Part-time Junior High Student

November was a fairly quiet month until the last week or so. At that time I took my first trip outside of Nagano Prefecture (that wasn't to Tokyo). I went with the junior high teachers to Niigata prefecture, the next prefecture to the north. The best part of the trip was probably the bus ride, because we got to talk and have fun, but I also enjoyed the geology museum. We ate an enormous amount of crab (Niigata is famous for it) while looking over the sea of Japan. We also went to an aquarium and a sake factory. Souvenirs are very important in Japanese culture, but I didn't find anything particularly interesting except crab cola. (It says on the bottle, "made with crab broth!") So I bought a couple of bottles of that and gave it to a teacher at another school who is a good friend, and we shared it. It actually tasted better than normal cola to me.

In the last month of November it started getting below freezing most nights. One day at the junior high school we noticed some snow monkeys climbing on the roof of the school. After trying to scare them away by throwing sticks at them, we had to do a quick check of the windows and floors to make sure that none of them had managed to get into the school. Snow monkeys are, for some reason, famous in Nagano prefecture. Many tourists go into the mountains to watch the snow monkeys bathe in hot springs. Personally, I don't understand the appeal, and haven't done it myself.

I don't have a lot of work to do at the Junior high school, so occasionally I am able to attend classes. One week I helped the students come up with dances that they will perform. I've attended a few Japanese classes, one of which focused on a famous set of Japanese poems. These poems are used to play a game, and I have watched a Japanese TV series about people who play this game. It's one of my favorite TV shows, so I was thrilled to be able to actually participate in the game in class. Now the students are doing kendo (Japanese version of fencing, kind of) in PE class, so I was invited to participate when I have a free period. I learned how to hold and swing the sword.

Last Sunday I went to Nagano City to take the Japanese language proficiency test level 1. This is supposedly the most difficult Japanese test geared towards foreigners, so I really didn't expect to do very well. I have managed to learn at least one word for each of the 2200 Chinese characters in normal use in Japanese, but I've really neglected my reading for the past six months. On the train to the test, I knew that I should study some more, but I got bored and started reading a young adult novella in Japanese. I happened across an interesting word, and I circled and starred it. The word was an entire question on the test! Anyway, the test was easier than I expected, and though I still don't have high hopes of passing, I think I might have a chance. Also, I now know a few of my weakpoints--mainly vocabulary used in the workplace.

So far I have nothing special planned for the month of December. I work on Christmas Day, and Boxing Day is my last workday until January 9th or so. I'll try to post again if something interesting happens before January, though.

October

Starting in September, I started attending a new church. It's located in the city of Suwa, about 20 minutes (by train or car) southeast of my current residence. All of the churches I have visited have a communal atmosphere, which can be attributed in part to how small they are--no larger than fifty people, I would say. The church in Suwa has this atmosphere, but it also gives me the feeling that life revolves around the church, rather than vice versa. Unlike in the other churches, there are many young families, and most of the children are homeschooled. They do this at least partially because in junior high school and high school, students typically have regular events on Sunday. In order to make attending church a priority, the families feel that they have to homeschool.

While talking to the people at church, I realized a peculiar cultural difference. People kept asking me if this or that famous American is really a Christian. In America, I can't imagine this being a topic of conversation concerning anyone that wasn't known to me personally with more than a passing acquaintance. However, I realized that in Japan, there is no value, and indeed it's probably slightly detrimental, to proclaim oneself a Christian. (I'm not saying that there's persecution, but making such a claim is unusual for Japanese, and thus can create social distance). Therefore if someone says they are a Christian, Japanese people tend to take their words at face value. If an American says that they're a Christian though, I wouldn't put a lot of weight in their words unless I saw evidence beyond going to church.

It's mostly unrelated, but I really like Suwa, the city where the church is. It's quaint in a way similar to Vietnam without being too touristy, and it's also more developed obviously. It's really naturally beautiful too, surrounded by mountains with a large lake in the middle. Coming down from the mountain pass from Shiojiri offers many wonderful views.

In other news, I'm enjoying bouldering even more lately, and I really want to improve. Also, Shiojiri had a large halloween event this past weekend, so I dressed up as a (gentlemanly) pirate and walked around, and was able to see many of my students. I might be enjoying life more lately, but I can't really express why.

Sports Day and the Japan Experience

So I am back in school, but these next few weeks have several holidays and special events that break up the routine (even though the routine has barely become routine again). This past Saturday was supposed to be field day for the small elementary school that I work at. It rained all day on Saturday so the day was rescheduled for Sunday.

Field day (or sports day, as it's more usually translated) is a bit different from its American counterpart. There are relays and races, but it's mainly a time to show off for the parents, so there are also dances and gymnastic formations. There are two teams, red and white, and the whole team receives points based on their members' performance in the competitive games. At the beginning of the day there was a very ceremonial hype-up, in which the leader of the team stood up on a podium and yelled things about victory to which the teammates returned cheers. At the end the teams sang a fight song--the white team and the red team's fight songs are different and they sing them in harmony at the end of the ceremony.

There is one game where a large inflatable ball (about 5 feet in diameter) is passed around the field by the students. The students are in a ring around the field, each team taking up half the field. The teams race to pass the ball halfway around the field, move it around some cones, then pass it back. It's exciting to watch, and kind of amusing when the students drop the ball and panic, trying to keep it from rolling away.

Another traditional event is the horse game, in which three students carry a fourth on their shoulders, and the rider has to try to take the hat of the riders on the opposite team. It's kind of scary because the students are throwing their hands around each others' faces at high speed. At the small school though it didn't get too ferocious because the students were wearing normal caps. At the large elementary school though, the students wore swimming caps so that they really had to work hard to pull the cap off.

There is also a pole toppling game, where each team has a large wooden pole (maybe 10 feet tall?) that they defend while they try to make the other team's pole fall to the ground. Apparently it is quite dangerous, so the small elementary school didn't do it. The large elementary school did, but I didn't find very exciting--it was too chaotic for me to appreciate.

These are experiences that almost every Japanese person has in common. The more I learn about Japanese culture, the more I'm impressed by how universal (in Japan) it is and how opaque to the rest of the world (or at least, to me). Not just experiences either, but how to act and what to say in different situations. Although I'm immersed in the culture most of the time, much more than in my other countries, I still feel like my experiences amount to a drop in the bucket. With that in mind, I feel like I have to spend another year as an assistant teacher. Ideally I could start studying education part-time while doing so, and thus I still plan to take the Japanese test in December and apply to university next year.

Summer Cycling

When I bought my bicycle, I planned to use it not only for nearby shopping trips but also for traveling. My idea was that I would (someday) cycle around all of Japan with just the luggage on my bicycle and camp in one of the many free or cheap campsites. I've sort-of practiced this three times by packing my bicycle and cycling to a nearby park (20 minutes away), then setting up my hammock and trying to sleep. The first time I came home after half an hour because I decided the location was too remote. The second and third times I only slept for a couple hours before waking up again, and ended up going home as dawn was breaking. So these trial runs were not very encouraging, but they all took place in fairly low temperatures and after just 20 minutes of cycling. Surely if I was tired from cycling and didn't have to worry about the cold wind blowing through the hammock, things would go better, I thought. Well, summer vacation is long and should be a good time to see if my idea was actually possible.

So yesterday I pack up my bike and set out at 8:30. That was my first mistake. The high these days is over 90 degrees, the humidity is at least 70%, and direct sunlight is near unbearable for more than a couple minutes, so ideally the main part of my cycling trip would finish by 11 or 12. I had planned to leave at 7 but that didn't happen, and even that goal was a bit lenient. Anyway, I was headed south to a city called Iida, about 76 km (46 miles) away. There was another city on the way that I told myself I could stop at if I got too tired.

The problem with these distances is that they assume that you take more or less the most direct route. Sometimes this route is okay, but about half an hour into my trip I found myself having to choose between a very narrow sidewalk and a very busy road with no shoulder and many large trucks. This is essentially my worst nightmare as a cyclist (although I happened to pass two other cyclists, also foreigners, going the opposite way on this road. They were packed up just like me, too.) So I got off that road pretty quick and found a parallel one. When that one ended, I took some great roads next to the mountains with decent shoulders and very few cars. They were lovely and had fantastic views, but they took me a bit off-course and were very physically demanding as well.

At Komagane (my back-up city) I decided to press on, and it was shortly afterwards that I decided I was really tired and should have stopped, probably around 55 km. This was my worst mistake, which I don't plan to repeat. Shortly past Komagane, I missed a turn, or more likely, the turn looked like another scary narrow and busy road that I didn't want to go on. Because of this, I ended up making a semi-circle instead of a line to my destination. It was somewhere around this point that I started getting leg cramps which made me stop and take long breaks on shady bits of pavement. I did keep hydrated, but I could tell that I was not feeling good.

I rolled into the parking lot of my destination at 5:00, 7.5 hours after starting my journey. My actual cycling time was 5 hours 45 minutes, and I had gone 95 km at this point. So if I'm staying at a free campground, where do I bathe? At a public bath, my destination, and I was really ready for it. It was my first time at a Japanese bath, and this was a really nice one. First I had to take off my shoes to enter the building and put them in a locker. Next I bought a ticket using a vending machine and gave it to the receptionist. After that I went downstairs to the changing room. I knew that it's expected (or even required) to be completely naked in the baths, but since I was the only one in the room I dallied for a bit hoping to have my ideas confirmed. Then a cleaning lady came into the room and started vacuuming. I was moderately shocked. I couldn't just take off all my clothes in front of a cleaning lady, so ended up taking a bag into the baths and taking off the rest of my clothes there. The cleaning lady later came into the baths, so I guess it would have been fine, but still definitely strange. This place apparently had 7 different types of baths, and for the price I can believe it. I was tempted to try at least one, but considering how utterly exhausted I was, and thinking about how I still needed to set up camp before dark, I decided to settle with a shower.

The campsite I picked out was 2.5 km away, and apparently it had a restaurant very close by. First I went to the restaurant, and as I feared it was closed, so I cycled back to town and bought some convenience store food for dinner. Incidentally, convenience store food sounds gross, but in Japan it's really quite good--everything is fresh. Anyway, I got back to the campsite, set up my hammock, and ate my dinner because I was too hungry to do anything else. When I finished it was dark, but I managed to get my bug net on my hammock and get in. Then I checked the weather--supposedly there would be light rain and thunderstorms. For about half an hour I laid in my hammocking considering how bad it would be if I was rained on, and in the end I managed to convince myself to set up my rain fly. Ugh, I hate setting up my rain fly, and when I finally got it set up, my hammock felt really humid. I had to get up and adjust the hammock a couple more times, but eventually I fell asleep, probably between 3 and 4 AM.

I woke up at 8 because of the heat and quickly packed up. I tried to find the nearby train station and failed because by this point my phone was completely dead. That was scary, but I followed the signs for the main city station and found it without difficulty. There I spent over an hour trying to figure out how to pack up my bicycle. In Japan you can't take bicycles on the train unless they're packed up in a bag, so you have to take the wheels off and secure them to the frame, and you should really take the rack off as well but I didn't have any tools to help me do that so I managed (barely) to get it in my bag without doing so. After a 3 hour train ride, I arrived back in Shiojiri.

It was unquestionably an experience, and I'm glad I did it, but I definitely need to be more careful about exertion in the future. I'm fairly sure that I've never worked physically so hard for so long, and now I'm bone tired and feel almost sick, so I don't really care to think about cycling in the future at the moment.

Students

I have lunch with my students every day. At the small elementary school, the first graders ask me to eat with them almost every week (which is every time I'm there). At first they had lots of fun questions for me, like, "Why is your nose so tall? Is it because you lie a lot?" (A reference to Pinnochio, but the student seemed completely serious.) "Why is your hair brown?" was a frequently asked question. And there were even some fun ones like, "Guess what I like better, green or pink." I liked those. After the first couple of times though, I think I became less of a figure of interest and more of a status symbol, so now I try to find another class to eat with. (Plus, the first graders' tables are really short.) With first and second graders, I speak almost all Japanese, only excepting the occasional "hello" or "yes" or "okay" and maybe "yummy".

The third and fourth graders are probably the most fun. They think many things are amusing, but they can talk about interesting topics. They also try to speak English more than anyone else, so I usually use about half English and half Japanese there. After lunch there is about 15 minutes break before cleaning time, and I usually end up playing with the third and fourth graders.

In one class with the third graders, we were talking about kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), and I mentioned that I couldn't write my name in kanji. The students very quickly came up with a name for me, written like this: 上主愛 (pronounced JOH-SHOO-AH). The characters have several meanings, but they could be translated as something like *superior* *lord* *love*. It sounds silly in English, but the Japanese English teachers said that it was quite a natural name in Japanese.

Fifth and sixth graders are less fun. The fifth graders are generally polite and try to answer questions, but don't initiate conversation. Their classes are usually fairly fun, and at the small school there are a few students who seem to have fun with English. I haven't eaten lunch with the sixth graders, but they are the most difficult class to teach because even in class asking any of them speak is like pulling teeth. I have eaten with sixth graders in the big school, but I got one-word responses at best. I mostly speak English with them, because they don't initiate conversation and I feel funny initiating conversation in Japanese.

Continuing with this trend, the middle school students (with the exception of maybe two 7th graders) are extremely reticent to speak and respond. I know it's not easy for anyone to converse in a language that they're not comfortable with, but among all the countries I've taught in, the Japanese middle schoolers are the most shy by far. I kind of blame the teaching system. At least in my middle school, the focus is on accuracy, and English is always accompanied with Japanese, usually immediately before or after. Their written English is generally quite high level, and when I speak to them I use words that I know they have studied. My theory is that in class the students don't bother listening to the English, but just the Japanese, so they don't really have any experience trying to understand spoken English, only writing it.

I do enjoy the middle school a lot though, and I hope to get to know the students better from here on. I participated in an in-school handball tournament not too long ago, which was a lot of fun. I was on the teachers' team, but I played against and cheered for the students. After this I realized that I had to learn the students' names, which I have since done (though I still make mistakes).

Tomorrow is the last day of school before the summer break, which lasts for exactly one month. I am going to Tokyo with the big elementary school's teachers at the end of the break for a couple of days, but otherwise I don't have any solid plans. I would like to go traveling by bicycle, but it's so hot that I'm not sure I could survive.

Sports

I haven't been riding my bicycle much lately. I rode it to the junior high school (23 km away) one day a few weeks ago. It was a really nice ride, and I got to see some of the elementary school students that I also teach on my way. They were all shocked to see me. I also rode the bicycle to church and then downtown Matsumoto one day. I should ride more, but June is the rainy season in Japan so I expect my riding days will be more limited. I do ride the bicycle short distances any day that it isn't supposed to rain, but that's probably worse for exercise than walking.

The temperature has reached 90F only a couple of times so far, but the classrooms are hot and a little stuffy, with one side of the classroom mostly tall windows and lacking AC. I'm not looking forward to the next 6 weeks, but after that school will be out for summer vacation. Speaking of vacation, today I have no work because there was a sports tournament Saturday and Sunday. On the previous weekend there was a field day at the big elementary school where I work. I attended for about 90 minutes and it was interesting, but I don't think there's much I could write about it.

On Saturday I did something that I've been wanting to try for a while--a co-worker and I went to the rock climbing gym. It's located about a half-hour walk from my house, and my bicycle can cut that time in half, but my coworker doesn't have one. The gym is not very large, and none of the walls are tall enough to require a harness, but the walls are very rigorous. Almost every hold has a designated path (often multiple) so that for a given path you are restricted to the holds you can use. They have 8 (or 10?) levels of climbing paths, with the lowest two levels only restricting hand placement, while the others restrict foot placement as well. It's kind of a mental challenge as well as a physical challenge to figure out how to go from the start to the finish of a path. Anyway, it was a great workout and fun as well. My co-worker and I were keen on going regularly, but unfortunately our work schedules are opposite on weekdays, so we'll have to figure out something else.

I feel more a part of the community now. I've attended two parties with my junior high co-workers, who are very friendly and fun. I've got an open offer to attend PE in my free periods at the junior high school, and have done so two or three times and learned how to play handball. I was advised by the director of the English program in my city to attend Japanese class with the students, so I'll be asking the teacher for permission on Wednesday.

At this point I've been in Japan about 9.5 months, and I'll be here for at least nine more months. Six months ago my plan was to build up a programming portfolio and try to find a job in that field here in Japan. I haven't written off that idea, but I've seen almost no programming jobs outside of the three biggest cities (where I'd prefer not to live), most of these jobs are in game development (which I'd rather avoid), and the pay is not significantly better than what I earn now. Furthermore, I'm frequently reminded of how much I like teaching children, especially middle schoolers. If I could choose any job right now, I think I would like to be the English teacher at the middle school where I work. With that in mind, I'm going to take the highest level of the Japanese test in December, and if I pass I should be able to study at a university. I'm not going to worry about the details for a while, because the Japanese test will be useful no matter what, but I know it's possible because I met someone who has done it.

Japanese Public School

I’ve now been in my new position long enough to have a general idea of what happens in my job. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to a very nice and small junior high school. On Tuesdays I go to the (also small) elementary school next to this junior high school. It takes at least 30 minutes to drive there from work, and it takes about 10 minutes for me to walk to work from home, so the commute is a bit much. The small classes are worth it, though. A month in, I learned the names of all the seventh-graders, of which there are only eight.

In contrast, on Thursdays and Fridays I go to the largest elementary school in Shiojiri. The teacher there is new, so I’m never really sure what to expect. Plus, there are so many different classes in this school that for the first month almost all of my classes were the same—my self-introduction.

Japanese school is quite different from in the US, I think. I don’t have much experience with American schools, but there were many things that surprised me, which would indicate that I had some preconceived notions of how things should be. I don’t know exactly what time school starts, but since I have never seen a student arriving after me, I think the students are expected to be at school by 8 if not earlier. In middle school and high school there are sometimes morning club activities which probably end about this time. There are six periods in a school day, but the classes for each period change daily. There is a schedule given out at the beginning of the week, but even that changes sometimes.

Each class has their own classroom which they stay in for most classes. The teachers are the ones who rotate, and when they aren’t teaching they are usually in the teacher’s room. Students frequently come in the teacher’s room, but there is a procedure that they must follow—they knock, open the door (possibly stepping just inside the room), say “excuse me”, then announce their name and their purpose for coming to the teacher’s room. When they leave, they bow, say “excuse me” before closing the door.

Students usually eat lunch in their classrooms. Two of my schools are quite unusual in having lunchrooms. The students are given responsibilities in the serving of the meal, and nobody eats until everyone is served and seated. Then everyone says “itadakimasu” (something like “I am honored to be receiving”), and begins to eat. I have found that it’s sometimes difficult for me to eat fast enough to finish by the end of lunch time, but I’m getting better at it. At the end, everyone says “gochisousamadeshita” (which is something like “this was a feast”) and cleans up. This means wiping the table where you sat, putting up your chair, and putting your eating utensils in the correct place. Some students are responsible for returning the utensils to the preparation room.

After lunch time there is a short break before fifteen minutes of cleaning time. In elementary school everyone wears a cap while cleaning, but in junior high school they wear handkerchiefs tied on the head. Students are allocated different cleaning positions, and usually they are not allowed to talk as they work.

After sixth period, the middle schools often have club activities which can last until 6 PM, depending on the amount of daylight available. I haven't determined if clubs exist in elementary schools.

That covers most of the differences I think. More will likely be added as they appear.

End-of-school holidays, or, the bicycle post

In December I was given a bicycle by one of my Japanese teachers, and I rode it every day for a week. Then one of the tires blew out and I was told that it was pointless to fix because it was so old. Ever since then I've been planning to get a bicycle, but I've waited because my coworker told me that she would give me her bicycle. Bicycles are really common in Japan, especially a kind of cheap bicycle (usually about $100-$150) called a mama-chari (mother's vehicle), which apparently is called a city bike in English. It always has a front basket and often a luggage rack or a child seat in the back. This is the kind that I had, and the kind that my co-worker was going to give me, but she bought hers last year and mine was at least 15 years old.

Two weeks ago, a week before I would be given the bike, my co-worker forgot to lock it and, despite it being parked right outside her apartment, it was stolen. It wasn't a great loss to be honest. She had to walk for the remaining one week she was here, and I had to look into buying a more expensive bike which I wanted in the first place but my thriftiness wouldn't permit without giving the other bike a try.

I decided that I would like to go on longer trips with a bicycle, maybe even overnight (called bike-packing). This would be quite difficult on a mama-chari, which is heavy and has no gears, so I decided to look into a hybrid bike. Hybrid bikes don't have wheels as thick as city bikes or mountain bikes, but they're not as thin as a road bike either, which means they reach a happy medium between speed and an ability to deal with most road conditions. Hybrid bikes (and actually, most bikes that aren't city bikes) are pretty expensive, with the cheapest being around $400, so I researched really hard considering I would be spending a lot of money.

A new teacher for my school arrived in Shiojiri on Friday. On Saturday we had one last hang-out at my coworker's flat before she left, and I invited the new teacher. It turned out that he was really into bikes and had planned to buy one. So the next day we met up and each bought a bicycle. Mine was a bit less than I had expected to pay, but it was easy to make up the difference with accessories like a lock, front lights, back lights, a helmet, a water bottle, etc. So on Monday and Tuesday the new teacher and I spent our mornings cycling and shopping, which was fun. I also showed him around the supermarket, and took him to a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant.

On Wednesday I had plans to go with a friend to Naraijuku by hiking up from the next station down. It was a beautiful day, but ended up the hottest day of the month so we were both a bit uncomfortable because of that.  Also, we had both stayed up late the night before and weren't in peak condition. Then I forgot to check the directions and we ended up walking about 30 minutes northwest instead of northeast. This road wasn't too bad because there were mountains and a beautiful river for some of the time, but it wasn't as nice as the route I had planned to take. Since there was a mountain and train tracks between our location and my intended route, we had to go all the way back to 15 minutes from our starting point. By this time my friend was definitely tired and she voted to go back home the way we came. In the end I felt like it was a small disaster, but hopefully I learned something from it.

Thursday I cycled to Matsumoto castle, a distance of about 30 km (18.5 miles), but stopped several times along the way for shopping. It was a really nice ride that ended up taking me about one hour of travel time for one way. Previously when I rode my bicycle in this direction to go to church, I found the sidewalk to be narrow, bumpy, and hilly--a terrifying combination to someone not very comfortable with bikes. Since then I have discovered that the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street is much more accommodating. If I want to, I can take the sidewalk all the way to Matsumoto, at which point there is a very nice bike lane. Japan is really a nice place to cycle.

Yesterday I went with another friend to Azumino, a town famous for its scenery, soba noodles, and wasabi. First we tried a local specialty dish for lunch called shinshuu salmon. It was basically just salmon sashimi with miso soup, rice, and pickles, but it seemed high quality, and was delicious as well as inexpensive. Then we went to the wasabi farm, which was beautiful but is most famous for having special food. I tried wasabi ice cream (which was barely distinctive from vanilla) and wasabi beer (again, the wasabi flavor was weak). I bought some delicious wasabi seaweed. Finally we went to a kind of strange art museum. I think the best part of that was probably the buildings. We cycled to get to all of these places, but we used an electronic-assist bicycle so it wasn't very taxing. Even so, I was pretty tired when I got home, and went to sleep quickly.

Pictures from Azumino:

Today I'm expecting a package with a luggage rack for my bicycle. After it comes, or if it hasn't come by about 1, I'm going to cycle to Suwa lake. The distance is similar to going to Matsumoto, but I suspect that the elevation might make this ride more difficult. If I'm not too worried about that, I can cycle around the lake, which would probably double the distance of my trip. Work starts again on Monday, so this will be my last hurrah for the end-of-school holidays.

The new year and other changes

I didn't quite finish my Christmas break in my last post. After coming back from Tokyo, I relaxed for almost a full week--meaning I was mostly unproductive. I did go with a Japanese friend to Naraijuku, a famous street about half an hour away. Apparently it looks very similar to how it used to look 400 years ago. The buildings are old and conform to that image of traditional Japan--pretty neat.

That weekend I went skiing in Hakuba, on some of the same slopes that were used in the 1998 winter olympics. I hadn't skied since high school, so at first skiing was quite a challenge. I couldn't find a bunny slope and had to make due with an intermediate slope. Fortunately I had a friend looking out for me and encouraging me. By the end of the first day I was tackling the black diamonds, only struggling when I hit moguls. These slopes were very heavy on the moguls--it was difficult to avoid them altogether if you wanted to make a run of several slopes at once.

That night we went out for dinner and then to a bar. We were on our last drink of the night when my friend thought up a way to approach other people--with an accent challenge, in which we competed in trying to imitate accents. In this bar, incidentally, probably 85% of the customers were Australian. It was a fun challenge which I lost, but at the second table we got caught up in the party atmosphere and ended up staying very late, talking to everyone in the bar indiscriminately. It was a fun experience, but not one I'd like to have regularly.

The next day we were both suffering from sleep deprivation and very sore from the previous day's skiing. After lunch we started a long run, but after the first slope I said, "My knees won't bend anymore." We finished the run and then went home. I was sore for a solid week. Overall, skiing was an okay experience. It was worthwhile, but it's not something I'm looking forward to doing again. In high school I switched to snowboarding because I felt that skiing wasn't exciting enough. Now I feel that skiing is a little too exciting. I guess I'm getting old.

In February one of my co-workers broke some bones while snowboarding and couldn't work at all for two weeks. He is only back to his normal schedule as of this week, and I had to take some of his classes while he was out, so I was busier than usual. As a result, I wasn't able to attend Japanese class for 5 weeks. I could have gone last week, but it's the end of the school year so I'm not sure that the class is even meeting. My Japanese has suffered a bit as a result, but I still get lots of practice at church. In related news, I finished learning the 2042 kanji (Chinese characters) for general use. At least, as they were before 2010. They've since added about 100 more, so I have to learn those, but for now I'm taking a break.

On Friday I took tests for a Japanese driving license. The written test was really easy. It had 10 questions with pretty clear pictures and the answers were true or false. The actual English on the test was pretty confusing sometimes, but it wasn't really necessary to understand the question. The driving test, on the other hand, was really difficult. You have to drive a course that includes a very narrow s-curve and crank as well as visual obstructions and pedestrian walkways. I failed, primarily because I ran over the curb (just a little bit!) as I was coming out of the s-curve. I also didn't slow down at an intersection with some high bushes, and didn't stay on the left side of the road when I was turning left (to prevent bicycles from trying to pass me). Yesterday I took the test again and passed! So now I have a Japanese driver's license.

I needed to get this licence because my international license expires in September. I've decided to stay until next March, but my position will change. Starting in April, I will be working in public elementary and junior high schools. I'm excited about this for several reasons. First, I'll have normal working hours--from 8:30 to 4:30, Monday through Friday. I hope this means I'll have a little more opportunity for social interaction. Furthermore, I'll be interacting with Japanese people in a work environment on a daily basis, at least partly in Japanese. This should improve my Japanese skills and teach me more about Japanese culture. It should also help prepare me for working in a Japanese company. Because work is so important in Japanese culture, there are a lot of social events at work, and I hope to take part in these.

There's no work next week because it's the end of the school year, but I don't know what I will do yet.

Christmas and Tokyo

I'm really trying hard to focus on my Japanese, which has meant that English writing is close to my last priority, but I really want to have at least one entry for every month.

I haven't been going to the Monday night Japanese class because I always feel like enjoying a relaxing evening before I start back to work the next day, but I did go in December twice. I told my Japanese teacher that I was thinking about buying a bicycle and he told me "Don't do that, I've got so many bicycles it's kind of a pain. I can give you one of mine" (or something to that effect in Japanese). So I received an old bicycle for free. The front tire was pretty flat so I bought a tire pump and fixed that. Having a bicycle was great--I felt like I could explore my surroundings more easily, and go shopping at more places.

The next Sunday evening I even rode it to church with my guitar on my back. Unfortunately it rained rather hard for almost half of my 45 minute ride home, and I was soaked when I arrived. My guitar was fine though. The next day I was about to go shopping when I noticed that my tires were flat again. When I pulled out the valve to inflate the front tire, though, it immediately deflated completely. I couldn't figure out how to get the air to stay in. I eventually took the bike to a repair shop and was told that the tires were in such bad condition that repairing them would be a waste of money. Replacing both tires isn't much cheaper than buying a completely new bike. My co-worker said she would give me her bike when she leaves in March, so I will wait until then to have a bike again.

The same Japanese teacher who gave me a bike also invited me to a end-of-year party at his house. End-of-year parties are a big tradition in Japan, and it's common to have at least one with co-workers as well as with friends. I expected that the party would be mostly people from the Japanese class. It turns out that I was completely wrong. I was the only foreigner, and the other people were my teacher's friends from other activities. Aside from a short conversation with the only other person my age, all communication was in Japanese. There was one child there, a first-grade girl, and she ended up commandeering a few of us for her games of hide and seek, racing, and disguises. I wish I had been able to talk more with the adults, but it was certainly memorable experience.

Christmas eve was very enjoyable. There was a dinner and kind of a party at church, as well as a special evening service which they don't usually have. After the evening service I played "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and "What Child is This" on my guitar and sang. Afterwards we all sang more Christmas carols, though in Japanese. It really felt like Christmas because of this and the family-like atmosphere. It was the best Christmas celebration I've had abroad except for maybe in France.

I spent Christmas day planning my trip to Tokyo, which I embarked upon the following day. Soon after arriving, I went to a Taiko lesson that I had registered for. Taiko is the Japanese word for drum, but there are special Japanese drums and ways to play them that I wanted to learn. It was a lot of fun to immerse myself in the rhythm. The teacher was an excellent drummer, and he performed a piece on the big drum at the end of the lesson which was really impressive.

The next day I met a friend from Vietnam for tea, and the following day I had a Japanese calligraphy lesson. I saw a great museum that had a life-size replica of about a block of Tokyo neighborhood of 200 years ago, with real furnishings. There was a volunteer tour guide at this museum who spoke English, and he was very helpful. I also saw the beautiful Shinjuku National Gardens. There were lots of places to shop, including some nice and large second-hand clothing shops.

Aside from these things, I didn't enjoy my time in Tokyo very much. In fact I was homesick (for Shiojiri) starting from the first night, and I didn't get over it until my fourth and final day in there. Tokyo is, of course, extremely urban, with almost no green to be found. The buildings tower over the streets so that I felt like I was in a kind of pit at times. Most of the areas I visited were lacking in any kind of charm. There are hordes of people in some places, and the cyclists are crazy in how close they come to running into pedestrians. The air is bad too. I'm sure it didn't help though that I was there alone in the cold of winter, so I'm planning to go again with friends at some point. I certainly won't return alone, though.

That mostly covers my December.