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.

A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu

A Weekend of Estrogen and Tofu
May 23 & 24 2009

I’ve been packing boxes early in order to beat the heat that will soon be here and inescapable. Another reason for getting my personal belongings out of the house and onto freighters is that I am trying to slowly adjust to the idea that in about 2 months, I will not longer be in Tango. The thought of waking up to an empty house breaks my heart. I am also finding a new home for Kirby, my loyal and charming pet ferret, as a result of plane regulations not allowing ferrets in the cabins nor in the baggage areas. After so many weeks of researching customs and quarantine regulations, I have to give up my pet because an airline doesn’t consider Kirby to be feline or canine enough to go on an airplane. It’s been really exhausting (somewhere between the guilt of not being able to take him back, and the stress of finding him a good new home).

So it was a relief and a delight that Natanya and Kate came up for a rather impromptu sleepover this Saturday evening. Natanya had come with her English conversation friends, Keiko and Mieko (there are no two finer women on this peninsula). They brought with them strawberries, sugar peas and regular peas – all from Mieko’s garden. I blushed like the baby Jesus in his hay-crib.

We had coffee and strawberries and walked over to Urashima-jinja Park for a bite to eat. Three of us had tempura udon and Keiko ordered the “famous” soba. It’s famous because the town makes it.

Afterwards we took the Ine boathouse ferryboat around the bay and fed the seagulls, and the hawks that decided to trail nonchalantly, floating over our wake.

Hawks love crunchy snacks, as proven by this terrible photograph.
I do love my boat-houses. A student once wrote "funaya are where people put boats". Deep thoughts, deep thoughts.
The loneliest island.

Soon after Mieko and Keiko left Ine and Natanya and I decided to try our luck at making a tofu pudding recipe she found on the New York Times website. However when it’s cooking with Rachel & Natanya, it’s certainly not cooking with directions. The pudding turned out more or less “OK”.

Honjo at dusk. Now that it's not freezing, we can go outside and enjoy it.

The elusive floating island. It may or may not be in the sky.

Kate drove up and we went for a walk to catch up on gossip and talk about our weeks. It was nice getting some movement into my otherwise immobile daily routine [drive to work, sit at work, drive home, sit at home]. Afterwards we made mabudofu and had dinner together while watching too many episodes of America’s Next Top Model. This preceded Ever After, one of the silliest movies I’ve ever seen. Drew Barrymore, you ridiculous woman.

It was really nice just having Natanya and Kate around, and not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary. Just being normal with normal people. The weather was fairly cooperative too, but by no means sunny. It seems May is being stubbornly unseasonable this year.

After a nice night’s sleep, Kate cleaned my entire house because she was ignoring her oncoming asthma attack and then Natanya cooked eggs for breakfast! Then we decided to head to Mineyama for some fun-times™ at MINE, the mall there. We took some pretty excellent purikura and bought some things from the 100 yen store (especially Kate, who spends 90% of her paycheck on knick knacks for friends back home). After a donut and a run-in with Brynmor Thomas (gasp!) we went to kappa zushi for a late lunch and then I dropped Natanya off at home.

It was simple, girly, and covered in stickers. (pictures to come when I am less lazy)

"It's the time for leaves to change their colours", Daniel said.

I go between feeling like I want to live in Honjo and Ine for the rest of my life and wishing I were living somewhere else right now. It's hard not to feel at peace when every day is beautiful despite the weather conditions and all the people are familiar and kind. Then I hear about other JETs "spontaneously getting together for dinner" and I feel that pinprick of jealousy that people live so close to each other that spontaneous get-togethers are an option. This has officially not been an option for me for the past year and 2 months. I don't think I'll ever get that used to it, even though I've learned to deal with things alone.

I am however REALLY good at being on my own now. I don't know if that's a "JET Programme life lesson" or something I just happened to be in the right place and right time for. For instance yesterday I finished the Ganbatte Times and I was so pleased with the issue that I jumped up and danced around my house. Self-satisfaction is one of the few things nobody can take away from me -- and I don't have it as much as I used to (like when I was in school).

Anyway onto proper blogging;

This week was interesting. I was expecting it to be dull due to standardized testing, but it turned out that only one of my schools had it so I only had a half-day of no classes. Which... come to think of it is like any ordinary day I'm at school! At Honjo JHS I joined the 1st year girls (of which there are 5) for some pinning and tumbling as they learned the basics of judo. It was really funny and there was a LOT of young Japanese girl shrieking. The highlight of that day was watching the 60 year old gym teacher tackle Minami, a 60 pound 12 year old girl.
I spent most of my days at Ine JHS this week staying until 6:30. On one day it made me forget completely about going to my calligraphy class... and I wasn't reminded of it until some 3rd year boys asked me the next day in English "did you go to shuji yesterday?" and I turned red and said "Ah!!! Wasurechatta!" Which means "Oh CRAP I completley forgot." They had a good laugh about that, and I made up for it on Thursday! In fact on the way to shuji that night I saw my very first tanuki! I guess before I had thought I'd seen a tanuki and even took a picture of it... but on second glance it was only a badger and I had gotten carried away with excitement. However I now know that Honjo also has badgers living in its forests. Neat!

Anyway the tanuki. I was driving up the hill in the dark to Kamitsuji-sensei's home and saw the neighbour cat sitting in the road like it does. But it was not the neighbor cat, it was way too fat and not orange. Then I realized it was too large in general to be any sort of cat. About the size of a small Labrador retriever, perhaps. It looked up at me and I found myself looking into the beady eyes of a very fat, fuzzy, adorable tanuki. Hot damn! And it was only 4 feet away! I didn't bother fishing for my camera, I just wanted to look at it as long as possible because it was SO cute. But it then sense that my car would have the ability to squish it, and decided to run away. But... it's hard for fat squishy creatures to flee at a rapid pace. So instead, tanuki-chan decided to squeeze into a rain gutter. A cat would have no trouble with this... but a pooh-bear shaped cat might. Tanuki-chan had to squeeeeze itself into the rain gutter, finding the most trouble doing so with its rotund behind. Instantly images of "Winnie the Pooh" danced throughout my head as I began to laugh. Finally, it managed to squeeze into the rain gutter and I continued on my way.

I made sure to check that it wasn't stuck in there on my way back. What an amazing little animal...

Other than that, Kirby and I are enjoying the fall weather. It's warm enough to feel happy and energized in the day and cold enough in the mornings to snuggle. Kirby even sleeps on my lap like he used to when he was littler. Yay!

I also taught my students an important expression in English during recitation contest practice this week, "I am like a proud mama." Because Ikumi can pronounce the "ou" sound (sound, found, round etc) and ... well... I am like a proud mama.

My laundry enjoys the warm sunny autumn day...

Over and out.

Kirby and Shuji

This week was primarily spent playing with the ferret, who I have named Kirby! He is genki as ever and enjoys running around and playing tag/hide and seek/leap on Rachel's slippers. It's sort of a game of his own invention and it's terribly cute.

Kirby enjoys tunneling under ugly blankets.

Of course I realize that the ferret will cause problems in the future when I want to go on holiday or take trips to places, however this week especially it has provided me with the sanity I have needed to get through the generally anti-social evenings. I am sure there are things going on with people in the evenings, but I don't know about them. So, I hang out with the ferret, read, study and watch movies. It's not a bad existance!

"My name is Kirby. I enjoy biting on things, nibbling on things and hanging onto things with my teeth." (he seemed to say)

I also have decided that shuji is my favourite place to be at all times. It's relaxing to draw kanji, it's so much fun talking with the boys and girls who come to practice with me, and the teacher (Kamitsuji-sensei) is endlesly patient with me and kind just to have me even though we can't have any super interesting conversations aside from "agh this is so bad don't look at it!" "Agh Reicheru that's so bad what are you DOING?!" and so on. I am fairly pleased with the kanji for the seasons that I made last night though. And everyone in the room learned the word "tummy" so the teacher could say "I have big tummy!" hehehehe

Behold! Fall/winter (on the left side) and Spring summer! (right)

My head is good, my brain is bright.

Second Years Gone : Happy People Come out of Woodworks

OK it's decided. Ine Jr. High School is simply a better place when the 2nd year chuckleheads, are gone. At the moment they are in Tokyo going around the area and going to Disney Land. While I don't agree that taking horrible students to the happiest place in Nippon is a good idea, I do revel in their absence. All the teachers seem to have a little more of a spring to their step. The two classes I taught today were great! Everyone seemed happier than usual and the third years had a hell of a time writing a composition about the pros and cons of certain 'debatable matters'. Such as, 'I think students should/shouldn't learn English' and so on.

My favorites include;

I think students shouldn't learn English. Here are my reasons. First, I'm Japanese. Second, Japan doesn't use English. Third, I can live without English. (ouch)

and the other one about whether or not video games are good for children to play

'If children play video games often, their heads become bad. If they study, their brains will become bright.'

The reasoning of course is because in Japanese you say 'your head is good/bad' for describing a smart/dimwitted individual. They also have a single word to describe the brain/the mind. Well done, kids! They made my day. But you know what it's mean to make fun of Engrish simply because ENGLISH IS REALLY DIFFICULT FOR JAPANESE PEOPLE TO LEARN.

Ganbatte, everyone. Ganbatte.

In other news, the ferret is named Kirby! And he sends his regards. And nibbles.

Enter the Ferret

Not a ton happened this week... aside from me meeting the new love of my life through a series of hours on the road, last minute decision making, and a lot of help from a lot of awesome people (Ian).



Bitey (or whatever his name will be in the future) is a big fan of 'delighted grunting'.

The next question is..... what should the name be?