Ha ha! That baby's short!

View from Sis's

Beach near sis's

Craaaazy baby

Oops!

Oops!

Fam time

Dogs eat surfers

Hawaii really does have those funny trees

Weee!

Hawaii sucks!

Sis and baby Zen

Elementary, Dear Watson

SO I eventually found Nonaka elementary school by chance. No one really gave me directions but just sort of told me what road to go on. after driving about 10 miles up into the mountains I arrived in the Nonaka 'district' of Tokamchi, which was essentially about 30 buildings on the side of the road with some rice fields here and there. There was no sign for the elementary school so I just looked for the biggest building. Alas, there were little mountain children.

Usually when I go to a very rural school the shock is so great for the students that they sort of smile and stare and scream and run away. That's what I expected this time for the school that has 11 students, and I am the first foreign ALT teacher to ever visit. But immediately as I left my car I was swarmed by three girls shouting 'hey Erik Sensei, wanna play badminton?' and later I was presented with the most, albeit the strangest, presents I've received from a group of students including a set of thank you notes, a rock, a tomato taped to a bottle, and a small snowman that they had kept in the freezer since winter.

Classes were difficult as one class had 3 students (3rd graders) and the other had 4 (3 2nd graders and the only 1st grader), no one spoke English and they didn't really know what to do with me. I'm usually used to massive classes so it was a challenge getting them doing lively things but I think it was a success.

The kocho sensei (principal) was what I would imagine a small mountain village principal man to be. He was smurf-like in stature (had to be under 5 feet) and so overly friendly but nervous to have me visit his isolated little micro-school.

I'll end up visiting this school 3 times this year, and I'll teach the 6th graders too (there are no 5th graders).

Oh man

Well I'm back and trying not to miss Hawaii and family. I liked Hawaii a lot more than I thought I would, and it was a perfect combo trip of family and tropical vacation.

I ran into some more JETs in Tokyo and we took the train back together, then I ran into Hiroshi (owner of one of our bars, Kumakichi) and his wife and they gave me a ride back home from Yuzawa station! Today is Eri's birthday so I'll meet up with everyone tonight. Last night was mellow movie night. I haven't unpacked.

It was strange coming back to Tokamachi this time, because the previous times I left I came back still feeling like I was leaving one trip for another trip, because things had felt so strange and new here still. But the feeling I got coming back this time indicated that I've been here long enough for it to feel like a home. It felt the same way that it did when I came back to New Mexico every summer after college, where you expect things to be different when you return but you quickly realize that nothing has changed and things feel eerily comfortable, eerily fast.

Today I have an elementary 40 minutes from here up into the mountains. I don't know where it is or the lesson I'm doing. I got a rough lesson plan in the mail yesterday mostly in Japanese, but with some English descriptions of what they want me to teach, like for body parts they want me to teach "head, hand, foot, eye, nose, mouse" and for song, 'Thinkle, Thinkle, Little Star'. I think after I get lost finding it, it might be a tough time communicating with this school and all 11 of its students.

hey I like it here...

I don't wanna leave. So, nearly at the end of my Hawaii trip and what have I done...watched a lot of English TV...shopped...played with my niece...dined with my family...swam and tanned...snorkeled in an exctinct volcano caldera turned coral nature preserve...taken surfing lessons on an isolated beach...surfed with the crowds in Waikiki. Tomorrow headed to the North Shore which should be nice and different, than back to Japan. It's been a good trip. I'm tan and I can surf. I have become a sexy island god. The return to Tokamachi will be more difficult than the last time I left...

Made it...

Sitting on my sister's couch watching like 800 overwhelming channels of TV in English, a bit jetlagged and tired, already played for an hour with my niece Zen and she's the cutest thing ever, aside from my other niece Amelia and the baby in my sister's belly.

Flight went well other than getting the wrong train and then the wrong stop. I was the very last to check in and was stuck in the back corner, last row. But there I could here the flight attendant's gossip...not much else to do during take off. I flew Northwest. They had a bad day, with claiming chapter 11 bankruptcy and all, and all their mechanics on strike...didn't exactly give me the safest feeling knowing that my airline was flat broke and they were hiring random temps to do all the maintenance. Oh well.

I was pretty much the only white guy on the plane aside from Karl Kruse (another ALT down the highway from me). What the #&*(%?? Random. I can't escape that guy. They keep bunking me with him for the damn conferences too...

So tired...but the view is turquoise blue waters in Honolulu Harbor. Just snarfed down a perfect lox and bagel lunch...gooooooood....

Yoshi!

Holy Hawaii!

OH yah, I forgot to mention that within 48 hours I'll be headed to the airport for a 10 day family visit/vacation to higgity-Hawaii! Hasn't really hit me yet. There is a certain amount of mental preparation that you must undertake before leaving Japan and going back to your country and family (my preggie sister lives there in Honolulu with her husband and daughter Zen, and my dad's there for work and to visit her). So, I'm going through the process now of expecting a little culture shock and creating the space in my mind for the needed perspective of where I am and where I've just come from. I'm realizing it's now the longest since I've been away from America and friends and family in my life, over 9 months now. Not a huge period of time, but a record none-the-less. I'm preparing myself to be with family, talk about familiar things, to speak English not only consistently but at a comfortable pace, and for eating several cheeseburgers. Oh, and for sitting on the beach in a tropical paradise. I guess I'll snorkel if I have to...

recent playlist

recent multiple listenings...

1. The Joker (cover by Fatboy Slim, featuring Bootsy Collins)
2. I Wanna Be Sedated (The Ramones)
3. Slum Beautiful (Outkast)
4. It's Good to Be King (Tom Petty)
5. Can I Kick It? - Extended Mix (A Tribe Called Quest)
6. Say It Ain't So (Weezer)
7. No Ring On These Fingers (The Bravery)
8. American Music (Violent Femmes)
9. Ball and Chain -live (Janis Joplin)
10. I Got A Woman (Ray Charles)

Hit Niigata City for a weekend in the city, which is rare for me so it was nice and refreshing. City food and atmosphere, and views like this. I actually like Niigata City, it's mellow and clean and there is enough to do. Saw the Mysteries of the Human Body exhibit on Sunday, which was very very cool...some German guy found some way to preserve bodies by dehydrating them and filling them with some sort of plastic to preserve them for medical use, but decided to make an art exhibit out of it. Cross sections of bodies and the different systems. Sounds gross but was really interesting...I guess it upset some people, but the 3-D nature of it only made you understand and appreciate the working of your own body more. The only thing that put me off slightly was the infants...

At Russell's teacher's apartment for a random night of food and drink...

Mixed Music

My very intelligent and thoughtful New Mexican friend Jodi (with whom I've rekindled contact via the blog revolution) has got me thinking about mix CD's (formerly mix tapes) a lot... I used to spend summers after camp making the year's new tape and distributing them to friends, but that tradition has slowly faded. Here's her blog http://jodigwen.blogspot.com/

So, I've decided to at least get back into the process of creating mixes because they are so representative of an era and social or emotional state of being. Mixes are like diaries. Soon I'll start posting occasional songlists that represent what I'm listening to and going through at that point in time, or maybe occasional song lyrics that seem poignant at the moment.

As a side note, it also reminds me of a somewhat more morbid example of when my professor Nora Beck asked each student in a music literature class to create a mix tape that we would want played as a sort of musical eulogy. So, instead of someone speaking at your funeral about your life and the things they loved about you, simply pop in the tape and let that represent your life and personality and any message you want to convey to the people you left behind. Like I said, morbid, but it sure makes you think about what music is most important to you. What would you put into that songlist?

I love my town (retropost)

I totally forgot about this post that I wrote up cuz I was intoxicated and saved it until I had pictures. So this is from the last day of the Tokamachi festival last week...


I am in mountain town festival heaven. The Tokamachi festival is over, but Asahi-machi, the district within Nakajo (which is my district of Tokamachi) had its own festival. I woke up with Christian, Lopaka and Russell crashed out on my floor but heard the sounds of the flutes and drums outside. Decided to check it out solo and was immediately taken in by the festival crowd who were carrying a collections box, sake barrel and two different mikoshi (portable shrines) up and down the street in front of my apartment. I went down and gave them a few coins and they immediately started pouring sake down my throat (this was about 3 minutes after I got out of bed). They invited me to help carry the sake barrel and then we headed up the main street.

Later on, Christian joined me and we were fed some rice and random local vegetables in a parking lot...0f course, with more sake. Sometimes they would actually prepare the sake like it was a margarita and put salt around the rim...reminded me of home... and it was damn tasty!

We were invited to carry the mikoshi around. This mikoshi was different than the real mikoshi in Tokamachi festival, this was just caskets of sake and rice on a platform. It wasn't unbearable but it wasn't exactly light either...

We helped carry it up the street. We alternated chants of 'Oi, oi! Oi, oi!' until my throat went raw. When we arrived at a house where someone heard our chants and emerged to give a donation to the shrine, we through the mikoshi into the air 5 times with a chant. We walked down random sideroads along ricefields that didn't even have houses nearby.

At the end, we brought the mikoshi to its destination, but not without a battle...a bunch of people took the ropes attached to the back of our portable shrine and pulled on it to keep it away from being put down. That was the hardest part...me and 10 other guys trying to carry this heavy thing while people are pulling on it with ropes from every direction to keep you from actually being able to stop and rest. It was awesome.

Later the Asahi-machi people thanked us graciously as we thanked them back, and I was invited to an enkai (party) which I ended up at about 3 PM after dropping off the boys in town.

The enkai was fantastic.

It was in a shell-like building, the open bottom floor underneath the upper floors. Tatami layers were spread out under tables which were filled with beer, sake, shochu (local sweet potato vodka) and lots of mountain food. Pickled eggplant, grilled chicken sticks, squid, mystery meats and vegetables...

It was the first time I've really been welcomed with fully open arms by a large group of locals...not just locals though, these are my absolute closest neighbors. Everyone there was a resident of Asahi-machi, Nakajo, Tokamachi. A very small district and people I have seen but haven't actually enjoyed food and drink and laughter with.

They were thrilled for me to be there and I went in with an attitude of just 'get to know the neighbors!'. Of course I ended up drunk by the end because you can't go 4 minutes here without someone pouring you more beer, shochu AND sake. Whether or not you want to drink you absolutely have NO choice and you just have to give up and accept every offering rather than be rude and uptight. But it was a lazy Sunday and I was happy to accept their kind offerings...

Spoke with some random, very country-like farmer folks for a few hours before the enkai ended. We spoke a lot about my life here, their childeren, our neighborhood and schools. They wanted to learn a lot about New Mexico and why the hell I came here. It was very open and meaningful and underneath the superficial stuff was a deeper sense of connection than I usually feel. Usually takes an enkai drinking party to get that out of the locals though...

At the end I was honored with the invitation to lead the BANZAI! closing procession. I got in front of the whole neighborhood and led the banzais with three shouts while you raise your arms...everyone shouted and jumped and clapped and hugged me and shook my hand with appreciation. It was absolutely great.

I've come to love my sad little neighborhood because I've been exposed to a part of it that was never brought to me before. Being able to communicate with them a year later was thrilling and it felt great to connect with my Asahi-machi Nakajo people.

But now it's 5 PM on Sunday, the party is over, I'm in my apartment and I'm drunk. I guess I'll just go to sleep now...

Goodnight.

again, being force-fed beer, this time by the neighborhood moms.

Carrying the bigger mikoshi, shouting 'oi oi oi!

Kid's mikoshi...

The children's mikoshi...the white building in the back is my apartment block!

being force-fed sake with salt, as I am carrying a barrel of sake on my shoulders

The local district's coin collection box, picture taken from the front door of my apartment

Fun weekend, sad news in America...

Today are my first classes back after summer and I'm about as lethargic as I am motivated. I am happy to see my kids, but after seeing my new schedule and seeing some of my school visits doubled, I am not looking forward to a very manageable semester. Though, there will be more elementary school visits, and for all the energy I put into them, at least the students give that energy back and make my time there feel more meaningful...

This weekend was the regional event on Friday night, and other than the minor stress that goes along with organizing dinner and a night out for a group of 22 people and getting everyone set with places to stay and whatever else and just trying to make sure everyone was happy, it was lots of fun. The original plan fell through because the bar we wanted to go to couldn't handle a group our size after dinner, so we ended up drinking in Lupin. It was good and fun to see Yuki and Master too, but a little chaotic toward the end trying to sort out the next step and and bill of course (the nature of Japanese nights out always leaves someone with a financial burden but it seems to always balance out over time).

Spent the rest of the weekend with Yuko and just relaxing, ended up in Kawanishi on Saturday for the festival there, in Russell's teacher's place sharing laughs and some good inaka kindness.

Otherwise my mind has just been preoccupied with the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It's horrible and it's hard to be overseas to try to take in all the information from the internet, because with the internet it isn't just a passing news report on TV with a time limit, it is something that you can become obsessed with and read over and over and find 600 different articles about the same terrible things that are happening. I eventually had to force myself away from the news pages and instead rely on live NPR audio feeds because the helpless feeling that you get when you see an area of your country bleeding away like that is overwhelming, and reading the same tragic things again and again only added to it.

It's been interesting to listen to the little Japanese response and questions I've heard about the hurricane. I realized that very few Japanese understand how vast and huge America is, because many assumed that my house and every house in America was underwater. Today I heard a comment comparing the government's response to our earthquake (military was here within hours) and the response back home. "Why so slow?" they asked. Not able to go into the details about the nature of the disaster, class and racial divisions and the government's preparadness and economic and social priorities, all I could say was "Fukuzatsu desu..." - It's complicated. And, once again, it's an embarrasing time to be an American. Too many resources and tax dollars are spent fighting pointless wars and creating death by human hand, when so many people down south were unprotected and unaided by the very hands that they vote for and pay taxes to.

I spoke with my friend from Louisiana yesterday and she said that the one thing America can be proud of are the individuals all around her area who are donating homes, cash and work hours to help alleviate a lot of the suffering that never should have happened in the first place...

And, as a jazz and blues lover, how heartbreaking is it to see the birthplace of it all saddened and deserted...

Check out this good NOVA video made in January about the possibility of a hurricane hitting the New Orleans area...http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/02.html

Anyone else for dinner?

Anyone else out there planning on coming to the regional event in Tokamachi tomorrow night that I don't know about? Gotta give the numbers tonight. Looks like I've got about 20 signed up so far!