One down, three to go

Its Monday morning.. my last Monday morning, and first period is over. I just finished my next to last class with my first year junior high students (7th grade equivalent). As I was standing at the front of the room, the bell having just rung, waiting to say the goodbye ritual with the kids, I realized that I felt funny, that my eyes were beginning to water and that there was a lump in the back of my throat. I guess sometimes your body registers the loss before all of your mind does. I will miss those kids dearly. I definitely gave them a part of myself.

Goodbyes just seem to keep rolling on a 24 hour basis. This weekend I said goodbye to Allie, my friend in Mito, and the congregation of Mito Church of Christ, where I have been attending Sunday morning and Wednsesday evening services. Pastor Yuki made a point of telling everyone, in Japanese, that I lived in DAIGO which was AN HOUR AND A HALF AWAY and that I came to the Sunday AND Wednesday services. I giggled a little bit, recalling the days of driving 4 hours down to Chiba just to go to church and to find some Christian fellowship. You do what you gotta do to stay in the fellowship. (Mind you, that didn't make it sting any less when I forked over the equivalent of $500 to the car company because I had driven 20,000k this year, which was 5,000 over my lease agreement.) I wasn't too jazzed about the other $500 I had to pay for scraping my car on the curbside. They have wierd curbs here, and I blame Japan.

Oh well, if money makes you evil then I guess the leasing and insurance company really care about my holiness.

So, three more classes, a goodbye meeting with my uber-bosses at the Board of Education, a goobye grill-out with the Hitachi-omiya guys and Joanna, and then a Friday where I move out before midday and then soak up the last drops of Daigo before launching Saturday for Narita airport and then HOME!!!

For those of you who are curious about my arrival and itenerary for Operation America, I arrive in Tampa on the 22nd, Saturday. My folks and I will go to the sunrise service at First Pres. in Lakeland and then drive to N. Georgia to spend the week with my grandmother and little brother. Then, Daniel will pick me up from Athens on either Saturday or Sunday, and I'll play it by ear from there once I get to Augusta. I'll be living downtown with Joe DiRenzo and Steven Cordaro, and working at the Augusta Country Club as a swim coach.

So that's the news from Lake Watanabe, where the women do the manual labor, the men tweeze their eyebrows to be macho, and the children have nervous breakdowns from the stress.

This is your host, Suich Sensei, saying "Kyoutsukete!" and "Ganbate!"
(Take care, and Give it your best!)