult for anyone to do things in a timely way. It goes beyond bureaucracy. How anyone could use the Japanese business model as a model of efficiency is truly beyond my grasp.

Yesterday my landlady and I were on the phone for half an hour trying to cancel my cell phone account. First they asked her a million questions, then they asked me to repeat everything in English (although the woman taking the information spoke no English). Then, after I thought everything was completed, my landlady handed me the phone and said they had a bi-lingual person who could talk to me in English. Why didn't they do that in the first place? So, I went through the whole thing again, explaining that I was leaving Japan and needed to cancel my cell phone. Our conversation went on and on, just like the previous two conversations, and then she cheerfully thanked me for using SoftBank--and finished by saying, "Now you must go to the SoftBank shop and complete your cancelation. Please plan on one hour at the shop to do this."

"WHAT?" I asked incredulously. "Are you telling me that after talking to you and your colleagues for the past 30 minutes I STILL have to go, in person, to a SoftBank shop and that it will take me one hour to complete the cancellation?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, but you must go to the shop," she said cheerfully.

"But I need my phone until the morning of my departure. I won't have time to go to the SoftBank shop as I'm going to be, well, just a little freaking busy!"

"Oh," she said with that perky, smiley voice, "you can do it at the airport! We have two shops there!"

Right. Like I want to go to the airport an extra hour earlier just so I can have the privilege of cancelling my phone.

Some of my friends at work told me that SoftBank tries to talk people out of cancelling their phone service or to make it nearly impossible for them to do so. Reminds me of AOL.

Ask me if I'd ever use a SoftBank phone again.

Step away from the sushi and no one will get hurt

Does the Agriculture Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka have nothing better to do with his time?

I mean, aren't there more pressing things to worry about? Like avian flu, or BSE (mad cow disease)?

Friday, Matsuoka gave the go-ahead to creating a label for "authentic" Japanese sushi. Apparently, there's been grave concern in Japan that people worldwide are eating sushi that's not, well, real Japanese sushi. They're worried about the bastardization of their cuisine, but not about the derision they face by the international community over this asinine labeling idea, most of which will be paid for by the Japanese government.



Not only are the purists worried about the authenticity of sushi ingredients, but also the atmosphere of the restaurants! I guess that means if you had a restaurant that didn't look enough like a "real" Japanese restaurant, you could not get a Japanese Seal of Sushi Restaurant Authenticity to post in your window.

I wish I were kidding, folks, but I'm not!

So, here's something to ponder: In almost any supermarket or convenience store in Japan, French red wine is sold chilled which would make a French winemaker weep. Spaghetti, one of the most popular dishes in Tokyo, is made with slices of bacon or regular ham and tastes curiously sweet. Pizzas are made with corn, tuna, mayonnaise, octopus, boiled eggs, natto, and nine million other ingredients that are definitely not "authentic" Italian cuisine. New York style cheesecake, cut into tiny rectangles, looks more like a tart than a cheesecake and has very little cream cheese. Mexican cuisine is made with almost no authentic Mexican ingredients.

Should food authenticity labels be required in "ethnic" restaurants in Japan? Or is Japanese food considered the only food so pure, so creative, or so intensely flavorful to require "protection" from those who would bastardize it?



It's an idea like food authenticity labeling that sets Japan apart from the rest of the world. To attempt to know the Japanese mind is not for the faint of heart.

And speaking of "not for the faint of heart," here's a picture of what's become my favorite sushi, even though it took me over two years of living in Tokyo before I would even try it because it looked downright scary. It reminded me of little golden-colored cat tongues. Here's uni, a sweet, buttery-soft sea urchin, that tastes like a piece of heaven, but only if it's impeccably fresh.



And finally, do you think there should be an all-out ban on things that are disguised to look like sushi, but that aren't actually sushi? There are millions of fake sushi items here in Japan, but this one is my favorite! Must look for one of these USB computer memory sticks!

Top 10 Rants

Don't know why, but lately I've been feeling really annoyed by some of the things I experience here in Tokyo. Usually I can just brush it off, but suddenly I feel like I'm drowning in it. Everywhere I turn, I'm ready to go postal and I've got to get over this!

Rant 1
Why can't people divide the street or sidewalk in half--one half going one direction and the other half going the other direction? I mean, cars move that way, right? Why not people?!!! This rant also includes the stairs in train stations which are clearly posted with "up" and "down" arrows, yet no one pays any attention to them.

Rant 2
And, why can't people walk in a sraight line insead of meandering all over the place like they've taken up residence on an ant hill?

Rant 3
And speaking of walking, why in Hell do people have to walk while reading their keitai (cell phone)? Picture a million people walking along at a quick pace, and then suddenly the person in front of you stops with no warning as they decide at that very moment to read something of interest on their cellphone! I can't tell you the number of times this has nearly caused a chain reaction freeway-like pileup!

Rant 4
Has anyone over here ever heard of holding a door open for the person behind them? How many more times am I going to get a door released in my face? Do I need to start wearing a face guard? Now I've taken to shouting, "Thank you!" every time someone does that. The really strange thing is that no one apologizes!

Rant 5
Picture me getting to my train platform early. I get there early so I can stand at the front of the line which you would think would ensure me of a better chance of getting a seat on the train. At the last second, just as the door opens and before anyone can even get off the train, some obachan (old woman) dashes in from the side and pushes her way past everyone else to grab the only seat left on the train! Don't let those old gals fool you! They're as spry as chickens and as determined as hungry wolves!

Rant 6
Men, outside of a social situation or face-to-face meeting, are rude, rude, rude! For all that bowing and humility they show on the TV news when they've been caught falsifying their company's financial reports, their manners fly out the window once they leave the office. Men here feel it's their inalienable right to go first or be first, and what's worse is that the women here accept that! Men do not hold doors open for women, pull chairs out, help with coats, carry packages, or do anything else that sets gentlemen apart from. . .from. . .whatever is the opposite of gentlemen!

Rant 7
Bicycles are a menace and anyone riding one should be exiled to some country where there are only mountains and rocks! Bicyclists and pedestrians are two opposing forces that should never come together in a crowded city of 30 million people. I'm fed up with dodging bicycles and if I hear one more chirp from those ridiculous bicycle warning bells, I'm going to jam my umbrella into their spokes!

Rant 8
Speaking of bicycles, what size brain do you think it takes to not realize that you shouldn't park directly in front of doors to shops, banks, grocery stores, etc.? This seems so obvious, yet everywhere I go, there are those damned bicycles to climb over!

Rant 8
Double and triple bagging. Is it really necessary to put my newly purchased undies inside a small bag, seal it with tape, and then place that bag inside another larger bag which is also sealed with tape? If I buy a bottle of dish soap when I'm at the supermarket, does that need to go inside a separate bag before it goes into a larger bag? When I buy a bag of pickeled vegetables that's already factory sealed and isn't leaking on grocery shelves, why is it necessary to put them inside separate little bags before they go inside my shopping bag?

Rant 10
Do mothers here not realize that they should hold the hands of their very young children while on escalators? I nearly had a heart attack one day when I saw a little girl, about 4 years old, race up ahead of her mother and FALL TWO STEPS AWAY FROM THE TOP OF THE ESCALATOR WITH HER HANDS SPREAD OUT IN FRONT OF HER! I was too far away to quickly yank her up, but somehow she stood up at the last split second before her hands could go into the disappearing step! The mother looked oblivious to the danger. I almost never see mothers holding their children's hands, even when they're getting on and off trains. I've heard stories here enough times about small children falling between the trains and the platforms to think people would be a little more careful with their children. While infant mortality rates are among the lowest in the world at birth, the statistics shoot up frighteningly high between 2 and 4 years old.

So those are my rants. I just needed to get them off my chest. I'm really not an angry, miserable person. Really. . .