Its been about two months since I’ve returned to the United American States. Its been a whirlwind.

The first few weeks of being in Chicago was a mad rush to see as many friends as possible. Had a bit of a “Welcome me home” shindig and saw a few good faces, but a few others couldn’t brave the heat or the trek, and that was a bit sad. But other than that it was a grand old time! Good food and drink and company! Family and friends alike!

A couple more weeks of trekking to the city to traipse around and playing Zombies!!!, as well as getting lunch and drinks with other friends got my heart filled up with warm fuzzies, and then it was time to move to Tempe to begin my life as an Arizona State U grad student in Intermedia (digital sculpture).

The drive out west took three days, and was blissfully uneventful. Its amazing how far the great plains stretch out. It was more amazing how we crossed the Colorado border, went over a hill, and instantly the plains seemed to transform into hilly scrubs. Did they draw that border because of the landscape difference? Or do state agricultural policies differ enough that its visible in the land?

Praises to the powers that be, because my girlfriend Britt landed a job out in Phoenix over a phone interview. Two months in, we know why the school was so eager to hire out-of-staters. Most of her class is great, but there are a fair number of trouble-makers that find new ways to anger and frustrate her daily.

But her job let us land an apartment reasonably quickly. We lived out of a Motel 8 for almost a week, but then moved into our fine fine place.

Now we live comfortably! Britt’s the moneymaker and I do the laundry and some of the elementary cleaning and cooking (though I’m not very good at either). I’ve settled into my classes, but not into my role as a grad student. In a couple weeks that should turn around, and I’ll be earning an income as well as getting down to bizniss in my field of study.

Things are good! Stuff is on track. I’m still in touch with some of my friends back in Japan, and I’m still waiting to convert a decent wad of yen into cash, as well as get a deposit into my account from my Japanese pension refund. But in a few months, even that will be concluded, and I will have no more business with Japan. So this blog will essentially come to a close.

I’ll back it all up elsewhere in case the Intarwebs succumb to an apocalypse as a memento. Thanks all for reading and keeping up with my adjectival adventures. I’ll letcha all know if I ever start up a new and amazing adventure that isn’t quite so mundane as graduate school.

Gambatte! Good luck!

I’VE JUST BEEN VIOLATED!

United Airline’s gonna charge me almost 700 dollars if I go over my 32kg weight limit by a single kilogram! That’s for both my pieces of luggage TOGETHER! I came over here with more than that! CHRIST! AAAAAARGH. Gonna have to put stuff in boxes… SHIT! Shit! Hopefully they won’t charge me for the connecting flights, where the limit is 15kg! That’d be crazy, right? I’m international, so they won’t charge me that, right? 750 yen for each kilogram over 15! But that’s gotta be for domestic only, not connecting flights, RIGHT?

Why the shit doesn’t United have a per kilogram price increase? Its 700 dollars if I’m 1 kg over or 70 kg over. Does that strike anyone else as insane? WHAT THE HELL GRAAAAAAAAAAAR!

Sorry, Britt, the shoes you left here are coming back to the States via the 3 month slowboat. *sob*

Holy shit.

I gave my farewell speech this morning at Kawanabe high school. It went pretty well, I think I got the pronunciation pretty closely. Anyway, the day consisted of me sitting around in the office or chatting with a few kids here and there in the courtyard.

Four o’ clock rolled around, and the staffroom had all but cleared out. I mentioned to the principal who was right there that I was heading out, and this was the last time I’d be there. He told me to wait, he’d let the english teachers know that were in a meeting.

A few other teachers ran out to meet me and say good bye while I backed out my car. Then, as I started inching towards the gates, I saw a few of the volleyball girls who had been training start running up after my car. I turned around the school corner to head for the gates, and there must’ve been about 200 students who had all run from their club activities, all lined up. The word had spread within 5 minutes I was leaving, lending evidence to the japanese hive-mind theory. They made me get out of my car and stand in front of it, and the band kicked up the school song. The students never sing this song at assemblies when they’re supposed to, but as they all stood around me, they sang it loudly and strongly.

I don’t think my grinning or laughter hid the fact that my eyes were on the verge of overflowing.
I slowly drove around the center roundabout while everyone waved to me, saying goodbye, saying, “Come back!” Uto sensei, one of my favorite teachers, leaned in and thanked me for all my help.

I drove out the gates, offering one last wave to the huge crowd, and pulled into the road. Promptly exploding into sobs.
I’m glad I made it home alright.

“Home? What home? In a couple more hours it ain’t going to be home anymore.”

Shit.

One of my teachers asked me to prepare a kind of lecture where I would explain my feelings from my year in Japan. More specifically, she wanted me to address the things that made me feel happy, sad, and surprised or scared. The students got a kick out of it, and though you, the reader, don’t have the benefit of me acting like a monkey or furiously sketching things on a chalkboard, you might enjoy my thoughts. Keep in mind this is something of a year-in-review, so I may have told some of these stories before.

Happy:

Friendly People– No doubt about it, the thing that made me happiest was the friendliness of the people I encountered. The teachers and japanese friends I made never hesitated to help me out when in a fix. Some people were kind enough to invite me into their homes to share a meal with their family. Big kudos to Fukushima-sensei especially, who came out on a Sunday evening to jumpstart my car, who helped me sell a few things on an online auction, and for showing me the lone, secret air-conditioned room in the school.

Also, random strangers were often quite nice. Many small gifts of beer and food were bought for only a few moments of conversation. I was often stopped and questions were asked, people were genuinely curious towards me. Of course, there was a case or two of people being TOO friendly (the dry cleaning lady comes to mind).

Nature– Kagoshima is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The lush green mountains, the tumbling rivers, the brilliant green of the rice fields, the emerald green of the dense forests, the green green everywhere green. No matter how beautiful you may be, be humbled by the knowledge that the southernmost tip of Japan is more beautiful. Also, try not to compete in beauty contests against landscapes, you will be at a disadvantage.

And the critters! Readers of this blog are undoubtedly well-aware of my appreciation for living things. Dolphins, primates, raccoon-dogs, thousands of stray cats, huge spiders, fantastic beetles, violent caterpillars, shimmering dragonflies, swimming snakes, vocal bullfrogs. This place is a biologist’s dream.

Sad:

Winter– It snowed maybe two days in Kagoshima, but I never saw any ice. I think the temperature didn’t really drop below 45F degrees. Yet I don’t recall ever being colder in my life. At the office, teachers stood clustered around kerosene heaters muttering “cold…cold…cold…” I would return home, fire up the electric heater, cover myself in blankets and sit in a corner playing video games and sipping vodka to stave off the cold.

Japanese people have a remarkable capacity to not notice things that may prove inconvenient later. They build houses in the summer, when its hot, without consideration for what it’ll be like in the winter.

The early darkness of winter, the inescapable cold, and the sorrow of being alone made winter terrible. I wouldn’t be keen on making it through another one. I’ll take my -30F Chicago winters if it means I can take my jacket off when I go to sleep because my home keeps the heat in.

Television– I was never a big fan of television in the States. When I got to Japan, I viewed TV as an excellent tool to work on my Japanese. However, I soon found I had no desire to understand inane self-glorifying babble.

The same group of celebrities (usually a mix of whichever one-trick comedians are popular at the moment, a handful of sexy airheads, and some actors from the current hot drama) are seen in commercials, and on every show. Game shows don’t award the average-joe, they pit people who are on TV anyway against each other to give them silly prizes. A disgustingly popular show is sending a couple comedians to different restaurants to try the food… without fail, they try a bit, then mug the camera with a delighted face and yell, “Oishii!” or “Umai!” (’delicious!’ or ’skilled!’, the only two possible things to say about food) The most heinous is what I guess is a “guest show” where they will literally have a dozen celebrities sitting around all fancied up, and then they show them various prepared clips… comedy, documentary, food-eating, whatever. The home audience will watch these clips, but with a little picture-in-picture up in the corner filming the celeb’s fake, overly attentive reactions (Thanks to Buck82 for this example).

It makes me sad, because I have a feeling tons of people at home aren’t sure how they should react emotionally without seeing how a retard who wears a blowfish on his head is reacting. The television itself pisses me off, the social implications fills me with despair.

Finally, to be fair, there is occasionally some decent stuff, primarily children’s programming. Its honestly creative and intelligent, despite being made for kids, and there’s none of the overhyped celebrity crap or commercialism. Its a lot lighter on the scary-people-in-costume stuff that american kids shows thrive on.

Historic Ignorance– On the anniversaries of the atomic bomb drops on Japan, the population observes a few moments of silence for the victims of the nightmarish event. On the flipside, most Americans are well aware that the military dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe they don’t know all the details, but they’re certainly aware that it happened. However, though Japan recognizes itself as a wartime victim, the general populace as little awareness of Japan’s greatest warcrime in WWII… The Rape of Nanking. My friend Abs mentioned Nanking to one of his good japanese friends and coworker. The teacher laughed uneasily and said, “Well, that didn’t REALLY happen.” Abs stared back incredulously… um, yes, it did.

Nationalism is on the rise in Japan, and when coupled with historic and political ignorance, that’s a scary thing. “Facts” and “information” are quite handy for making “good decisions” that don’t result in national financial ruin and enormous death tolls.

Scared:

Mountain Roads I may have mentioned before, the roads can get crazy-narrow in Japan. Lanes wide enough for only a single car allow 2-way traffic. These are frightening enough to drive. If you then raise these roads half a mile above a valley floor, and sprinkle them will fallen rocks and tree-limbs, and when half the concrete washes out and they just prop metal sheets to act as a temporary repair over the crumbling road, then you have a seriously scary driving experience on your hands. I have white-knuckled my way through mountains, racing the setting sun, squinting through heavy fog, and dodging manic pheasants.

In retrospect, it was awesome. At the time, it was VERY SPOOKY.

Food Overall, I enjoyed japanese food thoroughly. I’m pretty much completely omnivorous now, and there is little that can turn my stomach. However, on a few occasions, my stomach was turned.

When a cooked crab was lifted and a brown ball rolled out from its innards, I was startled enough. When I was informed it was the crab’s BRAIN, I was mortified. Crab brains can roll.

When I bit into a battered fish and felt sand in my mouth and on my face, and I looked down to see that I had bitten into the fish’s belly which was swollen with little white eggs, I was also upset.

Lastly, when an entire fishhead was set before me in a bowl (and only its head), I gazed into its glassy, collapsed eyeball. “Fish eyes are healthy for your brain!” said the nihon-jin as he plucked his own fishhead’s eye out and ate it.

I also have a pretty nauseous memory of squeezing some kind of pickled seaweed out of a plastic packet into my ramen.

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Well, that’s my wrap-up. Of course, the english was a lot more simplified for my students, who, for the most part, can’t speak english. Thank you for letting me get used to speakin’ all natural-like again! And I hope to see you all soon between my return home and my trip out to Arizona State.

(final note: I wrote an article for a scholarship competition held by an organization called HAMSA. I made it into the top 60 of 2500 applicants! That’s like the top 2%! Amazing! Unfortunately, I didn’t win one of the five or so cash prizes, but I will be receiving a book prize on liberalism so that my future future-essays are more suitable for changing the world. Check out the winners’ essays.)

A bunch of teachers were lined up, and even a few students, and they waved me goodbye forever as I left my technical high school yesterday. That frickin’ sucked. I gave a farewell speech on Monday to the student body, and then a smaller one to the teachers yesterday, and it seemed that once they realized I was leaving, they realized that they really liked me. Or something. It took the fact that I was leaving to realize how great some of the staff and students were. Classic cases of not appreciating something until its gone.

Satsunan was a difficult school at times. Some classes were very talkative and engaged me readily, other classes were tomb-silent and completely uninterested. So I always headed to that school apprehensive, wondering if the day would be good or not. But of course, it was sad as heck to leave.

The school girls were especially friendly, taking pictures and doing their best to converse with me. Lots of pretty, sincere smiles. I joked with my teacher that it will be difficult returning to America because young teenage girls won’t think i’m special anymore. I cracked up as I read one classes’ farewell letters to me. “Thank you for being with me!” they uniformly said. The teacher, an elderly lady, obviously suggested it. What subtle implications the phrase has!

For the rest of my stay, I’ll be at my main high school, doing final classes. This Friday is the culture festival for the school, so I’m really looking forward to that, seeing the kids perform and play in their bands and stuff. There’s even gonna be a punk band! Hooray!

I’m only gonna have a few more posts about Japan, I reckon. I will have to finish the Kyoto one when I get home, I think the photos were salvaged.

Hey friends ‘n readers! My lovely month of June has passed, with Britt flying back to Chicago just days ago. It was quite a change of pace, having her around. The first two weeks, while I worked, it was nice to return home to someone. Empty apartments stink.

Then, I took two weeks off, and we did a road trip. I seriously hope you guys keep an eye out on her website, Observed by Binti, which I mentioned last post, and will mention again here. She took some fantastic photos. Also, I didn’t take any photos. So if you want photos, you have to go there.

I’m a big loser for not finishing the Kyoto hitchhike photos. My harddrive started to fizzle and poop out, so I had to take it out for emergency storage to send back to my pops. Hopefully he can extract my valuable photos. I’m not sure that I’ve ever backed them up, come to think of it. Crap.

The real reason I realized I really should require myself to rite was because yesterday I saw…

AN ENORMOUS CREATURE! Yes, I’m sure you’re desperate to tell your grandmother all about more of the crazy huge wildlife Arius has seen. Well, yesterday, in the lawn outside, was a loooong black snake. I would say a little over an inch in diameter, and about four feet long. Looked like a narrow non-poisonous head. I’m sure the teachers would’ve flipped out more if it was a renowned viper.

Anyway, the cool part came when a young first-year student came close, and the thing leapt up and attached itself firmly to the student’s left eyebrow and just hung limply, undoubtedly sucking algae off of his forehead. The kid wasn’t bothered by it, I think the Japanese have an understanding with these snakes, like those little birds and crocodiles or those suckerfish and sharks or like those by-the-book cops and sassy wild-card cops.

Also, in Kagoshima, its really hot and sticky. The sun’s not out much, or it’d be worse. That’s reserved for August, after rainy season. But still, its quite horrid. Everyone’s sitting in front of fans with a general look of discomfort on their faces, and they have begun their delightful little habit of saying “Atsui! (Its hot)!” over and over again as though it were a brilliant revelation.

Lastly, I’ve just been sort of pulling things together to get home. Cancelling insurance and internet, cleaning up the place, getting rid o’ excess stuff, all to make room for the young Irish lass who will be my replacement. E-mails indicate enthusiasm! Hard not to be enthusiastic about the job before it begins. We’ll see how well she adapts to the work situation. Its not bad at all, but its not for everyone. The more formally you’ve been trained to educate, it seems to me, the harder it is to synchronize with the more traditional teachers.

Alright. That’s it. Just a few random ramblings, to get back into writing. I trust Britt will be doing lots of posting about the road trip, but I’ll post some here about things I remember.

My girlfriend, Ms. Britt, also nicknamed Binti or Binters or Bti in some circles (not sure how to pronounce that last one) has been visiting me in Japan for about a week and a half now. As a result, I have not done any blogging. Somehow, when I get home, me sitting down for an hour to post pics or type just doesn’t seem appealing when the girlfriend I haven’t seen in 10 months is sitting nearby.

However! She’s putzing around my apartment or the town while I’m at work, and also updating her own little blog she started right here on the Intarweb! You can look at it and see more pictures or strange little adventures. The photos are rather good, if I may say so.

She’s here another two and a half weeks, lucky for me, so until then if you are curious about what’s going on, you can check out Observed by Binti at observedbybinti.blogspot.com

Now I must mentally restrain myself from itching my lovely new mosquito bites that came from mosquitos about the size of your smallest pinky bone. Which is still far too large for a mosquito to be.

Current bite count: 16. Up to 4 of them might be spider bites cuz they are enormous and red and splotchy. One of them kind of looks like Satan if he was a skin blemish.

Britt posts about flowers. I post about bugs. Despite such powerful evidence, I am a gender egalitarian.

This is a letter I found myself having written to my girlfriend and parents back home. Britt’s coming to visit in mere days, and one of my teachers became aware of this fact. I thought it an amusing enough letter to post here. Unfortunately, its only vaguely (or not at all) related to Adventure. But neither is cookie-spinach salad.

Today I ate a frozen pizza that I poured extra-butter popcorn over. A burrito would straighten out my sense of taste, I think. Anyway, the e-mail:

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Hey guys!

I just got a call from my teacher, Fukushima-sensei. You know, the guy who enjoys Centrum-brand vitamin supplements. He had a sad story for me.

Well, I guess way back when he lived in Atlanta, he bought a coffee maker with his wife. They loved that coffee maker to bits, and brought it back to Japan with them, along with many years worth of basket-style coffee filters.

One day recently, they noticed they were finally running low on coffee filters. They realized with panic that in Japan, people don’t drink nearly so much coffee, so their coffee filters are only big enough to hold a SCROTAL SAC’S WORTH OF COFFEE (this is my size comparison, not his). The Fukushimas, having americanized somewhat and desperate for obese amounts of coffee, are in dire straights.

If they don’t get more basket-style coffee filters, they will have to resort to eating babies for their caffeine fix. This will result in the consumption of many, many babies, as babies are a poor source of caffeine.

WE CAN AVERT THIS DISASTER BY WORKING TOGETHER! Parents locate the filters (which we hope are standard sized… 3 inches or so for base?), Britt removes from box and flattens them into her luggage if there is room, Arius delivers it unto this unfortunate couple.

Now, he wanted a few hundred filters. I don’t know what kind of luggage capacity you have there, Britt, but please don’t feel the need to exclude your favorite pair of shoes to make room. Squeeze any in that you can, if you can. (I read an article that girls like shoes.)

Thanks for your help, guys!

I’m looking forward to your visit with inordinate delight, Britt!

And I’m looking forward to coming home in 2 months, to the land of the free, and the home of the cave!

Myliu!
-Arius

Holy Christ in a Mississippi Steamboat!

I was busy making up a listening dialogue test, complete with funny little drawings of a robot and a little house, when two boys came in to talk to one of my teachers. This is a normal occurrence. Suddenly, the teacher, who is generally of a very jovial, if somewhat sarcastic nature, suddenly erupts into a samurai-style scream at the boys. He proceeded to yell at them, I think they were dicking around with cell phones or even little games on their phones during class.

Japanese yelling is rare, but seriously upsetting. I jumped when he started yelling, and my heart is presently racing while he chews them out. I have no idea what to do until its all over, so I’m typing this quickly and loudly because the speed at which I type gives the impression I’m totally not disturbed by this predicament and am content to work in the midst of severe reprimanding… oh no, his voice is getting louder… okay, wait, maybe the kids are wising up… man, this sucks. I hope its over soon.

*sob*

I sank into my chair, my eyes wide in fear, staring at the thumb-sized wasp that decided it would hover laps around me. It seemed to get larger and more ferocious with every passing moment… before long it would be cat-sized with a stinger that could impale my skull.

I was gasping and dodging this chitinous fiend which was clearly bent on my destruction. It was ignoring and avoiding all the other people in my office, letting them go about their business. Perhaps they had signed some kind of peace treaty with its queen, or developed some kind of herbal remedy to keep demons at bay. I had no such immunity, and so I became the target.

Suddenly it dipped past my face, causing me to flinch in horror. In a moment of clarity, I grabbed the clipboard from my desk and sent it hurling through space and time in an enormous arc of devastation. I heard the clack as it struck my armored foe, sending it to the ground, where I swear I saw it shake the daze out of its head like in a cartoon.

I had not a moment to lose, once its senses were regained, it would come at me full force, filling my eyes and face with its demonic poison.

I stood up and slammed the clipboard on top of it, pushing down with all of my might. It felt like a mighty peanut cracking beneath my primate power.

Why couldn’t it be a nice little bug, like the tiny jumping spider that lives at my desk, who is presently scuttling across my monitor and scoping things out? I CAN make peace with your kind, oh God of Arthropods oh GOD OF CHRISTIANITY IT JUST JUMPED ONTO THE KEYBOARD AND I HAD TO SWAT IT AWAY!

There’s also a seven-legged spider living near my tv. It could wrap its legs completely around a ping pong ball.

What crawls over me in my sleep, in the darkness of the sub-tropical night?