#cirfromhell

[you-arent-helping]

Translator.

So she acts as the translator between myself and the teachers who don’t speak English (so, basically everyone I have to work with), because I STILL DON’T FUCKING SPEAK JAPANESE right.

So today she comes to ask if I’ve talked to some of the pre-school teachers about organising a Christmas party.

How I would have gone about doing this given we use none of the same words is a mystery to me, but apparently CIRfromHell thinks that maybe we’d have talked about it in person.

Why the actual fuck would I be sending emails in English if I could speak Japanese?! Genuinely why?

[you-arent-helping]

Brick phone

I’m still 9 months away from leaving, but I’ve been investigating anyhow, I’m fairly certain that when Ieave Japan the cellphone that I bought when I came here is in fact not going to be able to be used in New Zealand, but instead just a very expensive brick.

Of course, this is NOT what CIRfromhell told me. She told me it would cost me around 3000 yen to get it unlocked when I cancel my contract.

She is undoubtedly wrong about this as well, and just generally useless at life.

[you-arent-helping]

Her ridiculous standards, and her even more ridiculous double standards

So she’s got this dumb Halloween Party coming up that I have to help at.

Now, I’m not from a country that does Halloween. Sure teenages and twenty-somethings get all dressed up and go drinking for “Halloween”, but I would have no idea how to put together a Japan-friendly presentation on Halloween.

If we go back to the neighbour-town Halloween party debarcles, CIRfromhell has a fantastically high standard for what she wants her stupid party to be. Costumes, games, presentation, learning, peversely over-controlled “fun”, etc.

So when I gave the above reason for not putting together a presentation for an event that I have no personal investment in, she accussed me of being lazy. Said I needed to learn how to do it.

Now, why would I need to do that?

I’m never going to be involved with another Halloween party like this again.

Certainly I see the merit in try-fail-try-again learning. But not if there’s no point.

She goes on and on about how busy she is, ignores that I offer to do the crappy behind the scenes stuff for her, and then makes a big deal when I try to explain why her idea is a waste of time.

Soz not soz, we’re not doing it that much your way. If you want my help, you can have my HELP. I’m not your damn slave.

[you-arent-helping]

The lame-o “heart-to-heart”

It’s really clear that her grip on English was never particularly good, because she could not understand why  not saying “sorry I couldn’t answer, is everything ok?” when I blew my fuse box that time made it seem like she didn’t want to help...

But she tried to have a heart-to-heart anyway.

I just dug in my toes and refused to be in any way understanding of her opinion.

I’m not normally like this, but when I’m dealing with someone who tells me that a sick stray cat is more important than my quality of life, I find it a bit hard to come around to their way of seeing things...

At the end of it, when she decided we were closer to agreeing about things (we aren’t), she told me that as long as I “know exactly what (I’m) asking for” then she can help.

I, of course, will never know this because I am not the one who has lived in Japan for 10 years.

It gets better!

Obviously, my preference is to get the next-door-neighbour-town girls to help me with stuff, because they don’t suck at life, and I said this to CIRfromhell (I didn’t say exactly that, I just said that they seem to understand better what I’m trying to ask because they all arrived pretty recently, and since I won’t ever know EXACTLY what I’m asking for, it’s a no-brainer for these ladies to help instead. Also they’re genuinely happy to help. I didn’t say that. I’m not trying to deliberately wind her up anymore...), I said this all to CIRfromhell, and now she’s packing another big sad...

Jesus.

[you-arent-helping]

Maybe she’s just a multi-lingual goldfish liar

Because I’m fairly certain she forgets every massive fuck-off lie that she says to me.

Like how she said that I would meet the JHS teachers before my first day at school (wrong), or how she said that her or my supervisor would be at each of my schools on the first day that I was there (also wrong), how she said all the resources I would need were under my desk (wrong), how she said she’d help me sort out my Japanese drivers liscence (I gather she 100% had zero intention of ever doing this).

But if I ever quiz her on any of these things, no recollection. She actually tells me I’m wrong.

I’m not wrong.

She’s an idiot.

[you-arent-helping]

Why do all the resources not exist for the topics for her dumb “curriculum”?!

When I first arrived and CIRfromhelll was overloading me with information she told me about her idiot pre-school curriculum and how she’s created all the resources of my wildest dreams for all the lessons. 

It’s actually just sets of different sized flash cards for different topics. But whatevs. She don’t dream big anyhow.

Turns out she hasn’t, so I’m meant to be “teaching” a class today but there’s no equipment available to teach it with.

By “equipment” I just mean laminated pieces of paper with fruit printed on it, but when you can’t do words, these laminated pieces of paper become your lifeblood.

Hey man, I can only work with what you give me.

[you-arent-helping]

The story of the Inkan that doesn’t work

So about 6 weeks before I came to Japan I got a message from CIRfromhell asking what my name was in Japanese, or what I preferred my name to be, or something such.

Since I don’t have a Japanese name, I said to her that [so-and-so] was how I pronounce my name, and could they try and write it to match as closely as possible, but I was happy for them to make the decision.

It was for my Hanko (or Inkan) which is the stamp thing that Japanese people use instead of a signature.

Now, because paperwork in this country is a nightmare, having a weird Hanko is basically a guarantee that no paperwork will ever be accepted. I only learnt this yesterday, after trip number htree ot SoftBank...

So, after asking the BoE to make the decision on Hank for me, via CIRfromhell, what I ended up getting was an oval stamp with my last name as it is in English. Which also arrived three weeks after I did, well after I needed it to set-up everything required for life...

Apparently she deliberately advised my supervisor to get me an Inkan that would never work.

Malicious, no?

[you-arent-helping]

She really honestly thinks she’s been helping this whole time

and that I’m just ridiculously unappreciative.

I finally just snapped and told her that she is ridiculously condescending and that her “advice” has never been welcome, and boy-oh-boy did that go down like a fart in a spacesuit.

I was really really angry, and then she said “well, good luck then” as though I was not going to survive without all the help she hasn’t been giving me for the last two and a half months and then I wasn’t as angry because she’s obviously an idiot and lol.

Hopefully this means she’ll stop butting in to my life with her unwelcome opinions.

Maybe I’ll have less to post about, though I still have to do “cultural events” (read: boring things) with her at pre-schools for Haloween and Christmas, so I suspect I’ll still come up with stuff.