It's just after 10 pm on Sunday night... I feel like I haven't slept in weeks. I'm not feeling too hot and tried to make it to the Women's Hospital after work, but their reception was closed, so I'll just have to come back again tomorrow. I'm a little suspicious of the hospital... I keep thinking about the scene from Lost in Translation where Scarlet Johannsen's bumped toe gets blown all out of proportion, and she has to sit through hours of x-rays and consults and nonsense... I'm not even all that unwell, but the Women's Hospital is the easiest place to find an English speaking doctor; or so I'm told. I just don't want to be late for work tomorrow.

Last night the dinner party was a success, or so Joanna tells me; I was on such a stress-high that I kinda zoomed through the whole event. I made enough food for an army, and now have pounds of guacamole and (semi-fresh) salsa loitering in my fridge. Salsa with eggs, salsa sanwiches... my students are going to love the halo of garlic scent that wafts in with Endrene-Sensei tomorrow. The dinner itself was pretty good; Bubu's wife Haruko said that she had "never had taste like it before"... actually, neither had I. I couldn't find any taco shells, and had to use those gummy rice-paper wraps in their stead! I don't reccomend it very highly. About 10 people including Joanna and myself ate the meal together, including a large Buddhist Bishop who spent most of the evening relaying mildly interesting puns to me (for example, the English word 'synchronicity' when pronounced with a Japanese accent, sounds exactly like the Japanese word for 'Old Chinese Man'. Wow, eh?). Most everyone could speak a little English, and so Joanna was bobarded with questions. I was mostly off the hook, although Bubu couldn't always understand "England" English, and had to ask me to repeat what Joanna had just said in "Canadian" English. Anyway, Bubu's family and friends took to Joanna like I have; she's lovely and a very relaxing presence, which is funny, becasue yesterday was her first full day of work-- it ought to be me relaxing her! She already has one student she refers to as 'The Wall'-- a girl who hangs about Nova all day, and never says a thing, just stares off into space... I think every school in the world has got to have one of those.

In he past week I've learned about the limits of Japanese customer service; everyone is dedicated to your happiness up to the point of the sale; after that, it's your problem. I took some of my earnings from my last paycheck to buy myself a nice necklace. I've never spent much on jewelry for myself before. I shopped at Ikeda, the jewelry store downstairs from my Nova. The purchasing experience was brilliant; everyone in the store fluttered about me: You are the Moths! I am the Flame! Burn Your Wings on My Stunning Presence! I was quite happy with my purchase, and wore it for the day. When I got home, before I went to bed, I stopped to admire it in the mirror once more before bed and discovered a kink I hadn't noticed in the store. "No big deal, " I told myself, "I'll just exchange it tomorrow." Well, the next day when I walked into the store with the necklace in the bag, you would have thought that I had waltzed in to take a crap on the rug; the expressions of horror and distaste that I could be so bold as to want an exchange or refund for damaged goods... I didnn't get an exchange. I didn't get a refund. I did get a whole lot of burning fury. I left politely enough; packed up my little bag, and left the store serenely. Then I stomped up to Nova and had a cry about it, while Tomomi did her best to call customer service and find out what could be done, which was nothing. Like I said, my purchase, my problem. After work that night, I went back down to Ikeda and quietly put the bag on the counter when no-one was looking and walked away. An expensive lesson; but at least now I know better. And no, I could not have kept the necklace and regifted it to someone else; it's a bad-karma necklace now. I don't want any of my friends or family touching the nasty thing.

Let's see... now that that's off my chest, I can give you a little summary of all my other going-ons...

I hung out with Shin, aka Temple-Boy, my psuedo language exchange partner. I had such a lovely time; he bought me ice-cream ("It's my treat to you," he said... cute!) and we tooled around the city on our bikes for about 2 hours, just enjoying the changing smells that spring is bringing in; new leaves, flowers, salty tidal air. We were pulled over by the police when we tried to escape them by noisily and too obviously turning down an alleyway (Shin's bike-light was out, which can mean a fine). I followed my friend Neil's advice, and played dumb; I didn't attempt to speak any Japanese, only allowed Shin to interpret as best he could, and politely handed over my gaijin card and bike registration. My air of cutesy bafflement seemed to work, as soon both officers were beaming and bowing and sending us on our way, telling Shin (who is half my size) to "look after her". Turned out that Shin didn't have to pay a fine; they only wanted to be sure that we weren't riding stolen bikes. We went from downtown to a riverside park to sit and try to talk; we fell into my old standby of exchanging cultural animal noises: "dogs say 'woof, woof', what do dogs say in Japan?" "'Wa, wa'." Then three police rode up on their scooters... after my second gaijin-card and bike-registration check, I was done for the night. Shin and I enthusistically waved goodbye to each other. Hard to believe that we could spend so much time together, never touching and hardly speaking. Nice to have a night free of innuendo and pointless babbling; just lots of innocent play and comfortable silences. Japan is really refreshing my childlike perspective... not that I'd ever lost it!

Went down to the river with Ash and Neil and Denise and Jon the other night to fire off a whack of fireworks. You know you're in Japan when a) you have to keep back from the water so as not to disturb the night-fishermen who are luring fish in with enormous incandescant lights b) You can hang around the field under a bridge and not worry about dangerous people or finding neeedles or crack-whores c) you can hang around under a bridge with fireworks d) you drink enough vending-machine booze to think it's a good idea to use your bike's basket and and seat-shaft as a launching area for bottle rockets and fountain fireworks...

I'm still really enjoying teaching, and all of my students. I just have to remember to have fun, and then they have fun, and then we all have fun together, and there's nothing like fun to grease the wheels of education! A bad day can easily be turned around by an enthusiastic or just plain funny student. Today I had this girl who is usually painfully quiet in a lucky man-toman lesson. We were doing one of my favorite lower-level lessons, Describing People's Faces. There's one activity wherein you have to fill in the blanks: Jed doesn't wear_____ and he has a big_____. Ideally, the student will say "Jed doesn't wear glasses, and he has a big beard", but the picture of Jed is pretty funny, and I've been dying for a student to say that Jed has a big something else... today I got my wish! She innocently enough tapped the picture and reported that he had a "biiiiig head" and couldn't understand when I started cracking up. It was just what I needed!

I've also been painting in the park with my friend Yoshino, and was lucky enough to see a group of college student practcing their awa dancing in the park... the Awa Odori is an enormous festival in the summer, just mad days of dancing, dancing, dancing, music, music, music. Apparently it's one of the most famous festivals in Japan; but I don't know if the dancers could look as cool in their kimonos and yucatas as they did that day in the park in their skin-tight jeans and stylish hair. One guy in particular was such a striking dancer that I marched up to him during a break in the dancing and asked him to pose for me so I could take a picture. Sheer asian-gothic gorgeousness...

inspiration is everywhere!!

Namaste

Endrene