A Month with the Ibarakis

I find it ironic that I’ve had more access to my computer in January than any other month and yet I’ve posted fewer times. I think that’s mostly because what was interesting before is becoming less so. That’s not particularly a bad thing; it just means I’ve been here for a while. I’ve become, at least partially, desensitized to the Japanese. Like at this point I can’t imagine wearing shoes inside any house. The thought seems disgusting. And shoes on the couch or in bed? Beyond comprehension. I mean, those are the things that touch the ground outside, and all the dirty stuff in the world. That being said, sometimes something happens and I shake my head with the ridiculousness of it. My general opinion of the Japanese at this point is that they have some really good ideas but tend to take them too far. For example, with the shoes, today I was at a track meet and had to go to the bathroom. Well, I had to go like 12 times before my race because I always get nervous before I run. Dry mouth too. Anyway, I was sitting outside with my team and the bathroom was inside the gym, maybe a grand total of 30 feet away. But getting there took a long time. First I had to remove my shoes at the entrance and slip on slippers. Then I walked a whole ten feet in my new slippers before taking those off and putting toilet slippers on to enter to the bathroom. I had to repeat the process in reverse when leaving. Honestly, can’t I just go to the bathroom? This taking-things-too-far is something I see often. I think the manners thing is great; they are the most polite people I have ever met. I know Americans who are just as polite, but everyone here is courteous towards each other. That’s fantastic, but sometimes (often lately) I wish someone would just be rude and tell what they really think. In school particularly. Everyone is super friendly and I get along well, but then I haven’t really made any friends in my class and I don’t know why. I’m left to guess and figuring out the answer can take a long time. But no one would ever tell me directly, even if they knew. That would be much too rude. The Japanese would rather let someone fester with a problem for years than confronting him about it because that confrontation might hurt their feelings.

So school is kind of frustrating these days but it’s just how it always was. Nothing’s changed very much, attitudes of kids towards me, teachers, and clubs, all about the same. That’s the thing because I feel like I’ve changed so much and I wish that the world would respond to me as fast as I feel I’m responding to it. Boo. The good news is that I’ve been with my host family for a month and things are as good as ever. I tend to get along a lot better with adults than kids. Adults are typically way more interested in interesting things in general. My conversations with my classmates or teammates are limited to school and running, with an occasional dash of family and culture. But my host father and I talk about chemistry and physics. For stimulating conversation I go to my host parents. I think that the reason for that has a lot to do with age. I’m a lot older than the kids in my class, three to four years older. But I’m also living in a foreign country and after a while we run out of things to say. I find I don’t have a whole ton in common with them. But my host parents and I get along very well. It feels like more of a friend relationship than a parental one. My host dad is doing aikido with me and we practice together at home. My host mom really wants to and bought a book with DVD to practice on her own while Momiji naps. So I’ve got them interested more in their own culture. I think that’s pretty cool.

I guess some news would be in order. This weekend I had track practice, then spent the entire rest of the day inside sleeping and watching a movie. Sunday is my busiest day of the week, except maybe Friday. Church in the morning and then aikido in the afternoon. I brought my mass guide with me this time so I could say the prayers in Japanese. Aikido was awesome as usual. It is by far the thing I most enjoy about Japan right now. I’m starting to build connections with the other people in class. This is nice because they’re all adults who live in the area. There’s another foreigner from Germany in my class. He has a child about Momiji’s age and my host mom connected with his wife.

Sunday afternoon I hit up the library like I normally do. Lots of stuff on Obama. I hear he wants to spend a trillion dollars. That seems excessive and silly. I mean, we have to money and we’re spending a lot. That seems a lot like buying a home with a bad mortgage when you can’t afford it. I hope he knows what he’s doing. Deficit spending doesn’t make sense to me. Today I had a track meet. I forgot to wear sunscreen. Oops. I mean, it’s January, come on. My face is now approximately the color of raw tuna. Mmmmm. I hope we have sashimi for dinner tonight. The meet was a format I had never run before. It was a very long relay race. I ran a 6km leg. The course ran around a park and then through some rice fields. I liked the course a lot; it was very pretty, but very exhausting. 6km is a long distance to run. I was okay with my time, but I feel like I could have done better. Our team came in 8th. I brought my Frisbee to the meet hoping that they would be up for playing a little bit in the park afterwards. But no one had an interest in Frisbee. Instead they all went to play Yugioh, which I have no interest in. Well, I’d actually like to learn. It would certainly help break into their social activities, but so far no one has been willing to teach me. Plus you need to be able to read Japanese and that’s beyond me right now. Instead I came home, napped, and now I’m catching up on blogging and posting photos.

You’d think by now I’d be good at ending blog posts. But every time I feel horribly awkward. I have no idea how to write an elegant ending for these things. They always feel so abruptly cut off. I have nothing else to say, but I have no idea how to end it.