Lost and Found

I have realized that my accidental deletion of my entire blog means that, if I want to, I can re-write any of my previous posts, or take them in a different direction entirely. This doesn't mean that I have achieved any satisfaction out of having messed it all up!! Not in the least. I don't mind losing some, but I am pretty sure they weren't all bad, and so didn't all deserve to be kicked to the kerb.

So this means I can have another shot at the books, the sex talks, the host mom in a tupperware box, music, driving... and other stuff that I don't remember, but might have otherwise repeated myself. It's a shame I lost my birthday post though.

Bu, it sounds like soon I will have a wedding in the family to discuss and be excited about. Hopefully I will be in the country when it happens...

Oops!

Accidentally deleted my entire blog, and I have no idea how to get it back. I was able to copy the last page of posts into Word, so I can cut and paste them back in, but it's gone, really truly gone. 5 months worth of posts and activities and happenings and memories toasted. Fuck fuck fuck. Right, try again. Here goes!

Fall is in the Air

Friday was the autumnal equinox holiday here, and friends and I made good use of it by devouring fine cuisine at Viva Shiva before heading off to Headspin in fair Tottori. We danced and didn't, as technical difficulties were experienced with a multitude of mixers. We hung out on the patio, enjoying the cool temperatures, chatting with old friends rarely seen at Headspin, chatting with new ones never before met, and chatting up tall surfers. All in all a beautiful way to start the season.

Night temperatures have fallen recently -- so much so that last night, I wore a sweatshirt indoors for the first time since spring sprang. Although, driving to Yonago to return videos a day late and a few dollars short, I discovered temperatures in fair Saihaku were 5 degrees below that of a more temperate Yonago. Already getting ready for winter, it seems.

Sunday was spent walking, cleaning, video watching, laundry doing and in other untaxing affairs.

Updates in the city -- Cian is now a brown belt; after intense training for the past month he can once again relax and partake in the occasional alco-bevvie. Corinne's apartment is no more. Well, it is still standing, although I sometimes queried how, but it is no longer to be inhabited by denizens of the JET community as the roach infestation grew to be too much for the new Hochu ALT to handle.

Wishing, and Hoping, and Dusty is Calling

Reading several books right now, wishing I were in them, that I had more time to read more of them, that I could read them faster and still take them in thoroughly. It would probably help if I didn't read 4 or 5 books concurrently, but it all depends on my mood.

Wishing I were asleep right now, and that I had no plans tonight.Music -- could totally use some music right now. Right now. Right now. If I say it again, will it come? If I play it will it come? If I keep ripping off cheesy overused lines from movies and songs will anybody care?

If I were in Canada right now, I would be poor.

If only I could sing, and sing well, instead of the volume and enthusiasm I prefer to substitute for the lack of skill.

I need to practice drumming. Would love to ship them home and carry on annoying neighbours.

I want to study more Japanese, especially the kanji. I have so many study books, but lately I have not been too inclined to crack them. It could be due to the huge pile of clean laundry I have accumulated on my desk and kitchen table.

Wishing I had a maid -- not one that would get into all my scary corners and hiding places, but one hat would do things like put away my laundry, make my bed, sweep, do dishes and vacuum. I guess that is all kind of the same thing as scary places. Maybe I need to win the lotto or marry a wealthy sexpot who would keep me in clean clothes and sheets.

I keep hoping a club will open up somewhere in Yonago. Dancing is one of the few reasons I like going out, and the occasions are few and far between. Not a huge fan of little, smoky bars where everyone is crowded in along a bar and can't really talk to anyone other than the person beside them because the bad music is playing too loud.

Highways in Japan need to raise their speed limits. Especially on the toll roads. I really can't abide paying to use a highway and then being told I can't travel faster than 80 kilometres an hour. There is something inherently wrong in that.

Short Week, Few Posts

This is one of those fabulous times in Japan when the work week becomes a mere three days, due to marvelous timing of national holidays.

Yesterday was spent with three ALTs in the school who came to watch my classes and walk away impressed and intimidated by my teaching splendour. (I wonder how many synonyms for great I can throw in here?) Classes went all right, kids were normal -- same as always, 4-2 was slightly out of hand. Now people have these horribly high standards that I am expected to live up to.

I feel the urge to just randomly disgorge? spew? regurgitate? (why is there no word for that that can be considered even remotely appealing?) anything and everything.

Last night I went grocery and CD shopping. Isn't the link between the two events screamingly obvious? For music, I picked up Massive Attack, Indian curry music, and Tracy Chapman. For food, the intent was to purchase sun-dried tomatoes, but I changed my mind after I arrived and bought 3 eggs, fresh vegetables, sandwich meat, and salad dressing. The potential for healthy eating exists, but...

One of the three ALTs that visited yesterday scared me a little, as she was very loud. She doesn't even have the excuse of American-ness to fall back on. Although perhaps I have been here too long and have adjusted to the lowered speaking voices, thus finding her natural speaking register harsh and grating. The other two ALTs that came have been here for a while, and weren't nearly as loud, although on Steve's part, that could be due to his lower, basser voice. (Can you say basser, is that even a word? Or have I made it up? Maybe it's just spelled wrong.)

Jazz Inn is in the cards tonight. I have been randomly inviting whomever, so it could be quite a mix. Had to warn Diane when I went over Tuesday for dinner and recording of listening tests that I had involved her in a low, so should the other party show up, she will be aware. It wasn't even a horrible lie, it was just a desperate attempt to escape a group party at Aimi tiny shogakkou on Sunday following the sports day festivities. I claimed to be going to their house for dinner, which was off by a couple of days, but not a total lie. And as I have invited the lied-to party as well, I need to be careful.

Elly wanted to meet up with me in Yonago for dinner tonight -- the original plan was that it would be last week, but that changed. I decined, choosing instead to meet after for the jazz bar, as I have been intending to go to Viva Shiva and Headspin Friday for a couple of weeks, and knowing that Elly is allowing me to stay over Friday night, it means I shall also be buyingbreakfast/lunch on Saturday morning as Elly's house rarely seems to have food. 3 days in a row is a little too much, especially as I have a fridge and freezer full of groceries and yummy meals.

Wasting too much time right now, but I mostly have Monday's classes all planned. Tuesday is still up in the air, but that is what Monday is for, isn't it.

Must clean my disaster zone tonight before Elly comes around. Everything is just scattered everywhere. But was too tired last night to care. In bed by 10:30 yesterday. Gonna have to warn Elly I will be sleeping in tomorrow morning, perhaps I will put her in a separate room.

Off to go and find my supplies for my classes today. Hopefully I will find the energy too.

All in Good Sport

Sporting fun? I once saw on another blog the phrase, "Weekend is a verb." And this weekend kind of was.

After getting yogic and bendy and sarcastic with evil Ted and nice Diane on Friday night, I returned home to watch some of the latest mystery video sent by my loving madre. I have since decided that Ted's current yoga studio would be an absolutely brilliant place to have a party, if onlythe neighbors's homes didn't butt right up against the building.

Saturday was not much to speak of, however one or 2 double entendre skymails made their dirty way out into the world from the tips of my slightly liquored up fingers.

Sunday, feeling bored and footloose, I contacted some J friends I've not seen in ages just to say hi, and ended up going to watch their niece and nephew's sports day, at a school that only has 18 students, so audience participation is highly encouraged. They even go so far as to bribe you with such treasures as bleach, memo pads, felt markers, little tarps perfect for hanami drunkenness... I do believe I may have caused myself undue physical harm in the tug of war -- personally, I would like to blame it on my sandals. The inappropriate footwear could have been remedied had I been aware how participatory the event was to be.

My quick thinking and even quicker lying got me out of a potential J assault in the gym following the sports day, as I claimed to have to go to a friends for dinner (Diane, I am so sorry to have dragged you into a lie, but I just couldn't handle it. And it was just a lie about the date really, as I am coming for dinner tonight!)

The weather started to get humid again on Sunday night, and I came back drowning in sweat after a one hour stroll about town. It carried on through Monday and is still cloying today. Monday, in an attempt to escape the buggy humidity, Pete, Cian and I fled to the mountain for a little pitch and putt, where the course was so short, it was really leaning towards long putting.

I lost the pitch and putt game most miserably, as my putting is really not good. Pete and Cian tied -- well, mostly Pete lost the lead as he hit a ball over the green and down the hill, and it then took 6 strokes to recover from it. In an effort to break the tie, we went over to the putting green for nine holes of putting, where Pete's strong putting from the game before took a little loss of confidence, thus losing to Cian by 1 stroke. I wasn't even in the game really.

Due to this humiliating loss, Pete demanded that we follow all up with Bowling, determined as he was not to lose to Cian, and knowing that Cian isn't particularly strong at bowling. Sadly, Pete did not prevail there either -- I did. Kicked their asses right good too. Hahahahaha....All in all, an excellent weekend, and it remains to be seen if next weekend can surpass this, although I have secret reasons to believe it can...

Fall Head Cleaning

Do you ever have those moments when it feels like you have all of a sudden left all that crap that was crowding your mind behind you? Your weird hang-ups and obsessions? Your penchant for self-deprecation and an inability to take a compliment? Your undeserved lack of confidence? All that weird stuff that crowds into your mind and stops you from doing the stuff you desperately want to do?

It's been weird, but it feels like I have done that. I don't know if it was the whole birthday thing, but I don't think so. I feel like the timing was coincidental. I think it is because I managed to say some stuff, get some stuff out there that I had crammed into corners of my minds that were stopping some of the fabulous stuff behind them from escaping into the light. And I want to kick myself. What the hell was wrong with me that I didn't get to this point sooner? There's a distinct lack of self-consciousness and shame that I don't miss kowtowing to, and it is gorgeous. I would like to say, "I'm back!" but I don't think I was here before. I would love to say it is permanent, but that is gonna take some work.

I am, however, looking forward to the next couple of weeks and all the stuff I want to do. You should see the slow grin spreading wider as I type this. You just know there's gonna be trouble...

What I will Miss

The kids that all want to sit with me at lunch, fight over the possibility of my presence at their lunch tables.

My spacious, "posh for anywhere in the world," Japanese-style apartment.

Enkais with the staff at Saihaku shogakko. Fun and weird and drunken revelry was not the same at Yodoe. Even during the day, talking to people on the phone they ask, "Is there a party going on over there?" during lunch break in the staff room.

Planning lessons for enthusiastic kids that are excited to have me in the classroom, even if I do get annoyed when they won't listen.

Being able to walk down a street, country road, over a mountain, through a mall and come across little displays of devotion and faith scattered just close enough together that you never forget, but far enough apart that you never feel overwhelmed.

Centuries old history at the fingertips, representing a culture long-established and not all that changed when it comes down to the very heart of it.

Heated toilet seats and other seemingly unimportant and unnecessary applications of technology.

My kei car, the little blue standard transmission road demon, even if it does have a useless excuse for a trunk.

My paycheque. Pragmatism and practicality will always have a strong hold on my head.

Using and learning and growing in another language.

Being a different person from who people at home expect me to be.

Challenging people to think about the world around them, merely by existing in their presence, by speaking another language...

Omnipresent bicycles.

Trains.

Rice fields and all the thousand shades of green I never realized could exist.

Festivals to celebrate the ephemeral nature of things.

Trading books with friends and getting to glimpse inside their minds, see how they think.

Children who are still children because they live in the countryside and only get 4 channels on TV.

Vacations and long weekends that seem to be nearly constant, causing me to wonder when I will really start working.

Things are Changin' in the Sticks

Favourite people have left, or are leaving, or are changing drastically in ways I wasn't necessarily ready for. New people are showing up and bitching about the olds, showing their age and unreadiness and lack of confidence to everyone about. I am having a hard time caring. The girl who wouldn't shut up during my seminar yesterday, despite it being as much for her benefit as for everyone else, severely tried my patience. How many times I held my tongue, even when she was merely ranting in the midst of someone else's seminar, cannot be counted. Fortunately, not everyone is like here, but I hear we have our own versio down in the 'Nog who spends as much time complaining about her olds as the girly-girl yesterday, but who also likes to spice it up with cries for mommy dearest to swoop in and take care of. The boys, I don't know about yet, but there are loads of them. Of the 3 or 4 who I have spoken to so far, they seem alright, but perhaps they are just wiser about keeping their mouth shut in public.

I may be getting bitchy this year, as my patience seems to wear a little thinner every year. I have noticed how when you are out in the sticks in a foreign country like this, you often end up being friends with people you would never be friends with at home, merely because they are all that is around, and if I am not careful I will lose even those as I start pointing out stupidities in a cruel and acerbic manner.

Too old for this shit. Seriously.

Gaussian Curves

In the 1800's, apparently it was believed that the ideal man (being the 1800's, the focus was always on men, by men) was average. Statistics was a recently devloped course of study and graphs would be made up charting everything, from the average size of peas, to how many times people blew their nose, to the average amount someone was willing to spend on a blowjob. And they also accumulated information on the more basic stuff of life, such as height, weight, age, income, intelligence, hair colour, eye colour, eyebrow length and so on.

When charting these results, they found the results were nearly always plotted in a symmetrical curve, like a "u" that has been turned upside down, with the open ends splaying out towards the edges to hold themselves in place. The center, the highest point, represented the greatest accumulation of results, while the legs reaching up to that point tapered inwards as they approached the center.

This curve pattern, also called the error curve, was originally come upon by astronomists who were attempting to chart courses of the stars and other such useless but interesting information, as they realized that the greater number of samples they had, the fewer the errors, and that it was always on the edges of those samples where the greatest errors (but fewest in number) occurred.

This was all very confusing to me to read in a book which delves into quasi-scientific language, but I swear, I understood it. Least errors -- highest point of the graph. Essentially these astronomist fellows were merely charting the rate of errors. Okay. So, I am following all this so far, although my retelling may be decidedly lacking in coherence. And in the next logical step, this error curve was found to be reflected in statistical information collected about mankind (although most likely it reflects only western European society) and it came to be viewed, even by Darwin, that in order to be ideal, one must be average. The most mundane person would also be the most perfect according to these blinkered statisticians.

I will allow that at the time, statistics was a very new mathematic and quasi-scientific course of study, but really, having lived in one of those places where the average man is omni-present for the better part of 4 years, I can't even begin to grasp how this is a good thing. Sure, if you're going to venture into the arguments that government should be dissolved and man free to rule himself, then I can kind of go with it, as the average man wouldn't really think to himself that he wants more, which should mean anarchy and rebellion will not follow, but really? That Darwin would see the epitome of the species as the average Joe down the street?

It scares me as I start to wonder about exactly whose average they were expecting everyone to fit into, because there are some people I have met, even recently in the newest batch of teachers to arrive (straight out of the oven, made of poppin' fresh dough!) with whom I would desperately wish never to have to sink (my greatest fear would be having to rise to the level of them, good god, that the obsessively whining and self-centered rude girl I met yesterday could form any kind of ideal caused me nightmares last night. Shudder!) to the level of...Right, the train of thought I was carefully attempting to follow has met with another in an unfortunate accident and everything inside my mind has been all shot to hell. I give up, this isn't going anyhere right now.

Typhoon Nabi

Or, as the ever creative meteorological department here in Nippon likes to call it, Typhoon no. 14. Well, at least they aren't blaming it all on the women...

DATELINE: Monday, September 5, 2:37pm...

Emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of cancelling school entirely Tuesday, or at least for a half day. Maps and meterological charts are photocopied and handed out, however colour maps have never translated well into black and white photocopies, thus causing me to lose out on some of the sense of urgency. This meeting follows a day where the principal and vice-principal have been disappearing down the hall to watch TV news weather reports... or are they??? A half day is decided upon after much angst amongst the teachers about the severe shortening of sports day practice time. CAN IT BE DONE IN ONLY 2 DAYS!?! I ditch out as early as possible, deciding the rain is not conducive to work.

DATELINE: Tuesday, September 6, 8:26am...

Emergency meeting to annouce that school will be closed on Wednesday, however teachers are still expected to come. The fear is palpable as sports day organizers start to sweat, teachers haggling over practice times and locations. Lists are handed out of which teachers will be expected to drive students home at the end of the day, due to the late bus times and short notice to have them rearranged as needed. 9:51am Kato-san from the BOE calls to leave me an urgent message to remove the bamboo screen hanging on the outside of my windows,a s well as to take down my laundry pole on the back porch. 12:17pm I return home for lunch and a frantic 20 minutes removing screens and laundry poles and hiding anything that might possibly fly into my 30 feet of windows and break something. 12:53pm Return to school and spend the afternoon preparing for next Tuesday's newbies seminar on elementary school English activities. Also make sure to remove anything valuable or made of paper that hapens to rest under the windows, as they ALL LEAK. Especially in typhoons. And move stuff away from the exterior door, which also leaks. Quality construction, through and through.

DATELINE: Tuesday, September 6, 4:00pm...

Despite everyone being in the building all day, we are forced to wait until 4:00 for another meeting. Very little that I paid attention to is discussed, other than the principal and vice principal telling everyone to please leave early. I return home after hunting down the vice-principal in order to ask for Wednesday off. Only to leave in search of some videos to occupy my time during the typhoon. Around 7:30pm the wind starts to kick in. 8:34pm Still windy and raining. 9:52pm Rain, wind. 10:23pm Wind, rain. 11:46pm Rain, wind. What more do you want from me? 12:05pm Sleep.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 1:34am...

Still windy. Still rainy.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 4:22am...

More rain, more wind.

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 7:56am...

More wind, little rain

DATELINE: Wednesday, September 6, 8:55am...

Wind, no rain, and for this, school is canceled. Not that I mind, I slept in. Then I read books, played the drums, baked brownies, watched a video or two, made tzatziki dip, cooked fajitas, went jogging, and read some more. All in all, a very decent typhoon day. Today, upon returning home, I plan to rehang my bamboo screens to keep out this blazing sun.

Killing Time

It is over 30 degrees outside and the kids are practicing for sports day -- dancing, running, gymnastics, marching band. It's all I can do not to melt.

More wasted time spent at my desk, although I was 20 minutes or so late for work today, having slept through my alarm. Not that I have many classes to prepare for. I will have one tomorrow, and perhaps one or two next week, but primarily I will be getting ready for my seminar on elementary school activities for the new JHS ALTs on the 13th. Right after sports day. Brilliantly timed if I may say so.

Trying to practice reading Japanese. Finding some interesting websites for kanji, as well as ordering a book this morning by a man who creates stories to accompany every kanji. His system is not designed to help you with the readings, but only with the meanings. I am thinking that maybe because I have some vocab I will be able to put together words I know with meanings I understand of things I read, and maybe get somewhere that way. I have a couple of books (novels) I have picked up in Japanese and would like to get through.

Finished reading Norwegian Wood last night when I probably should have been sleeping. Lights were off by 11:30, but I didn't fall asleep until much later, and awoke at 3 or so for no apparent reason.

Sent a somewhat provocative email to a friend last night -- I always feel much bolder and confident at night. Fully expect to get another shocked reply from him this afternoon.

Think I will take my Japanese books and venture over to my classroom. Ideally, I would like to sleep on the floor, but I suspect I would be spotted. I'll play some of the musc I brought and maybe read the airplane novel I shoved in my bag in an attempt to maintain consciousness. It's a good thing there is no staff meeting today. I don't think I would survive.

Got a bag of nashi from my car guy yesterday. He drove all the way out from Yodoe to bring me my car insurance papers and the pears. Turns out my insurance has gone down again -- some kind of safe driving discount I suppose. It's a good thing that it only counts accidents, not tickets. As it stands, I will be paying 2,200 yen a month, or about 25 or 26 dollars. Insurance is cheap here, although it could be just like home, where it is cheap in rural areas.