Moving Forward by Going Back

In about two weeks I'll be returning to the very first place I was ever a teacher - Japan.

I've come a long way since then. My first ever teaching gig came with about 3 days of training and very little self-confidence. These days I've got grad school and a few years of teaching experience under my belt. My hope is that I find the country, culture, and people that I liked so much the first time around still present, but this time have more fun teaching.

It is also my intention to blog more this year than I did last year. I learned a lot last year, but I'm ready to move forward by going back to where it all began.

hello kitty holidays

one "weekend" late in november (which is almost never saturday and sunday for nova teachers, it was tuesday and wednesday for me, wednesday and thursday for jill) jill and i made plans to go to takamatsu for a little starbucks and to start our christmas shopping. and in the evening we would meet mariko for some dinner and drinks.

well after lolly-gagging in starbucks for far longer than normal people (it feels a little like home... plus there's great people watching) we attempted to do some shopping for people on our lists. sounded like an easy enough task, to pick out some cute japanese themed stuff to mail home. and yet all we came away with that day was a 3-foot plastic christmas tree and some hello kitty decorations. we made plans to go to takamatsu *again* the following weekend - and this time really get some gift buying done.

christmas presents started arriving in our mailbox, along with some confusion trying to pick up packages at the post office, and our flat started to look really festive. we began planning our christmas eve and day feasts, as well as a post christmas detox day before we headed to tokyo for new year's.

christmas eve day was so balmy that we could open our balconey doors and let the air flow in. after watching "pirates of the carribean" for the second time over a breakfast of poached eggs and hollondaise it was time to get ourselves moving. we rode our bikes to vivre in utazu (the shopping center extrordonaire) without coats to purchase our holiday feast supplies. we came away with ¥10,400 worth of groceries packed in our bike baskets and our backpacks (which seems like a lot of money - it's about $100 - but we did get 4 bottles of wine and ¥1,000 worth of beef, so i'd say it was pretty good) and headed home to start preparations.


our christmas eve setup
we spent christmas eve like i do at home every year. we watched christmas movies (my family sent a tape with some of the classics on it - a charlie brown christmas, rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and white christmas). and we drank and ate (edamame, gyoza, chili shrimp, sushi, pistachios, pringles, and mulled wine).

christmas day was the strangest ever - for many reasons. in the morning we had a lovely, holiday breakfast of bacon sandwiches and mimosas. but then jill had to go to work (while they love christmas in japan, it's not *really* a holiday as most people are shinto and buddhists). i spent my day doing laundry, going to the store to buy jill's christmas gifts (they were open, since it's not a holiday), i painted my nails, and pretty much sat around watching movies until jill got home from work.

then the real holiday began. we started by opening some wine and our presents. then we began preparing our feast. we started with a butternut squash soup (from a carton). then we had a japanese flavored beef stew, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn, broccoli citron, and of course more wine. by the time we finished we could barely move.


christmas dinner (notice the mobile phones at the dinner table)
we had planned to meet some of our friends at karaoke to sing some christmas songs, but in the end didn't feel like getting off the couch. we watched "pirates of the carribean" again (a gift from my lovely girls) and drank more wine. all in all it was a lovely day, but strangely didn't quite feel like a real christmas....

video store adventures

¥100 can buy you many things. notebooks. hats. scarves. dishes. cleaning products. and 3 nights (5 nights? my memory isn't that good) with an english language video.

something we did almost every week was rent some videos. after the initial fascination with and amusement at japanese tv fades, sometimes you really want to hear english on tv. while 100% worth it, a trip to the video store (like many activities in japan) was an adventure.

of course it always starts with a bike ride... which i generally despised as part of my commute, but grew to almost enjoy for other activities - such as shopping, going to the movies, going to izakayas and karaoke, and going to the video store. bikes parked and locked out front (and most likely on the ground, knocked over by the wind, when we come back out) we enter the store. and thus begins the hunt.

it's the pretty standard video store layout: a section of video games, a new release wall, the curtained off porn section, your standard video genres, and the "foreign films" section - that's where the english language films are. usually there are many english films on the new release wall, and not all of them that new - and you check there first. with the front of the video case facing out, it's easiest to tell what movies they are. not all of the movies have the english title on the case (or it's very difficult to find).

on to the "foreign films" section. at the end of the aisles were mini displays of movies. and then there were the aisles themselves - packed solid with videos. slowly you make your way down the aisles, head tilted and eyes squinting, trying to look for side pictures you recognize or english words. this part takes a long time. every time. no matter how carefully you think you may have looked, there's always some videos you missed.

as you make your selections you have to look out for "the yellow sticker". this sticker indicates that the film is dubbed in japanese instead of merely subtitled (or is it the other way around?). we managed to avoid that disappointment by asking the clerk "english?". even when selecting subtitled movies there always remained the chance that you could miss out on something. if, by chance, there are any conversations in non-english languages... these too are subtitled in japanese. very disappointing. and to this day i still have not seen and comprehended all of birthday girl, in which about 40% of the conversations are in russian.

an hour or two later we emerge with a stash of movies - some old favorites, some we haven't seen yet. we pick up our fallen bikes and make our way happily home.

monday is a new day

my partner in crime, jill, and i were similar in many ways. one of those ways was that we both loved our food and drink. after living together for just over a month jill declared "monday is a new day". this meant that we were going to stop behaving as if we were on vacation - stop eating and drinking loads, stop lounging around all the time. i planned to eat slightly healthier, slightly less, and start practicing yoga on a regular basis.

the fact was that we had had enough time to discover many of the yummy foods japan had to offer. the izakayas that we visited had picture menus (for easy ordering) and every time we visited one we knew what things we wanted. of course gyoza (pan-fried dumplings), deep fried oysters, tiny eggplant halves with miso, french fries, sashimi, edamame (green soybeans), and atsukan (hot sake!). white russians at karaoke. fried chicken and egg on rice concoctions from the mini-mart, onigiri (filled rice balls wrapped in seaweed), and late night bowls of ramen.

and as if that weren't enough our home cuisine creations were evolving too. every friday night was "gyoza night". we cooked up a couple packages of supermarket gyoza and sat on our little sofa watching videos. we started making pizza toasts. we managed to make nachos in our toaster oven (in japan they didn't have tortilla chips, but we did find "plain" unflavored doritos - seriously). other favorites included beef stroganoff and jill's fabulous mac and cheese (which i now make for myself and claim it's my recipe - sorry hon!).

so despite riding the bloody bikes everywhere all this food was starting to add up. and i behaved for a little while. but then came christmas. and our trip to tokyo. japan is just a food lover's paradise, what's a girl to do?

things start looking up

so i had received a message at work that i was going to get a new flatmate called jillian. though no one could seem to tell me when she might arrive.

on the friday after natasha left i had a particularly bad ride to work. the wind was blowing so hard across the rice paddies that i had to get off my bike and walk in order to make any forward progress. by the time i reached work i was in quite a mood, as you might imagine, and it wasn't a good mood for teaching english. i simply got through my classes with as little effort as possible then headed home.

on the ride home i ran into grant, a canadian teacher from a different school i had met out a few times. we stopped and chatted for a while, which lifted my spirits remarkably. there's something about running into someone i know on the streets that makes me so happy. it makes me feel that i have a place, that i know people, that i'm not alone. i made one more stop, at the liquor store for some vodka, before arriving at my apartment.

most homes and apartments in japan have a small area just inside the front door where your shoes are to be removed. my apartment was no different. that night when i opened the door i noticed a new pair of sneakers next to my flip-flops. it seemed that jillian had arrived.

we chatted as i began to make my dinner (a packaged version of an omelet, served with a kind of gravy, that i had bought ready-made from the supermarket the day before). she had taken training with dave from my school, but had been staying in himeji until now. my guess from her accent was irish (i was wrong, she's scottish, but now, over a year later, i can tell the difference between english, irish, scottish, australian, and kiwi accents - not bad, eh?). i tried to give her the rundown on life in marugame, but myself only having been a resident for less than a month, it was general at best.

the next we talked more, about everything, finding that we had much in common and were both quite easily amused. the green mile came on tv - *in english* - which was very exciting. using some christmas colored origami paper left behind by previous tenants we started making paper chains and plans. in my journal that night i wrote:

i think things will be looking up here...

goodbye roommate, hello karaoke

friday, two weeks after my arrival, was natasha's last day of work with nova. that evening another teacher from my school (and a friend of natasha's) named bec came over and we drank wine and chatted until the wee hours of the morning. by the end of the night i had planned the next year and a half of my life: after a year of teaching i would take off and do some traveling around japan. after i'd seen what i wanted to see i would head over to the asian continent and make my way through thailand, cambodia, vietnam, maybe malaysia and some islands. *then* i would go to india and meet bec and natasha at an ashram. after a month of yoga and meditation i'd finally go home.


bye natasha!
good plan. fueled by the chatter of two australian girls who had already visited much of asia and, along with me, drank quite a bit of wine. bec left and natasha and i finally went to bed around 4 in the morning, only to wake up a few hours later for work. (the worst part of a nova teaching schedule: weekends are early shifts, weekdays are late shifts)

saturday evening was natasha's last night out in marugame. the plan was to meet a bunch of other teachers and friends at an izakaya and then go to karaoke. despite having gone to an izakaya the previous week with natasha and mariko, i wasn't prepared for the amount of food we had. there were some heavenly cabbage and cheese rolls, sashimi, fried cheese balls (which i burnt my lip very badly on, had a scar the next day), fries, grilled garlic with miso, edamame.... so much food and so good.


grant, dave, and gavin
after we'd eaten our fill it was off to a karaoke bar, which was on the 5th floor of a building just down the road. (while most floors above street level would be residences in america, they are often businesses in japan) it was a small place, not at all like karaoke bars in america - there is no stage, nor much light. along one wall there was a long bar with stools, on the opposite wall was a long couch, in front of which were tables and small benches. we sat down and were given warm cloths for our hands and a basket of chip-type things. straight away people started looking through the telephone directory sized song book. once i got up the nerve to sing my first song ("it's not unusual" by tom jones) there was no stopping me.

also on this momentous first night of karaoke i met two of my future favorites: dave and paul. i went over and talked to paul after he sang a U2 song (my *favorite* band). i was introduced to dave, as he was new and soon to be teaching at my school. while chatting with dave i was glad to hear that he was interested in going out for some beers sometime. natasha had told me that most people didn't really like to go out that much. i now had hopes that we could change that.


me
it was 6 in the morning by the time we left the karaoke bar. i had to work the next day and natasha had a bus to catch in the morning. she asked me to make sure she was up, i was instructed to hit her if i needed to. that time came too soon and while i had quite a time waking her up. but when she finally did wake up, she popped out of bed still dressed from the night before. i walked with her to the station and we said our goodbyes, still talking about meeting up in india. then i walked home alone.

get into the groove

i started to get into the groove of the teacher's life in marugame. after 11 days all traces of jet lag seemed to have worn off. i had enough lesson plans in my file that i wasn't spending every waking hour planning. i was dealing with riding my bike to work. and then it started to rain.

i had seen loads of japanese people riding their bikes with umbrellas, and on my first day of work where it was raining i attempted to do the same. before i even turned off my road i had given up on the umbrella idea, i just wasn't coordinated enough for that yet. and by the time i passed the train station it really started to rain. so i pulled into the local mini-stop and bought a clear plastic poncho.

despite my new purchase, my legs were still soaked by the time i reached work, though i had luckily packed my work outfit in my bag instead of wearing it. these first days of miserable rain turned what could have been a mild dislike of riding a bike everywhere into a hatred which spawned fantasies of lighting the thing on fire and chucking it into a rice paddy.


at natasha's suggestion i took the train to takamatsu on my "weekend" (really just two days off in a row, which for me was tuesday and wednesday). there was one short page about takamatsu in my rough guide to japan guidebook (which i only bought, instead of my favorite let's go brand because it actually mentioned marugame) and it claimed the highlights of a visit to the city were the beautiful ritsurin park and the shopping. after a long (very long it seemed on that first day) walk to the park and a wander through the shopping arcades and department stores, the highlight of takamatsu, in my opinion, was starbucks.

though i'm not normally a starbuck's person (i normally patronize dunkin donuts) it felt so nice. sitting in a big, comfy starbucks chair. sipping a nice hot latte. it was heaven. it gave me a chance to sit back and reflect on my day. i did quite like the city. i was relieved to see some trendy citizens and quite a few gaijin. the shopping was good. but as i sat there, i decided i wanted to go somewhere bigger. i still wanted to transfer to a big city.

how to teach (part 2)

training - day two

on my way to training the second day i grabbed my lunch from the department store on the way to the school. the basement level of the store was filled with little stands and booths - part food court, part marketplace. i picked out a ready-made tray of food (since i didn't know the names of anything) and went outside to find a bench to eat on. my meal consisted of some chicken on a stick and a couple of grilled rice balls accompanied by some unidentifiable condiments.

back in class we were taught about more pieces of the nova class. we learned some basic classroom management tactics. then we taught parts of a couple more classes. it was stressful. the idea that some day i would have to fill out student evaluations for 4 students in the 10 minutes between classes seemed ludicrous. my biggest challenge was still developing role plays - my stories were far too complex and involved.

the ever adventurous jeremy and i found a little counter service place around the corner from nova for dinner called yoshinoya. there we feasted on bowls of miso soup, and rice topped with thin slices of beef (this was before the american beef "mad cow" scare) for not a lot of yen. let me tell you, this is heaven in a bowl, topped with pickled ginger. it wasn't until much later that i discovered that this was a large chain in japan - alas, not in marugame.

that evening in my hotel i found an episode of one of my favorite shows (favorite after the x-files), ALIAS on tv. i was so excited that i didn't even care that it was dubbed in japanese.

training - day three

by the third day i was really starting to feel confident in my classes, provided i had my lesson plan in hand. i was even starting to see how maybe i could write comments in less than 10 minutes. still the thought of teaching classes back to back was a little un-nerving. my lesson planning was still taking forever. at this rate i feared i'd be spending all my waking hours trying to plan my classes.

this last day of training was a very sad day, as well. no, not because i was sad to be leaving okayama (though i was - i like cities). not because i was sad to part ways with weird jeremy. but because my venus de milo pen finally kicked the bucket. *sigh*

how to teach: a crash course

orientation

when i first arrived i was given a huge packet of information. maps, directions, my key, and a train ticket to my orientation. on the monday following my arrival i headed to okayama for orientation. i managed to take the right train *and* find the school without too much difficulty.

the big question on my mind at this point was "how soon can i transfer to a city?". webber, our orientator, said it would be possible after my probationary period was over (2 months). i wasn't convinced, but there was so much information being thrown at us that i didn't have time to care.

the highlight of our orientation was the free meal - webber took us all out to some pizza place. not your average american pizza, but still recognizable. after dinner we were sent home, which seemed a little pointless to me, since i was supposed to come back the next day to begin my 3 day training.

when i got back to my place natasha was back from work eating her dinner. i made myself a little snack and was pleased to be told that CSI was going to be on - IN ENGLISH - and that it was on almost every monday night. i also learned that on saturday there was often an english movie on tv.

training - day one


the next day i was back in okayama. i had read in my guidebook that there was a kaitenzushi (rotating sushi bar) place near the school, so i made it my first mission to find this place. when i finally did, i took a seat at the counter and tried to watch and learn. when i still couldn't figure out how to get tea, an old woman sitting near me decided to educate me. she didn't speak a word of english, but she got me up to speed quickly. the tea bags were on the counter along with tea cups. all along the countertop were spigots which poured out the hot water. chopsticks. ginger. et voila.

i was really quite amused by the whole experience. watching and waiting for the plate of sushi i wanted. trying to match plates to pictures on the menu to words in my phrase book so i would know what i was eating. my only disappointment was the tako, octopus. yuk. at the end your plates are counted up and priced by color. easy, fun, and cheap.

still loaded down with my overnight bag i went straight to the school to begin my training. our class consisted of only myself and one other boy, jeremy. there was a lot of talk to start with, the sequence of nova lessons, the levels of students, and the timing of the class. we started by planning a couple of role plays and before we knew it we were thrown in to teach part of a class.

my first class went mostly as planned, i was able to guide the students in the role play and scribble a few notes about their efforts. my second class didn't go as well. my role play was planned for 3 characters, but only 1 student had shown up for the class. i got a little panicky and flabbergasted. but i got through it.

my training partner, jeremy, wasn't much of a talker, so i managed to fill in for him. i went on and on about the fabulous kaitenzushi place i had eaten lunch. and after talking it up so much, we decided to go there on our dinner break. only this time *i* was the one doing the educating.

after a long first day i was ready to pass out in my little hotel room. but before i could sleep i had more sample lessons to plan....

next time, training continues

exploring marugame

before natasha left for her trip she explained to me how to get to the nova branch in marugame. she even drew me a map. and since it was such a beautiful day, warm and sunny on the first of november, i was excited for a walk. later in the evening some of the nova teachers would be meeting at a restaurant called bamiyan near the school, if i wanted to meet them. i set out with my shoulder bag and my sunglasses.

i managed to weave my way through the center of marugame and find the long, rice paddy lined road that would lead me out to nova. i kept walking. and walking. i came across a drink vending machine and bought myself some sort of green tea drink. and i kept walking. and walking. almost positive at this point that i had missed some of the landmarks natasha had described. but maybe not. so i kept walking.


eventually i saw the bright pink glow of the promise land - aeon town. compared to most of my walk, the large strip mall was like the big city. there was a restaurant (bamiyan), a 100 yen store, a pharmacy, a discount store, a supermarket, a video arcade, a book store, and of course - a nova english school. i felt relieved to have actually found the school, one less thing to worry about on my first day of actual work. but i headed straight for the max valu supermarket (food excites me) - which made the marunaka supermarket i had gone to the day before look like a farm stand.

inside the massive (and air-conditioned) store was every food i could imagine and thousands more i could not. i wandered the aisles for a good hour or so. i found rice - which i hadn't been able to find at the marunaka (not that it wasn't there, mind you, i just couldn't find it in my weakened state) - and a few other little things. after i made my purchases i sat on the bench outside trying to plan my next move.

it seemed too early yet to hang around and wait for the other teachers to finish work. so i opted to walk home with my purchases while the sun still shone and perhaps borrow the extra bike to come back in the evening. so i started walking. (can you see where this is going?) and walking. and eventually started getting really tired of lugging that 2kg bag of rice. but i trudged on. now that i was certain i hadn't passed any landmarks though, i didn't have the fear of being lost.

by the time i reached the town center i was feeling confident in my sense of direction. it hadn't steered me wrong yet. and i felt certain that there was a more direct root back to the flat than the one i had taken. so i walked. and walked. then i was starting to feel like maybe i didn't know where i was going...

it was getting darker. my arms were tired of carrying the rice. as i passed a random beer vending machine i stopped to make a purchase, feeling that i would want a beer when i got back. if i got back... i found myself near the river, which i was certain was near my flat. so i followed it for a ways.

followed it until a wild dog started barking at me and following me. and then 10 of his closest friends followed suit. needless to say i was scared to death, trying to put on a cool face, telling them to go home (do stray japanese dogs understand english commands?), envisioning having to tell people that i was mauled by wild dogs on my 3rd day in japan (and they say japan is so safe!).


after getting myself away from the dogs i decided that maybe i was wrong about the river. or maybe it was a different river. so i headed up the next main looking road i found. but following this road was actually taking me *farther* from where i wanted to be. eventually i found the raised tracks of the local train - which i was certain there was only one of - and i followed them home.

i plopped my exhausted self down on the little sofa and cracked open a beer. when i had finished the beer i went to the kitchen to cook myself one of my favorite comfort foods - rice. then i settled in to watch the ninth gate, knowing full well that there was no way in hell i was trekking out there again today.

food quest

yes, it has been too long since i last posted. i won't bore you with my excuses, suffice to say i've been pre-occupied. i hope you are finding all this interesting, it is fun for me to write about my time in japan. it brings back a lot of memories. well, on with the story.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
sitting in my flat in marugame, trying to take it all in, i realized that i had not actually eaten for 24 hours. i had a beer at my hotel the night before. i had tea in my hotel room that morning. and since then, nothing. very unlike me. so with natasha gone to work and the sun shining outside i was ready for a trip to the grocery store.

it was very easy to find the marunaka, it was a right hand turn off our road, just like natasha said. still feeling a little spacy i grabbed a shopping basket and began to shop. perhaps shop is too strong a word... really i just wandered. for about an hour. i walked up and down the aisles, looking for items i recognized. i repeatedly hit my head on low-hanging signs by the refrigerator cases. i was examined by the locals.

eventually i came away with soba noodles (i had been eating those in the US for months), instant miso soup (something else i had purchased in the asian market at home), some green tea bags, yogurt, orange juice, a package of mushrooms, a carrot, and a tray of maki rolls.


i returned to my flat and devoured my maki rolls. and though it was about 5 o'clock in the evening i decided a nap was in order. i curled up on my futon and napped for a good 3 hours until i was jolted awake by the doorbell. there stood a man with a clipboard and my luggage. he pointed out where i was to sign and i dragged my bags inside.

about an hour later i had unpacked most of my things and arranged them in my room. even then my room looked very bare - the only things in it were my futon and a small set of drawers. everything else was in the closet. i had started making a list of things i needed when natasha came home. she cooked herself dinner and we sat chatting for most of the evening.

after natasha went to bed i sat up and wrote for a while. i was feeling a little apprehensive after what she had told me about the area. she said it was a very small town and there wasn't a lot to do. that i would most definitely need a bike to get around. and she was leaving after 3 months becuase, obviously, she didn't like the job. my mind was racing, i was considering requesting a transfer immediately (i did state that my preference was for a large city) or if i found out that it would be impossible to get to work without a bike.

when i finished writing, i closed my journal and stretched out on my futon. only now, i wasn't tired at all.

working up the nerve

exiting the hotel in dotonbori i noticed the large easter island looking statues that flanked the door. how could i have missed those on the way in? clearly i wasn't at my most perceptive after 15 hours in the air and not much sleep. i turned right and started exploring the well lit streets.

my first thought was that this area looked... seedy? the lights were so bright and the locals mostly men, a few couples. a car drove by with two japanese men inside. "hello, hello!" shouted one of the men. which was strangely comforting. comforting in that it is familiar, the international pickup line of foreign men to english speaking women. i offered my familiar response to this line: feigned deafness.


dotonbori
i looked at a couple of restaurants. i admired the plastic models of the food offered. i caught some glorious whiffs of unidentified street food. but in the end i couldn't work up the nerve to actually try to get some of it. with my yen burning a hole in my pocket, i went back to my hotel. there i bought a large can of asahi beer from the vending machine and sat in my room watching a clippers/sonics basketball game on tv, with japanese commentary.

i managed to sleep a bit, until about 2:30 am. after that i was awake and restless until about 7 am, when i manged to fall asleep for another 2 hours. though i wasn't feeling very rested, and i had set my alarm for 10 o'clock, i decided to get up and start getting ready for our 11 o'clock departure from the hotel. as i made myself a cup of green tea i noticed that my clock and the room clock were not the same time... i started to panic a little. i packed up my stuff and headed down to the lobby. everyone else was waiting there, chatting in small groups. i was the last person to check out.

the people who were staying in osaka were off to be shown their apartments. the rest of us headed to the subway with our nova guide. from there we boarded the shinkansen, without our guide, and were told where to get off and switch trains. seemed simple enough, i have taken many trains in my travels. but i still missed my connection because i was unsure which train to take, what platform i should be on... eventually i figured it out and took the next train to marugame, where i was met by my flatmate, natasha.

natasha walked her bike as i lugged my bag. she explained the lay of the land - the 100 yen store, the supermarket, the bank. after 15 minutes or so we arrived at our building and took the elevator to the sixth floor. the apartment was larger than i had expected (i had been told many times how small things would be), with a large main room and small kitchen with three bedrooms, one too small for habitation and therefore used as a closet.

the living room

my room and balcony door

after showing me around (which took about a minute and a half) natasha had to leave for work. i flipped on the tv and zoned out a little on the loveseat. i considered trying to find the town offices to get my alien registration card. but i realized that would mean finding a photo booth first and then figuring out japanese forms... i decided i should leave that for another day, when i was not spaced-out and jet-lagged. good plan.

here goes nothing...

so i spent my last evening at home trying to watch all of down with love, even though i knew i had to wake up at 5:30am to leave for the airport. it actually seems to be a pattern of mine, trying to get in as much "movie" as i can before leaving the country. i did it before going abroad for a semester (great expectations), and before traveling in france and italy (rising sun). on this particular night i was unsuccessful. i fell asleep on the couch in the middle of the movie and dragged myself up to my bed at 3am.

the next morning after tearful goodbyes to my family i boarded my flight, first to detroit, then on to osaka. i had a two seat row all to myself, and hoped to get some sleep during the "night" portion of the flight. but until then i slipped off my shoes and cozied in for some in-flight entertainment. i was very excited to see that one of the movie options was down with love! i also got to see the italian job. so after 2 movies and a decent dinner (by airplane food standards) it really hit me. 14 hours is a very.... long..... flight.....

i was able to doze a little after dinner, since i had hardly slept the night before. i read some of my japan guide, all about the kagawa region where i would be living, some history, some culture. i flipped through my japanese phrasebook trying to imagine which phrases i might need upon arrival. for a while i chatted with a few guys around me, all on their way to teach at nova as well, one downing sake like it was going out of style. i dozed some more. eventually we arrived in japan.


osaka, japan
the other new nova teachers and i managed to find our luggage, navigate customs, and locate a man holding a nova sign. he led us to the end of the terminal where there were more future teachers hanging about looking tired and a little lost. our names were checked off a list as we left our bags to be delivered to our respective apartments within 2 days. for another hour or so i sat on the floor looking over all the papers and booklets i had been given. finally we were shuttled onto a bus and brought to our hotel in dotonburi.

after dropping my remaining bag on the floor of my room and sitting on the bed for a while i went back down to the lobby to use the internet. i sent a slightly frazzled e-mail to my parents and set out into the night to find something to appease my grumbling tummy.

continued next week...

the other side of the planet

my great france and italy trip in the spring of 2003 came after a 5 month contract that was leading nowhere. i decided that since i had nothing holding me back - no rent/mortgage, no car payment, no full time job - it was the ideal time to make the trip. and it most definitely was. however. i never imagined my job search post-france-and-italy would be 3 times harder than the pre-france-and-italy one.

naturally i took it easy after arriving home. i watched soaps, sat in the sun with the dog, and cooked. but after a couple of months i started to run out of money. and i started to think about finding work. plus after not really doing anything or having any museums or historical sites to see, i was getting bored.

my father knew someone at his company who was looking to hire some junior level database admins, people to be trained to take over for the experienced dba's when they moved on to bigger and better things. so with my computer science background, some basic database experience, and an inside connection i managed to get a phone interview.

and then i waited. and waited. for this manager to call me back. my father's contact said i was a good candidate and would almost certainly get the job. but still i waited. and nothing. i started thinking about moving to hawaii, living in a small shack on the beach, and working at some technology company. i often have this fantasy when i read a trip to the stars, by nicholas christopher, which i have done 5 times. i even applied for a job in hawaii, though never really expected anything to come of it.

"i just feel like something else is in store for me, that this is not how things are supposed to be for me. i'm craving something else. something different and new and exciting. something else..."

disappointed, i started contemplating other careers. i started thinking about getting back into dancing, maybe auditioning for disney in the fall. i thought it would be fun to be a travel agent (my nana already thought i was hers), i could study to do that and talk about travel all day. i started looking at some crappy jobs, just to get some cash. i applied for an answering service job, and even starbucks. but i never heard back from anyone.

then i finally got a call from a headhunter, he had this junior web developer job. only a 6 month contract, but i thought as long as i don't go to europe at the end of the contract i should be in good shape. i was excited, but again i was left without a response, positive or negative...

until one day in august i saw a posting on monster.com for english teachers in japan. how it ended up in my technology keyword job search, i will never know. but as i read the job description i became more and more animated. they wanted to know if i had a passport, had i traveled internationally before (why, yes...), did i have any teaching or tutoring experience (well, sort of...). the more i read, the more i felt this was the perfect job for me. i applied right then and there.

things moved quickly after that. i received a letter saying my profile was a match for what they were looking for. i was asked to come down to boston for an "informational interview". and then i was offered the job. i had a job. I HAD A JOB! on the other side of the planet, but a job no less.

i discovered the joy that is temping, allowing me to work menial jobs that i could leave at any time. i managed to save up enough money to cover my flight. i started planning and packing and preparing. i was alternately thrilled and terrified by what lay ahead of me. and by the end of october i was making my final preparations for the adventure of a lifetime...

next time, the journey.