22 JUL 2015
A Not so Brief, Brief
8 hours have passed and so have my hot snakes. I sit down for a brief at 0700, except this brief is not so brief… it goes until 1500, and is followed by a driver’s exam. I note everyone around me is a marine with much more experience than I have. I can tell by their aggressive haircuts, the language being used (80% acronyms) and the fact that it looks like they’re carrying toilet paper rolls underneath their armpits when they walk (aka the quarterback walk). I am a “Gaijin” in more ways than one here.
Wait…Driver’s exam? Should be easy, I don’t need to study…. right? I note everyone around me frantically studying. I overhear a military spouse nervously muttering to her neighbor, “…this is my second time, only 5 people in the auditorium passed yesterday…”
Shit.
Japanese people drive on the left side of the rode. Their rode signs are in Kanji. You know Kanji, right? The funny symbols some crazy person puked out of their brain onto paper and said let’s read this right to left and develop two thousand characters that turn into sounds that confuse white people?
The test is all in metrics for distances. There are strange laws and age restrictions. A DUI is 0.03 BAC. Everybody who drives is stereotypically terrible at it cause, you know, Asians.
I join the frantic studiers, who have made handwritten study guides after their previous failures.
After a magical lunch spent walking Camp Foster, and explaining my haircut to a 70 year old Japanese woman who keeps nodding and uttering “Hai….Hai….Hai!” every few seconds (best military haircut I have ever received, and 7 dollars), I return to my dreaded exam, feeling lethargic from my jetlag.
The examiner calls the names of those who didn’t achieve the 80% passing score, publically shaming them for all to see. He calls off a lot of names. Alot.
Mine isn’t called.
Arigato! Thanks to the Shinto, Buddhist, Catholic, Mormon, and Jewish Gods.
The day ends with maintenance problems in my grim, 750 sq foot apartment, and the classic signing of a phone contract where you feel like you’ve just sold your soul to the Japanese devil.
Still, the day could have been worse.
A Not so Brief, Brief
8 hours have passed and so have my hot snakes. I sit down for a brief at 0700, except this brief is not so brief… it goes until 1500, and is followed by a driver’s exam. I note everyone around me is a marine with much more experience than I have. I can tell by their aggressive haircuts, the language being used (80% acronyms) and the fact that it looks like they’re carrying toilet paper rolls underneath their armpits when they walk (aka the quarterback walk). I am a “Gaijin” in more ways than one here.
Wait…Driver’s exam? Should be easy, I don’t need to study…. right? I note everyone around me frantically studying. I overhear a military spouse nervously muttering to her neighbor, “…this is my second time, only 5 people in the auditorium passed yesterday…”
Shit.
Japanese people drive on the left side of the rode. Their rode signs are in Kanji. You know Kanji, right? The funny symbols some crazy person puked out of their brain onto paper and said let’s read this right to left and develop two thousand characters that turn into sounds that confuse white people?
The test is all in metrics for distances. There are strange laws and age restrictions. A DUI is 0.03 BAC. Everybody who drives is stereotypically terrible at it cause, you know, Asians.
I join the frantic studiers, who have made handwritten study guides after their previous failures.
After a magical lunch spent walking Camp Foster, and explaining my haircut to a 70 year old Japanese woman who keeps nodding and uttering “Hai….Hai….Hai!” every few seconds (best military haircut I have ever received, and 7 dollars), I return to my dreaded exam, feeling lethargic from my jetlag.
The examiner calls the names of those who didn’t achieve the 80% passing score, publically shaming them for all to see. He calls off a lot of names. Alot.
Mine isn’t called.
Arigato! Thanks to the Shinto, Buddhist, Catholic, Mormon, and Jewish Gods.
The day ends with maintenance problems in my grim, 750 sq foot apartment, and the classic signing of a phone contract where you feel like you’ve just sold your soul to the Japanese devil.
Still, the day could have been worse.
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