Saturday's Group Photo

My Apartment

This is actually the second video I've taken of my apartment, but the first I'm posting here. This was also a test to try out the camera function of my Android phone. I normally film with an old flip cam.

Tired. Hair cut. Percussion.

I can’t tell you how exhausted I’ve been this week so far. Being an ALT is the first full time job I’ve ever had. I’m being childish when I say this, but I’m hating the responsibility of having to show up every day. With school, I could always take a sick day whenever I needed extra sleep or just really didn’t feel like going to class, those days are over. When I feel exhausted, I have to show up anyway. I haven’t been sleeping well. There have been earthquakes in the middle of the night and even without them occurring, I keep waking up 3-4 times a night. FRUSTRATING! I’m so tired, yet my body won’t relax.

On an unrelated note I’ve been here almost 2 months. That means 1 thing absolutely needed to be done. I needed a haircut. I finally got the nerve to go get my haircut on Monday. Needless to say, that was an adventure. I went to the place probably 50m from my apartment. It is literally the building next to the parking lot of my apartment complex. The lady didn’t speak English and sorta gave me a brand new cut when I just wanted a trim. It only cost me 1,000en though and the cut doesn’t look bad by any means…. So I can’t really complain. Lol. I was grateful that I didn’t walk out of there with a shaved head with how poor my Japanese is. XD

Yesterday, towards the end of school, I had nothing left to work on, so I decided I would find the drumming I could hear in the teacher’s lounge. On the other side of the school, another floor up, I found the percussion section of the brass band! They were excited I dropped by to see what they were working on and told me I had to play drums with them… so I did. They taught me the first part of a song they were working on. I botched it up pretty bad towards the end, but had a lot of fun. I tried explaining that I had only played drums once in my life back when I was 11 or so and it was just for fun. They didn’t care and insisted I try again. Lol. After I hopped off the drums, they told me I should play chimes too. This was really cool because I had never played chimes before. I played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and thanked them for the experience. Chimes are set up completely different than a piano. Upon leaving school yesterday, the rain started up again. It rained all through the night and was pouring this morning. I’m hoping it clears up soon.

I’m caught up again with the blog! Yay!

The Only Exception

"And I've always lived like this
keeping a comfortable distance.
And up until now I've sworn to myself
that I'm content with loneliness.

Because none of it was ever worth the risk."

~Paramore

So I have to state that I haven’t been completely honest here. For the most part this blog has been about the fun things I’ve been doing and even though I’m having problems in my every day life, I’ve tried to maintain a genki attitude towards the whole experience thus far. However, as of recently (the past week or so), I’ve felt really defeated mentally. There has only been one person who has invited me out to do anything and I feel like I botched that friendship this past Friday.

For those that know me well, you know that I don’t drink. I haven’t had alcohol since I was 15 when I decided to go straight edge. There have been numerous times and places where people have tried to convince me that I should drink, but I’ve never felt comfortable relying on a substance to make me feel better. On Friday I broke edge on accident. I was asked to go hang out with a group of ALTs at a bar that night. I ordered the La France drink, but didn’t know that there was a soft drink and alcoholic version with the same name. They gave me the alcoholic version. I took one drink and had a feeling there was alcohol in it. I was so tired that I didn’t even think about spitting it out. I handed it over to someone else and they confirmed it was the alcoholic version. I felt completely demoralized. After 8 years this is how I broke edge… on accident? I figured one day I would just go crazy due to my own convictions and start chain smoking and become a raging alcoholic… not this.

I still feel like shit about that night, which ended awkwardly with myself sort of getting ditched. I think I will always feel shitty about that night, but it made me realize something really important about myself. I realized that I have an almost endless supply of barriers I use to guard myself against people. I honestly don’t know how my friends from Ringling managed to get through those barriers, but it made me think of a lot of things. A lot of people feel like they need to know why I make the decisions I do: why I don’t drink, smoke, etc. Why I turn to art and music to control my actions to maintain some sort of mental stability. If I don’t absolve some of these barriers then I’m going to end up alone, like I am now… but at the same time… I have a lot of baggage. I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’m beginning here by writing this journal entry, as vague as it may seem.

I have a lot of growing to do.

Ridiculously long post (sorry)

WARNING: This blog took me multiple days to write and multiple sittings. It is very long and you will probably find it boring. This is what my life has been like the past month.

So every day goes by and I think about how I need to update my blog. I wake up at 6:15AM every day, shower, drink my morning coffee and I’m out the door by 7:30. It takes me about 45 minutes to get to school. First I have to get from Kibogaoka to Mitsukyo station and take a bus from there. It’s not a big deal and as an added plus, I’m getting exercise everyday. So, I normally arrive before 8:20 just because it looks better to arrive early (school starts at 8:30AM). And the only time I really get a break, is 45 min. during lunch. The rest of the time (until 3:55PM) I’m either in class or supposed to be working at my desk.

This is what my schools look like:

So it’s interesting working here, especially so soon after the big earthquake. Most people are really friendly and helpful, but I feel an extra weight being here so soon after the earthquake. Not only am I representing the foreign community by being an ALT (or AET as I’m referred to here), but also I am seemingly having to reintroduce the idea that foreigners aren’t terrible to a lot of people because so many foreigners left Japan during their great time of crisis. A lot of people came to Japan for jobs and just left without warning when the earthquake happened (and all of the terrible events going on at Fukushima). To a lot of Japanese people, they felt abandoned by the foreign community living in Japan. They opened their arms to them and they walked away without ever looking back. To be fair, I’m not criticizing the people who left the affected areas. I’m referring to people who were in no life threatening danger and chose to leave because they could care less about Japan and the people who live here. I have a huge feeling that the person who worked in my schools before me was one of those people. From my understanding (what I’ve interpreted from the other English teachers) is that the guy just left and they were stuck with a month left in the school year to reconfigure their entire school schedule.

With that being said, I’ve really enjoyed the past month. It’s been incredibly hard and some days I’m so tired I fall asleep at 7PM. I’ve been doing some drawing while I’m at school (I’ve been incorporating it into worksheets) and I’m typing this during my MD (materials development) time in the office in the morning before class. Not a day goes by where I am completely lost due to the language barrier or just lack of communication in general. It’s frustrating, but oddly something I’m getting used to. I’m also sort of getting used to be super GENKI! around the students. GENKI GENKI GENKI! Genki means happy. I’ve started to bond with my students at the one school I’ve been at for 2 weeks. On Wednesday April 20, I joined taiko club. On Thursday, I went home early from the club out of sheer exhaustion and the next meeting isn’t until May 2nd. Taiko starts from 3:00 and goes until 6:00 for all of the people who have been doing taiko for at least a year. Since I’m a sensei (lol) they want me to stay the whole time, but ichinensei (7th grade) leaves at 5:00. For those of you reading this that know me personally, you know that I’ve only taken one taiko lesson and that was back in 2009. I’m TERRIBLE at taiko, but the students are really encouraging (aka they like to see me make a fool of myself) and during a group break yesterday, they helped me learn the rhythms of the opening practice song they do every day. So the days I have taiko I don’t get home until around 7PM and that’s when I can finally eat dinner.

I’m sorry this blog entry is so long, but I’m trying to make up for missing a month’s worth of writing.

So what is life like here? Well besides the almost daily earthquakes (we had 2 last night in the middle of the night that woke me up) life here is pretty similar to my life back in Houston when I was substitute teaching. The differences in student behavior is drastically different between America and Japan. Between each class, the students have 10 minutes to act like animals. Boys are wrestling in the hallways and often students are playing games of tag or keep away with one object or another. It’s like the school is their playground. During class, most students are respectful (there’s ALWAYS one bad seed), listen, and try and participate in the lessons. Around the school, I feel like a celebrity. The students are always screaming HELLO!!!! at me (sometimes at the top of their lungs) and they are generally excited to meet me or see me again. Some of the students are extremely shy though and don’t want me to check their papers or hear them speak English. I’m hoping one day they will warm up to me. :/

So what have I been doing all this time? Welll….. I had a couple of days of pure hell trying to arrange things with Interac (Maxceed technically) without any lines of communication. I had no phone, no internet, and no way to contact anyone at all. It SUCKED. Two days of that hell were spent with a really nice lady who helped me get my keys to my apartment, my cell phone, my post office account opened, my gaijin card, my health insurance, and she even helped me move my bags from Sakuragicho to my apartment in Kibogaoka. I gave her a calendar that I brought from America as a present. I genuinely felt bad that she had to do so much for me. The first night I stayed in my apartment I didn’t have my bed yet and she went out and bought a blanket and a pillow for me to sleep on. SO NICE OF HER! I had to stay in my apartment while she went out because the gas man was coming that night to turn on the gas. I would have gone afterwards, but there were limited store hours going on during that time to save on electricity due to the crisis going on up north. Realize, this was only 1 week to the day that the big earthquake happened at this point.

This is what my room currently looks like:

The next night my bed came and over the course of 2 weeks I managed to have enough stuff in my apartment that it was liveable. I then had a week of orientation, which was pretty fun and very useful, but ended with my blood being drawn. UGH! I HATE NEEDLES! The blood of course had to come out of a vein in my hand since my veins are incredibly hard to find. STUPID PHYSICAL! So talk about awkward having strange things done to you medically in Japan. Lol. After orientation I had a week off from doing anything, so I went up to Tokyo to see my friend Mat. I haven’t seen him since the summer of 2009 so we had lunch together for about 2 hours and I proceeded to try and find a business coat in Shibuya. Needless to say my efforts to find cute clothing that fit were fruitless. I hate being fat. I really do. My stupid body needs to lose weight. Ah well. So I came home that night a little sad, but a little happy at the same time. I managed to run into my friend Ryo who’s the manager of SexPot Revenge in Tokyo and chat with him about life and how things are going. I found out he lives kinda close and that there aren’t any good clubs in Yokohama. I have to go up to Tokyo to have fun apparently, or at least according to him. While I was in Tokyo I also bought an iron and a scale to measure my weight hopefully weight loss (which I have lost about 7 lbs since I’ve been here for what it’s worth).

Some odd pictures from Tokyo:

I’ve watched so much American tv since I’ve been here too, especially on weekends and late nights. It’s my one time to not hear Japanese all day and not be confused. The language barrier is killing me. It’s sincerely frustrating. I’ve been learning, but not fast enough.

So after the week of break I had the BOE meeting, which is where we were introduced on stage and then were waved down by the English teacher chosen to go to the meeting and were told our schedules. One school is super laid back with their schedule and the people there are amazing, while the other school is rigid with their schedule and I’m better friends with one of the Science teachers than any of the English teachers. I’ve only been at the latter school one day though and I’m starting day two as I type this portion of the blog. Yes, I am onto page 3 in Microsoft Word at this point. I know, I know, it’s long as hell. So if you got to the end congratulations. That’s what life has been like for me in a nutshell this past month. Just when I start feeling somewhat comfortable, some event happens that turns everything upside down again. I’ve been feeling this way for over a month and I’m hoping things change. I’m so stressed out at this point that when I go to bed at 11:00pm and need to wake up by 6:15am, I sometimes wake up at 4:00am and lie there upset. I’m not sleeping well and I’m working all day and on my feet often. I might start drinking more than 3 cups of coffee a day if this persists.

On a happy ending, I’m finally getting my couch sometime in May (back ordered) and you can also sleep on it. Check out the sweet picture! That totally means people can visit and have a place to sleep. That also means I can stop using my bed as a chair. :D

Here are some pictures of cherry blossoms!

Yokohama- bound

A lot has happened since the last time I posted and most of it has happened in last couple of days. On Thursday, January 20th I was called by the head of placement for Interac informing me that my placement would be in Yokohama should I choose to accept it. I knew at the time that I wanted to accept it, but I wanted to talk to my family about things first. I thought "HOW LUCKY!!!" since I have already seen the area (the last time I was in Japan) and I would be placed right near my friends in Tokyo! It's also a huge city, so I don't have to worry about driving and things of that nature. I also have access to the rail system. Time to add money onto my PASSMO! ^_^

Over the weekend I confirmed that I wanted to take the assignment and received an email bright and early Monday morning stating that I would be contacted by the Yokohama office with the dates for training and arrival, which happened a couple days later (2 days ago). Finally with dates in hand I contacted my friends living in Japan (primarily Tokyo) to let them know I where I would be living and what I would be doing. I'm ridiculously excited. :D I will be teaching 2-3 junior high schools in the area.

Today, I bought my plane ticket. I was told to arrive on the 15th of March and I would have until the 20th to find an apartment. Of course Interac will be helping me with all of this (including paying for the hotel I will be staying in), which is incredibly awesome. I'm flying Air Canada (for the 1st time! WOOH!) from Houston to Toronto to Narita. I will have my training in Yokohama from the 21st- 25th. I'm hoping that I will have internet in my apartment once I move in, but that may or may not happen.

For now, I am working on getting everything I will possibly need to live in Japan for a year together. I'm thinking about starting to throw some things in a suitcase (that I won't need to be using here for the next month) just to figure out space and things I might be forgetting. As of right now I also don't know the status of my COE or Visa. I haven't been informed yet, but I'm not too concerned.

And because I don't want this entry to be too boring, here are some pictures of Yokohama I took last time I was there in the summer of 2009.

PS: I never finished reading the etiquette book, but I did read all of Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice and am 1/2 way through Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice. I will finish reading the etiquette book soon though and review it in an upcoming blog.

Introductions

Whenever I start a blog, I feel the need for an introduction. I suppose everything starts with a beginning; an introduction. I started this blog because I've just been accepted to be an ALT starting at the end of March with Interac.

With a little bit of snooping, you've probably noticed this is my 3rd blog, and my 2nd blog about Japan. This blog is going to be completely different from the other two, because it will primarily contain written content about my life. My other blogs are about art: my creative works (ongoing) and a collaborative photography blog about Japan vs Michigan (dead). Yeah, I LOVE TO CREATE. :D

Blogs aside, I'm a 22 year old recent graduate from the Ringling College of Art and Design (formerly known as RSAD). I majored in Illustration with a minor in Photography. Ever since I watched Sailor Moon on UPN when I was 6, I've found Japan interesting and wanted to know more about the country. My love of anime turned me onto Japanese music (J-pop, J-rock, VK, and J-Indies), which eventually led me to my first trip to Japan (summer 2006). At that time in my life I had just graduated high school, but I knew I wanted to return. I actually cried the day I left the country. In May 2009, I returned to Japan for a 3 month stay to take courses on Anime and Manga at Temple University. It was an excuse to go back and stay an extended time as well as a learning experience. After playing the role of the tourist and the student, I'm now going to be playing the role of the teacher and worker. It's truly the difference between being the onlooker vs being the participant.

I'm excited and scared to leave everything I'm accustomed to for a year, but I'm ready to take the next step to see if I really do want to live in Japan for the rest of my life. This is my beginning.