I want it, I want it, I want it!

I had not expected to be typing this in the internet cafe, but sadly I can hear the rustle of hand wipes and random phone ringtones all around me. I have just got back from an exhausting and depressing trip to Akihabara`s Electric Town where I met, fell in love with and was refused a Mac iBook. This beautiful little thing will be mine next month. This isn`t like a boy, it can`t escape. I had hoped to try out Japan`s wonderful hire-purchase system, whereby you break down the cost over as many or as few months as you like (between three and 60) at what seems to be no extra charge. Unfortunately, the Mac shop insists that the purchaser understands the contract rather than having it explained to them and it is only provided in Japanese. A thinly veiled attempt to stop foreigners buying nice stuff and skipping the country.

Excess and open racism is par for the course here. If it is thinly veiled, that is a sign of modernity and tact. I have often recommended to my students, if they find it difficult to remember or use a new language structure, to write something for me to check. The process generally makes it stick and I can see where they are going wrong. Yukiko, the Daily Mailian diarist, took me up on my suggestion and recently submitted some attempts with `used to`, `to be used to` and `to get used to` which she was finding difficult. Apparently, with no shame at handing this over to a non-Japanese, she wrote she`has got used to meeting foreigners`. I questioned whether this was the appropriate use as you can only `get used to` something which is difficult or strange. I am expecting a blunt direction that it once was.

Tuesday I had a momentous day in teaching: the first teenage student`s erection of my career! Poor Katsayuki. It was most embarrassing for both of us. That will learn me not to make a group of mixed teenagers do star jumps for my own amusement (sometimes, doing something just because you can, is too tempting). It was possibly related to the occasion, White Day: Japan`s overtly commercial follow-up to Valentine`s Day.

Actually, romance was hardly in the air, just an abundance of chocolate and biscuits. It did give me a good excuse to tap Ken for a free gin and tonic in the George later, but also led to an overly friendly couple coming in and announcing it was their `sex time` and asking me and George if it was ours too (there was no indication that it would be, seeing as I was just a customer who happened to also be foreign and female). They were turning down George`s invitation to stay for another drink when Robert (perhaps not his real name...) made this announcement. His wife sat by him and happily laughed, although perhaps because he was with her and not some random mistress, which is what most do.

On Thursday, Sachiko (the youngest of the Menopause Sisters) made quite a uncomfortable speech for her `topic` in class. She always brings in a prepared subject to discuss, but on this day dedicated it to her two married friends, Hidako and Takako, the other two Sisters. She then dived into quite a complex soliloquoy on the responsibilities of being a wife, of caring for a husband and children, running a home and holding down a job. Under the strain of all this a wife can often forget to also be a `sexy woman` and so a man may stray. It was prompted by her own husbands`s appalled reaction to seeing her without make-up on for the first time in their marriage. She has promised to not let it happen again. I wish I had had a copy of Jack Jones` `Wives and Lovers` with me to play to her. She rounded up by firmly placing the blame for infidelity in the wife`s lap and asking the other two what they felt about it. They squirmed and refused to comment.

Last night, Natalie (a newish teacher I work with on Mondays) and I took Karen to an izakaya to help her over her recent suspected depression. She has lost a lot of weight and also been less genki and far quieter, which is difficult to gauge seeing as she`s often miserable and mute. Natalie was running late and I almost had to take myself to the George for dinner on my own as Karen had turned her phone off earlier in the week and not bothered to check it. She`s very Greta Garbo at times. This meant I was stuck with the chore of making conversation with someone who phases out, just doesn`t listen at all or asks abrupt, rude questions as if I am saying the most ludicrous thing she`s ever heard. Last night, there were at least eight times when she appeared to be engaged in a conversation, then, mid-way, asked what I was talking about. These weren`t controversial or difficult topics, just possible plans for school holidays and possibly buying a laptop.

As sorry as I am that she might be having a hard time out here (it really is not easy for girls), she is horrendous company. After Natalie came along and tried to gee her up a bit, Natalie`s boyfriend arrived. A bit of a story-teller, he hogged most of the conversation, and anything that was left was mine. Karen sat dumb in the corner watching the three of us discussing all sorts, but didn`t contribute at all, yet on the way home announced she`d had enormous fun. She`s the strangest person I think I`ve ever met.