time flies

Has it really been two weeks? Really? Looks like I need to play catch up, and they've certainly been a busy two weeks!

Saturday the 18th, my coworker (and fellow JET) Kristin hosted Canadian Thanksgiving at her apartment. It was a potluck type affair, comprised of her, myself, Miho (the cooking teacher), and Nakatani-sensei (one of our English teachers). We spent several hours just chatting and eating a really nice meal, with everything from tomato basil pizza to salad to parmesan curry chicken (SO GOOD) and even some nice homemade crackers and dip. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal, in some fashion. And Nakatani-sensei was kind enough to give me a ride home afterwards.

Friday the 24th was something of an accidental adventure. Fig had previously introduced me to one of her fellow teachers, a young woman named Naoko, and Friday was Naoko's boyfriend's birthday. I met them briefly in Sanjo, though it took so long to get there that I missed most of dinner. When Fig and I finally left, we split up in Sanjo station to board our respective train lines. When I reached mine, however, I discovered that I had missed my last train by about a minute! Hurriedly, I ran back to Fig's line and jumped on a train, sending her a desperate text message to let her know I was following her, so please wait somewhere!

I knew that I'd have to get off at Tambabashi station to change trains, and hoped that I wasn't about to get stranded their for the rest of the night. Fortunately, Fig was there, and there were still trains running to her stop (Shin-Tanabe). So we ended up having an impromptu slumber party, Fig being kind enough to let me stay at her place.

The next day we got up on the early side, because I had to be back in Sonobe by about noon to get to a school function at 1:00, and it takes a really long time to get from Fig's house to mine. (On the upside, this was the only Saturday I had off during the run of our elementary school Saturday classes, so it was my good luck not to have to be back in Sonobe by 8:00!) Including walking time and train changes, around two and a half hours, I'd say. I stopped only to pick up some cat ears for a halloween costume that night, otherwise breezing through Sanjo and getting back to Sonobe just in time to inhale lunch and change into work clothes for my school's 120th Anniversary Celebration thing.

Which turned out not to be such a big deal. Most of the teachers weren't even there, which rankled a little with Kristin and I, because when we asked whether we needed to be there, we had been told to show up. What we got was literally two hours of speeches in Japanese, which we could barely understand, much less care about or benefit from.

On the upside, the speeches were followed by an hour-long performance by Takigawa Maiko, a locally famous enka singer. I'd encountered enka before -- when I was living in Japan two years ago, my host grandmother and I sometimes watched it on TV together -- but I hadn't had the opportunity to catch a live show. It's a very theatrical and entertaining genre, if not generally my style of music. (And by theatrical, let me just say this: Kristin and I came to the common conclusion that enka singers shared certain mannerisms with lounge singers. Vegas meets Japan?)

When it was over, I had another hurried flight back to my apartment, where I threw things in a bag and changed into my Halloween costume (more of a Halloween outfit, really), before racing my butt to the station. (If you hadn't noticed, I spent this particular weekend running pretty much everywhere I went, because my schedule was so tight. I wish that were more of an exaggeration.)

I rode the trains all the way back out towards Fig's place, getting off two stops early at Terada station, where I met Fig and her coworker Ashley. We joined some other local JETs at a costume-mandatory party at Guys Bar, a local hangout. Fig was a pirate (though lackluster in comparison to her usual getup), Ashley a gypsy, and I a black cat. Other notables include Steve, whose gorilla monster mask suited him far too well, two Japanese boys dressed in drag who we mistook for actual girls for several hours, and the DJ, who made a very convincing Michael Jackson. Basically we just met people and chatted, and watched a pretty rad dance competition towards the end of the night. I think that the two girls doing karate-inspired dance was the best (plus, they were dancing to my favorite song from the soundtrack of the 2003 Zatoichi movie), but the post-danceoff freestyle break dancers were also pretty sweet. Especially the one who kept putting his hat on me.

There were lots of nice people there, from one Japanese girl who spoke such perfect English that I mistook her for a JET (she grew up in the states), to Yoshi, a twenty-something guy who wrote down some book recommendations for me on a torn bit of cardboard. It was, overall, a good evening -- even the part where we got lost on the way back to the station. We got back to Fig's somehow! :)

Once again on Sunday morning, I had to get up and get back to Sonobe for previous engagements. You see, earlier that week, I had been walking home from work, minding my own business, when someone called in English, "Excuse me!" Now, I live at the end of the street inhabited by young families, where there are approximately eight hundred small children between the ages of 3 and 10. Everyday I walk by and see the happy children, along with their mothers, and wish I had some opening gambit with which to meet some of my neighbors. But almost three months in, and I still didn't know anybody. So imagine my surprise and delight to see a (really cute) young woman with two small children, waving me over. As soon as she established that I spoke Japanese, she explained that she wanted to learn English, and did I have time to visit sometime? So we exchanged contact information, and via email, arranged for me to visit her house for tea at three o'clock that Sunday.

I took some cookies with me as a gift (as Japanese protocol demands), and showed up to tea that day, only to discover I was not just spending time with Juri-san (the wife), but also with her husband (who may or may not be named Mitsuru) and her two small children (Yuu, a girl aged 3, and Haru, a boy aged 1). Essentially, we introduced ourselves and chatted in a combination of English and Japanese, and they invited me to stay for dinner, and I played with the kids. One of the best parts was when, after deciding that I was not a scary monster, Yuu sat me down and systematically explained every picture book she could shove into my willing hands. This worked out well, as I apparently have just the right amount of Japanese to converse easily with a three-year-old.

I was definitely on cloud nine when I walked home that evening, filled with glee and success at having finally made friends in my neighborhood -- and they are definitely wonderful people! When I admitted that I'm a pretty poor cook, Juri-san even gave me two packs of Japanese noodles to make at home, explaining how to cook them.

So now we are at last Monday, the 27th. It was a busy start to an equally chaotic week. Our school was playing host to a visiting teacher from England, named Oliver Wells. His school (Westminster Academy) and ours had a tentative letter exchange in the works, and he came to set up some more specific project goals for the relationship. He was a nice enough fellow, though he did have something of a tendency to bulldoze over other people during meetings, and it was obvious that his concerns were firmly seated with his own students and their benefits. Which is as it should be, really, but it was sometimes difficult for us to form a compromise. On the upside, though, he was a youngish guy (28, the same age as Kristin, actually), so he seemed to feel a certain camaraderie with Kristin and I.

Plus, his coming gave us an excuse to have a little dinner outing on Monday, with him, myself, Kristin, Hosoi-sensei (who I adore), and the principal and vice principal (who are both named Mori). It was then that I discovered that the principal has a love for making terrible puns in Japanese, and is generally a hilarious guy. I don't know if I've made this entirely clear, but I love my coworkers. They are all great and distinctive people, and I want to bring them all home with me when the time comes. But anyway, as for Oliver wells, he was hanging about all week while we were busy getting ready for SELHi.

Oh, SELHi. That was an adventure. We've been running top speed in our E classes to prepare our projects on "James and the Giant Peach" for the dreaded SELHi open house. I had extra classes with E-3 almost every day last week, getting ready for the big event. And Thursday night, we were all at school later than usual making print outs and packets and generally getting everything perfectly prepared. I feel for the full-time teachers, who were probably here a lot longer than we were. It was all pretty stressful. There was also fun throughout the week, though, as we did several Halloween-themed classes with the junior high kids, and in junior high ESS we made some really tasty mini pumpkin cheesecakes. I don't usually dig cheesecake, but these were decidedly good! I have, in fact, ferreted out the recipe for future attempts.

The SELHi presentation itself also went decently well, I think. There were around 70 guest teachers wandering the halls, moving from class to class to observe. The E-3 students were quieter than usual, probably hyper-aware of being observed, but it was quieter in a good way. (They do tend to be a little rowdy and distracted usually.) They were, in fact, very cooperative, so much that I think I might take them a treat on Thursday.

Friday night, there was also the post-SELHi, hooray-we-made-it-through-somehow staff party. We went to a really nice restaurant in Yagi, and just sat around eating and socializing for several hours. It was a really nice time. I ended up sitting between Ueda-sensei (one of my team teachers, who is a young woman the same age as me) and the cute young music teacher that sits near us in the staff room. I forget his name. And across from me was Takemura-sensei, also a young female teacher, and coincidentally the teacher with whom I manage E-3, so we could really share our relief that the presentation had gone well.

The next morning were Saturday classes as usual, and then meeting Joanna and Neil in Uji to go visit Byodoin, the famous temple featured on one side of the ten yen coin. It was smaller than some sites I have visited, but for some reason I found it particularly beautiful. It probably helps that it was a stunning day, bright and sunny and surprisingly warm. There was even a nice little museum, with a very interesting collection of Buddhist statuary. We took a whole lot of pictures.

Saturday night was our normal routine -- friends and karaoke at Sanjo. Alex's girlfriend, Louise, was visiting from the States; she seemed decent. Neil and I spent the night with Joanna, then went out for lunch and a little bit of shopping on Sunday afternoon. I picked up a cuddly scarf and some more cookies to take with me that evening, when I returned for a second time to Juri-san's house. She enlisted my help in making okonomiyaki (which is nice, because now I know how to make okonomiyaki), which was delicious. She even gave me three extra to take home, all of which I happily ate yesterday.

And that, hopefully, is the extent of it. There are plans on the horizon, but this week is shaping up to be quiet compared to those that have just gone by, and that's fine by me.