Spring Cleaning

Matt has been an amazing husband lately due to his new interest in spring cleaning. He had turned our messy messy place into something presentable. I am very proud of his hard work. Matt and I had a good weekend in part because of this spring cleaning attitude, but also because we have bonded over a new television show addiction. Since scrubs moved to ABC it has been a pretty lame show, I rarely laugh at their jokes. I had heard good things about the show Chuck but the premise just seemed silly, I assumed I would not like it. Oh how I was WRONG! Chuck is hilarious and action packed, plus a good pinch of family togetherness and a good deal of romance. When I first began watching the show Matt did not care to watch, but did not mind hearing it in the back ground while he did other things. As the show progressed I began hearing more interest on the part of my husband with questions about the plot. THEN in a shocking turn of events on the show, a character that everyone thought would be out of the way for a while suddenly returns. As I gasp in shock of the events taking place and I state aloud WHO has returned to the show I hear my husband yell in anger....for he too is upset about this character....my husband had finally been sucked into the show and has been watching it with me ever since. =)

Another good thing happened this past weekend. I had a nice long lunch with Mrs. Hayashi, one of the JTEs at my JHS. We were able to bond a bit while eating at a macrobiotic restaurant in Oizumi called Serphim. I was also able to tell her about my leaving Japan at the end of July. She was sad that I was leaving but was also very excited for me.

In Takane, down the mountain from where Matt and I live, flowers are beginning to bloom in some places. Some mornings it smells like spring...and my nose reminds me I need to start taking my allergy medicine again. Then again, Friday evening, March 13th, it snowed a bit where we live. Another couple weeks and I feel that spring will take a strong hold over Hokuto. I am excited about my last 4.5 months in Japan. I know the time will pass more quickly with the weather improving and with us having so much more going on. I am going to try to live the rest of my time in Japan to the fullest.

Not so fun Friday night.

Every Monday and Friday Matt tutors two elementary school kids in English for an hour while I go to the grocery store and read a book or listen to music. This Friday was just like any other, until it wasn't.
I dropped Matt off at the boys house and then drove to the store. After buying our food I sat in my car and read Paper Towns by John Green, who is mostly responsible for my renewed interest in reading quality books. With about 10mins to go before Matt's lessons end I decide to drive over and wait in front of the students house, like normal. I had been nervous every since I dropped off Matt because if he needed me he wouldn't be able to reach me by phone. My cell phone had died at some point during the day and I just learned about this fact 2 mins after my husband left the car. I promise I charged my cell phone that very morning!
Anyway...I put my book away, moved the drivers seat back into position for driving, and turned the key in the ignition. That's right...nothing happened...well my car did make an awful "my battery is dead" noise but that's about it. Not only am I stuck in the store parking lot, I have no way of contacting anyone for help. stupid cell phone! At this point it's dark and cold and I am looking for anyone who walks by who might be willing to help a foreigner with their clearly (have the car hood up) broken car. After a few minuets of no success finding help I walk back into the store trying to figure out what I can do. My Japanese is horrible and I don't know anyone in the area. Did I mention the store is about a 35 min drive from my apartment?...closest grocery store. At this point I have begun to panic a little bit, my husband is waiting for me, I can't get in contact with him, I can't contact anyone, and I have no working mode of transportation. This was not fun.

Here is when my luck changes...and why being an English teacher is awesome! I see one of my students, a third year, well, a third-grader from Nishi Takane Elementary school. She is walking out of the store with her mother and little sister when I am walking into the store. I smile and say hello but keep walking...why would a mother with two kids, 9 and 5 I believe, want to deal with helping the foreigner with car trouble on a Friday night...she clearly has places to go and things to do. She clearly did not feel the same way. My student's mother comes walking back into the store and asks me if I need help with my car. Now I have someone who is willing to help me! What's interesting about my interactions with my student's mother (still don't know her name!!) is that I don't speak Japanese, and she doesn't speak English. We had a little bit of vocabulary in each others language but it was enough. I explained my car, my cell phone, and my husband. She explained that she didn't have what I needed (a jumper cable) but that she would call her friend and he would help. So for the next 15 mins I am sitting in this lady's Land Rover with her two children talking about where I live, where I am from, what food people eat in America, where I teach English, various ideas about the drawings her 5 year old was making in the back seat, along with drawing pictures of food with my student (also don't know her name!) Her friend eventually arrived and jumped my car back into shape at which point I did a whole lot of bowing and "Domo Arigato Gosaimashita" before I drove off to pick up my husband.
On the way to pick Matt up I see him walking down the road towards the store. I was over 30mins late to pick him up and he had begun worrying about my safety to the point of attempting to walk to the store to find me while our neighbor JD was on his way to pick him up to go check the hospital, if I was no where to be found at the store. My husband had a plan! Matt and I got to explain our stories to each other on our drive home.
It was a horrible experience I do not want to have again. But I did get to experience the kindness of strangers. Since I am an English teacher at local schools those who know that fact, though might not actually know me, are not afraid to greet me at the store, and in this case help me on a cold, dark Friday night. I often have my students and their parents see me at the store and stop to bow and say hello, though I never know their names. To be fair I have so many students at three different schools, two schools I only visit twice a month.
I feel guilty that I don't know my rescuers' names, but I already have plans to provide them with thank you gifts when I teach at Nishi Takane elementary again.
I am so glad my car trouble was only a 40 minute inconvenience. I don't know what I would have done if this mother of two, who doesn't even speak English, wasn't willing to stop and inconvenience herself by helping the local English teacher with her car on a Friday night. Thank you lady!

SNOW!!

That's right flavoury tea!



These are the two pics I was able to take in my car of the snow at our house... before the camera's batteries died.


The rest of these pics are from our little trip to Hakuba in Nagano, Japan. =) enjoy!

Culture Shock aka Culture fatigue

Everyone experiences culture shock, (or if you want to be more PC)culture fatigue. I'm sure someone out there will tell you they lived in another country for a while and didn't have culture shock AT ALL. This person just doesn't understand what culture shock really means, or was not in the country long enough to experience all the stages of culture shock. (I have a reason for preferring the name shock over fatigue which I will get to in a bit)

Quoting from the Culture Shock page of Wikipedia:
"Culture shock refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country."

I am honestly an expert on culture shock. I had several weeks training to deal with culture shock in 2004 and 2005 in preparation for my first trip to Japan. On my 2005 trip to Japan I experienced culture shock, along with the 5 people I was traveling with, though we all experienced it a bit differently.
In preparation for my return to Japan, this time being in a Japanese workplace setting, my contracting organization sent all the new ALTs to special training in Tokyo geared to help with culture shock.

With my expert knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that my husband and I are both suffering from a bad case of stage two culture shock. Stage two is "Irritation and Hostility―Gradually, your focus turns from the similarities to the differences. And these differences, which suddenly seem to be everywhere, are troubling. You blow up little, seemingly insignificant difficulties into major catastrophes. This is the stage generally identified as culture shock. People experiencing culture shock often
feel homesick and have a negative attitude toward the host culture." (JET General Information Handbook 2008)

Let's break that down a little more- the key being that this stage is all about the person's irritation with and hostility towards the new culture they are living in. With the amount of time Matt and I say "Silly Japan" or other not so nice terms, it is clear that we are finding faults in all the differences between our home culture and the culture we currently find ourselves living in. We are both HOMESICK. We have lists in our heads of things we want to do, places we want to go, and even food we want to eat when we get back to America. In case you were wondering, because we will probably be arriving in my hometown first, we will probably have McAlister's as our first real meal back in the US is all goes according to plan. =P
I miss my cat much more than I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I knew I would miss her, but I thought with time I would miss her less...that has not happened.
I miss sleeping on a real bed. I have already begun looking at shops online to see what the going price for a decent queen sized mattress is in America.
I miss doing any daily task or errand in ENGLISH. My Japanese is not so good and I have very little faith in it ever getting much better. As a result of my lack of Japanese language skills I get frustrated by the simplest of things. Simply leaving the house is exhausting because of the cultural and language barriers.

I know I have brought some of these things up before, but I just wanted to get a summary of my culture shock symptoms. I like calling it SHOCK and not FATIGUE because I am a dramatic person and FATIGUE does not express the true emotional rollercoster this is like the word SHOCK does.

So yes, the low of culture shock has hit us both hard and we are very excited to tell everyone now that we will be moving back to America in end July/ early August!!!
None of the specifics are in place yet. Worst case scenario is still not that bad for us because of this strong desire to be home again, it beats out any financial concerns...which we still hope not to have. I will update with more information when it becomes available. =)

In case anyone is interested, here is a pic of how some people believe culture shock looks like. Though I would like the say the JET General information handbook does have a better graph with the more detailed ups and downs that an ALT feels while in Japan...I just can't post a copy of it.

I'm Sick

I have gotten sick FOUR TIMES since I have been in Japan. ugh. The last two times have actually been back to back. I was sick the Thursday before last and have been trying to recover ever since BUT got sick AGAIN this past Thursday. My JHS actually asked me to go home and rest...I had a fever =( I am still sick, though feeling better than I was Thursday or Friday of this week. I really wish I were in America dealing with my illness. In Japan EVERY illness is a doctor visit illness. I don't WANT to go see a doctor here, especially since they speak Japanese and I speak English, it's just another frustration I don't want to deal with ESPECIALLY when I am sick. In America I could just pop on over to the nearest CVS or Wallgreens or whatever and buy some over the counter medicine and that be it. It would not require a 30 plus minuet ride ONE WAY only to become frustrated that they don't use western medicines and the doses of drugs are not what I am used to...because that is what I get in Japan. SIGH. Being sick away from home is hard. I have a piece of home since my husband is with me. I honestly would be at a loss if he weren't with me. But I still miss the comforts of home.

On a different topic. I got to go on a fun ski trip with lots of other young foreigners living in my prefecture in Japan a few weeks ago. I didn't actually go skiing. I have never skied before so I didn't want my first time to be in Japan where if I hurt myself I would be in a Japanese hospital (heard too many horror stories). But I had a lot of fun just talking with people. It made me miss my friends from home. I miss nerding out and I got to do just that. =)

Happy New Year!

2009 is here now. I am amazed with how much has happened in the past year. My life has changed quite a bit. I am married now, that wasn't the case this time last year. and, oh yeah, I am living in Japan. Daily life has changed dramatically for me over the past year. I have three big things on my to-do list for 2009:
1- celebrate my 1st wedding anniversary
2- visit the US for a few weeks- most likely during the summer
3- get in shape!- since moving to Japan I have lost all my strength- I used to be able to do sit-ups and push-ups--I need to exercise.

Now, on a completely different note, here are some pictures! (admit it! that is why you are really reading this! =P )



Mixxie up Matt's shirt sleeve. eewww. =P

This is Mixie. She is the hamster Matt and I (mostly matt)are looking after while our neighbor is away. Mixxie likes crawling through tubes...its fun. I get to play with her without havint to touch her. =)

I am wearing my new winter coat I bought because my other coat is just not enough for winter here. After two days inside, due to lots of snow and icy roads, I was happy to be walking around near our house.

The roads were STILL icy two days after the snow fall. This road is covered in ice. We did not drive for a while.

Oh! one last thing! My mom suggested I mention SparkPeople It is a great website (and FREE) for those who are looking for help and support in their weight loss or fitness efforts. I would have to say it is the best site out their right now. Check it out. =)

A White Christmas!

We had a white Christmas this year!

It is kinda nice. However, I could do without the ice on the INSIDE of our windows upstairs. Single pane windows are apparently the way to go in Japan. sigh.

Anyway...here is a pic of the snow outside our house. =)