HAPPY BIRTHDAY RA-RA
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY NENNY AND RYAN
I haven't complained about the weather in writing for a while now. It's time to do so again. I was excited for September to come around. In our Western minds, September embodies the beginning of fall, the start of cooler weather, the time to get out the light sweater to put over your shoulders after the sunsets at 9. August seemed like it lasted about 2 and a half months for me. It was quite possibly the longest month of my life. It felt much longer than any of the months that I spent at my parents house barely able to move after spraining my back. So now that September has finally arrived I have been anticipating the cooling of the air and reveling in the thoughts of crisper nights. Not that I'm really looking forward to winter in a non-insulated living space, a friend recently told me that some mornings you'll wake to frost on the inside of the windows and air so bone-chillingly cold that you don't ever want to leave the "comfort" of your "bed" (note that I use those two terms very loosely here). So in this mind set of expectation, today seems rather hopeless. It is 31 degrees at about 70% humidity, which according to several internet sources feels about 36 degrees (that's 104 F for those non-calculator wielding in America). I was really looking forward to going outside today and doing some shopping. I need to go pick up a bathing cap so that I can go swimming at the local community sports complex, which, by the way, I believe I have finally found thanks to a fellow teacher's superb directions. I have also heard that there are some post summer sales on, particularly at Uni-Qlo that carries "large" sizes (some of which still don’t fit me, or rather, don't fit certain body parts that I am rather self-concious of), and I haven't gone shopping for fun for about 3 months. But now I'm not sure if it's worth going out. It is terribly frustrating to look outside and see a perfectly lovely overcast day and then to slide the door open and feel this blast of indescribably wet heat coming wafting over you as you throw your laundry outside as fast as possible, slam the door shut, wipe the sweat that is already starting to form around the corners of your forehead and then go and sit directly under the air con to cool down as quickly as possible.
On Friday I was talking with an out-going (that means leaving soon, not cheerleader-esque) teacher about getting our adult students to carry on conversations. I mean, after-all, they have signed up for "conversational" English classes so why is it that they come in, sit down, and then expect you to entertain them for an hour, without actively contributing to the conversation. So he was telling me about an exercise in small talk that he had found. The first line, "appropriate topics of conversation", the second topic...the weather. He has found that it's one of the Japanese favourite topics of discussion. I don't know if it's so much the culture (them being Japanese) that is the contributing factor, as it is the age group that we most often deal with, older middle aged to elderly. I have found that I myself, often feel like my grandmother in commenting, constantly in my case, on the weather. My parents ask me how I'm doing, I tell them about the weather. We both had a chuckle and he said that it was true, he did it too since arriving here. It is something to overcome, it takes so much of your energy that really, often, there is not much else that is consequential in your life at the moment but the environmental factors you are currently experiencing. So if ever you think, "No really Michelle, how are you doing? What are you able to experience there of cultural Japan?" I would have to say "Really, no really, I wake up hot, I throw some clothes on that I can sweat in, I get to school, I try and cool down, I put on different clothes that I have brought with me that I haven't sweat in yet, I teach some cool people (sometimes not so cool people) who often talk about how hot it is and as long as the air con is working, class goes relatively well. I ride my bike home only to get hot and sweaty by the time I walk in the door at 10 at night, I take off all my clothes and throw them immediately into the washer, I turn on the air con if I forgot to set the timer when I left, I hop in the shower and rinse off. I then have all of an hour or two of relative "comfort" of sitting on the floor in front of my comp with the air con and a tank top on before going to bed and doing it all over the next day. As for going places and seeing things of "cultural Japan", I hear that November will be cooler and very pretty as the leaves start to change colour. Until then, I like my house.
