London and Emotional Rollercoasters

Well it was quite the whirlwind vacation to England! Last year I only saw my Dad for 3 days before he had to go on a business trip, but this time he took 2 weeks off and we did NOTHING (not even Belgium things!) I don't think I've ever accomplished so much nothing on a vacation before... it was fantastic.

The pound is doing poorly, which made me happy because it meant that not everything was ridiculously expensive (only practically expensive). So, I bought lots of yarn and an ipod and some clothes. Good purchases all around.

Family is all doing well. Mama is still crazybonkers and my Dad likes the wii fit a LOT. Laura is good and is rocking a most interesting bouffant sort of hairdo most days. I don't know if this is on purpose. Dogs are well, except that Shekel is going blind! He is starting to look like the scary old rat, Nicodemus, from the Rats of NIMH! Oh no! But my cousins' pets had to be put to sleep first thing in 2009 (RIP Licorice the dog and Cosmo the cat). So weird. It was in 24 hours of each other, too. Different households to boot! What crap luck. Anyway I am thankful for my aging, blind, obnoxious dog.

For Christmas my mom cooked a ham and a chicken and a million side dishes, which actually made up for not having Thanksgiving with them this year. I ate so much ham, I may actually be 14% ham by volume now. They'll call me Ham Sreebny and I will excreet ham at them. Through my EYES.

Um.. for new years we sampled scotches from around the woooooorld (and got drunk) and played British Trivial Pursuit which has questions such as,
"Which town in Northern Britain was first to achieve an electric tramway and to this day still utilizies trams."
An American such as myself first asks the question , "wtf is a tram?"
The answer is Blackpool... or Liverpool.... or Blacksomething. I forgot. Needless to say I did not earn a single wedge.
The funny thing about England is not that they pronounce everything silly and phrase things strangely

"How many noses has a slug?"(the answer is 4). (I got that one right out of guessing).

Other than that, I utilized high speed internet and filled that big empty void in my life called "intimacy" with three human bodies around me at all times, and watched the first season of 30 rock. Come to think of it, my ma pa and sister were the ONLY people I had contact with in those 2 weeks, which is probably why it was so hard to depart.

The long flights and long train rides back were full of me half being horrified about leaving and going back to Japan where I feel gloomy lonely and empty most of the time and half me crying from exhaustion after being up for too many hours and never having any idea where my trains were supposed to be... also tooooo many suitcases and no escalaters make Rachel very unhappy. When I got to Fukuchiyama station and missed my train by 10 seconds b/c my bags couldn't be carried up the stairs quickly enough, I just burst into tears. Some girl with Japanese about as good as mine had to help me ask about other trains because I was so exhausted that I didn't have the energy to tell her that "I can understand the schedule I'm just crying because my body wants me to let it die." Anyway thanks, mystery girl! You saved me a bit of trouble.

Yumi's mother was a saint and picked me up from the train station. My car was a saint for not running out of gas on the way home. The weather was a saint for not raining or snowing.

Getting back home finally at midnight was weird. I had to take a bath because it was too cold to get into bed otherwise and once I was in bed and shut off the lights I had that dawning realisation that "AUGH OH NO I'M BACK HERE AND HERE IS WHERE I AM!!!!!" And had the same realizaton when I got up at 645 for work. "Oh no it wasn't a dream, I'm still here.... it's like I never left nNOooOoooooo!!!!"

So I've been feeling on and off depressed for the past 48 hours or so. But once teh sun finally came out and it was all beautiful and the waterfall was out and I had a nice drive to work it didn't seem quite as bleak. Nighttime just seems darker when there's no one else around.

Apparently my students did well above average on their English standardized tests so my BOE is happy with me for a change (even after me nagging at them about me going to that conference in 2 weeks). Phew. Our boss took everyone out for lunch at the sushi place down the street. Sitting down and knowing I could eat everything and HOW to eat everything made me realize that coming back is SO easy that it doesn't feel right.

It really doesn't feel like you should be able to wake up next to your sister in a proper house with central heating and say hi to your dogs and drink coffee wtih your dad and go for a ride in the car to the airport and spend that same night at your frigid empty house in rural Japan. It's so jarring that I feel a little bit crazy. That's why it seems like the vacation never actually happened, which is kind of depressing in itself.

Anyway I don't know what's wrong with me but I am preeeetty sure I am some kind of depressed right now. Seeinga psychiatrist in Japan sounds like more trouble than it's worth but I wanted to put this out there to everyone since it's a new year and I don't want people to think that I hate everything. I really just go back and forth between loving it here and hating it here and it never seems to sit in the middle. I just feel like I seem to be preventing myself from doing things I shoudl want to do. Like my friends here are awesome but I never feel like going out with them and it doesn't stop me from feeling lonely most of the time. I have a good job and I work well with my coworkers but I still feel like nobody there respects me and I am a really crappy teacher. I just feel like I am trapped inside myself and it's preventing me from having the fun I deserve to be having during my last 7 months. I also keep comparing myself to others which makes me embarassed about not having a good time in Japan when it seems like everyone else it -- but everyone HATES life in the winter! Why can't I see this????

Anyway I'm back and after work I am going to go home and sleep SO HARD. Meanwhile the monkeys are calling to me... "Happy 2009!" They seemed to screech.

Rachel