I worked today on my day off. There are three Sundays or Holidays that everyone is required to work throughout the year. I had my first today. Easy!! I was out at Shiroi which is a really nice school but pretty chill on the weekends. So I had one 25 minute little trial thingy and I organized everything in sight that I could find that I didn’t think had purpose being there and that was it. I got to listen to the US forces station on the radio. It was cool. It really made me feel like an ex-pat for the first time since being here. I was finally aware of being from somewhere else and not belonging. I usually having been feeling like I don’t belong for like the last 2 years, but I was acutely aware that I really don’t belong here, as opposed to Canada where I do belong and people try to tell that I belong, but I don’t feel like I do. Here, no one is trying to tell me that I don’t belong because, well, I don’t, so I’m able to accept the feelings of being an outsider, an observer much easier here, while at home I’m constantly trying to battle them. I was glad to have the first day done with, then it means that another holiday that may come up I will have off, and that will mean a three day weekend!!! Hallelujah. I certainly didn’t mind going in to work today as there was little expected of me. Just organize stuff and be there in case you’re needed. The teachers’ area is upstairs from the reception area so it meant that I had the whole day to do what I liked when I wanted to.
I will have to try and remember to write a little bit of Japanese life in each day. I have gotten so used to my surroundings so quickly that I find that things are holding any awe of "oo, look at that, so that’s different from home". I think it goes along with the feelings of ambivalence when I first arrived. I never had that awe of the washing machine that many people have. Maybe I’m just too cynical. I hate to call it apathy because I rail against such attitudes so often, but maybe that’s what it was. So for the first bit of Japanese life I will turn my attention to curtains. Yes, curtains. They look like normal curtains on those little rollers that mostly grandmothers only have anymore. Us young bucks seem to have turned more to the panel or tab version of curtains. They look normal enough with the little pleat to them at the top and everything. But then when you try and open them, you seem to come against an unknown force that says, "nope, no opening the curtains yet, you don’t have enough clothes on" (or whatever the reason for not opening curtains may be, it could be the curtains shielding you from a neighbour with not enough clothes on as opposed to the other way around). This probably exists in many places, and I’m sure that curtains in North America were once like this, but I have never seen it so I was rather taken aback by the independence of will my curtains were forcing against me. There are little magnets at the top of the curtains to keep them together. I am now quite grateful because it keeps the curtains nicely together without too much thought on my part and I’m sure that any neighbours appreciate it as well, they just don’t consciously know it, but if the curtains weren’t so diligent in their sight blocking responsibilities, the neighbours would certainly wish that they couldn’t see in.
I have no real verbal output at all anymore. A little bit of convo with other teachers (whom I really don’t know yet and many seem rather unwilling to break from their plans of the day to talk) just doesn’t do it. Besides, we’re all so used to speaking in broken English (dumbed down English) to our students and the people around us (yeah, go content words...who needs things like articles anyway) that we all start talking to each other like that. This girl from Seattle was mentioning the other day that for the first few minutes on the phone with her boyfriend she’s all "Hello. How are you today? What did you do today at school? What did you have for lunch?" and then he says she’s crazy and she snaps out of it. But it’s true. I totally do that. If I start talking to another teacher, especially if I’ve just come from a class, it sounds like I’m talking to a five year old. Seeing that this is my major output for ideas and comments, no wonder this comp and I have become fast friends.
