Descent Into The Second Kanazawa Winter, And Big News

This post should catch me up to today, February 7, 2011.

After getting back to Japan in the fall, I began school again.  I know all the teachers and kids, I know the scope of the curriculum and I'm more comfortable with my role.  That, of course, has brought its own brand of fatigue as I am frequently frustrated by how little is asked of me by certain teachers.  I try to reach out to kids when I get the chance and try not to get too hung up on my deep dissatisfaction with the Japanese English-teaching system.

I practice with my rock band Beargasaurus every Monday and I go to karate every Tuesday.  I have a pretty concrete rhythm and routine down.  By no means have I mastered Japan or Japanese, but I can get around with real ease and I have a great life here.  I'm able to get involved in art, culture, and sports pretty much at will and I'm trying to deepen my participation in each of those areas.  On a special art tour last week I was interviewed by the local TV station and got on TV for the third time (the other times being a "Ramen Week!" commercial and another time that my students said they saw me walking in the background of a news report).  I was a model for a travel company and got dressed up in full Japanese wedding regalia (OK, I lied, this post won't catch me up, I have to post those pictures at some point).

I went home to Colorado for winter vacation, and I had a fantastic time, although I had to spend ANOTHER extra night in Los Angeles on the way back because of a 6-hour delay in Denver.  It wasn't my fault this time, though!  I'm making progress.

Winter has been harsher this time around, with almost three weeks straight of snow that were only recently broken by sunshine.  However, being in walking distance of my schools and not having a car makes that a fairly minor inconvenience in the scheme of things.

So now for the big news--though many of you who read the blog know this already.

While I love my lifestyle in Japan and I'm still learning quite a lot, the job has worn on me, and I often have the impression that I'm not getting a lot of traction in terms of building something with my life.  I came to Japan to have an adventure and to find perspective on a life that I often coasted through.  I have done both of those things in no uncertain terms, and I'm excited to try and put them in action back in the US (or wherever I end up, I suppose...).  While I don't have a specific plan, I think moving on at this point is absolutely the right decision


But there's still 6 months of life in Japan to go, and I still have to see the southern islands, get up to Hokkaido, climb the second-holiest mountain, see the last of the three famous castles...stay tuned.