Everything is changed

Sometimes it seems like things change so fast, it's hard to believe that the version of yourself on which you look back is barely a week old vision.

We roll back into Shisoshi to find it finally out of the grip of a freakishly Canadian spring (chilly/rainy) and well into its baby-green mountainside phase. We can leave the windows open. We can spread the nutella. Everything is different.

We return in the triumph of mid-spring, and the knowledge that Jermaine is dead, after 3 months, one week, and three days in this world.

I haven't said much about him in a while. The persistence of that remarkable burn has continued in the background. At times it has continued to get in my way. I didn't let him stop me from visiting hot springs in Hakone or Kinosaki. He made me want to get a bike rather than trusting my old shoes to take me jogging to escape the noise in my head. In Okinawa, I went snorkeling.. and had to wear just one flipper (along with my prescription mask since I forgot contacts.. win). I bought two new pairs of Jermaine-friendly shoes in Tokyo which vastly improved the quality of my life. The first pair of shoes were pretty terrible. They wore out quickly and painfully.

Exhibit A. Check out those plastic ridges. Those were only digging into the skin of my foot for like a month. I am lame for not buying shoes earlier.

My Tokyo shoes are still in pretty good condition. And they are cuter. And they were the same price. Thank you Harajuku shopping district, boo, Jusco, for your lack of selection.

My first outing in the new shoes on that freakishly nice day in March.

On Saturday, May 1st (how wild, how gay, the lusty month of May..?) I wore my real shoes and spent the entire afternoon walking through the streets of Hong Kong. After that, it hurt too much to wear my old silver 3-euro (actually free because I stole them from Ashers) slippers, so I relented.

On the night of Monday, May 3rd, I was in the shower in the second best hotel of the trip. The washcloth caught on the edge of Jermaine and I winced. But when I got out, the scab was gone, and there was no wound underneath, only pink scarred skin. And every ability to go out in real shoes forevermore, amen.

I like that Jermaine went for good as the last vestiges of winter did the same. I find that quite fitting.

Jermaine Goes to the Doctor

..twice.

I went first on Friday, after my school's nurse delivered her grave look and shook her head, saying it would heal faster with more medicine.

My thoughts were, hell yes, give me more medicine, because here's the thing about Jermaine/Jermaine-site/Yakedo: it was a hilarious story. But it is still there. It's gone from being a little hassle to being a big change in my life. I can't swim. I can't run. And now I am actually forbidden (well, advised not) to wear shoes with backs. It’s kind of not funny anymore.

It's not so much that it hurts or that it cramps my style beyond all bearing. I can bear it. It gets in the way, but not in such a way as to constitute a full blown emergency all the time. But. It is still there, and it's been nearly four weeks, and it's not anywhere near gone. That's the real issue. I have Jermaine fatigue.

It was in this spirit that I left for the doctor's office Friday afternoon. The clinic I went to before referred me to a skin clinic south of town, so on I went. The doctor went on in Japanese to me while I stared at him wide-eyed trying to catch whatever I could about how to make it go away. I don't think he said much about that, only it was all I cared about hearing. I know he said something about how they get a lot of yutanpo (hot water bottle) burn victims this time of year, and how they are slow to heal.

Which makes sense, slow burn, slow heal. Plus it's cold and the cold does not make you heal faster. But OH AM I EVER OVER THIS. He prescribed a cream and asked me to come back sometime the following week.

On the way out of the parking lot, just for good measure, I backed Robin Red into a blue pole, broke the taillight glass, got blue paint on the bumper and red paint on the pole. I'm just glad it wasn't another car there.

So, I went on Wednesday afternoon for my re-check, because by then it hurt more often, and looked worse, and this time they had me sit up on the bed thingy and suggested I not look, thought it 'shouldn't hurt'.. then the guy took out what looked like a tiny scalpel and pair of tweezers, and I thought he was about to remove the whole gross-looking layer of whatever-the-hell, so I braced myself for the equivalent of tearing off a scab, only times a zillion-- which made what actually happened feel like the breath of a gentle breeze. I’m rather amazed at the gentleness and dexterity with which he operated on that horrible mess of mine. I ended up staring in wide wonder because I guess I like watching horribly gross things happen to myself. He removed a few small pieces of the.. um.. like white-surface, then put some of that cream he's prescribed onto a gauze square and taped it on there. This time the cream burned a little, and I think maybe he created a path for the cream to reach the burn through the buildup or something.

GROSS I KNOW. Then he prescribed me two days worth of pillz which I am now taking. And I just want to do whatever it takes to get this thing gone as fast as I can. If they said "pour this into a tub of water and soak your foot in it for an hour," I'd do it. I don't care if it hurt.. I don't think they understand me here.. I don't want to necessarily have painful things happen to me in public, but I would totally go into my house and whimper and cry and keep my foot in that material, if they told me it would fix it.

It's part of my system of belief, that things worth having (like a wonder-drug to just effing cure Jermaine already) have to be earned (like through pain).

Just as an FYI, I've tried to just use the name "Jermaine" to refer to the blister. I named it because it was so tall and had a life all its own. Now the blister is gone, and the infected site remains.

To see a photo of Jermaine when Jermaine was still.. a blister.. please click here.

Please do not click there. It's gross. The later iterations, however, are so gross I did not even take photos.

 

EDIT: In retrospect, I think the surface area occupied by the current burn is smaller than Jermaine was. Which is a sort of comfort. Kinda.

not what I was going to write about

Someone tell me why some days I am the picture of existential panic and others I am as calm and happy as a snug little pet?

Wait, I think most of those days of perfect happiness start with a "Fri." That might help explain it a little.

Here we are and haven't seen the sun for a nice solid week. HULLO FEBRUARY.

But that wasn't what I was going to write about, no. Today is a Friday islanded between yesterday's national holiday (National Foundation Day), and Lupercal weekend (HAH - like I'm going to strip down and run through the streets of windy, frozen, rain-soaked Yamasaki), better known both in America and Japan as "Valentine's Day." But a steady stream of cloudcover has continued to roll across China and Korea to replace that which was overhead six seconds ago (yes, actually, yesterday I opened the front door and the wind immediately attempted to WREST IT FROM ME).

This Sunday is also the official start of the lunar New Year, and the Year of the (metal) Tiger officially begins! That's not the only double-whammy holiday this year.. as I was preparing my "Coming Events" board, I learned that both types of Easter fall on the same day (April 4th) this year, which only happens a couple of times a century or so.

None of this was what I was going to write about. Stop distracting me.

The plus side is, I can leave whenever I like today, because I drove myself to school. I didn't want to do this. I wanted to take the bus. I ran out of my house just in time to see it coming up the street, but I had no fear, for I've caught it at the corner before. I dashed across the street right in front of it actually.. the buses are pretty good about letting pedestrians cross. I guess this particular driver did not realize that my immense hurry was caused by none other than his arrival, and after I crossed the street, he drove on, with me staring after him sadly.

Then I felt really dumb, because having just stopped traffic to cross the street, I had to cross back to my own side. HAH. Damn. Today also happened to be the day the BOE returned their answer to my request to please let me drive my car only occasionally to work.. basically I am going to do that anyway, and I'd just like it to be legit if possible. They said if I am sick or injured it is okay. I guess I am currently injured... And for that I have to drive all the way back to Yama after work because I want to go to the doctor's. I showed the Jermaine site to the school nurse again and she said what must have been more or less "Yeah, that looks infected, maybe you should go get someone to give you some medicine for that mess." Excellent. In the meantime, ikebana which is normally Thursday was pushed to Friday. It would have been awesome to take the car today if I didn't have to go back to town and then come back out here for flower class.

The pains we take to keep beauty and life in our homes..! Speaking of keeping alive inside our homes.. my kerosene heater ran out of fuel yesterday and I was absolutely not going out front in that wet gale to attempt to refill it, and I was absolutely not going to fill it inside after the last time I tried THAT, so I just used the electric ones, which are passable, but which pale in comparison to my little champion.

None of this is even remotely close to what I was going to write about, at all.

Thanks for being here today, folks. It's time for me to do some Japanese HW and take myself to the doctor.

As per request of my brother (my actual, biological brother, mind you), I'm going to find a way to make the gross Jermaine photo optional in case you want to see it. I promise that you don't though; the girls asked to see it Superbowl Monday and were thoroughly grossed out.

Speaking of the Superbowl, I don't know whether to climb the walls in utter happiness or insist that I TOLD YOU the end was near and that 2012 gotta start somewhere, but I realize that perhaps not everyone grew up in a household where "When the Saints win the Superbowl" was interchangeable with "When pigs fly" or "When hell freezes over." So I chose the excitement option instead.

I still haven't managed to see the whole game, but I hope to eventually because what I did see was good, and what I heard about the second half was much better.

And now I really AM going to end this post so I can do whatever it was I said I was going to do.

Re-Contracting

Two weeks ago, the decision was due as to whether one would continue on another year as a JET, or not. I just realized I have not written about that yet!

I said yes, of course, I want to stay. I've rehearsed all the reasons, but the basic underlying notion is that when I imagine that I only have six months left in Japan, I feel terrible. I feel choked and trapped and desperate. It is simply not enough time to do all that I want to do here. (This is not a surprise; I doubt there ever will be, for any place)

I briefly considered not recontracting based on my reaction to leaving the US after Christmas, but ultimately, that very reaction was an echo of the same symptoms. I didn't want to leave because I had more I wanted to do, more people I wanted to see, and in general, more I wanted to say. The difference is, I'm not planning to live in Japan for 'the rest of my life.' Once this gig is over, it's over. And when a gig is this sweet, you've got to really work it for what it's worth. This opportunity is a goldmine and I'm not done yet.

What, to have only one autumn in Japan, and it already be over? To have only one Japan spring to look forward to? And only one year of trying to remember names and faces and impart some English verbs to these students? Only one year of the ridiculous stupidity I've displayed? I should stay if only to validate those lessons learned..!

Honestly, the question in my mind had been more of whether I would stay just two years, or three. ^_^ This, however, is not a big deal, as I don't have to make decisions like that for some time, and I am sure I will be equipped to do so when the time comes.

Even though I more or less knew I would stay, I basically refused to say as much. I take commitments pretty seriously (it's just a personality thing I have), so I am not going to say "I'm staying," until the paperwork is turned in. I don't like to go back on my word or decisions, so if there is even a grain of a chance that I will change my mind, then I won't deliver sentence.

Now that the decision is officially made, and only major understandable catastrophe will prevent it, I can say, I've decided to stay.

I have no idea how I'll feel a year from now. One drawback to this time schedule is that everything could change in April. They rotate teachers around the school system after they've been in a place for around 5 or 6 years, and from what I understand, two of my three JTEs are pushing that limit. I could have two totally new people to work with once April gets here. I might get really awesome and engaging co-teachers. I might get teachers who SUCK [at working with me and using me effectively in their classes]. Either way, I am predicting that I will lose at least one of my partners in English.

This change in April isn't just English teachers, of course. They move VPs and principals too. I'm pretty sure to keep them, and Mikan-sensei (the guy who is kind of like my keeper, and of the three, my favorite co-teacher).. but I am aware that a shift in personnel means a shift in the entire feel of an office environment. I could go from a happy and laid-back office to an office full of xenophobes without even leaving my desk..!

This was calculated in my decision to stay. I'm glad I get to keep Mikan-sensei, and for the rest I'll just have to take my chances in the mystery wall.

This is just one thing that can contribute to a complete change of heart between my decision date 2010 and decision date 2011. I'm sure you'll know which way the wind is blowing as the seasons change.

A mini-update on Jermaine: I killed him quietly on Wednesday night because I thought that surely after a week and a half, he was too disgusting to go on, and also that the wound underneath must be MOSTLY HEALED BY NOW. The first: true; the second: not so much. What ha' happen' was, It began to heal really well from the outer edge inward, and I guess planned to meet in the middle once it healed its way there. So the middle was (is) like this horrible gross wound and the outer edge is almost fully healed..! I had the nurse approve of the disgusting shade of gross that the wound happens to be (I wanted the pink of new-healed flesh and I get the red of.. well..)...

Hot Danger II: Jermaine

When I told people I'd "burned my foot" they again naturally assumed it to be the fault of that cute little kerosene device which has so many safety features, I'd be hard-put to injure myself if that were my intent. (It even turns itself off after three hours, just for good measure)

But no, something much more innocuous-looking was the culprit this time. And I consider this instance to be more severe because injury was done to my person.

Don't I just look like I would burn a bitch?

I have a hot water bottle, because as I may have mentioned, we don't have central heating, I don't want to fall asleep with my kerosene heater on (CO poisoning), blah blah blah. Long story short, to prevent my feet from getting frostbite overnight (exaggeration), I fill this cute little sheep with scalding water and stick it under the blanket.

There is a little warning label that comes attached when you buy one of these things. I can't read, but the picture of a little girl with pain zig-zags coming out of her head and a bright red foot was unmistakable. The instructions were, put this thing in the blankets to warm up the blankets, then don't leave it by your feet overnight.

Bah! Who ever heard of such waste of warmth? Certainly not I. And so, night after night I left that cute little thing in the sheets, and I never suffered the worse.

Until...

Last Friday I attended a certain Alice-in-Wonderland party (as Tweedledum, no less). After imbibing, I biked home to sleep. As usual, I filled the water bottle and went to bed. When I woke up, my foot hurt, and I couldn't remember harming myself at the birthday party (goodness, was I really like that..?). And the more I considered it, the more I was convinced I would have noticed the scrape or burn or whatever when I crammed my feet into shoes for the bike ride home.

No no, what happened was much more sinister. Overnight, while my foot rested against yutanpo for eight hours, it slowly cooked my skin.

Gross.

I went to the store and bought burn cream and bandages large enough to accommodate the freaking thing, which was too wide for band-aids. I bundled it up Saturday evening and spent Sunday running errands. When I took off the bandage at the end of the day, the creepy burn had turned into the biggest blister I have ever seen.

I'll spare you the pictures, although I did take some, just because I was fascinated with horror at the whole thing. The blister is now named Jermaine because it is too large and has been with me too long; it has almost taken on a life of its own as it proceeded to alter mine all week.

For one thing, it's about a half centimeter tall. Not long, not wide. Tall. Which made wearing shoes (at least correctly) out of the question. I went to work on Monday hoping to show our school nurse, but she was out that day. I was at this point a bit nervous because a friend mentioned having to have a burn 'drained' to prevent 'infection.'

Noooo, infection! No! But I also couldn't bring myself to do it myself. And I wanted someone who knew their stuff to look at it and tell me what to do with it.

On Tuesday, still wearing my regular tennis shoes and tromping all over the back of the right one, I went to the middle school after elementary time and showed it to her. She took one look at it and said "Oh! Keep! Keep!" and then explained to me in Japanese (which I am proud to have gotten) that new skin is growing underneath so I should basically keep the bubble as long as I can.

I promptly went to Jusco and bought backless shoes. I've been wearing the guest slippers at work all week (except that one day I brought my Jelly Belly slippers instead), which only made me feel strange in front of the kids' parents on Thursday. Otherwise I really wanted the kids to ask me why I was wearing them so I could tell them the story of my BADASS blister experience.

But by Tuesday night, the novelty had worn off; I haven't been able to really go for a walk or jog (or swim, either) all week, and now I'm sitting here, contemplating Jermaine's murder so I can wear real shoes tomorrow for my Kobe expedition.