Emerging from Hibernation

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16

The sun is out today and I'm hoping this means winter, and my hibernation, are almost over. Japan's weather isn't as cold as Wisconsin's, but the inside of buildings is much, much colder. In fact, it's like never warming up for an entire season. The lowest temperature I've recorded in my bedroom was 39 degrees, which did not make me particularly happy. The schools are heated in classrooms by little kerosine heaters that the students huddle around before class and have to be shooed away from once the bell rings. The teacher's room is also heated by kerosine heaters, often with a tea kettle or a pot on top. I've come to the conclusion that this is probably to add humidity. That said, the rooms are still often very cold, Koko and Kogyo in particular are often cold enough that I sit cross-legged on my chair (in what is probably deemed a very unprofessional manner) and drape my coat across my lap like a blanket. I have been seriously eying the USB powered heating lap blanket off ThinkGeek.com. I was quite bluntly (which is very uncharacteristic of Japanese) informed once at Kogyo that in Japan, we don't wear hats inside, so, when already wearing multiple layers, my options are limited.

Koko, unfortunately, has just started a new “freeze the ALT to death” campaign that involves opening the WINDOWS and letting drafts into the room, which is a mere 64 degrees to begin with. I asked Mustache-sensei about it and he said that the school carbon monoxide levels were tested last week. The typical level is 400 PPN and the teacher's room registered at 8,000 (EIGHT THOUSAND). Mustache-sensei said we run a risk of teachers passing OUT (stressing that that was not “passing AWAY.”) I asked if we could get paid sick leave in that instance, but my only half joke was lost on him.

Even though the classrooms are heated and the teacher's room is heated, much of the school is UNHEATED including all hallways. This means I'm not scuttling to class as quickly as I can in my ragged slippers (I keep forgetting to bring new ones from my apartment.) Classrooms have heaters, but they're only turned on during class, so in my English room, where I don't have consecutive classes, the heater isn't even turned on until class starts. By the time the room even begins to warm up, class is over. At Kogyo, students are responsible for picking up the kerosine and at Nishi students are responsible for getting the power cable. In the students in charge of this slack off or “are lazy” (as one teacher put it), there's no heat. While this is a punishment for the students, it's also a punishment for the teachers. I also taught one miserably cold class at Kogyo in a room where the heater was broken. The students don't change rooms, so they sat all day in an unheated classroom. I was teaching comparisons and did use “[This room] is coldER than [last class I taught in]” as an example, which the students didn't find nearly as clever as I did. I did enjoy throwing in the temperature in Wisconsin in there, though, and seeing the students gasp.

I absolutely adore heated toilet seats, something Nishi definitely does right, though I'm not sure why it was heated last summer. In the absence of a smart toilet (like a smart phone, you know, with lots of buttons that do stuff you don't know how you survived without before) in my apartment, I have contented myself with a cloth toilet seat cover from the hyaku-en store.

My flat is looking more and more like a bachelorette pad. It was not my original intention to turn everything pink, but it's slowly turned out that way. I don't have enough stuff for it to actually be noticeable anywhere but the bathroom, though. My bathroom screams “girl.” (In other news, I hope my eventual successor isn't male, or I'll have a hard time selling anything to him.) I have a pink striped toilet seat cover, and toilet lid cover, and floor mat, and toilet paper holder cover. I have pink towels, and a pink soap dish. I have a pink water freshener in my sink (which drains blue water into the toilet bowl and apparently gives off a grape smell, though I've not been sniffing to check, but certainly reduces the cleaning time and frequency.) and a pink towel rack. I have a pink flower on my faucet. In my most recent purchase, I picked up pink striped bathroom slippers to match my toilet seat and mat. I had held out (though they're only a dollar) because though all homes in Japan have bathroom slippers (even the school ones have slippers) that are only worn in the bathroom, I haven't been raised that way and think it's impractical to change shoes to go into a room hardly larger than the toilet. This changed when it got cold. It's purely practical to keep my toes warm.

I was rearranging the bathroom yesterday and had twelve rolls of toilet paper fall on my head. I screamed.

Even in my apartment, heating is done solely with an electric space heater. It seems like an expensive idea, and it's certainly inefficient. I went with another JET to pick one up and it now gets carried around with me. Luckily, I don't move all that much, merely rotating between the bedroom, the kitchen, and braving a few frigid trips to the bathroom unaccompanied by my lovely heater. It's a ceramic heater and actually blasts the air, so it does raise the overall room temperature, not just heating the air right in front of it. In fact, it does get very hot. I managed to burn my hand (though I don't recall when, though the red triangle and blister assure me that it did happen) and it's a toss-up between the kotatsu and the space heater, possibly while I was napping yesterday.

A kotatsu is a thoroughly marvelous invention, only surpassed by central air. It's a low table, with a blanket over it and a heater under it. Thus, you can sit with your legs pleasantly warm despite the cold air. They're expensive, but I was lucky enough to get one from Susanna for the winter. She had a spare and offered to loan it to me. I was so very, very grateful. When she dropped it off, she pointed out a tiny stain on the futon and apologized. It's very typical Japanese behavior; new and perfect things are often requirements, so she felt bad loaning me something in less than perfect condition. I, however, (1) don't care about a tiny stain and (2) prefer something NOT perfect as I'll worry less about damaging the loan myself. The blanket is green and has cows on it. It reminds me of home.

I also broke down and bought an electric blanket for my futon. Electric blankets don't get as hot in Japan as they do in America, so putting it up to full power is merely warm. I usually set it to about 4 (of five) and that's good. I've started setting two alarms in the morning. There's my regular one, which I used in summer (though it takes much longer to get ready for work in the winter, meaning I now shower at night), and one 45 minutes earlier. This first alarm wakes me up and in my stupor, I turn on my space heater and my kotatsu, warming them both up before I have to use them. I've now become so accustomed to this, though, that I sometimes wake up before my first alarm and worry as to whether I was supposed to have turned them on yet. I woke up sweating last week before my alarms to both running with no recollection of turning them on. That was a bit disconcerting.

I've been teaching the students about Valentine's Day this week. Japan celebrates it, but it's a day when women give chocolate to men. The Kogyo boys are horrified at the idea of America's reversal. Perhaps it's unfair of me, as I estimated the prices based on the spending of an upper-middle class man who had a lot to make up for that year, but I do think that, reasonably, $150 is not unheard of for a romantic dinner. The Nishi girls were less vocal in their opinions, but seemed pleased with America's version. In Japan, White Day is on March 14, and men reciprocate by giving women who gave them gifts gifts two or three times as valuable, so, as always, the woman still comes out ahead. For a man to merely match her gift is the equivalent of ending the friendship.

My students are confused with the word “holiday.” In Japan, it seems the equivalent is only used for what we'd call a Public Holiday, with school closures. They have a difficult time understanding that Halloween, though still in school, is a holiday. For one of my advanced claseses at Nishi today, I taught them about Pie Day, on March 14 as an example of a holiday that not everyone follows. It was so cool to see the students' faces when they made the connection between March 14 (3/14), Pi (3.14) and Pie. They were delighted. May the Fourth might have to wait, though. Talk like a Pirate Day, though is definitely getting introduced next year, even if just in passing. After all, I did bring my skill and dagger earrings for just this reason.

My own Valentine's Day was uneventful, for the most part. Mustache-sensei did give me Oreos the following day, but I don't know that it's related. I did eagerly down those at lunch, though. I miss Oreos and regret not picking up some when I was on the military base over Christmas. But then, I was under strict marine orders (which had already been ignored three times, so what's one more) that I wasn't allowed to buy Oreos because I wouldn't have room in my suitcase. In retrospect, I probably could have downed the entire package long before my suitcase ever became necessary.

I had been planning to pick up flowers for myself on Valentine's Day, but we were hit with awful, cold, wet, heavy snow and merely biking home was bad enough. I almost skidded out outside my apartment and had to stop partway home to brush the snow off my face. I understand now why people bike with umbrellas in the winter. When I got in, my gloved hands were so cold that they ached as I washed them in lukewarm water, though not nearly as bad as they did once my Junior winter of college when I was in tears and practically screaming in pain. I do think that occasion has made them more sensitive to cold, though.

I walked to kimono class that night (I'm now in level two of a ridiculous lot) and the streets were running with slush. My socks were squishing water before I ever made it onto the main street. In class, I tried not to make a fuss, but my kimono teacher (I have a new one who, while hesitant about me at first, now adores me like my last, though she doesn't try to use English at ALL in class, meaning I understand much less of the cultural aspect.) noticed and made a fuss for me, having the intern bring over a stand (then sending that back and getting a full-length mirror) for the intern to drape my pants over so they could air out some. Luckily she didn't notice my socks (which were soaked) and I didn't point them out. (Mama once, upon noticing my socks were wet, grabbed them into her hands and insisted on holding them next to a heater to dry them. I was mortified that she'd touch my dirty socks. Not even my own mother loves me that much.) Those were cold and uncomfortable to put on later, but already wet for the walk home.

It wasn't until the day after Valentine's then, that I bought myself flowers. I'd noted a little floral shop in the more run-down of the two Heiwado, and stopped in there. Flowers are more expensive here than in supermarkets at home, so I didn't get a big bouquet, but I did pick out two nice sprigs of flowers, one white, the other purple, and bought a vase from the hyaku-en store upstairs. The flowers are now nicely arranged on my kitchen table to remind myself that someone loves me very, very much, even if it's only my egotistical self. According to an article on CNN News, Tokyo is one of the most expensive places to buy roses. Even I don't love myself that much, though I did consider orchids. Orchids, oddly, weren't that expensive. When I went to Okinawa over Christmas, the airport was teeming with orchids everywhere, in a display that would have made my father, an orchid-killer rife with jealousy. I wonder if they ship them up from Okinawa to the rest of Japan.

I still have my Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) in the corner of my kitchen. When Parker moved to Kyoto at Christmas, I paid 100 yen and bought a stool from him. I had planned to put it in my front hall so I could sit while putting on shoes, but I commandeered it shortly after buying it to use as a flower stand. I did ikebana with the Koko girls before Christmas and have only started throwing away the flowers now, as they've lasted gorgeously well. Part of me wonders if this is because they're basically living in a refrigerator. I took the last two flowers out of the ikebana and added them to my Valentine's Day bouquet, where they match nicely. What's left of the ikebana now is a sprig of fir, some silver-pained branches that snake upward, and a single twig with green leaves and red berries, that now sits alone. The lack of other flowers makes the whole display look unintentionally dramatic. But, as I have nothing better to go in that corner, I see no sense in dismantling it, though I think I'd like to eventually have that stool back for it's original intended purpose.