June 28th-Hints of Change
I think the real problem with me waiting a week to write a journal entry is that I tend to forget a lot of things that I had intended to write about. Well, it’s not like they’re totally gone, but I forget that I wanted to write about them, so I just don’t write about them when I do have the chance. If I could at least make little notes on some pad of mine about certain topics I wanted to discuss then I could at least recall what it was about and I could include them in the next journal entry I write. I don’t do that though, so I guess I’ll just have to do the best I can. Since it’s been a week since the last journal entry, I might as well start with today and work my way backwards as things get increasingly foggy. I think that you’ll find, as usual, the as I think of new topics I will stray off on seemingly endless tangents and then somehow wind up back where I had intended to go or the tangent will lead me to entirely different topics that I had intended to write about or didn’t know that I wanted to write about them, but I end up writing anyway. Wow…I think I stopped making sense about 3 sentences ago, so I might as well, get going here.
Today was a good day. Well, that was a direct, straightforward, honest opening sentence. I feel it will set the mood for the rest of the paragraph though so let’s stick with it. By the way, did I ever tell you that I never change the content of a journal entry once I write it. The only thing I’ve ever done in a few journal entries is reread some paragraphs and change stupid grammatical or spelling mistakes. I have read a number of my own journal entries online though and found that simple concepts are made confusing by the presence of such stupid mistakes. Oh well! Ok, from now on I’m going to try to refrain from writing one sentence and then critiquing my own work. If I do that, this is going to take forever and I don’t really feel like writing for more than two hours today. I usually write a journal entry for two and a half hours though. Hmmmm. RIGHT! Anyway, so right now I’m pretty full because I just finished dinner about 20 minutes ago. I had ramen (Chinese style noodle soup), two bowls of rice, a half block of tofu, two sticks of yakitori (grilled chicken), a chocolate Popsicle stick, and about 8 glasses of tea (the cold kind…but not ice tea that’s sweet and has sugar). I don’t have to feel guilty about drinking this tea by the quart because since the only thing in it is….well….tea….it doesn’t even have any calories but still tastes good. Well, even though I ate a lot, the way I figure it all out and still feel fine about it all is that…well…before I ate dinner I went running for over 40 minutes as I’ve been doing lately. Also, if I hadn’t gone running, I would have eaten just as much anyway, so I figure I’m still ahead of the game. My legs are sore, especially my quads, because we did a lactic acid workout yesterday at boat practice and I guess I wasn’t ready for it. Don’t worry about what a lactic acid workout is if you don’t know. Well, even though they hurt, it still feels good. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it. If you work out regularly or have in the past, you know what I’m talking about. And my toe hurts because a few days ago I was doing some dips on some parallel bars I found at school and when I dismounted my right foot went into the ground at a weird angle so now the toe next to my big toe is a little purple. I didn’t run yesterday because I didn’t want to make it worse, but since it was feel better today I went for it. It hurt at first and I wasn’t sure if I should keep going, but then when the power of my new, revised, run started to take effect, I wasn’t nearly as focused on the pain in my toe as I was focused on the pain in the rest of my body. Speaking of my new run, here is what it consists of. It’s about a 40-45 minute run that starts with a 10-minute warm-up at a reasonable pace. After the warm up is done, you double your speed for 1 minute and then take the pace back down to the warm-up pace for 5 minutes. It alternates between 5-minute “rests” of normal pace and 1-minute fat-blasting boosts of speed. According to some university study, adding in brief bursts of speed in a regular run, forcing the heart to pump even harder at intervals, induces the body to burn 3 TIMES the amount of fat burned during a long slow run. Also, I’ve found that after about an hour my energy level just goes down far enough that it’s not even productive to keep running. When I’m done running I usually feel thirsty and a little bit light-headed like after I take a shower and I still haven’t eaten or drunken anything. I always make sure to have a snack and drink plenty of fluids within about an hour or so of when I intend to run so I will have the energy necessary to make the run. I do the same thing before we workout with weights at boat practice. It’s stupid to lift weights if you’re tired, hungry, or dehydrated because you can’t do anything then! You just do one or two sets, lose all your energy and sit on the bench with a weight in your hand or one the rack and not do anything with it but sit there and stare at the wall. So today before I went on my run I came back from an afternoon of fun with Chie!
This morning I was destined to spend a few hours with my host family. Well, I spent a few hours with part of my host family (Kouki and my host mother that is…father was at work). At Kouki’s kindergarten they were holding some kind of a rummage sale that doubled as a BBQ party. Last week we had placed orders for what we wanted to eat today and we got some little tickets that we exchanged for the food we’d paid for in advance. We really didn’t stay for that long at all (maybe 45 minutes) because Kouki has a bit of a cold and Mom thought that he would get a fever if he were outside in the sun for too long. Yes, don’t bother rereading that sentence, I DID type sun. That’s not a typo either. It wasn’t completely sunny though…actually far from it. I had a hard time figuring out the weather this morning because…it was cloudy…but…sunny too! Like, if you looked up or all around there were thick clouds obscuring most of the sky. But I guess it just happen that the area directly above where we were got a lot of the clear patches of sky, so that was nice…to an extent. I got uncomfortable pretty soon because I was getting sweaty just standing there with all the parents and their little munchkins running around. I also had neglected to bring my sunglasses because I knew I didn’t have a pocket to put them it if I wanted to take them off, so I ended up getting a headache after a while. I was also getting a little annoyed because we got the food, but I wasn’t really hungry (I’d eaten breakfast an hour earlier), and Kouki was being really childish (yes…he’s a child…but it was going a bit far). Like…he’s sick; he should act sick. Instead he was jumping onto and off the benches and poking Mom’s eyes and punching both of us in our stomachs. At first he didn’t want to go, but he didn’t want to stay either. That kind of indecisiveness, even if it’s coming from a small child, gets to me pretty quickly. On top of that, I wasn’t exactly comfortable with where I was. It was just kind of strange to be surrounded by dozens of little kids that kept looking at me, and their doting parents that were doing a better job of not looking at me, but I still knew they were looking. I think they were just kind of confused about why I was there. Even my host mother said that she thought they were thinking that. A few people, who I guess my host mother knows through her kid and their kids at the school, even asked if I was my host mother’s husband. I don’t think they were kidding. I don’t see how they could think that though. Like…I know it was sunny…but…I’m clearly about half my host mother’s age and Kouki doesn’t look at all like a halfy (half Japanese, half foreigner offspring). To make things worse, they decided to have the policy on garbage be “bring it home” so I was walking around this grounded playground area just carrying garbage from the lunch I ate. How hard would it have been if they just got a trashcan and stuck it some place? I don’t know. Trash is a problem though in Japan. Well…I don’t know if it’s a problem to ultimately dispose of it, but it’s certainly hard to get rid of it if it’s in your hand! The only place you find garbage cans in public is outside convenient stores. It’s nothing like New York where there is a garbage can on every street corner. Even in Tokyo it’s nothing like that. I don’t understand why the Tokyo isn’t dirtier. You’d think that if people are just carrying their garbage around, they’re more likely to just drop it where they are instead of going on safari to get rid of it. The same was true on Mt. Fuji. We had to take all our garbage with us. It was a good thing that I didn’t have that much garbage though hehehe. I can understand why they don’t want people throwing stuff out though because that would mean that people have to carrying all the garbage down. Also, if you know that you have to take all your stuff with you, that probably encourages people to not be wasteful with the amount of stuff they bring with them that will turn into garbage eventually!
When we
left the kindergarten and got home, my host mother told me that even though
today was supposed to be host family day (the day on which I hang with the fam)
I might as well go out with a friend if I could. She wanted Kouki to rest during the day, and if I were around he
would just want to play with me. So I
got in touch with Chie and while I was waiting for a response I fell asleep on
my bed. I finally awakened and saw that
she had called while I was unconscious.
She called again a few minutes later and told me that she wanted to go
swim in the river. After I confirmed
that this was not the Oyodogawa river that we would be swimming in (officially
the dirtiest river on the island of Kyushu I have learned), I consented. She said that she was going to bring along a
couple of friends from her dance class but it turned out that only one could
come because the other was studying for some tests next week. Chie’s Dad came with the two of them to pick
me up and we were headed off towards where Chie lives where it’s more rural and
they have clean rivers and whatnot.
After about 30 minutes we were in a very quiet, tucked away valley
between fantastically green hills covered in rice fields, pine trees, and tall
grasses. The tops of the hills were
shrouded in mist and clouds (it had started to rain lightly by that point), and
the sides of the narrow road breathed the foliage and moss-covered branches
over the guardrails onto the path that the car speed along (a little bit too
fast Mr. Harada…). The river was on a
slope and flowed down along the rocks in waterfalls and every 20 or 30 feet it
would be collected in deep pools before going over the next waterfall. The largest waterfall was about 15 feet high
and Chie told me how she had jumped off there once and so had her father and
brother. I contemplated this
possibility. I decided it wouldn’t be a
good idea to do such a thing because…well…I don’t feel I need to impress Chie
or prove my manhood (I have a birth certificate for that), I didn’t want to die
in the mountains of Miyazaki, and when I stuck my toe in the small pool I
discovered it was painfully cold (mountain water is always like this). The last reason there was the biggest reason
I decided not to jump. It turned out
though that I didn’t have to make the decision because since the water was so
cold and it was raining again, we left!
At first I thought we weren’t going to be able to swim today and I was
disappointed, but then I realized that we were going to another river where
Chie’s brother was with a bunch of his friends. After a little while we found them and went down to the
river. After seeing that the water was
clean and the boys splashing around didn’t look sickly, we went in. I was hesitant at first because this river
was very cold too. I got my head wet
first though (remember what my father did about 12 years ago when we used to go
to that indoor pool in Manhattan in which the water looked green because of the
paint on the bottom) and when I jumped it (more like flung myself in) it was
cold but it was all right. We ended up
paddling around and doing a little bit of exploring up and down the bank for
about an hour or so. Chie’s brother had
3 friends with him, there was Chie’s dad, Chie’s friend, and myself. We just swam with Chie’s friend for the most
part, talked, and laughed at Chie’s brother with his dorky friends, and Chie’s
dad (acting about 1/5 of his age).
Aside from the very chilly water, the river was nice. One bank was covered with tall trees and
thick underbrush. On the other side
were some rice fields and the main road.
But if you didn’t look at the road and just at the trees, you could
pretend it was any time. What do I
mean? Well, towards the end after the
boys had left and everyone else was just sitting on the bank, I stood in the
middle of the river where it was shallow and just looked at the woods and up at
the cloudy sky. I trailed my finger
through the water, cupped my hands together and splashed water over my head and
chest…and for a moment or two…I could have been a primitive cave man on a hunt,
or some warrior of feudal Japan that came down to the river to cool his aching
body and get a drink after a battle.
Then Chie called from the bank and shook me from the reverie by saying
in English with the best accent she could muster, “Mike…what are you
doing?” I called back in English, “I’m
enjoying nature!” I heard her turn to
her father and friend and ask, “Natureって何？” (Nature
tte nani?) [What’s nature?]. Both
replies came back and neither of them knew.
So she asked me what nature was.
I thought for a moment, and when I couldn’t think of the word for nature
I thought of something close enough and called back, “この自然な所を楽しんでいる！” (Kono
shizen na tokoro o tanoshindeiru!) [I’m enjoying this natural place!]. By the way, I just looked up “nature” in my dictionary
and the word is “shizen.” Often times
that happens—the adjective will be the same as the noun but “na” is added after
it to make it an adjective. Anyway, I
started to get cold but I didn’t feel like leaving. It was very relaxing there.
Chie started calling again from the bank saying that we should go back
to her place, have some snacks, and relax for a little while before I went
home. I told her that I would come to
the bank if she came out in the water to get me. I didn’t actually expect her to do it (I was just making
trouble), but after a few minutes she got her inner tube and splashed out to
where I was. Yes, she used an inner
tube. Why? She doesn’t know how to swim.
She was ok for the most part because the water wasn’t deep in most places. There were only a few spots where it was too
deep for her to stand. And in those
places it was also too deep for me to stand.
When she didn’t have her inner tube and we got to those spots I had to
save her life a few times by grabbing her hand and through using my free hand
and kicking I got us to shallower areas.
When Chie came into the water to get me, she told me that my lips were
purple and I should get out. I figured
the change in color probably wasn’t a good sign, so I listened to her. When we got back to her house, we all took
showers, changed, and ate chips and drank tea in her living room. We left around 6 to bring me home and along
the way we stopped at the supermarket so Mrs. Harada could get some stuff for
dinner. Chie and I got a number of
looks from the other shoppers, but I’m used to it and she’s not as shy in those
kinds of situations as she was a couple of months ago. I guess she’s gotten used to being around a
guy that most people look at (in quizzical ways). And that’s good because she acts more like herself now when we’re
in public than she did a while ago.
After the shopping I was dropped off at home and soon after I commenced
the run that I described a couple of pages ago.
So that was today! If every day of the week took 4 pages to
describe (which it would if I wrote every day), then both of us would be here
for a long time. So, I think for the
next half hour or so I’m going to talk generally about what’s been going on
lately and tell of some highlights.
Well, on Monday evening, I
decided that if God road a bicycle, he would ride it like I did on Monday after
school. I had left my umbrella at
school and when practice was over the doors of the school were already locked. Although I had my plastic bags for keeping my
school bags dry, I had left my rain suit at home. Even if I had had my rain suit though, I wouldn’t have put it
on. I have decided that I am going to
do everything in my power from now until the rainy season stops to keep from
putting that rain suit on again.
Anyway, when I was about 20 minutes away from home on my bike, I looked
up and saw the clouds swirling and undulating in some sort of meteorological
vortex up in the sky. This was not a
good sign. Although it wasn’t raining
at the time, it had rained earlier in the day; and with this weather, as far as
I’m concerned, it could rain anytime, anywhere, without warning. I was determined to NOT get rained on so I
tightened the straps on my backpack, adjusted the placement of my other
schoolbag in the basket, and started to peddle. It wasn’t as much of a bike ride as it was a race: me and my
piece of %*@# bike (the hunk of scrap metal gives bikes a bad name) against the
heavens! I peddled at 100% pace for the
whole 20 minutes weaving in and our of pedestrians, trees, signs, and curbs
sometimes leaving only inches between doom and me. Yes, this does sound rather reckless (Mom, Dad, stop shaking your
heads!), but I had confidence in myself, and I didn’t kill anyone—not even
myself! When I got home I was sweating
pretty profusely, but I didn’t get rained on, and that was all I cared
about. As it turned out, the rain
didn’t come for hours.
A day or so after that
episode, I had another bike adventure.
In fact, this adventure turned out to be my first incident with the bike
that was actually bad. Before I tell
the story, a word from our sponsors: NO
ONE WAS HURT AND NO DAMAGE WAS DONE!
Thank you. Anyway, I was on my
way home and I brought my bike to a stop at a cross walk about 10 minutes away
from my school. I had been looking at
something else when I pulled my bike to a stop and dismounted so I didn’t see
the other bike approaching from the side.
By the time I say it coming out of the corner of my eye and turned my
head he was only about 5 feet away and there was nothing I could have
done. It was an old man (in his late
sixties I would guess). He was dressed
in workmen’s clothes and had a very tired and worn face. He must not have been looking either because
the front tire of his bike (traveling about 3 miles an hour) colliding with the
back tired of my bike. Neither of us
fell down or was knocked off our bikes.
Somehow he managed to not fall down, but his bike fell over and crashed
against the pavement. He had some stuff
like a small bag of cement in the basket on the back of the bike and a couple
of tools that fell out when the bike went down. I jumped off my bike, put it down and rushed over to help him
right the bike and put the stuff back in it.
He wasn’t mad or upset or anything.
I think if anything he seemed kind of shocked and dazed by the incident
and the fact that I was apologizing to him in Japanese while I helped him just
seemed to dazzle him more. After I had
finished collecting his stuff I asked him once more if he was ok and he managed
to answer in the affirmative, so I apologized again, got on my bike, and got
out of there as fast as I could. The
little incident managed to get the attention of about half a dozen other people
waiting to cross the street so I figured I should make my exit.
Well, school has been
pretty standard recently. Nothing
exciting has happen lately that I can recall.
If something happened, I forgot.
Well, we changed the seats in the class again. I was sort of in the middle left side before and now I’m in the
back on the semi-left side of the room (where the windows are). The way we choose seating in the class is
rather amusing. Originally the seats
are decided by alphabetical order. No,
it’s not an alphabet in Japanese, but it’s like that in such a way that you can
make order by last names. During the
midterm exams we went back to that seating order while the tests were going
on. The way we choose seats is as
follows:
It’s all completely random and very time consuming, but that’s ok I
guess. Well, I guess the only other
thing going on in school is that next week we have final exams. We have 4 days of final exams and everyone
is going a little nuts with all the studying they have to do. I don’t think I’ll take any of them. It’s just boring. So, maybe I’ll go to the library, write e-mails, sleep, study, or
scratch my butt. That sort of stuff
usual works well. We’ve pretty much
finished up the “Lifeboat” debates in my two 3rd year English
classes. I think my team in both classes
won. Did I tell you about that? Well, basically what the scenario was:
there’s a storm, you’re boat’s going to sink, not enough lifeboats, make a
character up that you can prove is worthy of riding in the lifeboat. A lot were pretty typical. We had a lot of doctors capable of curing
SARS and HIV and cancer but incapable of teaching their methods to anyone
else. There were a lot of singers and
famous personalities and even daughters of the Japanese imperial family
onboard. I thought out my character
carefully, and decided on an explorer.
My character was infinitely wise in the ways of the sea and survival and
it was clear that all the other people onboard would survive if I were there. Somehow I don’t think the rest of the class
understood what I was saying too well (all of this in English of course)
because when we went into the counterargument phase, no one tried to argue with
me. They tried to find fault with the
other two in my group and if they could defend themselves I let them. But if they didn’t understand what was said
or how to respond, I stood up and spoke on behalf of their defense. We haven’t yet gotten back any grades for
the project though so we’ll see.
Right now I have a really
strong craving for lemonade. Not like
the fake kind but the kind made from real lemons and still has the flecks of
pulp floating around in it. Alas, I
have a good feeling that it’s going to be a long time (about a month) before I
can get my hands on some of that stuff…unless…I can find some lemons and some
ice and sugar and a glass and a spoon……………………………..not tonight. I’ll have that as my little project for the
week to come. There’s a really funny
story (well…I think it’s funny) about my regular English class that I want to
tell you about, but it’s über-late right now and I have to get up and go to
boat practice tomorrow. It’s a good
thing we’re meeting at 10:20 and not at 8:30 (the regular time) because I’d be
dead tomorrow! After practice I’m going
to chill with Chie for a little while, but we haven’t yet decided what to
do. I’ll let you know what happens and
I’ll tell you the funny story tomorrow.
Good night! By the way…the best
part of all this for you is that you don’t have to wait until tomorrow to read
what I’m going to write tomorrow…it’s right below these words (or it will be
when I write it hehehehehe). Good
night.
アアアア！超疲れた！もう！今夜走し過ぎた絶対｡足がすごくいったいでもう歩けなくなってきた。ワオウー携帯にメールが入った嬉しわ！三つ入った－スゲやこっせん！けど今日も楽しかった。部活の練習に行ってちえちゃｎと遊べたからな。今の日本語分かっていないやろ？おかしい宮崎弁も入っているやからでしょ。ごめんなさい、これから英語にするわ。
Sorry about that, I just
felt like being weird. Don’t worry
about what that says. I’m not going to
bother translating it. Well, tonight’s
run went longer than I intended it to…not that much longer (about 52 minutes)
but it seemed longer than it should have.
Maybe that was because when I left the house it was still light out and
when I got back it was completely dark and I could see the stars already. I guess I went a bit further than I intended
to and at one point I thought I was lost and I started to worry, but then I got
to where I thought I was and it was all just fine. My legs hurt and I can’t really walk anymore…oh wait…I already
wrote about that. Anyhoo, before I
start talking about things that happened today, I should get to the funny thing
that I promised I would write and then I never got to it last night.
In my regular English
class, every few weeks we get a double-sided sheet of paper that has about 20
or 30 English sentences and their translations into Japanese. With these sentences, we study certain
grammatical concepts and new vocabulary.
I personally thing it’s a pretty crumby way to learn English because the
students hardly ever have to make their own sentences. They always are given prefabricated
sentences and then have to translate them into Japanese or something. Reading a sentence in another language and
translating it into your own is MUCH MUCH MUCH easier than translating from
your own language into another. They
hardly ever have to do this and I think that’s a really big part of the reason
why they have so much trouble constructing original sentences. If you never get any practice, you’re not
going to be able to do it…it’s that simple.
Anyway, every couple weeks after we’ve practice these sentences we have
little 5-minute quizzes. On the quizzes
we’re given 5 of the sentences (that we JUST went over) in Japanese and we have
to write the English translation next to it.
After we’re done we trade papers with someone near us so we can check
each other’s work and put a grade (10 pts. Total) on the paper. Well, recently I’ve decided to check to see
if my quiz checker was actually checking or if she was just giving me a 10 each
time because she assumes that I know how to write English. I don’t have the paper with me now so I
can’t give you an exact example, but I will do my best. Basically what I did was write 3 or 4 of the
5 sentences as best I could and then with the remaining 1 or 2, I would write
something completely ridiculous that in some way resembles the proper
sentence. For example:
Proper sentence:
Why don’t we eat lunch together in the cafeteria today.
My sentence:
Why don’t we eat egg and fish sandwiches out of our socks today in the
cafeteria.
Or….
Proper sentence:
Can you show me the way to Tokyo station?
My sentence:
Can you show me the way to the foot cheese processing plant?
HAHAHHA…well, it was funny enough when I was writing it, but when the girl
next to me checked my work against the sheet of paper with the correct answers
and she gave me a perfect 10 every time, I couldn’t keep myself from
laughing. I think some people gave me
funny looks, but that’s pretty common.
Sometimes I just remember something funny and I start chuckling, but I’m
good about suppressing it. Also, when
we’re in the computer lab for some class and I’m checking my e-mail and laugh
about something, the people sitting around me just look at me and then at each
other and then back to their work.
Well, at least I can sit on my bed here and listen to Israel
Kamakawiwo’ole sing Hawaiian music with my legs crossed and the fan blasting on
me from a few feet away and take a break every few minutes to respond to an
e-mail that comes to my phone that’s to my right. Of course my kanji dictionary is to my left where I can grab it
at an instant’s notice if there’s a kanji in an e-mail that I don’t know. Where did that come from? Ok, just ignore that. I want to go to Hawaii. That’s the next stop if I ever get a
vacation again. So I was online the
other day at school and I was checking out my academic calendar for Occidental
College and hahahahha…I’ve got 5 weeks of winter vacation and over 3 months of
summer vacation hahahahhaa….oh man…too good.
Well, I imagine that I’m going to be working pretty hard though (I
guess) so the long vacations will be well deserved. I think the way it will be is…if I do the work that I am giving
(which I should) then I will have a lot of work to do. It might take a little adjusting though
because, well, I haven’t really been working like school type work for about 5
months…so…go figure. And speaking of
vacations, Hiromi (Osaka friend) is going to come to the US for 9 months from
September to June (’03-’04) and she’s going to be working and going to some
language school in New York. So, if I
could meet her in New York on one of my vacations that would be SO cool! Wouldn’t it!?!?! I can tell you’re getting excited about it. Well, I guess it’s just that whenever I see
these people it’s in Japan and they always teach me about their towns,
language, and customs. So, if they
could come to my territory (I am a New Yorker by blood), and I could teach them
about my town or favorite places, language, and customs, then it would just be
so much fun! Chie has also been talking
about how much she wants to go to the US.
She might be making a trip in January (’04) to look at dance
schools. Yes, she wants to go to a
dance school in the US. I don’t know
how exactly that would work…like…where would she live, what kind of school
would she go to, and how would she get in or whatnot. I tried to do some research for her on the I.N.S. website to see
what it might be like for her to get some sort of visa for living in America or
studying at a dance school or something like that for an extended period. It was very very very complex though and
since I didn’t know exactly what she would be doing it was hard to get any
information. She has to figure out
exactly what kind of dance she wants to do and what kind of dance school she
wants to go to and then I can help her, and she knows this. I definitely want to help her though because
this is her dream (she really likes dance).
I don’t know how realistic it is of her to think about coming to America
to study dance after she graduates from high school (she’s not interested in
college). I definitely have decided
though that it’s not my place to judge anyone’s dreams (no matter how
improbable or silly they sound), and I do everything I can do to encourage
people. I even encouraged my friend Ai
to go for her dream when she told me how she wants to open a restaurant in
Fiji. I’m not even 19 yet and I’ve
already seen a bunch of times that dreams really can come true. So if they can come true for me, why shouldn’t
they come true for other people.
Besides, the LAST thing that I want to see happen to Chie is her
graduate from high school, stay in Miyazaki, get some lame job, and live at
home until she meets some lame guy who does a job that requires
him to have a towel tied around his head for most of the day, and then get
pregnant a couple times, put on 35 lbs, and spend the next 20 years wearing an
apron 18 hours a day, and while the kids are crying, calling her husband at 3am
telling him to come home from drinking with his friends in town. You think I’m kidding? I’ve seen WAY WAY WAY too many Japanese
women suffer this kind of fate. I
wonder if they know there are other ways.
It’s got to be very hard though; if you saw your mother and grandmother
go through the same kinds of things, don’t get a further education, and find
your own path, that’s what’s going to happen to you if you’re a Japanese
woman. So, anything I can do to steer
Chie and any of my other friends here away from such a fate, I will gladly do
in an instant. Even though I haven’t
seen much of rural America and they way much of America lives, I have a pretty
good feeling that a lot of the same stuff goes on in America as goes on in
Japan. Kids are born, grow up, get
educated, find a job, marry, get old, and die all in the same town or
area. I think that is probably one of the
greatest tragedies of human existence—to go through an entire life and never
see or experience what’s beyond the your own back yard. What did Dorothy say? Hold on, I’ll check the CD. There’s no place like home…there’s no place
like home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…………wake up
honey. Dorothy! Dorothy dear! It’s aunt Em, darling!
Blah blah blah…quite a bump on the head. I did leave you uncle Henry….you just had a bad dream! Remember me? You couldn’t forget my face, could you? Blah blah blah…but you couldn’t have been. Blah blah blah…Here it comes I think…but
anyway Toto we’re home! And this is my
room and you’re all here…and I’m never going to leave you again. What the?!
Where’s the line where she says that errr…what was it…like…whenever she
goes looking for something or whatever she’ll never go further than her own
backyard? I think it was something like
that. The point I’m trying to make here
is that even though home is great, I don’t think that everything we need or
should have in order to feel fulfilled with our lives can be found at
home. I can’t imagine what it was like
for me before I went anywhere or saw anything.
I just can’t picture myself without the experiences I’ve had that have
made me what I am today. Look where I
am! Even now I’m on the other side of
the planet not much further away from the point on the planet that is the
farthest from where I was born…and AH!
Ok, I’m going to try and calm down hehehe. Like, look at my friend Ippei, the farthest he’s been away from
Miyazaki ever is Nagasaki (northern Kyushu) and he’s been on an airplane
once! Like…what are you doing?! Go live!
Obviously not everyone has the same opportunities as I have had, but as
far as I’m concerned, if one doesn’t spend as much of their life trying to
explore the world and actually experience life as they can, then they are
squandering the short time they have here!
I’m quite proud of myself; I’m not even 19 and I started trying to figure
out the meaning of life and trying to make the most of it over 2 years
ago! I figure that compared to most
people my age, I’m way ahead of the game.
Excellent…
So today I had boat
practice, but it was good stuff because we didn’t have our little rendezvous at
the train station until 10:20 instead of 8:30 so I got to sleep for an extra
couple hours. It was also reasonable
sunny today! The sun was out in the
morning and then it got pretty cloudy during the late morning and early
afternoon, but around 2pm the haze cleared and the sun came out again. I had put some sun block on my face
(although I had forgotten the strong stuff at home this morning) but I
neglected my arms and now they are rather pink hehehe. If I am going to tan, I really need to
actually tan the rest of my torso and not just have up to my shoulders and neck
with color…it looks really strange. I
don’t think I’ve had a tan on my entire torso since I was about 13 years
old….it’d be nice. Well, even though
I’d like a tan, the sun doesn’t come out here often enough for me to actually
be able to get a tan hahaha….sad isn’t it.
It’s supposed to be cloudy and rainy again this week, but given the fact
that we actually have days on which it doesn’t rain, or only rains part of the
time, I’d call that progress. Moreover,
I’d go so far as to say that hints of change are in the air. The rainy season came on us pretty
quickly. Basically it just started
raining one day and it didn’t really stop for about 2 months hahahahha. I have a feeling that when it stops it’s
going to phase out relatively slowly.
We will just be having fewer and fewer rainy days and the clouds will be
less and less thick each week until we get back to all sunny days like we had
in April. Anyway, at boat practice we
spent a decent bit of time setting up the rigging on the boats. Once again I was launched in the single
scull. But this time I had some
forethought and I refused to get in the boat unless though little floats were
put on first. At first Ippei was
frowning at me because he thought I didn’t want to be challenged. I told him that what I didn’t want to do was
fall into the water for absolutely no reason because it’s entirely unnecessary
and if I fall out or don’t move because I am too scared, then I won’t get any
practice in anyway! So I got the floats
and I paddled around without incident for about 30 or 40 minutes by
myself. Oh, there was one incident when
I first launched. Eeeek…although no
damage was done, this was pretty bad. I
had been in the water for about 1 minute when I turned around to see if any
boats were coming, and flying through the water was Kodama (3rd year
girl) in her single scull heading right towards me! She was about 20 feet away and immediately I started yelling “危ない！危ない！危ない！” (abunai!)
[danger!]. Basically this is what Japanese
people yell when someone needs to watch out for something. Life if you’re on the street and a car is
coming, someone says, “Abunai!” Well, she turned her head but it was too late
for either of us to get out of the other’s way. It was clear we were going to collide, but when we did it wasn’t
nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
I thought we would both be knocked out of our boats, but the there was
just a bug clunk and then we were able to nudge each other’s boats away. Some people from the shore (college students
who practice boat at the same place) called out asking if everything was ok,
and I yelled back in the affirmative.
Boat practice went later
than I would have liked it to, but it was all right. I stilled got back to the train station with enough time go head
over to Miyazaki Town Hall where I had arranged to meet Chie after she got off
of work at 4pm. When she got there she
was really tired (she worked for 6 hours today—fast food place) and sweaty and
hot and hungry and just wanted to sit down and drink something cold. There weren’t any stores or cafes around
where we were so we walked for a while and found one. She got some frozen fruity drink and I an iced café mocha. Unfortunately there weren’t any seats inside
where it was air conditioned, so we sat outside in the heat, but it still felt
good and she perked up after that. We
just spent about an hour and a half or so just sitting there talking about all
kinds of different things. She ended up
going home earlier than she had to because she wanted to study for the tests
that start on Tuesday (she hasn’t done any studying yet at all). After she left I rode back to the station to
get some doughnuts that my host mother had requested via-cell phone e-mail and
then I went home. As soon as I got home
I changed my clothes and went out for the run that has put my in pain now. Practice is going to be light this week
though because of the testing. Tomorrow
there’s no practice, but Tuesday through Friday (the testing days) I think
we’re going to practice for about an hour each day. The days are half days though so I’ll still have lots of free
time! Hey…I just had an idea…how
about…this week I go to the Ocean Dome!
I could go on a weekday because I could probably get home by 3pm or
so! It’s supposed to open on July 1st
and that’s this week! Well, that would
be cool. I don’t know who I could go
with because everyone’s supposed to be good little boys and girls and study for
these tests, but I want to go anyway!
The Ocean Dome is SO close it’s a crime not to go as much as I can! Today when I was out on my run and I could
clearly see the Ocean Dome less than a mile away from where I was running, I
thought about how I wanted to go there for so long and then I went! And what’s more, I live about a 15-minute
walk from the place! When I saw that TV
program about it a few years ago, who could ever have imagined that things
would end up the way they are now. LIFE
IS CRAZY!!!!! Oh, also, my theory about
Japan and insects was given serious backing while I was on my run. What is my theory on insects in Japan? My theory:
When it comes to insects and arachnids on these islands (Japan), they DO
NOT mess around! While I was running
around the back roads here I saw dozens and dozens of huge spiders making their
webs. These spiders don’t make their
webs on twigs or leaves…they make them between the wires hanging from telephone
poles and the ground!!! Even when they
are sitting in their webs 15 feet above the ground, you can clearly sea their
stubby legs and fat bodies. One spider
I even stopped and dropped my jaw for for about a minute. It was…gosh…how big…probably about 2.5” in
diameter, and that’s not all legs, it’s body was massive. It looked like a small tarantula! I was getting a little worried that I would
run into a web and get a massive spider in my hair, but then I decided that
there wouldn’t be any webs across the road because cars go through there
regularly enough. Also when I was
running, a monster of a beetle or something like that made a dive-bombing
attach at my head. I saw it flying at
my out of the darkness from about 3 feet away.
I could hear it’s wings flapping up and down like a little helicopter
(this thing was probably about the size of a golf ball) and it landed a glancing
blow on my forehead. I don’t know if it
did that on purpose, but it hurt. A
similar one made a dive at me earlier but I was able to duck and it whizzed by
just over my head as I crouched down like a fighter plane was making a strafing
run at my position. I have also found
that when I’m riding my bike around dusk, bugs like to fly into me. Sometimes they aim right for my head, and I
see them zooming at me while I only have a fraction of a section to duck my
face down, close my eyes my mouth tightly.
Sometimes when the big ones hit my face or chest it really
stings….ahhh….miss car…miss car…miss car…. There are also big clumps of gnats
around the Oyodogawa river around dusk that I used to ride through almost every
day when I went home to my old house. I
used to worry that they would all stick to the sweat on my face when I rode
through the cloud, but I don’t think that ever actually happened. Alright, I’ve done enough chatter for one
night. It’s already late again and I’ve
got a full day of school tomorrow so I should probably get in a prone position,
close my eyes, and open them several hours from now. But before I do that, I would like to revive interest and
credibility in the theory of spontaneous generation! What am I talking about?
Just think back to Mrs. Tamburi’s sophomore biology class! For those of you who aren’t familiar with
the ridiculous “spontaneous generation” theory, it essentially states that
animals such as fish, frogs, and insects spawn from materials such as mud, dead
leaves, and rotting meat. This made
sense at the time (whenever it was) because wherever those materials were,
those kinds of animals would show up!
Makes perfect sense to me! Well,
some dude who’s name slipped into the “forget” section of my brain a couple
years ago, dispelled the theory by putting some meat inside a closed jar and no
flies showed up. But when the jar was
opened, they flies were all over it.
There might have been something more to the experiment, but that’s what
I remember anyway. So why am I talking
about all of this? Well I think that
that whole theory deserves another chance because in my room, when the doors
and windows are closed, little flies (harmless) and mosquitoes (not harmless)
just materialize in my room! Now, I
have been doing regular checks for rotting meat, but aside from myself, there’s
no meat in here and I won’t really start to rot for another 50 years! I just wanted to bring that to your
attention as well as the attention of the global scientific community—thank
you. Ok, enough talk, I’m going to
sleep. While I was typing this journal
entry, I was exchanging a number of e-mails with Hiromi (Osaka friend again)
and she and I were making our plans for when I get to Osaka. We’re not going to meet on the 25th
because she’s not getting to the airport until around 7:30pm when she gets back
from Australia and since I will have arrived at that airport that morning, I
don’t think I’ll want to go back to it that much. So we’re going to meet on the 26th. We’ve decided to go to Kobe (nearby city
that I’ve never been to—famous for the January 995 earthquake the killed some 6,000
people) and see the fireworks festival there.
Sounds pretty cool to me! See,
that’s why it’s so nice to have friends that actually live in these places—they
know what’s going on, where the cool places are, how to get there, what to
do…everything! You can’t get this kind
of good stuff from Frommer’s guide. I
think I said several lines ago that I’m going to sleep. Tomorrow I will start with a list of dreams
that I have made come true as of now in my life. Isn’t that great that I can make a list like that? And I’m not even 19 yet! I think that’s the 3rd time I’ve
pointed that out so far tonight. It’s
too true though. Ok, I think I’m
turning into my host mother…I just don’t stop talking. I’m going to stop typing
right…..about…..now!
Good evening. Today is the next day. Before I start with something about today, I’m
going to get to what I promised you about 22 hours ago when I finished typing
the lines about an inch above this one.
It’s the list of the dreams that I’ve made come true so far. Now, I know you’re going to say that some of
the things shouldn’t really count as “dreams” because some of them are very
small and might seem trivial to you.
But what I also count as a “dream” is something that I’ve thought about
doing for a long time, and really thought it would be great if I could do it…and
then I did it! Since I’m in Japan, the
things on this list are my “dreams” related to Japan.
I think there might be a few more…hmmm…well, I can’t think of any more
right now. A really big one that is
going to come in less than a month is my landing at Kansai International
Airport in Osaka! That is a REALLY big
one…and I can’t wait for it. Too good…an
airport built on a man-made island constructed in Osaka Bay by digging out an
entire mountain and dumping it into the water.
And this airport is sinking! In
order to keep the terminals out of the water, the entire complex is on springs
and platforms that can be raised at times.
It was my dream to land at this airport ever since I saw a TV program
about it years ago…before I ever came to Japan. I guess that is similar to how I made it my dream to go to the
Ocean Dome after I saw a TV program about it years ago.
Well, I really should
write about today…not like anything terribly exciting happened, but I feel it’s
my responsibility to keep you all and my future self (the future self that’s
senile and doesn’t remember whether he’s left or right handed unless he checks
the back of the label in his underwear where the orderly from the nursing home wrote
it) informed about what’s going on here now. Ok, it’s really getting late so I’ll
just go through quickly what happened today.
This morning it was
raining again. Even though I had
promised myself that I wouldn’t wear my rain suit anymore (good gracious I hate
that thing)…I wasn’t left with any choice and I put it on. As I was getting dressed the rain steadily
increased from a light drizzle to a downpour.
And when I got within 5 minutes of school and I was thoroughly soaked
the rain started to let up and by the time I got into school it had entirely
stopped. So…at least our timing was
really wonderful! There wasn’t really
anything special about today except I got 2 periods in the computer lab
(blessed air conditioning…mmmmmmm…) during which I responded to a bunch of
e-mails and did a little research into finding cheap airfares to America from
Japan for Chie. I’m pretty good with
finding those airfares. Like if you
just check with an airline (even the budget ones) they’re going to tell you it’s
$1500 or $2000 for a round trip to the New York area from Tokyo, but it
definitely doesn’t have to be that much!
There are loads of fares in the $500 to $700 range…you just have to be
patient and know where to look. It’s
hard to find cheap things this far in advance though (IF…IF…IF she comes to the
US, it would probably be late December ’03 to early January ’04). Once we get within a couple months of that
time it will be much easier to find things for cheap. I definitely want to stay on it though and do as much as I can to
help Chie get here because I know how important it is to her and how much she wants
to come to the US. Like…if I could help
her get here, it would make me so happy to see how happy she would be. アアアアア！いいなあ！！ Sorry,
just felt like saying that in Japanese.
Don’t worry about it. Today
after school since there was no boat practice I rode by bike with Chie as far
as the train station and we talked about lots of different things as usual, but
also about her trip to the US (if there is one). After that I went in the train station, got a snack and then got
an idea. I went into the bookstore and
after a little browsing picked out a New York guidebook for her! At first I was thinking that I could get her
a guidebook in America and mail it to her.
I really don’t know what I was thinking though…I don’t think she would
get much use out of a guidebook written in English geared toward American
travelers to New York. So I got her a
Japanese one obviously and tonight I wrapped it in the paper placemats I got
from Mr. Donuts when I went in there to get my snack. I wanted to wrap the book in some American newspaper, but I don’t
have any so the placemats will have to do.
I think they’re cute and it’ll make her laugh. I even wrote a little message on the inside page next to a
picture of the Statue of Liberty. So I’ll
give the book to her tomorrow and then tomorrow night I’ll write in my journal
here and let you know if she liked it or not.
For all I know she’s already got 10 America guidebooks, but since she’s
never really been anywhere, I’m not too concerned about that. She doesn’t even have a passport and won’t
have one until she gets it for the 4-day class trip to Australia in December
(yes…I did say 4 day class trip to Australia).
Yesterday when we were having our little drinks at the café I tried to
tell her about what it’s like at New Years in Time Square. For that I had to describe Time Square. I told her it was a little bit like Shinjuku
or Shibuya in Tokyo with all the flashing neon lights, advertisements, and
crowds of people in warm weather. Then
she told me she’s never been to Shinjuku or Shibuya so that kind of tanked my
description. I think she got the idea
in the end. After I got the book I rode
by bike home. When I got home around 6
I just lied down on my bed to rest for a bit after the ride home. I had the fan on high blasting cool air on
me and within a few minute I had fallen asleep. When I awoke an hour or so later I was still in my school uniform
and felt really gross. So I got up,
took a shower, and then had dinner (curry rice). After that I started writing here in my journal and then Mom
(biological mother) sent me an e-mail saying she wanted to talk on the phone so
we did that for about…errr…45 minutes or an hour or so. That was nice though because there aren’t
really people I can talk to here. Like…obviously
I talk to people, but it’s impossible to make it a normal conversation that’s
also complex. Know what I mean? Like I can talk to Sam (the Canadian English
teacher), and that’s really nice cuz he’s a cool guy and I think we have the
same ideas about a lot of stuff. But usually
when we talk it’s during class and often times he has to go and help some kids
with their crumby English or I get called off to help someone with their crumby
English. Kids have also gotten in the
habit of getting me to translate their Japanese into English. I prefer this to just correcting English
because I can learn something too.
Today during one of the computer lab periods 大元さん(Ōmoto-san)
[girl in my class who’s kind and quiet most of the time but what we call here a
美人] asked me to translate her Japanese into English. When I was done, I told her in English,
slowly so she could understand, that it’s a good thing that I like her because
I was doing her work instead of her doing her own work. She understood this with a guilty smile and
then went back to her group. By the
way, those two kanji up there…anyone know what they are? I didn’t tell you what they are right away
so you could have time to think about it.
Give up? Well, the first one, 美, is the kanji for “beauty,” and the
second one,人, is the
kanji for “person.” When you read them
together it sounds like “beejean” and refers to a beautiful woman (it’s
not used for guys ever). Interestingly
enough in the ancient city of Kyoto, given the large numbers of exceptionally
beautiful women, they call beautiful women from Kyoto 京美人 (kyou-bi-jin). The first kanji, 京, is “kyou”
and is the first kanji is the reading of
京都 which is
Kyoto. Well, anyway, that was your
Japanese culture and language lesson for the day. Well, after I got off the phone I came back here and started
writing again when I should have gone to sleep. If I’m tired tomorrow I can take a nap in the library I imagine
when the other kids are taking their tests.
For SOME reason…I fail to understand, the math teacher (who’s bald, rather
fat, has bad breath, sweats profusely when he’s not doing anything at all, and
has a really annoying voice has invited me to eat soba (Japanese noodles made
from buckwheat) with him after school tomorrow. I have no idea why and I seriously don’t want to go. Sometimes during class he’ll come up to me
while the kids are doing some work quietly and he’ll start talking to me for no
reason and even if I don’t know what he’s talking about and I’m just smiling at
him innocently, he just keeps talking.
I really want to find a way out of going to this thing with him tomorrow
(I don’t even know what it is or why he wants me to go!). If I can find him during the day, I can tell
him that I have an obligation with the boat club, which wouldn’t be so far from
the truth because we do have practice tomorrow. Grrr…I’m definitely kicking myself now for not thinking more quickly
today when he reminded me of the soba thing (he originally mentioned it a
couple weeks ago but I had forgotten).
I guess I will have to tell you how that works out tomorrow too. Maybe if I die of fatigue tomorrow I won’t
have to worry about eating noodles with one of the last guys in the world I
would like to have to make conversation with in Japanese. BLAHH!!!!
Ok, I’m going to sleep now. It’s
late. I had wanted to start today’s
journal entry on a new day since I feel that this entry has already gotten a
bit too long. Oh well. I will start a new one from tomorrow so I’ll
end this one here. Thank you for
sticking with it. I guess if you’re
reading these words now you made it (unless you cheated and went directly to
the end you bad person you!!!! GO BACK
AND READ IT!!!) ちゃんと読んでくれよ！(chanto
yonde kureyo!) [Read it for me properly!]
I hope you liked this entry as much as you love and adore all my
timeless journal entries hahahah. One
thing is for certain: I definitely would not still be keeping a journal if I didn’t
have this laptop to use. I would have given
up on pen and paper a long long long time ago.
Compared to how fast I can type it just takes WAY too long and too much
energy. A number of people here have
actually commented on how fast I can type.
Like Sam, when he comes to the computer lab during the English class,
sits next to me and he’s really jealous of how fast I can type because he still
has to look at the keys when he’s typing.
He often asks how I learned to type so fast. And really the main thing was chatting it up with my friends for
hundreds of hours throughout high school!
That’s really what did it. I did
learned the proper keystrokes in middle school, but I doubt that very many of
them are still the right ones. It doesn’t
really matter though—it’s the same result.
Today in another computer class, the guy sitting next to me was just
staring at my hands as I was typing out an e-mail. He kept saying how past it was hehehe. And then he looked at my screen, pointed to the words I was
typing, and asked me if I could read all of it. I assured him I could and he was very impressed hehehe. They’re sweet. I think my typing has gotten faster since I came here though
because I’m writing so much with this journal (certainly over 100 pages by
now). Ok, I told you I was going to end
this journal entry now. You’ll get a
new one starting tomorrow. Good night.
-Maikeru