Fishtails

No, I don't mean food. I mean the kind where a car's tires are no longer in static friction with the road's surface. This is what I experienced this morning on my way to school.

I was heading to Takae in a little bit of a hurry. I'd slept a bit late, waking at 7:12, and was making my way north around the usual speeds, 60kph or so. It looked like it had rained last night, so the roads were wet, but it was nothing I hadn't seen before. So I drove like normal, quite a bit faster than the speed limit, slowing at the points I knew might be a little rough in conditions like this.

Seems I didn't judge one turn right. I was following a right turn bend in the road when the wheels lost their grip. The car started fishtailing left, with the front of the car drifting into the right lane. There were no other cars around. My biggest fear was ending up in the typhoon gutters on the side of the road, protruding into lanes of traffic at a bend.

As the car slipped left, I threw the wheel in that direction, apparently without applying the brake. The momentum of the front wheels, I'm guessing, helped to bring the car into a more reasonable velocity, though there was a slight rebound to the right, which required a quick correction of the wheel. Once my speed had fallen low enough, the tires gripped the road again and I was able to straighten out in my lane. Heart pounding appropriately, I finished the short drive that remained to my school.

I got out of the car shaking from the shock of what *might* have just happened. I also remembered my predecessor, Ben, telling me of his spin out on the same route to the same school during a late morning dash to get there. His incident resulted in a flat tire, though I assume the feeling was quite the same. Losing control at any point of the day is not fun; when it's behind the wheel of a fast-moving and heavy automobile, it's even less so.

The drive back home was a bit more tame, with careful attention paid to each of the bends in the road. One of the thoughts I kept having had to do with the relative lack of population in Higashi. I try not to think about what would have happened if a car was coming the other way at the same speed. It would have turned out to be a very very bad day. Waisu desu.

Mid-Year and Tokashiki

The Annual Okinawa Mid-Year Conference was held this past Thursday and Friday in Okinawa City. It was a collection of seminars, from JETs and Japanese Teachers' of English (JTEs), which covered topics from ideas for elementary school games and lessons to the theory of learning a second language. I was mostly pleased with the presentations. I, for some reason though, maintained a slight state of anxiety throughout those two days. Probable reasons include being used to my small-village life in Okinawa and feeling somewhat off about being so physically close, yet emotionally restricted, to certain things.

Seeing JETs I don't see frequently was also nice. Whether over lunch, during a break, or at the bar/evening event, I was able to catch up with those living in vastly different parts of Okinawa, from the outer islands to the urban life in the few cities that do exist here.

The highlight of the weekend came in the trip to Tokashiki Island. James, a JET from New Zealand, lives on the island. And the Tokashiki trip happens every year, sometimes during warmer weather. But it was still awesome.

We caught an early liner on Saturday and set up camp upon arrival. Morning activities included having a couple of drafts at a nearby eatery, fighting away the amazingly bold and aggressive crows, snorkeling, eating, napping, and going for an awesome glass-bottom boat ride. As evening rolled around, the drinking started again, dinner was taken at a local eatery - the name for which I cannot recall for the life of me. After that, it was time to hit the beach.

Having gathered wood before dark, our supply was ready to go. But I have this issue with fires, especially if they are crap. I arrived to a mild bonfire, one clearly in need of improvement. So I did my best with the limited amount of thick wood that we had, helped impressively by John McFarlane, who appeared with a nice bag of charcoal. Amidst building the fire, most likely due to a fair bit of drinking and relative darkness, I grabbed a piece of wood that was actually an ember. I immediately went for the cooler, plunging my hand into the cool, but not cold, water. My second step was to open another beer and hold it with my right hand, soothing the pain in a dual-layered process. I now have a scar on my right palm, though it's small and nothing worse came of it.

The rest of the evening, while generally remembered, is jumbled. I recall singing, drinking, tending the fire, talking about my issues with figuring out I.B. sensei, speaking Japanese, and coming to realize that the beach was cold, it was late, and I needed to go to sleep (this may have occurred after I woke up from a nap I took on the beach - reportedly, since I can't remember).

Bad news is that this morning was extremely crap with headache, ill stomach, lack of food, and feeling quite ill after the liner ride back to Naha. Good news is that we all kind of felt like trash, so it was funny to joke about our condition, though not too loudly.

I have no pictures, deciding to leave my camera in the car (this was an excellent idea as I have found sand in my phone). I don't want to think what would have happened if I brought it. I'll do my best to elicit photographs from friends that took them and post them when I can.

This week is short due to the Japanese Labour Thanksgiving Holiday. It is also quite free seeing as I'll be performing an "observation class" on Wednesday with Natsu-sensei. Thursday brings the arrival of Aaron and Kelly from Hong Kong and a good long weekend of touring and sights. I'll fill you in after, of course, and wish you a good week from here. Waisu desu.

They shit too much

These were the words uttered by one of my Japanese Teacher's of English this week as we were doing greetings at the start of class. She was referring to geckos and dislike of them.

To my well-trained English ear, "shit" rang out loudly and I caught myself before reacting too distinctly. A moment later, I realized that nobody in the room - except the laughing JTE - knew what the word meant. All was clear.

Until she started to explain what "shit" means. The students were giving her blank looks, I might have been giving her a look with a crooked eyebrow, so she explained how it's similar to the Japanese くそ kuso. I then did my best to explain that it's really only good to use it in private situations, like if one were to stub one's toe or spill some paint or something like that. "Don't say it in front of other people."

But I know it's futile. And it was funny after all! If I knew how to cuss in Japanese, my fellow JETs would never hear the end of it. And I'd be practicing all the time in my car, driving behind any one of the numerous locals who drive at 30 kph (I know for a fact many of the turns can be taken at 70 in dry weather). Waisu desu.

What's the deal

I'm thinking about changing my schedule of posts to something more regular, perhaps once a week, around the same time, which would save everyone the trouble of randomly checking my blog (though if you have an RSS reader, you have no worries). There are two problems with this: I can't be trusted to write on a regular basis; and that would be boring.

I've never been very good with routine. Well, I've never been very good with routine if the thing I'm trying to standardize isn't that big of a deal to me. I'm very good at going to work (though I hardly consider the work itself routine), studying my Japanese, practicing my guitar...

Speaking of which, I bought a new classical guitar. The luthier is Japanese and this guitar is one of the best sounding and technically well-produced guitars I have ever played. I'll spare you the physics lesson, but let me just say that the tonal reproduction at the higher frets is on pitch, not sharp like most other guitars I have played. I left my first classical guitar in the care of my former roommate, Joe, in Chicago when I moved - it would have cost more than the guitar itself to ship. So I was very happy to find this one at a cost of 39,800円 and at a recycle center no less. For those interested, it's called なんでも屋 and is located in Nago near the 84 and 71.

The best thing about finding this guitar, other than a sense of scoring a great deal, is that it will allow me to get back into some more serious practicing. I spent 2-3 years learning guitar in college, acquired a minor in Music, and have never done anything other than dabble in my own abilities. Perhaps if I dedicated myself, I could at least produce something nice for the people that want to listen. And if I've learned one thing about music, it's that everyone enjoys it, especially if it's live and interesting.

It's also another little aspect of my life that I can share with the people of Higashi and others. That's not to say they won't be sharing anything with me. I've finally found a sanshin teacher and will be starting that soon. After that, I may try to master the ukulele. My collection of portable instruments is slowly increasing. Waisu desu.

In other news, we are learning our second kata in 空手, my toenail is really gross and I'm getting some new medicine on Friday, the car needs service, and "unnamed" has reciprocated with a request for dinner this weekend (I hate calling her "unnamed", so let's go with I.B., utilizing a naming method used by an author I enjoyed in college)...and a bug just flew into my ear, so I vacuumed him up.

180,000 Plus

I have been getting to sleep later than usual this week and I fully attribute it to Halloween. Though that's not a perfectly fair accusation. Halloween is just a day that kids celebrate and on which the schools hold some activities. But the choice to work my ass of for these things is what's really keeping me from turning in before midnight this week. This is not a griping post, however. I'm having a blast!

Though we did some things at Higashi School, and had games and activities in each class, Arume decided to hold two separate events on Wednesday, one for junior high school and one for elementary. Having picked up my schedule for the week on Friday, I saw that my involvement was going to be pretty high. Junko先生 also asked me to take part by wearing my costume.

*cough* Uh, what? Costume? Oh...

And so I got to work. By thinking. What the hell could I come up with in a few days that would be original, funny, interesting, or scary, and not look like crap. You may not be aware, but I have a keen eye for quality, in my work or others', so a halfass costume was not a possibility. I continued to think by mentally cataloging all the clothing I had brought with me, all the little things lying around the house that could be manipulated, reshaped, or simply hung to my body, all the things I could buy at the 100 yen store. Somewhere in this process, while eating a bowl of cereal, it came to me.

A milk carton. But not just *any* milk carton - the one I see everyday at school lunch, the gakkou kyuushoku gyuunyuu carton, with its pretty little barn and silo, blue and white patterns, and helpful information about contents and methods of opening.

As we all know, cartons are made of paper, boxes they are really. It turns out that large orders of copy toner come in well-sized for wearing boxes - just a little wider than the torso and a little deeper, too. Working at schools, I'm surrounded by craft materials and larger than necessary pieces of paper. So I coated the box in white, printed Japanese in almost perfect replication, spent way too much time getting the barn design to scale, and devised a system to keep the box dangling at an appropriate height and to keep it from collapsing upon itself. After adding white socks, pants, shirt, and bandana, and don't forget the actual school milk, I was golden. Er, white actually.

It was a hit. I became Mr. Milk for a day, and my little carton (Milkie) was a source of puppetry and delight to the younger kids. Unfortunately, my method of dispensing milk chocolate treats to the kids didn't go as well as planned (imagine a box of milk "dispensing" chocolate treats...), but even if they didn't eat them, at least they got a kick out of the acting.

Waisu desu.

In other news, my car hit 180,000 km the other day, I've been in Japan for three months and it seems like three weeks, "unnamed" is going to "call me about dinner this weekend" (bleh...) and I still don't know where I'm going for the winter break. Odds indicate a trip to the Antipodean and then a few days on a tiny tiny island east of Okinawa to visit a friend.