The upcoming presidential election...

...should be settled like this:


I would fully endorse an epic, world-shattering Gundam battle betweem Robama and Mechcain.

Strange days...

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. Yes, the heat is unbearable, and on Monday Fukuoka had the dubious distinction of being the hottest place in Japan. Walking the 12 minutes from the train station to the school literally drenches me in sweat.

One of the new weather watch-words in Japan is Guerrilla Rain. Like its namesake, this Guerrilla Rain appears out of nowhere, rains HARD as hell, and then just as suddenly disappears. When I say hard, I mean like 70-100 mm of rainfall per hour! It's nuts. I was told that last Saturday, the school track field flooded to about 10cm, with random bits of detritus floating around.

So add to that this:
These are pics of a waterspout that formed in the ocean near my school. I am told that such things are unheard of in tihs area. The first pic is of a waterspout that formed north of our school. That was most definitely in the sea. The second pic was shot to the south of our school. There's no water down that way, and that may explain why it didn't completely form. While the clouds themselve are the main focus of that picture, you can see the initial formation of what I think is a tornado. Look just to the left of the electrical tower, and you'll see the cloud just starting to funnel downwards.

All I can say is freaky.

More pics here.

Farewell...

...and good luck, departing JETs. For those in the JET Programme, the end of July signifies endings and beginnings.

Last night we in Fukuma had out Farewell party for 4 departing JETs. My co-ALT at Genkai, Elaine, who is headed back to school to be a boni fide teacher. Kathy, who's plans are still up in the air but is going home after a long 4 years, Andy, who is staying in Japan and now lives in Nagahama District in Fukuoka City, and Max, a friend of Kathy's from Oita Prefecture, who is also leaving after her 4th year.

I'll leave the documenting of last night to Rob, who is far more blog-savvy than I.

oh gods...

...the heat! Yes, summertime is finally here. With rainy season (tsuyu) finally over, sunny days are here. It is a true fact that I end up at school drenched every day, and arrive home drenched every day, DESPITE RAINY SEASON BEING OVER!

The merciless heat is compounded by the lack of real air conditioning. Yes, Genkai has air con. Yes, it's on and has been since the beginning of the month. No, it doesn't really make a difference. In another brilliant move, where Japanese bureaucracy (the same bureaucracy that regulates for the most part in all prefectural schools and buildings IN THE PREFECTURE when to turn ON the air con) has decided to pinch pennies in all the wrong places and have the air con running at a balmy 26 degrees.

OK, so the fact that I come from a purportedly "northern" country has something to do with my discomfiture. But 26 degrees + single-pane uninsulated glass + no insulation = a hot fucking room. Why doesn't anyone else see that?

Really, it's not actually all that bad. Instead of sweat poring off of me, I'm relatively dry all day and a simple hand fan moves enough air for me to feel comfortable. But damn it I (and I am not alone in this), would gladly pay into some kind of air con fund and have the air con in the teachers room set to 24 all the time.

Beginnings and Ends

I'm always amazed at the subjectivity of time, and how time can seem to crawl or pass at the blink of an eye based on the situation a person experiences. I'm a sense, I'm going through a sort of time-crisis myself, as I consider the last 2 years.

On one hand, I feel like I've been in Japan forever. So much so that I can hardly remember my daily life in Toronto. Not of course that I've forgotten my friends and family there, but rather that I've so acclimatized myself to my life in Japan that at this point any other seems...impossible.

This is of course a slippery slope, and such delusions can lead to heartbreak later. Already, I am starting to feel the pressure of the ending of my next contract year, even though it hasn't begun. Where will I be once August rolls around. Will I be recontracted? Will I have a new job, here in Japan? Or will I go home, kicking and screaming, to a country where I have no appreciable job skills? In a very real sense, I cannot rely on JET to recontract me another year. Budgetary concerns have already seen a reduction in the number of high schools with JET ALTs, in many cases to be replaced by Interac ALTs, and while I have high confidence that Genkai will continue to use and request JET ALTs (the JET Programme continues despite reduced capacity), whether I am included in that as a 4th year hopeful is still up in the air.

And so I feel the crunch very acutely, of really thinking about getting my house into order. While I am technically just as unskilled here in Japan as I am in Canada, I have my English ability, but perhaps more important my Japanese ability, to fall back on. That said, I don't know if I want to continue teaching, and a happy ending for me would see me working somewhere where my bilingual skills would be put to use. Still, hoping for an ideal situation to come along is risky at best, so I need to consider making myself more ELT-worthy. Going for my TESOL certification is definitely on my to do list. A company from Canada runs a week-long seminar in Yokohama. Eventually, I might even consider going back to school for a BEd. in foreign language teaching, though that is indeed getting well ahead of myself. I have lived my life according to my own set of rules, that those include not getting overly worked up about my own future. I feel that I have an indomitable optimism with regards to this. Whether this turns out to be true, or simply the fantasies of an idle mind, remains to be seen.

I didn't mean this to be a rant, but the last few substance based posts have had a similar tenor, a sure sign that at least on some subconscious level, I am sufficiently worried. So that's good, I think.

But to return to the main point, while I feel I've been here in Japan forever, I feel that I have not much time remaining before some real action on my part must be taken. But as well as feeling long, my time in Japan has also felt very brief. To this I point to my co-ALT, or rather her departure.

Elaine will be going home, in just over a month. In about 3 weeks, she will stop being my co-ALT and will be replaced by a new girl. There is of course a certain anxiety I feel, as is usual when new co-workers enter the office, but as well a certain sense of excitement, as this new ALT learns the "wonders" of the environment she'll be working in. The gist of it is this: I cannot believe that it's been 2 years already. Where did this time fly? It feels almost like yesterday that I checked into the doctor's clinic on the 27th-or-some-odd floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel with an asthma attack, my first and lasting memory of arriving in Japan on the JET Programme. At the same time, that seems like a lifetime ago. I remember my initial growing irritation with Elaine distinctly, but also how our work relation mended itself until we were partner's par-excellence, a veritable teaching team here at Genkai. This too is both a distinct memory, but as well something which seems to be very much in the past.

Perhaps it is my growing senecense. Perhaps it is a form of culture-shock. Perhaps the early July heat is rotting my brain. Regardless, this dichotomy of time will haunt me for some time...

If you can guess, Current Mood: Contemplative

Yeesh

2 months since I last posted. Anyhoo new profile pic and album from my recent Kuju trip. Thanks Sandy! (And to a lesser extent Rob for posting his pics from the day, thus reminding me to do the same).

P.S. I'll post more this weekend.

P.P.S. Make that 3 months. Thank goodness I'm not here in Japan to spread my awesome math skills.