Long Time, No Write

It's been a long time since I've written - a time filled with procrastination and pressure from my loyal readers (ie - close family and friends...my circulation is small but devoted) so I feel I owe you a wonderful entry. Maybe sometime in the future that will happen and maybe this one will be mediocre enough to kill 20 minutes at work - less if you just look at pictures and decide that I am too wordy and a skim will do...more if you dissect my sentences for grammar/speling errors (haha) or if you have trouble reading.

A few months back, I learned that Coldplay would be playing a show in Kobe. Since Jeff and Rachael raved about their concert and because I love their latest album, this was a must-see for me. I bought two tickets as soon as I could. As I was riding the train to Kobe the day of the show, the whiteness of the whole experience really hit. I know that I have mentioned and included links to this site before but I'm gonna do it again. (http://www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com) Generally I am taking a year off (#120) teaching multilingual children (#78) and am usually the only white person around (#71). I rode my bicycle (#61) from my apartment near the water (#51) to the train station to travel (#19) within Japan (#58). I left the apartment wearing a sweater (#103), scarf (#97) and New Balance shoes (#96). I picked up some tea (#13) from Starbucks (how is this not on the list!?) and sat on the train updating Facebook (#106) on my iPhone (#40), reading the latest David Sedaris book (#25) and going to meet my Asian girlfriend (#11) and we'd be standing still at a concert (#67). Oh what a typical day.

As I thought it would be, Coldplay was really entertaining. We enjoyed the show and even had the chance to act like a 13 year old girl when Chris Martin ran by us and we tried like hell just to touch an arm hair. No luck...he positioned himself perfectly between the two swarms of people trying to grope him...didn't even get a sweat spray like the misting from Palm Sunday.

On February 3rd, while the rest of the world celebrated my half birthday, Japan celebrates setsubun. I think the word means something about the separation of seasons but on this day every year, Japanese hold rituals to cleanse evil spirits from the past year and wish good luck for the new year. Most people go to shrines on this day and someone wearing a devil (oni) costume dances and everyone throws beans at it. Some people keep it civil and respect the ritual...some people take this opportunity to channel their inner Daisuke and fire beans at this poor guy. I was among the latter. The ceremony I attended was the weekend before Feb. 3 but I did do some recognizing on the appropriate. I went to Shuko's apartment. She managed to get a few paper devil masks and when her friend unsuspectingly came in, we pelted her with beans. In fairness, we all took turns getting nailed by beans. In case you want to play at home next year, get some roasted soybeans and appoint a devil. When they've managed to protect certain protectables, fire away but make sure you include this phrase: "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (Devils out! Luck In!). If you don't use the expression, you're just throwing roasted soybeans at people - and that is probably assault.

Oh, I am here to teach children English so maybe you'd like to read about that. The Japanese school year starts in April so, in accordance with that, our new schedule and classes start in April. This was a comical process. Our manager called a meeting with Jacqui and me to discuss the progress of our students and what our recommendation was for their new classes. Well, that was the stated purpose of the meeting. What it turned out to be was our manager 'asking' our opinion and then saying she had scheduled students already - if we didn't agree with her decisions, she asked in a variety of ways until we relented or became too confused with her pronoun-mixing-up English and our heads exploded. One way or another, the students I thought could progress or needed some additional help will be going onto whichever lesson best fits our schools best-case-scenario to make money. Although I understood coming into this job (and it was stressed during recruitment) that this is, first, a business...I was not really prepared for this. Over the past eight months, I've come to care a lot about my students' progress and was blinded to the idea of profitability. I was smacked in the face and realized that I just have to do my best for the company and students simultaneously...even if the students are not put in the positions I'd prefer because it would cost the company some money or time. Three months ago I extended my contract for three months...essentially buying myself three months to gain some insight into my life here and whether or not I want to continue it. Amity's policy is ask for contract extensions/notices of expiration six months before the stated end of the contract and that means that I should be expecting another offer pretty soon.

I've been tossing and turning over this year because it has some layers. The concentration on business has recently soured me on the Amity experience. That and the thought of dealing with my staff for longer than I have to are the only roadblocks holding me back. The staff is alright but I occasionally have run-ins with my manager and there really is no sense of team that I've seen in other Amity schools and I'd really like that. On the positive side, I care about my kids and it would be really difficult to leave them. My day to day work life is great...days/weeks fly by, I see happy kids everyday and my schedule is full but not overwhelming. Amity, itself, is a ridiculously organized and supportive company to work for (in my experience anyway). On a grander scale, I've established some roots in the Himeji area and I can't see myself leaving anytime soon. Basically my current stance is that I'll be living in Japan indefinitely but my question lies with whether I stick with Amity or find something else.


Learning Japanese is a constant battle between thinking you've grasped it and knowing that you can communicate at the level of a six year old, except you still can't understand what most people say. If I see Japanese written, it's pretty easy for me to grasp meaning but I am guessing that's more because I can surmise context and know enough basics. Thankfully I have become a little better understanding the language if it's spoken slowly and relies heavily on numbers. My goal is to eventually pass Level 3 of some proficiency exam. I don't really know what that means but it seems to be a common thing people do.

Just in closing, last night Becky arrived in Japan. She landed while I was at work so she made her to way to Himeji from the airport. Shuko met her there and then guided her to Amity so Becky could meet two of my students - one of whom she's been writing letters to...what a surreal meeting of two vastly different parts of my life. Just awesome! Becky is off to Tokyo for a few days and then we're going to Okinawa on Sunday and staying through Wednesday so I will try to write some more about her visit. Here are pictures: