back in the snow

Well, here i am - back again in snowy kanazawa. had a fantastic visit home for the holidays. it was my first time going back to the states since arriving in japan. can't really decide how i feel about the trip on a whole. on one hand it felt so good to see all the people who i love and miss, and on the other, it has made coming back all the more difficult. oh well. guess i'm still figuring out how to be happy here.

while home i was, or course, hit with a mutilitude of questions - some answerable and some not. for example, the most common questions: "How is it?" "Do you like it there?" "How is it going?". i found that i could not think of a decent way to answer these questions -- saying "its good" just doesn't seem to cut it. i find that it is incredibly difficult to verbalize what my experiences have been. and as much as my friends and family want to hear about me and all that i am experiencing on the other side of the world, i just want to hang out like its normal - as if nothing has changed. i want to hear the usual gossip, and talk trash and just be as if i have been here the entire time. of course, i haven't been there the entire time.
this is not a complaint. i imagine i must sound a bit, what - can't quite think of the word, blase? snobby?

in other news: after what felt like a week of travel - left my parent's house in the bronx at 6:00 am on wendesday, january 4th, i finally walked in the door of my apartment in kanazawa (ok -nonoichi!) at 3:30 am on january 6th only to teach a couple of hours later - at 8:40!! needless to say, i bet i wasn't the best teacher. i then slept what might be an olympic medal worthy 15 hours! today, as imagined, i feel a bit groggy. the kerosene fumes in the apartment don't help.well, this was a pretty sad post. promise the next one will be filled with all sorts of interesting japan stuff... at least i hope so!

Onsen Banquet

(this is an older post)

December 18, 2005

I was ambushed as i walked into the Kagaya onsen hotel. a man i have never seen before (aparantly works in the library) asked my coworker if she knew where sheryl haiduck was. i was standing right there. here i am, i said. he pulled me aside. oh no, am i in trouble? did i not rsvp correctly? can i not go to the onsen party? no nothing that bad. he wants me to give a speech at the banquet dinner! my coworker standing off to the side is making faces that seem to say 'don't do it - say no!' i try... 'well, i don't speak any japanese...' oh thats ok, he says, you only have to talk for 30 seconds and then say kompai! (cheers!)

did you know that the kompai really gets the dinner going... its actually somewhat important!

so i ask my japanese coworkers, what do i say in the speech? they teach me one saying (o tsukare sama deshita -- thanks for all your hard work). i practice it over and over and over again. i am sitting in the gorgous outside hot springs bath (so so so nice) surrounded by naked women saying over and over again - o tsukare sama deshita --

banquet time rolls around and in the elevator kayoko suddenly tells me that what i had planned to say maybe wasn't the right thing (something along the lines of it being something a boss says to an employee) she says i should say tanoshimimasho! meaning - lets enjoy ourselves! so, now, a nervous wreck, i repeat over and over again - tanoshimimasho tanoshimimasho (the absurdity of it being that i am in essence saying 'lets have fun, lets have fun, lets have fun' in the most serious way possible!).

and so we arrive at the banquet - only the entire college and high school and tokyo branch faculty members are there -- about 400 mostly japanese men in yukatas (bathrobes worn after going into the onsen). first the president speaks, then someone else - everyone laughs (me - tanohsimimasho. tanoshimimasho. under my breath). and then - my turn !

and it was fine - and everyone said kompai - and my hands were shaking like they never have before!

Tanoshimimasho! Kompai!