Saturday, May 10, 2003



I had a really bad Alisha night last night. Well all night really.
My house is very dirty right now and TinTin’s shit box really needs cleaning but I just feel like writing this instead. My computer has turned into a friend.
This whole night was sparked by a movie, ‘In the Bedroom’. I had no idea what it was about. I didn’t realize that the kid died and the whole movie put me on an Alisha spiral that connected its self to many other things.
The problem was that I was expecting Li to come home soon when I put the movie on but he went out with his work friends on this goodbye thing for one of them. He had forgotten his cell.
So there I am sitting there crying and dealing with things, but I was not crying that bad, just going through the motions really, but I was alone. There was not a single person I could phone. Now I know that there are a few people that I can phone in Canada with no second thoughts, Cheri, Beck and Heather, but there was no one in Japan at 1:30 in the morning. There was no one in Japan at 1:30 in the afternoon. Janet was at a second wedding party for a Japanese friend of hers and she is the only person I can call.
Well Janet is leaving Japan in a few weeks and I feel sooo lonely.
Well there I am sitting watching this movie, I finished it, crying and feeling lonely and getting furious at Li.
I have no right to be mad at him but at the time he was my only outlet. Thank fully he still was not home yet. By the time he got home I was more than prepared to make one of us sleep on the couch and not speak to him for a week.
Well he came home and apologized profusely telling me what happened.
He forgot his cell and like me phone numbers are not stored in his brain because they are in the cell. He had NO idea what the house number was. Sad but true. No one at work had it. He and his friends went to Skin Flute, our regular pub, and no one there had our number or my cell number. This succeeded to make me realize how lonely I really am and the flood gates opened.
Poor Li thought I was crying because I was mad at him and was highly pissed about it. It took me a while to compose myself enough to explain to him what was happening.
Li’s pep talks are amazing. For a man that has only been speaking English a little over 2 years, he has figured out how to create some wonderful very meaningful metaphors that work perfectly.
I am relying too much on him for companionship and he knows. I hate that I am but he is all I really have here in Japan.
When Janet leaves there are many guys that I know but I need a woman. There is a new woman, not girl, coming to replace Janet but I have no idea if I will like her or if she will like me for that matter. She may have a very different agenda then hanging out with me when she gets here. Making Japanese friends I find difficult. There are many people out there that I enjoy but all of my students are men. I have one female Computer student. My private classes on Monday and Tuesday night are woman but they have lives and jobs and are much older than me. They have grand children. My one girl on Tuesday is great. I work with her.
I used to talk a lot to with the girls at work. They invited me to a cooking class thing once and that was fun but I have lost touch with them. My new teaching schedule has screwed this up. I used to sit with them at coffee break time, I don’t have those times anymore, literally. I used to sit with them at lunch but they have started this outside playing thing that I can not do. Fumiko told me to join but I work in a skirt. I can not jump around all over the place. I go for a walk at lunch anyway. It is a time to clear my head and do no speaking for almost 40 minutes. It feels good and relaxes me. It gets me through the rest of the day. I actually get pissed off if it rains and I can not go for my walk.
That and most Japanese people want to talk to me to practice their English or, non English for that matter. There is always this underlying feeling that the only reason I am here is as a free English teacher. I almost NEVER get Japanese people coming up to me and actually speaking Japanese. Why has my Japanese progressed soooo slowly? This is why. Even Li’s friends assume that I only speak English. I can speak basic Japanese! I actually understand quite a bit. I can follow a basic conversation. Those that really do want to talk to me can with no problems. They speak a little slower and they speak EASY Japanese. Strange but that is what I have to do when I am speaking English to most Japanese people!!! My hairdresser speaks almost no English and we can have a good conversation. Same with my nail-girl.
IT pisses me off, puts me on the defensive and then once again I feel lonely. I am hoping that this will pass.
Li’s metaphor for this was a book of many pages, some pages you remember and some you forget. Make friends that you will forget, then you will find some you will remember. You need to fill in the empty pages with something.
Li also commented on my job. I like my job and I enjoy the fulfillment that it gives me when I see my guys improving. He doesn’t like it. He thinks I should be a boss and that when we have our dream store it will be me being the boss because he feels I can do this better than him. That I am smarter than him in this area. Kind of floored me, that coming out of his mouth.
I love him.
He kept me sane until 7 literally in the morning. I am tired. He went to work, started at 1:30, and he has to work tonight. I have to go to bed tonight because I have to work tomorrow so I am not letting myself sleep anymore.
I think I am going to do a quick house cleaning and then go for a long walk with my music on.

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::5/10/2003 :: 0 Comments:

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