I cannot wait for this week to be over. In the past 3 days I've been fired, re-hired, my flight back to Michigan has been canceled, and the really cool box I was making in pottery class has developed cracks in 3 sides. Sigh.

First, on Wednesday, my boss informed me that I am entirely too selfish and a terrible person for having chosen to apply for graduate school in September. I won't get into it here but basically, it is simply 'unforgivable' that I have placed my future and my life higher on my priority list than his school. He told me i was finished at the end of this month (I thought, 'great! now I can take some more time on my trip home!') When he told his wife though, she begged me to ignore him and when I came back from lunch i was officially 'unfired.' Darn. Maybe next time. I would quit but the fact is, i need the money. I couldn't justify my quitting when (assuming I am accepted to school) i have just 4 more months. If he fired me...well, it wouldn't be my fault.

Well, the next morning just before I left for pottery I got a FedEx from my travel agent. My Northwest flight scheduled for Tuesday, has been canceled. When I called the agency they told me Thursday is my travel agent's day off. I couldn't do anything. So I went there this morning and managed to get another flight. (actually, it wasn't too much of a problem but it was a bit nerve-wracking thinking about it all day yesterday)

Then, pottery...well, like i told you, it cracked. I was really proud of that box...such straight walls, 90degree angles...now there are big cracks. I thought maybe i could just leave them there and it would be a nice style but the teacher said if i put it in the oven like that the whole thing could crack up. But, I ran out of time so it will have to wait till I get back in two weeks. By then it will probably be unsalvagable.

sigh.

So, nothing much has been going on here lately. I got to play tennis for the first time in a long time. I've also been running a bit more often lately. So, in that sense, I'm feeling pretty good.

But...work is really stinking. Since I'm leaving for America in a week, we need a substitute teacher. My boss has been telling me, "it's ok! we've got so-and-so." Then a week ago he says, "What are we going to do?! We have no teacher!" So, I took it upon my self (something I had offered to do a long time ago but he said no) and I found a teacher in less than 2 days...in fact, I found 5 possible good candidates. I forwarded him the information on some and gave him the phone number of another. Then yesterday he says, "What are we going o do?! We have no teacher! How can we get a teacher?" I asked what happened to the ones I had found and he looked blankly at me and said he had lost the phone number and he didn't have enough time to email the others...even though he was doing nothing at the time and had been doing nothing for the past hour. sigh. Then today he attacked me for my decision to leave the school in August and sticking him in a really difficult situation (i thought that giving 8 months' notice was overly kind) It seems every day I am getting more and more angry and frustrated at work and that can't be good for anyone.

Other than that, I've just been watching the news a lot. That certainly doesn't do much to cheer me up. Last night I was searching the internet for news and I decided to check out the Al Jazeera site. Of course I can't read Arabic but I thought maybe there would be an English link or at least I could look at pictures. I like to compare how similar pictures are cropped from site to site. For instance, CNN vs. BBC or Reuters. It has a bigger impact on the story than you'd think. In any case, I was skimming through and I saw a picture of a boy, maybe 10 years old. He looked dead but there was something else strange about the way he looked but i couldn't put my finger on it. As I paged down, I ran across another picture of the same boy from a different angle. In this picture you could see that the top of his head was blown open and there was nothing inside. It looked as though someone had taken a pair of scissors to a Holloween mask. As soon as my brain registered what I was seeing, I scolled away. This was truely the most horrific picture I've ever seen. Though I saw it for probably less than 2 seconds, it was burned into my brain and it showed up again in my dreams.

I know this sounds increadibly nieve but I can't help thinking that if CNN were to show footage like this, there would be more Americans against the war. Instead we get all the feel-good news. Although I was never for this war, after seeing that...

Like I say, I know that sounds stupid and too simple. I never claimed to be a deep thinker or an intellectual. And I am reluctant to comment at all, but it's been 24 hours and not an hour has gone by that that picture hasn't floated back into my head once or twice. I can't believe that I'm the only one who would react this way to such a picture. And to think...this was just one picture and it was probably nothing compared to what they wouldn't show.

For the past few months, I have been asked many, many times about what I think about the possibility of war with Iraq. Do I think it will really happen? Do I (and therefore all Americans) agree? What is happening in America? I have gotten pretty tired of the same old questions over and over again but the other day I was taken by surprise when a student asked me if Congress had really made a law renaming 'french fries' to 'freedom fries.' That was the first I'd heard about it so I said I couldn't imagine it was true but that it was probably a joke on one of the late night programs.

Well, since then, I've been asked again and again. As the war approches, the hottest topic in Japan seems not what will happen in the future or my opinions but rather that decision by some silly politician. Now instead of being the butt of criticism, America and, incidentally I, have become the butt of jokes. Last night I went out to eat with Jin and a friend. While deciding on our meal, they asked if I would prefer fried squid or freedom fries. I was amused. But, something good did come out of it...I won a 10,000 yen bet with Jin about whether or not it was a mandate of Congress. Of course, now we can't come to an agreement on the exact wording of the bet so it looks like no one will collect.

My french friend...er, freedom friend, mentioned that they are quite amused in France as well. So I don't think it had quite the effect intended. I think it just caused embarrassment to many American's living abroad. Can anyone tell me, do people drive up to McDonnald's drive through and really ask for Freedom fries?

Lately I have been having days where I feel really nostalgic. Yesterday I was thinking about my past and how so many little choices have changed my life in so many big ways. Which University I chose affected my chances to come to Japan again. Of course, choosing a University isn't really a 'little choice' but it had a huge impact on my life which I didn't expect at the time. When I chose Michigan, I was pretty much just thinking about which name would look better on my diploma.

Then I came to Japan and took Japanese classes at Kyushu University. The second semester I was placed in a level 4 class. Maybe if I'd have spent a little more time studying and a little less time having fun I'd have been placed in a level 5 class. Visa versa, if I'd have spent less time studying and more time having fun, I'd have been placed in a level 3 class. As it were, I was placed in the same level 4 as Jin. At the time, there were 2 level 4 classes and ours was later in the day. I hated being there so late and seriously considered asking to be moved to the earlier class but, well, I was just lazy and before I knew it the semester was 1/2 over so I figured there was no point. While I'd met Jin before, (we'd even been in a class together the previous semester) it was in that class that I first became aware of him.

So, then I headed back to America and U of M. I thought I had one more year to go but because because of a transcript mixup, I had to go to my counselor who informed me I could graduate at the end of the semester. (Maybe I should have been seeing him more often!) Because I was so caught off guard and I had no real idea of where to go next, I headed back to Japan after that semester.

Because I'm here in Japan and with Jin, I've had the opportunity to meet some Swedish professors, all of whom turned me on to the charms of Sweden and the possibility of studying there. Incidentaly, another small decision lead me to want to go back to school. After I graduated from Michigan, I thought that more school was the last thing I wanted but one day I decided to take a trip to my local library. I checked out a couple of books-one book of short stories and one called The Rape of Nanking. It was after reading the short story book that I remembered just how much I have always enjoyed reading and writing. And the book on Nanking showed me how interesting history can be when not in the context of a textbook. I began to think that maybe I should go back to school and maybe I can do something with these interests.

So, here I am, a little less than 4 years after making that fateful University decision. I'm living in Japan. I've got Jin. I'm studying Korean. I've become a history buff. In about 5 months I'll hopefully be moving to Sweden where I'll be getting my Master's degree. After that who knows. Maybe tomorrow I'll take the train instead of my bike and end up sitting next to some big movie director who wants me to star in his next blockbuster film. It seems as likely to me as all of those other things did 4 years ago.

Anyways, this is not what I had planned to write about tonight. I sat down to tell about my dinner tonight with some of my students but, now I'm tired and I have a busy day tomorrow so I guess the story will probably never be told.

What a terrible weekend...but what's new. I guess it's too much to say that it was 'terrible.' There were some good points but it sure started off in the dumps. On Saturday I went to work as usual. I went out to grab some lunch between classes and got pooped on. I didn't see the culprit but from the size of the, er, load, I would say that the bird was the size of a small car.

So, I cleaned myself off and after I finished the second class I was looking forward to doing a little bit of shopping before I went to tutoring. I quickly discovered that while I was upstairs working, someone had bent my bike wheel just enough to render it unusable. So I walked (carried) it all the way to the bike shop where the woman told me that it looked like someone had not only knocked it over but stepped on it...and it would take two days and 7500yen to fix. I decided to hold off so I carried it all the way back to school. By then there was no time for shopping. I had to take the train to Jin's house and use his bike to get to tutoring. Of course, by this time it was raining again (after all, it was a weekend)

On Sunday, of course it was still raining but I needed a bicycle so we took a walk to a used bike store and I bought myself a granny bike like most people ride (in Japan it would be called a 'mama cherry.') I suppose my old mountain bike looked a lot nicer but this one has a basket and splash guards so from now on I won't have to worry about splashing mud up my back. It is also better for my posture, I think.

In any case, I guess the weekend wasn't terrible. Even though I had my hardships, they all melted away. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and mmmm, was it tasty. Well, more truthfully, Jin treated me since I had spent all but my last 500yen on the bike. So, I guess now that I have my new bike and a nice dinner, the weekend turned out to be not too bad-just too quick.

Overall, it was a pretty good weekend. Exhausting but good. Saturday, a couple friends who used to live in Fukuoka came back to visit. It was fun but after a while I got really tired and since I had to wake up early Sunday morning, I was the first to leave.

On Sunday, Jin and I went to meet one of his professors, his professor's wife, a researcher at Kyushu University and his wife. We took a trip to a nearby pottery villiage in Saga prefecture.

One of the things I really like about living in a foreign country is the opportunities to meet new people from all over the world. As we were driving to the pottery town, I realized that of the 6 people in the car, 5 countries and 3 continents were represented. The professor and his wife were Japanese, the researcher-Swedish, his wife-Canadian, Jin-South Korean, and myself-American. I thought, what a wonderful opportunity to get to get to know and hear opinions on various topics. Well, I was once again reminded that people are people all over the world and those 5 people happened to share my views on small talk and breaking the ice. So, we sat in silence for most of the 2 hour drive, which, I suppose was ok because I was still really tired.

Finally, to the pottery villiage. I have been so excited about this trip because I noticed that I have been feeling kind of un-inspired at pottery class lately and it has taken a long time to think about what I should make. Well, the pottery was nice but I was a little disappointed. It wasn't really my style. All of this pottery was so perfectly formed and identical from shop to shop, I have my doubts as to weather they were really made by hand or not. I prefer the lopsided style of pottery where every bowl, cup, and plate are original-dents and all.

After the pottery villiage, we had some good udon. Apparetly it is a very famous restaurant in Saga and Fukuoka. It must be excellent udon because it was a pretty big restaurant with many tables but we had to wait because it was completely full. I say it 'must be excellent' because, even though I enjoyed it, that doesn't really mean much. Since I rarely eat udon, I am in no position to decide what is good and what is just so-so. But, like I said, I thought it was good.

After lunch we stopped at Karatsu Castle. This is not one of the more famous castles in Japan but it was still nice. It had a very nice view of the sea and since it was particularily windy that day, the waves were crashing on the rocks below and it made for a nice picture. Like most of the castles, the original was built centuries ago but burned down so the castle we saw is about 30 years old. It kind of takes some of the thrill out of the experience. The artifacts inside the casle were nice though.

Finally, we went to the professor's house for dinner. I cannot remember when the last time I ate so well was. There was pork w/herbs, keesh, california rolls, and so much more with cheese cake as dessert. The professor also had a vast collection of Japanese sake and shochu from various places throughout the country. So, soon we were all talking like old friends. By the time we left the professor's house I was completely exhausted. It turned out to be a pretty nice weekend...but I'm looking forward to a calmer, less exciting next weekend. I really must be getting old.

Sigh. What a day. I woke up this morning already depressed. It was raining and cold. I was extra-ordinarily tired for some reason. The rice I had made the night before for breakfast was ruined and I'm not even sure what happened. I made my way to work and and my first 2 private classes went o.k. I suppose. Nothing too exciting. I had that dreaded kindergarten class and it was as bad as ever. About half way through the class I began to get really nervous. It appeared as though a little girl's finger may have been permenantly lodged up her nose since she hadn't removed it for the past 20 minutes. Thank goodness it came out with minimal resistance when I tugged on her arm. The next class was really frusterating. Kids these days are so cruel to each other. There was a new boy (not really new but new to that class) and he is one of the sweetest kids I teach but he has a little lisp. Well, every time he talked, the others snickered and I could tell there were comments being shared everytime I turned my back. I tried to decide the best course of action. Should I kick the offenders out of the class or should I dicipline them more mildly? I remember when I was kid, nobody wanted the teacher to have to stick up for them, they wanted to be able to handle it themselves. I don't know how much times have changed or if things were ever the same in Japan. Well, I ended up revoking candy previleges and that put and end to it. I just hope I didn't embarrass that boy too much.

So, as frusterating as those classes where, I was really looking forward to my last class. They are the most advanced students at the school, not counting adults, but they are also the quietest. Today I gave them a test which I tried to prepare them for for the past 2 weeks. I was fairly confident. After they left, I couldn't bare not to correct the test so I stayed after work for about an hour correcting. Well, the highest score was 50%. I suppose i could have awarded a lot of 1/2 points here and there if I were correcting it for real but in order not to discourage them, I didn't really grade them. I just wrote in the correct answers and put a smiley sticker on each. I guess it wasn't completely thier fault. I mean, some of the questions were pretty unreasonable. For instance, one showed a picture of a little boy, and a man writting on a baseball and asked, "What happened?" The correct answer was, "He got an autograph." I mean, when studying for a test, is something you would take a second look at? Autograph. I think their time is much better spent learning sensible things...or am I just saying that so I don't feel like such a failure as a teacher?

Anyways, as I was correcting the tests, my boss handed me a beer. It was such an unexpected kindness I couldn't bare to tell him that I have given up drinking until further notice...especially beer. So I drank it. I havn't had beer for about a month now and, maybe it's just my imagination, but I've been loosing weight. Well, I drank that beer and by the time I got home, it looked and felt like I'd swallowed a beachball. sigh. But I suppose something good came out of it, I got home and went for a jog so now I'm feeling pretty good.

So, I guess things ended on a happy note. And the weekend looks promising as a friend from out of town is visiting on Saturday and on Sunday I get to go to a nearby pottery villiage. Very exciting. We'll see.

Well, I havn't written for a while. It's not that I didn't want to or that I have been too busy. Rather, my computer has been tempermental lately. One day it doesn't want to sign into hotmail, then next 3 days it doesn't want to work at all. Well, it's finally all be straightened out and here I am.

I guess not too much has been going on. I have been feeling kind of under the weather lately so I finally went to the hospital on Saturday. Don't get too worked up, when I say 'hospital' it isn't like in the U.S. In Japan, people go to the hospital for everything from a sniffle to open heart surgery. Well, I guess the hospital I went to was pretty small so there were probably no major surgeries going on there. Anyways, so I had to fill out all the normal paperwork during my 1 1/2 wait. Then I met with a nurse who asked me all the same questions again. Then she took me back to the doctor (who I thought was going to need that open heart surgery judging from the look on his face when he saw me-a foreigner. He began barking at the nurses "What?! How can I talk to her?! Does she speak Japanese?") After he calmed down a little, he got on to asking me all the same questions the nurse had asked me. Maybe he felt safe with that since he already knew the answers and didn't really have to worry about talking to me. Anyways, then he basically said, "ok, here is your perscription," and that was that. How he came to a medical opinion on the information he had is beyond me. He must be really good. But, I am feeling better. I don't know, though, if it is because of the 3 kinds of medicine or because I have given up alcohol for a while. Or, maybe it's because I stopped eating that too-old kimchi. I guess I will never know.

Anyways, I havn't really been doing much else. I had wanted to work on my grad. school application last weekend since there wasn't much else to do. It was raining, as it does every weekend. Also, Jin was out of town again and, as I said, I wasn't feeling too great. I was all set to write my motivation essay and get everthing taken care of since I have a little less than a month but my computer was broken and for some reason, I can't think clearly and creatively with a pencil and paper. It's strange since, until I got into college, I can't really remember every typing a report on a computer. Everything was handwritten and I had some good stuff back then! I guess I have been spoiled. Well, maybe tomorrow.