Inheriting the Kimono

I have often tried to express, however uneloquently, that I have received so much in the past year it is hard to give it all back. Not just from people in Japan but from so many of the people I love at home. I want to return everything people have given me, but about whether I accomplish that or not, I can't really be the judge. As I like to say, I am trying to do my best and "play the hand I've got." When the cards are all shuffled and redistributed I hope that the hands are even, that they can at least express my gratitude, but ultimately I am not the one who decides if I've succeeded at this.

However, in some cases, I KNOW there is just no adequate thank you I can give for the way I've been touched. And one of those cases involves a school librarian named Hattori Sensei. Not only did she invite me to her home for cooking lessons, take me to one of her harp lessons, and teach me some Japanese by correcting my journal with lots of encouragement, but also she planned a trip to Kyoto to give me the chance to see a maiko dance performance. (Maiko are like mini-geishas, or geishas-in-training, and this opportunity is extremely rare). The dance was beautiful and enchanting, of course, but what really meant a lot to me that weekend was her time. We had a long bus ride and we talked about everything --cultural differences, education, feminism, immigration, relaxation, even romance, which is a pretty unusual discussion to have in Japan with someone 40 years your senior.

At school Hattori Sensei is busy and somewhat formal; I think she strikes people as pretty rigid, with a somewhat "my way or the highway" attitude, which can make you an oddball in Japan. Maybe she saw little bits of herself in me the way I saw little pieces of myself in her. In any case, this exterior is just that -- an exterior. Japan has taught me the value of really being patient with people and trusting that there is so much more inside of them. Not only about their personalities, but also about their feelings for you. And it's earned with time and care and patience and responsiveness, before reaping the joys of really getting to know someone. In America I've had hard lessons of "things are not always what they seem." But in Japan, instead of being a harsh reality, this maxim has been more like a slow-happy-peaceful truth. Quite Buddhist I guess.

In any case, I have valued the time spent with Hattori Sensei because she has taught me so much outside of work. I know that I understand her better than some of other teachers because they don't have a chance to get to know her. And this goes for many teachers at my school -- I've learned that being patient and open and asking little from people can lead to learning so much about them. And the more you know about someone the more likely you are to discover things you have in common, or discover ways you connect, beyond analyzing potential romances or guys or whatever allows women to most easily bond with one another.

For me this really hits a nerve. I used to think the way to understand people was to analyze them. And let me tell you I am good at analyzing. I considered being a psychologist, at many people's urging, for a LONG time. But somewhere along the line, I realized that the way to understand someone is just to wait. Observe and wait, that's it, and that's different from analyzing. Be patient and good things will come to you. And when you respond to the things that ARE given to you, the good will just keep on coming. People will trust you and open up more and your friendships will deepen and when you see the librarian racing through the teachers' room with her jaw set and her lips tight because she's on some undisclosed mission, you'll just smile to yourself because despite the way she may seem uptight, you know her and you love her for a lot more than what everbody else can see in that moment.

This lesson, this personified truth, is the intangible thing Hattori Sensei passed on to me. But the other thing, the tangible inheritance that is actually quite silky, is a kimono.

Last weekend Hattori Sensei gave me a kimono she wore before she got married, including the necessary under-kimono and fittings and attachments and obi and even 2 silk kimono-style jackets. I know that the best way I can thank her is to wear them. To say it was a generous gift is an understatement. The kimono is off-white with a very Japanese-style print pattern of flowers and birds, really quite beautiful. (For some reason I had a mental image of something plain and maroon, so I was delighted when I actually saw the real thing she was giving me.) I stood on Hattori Sensei's tatami mats, her yanking on the silk while yelling at her husband to stay out Lauren's not dressed yet, and when she finished the obligatory pulling and wrapping and tying, she stood back to look at me and I watched her eyes widen.

Lauren, she said, it's like it was made for you. It fits perfectly. Look.

I went over to the mirror and discovered that it did, indeed, fit perfectly.

After 4 hours of dressing and undressing and redressing, in an attempt to teach me the simplest way to wear a kimono so that I can wear it on my own, we moved on to photographs, and ice cream, and finally the lesson on kimono storage. There is a rather complicated way to fold the kimono when you're not wearing it, and giving verbal directions in detail becomes rather ridiculous. Exasperated and laughing, Hattori Sensei said finally,

Just follow the wrinkles. That will show you where to fold.

As we were packing everything for me to take home, I tried to thank her and tell her how honored I was to receive such a gift and that I was excited about wearing it. But her response made me stop. Still folding and not even looking up at me, she said,

Yes. All these years, I was keeping it for you.

Yet another lesson in patience and trusting that good things will come. Hattori Sensei had something beautiful to give away, something that meant a lot to her but that was now better shared with someone else. And the tone in her voice was like "all those years," she never doubted or worried that she would find the right person to give it to. It made me think of falling in love. All the people who worry and scheme and think they have to finagle their way into a worthwhile relationship. Trying to plan and plan, worried that what they have to give might go unnoticed or unused or unwitnessed or wasted. But the combination of her words and tone of voice was so powerful to me it made me feel like I never had to worry about anything. It was, perhaps, how a non-Christian would describe fate; Hattori Sensei is a practicing Buddhist so she wouldn't say, "God has a plan and things work out the way they should," but her message was clearly along the same lines. And it was a message that hit me pretty hard.

You can't see the future, but what's going to happen is what's going to happen. You do your best, and remain patient, and things will fall into place. When Hattori Sensei made that comment, there was no hint of impatience or worry or strain or doubt at all, and no hint that those feelings had EVER been there in the first place. She didn't say, "I was WAITING for you to come along and FINALLY you are here and now I can give it to you!" She said only, "I was keeping it for you," and that was that. I think the difference in those two statements is very powerful. Her obvious faith in fate, or whatever you want to call it, really impressed a lot upon me. Sure, it's just a kimono. But when Hattori Sensei gave it to me, she gave me a lot more than some feminine yards of silk fabric. I'm humbled that she chose to give it to me. But what excited me most of all was her belief that things just work the way they're supposed to work.

JET Journal

Good news!

A teacher gave me a small book of tanka written by Japanese college students. Tanka are similar to haiku but a little longer, with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format. They should describe a specific moment in time, an action or something concrete, instead of just an abstract emotion. After reading the book I decided to try writing some myself and put them down in my journal. Later, I saw a call for submissions to the JET Journal, the JET Program annual publication that's distributed to all current and incoming JETs. So I submitted my tanka and some of them were published! Click the link and it should open to page 74.

http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/current/JET_JOURNAL_2006.pdf

The Spider

Today I got dressed up for the school's closing ceremony, where I made a teary goodbye speech in Japanese and surprised a lot of people, including myself. My last day at school was extremely emotional, memorable, touching, and humbling. I hope to write more about it later, but for now I'm still trying to process it all.

What I have been thinking about all day is what I saw when I stepped off the bus, my curly hair frizzing and my mascara running in the rain. I stood there in the street, frozen in shock like a deer in headlights, unable to move or open my umbrella because of sheer terror. There, so big that it was actually CROSSING THE STREET, and headed right for ME, was the biggest and most terrifying spider I have ever seen in my life.

It was so big, I swear on the curly locks of my first-born child, its body was half the size of my fist. It was covered in short-haired, soft-looking zig zag stripes of grey and brown. Including the legs the spider was the size of my entire hand. I stood there between a spider and a bus, my mouth open horror, actually debating which option would save me from death: run towards the spider? Or back into the street towards the bus? It was making a BEELINE for me, this spider SO HUGE it was not an arachnid, but more like a small animal. A small, terrifying animal I could not actually believed existed. Much bigger than a tarantula. I could not believe my eyes, and that is probably why I continued to stare without moving -- I could not believe this creature was actually a spider, below rats and other small animals on the species chain. Have I mentioned that this thing was big? It was colossal.

A student got off the bus behind me and relief melted my frozen joints. He could save me! Then I started to talk.

LOOK!!!

I screamed in informal Japanese, much like I had yelled at the gardener when I saw the huge hornet.

LOOK! I repeated. IT'S HUGE!!! I made no attempts to hide anything I was feeling.

The student's eyes widened as he realized the spider was now charging him. But then I saw him shoot a sideways glance in my direction. A mischevious glance. Instead of moving out of the way, the student held his ground, and allowed the spider to crawl up onto his shoe. More disbelief, more screaming in Japanese, more terrified Lauren.

IT'S SO BIG! SCARY! SCARY! IT'S SOOO BIG!

The student started laughing until he began kicking his foot and realized the spider had better grip than he'd anticipated. As the spider continued up his pants leg, I just continued screaming. The student's smile turned into an expression of panic and he began kicking and shaking his leg much harder. Eventually, the spider flew off, in my direction, so I shot off down the street towards the school. When I felt I was at a safe distance, assuming the spider was off battling cars and transfer trucks instead of helpless humans, I felt bold enough to turn around.

SCARY!!

I yelled at the student one more time, and then we smiled at each other.

Good morning, he said.

Good morning.

And we calmly walked into school. I couldn't stop grinning and shaking my head until I walked through the door. My love of Japan involves so many peaceful things, like gardens and kimonos and tea ceremonies. But it also involves a lot of screaming.

The Key to Happiness

...my friends, is adaptability.

read & learn:

[Setting: 2 weeks ago, Lauren's bedroom]

LAUREN: (upon seeing cockroach on her ceiling) AHHH! EEEHHH! **)!$?%&!! What are you doing here???? GET OUT!! GET OUUUTTT!!!!

[Setting: 1 week ago, Lauren's kitchen]

LAUREN: (jumping back from her stove as a roach runs out from under her teapot) AHH! %##!?&!! Ferdinand, go away!!

[Setting: this evening, Lauren's bathroom]

LAUREN: (with boredom, watching a roach crawl across her floor) Oh hey, it's you. Listen, I'm leaving in 3 days, but a new ALT is coming. Her name is Emily. But don't worry, she probably won't eat much.

[Setting: 10 minutes later, Lauren's kitchen]

LAUREN: (upon counting no less than 3 roaches, flicks off the lights with continued boredom) Hey guys, beer's in the fridge. Leave me the sake.

~fin~

OC II Class

This class of seniors had to be my favorite. (Yes, most of them are bigger than I). No matter what, they always made me feel excited and uplifted. Every day they'd look up at me from their desks, and you could tell from their eager expressions that they expected me to be happy and full of the energy, to give them a good class every time. When good students expect the best from you, you want to give it to them. Yesterday I received thank you notes saying, "I loved this class because you were always happy and smiling. English was always fun." But don't they realize why?

Tea Ceremony Club

What I WILL most definitely miss is my school, Fuji Higashi High School. The students, the clubs, the teachers -- including SadouBu, or tea ceremony club.

The girls in SadouBu were always so sweet and inclusive and eager to teach me the steps. Every single move during this traditional tea ceremony is choreographed, so much so that it's like a slow dance on your knees. Your steps, posture, angle of your wrists, number of times you sip, method of passing the bowl to the next person, which hand you use to do what -- literally every move must follow a set pattern. The result is that, far from being annoying, the whole process is quite meditative and soothing. I always left tea ceremony club feeling very peaceful.

In the photos:

The man is the tea ceremony "master," and the girl serving tea will become one of the new leaders. She's one of my favorites. All these girls have been my students at one point. Doing something with them outside of class thrills them no end, and makes me very happy. The Japanese sweets are made of white bean paste wrapped in a sticky, firm, jelly-like substance made from seaweed.

What I WON'T Miss

In an effort to add some sugar to a bittersweet goodbye, here's a list of things that I will not miss about living in Japan.

• mold growing on everything from floors to backpacks to shoes to wooden coasters to the sprouts indepedently growing from my sponge. It is THAT disgustingly humid.
• huge cockroaches I can do nothing about
• NO CENTRAL HEATING or AC anywhere
• "celebrity status," ie total lack of privacy
• having to be overly-conservative about everything because of the teacher reputation I am expected to uphold
• spending too much time in front of the computer
• waiting for late buses and then getting whiplash from crazy drivers
• not having a car or otherwise any access to good transportation
• the high cost of produce
• pollution and ugly smokestacks in my town
• rough washers and dryers = worn-out clothes
• lack of a "real" bed
• complete lack of the "and on day 7 He rested" concept
• always being the object of a stare
• the ramen truck that blares until 11:30 on Thursday nights
• lack of daylight savings in winter
• lack of regular religious services
• instant coffee

Silence is Golden 2

Along those same lines, love is not so much about communication as it is about presence. Because only one of those can replace the other.

Silence is Golden

When you spend a year living in a country where you can only understand 10% of the dialogue, you realize how unnecessary words are. Even for a woman who likes to write.

People talk too much. I talk too much. Since I'm about to make such a big change in lifestyle, I'd like to think of this as a new resolution. I want my life to involve way less talk and much more action.

They say you should marry someone you can talk to, but really, you should marry someone you can be quiet with. Silence is closely linked to happiness. And since actions speak louder than words anyway, what do you really need to say?

Mr. Ferdinand, Please Go Home

...to the home you had before you took up residence in mine.

I am sad to leave Japan, but I am not sad to leave (the mold and) the 3-inch cockroaches who, instead of scattering when you turn on the lights, like to hang out confused on the ceiling above your bed, waving their attenaes as if you smell funny to them. As if you are in their spaces; as if you are disturbing their peace.

The biggest one, the one who likes to hang out while I stomp and flail my arms and flick the lights and do everything possible to shoo him back into the walls** so that I may sleep in peace, I have named Mr. Ferdinand. I'm always happy to make a friend, but Mr. Ferdinand is not what I had in mind.

** I've set up no less than 7 roach traps in my 3-room apartment, but they only catch the little guys, not the 3-inch ones. I do love living alone, but after this, I might prefer another person if it would mean a nicer apartment sans roaches.

The Strangest Flower

If I don't have a book at the bus stop, I often get bored when public transportation arrives anywhere from 2 - 20 minutes later than scheduled. But at one bus stop in front of someone's house, I am always fascinated by this flower. I stare and stare and can't get enough and before I know it the bus arrives.

The ants also can't get enough. They go crazy and, although you can't see them in this picture, constantly run over its surface doing who knows what (I can't see them eating anything or gathering any nectar, just running over this flower like it's a jungle gym). It doesn't even produce a noticeable odor.

If you know the name of this one please let me know, because it is the strangest flower I've ever seen in my life.

Give Me an "H" !

The coolest thing about teaching is that the kids make me laugh a lot, for a whole slew of reasons. Even when I am doing something as routine and endless and boring as grading 400 tests, there is always something worthy of stomach-grabbing laughter.

Like today, in the middle of these 400 tests. I am responsible for the "oral communication" classes at my school, so each semester I make a listening exam. For about 30 minutes I talk into a tape recorder, and on test day play the tape for students to answer questions about pronunciation, imaginary diary entries, and sentence dictations. Without question, dictation is the most difficult section. And today it's what made me crack up.

One of my past lessons was about music and emotions, so I thought it would be a "fun" topic for the exam. I was also responsible for weaving in a random set of vocabulary words, totally unrelated words like "drawer" and "headache." So in the dictation about listening to new CDs, students were supposed to write,

"I'm sorry, but right now I have a headache" as one of the answers. Here is a list of the words / phrases I got in place of "I have a headache."

• headwig
• head deck
• I have aholic
• an egg
• ahead one egg
• headcake
• head dick

and my two personal favorites:

• headquake
• head-leak

"Head-leak" is the one that really had me rolling. When you're plugging along grading papers and your eye is trained to recognize the correct answer quickly, the deviations can be quite surprising -- especially when they are real words.

Not quite as funny, but in place of the song title "Tears in Heaven," there was

• Devil Haven
• Tires in Heaven

Now, as a teacher my job is certainly not to make fun of the students or display their innocent "incompetence" all over the web. (That is definitely not my point.) Overall the students did a great job! But I had to share part of what being a language teacher is all about.

UFOs

Today I was attacked by a small bird who stabbed me with its needle beak.

Then I realized it was a mosquito.

The other mysterious objects flying around Fuji's air are much smaller -- scents. What you can smell varies with the season as well as the time of day. But as an experiment, I'll try to paint you a rambling picture of Fuji odors. Pretend you can't see anything, and in one summer day, this is what you'd smell (apologies if this is too realistic or graphic for some people, but such is life -- it's not all about flowers):

-slightly fishy fish (a neighbor's breakfast, comes at intervals through the window)
-a thick but low-lying smell of damp hay and grass (tatami mats in summer)
-light saltiness of sweat
-mildew (bathroom towels and shower tiles never dry completely)
-cold ceramic, copper, and other metal, the way something at the dentist tastes (similar to blood, but it comes from the bathroom tile and pipes)

Here I could go on about minty toothpaste, but I'll stick with what is unique to Japan. At this point your nose will start to get stuffy from all the molds and pollens and polutants floating around, which will dull your senses a bit. But still there is:

-sour yet throat-scratching fuel exhaust
-honeysuckle and other weed-like but sweet little flowers
-bagged garbage (awaiting collection in the sun)
-a light layer of dried leaves over a headier layer of leaves and stalks and soil that is always damp, always in the shade, always rotting and growing at the same time; a cooling scent that is released and smells better just before a rain, and just after a rain when the dried-out leaves on top are quenched and all the vegetation relaxes together and there's no more rotting until the sun comes out again
-strangers' sweat, old ladies' dried-out, powdery skin and clothes, more fuels and metals (the bus ride to work)
-faint smell of old rubber and worn shoes at the school entrance where everyone changes into indoor slippers
-a comforting, sweet, pungent, grandfatherly smell of dried tobacco leaves (some of the men leave old coke cans by the door to collect ashes from the cigars and cigarettes they smoke outside during breaks)
-a sexy, full-bodied, charcoal and rosemary and cinammon and cool water masculine cologne, worn by the young office guy (the only cologne I have ever smelled in Japan)
-old building dust that is re-baking in the sun (a smell that is only present in summer)
-the yellow, closeted, musty smell of old library books, in contrast to the freshly-toxic chemical smell of newly-printed books shrink-wrapped in thin, tight plastic (a tinge of something similar to nail-polish remover, warning you not to inhale too much of its newness)
-hot flavored instant coffees
-burned, overly-bitter drip coffees
-green tea
-women's soap, shampoo, and waxy lipstick residues
-bars of fatty lemon-flavored soap
-sweat of teenagers in uniform sweaters despite the heat
-salty miso soup, bitter and sour Japanese pickles (described as smelling like dirty feet or other unpleasant body odors, but eaten by everyone around my desk)
-Japanese curry
-caramel-flavored iced coffee
-baking bread and thick, warm cream from the "French" bakery across the street
-sweat from teachers of various body weights and stress-levels
-mysterious flower that drifts into the teachers' room as the day begins to end
-even stronger scent of invisible flowers as night falls
-sewage, old soapy dirty dishwater, chlorine from the city's drains
-damp piles of wood from trucks driving up the mountain carrying supplies
-pan-warmed soy sauce and mirin (sweetened sake)
-popcorn-like smell of fluffy white rice (no butter)
-damp tatami, cooling down and smelling even more like hay than in the morning (after a day's worth of wet, warm air)
-red wine
-breeze bringing a mix of food from other kitchens, a fresh coolness as the sun sets,, and thick, stinky, sulfurous smells from the paper factory at the coastline
-the smell of the earth before it rains...sometimes it materializes into the fresh metallic smell of rain, but sometimes the air just remains in that heavy state of expectation until it gives up and dies away
-powdery laundry detergents
-freshening anti-mold and mildew sprays like light pine and flowers and water and mint
-familiar sheets (bedtime...rest and repeat)

Of course, the hardest thing about describing scent is that it's nearly impossible to do without referring to something else. Think of this as a work in progress, or at least, no where near complete.

Fuji Summer, Again

You know the saying, "When the cat's away, the mice will play?" For a high school in Japan, it should go more like this: "When the cat's away and the mice are sweating like pigs, they all get to stick their heads in the freezer."

It's extremely humid, the way that makes you feel dirty after stepping out of the shower and that leaves your clothes constantly damp and stuck to your skin. Contrary to my tennis coach's recommendations to spend time sans AC and "climatize," or get used to the hot weather, nobody can adjust to humidity. Japanese people complain about it more than I do! So when the principal and both vice-principals went out of town yesterday for a business trip, the air conditioner suddenly came alive. It pounded out dry, icy air like I've never seen before in Japan. I forgot that the AC existed in the teachers' room, because last summer it was never used. But with no one to monitor school expenses, that baby was on full blast.

Which brings me to yet another thing I never believed I would believe before coming to Japan: I didn't want the AC on!! It was assaulting. It was like a snow monster came at the most inappropriate time to freeze us all out. My initial, 2-second relief was followed by a sensation that this cold air just didn't "fit." It was too much in contrast to the outside and, since I haven't been in such heavy AC for a year, I could feel my body trying to deal with the change. I'm not saying I don't need an air conditioner, but I am saying I don't need it on as high as I thought. When your body just surrenders to the seasons, it does feel like a more natural and comforting environment, even if it means you're sweating in work clothes.

Well, as long as you're not sweating too much. Not visibly, anyway. It's just that time of year called "summer," you know? We deal with it.

Today marks the start of exam week and my kids don't take the English test until tomorrow. That means I have free time until they finish and I am suddenly responsible for grading 400 papers. But I have plenty to do: I'm writing people I know in France to let them know I'll be there again, and I'm starting my goodbye speech for the school's closing ceremony. The letters are in far-from-perfect French, and the speech is in far-from-fluent Japanese. Of course, the speech is completely riddled with mistakes. But I can't tell you how happy it makes me to realize in hindsight that in the past couple days I've been using 3 languages to go about my business. I'm not saying I'm good at it, but for some reason it was always a dream of mine to be able to use 3 languages at once. Now that I'm doing it I can't tell you how satisfied it makes me feel.

Totally satisfied, until I remember how hot it is; until I have to peel the skirt away from my legs when I leave the computer, because in the meantime it has welded to me like saran wrap.

Cafe Break 2 - The Fantasy Shapes Up

Since I don't know how to insert links to old posts, I've reposted one below from many months ago (in quotations so you know it's not current). I'm doing this because I find it amusing. A year in Japan has taught me many things, and the old fantasy has since gone through some restructuring.

Before that -- In another post I made some hideous generalization to the effect of, "love doesn't exist in Japan." But recently the truth of the Japanese love story hit me like a smack across the face. How's this for a paradox: it's not that love doesn't exist in Japan. It's that the Japanese version of love exists when people want to love each other, but can't. Be it unrequited or star-crossed, "Japanese love" is desire that cannot actually be realized. So if you want to argue that yes, the Japanese do believe in love, I might have to agree with you. But if the only passion is the kind that can't actually happen...does that really count? If "love" is what occurs between two people who share one dream but cannot actually make it come true, is that really the same thing? Seems to me like this phenomenon should have another name. Something more along the lines of "shit happening" or "it's never enough" or "we tried but it was just too hard so life conquered our love instead." The two people who want to be together most certainly would not hesitate to call it "love," even though it was broken from the beginning. I can speak from experience, so I guess I must give this disappointing-yet-classic Japanese version some credit. Still, they ought to call it something else.

Here's the old post, and after, I'll talk about what has changed. If you've been following my blog I hope this gives you a good chuckle.

"I just received my recontracting papers in the mail. In short, I must decide whether or not to leave Japan after one year, or stay for two. John, the other ALT, is decidedly staying for two. I was discussing with him the possibility of leaving after only one year, telling him about my goals for Japan and my goals for the rest of my life. After hitting on many subjects, most of which were not related to love or romance, he snickered, turned his head to one side, looked at me shrewdly from the corner of his eyes and said accusingly, "You just want to get married."

I don't remember how I responded, but I can promise you, I was pissed off.

First of all, why does he say it like he's accusing me of something? Most guys act like this, and many women do, too: it's wrong, weak, old-fashioned, dependent, unadventurous and shrewish to desire marriage. Not to mention, everyone knows that marriage is a trap into which all women try to lure all unsuspecting men, with the single goal of making them feel miserable, trapped, and bored for the rest of their lives. In my experience, all guys seem to think all women want this. Guys want to sleep with you, and they have no qualms voicing these desires. But if you let on that what you prefer to a string of meaningless, soon-to-be-boring-if-not-confusing hookups is a real, intimate and fulfulling relationship with one person...well then by God, "you just want to get maried," and men should avoid you and your traps at all costs.

Second, what John "accused" me of is simply not true. My young-womanhood fantasy does not involve me running back to the US, spending my spare time curling my hair and reading Cosmo, desperately bar- and/or church-hopping to find Mr. Right, who will then propose to me and solve all my "single gal problems." No. Listen-up, fellas, this is what I really want. This is my fantasy:

I will live not under the same roof as my boyfriend, but alone. I will happily and ambitiously pursue my dream job as a successful novelist and creator of "real literature." I will get regular exercise and be a fantastic cook. Then, unexpectedly and without trying, I will meet a man and we will fall madly in love. He, in turn, will live alone, and he will also ambitiously pursue his dream-job that allows him to be financially independent. He will have his circle of guy friends with whom he can go out drinking, bowling, rock-climbing, or whatever it is he enjoys doing. And I of course will have my circle of girl friends, with whom I can talk about everything, shop, exchange cooking recipes and yoga routines. Our lives will be exciting with the security and comfort of knowing that my significant other is there for me. And I, in turn, will be there for him. We will spend our time together relaxing by visiting museums, going hiking, checking out new restaurants and bars, having intellectual discussions, watching college basketball, going on romantic picnics, reading in parks, playing tennis, going to hear quartets, staying on the couch all night to watch movies, grilling steaks and drinking red wine. Sometimes we'll cook together and then do dishes together. But the laundry, the vacuuming, the picking-up and the money-earning will be done on our own, independently, because we ultimately live in our own spaces. We'll have the comfort of loving and being loved enough to marry the other person, but we will also have the freedom and the space necessary to be truly happy in such a close, committed relationship if we are not actually married.

Then maybe, when I'm about 30, I'd like to marry this man, and take a brief hiatus from my career to raise our two beautiful children. I refuse to be one of those women who insists she can "have it all" and do everything at once, because that just triples her workload and makes her more tired, stressed, resentful, and frazzled than I ever care to be. One thing at a time, and I will make the most of everything.

Happily unwed until the day that I am wed.

PS -- There is nothing in here to suggest I cannot have all this with a man I've already met."

What Has Changed:

• Though I will always be passionate about writing (there's just no choice in that matter), the dream job has morphed into an idea I've kept close to me all along. This means that instead of returning to America, I'll move to France for a year.
• Ideally, I'd like to get married sooner than later. And that's all I mean. You can't force anything and I don't intend to. But I realize that the more I learn about myself, the more comfortable I become with the idea of "settling down."

What Has Remained the Same:

• I still think your own space is necessary unless you are going to marry someone. I imagine cohabitation requires tons of commitment and sacrifice, and I'm only interested in giving up my autonomy if it is a means to an end -- if there's a shared vision of a life together past the cohabitation step. Otherwise, it just feels like too much compromise too early.
• There will be no bar-hopping or Cosmo-reading.
• I still don't think the best way to happiness is trying to "have it all." I want to lead a peaceful, purposeful life, not a frazzled one in which I've tried to cram too much.

I hope that this time in Japan has made me less naive and more independent. I hope it has given me a clearer vision of what I need to be content. I think I've learned quite a bit, and for that I have many people to thank. :) Unlike one of my favorite professors, at age 23 I'm not daydreaming of "a man, a house, and a child" yet, but I can feel myself getting closer. I'm just paying attention to my cards and playing the best hand I know how.

Cafe Break

Suddenly, I have a lot to say. Everything I've been observing in Japan and everything going on in my own life is suddenly coming together. I feel like I'm seeing things I didn't see before. It's enough to keep a girl in a coffee shop for at least a few days straight.

Of all the things I struggled with in Japan, by far the most confusing, sensitive, and shrouded topic is love. I'm still trying to understand it but I am beginning to get the hang of things. Much more on that later.

For now, here's a list of things I NEVER BELIEVED I WOULD BELIEVE OR DO before I came to this country:

• try, much less enjoy and repeatedly attend, a public bath. I never, ever would have considered even the possibility of doing this before Japan.
• want to eat sticky white rice and gooey fermented soybeans for breakfast
• spend 3 dollars on one peach
• teach (Hah! Believe it or not! But sometimes I REALLY love it)
• see any value or merit in an arranged marriage. Now I think I GET it, and simply understanding those values is scary.
• prefer to sit on the floor
• dream in broken Japanese with an albeit very limited vocabulary
• meditate in a temple under the rule of a man with a giant stick
• be so fascinated by bugs and plants I've never seen before

Really, though, the most shocking one is the first one on the list. Right? Would you ever imagine you could feel comfortable bathing and lounging around totally naked in front of 80 other people who are also completely naked? But trust me -- writing it and reading it sounds MUCH more awkward than it actually feels.

Also, I want to revisit two old posts and re-think the way I see Japan in light of my own views. Or perhaps, the way I see myself in light of Japan. Everything is basically summarized by this poem (so the second post will come later):

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing
And he swears his passion is
Infinite, undying --
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

--Dorothy Parker

And don't give me any of that boo hoo, isn't she cynical. The truth is I am quite the romantic. It's just that my timeline is different. I don't believe in anything fiery lasting. That doesn't mean it wasn't beautiful and completely real. But in order to keep the whole universe going, everything with energy has a life span. If you burn brighter then most likely you will burn out faster, simple as that. I mean this about all things, like when my brother and I stood in my bedroom, doubled over in hysterics because of the crazy way our dog was running circles on my bed. I never thought an animal could bring so much pure joy into a home. And when I stepped back from that picture and looked at my brother with tears in our eyes from laughing so hard, my insides felt a little reverent, because I thought, "Anything this amazing is not going to last. This little thing is going to use up her energy and leave us sooner than we want." And sadly, that is what happened. I was overcome with grief when she prematurely passed away, but I couldn't ignore the fact that I had sensed it would be that way all along.

Yet you don't have to stop there and be cynical. You have to see everything in terms of your own big picture. It's not cynical to say that the most beautiful things have the shortest life spans. (In fact, it's very Japanese. It's why the cherry blossoms, which last only about one week, are so loved and celebrated.) Instead, you have to look at the good things and tell youself, "Look what I got to experience. Look what happened in my lifetime. Look how lucky I am to have had that at one point."

It doesn't MATTER that it's gone, because you HAD it. In reality you can't own or control or keep or protect anything. So when people ask themselves, or ask others, "What happened? Where did it go wrong? How did you lose it? Why did it stop? What screwed it up??," and they struggle to understand why they couldn't hold on to something, the real question should be, "Why on earth did you think it would last?"

And that, my friends, is very romantic.

Blurring That Line

You know, the one between fate and chance. I shuffle between the two, usually clinging to the fence and declaring the events in my life "a lax version of destiny" or "a major version of coincidence." By now my arms are getting tired because I find myself once again holding fast to that line.

My mother told me about a dream my grandmother had right after I was born. I was only a few days old, but in the dream, my grandmother phoned my house asking to speak with me. "Oh, I'm sorry," my mom replied. "She's in the south of France."

And then we would all laugh like it was the wackiest thought to ever enter a grandmother's brain just days after her granddaughter was born.

With no particular prompting, this memory came back to me long after it had faded from conversation and my short-term memory. So I ask you, is it fate? Coincidence? Or is my grandmother hiding some special powers? (Read "What's Next" for an update if you're confused.)

I shouldn't let this go to waste! Manana, when I was born, did you ever dream about where I'd settle? Or who I'd marry ?

Sing Us a Song

In 10th grade I was thrilled to land a role in a musical production of Sleeping Beauty. I was the queen, which meant I had a lot of speaking parts, but mainly, I had to sing. Where this came from, I have no idea. After the show my brother told me his friend leaned over to him and said, "I didn't know your sister could sing," to which my brother replied, "I didn't either."

That's because really, I can't. I lucked out with that part and did a good job because it didn't require much of a range. I'm a pretty good actress, but in general I am not a singer. So you can imagine the sharp increase in my blood pressure when a teacher said to me at 8am this morning,

"On Friday I would like you to give a farewell speech to the students, and I would like you to sing Sakura. If you sing it I think students will be very impressed."

Sakura is a traditional Japanese song with a very haunting melody. I learned how to play the intro on a Japanese harp, but I wanted to learn the words so I could sing it when I left Japan. (So I could sing it to myself.) The teacher was happy to write down all the lyrics and sing it with me a couple times so I'd get the hang of things. Sakura's mysterious, lullaby-esque melody forces me to duck my chin in a most unflattering way just to produce some of the sounds. Basically, I can't sing it. So I was quite surprised by the request.

Belting out maternal concern to Sleeping Beauty in front of 1,000 people I can't see due to spotlights is VERY different from eeking out a delicate Japanese melody solo in the intimacy of a classroom. No, no, no. I'll do the speech, but as for the song, I refused in the nicest but firmest way possible.

The teacher was very disappointed, but if I had agreed, I'm sure her disappointment would have been greater. :) Sometimes it's best to quit while you're ahead.

What's Next

To all the people who have asked, and to all those who have wondered but have not asked for fear of stressing a girl out, thank you for caring. Now I can finally share my plans for after Japan. (I want to maintain the blog, though I might change the title...details to come later.)

I leave Japan at the end of July and will return home. (Yay home!) From there I plan to see lots of people I have missed during my year in Japan, write about Japan, rest and ward off reverse culture shock, exercise, and work to save some money. In September, I'll move to France in pursuit of my dream job. Remember in February I quoted my friend Doug, who said, "It's time to chase my dreams somewhere else"? Well, I was lucky enough to have that chance. I'll be attending The Fragrance Academy (at Groupe ISIPCA) outside of Paris to study perfume -- how to make it, modern industry, advertising, chemical regulations, etc. -- in short, everything you can think of related to the production of fragrance.

So, how did I get here? I studied French, I didn't let go when people said it was frivolous, I went to France for access to perfume factories and other sources of information, I read and read and read, and I applied to the school from Japan. (Thank you to family and friends for all your support!) Maybe you are wondering "Why?" but the simplest answer is, "Because." How can you really explain why you love someone? It's the same feeling. I can talk about the comfort I feel even now when I smell perfume my mom wore 18 years ago; the first bottle my grandmother ever gave me; how it's such a romantic blend of science and technology and art and nature and beauty and history and the modern world; how when I baby-sat I deliberately wore the same perfume every time so the child would feel like he knew me; how I find neuroscience and our not-yet-understood sense of smell so fascinating that it makes my heart rate increase; how when I've changed or learned something important, I have to change perfumes because all the memories associated with one scent just don't feel like the right 'me' anymore; I can talk about how I get excited when I know who was in a room before I was; how dogs can "sniff out" cancer; how of all the senses, olfaction is the most instantaneous, the most entangled with learning and memory and identity, the most heart-wrenching, the most crucial to our evolution and survival as a species, the most mysterious. So, why do I want to study variations of a liquid mix of chemicals that is the most marked-up commodity on the market?

Because.

I'm a little scared. I'm incredibly excited. I have many mixed emotions regarding being away (from the US) for another year. I'm so excited to live in France another time and brush up my French and get to know life there again. I regret that everybody I love can't be in the same place. I'm sad to leave friends in Japan because I know in France they are much more difficult to come by. Japanese culture extended vines of friendship that rooted somewhere in me to make me feel warm and safe and secure. France is not like that. But I do have some connections there, including a friend my age from Duke, a kind host family, a fantastic friend from my internship who married and settled in Paris, a fabulous conductor who is often in the area...so I won't be unaccounted for.

Let's not forget the most important part. I'm going to France for a year to spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, studying something I thought was too ephemeral and romantic to be within reach as a career. Because I'm trying to grasp that doesn't mean that I will miss you any less.

It also doesn't mean that I'll stop writing. So stay tuned. :)

Reminders

Even if things are going so badly, by keeping your eyes and heart open, you will be reminded of the ways things can go so well. If you stay receptive, you will receive. And eventually you can find the courage to give back.

I had to teach my students that "taco" in English and Spanish is different from taco in Japanese (here it means "octopus.") One taco I like, the other taco not so much. After class, a teacher asked me, "What food from America do you miss the most?" Without hesitation, I answered, "Mexican." (Luckily, there is delicious and affordable Indian food not too far away.) Then this morning, the teacher swung over to my desk with a big yellow box. It was a taco kit--not of the seafood variety--complete with corn tortillas, sauce, and spices. "For ME?" I asked, wide-eyed. He just smiled and walked away.

In my senior English class, students have to write and present short speeches. I always encourage them to be creative and dare to be the nail that sticks out, because I promise that they won't be hammered down in my class.** One student spoke about why he wanted to be like a bean sprout. This was daring because the Japanese word for bean sprout has the diminuitive -ko added to the end. Ko means "child," and is unfortunately common in female names. But anyway, the student said that because of the bean sprout's name and size, it is easily made fun of and overlooked. It's a shrimp of a vegetable. But, he said, when cooked in stir-fry with other vegetables, it's the only one that remains crisp. It remains strong and true to its original form, despite the heat and the blending with other ingredients. Though it may rank low in the vegetable world, the student said he wanted to be "a bean sprout person," and stay strong. His 2-minute speech lifted me.

Today, it wasn't easy for me to face a class of 42 freshman, all expecting their young teacher to dish out educational entertainment for an hour. As class began I turned my back to write on the board, and when I returned to face the class, something caught my eye and made me stop mid-sentence. Suddenly perched on my desk were 15 TINY origami frogs, each colored differently, each gazing up at me with its own quirky, endearing, penciled-on smile. They were innocent, joyful little creatures, happy for no reason at all. I couldn't hide my delight, or my surprise at my own sudden happiness. For a second everything faded away and I felt nothing but joy as a boy in the front row gingerly pushed them forward as a gift. I was so touched in that moment that I burst into Japanese, much to the delight of my students, who have only heard me speak English. "How cute!" I laughed. "Are those really for me? Thank you so much!!" I can't look at them without smiling, just because.

And then somehow I realized, the way to give back to people who give you so much, is to just be happy to be with them. As Mother Teresa said, "We cannot do great things, only small things with great love." Sometimes people can do great things, but to get you through day-to-day life, the small things make such a huge difference.

Nikko

Sorry for the delay, but here are pictures of Nikko, a beautiful little mountain town stuffed with temples that I visited with my parents. It's famous for the 3 "evil" monkeys, that is, "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil." The bridge was pretty nice, too.

Amateur Origami-er

I'm visiting Mayumi's family next weekend to say goodbye, and I wanted to leave them something a *little* better than a bottle of sake. I don't know how much better this is, but at least it was something that required a few hours of effort. Those folds have to be exact! When it's not up against a white door (for a solid photo background) it will hang freely like a mobile.

"Delighted" is an Understatement

Besides balmy sunsets and soothing percussion to help you sleep--the sound of rain to me is like massaging warm oil into a brittle soul--the rainy season in Japan brings two more good things: 1) tons of pink flowers, in multiple shades and varieties, and 2) the frogs. I was so happy to have finally heard frogs, I actually clapped with excitement. I couldn't walk with Meegan without stopping to catch at least five of them. Their croaking reminds me of home, and the little ones are so much fun to play with. When Meegan showed me these pictures she had taken the day before, I was so mad that I hadn't brought my own camera. Perhaps it's cliché, but this was not a set-up, and it makes me so happy. And yes, I had to show you four.

No Samurai Swords or Cigarettes, Please

When you're raised in America, spend time in France, and live in Japan for a year, one thing is certain: nobody knows romance like America.

Surprised? French romance might look good in black and white, but film noir will never speak to me like The Notebook. Romance in Japan, from my perspective, has yet to debut. This is a whole other ballgame I have yet to write about seriously or respectfully, a project I plan to tackle soon. But if you try to unlock the doors to what we call "love" in Japan, you can quickly become jaded. Unless, of course, jealous servants to the emperor, suicides, forbidden and unrequited love, or comic book porn fits your ideas of romance.* I prefer the more wholesome American kind, the difficult, innocent, infuriating, passionate, unending, fateful, star-crossed-with-happy-endings kind. I'm not even a big chick-flick fan, but The Notebook stole my heart. Here's why:

Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we're already fighting!
Noah: Well that's what we do, we fight. You tell me when I'm being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you're a pain in the ass. Which you are, 99% of the time. I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a 2 second rebound rate, then you're back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So what?
Noah: So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day. Will you do something for me, please? Just picture your life for me? 30 years from now, 40 years from now. What's it look like? If it's with him, go. Go! I lost you once, I think I can do it again. If I thought that's what you really wanted. But don't you take the easy way out.

* * *

No samurai or cigarettes. Just two people fighting about how they want to love each other despite everything else. It's enough to sweep a girl off her feet.


* I haven't seen Memoires of a Geisha yet, but I can't wait to watch it and compare it to what I've learned in Japan. Many years ago I liked the book, but I have a feeling the movie will bring a different reaction.

Disclaimer

I just want to apologize to people I have hurt or confused with my posts. A few of you have said something to me, but I assume that means at least 10 more people have misunderstood. Please know that I say everything with the best intentions, or if I'm being sarcastic, I assume it's obvious.

Straw Exit

Today I'm here to tell you about 2 of Japan's less-discussed conveniences: the 7-11, and the juice box.

7-11 and other convenience stores cover every block of Japan. You know you're in the middle of nowhere when you walk for 60 seconds yet see no Family Mart in your field of vision. Unlike American quick-stops, Japanese ones offer a range of healthy and unhealthy foods, spare toiletries, cheap underwear (?), office supplies, wedding and funeral cards, DVDs, beauty products, appropriate and inappropriate magazines, a mini coffee bar, and (my favorite) raw purple octupus tentacles on sticks.

They also offer juice boxes. However, Japan fills these cardboard portables with many things besides fruity sugar water: milk, watered-down yogurt, iced black coffee, sugared coffee, English milk tea, bubble tea, plum wine, rice wine, wine coolers. Silly American, juice boxes are not just for kids!

The most amusing part is that, no matter what's in the box, they all come with straws. On every box there's a little foil circle labeled "Straw Exit." At least, this is the literal translation. Perhaps the Japanese word for "exit" also means "entrance," but for some reason every time I read a juice box that says "Straw Exit," I crack up. Be they convenient, juice boxes are really quite complex.

Couldn't Help It

Outside what I affectionately call "The Kill Bill restaurant," known in Tokyo as "Gonpachi." (It inspired Tarantino during the set-building of some of my favorite movies.) Never mind that the photo is horribly back-lit and blurry -- what a fabulous lunch.

How To

I'm sure you are wondering: what does a young woman, after almost one year of living alone in Japan with the freedoms and joys and responsibilities of paying her own bills, wanting to celebrate a Friday night alone in her own single apartment, working on a self-imposed budget, feeling too tired to cook, eat for dinner? What would make her feel relaxed and shrewd and lazy and satisfied and healthy and indulgent at the same time?

The answer to this question, which could serve you well on a similar night, is:

• edamame (boiled soy beans, green and popped right out of their skins, yum)
• imported chips and salsa (my little taste of home)
• cherry tomatoes and a raw carrot (sweet and crunchy goodness)
• 2 spoonfuls of peanut butter (must eat slowly for full effect)
• plum wine with a shot of sparkling water (Japanese, classy)
• green tea (much later when I'm feeling dehydrated from my 1 serving of alcohol)

Throw in a hot bath, some real peace and quiet, a little self-reflection, some promises to do better, an approaching weekend...and you've got yourself an evening that costs about 10 bucks (including the hot water!) but that will leave you feeling like a million.

Arthropods of Asia

Lunch break. I grabbed my wallet and skipped out of the locker room, on my way to the 7-11 for a rice ball, iced coffee, and origami paper. (Yes, you can find all this and more at your nearest Japanese convenient store). As I flipped down the stairs, I looked out the huge picture windows, hoping to discern Fujisan through the haze. No such luck. But what I did see made me gasp. One of those I-just-pulled-my-head-up-from-drowning gasps. One of those I-just-felt-the-air-knock-against-every-ribbed-ring-of-my-trachea gasps.

There, calmly and patiently beating the window in a hopeless attempt to escape, was the biggest mother of a hornet (or related insect) I have ever seen. It was literally four inches long and you could see every curve and outline of its segmented body from 20 feet away. Was that thing real? Was it supposed to be real? This wasn't something that actually lived and flew around my head, threatening a venom-induced death with one sideways prick. This was a prototype for a bug in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids." This was something you see in a natural history museum, stuck to the wall with a huge pin behind thick glass below a sign that declares, "ARTHROPODS FROM ASIA" and makes you shrug, "So basically, it's an alien."

Stuck behind glass, he was, but dead and securely glued to the wall, he was not. This guy was alive, he was real, he was right in front of my face, and I had to tell someone. I was so excited. The nearest person was the school gardener at the bottom of the stairs. He was arranging some flowers on a small table. I ran down the stairs and practically tackled him as I pointed frantically at the window. I yelled at the nice gardener man in informal Japanese.

"LOOK! IT'S VERY BIG! IT'S VERY BIG!"

The gardener looked up, eyed the bug without interest, smiled at me politely, turned back to his flowers and said,

"Yes. It's very big."

I stood there, confused.

"BUT IT'S VERY VERY BIG!" I yelled at him again. "SO BIG! WE DON'T HAVE THOSE IN AMERICA! THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'VE SEEN ONE OF THOSE! IT'S VERY BIG!"

This time, without looking away from his flowers, the gardener smiled and said,

"Yes. It's very big."

I looked at him, incredulous. He must have seen a million of these things before, and the excitement--had it been there in the first place--must have worn off for him a long time ago.

"We don't have those in America," I repeated dumbly, and headed out the door. I floated to the 7-11, still amazed that bugs like that could exist on the same side of the glass as I.

As you have probably gathered from previous posts, I have a morbid, delightful fascination with bugs. I can't stand them, yet I can't stop talking about them. The first picture I ever drew, ever, was of a dead cicada I found in our driveway. I could never get his wings even and I remember agonizing over drawing them the same shape. But to no avail -- one wing was round and stubby, the other long and elliptical. Mom and Dad saved the picture anyway.

A dead bug does seem like an odd subject for a little girl's first work of art. How fitting that when I first came to Japan, a cicada was the first bug I encountered. As terrifyingly loud as they can be at night, I hope they come out again to yell at me in my tatami room before I leave Japan.

The Look

"the look...of love...is in...your eyes..."

Not quite.

I first heard that song on "Austin Powers," and I love it, but beyond those lyrics I know nothing about it.

After nearly one year of living as a minority in Japan, you start to take inventory of "the looks." By that I mean, the various expressions with which strangers check you out and make sweeping decisions about your character and your place in life after a 2-second glance. Sometimes they stare much longer than 2 seconds, but the judgment is clearly passed in 2 seconds or less. After thousands of strangers give you these looks, you start to become outside the outsider, or outside of yourself, and you see the entire situation from another point of view. You look for a way to amuse or entertain yourself while patiently enduring the gazes you can otherwise do nothing about. You start to notice a pattern. And then you start to categorize all the ways people see you before they know you.

• The Alien. What is that thing? I've never seen anything like that in my life. Is it hostile? What is it doing on my street? Should I be afraid? Can it eat rice? Has it heard of chopsticks?
• The Foreigner. Look at that girl, she is white, but does that mean she's from America or France or Brasil? I think Brasil. None of it really matters, because she's not Japanese. She is different, different, different. If I don't look at her maybe I can forget that she's different.
• The Invader. Foreigner. Damn foreigner. You don't belong here. Go back to wherever you came from.
• The New Species. Hmm, that's interesting. Don't see one of those every day. In fact it may be the first time I've ever seen one like that. Sure is interesting. Kind of nice to look at. I wonder what it eats. I wonder what happens when you poke it right there.
• The English Teacher. Ah, she must be an English teacher. Typical.
• The Exotic Babe. Whoa, a white chick. Dude. Whoa. A white chick. Do you have a boyfriend?
• The Princess. She is so white, it's like she's from a fairy tale. I can't believe people can have skin like that. She's so beautiful. I wish I had skin like that. She looks so refined.

I'm sure there are a few more that I'm forgetting...but when you hear people whisper as you walk by, or when they look at you so long and hard you think they've turned to stone, or when they take 1 second to decide they don't want to sit by you on the bus, language barriers and lack of words don't matter anymore. The messages are clear.

School Festival

Sorry I haven't updated lately but 2-months-in-advance departure preparations have made life hectic. I've been busy mailing boxes home, requesting return dates from the board of education, worrying about pension returns, compiling helpful information for my successor, etc. Nothing too exciting as of late.

However, it looks like somebody threw a party in my calendar -- almost every weekend is booked until my return to America: firefly festival with Mayumi, movie weekend with Meegan, dance performance with a teacher in Kyoto, perfume museum visit with me myself and I, a couple going-away parties, and the fastest-approaching: the 3-day school festival. It begins on Saturday and lasts until Monday, so I will be working through the weekend with regular work hours. (Luckily, pending rain changes, I will have Tuesday and Wednesday off). I'm really looking forward to the festival because the students have been preparing for MONTHS, and I'm excited about spending time with them outside the classroom. I should be tired but happy when that is all over, and hopefully students will feel the same.

Dan Is Coming to Visit - AGAIN!

On Sunday we'll meet in Tokyo and travel around a bit before coming back to Fuji. This time we hope to work in some karaoke, a fish market or two, and sushi -- there's a great conveyor-belt restaurant I want to take him to. I took the whole week off because the kids have exams and I wouldn't be teaching anyway. So this week I've been working overtime to complete everything ahead of schedule.

Between now and the time Dan arrives, I'll be summer-proofing my apartment again. It is slowly but surely getting warmer, wetter, and more humid. This means I have to re-vamp my closet fresheners and dehydrators to prevent my clothes from growing mold or mildew. This also means I have to reinstate the lovely roach traps that look like insect party barns. Like where sororities and living groups held their semiformals in college -- the roach traps are little cardboard barns with sticky dance floors. Only the poor roaches don't get to tap their feet too long.

Roaches are gross, yes. But I prefer them to something that stings or bites.

Please Remember

No matter what is going on in your life, no matter how many mistakes you've made or how screwed up you think things are, no matter how much baggage you carry, no matter how much is weighing on your shoulders, no matter how convinced you are that you're not good enough...please remember that people love you, and would rather have you and each and every little thing that is "wrong" about you than to have no you at all.

This is a fact.

I am so very sorry.

A Rice Cake a Day...

could never keep the doctor away. At least, not if you're an employee of the Japanese public school system. Teachers have to get check-ups once a year. But once a year is not "365 days," it's once every calendar year. So even though I've been here for only 10 months, yesterday I had my 2nd medical check-up, because the law requires "one check-up a year." If you are easily grossed out, don't read this post. But frankly, the point of my blog is to report life in Japan. Frankly. And I cannot STAND their medical system.

First of all, thank goodness I am under 30. Because of Japan's extremely high rate of stomach cancer (due to high levels of salt and stress), everyone over 30 has to drink a disgusting liquid and have their stomachs either x-rayed or probed with a camera. The doctors come to your place of work to perform the exams. Can you imagine a strange doctor sticking a tube all the way down into your stomach at your workplace once a year just for a check-up? And it's required by law.

Luckily I got to skip that part. However, I still had to fill out all the forms and "endure" other tests, such as a rather rough EKG, blood tests by glove-less nurses (which really freaks me out), vision tests, and yep, the dreaded cup-in-the-bathroom test. Now. In plain English the medical form says "All of your health information is confidential. We never show this information to a 3rd party." Somehow, I found this hard to believe. The form goes on to ask you all kinds of detailed questions, such as how often you eat, what times of day you eat, how many times you use the bathroom, etc. Invasive as it feels, the paper is the easy part.

The difficult part is that you are not supposed to consume ANYTHING after 8pm the night before your exam. No food, no water, no chewing gum, nothing. Yet 15 hours later you're expected to pee into a cup. Guess what? It didn't work. My body doesn't hold liquid for 15 hours so by the time my check-up rolled around the nurses were not happy. In fact they acted personally disappointed in me. Too bad! Next time, let me drink! I briefly wondered if they would ask me to return another day to complete my tests. Then I laughed it off.

As usual, the nurse drawing my blood had trouble finding a vein. As usual, it bruised rather badly. Today, my school's nurse came up with 2 English teachers (because she only speaks Japanese) to inquire about my arm. Evidently the doctors had called my school nurse to inform her of my condition. I complied and rolled up my sleeve, which resulted in much cooing and ooing and awwing over my red and purple inner elbow. They told me to ice it. I thought it was nice that the blood nurse had been concerned about me. But then, the nurse changed the subject in Japanese. My heart started to beat faster because I knew what was coming. In my pereferal vision I saw my two vice-principals, 2 older male teachers, and a younger female teacher, all within 5 feet of my desk. All of these people could hear the nurse saying in clear, loud Japanese that I had not completed the urine test so please return another day to pee in the cup. I was mortified. It was obvious to me that everyone was listening. Really, they had no choice. I thought about how the form promised no one else would know anything, and how half my co-workers now knew that I did not pee in a cup, that I had little veins, that I had trouble with a rude nurse, that I bruise easily. I am still mortified. I looked at my school nurse and the embarrassed English teachers who were translating, and I said with a smile, "They have my blood. I am not going back." This led to a "discussion," or a polite argument, for the next 10 minutes, about how I really should spend my own transportation money to complete a test I just had 8 months ago in a country I will leave in 2. And, they had my blood. As far as I was concerned, that was good enough. Some foreigners become disenchanted with Japan because of the pressure and expectation to always do what you're told, just like everyone else, without even the spark of a question in your mind or an inkling of desire to go against the grain. In some cases I can tolerate this well. But damnit, I decide when I pee. And that is THAT.

Surprise, Surprise

the pictures I didn't know he took

The Photographer

my dad

Closer to My Neighborhood

...tea fields on my way to work...

Hamamatsu 3

...setting up for the after-party...

Hamamatsu 2

...the beach, 120 seconds southwest of the kite festival...

Hamamatsu

...the famous Hamamatsu kite festival, perhaps the biggest in the state -- millions of people, hundreds of kites, pounds of fried noodles and gallons upon gallons of beer...

"In the Neighborhood"

...no-it-is-not-a-love-hotel (just bars and restaurants), my favorite store-front painting on a sweet shop (owned by a teacher's relative), koinobori (carp streamers) for the childrens' festival...

Fuji San, Fuji Shi

All photos compliments of Dad. :)