Last Update

I am anticipating this to be my final update from The Land of the Rising Sun.

Let's see, my apartment looks like a bomb hit it. Well, except the two giant suitcases which are just about completely packed up! I am surprisingly ahead of schedule with the packing (I think). I'm sending my bags off to the airport tomorrow which means that I today I need to finish it off before I go out for my sayonara party with Kate and our Japanese friends. As it stands right now, I have two giant shopping bags full of beatiful gifts from everyone from my co-workers, friends, old students and even Kayvohn. Definitely going to be breaking the carry-on limit. Ah well.

I saw my old supervisor yesterday and the day before and it was totally emotional. Out of respect for my relationship with her, I'm not going to go into the whys of it all. But seeing her again kind of brought the whole thing 360 and it upset me more than I thought it would have. This situation is so weird because I'm saying goodbye to people whom I've had to overcome big communication obstacles to get to know, but nonetheless, have grown to respect and love. And these are also people who I will probably never see or hear from again. I've never been this emotional about a goodbye before. This is a major, two year chapter in my life that has had its share of high highs and low lows and precious moments and embarassing communication flukes, etc etc. Anyway, I wanted to sign off with some pictures from the last week.

Enjoy.

Ichiro-kun and his giant watermelon

Toshie, my students' mom, teaches an ECC English class for kids, and on Saturday afternoon she threw us a Sayonara Party with her students (who were also my students from Elementary schools).


After the ECC thing, I headed to Sanjo for my friend Nao's wedding. Here they are cutting the cake. 15 minutes after that, he changed into jeans. This party was very strange. But there was booze, so all was well.

Phil, Nao and I on the way to the 3jikai

Awesome.


Two of my English teachers, Suzuki-sensei and Kuwabara-sensei. They chose the Yukata for me.


On Monday of this week, Maruyama san invited Kate and I to Yahiko to see the annual lantern festival.



After dinner we went to a beer garden on the roof of a hotel to watch the spectacular 2-hour firework display. Gorgeous.




And that's that.

Goodbye Japan! Ogenki de!

Let's play "Spot the White Girl!"

Can you find her? It's kinda tough, right?

Anyway, went to my farewell enkai with the teachers at Higashi Chu. I gave a meaningful speech in English which my JTE worked hard to translate into Japanese about how much I loved that school and the 3 nen seis in particular. The Principal gave me a speech in English (he used to be an English teacher), and handed me an envelope with cash-ola in it (Japanese traditions rule). Then Suzuki sensei gave me a gift and a speech in English about how far I've come in my relationships with my students (and vice versa) in two years. Then Kuwabara-sensei presented me a huge box which contained a full Yukata set from the English department. Oh, god it was so sweet.

Then they told me I had to wear it for the rest of the party. Ha. So I did my best impression of a white geisha while slamming glasses of beer with the male teachers. It was good. I'm actually really gonna miss those teachers.

My 100th Post

will be a picture of a bug.



I'm not expected to go to work this week! Wooooo! Cleaning and packing and sleeping and gym time here I come!

A more meaningful post later today I'm sure.

Sayonara Higashi Chu!

First off, I'd like to moan about how it was sunny yesterday. The first day in 8 days straight. And today it's raining again. Depressing.

Ohhh, so today was my most dreaded farewell. Higashi Chu is where my most favorite students are. I have had a really close bond with the class who are now 3 nensei straight from my arrival two years ago. I can't believe how much they've grown in the last two years and it broke my heart to say goodbye to them today.

I had been asked by Kuwabara Sensei to give a speech after lunch, so I used my tried and true farewell speech. Then I was surprised and delighted when Rie, one of my most lovely and brilliant 3rd years gave me a speech in English. This is a pretty big deal. Japanese people are so reluctant to stand out, so when they are good at something they usually cover it up. There's no way I expected Rie to speak to me IN ENGLISH in front of 400 of her classmates. But she did. And I definitely cried. Yup. Rie seemed to be on the verge of tears as well, but she was concentrating so hard on the English that she managed to hold it in. Then they gave me flowers at let me leave the stage. Phew.

After lunch I spent the break time wandering around the halls, saying hello and goodbye and trying to give away all the pictures I'd taken for Melissa's Corner in the last two years. It was a huge hit and eventually I ended up signing all of the pictures and putting them up on the English board for the kids to take. I think they'll really appreciate that.

I was expecting to have the afternoon free until after school when I was going to help Fumika (the most amazing girl in the world) prepare for a speech contest. But during 5th period Ms Ogawa rushed in and asked me to come to her 3-1 class because the kids were all whining that it was my last day and they wanted to see me.

The 3-1 class has been by far my favorite. Of both of my schools. For the entire 2 years. Both Fumika and Rie are in this class and all the other kids are fantastic as well. Our classes together have always always been awesome. We spent the period doing a really relaxed Q&A. The students were allowed to ask me anything they wanted, and because they respect me, no one asked me the rude questions we ALTs have come to expect. Their questions were genuine and cute and their English was great. We did have a hilarious moment though, when one boy came to the front of the class and said what I thought was "How long have you talked English?" And I was like, ok crappy grammar, funny question, what should I say? So I go "Ummm, FOREVERRRRR" and he gave me a very funny look, so I said "23 years." And he said, "Oh ok.... thank you." Then Ms Ogawa told me that he said "How long have you taught English?" We all cracked up at the fact that it was totally my mistake and that his question was, in fact, perfect English. Ha.

After the Q&A portion, we did a group picture (see below) and with the last two minutes, Ms Ogawa asked me to say a few things to them. Yeahhhhhh, this is where it got sloppy. I literally managed to spit out a grand total of 10 words (Oh, god.... This is really sad.......... I really enjoyed this.) before the sobbing overtook me. I literally could not say anything else. This prompted a chain reaction of girls crying and when I made eye contact with Ms Ogawa, who was also teary-eyed, I had to turn away from the kids, hand over my face and look at the blackboard. Rie managed to shout "Melissa! Fight-o!" But it could not be helped.

So that was how I ended my final lesson ever with my most favorite class. Oh, man.

As dramatic as it all was, I walked away with about 100 letters from kids, a few good pictures, a bouquet of flowers and some seriously amazing memories. God, it's been an interesting two years.

First year girls. They are so lovely

First year boys. These boys are notorious pains-in-the-arse. But I've managed to befriend them. They give me high fives in the morning. They stalk me during lunch and after school. They've definitely grown on me.

Genki 3rd year girls. Yuki, Tsugumi, I forgot, Tomoko and I forgot 2.

And this is my Fumika. The reason I've survived this long, through canceled classes and dull days where 8 hours seem to stretch to eternity. The one student who gave me faith that there was a point to my being in Japan. She is amazing. She and I have been writing letters and comics to each other twice a week for the past year. We talk for hours after school. She's become what I'd consider a friend and I will never, ever, forget this girl.

3nen 1kumi.

Shoko and Akie. Captains of the tennis team. I'm pretty sure Akie has participated in National Tournaments. See how proud I am??

Goodbye kids!




And the question remains, how can I simultaneously be so sad and so happy to leave this place??

Oh god,

Tomorrow is my final day at Higashi Chu. It is not going to be easy.

Update tomorrow after the tears dry...

Last Niigata All-Nighter. EVER!

Yes, my friends, it's true. There will be no more random Niigata bar-hopping. No more crappy 500yen cocktails. No more nomihoudais. No more catching the 5am train and stumbling home as the sun is coming up. No more sleeping through my stop and ending up in Yoshida (it only happened once though!). It's official: JET is just about over!

On Saturday afternoon, I went into the city with Kayvohn, his cousin Mike and his friend Stuart to see Koken's band play for (probably) the last time. As usual, Koken's band rocked out but the other bands were, um, total shit. And the bar was super smoky and gross, so after Koken's I met Phil outside and we started the drinking at a cheap izakaya. Awesome.

After that, we went to the big bad ALT Sayonara Party on Sunday night. The owner of Immigrants offered us a 3000yen nomihoudai, starting at 8pm, which was pretty sweet despite the fact that Immigrants has to be one of the worst venues for a big party, and they ran out of booze by like 2am. It was very crowded and full of ALTs, random middle aged white guys (still don't know who they were or why they were there) and Japanese chicks reeking of desperation to find a white boyfriend. But alas, it was actually a really good and rowdy and random night followed by excellent 3am drunken karaoke. I also met some great people who I probably should have met like a year ago, but still, it was great to get new perspective and learn that I'm not the only one who's going slightly bonkers at this stage.

My best bud Kayvohn and I

Kayvohn, Kat, Ellen and I looking pretty freaking sweet. And by sweet, I mean drunk.

Phil and Kat - for some reason I have about 6 photos of these two in this pose. Why?

Lovey Sado Tamara who I distinctively recall spilling and entire drink on. Gomen gomen!

Karaoke in the narrowest room ever.

**Laura, I totally didn't end up with a picture of you, but rest assured if I did, you'd be on here -- I know you're reading!**


And, on my drunken 6am stumble in the rain to my apartment from the train station, I randomly whipped out my camera to get some shots of Maki. I've taken the beauty of this town for granted, so I'm trying to make an effort to photograph the things that will no longer be mundane after I've left (in 15 days, by the way). So here's a start.





And now here's hoping the rain will take a little break for my last two weeks... doesn't look too promising though!

Oh...

Just got Thom Yorke's solo album. Good God. Amazing.


I'm not gonna say anymore about my mental state/preparations for leaving, etc because I feel like a bit of a basketcase (one word?) lately. It's not blog material. Trust me.

Update Much?

Gah! I've got so much going on around me. Such conflicting feelings about leaving, saying goodbye, starting anew, celebrating the 4th in Japan (again), etc etc. It's like sometimes I'm dying to leave and other days I'm wondering how I'm going to adjust to being back in my home country. I was thinking about it today and I think this goodbye is by far the hardest I've had yet for two main reasons.
1. I'm the only one who's leaving. When I left Canandaigua for college and when I left Florida after college, every one of my friends were going through the same transition. We were all leaving this place that we might or might not have loved but nonetheless considered 'home'. But we were all leaving together. In this case, my students and teachers will continue here without me. They will have a new ALT to get to know and to grow to love. While my life will take a major turn into the unknown.
2. Compared to my High School and College graduations, this time I'm leaving a place that I'm not (yet) bitter about. I didn't cry at either of my graduation ceremonies because, frankly, I was ready to move on. While I feel I'm definitely ready to move on, I have so many happy memories, and overall have had such an awesome time with my students. In two years time, we've grown comfortable with each other and learned to communicate and play and laugh and joke together despite the language and cultural barriers. I've watched them grow - in inches, in maturity and even in English ability. It's experiences like this that I'll treasure so much but it's also what makes it so hard to say goodbye to this place.

But tears and tissues and cheesiness aside, I know I made the right decision to leave. Another year very well might have left me raw and bitter. And that's the truth.

It's all a little too much for me right now. So, in bullet form, a few things that have happened in the last 24 hours:

- Today I broke my streak of not crying in front of my co-workers while saying goodbye. I had two farewells today. One at Matsuno Sho, a tiny school on the outskirts of town. I've only visited it a couple times this year, but I felt really close with the now-4th graders. I ate lunch with them today and they all asked me their final questions. After lunch I signed their notebooks and they delivered cards and origami to me. Some of them even made an effort to write English on their cards. My lips were trembling but I didn't spill any tears... yet.

Me and the 1st and 2nd graders at Matsunoo

And the 3rd and 4th graders

After lunch I had to rush over to Kita Sho where the teachers all gathered in the staff room to wish me farewell. The Principal even gave a speech in English and Ikuyo-sensei presented me with a huge, beautiful bouquet of flowers. Here's where the tears finally made their debut.

Pretty sure I freaked everyone out.

After that I had to teach the entire 1st grade class in one period. So, all 100 kids, 4 teachers and I gathered in the gym with a microphone and played what has to be the biggest game of "Color Basket" in the world. I had to hold back tears again because I've known some of the 1st graders since they were mere 4 year olds at Takenomachi Kindergarten. Very sad to say goodbye, though it was nice to watch them in their early transition to Elementary School.

4 classes, one game of Color Basket. Good lord.




- Last night Kate gathered up all of the Americans she could think of (and Kayvohn, our pseudo-American) and we had a mock-4th of July dinner featuring American flag plates and tablecloths, Budweiser, wannabe-hamburgers, corn, "Sprirt of America" Little Debbie brownies, apple caramel pie with vanilla icre cream, watermelon, sparklers, the Star Bangled [sic] Banner, and Bruce Freakin Springsteen. It was awesome. We even opened the windows and sang the National Anthem for all of her neighbors to enjoy. The highlight was probably our trip to the Shinto shrine nextdoor to light sparklers.
What's that? You wanna see photos? Well, OK, if you insist....
アメリカ人だよ

Thank you Little Debbie for contributing to the obesity problem of our nation's youth

Notice the Freedom Fries on the America table

We were totally listening to "Born in the USA". And I'm having wayyy too much fun.

Sparklers at the Shrine?! Sure!





I hope all of you in America who properly celebrated the 4th by going out on boats, barbecue-ing and drinking Sam Adams Summer Ale had a good one... and thought of me here in Nihon.

Phew, I'm tired.

Happy 4th of July

Patriotic Feces? Old Navy's New Product Line Is Genius!

Black lady with five kids: You can't get anything here. We gots to get to Old Navy to buy us all our Fourth of July t-shirts so we match at the picnic.
Black guy: They have the best deal. Shirts are five dollars each, that's like [counts kids, self, and wife] less than twenty bucks for all of us, and even the baby shit has a flag on it.

--Target, Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn

Overheard by: lora

via Overheard in New York, Jun 30, 2006

God I miss America.
So sad I'm going to miss Sarah and Cory's 4th of July dinner too. Argh! Can I leave now?



In other news:
7-11 has stopped selling the Tropicana Lemonade that I've grown to love in the last month. I hate how everything is "seasonal" around here. Man!

And I officially have a big bouncy real live BED to sleep in in Portland. Big enough to fit a boy in, too! Woooo!

And Happy 1st Birthday to my blog. Wonder how long it will last past my departure from Japan? Probably not long.

Kat, don't look!

While I regret the loss of England in this weekend's World Cup, there is no denying that this has to be the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long long time. I kind of want to cry.

Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. Also known as my dream lover.

Attempting to Maintain Positivity

It's Monday and it's hot. The kids don't want to be here, I don't want to be here. But I'm going to resist the urge to bitch and whine about how badly I want to go to Portland now (ahem). Instead I'm going to post highlights/anecdotes from recent encounters with my students, because as annoying and frustrating as they can be, they really are quite sweet and I will miss them...

- While eating lunch with 3rd graders at Minami Sho, I was quizzed by little Kazuki-kun in the seat next to me:
Him: Melissa sensei, which do you like better, milk or apple juice?
Me: Apple juice.
Him: Which do you like better, orange juice or apple juice?
Me: Um, orange juice.
Him: Which do you like better, orange juice or grape juice?
Me: Orange juice.
Him: Which do you like better, orange juice or your mother?
Me: Oh, um, my mom.

Round 2:
Him: Which do you like better sushi or spaghetti?
Me: Sushi.
Him: Sushi or Fruit?
Me: Oh, tough one... fruit.
Him: Fruit or Yuma-kun (the boy sitting across the table from us).

- Last Wednesday was my final visit at Echizen Sho, the tiiiiny little school up in the mountain. I only visit this school once every 6 weeks or so but because the school is so small, I know the kids pretty well. On Wednesday I visited all of the classes where the teacher announced it would be my last visit. I then had to field lots of questions about why I'm leaving. And dealt with lots of kids running up to me, arms open wide and tears squeezing from their big brown eyes. I tried to avoid the issue of my leaving as much as possible, so when the coversation seemed headed in that direction, I would tell them some extraordinary fact to take their minds off it, like this:

Shizuka-chan: Melissa, what's your favorite food in America?
Me: Oh, I love cheeseburgers.
Her: Well, we have cheeseburgers in Japan, you know?!
Me: (Uh oh), Yes, you're right and they are delicious, but in America they are very big.
Her: Really? How big?
Me: (making a hamburger gesture roughly the size of my head) This big!
Her: Wow! Really?! How long does that take to eat? One hour?!
Me: Um, well, maybe 20 minutes...

Crisis averted.

Throughout the day I had children running up to me at random times and handing me vegetables from the school garden. I walked out that afternoon with 3 cucumbers, 4 eggplants and 2 piman. After lunch we had a farewell ceremony where I gave my generic fit-for-all-schools inspirational speech. It was sad to say goodbye to those kids.

- Fumika, my most brilliant and fabulous and funny 3rd year at Higashi-Chu told me in our English letter/comic notebook that she and her boyfriend kissed last week. Oooooh weee! Is it bad to write that on the internet?

- On today's Q/A Evaluation cards:
Have you ever been to Australia? Have you ever eaten sushi? Do you like me?

- Today in my 3rd year class, our target sentence was "It is (adjective) to (do something)." Like: It is boring to study. It is exciting to bird watch. etc etc. Then there was an interview activity. I walked past two boys and their conversation was like this.
Boy 1: Is it dangerous to kiss?
Boy 2: YES IT IS!

- Today I received another letter from Asuka and Miho via Asuka's sister Nozomi. It's really sweet that they want to send me letters and study English, but they are totally using a computer to translate. Here's a couple highlights:
"We go to a Maki High School. Club activities belong to handball club!! A teacher of our ALT says Kate teacher. Do you know her?"
"We gave your address. But Letter is better than e-mail. Because it is studied English by writing it with a letter... Really I'm sorry!"
PC translating software needs to be banned. Oy!

Anyway, I'm totally rambling. Here are a few pictures from recent elementary visits:
Yuta, one half of my favorite pair of 2nd graders at Echizen. The other half, Shun, wasn't there on my last day. Break my heart

Ami and Yuka before lunch

5th graders playing Twister. Very interesting indeed.

Check out the kid in the green shirt.

That boy in grey on the left side is my neighbor. He and his older brother often peek out of their window when I leave/get home to wave. I love them.