no itch is eternal

I disappeared for ten days to attend a meditation retreat in the upper reaches of Kyoto prefecture.

So how was it? What was it like? What did you do?

Even as I was perpetually writing this blog post in my head for ten days, I’m not sure how to begin to answer those questions. Was it mind-boggling? Was it hard? Did you find enlightenment or answers or inner peace?

Well, yeah. Kind of!

Basic ground rules were things like total segregation of the sexes – so I lived, ate, and meditated only with the women in the women’s half of the center, walked in the women’s garden, and saw the men only in their side of the meditation hall and from across the driveway that separated our garden from theirs. Noble silence – that is, not talking, nor communicating with gestures – with the other mediators (you can talk to the staff if you need anything or to the teachers if you have a question, naturally). No lying, stealing, or killing (this includes eating meat, incidentally, so all the food provided was vegetarian).

For me, this was no big deal, and was actually kind of a plus. I rather like simple, healthy food – rich and/or highly processed stuff sort of overwhelms me anyway. The eating situation is kind of like being a kid again; there is what there is, and if you don’t like it, that’s just too bad. I think in itself this is a humbling technique. Also, we had fruit for dinner (not dinner.. teatime.. but it was at 5pm and was the last ‘meal’ of the day) which was sort of delightful. I’ve heard that it’s healthier for you not to eat after 6pm; I think I might’ve lost a little bit of weight!

Our days started at an hour I still consider pretty nuts.. but there and then it seems just like part of the lifestyle of the center, however temporary, you kind of get used to it.

Every morning, we’d be woken by the bell at 4am, chiming and chiming again to rouse us from sleep. From 4:30 to 6:30, we were to meditate either in the meditation hall upstairs or in our own rooms. 6:30 was breakfast, and a break until 8, when we would have an hour long group sitting session, meaning everyone would meditate together for an hour. At 9, we would get our morning instructions, and then meditate until 11 which was lunchtime.

At 1, we would begin to meditate on our own again, and then at 2:30 we’d start the afternoon group sitting. At 3:30, we would receive afternoon instructions and meditate until 5, which was tea time. During tea time, new students (me!) could have fruit, while old students (who had undertaken not to eat after noon) could have only tea or coffee or water.

At 6, we’d gather for the third and final group sitting of the day, followed at 7 by the discourse, for English speakers a video (for non-English, audio only) in which the teacher (S.N. Goenka, in India) would explain particulars, answer questions I was considering asking at question time, and in general provide a context for what we were practicing. After this, we’d return to the hall, meditate for a little while (the Japanese discourse usually took a bit longer than the English one, so I would have a break to brush teeth and otherwise prepare for bed) until 9, and then that was question time, or else bedtime if you had no questions. Lights out was 9:30, which seems early but ISN’T if you get up at FOUR.

If you’ve been counting, that’s about ten hours of meditation each day. You’re doing it constantly, like it’s your job, and for these ten days it basically is. During breaks, I was mostly walking in the garden, stretching, or napping. I started showering at 4 in an effort to be more awake for the 4:30 - 6:30 time slot.

And while it seems like being unplugged and not speaking would be difficult, I actually did not have so much trouble with that, personally. Occasionally I would wish to tell someone something, and more often I would think of some question I wanted to ask someone regarding my future travels or plans. In my usual life, when thoughts like that come up, I either make a note or address it immediately (send an email, etc.), but during the course I had no pen, I had no notepad, I had no email. So things had to wait.

How I felt about the meditation changed from day to day. Some days I felt great, I was feeling it, everything was going just as I wanted it to – I was alert, engaged, attentive, focused. Other days I sucked at meditation. I couldn’t stay awake, I couldn’t stop daydreaming or narrating or spinning my wheels, I couldn’t feel anything on my body. Sometimes I couldn’t have removed the serene smile from my face with a prybar, other times tears would be streaming down my face for no pinpoint-able reason.

And when I went to the assistant teacher at afternoon question time about day seven to say “Why can’t I get it to work today if I could do it yesterday?” The answer was this isn’t about getting it to work, this is about facing reality.

This isn’t about getting it to work. Contrary to my previous ideas on what meditation must be, what it must be for (sharper vision, clarity, quieting the mental noise, becoming more centered), this course is different. All those things are ancillary benefits and almost prerequisites to the real core of what Vipassana is supposed to be about, and what it’s really supposed to do for you.

Although it’s not religious or sectarian, the philosophy behind the technique is deeply grounded in Buddhist thinking. As we learned in high school lit and history classes, the basic tenets of Buddhism hold that life is suffering because of human desire – specifically in craving and aversion – which stands between humans and their freedom.

But how not to feel and act with craving for the wonderful things in life? How not to feel and act with aversion for life’s pains? “You have to go to the root level of these things,” they said. I pictured each person carrying varying sizes of mountains of personal baggage, I imagined the kind of time it would take to peel all those layers back (some much longer than others) to get to the ‘root level’ underneath it all. How could any person uncover or even hope to glimpse this so-called root simply and within the span of ten days?

The simplicity of the answer to that still makes me laugh a little – I am seeing this root as buried beneath the issues of a person (therefore inaccessible without removal of said issues), but it becomes clearer to me that it can be accessed fairly simply because it is the first level of understanding, the most basic level of reaction in a person’s experience – the sensations of the body.

So what the technique teaches is, to become aware of sensations on the body, both pleasant and unpleasant, and to not react to them. To feel an itch, to observe it, to not seek its immediate undoing but rather “Let me see how long it lasts.. well, because no itch is eternal.”

And by so doing, to understand at the level of physical experience that which everyone already knows intellectually, that nothing lasts forever. That every feeling which arises also passes away, that every thing which lives also dies, that every object crafted or built must eventually, eventually decay and fall away. And if nothing is permanent, then why get so upset, why get so attached?

It makes sense; we all know that this is naturally so. Build something out of stone and it will last longer, but even that is not forever. Everything good needs replacing. Change is all there is. We know it, we know it. So why do we still get all bent out of shape?

The message behind the meditation is there is this huge gap between knowing something intellectually and understanding it in a way that really sinks in and applies to your life. This gap is the difference between hearing about something, reading about it, knowing about it, thinking about it .. and experiencing it for yourself.

The endgame being something like, being able to enjoy good things without reacting to them with clinging and craving, and to endure the unpleasant things without panic and aversion, to maintain equanimity at all times with the understanding that this too shall pass.

I can say that personally in my own life, I recognize a heck of a lot of examples of particularly clinging-reaction behavior. I have always been loath to let a good thing go (and my life has been above-averagely full of good things, so while it’s ironic to think that these good things could cause me suffering, well there you are). But as I look ahead to the changes that are coming (goodness, is it four days left in Japan now?), the unknowns that characterize the road ahead, I feel really okay about it. People ask how I am doing and I say good, and I really mean that. Maybe this was supremely well-timed.

During the course, various people would pop into mind, people I thought should look into it, people I thought should try it. I wanted to say, this is for everyone, and it is! But it’s also not for everyone. I don’t know. It’s hard. It’s a little out there compared to the normal everyday life of myself and most of the people I am close to. I loved it, but I also hated it; I wanted to run away, I wanted it to be over. I hesitate to recommend something that was painful to do.

And when I say painful, I kind of mean physically. Sam has been trying to work with me on the muscles of my core, how to properly distribute the work of holding the body up. My back pretty much hated me most of the time I was there; I fell asleep lying on a golf ball (self-massage, trigger point style) more than once during lunch breaks. During the sittings of ‘strong determination’ (about the second half of the course, the one-hour group sittings become attempts to sit for the entire hour without changing your position) I understood the poetic description ‘singing with pain.’ Hips, knees, feet, legs all in rebellion, back and shoulders going on strike. Parts of you falling asleep, or worse yet, coming awake. I want to tell people, it’s so great, but I also don’t want them to think that’s all it is. It is great, but at times it also sucks. It’s like medicine, it’s like exercise: you don’t always do it because it’s enjoyable in the moment. You do it because it does something for you.

Basically, to really understand it, you have to do it yourself! That was another message that was emphasized there… no one can give you this understanding, you have to find out for yourself. And you shouldn’t just take someone’s word for it, you should pass your own judgment based on your own experience!

Look at this website, see where the centers are, read all the things, and decide for yourself!

If my sojourns to temples is something like Buddhism light, this stuff is Buddhism pure – kind of at that depth of level where religion isn’t really religion because you’ve stripped it of all the rituals and rules and what’s left is just help for self, help for others, and love.

moving sucks

I don't suppose I have to tell anyone in the world that packing and cleaning a place in preparation to move out is not a fun task. When I was a kid (since I NEVER moved) I saw moving as a sort of cleansing, a time when you were forced to clean and sort carefully (because if not forced to do these things I could always find a better use for my time) all your possessions. When I heard people say "That got lost in the move," I could never understand it. In my mind, you FOUND stuff when you were moving, stuff hidden in places you would not have seen had you not emptied your house.

I think some of these notions still hold on because I was hoping to find treasures as I took apart my place. Mostly I just found dust, lots and lots of hidden dust.

I also found that my previous conviction that I would make it out of Japan with no more than my two allowed suitcases was pure folly. I've been here for three years; I've amassed a good ton of junk. I knew this, but I assumed that this would all be 'junk' that I would just leave behind, whether as give-away stuff or as trash.

Right.

So I bought three boxes for shippin' stuff back, and given three boxes, I've now filled three boxes. Since my sorting/cleaning choices expanded from pack, give, or throw away to pack, give, throw, or ship, several odds and ends have been literally chucked into the box area of the living room (I lined them up side by side in a corner and then would just fling things into that direction if I wanted to ship it).

I'm still throwing out and giving away a good deal of stuff, of course; I got rid of 31 kilos of used clothing, not all of it mine, a bit over a week ago. To the stayers go the spoils, and I've been dividing up my stuff amongst the staying ALTs and my successor, mostly 'useful' things and 'pretty' things. I can't believe I have to be out of there by the end of the week, although the walls are finally bare (and that does help it look more like progress).

I traded the tall couch for a short one, better suited for sitting at the kotatsu come winter, and I traded back my kotatsu for the one Sam and Carl had (I gave them the giant one that hardly fit in the room and took their tiny one that couldn't fit Carl's legs under it). I'm leaving the vanity, the green chair, the denki carpet, the kitchen unit, the bike, the heater.

But moving stuff around in this heat is anything but a fun pastime. I have interrupted the process frequently for social and other excursions, like visa-getting trips to Himeji, parties with leavers and stayers (as a leaver myself)... the weekend of the 21st was a sort of "party all the time" wherein we spent basically the whole weekend kicking it with Shiso all over town. I'll do posts about all that (as well as.. I suppose... my bye-bye work events). But there's no putting it off forever, and the process has been slow and painful and hot and painful and slow.

So it goes!

I did find some things I had squirreled away, forgotten, or thought lost.

This is something I mentioned in my farewell speech, unaware that I did still have it in my house. It's a talisman-like gift from a school excursion from back when the current 3rd-years were in the 6th grade. It says something like "Emily-sensei, please make fun memories with us." In writing my speech (writing, not even saying, just pre-work), the thought of including a reference to this object followed by the question, well, did we? would cause me to leak tears on my desk.

This is just a man-en with a different version of birds on the back of it than usual. I'm gonna have to spend this, though, cause that is a hundy right there.

This is a twenty, and though they are rare, I've somehow been in possession of several of them over the course of my time. I am gonna spend this too, cause I think I have one back home. 

Back of the 20.

This isn't something I lost, it's just something I thought was kind of funny and wanted to share.. try to ignore the total chaos and... Above my kitchen table I had placed a picture of Siena, Italy, because there was a larger version of a very similar picture above the table where I often at at the Centro in Rome. I created my own version of that place here, right after I moved in. 

Anyway, all these various treasures don't really make up for the fact that moving sucks, it really really sucks, even more so when it's hot and your house doesn't have 'real' AC, and topping that off, you don't really WANT to leave, you just kind of have to.

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 Long Hiatus Known as Winter (in review)

It's Friday, it's raining again, but at least a bit warmer than the last time. Or at least I think so.

We get the first day of spring off in this country, maybe because you are supposed to visit your ancestors on the first day of spring (I just learned). Whatever the reason, I think having the equinox off is an excellent practice. The better to celebrate.

Winter is all about the holding pattern, post Cambodia, it was a fairly happy or at least nonchalant cycle of work, reading, writing, various exercise, and housekeeping. It was like an endless ongoing movement of maintenance. Keep on trucking. Every week was not the same, but the entire season seemed to fall into a pattern of total sameness. Maybe you'll go swimming today or tomorrow, maybe you'll feel too puny. Maybe you'll buy more kerosene, maybe you'll cook something. Maybe there will be a get-together this weekend, maybe you'll be social by hanging out with one or two people, maybe you won't see anyone and will just indulge yourself in reading/the internet/pretending to do chores. Maybe you'll make coffee, maybe you'll avoid it because it's bad for circulation and your toes are freezing off. Maybe you'll go to kempo and rock it, maybe you'll go and suck, maybe you won't go.

If anything changed this winter, it was a change that felt built-in right away, and was in many cases a resumption of something old. I took up working on that novel again. I moved up a little on the coffee snob scale, because I started hanging out at Rocky just like I always thought it would be nice to hang out in a coffeeshop and 'write.' (Then I started buying coffee [at Rocky] and making it at home. I had a coffeepot for two years and used it twice [then sold it], and now I can't stop pressing myself cups of the stuff -- luckily I just got ahold of decaf, so now it's on day and night, and guilt-free for the circulation issues). I started swimming more frequently. I didn't exactly feel like I had all kinds of time to waste because I was spending all my time doing all these maintenance or resumption things.

Lately, I swim less often, partly because I wrenched out my shoulder on the only ski trip we took this year. I still go occasionally, and rent a kickboard so I can gimp along. I've also stalled on the writing, as I will now confide. The irony is that it happened because of something I did to help myself along in that department sadly backfiring. I had some comments on the first part of the thing, and someone referred to the George R. Martin series A Song of Ice and Fire to sort of compare how I used a bunch of different POV throughout the story. I had heard about the series before, and had seen one episode of it on HBO at Sagramore's (the episode with ALL the spoilers), so I kindled up a four volume set and stared in on it, telling myself it would be instructive and help my writing.

The first few chapters were okay, but once I was sunk into it, it built a nice ice wall between me and my ability to write or even edit my story. It was good. And that was a problem, not because I was so absorbed I no longer had time to do any writing (that is always and never true of life, rather than any book), but because as I read on I get the distinct impression that my story is nothing like this story.

I could never have written this story.

But I like this story, and that's a problem because suddenly all I can see is everything that this story has that my story lacks, everything I like about this book I'm reading that is glaringly absent from the one I'm writing.

An' lemme tell you, that shit'll stop your pen. Writer's block is and has always been a failure of confidence, maybe.

I'm sweet-talking myself back into it, of course. I've begun to find things I don't like about it, as a sort of salve. And I've also tried to explain to the little kid version of myself currently throwing an I-don't-wanna-play-anymore tantrum that, well of course you could never have written this story, it's not yours, you weren't supposed to, it's about a totally different thing, has a totally different appeal.

At first I was confused, because this is not by far the first good book I've read since I began working again on the writing. I've read a bunch of really good things, strong works, classics, award-winners. But I realized, they were all of some other genre, they were all something else. So I'm working my way back to a place where I can like this one and still make that one, different.

We recently set the date of my black belt (!) test, for early June, which set me off into a mental tangent about Shannon (while the June connection is obvious, if you can't see why Shannon and getting my black belt are related, I can't really explain it.. they aren't, and yet for some reason they are), which caused me to have a Shannon dream, which made me decide to resume my pilgrimage on March 20th after its long hiatus known as Winter.

The first temple of the season was Ichijo-ji, stop number 26 on the original route, and the second-closest temple to where I live.

I think I'll post that as a separate entry, because I don't have the photos ready yet anyway!

two of recent pieces of praise

Recently, I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from so many different sources in such a coordination, I hardly know what to think. I'd like to share a little of it, just to keep my head from exploding.

First, I'll tell you about the sixth graders. Although we've had middle school graduation already, they are still working their way toward a ceremony. The current 6th graders are kids I dubbed the "butterflies" back when I was in the business of giving them nicknames. They were just 4th graders then, and I have very little memory of why I chose that (probably just the progression downward from dogs to cats to mice to frogs to fish.. to butterflies. Maybe they were prettier?).

Anyway, as they move toward graduation, they undertake a lot of memory and forward-looking things, one of which is thanking teachers with written messages on plaques, and another of which is intercom interviews. They did present me with a plaque thing which to my surprise referred not to just this year, but to teaching them English for three years. The kid who was in charge of hanging it over to me had to make a little speech, and in it he said that he's grown to like English.

That is pretty standard; they weren't going to pick the girl who is always saying "I hate English!" (who, nonetheless, waves to me and calls out hello when I see her walking to school as I get off the bus in the morning) to give the little speech to me. But it sort of dawned on me that at the elementary school, especially having been there so long by now, the English program has slowly become my program. These kids had ALTs before me, but I've been the longest-standing and most current, so their English learnin' has largely been associated directly with me.

Also with that, the current sixth graders were 4th graders when I arrived; I don't see 1st - 4th grades as often, but I spend time with 5th and 6th once a week at that school. This means that this particular class is kind of my pinnacle performance because they didn't see as much of me during those first two trimesters, when I had no idea what I was doing, and came up through the years to be the first group with whom I even managed to finish the textbook.

The butterflies have always been pretty well-disciplined, I remember that from their time as 5th graders (and because they followed just after the fish, who as elementary kids made me want to tear my hair out sometimes, but which fish have later made excellent middle schoolers, what with the iron fist of authority dwelling here and all).

I suffered a spell of paranoia similar to what happened with the math teacher (and with similar results) wherein I really thought the guy hated working with me. We hardly communicated in the spring of 2010, but when he remained as my "English co-teacher" for the second year in a row come 2011, things just got a lot easier. I started joining his group for cleaning time (because it was outside and usually involved plants), and came to see that even though his English was less than fantastic, he really was trying. AND as a bonus, he is a great teacher, in the sense that the kids (even the worst of the 4th graders [umm, snakes class?]!) respect him totally. This may have something to do with the fact that he is a giant by some Japanese standards, but it's also a lot his way of dealing with the kids. I love it.

Last year's graduation.

Anyway, I've been invited to their tea party and all their graduation things, which is pretty new and I enjoy it.

What was I saying? Oh! Well, so it's normal to say something nice at the presentation of a thank you card, but no one is making the kids say anything in their barely comprehensible lunchtime intercom interviews. These are conducted by 5th graders against a background of terrible pop music (usually AKB, which I am against kind of in principle). It's difficult to hear and understand what's being said, and the first time I heard a kid respond "English class" to some question, I admit I didn't hear the question (but I still gave the air a fist-bump). Usually they are leading. "What do you want to do your best at in middle school?" "Studies and club activities!" Well... "What club do you want to join?" "What is your favorite memory from elementary school?"

So I have no idea what was being said or even if "English" was really what I heard. But it happened again on some other day, and I felt myself celebrating inside. Whatever the question was doesn't even matter.. some of these butterflies actually liked my class and look forward to pursuing English in middle school. Which, granted, they totally might have done with any other ALT and any other program. But they didn't, cause I was the one here.

Second, I'll tell you about the compliments at the party. Remember that post-graduation party my head wasn't in the game for? I spent my time at that thing alternating between so happy and overcome by emotion, and being a brick whose face felt so heavy I thought it might actually tip me over into the sashimi boat.

But here and there it would crop up within different topics. The other teachers were finding little ways to say really flattering things, which I hesitate to even print here because this blog is supposed to be partly for my successor, whosoever that may be, and I am shy to let them know how loved Ichinan was making me feel, by saying they wished I could stay, or if they had an unmarried son they'd try to make me part of their family, how they can't remember seeing me get angry.

I had been thinking a lot about my own departure and even what to say in my leaving speech during graduation, and I had come up with something that basically means, since I could have been sent anywhere, really, anywhere in Japan, I'm so glad I got sent here. Yokatta.

One of the teachers used almost exactly the words I had thought up for that to turn it around on me, Emily de yokatta. We're glad we got you. I cried a lil' in my cloth napkin. Those are high compliments, from all of them, but even more than that it felt good to know that doing what I do has had this result.. that the work I put in does show (across culture and language barriers), especially over time, and that maybe they love me here because they know I love it too. I mean, yeah I'm awesome, but I can only be as awesome as my situation allows, right?

Well. It's certainly doing nothing for my humility.

nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior

It's finally here: Wednesday. I've been looking longingly at this day on the calendar since sometime last week when I realized what was happening on that pattern of numbered squares. It's a desk day, a nothing but do as you will you little ALT you day (oh, and o-souji), after weeks and weeks of classes and lesson planning and elementary and children being horrible brats and snide comments and terrorizing each other and I need a vacation for the love of God...

As usual, there's a lot going on. A lot of fun things, a lot of exciting things, a lot of tiring, tedious things, a lot of normal things, daily grind things, online course-taking things (did I mention that my TEFL course has been both more interesting and helpful, and also more demanding of me than I predicted it would be?).

I just checked to make sure my flights are all in order (that is, that I actually do have tickets for all the different flights I thought I had tickets for). Now I'm putting all the info on to one handy page, registering with the travel website of the US, and trying to generate a packing list.

But when I say there's a lot going on, it isn't all just out there in the physical world.. I also mean inside my head. It's been a bit of a mess in there lately. I don't mean to complain, but I do mean to be honest. I've been riding right up on the edge of a nice toasty meltdown.

A lot of it has to do with my ever more precarious position, timewise. As the weeks go by, things shift more and more. Everything becomes a game of now or never. I look outside and I resent having to leave this place. I look down and can't wait to get out. I say, it's my third year, so that means I have to go. "They've changed the contract," my fellow ALTs tell me, "look, you can stay up to five years, now."

Five years, three years: neither one is really permanent. The more I learn and the better I get at my job, the more frustrating become the confines of the system within which I am wrapped. They don't know what I mean when I say, it's my third year, so I have to go.

It feels connected to an inner need to own something, or build something, rather than just subsist comfortably between the lines of what the teachers expect and the students enjoy.

You can always tell a Dutchman, but you can't tell him much. When I arrived, I was daunted because the shoes were bigger than my feet, but the more I learn about language, about teaching, the more I wish I could run the city's English program (does it officially have one?), design its curriculum, lay out its calendar, and direct its activities. I want to do things my way, but not just my things. I want to be in charge of the entire affair, albeit in small scale. I would say, let me open a language school, but there are already plenty of those. Besides, I want it to be available publicly, to everyone; I want the English classes already happening four times a week to really accomplish something. I want to go at it in a systematic and real way, I want someone to see what a multi-layered approach to foreign language education starting in elementary school and pursued in earnest can really do. I mean, you'd have kids, like, fuckin'... speaking English and shit!

My dreams and desires are too big for my pigeonhole. So even though I like my salary, and I love my school (I seriously think my particular position is one worthy of envy) for its wonderful students and excellent fellow staff members and sweet new building, and I like my apartment, and I like my ALT friends, and my travel opportunities, and my Japanese townies and their gifts and their pets, and my Japan seasons and small town life, I don't like my job anymore, and I honestly think that for that reason, someone else will do a better job than me next year. Because they'll be excited to teach Halloween or whatever cultural holiday, and I skipped it entirely this year. Because I'm tired of fighting fourth graders, and enduring exuberant shouts of "gaikokujin!" (though it is pretty friggin cute that a four-year-old is able to include the "koku" part of that word... it's much more polite that way) I'm tired of "harro" and "ohashi jouzu," and all the stares and trepidation I encounter when I try to deal with people that don't know me.

And I'm tired too of missing holidays, family gatherings, weddings, funerals, parties, and babies. I'm tired of telling kids about holiday traditions in which I don't get to participate this year, and furthermore, knowing that they don't quite get it, because you don't know what it's like unless you're there, and moreover, there again and again every year. What is Halloween really like? How can I simulate or explain the experience of trick-or-treating, costumes, and also how your Halloween evolves from age 5 to 15? What is the true meaning of Christmas, especially to a roomful of Shinto-Buddhists?

I'm not part of Japan, not really, and in many ways never can be. In other ways, it could be a matter of time. Language barriers shift, weaken, and in some sectors come down, but in others they remain annoyingly in the way. But I'm not part of the lives of the people back home either; how much does anyone really know or understand about how my life goes on a normal basis, about what annoys, delights, gratifies, or frightens me? About what I enjoy, what I'm grateful for, what I need, and what I want? And what do I know about what it's like to be over there now? That feeling of disconnect has been approaching fever pitch.

I've complained before about people who say they want to start on their "real lives," how I think being here is just as real and just as part of life as going back home to a non-existent job and a bigger picture. But I do have to admit that there are a lot of things that are on hold while being here. This is another case of totaling up the little things -- each on-hold item is not a big deal by itself, but enough of them, and for long enough, starts to tip the balance over. Professionally and personally speaking, I can see the way the scales have slid, and I know it's time to go (relatively).

But I still hate to have to.

Because Sometimes You Are Wrong

So I mentioned that I spent the post-graduation drinking party trying to keep up with the art teacher. I misspoke; he's actually the math teacher who is an artist on the side. He's the teacher I sat next to last year, and we got along rather well. Then this year I suffered the painful delusion that he hated me for disrupting his class by making our English games too effing loud (they were pretty loud, but I was happy about this.. the class in question is normally that blank-faced staring type problem). When I say suffered, I really did. It bothered me a lot. I really want people to like me, especially people that seem interesting or cool, or whom I respect. I used to tiptoe around and avoid looking at him or getting in his way. My cabinet of extra crap is behind his desk (my old desk location), so I would actually wait until he left the office to go and get stuff out of there.

Because I didn't want to feel the burning wrath of him hating on me, of him judging the fact that I wasn't a "real" part of this school, or that I wasn't good to the Mice class, or that I didn't work as hard as the other teachers... all of which are kind of true and are serious insecurities I have had about my job. The Mice class has been a thorn in my English-speaking side since day one, specifically because of their silence and lack of motivation. For this reason, I was always a lot more likely to hang out with the other kids whenever I had the chance. I didn't go after the Mice.. in some ways I let them go, because the Cats and Frogs actually appreciated me. A little. But what I should have done, were I a more dedicated person, would have been to reach out to them more, and work harder for them and with them.

And why are we paying so much to have these western youngsters sit around studying kanji and blogging all day?!

Anyway. After a while I knew I must be imagining things, but I went right on imagining them until the last drinking party when I sat across from him and in my whiskey, confessed that I thought he didn't like me! I also asked about the girl in all the new paintings at the pizza place, because there are a bunch of the same girl, and last time I was at the pizza place, we speculated as to who she might be, and what significance.

So I was happily reassured after his insistence that he doesn't in fact hate me. He said I should visit his house and that his wife makes a mean pasta. Sometimes your paranoia is all in your head.

On the Monday after a drinking party, usually no one speaks about anything that was done or said.. it's like enkai exist in a parallel universe, or in Vegas. Everything just stays there. My memory had begun to function as such. I was totally caught off guard when Monday morning rolled around and he clapped me on the shoulder with a comment about my drinking strength. I blinked, then laughed with a grave "I lost."

Later, though he stopped by my desk to ask a question that was really gratifying. He asked if I would sit as a model. And I mean, I know it's kind of because I am foreign and I have interesting features that are probably fun to try to capture, but I've never had anyone ask if I would sit and be the subject of scrutiny, and I'm vain enough to be really happy along with nervous. I am always curious about how others see me, and how it differs from what I see. The girl in the paintings at the pizza place has a sort of serious, sometimes almost creepily intense look to her. I wonder if that's his style of painting, or if it's something of her personality he's getting. I wonder how I'll turn out. It'll be Monday kind of all morning, and then we'll all have lunch (pasta) after the session. So once that happens, I'll let you know how it went.

Not Done Yet

I realize that I made this post without actually saying what I circled, officially, before turning in that form. Maybe I came off as assuming that the answer to that must be obvious to you. I mean, what else could I circle?

I haven't yet.

It's mostly that the form represents a large amount of emotional time. The actual act of circling an option will take me approximately four seconds. Sign, date, turn in. My VP has asked me for it twice and I said I'd give it to him today. What's taking so long?

I tend to sort things in my mind based on both how important/urgent they are (the form is due on the 2nd, so there is no rush), and also how long they will take. Shorter things get done earlier because longer-time stuff puts a greater strain on the urgency/importance of those set behind it. I keep setting the form aside because of its anomalous stature as a thing that takes no time, but a thing that takes forever.

I walked down to the post box today around noon to drop something in the mail. It was go-home time for the kindergarten next door, so lots of young moms were pushing strollers, and little red-pants-wearing kids were swinging umbrellas as the snow fell all around. The snow is silent, the kids are not.. it doesn't accumulate today, not that cold. I live, some days, in a freaking post card.

And I want to push a stroller, too, and I want to walk a little high-pitched voice bearing kid home from school at noon. I want to see what kinds of things that/those kid(s) will be interested in, what they can do, what makes them happy, what makes them scared. I also know that circling "yes" means putting that [less] distant [every year] eventuality on hold.

Every time I look at the form, I get uncertain about whether staying is what I should do.

But the truth of the matter is, I realized, that I don't have to take the weight of what I should do onto that form. There is no way to know yet what I really should do. But I'm pretty sure of what I will do. That's not so hard to guess. There are lots of reasons, some good, some silly; one of them is the ambivalently valuable fact that I am hard put to go against what I said I'd do, even informally, and I'm not good at voting for a non-incumbent. I don't mean that politically.

I tend to stay until the job is done, or until time is up and I am sent away. Few jobs are ever fully done to my satisfaction. Usually it's keep at it, keep after it, til you look up at the clock and it's de-wa, owarimasu, stand up!

And, I like it here. Sometimes I wonder, why should I stay? Other times, how could I ever leave? But I know I will leave (eventually), the same way I know I'll stay, without actually knowing if I "should" or not. The decision is basically made.

But when my VP asks, I just tell him I'm not done yet. Whatever. I've got time.

Life is Study

As the lovable Kintaro, hero of Golden Boy once said, "Life is study."

And I often spend working holidays catching up on my studies. I've tried to stay on some kind of schedule, and to some degree I have kept up with things.. the problem is mostly that I'm doing too many different things and trying to maintain them all (alongside all that lesson plannin' and other stuff I do at my desk).

SmartFM has proved to be an excellent tool for studying Japanese vocabulary (and the countries of the world), and I try to do lessons regularly. The lessons go quickly and are kind of fun.

My kanji benkyo-ing has been going slowly. You might remember a time when I said I wanted to "nail down" the 508 I "knew" before moving on to the next lesson. Well, the process of nailing down those kanji, begun in the summer, has reached its.. um.. halfway point today.

And it's not that I've been slacking. My methods are just very.. methodical. I get confused by all this "kunyomi" and "onyomi" stuff, especially when there is more than one of either of them for a character, so I figured the best thing to do would be just learn some words for each kanji. Then I would get exposed to more vocabulary, and see how the kanji fit into the meanings of their respective words.

But writing a handful of words for each character is ridiculously time-consuming. It's working, I'm remembering, if not all the words, at least I'll be able to feel like I've seen that before... when I encounter them, and possibly even produce the correct sounds in reading the words.. but I'll get the meaning, and that's what is important.

I've been doing the kanji review quizzes regularly (the screen shows a word in English and I write the kanji on my scrap paper, then hit spacebar to show the correct kanji. If it's right, I type Y, if wrong, I type N. The N ones have to be redone and then they go into the box to be reviewed soonest and most often. Kanji work their way out further and further into the 2-times reviewed box and beyond depending on the number of times I give them a Y response. Every time, a handful of them make their way back into the first box because I've forgotten them since the last review.

As of now, though, the boxes are like this:
One review: 12
Two reviews: 25
Three reviews: 9
Four Reviews: 33
Five Reviews: 95
Six Reviews: 325
Seven + Reviews: 9

After a set amount of time, each kanji expires and comes up for review. On any given day, I can have just a couple, or 40-something. If I wait too long, a lot will have expired and I'll have to plow through a hundred or so. If I get a kanji right, it goes to the next box, and wrong goes back to the first. The first boxes expire at a faster rate, and I assume further boxes just get exponentially longer times.

But yeah. I'm at 254 "nailed down" and still sitting at 508 in process.

I'm also not too far behind in my grammar studies. I've persisted in scraping what understanding I can from the free books we get from the government as JET participants. Last year I failed to finish the 6th and final book, but they sent me a certificate anyway. ^_^ This year I'm doing the blue (advanced) set, and I'm on book 2, week 4, day 3, which is where I would need to be, exactly, if I weren't about to run off traveling and leave the books sitting on the table for two weeks.

I'm not allowed to do more than two days of CLAIRbook in any one day because it causes my eyes to glaze over and for me to pass out at my desk. I'm not kidding. I drooled on my kanji notebook once. I don't retain more than two lessons at a time, and even those I like to space out these days (so I'll do one of those, then some kanji or smartfm).

So this is part of why I do not have free time at work like other JETs might. I'm just not equipped for that.

I have also developed some kind of inability to study at home. I can write letters at home, and watch pirated American TV, and I can clean the house and do laundry and even cook a little, and I can write at home, and I can leave the house for my other extracurricular stuff, and I can socialize at home. But I find it very difficult to actually do "homework" there.

Tomorrow I'm expecting me to do some, though, so we'll see how that goes!