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From my Japanese textbook,

“’Naa’used after a short form verb indicates strong emotion. It is mostly used when you are talking to yourself.”

LOL it’s true.


So anyway, I've had computer trouble all week, so if I wasn't behind before, I DEFINITELY am now.

August 16th, The Weekend of Nothing

Today I watched a show about 3 people who traveled eating things, though their commentary never got more advanced than, “Omg, it’s so good!” Other peoples faces were shown watching them in little boxes in the corner of the screen. I won’t understand it, not ever.

Then came on a 3 hour show in which a woman roamed the countryside “looking for good tasting water,” from Tokyo to Hokkaido. Nothing special even like glacial water, just trying tap water in people’s houses. Then she’d get to know them, love them, and cry the next day when she left.

But hey, I made good headway on the apartment.

The Stupidity of August 17th

8/17

After all the sitting around, I had only one concrete job responsibility in two weeks – Sapporo Orientation. I set my alarm, I packed my stuff. I stayed up late cleaning, but I still thought I could get up at 6 AM to board the7 AM bus and get to Sapporo by 9:30. As it turned out, I set the time on my alarm, but I didn’t turn it on. I woke up and before I even registered that I was awake, my body knew it was far too bright in the room to be 6 AM, even according to Japanese light levels. I absolutely could not believe that I overslept. The last time I'd slept I'd woken up almost hourly! Today I slept straight through to 9 AM. WHhhyyy?

I had to wait an hour for the next bus, so I started getting ready and, believe it or not, I almost missed that bus too because I suck. I ran though, the whole way to the station, dragging my luggage behind me. Got on the bus and fortunately I’ve been here long enough not to have to worry about whether it’s the right bus. During the bus ride, I only had to ask once where we were, and after that mistake I had it figured out. I got off, found my way to the old government building we were training in. All morning I quibbled about whether or not to call the Vice Principal. I’d called the woman in charge in Sapporo, who happened to think it was funny because she’s a friend of The Pred’s, and The Pred is known for doing the same thing. Anyway, I figured they wouldn’t mark me absent, but I’d really screwed up and here I was, wondering whether to let it go or to bring embarrassment to myself. But if I let it go, that would mean that if I got caught I’d be really really in trouble.

Oh well, after arriving in a flurry of lateness, it was nice to see old friends from Tokyo Orientation again. Every time I start slowing down and worrying a little, JET has this magic way of filling me with joy and energy to go back to my Japanese life and my school. Some of the workshops were even useful!

They threw an enkai for us at the Kirin Beer Garden, which is essentially a two story building for hundreds of people where you can each sit at your own little grill and eat Genghis Khan and drink beer all you like for a flat fee. Though really, you end up eating raw meat if you don’t trust the people around you (which we didn’t). The less you trust them to leave you some, the more you want to eat quickly, the less they'll trust you and the faster they’ll eat… so you fight over bean sprouts and a few scraps of raw meat. And it’s all you can eat, so of course they don’t want to serve you as often as you want to be served. I sat next to a New Zealander who decided to take matters into his own hands and just get another pitcher of beer. We had a great time, I was glad I was at a good table.

Then we moved on to nijikai (second round) – drunker than drunk walking through Sapporo. We went to a foreigner bar and chilled out for a while, but it was too crowded so a group of us went to a sanjikai (third round) at an underground bar (literally and figuratively lol) that was fill with imported beers and other cool things. After that, yonjikai (fourth round lol) was the most amazing part. We went to a dance club called “A-Life” where the strobe lights and music never stopped. At first I was awkward and scared, but once I was comfortable I was having such a good time that I’m proud to say I was one of the best dancers out there. You didn’t even have to do anything to look cool in strobe lights, pick up your hand, cock your head, and you’re done. I danced though, danced until I was very tired. I’m glad I didn’t keep on drinking when everyone else did or I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to walk on account of the strobe lights. It was heinous! Me, a Minnesotan, and two New Zealanders I’ve bonded with even left via taxi at 2 AM, and we were the first ones to leave. It was ridiculous! I’m definitely going dancing again in Japan.

August 18th of Win

8/18

The next day of orientation was much less useful. I wanted to die by the end of the day, I was so tired. For lunch we went to this great onigiri (rice ball) shop, and I was proud because I knew the most Japanese out of everyone in the group. It was delicious, I had one rice ball with tarako (my fav, cod roe) and another with egg. After we were done for the day, I walked around alone and bought some manga in both English and Japanese (Nana! Yes!) I also looked into dehumidifiers like Mick-sensei recommended but it was too overwhelming.

At that point I was starving but I was going to meet The Pred for karaoke and she said they were on their way, so I walked across town to meet them at the TV tower. Of course, I waited there for a half an hour, which was obnoxious as hell but not surprising, and fortunately the Obon Odori festival was nearby so I watched big groups of people dance while I waited. In the group, was a very genki power ranger dancing it up :) I love stuff like that.

Karaoke was pretty low-key and fun enough. We ate a freshness burger, where I had a bacon omelette burger (lol but it was delicious) and a Kiwi Mix Protector (whatever that means, I think it was a kiwi shake). I tried getting other ALTs to come, but my phone list was short and it was difficult to plan so it was just us and The Pred’s 2 friends and husband. I did learn some new songs I really liked, but I did not get a chance to whip out Meiko Kaji’s “Flower of Carnage” (you’d recognize it from Kill Bill) because we ran out of time just as it was coming on. Next time world! I will sing Enka.

The Pred was a little upset to be leaving Japan, but our goodbye had been sordid in my opinion by episodes like me having to dig through the garbage because she’d forgotten her contacts and I’d thrown them away by the time she asked for them, her losing my bike, and her wanting to borrow my sleeping bags and me not trusting her to return them.

Goodbyes are always goodbyes, a little surreal and a little sad, and a little normal at the same time, no matter what your relationship is with the other person.

I looked at my phone and noticed it had my name on the main screen, which it usually doesn’t. My phone was wishing me a Happy Birthday :) Yes, world, it was my birthday by 4 minutes, and I smiled to myself and walked home across the city.

Happy Birthday, SAP <3 Sapp

8/19
Good god, it was check-out time already? I really loved staying in the Sapporo Keio Plaza, not only because the shower was clean and only used 2 levels to turn on, but because the bed was comfortable and it felt like a real house.

When I went to check out, he asked me to wait a moment and I was like, “oh shit, nobody else had to wait. What did I do wrong?” but when he came back, he gave me some mail that had been left for me. The Pred had left me a birthday card with a Japanese character key fob inside. That was very sweet, I thought!

So, it was also my birthday, but it didn’t feel like it. It rarely does feel like my birthday because I never make a big deal of it, but being so far away and living such a different life from before didn’t help any this year.

The days orientation activities were terrible, a bad workshop, a scavenger hunt made of suck during which I almost got in a fight with our group leader because she was a tool who wanted me to interrupt legitimately busy people helping other legitimately busy people, to ask for something that was right in front of me in English and that I really didn’t need for any reason other than a scavenger hunt that wasn’t actually a competition to begin with.

Afterwards, I made friends on the bus with a Brit and a Canadian and we had a very spirited conversation on the long drive. We went to this cool museum but had to drive an hour to spend 20 minutes there, which was kind of ill-planned. I saw some neat stuff, including a giant memorial tower out back that looked exactly like the tower that holds the eye of Sauron from LoTR. There’s a photoshop project waiting for me now! Lol I invited the Canadian and his friends to stay at my place during the N-betsu Hell Festival in a few weeks, since it sounded like a good time. We stopped at another museum where traditional Japanese houses from the dawn of Hokkaido had been moved. It was great fun going through them! On the way home I met some more interesting folks and when we exchanged phone numbers, so their phones told them it was my birthday and the whole bus sang to me :)

I went to get dinner afterwards with a girl I’d met before we’d left Chicago and two of her friends. Even here, all the Southeast Asian American kids hang out together, but I guess now I understand this phenomenon, since here I am hanging out with other foreigners as well quite naturally. (Though I guess in my case it’s really an issue of language necessity, still.) It was a little awkward eating with them, but they were very nice. I was so tired that Japanese was hard to use with the waitress, but one of them bought me an azuki bean ice cream in honor of my birthday :)

The bus back was scary because I didn’t know if I was on the right bus since it was labeled strangely. When I got home, I stayed up way too late making chocolate covered pretzels for the teachers because I had to do my self-introduction the next day. Unfortunately since the house had been alone for so long and in my haste to make the pretzels I had scattered sugar everywhere, the ants were back :( It was a good time in Sapps though, so I guess I can’t complain, even though this was the midpoint in my exhausting 3 weeks of getting 5 hours of sleep every night.