hannah.ananas

Miniature adventures on trains

It’s 22:11, and I’ve just sat down on my train home for the night… about an hour after originally planned, and a good distance from where I had intended to board the train. I am covered in sweat (my own, thankfully), and am still breathing a bit heavily. “That was certainly a fun little adventure,” goes through my mind, and I smile. It really was.

About an hour ago, I was on the Yamanote line, heading up to Nippori to catch my train home from there. A group of four Australian life guards boarded the train, and stood in front of me. Something about them caught my attention immediately, and had me turn off my audiobook, though I couldn’t have said what. Eventually, I took out my earphones, too, – it really is a great way to spy on a conversation, wearing earphones with no sound actually being produced by them – and listened a bit more closely to their conversation, because they seemed to be going somewhere quite far, and also seemed a bit unsure of how exactly to get there.

Two of them ended up sitting next to me after my precious neighbors exited the train. The girl who sat down next to me directed at me a strong, “Howdy!” as she sat, thus beginning our conversation.*

We chatted, and it was fun, and their month-long exchange program sounds quite cool. However, not the point. I checked with the fabulous Google Maps to see what time their last train home was. They were going to Onjuku, which is Really far from Tokyo, and the trains headed for it are seldom and end early. Sure enough, they were cutting it amazingly close. Plus, that had totally gone in the wrong direction on the Yamanote line. If they had gone the opposite direction on this loop line, they’d have been to Tokyo station in plenty of time. But then we wouldn’t have met, I guess.

My stop came and went, despite their entreaties that I just leave them to chance. No way, I thought. I’ve been in your place before – I am so not abandoning you to a likely failure to get home for the night. You’ll all be welcome to stay with me if you miss your train.

They were going to have 7 minutes to catch their train, which was not one of the standard lines. I realized quickly that they had little idea as to how to find their specific train (and Tokyo station kind of really sucks with its signage and help on finding the right track for trains – my train isn’t even listen as a line that goes through the station in most places, even though it totally does and it doesn’t change names or anything), so I rushed out with them to help find the line (of which I had never heard).

We scrambled down the steps – I had warned them that it wasn’t a small station, even though it wasn’t the largest – and started searching at the platforms for the train line name (I had given them what name to search: Wakashio.).

After 2-3 minutes, someone found a sign. I checked it, and it was the right line. We started running toward the extension area of the station, and found a sign declaring the line 400m in that same direction.

I hesitated then, deciding if I needed to go with them. When I remembered that I want to help them out if they miss the train, I started running, too, empty suitcase in hand (It makes sense, I promise.). The suitcase slowed me down a good bit, and I had a late start, so I was well behind them. The staircases just kept going downward, and then there’d be a walkway followed by yet another staircase and walkway. At last, I found the track, saw the sign still showing the 22:01 train, and guessed that they had to be down there already. I rushed down, and looked back and forth. I couldn’t see anyone aside from the train guy standing on the platform.

As I looked around the windows, trying to find them, to make sure they hadn’t made a wrong turn somewhere, and totally lost the track, the train worker checked with me if I needed to be on the train. I told him that it was all right, I was just checking for my friends.

Gosh, I hope they’re on this train, I thought, as the doors began to close. I just wish I could see them to be sure. A man came sprinting off the steps, and the doors slid back open quickly to admit him. No one else was around. They have to be on this train.

My heart felt like a quarter of it was in my stomach as the train pulled away… and then I saw it. Male gaijin hair blowing in the air vent, while a pair of male gaijin arms stretched in exhaustion next to him. That’s they. Those are their shirts, their hair, that guy’s arms. If the two guys made it, the two girls must be with them.

I still lingered a few minutes near the tracks, just to be sure, but I was rather certain: They made their train. After seven stops and an hour twenty, they’d all be safely to their beach town again, able to go to their own beds for the night.

Phew!

And so I at last went up to catch my own train home, chuckling at how, for once, I was not the one having to rush to catch my last train home. Someone lives farther than I do this time. This last time.

I’m not sure if I would have been so tickled by this whole thing had it been any other day. But tonight is my last night in my apartment, my last night in my little Ibaraki town. I couldn’t decide earlier if I were going to stay at my place tonight or my friend’s (down in Tokyo). Helping these guys was an easy decision. So I get to stay one last night in my apartment, and say a good goodbye in the morning.

I can do this.
*Note: The Howdy, it turned out, was a ‘just ’cause’ greeting, and they were genuinely surprised to find that I am actually from Texas, where Howdy is actually a normal thing.

Post-a-day 2017

Sing-a-longs for school?

Yesterday, I brought my ukulele to class. It was my final day of teaching, and I only had one class. Seeing as it was with the students who are in the music course program at the school (think of it as being like a college major, but in high school), and they were the only class of the day for me, the teacher asked me to do something relating to music, if I could.

For the longest while, I had nothing. I was just too exhausted and mentally worn out even to think about ideas, let alone come up with some (let alone good ones). But, as I found myself fiddling at long last with my ukulele on Wednesday night, – this was after having decided just to do a non-music-related activity – I wondered if I couldn’t pull off just singing songs the whole class period.

Sure enough, my brain decided to work for me as I played some songs for myself. Kids could sit where they wanted, and look up lyrics on their phones (Yay! for phones in class.). We could start with the ABCs, since some of us had specifically discussed in that class a few weeks ago that Japan seems to have learned only the first half of the alphabet song, and then made up the rest, making the whole thing weird, and having everyone always mumble out somewhere along the second half. From there, we could “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, and then move to some real songs.

I was nervous about my uke playing, and the fact that I’m really just a beginner on the instrument, having come as a lazy-esque mid-level guitar player, and simply become a lazy-esque ukulele player. However, I practiced several songs, and the chords really came back to me rather well, and I even learned some new ones quite easily as I went along.

Once in class, I offered for a student to play the uke. Two kids in the front happily took over tuning it for me (I have a decent ear, but I knew theirs would be better.) when I asked, and one even pre-guessed the notes, singing them aloud for tuning (think of perfect pitch folks). So, I thought they might have had experience with ukuleles. This is Japan, after all. However, the only kid who said he possibly could play a little – usually Japanese for ‘I’m rather decent, but just don’t play too often these days,’ – tried out the uke, and discovered that the chords were different from any instrument he knew. This means that he strummed some odd-sounding chords, and then I reclaimed my ukulele with a bit more confidence and determination.

I taught them the alphabet song, and we had a wonderful time of it all, moving from that to the stars to “Under the Sea” to “Let it go”, and finally “The Lazy Song”. There might have been another in there, but I’m not recalling it right now.

All-in-all, the kids had a blast and didn’t seem to stop smiling, I had a blast, and the teacher was utterly pleased with the lesson and class (she even kept saying so over and over again afterward). I wish I had been able to do more things like that before, but the schedule never really allowed for it. So it goes – it made for a wonderful final class, though, a magical send-off for me. And that is beautiful.

Post-a-day 2017

Glitter bouquet

Today, I was given a bouquet of flowers as part of my goodbye celebration thing at my base school. The roses in the bouquet had/have print glitter all over their tops. I have seen fake roses with their petal tips dipped in glue and then glitter, but I think today was the first time I’ve ever seen real roses that had undergone this procedure. I instantly thought of my best friend, who loves glitter. And then her husband, who doesn’t. As part of their pre-wedding celebrations, I did an interview thing with each of them. One of the questions was asking about something that the other loves, but you really don’t. Her then-fiancé answered with a powerful, “Glitter. It gets everywhere.”

On the bus, heading home shortly after the ceremony thing, as I carried the bouquet in a cardboard box filled with whatever I needed to take home from my desk, I discovered pink glitter on my shirt, pants, and even ukulele, which I was carrying on my arm.

Just now, getting ready to sleep, my attention was caught by a pink sparkle… on my bed. Why must there be glitter on my bed?

Oh, glitter. Oh, glitter. 😛

Post-a-day 2017

City Surprises

Making my way through the nonsense that is the Shibuya Crossing on a holiday afternoon, I am feeling almost desperate to be on a train home. There are just so many people in my way, with no respect for my desire to be not here. Not that I actually expect them to know I want not to be here – I am merely noting their ignorance to the matter. I am almost to the station, when a small but clear opening appears right ahead of me in the shuffling crowd.

I hardly have to think – in fact, I think I know what it is without thinking – to recognize the colorful lettering on the page of that folded-open notebook being held just above people’s heads.

FREE HUGS

I hesitate a moment, verifying that the holder of the sign is respectable/huggable. Despite my being in Japan, I accept that this young Japanese guy is holding the sign, and trust that he knows what it means. Perhaps especially because I am in Japan, actually.

He’s young and Japanese, and he looks trustworthy. I throw open my arms, and instantly see his face light up, as he says an adorable “Sahn kyuu!” (How the average Japanese pronunciation goes for ‘Thank you.’) We embrace, and it is solid and long and wonderfully perfect. I return the verbal thanks, with emphasis on thanking him for the hug (as opposed to his thanking my willingness or whatever on my end), give a gloriously contended smile, and go on my merry way the last few yards to the station.

I savor the experience, and especially the loving hug, as I wander goofily through the crowds up to the tracks. Thank you, God. You gave me just what I needed in order to feel I was heading the right way just now. I am in the right place right now, and it is perfect. Thank you.

Post-a-day 2017

Copycat, copy the cat

A friend is helping me prepare for my goodbye speeches at my schools. I wanted to do them in Japanese, and I wanted them to be good. Yes, I could rumble my way through some Japanese and be mostly understood without much prep. However, I want the speeches to be better than that, seeing as they will be each given during a whole ceremony thing at each school. Not the time I want to be casual with my words. Also, almost no one would understand the English anyway, if I gave the speeches in English.

All of that, however, is merely the precursor to this next bit…

This friend who is helping me, she’s helping me by recording herself giving the speech. Why? Because I want to hear a native speaker give the speech. As we were discussing this, I mentioned that I do better copycatting someone’s speaking when I have never heard a certain word or phrase already spoken. (If I have heard it already, then I usually have already learned the appropriate natural way of saying it, and can produce it on my own, without aural prompting or guidance.)

When I mentioned this to my friend, her reply caught me off guard.

copying is the basic way for learning 👍🏻

What?

And yes, it is so utterly and beautifully true. As babies, we copy our parents and family members in order to learn to talk and walk and eat and do basically everything that we do successfully. The same applies as we learn new behaviors theighout our whole lives, and it definitely includes learning to speak a new(foreign) language properly.

And yet, schools have this huge concept of ‘copying is cheating, and cheating is bad, so copying is bad.’

I once found myself in a meeting with fellow faculty who were arguing/fussing about preventing cheating in the school, while I was wondering what the whole big deal with cheating was on the first place. It’s not that I was (or currently am) approving of cheating – I was (and still am) simply wondering what the reasoning was behind this terror-inducing aversion to cheating. It just kind of felt like a sort of blind belief situation, with no real background to support it validly. It may very well be completely valid – I have just never sat down a brainstormed enough to find out if it is or isn’t. And I was wondering in that meeting if anyone else had done that. (Though I found it highly unlikely, so I didn’t bother asking – it would have just stirred up trouble.)

And here, tonight, my friend says that copying is like the basis for learning. And with only a brief bit of thought, this idea, this concept, seems to make sense, and much more than the ‘no cheating’ one ever has.

After a bit of discussion in this new topic with my friend, I discovered that the word in Japanese for “to learn” comes from the word for “to copy”. I was in momentary disbelief, and then complete unsurprise – of course Japanese has that. I can so see that, it makes such easy sense with the Japanese culture.

It turns out that the old word for “to copy” is 真似ぶ(manebu) (and the current is 真似る(maneru)). The word for “to learn” is 学ぶ(manabu).

Put more visually simple:

学ぶ(manabu/ to learn)
真似ぶ(manebu/ to copy)
真似る(maneru/ to copy) (old word)

(And manebu is the old word for maneru, but the have the same meaning.)
Wow. Just wow.

I certainly plan to ponder this topic much, much more. This concludes my thoughts so far, however.

Post-a-day 2017

Washington

My mom is on a sort of artist retreat in Washington right now. She called me up to show me the place where she’s staying for the retreat, and it’s gorgeous. The barn-like house and other beautiful, wooden buildings on the plot of land look fabulous amongst the unfamiliar greenery. I kept looking at it all, trying to place it. It looked somehow familiar and yet totally not. But I’ve never been to anywhere that has foliage like Washington, so it’s no wonder I couldn’t quite figure it out, place it all – it actually is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

The temperature was in the 50s, with humidity in the 80s, as it was early morning. I found myself asking my mom how far she is from Forks. I had to spell the name for her, as well as tell her that it’s a city in Washington. She had no idea that I was semi needing out. But that’s okay, because it turns out that she’s something like four and half hours away by ferry and car. So there’s no chance she’d be able to pop by for a quick look and a photo for me. (Aka I’m not missing out on a total nerd opportunity.)

So, that was fun, discovering that I’m a bit more of a nerd than I had expected. 😛 Gotta love nerds, though, right? I know I do. 🙂

Post-a-day 2017

While everything is perfect

In this book I’m currently reading – okay, it’s an audiobook, and I’m listening to it, but you get the point – was a comment by the narrating character that rather struck me the other day. She was talking about some date she’d had (or something like a date, anyway), and, though it seemed there was potential for another activity of some sort next, she had decided to leave. She said, “I wanted to leave while everything was perfect.”

At first, I felt as though she was simply setting herself up for missing out by not going and for delusion by thinking that dates (or more of whatever it was) needed to be always perfect. And then I considered my immediate responses, and discovered that I disagreed with both of them.

When I really began to consider her comment, it gave way to what felt like brilliance. Yesterday, I was at a goodbye beach party. There had been an option to rsvp for an overnight stay after the official party, and I had initially declined this option. I wanted to sleep in my own bed, and several other factors helped me pick that easily. However, once at the party, I found that I didn’t want to leave so soon. I began exploring the logistics of staying the night, and found that there was possibility of enough space for my joining the party.

As I recalled my book’s character’s words, however, I began to think in a different manner. Yes, I am loving spending time with everyone right now. If I left now, I would be leaving while everything is perfect. If I stay the night, what will happen? And I instantly saw the probable, almost certain future of the situation. I would stay, thinking I’d have enough energy to manage the night, and then eventually would hit a wall, want to sleep, not be able to get to sleep because of the partying people, get annoyed at the overly drunk partiers, and have a miserable end to the party. Whom was I kidding here? I would rather leave while everything is perfect, than stay until I’m furiously agitated and starting to hate the people I was currently loving.

And so I left a short while later, had a wonderful time riding home-ish (same train, different stops) with the group of girls who were leaving at that time, chatting and joking and having an overall wonderful time together (as I already mentioned).

And the party as a whole ended perfectly for me. It was just plain cool to have had the party go so well.
Tonight, after another beach day with a different friend, we had planned to go to this awesome salsa party, with this Grammy-winning DJ and various salsa performances and live music for social dancing – it’s a big deal party celebrating the anniversary of some club, essentially. And it was only like 20 bucks to attend, which is way cheap for such a thing here in Tokyo.

When we arrived back to my friend’s place, and I had showered from the beach, I began to consider that line again. Could I “leave” while everything is perfect? Could I just go to bed now and not go, and be happy with that? The answer was a resounding “Yes.” I had been exhausted all day already, and am far behind on sleep for this past week – I want sleep. I love dancing, and I love cool opportunities like this, especially to attend with friends. And the risk was incredibly high that I would grow to exhausted, smoking would be too intense for me in the club, music would be too loud for my already existent headache, and I would be crying (possibly literally) to go home and drink a bunch of cool water and just go to sleep.

So, I stayed home, and it was perfect. Now, I am off to some much-needed and much-wanted sleep. Goodnight, World. I’ll see you when my head feels great again in the late AM.

Long story-ish short: I think it is a very valuable phrase, “I wanted to leave while everything was perfect.”

Post-a-day 2017

Salty Hair

I love the feeling of my hair after a good day at the beach. Running my fingers through it, slightly course and thick yet smooth, feels almost like running my hands trough tall grass, grabbing hold of a chunk with a bit of dirt, and then swirling it around, feeling its sharp-edged softness. Kind of weird idea, I suppose, but it’s what seems to suit best as an analogy right now.

The salty, sandy thickness, supplemented by the warm (or hot) sun exposure, sings of satisfaction in the day’s accomplishments. Today was a good day, I can feel it saying. Today was a very good day. And it always has been when my hair is like that.

My skin is slightly sticky, sand keeps appearing in little patches anywhere on my body, and my hair is sunbathed and thick. Today was a beach day, and it was a wonderful one. Today was a wonderful day.

Post-a-day 2017

Trumpet and Sex(?!)

This conversation happened between students and me this afternoon.

Student: “We have to go to practice.”

Hannah: “Oh, really? What practice?”

Student: “We must practice trumpet and sex!”

After a stutter in the conversation, the second student, who wasn’t speaking, noticed the blunder, and she aimed to correct it. As we all laughed almost hysterically, they did their best to practice the difference in pronunciation between the two words.

Sex…sax…sex…sax…sax…sax…Sax… Back and forth we went, my pronouncing it, and their aiming to copy the sounds correctly and then reproduce it over and over again. It was adorable and wonderful. I love those two girls, and I will miss them loads after I leave here.
Post-a-day 2017

A free association?

Money is hard. In the middle of the boondocks is where to find I my life friend vest. Vestitude in the inn, bridgestone in the brimm. Grimm Reaper, till the soil, seap what you sow, sew a new crow, home a new phone.

Alas, my money comes to you, my sweet, not bitter, blessed, beloved fluttering sister-bye. My, oh, hi, lovely. Lovely my, yes. Thank you. Goodbye, why.

——————-

My cousin told me about an artist (singer) who had a journal, in which she wrote words that sounded good together, sentences and phrases that sounded nice and felt right, but hat didn’t necessarily make any real sense as sentences and such. She then made a CD out of the words in this notebook. I’m not sure who this is, though I have wanted to hear this album ever since he first explained about it to me – I find the idea bountifully beautiful. Or something positive like that, anyway – I like the idea. This was my own sort of exercise in that same sort of writing. It wasn’t about making sense, but about telling a story through the sounds, without the assigned meanings of the words. I’m guessing my effort to be a mediocre outcome, however I am nonetheless proud of my accomplishing it.

Thank you for reading. 😉

Post-a-day 2017