Story Hour

'Morning. It's Shannon- aka Japoakland- here blogging for the Matsubabies.

It's Friday morning and I had to call in sick to my absolute number one favorite school. (For the record, that school is KINDERGARTEN. I am the lucky Matsubaby that gets to go to kindergarten once a month. If you think normal Japanese kids are cute, these are miniature versions of the cute kids. Isn't everything miniature even cuter?!) So yesterday at school I start feeling a little sniffly and sneezy and thought, hey maybe this is that strange phenomenon called "hay fever" that I thought was a wild myth. So, I preemptively take a Claratin at school (last year I suffered horribly from allergies for the first time in my life. Japan will do strange things to do, such as give you really bad acne after you've already graduated from puberty.) but turns out various other pills do nothing for me either...

So I get home, decide to ditch Japanese class for the second week in a row (all motivation lost post JLPT exam) and run to Erin's house for emotional support. After that long run down the hallway to next door, Erin and I are laying on her tatami floor (me eating all her oranges, drinking her delicious tea, using her tissues) wondering why every day is a rollercoaster. (This really has nothing to do my allergies turned sickness?)  The three of us are all kind of swaying in the breeze trying to decide whether or not to stay next year. After I went back home for two weeks in July/August, I got back and realized that my honeymoon stage with Japan had ended. I considered myself very lucky because most ALTs honeymoon stages end after only a month or two. Mine actually lasted an entire year. I went home, remembered how awesome America is, came back and realized that Japan stresses me out. Well, one more week. We have to sign our contract by February 5th.

I know my gut instinct tells me I have to stay, for whatever reason, but mostly because I feel I have worked TOO hard to understand what is going on around me. When I first got to Japan knowing literally no Japanese, I remember feeling twenty steps behind everyone else. Pretty much everyone I met had studied Japanese for at least a year at university.  So to go home now, after all that work, I feel would be a waste. (Selfish/self-aggrandizing? Maybe...) In any case, we wait out another week and see. Or course, we can always change our minds by April 2nd... but I will let out a little secret and say that Erin and I shook on a blood sister pact. And that means a lot.

Back to last night, whenever I'm feeling blue I go to my favorite Indian restaurant in the entire world. And that place is SANJI. (just so happens, I go there at least one a week, sometimes two, and have made friends/stalkers there....) Sanji is the type of restaurant that literally makes you eat your feelings, it's that good.    Sidenote: throughout my life, I have always had some sort of mythical connection with restauranteers- that meaning that they always give me some sort of discount or free something or other. At first I thought it was only with the other Asian restauranteers; I used to call it the Asian Discount. "Oh you're Asian, I'm Asian, here's  a free XL soda" But now, I am fairly sure it just kind of follows me.
Anyway, back to Sanji... my Indian friends must have noticed that I was feeling very sick because (instead of just the free regular Lassi) they gave me first, a bowl of chicken ginger soup then they upgraded my free lassi to a Mango lassi. If that doesn't make a girl's day, I don't know what will. Luckily, my Nepalese stalker went home to Nepal for two months, so he wasn't there to hover over our shoulders and stare at us as we eat our naans piece by piece. (For the record, this creeps Erin out way more than it does me. In fact, I didn't even notice that Pandey would stare at me for hours on end as we ate until Erin came to Sanji. Hahahaha. But that's a different story for another day.) Anyway, Sanji is one of those things that goes on the PRO list...

I am laying on my futon, feeling guilty about calling in sick (but what can you do, I am really sick), and thinking about how life in Japan is not "real." I don't know if you can understand that without having lived here on the JET Programme, but I'm sure other ALTs can understand. The feeling of "real life" only seems to pervade in our home countries. The fact that time goes on and people move on back in America hasn't ever seemed real to me since I have been here. In any case, I think about my future and my "career" and having lots of babies and all that, but mostly I think about how short three years in Japan is compared to the rest of my life. And that, is something to think about.

Japoakland out.