It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live

Once again I find myself neglecting this blog.

Since I was AWOL all of May, let me give you the quick rehash of what happened that month:

Beware the sand crabs!

Oh my Happa!

Work got incredibly busy. I made exams and had lessons shooting out of my ears. My friend and old-coworker came to visit me from LA during a week-long span of national holidays, appropriately named Golden Week. Too bad it rained nearly the whole time she was here so it was more like a Silver Week. Or Nickel Week. There was beer festivals and baking days and nail appointments galore, and I even pulled an all-nighter in Tokyo in honor of my friend’s going away celebration. I haven’t done that in 3 years (not counting working the graveyard shift) and it was surprisingly fun!

And now, I sit here halfway through June and wonder where the heck my life has gone (and going, but that’s a completely different philosophical question)! People are getting ready to go back home. The higher ups are preparing for new arrivals. I cannot believe that a year ago I was sitting poolside in Palm Desert, thinking about the grand adventure that awaited me, full of excitement and worry and anxiety and hope and….Wow.

So much has changed. So much is the same.

The end of winter and the spring were rough and full of personal growth for me-for many reasons. I feel more confident as a teacher, less confident about what I want to do with my life, more hopeful for a future full of adventure, less hopeful that I will ever be able to translate these experiences into marketable skills for a U.S. based job, more confident about who I am as a person, less confident about who I am in relation to others. It’s a breadbasket of emotions and I just take it a day at a time.

It’s strange though, the way I feel now, this very minute. I used to think that my time at Waseda was my crowning achievement, and that I would never know any happiness greater than those 10 months I spent in Japan; I thought my life had peaked. For a long time, it held first place.

But now, oh the present is much more interesting. In spite of the stress, the tears, the anger, the frustration, the wrenching, mind-numbing heartbreak handed to me the past year, there have been moments of laughing so hard I’ve cried, scenes and views that have taken my breath away, friends who have showered me with warmth and kindness and held my hand when I couldn’t go forward, food that has melted in my mouth, drinks that have refreshed and rejuvenated, and absolutely unforgettable experiences that give me more optimism than I usually have (Maybe one day I CAN become proficient at folding gyoza!).

It’s been a year of deep shadows and brilliant highlights. It’s been a passionate year.

In the end, I think that’s what’s most important anyway- passion. I thought I’d lost it after Waseda, but it was just waiting for me to set aside everything and take another look.

 

Things That Are Weirdest

Women like to dress up; I understand this because, deep down, I too am actually a girl and occasionally like to look nice. I am 23 years old. I dress like I’m in my 20’s because, in my culture, we like our women to act young but look like…women. Ai-chan is 24, Yuki is 28 and Eriko is 34. They like to dress up like they are 12, maybe 13. Socks with lacey frills, satin and lace scrunchies a la 1987, and Hello Kitty/Minnie Mouse accessories abound! Chock it up to a society that sexualizes youth in the “untouched” sense and the ideal fantasy age is a junior high school girl- and it reflects in fashion and the way girls and women act. No surprise then that Japan is waist high in material that seriously makes me question if the girls are 14 or 40. 

 If your shoes hurt, break them in. If they continue to hurt, don’t wear them. If you’re wearing heels, please make sure you have TWO heels. It’s not like you suddenly looked down and realized, “Hey! My left heel has now become a flat! How avant-garde!”. I see shoe repairmen in train stations. They always look bored and lonely. Go to them and fix your damn shoes. While you’re there, see if you can get some custom orthotics so you don’t have to walk pigeon-toed anymore. I know, I know, the majority of girls walk pigeon-toed because it’s a relic of wearing a kimono and you HAD to walk pigeon-toed lest your kimono start creeping open. Kimono=Pigeon-toed=Sign of femininity=CUUUUUUTE. But there’s no reason to waddle when you’re wearing a skirt or jeans. So knock it off, walk properly and then you won’t be slowing down everyone behind you.

Drugs are bad, m’kay? Yes, yes they are. However, drugs introduced in a medically controlled area for the sake of, you know, relieving pain maaaaaaybe are a good thing. Oral aspirin probably won’t cut it, just saying. Oh, what’s that? You’re so afraid of your patient, currently incapacitated by pain mind you, becoming a drug addict that you will refuse morphine even though that’s usually the procedure for all other developed nations? C’mon Japan! You’re the country that brought us the Gundam, the walkman, computers and cars with awesome gas mileage! How hard is it to bring your medical practice up to code? And don’t even get me started on the 3^rd year medical student who was convinced that if I donated blood to a Japanese person I would kill ‘em, regardless of a type match, simply because I’m not Japanese….

Hitting. Maybe it’s because I’m not a rough n’ tumble kind of girl, but I don’t get the hitting thing. I sort of understand a bunch of boys punching each other in the arm for a game of Slug Bug or just to see who has the strongest knuckles, but I don’t get how face slapping and hitting upside the head are treated so lightly here. I’ve even seen teachers bop students on the top of their head for minor infractions. Sometimes it’s in jest, but other times it’s serious. That good ol’ Parietal Bone smack to the crown makes me cringe; not only do I see students doing it to each other, and one time I saw  a toddler having an epic meltdown in a Shibuya restaurant. Rather than remove the crying child from the restaurant, the (young) mother just smacked the poor kid on the head several times trying to get him to be quiet. I just…I don’t even…Guh. 

Silent students. There is some truth to the adage “Japanese students are polite and shy”. Shy is the key word here. I was shy as a child and I didn’t like talking in class so I would rarely volunteer. The thing is, however, if the teacher called on me or came to my desk to ask if I needed help, I was expected to respond-even if it was a lousy guess. It baffles me to no end that I try to talk to some students and they just stare mutely at me, like their tongues have been cut out, before shifting their gaze away. It’s beyond rude and you’d better believe I would’ve been given disciplinary punishment for defiance or…something, had I pulled that!