My girlfriend's name is Orie.  She has two jobs- one she calls "arubaito" and one she calls "shigoto".  arubaito actually comes from the German arbeit, which means "to do shit work".  Actually, it means to work (I think it means to work in a more "hands on, blue collar" sort of way), but the Japanese adaptation means to do part-time work.  You don't say "I work at 7-11"- You would say "I do arubaito at 7-11".  Same with fast food, restaurants, etc- any work you do that you couldn't possibly sustain yourself off of is called arubaito.  Like teaching in an American public school.  You wouldn't call working on an assembly line or as an office assistant arubaito- since that's how you make your living, it's called shigoto (work).
    So her shigoto is computer design, publishing, and homepage creation in her own company.  Her arubaito is tutoring a bunch of kids from all grade levels.  Her specialty is English and Japanese, so she teaches those to her high shcool students, and she teaches everything else to her elementary and junior-high school students.  Actually, most of her students are related to her in one way or another.  Like most Japanese, her work is reliant on kone (connections)- she teaches a second cousin, the second cousin's mother tells her friend about Orie, and next thing she knows she's teaching that friend's daughter or son.  Relatives, friends of relatives, relatives of friends of relatives, etc...

So that brings me around to Eikichi.  Eikichi is her grandmother's cousin's grandson.  So they are related, and yet they're not.  She's been teaching him for a couple years, since he was a sixth grader or so (he's a 1st year student in high school now- by American standards a Sophomore).  Anyway, he's one of the coolest Japanese kids I've ever met in my life.  He's clueless in some ways, but he has it together in so many other ways.  He's really friendly (like, above and beyond normal Japanese), he has his interests pinned down to a couple of areas (cars, video games, literature), and he knows what he wants to do with his life.  He wants to fix cars.
    His mother kept asking him to try hard to get into college, but he wasn't interested.  His mom even asked Orie to push him harder into the college track, but Orie knew better- she told Eikichi's mom that she should be proud that her kid has it figured out, right now, what he wants to do with his life (Eikichi loves cars).  That's much better than pushing a kid through college and leaving him with a half-assed education and some stuffy job that he'll hate.  So he happily enrolled in a technical high school (there are many technical high schools in Japan, many times more than in America) and that's where he is now.  Admittedly, technical high school education is pretty lousy when it comes to instilling interest in things like English, Japanese, mathematics, stuff outside of the technical classes.  Kids aren't really interested in anything except for the classes that give them technical skills.
    So while Eikichi's English education officially ended, he's still learning- Orie brings him over to my place a lot.  We hang out, watch movies, play games, talk about all sorts of things (mostly in Japanese with bursts of English).  Actually, it's kind of freaky when we're together- me, Orie and Eikichi are like some sort of weird family.  Sometimes it's like me and Orie are his parents, sometimes it's like we're all siblings.
    Anyway, sometimes Eikichi's name will pop up in these pages, from time to time.  This is who he is.  Aikichi- the Tech School Kid Who's Got It Together.  Oh, one of the interesting things about him is that he and his friends seem to have adopted English names from somewhere.  When I first met him, he said, "Call me Jeff".  I was kind of surprised, but it stuck.  Another of his friends, another kid kind of like Eikichi (that is to say, really weird.  So basically, we liked him from the start) goes by the name "Emily".
    Emily is a boy.
    No, I don't know where he got that name: No one does.
 

About a month ago, Orie and I threw a little gathering for out friends.  We called it the "shinanakatte yokatta paati"- The Glad We Didn't Die Party (after the car accident).  Both Eikichi and Emily-kun came to chow and chill.  Emily brought with him a copy of monopoly, a game that not a lot of Japanese people know, but those who do know it love it.  Emily is a monopoly freak.  He wins almost every game he plays.  Except when he plays against me, though- when it comes to board games I shed my human skin and become Machiavelli, terror of simulation games.  We traded game strategies and cultural rule variations.  All in all, a fun time.

    Oh, and as for teaching, I absolutely teach no Private English classes after school.  It's illegal for us to hold two jobs as teachers or government employees in Japan.  We could get in big trouble if we did.  Some people are even <gasp> fired.
    So only the adventurous, risk-taking JETs (Japanese Exchange Teachers) in Japan teach private lessons-  Only approximately 96% of us.  Hey, it's good money.  And it's not like we have families or friends to turn to, right?
    Anyway, I won't say that I myself teach private lessons, even though I do.  Actually, I only do two lessons a week.  One is with a group of adults on Wednesdays, and the other is a group of three elementary school kids (two 6th graders, one 4th grader) that are relatives of Orie.  In my week, these lessons are things to look forward to- they are a hell of a lot of fun.  I can do whatever I want and make completely off-the-wall lessons.  And they work, too!  Here's a picture of me and the kids that I teach:

Karaoke is always kind of a pain for me.  I can't sing well at all, and most parties, whether it's business or pleasure, break down into groups heading out to Karaoke parlors.  Most karaoke parlors carry an array of foreign songs, plenty enough to sing if I liked or could merely sing status quo pop music (anything that hits the high end of the global charts, or just flukes like Jamiriquois or The Cardigans).  I end up sticking to a couple ones that I'm moderately good at- Take on Me by a-ha, Poison by Bel Biv Devoe (which not all parlors have), and maybe a Simon and Garfunkel or Billy Joel or James Taylor for a finale.
    For a while now, though, I've wanted to learn how to sing a Japanese pop song of some sort so I can show off a little, make better realtaions with my Japanese coworkers, maybe even learn a little Japanese on the side.  Unfortuantely, there was one slight problem- Most Japanese pop music sucks so bad that the mere thought of singing it made me want to tear out my eyes.  I couldn't bring myself to even enjoy a Japanese song, much less enjoy one.
    I realized that I just wasn't immersing myself in the stagnant pit long enough to get used to it.  Sure enough, soon after I began to rent CDs from the local Family Book, I began to actually enjoy certain songs and bands.  I began to like the beat and rythm of groups like MAX and SPEED (even if I hated the lyrics), as well as some tunes by Chara, Every Little Thing and Globe.  I found myself liking some bands like LOVE 2 SHY and Ua (Ua is my favorite Japanese singer).
Unfortunately, all these bands are composed entirely of females or have female leads, so singing them would have made me look ridiculous.
    So I'm desperately looking for some male-led songs that don't make me nautious that I can learn to sing at Karaoke.  One of my friends pointed out the obvious choice- X Japan (THE most famous band in the East, Period.)- which has some really good songs.  Unfortunately, I'd have to have someone kick my scrotum into my lungs before I began to sing if I wanted to match the pitch of the lead singer.  Now I just don't know where to look.
    Actually, I think I'm going to learn a traditional Japanese enka song (like the traditional, slow, Japanese bar/karaoke styel songs).  Even though it clashes with pop music like water with napalm, I think it's the only choice I have left, if I really want to sing in Japanese...
 

Karate is something I do rather well for having relatively little upper body strength.  I've been taking Tae Kwan Do for a number of years now, and I figure that it I don't keep up some sort of martial art in Japan, it'll all go to hell.  I decided to go for karate above all sorts of other more eclectic or lesser-known martial arts (like Shorinji Kempo or Aikido, for example) because since more people study Karate, it's easier to find a group of people who you're comfortable with.  My group is a bunch of people who joined together, masterless, to study from each other and learn.  This particular group studies what's known as Kyokushin Karate.
Basically, we beat the shit out of each other.
Before, I used to practice with another group, a slightly more organized group that studied Shobukan Karate.  Unfortuantely, they moved themselves to another town, quite a distance away.  I don't have a car like the rest of them, so I was rather stuck.  I thought my Karate days were over in Japan.  Then I remembered Mr. Matsumura.  Mr. Matsumura (I think I'm getting his name wrong but it doesn't matter 'cause you don't know him anyway) is the youngest member of the Azuma Village Council, and an absolute Karate freak.  His passion for Karate is limited only by his lack of skill and patience.  He likes to charge in and gets tired fast- I kick his butt in point-based free-sparring.  But he's a walking wall of muscle, so if I'm not careful I can get a painful reminder of the virtue of speed.
    Anyway, he organized about 15 people or so in Azuma who didn't want to have to pay dues or subscribe to any particular Karate sect- just people who want to train in free-sparring and get a good exercise.  I'm going to see what it's like tonight.  I still haven't recovered completely from my accident, but I'm going to do a couple of simple techniques and exercises to help me recover a little faster.  Good healthy fun.
    I enjoy studying karate in Japan.  I feel a little bit more like part of a group, which is comforting.  Plus, I have a lot to give to the group- techniques that I learned in Tae Kwan Do are rarely learned or used in Karate, so people generally don't know how to react to such attacks or maneuvers.  So people who I fight, more often than not, ask me to teach them those attacks.  Everyone's in it for the self-improvement, and there's no master to worry about pleasing, so I imagine the atmosphere will be a little bit relaxed, even as we pair off to learn devestating techniques.