*... everyone around me is a total stranger...everyone avoids me like a psyched lone ranger...everyone... ((turning japanese, i think i'm turning japanese, i really think so)) ...*
Saturday, August 09, 2003
*... batten down the hatches ...* there's a storm a'blowin' in... the typhoon that has been wreaking havoc on the country starting from the south is finally up to Niigata. Although the weather is just a little drizzly (thank goodness! keeps the temp down!) you wouldn't really know that this big scary typhoon is hanging out here. Last night it was pretty windy, and Setsuko and her friend Hiroki and I were all flying about as our yukata (summer kimono) were flapping about us. Other than that, not too much to fear, but it seems that the entire city has gone into hiding. There's no one out, fire trucks keep making neighborhood patrols ringing their bells and announcing I-don't-know-what, and, worst of all, they cancelled tonights matsuri (festival) fireworks!! BOOO!
*... senpai ...* last night i was bored and hungry so I yelled through the wall to the neighbor, Tom, to see if he wanted to get something to eat. Tom is a newbie, and i invited the other newbie, Nadina, to meet us at the restaurant. Neither of the newbies speak Japanese, so it was up to me to get us seated, ordered, and otherwise taken care of. Now I am by no means what you would call "fluent" or even "comprehensible", but it was a strange situation after about 2 seconds the waitress would only speak to me, and it was up to me to translate everything. Every other word, the newbies were asking "what does that mean?" and "how do you say...?" Tom even later remarked about how lucky he and Nadina both were to have people like me around... Who'da thunk I would have been put in the position of senpai (literally "senior student" but can be used for "mentor" or "guide") on something like this?
*... dripdripdrip ...* life here is starting to become slightly unbearable as it gets hotter and hotter and my clothes get wetter and wetter. Yesterday Kelly and I went out to dinner and, while everyone else looked fine-to-slightly-glistening, we looked like we had been dunked in vats of oil we were so shiny and gross.
WHEE. How do these people put up with this every year??! 5:27 PM
Monday, August 04, 2003
*... (hmm hmm) i want to linger (hmm hmm) a little longer ...* Last night was the first time that I felt sentimental about where I am and what I have done and what I will be leaving behind. I was sitting on a river embankment, surrounded by 40,000 Japanese folks, sharing a very Japanese picnic of yakitori and onigiri with Kaori-sensei and her 2 friends, watching the biggest fireworks display EVER, and I realized when am I going to be able to do THIS again? Kaori picked up on my down-ness, and she started to cry (she's a sensitive little one), but she's convinced that I will come back next year (or at least sometime) and so there shouldn't be a sense of finality looming. The difference is, however, is that should i ever come back, it would undoubtedly be in the capacity of 'tourist' and not 'resident alien'. There's a difference there that I can't exactly describe, but anyone who has lived somewhere and then gone back to visit can back me up on this: it's just not the same... To add to the ending-ness of all of this, i had to move out of my apartment today. Thankfully I was able to pack everything in the bags I came with; that's to say that even though i will be returning with as much stuff as I left with, it's still dang heavy. My supervisor offered to give me a lift to my new apartment I'm crashing at for awhile, and he and the guy with him practically had a hernia trying to pick up the bag. I convinced them to drop them off at the bottom of the stairs once we got to my new (temporary) abode, convincing them that I was stronger than I looked (implying I was stronger than them)... I don't need to be responsible for landing 2 Japanese men in the hospital for reasons other than a broken heart... which leads me to a little update on "homestay! homestay!" sakai-san and "I dai-suki American girls" nakano-san. We went out the other night just for food, and it seems that the impending deadline of my leaving seems to have lit the fires under these normally shy Japanese boys. I had to have Marika translate "down boy, down!"... in between her giggles and "enjoy Japan!" remarks, of course. 4:37 PM
*a bit o' *britt*
In Niigata City, Japan it is:
* vItAl StAtS: *
* eYeS/hAiR/wEiGhT. brown/reddish?/yes. * cUrRenT wHeReAbOuTs. back back to cali, cali * bEdTiMe. my body has decided to forgo sleep for now. * fOoD. it has also decided it's anti-food. * pHrAsE. ahh! too many people speaking English! * mOoD. i feel weird, yo. Like twilight zoney, in another world weird. * tUnEs. i get to listen to the radio in my car again! * qUoTe: "whereas i am trying to read in the succession of things presented to me every day the world's intentions towards me, and I grope my way, knowing that there can exist no dictionary that will translate into words the burden of obscure allusions that lurks in these things."
*"One, seven, three, five -- The truth you search for cannot be grasped. As night advances, a bright moon illuminates the whole ocean; the dragon's jewels are found in every wave. Looking for the moon, it is here, in this wave, and in the next." Zen Master Hsueh-tou
* tHiNgS i WiLl MiSs... *
* kaori (kojima) and mariko, kaori (honma), marika and etsuko, setsuko, nakano and sakai (aka "the boys"), kelly, alan
* most of my students
* some of my teachers
* the Shin Ken Kan crew
* my granny bike (a little)
* speaking Japanese
* traveling
* tHiNgS i WoN't MiSs... *
* the staring
* the bus
* being bored outta my gourd
* sleeping on the floor
* the Japanese Way
* secondhand smoke
* the fashion
* jApAn, AkA tHe LaNd oF... *
* "We Don't Believe in Cilantro"
* "We Don't Believe in Towels"
* "Obscurely-Sized Paper"
* "Flouride is Foreign"
* "It's Rude to Eat on the Streets, but it is Perfectly Acceptable to Blow Smoke in your Face"
* "9am is Too Early for Stores to Open"
* "We Just Make the Technology, We Don't Use It"
* "Central Air? Never Heard of It. Central Heating? Nuh-uh. Heated Toilet Seats? Well duh, of course!!"
* "Deodor-what?"
* "Open 24Hrs = 7am - 10pm"
* "Our Knees Don't Freeze"
* "We Want to Speak Like Americans and Look Like Americans and Act Like Americans, But We Don't Actually Like Americans"
* "Hey, Free Beer!"
