2011: A Recap (part 2)

2011: Part 2 – Japan

OK guys, how we doin’? Need a break? We’re halfway there now! Don’t worry though, I think the second half may not take as long.
            I’ve already covered a lot of August in the two posts called Japan: A Beginning so I won’t go into much detail so as to not repeat myself. And for Pete’s sake those are a pair of really long posts in and of themselves! Long story short: Tokyo orientation for 4 days was insane, jet-laggie, earthquaky and before I knew it I was already in Oda. After that: few weeks reading, playing games, being hot and sweaty, relaxing and unwinding from the whirlwind of the preceding few weeks. Finally: Shimane orientation where I met many of the crazy bunch of people I live close to and often enjoy drinks/jokes/singing/dancing with. Oh yeah, I got my phone right before orientation and with it a window back into the internet. I missed it so!
            September is when school and my life in Japan began proper. Did a speech in Japanese at opening ceremony, started doing classes with the teachers, sports festival and the following welcoming party was a blast and I met and started to get to know most of the people that are now a huge part of my life. That is, the crazy Oda crew, the teachers at Ni-chuu, surrounding town JETs and last but most definitely not least, the student body at school; gotta love those kids, even the ones that don’t give a quarter of a rat’s fuzzy bottom about English. School is interesting, everything is new, some students are funny, others are difficult, some are undetectable, the teachers are great fun to be around and they make me wish I was already fluent at Japanese so I could also joke around with them. I’m workin’ on it!
            The remaining months of the year go by in much the same manner as September, really. Still just teaching and generally enjoying my time in great amounts. In October I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable with Oda, school life and life in Japan in general. It began to sink it that I’m really going to be here for a while all the while time just flying by faster than I can even fathom. Honestly, it feels like sports day was just the other day but it was actually 4 months ago! In October the kids had culture festival, which was also a lot of fun! Each homeroom chose a song and they practiced and practiced and practiced it for the chorus competition that takes place at the culture festival.
            By the time November rolled around there were still some schools I hadn’t visited, namely the elementary school I visit a few times per semester. I finally got to go to it around mid-November and it was great. While in junior high, it’s sometimes hard to get the students motivated or excited about anything or to even smile, elementary school kids are, in stark contrast, a savage bunch of happy, energetic kids that, for the most part, actually try to do well and want to play games and answer questions and repeat after you! It’s not impossible in junior high but it’s often not easy. I’m sure most teachers out there can relate. It probably also doesn’t help that school is apparently quite difficult in junior high but hey, we all did it, right? Just gotta try to relate and help ‘em get over themselves when necessary, or something like that!
            Finally we round out the year with the month that ended yesterday: December. It was a really feel-good month. It’s finally now after several months that I’ve begun to feel, in some way, comfortable in the classroom. I’m still a little apprehensive in there sometimes but a lot of things are starting to become pretty commonplace and the patterns are starting to show up. I’m slowly learning the kids’ abilities, attitudes, aptitudes and demeanor and most importantly, their names. I can’t try to learn all of their names – I’ve got over 300 students – but I want to learn as many as possible. Names are powerful knowledge and also a sturdy bridge, not to mention a practical requirement in most any relationship. Also, they all know mine so it’s only fair I try to return the favor.
            Right after the semester ended the teachers had the year-end dinner and party and it was WAY more fun than the one at the beginning of the semester. I should note that that one was a lot of fun too. The main reason this one was better is because I now know a lot of the teachers a little better and they know me a little better and so it’s easier to have fun, I guess. Also, more karaoke this time, which, as you know, is my favorite. Sad note: the school nurse ended her stay at the school and I didn’t even realize it when she was giving her speech at the closing ceremony but man was it sad. Needless to say, people everywhere were turning on their waterworks. I almost cried too. She’s a super nice lady and I’m actually really going to miss her.
            Wow, there’s a lot to talk about in December. Wrapping up, I just got back from a super amazing little vacay in Tokyo. Had a ton of fun with Steph and Maggie and their friends Janelle and Ally as we gallivanted about the city and hit up all sorts of places. Check out my album in facebook for a peek at the photos I took. Like I said in a tweet recently, I was only in the city for a few days – not even a week – and I already miss it. I really have to go again and have some more fun there. To give you an idea of how much going about we did, here’s a list of the places we hit up: Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Roppongi, Ikebukuro, Tokyo DisneySea, Ghibli museum, the Square-Enix store, the Evangelion store, the Pokemon center, and the list goes on, actually. I even got to have lunch with Kristen from Tiny Prints and her sister (who’s a JET like me) and their friend. We went to a tonkatsu restaurant that our friend Kimi suggested and it really was some of the best tonkatsu I’ve ever had.
            There’s a lot of things I didn’t even talk about but there’s really no way of saying everything and it wouldn’t be very nice to my poor, dear reader to make you read volumes of my often uneventful life, which I’m very much enjoying. This past year, 2011, was a year full of amazing things, saying goodbye to wonderful people, saying hello to friendly people, a year divided but that is really two halves of a whole lot of great things that happened to me. I’ve grown, I’ve changed, I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve eaten like a pig and drunk like I’m more than thirsty. I’ve learned even more about myself, my friends, teaching, learning, Japan, and Japanese than I could have imagined I would. And as 2012 begins, as we mark this new cycle of our planet around the nice warm star God gave us, I’m thankful for what has been, for all I have, and especially for what’s to come. I’m just gonna stand atop this clearing and stare into the bright, blank horizon of the coming year, try and brace for the bad stuff, remember to enjoy the good stuff and really appreciate and be thankful for the great stuff.


2012, here we go!

2011: A Recap (part 1)

Guess what! I want to listen to all the awesome new music I got thanks to my sistuz. (For reference I'm going to list it here: David Crowder*Band - Church Music; Innerpartysystem; Eisley - The Valley; Avril Lavigne - Goodbye Lullaby; she - Orion) Of course, what better way to listen to music than by sittin' down to write off a year's worth of life? That said, get ready folks. This is gonna be another of the biggies so hanker down with your favorite warm drink (if you're in a cold place, like my room, for example!) and enjoy my ramblings!

Now, before I start (what, did you think I’d just let you off without some more illogical preamble? Have you seen my blog’s name? I can’t even stop from interrupting even myself! XD) I’m just gonna apologize. To be sure, this blog and I have had a bit of a relationship. I’ve had it for several years and it really feels like every time I post something I include some sort of rant bemoaning how few readers I have or how little I post – two things that are bound to have some correlation. But, thinking about it with as clear a head as I can have at the beginning of this brand new year, I’ve always used it as a personal writing outlet. Such a thing is, at its core, for the benefit of my own catharsis. Following that, though, is the fact that writing’s natural progression is communication in some form and it’s from that that stems my frustration, minor and insignificant as it often is. The apology, then, is to my reader in being forced to deal with my violent love-hate swing surrounding this exercise in writing. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but I can get behind having some impetus in regards to not complaining about audience or content around this blog.

2011: Part 1 – Pre-Japan

It makes sense to take this month by month but I’m not really sure I can recall what happened within those particular time frames (my memory’s not that good sometimes) so instead I’m just going to kind of wing it as I try to be as sequential as possible.

In January I was already in the midst of the application process for JET. I just checked my emails to verify the date and it appears it was mid-January when I found out I got the interview for JET. As you may or may not know, in 2008 I first applied to the JET programme and for whatever reason, I didn’t get to the interview phase of the applications process so getting it this time was pretty much mind blowing. I’m certain none of you are strangers to how much I was dying to go to Japan so getting just as far as the interview made me unfathomably happy. I was still cautiously optimistic because getting interviewed didn’t exactly mean I was going to Japan. Even then, I was, for once, confident in my placement. Maru-sensei, one of my favorite teachers (of all time), had such faith in my ability and prowess as a candidate for JET that I just knew I could do it.

[Other notable things in January: Not much? Played a ton of games… actually 2011 was a great year in gaming. If I recall correctly, I played through a ton of really fun/great games this year :D We’ll leave that for another post, if at all.]

This actually quite seamlessly leads into February, which is when the interview took place. Don’t recall much happening in February, to be honest. The interview went pretty well, I thought, and so began the waiting game. Actually, the waiting game began when I mailed in the application back in October 2010 when I started the application. The game clearly consists of a checklist where you have to wait some sort of vague span of time between each item. I will now proceed to painstakingly delineate said items and spans of time up to this point and update the list as I go through the post. (The time in parenthesis is the wait time until the next item)

[X] – October 2010: Send Application. (~3 months)
[X] – January 2011: find out I have the interview with JET (~1 month)
[X] – February 2011: interview in SF (~2.5 months)

           March 11, 2011 was when the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami happened. The interview was in late February so I was quite fresh out of it and feeling closer than ever to going to Japan. I still remember being at work and watching videos of people screaming, of the swelling sea coming in, rushing into land and taking with it bikes, cars, boats and buildings. It was honestly frightful. The people that knew I was planning and trying to go to Japan asked me what was going to happen. I didn’t have many answers. I didn’t know whether JET was going to cancel this year’s applications. I heard of at least one JET who was in the Sendai area who died. I did have at least one answer though: I still wanted to go to Japan. Something inside me wanted to be there even then helping however I could.
            Time went on and April came and went. I can’t say I recall any particular thing that makes April stand out. Sorry, April! Oh, actually, I take that back. Imogen Heap’s 4^th album began in the tail end of March and the first song from it came out in early April. Love, love, love Lifeline and I can’t wait to hear the newest song coming out real soon (she’s doing a song every 3 months). AND – wow, gotta thank my sent e-mails box since it’s really helping this post out – it turns out it was on April 17^th that I found out I was on the short list for JET.

[X] – April 17, 2011: get into JET

Lemme just say, I stopped short of exploding right there in my chair at work when I got the e-mail. Suffice to say, I read it through a good 3 or 4 times just to make sure I wasn’t misreading it. I then proceeded to tell my close circle of friends, family and a selection of people. I would then proceed to tell others as I saw fit. I’m sneaky like that. Wow, just remembering finding out is putting a huge smile on my face. That moment for me was the consummation of so many hopes and the beginning of a future I’m currently living. I’m in the middle of the Japanese country-side staring out the window of my apartment past the reflection I can’t see on my window. I’m in this window, this door to the outside that is my current life in this country I’ve pined for for years. Forgive me for waxing metaphysipoetical.

I love May. 1) It pretty much kicks of with my birthday on the 2^nd – it always sneaks up on me, actually – and 2) it’s also the beginning of the summer, which is usually a fun season. May was when I started to put into action plans and efforts for The Big Move to Japan at the end of July. I also got my iPad in May :D Yes, it still rocks. It’s my Japanese video game playing companion so I can look stuff up and talk to my friends while I game. It’s the little things, folks!

June’s when I found out where I was placed for my stay in Japan: the town of Oda in Shimane prefecture. To be frank, I had no [insert expletive for color] idea where Oda or even Shimane were. I’d never heard of the prefecture and quite possibly any part of it. It was a little daunting to think I’d be living in a place I’d never heard of, even if it did happen to be in Japan. I remember looking it up in google maps and thinking something along the lines of “I’m in the middle of nowhere” or “country life… I hope my body can take it.” Obviously, I was being the classic drama queen I usually am but still had a positive outlook coz I was going to Japan! [Spoiler alert: loving it here, wouldn’t trade it.] Seriously though, I was a little concerned because it is a rural area and I’ve never lived in a rural area but seeing as I was ready and willing to embrace the unknown by simply going through with going to Japan, there was [and still is] nothing to be afraid of. 

[X] – June 2011: find out where I’m placed (~1ish months)

July is when I kicked the preparations for departure into HIGH GEAR. I had, at this point, 30 days to get ready to fly 2000 or whatever miles to my new home. I wanted/had to reduce the entirety of my belongings to things that I could throw away, give away, sell or take with me. I’d like to think I was successful, for the most part. Although there were some things I ended up not being able to take care of. (SORRY MIKE) Let’s not even talk about how I spent the whole night before my flight packing. Yes, the whole night, didn’t sleep a wink. The span from about 6-8AM was the toughest ever to stay awake through. I seriously could not sit down for too long for fear that I’d just conk out. In these last few weeks before moving to Japan I:

-        Sold my car

-        Sold my laptop

-        Sold my desktop

-        Bought a new laptop

-        Gave away a ton of clothes/things

-        Sold a bunch of stuff at a garage sale (for stupid cheap coz I needed to get rid of it)

-        Bought the best jacket I’ve ever owned (shout-out to Harim, holla!)

-        Had as much pearl milk tea as I could – no regrets!

-        Said goodbye to everyone I was possibly able to and had probably several too many farewell dinners that I feel guilty I got treated to. Thank you friends T_T

-        Probably a bunch of other things, it’s all a blur

And this all culminated in…

[X] – July 30th, 2011: fly to Japan

(next part coming soon)

Catchin' Up

Saturday morning while doing laundry and sipping "leche con Quik" (my signature chocolate milk—yes, I know it's Nesquik now but I'll never acknowledge it!) is apparentely the perfect time to write a blog post. I've got some hilariously bubbly j-electronica pumpin' in my headphones (band's Perfume, if you're curious). Now while it's pretty uncharacteristic for me, I'm gonna cut to the chase. In less than 3 months I'm going to be in Japan. I'll be starting a new arc in my life story (to those familiar with anime/manga jargon, you'll know what I mean by arc) as an English teacher in Japan. To be sure, I'm still here and it's 77 days away (but who's counting down the days, right) and there's still a chance something could happen to prevent me from going, but barring any unforeseen occurrences July 30th I'll board a plane taking me to an archipelago on the other side of the world. This is still sinking in but every so often it reaches a new depth of understanding within me and I realize how insane it is. In good and bad ways, it changes my life pretty much entirely. I'll be in a country I've only ever heard of and learned about, one that is thousands of miles from "home" with a language I only really started to learn at the age of 19 or 20, where the only people I'll know are the handful of new friends I'll have just really started to meet the day before departure. I'll have left just about everything behind: Puerto Rico, Rochester, Cleveland, Rocklin and Sunnyvale. Those are all distinct chapters of my life.

Going back to the arc analogy, I would say my childhood up to high school is 1 arc, one that lasted 18 years. The second arc would be my college years, including the year I spent in Cleveland and the time afterwards moving here to California and working at Tiny Prints, where if I wasn't leaving for JET, I would have been for 2 years this September. Yet this august starts a new arc. One that takes me farther than I've ever been from the place I was born. And who knows, maybe this chapter in Japan will be an omake and I'll just come back to California after one year and get on with my life as a web developer. I'll simply have a treasure trove of experiences of a year-long dream, a life lived in a land distant and separate. Or maybe I'll be compelled to stay, to make Japan my new home. It's no secret Japan has stolen some of my heart for quite some time. And I've talked about this before in my Divided Heart post last year (seriously can't believe it was that long ago by the way) but it seems as though I just can't settle. For better or worse, I've been relatively nomadic for the last 10 years of my life. It might be the stage of life or perhaps it's the budding of the wandering flower that is to be my life.

Needless to say, I am excited about going to Japan; to an extent qualifiers such as super, really, very, extremely or even ridiculously can't quite encompass the feeling. I've been dying to go to Japan ever since I started to get really into the language when I was learning it in college and for one reason or another I simply haven't been able to go. Yet in the last few years I realized I didn't want to just visit. I wanted to go and be part of the culture, inasmuch as a gaijin (foreigner) can do so. Of course, I realize it's not all puppies and rainbows. The economy all over the world is really suffering and there has been talk of cutting funding to the JET program so it may not even repeat next year regardless of whether or not I want to do it again. Not to mention the geological phenomena that has been plaguing the entire world as of late. Ever since January 2010 it seems you can't go a month without hearing about some place in the world having a strong earthquake and it was only 2 months ago that Japan went through one of the biggest if not the biggest earthquake in recorded history (or something like that). As for the radiation concerns everybody keeps talking to me about, all I've read from very trustworthy sources (you know, like the news, government officials, experts on the subject) is that some of what people hear is greatly blown out of proportion. Plus, I really don't think JET is sending anybody to areas where they would be greatly inconvenienced or where their life is in any way threatened. Speaking of which, I still don't know where I'll be teaching and won't find out until the end of the month, at the earliest.

I suppose this wasn't as much a catchin' up post as it was a me rambling about going to Japan post, hehe. Well enough, I say. For the record, I do plan on continuing to use this blog for my posts from Japan if and when I get over there so be watching out for these. I'll see if they happen at all though, considering "leche con quik" is probably gonna be hard to come by over there :)