So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye...

Well, viewers, the word is in: Elliott is officially totaled.

This morning, I left for work early so as to stop by the body shop on my way in. I only had a couple of things to retrieve from Elliott - a set of jumper cables and a tire iron - but it was worth going to be able to say goodbye to the car I'd had and enjoyed since my senior year in high school.

Elliott was not in great shape when I arrived. Both bumpers were gone, notes were written on him in car chalk, his tail-lights had been pulled out and put in the trunk... Were we having a funeral, I would have asked for a closed-casket viewing. It was depressing to see him like that, and his untimely demise really struck home. Truth be told, I had been considering replacing Elliott for a while. We had grown apart over the years and not together. It wasn't quite time for us to go our separate ways, but that was in our near future. It didn't make losing him any less sad. Still, I didn't have time to linger, so I gave Elliott his final rights (stole his floor mats) and went on my way to work.

In the end, I like to think that Elliott is moving on to bigger and better things. He's doing something I can't - taking over other, in-need-of-repair cars one infiltrating piece at a time. When the Mercury Sables of the world rise up and try to overcome their masters, I can rest assured that Elliott is contributing to the movement.

An Update

With nearly a year of silence on a blog, I find myself wondering how far back one goes in order to bring everyone up to speed, or how necessary such an act is. Still, I feel the urge to at least bullet-point my last few months:

• After leaving Japan, I spent a couple of weeks traveling with friends in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. It was harrowing, glorious, fun, and I can't believe I did it.
  
• In September, one of my best friends got married. I stood on his side at the wedding, which was a real honor, and managed to not cry, which was a real surprise.
  
• I also moved to NC in September, and started living with my best friend from high school, which has been one of the best rooming situations I've ever had.
  
• In October, my maternal grandfather died. He was 93, and had lived a very full life. I'm really happy I got to see him a lot before he passed, as such couldn't have happened in previous years.
  
• I also met and started dating my boyfriend, Stephen, in October. He's a computer science graduate student, a complete nerd, and absolutely wonderful.
• I spent Christmas with my family and New Year's with friends for the first time in years, and it was glorious.
• I started working for Gymboree Play and Music in January, and am still working there - basically, I get to play with little kids most of the time. It was, is, a big step up from working at Old Navy, the only other job I'd been able to find until that point.
  
• Stephen and I took a trip to New Orleans at the end of February to visit his alma mater. It was one of the better trips I've taken in a while, and the food was amazing (as one might suspect).
• I turned 25 in March, meaning I'm good for my quarter-life crisis. It'll start any day now. Stephen and I went to a tea ceremony to celebrate, and I spoke Japanese to native speakers for the first time since I left Japan.
• Finally, around 5 days ago, I was rear-ended while driving home from work. Though neither I nor the other driver was injured, my car wouldn't start after the accident. I'm fairly sure Elliott has earned his parking pass for the Big Lot in the Sky, which will make my next week of car shopping really "fun."
  

Is that all too big for a nutshell, or did I fit it all inside?

A Reappropriation

Though I'd originally intended for this blog to be dedicated to my years in Japan, I'm finding I have the urge to pick up blogging, and [Witty Title Here], where I left it almost a year ago. At the time, I found my isolation in a foreign country mixed with a high amount of travel to be the optimal conditions for my need to write. With those incentives gone upon my return, I felt I no longer had a reason to write.

It has occurred to me, however, that my isolation remains. I have been living in North Carolina for 8 months now, and yet I mostly socialize with my boyfriend and my roommate. As they have lives of their own, and rather busy ones at that, there often come times when I am spending my days in an isolation reminiscent of Ota, but with fewer reasons to be alone.

Perhaps it is time to turn my writing into a promise for, rather than a reaction to, interesting news. If I constantly find myself writing the same things, see that things have not changed, it will only be greater pressure to do more - a public accountability of sorts.

So, here goes.

The Art of Leaving

One of the more interesting things I've noticed about leaving a place where one has a strong identity is how one meets new people and makes new, sudden, strong connections at the end. At the end of high school, I started hanging out with a different group of people than I'd spent the previous 6 years with. At the end of college, I started dating a guy knowing I'd be moving to Japan in short order.

At the end of my time in Japan, new people have been popping into my life with alarming frequency.

Some of these people are foreigners. I met a fun group of people just a few weekends ago, many of whom have been in Ota for as long as I have, if not longer. It's frustrating to think we could have been hanging out all this time.

Some are Japanese. I was invited to a tea ceremony by the tea lady (/female groundskeeper) at my junior high school and met her daughter, a girl my age who speaks beautiful English. The two of us clicked instantly and we both bemoaned the fact that we only met recently. I had my last dinner with her (for now!) last week and we had a blast, though it took three hugs for us to say goodbye.

Some are completely and utterly random. I've been going to the local grocery store, Brace, regularly for the past two years. In the past two weeks, the cashiers there seem to have taken an extraordinary interest in me. The most memorable was the lady who, seeing that I was buying cat food, said, "Oh, you have a cat! How nice!" and began asking me where I live, work, and so forth.
I went to the travel agency to buy bus tickets to the airport. The lady there asked me if I was flying home, and I said, "Actually, I'm returning home..." She looked really surprised and actually seemed sad that I was leaving. Considering I've only been in that place four times, I found it to be a more emotional response than I was expecting.
There are more, but I'll not bore you.

I guess it's a lesson - no matter how long you've been in a place and how comfortable you are, there's always more to find, be it places, things, or people.

Catching Up

It's been a long time since I've written here. A combination of growing increasingly busy and the way in which I dealt with the stress of leaving (namely, with a surprisingly intense bout of depression) made writing blog entries rather low on my list.

So, let's catch up. The past month has been Japan's rainy season, which certainly didn't help with my already-depressed mood. As of this week, the rain seems to be over - we instead have constant heat and humidity.

Today is my last day of work at my elementary school. I said a short goodbye speech to the students after radio exercises in the morning (more on this later). The students sang the school song to me, and thank God it was only the school song or I would have started crying. The teachers gave me flowers before class, which really wasn't helping me with not crying. I taught four classes, in all of which the students were better behaved than usual and a lot of fun. It's been a good day. I just have to make it through the afternoon ... I've already accepted that I'll be crying for most of it.

My last day of school and work, period, is on Friday. I'll give a speech to my junior high students, rather longer than the one for the elementary school kids, and will cry, cry, cry.

Katherine arrives on Saturday and the two of us will travel Japan for a week before setting off for Vietnam. We'll spend 5 days together there before Kat goes home; I'll spend another 4 or so days in Saigon and then head to Cambodia to meet with Laurel. The two of us will visit Angkor Wat and then go to Thailand together.

I'll be home on August 15th, exactly a month from today.



In the end, though, the past month can be boiled down to one, main thought:
I still don't know how to deal with all of this.

On Bullying

In the staff room, I've gained a reputation for being a bully.

Not to say I've been taking teachers out back to steal their milk money. My sense of humor, when added to a frequent use of the word "ijime" (bullying) in my banter with Saito-sensei, has earned me the title. It doesn't help that I've teased some of the more vocal teachers on this score, especially my vice-principal. He's a wonderful man who nevertheless responds to any comment I make in two ways: either I'm sucking up to/flattering someone, or I'm bullying him. Sometimes, I get accused of both; I suppose I'm just efficient.

Two conversations today highlighted this pattern with my vice-principal.

1.

[Set-up: walking back from an observed class]

Vice-principal: *to Board of Education Supervisor* Leslie bullies me all the time!

BOE Supervisor: Really? Leslie, is that true?

Me: *super politely* I don't think that to be the case at all.

Vice-principal: Of course, that's just what a bully WOULD say!

Everyone: *laughs, somewhat at my expense*

2.

[Set-up: I was invited to a dinner hosted by my BOE earlier this week but said I couldn't go, not because I have anything specific to do but because the timing is bad.]

Vice-principal: Leslie, I just got a call from [BOE supervisor 2]. He wants to see if it's at all possible for you to go to that dinner on the 17th.

Me: Sure, it's fine.

Vice-principal: Really? OK, I'll call him back and let him know. *calls* Hello, [Supervisor]-sensei? Yeah, I bullied Leslie into going.

[a few minutes later]

Vice-principal: *hangs up* When I told him I bullied Leslie into it, he told me to not be mean to her or I might make her cry. Ha! And she's the one that bullies me all the time! But he didn't believe me! He said, "I can see [different female staff member] bullying you, but not Leslie!"

Teacher 1: It's true, she doesn't seem the bullying type.

Teacher 2: Doesn't that just make her bullying all the scarier?

Teachers, general: Hahaha, it's so true...

3.

A different teacher of mine, Arai-sensei, never accuses me of bullying straight out; instead, he says, "Leslie's Japanese used to be so nice and polite! NOW listen to her. *resigned sigh*"

All of these instances are, as with my "bullying," a joke, but it has become a seemingly knee-jerk reaction from the staff. As with any stereotype, I can't help but want to say to them that it isn't my full character; that I have other aspects to me, things I can't adequately express in Japanese; but in the end, I comfort myself with the fact that the staff on the whole feel comfortable with interacting with me in such a casual manner. After all, isn't it more important to focus on what one has than what one lacks?

My name is Leslie, and I love karaoke.

[Seriously. Love karaoke. ]

A few karaoke stories:

1. I made plans in June to go to karaoke with a Japanese friend of mine. The night before, she had an interesting request: her grandparents had overheard that we were planning to go singing together and asked if they could join us. Would that be OK with me?

Well, how many times can you say you've been to karaoke with the 60+ generation?

In the end, our party was made up of 5 people: my friend, her younger sister, their grandparents, and yours truly. We had a wonderful time. The grandparents sang mostly enka, an older Japanese song style. It was my first time hearing enka sung live and not on TV, so I rather enjoyed it. They were also very complimentary of the songs I sang in Japanese, which is always a plus.

2. The past month, I've been to karaoke every weekend. One weekend, I sang with a group for around 5 hours. Just as an FYI: "Semi-Charmed Life" and "Achey Brakey Heart" are hilarious via karaoke. Also, Weird Al does, in fact, have a song or two in the systems here.

3. The term "karaoke" is made up of two words in Japanese - "kara" means empty (karate = "empty hand," a style of fighting with no weapon), and "oke" is short for "okesutura," or "orchestra." I love the idea of karaoke being, in and of itself, an "empty orchestra," one that must be filled with the addition of our own voices.

4. The most recent round of karaoke I've enjoyed was with a large group of my teachers, which was a rather interesting experience. One was really excited at my knowing Billy Joel songs, and spent three of his turns on Joel songs and demanding my assistance with them. Another teacher assisted me in singing the Sailor Moon theme song, something I never thought I'd find useful after my middle school years. Still, nothing can top the principal of my school demanding, rather drunkenly, that I pay close attention while he belted out "We are the Children." There is only one word for such a thing, and that word is "epic."