Lucy has moved from Japan and this blog. See lucylou.info for her latest posts.
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I don’t know myself, but I just found this very detailed guide.
Also, this chart on how much one would be taxed on cars (based on engine capacity).
I must be getting really bad at Googling, because I couldn’t Google them up and had to wander onto the ITIL forums.
I tried to make this sound thoughtful and even poetic, but it’s just not working.
I’m down. It’s finally hitting me. That I’m in some foreign country and this is not my home. It’s like that mental disorder that makes people think parts of their body is NOT their body and they become incredibly uncomfortable until they saw off the perpetrating body part themselves.
I’m going to a new school today and then took the rest of the day off… but I think I’m going to go back to my school anyway. It’s lonely in the house.
So the conference I went to (did I even mention that here?) turned out to be super fun. I got to meet a bunch of great teachers who spoke very good English, as well as some really nice ALTs, and had a good time with everyone!
I also got to try “milky ramen,” which looked like this:
…and tasted deeelicious! Unfortunately not pictured was our amazing dinner from an INCREDIBLY good seafood restaurant. One of the supervisors proclaimed it the best seafood he had ever eaten in his LIFE (he was also obsessed with this “sea pineapple” stuff, which I assumed was something either like a sea cucumber or a tube worm, and the restaurant served that in huuuuge proportions). I really wish I had my camera or my phone, so I would have photos of the amazing food. It really was good… though I’ve decided that natto really isn’t for me.
Anyway, It was apparently one of the best conferences they’ve had, since everyone was super enthusiastic (we only had 9 teachers, 3 supervisors, and 3 of us ALTs, so it was easy to get to know everyone) and all the activities they had planned went REALLY well… even the debate we did. I HATE debating and they wanted us to do kind of a formal debate with Japanese teachers who didn’t know anything about debating… I’m honestly surprised that didn’t fail miserably. I wanted to cut my ALT friend during the whole thing, though… he actually did debate seriously in the past and was treating it half seriously, which means he had to be a bastard (requirement for winning debates).
SO IT WAS FUN! My friend and I even bummed a ride back to Kushiro in the process (though we had already paid for our return bus tickets… oh well). And I got some cellphone numbers from the young teachers, with promises that they will call me if they ever set foot in Kushiro (okay, maybe I didn’t get the latter… should’ve made them pinky-swear). I even learned a thing or two!
Good use of a couple of days… tomorrow is back to work!
Sitting around the office with very little to do has given me a lot of time to think… and to shamelessly stare at my coworkers and make up stories about them in my head, but that is another story. Anyway, watching all the other teachers bustle about while I sit here idly (the only other person who seems to be anywhere close to my level of idleness is my supervisor, the reason being—-I’d like to think—-that he is a total badass who needs no work to get shit done) has gotten me thinking about the future. Being a teacher here in Japan is a Very Good and Very Secure career, so all of these teachers will probably lead copacetic lives as teachers until they retire.
And then I think about how terrifying it will be when I have to go back to the US and find a damned job. Or get into grad school. It’s a scary thought, charging back into a weakening economy with thousands of dollars of debt and no real experience outside of a very easy job in a country that is very easy to live in… and I am really REALLY trying to tell myself that this is exactly what I want to do.
The last thing I want to do is to become so comfortable with this nice salary in this nice country that I just settle and decide to stay here for another few years, or even the rest of my life. I mean, I didn’t gather up all that debt (thank you, Alma Mater) and travel to the other side of the world just to settle.
It’s probably too lofty a goal to want to improve the world, but I think I can at least improve myself. So here’s to that. Now back to idleness.
I’m going to play badminton with the badminton club.
I couldn’t tell if the teachers who are advising the club were serious or not, but I may or may not have to buy someone juice if I lose. I am not athletic nor am I good at badminton… this’ll be interesting.
So until school starts, I do a whole lot of NOTHING in the office. Started reading Natsume Souseki’s Botchan… organized my photos… yeeeah.
I got my hanko today, though! It’s a little stamp that is the equivalent of a signature. Now I need to find a fancy little pouch and a tiny ink pad for it. Anyway, I’m all set to get a bank account now. Then I can get direct deposit set up and will have a continuous supply of money… woooooot.
I need to get more clothes. I stupidly dyed a dress shirt of mine in the wash, so that is one less wearable dress shirt. And I have NO casual clothes AT ALL. Going to attempt to navigate to Uniqlo today for some cheap clothes. We’ll see how that goes.
So I was going to go to Sapporo this past weekend… it didn’t happen, but I did some fun stuff around town anyway.
The most eventful, uh, event was probably the World Saury Throwing Tournament. Saury (or sanma in Japanese) is this type of fish I had never heard of before, and some local guys organized a tournament to see how long they could chuck said fish. One of the veteran JETs in the area knew one of the organizers, so we entered and threw some fish! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to throw REAL fish (they succumbed to public criticisms about wasting food), but it was still good fun. We got to EAT a lot of fish and it was delicious. I sucked at throwing, though. I totally fell over when throwing… there’s a video, but it does not contain me falling over, sadly.
I also got myself a new used bike. It’s pretty awesome. I totally have a geeky basket for all my kaimono (groceries and such).
There’s a music festival going on in Sapporo this weekend, and one of my favorite groups is playing (EGO-WRAPPIN’… check them out on YouTube. They are an awesome kind of jazz), so hopefully I’ll get to go to that. Then there’s OFFICIAL duty in Sapporo middle of next week… I guess I will be seeing a lot of that place.
I leave for Japan in 7 hours and 14 minutes! That’s 8:00am, but I have to be at the airport at 5:00am. The plan is to just not sleep until I get on a plane, so hopefully, I will conk out immediately upon take-off and not have any jet-lag on the other side of the world.
I’ve somehow got my life down to around 90 lbs across 3 bags. My house is now in a total state of disarray, since I have completely neglected to clean in my packing frenzy.
Earlier today, we had the pre-departure meeting for the Boston JETs. I went, I schmoozed, I got my passport back, I ate… it would’ve been pretty fun had all my unpacked bags at home not been plotting aneurysms in my brain.
After that, I re-bought some omiyage, because I discovered the horrific “MADE IN CHINA” badge on the stuff I’d already bought (I even tried scratching it off… didn’t work). I’m making it seem like I did this in 2 seconds, but it actually took WAY too long than it should have because 1) I cannot navigate the financial district, 2) I cannot navigate the North End, and 3) I am crazy indecisive.
Then I packed… and kept packing… and I’m still sort of packing right now, except for the fact that I’m typing at a computer and not really packing (can you tell I should not be writing anything right now?).
Well, it’s going to be a loooong day ahead. Will update again when I am hopefully more coherent.
