Bizarre Teaching Moment #5: I'm Just A Bill, Yes I'm Only A Bill

~It's time for yet another Bizzare Teaching Moment (TM)! This one occurred today in one of my favorite classes. The class consists of two talkative high-school girls who are best friends and say the most far-out things. Today's lesson was on ordering food in a restaurant, so we spent much of the class going over vocabulary for U.S. currency and examining photocopied dollar bills and (real) coins.

My students were very interested in the symbols and pictures on American money and questioned me about everything. I explained what the words on coins meant and who the person on the front of each coin was. The last one was George Washington, on the quarter.

One of the students then asked me what the bird on the back of the quarter was for, and I told her to guess. She thought about it for a moment, then shouted, "Washington's pet!"

I had to stop the class for a minute to recover from the resulting fit of laughter that nearly rendered me unconscious.

^ Seriously, how cool would that be, George Washington with a hungry bald eagle perched on his shoulder as he leads the Continental Army against the British?

Actually, Washington did have a pet bird named "Polly the Parrot" (along with 36 hounds and numerous horses). Having a pet parrot, I think, is almost as good as a pet eagle. Perhaps Polly was trained to steal Redcoat hats and spew insults at them in French. Perhaps Polly gave nightmares to Cornwallis, contributing to an erratic British strategy that played a decisive role in America's victory over the British. Perhaps Polly the Parrot is indeed the true avian hero of our nation and deserves to be enshrined on the quarter.

Or perhaps not.

Anyway, the best was yet to come. When we got to the $20 bill, I of course told them that the man on the front was "Jackson". The same student jumped out of her chair, pointed at Jackson's face, and yelled, "Michael Jackson!"

^ I'll never look at a twenty the same way again. I've been scarred for life!

~Oyasumi!

Spelunkers Beware

~More wonderful news from over here: North Korea has apparently conducted its first nuclear test. It was done underground and sent out seismic waves detected around the world:

^ The detonation was estimated to be quite small, perhaps an atomic bomb with a yield as little as 1 kiloton (equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT). By comparison, the atomic bomb that obliterated Hiroshima had a yield of around 15 kilotons, and the largest nuclear bomb ever built, the U.S.S.R.'s Tsar Bomba (nicknamed Ivan), had an estimated yield of 100 megatons (100 million tons of TNT), capable of wiping out everthing in a 50-mile radius.

^ Given the history of Japan, nukes, and North Korean missiles occasionally flying over the country, the natives here are getting increasingly nervous. The newly-elected Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe (pronounced, "ah-bey") has made re-writing the pacifist Japanese Constitution the central focus of his career. The demands to re-arm are becoming increasingly louder, but I don't think anyone seriously wants it to happen. Well, except for Lockheed Martin and United Defense, of course.

I think the real problem here is not so much North Korea being able to launch nuclear missiles, but the political ramifications of the test. Let's face it: now that they officially have nukes, they're untouchable (yet we sit here, and wonder just why Iran and the rest of the world wants these terrible weapons so badly). You just wait: over the next few weeks/months/years, America and the rest of the world will quietly send increasing amounts of "foreign aid" (i.e. blackmail payments) to North Korea to keep them off our backs. They, in turn, will occasionally test more and bigger bombs to keep us scared.

We can't do any more than that, really, and it's sad. We can only hope that the North Koreans will revolt against their leader, or that their leader will die...but then again, that kind of thinking hasn't helped much in the past.

~On a cheerier note, archaeologists working in Syria have discovered a 100,000 year old fossil of a gigantic species of camel, twice as large as modern camels:

^ On the left is the foot-bone of a "King Camel", while on the right is the foot-bone of a modern camel. Where does this camel sleep? Why, anywhere it wants to, of course.

~Oyasumi!

Murasaki Momoko

~For my birthday a few months ago, my coworkers gifted me with a couple of plants for my apartment. One of them was a hibiscus, which I named "Murasaki Momoko" (literally: purple pink one). I named her such because I didn't know whether the blooms would be pink or purple.

Caring for Murasaki has been difficult. She's like a high-maintenance girlfriend, always demanding more: more water, more plant food, more sunlight, more attention. Several blooms appeared but dropped off because I wasn't doing something right (or maybe she was just being fussy). Finally, after months of work, my patience paid off as Murasaki opened her lovely flowers:

^ Pink it is, then. The flowers are lovely, aren't they? Here's a closeup:

^ Although the flowers are visually striking, they have no scent that I can detect. I found out that this is quite normal, as most hibiscus species have little or no scent. Instead, they rely on colorful flowers to attract insects.

^ There are different species of hibiscus, and each species has many different varieties and hybrids created each year by hibiscus-growers. Some of the varieties have fantastic names like "High Voltage", "Magician's Hat", "Handsome Stranger", "Rum Runner", "Fifth Dimension", and "Gator Magic".

I'm sure Murasaki Momoko is a tropical hibiscus, but I'm not sure what variety she is. Does anyone care to guess?

^ A closeup of one flower's staminal column, with yellow stamens halfway up and red stigmas at the very top of the column. This arrangement is particular to the hibiscus, making it one of the easiest plants in the world to identify.

I find it very satisfying to grow plants (note to Dad: by "plants" I don't mean "lawn grass"). Maybe I'll set up a garden or small greenhouse when I get back to America. For now, I've purchased some smaller plant pots and seeds for different flowers, and also mint, strawberries, and miniature tomatoes. I already have a basil plant that is doing quite well (his name is Sir Basil):

^ I think I'll eat some of Sir Basil soon on tomato sauce with a pasta dinner! I think there's something very satisfying about eating plants that you've grown all by yourself. Besides, the more carbon we're able to sequester, the better.

By the way, the large, colorful flowers of a hibiscus can attract many hummingbirds and butterflies, so maybe I'll see some wildlife. I'll be sure to keep you posted. ~Oyasumi!

The Gates of Hell

~My trip to the Ueno Zoo was a lot of fun, but there was more to see after leaving. Soon after exiting the zoo, I saw this fantastic sculpture:

^A bronze cast of "The Gates of Hell" by Auguste Rodin, outside of the National Museum of Western Art. Inspired by The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The original was sculpted from plaster by Rodin over several decades (it was finally finished in 1917) and is at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. This is one of three bronze casts of the sculpture, also made in 1917.

Here's a closeup of the bottom part:

^ A bit gruesome, isn't it? "The Gates of Hell" shows many scenes of famous sinners from The Divine Comedy, most of them writhing in eternal suffering. But at least they look good in bronze while writhing away.

^ Does anything look familiar here? Yes, that's "The Thinker", one of the most recognizable pieces of sculpture in the world. "The Gates of Hell" incorporates many smaller sculptures that, like "The Thinker", were created (in larger sizes) by Rodin as models for the complete "Gates of Hell".

Today, these individual pieces are thought of as independent works of art (had you even heard of "The Gates of Hell" before?). But they were made to be part of a larger whole, and should be considered as such. "The Thinker" is, to me, much more interesting and profound when he's calmly sitting there, ruminating, surrounded by horrific scenes of hell and torment.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to explore the National Museum of Western Art, because closing time was soon and I had already been to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. As I was entering the doors of that museum, I saw these two strange fellows:

^ They were performing some kind of comedy sketch and attracted quite a crowd. I didn't have a clue what they were doing, but they do have amusing costumes, don't they? It must be awfully difficult to go through doorways with those gigantic hats.

Inside the museum was a fantastic display of artifacts from Ancient Persia, including huge statues of winged bulls, minted gold coins, and wonderfully-restored jewelry and household items. Photography was very much against the rules, but sometimes it's best to look with your eyes rather than a viewfinder or an LCD screen.

^ Here's an interesting statue in Ueno Park. This man is Hideo Noguchi (1876-1928), a doctor and medical scientist who worked to find a cure for infectious diseases such as Yellow Fever, which he ultimately died from in Ghana. He is holding a test tube in his hand. The words on the pedestal read, "PRO BONO HUMANI GENERIS", which means, "For the Good of Humankind".

^ Just outside of the Ueno Zoo was this large, colorful temple. How do I know it's a Buddhist Temple and not a Shinto Shrine? Because it has this near the top:

^ No, it's not a Nazi Temple! Remember what I said about the manji?

^ This peculiar building was just outside the temple (you can see it in the above temple picture). I think it's some kind of incense burner, although I really couldn't be sure as I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Water continually dripped from the dragon's mouth onto the rocks. Here's a closeup of the dragon:

^ Quite a fearsome little fellow, isn't he? In Japanese, the word from dragon is ryu. It's a bit difficult to say for native English speakers; you have to say the r sound very fast. It almost sound like 'yu', or 'ruh-yu' with the 'ruh' said very fast.

That's all for now! Oyasumi.