Presidential Predictions

Here's my $0.02 regarding the upcoming presidential elections, and the wonderful sea of crap the American public and thusly the world will have to deal with.

The two Democratic primary candidates, Clinton and Obama, are neck and neck in a contest for the presidential primary. On the Republican side, McCain has a pretty strong lead. For the Dem. primaries, delegates are assigned according to the proportion of votes, as opposed to the Rep's, who are winner-take-all.

See where this is going? I do. There's going to be fierce competition within the Democratic party, in the primaries more so than the actual presidential election itself. As a result of this, the party will not only have blown off most of its steam choosing a candidate, but will be internally split in half, and I'm sure there are those who hope that will reduce the voting power of the Dem. party to only those who voted for the winning primary candidate. This will give the impression that the Democratic party is internally divided, can't come together or even agree what it wants, and make the public feel like they aren't solidly founded enough to lead the country in these trying times.

The Republican party, however, due to their winner-take-all election style, will appear outwardly to be vastly in favor of one candidate, and thusly appear to be very focused, determined, and have a clear position on things. Whereas the Democrats will look like they're all over the place, the Republicans will look like they are all standing together, ready to face the challenges ahead. That's going to be tough to compete with.

It's all beautifully orchestrated. I mean, the Democrats have such great momentum right now, they could actually accomplish something, and instead what's happening is exactly what Republicans hope will happen. The Democrats are beating themselves.

It makes me wonder how deliberate this all is. The Rep's have the same old same old, and the Dem's have two novelties. I think either candidate is going to have to deal with a lot of criticism for running on the novelty ticket, especially from communities that value regularity and substance over show. Hillary is Old Washington through and through, and though she talks of things I really like to hear, I know it's shit because she answers to the same people Bush does. Obama's younger and doesn't appear to be the same breed, but he isn't addressing the same things that give Hillary appeal despite her position.

So, again, the same old things are going to happen, and it's brilliant on the part of the Republicans to sit back and let them happen. They just keep doing what they're doing, and let the Democrats make asses of themselves, literally and figuratively. Gotta hand it to them, hate them though I do; they're clever bastards.

Anyway, I predict that the Rep's will play the solidarity card and the Dem's will have to struggle not against the Rep's but against themselves in order to have a real shot at the election, despite whatever momentum they might have. Best of luck to them. I support Obama, in case you're interested. Actually, I supported Edwards before he dropped out, but he represents what I feel far too much to be a viable candidate and I knew he'd lose out. Obama is the next closest.

Kids are Kids

I had one of those days on Friday, for the first time at this job, where I was happy to be off work, and even more thankful that this is a three day weekend.

My kids had a lot of energy, and normally that doesn't phase me, normally I can just talk through or over it and it's not a big deal, but for some reason this time around it was starting to get to me. I just wanted them to listen a bit and focus a little, and I know that's asking a lot and I shouldn't really bother with it, but this time I did, and it got to me that they were goofing off as much as they were. They're just happy to see me, and want to be kids, and I understand that, but there is also that part of me that wants them to be able to understand the material, and because they've done it before, I know they're all capable of at least faking the language, so when they don't even try it gets me.

My last class of the day is the one that really got me. It was with the 5th graders, and the language was "_____ is in Japan." So, I had this map of Japan up, and all these traditional things that are famous in Japan and are only from Japan, like kimono and sushi and Tokyo Tower etc etc, and made sure to repeat the language enough times that those who were paying attention could figure out what the sentence meant. But there was this one girl, who just kept giving me the "what the fuck are you talking about?" look and every time she did it I lost it a little bit more, up until the point I was almost slapping the board saying "SUSHI is in JAPAN." At that point I kinda caught myself cause it was obvious she caught that I was reacting to her, and I had to step back, take a deep breath, and just relax. I hate that I got to that point but I'm glad I caught myself before it got worse. So I talked to the Japanese teacher, and had him explain, in Japanese, what we were talking about.

I still got that look from the same girl even after the Japanese explanation, so at that point I just gave up on the lesson and focused on having them fill out their worksheets and trying to coach them in small groups through saying some of the language in English, with prompts. The class of course flew by, cause it always does when you have an activity, and come the end of class I'm pretty sure only a handful of students understood the point of the class, but, whatever. I discovered their limits, and now I can adapt my future lessons to accommodate them a little better.

Anyway, after school I was just tired and wanted to go home. I've never felt so wrecked after a day. It wasn't even that bad really, I just think it was the lack of good sleep from my ridiculous JHS adventure catching up with me. See the day before I had to teach at a JHS where there was the, of course, grammar nazi who wrote this absurd LP for me that I had to decipher the night before at 10pm in order to prepare a couple worksheets to do in class. I was up until about 11pm making papers about auxiliary verbs and the passive voice, and the present continuous(progressive) tense and it was stupid, and the next day at school would have been a complete failure if I hadn't been lucky enough to have a really energetic and gaijin-loving second period class. They energized me enough to finish the day strong, but the sleep I lost the night before and the stress of that and getting lost on the trains the night before(a big Fuck You to the Marunouchi and Oedo Lines) came back to bite me in the ass the next day, unfortunately at the school I visit most.

Other than that, this three day weekend thing is nice. I will say, however, that being on such a weird sleep schedule has taken its toll, in that even on my days off I want to go to bed super early. This morning, I woke up at whatever time, got up, played some video games, and when I finished up and took a look at the clock, thinking it must be at least 2pm or so, it was only 9:30am. It happened again what felt like 5 hours later that turned out to be 11:30, and shortly after Saki called me and we made plans to meet up later this afternoon. We're going to a bookstore in Ochanomizu, so she can get a book for work. Sounds fun. I like bookstores though, maybe there will be something interesting there, you know, other than books her hospital is making her buy out of pocket so she can work harder and not get paid more. Gotta love Japan.