Chains

I am so tired right now. I didn't come back from Miyoko's dinner last night until about 2am. I had to wake up at 7 this morning. And if there is one thing that I need more than anything while I am here, it is sleep. There is too much stress here. It is just 24x7 stress. Back in the States I only stressed out every now and then, but not here. I need my stupid sleep. I almost fell asleep here today, at this desk in front of everyone. I couldn't think nor focus on any thing. I would look down at what I was writing after I snapped out of my daze, and it was just scribbles on the paper.
But last night was good. Shooting the shit with other ALTs is always great, especially since I don't hang out with them all too often. I like to know how they are doing and what things they are up to and what they teach their kids. Plus the food is great. At last weeks dinner we had two cakes, one for me and one for Aussie Mark. I took my cake home and still have some of infact. But last night was US Mark's birthday, well it is on Friday. So we had another awesome cake. I need to start running or something. Or maybe just stick just fish and rice. I love the sweets here. The chocalte is so good, not that waxy Hershey crap. This stuff starts to melt as soon as you look at it.
So the dinner was great. One of the conversations about the ice on the roads. They don't use salt here. Well they do, but they don't dump it all over the place and turn the streets white before a single snowflake falls. So the roads are icy when it gets really cold. It has only happened once since I have been here. Luckily I didn't have to drive anywhere that day. But I have heard too many stories of cars bumping off of guard rails and sliding into rice patties. In hopes to avoid this I have order a set of chains for me front tires(front wheel drive). I hope they are easy to put on and off. It's just I have been warned so many times since I have been back that I am worried. I have every right to be too seeing as how the roads are all twisty and narrow. Plus there are inclines and declines everywhere. There is a 45 degree down-grade going into the parking at Sougawa elementry school. I just hope the cold weather passes soon. It has been warm the last couple days, but I know that will not last long.
Oh and last night, this is one of those you had to be there stories, when I was driving back home at 1 in the morning I was stopped at a light in the middle of Gobo. No one around of course, except the car that I was behind at the light. Then a stray dog strolls, this dog strolled, in front of us and in the cross walk from one side to the other. It was as if he had pushed the button and waited for the light to turn red and then proceeded. Plus it was 1am and he was alone. There are stray cats everywhere too, so I guess there could be stray dogs too.

Grand Turismo 4 - 1/17/05

Well it is still cold here. However with my assortment of heating units in my house I am managing to freeze my ass off. This house, if you will, has paper thin walls which allows to not only hear the wind outside but feel it a bit. Plus the heat from my army of heaters gets sucked right out of this place. I have a heating table(kotatsu), a kerosene burner(yeah I thought people stopped using kerosene back in the 19th century but all the schools are heated the same way), I also have the wall heater that doubles as the air conditioner when the summer rolls around, and I have a heating fan. It's not a fan, but it is shaped like a fan. Instead of blades there is just a metal reflective shield that radiates heat from the middle. I only chose to heat half the house, beacuse I don't really cook and and therefore don't live in the kitchen nor the bathroom, hallway or entryway. The bathroom is the coldest place in my house. It is the same tempreture as it is outside. So I am looking into buying one of those heated toilet seats that also sprays warm water on to your butt. I am still lucky, because there are still many houses that have their bathroom's outside. I don't know why.
But back to the warming of a house. Every house is freezing during the winter and only certain rooms are warmed. But there is always just one room where everyone hangs out. That is the room with the kotatsu(heated table). This object becomes the center of the universe during the winter. Tons of Japanese will sit there at the table or lay down next to it with their legs still under it. The tables are knee high because you are suppose to sit on the floor and warm your legs under them. So everyone will do their work, eat, and whatever around these tables during the winter.
As for my weekend it was eventful. The billiard night went downhill as I got sicker and sicker with some shitty cold. I went with 3 other teachers from some of my elementry schools. One teacher, who is also a shinto priest, dominated. He said he was only that good once in a 100 years. But the fact that he got frustrated everytime AFTER he got a ball in the pocket because the cue ball didn't stop where he wanted it to so as to set him for the next shot, made me doubt his amateurness. The one girl with us was a complete novice as it was her first time. The other teacher was a little better me, which isn't saying much, but at least I was able to enjoy a couple games with him before I coughed up a lung.
They were kind enough to pick me and drop me off. It was a good time. The one teacher who is also a Shinto priest had me over for dinner. So I got to meet his family and try out Gran Tourismo 4 for PS2, which is unbelievable.
After dinner he asked if I wanted to see a real kantana, a Japanese samurai long sword. Well of course I said yes. So I thought that he would take me to his room and pull out a wrapped up sheathed sword from his closet or something. The complete opposite. He lead me down a long corridor in his big house next which was next to his shrine. He then slid the door open revealing a dimly lit room with a small table in the middle of the room with 4 swords on it, one of them being the kantana. That's not all. Who better to explain the swords to me than his father, a one-armed blind man. Sitting on the floor at the table with the swords I listed to how old the swords were and what their Japanese names were. The dailogue was in Japanese and broken English. He said the katana was over 500 years old, and so were the other swords. They didn't look so old, but I am no expert. The old man the fumbled over the swords and grabbed the katana and started to unsheathe it. The teacher I was with and I both then leaned backwards and pulled ourselves away from the table for fear of the blind man accidently stabbing us. A samurai katana is light and strong and of course extremely sharp. It was sharp, all the blades were. He even had a tanto, which was the dagger like small sword. After looking over all the swords we left the room and thanked the generous old man.
So then on Saturday I went to my Shuuji lesson at 10am, and had lunch with the teacher and her family, which consisted of her, her mother, and her husband. We had yakisoba, which is where you have a heated pot in the middle of the kotatsu and just dump vegetables, noodles and meat in it and then it eat it as it is ready. But before you put in your mouth your to let is soak a bit in a bowl of raw egg, which seemed weird at first but I got use to it. It was a good meal, I thanked them and then headed back home. I was sick enough that I was exhausted and feel asleep, but woke up in time to meet another teacher for dinner. It ended up as four of us at a sushi place in Gobo. The other 3 were ladies. One was a teacher from one of my schools the others were from near by town's schools. So we chatted and gossiped a bit. It was interesting to hear about all the little things around town and how they felt about the ALTs before me.
Sunday morning was the big ekiden, or relay race in town. Most of kids were there when I got there and they were happy to see me. It was sort of cold and tons of people were in this relay race. Each person had to run about 4 kilometers. I don't know what that is in miles. But the whole thing last for like 4 and half hours. Most of the participants were kids. I don't know if they had(the school may have made them run) to run, but there they were. So then they handed out awards and I went back home and slept off my cold. Ack.
Sougawa Shougakou went well today. My lessons went well and I had fun with the kids and was able to maintain control of my classes. The teachers were all happy that I had sent them New Years cards. Before I left I impressed the old class with my Shouji skills and wrote out some pretty good kanji. This school now has 14 students instead of 12. The two new kids moved there over Winter break as part of a divorce, and their mother lives in Sougawa. Sougawa is small, so the school is small. It is a section of my village that is well nested up in the mountains and has had snow while the rest of the area hasn't seen any snow.
On a cold night like tonight you can whistle and hear it echo through the mountains and then make the dogs start barking. Woof Woof, or in Japanese, Wan Wan, Wan Wan.