lauren in japan

Fourteenth week! Fourteenth week! I've been in Japan long enough to proclaim "fourteenth week!" in regards to my residency and have it be true! But really, who's counting? I am! I am! Fourteenth week! I'm not counting down but rather merely counting.

In the months leading up to my departure when I was obsessively obsessing over my future Japan life I always imagined this time -- fourteenth weekish, three monthish time -- being the point where I would be completely fine -- I just had to make it until now and the rest would be gangbusters. I don't know that I've really been so completely not fine as to be waiting for this moment -- but I am in a very comfortable place.

This week went down quick and strong like a - uh - simile I can't think of. Monday I joined Cristina and Shaun for our follow-up training session at Kyushu Honbu (headquarters). It was painless enough (except for my manic rush to get there in the morning as the heavy rain made my train five minutes late causing me to miss my subway connection to Tenjin [downtown], boo) and afterwards I headed back to Hakata to teach my two night classes.

Tuesday I got up super early to correspond with a travel agency to look at my options for the upcoming O-bon holiday since my brain chose this week to start going batty over making set plans. O-bon "celebrates the spirits of the dead, who are believed to return to their homes at this time" (Takada and Lampkin 45). Since I didn't want to feel overcrowded by all the extra Japanese ancient spirits wandering the streets (and the 200% mark-up of flight and lodging prices, not, presumably, because of the dead people), I decided to make plans outside of Japan and was looking seriously into Korea, China, and Australia, half-seriously looking into Thailand, Nepal, and Indonesia, and not-seriously-but-just-checking-for-curiosity's-sake looking into eastern Russia and holy run-on sentence, Batman! The problem with the above places is the Lauren-traveling-alone factor and the traveling-is-exhausting factor. I only get August 9th to the 15th off, and as much I as I enjoy my alone time and exploring, I have plans to be in the throes of both in the next six months or so to take advantage of my three-day weekends with various trippage to Tokyo and Kyoto and such. I started looking at flying to Paris to visit Kate or flying home to visit - everyone - but the expense was killer. Anyway where I'm going with all of this is I'm meeting Carl in Hawaii because I don't want to do much and I want to read English and I don't want to be around short people. Also, because, I like, miss the boyf.

So plans were set and I got up early again on Wednesday to go downtown to make my final reservations and pay for the ticket and whatnot. After I got off the subway and was walking to my giant building destination I thought -- what the heck is this life? I'm walking downtown in a city of five million people heading to a Japanese travel agency to pay for an airline ticket I negotiated myself with money from my salary - I earn a salary - and I'm wearing a suit and and and --- what? It's all very adulty. But the weirdest part is it's also completely handleable. It's only odd when I really think about it. Anyway.

Thursday up early again as it is my busiest day and the day where my trainer is coming to observe all of my classes. Boo. Actually things went really well -- I got great feedback and the classes went (for the most part) nicely. But that doesn't mean I wasn't up all night and morning fretting about it beforehand!

And then today. I get to breathe today.

However, because of this busy week, my Japartment is the most cluttery Japartment in all of Japartment land. Ah well.

But yes, things are fine. Great, really. Fourteenth week, fourteenth week, fourteenth week, and all is well.