My apartment is set up to a rough approximation of the way I want it and most of my things have found a home somewhere on the premises. There remains only a small coffee table's worth of belongings as yet unsorted, and I can live with that for a while. Can and probably will. I am now firmly over the initial shock of being instantly illiterate, literally and culturally. Staying in Okayama for a week was immensely productive in terms of my adjustment to this new place. I see it as a kind of purgatorial quarantine, not of me from Japan, but of Japan from me. My world had just been turned upside down and I was so off-kilter from the experience that I couldn't even bring myself to eat at a restaurant for several days. I spent most of the week hiding from the foreign world beyond my door. By the end of the week I was finally moderately at ease with my surroundings and ready to learn how to navigate this society, and then it was off again on a bullet train, away from the small support group of people undergoing the same changes and challenges I was. During the times I was awake, I went through a lot of the same emotional up-and-downturns that I had felt as my plane neared land again this side of the Pacific. More muted versions thereof, but from a similar vein. This time I was going alone to the place that I would begin to live alone, trying my best to fit in in a place that I never will. It was on the train that I realized the real usefulness of the week of training I had undergone. Yes, the company policy and practice had been impressed on me and I was given the opportunity to get back in to dealing-with-kids mode, but the most productive feature of this week was to ease me in to Japanese society. I didn't really even shop that week. I wasn't on my own and I didn't have to try to figure everything out unaided. Which is not to say that I do now, for my coworkers and budding friends have made it abundantly clear that they are close at hand should I need them, but a week to adjust without the added pressure of my first few days at a new job and alone in a new town did me more good than perhaps I can describe. I think that this function of the training week is not accidental, and the company is to be commended for their foresight in planning the arrival of new teachers this way. I arrived in Nagano ready to meet my new boss and the newest iteration of my life, ready to satisfy curiousities and make new explorations.
Okayama was vastly different to me than Nagano. Both in the personal experience and as a city. I suppose that should not come as a surprise. I was hesitant to put much time or energy in to exploration in Okayama, knowing that I was only there for a week and would then have to do it all again here in Nagano. It felt overwhelming, but maybe that was more a function of the new half of the globe I had found myself standing on. It did not feel like the same sort of place to me that Nagano feels like, and I already feel at home here. It's probably all a result of some subconscious block that refused to let me feel settled until I arrived where I was really going. Now I feel fine.
I have been in Nagano for a week now, training under my predecessor, who handed me progressively more classes to plan and teach over the course of the week. He has been invaluable to me, as I may have already said, both at work and in my Nagano education. I have gotten used to having him around, and just in time, because now I am a fully fledged employee and teacher and he is unemployed, soon to leave. I have only learned how to live in Nagano with him here to rely on, it will be a different experience yet living here without him. The changes come a week at a time, and each one alters the way I am living.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Parked in Nagano
A lot has happened since my last post; I packed up and moved from my temporary home in Okayama on Sunday morning and, after 5 hours spent across two shinkansens (bullet trains), am slowly unpacking in my new home for the next year or more. I spent a majority of my travel time sleeping to make up for all of that foregone the night before in favor of karaoke. It had to happen sometime, when better than my last night with my first friends in this new country?
After arduous negotiations headed by Tim, the only one of us here long enough at this point to undertake such a task, we were booked for 2 hours all-you-can-drink. We started at 3. The room was just big enough for the four of us and our drinks and microphones. There was a phone on the wall to call in drink orders and a large flat panel television on the wall. This, as I understand it, is the norm for such an establishment here. We belted out Pixies, Weezer and other favorite tunes for a couple of hours, and I was sure I was going to be hoarse for days (turned out not to be the case, thankfully). It's definitely a fun way to (sp)end an evening.
Back to the shinkansen. Although I slept for a majority of the ride, I was awake long enough to discover that most of Japan is covered by a lush green blanket with clusters of housing or sprawling cities dotting the countryside. It really is beautiful. All of the cities seem to be situated on the flat ground, although mountains (hills?) abound. Nagano debuts itself around a bend from the top of a ridge that must nearly encircle the city, atop which the tracks run. One gets a sweeping view of the cityscape as the train hooks lazily around it and down the side of the ridge and on in to the city. It looks much bigger than I had been picturing. Coming from a town of 200,000 I was not expecting twice that to be so much bigger, but I'm kind of excited that it appears to be. Santa Rosa gave me much, but in the end it felt too small for my taste. I thought maybe the weather would be different here than Okayama. I was wrong. Well, maybe slightly less humid, but still stiflingly hot. And it seems I'm the only one in the country that sweats, but I do enough of it to make up for the rest.
My predecessor is doing a very good job of getting me acquainted with the city and the job. He is strikingly similar to me, and I'm sorry that he won't be around longer. But I got his old apartment, so I guess I'll settle. I can see the building from work, but not vice-versa. It's about 3 blocks away. It's a very nice new building, the first time I've ever had to buzz my visitors in, replete with a video display on my wall for me to make sure I approve of their behavior before agreeing to have them up. It is small, as I had been warned it would be, but it feels homey. The entryway is a hallway that contains all of the household essentials: washer, fridge, kitchen, bathroom, and bathing room (separate room from toilet). This hallway leads to the room, which has a long closet, a bed, shelves and a desk and a couple of low tables. I have a nice balcony with a good view of the mountains that even came with a snowboard and snowshoes. A string of english teachers for my company have lived here, so each new occupant inherits a bunch of stuff (generally anything former teacher(s) didn't want when they left) with the space. Today I started unpacking/arranging in earnest, and it feels much better already, but there's a long way to go before it's all set. I am getting mini tours of the notable establishments in the area, and have been introduced to the locals. And by locals I mean other foreigners. The grocery store situation here seems much more amicable. I have applied for all of the necessary papers as a foreigner and even gotten a cell phone (which I am reasonably certain is smarter than me).
Today was my first day of work at my branch. My visage only caused one child to burst into inconsolable fits of tears, but it's only my first day. The rest seemed rather taken with me, but it's probably just the beard that seems magical. It's going to be challenging work, but I'm very much looking forward to it. Working with children is at once laborious and refreshing. I'll have to leave it at that, I've got lessons to plan and I've got to be to work promptly at noon tomorrow.
After arduous negotiations headed by Tim, the only one of us here long enough at this point to undertake such a task, we were booked for 2 hours all-you-can-drink. We started at 3. The room was just big enough for the four of us and our drinks and microphones. There was a phone on the wall to call in drink orders and a large flat panel television on the wall. This, as I understand it, is the norm for such an establishment here. We belted out Pixies, Weezer and other favorite tunes for a couple of hours, and I was sure I was going to be hoarse for days (turned out not to be the case, thankfully). It's definitely a fun way to (sp)end an evening.
Back to the shinkansen. Although I slept for a majority of the ride, I was awake long enough to discover that most of Japan is covered by a lush green blanket with clusters of housing or sprawling cities dotting the countryside. It really is beautiful. All of the cities seem to be situated on the flat ground, although mountains (hills?) abound. Nagano debuts itself around a bend from the top of a ridge that must nearly encircle the city, atop which the tracks run. One gets a sweeping view of the cityscape as the train hooks lazily around it and down the side of the ridge and on in to the city. It looks much bigger than I had been picturing. Coming from a town of 200,000 I was not expecting twice that to be so much bigger, but I'm kind of excited that it appears to be. Santa Rosa gave me much, but in the end it felt too small for my taste. I thought maybe the weather would be different here than Okayama. I was wrong. Well, maybe slightly less humid, but still stiflingly hot. And it seems I'm the only one in the country that sweats, but I do enough of it to make up for the rest.
My predecessor is doing a very good job of getting me acquainted with the city and the job. He is strikingly similar to me, and I'm sorry that he won't be around longer. But I got his old apartment, so I guess I'll settle. I can see the building from work, but not vice-versa. It's about 3 blocks away. It's a very nice new building, the first time I've ever had to buzz my visitors in, replete with a video display on my wall for me to make sure I approve of their behavior before agreeing to have them up. It is small, as I had been warned it would be, but it feels homey. The entryway is a hallway that contains all of the household essentials: washer, fridge, kitchen, bathroom, and bathing room (separate room from toilet). This hallway leads to the room, which has a long closet, a bed, shelves and a desk and a couple of low tables. I have a nice balcony with a good view of the mountains that even came with a snowboard and snowshoes. A string of english teachers for my company have lived here, so each new occupant inherits a bunch of stuff (generally anything former teacher(s) didn't want when they left) with the space. Today I started unpacking/arranging in earnest, and it feels much better already, but there's a long way to go before it's all set. I am getting mini tours of the notable establishments in the area, and have been introduced to the locals. And by locals I mean other foreigners. The grocery store situation here seems much more amicable. I have applied for all of the necessary papers as a foreigner and even gotten a cell phone (which I am reasonably certain is smarter than me).
Today was my first day of work at my branch. My visage only caused one child to burst into inconsolable fits of tears, but it's only my first day. The rest seemed rather taken with me, but it's probably just the beard that seems magical. It's going to be challenging work, but I'm very much looking forward to it. Working with children is at once laborious and refreshing. I'll have to leave it at that, I've got lessons to plan and I've got to be to work promptly at noon tomorrow.
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