Penultimate

These two weeks have been very busy and I've had to say goodbye to a lot of things that have been constants in my life for two years now. To name a few; schools, calligraphy, Ian and Kirby.
I've visited both of my junior high schools and elementary schools and read speeches that skim the surface of how I feel, but in Japanese that I can manage (which matters to me!) I received colourful cards from all of my schools, some with photographs, and all of them with notes from the students. It was a really perfect gift for me. The elementary schools sang me songs and the junior high schoolers read English speeches, which I was surprisingly touched by hearing. It's hard not to remember what those students looked like two years ago when they were all much smaller and less brave.

Classes have gone on summer holiday, and now all there's left to do is wait out the week, pack up the rest of the house, and go to Seattle.

Ine JHS couldn't find a free day to go out to dinner with me, so they threw me a farewell lunch on the last day of school. We gathered in the Principal's office and toasted with cups of tea and bentos. Then the staff sang me a surprise English song -- oddly, Edelweiss. Broom and glow forever.


On Friday I had a farewell party with the staff from the Board of Education (9 of us in all). We went out to a pretty izakaya in Nodagawa with a koi pond in the back and suggestively-shaped pudding on the menu (which we ordered, naturally). Mrs. Nishihara, my supervisor for two years, gave a short speech, followed by a slightly less short speech by the Head of the BOE. They gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a card with the Japanese hina-sama (dolls) on it, and a mug made by Ine's own potter, Mrs. Kura. The handle is a fish! Afterward there was drinking and story-telling and we went home considerably early since it was an exhausting week.

The following morning, I drove with Kate and Natanya down to Kyoto City to take Kirby to the ferret adoption agency in Nagoya. Natanya, champion of friendship and love, came with me for moral support. We took the shinkansen to Nagoya station and met up with a unique-looking Japanese woman, Ms. Ishihara. She took Kirby and all of his documents and gave me a BIG hug and left with him. As I watched her carrying him away, I burst into tears. I think that all the stress from leaving plus saying goodbye to so many people plus losing my pet, the only thing that's really kept me from going insane in my house, was more than I could bear at that moment.

However, I had planned for this outburst of emotion and Natanya and I immediately changed into party dresses for the long, local train ride back. We briefly explored the area around Nagoya station and were disappointed but how unexciting the post office was. We did however find a lot of cheap wine in the department store basement. By the time we arrived at Kyoto station in the afternoon, we were delightfully smashed. This helped me feel less empty since I was coming back without Kirby's travel cage.

We met Ian and Kate at Nijo station and went for a quick dinner at a ramen shop near the movie theatre. Then, after meeting up with Lauren, we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which received mixed reviews from the group. I personally enjoyed it. Following this, I fell into a sleepy/sad stupour and we wandered over to a nearby bar for drinks and french fries until about 1am, by which time we went to bed in various locations.

The next morning I took a bus to meet Lauren at the Kyoto Station Starbucks to hang out for a bit and say goodbye. We talked about how it's hard for things to feel as definite as "I'll never see this person again" because of facebook and twitter and skype and g-chat. That helped us both feel better, I think.



After a hearty Hawaiian hug, I took off for Kameokoa to say goodbye to Laurel and eat donuts at Mister Donut! It was really nice to see her again, and I'm pleased that she'll be taking over the Ganbatte Times newsletter for me as well. Rachel2, Natanya, Ian and Kate then showed up in Kameoka and we drove up to Ine together after saying goodbye to Laurel.

The last hurrah in Ine was exactly what I needed so as not to feel awful about coming home to an empty, ferret-less house. Instead, the lot of us cooked up a curry and played dominoes until the wee hours. Cake was thrown, wine was spilled, and allergies were developed -- a perfect evening.

Ian would soon teach Kate how to throw a punch. Kate would soon take a Benadryl and pass out.

The next day after a leisurely breakfast we all walked over to the Tsutsukawa Buddha statue and followed giant crayfish down the gutters. We also spotted a lot of tiny frogs (some with tails still) sitting on the hydrangea bushes!

Can you find the frog?

After the walk it was time to say goodbye, so I gave Rachel2 and Ian some big hugs, we took photos, and off they went. I'm not sure when I'll see them next, but I feel optimistic it will be sooner than later.

Today I went to my last shuji (calligraphy) class with Mrs. Kamitsuji and the junior high school students. When my daily calligraphy was done, Kamitsuji-sensei presented me with some binders of all the work I've done in 2 years and a letter from her. I was really touched, and saying goodbye to her and that class and that room is something that I'm still having trouble with. That seems more forever than saying goodbye to JETs. On my way out, some of my elementary school students gave me some plums from their garden and I drove home feeling overwhelmed with happiness.

Yep, that's right -- I feel happy, not sad. I can easily say that some of the worst days of my life have been in Japan. And working on the JET Programme hasn't exactly been a dream job or a career path for me... but I feel so fortunate that I got to live here for two years that I can't help but feel happy instead of sad. I learned Japanese calligraphy, I've watched the rice in its circle of life, I've seen frogs and snakes and eagles and boar and tanuki. I've become conversational at a language I never really set out to learn. I've fallen in love with teaching. Really, I've fallen in love with life. I think Ine will always be the place where I learned how to be a person, and I learned how to be accountable for things other than myself. There's no amount of bad days that can reverse that experience, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

This blog will soon draw to a close, but it will always be here to remind me of all the memories I've had these two years. There's just not enough room in my heart and in my head to keep it all inside, so I'm glad that I've written it down where it can't be erased.

So, in this last week of living in Japan and living in Ine specifically, I'm going to take the good. I'm not going to accept the sadness, but I'm going to hold onto the profound gratitude that I've been feeling ever since it sank in that I'm going onto a different kind of future. So in the end, I really think it's going to be OK.