Lately I've been kinda tired. I know you're not supposed to say you're anything other than the genki-est gaijin to ever fall off the boat, but my routine is starting to feel a little like a rut.

Honestly, how many more times am I going to have to draw a map to show my hometown isn't in Mexico City or New York? (Tonight? Four times.) How many more times will I have to ask if Hana and Rika would like the fish and chips or the blood pudding? How many more times will I have to hear some glassy-eyed office drone tell me that their hobbies are shopping, watching TV and sleeping?

Man, if it wasn't for the fact that my memories of hating LA are still so fresh, I might forget that this is still a pretty good place to be. Sounds like what I really need is to change my job or something...

I had a lesson with the single worst student I've ever encountered here. You know, I work at an English Conversation school. People pay waaaay too much money to come and practice their conversation skills. So imagine my chagrin at a private lesson that started like this...

Sam (in extra-cheerful voice): "Hello! How are you today?"
Student (in flat voice with slight frown): "Hello."
Sam: "How was your job?"
Student: "..."
Sam: "Uh, did you work today?"
Student: "... m."
Sam: "What happened?"
Student: "..."
Sam: "Work bad?"
Student: "..."
Sam: "Work busy?"
Student: "..."
Sam: "Work good?"
Student: "... m. Good."
Sam: "...Okay."

This went on for another 37 minutes. Not that I was counting.

You try and study a language and you find that maybe you're not making as much progress as you'd like. It seems like you still can't speak your mind and you can't order a pizza that's not covered in mayonnaise and seaweed. It's downright discouraging. But then something happens to make you feel like you've learned a little something.

Like seeing a couple saying goodnight. You're walking down the street, it's around 12:20 AM on a tuesday night and you're tired from ten hours of trying to coax conversations out of a bunch of dead-eyed office workers who complain they haven't made any progress despite spending a whole 40 minutes practicing once every three weeks, and your only concern is not spilling your beer. And then you realize that you can understand the scene...

The setting is a cool Tokyo night. The streetlights are reflected in the rain puddles on the street and a couple has just come out of a karaoke lounge in a bedroom community on the outskirts of town. The lady is dressed casually in jeans, a t-shirt and camisole and white keds. The guy is wearing a hawaiian print shirt buttoned up to the neck and tucked into his pleated, ironed chinos which have been cuffed and hemmed with precise 2 cm cuffs.

Guy: konban wa tottemo tanoshikatta yo.
Girl: mn. zembu de arigatou. sa, teokure na.
Guy: mo ichido, aitai yo ne.
Girl: ehh, ano, oyasumi nasai.
Guy: jikai, Aoyama de tabemashoo ka.
Girl: ja, e, oyasumi nasai.
Guy: e too, sou, aa...
Girl: sou, oyasumi nasai. bye-bye.
Guy: aa, so. oyasumi nasai.

Funny how some things don't change much from culture to culture.

Last week a couple of my friends from Fukui came down for a visit. It's kind of odd to think that I've been in Tokyo long enough to be considered a suitable tour guide.

It'd been a while since I spent that much uninterrupted time with the same people. In fact, the last time was an excruciating weekend trip with my then-girlfriend, her roommate, and her roommate's boyfriend to attend one of their friend's weddings. The girls finished pissed because no one made even the slightest effort to catch the garter. I finished pissed because I realized that if I had caught that garter I'd be looking forward to countless more weekends talking to smug assholes about their new SUVs and really great little end tables they'd bought in Santa Barbara. The only one who wasn't fuming was the other boyfriend. He'd had the good sense to feign sleep during the drive back.

This time was much better though. I'm not sure if it was the trip to the Gyoza Stadium, the world's biggest fresh fish market, or the near constant drinking.

Hell, maybe it was even the company. James, Caz, thanks for coming.

Have I told you my favorite phrase in Japanese? Well, okay, my second favorite, number one being biiru mo hitotsu, kudasai. Alright, maybe it's not even my second favorite, but it's the one I have to tell myself most often.

Anata wa benkyou ni narimashita.

or

"You have become a lesson to be learned from."
Somehow this seems more accurate than the version I heard in America about saying "it was a learning experience." That sounds like it was something you may have chosen. Or more importantly, something you may choose to learn from or not.

Anyway, lemme sum up a few things I've learned first hand in the last week:

People seem to enjoy language learning more when the grammar is connected to something they're interested in. Like Hungarian animators, alcohol, hating their job, getting a mistress or cheating on your husband.

It doesn't matter what language you use. "I'll call you" doesn't mean squat.

Hip-hop is now accepted enough in Japanese pop culture for middle-aged, 2nd-tier celebrities to try and rap in commercials for things like barbeque sauce.

You can't wash a futon in your washing machine. And it's certainly not a good idea to hang it out to dry without first checking to see if it's going to rain all day as soon as you leave for work.

6 out of 10 Japanese women studying English at my school prefer Pretty Woman to Titanic... Which I guess means that it's more romantic to be swept away by a sensitive, wealthy, piano playing, rich opera fan with a lot of money than to already be wealthy and have a poor guy die for you.

But not by much.

I know Hollywood is supposed to be the entertainment capital of the world and all, but I never realized exactly how accurate that is until I started trying to learn about pop culture from other places. Try asking your average Japanese person about their favorite stars. No, don't bother. I already asked a bunch of people, and I'll tell you what they said: Cameron Diaz and Meg Ryan and Hugh Grant.

But when I tried asking them about any Japanese stars I got a lot of blank stares. Now, I know that names and faces are difficult to remember. But I couldn't even get people to recall that The Ring used to be a Japanese horror film. Sometimes you can get an older person to remember something by Kurosawa, but in general everyone seems to be stuffed to the eyeballs with Charlies Angels 2, Terminator 3 and 2Fast 2Furious.

Does it seem right to you that I can name more living, frequently working, non-porn Japanese movie actors than 90% of my students?

Even 13 hours in the future, American Pop Culture is still oozing all over everything.