somedays,

I have a stack of papers sitting to my left. Among the rustle is a leaflet of tax papers waiting to be sent home -to Canada. There are also cuddled in the mix, notes; journals; folders; and even foreign alphabets. Having spare time to wait or prep while at one school or traversing to another schoolhouse I like to keep my mind busy. Recently, Hebrew script has been a re-fresher for me. Having studied the language albeit briefly in college I have found spare moments to scribble a string of Hebrew letters both here, and there.

At last my weekend was something more worth writing about. Worthwhile for me. I made it out to Sapporo. I watched films, shopped, drooled over shop-able things and spent money on just a few items. A necessitate computer-case, natural hand-cream, and food. I don’t know what it is but I used to smirk when people doppled a bottle of handcream back home and slathered their mitts. But now my knuckles are crinkling, often, and I need cover. Lotion-cover, that is. I found a nice tuber of Burts Beeswax lotion. I was happy to drop a dollar on a significant salve.

My hotel in said town was also grand. One of those spots that have a Japanese bath in the basement. I think I lolled around in the hot water down there some two or three times. My goodness I felt clean. I even spent a dime on a massage. Once having had to trek to a very distant body-shop some blocks from Sapporo Station, I found a massage clinic at the station -one in the same- where I exposed aching muscles and air-tight shoulder flexors to the rigorous hands of a trained professional. Worth every penny.

But I am now back in town. I am slated for an awful lot of desk work. Not so much key-punching for me but paper work. Reading up, prepping home travel and school for the Fall-time. I have organizing to do and language to study. Japanese. Studies are going well.

I have recently shevelled my at-home routine as well. Let me have you a laugh -I go to be after 9p.m. I have had such a mess of a time with work lately that my exhaustion had not allowed me to travel farther then the Seicomart at river’s edge in town. I went nowhere. Now, I have been bedding down early and loving every minute of it. I have even migrated from futon-aside-stove on the floor and moved to the bed in my guest space at home. I am sleeping on a bed and loving it.

I have about two pounds of ground coffee at my house and am loving that, too. Although I recently discovered that one of the Kyoto blends that I purchased is really only good for mixing-in with another stronger coffee. The former has no taste of its own. The coffee is too mild to savour a palate.

Recent re-discovery has led me to Maslow’s Basic Needs. In psychology this means that within Maslow’s theory of Basic Human Needs, the first of about eight needs entails physiological needs. These needs hinge things like sleep, warmth, food, etc. After recent re-evaluation of my life in lieu of a busy lifestyle (or just work), I have taken the shovel-to-earth and wedged out more sleep, larger meals, and warmer beds. And I am better for it.

And last on Japanese culture. I am finding given my present experience abroad that after I have been worn to the bone with work, faced with a very foreign language and script in a very ect- or outside/separated setting, I grow tired. In all my intercultural training and travels beforehand not much could have prepared me for what it is like to be take and propped in a corner or Japan so dislodged from.. things. Foods, temples, people, cities, mountains, access to trains and travel. It costs me just about as much to get somewhere from where I can travel as it would to travel at twice the cost. I say, I am displaced in Japan and it is costly just to get somewhere from where I can travel elsewhere.

That being said I have time to learn coping strategies. Ways to be alone. I am surrounded, yes, by people, by this town, but a very affluent fellow who loves being social -I am secluded. And my best friends are films, books, and newsprint. The odd email, and buttoned email-by-phone. I have less contact than I would like.

Why would I be so honest? To make the most of my experience I need to name and face what it is upon which I stand. And so for this time until now -and then till summer- I am glad. Tomorrow I will have a graduation ceremony at elementary school to attend. And then some office work, and some hollow-like days at elementary. But the snows that keep on coming in so busily like overdue travelers off of the nearby ocean will depart. Depart once and for all at the change of season. Spring will come and then Summer. Weather will warm and spirits will rise. And I will rise with the best of them. And I, too, will warm with the weather. I will plan to visit friends and travel here and there. Just a little.

So, there are a few rambling from a Monday-fiend. You know that pasty-white, chalk-white that used to coat my workplace windows so that you can see no further than the glass itself? It’s back. I can’t see outside even now due snow. But that snow will go. Things change and I am waiting for that change, too. But in the meantime I am making the most of what I have and what I can do. And you should, too.

The good news, better news? Coffee is still coffee when it comes out of the hot-watered filter no matter what the morning looks like outside. Here’s to consistency, and here’s to change.

Have a good, fine, astounding Monday.
You’ve earned it, and you deserve it.

Ciao,
(listen, I used to want to pant-kick people who were living in Japan and didn’t ‘dine out’ on Japanese every night, but you would understand the claim to ‘Having the Best Burger In Hokkaido’. I had to go and see. And, well, this is what I got. And, I liked it -oops.)