Brr, it’s cold. I hung my laundry in the cold.

We have a three-day weekend. It’s nice. I don’t leave the apartment much because of cold, and studying, but that bothers me, because I want to go out and do stuff. Urrgh.

In the past week or so, I’ve had a few times when my days turned out to be dependent on other people… ie, waiting for someone to ring, or show up, so that my day could proceed.

It’s annoying.
I’m doing things I like, of course, but the waiting around…

It’s like waking up late, but not so late that you won’t be late… but it leaves you at home with 5 minutes extra. You don’t have the full time to do anything proper, but you have 5 spare minutes to do… NOTHING!!! You woke up with just enough time to do NOTHING! (stolen from Dane Cook, that line).

But that’s how I feel!

If I wasn’t so relaxed, I would be much more bent out of shape about this. Of course, I can feel this affecting how I look at the day. I feel like I can’t accomplish as much because of waiting for something (7 hours in the future!!) so my studying drive suffers. Things don’t get done. Then I feel REALLY cranky at the end of the day for wasting my day.

If I was sick, or stressed, this would be worse. I’m trying to be zen, because I’m in a general good mood at the moment. BUT STILL.

Uh. Uhhh.

I have a heap of vocabulary to study. And then grammar. And I think that’s it. I think I’m OK. I feel pretty dang good about my studying. Despite failing another practice test. I can study up. I can do this.

/gripe

I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can’t really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, ‘If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we’ll talk.’ All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don’t want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket.

-Ray Bradbury

Amen

Tonight at Awa Odori practice, I wore my geta for the first time.

Remember when you buy a new pair or a poorly made pair of sandals, and the bit that goes between your big and second toe chafes from here to Dixie?

Yes, well it’s like that, except you are putting all our weight on that chafe, and also dancing in time and waving your arms.

A whole new kind of pain.

Tonight’s practice was endurance mode, just dancing up and down and up and down the park pavement. I made it as far as I could, and then decided that since I was sucking so bad because the pain was so distracting, I should probably just change back to my sneakers.

I danced maybe 15 steps in my sneakers before practice ended. I didn’t have a watch or phone, so I didn’t know the time.

All in all, I’m pleased with myself for making it that far.

At the rest point in the middle, one of the really genki men’s dancers came up to me and told me all about how my rhythm was ok, but my power sucked, actually, no, my power was making my rhythm suck, and so I should kick my knees up higher.

I wanted to say “Yes, you put the geta on and see how much genki YOU have!!” but what I really did was agree with everything he said, say “Ossu” (“push / I’m gonna fight hard!”) and try my best. After all, he was right. My rhythm and power were sucking big time.

My old-lady friend chatted me up at break time too. We talked about the weather, and where Supervisor-teacher was, and how dancing was fun. Maybe 75% of the stuff she says to me I don’t understand, but dammit… if I’ve learned anything in a year, it’s that smiling, nodding, and applying the old ganbare (do your best) spirit will get you far.

At the end of practice, I talked with the kids. They wanted to know where Supervisor-teacher was, and to tell me what a good dancing gaijin I am, and to basically joke around. I told them I was going home to eat, and they told me if I ate after 8 pm, I would get fat.

I said “Ah, metabo desu ne” (“Yeah, I’ll get metabo”) and they busted a nut laughing at me, then said “kyotsukete” (“Be careful!”) and sent me on my way.

Thanks, kids, You’re the most awesome.

Now I have to run to the grocery store and sort some dinner. I rearranged most of my furniture today in a brief fit of industry, but now all the bits and bobs of moving are all over the floor and bed and table… I don’t really have a place to eat or sleep. Yet. And I need a shower.

Ahhh.

I enjoy being busy!

Currently Rocking the Heck Out To: Gavin DeGraw
Current Activity: Cleaning up after houseguests/1 am apple fritters/midnight hilarity

Yesterday I was correcting papers, and I saw this sentence:

“I think “mottainai” is down charbache important”.

I looked at it. My JTE looked at it. We scratched our heads. I wrote a question mark (What the heck are you trying to say, kid?) and was putting it in the corrected pile when I stopped, and with a mighty slash of my pen, changed it to say the following:

“I think “mottainai” is important for reducing garbage”.

HA. YOU CANNOT FOOL THE ENGLISH NINJA!

It’s a sign you’re getting good at this when you can take completely incomprehensible made-up stuff, and figure out what the writer was trying to say.

Editor’s Note: “mottainai” is a sort of catch-phrase used by the Eco Friendly movement, which basically means “What a waste” or “It’s wasteful (to do whatever)”. Used in a sentence, “I think using a plastic bag instead of a My Bag is mottainai”. Or “All you did on your day off was sleep? Mottainai”.

This weekend, come hell or high water (or in Tokushima’s case, wind and rain) we have Hana Haru Festa. It’s a matsuri, with a grade of a C or a B- in my book. It’s got all the things, such as singing and dancing and takoyaki, but there is a lack of festival spirit and interactive opportunities. Still, it is indeed happening right outside my window, and I enjoyed some very nice Awa Odori dancing the other day.

The thing about any sort of matsuri or festival is that it puts one in a right old festival spirit. It came out really wonderfully for me last night.

Having gone out on Friday night for a charity concert and later karaoke, I was already tired (no matter how late I go to bed, I will wake up by 7:30 at the latest. It is unbelievable). But after a day of quietly being about town, I slowly built up to the night: a nap, a bus ride, some shaved ice, dinner, and finally a cab ride to the city.

We began at Casanova’s, a horseshoe shaped karaoke bar where free wine is usually on the platter and we were the only patrons. We had our fill of puffed wheat and songs, and went off in search of the next adventure, which was chatting outside a very loud dance party that… well, it made me a bit nervous and overwhelmed when I was inside the bar, so outside was really quite preferable.

Lounging about, well past midnight, I decided it was high time for something more substantial than bar-snacks, and headed down the street to the combini. But I never made it, because I began chatting with a woman from New Zealand who was busking in the alley with a guitar. She was great! We talked it up and then sang a bunch of songs together, chatted and danced with various people walking buy, and someone bought us takoyaki from the stall down the street and we sang a Beatles song specifically for him. She’s been in Japan for 20 years, and was just the friendliest darn person ever. Apparently, she, or someone else, busks that alley every Friday and Saturday.

When I walked away, I felt light on my feet and glad in my heart.

So today, the weather is sunny and the wind is high, and Awa Odori music has been slamming through my windows since 8 am. But I don’t feel bad for not going out and participating, because I had my own matsuri in a midnight alley, and it suited me just fine.

A few things from the past week:

Simone and I rode the train home from Ishii after the Burn’s Poetry Supper. Getting into Tokushima, Simone had to switch trains, so we listened to the train announcements as we were pulling into the station, and were able to figure out which platform she had to run to in order to catch her train.

When we first came here, we frantically counted the stops on a map. Now, we can listen to announcements in Japanese and understand the general information.

As per the request of the musical folks, I went and got contact lenses, on the 3^rd floor of the train station, of all places. With extraordinarily broken Japanese and English, I was able to have an eye exam and buy some contact lenses.

To have a proper prescription is amazing. With fuzzy glasses for the past 2 years, I forgot that the world actually is sharper than it had been appearing. It was like seeing all of Tokushima for the first time.

When Russ lost his glasses while swimming in the Indian Ocean, he had to buy a new set, and let us try them on. Wearing his glasses was like a roller-coaster ride, suddenly things were too sharp, the ground was far away, the dirt path we walked curved unnaturally.

With my contacts, it felt very much like that. Biking to work, I thought I might be riding a Salvador Dali elephant, with tall crazy legs. In bicycle form, naturally. The ground was simply too far away. I love looking around me. I love reading things, seeing far-away details, and not worrying about rain clouding my vision.

On Wednesday, I saw Quantum of Solace. I must say, the opening credit sequences from QoS and Casino Royale are quite lovely.

Also, the influenza (Japanese: infuruenza) is running rampant across Japan. Schoolchildren are out in droves, classes are cancelled, half my kids are wearing masks. I’ve been drinking lots of Vitamin C drinks. I think this, and my warm coat, cancel the fact that I am biking to work in the cold and damp every day.

Add to that the fact that I am working with high-schoolers and not grubby Shogakko (elementary school) kids, I think I might be able to squeak through this unscathed.

Love and peace,

emily

Shinjuku is where our Hotel is. That would be the crazy neon part of Tokyo, as I understand it. How many panchinko shops can you fit on one block? Quite a number, apparently….

Last night after we checked in, I did the normal things… checked my email, ironed my clothes for the next day. Then I took a walk to look for dinner and amusements. Not having a friend or comrade with me (it’s hard for me to just magically make a friend to walk around with, for some reason) I was pretty free. It’s a bit awkward to sit in a noodle shop all by your lonesome though, so I hit up a shop called “Lawson” and grabbed a bunch of things from the shelves that looked as if they wouldn’t stress my stomach too much.

I got:
2 onigiri (rice balls), one with Pickled Mystery Wiggly Vegetation inside, and the other with chopped seaweed and some sort of crunchy vegetable (it tasted like a very bland bell pepper).
1 box of red bean mochi
1 bottle of Jasmine tea, which smelled like flowers, and tasted like flower-scented shampoo.

Rice fills me up really nicely, so that was a good choice all in all. It was also nice and cheap, and left me with lots of tme to wander up and down the streets. I window shopped all the restaurants just to see what I could eat later. My favorite was a sandwich board with vague drawings of meat platters, each with an English name such as “Beef Meat Superlative” and “Hormone”. I wish I had a picture, but as I was pulling out my camera, the hostess/hawker bustled out at me, communicating quite clearly that if I wanted that photo, I was going to be obligated by international relations to eat some Hormone.

No thank you.

Walking around here at night, even alone, feels really safe. It felt a lot like walking around in San Francisco, minus the hills. When I couldn’t find things, I said, “Alright, just be brave and ask”. Then I completely choked on my words.

Me: !&a%@@#^ doko desu ka?
Police Man: …..post… office….?
Me: HAI! (nodding like crazy)
Police Man: (makes a little map with his hands)

But in the end, I got to the post office! That is where the ATMs are for international $.
And again, in the store, looking for a 3-plug to 2-plug converter…

Me & Store Clerk: (Lots of gesturing and nodding and pointing at the product)

I wound up being sent a block down to a different electronics store, and found the plug by sheer luck. But I talked with people, which was exciting and just goes to show that while I pull my pantomime and Japanese skills up to par, I’ll still be able to communicate.

Next time though, I’m bringing my little sketchbook with me to help out.