July 2005
Saturday, July 2, 2005 — Dinner with Kamona teachers
The first of my good-bye dinners was today. This is what happens when you leave the country: Lots of people take you to dinner. Today it was with the English teachers at Kamona Junior High School. I also had two lunches, another dinner and party on the way. I hoped I’d have the endurance to last. That’s a lot of big meals!
My English teachers at Kamona had been planning this dinner since, like, May. They asked me what kind of food I liked and even kindly invited two former Kamona teachers with whom they knew I was close. It was so lovely of them. We ate at this tiny little Italian restaurant. I was really happy to see Miyata-sensei and Morita-sensei there; I had not seen them in a while.
Afterward, the two male teachers took off. Morita-sensei had to go home to watch her kids, who were home alone. But Miyata-sensei and Maeda-sensei invited me to go to a café with them. Their manner surprised me, as if all along they had planned to move on to a café. Maybe it’s simply the way these things work, and I just didn’t know. We spent another few hours there in conversation, listening to the rain pour down.
Sunday, July 3, 2005 — I hate Yahoo BB
I am an Internet addict. I completely don’t deny it. Internet was like, my first priority when I came to Japan. So when I came home Friday night to find myself with no Internet, I was very, very unhappy. I thought maybe it had to do with the fierce storm that had unleashed heavy rains, thunder and lightening. I waited it out, hoping the connection would come back as it always has.
It didn’t. I was growing more agitated by the minute. If ever I needed Internet, it was now, when I was putting together my job applications. With my Internet service out, that also meant I had no cheap phone service, which meant I couldn’t make overseas phone calls. So this morning I called my ISP, Yahoo BB, at their English-language line.
It wasn’t pretty.
I started out pleasant enough. I told them my Internet was out and I didn’t know why. The woman checked my account. She said, “That’s because you called last week and said to cancel your Internet at the end of July. That’s why it turned off on Friday.” I reacted violently.
“No. NO. NO,” I said. “I called last week to tell them to turn it off AT THE END OF JULY.”
And I HAD, TOO. When I’d called to cancel Yahoo BB, I’d spoken to a man who had excellent English. I’d said July very clearly several times. He’d said July very clearly several times. He explicitly said, “We will turn off your Internet at the end of July.”
There had been NO MISUNDERSTANDING.
I told the woman this. She was NO HELP AT ALL. “I’m sorry,” she said, no sounding sorry at all. “We can’t do anything about it. Your account is closed.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I demanded. “How am I supposed to get Internet?”
“You could apply again for Internet,” she said. Then she said it’d take A WEEK at least to get all that set up. I was only going to be here for THREE MORE WEEKS, so that was a pointless option.
“This is NOT MY FAULT,” I pointed out, seething, to her. “THIS IS YOUR COMPANY’S FAULT. YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
I am typically not a violent person, but I wanted to strangle her.
I demanded to speak with Takuro, the man to which I’d talked with before. She refused. “I’m responsible for this phone conversation.”
Fine, I said. And hung up.
It really, really stressed me out to suddenly be cut off like that. I was going to have to do my company research elsewhere. I was going to have to find another way to make international phone calls. My dad pointed out if it’d happened in the U.S., the ISP probably would have at least done something to appease me. I talked about it later with Sally and she totally understood my rage and resentment. “Japan thinks it has great customer service, but it doesn’t,” she said. “When you really need customer service, they’re completely useless.”
I had to agree.
Tuesday, July 5, 2005 — Squid and octopus for lunch. I’m so not kidding.
Yes, we had takoyaki — octopus dumplings — served with rice and another dish of vegetables and squid slices. Only in Japan, I thought, struggling to get the takoyaki down. Only in Japan.
Thursday, July 7, 2005 — At the BOE, London bombings
I was supposed go to elementary school today but my elementary school switched dates and asked me to come next week instead. That mean I had to spend the day at the board of education office. I asked my supervisor what I’d be doing. She said vaguely, “Oh, you know … planning.” Well, as I had no classes to plan, I took this to mean, “Whatever you want.” This was good. I had lots to do for my job search and I’d have the spare computer with Internet access all to myself, along with access to a laser printer.
It was a very productive day.
In the afternoon, my supervisor asked me to run an errand for her at the 100-yen store. I found some cool stuff for myself there, too. I was pleased.
That evening, Sally and I had arranged to have dinner with Chanda. Chanda picked me up in her car and drove me to the area where we’d planned to meet. But Sally called saying she couldn’t leave her apartment just yet — something terrible had happened in London, and she wanted to watch the news some more.
So Chanda and I went to Sally’s place. It was so disorienting, seeing the images of the London bombings on TV. Almost déjà vu like, after Sept. 11. Seeing people stagger around, blood on their faces and clothes. I wondered what the newspapers were doing back home; it was still quite early. Sally was really agitated because a lot of her friends are in London and ride the Underground. We stayed for about an hour in time to see Prime Minister Tony Blair give his first words on what had happened.
Dinner was a quick affair in a deserted Italian restaurant. They’d taken our favorite dishes off the menu, so it wasn’t as cool a dinner as I’d expected, but I enjoyed the company.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 — Job applications
I send out my job application this week. Oh, God. The wracking self-doubt.
Thursday, July 14, 2005 — BOE enkai
The board of education goodbye banquet for Sally and me was a good example of why all-you-can-drink alcohol at business functions is such a bad idea.
The dinner started out normal enough, with assigned seating and Dan being late. Dan is always late. He’d fallen asleep. The department head gave a speech thanking us for our work. Sally and I gave a few words. Then the food came out. As per the assigned seating, Sally and I were in the middle of the table beside each other. Sally sat to my right. Watari-sensei sat to my left. Watari-sensei and I are on pretty good terms; after all, he’d invited my sister and me to dinner when she’d visited, and then helped her buy sake for her friends. But Sally and Watari-sensei hate each other. Watari-sensei has been known to trash-talk about Sally to other ALTs. He is a retired English teacher but he’s spent some time at Sally’s school. He disapproves of her not following “the Japanese way.” Sally despises him for publicly airing his grievances.
Watari-sensei ended up getting completely, blisteringly wasted. This led to him dominating the conversation. At first, his attention was one of the ALTs who spoke good English. He praised the ALT for studying Japanese and for thinking of others first. This was not going in a good direction. Then he turned his attention on Sally and began making oblique references to his disapproval of her. At one point — and I don’t know if this was the language difference, as Watari-sensei’s English is quite good, or the alcohol speaking — he said he hated people from the U.K. As we have two British ALTs, I’m not really sure where he was going with that.
He just kept getting louder and more obnoxious. He kept flinging his hands in my face, gesturing. I scooted my chair back to avoid getting hit in the face. Sally held her tongue but watched him sourly continue his random rantings. He even came out and said, “You don’t like me?” almost aggressively to Sally. I was appalled at his behavior. The BOE employees just looked uncomfortable and silent.
Some of the ALTs tried to redirect the conversation. They pointed out how this was, after all, our goodbye party and some respect should be shown. The damage had been done, though. The dinner was called to a close and everyone started heading out. My supervisor anxiously asked if I’d enjoyed the dinner. As I was still agitated by Watari-sensei, I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I should have been. She had done a good job of planning it and up until his tirade, I’d enjoyed the evening.
Neither Sally and I felt like going on to the usual “second party” — traditionally, a karaoke or bar setting. We left. I saw Sally home and then rode back to my place. What upsets me so much about this is that tomorrow, Watari-sensei probably won’t even remember how he treated Sally. And no one will bring it up to him, either. That’s the Japanese way. What happens at the enkai, stays at the enkai. He will be none the wiser, while Sally gets the memory of what has got to be one of worst goodbye parties ever.
Friday, July 15, 2005 — Kurohashi’s fête
Luckily for us, our calligraphy teacher Kurohashi-sensei had planned a goodbye party for us, too. It turned out to be a wonderful evening, full of yummy Japanese food and warm, delightful conversation — a diametrically different version of the night before.
Kurohashi-sensei is inexplicably one of the most traditional and least traditional Japanese people I know. She is the consummate hostess. She anticipates your every need. She has an amazing memory; she knows when my birthday is, what my favorite color is. It’s mind-boggling. But she also does crazy things like travel to foreign countries simply to pick tea leaves and make tea. She goes to Bosnia in the dead of winter. She is the coolest Japanese person I know.
She invited her calligraphy students to the fete. So people of all ages were there, plus a male friend of hers from Kamiyama, a laid-back guy with a good sense of humor. There were self-serve dumplings. You could make them with octopus — i.e., takoyaki — or any of an assortment of foods, from cheese, bacon, cabbage and corn to chocolate. We called those dumplings “chocoyaki.” They tasted curiously like chocolate-chip pancakes.
And the gifts! Yoko, a former student of mine, gave me a burned CD of songs from her favorite singer, Gackt. Yuri, the little girl who’d given me so much help at my first calligraphy lesson, gave me a letter and drawing. She was so shy, she insisted I not open her envelope there. Yoko, an adult calligraphy student, gave me chopsticks. Even the Kamiyama guy gave me something, and it was only the second time I’d met him! He gave me some traditional Japanese good-luck charms.
Kurohashi-sensei, of course, gave the gift to end all gifts. She gave Sally and me a gorgeously decorated album of our works, starting from Day 1! See, every week we submitted our best works to her. We were curious what happened to them. She told us they went to a shrine, where they were burned. Apparently she’d just been mysteriously squirreling them away. Sally had stopped going months ago but I’d done lessons up until the end of June, when she’d had me write the characters for Japan, “Nippon,” because they were the first characters I’d ever written. She’s fabulous — such a sense of circular endings.
She also gave us a wall scrolls made from indigo dye. We’re supposed to slip a shikishi, one of those ceremonial pieces of cardboard, on which we’d written some our calligraphy into it.
The party ended with lots of picture-taking, address-swapping and sweets. Kurohashi bid farewell to Sally. As for me, I’m coming back next week to get a Kurohashi’s next foreign student, Melissa, a Canadian ALT, started.
Sunday, July 17, 2005 — Lunch with Miyata-sensei, dinner with Kiyomi
Saying good-bye is never fun, but today was an example of the best kind of way you can go about doing it. A former English teacher, Miyata-sensei, invited me over to her home for lunch and another former English teacher, Kiyomi, met up with me for dinner.
I had a bunch of leftover taco ingredients I’d mistakenly bought that week and, knowing I’d not get a chance to use them before I left, I carted them over to Miyata-sensei’s house. I knew she’d appreciate them and put them to good use. Japanese instructions had been stickered to the back, so she wouldn’t have any problems assembling the tacos.
Her adorable daughter and son, Nagisa and Tora, greeted me at the elevator door when I arrived on their floor. Nagisa got all excited when she saw the taco ingredients; she’d been a big fan since the last meal. Miyata-sensei had already prepared some Japanese food for lunch, though. The disappointment was plain on Nagisa’s face. It was a face you could not deny for long. Miyata-sensei caved and said maybe they’d have tacos for dinner, restoring the sunshine. So unbearably cute, they are.
Miyata-sensei’s husband, who works for a company that makes LED displays, spoke of his time in New Zealand and the United States. It was cool to talk with him because he understood how there’s a cut-off point of living abroad when you start to get antsy to return home. He knew where I was coming from. It was surprising, however, to learn that living in Auckland had been somewhat of a bore for him. He also revealed his company made the LEDs used in the giant screens in the Toyota Center where the Houston Rockets play. Who would have known there’d be a Tokushima connection in Houston?
Finally, it was time for me to go. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. We’d had lunch, a desert of ice cream, and finally tea. I’m going to miss those simple, but several-course meals. Nagisa returned from playtime with her dad and brother outside. I got ready to go. Her face fell when she learned I wasn’t staying for dinner, too. She gave me a hug, which was heartbreaking. I told her to come visit me in the U.S. I’m really going to miss her and her family. They were so good to me.
A scant few hours later, Kiyomi was picking me up for dinner. She let me pick the restaurant. I knew it would have been wise to eat at a Japanese restaurant seeing as how I was leaving in a few days but I am not the wisest of people. I told her there’d been this restaurant Sally had recommended to me for its Western food and large portions. I wasn’t so keen on the big portions but I was craving Western food. Kiyomi humored me and took me to the place, called Tomato and Onion.
And let me tell you, my burger was delicious.
We went to make print club afterward. Ah, print club, how I will miss you, too. One of the most representative things of that crazy, crazy thing known as Japanese youth culture. Kiyomi dropped me off with the generous promise to chauffeur me to Tokushima Station on my Friday, when I was leaving for the airport.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005 — Hot waiters who speak English: one of my best meals ever
It’s interesting to see the differences between my two junior high schools. At Kamona, the teachers had brought up my good-bye dinner in March. Not that it takes much to plan a dinner, but they’d kept in mind for a while and, as I’d mentioned, even thoughtfully invited two former teachers of mine to join us. This is how the English teachers brought up my good-bye dinner, a week or two before my leaving:
Teacher: “You must be busy.”
Me: “I’m sorry?”
Teacher: “You must be busy, since you’re leaving soon.”
Me: “Oh, yes I am. I’m busy.”
Teacher: “Let’s have a party!”
Me: “A what?”
Teacher: “A party!”
Me: “Um … I don’t understand.”
Teacher: “A party for you!”
Me: “Er … okay …”
I wasn’t too keen on having a party but she finally explained she meant a dinner. I know this sounds totally ungrateful of me, but I’m not nearly as close with the Kokufu teachers as I am the Kamona teachers and thus didn’t really need or really want any special outing. The Kokufu teachers, while nice, I felt never really tried to get to know me. I was a tool at their disposal. But a dinner, I thought, wasn’t so much to ask.
Today also was the second-to-last day of school. During fifth period, I gave my good-bye speech. The students were so touching. They did it all in English with a Japanese translation. Even the principal, Takahashi-sensei, gave me a thank-you speech in English, which was translated in Japanese for the students’ benefit. They even gave me flowers once more, just like I had when I’d first arrived and given my self-introduction speech.
That night, Nishibayashi-sensei (try saying that 10 times fast) picked me up. Apparently she lived in my neighborhood. Her daughter, Mao, actually was one of the two girls I’d coached for speech contest at Kamona JHS when I’d first arrived, was in the backseat. Mao was a high school student now.
I had thought my teacher’s bringing her daughter to dinner would be spectacularly awkward — I mean, seriously, what teenager wants to be dragged along for something like this? But Mao still had the same lovely poise she’d had when I first met her, and her English was spectacularly good, considering. She went to English conversation school to hone it.
We arrived at Pacific Harbor, which turned out to be probably the poshest restaurant I’d stepped foot in since arriving in Tokushima. It had a view of the water. The carpet was plush, the lighting tastefully dim. Everything reeking “expensive.” There was a guy standing the foyer wearing a suit and a Secret Service-style earpiece who ushered to our seats. The evening was looking up, and turned out to be far more pleasant than I’d expected.
The seating helped. I sat on one end and Mao an English teacher, the one I’m probably most at ease with, sat next to me. The other three teachers — Mao’s mom, another teacher (the one seriously nervous around me because her English skills were so lacking) and a former Kokufu teacher they’d invited along — made themselves on the other end.
I spoke English all evening long. I noticed the waitress serving us glancing curiously at me. Then, she surprised me. She spoke perfect English. When she explained the first dish in the multi-course meal we’d all ordered, she spoke to the others in Japanese. Then she told me what it was (sea bream in some vegetable-y stuff … I’m terribly and identifying and remembering food-related details) in English. I was so surprised and pleased! This continued throughout the night. Some male waiters helped her lay out the food and the one who spoke to us also spoke English to me.
This may have been why I noticed that all the male waiters at this restaurant were hot. I discussed this with Sally afterward and she said that she, too, had been noticing the attractiveness of Japanese men lately. We surmised this was directly connected with our dwindling time in Japan.
Anyways, the dinner was lovely. Eventually I even asked our waitress about her English skills. She said she’d lived in London for three years and had just returned that past spring. That explained a lot. The food was yummy and just enough to make me pleasantly full … even if it did mysteriously make me quite ill later on … Before the fallout, I called Sally that night to enthusiastically recommend the restaurant to her since she was staying a week longer than me.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005 — Last day of school, turning over calligraphy
My last day of school was not so different from all the other days I’d spent. There was the 8:10 a.m. teachers’ meeting. I spoke then for the second and last time during my two years in Japan at that school to briefly thank the teachers specifically. The staff usually uses this time to impart information to everyone else. I typically read the newspaper.
I had no classes, although the students did, throughout the morning. I still had much to do. The third-year English teacher was getting an early start on the JHS speech contest and was keeping busy dealing with the students’ speeches. The process: The students wrote their speeches in Japanese. She translated them to English. I corrected and essentially rewrote the speeches.
This led to realize a cardinal difference between Japanese and English: Japanese, like the culture, relies largely on the unsaid. English deals in details. While going through the speeches, I found myself constantly going back to the teacher to ask, “What’s an example of this?” “What does he mean here?” “What else did she do?” The exchange was exasperating for both of us. I explained that I felt details, rather than vague generalities, would make the speeches stronger. It was an arduous process — me asking her, her asking the student, the student coming up blank.
I ate my last school lunch, which was woefully forgettable. I’d made a batch of purikura with Kiyomi during our dinner but ran out quickly as my students came to my desk asking for print club stickers and my address.
After school was spent working on speech contest with four students. That in itself confounded me because only two students per school are allowed to compete. But my teacher had asked for volunteers and gotten a surprising overflow and, though encouraging, she didn’t know how to decide on two. Privately, I wondered about that, but said nothing.
But finally my time was up. I gathered what little was left of my things and went to the front of the teachers’ room to say good-bye to the principal and vice principals. And before I knew it, I was biking for the last time from work to home.
There was little time for lollygagging, though. I’d found a replacement for my calligraphy class. Melissa, a first-year ALT from Canada (whose sister, Audrey, was also a Tokushima ALT), had expressed interest in joining Kurohashi-sensei’s class. I’m pretty protective of the class and said as much but Melissa seemed a good fit. She said she understood my attitude and felt the same about her karate class. We met at a nearby video store and I showed her where Kurohashi’s classroom was.
It was bittersweet to be showing Melissa the ropes, however quickly. This class had given me so many more things than a rudimentary grasp of Japanese calligraphy. I was sad to be leaving it behind. I was happy that Kurohashi would be continuing to teach a foreign student, though. She has such a thirst for knowledge about many things, other cultures and languages chief among them.
Takuya-kun, otherwise known as The Devil, was there. He’s the little boy who threw my bike key into the parking lot. He was as insolent as usual.
Takuya: “You’re leaving?”
Me: “Yeah. You happy?”
Takuya: “Oh yeah, you know it!”
Okay, so maybe I’m taking some liberties in the translation, but that’s the gist of it. Takuya still insisted on calling me “Chibi.” The cheeky little git. Kurohashi-sensei said that’s how he showed he liked me. I wished Melissa luck with him and said good-bye for the last time to Kurohashi.
Thursday, July 21, 2005 — Packing up
There are few things that I detest more than moving. Boxing stuff up. Deciding what to take and leave behind. Getting your stuff together. I gave myself a day to do that. My usual means of packing involves strewing everything on the floor and then slowly, agonizingly, deciding what will go into my suitcases. It was my last day in Japan.
My supervisor came that afternoon to help me close my bank account. The hours passed in a blur of money changing hands. First, she gave me a wad of cash, the school district’s lump sum reimbursement for my flight home. Then I withdrew all the money from my bank account so I could close it. After that was taken care of, I wired most of the cash home through the ATM. It was my first time doing the process by myself, without the aid of a bank attendant, and I was proud of not wiring it into oblivion, at least after several aborted attempts involving the guess-and-check pushing of buttons.
From there, we returned to my apartment, where my landlady gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up for the condition of my apartment. She said something about girls being cleaner than boys. It made me curious what past male occupants had done to the apartment. Then again, I am pretty OCD about cleanliness. She handed me most of my key money — remember that? The “gift to the landlord” that I had to give to her when I first arrived. Then I had to fork over a couple bills to my supervisor to pay for the bills that would come in after I’d left.
I was glad I had two suitcases, one of which was quite giant and expandable. Unfortunately, the more they expanded, the more I was able to put in them and thus the heavier they got. I was pretty certain the larger of the two was over the 70-pound weight limit. Sally told me to be grateful for the U.S. international baggage limit, as the U.K. limit is something like 40 pounds.
That evening, we met for some Mexican food, which we polished off with some donuts at Mr. Donut. We finished the night hanging out at her apartment. I’m really going to miss Sally. She has been my closest friend in Japan. Fate threw us together from our first day in this country and I’m glad it did. We’ve been through international travel, hostile management, maggot-laden seashells, culture shock and many other things together. She’s always had my back. I hope I was able to do the same for her.
Friday, July 22, 2005 — Good-bye Japan
So, the big day. I’d slept in my living room on a futon for the last time. I woke early to take a shower for the last time in my crazy-contraption shower, get rid of my trash and do some last-minute packing. Kiyomi graciously offered to help me with my luggage and drive me to Tokushima Station.
The two of us dragged my suitcases, which together easily outweighed each of us, down three flights of stairs. Kiyomi managed this in heels, an admirable accomplishment. I joked we should have put her boyfriend, a Southerner (American Southerner) measuring 6 feet 5 (keeping in mind Kiyomi is my height, which means he more than topped her by a foot), to work instead.
Kiyomi, Sally, my calligraphy teacher Kurohashi-sensei, my former Japanese teacher Watari-sensei and Junko, a friend and employee at the TOPIA international center, saw me off at the bus stop. It was much more than I’d expected.
Sally, who’d been plagued with guilt for not being able to cry when her students had thrown her a going-away party (she’d found out afterward that they’d made it one of their goals to wring tears out of her … and they’d failed, obviously), even managed a tear or two. As sad as I was to be leaving such good friends and people behind, she especially knew I was extremely relieved to be going home. It was just time.
At the airport, I got a cart to push my stuff around. I cringed a little at the stares. Japanese people pack pretty lightly and I had enough stuff for more than two people and I was obviously by myself. I tried to console myself by telling myself that I was moving countries and that’s much more involved than a trip’s worth of packing.
The United Airlines counter employee informed me my suitcase was too heavy. No surprise there. I tentatively asked how much the overweight baggage charge was. “Oh, very expensive,” he said. “About $600.” I’d been prepared to pay … but not $600. Thank goodness I was three hours early (the bus schedule hadn’t permitted anything else) and the line was extremely thin. I lugged my luggage to an open area and began pulling stuff out of my larger suitcase and cramming it into my backpack and laptop, praying I got enough out. I was about seven kilograms over.
The United employee, I have to say, was very nice about it. He came over to check on me, asking if I was okay. I told him I wasn’t sure if I’d taken out of seven kilograms. My carry-on luggage didn’t look like they could take anymore. He heaved my gear to the weigh-in, where it barely passed muster. It was two kilograms over still. He said he’d let it pass. And thank goodness for that.
At 3:25 p.m., right on time, my one-way flight to the U.S. took off.
Sayonara, Japan.
Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2005 — Fin
Apologies for the extreme tardiness of my last post. The moment I returned home, real life and all its obligations and unpredictabilities whisked me away. I just got back from a road trip through the Midwest. The job search is upon me. Thank you for reading, and for caring. I hope you've learned a little about Japan from this online journal. It's been an adventure.
Peace.
• my students
• the honor code
• mikan
• powdered milk tea
• transport system
• mochi/Japanese sweets
• no tipping
• easily being able to split the bill
• punctuality
• onsens
• Japanese food
• print club
• orderliness
• my calligraphy class
• being able to use Yahoo! Maps
• street names
• Mexican food
• drivers (at least they stop at red lights)
• my bed
• my car
• central A/C and heating
• being able to use a credit card
• Western mentality
• cheap domestic travel
• straight talk
• space
• wide roads
• my mom’s cooking
• pick-up trucks
Umbrellas purchased: 4
Umbrellas “borrowed”: 1
Umbrellas broken: 3
Earthquakes felt: I don’t remember, because I usually thought it was a dream
Major islands of Japan visited: 3 of 4
Categories trash must be sorted into in Tokushima: 8
Trash cans purchased: 3
Junior high schools where I taught regularly: 2
Total number of junior high school students: 1,100
Average number of students per class: 37
Elementary schools where I taught regularly: 3
Largest number of students in one elementary-school class: 38
Largest number of elementary-school students taught at one time: a gym’s worth
One-shot schools: 3
Times I did my self-introduction: it feels like 1,000
Times I brought my bike in for repairs: 4
Times my tires had to be replaced: 3
Trips on a bullet train: 2
Occupied apartments in my building: 4
Apartments occupied by foreigners in my building: 3
Cost to call the U.S. through Yahoo BB: 2.5 yen a minute
Cost to call the U.S. through NTT, the resident Baby Bell: 50 yen a minute
Complete episodes of anime watched: 0
The irony of this: huge
Calligraphy level out of 10, with 1 being the best: 8
Regrets: 0