[8/7 again]

It’s 10:28; I should be falling asleep. In a magazine for teenaged Japanese girls I was, uh, reading the other day (“reading” is putting it generously...looking at the pictures?) there was a section on how to lose weight by keeping a healthy sleeping schedule. No eating late at night of course; also, no computers, TV, video games, or music late at night. It said that would keep your body from being able to fall asleep well. If there’s any validity to that, that would explain a lot about my life...

But everything’s a trade-off, and I don’t think I could sacrifice time on the computer and listening to music before bed for a slightly easier time falling asleep. Or to lose weight more efficiently. I still think I’ll probably lose weight whilst in Japan; the main thing that stops me at home, I believe, is my tendency to stuff myself beyond when I’m full, especially at restaurants, and my inability to resist any opportunity to eat potatoes, oil, and salt put together, whether or not I’m even hungry at the time. I don’t think I’ll generally have either of those problems here; I’m cooking most of my own food, so I can control the portion size, and portions here are smaller in general I think. And there aren’t greasy potato chips and french fries everywhere calling out to me. However, I haven’t exactly been subsisting on rice and broccoli: there are lots of really tempting frozen ice cream or popsicle things around here, including some left in my freezer by my predecessor that I’ve been making my way through, and other than that I’ve been eating mostly noodles, and tofu fried in oil, and bread with various kinds of cream. (Today at lunch I had an-pan; it was delicious! I am reminded of a haiku:

Amai pan –
An Pan Man ga
Daisuki yo.

I think it’s by Basho.) Anyway...we’ll see how the losing weight thing goes, heh.

My point was, I’m not tired. I was trying to keep myself on an early schedule, figuring that my body should be so thrown off by being halfway across the world that I could begin keeping normal hours...but I’ve been slipping. I’m not good at forcing myself out of bed at seven when in fact I don’t have to do anything until nine. Tomorrow, I don’t have to do anything until 2:30...but I’m going to aim to be up at about eight anyway. Do some more cleaning/decorating and go shopping before lunch. But I’m getting ahead of myself...what about my day today, you might be wondering. Well, since you ask...

In the morning, Alisa and I went to meet the mayor of Kami-cho, who was a very nice man who blurred all his syllables together so even Alisa had a very hard time understanding him, and I had no hope. He asked why we wanted to come to Japan, and I think he talked about having visited Washington DC once (Alisa is from near there). And that was pretty much it. He talked about how Kami-cho was between the ocean and the mountains, which indeed it is. He gave us business cards with his name and pictures of Kami-cho, and Mizuta-san spent a few minutes looking up meishi in his dictionary even though both of us knew the word and tried to say so. Then we left. It was a nice little visit. Afterward, Mizuta-san, Miura-san, Alisa and I went to lunch at a little café, where Miura-san said she often ate in high school, since it was right near her high school. I had just eaten rather unsuccessful cold udon a couple hours before, and wasn’t really hungry, but I had a chocolate croissant and the an-pan anyway, and they were very delicious. I also got a caffé latte [sic] drink because the brand name was Mt. Rainier. I kept the plastic cup and I’m going to wash it out and put it somewhere in my house. Anyway chatting at lunch was fun; between the four of us we can communicate pretty well. Of course, I’m the worst at Japanese, but normal chit-chat I can follow about 80-90% of, and Alisa and Miura-san combined could translate enough for me when I got lost, and Alisa could help when I wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how to put it in Japanese. We chatted mostly about sports and what we did or didn’t like to watch – Mizuta-san loves watching golf apparently, and stayed up until odd hours of the morning to watch Tiger win the US Open. We talked a bit about the Olympics – Mizuta-san said he was initially confused when he started hearing “Beijing Olympics” because in Japan I guess it’s still called Peking. It was really nice and I felt more relaxed and comfortable than I did at the dinner last night, even though everything was in Japanese.

When we got back I spent a little while here writing the post that is most likely now posted below this one, and then went over to the kouminkan. Turned out, my ARC was ready, several days before schedule. (Dare I hope that they overestimate similarly about how long it takes to get internet...?) So Miura-san took me to pick it up, and there was some confusing problem about the fact that my hanko was in katakana and my ARC had my name in romaji...but after a lot of Japanese was spoken and I signed a few more things I believe it was sorted out. So I have an alien registration card! Whoo hoo. Then we went to the bank and opened an account. It currently has 1000 yen in it. On August 20th I get my first paycheck, so it will have a good deal more than that. Then we went to the cell phone store, which is infinitely confusing, because I don’t know specialized cell-phone words so my comprehension dives from about 80% to about 30% when the cell phone guy talks to me. They only offer two-year contracts; the fee for severing after a year is about $170. The other option was pre-paid cell phones, which made me feel like a perp in a Law and Order episode; that might have been cheaper in the end, but it felt less solid, so I went with a two-year plan, and if I have to swallow the $170, so be it. It’s not like I’d have refused a one-year plan that was $15 more a month. I wavered between the two cheapest plans and went with the second-cheapest; it’s something like 2800 yen a month, with 62 free minutes included; beyond that, there’s a fee of something like 20 yen a minute. The cheapest plan only had 25 free minutes included. But apparently it’s easy to switch plans after a month or two, so if I notice I’m talking for closer to 25 minutes a month, I can switch.

Isn’t this a scintillating post so far? Sorry, I’ll try to pick up the pace a bit. But to me, dealing with all this stuff on my own (even when “on my own” means with Miura-san so kindly acting as my advisor and translator) is new to me, so it occupies a lot of my thought.

Meanwhile, the first phone I asked for they don’t apparently make anymore; the second was out of stock at the moment but he said they could get one in a couple of days. I opted for that rather than picking a third choice. The one I ended up picking I actually might like a bit better than my first choice; I had passed over it the first time ‘cause it’s not a flip phone and I felt like getting a flip phone. It’s the kind that sort of slides up to reveal the numbers. It’s more compact that most of them were, and you can slide it up with one hand – I spent several minutes doing that while we waited for the guy, and Miura-san laughed at me. It’s white, and actually quite elegant. I was about to say I’ll take a picture of it...but I don’t have a camera...but I will, because it has a camera...but the one thing that camera won’t be able to take a picture of is the phone! I suppose this is why God invented mirrors... :-)

Then we went back and I hung around the office for a little while, and Mizuta-san and Nishimoto-kun got the sheets and blankets and futons that had been getting cleaned, so I finally have real sheets and blankets! Yay. Murashima-san kindly let me use his computer again so I was able to read and send a few quick emails (Liz, if you’re reading this, you are the one I haven’t gotten back to by email yet – a million apologies, I haven’t wanted to write you another dashed-off email, and when I was at Jarryd’s house I was about to write you when the other ALTs showed up and we had to go. So expect a nice long email sometime next week when I have access to Jarryd’s computer again!) Then I read math for a bit until I realized I wasn’t really concentrating and decided to go back to my house. Oh! And Miura-san gave me a present before she left: a little carton of Japanese rice snacks with a really sweet note written in English. I put the note up on my fridge. I want to give her something nice tomorrow but I haven’t figured out what yet.

Here’s a linguistic observation that’s both rather crude and rather obvious, but striking to me nonetheless: I have a much easier time understanding people when they speak to me in a real language. When they don’t simplify their Japanese to where they’re really just throwing me single words and asking if I understand. When they don’t suddenly mix in a phrase on English. It’s nice when they’re able to translate or explain a given word or phrase that I don’t know; but honestly, Mizuta-san is the easiest for me to follow, when he’s talking slowly and has his dictionary, because he speaks a real language to me. I know enough Japanese, I think, that I want to be understanding it with the grammar part of my brain; I want real clauses, real sentences. It’s more tiring mentally to be decoding a sort of mix of Japanese vocab, mispronounced English, and gestures. Of course I understand people’s motives are good and they’re just trying to help me since they know I am not fluent. But I understand fluent speech better than broken speech. So that’s something to keep in mind when thinking about teaching languages...

I decided I’d had enough of sitting on my ass on this couch, eating several-day-old inari and wishing the house were more exciting. So I cooked myself rice and tofu – I’m getting better and better at the tofu, although obviously what I’m trying to do with it isn’t very fancy. Still, it’s satisfying. Next time, though, I’m going to buy firm tofu, and I think I’ll like that better. Anyway, I started reading The Mermaid Chair while the rice was cooking; the very beginning seemed a little, I don’t know, too literary...too many metaphors, too much figurative language...but as I’ve gotten deeper into it that’s improved. I’m about a third of the way through and I like it pretty well. After dinner I did the dishes, which so far is something I’ve managed to quite enjoy. What I don’t enjoy is the drain; there’s no disposal or anything, just a little net that catches things and which has to be emptied from time to time. Last time I tried to empty it, I almost threw up. I don’t know why – it’s just bits of rice and tofu – but I found it absolutely nauseating. Oh well, shikata nai. (Go look that one up, people; I expect I shall be using it rather a lot...) Anyway, I didn’t do that tonight, so it was all good. After that I decided to venture out on my bike again; I’m getting slightly better at not drifting from side to side, although I still do sometimes, and I still don’t feel like I have much mastery or the ability to maneuver at all subtly. I was passed by a few small groups of teenagers and I wonder what they thought of the foreigner riding a bicycle slowly along wearing a helmet. Well, if anyone asks me, I’m prepared to say the helmet is because all Americans are losers who can’t ride bicycles without falling and hitting their heads. :-) In any case, it was nice to get out a bit, and to do something a little out of my comfort zone.

When I got back I tackled the living room. I took all the videos I didn’t want off the shelves, and, not knowing what to do with them, put them in the almost-empty storage closet next to the kitchen. I’d feel weird just throwing away like a hundred perfectly reusable video tapes...but what can I do with them? Then I had the brilliant idea of draping the scarves over things, rather than trying to put them on the walls. So now one shelf has a pale-green scarf on top with one of the cat sculptures and a tiny bottle of maple syrup on top of it; the table in the corner has the calligraphy-like scarf covering it, and on top my panda picture book, Zen Ties, displayed, along with a little plant I brought in from outside the door (not that I know what it is or how to tend it...I should probably bring it back outside pretty soon, heh), and my topology name plate; the shelf next to the TV has a marble-y scarf draped over it, with another cat sculpture and the ketchup bottle Katie gave me sophomore year on it; and on top of the TV there’s the third cat sculpture and the card my dad sent me with his housewarming present. The present herself (a stuffed elephant) sits on top of the blue and gold swim-wrap thing on the counter between here and the kitchen, along with the speakers I found in the other room which now serve as my stereo. I am immensely satisfied with my evening’s work. Oh, and the little tiny table with three shelves that had been holding the useless phone is now next to my bed, holding that weird lamp, my alarm clock, and a glass of water. The bright orange/red marble-y scarf is draped over the top of the coat rack near the genkan, which is surprisingly effective. Overall, the place feels drastically more like mine now. It’s a lovely feeling.

Tomorrow at 2:30 Mizuta-san and Nishimoto-kun are taking me to Toyooka to get my car (!!). Mizuta-san has somewhere else to go afterward, so Nishimoto-kun will drive back with me and navigate. My current fear is that it will turn out the car is a manual – I realized I forgot to ask explicitly – and I’ll have to tell them I can’t drive it, and it will cause lots of trouble. My other fear is that I’ll get flustered trying to drive while keeping up awkward Japanese conversation and fall into one of those ditches between the road and rice paddies. But I’m a good driver. If it is indeed an automatic, I think I’ll be fine. I’m not terribly worried about the wrong side of the road thing; I’ve been driving around with people for over a week now, and have been paying attention and trying to make it feel intuitive. The thing is, it really is the same, just flipped. In other words, the flow is the same, the spacial relationships are the same, but the words “right” and “left” are switched. But you’re still on the side by the middle of the road, as the driver; and when you make a turn, you either cut across zero lanes or two, not one. In other words, if you’re already driving on the left side of the road, then turning left, it should feel natural to turn into the near lane; I think that will feel more intuitive than driving across one lane onto the right side of the road. The only situation I could imagine feeling momentarily confused, at first, is, say, coming around a curve and seeing a car approaching. More than once, driving along, I’ve been started by a car suddenly appearing coming towards us and seeming to be on our right. That’s when the instinct that they should be on our left kicks in, and I think for a split second that they’re in the wrong lane or something. Those are the moments that I have to remember that it’s okay, and not be startled. But again, the mirror image thing will be helpful: cars going the other way should pass outside my window, not the passenger window. That’s the same as always. I think I’ll get used to it quickly.

Then in the evening is some sort of welcome party that the BOE is throwing for us, so that should be fun. :-)

And I’ll have a car this weekend!! I can go to Toyooka and explore. Mizuta-san made a photocopy for me of an English map of Toyooka that some ALT found or made a while ago, which should be quite useful. Maybe Alisa will come with me.

Okay it’s 11:57 and I promised myself I’d go to bed by midnight...even though I’d rather stay up and read a bit more, or keep babbling here. Tomorrow I have several goals to accomplish before 2:30: Walk to the nearby store and do a bit of shopping; find a nice little card or something I can give Miura-san to thank her for the crackers; sort through all the papers and envelopes that are currently on the table in the living room and put them somewhere less messy; figure out something better to do with dirty laundry than have it accumulate on my floor (I haven’t seen any sort of hamper thing around yet); and if I have time, maybe even start transferring clothes from upstairs to downstairs and making my new bedroom seem a bit more bedroom-like. But we’ll see. I’ve a feeling some of that might get collapsed into lying on the couch and reading instead. But that’s also a worthy pursuit, ne?

It’s 12:04 so I guess I’m a pumpkin. Let’s mix things up with the lyrics a little bit – you might be sick of Jethro Tull and hide, so here’s a Cheerios commercial from the early ‘90’s:

You got a lot to do...before lunch!
Energy is what you need; you can fill your bowl with Cheerios.
‘Cause you got a lot to do, before lunch!
Yeah you can fill your bowl, with Cheerios,
‘Cause you got a lot to do...
Do it cool; do it right, do it now...before lunch...

I used to remember more of that song...sad. (That I used to know it or that I forgot it...you decide.) Anyway, oyasumi!