My apologies to all, especially Grams who reminded me of the fact that I have not updated my blog in a while. I would plead bussiness, or lack of access to technology, but neither is the case.

Things are going very well in Japan. I was very sorry to hear about the shootings in Virginia and elsewhere. There is a psychologist from Mito, the big city an hour and a half to the south, who comes to my Junior High school once every week or so. We discussed how frequently things like this occurred in our countries. I could tell he wanted to put the best face on Japan, as I did for America, but we both had to admit that even decent countries have some very damaged individuals. Dad, you will enjoy this, we discussed the comparative virtues of Freudian and Yeungian methodologies. Yes, his English was excellent, and yes, it was a very basic converstaion, ha ha.

I am more than half-way through my first month at my second school, and I find that I have become very attatched to the ni-ninsei class, or second-year (8th grade equivalent) at both schools. I know already that I will be sorry to leave them, or for them to leave me, however that comes to be.

I say things like, sumimasen (excuse me) and arigatou gozaimasu (thank you) without thinking, and I am beginning to at least recognize most of the elements of the kanji. Even if I don`t know it, I have at least seen and identified the parts of most of the daily ones.

Learning conversational Japanese is hard without a tutor. Speaking of which, I am now tutoring a young woman by the name of Hideko. We meet once a week and I get a free meal and a nice hourly fee to have fun chatting in English. What a gig. Her family is very kind, and they are always very happy to see me. The mother feeds me from the moment I walk in the door, and the father will get me drunk under the table unless I decline his pouring. I wasn`t able to stop him the first time... and I don`t remember much of the next morning, but after that, we found a nice balance.

I have spiders the size of small American housepets living outside my apartment... check that... hanging, nay, lurking above the walkway to enter my apartment, and on the back porch. I played spider ball with my broom last night, but one of them, which I thought I hit particularly hard, was 2/3 of her way through reconstructing her web in the same spot from which I smacked her 20 feet away. These things aren`t natural, I tell you. They`re not quite the size of tarantulas, but those at least have the decency to not hang over your head by the dozens, RIGHT outside your door. Argh.

Steven and I have developed a good friendship. We watch each others backs, have a few laughs, watch Japanese TV shows like Proposition Daisakusen (Operation Love, and do dinner together most nights. Hmmm... when I put it that way it sounds like a girlfriend. Well, I can at least say he`s not crazy, so maybe this is preferrable.

I have been making games for my students, and they have really loved them.

Souji time! (Cleaning Time) Ggrabs a broom and make it shine. Goly gee its Souji time!

...and I quote...

My friend and next door neighbor Steven Wagner, aka Shirokuma, ie White Bear, fellow English teacher, fellow Georgian in exile, and a man of fine character and whit, has many a time lifted my spirits with his humor. On one such occasion as we were discussing the many affable quirks of Nippon while walking back with groceries, two dudes on very effeminate and rinky looking motorcycles drove by. I commented that they were not very "cool" as bikes went, and Steven offered this as a rebuttal.

"No, dude, they`re cool, you see. You just don`t understand cause you`re not from here. Somehow, the notion of being macho in Japan has managed to incorporate freshly tweezed eyebrows."

Point and Match. Well played Mr. Wagner. Well played.

Made it

So, I made it. Though, twice I thought I might not, I have in fact lived to tell the tale. Please forgive the wretched grammar of my previous post. It was done from a cell phone in the dead of night with animals running around my "tent", so I plead paranoid fear as the cause of my poor word choice. One time during the night a breeze picked up and lifted my tent such that it scraped against a branch making, and I am not exadurating here, a noise that was JUST like a growl. All the other scrub was so flimsy it just made a scraping noise, but this... whew, my heart rate jumped to somewhere around 288 and I just laid there saying, "That was NOT a bear, it was a twig. That was NOT a bear, it was a twig. That was NOT a bear, it was a twig." It was, of course not a bear, but my primative brain, charged with keeping me alive, would hear none of it for at least a half-hour. It was a blessed releif when I heard raccoons cooing and muttering a few feet from my tent because then, at least, I knew there weren`t any bears immediately near by. Its funny what being alone in the dark on top of a mountain with nothing but a sleeping bag and a tarp will do to your sense of welfare.

The climb itself proved to be intensely grueling and occasionally perilous. I only really fell once, and fortunately it was onto a ledge of moss and cushy leaves. Had I done that in one of dozens of other places, I wouldn`t be here now. There was one point, during my descent, where I had lowered myself down into a scenario where I had to choose which path was less likely to get me killed. I really did not like that. I had to either skim across a rock slide that went straight down for 30 meters and then dropped off for 15 meters, or climb straight up above me along a face of loose rock and lyriope. I chose the lyriope over the rock slide. Lets just say I`m never solo climbing an unknown face again.

Lessons learned:
1. Check out your gear before you go camping with it. Make sure you bought a tent and not a tarp.
2. Addendum to #1 - Do the same with your sleeping bag. Make sure it isn`t total crap like mine was.
3. Never judge by chance what can be decided by wisdom, especially when your life is on the line.
4. Don`t go sleeping in the woods with marauding bears if you don`tw want to die... or bring an air horn so as to scare them away or to at least go out with a bang.
5. Most woodland creatures are more scared of you than you are of them... unless its the dead of night and you`re freaking out. They`re right at home. Mwa ha ha ha.
6. If you are going to lug a pack up a mountain, take out the 20 pounds worth of "tent" poles that you`re not even going to use BEFORE you make a vertical ascent.
7. Granola is a good enough trail food. `Pocari Sweat` tastes like grapefruit and vomit flavored water when you are desperately thirsty.
8. Addendum to #7- Japanese sport drinks, as a rule, are NOT cool.
9. When faced with a scenario in which your inability to hold on to a root, or said roots inability to support you weight, has the consequence of your death and/or dismemberment, you should definitely pray and make sure that you are right with your Maker.
10. In the words of Winston Chuchill and the Spirit of our Lord, "Never give up. Never give up. Never give up."

on a mountain

well i am alone, stuck on a mountain. somehow i planned this, although now it feels like my famous impulsivity at work. i think thats mostly because i now feel exactly what i knew i was asking for- solitude. i havent really had it for a long time... ironically, im emailing from my cell phone in the midst of said quest, though that has as much to do with the fact that the bears in japan, unlike their wussy eastern american cousins, eat or maul their run-ins rather than run. (i skipped my dinner of granola and instead double bagged the unopened bags, and threw them away from my "tent" instead. i dubify the noun with quotes, for it is merely a tarp suspended betwixt strings. and right now as i can hear the night critters stirring, i really wish i had a zipper btw me and them.