I woke up late on Sunday with a slight headache and a giant vibrator next to the bed. Actually, it is a back massager, and this morning we tried it out a little bit. It seems to work pretty well, especially around the shoulders. I think I prefer the manual massage better, however.

This morning we spent time cleaning house, taking long leisurely baths, and doing laundry. Kuniko and I even had time to take a nap in the afternoon for an hour or two. It was nice to rest up after all the fun yesterday.

I talked on the phone with my successor on the JET program, Brenda. She sounds like a nice enough girl. The thing that struck me most was that she sounded so young. She was giddy with excitement, though, and it made me think back to when I was in the stage she is in, about to leave on an unknown adventure. It’s a great time, and I hope she can savor the moment and enjoy it.

Kuniko had to leave for a school party around four. I made some reservations for our Europe rail passes, and spent lots of money on our transportation for the trip. It looks like it will be a lot of fun.

Since Kuniko is gone for dinner I thought I’d make the trip to the yakitori. I haven’t been in a few months, and I want to check in with the gang there. I get the impression that my successor won’t be visiting that kind of place very much.

Tomorrow it is back to work, and I’ve got lots of interview tests to do for the first year students. It’s also somen week – every night, noodles!

This morning we got up fairly early for Kuniko to hit the road and teach a couple of classes at her school. I spent the morning getting ready for Tsuji-san’s wedding at noon – I had to find just the right clothes to wear, you know.

My folks called just before I left, so we chatted for a while. My mom did a very brave thing at work, and we talked about it – I was impressed. We couldn’t talk very long, though, and soon I was out the door and headed to Takasago. I met up with Alexis on the platform in Takasago, and together we took the next rapid train to Himeji.

We were a little early arriving in Himeji, so we went over to the Starbucks to hang out and have a quick pre-wedding snack. We had a chance to talk about what Alexis will do (and what she wants to do) after she goes back to the US next month. She is realistic about it, and I hope she finds something cool when she gets there.

We caught a taxi from there and headed to the wedding place. It was only five minutes away, and it looked deserted when we pulled up. Luckily there was some activity inside, and we got directions and headed upstairs to wait in a reception area. We got a lot of looks from the large group of older people. We definitely didn’t fit in, but I sat down with Alexis and I smiled at people and they seemed nice enough.

Soon after we arrived Tsuji-san’s dad came by and thank you for coming. He looked a little nervous but I could tell he was happy, too. We said thank you back and we each did a bow, and before we knew it, it was time to head outside and see the wedding.

The ceremony took place in kind of a courtyard garden, complete with waterfall and ferns. It was a nice place to hold the wedding – really pretty and private. The ceremony went pretty quick, and I took lots of pictures and was only rewarded with the back of people’s heads. I didn’t want to run around and take pictures – it seemed like a very big distraction.

After it was over we joined a lineup to say congratulations. From this point on, Tsuji-san’s new name is Okamoto-san, so I’ve got to take care to call her that. They both looked very happy, and they gave us a small parting gift before they headed into the studio for lots of pictures with family.

Alexis and I split from there, and walked back to the station. She decided to go home in the gap between the wedding and the second party, so I hung out in Himeji for about 90 minutes until Kuniko arrived. I read some books for free in the air conditioned bookstore.

Once Kuniko arrived we walked around doing some shopping, eating snacks, and drinking a green creme soda with a big scoop of ice cream inside. It was a great way to kill time, and soon we met up with Alexis and headed to the second party. We caught a shuttle bus near the station, which was also being boarded by a slew of old people.

Old people in Japan both annoy and scare me. They annoy me because they act like they are entitled to everything without having to repect anything, and they scare me because I don’t want to end up like that. There was a slight disturbance when one of the old guys started pulling at one of the old ladies, trying to get her to do something she didn’t want to do. I watched in fascination as the drama unfolded, but things calmed down quickly as no doubt one of the participants forgot what the big deal was all about in the first place.

We arrived at the Himeji Castle Hotel and went inside to the restaurant – that was the location of the party. At the registration desk one of the groom’s friends asked me in English “Do you speak Japanese?”, and I gave him a big smile and returned “Do you speak English?” His friends all laughed at him, and we got all set up and went inside.

Kuniko and Alexis and I all sat together and Alexis enjoyed a vegetarian meal while everyone else had a wide variety of foods – pizza, tofu, fried shrimp – there was a lot of food and beer.

The second party was one of those very organized affairs with an emcee who did lots of games and contests. I’m not a big fan, because it gets in the way of meeting people and drinking together, but apparently it is the normal deal at second parties in Japan. They had a portable pedestal that was called the “Party Dam 30”. It had all kinds of activities built into it: karaoke, bingo, music, you name it.

Alexis and Kuniko got along really well and so it made the table really fun – we were joking around most of the time and we were kept entertained despite the “Party Dam 30”.

We played bingo, and I was lucky enough to win once again – I’m 2 for 2 at wedding second party bingo. I scored a giant green and black vibrating back massager. It was quite big, and due to the amount of alcohol I had consumed at that point I was fond of calling it a vibrator.

One of the groom’s friends was doing a lot of camera work, and I had noticed at the wedding that he looked a lot like a young Don Johnson, of Miami Vice fame. I tried to explain this to Alexis earlier, but Miami Vice is a little old for her. She asked me if Don Johnson was Asian – because if he isn’t how the hell can this guy look like Don Johnson. Good point, but for some reason this guy really reminded me of him. I took a bunch of pictures in an effort to catch an image of him to compare later – you can see the fruits of my labors in the picture gallery.

Finally the party wrapped up, so we lined up and said goodbye to the Okamotos. They handed over more gifts and the groom gave me his brightly colored plastic Hawaiian lei, so I wore that the whole way home. I noticed that when you are drunk you don’t seem to care about wearing a bright yellow lei and carrying around a giant vibrator in public. It’s just not a big deal.

It was a good time, and we split up with Alexis in Takasago and headed home from there. I was really bushed – I had been walking the streets of Himeji all day long, so we headed straight to bed. It was a really fun day, though – and I can’t wait to hear how the Okamotos new life goes. Check out the pictures from the day.

Friday I had a busy morning doing catch-up classes to make sure that all my first year students finish up at the same time. The morning was really busy, and then in the afternoon I had lots of free time to grade papers and get organized for next week.

I was walking around the school at one point in the afternoon and I walked by the gymnasium. I looked inside as I walked by, and there was a class of boy students all laying on the floor sleeping. It looked like it was an organized activity. Maybe they were supposed to be meditating, but they were all sleeping soundly. I just shrugged and moved on – who knows what that’s all about…

When I got home I cooked up a nice easy (and healthy) dinner of somen for me and Kuniko. It was delcious – so good, in fact, that we declared next week somen week and we’re going to eat it every night for dinner.

I sent off the money for the new apartment today, so it should be official – we’ll be moving around July 21st. It is a relief to at least know where we’ll be living, and it will help me while I continue my job search. Progress!

When I was a kid my parents took me and my brother to Universal Studios in Hollywood. There were a lot of amazing things, but the thing that stayed with me to this day was a show, based on the character of Conan made popular by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The show itself was so-so, but as the audience came into the auditorium at the very beginning of the show, the stage was shielded by a curtain of water. The water fell in streams from the ceiling into a small moat that separated the audience from the stage. It was noisy and it made the air humid but there was something exotic about it that I’ll never forget.

That is why I don’t seem to mind the rainy season in Japan. Outside right now it is exactly like a curtain of water, and the air is wet and warm and it reminds me very much of that day at Universal. Some teachers said that it may last all week and weekend.

My first class today was a lecture on international understanding, and I spoke with seven students who had different reactions to what I was talking about. I lectured on trying to keep an open mind about different cultures, and I told them what things Japanese people do that would be considered crazy in America, and also what Americans do that would be considered strange or rude in Japan. We watched parts of the movie “Mr. Baseball”, and I tried to get them to point out behavior that they thought was abnormal. Overall I thought it went better than last weeks lecture, and I hope the students will remember that there are other cultures walking around Japan besides their own.

I worked with Miyake sensei on her listening skills just before lunch. We had a good talk about her weekend, and we’ve been talking about current events and politics more to expand her vocabulary a little bit more. She’s getting quite good at expressing her thoughts in English. She’s dying to speak more, though, and she really enjoys studying English. It is a good combination – and it is showing some results.

In the afternoon I had a class with Tsutsumi sensei, and we talked about how the new ALT will be fitting in, and how she will work the class once she arrives. It is becoming apparent that it will be a challenge for everyone at first, but I think it is a good thing to shake up the teachers a little bit. It will be tough at first on Brenda (the new ALT) when she gets here, though.

I came home in between rain showers, and spent around two hours looking at jobs and careers on the internet. There are a lot of jobs out there, but only occasionally does the perfect-sounding one show up. I’m keeping an eye out – hopefully something will show up.

Kuniko and I bought sausages at Carrefour last night, so I’m getting everything ready for when she gets home. She has to work the study room tonight, so she won’t be home until after nine. Tomorrow is Friday, though, so there is an end in sight.

Today I did the last two lessons about money, and it was nice to finish that off. The students are all complaining of the heat, and people are a little resistant to getting up and doing anything in class. Summer is the toughest time to get people moving and learning.

After school we had an ESS party. The students wanted to have a party as a farewell to me, but I ended up organizing the whole thing, buying the snacks, and carrying them all back to the school from Seiyu. The students mostly just joked around and I used the opportunity to introduce the information I had about the new ALT, Brenda. They were slightly interested, but a little concerned that Brenda doesn’t speak Japanese. They might actually have to use English in English club!

We watched a movie (Corpse Bride) and because of it got out a little late. I got home after Kuniko, which is very rare indeed. Kuniko made a really good shabu-shabu salad for dinner, and soon after we went to Carrefour in a vain search for a wedding present for Tsuji-san. I think I will end up giving her cash – nothing jumped out at me as totally appropriate for her in Carrefour. One tragic thing we say there was that the Starbucks was torn out and gone. It was there just a few days ago, but that makes it another of the peripheral stores at Carrefour that has sunk. The place is really starting to clear out, and I fear that someday Carrefour itself will go under. Then where will I get my Mexican food supplies?

Today I was in a rush to leave this morning and I totally forget my cellphone and my handheld computer at home. That meant that I couldn’t do flashcards, and I was out of contact with people all day. It was kind of refreshing.

I had an appointment to return a book to Tsuji-san in the morning, so I went over there and she looked nervous about the upcoming wedding. She gave me some presents to say thank you for helping her with her English, and her parents even came out and admired my Japanese and to say thank you. It was the first time that I could speak to her father for an extended period of time. He is a stern looking guy. Her mom is always smiling, though. I’ll probably have some pictures of them after the wedding on Saturday.

Classes went smoothly today, and since I wasn’t cramming vocab into my head I spent time looking for good hotels in Venice and Florence. I also spent a while writing emails to Brenda, who will be taking over my position at the school. I detect just a little concern about the protocol among the teachers, and one teacher asked me hopefully if I could be around to help out with the transition. I said that if I was free I would be happy to, but of course if I’ve got a paying gig somewhere else I’ve gotta do that.

I was home at a reasonable hour today, and surprisingly so was Kuniko. She cooked dinner for us, and in the evening I watched “Mr. Baseball” in preparation for a class that I am doing on Thursday. The class is about cultural differences and culture shock, and that movie is full of them. I recommend the movie if you get a chance to see it. It was a lot more surprising when I saw the movie years ago – now Japanese baseball is not so unusual.

Since Sunday when we went to the crazy apartment company, they have called every night to let us know what is going on. They call and urgently ask for Kuniko, and even if she is right next to me I hem and haw and subject them to my bad Japanese, play stupid sometimes, and generally just frustrate the guy. Then when they call back later Kuniko gets on the phone and it turns out they are just letting us know the status of the process. Relax guys, we trust things are going fine.

I’m off to bed a little early tonight. Tomorrow I’ve got lots of flashcards to do to make up for my forgetfulness today.

Today I got up early and made lunch for Kuniko and I, and then jumped in the bath. Once I finished I did a little bit of studying until Kuniko woke up. She had trouble again sleeping last night, so it was a challenge to get up and ready on time. We had a quick breakfast and then hit the road.

Today at school I spent a couple hours pondering my future instead of pondering Japanese vocabulary, and organizing my thoughts. Despite how I felt yesterday, I already have a general sense of what I want to do; it is just a matter of carving out a path in that direction. And, do a better job of communicating it to the people around me.

In the late morning I got a big package of papers from Yamamoto sensei – it was the information about our next ALT that will replace me in August. It’s a 20-something year old woman from Minnesota! More American accents for our students to pick up.

I went through the paperwork and it was in a way retro-embarrassing. I’m sure three years ago Mr. Hayashi and my predecessor Andy leafed through all my personal information trying to get an idea of what kind of person I am. I read through her application, her school transcripts, her passport photos, letters of reference, everything. I remember well pulling together all that information and getting it to the embassy in time.

Yamamoto sensei will be her supervising teacher, so we spent a little time talking about what we should do from here. I sent off an introductory email to her, and we’ll see what kinds of questions and issues she will have.

Other than that it was a pretty quiet day. I spent more time planning and thinking, less time studying, and hopefully the kick in the pants that I got yesterday will keep me working hard for a while.

I got a sad e-mail from Antoine, apparently he and his girlfriend finally had the big fight that broke them up. We’ll see if that holds, but Antoine sounded pretty sure that it was over. I think there probably is a lot of pressure on Antoine to get a job and stay in Japan, and maybe start thinking about a future together with Miwako. Maybe that pressure finally got to them.

I headed home right on time, and walked to the train station in the heat. It is starting to really warm up now, in between rain storms. Today I was hoping for air conditioning in the office, but I think it is still two weeks away.

I did a little shopping at IY for some basic supplies, and then headed on home. Kuniko should be home pretty soon, so I’m just hanging out until she gets back. I’m doing a little bit of research on the web, and trying to stay cool. It’s going to be another warm evening.

What a weekend. Saturday was fairly mellow. Kuniko went off to work in the morning, and I stuck around to do the community cleanup at the apartment complex. The cleanup went pretty well – I received my instructions from the manager, who plopped some hedge clippers in my hand and trusted that I was familiar with the topiary arts.

Not having done a lot of hedge trimming in my life, I approached it hesitantly at first, and later with much more gusto – shaping the unruly bush into a big arc. I had fun clipping away while other people did much the same thing. Nobody here was an expert clipper, but we just had fun with it and the hour passed quickly.

I chatted a little bit with Jane on my way back to the apartment, and we talked about her new neighbor who will move into my place after Kuniko and I leave. She even offered to help us move, which was very nice of her. I think our move won’t be too tough though – she should be safe.

I cleaned house and did laundry throughout the morning, and when Kuniko came home in the afternoon she did a load of laundry, studied, and got some well-deserved time to relax. Later in the evening we went over to the Kageyama household for dinner to celebrate an early father’s day.

Kuniko’s sister was there as well, so it was nice to have everyone around. We had a big feast and then sat around the TV and chatted and ate dessert. We had brought along our Nintendo DS with the brain training game, and that was a big hit with Kuniko’s sister and father. They both played it for a long time.

Sunday was a really crazy day. We got a chance to sleep in, but Kuniko couldn’t sleep very well and ended up staying awake most of the night. I managed to sleep in a little bit, though. We spent the morning reading and relaxing at home, and then drove to Carrefour to park the car. We parked there and then walked to the nearest JR train station – Tsuchiyama, and from there took a train to Nishi Akashi station. In Nishi Akashi we had an appointment with an apartment rental place to look at some places. We need to get serious about moving – the deadline to move out of the teacher’s apartment is at the end of next month!

We had trouble finding the place at first, so Kuniko called and a few minutes later an employee came running up to guide us to the office. He was a really talkative guy, and he had us both on edge the whole time we talked to him. Unfortunately, he was the guy that was going to drive us around to see the apartments today, so we got plenty more exposure to him throughout the afternoon.

Back at the office they gave us some papers listing a few of their recommended properties to look at. We had found three properties on their website that we wanted to see, but they didn’t seem aware of those. We asked about it, and they went to the back room and soon emerged with those three property sheets as well. There was a really pushy boss working there, who told us that he was sure we would find something we liked today – he had a feeling it would be one called “Green Heights”.

We headed out to the car, and drove off to the first place in Okubo. We had decided to look around Okubo because of it’s proximity to a JR train station, the big shopping center that is attached, and it is a little closer to Kobe than where we are now without getting close enough to be more expensive.

The first place I liked immediately. The neighborhood was just one street off the main street leading to the station, and it was only a 2 minute walk from the apartment to the station. It was on the third floor above some offices and down at the floor level there was a nice looking yakitori right there. The bad news was that it was too small. One of the rooms was just about the size of our bed – no room for anything else. Unfortunately, that was a show-stopper.

We looked at a few others without finding one we liked. There was a big one that was part of a duplex in a quiet neighborhood – and at first I really liked it. It had two floors and its own parking spot, which is a big deal in Japan. The rent wasn’t so bad and the place was huge – maybe a little too big.

As soon as we entered the place the agent started saying bad things about it, and he continued to say bad things about any of the rental places that they didn’t recommend. He pestered us for our opinion and wanted us to list our preferences in order all the time – “Which is your favorite so far?”, “How about this one?”, “This must be better than the other one, right?”

It was the hard sell – I’ve seen it before. He was pushing the recommended properties, and he wanted us to sign up for one of them today. Even though we knew we were getting the hard sell, it didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Luckily we could speak English to each other and exclude him from the conversation. He would interrupt us and say “What’s that?” “What did you say?” Never has speaking English in a foreign country been so useful.

We got to the “Green Heights” place that his boss had recommended, and he was gushing about it before the car stopped. It was a 7 minute walk from the station, on the third floor of a building on the main street. We climbed the stairs and went in, and looked around. I had steeled myself to be wary of this one – it was one that he was pushing. We looked around and it seemed nice – very clean and pretty spacious. The price was OK, so why was he pushing it so hard? Kuniko and I talked about it, sometimes talking right over his “What do you think?” and “Do you like it?” questions that he fired at us constantly.

I liked the place, but I was a little worried about the neighborhood. Right across the street was a gas station, and I didn’t know how much traffic noise there was, especially during rush hour. There was no air conditioning, but he assured us that we could install it without a problem. I wanted some time to think about it.

Part of the hard sell is not giving you time to think about it. You push someone into a decision. We were hoping to just look around today and then if we liked something, talk about it and come back later. We had hoped to get dropped off at the nearby station when we were finished, but that wasn’t in the cards. He wouldn’t drop us off, but said that his boss wanted to talk to us about Green Heights, and I knew that was the big push to seal the deal.

We made up a story about having an appointment to get to, but it didn’t faze them a bit. They sat us down in their office, and said that a place like Green Heights was sure to move soon, maybe in the next few days, so we had better jump. All my instincts were to walk away and talk about it at a leisurely pace with Kuniko. Kuniko, though, didn’t really want to wait – she was fine with the place and didn’t see why I would need time.

In the end we said that we wanted some time to think and we put down a little bit of money to hold the place for a week – we had to fill out an application, and then they finally let us go. The money part was funny – they asked how much money Kuniko had, and she said she had only 3000 yen, and so they said “no problem” and took that. I’m lucky I didn’t say how much money I was holding, because I think they would have taken that, too.

After getting manhandled we walked back down the street, relieved to be away from such an annoying and pushy company. Just as we were about to turn the corner, the annoying guy came running and calling our name – he had forgotten to make a copy of one of the forms, and so we had to wait outside a nearby convenience store while he made a copy. Kuniko and I were getting pretty pissed off by then.

He apologized and we gave him the curtest of goodbyes and then headed to the station. We were so flustered that we took the wrong train from the station and ended up in Akashi – we had to catch another train to go back the right way. Eventually we made it Okubo, and decompressed by eating McDonald’s (we didn’t have much cash on us anymore) and talking about the day.

Without all the high pressure it was easier to think about the place and whether we liked it or not. It was clear that Kuniko was ready to pull the trigger – it was just me holding it up. I had lots of questions – renting an apartment is tricky in America, let alone in a foreign country where it would take me a month to read the contract. Kuniko answered the questions and explained everything to me, and it helped a lot.

We did a little bit of shopping and then decided to walk from where we were to the Green Heights apartment. It took just 7 minutes to get there, and we were able to look around the neighborhood on the way. There were a couple of shops on the ground floor of Green Heights – a Los Angeles-themed hair salon, and a cake shop (danger!)

We walked up to the apartment and stood outside, looked around and then walked to the nearby supermarket to look at what they had for sale. It was no Ito Yokado, but I don’t think we’ll be in a good situation like that again soon.

We walked back from there and I finally decided that it was OK and that we should go for it. I had gotten my questions answered, but the biggest holdup for me was that this place was the one that the pushy people were pushing – so something must be wrong. I almost didn’t want to take it just to spite them, but it is a good place, and that is what is most important.

Just to top off the day, on the way home we started talking about my future in Japan. It’s a tough topic to talk about since there are so many question marks for me. Kuniko asked me some good questions, and I had no good answers. It made me feel bad that I couldn’t answer them and a little like I have been wasting time the last three years instead of working towards something.

That depressed me even more on top of the pushy real estate company, so by the time we got back home I was pretty bummed out. We went to bed and talked a little bit, and that helped a lot. We talked about we wanted and what we expected, and talked a little bit about our different cultures and how those were shaping our expectations.

Just before we fell asleep the real estate guy called to bug us some more, and then he called again about 10 minutes later but we didn’t answer. Then he called our home phone number, but we didn’t answer that either. Enough is enough.

I think about their sales process and I can’t believe how it is going to work out for them despite almost everything they did. They need to let the properties speak for themselves. Now we will rent this place despite hating (hating!) the people that are renting it, and resenting the whole process. In the end, they will probably think their tactics were effective, and they’ll keep doing it. Even if we wrote a letter complaining, the manager will still say, “But at least they rented something!” Scary!

Finally, the day served as a gigantic wake up call for me that I have to focus on my future more. I’m sure I’ll have no problem landing a job in the short term, but as for five years from now, ten, twenty, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.

Today was my last culture festival at Takasago Minami, and so I approached it keeping in mind that it was my last chance to enjoy it and spend time informally with my students.

As usual there were lots of interesting exhibits. Nothing as dramatic as last year, probably because of the price tag of last year. In the morning I walked around enjoying the displays, like the little green men from Toy Story set up to greet people as they arrived. They also had a huge banner made out of tiny squares of colored paper. From a distance it looked like a photograph of my school. Very creative!

The format of the event was the same as the previous two years, but this time I was a lot closer to the students participating, so every time they did a dance routine or an exhibit I knew at least one student well, and that made it much more interesting.

As usual it is a sweaty place in the gym during the festival, because they have to close all the doors and windows to make it dark for the dancing and plays. The first year I sweated the whole time and was miserable. The second year I froze some sodas in plastic bottles the night before, and then brought those with me to keep cool. This year I sat right behind the principal with the student council – those are choice seats. They had a fan dedicated to keeping the principal (and those behind him) cool, and we were right next to the cement wall of the gym so it was naturally cool. Good spot.

The dances were interesting – lots of variety. One class did a very quick version of West Side Story, and another class did a pretty bad version of Cinderella. The taiko drummers were the best, though – and it was unanimous among the students and staff that it was just like seeing it at a real concert. I was really impressed – I haven’t seen much taiko but this was really, really good.

The teachers even did a couple of songs. It was pretty bad, but I guess that is part of the entertainment value for the students. They had some new members this year, and Nozaki sensei dressed up in a red dress and a blonde wig and did what I can only describe as an interpretive dance number while everyone else sang. She seems normal enough in the staffroom, but she was one freaky lady today on stage. She stripped off the wig and the dress during the number, and everyone in the gymnasium was very relieved to see that she was wearing a jumpsuit underneath.

Sitting with the student council was fun, too. They are all pretty outgoing people because they are generally the leaders of their classes, so they were completely comfortable to talk with me about what was going on. It was a pleasure to have the chance to chat with them.

What else? I did the tea ceremony with the tea ceremony club, stopped in at all the classrooms at lunch to see some of the interesting exhibits. One class had a mural made entirely of folded cranes – very impressive.

Now I’m back home and pretty tired out. I put some pictures here if you’d like to check out today’s events. Tomorrow is Saturday but I still have to get up early to help with community cleanup. Kuniko has to work, but Sunday we both have the day off – for Kuniko it will be her first day off in about 20 days!

Kuniko came back from school pretty stressed – she had a busy day. Her speech went really well, so I was glad to hear that. Her school has her working right up until the day we leave for our vacation, and there is a chance I might go and help her out. I’m not sure yet, though, so we’ll wait and see.

Today I had just one class in the morning, since the afternoon classes were cancelled to prepare for the big culture festival tomorrow. The class was a guest lecturer at an international understanding course. The students listened to me lecture in English, with the history teacher translating. My message was that it is a very good thing to study other cultures, and it is one of the things that have changed me profoundly. After a forty minute lecture, we opened it up to questions and answers. The only question was “Are you married?” Ouch – so much for an effective and interesting presentation. Actually, later there was a sign that at least some things sunk in.

In between classes I was walking down a hallway and saw two boy students pushing each other. One left quickly, and the other one followed yelling at him wanting to fight.

In three years at this school I’ve never seen a fight, and I always thought that was weird. I didn’t want one to start now, so despite what they tell us in Assistant Language Teacher School I stepped in and held back the kid that wanted to fight. He just tried to push forward past me, but I did the passive resistance thing and told him to head back to his class. After a few minutes I got him turned around and headed back. Later I went to the teacher in charge of the students and reported what happened in broken Japanese, so hopefully they won’t pick up where they left off later. It won’t make me popular with either of the students, but I think I did the right thing. Ask me again in a week, though.

In an interesting coincidence, Tsutsumi sensei told me that she had to break up a fight between three different groups of students. She said they were all girls, and the leaders of the groups didn’t get along. She got involved in separating them and the subsequent discipline, so she was late to our class yesterday.

Today was the last day for the student teachers, and although there is no English teacher’s class to evaluate, I dropped in on an international understanding lecture done by a young student teacher. Earlier I had walked by a class being taught by her and everybody was making “Help me I’m bored out of my mind” faces at me while her back was turned writing on the board. I was a little nervous that the class would be mind-numbing.

In fact it was quite good, and the students all stayed awake and alert throughout the class. Part of the reason might have been that the back of the class was full of VIPs like the principal and vice-principal. Anyway, the student teacher did a really good job and explained well about the United Nations and how and why Japan is not a member of the Security Council.

After that class I ran over to have lunch at the cafeteria really quick, and then met up with Miyake sensei for a quick English lesson. At 12:30 the school stopped early to get ready for the festival, and so I spent time with the ESS club and also walking around looking in on other classes preparations. I spoke a lot of English and it was good to see everyone working hard.

One of the topics I touched on during my international understanding lecture today was what things I liked about Japanese culture and things that I didn’t like. One of the things I complained about was how people tend to not greet each other while walking around. I told the story of how I have often seen people in Japan work very hard not to meet my eyes or say hello, but in America people that happen to walk by each other are more likely to be friendly and say hello.

During preparations I was walking around and walked by two of the students from the international understanding class, and they made a special point to say hello and make a greeting. At least they understood that much of my lecture.

At four o’clock we met up to take a picture of the ESS club, and then soon afterwards I went over to meet with Tsuji-san. Today was our last meeting, since she will be getting married in a couple of weeks and moving to Himeji. We decided to make a party out of it and go out with her other student, Alexis, and Alexis’ boyfriend from the USA.

Tsuji-san and I walked through a torrent of rain to get to the restaurant. We were a few minutes early, so they set us up at the table to hang out. The owner of the restaurant came out and said hello, and gave me a small ceramic plate from the local shrine as a gift.

It turns out the owner is a big fan of traveling and he really likes meeting foreigners. Alexis has been there a couple times, so he went out and bought a small Pennsylvania state flag to hang in the restaurant to make her comfortable.

We didn’t wait long before Alexis showed up with her boyfriend visiting from home, Jake. Jake was a really quiet guy but he seemed very intelligent and was still in kind of a shock stage about Japan. It was fun to watch him struggle with the sashimi platter and decide what to eat and what was too risky. He’s been in Japan for just over a week now, and he’s been sick twice in that time. There was lots of cooked food, though, so he got by just fine.

The conversation was pretty much just in English because Alexis speaks just a little bit of Japanese and Jake doesn’t speak any at all. It was a challenge for Tsuji-san, and we didn’t make it any easier for her by talking about nostalgic American cultural icons like Chutes and Ladders and Candyland. I tried to bring her into the conversation when I could, but it was pretty tough to bridge the gap between all the different backgrounds at the dinner table.

They kept bringing food and we kept eating it – loads of do-it-yourself BBQ, fish, eggplant, tamagoyaki, fried potatoes, and even big plates of tempura. When we finally got full we tried to head out the door. They told us that they had more food coming for us, but we pleaded full stomaches, and they let us slide by having us drink fresh green tea at the bar with some dessert. This was after we paid the bill – it was just a chance for them to talk to us and get to know each other better.

The master of the place was happy that he could speak to me in Japanese, and we compared notes on our visits to Texas. His whole family was working for him, and he has sent all of them to be students of Tsuji-san at some point. He feels that English is important for them to be better people.

We finally extracted ourselves from their hospitality, but not before taking home some sushi for the next day. They were really nice, and I was sad to think that I’ll be finished with the town of Takasago in a few months and won’t really be able to drop by and say hello in the future.

Even though I went out I still got home before Kuniko, and she was happy to dig into the sushi that I brought back once she made it home. We crashed out in bed exhausted. Friday is the culture festival at my school, so I’ve got something to look forward to.

I had quite a busy day at work – four classes and helping ESS prepare for the culture festival. The classes went pretty well – the first year classes went smoothly and without a problem. The second year classes on the other hand, were interesting.

The first class was with Tsutsumi sensei. Unfortunately when it was time to head up to the classroom, she wasn’t around. Usually she is right there ready to go, so I was a little worried. I went upstairs, and saw her in the hallway, heading back down to the staffroom. She had a slight problem she had to deal with, so she asked me to get the class started without her.

No problem. The class was about different types of music, so I stood up in front of the students and tried to explain what “funk” music was without using Japanese. Tough! We got through it, though. Another challenge – explaining “weird” as an adjective to describe music.

I got through the vocabulary, and then did a dialog with myself, and finally got the students working on their own dialogs in pairs – about 20 minutes into the class. About that time, Tsutsumi sensei came in and told me that she would explain later but there was a big problem with a girl student. I never heard what it was, because I was busy the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find out.

The rest of the class went just fine. The second part of the class involves listening to the band “Cake”, and the students overall seemed to enjoy that. We had a few minutes left at the end so the class treated me to a rendition of the song they will sing during the culture festival. It was a piece of spoken word/rap music that was a little scary coming from the mouths of my students, but it was pretty good.

The next class was with Yamamoto sensei, the exact same lesson plan. He runs the class with an iron fist, and so they are always quiet and reluctant to speak. On the other hand, they have the highest English scores in the second year, so I know they can do English. Today was much like other classes with them – any questions I ask are met with silence. They don’t want to get it wrong, and they don’t want to look bad in front of Yamamoto sensei because he will jump down their throats. There are four students in that class who will volunteer to answer questions just because they are friends of mine, and they are confident in English. Without them I would still be in that class right now asking “What kind of music do you like?”

In that class we had some extra time at the end as well, so I played a second Cake song for them (“The Distance”) and it was met with complete silence. No reaction, nothing. I think probably every single person in that class hated the song. It was a weird way to end it, and I left feeling a little like everything was a total failure.

Were I a rookie teacher I would think that it was a bust and I would never do the lesson again, but from previous lessons I can guess that some people actually liked the songs, and some people will come up to me in a few weeks and ask for more information about the band. Nobody gets too excited at first, but deep down, somebody liked the lesson. I hope.

After school I dropped in on Mr. Yamamoto’s class practicing taiko drums for the upcoming school festival. They were getting lessons from a third year student who is good at drumming, and Mr. Yamamoto was shouting his own instructions, too. The students giggled a lot at my presence there – but eventually they settled back down and practiced. It was fun to watch, and I’m looking forward to seeing them on the big stage Friday.

I’m back home now and getting ready to cook dinner – Kuniko will get home around 7 tonight, so she’ll have a little downtime tonight. I can’t wait to find out how her speech went…

Not much exciting to report today – Kuniko is still struggling along even though she is exhausted. I’ve got relatively easy days, so I’m just doing what I can to support her while she’s going through this. She came back home tonight exhausted again, and tomorrow she has to make a 30 minute speech in front of her whole school, so she’s anxious about that.

On my way home today I bumped into a student of mine from last year’s graduating class. She is studying English in college, but she was disappointed that they aren’t spending much time actually speaking it. That sounds about right from what I’ve heard. There are foreign lecturers, but they can’t speak one-on-one with all their students.

She was just about to ask me to teach her English one-on-one, but luckily my train arrived and I said goodbye. At my stop I got off the train with another one of my students – a 2nd year boy. He said hello and I asked him if he was headed home now. The problem was, he thought I was asking him if he would to my home. I tried to correct his misunderstanding in Japanese, but it just made it worse. Finally I just said goodbye, and he was very relieved to say goodbye back to me and head out of there.

Tonight I cooked up garlic pork steaks and a green salad on the side. We ate at a reasonable hour since Kuniko arrived home around 7 p.m. We’re off to bed early to try to get a jump on the big day tomorrow…

It’s about 9:30 in the evening and Kuniko is going to get here in the next 30 minutes or so – I’ve got some time to write an entry before getting dinner ready. Tonight at 10 p.m. there will be a World Cup game that I might watch a little of. Everybody at my school will be sure to be tired tomorrow because it is Japan playing, and people around here are really excited about it.

Today I had just one class – the first period, so once that was done I had the whole day to do as I pleased. I worked on planning for the trip, did lots of studying, and spent a couple hours lesson planning.

The head of the office came by and brought an interpreter along to explain to me that I was going to have to move out of my house soon. Luckily it didn’t come as a surprise to me, and I think he was glad to see that. He’s a skittish guy – he looked like he was afraid I was just going to say “no”.

I’m suffering big time from sunburn today, but I think by tomorrow the worst will be over. The other teachers were amused to hear my rice planting story, and a little jealous that we eat rice for free all year because of it.

I’ve got three different kinds of marinades working on chicken breasts, so I better go in there and get them cooking. Hopefully Kuniko will get home earlier tomorrow so she can rest up a bit.

Today I met up with Kuniko’s parents and a couple of her uncles to help plant rice. Kuniko had to go to school, so she missed out on the adventure. I had my shiny new boots to use that day, and I’m glad I brought them. Kuniko’s dad was wearing a Gundlach Bundschu hat that my folks had given him – by chance so was I, so we made a matching set.

The rice planting is a pretty modern operation – a tractor runs around the rice paddy in a specific pattern, and it is really interesting how it delivers the plants into the mud. They load it with what looks like squares of sod – young rice plants ready to go into the ground. As the tractor traveled there were lots of tiny frogs jumping like hell to get out of the way.

The tractor looked like fun, but unfortunately I didn’t get to try it out. Maybe next year. In fact, there wasn’t a whole lot for me to do – just watch and help load the tractor with more sod when it ran out.

We planted two rice paddies. There were a couple more, but Kuniko’s folks did that work yesterday, so it was a relatively easy day. When we finished up we spent a couple hours cleaning the tractor and the trays that the young rice plants had been growing on.

They had a strange machine for cleaning the trays, and me and one of Kuniko’s uncles tried to figure it out. It had power, but we couldn’t figure out what the power was for. We pushed the trays in one side, and the were rinsed with water on the way through. I figured it was heating the water, but after a while it was still cold. Finally somebody walked by and told us to turn it on, and so we followed the cord back a ways and found a switch. Once it was on, the thing automatically received the trays, cleaned them, and spit them out the other side. At least I wasn’t the only one that was clueless.

After everything was taken care of I helped with a little modification to one of the barns at the family farm. It was really just Kuniko’s dad working, and four guys standing around offering comments.

Kuniko showed up around 3 p.m. and was my ticket out of there, so I headed back to the Kageyama household and we drank coffee and relaxed a bit. We snuck out of there before her mom could cook us dinner, and did a little bit of shopping at Carrefour on the way back home.

I’m tired and I’ve got a sunburned neck, so I’m off to bed. It was a good experience today – I’m looking forward to doing it again next year. I managed to take a few pictures. You can check out the pictures here.

Saturday morning I had the place to myself – Kuniko was off to school to teach a few morning classes. I did a little laundry, a lot of studying, and had a some snacks for lunch. By the time Kuniko got back in the afternoon I was ready for a nap, so I slept just a little bit and then I was ready to head into Kobe to meet Nel and Antoine.

We had a good time in Sannomiya. We started at a pizza restaurant. There aren’t many restaurants in Japan dedicated to pizza, so this was a unique experience. Also, they number every pizza they make, so you can see exactly how many pizzas they have made before yours came out of the oven. As for the quality of the pizza, it was a little bit bland. The toppings were a little thin, but satisfying enough. We had a “Worker’s Pizza”, which had different meats and garlic, and a “Mexican Pizza” which had just a slight bit of spiciness, but otherwise didn’t seem very Mexican at all.

Afterwards we went and shot pool for about an hour, and from there went to a Japanese German beerhouse that I’ve wanted to try. I think it is owned by Sapporo, and they had a few homemade beers there that we could try out. One was quite good, but the other one, a wheat beer, didn’t taste very good at all. The waitresses were dressed like St. Pauli girl, so that was a big plus.

Nel and Antoine have two different directions they are heading after JET. Antoine will be looking for a job in the area, and Nel is looking for something in Tokyo. We talked about our different job strategies, and also about how we first met. It was good times. Hard to believe that we all started this adventure in Los Angeles about three years ago.

I came on back home and found Kuniko already crashed out – she has been working so hard lately. I curled up right beside her and went to sleep. I gotta plant rice tomorrow!