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Two months already: 9-19-99 It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been in Japan for two months! And I am still surviving. Sometimes I have moments of utter contentment and other times I am overwhelmed by loneliness, but mostly I am okay. So many things happen from day to day, I find it difficult to keep up with this diary. Although it has been pretty easy adjusting to life here, it seems like so many new and different experiences are being thrown at me on a daily basis… I feel overwhelmed when I think of trying to write it all down. I feel like I don’t even know where to start! I wanted to write about my trip to Kumamoto in early August. Not too much to tell- I went to meet a friend who I know only from online, Laura. She was studying in Kumamoto for the summer, so we were pleased to be able to meet for the first time in Japan! It was fun, we got along so well. Spent hours just talking and laughing. I was so sad when I got back on the train to Ube. I felt like I had one friend in all of Japan, and it was so lonely to think I was heading back to my solitary life. (Peter had gone home to Australia for most of August, which may account for my initial feelings of isolation!) It’s gotten better since then, the friend situation. Thank goodness! You would hope that after two months, I would make some friends! The friends I have are mostly foreigners, but that’s okay. I was hoping to make some Japanese friends, but whatever! Friends are friends. Actually, I am getting to know some of the Japanese English teachers. I went out to lunch with a couple teachers yesterday, in fact. It was really nice to go out and chat… and we went to the most charming restaurant- it was very European. We ate doria, which is supposedly an Italian dish, but I have never heard of it outside of Japan! It is actually one of my favourite Western foods served here, though. It’s a bowl of rice covered with a layer of cheese and various toppings, like meat, shrimp, etc. Yum! I started teaching last week. Actually, I was supposed to start on Monday of the week before that, but I woke up that day with terrible nausea, dizziness, a fever- everything. I thought I had gotten sick because of some okonomiyaki I’d eaten in Hiroshima that weekend, but it turned out that I had suddenly come down with a “natsu kaze,” or summer cold. Well, I am glad it wasn’t the fault of the okonomiyaki, since that’s one of my favourite foods here, but gosh, this natsu kaze was like no cold I ever had! It was actually a flu. I was totally miserable for a couple days, but the people in my office took really good care of me, bringing me food and checking up on me. So nice! Anyway, that put a delay on my starting to teach classes, but now I have started teaching and so far it is very easy! I just go to classes, spend about ten minutes on a self intro, and then read out of the textbook. Hm! Fine with me, it’s low-key. The hardest part of the job so far has been the commute! More on that next time- it’s past 11 p.m. now, which means I can go online for free instead of paying local phone charges. Time to catch up with family and friends! |