Well, it's been a while, and so much has come and gone that deciding where to begin is discouragement enough to stop typing. But hey, it`s Wednesday, and somehow I have free time again, so I press on.

The Effects of Chickenpox

Had an interesting conversation with a student about sicknesses, how the common cold here is unlike what I grew up to learn in Australia. It seems, when people have colds, they have symptoms such as high fever, nausea and migraines, and they go to the hospital.

"The hospital?", I asked. I guess clinics, though they're aplenty, just aren't enough for a cold. That, or what the definition of a cold here is a completely different thing.

So as my student and I agreed that we had completely different definitions, our conversation turned to other common ailments, which eventually led us to chicken pox. The conversation became interesting at this point coz I don't think I've ever had any form of pox, and when my student realised this, she warned me of the dangers of contracting chickenpox this late in life.

She did say a lot of things, like I could perhaps be incapacitated for a long time, have unrecoverable scarring, but what got to me, was the last thing she said. Now, her level of English is pretty high in that we can have a decent conversation about anything, but I realised the conversation went to a place she didn't want to go. She began to uncontrollably stutter, mumble and give off other signs of extreme discomfort. She went on anyway, telling me that "the number of your thing's things will decrease", and while I completely understood what she went meant, I decided to play dumb to see how far she'd go into describing it.

After what felt like 10 minutes, she stopped talking, went and grabbed a pen and paper, and proceeded to draw it for me.

"How do you say this in English?", she asked. With my immature mind still smirking from the conversation topic, I gained composure, only to call it "cum". I corrected myself and halfway said jizz before I shut out my obviously incapacitated brain and called it its rightful name.

And so while I did have my fun, I unknowingly opened the floodgates because she began talking about sex, and every time I steered the conversation away, she always found a way to get back on her track. So with the limited capacity of my brain, I'm sure useless information like knowing that all her previous partners lacked passion in bed, has shifted out some more useful things like childhood memories, or how to do math.

Brain Training

Ah math. Once my greatest strength, only to fail me miserably in my last years of high school. In fact, since high school, I don't think I ever used my brain much. My vocab has certainly become a fraction of what was once a vast collection of long words I used to insult my sister. It's a pity really. These days, I don't read anything useful anymore, my job is a cake walk, so all signs point to a brain devoid of activity.

Enter Brain Age. With my brand spanking new Nintendo DS Lite and along with the Brain Age software, I was able to get a grasp of how much my brain had decayed over years of inactivity. Having gone through the first set of training, I was greeted with an animation of a guy riding a bicycle each time I finished an exercise. Confident that my "brain age" would be "somewhere up there" seeing as I interpreted that bike animation to mean I was some sort of god amongst humans, I dropped my then spotless DS onto a plate of curry after being greeted with a brain age of 78 (20 being the best number, and 80 being the worst).

After a mild bout of depression, I promised myself that I would endeavor to make my brain at least equal to my age. And so, after a week or so, my brain age is now 26. And you know what, this knowledge has made me feel really good about myself. Sure, in the real world it means nothing, but I now have this urge to suddenly do things that can benefit me mentally. For one, I've started playing a number puzzle game called Sudoku - almost everyday! And once a crossword puzzle game is released for the DS, I'll be sure to be first in line to get that too.

The God Tiered Girl

And to finish off this long overdue blog, one of my regular adult classes ended today before we resume classes again in 2 months. And so, instead of studying, we had a little party where all the students brought cakes and all manner of Japanese sweets for me to try. It was great and all, but the moment that will long be remembered is when a parent brought out a couple of magazines to show me something. She showed me her 19year old daughter - a model. A really really really HOT model. Wow. Not just a top-tiered hot chick, but she was a definite god-tier, along the lines of Kristin Kreuk, Nakama Yukie and the infamous Ebi-chan. And she looks just like her mum... I'd love to say that she wanted to set-us up, and while that did play out in my head, reality was a big disappointment.

So that's all for this month. Until next time!

Aurik