I start teaching tomorrow. It feels like it’s starting to fit. I’m glad to have regular activity and work that consumes me in a GOOD WAY.
I put up the poem that Heidi wrote for me. And then tonight I was listening to Char Beck’s CD. They both reminded me of when I could write. I would get these mental pictures, or just inspiration from my surroundings. I’ve lost so many of my metal pictures. They would be so vivid and they would be representative (representational, whatever) of how I felt. Or the writing made me feel. There was emotion attached to the scenes and the thoughts. Now it’s just thoughts, just rambling, intuitive, pseudo intellectual thoughts that come with the semi/barely educated. It’s like I’ve turned it all off when I turned off my emotions, because I was tired of crying. Or did I really turn it off? Am I trying to convince myself that I can turn it all off as a barrier, a toughness. To think is good, to not be controlled or consumed by your emotions is a good thing, but where does your intellect make room to feel. To engage, in a non-cerebral fashion. Where’s the excitement and passion for things of yore (Good word Michelle. Doomo)?
So I had this picture of me walking down the road from the school to my flat. I do sometimes still get a sense that I’m in something poetic but I can’t attach the emotions to it, there’s no meaning to it and no words. It’s still what I’m drawn to as I think of many of my photographs. They’re stories. Stories of friendship, companionship, love, separation that I’m trying to capture and to tell, maybe just to tell to myself, maybe something that can be told to others. So the poet does still reside in me, it’s maybe just chosen a different medium for a while.
There's these old buildings that I pass by everyday. I like to question what’s in all those homes. There’s just so many of them and although there’s always lots of bikes parked on the "street" (for a lack of a better word for the spot with all the shops under the awnings), there doesn’t seem to be enough people around for all those flats. And they look old too, so I want to know how old they are, and were they around in the war? What have they seen, what earthquakes have they withstood. There must be so many stories in all those walls. It’s intriguing to me. I want to see in. Blasted frosted windows. But that's all I have to say about that.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
March 30, 2005
We started doing some lesson plans today. Another teacher, invited me out for coffee tonight after work. The two Coloradiutians joined us too. It was great to get together with some of the folks and just shoot the breeze and chill. We went for Mister Donut. They have doughnuts made with rice and tofu. God bless Japanese doughnut shops!! And half way through our time there, the background music was Pilate! Pilate. Most Canadians don’t even know who they are, and here they are getting airplay in a doughnut shop in Japan. WHAT!! So cool. Pilate is a band by the way, for anyone who isn't from Victoria and is not between the ages of 18 and 30-ish. Anyway, the other teachers are all a total blast. I also got to meet a teacher from Capitol Hill in Seattle. We had a great time introducing ourselves. I think she’s going to be a blast.
I have one more day before I’m in the classroom all by myself. CRAZY! I don’t know what to expect so I’m often at a loss of where to start. I have one class that first day that is brand new, new students, new class, new teacher, new book. I get to start it all off. And in a few years some new teacher will be coming in and looking at my name at the top of that list as the one who started the madness. 4 year old boys. It’s going to be fun!! I’m sort of afraid of it, but not the way my boss thinks I am. I try and give her a little feed back and she thinks that I don’t want a class like that...4 year old boys...totally my favourite! That was about David’s age when I first met him, that was about how old Tay was when I stopped seeing the Baines so often. It’s all about pet slugs called Hatty Hat Hat and running through the house shaking your head. Now, how to teach them how to count. That shall be fun. I don’t want to over think Friday’s classes because I have to keep going and teach Saturday too, so I need to get done with Friday so that I can move onto Saturday’s planning, and Monday’s planning for that matter, quickly. Otherwise I’m going to get bogged right down and way behind to begin with.
I feel like once I get a phone and some internet hook up, I will be in a much better state. That and into a bit of a schedule. I found a new grocery store to go to on the way home, instead of the giant new 24 hour one. It’s smaller and dirtier but it has tonnes of frozen dinner goodies that look pretty cheap, caramel corn, cheap boxed cereal, cheap wine and best of all TORTILLA CHIPS!!! It’s the first place I’ve seen them here and they aren’t a small fortune! Like 350 Yen or so for a big bag, which is like three and a half bucks. Awesome find. So I bought some soymilk, I think it’s soymilk anyway, some honey corn pops things, and some caramel corn. The caramel corn is made in Illinois. How fabulous.
Take my time, on this earth
Let it glorify all that You are worth
Cause I am nothing, I am nothing without You
I'm listening to Bebo Norman right now.
I have one more day before I’m in the classroom all by myself. CRAZY! I don’t know what to expect so I’m often at a loss of where to start. I have one class that first day that is brand new, new students, new class, new teacher, new book. I get to start it all off. And in a few years some new teacher will be coming in and looking at my name at the top of that list as the one who started the madness. 4 year old boys. It’s going to be fun!! I’m sort of afraid of it, but not the way my boss thinks I am. I try and give her a little feed back and she thinks that I don’t want a class like that...4 year old boys...totally my favourite! That was about David’s age when I first met him, that was about how old Tay was when I stopped seeing the Baines so often. It’s all about pet slugs called Hatty Hat Hat and running through the house shaking your head. Now, how to teach them how to count. That shall be fun. I don’t want to over think Friday’s classes because I have to keep going and teach Saturday too, so I need to get done with Friday so that I can move onto Saturday’s planning, and Monday’s planning for that matter, quickly. Otherwise I’m going to get bogged right down and way behind to begin with.
I feel like once I get a phone and some internet hook up, I will be in a much better state. That and into a bit of a schedule. I found a new grocery store to go to on the way home, instead of the giant new 24 hour one. It’s smaller and dirtier but it has tonnes of frozen dinner goodies that look pretty cheap, caramel corn, cheap boxed cereal, cheap wine and best of all TORTILLA CHIPS!!! It’s the first place I’ve seen them here and they aren’t a small fortune! Like 350 Yen or so for a big bag, which is like three and a half bucks. Awesome find. So I bought some soymilk, I think it’s soymilk anyway, some honey corn pops things, and some caramel corn. The caramel corn is made in Illinois. How fabulous.
Take my time, on this earth
Let it glorify all that You are worth
Cause I am nothing, I am nothing without You
I'm listening to Bebo Norman right now.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
March 29, 2005
I have very uninspired to write lately.
She’s simply irresistible
She’s so fine, there’s no telling where my money went.
She’s simply irresistible
She’s so fine, there’s no telling where my money went.
That’s my inspiration for tonight.
The musak here in Japan is AWESOME. And by awesome I mean that I am in awe when I hear it because I cannot believe that someone had the inspiration to recreate music that was generally mediocre to begin with into something that is at times beyond words. At first the musak that I was hearing in the department stores and grocery stores was, I was so sure to begin with, the same channel as the musak that was played at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel (where I worked last summer, my favourite was when they played Stevie Wonder and I would sing along at the top of my lungs to serenade Brooklyn). But the more that I listened I realized that no, this musak was of a completely different breed. The offending noises that have inspired me to write tonight have taken on a whole other level beyond what I hear normally. It was like one of those synthesizers that so many of us had when we were like 8-11 years old. They had a small sampling of different beats and such. I did not have one as I had a huge real piano in my house and enough piano lessons to curb my interest in actually owning one of the little synthesizers. I wasn’t the biggest fan of piano, now I wish I had retained more. But my best friend Riley had one and we had some fun with it together. I have since heard people do some really cool things on them, tonight was not one of those occasions. So, the background melodies I heard tonight for the most part were unrecognizable but sounded like they had all been generated in one afternoon on one of the little sythesizers. Then I heard it. The little beat pause duh, duh, duh, duh and I found myself unconsciously joining in on time "She’s simply irresistible" as I stop dead in my tracks in the middle of the aisle. "No WAY!!"
The other great experience with music here happened yesterday. This was not musak. This was the real deal. I am in training with a young couple from Colorado and another guy from Texas. We had a lunch break yesterday so we decided to all go together to a little place that the Coloradians (yeah, whatever they call themselves) wanted to try. So there we all are, 3 Americans, 1 Canadian sitting in downtown Katsutadai, Japan (pronounced katsudai and note that I use the term "downtown" loosely, that's like "downtown" Sidney, BC), eating curry, chatting about this and that and then...Michelle has another "No Way!" moment. On comes Lionel Ritchie. "Once, twice, three times a lady". It was a definitive moment in all our lives. And let me tell you, that is one LONG song. I had no idea. We were singing it to each other for the rest of the day.
I have finally moved into my apartment here in Japan. It took me a couple of hours to get unpacked and organized. It’s amazing how I look at my bags and thing I have so much, then I unpack and this place is still so empty compared to what I thought I had. Amazing that this is going to be my home for the next year. It doesn’t feel like it yet. Maybe once I get working regularly it will feel more real that I’m staying. For now it still feels like I’m just visiting. And yet usually when I’m just visiting somewhere there’s more excitement, awe, something, engagement, with the environment where I am. I don’t feel that here. I’m just kind of existing. There isn’t the sense of adventure that I’m often used to having. Maybe I do know that I’m staying and it’s just God’s way of protecting me from freaking out.
So I have a kitchen that is pretty much the everything room. There’s a little closet with a toilet in it, but no sink. The only sink is the kitchen sink, which wouldn’t be bad, that’s actually what I often ended up doing in Victoria (but that was because of the construction after The Flood of May 2004), but there’s like NO counter space here. It’s seriously like 16 inches from the edge to the backsplash and like 8 inches wide. So what’s that, like 128 inches square? Measure it out! It’s very small. And that’s where I’m supposed to put dirty dishes and pans and hashi (chopsticks, essentially the only cutlery that I like to use)...and it’s my bathroom sink too. I’m going to have to figure something else out. I bought a little table, two chairs and a rice cooker from the girl who lived here last. I tried the rice cooker for the first time tonight, it took WAY too long. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but it took like over an hour. In a pot on the stovetop it takes like under 15 minutes to cook the same rice. Something is very wrong. There’s a tiny little fridge, I already have stuff up on it. I have a picture of me and Heidi that French took of us in front of the parliament buildings in Victoria, some sketches Chris did on a piece of paper that was the wrapping paper to my birthday present, and a picture of Nen & Ryan each that I took when we were all hanging at the Tim Horton’s in Duncan, mmm, doughnuts.
They have a doughnut shop here in Japan. I don’t know how wide spread it is, but they seem to be everywhere in my current vicinity. It’s called Mr. Donut. When you get doughnuts to go, they tape your bag down...for freshness? I dunno. Well the tape says,
"Thank you
You beautiful people.
Mr. Donut"
How fabulous. And yes, it’s in English.
They don't have quite the selection that Timmy Ho's does, but what they do have are rice donuts and tofu donuts!! Tofu donuts!! They taste pretty good actually. They both still have some wheat flour in them so it's not like it's just rice paste or soy bean paste molded into the shape of a donught. I think my new favourites are the little mini donuts that come with a little dipping sauce of Maple syrup and are 6 in one pack. Quite delightful.
Back to my apartment description:
In the other side of the "kitchen" is a washer. It’s really small so it’s perfect for one person. And it’s really fast. Then all the wash here gets hung up outside. I haven’t met anyone who knows of someone with a dryer and really it’s only the Japanese that are in contact with the North Americans who really grasp the concept of a dryer. Next to the washer is the room with the toilet that I already mentioned, and the shower room. It’s all one very small room with a shower hose head where you wash off first, then you pour a bath and once you’re all clean you get into the very short but very very deep bath. It’s pretty relaxing. The hot water controls are digital and on the wall, so you have to turn on the hot water first then turn on the tap. The other two rooms are the sitting room, separated from the kitchen by a sliding glass door that looks very Japanese, and the tatami room, which has pretty paper sliding doors to both the kitchen and the sitting room. The tatami room is the bedroom. There’s nothing in there but a sliding door closet. You roll your bed out on the floor each night (or if you’re lazy like me, you roll it out when you’ve remembered to put it away that morning). There’s a cushiony pad, then the futon mattress, a cool pillow that feels really good on my stiff neck, and a duvet like cover over top of the sleeping person. They also have a soft cotton blanket that’s supposed to go over you and is what is supposed to go under the duvet next to the body, but it puts fluffy bits all over my pyjamas, and I don’t like fluffy lint bits all over me, so I put it on top. In the closet it’s just one big shelf half way up, and one little shelf way up top for storage. The school added a little clothes rack that’s quite handy. In the sitting room is a kotatsu, which is a really low table with a heater under it. There’s another closet in the corner, but it’s much smaller than the one in the tatami room. From there there’s a sliding glass door to outside which is where I’m to hang all my wash and my futon a couple times a week to air it out. From the outside there’s these sliding "shutters" for keeping the sun and the typhoons and the bugs out. We’ll see. They’re big on sliding here, if you hadn’t noticed. It’s the perfect size for one person. And really minimal, which I really like. The only thing I would add would be somewhere easier to wash up, either that or more shelves in the kitchen so that it can double as a wash up area too. So that's my home. I like it.
She’s simply irresistible
She’s so fine, there’s no telling where my money went.
She’s simply irresistible
She’s so fine, there’s no telling where my money went.
That’s my inspiration for tonight.
The musak here in Japan is AWESOME. And by awesome I mean that I am in awe when I hear it because I cannot believe that someone had the inspiration to recreate music that was generally mediocre to begin with into something that is at times beyond words. At first the musak that I was hearing in the department stores and grocery stores was, I was so sure to begin with, the same channel as the musak that was played at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel (where I worked last summer, my favourite was when they played Stevie Wonder and I would sing along at the top of my lungs to serenade Brooklyn). But the more that I listened I realized that no, this musak was of a completely different breed. The offending noises that have inspired me to write tonight have taken on a whole other level beyond what I hear normally. It was like one of those synthesizers that so many of us had when we were like 8-11 years old. They had a small sampling of different beats and such. I did not have one as I had a huge real piano in my house and enough piano lessons to curb my interest in actually owning one of the little synthesizers. I wasn’t the biggest fan of piano, now I wish I had retained more. But my best friend Riley had one and we had some fun with it together. I have since heard people do some really cool things on them, tonight was not one of those occasions. So, the background melodies I heard tonight for the most part were unrecognizable but sounded like they had all been generated in one afternoon on one of the little sythesizers. Then I heard it. The little beat pause duh, duh, duh, duh and I found myself unconsciously joining in on time "She’s simply irresistible" as I stop dead in my tracks in the middle of the aisle. "No WAY!!"
The other great experience with music here happened yesterday. This was not musak. This was the real deal. I am in training with a young couple from Colorado and another guy from Texas. We had a lunch break yesterday so we decided to all go together to a little place that the Coloradians (yeah, whatever they call themselves) wanted to try. So there we all are, 3 Americans, 1 Canadian sitting in downtown Katsutadai, Japan (pronounced katsudai and note that I use the term "downtown" loosely, that's like "downtown" Sidney, BC), eating curry, chatting about this and that and then...Michelle has another "No Way!" moment. On comes Lionel Ritchie. "Once, twice, three times a lady". It was a definitive moment in all our lives. And let me tell you, that is one LONG song. I had no idea. We were singing it to each other for the rest of the day.
I have finally moved into my apartment here in Japan. It took me a couple of hours to get unpacked and organized. It’s amazing how I look at my bags and thing I have so much, then I unpack and this place is still so empty compared to what I thought I had. Amazing that this is going to be my home for the next year. It doesn’t feel like it yet. Maybe once I get working regularly it will feel more real that I’m staying. For now it still feels like I’m just visiting. And yet usually when I’m just visiting somewhere there’s more excitement, awe, something, engagement, with the environment where I am. I don’t feel that here. I’m just kind of existing. There isn’t the sense of adventure that I’m often used to having. Maybe I do know that I’m staying and it’s just God’s way of protecting me from freaking out.
So I have a kitchen that is pretty much the everything room. There’s a little closet with a toilet in it, but no sink. The only sink is the kitchen sink, which wouldn’t be bad, that’s actually what I often ended up doing in Victoria (but that was because of the construction after The Flood of May 2004), but there’s like NO counter space here. It’s seriously like 16 inches from the edge to the backsplash and like 8 inches wide. So what’s that, like 128 inches square? Measure it out! It’s very small. And that’s where I’m supposed to put dirty dishes and pans and hashi (chopsticks, essentially the only cutlery that I like to use)...and it’s my bathroom sink too. I’m going to have to figure something else out. I bought a little table, two chairs and a rice cooker from the girl who lived here last. I tried the rice cooker for the first time tonight, it took WAY too long. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but it took like over an hour. In a pot on the stovetop it takes like under 15 minutes to cook the same rice. Something is very wrong. There’s a tiny little fridge, I already have stuff up on it. I have a picture of me and Heidi that French took of us in front of the parliament buildings in Victoria, some sketches Chris did on a piece of paper that was the wrapping paper to my birthday present, and a picture of Nen & Ryan each that I took when we were all hanging at the Tim Horton’s in Duncan, mmm, doughnuts.
They have a doughnut shop here in Japan. I don’t know how wide spread it is, but they seem to be everywhere in my current vicinity. It’s called Mr. Donut. When you get doughnuts to go, they tape your bag down...for freshness? I dunno. Well the tape says,
"Thank you
You beautiful people.
Mr. Donut"
How fabulous. And yes, it’s in English.
They don't have quite the selection that Timmy Ho's does, but what they do have are rice donuts and tofu donuts!! Tofu donuts!! They taste pretty good actually. They both still have some wheat flour in them so it's not like it's just rice paste or soy bean paste molded into the shape of a donught. I think my new favourites are the little mini donuts that come with a little dipping sauce of Maple syrup and are 6 in one pack. Quite delightful.
Back to my apartment description:
In the other side of the "kitchen" is a washer. It’s really small so it’s perfect for one person. And it’s really fast. Then all the wash here gets hung up outside. I haven’t met anyone who knows of someone with a dryer and really it’s only the Japanese that are in contact with the North Americans who really grasp the concept of a dryer. Next to the washer is the room with the toilet that I already mentioned, and the shower room. It’s all one very small room with a shower hose head where you wash off first, then you pour a bath and once you’re all clean you get into the very short but very very deep bath. It’s pretty relaxing. The hot water controls are digital and on the wall, so you have to turn on the hot water first then turn on the tap. The other two rooms are the sitting room, separated from the kitchen by a sliding glass door that looks very Japanese, and the tatami room, which has pretty paper sliding doors to both the kitchen and the sitting room. The tatami room is the bedroom. There’s nothing in there but a sliding door closet. You roll your bed out on the floor each night (or if you’re lazy like me, you roll it out when you’ve remembered to put it away that morning). There’s a cushiony pad, then the futon mattress, a cool pillow that feels really good on my stiff neck, and a duvet like cover over top of the sleeping person. They also have a soft cotton blanket that’s supposed to go over you and is what is supposed to go under the duvet next to the body, but it puts fluffy bits all over my pyjamas, and I don’t like fluffy lint bits all over me, so I put it on top. In the closet it’s just one big shelf half way up, and one little shelf way up top for storage. The school added a little clothes rack that’s quite handy. In the sitting room is a kotatsu, which is a really low table with a heater under it. There’s another closet in the corner, but it’s much smaller than the one in the tatami room. From there there’s a sliding glass door to outside which is where I’m to hang all my wash and my futon a couple times a week to air it out. From the outside there’s these sliding "shutters" for keeping the sun and the typhoons and the bugs out. We’ll see. They’re big on sliding here, if you hadn’t noticed. It’s the perfect size for one person. And really minimal, which I really like. The only thing I would add would be somewhere easier to wash up, either that or more shelves in the kitchen so that it can double as a wash up area too. So that's my home. I like it.
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