VmarksTheSpot - Japan Journal

2004

Thursday, July 1, 2004 — Just plain lunch

Because I KNOW you wanted to know! Pictures of six days’ worth of school lunch!

Friday, July 2, 2004 — Open-Mic Night

I firmly believe in doing things that scare me. I like to do things to show myself simply that I can, to test myself and to grow as a person. Coming to Japan fits into that category. It’s also why I decided to play at an Open-Mic Night tonight organized by the Tokushima-ken JETs. I needed a gool ol’ injection of performance anxiety. I haven’t played in front of people like that since high school! It’s also why I planned on going rafting for the first time ever tomorrow.

But, back to Open-Mic Night. I elected to play piano in front of my friends. It was between guitar and piano and, well, I suck at guitar and am halfway decent on piano so piano won out, even if I quit taking lessons eight or nine years ago and I didn’t have access to a piano. When I switched over to Kamona Junior High School last month, I asked the music teacher if I could use the upright piano in one of the classrooms after school. He said yes and told me to help myself to the classroom key.

Since then, I’ve been practicing with some degree of regularity after school. Some of the students even sat in on my rehearsals. I only had two songs: “Star Dust” and “By the Sea,” which I’d asked my dad to send to me. I picked “Star Dust” because it was kind of a jazzy version of the old song and I thought it’d add variety to a night that would likely be mostly rock and folk. I picked “By the Sea” because I’d bombed on it at contest in high school and had always wanted to redeem myself on it.

This past week, I’d asked a few teachers to sit in on my rehearsals so that I’d get used to an audience, the occasional students notwithstanding. This afternoon I asked Niu-sensei, the art teacher, to join me. She said, “Wait! Let me get my sketchbook!” I did a run-through for her and it went surprisingly well. Then I practiced for the next 45 minutes while she sketched. It was so cool! When I was finished, Niu-sensei showed me the five or six sketches she’d made. One was of me, and the others were of what the music made her feel. What a creative session.

Still, I was pretty nervous Friday. Every time I thought about the performance night, my stomach grew queasy in anticipation. To be safe, I skipped dinner after school and hopped on my bike and headed to the nightlife district, Sakae-machi, for the venue where Open-Mic was scheduled.

Once I got to Sakae-machi, I realized I had no idea where Bell’s Bar, the venue, was located! And I didn’t have any phone numbers with me! After wandering the neighborhood for 10 minutes hoping something would jog my memory, I finally ventured into a business labeled, “Tokushima Free Information.” Inside were all these pictures of scantily clad woman. I wondered what kind information, exactly, this establishment offered. It looked like a real estate agent for strip clubs. But the guy was able to give me directions to Bell’s, and that’s all that mattered.

Open-Mic Night proved to be incredible. It was an amazing night of listening to my fellow JETs show off their musical skills. Ali, an English JET, started off the night by playing guitar with Anthony, an American JET, and singing. I went next — I was so relieved to get it over with, and the crowd’s reception was so encouraging! Most people played guitar, but there was also a ukelele and mandolin in the mix, not to mention the kazoo. Greg did stand-up comedy.

Having proven to myself that I could do it, I rode home with the pleasant feeling of self-content.

Saturday, July 3, 2004 — Rafting the Yoshino River

Rafting, baby! I carpooled with Chanda and Stephanie the two hours to a spot just past the Kochi border, the prefecture just south of Tokushima-ken. We, along with 18 others, met at Happy Raft, a rafting establishment run by an Australian named Mark.

The lot of us got there by 10 a.m. in time to change into our bathing suits and squeeze into wet suits that covered everything but my head and arms, life jackets and helmets. Mark had us warm us up by having us swing from a rope and plunging into a watering hole next to the rafting place. Then we got a quick lesson on rafting safety.

We split into three groups. I was in Mark’s group. The other two rafts had Japanese guides and there was a fourth raft with Japanese rafters. Mark had us practice forward paddling, back paddling, holding on and getting down. I particularly liked holding on. In the morning, we covered about 10 kilometers of mostly placid water with occasional rapids. The Yoshino River runs along the western edge of the prefecture and then from the northwest corner, it runs eastward to the sea.

Mark kept telling us that the morning’s journey was nothing compared to the afternoon. That made me nervous. But the morning was marvelous. We spent much of the trip outside the raft, gently floating along in the water. I’d even bought a disposable waterproof camera to take pictures. The weather was perfect — the heat just enough to compensate to the chill of the clean river water. We even did a little cliff-diving — another first!

I really cannot think of a more pleasant way to have spent a Saturday in the summer.

For lunch, we stopped and climbed atop some rocks, where we found bagels and lots of bagel-trimmings waiting for us. Then we pushed off and headed down into the Oboke and Kobe Gorges. Mark explained to us that commercial rafting groups rapids into five grades, with Grade 5 being the roughest and most tumultuous rapids. We would be going on several Grade 4’s. Kowai, kowai! “Kowai” means “scary.” I muttered it frequently throughout the course of the afternoon.

The rapids were quite intimidating. They were mountains and valleys of rushing water. Mark was an excellent guide, though, and somehow we made it through all the rapids without flipping over. The other two rafts did flip at one point, so we pulled some of the overboard rafters into our raft.

After braving eight kilometers of frequent whitewater, we pulled into our stopping place floating on our backs in the still-pleasant water. I peeled myself out of the wetsuit, bursting with the natural high of having conquered something new and finding myself wanting to do it all over again.

Sunday, July 4, 2004 — Oh God

The sunburn ...

Monday, July 5, 2004 — Communication is a wonderful thing

My air conditioner’s out. I spent my night sleeping on sunburned shoulders in the tepid wind of two electric fans on high. <sigh> I went to the city office after school to talk to my supervisor about it. If there’s a silver lining to be had in this situation, it’s that I might get a new air conditioner out of it. My supervisor wasn’t in so I left her note that went something like this, “My air conditioner is broken, I think. It is very hot in my apartment. Can you please help me? Thank you!”

I had biked the 40 minutes into town from my far-away school. I had a list of errands to run like buying detergent, trying to find some toothpaste with fluoride in it (you’d be surprised how difficult that it — I eventually settled on some Aquafresh, hoping that it’d have fluoride in it, even though there was nothing on the label, at least in English, to confirm that) and buy a new band for my wristwatch.

I like checking out the shops around my neighborhood and went to a clock-and-watch shop right by the 24/7 grocery store I frequent. A husband and wife ran the store. The wife was so funny. She showed me two possible replacements for my wristband and told me her preference with the verbal emphasis, “Rolex, Rolex,” to show me she though it looked rather Rolex like. I then spent the next 15 minutes chatting with them in fractured Japanese while the husband switched out my watchband. It was awesome! They were so nice and realized when I didn’t quite get what they were saying. But it was a GOOD discussion about language. I e-mailed my Japanese teacher afterward with a “whoo, WHOO, GO ME!” I love that about studying a language while you’re in that country — instant feedback and reinforcement.

Anyways, when the husband had finished with my watch he told me the price, which was marked on the wristband container. The wife looked at her husband. “Discount ... ?” she said delicately. “She’s a teacher ... !” she said of me. Hahaha. I could tell he wasn’t as keen on the idea but didn’t feel like putting up much of a fight. He ended up good naturedly knocking off about 25 percent.

The more I learn Japanese, the more I realize what a precise language English is. Words in Japanese often have multiple meanings. You can say one thing and it can mean several things, depending on the context. For example, the verb “wakaru” can mean “to understand,” “to know” and “to make sense.” Basically that means to me that there are fewer words to learn.

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 — Swimming with my students

I’m at Kokufu and the special-ed class invited me to do a short Awa Odori rehearsal with them and then swim with them. Both Kamona and Kokufu Junior High Schools have swimming pools. It’s an excellent idea, considering how sweltering it can get in the classrooms. Now that the summer is in full force, the towels draped ‘round necks and the ubiquitous fans and water canteens have returned to the classrooms. You can really see the students wilting.

Swimming turned out to be the only activity in which I’m capable of keeping up with my students. The swimming class was quite laid-back as compared to my summer-league swim team days of yore. They swam sets of 50 meters. The teachers wanted to put me up at the front of the front of the line but having been ridden into the ground by these kids while on bikes, I asked to be put in the middle. Ogasawara-sensei and Shimao-sensei seemed to be pretty impressed with my swimming, haha. I swam in some relays with the special ed class. It felt good to be in the water, even if I worried if my poor shoulders were going to burn.

At the end of the class, the teachers pitted me against some of the boys in the first-year class that was also using the pool. I lost ... but not by much! I still had some unused shots on my underwater camera from the Kochi rafting trip, so I polished those off with some underwater shots of the students.

In the afternoon, the repairman came and swapped out my broken air conditioner for a new one, courtesy of my school district. Man, I just realized that in the past year I’ve had to get my rice cooker, fan, phone and air conditioner replaced. This apartment is falling apart! No complaints here, though. It means I get to get rid of the old stuff for brand-spanking new replacements.

Thursday, July 9, 2004 — Disillusionment

This is going to be a long posting.

In April, as I’d mentioned, the school district reassigned many staff members to other schools and district offices. No one really understands the logic behind uprooting teachers and other staff members and moving them to other schools to new locations. My teachers can’t explain it to me. All I know is that new teachers must deal with the learning curve that goes along with reassignment. And once a few years have passed and they’ve settled in and become accustomed to their school’s ways, they’re transferred again. To me, it’s ridiculous. But it happens.

The reason why I bring this is up is that in April, I got a new supervisor. Her name is Harada-sensei. She was a P.E. teacher before this school year. As our supervisor, she serves as the liaison between the Tokushima City ALTs and the school district. She replaced Takeuchi-sensei, my old supervisor, the one who greeted me at the Tokushima Airport when I came in July.

I haven’t really addressed my working relations with my new supervisor in the hopes that it would improve first. My relationship with her — in fact, her relationship with the ALTs in general — started rocky and has gone downhill from there. Having thought it over, I feel putting a post about my workplace problems provides a valuable glimpse into the cultural difficulties that can arise for foreigners working in Japan.

First of all, I think of myself as a pretty laid-back person. A reasonable person. I can take a lot and still feel pretty upbeat. Just keep me in the know, and it's all good. I also have a lot of faith in people. And I really can handle change. I have dealt with change before in past jobs. But the events of the last three months have sorely tested my patience, trust and energy. It has been mentally exhausting. I suppose that’s what happens when you find yourself constantly having to wade through misinformation, intentional or otherwise, and stonewalling.

I also realize that this account is from my side, and not particularly balanced.

To begin with: Harada-sensei’s English is not nearly as good as Takeuchi-sensei’s, and it deteriorates considerably when she’s faced with all eight of the ALTs at the same time. This is not an uncommon problem among ALTs. She wasn’t really familiar with the JET program and its objectives. She was green, having never supervised a bunch of foreigners, although she had interacted with foreigners on a casual level. At our first meeting with her, she was visibly agitated and nervous. I felt sympathetic toward her. Imagine speaking broken Japanese and having to suddenly manage eight Japanese people who didn’t speak any English.

We started getting an inkling of what lie ahead of us early on. When we tried to speak with Harada-sensei about whatever minor questions or issues we had, she always nodded her head and said she understood. Even when she didn’t. She did it, we believe, in hopes of bringing the English conversation to a swift conclusion. It was maddening. We just wanted her to calm down and actually listen rather than automatically agree to whatever we said simply to mollify us.

Then, in May, the first bomb: The school district wanted us to change our working hours. Harada-sensei just sat us down one day and said, “You will work these hours beginning tomorrow.” We were shocked. Here we were, having worked since September with these hours to the apparent satisfaction of our schools and the school district. And suddenly they wanted to change them? By tomorrow?

There was an uproar among the ALTs. Why weren’t we consulted? Harada had no answer. We wanted to know why. Harada-sensei said the “new hours” were the same hours listed in our contract. That is true. But all of us worked different work hours for different reasons, with our old supervisor’s and schools’ blessings. I’d contacted my predecessor to find out what times he worked, and stuck with that. My schools had no problem with that. Other ALTs leave 45 minutes earlier than the contract hours because our old supervisor had give us the OK to do so. For some ALTs, after-school can be an agonizing time because there’s no lessons and thus, they have nothing to do.

The veteran outgoing ALTs — there are three of them leaving at the end of July, plus a one-year JET — were particularly incensed. After having worked at their own hours for near three years, they were having to change their routine in their final few months? Finally, after making a huge fuss, our supervisor and her boss, the shocho-san (the head of the school district department that hired us), said they’d wait until September to implement the change. They also said they’d eventually contact our schools and tell them about the time change, but leave it to the schools’ discretion. This didn’t bother me because I was already working longer than my contract stipulated. However, other ALTs were angry because they knew their schools would regard the time change as law, rather than as a discretionary change.

We were also told the schools would not be notified until much later, since the policy wouldn’t go into effect until September. But the next day, our supervisor and the shocho-san visited Sally’s school and by the end of the day, her hours had been lengthened. Sally was furious by the deception. After explaining her feelings to her school, her former hours were restored.

The whole ordeal was a sign of things to come.

Time passed. More changes surfaced, both officially and unofficially. By officially, I mean Harada-sensei actually came out and told the lot of us in a group meeting. By unofficially, I mean that Harada-sensei let slip a bit of information to one of us and we had to learn the news by way of the grapevine.

“Unofficially” is the worst way to find out something. But you’d be surprised how often it happens.

The school district wanted us to go to elementary schools in the fall. They wanted us to sign in at school, like the Japanese teachers, and also submit our vacation-day requests to our schools rather than just at the school district office. They wanted to switch around the schools that the new incoming ALTs would attend.

And, finally, the most galvanizing alteration: They wanted to change our summer work policy.

I am going to list, in excruciating detail, what I feel are the school district’s transgressions so you understand the tide in which we have been swept. Like I said, it’s not the change so much that bothers me, it’s the way the school district has communicated — or, more to the point — NOT communicated — the changes and their necessity.

When Harada-sensei offhandedly said we’d have to sign in and submit vacation-day requests at schools, I asked why. The signing in and vacation requests were not a problem, I just wanted to know what the deal was. I told her it was rather irritating to have these restrictions imposed on us, when most of us haven’t been doing anything wrong. She said they were having problems with other ALTs taking advantage of the sick-day and vacation-day policy. I asked her if she’d actually addressed the problem with the specific ALTs who were abusing the system. She hadn’t.

This is the trouble: When our school district department sees a problem, they simply change the rules, they don’t address the problem. It is unfathomably illogical to me.

The changing of the ALT campuses did not affect me or the three other remaining ALTs. However, the four outgoing ALTs put up quite a fight. Basically, for reasons still unclear to me, the school district wanted to change the campuses the incoming ALTs would attend. Until now, our campuses had been determined by our assigned apartments because they’re closest to those schools. It’s the most convenient arrangement. By mixing up the schools, the newbies would have to go further to get to their campuses. Already some of the ALTs have to take buses to get to their schools. This would mean longer commutes with maybe even a transfer with which to contend.

The district paid no mind to the protestations of the outgoing ALTs. Our supervisor even said to us that they weren’t important. Because apparently three years’ of experience is worthless

But it was the summer work-policy change, and how they dealt with it, that was the last straw.

The summer break encompasses the last two weeks of July and all of August. The summer ALT work policy for each school district is different. Last year, and for several years before that, the Tokushima City school district allowed its ALTs to stay at home unless specifically requested by their schools to come to school. Otherwise, as long as you stay in the prefecture, you can do whatever you want. This was a generous policy. Some ALTs have to go to school and find themselves with days to kills because there are no lesson in the summer. You just sit at your desk. I’m not joking.

Last summer, I went to my schools a couple of times to help coach students for speech contest but spent the rest of my time easing into life in Tokushima and doing things like the Tokushima JET Orientation and the home-stay in Kamiyama.

We are getting four new ALTs. One of the four is actually not new. He’s Dave CC, the third-year JET who met us at the Tokyo Orientation. Dave is in Nishiiya, in the mountains of west Tokushima-ken. Dave enjoyed his job so much — and had developed such a reputation — that my school district courted him to come to Tokushima for the rare position of fourth-year JET. Dave is also the chair of AJET, the JET association.

By June, I had made my summer plans and travel reservations: a weeklong trip immediately after school ended and then hosting my family for two weeks when the came to visit. In June, Dave came to Tokushima to speak with Harada about the summer. He dances in Awa Odori. He was told he would have to go to school every day in the summer and thus, have to take vacation days to dance Awa Odori. Keep in mind by this time, summer was a month and a half away and none of the current Tokushima City ALTs had been notified about the apparent change in summer policy.

Dave mentioned it to Sally. Sally grew very, very upset. We began passing the word on. Dan went in to the school district office to ask if he could go to Ishigaki in Okinawa to attend a language course in the summer. Tashi also inquired about the summer policy. Both were told we’d have to go to school in the summer. They were rebuffed with, “This is the Japanese way.” We were all flabbergasted. Harada-sensei had still not officially told us anything about the school district’s plans for us that summer. And the days until summer were ticking away.

Finally, we decided enough was enough. The ALTs convened and had a meeting one weekend to hash our complaints with the school district. We were extremely unhappy. The communication between us and the school district had deteriorated to the point of animosity on our part and secrecy on the school district’s part. We wrote up a letter listing our concerns and had it translated into Japanese. We gave both our supervisor and shocho-san a copy. We told them we would further discuss it at our scheduled meeting that week.

Harada-sensei called Sally to cancel the meeting. Sally — and I’m really proud of her for doing this — bullied Harada into having the meeting. We were tired of Harada canceling our meetings. She’d been doing it for some time.

At “The Meeting,” as I call it, we tried to get some answers out of them. It was like pulling teeth. We wanted to know why they wanted to change the summer policy. Shocho-san said the summer work policy hadn’t been decided yet (which was even worse, considering summer was now only a month away!), nor did they know when it would be decided because they were setting up meetings with the schools to discuss the issue with them. Shocho-san said something about taxpayers’ money and how taxpayers’ wanted us at the schools in the summer. I am highly skeptical of all this, seeing as how the taxpayers — parents — really don’t even know we exist. I have yet to talk to any of my students’ parents at school. She also pointed out how Japanese teachers go to work in the summer.

We countered with the fact that we’re not Japanese teachers, that as foreigners, our lives are very different. Japanese teachers have their families to go home to. They get bonuses at the end of the school year. They get extra vacation days that can be used during school breaks. Some of the other ALTs brought up how incredibly isolating spending time in the staff room — which is what we’d be doing — can be because no one talks with them. This came from a third-year ALT, so it’s not like she hadn’t been around long enough to know what she was talking about. Then there’s the issue of not having anything to do because our work lies in the teaching lessons and there are no lessons in the summer break.

More than anything, the seven of us — one of the ALTs was out of the country — wanted our supervisor and the shocho-san to understand how we felt. That we felt disrespected and overlooked. That we no longer seemed to be treated as people, only as tools. That the schools and supposed “taxpayers” were given higher priority than us, the people who were doing the work. We wanted them to understand that the JET program is not just about teaching but also about exchange and there was no exchange at all going on in this debacle, that the way they were treating us could leave us jaded and cynical against Japan, a message we would share when we returned home.

For the longest time, our supervisor and shocho-san didn’t seem to just GET IT. “We understand,” they kept saying, “No decisions has been made yet” about the summer work policy. We shook our heads in exasperation. What we were talking about had nothing to do with the summer work policy but our feelings — our helplessness, our uncertainty, our frustration.

When the meeting finally ended, I sat down with Harada-sensei one on one. I’m more comfortable in that sort of setting and I know she is, too. I told her small things, hoping they would smooth over the roughness or her relationship with us. She was, after all, just the messenger in all this.

I told her it’d be nice if she’d take notes at our meetings. She never wrote anything down, leaving us wondering if 1) She’d understood what she’d said and 2) If she realized what we’d said was important to us. For example, at the end of The Meeting, I’d ask her to tell me next time how they’d try to improve communication with us. She said sure but had written nothing down. I wondered how she’d be able to remember. I also told her if she didn’t understand something, that she should just stop us when we’re speaking and ask us to tell her again, slowly. She told me when Dave, Tashi and Dan had asked about the summer, she hadn't known the answer so she'd given them the policy for Japanese teachers, since she is a Japanese teacher. I told her if she didn't know an answer, to not make one up but to just TELL US she didn't known and then tell us WHEN she'd know. She thanked me for my advice. She told me not to worry, that things would be okay and not as bad as they seemed.

I left feeling leery of the whole encounter. Sure, lots of listening had happened — but would the shocho-san take any of it to heart? Would Harada take any of my advice to heart? I had a sinking feeling.

Then, this month, in my last week at Kamona, I learned from one of my English teachers, the one who serves as my go-to person at that school, told me the school district had arranged a meeting with Kamona. It would take place the next week, when I was at my other school.

The day of the meeting, last Thursday, I went to Kamona to speak with my English teacher about what it happened. She said she’d been told by my supervisor that I would have to go into school every day. That I would have to spend two full days a month at nearby elementary schools beginning in September.

I was floored.

The changes themselves are not so bad. Because I will be away for three weeks anyway for my vacation and family’s visit, I’ll really only have a two and a half weeks for going to school during the summer. But it does mean taking a boatload of vacation days, leaving me with precious few with which to do little more than go home for Christmas. As for the elementary schools, Harada-sensei had only brought that topic up once with me, in a hastily made phone call to me at home some time ago. She asked if I’d mind going to two elementary schools once a month each for two hours each time. Obviously, since then, the plan had changed. I’d been told nothing.

What bothered me most about this all was that we’d been told our supervisor and the shocho-san would discuss the summer policy with our schools. But there was no discussion with my school at all. There were no questions asked of my English teacher, who I know was sympathetic to my plight. There was only telling: The ALT would go to school in the summer. Why did our supervisor tell us they would consult with the schools when there was, indeed, no consultation? Why would she change the elementary-school work policy without letting me know in advance?

Up until this point, I had hoped against hope that our supervisor would do the right thing. I knew some of the ALTs had a particularly dark view of our supervisor. My expectations, perhaps, were a little lower. I didn’t expect her to be on our side and rally for the ALTs’ interest. She just didn’t seem the type of person to take up a cause like that. I had, however, expected her to be upfront and honest with us. And that hadn’t happened. If the summer work policy had obviously already been decided by The Meeting, why hadn’t they just told us? Why did they have to make up the pretense that the schools would be consulted for their opinions? Why keep us in the dark? Why give us false hope?

I went home after speaking with my Japanese teacher with such a weight on my shoulders. I felt so depressed and disillusioned. So this, then, was the bureaucratic, secretive, infuriating Japan that I’d been warned about. I knew Harada-sensei was simply the messenger in all this but in this case, unfortunately, I was horribly disappointed by both the message and the messenger. That night, we had a sayonara enkai for the four outgoing ALTs. I couldn’t even bring myself to look my supervisor in the eye.

That’s how bad it is. Really, it can only go uphill from here. But the damage has been done.

Friday, July 10, 2004 — Yearbook

I’m on the, er, yearbook committee (hold those catcalls down, people) for the Tokushima-ken AJET (JET association). After a delicious meal of Mexican food at Sombrero’s, a place near Tokushima Station, Ellie and I headed back to my apartment to work on her section of the yearbook. We’d asked people to submit their most memorable moments and favorite quotes from this past year, along with a host of other stuff. Here are some PG quotes that cracked me up:

“My sock's got sake on it — I think I dribbled. If the cops stop me and smell my feet, they could bust me.”

“Where’s Dan? I don’t know ... I think he just stole some homeless guy’s bike.”

From the movie, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” Johnny Depp's character: “Are you a MexiCAN or a MexiCAN’T?”

“What does the 20:10 stand for? Is there like a time capsule laying beneath the 20:10 sign that they'll unbury in the year 2010, or something?”

Saturday, July 11, 2004 — Sayonara party II

About 20 JETs are leaving and returning back to their respective countries this summer. The Tokushima-ken AJET organized a sayonara party for their last hurrah. Because I am crazy, I biked in my nice clothes the 45 minutes to the restaurant. I just really don’t like having to depend on people for rides, if I can avoid it. I arrived looking like I’d just biked for 45 minutes. But it was al good.

The party took place at Casablanca, a swanky non-restaurant-like restaurant on the edge of town. I spent most of the evening relaxing with my fellow JETs and trying to avoid the attentions of Chanda, who likes to be scary sometimes.

It was a bittersweet feeling, realizing that a considerable number of people at the restaurant would no longer be with us in a month’s time. I wasn’t super-close with any of them, but I had gotten to know some of them quite well. They’re moving on to new jobs, to grad school, to getting married, to traveling. Andrea’s going to law school. Katy’s exploring the U.K. Jane and James are going to teach. The newbies are coming in only three weeks!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how far I’ve come in this past year. When I first stepped off that plane into Narita Airport in Tokyo, I was such a lamb, helpless and inexperienced. I didn’t know how to take the train home. I couldn’t tell which carton contained skim milk. I didn’t know how to work my bike lock! I couldn’t simply ask where things were located at the store.

I remember how for a long time, vacations used to be a realm relegated to my parents. But now I’m the one planning their vacation here! JET has taught me so much. I’ve traveled to other countries. I’ve gone by myself. I’ve learned some Japanese. I can have conversations with my students, even if they are super-short. I can serve you a cup of green tea. I can get myself places.

Not to get ahead of myself, though. I know I still have lots more to learn. But it is a rich feeling, to know I’ve gone from being dependent on others, a little frightened, a little alone, to having made friends from different countries and being able to maneuver myself around this crazy country.

It’s been an exhilarating year of firsts. Here’s to Year 2!

Monday, July 12, 2004 — Wait a minute ...

At school today, the school nurse came up and told me about the end-of-term enkai. I’m always taken off guard when the staff at the school talk to me, so it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Out of habit, I wrote down what she was telling me: Friday, 6 p.m., and the location, 8,500 yen. Yes, I told her, I can come. She wrote my name down.

After she left I started thinking about it. I really didn’t want to go. I mean, one enkai per school per year was enough for me. I’d already two enkais (drinking parties/banquets) in the past week. They hit your wallet hard. And those enkais, at least, had been with friends. Enkais with school staff, for me, is work. I have to work hard to make conversation in a language I can barely grasp. It’s hard! Did I really want to pay $78 for beer I wouldn’t drink and food I’d barely touch solely to make stumbling chit-chat? I didn’t think so. Half an hour later, I scurried to the nurse’s office and made an excuse saying I couldn’t come.

“The next enkai, then,” she told me. I was like, “Sure ... ”

Tuesday, July 12, 2004 — Progress

The remaining four Tokushima City ALT, plus one of the outgoing ALTs, met once more with our old supervisor, current supervisor and the shochosan this afternoon. We trickled into the meeting room, our faces grim. I had to crack a smile when I saw my old supervisor Takeuchi-sensei, though. She was a sight for sore eyes.

In the course of more than two hours, we covered just two topics. It is just the way of a Japanese discussion, I think. We would ask them a simple question, like, “What is the holiday work policy?” and 30 minutes later, we’d have a semblance of an answer. Then we’d have to work another half hour pulling out the nuances and details of their response.

First, Takeuchi began with this long, drawn-out and still-incomprehensible explanation of why they wanted to change our work hours. She read from a paper that had been given to them. The explanation rambled on for a while. We began looking at each other, wondering when it’d get to the point. This issue actually didn’t affect any of us except Sally, whose school typically lets her go home early. The explanation really got to the point, after some back-and-forth with the shocho-san, they told us that pretty much the work hours would stay the same.

This admission by the school district kind of shocked us. Were they kidding? They were actually going along with us? Well, why they didn’t just say so in the beginning? <shaking head> If they’d just started out with that, it would have saved both sides a lot of time. But I can’t complain.

Next, we tackled the most-pressing issue: what the deal was for the summer break, and future holidays. We were extremely irritated that summer was one week away and they’d still given no official indication. Sally and I had both been informed by our schools we’d have to go to school every day during the summer break.

The shocho-san shook her head, saying our schools had misunderstood. I am highly skeptical that both our schools coincidentally misunderstood. But shocho-san told us that we had four options for the summer: Every day would have to be spent either at school, at the school district office (even worse), taken as a vacation day, or spent as a “cultural exchange day.” We’d really pressed the “exchange” point of our jobs, so this was a welcome concession. They told us we just had to write reports about the supposed cultural exchange, which could include things like going to see temples in Tokushima-ken. I was a bit surprised that it could also include going to historic places in Japan, which meant we could go to Kyoto, for example, and not have to take paid leave if we wrote a report.

I left the meeting feeling cautiously optimistic, which is better than I’ve felt about our management in a while. But I knew a lot lay before us still. Every time we’d asked them a question about the summer break, posing different scenarios and how it’d be classified and whether we’d have to take paid leave, our supervisors and the shocho-san would have to discuss it at length. I felt they were kind of making up the answers about our summer break as they went along. Which meant a lot still had to be ironed out.

Wednesday, July 13, 2004 — Randomness

When I ride my bike to Kokufu, I ride onto an overpass that crosses a stream below it. One day I saw a fisherman sitting in the ankle-deep stream. I didn’t see any fish. Another day I saw no fisherman, but this time, there were fish.

There’s some sort of office around the corner from my apartment. One of the employees brings his or her yellow Labrador retriever to it often. A lot of times, the dog has to stay outside, though, tied to the front door. One day I passed the dog on my bike and something about its face bothered me. Then I realized: Someone had drawn eyebrows on the dog.

The special ed class did a field trip to a high school today for a special cooking excursion. But little Iguchi had to stay behind and study. I ate lunch with him. Just him and me. But the silence didn’t yawn for ages as I was afraid it would. I asked him what his plans were for the summer. He’s going to study. I asked him what he wanted to be. He wants to be a computer programmer.

I saw an honest-to-God pickup truck the other day, the first since leaving Texas. It was a Toyota. I stared, my gaze lingering on a symbol of home.

The other week, my principal suddenly appeared by my desk. “Are you busy?” he asked. I was a bit out of sorts — I’d been concentrating on something else — and managed an, “I’m not busy” in Japanese. He wanted me to come with him somewhere, but I didn’t understand where, and when. One of the English teachers heard and came over to help. The school soccer team was playing in the city tournament and the principal wanted to know if I could come with him. I said sure.

We left immediately. He drive me in his car. About 15 minutes later, we pulled into a sports complex of grass-covered fields. It’d been a while since I’d seen grass-covered fields. My school, Kokufu, was playing Kawauchi Junior High School. The kids looked up at me as I walked onto the stands. They looked shocked I was there. I waved cheerfully.

The game itself was pretty fun to watch. I cheered in English. The game was tied, 3-3, and the timer soon about to run out when Kawauchi managed to score a last-minute goal. The ref blew his whistle to signal the end of the game and both teams filed back to their tents. The teachers were muttering to themselves things like, “Too bad” and “So close!”

After a while I started hearing this gasping noise. I peered down into the soccer-team’s tent. Some of the boys were crying! I was so surprised because typically sadness and agitation isn’t something the Japanese let show. But here my kids were, taking big, gulping breaths, their cheeks wet with tears! At first I didn’t understand how they could be so upset. They placed second in the tournament after Kawauchi, which meant they’d still get to go on to the prefectural tournament. But then I thought about it and for junior high kids, outside of studying for school (those that study, anyway), sports is their LIFE. When I ask my kids what they’re doing after school or for the weekend, they invariably answer they’ll be practicing whatever sports they’re in. They drill for HOURS and practice practically every day and lots of weekends, too. So to lose a game, no matter how small, is a huge deal to them.

Friday, July 16, 2004 — Now I know

So it turns out that anime DVDs DON’T include English subtitles. Darn. {:*-(

Saturday, July 17, 2004 — Harry Potter is SO COOL

At last, the night my friends and I have been waiting for! Harry Potter Night! Sally, Dan and I met up with my old English teacher, Kiyomi (who was moved to Kitajima Junior High School, so we no longer work together) for a lovely night of food, Harry Potter, and print club.

First we ate at an izakaya near the station. An izakaya is a restaurant that serves its food in small portions, and you share it with other people. Sally had gone to a cake buffet (yes, you heard right) for lunch (after starving herself Friday night and Saturday morning) and consumed an astounding 14 pieces of cake. So, needless to say, she didn’t eat anything at the restaurant.

Then we made our way to Fuji Grand, the shopping mall that’s too far away from me for me to go by bike. I need to figure out the bus schedule to it one day, though. I couldn’t watch Harry Potter at the movie theater by my apartment because it was showing a version dubbed in Japanese.

To our horror, the only seats available for the 8:25 p.m. showing was in the front seat. I didn’t really feel inclined to being uncomfortable. But then they told us some seats were available in the second and third rows. That wasn’t much better, but I reluctantly agreed to give it a try. It’s not every day I get to go to Fuji Grand! Sitting a row away from the front wasn’t great, but the movie more than made up for the discomfort.. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was quite enjoyable. I love Ron!

Afterward, we hit the arcade to make print club stickers. It was so fun! We did it three times. We did one with a Ron pose and then we colored our hair in orange (or, as they say in Britain, “ginger”). I love the stickers so much, I feel loathe to give any away to my students!

Sunday, July 18, 2004 — Tainohama

My sister wants to go to the beach when my family visits. So I went in search of a beach this afternoon. Sally, Dan and I hopped on a southbound train. The beaches in southern Tokushima-ken are quite, as Dan would say, lush. We didn’t make it all the way down south — it would have taken too long by local train — but stopped about two-thirds of the way to check out a beach called Tainohama.

We had to get off in Yuki, the train station just before Tainohama. None of us had brought any food with us so we went in search of a grocery store. We found a tiny one with no one inside. We kept calling, “Sumimasen!” (Excuse me!) wondering if anyone was in the back but no one replied. We debated just leaving money for our drinks the fruit we’d taken. But, just in time, a little old woman walked over from wherever she was to handle the register. I love that about small Japanese towns, that they can leave their stuff unattended like that and then not eye you suspiciously when they return!

At first I was a little disappointed. It wasn’t very big and the shoreline was littered with rocks. But once I got in the water, I realized that anything’s better than Galveston! The water, while not astoundingly clear, was green blue and you could see down to your feet when you were up to your shoulders. You can’t do that in Galveston, that’s for sure.

Around 4 p.m., the people around us started packing up. I guess they’re not big on evenings at the beach, even though the sun was up for a good two more hours. The three of us stuck around for a bit more before riding the hour and a half back to Tokushima.

Monday, July 19, 2004 — This is SO FUNNY

Every year JET publishes a book called the “JET Journal,” filled with stories, essays, poems and photographs submitted by JETs. Most are of the “how JET changed my life” and “what it feels like to be a minority in Japan” variety. But one poem from this year's JET Journal in particular caught my eye and I can’t resist sharing it with you. It’s pure genius. I’ve added explanations to the occasional Japanese in red.

Aaargh!
A Poetic Journal of My Experiences in a Japanese High School

After the Enkai (banquet)

I am silent
Kocho sensei (The principal) asks from the front passenger seat
Is she sleeping?
The teacher to my left interprets
Bonnie you are sleeping?
No, I say.
I am thinking. About all of you, I add.
The driver asks Nani? (What?) I love you?
No! I think. About you! About you!!
The car is silent. Awkward. I smile because
Everyone thinks I’m creepy.

Nice body

I’m talking with a boy.
He’s a little bit dorky.
He’s all alone. His head is on the table.
What are your favorite movies? I ask him.
He lifts his head
Terminator and Titanic, he answers
I should have guessed.
(Because of a conversation with a female student the day before)
I start to ramble about how contrary to popular belief, Rose is NOT FAT.
She has a VERY NICE BODY.
The boy looks down shyly and says “domo.” Thank you.

So I must make a fast choice!
“NO! You don’t have a nice body!” or “I’m a sexual harasser.”

Which would you choose?

Vice Principal I

If I were gonna die, I wonder aloud to Kyoto Sensei (vice principal)
And if you giving up fish forever would save my life,
Would you do it?
Hmmm ...
He sucks air through his teeth.
Difficult ...
He tilts his head to one side
I really like sushi ...
He is taking too long to answer.
I am alarmed.
Wait, Kyoto sensei!
If your daughters were dying, and if you giving up fish forever would save their lives,
Would you do it?
Of course, he says!
Because they are humans, he explains.

Vice Principal II

He approaches my desk with a prefectural education journal
He shows me a picture of a strikingly unattractive girl.
He says,
This girl was my student when I was still a teacher.
She went to America to teach Japanese.
She was once very beautiful, like the Japanese.
But, as he gestures to her photo, now she is ugly like Americans.

RAGE.

He’s smiling obliviously.
Suddenly he realizes his mistake.
He lights up.
He laughs with the joy that can only come from
Irrevocably sticking your foot in your mouth.

Yaro

Scene I
I’m browsing Jisho San
(Mr. Dictionary)
and I find “yaro”
Sl I. young guy 2. rascal
(No #3. No “bastard.” This must be a polite dictionary. But I don’t know this yet. Yet.)

The teachers are all at their desks, quietly working, reading, number-crunching.
I think to myself, I’ll try out this new hip slang word
I’ll impress everyone!
I am so cool!

Scene II
(a moment later) the teachers’ point of view

This answer is wrong. Right. Wrong. Right. Right.
There is 55,897 yen in the PTA account.
The red ten goes on the black jack ...
I am never gonna get this done. Looks like I’ll be putting in another 13 hour day. Dammit!
The square root of 67.4 divided by 2.1 times the square root of 476 divided by pi

Silence is interrupted.
The ALT’s voice rings loudly and clearly.
“Hey vice principal! You’re a bastard!”

A Long Speech

A professor came to school
To talk for 2 and a half hours
He told us — the teachers and students —
About World Heritage Sites
In Japanese.

I did my best to survive this supremely boring experience
I wrote down discernable words and looked them up in my jisho
I wrote messages to teachers and passed them like in 8^th grade
I whispered questions and they whispered answers

2 hours in, I grew restless
All of a sudden I heard Professor say “America—”
So I cheered to show some patriotism: “Yeah, America!”
“—dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... ”
He cruelly continued.

I couldn’t have known what we was talking about!
I thought he was gonna talk about the Statue of Liberty or Mt. Rushmore!
I put my head between my knees
Moaning in humiliation
Hoping everyone would forgive a mistake that appear to be militant hatred.
No, I long to scream. I love you guys! I do.

Graduation Practice

The day before graduation
We congregate in the gymnasium
It feels like Antarctica
The jet heaters, which are huge and spew fire out of their mouths don’t seem to help.

After practicing the ceremony
I ease on back to stand in front of the jet heaters
Some girls are back there.
I’ll build bridges between our cultures while warming my tsumetai oshiri!
(That means “freezing arse”)
About a minute into my conversation with the school’s “bad girl”—
(She dyes her hair. Terrible.)
I smell smoke.
That’s strange. I didn’t notice it before.
I look behind me and see smoke!
It seems to be coming from my butt!
Yelling and causing a ruckus
I smart smacking my backside and feel that there isn’t much left of my pants back there!
I look around me with eyes as wide as saucers
My eyes meet with Bad Girl’s
She looks uncomfortable.

I slink
With my back against the wall
To a group of female teachers
I share my predicament with a young one
I ask her to please take me home to change my pants.
I try to convince her this is definitely the first time my butt has caught fire
I’m not sure she believes me.
Her face says, “Yappari! (I knew it!) Gaijin.”

Nonfiction

A conversation with a math teacher

What did you do yesterday? I ask
He read a book.
What was it about?
Time machines.
A novel? I ask
No, it’s nonfiction. He replies.
It’s from America, he adds.

Hmmm. I think. I ask him if he knows any aliens. No. Ha ha.

What are you reading? He asks me.
I try to tell him, half in Japanese, half in English, that I am reading the history of communism in China.
Instead, I inform him that I am studying the history of junior high school communism.
We are equally confused with each other’s personalities and interests.

Unlucky

We’re playing games at the bon enkai (the “forget the year party”)
I’m sitting next to an English teacher
A female teacher hands us Bingo cards
He leans over and whines
“I hate Bingo. I never win. I am so unlucky.”
But then his countenance changes and he purrs
“But I am lucky because I work with you.”
Not quite sure how to answer, I say
“What a coincidence! That’s what everyone says!”
Suddenly his face turns dark
He growls
“Well, they’re liars!”

by Bonnie McCloskey
2^nd year ALT, Iwate Prefecture

Friday, July 23, 2004 — Back to the U.S.! If only for a few hours!

For my own summer vacation, my treat to myself, I decided to go to Micronesia. I didn’t even know where Micronesia was on the map until this trip! The country is a sprinkling of islands near the equator, northeast of Australia. Sally and I would head to Guam, where we'd hop another plane to a tiny neighboring island called Rota, which is part of the North Mariana Islands by the Mariana Trench. Never heard of Rota? Neither had I!

Unlike my last two trips, I intend to spend this trip in one place doing as little as possible. It’s meant to be a weeklong vacation of sun, beach and relaxation. Considering Rota is largely overlooked by tourists and that it only measures 10 miles across (you could RUN across it!), swimming and taking it easy really are the only things you can do! There would be no rushing around to sightsee or catch a bus to our next destination. I brought my swimsuit, books to read and my laptop to write.

Our plane pulled into Guam International Airport just after 1 a.m. Saturday. “Welcome to America!” the flight attendance announced to us. Although I’d always known Guam was a territory of the U.S. (and that it has an Air Force base with B-1 bombers, hahaha, pretty much the ONLY things I know about Guam ...), I’d forgotten. I was back in AMERICA! And it was Sally’s first time to touch American soil. Both of us were giddy with anticipation.

Saturday, July 24, 2004 — Tropical paradise

But first we had to get through the night.

You see, our flight to Rota left at 8 a.m. that day. It was already 1:30 a.m. when we arrived in Guam from Japan. So we’d decided back when we’d reserved our flights to just rough it and spend the night at the airport. I had vowed never to do it again since the last time, when I’d had to overnight it in Kansai International, but that went out the window pretty quickly. It just would have been too much trouble to get a taxi to our hotel and then come back again at 6 or 7 in the morning again.

After some initial confusion about where we should go and if we should get our luggage (our Guam-to-Rota flight was by a different carrier than our Japan-to-Guam flight), a helpful airport employee laid it all out for us. No, we didn’t have to go through immigration. Yes, we could stay in the airport (we were afraid they’d kick us out) because it operated 24-7. No, we didn’t have to get our luggage — he’d arrange for it to be transferred to our Rota flight. He took our baggage claim tags and radioed it in. Later, he even tracked us down inside the terminal to tell us our stuff was ready to go to Rota and also suggested to us spots where we could actually lie down.

Our Vietnam trip had kind of set the bottom standard for airport customer service. The employees in Saigon, Vietnam were so horrendously menacing and intimidating and unhelpful (except that one lady who cheerfully switched our flights as a long line of waiting people glared at our backs) that we have compared all following airports with Vietnam. The Guam employees, I have to say, were astounding in their kindness and follow-up. They really went out of their way for us, and with such a pleasant manner, too! Anything is better than Vietnam, but Guam really takes the cake. As my sister would say, I love America! Seriously, I did feel quite a twinge of pride, that Sally was getting a great impression of the United States, if only through the glimpse of the Guam International Airport.

After loitering in the food court for some time, Sally and I debated what to do for the night. Stay up and play cards? Go to sleep? Play with our laptops? I was tempted to play cards but I was also quite sleepy, too. So we went in search of a deserted gate to bed down for the night. Just writing that sentence feels ridiculous. Imagine how the actual task felt! Unfortunately, Guam has those airport seats where there’s a divided between each seat, which meant there would be no lying out on them. We settled for — <sigh> — the floor instead. I laid my head on my laptop carrying case.

Worse, because we didn’t have our luggage, our backpacks, we didn’t have anything to cover up in, and the airport was quite chilly. So I spent the next five or so hours curled up on the floor fading in and out of sleep, listening to the airport security announcements alternate in English, Chinese and Japanese. I heard a flight leave for Japan leave around 4 a.m. Crazy! I resolutely reminded myself that in a few hours’ time we’d be in Rota and able to sleep in the comfort of our hotel room.

When I got up for good around 6 a.m., I looked up to find a host of others who’d hit the hay in our gate as well, including a mother and her young daughter. They’d come prepared, though, and had brought blankets. A couple people had braved the airport seats. One ingenious woman had pulled a set of seats closer to her so she could sleep with one half on a seat and her legs on another seat facing her. There were also a couple of people who actually had a flight to catch from our gate. From my vantage point on the floor, I opened my eyes to see some of them waiting in the seats beside me.

Around 7:15 a.m. Sally and I made our way to our next gate. There was a family of four already waiting. It turned out the six of us were the only ones on this flight! We hadn’t had our seats assigned yet, so when Sally asked, “Can I have a window seat?” to the airline employee, he jovially announced, “ALL the seats are window seats.”

Our plane was a 9-seater Cessna!

Sally and I were totally stoked (and, a bit nervous, to tell the truth) to be flying on this tiny plane. The airline employee, Paul, told us that Continental had only begun offering the Guam-Rota service about three weeks ago. For now they were using Cessnas to transport people but in a few weeks’ time they’d switch to a 48-seat plane instead. Because the Cessna was so tiny, all our luggage had to be weighed. Then we had to tell the airline staff how much we weighed so the weight could be distributed evenly. The way Paul so delicately asked us to reveal our weight cracked me up.

Continental contracted with a Boston-based flight service for this route. I spotted “Hyannis” on the side of the plane. They loaded our stuff in the nose and wings of the plane and had me sit in the back of the plane. Our pilot’s name was Otis. He told us it’d be a quick 25-minute flight to Rota and that when we neared the island, he’d dip his wings and linger over it a bit for us to take pictures. Now that’s what I call service!

The flight from Guam to Rota revealed how green both islands were and how incredibly blue the water was. It was unnerving to be in such a small craft so high above the water but the mom in the family assured us she’d taken the flight many times. She pointed out a natural landmark to us on Rota — a multi-tiered plateau shaped like an elongated wedding cake. The island’s capital, Song-Song, was located on a tiny jutting of land on the east side. The rest of the island was blanketed in greenery.

Upon arriving, Sally and I were surprised to find the island’s weather was cooler than Japan’s. But I think that may have been because it was cloudy just then; later in the day it got much warmer. We got a hotel pick-up by a man with a beat-up sedan that had towels draped on its backseat. Sally and I spent the quick drive to the hotel gawking. For my part, I was gaping at the cars — they were driving on the RIGHT side of the road! And the driver’s seats were on the LEFT SIDE! It’d been so long since I’d seen that. SO LONG.

We had made reservations at the Coral Gardens Hotel, which was located by the blindingly blue water. We were quite happy with the accommodations the hotel provided for $35 a night. They were basic but all we needed: two beds, an ocean view, balcony, fridge and cable TV (English language TV — how exciting!). We laid our stuff down and admired the view before crawling into bed and falling into a deep sleep.

Several hours later, around 1 or 2 p.m., we finally roused ourselves enough to get food. I’d eaten a bagel sandwich with a small mountain of French fries at Kansai for lunch. There wasn’t a lot of choice on Rota; the drive to the hotel had revealed only a handful of restaurants. We chose a pizzeria that advertised Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I had a 12-inch pizza, of which I ate half, and Sally had her first fajitas ever. We swore to come back to partake in an entire pint-sized tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

There was a dive shop down the street — Dive Rota — and we popped in to ask them some questions about snorkeling and scuba diving. Mark, the man who ran the shop, wore an “SDPD Forensic Lab” T-shirt with a skull and magnifying glass logo. He was helpful but always doled out his answers in a curiously restrained manner, as if it our questions were rather odd.

After a brief break in the hotel room, we went in search of a beach some JET friends back in Tokushima-ken had told us was nearby in Rota. It was lovely: deserted, bordered by palm trees, sand and shells. The sun had already set. We made a note of it to return sometime during the week. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by a grocery store to stock up on victuals. I bought some cheese puffs (I haven’t had those in FOREVER!), graham crackers (which ended up tasting like soap ... but I ate them anyway), prunes, iced tea, apple sauce and apple-cinnamon pastries for breakfast. Sally bought some cookies, candy bars, cheese puffs, beer and butterscotch pudding.

I spent the night going between my computer and Sally’s as I copied over some of her mp3s to my own computer. So much new music! Finally, around midnight local time, I dropped off to sleep.

Sunday, July 25, 2004 — Snorkeling is SCARY

With no concrete plans, Sally and I slept in and didn’t emerge from our hotel cocoon until 1 p.m. We made our way over to the dive shop to rent snorkeling gear and get some guidance from Mark. He told us the harbor just outside was a great place to snorkel, as long as we stayed out of the way of boats. I looked rather uncertainly at the bay where he’d gestured. The waves crashed onto rocks that corralled the area where the boat pier once stood. A typhoon two years ago had washed away the pier.

Although I preferred going over to the beach we’d visited the night before, I marched with Sally over to the harbor. With great trepidation, I pulled on my fins and snorkeling gear and waddled into the water. With each wave, I felt batted about by the sea. Sally, too, was intimidated. We laughed, albeit sadly, at our predicament: two scaredy-cats too afraid to venture any further. I didn’t like the snorkeling gear — it felt unnatural to breathe constantly out of my mouth — and I didn’t like floating into portions where it was too deep for me to stand. I can swim fine but given the awkwardness of the fins and the difficulty of breathing with the snorkel, and I just couldn’t find my bearings.

Finally, after being buffeted by the waves and our own apprehension, we decided to pack our stuff and head over to the other beach, where it would be shallow enough for us to at least ease into snorkeling. But just as we began walking down the street, past the dive shop, we ran into a guy we’d seen at the dive shop earlier that morning. He asked us why we were headed back so early. Somewhat shame-facedly, we told him we couldn’t work up the courage to snorkel in the harbor. He told us he was getting set to snorkel himself and invited us to join him.

His name was Scott, and he was the local P.E. teacher. It took me a while to realize when he was talking about his kids, he was talking about his high school students. I guess I do the same, too, when talking about my students. Scott was a Minnesota native and had come to Rota a year ago to teach. Sally and I were so glad to finally be in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing.

We eased into the water. Scott gave us some pointers and then started out with Sally. I pulled on my snorkel and mask but found myself frozen with fear. I really couldn’t bring myself to wade out into the depths. Breathing in and out of your mouth is so unnatural! I kept choking on sea water. I couldn’t stand in the deeper water. I was petrified.

It took Scott and Sally a while before they realized I was still standing in the same place they’d left me, the boat ramp. Scott returned and, I think, reevaluated things. He told us we could take things slow and just practice in that area before heading out into the open water. I know snorkeling, in theory, is such an easy thing to do, but I am not a brave person, nor a physical person. Physical tasks take time for me to adjust to and to work through in my head and body.

But finally, I started to figure things out and we left the pier area. It was incredible! The visual clarity was more than I’d ever seen before. We could see coral and sea cucumbers galore. Even fish, occasionally! We must have paddled around for a good hour and a half. I had taken an underwater camera (my most recent of way-cool discoveries) and managed to snap off a few shots when I wasn’t concentrating on breathing and not choking up.

In the end, we pulled ourselves out of the water, drained by triumphant. We gave our thanks to Scott before going in search of sustenance back at the pizzeria. The diner was covered in the graffiti of past customers staking their claim on the restaurant’s walls. While Sally helped herself to some pasta, I had a fruit smoothie in hopes that it could serve as my serving of fruits and vegetables for the day.

That evening, we returned to the shallow beach on the other side of Song Song. Sally is insane about shell-collecting, so I helped her comb the beach. Some boys were running around and they ended up giving Sally the best shell of the lot but unfortunately it still had a creature inside it. Sally kept it anyway. Even though the sun sat on the horizon, about to set, I still felt it was uncomfortably hot. Still, we decided we’d come back to this beach the next day to lounge upon and explore.

Monday, July 26, 2004 — Sally is sunburned

After our snorkeling excursion from Sunday, Sally was already sunburned on her back. So she decided to snorkel while wearing a sleeveless tank today. We departed from the hotel around noon and made our way across town to the nearby beach. It took all of 10 minutes by walking, if even that.

There was a lone gazebo on the beach for shade and to my disappointment, it was already taken up by man who was napping. So Sally and I made ourselves comfortable beneath the shade of some trees on our towels. Because we had some valuables with us — our digital cameras and wallets — with us, we decided to take turns snorkeling into the water. Mark and Dive Rota had told us it wouldn’t be a good idea leaving valuables out. This surprised me. I guess I’ve gotten so used to Japan and how safe it is and come to take that public trust for granted.

While Sally snorkeled in the thigh-deep water, I read. I pulled my baseball cap down low over my eyes and settled into my novel, occasionally stopping to drink some water or reapply sun-block. Aside from the sleeping man, the beach was completely deserted. We spent the next three hours simply switching in and out between lounging on the beach reading and snorkeling in the water. Sally, especially, would go for long lengths of time in the water. One of her excursions lasted a good 50 minutes. This led to the horrible discovery that she’d been sunburned on her bottom rather badly. Poor Sally.

When I went out in the water, I discovered it was shallow enough that I could stand easily, although I tried not to because that usually meant standing on coral. Thank goodness I had on fins. I still didn’t particularly like the snorkel or mask, so I did away with them altogether and donned my swimming goggles instead. I felt much more comfortable simply holding my breath and surfacing to get air.

Around 3 p.m. we decided it was too hot to stay around any more. Too, the sun had moved so that we no longer had any shade under which to hide. We retreated to the air conditioner of our room to clean up. Sally had me install a game emulator on her laptop for further entertainment. I went on reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

For dinner, we returned to the pizzaria. Three days in a row! There were other restaurants but the one I had my eye on was playing loud music so we U-turned around back to Figueroa’s, which still made a good choice because of its expansive menu and tasty food. This time Sally had a vegetarian baked potato and salad while I had sweet and sour chicken with rice. I wasn’t feeling particularly well — I think it may have been largely because of my diet, or lack thereof — but having a “proper meal,” as Sally put it, greatly lifted my spirits and made me feel all better.

In an aside, today is the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Japan. Remember?

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 — Scuba

So, the big day. I actually had been biting my nails (figuratively speaking) in the days leading up to this day. We had a scuba-lesson reserved with the Dive Rota dive-master, Nanette. She was a middle-aged woman, a mom, with blond hair and the whitest, most even set of teeth I’ve ever seen and a cheerful, easygoing attitude. That was good, because I hadn’t fared so well with snorkeling so I was quite apprehensive when it came to even considering scuba diving.

Back in Abilene, I’d tried on a firefighter’s self-contained breathing apparatus. I knew right away I didn’t like having it on my face. I felt like I had to struggle to breathe even though I knew I really didn’t have to. I could feel myself grow panicky while wearing it. I never knew I was claustrophobic until I tried on that mask. It didn’t give me a terribly good feeling about breathing underwater.

Nanette spent the first 45 minutes going over scuba equipment and safety. Sally told her about her ear infection problems and I told her about my claustrophobia. Nanette was so encouraging and understanding. Sally and I had worried that we’d get a hardcore teacher who would be all like, “You can do it! Don’t quit! You can’t quit!” but Nanette was not that at all. She took us back into the harbor to practice some scuba diving skills in about six to seven feet of water. This involved Sally and me waddling across the street to the bay while wearing 40 pounds of gear on our backs and waists: our air tank, vest, regulator, fins, snorkels and weight belts. I could feel the weights, which were like small bricks, digging into my hip bones for a long while after that. And, having been taught our lesson about the stark summer sun, we both were wearing clothes over our swim suits: I had on a T-shirt while Sally had on a tank top and shorts.

Once in the water, we first practiced inflating and deflating our vests. Nanette had us kneel in the water and then let a little water into our masks so we could practice clearing them underwater. Sally went first. Then it was my turn. Just concentrating on breathing calmly was enough of a task for me, so when I had to fill my mask with water and then breathe out in a huff through my nose to clear it, it proved a bit too complicated. <sigh> I started to get panicky so Nanette let me go to the surface. Sally eventually came up, too. I was so sad I wasn’t able to do it, but Nanette reassured me that I should stick with what was comfortable, that 40 feet below was the last place you wanted to venture while uncomfortable. She told me that she was there to guide us, not to push us. I really appreciated her no-pressure attitude.

So finally we settled into this arrangement: Nanette went below to help Sally learn more skills, such as learning to take her mask off entirely while underwater and then putting it back on and clearing it, taking her regulator out and finding it, as well as using Nanette’s emergency regular in case something happened to her own air supply. I practiced just getting used to breathing through the regulator. I didn’t like being weighed down underwater so I stayed on the surface with my head poked down in the water to watch Sally and Nanette. Afterward, we took a swim around the enclosure that surrounded the boat ramp. At one point, Sally handed me a sea cucumber Nanette had picked off the sea floor. It was gross — it suckered itself to my hand, and I had to shake my hand a bit to get it off.

We had signed up for two dives and I think the second dive typically takes place just beyond the enclosure, where we had snorkeled two days before. The floor drops off there and you can see coral. But Nanette said Mark was offering to take us out on the boat to a different spot because he liked us. Hahaha, how nice! Sally would scuba-dive and I would snorkel. We hopped in the boat with Mark, Nanette and Scott, who was going along for fun, and sped over to a nearby point about 15 minutes away. I noticed a loaf of bread on the driving wheel dash and wondered what it was for.

The water was insanely blue. Fluorescent, radioactive blue. I did not know water could naturally look like that. You could look down and see the coral, 10, 20, even 30 feet below. When we stopped, as Sally got on her scuba-diving gear, Mark threw bits of bread into the water. Oh my GOD then all these FISH started swarming around. It was totally “Finding Nemo”-like! All these clownfish and parrotfish! They were beautifully bright, so vivid in the water. I was so amazed and excited.

Sally went over backwards, as instructed, off the boat, and joined Nanette and Scott down below. I pulled on my snorkeling gear and jumped into the water. After trying scuba-diving, snorkeling felt a lot easier. For the 45 minutes or so, I flippered my way around, occasionally lifting my head enough to make sure the boat was nearby. (I had seen a preview for “Open Water,” that terrifying movie where a couple goes scuba diving with a group but the boat forgets about them and leaves them behind, and told Sally, “WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO US!”) The fish would FOLLOW me and surround me at times, close enough for me to brush their scales. Some of the fish were the length of my ARMS, they were so big. I kept thinking about how my dad would have loved to have gone fishing there.

I really WAS swimming with the fishes!

(Yes. This was a Godfather reference I would have to explain to Sally.)

I pulled myself back up on the boat while entertaining thoughts of perhaps going in again, if there was time, but found that I was a bit dehydrated. While I was getting some liquid into my system, I noticed Mark was reading PC Magazine. That launched us into an enjoyable conversation about computers. Mark was telling me about how pretty much if you want something done on the island, you have to do it yourself so he’s had to learn about computers to manage his business’ Web site. While I was chatting with him, drinking mango juice, I could feel the sun roasting my uncovered legs so I pulled out my towel and draped it over my burning skin.

Eventually Sally, Nanette and Scott emerged. Sally was quite enthused by her underwater excursion and couldn’t wait to one day to get her scuba certification. I was a bit more tentative but thought to myself, if I can ski and snowboard and raft, SURELY I can scuba dive, too. I figure I just needed a bit more time to adjust.

We came back to the hotel and conked out for the afternoon before going in search of dinner. Sally wanted to try a different restaurant rather than the pizzeria because we’d been eating there every day. But as we passed by, we heard someone call our name. Scott was eating with a friend on the porch of the pizzeria and they invited us to join them. I didn’t care where we ate but Sally was adamant about trying somewhere new. We politely declined their invitation and went on to a restaurant down the street.

I was somewhat discouraged because Scott had said since coming, he hadn’t eaten at this place yet because he’d been warned against it. Sure enough, when we got to the place, there was no one to greet us at the door. Only two or three tables were taken; the rest were deserted. Sally and I chose a spot just as another family came in. A waiter emerged and gave them their menus first. He gave us some menus, too, but then he took their orders first. This took quite a while as they discussed some problem that had to do with the fact that the only fish they had available cost $60. The waiter kept having to go back and forth between the family’s table and the kitchen. Finally Sally and I gave up on him altogether and left. We slunk back to the pizzeria, where we were greeted by Scott and his friend’s laughter. But we’d learned our lesson. They told us to pull up a chair.

So we spent the evening hanging out with them. The other man turned out to be a 41-year-old Mississippi native named Monty who was a geology graduate student studying Rota geology. Both he and Scott had some really interesting stories to tell about life on Rota and diving. This may have been the bachelors in them talking, but they spoke of how it was cheaper to just eat out all the time (or at people’s homes) than buy and cook your own food. Vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy products — heck, pretty much everything — were hard to come by cheaply.

Monty spent a lot of time hiking around the Rota wilderness to chart tunnels and caves. He’d discovered items left behind on the island by the Japanese from World War II, including a grenade with the pin still inside. Scott had swept the beaches with a metal detector and once came upon a hard object in the sand, which he proceeded to pound and jostle thoroughly in hopes of opening it. When he started not feeling great and smelling something leaking from the mystery metal, though, he began to get an inkling that maybe it wasn’t treasure. It turned out to be a mine. It also made for a great story. Monty and Scott spoke of the lone man on the island who is capable enough to handle computer problems but who refuses to apply his skills to the computer teacher job at the school so he can treasure hunt full-time instead.

Scott related how the boat that Dive Rota uses actually belongs to a Japanese business man who owns a Toyota dealership in Tokyo. His name is Asa-san. Asa-san comes to Rota once or twice a year to “fish.” Apparently his fishing trips involves Mark and Scott taking out the boat and driving it wherever Asa-san directs them to, and then he tells them what lure to use and where to cast the bait. Mark handles the boat and Scott handles the “fishing.” Asa-san directs and then sells the fish they catch. The rest of the time, Mark gets to use the boat as long as he keeps it well-maintained. The boat is called “Asa Kaze,” which means “morning wind.”

They were more than cheerful when it came to sharing diving horror stories, too, such as when they both went down to 100 feet and the current changed while they were down there. Monty was running out of air and Scott was responsible for two reckless divers he’d taken down there. But they also had some wonderful diving stories, too, such as when they swam with melon-headed whales and one day appeared in the harbor.

There are pictures in the Dive Rota shop of these beautiful whales. Apparently earlier this month a huge herd of them showed up in the bay, so a group from Dive Rota jumped in the boat. After dinner, we jumped in the bed of Monty’s pick-up (ME! In a PICK-UP!) and headed to his home, where he showed up photos and video from that fateful encounter. It was incredible, watching the video of how the whales would glide alongside the boat in the water, turning and twisting so gracefully in the water. Monty showed a video of how two whales just started swimming circles around him. The sport where the whales had taken residence was somewhere where the water was so deep, you couldn’t see the bottom, only vast and endless blue all around them. Rota, after all, is in the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands alongside the seemingly bottomless eponymous Mariana Trench.

Monty also showed us pictures of a grotto you can only access by scuba-diving through a tunnel. Scott said there’s a tear in the cave’s roof that allows the sun to stream through for only a few hours every day when the sun is directly overhead. It slices through the stillness of the grotto and shines directly into its pool of water. “You just can’t help but think, ‘There’s treasure down there!’” Scott said of the way the light adds a reverential mystique to the grotto.

Finally, Scott pleaded out, saying he had school to attend the next day. Monty dropped us off at our hotel and we fell asleep around midnight having decided to spend the next day doing as little as possible. Not difficult, considering most of our days on Rota had been spent that way.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 — Doing nothing

Today is the one-year anniversary of my coming to Tokushima! Today is when the newbies arrive — the Tokushima City school district will be getting a JET from New Zealand, one from California and another from TEXAS. The new JET from Texas will be staying in the floor above mine! I’d like to say we’ll be the biggest Texas contingency in the prefecture but, alas, I think that’s a distinction taken by the family from Texas I’d met at the Shikoku University English Camp.

Hahaha, if possible, Sally and I did even less than we’d been doing these past few days. I left the hotel only for two brief trips: One to make a grocery run for crackers, brownies and more tea at the nearby store, and the other, to check out the hotel’s backyard. The rest of the time I holed up in our hotel room doing stuff on my computer, which mainly constituted reading The Da Vinci Code, which had proven to be quite engrossing. It was just far too hot outside to do much more.

Sally left in the evening to comb the nearby beach for more shells. She already had two shell-related problems: figuring out how to transport the small mountain of shells she’d collected earlier this week, as well as dealing with one shell that some neighborhood boys had gifted her that had unfortunately had a creature still inside. Normally you just put the shell back, but Sally had fallen in love with the shell at first sight and refused to part with it. This was a problem. There was something in there and by the next day, it started to smell. On Wednesday, it was still sitting in our balcony, leaking an foul- smelling dark fluid. Sally eyed it a few times, reluctant to do what she knew needed to be done.

Thursday, July 29, 2004 — I’m driving, I’m DRIVING!

We’d arranged for a car rental this morning. Rota has a few sightseeing offerings and we’d decided to spend a day checking them out. At 9 a.m., an Avis representative dropped off a Nissan Sentra for us to use. Sally doesn’t have a license, nor know how to drive a car period, so the driving was left to me. I slipped into the driver’s seat. It felt WEIRD. I hadn’t driven a car in more than a year! Crazy! I adjusted the seat and mirrors, got the A/C going, and we were off!

First on the agenda was the tropical zoo. It was barely a mile or two away from our hotel. When we pulled into grass parking lot (there were few paved parking lots here), there was a man inside wheeling a cart. He turned out to be the lone caretaker. He lackadaisically gave us a quick tour of the zoo, which wasn’t much. Curiously, most of the animals seemed to live on coconuts, and coconuts alone. Well, the fruit bats had a variety of other fruit, too. And the deer ate bananas.

Next, we went in search of the tropical fruit farm that our friends in Tokushima-ken had recommended. As Sally and I had been subsisting on primarily snack food, so we were hoping to get a healthy dose of vegetables into our diet. The map said it was on the other side of the island. We arrived at a fruit farm quicker than we’d expected. “Galani Fruit Farm,” the sign read. There was a scattering of exotic-looking trees and a covered picnic area. A man plodded out to greet us.

We paid $12 for a look-around and a fruit sampling. Sally was increasingly unsure whether this was the right place. Our friends had said they’d been given a tour of their fruit farm. But surely this was the place, right? I mean, how many fruits can a 10-mile island have?

The man pulled a banana-tree leaf onto an outdoor countertop and started slicing up all manners of juicy fruits: guavas, papayas, avocados, bananas, watermelon, starfruit, wild cherries, blackberries. My goodness, a veritable cornucopia! He made us try the starfruit with a salt and chili. We ate the avocado with soy sauce. He called is avocado sashimi. The wild cherries were my favorite — they tasted like POPCORN! The man was the oddest feature of the farm: He would occasionally speak Japanese to us. We would respond in kind, but seriously, it was as if he expected us to speak Japanese. We hadn’t said anything about our background. At first glance, we were just an American and English tourist.

Afterward, he invited us to check out the beach at the base of the fruit farm. We followed a path past flowering trees and creeping hermit crabs down to the farm’s private beach. I explored for a bit before setting on some rocks to read and then moving back up to the fruit farm to read from a swing.

We moved on to do some more sightseeing around the island. But when Sally pulled out the map, there, in stark English, was another tropical fruit farm on a completely different part of the island! What are the odds that there were TWO fruit farms on the island, and that we had gone to the wrong one! Geez. Kind of sad.

Much of the roads on Rota are unpaved. That meant driving at a snail’s pace through the jungle. When we finally emerged off the dirt road, it’d taken us to the other village on Rota. We stopped at a place called the Acoustic Cafe for lunch. A cheeseburger and fries for me and pizza for Sally.

Near the airport was a bird sanctuary. It turned out to be mainly a length of viewing platforms to see the numerous birds that nest along the seaside cliffs of Rota. Then we went in search of a swimming hole in another part of the island. It turned out to be a natural enclosure of rock with a sand-covered floor and some coral. Surprisingly, there were some fish inside, too. Some Japanese people were snorkeling around there.

Finally, we drove by Teteto Beach, a length of seashore Mark and Dive Rota had recommended. It looked promising, so we pledged to come back the next day. After being out for almost a full day, we returned to the hotel feeling like we’d been quite productive. It felt even better not having had to apply three layers of sunblock.

That evening, Sally decide to brave The Shell, the one with something inside it. It was starting to stink up our balcony rather badly. With a grimace and a toothpick, she started trying to scrape out the rotting shellfish. Ugh, I just want to gag, thinking about it. It is surely one of the most disgusting moments I have ever witnessed. Unfortunately, the shell was still suspiciously heavy with decomposing shellfish inside. I told Sally to put it on the balcony on the other side so it could get some direct sunlight.

Friday, July 30, 2004 — Last day in Rota

To avoid the roasting effects of the sun, Sally and I roused ourselves at 8 a.m. so we could hit the beach at 9 a.m. We actually made it around 9:30 a.m. I made myself comfortable on a beach chair and began reading in the shade of some trees.

Water is a funny thing. You never know what swims beneath the surface. We had expected this beach, which also was largely enclosed off from the greater sea through natural rock and coral formations, to be quite similar to the beach that was walking distance from our hotel. Instead, the coral and sea life turned out to be much richer. When I went into the water, I was astounded to see the fish — some quite sizable, considering the shallowness of the water — swimming around. Sally even saw a shark at one point! It was teeming with sea life, making it hard to find a place to stand when the water grew too shallow to safely skim along the surface. It’s why I’d gotten several cuts in the past few days. The coral and rocks just below the water were quite jagged.

There were a number of Japanese tourists at the beach, no doubt dropped off by buses from their beach resort hotels. Sally and I had discussed the phenomena of Japanese tourists, how most of them stay in clusters, with their tour groups, and rarely have the motivation to venture astray. The Japanese also have an astonishing capacity for keeping their skin pale. In Japan, my students always find it intriguing when I wear sleeveless blouses to work — they bring it to my attention by remarking up on how cool I must be. I secretly like to compare my skin tone to other Japanese women because I almost darker. Japanese women often go out on their bikes wearing special sleeves and gloves to prevent the sun from touching their skin. White skin, is after all, a prized feature.

So it was with some amusement that I watched trio of Japanese people brave the beach water in what I liked to call biohazard suits. The only exposed skin I could see was portions of their face not covered by their snorkeling mask. They had on what looked like rain jackets, gloves and long pants. Gloves, too, no doubt, though I can’t quite remember. They actually went into the water wearing all these things. Sally, who was in the water, was actually quite startled by them. I’m all about protecting myself from the sun — I use SPF 45 after all, but there’s safe and then there’s SAFE. I mentally shook my head at such over-carefulness. Then I took a picture.

Eventually, we packed up our stuff and drove back to the hotel. It was a bit overindulgent to have rented a car for the entire day simply to drive to a beach maybe three miles away from us, but renting bikes would have cost almost the same. Sally and I went to the nearby pizzeria down the street for lunch. I had nachos, a dish that turned out to be enough for three people, and ice cream. I’d ordered a scoop of ice cream for dessert but was given an entire pint instead. I was so full from the nachos I barely put a dent in the ice cream. I had to bring it back to the hotel instead. But our little hotel fridge didn’t prove very capable of freezing things. Pity. After stuffing myself with what I could, I had to throw away a good half-pint of ice cream.

As for Sally’s shell, it had dried up some but the flies had gotten to it. She double-wrapped it in plastic bags, stuffed it in a cardboard box, and prayed its stench wouldn’t infect her baggage.

Saturday, July 31, 2004 — Buy, buy, buy

We drove ourselves back to the airport this morning. I was sad to say goodbye to the car; I probably won’t get to drive again for a long while! The Rota airport wasn’t very clearly labeled — we found ourselves waiting in the gate area for a long while before we realized there was a check-in gate outside. We only found this out because Sally had somehow booked the wrong flight back — three hours after mine. At the check-in gate, no one was there. Finally I went to knock on the door behind the counter. The lady came out and cheerfully began to help us as if she had been waiting all that time for us to knock. How exasperating. Island life is too slapdash for me.

At least the airline was very accommodating. We only had 30 minutes until our flight, but it was no problem to switch Sally over to my flight. We shared the Cessna with a sightseeing Japanese family. Otis was our pilot again. And THIS time, I got to sit in the CO-PILOT’S SEAT! “Best seat in the plane,” Otis said. He was based in the Caribbean but occasionally flew elsewhere for his company.

On the quick 25-minute flight back to Guam, which you can see from Rota, I realized that we’d not gone through any metal detectors. This was all put to rest when we arrived at Guam International Airport. There was a security station there set up expressly for our flight. They started going through my laptop bag, opening everything up and making sure everything was in order. I got the frisked by a female security officer. It was probably the most thorough airport security inspection I’d ever been through. Sally’s examination was even funnier: When the airport agent got to her shell bag/box, Sally flat old told her it’d be best not to open up. Well of COURSE they’re going to open it up NOW. Which they did, but not completely. I think the reek may have discouraged them to do any more than feel around to make sure the object of interest was, indeed, a shell. Apparently the odor was pungent enough to pollute the air at Sally’s end of the table.

“They should have just listened to me,” Sally said afterward, shaking her head.

Guam was a dream of consumerism and convenience. At the airport, we got picked up and taken to our hotel. We basically dumped our stuff in our hotel room, made a game plan for the day, and set off for the Micronesian Mall. Oh wait, Sally did make me check on the status of her smelly shell. By now, there were MAGGOTS crawling around it! Sooo grooossss. But, as I said, that was the best way to ensure there wasn’t anything inside.

We caught a bus that goes solely between the beachside hotels and the shopping centers — didn’t even have to rent a car! It was Sally’s first time in an American-style mall. For me, it’d been two months since I’d been to Australia and seen the shopping centers, there. Sally was in heaven when we stepped into the food court. I freaked out when I saw the Taco Bell. I hadn’t eaten at Taco Bell in soooo long! Sally hadn’t had Mexican food before, so it was a treat for both of us.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the mall. I got a Harley-Davidson Guam T-shirt for my dad. Went to an eye check-up. Bought some clothes. Saw a movie, The Bourne Supremacy (Wow — Matt Damon AND Karl Urban! Two for the price of one!). Resolved to see two more movies the next day. It was heaven. To be to able to interact so easily with people! And the price of one matinee movie ticket in Guam was less than a third of the price of a movie ticket in Japan! And though I’m quite proud of how friendly Texas people are, I have to say that Guam people give Texans a run for their money. They might even be FRIENDLIER, if that’s possible! Sally was quite impressed.

After the mall, we caught a bus to the Kmart. There, Sally filled a shopping cart with American food and toiletries. She got so much stuff she had to buy another bag (again, just like Vietnam). We got our underwater photos developed and put on CD. Among a few other things, I got some bath salts to use in the winter when I take my hot baths to stay warm.

We caught the last bus out at 9:50 p.m. The bus driver said he typically didn’t go to our hotel but would make an exception for us. I love Guam! He even drove up the driveway so we didn’t have hike uphill! The day had worked out perfectly.

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2004

Thursday, July 1, 2004 — Just plain lunch

Friday, July 2, 2004 — Open-Mic Night

Saturday, July 3, 2004 — Rafting the Yoshino River

Sunday, July 4, 2004 — Oh God

Monday, July 5, 2004 — Communication is a wonderful thing

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 — Swimming with my students

Thursday, July 9, 2004 — Disillusionment

Friday, July 10, 2004 — Yearbook

Saturday, July 11, 2004 — Sayonara party II

Monday, July 12, 2004 — Wait a minute ...

Tuesday, July 12, 2004 — Progress

Wednesday, July 13, 2004 — Randomness

Friday, July 16, 2004 — Now I know

Saturday, July 17, 2004 — Harry Potter is SO COOL

Sunday, July 18, 2004 — Tainohama

Monday, July 19, 2004 — This is SO FUNNY

Friday, July 23, 2004 — Back to the U.S.! If only for a few hours!

Saturday, July 24, 2004 — Tropical paradise

Sunday, July 25, 2004 — Snorkeling is SCARY

Monday, July 26, 2004 — Sally is sunburned

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 — Scuba

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 — Doing nothing

Thursday, July 29, 2004 — I’m driving, I’m DRIVING!

Friday, July 30, 2004 — Last day in Rota

Saturday, July 31, 2004 — Buy, buy, buy

home japan background maps videos contact me

2003

July August September October November December

2004

January February March April May June July August September October November December

2005

January February March April May June July

2004

Thursday, July 1, 2004 — Just plain lunch

Friday, July 2, 2004 — Open-Mic Night

Saturday, July 3, 2004 — Rafting the Yoshino River

Sunday, July 4, 2004 — Oh God

Monday, July 5, 2004 — Communication is a wonderful thing

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 — Swimming with my students

Thursday, July 9, 2004 — Disillusionment

Friday, July 10, 2004 — Yearbook

Saturday, July 11, 2004 — Sayonara party II

Monday, July 12, 2004 — Wait a minute ...

Tuesday, July 12, 2004 — Progress

Wednesday, July 13, 2004 — Randomness

Friday, July 16, 2004 — Now I know

Saturday, July 17, 2004 — Harry Potter is SO COOL

Sunday, July 18, 2004 — Tainohama

Monday, July 19, 2004 — This is SO FUNNY

Friday, July 23, 2004 — Back to the U.S.! If only for a few hours!

Saturday, July 24, 2004 — Tropical paradise

Sunday, July 25, 2004 — Snorkeling is SCARY

Monday, July 26, 2004 — Sally is sunburned

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 — Scuba

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 — Doing nothing

Thursday, July 29, 2004 — I’m driving, I’m DRIVING!

Friday, July 30, 2004 — Last day in Rota

Saturday, July 31, 2004 — Buy, buy, buy

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