Umbrellas and Trash Bags

Starting tomorrow, I will have been in Japan for one month. It rained all day yesterday, a detail which involved a comic series of errors on my part as I tried to navigate my own bike to the train station while holding an umbrella. This is harder than it sounds, mostly because the umbrella catches the wind (and it’s windy, since it’s raining) and pulls the bike back and forth, a bike which is controlled by only one hand, since the other hand is holding the umbrella. In addition, I had a heavy backpack with laptop in the basket on the front of my bike, which threw off my weight equilibrium even more. So all and all, I almost took out a woman who walked out of a store and did not look where she was going (Hello, Lady, raining outside. Increased stopping distance for bicycles. Pay attention) and almost crashed into several telephones poles. But I got there! Albeit rather soaked from my ten minutes of pride at the beginning of my bicycle journey which didn’t allow me to use my umbrella. Because I’m from Portland and we make fun of tourists who use umbrellas. But the warm rain coating my clothes and an impending meeting with the principle of one of my schools turned this badass Portlander into a rain-pansy in about fifteen minutes flat. My shame is great.

In other news, I have Internet at my house now. Kind of. I need to call Softbank (my cell phone provider) and ask a series of question, including but not limited to, if I use the wifi router you gave me for free, will you start charging me. Because that’s the rumor floating around the ALT set. That Softbank screws you. And it’s a rumor that I would be inclined to believe, because at this point my cell phone plans sounds too good to be true, and I need to check the details. Also, I was supposed to pay the bill on the 16th through direct deduction from my bank account, but I checked today and nothing has been deduced, so…check on that too. So much checking must happen here.

I have now visited all four of my schools, and I am very excited about all of them. The English teachers are all very nice, although I can’t for the life of me remember any of their names. I am at my base school all next week, which includes a welcome ceremony for yours truly, and I got invited to my first enkai today by the Akita High teachers. So next Monday, first work party, for the win. I have been working on my self-introduction lessons, but I can only write about myself for so long before I lose all perspective on what is actually important. I made a Powerpoint, which will help me stay on track. But I don’t do my first lesson until September 5, so I still have much time to work that out. I need to figure out where I can print pictures here. I’ve been told the conbini do basically everything for you, so I’ll check into that.

And I need to find red garbage bags. The trash system here is ridiculous, so “burnable trash,” which was explained to us as “trash you can burn,” goes in the red bags, whereas everything else, which you apparently can’t burn, goes in the green ones. And I have some green bags left from Anna, but no red, and really red is more important, because in this last month I have learned that life goes through way more burnable trash than non. The things I am discovering.

Akita: Week Two, Or, How I Learned to Love American Keyboards

So two days ago I moved into the apartment, WOOT, which will be mine for as long as I am here. Considering that I am basically paying nothing for this place, and it’s really large, especially for one person (I have an extra bedroom that has stuff [read, like four extra futons] in the closet and that is it), it’s great. It’s close to school, the Daiso, a couple grocery stores, not too far from the station…etc.
It’s been interesting living in a city where tourists rarely come. In the grocery store the other night for instance. Just me. And a bunch of food I couldn’t identify. It took me forever to find tofu, and I never did find the bread. I went back last night to find the bread. To go with my $10 little jar of peanut butter, which I bought at the foreign food store. I also bought pasta, just so I wouldn’t starve while figuring out what every-package-that-looks-identical-to-me-but-has-different-kanji-on-it-that-I-can’t-read-so-it-must-be-different is. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Or eat out a lot. Mostly likely the latter.

Also, no Internet at home till August 15. The English-speaking guy said that was basically the earliest I could get an appointment, since they conveniently don’t do evening visits, which means it had to be on a weekend, a holiday, or a day I take off work. Which ended up being okay, because I get absolutely a bunch of days of with this job, including five that must be taken before September. So 25 in total for the year. So I was taking the 15th off anyway, and now I get Internet then. Double score.

A couple days ago, I filled in a form (a formality, really) to request my special summer leave. This required the writing of many, many, tiny, tiny kanji. Anna had made me a sample. Tomoko-sensei told me she would do it if I didn’t want to try. But I put on my big girl pants and concentrated a lot on the many tiny lines that made no sense to me. “Oh, you tried!” Tomoko-sensei said when she looked at it. And then she took the form to the vice principle. And they laughed about it. And I’m thinking it was one of those, oh, look at the cute foreign girl trying so hard, kind of things. Hopefully.

Also also, my computer that I use at school wasn’t hooked up to the printer, so a guy came to fix it, and he printed out a page that said “OK!” and put it on my desk. Hilarious.