Repetitive Stress Injury

Winter and I have never, in so many words, gotten along particularly well. There have been times, knee-deep in the Minnesota winter, watching the snow fill the sharpest silences I have ever experienced, when we have put aside our differences to appreciate a rare moment, but when the magic wears off it's right back to teeth and throats.

I came this island in the middle of Kikai-summer, a season characterized by heat which leaves you a sopping, naked puddle every time you step back through your door from say, a trip to office, or your mailbox. I loved every sweat-drenched second of it. Not so much out of any perverse pleasure in my resemblance to a lake, there is just something about it being that hot which throws you into overdrive. When the simple act of cooking dinner pushes your fragile human cooling systems to their limit, everything seems inexplicably alive, and imbued with purpose.

"Winter" on Kikai is, as with most things on a sub-tropic island a decidedly relative term. When you can go to work in short-sleeves in early December, I hesitate to raise any kind of stink about "winter". But there are other parts of the season which snuck up on me.

When it gets past a certain point, diving and swimming become, not so much impossible acts, as desperate ones. Yes, you can enter said water, and if you're attired in the latest in modern wetsuit technology, you won't even be that cold. But there's a certain feeling, like Christmas decorations in April. You're out of season, and you know it. Something just feels wrong.

More surprising is the daylight. I hadn't really noticed it before this week, but these days the ven-diagram of "daylight" and "time at work" are an eclipse drifting towards totality. I get home from work and have maybe an hour of daylight, and for some reason this is incredibly depressing. The weather gods are, as expected, also in on it. I think it rained maybe once in the first 3 months here on Kikai (aside from, you know, the typhoons). I believe the ratio has definitely shifted towards the polar opposite for weeks now. Too many clouds. I think I miss the sun. More than the cold, I miss the sun.

I think as far as winter bottom-outs go, this one won't be particularly bad. Winter is a very hard time for a lot of JETs. Japan is a land imbued with robotic, talking toilets, who greet you with something disturbingly similar to a grin, launched from automatic-rising toilet seats. For all this unbridled technological prowess, Japan stubbornly refuses to believe in insulation, or central heating. It's not even something which "some" people do. They are mythical creatures, like unicorns or mermaids. This leads to the unfortunate kerosene heater solution, which has you juggling hypothermia and asphyxiation, or foregoing a heater and sleeping huddled in a ball on your heated rug. Add to this the lack of Thanksgiving in Japan, and the even more damaging vague hints of Christmas, just enough to remind you that somewhere in the world there are real Christmas-like events occurring even as you ponder where the hell Christmas cake came from, and wonder why Japanese kids are willing to buy a skinny, blonde Santa (more on this in later posts). Plus you will probably at some point realize you are completely and utterly alone in a world of bobbing black hair, and suits. Cold, lonely, homesick, plus all the usual work stress and whatever cultural adaptation problems you were having before you became cold, lonely, and homesick. Yes, winter does indeed suck.

Compared to this, my life remains comparatively fantastic. Hell, the winter solstice comes at the end of December, then my biggest gripe starts to turn itself around. I'm in kind of a Middle-school arc of my job right now, but honestly I like middle school. All my English teachers a) speak fairly respectable English and b) have me actively participating in the planning of lessons despite the fact I only show up once a week. These are both awesome. The kids are hilarious little bastards, and I could see how they could drive the occasional ALT to madness, but they're not malevolent or anything, even when the entire 2nd year class of 60 kids runs up to you and starts grabbing your fat. "IT FEELS LIKE MOCHI!!!" my favorite little bastard Keisuke screams. Hahaaa...he'll pay. As soon as his back brace comes off and I can throw him again.

I'll try and keep the posts coming more regularly. November was...just one of those months. Life gets a little bit ahead of you, and before you know it three weeks have passed.