Narrator’s Note August 2020: In August of 2005, I moved to Toyama, Japan to teach English. I was 22 years old, had only gone to Mexico once on a senior trip, did not speak Japanese, had no training as a teacher, was terrified of flying, and was living alone. In the interest of sharing my origin story, I felt I had to include writing from the time in my life that planted the seed of living abroad. I am including these Myspace- my God, I know- blogs of my year in Japan. Photos have been added retroactively, as when I was originally writing I had to go to an internet cafe, and I only had disposable cameras. What a time to be alive.
Read Part I here: A Journal of Teaching English in Japan: Part I
Read Part II here: A Journal of Teaching English in Japan: Part II
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Hello!
That’s what I will be able to say- in person- to my pretty little girl in April! God bless the income tax refund. And God bless friends who use said refund to fly in the face of the logic of paying three months rent by instead buying a plane ticket to come see me.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Destination: Possible Child Abuse
Current mood: aggravated
Yesterday two of my students showed up to class with a sticky mixture of blood and saliva crusted on their forefingers, the result of obsessively wiggling their loose teeth. One of the students is rather shy, and is so sweet and sometimes nervous, so I just said “Dame” (don’t touch) with a reassuring smile, washed off her hand, and got on with teaching, which I’m pretty sure was something inapplicable to the real world where kids want to learn how to talk about their loose teeth….
Now the other student, who I will refer to as Little D…I love this kid. He reminds me of everything I loved about working at the preschool before I left Texas. He pretends to be a turtle, I call him stupid warbled versions of his given name, he laughs, I laugh, sometimes we just play Go Fish with W questions, it’s a good time. I feel like he actually enjoys the lessons, instead of being forced there by his parents.
The first thing I noticed yesterday is how immediately he wanted to show me how wiggly his bloody tooth was- and my heart gave a little leap of joy at how adorable it was. We sit down, and sure enough, he immediately starts a-wiggling it, the best kind of loose tooth, one of the two that are front and center. He isn’t serious about it, of course, just that annoying tentative wiggle where his face is showing a lot of exertion but the tooth is probably making plans with his friends for next week, and the only result is a crescent of blood that seeps to the surface of his gum. It’s one of those doggie-door-loose-teeth, it’s completely detached in the front, and only hanging on by a few gummy threads.
I become completely obsessed with it. It is seriously all I can do to not leap across the table and pluck that tooth from his head, just to hear that little suction/snappy sound it makes. Annoyed with how inept he was, I had to sit on my hands at one point, because I was inextricably drawn to trying to pull it myself. Let it be known that I was a total masochist with my own loose teeth- the slightest implication that it was about to maybe decide to start to be kind of loose? It was OUT. I pulled out two at once more than once. My school pictures at one point only document a total of four teeth in my entire smile.
And don’t get the wrong idea people, it wasn’t for the money, ’cause the tooth fairy couldn’t spare the food stamps to leave under my pillow, and if she tried to leave the jumbo can of government cheese I would have definitely woken up…
So I spend the rest of the class distractedly trying to teach something- spiders, or cats, whatever- while badgering him into pulling his tooth because he can’t focus on anything but poking it. I don’t even know if it was a baby tooth, or if it was some impending dental disaster that his mother had told him NOT to fiddle with. I provided him with a tissue (it is, as I’m sure you all know, imperative that the tooth be dry to get a really good grip on it) I offered my services as counter downer, at one point I had even gotten him to where he was holding the tooth in one tissued hand, I had my hand on his forehead, and I was whispering furtively “Gambattene? Gambattene?”, trying to awaken some courageous instinct in him. He would tense up like he was about to do it, burst out laughing, and in the end he only squeaked “Itain! Itain!” (It hurts, it hurts).
If it’s still there next week, I have no choice but to pull it. Where this falls on the spectrum of “harmless amusement” to “unprofessional”, I don’t know.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Heads up America, INCOMING: Cost? My dignity
Current mood: exhausted
After a long hard day with the nuggets that was unbelievably satisfying I am about to go to futon. I think I have just adjusted to no breaks, constant non-stop customer service smiles, and ignoring flagrant abuses against my person in the form of blocks, boogers, slaps, pinches… the list goes on. Plus, I always come back to the same thing- teaching is something I enjoy, the kids are students I enjoy. I just despise my corporate factory education machine, in no small part precisely because I think it takes advantage of those students I enjoy teaching, and especially because it works teachers into the ground. I always take it to labor rights and working conditions, sorry y’all- still salty everyone didn’t sign my petition to send to the company I guess.
But this is not about that! I have to ship off four boxes of souvenirs and various Japanese snacks tomorrow, and I need all the sleep I can get to prepare for a trip to the post office, which is always a humbling experience for me. By humbling I mean humiliating. And by experience I mean ordeal. And by both I mean “It shall suck”. I am diligently and happily studying Japanese, but some random phrase always comes up that throws a wrench in my practiced scripts and attempts to lubricate social interactions with fumbling attempts to integrate.
I do think that my valiant efforts to bridge the language barrier by acting out un-mimeable concepts (past attempts include “How much cheaper would it be if I were to send this via surface mail as opposed to air mail?”) should be acknowledged with more than just blank stares and muffled laughter. Just think about the cost to my self respect as you’re all enjoying shrimp and seaweed chips…
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Sittin’ here restin’ my bones…
Current mood: peaceful
Outside it’s gray and rainy, but my belly is full of Indian food, my apartment is warm, and I have a book that I have been dying to start.
It’s one of those days that feels like an endless, reaaally good first-thing-in-the-morning stretch.
I hope you all are having similarly random wonderful Mondays…or will have them, depending on when you read this 🙂
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Dear MySpace-
Current mood: irritated
While I am flattered that you are ever trying to amuse me and make me feel that only you are especially capable of improving specific areas of my life that have been neglected due to my limited understanding of what constitutes true happiness and social connection, I would like to clear some things up about what you offer and want I want.
First, no, I do not want to partake of a buffet of insipid, constantly jerking/winking/talking smileys that are forever improperly formatted for the text you want me to jam them into. I am sure that I can continue to communicate in my first language with my friends in a manner that they can understand without the aid of (bad, sorry) animation to illustrate my feelings.
Second, while I could be offended at what you are suggesting is a lack of, what do you call it? Oh, yes, “cursor appeal” (how dare you), I will simply say “no thanks” to your repeated endearing pop ups entreating me to transform my plain cursor into a flaming spatula.
I definitely do not want a cursor that is a strange juxtaposition of a glitter frog with wings that trails a banner that says… why?… “Baby Girl”.
reading these time capsule blogs reminds me of what a terrible place myspace really was, right from the trash heap start
Finally, thank you for having so little faith in my ability to see through bullshit and protect myself, but I do not appreciate your repeated efforts to install winfixer on my computer against my will when I log in, although I will admit that your scare propaganda would probably work on lesser minded individuals. While I appreciate the intent behind your aggressive offering of a myriad of services that you feel would enhance my internet life, kindly back the fuck off.
Narrator’s Note August 2020: and here we are now, where I feel the same way about FB and Instagram…
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Weekend fun fest ahead on the Emotional Rollercoaster
Current mood: tired
Tomorrow a 4 a.m. train will take me to Jess, which will then take both of us to Hiroshima. I am really, really nervous about going. Not Miyajima island, not going out on the town…going to the Peace Memorial Park of the the atomic bomb. I just have this horrible feeling I am going to freak out. I watched Roots in the second grade, and I was traumatized, I cried myself to sleep for weeks, totally distraught over the depravity of humans, how cruel we can be towards one another. I read “Number the Stars” and “Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry” and had an existential crisis, again in elementary school. Classmates mocked me in high school for streaking out of a history class screening of Amistad, sobbing uncontrollably and hating (that’s not even a strong enough word) the way America started with such violence.
The last movie I saw before I left America was “Cinderella Man”, and while most people shed a few tears and left the theater with a feeling that “yeah, sometimes the underdog DOES win” I left and went home to sob on Steven’s couch for two hours at the plight of the poor in America…so. I don’t think I will fall apart, but it may seriously depress me and send me into one of those “we must save this shitty world from itself before it’s too late” periods.
But, after Hiroshima we are off to Osaka, to stay out all night and then go to the the world’s largest aquarium (EIGHT ocean levels people!).
My I hate humanity depression will then be consumed with fear that an earthquake will strike while we are in it and, in a particularly flamboyant way, I will leave this world by drowning in an earthquake.
Ah, generalised anxiety disorder, pre-diagnosis, hello there
Of course, then it’s off to the Osaka Human Rights Museum, to learn about the atrocities the Japanese visited on the native Ainu people and Koreans. This weekend is going to be wildly up and down for me on the euphoria to suicidal scale. It’s gonna be great. I’ll have these sick Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type pics, one of me busting a move at a club, one of me prostrate with grief in front of the A-bomb dome, one of me playing with deer on Miyajima island, one of my pissed off face in the Human Rights museum. Look for some great photos in the next week.
Seriously though I am really excited to have three days off, and to get to spend it in Hiroshima and Osaka, and to hang out with Jess, and to learn more/see more. I hope you all have fun weekends as well!
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Deprivation…I liked the pain 🙂
Current mood: exhausted
I am about to go, oh so thankfully, to my most beautiful of two inch futon mattresses. Over the course of Sat, Sun, and Monday night in Hiroshima/Osaka, I allowed myself a grand total of…about 10 hours of sleep. I decided the most logical thing to do when one has to catch a 4 a.m. train on Sunday after working all week is to simply not go to bed at all. That set the tone for the weekend. And it was awesome, then a little terrifying, and then back to awesome. More later when my eyes aren’t on fire and I can form a coherent thought…mmmmmmmm, bed.
Friday, March 24, 2006
What a waste
Current mood: contemplative
Have you ever thought to yourself “If I died tomorrow, how much will I have left unfinished, not so because of my early demise, but because of all the little deaths I allowed every day of my life up until that point, all the times I sat down on the curb and let it all just pass me by, stopping frustratingly short of reaching the summit, some indescribable peak of my potential, for which I am uniquely, specially created for”?.
Anyone? Maybe it’s just me. I’ve been listening to a lot of Bright Eyes lately for some early college nostalgia hits. That guy is one sad mother fucker. But an amazing songwriter. Whatever. I have to go to bed. Another day of untouched opportunity has slid by…
(oh, and please don’t worry about me, I actually had a great day, and a great week, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ponder deep philosophical life problems, right? Life is never so perfect that you can’t fret over how much more perfect it could be, you know?) All right, I’m getting up and turning off my c.d. player.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Oh, Oh-saka….
Current mood: amused
I finally have the time and energy to post about my adventures in the lands of Hiroshima and Osaka with Jess. Starting off the weekend with no sleep and a five hour train chaser proved to be surprisingly effective at giving me a really good endorphin high. We met up on the Nozomi Shinkansen, and proceeded to be annoying, ratty looking, punch drunk gaijin by applying fake dollar store nails while our seatmate, a painfully proper man probably just trying to get to work, looked on in disgust.
The Hiroshima train station was shockingly empty, but we were starved and took what we could get- McDonald’s, which I never eat back home and eat here because it’s so cheap and always around in a pinch like this (and also I like ebi burgers). Took a break from consulting the Lonely Planet to use the rank train station bathroom, where I realized I had forgotten my tissues. So I do the “duck” maneuver but really, drip dry never works, even when aided by a vigorous butt shake in squat position. I seriously thought about using my leg warmer, because I didn’t want to start the trip off on the wrong squat, but I was too cold to forego the warmth. Then I thought about using my leg warmer and just putting it back on afterward. But I (surprisingly) had too much pride.
We jump right on the train to Miyajima, the day is great, and we have both, at this point, lost all of our nails in the span of an hour. It was amusing to watch Jess find them stuck to her knuckles, in her hair, etc. As soon as we get to the island Jess buys an ice cream cone in the ferry station, and as soon as we walk out, she is swarmed by deer that manage to be both mangy and cute simultaneously. One ate my tourist map while his buddies were harassing Jess.
Many Japanese people in cities far and wide will develop pictures of the hapless gaijin duo, as we were a big hit with our entertaining interactions with the deer. It’s common to just have strangers take pictures of you, and I’ve gotten used to it by now. We were giggling uncontrollably like kids, it was so ridiculous to just have all of these deer mingling around with everyone, eating whatever the hell they wanted to, standing around like “hey man, got another one a’ those I could bum?”. We weren’t trying to feed them, either- they were actively trying to steal from us, like those street urchin kids in Oliver Twist. That’s pretty much all we did on the island, other than climb a tree and then step onto a gargoyle sentinel guarding a massive temple entrance gate. Exhaustion was real at this point.
We had a low point on the way back when, lulled by sleep deprivation and the comforting motion of the train, we allowed ourselves to ride for two hours, back and forth, while we learned crucial Japanese such as “I don’t think so” and “I think so” and “I don’t mind”. Flirted with the train attendant, then realized he was telling us to get off and get on another train. Checked into a hotel that was too nice for us, and were accordingly treated to disdainful looks by a female clerk. Collapsed onto bed in said hotel room, got the ridiculous idea we could take a two hour nap and be fine to go all night, and went to sleep…. awoken by Jess asking me what I want for dinner, and then adding the qualifier “it’s one a.m.”. Got some good food at my favorite restaurant, then hung out at the convenience store for a while as Jess narrated her love lives with all of the beautiful Japanese boys on the covers of various magazines. No, but really actually, she lives in Tokyo and has had a strange running social circle of hooking up with models and pop stars. Such is the gaijin life of a girl from California in Japan in 2006.
The next morning it’s an unexpected shower, good Indian food, and then a full day spent at the Peace Memorial Museum. That was overwhelmingly sad and hard doesn’t fully describe it, and I’m glad I was so exhausted or else I probably would have been worse. It’s difficult to understand the scale of the destruction until you are standing there. It makes me even more angry that we are so judgmental about deciding who we can “trust” to have nukes when we are so far the only country in history who has used them.
After the Peace Museum we jump the train to Osaka, and spend the train ride in the bathroom learning more Japanese- I am so grateful that Jess and I are on the same page about learning as much as we can. It’s wild how many people just don’t care to try.
We find our way to Amerika-mura, the hotspot neighborhood in Osaka, and wander around taking in the bizarre fashion, the cute boys (girls? boys? whatever, the androgyny works and I am not complaining) and wandering the thrift stores that are more expensive than department stores back home (grunge flannels for 40 dollars, really).
Lonely Planet, our Bible of an unplanned trip, gave us a list of food options, and Uncle Steven’s Mexican food was found with nary a hitch. As we are eating what Japanese people think is Mexican food (ketchup on our nachos, for example) and consulting our Lonely Planet once more, we set the ball in motion for the most hilarious/unfortunate/ultimately terrifying chain of events on our trip. Jess’s friend Sterling had volunteered his friend’s apt for our stay, and had also kindly offered to show us a good time. Thinking that someone who has lived in Osaka for two years would know a good time, we were ecstatic. So we neglected to consult Lonely Planet, which had, up until that point, never done us wrong…
Getting ready in the pachinko parlor bathrooms we talked about dancing dancing dancing, how much fun we would have! We walked out to emptiness, and the workers scowled at us because the place had closed while we were in the bathrooms, and they didn’t know we were in there, and apparently the first near miss of the night (which would sadly not be the worst) was almost getting locked in an Osaka pachinko parlor overnight.
Sitting outside the train station looking like prostitutes (no, really, gaijin women out that late alone are often propositioned, and we both have had this happen) we waited for Sterling. Sterling, Taku, and Kevin, the guy we are staying with, show up late (first bad sign) and then Kevin openly complains right in front of us that he was tired because he drove in from Tokyo and didn’t know we were staying with him (second bad sign). Nevertheless, we were determined to have a good night out in Osaka if it killed us (be careful what you wish for).
The club costs 2500 yen, we walk in, it’s cramped, and full, and the music…..no one is dancing, and it’s a jam band. It’s just a huge crowd of Japanese people who are in the reggae scene, which is fine enough of a genre of music but not really the vibe we were going for. Then it turns out it’s rap battle night, but naturally in Japanese, so then all music stops and it’s just yelling into microphones in a language we are both trying to learn, but I think you understand that getting to “deciphering rap in Japanese” is a fair bit beyond our current level.
Our faces fall, Sterling starts apologizing, he leaves, Kevin starts talking again about how he’s tired from driving to Tokyo, how he didn’t know we were coming in, and didn’t want to come at all. He then mocks us for not knowing more Japanese- keep in mind he is in Japan studying Japanese full time at a university and has been for two years, and we have been here 6 months and are diligently packing it in every day after a full day’s work teaching kids, so I am not sure why he feels so proud about this “win”. Sexism is international.
I am ready to get the Lonely Planet and go, as is Jess, but we hold out, thinking “it will get better”. The night was actually interesting, and we got to hear Taku’s band, which was good, but Sterling is obnoxious, he quibbles over freestyling in Japanese, which sparks an annoying testosterone fueled cock show between him and Kevin about who knows more Japanese, or better slang variations. Everyone in the place is in love with Jess, but she is dating another one of her ever changing Japanese pop stars and politely declines, and I fall asleep in her lap while the freestyle rap picks up again.
Then it’s a half hour train ride at six a.m., during which Kevin continues to advise me to go to Kyoto, as I have to see it, and I try and tell him three times I’ve already been, but he’s just not listening. We get to Kevin’s (to quote Sterling, “really nice big apartment”) which is, by size and smell, a cat box of a bachelor pad place. He has one small loveseat, and two small futon mats, and one blanket. We’re all sleeping together, great! Jess gamely volunteers to sleep in the middle, for which I am grateful, because the entire trip I have been dreading this moment, sleeping at a stranger’s house. I lay down, oh, sweet relief….and then….
Kevin says “Tell me what you think of this” and then proceeds to turn on really loud reggae music, singing along to his lyrics which were “African Queen/finest thing I ever seen/you remind me of a thing/and it’s African beauty”. He says he’s dedicating his song to us, but by this point Jess is asleep, so I get to enjoy this all alone. This repeats for about a half hour of listening to various tracks, and I don’t want to be rude, but I can barely keep my eyes open, Kevin has been a jerk all night and now wants artistic validation, and I just want the night to be be over (it’s already morning anyways). He keeps calling me a queen, but I am done so in my delirium I murmur “wow, that’s really beautiful, but I can’t listen anymore” and then pass out.
Dear reader, this was not to last.
I awake to a smackity sound and open my eyes to see Kevin laying in front of me, and I think, ewww, he’s eating in bed… with his eyes closed…?? I roll over to see Jess on my right and somehow, through my sleep addled mind, comes the realization “what the..why is Jess not in the midd…”
And then I knew why. It also helped that at that moment Kevin’s awkward E.T. fingers creep up the side of my ribs, and then press on my back as though he’s playing a piano. He is, ladies and gentleman, one hundred percent jerking off as he pretends to be asleep and smacks his lips.
I roll over violently and say “what did you say, Jess?” and she looks at me and we both get up, my alarm clock is going off, I am tripping over shit, Jess is saying “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to do!”, we are grabbing our bags, and I am loudly yelling about what a loser Kevin is as we slam out of his apartment.
THE WHOLE TIME HE DOES NOT MOVE AT ALL AND PRETENDS TO BE ASLEEP.
I am not sure, but I didn’t know one of the definitions of treating someone like a “Queen” included mauling them on the floor of your catbox smelling house. I felt majestic, but mostly defiled.
This is at 9 a.m., so we have only gotten two hours of sleep, thanks to his impromptu concert and sexual assault bookending bedtime. We dragged ourselves across the street to a 7-11, which is, like all 7-11s in Japan, spotlessly clean and feels like a safe haven. As we are sitting on the curb drinking our orange juice, sleepless, smeared make-up, and stinking like cigarettes, Jess tells me of how she was awoken as well by the E.T. hands and then jumped up and ran into the bathroom, terrified out of her mind that I was right, that he was going to rape and kill both of us (let me also add that the first thing I said to Kevin when we got off the train was to alleviate my anxiety about staying with a friend of a friend I didn’t know by jokingly saying “hey, you’re not going to rape us and then dump our bodies in the river…right?…lol” and then he berated me for being paranoid and not trusting people).
The only good thing about this event was that a) it got us up and out of the house, and b) there was a great public bath across the street, where we spent two hours showering, bathing, lounging, and getting massages, disgusting ourselves with sick humor to try to stop being so freaked out. After that we had planned to spend the whole day at the Osaka Aquarium, sleep or no sleep, which was amazing even though we were both so tired we wanted to die. Turns out that eight ocean levels is pretty impressive, and I didn’t drown in an earthquake like I feared.
Afterward we found ourselves at KFC (why? cheap and easy, and we hadn’t eaten since The Incident), sharing a table with two English boys we regaled with our night’s misfortunes. It was nice until it got weird, as they decided that our sharing of a terrifying night was a good gateway into asking what we were doing that night so they could “help us have a better one”. Y’all, this always happens- it’s usually just you and one other gaijin and somehow everyone thinks they need to eat together. You don’t. I think we were scarred from Kevin, but as talk turned to going out that night, Jess and I both turned off.
Then we rode what was supposedly the world’s largest ferris wheel, and it was terrifying to imagine our little enclosed car plunging into the bay, but also nice, and then back to terrifying, which is why anxiety is fun- you never know what’s going to happen. Upon leaving we saw it was only “one of” the world’s largest ferris wheels, and I felt oddly cheated.
Then it was off to the train station for some coffee and further travel plans, a recap of the weekend, a goodbye, and a renewed commitment to never, ever, ever sway from that holiest of books, Lonely Planet. No good can come of deviating from the sacred travel paths it delineates. Free thinking, friends with friends named Kevin, catbox house sleepovers, and any type of reference to monarchies in unreleased songs will never again be a part of my vacations, while Lonely Planet’s advice, fake nails, deer, piles of Indian food, not sleeping, and laughing for days straight with Jess will always be required.
Umm, just wondering…
Current mood: relaxed
Tonight I was happily filling out two birthday cards to send home, when a thought literally made me stop in my tracks- are any of my friends even getting the mail I send? I pondered further, and, forgive me if I am remiss and have completely forgotten it, but I know I have sent cards/postcards for everyone’s birthday, sent letters for Christmas, and before that sent Kyoto postcards for Thanksgiving, but I can’t remember anyone having said they received any of it other than one or two people in reference to the Kyoto batch…*please note this is not some backhanded attempt to be deluged with “thank you so much” messages*.
I only wondered because I am about to send these birthday cards and another round of postcards from my last trip, and I didn’t want to write out another 25 just for them to end up in Zimbabwe or Canada or a random small town in France. I’m sure all those places are great, it’s just not where I want these things ending up, especially since none of y’all live there and it comes at the cost of carpal tunnel syndrome. So, please let me know if you are getting my mail!
Also, if I don’t have your address and you would like me to send you a little piece of me on paper from over here, feel free to send it to me! I love love love mail. It’s a tradition I am sad to see go. And crap, these days (with myspace) people have gotten too lazy to even use their e-mails, they just post long, rambly blogs about their boring day to day lives. The nerve, right? Laziness, pure laziness.
In closing I would like to add that today I got on an elevator jam packed with tiny, impossibly cute Japanese school girls, all of whom were decked out in head to toe goth/punk/general black and red skull covered clothing. They were all smiling and told me “daijobu” when I expressed reservations that I would fit into the elevator. We go one floor down, the doors open, and a frail teenage boy in school uniform appears. He takes in the scene- I envisioned myself being seen as somewhat of a gaijin Braveheart figure with a band of punk rockstar warriors clustered behind me- his eyes go wide, and he literally does a full body jerk to the side and RUNS AWAY. I am not exaggerating.Â
He gasped and cut to the side like in a cartoon, actually running for the stairs. The entire elevator erupted into giggles and sumimasens, because these girls were little doll hearts, in spite of the gutter punk look. They came up to my shoulder, for crying out loud. We got off on the first floor, had an awkward conversation about our mutual love of punk music with our mutual limited command of the other’s language, and I went off to get coffee. It was precious. And surreal. I can’t get over that guy’s reaction.Â
Monday, March 27, 2006
Pancake Piss
Current mood: working
In Japan schools generally don’t have janitors. All the teachers at our language school have rotating cleaning jobs, from cleaning windows to vacuuming to cleaning toilets, and in the public schools the students also take turns cleaning. Personally, I love this and think it should be done everywhere- pretty sure you would be way less likely to be a slob if you knew you were the one cleaning it up.
The thing is, I don’t know what my students are drinking, but every time I venture into the bathroom I am greeting by a fragrance that is warm to my nostrils and smells strongly of maple syrup. Yes, it’s gross, but that’s the point- it freaks me out. As I am wiping the results of young boys’ bad aim from the seat, or from the floor, or from the toilet slippers that are always spotted with urine, the scent is overpowering. I know there are worse things it could smell like, and, while at the time it is a blessing, later, when I am trying to eat pancakes I am reminded of two things: work and piss covered shared toilets. I don’t mind the latter being associated with eating, but the former always makes me lose my appetite.
Read Part IV here
