Kemstone's Journal

Going to the Spring Concert yesterday was one of the most correct decisions I’ve ever made. Although I didn’t feel like going at all and I was nervous about once again being the only foreigner in a crowd full of Japanese students and parents, I figured it would at least be far more of a memorable activity than whatever I would have done otherwise. It actually turned out to be a really great experience.

Weirdly enough, I actually met one of my students’ parents hours before I even left. My doorbell rang around 10:00 in the morning and I opened it to find an older, not-fully-Japanese woman standing there holding Jesus pamphlets. She greeted me in Japanese but then immediately switched to shockingly great English and told me that her daughter A- goes to my school. She recognized the name on my door because apparently A- talks about me a lot. A- is (or was) a second-grader who really stands out because of her appearance. She may be partly Japanese but she looks more Indian or Middle-Eastern. In any case, she’s really friendly and apparently her mother is as well.

The mom was going around handing out invitations to some sort of Jesus-festival thingy the Jehovah’s witnesses are holding at the beach early next month. She said she’d understand if I couldn’t come if ALTs aren’t supposed to take part in religious events, and I told her honestly that I don’t know what the rules are. She asked me if I believed in God (not a question you hear very often in Japan) and I told her I believe there’s something more to the universe than what we can see, which was good enough for her. She didn’t want to keep me long so she wished me a nice day and moved on. Although I’d be seeing many dozens more students’ parents that day, she would be the only one I’d communicate with.

It was wet and grey when I got on my bike and made my way up to Togane Hall, remembering the way there from the Chorus Contest. I debated whether to bring my camera, as I was attending this event as a private individual and therefore not subject to Interac policies, but decided against it just to play it safe. I was already going to be drawing much attention by being the only foreigner there, and who knows what ideas some parents might get about the gaijin taking photos of their kids. Although as it turned out, this concern was rather silly.

I biked up the hill to get there and was sweating bullets by the time I arrived, just another thing to draw attention to myself. I didn’t wear my suit but I didn’t want to dress too casual so I wore some khaki slacks and an un-tucked button-down shirt. When I got in to the lobby there, naturally every eye turned towards me and I could almost hear them thinking, “Who’s the gaijin and what is he doing here?” but luckily there was a group of three male students there who gave me a wave when I walked in, thus legitimizing my presence. They were third-graders, recent graduates I’d assumed I’d never see again.

The students in the band were eating lunch together beyond some glass doors leading to the entrances to the main hall. Everyone else had to wait outside the doors until 1:00 when the seating would begin. Shortly before that the students finished their lunch and started filing in to the backstage area, peaking out past the glass to see who was there. A bunch of them spotted me and waved, further legitimizing my presence. It was at this point that I realized two unexpected things—the band is much bigger than I thought it would be, and it was almost all-female. While I’d expected little more than a dozen students, the number was closer to fifty, and all but two of them were girls. Also unexpected but a much welcome surprise was that many of them were third-graders I’d thought I’d never see again.

When it finally came time to go in, I took a seat in the front row of the section just behind the orchestra seats. When M- wrote out the invitation she’d said the time was 1:00 p.m. but that was actually just the seating time. The concert started at 1:30, so there was an entire half-hour of just sitting and waiting.

But while I was sitting and waiting another group of girls came in and spotted me, about ten of them and mostly third-graders including one (yet another “A-”) whom I’d been particularly fond of and had been sad to lose forever at graduation. She’d been one of the students assigned to clean up the teacher’s room during the afternoon cleaning-time for the first half of the school-year, so I saw her every day and she tried to communicate with me more frequently than most students. She was as glad to see me again as I was to see her, and she even came up and asked to take a picture of me.

She and the other students sat in the very front of the orchestra section, where almost nobody else was sitting. For the rest of the half-hour waiting time, occasionally a few of them would look back and wave to me and giggle, especially one second-grader whom I’m fairly certain has a crush on me. At one point A- came back up to me and handed me her camera, asking me to take a video of her during a particular number, as apparently this group of girls wasn’t in the brass band but would be performing in a special piece at the start of the second half. So she left her camera with me and I pondered the irony of not having brought my own.

The second-grade A- whose mother I’d met earlier also came and walked by me, though she was just there to watch and her mother wasn’t present. But I told her in Japanese that I’d met her mother earlier, which caused a few heads to turn my way. Still, none of the other parents attempted to speak to me.

At 1:30 the school principal came to say a few words and then the concert got started. The first half was pretty basic, exactly the kind of thing I expected from a junior high school brass band concert. With Ms. S- conducting, they went through a series of short classical music pieces, none of which I recognized. It wasn’t the London Symphony Orchestra or anything, but they were okay. One student or another would often mess up and you’d hear a spectacularly wrong note here and there, but for the most part they sounded pretty good. Probably better than most American middle-school bands sound, as I imagine these kids are a bit more dedicated.

There was a ten-minute break, and then the second-half started with something completely different. The students had changed out of their school uniforms and into jeans and matching T-shirts, such a radically different appearance than what I’m used to, and the group of ten girls who’d been seated during the first half were now joining the others on stage for a piece called “Joyful Joyful”. It started with a couple of those girls singing solos, and while I think it was an English song I couldn’t really be sure because their pronunciation was severely distorted. I was recording the whole number for A-, and when the first half of the song was finished it became a much faster dance number, with A- as one of the two lead dancers. One of the third-grade boys showed up on stage dressed in a ridiculous costume like a sorcerer and did a rap which also may or may not have been in English.

The rest of the second half was somewhat more traditional but still much faster and more fun than the first half. I couldn’t believe how much work and thought had been put into the show. Students were frequently going off to change into different costumes and do little performances in between and during songs. None of it was comprehensible to me but it was definitely entertaining. They even had a couple of kids in full-on character-suits like those guys at Disney Land, but with Japanese characters from cartoon kids’ shows. At one point the principal even came out in a cheesy samurai costume and sang a little solo. That in itself would have been worth the price of admission (by which I mean time, as the concert was free).

Then things took a turn for the very sad near the end, as Ms. S- took the microphone and while some of the students played some light music in the background, she called all of the departing third-graders to the front of the stage, and they were all given flowers and took a bow one by one. Just like at graduation, there were tears in some of their eyes. So once again I got to contemplate how I’d probably never see these people again, though it was different this time because now I was seeing a bunch of people again that I’d thought two weeks ago I never would. They may not be a part of my school and therefore a part of my active life anymore, they’re still around. I occasionally spot students out and about, and while the odds of my seeing any one particular student again are very slim, the odds are good that I’ll at least see some of them around.

After those goodbyes there was one more piece with instruments, and then all of the students stood in a line in the front of the stage to sing one last song. Moving my eyes from student to student I considered whether this was the last time I’d ever see them or if I’d have another year or two before the final end. At least now I know that next year, for these second-graders, the actual last goodbye won’t be graduation but the Spring Concert.

On my way out of the main hall I was greeted by Mrs. T-, who was there with her two little daughters, one girl of about 3 and another in her arms about 1. It was very strange to see her in the role of mother. I’ve spent the better part of a year working alongside her and I’ve never seen her in that context before.

Just like after concerts and plays in my school-days, all of the students who’d performed were lined up outside the main hall on the way out the door. I was quite happy about that, as this gave me the perfect opportunity to go right down the line and greet all of them personally, as well as say my actual last goodbyes to the third-graders I hadn’t had a chance to at graduation.

A- had come up to me right after the show to get her camera back, and both of us knew this was probably the actual end. She seemed to appreciate that fact as much as I did, as she put out her hand for me to shake before saying goodbye. I said, “It’s nice to see you” and that was that.

But with the exception of a few third-graders, going down the line after the show was a happy experience, as all of the students gave me a warm smile and thanked me for coming. I’ll see most of them again in just a few weeks.

And that was my first Spring Concert in Japan. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but once I got settled in it felt like just another school event. The show itself was surprisingly good, and I got once last chance to see some third-graders again. The chances of my going again next year are about 1000%.

This school-year just keeps ending and ending. Today is the last official day on the school-calendar, and the closing ceremony just wrapped up. The students are on their way home, and the teachers are remaining behind to start doing whatever the heck it is they do between school-years, as they’ll be here during the break as well. I’ve got to stay until lunch, and then I can leave and consider my work for this school-year over.

But it just feels like one more ending in a never-ending series of endings that started with the third-graders’ graduation two weeks ago. I’ve even got something school-related tomorrow, though it’s entirely optional on my part. A few weeks ago, M- from the Speech Contest (the one who was robbed of a much-deserved victory) gave me an invitation written out in English to come see the JHS Brass Band perform a concert at the same hall where the Chorus Contest was held. It’s tomorrow at 1:00, and although I’m under no obligation whatsoever I still fully intend to go. She put an effort into making that invitation and I’ve got nothing else to do so I might as well go and make that the last I see of the students this year (at least those who are in the brass band). That’ll be another ending, but still not the very last one.

I found out yesterday that the enkai that took place after graduation was just the first of two year-end enkais, the next of which will be next Thursday. Next Thursday is apparently the actually actual officially official LAST day of the school-year, and there will be another ceremony in the morning that I’m not required to go to but I will. All of the students, even in the midst of their spring break, will be coming back for that one too. Which is really weird, but it’s Japan.

The enkai is after pay-day and located in Togane, and since it’s after pay-day and I won’t need a hotel room, I intend to go to both the formal party and the karaoke afterwards. It’ll be the last time I see the teachers who are switching schools next year, all of whom were featured in today’s closing ceremony, as they took the stage, students handed them flowers, and they each gave a short speech. I thought Ms. Y- would be leaving because of what she told me at the last enkai, but she wasn’t one of the teachers on the stage and I haven’t had a chance to ask her yet if the plans have changed and she’ll be sticking around next year. I sincerely hope so.

But once next Thursday’s enkai is over, the school-year will really finally be over once-and-for-all. Then I can look forward to a nice long break…of about a week and a half.

Yes, I’d assumed that the new school year wouldn’t start until the end of April, but I just found out moments ago from Mrs. T- that it actually starts the second week. That’s not much time between school-years. It’s only about the same duration as winter vacation. Now it feels even less like anything is come to an end. Just a very brief pause before getting started again.

In other news, I hung out with Trey last night. We went out for ramen then hung out at his place and watched a very entertaining History Channel documentary about catching Bin Laden. Trey and his girlfriend and some friends of theirs will be going to Tokyo for clubbing the weekend after next, so I’ll probably join them just for a good dose of night-life, and I’ll invite Stephen if I can so I can see him too.

I’m going to try and hang out with Ryan (the other Togane ALT) during the break because we haven’t seen each other in months and I’m wondering how his school-year went. As for the prospect of more socialization, I don’t think Ben and Fred like me very much so I won’t be bothering them. Jack and Lily are returning from their vacation today or tomorrow, so I’ll probably be seeing them again very soon as well.

The next big Interac training session for new ALTs is this week, and while I was invited by Cedric to participate that apparently fell through. I’m not exactly sure why, but the e-mail I got from my branch office informing me that I wouldn’t be going made it sound like they just had too many participants and there wasn’t enough space for me. I’ve considered e-mailing Cedric to ask him for more details, but he’s obviously going to be occupied all week and I assume I’ll hear from him again at some point. Maybe I’ll be able to go next year.

The construction going on next door to me appears to be almost finished, which is excellent. I thought it would be incredibly frustrating to have this going on all these months, but it’s only been three months and after what I went through in Hannover I’ve hardly found this aggravating at all. I’m not exactly sure what the reasons are, but construction workers in Japan are apparently a hundred times more efficient and productive than workers in Germany. I suspect it’s more than just cultural reasons.

And finally, I jumped to conclusions after the Yakuza shooting and said that the Denny’s it took place at would be closed forever. Well, it’s back open for business now, though it never looks too crowded when I walk by. Not that I have much of a basis of comparison because I never made it a point to look inside before, but it’s entirely possible that business is back to normal or that it will get back to normal eventually, so I didn’t lose my chance to eat there after all. But now that now that I can eat there again I still don’t really want to.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this in my journal yet, but there’s a construction project going on in the lot right next to my apartment building, just outside my window. For the first five months after I moved in it was an abandoned gas station, which made for a superbly quiet neighbor. Starting in January, however, all of that changed. The first couple of weeks were all demolition, and in addition to the loudness of the smashing, drilling, and beeping, it also felt like we were getting ten earthquakes a minute. Things at least quieted down a little bit after that as they laid out the foundation for the new building, but since they started building that a couple of weeks ago it’s gone back to constant noise.

I’d received notification of the project via a piece of paper passed through my mail-slot a couple of weeks before it began, but I hadn’t known what it was until the demolition started and I went back to give it a second look. Because the kanji for “construction” is very simple (工) I was able to tell that’s what it’s about, and because reading dates is easy I was able to discern that the project was supposed to last from January to April. I figured four months isn’t too bad, and knowing that there’s probably just one month left keeps me from losing my mind whenever I’m home. It mostly takes place while I’m at work anyway, though these guys work straight through dusk and I still hear them hammering for awhile even after it’s completely dark. I don’t begrudge them though—they’re working very hard and I want them to finish as soon as possible.

It also helps that I went through a much worse situation in Hannover. Shortly after I changed my apartment there, the building across the street from me underwent some kind of re-touching of the outside, replacing the brick exterior with solid concrete. This doesn’t seem like nearly as large a task as demolishing and constructing an entirely new building, but the project lasted almost 8 months and seemed to consist of nothing but loud and inconsistent drilling with no rhyme or reason to when it took place other than it always seemed to start up when I was attempting to take a nap. I didn’t work straight through the day then like I did now, so those 8 months were excruciating. When I returned home one day to find the scaffolding finally gone and the work complete, it felt like the happiest day of my life. So the current project is much easier to deal with.

Still, it’s a strong motivator to get out of the house for as long as possible on days off. Because Saturday was graduation, we had Monday off school. After jogging and eating lunch, I took my bike out for the standard ride to the beach. I would have gone regardless of the construction, but the construction definitely motivated me to take my time and not get home in a hurry.

Two unusual things happened on my trip. The first was an earthquake, which is certainly nothing unusual in itself but for the fact that I felt it while riding my bike. Earthquakes are much more perceptible on upper floors of buildings than they are directly on the ground, especially when you’re moving. Because tremors happen so frequently I know I must have been riding during a few, but I never knew for certain. Occasionally while riding I’d feel suddenly off-balance but I could always correct it quickly enough and I could never tell whether it was the ground, the wind, or just me naturally losing balance. This time I could feel my tires shifting with the ground, being knocked toward the side of the road. But still it wasn’t much of a big one, as I was able to maintain balance and keep riding through the remaining second of the quake.

The next thing wasn’t just unusual but downright weird. I cycled right by two cats standing on the side of the road and staring at each other. The fact that I rode right by them—two feet away at the most—and they didn’t so much as flinch, peaked my curiosity and I stopped a little bit further down the road to turn and observe them.

It was the strangest cat behavior I’ve ever seen. There was a black cat and a brown cat on some concrete blocks above a concrete gutter on the side of the road which was now filled with water thanks to the recent heavy rainfall. They were virtually immobile, their faces inches apart, staring at each other and softly growling. Every now and then the black cat would growl a little louder and advance slightly close to the brown cat, who was slowly inching away. Maybe it’s the anime I’ve been watching, but the idea popped in my head that these cats were some kind of reincarnated souls of samurai warriors now settling a score, and while the altercation wasn’t physical there was some hidden exchange of powers in the growling.

I also considered it might be some kind of omen, something I was meant to see and ponder like in a Japanese folk-tale. I could just picture a character in such a story describing this scene to his peers in an attempt to discern its meaning. As I was in no hurry, I decided to stay and watch until something happened, as perhaps there was some kind of meaning to be found here.

I watched for a good ten minutes, during which time only two cars and one cyclist came by, but the cats seemed impervious to any outside distraction. The black cat kept slowly advancing and the brown cat kept slowly backing away until they were on a thinner and higher block of concrete, at which point they suddenly pounced at each other with a loud hiss and tumbled together into the freezing cold gutter water. Together they leaped out of the water and onto the road, where they proceeded to stand completely still—like statues—for a solid two minutes. I noticed the black cat was injured, its neck was bleeding slightly, but I don’t know if that injury had been there before. Both cats stood completely still until another car came and shook them out of their stupor. The black cat then started walking away in my direction, until it noticed me and ran off. The brown cat took the spot that the two had been on before, and after waiting one additional minute I’d decided that was probably the end of the drama.

There was probably absolutely no point to that whatsoever, but perhaps it was a sign from the kami that I won’t fully understand until the meaning comes to me in a dream or something.

Anyway, I finished the journey to the beach only to find more strangeness there. A group of soldiers was up on the little look-out tower near the virtually empty parking lot. I have no idea what they were doing, but I didn’t stick around to observe them too long. I just walked some distance to a river-mouth I’ve taken to trekking to recently, as it’s a particularly lovely spot. I spent some time there, soaking in what little sun decided to peak from behind the clouds, then headed back to the parking-lot area where a new group of soldiers was heading up the tower.

There was a couple there with a tiny baby, sticking out quite sorely due to their non-Japanese appearance. The woman looked half-Japanese but the man was clearly a westerner. We couldn’t help but notice each other, and the woman and I involuntarily smiled at each other when we noticed ourselves noticing.

I figured I might as well say hello, and I asked them where they were from—France—and whether they spoke English—they did. I asked them if they had any idea what was going on with the soldiers and they said they had no idea, but lots of strange things happen in Japan.

The couple—Regis and Junko—were there for a month to visit her parents. It was their third time visiting Japan together, but Regis has lived all over Asia as a website designer. He said that Japan was definitely the best Asian country, but South Korea was pretty good too and I could make a lot more money teaching English there, almost double what I do now. It’s not that I’d never considered making Korea my next country of residence, but somehow in the midst of that conversation it felt clearer than ever that this is my next logical move.

They were a really nice couple and we had a nice chat, comparing our impressions of Japan as well as Europe. They actually knew where Hannover was but have never been to Germany because like most French people, Regis doesn’t like Germans. He’d never been to America but Junko had been to New York for a week, and we compared our impressions of that city too. She really liked it, and he wants to go too someday. They encouraged me to travel around Japan more, which I fully intend to do once I get some money saved. That could take a while, but I intend to be here for a while.

As for the soldiers, we could never figure out what they were up to, but our best guess was that it was some kind of survey taking place at the 1-year-later mark of the earthquake and tsunami, the anniversary of which was on Sunday. He remarked about how the Japanese are very strange, and I told him about the cats. “Didn’t you know that Japanese cats are stranger than normal cats?” he asked jokingly. “I didn’t before but I do now,” I told him.

After that pleasant little encounter I headed home, getting back at about five o’clock, which meant just a little over one more hour of construction noise before peace and quiet returned.

Back at school today, I’ve yet to really feel the absence of the third-graders, but I’ll be spending most of my time in the teacher’s room anyway. I have only one lesson today which is already over, and now I don’t have any more until Thursday when I only have two. It’s going to be long week with lots of time to kill, which gives me plenty of time to write detailed descriptions of the behavior of cats.

A couple of nights ago I was watching one of the last episodes of the anime series Evangelion (which turned out to be quite deep and thought-provoking) when it felt like something suddenly clicked in my brain. I’m watching the show in Japanese with English subtitles, and it was always fun to see which Japanese words I could pick out of the dialog and match to their translation on the bottom of the screen. It was usually just a handful of words here and there. But while watching this episode I noticed myself not just recognizing a few scattered words and phrases but comprehending entire sentences.

I started listening carefully to every line of dialog and pausing to read the subtitles and make sense of why these lines were translated as they are. There would generally be a few words I didn’t know, but I actually found myself understanding the majority of them. Most importantly I was able perceive the grammatical structure of the sentences and how the words and particles work together to generate their translated meaning. The interesting part was seeing how inexact the translation was, as sometimes the literal translations of the words wouldn’t correspond to the English subtitles at all, and the words on the screen were just a similar but-not-quite-identical expression. This was a bit of a rush, as now I was no longer relying exclusively on the subtitles to comprehend the meaning of the dialog, and I had a truer understanding of what these characters were actually saying than most non-Japanese anime fans ever get.

If felt like a bit of a breakthrough language-wise, like I’ve reached the next plateau of my Japanese-comprehension skills. Apparently being surrounded by the language constantly, even if you’re not always paying attention and striving to understand, really does subconsciously open the doors of comprehension.

Unrelated story—on Wednesday morning I stepped into the shower room to shave and quickly noticed that the water was not turning hot. The gas had apparently been switched off. That must have been what the letter I got yesterday that looked like a bill was about (my literacy still has a long way to go). I suffered through a freezing cold shower, then took the letter in to school to show it to Mrs. T- who confirmed that my gas had been shut off and I’d have to pay about 15,000 Yen (nearly $200) to get it turned back on. The gas company apparently doesn’t send bills with bar-codes that can be conveniently paid at convenience stores, so just like with the water bill my illiteracy led to a shut-off. Luckily, in Japan such situations are apparently not much trouble to rectify. The principal let me leave school for awhile to walk to the bank and make the payment, after which Mrs. T- faxed the receipt to the gas company who had my gas switched back on the by time I got home (at which point I’d almost forgotten it had been shut off in the first place).

But the only problem it caused was pretty much draining the rest of my bank account for the month. Whenever I get paid I keep what I think I’ll need for the month in my Japanese account and send the rest to my American bank account because that’s the only way I can pay my credit card bill, which currently has a substantial balance thanks to two recent plane-ticket purchases. Thanks to the unexpected half a years’ worth of gas all-at-once payment, I was down to almost nothing. Luckily I can rely on my parents to deposit money in my account to help me make it to payday, and I can pay them back the next time I see them.

Yesterday was graduation day for the third-graders at school, and afterwards there were two parties for the faculty. The first was a normal enkai like the ones after the Chorus Contest and before Christmas break, and the second was a less formal affair at a karaoke bar. Those who would be doing karaoke would not be driving home that night but staying at the hotel where the enkai was. I was still pretty sad about the third-graders leaving so I didn’t feel like partying at all, but I figured this is the kind of cultural experience I shouldn’t be turning down. However, the cost of the enkai was 7,000 yen (close to $100) and the cost of a bed at the hotel was another 7,000 yen. The price of karaoke would be pretty substantial as well. I was still on the fence in the morning when I stopped at the 7/11 to extract my party-money from the ATM, but I checked the balance of my American account online first and saw that my parents had not yet deposited the emergency money. I could afford the enkai but not the karaoke, so I decided to do that. I could have called my parents and asked for even more money but I figured since I wasn’t too enthusiastic about going anyway I might as well just call it fate.

The graduation ceremony itself was just as sad as I expected. The weather, like it was for the entire week, was cold and rainy, and it was freezing in the gym even with two heat-blasting fans running constantly on each side of the room. This whole March-graduation thing just isn’t natural. The end of the school-year is supposed to be warm and beautiful.

The first- and second-graders filed in first while the parents of the graduates slowly trickled in. When everyone was seated the third-graders entered two-by-two to a recording of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, one of my favorite pieces of classical music. My heart-strings were already being tugged as I watched them enter, but I knew it would be several hours before they would leave.

There were quite a few speeches made, not just by the principal and vice principals but by members of the board of education and PTA (which in Japan is actually called the “PTA”) and I managed to avoid utter boredom by putting my Japanese-comprehension skills to the test and trying to translate as much as I could. Comprehension is not nearly as easy when you’ve got English subtitles already guiding the way, but I was pleased to discover I understood a lot more than I assumed I could. It also helped to know the context of the speeches. There was a lot of talk about the future (mirai), entering a “new world” (atarashi sekai) and whatnot. The word kibishi, which means “strict” popped up in nearly every speech, so I assumed they were explaining the value of their education-style. Of course the most frequently-used word was rei, meaning “bow”, which the students were ordered to do when every new speaker took the podium.

The speakers were seated in an “honored guest” section to the left of and facing the graduates, directly across from the faculty seating section where I stayed most of the time. Parents were seated behind the graduates, followed by first-graders and then second-graders in the back. Everyone was in their school-uniforms—no caps and gowns apparently—but some of the third-grade teachers were dressed in traditional Japanese clothing that looked like what geishas and samurais wear.

After the speeches, the first and second graders sang one of their songs, then the third graders turned around to face their parents and sing one of theirs. They then took the stage and sang one final song before walking two-by-two through the split in the seats to the back of the gym and out the door, their final exit as the first- and second-graders sang a very sad song. I stood by the exit and watched them all go, and this was by far the most emotional moment of the day. Some of the students—mostly the “cool” boys—had smiles on their faces, but many of the students, both girls and boys, had tears in their eyes. A few were outright bawling.

It made me think back to my middle-school graduation and what it felt like once the reality of this absolute ending finally started to hit just before the ceremony. I understood exactly what those kids were going through—once they walked out that door it would be over. Done. Finished. Nothing but memories lodged firmly in the inaccessible past. Damn this universe and its temporal mechanics.

One of the two final students to leave was the girl who had been crying hysterically at the Chorus Contest (the one who won the best conductor award), and as she turned around to face the gym one last time and take the ceremonial final bow it looked like tears actually leaped from her eyes at that instant. It was as appropriate a final image of this group of third-graders as I could have hoped for, I guess.

As for me, my eyes were moist but I never completely lost it. I nearly did when the last girl took that final bow, but I held it together. After that things got kind of hectic as the first-graders left to take their chairs back to their classrooms and the second-graders were instructed to get the auditorium back in order.

A set of parents came up to me, asked me in Japanese if I was “Kyle-sensei” and I said hai. They told me who their daughter was, I made clear that I recognized the name, and they thanked me for giving her that CD. I gave them a nice “your welcome” (dou itashimashite) and that was that. Apparently one girl was so grateful that she expressed it to her parents who were so taken by her gratitude that they felt obliged to express their gratitude to me. That alone makes the entire CD-burning thing worth it.

Only one other set of parents approached me. The parents of A- from the Speech Contest whom I’d met there. They thanked me for helping their daughter win second-place and I thanked them for thanking me. Later I came to wish I had told them how smart and wonderful I think their daughter is, which I could have done in Japanese, but I just didn’t think of it at the time. I’ll probably regret that forever because I’ll probably never see A- again, but so it goes. I’d assumed there’d be more student-parent-teacher mingling after the ceremony and I’d be able to say my most significant goodbyes then, but that was not to be. I’ll know better next time.

I helped the second-graders pack the chairs away, simultaneously thanking my lucky stars that I get to spend another year with them and dreading the gut-wrenching experience it will be when I have to watch them walk two-by-two out the gym doors next year. Because first-grade lessons are not every week and the third-grade lessons tapered off that the end, I’m already more familiar with them than the rest of the school. I don’t think I’ll be able to contain myself during that silent sayonara.

But life goes on, as did the day. I spent the afternoon in the teacher’s room reading old journals and reflecting on all the ways in which life changes and how it stays the same, then went home at 4:15 to put my stuff away. On the way out there was a group of about twelve third-graders hanging outside the gates of the school taking final pictures of their group of friends in front of the school, and they asked me to get in some of their shots. That was nice, and it was to be the last interaction I’ll ever have with that class of students at the school.

I returned to the school at 5:00 to hitch a ride to the hotel where the enkai was at, a hotel near the beach about 35-minutes away.

This was much more of a traditional Japanese-affair than the Christmas enkai, so I’m glad I brought my camera. It looked almost exactly like the enkai after the Chorus Contest with the tatami mats and traditional Japanese cuisine spread out over two long tables. It was easy to see why the cost was so high—this was quality cuisine. And as intimidating as it looked, most of it was rather delicious.

As usual, the party began with the pouring of drinks and the kampai, then about an hour of just eating, drinking, and mingling. This is when I got the most traction of my newfound Japanese confidence, as I was able to communicate more effectively than ever with my Japanese colleagues in Japanese. Of course, Ms. Y- was seated next to me and there to help if help was needed, but we didn’t need it very often. I was able to discuss things like the differences in climate between Chiba and New York, my impressions of the graduation ceremony (kanashi to samui: “sad and cold”) and even my reasons for not eating beef or pork.

Half-way through the party, every third-grade teacher was invited up to give a short speech. They talked too informally and quickly for me to really understand, but one of the teachers broke into tears while speaking and apologized for losing her composure. It was a touching moment, and at least confirmed that even teachers who’ve been doing this for years can still have trouble letting go.

At one point one of the vice principals came up to me and with the help of Ms. Y- ask me what I thought of graduation and how I was finding life in Japan. After I answered him completely in Japanese, he said to Ms. Y- that he “hopes all Americans are like me”. I thanked him sincerely for that. It might just be the nicest compliment I’ve received from a superior since my school-days.

Speaking of which, one of the thoughts that occurred to me yesterday while I had the entire concept of junior high school on the brain is just how outstanding a time of my life that chapter was for me. I started middle-school as a new student in a K-8 school, and my excessive honesty (telling people I’d rather be a girl than a boy) instantly cast me down to the bottom of the social ladder, as unpopular as one could possibly be. But slowly and gradually over the course of three years the other students started accepting me just because of the force of my personality. By the end of my third-year I was on top my whole little world, known to everyone due my starring role in the school play, and chosen Distinguished Student of the Year. When I was called to receive my award in the final assembly I was greeted by wild cheering from the entire school. It was one of the most triumphant times of my life.

It’s no wonder I’m so attached to these kids. This past year has got me seriously thinking about becoming a middle-school teacher in America, or at least an English-speaking country where I’ll be able to really communicate with and thus have more of an impact on the kids. I still want to live in more parts of the globe first, but it’s definitely a life I can envision for myself, now more than ever before. Kind of funny how life works out like that—when you asked me in middle-school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said “middle-school teacher.”

At the end of the enkai we all stood up and sang the school song, which I hummed along to now that I know the melody. I’d like to learn the words though, and I asked Ms. Y- if she could write them down for me to study, which she agreed to. Incidentally, she’s been at this school for 8 years, so she has to be moved to a different one next year. That sucks because I really like her and she’s a great partner in the classroom, so there’s another farewell to look forward to. She was very intrigued when I explained how teachers in America remain at the same school for their entire lives.

The party ended and I was driven home by a teacher who speaks no English whatsoever, but when we got near the school I was able to give him directions to my apartment in Japanese and he dropped me off. As I went inside I knew I was missing an interesting karaoke experience, but it also felt appropriate to be alone with my thoughts.

I was significantly sad, but this afternoon the sun came out and I went for a jog and a bike-ride, just being in the moment.  All moments end and you never get them back, but the fact that you can’t is what makes them beautiful.

The school-year never raced by so quickly when I was a student. Granted I started teaching a third of the way through, but it feels like September was just a few weeks ago. I was just getting familiar with the third-graders but now they’re all about to leave.

In Japan, not only does the school-year end in March but it ends earlier for graduating students than others. The graduation ceremony for the third-graders is tomorrow, but the first- and second-graders still have another two weeks to go. After tomorrow, an entire third of the school’s population will have just disappeared.

This is something I’m going to have to get used to as a teacher. You meet hundreds of kids, get to know some of them to some degree, grow pretty fond of a few, and then they go away and you never see or hear from them again. It almost makes me want to write to some of my middle-school teachers just to be the exception.

My third-grade lessons just kind of petered off and died in the last couple of weeks. The schedule got shifted around due to the year-end exams and a bunch of lessons were cancelled so there were some classes I literally didn’t see for a month and never had a “last lesson” with. Of the few I had, I was usually just doing a game for half the class because the JTEs wanted time for test-preparation. At the beginning of this week I found out that the third-graders would be doing pretty much nothing but graduation-practice all week and there would be no more lessons with them. A double-pity, as not only would I not get the closure of a final lesson in the awareness of it being the final lesson, but the game I spent a great deal of time preparing will just have to be shelved until the end of next year.

But sentimental schmuck that I am, I just had to have my last goodbyes. I thought about writing a little note to each third-grader but there being 204 of them, most of whom I’m still not that familiar with, that would be far too difficult. I went to a 100-yen shop (like a dollar-store) in search of some cheap little present I could buy in bulk and give to all the students with a spoken goodbye, but there was nothing that fit the bill. The only bulk-present that seems to work is a CD like I made the students for Christmas. So I decided to do that again. I picked up another load of blank CDs and spent two days and nights pretty much burning continuously. I went in a different direction with the song-selection this time, as instead of just picking things I’m particularly fond of I went with more happy dance-type music. I realized that the first CD was largely made up of very depressing songs, so I wanted to correct that imbalance a little and give the students something they’re more likely to enjoy.

The problem was finding time to actually distribute the things. I asked Mrs. T- about going at the end of the lunch period on Wednesday through Friday (2 classes each day) and she asked Mrs. S- but they said there wouldn’t be enough time, and with the exception of Thursday they’d all be going home right after lunch anyway. Mrs. S- suggested I just say farewell to all of them at the last assembly Friday morning and give the CDs to their teachers to distribute, but that was so cold and impersonal as to ruin the entire point.

But yesterday I just went ahead and took a bag full of CDs to the third-grade classrooms at the end of the lunch period and handed them out to the students I wanted to give them to and anyone else who wanted them. There wasn’t enough time for an individual goodbye to everyone, but this worked out well enough. The students were very happy and grateful to get another present from their ALT and I at least got to say goodbye to each individual class (or groups of students who were out roaming the hallways). Most students just took the CD with a casual “thank you” but some were positively beaming. In any case, it was enough to make it worth the effort.

On Tuesday I was greatly relieved to get a contract from Interac in the mail specifying a new period of employment from March 2012 to March 2013 with the Togane board of education. It wasn’t certain until that moment that I’d be staying at the same school, but now that contract is signed and delivered back to them the deal is officially sealed. I guess the board of education decided they wanted to keep me around. I never had much doubt that they would, but there was always that annoying uncertainty, especially after hearing from other ALTs that Interac likes to move teachers around just for the sake of moving them around. In fact most other Interac ALTs I know change schools rather frequently, even within the same school-year. I’m having a hard enough time saying goodbye just once.

But I don’t have to bid the first- and second-graders farewell just yet. I’m currently going about my final lessons of the year with each of them. Since the textbook work is pretty much finished, I had free reign to do just about whatever I wanted with the lessons, so naturally I went about making epic textbook-spanning review games. It was nice and easy with the first-graders, as the grammar points for each chapter are almost exclusively questions and answers, such as “Where is the book? / It’s on the desk.” and “Whose pen is this? / It’s Yuki’s.” I printed 20 sheets of questions and 20 sheets of answers and made it a matching game. A student from each team stands up and picks a random number for a question and a random number for an answer and I magnetize those sheets to the board. If there’s no match, they sit down. If they see a match they call it out, I remove those sheets from the board, and that team gets a point. It’s simple enough that it requires barely no explanation, and it just happens to be pretty darn educational if I might say so myself. This is all the English they’ve learned all year, condensed into one little game, and as they search for matches they’re reinforcing everything they know as well as gaining confidence that they actually do understand it.

As for the second-graders, the grammar points were not so straightforward so I had to get a little more creative. I made the same game I prepared for the third-graders and won’t get to play with them, in which four teams compete to win programs from the textbook. The textbook has 8 regular programs (some are just stories and so contain no specific grammar points) and three grammar-points per program. I made 5 questions for each program using the grammar points, and the objective was to win a majority of the 5 possible points to win the program for your team. I magnetize a sheet of paper for each program to the blackboard and hand them to the teams that win them. To spice things up I have a picture of a random character for each program like Mario or Hello Kitty (the one for Program 9 is the favorite).

The questions were sentences modeled on the exact grammar points to which I left two words missing, made two deliberate mistakes, or scrambled the words around. The students would have to write the full, correct sentence on the board in order to win the point. I had some difficulty figuring out the best way to pull this off, but I eventually settled on something I thought would work well and which has. After the team that won the previous point chooses which program they want to go for, I put up a printed sheet of paper with that question on the board and have the four students, one student from each team, come up and tackle it simultaneously. I actually printed two sheets for each question so I could put one on each side and thus not give anyone a proximity-advantage.

The first team to finish writing and to have the correct answer would get the point. Determining which team finishes first can be tricky, so I made little laminated cards for each team (designing the graphic was the most time-consuming but fun part of preparation) and said that the teams should put their magnetized card on the board once they finished writing, at which point they couldn’t go back and fix anything. If I stand at the right angle I can almost always tell which team finishes first. Often, the team to finish first won’t have the totally correct answer, which keeps things exciting. I let them check their textbooks for 30 seconds before coming to the board and writing (which they can begin only after the buzzer rings) but they can’t bring their textbooks with them. However—and I think this was my best idea to date—I let them bring one friend from their team to help them. That way even the less confident students could participate and have a fighting chance at winning. Every team had at least one particularly smart student, though thankfully none were dragged to the board for every single question. The boys in particular were more likely to go on their own, but if they needed help it was available to them.

This is clearly my most elaborate game to date (I already regret undertaking to describe it here), and even with all the forethought there were still some kinks to work out (that 30-second preparation-time thing is something I didn’t come up with until the 3^rd time). The students are confused at first but they quickly get the hang of it. But the important thing is that they have fun, and they definitely do. The inherent fairness of the game, especially with the bring-a-friend thing, results in each team winning a number of points and gets them cheering. The game has ended with virtually even scores each time so far, and I’ve had to use a tie-breaker to determine the winner. (If no team gets a majority of the five questions so you have a 2 and 2 and 1 situation, I give a spelling word from the program and the first team to write it correctly on the board wins). But the major flaw so far has been time. The periods are already condensed to 45-minutes as opposed to the standard 50, and 8 programs with 5 questions each is just too much. We barely finish half, and sometimes only 1 or 2 programs actually get finished and the winner must be determined by points alone. So yesterday I slashed two questions from each program and from now on there will only be three, which I suspect will work much better.

Naturally, this being the final lesson I figured I might as well do the same thing I did with the Christmas lesson and give CDs away as presents. I’m burning up plenty of CDs so I might as well. Only this time I’m not just giving them to the winning team but to any students who clearly exert an effort (and any student who comes up to me after class and asks for one).

That should be the last overly-detailed description of classroom activities for a very long time.

As I mentioned, the graduation ceremony is tomorrow. There was a rehearsal yesterday so I got to see how the whole thing will go down, and it’s not all that different from graduation ceremonies in America. It’s extremely formal of course, but so are ceremonies in America. The uniforms greatly augment the atmosphere of formality, but it’s still basically the same routine of songs, speeches, and the distribution of awards and diplomas.

But I would definitely venture to say that they take this a lot more seriously in Japan. They work the students hard to prepare, and I’ve been shocked by how often they get yelled at and chastised for things like not standing and bowing in perfect synchronization. They’re in the gym every day practicing their songs, and yesterday they even held every single second-grader after school for additional practice. The singing sounds perfectly lovely to me but apparently it doesn’t meet the faculty’s standards. When they don’t sing loudly or enthusiastically enough, they make them do it again. The students were supposed to go home at 3:30 yesterday but they got held until about 3:50.

I’ve been in a substantially melancholy mood all week, complemented by (and partly due to) the weather, which has been non-stop clouds and rain since Monday. Yesterday’s graduation rehearsal was particularly sad, what with watching all of the third-graders walk on stage to receive their fake-diploma from the principal and take their final bow. Junior high school is probably the greatest time of transition in a person’s life. They come in as children and leave as young adults. But for three years, this building and the people in it constitute their entire world. As of tomorrow, they are exiled from that world never to return. Another chapter of life irreversibly transformed into memory.

It makes me reflect on my own life and how many chapters I’ve left behind. Five schools from kindergarten to college, two years in California, three in Germany. There are things I miss about all of them. But time flows in only one direction, and when something is gone it’s gone forever. To beings with an awareness of time, it may just be the greatest tragedy of the universe.

But I don’t want to overstate things too much. I may be sad but it’s a comfortable sadness. This is a normal part of life. You’re supposed to feel sad at times like these.

I’ll just be relieved when the graduation ceremony tomorrow is over. Then all the goodbye-related stress will be over and there will be no more goodbyes to say. At least not until next year when the current second-graders have their graduation, and that’s going to be far worse than this. By then I’ll have spent nearly two years with these students. I’m already terribly fond of a whole bunch of them, and watching them disappear into memory is definitely going to hurt. At least with my students in Germany I could still keep in touch with them (and I have). But that won’t be the case with any of these kids. I honestly don’t know how other teachers manage to handle it, except that it’s something they get used to after awhile (and most are probably not nearly as wishy-washy sensitive as I am).

Interestingly, the teachers in Japanese schools are also just here temporarily. I found out today that teachers here don’t usually stay at the same school for more than 7 or 8 years. I don’t know why, but the government likes to move them around (sort of like Interac does with their ALTs). Even within the school, they don’t teach the same grade from year to year. As for the students, they mix up the classes after first-grade, but they remain with the same group in their second and third year. Mrs. T- couldn’t explain why they do it like that, but she told me it was normal. She said she’ll probably stay at this school next year but she doesn’t know what grades or classes she’ll teach.

Tomorrow evening there will be another party for the teachers, this one at a hotel near the beach. After the initial party some teachers will be going out for karaoke, and regardless of my mood I intend to join them and probably sleep at the hotel. I’m not really looking forward to it as I’m in no mood for a party, but it’s a worthwhile experience that I can’t pass up. I’ll just be glad when it’s over and the rest of the school-year unceremoniously fades away.

There are a few more random non-school related things to mention, but this post is already far longer than I’d intended (as usual) so I’ll save them for next time, once the saddest week of the year is finally over.

Last night I hung out with Trey, and learned a lot more about the shooting that took place at Denny’s on Tuesday which sent my school into a panic.

According to Trey’s “sources”, the incident had something to do with the Yakuza, an organized-crime syndicate that controls just about every ‘seedy’ business in Japan such as strip-clubs, casinos, and snack-bars. I’d never heard the name before, but I researched them today and what I found was rather fascinating.

They’ve been around for almost 400 years, ever since the Edo period when members of the lowest social groups such as peddlers and gamblers began to organize and slowly accumulate power and influence. Over the centuries they’ve grown to become not just the largest organized crime syndicate in Japan, but in the entire world, with an estimated membership of over 100,000.

Unlike the mafia we’re familiar with, the Yakuza are not quite so underground. They have considerable influence within the Japanese government itself, and often work in coordination with the police when it comes to handling certain matters.

But it seems they handle most of their matters internally, which is probably what went down at the Denny’s on Tuesday. According to Trey, four members of the Yakuza were sitting together when someone they all knew came in and pulled one of the gang members to another table to have a private conversation. It’s unclear as to whether this fifth person was Yakuza himself or not. But after a few minutes, he pulled out a gun and shot the Yakuza member in the chest and fled the scene.

The injured Yakuza was rushed to the hospital where he did succumb to his wounds and die. There was a manhunt under way for the shooter for three days, until he just turned up yesterday in Kujukuri—the town where I always go to the beach—shot dead in the back of a van. The official story from the police is that it was a suicide. Nobody believes the official story.

It’s possible that the shooter had been Yakuza himself and under instructions to kill a member who had done something wrong, and was later killed by the Yakuza to keep him quiet. It’s also possible he was a member of a smaller, rival gang and the Yakuza killed him out of revenge. But he apparently knew all of the Yakuza in the restaurant, so I think he was also a member. It’s possible that the killing was not planned and the Yakuza killed the shooter for stepping out of line.

But Trey explained that it almost certainly was orchestrated by someone, as guns are incredibly difficult to come by in Japan—they are massively illegal—and the only way a person is going to get their hands on one is if they have strong reason to believe they’re going to use it.

The extreme dearth of gun violence in Japan makes this a relatively extraordinary event. Such shootings only happen one or two times a year in all of Japan. The shooting at the Denny’s a block away from my school was not just local news but national news. It’s no wonder the phones were ringing off the hook on Tuesday—parents must have seen or heard about it within minutes of hours of the story breaking, and given that in the entire country this shooting just happened to take place a block away from the school their child goes to it’s no wonder they would freak out. But the kids weren’t in any danger.

As for the Denny’s it seems I’ll never get a chance to eat there (not that I was eager to before). Whereas if there’s a shooting at a place of business in America it usually shuts down for a day or two and then re-opens as quickly as possible, it’s such a rare thing in Japan that there will forever be a shroud of fear surrounding the idea of the Togane Denny’s and that business is officially done with.

It’s crazy to think that the eyes of the entire country of Japan have been on my little town all week. News cameras were undoubtedly not just pointing at the Denny’s on Tuesday but at the school nearby. My little ol’ school was in the national news! While I was there! What are the odds?

So that’s the story of what is now being called “the Yakuza killings”. Pretty cool.

In other news, hanging out with Trey proved even more enjoyable than I think either of us expected. We talked a lot of politics, went out for dinner at Coco’s (right across the street from the Denny’s, now no longer a dining option), and watched a couple of episodes of Mad Men afterwards. He told me about trips he occasionally takes that are organized by foreigners who gather groups of foreigners and Japanese people—including girls who are interested in foreigners—to spend the weekend doing things like snowboarding. He invited me along on the next trip, but unfortunately these things cost a pretty penny and I’ve got to save my money for the sailing trip in May. But from what he says, these kids of trips are my best bet for finding a long-term Japanese girlfriend.

In blogging news, my recent piece “The Fictional Obama” is the first thing I posted to Open Salon in months, but it was made an Editor’s Pick and put on the front page where it attracted a lot of readers and comments. Apparently I’ve still got a knack for political writing so maybe I’ll get back in the habit of doing it more often.

In school news, aside from Tuesday’s excitement it’s been a dreadfully slow week. The third-graders are still busy with end-of-year exams, and the first-graders had exams this week too. I had no lessons at all on Wednesday but Interac insisted I come in anyway, which meant I got to spend a solid eight hours in the teacher’s room doing little more than killing time. I was told the lessons for next week so I got to spend some time preparing for them, but unfortunately that doesn’t take as long as I’d like it to. Then today I was supposed to have four third-grade lessons back-to-back in the morning (followed by an empty afternoon) but Ms. S- decided at the last minute she’d rather give her students a test than have me do the game I’d prepared, which was bad news for both me and the students. At least I was able to do it in Mrs. T-’s class, thus making it the most enjoyable 45-minutes of the day by far.

There’s barely a month left in the school-year. I’m really going to miss teaching, but I’m definitely not going to miss these long-stretches of sitting in an office with nothing to do.

There was a bit of excitement around here yesterday, as a shooting took place at the Denny’s just a block away from where my school is.

The principal came on the loudspeaker second period to let everyone know that ambulances and possibly helicopters would be coming, so the classrooms should close their curtains in order to keep the distraction to a minimum. I found out between periods that there had been a shooting and the victim was in bad shape. Not only that, but the shooter had gotten away and the police were now looking for him.

Togane being a small town among many small Japanese towns, the shooting of course made the local news, and by the next period the phones in the teacher’s room were ringing off the hook with parents concerned about their kids’ safety. As if the gunner’s next logical move after getting away with shooting someone would be to continue on a rampage at the nearby Junior High School. But of course it’s always best to play it safe. All doors and gates were locked and police were patrolling the school’s perimeter. All afternoon classes were cancelled and the kids were allowed to go home as soon as their parents could come pick them up.

It was hard to come by any solid information, but from ALT-gossip on Facebook I gathered that the shooting was gang-related, in which case the kids were in even less danger than I figured. But as far as I know they haven’t caught the guy yet, and I don’t know if the victim survived, so it’s quite possible he got away with murder, at least for now.

The police still had a perimeter around the Denny’s when I walked home yesterday. I’ll never look at that place the same way again.

It was quite an interesting weekend for me. After getting off work at 4:15 on Saturday, I immediately went home and changed and got ready for party-mode. Trey picked me up shortly after 4:30 and drove us to Tateyama, a city near the southern end of Chiba prefecture. I was surprised at how big Chiba is, as the trip took almost two hours. The second half was littered with tunnels, revealing that the south of Chiba is far more mountainous than the north where I live.

After some minor logistical difficulties we met up with Victor—Trey’s friend from New Years’ Eve—and his friend, an Indian-Canadian guy named Anand. All three of them are JET ALTs, and Victor was stationed in Tateyama. He was very lucky in terms of the residence they put him in, a giant house he has all to himself, but unlucky in terms of its location, about a 20-minute drive outside of town. The plan was to go to a Valentine’s Day party in Tateyama that was being thrown by some friends of Trey and Victor, then invite a bunch of people back (and by “people” I mean “women”) to Victor’s place for an after-party. Victor and one of the guys in one of the bands at the party had spent the whole day getting his place prepared for the after-party, getting the place spotless, rearranging furniture, re-working the lighting, and even setting up a beer-pong table. We were quite impressed, and found ourselves looking forward to the after-party even more than the party itself.

Trey wasn’t drinking because he’s losing weight for an upcoming fight (he does kick-boxing) so he was the designated driver. We took two cars there, which meant we could bring two back-seats full of people back as long as there was another designated driver. But Trey was very skeptical about the distance-issue, thinking Victor’s place might be just a bit too far away to bring people back to. He said the general rule-of-thumb is that an after-party should be close enough to the main party to stumble to—not take a 20-minute drive. Victor refused to get discouraged, so determined was he to make the night a success.

We got to the place, a club called Bliss, shortly before 9:00. It cost 2000 yen to get in, which was a heavy price to pay but at least not as much as clubs in Tokyo. It was a Valentine’s Day party, a repeat of an event they’d done last year which had drawn a good crowd of singles there for mingling, which is why Trey was so enthusiastic about going. Upon entering you had to choose between a red or blue bracelet depending on whether or not you were available. Red meant “stop, don’t bother flirting with me because I’m taken,” while blue meant, “I’m single and looking for love.” I would have preferred another color signifying “I’m single but not sure I’m looking for anything” but I had to go with the blue like the rest of the guys.

On the drive down, Trey had given me some advice for when it comes to the ladies. The main gist was that I shouldn’t just talk to and focus on one girl, but divide my attention as much as possible. Girls want attention, he said, so if you pay exclusive attention to them they’re satisfied, they got what they want from you, and they have the power because they feel like they can have you if they want you, and that leads to them not wanting you. You have to keep them guessing, give them some attention but always leave them wanting more. As much as I hate these stupid games, that’s just how it is. It’s a totally different matter once you get to know the person and your real personality takes over, but at a first meeting it’s all just animal instinct and you have to project coolness and confidence—two qualities that I’ve always lacked in social situations.

Upon entering the club Trey immediately spotted a group of six female ALTs standing in a circle on the dance floor and drinking, all of them equipped with blue bracelets. I was introduced to all of them and the mingling began. The fact that none of them were particularly beautiful put me at ease right away. The other guys were free to work their game on any of these girls—I’d much prefer someone a little more…Japanese.

I ordered myself a whiskey on the rocks and proceeded to loosen myself up a bit, lightly dancing in the circle with the girls and guys. I glanced around the room and took note that currently, nearly all of the Japanese people there were sitting at the benches and tables along the wall, just talking amongst themselves. I noticed one very cute Japanese girl who seemed a little tipsy, and when the first band started playing she was up on the dance floor. Trey pointed her out to me and told me to get in there and “do my thing”. What thing? I don’t have a thing.

I was supposed to dance with her, but I wasn’t nearly loose enough for that yet so I settled for dancing near her. Early on at one point she turned toward me for a split second and I used the opportunity to clink my cup of whiskey with her cup on whatever-it-was and say “kampai” so that “broke the ice”.

The first band was all Japanese guys, the lead singer a small guy who took his shirt off apparently to show off his abs. His whole thing was to get up there with the mike and shout things like “Say what” and hold the mike out to the audience to repeat “what!” and then “Say what what” for us to go “what what” and “Say what what what” for us to go…you get the idea. This seemed to go on for eternity, and it wasn’t just one song, so that whole “what what what” thing seems to be the band’s entire signature, and I certainly don’t remember anything else about them.

As I was dancing near that girl she’d occasionally lose her balance a bit so I’d use my free arm to keep her on her feet, and she’d turn and thank me when I did. So it felt nice to actually make physical contact with her and I definitely got vibes of friendliness and possible interest, but after a short while I noticed a red bracelet on her arm. So much for that possibility.

But I heeded Trey’s advice and went around talking to a whole bunch of people, both male and female. One of the girls helping with the event, upon hearing I’d lived in Germany for awhile, pointed out a guy sitting at one of the tables and told me he was German. So I went and sat by him and started a conversation in German, which reverted to English after a few sentences but he definitely wasn’t expecting to hear any German that night. His name was Timo and he was there with his friend Stephen who is Canadian but “born and raised” in Japan. They were both really nice guys and I talked to them on and off throughout the night.

I also turned to a Japanese girl sitting at the seat next to me and spoke to her in Japanese. I was able to do my whole self-introduction, as well as ask her basic personal questions about herself like where she was from and what her job is. I couldn’t have taken it much farther than that, and I didn’t have to anyway because she was wearing a red bracelet. When her boyfriend came back I met him too.

The night got later, I got drunker and looser, and I was as resolved as it gets to have a good time and enjoy myself no matter what. I hadn’t been expecting to succeed with a girl so I felt good enough just interacting with as many of them as I could. Once I was loose enough I even got a few of them to dance with me, even though they all had red bracelets.

It being a Japanese party, there of course had to be a round of Bingo. We’d all got a Bingo card on our way in and whoever won would get a chance to draw a random prize from a bag, among which was a pair of tickets to Disneyland. I didn’t even come close to winning, but near the beginning of the game I noticed the really cute red-bracelet-wearing drunk girl also not getting any numbers called, and I pointed out with hand-gestures that we were both having terrible luck. She came over and stood by me for a few minutes then as we listened to the number-drawings together and waited for one of us to finally get one called. That felt nice, but she didn’t stick around for too long. She was pretty drunk at that point and might have had to throw up or something.

I later found her nearly passed out on a bench in another room, her boyfriend tending to her. I met him and he turned out to be friendly enough. I even remember his name—Akishiro, who happened to be the “what what what” guy from the first band.

The second band of the night was a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band, and as I happen to love the Red Hot Chili Peppers and happened to be pretty buzzed at that point, I really enjoyed the hell out of them. I’d dance and sing along with everyone else, getting lots of smiles and high-fives and whatnot from the Japanese guys in the crowd who were also digging it.

But unfortunately, the rest of my party was not on the same page at all. Trey had gotten discouraged from the very beginning when the only available girls there were those female ALTs, only two or three of which were somewhat desirable and even then not particularly so. There had apparently been a lot more single Japanese women there last time, but this time there didn’t seem to be any. The only girls at the whole party who were wearing the blue bracelets were the ALTs, and they were—as Trey later put it—“not conducive to having a good time.” They were standing around talking among themselves for the most part, and they seemed to deliberately keep away from the four of us as though we were a group of predators who couldn’t wait to take them back to our lair and have our way with them.

Of course they were invited to the after-party, but the main reason was to give it legitimacy to try and draw other people—perhaps some Japanese girls—there as well. But they refused to come so nobody else wanted to come either, with the exception of Timo and Stephen whom I mentioned earlier. They didn’t care that there wouldn’t be any women there and I certainly didn’t care either, but it was Victor’s place and he told them not to bother coming, that we were all just going to go home and pass out and try not to think about this utter failure.

And that’s all we talked about for the rest of the night. Victor could not stop going on about how much work he’d put into the preparation for the after-party and how pitiful it was that absolutely nobody—not one single solitary girl—had come to it. Trey kept explaining in perfectly logical detail all the reasons why that was the case and why it wasn’t really our fault.

If we’d done anything wrong it was to not get a solid group of people—male and female—to agree to go to the after-party beforehand. By just going and expecting it to all work out, we’d opened up the door for failure. But we had no way of knowing there would be so many fewer people there than last year and that the only single girls at the party would be foreigners like us who—to be brutally honest—sucked at having a good time. I didn’t waste much time on them, but they gave off the impression that they were actively trying not to enjoy themselves.

I, on the other hand, steadfastly refused not to enjoy myself, and I’d had a great time. One of the major advantages to being so woefully unexperienced when it comes to women is that I’m now virtually immune to disappointment. Those guys had been expecting to bring some ladies home and get some action. I had expected to be politely shot-down numerous times. What actually transpired fell far short of their expectations, whereas I greatly exceeded mine. I’d been loose and happy the whole time, projecting all the coolness and confidence I could muster and discovering there’s a lot more there than there used to be.

And while it didn’t actually pay off in any concrete sense, the few minor successes I had were enough to put me in good spirits. That really cute drunk girl definitely liked me. So what that it couldn’t’ have gone anywhere because of her “what what what” boyfriend? I successfully introduced myself and carried out small-talk in Japanese with several girls, all of whom were as friendly as can be and gave off no vibe that I was imposing on them at all. I even danced with a handful of girls, almost all of whom seemed to enjoy it (the ALT chicks were the only ones who didn’t). Having done that and seen how easily I can do it, it’ll be that much easier to do next time and the time after that. My confidence shot up a few degrees from that experience. Perhaps in a few years (or decades) I might actually be confident enough to succeed. Perhaps.

As for those guys, they were not happy about what had (or rather, what hadn’t) gone down. When we got back to Victor’s place we hung out for a couple more hours, ate some of the snacks that had been prepared, and continued to talk about the night’s disappointments. Well, Trey and Victor did. Anand and I mostly just listened and laughed. The discussion wasn’t morose or depressing—it was actually pretty light-hearted and full of humor. The group wasn’t brooding over our failure but laughing about it, though inside we all knew Victor was genuinely upset and Trey was a little angry too. But Anand and I had a good time anyway. He struck me as the kind of guy who also doesn’t have much experience with women. His expectations had probably been almost as low as mine, and so he too was shielded from disappointment.

I tried to tell Victor that he needed to stop focusing on what could have been and just appreciate what is—here we were, a good group of guys who enjoy each others’ company just hanging out and having a good time. His only response was yeah, but it could have been a much much better time.

Perhaps, but probably not for me. In any case, it was ultimately decided that the fatal flaw in the plan had been to make Victor’s place the after-party as opposed to the party itself. He stands a much better chance of attracting a crowd if he has the party in warm-weather, making use of his large yard for a barbecue, or his close-proximity to the beach for a beach-party. If the party was to take place elsewhere, it would have to start at his place, relocate there, and then end up back where it started. He’s got a great place with great party-potential, but the stars were just not aligned properly that night.

Trey and I drove back to Togane the next morning, him telling me that the next time we do this we’ll do it right. That basically means going clubbing in Tokyo, where if one place is dead there are eight hundred other places to choose from. (In my case, it also means there’s no pressure to bring a girl home—you just get her contact info and take it from there).

But he said he was glad he brought me because I had a good time and that made it a good enough time for him. He said he feels like we may have a budding friendship, and we’ll probably actually start hanging out more often instead of just talking about hanging out more often.

I hope so because he’ll be a valuable friend to have. He’s only 23 now so he’s just starting out his life. He was just accepted into Vanderbilt law school and has applications at places like Stanford and Yale pending. His plan is to get his Master’s or Ph.D. in law and then go into politics and probably run for office one day. He’s already got connections in Tennessee politics, having met both the mayor of Nashville and the governor. Of all the people I’ve ever met in my life, he’s the most likely person to become President of the United States. That’s not a job I would ever want, but maybe he could make me his ambassador to Germany or something.

Anyway, that was this past weekend, an experience from which I drew two valuable lessons: 1- I’m waaaaay more confident than I used to be, and 2- It still works to my advantage to keep my expectations low.

My birthday was this past Thursday, and while there was nothing particularly special or interesting about the day I might as well document what I did.

I’d invited about ten or twelve people out to dinner on Thursday evening at a place called Dohtonbori, the okinomiyaki restaurant near Ben’s apartment that a bunch of us ate together at a couple of months ago. Only a few people could make it, so it just turned out to be five of us: me, Ben, Fred, Jack and Lily.

Fred and I met Ben at his place an hour earlier to have a couple of beers, get caught up on the month-and-a-half it’s been since we’ve seen each other (the Christmas party was the last time), and shoot some darts on Ben’s new dart-board. I had some serious amateur’s luck, as I not only shot a perfect bull’s-eye on my very first throw, but I ended up winning the entire game of cut-throat.

At 7:00 we took the five-minute walk to the restaurant, got a table inside (one of those deals where you have to sit on the floor) and Jack and Lily arrived a few minutes later to join us. They were nice enough to bring me a present: a pen and an empty journal for me to write about my experiences. I appreciated the thought, but for someone who already writes about all his experiences by typing them up in an online journal (and who can type about 67 times faster than he can write), a paper journal is somewhat superfluous. But blank paper is never useless—it can be my next Japanese-writing-practice notebook.

What’s to say? The okinomiyaki was delicious and the conversation was fun and interesting. Jack and Lily are on a two-month semester break from college starting next week, and they’ll first be visiting Thailand followed by a month in Jack’s hometown of Boston. Ben lived in Thailand for six months so he gave them a bunch of useful tips. It sucks that I won’t see them again for a full two months, but I’m sure we’ll see a lot of each other when they get back.

When we parted ways after dinner I told both Ben and Fred that I hope another two months doesn’t go by before I see either of them again, and they said we’ll try to hang out more often.

But there’s plenty of socialization to come, starting with tonight. Trey, who couldn’t make it to dinner on Thursday, has invited me to a party one of his friends is throwing in the south of Chiba tonight. When I get off work (yes, my school was open on Saturday instead of Friday this week—welcome to Japan) he’s going to pick me up and drive us down there, where we will presumably be drinking and flirting with women, then spending the night and driving back tomorrow morning. I’m as apprehensive as ever about the flirting-aspect, but whatever happens it should be interesting.

In other news, I decided to spend the money required to join my Dad on his bi-annual sailing trip in the Caribbean this year. I was able to go four years ago as a Christmas/birthday present during my brief transition-phase from California to Germany, and it was pretty clear that that was the last time my parents were going to pay for me. I haven’t really been able to afford to pay my own way until this year. They’re covering my share of the boat-rental as a birthday present, but I have to pay for the flight and all the expenses while we’re down there. The flight is the real killer, but since this opportunity only comes once every two years and it’s unlikely I’ll be living anywhere closer to that part of the world in 2014, I figured I might as well go this year. It’ll be in the British Virgin Islands, which I haven’t been to in ten years (for my second trip, a graduation present in 2002) because the trip four years ago was in Antigua. I can’t express how excited I am to be able to go again, but suffice it to say I’m really looking forward to it. Plus, as an added bonus I’ll have a 16-hour stopover in Newark on both the flight over and back, which means I’ll get to spend those two nights at my parents’ home in Glen Gardner. It’ll be extremely weird to see my Mom for just a couple of nights and a week apart like that, but I’m looking forward to that too.

On the school-front, I’m back in the normal swing of things. The past two weeks have been pretty fun as it’s almost been exclusively full-class review games, including my personal favorite—Jeopardy—which never fails to get every last student involved and excited.

On turning 28, it has a bit more of a psychological impact than I’d expected. At 27 I was in my mid-twenties, but now I’m officially “pushing 30”. My youth is almost over. What the hell have I been doing all this time? Oh yeah—stuff I love.

Some nights are weirder than others. I got a text from Trey last night inviting me to a little party at his place which I went to at 10:30. It was mostly students from Josai and a couple of his Japanese friends. It was a good time, but a detailed description is both unnecessary and inappropriate.

Morten, the guy with whom I flirted with those Japanese girls on New Years’ Eve, was there, and I got to hear the rest of the story: that guy who stepped in to take my place when I decided I wasn’t too into the girl I was talking to apparently had some success with her. Good for him. But I had a very nice talk with Morten and got to know him better. He’s a good guy.

I also did my fair share of chatting with girls, and it helped raise my confidence a notch. I actually even brought one back to my place, a really nice Hungarian girl, but it went as far as my doorstep and she decided she’d rather sleep in her own bed so I walked her home. Not that it would have gone anywhere anyway. She probably would have been a little surprised when I just set up the couch for her and plopped down in my bed to pass out. I was not ready to break any barriers last night.

But all in all it was a good experience and I’m glad it happened. My future with women seems slightly less hopeless than it did a day ago, but I’ve still got a long way to go.