Bless Your Little Heart

I've been following a discussion over at Locohama about gaijin clashing over microagression and racism. I read the article and watched the discussion, and it sounded to me like all of them were right. Which is confusing since they are making opposing statements.

I'm foreign in Japan. A few of my readers (hi Mom hi Dad!) have made the trip to also check out being foreign in Japan. And although I haven't considered this permanent, have not dreamed of spending the rest of my life on the island, I will admit there are moments it has come up in my mind, especially of late as I prepare to leave. Japan is so beautiful, and so friendly. Sometimes I look at the mountains and rivers and I don't know how to let them go. Same with the students. I think it takes a long time to get into a place, and even longer where Japan is concerned. They don't move fast in the 'accepting outsiders' department, but I really do feel like most of my co-workers, kempo folk, and students have some notion of who I am after working with me for as long as they have.

It may even be an illusion, but I feel like most of the kids in the JHS even see me as a person now, not just a diversion (although that too), and not just a foreign face. We're at a point now where all the JHSers were in elementary school when I arrived, so they've seen me push, pull, demand, relent, and instruct. They've seen me at my best, and in some cases at much worse, on sick days, running short on patience, and with a surfeit of good humor. Even though I try to keep it all professional, of course personality and personal place-in-the-moment leaks through. Some days I don't feel like going out to play at recess. Sometimes I bitch at the kids for not doing a good job at souji. Some days I just make faces at them in the classroom when I see them cutting up. Because I know them and their games, and even when I don't strictly approve, I am glad to see them play.

But like I said, these are the people I see every week, or every day. These are the teachers I've been bathing with, drunk with, and a couple of times bathing drunk with. These are the people I've learned to respect and even admire, to like and in some cases even trust. And that's kind of a two-way street, and that takes a long time. I'm actually pretty shy, terrified of mistake-making, and introverted, so I sort of get the whole Japanese slowness to warm up to outsiders.

When I meet strangers, it turns into the same old thing. As observed by many, Japan is a friendly place. Especially in the countryside, people are extra nice and helpful. This extends to a desire to feed you (which often turns into the quiz game Will You Eat It?), or show you some aspect of Japanese culture that you have probably never seen before. Because a tourist would not have. There is this friendliness that also pushes the assumption of your ignorance. Have you ever tasted this?

I've discussed this with many people before, about the manner and mien of some JETs we meet in the world. Some of them happen to have a greater than average amount of knowledge in Japanese language, culture, or other general stuff. As you know, I'm all about learning. There are people who I could just listen to all day long because they know so much interesting stuff. I like people who know more or different stuff than me -- they are the people I have something to learn from, and I want to do that because I'm a junkie, hooked young.

But it's all about the presentation. There is a different between the kind of person I could listen to all day, and the kind of person I want to punch in the face after ten minutes of talking with them. That difference is embedded entirely in my reaction to how they present the stuff they know (or believe) that I don't know. Whether or not I believe there is an assumption on their part that they are instructing me on something I know nothing about. It's especially funny when someone like this lectures me on an area where I do have some stowed knowledge or expertise; I tend to just let them go on, partly because for all I know, they do know more than I do about that topic, even if was my major.

But we have a general use term for the people who posture themselves as in a position to school you, rather than share, who assume your ignorance or inexperience or confusion or difficulty: we tend to react to them as douchey. It's a fine line, and I believe that most of those who fall on the side of douchiness are not at heart total jerks, but they are merely insecure, they have something to prove, that is that they know stuff, more stuff than you, and they have to exert their superiority. They don't even think of it as you NOT knowing stuff, they think only of the stuff they KNOW.

Like I said, it's a fine line, and one that I consciously avoid myself, lest I slip into that douchey know-it-all role too. There's the added bonus that I know there is always more to learn, and that you can learn it in the most unexpected ways or places from the most unexpected sources, it's true.

Anything can sound patronizing in the right situation. I'll admit that even as I was hitting the end of that Oita bike ride, the cheerful shouts of encouragement from fellow bikers and supporters began to hit nerves. "You can do it! Keep going! You're almost there!" Probably because I was by then into an irrational state where I could not maintain much emotional balance. Of course I can do it. I mean, everyone else has already. Almost there? But not there yet. Of course I'm going to keep going, what do I look like, a quitter?!

Well-intentioned gestures can be interpreted as anything.

You hear all the time about how Japan is "so homogeneous." What that means is, Japanese is a big solid concept. A kid asked me the other day, Emily, do you like Japanese? And I answered yes, before realizing I had no idea what he had really asked me. I hear the question as Japanese language, because that's what the word means all by itself to me (and I like language, so of course I like Japanese language too.. it's fun!). Japanese people would be "the Japanese," and any other thing would have the noun following the adjective "Japanese". Japanese food, Japanese music, Japanese art, Japanese whatever. The kid probably just meant "Do you like Japan?" but was a first-year and so it came out wrong.

The point being, though, that Japanese means all those things. It's a nation, but it's also a culture, complete with all the set of traditions and foods and language; it's also a race, and for most people, they all mean the same thing. A scion of Japanese people is heir to all that entails. We are us, this is ours, our legacy, which passes to you.

In the US, for example, America is a nation. But races and cultural legacies are something else. You can be a child of German and African descent, practicing Hinduism against your parents' wishes if you want. We fracture on all kinds of lines in America, beliefs and traditions and religions. We belong to groups that fall under the umbrella of being American. Because America is just damn big, and it's populated by people from all over the place, and it would be ludicrous to expect that Americans could have anything in common with all Americans other than their national affiliation to the country they live in. This is why anyone can look American to me. And if you aren't American, there is a process by which you can become one (I will admit up front that I have no idea how this process works for whom).

I'm aware that there is a process by which you can become a Japanese national, and that it's really difficult. But there is no process by which you can become Japanese. And this is why people are surprised to see you, a foreigner, participating in their cultural stuff. You may spend a very long time learning and taking in Japanese ways and customs and abilities. You may speak better Japanese than your fellow townsfolk. But a stranger meeting you for the first time has no idea that you aren't a tourist on a two-week vacation.

And the tendency so far is to assume that you probably are. There are questions you get used to answering. That "where you're from" isn't necessarily where you live now, it's where you were before Japan and more specifically, your racial descent. That "how long you are staying" is how many weeks, not years. It's not an overt aggressive speech act. They aren't trying to drive you out of the country; they're glad you are here to see their wonderful culture. Take lots of pictures and tell your friends about it when you get home.

Why would you stay? You aren't Japanese, after all. And bless your heart, that isn't your fault, now is it? You just happened to be born not one of them, and that's just how the ball bounces.

Okay so there is a presumed superiority inherent in that sensibility.

It's not your violent, hateful brand of racism, but it's still othering. You don't have to hate on someone to make them feel small. Sometimes being nice will do it. You aren't to be blamed for your not being Japanese, so who could hate you for it?

I'm not quite comfortable calling this aggression, although I also think it would be irresponsible to pretend that the compliments on your Japanese language or chopstick wielding ability aren't galling and some days totally wearing. It's gotten to the point that I don't even want to have the conversation with foreigners about it anymore. Yeah yeah, so someone told you your Japanese was good after you only said "Good morning" and you stumbled on the syllables, and you wanna bitch about it? I don't want to hear it anymore, you wear me out as much as they do.

But we do have to acknowledge the double edge of that sword. If you're so quick to compliment, your compliments become meaningless. The only real compliments I've gotten on my Japanese language are the times someone mistook me for Japanese when they weren't looking at me (by phone, or looking down at a clipboard as I walked by and spoke). They're only trying to be friendly and make conversation with these things, but occasionally the ignorance is astonishing.

America must be a scary place, what with everyone carrying guns all the time, and all that. But, on the other hand, girls in America are really tough and all know martial arts so they are probably okay. You get questions like "What do Americans/Westerners/foreigners think of such-and-such?" And you have to field that shit. And all you can do is say, "Well I don't know, Margo. But as for me..." and give your own opinion, stressing that it's just yours, not America's official position. And hope that over time they meet enough foreigners to being to see the pattern that there is no set pattern.

I've occasionally heard summations of an American way of doing things that were startlingly on target. I don't even remember what it was about (probably sports day), just that I explained how we did a thing compared and contrasted to how we were doing it at my school. One of the teachers laughed and said, isn't that just so American. To be so concerned with the final outcome, the bottom line, efficiency. And when I thought about that later, I thought, aren't most of my frustrations with the office mostly a matter of inefficiency and time-wasting? Maybe she had a point.

Still and all. It's a bit of a fix. Japan is incredibly welcoming and friendly, but it's a place where you will never been seen as one of them (unless perhaps you look like them). People who stay permanently or long-term have to find a way to fight that, or rise above it, or bottle it up until it causes their internal organs to explode. It takes a lot of energy to buoy up that kind of thing some days, and it can really wear you down. Maybe the answer is just to have a good support network, to get to know the people you like, to participate and to be involved. Yeah you won't reach everyone, but you'll slowly make a deeper impression on the people who have to deal with your shit and who get to be impressed by your poise and bravery on a weekly basis.

I say maybe, because that would be my go-to answer, and if it didn't work I'd have to try something else.

There is no quick way to make "the Japanese" see you as anything other than "not Japanese." Because for every co-worker you vehemently school, there are a hundred people who have never met you who might see you tomorrow and stare. But one day, maybe some of those hundred will all have a friend of a friend who is Japanese-not-Japanese, a person of non-Japanese descent who nonetheless is perceived 'Japanese' in behavior and language ability and cultural understanding.

But that's all missing the point. The point is to be a person, not "Japanese" or "not-Japanese." There's nothing more frustrating than standing in the void and shouting, I'm a person! I matter and have feelings! Some would rather not shout. Some would.

There are people in Japan who know that I'm a person. There are many more who don't and never will.

the bike, the bus, and the broken car

I just love the way that things come together and the way that they fall apart. I want to tell this story for very little other reason than that it's funny to me. It's long as hell, so if you skip this one, I'll understand. ^_^

So first, let me refresh you on our cast of characters. First, The Bike:

China Downtown. Nowadays she is a little more rust-spotted, and the front basket is all bent because this one time we had a typhoon which sent her crashing to the ground.  Her story is here.

I had thought about biking to school before, especially when the weather was nice. I see high schoolers doing it all the time, which speaks to me that it isn't really all that hard, and come on Lem, you are certainly fit enough to do it if they are, aren't you? I mean, aren't you? I even did bike up to Ichi a time or two, for afternoon events where parking would be hard to come by. But there was always a reason not to do it, that reason mostly being time. It takes longer to bike than it does to bus, and I have a hard enough time catching the bus some mornings.. the idea of leaving early enough to make it to work on time by bike was daunting, and always ultimately overthrown.

But on nice mornings, as I watched high schoolers biking by from the bus window, I would sigh and think, if only I could get my shit together. Alas.

As you already know, I have a weakness for charity bike rides, as best evidenced by my twice-yearly leading of the PEPY Ride Himeji since the spring of my first year. So of course I was interested in the Oita Ride, which sounded cooler and cooler the more I read about it (and also more and more insane for someone like me who cannot really call herself a cyclist). There are a lot of issues with this, mostly being the ride is in OITA and though it is on a weekend, the logistics of getting to and from Oita in the time available is a bit daunting (and expensive). But ticket prices be damned, if Japan has anything, we have speedy trains!

So I signed up (shut up brain). And some of the emails were like, you should do some training, bike some more, try to spend some time biking, and I knew that biking to work would be a good way to get that time in... because it would serve so many purposes at once and would even be kind of good for me; still I could not get my crap together and budget that extra 40 minutes.

Unrelatedly, I had to go to the BOE a couple of times to ask about visa things and return plane ticket request forms. At the end of my second visit, my BOE contact added, something to the effect of, oh, one more thing, don't drive to school, only bus. And I was too surprised to say anything but yes.

(Cast member the car: Robin Red:)

My tiny and oh-so-recognizably red vehicle.

But later, that 'reminder' began to stew for all its implications.

First of all, I get that taking the bus is better for me and the environment in a lot of ways. The bus gives me time to chill out, read, look out the window mindlessly, sometimes even nap awkwardly. It gives me a good excuse to leave earlier than other people (I don't make the schedule! I just gotta follow it... ^_____^ heh, bye guys!) at work, and removes the carbon footprint I'd leave k-car-ing up to Ichi and back every day. It's true.

But there are times and places in which it just makes more sense for me to drive. One is when I plan to spend the whole day in Ichi (when I have adult class from 7:30 to 9, as there are no buses after 9, I have to drive myself-- but if I am going to be driving there and back once anyway, why waste the time of busing back home and driving back up there between school and the evening class?). Another is when I go to small elementary: rather than either rush a connection (making bus connections at all  ;_;) or wait half an hour for the connection (which gets me there late anyway..!), it's way less stressful to just handle it and bring myself to school at whatever time I think is necessary or important based on what I am doing and what materials I need time to arrange.

Other less legit reasons include having stuff I need to do, like wanting to hit the bank or post office or grocery store for lunch in the middle of the day. Or having stuff to do on the way home. Or suspecting that we might get out early and wanting to be able to just go when the VP gives the word. Perhaps less legit, but they have been reasons all the same.

But mostly, the 'reminder' was upsetting because it implied more than a lack of sense. It meant, we know you've been driving, and we take enough note of it to say something about it.

See, in Japan, they have this handy way of dealing with stuff. There is the official line, and then there is what actually happens. Back home, this line is a bit blurred most of the time. Everyone knows there is the Way It's Supposed to Be, and then the Way It Is, with the Supposed to Be actually being a sort of ideal that is hardly ever achieved. In Japan, Supposed-to-Be is more like a set of rules that may or may not make sense, and then the Way It Is is just the thing that happens while the higher ups cheerfully look the other way. Which has been the way this whole driving thing has been handled by everyone here for a long time.

I know that other JETs have also been driving daily when "not supposed to," and that no one ever said anything to them. My own teachers and staff have sometimes joked with me about how "it's a secret" that I drove that day. It's not a secret; everyone knows, we just don't talk about it and pretend I take the bus every day-- I drive rarely enough that it's not predictable anyway!

The other irksome thing is this. I'm a grown-ass woman. I do my job and I don't make trouble. Most people around here like me, and those who don't at least don't have it out for me. After three years, trust me to handle this. Because really, I got this. I do need help in some things, but in a lot of others, I think I can be allowed to make the call, because I'm not a little kid anymore.

The other paranoia-inducing part is, this must mean someone sold me out. Because I highly doubt that the BOE people are concerned enough about it to ride by my house and note when my car is missing during a weekday. So this leads a person to stare shiftily around the staff room wondering which of these two-faced jerks is perfectly nice to my face but in the evening sells me out to the higher-ups, and for what?

Basically it made me really, irrationally mad. And was also the little push of rage I needed to start biking to school! Don't drive, you say? Only BUS, you say? What about my bike, jerks?! I'll show you!!

..yeah. I'm not really showing anyone. But I did start biking to school, because I finally got over being embarrassed about being seen doing it (the one time I had brought my bike to school after going to fall festival, the kids completely missed the part where they were supposed to be impressed with my strength and power and were more making fun of my bike for being a 'mamachari' -- which I now know actually includes the word mama, which is just what it sounds like, and it means instead of gaining cool points, I lost them for not having a sporty bike, wtf) the day I put "please donate money to Oita Bike Ride" flyers on all the desks and a colorful donation box on my own. Now, it might all make sense. Emily bikes to school not because she is insane, or stupid, or irrationally mad and trying to stick it to the man, but because she is training for her upcoming event!

On the day I went to small elementary, it was raining, so I took the two buses I am supposed to take. As I dolefully prepared to go home, the principal of that school asked me, "Are you going to drive home now?" to which I replied with a sad sigh, "No. I'm taking the little bus."

"Oh," he said, "I think it's better." 

Aha. Of course. The guy who is always like "Are you driving home now?" and then "Be careful." What are you worried about? That the road is too narrow, this road I've taken six dozen times? That I can't drive well? Why, because I'm a woman? Because I'm a foreigner? Because I learned on the right? Because I left that "beginner" sticker in my window out of laziness and because people are generally kinder to you when you have it, even though I've been driving for almost a decade? Do you think it's others I will hurt with my car, or me? Why don't you believe in me?!

The irrational anger was back with a rage-spiced vengeance for this poor guy who is only trying to look out for me by telling the BOE to tell me not to drive to school, as I now believe happened. Nonetheless, the discovery did help me feel more at ease about my upcoming days -- days on which I wanted to drive because I wanted to skip out early, mostly (all errands or departure for Oita, actually).

One of those days was Thursday. Because of inconveniently timed rain, my poor bike remained in the large-elementary parking lot (more like parking pit, kinda) Wednesday night as well. I drove to large-elem Thursday, but on the way noticed that something about Robin Red didn't feel quite right. Usually, I notice a smell or a sound first, but this time it was a feel. She had been acting a little weird when idling, sometimes running high in RPMs for no reason, but I had never driven her farther than to kempo or Jusco, both approximately six minutes away, and I hadn't called the car people about it yet. I studied the dash for a moment. Shit. The temperature gauge was high, not quite in the red zone, but way higher than normal and way higher than okay.

I was almost to school, so I figured I'd just try to make it there and turn her off so she could cool down. She died right in the road when I stopped, waiting to turn in to the school driveway. I managed to coax her to restart while all of Thursday morning traffic waiting, and nudged her down into the gravel parking pit, where she came to rest right next to China, shuddered, and died parked at a funny angle.

I hopped out and looked around. Shit shit shit. Not supposed to even drive to school, having done so for shady reasons, needing a car that afternoon to "go and come back" running errands-- but this time all the way to Himeji, goodness. I thought about procrastinating the phone call to the car people, because they might not be open yet, it's before 8am, and there might be a Scene, and the school will have to openly acknoweldge that I drove, and...

Sucked it up, called them anyway. The car people are kind of personal friends of ours these days, so I told them as best I could what had happened, and about how I needed to use the car later that day to.. do some stuff... "We'll give you a loaner," she explained, "but the only one we have right now is a bigger car than yours. Like one that six people can ride in. Is that okay?" Blink. A real car. No, more than that, a van. They're giving me a van! Question of how I think I'll get China home when I planned to drive both Thursday and Friday? answered.

After school, I walked down to the parking pit and was pretty much flabbergasted to see the van neatly parked between China Downtown and the edge of the gravel area by the wall where Robin had expired at a funny angle. Someone has maneuvering powers. I was delighted; I rarely get to drive a real car here in Japan these days.

I climbed aboard this beast and was instantly rewarded with songs of flight and power. It achieved so effortlessly the speeds which Robin shrieks and whines to attain. China Downtown fit into the back without so much as touching the front seats. And I felt like I had just gained like 600 more badass points, not to mention I was now driving incognito! No one who has seen Robin Red will expect to find me piloting this beast, this boat, this whale of a car, which for the time I have it, I will be calling Diesel (because that, my friends, is the type of fuel it requires). And if anyone is like, "why wasn't Robin parked at your house the other day?" I can be like, "Because she is in the shop!" I only wish I had some kind of party to take all my friends to, because when I drive Diesel, I feel like I'm driving a bus. And I kind of am.

This car is twice the size of Robin. TWICE.

So IS any one part of this a blessing, or a curse? I can't really tell. It's complicated and silly. The icing on this long and nearly pointless tale is, I have developed a sore throat and I might not be able to go to Oita this afternoon after all. And I'm not saying that the sore throat is a result of any particular thing, but in my experience, I only get sick when I get stressed out/unhappy. So, there's that. I would call it irony, but I think irony is more like layering, and this story is more like interlocking pieces. It may be that I can't actually afford to go to Oita (timewise? money?) and am stubborn enough not to care, so the universe is forcing me to reconsider. Still, the event sounds awesome and I if I miss it, I will be very very sad.

The Ponderous Return of The Uj (as in "usual")

Well, I must apologize for leaving you so long with that bad taste in your mouth of me being a little bit of an asshole. The truth is, I only felt bad about it for a short while, because things just got too busy to carry on with all that!

That weekend that was supposed to be International Picnic but was typhoon instead (9/3-4) preceded our seven days of working-not-working, or Sports Day Week.

Since I had been complaining about needing a vacation, I tried to look at the daylong stand-around-outside fest as a forced vacation. It worked for a while anyway. The first few days after the typhoon was finished were almost cool, and they were clear and pleasantly bright. I stood under the blue sky, looked up through the cherry trees, and wandered amongst the students, all gathered for practice. Really, it was blissful.

And although I don't necessarily like to spend all day at my desk, I don't necessarily like to spend no time here either. I have a lot of stuff I do (I might have menioned before), things that require a bit of attention, if not daily, then at least every few days to keep them moving smoothly through the internet and my brain. Hyogo Times and JETinfogather are two big ones, but my kanji review list begins to get out of hand after too long, and there's always that TEFL course I just signed up for...

And it slowly becomes maddening to spend so much time each day doing actually nothing when you know there's stuff to be done. But by the time you get home, you're pretty worn out from all that standing around in the sun, so all you really want is a shower and a nap and maybe some dinner.

So it's the best of weeks, and it's the worst of weeks, and it's also longer than most weeks, since you spend Monday to Saturay in practice and prep, and then the Sports Festival itself is Sunday.

All of our favorite events were back, the dancing, the family races, the relays, the mukade (centipede) race (I don't know whose idea this race was, but it's hilariously full of wipeouts)... the log-pull, the hat chicken fights without a pool (also called kibasen, or "mock cavalry battle")

Sports Day itself was pretty hot, with a little douse of rain in the morning to wet down the field and make the relay race a bit tougher. I got my new camera replaced for free (the rice-bin one never did recover, but the store exchanged them for me, no questions asked.. must have been under some kind of warranty since I did only buy the thing a few weeks before it got typhoon'd) so I was holding down the shutter to take a lot of rapid action shots.

Got to see a few of the graduated students, including a couple favorites..

The PTA enkai that followed was not far from the school. At first I sighed and thought, oh, I guess I have to go, but then I remembered that I love meeting kids' parents and seeing where they came from in that respect, so I was even happier that I had the good fortune of being seated next to, across from, and diagonal to parents of a couple of my favorite students. It only makes sense, of course, that the PTA parents have the mroe involved, harder-trying kids. Best of all was that the guy to my right was my speech boy's dad.

A teacher at Higashi asked me who our speech kids were, and when I said this kid, he was like "Aw crap."

All in all, it was perhaps the most successful sports day yet. I cannot find the memory card with the photos from that day, so I'll put them up eventually.

 Following our Monday-Tuesday fake weekend (blissful, that), we had a three-day work week, which for me was chock full of the usual. Classes, commitments, planning. It went off without any more hitches than usual, anyway. Since my 17th - 19th hopes for pilgriming had been rained out, we had to devise a new plan...

That entry coming soon.

Some More Acdemics

I've spent the last hour or so trying to figure out what a TEFL certification actually means, who has the right to give them, and whether or not it's just a racket designed to take from me the most precious thing I have (not my okane, silly, my time!).

And maybe it's just the way today feels, but after looking at all those websites and definitions and acronyms and prices and topic lists, all I want to do is take a nap. I'm not sure how this bodes. This didn't come about randomly; few things ever do.

The JET program has rearranged the budget a little, it appears. We aren't going to get any more calendars or handheld planners from them. But. They are offering partial sponsorship to 100 lucky applicants who want to get TEFL certified online. Well heck. I'll apply, at least. Another certification can't hurt my future prospects, anyway, can it?

Unless it is as mind-numbing as it in some ways promises to be, of course. I have this fear when it comes to going back to school to get certification to teach in the US once this is over - what before JET would have bored me to tears might at this time bore me to violence - I might throw things. The problem is, there will be a lot of good and valuable information which I really do need buried in there along with lots of stuff I already know because I had to pick it up on the fly as I rocketed through grammar games by the seat of my pants.

But I mean, if we come back to it, I really do want to be better. I guess it's more a question of time, since JET would pay for most of it.

But if anyone out there has any unbiased information on just what the hell TEFL is, and how it fits in with my recurrent vision of being a multi-focused teacher (I think, rather, of Mr. Webb, who taught physics, and ESL, and sat in on political studies, and lent me linguistics articles)... I mean, before I left, the Kaplan people in Kansas suggested that upon my return, I could be the EFL teacher.

Which begs the question: do I really need this piece of paper? Maybe not. Will it hurt to have it? Only the hours I spend in front of my computer (100 of them, unless I get a by for reading fast).. will it help? Maybe. I can't help but think about how these things happen, the things we pick up along the way, and how they change our futures. I only took Latin because it was the alternative, you know? It changed me, and it didn't. I was always going to be like this, maybe.

Well. First things first. Apply for grant. Then find the time. (I hear you saying, hey, what about August, what're you doing at work then anyway? But that is for another entry.)

Oh the time. Only one and a half more work days til I leave for Tokyo Orientation.

Two Weeks

I just got back from Jusco with the temporary solution to this week's latest problem: a USB keyboard. I thought I could get along without the A key until such time as someone else magically fixed my computer (or, in the land of wishful thinking, it returned miraculously to normal)... but the on-screen keyboard, which saved my ass in the login to Windows (as my password may or may not have the letter A IN IT SOMEWHERE), very quickly became a nuisance method of dealing with the issue. The problem, by the way, isn't random. I spilled water on my computer and am damn lucky I only lost the letter A. I spilled water because I was using it on the floor of my room, having dragged the internet box to the limit of its cord (booby trapping the doorway in the process) so it could share the AC and therefore, apparently, function properly. Oi.

It's been a long, action-packed couple of weeks as we wind up to wrap up this JET year with a bang, and a whisp of smoke. I went far too long without sleeping in, but finally this morning was able to sleep til 10. At last!

What's been going on, the crowd asks. Oh, so so many things.

I had my little hell week, where everything was due at once at the end, which does happen from time to time if you have exactly nine of your ten fingers in nine different pies. Friday was the due date for our Tokyo Orientation Presentation, which was a technological and time-managing pain in the collective ass. This year, they combined the seminars for Japanese Language Study and Japanese Etiquette, reducing them from 50 minutes each to about 21 (if you make room for intro, etc). Excellent. Excellent. Then have four people across the country all trying to file share using different computers and different restrictions at work which allow or do not allow certain up or downloads... it's all pretty much a mess.

Simultaneous to this, I was getting ready for the Shorinji Kempo test I said I'd back out of but never got around to escaping. I was woefully underprepared, and I was cancelling other commitments left and right in order to just, goodness, make a good show of it. I did pass, of course, but not smoothly and beautifully and without wanting to cry. That was on Saturday. Which was also a work day. Not really a work day, but we were required to either show up or use nenkyuu (unacceptable), so I showed up, and attended as many of the sports teams' games as I could (judo, girls' table tennis, softball, girls' volleyball) before rushing home to suit up and roll out to testing.

Sunday, I went to Kyoto to see Dre again, and we passed a very pleasant day exploring a temple his professor had suggested, Tofuku-ji. We then surprised-called Nami and had dinner with her and her husband at their house. I crashed with Dre, and on Monday morning, which was a day off because of working Saturday, pushed onward to Universal Studios Japan.

From 2011_07_10

Which was also enormous fun; that Hollywood Dream rollercoaster just fills me with joy. It's like flying, with all the smooth sheer terror that entails. Rode it three times. We also enthusiastically participated in super-wet-time on Jurassic Park ride, which was awesome and we rode twice. USJ is excellent, but it pays to go on a schoolday.

A very sunny weekend, as well.

From 2011_07_11

But as you can see, this was a full weekend, and I hit the ground running Tuesday by doing 5 classes at elementary, followed by a 2-class Wednesday with moving in the afternoon. Thursday was more elementary, and Friday was just all day moving.

Moving, you say? Yes, we're moving. To the new school building. The kids march like ants, all toting something as we make our way up the ramps from one building to the next. Since the new building is about two car lengths from the old, we didn't have to port that stuff too far.

There's the ramp leading in!

From 2011_07_08

A view of the new staff room; you can see the old one through the window.

From 2011_06_22

I'm pretty excited about the fact that the new staff bathroom has real toilets and is not going to be a dark, dank cavern with two squatty-potties in it.

From 2011_06_22

This shows how close the other building is... they needed the extra space for building, so they sealed off the bathrooms on each floor, which jutted out of the old building by each stairwell, and just knocked them out of the way.

From 2011_06_22

New atrium area facing the Somegochi River. Space, air, and light.. all things the old building did not have this much of.

From 2011_06_22

This photo is from the day they let us run around and look at the new building before it was totally done. Here are the kids back on the other side, hard at work.

From 2011_06_22

So, yeah.. we're moving. My file cabinet is being taken away for space reasons (the new staffroom is, for some reason, smaller than the old one), so I've had to collapse my storage. I think people believe that since I am not always there, I couldn't need much space. Except.. the reason.. I am not always there.. is because... I do... Elementary. Which as you may be aware, requires a crapload more in the way of supplies, toys, brightly colored things, etc. No one understands us, *headdesk* et al.

This weekend was a three-day-er, thank heavens, so we spent Saturday in Osaka for the Harry Potter EndTimes; expectations were high after our 7-week lead-in of awesomeness, watching one movie a week until this weekend, but expectations were met by the movie. I'm still rolling it around in my mind as I clean up my damn house, because the first thing to fall apart when I don't have time to do anything is the state of my house. It's maddening, that, but I'm not sure how to prioritize cleanliness when I have to be out the door in thirty seconds. Also I just received/bought a bunch of stuff from some leaving JETs, so I have to integrate that into my house, sift out things I don't have room or need for, find out what to do with them. It's trickle-down stuff, so I'll probably have stuff to give away come August, hopefully stuff the newcomers will want.

Oh and of course, in the background to all this, rainy season gives way to HOT season, typhoons still roll in to drench us with much-needed rain.. the backyard is a jungle, at least for now, until the horrific heat turns that thriving weed-patch into a gravel pit, and I am getting ready to lose some very good friends and adventure-partners to the wilds of their futures back in North America. It's very important during this time to be able to make time to spend with those who won't be around Shiso much longer, especially considering I am leaving on the 23rd myself for Tokyo.

I'm also getting ready for Tokyo Orientation, a trip to Amerika, and the hosting of August guests. And trying to keep up with my extracurriculars on the side. Oh, and writing letters.

And I actually have three classes tomorrow. Which is preposterous, because it really should, by all rights, be summer vacation by now.

My apartment is finally coming together, I am, more or less, (and I'm rather shocked by this, myself) on top of my shit. I've even.. kind of.. started to pack! I will do more of that this evening, no doubt, and maybe clean some more. I made the unfortunate discovery of mold in my house this year, something you never wanna find, but which is sometimes difficult to prevent when you don't have AC.

Today I Totally Bitched Out the Fourth Graders

But I had a really good point, and I did it all in Japanese!

It's a simple exercise really, that requires students to take laminated cards with the ABCs on them and arrange them in order on the board. I do this mostly just to get the ABCs up there so we can move on the phonics, or some game, or whatever else you needs the ABCs for. It's an opener, and it's not supposed to take all that long.

I time them to give some incentive for accomplishing it fast. Beat last week's time! Or, beat the neighboring class's time! Older kids who take it seriously can complete ABC board in like less than two minutes.

Their time was one second shy of another class's.. I admit I rounded up.

I wrote the time on the board. The regular classroom teacher was not in the room; she'd had to pull on of the kids to give him a talking-to in the hallway. Yeah, it was that kind of day with that kind of group.

6:49, I said, hm. This is your time for getting the alphabet finished. Know who else had this time? Class 2-1. Second graders. Second graders took as long as you did to do this activity. Now, why is that? My tone was one I rarely take. But why not, I was pissed. They rolled around on the floor, they deliberately put letters in wrong places, or hid them, or sat on each other.

I dunno.

Me either. Aren't you fourth graders?

Yes.

And are you doing your best?

Yeah.

Oh, really? I gave them an appraising look, and immediately moved on. They were subdued the rest of the time. Not making trouble anymore, at least, but not having a 'great time' either.

All the other classes had fun, though. 2nd and 3rd grade was great because I managed to not require them to do 6th grade level work.
It was a tiring kind of day.

Travel OK

Copying this straight from the US Embassy email I just got:
U.S. citizens should defer non-essential travel to the following regions:  Tokyo (Tokyo Capital Region), Yokohama (Kanagawa Prefecture), and the prefectures of Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki, Iwate, Miyagi, Nagano, Niigata, Saitama, Shizuoka, Tochigi, Yamagata, and Yamanashi.

Areas of Japan outside these above regions of concern include:  the islands of Hokkaido, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa, and the prefectures Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Hiroshima, Hyogo, Ishikawa, Kyoto, Mie, Nara, Okayama, Osaka, Shiga, Shimane, Tottori, Toyama, Wakayama, and Yamaguchi on the island of Honshu.  Travelers to these prefectures should bear in mind that transit through Narita (Chiba) and Haneda (Tokyo) airports may be required.

This means many systems are go.

In the meantime, it's the last day of the official school year. The office smells strongly of bubblegum.. I think it must be cleaning products. I spend the morning booking Okinawa (dragging those participating Shiso-ites kicking and screaming into the world of planned Golden Week travel) while the tickets are still within our price range, because we've thrown around hypotheticals for at least a month, ohh, Korea? hmm.. Okinawa? The Philippines? Hmm.. But so-and-so has already been there. And someone doesn't have enough money and someone doesn't have enough vacation days, but it's important to me for us to make this trip together because it's the end of the JET year nearly, by then, but it's impossible for anyone to commit to or settle on anything. Fuck that! We're nearly out of time.
I try to look at websites about Kagoshima and fail. I will need to look at a guidebook instead. I consider ordering one on Amazon and decide to just borrow someone else's for this weekend.

I spend the morning in renraku form, playing little miss travel agent for myself and others, e-mailing and messaging in different people's various (idiotic.. no it's not her fault she can't access e-mail at work and uses facebook instead) messages. Lunch I sit and watch the sun on the river. It really is starting to feel like spring. After lunch I get back and have had enough of people who just don't listen.. and I don't mean 'people who just don't agree,' I mean who don't listen to things like facts. I tell them the time, the price. Then they ask again in another e-mail fifteen minutes later. Who can be bothered to scroll up, anyway? I have my fill of it and flee the bubblegum scented stuffy office for the flowerbeds because

I walk up that driveway every day and back down again in the afternoon to catch the bus, and there is one pansy bed among the many that is choked with weeds. The big powerful weeds wrap their coils (and roots, too) around the pitiful flowers, choking the life from them slowly...

So I grab my gloves (which VP gave to me some random day when he asked me to join him in his random job-doing around school) and go down to weeds who do not argue, and do not ask questions, and I rip them out and beat the roots against the rocks to loosen the dirt therein tangled. And the weeds resist, and the flowers do not thank me, still there's satisfaction in the sunshine of it, the dirt, and the warming wind. I think I found my new favorite spring-break-at-work sunny day pastime.

But of course, at some point I really will have to look into what I'm going to hope to do in Kagoshima this weekend. And I really shouldn't slack off on my Japanese studyin'. Maybe I'll do it on the train.

Though our dramas shrink to nothing when placed on the world stage.

It's been a whirlwind.

Yesterday was weird.

First, we had closing ceremony. There was an earthquake in the middle of it, nothing big, just little rumblings in the mountains. After ceremony, there were club activities.

Then, at noon, we had a meeting. For some reason, the meeting memos were not on my desk. I don’t know why I get all these other memos, but not the ones for this meeting, or like.. where the 3^rd years all ended up going to high school. I get a lot of stuff I hardly bother to glance over, but stuff I want to see I end up leaning over to look at other people’s desks.

So I was leaning over pre-meeting to see the floor plan of the new school. Big Brother had told me that when they built the new Ichi-Kita, he and the tea lady were like separated from the rest of the staff room by some kind of partition and that for morning meetings and such, he had to crane around it to see anything. I kind of expected something like that on our new floor plan too (building to open summer 2011?).

But no, they went Kita one better. There is a plan of the staff room, with all the important desks at the front (principal, vp, head teacher, and secretary), then the desk clusters which are much smaller.. our current plan has three desk clusters of six desks each. The tea lady, nurse, ALT, etc are just kind of glommed on to different clusters. I sit with the 1^st year teachers, the 2^nd year has the tea lady and nurse, and the head teacher is with the 3^rd year teachers. I always get put with the first year cluster (last year I was by the tea lady), so I figured that next year I might get moved over to what is currently the 3^rd year, as we turn over.

But in the new school, as I mentioned, 4 smaller clusters, 4 desks each. One cluster is tea lady plus one teacher from each year, and then each cluster is a year group.

And my desk? Oh well. There’s the staff room, then there’s this hallway, then there’s a sort of meeting room with a big table, and one desk cluster. Two empty desks, the school counselor, and me.

Sabishii, naaa!

When I saw this I didn’t initially realize that I was in another room across the hall. I was looking at it as one big room where I was far away. Even then, the school counselor is rarely at our school. I don’t know her at all. Even though I am gone twice a week to elementary, this is still my base school and I’m still here 3 days a week. Most of the time, I’d be alone in that extra room.

Which isn’t the end of the world, I mean, think of all the space! I could (shouldn’t, but would) slowly spread out and use both extra desks as well as my own. I would claim as much storage space as I liked. I could work furiously on HT, blogging, and studying Japanese, et al to my lonely heart’s content. I would probably sit and work at the big table. And I would never be part of the team again.

When they got to the floor plan in the meeting, though, Mikan-sensei stood up for me. I don’t know if anyone expected me to say anything, but a few people looked at me when we turned to the plan, with expressions reading “that’s kinda effed up, isn’t it?” I understand a lot more than I can say, though, so I was so grateful it brought tears to my eyes when Mikan-sensei said “You know, it’s really lame to put her over there all by herself, when she came all the way here to be a teacher for us and she’s trying to get better at Japanese,” in polite eloquence. Have I mentioned that I <3 Mikan-sensei?

I had written a post yesterday, just giving an overview of last weekend. Not too long after writing it, and working madly on HyogoTimes (April now live) all afternoon, and formulating a real schedule for studying Japanese, I packed up my crap and headed out. But the bus roared by when I was still halfway up the path to the road. I sighed, watched the elementary kids play soccer with graduated 3^rd-years (one of whom had the audacity to ask if I remembered his name—goodness, how could I have forgotten?) for a minute, then trudged back up to school to await the next bus, or someone heading home after clubs finished at like 4:30. I wanted to get back in good time so I could turn around in my car and come back up to Ichi for adult conversation class. Into the staff room again. But everyone was still there.

There was ANOTHER meeting, at 5:15. And this one was a bigger deal.

I didn’t know what was going on until it was. It was the official presentation of who is leaving, where they are going, and who is coming, and from where. I obsessed about this a lot last year, and all the ALTs were abuzz, wondering about the ways we would all swap English teachers, or not, who got to keep whom, and who was good, and who we were losing.

This year, I knew Newbie-sensei was going, she already got her info about elementary in Asago like two weeks ago. I knew that Mikan-sensei was staying. And I knew that Miss-Piggy-sensei was probably going; as a part-timer, she cleaned out her desk yesterday while I e-mailed and edited and waited for photos. I knew that Westerly-sensei was probably leaving (he’s the guy that’s a year younger than me, who arrived and occupied “that extra desk” around summertime; I like him, and we hang out sometimes). I was prepared for those things, although hearing them announced wasn’t my favorite afternoon plan. But there were some other surprises.

The VP, whom I just love, who is lenient with nenkyuu rules, who is good with the special needs kids and takes me along to English class with them, who always talks to me in English, and asks questions about stuff he hears in “video movies,” and who told me, on a New-Year’s card that I’m the “most excellent ALT [he’s] ever met” is getting promoted. He’ll be a principal at some other school. While I was still absorbing this surprise, they went on to announce that the math teacher (also a painter, and at whose home I recently sat for a portrait) was being moved to another school. Which was upsetting because I feel like we just became good. A few other teachers that I don’t ever work with but whom I like from afar, because they are solid and all the kids fear/love/respect them, are going too. I hardly heard the names of who is replacing all these people; I listened to make sure that one English teacher everyone is scared to have to work with was not among them, then I checked out into my own little emo haze about how life’s not fair.

Yep. My life is hard. Safe and sound in Shiso when one could have been anywhere, one could have been in Ishinomaki. One could have been anywhere in Tohoku, really, and have no more routine to be annoyed to disrupt..

And it’s really sad and scary, but in a much more distant way, that deaths are at 9737 with an additional 16501 missing (.. don’t look at that, even if you were able to stomach my Jermaine photos last year). But it’s different when they turn up someone just like you. Yeah, there have to be lots of people just like you among the missing, but Taylor Anderson was living a life just like mine at the same time as me. Tell me she was a JET and I can immediately know (or assume with a good deal of safety) that she taught English and didn’t teach English, that elementary kids worshipped her, that she was frustrated by the system, and loved Japan. I know nothing about her but I can see her at enkais, at hanamis, and under momiji. I can imagine her Japanese friends and her spring break plans. My reckless imagination insists that without knowing her at all, I know her quite well. And maybe that’s why this one person in ten-thousand hits me, and I’m sure all JETs, harder than numbers do. It’s quite a different thing to hear this kind of news about someone you know.

So yesterday I didn’t get home until 9:40 at night, having spent the whole day up around work. I was meccha tired. The attitude maybe has been, we do what we can, and keep doing what we can, but we keep living our lives too, which means we wish we could go to hanami, and we're going to go on spring break, and the school trip will be moved to Okinawa or Hokkaido instead of Tokyo. Because out here in unaffected Japan, we have to balance between the fact that life goes on, but not everywhere. That no one is making a big enough deal of it, but that it’s overtalked. So it's strange because life around here is about the earthquake, but it's not.. we do what we always did, out here in unaffected Japan, but we also do more than that because we have to donate and worry and hope and mourn too.

The Milk Is Free

I just got handed four milk cartons, with the promise of more to come. It makes me unwarrentedly gleeful when I get free stuff from school or neighbors or adult students. I don't buy much milk, but when I do, I'm glad that Japan sells it in a variety of small containers. Having to buy a half gallon at a time from SuperWalMart was one thing that kinda cramped my style in KS.. and my roommate and I drank different varieties, so we wasted more than I like to remember.

I hate wasting, so of course, in the spirit of mottainai, I'll be taking this milk on home to put into tea and coffee and other such coto.

I would by no means call myself "green," although I like to think I do okay at matters environmental. Especially in Japan, where they make some recycling virtually mandatory, and other recycling very easy (they just ain't got the space to throw stuff away), and I take the train and bus pretty frequently, I feel like my 'carbon footprint' isn't terribly large.

In some ways, Japan feels greener than being back home. In the suburbs around where I'm from, everything is at least a ten or twenty minute drive away, buses can be few, and there are no trains to speak of (not REALLY, I mean, come on). Recycling can be a hassle. When I was in college, most of my consumption was done in dining halls where I could sometimes be fiendish about how much I hated to waste food; I tended not to snack very much, nor cook. My own personal trashcan was negligible, shoebox-sized, to be taken out perhaps weekly. I didn't drive much because, shit, who had time?! I walked all over campus, and campus was essentially all the world I needed most days.

When I lived in Kansas, my roommate worked weekends at the local recycling center, so it was quite natural for us to put everything recyclable (since he knew what was, and how to sort it) in bags under the sink until we could throw them in his car before he left on Saturday. I tried to start a compost bucket, but since we had no yard of any kind, this endeavor failed.

I always tried to combine trips, mostly because I hate feeling inefficient. All the efforts I make toward conservation have been largely a factor of conservative personality rather than any real hardcore conservationist streak. I can't really conscion putting my plastic bottles in burnable trash when, if I cross the street, there's a bin to recycle them.

Japan forces you to sort your trash into burnable, non-burnable, and then a bunch of other types like bound paper, glass (but only kitchen type), plastic bottles, etc. And my town is pretty easygoing. When I say "forces," what I mean is, if you put the wrong crap in the burnable trash bag, the trash will be returned to your front stoop for you to try again. Thanks for playing. You have to sort because there ain't no space, and what is burnable will be burned.

Sending all kinds of awesome fumes into the air around you, of course. What Japan conserves in landfilling, they quite make up in burning. And what they conserve in recycling, I almost feel they make up (destructively) in the amount of packaging applied to every single damn piece of anything you ever buy. If you want to test my theory, try the Mickey-Dee's drive through and ask yourself if they aren't having a contest to see if they can't wrap your food in more different pieces of paper and plastic than the last time you were there.

But if you want a grocery bag and you forgot to bring your cloth number, you have to pay for one (or if you are stubborn as hell, you cram things in your purse and cradle the rest in your arms.. not that anyone I know does that).

Now that it's winter I wonder about other things. I'm sure there's math to figure out all the variables.. but on the one hand, yeah, maybe it is wasteful to have central heating and heat a building (or a room) you are not currently inhabiting. If you're at work all day, that heat is just being created for no one, right?

But on the other hand, maybe it's wasteful that a room can go cold fifteen minutes after I turn off the heater because the walls are made of paper alloys. I've always heard it's harder to warm up a space than to just keep it warm. I feel like we need to meet somewhere between insulation and space heating, people. When I lived in Kansas, we turned the thermostat down during the day when we were gone, but this was mostly because we were cheap, because we were poor bastards. Sometimes, trying to save money leads you towards being more conservative in your environmental destruction.

Sometimes it does the opposite. It really pisses me off when it is the opposite, because in my head it doesn't make sense that the environmentally friendly way may also be the more expensive way. Shouldn't I be conserving our energy and my cash?

The bus to Himeji costs 1110, one way. This means a round trip is 2220, for those of you who are worse at math than me. It's a little inconvenient because buses run every half hour or so, they take a full hour, and then stop running altogether after like 9:20, so you have to adjust your schedule accordingly. But of course, it is one less car on the road, and the bus is cheap. THIS BUS IS NOT CHEAP.

None of the local buses in my area are cheap. I sat down and calculated the cost of driving to Himeji, round trip. I was liberal in my estimations of both gas cost and amount of gas needed, assumed I was parking in the nicer parking lot and not the far-away 500 lot. And I still couldn't get the whole thing to cost more than 1550. Plus driving is more convenient, especially if you are taking a bunch of stuff with you, not to mention getting to/from the local bus station in the first place. It's crap. The perk of not having to drive is frequently trumped by this crap.

Luckily, I more often go to Himeji in pairs or small groups, which makes driving (ahem, carpooling) a no-brainer.

While I'm ranting..

I've heard people complain about toilets wasting water by using too much with each flush, and I've heard others complain that the lo-flow variety just don't provide enough water.. so I'm pretty pleased that Japan's toilets (even the low-tech squatty potties) offer you choices about 90% of the time. You push the handle one way for 大 (big) and the other way for　小 (small). That's a pretty ingenious way of solving that problem.

At the same time, I find that some Japanese women waste water by flushing the toilet too much. Seriously. It makes me livid to be standing over a squatty-potty, and hear the stall next door flush several times in a row because I'm tenanting in a culture that thinks it's more okay to waste water than to allow someone (SOMEONE, let me remind you, of the same sex, who is presumably in this very room to perform the same natural physical actions as you) to hear you pee.

Oh my God, the thought of it makes me gnash my teeth.

I personally waste water in much better ways, like by taking baths and showers. I just like to feel clean and warm.

I can't believe I've found a topic on which I actually feel like ranting! There's a lot more where this came from, all about travel, but I think I'll save it because I kind of want to think about making it a feature for the Hyogo Times (which, did I mention, I became EIC of..?).

I'm doing a lot of work on it, trying to get ready for the re-launch on January 31st. It's going to be pretty epic (as epic as a free JET-community prefectural publication captained by a total noob can be, anyway), and I'm pretty excited about it. I originally stayed out of the HT business because I didn't think I had time. But the honest truth is, I'm good at this, and that's good for me, and I can make some time. I'm realizing that I am destined neither to be a jack-of-all-trades, nor an expert at any one thing, but rather I am meant to get pretty damn good at one thing at a time, before finding my ceiling, and giving it up (or keeping it, but without aspiration to ever be The Best). I'll give you all the website and PDF upon our glorious re-launch.

Nengajou

I like the Japanese tradition of sending New Year greeting cards. It's basically the same idea as Christmas cards, only non-affiliated to any religion, and if you don't know what to say, there are a bunch of sweet set formula phrases to use. Congratulations on the New Year. Please regard me kindly this year as well as last.

Last year I took a bunch of cards home with me to mail out as New Year cards in the US. I did this without realizing that some of the cards you buy already have the Japanese postage built right in, to save you the trouble of affixing postcard stamps. This year, I decided I'd be smart and just attach 20yen additional stamps to them, because 70 yen is the cost of sending a postcard international.

I just got word that the built-in-stamp cards are special and might not go abroad. I assured the bearer of this news that I had put my return address on my cards and they were totally not returned.

But I don't think I put my return address on them, come to think of it. So if you are expecting a card and didn't get one, the JPost might have eaten it for a holiday supper. I apologize. Those of you to whom I am sending late cards, well, yours will be fine.

Yoi o-toshi-o!

Update: I also managed to leave all my cardmaking material at school today even though it was the last day the building would be open until the 3rd. But by the 3rd I'll be in Penang, hopefully lying on a beach, and not back to Shiso until the 10th. At which point New Year cards are kind of moot.

I actually had my vice principal and Kam-kam collaborate to retrieve them for me.

So much fail. But so much kindness, too. I guess if I did everything right, I would have no call to feel this kind of gratitude that my boss and my fellow JET would go out of their ways like this for me.

My VP has made a dangerous discovery, being that I like to work.

So now, I'm always working.

It's field-day-week (and a half) again, and this time I am less baffled and more involved than before. I am also better prepared. I'm hatted, fully sunscreened, and double-fisting on the water bottles every day we are outside. Because of rain, we were inside today. I am perhaps even sweatier for it.

All this stuff is a lot more fun when you know the kids and can kind of enjoy their antics. My favorites among the girl students keep making me join their dance practices and I suspect I'll be expected to participate in that stuff in actual sports day too.

When I wasn't folk-dancing (the Oklahoma Mixer, no less) and sweating a disgusting amount, I was sitting in the upper level of the gym, sorting paintings for display, putting them in plastic sleeves, labeling them, and sweating a disgusting amount. Or I was outside raking grass clippings and sweating a disgusting amount. I wear real American-made deodorant and I am embarrassed at the way I smell right now sitting in the staff office.

But this post is already longer than I thought it would be, because mostly all I came to say is, I had like a whole month to be at my desk. And now I have no time, and I need to make a lesson plan for elementary school (little elementary.. the big one is doing the same stuff we are, namely running around outside all the time and sweating a disgusting amount), and I'm silly for not having done that sooner. Alas. I keep feeling like I have no time to take care of my own stuff. As little of that as there is. I'm tryin' to plan trips here, and classes. My apartment languishes in a seemingly endless state of disarray. I've got Japanese class and maybe karate and ikebana and eikaiwa. And my taxes, and sending money home (since it's like 84 yen on the dollar right now.. I just sent a couple thousand bucks), and trying to find better sports day practice clothing (this shit ain't cutting it), and preparing to be a guest on an hour long podcast to be recorded this week, and no weekend to speak of... Haha. Well.

I'll write more about Sports Day later, when I feel like I have time to reflect on it more. Just suffice for now to say I am enjoying it, more or less.

July!

Well it’s July. I know that doesn’t mean the rain will stop, necessarily (it wasn’t, you know, in any way dry previous to June anyway); in fact, it probably just means it will get hotter and more uncomfortable. I was waiting to see giant fans appear in classrooms, twin counterparts to the big fiery heaters of winter.

They aren’t coming. And in a way that makes sense. I imagined the awesome whirlwind of flying paper that every room would become if we put fans all over the place. So instead imagine for me the kind of sweltering sauna that will exist if we don’t; I don’t have to imagine it, because I will be experiencing it myself.

June was kind of a rough month, which is unfortunate because I like the way it sounds. Early summer, so full of promise. But the promises kept were bugs, rain, humidity, mold, and summer colds (TWO in one month—coming in pairs I suppose, like the dreaded mukade)… two failed driving tests, too. My first real bout of full-on cultural fatigue!

And let me tell you. I like Japan. I’m glad I’m here. But this week? I HATE JAPAN AND WANT IT TO LEAVE ME THE EF ALONE! It’s too hot. It’s too humid. It lacks proper air conditioning. It hates me because I’m white. Its policies make no damn sense. Its children see no need to learn English and so scoff at my endeavors.

It is weird to me to see the summer arrive in full force like this. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year almost, since I arrived. It’s flown by, really, and yet I know I’m a totally different person (yadda yadda…) both in work and just life in general. I think that’s what made my snap of culture shock so bad. About now, lots of new JETs-to-be are trying to pack and daydreaming about the mysterious far eastern country they are about to invade. And lots of ex-JETs-to-be (that is, the leavers) are packing their stuff, puzzling over shipping rates, and thinking about the stuff they will miss when they have to go.

And I, for eleven months, have enjoyed this place, and mentally defended it against those who would naysay its ways, and found reasonableness in its ridiculous. I feel like I’ve been stabbed in the back. I defended you, Japan. And you betrayed me. I bore the sick cold of your winter, and you repay me with a hundred percent humidity and dishes STILL WET in the drying rack after I get home at the end of the day. I dotted every i and crossed every t (figuratively, of course) and took lessons and studied hard for your damn driving test and the “advice” at the end of the second failed attempt was “Winker, Eye, Hand – you are/were (the beauty of Japanese being that you can just leave out the verb) very skilled at this.” (So, why did I fail?) –--“Winker first, then eye, then hand.”

WNFjet said after his first failed test that it was just because they wanted him to fail, they found a reason to fail him. I shook my head, certain that there must have been a reason, no matter how much he didn’t want to admit it. Because I knew I screwed up mine, so I mean, own it when you make a mistake and don’t act like people are out to get you. But maybe they ARE. (I would be, if I were testing WNF; I would be like, ‘you failed because your smarminess level was too high’) I’m totally up for saying “my bad” and “doing my best next time” when I have messed up; this time was really hard because I did a damn good job and still failed. Upsetting.

Pronounced once again unworthy to drive, I hung my head in anger and shame, got into my car, and drove the two hours home. Please tell me the irony hurts you too.

What hurts more is looking at my carefully weighed and considered vacation days and knowing I have to spend another one on this horrible endeavor. I’m hoping I can get out of this.. my VP laughed at me at first when I told him I’d failed, and I gave my It’s Not Funny face. I don’t think I’ve ever pulled that face in this entire good-humored year. He assured me that it’s okay to take vacation days during August since it is summer vacation. I vehemently expressed my desire not to. I asked about last year’s random Obon festival days off. Whether we’d get such days this year, and when, and if I could have him help me reschedule my test (since the instructions for doing so are all in Japanese) for such days off. He told me not to think about it so seriously. “The summer vacation is.. you know. Summer vacation.” This cryptic statement gives me hope.

So I’m scheduled for my THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM test after I get back from MY summer vacation (literally, “getting out of someplace” – I’ll be going to the US. Also, after the 1st of August I cannot legally drive and will be taking buses/trains to the test)… and I’m rather looking forward to the break. I also envy the kids their POOL class period when they have it. Damn.

Also, June is maybe the only unfortunate month in this country without a national holiday. Bring on July! Except the part where half my town’s JETs leave and get replaced with who knows what kind of riffraff. Leave off that part.

Addendum: while I was finishing up writing this, the principal of Big Elementary shut the windows and turned on the AC. I guess it becomes acceptable in July to do that. Someone tell the bus driver from this morning. JULY = HOT. YOU CAN USE AC. IT’S OKAY.

Second addendum: when I got home, the umbrella I bought this morning and then left leaning against a pole at the bus stop was still there, just chillin by the pole. I’m sure if it had been raining, someone would have stolen it. But I guess since it wasn’t, they didn’t. And this country ain’t so bad. Maybe.

By no means at all

I briefly flirted with the idea of being a hacker. This was terminated when I was informed that I would have to download and install an entire new operating system in order to steal internet from the staff room. I wanted to take it quietly, but that sounds like a lot of work. I am just not that technically savvy, although I may happen to have friends in those places…

I thought I was pretty clever until last night when someone told me that every ALT has internet except me. This pushed me to the breaking point of lameness and required that I start opening cans of complain-til-someone-fixes-this-shit at work. I am currently recovering from that cold, so that helps me be a little less patient and a little more like, omgwtf can you just do this one thing to make my life better?! kthx.

So even though everyone is holy-crap busy all the time, I decided to ask Mikan-sensei. But when I got to school, he just looked so damn overworked (because he is) that I decided to ask the VP instead. The VP is always engaging me in deceptive conversation which leads me to believe his English is basically my English, but actually, it’s not (go figure).. he sounds very natural most of the time, so it makes me feel all confused and not-listened-to when he doesn’t immediately get what I am saying, which is actually a fairly frequent occurrence. Anyway, I figure if the VP regularly has time to ask me about movie quotes, he can totally take a few minutes to re-bless my laptop with the gift of internet and save me the trouble of downloading linux to haxor it.

My recourse of late has been offline gmail (which I kind of love for some reason) and then knowing that any really important information (should anyone choose to share any of that with me) could be communicated via cell-phone email/textmessage. Which is another lame way to say, I was reduced to cellphone email for my connection to the outside world between the hours of 7:15am and 4:50pm.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

But today? Today I FORGOT MY CELL PHONE on its charger and so even though I did march up to the VP and ask, no really, is there any way I can get internet on my computer? And even though the technically inclined teacher checked it out, and even though they called the BOE to get the password (because apparently the BOE has that, and people here do not, or some crap), the computer guy at the BOE has the day off today (and we all know what a “day off” means… he is either at home sick or he is retaking the driving test for the 45th time, etc. UNLESS he is like Miss Piggy-sensei who just has every Wednesday off…) so I do not have internet either.

I started out thinking I would slowly progress toward having internet by any means necessary, but I ended up (NOT) having it today.. by no means at all.

Fail.

jerksvent

People are jerks.

You might overlook this in your day-to-day life because it makes the living of it easier. It’s much more pleasant an experience to think things are “funny” rather than “annoying as hell,” or that they are “cute” instead of “stupid.” Inquisitive, not invasive, a teaching opportunity, not asinine… the conversion list is endless and it’s an interface on operating system that you wonderful kindhearted souls must use to function without your head exploding all over everyone all the time.

But when you find yourself short on patience, let’s say, you didn’t sleep well that night, or you got a cold, or something, suddenly all the jerk actions of all the bastard people become way too apparent. Suddenly it’s possible to have a beef with everyone. Suddenly you don’t have the internal resources required to rise above shit like you normally do. The irony being that other people will during this time think that YOU have suddenly become a jerk, when actually you are just seeing the jerkiness of all others clearly for the first time in a while.

Soooo I have had a cold recently. And I have about had it up to here with basically everyone. Okay the kids are actually mostly okay, except for those smartasses who make a point of not trying and then make sure you notice it. And there are a few staff members who have stayed out of my way (what, because they just can’t be bothered to even think of having my back? Thanks a lot!) and I can think of two staff members who have been, dare I say it, nice to me today.

Everyone else just wants shit from me and doesn’t have any idea how to be courteous, helpful, or understanding.

Mostly today I am just frustrated at Miss Piggy because I’m sick of her complaining; today she is really energetic, rushing me off to class five minutes early when I clearly have too much crap all over my desk and papers IN MY HANDS that I am trying to sort before my next class.. thinking she is cute or clever or whatever. But like.. not helping students on their worksheets for some reason. Getting me to make her copies for her because… whatever. Arg.

Also, I feel overworked today because I have four classes at the middle school. This is silly because until recently, that was the norm. But lately, two is the norm, giving me the rest of the time to do things like plan elementary, and then catch up on other important life tasks like trying to keep my email inbox under better control, or trying to study Japanese.. (None of which I have done today, nor will I ever be able to EVER AGAIN, JEEZ) Now, I do recall that I was always astonished at how behind I always seemed when I was trying to cram even just staying on top of work (that elementary planning and creating materials will get you every time) into the time I had, so the change was secretly kind of awesome. But I never felt overly put-upon to go to four classes in a day here.

But TODAY good GRIEF you want me to sit through FOUR classes?! Two of them with the awesome awesome crew of first-year (frogs) but with Miss Piggy, the others with the sweet and kind-approaching Newbie-sensei but with those awful second-year kids (the mice) who just stare at you rather than participate in anything ever?!

It's been a few days. A couple days back I sat at the sushi bar with Big Brother contemplating why no one in this town gives a damn anymore.

Having a cold makes me crotchety and entitled. So all you jerks had better start treating me better and at least PRETENDING to give a shit~!

Thanks.

/vent

Shocking

I’ve been thinking lately about fatigue.

When we were at orientation at the beginning of the whole JET adventure of mine, there was a seminar on “Culture Shock” which is now called “Cultural Fatigue.” The speaker kind of made a joke about how the “fatigue” term is harder for people to understand, and sort of elicits the response just take a nap, whereas “shock” seems a lot more dramatic.

But not to me. Shock is something that is short-lived, intense but momentary. Personally, I’m okay with crisis. My mind is much more geared to dealing with things like intensity-in-the-moment. In my naivety, I believe that there is no great shock I cannot stomach for that one horrible moment in time.

It’s the moments that come after that really scare me. It’s the prospect of the time that will go on and on. This is what makes a thing like loss difficult for me. It’s the way loss means it’s going to be gone for a long time, the way the future stretches out before you suddenly lacking something. I’m not scared of having a bad day – I’m scared of real lingering unhappiness.

So the long-term-ness of the strain implied by fatigue is, to me, much scarier than shock, culture or otherwise. It’s not the moment of holy shit, there is corn and mayo on this pizza but no pepperoni, but rather the months and months you will go before you have decent pizza. But even that is fully bearable because, heck, what’s six months (and this example is just pizza—there are far less unhealthy, trivial things to deal with) of bad or no pizza? Really, what’s the rest of my life with no pizza? I’d say it’s pretty tragic, but in all seriousness, I wouldn’t care that much.

What’s scary about cultural fatigue is having to do things in a way that doesn’t fit with your own desires or ideas. It’s exhausting to want to make a difference and to feel that you don’t. In more general terms, it’s fatiguing to want something and not get it.

The scary side of fatigue is facing the prospect that it doesn’t get easier or better with time, it gets worse. Shock is something that happens, and sucks, and then slowly mends, like any old wound. Fatigue, to me, sounds more like a deteriorative disease.

The problem is not that you had a fight with your sig-O. Fights are good in a lot of ways.. and very often, they are pushes to progress that wouldn’t otherwise be made (in that way, they can keep you from stagnating). The problem is not a fight. The problem is when you have fights all the time. About the same damn thing. And progress never seems to get made. The problem is stagnation.

I never worry about a cough, or a cold, or a sore throat, even when it’s particularly painful or shitty. I only worry when it’s been three or four weeks, even if the cough is minor.

I don’t care that the kids are wild/incapable of attention for English class on the last period of the day on a Friday afternoon. But I do care if they are like that every week and I only ever get that time slot for the rest of forever, or they turn out that way in my class no matter what time of day I go. It will take three weeks for me to figure this out/admit that there is something I need to see about fixing.(Then I sigh and feel tired because of the prospect of the way I now know I have to do something ‘bout it, as opposed to being tired because of all I’ve done.. I get tired in advance.

But actually, the ironic thing is, sometimes you really do just need to take a nap or something. Sometimes you just need a little something to allow you to turn around on the way you look at a thing. Sometimes you just need a figurative breath of fresh air. It can start with something as simple as getting a better handle on your own physical health.. making sure you get enough sleep, eat well (I’m telling you, spinach has serious vitamins happening), get a bit of exercise (swear to goodness it helps with sanity), brush yo teeth, etc… well being on top of one thing leads at least me to feel better about trying to get atop another.

I’m writing this now.. from a point of view of being scared of fatigue, not really being mired in it. I’ve said that I fear or dislike change. But I also greatly fear lack of change (as a component of fatigue)—which is a logically flawed fear to have, since change is impossible to prevent.

I guess it’s like they say, though, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The overarching things don’t change. The atomic things don’t change. Stuff in between never stops changing. Shocking.

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.