Howdy!

You know, I�ve been noticing a lot of disturbing trends against privacy these days. Besides the Patriot Act, there�s these damn RFID things (which they�re going to be putting in our passports), and did you know they�re going to start tracking us using our cell phones now (you can bet the Justice Department wants in on THAT action)? Oh, and Sony is now clandestinely installing malware on our computers. This is all starting to freak me out, but I�m not sure what to do about it. As with so many other things, I feel like most people don�t really care, and won�t care until we�re already irrevocably fucked.

Anyway, let�s talk about me! Last Wednesday I went on a picnic with the first and second graders. Thursday was a holiday, but I did some songs on guitar at the town�s cultural festival. Friday I did a lesson on North Korea with my high school kids, and then after school we got together to make California rolls and nikujaga (which is kind of a meat and potatoes stew kind of thing) according to instructions in their English conversation book. I had a cold, so I didn�t help; I just gave orders.

Yes, that is what they pay me for. When I�m not surfing the internet or traveling the world, I go on picnics, play guitar, and force teenagers to look at pictures of my vacations before they have to make me dinner. Eh. It�s a living.

Though I feel like my time here is already drawing to a close. My first year here was lovely in that for the first time in my life since early childhood, if even then, I was perfectly content to be where I was and I wasn�t chomping at the bit to move on to the next thing. I wasn�t really even thinking about what would come next. But that�s not the case now that I�m busily toiling away on grad school applications, already pondering how I will get all my stuff back to the U.S. and how WTF will fit into my post-JET world.

I think I will be really sad to leave this place. I really love it here. Over the weekend was the town�s yearly festival, and it was odd, because I really got a feeling like I was actually part of the community. I felt like I�d been accepted into the group, in a way. I never dreamed I�d experience such a feeling in Japan. But everyone here knows me, everyone is happy to see me, and I know most of their faces and a lot of the names (especially the kids). This is partly just because I�m a gaijin; I�m noticeable because I�m obviously different and because Japanese culture has glamorized and romanticized my physical features to the point that for many people it�s impossible to interact with me as a human being. But it�s not just that. Not only do they all know me, they all know each other. It�s that kind of town. I think I kind of like that. It can be annoying when everyone seems to know (or think they know) your business, which goes double when you�re the token foreigner, but fortunately I�ve mastered the art of doing what I will do without worrying what the neighbors will think. All in all I have been and continue to be quite happy here.

I won�t stay, though. Even if I get rejected at every school I apply to, I won�t stay another year. In January the town is merging administratively with the Bigger City that�s closest to it on the mainland. At that time I will become an employee of the Bigger City Board of Education. In March the high school on the Rock will close its doors for good when the last five students graduate. (After that I�ll have to start going to the mainland on Fridays to teach the whole day at Bigger City middle schools. Right now I have a half day on Fridays.) It�s just not going to be the same place anymore. I feel like I�ve come here at the end of an era. In another three years or so the bridge to the mainland will be finished, and then the transformation will be complete. I know that if I stay here too much longer, it will spoil.

That little girl (she�s eight now) who first started coming to my English conversation class is a busy little thing. Besides studying English, she plays piano (surprisingly well) and does yosakoi dancing and taiko drumming. Her mother says she does it all of her own initiative, and I believe her. I�ve grown quite fond of the kid, like she�s the niece I don�t have. Her mother seems to have decided that it�s her job to take care of me, in between asking me appallingly personal questions about my relationship with WTF. (I guess that�s what I get for bringing her around here.)

I�m tuckered out. I spent most of the weekend playing tag�

This may seem like a weird thing to say, but, after having spent so much time working with children and adolescents the past couple of years, I feel like, were I to be married, that I�d be ready for children whenever my wife wanted them. I know as well as any teacher how aggravating kids can be, but I�m really looking forward to fatherhood, actually. I would not look forward to a career of teaching adolescents, however.

Peyote, huh?

Oh yeah. The Cancerous Ex is, miraculously, back from the dead. I know how worried you were. It turns out that when he took the drugs to kill himself, he did not die but instead entered a dream state, where WTF�s grandmother came and spoke to him about her. (WTF�s grandmother is not dead, either, incidentally.) He says he has a great many important things that he needs to tell her. She continues to ignore him.

I�ve been spending a lot of time with Wikipedia lately. The other day I was reading the article about the English civil war and found this sentence: �Two large historical societies exist, The Sealed Knot and The English Civil War Society, which regularly re-enact events and battles of the Civil War in full period costume because they are douchebags.� It seems to have been corrected now, but that was pretty funny.

I seem to have lost interest in forex the time being.

If you haven�t seen them, some of my Yakushima pictures are here.

And remember, think of the Domo-kuns!

i don�t care if you don�t care,

greyarea

Diaryland