We're Getting Married!

I've never been known for my subtlity. :D Grin.

Here's the story for all who've asked:

Tuesday, being Vernal Equinox and a national holiday here, Tom and I spent the day exploring Hikone Castle. It was a short shinkansen trip south to Nagoya and a messy train ride from there to enjoy the only one of the four best castles in Japan that we'd not seen (the other three are Matsumoto, Himeji, and either Hirosaki or Inuyama depending on the resource). It was a cloudy day and the castle wasn't our favorite ever (no demon blossoms!) and I was just kind of going with the flow. After we did a lap around the garden pond and arrived at the ancient teahouse, I was a bit amazed at Tom's dissappointment that there were "no tables". Little did I know that that was where he'd planned to propose... I was just enjoying the view, the green tea, and the sweets (so much that I dropped it right into my lap, covering myself in green powder right on the fly of my jeans... lovely, eh?). Probably okay that he waited.

We wandered back to the train station when we ran out of things to do, to Tom's further dissappointment. I fell asleep on the boring train ride back to Nagoya and therefore met his suggestions that we head to the surely stunning restaurants on the fifty or fifty-first floors with non-committal "whatever"s. Poor guy! We went back to the hotel and then had dinner in a truly mediocre Asian restaurant with torches and creepy bathrooms.

Finally, back in the hotel room, we'd been chatting and drinking tea over convenience store deserts when he asked me to show him the photos I'd taken from the teahouse. A bit curious, I showed him and was a bit mystified when he plopped the camera down on the table. Then he started getting really nervous which made ME really nervous! :) He handed me a jewelry box but when I opened it there was a ceremic pig head he'd bought in China (pigs are one of our inside jokes). I think he thought I'd be all surprised but I totally expected that one. And he was just so nervous I knew something else was coming. I didn't expect the ring though, which is what he gave me next. Then, getting down on one knee... then the other... then both, he took my hand, put the ring on my finger and asked me if I'd marry him!

The rest was a blur of giggles and jumping up and down and hugs. We're engaged! We're going to get married! And we're both so, so, so happy!

I caught the shinkansen back to Tokyo and work the next morning at 6:55 am but still couldn't sleep even though we'd been up brainstorming most of the night. Unreal!

Now I'm still in shock but have been brought back to reality a touch as a begin to appreciate the immensity of planning this thing. I have No Idea how people make things like just picking a date and place look so darn easy. Honestly, no clue. We're currently thinking about Christmas/New Year's out west in the mountains (at a ski resort) or somewhere in Indiana. The first thought was Hawaii but it has only taken a couple days for me to realize how much more important it is for me to have the people I love around for the big day than it is to be warm.

Two Weeks?!?

Actually, not even. Just so you don't think I'm making this up here are the stats:

6 days of work (Last day is 3/28 and this Tuesday is a holiday)
1 more weekend in Tokyo
2 more weekends in Japan (total)
10 more days in my apartment (that's an overestimate, I want to move out this weekend, just not sure if I'll succeed).
2.5 weeks until I leave for China (not that I have tickets.

It's begining to sink in that I'm running out of time. It would help to have only moving, or only moving and Tibet, or even only moving, Tibet, and training Samantha to worry about. But no (let me just make this list to get it off my chest and then I'll try to stop being such a whiner); I need to:

Move out and get all my things to Tom's (across town with two train changes), the garbage, or the post office.
Wrap up "training" Samantha, my successor at school and complete my lessons/prep.
Plan, create, and host a run for my hash crew on 3/39 (currently only a vague idea and no restaurant reservation).
Clean my apartment and all the furniture/appliances going to the orphanage by this Sunday.
Cancel all my utilities, internet, & cell phone (mostly done).

Buy tickets to Chengdu, China and secure Chinese Visa.
Buy ticket to Indianapolis, one-way.
Spend 3/31-4/4 in Osaka visiting host families, friends, and Koya-san One Last Time.

Correspond with E*MU program advisors to figure out what classes I need to take before starting the teaching program so I can...
Register at I*UPUI for summer classes.

And on top of all that, my Econ final had the nerve to come this week. So without enough time to re-prepare, I spent almost three hours taking/hopefully not failing it. It must say "throw anything at me now, please?" in invisible-only-God-can-read print across my forehead.

hehehe.

With that off my chest let me take this opportunity to proclaim publicly my goals for the week.

a) finalize my tickets so I can stop worrying about them.
b) Clean
c) Stop focusing on all the unexpected problems and instead enjoy my last week and a half in Tokyo. The cherry blossoms are going to pop early- just for ME!!

I can't believe I'm leaving.

Arrr!

My pirate name is:

Red Mary Kidd

Passion is a big part of your life, which makes sense for a pirate. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Blowing off steam after a truly dismal Macro final.

For Brook

Because you asked so nicely, little brother. Don't know if this is what you imagined... but this is what I've got.

Farewell Yokohama

This weekend was full. Thursday night I enjoyed blowfish/pufferfish (how do we say it) with my private English student. It actually was the first time I've eaten fugu, a fish that if improperly prepared can be lethally toxic. It was tasty! I took photos with a disposable camera so I'll have to share them later. Friday night was our school combo farewell (me)/welcome (my replacement, among other new staff) party in Shinjuku. We were out singing karaoke until three am. Tomoko and I taxied to Tom's house to crash since it was both convenient and empty; Tom is in China (must add that he visited the wonderfully named town of Wu Hu on this trip.. no idea how its spelled but I've been saying it gleefully and giggling since he told me he'd arrived last week). Anyway, it goes without saying that Friday was a blast and its taken me two days to recover. My replacement at school, Samantha, seems really sweet and sang a mean "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" so I'm feeling a tad better about quiting at a really busy time in the year.

Last night, after a day of recouperation I managed to regain conciousness long enough to meet Miyata, one of my Wakayama classmates for dinner back in Shinjuku. It was much lower key than Friday night, thankfully! It is so wonderfull to still be in close contact with my Kaichi girlfriends even after ten (!!) years. That will all change again when I go home, but I'm holding my breath that someone comes to visit one of these days.


Today I met Kristin and her family for lunch. Kristin and I were in the same graduating class of Soc/Anthro majors at Olaf. It was a small and intimate group. She's now living in Yokosuka, as her husband is stationed at the Navy base there. Her seven month daughter Violet came along and impressed me as one of the happiest babies I've ever met. I was a touch bummed that she ignored the stuffed Tottoro (an enormously famous animated classic) I brought her in favor of the paper bag it came in. Oh well! Her cuteness made up for it.


I spent a few hours wandering around shopping before meeting Kana and Sayo, two of my host sisters from Wakayama. Kana lives near here in Kawasaki and Sayo lives in Wakayama but was up visiting. We had a delicious dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant near the station. Yum! I'm now looking forward to my Sayonara visit to Wakayama at the end of the month.


I'm down to my final three weekends; this coming weekend I've vowed to go somewhere but the list of options is dizzyingly long. Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Hokkaido are all options. Part of me is tempted to just stick around here too. I need to decide asap so it might be time to sit down with my guide books for inspiration. The 21st, a Tuesday, is also a national holiday so I might go to Kamakura or somewhere else around Tokyo. The next weekend, the 25th-26th I'll be moving out and then the first weekend in April I'll be in Wakayama and Osaka on my Farewell tour. Time is really getting short. Samantha starts working with us this Tuesday so tomorrow is my last "regular" day before it really starts feeling like The End. Yikes!! My "To Do" list is getting out of control again so this week will need to be full of multi-tasking and progress making. Definitily time to buy some more garbage bags.

Now That's an Annoying First

E-chan was back today with a new toy. She was running circles around our classroom so fast that at first I couldn't figure it out what it was... just looked orange and squishy. Then one of the other girls screeched, "O-ppai!!" the Japanese for "boob!". Dude. E brought a freaking boob to school today.

Let's take a step back for a second. This girl is THREE YEARS OLD. The class is full of two year olds and three year olds. This morning they were all yelling "boob"! E-chan could not be parted from it, this lovely, perfectly round, squishy boob. Just one. It looked approximately like this (do not open if you don't want a fake boob on your computer screen). She carried it around all day like a beloved teddy bear but it was quite obviously and annoyingly NOT a teddy bear.

Now excuse me because I am perhaps about to show my naivety regarding the ease with which parents can control their children's behavior. But what the HELL (pardon me again) was her mother thinking?!

It was one of those days...

Behaving (& Reacting) Badly

The kids won today. Well, that isn't really even accurate... I just lost. It wasn't even one of our insane days. As I get closer to The End, I think I'm begining to get lazy in the way I react to our students. In that sense, today was a bad day for me.

I lost control twice today and both times ended up making the individual student involved feel worse than she/he deserved to. This morning, E-chan was inseperable from a key chain with a hard plastic doll riding in a small car (imagine the size of a HotWheels car). She wouldn't put it down and was showing it to everyone several times each (sidenote: she has a new toy every time she comes, in addition to Burberry jumpers and shoes). Anyway, fast forward to music time. We're listening to the "Zoo song" and we've all become crocodiles, "chomp! chomp!" with our arms. That's when E-chan pretended to bite my head off, which would have been totally normal and fun, except that she brought the plastic car crashing down square into my forehead. Damn! It hurt SO bad it brought tears to my eyes. All I could do was stand up shocked and hold my head to get away from the stupid car. Erik stepped in and tried to get E-chan to put the toy on the shelf but she ran away. I stepped back into the song at the next animal but then saw E-chan and her friend standing by a wall looking hurt and worried. My heart just broke. I didn't mean to make her feel bad... well, part of me wanted to because it really hurt! I quickly made things right again (by trying to eat her as a lion... which she was cool with), but I still regret my initial reaction. As the adult in the situation, I should have made sure she knew that I didn't think she hurt me on purpose before howling in pain... or more realistically, before letting Erik step in. Bad me.

And then there's K. K is a third or fourth grader, I think. He's really cool. Cool in that way that is a real problem for teachers. He's really smart but doesn't want to do anything you ask him to. According to his mother, he likes English and likes our school... but from seeing him in my small group it would be hard to believe. There are two other kids in the group and recently they've been on fire. They've been into the activities and learning a lot. Unfortunately K just won't play along. I got us through 25 minutes of a 30 minute lesson without any issues tonight but then K just locked up and wouldn't do a damn thing. Actually, that's not accurate. If he would've just not done anything, we probably would have managed. But on top of not participating, he was stealing the cards the other kids were playing with and would only talk in Japanese of pee and poop. With five minutes left (of my work day, which made it even more painful... not that he knew). The other two only have that lesson but K has another half hour or so, so I finally got fed up and just told him to go to the other side of the room for his other lesson. Long story short we had this major face off... he wouldn't move, wouldn't join, etc. so I picked his bag up and moved it for him. He still wouldn't leave and I wouldn't give in (kicks self in retrospect). That's about when he started crying. Part of me suspects that he was faking it, but even so I handled the whole thing wrong from the start. I should have just ignored him and finished. Grrrr!! He just makes me so mad because I can't deal with the other two who really want to do the lesson. Especially because he knows the answers!! Anyway, it was just really un-fun and Tomoko made him apologize and I apologized back but still feel really crappy about the whole deal. They all probably think I'm a huge monster. Lost control... not good for an aspiring junior high school teacher.

Good thing tomorrow is Wednesday. Tomorrow's kids come with their mommies. It will be their job to be in control. It will give me a bit to recover mine.

Lightening Up

I had a much better weekend than last. I think a lot of it has to do with reclaiming my sense of humor. I'm fake mad at Tom for yet again heading out of the country just when I need him to tell me to calm down (like when I moved to Tokyo in August and he was out of the country starting in June for about two months). Of course, he just snickered and muttered that it really perfect timing in his mind. Before he flew over to China this morning, he was nice enough to take me tromping up and down a shortish mountain on the outskirts of town (check!). There was a bit of pretty snow and plenty of mud which resulted in high quality, stress-relieving squishing sounds as we went up and down.

This morning I did laundry, cleaned house- filling three plus garbage bags, and enjoyed an afternoon at the National Museum (check!). The sunny and only mildly chilly weather meant I had my windows open and comfortor thrown over the veranda railing. I also hauled my skis over to Tom's apartment (check!), effectively ending my short and mostly dissapointing season. His company will be shipping everything in his apartment for him, so I'm going to take advantage and do NOT expect me to feel bad about it. After that I dragged a fifty pound bag of our used books over to church (check) so that he can't complain about me taking up space (not that he's likely to notice). Basically, I was remarkably productive (check the checks!)!

As I walked through the streets of both my and Tom's neighborhoods, enjoying the beautiful pre-spring day I began to think about how much I will really, really miss living here (okay, who am I kidding, I've been thinking about that since the second week after I arrived...). I know I can come back to visit, but the chances I will live here in this neighborhood again are so slim. Honestly, I have been really blessed everywhere I have lived but this place is so unique. The fact that I live here... and it is My Neighborhood will not be easy to replace. For one thing, I don't think I'll have a sushi bar on my corner and a train station over the river and down the street in Detroit (this feels like a safe assumption). For another thing, I won't be a resident of another country. I know this is obvious... but sometimes it RE-occurs to me that this place that feels totally comfortable to me is actually technically foreign; it is Japanese! It gives everything another dimension of excitement and challenge: from biking to work to doing my laundry and grocery shopping to mailing a letter. A part of me is quite worried that after I settle into life in Michigan... I'm going to get really bored.

But then I remind myself of all the wonderful things waiting for me. The cliche "abscence makes the heart grow fonder" is definitely applicable to the experience of living abroad. Once I got over, replaced, or satisfied my initial cravings for oatmeal, chedder cheese ruffles, and American TV during the past four years I have realized what I really love, appreciate and miss about being in the US. Mainly being able to visit my family and friends (pretty much) when I want to by car or cheap plane fare, being able to drive directly to my destination, hanging out and just chilling in front of a movie with chips and salsa. After all that important stuff, I really miss shopping for cheap clothes, books and food. And I'm not even a shopper (of course, that's really why I hate shopping in Tokyo).

I expect moving home is going to take a serious pile of adjustment but I'm still looking forward to the challenge of the move and the joy of being back in TOUCH enormously.

Check

Got my haircut, finally.
Wrote e-mail inquiries to local Lhasa trekking agencies.
Followed up on my ticket reservations with my two Tokyo travel agencies (why is it that April fares are STILL not listed??).
Completed two April lesson plans for my successor.

Check, check, check, and check.

In Like a Lamb

Compared to the rest of this week, today was easy. Really easy considering it is finally the first day of March. My friend Ai left here for Toronto tonight... we have been sharing timelines and tales of our upcoming moves for almost a year and watching the countdown on her blog dwindle to single digits this week has put me into a panic.

March First means I have only thirty days left in my apartment, twenty-seven days left of work (only 19 not counting weekends and a holiday, so Erik mentioned this morning), eight days until my first "farewell party", and four weekends with which to see and do everything left on my list. Yes, flipping the calendar place has brought reality into focus; I need to get a move on.

Tom's company, in a rare moment of good timing, is sending him to China for a week in a half, which will force me to make progress on some of my larger tasks. I need to attack my apartment this weekend and pack up another pile of boxes to be shipped, stored (at Tom's), and trashed. I'm also planning on spending an afternoon at the National Museum in Ueno, one of the Tokyo spots that's been on my list for over a year.

So on a completely different note- does anyone else out there have moments of imperfection that are just so dumb that you feel the need to share because someone's bound to be amused? I swear I must be the only one who, when seated in the dentist's chair with my jaw clenched down on a wad of cotton under the command not to budge will manage to drop one of the rings I'm fiddling with and not manage to catch it until it has bounced off my lap and seat and find its way underneath the dentist chair so that the hygenist and dentist need to get down on hands and knees looking for it while profusing apologizing and worrying about ME? I just had to laugh at the absurdity of it all... after she took the cotton out of my mouth.

Next time maybe I'll share the amazing feeling of acomplishment I get from going to the dentist (or the doctor, or the post office) in this country or the huge amount of annoyance I get from having to call service lines like Yahoo Japan or getting my hair cut. The exchange student in me will never really get bored, I guess.