CDs

14/4/12

It’s not even one o’clock and already my day sounds like a series of implausible excuses. I concentrated on my inability to regulate my waking time with so much vigor last night, worrying about tomorrow (more on that later), that I awoke at 7 in the morning. Well, I had saved the ending of this Joan Didion book for tonight, when it’s too late and dark to do anything but stay home, but, you know, it’s 7:45 and rainy…and a few of the Moth podcasts I had saved up, one turned into four out of the ten left, cause I…slipped? I’m saving what in my mind has become the “World Heritage stuff” for a sunny day. And I should study for the LSAT, but oh, I looked over the wrong answers to the test yesterday after I did it, and it’s a good night thing anyway, and I’m only crawling under the blanket on my couch cause it’s cold and I don’t know how to make the heater work…

And when I finally go out, I just happen to wander accidentally into the further CD store (the entrance to the other’s parking lot was blocked! I swear!) which on the outside had many pictures of anime characters, including some of women with breasts bigger than their heads, in a colorful assortment of the stages of undress and eating something bitter. I’ve never seen a shop quite like this one, but I fear it’s attractive power. I think a few CDs were tucked in some corner, justifying the sign, but the rest was filled with video games and consoles, baseball cards, comics, arcade games, DVDs, clothes, backpacks, dirty comics, and something like seven different sources of music, either speakers or TVs playing loops, one of the former being (get this) that one hit Finch had once when we were growing up. There seemed to be more to the store, but I caught myself considering an N64 at one point (~$20, but I don’t have a TV or any games) and, avoiding attention, attempted to locate the exit.

Which brings us to today’s little pleasure – no, not the dirty comics. I went to the other CD store which had “books” which meant more manga and dirty comics, and possibly some normal books, but my Hiragana is still rough and my kanji laying with fixed and dilated pupils. The one aisle they had on CDs from out of the country was actually pretty reasonably stocked. Most things were between fifteen and twenty bucks, but their used section was even more well stocked. I returned home with a stack of six, something I haven’t done since 2009. As the British say, Smashing! This is how I make a good mood. Though they had Leann Rimes, Simon & Garfunkel, Meat Loaf, and Van Halen, they had the Cardigans, the Cranberries, Massive Attack, Silverchair, Halestorm, and the Corrs (yeah, yeah, kind of flavorless, but they have their time and place; they’re the water to my wine). All I can say is thank you Sara Starkey for leaving me a CD player, who/wherever you are. Also, I have some of your mail.

Now I just need to solve that alarm clock problem, which is why I originally set out. I don’t mind not getting breakfast tomorrow, but getting to school on time (hold back, memories!) is another matter.

Yesterday is yet another matter. I met the other ALTs here and we are few. I count eight in my head, including two girls (both from the Phillipines) and one aussie who had come from Sydney to the airport to the meeting that day. One Japanese teacher from each school came, and they discussed…something. We sat at the side of the room, and I, between Greg (the one who I corresponded with before I left) and Jeremiah, another ALT (who apparently knew Rick [for my Seattle friends, he told me about the job]) gathered as much information as I could as quickly as I could. When Murakami-san gave me my car, he showed me my two schools, but here I learned where in the school and when to go, the best place to buy fruits/veggies, milk/eggs, meat, the location of a pachinko palace, and got my schedule for the entire year (somewhat unbelievably to me, layed out entirely on two pages with space to spare). I learned where to get a phone, potential problems with signing a contract, how signatures here are replaced with a circular stamp called a hanko which has your family name, that I can use Jeremiah’s internet in a pinch, I can purchase an American-style fridge (which goes up to and beyond my waist, unlike the current one). What’s more, partly from driving around but mainly from talking, the town seems much smaller and more useful than it did at the start of the day. I found out from my lovely girlfriend that my power cable should be here in two or three days, and after Murakami-san and Taka(hiko-san, or is it Aiuchi-san?) took me to get my own hanko (which sounds humorously like honk-o), I can get internet and a phone and a bank account set up. Should be ready on Tuesday. (Taka is much younger than Murakami-san, very good with his English, and a very slick character by all appearances, but how much I will see him in the future is in doubt).

I got to meet with the teachers from my two schools afterwards, Imaichi Jr. High, and is my m-o everyday except Wednesdays, where I wheel across town to the junior high school named…Kobayashi! No word yet on if they serve Coney Island franks for lunch. My two teacher representatives that I met are Miho Eda and Naoyuki Shimizu, though properly called in Japanese Eda-sensei and Shimizu-sensei. Shimizu-sensei was in a large suit and some large glasses, keeping a straight face through the proceedings and jokes, wearing his wrinkles well, gained from no doubt more years of experience than I have at anything. His school, Kobayashi, is small he said, twenty kids a class, and only so many teachers, and didn’t seem to have much to give me. That, or Eda-sensei kept me too occupied until our time was up. She was short, by admission several years older than me but hiding all appearances of it. To go with her sweater and skirt, which seemed to be the standard outfit for all of the female teachers in attendance, she had a bob-cut and instructions for my first day – I should make a quiz about myself and introduce myself to the classes for the day. Shimizu-sensei said nothing on this, but I assume it will be the same. As the two discussed changes to my schedule for the year (some days cancelled, woo!), I saw, to my surprise, all of the teachers had been handed our resumes, translated. I could make out “GameXplain”, “Monthly Moose”, “Exigere Corp”. And next to my picture, Eda-sensei had written “very tall”. When she saw me read it, she covered her mouth with both hands as she laughed.

Jeremiah, shorter, freckled, informative, and apparently set to live here for some long time beyond his already accumulated three years, mapped for me many of the shops mentioned above, told me how to get a phone, things to watch out for, and offered to come with me, as well as invite me to a Costco run tomorrow. He has no trouble finding “Sara’s old place” and offered to pick me up at 7am, and allowed me to use his computer for the quiz and the pictures that will be part of the self-introduction Monday. “Hey,” he said, “I like helping people,” and one wonders if this is why he is going into his fourth year teaching.

One last interesting note – Murakami-san and Taka, who apparently remembered me from my interview in January too me to order a hanko, ready on Tuesday. The sounds of the Japanese alphabet always end in a vowel (almost) and breaking these sounds of a name up allow it to be translated, which, if you think about it, account for a lot of the accent. Syllables ending in consonants other than N become difficult, and usually become more than one before getting changed into katakana characters. However, the vowel sound “I” as in “lie” doesn’t exist. The two of them and the hanko shop owner weren’t sure how to spell my last name, then. Some time ago, Greg had translated it into katakana, but this had been four characters, and the head of the stamp was not very big, made to facilitate the much more common two-kanji names of the Japanese. They asked me how I wanted it written, knowing I was at least familiar with the vowel sounds of Japanese if not all of the characters. I was immediately and briefly reminded of Sharif Ali from Lawrence of Arabia when he learns Lawrence was born out of wedlock. Lawrence is tired from his heroic deeds saving Gasim, and additionally so from the story, not his proudest, especially in the very religious and patriarchal Arabia of the first World War. He doesn’t give up any more information than he has to to satisfy Ali’s questions. When Ali learns the truth, he smiles and tells Lawrence, “It seems you are free to choose your own name, then.” Lawrence, satisfied, rolls over and goes to sleep. In the hanko shop, I felt the same sudden freedom to invent myself. In the pronunciation of my name, I am limited. What it comes to mean, I am not. Nor are ay of us, I suppose, but with all of my life resets, and knowing another is coming, maybe my little Suzuki Alto can be like a camel in the desert. So continue the adventures in Japan.

-Laughing Cloud

 

P.S. We took an approximation of the Norwegian pronunciation and went with “Lee-suh-tah”, leaving off for spatial reasons the “duh”

 

Summation of the Action: No advancement on the list today.