Ep 21. Lord Winter's Chilling Designs

When last we left our hero, a penultimate week of daily work awaited. But lo, what's this? Awaiting secretly and silently in the lofts was the dreaded Lord Winter! Chiller of the cocoa, freezer of the fields! Is there no end to what this great villain will do? Alas, within a night the bright and brave forces of Senator Summer fell--possibly due to congressional infighting which didn't allow orders to push through--and winter indeed arrived to storm the keep. Certain doom seemed afoot, and indeed a day shorter than any other came to pass. Could anything save us from this darkening doom of deceit and despair? Yet, when all hope seemed lost, when the chill in the air seemed to juggernaut through the hearts of the world like a canary through a masher, hope shown through. That's right, as the great metaphorical block of steel plummeted towards the fickle fowl below, a hero arose to hold back the fell tidings long enough for our imaginary avis to moult in phoenix flame into a blue bird of happiness and flee back into the hearts of man. Today was longer than the one before and, though we've still many months of freezing winter yet to go, the hint of coming Great Thaw-r--to smash Lord Winter with his mighty hammer--is still in the air.


So, I woke up Tuesday morning, got ready, and went to work only to discover this outside of my door.

Hint: It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's...

A cloudy day. That's right, for the first time in months, we had a few gray days and a bit of rain. Naturally, most of my co-workers were a little miffed about the change in weather. Naturally, being from Oregon, I was exuberant. The world was finally as it should be: the sun had retreated behind an insulating cloud layer for winter and, though it might be a tad wet, that was just another reason to snuggle deeper into ones blankets at night. Logic had been restored. On top of that, we had a strong possibility for snow. Now, I love snow--probably because I have never been forced to drive in the stuff--and to say that I was a bit excited would be an understatement. I was not just excited for the coming flurries, I was checking the mall exit every chance I could get for even the slightest hint of a flake. Everyone was preparing for what I had been told was inevitable. And then,  like I said, Logic was restored. As every Oregonian knows, it never snows when everyone believes that it will. Snow is just a myth thought up by parents to convince their kids that there can be something white and clean and beautiful about winter. So no, there was no snow. And everyone else rejoiced.
Most of the rest of the week went well. It happened to be the last week of classes--which had to be the lesson before the review unit for the kids classes--so everyone seemed to be in a partially checked out mood. I'm not saying that our lessons were bad, or that we didn't do our job to the best of our abilities, but more that human nature prevailed despite our best intentions. There was, actually, one really funny story from the week. I was in the break room, eating lunch with another teacher, when we both heard a familiar crash: someone had knocked over a chair. The chairs that we have are nice, in relatively good condition, and function very well for how we need to use them. However, that includes the necessity of wheels and being a little tipsy if you sit in them wrong. For adults, sitting in these chairs is easy; for kids, not always so much. Back to the story, we heard the crash, and then a pause. We then heard the teacher ask her student,
"Are you all right?" What followed next was a blood curdling scream as the other teacher in the break room exchanged this terrified look of, Oh no! Who broke what bone in how many places and who needs to call the ambulance. The horror was only momentary, however, as the teacher in the classroom then said,
"[student's name]! Stop screaming! [Different student's name], are you OK?" The student who had screamed had not been the one who had fallen over; he was just a loud student who had decided to scream because it seemed like a good idea. So, what can you do in that situation? Laugh. Which is what the other teacher and I in the break room did.
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I'm going to pause for a moment to tell another story. Back when I was in Upper School, in my sophomore year, I took a class called Advanced Algebra (not that this fact is at all relevant, but it was right after my Team Sports class and right before lunch. Isn't it funny what the brain remembers?). Anyway, every day in class I sat next to an upper class-man, and every day without fail, during the homework time at the end of class, I would end up re-explaining the lecture to her and working through some problems with her. She was by no means a less-intelligent person, but more someone who needed some direction in how to put the pieces together--I tend to be rather similar with physics. One day, while doing an example problem, we got different answers. Turning to her, I said,
"let's see where you went wrong." And she just deflated. Clearly she had thought that she was finally getting a hold of things, and I just tore her confidence to pieces. Checking over our work, I found the issue that had led to our diverging solutions...in my work. She had done everything perfectly, had really understood what was going on, and my words had cut through that like a knife for something that I had done. I felt absolutely terrible, but being young I really, really didn't know how to apologize yet--unlike now, where I only really don't know how to apologize (getting down to r_don't know how to apologize is one of my goals before I turn 50, but judging from how people go, that might be optimistic). I learned a really important lesson that day, and I still remember her name (though for privacy concerns I won't use it). So, seven years later, I say that I am sorry for my words. It was insensitive and barbaric of me to so unthinkingly cut you, and I am truly sorry.
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Friday was an interesting day for many reasons. It started with confusion, ended with concern, and nothing that happened was really within my power to change too much. For privacy, I won't go into those two stories in this blog, but I will go into one other. For a week or two--these weeks can blend together--I have been missing a set of stickers. These are not run of the mill stickers; these come in a set with some rather expensive, though helpful, books that my company produces. As such, losing them is one of the worst mistakes that someone can make. And I didn't know how it could happen! I always put them away the moment that I received them, and I had spent the entire week reorganizing and looking for the stickers. But they never appeared. Finally, I told another teacher my situation. What followed was a rather frantic half an hour of both of us looking through all of my folders and everywhere it could possibly be, all the while her asking me,
"How could you do this?" In a rather exasperated tone. And I had been doing so well; I had been reminding students of important announcements, I had been remembering check tests, my classes had been going better. And then I had messed up again. It really made me feel as though none of my hard work was ever going to pay off. And then we found them. With her stuff. Now, I do forgive her wholeheartedly, because a) she's a very busy person, b) if the past was any indicator, I should have been the one at fault, and c) I have been in that seat before.  But that doesn't change the fact that I had a half hour of being berated for something that was not actually my fault.
So, what's the lesson from this story? Well, it's hard to put into words, and harder to put into practice. History can be a great indicator of future trends--bubbles, depressions, weather patterns, holidays, etc--but when it comes down to the personal level, it can be catastrophically wrong. And I realize that that's a big word, but it best suits my purpose at this point. A shot confidence is nothing to joke about, and assuming that it must be someone else's fault when we could be blamed instead is just hubris. And so, to all of my dear readers, I give this story, in  hopes that none of you will make the same mistake that I--or my friend--did.

Following the flummoxing and fateful Friday, came a day that we had all been dreading for some time: our most veteran teacher's last day.

Posted with her verbal consent.

At the end of the day, we had a great party, and I got to be the MC. We played games, sang kareoke (starting with a startling bad--if not enthusiastic--rendition of, YMCA by yours truly), and in the end had a great time. This woman was an inspiration to all of us. She was strong, she was great at her job, and she was following her dream. I hope one day to surpass her in ability, but that day is quite a ways away yet. She will be missed greatly by all of us, but I at least wish her the best in her next adventure.

Sunday turned out to be a surprisingly busy day. After chatting with my parents (and wishing my Dad a happy birthday on the day of his birth, Japan time) I went X-mas shopping--and I'm using the X because my fingers are growing numb from typing so much in the cold.
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As a side note, the 'X' comes from the Greek letter Chi, which happens to be the first letter in the Greek word for, "Christ." It is not an attempt to take the Christ out of Christmas, but rather a convenient way to spell the word while still being true to its roots.
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So off to Omiya I went, to find presents, delectables, and...

Oh hi, worlds fattest pigeon.

Finding nothing that I wanted, but good substitutes--sorry, WU Improvers who will get this joke, but this is the best wording for this sentence--I then went to Urawa for some Japanese tutoring. I did not get put with the happy, hyper guy from last time; instead, I got a very serious man who clearly loves his language and wants everyone to speak it perfectly. In other words, while he's probably great for those who can speak but need practice in communication, he wasn't exactly the best for someone who is as new to this as me. Still, I was able to write all of my notes in Hiragana--badly draw, but still legible because some things transcend the language barrier--and afterwords he took me down to a book store for a text book. The problem was that he suggested a book that was all about repeating phrases, an activity that, for me, is about as helpful as spouting gobbledy gook. When it comes to languages, I'm a very visual person. Flash cards work wonders; purely audio CDs do not. Still, I felt really bad that I didn't get it in the end, because he was taking time to help me. It's just that the help that he offered--and this comes from experience gleaned from Spanish, work, and classes in general--was one of the worst suggestions possible. I'm still going to make him a thank you card, though, and I am going to redouble my efforts.
Following the lesson, I considered getting an electric grill, but decided against it. It just felt a little too unsturdy for my tastes, and the amazing deal from a week prior was no longer in existence. So, I came home, and spent some good time talking with my father who, with my sister, step mother, and one of my aunt-and-uncle pairings, was at my grandparents house. Following a text from a friend, I then went back out into the world and down to the Pokemon Center, to get the 'mons from a distribution. That failed, because the center had apparently run out of the entirely man-made and easily reproducible zeros and ones. If I wanted them, I would have to come back tomorrow, which was out of the question. On the way back home, I discovered that there was a Toys R' Us a town away from my city, a store that was also offering the deal. So, I decided to zip over, and spent the next hour in a train. At least, I think it was an hour...it might have been more, it might have been less, and it might have had stops in between. I'm really not sure, because I happened to bring a book with me. For those who don't know, books are my opiate. And I don't mean that in the, books are how I relax sort of way, which is true. More, I mean it in the, when I read, I lose all sense of the surrounding world and have quite literally spent entire days reading books without realizing it. As a Freshman in Upper School, my mother had to take my books away because I would read instead of doing homework. As someone who still believes in Santa Claus--more as an embodiment of the general feeling of good will for the time of year, and less a physical tub of lard squeezing through the central heating ducts--books really do transport me away from it all.
Anyway, I got to Okegawa, and walked the sixteen minutes to the store. On the way, I was passed by several mopeds being driven by a barrage of Santas. Other than that, I could have been on any other suburban street in Japan. What awaited me at the end, though, was what I took to be a rather large shopping mall. It really wasn't, but was instead the closest I have ever come to entering the sound-sation known as a pachinko parlor. Gambling is rather illegal in Japan, yet somehow pachinko has survived to assault the ears of everyone within a two block radius. Sitting above this money drain was Toys R' Us. Did they have the deal? No, and the closest one with it was approximately two hours away by train, so that's a bit of Christmas that I'm going to miss out on. Instead, what they had were the perfect gifts to complete my stocking.
You see, for both myself and the other American teacher, this will be our first Xmas away from home. So, I came up with an idea: we would both make each other a stocking, so that on the morning of the 25th we'd both have something fun to open up that we didn't really know about. I knew what I wanted, and it was something that has been in every stocking that I've had for years, but some things are sadly hard to find in Japan. Toys R Us, however, was my savior. Currently, the stocking sits ready to be delivered tomorrow, to fill the following morn with a little taste of home.
After stepping foot into my first Toys R Us in roughly a decade, I made my way back home and promptly crashed. However, this was not a normal sleep, for earlier that day I had received a package from my mother.

Oooh, a reused package. Very Oregonian.

Oh, she added a stocking...and more food that I don't have space for...

Wait, what's that behind everything...it must be a...

my mother sent me a queen sized--and obviously searched through--western pillow. I was so excited that I could hardly believe my luck. And so, that night, I slept as I had not for several months, basking in the happy fluffiness of a pillow that was not made to be a compact rock. Also included was much food and several presents, wrapped in a paper she knew I would like because, well, I had bought it the year previous.

Which brings us to today, my dad's birthday in America. I woke up, took a shower, and promptly texted him asking if he would like to chat. He was out, and would be for an hour...which was when I needed to leave my apartment. We did end up talking for about ten seconds as I was about to leave the apartment, but I had already made plans to be somewhere at that time and I did not want to be late. A student at my school had, some years back, lived in Hawaii (pronounced by my Hawaiian born co-worker, Ha-why-_-ee), until her visa had not been renewed because the US immigration system has huge and, rather frankly racist, issues. But now isn't the time to go into that, and I really don't know the best way to fix it anyway. Anyway, she knows what it's like to move to a foreign country where they don't speak your language, and that's really something that you can only know if you've experienced it. I'm sorry, but until you're facing bills that you neither know what they're for nor why you're paying for them, you have no idea what this is like. Anyway, she was a good friend to my co-worker, and had invited us both to her apartment for sandwiches and cake. And it all turned out fantabulously:

A nice view of some distant mountains.

More mountains.

Yes, more mountains. I wish I had this view.

Some apple things that we made.

Our fantastic feast.

The four layer cake that I made and decorated.

Those are some nice, even layers.

I'd call that demolished.

Their beautiful trees.

All that's left.

I will now leave you all for the evening, because a loaf of break will soon finish baking in my bread maker, and I want to start dinner soon. And so, I leave you all with these images of my seizure inducing Christmas tree, which will never be plugged in again:

Pretty, I might have to turn this on more often...

By the great Google, darn those flashing lights!

This has been another adventure in the austentatious. If you liked me, tell your friends; if you hated me, tell your enemies; and if you didn't care either way, then tell everyone. Good night.

PS: The photos that never managed to get into the previous post.

Please meet Jewels and Verne.

Yes, you read that right.

Gah, so tasty...

A beautiful lake.

Inside a corner of one mall, from the ceiling.

A corner of a different building of the mall, looking up.

The frozen mochi.

I have no idea.

This rice cooker costs more than my apartment.

They have a 3D printer for sale.

For only slightly more than a rice cooker.

A nice view of some mountain.

A retake of a previous picture.

The bread riseth...