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The Dropout

I could recognize him from a half a kilometer away. He could dye his hair, and change his clothes, but his stature and baby face and strangely suited bad-ass vibe are a dead giveaway. Still, I check his nametag to be sure.

He is Ren, one of the banes of my first teaching year. He was among the worse students, only scoring above their pitiful scores of three or four by ten points. No matter what I did, I could not get him to like me. So, instead, I went out of my way to make him hate me. At least then, I felt, I deserved it.

I had not seen him in the hallways, but I assumed it was because I didn’t teach 2-1 Home (the only class in school that despises me). However, his bleached hair and daytime job tells me all I need to know. I was facing my first dropout, one who I had helped along his path because I failed him. I should feel guilty. I was the last step of a school system that failed him. Japan led him to that final step, but in his last act of rebelliousness, he jumped before they could push. I didn’t catch him. But then again, I don’t catch people who jump of their own volition.

He sees me, and wrinkles his nose. It’s eight in the morning, and he’s the only clerk open.

“Did you dye your hair?” I know what I’m implying.

“Yeah.” He answers only because it’s his job to be polite.

“Thanks.” I take my change and walk away, annoyed that I dislike him as strongly as he I.

Boys

I'm afraid of boys now. That is what Japan does to a girl's self esteem. Japan, a country where stating someone's wieght is as straightforward as saying the weather.

"Hello! You're fat today, aren't you?"

Indeed.

I don't even want to leave the house anymore, which, of course, only makes me fatter. Such is the way.

I blame Mr. Quiet for this, and I blame Kanae-chan for trying to set us up when clearly he wasn't interested.

Beauracracy

I forgot to turn my tests in for the last series of finals in March, so in between classes I've been rummaging through my ill-filed paperwork, desperately looking for the tests. Fujii comes to me in the middle of class, and tells me to give it to Fujita ASAP. I tell him once I'm done teaching, I will. Nothing could entince me to abandon this class with Takeuchi. They are already awful at English, and leaving Takeuchi alone with them, I fear, will exercebate the problem.

I give the test to Fujita during the passing period. He turns around, at that exact moment, and gives it to Takagi. I walk back to my desk, with Takagi following me, and as I sit down I watch him hand it to Takahashi. I laugh a little, and explain to him what I think is so funny. He, too, chuckles a little bit. Then, he sees Yamagami enter the room. "Ah! Yamagami-sensei! Onegaishimasu!" he says, handing my test to Yamagami. Both Takahashi and I are grinning broadly at this point.

"Ok! I'll give it to the vice principal," says Yamagami.

We both burst out laughing.

...

I've only been to work for fifteen mintues, and already I want to go home. Pretending to work is the hardest thing in the world, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm cut out for this job.

Getting a license is "worse than a prostate exam" according to Travis, and although I'll never have to undergo it, I can imagine. You have to make appointments to get paperwork in, and then if you don't have it all, make another appointment (all of these last only five minutes). Then, you must make another appointment to take the written test, and then another appointment after that to take the driving test (which is famous for failing foreigners about four or five times).

I can't even get to the tests. No, I'm having trouble prooving that I drove in the United States for 90 days. There is no document prooving that in the history of the world! My tax returns don't work, nor does my Certificate of Residence becaue the signature on them are copied. Yes, that's right, they want a real signature. The reason is is that the Japanese use hankos (stamps) to sign documents, and they figure the closest equivalent is our signatures. However, stamps are easy to give out to the grunts on the clerical staff for them stamp on documents as the please. When it comes to signatures, there is only one guy who can do the signing, and seeing that he is the head hancho, it's likely he has other things to do.

Irritating? Right? Well, I lose my license in under a month, and I'm starting a new job where I absolutely HAVE to drive, but it seems unlikely I'll be able to drive. I have hour and a half bike rides, and expensive bustrips to look forward to now.

It's enough that I'd like to break my contract. Japan... Japan just sucks too much sometimes.

The Unbearable Pressure

I am only teaching six classes a week. With all this extra time, one would think that I could prepare better for classes, but exactly the opposite is true. The less time I have, the better I do. I'm swimming in it right now, and well... I'm wasting every minute of it.

If life were interesting at all right now, I would give you another post.

This is just to let you know I'm still alive.

In the Land of Sweets

There are an overwhelming amount of people in Japan, when asked, will say they hate sweet things. Fujita-sensei is case and point. Everytime I give him anything that may even have a grain of sugar in it, he eats it --out of politeness more than anything else-- and then tells me why he didn't like it.

That being said, there are also an overwhelming amount of sweets in Japan. A girl on a diet is in trouble everytime she walks into a mall, a convenient store, grocery store, or even a souvenir shop.

Fortunately, most of the time, the flavor are just simply unpalatable for the western tongue (red bean paste and green tea, for example) but some of the pastries just aren't fair. They are cute, and I mean too cute, and they are just begging to be eaten in the most violent fashion possible.

With a name like Pig Bread, it's a wonder it was delicious at all. It bought at the Australian Bakery in the far reaches of the the Noto inaka (rural rural countryside)

Melon Bread in the shape of a turtle, cleverly called Kamelon Bread (Kame being the word for turtle)

This probably violates all sorts of copy right laws. This is Tottoro, the Mickey Mouse of Japan. This was DELICIOUS! I ate his ears first.

Can you see how unfair life is here?

Sayonara

Saying goodbye was something I was made to do.

However, right now, I find myself completely unable to move passed this horrible sinking feeling: Bill and Okada are gone. They both will still only live only a half hour away, but our connection through work is irrecoverably lost. Somehow that is more painful than if they were to move as far as the moon.

I remember that I asked Okada-sensei, "will we still be friends?"

She laughed, but she said nothing.

Diarrhea

I'm sitting at home, watching The Daily Show, as is my habit for dinner, when I get a message on my cellphone from Beth. This surprises me for two reasons: 1. I hate my cellphone, so most people only use it to contact me in times of need. 2. Beth never messages me... ever.

The message is as follows:

I'm sitting across from diarrhea boy on the train.

Chances are, you are just as confused as I am. I rack my brains for a moment, and then remember her husband and my favorite contestant in the Speech Competition we had to judge. His speech went a little something like this:

DIARRHEA (snickers from me and James) is the worlds greatest killer
(snickering subsides as we judges realize that he's serious). We must stop
DIARRHEA! (surpressed snickers)

It is a serious issue, and I feel bad enough already for laughing at him before he even got the second word in his speech, so let's not dwell on that.

I messsage her back, telling her that she ought to talk to him about it. Ten minutes later, my cellphone vibrates, proclaiming a new message:

I would, but it looks like he's trying to hold it in. (poop emoticon and restroom emoticon)

Welcome to the Surreal

Kojima-sensei is bothering me again. He told me that his grandfather was a samurai, I think, but was in Hawaii, so he was not a samurai. Confused? Yeah, me too.

In any case, Fujita to the rescue says, "my grandfather fought in World War II".

Then I realized.... Our two families, only one generation removed, were fighting over the Pacific Ocean.

Thankfully, Kojima shut up long enough for me to ponder this.

Yakedo!

It turns out that if you're going to burn yourself (not that it ought to be a conscious decision), doing it with wax is the best way to go. While it does initially inflict the wound, it also acts as a bandage and protects the wound from open air at the same time.

Of course, I am starting to get worried. I actually can't feel the burn area any more... Not that I want to feel that pain after it took for me hours to fall asleep last night through it.

Graduation Part 1

I hate it when I hate something so deeply that I know it must stand for deeper, psychological problem.

What is it that I hate? I hate graduation. I hate it. I find it uncomfortable, and boring, in addition to the collassal waste of time it is to listen to people spout useless advice that even they did not take.

Japanese graduation is a solemn affair (there are no cheers of congratulations, or wild applause of parents), that takes place in the cold gym in the beginning of Spring. It is symbolic, and all speeches are about the Spring of youth, leaving that horrible snow cloud of mortality hoover implicitly over them.

Today, Tetsuya became more of a man. For twenty minutes, he stood before the students who both loved and adored them, spewed cliched things about Spring that he truly meant, and made an effort to hold back tears long enough for him to finish his speech. I smiled at him everytime he looked in my direction, which now that I reflect upon it, probably flustered him more than it helped.


Generally, when people cry at ceremonies, I think they are doing it because they think it's what they ought to do. However, when it came to my students, I honestly believed it. This is not an American school, where one has classes with in excess of 400 students before High school is over, they are a tightly knit group that have been together since they were 14 or younger.

My graudation message, therefore, meant nothing to them. I spoke about the future at great lengths because I thought that was expected of me, but this is what I really wish I had said.

You have probably woken this morning with a feeling that both saddens and enlivens you. The knowledge that today, your life has finally changed must be in your hearts today. Your lives have changed, but not fundamentally. Look around you. Today, you are still with your fellow classmates. Yesterday, you may have been with a few of them, but not all. The day before, you may have slept in, watched television, and saw no one.

But please, do not misunderstand me. Today is different. It is different than yesterday, but no more so than yesterday was different than the day before that. Life changes, in little, subtle ways. We only think this is a big thing because we discovered that this small thing has changed for all of us at the same time.

This is not the first day of your new life. That was the day you were born. However, everyday is the first day in the long progress that will be your life, and everyday something will change, whether you notice it or not, and you must move
on and accept or deny what comes. Today is just like any other day. Make that decision as you always have.

I know that many of you are sad. You are saying goodbye to dear friends and a
way of life that you had become comfortable with, but know this, if today did
not happen, you would not be continuing the rest of your life. You would be surrendering yourself to death long before it is time.

Rejoice in this change, even if you wish that somethings could stay the same, and leave this hall happily.

I say this because I watched my favorite student walk out of the gym in such quiet desolation that it near broke my heart. I have faith in Shota though. If anyone understands the value of change, it is him.

The End of Things to Come

Today, Fujita showed me the new yearbook for my graduating seniors.

I've always prided myself on being the sort of person who can let go of anything, but now... well, I find it more than difficult to do so. I simply don't want to.

However, my feelings on the matter are immaterial.

The end is coming for the teachers as well as the students, and I'm not sure if everyone is aware of it at all. The way Japanese schools are, likely half of our teachers will transfer, and the Togi Senior High that I've come to love will be gone, vanished as surely, and as eagerly my third-year's moved on to their adult lives. I gave my students all sorts of lectures on moving on, and the different ways that people deal with graduating and growing up. I am a hypocrit.

The photos in the book are, for lack of a less cliched word, bittersweet. In the class photos, Shota is the only boy who bothers to smile. Meccho, Misa, Yuka and Hayaka join him. On the next page is the Student Council, all of them looking silly with Tetsuya in the middle, staring straight ahead with the serious face of a politician. His hair was shorter then it is now, and realize that I never knew him then. Fujii's face is as square as ever in the Basketball clubs photo, and Kyousuke is looking into the lens like a model with unwitting seduction. The Music Club, a band consisting of three clarinets, a bass clarinet, a tuba, and percussion are holding up their instruments in mock excitement. Fujita looks like he's the only one enjoying himself. On another page, stands Bill in front of a chalkboard holding a book open with his right hand, a piece of chalk in his left, and doing his usually overly enthused smile while trying to do a peace sign.

Today, I asked Okada that when she leaves if we could still be friends. She laughed, but she did not answer.

Oops, Ouch, Friends, and Dishwashers.

I've discovered that in my stay here in Japan that it hardly matters where I live, as long as I have electricity and internet. That being said, there are a few things I miss.

Firstly, I miss the words "oops" and "ouch". Today, the math teacher next to me said it when he dropped his wallet, and I swooned when I heard it. I tried to tell him how happy I was to hear it, but he didn't really understand. We just talked about other words people may say when they drop something, most being curse words. I love the innocence of the word oops. The Japanese are more literal, and their best translations tend to put the blame squarely on them. The best translation is machigaita which literally means "I made a mistake". Is oops just so much better, and amenable to all sorts of situations? This also goes for "ouch", which is itai in Japanese. This word means "it hurts", and is only for physical pain. I miss people just saying "ouch" when they don't like something.

I also miss my dishwasher. The reason is agiven. It's very hard to keep a clean house if you're lazy, a notoriously clumsy cook, and don't have a dishwasher.

Lastly, I miss people I didn't think twice of back home, and I don't think any of them know who they are.

But right now, in an effort to make me less homesick for these simply things, I'm just going to make my students say "ouch" and "oops" and keep correcting them until they do. English class is all about me, after all.

It Is Imagined

Apparently, my car isn't broken.

Three weeks of horrifying sounds I suffered, I finally take it in and I'm asked "why the hell did you take it in the first place?"

The noises have stopped...

Japan is indeed a mystfying place.

Japan at Random

Well, I was lazy and decided not to write about some pretty big events, so enjoy the compilation.

1. Nara and Kyoto

Last weekend I went with Shan and Perry to Nara to meet up with my old friend from college, Kristi, and hung out with some deer in the snow. I left my memory card at home like an idiot, so I don't have any pictures, however, my actual memory has some pretty vivid images that I'll likely not forget.

It was snowing frenetically, dancing about the tall structures of the temple and in front of the Daibutsu. The deer, hungry and exhausted from the cold, assailed us for sustenance, which we gave warily.

Now there's a face everyone want to take home to their mother...

I keep telling myself that it's good my camera didn't work because now I have memories that no one else can share in, on a special day. Not many tourists get to see Nara in the snow, and especially not in the sort of day long storm we encountered it in.

Word to the wise: Everyone warns of how pushy the Nara deer are, and it is not a joke. However, I think you have to go to experience it. We watched a woman with a MacDonald's bag in her hand running on her high heels through the park with a herd of deer trailing behind her. We wanted to help, but we could think of nothing aside from putting ourselves in the same situation so we let be eaten alive on the pavement. Naw, I kid... Turns out if you run long enough, the deer give up.

2. Broken Car

I'm not sure what's wrong with it. I think it's likely that my bad driving has killed my car, although I am more inclined to believe that it is a conspiracy so complex profound that I cannot even begin to fathom the depths of it. Why my car?

Bill smirked and said "I told you not to buy an old car." His triumph is short-lived when I tell him that he has to take care of it. Most Japanese words for the car are in katakana so I don't suspect the vocabulary is too difficult (i,e blinker is winkaa, clutch is kurachi), but I'm thinking that perhaps the idler arm is not one of those. Bill doesn't seem to think so at least, but he doesn't strike me as the knowledgable type when it comes to cars. Not that I am, naturally, but I've been forced to listen to Car Talk on NPR for nearly all my life every Saturday because of my Dad. That does lead to some theoretical knowledge. Of course, me thinking that it's the idler arm has nothing to do with Car Talk, but instead what my Dad suspects. But, I like to pretend like I know what I'm talking about. That is, right up until that fateful moment when someone actually believes and me probes further and I flounder about as I make something up.


3. Japanese Lessons

I am officially taking Japanese lessons now, and my first lesson didn't bode well... It's my fault really. I should be at the level of class I'm taking, but I never studied Japanese in College, in light of the fact that I was a Political Science major, so now I find myself looking at things I know I should remember and wondering at what they are.

Nevertheless, I've been studying (and somewhat enjoying it), but I am worried about my next class. The teacher's switch every week, and my friend Rachel won't be going to class so it will just be me, alone, with the notoriously strict teacher. Eep! I'm working very hard to let her know that I can do it! But... dekiru kana... (I wonder if I can do it...)

I've been accosting my poor co-workers left and right, asking if my sentences using my new grammar points are right. Yosh, Ali! You can beat Rachel!

Why do I want to beat Rachel? Because she was so damn cocky the first class (it was her second). She had a whole week to study what we were doing, and I was trying to figure it out while they were talking about it. And not only that, she had Davin's old book with all of his notes and English translations. That is something that one shouldn't be cocky about... In addition to that, while I was filling out my form to take the class, she got to read the passage we were going to discuss for ten minutes. I, on the other hand, had two seconds before the teacher started to pepper me with questions.

Fukohe! (Unfair)

I'm trying not to complain, because what is done is done, but I find that venting my frustration is best. Well, that, and kicking ass next time. Ali... you are so freaking uncharitable...

Alison Danger Baumgartner

I have a terrible habit of just sitting around my house on my days-off, so I decided at about one o'clock, after fruitlessly trying to get a hold of a few friends back in the States, to wander north. So, I saddled up my 1996 Toyota Corsa and turned down a perfectly safe, wide road following the signs that lead to Seikinohana. The road quickly turned into a winding path through parts of Togi that looked as if they were from the 1930s. I could find no places to pull over to take pictures, so that description shall have to suffice. The signs said that Seikinohana was only 11 km away, so I expected to be there in under 15 minutes. Unfortunately, at the Speed-Racer-like 30 km an hour the journey took much, much longer. As always, this is the problem with Japan. You may only be 1 km away from something, but the twisting geography makes it a full 4 km.

I began to become worried after thirty minutes, wondering if I were going in the correct direction. However, narrow roads being as they are, I could find no places to turn around, so I continued. But then! A sign! I had found it! But underneath that sign that wearily points in the direction I should go, is a rope with another sign that says I cannot enter. However, I didn't come there just to be turned away. I needed exercise! I needed natural beauty! My apartment has no windows that I can open (the hazards of living on the ground level only one foot off of the main road), so I needed a good stare at something beautiful.

So, I parked at an abandoned bus stop and snuck under the roped lines in between me and the scenery. The building that clearly sold omiyage (souvenirs) at one point was abandoned, with plastic models of food littered about the place, and some disturbingly old looking boxes of Camembert cheese. It looked as if a mass exodus had happened in under a few minutes and nothing important came with.

I walk around the building and realize then why the signs are up. The building is fall off of the cliff. I know I shouldn't have, but I explored further. Off to the right, I found an abandoned shrine (my pictures of it were out of focus) with its contents strewn about the place and the screen doors sideways. One supporting column lay on its side at the bottom of the stairs. I continued down this path and found that the asphalt abruptly stopped and there nothing but sheer cliff and tree roots sticking haphazardly out. Prudently, I turned back.

An abandoned food vender.

The other way proved just as daunting, but well worth the trip. Seikinohana, it turns out, is a rare sandstone formation. Unfortunately, with only my zoom lens, it was difficult for me to get any good pictures, but these were among the best:

Honestly, the whole experience was quite horrifying, yet inexplicably profound. I found myself just staring at places paths had once been, mesmorized by the transience of everything, and yet terrified of it.

When I could take no more, I ran back to my car and returned home.

The next day, I'm told that Seikinohana is famous for suicides. "Go up to the top of the hill," Fujii said, "and you will feel like someone is pushing your back." I went to that hill, and I still remember how scared I was. I thought, and still think, it was because I knew the land I was standing on was not sturdy, and the bridges likely to fall at any time. But now, I'm wondering if that truly were it.

Japan's Unappreciation

I may not be a real teacher, no matter how much Bill tries to tell me I am (but I suspect it's because he wants to stop taking responsibility for my actions), but I know that teacher's are unappreciated.

The biggest hint: when the students leave, they turn off the heat in the building. We've had half-days this week, so the students return home to study while the teachers remain to "work". It's not so bad... the first hour.

The Tough Road Ahead

I've just been informed that I will only have 16 students for the International Course next year, but I will unfortunately have 30 students for 1-1. This means I will only have 16 people that actually want to study English next year, and therefore only one class, but I will have two classes of 1-1 to torture me horribly.

I hear next yearis the worst disciplined class to ever come into Togi. I wonder if they are exaggerating or not.

Photographic Evidence

The Aquarium at Coex

The Shamanist Temple in Seoul

The Arts district in Seoul