Just Another JET Blog

January 30^th, 2008.

My shower had been occasionally freezing for the last 3 weeks. I turned off all my water and spent a weekend in Furukawa and Takayama (at Greg and George’s places respectively), only to return to find both my toilet and shower still frozen. This time my technique for unfreezing my shower failed utterly and instead broke the hot water system in it. The price to fix this? About 300 bucks. Unfortunate, but that’s why they pay us well. My toilet remained frozen for 2 days, with me unable to figure out how to warm it. I finally called in my school’s handyman, but when he came it was working. The solution to these problems is actually quite simple (according to him). Just leave all your taps running while you’re gone! I asked him if this was expensive… and he replied that it was cheaper than breaking your shower again. Touche. The shower remains broken now, and I’m currently showering at school in the morning. Which, isn’t that bad actually. Also, I now use a kerosene (toyu) heater in my apartment. Apparently even though I could handle the cold using only an electric heater (and my kotatsu), my apartment could not.

I had left my apartment for 3 days, since I spent Thursday night at George’s (we had a big JET conference in Gifu city that Friday). So Friday, I woke up at 5:20 and expected an absolutely miserable day. I was surprised by how wrong I was. My JTE gave me a ride down to the conference and I spent a lot of the day with him as well. I also got a ride back with him. We left snowy Hida for seemingly summery Gifu city. It happened after one tunnel, and was the strangest thing ever. On one side of the tunnel was winter and on the other was a cool summer day. The conference itself was a lot of fun. At one point, my JTE and I had to show an example of our lesson plan to 5 other pairs of JTEs and ALTs. Each pair had to give a presentation, and after it was over, my JTE pulled me aside and said, “our’s was way better wasn’t it?” I enthusiastically agreed. I remembered once again how awesome my JTE is. He also bought me breakfast because we arrived in Gifu a little early.

I had spent a large portion of the weekend with Aiko, and on Monday the relationship was made official to those that we both know. She was very cool about it too. She showed up at my apartment on Monday, and while I plugged in my laptop to have it charge up, a profile page fell out of my backpack. The page was for a yearbook the 3D class at my school was making. On it were a bunch of questions about me (in Japanese). She went through it with me and at the question: “do you have a girlfriend?” She said, “you can answer yes to that one if you want to.” The only downside is that she’s leaving for Australia in about 3 weeks, so it feels like I’m in a relationship with an expiry date. Next weekend we’re going to Nagoya and then Osaka together. She also showed me a great little coffee shop on the weekend called the “yamaneko” or “mountain cat”. It was very relaxing. I think my mother should add a coffee bar to her shop. They have these in all the coffee shops here, and they’re very cool. Greg apparently often goes to that place and just reads a book at the bar while drinking coffee. In Canada, I would never go to a restaurant or coffee shop by myself, but here in Japan, there’s always these bars where there are a bunch of people reading while they eat and drink and it’s considered normal. Often there’s even a TV on that you can watch.

Being in Japan changes you emotionally. Maybe it’s just being abroad in general. But, when I’m happy I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. And when I’m sad, it approaches depression. When you go out to a party, you party harder than ever before. When you sit with a book in a coffee shop, or on the balcony overlooking a river and mountains, your soul and mind become quieter than ever before. One day you feel like everyone you meet is already a friend. But on others, you believe that no one really gets you like people did back in your country and you’re alone. I told Will about this and he agreed. “We’re all bipolar now”, is the way he put it. Much like many bipolar people, you find yourself unwilling to do anything to change it because you love the highs so much that you are willing to put up with the lows.

Oh, and although my English Media Club is going to be on hold until the next school year begins, Mr. Suzuki and I tried out our pilot lesson on one of his classes and it seems to be working brilliantly!

Thing I miss most about Canada today: An apartment that doesn’t smell like toyu (kerosene).

Thing I love most about Japan today: I’d better answer “Aiko” or I might get in trouble.