Day 10

I'm in Guy's office right now because our wireless internet isn't working, so we're all confined to one ethernet cable--oh First World problems! It's freaking messy...there's a few half-drunk coffee cups, papers on the floor, papers all over the desk, a few half-used notebooks with big scrawly messy writing. And yet this man is so successful and has a quite a formidable "empire" all over Japan. I can't comprehend how people can be so successful when they aren't organized! It's as if the clarity of their internal thoughts is not affected by the organization of their surroundings.

Class today--Guy wasn't there so we ran it ourselves. It's funny when you're teaching English, because my original notions of classroom management and motivation kind of go out the window when the kids can't understand you. The kids are already really good and polite, so there were no problems, but they didn't seem to respond to me as well as they do when Guy is there. I think they're just more comfortable with Guy and Mai because they've known them for much longer than they've known me. At least I hope that's it. Afterwords since Guy wasn't there we had to take the city bus back and it was really fun :) (You know you're a tourist in a new place when taking the bus is an exciting adventure...)



It looks like a charter bus but it's a regular bus! So clean! I was able to get better views of the hillside than I am from Guy's car.



Afterwards I took the tram--by myself--to Ohato where I was gonna check out Yume Saito, one of the big local malls. Except right when I got the first station, I searched in my purse for my route map and found I had left it had home. And couldn't see any route map on the walls of the station. Luckily, at that very moment, two female 大学生 (college students) passed by me--my peer group! Perfect. If it had been a man or older women, there's no way I could have asked for help. But Japanese college students are just like the students in JSA. I know how they're going to talk and react. So they guided me to the right line number/direction and we chatted a little bit before they got on their bus. I liked getting the chance to speak Japanese, and that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone alone (probably.)

Yume Saito showed me how consumerist and materialistic Japan is--just like America. First world countries. So while their mall set-up is different (they basically get the same job done in much less space), their items are can be just as unnecessarily expensive or frivolous as Americans'. And they set up the same dichotomies and pressures as America too--an add for Baskin-Robbins and an add for a weight-loss pill in the same commercial break, for example. The pressure to look good is even stronger here, more worth-defining than in comparatively "tolerant" America. Maybe not true, but just my observation. In any case, I didn't get to spend too much time in other sections of the mall because I spent all my time in the book store. さすが。 I would. I spent a long time reading books for Japanese speakers who are trying to learn French. Amusing :)



Afterwards I went to the Nagasaki Wharf area which is so cute and reminded me of Pier 39 in San Fransisco! I sat by the water for a long time.



I was right near Dejima, the place I ran into before when I was walking, so I knew I could walk home, at which point I got mad at myself for taking the tram in the first place (wasting Y120) because I totally could have walked there. But then I wouldn't have got to meet those Japanese girls :) I walked home and totally made it in under 20 minutes. I feel like it takes just as long to take the tram with all the wait time included. So silly!

Hopefully the other interns will be down for doing something fun tomorrow! WEEKEND! (again, already!)