Listen to the Rain

Or am I? Do multiple places count as home? I know I had a tendency to use "home" to interchangeably refer to our house in Chiyoda and to Chicago, depending on the exact circumstances of the conversation. Home for different reasons, I guess.

I've had few moments of serious culture shock, but there have been a lot of little things. The way money looks. The trains into and out of Chicago (once every 2 hours? Seriously?). Women's fashion. People having different hair colors. And then, it's hard to tell how much is culture shock and how much is just the standard malaise you get when you move away from a place you've lived a while, leaving your friends and the places you love behind. It hasn't been as difficult to adjust, but the fact that I speak the language fluently here is probably a lot of the reason for that.

Waiting on news on an apartment. If we're turned down, it's back into the city to look again.

I'm probably going to make this song my ringtone back in America.

So, first, the sad part--I did not make it all the way to the top, because I got altitude sickness after (somewhat foolishly, obviously) not bringing oxygen along. I got up to one of the 8th stations (there were 4 or 5 of them), started to feel nauseous and hyperventilate a bit, and decided to climb back down to the last of the 7th stations where I had left my climbing partner--after the 5th or 6th climb between stations that was just scrambling over rocks in the dark at a 45 degree angle, she decided that she had had enough.

Yeah, that's another thing. The lower parts of the climb, below the 7th station, are a kind of switchback inclining trail. It's mostly volcanic ash with bits of uneven stones, so it's not really easy climbing, but it's still about what you'd expect. Once you get to the first 7th station (the "7th station" is 5 or 6 separate buildings spread out across maybe 150 meters of vertical distance), everything after that is basically a trail in name only. There's a bunch of rocks, and there are helpful iron spikes about a meter long driven into the rock, placed maybe 2-5 meters apart depending on where you are on the trail. Climbing consists of making your way up the rocks (so, it is actual mountain climbing by the dictionary definition). If you're doing it at night, hopefully you have a good enough flashlight, because otherwise you'll probably slip and break something or nearly fall and kill yourself (which almost happened to me at least a dozen times).

Also, a hint--nuts and beef jerky are excellent ways to get protein back, but they are also usually very salty and water is heavy and/or expensive on the mountain. (-_-)


Sunrise from the place we ended up staying for the night (outside, in the cold).
Was it fun? No, not really. As I said in response to a few other people's comments: "Having climbed Mt. Fuji is really amazing. Climbing Mt. Fuji is awful." Would I go again with better preparation and try to make it all the way up? I might, though I'd probably do it differently--start in the late afternoon, climb up to one of the higher rest stations and sleep there until 1-2 a.m., then keep going and make it up in time for sunrise. I'd also make sure to be in better shape than I am now. schoolpsychnerd wants to try climbing together when we come back to Japan, and that might be nice.

So, about a week ago, Kaminaka-san asked my help in performing a trick (well, loosely-defined) on his neighborhood. I was to impersonate a US ambassadorial aide with a message from President Obama.

Now, I've lived here for almost two and a half years. I'm pretty sure everyone knows who schoolpsychnerd and I are, even if they might not know anything else about us, so I knew that they wouldn't actually believe the ruse. Nonetheless, I dressed up in a suit to keep the illusion at least partially intact and, it being a party, they played along with the speech. Here it is, if you want to read it:

私はアメリカ大使館から来ました、ピットブライアンです。
オバマ大統領からのメッセージありますので、お伝えします。

いつかいちの皆さん、 明けましておめでとうございます。
私が今年希望する事は、
第一に、かくへいきのない平和な世界です。
第二に、アメリカ経済の立て直しです。
第三に、日本と仲良くする事です。
最後に、いつかいちじちかいのますますの発展です。
皆様の幸せと健康を祈ります。

アメリカ大統領、バラ久オバマ

Translation:

I come from the American Embassy. My name is Brian Pitt.
I have a message from President Obama, which I will now read to you.

"People of Itsukaichi [the neighborhood whose New Year's Party this was], Happy New Year.
I have the following hopes for this year:
First, for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons.
Second, for the rebuilding of the American economy.
Third, to bring about closer relations with Japan.
And finally, for the continued development of the Itsukaichi Neighborhood Council.
I wish for all of your good health and happiness.

-Barack Obama, President of America."

The speech went pretty much as I expected it would (I ended up getting complimented on my pronunciation, actually), and then I was given a seat and a bentō and chatted with people for a bit. The most interesting chat was with the 79-year-old man who told me about his daughter living in New Orleans when Katrina hit and how he had skied as a hobby for the past 70 years. He even mentioned one of the teachers who used to work at Chiyoda high school as a good person to go to if I ever wanted to learn how to ski (since I had told him I had never been).

He also asked me if liked living in Japan. Well, literally he asked me how was the Japanese lifestyle, but I knew what he meant. And I said yes, I really liked it, and that schoolpsychnerd and I planned to return when she was done with grad school. And as I said that, I thought: "you know, that's right. I really do like living here." In fact, I'd say that in terms of places I've lived (not people who live there necessarily--I miss you all dearly), Japan is my favorite. I'm not sure I can point to any single reason why, but I can definitely say that on the balance, it's true.

Anyway, moving back is a long-term goal. We'll see how well it works out.

I was also invited to a middle-school children's class at the community center on Saturdays, but I wasn't able to understand exactly what kind of class it was. I wouldn't really feel comfortable going until I knew that. I can ask Kaminaka-san, I guess.

About an hour after I arrived at the party, I judged that I had spent sufficient time at the Itsukaichi New Year's party and told them that I had to get going, since the Yaenishi Tondo festival was the same day. I walked a couple of kilometers over to the festival and arrived late (that's three years in a row I've missed them lighting the bonfire (T_T) ), and was promptly loaded down with food and sake.

The most memorable part was when one of the Tondo organizers gave a brief speech, and then asked schoolpsychnerd and I to give a speech as well. So I gave a brief line about how everyone was incredibly kind to us, and schoolpsychnerd did the same, and then we saw that Santa Miki was crying, and that made schoolpsychnerd cry, and everyone said aww when I gave her a hug.

But, the bigger thing is the reaction in general--someone cried because we're leaving. I know we've been here for years, but we keep a lot to ourselves and don't speak Japanese as well as we should. While we live here, I don't really know that people actually view us as part of the community. Or, at least, I didn't know until today. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: schoolpsychnerd is the teacher at the local high school (and two others beyond that), and both of us teach English lessons to children and adults. We spend a lot of time in Chiyoda because we're both here--unlike a lot of JETs or other ALTs, we don't need to go elsewhere to avoid loneliness to maintain a support network, so people see us around a lot (well, they see schoolpsychnerd a lot. I'm kind of a cave-dwelling troll). That's going to make leaving even harder than it already was.

It doesn't really have anything to do with living in Japan, per se, it's more living in a rural area. My friends in Hiroshima proper don't get their neighbors bringing them excess vegetables or rice or treats when they're sick, and I know those sorts of things happen in rural American areas. When we lived in an apartment building in America, we didn't know the names of any of our neighbors. We assumed one family was Indian, because we could frequently smell them cooking curry, but they might have just really liked curry. We knew one family had young children, because schoolpsychnerd saw them coming home. But that's it. Here, though, people know us. Even if we're members of a different culture, and sometimes have problems communicating, this is our home.

That's a nice feeling.

RIP E. Gary Gygax.

I no longer play D&D, or particularly like class/level based systems, but D&D is one of the main reasons there even is a role-playing hobby, so indirectly, I have Mr. Gygax to thank for all the hours of fun I've gotten so far pretending to be an elf/embodiment of reality/vampire/whatever.

RPG.net has a black background today. They may have done it to reduce loading times and server errors, but I like to think it's a memorial.

When the newsroom is full of activity, it's almost always bad news.

We have several TVs. They're usually off--after all, on a normal day the wire provides us with updates--but they get turned on for two things that I've seen before. Tragedies, and sporting events. I could probably write an entire essay just about that, but not now.

It's interesting that, for most of the day, the fax machine has been broken and its warning siren has been going off. At least the sirens I'm hearing aren't from ambulances carrying away the wounded.

So, I learned both good and bad things yesterday.

I went in to Matsuri to interview them for the paper, and when the waitress/owner's wife came out and introduced herself, I said "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" (Pleased to meet you) back to her. She asked me if I spoke Japanese (in Japanese), and I said "Waruku hanashimasu" (I speak it badly), which at least got a smile. The problem was that she spent the entire rest of my meal speaking to me in Japanese. I understood a lot of it, like when she explained that there were two sauces for the chicken and one was a bit spicy, but since I don't know the words for most vegetables or meats, the nouns tended to escape me. I hope I was polite when I nodded and smiled and kind of responded ("Oishii desu!").

The bad thing is that when I got back, I learned that they were apparently planning on making this a front-page story for the features section. Since I didn't know that when I went, though, I didn't ask nearly enough questions to fill out a full-sized article, and it's running next Thursday so there isn't really time to get any more. There goes my chance.

U.S. strips detainees of their Habeas Corpus rights

My icon is a good indicator of how I feel right now.

Just when you're old enough to appreciate the stories, they can't tell them anymore.

May your next incarnation be as good for you as this one was.

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in."
-Hubb McCann, Secondhand Lions

So, I used to post almost once (or more) a day, and now it's about once a week or so. However, I think I have a good reason for that. While listening to someone whining about their misery is annoying, listening to someone brag about their happiness is far more annoying.

So, a poll:
[Poll #726406][Poll #726406]

I'm going to assume those are the only two choices, because obviously if I including something like "Harry Potter" as a third choice, everyone would vote for that (and I don't blame you) and the poll would be meaningless :-p

Oh, and ACEN was awesome. I got to dress up (pictures forthcoming), dance, wander around, learn how to play Go from a ridiculously absent-minded old man, and learn about exciting websites like Guro-Chan (Note: if you value your eyesight and your very sanity, for the love of God, do not click on that link). And I'm going to Otakon in August!

End of line.