So I have a friend named Pin, likely the only Pin I will ever meet or know in my life.
I met him about 2 years ago in Shimizu, while I was at the Docomo store with Albert trying to get my keitai (cell phone). For the first year and a half, our relationship mainly consisted of hanging out and seeing each other through various friends with whom we were closer. Prompted by his transferring to Fujinomiya to take over for another friend who was returning to the states, we began getting dinners together in Kambara, which was on his way home from school.
Since then, we have dinner together at least once a week, freely stay at one another's apartments, both with and without the other one present, and text one another on a near daily basis. It is a rare, and slightly unsettling, week when we don't see one another.
It has taken a while, but he's opened up to me a lot. Not necessarily about everything, but I don't expect that. I've long since realized that he is rather stoic, despite also being acutely sensitive. I'm used to laying things all out there, but I know that when he doesn't, it's not a reflection on me, just that he feels there are some things that need to be said, and others that don't.
We've half-joked about becoming roommates...Lately, as he's considering the possibility of staying in Japan for another year, he's taken to checking out 'perfect apartments' for us. Main requirements being: good location, big kitchen (since we both like to cook and EAT), bedrooms on opposite ends (so that we can 'bang for days without the other one knowing'), and enough space to entertain friends. He even texted me the other day about what a typical Sunday might consist of.
Gee, starting to sound like he's either my gay friend or my boyfriend. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he's neither. I guess it's enough that he's one of my adopted older brothers. Someone that I know I can count on to go out for a drink or to buy me one when I need it.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Seito
Yesterday, I meant to leave at 4:30 for the second day in a row, but ended up staying with students until 6 afterschool. And I have no regrets about having done so.
Monday, I headed up to the san-nensei hallway to see if some of my favorite 35HR girls were up there studying. Instead, I ran into two 35 boys and two 33 boys. The two were from the "boy's class" I had while they were second years, infamous for the one student that was basically sexually harassing me during classtime. Needless to say, I didn't necessarily have a good impression of any of the boys in that class. But they totally brought me around.
I don't know how it really began, I think I might've asked how the English proficiency test that they took on Sunday went, but from there we ended up talking about music, movies, famous people, languages, university and what they were going to study, and of course, boys and girls and boyfriends and girlfriends. It was then that I realized that I haven't been taking advantage of my unique position at the school as much as I used to. For those boys, I was an 'approachable' girl, because I wasn't Japanese so I'm not afraid or shy about hanging out with them. Plus, as an ALT, I'm not quite a full-fledged teacher, and am also younger than most of the other teachers, so they can relate to me better.
The one thing was that, after I suggested to one of the boys that he text me in French after he graduates, another one asked if we could "asobimashou" i. e. play together after they graduated. I agreed, and then one says, "Tequila!" followed by chimes of "Beer!" Ah, they are adolescent boys after all. At first I tried to point out that even if they were graduates, they were still 2 years younger than the legal limit, but I realized that that would've been hypocritical, so I trailed off with a "Well, as long as you're not in uniform..." Then, when we started packing up and heading home, they thanked me "for my time." I thought that was really sweet.
Yesterday kinda went the same way: I had to wait for the teachers to return to the teacher's room from a meeting that I didn't know was happening, to stand guard against the students having full access to said room. 5 o'clock hit, and I 'osaki-ni-shitsurei shimashita'-ed myself out of there. But, I got to the hallway linking the two buildings and heard the girls playing basketball in the gym to my left.
Bouyed by the great experience of connecting with the boys the previous day, I mounted the steps and walked over. The 6 girls playing swiveled their heads as one as I got to entrance, followed by greetings of welcome. I stepped in and for a while just watched them practice their shots. After a while, their coach came and they began various drills. I stayed to the side and chatted with two of the girls: one the manager and one a player who wasn't feeling well that day, punctuated by my eardrums getting nearly blown out by the signal going off every 6 minutes per drill. When they started shooting practice again, I decided to shoot some hoops too.
It's been a while. I think the last time I did so in a real gym was in high school, over 7 years ago. I'm a horrible shot. But, I didn't care. At some point during it, I started enjoying it. Shooting, dribbling, running after the ball after it rebounded off the backboard. The whole time, I thought about Pin and his love for this game, and I understood a bit. I'm certainly not going to play in a game anytime soon, but before I left, I asked them to teach me to how to shoot a ball.
I stayed til their practice was over, and after they stood in a circle, bowed and said thank you to their coach with an "arigatou gozaimashita" (something that I'm a bit familiar with, having to do so in tea ceremony club), they came over to me, stood in a circle and thanked me with the same Japanese formality. I felt a bit over-whelmed since I thought I was just being "jama" and in the way, interrupting their practice and all. But they thanked me for my time (just like the boys) in English, and invited me to come again.
How can you not love these kids?
Monday, I headed up to the san-nensei hallway to see if some of my favorite 35HR girls were up there studying. Instead, I ran into two 35 boys and two 33 boys. The two were from the "boy's class" I had while they were second years, infamous for the one student that was basically sexually harassing me during classtime. Needless to say, I didn't necessarily have a good impression of any of the boys in that class. But they totally brought me around.
I don't know how it really began, I think I might've asked how the English proficiency test that they took on Sunday went, but from there we ended up talking about music, movies, famous people, languages, university and what they were going to study, and of course, boys and girls and boyfriends and girlfriends. It was then that I realized that I haven't been taking advantage of my unique position at the school as much as I used to. For those boys, I was an 'approachable' girl, because I wasn't Japanese so I'm not afraid or shy about hanging out with them. Plus, as an ALT, I'm not quite a full-fledged teacher, and am also younger than most of the other teachers, so they can relate to me better.
The one thing was that, after I suggested to one of the boys that he text me in French after he graduates, another one asked if we could "asobimashou" i. e. play together after they graduated. I agreed, and then one says, "Tequila!" followed by chimes of "Beer!" Ah, they are adolescent boys after all. At first I tried to point out that even if they were graduates, they were still 2 years younger than the legal limit, but I realized that that would've been hypocritical, so I trailed off with a "Well, as long as you're not in uniform..." Then, when we started packing up and heading home, they thanked me "for my time." I thought that was really sweet.
Yesterday kinda went the same way: I had to wait for the teachers to return to the teacher's room from a meeting that I didn't know was happening, to stand guard against the students having full access to said room. 5 o'clock hit, and I 'osaki-ni-shitsurei shimashita'-ed myself out of there. But, I got to the hallway linking the two buildings and heard the girls playing basketball in the gym to my left.
Bouyed by the great experience of connecting with the boys the previous day, I mounted the steps and walked over. The 6 girls playing swiveled their heads as one as I got to entrance, followed by greetings of welcome. I stepped in and for a while just watched them practice their shots. After a while, their coach came and they began various drills. I stayed to the side and chatted with two of the girls: one the manager and one a player who wasn't feeling well that day, punctuated by my eardrums getting nearly blown out by the signal going off every 6 minutes per drill. When they started shooting practice again, I decided to shoot some hoops too.
It's been a while. I think the last time I did so in a real gym was in high school, over 7 years ago. I'm a horrible shot. But, I didn't care. At some point during it, I started enjoying it. Shooting, dribbling, running after the ball after it rebounded off the backboard. The whole time, I thought about Pin and his love for this game, and I understood a bit. I'm certainly not going to play in a game anytime soon, but before I left, I asked them to teach me to how to shoot a ball.
I stayed til their practice was over, and after they stood in a circle, bowed and said thank you to their coach with an "arigatou gozaimashita" (something that I'm a bit familiar with, having to do so in tea ceremony club), they came over to me, stood in a circle and thanked me with the same Japanese formality. I felt a bit over-whelmed since I thought I was just being "jama" and in the way, interrupting their practice and all. But they thanked me for my time (just like the boys) in English, and invited me to come again.
How can you not love these kids?
Life in a Fishbowl
Lately I've been spending a lot of time with the BOE crew and I'm starting to see some of the critiques of BOE ALTs for myself. Not that I don't love the friends that I've made, and being able to spend more time with a solid group of people. It's just that, because the group is so small, it is both insular and insulated from the majority of the JET community. All of the dramas and melodramas play out on a much smaller, more tense stage.
Sometimes, it's nice to get away; I take advantage of my position as a kencho JET and hang out with other ALT friends. But sometimes, even that's not enough, because I still end up with ALTs. That's when I appreciate having made Japanese friends early on and continuously while I've lived in Shizuoka.
It's nice to forget all the issues, and just have a good time with friends. You lose yourself in another language. Which is what I did last Friday: after dinner with some ALTs, I went off to karaoke with two of my Shimizu J-boy friends, up until first train.
Which led to another fun experience when, while at the train station, two of my students saw me with them on their way to school. How they could be going to school while the moon was still up on a Saturday morning, I don't understand, but we had a good laugh about it when they asked me about it in class this week.
Sometimes, it's nice to get away; I take advantage of my position as a kencho JET and hang out with other ALT friends. But sometimes, even that's not enough, because I still end up with ALTs. That's when I appreciate having made Japanese friends early on and continuously while I've lived in Shizuoka.
It's nice to forget all the issues, and just have a good time with friends. You lose yourself in another language. Which is what I did last Friday: after dinner with some ALTs, I went off to karaoke with two of my Shimizu J-boy friends, up until first train.
Which led to another fun experience when, while at the train station, two of my students saw me with them on their way to school. How they could be going to school while the moon was still up on a Saturday morning, I don't understand, but we had a good laugh about it when they asked me about it in class this week.
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