In Canada, if someone had come up to me in the morning, pointed in my direction and bellowed "my car" in a questing tone, it would have made me wonder. "Yes? What about your car? Is it shiny and black, or do you have a mild form of turrets?" Here, it's par for the course.

There's this old man whose job it is to talk really loud, go for long walks and surf the Internet. Since I moved, he's become consumed by how I get to work. Did I take the train? Did I drive? Did I flap my arms and fly? It's endlessly fascinating.

He always asks if I took the train using Japanese, reserving his stellar English skills for automotive inquiries. "My car", roughly translated, means, "Did you drive your car this morning?" Having hollered "My car?" loud enough for everyone in the office to hear, he goes back to his computer and brags about how he was speakin' Engrish to the foreigner. Omedetou, old man, omedetou.

Most people are like this. Rather than speak clear, slow Japanese, they speak this pigdin that no one except ALTs living in the mountains of Shikoku can understand. Then, when they have discovered "where live?" and "Japanese food OK?" they return to their friends, proud as pie that they were speakin' Engrish. Never mind that the entire conversation was in Japanese, save three words they learned in junior high school and a catch phrase they got from TV.

Speaking of catch phrases, "hexagon" is currently all the rage in my schools. Even stranger, it's hilarious.

Man oh man, am I turning wierd.