July 5th-Three Months
A couple of hours ago, three months ago, I arrived in Miyazaki station. So, as of today I’ve been living in this town for 25% of an entire year. I’m not sure whether or it feels like longer than that amount of time, or less, or about the same. Well, I certainly been like I’ve been here forever and gone through a ton of things (which I really have), but I don’t know how the amount of time that it feels like compares to the actual amount of time it has been. I know for sure that I have done and certainly experienced much more than I would have in three months at home. And although this experience has gotten to be more trouble than it’s worth in recent weeks, I’m still glad that I was able to have this experience. After all, I’ve wanted this for so long, that when I get exactly what I want, I really have no right to complain. Well, actually, I can complain all I want about the things that are troublesome here—things that I didn’t foresee as being problems or just stuff that I never thought of. But what I can’t complain about, in all fairness, is the fact that I got precisely what I’d been asking for all along. Maybe I’ve gotten more than I bargained for; perhaps I bit off more than I could swallow even. I think if I’m going to make a food metaphor here, I might as well make it like this: It’s like I took a reasonably sized bite of fruit that looked very tasty and appetizing. But as my teeth sank into the juicy taste-bud-tickling meat of the fruit, I found that as I got towards the center—towards the heart of the fruit, the texture became tough and sour. And as I persisted in eating this fruit—continuing to chew what was becoming bothersome—I began looking for a place to try and spit out the morsel I had bitten off, but couldn’t find anywhere to dispose of it. So now the fruit is still in my mouth, the tasty, soft parts are almost entirely worn out and nowadays I even crunch into a painfully hard seed every once in a while. And even though things look pretty grim occasionally, and I sometimes ask myself, not why I chose this fruit, but, why I chose this fruit and took the bite I did. And perhaps if I had taken a bite somewhere else, or had chewed more slowly, would I still be in the position I am now? But now I can see a hidden over behind a bush in the distance. And if I go over there, I’ll be able to spit out this piece of fruit that has become more trouble and pain to chew than it is worth to swallow. It’s not that I won’t be sorry to spit out the fruit—it’s not that I won’t miss it, or wonder if I would have reached the ultimate delicious center had I kept chewing for a while longer. But what I imagine I will feel is relief in the fact that the burden of downing this piece of fruit has been lifted from my shoulders—that at the moment the giver of fruit stands in front of me and watches my contorted expressions with every chew…I simply disappear into nothing—completely absolved of consequence, guilt, and responsibility to anyone or anything—to be able to start anew…to be able to take a completely new bite out of a spot that won’t be sour and tough because I will have learned from the bite I already took.
Well, if there ever were an extended metaphor that would confuse anyone but the writer…that was it! Did you understand it? When you try to figure it out and what I mean by each part, use some flexibility in your thinking, because not every part is concrete and conforms to all the other parts of the metaphor. Perhaps at the end of the journal entry I’ll try and explain what I really mean instead of just speaking in code like I did in the last paragraph. I think that a straightforward narrative would be a lot more useful in understanding what I’m talking about, but I didn’t feel like doing that, so you have exactly what I gave you.
Given the fact that again I have gone for a while without a journal entry, I’ll do what I did last time—start from today and work my way backwards. Today was host family day. I didn’t have to go to boat practice today because the boat team had some overnight outing or something like that and they didn’t tell me about it so I didn’t know about it until the day before. I didn’t particularly want to go at all, and if I had mentioned going to my host family it would have created SUCH problems that there was no way it was worth it at all. So today started at 6:15am when I awoke, despite the lack of an alarm (that’s my regular wake-up time). I reminded myself that I didn’t have to get up so I went back to sleep and awoke every 45 minutes or so for various reasons until 9am when my alarm went off. What kinds of things woke me up? Well, the sun was actually shining today (it did yesterday too!! YES!!!) and there are no shades to speak of on my easterly-facing window so the sun was shining directly on me for a few hours. Then there were the roosters…there are always roosters. And…it was really warm in my room and I woke up at one point and saw beads of sweat all over me. Ok, Kouki is crying again and if he doesn’t shut up there’s going to be a homicide. Ok, sorry, that wasn’t PG rated at all, but this kid is seriously seriously seriously getting on my nerves. Every day I spend with him and mom and watch the interactions between them, it makes me want to be a parent less and less and less and less. And I don’t think that there’s anything special or remarkable about either of them. It’s just a mother and her kid and they do completely ordinary things. And yet there is no way I can see myself wanting to be in the place of where Mrs. Ino is. Moreover, I can never imagine what might compel a husband, who, let’s assume loves his wife, to wish this kind of burden and trouble upon his spouse while simultaneously almost surely sucking all the romance and joy out of the marriage that was there until the kid was born. Ok, that topic is going to come later. Given the fact that my host mother, for all intents and purposes, never ever shuts up for more than 15 seconds, I’ve learned quite a bit about…err…let’s see…HER ENTIRE LIFE STORY AND THE LIFE STORIES OF EVERYONE SHE EVER KNEW!!!!!!!!! *shiver* Yes, so anyway, Mr. Saeki was supposed to come at 10am to come pick up the money for my cell phone bill and the plane ticket to Osaka. Apparently he was also coming to yell at me for various things that he had no reason to be angry about. As it turned out he didn’t end up yelling because Kouki was there and he didn’t want to scare the kid. Yes, I know you’re asking, “What did Mr. Saeki think he had to yell at you about?” Believe me, I’d like to go into it, but if I do, I’m going to burst a blood vessel in my eye or something because of the hate and anger that will rise within me. I despise that man so much that it’s laughable. Hold on, I’m going to take a moment to laugh—that will calm me a bit. Ok, that was alright, it didn’t really help so much because it was forced and the entire time I was laughing I was saying inside my head, “I hate him soooo much!” Essentially I have made it my goal to NOT see that man before I leave Miyazaki in 25 days. I don’t know if that’s possible but I’m going to try my best. By the way, my host mother just came into my room and asked me what I was laughing at, so instead of telling her that I was laughing to relieve my hatred for Mr. Saeki, I just told her that I just wrote a joke in my journal and I was laughing at it. Ok, all that has gone on with that man (I can’t even poison my beloved journal with his name anymore) would take pages and pages to thoroughly explain. And given the fact that the entire core of my hatred for him has to do with his remarkable and unrelenting efforts to explode situations wildly beyond their natural boundaries and create conflict and unpleasantness where none exists before he shows up…the massive explanation would be almost entirely his artificial concoctions and attempts to sabotage my exchange experience. I think we’re supposed to have dinner soon so I’m going to go take care of that and I’ll be back later. And I’m back. For dinner I ate some seasoned hamburger meat (no bun—Japanese style), two bowls of rice, a few tiny slices of pizza (one American slice would have been about ¾ the size of the entire pie), and several glasses of barley tea. During dinner we watched kick boxing (extremely popular in Japan). They don’t use any pads whatsoever and there is just tape on their hands—no gloves. The fight we watched was a big one between some guy from Holland and the number one guy in Japan (a very popular guy). At first it looked like the Dutch guy was winning, but then in the 3rd round the Japanese guy won all of a sudden. He was pretty happy about that and the Dutch guy was pretty sad. Oh well, there are always winners and losers. After that I went to take a shower and then I came back in here to write more journal entry. My hair’s still wet and I just put on a t-shirt and boxers and turned on the fan because it’s too hot in here. I technically could bring the laptop into the living room (the only air conditioned room) but then I’d have to sit at the table instead of on the bed here and the TV would be on and then Mom would start talking and I would never write anything at all.
He
(remember, I’m not poisoning the entry with his name anymore) was supposed to
come at 10am. But he called a little
before 10am to say that someone had rear-ender him on the way over. As I found out a few hours later, the guy
who was responsible for the rear-ending was in the Japanese mofia. Hhahahhaha.
Apparently he was a nice guy…and it’s too bad that the Japanese mofia
isn’t violent. Like…if they broke his
(no name) kneecaps or fingers, or put his feet in cement blocks and dropped him
in the Oyodogawa River…now THAT would be cool.
I don’t think that’s going to happen though. Anyway, since he was delayed until noon, we went to a park right
next to the Ocean Dome. This park was a
public park, but you have to pay an admission to get in there. In exchange for the admission fee, you get a
VERY nice park that’s almost empty. The
grass was springy and cut short, there were palm trees and tropical flowers
galore, and even a bunch of fountains and pools. Kouki and I played for a little bit, then he got bored, so I
layed down in the grass. A little while
later we went home to have lunch and to meet him. When he left we all had lunch together (dad came home too) and
then it was hot so we didn’t go back out again right away. Mom did the laundry and Kouki and I watched
the X-Men movie on TV (dubbed in Japanese). At one point, Kouki, who had been sitting sideways in chair and
leaning against the back, suddenly tipped over forward, landed on his head on
the floor, and kind of rolled over.
This was the only time during the day when I could understand the
necessity for crying. Like…you fall
asleep for a moment and you’re awakened by landing on the floor on your
head—that’s not cool. Aside from that,
he probably cried (and I wasn’t counting) about 8 times today. I think the stupidest one was when his
little helicopter toy broke in the park.
It’s one of those sticks that has a single helicopter-type blade on it
and you twists it between your palms to make it take off. Well one time it landed and the blade popped
off. He instantly started crying and
when I picked it up and stuck the blade back on not 5 seconds later and gave it
back to him, he cried again! Well, if I
go into all the times he cried, I’m going to cry myself! So I’ll just try and forget about it
all. Around 3:30 we went back to the
park. This time I brought a towel to lie
on so my back wouldn’t get all itchy.
So after playing with the little-one for a while I went to the middle of
the little field, put down my towel, and layed in the sun for a while. That was nice except towards the end Kouki
kept coming up to me and screaming complete nonsense at me and then he’d laugh
and run away. When we left the park at
5 we went directly over the where Kouki was supposed to get his haircut. The place where he gets it done is a pretty
neat set up. They have about 5 or 6
little shops inside the one building that all cater to kids and somewhat to
their parents. Like in the middle they
have a playing area with a bunch of toys for the kids who are waiting to get
their hair cut. In the barber shop
itself, the barber chair is in the shape of a little car and it’s in front of a
TV so the kid will watch the TV instead of turning his or her head around the
entire time. There is also a massage
place in there so mother’s can get a quick shoulder or back rub while their
little ones get their heads shaved. I
sat for the about 10 minutes in the book store reading some of my favorite
books from my youth in Japanese translation.
Among others they had “Where the Wild Things Are” and “The Adventures of
Frog and Toad.” They even had “The True
Story of the Three Little Pigs!” Of
course Kouki was making a huge fuss about everything from when we came in the
door of the place until we left. So,
naturally when we were done there, we went to Toys R Us and got him a toy and
some candy! No wait…that’s no natural
at all…in fact…that makes no sense whatsoever!
I didn’t say anything though since I decided a while ago that it wasn’t
my place to give Mrs. Ino advice about how to raise her kid—even if he is going
to be a basket-case 10 years from now.
After that we went to the supermarket to get some things for dinner and
then we came home. Tomorrow I have boat
practice at the regular time so I really can’t stay up that much later (it’s
already almost 10pm). After boat
practice I’m going to just chill in town for a while and then meet up with my
new friend I made the other day. I
wanted to hang out with Miss Harada (Chie) tomorrow, but she’s run into a spot
of trouble…oh man. So on Friday after
the final exams were over and the homeroom at the end of the day was over, Ms.
Matsuki (assistant homeroom teacher/English teacher) tells us that the
accounting class 会計 (kaikei)
[accounting] teacher had finished grading the tests. I didn’t take it of course but I was still curious to see how the
class did in the ultimate-most-boring subject with the dullest teacher on the
planet (possibly even worse than Mr. Uzolino!
Now THAT is saying something!)
So the teacher comes in and hands back the tests. People are calling across the room to each
other like “Hey! What’d you get?!” And most people’s answers were around 28,
30, 25, 36, and whatnot. I looked at
the paper of the guy next to me and he had a 16. The teacher even said that there was someone who had a 0. I asked the guy with the 16 what the highest
score was (I thought it must be out of 40 or something like that giving the
scores) but he told me that a perfect score is 100!!!! Wow…these kids are stupid! Like…I don’t know if it’s my place to
criticize their lack of accounting skills given the fact that I didn’t even
take the tests, but when the class average is a 36…that’s just pathetic! What I also found out that a failing score
at Miyasho is a 30…yes…a 30%. At
Millburn it’s a 60%. So, essentially if
these kids don’t understand the vast majority of the material…it’s OK. Wow….no wonder only half of them get into
college. Chie got a 24. After class she was completely flipping out
and was like, “AHH!! What am I going to do?!?!
This is the first time I’ve gotten a grade like this since I was
born!!!!” Apparently there is some
worksheet that, if the kids do it perfectly, they will get enough points to
pass. Chie was saying things like if
she didn’t do the worksheet or get a certain number of points, it’s possible she
couldn’t graduate. I tried to calm her
a bit because she was definitely the most agitated one in the class. In fact, most kids were very calm about it
and many were laughing at their pathetic scores. Also, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that an entire class of students
(and students from other homerooms who took the same tests and did badly),
would be kept from graduating because of one stupid tests that everyone did
badly on! That’s just ridiculous. So, anyway, I can’t see Chie tomorrow
because I think she has to study or do the worksheet or something like
that. I guess that’s alright
though…she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.
Yesterday was Friday. The week of exams and hours I spent in the
library came to a close with an assembly (GREAT!!!!! YOU KNOW HOW I LOVE
ASSEMBLIES!) for the baseball team.
Some national baseball tournament is starting soon and naturally we have
to have an assembly to make this clear to the entire school. At first it seemed like the first game was
starting directly after school and that we were all supposed to go and cheer
for them, but that turned out not to be true.
I actually was rather confused about a lot of the schedule on
Friday. I thought school would be over
around 1pm so I told my host mother that I didn’t need her to make me a lunch
when she offered to make one. School
ended up running through the regular time (3:45pm). It was ok though because when everyone broke out their lunches, I
just went to the little store and bought some chocolate bread and whatnot. Ok, I’m thirsty so I’m going to go for a tiny
walk down to the nearest vending machine (I don’t care WHERE you are in
Japan…there is at least 1 vending machine within 300 feet of where you
are). Ok, that was nice, I put on some
sweatpants (even though it’s warm outside) and walked about 100 ft down the
street to the vending machine. I bought
a Coke (very American) and started to drink it on my way back. I like it at night around here. It’s entirely silent except for the sound of
water gurgling through the gutters and the sounds of the insects in the
trees. A few cars went by. And on my way back I saw a guy up the street
on a cordless phone also drinking a Coke.
Around here there are almost no streetlights at all, so it’s essentially
black here after everyone turns their lights off (which they pretty much do
after 10pm). I also discovered tonight
that if you’re into bugs, just go to a vending machine at night. There was quite a display there! On one of my stinky (yes…I wrote “stinky,”
this is the PG journal entry) days earlier this week (I don’t remember which
stinky day…there were too many of them) it turned out that my little walk down
to the vending machine was the best part of the day. What made it so nice? It
was just really fun and relieving to get out of the house…to not ask to leave…to
not say “Ittekimasu” (What you say when you leave)…to not put my shoes on in
the genkan (entrance way)…to not ask permission…to just do what I wanted to do
when I wanted to do it. Anyway, on
Friday after school I did practice basically by myself. There was one first year girl who didn’t go
to the overnight with the rest of the team so she was there too. Except for the warm up with both did on the
rowing machines we didn’t do any practice together. I just went off to do push-ups and pull-ups and whatnot and she
did sit-ups and more rowing machine. I
left school around 5:30 and headed for home.
Today would have been like most other Fridays had it not been for the
fact that it was July 4th!
No, this had nothing to do with the American holiday (I’ll talk about
that later), it had to do with the fact that today was the release date for 猫の恩返し with ギブリーズ to come
out on video! What the heck am I
talking about you ask? The first thing
I wrote there is “Neko no Ongaeshi” and the second thing is “Giburiizu.” Still don’t understand? Ok, well, there is a VERY small chance that
you remember me talking about this…but if you do…what you recall is me telling
you about a movie that I saw with Maya Baron in the Gion section of Kyoto (the
city’s old entertainment district) last August. The film “Neko no Ongaeshi” (The Cat’s Gift) was Hayou Miyazaki’s
(that’s a guy’s name) latest animated film release (he only makes
animation). He is an extremely well
known creator of animated films and when one of his movies comes out everyone
goes nuts and wants to see it at once.
This movie was no exception. To
put it briefly the movie is about a country of cats and some human girl that is
taken into it and sort of becomes a princess.
The point is is that the movie was very confusing and kind of stupid and
neither Maya nor myself understood it very well…at all (especially cuz it was
entirely in Japanese of course). What
we did enjoy was the series of short films that I later discovered were called
“Giburiizu.” These little animated
shorts were extremely entertaining and Maya and I were talking about them for
DAYS. When I got home I tried to tell
people about them (my favorite being about a very spicy bowl of curry rice) but
it’s just not the same thing when you tell it over again…you have to see
it. Ever since I saw that movie last
summer I have wished there were some way I could see it again…perhaps even to
own the little movies. Well about a month
and a half ago I was eating a rice ball outside of a convenient store while looking
at the posters stuck to the window. One
of the posters was an advertisement of
the release of “Neko no Ogaeshi” onto video and DVD. At the bottom of the poster was an ad for
“Giburiizu”…it was coming out with “Neko no Ongaeshi!!!!!!” So, since then I have been waiting
impatiently and looking at that poster every day until today. I went into Lawson (that’s the convenient
store where the poster was), I asked the dude behind the counter to let me see
the video (also behind the counter). I
looked at it, thought about it for about 3 seconds, and bought it! I really don’t care about the cat movie, but
those little animated shorts are priceless!
I’m definitely going to make a copy of that part of the tape and give it
to Maya as a surprise present. I hope I
can see her in LA when I head out there.
She goes to U. of Chicago and they’re on trimester so she doesn’t start
until late September or something so she’ll be there. That would make her really happy. After I got home I was in a good mood from buying the video (and
it hadn’t rained on me either!) so I decided to move into the next phase of the
day. Basically, the next phase of the
day consisted of a 42-minute private conference between my swollen fat cells
and myself. The main issue at hand, which
we discussed, was that of the fact that I really don’t need them and if they
don’t leave my body, I’m going to put them in an intense amount of pain. As they considered this point I sautéed them
all with an energy charged run around my neighborhood and over to the Ocean
Dome. This time I even found the path
around the back of the Ocean Dome and the golf courses and made it to the coast
(only about ¼ of a mile behind the resort complex). As I jogged through the trees on the little path on my way to the
beach I started thinking about the founding fathers of America. I thought about how at the time I was
running, 227 years earlier, they were probably asleep or just getting up and
having breakfast. Then they were going
to go to that Philadelphia courthouse and argue with each other for a long time
in the blistering heat and then sign that nutty document that started all that
trouble. I also thought about how there
probably weren’t any Americans jogging in Japan at the time. Then I remembered that it would be another
77 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence until Commodore
Perry sailed into Tokyo bay in 1853 with the cannons loaded and forcibly opened
Japan to trade with the west—thus ending is very long period of complete
isolation from the outside world.
The sky was blue and although the air by
the water was cool, the sun was nice and the entire setting was very
striking. It was weird…I felt cold
(probably because of the air), but to check to see if I was still warmed up
(this is the checking method I always use), I looked at my upper arms. Basically if there are little rivers of
sweat running down them and beads of sweat on my shoulders, then I’m good. When I had to stop at traffic lights and
whatnot, the wind wouldn’t be running over my skin and I could really feel how
I was burning up. It feels good
though. On Friday I even brought my MP3
player (which turned out to be a good idea) and I listened to dance and techno
music the entire time. I want to get a
small player (this one weighs about a pound) that I can clip to my shorts or
fasten around my arm and use when I’m working out. Well…we’ll see if that can’t make its way into the hundreds of
items I intend to receive for my 19th birthday. Neah…just kidding…if I got a new desktop, a
magazine subscription, and electronic Japanese dictionary, an MP3 player, and a
big plate of lasagna I would be perfectly satisfied. Well, I’d love to stay and chat about my Thursday…yes…that was an
interesting day…but unlike my host mother, I actually DO stop talking during
certain intervals…and…unlike me when I have to listen to my host mother, you
have the option to read my journal entries whenever you want or not read them
at all (if you’re my parents, you don’t have this option…sorry). So, I’ll go to sleep now 11pm and I’ll try
and get back to this again tomorrow.
Good night.
At this this time exactly two years ago
I’m pretty sure I was sitting in a Kabuki (Japanese traditional drama) theater
near Ginza half asleep. It had been
about 48 hours since I arrived in Tokyo…..two years and 48 hours now. I was thinking about that today. How now I’m coming full circle for the
second time around. And many days
during this month I imagine I’ll be reflecting on key events that I can
pinpoint to the day and hour now two years later. Tomorrow morning two years ago I’m going to check out of the
hotel, we’re going to get in taxis, go to Tokyo station, and get on the bullet
train bound for Maibara where we’re going to transfer to an express train to
Kanazawa, and then transfer to a local train to take us to Nanao. Tomorrow when I’m coming home from school it
will be 2 years since the welcoming party with our host family at the Shokusai
Ichiba/Fishermans’ Warf shopping center in Nanao. By the way, someone just called my cell phone and I didn’t pick
it up because I thought it was just e-mail.
It didn’t display the name—just the phone number so I won’t call
back. I don’t like answering the phone
when I don’t know who it is. Anyway, I
won’t go into every detail now. I’ll
just wait until I get to the time and then I’ll fill you in and make a bit of a
trip down memory lane out of it.
For now I’m going to refrain to from
talking about today (which actually wouldn’t take TOO long…but the way I type
it will take a long time) so I’m going to talk about Thursday now. Have you ever noticed how sometimes the
worst days can turn into the best days?
Well, it’s not like Thursday was truly a “worst” day and it definitely
didn’t turn into a “best” day, but my mood did make a U-turn through the course
of the day. I’d say the best example I
have of a worst day turning into a best day (in my recent memory) was December
14th, 2002. That was the day
I heard from Pomona College (a.k.a. P-Town).
Yes, despite the fact that the statistics, the odds, my parents, and my
own sense of reason were against me, my guidance counselor and my optimism had
me looking forward to the day when I COULD be accepted to my 1st
choice college. As it turned out, as
you all know, the admission committee at P-town didn’t feel quite as fond about
me as I did about their educational institution and they decided to express
this sense with a thin envelope containing a single piece of paper. Naturally I was very depressed and
disappointed but it’s not like it was a total shock. The entire time I could have seen it go either way. On one side there was the large number of
really smart, gifted, and interesting kids that apply there, and their
selectivity. Then on the other side was
my geographical advantage (they’re in LA), my early decision status, and…well…I
like to think that I’m a smart and interesting kid too! I guess it just wasn’t enough for them. Anyway, I certainly wasn’t pleased about it
at all. Weeks before that day came I
had made an agreement with 3 of my friends (Dave, Mike, and Allison) that when
the day arrived when we heard from our early decision colleges, we would go to
Outback Steakhouse (a fine fine fine establishment). The trick was that those who were accepted would pay for those
who were rejected. As it turned out,
Dave was the only accepted one. Mike
was rejected as well as me, and Allison was deferred. Aside from gleeful Dave (who had been talking about this college
and how much he wanted to go there for years), it was a very sad and depressed
scene. As we waited to get a table,
Mike and I stood together sipping big glasses of ice water and I turned to him
and said, “Man this sucks so much…” and he turned back to me and said, “Yeah,
this really really does suck.” As it
turned out, since it was Dave’s treat we all ordered surf and turf
(HHAHAHAHAHHA)! After that we went over
to Dave’s house and in his basement (on the most comfortable piece of furniture
in the galaxy…The Couch), we watched “Mystery Men.” Throughout the evening we had been getting sillier and sillier
and acting gradually more and more stupid.
What it clearly was was the stress, waiting, and frustration that had
been building inside each of us for the past few months since the college
process fully started. By the time we
were giving people rides home we were just overflowing with goofiness and were
practically out of our minds with foolishness.
It turned out to be one of the best nights I spent with my friends this
year.
Anyway, Thursday was not on that kind of
scale, so let me just explain. The day
started as any other day. The weather
didn’t seem like it could make up its mind.
Somehow I managed to leave the house without an umbrella, or the top to
my rain suit, or even a proper set of plastic bags to put my school bag in in
the event that it started raining.
Perhaps the reason I managed to leave the house without these
necessities was due to the fact that I noticed that the rear tire of my bike
was flat! I had noticed that the bike
was getting increasingly harder and harder to ride, but I had never noticed
that the back tired was almost entirely deflated. I asked my host mother for a bicycle pump but she didn’t have one
so she called my host father’s parents’ house and went over there to get
one. Then my host father showed up out
of nowhere with a pump and he pumped up my tire. He squeezed it a bunch of times and it really seemed to be ok, so
I left for school. I was riding
perfectly normally, but when I saw gray clouds rolling in and covering up the
brighter patches of sky, and some very light mist began to fall on my face, I
really worried. I rode faster to try
and get to school before the rain. When
I was about half way to school it began to feel like my back tire was sliding
around a bit. It sort of felt like my
back tire was greased up. At first I
thought I was just imaging it, but as I kept riding it was getting worse and
worse. It finally dawned on me that my
tired had lost a massive amount of air.
By the time I got within 5-10 minutes of school the tire was completely
gone. The sensible thing to do would
have been to get off and walk, but there was no time for that and I had to ride
on the tire. When I was getting close
to school the bike started violently bouncing up and down every time I rolled
over the little nozzle on the back time.
By the time I got to school the bouncing up and down had given me a
headache and I was in a really bad mood.
To compound my worries throughout the day was the fact that in the
afternoon I had to meet my host mother at town hall to pick up my alien
registration card. This was the only
day we could do it…so naturally the destruction of my bike had to continue on
this day! Why make it any other
day…ever…that would be too easy! The
one decent thing was that it didn’t rain on me on my way to school. By the time I left school the sun had
actually come out. I rode my bike the
entire way (about 15 minutes) to town hall bouncing up and down on the tire the
entire way. There was no other way to
do it. Fortunately we were able to get
my little card without any problem. It
looks pretty cool too! I hope they
don’t take it away from me when I leave Japan because it would make a cool
souvenir. After that I walked my bike
to a bike shop in the area. The dude
fixed the tire and even tightened my breaks (which I haven’t been able to use
for about 2 months…I just use my foot).
When I was waiting to get my bike fixed, to girls from one of the 3rd
year classes I join sometimes showed up.
One of their bikes also had a flat so we chatted it up for a while. By the time I left it was about 2pm and I
hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast so I was very hungry. I decided that since I had every reason to
be in a rotten mood, I decided to treat myself a bit to lighten my
spirits. I went to a little sandwich
shop across the street from the main post office. It wasn’t anything special but I’ve passed that place about 30
times and I always wanted to go in there.
I spent about 1.5 hours eating a very slow, relaxed lunch in a VERY
air-conditioned place that was almost empty.
What did I eat? I ate a tuna
sandwich, chicken sandwich, little pieces of fried chicken, liberty fries
(French fries), a coke, a mocha-ice-coffee, and several glasses of ice
water. While I looked out onto the
sunny very warm street I contemplated my next move. I decided to take myself to a movie! I wanted to go to a stupid movie…the kind where I wouldn’t have
to think about it and I could just enjoy it for what it was. That movie turned out to be “The Core.” The theater was dark, very chilly, and there
were only 2 or 3 other people in there besides me. Even though I wasn’t hungry from my big lunch I got popcorn and a
Coke (the popcorn—only one size to choose from—was the size of a “small” in
America)—it was only a few bucks though and not the same price of the ticket to
the movie! Theater tickets are
expensive though! A movie is like $12. You do get a student discount if you show
ID…but…really! The movie turned out to
be not so bad actually. I mean…it was
completely ridiculous! Despite my lack
of education in Earth science…I still feel capable of giving a host of reasons
of why the plot was preposterous and the science behind the plot was complete
nonsense…but…since it was just a movie and it got my mind off of things that
anger me for 2.5 hours, I won’t give it a hard time. It still kept my attention, so that was nice. After the movie I came out onto the street
in a good mood. When I got to the main
intersection in town there were two young girls in uniforms (looked high school
age) who were talking loudly to each other and acting very silly. The one with her back turned to me noticed
me noticing her silliness when her friend (who saw me) gave her a look of
warning. She turned around, saw me, and
then whirled back to her friend and said loudly, “HAZUKASHII!”
(Embarrassing!) I laughed out loud and
told her in Japanese to not be shy. We
ended up walking a couple of blocks together just chatting until they went into
a department store and said goodbye to me.
I’ve noticed that it’s easier to speak Japanese with confidence to a
complete stranger than to someone I know but don’t talk to. I think that has something to do with the
fact that I feel like I have some language advantage or edge with a person who
doesn’t know me at all. What I mean is
that if someone assumes I don’t speak Japanese at all, and then I speak lots of
Japanese to them, it blows there mind at first and that gives me a step up. If it’s someone who has an idea of how much
Japanese I speak or don’t speak, but it’s a person that I don’t regularly talk
to, then there’s no advantage and I would prefer not to have a conversation
with that person. Those kinds of people
I usually meet in school. For some
reason though it’s easier to talk to people from school (that I don’t usually
talk to) when we’re outside of school.
Like if I see them in town, it’s easier to chat for a little bit and say
hello. I should tell you about today
before I go to sleep…but…I’ve reached a crossroads here again…talk about today
while it’s still fresh in my mind…or…go to sleep and talk about today another
day hahahah. Ok, here’s what I’ll do,
I’ll talk about today without interrupting myself and then I’ll bring this
journal entry to school tomorrow and post it from one of the computers at
school.
This morning I awoke at 5:30am or
something because of the sun that was shining in the massive window (that’s a
glass door actually) at the head of my bed.
I managed to go to sleep again though.
My host mother and Kouki came into my room 8 minutes before my alarm
went off to ask me when my alarm was going to go off. Great…thanks guys. I
stayed in bed until after the alarm, got up, took a shower, and ate
breakfast. Since the rest of the team
was already at Tonda-Hama Park at the little inn I was all by myself at the
train station. I had time to walk
around a bit and look for an ATM machine (I seriously needed cash). I found a few but they either weren’t in
service yet (this was 8am on a Sunday morning) or they wouldn’t take my
card. I had enough money to buy my
train ticket and I got on the 8:43 train.
When I got to my stop I called Tanba-sensei as I had been instructed. He came to pick me up. When we got to the park I ended up just
relaxing with the rest of the guys in the tatami mat covered room in which they
had spent the past two nights. The
floor was covered with futon mattresses, sheets, clothing, manga comic books,
and cell phones. They were all really
tired because they had gotten up at 5am to practice and then had gone back to
sleep. They had done this on Saturday
morning too. So we just layed on the
floor and watched TV for a while. At
10am we headed down to the practice area and launched the boats. I ended up being paired with two of the
first year girls. I got in the boat
with one of them (a double scull…no single today…YAY!). After a while we rowed back and they
switched so I was in the boat with the second girl. It was really sunny and beautiful weather so I felt like being silly. When the second girl got in the boat I told
her there were two rules in my boat.
The first rule was that you’re not allowed to fall out of the boat or
make it tip over. The second rule was
there was no speaking of Japanese allowed—only English! After 5 seconds after I said this, I broke
my own rule by speaking to her in Japanese because I forgot what I had
said. Basically what I tell the kids is
that if I start blabbering something in English it’s because I’m frustrated or
annoyed or excited about something. I
also explain that if I say a bunch of stuff in English it’s not that important
and they don’t have to worry about understanding it. If it’s important I have to speak in Japanese or they won’t
understand me and if it’s important…lack of understanding is bad! When we tried to row together it was pretty
spastic and didn’t work too well, but we didn’t tip over so that was cool. I was feeling poor so I didn’t buy myself
any juice. But…I found the orange juice
that I left in the freezer about a month ago.
At first I was a little scared to drink it, but when it thawed out and I
tasted it it was still good! Even
though the rest of the team was going to stay until 3:30 or something,
Tanba-sensei took me back to the train station to get the 12:34 train back to
Miyazaki. When I got back I ended up
spending a lot of time just passing the time by myself. I had arranged to hang out with someone
(Chie had to study and work) but my new friend had to work until 4pm. So, I had to entertain myself for a while. I spent a lot of time walking around the
train station where it was air-conditioned.
When that got really boring I went over to the walking streets in town
where all the shops are. I had lunch at
KFC and that was tasty. Finally I got
another e-mail from my friend saying that work was over. As it turned out I had to wait for her for
about an hour at town hall (where we decided to meet). She had to go home, change her clothes, then
took the bus back. It was a good thing
the weather was absolutely stunning (in the afternoon it was blisteringly hot,
but by 5pm it had cooled a bit) because I would have gotten pissed off about
waiting if it hadn’t been. While I was
lying on the bench next to the fountain at town hall, ya know who showed
up? YUMI NAGASHIMA (my exchange student
pal)!!!! I was extremely surprised to
say the least. I was like, “Wait a
minute…you’re not who I’m waiting for!”
It turned out she was across the street with her family looking for a
bike for her brother and he had seen me waiting so she came over. So that was a nice surprise. When my friend finally showed up, we didn’t
really have that much time to do anything together because by the time we met
and hung out for a bit I had to start thinking about going home. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be hot and sunny
again. There’s no boat practice
tomorrow, but if I work out by myself or go running I’ll be able to sweat a lot
so that’s cool. I’ve decided that if
the circumstances are right (as in…I’m working out) I like to sweat. It just feels good and cleansing. If I’m not in a good position to sweat…like
I will b tomorrow morning after I get to school and I’m sitting in homeroom and
beads of sweat are speckling my shirt and drops of sweat are rolling down my
forehead and it’s not even 8:30am…that’s not right. Oh well, I have a few more weeks of doing that in school before
vacation starts.
As a little item to wrap up this journal
entry (which I managed to keep under 16 pages…all right!) I’ve decided to talk
about (briefly if I can) the way in which I believe people learn a language
simply by being in the country in which it’s spoken….how they learn the
language without looking at a text book, making thousands of flashcards, or
ever taking a class. This is my
theory…I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but I think this is what is
happening to me (I’m pretty sure) so I guess if it’s happening to me, it’s
probably happened to other people too.
Let’s start with a person who knows absolutely nothing of the language
when they arrive in the country. The
way this person first starts to learn is by noticing what goes on around them,
by seeing how people react in certain situations, and what they say to each
other when certain things happen. This
kind of learning at first happens very slowly—especially when you don’t know
anything at all. They probably will
just learn a few words at a time after hearing them said many times between the
people around them. Eventually they
become confident enough with the use of these words to be able to start using
them themselves. While they start using
these new words and begin to communicate with people on basic level they
continue to notice more things, more actions, more words, etc etc and begin to
understand more of what is going on and being said around them. When you learn in this way—from the real
people speaking the language, it is always the case that you understand more
from listening than you are able to speak.
This is simply because it takes many times of hearing a certain phrase
or way of saying something before you feel confident enough, or are able, to
construct the same syntax or word structure entirely on your own. Yet when you hear it, you are able to
recognize it relatively quickly if you’ve heard it enough times before. After you learn a certain amount you begin
to make connections and start to notice patterns. Ideas, words, and phrases in your head start to make a web and
you can see the relationships between some things and even come to understand
why things are said in the way they are instead of just blindly accepting
it—you understand the root meaning of it.
And that is how it goes! I have
definitely been experiencing this myself and noticing that I can say things,
use words, phrases, and sentence structure that I was able to recognize
sometimes before, but never was able to put together myself. And now without looking at this stuff in a
book or having anyone tell me how to do it, I can do it! How about that! Well, anyway I just wanted to explain that…maybe it will give you
something to ponder about. You can
ponder about that as well as my extended metaphor the beginning of this journal
entry. Ok, that’s all for now. It’s late and I’m thirsty and I should go to
sleep. Good night!
-Maikeru