Concientización

I finally started watching the new season of Orange is the New Black this week. I'm about halfway through, and once again I'm blown away, by the all-in performances of the cast, by the intricate plotting, by the humane writing. Every morning I watch an episode or two, and it feeds my thoughts for the whole day.

It's been a while since I've gotten lost in someone else's story like this. I haven't been reading much lately, or watching tv or movies. I'd forgotten how therapeutic an experience it can be.

I have this tendency to get so wrapped up in myself, in my own thoughts, my own worries, that I become my own little world. My world shrinks down to just me, and then every problem that appears on my horizon looms like a thundercloud. And I'd forgotten that stories have the power to yank me out of that.

I wrote a long time ago about my philosophy professor, Gregor, and about the article he had us read about a reporter who sees a young child in a garbage dumpster and has an out-of-self experience. Se saca de si mismo - It takes you out of yourself. That's something I need, desperately, on a regular basis.

Stories aren't just an escape for me, from my own troubled mind, they're concientización. Concientizar is one of those non-English words that is so much more elegant than the clunky English equivalent: "to make [someone] aware of [something]; to raise awareness of." Stories make me aware of the world outside me, or more precisely the world inside other people. I need that, now more than ever.

Don't Be a Hero

When I lived in Japan, I did a weekend homestay once with a family whose mother had gone to college in Canada. We were talking about differences in U.S. and Japanese culture one evening when she pointed out something that I had never paid attention to before -- how obsessed U.S. culture is with the idea of heroes.

If you look at the stories we tell ourselves, you'll see over and over again the tale of the ordinary citizen who becomes a hero. He's just a regular guy until circumstance forces him to step up and shoulder a burden too great for him to bear. So romantic! Or, a more recent incarnation of this obsession, the morally questionable anti-hero who manages to win our affection with a single act of heroic self-sacrifice.

And I think that may be the thing that I find most troubling about this part of our culture -- how in love we are with this idea of redeeming our otherwise messy lives by doing great deeds, making great sacrifices, or accomplishing the impossible. We are all ordinary people waiting around for our chance to rise above, to become that special sort of other that is the Hero.

But isn't that conception of our lives ultimately dehumanizing?

One of the beautiful lessons John Green's novel The Fault in Our Stars hopes to teach its readers is that a life devoid of great deeds, devoid of distinguished achievements, devoid of fame or fortune, can still be a well-lived life. All those moments of our lives when we are not committing great acts of heroism are also meaningful. In fact, those moments make up the vast majority of the minutes, hours, days and weeks of human existence. Most of us will be remembered but briefly, if at all. And even those who achieve that exalted Heroic status, how long will their names be remembered? A hundred years? A thousand? How long before the grinding progress of human development effaces even those names from our records?

Today, June 6, you will see message after message calling you to remember the heroic sacrifices made by those who participated in the D-Day invasions. We will attempt to memorialize those people by placing them in the most glorious category we can conceive of: Hero. We separate them out from us, surround them with this glow of more-than-humanity. That sort of admiration has its place. It has its place.

What I would like to suggest is that today we also spare some time to remember all the moments of their lives and ours that were not spent in heroism. All the ordinary moments that are the real stuff of human existence. Those moments were significant to them and to their loved ones, likely far more significant than the few hours they spent fighting and dying on the beaches of Normandy.

In our own lives as well, those moments are unbelievably significant. The moments you spent typing a text message to a friend. The moments you spent staring off into space, daydreaming. The moments you spent humming that stupid song you can't get out of your head -- all the component parts of human consciousness -- those moments are your life too, and not a single one of them is wasted.

A Problem & Its Solution

Problem

You know that moment when you see something on the internet -- it could be a facebook post, a tweet, a text from a friend, a blog post, whatever -- and it amuses you. Maybe you smile, or maybe a little breath of air leaves your nose, or maybe it's just sort of an inward glow of good humor. Whatever your reaction is, you were amused, but -- and this is key -- you didn't laugh.

Now comes the dilemma. "I found this amusing," you say to yourself, "and I'd like to reward this person for their mildly entertaining sense of humor." And, as we denizens of the internet know, one of the quickest and easiest ways of responding positively to something amusing is to type out the letters "LOL," or Laugh Out Loud. (Contrary to an urban legend that's been going around among people of my parents' generation, these letters do not stand for "Lots of Love." For example, do not message your child and say, "Your friend is in the hospital. LOL.")

But as an ethical internet user (as I hope my readers all strive to be), can you type "LOL" when you haven't actually LOL'ed? Is it right to give the impression that this person's attempt at humor has caused an actual physical act of laughter when it has, at best, caused a slight lift of one corner of your mouth? This dilemma has turned me off of using "LOL" in my internet conversations, and I have now resorted to the much less fraught "ha ha" or "heh."

My problem now is, sometimes someone manages to be so funny that I actually do LOL. I am sitting at home in front of my computer screen, and I see something that entertains me so much I cannot help but physically release a sharp burst of air through my vocal chords, causing sound waves to vibrate out through the air around me. In such instances, I wish to let this person know how deeply their wit has touched me, but the expression "LOL" has been so cheapened by overuse that I can no longer use it safe in the knowledge that my meaning has been conveyed. Whatever shall I type?

Solution

May I introduce you to a new acronym: LLOL. This stands for "Literally Laughed Out Loud." While it may appear to be a silly tumblr-style faux typo, it is in fact an innovative new mode of communicating your appreciation of others' wit and witticisms. So go ahead and use it, my friends! I have created it for us all to enjoy.

You're welcome.

Nostalgia is the Enemy

Tomorrow it will have been one year since I moved from Japan back to Texas. One whole year. I still can't quite grasp the truth of that. I've been living in DFW for twelve months now, but I just can't shake the feeling that Japan is my entire past.

What have I done with this year? I've got a job, a car, an apartment, a roommate. All the tangibles are more or less in place. But at any given moment, I'm not really here.

In fact, I often think that I'd much rather be anywhere but here. Back in Japan, of course, or off on a new adventure in another country. But even the idea of returning to Abilene or Victoria sounds somewhat appealing -- somewhere familiar where there are people I know and love.

That's the one thing I'm really missing here: a community. I remember when I first moved to Japan -- in fact, you can probably scroll down and read my post about it for yourself -- the immense sense of loss I felt at having left behind my college friends. Back in Abilene I was part of a tight-knit community that formed around a common interest in social justice and a common inability to quite fit into the mainstream of our college's culture.

That group of people was a huge part of making me the person I am. Leaving them behind was wrenching, and at the time I wondered if I had made a terrible decision, abandoning something that had felt so right and good. Reading back over my post from November of 2010, reading about how my new friendships simply weren't as satisfying as the old ones had been -- it's comforting to know that person's future already. She didn't know it at the time, but those fragile new relationships she was so tentatively cultivating would become the fabric of a new community -- a new community she would come to cherish as dearly as the one she had just left.

What I wouldn't give to go back to November 2010 and be that me again, surrounded by those people and with all those experiences still ahead of me. And herein lies the problem with my present -- Nostalgia is the enemy of moving the f*** on with your life. (Nostalgia is the mindkiller. Nostalgia is the little death that brings total obliteration.)

This is how I find myself where I am now, as a person who would rather sit at home alone on her computer talking to people on other continents about their lives, than go out and make a life of her own. Because, frankly, those other lives are more real to me than my present reality. And because what lies just behind me is so much happiness that I can't imagine what comes next ever measuring up.

How does one escape a happy past? How does one kill nostalgia?

I will face my nostalgia. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past--

                                                     This video is the enemy.

Mulan and America's Love-Affair with Masculinity (Part One)

And can I just take a moment to gush about how much I love this movie's artwork?

Do you enjoy Disney movies? Are you a feminist? If the answer to both questions is yes, then this blog post is for you! My favorite Disney movie of all time is Mulan, and today I'm here to talk about why it's only almost-feminist and why this makes it very American (Part One).

Ready to follow my Grad-school brain down that particular rabbit hole? Let's go!

First off, you can't talk feminism without acknowledging the existence of the patriarchy, and the movie neatly does this by opening with two scenes featuring only male characters: Men invading, men defending, men planning, men ruling the country, and as the Emperor points out, "One man could mean the difference between victory and defeat." (Dramatic irony alert: It won't be a man.)

I'm so manly I'm on FIRE.

The patriarchal context is then further established by the first musical number, "Honor to Us All." We are introduced to the character of Mulan through a cheery explication of her society's expectations of her as a woman and an illustration of her complete inability to conform to these expectations. "A girl can bring her family great honor in one way -- by striking a good match, and this could be the day!" (Dramatic irony alert: There might be more than one way.)

Good with chopstick, not so good at girl

Having failed to meet her society's standards of femininity, Mulan returns home in disgrace and reflects on her Reflection. In case we hadn't gotten the message yet, Mulan is not traditionally feminine. "Somehow I cannot hide who I am, though I've tried. When will my reflection show who I am inside?" (Foreshadowing alert: Could it be that her reflection will show who she is inside when she stops trying to hide?)

Now that we've established our patriarchal context, Mulan is faced with her first crisis, one that hinges on these strict definitions of gender roles. Her father, as the only man in the Fa family, is expected to fight for his country despite being old and infirm. A young neighbor of the Fa family acts as a foil for Mulan by volunteering to take his father's place. This option is denied to the female Mulan, whose willingness to speak up and defend her father only shames him. The movie takes a moment here to demonstrate that patriarchy can be dehumanizing. Mulan's father, who up to this point has been the only one cutting her any slack, suddenly turns on her with the harsh, "I know my place. It is time you learned yours."

Now Mulan is faced with a choice: Uphold society's definitions of masculine and feminine roles at the expense of her father's life or reject those definitions at the expense of her family's honor and possibly her own life. We are not surprised when she chooses the latter, considering how ill-suited she is to those definitions in the first place. However, the movie wants us to understand that this is not an easy choice. After all, it involves great personal risk. "She could be killed," her mother says. Her father replies, "If I reveal her, she will be." This is a rigid society, one that enforces its norms with the death penalty. After all, social deviancy is a slippery slope! As one of Mulan's ancestors says, "Traditional values will go down!" (Feminism alert: Maybe that's not such a bad thing...)

Still working on this "man" thing...

So Mulan takes on a masculine identity, cutting her hair and putting on man-clothes, but as soon as she arrives in the war camp, it becomes apparent that this change is merely superficial. Confronted with the alienness of the new role she is trying to fill, Mulan reverts to a more traditionally feminine self that finds the men around her "disgusting."

"I'm such a fail. Q_Q"

During this segment, the "naturalness" of the gender roles is initially reinforced by Mulan's inability to fulfill the requirements of the masculine role. This reinforcement is false, though, and serves merely to highlight the drama when Mulan finally shatters the divide between gender roles. Not only is she ultimately able to fulfill the requirements of the masculine role, but she even surpasses the men in her abilities. "Did they send me daughters when I asked for sons?" Yes, Li Shang, they did, and a good thing too. (Dramatic irony alert: He won't make a man out of her.)

WINNING.

 

At this point, the narrative's feminist message is on solid enough ground that it can withstand some playful exploration of the identity shifts Mulan is undergoing. Mulan slips off for a "girly" bath but is almost discovered when some of her comrades decide to join in. This scene cuts straight to the heart of the matter by revealing Mulan's discomfort with the physical differences between her female body and the male bodies of her companions. While her (culturally determined) gender may be fluid and alterable, her physical body is not. She may be masculine, but she can't be male.

"I don't really wanna take him anywhere."

But this is where things start to get problematic. Up until now, the character of Qi Fu, the Emperor's Consul, has served as a sort of minor villain, constantly threatening to send bad reports about Li Shang to the Emperor. The bathing scene is the first of many where Qi Fu's non-traditional masculinity becomes the butt of a joke. He attempts to join the men in their bath, but wearing a dainty towel, shower cap and slippers. We see the aftermath of this as he huffs off, repeating some of the insults the men have thrown at him. However, instead of inviting our sympathy for a character being bullied for non-conformity to gender roles, the movie wants us to laugh at him.

Qi Fu, I found your bathing ensemble stunning!

The movie, while championing a "masculine" female, still feels it acceptable to shame and ridicule a "feminine" male. In the world of Mulan, male characters are allowed to possess the full scope of the "masculine" personality (governed by their stomachs and sexual drives, slovenly, aggressive, etc...) but they are not allowed to infringe upon the "feminine" (concerned with clothing and personal appearance, picky about personal hygiene, feminine forms of speech, dislike of physical labor, etc...).

This tendency of the film is jarringly anti-feminist. After all, feminism aims to oppose patriarchy in all its guises, and it is patriarchy which has dictated these strict gender roles for both males and females. The movie's treatment of Qi Fu reveals its troubled relationship with the feminist principles it set out to champion. In the final analysis, we can't forget that Mulan is an American movie, created by Americans for an American audience, and its inability to fully embrace feminism is a symptom of this. The movie struggles with the parts of feminism that U.S. culture struggles with -- We are so in love with masculinity that we think EVERYONE should be masculine, men and women alike. When women aren't masculine (assertive, outgoing, independent, outspoken), we can accept it, even approve of it, but when a man dares not to be masculine we feel the need to shame him back into his proper role.

Spoiler alert: Qi Fu does scream [in the manner traditionally associated with a female].

But enough about our cultural failings. We have a movie to analyze here! Part 2 coming soon, wherein I discuss the benefits of non-surgical gender reassignment...

We Are the Universe's Fingertips

The great secret at the heart of existence is a gaping abyss of unmeaning.

Such is the proposition of existentialism. And on a night like tonight I can feel a truth in it. The entire trajectory of my life to now has been a headlong, wide-eyed stumble toward anyone or anything which I could fling between myself and that abyss. Anything that means I do not have to stand at its edge alone and feel its icy breath on my own skin.

But as soon as I take that step to the edge of the abyss and gaze into its nothingness, I do not find myself overcome with despair but rather with...inspiration. And with indignation!

My mind blossoms with thoughts. I cannot but question the abyss and demand it justify itself -- You there, if you are the end of everything, the singular truth of the universe, then tell me this about it: Why are we?

We, humans, thinking animals who step up to an abyss and try to understand it.

We are terrified of it; we tremble at its impersonal vastness, its finality, the death smell of it. But we refuse to stop at that. We step up to the abyss and we fling our self-ness at it: our questions, our fears, our poetry, our songs, our bodies, our loves, our passions. We would fill its emptiness with our own fullness.

Why is such a thing as us?

Standing here before the nothing, I cannot reject the us. I cannot accept that a universe, vast and empty as it is, governed by impersonal laws would, at some far-flung extremity of itself, vomit up the one thing incapable of accepting its impersonality: persons. I cannot accept that the engendering of the personal from the impersonal is a random accident.

A god? Perhaps not? But an order to the vastness, yes. A universe that wants to know itself, that strives to grasp its own existence and the unknowable laws which govern it -- the final order of the chaos is the mind. Our questions are the universe's ultimate aim, or its path toward that aim.

For are we not also the universe? If the universe were a body, we would be its senses, touching, hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling the entirety of our universal body. We are the universe's fingertips, groping a way through the dark, tearing back the skin of the future and revealing what lies beneath.

I Only Sail on Fictional Ships

Perhaps you are aware of shipping. (If you are not, you may enlighten yourself here). I personally became aware of shipping sometime c. 2009 when I started getting into The Big Bang Theory and accidentally stumbled across the hordes of rabid Shenny (Sheldon+Penny) shippers.

I was further enlightened when I made my maiden voyage on the Vampire Diaries Delena (Damon+Elena) ship. One google search for "I+ship+Damon+and+Elena" later, and I had been initiated into the tidal wave of feels that is the #Delena tumblr tag (SO MANY SEXY GIFS). (Perhaps this would be a good moment to pause and say that, "Yes, I understand that admitting my membership in this fandom will open me up to ridicule," and "No, I don't care... But I'm certainly not going to spill ALL of my fandoms...").

But as I went further down the rabbit hole, I began to notice a disturbing trend within shipper culture. Perhaps I first became aware of it because as I swam gleefully through the ocean of Damon and Elena love I saw almost as many references to Ian+Nina, the names of the two actors who played these characters in the CW television show. I found this odd. After all, the books and TV show made it clear that there was some sort of attraction between the two characters and gave us tantalizing glimpses into the development of their romance. The two actors, on the other hand, were two people who had been hired to pretend to be these characters for a few hours every week and then presumably went back to living their regular lives. And never the twain shall meet...

Or so I thought, until I discovered that Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev actually were dating IRL. That made me feel minimally more comfortable with the existence of Nian ship, but only minimally. This was because I knew from my overconsumption of pop culture news that actors who worked together often ended up dating...and just as often broke up.

The entertainment media make this out to be some sort of great tragedy of the fast-paced and glamorous Hollywood lifestyle -- relationships simply can't hold up under the scrutiny of all those cameras. Yet if we step back and examine the situation a little more realistically, it is obvious that this is an exaggeration.

Follow: If you consider the romantic life of an average person in the U.S., the majority of romantic relationships that they have will end. After all, untimely death and polyamory aside, you will probably only end up making a lifelong commitment to ONE person in your entire life. On the other hand, you will probably have relationships of varying seriousness with more than one person. Do you see the issue here? Most of us experience more break-ups than we will lifelong loves. This holds true for the famous people as well.

And this is why I only sail on fictional ships. Fictional relationships are created within the fantasy realm of idealized romantic love. In that realm, people meet and go through drama and come out the other side with forever love. Then the story ends, and we get to imagine our OTP together for eternity, or at least as much of eternity as we are capable of conceiving of. Real people, on the other hand, don't have happily ever afters. They have lives that go on and on until they die. They have reality, and in reality most romantic relationships end. Just like Ian and Nina's did.

Knowing this, when I see two public figures I admire dating one another, I wish them well, but I don't expect them to be together forever. The ship is probably going to sink, or at least glide uneventfully back to harbor to let us all down at the dock before it's put into dry dock and decommissioned. For me, at least, that's not the kind of cruise I fantasize about. I prefer to sail off into the sunset on my fictional ships.

The Persistence of Memory

In recent years, I've found myself thinking of my grandmother more and more at this particular time of year. I suppose it is common to think of your lost loved ones the most during the holiday season, and perhaps that's part of it. But for me the association goes deeper. My grandmother's passing took place right around the time we were celebrating our most beloved holidays.

The last time I saw her, spoke to her, told her I loved her (thank God) was Thanksgiving of 2007. We were at my grandmother's house, and the feast was over. My family -- mother, aunts, uncles and cousins -- were all lying about the living and dining rooms happily drowsing and digesting. My grandmother was puttering about in her own room in the back of the house, having already completed her yearly post-Thanksgiving-engorgement nap. We were taking turns heading back to her room to each have our private chat with her. There were so many of us there who loved her, who loved being near her, and I guess we all knew that our time with her couldn't last much longer.

I remember I went back to speak with Maw-Maw (as we call her) after my cousin Stephanie had just returned from a long, satisfying chat with her. I found her in the middle of hanging a new bookshelf, a necessary addition to support her library-like collection. She asked me to help her, and I gladly agreed. I wish I remembered what we said. It must have been a conversation of inconsequential things, the kinds of matters that slip just as easily out of our minds as they do into them. What I do remember is the feelings I had as I spoke to her -- regret that I didn't speak to her more often and a dull sense that this conversation might rank among the last that I ever had with her. Of course, I hadn't an inkling that it would be the very last.

I must have seen her, if only briefly, at least one more time before I headed back up to my college town at the end of Thanksgiving Break. But all I can call back to my mind is those twenty minutes I spent in her cluttered little bedroom -- full of the paraphernalia of a nearly eighty-year life -- leveling a small bookshelf and chatting of nothing much at all.

A couple of weeks later, in the first week of December, she suffered a major heart attack. It put her into a coma that she never really woke up from. My memories of Christmas 2007 are vivid with hospital room visits; my mother so, so lovingly stroking her mother's still, veiny hand; old friends gathering to laugh and cry and remember the wonderful times; and waiting. All of us waiting for the inevitable end.

She passed away January 7, 2008, just after the turning of the new year.

I think of her often now. The pain of her passing seems as fresh as ever. Growing up, she was more like a second mother to me than a grandmother. My mom, raising two daughters on her own while holding down a full-time job as a teacher, relied upon her heavily to look after my sister and me when she couldn't be around. It was my grandmother who, when I was in elementary school, saw to it that I ate breakfast, got dressed and got to school on time. On days when I forgot my coat, lunch, pet rock or homework, it was my grandmother who got the phone call from the school office and, whatever she was doing, dropped it and rushed up to school to bring me what I needed. It was my grandmother's house where I spent my after school afternoons, waiting for my mom to finish work and come to take me home. I played there, watched TV there, did my homework there, made friends with the neighborhood kids, explored the attic, made messes, destroyed a few irreplaceable and precious family heirlooms... On days when I was sick and had to stay home from school, it was my grandmother's house that held my sick bed, and it was my Maw Maw who took me to the doctor, got my medicine from the pharmacy, nursed and coddled and scolded me back to health.

There is no moment of my childhood, from my earliest memories up until the time of her death when I was 22 years old, in which my grandmother did not figure strongly. Looking back, I realize now that her passing for me was the passing of an era. In many ways, I mark that moment as the end of my childhood. I may have been well into my twenties by then, living away from home and with a bachelor's degree under my belt, but up until that moment I was still living in a world where at any time I needed her, my Maw Maw was there to help me in any way she could. Her passing was my first experience of losing that kind of support, that kind of shelter from all that life demands of us. I suddenly felt as I never had before my own exposure to responsibility and the burden of caring for myself by myself. Perhaps this is part of why her loss still echoes so strongly in these chambers of my adult life.

My quilt, made by Maw Maw

Many things call her back to me now -- quilts, old songs, blue station wagons, the neon green bathing suit she sewed for me. Especially, I look for her in myself. In the mirror, I study my jawline and think how its strong, square shape mirrors hers. When I smile, I think that the shape of my smile is very much like hers was. Tonight, I spoke a sentence out loud to myself and my voice was an echo of hers, when she used to sing to me, "I love you. I love you. Can't help it if I love you."

I used to read in books or hear in movies or TV shows the idea that people we love are never truly gone, that they live on in our memories, in our hearts and minds. I always thought this was merely a reference to our memories' ability to call back cherished moments of the past. Since my grandmother's passing, I have come to understand the truth of this idea in a completely different light.

I now live in a foreign country, many thousands of miles away from my childhood and my grandmother's house. When I am homesick, I can close my eyes and conjure in my mind a memory of home. But it is more than a mere recalling of the details of a place, of a location or the faces of the people who live in it. It is a feeling of warmth and safety and protectedness, of being surrounded by the people who raised and cared for me as I was growing up -- my mother, my aunt, my sister, and of course my grandmother. And when I remember home, when I reconstruct its flesh and bones within my mind, I never remember that my grandmother is no longer alive. In my memory of home, she is always there. In her house, filled with afternoon sunlight, she sits in her favorite armchair and hums an old hymn, off-key, to herself as she embroiders a patch of quilt. And I sit on the floor on an old, dusty rug, content and knowing that I am loved and cared for. In that moment I know that as long as the people who love her live, my grandmother will never die.

A Moment of Silence

Today, at 2:46 PM, we observed a moment of silence to mark one week since the earthquake and to honor the victims. My life has been irretrievably altered... I love this country, though. I think we've a few miles yet to travel together along this road. It is March 18th. In four more days, I will have been in Japan for an entire year.

日本、一緒に頑張りましょう。

Not Trying to Be Emo or Anything, But...

Lately I've been feeling very lonely in my new home. It's not the kind of loneliness that can be cured simply by spending more time with people. It's a deeper loneliness -- I am lonely for the people who love and know me best. I think the hardest thing about moving to a new place like this, all alone, is not having a single relationship that I feel sure of. Every relationship I have here is new, fragile and uncertain. I can never be entirely sure where I stand with anyone, even the people I rely on the most (Perhaps especially the people I rely on the most).

Talking to friends and family back home over the internet helps, but even in the best interactions there is still a lack: the distance alone destroys, in part, the very intimacy I am seeking. And even an hours-long conversation can't change the fact that these are no longer the people I am making a life with. The end result is that my every relationship is marred by distance, whether emotional or physical. It is a painful state to live in continuously.

But live I must. So I live on the hope that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, and that perhaps the day after that will be better yet, and that slowly, with painstaking work, every day's little moments are pebbles being added to the pitcher, so that soon I will be able to quench this soul-thirst.

The Drill Sergeant in Yellow Sneakers

Yesterday, I was at elementary school again. Because it was only my third time going to that school, most of the kids there still didn't know me, so I had to dust off the old self-introduction and bring it out for several classes-ful of kids to "oo" and "ah" over. One kid, upon seeing me enter the room behind the Japanese teacher of English, actually said, "Sensei, did you just bring in some random stranger off the street?" (or the Japanese equivalent thereof).

At lunchtime I was with a class of unreasonably adorable second graders, one of whom I think I actually talked into believing that I was around eighty years old. One of the great things about kids this age is that their language is at a low enough level that I don't have too much difficulty understanding them. The other great thing is that at that age, they don't mind, and in fact often don't even notice, carrying on a more or less one-sided conversation. All it takes is a few well-placed "sou desu ka?"s and some vigorous nods of the head to satisfy them that I'm holding up my end of the deal.

For some reason they weren't having cleaning that day, so after lunch we all went straight to play time. I wandered out into the school yard behind the kids, hoping to find a nice, sedate game of jump rope or, barring that, some tag. I approached a likely-seeming group of 5th-grade girls, but they merely nodded politely and then scurried off, giggling. Eventually I came across a large group of kids playing some strange hybrid of dodge ball and red-rover that had, somehow, lost all of the violence native to those two games in the merger.

I had just begun to chat up a Peruvian girl in Spanish when all of a sudden I sensed a presence off to my left and about two feet down. I glanced around until at last my eyes lighted on a round, serious face glaring up at me, the two sharp eyes sizing me up and very possibly finding me wanting. The Peruvian girl took my distraction as an opportunity to escape back to her game and I suddenly found myself alone with this small, intense person. She began to speak to me very quickly and in such a thick Tochigi accent that I hadn't a clue what she was saying.

"Nani?" I tried. First mistake. I should've just gone for the smile and nod approach again.

She let out an exasperated sigh, adjusted the little cardigan stretched across her stomach (rendering it no less crooked, I might add) and then repeated everything she'd just told me just as rapidly and just as unintelligibly. This time, however, she tacked on the end, "Mitai?"..."You wanna see?"

I raised my eyebrows, cocked my head to the side in my best "Huh?" gesture, smiled and repeated, "Nani?"

Second mistake. I should've just said "Yes."

My small interlocutor's exasperation then ratcheted up a notch, and she shook her head, took a deep breath and then barked out in a shockingly spot-on interpretation of a drill sergeant, "Na! Ma! Chi! Mo! No!"

"Namachimono?" I repeated, slightly bewildered.

"Chiga-!" she yipped. "Kakikukeko no che! Na! Ma! Che! Mo! No!"

"Namachemono?" I corrected myself, realizing now that I had mis-heard her the first time.

"Chiga-!" she yelled. "Kakikukeko no ke! Na! Ma! Ke! Mo! No!"

"Oooooh," I said. Apparently I'd misheard her both times. "Namakemono?"

"Sou! Mitai?" she barked at me again, and then leaving nothing to chance this time, she took me firmly by the hand and began dragging me off to the other side of the school yard. I hadn't a clue what a "namakemono" was, but I was intrigued. Once there, she led me to the bars and proceeded to show me just how well she could hang upside down from them. I thought it best not to point out that she was showing her underwear to the entire student population of the school.

Her demonstration completed, she climbed back down, made a few closing comments, dusted off her hands and then launched into her next unintelligible speech. Having learned nothing from the first "conversation" with her, I once again attempted to have her repeat herself, and it wasn't long before I found myself being barked at again: "Shi! Ri! To! Ri!"

I thought it best to try the smile and nod approach, which elicited yet more exasperated sighs on her part (Looking this word up in the dictionary later, I discovered it was a sort of Japanese word game, which I surely would have failed at). Giving this latest suggestion up as a lost cause, she took me by the hand once more and began leading me over toward a small grassy mound on another edge of the school yard, maintaining the entire way her litany of strangely accented Japanese. I smiled, nodded, expressed concern, approval, agreement or sympathy as seemed appropriate and before long found myself being ordered to squeeze my nose shut and hold my breath as we summited the peak before us.

Once we'd safely made it down the opposing slope without passing out from oxygen deprivation (fortunately we never got TOO high above sea level), she gave me an approving pat on the back and then began leading me over to a nearby tree. She pointed at a sign on the tree that displayed the species name. I read it to her, but she seemed to find it necessary to correct my pronunciation in her own inimitable manner: "Ku! Mo! Ki!"

At this point I felt it appropriate to ask her her name, even though I could read it quite clearly on her name tag. She nodded sagely, confirming that I had indeed chosen the right thing to do and then said, "Chi! Ho! Ha! Chi! Sai!"

"Oh, I see, Chiho. So, you're hassai (eight years old)?"

"Hai! Tan! Jou! Bi! Wa! Ha! Chi! Gatsu! Ichi! Nichi!"

"Ah, so your birthday is Hachi-gatsu tsuitachi (August first)?"

"Hai!" And then she pointed to her shoes, which were an eye-opening shade of yellow and asked me if I wanted to race. I agreed, and then without further ceremony she began to run full-out across the school yard. I followed at a pace that I felt made it seem that I was trying but that wouldn't tax my abilities too hard. Inevitably she won.

She allowed herself a small smile to celebrate her victory and then once again pointed to her shoes.

"It's because of these," she asserted. I was beginning to be able to decipher her speech. "They're all 'pika! pika!' I like kiiro. In English kiiro is YELLOW! Can you say kiiro?"

"Kiiro," I said.

"Good," she admitted, and I glowed with pride. Chiho didn't seem the sort who gave out praise lightly. And then the bell rang signaling that play time was over, and just like that Chiho was giving me a brisk wave and a curt nod good-bye before dashing off toward her classroom.

As soon as I was back at the table in the staff room, I pulled out my phone and used its dictionary function to figure out just what the heck a "namakemono" was. A moment's search discovered that it meant "sloth," as in the animal that likes to hang from tree branches all day without moving a muscle. Apparently Chiho had simply wanted to demonstrate for me the proper way to imitate a sloth. Good thing, too. Not sure I would've been able to continue as an ALT without that knowledge...

二本

My special needs students are awesome. As my co-worker Adam put it today at work, "The special needs class are easily the coolest kids in the entire school." They're the most fun to teach and also the most fun to just hang out with. I've taken to crashing their midday break time a couple of times a week.

I don't know which one makes me laugh the most, the Kendama Whiz who often lets out an exasperated "Sensei!" at my attempts to imitate her skills, the Tickle Torture Queen, or the Secret Genius, who speaks three languages and is a truly gifted artist. There's no question of who my favorite is, though. She was the first student I ever met at my middle school. When I showed up on my first day of work, she was sitting in the principal's office, a new arrival like me, waiting to go before the entire staff room to make her self-introduction. We chatted for a while, and I asked her her name. When she told it to me, I repeated it back. However, my pronunciation was apparently dis-satisfactory, for she made me repeat it several times before she gave her approval.

Since then, she's become well-integrated into the student community, being one of the friendliest and most outgoing people I've ever met. She always greets me with the brightest smile and a cheery "Hello!" when we pass in the hallways at school. I always make sure to emphasize the part of her name that I originally mispronounced, just because this always makes her laugh.

This morning, however, my favorite barely looked up when I waved and greeted her on the way to class. Something had her down today. I made a mental note to check in with her after lunch to find out what was up. When the after-lunch break rolled around, though, she was nowhere to be found. It turned out that the second and third-year students were having a meeting in the gymnasium, so I hung out with the first-years, getting them to teach me how to write the characters in their names.

At last the other students appeared, having finished their meeting (one of them tried to explain what it had been about, but she used too many big words. :_( The student I had been waiting for shuffled in slightly behind the others, sliding over to her desk without looking up from the floor. I tried to call her over to show me how to write her name, but she just shook her head, mumbled something and then slid over to the other side of the room to fiddle with her book bag.

"She's in a hurry," one of the other students explained.

"She seems a little down today," I ventured. The girl I was speaking to nodded and then turned to our friend across the room. "Hey! Are you all right?" she asked. The other girl nodded and then quickly left the room.

I wanted to follow her and ask her what was up, but the other students were crowding around, showering Adam and me with questions, and besides, she apparently had something to get done quickly.

Then, a few minutes later, I looked up and realized that she was standing right next to me, clutching a piece of paper, which from the looks of it was homework. I gave her a smile, wrapped up the conversation I had been having, and then turned to her and asked, "Did you need help with that?" She nodded and then spread the paper out before me. It was an English worksheet. She pointed at one section and said, "I don't understand this at all."

With a sigh of relief, I set about explaining the activity and then helping her complete it. English was a problem I was definitely well-equipped to deal with. Finally, we got to the last question. It was a fill-in-the-blank exercise, and the last sentence was "There are ____ ____ in the box." I looked at the picture that we were using for reference. The box in question contained a volleyball and a beach ball.

"All right," I said, "so what's in the box?"

She looked at the picture. "Booru?" she replied, using the Japanese pronunciation of the word.

"Right, I said. But how many are there?"

Her eyes lit up and she filled in the first blank with the word "two." Then she shifted her pencil over to the second blank, poised it to write and then frowned. I waited for her to ask for help, but she just kept staring at the blank. After a minute, she tentatively wrote "b."

"Good," I congratulated her. And then, just to be helpful, I enunciated carefully, "balls." And then I started giggling, because deep down inside I'm no better than the middle school kids that I teach. Fortunately, she didn't notice my inappropriate laughter, instead opting to continue her attempt to spell the intractable word. "Bour," she wrote and then gave me a hopeful look. I shook my head. She erased the last three letters and then waited.

"A," I suggested. She wrote "a." Then I made a beautifully rendered L-sound (which, in Japan, is really just showing off), hoping that she would be able to guess the appropriate letter just from the sound. No such luck. "R," she wrote.

"No, 'L,'" I said. She added a second "r" after the first one. "'L,'" I repeated, turning and writing it on the chalkboard behind me. I added an "r" next to it and then demonstrated the sounds each letter made a few times until she seemed to grasp the distinction. She erased the "r"s and then proudly inscribed a single "L" on the page.

"There are two of them," I said in English, holding up two fingers to demonstrate. She frowned, cocking her head to one side. "Two 'l's," I repeated. She looked down at her paper and then back up at me. I cast about in my brain, looking for the language that could communicate what I was trying to tell her. Then inspiration struck.

"二本エルがある," I said.

"Ohhhhh!" she said, inscribing another "l" after the first.

"And 's,'" I added. And at last her paper read "two balls," perfectly spelled and everything. And then I giggled.

Is "本" even the proper counting word for "l"s? IS there a proper counting word for English letters? I have no answers to these questions. All I know is that "二本エル" got my point across, and that's good enough for me.

The Season

This year marks my sixth consecutive year as an outside observer of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, and I think I'm finally getting used to it. For the first nineteen years of my life, I lived right smack dab on the Gulf Coast in an area that had seen rather a lot of tropical weather over the years. So, every tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane was a matter of concern for me and everyone I knew. At home, we would warily watch the Weather Channel of a summer evening, waiting with interest or anxiety, depending on the current storm's projected chance of reaching our area, for that night's tropical update. (I can still remember one Weather Channel reporter's laughable attempts at reading a Spanish-language warning during 1992's Hurricane Andrew: "Oonuh tore-men-tuh moy pelly-gross-oh.")

At school, every May as the annual Atlantic Hurricane Season kicked off, our local T.V. station's weatherman (or woman) would pay a visit to each class to pass out free hurricane tracking charts (marked with the station's logo) and teach us, yet again, how to track a storm using the coordinates given out on the news. For us kids, these days were particularly exciting because they gave us hope that an early season tropical storm might get us out of school early for the year.

My first full-blown hurricane wasn't until I was eighteen years old. It was July of 2003, less than a month before I was set to leave home (ostensibly forever) for college, and the storm was Claudette. She was small, barely rising to a Category 2 just as she made landfall...just in time for her to weaken again, falling quickly down the Saffir-Simpson scale, through Category 1 and tropical depression and, within a day, into mere "big storm" status. I even had to go in to work that morning, though they sent me home before the worst of the storm hit.

And then I shipped off to Abilene, Texas, a good 380 miles inland from the coast: 380 miles from all the action, as far as I was concerned. Oh, we occasionally got the remnants of a hurricane or tropical storm that had made landfall down near my hometown or, once, on Mexico's western shores. But it was nothing like being there to see the real thing, the storm in all her glory and terrific power. I consoled myself by printing out tracking charts from on-line (sadly, with no KVIC logo on them) and filling them out on my own.

Then in the summer of 2005 (oh, fateful season!) I started working at the International Office, and soon I discovered that one of my co-workers was a fellow native of the Gulf Coast who, unlike all the inlanders we worked with, sympathized completely with my need to track storms all summer long. That year, Lauren and I tracked storm after storm together, posting our beautifully color-coordinated charts on the office wall for everyone to see. From Arlene to Dennis to Katrina to Rita to Wilma and even on into Alpha, Beta, Gamma territory, we followed that inexorable line-up. As the season worsened into what eventually became the most active of recorded history, our record-keeping took on an ever more urgent tone. And after the disasters of Katrina, every new storm that threatened the Gulf Coast, and by extension our homes and loved ones, became the object of fascination not merely for Lauren and me but for everyone. Suddenly people wanted to hear our stories, wanted to know what it was like to grow up in the shadow of these massive monsters of storms. I said a little thank you in my heart to all the weather reporters over the years who had made sure my tracking skills were up to snuff.

A couple of years later, Lauren moved away, and though I kept our storm-tracking traditions alive, someone it just wasn't the same without her...

And now here I am, five years later, once again far from the action in the Gulf of Mexico. I haven't bothered tracking any storms yet, partly because this early in the season the storms simply aren't worth bothering with and partly because other disasters have sapped my attention (See "BP Snafu"). And one more thing: This year, for the first time, I'm planning to take an active interest in the Pacific Typhoon Season, home of about a third of all the world's tropical cyclone action. Next month will be August, the busiest month for storms in the Northwestern Pacific. Even now, I'm getting my blank charts and colored markers ready...

Trial by Seafood

It was this kind of day today:



As though the weather knew how sad I was feeling about the imminent departure of my colleague and friend, Steven. Tonight the International Friendship Society, where I am taking over Steven's position as volunteer English teacher, held a Farewell Steven/Welcome Sara party. They chose as the venue a very nice (and probably very pricey) traditional Japanese restaurant, the kind where you take off your shoes at the door and sit on cushions on the tatami floor, and every item on the menu is an obscure Japanese delicacy. This did not bode well for my digestion.

When we arrived, the table was already set with a full plate of food, which I foolishly took to be our main course. Before we ate, the waitress explained what each item on the plate was: "In the upper left-hand corner here we have jellyfish, mochi, cheese and wasabi-flavored edamame. In that corner, shellfish and [some kinda Japanese fish I don't remember the name of] with lemon. In the lower left-hand corner, tuna pasta, octopus and potato, and in the lower right-hand corner tofu and shark gristle." Oh, goody. But I decided I would suck it up and eat it all. The upper left-hand corner went down OK, even the jellyfish. The lower left-hand corner was a cinch. The tofu wasn't terrible, and even the shark gristle didn't taste bad, strange as it was. Egged on by Steven, I even managed to consume the entire shellfish. And that's when they brought out round 2.

A salad, topped with real gold flakes, to celebrate new beginnings, and consisting of lettuce, tomato, shrimp and raw fish. I gambare-ed my way through it, only to be faced with two different kinds of fish (cooked, thank God), one with the tail still on. I plowed through that, and was feeling pretty good about myself when the waitress minced in with a tray of little green dishes, which she announced contained "Hand of Turtle." Steven tells me the look on my face was priceless. I couldn't even look at the curved, knobby greenish shapes in the dishes until someone finally explained that they weren't indeed turtle fins, but actually a kind of shellfish that looked very similar:



No one faulted me for not eating them, so I thought I was doing OK when a ripple of excitement ran up and down the table, and excited whispers of "The main dish!" clued me in to what would ultimately be my downfall: the sushi. I had actually come prepared to suffer through as much sushi as they wanted me to eat, and yet after the jellyfish, the shellfish, the octopus, the shark gristle, the shrimp, the raw fish and the sight of those turtle hands, I just couldn't imagine forcing down any more strange, rubbery seafoods. I politely ate the egg and then tried to surreptitiously set the rest to one side:



But they weren't letting me get away with it. "Is this your first time eating sushi?" someone asked. I shook my head and explained that I'd eaten it several times before. "Did you know that sushi is the best and most expensive Japanese food?" says someone else. I shake my head, trying not to blush. He goes on to explain, "It's because the restaurants must choose the best and freshest fish." I nod, feeling ever more miserable. A few more minutes pass. Then, "Maybe you could just try one." I look at the raw slabs of fish lying before me, and a queasy sensation takes hold of my insides. I shake my head. "I'm feeling quite full now," I mutter. I notice out of the corner of my eye that the waitress has slipped a communal plate of vegetables and pickles onto the table when I wasn't looking.

And yet, that wasn't the end of it somehow, for in just a few more minutes the waitress appears with a dish of ginger-flavored chicken. "This is chicken," everyone assures me, and a few of them add, "It's OK to eat the chicken even though you didn't eat the sushi." I nod and smile, but I really don't want to eat anything else. However, they keep indicating the chicken and smiling widely, so I oblige them by taking a few bites... As I'm moving the chicken around my plate, my neighbor leans over, points to a covered dish I hadn't noticed before, and says, "Have you tried this yet?" He lifts the lid, I look inside and my stomach gives another lurch:



I don't know what it is, and I don't want to know. I just want the lid back on. And then the waitress glides back in with steaming hot bowls of mushroom and onion soup, which I discover contain small, rainbow colored bits of something bobbing up and down among the vegetables. I take a few sips, trying to appear as though I'm really enjoying the meal, and I say a little prayer of thanks that I'd gone for the wine instead of just the grape juice.

At this point, I don't even dare to hope that it was the end of the meal, which is good because in just a few short minutes several waitresses and a waiter dance in with trays full of fruit and ice cream desserts. I notice that they don't set any in front of me or Steven, and in a moment the reason for this is revealed. The two of us are to receive a special "sugoi" dessert. The lights are dimmed. The shoji are slid open, and then in wafts the waitress carrying two huge piles of fruit and ice cream topped with sparklers, and she sets these down before Steven and me. When the sparklers burn down, the lights go back on, and Steven and I discover that our dessert came with a gift:



Ohtawara-themed banners. The dessert looked good, so I decided to go for it, and I discovered that the simple and fresh flavor of the fruit did wonders for my stomach. This was fortunate, for just then the occupants of the table began to demand that I make a speech. I stood, smiled, and thanked everyone for a delicious meal. As I settled back down onto my cushion, I felt very proud of myself. Perhaps someday I may even be able to lie as well as a Japanese person.



The spoils of the evening

To Whom It May Concern:

Dear Ancient Human Ancestors,

Look, it's not like I'm meaning to be disrespectful. I know we all owe you a lot, and I'll admit you had some great ideas: the domestication of plants and animals, the wheel, fermented beverages, pyramid-building. Great ideas, all. But wearing clothes in the summer? Really?

I understand that losing your body fur was not a conscious decision. It was something that nature chose for you. I get that. So I can grasp that once you started migrating out to cooler climes that had real winters it was necessary to find a new way to trap heat close to your bodies. So far, I'm with you. But who was the genius that, come spring, said, "You know, these animal skins trap my body heat so well, I think I'm gonna keep this going"? And why, for the love of God (or gods, or whatever you believed in), did you LISTEN to this idiot rather than taking him (or her) outside the camp and stoning him as a heretic? He might even have made a nice human sacrifice.

But, no. Not only did you decide to run with this brilliant idea, some of you decided you liked it so much that clothes-wearing became the norm and the naked human body became taboo. For some unexplained reason, you decided that summertime is best spent sweaty, sticky, overheated and drenched in your own "natural scent."

I'm sure you had your reasons. But whatever they were, can they really have been worth it? I think, oh great humans of the past, it's time to do some deep soul-searching and think about what you've done. Because, frankly, you let us all down.

I'm working on a time machine right now. Think about what I've said. Maybe someday we can work something out. Until then, I remain

Your bewildered and irritable descendant,

Sara

サッカーをしました！ And other tales of this weekend...

This weekend was the long-awaited Nagano ALT Soccer Tournament. It was my best weekend since coming to Japan. I give it twenty-two gold stars!

Friday afternoon was insanity. After a time-consuming and disappointing attempt to send a bank transfer to the U.S. ("I'm sorry, we don't work with that bank."), getting slightly rained on, dashing to the grocery store for last-minute purchases and seeing to the day's emergency load of laundry, I frantically cleaned my apartment like it had never been cleaned before in preparation for a visitor. My colleague Steven's girlfriend, Miori, was coming over for our first language exchange session, and from everything Steven's told me she's a high stickler when it comes to cleanliness. Once all was in preparedness, I discovered I still had some time before she came, so I grabbed a quick shower, threw on some clothes and gulped down a quick supper.

Soon Miori showed up, bearing a gift, which she told me was some cheesecake. (Thanks for telling her my favorite dessert, Steven!). This made my stomach smile, so I thanked her profusely and stored it in the refrigerator for later consumption. We had a successful two hours and then said our goodbyes, and the first thing I did once she left was pull out that cheesecake. When I opened the box, I was greeted with the sight of two desserts: a slice of cheesecake and a little mango pudding. Suddenly Miori's voice popped into my head from earlier in the evening, telling me that mango was her favorite fruit. She'd meant for us to eat the desserts together during our meeting. I felt really horrible as I slurped that mango pudding...

And then it was time for a quick Skype date with my Mom. When that was finished, I popped out for an even more last minute purchase before returning home to pack up my gear for the weekend and chat a little bit with my sister as I waited for Yuhki, my ride, to come pick me up.

By the time he rolled into my apartment building's parking lot, it was a good hour and fifteen minutes past my bedtime. By which I mean that it was about 11:15 PM. Yes, I have become that pathetic. Everyone else in the car looked pretty sleepy, too. Not surprisingly, it was a quiet ride. Fortunately, it was a short one, too, and soon we arrived at a friend's house to crash for the night before rising at an ungodly hour the next morning to head to Nagano.

The first thing I heard upon waking in the morning was an air-splitting crack of thunder. This was shortly followed by Yuhki cursing loudly from across the room. Apparently he'd left his car windows rolled down.

We loaded up the cars in a brief but torrential squall and then we were off to Sano. By the time we'd been on the road for two minutes, the rain slowed and the day turned sunny and clear. Another short trip brought us to the city of Sano, where we met up with most of the other members of the Tochigi prefecture ALT soccer teams. Introductions were made (Being the local N00b, I know no one), breakfasts were bought, bad news of a last-minute loss of the ladies' team captain was conveyed, and then we were off to Nagano. Minor hijinks ensued. Suffice it to say, we all arrived safe and sound.

As it turned out, the tournament was not actually being held in Nagano but in the nearby resort town of Sugadaira, an idyllic little village ringed by low mountains whose forests are scored with long, green patches that in winter will become ski slopes. We headed straight to Sania Park, the sports compound where the tournament would be held. Our mens' team was slated to referee one of the first matches, and we arrived in the town literally two minutes before it was to begin. The ladies meanwhile spent their time suiting up, stretching and memorizing one another's names. In an ironic twist of fate, the ladies ALT team ended up containing a total of 2 ALTs, the other four members being friendly English-speaking Japanese nationals.

We played our first game a little less than an hour after arriving and were quite soundly defeated. In two fifteen minute halves, the other team managed to score 6 goals against us. We scored a whopping zero. On the plus side, Rachel, our goalie, turned out to be pretty good, having saved us the embarrassment of being scored on something more like 20 times.

And then, as soon as the match was over Rachel, looking wan, mutters, "Uh oh. I think I'm getting a migraine" And just like that our six-man team was down to five. Rachel was packed off to the hotel in hopes that a good rest would prevent the migraine reaching full-strength while the rest of us set about being spanked by the next team. We lost 6-0 again. The next game we lost 4-0. Then we ate lunch. Then we lost 3-0. We weren't too surprised by the losses, and our utter patheticness drew the sympathy of the other teams, who spent the day encouraging us to keep trying and even occasionally loaned us players so that we could have a six-man team again and at least one sub. Then at last we were done for the day, and it was time to crawl over to where the men were playing and receive the kindly attentions of our resident nurse, and my sometime co-defender, Miyu. Our fill-in goalie, Emi, had had her big toenail turned into a bloody mess, and one of our forwards, Satomi, required the heavy application of icepacks on her leg muscles. Miyu herself was suffering the effects of having both her feet trampled more than once. My toes were killing me, and when I at last sat down to pull off my shoes, I discovered that the toes of my right-foot socks were soaked in blood. All in all, a most satisfying day on the pitch.

When the men were finished being beaten, we all limped off to the hotel for a good, long soak at the onsen, supper and a nap. I cannot express in words how lovely the onsen feels when one has spent the day getting chased across a soccer field by large women who know what they're doing. When the naps were done, we all arose with new vigor to pile into a bus and head to a different hotel for a surprisingly energetic dance party. Finally, shortly before 2 AM, I literally collapsed into my futon (my aching leg muscles prevented a more decorous entry) and fell immediately to sleep.

Up at 6:30 the next morning and wishing I hadn't gotten low QUITE so many times at the dance party as my thigh muscles felt like they had been treated to the tender mercies of a meat grinder. Fortunately, the onsen is open at all hours of day and night, so I headed down for a little pre-breakfast soak. There was a pronounced limp among those shuffling toward the breakfast room, me included, but for the most part everyone looked quite cheerful and ready for another day of having their butts whipped.

It was a single-elimination tournament this time. The ladies' team strategy for the day was simple: Lose. Which we did. And then we could enjoy the rest of the day at our leisure, watching the other games, taking pictures, sympathizing with the men in their final defeat, eating tasty curry... We all took one big group photo, and then we ladies discussed our conviction that we definitely needed to get together to practice before the next tournament in the fall.

There's a big party coming up two weekends from now, and I'm really looking forward to seeing my new friends again. Yay! OK, that last sentence kind of sounded like something from one of my third-year students' text books. Must be time to go. Peace.

Awkward...

So there I was, checking out at Sanki, the discount clothing and housewares store near my house. I'd picked out several inexpensive items for the soccer tournament I'm playing in this weekend, and I was feeling pretty satisfied with myself. The cashier is ringing up and bagging my items when suddenly she pauses, a small line appearing between her brows. She looks at the item she's holding then glances up at me, her eyes squinting up in a considering look. Then she looks back at the item and says,

"Are you sure this size is OK?"

I look at what she's holding in her hand. It's the sports bra I'm buying, which was on sale (yes!), but which I was pretty sure was NOT OK size-wise. However, there was no way I was going to tell this lady, "Actually, no, but that's the largest size you carry, so let's just go with it."

I give her an awkward little nod, and she smiles and nods in a way that politely communicates (in a way only Japanese people can), "Well, it's your funeral," and then she rings up the bra for me.

When I got home, the first thing I did was try on the bra. Yep. Too small. Alas.

It's a New Record!

That's right folks. For the first time, ever, in the history of my job I taught FOUR junior high school classes in one day. Phew! It was so tiring.

Actually, it wasn't tiring at all. It was invigorating. I had no idea just how bored I had been sitting at my desk all day every day. On most days, I pass my time counting the hours until lunch. It's a banner day if I actually learn a kid's name. :P Bad days are the ones where I'm forced to eat unidentifiable seafood at lunchtime AND no one will talk to me. *tear*

Not today, though! I showed up at my usual time (bright at early at 7:50 AM), poured my morning cuppa (coffee, not tea), sat through the incomprehensible morning meeting (3rd graders need to stop getting hit by cars) and then spent first period planning a lesson with the Special Needs teacher, Takabayashi-sensei. After that, it was 2nd period with some 2nd graders, whom I can definitely excuse for thinking that "taught" should be spelled like "thought" since they rhyme. Then 3rd period with some 3rd graders, who made me die a little inside by consistently answering the question "What country would you like to visit?" with "I like Japan." This was also the class where the teacher, during warm-up question time, asked the class "Which do you like better: a boy or a girl?" (The Filipino kid who sits in the corner smirked, and I tried very hard not to make eye contact with him.) I also got to impress the kids with my sugoi English-reading skills. You can read that passage three times in three minutes? Well, I can read it five times. Bam.

Lunch was with 1st graders, Class 7 who are one of the liveliest bunches in the entire school, and it included Nikujaga. Mmmm... I learned three of the kids' names (Kaori, Momoka and Masaki, in case you were wondering), learned that Kaori likes oranges but not grapefruits and prefers bread to rice, and at last discovered the exact pronunciation of the new student teacher's last name (Goibuchi. Weird, I know). I then made the mistake of asking Kaori and Masaki if they like Goibuchi-sensei. They do, which is all well and good, but this then led to the question "Sara-sensei, are you going to get married?" Oh, geez.

Fifth period turned out to be the highlight of the day. It was our first class with the Special Needs kids. We introduced them to the basic concept of phonetics (This letter's name is "A," but you read it "ah"). The Special Needs kids are so sweet and friendly. Not that the other kids aren't, but the Special Needs kids tend to be much more open and willing to talk to me. We had a lot of fun learning that "t + i" does not say "chi" and that "h + u" does not say "fu," and the kids caught on very quickly. Sixth period, the last of the day, was our second class with the Special Needs kids, and was only marred by the fact that a couple of the kids kept dropping off to sleep. ^o^ Not that I really blamed them. It was the last class of the day, the weather outside was warm and sunny and we were making their brains work pretty hard.

And then it was done! I couldn't believe how quickly the day went by. We get to teach the Special Needs kids again next Thursday, and I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully in the interim the Powers that Be (aka, Tanaka-sensei) will see fit to grant me a larger class-load. Amen.

習字！(Calligraphy!)

Yesterday was my first day joining in club activities at my junior high school. Yay! Since I was barred from joining any "dangerous" sports clubs (the school plead insurance concerns. psh.), I eventually settled on joining the "Cultural Activities Club." Their main activity is Japanese traditional calligraphy, or Shuuji.

Excited as I was, I went right out and acquired myself a calligraphy set. This turned out to be much easier than expected because my fellow ALT, Steven, had an old unused set simply lying about in his apartment.

Since it was my first day, the teacher who leads the class, Yamanaka-sensei, showed me how to set up my ink tray and pour in the ink and how to make sure the brush is good and wet. Then she provided me with a stack of blank pieces of paper and a page of model strokes:



This is the most basic stroke in writing Chinese characters, and it's also the character for "one." So for the next hour, I sat quietly at my little table and made the same stroke over and over again: "One. One. One. One." When I finished a page, I would line up next to Yamanaka-sensei with the other students and wait my turn to display my handiwork. She would then take her own brush, dip it in red ink and highlight things I'd done well (red circles) and then demonstrate things I'd done poorly:



It was funny, but every time I carried my sheet of "ones" over to her, she would exclaim "Ah, jouzu! Oh, it's very good!" before proceeding to point out that I had made the exact same mistakes as last time. At last, she proclaimed my work "finished" (suspiciously, right when club time was ending) and rewarded me with a giant red swirl, the Japanese teacher's way of saying "Good work!":



And there they are. My set of glorious "ones." Yamanaka-sensei assured me that when I come to club next week, I'll get to move up to "twos." I am literally panting with anticipation.

Poem at 30,000 Feet

I'd forgotten about this until this evening, so I decided to polish it up and post it. I wrote this on my Dallas to Chicago flight back in March. I think I was trying to capture in words why exactly I love flying so much. Anyway, here it is.

Poem at 30,000 Feet

flying on a cloudy day
rising in an airplane up and away from the anchor
of land
rising through dense, damp white before

seeing the sun

feeling its heat knowing
that people miles below shiver
under lowering gray

watching the sun revealed
through a veil of water vapor

light spills upon the floor of clouds
reflected white as on the surface
of a still, morning lake

your craft rocked roughly by the fists
of the fussing wind currents

above, the blue that fades to black
where the imagination dusts in stars

below, rolling hills, peaked ridges,
smooth plains all white and soft gray,
the landscape of the sky
and somewhere beneath this new ground
falls snow.
a second blanket covering
the distant memory
of the frozen earth.