r_pendragon's journal

And finally, at long last, I've come to one and made the other.

On October 29, I'm leaving Japan. Six months earlier than expected, but so it goes. My employer can't afford to pay me what I'm worth, I'd like to avoid the hassle of renewing my visa, and frankly, I've almost forgotten why I wanted to be in Japan in the first place.

All that said, though, it's still hard. Now that I've got just over a month left, every place I go, everytime I do something, everytime I see a friend it's: "Is this the last time?" I hate the melancholy and the pre-nostalgia, but I suppose it's typical.

The last time I moved back home from Japan I was fed up with the Kansai (compared to Tokyo it's a bit on the backwards side, even if Osaka is Japan's second-largest city) and leaving wasn't so hard. But I am fond of Tokyo, and there are a lot of things I love.

I know this is by no means the last time I'll be in Japan (I already have an invite to spend Christmas 2005 with friends in Nagano), but it's probably the last time I'll live here, barring some glorious miracle event like getting a job at the Tokyo U.S. embassy.

So it's hard, kind of an emotional Catch 22. I am so ready to go home, play with my dog, eat comfort food, go to Sunday brunch with my mom and do the NY Times crossword, find a real job, have a car again, spend time with friends who speak fluent English. (I love my Japanese friends, but I inevitably end up having to explain words like "blowjob" and "horny" to them– why me, god?– and it would just be nice to not have to do that.)

But I'll also miss the great trains, and speaking Japanese, cheap yet delicious sushi, pink M&Ms all year round, my students, my friends, my incredibly sexy cell phone, and the challenge of living in a foreign country where the signs aren't even written in Roman letters, much less in English.

I hate the aimlessness, I guess, that feeling of sort of wanting to stay, but sort of wanting to go home. It's cake, and I want to have it and eat it, too.

Reverse culture shock, I await thee.

Just when I thought I had things all figured out, life's gone into a tailspin again.

I don't want to be one of those people who spends a lot of time writing superfluous, whining rants on the internet about "oh poor me, my life sucks." If anyone here on NAO was interested in that, you'd be over perusing LiveJournal, right? Besides, I know better. I have a great life. But lately it's seemed that whenever I get things at least partially on track, they derail again.

For example, I'd decided that I was going to leave Japan in May 2005. And it felt really excellent to have come to a conclusion, to have been decisive, to have examined my options and made a choice. But due to a new situation involving work and my new visa ambiguity (I won't go into it but suffice it to say that I'm irritable), my possible departure dates include May 2005, December 2004, and three weeks from today.

Part of me, much as I love Japan, is rooting for the three weeks from today option.

This realization came today when, at about 7:30 p.m., we had a terrific bruiser of an earthquake. Normally, earthquakes don't affect me much; I glance over at The Roommate™, we shrug and say "Jishin deshyo?" and go back to whatever we're doing. But this one was strong enough, long enough, and erratic enough that we both got up and stood in the middle of the apartment with freaked out expressions on our faces.

We probably needn't worry. We live in Shinjuku, which is Tokyo's skyscraper district for a reason– it's some of the most stable land in the Kanto region, and no one wants those big towers tipping over like dominoes.

But I think the occurrence of such a strong quake tipped me over the edge a bit; it was like it forced me to realize how tired I am of being here. Typhoons and earthquakes are scary; I want a familiar natural disaster, something I can deal with, like a blizzard.

In all seriousness, what this means is that I'm in limboland again- when do I leave? What do I do back home?– and it's frustrating. Because just when I thought all my affairs were neatly in a row, an earthquake had to go and shake things up.

Having been recently accosted by another horde of ignorant tourists (see rant in "3&3" below), I have decided to sacrifice a sliver of my oh-so-precious (har, har) time to share a tidbit of information. Hopefully it will serve to make the planet a better place.

Stupid tourists: Where is the best place to do carry-oh-kee in Tokyo?

Me: Do what?!

STs: Carry-oh-kee. You know, the Japanese thing where you have a microphone and you read the lyrics off a screen.

Me: Ah, karaoke.

STs: Huh?

The word is karaoke. It is pronounced:

ka as in car, but without the hard "r" at the end.

ra as in rah-rah-rah, but soften the r sound so that it's almost an "l" instead.

o like the oh in "oh my god!"

ke as in the letter k-- "kay."

Kah-l/ra-oh-kay.

Doing my little part to make people sound less stupid. :)

Last night was the Sumida river fireworks display. It's the largest fireworks extravaganza to hit Tokyo each summer, and pretty much every single person in the city turns out to see it. Twelve different fireworks companies compete in all-out blowout of reds, pinks, purples and blue that light up the entire sky over Asakusa and stretch the entire length of the river.

In spite of how much of my life I've spent in Japan, I've never been here in July before, so this was my first time to see the Sumida-gawa hanabi. I was expecting large crowds, of course; in a city of 40 million+ people, you get used to crowds. But, wow. I think that quite literally every single resident of Tokyo was there. If they weren't there to watch, they were there to sell pizza, fried octopus, sno-cones, etc.

The fireworks started at 7, so we arrived around four and managed to snag a fair-to-middling piece of ground for ourselves. All the good spots by the river, of course, had gone to the diehards early that morning, or even the night before. But our spot was decent, with good shade from the sun and reasonable visibility.

The three hours of waiting before the fireworks started were actually the bulk of the fun of going. Everyone packs coolers full of chu-hi and beer and food, and a lot of people dress up in yukata, the summer lightweight version of kimono. In some ways, for the younger set, it's a bit like prom. Some of the men even wore yukata, though it was the women's that were worth watching; bright yellow morning glories, demure pink cherry blossoms, green willow branches cast against a gibbous moon-- really beautiful patterns.

The fireworks display itself was spectacular, too, the booming sounds jockeying for pride of place with the trilling cicadas while the light splashed across the sky and reflected in the muddy river.

It's the morning after, and my eyes are still starry, my ears are still ringing. Summer in Tokyo...

I'm not so sure I'm amused by the whole my-job-is-owned-by-the-Japanese-mafia thing anymore.

On Tuesday night, a woman came in the front door of our office. She was carrying a package, and she looked terrified. She told one of my Japanese co-workers:

"Please tell the owner that I'm so, so sorry." Then she handed my co-worker a cell phone and a wad of cash and added, "Tell her not to contact me; I'll get ahold of her instead."

Lastly, she said: "Don't tell anyone I came here," and she swore my co-worker to secrecy. My co-worker of course immediately called our boss, and she was told to hide the phone and the money and not tell anyone else that this woman had stopped by.

Also, this same co-worker was telling me that she overheard our bosses joking last week about a girl that had been fired (she royally screwed the company over last March). Apparently one of them said, "Let's not use lawyers; let's go 'under the table.'"

Is there really any way to construe these events other than the mafia? Suggestions, from fantastical to absurd to logical will be readily accepted; anything to help my peace of mind.

This post was edited by r_pendragon on Jul 23, 2004.

Well, for better or for worse today, I took the plunge.

No, not that plunge. I bought the book "How to Prepare for the GRE Test."

This was a scary purchase, because it's forcing me to come to a major decision point in my life.

I'd decided to come to Japan this year primarily because, after I graduated from university, I really didn't know what else I wanted to do with myself. I had a nebulous idea of wanting to go to grad school at some point, but no real desire, after having spent my senior year writing a dissertation on feminist cultural development in the Heian era (how's that for boring, huh?), to jump into the 6-year theoretical madness that is a history Ph.D.

But now I've been in Japan for a year, and I know I don't want to stay too much longer. My contract with my current company comes up in April 2005, and that seems like a good time to leave. However, by leaving Japan, I'll have to figure out something to do with myself.

So, in front of me looms the decision. Unfortunately, no one seems to have any decent suggestions for me; from my friends and family, I'm drowning in a deluge of bad advice (or, at least, advice that has an agenda.) My friend who is already working on her history doctorate is bullying me to apply for her same school so that we can go through the whole process together; my mother is pushing for grad school because she wants me to leave Japan ASAP; my Japanese friends want me to stay in Japan for one more year. And looming in the mix with all of these considerations is the fact that I have almost $16,000 of student loans to pay. Advice: unless you're rich, don't go to a private university.

The "ideal" plan would go something like this: Take GRE. Get into graduate school. Finish contract in April. Spend May traveling in Asia. Spend summer at home looking for new car, apartment, sugar daddy :), etc. Start grad school in Sept. 2005.

But all of this is really beginning to terrify me. I'm not sure whether it's what I really want, or even if it is, whether I'm ready to do all of it.

I just wish I could get some advice that has no hidden motivations.

No, not only that. I wish I could resign my adulthood. Or better yet, auction it off. Bidding starts at one pack of Play-Doh, a box of Crayolas, and some Legos. Any takers?

This post was edited by r_pendragon on Jul 19, 2004.