Big Moon, Mountain Pear

I just gave my goodbye speech. I didn't even make it through one line of the song I sang -- "Smile" -- before I started crying.  In retrospect, maybe I should have let myself cry during the week so that today wouldn't be so intense.

It's funny how now that I'm at the end of my stay here at Tsuru Ko, I am so filled with love and affection for the school, the students, and the teachers.  One of the goodbye gifts I was given today was a set of the pins the students wear with the school emblems and their grade on them.  I immediately began to put on the cool silver version, but the woman who gave me the pins told me they were for display only.  Then she went ahead and got another silver pin and handed it to me so I could wear it.  It is resting proudly in my button-hole right now, and I couldn't be happier.

I handed out 23 thank-you letters today, all hand-written in the last week.  Last night I baked probably over 100 cookies, nine at a time in my friend Nancy's little oven.  It took me 3 1/2 hours.  Then I made guacamole for today's English Club potluck.  Then I made a stir-fry so I would have something to eat during the day today.

After 3 hours sleep, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that I became emotional during my song so quickly.  At least my total exhaustion will help me sleep well on the night-bus I'm taking by myself to Kyoto tonight... after my English teachers' goodby enkai.  Wow, I seem busy, ne?  After this trip things should calm down a little in the two weeks leading up to our departure.  So soon!  Wah!  Since the busy period snuck up on me, I haven't had time to think much about life on my return.  Should be good.  Mmmmm... real Mexican food.  Thresholds I don't have to duck to cross.  People who don't stare at me like I'm a freak everywere I go.  Well, that last one may or may not hold.  ;-)

I will miss many things about Japan though: my awesome friends here, taiko, my fantastic students, my kind teachers, the mist in the mountains, Fuji-san watching over us, large disposable income, travel, all the ceremony and ritual surrounding most aspects of life, kabocha!, my students screaming my name when they see me at the grocery store or on the train... making this list is silly.  There are way too many things to list, and it will just make me sad.  Let's just say that I will miss Japan and look forward to the day I can come back.  I'm hoping that my young teacher Hashi will get married in the next few years and I can use that as an excuse to visit.  ;-)

To end for now, here are some pictures from my classes this week and my speechifying just an hour ago:

 

Here's OC II on our last day, Tuesday:

Hengao:

 

 

My writing class yesterday, the very last class I ever 'taught' at Tsuru Ko.  We played games the whole time.

 

And me getting flowers from the school president (also my favorite student) Daichi after my speech:

 

I'll miss you, Tsuru Ko!

Last night I told my 'kids', the family I tutor privately, that I bought my plane ticket home.  I told them that I would fly home on August 7th, and both the eldest boy, Ryutaro, and the mother, Akemi-san, responded with 'Hayai!', meaning 'Wow, that's fast!' or 'So soon?'.  Kango, who's 9, and Marino, who's 6, just got quiet and looked sad.  After a moment, Akemi-san started asking when would be a good time to have a good-bye party.

This was the first time it hit me that I might actually miss Japan.  I know it may be strange, but I've been looking forward to going home for so long now that I felt nothing but giddy enthusiasm when I mentioned I'd bought my plane ticket.  For some reason, I wasn't expecting people to really be sad that I was leaving.  Maybe I thought they would be happy for me, knowing how unhappy I had been here for the past few months.  It just didn't occur to me that in my unhappy state, I might still be having a positive effect on people here, and that they might care about me despite my grumpiness.

I think from this point on, I will probably take more pleasure in the small things that make my days here enjoyable.  I had one such experience today.

I taught a class of ichinensei (first-years) this morning.  This year the ichinensei are really well-behaved and have a great attitude about school.  During today's class, there was some kind of health exam mid-way through the period, so the whole class had to go get checked, one gender at a time.  After most of the boys came back, and we were waiting for the girls, I had an exchange with one of my very genki-about-English boys, Daiki.

We talked about Star Wars: which movie he liked (all of them), how the old movies were episodes 4-6, not 1-3 (he was really surprised to learn that), and how I really liked ewoks (I had to draw a picture to get the meaning across).  He likes Star Wars so much that he has a Star Wars theme on his ketai (cell phone), which he showed me discreetly (ketai are chotto dame -not really allowed- at school).  At the end of the conversation, he laughed and said, 'I am otaku'. (Otaku=nerd/obssessed)  I said, 'Me, too.'

It wasn't a particularly funny or deep moment, but it was one in which he and I connected.  I think those moments are the things I'll miss most -- the ones when language seems to fall away, and you just become two people from two different cultures connecting on some random issue.  Hooray for the mass appeal of Star Wars!

At any rate, I'm glad my attitude has begun to change.  I'd prefer to remember Japan with fondness, and not with frustration, so I'm happy it seems I'll finish my time here on a positive note.  Now to start packing...

 

Just for kicks, here's another anecdote from a recent class:

I was teaching another ichinensei class, this one with no interruptions.  The students had to translate sentences from English to Japanese, and one sentence in particular was proving difficult.  I walked to the back of the classroom to talk to the girls who had been assigned that sentence and began to try explaining the meaning in English.  All the girls were looking up at me intently, seemingly trying to figure out what I was saying.  Then all of the sudden one of them burst out with a phrase in Japanese to the effect of: "It's no use!  I can't listen to what she's saying!  She's just too cute!" and explained to her friends that she was too distracted by my 'small face' (apparently a good thing in Japan) to listen to my words.  The girls and I all busted up laughing, and then I walked away to hide my embarassment. 

One nice thing about being in Japan is that your cuteness as a foreigner is more appreciated and encouraged than it is in your home country.  I know my friend Amanda would agree.  Sometimes it's embarassing, but mostly it's kind of heart-warming and ego-boosting.  Yesterday I was asked by another ichinensei girl to make 'Hengao', or 'strange faces', and was told that foreigners' hengao are cute.  Silly Japan.

Rick and I have been back in Japan a bit over a week after our fantastic, if rather event-filled, visit to California.

During said visit, it seemed people asked both Rick and I over and over again "So... what are you going to do when you get back from Japan?" 

In typical 'me' fashion, I had my answer prepared and stated with conviction,

"I am going take a year to prepare for a Master's program in I/O Psychology or Interpersonal Communication by taking community college classes and trying to get a job/internship in HR while living with Rick's parents in San Diego."

Also in typical 'me' fashion, I have since changed my mind, or at least modified my plan somewhat.

It's not that I don't intend to do the things I said I would, but rather that I no longer wish to qualify so definitely all the factors I laid out.

My current plan includes a lot more maybe's, if's, and research.

 

On the advice of several friends who have started Master's or Ph.D. programs since leaving Posit Science, I ordered this book last week from Japanese Amazon.com:

I also have been doing research on programs, jobs, and grad school in general. 

These days I'm thinking that I ought not to rush into grad school without knowing exactly what it is I want to do and why I think I need a graduate degree in the first place.

Besides those considerations there's also:

-What am I really interested in?

-Who do I want to study with?

-Does it matter if my graduate program is prestigious?

-Will I be able to get a job right away with my new degree?

...and so many more.

 

At least all these questions give me a purpose with which to fill all the empty hours at school.  As I only teach 8 hours weekly, that's a lot of empty hours.

 

The simple fact that I am taking steps toward something that feels like progress helps to alleviate the general sense of apathy and dissatisfaction that seems to have oozed into the fore of my mind during the past months in Japan.

I look forward to many hours not wasted surfing the internet.  Yay for having a Purpose! 

This has nothing to do with anything, but check out this cuteness.  All of these cats (and the dog) live at the Tokyo Cat Cafe Calico in Kichijoji (Tokyo).  You can go to this cafe and hang out with the 15 kitties (and 1 dog) while you have tea or coffee. 　かわいい！！　This article lists a bunch of similar places for all of us cat lovers in Tokyo.  いきたい！！

 

Hopefully Rick and I will get to stop in at this cafe on the way to the airport next Friday.  I can't wait!!!

[Update: Gah!  The cuteness!!  I just realized there's a page with videos of the kitties from the official cafe website.  Click on any of the links in the column to the left, and you'll get videos.  Click on the ones on the right, and you'll get picture slide shows.  So cute!!]

And being neither (I hope), Rick and I have started a photo-sharing page on Picasa.  Loading all of our pics through Flickr, Vox, Facebook, etc. was just becoming too much of a hassle.  After a pointed comment from my friend Jill and a bit of poking around with the UI, we decided Picasa would be a better way to share pics.  So, from now on you can check out our combined pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/MaRickssa/, both Rick's and mine, hence the domain name*.  Wow, we must really be married now or something.  ;-)

Right now we just have pics from Michele and John's visit, but soon there will be more... mmmYES, much more!  MUA ha ha HA!! 

*ahem* 

Yeah, we'll put more stuff up later.

 

Cheers!

 

*"MaRickssa" is a name popularized (um, by us) in our CZ days, when we had to write our names on our food to keep it from being thrown out of the communal refrigerator.  "MattheWoods" was another domain name option given to us, I believe, by John himself, but that gem will have to wait for its day. 

As Samma pointed out, Japan's government is in a bit of a chaotic state at the moment.  The prime minister who was elected less than a year ago, Shinzo Abe, announced that he will resign.

I won't go into details, but it seems that part of the issue was his failure to get approval from the opposing party for a mission to continue to assist "NATO-led counterterrorism opperations in Afghanistan".  Check out this article from the Japan Times if you're interested: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070912x1.html.

Today, there are a couple new articles about the issue.

-Here, one about who might succeed Abe.

-Here, one about health problems Abe has that likely contributed to his resignation.

Let me just add that Abe was hugely popular when he was first elected and rallied Japan with his promise to resore "beautiful Japan".  No one was really sure what that meant, but some people interpreted that as a reference to Imperialist Japan*.  Check out the "View on History" section of Abe's wikipedia page to see what I mean.  As time went on, Abe's popularity steadily declined. During his term, Abe lost five of his cabinet members -- four resigned, and one committed suicide.  While he accomplished a lot in terms of diplomacy with other Asian countries -- China, Korea, Taiwan, etc. -- he will probably now be remembered only for his controversial stances and the scandals that surrounded his term in office.

 

*People here tend to be very sensitive about references to the Imperialist past, basically because of what it brought them: the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  After the bombings, the US 'helped' Japan create a constitution.  This constitution both renounces the emperor as the leader of a monarchy (giving him figurehead status only) and renounces Japan's right to wage war.

I intend to keep updating my Flickr page, so feel free to check it from time to time.  Right now it has a bunch of new pictures, including some from John and Michele's visit.

Enjoy!

So, I posted about this festival last year.  This year was pretty similar, though a couple of the games/relays were different.  Also, this year the rain forced us into the school gym in the afternoon.  Here's some pics of the fun.

First, of course, we had to stretch:

That's the school's principal in the front with the white shirt and hat.

Then, the first activity was the relay race, possibly the funniest of all the races.  Students had to run under a net, search for a marshmallow without hands in a pan full of flour, blow up a balloon and pop it by sitting on it, then spin around a bat, drink a yogurt drink, then run all the way back to the beginning.

After that, it began to rain in earnest, but the students did a couple rounds of "Eye of the Typhoon" anyway.

We took a short break because of the rain, then continued the games inside.

There was the horseman game,

the three-legged race,

and finally jumping rope in teams.

Here's a little video montage of the events:

 

Okay, enough procrastinating.

 

Bye!

Just a quick update to Rick's post about the typhoon that hit us last week.  As he said, it was pretty tame for us.  There were high winds and tons of rain, but nothing too terrible. 

I lucked out, though.  Because all the local trains were shut down from Thursday night through Friday, I was able to leave school two hours early on Thursday and only attend for three hours on Friday.  Yay!

On my walk to school on Friday, I took some pics and videos of our local river in its overflowed state.  Let me assure you that the river is not usually so brown, nor so full.

Lately it has been raining quite a bit again, but I'm pretty sure we'll be typhoon-free for a while.

:-)

I've decided to get a Flickr page so I can stick all my pictures up there without worrying that their quality has been severely diminished.  So far I have uploaded pics from my two-week stay in Fukuoka, plus time in Hiroshima, Iwakuni, and Miyajima.  The Osaka album is yet to come, as are photo descriptions, names, etc.

My theory is that, even if I can't manage to write a whole post, at least I can put up my pictures and let you know they're available.  We'll see how committed I can manage to stay.  ;-) 

Anyway, here's my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marissamikan/. 

If you're looking for a rather more substantial description of what I've been up to for the last month or so, I encourage you to take a look at my dear friend Amanda's latest post, as we spent much of that time doing the same things together. 

That's all for now, I suppose.  Tomorrow Rick's and my friend John F. and his sister Michele are coming out to visit us.  If you went to our wedding, John was the one with the long brown hair and the camera.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to more good times.

Much love to all!

M