Floating on through July

July 15, 2016 by nelfraser 3 Comments

There are currently five abandoned blog posts sitting in my drafts.  Every time I try to write something, my thoughts start drifting in a completely different direction and I can’t focus on what it is I’m trying to say.  I feel bad because I have hardly posted anything in the past few months, and now that the realisation that I have such little time left in Japan is finally hitting me, I’m cycling through feelings of excitement, sadness, relief and regret.  It’s also because I’ve run out of free space for photos, which is a bit boring.

In some ways I wish I had posted more about the little things that happen every day.  Like today when the student who’s a bit of a troublemaker and hates English told me I was good at drawing, in Tsugaru-ben, I replied also in Tsugaru-ben she got really excited and proceeded to teach me more phrases in the dialect.  Or how I tried on a yukata in a shop two months ago and didn’t like it because it was a bit drab and old-fashioned (like the rest of the patterns there) so I didn’t buy it despite the sales assistant really going for the hard sell, then asking me for my phone number and address “just in case I changed my mind”.  Since then she has sent me handwritten letters asking me to come to the store and get a yukata, along with promotional leaflets, and she’s even called me twice asking me if I’m free to come into the store.  Seriously?  I couldn’t believe she was being so persistent.  I was polite the first time she called, and told her I wasn’t interested and not free that weekend anyway so I couldn’t go to the store.  Then I got another call tonight and as soon as she started talking about her effing yukatas I told her to stop harrassing me and calling my personal number, and then hung up.  I actually got a yukata the day after I first went there at a different shop.  It’s cerulean blue, printed pink all over with big slices of oranges, and I got a yellow obi to match!  I may have got the least Japanesey type pattern just to spite annoying Yukata Woman… but I actually got it because it’s so goddamn funky fresh.

When I was finishing university, all the good stuff seemed to happen at once just as my final year was coming to an end, and it feels the same way this time, except a million times better.  I’ve built some amazing friendships here and finally got to the point where I feel like I have a place in the Japanese community and enjoy hanging out with Japanese people instead of just other JETs all the time.  I love the social life I have here, and the fact that there is always some kind of event going on in Aomori that I can go to or join if I want.  I feel like I’m getting better and better at Japanese, still far from fluent, but to the point where I can spend six hours drinking with people from my taiko group and chatting about anything and everything with no struggle, then not being able to sleep because my drunk brain won’t shut up thinking in Japanese.  I am going to miss everyone so badly, and sometimes wonder if I made the right decision to leave when all my friends are staying for another year.  Then I remind myself why I did, and realise that it all comes down to making compromises.

Firstly, I CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING.  This has been my mantra for the past few days.  I had legitimate reasons to leave, and when I think about them, I know a third year here would have dragged.  I’m ready to move on from being an assistant teacher and I’m ready to leave the remoteness of where I live, even if it is ridiculously beautiful and I’ll never get to live with this kind of scenery again.  I am also extremely ready for a winter where I get to live somewhere with actual insulation and I don’t spend half the year worrying that I’m going to crash my car in the snow.  (How’s that for first world problems?)  Even if it makes me sound like a wuss, I’m looking forward to snuggling with my dog in front of a toasty fire again.

Maintaining friendships from the other side of the world is hard, too.  Tecnology has been amazing for keeping in touch, but it’s not the same and I miss my friends from school.  I know another year away would put a bigger strain on that, and even though most people have moved away from home now, I can’t wait to see everyone again.  At some point my friends in Japan will have to move on too, and it would be just as hard, if not harder, for me to say goodbye a year from now.

Two years doesn’t feel like a long time until I think back to what I did when I first got here, and suddenly it seems like I’ve been here a decade.  I feel like I’ve done a lot during my time here, and sorry for getting a bit clichéed, but I also feel like I’ve changed a lot as a person and really discovered what I’m capable of.  I’m singing and playing bass in a one-off show with three friends tomorrow in a bar… I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have done that two years ago.  I moved halfway across the world at the age of 21 and survived – thrived – for this long.  I admire the ALTs who stay longer, even up to five years, but for me the work would feel stagnant way before then.  I love who I have become and I’m excited to see where my new-found confidence and fresh perspective of the world (I have learned just as much about other cultures as I have Japan, thanks to 99% of my friends here being non-Brits!) takes me.  University was a bit of a disappointment socially; I didn’t make any lasting friendships and I regretted not joining more societies and clubs sooner.  Maybe that’s why I knew I had to make the most of it this time, because I didn’t want to close myself off to good opportunities again.

Next week is my last week at school, so I have to give a farewell speech in front of everyone.  I’m nervous because I hate giving speeches and I’ll probably get a bit teary-eyed, but I have some fun things planned for my final classes and I’m going to make lemon drizzle cake for the teachers.  One teacher has been particularly kind to me since I’ve been here, and hinted that she wanted me to draw a picture of her dog, so I’m going to do that for her too.  She took me to do a glass-blowing workshop with some other teachers, and they paid for me!  I chose to make a small vase with blue and white colouring.  I don’t get to see how mine turned out yet, because she’s making it into a “which teacher made which item?” quiz at my leaving party.

It will be hard to say goodbye, but I still have some more drinking parties,  Nebuta matsuri, then two weeks of travelling and Summer Sonic to look forward to.  I have to keep reminding myself that I won’t be able to go home until I’ve seen Radiohead, and that makes me feel a lot better.  Plus, I might even bump into them at the airport the next day…