Tsukuba a.k.a. Tornado Alley, Japan “We have some feedback for you,” the owner of the Academy said as I was packing up my stuff around 9:15 last night. My last business class of the evening was a no show on account of the horrible weather, so I was on my way out a little bit early. You can’t really blame them considering that bad weather in Tsukuba has led to VERY bad weather as of late. “Oh God,” I thought. “This can only be negative feedback.” I began to immediately regret teaching a segment on “kiss assery” during my first business class that evening where the topic was, “Things that annoy/irritate me.”

Me: I don’t like kiss asses. Have you heard this word before? Kissssssss Asssss *writes on whiteboard* K-I-S-S-A-S-S??

Student: Yes, I have maybe heard this in American movies before, I think.

However, my business class hadn’t complained about me. In fact, it was the opposite. Apparently after the class they came out and raved for 15 minutes about how they had never had such a good teacher before. Really? Me? Good? A teacher? But the major shock of the night was the feedback from the Japanese Kyle class.

I arrived at the Academy around 4:30 that afternoon. It was go time. If the Kyle class was going to be mine for the foreseeable future, then those kids needed to get in line as soon as possible before things got totally out of control. There is nothing worse than a class whose previous instructor just let them get away with murder. The kids WILL take advantage of you if they know you’ll allow it. By the sounds of it this class had been doing whatever the fuck they wanted for a very long time.

So, like I said, it was GO TIME. I had my battle strategy all planned out in advance of the class, it was just a matter of executing it properly, and somehow it worked. It worked better than even I thought it would on the first attempt. Those kids were (honest to God) PERFECT angels last night.

I decided to go in a different direction with the Super Bad list. I thought it was only fair to give these kids a chance to prove themselves to their new sensei first, whereas with the Korean Kyle class, I already knew they were bad long before the advent of the Super Bad list. Anyway, I decided, instead, to have them competing for points for best student of the class. Naturally, they could lose points if they displeased me in any way, so they did all they could to protect their tallies on the score sheet. This is a dangerous move in Japan since competition is totally frowned upon (in the public school system, at least). Don’t get me started.

If the Stanley Cup Final was held in Japan there would be no losers. There would be a Champion and a Super Champion. I’m not really sure if the powers that be really believe a kid will actually feel less insecure by these titles. The reality is you are just replacing the word “loser” with “champion,” and “champion” with “super champion.” The kids are STILL going to know they lost, right?

Could you imagine what our lives would be like without competition? None of us would have a hobby (or addiction). Without competition there would be no hockey, or at least there would be no competitive hockey leagues. I guess it’s my passion for the game that led me to quietly discard the anti-competition ideal after the first month, and made me want to discover if the kids could handle losing, and, more importantly, watching someone else win. If you want the sticker then adapt, improve, pay attention. If Simon doesn’t say, then don’t fucking do it! Surprise surprise; no one has died from my “radical” methods, and if anything the kids actually try harder now.

You probably think it’s weird or a bit ridiculous that the schools have the kids train for their sports days for months, for example, only to have them run races and not declare a winner or loser. The kids are definitely coddled here. We aren’t even allowed to play Hang Man because the school boards feel the kids might try to actually hang themselves. I’m not even exaggerating – that’s the ACTUAL reason! Luckily, there is no rule against having a shark devour Pikachu, so that has been my loophole in the Anti-Hang Man clause.

So, yeah, you may find these practices extreme or ridiculous, but we are really no better in North America these days with all these anti-bullying campaigns, and such. It seems like when our parents were in school they were either having the shit beat out of them, or they were beating the shit out of someone else, and they seemed to turn out just fine. Granted, I definitely agree with the zero tolerance violence policies that were implemented when we were in school, but come on, now kids aren’t even allowed to look at each other the wrong way without facing suspension! Now, I’m definitely not condoning bullying, but I think parents should focus more on raising their kids not to be assholes instead of forming coalitions because some other snot nosed brat doesn’t like them. I actually shudder when I think about what our society is going to be like in 20 years when these kids grow up. They will probably all be living at home, unemployed, of course, because they are too fragile to handle any type of confrontation or criticism in the workplace. Maybe it would be a good idea to teach your kids how to have thick skin in childhood, so they aren’t eaten alive when they inevitably hit adulthood. But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a Psycho. I will say, though, without bullying there would be no Broad Street Bullies. Just a little food for thought…

Anyway, back to my Japanese Kyle class. Apparently, at one point last night, my predecessor showed up at the school. You know, the guy with Lymphoma or whatever it is he has. It seems he came back to Japan to get his affairs in order before returning to America permanently. So, while I was in class, he and the managers gathered outside the door, and observed the class. It was revealed to me, as I was leaving that night, that the previous teacher stood there in total awe of the fact that the kids were listening to me, and repeating after me, and being, in a nutshell, good little boys. Naturally, I brushed off the feedback a little bit, “Oh well, you know, I’ve taught this textbook before, so I’m familiar with the course material.” It’s true. I taught the very same course to… wait for it… the original Kyle two years earlier. Of course, what I was really thinking was, “Jesus, what was this idiot doing over the last 8 months if he couldn’t even get the kids to IN THE VERY LEAST repeat after him? Were they actually learning ANYTHING?!”

Well, hopefully, I didn’t just successfully jinx my progress by writing this follow up post, and that I will be met with a classroom full of holy terrors next week *fingers crossed.* Oh, and while we are on the topic of champions, I’ve thought about it and I think I’m backing the Los Angeles Kings for 2012 Stanley Cup SUPER Champions. The end.

Serenity now. Insanity later.

Tsukuba a.k.a. Tornado Alley, Japan They say one must live without regrets; that we must accept the things we cannot change, and not dwell on the past. But it’s at times like these, with the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final, that I start to regret deleting all the photo evidence of one zany night in Toronto where a certain Captain Callahan (and former Guelph Storm, I might add) was in the habit of photo bombing all the pictures of me and my girl friends with hilarious results. Damn those days where I cared enough about a so called “reputation” to eliminate all evidence that I interacted with hockey players on any level. I mean think of the hilarious profile pictures I could have right now in my attempt to shun the Rangers and back the Devils. At least I think that’s what I’m doing; I can’t really decide which team I want to see in the Final this year. There are so many former Kitchener Rangers and Guelph Storm on both teams that I’m really in a tough spot loyalty wise. And if you forced me to choose between Coach DILF Torts and Coach DILF Pete (also former Head DILF in Kitchener), I wouldn’t know what to do!

Speaking of the Guelph Storm… Did you know Guelph’s OHL super club is the most famous hockey team to come out of Canada? I know I sure didn’t. Everything’s been coming up Psycho this week! If you already guessed from my previous workaholic related posts, that this could only mean that I’ve been working even harder since we last “spoke,” then you’d be right! A new and intensive class came up this week. A certain major Japanese corporation is transferring employees at the end of June to one of their offices in Southern Ontario, and so they want their English to basically be flawless overnight. Lucky for them, I’m from the area, so I can help with more than just the language – where to eat, where to live, where to avoid, and etc!

Anyway, this class started for the first time this Saturday, so part of my usual first day regimen is to ask my pupils what they know about Canada. They will always mention “ice hockey” as a famous sport in Canada, which always leads to the follow up question, “Do you know any Canadian hockey teams?” The answer is usually a resounding negative, but on this particular occasion I was taken aback when, “Guelph Storm” popped out of one of my students’ mouths. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat???? An OHL team, really? Occasionally you’ll meet the odd Japanese person that visited Vancouver or Calgary in one of the winter months and had heard of the Canucks or the Flames, but you don’t often meet someone that knows about the underlying layers that make up the depth that is hockey. To me an understanding of junior hockey exhibits a broader understanding of the game itself. I was pleasantly surprised, and, as you can see from my picture, I felt the need to educate slightly on the OHL, and the Guelph club a little more before returning back to the primary focus of our 3 hour class. So what?! I go off on hockey related tangents – big deal! It’s hard enough teaching English for one solid hour let alone three, and I’m sure we were all grateful for a little deviation from the textbook. Also in the last hour of class we had a segment on how to order properly at Tim Hortons, on which they took very meticulous notes. Hmm…. Perhaps this week I will have a pop quiz!

Unfortunately there is a blemish (several, actually, but let’s just talk about one today) on my happy fun time this week. Yes, you knew there was a rant coming! I mean anger is part of the healing process in rehab, right? Anyway, after a subbing gig Tuesday night (a one-time thing for a teacher that went home to the States on vacation), I got a phone call from the Academy stating that the teacher discovered he had something serious, which in broken English sounded like Lymphoma to me, and that he was not coming back to Japan. You see what I mean about foreigners in Asia! We get sick. We nearly die. Anyway, the school requested that I stay on as the teacher for these classes until they can find a full time replacement, but they aren’t anticipating doing that before August at the earliest. I’m happy to do it, of course, but I hate to think that I’m gaining something from someone else’s SERIOUS misfortune.

For the most part his classes were pretty painless last week. Mostly business classes, but there was one elementary school level class, which reminded me a little too much of a certain class I had in Korea 2 years ago…

Kyle. The name still induces a furrowing of my brow when I hear it. Kyle was the demon spawn of my Mercury AND Venus classes at my Academy in Korea. He was that kid that every teacher dreads landing on their roll call. “Oh yeah, I know Kyle,” I remember one of my co-workers saying to me a week or so after new class assignments, “That kid walked right up to me one day and just kicked me in the balls. Yeah, I KNOW Kyle.”

Kyle was only about 8 years old, though it’s hard to tell for sure since I never totally mastered the art of calculating Korean ages. Depending on what time of the year they are born they are either 1 or 2 years older than their actual age. For example, on my 25th birthday in Korea, I had actually turned 27 by Korean standards… or was it 26??? Anyway, you may be wondering how an 8 year old could cause so much trouble, but oh, they can. Kyle was just bad, or as he would tell me, “TEACHAAAAAAARRRR I. AM. SUPAAAAAAA BAD!!!!” His reign of terror knew no bounds. Even during the sacredness that was DVD Day, Kyle would disrupted the other kids, that were all just trying to find Nemo in peace, with his constant dickhollery.

Kyle was that kid that would get the other kids all riled up until they were all out of control. Back then I was in the habit of giving my kids hockey related names whenever I got a new student. Kyle wasn’t one of mine, but four of his fourteen classmates were: Souray (a girl), Scotty (a boy), as well as Bauer (boy) and Vezina (girl), who were two cute little ones that would basically just latch onto me as soon as I walked into the room, and wouldn’t let go like I was their mommy or something. Kyle was an especially bad influence on Scotty Bowman I remember, and eventually it got to the point that I felt like if I had to teach that class one more time I might die.

That was when I discovered the disciplinary power of the silent stare down. When the kids slowly start to realize the teacher has stopped talking, and it freaks them out, and they immediately put themselves in line. I also became THAT teacher! You know, the one that writes the kids’ names on the board when they are bad, which they hate because it shames them publicly. My list was called the Super Bad list, a name inspired by the beast himself. As time went on, though, Kyle’s name would have fewer and fewer checkmarks next to it, and then one day his name never even made it onto the board at all. Near the end there, he brought his little violin into class and played me a choppy rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. It was emotional.

I walked out of my new 8 year old boy filled class on Tuesday just thinking, “Thank FUCK I don’t have to teach that class again.” There was a new Japanese Kyle in that class. He even looked like Kyle, and he rallied the others in a manner befitting of Kyle in the pre-reformation era! “Wow,” one of the other teachers said to me, “How’d you get those kids in line today?”

Me: Uhh what? That was them behaving?!?!

Me: Oh. [Thinking: Yeah… Double thank FUCK I don’t have to do this again next week!]

But, of course, I do. Tonight, in fact. I think the Super Bad list is about to experience a revival *heavy sigh.* Give me strength, oh glorious Monster Energy Drink and saviour!

Kanto Region, Japan I’m pretty sure I haven’t slept since I got back to Japan 37 days ago. It feels like I’ve been back 37 years. I have been in a constant state of stress since I got back, and I’ve definitely outgrown being able to use that to my advantage. My coaches used to always say I worked best in high pressure situations, but at my age I’m starting to feel myself buckle. Perhaps I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, as they say. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to basically be earning money AT. ALL. TIMES. But, yeah… I’ve now successfully gotten myself to the point that I wanted to be at professionally (while in Japan, that is), but it is starting to catch up with me. I’ve basically worked from 8AM to 10PM every single night this week, and while the money is great (as a blonde I can get away with charging $50/h for English lessons… Imagine what I could charge as a hooker *ponders*), this hectic schedule has proven to be no enemy to my insomnia.

When I moved to Japan last June I immediately thrust myself into exit strategy mode. Everyday I was formulating new and improved hair-brained schemes to get a financially and professionally sound version of myself back to the land of hockey that I apparently can’t be away from for too long. However, once I realized I was probably going to be in Japan for yet another year, a lot of that stress finally went away, and I was able to relax a little. Of course, AS SOON as I got back to Japan from my little stint in NHL Land in March/April, I was thrust back into a new hyperdrive version of exit strategy mode. So much needs to be accomplished this year: I need new passports/international docs, money (of course), and possible further education to increase my earning potential (although I suspect my entrance exam went badly due to aforementioned insomnia).

Yeah… I don’t sleep anymore. Instead I toss and turn, and plot and scheme the nights away. And let’s not forget I’ve been in Japan a loonnnnggg time, if you know what I’m saying. It is starting to catch up with me, though. I often find myself spacing out in my public school classes when the Japanese teacher starts teaching her segments of the class, and I’m supposed to be pretending to make sure the kids are copying shit from the board correctly, etc. Also my daily coffee intake has spiked considerably. Not to mention the fact that I discovered Monster energy drinks at Family Mart, and have needed to buy two this week on those especially late nights. Monster is the new Rockstar. I know all this caffeine is helping to perpetuate my insomnia, but I wouldn’t be able to function (I’m addicted!), at this stage, without it. It’s a vicious cycle.

Tornadoes are the new Earthquakes and Tsunamis

Springtime in Japan means a little more than picturesque cherry blossomed landscapes. Apparently it means Mother Nature will fuck with your weekends and holidays by implementing constant thunderstorms and flooding rains to keep you off the beaches and miserable. This week, however, another force of nature added itself to the long list of natural threats that plague this country. Several tornadoes touched down on the last day of Golden Week and devastated my prefecture and our neighbouring prefecture, Tochigi – home of the Nikko Icebucks in the ALIH.

Speaking of natural disasters… The bridge in my town that literally just DROPPED into the sea during the 9.0M Earthquake last March has finally been reopened. It was a huge deal, and pretty much the talk of the town for a solid week. Paul Kariya (the vehicle) and I took a little drive on it. It wasn’t that exciting. Moving on…

Golden Week is the new May 2-4… but not really….

Speaking of Golden Week… My vacation was a definite bust. Due to my expiring passport I couldn’t do anything fun, and by fun, I mean, get the fuck out of Japan. I spent my week in various parts of the Kanto Region – Tokyo, Oarai, and Mito. Swan boats were rented, angry old Japanese people were horrified by my tattoo (“blahblahblah BOKENSHA blahblahblah”), and a meal at an Outback Steakhouse (in Tokyo) was had. I was feeling nostalgic. We had an Outback in my city in Korea, and while I never really went to Outbacks back home, it became the go-to spot for my friends and I whenever we were in the mood for expensive Western food. Anyway that glowing red sign in Roppongi was like a shining beacon of salvation and refuge from the pouring rain on the mean streets of Tokyo. Plus I needed to fuel up before taking on the Tokyo National Museum – if you think Japanese people are on the short side now, you should have seen the size of their armour in the 12th century!

Curry and Naan are the new Papa Burgers and Rootbeer

Another Golden Week adventure of mine involved becoming acquainted with a new “Indian” restaurant I discovered a few months back. I use quotations there because, in these parts, all the Indian restaurants are run by Nepalese. Close enough, I guess, geographically speaking. I don’t know what it is about Japan, but I get these absolutely furious curry cravings. I just gotta have it. The Japanese are big on curry, too, but the Japanese style curry doesn’t quite hit the mark like proper Indian food does.

Unfortunately, Indian restaurants are some of the few places I hate going by myself in Japan. Business is kind of slow for a lot of restaurant owners in the wake of the 3/11 Crisis, and higher priced non-Japanese restaurants tend to be hit the worst. Anyway, I often find myself the lone patron at many of the Indian places in Ibaraki, and because of this, the waiters and owners never LEAVE ME ALONE. They make it a point to talk to me while I’m eating, when really I just want to eat. I feel like Tony Soprano in that one episode where he tells Artie Bucco that no one wants to hear him talk, “Alright, I’ll tell you one thing. And this is very hard. Nobody wants to hear you talk. They’re trying to eat out there, and you come along, with your corny jokes, and your stupid stories. Just stay in the kitchen. That’d be a start.”

On this particular occasion not only was I annoyed during my meal, but I was also subjected to another creepy male advance. I literally JUST walked in the door and the guy was all over me! Desperate much?

Him: You live around here?

Me: *exasperated* With my boyfriend.

And this basically just went on and on. Finally the owner came out, whom I suspect told the guy to calm down. Seriously… If business is bad don’t go scaring off potential customers. The curry wasn’t great there, so I probably wouldn’t have gone back anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing. I don’t know, I’m weird. I hate this crap. I’m one of those girls that doesn’t respond well to words or flattery. I also don’t respond well to the men that try to knock girls down a few pegs, so they can prey on their insecurities. I’m quick to bite their heads off like a crazed Ozzy Osbourne set loose in a bat cave, and not in the way they’d like, I’m sure. I guess I’m just a believer that actions speak louder than words. Can’t really misinterpret body language, can you? But maybe that’s just the Linguistic Anthropology Major in me talking. Anyway, on the plus side, the guys did give me a free mango lassi, and free dessert. Oh, and my creeper made sure to give me an advanced copy of his entire work schedule, so I can be sure to come back when he’s there. Thanks for that.

Ferraris are the new Chloroform

I wish this was my only creepy incident since my last Rehab post, but it wasn’t, although I am happy to report that I did not have any encounters with public masturbators in the last 2 weeks. Remember that sketchy private student I had with the money laundering trips to Okinawa and the pornography ring? Well after I refused to “model” for him (no one wants to see that), he put a prompt end to our lessons. Then out of nowhere he contacts me for another lesson. Of course I was suspicious, so I asked him why he wanted the lesson. He told me it was for “pronunciation,” which was obviously total bullshit. Our lessons were always agonizing. He was the type that would spend the whole time looking things up in his little electronic Japanese to English dictionary, and then instead of reading what was translated to me, he would just hold up the screen, and make me read it. Productive.

Well my curiosity was definitely piqued, and so was my sense of benevolence. See I had just become aware of the Lindsay Hawker case. Hawker was an English teacher who was raped and murdered by her private student after one of her coffee shop lessons in the very same prefecture (Chiba) where I meet this winner. So for all the little girls (who aren’t 5’9”, and aren’t the size of 2.5 Paulina Gretzkys, like I am) who come to teach English in Japan, and get seduced by this extra income lifestyle, I felt like it was my duty to check this mother fucker out properly since he is definitely no less than 8 kinds of shady.

I knew this lesson must have been some kind of ploy to get me to reconsider the “photo” thing. So, I figured he’d be bringing along some sort of new incentive with him, and sure enough he did… In the form of a shiny red Ferrari 458.

After our mind-numbing “lesson,” he indicated in his non-English way that he wanted to take me for a ride in his fast car. Yeah, I bet you do. Something tells me I wouldn’t have been taken around the block and back again. He also made sure to park in the space RIGHT next to mine, so I’d have no choice but to see the car and wet my panties. Guess that works on most girls. It was broad daylight, so I wasn’t worried, but I still had my right hand balled up into a fist in my pocket with my car keys protruding from the gaps between my fingers just. in. case… I wanted to inspect the car, anyway (hunting for clues and such), before I let him down easy with a bullshit lie that I had another lesson in the next prefecture over, and I had to leave right way. He looked so forlorn that his little scheme was foiled once more, but, naturally, just before I left he made sure to tell me he still wants me to model. That’s nice. I’ll be watching you, kid.

Fridays are the new Mondays

I guess that takes us right up to today with the Hockey Rehab highlight reel, and so this shall be my last rant of this post. YAY! And give yourself a pat on the back, if you made it this far!

I. Hate. Fridays. Fridays are my elementary school days, and it’s the one exhausting, pointless, shitty teaching assignment that stands between me and the weekend EVERY week. I have seven, that’s right, SEVEN elementary schools, and I dread visiting all of them. I don’t have a desk, which makes me especially cranky during the NHL Playoffs, as I don’t have Game Centre access. Of my seven elementary schools only two have non-squatter toilets. It’s one thing to squat and piss when you’re running around China in yoga pants, but it’s quite another to pull that off while wearing a suit. I just know there will be some horribly embarrassing incident one day, so I’m too afraid to try and pull it off, and with the amount of coffee I send through my system that’s a problem. By the time I get out of there, my bladder is literally seconds away from bursting. Aside from down time boredom, and scary bathrooms, elementary school isn’t THAT bad, but there is one school that I absolutely LOATHE, and it just so happens that I had that school today.

After running on no sleep for weeks, it was really hard getting out of bed today. The school greeted me with a 4 oz teacup of coffee that was only filled half way. Yeah, that barely got me through first period. You have to be super genki when you go to ES because you know your visit is the fucking highlight of the kids‘ week, and it makes me feel bad when I think about how much I dread my visit with them knowing how much they look forward to their visit with me. Anyway, the Vice Principal of this school drives me up the wall, and he just makes me progressively crabbier as the day goes on. I can’t even handle being fake nice to him – not that I’m good at being fake to begin with.

He spends the whole day trying to make stupid conversation with me even though he doesn’t have a single word of English (English not being part of the teacher’s licencing exam in Japan for ES – it is for junior high, though, and thank Christ), and he has no concept (like most people here) of how to communicate with non-Japanese speakers. Sometimes he just communicates with a series of retarded gestures, yes, I said, retarded. Deal with it. The Japanese culture comes off as practically gesture-free compared with Western culture. They have some, but not nearly as many as us. Speaking of gestures. One that drives me nuts here is their gesture for “come here.” It’s totally backwards. Their gesture for “come here” is what our gesture is when we rudely dismiss or shoo someone away. Yeah… I still instinctively walk away when they do that to me. But back to my loathsome VP.

In his defense I should say that the fact that he even thinks to communicate with gesturing is a rare thing here. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Today, at one point, he puts a hand up to his mouth and starts moving it like he was imitating someone who was speaking. Apparently what I was supposed to take from this was that there was a free desk I could use on the other side of the room. What. The. Fuck?! I’m not sure which was worse; that one, or the time he came up to me and put both hands on his face like fucking McCauley Culkin in Home Alone, and then moved his head from side to side. Still don’t know what that one was about, but he’s insufferable – I know that much.

Why can’t everyday be a junior high school day, where I can hide in the teachers’ room and keep tabs on the playoff games? Life isn’t fair. Mind you I did score some prime real estate this year. I’m right next to the window, and no one can see what I’m doing heh heh heh… That is when I’m not opening up embarrassing birthday gifts from my mother.

Yeah, my mother, in true Taurus fashion, sent me my birthday present weeks in advance, but due to my aforementioned late night work schedule, I missed the delivery and had it redirected to my school. The package was on my desk Thursday morning. I had asked for some sort of learning aid for Japanese, since I don’t have time in my busy schedule to take formal classes. She sent me a book and 2 CD lesson plan. When the other teachers saw this it was a huge deal, not because I was making more of an effort, but rather because they thought it was hilarious that someone would need to “learn” Japanese – you either spoke it naturally, or you’re just an idiot. So I had a bit of an audience when I started breaking into the box. My mother, the expert packer that she is, had actually managed to shove other things into my Japanese Lessons box. Inside were some Godiva chocolate, some pearl earrings, and no less than 5 of the frilliest, laciest, skankiest thongs and panties that any of the people in that room had ever seen. Suddenly I heard, “Euuuhhh LINGERIE!! LINGERIE!” Really? I ask what time it is and you don’t know what I’m saying, but you know THAT word? God… And if that wasn’t bad enough, my mother just HAD to buy me the obnoxious birthday card with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun playing at 11 when you open it. “Blahblahblah CYNDI RAUPER?! blahblahblah.”

Somewhere on the Eastern shore of Japan You know it must be the offseason in Canada when sports media turns its attention away from the American NHL clubs that are still in Stanley Cup contention, and start focusing on the non-news surrounding the game. This week their focus seems to be, once again, on the over-privileged and tanorexic looking Paulina Gretzky.

If her father wasn’t the greatest hockey player to ever live, you’d probably take very little notice of Paulina. She’s a carbon copy of all the other fake tanned, eating disordered, big sunglasses wearing, bratty, stick insects that are running around L.A. these days. You know, the people that make a living off of being grossly underweight? Oh wait, what am I talking about? Of course you don’t know! You’ve been brainwashed into believing anorexics are actually what passes as “healthy” and signifies a “girl that takes care of herself,” and who wouldn’t want that, right? *Vomits (in a non-bulimic way)*

Don’t get me started on that… I have issues with it. A girl I knew in high school lost nearly 100 lbs from literally NOT EATING A THING. All her hair fell out, and she even attempted suicide. Eventually, over years, she became obsessed with her body, and took it perhaps too far, and started down the “body building” path (food slowly and moderately being reintroduced into her diet). Years later I saw her in an ad for diet pills. There was the picture of her at 215 lbs (at age 14, though the ad claimed it was from a year ago) and the picture of her at 125 lbs, and a whole little heartfelt story about how the pills changed her life, as she was the fat kid in our school that had skinny popular girls (bulimic as they later confessed) running around in our Catholic school girl uniforms, and this made her soooo sad. Then after just 6 months of taking these magical pills, she was down to 125 lbs without lifting a finger! LIES! Umm, NO, idiot, you starved yourself, and nearly died. I have never felt such moral outrage in my entire life. She became some self-obsessed bimbo that wanted to cash in on the misery of women who are just like she was at her heaviest, by giving them false hope that they, too, can lose 90 lbs if they just keep popping these magical and super expensive pills. I don’t TOTALLY blame her, of course. I blame society, and all the men of questionable heterosexuality that give life to today’s standard of fat free and curve-less, mannish beauty.

But back to Paulina. Miss Gretzky has found herself in hot water with Daddy Gretzky again over posting “racy” photos of herself on the internet (Instagram) even after Papa specifically told her not to, and banned her from using Twitter. I don’t know about you, but if I was to care enough to analyze this for more than half a second, I might think there were some issues at home. So, let’s do that shall we?

I recently watched the film We Need to Talk About Kevin, and I am now reading the book. The story is a mother’s account of how she is dealing with the consequences after her son facilitated a Columbine-esque high school mass murder. The mother essentially believed that her son, Kevin, was evil from birth, and questions if her inability to love him was the underlying reason he grew to be a killer. So let’s look at Paulina in a similar light. Daddy asked you once to tone down your ridiculousness, and keep the Gretzky brand as pristine as the old time NHL image USED to be in the days before NHL clubs overpaid hockey players who are more interested in shopping, meeting celebrities, and screwing the aforementioned tanorexic models, than actually improving their on ice presence. So, if Daddy said no, you have to wonder why Paulina suddenly slapped him in the face with more outrageous public images of her bikini clad stick bug frame. What’s that? Daddy said, “No” to you? Daddy wouldn’t buy you a new Lamborghini because you’ve barely touched the Lamborghini he bought you last year? “But DADDDDDY I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaant it!” Poor thing. It must be hard being Paulina. She sure got him back though, didn’t she? Expect a Paulina Gretzky sex tape sometime in the immediate future, likely after Wayne refuses to buy her the island rumoured to be overrun with unicorns.

Of course, I can’t close this post without commenting on Wayne’s stand on all of this. Should he be such a hard ass about his daughter posting bikini shots online? Maybe not. But clearly it’s unsettling to him and his precious reputation. What did he think was going to happen? His WIFE was in Playboy for God’s sake! Did he really think her offspring was going to be a nun? Let that be a lesson to all you hockey players out there. Marry the skanky “model” with the nude pics and the sex tape, but be prepared for how your potential daughters turn out, because let’s face it, most of you are FAR from saintly.

Warning: Do NOT read this post if you are narrow minded and/or easily disturbed.

My story doesn’t begin on a dark and stormy night, but rather a bright and sunny summer’s day in July of 2006. The past 3 years of my life had been an ongoing nightmare. My body had been terrorized by a physical ailment that had about a million doctors and specialists scratching their heads. All my tests and X-rays had indicated that I was healthy, but this problem, whatever it was, was able to manifest in a visual and tangible capacity, so I had a constant daily reminder that something was wrong with me, even though no one knew what was happening. “Once again, your tests have all come back negative, so I really don’t know what is going on here since I can plainly see that there is obviously something happening to you,” seemed to be the theme song to my bi-weekly doctor visits. It got to the point that I just decided that this must have been what normal was for me. That I would be that way my entire life, and I’d just have to learn to get used to it. Then one fateful day, my life changed.

Back during my Maple Leaf Sports days I was lucky enough to go out once in a while and assist the promo crew with some of their summer events. I loved doing this because it gave me the opportunity to talk hockey with a bunch of strangers all day long. One weekend I was paired up with a promo girl living in the town where our booth was to be set up. We got along really well, and I ended up hanging out at her place later that night. I didn’t know this at the time, but her mother was a spiritual healer, and her mother noticed something strange about me right away. A few days later the girl contacted me and told me that her mother had seen a dark figure looming around me, and it just happened to be concentrated in the general vicinity of my phantom health problems (that were not visible to others if my clothes were on, by the way). This obviously got my attention, so I wanted to know what I could do about it. Her mother recommended that I see her mentor, a powerful shaman that comes to visit once or twice a year to help her fine tune her skills, and heal some of her clients.

Now I consider myself to be fairly open minded with the paranormal stuff. I believe that some people possess extremely high intuitions, and I’ve been to too many haunted places not to know that there is something out there, but I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about spiritual healers. Up until that point I believed that doctors healed you, not some Birkenstock loving witchdoctor with an arsenal full of crystals. That being said, I was kind of at the end of my rope, so I figured I had nothing to lose, and resigned myself to a visit with the shaman when he came to visit that November.

If anything I figured my visit to a real shaman would be a life experience, so I was interested to see what was going to happen, although I remained skeptical to a fault. Even after everything went down, I still wasn’t sure if I believed it. Anyway, months after my co-worker’s mother had seen my dark mass, I met the shaman face to face for the very first time. His eyes immediately fell to my concealed “trouble zone,” and he said matter-of-factly that a “demon” had set up shop there, and that I needed an “exorcism.” I remember thinking, “Yeah right! Demons? Exorcisms? I’ve seen The Exorcist, and I’m definitely not going all Linda Blair.” Hollywood exorcisms are all a lot of us have to go on, but after this night I would start to hear many other stories of people whose personal exorcism experiences were a lot like mine.

Before the ritual could begin I had to lay on a table covered in vibrant coloured cloths, and that’s when something really bizarre happened. As soon as my head touched the table the room immediately started spinning. The ritual began as the shaman started chanting while he blew sage smoke over me. I could feel myself spinning faster and faster even though I had shut my eyes long before. Then I started to hear really strange noises, as the shaman appeared to be struggling with something he was pulling out of me. With a mighty yank he eventually succeeded in his mission, and the room coincidentally stopped spinning.

After the ritual he recounted to me a story of my own life, and an affair with a hockey player that I refer to on this site as The Evil One. He named this individual by name, which actually shocked me, as he’d have no way of knowing about any of this prior to meeting me. He was never clear about whether this person was the cause of my problems, or that he simply made me vulnerable to an “other worldly attack,” but I do know that to this day none of my friends can even stomach to look at his roster picture let alone watch him play. “There’s something scary about him, I don’t know what it is.” Yeah, that scariness is probably what attracted me in the first place – I am a psycho, right?

The shaman warned me that, although the demon was gone, it would now have a personal vendetta against me, and would do all that it could to find a way back to me. He warned me against the ills of drinking establishments (a hunting ground for demons apparently), preoccupations with supernatural things like horror movies, and things of a violent nature – specifically hockey. I asked, of course, and you can see how well I listened to that one. Anyway, despite the fact that he seemed to be quite psychic, I still thought the whole exorcism thing was bullshit. It wasn’t until I got home, and checked in on my physical ailment, only to discover that it had vanished, that I started to rethink the whole skepticism. That’s right. It didn’t disappear a few days, weeks, or months after my shaman visit, it disappeared instantly – never to return.

Even after this discovery I still wasn’t totally convinced. If anything I was more confused about what the Hell had actually happened to me. This definitely wasn’t a psychological healing, meaning I didn’t believe that a new age healer could do shit for me, so it wasn’t the power of my mind fixing me or anything. The exorcism and instantaneous healing just became an aspect of my life that couldn’t be explained, and I left it in the unsolved mysteries pile for another two years…

Fast track to the summer of 2008. I was taking a few summer classes at the University of Toronto, and one of my classmates and I became quite good friends. Near the end of our Contemporary British Fiction course, we discovered that there were a couple ghost walks in downtown Toronto, and decided to take them once our exams were over. I remember that night like it was yesterday.

The summer heat had begun to dwindle, and I had opted to wear my sparkly Flyers shirt, as the evening was sure to bring some chills with it. I know this because I remember several random men on the streets of the Annex giving me shit for wearing it. Anyway, the tour guide seemed to like our enthusiasm a lot, and asked us if we would be willing to lead additional tours in October, as he tended to get a big Halloween crowd, and would usually have to turn people away. Naturally, we jumped at the chance to lead a tour. I still think being a tour guide would be a really fun job. Anyway, as part of our training, we were asked to join his tours (for free) so we could become more familiar with all the spooky tales featured all over the downtown core. That’s when things got weird.

There was this building on the tour that was really, really haunted. So haunted, in fact, that you could plainly see ghostly things happening inside there through the windows. It made me feel physically ill. Oh yeah, by the way, I tend to get migraines and nausea around supernatural things. You may remember me getting a private tour of the Stanley Hotel when I was in Colorado for my first Avs game in 2009, because the ghost walk manager wanted to see if I would be able to tell him where the high activity regions of the building were, as he suspected I was an empath – I could, by the way. Anyway, as we began to go on the walk more and more, that haunted place in Toronto started making me sicker, and sicker, it was to the point that I couldn’t even stand on the property during that part of the tour. Then one night after the tour, I was shocked and dismayed to discover that my little health problem, the one that had been exorcised away, had returned to haunt me. I also seemed to be attracting strange people to me that had their own demons. I remember seeing a former classmate of mine that I hadn’t seen since first year. I looked at him and I could see there was something wrong. He had the darkest circles under his eyes I had ever seen in my life. He then started to tell me about how he kept having these recurring dreams about seeing his dead corpse lying (or hanging) next to him. It was really disturbing imagery he used, and I started to suspect I had perhaps fallen into some bad energy, which may have prompted our sudden reunion. However, it was actually my friend, and ghost tour partner, that really convinced me of this.

One night I got a frantic phone call from her…

Her: Were you just fucking with me online?

Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about! What happened?

She then began regaling me with the bizarre and disturbing events that had just plagued her. She had been minding her own business on MSN when a new friend request popped up from one “Diavolo XeS” (Devil in Italian and 666 in Greek). For some reason she decided to accept the request, and she was immediately bombarded with messages from the new user in Latin of all things. She was translating what he was saying to her online, and it was something to the effect of, “Prepare for my coming.” She, obviously, thought this was a joke and kept laughing in her, “Ha-Ha very funny” kind of way, but then things began to take a turn, as the messages became more and more disturbing, “Take care not to mock me or you will pay dearly when I arrive.”

Now my friend claimed to be an Atheist, but really she was more of an Nihilist. She believed in (and feared) a prince of darkness, but not a master of the light, and demonic possession was something she had been terrified of her entire life. I once showed her a picture of my evil hockey player and she absolutely FREAKED OUT. Anyway, after Diavolo began to successfully scare her, he sent her a file followed by the Latin translation of:

PLAY THE SONG

PLAY THE SONG

Obviously, she declined to accept the file transfer, and quickly blocked him. However, Diavolo wasn’t finished with her, and she received an email from him shortly thereafter with the file attached once more, and PLAY THE SONG (in Latin) in the subject line. This time she (stupidly) decided to open the file from her anonymous online bully, and what was there scared the shit out of her.

Diavolo had sent her the file of INXS’s Devil Inside. I know this doesn’t sound like much to you, but what you don’t know is that, since my friend had such a deep fear of demonic possession, she actually had an irrational fear of this specific song since she was a little girl. Not many people knew that about her, not even me, but she had already made calls to the few people that did – her sister, parents, a couple close friends, and, again, none of them knew what she was talking about it.

I told her to give me the guy’s email address and I’d work my magic to get to the bottom of it – don’t worry about how I did it! Anyway, I came back to her about 15 minutes later. I had discovered that this was an American guy who was a member of a black metal band in Italy. One of her friends was dating an RCMP officer and he, too, had been looking into it, and he was able to confirm (via IP address) what I had found. So now we knew that this Diavolo wasn’t anyone who knew her personally, and there should have been no way that he could have known of her aversion to INXS – I mean it’s not like a lot of people are scared of INXS, right? And if anything his own music would have been much more unsettling to most people – I should know, I listened to it! We were dumbfounded. As one of my metalhead friends, and former Atheist turned believer after he, too, witnessed an exorcism said, “The thing about those black metal bands in Europe is that a lot of them really ARE Satanists! They don’t just talk the talk, so perhaps something ELSE had contacted her through him.”

The whole thing was a bit disturbing, and her and I had a serious discussion about our future with the ghost tour. She said that this reminded her of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I hadn’t seen the movie at the time, and frankly, I think it’s pretty shitty, but anyway… She told me that strange things began happening to the lawyer in the movie because she was helping make the world aware of the demon (or demons rather). She thought that maybe things were happening to us because we were now getting involved with making the fine citizens and tourists of Toronto aware of what was lurking in the dark. (Hmm… Wonder what will happen to me when I press the publish button on this post). We knew we sounded bat-shit insane, and I can only imagine the look on the tour guide’s face when he read our reason for having to decline his offer to lead his Halloween tours, but I do know that my friend was never sent another evil INXS song via email again, and, once again, my demonic disease vanished into thin air.

If anything our bizarre ghost tour experience made me start to think about the warnings the shaman had given me two years earlier. Was I walking around with a giant target on my back that my demon (or other demons) was constantly aiming for? Were they waiting for the perfect moment when I was weakened by enough fear, or anger, or despair, so that they could strike? Have they already struck? Maybe I should have stayed away from hockey.

Just over a year after this some other bizarre events happened. After my trip to the Stanley Hotel and subsequent game at Pepsi Center, an incident at the game in Denver (with yet another hockey player, and former teammate of The Evil One, I might add) threw me into an absolute MURDEROUS rage (and I still feel quite murderous and blood thirsty about it, I might add – fucking pussy!). Anyway, I was successfully put into a bad place emotionally, and I definitely kept getting progressively worse until Valentine’s Day.

My family was in Florida on vacation, and I was not. It was just me and a little orange cat on Valentine’s Day, and if that wasn’t depressing enough, I decided to spend the weekend eating pizza, drinking a vat of Corona and orange juice, and watching 4 and a half seasons of the uberstudly show Supernatural (I had never watched it before that weekend). Anyway, once I got to the (then) current episodes of season 5, a feat I accomplished in a straight 96 hour marathon, I started seeing things. I could see these dark figures out of the corner of my eye, but of course whenever I looked straight at them, they vanished. I figured I had been watching too much TV, and that my vision must have been going a little wonky, but the figures, which appeared to be more solid than mere shadows, kept crawling closer and closer the longer I wouldn’t look directly at them. Finally I was sufficiently disturbed, and decided it was probably a good idea to call it a night, when, all at once, the cupboards and drawers began to open and shut violently. In another second I was standing with the remote control in hand. I shut off the TV, and walked, head down, back to my bedroom, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t sleep that night due to the sounds of constant scratching in my walls. I couldn’t help but think that I had finally gone certifiably insane.

Not long after that I moved to Korea, but it appeared as though I wasn’t safe there either. On my first night I was tormented by an extremely disturbing dream not unlike that of my former classmate that I had met during the ghost tour era. A little girl, who couldn’t have been more than five, stood next to my bed, and started to tell me about how a bad man had assaulted and killed her with the innocent words that a five year old would choose. She said he had slit her throat with a razor, and then she disappeared. In my dream I then arose and headed for my bathroom where her little body laid in a bloody heap on the floor. I woke up quite disturbed that I had had such a dream, but disturbed quickly became horrified when I pulled off my covers and found a straight razor in my sheets. I didn’t own any razors, so I had no idea how it got there.

Yep, I knew I must have been insane, but I quickly stuck the crucifix I got for my christening as a baby on the wall over my bed, and hoped for better nights ahead. Obviously, in the next few months I ended up getting sick. What you don’t know is that my C-word scare was also in the same area as my demonic disease from 7 years earlier. Unlike the demonic disease where I was having tangible symptoms, but negative test results, I was now having no visible symptoms, but positive test results, which left the doctors equally confused. Now you could say that maybe the fact that I got sick in Korea was proof that I was always sick, and that whatever happened during my “exorcism,” was just bullshit smoke and mirrors, or maybe you will think of it as proof that the “demon” finally found a way back in due to more encounters with those damn hockey players! I really don’t know what I believe, but I will say that I seem to be living supernatural free here in Japan.

Like I said, I don’t really know what I believe. I am crazy after all. Anyway, I thought I’d share my story with you, so that some of you can have a non-Hollywood idea of what really happens during an exorcism. After my exorcism I ended up studying Reiki. I now have my Level II certification. Reiki is all about energy healing, and this energy healing started to make me rethink the whole angels and demons thing. In Reiki you learn about energy blockages, and I have almost convinced myself that all these years that’s what I was suffering from. However, I often think about that night with the shaman, after he told me about The Evil One, and how I need to stay away from hockey. Basically since I thought the whole thing was bullshit, I started asking sarcastic questions about the demon itself, “Yeah so what did it look like?” He told me my face reminded him of it, and that it wore an earring. I remember hearing that and being really put off. It was one thing to try to accept the fact that “demons” existed, but the notion that they existed on a plain that had piercing boutiques just creeped me out. I drove home that night and for the first time the world looked totally different to me. I could see the wind blow through the trees and I started to wonder if another force existed in that invisible space between the breeze and the swaying branches.

As for my Evil hockey player, I remember an incident that had happened just before this whole crazy business began. I was at my parents’ house that weekend. Even though I had moved out the summer before, my mother always remarked about how she could still hear me walking around in my room even though I was living in Toronto. Anyway, that weekend a friend of mine had come over for a girls’ night. Now this girl is one of the most psychic people I have ever met, she’d probably scare you if she met you. Anyway, she had brought her tarot cards over, and naturally, as young girls do, we only wanted to talk about about boys. At that time I had already started getting involved with The Evil One, whom many of you reading this know and love – blahh, so obviously I needed to know all about our budding romance. My friend smiled as she pulled the Knight of Cups from the deck, “Oooh he LOVES you!” she squealed. Suddenly her gaze shifted to the top of the landing, and her smile quickly faded. “There’s a dark figure watching us at the top of the stairs,” she said, “It seems to be drawn to you.”