Un’bear’able

This past three day weekend was as wonderful an experience as only a vague idea thrown together on a Friday afternoon and executed with a confident apathy can be.  The plan was simple– drive with the 4 Noshiro ALT’s, spend one night rocking in Morioka City, and then go camping on a distant mountain in Iwate whose name, much like its campsite, escapes me.

Morioka turned out to be an adventure in as much as it’s dance club was still playing The Rolling Stones (complete with techno beat in the background), and it’s townies seemed indescribably strange, including one idiot whose sole vocabulary consisted of F#@K and ‘Mother,’ shouted in random combinations while harrassing Frank.  Well, actually, he was capable of stating these two words in any combination imaginable while being calm, excited, angry, and whiney all at once.   Japanese people, breathe easy, for we have found the one person in your country with the worst, and most annoying English imaginable.

The mystical beautiful moutain in Iwate managed to elude us simply by being placed amidst a mass of roads closed off by the storm (i.e. apparently almost all roads in Iwate).  This led to the desperate gaijin decision to make a hike on a closed road to a nearby lake across several kilometers of mountains, in bear country, with no one around, and one said gaijin fantacizing about fighting the elusive and aggressive Japanese bear.  The one thing I gained from this– I learned just about every imaginable pun involving the word bear you can imagine.  Many thanks to Stephanie, Chris, and Frank for this, but at least the trip didn’t have to end with us in utter des’bear.’

With the roads blocked and the hike more distant than imagined, we returned from our hike fruitless and in need of a campsite, and made a break for one on the Akita border.  We arrived as darkness was falling, unable to find the campsite.  But we lucked out and were able to camp, for free, on a majestic lakeside only mere meters from a Lawson’s.  Needless to say, this was the Lawson’s clerk’s suggestion, and I’m sure their business climbed immensely by having four foreigners in such proximity.

The trip closed with at trip to a honey shop and one of Tazawako’s onsens which left me smelling with a hint of sulfur for the next 24 hours.  Looking at all of this I just wrote, the trip looks a total wreck– but never has a total wreck ever been more fun, or more satisfying, and I learned a lot:

— Iwate’s moths should actually be qualified as mammals, as they grow fur and you need a shotgun to take one out.

— Iwate’s people stare A LOT more than I am accustomed to, even in Akita.

— Don’t take a major trip shortly after a large flood has washed away large sections of roadway.

— Puns, while horrible jokes, are actually a good way to pass large amounts of time.

— Iwate ALT’s need to be teaching more than two words to their students.

AND

— Not all onsens come equipped with showers or smell nice, even if they charge more and have pretty milky white water.

I wish I were a girl.

I don’t know why students come to me with these kind of confessions.  Perhaps lanky and bald in Japanese culture means ‘I can solve your gender identity crisis.’  Unfortunately, despite having both of these features, I had no answer for Yusuke– especially after he demonstrated his ignorance on the subject even more by saying “Girls have such an easier time than guys.”  Apparently this logic was based on the fact that the girls don’t have to lift heavy stuff for teachers and get their own changing rooms (guys have to change in the hallway, which is actually a legitimate complaint).  Aside from badly needing a female physiology lesson, Yusuke is from the most boondock-isolated end of Futatsui, where the teenage population is somewhere between 1-5– making his closest friend his grandmother.  I suppose he’s just had time to think about these things.

Aside from encounter’s like this, I’ve run into students who were happy to show off their newly learnt English phrases ‘come out of the closet’ (from my JTE) and ‘pitch a tent’ (while use a relay baton as a demonstrative).  Others are more physical and will come by and give you massage for no reason at all.

And yet, talking to your ALT about sex change, saying dirty words, and being a free agent masseuse (sp?) are still less embarassing than saying an answer in English class.  Some things, clearly, I will never understand.

When the Levee Breaks

Was the song for yesterday.  And last night.  And maybe this morning.  I don’t think ever in my life I have sat through a day of continuous, non-stop rain.  Just two weeks ago I could have sworn that the Yoneshiro River was going to disappear (or at least be renamed Yoneshiro Creek) following a year of absolutely no rain, snow, or any other kind of divine precipitation.  And now, in a good 30 hours of solid rain, the river is flooded and 27,000 people in northern Akita (read: 2 Futatsui’s worth) have had to abandon their homes to the gym.  I feel very fortunate to live well past the river.  Although, this year there was a small exhibition about the flooding of the Yoneshiro River at my school, complete with photos of people using boats to commute as far above the river as the junior high, so I know I am by no means completely safe.

Regardless, I have another day off from the storm, but am still at the office trying to get some stuff done.  This is the first time I have seen school canceled due to weather here, and I’ll have to agree such a course of action is appropriate.  If you don’t cancel school for Noah’s flood, you’re just not human.

They have a skeleton in their closet…

… at Higashi Junior High.  And no, it’s not the well-concealed fact that despite being on an island, the school imports fish for school lunch from Argentina.  And no, it’s not the really old social studies teacher who can convert western dates in the years of so-and-so Emperor without skipping a beat.  It’s an actual skeleton from Japan’s prehistory, just chilling in the teacher’s break room.  In a box.  Protected from fiddling by only a small padlock and a single pane of glass.  It’s not much to look at… but it makes entering the break room by yourself a little creepy… knowing that you’re sharing it with a caveman skeleton.

I actually feel equally dead after this week– spread thin between three school and having four or five classes a day.  It’s good to know they find my useful though.  I remember the days of being at only one school and having a maximum of nine classes a week.  I don’t think I’d still be here if things were like that.  I like to know I have work to do.  I like to be busy… or at least I’d rather be insanely busy than insanely bored.  And insanely busy is precisely what I’ve been as of late.  And now, I’m coming up on a three-day weekend (the first in a series) where I can finally be busy with more for the stuff I want to be busy with– not reading words from cards, and certainly not taking coffee breaks with prehistoric skeletons.

My Life Feels like an episode of 24…

… because the clock is always ticking.

I expected my last entry to be a lot longer, but literally while I was typing I was pulled away to help (read: supervise) the students’ school cleaning.  Not by the staff mind you, by the students.  Since the year started I’ve offered some of the students at my base school a sort of access to the ‘English Underground.’  Some of the students who have displayed some interest in speaking English to me can, on a given day, ask me a series of questions, tell me their self-intro, memorize a tongue twister or some other English related challenge… and if they clear it they get a sticker.  I didn’t think it would work, but the word is spreading– the underground is growing– and it’s good to see the students motivated by something other than the Adventures of Mark and Demi.

Life is little changed.  I’ve acclimated back to work (though I still miss those summer days where putting in 90 minutes was all I had to do), and I’ve started getting my body ready for the marathon next month.  I’m relieved that the new ALT crop in nothern Akita is a good group of people.  I’m also signing up for the Japanese Language Test for this year… as the time has unfortunately come when I must shoot for 2-kyuu or fall into complete language learning apathy.  I’ve harvested 12 out of 22 pumpkins, participated with my neighborhood elderly people in the town field day (3rd prize in one of the relays this year was medicine), and finshed my last “Jewish Wedding Dance” (or at least that’s what it looks like) at the Futatsui School Festival.  I watched 12 of my students come home with trophies for the English Speech and Recitation Contest, including the Speech Contest Champion, who will compete against the rest of the prefecture.  In short, I’ve already done a lot of stuff, and the final year is only beginning.

But still…. the clock is ticking.