Thanks to a giant huge (and still at large) bumblebee (yes I know they're mostly harmless) and this drama series called My Boss My Hero, yeah, that didn't really happen today. Oops. The drama at least is practicing my Japanese a little (I'm determined to get better and pass the N3 level JLPT! For the sake of enrolling at Stanford, sheesh, I need to pass this test since I told them that I had taken the test and I dunno, it'd be kind of shameful if I got there and was like "well yeah, actually I didn't pass the test..." so I'm going to try my hardest).
The bee though. The bee was one of those fatty ones, with the huge bodies like pompoms. I think it was about the size of my thumb up to the knuckle - the body. Like the size of my whole thumb. It was a big mofo! I actually shut the doors and ran to hide from it in my room for a while haha. Eventually, when I had to use the bathroom (it was trapped in the bathroom area) I went back to see if it was still there and found that it had kinda like... crash landed next to my laundry soap.
So yeah, no laundry got done today. Sigh.
Actually, shamefully, I didn't really go outside much. I just aired out my futon a little bit, which is a shame because today was actually really nice. I really should have gone outside! Sigh. Somehow it's nine pm, and while I did study a little bit on my Japanese, there were a bunch of things I didn't do. Saaaaaaaaaaaa.
Yesterday though, was fun.
I went in to Okayama for a cherry blossom viewing party, called "hamami." I also saw one of my former students at the train station. She asked if I remember her, and I told her ใใกใใ - or, "of course!" since she was one of the really loud cheerful students in my home ec girls class. Really thankful though that she didn't ask me what her name was because yeaaaaaaah I wouldn't have actually known. I'm so bad with names!
The hanami party was really fun though. My friend Maeve organized it, and a bunch of us went down to the river area and sat under the cherry blossoms, drank, and had a grand old time. Hanami - which literally translates into something like "flower look" - is where you go for a picnic with friends or family in a place with cherry blossoms and enjoy both the beautiful flowers and the good company. Often times as well, people will bring portable BBQs -- or in the case that it's near a famous place, they'll have a place where you can rent one. Usually too, people will drink alcohol as well as they watch the cherry blossoms fall. It's kind of like a giant excuse to drink during the day.
It was especially fun though, because it was like a big group BBQ, so I got to see a lot of people whom I haven't seen in ages! That's why I really enjoy going to the AJET events and big group stuff, though my closer friends are also fun to hang out with. Even if there are going to be people there I'm not really fond of (and at times want to punch lol, but let's be honest, my bark is way bigger than my bite), the fact that I can see a bunch of other people as well make me look forward to going to more of these things.
So yesterday was basically a day of enjoying good company, a good view of flowers, and a tiny bit of daytime drinking to make the lights a little shinier hahaha. It's times like those that I feel like - despite being in the company of a bunch of foreigners - I'm truly in Japan.
Now that the winter doldrums have disappeared (mostly) spring and flowers and greenery (and bugs -- boo I'm such a downer!) have returned, and I've come to realize that I live in a very very beautiful place. In August, most people know (since I've been on a smallish bragging streak lol), but I'm leaving Takahashi to come back to California for graduate school at Stanford studying East Asian Studies, or basically, Japan and Japanese. I'm even getting paid for it! Actually, I've been trying hard not to brag, but every time someone says it inside me has a reaction like this:
I apologize if it's seemed like I was bragging. I'm trying not to. Sometimes when I'm alone though I giggle gleefully because oh my god Stanford is giving me money.
Also, the slightly immature part of me that has a bunch of family and friends who are Cal alums and also got rejected from UC Berkeley want to say something like, suck it Cal, since omg, stanford, full ride.
But that would be immature. Hee.
I digress. Since I'm leaving though, I've come to realize that I actually really really like Okayama and Takahashi, and not just -as when I first came here - "the scenery is beautiful" (which, really, it is). I've come to love the people here, the atmosphere, the students, the not-big-city feel, and of course, the scenery. And while I do prefer city atmospheres like Kobe and Seoul and San Diego (Tokyo and Osaka are a little too big for me) there's just a certain charm about Okayama that makes me happy to be here. Perhaps that's what rubbed me the wrong way about certain people in our prefecture, and some of the Interact ALTs here in Takahashi. They would count down the number of days before they were released from their hellish existence here, or would say things like that Okayama was ridiculously backwater and that the whole country thinks of it as a hicktown and how much they couldn't wait to escape. I guess this is how people from the midwest/south feel when us city folk poke fun at countryside places. I'd like to claim that it's different, but honestly, it probably isn't.
I'm not going to lie - I really look forward to returning to burritos and cheddar cheese and chipotle. At the same time though, I'm sad that I'll be leaving my bug-infested second home. I really do love the people here. Everyone is so kind -- even the Chinese and Korean foreigners here, as much as I want to shake my fist at them for driving so damn fast and close next to me on my bike. Really, I've found so many small places here, and actually, I can get pretty much everything I need at Polka, albeit for a little bit more sometimes than I can obtain elsewhere. And Izumi is far, and there's no gym. And that I really probably would prefer to live in a city or suburb like Kurashiki or Okayama.
But still. I really do like Takahashi and Okayama Prefecture (and Niimi too!). The friendliness of the people and students and other teachers has made my experience wonderful and memorable, and I'm truly thankful for the opportunity to have lived here for my tenure on JET. I even like commuting now, up and down to Niimi, for all that means that a social life on Friday is impossible. Though maybe I'm biased since like, honestly the kyudo students make Niimi a thousand times more amazing. That's my favorite part about going to school, is getting to participate in kyudo and interact with students in that setting.
That's not even including all the wonderful foreigners I've met over here -- my fellow JETs, as well as the Japanese people I've met as well!
I won't miss the work though hahaha. I'm not super fond of lesson planning and it's kind of tiring to be this organized all the time with my classes, so I don't think I'll miss that very much. Maybe a little, after I leave and stop doing it. But what I'll miss the most I think, are the friendships and connections with people here. Those kinds of things though, I suppose, are the kinds of things that - given a little effort - can span over distance though, it's not quite the same as being here in person.
Ahhhh I'm getting so sentimental! Still have three more months! Guess we gotta make the most of it then, hm?
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