Yup, we got Bushwhacked the past couple of days.  In “honor” of the October 23, 1956 revolution against Soviet control by students and citizens in Budapest, Dubya made an in-and-out appearance, stopping the world wherever he touched down.  The city was on complete and utter lockdown.  Major arteries, subway lines, even the airport was all completely blocked off for his arrival and departure, which, by the way, included some 1500 additional tag-alongs, including security, press corps and aides.

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In another saga of jobs vanishing into thin air, I recently learned that the new CEO at BBJ was “cleaning up” the employment status of basically everyone, and that meant that me and the other semi-legals (a.k.a. foreigners) were getting the boot.  We still haven’t gotten paid for the past two months, and now our nights mostly consist of training our replacements.  As I told E last night, I’m really getting a feeling for how immigrants and non-native-language speaking workers in the United States must feel, with the obvious exception that they are usually both under-educated and darker-skinned, meaning they have a lot more working against them than just law-abiding businessmen looking to avoid employee taxes by not offering us contracts.  At this rate, I’ll be out on the corner selling my body and soul to any chum that comes around, also known as teaching English lessons.

If you’re interested, here’s one of the last issues I worked on, in PDF format.  If you find any typos, I don’t want to know about them.

My kindergarten days are over, at least for this year.  Summer vacation at Nakayoshi has begun.  Funny that I didn’t learn we were in the “school” season until my last day.  Ah yes, the intensity of Japanese life begins the day we are born.  Here are a few last pics.

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I’ve posted about this place before, but I think it needs it’s own formal introduction and appreciation.  Basically, this is the coolest bar/art center/performance space/abandoned building I have ever been to. 

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Jaj, where have I been!  I keep checking this blog every day and no new posts.  Well, here’s the first of a bunch of updates.

I guess first off is my June trip to

a part of Romania that my Hungarian friends all Hungarians never cease to remind me was once a part of dear old Hungary.  The history is a bit complicated.  Basically Hungary was on the wrong side in WWI, got 2/3 of the land area (and some 6 million Hungarians) amputated and annexed by surrounding countries (Czech & Slovak Republics, Austria, Romania and parts of the former Yugoslavia) during the Treaty of Versailles Trianon.  These areas were returned in the 30’s shakeup of Eastern Europe due to Soviet and Nazi power grabs, but finally after WWII they were re-amputated and mostly sucked into the vaccuum of the U.S.S.R.  We’ll come back to a little more history in the post on the visit of our dear leader.

The photographs for this post are available for viewing here

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