Casey sighed from what was not, and dreamed, and rested from his labors.
The floor of our apartment is strewn with photographs, hair ties, ceramic bowls, stray socks and the collected miscellany of the past two years. But other than that, it's empty. If my latest iTunes playlist--which consists solely of Townes Van Zandt and Bonny "Prince" Billy--is any indication (and it is), I'm already mentally back in America, ensconced in Americana, eating comfort food and playing Scrabble with the folks. It's a bit dull and a bit predictable, but I find myself thinking of weathered fenceposts and old barns, the out-of-tune pianos and faded photographs of a past America that pulls at me like a sepia tide. I've always been a Miniver Cheevy for U.S. history ("Casey cursed the marketeers/ And eyed Armani suits with loathing:/ He missed the rustic grace/ Of hobo clothing.").
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Festivities
We've been saying a lot of goodbyes lately. This past weekend we had Ewan, Ian, and Andy over for a final video game night, and the weekend before we went down to Kawasaki to stay at Maria's one last time. Strangely, but not unexpectedly, the partings we've had haven't feel like finales. We're likely to see most of the friends we've made on JET again, if not regularly or in person, at least through the modern wonder of Macbook video conferencing. Andy is a fellow Marylander. Maria will be in Chicago or elsewhere, and we're already making plans to visit her when she's living with family in Sicily. Long after Ewan returns to the UK, I'm sure we'll be playing some frantic online Mario Kart. I honestly don't feel this is our last time seeing any of our ALT friends.
Our students, however, are another matter. It's been a strange process saying goodbye to them. Last week, the English club at Niko threw a big farewell party for me. The members, about 28 of them, all brought snacks and candy and drinks, we played traditional Japanese games, and then they went around in a circle and gave miniature thank-you speeches. Many of the kids even gave me gifts. Some of the girls cried. When they asked me to deliver a parting message, even I teared up, and I'm definitely no sucker for cloying sentimentality. I'm really proud of them, the ni-nensei students in particular, and proud to have been a small, but hopefully memorable part of their education.
On Friday night, the English teachers at Niko took me out to a French restaurant in Sendai. The food was delicious (apart perhaps from the half-cooked onsen egg served inside of a raw sea urchin!) and we had a good time laughing and talking. I love those instances when I'm able to connect with my coworkers on a more meaningful level than the disscusion of grammar rules. I think there's a semi-decent chance I may see some of them again in the future too. A few of them make occasional trips to the US, and I know that Juli and I will want to visit Sendai again a few years down the line.
As part of my goodbye speech to the English teachers, I told them how wonderful it is when a place where you've lived becomes a home. Sendai has definitely become a home for us. I'll miss our supermarket--the COOP--and the Italian place down the street. I'll miss the random festivals and parades of children carrying miniature shrines through our neighborhood. I'll miss hearing the bus stop outside our apartment and the bells of Juli's school tolling out the end of class. The strange volleys of fireworks on Sunday mornings, the centenarian sakura tree in the empty lot, and the music box melodies of the bottles and cans man coming down the road. I'll miss the stares I'd get from the vampiric Belarusian lady as I passed her restaurant. The mopeds whining by at 2am. Doppler effect of ambulances from the nearby hospital. I'll miss the old man near the laundromat who gave me mikan and limes, and who showed me his inventions--the light-gathering greenhouse mirror and a footpump that expells shoe odor with every step. I'll miss the curious eyes of children playing hide and seek in the candy aisle, the Hirose river after a heavy rain, the haunted shrine by the hydro-electric power station. I'll miss the hanging matsuri lanterns that line the procession up to Osaki Hachiman jinju. I'll miss the smell of okonomiyaki grease permeating my clothes. Fog obscuring the tops of apartment buildings in the distance. The billboard with it's green tea advertisements. The obscure shelving methods of English-language DVDs at Tsutaya. The delivery boy from Pizza Hut returning to our apartment thirty minutes later to give us chili-sauce packets he forgot to offer. The election vans and their white-gloved passengers spouting campaign slogans through four massive roof-mounted megaphones both early in the morning and late at night.
Okay, so maybe I won't miss that.
We've been saying a lot of goodbyes lately. This past weekend we had Ewan, Ian, and Andy over for a final video game night, and the weekend before we went down to Kawasaki to stay at Maria's one last time. Strangely, but not unexpectedly, the partings we've had haven't feel like finales. We're likely to see most of the friends we've made on JET again, if not regularly or in person, at least through the modern wonder of Macbook video conferencing. Andy is a fellow Marylander. Maria will be in Chicago or elsewhere, and we're already making plans to visit her when she's living with family in Sicily. Long after Ewan returns to the UK, I'm sure we'll be playing some frantic online Mario Kart. I honestly don't feel this is our last time seeing any of our ALT friends.
Our students, however, are another matter. It's been a strange process saying goodbye to them. Last week, the English club at Niko threw a big farewell party for me. The members, about 28 of them, all brought snacks and candy and drinks, we played traditional Japanese games, and then they went around in a circle and gave miniature thank-you speeches. Many of the kids even gave me gifts. Some of the girls cried. When they asked me to deliver a parting message, even I teared up, and I'm definitely no sucker for cloying sentimentality. I'm really proud of them, the ni-nensei students in particular, and proud to have been a small, but hopefully memorable part of their education.
On Friday night, the English teachers at Niko took me out to a French restaurant in Sendai. The food was delicious (apart perhaps from the half-cooked onsen egg served inside of a raw sea urchin!) and we had a good time laughing and talking. I love those instances when I'm able to connect with my coworkers on a more meaningful level than the disscusion of grammar rules. I think there's a semi-decent chance I may see some of them again in the future too. A few of them make occasional trips to the US, and I know that Juli and I will want to visit Sendai again a few years down the line.
As part of my goodbye speech to the English teachers, I told them how wonderful it is when a place where you've lived becomes a home. Sendai has definitely become a home for us. I'll miss our supermarket--the COOP--and the Italian place down the street. I'll miss the random festivals and parades of children carrying miniature shrines through our neighborhood. I'll miss hearing the bus stop outside our apartment and the bells of Juli's school tolling out the end of class. The strange volleys of fireworks on Sunday mornings, the centenarian sakura tree in the empty lot, and the music box melodies of the bottles and cans man coming down the road. I'll miss the stares I'd get from the vampiric Belarusian lady as I passed her restaurant. The mopeds whining by at 2am. Doppler effect of ambulances from the nearby hospital. I'll miss the old man near the laundromat who gave me mikan and limes, and who showed me his inventions--the light-gathering greenhouse mirror and a footpump that expells shoe odor with every step. I'll miss the curious eyes of children playing hide and seek in the candy aisle, the Hirose river after a heavy rain, the haunted shrine by the hydro-electric power station. I'll miss the hanging matsuri lanterns that line the procession up to Osaki Hachiman jinju. I'll miss the smell of okonomiyaki grease permeating my clothes. Fog obscuring the tops of apartment buildings in the distance. The billboard with it's green tea advertisements. The obscure shelving methods of English-language DVDs at Tsutaya. The delivery boy from Pizza Hut returning to our apartment thirty minutes later to give us chili-sauce packets he forgot to offer. The election vans and their white-gloved passengers spouting campaign slogans through four massive roof-mounted megaphones both early in the morning and late at night.
Okay, so maybe I won't miss that.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
More Bizarre Questions From Students
Do you like Casey very much? "Yes," or "Of course?"
What kind of stag beetle do you like?
What do you think about the earth heater?
Why are you so interesting?
Do you love his wife?
Are you one of the strange man all over the world?
What is the meaning of the life?
Do you have women without your wife?
If the earth is broken, what do you do?
Have you ever been to prison?
Which does you like best, the sadistic woman or the masochistic woman?
Do you like Casey very much? "Yes," or "Of course?"
What kind of stag beetle do you like?
What do you think about the earth heater?
Why are you so interesting?
Do you love his wife?
Are you one of the strange man all over the world?
What is the meaning of the life?
Do you have women without your wife?
If the earth is broken, what do you do?
Have you ever been to prison?
Which does you like best, the sadistic woman or the masochistic woman?
Monday, July 14, 2008
Minimal
Knowing that I am interested in Japanese poetry, one of the teachers I work with gave me two books by Tanikawa Shutaro, one of Japan's most widely regarded living poets. Here are two of the poems that struck me as I was flipping through the pages:
And
When summer comes
the cicadas
sing again.
Fireworks
freeze
in my memory.
Distant countries are dim
but the universe
is right in front of your nose.
What a blessing
that people
can die
leaving behind
only the conjunction
'and.'
Mud
Memories are
dense
dusk.
To the aging
even regret
is a faint light.
The seeds
of flowers
that will never emerge--
yet even now I keep sowing,
urging the mud
to sing.
Knowing that I am interested in Japanese poetry, one of the teachers I work with gave me two books by Tanikawa Shutaro, one of Japan's most widely regarded living poets. Here are two of the poems that struck me as I was flipping through the pages:
And
When summer comes
the cicadas
sing again.
Fireworks
freeze
in my memory.
Distant countries are dim
but the universe
is right in front of your nose.
What a blessing
that people
can die
leaving behind
only the conjunction
'and.'
Mud
Memories are
dense
dusk.
To the aging
even regret
is a faint light.
The seeds
of flowers
that will never emerge--
yet even now I keep sowing,
urging the mud
to sing.
Are You Happy? Why?
There's a dead heat stalking me in the teacher's room. The windows are open but there's no wind. Rivulets of sweat are running down the cleft in my back to other clefts that need not be mentioned. The rainy season has gone, leaving as its sole remnant a vaporous humidity that frazzles hair, darkens underarms, and makes the peels of our bananas curl back in horror. The Japanese summer is upon us.
These next two and a half weeks will be a mad-hatter rush to clear out our apartment, pack out belongings, and say our farewells. The goodbyes have already started. Last week at Mukaiyama SHS, my visit school, I gave a farewell speech to the student body, assembled and collectively withered outside after a long and electrolyte-draining sports day. My introduction speech two years ago was largely greeted with silence, an inland sea of black-haired faces giving me the not-quite-evil-but-certainly-shy-of-benevolent eye. This time was different. I opened with the obligatory physical joke about being too tall for the microphone. My feigned awkwardness drew a roar of laughter, a response I hadn't really anticipated. I sometimes have a hard time telling what students consider funny. I've learned that sarcasm simply doesn't fly, but slapstick is gold, the more juvenile, the better. I hadn't prepared a speech, so after I got their attention I just winged it. The students' response was amazing. They cheered several times, clapped, and at the end the student body president came forward and presented me with an enormous bouquet that later drew curious stares as I was riding home on the bus.
I've already had my final lesson with many of my classes. Knowing that most of the students won't have another chance to talk with me, I've had each of them write a single question on a slip of paper and submit it anonymously. At the end of class I try to answer as many of the questions as I can. By far, the three most common questions have been "Why are you so tall?", "How did you meet your wife?", and "What did you say when you proposed to your wife?" Here are some of the more interesting or, in some cases, inexplicable questions:
Are you happy? Why?
Who is your favolite chalacter in Street Fighter II?
How much are you loving your wife?
Will you marry your wife again in the next world?
Having traveled around the world by swimming, what do you do how to swim?
I love you. Have you had a flight in your nose?
What do you want to do if you were an invisible man?
Who is the most pretty girl in this class?
Am I a good boy?
If you were a woman, do you think you would fall in love with you just now?
Which do you want to kiss, the cutest boy or the plainest girl?
When was your's first love? And please tell us that detailed story as possible as you can!
There's a dead heat stalking me in the teacher's room. The windows are open but there's no wind. Rivulets of sweat are running down the cleft in my back to other clefts that need not be mentioned. The rainy season has gone, leaving as its sole remnant a vaporous humidity that frazzles hair, darkens underarms, and makes the peels of our bananas curl back in horror. The Japanese summer is upon us.
These next two and a half weeks will be a mad-hatter rush to clear out our apartment, pack out belongings, and say our farewells. The goodbyes have already started. Last week at Mukaiyama SHS, my visit school, I gave a farewell speech to the student body, assembled and collectively withered outside after a long and electrolyte-draining sports day. My introduction speech two years ago was largely greeted with silence, an inland sea of black-haired faces giving me the not-quite-evil-but-certainly-shy-of-benevolent eye. This time was different. I opened with the obligatory physical joke about being too tall for the microphone. My feigned awkwardness drew a roar of laughter, a response I hadn't really anticipated. I sometimes have a hard time telling what students consider funny. I've learned that sarcasm simply doesn't fly, but slapstick is gold, the more juvenile, the better. I hadn't prepared a speech, so after I got their attention I just winged it. The students' response was amazing. They cheered several times, clapped, and at the end the student body president came forward and presented me with an enormous bouquet that later drew curious stares as I was riding home on the bus.
I've already had my final lesson with many of my classes. Knowing that most of the students won't have another chance to talk with me, I've had each of them write a single question on a slip of paper and submit it anonymously. At the end of class I try to answer as many of the questions as I can. By far, the three most common questions have been "Why are you so tall?", "How did you meet your wife?", and "What did you say when you proposed to your wife?" Here are some of the more interesting or, in some cases, inexplicable questions:
Are you happy? Why?
Who is your favolite chalacter in Street Fighter II?
How much are you loving your wife?
Will you marry your wife again in the next world?
Having traveled around the world by swimming, what do you do how to swim?
I love you. Have you had a flight in your nose?
What do you want to do if you were an invisible man?
Who is the most pretty girl in this class?
Am I a good boy?
If you were a woman, do you think you would fall in love with you just now?
Which do you want to kiss, the cutest boy or the plainest girl?
When was your's first love? And please tell us that detailed story as possible as you can!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Aren't they gorgeous? One of the things I will miss most about Sendai is my Bible study group. Every Thursday, we meet at Xiao's and I leave 4 hours later with that lightness you get from the company of good friends and quality prayer time. Seriously, these girls know how to pray. I joined the group rather late but they have been more than welcoming. Though we're a very international mix, (Singapore, South Africa, Japan, England...) the seven of us share much in common. Friday was Meredith's birthday and we joined forces with her other friends to celebrate her properly. The only thing I had to frown about was that everyone got tiramiusu with their dinner set, while I got stuck with black vinegar jelly.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
I had my new students answer standard get-to-know-you questions last March. I came across thier answers while cleaning out my desk.
What is unusual about you? (This question elicted indignation or complete confusion. Apparently not a kosher question in this country.)
-I like the scent of books.
-It is wearing red grasses.
-I have a back born plus 1.
-I can sleep that open eyes.
-I can dance the strange dancing.
-I think that I am usual!
-I can sleep that open the eye half.
-I can use an abacus.
-I have been a gambler since I was eleven.
-I have the Brums.
-I and my little sister learned to do blind touch in kindergarten.
-My brother ate ants about 10 years ago.
-I am never content.
-I can fly!
-I am a bit dull.
-I am passionately devoted to madly in love with mushrooms.
What is your best memory?
-The culture festival in last summer. We made a big mural. I never forget the taste of frankfurt that I ate them!
-Hally Potter.
-Missing a step and tumbling down the stairs is my best memory.
What is unusual about you? (This question elicted indignation or complete confusion. Apparently not a kosher question in this country.)
-I like the scent of books.
-It is wearing red grasses.
-I have a back born plus 1.
-I can sleep that open eyes.
-I can dance the strange dancing.
-I think that I am usual!
-I can sleep that open the eye half.
-I can use an abacus.
-I have been a gambler since I was eleven.
-I have the Brums.
-I and my little sister learned to do blind touch in kindergarten.
-My brother ate ants about 10 years ago.
-I am never content.
-I can fly!
-I am a bit dull.
-I am passionately devoted to madly in love with mushrooms.
What is your best memory?
-The culture festival in last summer. We made a big mural. I never forget the taste of frankfurt that I ate them!
-Hally Potter.
-Missing a step and tumbling down the stairs is my best memory.
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