Lost in Gunma

Minami Chu...see you!

2006-07-20T20:44:00.000+09:00

Well, it finally happened. My last day at Minami Chugakko has come to an end. I had four classes, one of which was wonderful, three of which were pretty fun. Makie had a mini-meltdown because I gave a student she didn't like a sticker. But then we kissed and made up (not literally, although Miki, another English teacher, was having fun telling us we were lesbians). I got about ten "love letters" from the girl students who really liked me, three homeade keitai straps (if you are from Japan, you'll understand what those are), 2 friendship bracelets and a huge bouquet of beautiful sunflowers and bluebells. I have three thousand pictures on my camera of (some random, some not) students giving the peace sign and running away from me. I said "see you," "adios," and "goodbye" probably a grand total of 1000 times. I gave a short and sweet speech in bad Japanese (translated by Negishi san, the darling). After school, Makie, Miki, and two other teachers made me a delicious dinner of cabbage-wrapped hamburger, potatoes gratin, salad and fresh Japanese peaches. And my teachers are having a farewell party for me this Saturday (of course, they just told me today, but this is Minami chu, after all).

I do feel loved, and I'll miss this crazy place - for all the crap, Minami Chu will be in my heart forever. But through it all, I never once regretted not recontracting. It has been a crazy, wonderful, frustrating year, and I truly am a different person then I was when I hopped off the plane at Narita. But its time to go home.

Sayonara, Minami Chu. I'll never forget you.

Pooped!

2006-07-19T20:58:00.000+09:00

Only one more day, four classes, and one speech in bad Japanese...

Today I had a four hour nap. Now I am watching Seinfeld instead of cleaning. Lily is parked on the couch. Last night she slept for an entire hour in her cat carrier with the top closed. Let's hope that she is just as sweet and relaxed in the airplane.

Night, night kids.

My adorable kids (from my second job)

2006-07-19T12:28:00.000+09:00

Kawaii soo!

Clarification; or, getting wasted in Nozomi

2006-07-17T17:43:00.000+09:00

Hi all, so for those of you who were confused about my last post, I was referring to my co-teacher Makie, she wanted to see if I wrote anything in my blog about her (which I had) and while I was showing it to her, I decided to memorialize her craziness in print. She is wonderful and truly a gem to work with...plus, the other day, she asked me out of the blue, "do you want some cock?" Of course, she meant "do you want some coke." But that didn't keep me from laughing for about twenty minutes while she looked at me queerly and said, "nani? nani?"

Anyway, I spent this weekend camping with Tomomi, Yoshi, Yoshi's friend Hishi Hishi, Kate and Ossian. Needless to say, fun was had by all. I drank a ridiculous amount - a bottle of wine, a bottle of plum wine, and a can of beer - and was thus completely ridiculous all night. We went to an onsen and had to change our clothes behind just a towel. I couldn't stand up straight and was thus rolling around the rocks stark naked in front of like thirty people (thank god it was dark). I also remember a certain incident where I had to pee outside the car while everyone laughed hysterically inside. Not exactly my best moment here in Japan. The best, though, was that I was feeling a bit "amorous," shall we say (in drunken people talk) and passed out on poor Hishi Hishi's shoulder (who was by the way, married and like 40) and at some point I woke up and I was holding his hand. I am officially a hand whore, and Gary is planning on dumping me within the week (gomen nasai, baby!). The next morning I woke up thankfully with no hangover but immensely embarassed - thankfully Hishi Hishi was a good sport and did not resent my drunken molestation.

Besides the completely embarassing drunkenness, it was such a fun night and spending time with Kate and Ossian for the last time was sad but, as usual, always fun. They have been such good friends here, and I will miss them (well, ok, I'll miss Kate, I can take or leave Ossian, he's a pip ;-).

Only two more weeks. Strange. Crazy. Sad. Wonderful. I'll update with more soon.

Makie is crazy

2006-07-11T15:32:00.000+09:00

But I love her!!!!!

I am SO READY to leave Minami Chugakko

2006-07-10T14:21:00.000+09:00

Ishimatsu sensei cancelled all of my classes this week. For the second week in a row.

Kanbe sensei teaches the advanced English class even though she is the worst English speaker here. Why, people, why?

I CAN'T WAIT to be challenged and intellectually stimulated again!!!!!!

The Jew in Gunma, Part 2; or, You can't go home again

2006-07-06T22:59:00.000+09:00

So I found out who my successor is in little old Gunma-machi, and who would have guessed - its a Jew! Some might attribute that to chance, but after my dreidel party in December, I know the truth - Minami Chugakko loves them some Yehudas. I mean, with Christmas you get some big fat Santa in red, some red and green decorations, some bigs socks and chocolate chip cookies....but people, this is the land of Pachinko - they want gambling! And dreidel is the deadliest gambling game of all...insert dangerous yet nasal laugh here.

In all seriousness, my successor is really everything I hoped he would be. I may be a crap ALT but I love these crazy teachers and students (although I have no idea what their names are) and this ugly little town and my wonderful Tomoko and the nice people at the electronic store across the street who give me bags of corn when I come to visit...and its nice to know that they will have a good teacher, a respectful neighbor, and, most wonderful of all, a Japanese speaker in their midst. So Aaron, mazel tov on being the coolest new ALT in the Gunma gang, and take care of my (our!) people!

On a side note...I went to Tomomi's house tonight and we spent a few hours planning Hiroshima and Kyoto (I'm going to Hiroshima by myself and meeting up with her in Kyoto). I was thinking to myself, what will life be like in Buffalo without Tomomi - she has been the light in my life all year, not just because of her support but because, damn, the girl is hysterical and intelligent and witty and caring and overall just an amazing friend no matter what her nationality. I will miss her more than I can possibly conceive of right now. Too bad that she won't agree to leave Yoshi and come and live with me and Gary (I told her I could fit her in Lily's carrying case, but unfortunately she didn't believe me). What will "home" be like without my crazy "baka nihonjin"?

My toilet

2006-07-04T09:11:00.000+09:00

So I have had some people ask me why I included a picture of my bathroom in my apartment pics. First of all, the toilet plugs in - there is a heated seat! Mine is actually pretty tame compared to most of the toilets here, which have a whole bidet on it that will make a flushing noise when you go to the bathroom (so no one can hear!) and a little squiggle of water that you can spray up your you-know-where for cleanliness. Plus, there is a sink attached to the top of the toilet. Either way, just for you dippy people out there, that's why. My toilet is the bomb! :-)

Life, stand still here

2006-07-02T22:37:00.000+09:00

Watching fireflies dance in the dark amongst the trees...
Sitting in an onsen and watching the leaves of autumn fall around me...
Driving through towns whose houses are covered to the roof in pure white, glimmering snow...
Picnicing by the waterfall in Mitsudera Park as cherry blossoms fall...
Walking through the Nikko Matsuri as different tunes and colors clash against and with each other...
Camping by the fire as only a flashlight lights the dark...
Fishing for the giant orange fish that somehow always evades our pole...
Harvesting rice with a scythe, big rubber boots on my feet and rain in my face...

Some experiences can't ever be captured by a camera.

(Long belated) pictures of my apartment (and my ball and chain)

2006-06-25T21:49:00.000+09:00

Even I am speechless

2006-06-15T00:12:00.000+09:00

So once in a while you happen on something on the internet that just makes your week. Or your year. And this is seriously one of the funniest, funniest things I have ever seen. Ever.

I pasted the photos here for those un-techno saavy people that read my blog (dad), but you can get the source here.

By the way, the language that its being translated to (in case you don't know) is Japansese....so perhaps I can teach my kids how to say "Don't mess with that biotch." What do you think?

Turns out a British girl from a small town called Norfolk found this in her local bookstore. Why can't I have the good fortune to come across a treasure like this??

Read this article

2006-06-06T22:14:00.000+09:00

http://www.theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=97&cview=1#cmt

You know how I said that I had a hard time explaining my travels - in particular, my travels in Gambia? This wonderful writer, who is a friend of Kathy and Haali, has taken so many of those unspeakable moments in Gambia and put them into words, with the added depth of his own experience.

Whenever I think I am forgetting, writing like this brings me back.

I'm being adopted

2006-06-01T16:26:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I have an absolutely mushy heart when it comes to cats, as you all know after I said I wouldn't adopt Lily and then proceeded to - what? - adopt her. So now there is this cute black and white stray, all skin and bones, who keeps coming up to me and meowing plaintively and staring up at me with these big green eyes. She even comes up the stairs to my second floor apartment and scratches at the door to be let in. I definitely can't adopt her, and I won't. But in order not to tease her, I have been keeping my distance - that means no petting, no loving, no feeding. The poor little thing comes up to me with smooshy eyes and I have to lightly push her away.

Lesson learned: Never go outside in Japan. There are too many stray cats to break your heart.

In other news, Tomomi saved me from a night of depression last night by showing me pictures of her and Yoshi when, to quote her, "he was skinny!" Its his birthday this monday, and I am going to buy him something soccor-y. Also, today my lesson plan centered around teaching the parts of the human body - face, eyes, neck, legs - to my second graders. I told my students that I had a boyfriend, and that he was very cute - in fact, I suggested, let's draw my boyfriend. Well, these were the directions I told them to do:

Draw one big face
Draw one neck
Draw two shoulders
Draw four arms
Draw four hands
Draw one big stomach
Draw eight legs
Draw eight feet
Draw five eyes
Draw three noses
Draw four mouths
Draw four ears
Draw two hairs

Lets just say, Gary might not have appreciated 120 kids drawing him like a freaky alien. However, the kids loved it, and so did I. So this goes out to Gary: Baby, I love your four arms, no matter what anyone says...

Anti-Americanism

2006-05-29T14:49:00.000+09:00

This past weekend I went to visit my friend Stephen in Tochigi. It was a nice weekend - we actually went to a Western style mall with a food court, my first in ten months! Instead of traveling or doing anything exciting, we mostly just sat around and talked (and, of course, he subjected me to British Television - some good, some horribly bad). Anyway, on Saturday night he invited his friend Chris, a German guy, to meet us for dinner. From the moment this guy met me, he had it out for me, and all because - horror of horrors! - I was American. Everything I did, he would say it was because I was American - "You drink cheap wine? How American." "You like Guiness? How American." "You eat food? How American." Ok, not the last one, but you get the picture. Anyway, he was so blatantly rude to me all night that by the end of it I was just barely not slapping him - I mean, I am the first one to make fun of myself of being "American," but it is all in fun and I put no value on stereotypes of any nationality, German, American, Japanese or otherwise, if they are used in a derogatory way. This guy was just being mean.

So finally, after a while of just shrugging things off, I just countered by saying "Its nice to see that you don't have any preconceptions of people, how openminded of you." I really wanted to mouth him off, but I didn't want him to have the satisfaction of being able to say "You get mad and break your cool? How American." So it left a sour taste in my mouth about the entire weekend, not just because of him, but because Stephen (who is very proper and non-confrontational) didn't stick up for me at all and just let it happen. Oh well. The one lesson I have learned is that I won't ever blame my nationality for my personality traits or my choices - we are who we say we are, and shoving ourselves into a small, national box is only ever limiting.

On a funny note, the train station in Nishinasuno had a mural painted on the inner hallway - children catching butterflies, a sun beaming in the sky, flowers blooming everywhere, women and their daughters in summer dresses....and, of course, a man smoking a cigarette. Which makes complete sense.

Only in Japan.

I'm full

2006-05-25T14:18:00.000+09:00

This afternoon I stir-fried (in Pam, not oil, of course!) ninikume (this long, delicious Japanese green vegetable kind of like a green bean), long mushrooms that look like they're props from the smurfs, and hamburger meat, all in this delicious spicy sauce. I ate almost the entire thing. I want to throw up (but in a good way).

Why I love Tomoko

2006-05-24T21:51:00.000+09:00

For those of you who don't know, Tomoko is my downstairs neighbor, the one who took care of Lily when I was in America. She is so sweet, but she speaks no English, and as my Japanese is not exactly fluent, whenever we see each other we smile and laugh and say "konnichiwa, genki desu ka" but that's about it. Well yesterday her daughter was over to visit with her two children; I saw them and invited them upstairs to see Lily. I have had a bitter cold, so when I saw Tomoko I asked her if she had a thermometer (I had to look up the word in a dictionary beforehand, no, I don't suddenly know Japanese vocabulary). She asked me if I was sick, and I said I was. She lent me a thermometer and left with her daughter and grandchildren to go somewhere.

About one hour later I hear a knock on my door. It's Tomoko, bearing water, vitamin juice, banana yogurt and a lemon fruit jelly (kind of like jello). Can you believe that? What a sweetheart! I am going to bake her some peanut butter cookies next week.

The beginning of the end

2006-05-23T12:47:00.000+09:00

So it is May 23rd, and I have only two months left until my contract in Japan ends. This has been perhaps one of the most difficult if not the most difficult experience of my life. I have had to confront an entirely different set of values, ideals, aesthetics, social norms, not to say a completely different language system. I have also had some of the most memorable experiences of my life and have been immeasurably changed, if not in my tastes for seaweed then in almost every other way.

It has not been easy to keep this blog updated - I have always been the kind of traveler who gets so caught up in the world that I am in that it is difficult to seperate myself intellectually and account for those experiences in words and pictures. From my trip to Africa, I have only 20 random pictures, all taken on my last day in Fosse; I never really explained my European tour to anyone, and the pictures lay languishing in a photo album which I have never really shown to many people. Is this because the experiences aren't important to me? Obviously not. It is just that the richness of experience is for me untranslatable into an easily understood paragraph or a photograph. I will never be a writer because I can't (and have no desire to) "trap," so to speak, the immensity of life onto the written page. At first I used this blog to talk about the interesting facets of life here - the green tea chocolate, the revolving sushi restaurants, the Japanese matsuri. It made people laugh at how different life here in Japan was, at how interesting cultural exchange could be in a foreign land. But after a few months, it was hard to keep that going. These were no longer weird, Japanese eccentricities to me but part of my life, part of my own sense of normalcy here in Gunma-machi. I still noticed new and interesting things everywhere, but they were part of my home, and it almost felt superfluous to write of them as if they were special or unique.

Experiences reminded me of other experiences, and I found that suddenly I had a network of sensory connections - a parking lot famous for cherry blossoms made me think of lovely plants set in the middle of a yard full of rusted metal made me think of my student's obsession with glittery stickers on dull notebooks made me think of the endless row of concrete fences and man-made rivers that are completely surrounded by the highest and darkest of mountains...How can I explain what these things mean, how they are linked together, how a serving of pickled cucumbers can remind me of a legend about cherry blossoms? If I were a writer, I would write these things for you. I would tell you the story of my life here, from one image to another. I would capture those times here when, like Virginia Woolf, I have stood in awe and said, "life stand still here," if only for a moment.

But I'm not a writer, not really. When I go home, I will come back to Japan for a visit once in a while in my memory, and thats where the true story will live - in a new web of images and people and inventions that I had never even imagined before I came to live here. Some of you might be a little resentful of this - I know that I leave many of you frustrated when I tell you that I can't put these experiences into words. Just know that I will try to keep writing, I will try to keep translating. I will try to keep talking even when the words are stuck under my tongue.

Decision made!

2006-05-18T16:17:00.000+09:00

I'm off to Buffalo!

Ten reasons why the next 2 months are going to fly by

10. I'm going to see sumo in Tokyo this weekend, and after I will thrust myself into work so I won't have to remember the fat, half-naked men who look like my dad in his underwear....ah, its already grossing me out! :-O
9. Stephen and I are going to a love hotel in Tokyo (not in THAT kind of way, its a purely intellectual exploration - Gary and I didn't have time to go!)
8. Gary is sending me pictures of my new apartment tomorrow!
7. I bought Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory, and it singlehandedly makes my free time at my desk interesting.
6. I'm teaching with Makie this semester and she is the best - students actually participate in her class! They actually raise their hands and shout out answers! They actually laugh!
5. I'm going to Yokohama with Manami (Tomomi's sister) and am visiting Tomomi's wonderful family again in Hakone.
4. I am ALSO driving to Tochigi to visit Stephen and have more wonderfully horrible british food.
3. I am ALSO finally going to go to Hiroshima.
2. The countdown towards wheat bread, gardenburgers and cranberry juice has begun!
1. Tomomi and I will go on a big trip after my contract is up, so I can spend my last days with my best friend here.

The toughest decision of my life

2006-05-06T00:59:00.000+09:00

So here goes...I was accepted into Brandeis University for the PhD. The one school that I said could vie with Buffalo for being my school of choice. And now I just don't know what to do. Brandeis in some ways seems like the better choice - in other ways, Buffalo seems like the best choice. I am so confused. Too much of a good thing, in this case, is just leading to a lot of trouble. I think the decision will thankfully come down to money (because judging on programs would be too difficult) - I think that Brandeis would be just too expensive to attend. I am waiting to talk to some grad students about it. I feel so stressed out about the whole situation - I can't imagine how Gary feels about it, our futures are both on the line. I'm not sure what is the right decision for both of us. We'll have to figure it out soon.

Gary does Japan

2006-04-30T22:01:00.000+09:00

Dum da da dum....drum roll please...

2006-04-22T23:48:00.000+09:00

So for those of you amazingly excited about what Debra Goodman's future holds in store for her (hi, mom and Gary), here's a list of the schools that came through (and the ones that fell flat on their face)...

Acceptances

Buffalo
Maryland (just found out!)
Tufts
Amherst
Rochester

Waitlist

Brandeis

Rejections (try any school in the top 20!)

Washington
Cornell
Illinois
Michigan
Rutgers

School that has not yet let me know (so probably a reject)
Penn State

I feel pretty damn good about myself now. Getting into Maryland was an amazing coup, as they have one of the top programs in the country for the areas I am going into. However, I am almost 100% sure that I am still headed to Buffalo. Maryland's financial aid package isn't competitive (for that matter, neither is Buffalo's, but it's so damn cheap to live in Buffalo as compared to Maryland) and I have really grown excited about the UB English Department in a way that I am not as excited about the Maryland program. So, staying in Buffalo, folks, call me when its spring.

On a side note, I am officially ADDICTED to Spooks, this British show that is kinda like 24. Ossian burned them for me, and needless to say, in between reading about phenemonology and hermeneutics, I have been glued to my laptop screen. I am in LOVE.

And then there were none...

2006-04-21T10:23:00.000+09:00

Top ten best things about Gary's trip to Japan

10. Raj Mahal, it might have taken us an hour traipsing through Shinjuku to get there, but the mulag mahal was oishi, ne?
9. Inwardly gagging as Yoshi and Tomomi ate fish...with heads! They say kawaii, we say KOWAI!
8. Being the sugar mama for a week (what, you think yen grows on trees!) and making my baby look all sexy in new Japanese gear
7. Onsens with starry bottoms, snow glittering all around, and fresh night air
6. Nikko walks and late night talks...
5. Observing the genius of a chopstick master, level 15
4. The Ramen restaurant on the way to Minikami that is alternately dedicated to Japanese popular culture and the phallus (there was an actual penis room!)
3. "This kind of certainty comes once in a lifetime." Ugh. I prefer Trey and Matt
2. Gary in a yucata - SEGOY!
1. The entire week, complete with shinkansen meltdowns, testy karaoke, chicken sandwiches aplenty, and so many little moments that will keep me going for the next three months.

I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart.

Update, update!

2006-04-02T23:20:00.000+09:00

For now this will have to do...

The yakuza and me, Fin

2006-03-10T10:21:00.000+09:00

So now the news you have been waiting for...my eyewitness account of the yakuza...prepare to be shocked...

Or not. Because its not eyewitness. However, I'm as good as the next English major when it comes to narrative, so I hope you'll enjoy. When my friend Tomomi moved to Gunma, she got a job in a flower shop. Well, it turns out that said flower shop is quite popular with the local yakuza. On the birthday of the yakuza leader, everyone would send him a certain arrangement of flowers - really big and bold, the yakuza aren't known for their subtlety. Tomomi was hired to deliver flowers, many of which went to men's mistresses (she thinks) and yakuza houses (she knows). Men would be guarding the gate with guns, and it was a long, irritating process before the flowers could be brought into the house. In fact, Tomomi told me part of the reason that she was hired was that she was a woman (you will remember from my previous entries that women are not allowed to be in the yakuza). Before Tomomi had her job, there was a man working there who was secretly a yakuza member. As he was delivering flowers one day, he opened up the flower box and - suprise - there was a machine gun! A story right out of the movies, but it really happened in good old Gunma-machi!

So there you have it. My in-depth, up close and personal dealings with the yakuza. Perhaps they are not as close as we would all like them to be (even though I have volunteered to tattoo my entire body with yakuza tattooes and spike up my jew fro, they keep rejecting me...for some reason). For a funny yet pretty realistic take on the yakuza, check out Juzo Itami's Minbo, or the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion. It de-romanticized the yakuza and portrayed them as a bunch of loud, obnoxious petty thieves rather than the dark and dangerous anti-heros that they would like to be known as. In fact, the yakuza were so disgruntled with their depiction in this movie that there was a knife attack on Itami a few weeks after the film opened (Itami survived, but had a slash on his jaw ever after as a reminder). Itami supposedly committed suicide in 1997, but there were some suspicions that perhaps the yakuza were behind his death, although nothing has ever been proven.

On a completely unrelated note - for a very short time, my grad school acceptances (Tufts, UB, U of R, and U Mass at Amherst) outnumber my rejections (Michigan, Cornell and Rutgers)! Yay! Can't wait until I can make some decisions and figure out just where the heck I will be going next year.

Borne back ceaselessly

2006-03-03T14:18:00.000+09:00

Today was the celebration of the third grade students' graduation from junior high (here in Japan the school year ends in March) and they screened an American movie for the entire school - The day after tomorrow, with Jake Gyllenhall and Dennis Quaid. I was watching it with my students, and (there's a spoiler coming up if you haven't seen the movie)I began to feel this hammering in my stomach just as soon as New York City was flooded - children stuck in cars, lifeless bodies laying in the water, people stuck in one location with no place to go, animals trapped in watery cages...and suddenly, even though this was a stupid disaster movie, I began to shake uncontrollably. The landscape was exagerrated but familiar. I walked out of the gym and went back to my desk to have myself a silent cry behind the computers. A few teachers came up to me and asked me what was wrong, but how could I explain it to them? How would I be able to convey to them, whose country had been through the Tokyo firebombing and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that a hurricane that killed only a few thousand people is the cause of my tears. They looked at me with blank faces and said, "but it was only a movie. It's fiction." They didn't know what to say.

I don't know if I ever felt so alone as this moment, mourning the destruction of a city and having no one around to say, I know, I understand. Its funny how a stupid disaster movie can ruin your afternoon. Its funny how you can feel stupid crying even though you're not ashamed of being upset. Its funny how you can know that America has been incredibly lucky in its lack of disasters and yet, at the same time, be overwhelmed by the horror and just the immense sadness of Katrina and what it has done to New Orleans.

The yakuza and me, Part Deux

2006-03-01T10:11:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I have given you a little overview of the friendly neighborhood yakuza (although expert Bob tells me that those loud motorcyclists are not yakuza but just annoying street punks, so perhaps my expertise should be taken with a grain of salt). Now I will tell you about Gunma-machi (now officially Takasaki city, we have been merged with the large city next door) and the yakuza.

So I guess there are quite a few yakuza in my town. Last year there was supposedly an entire family murdered in my small little town - and it had yakuza written all over it (actually this is a story I have heard from Tomomi and a few ALTs but I have yet to find an actual news article about it, so chalk it up to heresay). This fall, as Negishi-san and I were driving past Munadaka lake, I noticed that they were draining it of water; in fact, for about a month, it was just a dark, muddy hole in the ground. Why, you might ask? Because a young girl was murdered, and they suspected that her body was in the lake. Now I have no idea if this was related to the yakuza, but for the sake of my story I'm going to keep on going. Not only is Gunma-machi a lovely little suburban location for yakuza, its also in the center of some interesting yakuza events - in our neighboring towns, Takasaki and Maebashi, the last three years have seen numerous yakuza killings (even inspiring the dreaded maebashi massacre, which made international news).

So what's my point, besides trying to inundate you with stories that I have no proof of (which is always fun) and let my imagination run wild? I guess Gunma-machi isn't such a small town after all....(insert dark, menacing laugh right about...here) In my next entry, look for some REAL (meaning, stories that I heard and assume to be real) accounts of encounters with the yakuza. Isn't my life exciting!

The yakuza and me, Part 1

2006-02-27T10:41:00.000+09:00

Now many of you watch the Sopranos and the Godfather series, and there are some of you who think you're pretty knowledgeable about the dark side of life. But I'm here to tell you - you ain't heard nothing yet.

I'll begin my story by opening up on a small town, located in a mountainous, mostly rural prefecture called Gunma. There are telephone poles everywhere, and the obligatory 24-hour laundromat that symbolizes real progress is right down the street, but walk just three minutes away from the main street and you see rows and rows of rice fields and old, dilapidated huts with rusted tan siding and signs that were probably quite readable fifty years ago. Its a quiet town, a lovely town with a pretty park and a large lake (Munadaka lake) where children play and feed swimming ducks. A town where nothing can happen.

Or, perhaps, a town where everything (and then some) can happen. Turns out that this lovely little town I inhabit is quite popular with the yakuza, the Japanese mob. What is yakuza, you ask? Certainly they can't be as dangerous as Marlon Brando? or Robert DeNiro? Well guess again. The yakuza is the largest criminal organization in the world, and here are some interesting facts about them (taken from wikipedia and garnished by my overactive imagination)...

-Unlike the Italian mob back home, the Yakuza isn't so family-oriented...you don't "marry into the mob," so to speak. Once you enter into the yakuza, you completely cut off contact with your family, and the yakuza members become your family. There are no women in the yakuza (except the oyabun(boss)'s wife).

-If you ask any of my ALT counterparts, they will tell that you the one definitely distinguishing part of being a yakuza - you are tattoed all over your body. If you betray your boss or your yakuza family, a common punishment is cutting off a pinky. And no, someone doesn't do it for you. You have to do it yourself. However, if a person isn't naked or holding out their hands for you to inspect, an easy well to tell yakuza is by looking at their clothes - they are usually dressed in very flashy suits and scarves. When I went to kabuki, two yakuza sat directly across from me - they both had ultra-gelled hair, earrings, silver cell phones, and the poshest suits that you ever did see.

-Yakuza members like to ride their motorcyles in the streets very late at night. Very loudly. Very obnoxiously. I always appreciate it.

Next entry I'll let you know just how close I am to the yakuza (and its closer than you would expect)...

Unfortunately its not a suprise :-)

2006-02-13T22:53:00.000+09:00

I just received my first rejection - from Cornell. I am suprisingly not unhappy. For some reason, Cornell's program just wasn't doing it for me. Just wait until I don't get into Michigan or Rutgers, though - then you will hear the tears :-)

2006-02-13T13:13:00.000+09:00

Do you ever have so much to say that paradoxically you forget how to say it?

I do, and that's why my blogs have become little more than monthly/weekly updates. I promise I will try harder. Not this entry though. I have my fun class coming up in ten minutes - its with what the Japanese schools call "special children," even though it only includes about two disabled students (the rest are lumped in with the other students because their parents refuse to admit they have a disability). Its the only class that I get to do fun games and songs with - my other students are way "too cool."

Talk (well, write) to you soon.

My first acceptance!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-02-04T15:38:00.000+09:00

Dear Debra,

I don't believe we've met, and given that you are in Japan it will be a while before we do. But I wanted to write and let you know that the Graduate Admissions committee in the English Department at UB voted today to admit you to our PhD program as a TA beginning fall 06.

Everyone on the 10-person committee was extremely enthusiastic about your candidacy, your profile, and your work. Mark Shechner, Bruce Jackson, and David Schmid all wrote you glowing, compelling recommendations. I found fascinating your proposed doctoral research project, and I very much liked your engagement with disability theory in the writing sample on Carson McCullers.(I have become increasingly interested in disability theory myself, and even have contemplated offering a graduate seminar in it, as a way to help educate myself about this very vital field; in my Queer Theory seminar I teach some disability theory, but I need to learn more.)I definitely look forward to future conversations with you on this and other topics, and I know that David Schmid is very excited at the prospect of working with you again too.

This is just an informal message to let you know that you're in. A formal message confirming admission will come directly from the Graduate School in due course. That will be followed by a formal offer of admission and the TA contract from the English Department. One question I have for you is: to what address would you like us to mail the documents that will require your signature? (I spoke this afternoon with Gary Huber, who I gather is acting as your mediator or spokesperson while you're in Japan; he may have conveyed the good news to you already.)

It will be a couple weeks before I know exactly the financial package we have available to offer you; I will be back in touch once I have hard figures, but I wanted to let you know the good news as soon as the decisions were final. I hope you have some good sake on hand with which to celebrate!

With best wishes,
TD

Tim Dean
Associate Professor of English
Director of Graduate Admissions and Fellowships
University at Buffalo (SUNY)

I'm sick as a Japanese poodle

2006-02-01T22:37:00.000+09:00

Ok, all, so no long entry tonight, I have been out of work all week with bronchitis and an abdominal infection and a cold in my eye (of all things!). So nothing interesting has happened except for the following tidbits:

10. On the superficial.com, there was a video of David Hasselhoff in which he looked eerily eerily eerily like Adam, a guy I used to date.
9. Ossian burnt me My So Called Life, and I was able to get a glimpse of how stupid flannel shirts really looked back in the day.
8. I remembered exactly why I fell in love with Jared Leto - and why he is the worst actor alive.
7. I drank hot chocolate with actual mini-marshmallows.
6. Kate and I found rice cakes at the international supermarket, and I was in heaven.
5. I went to my first session at my second teaching job, and yup, its just as boring as I thought it would be. And just as well paying.
4. I am taking fourteen pills a day, and in typical Japanese fashion, they all look the same.
3. I almost crashed into a telephone pole driving to the conbini with an infected eye.
2. Hayley was wonderful enough to get me some gas for my heater so that I wouldn't have to drive again while impaired.
1. I have started Tess of the D'Ubervilles because I need a good laugh. Thomas Hardy is always a real scream.

I am super-cool!

2006-01-25T15:51:00.000+09:00

Or not. Well, to give you an exciting foray into "the world of deebo," here's a summary of my last few days. Before that...well you''ll just have to exist in ignorance ;-)

Last Wed: Lily was keeping me up all night, every night, so after a few moments of panic ("she's going to die!") I realized she was just...well, to put it nicely, fiending for some altercations with the opposite sex. So, although I hated to make Lily an "It," that's exactly what she is now. Yes, Lily is nicely neutered and sweet and loveable and quiet again. No more hormonal inbalances. Tomomi was wonderful enough to take me to the veterinarian and translate for me, and I in turn made her all-American mashed potatoes (something of a specialty lately).

Saturday: Abi and I went to Cafe Tetto, this lovely little cafe in Shibukawa (about a half hour from my house) that serves this wonderful dish called honey toast - toast laden with butter and honey and OH SO BAD FOR YOU (of course I love it). Turns out Cafe Tetto is closing - I was so sad, it is probably my favorite restaurant in Japan - so relaxing and the waitress was so sweet. And no more honey toast :-( Oh well. Then Abi slept over, and we watched an Affair to Remember and were both exhausted at - please kill me now - 10:30. I am officially an old obachan!

Tuesday: I got a second job! A job! That pays real money! I will literally have to go to a school and read out of a textbook - amazingly boring stuff - but I will be making 2500 yen per hour - can't go wrong with that. Now I will have enough money to pay back my credit card debt, pricate loan, and my parents. So that was great. To celebrate, I went out to dinner with Gemma, Hayley and Theresa at the Chinese restaurant right near my house - we had an all inclusive menu, 1000 yen per person and the plates just kept coming and coming - fried rice, dumplings, these little green bean-like veggies that tasted like asparagus, and of course my favorite - Chinese pudding (if you haven't had it, go somewhere where you can - it's delicious)! I thank god for that lovely little restaurant, working every day to keep me satisfied (and chubby)

Wednesday: So today I began my regiment of French studying. As most of you know, I need to become an upper-intermediate French reader and writer in the next six months, so for the last week I have preparing and reviewing. Today I began on present verbs, and memorized at least 150. It's funny how much I actually remember from high school - I can read French 4 level texts easily, and I haven't even looked at French in about six years. I have also been walking 45 minutes outside every day - going to the gym is too expensive here (plus there is just no time with my new job) so I am taking advantage of my free school time to work out here.

Ok, enough of that. Talk to you all soon. Miss you!

Free at last!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-01-16T14:44:00.000+09:00

I'm done! No more grad school applications! Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty I'm free at last!

Anyway...back to good old Nihon-land, where the sun is shining but the wind is coooold. I've actually been pretty busy the last couple of days fixing up my house and seeing some friends. Last night I made Kate and Ossian (my Brit friends) an all-American meal of chicken, mashed potatoes, asparagus, salad, and fruit cup (all homemade!). I am no extraordinary cook, but it was delicious if I may say so myself. I have a new favorite TV show (Strangers with Candy is enough to make me cheat on Gary with Stephen Colbert) and finally, for the first time in months, no applications hanging over my head. Life is good.

Except for Lily. People, I may not have a baby - but now I know what it is like to have a whining, crying, screaming baby in the house keeping you up all night no matter what you do to it. I petted her, I fed her, I cuddled with her, I played with her, I gave her fresh water, and she STILL would not shut up. I got about two hours of sleep last night, and the night before that I got about six hours of sleep. So yeah, she's not on my bright side right now. Anyone want a cat?

I'm back!

2006-01-09T14:21:00.000+09:00

For those of you who have come to expect clever (always), witty (of course), and obnoxious (not ironic) blog entries from me, this won't be one of them. I'm preempting all the criticism I know I will get: "this is mushy," "this is stupid," even "you're going soft." I am mushy, I am (often) stupid, and I certainly am soft. So quit your complaining and go find something better to do, like throwing bricks at cars or eating melted ice cream.

The last three weeks have been, in a word, amazing. It was wonderful to see my parents, even though they were getting on my last teeny tiny nerve for a while, and I just hope that their upcoming months in Florida will bring the relaxation, good health and happiness that Utica just can't provide. I saw my mean old grandma, and she was just as fun and crotchety as usual - the best Reel Clues teammate a girl could have! I saw Kathy, who is going to Pakistan - can you believe it! - in just a few days for a five month relief contract. I saw Colleen and her new love; I saw Jenny and Christian, who were getting ready to leave the bitter cold Northeast for the mild weather of Orlando - I'll miss that girl more than I miss wheat bread (and I miss wheat bread a lot!).

Because I was only home for such a short time, though, I didn't get to see so many people who I wanted to see - Matt; Beth; my Queens girrrrrrls (Rachel and Lisa!) and my NYC bachelor (Terrence); my Binghamton alumns, Jeff and Amha and Ron and the whole crew; and most unfortunate of all, even though I got to see Nini for a night, we really didn't get any time alone. I felt very pressed for time, and I was so sad that I didn't get to see everyone. Between going to NJ and going to Utica and going to Niagara on the Lake, I was running here and there and everywhere. But only six more months, and I am getting out to see everyone - I promise!

As for Gary...I can only say this. You are the perfect man for me, in every way, and I know I'm the perfect girl for you. You challenge and inspire me, you make me melt with just the turn of your face, you hold me when I am afraid and listen when I need to talk. Your idealism and passion and dedication to teaching have rejuvenated me in the last few weeks. Baby, love is such a small word compared to what I feel for you. I can't wait until we are together again - only seven more weeks!

A whole lot of somethin'

2005-12-08T10:24:00.000+09:00

To everyone who reads my blog (mommy!),

Sorry my posts have been so irregular, 'tis the season for tons going on, so I have decided to officially go on vacation from blogging (living is taking up way too much time!) So before I go, a little capsule of what I have been up to...

-My kocho sensei's mother died and I went to the funeral. I learned a lot about traditional Japanese funeral etiquette - for example, when you leave the parlor, you throw salt behind you to keep the bad spirits from coming with you; also, you leave food and sake as an offering because, in buddhist tradition, the dead person walks the earth for 47 days and needs something to eat and drink.

-Today I taught about Chanukah. It was hysterical listening to all these Japanese kids talk about "Judah and the Macabees" and play dreidel. Which they loved, by the way.

-This past weekend I went to a traditional doll factory in Shibukawa, where they sell- suprise, suprise - traditional dolls. If I have time, I will post a pic of what these little wooden totems look like. I guess Gunma is famous for them, 90% of traditional dolls are made here.

-Last Friday I gave a presentation on the American Blues for about 50-60 Japanese people in Maebashi. The presentation kicked ass - I did a powerpoint pres. and included the history of the blues in the Civil War and the post-bellum South, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, and B.B. King. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Denny's - which is actually better than in the states (doesn't say much, though).

-Today is my one-year anniversary with Gary. Needless to say, I still kinda like him. ;-)

Ok, so that about sums up my life. I will spend the next week finishing up grad apps and packing to GO HOME for three weeks! YAY! Enjoy your holidays and perhaps I will see some of you soon! I will be up and posting again as of January 8, 2006!

Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year! And (Lisa, did you think I would forget?) Happy Existential Day five months too late!

Love,
Me

Colleen Butler Rocks My World

2005-12-04T14:13:00.000+09:00

Thanks to this gem, my personal statement is about 800% better. If I get in anywhere, I am crediting you!

I have a new love!

2005-11-27T01:29:00.000+09:00

My new DVD player, only 4400 yen at Yamada Denki. It's small, sweet, and I've decided to name it Gary #2, since its pretty much going to be my boyfriend for the next few months. I can finally see new movies and addictively rent episodes of 24.

On not such a positive note, one of the first movies that I watched was Million Dollar Baby. I'll admit, it was well acted, well scripted, and beautifully photographed. But the end really disturbed me (for those of you who haven't seen it, please stop reading now, spoilers ahead)

So at the end, someone wants to die because they are paralyzed and will never move again. Now, after working at RCIL for a year and a half, these are exactly the ideas that we were working against - "oh, you're in a wheelchair, you're better off dead." I understand that Hilary Swank's character was in pain, but so many people come out of these situations and go on to accomplish even more than they did as people without disabilities. Its amazing what people do because of disability and not in spite of it - many of my friends at RCIL were parapalegic, and they would have laughed in your face if you suggested that their life wasn't worth living. Then they would have found a way to beat the living hell out of you (especially my friend Gene, he was a biker before he got into an accident and became parapalegic - the man drank hard and partied even harder).

In 2003, there was an incredible New York Times article about a disability rights lawyer, Harriet McBryde Johnson, who was born with a severe muscle wasting disease - she could do very little for herself, she developed sores over her body all the time, she was often in pain. She is also an intellectual with an amazing mind and a beautiful writing style. She wrote this article about a debate that she had with a fellow academic who argued for the right to abort babies with disabilities. I know it is a long article, but please, please read it - it was an article that changed my life when I first read it at RCIL, and I do believe it is the greatest proof that the whole premise of "Million Dollar Baby" is based on prejudice, ignorance and a complete lack of appreciation for the joy possible for all people regardless of what their bodies look like.

One year ago today...

2005-11-25T14:10:00.000+09:00

I stayed up till 5:00 discussing the three things that men are good for: sex, back massages, and something else (can't quite remember the finer points of my theory, but I can make a guess that it was a steady income)...

I realized that my heavy workload wasn't the only reason I wanted to stay in Buffalo...

I made sure that my feet kept to themselves (they can be a bit pushy sometimes)...

I found that sometimes people don't say what they want to say...

I looked forward to a delicious American breakfast the next morning (if only!)...

American food rocks, and bring on Thanksgiving

2005-11-24T12:49:00.000+09:00

So, after five months of battling Japanese food, I am sad to say that it has beat me fair and square. While I do like many foods here - sushi, udon (sometimes!), chinese food, and any of the meals that Tomomi cooks - I have finally realized that I am not a Japanese-food kind of girl. The weird roots and seafood flakes on everything and obsession with seaweed (ugh!) and fatty meat is just too much for me. Plus, not being able to read the menus at most restaurants provides a bit more of a challenge than I'd like - yeah, I can just guess and be adventurous, but if I don't like it, I have just wasted ten dollars. This is the only part of Japanese culture that I have really felt frustrated with. My eating habits have become pretty horrible lately, especially because mostly I am eating out on the way to study, and so I get the foods that I know - usually fried foods, because at least with them you have a good idea of what they are going to taste like. However, after a deep conversation with my ever-growing belly (he speaks in a Mexican accent, funny enough), I have decided that when I am home I am going to send myself at least one huge box of American food - marinades and spices that I know how to cook with, cookies and snacks that are healthy, and vegetable, rice and pasta meals in a box. For once, I am going to have control over what I eat, and that is SO exciting. I spent all morning making a list, and I haven't felt this good in weeks :-)

Anyway, Tuesday night was the Gunma Jet Thanksgiving dinner at the G-face cafe, and it was so much fun. The usual suspects were there, and we feasted on turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, pumpkin pie, and apple crisp. Afterwards, we went to sing karaoke in Maebashi, and I talked for quite a while with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, Shane, and got red wine spilled all over my khaki pants by a Jet (he's a nice guy, so I didn't hold it against him). Then Skye, Kate, Ossian and I went to the British pub in Maebashi - yes! There is a British pub - I've heard a lot about it, but this was my first time in it. I had a Heineken, and Ossian, bless his soul, had a Guinness. It was almost like being in Europe (except for the numerous Japanese people speaking Japanese).

Kate, Ossian and I went back to their pad at about 3 and stayed up till 4 talking. Those two are seriously two of the coolest people I have ever met - they are funny, intelligent, and such a wonderful pair. I told them I had a "couple crush" on them - I love how they interact together and treat each other, they are always so interested in what each other has to say.

Anyway, great night had by all. Only three more weeks until I see most of you!

Ok, I admit it

2005-11-23T16:32:00.000+09:00

There are moments here when I actually am more excited to go home and see Rent than I am to see Gary or my family.

Is that wrong? :-)

In the Spirit of Lisa

2005-11-22T12:34:00.000+09:00

So I'm feeling a bit insecure about almost everything in my life (my future! my present! my big butt!) so in the spirit of Lisa, I've decided to be proactive and try and focus on the positive.

Things that rule about me
10. I'm have the free spirit of a hippie without the dirty smell and drug addiction.
9. I give myself completely to the people I really care about. I try to always be there when they need a friend.
8. I am pretty intelligent and well-spoken.
7. I am very respectful while living in a foreign country, and my co-teachers all seem to react well to that.
6. I am willing to face my problems and I'm not scared to ask for help if I need it.
5. I bring the social butterfly out in shy people.
4. I am willing to trust in the goodness of people and of life in general.
3. I won't give up on my dreams even though pursuing them sometimes scares me half to death.
2. I always get back up after I have failed at something, and I'm not too proud to admit that I have been wrong.
1. I am a very loving, caring person to my friends, family and boyfriend. I don't yell at them, and I try to listen to them even if I don't agree.

Back to Good

2005-11-21T13:07:00.000+09:00

Ok, my little spurt of boredom was over as quickly as it began. About an hour after my masterpiece of musical theatre, I was asked to do three big lesson plans for this week. So, thankfully, I have work to do again.

This weekend I had very good news about my Cousin Jen. She is a fighter, there's no doubt about that, and after a long hard fight she's seeing results. It just goes to show that if you are a fighter, you may not be able to attain the impossible, but you can help make the "impossible" attainable. Congratulations, Jen, and kick that cancer's ass!

I was invited to one of the teacher's houses on Saturday night. After being lost for two hours, I have realized the cardinal rule of being a foreigner in Japan: never follow Japanese directions. My teacher lived relatively close to Takasaki station, and I probably would have found her house within a half hour, but I made the mistake of following her directions to the station rather than going by my own knowledge. Big mistake. See, Americans do directions logically and numerically: "You take rt. 25 straight to Takasaki Eki, then turn right at the station, make a left at the sign that says Takasaki East Side, and turn left into the station." Japanese people do directions contextually (a problem, since I have no idea of the locations that they are assumed to know) and visually. They make these wonderfully detailed maps (all the maps I have ever been given have actually been drawn with rulers and compasses!) but they don't use the road names published on road signs. Therefore, the road that I call rt. 25, they call the "Taka-Shibu Road" between Takasaki and Shibukawa, and another name after it hits Shibukawa. Thus, one road can have three or more different names, none of which correspond with the road signs! They also tend to use stores as location markers: for example, "turn right at the yellow car park." However, a car park in America looks a hell of a lot different than a car park in Japan, plus I can't read the signs to see "Car" or "Park." Life lesson: do not follow Japanese directions. Get them from another foreigner, or figure them out yourself. Or never leave the house.

As for the rest of the weekend, it's embarassing to say but I did nothing. I was supposed to go to the Ashikaga wine festival but at the last moment I decided not to go. I was absolutely exhausted and braindead from this grad work, and I felt like having a day to just unwind, do laundry and play with Lily. I woke up at 1:30 in the afternoon, which is wonderful as lately Lily has been waking me up at 6:00 every morning for no apparent reason. My great accomplishment of the day was to watch many, many episodes of Seinfeld, the best show on earth. I can watch that show for hours and never get bored - it is so original, and everytime I watch it, I think about my wannabe Jew boyfriend (at least he looks Jewish!)

Thanksgiving is coming up soon. It will be sad being without my family for the second time in two years. I was so busy doing work for school, I made the decision to stay in Buffalo last year rather than lose two days for travelling to New Jersey. I guess everything happens for a reason, though: it was that Thanksgiving vacation that Gary and I really started to fall for each other. On Thanksgiving night, we stayed up until 5:00 just talking about everything and nothing. It was hands down one of the nicest nights I've ever spent (even though sleeping on his couch wasn't exactly the most comfortable experience I've ever had!) I think that of all the days I'm away from America, Thanksgiving Day will be the hardest day for me. I will miss my parents, my grandma, my sister, my family, my friends, and Gary. But only three more weeks and I will be with you again! I can't wait!!!!!!

RENT 2! Now playing! (Beware, those of you who actually have productive lives, this is three minutes you won't get back)

2005-11-18T09:27:00.000+09:00

So this week my students have had these big term tests, so I haven't had any classes. Now the last few days I spent all day researching graduate schools, but now I am BURNT OUT and have no idea how to preoccupy myself. So figured I would brainstorm here (with the help of my blog-reading friends, of course)...

10. Stay online on MSN Messenger and hope that someone interesting (besides my mechanic) comes on to talk to
9. Convince my school secretary that making calls to Gary would be for "business purposes"
8. Fake a seizure and go home
7. Download movies off the net and watch them
6. Write one new blog entry each hour
5. Figure out how exactly I can leave comments on other peoples' blogs (yeah, for some reason I have been trying to leave comments from my work computer and they are not going through - I really read your blog, Jenny, but I think its allergic to me!)
4. Tell my kyoto sensei that I have to go out and buy school supplies, then go shopping all day
3. Work on grad school apps...but no, I'm not going to touch that with a ten foot pole
2. Daydream about...American food
1. Think of songs from RENT and write ridiculous lyrics for them in anticipation of the movie!

Rent medley - as imagined by D. Goodman
Dedicated to R. Bonsignore

November 16th, 9:00 am, Gunma/Tokyo time,
from here on in I have nothing to do,
writing lyrics, dreaming of a coup
(I demand work to do!).
First shot, Mogi,
nervously copying her tests and
giving me lesson plans
("For next week!"
Now you rest!")
It's not like I'm bored,
desperate to see a mall.
("Not at all!")

What can I do? What activity can I turn to?
Tell your JTEs what you're doing, Debbie?

* * * *

(sung to "Ouuuuut tonight")
Got the time?
Well the clock says its close to 9
And you still have seven hours
'till its time for danger.

I wanna make lesson plans,
ignore the voices all in my head
("Wanna jump off a building?"
Wanna go home and rest in bed!")

I've got a knack from way back
of surfing the net for days at a time
when I'm bored at work,
it's time to get busy!
Let's go....su-urf the net!
Let's go....su-urf the net!
(Click, click!)

* * * *

(sung to "Will I lose my dignity?")
Have I lost my dignity?
Do my JTEs care?
Will I become stuck here
in this swivel chair?

* * * *

(sung to "525600 minutes")
525600 minutes...525000 moments at work,
525600 minutes...how do you handle boredom at work?
Do lots of...Drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs.
Do lots of...Drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs.
Do lots of drugs.
(Measure your workday in Dru-ughs!)
I'm really bored, bored, bored, bored, bored.
Yes, I'm so bored, bored, bored, bored.
I'm really bored...

* * * *

(sung to "1000 kisses")
I'm at my desk
But it is empty,
Nothing to eat, no worksheets to complete.
Worse, it's Friday,
but tonight I have plans
to go to Starbucks and write drivel all night.

Some people say that you never should waste time,
Those people just aren't geniuses of rhyme.
I am! Yes, I am!
I'm the poet of Gunma, the poet of all Nihon-land!
I am bored and I'm proud!
("When your lesson plan's canceled!")
I am bored and I'm proud!
("When your JTE's rancid!")

Oh, Minami, I think you're great!
(but please, jesus, give me work to do!)
Oh, Minami...I think you're great!

* * * *

(sung to "Your eyes")
My desk,
there it lurks in the dark,
full of the lesson plans from
other weeks,
not this time...

I should tell you, I should tell you,
I once had work to do, but now I'm just a bum!

* * * *

THE END
COPYRIGHT 2005

I am a little old Russian lady, and a Challenge for you

2005-11-16T15:25:00.001+09:00

So anyone who knows me knows I dress like a librarian. I'm infamous (well, not Kate Moss infamous, but maybe Janeane Garofolo infamous) for my knee-length skirts, my cardigans, my glasses, my always-comfortable-never-heeled shoes, and of course my shawl - you know, the pink, blue and gold one I bought in Barcelona and which I have been inseparable from for the last four years. Well, amazingly enough, I am even more dowdy in Japan!

No, you cry, say it ain't so! Alas, poor reader, I have sad news to tell you. In Japan, the dress code is very strict for male teachers- they really can't get away with wearing less than a shirt/tie/pants combo. It is less strict for women, but it is immensely uncommon to wear skirts without thick stockings (although the little high school girls go around with their butts hanging out of their tiny little skirts and no one seems to care). Also, since I must keep a pair of shoes at school to wear inside (remember the whole "outside shoes can't be worn inside" Japanese custom), my shoes are all unattractive but comfortable, and rarely go with my outfit. Plus, since my hair takes so much time to straighten, I have been letting it go all curly and frizzy since I got here.

So please, let me describe what I look like at this very moment.

Brown mules
Black, thick stockings
Long black skirt up to my ankles
Blue button down shirt
Black cardigan
Shawl
Frizzy hair
Glasses

I have officially become 80 years old. Someone please call the Fashion Police when I get home, because I am going to NEED a makeover!

Challenge of the year:

Who do I look like right now?

I'll start. Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus.

Who's next?

Questions of a befuddled American

2005-11-14T12:37:00.000+09:00

Today I saw a car in front of me with a sign that said "Baby on Board." Now usually these signs are either meant to 1. inform cars to be especially careful when driving near said car, or 2. to show obnoxious pride in the car owner's little squirt. So please tell me why someone chooses to buy such a sign written in a foreign language that no one can read?? The selective nature of English usage in Japan is completely beyond my grasp.

The ATM machines here close at five; however, teachers and other workers are worked to the bone from early in the morning to late at night, thus they can't get money out during the day. Almost all stores don't take credit cards, and there are no such things as personal checks. So will someone tell me how Japanese people actually buy things?

When I first arrived here, my school lunch was delicious - pasta, curry-rice, chicken, and fresh vegetables, often with a piece of fruit for dessert. Then why the heck have they been serving disgusting looking fish, rancid miso soup, and sour rice for the last month? Is November "Make Debbie lose weight by not giving her edible food" month?

As many of you know, when you walk into a Japanese house or building, you often have to take your shoes off and put special slippers on (or walk in your socks). Its considered very rude to put your bare feet on the outside floor or your shoes on the inside floors. My question: how do you take off shoes (beside slip ons) without having to shift your balance from foot to foot (thus putting one bare foot on the floor)? Also, once you take your shoes off, you have to face them towards the door (without your feet touching the floor) - whenever I do this, I end up falling all over myself. How do they do it so gracefully?

At Japanese stores, when you pay you have to put your money (coins and dollars) in a small dish, which they then pick up and put in the cash register. I have actually seen salespeople who, when I hand them money, direct me to the dish, and only pick the money up once I have put the money in the dish. Am I really that dirty, or is there another reason here?

How the heck can Japanese people use those "in floor" toilets without peeing all over themselves? And can someone explain exactly why the toilet paper is always installed somewhere that makes absolutely no sense - ex. in the back and very bottom of the toilet, so that you have to manuever ten steps back with your pants around your ankles then lean down and snatch a piece while seriously hoping that your "drip dry" worked and there isn't going to be pee all over your pants.

If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be more than grateful.

Winterizing my life

2005-11-12T14:44:00.000+09:00

So, as I have probably said before, winters in Gunma are coooooold. Like, you walk outside, and its freezing and the winds are biting into your flesh, and then you walk into your house - lo and behold, thanks to the wonderful custom of having no insulation or central heating, the inside of your house is just as freezing as the outside! Thus, every ALT in Gunma has numerous heaters and kotatsus (heating tables)to get them through the months of December to February, and thus I have spent the last two days getting my room ready for the winter by moving my kotatsu into my living room, buying blankets for it, and setting up my gas and electric heaters so they are ready to go at full blast on a moment's notice. Now for those of you who are confused, a kotatsu is a table structure with a heater built into it. On top of the heater you put two blankets, and then on top of the blanket goes a table top. Thus, you can sit with your legs and arms covered by the luxurious kotatsu blanket (mine is so soft!) in the warmth of the heated table bottom, and at the same time can watch TV, use your computer and eat on the table top. I haven't used mine yet - it is still pretty warm here, I've only used my heater at night once in a while - but I am sure it will bring my enjoyment of laziness to a far deeper level.

Kabuki-za, one of the most famous kabuki theatres in the world

On a completely unrelated note, this past Wednesday I went to kabuki in Tokyo with Negishi-san at the Kabuki-za, an old-style Japanese mansion right in the middle of Tokyo's Ginza (entertainment) district. For those of you unfamiliar with kabuki, its basically a traditional Japanese style of acting notable for formal poses, lavishly colored and gilted costumes, and dramatic face makeup. It was developed by women, but since early kabuki actresses were also prostitutes, the government stepped in (as they like to do in these situations) and banned women from going on stage as of 1629, so now all kabuki parts (male and female) are played by men. Kabuki is not for the close-minded - the movements are exagerrated, the emotional displays are dramatic to the point of absurdity: the whole purpose of kabuki is so different than that of western drama that its impossible to judge one with the aesthetic principles of the other. As for me, I loved it: it was a celebration of color and form, in which the movement of one hand had just as much significance as Shakespeare soliloquoy. The very exageratedness of the motions and poses is what makes them so interesting: you know that this very flutter of a fan, this sweep of a hand, has been done throughout the last five hundred years in this same (yet different at the same time!) way. These movements have a history, and when you watch kabuki you're watching not just this movement but an entire way of performing Japanese culture.

Alright, enough gushing, but if you do have a chance, see kabuki. My parting words.

Ok, enough of this :-) On to the fun stuff!

2005-11-08T21:06:00.000+09:00

So some of you were really concerned about my last post, and the whole leaving early thing, so I want to just put people's minds at ease.

Sometimes I have bad days here. Lately life has been a bit tough because I am in another country with so many amazing things to do, and I am stuck sitting at home writing papers and doing grad applications (which, as anyone who knows me knows, I am nervous as hell about anyway) and missing Gary and pretty much not enjoying my time here. I want to be studying Japanese and going out with my friends and travelling around on the weekends (which I have done a fair share of, but still), but from now until December I will be doing things like studying and writing papers, things that I could be doing in America. So sometimes I do feel like "why am I here when I can't take advantage of it." Sometimes I feel like I should just go home if this is the life I am leading here.

But then I think: hell, grad school applications will be done in four weeks! Next year will be so different, I'll be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. And my friends here are wonderful and supportive - they've all volunteered to be part of Project "help Debbie not stay at home and think about how much she hates applications and missing Gary." Which leads me to my last point - when I am out and having a good time here, I am so happy and genki (Japanese for excited). I'm going places I never thought I'd go; I'm making such good friends with the ALTs in my area (Kate, Ossian, Abi, Bob, Hayley and Chau rule my roost!) and overall life is good. Sometimes all the little moments of happiness are easy to forget when you are staring down the fifth draft of your personal statement and wondering, when will it end!

So I'm ok. I doubt I'd leave early - that was the emotion talking, not the intellect (or what little I have of one). If I did, I'd have a damn good excuse, and right now I can't imagine having one. To leave you on a positive note, yet another one of my half-assed (Bob) lists...

Ten reasons why, through it all, life is good

10. I have recruited numerous study buddies (obviously none whom can take the place of Jenny!) to suffer with at Starbucks
9. Lily is adorable. Of course, she wakes me up every morning at 6:00. Ok, she's annoying as hell.
8. Bob's always good for an internet conversation. Someday we'll meet in real life. Someday...
7. The more I go out with friends here, the more weird Japanese foods I can be convinced to try (fish eggs, anyone?)
6. Japanese language class may be over, but Tuesday night parties are just beginning
5. Almost all of my friends have significant others, so they're always there as shoulders to cry on (and as fellow sufferers too!)
4. I went apple picking last week at Mt. Haruna and got to play with cute little Chogakko kids. Highlight of the day: teaching them Christian gospel songs (yeah, its a Christian private school, but Tomomi works there, and they're all so nice). That's a first.
3. Cooking delicious dinners two nights in a row!
2. Actually having enough garbage cans to house all my garbage.
1. Going to Tokyo tomorrow to see kabuki with Negishi san. May even catch a Da Vinci exhibit and do a bit of shrining.

Something you should know

2005-11-07T08:31:00.000+09:00

So I began this blog to give my friends and family an insight into my experiences here, all the amazing places I go to and all the wonderful people I meet. But there has also been an undercurrent that I have not shared with anyone, or if I have mentioned it, I haven't been specific in how it affects my life. But you are my friends and family, and I feel that of all people, I shouldn't worry about expressing myself to you. So here goes.

Japan is everything I thought it would be, and more. The people, the places, the experiences, all have opened my mind to a completely different world. I don't ever regret coming here. That said, there is a problem: sometimes I feel like Japan is the right place at exactly the wrong time. It is very, very, very hard being in a long distance relationship when the person you love most in the world is not just a few cities away, not just a few states away, but actually 14 hours away by plane. More than once, I have felt like I just couldn't do this for a year; I've suddenly become a mush, crying at cheesy love songs and hoping with all my might that some random internet relationship site, loving.com or kisskiss.com or schmoopy.com, I don't know, they're all the same, can give me the key to how not be miserable when my boyfriend is continents away. That said, I have seriously considered going home early. While it is likely that I will have to go home about a month early regardless (due to grad school and moving), I have contemplated returning home as early as March or April. I have made no decisions, but these thoughts have run through my head.

So there we are. I hope that none of you judge me or are dissapointed in me; unfortunately, this is a situation that is really complicated, and while I can waste my time wishing I had done this before I was in a serious relationship or that I had met Gary later in life, these are the cards that I have been dealt and no use complaining. I don't regret my decisions, and I only hope that I have the strength and support to do what I need to do this year, whatever that may be.

A sudden air of conviction

2005-11-06T11:17:00.000+09:00

So yesterday I came to a realization: when I am busy, I tend to shut down out of stress, and this is something I need to change. Lately I have been so busy in good and bad ways (travelling through Japan and grad school applications) that I have been letting my apartment get messy, I haven't dont my hair in god knows how long, and I wasn't eating well or exercising (like I promised myself I would do when I got here!) Well, the thing is, just because Gary isn't here doesn't mean I can't do my hair once in a while; just because I am stressed out, doesn't mean my house can continuously be in a flux of messiness; just because I am tired doesn't mean that I can constantly go to conbini's for fattening dinners and never exercise. I need to buck up and start acting my age - when I am older and have children and a job, what am I going to do when I am stressed, give the kid to someone else because I can't handle it? I think in many ways the way I handle life is in some part hereditary - I see bits of me in my father and other people in my family. But this is MY life, and I have the ultimate control to change it. If Cousin Jen can be as motivated as she is even with all of the obstacles that she faces, so can I.

Top ten things I need to start doing again
10. Cleaning dishes when I make them dirty, not letting them sit in the sink!
9. Laundry. On a more-than-monthly basis.
8. Prevent Lily from drinking water out of my tub by remembering to close the shower door.
7. Keep hair dyed a nice natural brown instead of candy corn orange (which its been for about the last 8 months because I was too lazy to redye it).
6. Cooking as best I can.
5. Staying on my budget!
4. Remembering what days I have to take garbage out (garbage days here are as few and inbetween as days that I exercise, see below.)
3. Exercise. More than once a year.
2. Stop looking in the skinny mirror in my bathroom to feel better about my ever-growing tummy instead of actually exercising to make it go away.
1. Get grad apps done so I can enjoy my life again!

Rice Harvesting pics at last!

2005-11-01T00:04:00.000+09:00

Thanks to the beautiful Chau Lam for providing the camera, and Tochigi for providing the rice...

Why I am not Perfect

2005-10-31T13:06:00.000+09:00

So in doing my grad apps, I have discovered that, no: contrary to popular opinion, I am not perfect! It's shocking, I know, but here are just a few reasons why it is true.

10. I am interested in way too many topics. Grad schools want focus and depth of knowledge within that focus; I'm more about great breadth and shallowness.
9. I am cheesy and rely too heavily on cliches. "What's in a name?" I'll tell you what: pure drivel.
8. I only survived the last round of college applications by smoking heavily. Now that I don't smoke, I have nothing to do but pace anxiously and drink lots of coffee.
7. I have confidence when I shouldn't have confidence, and have no confidence when I should have confidence.
6. When I write, I assume my audience is at a 6th grade level. Doubt the Ph.D.'s looking over my personal statement will appreciate that.
5. When I try writing about my experiences travelling, it just sounds like I am writing about them to get brownie points. Which, I can't deny it, is a little bit of why I am doing it, but only a little bit!
4. I really have no idea why I want to be a Ph.D. except for the fact that I am clearly not fit for anything else.
3. It's so easy to use "race," "gender" and "democracy" without actually defining your terms. Darnit, they just sound pretty, don't they?
2. What I want to be doing right now: learning Japanese, travelling in Japan, and losing some extra poundage. What I am doing: graduate school applications. And sleeping.
1. I am a perfectionist, and it takes me hours to change the first paragraph of my personal statement, then move on to the second paragraph, then go back to the first paragraph, then back to the second, then back to the first...and on and on, boats against the currents, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

0. I'm a plaigirist, see above.

Hanging in Nikko and Japanese fashion don'ts

2005-10-30T21:52:00.000+09:00

Ah, just got back from a lovely weekend in Nikko, a beautiful town in Tochigi prefecture (the next prefecture over) which is the home of beautiful traditional Japanese shrines, gates and gardens. I met up with Stephen, a funny, very "Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day if he had a sense of humor" British guy I met during the rice harvesting weekend, and his friends (who were boring as hell!). Together we traipsed around Nikko sampling the yaki-tori chicken (chicken on a stick, for the unenlightened, and my favorite meal!), walking up a lot and I mean a lot of stairs, and being awed by the beautiful woodwork that decorated the many shrines we saw.

(I'll try to give a summary of how I spent my day not too specifically, no more novel-length entries!) We had to walk through a huge Japanese-style gate to enter the shrine area. The shrines are covered with elaborate carvings of animals and flowers and fantastic creatures of the imagination, and their roofs slightly slant up, as if they were about to fly away to God. I had to take my shoes off at the entrance, and once I walked in you can see a prayer section with tatami (where Shinto followers kneal and pray) and, in the front, a little altar with Shinto ornaments and incense burning. Many shrines are only accessible by climbing at least a hundred deep steps - this is definitely not a tourist spot for my parents! Many of the shrines sold rice paper fortunes and good luck charms for practically everything (Jenny, there was a charm for safe driving, and I thought of you!) I even found out that I was born in the year of the monkey - who'd have thunk? The best part of seeing the shrines was the weather - it was overcast and a little dark and foggy, endowing the shrines with an air of mystery and spirituality that I don't think would be as evident in the blinding glare of sunlight. In the moist, rainy fog, you could almost believe that here lay spirits of the dead or that, in the enormous, ancient trees that surrounded us, fantastic creatures of the forest were at play. Our last stop was at a lovely Japanese garden, built around a man-made lake: it was so sculpted, so exquisite down to every little detail. I sat on the rocks near the water and just took it all in for about fifteen minutes: the gigantic catfish that swam by my feet, the blazing red leaves of the tree across the way, and the lush green moss that covered practically everything. Japanese people sure know to create beautiful gardens, and this was no exception.

After "shrining," as I like to call it, Stephen and I went shopping for gifts - and lets just say that a certain sister is going to be mighty suprised come birthday time. We passed through antique shops, omiyage shops, and one shop that sold a random assortment of everything, from old dishes to ships to plastic kewpie dolls. Finally we took the train back, and I had British pudding for the first time! It was good, but certainly not good enough to replace ice cream.

So, another purpose of this entry was to chronicle my increasing hatred of Japanese ladies fashion. Now some people can dress well here - my friends, for instance - but the large majority of Japanese women dress like American women dressed in the eighties. And American women looked HORRIBLE in the eighties, lest we forget. I am the least concerned with fashion of anyone I know, but even I am annoyed with these crazy trends. I mean, Japanese women are gorgeous - they don't have to try so hard! So, in case you were wondering, the ten reasons I hate Japanese fashion:

10. Sequins. On everything.
9. Spangles. Ibid.
8. Belts that NEVER go with the outfit and are always way too oversized on these tiny Japanese women.
7. The same goes for these huge, billowy shirts that make typical Japanese women look like they are wearing potato sacks.
6. Mixing and matching of colors that isn't artsy or fashionable (think Gwen Stefani, in a red skirt and light blue shirt that somehow made sense) but just cluttered. I'm talking about black, emerald green, camel, white, light blue and dark brown - all in one outfit!
5. Cheesy, cheap looking, high-heeled boots. Now I am all for long leather boots, but these are ruffled, strappy, and straight out of "Gem and the Holograms."
4. Wearing said boots with opaque stockings. That don't match.
3. The bits of colored lace that somehow show up on everything from shirts to pants to jeans to handbags. Ugh.
2. Wearing long shorts or cut-off pants that end somewhere between two inches above the knee and five inches above the knee, often in hideous shades (emerald green, anyone), often worn with stockings that don't match, and mostly worn with LONG CHEESY BOOTS. The culmination of bad taste.
1. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny (did I mention tiny?) skirts. These things barely could be called a mini-skirt in America. They make women with lovely bodies look dumpy and cheap, and are often grotesquely mangled with said spangles and sequins (see above). Now I know you guys are thinking, hey, there's no such thing as a skirt that is too tiny! Well, yes there is: when the meat is in the freezer, it stays cool and delicious; when its left out on the counter, it gets bad quick. Now write a ten page paper on why that comment makes sense.

The Ballad of Bobby Valentine

2005-10-26T22:19:00.000+09:00

So, as some of you may remember, Bobby Valentine was the coach for the New York Mets for quite some time, through the good times (ah, the world series!) and the bad times (every season after the world series). I loved him for his oh-so-unique slouch, his really stupid-sounding voice, his cute little face, the way he never smiled until his game was won. Andd then the damn Mets fired him. It was the first misstep in a long line of missteps. But I always missed my Bobby; I wondered, where is he now, what is he doing: is he single?

Well, as I watching the fourth game of the Japanese world series tonight, in which the Marines were leading the Tigers by three games to zero, suddenly I see it...the Valentine slouch...

Insert lush instrementals here: "I've grown accustomed to your slouch/ It almost makes the day begin..."

Turns out that before the Mets, Valentine coached a Japanese team, and when he left the Mets, he came back to Japan. So, in a lovely twist of fate, I was able to watch my favorite baseball coach of all time hunch over like Quasimodo and make all the weird faces that I remember so well. The Marines won, and there was even a closeup on a solitary tear that ran down his cheek (this was their first World Series win in 31 years). Plus he made a speech! It couldn't have been much better (well, unless he took his moment in the spotlight to declare that I was his one and only inspiration).

Dinner at Tomomi's: 200 yen
The value of the gas used to drive to her house and back: 100 yen.
Seeing my adorable little Bobby Valentine: PRICELESS.

My thoughts are with him. On a side note, nudity in Kusatsu

2005-10-23T11:23:00.000+09:00

Although its still two months away, I decided to start planning this week for my 1 year anniversary with Gary. Although I will be here on our actual anniversary (December 8), we wanted to celebrate it when I got home...so, because we have a special affinity for Niagara-on-the-lake, I decided to make reservations at a lovely Bed and Breakfast there, with a fireplace and jacuzzi (the only thing not included is a five-piece ensemble to play Tchaikofsky). I am so excited - for the first time in maybe six months, we will have some time together this December to just focus on us and not worry about me leaving within the week or graduate school applications or schoolwork. I miss him so much - during the day I am busy and focused on life here, but nighttime always makes me remember just how lucky I am to be with such a wonderful person who is so perfect for me. Its never easy to be in a long distance relationship, but knowing that I will be with him for three weeks (December 15 to January 6!) is keeping me going through all the rough patches and long, lonely nights without him.

As for nudity, no it does not involve Gary (please, people, this blog is for my family, get your minds out of the gutter!). On Saturday morning, my friend Tomomi and I woke up bright and early to go to Kusatsu, the most famous onsen town in Gunma (and perhaps all of Japan). On our way there, we stopped at a beautiful valley next to the mountain road to get a look at all of the beautiful fall colors (not as vivid as they will be, but still lovely!). Unfortunately, the place where we stopped will soon be flooded by a dam to provide more water drainage for Tokyo - Tomomi said that the people who live there have been fighting the government for years for the right to save their home, but unfortunately the government (and Tokyo) won. What a suprise - a large, politically powerful city has the right to flood a beautiful mountain area just so that it can save itself some damage in case of a flood. Who'd'a thunk?

When we arrived at Kusatsu, we walked to the center of town, where the water is collected from the mountains and mixed with sulfur in these metal containers, then flows to each of the surrounding onsens.

The center of town - touristy but the whitish blue radiance of the water rushing through the city is unbelievable.

The first onsen we went to had five pools at different temperatures. You start out in the 40 degree pool (celsius, obviously) and go from there to a 46 degree pool, a 42 degree pool, etc, each for one minute. Supposably this is good for sustaining your body's equillibrium. I guess my equillibrium is none the better for trying, because there was no way I could go into the 46 and 47 degree pools - they were scorching, like dipping your legs into hot lava. After this, we went into another section of the onsen, where there was an outdoor onsen surrounded by leaves of changing colors and stones dyed green by the sulfuric water. It was so lovely - the contrast of the cool 60 something degree air with the hot, steamy water was enough to make even the prudest of prudes a self proclaimed nudist.

After this, we went to lunch at a cheap Italian restaurant (more on that later) and then went to another onsen, which was even prettier than the first and larger. It was an outdoor onsen, where onlookers could look into the male side by crossing a bridge next to the onsen. As Tomomi and I walked across the bridge (we merely did it for the purposes of edification, nothing else) we saw lines of people - old, young, male, female - walking, giggling and ogling the naked butts of some fit (and not so fit) men as they lounged about. One of the first examples of open sexuality that I have seen here, quite refreshing. After our ogle, we went to the female side of the onsen, which was truly the nicest onsen that I have ever been to - only a stone waterfall seperated you from mountains of vivid orange, red and yellow autumn leaves. Tomomi and I relaxed on a stone bed in the middle of the onsen and people-watched politely (well, as politely as you can when you are surrounded by lots of naked women). It was about as relaxing and refreshing a time as I have ever had.

While this isn't the exact onsen I went to (mine was a lot bigger and a bit nicer) it gives you an idea of how close to nature we really were

Unfortunately, after about an hour of onsening, I suddenly felt really sick and was laid up in the bathroom for about 45 minutes. Turns out that you really shouldn"t buy pizza in Kusatsu, especially at a place called the Italian Tomato Cafe, Jr. Bad idea. Bad. Horrible. Haaaa-rrrrible. Won't make that mistake again. However, I shortly recovered and spent the rest of the day scouting gifts for my parents and friends, eating chicken on a stick, and buying dried kiwi (delicious!) Tomomi and I ate a nice dinner at a little restaurant in Yoshioka called Cafe Tetto. I had honey toast, which is a block of toast with butter and honey - not exactly the healthiest meal but about as close to french toast as I will ever get in this country. We talked for hours about Yoshi, Gary and falling in love - she is really an amazing friend, so much fun to talk to. Plus, I chose a Japanese karaoke song by the 1000 something, I can't remember the name, called "Everybody hustle" and including the word "yummy" repeated over and over again. Perfect.

Today is cleaning and working on grad school apps time. Hopefully, some pics will be up soon for my rice harvesting weekend and my time in Kusatsu.

Is that maturity in your eyes, or are you just getting old?

2005-10-18T16:07:00.000+09:00

In all the ruckus and craziness of being in Japan and experiencing new types of disgusting brown Japanese vegetables and learning that "wakarimasen" is the most valuable phrase to know and adopting a kitty that is just as annoying and whiny as my kitty back home, there's one serious matter that I haven't covered in this blog. I am getting old. Haha, you laugh, you're only 25 years old, you have your whole life ahead of you, blobbity blah blah blah. But the fact, dear reader, is that I am now closer to 30 then I am to 20, and I've come to the point where I am now so apparently legal to drink that I haven't been carded in the last three to four years.

But I guess its not the physicality of age that scares me as much as the emotional changes it brings. Three years ago, I would have been happy backpacking around the world without any cares or emotional ties to weigh me down. I went from place to place, interest to interest, dream to dream, like a feather on the breath of God (Sigrid Nunez wrote that, but it seems so applicable here). And then I realized that I wanted to be a college English teacher. And then I met Gary. And then I started, slowly but surely, enjoying the feel of having an apartment of my own, a space of my own, things of my own: to come home at night and sit in the couch that was my couch, to scruff the neck of the cat that was my cat, to drive the streets that were my streets. I created my own geography, and for the first time it didn't feel limited or dull, a space to escape when the right time came. It became home.

So over the last few weeks, I have been having conversations with a lot of people - other ALTs, Nini, Gary, my parents - about how this is affecting me here in Japan. It is hard to be here knowing that in a year I will have to leave this little home I am creating out of bits of random furniture and narrow, unnamed streets and a smattering of expats from all over the world. There is a part of me that wants to start my life - the one in which I am settled down somewhere, hopefully with Gary, hopefully at a graduate school in a lovely, borgeois (yes, I admit it!) community. That part of me tends to find Japan difficult to stomach, sometimes impossible to understand, because it is not "Life," capital L - the "Life" of careers and mortgages and published books and even, down the road, marriage and children. It is something completely unique, a different kind of life altogether.

So, I guess the whole point of this perhaps long-winded blog is that sometimes I feel schizophrenic - I am here, and I am there; I am there, and I am here; maybe I am here, and I don't even have an idea of where my concept of "there" is located anymore; maybe I am there, and my understand of "here" is ultimately biased in consequence.

Either way, this blog entry will end. I've already confused you enough. But either a. I am getting more mature, or b. I am just slowly becoming more and more of a windbag. I'd put my money behind c. Both.

A new family, a new experience...and a new outlook

2005-10-16T19:41:00.000+09:00

Just got back home from the 10th Annual Rice Harvesting homestay in Tochigi prefecture (to the east of us) and it was amazing. Here's a breakdown of what happened:

Friday: Took one of my students to the prefectural speech contest (she didn't win, but she did really well, and I was able to make her laugh by gifting her with a special Debbie trophy: my empty water bottle) and left from there for Tochigi. Another ALT, Courtney, and I took the two and a half hour train ride to Ujiie, where Yassan (the Japanese organizer of the event) picked us up and took us to our homestay houses. I was dropped off at this beautiful house in real innaka (wilderness), surrounded by bamboo trees, lush greenery and tended fields. I walk in, and it is the single nicest house I have seen in Japan - the walls are of this beautiful blonde wood, and the floor has mahogany steps and beautiful lighting that is actually not florescent, the horrid lighting of choice in Japan. Turns out that I was staying with the Hirayama family, which included: Chooichi (the father), Sachiko (the mother), Takaaki (the 14 year old son), Kaori (the 10 year old daughter), Kanae (the 7 year old daughter), and Mie (Chooichi's mother). They spoke very little English, and we relied heavily on Takaaki's English/Japanese dictionary to get us through the night. My friend Gemma had stayed with them on other rice harvesting trips, and they seemed a little confused as to why she was not there - they took out her application form and showed me pictures of her with the family. I felt a little like I was imposing on them - the two girls looked at me like I was an alien, the boy treated me like an extra English assignment, and the parents seemed quite powerless in the face of my scanty knowledge of Japanese. However, the kotatsu (heating table: there is a heater underneath it where you put your legs) was warm and comfortable, the Asahi beer was cold, and my room was beautiful - a comfy futon, hand painted Japanese screens, and a small Buddhist shrine.

Saturday: Little Kanae started to warm up to me, and after a good Japanese breakfast of coleslaw, rice, cucumbers, and miso soup (which I could not eat with chopstics - the mushrooms kept slipping out of my grasp!) she held my hand as we went to the harvest. The harvest itself was short but sweet - I, about 20 other ALTs, and a lot of Japanese volunteers used scythes to cut the bottom of the rice plants in a circular motion. I hate to sound like Robert Frost, but cutting rice with a scythe was a really wonderful experience - the smell of wet grass, the feel of the scythe in my hands as the rice plants bent and then broke from the ground. Of course, for the last 30 years rice has been harvested with machines, but they teach us to do it with scythes for the experience. Then we took the bushels of rice plants that we cut and hung them on long wooden poles to dry out. My friend took pictures, and as soon as she e-mails me them, they'll be posted here.

After this, we all went into a large tent and, along with many Japanese children, painted pumpkins for Halloween. Kaori, Kanae and their friends really warmed up to me during this activity - we had a ton of fun making the ugliest pumpkin in the history of pumpkins. Then we all got together at a long table and learned how to make sushi rolls, which are really easy to make and quite delicious - rice, Japanese vegetables and fish flakes rolled in seaweed. After this, a bunch of people gathered around a woooden pit, and they began to make mochi, very glutinous rice dumplings. First, rice and water were kneaded together, and then we all took turns pounding it with a large wooden hammer - it was really difficult to do, since the hammer was heavy and easily became stuck in the mochi. My huge muscles really paid off! (insert sarcastic laugh here) Then we had a huge feast of soup, sushi rolls, sweet potato treats, rice cakes, apple pie (well, the Japanese version of apple pie) and nashi, these sweet Japanese pears brought by my host family, which farms them. I talked to a lot of great Tochigi ALTs, and one British ALT promised to make me a delicious British meal (in response to my assertion that British food was the worst I had ever tasted from any country - believe me, all travelers know this is true!) and take me around Nokki, a beautiful park in Tochigi. At the end, we received a bag of rice - and a picture of me and three friends holding our scythes was on the front of the bag! A great souvenir of a great experience.

After this, I had tea with some of the Japanese volunteers and Yassan, with whom I talked about how farming rice (and the farming community) has changed in the last thirty years. Farmers used to farm collectively - one day they would all meet up at one farm and harvest, the next day they would meet at another, and each day they'd feast together and drink together. Now, machines do it all, and while this makes the work a lot easier, it also decreases the sense of community - farmers only get together for a celebration at the end of the harvest, and there is more isolation within the farming community.

Then my host mother and I went back to the house, and there I played with Kanae and Kaori for the rest of the night. They were so much fun! When you don't speak the language, young children are so much more fun to be with than older children (who don't really like acting silly) and adults (who just want to carry on conversations with you in a language that you don't understand, which can be frustrating at times). All I had to do was make funny faces at Kanae and Kaori, tickle them, say funny words in Japanese, and teach them American card games, and suddenly I had two best friends who couldn't get enough of me. Here's just some of the fun moments we had together:

10. Teaching them to say "yummy in my tummy" and "you go girl"
9. Tickling Kaori, and, when she looked my way, pointing to Kanae and shrugging my shoulders
8. As they warmed up to me, hearing the two of them spout English at random moments - best of all was when Kanae would suddenly cry "Oh my god" and burst into laughter
7. Since the only Japanese I know can be boiled down to "watashi no tomadatchi" (my friend), we switched it up called each other "watashi no neko" (my cat), "watashi no inu" (my dog)...you get the picture. My favorite: Kanae calling me "watashi no spaghetti." That doesn't need translation.
6. Watching a Japanese TV movie with Kaori and being so enthralled in the tales of good looking Japanese youth that it didn't matter that I had no idea what they were saying.
5. Trying on funny hats in the department store.
4. Teaching them to do the Heffron dance (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this gem, lets just say that its the silliest dance I have ever seen. They, of course, loved it.)
3. Having Kaori hold my arm and look at all my birthmarks with the same sense of wonder as if they were blue with purple polka dots.
2. Walking around with two little girls hanging off my arms, my legs, my waist, anything they could get their hands on.
1. Teaching them to play "Go Fish." This was the real winner of the weekend - Kanae and Kaori loved this game so much they made me play it over and over with them, and each time they said "Go Fish" I taught them to make a fishing motion and say it in weird, silly voices. Chooichi, Sachiko, and Mie just watched us and laughed every time the girls would shout out "No 9. Go Fish!"

Being with little children was so much fun, and I felt like I taught them more English in one weekend than I have taught in the last two and a half months. Plus I learned some more Japanese just by having them teach me as we played. Children are so wonderful and loving and open - they love to touch and hug and laugh, no matter who with, no matter what race or religion. I swear, little children put all other humans to shame.

We had a huge dinner of sushi, and Yassan sent me over a bottle of homemade sake (I had mentioned that I had never drank sake, and being the sweet guy that he was, he gave me a bottle!). It was a lovely day and a lovely night - one of the best since I have been here.

Sunday: I woke up at 8:00, and my host mother had prepared me a delicious American breakfast of toast, eggs and ham - I felt a little bad, since I hope she didn't think I had not liked yesterday's Japanese breakfast, but I was glad to not have to eat sushi for breakfast like the rest of the family. Then we went to a little park with some traditional Japanese houses that were more than 150 years old - with grass roofs and old cushions made of rice plants. The proprieter there made me tea and gave me ume (this sweet and sour fruit), and then we walked up to a large park where there is a tower to get a view of the entire town (and we played on the playground, I am one mean swinger when I set my mind on it). We went to a restaurant for lunch, and then, laden with two pumpkins from Yassan, two nashi from my family, and three bags of rice with my lovely mug on them, I set back for home, tired as hell but really happy.

On a different note: as for the new outlook of said blog title - that wasn't completely from the rice harvest (I wish it was!). One of my professors e-mailed me his comments on my personal statement - and made it clear that I would have to bullshit my academic interests to make them sound "canonical" and "academia-worthy," so to speak. For example, my interests in Carson McCullers, Southern female civil rights writers, crime fiction and Lorenz Hart should be reworked as - interests in Faulkner, Southern fiction, and modernist poetry. Ah, how I love politics and bullshit. Actually, I don't, I hate them, but such is the business, and I better get ready to smile as they torture me over the burning embers of academic canonical snobbery.

Taking the good with the bad

2005-10-13T11:21:00.000+09:00

Ah, October - the cool crisp air surrounds you, the leaves turn brazen shades of red and orange right before your eyes (at least in New York they do, although I've been told that the trees in the mountains of Gunma do as well), the ever-impending doom of graduate school looms closer and closer...ok, kidding about the doom part, but unfortunately my applications and all the little things that go along with them have taken up the greater part of my week - I think I did leave the house once, and perhaps I ate a meal or two, but other than that I have been eating, drinking, and breathing the fifteen (count em!) grad schools that I am applying to. It might seem like a large number - but lets hearken back to the good old days, when I applied to seven schools and got rejected from every PhD program. Things are different now, obviously - I am even closer to 30 than I was then - but I am, as Gary calls it, "investing in my future."

However, I have promised myself that I will not completely forget where I am - no more weeklong episodes in my house, eating green tea ice cream and staring blankly at my computer screen. I had earlier made plans to go rice harvesting this weekend (in a really rural part of Japan - me do farmwork? Crazy!) and I am not getting out of it, even though that means I have to finish (aka start) my personal statement tonight, skipping taiko practice to do so. I feel like the next two months are going to be like this - me juggling lessons and friends and applications and everything else in the Japanese mix. The only good thing is that I will never not have something to do - I will always be busy, whether it's learning French (for my language exams!) or doing my damn University of Michigan application (that's more like a novel than an application - the nerve of these damn ivy schools!).

Since working here, I have DEFINITELY realized that I am not cut out to be a teacher of young students - its not that they are not intelligent, and its not that I find teaching them easy - but GOD, it bores the absolute hell out of me to teach beginner's English. Even while I know that my dad was right when he said "if you can't teach it to sixth graders, then you can't teach it to college students," at least you can talk on a relatively higher level...with some college students, that is. The funny thing is, most ALTs like me are also bored by their jobs - but for a completely reason: because they have nothing to do. My teachers are great, they give me tons of work and lessons to plan - but I almost wish they didn't, so I could spend my time reading and researching and at least doing things that interest me! Some junior high teacher I have turned out to be. Well, everyone has their strengths, and playing around with 13 year olds definitely isn't mine. I'll admit it any day: when it comes to work, give me a good adult over a kid any day!

So I probably won't get a chance to write again until after the rice harvesting is done. Till then, sayonara!

It's a girl!

2005-10-08T13:27:00.000+09:00

Ok, so some of you know that I am an absolute mush when it comes to cats. Especially brown-striped cats. So there is this stray cat that hangs out around my house, and it is so cute and sweet - but I have never had the heart to get close to it because I know that when I leave, it would be heartbreaking to leave it (especially when it is often very hard to find JETs who are here enough to take care of a cat and not gallivanting around Japan every weekend). But today I saw it, peering at me cautiously from beneath one of the cars in the parking lot, and I had enough. I sat down on the steps and called to it. It slowly pawed up to me and sniffed my fingers, then began to roll around in ecstasy as I rubbed and scratched it (for those of you who are going to remind me that its a dirty stray animal who probably has fleas - use your heart, people!).

Now I have thought about it long and hard today, and there is no way I would want to adopt it as a house cat - that's too much responsibility making sure it doesn't leave the house, plus it wouldn't be a good idea to get it used to house cat luxury when I am leaving and may have to put it back on the streets next May. So I decided that I would feed it and give it fresh water two times a day, in two bowls that are on a step quite far from my front door (so it doesn't come inside my house and make itself at home - then I'd have to adopt it for real). I went out and bought a big bag of food, and as soon as I left it outside the adorable little baby came up and wolfed that bowl up like I have never seen before. I have decided that, in my scientific expertise, she is a girl kitty, with claws and most likely unneutered (I might change that if nothing else, I would hate her to get pregnant and not be able to take care of her babies). I will feed her, give her water, and make sure she is ok - but I am not adopting her (famous last words, I know, but I really don't think I could emotionally handle having to leave yet another cat). I'll be her friend, that's all.

By the way, her name is Lily. She is so thin and delicate, it seemed like the perfect name for a perfect little kitty.

Things I never would have thought possible before tonight

2005-10-08T01:09:00.000+09:00

10. Asking Uehara sensei to dance on the table
9. Uehara sensei dancing on the floor by smacking his butt and shaking it all around
8. Uehara sensei falling asleep on the floor five minutes later
7. Realizing that all my teachers really don't speak English, except for the science teacher who said, "Shinjo!" to me and made a thumbs up sign
6. Eating oysters
5. Calling the math teacher "baka nihonjin" (stupid Japanese person) and smacking him on the head (its not mean, many Japanese people call us "baka gaijin" so I returned the favor - people at the table were in tears, they were laughing so hard. And that says a lot for Japanese people.)
4. Making fun of the lack of hair on said Japanese head
3. Getting a free lighter from some random teacher that looks like a keitai, and answering it "mooshy mooshy, debora desu" while eating cheetos
2. Drinking limon o chusho along with beer, then ending with some nice smooth whiskey...ummmm...
1. Sounding like an 80 year old man who's smoked every day of his life....I am still sick with something, so I sound like someone named Velma

Why can't I just be a house wife?

2005-10-07T17:00:00.000+09:00

So it's that time of year...time to get rejected from (oh, I mean accepted into) graduate programs all around the world! Unfortunately, while this blog is supposed to be about Japan, for the next two months my life and every free second in it will be devoted to writing personal statements, editing writing samples, gnawing on my arm to dull the pain of exoribtant application fees. I actually had to cancel one of my Japanese classes until next year so that I can devote more time to trying to convince graduate schools that "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like me." Still, I will make an attempt to keep you up on my Japanese experiences and not just the little piece of hell that is my personal statement. For your own sake.

I didn't finish my recap of last week, so I will touch on a few fun things that happened. Friday night was my enkai night - enkais are office parties where "co-workers go wild," although there's no video camera running to catch it all. This enkai was a relatively small one, just for the Gunma-Machi Board of Education (only about ten people), and we ate the most delicious food...plus, not only was the sushi savory and the corn pudding thick and rick; the presentation (how the food was laid out) was right out of a 4-star restaurant, with each plate bringing a new array of colors and textures. I'm no gourmander like my father, but it was a really beautiful meal. After my enkai, my friend Gemma and I went to sing karaoke - and let me tell you, my voice was in full form (as exhibited in a heartwarming rendition of "Rapper's Delight") - Gemma and I both share an obsession for singing (saying?) old school rap, so we touched on everyone from Salt and Pepa to Naughty by Nature to Sir Mix a Lot. Needless to say, I am a "ghetto superstar."

On Saturday I was supposed to go hiking at Mt. Tanagawa (which ended up turning into a horrid experience, most people took 12 hours to hike it because they underestimated how hard it was to climb) but instead I stayed home, slept off a tiny hangover, and watched episodes of "24" with some friends. I think I have found a new addiction to replace "Law and Order" - plus I can rent "24" right here in Japan for only 200 yen per video on Tuesdays.

On Monday, out of the blue, I got sick. Nothing serious, but a really, really bad cold - my throat is still absolutely killing me, and its been four days already. It doesn't help that Japanese medicine is about as strong as sweet tarts, so the only think I can take that will even touch it is American Advil (and when was the last time that Advil helped a sore throat?). So pretty much all week I have spent my days at work (besides Wednesday, which I had to take off because I was too sick to go to work) staring straight ahead at nothing in particular and drooling down my chin. Today is the first day I have felt pretty good, and I am still not 100%. Tonight, I am excited to announce, is my first school-wide enkai - tonight is the night all my teachers will humiliate themselves in front of me in many unmentionable ways and then take the weekend to forget it ever happened. I'm not driving - my friend Satchko is taking me so this little girl can have a couple of beers (and Japanese sake!) and forget about her mean, mean throat (and those mean, mean grad apps).

Announcement: Kathy (my best friend in the world) is home in Utica for a week or so, and we actually talked on the phone (for those of you who know her, she has been working in Africa and now in Indonesia - long phone calls haven't been possible for almost three years). Her boyfriend Haali was able to get a VISA from Gambia to come to the US, and now he is attending MVCC and succeeding in all his classes (as I always knew he would, he is a pretty amazing guy). **Note to Mom and Dad - please call the Heffrons and maybe invite Haali out to dinner or something, he is such an interesting man and I am sure that you would love him (plus its always nice when you can make indigenous friends in a foreign country - I know from experience :-) Their phone number is listed under "Howard Heffron" on Claridge Ct.

Why I want to defenestrate myself today

2005-10-03T01:19:00.000+09:00

5. Students sometimes have a very hard time thinking for themselves, at least on the middle school level. Now don't get me wrong, there are many students who are really intelligent and can think for themselves. But then there are the students who, when I explain that they have to get into 8 groups WITH a japanese translation, look at me like I have three heads. This isn't just Japanese students: I think that all students are too dependent on their teachers to make their decisions for them. It's so frustrating because the easiest task (splitting into 8 groups) takes ten minutes and becomes a huge, chaotic mess.

4. I am learning as I go. Which means I fail. Often. Now this is fine in English research - you go in a certain direction, realize that it is faulty, and find another way to approach the material. But when you fail in front of a class, you have a bunch of students and your teacher looking at you like you should know what you are doing. Which you don't. Kinda embarassing.

3. My school provides like no materials. So even when I do think of a good plan, I have a hard time carrying it out because I don't have what I need to do so.

2. I want to KILL the students who put their head down in class and, even when you pat them on the back and ask them to sit up, will just mutter "Pardon" or "I no English" out of the corner of their mouth. Or the students who just look at you dumbly when you call on them, without even a sign of recognition that you are a person talking to them and not a dog yapping at them.

1. Students don't listen to my English explanation, look at me blankly for three minutes saying "wakarunai" (I don't understand) and wait for my JTE to explain in Japanese. For every activity.

So yeah, students irritate me right now. A lot.

That said, some of them are great. There's a student who, in my last class, came up to me after class and asked if I liked Star Wars. When I said I did, she asked "Who is your favorite character?" When I said Princess Leia, she said "kawaiiiii" (cute!) and giggled. It was adorable. So I don't dislike all students, just most of them ;-)

Painting the Machi red

2005-10-01T22:53:00.000+09:00

Well it has been a crazy week, which is why I haven't written since last Sunday. However, now I have some lazy time to waste since Gary doesn't get up until late cause my Bella keeps him up all night. So, here's a recap of my life in a nutshell.

Sunday: Wallowing. Family Guy. Mini muffins. Missing you know who.

Monday: Was it jet lag that made me wake up at 5 in the morning, or a sudden spurt of energetic discipline? Yeah, it was the jet lag. I woke up early, but suprisingly did not do anything but watch Family Guy (which I was not sick of yet, suprisingly). Then comes school. Now for those fans of my blog (hi mom) you will remember that I was under the impression that I would have no work to do, because that was the situation which my predecessors faced. But somehow something changed since them, because I have so much work to do at school! I plan for about fifteen classes a week, and make all my own materials (Minami Chu doesn't even provide pens, welcome to Japan). Plus I had a speech contest (more on this later) in Misato Machi, for which three Minami students were preparing speeches in English, so I was helping them write, edit and practice their speeches all week. For dinner, I went to the chinese restaurant - which was DELICIOUS and cheap - and had a savory vegetable dish (although I have no idea what it was, the menu was - suprise - in Japanese) and a nice large glass of Asahi beer. Now I'm not sure if the beer helped me or not, but when I got home that night I went immediately to bed - do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars kind of going to bed. I was completely passed out from 8-6. I haven't gone to bed that early since I was five.

Tuesday: School, and then language lessons in Maebashi with Shizumi-sensei. Every Tuesday we meet at the kencho (the prefectural government building, and the tallest building in Maebashi, so if you get lost you just look for the kencho in the sky) and rush through Japanese vocabulary at the speed of light. Now if I spent more time studying Japanese, these classes would be a lot more helpful - I was planning on doing most of my studying at school, but that hasn't happened. So alas, I will have to settle down and designate some time as study time. All play and no work makes Debbie a happy but ignorant girl. After language lessons, my teacher organized an outing to the Garlic restaurant, a place where - can you guess? - everything is made with garlic. I had water, as the food looked delicious but cost a bit more than I could afford. However, the company was great - Kate, Abi, Hayley, all the usual suspects - and I even was gifted with a few slices of "happy" pizza, according to the menu. It had salmon, tuna, garlic and mushrooms (plus even more ingredients that I don't remember). Not exactly typical American fare, but delicious never the less.

Wednesday: If you don't want some personal Debbie details thrust in your face, skip to Thursday. If you want a hilarious yet embarassing story, read on. So on Wednesday morning I realized I had a bladder infection - believe me, I have a reason for telling this - and decided to talk to the school nurse, who speaks a bit of English. So I tell the school nurse, and the first thing she says is, "oh, you have a boku en (Japanese for bladder infection), I must tell kyoto sensei." Kyoto sensei is my vice principal, a rather mean looking man - notice I said MAN. I wanted him to know as much as I wanted to shout it out to the staff room. But she insisted, and Japanese people don't take no. So she tells kyoto sensei, and then tries to call my supervisor, Negishi-san, to have her make an appointment. Well, Negishi-san got confused about what she was asking, the nurse got confused about what I was asking, and I got confused about what was going on. So finally the nurse is like, "I need to tell the English teacher. She will translate for you." So fast forward to me, Satchko (my favorite English teacher), the nurse, and Negishi-san on the phone, all in the nurse's office trying to figure out where the heck I should go. So finally we decide on an office, but wait - the doctor doesn't speak Japanese! I call the most wonderful person in the world, Tomomi, and, embarassed as anything, ask her to come with me to the doctor's office, which she generously offers to do. So there we are, in the doctor's office, where Tomomi has to translate all the doctor's VERY PERSONAL questions to me. We tried to keep straight faces, but we ended up cracking up for most of the appointment. I mean, would you want to ask your friend where it itched? Yeah, neither would we. So finally, the appointment ended. The humiliation ended. I had some privacy again.

But wait! The next day, as I walked through the halls, every English teacher stopped me and asked me if I was ok while patting their crotches. And not only the female English teachers! I think even the judo teacher knew about Debbie-sensei's boku en. It's nice to see that I am of interest to someone.

Sidenote: last night I went to an enkai (office party) with the board of education members, and two women came up to me, asked "daijobu" (are you ok?) and patted their crotches. I now officially have no pride.

Well this is a long entry, so I will finish my recap later. Hope you enjoyed my minor humiliations :-)

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

2005-09-25T08:24:00.000+09:00

Last night I arrived in Japan after one week in the states. I went to sleep about two and woke up around eight - jet lag, anyone? It was hands down one of the best weeks of my life. I saw mom and dad, who bought me a much needed supply of underwear and bras - buying undergarments with your parents is fun! - and Velveeta mac and cheese (8 boxes in all, I am the happiest girl alive!) We stayed up late on Tuesday night, and mom got so "happy" (aka sapped up on strawberry daiquiris) that she gave the waiter a ten dollar tip. On Wednesday we went shopping and hung out for a bit - isn't it just like their daughter to make them go to Target on her vacation?? - before going to dinner at a - suprise - Italian restaurant. Because mom and dad weren't getting enough Italian food in Utica...Thursday morning we went to breakfast at Denny's, which I will advise all of you never to do - it is a greasy hellhole of fake fatty butter and processed cheese and oily potatoes, which, while lovely when I was in college, does not now hold the same place in my heart. However, the company was good, and it was wonderful seeing them. Love you guys!

I was on a very tight schedule so the only other person I saw was Jenny, for just one dinner, but baby - it was worth it. I can't even begin to say what a bad influence over me you are - and I love every minute of it. Jenny is probably the most unpredictable person on the planet, and seeing her is like eating Velveeta - no matter how often you do it, it never gets old or unappetizing. Never stop being the crazy, wonderful, googling fiend you are inside! Only we know, Jenny...

So, what was I doing the rest of my wonderful week? Spending every waking moment with Gary, and falling in love all over again. I'll just say this to the most wonderful man I have ever met:

don't worry i'll catch you
don't ever worry
your arms in mine, anytime
i wouldn't trade anything
you're still my everything

It's nice to find someone for forever.

Staying out late on a school night; or, Why ghosts don't show me love

2005-09-14T01:56:00.000+09:00

This morning I woke up at 8:15. I have to be at school at 8:20 to 8:30. Ahhhhh! I made it to school on time (don't ask how, just know that I am extremely experienced in deoderantizing, teeth brushing and dressing in just five minutes) but I blame the late morning on the late night I had last night. Last night was great - after language class, a bunch of us went out to a bar in Maebashi and just talked and talked for two hours about politics, Japan, how to get the most out of this experience: it was really lovely, and I say that without a bit of irony (although who really says lovely anymore?). Plus, I had the great privilege of paying 1000 yen, or about ten bucks, for two small cups of coffee. When the waitress told me, I felt like saying "wakarimasen" and walking out of the building right then and there. But such is life.

Anyway, more importantly, I realized today that I have neglected a very important topic in this blog: THE GHOST THAT HAUNTS MY HOUSE. And no, I do not jest, these are not the blitherings of a delusional female, just ask the very masculine, very outdoorsy Australian guy named Walt who lived in my house three years ago. Supposedly, he and his girlfriend not only heard this ghost, they felt and saw it. In fact, my predecessor Paul made the observation that perhaps the apartments next to me and below me (which have always eerily had no one in them, even though they are nice apartments) are not rented out because of this ghostly presence. Since I have not yet come face to face with my resident ghost, I decided to brainstorm as to why exactly Monsieur Ghost has been avoiding me when I specifically want to foster a loving, caring relationship with it.

10. It doesn't speak English. I don't speak Japanese. Could make for an akward first date.
9. Perhaps it is allergic to the kamikaze mosquito poison in my bedroom.
8. I like modern literature. It likes postmodern literature. We are completely incompatible,
7. It's girlfriend/boyfriend would be jealous. I mean, hanging out in another woman's bedroom in the dark? That's just not proper.
6. It is supremely offended that my sitcom of choice is The Office and not Six Feet Under.
5. I cook dinner every night. Do I ever offer it some? Do I ever think that maybe, just maybe, ghosts have appetites too?
4. It's a sexist ghost. Walt and Paul: worthwhile playmates. Deb: just a mindless bimbo.
3. Its intimidated by my beauty.
2. It's doubled over on the floor with laughter over the thought that it could be intimidated by my beauty.
1. It thinks I smell.

Oy I'm feeling Jewish...

2005-09-13T04:53:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the week of relative silence, but after four and a half weeks of pure energy, I think that my lack of sleep/new environment adjusting/pure exhaustion is catching up with me. This week I have been really tired and unenergetic, and yesterday I literally stayed in bed until 5 in the afternoon (this coming from the girl who wakes up naturally at 8:00 even on weekends). But I think that just sleeping and getting all the exhaustion out of my system paid off: last night I cleaned my entire house, head to toe, and now I feel like a million bucks. So a quick synopsis of my week:

Wednesday: I corrected Tomomi's thesis on horticulture therapy and we met to discuss it in the evening. After all she has done for me, she ordered me a pizza (I left my refrigerator open an entire day at work and had to throw away a lot of food - I hate my tiny fridge!). And gave me homegrown grapes and bread from Tokyo. I told her that for Christmas I want to buy her and Yoshi (yes, his name is not Joshi either, I swear I need to work on this Japanese pronuncation) some camping gear, and its cheaper in America, so I will probably get it in the states and bring it back. However I was really tired, so I had to leave early. At least her work is done - the thesis was due this weekend.

Why am I including a picture of yogurt? Because this is the best yogurt in the world. If I were a pagan I would set up yearly rituals to celebrate just how good this yogurt is. If I were Christian, this would be the yogurt that I received when meeting St. Peter at the pearly gates.

Japanese grapes are huge and so flavorful, a bit more bitter than American grapes but twice as juicy.

Thursday: After school I did absolutely nothing. As far as I can remember. Except talk to Gary for hours, as usual.

Friday: After doing some house shopping at Tori-Sen (the grocery store I go to - it plays the most irritating LINE (not lines, plural, but just one line) of music over and over again. I know it by heart, completely involuntarily of course. Then I met with my shiatsu teacher, Uehara Sensei, because my back was hurting more than usual and I thought he could help. However, I learned my lesson about asking people things in Japan. I called him on Friday and asked him if we could meet before I went back to America, if he had any free time. He said, sure, lets meet on Saturday. Then one hour later he calls my JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL and, with a very concerned voice, tells me he wants to meet me that night because he is very concerned about my back. Now I tried to explain to him that it was ok, it wasn't an emergency or anything, but he wouldn't listen. So that night I find out: he took NENKYU (paid time off) to come help me because he was so concerned! Yeah, I felt pretty bad about that. I had heard this happen before - Amy's supervisor missed the Maebashi fireworks to help her set up her internet, and he never told her he had plans that night - she found out from other JET teachers. I guess that this is very common in Japan: people will sacrifice their own time/happiness in order to help people out. So from now on I will make it clear that there are no deadlines, I can meet whenever Uehara Sensei wants to, and I will not even mention if my back hurts or not. Part of living here is learning how to read a person's behavior, and I got a good lesson in this on Friday night.

Saturday: This day I met up with my friends Shane and John to go to the Maebashi pool. We drove all the way to the pool and it was closed. Sigh. I had to head back without even a little cool chlorinated water to take away from the stifling heat. On the plus side, I went out to dinner with some friends in Takasaki (again, I had pizza - Japanese pizza is sooo good, very thin crust just like I love it - the only problem is that the pizzas are very small (after all, this is Japan) and the toppings are a little on the light side). Then we went to the movies and I saw "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (Japanese theatres get American movies about six months after they come out in America). Well, it definitely wasn't worth the 1200 yen I paid to see it. I love Tim Burton, but Johnny Depp was a horrible Wonka - he had no heart, rather like the movie itself - it was purely this cold, stylistic, weird movie without an ounce of humanity. Its funny how a movie like "Nightmare before Christmas" - with no people in it - can be more touching and human than a movie with an all-human cast.

After the movie, Shane, John and I had a go at "Dance Dance Revolution," this crazy arcade game where you have to dance on certain directional arrows at varying speeds. I have to say, it was kind of fun, although I kept thinking about this one class in graduate school where a student examined the philosophical, socio-cultural implications of "Dance Dance Revolution" (and no I am not kidding, for those of you who remember, it was Stefan - ah, Stefan) and so it wasn't as much mindless fun as it could have been. After this go at the arcades, we went to White Bar, where our friendly Japanese bartender Ken was wearing an afro wig and dancing to Smashmouth. Boy, gaijin bars are fun...

Sunday: I slept. And talked to Gary. Then slept some more. I did not get up and dressed until five, probably something that I have not done since college. But honestly, although it was painful to actually get up and my legs are still stiff from lying down so much, it was worth it. I woke up refreshed and with new spirit. I cleaned my entire house (I have done that before, but I never really made it immaculate - you should see some of the things I had to scrub and clean because my predecessor never cleaned them, it was rather putrid). Then last night I watched the Christmas Special of The Office, which by the way is the funniest show ever, if you have never heard of the BBC version, rent it and you will be blown away. My stomach is still not completely back on track (while I have been tired, I have also not been able to stomach much food) but other than that I am feeling refreshed and renewed. Onto another week!

And you thought I was a couch potato...

2005-09-06T21:55:00.000+09:00

Ok, so maybe I am. But here are some pictures that prove that I ain't so lazy after all.

Look at the funny gaijin in the Japanese hat, flanked, of course,
by the dog in traditional Japanese yucata...Me at the Isesaki fireworks

A bit foggy, but gorgeous nonetheless.

Me, Hanami, and Joshi (or as I, in my idiocy, once called him,
Jisho,which by the way means dictionary in Japanese)

Don't let those smiles fool you,
climbing mountains is hard work

Me and little Hanami, Tomomi's neice

So adorable...

Gone fishing...and I'm not coming back

Back to basics

2005-09-06T21:18:00.000+09:00

So my last entry was my symbolic "moment of silence" for everything going on with Katrina. But just in case you are fed up with hearing bad news and reports of anarchy and violence among the Superdome refugees, I thought I would barrage you with tales of the wonderful people here who are making my life supremely livable every day. Call me an idealist, but I truly believe that (most) people are good at heart; when they are treated like animals, herded into a place where there is no food, water or healthcare, and when they are brought up in a world of poverty besides, they may resort to animal-like behaviors; but when they are cared for and respected, most people will go out of their way to help others. After travelling in so many countries where, in the words of Blanche DuBois, I had to "rely on the kindness of strangers," I feel like this is time to share my stories.

First, my friend Tomomi, who lives close by in Maebashi. She lived in Seattle for three years, and speaks wonderful English, and is about the closest thing to a free-spirited hippie that I have found in Japan. She is currently publishing an article on horticulture therapy: how to use gardening as a therapy for the elderly. From helping me to buy a cheap ticket to the US for Christmas (only 800 dollars in total, including my bus ride to Tokyo) to helping me buy and install a device that kills the kamikaze mosquitoes that have terrorized me at night, she is a dream come true. We meet every Wednesday to study Japanese, speak in English, and just hang out. She took me camping and mountain climbing and taught me how to fish (I almost caught this huge fish, but it was so heavy that it broke the line). Plus, this weekend she went out to karaoke with me and never complained when, while singing Japanese songs, I literally sang one out of ten words because I can't read kanji. She took me to the Isesaki fireworks last weekend, which were absolutely amazing: 30,000 fireworks lit up the night sky for an entire hour, it was the most beautiful display I had ever seen. Plus, she is going to teach me how to shop for and cook Japanese food, a talent which I do not naturally have (as I cannot read kanji, see above). I'm a very lucky woman to have her as a friend.

Then there is Shizue Uehara, my shiatsu teacher. After commenting at orientation that "you have a baaaad back," he called me up last week and said he wanted to teach me shiatsu. Well, not only did he invite me and two of my friends to his house to teach us shiatsu for an hour, he allowed me to play his piano and then he and his wife took us out to a wonderful dinner at a very expensive restaurant. He wants to take us to onsen later in the fall, and told me that he will allow me to use his piano anytime I want. He and his wife were so lovely, it was a wonderful evening.

But besides the people whom I know well and who are my friends (Tomomi, Shizue-san, Negishi-san, Tomomi-sensei just to name a few), there are the random people who help me out every day, whose names I never know but who are always willing to lend a "gaijin" a helping hand. There is the random man who helped me out when I was lost in Takasaki, trying to find the station. He not only tolerated my completely broken Japanese, he got out a map and showed me exactly where I needed to go. Plus, there is the random man who, when I was lost AT Takasaki station, stopped the work that he was doing and tried to explain to me for five minutes that all I needed to do was drive straight and I'd reach Gunma-Machi. The five minutes was due to the fact that he did not speak English and I don't speak Japanese; considering this little problem, his patience was astounding. Then there are the restaurant workers who, when I have no idea what they're saying as I stop by for some Korean barbecue, will wait for ten minutes as I try to order in Japanese and then, when I think all is lost, will go in the kitchen and discuss amongst the staff how they should say certain words (and questions) in English - all without losing their friendly smiles.

For Negishi-san and Tomomi; for Shizue Uehara and Saito-sensei, an English teacher I work with who is always helping me out when I can't use the copier at school; for all these people who are willing to help out and support us stupid gaijin, they are why I wanted to live in another place, to get back in touch with why traveling is so great in the first place: for the people.

2005-09-05T19:23:00.000+09:00

I haven't written in a while. With the devestation of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, I haven't had the heart to share the small details of my life. This tragedy has affected me more than I thought possible; I still cry at every article that I read, every small tragedy that I am so far from yet feel so close to. But even in this sad time at least people can still fall in love. So wherever you are, remember that "Colleen hearts Jeff." That's a far more wonderful story than anything I can share right now.

If I could give my hands to you
so you could feel my world,
I would.

If I could give my eyes to you,
so you could see
block signs in foreign
script that I can’t read,
and know that everything
is what comes of distance
between us, in this place,
this life, this
untranslatable time,
I would.

If I could give my breath to you,
so you could push the air
around me, in and out, and in
this moment sense the
silent, still, soft lull of
night without you, with you,
always rushing, moving, lurking,
staying, here and not one year
from now where breath is
just a fragment of a dream,
I would.

I would give them, if I could,
exhale my body into yours,
so you would feel the breath
of now, of here, of everything
inside yourself.
I will give them, if I can,
if you will have them.

The funniest website ever

2005-08-31T13:44:00.000+09:00

Yes, I am being redundant. But after spending a half hour at lunch looking through this website and literally cracking up every five seconds, I can't emphasize it enough.

Go to this website if you want to see the kind of ads and signs I see on a daily basis. Believe me, its not insulting or offensive, it is hysterical and true to life.

I never realized how much fun it was to butcher the English language. But it is.

Me = not a happy camper

2005-08-30T20:33:00.000+09:00

The above title is not a reference to living or teaching in Japan - I am having so much fun here and loving every minute of meeting new people and making fun of students and trying to teach my English teacher how to say "what's up" (which, on a completely sidetracked note, I realized something about today. We were practicing it in class - I had to say "what's up" and my Japanese teacher had to make a response, and suddenly I realized - is there really a proper response to what's up besides "nothing much"? That sounds crappy and undistinguished and boring. I taught the kids to say "I'm great" but we all know that Americans don't really say that. At least they don't know the difference.)

Anywho, the title of this entry does reference the absolute frustration that I have with computers in general and internet connections in particular. Today I finally got my modem after two weeks of not having internet at home. I plugged the cables in. I set my computer up. I anxiously awaited that beautiful phrase, hotmail.com, to pop up. No go. I see that there is a CD rom to install. Ok. But wait - the CD rom is in Japanese. Quick call to Negishi-san, who (because she is the sweetest lady ever) comes over to help me install it. Again, no go, first because my computer hates me and will never do what I tell it to, secondly because Yahoo BB does not have English tech support. C'mon people, you don't think that maybe just maybe us English speakers might need some support too? Jeez, you'd think we were living in some foreign country or...

Oh wait, yeah, that is thing about Japan. Important things - like instruction manuals, health and job insurance information, tech support - are never in English. If I am dying by the side of the road and pick up my keitai to dial one last desperate call to 119 (Japan's 911), I'm out of luck because there are no English operators and they will merely say "wakarimasen" over and over again as the life bleeds out of me. Now I am not complaining - I mean, I am not in an English speaking country, that's kind of a "duh" expectation that anyone would have. The weird thing is, if you are dying no one can help you, but everywhere there are signs in English (albeit broken and often completely absurd English). For example:

The flower shop? "Flower and Shop"
The car shop? "Look Auto Shop"
The Mexican restaurant (which is definitely not Mexican as we know it)? "Too Cute"
Weirdest of all, the hair salon next to the internet cafe that I am now in? "The God Shop" with two signs that say "I have a little Gang Star" and "The origin of all fashions"

So, what can I conclude? What is the purpose of this little rant of mine? It is definitely not to say that Japanese people need to speak English - then you could put a dunce cap on my head and throw me to the tiny little Japanese schnauzers that are so popular here. All I ask for is this: please, if English is so catchy and exciting that you use it in all your ads and signs and t-shirts (see www.engrish.com for some very funny examples of this) please use it to help me use my modem! Such a small request!

I hope you are all living tech-free, modem-free, Yahoo BB-free lives. As Yoda (and everyone in Japan) would say, "Impossible to see the future is."

A job in name only

2005-08-29T11:49:00.000+09:00

So here I am at my first day of school, and it doesn't look good. So far my teachers have been nervously scurrying around, frantically trying to finish lesson plans and worksheets and panic attacks before class, and I am just sitting here looking pretty, with no idea what I should be doing. Thats the problem with my school, Minami Chu+ although my teachers seem really cool, I will have very little work to do. My predecessor told me that she actually told the principal she was bored senseless - and he nodded, wrote a memo about it, and forgot it the next day. So, in order to keep myself busy, I've decided to make a list of things I could do at school instead of work:

20. Check e-mail. Now I don't have an excuse to never get back to anyone.
19. Blog like it's my job. After all, I do have a blog fan club to appease.
18. Learn Japanese by fully immersing myself in the thousand Japanese textbooks that I now own.
17. Research modernist departments for graduate school. And cry when I get rejected from everywhere but "The School of Hard Knocks."
16. Read other random blogs of likewise bored friends.
15. Write the Great American novel with a twist - it will be written in katakana.
14. Write lyrics to sappy love songs and e-mail them to Gary.
13. Write sappy love poems and e-mail them to Antonio Banderas.
12. Google everyone that I know.
11. Read Ulysses until I actually understand what it means.
10. Write my personal statement for graduate school. It will begin: "How bleak was my puberty in Buffalo."
9. Learn how to play internet chess. Write philosophical treatise on how black and white chess pieces symbolize the increasingly multicultural experience of mid-western Americans.
8. Break down and talk to friends via AIM.
7. Learn to cook soba and udon in the teacher's kitchen.
6. Drink a lot of coffee.
5. If coffee doesn't do it, develop a crack-cocaine habit in the teacher's bathroom.
4. Talk to other teachers and exchange bad words.
3. Buy portable karaoke machine and sing bad J-pop.
2. Scratch my mosquito bites.
1. Co-write a screenplay with Gary entitled "If you thought 6th grade Math class was frustrating..."

I'm....BAAACCCKKK!

2005-08-25T02:34:00.000+09:00

Hello from the Land of the Rising Sun! No, I don't have internet yet (still one or more weeks left until that happens) but I now have access to my school's computer, and why write lesson plans when you can blog?

So I have done sooooo much in the last week or so, I have never been busier in my whole life. So, a brief summary of the life according to debbie (since last we spoke):

1. I attended language classes every day for a week. By the end of it, I wanted to rip my hair out and sing "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." On the plus side, I can say "Gunma machi ni bus ikimasu ka?" "Does this bus go to Gunma machi." Very helpful indeed as I am the poster child of Gunma's public transportation system (see 2, below).

2. I have taken every bus and train in my area at least thirty times. Ok, maybe I am exagerrating, but I have officially become an expert at getting around Gunma (although once I accidentally tried to board the Shinkansen (bullet train) with a JR (subway) ticket - the transport official was not pleased). I can also walk around Maebashi and Takasaki like its my job. That said, driving is suprisingly easy in my tiny Nissan March (it's so cute, I think I'm naming it Buddy), but I still have no clue how to get most places. Oh well, as long as I can get to the 100 yen shop and school, all is good.

3. Last weekend I went camping and mountain climbing with my friend Tomomi (who I met at Language class, she lived in America for three years and speaks great English), her husband Joshi, and her niece Honami. I forget the name of the mountain we climbed, but I will include it later - anyway, it was lovely, peaceful, and the weather held up like a champ. I have no idea how this happened, but I was like Speedy Gonzales scrambling up the mountain, way in front of everyone and feeling like a million bucks. It was the first and last time that will ever happen. Thankfully, true Debbie Goodmanness kicked in on our way down the mountain, which was a very very steep slope that I took forever to get down. Tomomi kept holding my hand and saying "daijobu" which means "are you ok?" It was kinda like me ice skating with Gary for the first time, except I was falling on mud not ice. Anyway, it was so much fun even for all the falls, and I can't wait to go again. Joshi will teach me how to ski in Winter. All I can say is, he is a brave man.

4. After a month and a half of living in a shoebox, I have fixed up my house and it is looking like a real home. The 100 yen shop was my best friend as I reconfigured my musty box into a colorful, bright and homey place for just me. However, while I invested about thirty dollars in picture frames of all sizes and shapes, I happily forgot all my pictures at home - in Utica. But if you want to look at paper pictures of cats, flowers and cute Japanese children, come on over - my house will do it for you.

5. Last Thursday I went to dinner with my friends Abi and Hayley, then Abi and I got a cup of coffee at Starbucks. On Friday I went to a Beer Garden event in Takasaki, and I met some really cool people who I hadn't met yet - I am going out to dinner with one of them next week. Last night I went out to dinner and the White Bar (if you couldn't guess, it's a bar that is all in white) with my friend Bob. The bar owner is a man named Ken who dyes his hair bleach-white blonde and serves nachos. He is obviously Japanese.

As you can see, things have been pretty crazy. But I really love it here, and people have been wonderfully friendly to me. The kindness I have found here really makes me wonder how people can be so scared of each other and hate each other throughout the world. Whenever I am down or frustrated or homesick, its the little moments that get me through the day:

When my neighbor drove me to the recycling shop and tried to teach me the complex interworkings of Japanese garbage;

When I couldn't read where the bus stop was and the bus driver waited for me to get on before he drove away;

When my JTE (assistant teacher) asked the kocho-sensei (principal) to write on Aunt Sandy and Uncle Len's wedding card because his calligraphy was beautiful;

When I forgot my wallet at home, and Joshi and Tomomi paid for my meals and camping fee even though they didn't know me well;

And finally, when, in an onsen in Shibukawa after mountain climbing, an 85-year old lady with gold teeth and sagging skin told me (through Tomomi) that even though she could not understand English, she could understand my smile, and she wanted to be my friend.　　

Walking through rice fields

2005-08-15T10:54:00.000+09:00

Today was the first day that I have felt like I belong here in Gunma-Machi. I decided to walk to Minami-chu, my junior high, since it was a little cooler than usual and a bit hazy. I set off from my house about four, and followed a path I had only seen once, from the distance of a car, resigning myself to the fact that getting lost was (and probably would be) an option. I left the main road of Rt. 25 and walked up some solitary residential streets. I passed fragrant gardens, one of which contained more than 100 potted plants of all shapes, sizes, and shades of green, brown and purple on concrete blocks of many sizes, echoing the structure of a traditional Japanese shrine. There was a constant melodic buzz of insects. I passed a black beetle dead on its back on the side of the road; I kicked it underneath the wooden gate of a brown-walled home. I turned onto a small road and found myself next to a brown, rippling lake, from which a waterfall fell into a small river surrounded by lush green foliage. A black fish sat motionless in the lake: I wasn't sure if he was dead or just resting. At the side of the river was a gazebo. There a woman and her daughter ate dinner from paper plates, and a young Japanese man talked on an orange cell phone while carrying a child on his hip. I walked up a brick bicycle path, and soon I found myself walking on the rice field roads that border Gunma-Machi. The shinkansen (bullet train) tracks loomed grey and dark in the distant white haze of twilight. I walked alone on the small road, unaccompanied except for the haphazard woman walking her dog in solitude. I passed fields of corn and ungardened brown soil, but mostly I was surrounded by lush green rice pattys that stretched as far as I could see until beyond the shinkansen tracks, where a white factory stood in the distance. I cannot describe the exact shade of green that colored the rice pattys - I have never seen its exact equivalent, a mixture of yellow, green and white light rustling back and forth in the soft nighttime wind. Dragonflys lilted through the air, dancing around the plants in a game of hide-and-seek. A farmer carrying a tube of pesticide in his white-gloved hand passed; we nodded at each other and leisurely walked on. I was home but not home. And it was wonderful.

I need a digital camera soon!

2005-08-15T02:34:00.000+09:00

Just one of the many beautiful gardens that my bedroom looks out onto.

My room! Complete with boombox, bare-bones furniture, and futon!

It's been a hard day's night

2005-08-14T13:36:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the lapse, I was at orientation in Maebashi, the capital city of Gunma prefecture and the city to which Gunma-Machi is a suburb. The interesting thing is, Gunma-Machi reminds me so much of New Hartford, the town where I grew up - there are large stores, small family-owned stores, so many restaurants (at least two Italian restaurants that I have seen, but I have a sneaking suspiscion that "Italian" here means pasta...Japanese pasta), and the dichotomy of large built up communities interspersed with quiet, serene residential communities (with the most beautiful gardens - I can't believe how amazing the gardens are here, I think that many people literally devote their lives to these small lots filled with exotic trees, flowers and plants).

So, for a summary of orientation:

Wednesday: Meetings on very official Jet things (taxes, transportation, etc.) - quite boring, even for me. However, after the orientation my friend Amy and I went to dinner at the Ite Yokado, which is a huge department store right by the Maebashi eki (station) and ate at two family restaurants on the fifth floor (we found out where they were by gesturing as if we were eating, then shrugging our shoulders. Sign language is very helpful here). I ate the best hanbugaa (hamburger) I ever had - it was so juicy and covered in mushrooms. Yes, they do eat hamburgers here. Then Amy and I split this desert that was like a chocolate mouse with cream and - weirdly enough - some kind of cracker that tasted like cocoa krispies. Delicious!

After dinner, I went to my first onsen. Onsens are pretty much my version of heaven. They are traditional Japanese spas where you bathe naked in very hot water, and its kind of like a hot tub except with a much more natural feel. Gunma is famous for its onsens, especially ones situated in a mountain which actually use pure spring water and often times are outdoors - these are very popular in the freezing cold winters here, where you can be outside in the snowy peaks of Mount Haruna (a famous mountain about an hour away from me) and yet naked in the bubbly hot depths of an onsen spa. The Maebashi onsen is very metropolitan - its actually just hot water pumped in to a pool rather than a spring itself, and its digs are reminscient of any nice gym in New York City. Still, you can't beat a dip in the onsen plus fifty minutes of wonderful Japanese massage technology (the massage chair and one for your feet - I was in heaven!), all for only something like 1100 yen (11 dollars). Funny Deb story - so the day after I go to this onsen, I went to an onsen etiquette meeting and found out all the things you should not do at an onsen, all of which I (aka stupid American) did. Not wash completely before going into the onsen? Check. Put your hair in the water? Check. Wear jewelry in the water? Check. Yup, still getting used to this whole Japan thing, slowly but surely.

The onsen I went to, except I went at night and was able to sit outside and feel the light night air. A reminder of midnight bucket baths in Africa.

The more traditional Japanese onsen, which is usually completely outdoors and is built on a mountain spring. I will definitely go to one of these before I leave!

Thursday: More meetings on actual teaching techniques, then an enkai with all the Jets and the Gunma big-wigs. Enkais are these after-work parties that you go to with your co-workers every few weeks or so where the Japanese workers usually get (not to be crude, but this is the only right word) shitfaced. For example: the head of the Education Committee started his end-of-enkai speech by jumping up onto the platform and proclaiming "I'm drunk." College-me would have fit right in. After this, we all went to karaoke, where I had a great time with fellow Gunma-ites and made some new friends with people that live close to me.

Friday: Today we had cultural meetings to become aquainted with Japanese culture, such as Japanese dancing, karate, enkais, etc. I went to three workshops: "enkais and social etiquette," in which we talked about the amazingly strict and numerous rituals that surround the enkai, onsen, and Japanese weddings and funerals. The most interesting rituals were concerning weddings, at which you must give clean, crisp money (and not an even number of bills, because they can be torn in two (divorce)- you must give an odd number) in a specific envelope, with writing on it in a new, fresh pen. In contrast, at a funeral you must give old, crinkled money in a specific envelope, with writing on it in a dying, watery pen. I absolutely adore the use of symbolism so rampant within Japanese culture: everything means something else means something else (although practically that means that you never really know what someone is saying).

After that workshop, I went to a shiatsu (a type of Japanese massage) workshop, in which we learned shiatsu pressure points and practiced on each other. High point: the teacher was demonstrating something on me and suddenly gave me this concerned look and said "you have bad back." Seems like some things never change. Needless to say, I gave him my number so that I can free shiatsu massage in exchange for teaching him English. And don't worry, no ulterior motives here - he is infamous for being a wonderful teacher in the Jet community, and usually works with his wife right besides him. Finally I went to a Japanese pop culture workshop. Needless to say, I went to this workshop because I know I will never listen to the horrible boy bands that are popular here, so I need some kind of education before I face a classroom of 13 year old boys and girls. What I learned? There are bands that are literally like gods here: the most infamous one is named SMAP, and all the guys in it are on TV, comedy shows, and movies as well as on very bad albums (see the picture to the left). They have been popular for like 10 years already, and are pretty much a staple of Japanese life; the downside is they can't sing. Gotta love Japanese pop culture.

So that was my whirlwind three days. Today I cleaned and walked around my neigborhood. I stopped of at a small electronic store nearby, and the proprieter sat me down, gave me a hard candy and some green tea, and called his son (a teacher) who asked me in English what I wanted to buy. I somehow was able to communicate that I was only looking (this is where Japanese would come in handy) and the woman working there gave me two ears of corn as a gift. One of my first meetings with my neighbors, and a very nice one at that. The only bad thing today was that I (as usual) have been missing Gary. Long-distance relationships are very hard, and there are some moments where I am a watery-eyed, nose-running fool crying into my futon. I know that living here is a wonderful thing for me to do, but a part of my heart will always be with him, waiting for me to come home and reclaim it.

Lesson in Life #124543 - Do not buy a car before seeing the roads you will drive it on

2005-08-09T06:57:00.000+09:00

So as many of you know, before I came here I made a deal to buy this really nice station wagon from my predecessor - it looked like a great buy, nice and new and good for travelling. Then I got to Japan, and suddenly it wasn't such a great deal. The roads here are so small, and I, being the wonderful nervous Jew that I am, suddenly had panic attacks every time I thought about trying to not crash in to the walls surrounding my community streets. So yesterday I found someone to take it from my pred, and the anxiety finally began to fall away - now i COULD LEASE A CAR and not have to worry about if it broke down or had shaken (this huge car tax they make you pay every two years - because of this, any car that's ten years or older is worth about 0 dollars) or anything. Then that fell through, and I had to spend all day - when I was sick with a cold - trying to find someone to take the car. But thankfully I think I found someone, and life is good. So let's cross our fingers. I would hate to go back on a deal and leave my predecessor (however much he sucks) with a car to get rid of in his last week. However, I realize that guilt is not a good reason to buy a car. So let's hope.

For Cousin Jen

2005-08-08T08:17:00.000+09:00

In Japan, there is a very famous legend that has become popular the world over. It goes a little something like this:

__________
(From the website: http://www.geocities.com/Rachel_Katz/origami/origami.HTM#crane)

Perhaps the most well known origami model is the crane. It has become the international symbol of peace. In Japan every child eventually learns to make the crane. Eleanor Coerr is credited with popularizing the crane with her book, "Sadako and 1,000 Paper Cranes." This book, which is widely available, tells the story of a young girl who was exposed to the radiation from the atomic bomb that the U.S., dropped which helped to end World War Two. Several years later she develops leukemia. Her friend visits her in the hospital with an origami crane. She tells Sakako that the crane is a symbol of health and that if Sadako can make 1,000 cranes she will be well. Her friend proceeds to teach her to make the crane: it isn't easy but when Sadako masters it, she begins her quest to make 999 more. She is resolved to be brave and making the cranes takes her mind off her illness. As she attracts the attention of the hospital staff and other visitors, they provide her with x-ray foil wrappers, magazines and other papers for her project. As other patients show interest, she stops folding and teaches them to make the cranes too.

Learning that her illness came as a result of war, Sadako spreads her message of peace as she folds her cranes. Soon she has folded hundreds of cranes. Her health improves and she is allowed to come home. But, when her illness returns and her strength weakens, sadly, she isn't able to complete her project. When her classmates realize that she had not been able to complete her dream they all decide to learn how to fold the crane. Soon the 1,000 cranes are complete.

The children decide to write to other children all over Japan to tell them of the story of Sadako and ask them to contribute money for a monument in her name to spread her message of peace. When the Japanese government learns of this plan they decide to rename a park in Hiroshima "Peace Park." There they erect a huge statue with a replica of Sakako holding up a giant crane. Her classmates were given the honor of deciding what to write on the base of the statue. This is what they chose:

This is our cry
This is our prayer
Peace in the world

__________

This story is about war and peace, but I've always thought that its also about hope and friendship. Hope, because Sadako never gave up on her goal of making 1000 paper cranes and living a long, wonderful life. Friendship, because if it were not for the friends, family members, and kind strangers who were touched by her story, the 1000 cranes would never have been completed and the story would not have been passed on. Cousin Jen - you have touched so many people in your life. Although our wishes for good health may not be in the form of a paper crane, they are in the form of love, prayers and good wishes. Feel better, and I promise to make a crane just for you.

Kampai!

2005-08-08T04:04:00.000+09:00

When Japanese people are drinking, they say "kampai" instead of cheers. Usually accompanied by much drunken revelry and sloshing of liquor all over everyone, this is one Japanese custom that American people seem to love.

So on Friday afternoon, I made my way by bus to Takasaki. The bus drivers here are so nice, even though I am sure they cannot understand a word I say since the only Japanese I speak without a thick American accent is "arigato gozaimasu" (thank you). I had told my supervisor I was going to Takasaki that morning, and the sweetheart that he is, he went to the bus station and copied down the entire schedule for me at every hour. It's nice to have help when you are clueless.

Once in Takasaki, I realized that fact #1: I had forgotten my directions to the beer garden where we were all meeting that night (the ones that I had printed out and left on my desk at school, wisely enough) and fact #2: there were no gaijin in sight. Where should I go, what should I do? Go to the information booth, of course. The woman at information actually spoke only a very small amount of English, but when I used my electronic dictionary to show her the sentance, "when it is hot in the summer, i slake my thirst at the beer garden" (in English for me and Japanese for her) that very small amount of English conveyed to me that there were in fact two beer gardens, only a block away from each other. So which one was I supposed to go to? I went up the elevator to one: no one was there. I crossed the street to the other: no one was there. Debacle! Finally, when I was about to lose all hope, I caught the eye of the person whom every traveler wants to see when they are lost in Japan: a red-haired, pale-skinned, green-eyed gaijin English speaker! With the help of this wonderful Irishman, I not only figured out which beer garden to go to, but I was treated to fifteen minutes of a thick Irish brogue and the harsh tale of his recent divorce from a Japanese shrew.

The beer garden celebration was on the roof of a large Takaski hotel, and for a measly fee of 2000 yen you are given a plate, which you can load up with as much fried fish and veggies (and french fries, very gaijin-friendly) as you can, and a beer mug for all-you-can-drink alcoholic beverages. I met up again with some great people from orientation, and had a wonderful time schmoozing with other wide-eyed and bushy-taled newbies seeking to regale everyone with tales of their own Japanese culture shock. Interestingly enough, I really get on best with a British married couple (Kate and Ossian) and an American mormon named Curt whose wife is coming up in two weeks. I'm no old married lady yet, but it is nice to be amongst people whose relationship reminds me of the wonderful man I have at home. Also, since it is very very challenging for gaijin girls to pick up dates in Japan (supposedly it is not very culturally acceptable for Japanese men to date white women even though it is more than acceptable for Japanese women to date white men), and since some of my friends here have been unhappily single for a year or more, its best to save the "Gary is so wonderful. Did I tell you how wonderful he is? Gary is just wonderful" comments for those friends who are actually getting some and won't take a chopstick to my heart. After the Takasaki beer garden ended, some of us took the train to Maebashi, where we did two hours of karaoke. After a rendition of Billy Joel's "Piano Man," I came to the conlusion that perhaps I should stick to singers who actually have no vocal range (and who are preferably women). Note to self.

Yesterday I woke up at 12:30 and, with my friend Jocelyn, watched about four episodes of Sex in the City, season 3 (the one where she meets Aidan, cheats on him with Big - oh, such drama). Then a bunch of us took the train to Kiryu Matsuri, a summer festival in the town of Kiryu, which is about forty minutes from Maebashi station (but the trains are so cheap, the ticket was only five dollars!). As we walked down the main street of the festival, we saw many woman in traditional yukata gowns (which are lighter and cheaper versions of kimonos, most popular in the summer and in so many beautiful colors) strolling down the street with their completely contemporary, punk boyfriends. Quite a juxtaposition if I ever saw one.

Down the streets there were street performers (dancing children in traditional "matsuri," or festival, outfits) doing traditional dances with either umbrellas or these paper-flower discs. Kate said she would e-mail me some pictures, and as soon as I can I will post them up on this website. However the best part of the festival was...the food! Yakatori chicken (this really yummy terikayi-brushed meat on a stick)! Chocolate covered bananas! Crushed ice with syrup! Octopus balls (no they are not balls in the gross sense, they are battered balls with octupus meat inside - and I didn't particularly love them)! Jaga bata (really soft potatoes with so much butter, they are a heart attack waiting to happen)! For a really good (and much more educated) discussion of matsuri food, check out this website - http://www.greggman.com/japan/matsuri/matsuri.htm/ - he seems to know a lot about food, truly a man after my own heart. Check out this picture of the Kiryu matsuri (from the Gunma prefecture website):

In the middle of the streets were large, white-and-red paper lanterned towers like this one, in which children sang and played instruments, while both children and adults danced in the streets.

After the festival, Kate and Ossian and I went back to Maebashi for some coffee and good conversation at "Mister Donut" (which, amazingly enough - because its Japan - also sells noodles and curry). This morning I took the bus back to the yakuba and rode my bike home. After a busy weekend, its nice to relax and have a lazy day!

Nihongo of the weekend:

Wakarimasen.

I don't understand.

Pat on my back

2005-08-06T06:00:00.000+09:00

I think I FINALLY learned how to bike here!!! I have been trying so hard - every day I get on that bike and get frustrated and swear and get all sweaty and hate biking more than Dubya, which says a lot. But I keep trying no matter how much I fall, and today I biked practically the whole way to the yakuba and back. It sounds so stupid, I know (I mean, riding a bike isn't a big deal), but I feel really proud of myself that I didn't give up, because let me tell you, not being able to bike correctly in a land of bikers is pretty damn embarassing and I put up with a lot to be able to write this now. So - yay! Maybe someday soon I can learn how to ride to Takasaki (which is about 9 km a way) but first I'll perfect riding around G-M. As Bob would say - "baby steps."

Air conditioning!

2005-08-04T07:57:00.000+09:00

I finally learned how to use my air conditioner remote by checking out what the kanji meant in my survival guide. Turns out that, like the laundry machine, random buttons are more than just musical beeps and tweets - things happen when you press them! So from now on I will be actually air conditioning my house rather than what I have been doing for the past two weeks - dehumidifying it.

Top Ten Reasons why Japan is not "Asia-Disney"

2005-08-04T05:28:00.000+09:00

Although I do arguably enjoy the comforts of home here in Japan, such as modern appliances and cell phones, I never forget that this is not America. It may not be as different from America as Africa, but even in the little details everything is somehow not the same.

10. In America, you dial 911 for an emergency. Here, you dial 119.

9. Yesterday I went to an indoor water park where the burning of trash generated a wave pool for the kids. Pretty cool. Now I was told by my townmate, Heather (who is great by the way, a lot of fun) that Japanese technology is so advanced because they have so little room geographically - they have to be flexible, adaptive and creative in a way that Americans don't have to be. I mean, after all, Americans will just buy a microwave, an oven, a broiler and a grill, but Japanese kitchens are so small that Japanese families need these things all-in-one. Makes you look at technology a whole different way - whereas in America advances are mostly to make life easier, here its a necessity.

8. When conversing with someone, the polite response in America would be to wait quietly until the person is finished talking, then ackowledge what they have said. In Japan, the polite response is to say "Hai" (yes) or "Uh" (I have no idea, I assume it means yes) over and over again until the person finishes. So in my office, when I pay attention to a conversation, I hear the following: "haihaihaihaihaihaihaihaihaihaihaihai...etc.etc.etc." constantly. What's worse is when they use "uh," and it sounds like this guttural sexual moaning over and over again. Try not laughing. It is very difficult.

7. Ever had red bean ice cream? Come to Japan - they have it (as well as blue cheese ice cream and green tea ice cream). Actually, the green tea ice cream is soooo good - as well as these amazing, wonderful petite bits from the Bourbon Company - they are a combination of dark chocolate and green tea-flavored chocolate. the only reason I ate the entire package in one setting was because they were melting in the heat. I swear. Really...

6. Candy and cookies (and actually most foods in Japan) are packaged in very small, tiny wrappers or containers, mostly with tiny little animated characters on them, see 5 below. Every day at lunchtime or in the late morning someone in the office passes around a little cookie or cake. Either this is just a part of the office etiquette, or they are someone's omiyage (omiyage are traditional gifts, kind of like souvenirs. In Japan, when you go someplace, on vacation or even on business, you are supposed to bring back a little something for everyone in the workplace, like a cookie or piece of candy. This integrates your workplace into your private life).

5. I have never seen a working Japanese man in anything but a button-down shirt, tie, slacks and nice shoes. Never ever. Women, on the other hand, can get away with wearing much more casual clothing. I have come to the right country.

6. When something like a piece of furniture or an appliance is more than about two or three years old, most middle-class Japanese families will discard it and buy a new one. Japan is a serious commodity culture, and everyone wants to have the newest and best, be it in Tokyo or in little inaka villages. Works for me - it means that the second-hand stores are wonderful resources for getting really good, new furniture at great prices.

This aptly-named store is a gem of a second-hand shop, the source for my new 600 yen (6 dollar) bookcase. This is a different Hard-Off than the one in Gunma, but you get the picture.

5. Everything here is imprinted with 1. weird, kiddie japanimation or 2. the combination of "lucky" with any word, e.g. "lucky water" or "lucky radio." If you ever want to get into some really weird stuff, look at the obsession with Hello Kitty in Japan. They even have Hello Kitty brand CDs - and believe me, the target audience is not just kids.

4. Only in Japan, the land of no deoderant, would you have a bottled water named "Pocari Sweat." Dirty, smelly sweat. Mmm, mmm, good.

3. Japanese forms are made legal by putting your hanko (signature) on it. But this isn't any Western kind of signature. Hanko is a small stamp that legally represents you rather than a written signature of your name. So my hanko is a small red circular stamp that says, in katakana, DEBORA.

2. One piece of information that I never wanted to know, but Heather told me. So now you will suffer as well. There are some vending machines throughout Japan where you can buy used girl's underwear. If Americans had this, Porky's and Animal House would have been completely different movies.

1. Japanese roads are rarely marked with signs, and when they are they are usually numbered signs or in barely readable kanji. Because of this, most Japanese people have satellite direction systems in their car to tell them "turn right, turn left, etc. etc." The languages that these systems come in? Japanese and...German. Because a lot of Germans are in Japan. I swear. (This last tidbit is courtesy of Heather, my resident expert on the J-way of life.)

So hope you enjoyed my little list. Soon I will get a digital camera and no more downloading random pics of the internet.

Whoever said "It's as easy as riding a bike" should be shot

2005-08-03T13:16:00.000+09:00

So, as many of you know, I am not exactly the most athletic person in the world. I have two left feet and the balance of a two year old just learning to walk. So of course I move to a country where everyone bikes everywhere. Now it's not that I don't know how to bike - I finally learned at 12 years of age (note: no thanks to my dad and his lack of patience!) but then ended at 14 years of age, when I realized I could get my parents to drive me everywhere. My problem now is that I cannot bike in a straight narrow line - I keep weaving and then weaving again to compensate for the first weaving...and so on and so on. As I have said before, roads here are tiny, and bike paths are almost nonexistant (about the size of your fingertips to your elbow) so unless I stop weaving on my bike I will die. Really.

The ever famous Japanese "granny bike," mine is black and about as old as Grandma Doris

So yesterday I started out for work an hour early armed with my bike in one hand and wrong directions in another. I could easily ride the small roads in my neighborhood, but once I got onto Mitsudera Rd, which is very busy, the panic set in. I will illustrate with the following scene:

Deb: (walking bike, dying in early morning humid heat) The bike would be so much cooler... (getting on bike, steely eyes directed in front of her, resolve set) I will ride to the yakuba, I will not fall down. (Puts foot on pedal. Bike veers towards huge monster truck in road. Deb falls down.)

Repeat three hundred times. Pan left on all the Japanese people in passing cars looking at Deb, laughing hysterically, and thinking "stupid gaijin" (gaijin, by the way, is the blanket word for foreigner/other in Japan).

I thought I was getting better last night, but alas, this morning I was once again a no-balance idiot. So anyone have any suggestions? I am slowly becoming the laughinstock of my town. I'm thinking of blaming it on an old knee injury. Or my VERY VERY SORE butt.

Anyway, yesterday I met my townmate, Heather, who is a third-year JET and a pretty fluent Japanese speaker. She seems really nice, and tomorrow we are going to a Japanese water park to celebrate her birthday. It supposedly has a wave pool generated by the daily incernation of Japanese trash. Yum. I also talked to one of my English teachers yesterday, and while she hasn't learned how to speak English in the last two days, she was a lot more "genki" (this Japanese word Jets use a lot, it means excited and ambitious and pumped up) about my presence in her classroom.

Anyone know how to download movies off the internet? Supposedly I have a really fast connection and it takes like 20 minutes, but I am technologically impaired.

Nihongo of the day

Watashi wa Amerika-jin.

I am American.

Why I should really learn Japanese

2005-08-01T22:55:00.000+09:00

So last night I was doing laundry and everything was going relatively smoothly considering that all the directions on the machine are written in kanji, this really hard pictograph-type Japanese alphabet that even Japanese people have a hard time with. So I go to take my clothes out, and the water is still inside the machine. Debacle! If I run the machine again, it will flood my house. If I don't run it, I will have to wait to have clean clothes for another few days. Solution: Press as many buttons as possible in one minute? No, although it does create a nice sound, as each button corresponds with a musical note and thus pressing each button gives you "Doe-a-deer" in laundry beeps. Move clothes out of water and drip them across your nice clean sheets to hang outside? While I did this, it probably wasn't the best move for my sheets. Figure out which kanji means "dehydration" from my "Kanji Survival Guide"? Yup! Finally, I conquered the obstinate kanji. I was soaked, tired, and full of hatred towards Japanese laundry machines, but I succeeded in the end.

Eating chicken nuggets with chopsticks

2005-08-01T10:38:00.000+09:00

The above = what I am doing right now. Now don't get in a huff and lecture me on the fact that I am not in Japan to eat chicken nuggets (which taste different than American ones, by the way, although how that is possible I don't even want to know). I actually have been living off of cheap, processed American food when I don't go out to eat, since I am pretty much broke and not getting paid until August. But I have to say, even cheap processed food here tastes better than in the states.

As I write this, thunder is booming outside, and the sky is a dark haze. Typical Gunma night-time weather thanks to the tremendous humidity. Last night I was able to get in contact with some other Jets in the neighboring city of Maebashi, and another Gunma-Machi Jet (Eric, this older guy with a great family who has just been really helpful to me) drove me there. We went to an Indian restaurant, where I had some paneer nan and asahi beer (a good Japanese brand that tastes like Labatts). Then we went to a karaoke bar. Now for those of you who have never been to Japan and have never seen the Japanese karaoke bar in Lost in Translation, karaoke in Japan is like going to the mall for suburban Americans: it is THE thing to do and THE place to see and be seen. In America, karaoke is when you get up on stage in front of an entire bar of strangers and sing cheesy love songs. In Japan, karaoke bars are much different. They give your group a small room that is pretty much one large booth with a table in the center, and you all sing karaoke together (though there are two microphones for the courageous). The TV that shows the English lyrics (and yes they are in English, we're not fluent in Japanese yet) also shows these absolutely meaningless videos of random footage, i.e. you're singing Madonna's "Material Girl" and watching footage of the Eiffel tower and Americans skating in California interspersed with clips of moody Asian girls pouting and looking deeply into the camera. Quite surreal but oh so Japanese. Did I mention that all the liquor you can drink is included in the 1000 yen (10 dollar) charge per hour? So a fun time was had by all last night, and I sang Green Day's "Basketcase" so loud my ears popped.

Kind of like the bar I went to, except mine was a bit more upscale

Then I hung out with some very cool Jets, Andrea and Jocelyn, and headed to bed about 1 or 2. Jocelyn has all the Sex and the City seasons, so we are going to have a Sex and the City girl's night. Very exciting.

However, because I am still off-schedule, I still woke up about 9, and finished reading Double Indemnity (good book, the ending was far better than the movie ending). At about 12, I went swimming with some other Jets at a Maebashi public pool and got home about 5. Which leaves me here, eating chicken nuggets with chopsticks and drinking orange juice out of the carton. Once I finish unpacking, I am going to watch "Whale Rider" and go to sleep. Oh, good news: I just snagged myself a weekly 6000 yen (about 60 dollar) private lesson with these three older ladies in Takasaki. They like to talk about the news. I guess I can't sound like an idiot anymore.

Nihongo of the day:

Velveeta Mac and Cheese koreo kudasai.

I want Velveeta Mac and Cheese.

Rise and shine, America!

2005-07-31T00:26:00.000+09:00

So it's about 7:36 in the morning, as I have been waking up amazingly early for some weird reason here, I think its because of the roosters and the blinding sun but maybe I'll get used to that. Just to give you an idea of time, its about 6:36 at night in America. Gotta love that time difference.

So yesterday was another really good day. First, Negishi-san took me to Takasaki to get some important form for buying a car, then we went to Yamada, a great electronics store that is insanely hectic and usually very busy (although Negishi-san told me that it usually was more busy than when we were there). So I bought an electronic dictionary, which probably won't be amazingly helpful for pronunciation as it does not include that, but it should be helpful for when I am talking to a Japanese person and don't know how to say something. I just type the word in, get the meaning in Japanese, and show them what I am trying to say. It was expensive, but I think it should be pretty helpful. I bought it with a credit card, and that was a half-hour ordeal in itself, but now things should be fine.

Sidenote - there are a lot of mosquitoes in my apartment! I am itchy! Ahhhhhh!

Back to my day - so Negishi-san went over to these massage chairs in Yamada and sat down in one of them. She told me to do the same. Twenty minutes of heaven. These chairs didn't just massage your back (and massage seems such an inferior word for the pulsating, kneading and rubbing this chair did), it massaged your legs and feet by squeezing them in little cuffs, bringing them up and down, and pretty much making you feel like a million bucks. For those of you who could use this, they were called Family Medical Chairs - very expensive (214800 yen, about 2148 dollars) but sooooo worth it.

Then Negishi-san and I went to a secondhand store called Hard-off (I am not kidding) and I bought a bookcase for 600 yen (about 6 dollars), and we ate sushi at this great restaurant next door. We sat at a booth there, and there was a revolving sushi counter - I had tuna and salmon and seafood salad (so good) and shrimp (not so good).

Not exactly like the restaurant I went to, but close

Then we went to her house, where her father (who works with plants, like many of the Japanese people I have seen here - you should see the gardens!) gave me a miniature rose and an azalia. So lovely, and I got to see his roosters, which were actually really beautiful as compared to American roosters.

So then more time at the yakuba boning up on English, then back home for some laid-back time watching Indiana Jones and doing some sewing. Hopefully tonight will be a bit more exciting - I should be going out with people in Takasaki. At a beer garden! Yay!

I have a new boyfriend...the 100 yen store

2005-07-29T12:11:00.000+09:00

So let me introduce you to this wonderful invention: the 100 yen store. Now 100 yen is about a dollar, but the only thing the 100 yen shares with the dollar store is the name. 100 yen stores actually have nice things - decorations, dishes, everything you could think of - for pretty good quality. I went on a spending spree today at the 100 yen store, Don Quixote (this insane and completely capitalistic monstrosity that is the store equivalent of Japanese television), and a small store that completely reminded me of TJ Maxx. Gone are the days when I thought Japanese was some kind of exotic, ancient country: nope, it's just as materialistic as America, and the only difference between Japanese stores and Walmart/Kmart/Target are the names.

Today I had a really great day. I didn't have an alarm clock, so my predecessor told me to sleep by the window so that the roosters would wake me up in the morning. I did, and I woke up at about 5 to spend my morning listening to the Pachabel canon while cleaning the apartment and getting things in order. Then Negishi-san picked me up, and after an attack of "Debbie idiocy" (we had to keep going back to my apt. because I kept forgetting things) I paid my rent, opened a bank account, and signed up for an alien registration card. We had to wait a long time for my card, and the whole time I was talking with Negishi-san about her life, her thoughts, her family, etc. It was such a wonderful language exchange, exactly what I have come here to do. I know that Negishi-san is not a typical person - she is just such a wonderful lady, I can't begin to tell you - but I have a feeling that a lot of people are nice, they just are completely insecure in their English and scared to talk to the gaijin (foreigner). It's not going to be shiny happy Japan for the next year, but I really think that the high parts will match up the low parts.

Negishi-san and I went to lunch at an Udon noodle place, and it was delicious. I had kitsunei udon, noodles with tofu tempura (how excited am I that I am in the land of tofu!), which was noddles in a salty broth, covered by thin slices of tofu tempura. Wow, so good. Plus, I had some cucumbers and sesame sauce. I don't have much money, but I thought that it was worth it to have such a long time to chat with Negishi-san - I had such a great day with her, we talked the whole time.

Then I went to my office at the yakuba (Board of Education) and the fun ended. I had nothing to do (I forgot to ask if we would be going to work today so I could bring some Japanese books to study). So I checked internet and went online for about 2 and a half hours. Oh well, I should see this coming a mile away. Then we went shopping all around Gunma-Machi and Maebashi. What did I buy? Cleaning supplies! I have made a promise to myself that when I turn the apt. over to my pred, it will be beautiful - having this to clean up when I first get here is amazingly irritating. I will only charge a fraction of what I will pay, and this apt. is going to be the bee's knees.

So now I am at home. It is HOT - I am laying on my futon (not a bed, much thiner and harder and right on the floor, but I find it more supportive on my back than a bed in some ways). My air conditioner is weird - I can hardly feel the cold air. Oh well. I think I shall take a nap and relax. I deserve it:-)

A challenging first day

2005-07-28T22:37:00.000+09:00

So yesterday was my introduction to Gunma-Machi, my home for the next year. It wasn't what I expected at all, but at least now I have stories to tell my kids.

So my supervisor (a sweet lady named Yoko Negishi) - actually, she isn't my supervisor, some guy is, but she's the one who mostly will help me - picked me up yesterday and took me to Gunma-Machi. The main differences that I have found from America are that buildings in Japan are very thin and often have little depth, mostly because of the land crunch here, and every available plot of land seems to house a rice patty. Oh, and the roads in Japan are the TINIEST roads ever - there was a two-way street that was the size of an American driveway, with no road markings. And I own a huge Honda station wagon that I bought off of my predecessor. Scary.

When I arrived at my school, which looks very trim and clean and has a tile mural of horses on the side (I will ask why when I see her today), I was introduced to people in my office and shown my desk. Most people were very friendly, although the level of English even amongst the English teachers was incredibly low. However, many other JETS have told me that once I go to an enkai, which is a bi-monthly work party where every one drinks a lot and loses their reserve, their English would suddenly appear out of the blue. I guess that many Japanese people are shy to use their English (and language in general - my predecessor told me that its common to have people here who don't speak at all yet get along very well in the world).

Then I went to take money out of the ATM. Beware: as I have learned, VISA, Mastercard, and any other credit forms are NOT COMMONLY USED in Japan except for Tokyo. It's a cash economy here, which is why I am praying praying praying that I can withdraw some much needed money today (I was only able to get 50000 yen yesterday, and that was at the post office after successive failures at the bank). I'm so used to swiping my card everywhere, so this is a bit different.

After that, I went to my house. Now I was expecting to see a nice clean apartment, but what I found was a nice, pretty, but incredibly dirty and unkempt house, thanks to my predecessor who looked like he had just started packing that day. Clothes were all over the floor and there was little furniture to be found. Then, I was introduced to my new car - which is HUGE, a little van almost - and was left to ponder what it will be like to drive that thing on tiny Japanese roads. In fact, at one point yesterday, I was beginning to question if I could make it here - it seemed like there were so many new things to take in and get used to, and for a moment I just wanted to go home. But every traveler has moments like those - I had many in Africa and Europe, so I know the drill. Obstacles are actually challenges, and challenges are actually amazing opportunities and the mode for conquering your fears. Who would have thought that little old me, who is scared of most cars and roads in America, would be driving around Japan on the left side of the road? But I did. And I will. Sometimes the best way to stop being afraid is to do what makes you afraid - if you keep running away, you'll never conquer anything but your own capacity to experience the world.

So I am feeling better and more relaxed. I will do some yoga this morning, then go out with Negishi-san (Mrs. Negishi, for those who don't know Japanese) to get some more stuff for the apt. and learn some sense of direction. I have heard that my job won't be as challenging as I had hoped - in fact, I might only teach ten classes a day, for the Gunma-Machi teachers tend to underutilize JETS, and because of this the two people before me only stayed for a year. However, this gives me time to learn Japanese, read, research jobs, and research possible weekend trips (with my big station wagon, I have to take advantage of it!). I'll try my damndest to reach the teachers and students, and whatever happens I will make the most out of this experience.

Nihongo (Japanese) of the day (I'm keeping it simple at first):

Ohayou gozaimasu. Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Debbie desu. Douzo yorushko.

Good morning. How are you? My name is Debbie. Pleased to meet you.

Konnichiwa!

2005-07-26T22:01:00.000+09:00

Ohayo Gozaimas (Hello)! I'm here in Tokyo, staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel, and it is pretty amazing (although I am completely itching to go to my prefecture - Tokyo is a bit too westernized for my tastes). I'm pretty exhausted right now - I've been through two days straight of workshops and other orientation events, and tomorrow I am taking a bus to Maebashi, the city which my little town of Gunma-Machi (machi means town) borders. From there, I will meet my supervisor, Yoko Negishi, and she will take me to my home. Let's cross our fingers that it is nice and clean! I've learned a lot at orientation - I've attended workshops on how to shop for food in Japan, how to live on a budget, and how to become friendly with the locals, just to name a few - but I am definitely ready to have some alone time in Gunma-Machi to unpack and study.

As soon as I get broadband services connected to my home (hopefully soon), I will be regularly posting pics and stories on this blog about my travels, adventures and (hopefully not too boring) career in Japan. Sayoonara (Goodbye)!