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Like last year, I have to work on Christmas and my birthday… but the 23rd is a national holiday here, so I managed to get a 3 day weekend. Yay! Hitomi and I celebrated Christmas on Tuesday, since she had the day off as well.

Yesterday, when I came home from work though, I found a surprise! There were lit candles, cake, and sushi on my table. Then Hitomi jumped out and surprised me. Earlier in the month she secretly made a copy of my apartment key and had been planning this for a while. So we had a really good birthday dinner and dessert, and I got presents from Hitomi, and her mom and grandmother (who gave me a hand-made hanten, which is like a warm Japanese winter vest). So nice!

There’s only a few days until we go to the US. I’m excited, and I don’t think it’s sunk in for Hitomi yet, as she’s quite busy with her work too. We both still have to pack too! Oy! Really busy…

Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas everybody!

The job search began this month as scheduled, though it seems really early. But I can’t take any chances, because money is going to be a real problem after I leave my current job next summer. And timing couldn’t be worse! Japan is in a serious recession now, and the yen is really strong against the dollar (88 yen to the dollar earlier last week!) which means it’s going to get much, much worse. Of course the whole world is in a bad place right now… but as a foreigner here my prospects of work vanish the instant the economy turns.

Previously I had promised myself my next job would be an art job. I really hope I don’t have to break that promise. Hitomi and I are searching together, but we’ve got plenty of strikes working against us: my Japanese is good, but not good enough to do professional translation; we’re in a really rural part of Japan with few foreigners and few opportunities; and the recession, of course. It’s not all negative, though… but I need to look in the right places and also receive some serious luck.

Wow, time sure flies.

December has been going quickly. Even watching the minute hand quiver 60 times just to get from 3:00 to 3:01 seems really fast! I’ll be going to the US in 2 weeks for the first time in one and a half years. How exciting!

This month has also been super busy. This week alone, I had 40 classes (we’re only supposed to have 29 or so maximum), including mandatory work on Sunday. Grr! I can’t wait to find a new job.

Last weekend Hitomi and I went to Yumi’s Christmas Concert in Fukui. I think I had some photos of last year’s event. This year’s was indoors, happily, but unhappily it featured a saxophone. And the guy playing it wore a teal suit with a purple shirt, and gave a most embarrassing Japanese speech about the true meaning of Christmas.

After that we went to a holiday festival here in Echizen, in Kura no Tsuji, the only really stylish place in the city. Kura no Tsuji is a small square/courtyard surrounded by historic buildings. The buildings are all old-fashioned traditional warehouses converted into shops and bars, and the area has some Christmas lights up now which make it very beautiful. It was a tiny little festival, but it was really fun. As the only foreigner there, I was asked many times if people could take my picture, and I even made the city’s homepage.

Kura no Tsuji's Holly Night

Hitomi with a rose

Two nights ago, Hitomi and I went to a Christmas celebration/cake buffet at an elementary school. (Have I mentioned how I love that the Japanese word for buffet is viking?) The party was organized by the same young men’s group that organized last month’s Chrysanthemum Earth Expo. There was a “reggae” performance which featured some Christmas pop songs as well as Japanese reggae (with a harmonica and a guy wearing a luchador mask). I totally love the tiny coutnry town feel of these podunk little festivals!

Last night was Aeon’s Christmas Party. We had some new attendees, which was fun, and everyone had a really good time. Our school is really small, but I think that makes the community so much warmer. Halfway through, Hitomi told me she felt really sick and needed me to take her outside, but it turns out the manager and my coworkers had planned a suprise birthday party for me and she was in on it. So when we came back to the room, the lights were out and everyone shot poppers at me and yelled, “Supplies!” I haven’t been so supplied in a long time.

I’m really glad to have today off… I’ve been so busy that I need a bit of time to rest and recover (especially from last night’s drinking).

Yesterday I was eating pickled cabbage that Hitomi’s grandmother made for me (I love her tsukemono!) and about halfway through, I saw a weird dark shape. I suddenly had a bad feeling and picked it up to examine it in my chopsticks. It turned out my fears were correct — it was a big, fat, green caterpillar’s head.

Head, mind you; no body!

Aaah man. That ruined dinner.

I was just about to write a post about November the other day, and today it’s already December! Wow, time flies! (In Japanese, 光陰矢のごとし, kou-in ya no gotoshi, like an arrow.) So what’s been keeping me busy these days? Quite a lot.

First and foremost would be work. It seems like every month gets busier and busier for me, and much to my disappointment, I’m getting assigned Sunday work more and more often as well (with nothing I can do about it). Add to that mandatory drinking parties, and chores like cleaning, paying bills, and grocery shopping, it’s hard to actually get a single day of rest here, never mind a weekend. December looks to be no different, either, with 2 Christmas parties and Sunday classes. Chores are piling up as well; today I managed to get a lot done to prepare for my (painfully short and expensive) visit to the US — wiring money from Japan to my US bank account (which I had to completely empty to pay for my plane tickets) and getting my re-entry permit for my work visa (which is also ridiculously expensive). Luckily the yen is strong against the dollar now, so I was able to transfer a couple hundred dollars more than I would have been able to a few months ago.

Today, being the first day of December, I officially began my job search for next year. Unfortunately, today was sucky day to begin, seeing as the place I went to start my search is closed on Mondays. (What wonderful luck, then, that I have to work on Sundays a lot more now!) I have mixed feelings about the job search. On the one hand, I really do not want another job in the English conversation school industry. In fact, I had promised myself last year that my next job would be art related. On the other hand, especially in Fukui, there may be no jobs available to me other than English conversation. I’m not really getting much encouragement either, which sucks; but I can’t let that deter me from trying. English conversation is easy, tiring work that has a lot of fun times, but low job satisfaction and no upward potential at all. The pay is good, but the hours are terrible. My coworkers and students are all wonderful, but I have to wear a suit and deal with corporate bullshit, so it’s ultimately hard to feel positive about the prospect of continuing this kind of work. I’m also not tired of Japan yet, so I don’t want to go back to the US. The thought of moving back to the US to look for work isn’t all that great anyway — yeah it will be easier to communicate in order to find a job, but the availability of art jobs is virtually just as low, and I’d be giving up the things that I love about living here and returning to a very boring life. I guess I’m saying I’ve put a lot of thought into this over the past couple months, and I keep coming to the same conclusion — I’m going to need to a lot of effort and a lot of luck if I’m going to get a job that’s better than what I have now.

So that’s it for the depressing future. Here’s what’s happened recently:

Like I said, November was really busy and went by so fast that it was all a blur. We had Counseling Week and Open House, Check Tests, and just general all-around insanity and business. I finally got to see the (supposedly) famous night view of Echizen from the top of nearby Murakuni Mountain. It was pretty nice, actually, and I even saw a live tanuki on the way back down the mountain! I also went to a small festival (“The Chrysanthemum Earth Expo”) in Echizen no Sato that Hitomi’s brother helped manage. It was a nice little fair meant to promote green habits. It didn’t really have much pro-green stuff, and they served food in styrofoam containers… but it was still nice. I also went to a houji, which is a kind of Buddhist funeral service held at specific intervals after someone’s death, at Hitomi’s aunt’s house.

So that’s the news from this side of Lake Woebegone. Hitomi and I are going to return to Fukui next weekend to look for work, and hopefully the International Center won’t be closed this time, so I can at least make a few baby steps of progress.