A Winter Vacation

As the end of this semester approached, I found a lot of Japanese people asking me if I would go home for Christmas. It seems like the logical thing to do and in all likelihood, this will be the last Christmas I spend so far from family for a good while. Christmas season is just not the same without.

But that said, I should mention what I am doing. What could possobly have led me to decide not to go home? Well, the answer is:proximity to southeast Asia. I'm not sure why but the call of Thailand and scuba diving and exploring a new part of the world has been growing for some time, so when Krista and Mary mentioned they wanted to do such a trip,I as more than ready.

Unfortunately,Mary wound up in the hospital(a flare-up of a previously existing condition) and had to cancel. So its been just me and Krista making our way. I'll write more soon,but for now I'll just say that I have had some amazing experiences so far and a surprising number of de ja vous moments!

End of the Shit Saga

At long last!!! I have a license!!! Since my car accident, I had had in my possession a cursed can of black coffee. This can had been in my car, ready for me to drink whenever I felt too sleepy on the road. I neglected to drink that coffee, and crashed as a result of sleepiness! Irony! So the coffee survived the crash and sat in my fridge, and it was suggested that only when that coffee was drunk would I be rid of my curse. So I drank it. AND EVERYTHING WORKED OUT! Almost miraculously, I might add!

1) The letter my boss wrote must have been enough. They didn't even ask us about it. They just accepted all the paperwork as it was.

2) The paper test was no problem. (It's usually not, but knowing my luck, I was worried nonetheless). It was 10 true/false questions, with picture illustrations, and translated into only slightly awkward English.

3) I passed the practical driving test on the 2nd try! Most foreigners I've talked to who have taken the test have had to take it 3 times. Sometimes even 5 times. I did it in two! Came in Wednesday, had license on Friday.

4) My boss was thankful to have a relaxing day away from the office. She took me out to lunch both days, telling me to just worry about the cost of the test.

5) The VERY NEXT DAY it started raining (tail end of a typhoon). If I hadn't gotten my license, I would have been biking to my elementary schools for their Sports Days. The next Tuesday was rainy as well, when I might have had to bike to work again. The whole 3 weeks that I biked to school, the weather was perfect! Maybe a little hot, but fortunately dry.

How lucky was that?! That coffee really was cursed, I guess.

While the car accident was a rather unfortunate event in and of itself, it just so happened to lead to a number of happier things. For one thing, my social life didn't disappear. Rather, asking for help and favors from others led to some happy times. I asked a fellow teacher for some help gift-shopping, and she ended up taking me out with her family for the day!

But perhaps the biggest plus to come out of it was Yusuke. My appointment with the license center was about one week after my accident, on a Thursday. It just so happened that he was off work that day, so I asked him for a ride. I could have asked my boss - it would have been considered part of her work day, but I didn't want to bother her so much, since she'd been handling my car accident paperwork. Besides, Yusuke was a good friend, and I felt I needed a friend to help me face trying to get a license one week after totaling my car.

So he went with me, and witnessed the first stage of the License Fiasco. He did his best to translate for me, then he listened patiently while I ranted for half an hour. We grabbed lunch, and the next day he called to offer to give me a ride to the license center again if I needed it, offering to take a day off work if necessary. That was the sign of affection I needed. The next time I saw him, about two weeks later, I asked him out, and we've been together since.

You've probably guessed by now that Yusuke is Japanese. He is 26. He drives a motorcycle. He works with pigs (big agricultural area around here). He smokes and dyes his hair. He plays the guitar. He loves karaoke. And every day that he spends with me, he becomes less Japanese. His English is quite good, due to his hanging out with foreigners the past 3 years. But like me, he understands far more than he is comfortable speaking, so I often speak in English and he in Japanese, but it works out just fine.

Are you surprised? Yea, me too. On paper, he doesn't sound like my type. But everyone who knows him well agrees: his outer appearance does not match his personality. Suffice to say that we get along really well and that I'm lucky to have him.

A Black Hole

So I realize that I've been a little AWOL on this blog, and there's a reason for that. Whether it was the Evil Eye, a debt to Karma, or just plain Bad Luck, I've just been having a soul-crushingly awful summer. So much so that I didn't want to relive it be blogging about it, even though the act of writing about it may have been a cathartic experience. So the blog sort of has this Black Hole in it, starting right around the time of my car accident. Allow me to put things into perspective.

In my head, I have this impression that this ought to be a blog about my encounters with Japanese culture, and therefore be a more Japan-and-Rebeca centric blog. But it's not really about Japan, is it? It's about me being in Japan, living in Japan. It has definitely taken a few odd turns, my life in Japan, that are largely unrelated to Japanese culture and more to do with bad luck. But I will talk about them now because dealing with these things in Japan has been quite the [frustrating] experience.

This summer has been full of really wonderful, fun, thrilling, exciting, happy things as well. But every day that I stopped to have some fun felt like a brief pause before returning to the doom and gloom of Things as Usual. Kinda like a big field of crap punctuated by the occasional bouquet of flowers. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous, but it's hard to ignore all the crap on the ground.

On June 26th, I fell asleep behind the wheel and crashed my car into a tree at 3 am. My friend and I emerged uninjured, about 10 minutes away from my house, and the car wasn't going anywhere. A very kind Japanese guy stopped to help us out. It was lightly raining and Kudo san was nice enough to call and talk to the police for us, and even stayed to help during the whole 2 hour process of towing the car and talking to the police. The really nice thing about not being able to speak the language is that I barely had to do a thing. I signed a paper here and there, I paid the bill, and I had to hang my head in shame, but all the paperwork was taken care of for me. It's like being a kid again.

The repairs on my car would have cost more than I originally paid for the car, so I decided to junk it and find another one. Fortunately, a lot of other JETs were selling their cars for cheap because they would be leaving Japan in August. I made an offer on one, but the guy needed it to move his stuff through the end of July. Meanwhile, I scraped by, renting a car for two weeks, borrowing the office car for work, and going to Europe for two weeks. I managed, and when I got back, I had a car of my own.

However, my international driver's permit expired in July. So in July I had a license, but no car. In August, I had a car but no license. This was not my plan, obviously. I had gone to the driving license center in June to apply to get my Texas license converted to a Japanese license. But there was a hitch. If you are a patient person willing to hear my paperwork woes, I will detail them below. However, you can also imagine that field of crap as it might have been in the beginning - just a small pile perhaps. Now if you imagine it growing bigger and more putrid and more idiotic every day for a month: that's exactly what this whole license-obtaining process has been like. So now you don't even have to read the description below :D

It's still like that today, in fact! I remain unlicensed and this is why. In April, I renewed my Texas license online, because it would expire in October and within 1 year of expiration, you are allowed to renew your license online, if you went in person the last time. So I did this, thinking it would be a good idea to be preemptive.  I had this license mailed to my Texas address. It never arrived. This was the start of all my woes. Had I not done this, I might have been licensed ages ago. Meanwhile, I was putting together my paperwork to obtain a Japanese driver license. I obtained a copy of my driver record (which, by the way, is called a Status Record, in order to further confuse us all) that showed how long I had been licensed. I needed to show that I had been licensed for at least 3 months before I came to Japan, and that I had been living in the U.S. for that much time. But the license I had in my wallet showed was issued one month before I came to Japan - it was a replacement for the license I lost over spring break. But the driver record also showed that my most recent license was issued on April 9, 2011 and would expire in October, 2017. That's right - it showed the data for my renewed license lost somewhere in Texas. For Japanese officials trying to verify my status as a licensed driver, I can understand why this was confusing. So I thought, "OK, no problem. All I have to do is get my license shipped again." So I called the Texas Department of Public Safety at 11pm on a weeknight, or 9am on a weekday in Texas, was put on hold for 30 minutes, then managed to explain my situation. They said they would mail my license to Japan, probably a 4 week wait, but if I wanted it shipped faster, I would have to set up a FedEx account and they would charge me through that. So I tried to do it online. FedEx Japan would only accept a Japanese credit card. Didn't have one. FedEx in the U.S. needed a credit card with an American address - my credit card showed my Japanese address. I finally found a different credit card that worked and called DPS only to find that my license was already being shipped. That was around July 15. I went to Europe and came back hoping to find my license in my mailbox. It was August 6th and it had not arrived. So I called them and asked them to reprint and resend my license, this time by FedEx. It arrived 4 days later, and cost me $75. I didn't care, I just wanted to finish this. But would you believe...the dates on this Shiny, New, Up-to-Date license did not match my status record. The record still shows, to this day, the renewal issue date of April 9, while the license I received shows an August 5 issue date (the expiration date is the same though). Mothereffingsonofa$#*%# So I asked my boss to call the license center and explain things and see if this was ok. It's not really ok, but they might accept a letter of explanation. Maybe. IN ADDITION, they have a problem with my original license issue date. In May, 2003 I qualified for a license - I had passed both the written and practical tests. However, I was only 15 years old on that date, and on the questionnaire I was given at the Japanese license center, I told them that I held a driving permit, or a restricted license, until I was 16 years old, when I received a real license. Now the center needs proof that I was given a real license when I turned 16, a process that is automatic and proof of which I have no idea how to obtain. My appointment to go to the center is next Wednesday, September 14. I have no idea how this will turn out. This is a most unfortunate turn of events. You can see that if just one of many things were different, none of this would have happened. If I had saved my old licenses (from when I was 16 onward); if I hadn't lost my license over spring break; if I hadn't renewed my license in April, if that license hadn't been lost in the mail. All these ifs. All these tiny circumstances that could have prevented all, or half of this. It's a perfect storm of bureaucratic insidiousness. And I just want it to finish already.

Meanwhile, my computer and kindle have both broken and been fixed. I've had several unhappy mix-ups with the post office along the way, though, trying to use Amazon's postage to return the broken kindle. They also seemed to have some problem with a money transfer, so I may have some more things to figure out.

But as crappy as all this has been, I have managed to get a boyfriend out of all of this. But he deserves his own entry, so I'll save the details for next time.

Origami Convention in Tokyo

How can I describe how incredibly awesome it was to be surrounded by many of the worlds BEST origami artists for nearly two days? When I arrived at Tokyo University ready to sign in for the convention, bumbling about asking for help in my jarbled Japanglish, little did I realize that virtually every volunteer I spoke to was an origami genius. I noticed a lot of children present, and assumed that the more complex models would be out of their reach, little knowing that many of them could fold cleaner, faster, and more-complicated models than I could hope to achieve.

When I finally had my bearings, I noticed a group of foreigners in one corner of the auditorium, and recognized a few of them from the MIT origami meetings I'd been to. Yep, you heard right. Since Harvard lacked it's own origami club, when I heard that MIT had one I made an effort to go to several meetings my senior year. Here's their website, in case you're curious. I had hoped I might see some of them there. So I made my way over and joined their group.

Here I am folding with a couple of the MIT girls. In the background, wearing a brown t-shirt with a splash of green, is Robert Lang. It took some control on my part not to run up and ask for his autograph. I did go to his lecture, though.

Let me tell you, doing origami alone and doing origami in company are two vastly different experiences. For one, you can see how other people got started with origami and how they've improved and who influences them. A few people I talked to seemed surprised that I had picked up origami largely on my own, and gotten to where I am now. There are apparently some stereotypes about who folds origami better, and one guy readily admitted that Japanese origami enthusiasts are much better folders on average than Americans. Their folds are neater, they fold faster, and they seem to know their way around a piece of paper just a little better. A model that took 3 hours to teach, with 50% of the class finishing in America, took 2 hours in Japan, with some students finishing in 1 hour. And in Japan, 15 out of 30 or so of these students were under the age of 15. Here's the model they were folding. That's from one square sheet of paper with no cuts. Below is a picture of a miniature version someone folded. It's next to my watch, to give you an idea of dimension.

I thought my polar bear was kinda cute at that size, but the Nazgul was ridiculous. Tiny and incredibly well-done.

So white people in general have a reputation for not being particularly accurate or good folders. So when I met one of the special guests, whose models were being featured at the convention, he assumed I was probably an amateur, ok-ish folder. He told me so later, when I entered his class late (forgot to set my alarm), caught up, and apparently managed to make a much neater model than half of the, mostly, Japanese class. Interesting assumption, great compliment, to have my folds admired by the teacher. I sat next to two Japanese ladies who were also impressed by my folds, though I think one of them was much better than I was. It was nice, because I was able to actually converse a little with them in Japanese!

The two Japanese ladies I was folding with. On the table is the star we were working on. 

One of the most incredible aspects of origami folding, I think, is some artists' ability to manipulate the two-sided nature of the paper, an aspect known as color changing. A classic example of this is a panda made from one square of paper, colored white one side and black on the other. Folding to get the colors in the right place is a tricky thing, although sometimes depending on the position of the paper, it's surprisingly simple. I'm actually a huge fan of well-done color changing.

On the left is a samurai warrior dude. From one sheet of paper, red on one side, white on the other, Brian Chan folded this. His work is phenomenal, and he's one of the Amazing Artists I've met and sort of gawked at in awe of his sheer genius. I mean, look at the sword! That shit takes serious tallent!

Below is a chimpanzee, with nipples no less, folded by Roman Diaz, and Uruguayan origamist who has quite a knack for color changing, in my opinion. Several of his models were on display at the convention .

The weekend flew by! I left the convention early on the second day to catch a flight back to Kumamoto, and now I'm at work once more. The new JETs have arrived and I will meet many of them tonight and tomorrow at orientation. I'm giving a workshop on Learning Japanese, so I'll be giving suggestions to the newcomers on how to approach the Japanese language. I'm presenting with a guy who's Japanese is super advanced, so we make a perfect team. He majored in the Japanese language before he came, and I knew the word "konnichiwa" before I came. That seems like a long time ago...

Acclimation

I've grown accustomed to a lot of things since I came here: speaking less and with more gestures, a check-mark means a wrong answer, bowing, and removing your shoes indoors. I can't even name most of them because I don't think about them anymore. So at times I seem to almost fit in, to have been assimilated into the routine of Japanese life. But ultimately, I'm always reminded of how incredibly foreign I am.

It's always a frustrating moment, when I forget to remove my indoor shoes to enter a room designated as cleaner (the carpeted music room) or dirtier (the bathroom, for which there are special bathroom slippers). When I go out to eat and people do a double take. When every teacher is assigned a task for Sports Day and no one even so much as acknowledges my presence in the matter.

Don't get me wrong - this is part of what fascinates and challenges me. I'm being tested on my ability to understand the language and culture in the most immediate and relevant manner possible on a daily basis. Of course, everyone has their limitations, and I can't be 100% mindful of every situation and its nuances, and I have my own routines and habits that are hard to break, even for the sake of fitting in. What makes this situation particularly challenging is the attitude of the Japanese people. I think there is a strong tendency among Japanese people to see foreigners as "foreign". Even I have that tendency - it's hard to think of someone becoming Japanese in the way someone can become American. But then, America is a land of immigrants and diversity is part of our identity, whereas uniformity seems to be a significant part of the Japanese identity.

This is where working with kids comes in to save the day. Just when I've had enough of this special treatment, treat-you-different, can't-communicate-very-well crap from the adults, the kids swoop in to save the day. Tag, jump rope, soccer, tickling, don't-let-the-ball-touch-you, and look-over-there-so-i-can-take-your-dessert games transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries. Kids don't treat you any different just because you're foreign. Well, they might at first, and they're allowed to because they're still making observations about the world in general, but ultimately they're just gouging how much fun you are. And so kids are my relief from the barriers and boundaries set up by the rest of Japanese society. As much I want to be able to understand everything they say to me, I don't have to. And they're not discouraged by it. It's a win/win situation!

In other news, it's the Rainy Season. As of last week, there will be mostly rain and cloudy skies until mid-July. So far, it hasn't bothered me. I rather like the rain when the weather is warm, but there's no guarantee I won't go crazy after another week of this.

And the fireflies have come out to play! Apparently they only congregate near areas with clean water, so most towns and villages have known spots for sighting them. It seems to be a big deal to the Japanese. I think it's a reverence for nature that is rooted within the culture (consider the nature-based haiku and Shinto-ism, which builds shrines on sites of exceptional natural beauty and the cherry-blossom-viewing tradition). I found out about them from some people at kendo practice. I couldn't understand the word "hotaru" ("firefly") so they began gesturing at their butts. Literally a group of 4 adults and children was dancing around gesturing at their butts, and no one thought to indicate that we were talking about an insect. Needless to say it took several minutes for me to figure this out, during which time I had great fun watching them.  And yes, when I went to see them, they were very pretty indeed.

A Hard-hitter

Early in the year, I offered the students the chance to write me a letter whenever they wanted, and I would reply to them. I got quite a few those first few months, but it's been a while since I got my last letter, so I was surprised when to get one today. The letters have usually been along the lines of "what singers do you like?" or "how many brothers/sisters do you have?" or questions about studying English. So I was understandably surprised when I read this:

Dear Rebeca,
I have questions. I heard Osama bin Laden killed by American on TV. I can't understand why American did it. I think we can't lost demonstration and war even if they killed him. However, many Americans were pleased. Why?? How do you think about him?
I'm interested in international problem now. I'm thinking why are there war and demonstration in the world and what can I do to lost them.

From ~.

Wow. So I found myself writing a letter today explaining the events of 9/11 and our subsequent obsession with Osama bin Laden in as succinct a way as possible. My student is smart, so I didn't limit my English too much in order to give her a challenge. I'm going to include my response here, in part because it's the most critically I've thought about these events so far, and also because maybe some of you have some thoughts on how you would interpret/explain Americans' reactions to bin Laden's death if you were asked.

Dear ~, 

Those are some very interesting and difficult questions. I will do my best to answer them.

Osama bin Laden was America's #1 enemy. He was the leader of a terrorist group called "al Qaeda". On September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacked the United States. They used two airplanes to destroy the World Trade Center Towers. These were two of the tallest buildings in New York City.

More than 2,500 people were killed that day. I remember where I was when it happened. I was 13 years old, in junior high school. I was in the library waiting to give a presentation. At 9:00 AM, the teacher stopped the class and turned on the TV. We all watched the two towers fall. It was a terrible event, similar to the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But this wasn't nature. This was man-made.

After the attack, al Qaeda made a video. In it, Osama bin Laden said he was glad. He said he planned the attack. he said that he hated America. So America has been looking for Osama bin Laden for almost 10 years. When we killed him, Americans were pleased because we were angry with him. 

But you have a good point. It's not right to enjoy killing another person. I think Americans are worried and scared. Osama bin Laden's death is a symbol of hope. It makes us feel strong and in control. But really, we have a lot of problems. It's easier to focus on one evil man than it is to think about all our problems. 

I hope I answered some of your questions. I'm so glad you're asking these questions. It is important to learn about the world. I was your age when I became interested in international problems. 

If you have more questions, you can ask me anytime. You are an amazing student and I hope you will continue to challenge yourself. 

Your friend,

Rebeca

It hardly seems enough. I know I left out a lot of things, and I've probably misspelled something and my memory may be inaccurate on some points. Maybe the letter is too long, or the English too complicated and she will get discouraged. I sincerely hope this isn't the case, though, because this is a critical moment, where a student reaches out to a teacher to explain the world, and I want to provide an answer that is both adequate and accessible. An answer that is simple enough for her to understand, but complicated enough to make her want to ask more questions.

It's tough work, this teaching thing. One minute, it's all fun and games, the next it's asking me to evaluate and explain my world views. One minute I feel unnecessary, and the next, people want me to be in 3 places at once. One minute I'm playing tag and the next I'm on the phone giving someone my t-shirt size. I just re-read my Statement of Purpose that I wrote for my JET application. Not my best work, but still surprisingly relevant. Maybe sometime I'll put that up here. Until then, consider the letters above. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and maybe even your version of the letter. Think about it.

A Day in the Life

We'll start with the one bad thing that happened today, and work our way up to the good things. This also happens to be chronological. First period, the schedule had a mystery block for the 2nd and 3rd graders at the junior high school. I only understood the word "guidance" in the label, so I asked what was going on. I was told that various subjects were offering  a special, or "select" course offering, which 2nd and 3rd grade students could take to learn a bit more about that subject. The subjects offered this year were music, Japanese, industrial arts, and I think home-making. The two English teachers had discussed the option of a "select" English class, maybe showing some movies, doing some fun activities, but neither one had the time for it. And of course, no one bothered to ask me.
This really burns me. I WASN'T EVEN APPROACHED ABOUT THIS CLASS. NO ONE EVEN CONSIDERED MENTIONING IT TO ME, AND I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO DO IT!!!!!! Man. So I had a very indirect, passive aggressive talk with Ms. Nakamura, basically pleading to be told about everything English-related, stressing my language barrier and desire to help. The thing about Ms. Nakamura: she's a great teacher and works very hard, but she's not a team player. And I need her to recognize that I'm part of the team, especially if I'm to do my job well.

But it gets better from here. There was a visiting student today, 15-year-old Joy from Portland, Oregon, whose parents were both born in Japan and whose mother is actually from Nishihara. She spent two days with the students, and I got to speak English with a native speaker (a rarity in Nishihara)! She was very sweet, and much more outgoing and confident than I was at 15, and she spoke Japanese, so she got along great at the school. We watched the students practice for Sports Day, which included practicing relay-races, choreographed dances, etc. I finally couldn't help myself, and asked if I could join in their dance, so I spent a good 30 minutes mimicking the dance moves as best I could, and fooling most people into thinking I knew what I was doing. These are the songs I'm going to get to participate in: Love Revolution 21, by Morning Musume, and Onara Hazukashikunai, (up to 3:20) (the second song translates into "Farts are not Shameful"). Both are fun, and the girls are pretty pumped about it, and certainly tickled that I'm joining them.

Then school ended, and I went home. As I got there, I noticed a small boy, my neighbor's 6-year-old grandson, standing in my back yard, picking some red berries from a bush/vine clump. I said hi and went to look at what he was picking.

 I didn't even realize there were pick-able berries in my yard until I saw him picking and eating them. Most of them he was pocketing. He's seen and picked these berries before around his house, so he seemed to know what he was doing. He also seemed to have no reservations about picking them from my yard. Of course, I could hardly hold a grudge, since I never would have known about them if he hadn't been picking them. They're good. Not as sweet as most berries, and strange at first, but good nonetheless. I love surprises like this!

On the left is the wall of the garden.

Then I went to walk Zuma. There is a magical garden that I walk past everyday. It's quite large, flanking a small driveway (more for show than for cars), and each side easily covers the same area as my house. There are flowers and fruits and vegetables scattered about in no discernible pattern, creating an overall wondrous effect. The front is edged by a wall that meets the street. The plants flower in stages, and I've been admiring them since March. A few days ago, the pink flower bushes lining the driveway burst into full bloom, then died off. This garden must be full of hidden gems!

It happened that this time, the obachan (old lady, lit. "grandmother") who tends this magical place was out working, right on the edge. She saw me and waved me in. She began speaking a lot of Japanese, and though her speech was very clear for someone her age, much of what she said went over my head. But I understood some:

    Come come you work at the junior high school oh yes yes here take some flowers (cuts flowers and hands them to me) all you want tie your dog up right here (emphatically patting a short tree) how about some pink ones here take these two come on but talk to Shoichiro he's lived in America for two years I'll get him stay right there (goes inside and comes out with her grandson) he speaks English you should take some strawberries Shoichiro go get some clean newspaper I'll get you some blue flowers here hold the newspaper like this (she made a makeshift strawberry-holder) take lots here here there are lots...

You get the idea.

The bundle.

So I got to pick strawberries for the first time! Meanwhile I chatted briefly with her grandson, who indeed spoke some English. He looked even more confused than I was at the whole situation, but we both made the best of it and he helped me pick strawberries. Meanwhile, the obachan cut more flowers and handed them to me. I wrapped them all up as best I could in the newspaper, and with one arm full of flowers and fruit, and the other holding Zuma's leash, I left the premises.

The flowers, after I arranged them.

The strawberries, before I ate them.

After all this, I spent a quiet Friday evening at home, cooking spinach and sweet potatoes (both gifts from another Japanese gardening friend), watching the Daily Show and reading fairy tales for potential material for my adult English conversation class.

Strange to say, but it felt like a normal day.

A few random afterthoughts

Turns out my English is a lot faster now. A Japanese commented to say that my English is very fast, when she never seemed to think so before. Time to get used to speaking slowly again! Fortunately, the Japanese language feels deliciously familiar, even if I only understand it at a slower speed.

Also - I ate lunch at one of my elementary schools, where the kids all shouted "Rebeca Sensei" and made valiant efforts to high five, peak around corners, or convince me I should eat lunch with their table. I've become a sensation since I recognized a K-pop song and busted a move during lunch last time I was there. The 2nd graders nearly had a meltdown, they thought it was so funny and now they want nothing but to see my break into song and dance. They're welcome was considerably warmer than the one at my junior high school. There it was mostly the teachers I saw, and only a couple commented on seeing me again, and then it was routine silence as no one bothered to tell me anything about the upcoming sports day, today's schedule change (I spent all morning preparing for an afternoon lesson that was never going to happen), or anything really. It was a sad reminder that I am going to have to make my ignorance blatantly obvious and even pressing if I am going to get any information. No one seems to get it - I want to be informed and involved, not simply seen as an afterthought.

The wind is blowing fiercely outside. Some kinda storm's a-brewin'. The leaves are fiercely green, though, and the weather's been muggy and hot since I got back, meaning summer's basically here. And so are the mosquitoes. Poor JHS students, they still have to wear their winter uniform, even in this sticky heat. There's an official announcement during the school year that says they can switch to summer uniforms or to winter (a throw-back to old clothing-changing customs about which I know little), but until then they must follow protocol. They were dying in class on Monday, as was I, since I wasn't given much of a role my first day back, and the lessons turned out to be rather boring.

Lastly - I have a kindle! I've been taking it with me on plane rides, and it's fantastic! If I finish a book, I can either go on to one I already have on the kindle, or I can go online for a new book, buy it, receive it and start reading it, all within a minute using just the kindle. It's almost too easy! I've just started a page turner that I can't put down, so now I'm even carrying it to work, for days when there's little to do, like today. Hopefully I'll keep reading more - I've been away from it for awhile.

America

Now that I'm back, it's almost hard to believe that I went home at all. 10 short days was all I had to spend at home. I spent the better part of 48 hours traveling there and back. So I've been away from English teaching and Japanese living for about 2 weeks. Coming back, as familiar as it all is, I can tell it will take a few more days for me to readjust to Japan.

I spent a few Glorious Days back on the Harvard campus with my undergrad friends. My time in Cambridge was divided rather perfectly between spending the earlier part of the day with my Aunt Lisa and the latter part of the day (often well into the next morning) with members of the Noteables, my college Broadway singing group. When I graduated, I was the only senior in the group, which allowed me to grow rather close to the underclassmen. It apparently also meant that I became something of a legend over this past year of my absence, so when I arrived, I was afforded the status perhaps of a deity. And I enjoyed every minute of it! Despite looming exams and papers, every night was spent in the company of some combination of my beloved Note-a-children, and from the moment I got my first hug, it felt like I'd never left. It felt so natural and wonderful to be seeing them all again!

With Lisa, I ate lunch at regular times, walked the streets of Cambridge, pondered the mysteries of life, and picnicked by the river. With Lisa and Rebecca, Lisa's Japan-savvy friend and Boston resident, I discussed the oddities of Japan, got lost navigating campus, and enjoyed several Arts First performances (a festival of undergrad arts performances was going on around campus while I was there). Lisa and I also managed a trip to Boston's MFA to see an AMAZING Dale Chihuly blown glass exhibit. That one gave me shivers - it was titled "Through the Looking Glass" and it really felt like walking into a world created by Lewis Carroll, Roald Dahl, and Tim Burton. It was stunning! 

My time in Cambridge passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Texas. The density of people I saw in Texas was certainly less, but the time spent with people was splendid. I spent time in Houston, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio, and only saw a few wonderful people in each place. I spent a couple of great dinners with my mom and brother, since the latter can now drink. The three of us have developed an odd relationship: close, yes, but definitely odd. And it makes me happy.

So besides reveling in joy and love and happiness, how did my trip to America affect me? Well, the first unexpected side-effect I noticed was my constant thirst. After my first 24 hours back, I had spoken more English than I probably had in the prior two months. I talked myself dry, day after day after day. I joked and I laughed and I sang and I made snarky comments and I shouted familiar names and I said "bless you" to people when they sneezed. No one does that last one in Japan. 

I had also intended to eat A LOT of food during my short stay. But I seem to have adopted a Japanese appetite, and perhaps American food really is that much heavier, and I found myself increasingly unable to eat American-sized portions. I didn't eat nearly as much as I intended, in nearly enough places. The food was delightfully familiar and far from Japanese, but by far my favorite meal of the whole trip was at the Guatemalan bakery and restaurant in Houston, called El Quetzal. My mom and I shared a couple of platters of traditional, cheap, and yummy Guatemalan food, some of which Mama didn't even recognize. Soooo good! And so simple! And so cheap! And so far from Japan...

There were other small differences I noticed as well. Back in America, I immediately felt much smaller. Not only were the people much bigger in all dimensions, but airport officials are noticeably ruder, especially if you're coming from Japan. Things in general were just cheaper, and it felt strange using a debit or credit card at the store since in Japan, cash is king. Driving on the right side of the road felt strange for the most part - I'll admit I was somewhat relieved to be back here driving on the left. Everything was bigger - people, cars, roads, stores, my dog. I got to see Parker, who was much bigger than I had remembered! A little slower, too, but then maybe I've grown a little too used to Zuma's running circles every morning. 

I ate a mango while I was home. It was juicy and big and perfect. It stands out in my mind even more since I spotted a $13 mango in the grocery store yesterday. I've definitely found them for a $1.50 before, but they've never turned out right. 

And limes. I made sure to put lime juice on things whenever I could, even had a couple of glasses of fresh limeade. Which is making me thirsty. Apparently I'm still not over this dehydration from the trip, although I'm talking considerably less. 

Readjusting to life here is taking some time. I feel that I'm quieter than before I left, and a bit more peeved than usual at things that I should come to expect. Things like sudden schedule changes that no one informs me about (which happened today). Or the onset of extreme shyness because I'm back to needing a language I don't know very well. Admittedly, I was better adjusted before I went home, and now that I'm back and the memory of home is still fresh, I'm holding bigger grudges. I think I just need time to settle back to where I was, get back to my routine of studying the language and re-discovering the Crazy that makes me laugh, while learning to pass over the Crazy that actually drives me crazy. 

And I know it's a few days late, but I want to make a shout-out to Mama. You do so much and make it look so easy. Especially during this trip. It's like everything you do naturally and powerfully says "I love you, so it's no problem at all." No puedo expresar la admiracion que tengo para usted. Le quiero con todo mi corazon, y me alegre que tenga usted para madre. Cada dia usted me da fuerza e inspiracion! Gracias por todo!

The More You Learn, The Less You Know

I had a teacher in high school who could speak, or had spoken at one point, 9 different languages. We counted them (all I can remember now is English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Aramaic). But when we asked him how many languages he knew, his answer was always zero. He did not believe he could ever truly know a language because they were such complex, ever-changing, vast collections of human expression.

His candid belief that he did not know any languages struck me as a new way of looking at the world. He was, quite frankly, the best teacher I had ever encountered. He could answer any question I threw at him, and trust me, I asked a lot. Anything that popped into my head, here was an endless fountain of knowledge I could go to. So for him to say that he knew nothing was a concept quite profound.

Since then, the more I experience, the more I believe it's true. The more you learn, the more questions you have, and the more you realize just how little you know. And so it is in Japan. Especially since traveling in Okinawa, it strikes me how very little I know about Japanese culture and history. About Japan! I mean, I've been living here for 8 months, so you'd think I'd know something! But it usually doesn't feel like I do. The islands of Okinawa were ruled by the Ryukyus. Who are the Ryukyus? Where did they come from? Who was here before them? Did they speak Japanese? Did they pay tribute to the Chinese? What about Okinawan music? What time period is that from? Where did the instruments come from? Did they actually drink green tea before the Ryukyus came? And what about sweet potatoes? They're everywhere, but were they introduced to Okinawa? What is this place?!

So many questions! I must drive some people crazy with questions. If I asked all of them, I'd probably be a social bane. And because I feel that I know so little, and because I want to learn more, I feel cheated when someone claims to know something which they don't really know (maybe they only sort of know, or are guessing). Infusing confidence into an uncertain response does not make it closer to the truth. Quoth Socrates: "I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know." Politicians, especially, are often guilty of this practice.

And so as the new school year begins and I get ready to enter my 2nd year in Japan, my goal is to learn more about Japanese culture. I want to start with religion, because that confuses and interests me. It also seems like it will have a lot of interesting mythology behind it, as well as some insights into Japanese customs and history and holidays and family bonds. It's a pretty important aspect of life, I think.

Also, if you have any suggestions on literature I can or should look into, please suggest away! I'm now the proud owner of a kindle, and so acquiring a new book is simpler than ever, and I'm eager to use it as a way to share books with others without having to ship a book across the world.

A Trip to Okinawa

This past week I spent vacationing in Okinawa with my friend Jamiel. I think I want to detail the trip in a few entries, so I can include pictures without making one massive, overwhelming entry. But first I want to put this out there. Even though I traveled with one male companion to a tropical, even romantic location, Jamiel and I are not romantically involved. It's actually kinda weird to imagine, and I just feel the need to clarify this to everyone who knows we traveled together. In fact, he was not the most ideal travel partner, but despite a few pet peeves, the trip was overall rather enjoyable and served to take my mind off of all things related to Work and Routine.

So what was Okinawa like? People say it's nothing like Japan "proper", and I think that's very true. There's certainly a lot of meeting-tourists'-expectations going on, but overall you can just feel it. The atmosphere is laid back. There's even PDA from time to time. The speed limit on the main highway was a shocking 60 km rather than the usual 50. There were a number of A&Ws, (fast food restaurant centered around the root beer), and a few army surplus stores. There's a U.S. base on the island, and one of the first things I noticed in the airport was the large number of Americans, clearly in the military, waiting at the gates for people to arrive.

There are tons of islands that make up Okinawa, and in the span of 9 days we only visited 3 of them. The islands furthest south you can only reach by plane from Naha, and in peak season there are flights from Tokyo and Osaka (peak season is late April through August or September). So we opted for islands we could reach by ferry. The weather was cool and cloudy our first 3 days, partly cloudy a couple days, then bright happy sunshine the last 3 days. Back home, it is once again quite cool, and tomorrow is back to work. In fact, tomorrow will be a big day of meeting the new teachers and staff members. There is much to do back in the real world, away from the beautiful beaches, that were largely too cold to swim in, but gorgeous nonetheless.

I loaded all my pictures on facebook, but I still want to chronicle the adventures here with some pictures, so stay tuned and those should be coming soon. For now, it's bed time. G'night!

Communication

By far the hardest part of being here, in Japan, is communication. Perhaps I never realized how important it was, or how nuanced. There are so many aspects to it that we take for granted in our everyday lives. In my anthropology classes, the concept of the "wink" was often brought up as a classic example of layered communication and understanding. How did we come to learn and understand what it means when someone winks at you? How do we know when it's acceptable? When it's cute? When it's scary? Who can wink and why? What phrases could stand in for a wink?

And so it is here. I can't understand the subtle undertones of a person's gestures, what it means when someone doesn't meet your eye, or how to read a person's response to my flailing and sometimes failing attempts to communicate. Smiles are always encouraging, of course, but we all know that smiles can mean a lot of different things. Was that a "smile and nod", a "oh, this person is funny!" or a "please leave me alone" smile? Even more confounding: do Japanese people even have these particular aspects of smiling? What other uses/types of smiles do they have that I may never understand or see? It's a bit like learning vocabulary. Your ears are deaf to a word until you see it in a textbook, or actively learn the word; then suddenly it's everywhere, you just couldn't hear it before. That's what I think these smiles and winks are like. They're saying a lot, but I'm deaf to their meaning.

When I get truly upset by the fact that I'm here in Japan, and it does occasionally get to me, I invariably break down because of my frustrations with communication. Miscommunication with teachers happens, but not too often, and I can think of more times when the teachers have saved me than when they have thwarted my "brilliant" plans. At work, I find myself wishing I could make some small conversation, but feeling helpless, because it would be a taxing exercise for both myself and my listener. Would it seem rude to inflict such a demanding form of communication on my coworkers? Often, I tell myself, "when I can speak Japanese, I'll be able to make lots of friends, and things will be much easier," when I know deep down that this is not the case. If you're not willing to take a chance or make a fool out of yourself now while you can blame the language barrier, you're not so likely to do it later.

In kendo now, it really gets to me sometimes. Keep in mind that learning a martial art, or any sport, and meeting the standards of your coach or teacher is difficult enough. Now imagine that you don't have the luxury of speaking the same language. At first, I was doing really well - I'm generally pretty good at following gestures and mimicking physical movements. After all, I did do some small bit of choreography in college. So those first steps were relatively easy, and I seemed to be learning quickly. But now we've reached the stage where I have some level of competence, and my mistakes are more subtle or perhaps repetitive because I find a certain handhold or movement awkward. The teachers tell me and show me what to do, but sometimes I just don't understand what it is I'm doing wrong and so I'm not sure how to fix it. And the teachers often suspect that I don't understand what they're saying, so they say the same thing very simply 5 or 6 times. Thank you, but I'm not dumb. I just speak a different language. It doesn't help that I keep mental notes of good and bad (I should say preferred and non-preferred) teaching styles, and project these attitudes onto my practice. So for a teacher I like learning from, I seem to level-up a good deal. For those who seem to baby me too much I tone it down and don't improve quite as much. And this whole time, whether it's a comment, question, or a "thanks, your technique for ~ was really helpful to me!", I can't say it.

And this drives me crazy. It's upsetting to the point of frustrated tears on a bad day. Just that feeling of wanting to be able to say something and having no one to say it to, even in a room full of people. It literally feels like you're screaming in a crowd and no one can hear you. What makes it simultaneously worse and better is that those people want to hear you, they want to understand you and they want to help. But they're helpless, too. So I get frustrated, and I end up needing some time alone, or a few hugs if I'm lucky enough to be near a source. By the next day, I'm back on my own two feet, ready to start tackling little problems and avoiding the ones that are still scary. Again.

It's at times like these that I feel that language is so important. "If I only knew more Japanese, I could..." But I know it's not true. What is true is that approximately 90% of communication is nonverbal. If I really wanted to convey, "Please stop treating me like a baby", I would stop the speaker and repeat their words/gestures exactly in a very commanding and/or frustrated tone, saying "wakarimashita" (I got it, with a hint of let's move on if you say it right). If I wanted to show I liked a certain lesson, I could say "Wow", give a thumbs up and immediately continue practicing that move. And if I want people to know I'm upset, tears do the trick much faster than any explanation.

So yea, I use my language barrier as an excuse, a crutch for my not being more proactive or outgoing. I convince myself that learning as much Japanese as I can is going to help me get along out here. But I know that 90% of that is actually attitude. It's how I carry myself and what I do and how often I smile and what kind of smile it is. I have a lot more communication tools that it seems at first, I just have to remember, and have the guts, to use them.

But there's something else making communication difficult for me, and it's what I mentioned at the start of this entry. Culture. It makes such subtle changes in all layers of communication. Communicating across cultures is kinda like using left handed scissors in your right hand. When you're in Japan, it's like you're left-handed and for some reason you have to use your right hand to cut with left-handed scissors but you don't understand why. So suddenly all the tools you've been using your whole life to navigate the social world are ever-so-slightly different, and everyone around you seems to be doing just fine with these tools. They don't even need an instruction manual - they can make birdhouses and fix plumbing without even thinking. You used to be like that. You used to be something of a wordsmith. You still see language as beautiful and expressive, but in this place people don't see you as a master of words. They see you as a kid playing with a hammer and nails (or some other, safer analogy). "Oh, wow, how'd you get to be so good at using a hammer? Hey! You actually got that nail in this time!"

And there we have it - the root of what really gets me. Yes, I'm learning a new language, and of course my skills won't be very advanced for a long time. I can say lots of things - what I've done or haven't done, can or can't do, months and colors and dates and times and even some simple comparisons and sequential events. But it feels like I can't say anything meaningful. I'm not about to have a heart-to-heart with anyone in Japanese, and this feels like a real barrier to building personal relationships. So you see: language is important, even if it's not our primary or most efficient way of communicating. It's comforting, and having a grasp of language and the ability to use it is, quite frankly, liberating. That's why I like this blog. This is where I put into words all these feelings that before were only shudders, smiles, raised eyebrows, screams, tears, guffaws, gawks and pointed fingers. These entries are my charades put into words. It's like creating the script to a play. I think that's what makes acting so beautiful, this incredible connection between language and gesture. Ultimately, it's what makes communication so beautiful. And so utterly perplexing.

Natto

Natto is a Japanese food. It is fermented soybeans. Sometimes we get it as part of our school lunch. It just looks like a small pack of brown beans, and you put this watery sauce on it (vinegar?) and stir really fast. This gives the natto a gooey film, roughly the consistency of mucus. But before any of this happens, I offer mine to the nearest student who will take it. This student becomes my new best friend, and I make sure to tell him or her in English for all to hear.

 Natto is officially my least favorite food of all time. It beats out liver and tripe. It is gooey and slimy (or neba neba in Japanese) and smells bad and tastes worse than it smells. The after taste is like an exceptionally original flavor of barf.

So you can imagine my disappointment this morning when I strayed from my usual breakfast and ate some store-bought sushi, half of which was of the natto variety. I should mention also that Japanese sushi uses a number of ingredients that we would not expect or use or see at home, among them egg, mushrooms, spinach, and lettuce. And natto. I wasn't looking too closely. I just felt like eating sushi. I thought the brown gloop might have been mushrooms, or some other mystery Japanese ingredient. But no. That was the most disgusting sushi I have ever eaten. The natto just overwhelmed all other tastes. But I faced my fate, and managed (barely) to eat it without gagging. On the plus side, I've heard that natto does marvelous things for your digestive system.

I should mention here that tofu is also made from fermented soy beans. But somewhere along the lines, something must have gone very very wrong for someone to have wound up with natto. It is notoriously disliked among foreigners. It would fail miserably as an export. I would not wish it upon anyone (except that it's really healthy, so I guess as an intravenous drip, it would be fine, except that the goo might clog your arteries). Only in Japan.

Only in Japan.

Oh, Japan!

In the midst of the crises going on up north, Japan continues to befuddle, amuse, confuse, and embarrass me in various and nefarious ways. I think I should make note of the most recent of these before I incorporate them into my idea of a "normal" life.

First: April Turnovers. No, they are not a delicious food. Does that even sound like it would be Japanese food? Rather, it approximates a workplace Chinese Firedrill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_fire_drill). If you work for the government, in particular, there's a good chance that you will be moved around, perhaps even to a different township. You won't have to move, you just have to drive an hour or so out to your job. The idea is to give younger employees more experience in different fields and offices on the one hand. But I have no idea what is on the other hand.

And here's the crazy part. The first day of the new school year around here is April 8. The teachers don't learn whether they get to stay at their old school or will be transferred to a new one until March 16. Yeah, that's right. You have 3 weeks to say goodbye and prepare to change schools. Less than that if you want to do any work before school actually starts.

The other thing that finally got to me: Japanese drivers. Since I'm out in the country side, I don't usually run into a lot of the bad ones (though some would argue there is no other kind of Japanese driver), but the other day I just had it. Japan has a large elderly population. A great many of these are still behind the wheel of a car (despite the fact that many of the obaasans, or old ladies/grandmothers, can barely see over the steering wheel). Frustration #1. Frustration #2 is the habit of driving outside the lines on a two way street. Usually this is done on windy roads with no lines drawn, and I can understand not clinging to every left curve of the street. BUT WHEN YOU ARE IN MULTILANE TRAFFIC DO NOT VEER OUT OF YOUR LANE, ESPECIALLY SINCE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO PASS YOU!!!! There must have been other traffic infractions that day, because otherwise I would not have literally started screaming my frustrations at Japanese drivers while I was in the car. The good news is, 90% of the time, it's not this bad.

I have a few more stories to tell, I think, including graduation day (SOOO much ceremony and bowing!), a couple of dinner parties, a jazz band concert, and a fire festival (of which there are many blurry pictures). Until then!

4 Days Later

I've just received news that the vast majority of JET participants in the area are safe and sound, with no injuries or fatalities reported. However, there are a small number of JETs that have not been heard from the Tohoku region. If you have thoughts and prayers to send to Japan, you can send them their way. I can't imagine what their families and friends must be going through right now.

It's a truly scary thought to be in a foreign country and uprooted from an otherwise secure job in an otherwise safe and wealthy nation. I can't help wondering: What if it had been me? After all, I was probably randomly placed in Japan. I very well could have ended up further north. Will these JETs even have a job after this? How many of them will be sent home? Relocated within Japan? Whole communities have been uprooted, and it seems like it will be a long time before they are able to recoop enough to reestablish schools and daily routines.

And still life goes on as usual around here. Japan continues to shock, embarrass, astound, and annoy, but more on that in a later entry.

The Day Just Got a Lot More Interesting

It's all over the news - a huge earthquake hit off the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan's main island. The main areas affected are Miyagi and Tokyo, with the former experiencing tsunami (plural) as high as 10 meters. This was just over two hours ago. Now the TV is on in the staffroom as we watch the footage of 10 meters of ocean creeping into cities on Japan's coast. It's not unlike the first wave of reports from Katrina. It certainly must be one of the biggest natural disasters in Japan's history. Certainly one of the biggest in mine.

What's odd is that life here goes on as usual. On Monday, the 3rd graders at the junior high school will graduate and scatter to different high schools and technical schools. Today was the setup and rehearsal for the ceremony on Monday. It certainly is a rigid ceremony, requiring a lot of bowing, much of which must be synchronized with your classmates, and a good bit of singing from the students. There's a school song, a song the 3rd graders sing to the 1st and 2nd graders, a song the 1st and 2nd graders sing to the 3rd graders, and a song the 3rd graders sing just for kicks (for all I know). Then the band will start playing and the 3rd graders will file out down the isle and out the back of the gym (where the ceremony will be held, since it has the stage), walking to the beat of the music behind their homeroom teachers. The class has about 60 students.

After the morning ceremony, there will be a less formal goodbye party, where I believe memories will be rehashed, and gifts and messages showered upon the 3rd graders. The teachers made video messages (which I might not have found out about and participated in if I hadn't been asking every morning this week about the various strange announcements and graduation preparations that no one was tell me about). So I made my own goodbye message - in song :) A few of the teachers put choreographed a dance, and I have yet to see some of the other videos. Apparently, there will also be a dinner party in the evening including 3rd graders and their parents and teachers, about which I know little other than this.

And the 6th graders at the elementary schools are having their own ceremony. From what I gather, at Yamanishi I'm invited to play dodgeball and other games from 4-5 on Tuesday and there will be a ceremony in the gym at 10 am a week later at Kawahara. I've already taught my last elementary classes for the school year. Guess this means it's time to start reviewing the curriculum once more.

Basically, turnover time is on its way and everybody working for the government in any capacity is getting really busy. I believe that Ms. Yanase (the teacher pulled from retirement) will be leaving. She's almost as out-of-touch with what's going on as I am, and has referred to herself briefly as a temporary teacher (today was the first I heard her thus call herself). I'm a little nervous and hopeful about having a new teacher. On the one hand, Ms. Yanase gives me a lot of freedom to have input in the glass, and really values my help. On the other hand, she has a lot of teaching habits that I disapprove of, such as translating everything for the students, and sometimes babbling about irrelevant things in what seems like an effort to fill extra class time. So there's independence and creativity, but not much continuity within the class.

Turnover for me means I'm spending time finding and reorganizing flashcards. Some of them I never organized (and neither did my predecessor), and others have made their way to various schools, my car, and various rooms in my house. And there are still so many old materials left to sort through, as well as new ones of my own to file away properly. I have ideas for the elementary school curriculum I would like to solidify and a trip to Okinawa I'd like to plan for the spring break before school starts again. Dunno how this earthquake will affect Okinawa, though.

Word of the Day: Jishin.  You have one guess as to what it means.

Fire and Flowers

Spring is coming! And with it, lots of fire and flowers! Allow me to explain.

First, spring is here! The official first day of spring in Japan is February 4th. The day before is known as setsubun. I was very sad to learn that missed this celebration, because it consists of throwing beans (I believe dried soy beans) at a demon, or oni, while shouting "Demons out! Good fortune in!" (oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!). You're also supposed to eat a number of beans equal to one less more your age (which is your age according to kazoe doshi, where the year of your birth counts as one). All of this is information I learned from my Japanese CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) Coursebook about 2 weeks after the fact.

So my only real experience with setsubun was my brief encounter with the middle school science teacher the day after. He practically danced into the copy room all smiles, and with the little English he knew, he started talking about throwing beans at the devil for the start of spring. 9 am, and I could have sworn the man was drunk. But it was exciting to hear about. I suspect he must have been the one dressed as the demon while his kids threw beans at him. I've heard this is traditionally the father's role.

There is a fire brigade in Nishihara whose main job is the safe spread of grass fires during March, when the grassy fields and hills of this region are set ablaze to make way for the new grass. It's a tradition that's been going on for awhile around here, and true to the inner pyromaniac in all of us, it has become something of a ritual. The Aso Fire Festival goes on all month, with events every weekend. For example, March 12th they will light a hillside on fire at night, first lighting the kanji character for "fire", or　火　. It even looks like fire, doesn't it? It was definitely one of the first kanji I learned. On March 18th, there will be a big celebration at the shrine in Aso City, where highly trained professionals* will swing flaming balls of hay on string around their heads. And it sounds amazing!

*I highly doubt these are trained professionals. I suspect this may be one of the more dangerous events in Japan.

And finally, hanami season, or blossom viewing season (hana means "flower", and mi is the root for "see") is on its way. The weekend of March 25th is the official start in this area. I've heard some say the blossoms will be late this year due to the cold, but I can also see some plum blossoms on trees. They're quite beautiful, and people are getting really excited. You can tell, even when people aren't talking about it, that it's a big deal. My phone's background has pictures that update automatically for the season. I had a snowman around Christmas, a pumpkin in October, and today I noticed cherry blossoms, or sakura, were my new background. It's coming! Spring is coming! It's too bad today was so cold and wet. I was hoping for nice weather tomorrow. Since I have Wednesday afternoons off to make up for my evening conversation class, I was going to head to the park in the city, where I've heard the blossoms are starting to look very pretty.

Quarantine

So my board of education apparently has a strict policy of no school/work for 5 days when you get the flu. Tomoko, my boss, texted me after a coworker saw me walking my dog to let me know that I needed to stay at home as much as possible. That meant, no walking Zuma. I could go to the store if I needed, but with a mask. Oh, and the kicker: my leaves would be treated as Special Leaves.

I've been officially quarantined. I have had exactly one visitor since this happened, who was a friend that already caught the flu, so had no qualms about visiting. Beyond that, I have been stuck at home for a whole week. Thankfully, the weather has been nice, and I've been reading in the sun for a little bit almost everyday. Other than that, I keep myself occupied via computer and food. And laundry. Oh, and cutting my hair.

For some time now, I've been cutting my own hair. I think I've visited the barber once in the last 4 years. I mean, I watched how the barber cut my hair to layer it, and it looked easy, so I started doing it myself. What's nice is that my hair is curly, so if it's not cut perfectly straight, you can't see it anyway. Also, this gives me yet another option when I want to style my hair differently. A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try bangs. So I did. You can see them in this picture:

This is a hippo lantern, one of many spectacular lanterns at the Nagasaki Lantern Festival.

Well, this week since I had lots of time and more energy than a sick person should have, I decided to cut my hair. On Tuesday I trimmed it since the ends were a little dry. I decided to wait until summer to cut it short. Thursday I decided I wanted it shorter, since the weather was so nice. So I cut off about an inch. Then Friday, today, I decided I didn't much like the shorter look, and that what I really wanted was a short look. And this is what I ended up with:

Now, I myself have never cut my hair this short before, so I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. Woohoo! So now I have short hair, that I cut and that I like. I also realize that I cut my hair three times this week, and that's rather odd. But hey, being at home for 5 days can do things like this to a person.

So that's how exciting my life has been these past few days. Not much to report, other than that I feel ok. Unfortunately, I'm still sporting a runny nose and my throat needs some clearing, but beyond that I'm basically healthy. I can say one good thing about this episode: I've done a lot of catching up on my Japanese study. I have workbooks with monthly tests I have to mail in by a certain deadline, and I almost missed the last one. But I think I'll be back on track after this. When I make it back to the real world, I'll be trying to say things like "you don't need to drink that", "after swimming, I usually read a book", and "let's run while we eat" in Japanese, all of which are new grammar structures I've learned this week.

Oh, and I also made tiny origami dragons. I made 4 of these in all:

The Flu

No beating around the bush with this one. I've got the flu, and I'm definitely not proud of it. I shouldn't be surprised. For the last 2 months, I've been watching students, friends, colleagues, and some parents come down with this insidious winter virus. I even went to karaoke with someone who had the flu, and only found out afterward when my friend caught it from him. For two months, it felt like a battlefield, and I was somehow immune to the flying bullets.

How naive of me. Me! a person who manages to catch a cold twice a year, regardless of precautions taken. Me! a person who gets sick with something every time she travels. Me! a person of questionable health despite checking "no" in every health question box on the medical form.

I think this is what my body does:
"Hey, wait. Does that include coughing and a runny nose? Yea? How about a fever? Yes!? Sign me up!"

Oh corpus idioticus. Little did you realize how truly evil this one would be. It started Wednesday afternoon. My throat hurt, as though there were a single scratch at the back of my throat. That was it. The board of education was coming to observe the lessons that day, so I reserved my voice for that class and hoped it would get better the next day.

The next day. Nope, not going to school. I woke up with a fever, cough, runny nose, and a primeval desire to SLEEP. So it was a sick day. Fitful sleeping, 3 hours of waking existence, followed by more sleeping, and feeble attempts to communicate to my boss to make a doctor's appointment. The doctor's thing never happened.

Friday. Wow. I'm awake at 8. I feel like eating. I feel like doing things. My tissue supply is disappearing pretty fast, but I actually have energy. This is usually the sign of a recovering victim. In my experience, the following day is usually a pretty good one, even a healthy one.


NOT SO! The scourge that was the As-Yet-Unidentified Flu decided to mess with me. It was Saturday, and I had plans, man! I was going to host somebody traveling through the area, then go snowboarding the next day (likely just take pictures after being sick for two days, but still). But no, AYUF decided to hit me with a fever again. Once again, I had no energy, little desire to eat, my ear hurt (?!), and I had to call the girl I was hosting to warn her against coming. Fortunately, she had a friend who could help her out. So it seemed I could safely haunt the house alone in my unhappy condition.

Then comes Sunday, and I'm feeling a little better once again. I do my laundry, cook food, make a run to the grocery store. Things seem like they'll turn out fine. Until I go to bed. At exactly 10 o'clock, I lie down, and within a minute, I'm running a high fever. I can feel it. Good grief. I decide I'll go to the doctor first thing in the morning. At 11:30, I can't sleep, and I'm shivering and I can't stop for 10 minutes. This has never happened to me before, and I'm seriously worried, so I call my boss to please take me to the hospital. I take tylenol to stop the shivering, which it does after 15 more minutes of it. At the hospital, they don't say much. It doesn't look like a disease. Ok - so not pneumonia, I guess. They say I should see a doctor during the day for more specific results. Thanks. After 2.5 hours they send me home with medicine for fever. Poor Tomoko, sitting through that. But I'm glad she was there. I was a bit scared.

Were my worries unwarranted? You tell me. I have a sickness that comes and goes almost at whim and I have a 25 minute shivering fit, not to mention different symptoms every time the fever comes back. It didn't look like anything until I looked at all of it. So Monday I went to the doctor, and Tomoko called them in advance to tell them the history of my illness. Then I explained my new symptoms (my ribs hurt and my upper jaw, which I can only describe as a headache), and wait for them to do their thing. Flu test. It's the flu. Stay home for 5 days, take this medicine. Do your best to get better.

Arg! I should have done this on Thursday. I'd have been better by now. But on Friday I seemed to be recovering so well... Ah well, what's done is done. I take my form to the pharmacy next door and receive 7 DIFFERENT PILLS?!?! You guys are crazy. The pharmacist asks if Japanese is ok. (Right, because if I asked for Spanish, that would totally be an option). I say yes, but slowly please. OK. He explains that the first one is the flu medicine. Take it twice a day, after breakfast and dinner. Got it. OK. The next one is for your nose, the next for your cough, the next for your head pain, the next for your chest pain, and the one after is for your stomach (to make sure the previous four don't explode inside me?), and the last one is the same as the one the hospital gave you for your fever. Oh my. That's a lot. Yes, yes it is, said the pharmacist. Total cost? About $19. (Yay Japanese health care... or maybe they were having a sale... Is this what pharmacies do when they need to make shelf space?!)

So here I am at home, taking more sick days, continuing to rest, continuing to eat lots of Vitamin C. It won't be long before boredom ensues. Do you think boredom is good or bad for recovering from the flu? Well, I will say that I've been a lot more diligent lately about doing my Japanese coursebook work. So I guess there's one upside. But I'm still bummed about snowboarding!

Pics

These are from back in December. It's looking like photos loaded from my phone load onto this blog more easily than photos from my camera. 

The teachers at Yamanishi Elementary did a gift exchange/lottery. I brought some homemade cookies for a gift, and the teacher returned my container filled with candy! A taste of Japanese sweets.

My kids conversation class. They're making origami for Christmas. The girls all wanted to make reindeer and the boys wanted to make stars. The class often splits like th is. 

A close-up of the reindeer and one of the stars. They turned out quite well. My attempt to teach the reindeer to a larger class ended in disaster. It was a little bit too difficult for them. It helps to have 5 students rather than 25. 

The 6-Month Mark

It's a little scary - I've already been in Japan for six months. Yet, somehow I've only been in Japan for 6 months. When February 1st came around, I began to ask myself a lot of questions:

Has it really been six months?

When did using chopsticks become as natural as using a fork? (In some instances, more so!)

Why does everything seem so normal? Wasn't I freaking out about basically everything a few short months ago?

and finally,

What will I do next year? If I stay another year, what will I do after JET?

Well, folks, it's now official. I'm staying for one more year. I submitted my request and received approval last week. I sort of new for a while that I wanted to stay another year, but it was still a strange feeling signing the form. I mean, Japan may be awesome now, but in another 6 months, what if it sucks? I'll be stuck here a whole year longer!

Actually, that's not a particularly big fear of mine. I do wonder sometimes if and when I will run out of ideas for teaching, or if I'll overstep my boundaries. Will this get easier the second time around? Will I actually learn from my mistakes? Am I going to get too comfortable and fail to take advantage of the opportunity to explore this country and learn more about this culture? I think that's my biggest fear - taking it for granted that I'm here, in Japan! Life has taken on such a routine - walk the dog, go to school, make dinner, go to kendo, go out occasionally to eat dinner and sing karaoke. This makes for rather a pleasant living experience, but it has diverged somewhat from my original hopes of exploring this entire country and region.

In sharp contrast to my last entry, this week has been a little off. I've felt tired almost all week, particularly today (I stayed up late doing origami, but the rest of the week I've been getting sleep). When I got to the BoE office in the afternoon after teaching, I found out that Zuma somehow managed to escape. I'm 98% positive that I locked him inside the house this morning. So unless he was very stealthy and slipped past my feet or there's a hole in the house, I don't understand how he could have gotten out. The board members were extremely nice in that they chased him down and used the spare key to my house to lock him inside again. But I was scolded because I haven't registered him yet, or taken him to the vet. And here I became a bit upset, enough that I had to stop talking in order to hold myself together. I was too tired and too upset to explain that calling a vet, finding a vet, talking to a vet, and understanding a vet (or the people who register pets) are all dauntingly impossible tasks for someone who knows so little Japanese. And everyone around me always seems too busy to help me. So this scary task just went undone, because it was easier not to think about it. But now Zuma's gone rogue so I had better figure this out.

And in other news, my Thursday evening English conversation class has moved to a new building where the room adjoins to a kitchen! This obviously means we should do cooking lessons, but to be honest, I barely have a clue where to start or how to run a successful cooking series. Current plan: bring in a recipe for reading practice, go over some key words (bake, fry, cook, cut, peel, pour, heat, ingredients, liquid, etc) and suggest each person find their own recipe to teach. Then we'll have cooking lessons, wherein the person teaching is not allowed to touch the ingredients or speak Japanese, but must instruct everyone else in English. That will be a challenge. We're going to need a good bit of speaking practice before we can carry that out successfully. Hm.

My Japanese study is falling a bit behind as well, although I have made a Japanese friend who has decided that we should text each other only in the other's language. This is considerably more fun than reading the course books, and actually gives me a chance to practice the coursebook material and my kanji recognition. The phone predicts what I'm trying to say and auto-selects which kanji I might want to use. It does NOT predict English words, though, so texting in English is a slow process. Karaoke is also proving to be great reading and kanji practice. I can pick out the simpler words on the screen fairly easily now, and I'm even working on learning a couple of Japanese songs! Now if only my voice would come back...I've been abusing it by singing so much and making weird voices at school. But I'm an English teacher - speaking is my job. I might as well make it interesting.

Yay, teaching!

School has started once again! However, I spent the first two days of classes in the teachers' staffroom because the middle school students all had tests. That's kinda lame - tests are the last thing they do before winter break and the first thing they do when they get back. Ugh.

Anyhoo, I spent the first few days getting my sea legs back. I felt a little unsure of what to do and how to teach coming back to the new semester. But I'm happy to say that now I'm back! Last semester I was just getting the hang of teaching, but this semester I'm gonna be a pro! Those students will know so much English, they won't know what to do with it! OK, so maybe I exaggerate a little, but that's how I feel today. That's what 2 good days in a row can do for you. Make that 2.5, actually. Scratch that - it's been a good week! Here's a look at this week and why it makes me happy.

Wednesday, January 12. Not much teaching happened, though I did have some fun with the 8th graders during recess. Nozomi is an 8th grade girl who is very shy, but she's been brave enough to come to my Thursday evening conversation classes. Another teacher told me that she's felt unhappy lately, like she doesn't fit in or she's not good at anything (remember back to when you were 14 years old?). But she's been enjoying English class more recently, and during recess, she was a happy participant in the English conversation I struck up with some of the girls. The teacher commented that it was good to see her smiling and enjoying herself, and that comment really brightened my day. OH - one more thing!! I wore the full set of kendo gear at practice today for the first time! One step closer to being a kendo warrior!

Thursday, January 13. First day back at Yamanishi Elementary School. I was a little nervous, and felt a little underprepared, but the lessons worked fairly well. I taught "What do you want?" "I want ~" to the 5th graders and "Where are you from?" "I'm from ~" "Where is ~ from?" and "~ is from ~" to the 6th graders. The 6th graders also learned the names of countries, all of which have fantastically awesome gestures accompanying them. JaPAN! (punch the air) Ko-re-a (rub your cheeks) GERRRmany! (growl and flex your muscles). Then came my evening conversation class, or Eikaiwa Class. This is my Achilles' Heel of teaching. Controlling the kids for the first hour then raising the energy for the adults in the 2nd hour, both in such small informal groups, is very difficult for me. But today was a success! With the kids, we played a flashcard running game and memory. With the adults I played King's Cup, English Conversation Version, and that was also a great success. And time flew, and I was happy. Yay!
    I also bought new curtains. But they turned out to be too short (and they were the longest ones available in a pattern I liked). Damn. But, I took out the hem, and played with the hooks, so now they look fine. Yay!

Friday, January 14. A fairly normal day at school. In the evening, I spent the entire kendo practice in full gear! Practice was challenging, but I got a lot of compliments from the teachers afterward. There are almost more teachers than students in kendo, but there are usually no more than 3 or 4 teachers present at a time. Today there were 6 or 7, which is unusual, and one of them is actually a teacher at the middle school and that was the first time he saw me do kendo. Now we're officially double colleagues!

Saturday January 15th. A minor down point: I was supposed to go to the students' kendo tournament this morning, but everyone left at 7:55, rather than at 8:00 like I was told, so when I went outside at 8:00 exactly, everyone had left and forgotten me. Usually I ride with Masami chan, but she has been sick with the flu, so I guess everyone else just forgot. So I went back to sleep til 10, did some things around the house, then got ready for the Kendo New Year's party in the evening. The party was a ton of fun! Usually it's only adults at these dinner drinking parties, but this time all the kids were there, too, at their own table with slightly better-tasting food and drinks. I got to talk lots with the teachers I rarely spoke to, with the kids, with the moms. The adults were totally immature, while the kids played quietly on their Nintendo DSs. It was great! The kendo people are like my family. Conversations included, among other things: kids grabbing onto my legs, parents commenting on my different body type, japanese vs american culture, teenagers pretending to be too cool to talk to me, my new year's resolutions, my potential boyfriends (their suggestions, not mine), and discussions of general kendo techniques (several drinks in, one of the teachers did some hilarious impressions of the students' kendo quirks, to the vast amusement of everyone present). Definitely the best drinking party I've been to in Japan.

Sunday, January 16th. I did nothing. It was great.

Monday, January 17th. Middle school in the morning, but the students had tests, so I studied Japanese. Elementary school in the afternoon. Simon Says and "Head and Shoulders" with the 4th graders. Fairly normal day.

Tuesday, January 18th. TEACHING BREAKTHROUGH! At Kawahara Elementary School, I have a class of eleven 5th graders that are a really tough crowd. It's hard to get them really engaged. But today I did! They're a bit behind on their numbers, so I tried getting them to work on some math problems to warm up. They were intrigued, and started thinking really hard about their numbers, and after that I did a silly skit with the homeroom teacher, and they were much more energetic than they usually are, and really seemed to enjoy the class. A much better result than their usual State of Mild Confusion. The 6th graders were fun as usual, though a little unruly. 

Wednesday, January 19th. I introduced the 8th graders (middle school 2nd graders) to N'Sync's "Bye Bye Bye", which they really like. You can tell it's a hit when they're still trying to read and understand the lyrics on the second go around. There are a few boys I may even be able to convince to dance to it at the next school festival. Lunch time was great fun. The students I sat with asked me if I had a boyfriend. My response: "No. I have 10 boyfriends." This simultaneously conveys 1) it's not really your business and 2) let's turn this into something fun to talk about. I spoke so much English with these boys. I even had a Fake Boy/Girlfriend-Off with one of them. In English, he told me of his 3 significant others: his [male] friend sitting next to him (they do everything together, bowling, karaoke, soccer), 14-yr-old Stephanie from Nebraska, and 25-yr-old Jesse. Jesse has a young face, though. I should mention that this boy is very good at English, but usually acts like he's too cool for me. But today he stooped to my level. I laughed so much, it took me well into recess to finish my lunch. 

Thursday, January 20th. Minimal effort, maximum results. That best describes today's teaching efforts. I brought some play money for the 5th graders, had them cut out the set of fruit cards from their notebooks, put prices and practice shopping conversation, and then start buying things. I was amazed at how much English and how confidently they were speaking today. I taught them "Welcome!" and "Come in!" which they shouted freely. I taught them "It's on sale!" and "Do you have any change?" They'll probably forget it all by next week, but they were so good today! I told them as much, too. If nothing else, it's a great confidence boost for their ongoing English studies. 

    And my 6th graders were awesome as well. I have two classes of them at Yamanishi ES, and they have very different atmospheres, but both went pretty well. The first class is silly, thanks to the silly antics of a few hyper boys in the class. So we spent much of the class making faces at each other and doing silly voices. The other class is so well-behaved, they're almost boring. But both classes thoroughly enjoyed the writing game I played with them today. After practicing the new sentences ("Where do you live?" and "Where does ~ live?"), I had them practice their writing by spelling some country names. Then they raced. The row of students to finish writing down a country the fastest earned points based on how many students wrote it correctly. They ate it up! They wanted to play more, and by the time we finished, even the slow writers were finishing quickly and correctly. It was great! This really boosts my confidence in being able to make them strong writers in middle school. Then I ate lunch and jumped rope at recess with the silly 6th grade class. Then I found out that one of my best friends got into med school! Yay! And now I'm sitting here writing this blog instead of planning for my Eikaiwa (conversation) class, which starts in an hour. So I guess I should get going. 

Until next time!