Breaking down and breaking out

This week was my first full week of teaching, from the sports festival on Sunday all the way til Friday at the Jr. High. The teaching is actually pretty fun, and I`m really very fond especially of the elementary school because there is so much energy in both the teachers and the students. However, by the end of the week after being so high-strung and trying so hard to do well and communicate with people I was worn out and suffering a bit of culture shock. Yes, yes it can happen to anyone. It finally got me. It`s mostly just the language barrier and not being able to carry on a conversation or read the writing on ANYTHING! But, also it was things like buying something I thought was balogna at the grocery that was just horrible. You know that minty smelling sawdust cleaner crud they sprinkled over puke spills in grade school, you know that smell? Well, that`s what this meat tasted like. Terribly terribly wrong. Then there`s other simple but yet very very important things, like how you spend your time after you leave work. Some nights I jog. I watch cartoons. I make dinner. I draw pictures. I prepare for class. I miss people. And so for several hours every night I`m perfectly alone, however that`s far from being perfect. So I realize I have got to at least get out of town and away from my apartment on the weekends before I go crazy.

So last night I made the perilous journey to Oguni town to visit my friend, Mary who is awesome. I`d have to say, I wouldn`t readily recomend to anyone to drive on a dark rainy night through winding one lane mountain roads, some without gaurdrails, that you`ve never driven on before. No, but it is fun. At one point I found myself doing something of a seven point turn in my car on a footpath in between some vegetable patches up on a peak, realizing this was not quite the road I was looking for. But god was definitely with me, and I made it without any more wrong turns into Oguni and met Mary at the 7-11.

We went over to Jusco and went shopping and bought happy useful things that made us get rid of stress in our lives. You know you can live with lots of crap if you have to, but if something little is causing stress, why not fix it? My pots and pans burn all my food and cause me great stress. So I bought some nice ones and now my kitchen feels like a happier place to be. (also because I did the dishes tonite). I also bought a good quality thick towel, because the ones I have shed huge chunks of white lint all over everything, and that`s stressful too, so now I have a happy towel! Really, you know there is such a thing as being too spend thrifty trying to continue living like a college student, but I`d rather have a little less money in pocket and wear my clothes without lint on them everyday. So go make yourself happy, whatever that takes. It`s the feeling of a memory you remember not the tiny details.

Thanks to Mary for being such a lovely host. She has a good heart and lots of energy about teaching and learning about life and Japan. We donned our aprons and made choc-chip cookies and fruit dango and had a little Bailey`s coffee and a good time last night. After surviving the trip back (I learned which direction to go on 403 to get back home, and which direction to go on 403 that doesn`t get you back home), I came to the office and worked with Ako in the kitchen. She made some croquettes and I made some bread and we enjoyed both a good deal before we were done.

Thanks much to the Dixons back in Laurens for all the postcards I got in the mail today. I`ll be sharing them with my classes this next week.

So tomorow I try my luck with trains and hopefully find my way to Niigata City for auditions for the ALT musical Peter Pan. Can you guess what part I`m going for?