For most students, and anyone else that maintains a steady Monday through Friday schedule, Monday tends to suck more often than not. Should you disagree, then feel free to correct me on Monday morning before you head out the door to your weekly grind. Anyway, the Japanese average school and business schedule also maintains the Monday through Friday trend; with its own little variations here and there of course. Though I have been here for just about three years, I have yet to hear of some phrase to describe the weekly dread of facing the beginning of the business week. Fortunately, a student of mine made me aware of a similar gem just a few days ago. It is called 五月病 (ごがつびゅう / go-gatsu-byou), which basically means “May disease” or “May sickness.” The reason that this has anything to do with “the Mondays” is that the phrase reflects the dread of getting back to work after an extended period of time off.

Continue reading »

Gambling is a world-wide phenomena, there’s no doubt about that. It’s existed for centuries, where modern games such as roulette evolved from a game played in old Europe. Even to this day, where you can gamble online, people still find themselves attracted to physical gambling machines. Particularly in Japan, everybody’s crazy for Pachinko (パチンコ).

Continue reading »

The awesome sweater I picked up for cheap during lunch hour at my university.

I suddenly realized this morning that this time a couple of years ago, I was studying at 京都精華大学 (Kyoto Seika University). I’m in the midst of reading more books for review, so I thought I would take a pleasant stroll down memory lane. When I talk about shopping, I don’t mean shopping in a mall or an arcade (though I assure you, I did plenty of that) — I’m talking about having my lunch at the college cafeteria and then rushing out to the quad. On sunny days, many students will tote about a plastic picnic blanket and spread their very gently used clothes, CDs, and other fun things. And so my friends and I would rejoice more than usual when the sun was shining. We’d stuff curry and karaage and udon in our faces quickly, and then march outside before the other students could look at the items.

Continue reading »