oh no!
Fall has crept up!
Apples
Apple sauce
apple pie
apple apple apple!
CINNAMON NUTMEG ALLSPICE
Pumpkin pie
pumpkin beer
pumpkin apple pumpkin apple
melon melon birdfoot melon
I'm home
Japan was a dream.
a long, emotional, amazing, poignant, fantastic, depressing, beautiful, mental, lovely, spanktastic
DREAM
I'm ok with being home.
I love being home.
But every now and then I find myself spontaneously erupting with karate kicks
Japanese
laughing about a memory only I can remember
dancing in the rain and the fountains in the park while the little kids pass by and stare and wonder why the adult gaijin are soaking wet playing in the little pond that is meant for the fish.
yes, this was Japan
the fall hikes
the beautiful scenery.
the amazing people.
the haphazard and manicured gardens. gardens reflecting personalities
life has moved on though.
The temperature drops and I can't help but think of SNOW and wanting to get out there and play in the white beautiful marshmellowy fluff.
want to board want to ski want to play want to play want to FREEZE!
Will I see it this year?
I wonder?
Will I work in Switzerland? Australia? New Zealand? South America? go to school in England?
I feel ready to settle down. Home is so nice. But still want to adventure
American grocery stores make me want to leave the country forever
West Virginians are the same story.
I swear I will marry a Welshman and move.
Jam bands and Hummus, old Friends and Family
dolphins in the ocean
make me want to STAY!!!!!!!!!
What am I even doing in India??????
I don't know anymore.
Only Jacques the scuba diving dog can tell me what to do.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
June 24 2009 random
(a random poem from my journal on leaving Japan)
6 and a half weeks left
relationships have changed
with the ebbs and tides of oceans
matured
diverged
strengthened
and in the worst cases,
entire continents of memories
have split off their shelves.
Never again
to be the same
landmass.
A child's eyes light up
as I bike by
"GAIJIN!"
I cling to it.
old students return my greeting
without energy
What happened???
It must be
just a fluke of Wednesday.
Blame it on the Tetons
Whatever that means.
I still have the energy
I'm not stale yet.
So many Wednesdays
have passed
Greetings with and without
Genki
Genki I catch and use
Spread like the flu
Genki I search for yet cannot
find
Genki I keep to myself as I laugh about
Chickens
fruit bus stops
and Them.
Them whom I have grown to
Love.
What the hell is Arai Sensei laughing at?
I laugh with him.
This rose of Love
has its thorns
but I ignore them
in my remaing six and a half weeks
their thorns don't sting
as deeply.
I recognize our differences.
Changes.
Myself.
I will never fit in their box
nor any box
I love my life outside of it
too much.
six and a half weeks.
roses.
thorns and all.
peels of laughter
robot dances
chickens and fruit bus stops
I loved them all
I return to Wednesday.
6 and a half weeks left
relationships have changed
with the ebbs and tides of oceans
matured
diverged
strengthened
and in the worst cases,
entire continents of memories
have split off their shelves.
Never again
to be the same
landmass.
A child's eyes light up
as I bike by
"GAIJIN!"
I cling to it.
old students return my greeting
without energy
What happened???
It must be
just a fluke of Wednesday.
Blame it on the Tetons
Whatever that means.
I still have the energy
I'm not stale yet.
So many Wednesdays
have passed
Greetings with and without
Genki
Genki I catch and use
Spread like the flu
Genki I search for yet cannot
find
Genki I keep to myself as I laugh about
Chickens
fruit bus stops
and Them.
Them whom I have grown to
Love.
What the hell is Arai Sensei laughing at?
I laugh with him.
This rose of Love
has its thorns
but I ignore them
in my remaing six and a half weeks
their thorns don't sting
as deeply.
I recognize our differences.
Changes.
Myself.
I will never fit in their box
nor any box
I love my life outside of it
too much.
six and a half weeks.
roses.
thorns and all.
peels of laughter
robot dances
chickens and fruit bus stops
I loved them all
I return to Wednesday.
Welcome New ALTs (June 09)
Welcome new ALTS!
It’s about this time of year that all of us leaving wish we were staying a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year. After living here and making friends with fellow teachers, students, townsfolk, and ALTS, you will understand why it is so hard to leave! Beautiful scenery, hiking, boarding/skiing, cultural activities, drinking parties, tatami, and RICE!!! I will miss the tatami smell more than anything. When it first hits you, it will be strange and foreign, and have a slight fishy odor. You won’t like it. I didn’t. Soon, 6 months of cold weather, frozen olive oil, frozen toilets, skiing followed by onsen and heaping bowls of ramen. Hiding under the kotatsu. Ice and snow, but no plows!? 6 months of this. Snowy bliss and frozen time. The yin to the yang of Spring. Come May, you will come home one day and open your apartment door to find a slight smell of tatami. SUMMMER!!! You will think. You longed for it all winter but didn’t know you missed it. You can’t even seem to remember ever disliking the smell. It now smells like home and all the memories that Japan has brought to your life. The families you have joined and become a part of. The long and boring ceremonies. The crazy “bad boy” students who remain shirtless after gym class for just a little too long. The seemingly ridiculous cultural nuances that all make sense now. No speech before drinking?! Coworkers who leave work on-time?? Late trains!?! You can’t imagine life without your daily 5 minutes of space out time during the morning meetings. Ah, and one can’t forget the Japanese language and all the troubles and laughs that it brings to the table. I will dearly miss the ambiguousness of Japanese speech which allows you to play off stupid things you say and attribute them to the ‘language barrier’. At home, where will I be without this gaijin card?! I will be lost and foolish, but no longer special. Japan is home. I can’t seem to remember why I wanted to come here anymore, nor is it very clear why I ‘m leaving after such a short 2 years. But my purpose in being here is becoming clearer and clearer as the weeks slip by and turn into days closer to departure. I want time to stop. Japan will always be a home away from home. Time does not stop. Departure looms, and I sputter and try to pretend I’m not leaving. Every conversation in the staff room has a new sense of importance and preciousness attached. Every run along the fields is felt more deeply. Every bowl or ramen is attacked with a greater hunger. Every laugh with the students, joke with friends, and drink with mamas has a greater significance attached to it now. The smell of new tatami will never be the same again because of the memories I cannot remove from it. Don’t loose sight of why you’re here. I welcome you to the smell of fresh tatami!
It’s about this time of year that all of us leaving wish we were staying a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year. After living here and making friends with fellow teachers, students, townsfolk, and ALTS, you will understand why it is so hard to leave! Beautiful scenery, hiking, boarding/skiing, cultural activities, drinking parties, tatami, and RICE!!! I will miss the tatami smell more than anything. When it first hits you, it will be strange and foreign, and have a slight fishy odor. You won’t like it. I didn’t. Soon, 6 months of cold weather, frozen olive oil, frozen toilets, skiing followed by onsen and heaping bowls of ramen. Hiding under the kotatsu. Ice and snow, but no plows!? 6 months of this. Snowy bliss and frozen time. The yin to the yang of Spring. Come May, you will come home one day and open your apartment door to find a slight smell of tatami. SUMMMER!!! You will think. You longed for it all winter but didn’t know you missed it. You can’t even seem to remember ever disliking the smell. It now smells like home and all the memories that Japan has brought to your life. The families you have joined and become a part of. The long and boring ceremonies. The crazy “bad boy” students who remain shirtless after gym class for just a little too long. The seemingly ridiculous cultural nuances that all make sense now. No speech before drinking?! Coworkers who leave work on-time?? Late trains!?! You can’t imagine life without your daily 5 minutes of space out time during the morning meetings. Ah, and one can’t forget the Japanese language and all the troubles and laughs that it brings to the table. I will dearly miss the ambiguousness of Japanese speech which allows you to play off stupid things you say and attribute them to the ‘language barrier’. At home, where will I be without this gaijin card?! I will be lost and foolish, but no longer special. Japan is home. I can’t seem to remember why I wanted to come here anymore, nor is it very clear why I ‘m leaving after such a short 2 years. But my purpose in being here is becoming clearer and clearer as the weeks slip by and turn into days closer to departure. I want time to stop. Japan will always be a home away from home. Time does not stop. Departure looms, and I sputter and try to pretend I’m not leaving. Every conversation in the staff room has a new sense of importance and preciousness attached. Every run along the fields is felt more deeply. Every bowl or ramen is attacked with a greater hunger. Every laugh with the students, joke with friends, and drink with mamas has a greater significance attached to it now. The smell of new tatami will never be the same again because of the memories I cannot remove from it. Don’t loose sight of why you’re here. I welcome you to the smell of fresh tatami!
Leaving Speech (June 09)
I don:t want to give this speech. I don:t really know quite where to start. How can 5 minutes sum up my time here? It can’t. I remember my first image of Yamagata. Before I came, I looked it up on the map, found it in Lonely Planet, read a bit about it and thought, “well now, that sounds pretty cool!” Yamagata didn’t hold any significance to me other than the name of a place in a foreign land that I was about to experience for the first time. Actually, I was a little disappointed to be placed in Yamagata because I had originally wanted to be in the Kansai area where the Shingon Buddhism sects were from. I thought they would be interesting to study. I got the welcome pack and became a little more excited, but was also sad to leave my friends and family back home. I had a great life at home and was just beginning a serious relationship, had a great job that I enjoyed and was passionate about, and was getting into rock climbing more seriously. It seemed like I was leaving at the wrong time. I was also disappointed to be teaching high school. What about all the cute little kids that you see in pictures from all the other foreigners who teach English in Japan? I wanted to be in the pictures with the cute Japanese kids too! I was used to young students, and was a little intimidated to be teaching High School. But I sucked it up and tried to get myself excited about teaching high schoolers… “you can have real friendships with students, and talk to them about stuff” “they will be quiet and listen to you in class” …. “they wont be blowing their noses on you all day!”. These reasons sufficed and my excitement grew as my sadness to leave diminished. I didn’t know quite what to expect. Later I would learn that you never really do know quite what to expect, even after 2 years of living here.
I stepped out of the airport into the hot, fresh Narita air. I felt like I was a part of a herd of sheep being shuttled, I just wanted to get to my little town in the north and get out of the orientation! 3 days later, as our silver bullet of terror came out of the clouds for landing, I caught my first glimpse of home: Mountains and Rice Fields. Immediately I was happy and excited and nervous all at the same time. Off the plane, I immediately met my supervisor and another English teacher. I was so nervous about speaking Japanese to real Japanese people! It was my first time to speak to Japanese people in Japanese. Eating lunch at Cherryland with them was even more disorienting….I was too excited and nervous to be hungry, was it rude if I didn’t finish my food? What was the slimy stuff I had to eat? I didn’t ask, and ate it all for fear of offending them. After lunch, we got famous Cherryland ice cream to wash down all the slime and various sea creatures I had just consumed. It was delicious. Then we arrived at my apartment. It was much bigger than I expected! But where was the bed? And how was I supposed to shower? Which one was shampoo and which was conditioner? I was left alone. No welcome party, no drunken stupor to ease the feelings of “holy crap what have I done and how did I get here”. It was just me and Japan.
Me and Japan have come a long way since then. I have learned that I can use the whole bathroom space to shower and I don’t have to hold the shower head whilst doing it. I can go to the bank and get things done. I can get a new license on my own. I can check the weather in Japanese on my keitai, and make doctors appointments. I can have a friendly chat with the ladies in the ofuro at the gym. I can have a casual conversation with students, and buy concert tickets at Lawsons. I can teach classes on my own. I have made many friendships, and many many memories. But most of all, I am not longer afraid to speak Japanese to real Japanese people. Yamagata will no longer just be the face on the map to me. It will be my face as it has shaped me. Two years of memories, of cultural conditioning, of “Let’s enjoying”. Laugh wrinkles and worry lines, happy drunken scars and dimpled memories. Thank you Japan, thank you for shaping me and making me grow. For making me step into something new and fresh and not remaining in my comfort bubble. For making me know myself and others. Thank you for all the relationships, the bike rides, the slimy foods, the hikes, the tortured English conversations with students, the conversations through body language, and the conversations through the eyes. For the record, I have never looked into Shingon Buddhism once since I got here. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Thank you Yamagata. Yamagata equalzu no regrets!!!!!!!!
I stepped out of the airport into the hot, fresh Narita air. I felt like I was a part of a herd of sheep being shuttled, I just wanted to get to my little town in the north and get out of the orientation! 3 days later, as our silver bullet of terror came out of the clouds for landing, I caught my first glimpse of home: Mountains and Rice Fields. Immediately I was happy and excited and nervous all at the same time. Off the plane, I immediately met my supervisor and another English teacher. I was so nervous about speaking Japanese to real Japanese people! It was my first time to speak to Japanese people in Japanese. Eating lunch at Cherryland with them was even more disorienting….I was too excited and nervous to be hungry, was it rude if I didn’t finish my food? What was the slimy stuff I had to eat? I didn’t ask, and ate it all for fear of offending them. After lunch, we got famous Cherryland ice cream to wash down all the slime and various sea creatures I had just consumed. It was delicious. Then we arrived at my apartment. It was much bigger than I expected! But where was the bed? And how was I supposed to shower? Which one was shampoo and which was conditioner? I was left alone. No welcome party, no drunken stupor to ease the feelings of “holy crap what have I done and how did I get here”. It was just me and Japan.
Me and Japan have come a long way since then. I have learned that I can use the whole bathroom space to shower and I don’t have to hold the shower head whilst doing it. I can go to the bank and get things done. I can get a new license on my own. I can check the weather in Japanese on my keitai, and make doctors appointments. I can have a friendly chat with the ladies in the ofuro at the gym. I can have a casual conversation with students, and buy concert tickets at Lawsons. I can teach classes on my own. I have made many friendships, and many many memories. But most of all, I am not longer afraid to speak Japanese to real Japanese people. Yamagata will no longer just be the face on the map to me. It will be my face as it has shaped me. Two years of memories, of cultural conditioning, of “Let’s enjoying”. Laugh wrinkles and worry lines, happy drunken scars and dimpled memories. Thank you Japan, thank you for shaping me and making me grow. For making me step into something new and fresh and not remaining in my comfort bubble. For making me know myself and others. Thank you for all the relationships, the bike rides, the slimy foods, the hikes, the tortured English conversations with students, the conversations through body language, and the conversations through the eyes. For the record, I have never looked into Shingon Buddhism once since I got here. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Thank you Yamagata. Yamagata equalzu no regrets!!!!!!!!
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