Seventeen Pounds of Love from Dad

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26

Paper grading at Koko just never ends. I had my assigned homework to grade and some from Susanna's ninensei (second year.) Today they were writing about things they could do. I read so many papers starting with “I can play the piano.” One student wrote “I can talk about politics,” and that was a really good read. His English wasn't the best, but he had substance. He had one line about liking political doublespeak and I just wanted to reach out and take this boy under wing and teach him everything I know. I had to content myself with writing a note on the side that said I also loved that, which is why I majored in English. Maybe that'll make him like English more?

While walking to class with Ottawa-sensei today, he commented that my face is getting smaller. This is an odd statement, but from being here a while and conversations with Elizabeth, I had a better idea what he meant. In Japan, they like small faces, as Elizabeth is constantly followed by calls of “small face! Small face!” the way I am followed by “kawaii!” So, it was actually complimentary. I took it, correctly, I think, to mean that my face is thinning. I have lost weight in Japan. For example, I had planned to wear one pair of pants to school, but they sat too low on my hips to be deemed work appropriate, especially when I sat, so I had to change. The pants I wore today were actually my tightest when I came, fitting snugly in the butt. They now hang lose enough that none of my elderly relatives could complain.

I had two classes positively laugh when I told them they had no homework. The last of the day, though, was disappointingly unresponsive to the news. Cheeky children! See if I don't give you homework next week!

The students still love when I attempt to say their names when giving back homework. There's often a lot of laughter. I attempt to say the names following Japanese phonetic rules, but when I'm rushed or their handwriting is bad, I'm not always perfect. (Shocking, I know!) And, often, my bias as an English speaker comes through and I want to pronounce the words as an English speaker might pronounce an English word (silent E on the end, etc.)

For this lesson, I explain the vocabulary in the dialogue, all in English of course, which means it turns into a big game of charades/pictionary. Do you know how HARD it is with a word like “extra”?!?!?! My god! Most of my classes didn't get it, but, really, that's a rather complex word. Words like “witch hat,” “candy,” and “horror movie” are much easier. Mustache-sensei was kind enough to put everyone out of their misery after a few minutes of guessing, but Ottawa-sensei let it run much longer and finally had to be implored to explain the concept. “Outfit” is also a hard word for Japanese students.

I asked Mustache-sensei if I could go to the bank at lunch, and I got his okay. I explained that it was to pay the shipping bill and for my ---- ----- tickets. He was much less excited about it than I was. His loss. Which is odd... as a Japanese man, he's supposed to like Maiko.

So, at lunch, I grabbed my bicycle (which was blown over in the wind) and had my squirrel key, and biked off. Mustache-sensei recommended a bank to the left, rather than the one I had planned to go to, to the right, because it was closer. He's said it was a few feet to the left and I looked at him skeptically before saying, “blocks?” I don't think he realised that “few” means 2-3, and the several blocks I biked to get there were definitely more than “a few feet.” It's like how my college advertised itself as “minutes from the Twin Cities!” Well, yeah, like over a hundred of them...

I arrived at the bank and parked my bike precariously in the wind and headed in. There was no line so I got to walk right up and apologize for not speaking Japanese. The two tellers looked terrified, but I plowed on. I had three things to do (hold up three fingers.) First, my passbook wasn't working, so I mimed that out and she fixed it in about a minute. Then we got to the tricker bank account transfer stuff. I handed her the paperwork (mostly in Japanese) for the shipping charges on my luggage and she seemed to find the right information. Apparently the transfer is done using the ATM, so my teller came with me and did it for me. I don't know most of what it said. Next, I had printed out the e-mail from the ---- ----- with the information. This was pretty much the same. Both transfers had a 300 yen transfer fee, which I wasn't terribly happy about, but really had no choice. It wasn't until the end when the other teller appeared with a picture-filled English-Japanese laminated card with important banking phrases. We didn't really use it, as we'd already sorted out the important stuff. I thanked her profusely for her help, and headed back to school.

At school, I e-mailed the ---- ----- lady and told her the transfer had been made and to let me know if there were any problems. I didn't work late.

At home, as I'd hoped, I had a slip for a package!! So, I rushed off to the post office and redeemed it for a 17 pound beauty. It was too big to fit in my basket, so I balanced it on my bike seat and walked home. Once home, I opened it and found, among other things: 12 slippers, 3 pairs of pointy elf ears, tons of stickers, a two gifts from exes, a single tampon, 15 pictures of Milwaukee Brewer Prince Fiedler, 9 Great Clips magnates, a hat with cat ears, and four sets of shiny blue bead necklaces. The package was from my father, so, thank you Daddy, you rock and get mucho points for sending the world's biggest package. Mom, I know the address, including my father's name was in your handwriting, but he gets credit because it was his name.

Tuesday night was stir fry night, as I had veggies on the brink of extinction. I didn't have tofu, though, so I thought I'd head to the store later that evening. I opened the door to find blustering wind, rain, and a dark, cold night. I decided I didn't need tofu. Ten minutes later, I still wanted tofu, so I opened the door and.... yeah, no, not THAT badly. I listened to Pinocchio while cooking. It's such a random, weird story.

It was a cold, dark, and stormy night. I huddled in my warmest clothes, wore my wool hat and slippers. I watched the temperature drop on my Washington Monument thermometer and watched my toes turn a pretty lilac color. Eventually, I went and took a nice warm bath and read some “Pride and Prejudice” in the tub. Honestly, if I could figure out how to use the internet from the bathtub, I'd probably just camp out there all winter. The fact that you can heat water already in the bath is wonderful.

By the time I slept (in the warm, fuzzy pink jammies my father sent me), the temperature was down to 54 in my apartment and I decided I needed to talk to my teachers about heat.