Hindsight

Eminem is big here. “8 Mile” came out just a few weeks ago and kids have picked up the soundtrack a bit. Even Murakami san picked it up. One of the wittier 3-nensei boys in my class loves Mr. Mathers. That’s his notebook. I had to take a picture of it.

Wednesday night I joined Ros and Amber at Koichi’s, where I drank (once again) a bit much. Thursday was an exhaustive day but only because I drank the night before. Good food, good times as always.

This is the second time in the year that I’ve been lucky enough to have the “bento from heaven”. It was fish and karaage chicken. The sides were all something I was familiar with, and the entire thing was excellent.

It’s rare for such a thing to occur.

Tsujii sensei is quite the vocal English teacher. And I mean that in a good way. Her energy rubs off on her students quite well. She stands out, wearing loud outfits and such. But that’s what makes her great. Friday’s lesson was my last with 2-1 and it wasn’t anything special: street directions.

“Excuse me, could you tell me how the way to the Post Office?”
“Sure. Go down this street and turn right at the second traffic light. You’ll see it on your left.”
“Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome.”

The period consisted of diaogue practices. Later I’d ask volunteers to see if they could tell me how to get to certain places on the textbook’s map…

It was surprising, the number of hands that went up. Almost all of them. It was a good lift for this week’s end. They asked me to come back next Thursday. We won’t have a class but Tsujii sensei told me that they had a present for me.

***

Most of my boxes have reached home this week. Midnight Blue is in the hands of a friend (who claimed he would have to retreat to Mexico if he opened the box, afraid of the temptations).

This weekend will be a quiet one. Next week is my concluding week at Tahara JHS. My last week as an ALT for the city.

I’ve been listening to all the albums I never paid attention to all that much. Some Mogwai, a full listen of the FF X-2 Original Soundtrack (which is actually quite good) and Do As Infinity for Japanese measure. Of course, a little bit of Boards of Canada for comfort.

Last week brought in the ultimate in humidity. With tsuyu (rainy season) in effect, the mornings and afternoons are gloomy. Right now the air is off (my apartment AC is weak and has been on almost all day) and my hands feel a warmth that is only present because of the outside air. Summer isn’t even in Japan yet. Scary.

What did I do this weekend…. I woke up earlier than usual Saturday morning because dad had called just to update me on things back home. I got my boarding pass to Bangkok mid-week. The end is starting to show form. I’m getting worried, but as I always say: nothing out of the ordinary.

Viva helped me at noon to carry some boxes to the post office. It was horribly expensive to ship things home, but it had to be done. All that remains are two boxes - my Drummania set (packaged, wrapped and ready to go) and that box in the picture. That’s it.

My Gamecube, Midnight Blue PlayStation 2…. everything got scanned at “Foreign Acceptance” in Akita, Japan today and is on probably on a plane to California. What remains are a spattering of devices: my Game Boy Advance SP, iPod, this laptop and my digital camera (of course).

I’ve become quite the gadget freak living in Japan, and I have no regrets about shelling out the cash for it. So far the iPod and my Powershot are the best purchases I’ve made - they get used a heck of a lot.

I’ll stop talking about techno lust.

I didn’t go out Saturday night to a high school ALTs birthday party - I hit reclusive mode, tired from the days packing and shipping. I just wanted to be alone.

My apartment is starting to look like I’ve never been here. Or it looks as if I’ve first arrived here - the kotatsu table sits in the middle of the TV room. No consoles. Empty spaces.

Apartment 206 is just about ready for its successor to move his things in. This time it’s Jon, who will start moving his things from his half-sized apartment next Sunday.

I’m up late - part of me doesn’t want any sleep. I guess I’m starting to worry about what awaits me (or rather, what won’t) back home. I feel like when I return I’ll be slightly askew. Maybe I won’t be the same to friends back home. Maybe I’ll spring back to what I once was. I’m actually afraid of that.

There was no sign of Independence Day at Chiyo JHS. I almost forgot that it was *the* July 4th.

Morning - I spent the entire ride on the highway bus memorizing my school staff farewell speech. It went well considering I stood in front of everyone without the piece of paper in my hand. I was a nervous wreck, but the speech went well - people seemed impressed with my words. I have to thank Uchikawa sensei, the school’s social studies teacher. A few days earlier while going over my speech she said “…the nuance is chigau”. I am grateful to her and to Viva and Yoshida-sensei as well for going through “drafts”.

The kids were running about redeeming their “James dollars” earned from earlier English games. I had postcards, stickers (or “seals” as they are better known here) and some other goodies they could buy if they had the bucks.

Sixth period was the “surprise” fire drill. Because of the rain, everyone was directed to the gym (as opposed to outdoors, as usual). After the drill, I was asked to speak to the students. I had a speech ready and, although I had to read it, I managed to not shake too much.

Shigetomi (pictured closest to me) has been so sweet the past few weeks. When I told her I was leaving a few weeks ago she would respond “Iyada! James. Dame.” She’d come by my desk like I was one of the other tenured staffers, which really made me feel at home.

I said my many goodbyes, some obviously more meaningful than others. I shook the hands of students after my speech in the gym. I shook more hands in the staff room.

During all of these moments I didn’t shed a tear. However….

Takeuchi sensei presented me with a booklet with all of the 1-nensei students’ goodbye messages, a mix of Japanese and their recently-studied English. Yoshida sensei’s 2-nensei classes gave me booklets too. Each of her classes gave me a booklet, stood up and said “Thank you for your interesting English class!”

What really got to me were the messages written to me. The questions.

“Can we teach English with you again?”

“Can we meet with you again? I hope to see you again. What are you going to do?”

June pictures are online.

Statement of Agreement

David Beckham has had a huge following here in Japan. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, he’s only the people’s favorite gaijin soccer figure here in Japan. He was a Manchester United soccer player that recently made a contract switch to Real Madrid.

You can tell from that last paragraph that I have no clue how to talk about soccer.

Takashi sensei’s get together today was fun. Food galore.

Among the many discussions he told us that the elementary school kids he taught recently called him “Bekkame”. “Bek- as the first syllable of David Beckham’s name and “Kame” because Takashi is Takashi Kameyama. Good times.

Today’s company included Dion, his friend Natasha, Livia and I. In addition, Maki, Steven and Marcus joined us. Dion and I knew Maki from the elementary school workshop we had to attend last year - Steven and Marcus were new faces but very, very cool fellows from Australia who we had a great time talking with.

The piano took center stage as Dion performed, among other things, Canon in D and his own personal creation. Later we found out that Marcus did singing and performing arts (among many, many other things) before coming to Japan. He gave the piano a try. We were treated to a great contemporary piece of music…. that he composed himself. I wanted to talk to him more, but I was in discussions of Japan with Natasha and later with Steven, Maki and Takashi sensei’s son Shun.

Shun just graduated to high school and still enjoys the good video game or two. He asked me (through Maki), “why is it called a video game? we call it terebi (TV) game”. I spent a foolish amount trying to explain why it was “video” and not “TV”. We went into a short discussion about why I thought Final Fantasy VIII was not good (different battle system from the others). He told me why he liked it (most other FF battle systems were too similar).

After the night was over, Takashi drove us up to a mountain in Wakamatsu. There were quite a few kids who had to have been drinking in the area, but they are (shall I say) mostly harmless.

The view was clear, beautiful.

Kitakyushu at night. Smokestacks were scattered about the cityscape. Towers filled up the rest. Hives of people. The most interesting thing that caught my eye were the smoke towers that I could only see because of the flashing strobes embracing them. My eyes panned the horizon and I noticed them - beacons of industry.

There are bits of writing sitting in a .txt file on my desktop, but I haven’t had the time to post them up.

As my time in Japan counts down I want to spend less time going to dinners, parties and the like. I guess I just like being with a small group of people - there doesn’t need to be some crazy hurrah.

Still, tonight I am off to Takashi sensei’s gathering for us. He was a soccer coach who invited us to his home last August.

We met him at an elementary school workshop at Kitakyushu University. Although he’s bit older he is very well in shape. Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink. A model father and a nice guy with a good sense of humor.

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share.

Before first period one sensei went into a mad rage - I was at my desk in the staff room when I heard it.

Whatever the issue, he was yelling at her in true, enraged Japanese fashion. Short bursts of words, like bullets. Piercing. Of course the poor girl was crying after much restraint. Sometimes I wish I could understand the context. But I’ve asked before and people don’t generally wish to explain. Then again, I’m not quite the insider.

Back home some other teacher at this point would probably say, “Hey, take it easy on her.” He’s only been yelling at her on and off since I left and came back after first period. From what I know, albeit little, she isn’t a troublemaker.

Maybe it’s not my problem. But I would still like to know.

It’s exam week at Tahara JHS and I had no classes today. I decided to go through my ‘webwork’ folders to get rid of any extra files, screencaps, .PSDs and such. Lots of nostalgia came about as the process went on.

One of my former roommates, Joey, was studying for some final or other. He ended up writing that fine expletive pictured above. I pulled out my video camera since I didn’t have a digital still camera back then. Later I captured some pictures from a video box to my computer.

I found that picture among my archives.

I cleared out remnants of concept images, old documents that had no sympathetic value to me anymore and other tidbits of information. It’s all surreal to think that I’ve done that bit of webwork in the past three years. Lots of crappy clients and lots of good memories of workplaces where I used to deploy my poor web design. Ah, nostalgia.

The kids at school had three periods of tests. At 2:00pm, teachers were heading home. Morizono sensei offered to drive me to Shimosone station (tsuyu, or rainy season, is in full effect). I wasn’t going to refuse.

McDonald’s seems to be the “exotic escape” at the moment, at least from eating Japanese food. Don’t get me wrong - I love Japanese food. But this was my version of “having something different”.

Dion came by and we ended up talking a bit over dinner. Cheeseburger in his hand and chopsticks in mine. Using the mini tripod that Rosalyn lent me, I asked him if I could take a picture. He didn’t mind at all, so I put the 10 second timer on and we resumed talking.

He’s moving into an apartment 9 floors above me around the 14th, so he’ll actually be a neighbor of sorts about a week before I leave Kitakyushu. I’m glad.

Question:
What is wrong with each picture?

Answer:
1. None of the student shoes are being worn.
2. No boys are hanging out on the balconies.
3. There are no students in class. They aren’t at school.

This is the result of Typhoon 6, which passed by Fukuoka today.

Announced just a few days ago, this typhoon was responsible for today’s closing of 230 schools in Fukuoka City. Classes were cancelled in Kitakyushu as well (but Kitakyushu JHS teachers still showed up at their schools).

Last night Yoshida sensei e-mailed me a message. The problem: she e-mailed the message to a wrong number. So I proceeded this morning like any other day. Wake up at 6. Go to Lawson’s (Fanta Peach, Aquarius and a “sea chicken” onigiri). Board the highway bus at 7:05am.

As I was walking towards Chiyo’s front gate, I noticed it was closed. I already had a feeling that not a student was going to show up. But I didn’t know because I never got Yoshida-sensei’s message.

When I walked into the shokuinshitsu, most of the teachers and even the kyoto-sensei were surprised to see me. Yoshimura-sensei told me that Yoshida emailed me. After some clarification, I realized that I didn’t have to be on campus at all.

Winds began to pick up as the typhoon would pass by.

I figured I would call the BOE (Board of Education) office to take my last half-day of available paid vacation and head home early today.

Cut to me checking my cel: Stacey sent me a message. I read it - apparently, train services were halted. And so I started wondering: are the buses stopped too?

A quick jump to Nishitetsu’s home page threw me to a traffic info page, announcing that all bus services to Kitakyushu from Fukuoka had stopped.

There are two ways I could have gotten home: pay over fifty dollars for a taxi, or hitchike. I was, naturally, stressing out.

By noon more than half the teachers were gone. Some of them took a full day of nenkyuu (paid leave) and some left before lunchtime. I ended up sitting at my desk doing various, trivial internet activities including a session of Reversi with Amber (who was let go early today by her ultra cool kocho-sensei). If I didn’t have the internet at Chiyo I would have been face down on my desk, period.

Lunch came and Takeuchi-sensei asked me if I wanted to join them for a little meal excursion. Without any bento order I accepted with wide eyes.

After driving to two closed-establishments, we entered a well-known chanpon ramen joint. The food was delicious - the karaage (chicken) in the ramen was amazing and an additional side order of chicken wings was just as neat. It was good food and a nice plus to spend time with staff away from the school.

It made up for the crappy, surprise morning.

Salvation came in the form of one of our sports teachers who, like me, lives in Kokura. He drove me home when all the teachers closed shop and left at 5:15pm.

The typhoon may have passed us and the winds were strong at one point, but I have felt worse. It was a dud and botched the entire day. But on the flipside, it did give me a chance to see the staff out of their usual routine and have some chanpon. I can’t complain about that.

Chiyo Junior High’s staff room is pretty much like any other.

Teachers at work.

Today I had four classes. Some 3-nensei and a few 1-nensei including one visited by Chiyo Elementary’s teachers, but only for a few brief moments. Genki as always. I had a busy but good day.

When I first started at Chiyo, I asked Satou-sensei if he had a ruler. He came back from the supplies office with a meter stick. His sense of humor is wonderful.

The kosoku bus stop at Chiyo, eastbound for Kokura/Kitakyushu. That’s 1,300 yen a day. And yes, it’s literally right next to the highway.

Once I was home today I (once again) picked up a quick/easy bento for dinner and turned on the TV.

For the second day in a row I caught a drama (of sorts) that starts around 5pm on TV. From what I can gather, it revolves around a company and these office women. It’s over the top and overacted. But I could actually understand some of it from time to time. Today’s episode was great - I could understand more of their dialogue.

Of the six women, she seems to be the chief of sorts. I’ve seen her on various TV programs and I won’t hide the fact that I think she is ultra sexy. It must be her voice, or just the fact that she comes off as extremely assertive and confident. What’s her name?

It’s London Hearts time tonight - last week there was an odd special about Ryo’s marriage. So I am wondering if they’ll return to the normal list of wacky blackmail.