Gomenasai.

Sorry everyone, I've been really busy with "Summer School" in the last little bit, and since I still don't have my computer, it's been incredibly difficult to spend time on the ol' blog.
This should change soon I hope, but for now I'm far too busy, and I'm running out of money to boot, so paying for an internet cafe isn't a possibility for me right now (I'm currently taking 20 minutes on the hotel computer while teaching at one of my far-away schools).
But things constantly look up if you let them.

You're all still in my heart and mind constantly, even if you aren't receiving my text.

E-mail me if you want my address. I'd be happy to receive and send back a letter or two.
headless.jester@gmail.com

Love,
Jesse


P.S.
Sorry Elise, I will send it to you soon, I promise!

Stealth.

I've accidentally heard a rumour that there is a "Welcome Party" for me on Monday night, following a tea ceremony.

Blog for Tim.

I've given a difficult task to myself, and that is to describe a man named Tim Steiner.
He is the afforementioned teacher who currently lives upstairs from me at the same apartment in Kokubu-chuo, and he deserves some mention.

This is a man who, to be quite honest, worries me.
The rambling ability of this man surpasses me in leaps of a Nephilim, and I can only wonder if, by the time I reach 47, I too will talk to that extent.
He's a great guy, but I honestly hope that I don't.

In those ways and more however, he's made me realize a lot of things about myself that I had "put behind me".
He's the first person I've been able to talk Philosophy with in my time here, and do we ever talk Philosophy.
We come to points usually every 15 minutes that either make us laugh or just say "fuck it", and drink.
He is technically the "head teacher" here in Kokubu, and the guy who's job it is to take care of this group of teachers, the P.S. (Performance Supervisor) was on Holiday in Finland when I arrived, so Tim took it upon itself to help me get my feet on the ground.
He is far too hard on himself, and reprimands himself much too often with self-depricating remarks that really shouldn't be there.
He doesn't give himself enough credit with things that he should.
On the other hand, perhaps he is constantly teaching humility to those that should hear.
I'm not quite sure.
In the same way, I'm not sure of many things about this man.
He is a many-layered individual that you would do wrong to try to fit in a box.

I'm glad that I met him, we enjoy each other.
And if I end up taking nothing else from this man, I hope I take the important lesson of listening.
Perhaps it took a man who gave me no other choice, to teach me this.
We both smile about things like this.

Festivals.

Business trips in Kanoya aren't all bad.
I don't have to pay for my A/C, hahaaa!

The last few days, oh man...pretty fucking crazy!

There are/have been festivals all over Kagoshima (and other parts of Nihon) in the last week or so, and continue in other areas.
I'm excited for the Autumn Festival in Kagoshima this August; The Nihon-jin really enjoy their fireworks, as most asians do (eg. Juanita). The 'works should last around 2 hours.
In Kelowna we were lucky if we got 15 minutes.

I finally met this teacher named Adam, whom I've been told by everyone to meet, a few days ago.
Everytime I would mention an interest or something about myself to another teacher, all I would hear in response is, "Oh man, you have to meet Adam".
He called up another teacher that lives upstairs from my apartment a few days ago to tell him to ask me if I wanted to hop on a train to Kagoshima-chuo (I still do not have a phone) to go out to some DJ thing with his girlfriend and a few friends.
I hopped on a train, we finally met, and he took me to his friends house where I met some really awesome people.
I've been told there's some really lame foreigners around Japan, people who were there simply because they didn't want to be where they were before, but these were not those people.
Unbelievably rad guys & girls.
I'll speed along from here.

Adam got really drunk, we stayed out until around 6am, and then proceeded to his apartment.
He crashed his bike several times, mostly with his girlfriend on the back of it while I rode her bike; she now has a very large bruise, and his arms are quite red.

The next night was the Festival Day 1, which was a blast, and afterwards Adam's girlfriend told me through broken Japenglish to come back the next night, because she had a friend that she wanted me to meet named Atsuka.
I made it back to Kokubuo eventually, and that night hung out with a couple of JTs (Japanese Teachers), Ayume and Marika who, after some drinking, ended up staying the night.
I had to do a couple of demos for "Summer School" the next morning and I thought sleep to be the worst course of action, so instead I showed Ayume some of my favourite music.
She took special liking to Jeff Buckley, so we lied down and listened for about an hour.
It was a great night, but all understanding of time from there through the next couple of days is skewed.

I made it through the demos, and did fairly well at them.
Adam and I went from there to the festival, met his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's friend, who turned out to be quite beautiful; I was quite flattered that she had wanted to meet me.
Alas, my shyness hasn't really changed.

It's been a fun time in the last few days, it's nice to know that interesting people are bound to show up when you look for them.

Adventure.

A typhoon has hit.
A typhoon has hit Kagoshima first in it's attack of Japan, and will continue up the main island.
A typhoon has hit Kagoshima on Friday the 13th.
A typhoon has hit Kagoshima on Friday the 13th while I sit in the only internet booth left open, booth 13.

All classes are cancelled for tomorrow and further if the damage is extensive; we'll have to wait and see.
I'm still getting paid for tomorrow.

My school today was two hours from Kokubu (my town), and I ended up running from the school just fast enough through the wind to catch the final bus back.

Oh life-threatening Adventure! How I wondered where you'd gone!

~
The other night I had enough gin in me to not care if anyone was watching, and I threw politeness to the wind as I climbed from the top of my apartment building down the side to my room, and jumped onto my patio.
Oh life-threatening Adventure! How I wondered where you'd gone!

~
I'm currently reading "The Book of Tea" by Okakura Tenshin, a brilliant Japanese man from the late 19th century and writer of such things as the Tea Cult, or, Teaism.

I picked it up two days ago and I'm almost finished. It's quite difficult to put down.
I would imagine it difficult to find, but if you can, it would be very worth it.

Since coming to Japan I have found my comprehension of reading has profoundly increased.
Perhaps it is part to do with the strive to learn another language; like a right-handed person training their left and automatically increasing the dexterity of the right.
Maybe it's not like that at all, but I can't think of any other logical reason.

In any case, I have been retaining information like a thick sponge.
Everything goes in one ear and sticks around.

Natasha Zarin.

This a brief message to let anyone who's been reading that I am still alive.
I found a bank today, so that's one worry taken care of.

Today I did some training with a girl from Vancouver that lives a few towns away.
I found out a few days ago from looking at her "teacher profile" that she writes poetry.
Today when I mentioned it to her the look on her face that she gave me explained physically before she vocally could that she hasn't been writing for a while.
She asked me if I write, I told her that I try.
She asked me how I got into it, I told her that my interest was peaked by Shane Koyczan and my inspiration was formed from Carly Saare.

It turns out she is quite the fan of Shane Koyczan, but has seen him perform only once, to her understandable regret.
We talked for a while about that lovable poet, and I shared some of my stories collected from my friendship with him, up to and including that wonderful night when he and several others took it upon themselves to wrap my car in 150 metres of cellophane, complete with a bacon-y surprise inside.
She is heading back to Vancouver in September, so we have a little bit of time yet to become better friends.

Tonight she told me quite a few things I needed to hear, including her experiences and first impressions of this country
She reminded me that although it doesn't seem this way in this society, I do in fact hold much more liberty than I first felt I did, and that my choices are still my choices.
She told me not to feel trapped, because although I have a few things set in paper, they're still not set in stone.
She told me that she feels my appearance in this city was not accidental, and although we're sure we've seen each other somewhere before, she told me that my appearance was an inspiration to her, and that after a day of getting to know each other, she finally feels the pull she was looking for to begin writing once again.

I don't know why she found that in me, but all I can say is that I too have been inspired to pick my pen back up.

Lowered Immune System.

For the first time in a long, long time, I feel sick.
I have no idea why.
There are a couple of reasons that might suggest it to be my system detoxing, but I think that's only a small part of it.
The stress isn't helping.
I feel incredibly anxious, like I need to read, or write, or create something new, or talk to someone I haven't met, or...something.

If I don't find an ATM tomorrow that allows me to withdraw the money from my Canadian bank, I will officially run out of money.
I also have to find out the correct way to a school I've never been to before tomorrow in another town by 9am, to get some training in for what PKC calls "Summer School", in which I have a solid 8 days of teaching 6 classes a day, in which the parents will be also attending, and the curriculum that I have to teach is brand new.
It's the most hectic teaching period in the entire year, and also the part with the most importance put on it.
This whole fiasco is happening in about two weeks, and although every other teacher has had months to prepare, I have been asked to muster up this impossibility incredibly soon, and to do it without flaw.

I think my body is now starting to feel the effects of my mind.
I think I'm wearing myself down quickly, and I don't know what to do about it, because I don't know how to make myself relax for a long enough time that would actually do any good.
I have too many things to do and too much doubt in my capability to do them; I know longer know what to do.
I can't even read ingredients on packaging, or properly explain symptoms to someone who I would trust to know what to do.
I don't even know anyone, let alone someone I could trust.

There's just me, and it's hard to trust that, too.