Feel the Fizz
It doesn't make sense that the question is can I resist; the question should be why I'm tempted in the first place.
There, that was nice and cryptic. ^_^
But because I'm me and I'm bad at being cryptic, I'll elaborate slightly: it puzzles me sometimes that I have to fight so hard against the urge to do things that I know, perfectly clearly, will make me feel bad. Eating too much, for example. Not doing laundry when I have nothing to wear the next day. Reading comments and profiles on facebook that can have no effect but to confront me with things my mind doesn't know what to do with. Spending all day inside on the couch. Because the answers aren't the obvious ones. The other night when I decided to have a double-sized serving of spaghetti with butter and salt for dinner, it wasn't because I felt that hungry or because the food was that enticing. When I don't do laundry or clean or go for a walk when I know I should, it's not pure laziness. It feels like some sort of defiance. Completely illogical defiance. Who do I think I'm defying? To what end?
It frustrates me.
That said, today was a good day. Long, hot, sometimes boring, but good. Filled mostly with standing in the sun wearing a borrowed black cap and my sunglasses, watching middle schoolers in gym uniforms (blue shorts for the boys, red for the girls) march in lines around a dirt field, or stand in groups and yell Japanese cheers at the top of their lungs. Such shall be my week. Four more days of preparation and practice for the 体育祭, Sports Festival. So I felt mostly useless, and sweaty, and self-conscious about my sunglasses because I've yet to see a single Japanese person around here wearing them, and I became paranoid that they're considered somehow...impolite? I know that people with dark eyes don't tend to need them as much. But I kept taking them off whenever anyone was talking to me, just to be safe. I had a few nice conversations with other teachers, and the braver students would wave at me and say hi as I walked by; the bravest of the brave would even introduce themselves in English, while their friends giggled in awe and self-consciousness. As I walked by one group of girls they were whispering to each other and I heard one girl nudge another and say "Kiitara ii," (you should ask), and the girl who'd been nudged blurted out "What is your name?", and immediately all the other girls gasped and giggled and sort of shoved her like "wow you actually did it!" I had to repeat my name a few times before they caught on to the pronunciation -- most grown-ups seem to know the name Rebecca but I suppose they might just never have come across it. I tried to ask their names in return but they were too busy giggling by then.
I'm skipping Japanese class in Toyooka tonight because I am absolutely exhausted. It's 6:09 right now and I'm hoping to be asleep by 7:00. Luckily, it's a time in America when everyone I might want to talk to is actually asleep, so even though the mystical wireless connection is here today, I've nothing to tempt me to stay online other than facebook posts I shouldn't be reading.
Oh yeah, yesterday I bought two somewhat random Japanese CDs (the "somewhat" indicates that they came recommended by Jarryd). They were way too expensive to justify my having bought them. So let's hope they're good.
I wonder what I'd believe in if I'd been raised in a different environment. I was sent to progressive, hippy-ish schools my whole childhood and that is where my loyalty lies; I used to defend PFS fiercely and passionately against any criticism ("used to" only because it hasn't come up much recently...). I defended it because I belonged to it and it belonged to me; it was entwined with my own soul. If I'd been born here, gone to this school, would I feel a fierce loyalty to it? Would I want to cry if anyone suggested that there's something a little spooky about how everyone lines up so straight and dresses identically and everything's segregated by gender and everyone chants these ritualized phrases over and over like it's the most important thing in the world? I think I might. I find some of the almost military-like drilling and lining up and shouting a little odd because it's so different from what I was told was the best model of education when I was little. But in the same way I believe I would be deeply religious if that's how I'd been raised, I have a hunch I could have gotten really into the whole ritual of it, the orderliness, the comfort of having an exact spot in line where you're supposed to be, of wearing the same uniform as everyone else, of automatically being part of this organized whole. Of singing the school song at the top of your lungs, bowing in unison with everyone else. There's something validating about it. I understand I'm not the first person in history to muse about the tension between individualism and sense of belonging. But I do believe it's a fundamental tension and it's fascinating to think about in whatever manifestation it comes up in.
I suppose I could even connect it to something else I was musing about recently, about friends who accept your quirks versus friends who share them. There are a lot of things about how I experience the world that most of my friends don't share; and for most of them, there are a few people in my life who do share them. For example, Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears: I mentioned somewhere that Alisa thought it was cute that I like Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears, and that I felt grateful for that. I do. It makes me feel accepted as an individual. But when I'm home, with, say, my dad, the fact that Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears are awesome is just accepted as truth; it's not a quirk about me. It's nothing to do with me; it's part of the shared experience. Or, most of my friends throughout college weren't math people, so the beauty and satisfaction and humor that I find in math they had to just take on faith. And they did, and that was fine. But sitting around the math lounge last spring I never had to try to explain why on earth I'd make factor trees for numbers when I couldn't think of anything else to do, or why Galois theory is one of the most elegant things known to man, or why there's something inherently awesome about big complicated integrals or series or repeated fractions that evaluate to some random multiple of pi and/or e. I suppose that's the ideal, in a way: to be able to "be yourself" in some way, and simultaneously be around other people who can share and understand your experience. I suppose the problem comes when in order to feel like part of the group you need to suppress or deny something about yourself. Like perhaps when the other ALTs -- my best hope for a community around here, at least so far -- want to organize social outings over going to a steak house and drinking lots of beer...
Speaking of steak houses, yesterday in Toyooka we went to one -- I was promised an excellent soup and salad bar -- and while looking over the menu, we decided that we'd rather go to that new restaurant where the party a few weeks ago was, that has international food. But we'd already sat down and received a pitcher of tea, so we felt bad for leaving, and Jarryd asked if he could use me as an excuse. So as we left he explained to the waitress that I was vegetarian and we didn't think I could find a good meal there. (Which was probably true...but wasn't the reason we left.) Well, turned out that other restaurant was closed. Whoops. So we thought uhh...it'd be kind of awkward to go back to the steak house now..."Never mind, she changed her mind, she eats meat now!" Heh. We went to a Japanese restaurant instead.
So my babbling has become rather aimless I believe, and I'm going to fry up a bit more rice and tofu, eat it, and then go to sleep.
I was going to post a few lines from Rocks on the Road, but I'd guess there will be some time this year when I will have that feeling more powerfully than I do now. So I'll go with something else for this post. If I could think of anything...oh, fine, why not?
Come along, you belong,
Feel the fizz of KooKoo Cola.
It's the soda for making you proud,
So take another sip and be part of the crowd!
You belong with KooKoo Cola...
There, that was nice and cryptic. ^_^
But because I'm me and I'm bad at being cryptic, I'll elaborate slightly: it puzzles me sometimes that I have to fight so hard against the urge to do things that I know, perfectly clearly, will make me feel bad. Eating too much, for example. Not doing laundry when I have nothing to wear the next day. Reading comments and profiles on facebook that can have no effect but to confront me with things my mind doesn't know what to do with. Spending all day inside on the couch. Because the answers aren't the obvious ones. The other night when I decided to have a double-sized serving of spaghetti with butter and salt for dinner, it wasn't because I felt that hungry or because the food was that enticing. When I don't do laundry or clean or go for a walk when I know I should, it's not pure laziness. It feels like some sort of defiance. Completely illogical defiance. Who do I think I'm defying? To what end?
It frustrates me.
That said, today was a good day. Long, hot, sometimes boring, but good. Filled mostly with standing in the sun wearing a borrowed black cap and my sunglasses, watching middle schoolers in gym uniforms (blue shorts for the boys, red for the girls) march in lines around a dirt field, or stand in groups and yell Japanese cheers at the top of their lungs. Such shall be my week. Four more days of preparation and practice for the 体育祭, Sports Festival. So I felt mostly useless, and sweaty, and self-conscious about my sunglasses because I've yet to see a single Japanese person around here wearing them, and I became paranoid that they're considered somehow...impolite? I know that people with dark eyes don't tend to need them as much. But I kept taking them off whenever anyone was talking to me, just to be safe. I had a few nice conversations with other teachers, and the braver students would wave at me and say hi as I walked by; the bravest of the brave would even introduce themselves in English, while their friends giggled in awe and self-consciousness. As I walked by one group of girls they were whispering to each other and I heard one girl nudge another and say "Kiitara ii," (you should ask), and the girl who'd been nudged blurted out "What is your name?", and immediately all the other girls gasped and giggled and sort of shoved her like "wow you actually did it!" I had to repeat my name a few times before they caught on to the pronunciation -- most grown-ups seem to know the name Rebecca but I suppose they might just never have come across it. I tried to ask their names in return but they were too busy giggling by then.
I'm skipping Japanese class in Toyooka tonight because I am absolutely exhausted. It's 6:09 right now and I'm hoping to be asleep by 7:00. Luckily, it's a time in America when everyone I might want to talk to is actually asleep, so even though the mystical wireless connection is here today, I've nothing to tempt me to stay online other than facebook posts I shouldn't be reading.
Oh yeah, yesterday I bought two somewhat random Japanese CDs (the "somewhat" indicates that they came recommended by Jarryd). They were way too expensive to justify my having bought them. So let's hope they're good.
I wonder what I'd believe in if I'd been raised in a different environment. I was sent to progressive, hippy-ish schools my whole childhood and that is where my loyalty lies; I used to defend PFS fiercely and passionately against any criticism ("used to" only because it hasn't come up much recently...). I defended it because I belonged to it and it belonged to me; it was entwined with my own soul. If I'd been born here, gone to this school, would I feel a fierce loyalty to it? Would I want to cry if anyone suggested that there's something a little spooky about how everyone lines up so straight and dresses identically and everything's segregated by gender and everyone chants these ritualized phrases over and over like it's the most important thing in the world? I think I might. I find some of the almost military-like drilling and lining up and shouting a little odd because it's so different from what I was told was the best model of education when I was little. But in the same way I believe I would be deeply religious if that's how I'd been raised, I have a hunch I could have gotten really into the whole ritual of it, the orderliness, the comfort of having an exact spot in line where you're supposed to be, of wearing the same uniform as everyone else, of automatically being part of this organized whole. Of singing the school song at the top of your lungs, bowing in unison with everyone else. There's something validating about it. I understand I'm not the first person in history to muse about the tension between individualism and sense of belonging. But I do believe it's a fundamental tension and it's fascinating to think about in whatever manifestation it comes up in.
I suppose I could even connect it to something else I was musing about recently, about friends who accept your quirks versus friends who share them. There are a lot of things about how I experience the world that most of my friends don't share; and for most of them, there are a few people in my life who do share them. For example, Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears: I mentioned somewhere that Alisa thought it was cute that I like Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears, and that I felt grateful for that. I do. It makes me feel accepted as an individual. But when I'm home, with, say, my dad, the fact that Rescue Rangers and Gummi Bears are awesome is just accepted as truth; it's not a quirk about me. It's nothing to do with me; it's part of the shared experience. Or, most of my friends throughout college weren't math people, so the beauty and satisfaction and humor that I find in math they had to just take on faith. And they did, and that was fine. But sitting around the math lounge last spring I never had to try to explain why on earth I'd make factor trees for numbers when I couldn't think of anything else to do, or why Galois theory is one of the most elegant things known to man, or why there's something inherently awesome about big complicated integrals or series or repeated fractions that evaluate to some random multiple of pi and/or e. I suppose that's the ideal, in a way: to be able to "be yourself" in some way, and simultaneously be around other people who can share and understand your experience. I suppose the problem comes when in order to feel like part of the group you need to suppress or deny something about yourself. Like perhaps when the other ALTs -- my best hope for a community around here, at least so far -- want to organize social outings over going to a steak house and drinking lots of beer...
Speaking of steak houses, yesterday in Toyooka we went to one -- I was promised an excellent soup and salad bar -- and while looking over the menu, we decided that we'd rather go to that new restaurant where the party a few weeks ago was, that has international food. But we'd already sat down and received a pitcher of tea, so we felt bad for leaving, and Jarryd asked if he could use me as an excuse. So as we left he explained to the waitress that I was vegetarian and we didn't think I could find a good meal there. (Which was probably true...but wasn't the reason we left.) Well, turned out that other restaurant was closed. Whoops. So we thought uhh...it'd be kind of awkward to go back to the steak house now..."Never mind, she changed her mind, she eats meat now!" Heh. We went to a Japanese restaurant instead.
So my babbling has become rather aimless I believe, and I'm going to fry up a bit more rice and tofu, eat it, and then go to sleep.
I was going to post a few lines from Rocks on the Road, but I'd guess there will be some time this year when I will have that feeling more powerfully than I do now. So I'll go with something else for this post. If I could think of anything...oh, fine, why not?
Feel the fizz of KooKoo Cola.
It's the soda for making you proud,
So take another sip and be part of the crowd!
You belong with KooKoo Cola...
posted by Ashila at 4:47 AM
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