Stubbing your toe on the language barrier.

I've had some time to settle in by now, and I'm pretty much found a groove (or 'rut' if you're feeling pessimistic) to life here in a new place. As I mentioned earlier, Nogata really is a lot more 'relaxed' than Sasebo; both in terms of the job, and the place itself.

That means I have time for a lot of things that all too often went by the wayside before; I peruse the newspaper every day, along with finding time to read actual books (I'm on 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' right now, it's really good!) I stroll home after work because I'm not in a hurry to be anywhere and I like the journey, and sometimes I just sit outside on a park bench near my apartment with a cold cola or beer and watch the clouds roll over the mountains. It's all very zen.

The clouds scrape the mountains near my apartment. I can only imagine how picturesque the scene would be without the power lines.

Of course Sasebo is still there if there's a desperate need for crazy parties; I went back for the past two weekends, and while I'd love to say the place has changed dramatically... well, it really hasn't. This is probably a good thing, since the people I knew and loved are still just as loveable as ever. I admit to even being slightly entranced by the continuing soap-opera-esque drama that seems to envelop the town; no details here ('cause I never kiss and type) but congratulations to those who hooked up, commiserations to the post-break up crowd (You're better off, trust me) and 'good luck' the the rest of the population just trying to stay out of the line of fire- you'll need it.

At work, sports-day preparations continue apace; with lots more marching, banging of drums, practicing of dancing, rope tugging and the like; I finally got assigned a 'block' today (it's like a 'house'... y'know, like Harry Potter) I'm on team 'white' (yeah... RACIST right?) :P Anyway, I immediately got drafted into the 'ball scramble' team on the basis of height alone. Better than being on the Kibusen team I guess; that just looks scary.

I had something of an attitude adjustment a few days back regarding my approach to Japanese language learning. During my previous time I really did take an 'osmotic' approach to the language, soaking up a little here and there when and where I deemed it particularly useful, interesting and/or hilarious. There really didn't seem much need to go beyond that, particularly when the population of foreigners had ensured widespread adoption of English, and the use of Japanese was outright forbidden at work.

Now however it's a different story; In a place that often lacks English signage, populated by people who are truly and overwhelmingly monolingual I find myself constantly forced into impromptu games of charades to get anything beyond the simplest thought or request across. While in English I'm a tertiary-level language major who eats discourse, commentary and criticism for breakfast, in Japanese I'm about as accomplished as a crack-head barely holding down a job in a grimy convenience store- you know the one, the guy who can answer 'yes' and 'no', count to ten and ask if you want your insta-burrito heated, but can only manage a 'huh?' when you ask him what he thinks the weather will be like this afternoon.

My shoe locker in the staff lobby at Noko; at least I can write my name (well, most of the time).

Frankly, it's frustrating; I'm sick of dragging the office secretary to the fax machine because I can't read what any of the buttons say, I'm sick of giving questioning looks to friendly staff members who are trying to ask me questions that any Japanese kindergarten kid would be able to answer and I'm sick of asking 'do you like karaoke?' because it's one thing I can say fluently. It's time to do what no person who's not actively enrolled in an educational institution should have to do-

It's time to study.

Tonight's 'strange Japanese product' award goes to this new variety of 'No Calorie' (known as 'Diet' elsewhere) Coca-Cola + (PLUS!) Vitamin. No telling *which* vitamin they put in there, but the stuff tastes the same to me.

And so, armed with two phrasebooks, a Japanese/English dictionary (thanks Taea!), some self-made flash cards and a buncha free time I'm gonna try and crack this thing open; I'm putting in a few hours and work and some extra at night. This, combined with the fact that I'm freakin' living in Japan hopefully means I should be able to muster some proficiency within a reasonable timeframe. I'm aiming to be as smart as a 1st grader within 6 months. I'm asking you to hold me to it people.

And with that, ja matte for now; I'm going to review my particles.

Shaun.

Stars.

There's a lot of festivity this month! Next on the celebratory hitlist is Tanabata, the Japanese star festival on July 7^th. The legend goes that two separated lovers (the stars Altair and Vega) are allowed to meet each other only on this night... awwww... romantic huh? The occasion is celebrated with a summer festival, and people tying poems, prose or wishes to the branches of bamboo trees.

Our Japanese class decked out in Tanabata wear and lookin' spiffy. See the lady on the far right in the blue? That's Fumie my teacher who's slowly but steadily improved the level of my Japanese from 'non-existent' to 'existent but bad'. Quite the achievement.

Luckily, we had the staff of our Japanese language program to explain this to us, this week we forgoed our regularly scheduled lessons in exchange for a Tanabata party, allowing the girls to get decked out in classy kinomos and the rest of us to eat some traditional sweets and write out some wishes; my three this year are (in no particular order):

1. A pair of shoes that FIT.

2. The ability to control my kid's classes through sheer force of will.

3. World peace.

Really, I'll settle for one out of three. The most nerve-wracking part of the festivities was having to give a short speech in Japanese talking about yourself. Luckily I had my teacher Fumie to polish out my grammar mistakes and brief me on how to pronounce everything, domo arigato Fumie-sensei!

Post festival celebrations (the day after actually) I jumped on a bus down to Fukuoka to help Katy get her Birthday celebratory vibe on. Amanda pulled off some stellar organization and a fabulous array of Mexican food, we cracked out and carved up a candle laden watermelon (how Japanese huh?) Then we went down to the park for some more firework-themed shenanigans (wooo! I still have all my fingers, that's 2 for 2!) We stayed up sipping champagne and pontificating about life until the wee hours then eventually retired for some much needed kip.

Katy with her birthday watermelon (tea-lights included), tasty AND far healthier than the traditional calorie-loaded 'cake' alternative; Japanese ingenuity scores again!

I spent much of the afternoon hanging around Amandas place while she was out, taking the opportunity to read my way through some more Haruki Murakami, this time it was South of the Border, West of the Sun, which gets high marks from me for noirish atmosphere and visualization but lost out a little in the actual 'storytelling' sense; I'll still give it a recommendation though since you can read the whole thing in under 4 hours.

Getting festive in the park; we danced like nobody was watching. Unfortunately, someone was. Damn you Amanda! ;)

In the afternoon I grabbed a coach back to Sasebo to do dinner with Laura and Lani and reaffirm my testosterone filled manliness with a cinematic session of Die Hard 4.0, awesomely cinema's in Japan don't suffer hangups about allowing food or beverages onto their premises, so we grabbed a six pack and proceeded to sup our way through it as Mr. Willis got progressively more violent and blood stained in his pursuit of justice. Afterwards we went down to the local park and climbed onto a gazebo roof and watched the fish jump in the horribly polluted river while we philosophized. Very Dawson's Creek, no? :P

Now of course it's time to start another work week. Hooray. Yay. Woo AND Hoo. Pass the tie and call me 'sensei', I've got a whole bag of grammar, vocab and listening skills to teach before next Sunday!

Starlight and love,

Shaun.