Less than a month to go.  I can’t believe it’s been almost a year in Japan.  So what’s been going on the past couple weeks?  Not too much.  I’ve finished up all my lessons and today was my last day at my visit school so I said my goodbyes.  On a side note, I suck at goodbyes.  I always feel so awkward and I don’t really know what to say.  Anyhow, last week one of the English teachers at my visit school said that the English staff wanted to get me a going away present and asked what I wanted.  The first thing that popped into my head was the school track suit.  I picked the red one because it’s the colour my first-years wear.  I didn’t realize there wasn’t anything indicating that it’s from Miyashiro but it doesn’t matter. 

I also heard from the university and I got in, as most, if not all, of you readers already know.   I’m really excited about going back to school and meeting new people and everything.  I’m a little worried that I’ll be the oldest person there.  A 24-year-old in a class of 19- and 20-year-olds.  Should be fun I hope.

I’ve been a little stressed out thinking about all the stuff I need to get done before I leave and it doesn’t help that I have plans for 3 of the 4 remaining weekends. 

I need a vacation.

How time flies… 

School
After tomorrow I only have 2 weeks of classes left.  I’ve already had my final lesson with a few of the classes at Sugito but I didn’t really care to tell them it was my last class.  They probably wouldn’t have cared to hear it.  Although I did mention it to one group of students as they were leaving the class because they said, “See you again!”  And I said, “See you… oh wait.  This is my last class with you.  So I won’t see you again.”  “Why?”  “I’m going back to Canada at the end of July.”  “Why?”  “…”  Then the Japanese teacher cut in and told the story of me going back for school.  Whenever people here ask me why I’m not staying and I tell them that I’m going back to try to do pharmacy, it always feels like I’m giving an excuse.  I don’t know why but it just does.   I won’t miss teaching but I’ll miss (some of) the students. 

Nagano
Last weekend was the spring/summer ALT soccer tournament and once again, our crappy Saitama Dasai team made an appearance.  Prior to the last tournament in September, the Dasai had never scored a goal.  That sort of changed in September when we managed to force one of the teams to score on themselves.  This time we were looking to score for real.  Once again, we lost all 5 games we played but gave up significantly less goals than last time.  The scores were 0-5, 1-2, 0-3, 0-7 and 1-3.  That’s right, we scored TWO goals!  We also managed 2 own-goals, which was kind of disappointing.  The highlight/lowlight of the trip was the onsen.  Apparently of the 4 rooms reserved for the guys team, I stayed in the only Japanese style one so we didn’t have a shower in our room.   It would mean I would have to try the Japanese onsen.  Since it’s same-sex, it’s a really gay experience and I don’t understand why people enjoy it.   So, I entered the outer area where you basically strip naked, and it smelled like… ass.   Then you go through the doors into the shower area.  It was really crowed so there was basically a line of naked dudes waiting for a stool to free up so they can wash themselves before jumping into a hot tub of more naked dudes.  So there I was shielding my area from sight with my hands, while trying to keep my eyes away from dudes, yet still keeping an eye out for a free stool.  What I will say, is that the onsen (or hot tub) is really good for soothing the soreness and aches from soccer.  But you can’t do it with pants on?  Seriously?  Afterwards I was walking out (clothed) with a teammate and I said, “That was really gay.  I don’t see how people can like that.”  He was like, “Oh, was that your first time?  It’s not usually that crowded.  That was disgusting.  Like a roman bath.”  At least I can say I’ve tried the Japanese onsen.  And I don’t like it.

Pharmacy
I should hear from them by next weekend I think.  It’s kind of bad because somehow I’ve gone from being pessimistic/realistic in thinking that I might not get in, to being optimistic/almost over-confident and expecting that I’ll get in.  It could be from everyone asking what I’m going to be doing when I go home and I tell them I’m going to go back to university for pharmacy.  I’ve said it so much that I’ve started to believe that’s what I’ll be doing.  It’ll really suck if I don’t get in, after telling so many people that that’s my plan after I go back.  And once again, I have no backup plan.  Just like when I applied for the JET programme.  Let’s hope this pharmacy thing follows suit and I won’t need a backup plan. 

I’ve been counting the days until my return to Toronto.  I have most of my remaining weekends planned out.  I’ve started sorting out what I need to pack/sell/do before I go… sort of.   Well, at least I’ve started to read about what I should be doing to get ready to go home. 

With a month of classes left, 10 months into the job (2 months with the new students), I feel I’m finally starting to connect with some of the students.  It’s great at my visiting school where the kids actually have some English ability and I can sort of understand what they’re saying.  Unlike at my base school where they speak to me in Japanese and give up when I don’t understand.  I think the problem with the first 9.5 months was the ambiguity of my job.  I’m a teacher but not really.  I didn’t know if it was appropriate to be hanging out with the students.  Then again, I’m not a real teacher and it would be good for the students to have to try to communicate in English.  So what changed?  I started not to care any more.  It’s the end of the year, what are they going to do?  In a society where people are so focused on outward appearances and other peoples’ opinions, I’ve started to learn not to care what others think.  Had I known this earlier, I think my year would have been more enjoyable and less stressful.  But better late than never, right? 

This weekend is the Nagano ALT soccer tournament.  Thinking about it, I don’t really enjoy playing soccer than much.  There’s just nothing about it that makes me feel anything for it.  Like there’s a feeling you get when a basketball is released from your fingertips and you hear the “swish” through the hoop.  Or the feeling you get in karate class when you learn/see something you’ve never seen before.  Or score a point when you’re sparring.  Or the feeling of striking a golf ball well and watching it fly away.  Even in volleyball, which I don’t play often, the feeling of spiking the ball or getting a block.  In soccer, kicking the ball or even scoring a goal is like, as John would say, “meh.”  I play soccer for the exercise and for socializing. 

Teaching
Exactly 9 weeks till I’ll be back home.  I think it’s sort of changed my outlook on things now that there are only two months left.  Even since April, the start of the new school year, I went into it with a different mentality.  I have so few lessons with each class so why not just have fun with the kids.  It’s not like I can actually teach them anything really.  Their level is so low that it’s most beneficial just to get them used to hearing English much less have to use it.  I used to get stressed if I couldn’t get through my whole lesson (feeling pressured by the JTE) but now I could really care less.  I would rather the kids retain 80% of the shortened lesson than 25% of the entire rushed lesson.  If I could speak Japanese and if we didn’t have to teach with a JTE I think it would be so much fun. 

Sports Day
Today was Sports Day at my base school.  I’ll upload pictures to Facebook soon.  Basically they had a bunch of events like the 100m, 1000m for girls, 1500m for boys, an obstacle race (consisting of running a bit, doing 2 somersaults, running some more, crawling under a net, more running, grabbing a snack hanging from a pole with your teeth, then running to the finish line), 4×100m relay, a typhoon relay, “centipede relay”, tug-o-war and jump rope.  It was really entertaining to watch but the weather wasn’t great.   The teachers took part in a few events so I did the 4×100m relay with them.  We ended up having 8 people because they didn’t feel like running the full 100m so each teacher ran 50m.  We finished last.  It was kind of funny because the guy that was supposed to pass me the baton ended up just running past me like 10m and he had to turn back when everyone was yelling.
Before the race, one of the teachers said to me, “warming up,” which I took to mean as, “you should start warming up.”  It reminded me of HIMYM where Barney says, “you don’t train for a marathon, you just run it.”  I stretched a little, sprinted my 50m, and thought, “wow, I’m not even breathing hard or sweating or anything.”  So I failed to stretch afterwards.  I got home and sat down in front of the computer.  Five minutes later I tried to get up and my quads were cramping like crazy!  Hahaha.  My first thought was, “WOW! It’s Barney-syndrome,” where his legs didn’t work after the marathon.  Lesson learned.

Weekends
9 weekends left and I think I’ve made plans for about half of them.  It’s still kind of hard to get out on weekends with the weather being the way it is and it won’t get any better as June is tsuyu or the rainy season.  It rains pretty much everyday for a month, so I’ve heard. 

Pharmacy
One more month until I hear from them.  *Fingers crossed*

At my visit school, one of the teachers sometimes leaves these English newspapers on my desk.  The name of the newspaper/magazine is ST and I think it’s part of the Japan Times.  It’s just short blurbs about what’s going on in Japan and around the world, in easy English.  I find a lot of the stories really funny but it could just be because I’ve been funny-deprived and my sensitivity to funny is hightened.  Here I’ll post a few of the stories. 

 Nothing beats a good mascot
In 2007, almost 850,000 people went to Hikone Castle in Shiga Prefecture.  THat was 61 percent more than in 2006.  One reason for this was the castle’s new popular mascot, a chubby cat called Hikonyan.  Hikonyan was created for the 400th anniversary of the castle. 
But not all mascots have been popular with everyone.
A mascot was created for the 1,300th anniversary of when Nara became Japan’s capital.  He was called Sentokun.  The mascot is a young Buddha-like boy with antlers on his head.  Some people said he was not cute.  Others said the image was disrespectful to Buddha. 
The mascot Marimokkori from Hokkaido has become very popular and has helped businesses in Hokkaido.  But in the beginning, there were complaints.  Many shops said they would not sell souvenirs of Marimokkori.
The mascot represents “marimo” algae found in Lake Akan and “mokkori,” which means swelling of the male groin.
Now there are more than 500 different types of Mokkori characters, including Tokyo Tower Mokkori and Hakata Mentaiko Mokkori.  
(The Japan Times)

Police let kerosene-soaked man smoke
A 45-year old man in Nagoya was taken into custody May 10 after complaints that he was acting violently.  Having poured kerosene over himself, he refused to change his clothes and asked to smoke during questioning at the police station.  Despite a no-smoking rule, the police gave him a cigarette and he quickly turned into a fireball and died.  (Kyodo news)

The next few were published under the heading “Strange news”:

Darth Vader attacks Jedis in Wales
A man in Wales dressed up as Darth Vader from the “Star Wars” films and assaulted members of the Church of Jediism, hitting its founder on the head with a metal crutch.  The Church of Jediism has about 30 members and they say they use the “Star Wars” films as a guide to living a better life.  Jediism is the faith followed by some of the characters in the “Star Wars” films.  (Reuters)

Driver puts seatbelt on beer, not child
An Australian driver has been fined for driving with a five-year-old child without putting a seatbelt on the child.  Instead he put the seatbelt around a carton of beer.  (Reuters)

Man told money would double if soaked
A Vietnamese man in Norway lost 180,000 kroner (3.7 million yen (or about $370,000CDN)) after a Frenchman persuaded him that soaking the cash in a “special liquid” would double the value of the cash.  The Frenchman then stole the cash.  (AFP-Jiji)

This is the kind of news I am up to date on. 

You know how some people say they’re going to take a year off from whatever it is they’re doing so they can travel and “find themselves”?  I never really understood what they’d be finding or how they’d go about finding it.  In my 42 weeks here thus far, I’ve had a lot of time to think and reflect and in hindsight, I do think that I’ve found a new part of myself.  Eric version 1.1, if you will.  Here are some of the upgrades:

Public speaking: I used to get super nervous when speaking in front of large groups of people.  I had no idea how I was going to manage to teach classes of close to 30 teenagers without turning beet-red throughout the whole class.  Somehow, the redness never, or rarely, appeared in class.  Maybe it’s because I knew none of them could understand what I was saying.  Also, I was never really good at meeting new people but once you’re over here, you have to or else you’ll be pretty lonely.  Then again, everyone is in the same boat so it’s rather easy to strike up a conversation and such. 

Housework, etc.: Well, before I came over, I had a limited skill set in the kitchen.  Cooking rice, pasta, potatoes and eggs were easy.  Now I’ve expanded into meats and fish, and vegetables.  It’s nothing really fancy or anything but it’s edible.  You can live on prepared bento boxes and such for about $5 a meal but it’s lacking in nutrition in my opinion.  And it doesn’t have the ingredient of love that a homecooked meal does.  Hahaha.  As for laundry, I can do it over here because all you need to do is push one button and throw detergent in.  There aren’t any settings you can play with.  When living on your own and there’s something that needs to be done, you have to do it.  There’s no one else that will do it for you, or even help you do it.  (This is where a girlfriend would come in handy.  hahaha)

The future: Somehow I managed to decide that I wanted to go into pharmacy.  It’s another 4 years of school but I’m excited to be able to go back and do undergrad over again.  I just wish I had realized what I wanted before finishing my first undergrad.  Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have been mature enough to appreciate it.  But one thing that hasn’t been upgraded is my tendency to put all my eggs in one basket.  There’s never a backup plan.  If I didn’t get into the JET programme, what would I have done?  Try to find a job most likely.  What if I don’t get into pharmacy?  I’ll have to find a job most likely.  How do I find a job with pretty much no experience in the field?  It’s pretty hard to get experience if you need experience to get it.  Get it?

Randoms: In my mind I wanted to hit a target weight of 160lbs.  I was about 153 when I first came over but after about 6 months of all the biking and walking and eating, I’ve reached my target.  I don’t think I’ve necessarily gotten fatter since I’ve lost a notch on my belt (or maybe I just wear my pants higher over here).  Also, I’ve recently noticed that I’ve been needing to shave like every other day, and it’s getting close to being every day.   Used to be like once a week when I was first here.  It must be something in the water.  Steroids or something.  I’ve also developed like permanent bags under my eyes due to lack of sleep.  During the week I usually get between 6-7 hours of sleep a night, whereas back home I used to get like 8 consistently.  Even on weekends, I go to bed later but my body clock wakes me up after like 7 hours.  Hopefully the bags will disappear once I return. 

 Time to sleep.   

  Marié advertised her online concert a while ago in one of her YouTube vlogs, or maybe it was on her Facebook fan page, but in any case, I sort of ignored it because I figured you had to buy a ticket and I thought it might be playing at a weird time in my timezone.  Well, yesterday I checked it out out of curiosity and it was conveniently accessible through Facebook.  With a click of a button, I had a free ticket to the concert. 

  The concert itself was really cool.  The high bandwidth camera was much better than the low bandwidth one and the had a place where you could write comments and give e-kisses, roses, claps and the like.  I would post comments and then wait with my finger over the print screen button if they showed up.  They never did.  So I’m a little skeptical as to whether those comments were real.  I was seeing the same usernames show up over and over again. 
  The singing was great.  She’s one of those singers that sound better raw and unproduced.  Like Jason Mraz.  Her CD is good because most songs aren’t really “done up” but it’s still not as good as her live performances. 

  Why am I blogging about this concert?  Because she mentioned she spends a significant amount of time on the internet and sometimes googles herself to see what fans thought of her concerts.  So I’m hoping to see an anonymous Marié comment.  But anonymous or not, I wouldn’t know if it were her.  The joys of the internet.

  Oh, and someone asked if she spoke Japanese and she did.  Surprisingly fluently actually.  And I understood about 75% of what she said so I pat myself on the back.

Hahahaha… I’m in the middle of watching AI and after David Cook’s first performance Paula said, “You’re now my second favourite person to sing that song.”  Then they show Cook’s dad with a puzzled look on his face and you can see him mouth, “Who’s the first?”  Roberta Flack, obviously.  What a joker.

Well, almost official.  I’ve booked my one-way ticket home for July 31st so all that’s left to do is pay for it and tie up all the loose ends before I fly out.  

 Warning: Rambling ahead.  Skip to the last paragraph if you’re not really bored.

 I’ve been here almost nine and a half months and looking back, I’ve done a lot of stuff but not nine months worth of stuff, if you know what I mean.  Like I didn’t use every minute of my free time doing something that I’d only be able to do in Japan.  Over the months, I’ve been asked many times, “How’s Japan?” and “Do you like Japan?”  My response is always, “Ehhhh…. (while I think it over) it’s okay.”    Most of the time it comes across as though I hate Japan and I just want to go home.  It’s partially true that I do want to go home.  But after really thinking about it, it’s not Japan that I don’t like, it’s my situation in Japan.  The fact that it takes a 10-minute bike plus a 5-minute walk to just get to the train station usually makes me not want to go anywhere.  And then there’s the weather, which is like a bajillion times more noticeable when you’re on a bike than in a car (or even walking), that makes me want to stay in even more.  Yes, I’m relatively close to Tokyo but that’s compared to people living in Hokkaido.  It still takes me over an hour (on the train alone) to get into Tokyo.  Where am I going with this?  I don’t know.  I just think if I lived closer to a train station, or closer to the dojo, I’d be a happier camper.  

And then there’s the job.  At the one school, the kids are awesome, and they are comfortable enough to answer “NO!” when I ask, “Do you understand?”  At the other school, I have a bunch of kids that really don’t care much about learning English, and they have little to no English ability to begin with.  So what good is an Assistant Language Teacher who speaks only English?  If I could be at my awesome school five days a week, I’d probably be a happier camper as well. 

The food here is pretty good, although I’m still skeptical about how healthy it really is.  The train system is great, but it’s a little expensive.  The people are really nice (but I’ve been told by a Japanese friend who’s lived in Toronto that she thinks people in Toronto are nicer), but I can’t understand them.   

If I had the chance to do things differently, I would have definitely looked into learning Japanese before coming over here.  Do I regret coming to Japan?  No.  Do I wish things were different?  Yes.  Will I make the most of my last few months here?  Probably not.  I’m excited to come home.   The countdown begins.

School
It feels like it’s been forever since I last blogged but it’s only been a week.  There was even a holiday on Tuesday to break up the week so I can’t imagine what it would have been like working all five days.  As usual, I struggled through my lessons at my base school and had an awesome time the one day I was at my visit school this week.  I enjoy being at my visit school so much that I felt robbed when one of my classes had to be cut short by like 10 minutes because the kids had to do an eye exam.  And it just happened to be my favourite class too (which is why I felt robbed I guess).  Nine months into the job and I still can’t figure out why my lessons suck at my base school but are awesome (or at least decent) at my visit school (I have my theories, though…). 

The long weekend
We have a 4-day weekend this weekend, which the Japanese call Golden Week.  Last week I was looking into going to Kyoto but hotel prices are really expensive during Golden Week and I was pretty sure they’d be booked solid.  Instead, I’m probably going to go to Nikko for a day to see the shrines and temples. 

American Idol
Down to the final 4.  I’m glad that Brooke is finally gone.  At first, I didn’t like her because she was kind of awkward.  Then she started to grow on me and she sounded kind of cool.  Then after a couple weeks she became annoying.   Syesha’s pretty annoying too.  David Cook usually sounds pretty good but he comes across as cocky, at least to me.  Castro always sounds so mellow but it’s kind of weak.  I don’t mind him though.  Archuleta for the win!  His song selection is rather cheesy but he can sing. 

THE HEAT…
My god the heat!  It’s not even as hot as it was in summer when I got here, but it’s getting there.  I was in a T-shirt and jeans and I was sweating and the Japanese men in their suits looked cool as cucumbers.  I dunno what their secret is but they never seem to sweat.  If it’s already in the mid-20s at the beginning of May, I’m not looking forward to July.