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August 12th
My to-do list keeps getting put further and further off, which is ok, because I have all the time in the world. As long as I get to the co-op before I run out of food. (**Jump to the present, ACTUALLY, this not okay, I’m way too busy now!**)
A teacher from a local private school who is about my age contacted me to see if she could use my internet to Skype her parents. Of course I said, “Yes, any time.” I’m not overly dependent on the internet, myself, but I still think it’s very troublesome not to be able to get on once in a while to get organized. I had to wait around for the gas man to come anyway (Get this - between 3PM and 8PM! Japanese service hours are so convenient!).
So she came over and I continued cleaning the kitchen, now that the whole apartment was mine. At that point, I learned a lot about her through my paper thin walls lol We got boxed dinners from the co-op afterward and I learned a lot of valuable things from her, since she’s been here for so long. While we were waiting in line at the co-op, the woman from the self-check section flagged us over to teach us how to use it. Personally, I’d always wanted to know but was kind of afraid to ask, so that worked out well. I understood almost everything she said the first time. My Japanese is getting better ^.^ I got a pork stir fry and gobo (some weird root I like to eat drenched in sesame oil) and she got tri-color soba. True to form, like everyone else who has ever eaten soba in my living room, she spilled the soba sauce on my rug. That makes 3 of us (myself included), with a 1:1 soba-to-spill ratio for the apartment.
The gas man came shortly thereafter and I told him upfront to speak simply and slowly in Japanese. There was once or twice where I didn’t understand him, but I did know the words he was using, so the second time around I got it. I’d been so scared but it all worked out! Whoopee!
The other teacher told me about how she did JET for 3 years but got sick of not doing very much as an assistant, so now she’s working as a full time teacher at a Christian school where no one on the staff or in the study body is Christian (lol, whut?). In fact, she’s strict atheist. Apparently, as part of her job, she’ll get to go on a one month home stay trip to Australia for free (while being paid) as a supervisor with the girls. She gets to because she’s a woman and the students are girls, but she’s sure that if that wasn’t the case, the principal would’ve sent the male English teacher because he doesn’t like women and he doesn’t like foreigners. So far, I haven’t had any problems like that. I keep thinking about how lucky I am in my placement.
She talked a bit about pop culture, adjusting to new lifestyles, isolation, friendship, and dating. The dating part was interesting. We were talking about Japanese marriages and how they tend to be American men with Japanese women and not usually the other way around. In Japan, there’s a culture of the women doing the chasing. Men are shy and they are used to being taken care of, so the women dote on them and chase them. Also, she said there have been a lot of people, married and otherwise, who feel like she’s been flirting with them when she hasn’t, and apparently if you spend a lot of time with someone of the opposite sex, people will assume you’re dating. She said it’s quite hard to make male friends, for that reason. But again, like everyone else, she encouraged me to try, though she also told stories of American friends with mean Japanese boyfriends. I don’t know though, I kind of get it but I think there’s more to understand than what I’ve learned thus far.
There’s only one big problem with being this girl’s friend. It’s going to take a while to get over the fact that she reminds me so much of The Batshit Crazy Roommate.
This other teacher has been in Japan for three years, so she’s got the culture body language down. It doesn’t bother me in the context of Japanese, but when you’re speaking English with another American, it’s kind of annoying. She makes a noise of agreement after everything you say, she apologizes too much, and she even has a unique giggle. She wears bookish glasses. Her stature is the same. There are awkward pauses because she is awkward. Yeah...they're a lot the same so far.
It helps me understand why The Batshit Crazy Roommate was the way she was though, realizing some of her otherness was from using Southeast Asian body language learned from her mother. I can forgive that, I guess, but seeing it in this woman after having such negative feelings about the only other U.S. American I know who does that...well...it made me kind of sick. I had a good enough time talking to her, but she stayed until almost 9 o’clock, and all I wanted to do was get my apartment in order. By the end, it was all I could handle.
When she finally left, I was getting a little surly because of the associations kicking in. Didn’t get much done, but I did a little. When I went to bed that night, I settled in my dirty gross bedsheets...then I realized that The Pred was gone, so I could finally use the good bedding!! Yaay. I’m still going to buy a new comforter but the sheets and pillows and such are fine, thankfully.
My to-do list keeps getting put further and further off, which is ok, because I have all the time in the world. As long as I get to the co-op before I run out of food. (**Jump to the present, ACTUALLY, this not okay, I’m way too busy now!**)
A teacher from a local private school who is about my age contacted me to see if she could use my internet to Skype her parents. Of course I said, “Yes, any time.” I’m not overly dependent on the internet, myself, but I still think it’s very troublesome not to be able to get on once in a while to get organized. I had to wait around for the gas man to come anyway (Get this - between 3PM and 8PM! Japanese service hours are so convenient!).
So she came over and I continued cleaning the kitchen, now that the whole apartment was mine. At that point, I learned a lot about her through my paper thin walls lol We got boxed dinners from the co-op afterward and I learned a lot of valuable things from her, since she’s been here for so long. While we were waiting in line at the co-op, the woman from the self-check section flagged us over to teach us how to use it. Personally, I’d always wanted to know but was kind of afraid to ask, so that worked out well. I understood almost everything she said the first time. My Japanese is getting better ^.^ I got a pork stir fry and gobo (some weird root I like to eat drenched in sesame oil) and she got tri-color soba. True to form, like everyone else who has ever eaten soba in my living room, she spilled the soba sauce on my rug. That makes 3 of us (myself included), with a 1:1 soba-to-spill ratio for the apartment.
The gas man came shortly thereafter and I told him upfront to speak simply and slowly in Japanese. There was once or twice where I didn’t understand him, but I did know the words he was using, so the second time around I got it. I’d been so scared but it all worked out! Whoopee!
The other teacher told me about how she did JET for 3 years but got sick of not doing very much as an assistant, so now she’s working as a full time teacher at a Christian school where no one on the staff or in the study body is Christian (lol, whut?). In fact, she’s strict atheist. Apparently, as part of her job, she’ll get to go on a one month home stay trip to Australia for free (while being paid) as a supervisor with the girls. She gets to because she’s a woman and the students are girls, but she’s sure that if that wasn’t the case, the principal would’ve sent the male English teacher because he doesn’t like women and he doesn’t like foreigners. So far, I haven’t had any problems like that. I keep thinking about how lucky I am in my placement.
She talked a bit about pop culture, adjusting to new lifestyles, isolation, friendship, and dating. The dating part was interesting. We were talking about Japanese marriages and how they tend to be American men with Japanese women and not usually the other way around. In Japan, there’s a culture of the women doing the chasing. Men are shy and they are used to being taken care of, so the women dote on them and chase them. Also, she said there have been a lot of people, married and otherwise, who feel like she’s been flirting with them when she hasn’t, and apparently if you spend a lot of time with someone of the opposite sex, people will assume you’re dating. She said it’s quite hard to make male friends, for that reason. But again, like everyone else, she encouraged me to try, though she also told stories of American friends with mean Japanese boyfriends. I don’t know though, I kind of get it but I think there’s more to understand than what I’ve learned thus far.
There’s only one big problem with being this girl’s friend. It’s going to take a while to get over the fact that she reminds me so much of The Batshit Crazy Roommate.
This other teacher has been in Japan for three years, so she’s got the culture body language down. It doesn’t bother me in the context of Japanese, but when you’re speaking English with another American, it’s kind of annoying. She makes a noise of agreement after everything you say, she apologizes too much, and she even has a unique giggle. She wears bookish glasses. Her stature is the same. There are awkward pauses because she is awkward. Yeah...they're a lot the same so far.
It helps me understand why The Batshit Crazy Roommate was the way she was though, realizing some of her otherness was from using Southeast Asian body language learned from her mother. I can forgive that, I guess, but seeing it in this woman after having such negative feelings about the only other U.S. American I know who does that...well...it made me kind of sick. I had a good enough time talking to her, but she stayed until almost 9 o’clock, and all I wanted to do was get my apartment in order. By the end, it was all I could handle.
When she finally left, I was getting a little surly because of the associations kicking in. Didn’t get much done, but I did a little. When I went to bed that night, I settled in my dirty gross bedsheets...then I realized that The Pred was gone, so I could finally use the good bedding!! Yaay. I’m still going to buy a new comforter but the sheets and pillows and such are fine, thankfully.
