I went for lunch today, something that I actually do every single day and really need to stop doing because I am going to a) get fat, b) go poor and c) have really aweful complexion from all the bad for me food. So in the restaurant they were playing English music. This is not that uncommon around here. They were playing "I wanna sex you up" by whatever early nineties "hip hop" band that was (I use the term very loosely and in the pop sense of the classification). There is often rather inappropriate music played in very public places, mostly because people don’t know what it’s saying, and partly because people just don’t care. These two young married teachers tell a story of being in the equivalent of a Wal-Mart in a small town in southern Kyushuu and they were playing Nine Inch Nails, who have an incredibly inappropriate song that was highly edited when it was on the radio in North America, but not so here. No edited version for Japan. They were like "These are very inappropriate lyrics, and look there's a bunch of 5 year olds with their parents", all oblivious to what was offending their ears.
I have been teaching for a full week now. Today I had the same classes for a second time for the first time. Yeah, that makes sense. It was nice going into a classroom with an idea of what was going to happen. Some of them I wasn’t sure before seeing the kids because I couldn’t remember who they were, but once I saw their faces I was like "Oh, yeah, I remember this class". I had one pleasant surprise with the Kindie class. Rui was the same boy as last week who was rather difficult to bring in (not the under the table boy, that’s Yui tomorrow, oh what a joy to look forward to) so I wasn’t looking forward to the class. But last week a little girl Miya had been absent. This week she was there. She’s absolutely delightful. As soon as she walked in she walked right up to me, looking me in the eye and said "Hi, my name is Miya" and then looked at me so intently I could have sworn she was like 20 and wanted to have a conversation with me. She sat right up next to me when I read the story (unlike Rui who discovered half way through the story that his mum had snuck out of the classroom so he threw himself against the door in utter panic and tears trying to get out), she repeated absolutely everything I said (even when I didn’t want her to, but at least she’s speaking) and she was just so eager to be there. My other good class today were some young junior highers. I liked them last week too, they just weren’t all that used to me. They’ve warmed up to me some more and we have some good laughs. There’s one girl who smiles just like Katie Swift. Every time I look at her I think of Katie. She kind of giggles and smiles the same way when something strikes her as silly or funny. She gets most of my jokes and so she laughs at the right times. It’s simple things like we’re playing a game and I ask a silly question (usually written down like 'Are apples red?'). The other students just look at it and say "huh?" or "wakaranai" (I don’t understand), but she giggles to herself and looks at me. It makes me feel good. I think she gets me. The boy in that class is kind of like that too, but he’s the only boy in a class of girls so he needs to be more manly. But he’ll even go so far as to write silly questions, so even though he won’t really laugh at mine, I know he’s laughing inside.
I shared with my first class today my pictures of Malibu. I was teaching them expressions of emotion. Pictures of the Welcome and the Blob and the houses worked really well at eliciting excited speech. I was able to go "Ah, ah, not sugoi..say that’s incredible, or wow, look at that". It worked well. And it made me miss "home". I told them about camp and some of what I did there and I told them about Ryan and how he’s a pilot. They saw the picture of Ryan and Dad shoveling off C-Ferx in the snow and my favourite picture of Mum and Dad. They were surprised at how young they were. They wanted to know how old Mum was. I have to admit that I told. But to Mum’s credit they didn’t believe me. The one lady, who I thought was fairly young, surprised me by saying that Mum’s younger than her. I was surprised when I found out that she had teenagers because she doesn’t look old enough, and she was surprised when she realized she’s old enough to be my mother. That threw her for a loop. She stopped and looked at me and said "What?" (the Blair Epperson way, I’ve been teaching everybody the Blair Epperson, sorry Gurick, way of saying "What?" I adopted it for myself a while ago because it’s so fabulous, and now it’s just part of my speech so my students are picking it up...how fabulous) "I could be your mother!" It took her a while to recover from that thought. They couldn’t believe that Dad was married at 20 or that Ryan was 21 when he was married. That blew them away. People marry much later here, so to hear of someone in their early twenties getting married I guess is pretty rare. I come from rare stock I guess. Looking at all the pictures and listening to their reactions and talking about it later with them made me realize that I’m a bit of an anomaly in much of the world. Back home most people have adventures, or at least know of someone who does. By North American standards I consider myself really not very adventurous at all to tell the truth. So it was weird to have them so amazed at the places I live. I guess it’s just cause they don’t have people living on lakes around here. They were blown away that Mum and Dad live on a lake. It makes me want to bring them all home. I guess it’s like Ross Tenant said last time I saw him, "You’ll go away and then you’ll realize that there’s nowhere else to be". I knew that’s true even before I left.
The wind has finally calmed down. It puts me more at ease.
I looked up infatuation at work today. It can be ephemeral as infatuation can be described in one version as a short lived, intense passion and focus of mind. So I guess that it can't not be ephemeral which is 'short lived'. I need people to talk to!!!! I'm getting really stupid.
There was an aweful stink in my flat today when I came home. It seems to be coming through the hole in the floor that laundry machine tube goes into but it's like the smell is coming from downstairs. It smells like something has backed up into it. Yuck. I thought for the longest time that there was nobody living below, until yesterday. Yesterday I saw lights down there for the first time and then I heard coughing down there. I was surprised. So maybe they have something wrong down there and it’s kicked up on my pipes. The plumbing here seems a little odd. Not like North American plumbing, but I don’t know what it is, so there it is. Maybe the guys downstairs (guy?) was away for the week. It’s quite possible. I haven’t actually seen anyone yet, I’ve only heard doors sliding and sometimes an outer door open or close.
I think I filled out the wrong form on-line last night. Pooey. And I found out today I’m supposed to be working up in Nishi-Shiroi on Sunday morning, when I’m supposed to be at home to accept the modem from NTT. I hope they come early. If not, I’m going to have to leave here at like 11 or just before because I need to be up there by 11:45 and I have a train transfer to make.
