Rules for rules sake...

If there is one thing that really annoys me it's rule-following to the absolute letter.

Rules are generally a good thing - but I don't believe in absolutes.

Why am I saying this? Well, today I spent the whole morning sitting in a staff room in Japan doing nothing. There was nothing for me to do. No teaching. No lesson planning. Nothing. But I had to be there, and I have to be there for the rest of the summer holidays.

The strange thing is that usually I get a real sense of excitement for summer - as the weather gets hotter and the nights get longer. This year, for the first time, I don't have that same excitement. The endless summer does not appeal.

Why am I moaning? I'm getting paid a good wage to sit on my arse and do nothing. Isn't that what everyone dreams of? Well, that is true to some extent. But why then do so many people in my situation get so pissed off with this? If this was so great, then why do some many English teachers complain about having nothing to do.

I think it boils down to one thing - the following of rules for the sake of following rules. Blooded-mindedness. What really annoys me, is not that I have abolutely nothing to do, (I actually quite enjoy that) but rather my contract says that I have to go to school everyday in the summer holiday. This is what I have to do, whether it is useful or not. There are no 'ifs' or 'buts'. No exceptions. My requests for absence are rejected with the following phase: 'This is not the Japanese way'.

I am not going to say that this is a particularly serious situation. It pisses me off, but in no way is it life threatening. It's a small problem. However, the social trait of following rules without exception is extremely dangerous and life-threatening. This is how wars get started. If people had stood up against the little things which seemed to contravene their own common sense, then maybe the great tyrants of history would never have caused the damage that they did.

Perhaps the greatest thing I had ever learnt at school was to question. Thinking back, this was not something which came easily to me. It took years to learn - years and years of essay writing. I learnt to question and then to give my own point of view. If I had written in any of my finals an answer which went along the lines of - 'Unfortunately, I cannot comment, as this is the British way of doing things' - I would have failed my degree (and by extension not be living and working in Japan right now).

It is so important to think carefully about what you believe in, and not just take the easy road. The people I admire the most (Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Theresa...), are those who took the rocky path and followed what they believed was right within the confines of the law. The ability to question and to reason is what makes human beings so unique and wonderful. It's just a shame when we don't fulfill this potential.

The London bombs

This is taken from a monthly column which I am writing for the local newspaper in Asahi, Japan:

This month there was a terrorist bomb back in my homeland in England; a bomb which killed more than fifty people and injured many more. Many believe it was a retaliation against the western occupation of Iraq by England, America and other countries (including Japan), and that it was carried out by Islamic extremists.

People in England were warned that a terrorist attack would happen and it did. We were not surprised, and the week after the attacks people were back to work as normal. We cannot let this sort of incident affect our daily lives.

However, the bombers did not come from Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan – they were English, and had lived in England all their lives. They had gone to English schools and universities and been a part of English society. One of them was a teacher. The kind of person I have probably sat opposite on the bus to work everyday or lived next door to. In Japan, people notice the foreigner on the train or walking through town. But in England, everyone looks different. The terrorist could be anyone.

These bombers wanted to kill anyone and everyone, regardless of age, race or religion. They were Islamic extremists yet they killed and injured fellow Muslims. They were English, yet they killed and injured English people. I believe that people are generally good - whatever religious denomination. It is only a small number of deviants who tarnish a whole religion and a race.

But, we must face the truth. Hatred is within human nature and we must never be arrogant enough to think it is a sentiment foreign to each one of us at one level or another. We cannot blame Muslims. Instead, we need to address the reasons that people feel the need to inflict pain and suffering on others and stop the spread of hate.

Please help...

Dear whoever is bored enough to be reading this blog,

I am writing to you in these dark and hard times for your help. It will only take a few minutes of your time, but it will make one little creature extremely happy.

Her name is Alice.

By clicking on this link below and voting for her as the cutest kitten you will be helping Alice and her close family lead a fulfilled and happy life in the knowledge that she is in fact a cute kitten. You know it, I know it, but it seems that the average visitor to this website (www.kittenwar.com) does not - she is cute and she is only small.

However, Alice is currently losing her kitten wars against the other kittens (some of which aren't actually kittens and therefore are cheating, but nevermind). This must stop!

Here is the link: http://kittenwar.com/kittens/23905/

Help Alice. This is your chance...Thank you.

ps. while you're at it why don't you also vote for baby gizmo. She also needs your help. She was rescued back in Botswana from a bad home, and we found her a better one. Give her what she deserves, the final icing on the cake - a better ranking in kitten wars. http://kittenwar.com/kittens/20661/
Thank you.

The Fuji Climb...

Well, it turns out that I have actually managed to get a second entry out of this blog - which is actually quite an achievement!
Anyway, this weekend climbed Mt Fuji, which was pretty crazy and a hell of a lot more tiring and strenous than I was expecting. Climbing for over six hours is tiring enough, but it was the crowds that really made it an endurance test. We set of from the fifth station - Kawaguchiko in Yamanashi prefecture at around 6pm in the evening. We carried on climbing until about ten that same evening, by which time were at the eighth station, and feeling extremely confident that we would make it to the top by sunset. This was not to be the case. By the time we were off again just before 2am (having slept in one of the mountain cabins) we realised that everyone else on the mountain had exactly the same idea. The sheer volume of people was so overwhelming I wouldn't have been surprised if the mountain had erupted! There were hundreds, maybe even thousands - it was too difficult to tell. It was like the queues for the toilets at the Glastonbury Festival. What should have been a relatively short hike to the top (taking two hours max), ended up being a four hour struggle, through the wind, rain and cold. As you can imagine morale was low.

The view from the top was breath-taking. We looked over Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures, some of the least developed parts of Japan that I have yet seen. It was beautiful.

The top was crowded and very cold and it wasn't long before we all started heading down in dribs and drabs, skidding down the scree slope at five times the speed of our ascent! We arrived back down at the base camp around 9am.

Tired and emotional I managed to pass out pretty quickly in the baking sun only to be woken up with bouts of bad news about one ALT walking down the wrong path and ending up in the wrong prefecture and bad sunburn! Hee hee. Amanda, the poor ALT in the wrong ken, ended up having to get the train back and we headed off on the 8 hour journey back through the mountains.
A crazy two days. I think I'll put it down to an experience, which I'm glad that I've done, but a repeat performance is unlikely any time soon!