Shameless Propaganda

I am at school, half working on my powerpoint self introduction, half day-dreaming about all the things i am wrapped in. Overall, I must say that I am exhilerated. I'm confused, scared, lonely, but excited.

Okay, so I'm not all that confused. Luckily, I do know how to ask most important questions in well-formed Japanese...things like "where is the..., how much is....who is that...what is that...how do you call this in japanese...." You know, the basics...i know words like go, here, there, eat, have. So in reality, I'm only confused when I must read. I'm great at the Katakana...which is the alphabet made for foreign words. And well, there are many foreign words here. So the Supa (supermarket) around the block from my house is called Su-pe-ri-ya...Uh, SUPERIOR?? Um, ya, i know Superior, I uh, went there all the time back in Noho...It's pretty ghetto and cheap at home, but here....pretty good and expensive. Kanji is so hard.

Because of the small size and homely feel of this town, I just don't get scared. I mean, honestly, I've never been very scared of walking around any city by myself. I'd walk to the liquor store in Oakland at 11pm at night by myself...Uh, maybe I wouldn't if I lived in East Oakland, but 35th St. wasn't very cute either. So ya, this feels like the safest place I've ever been. So, i'm not very scared.

And lonely? Well, in the philosophical sense of the word, I am eternally lonely knowing that as separate beings, everyone dies alone, blah blah. But besides that, I have 2 other JETs in my town, and 2 more the next town over who are all pretty cool. I find 2 of them especially interesting and funny. There are ALT functions almost every week, a dinner here....karaoke night there. So as far as lonely...i guess I'm not that, either. It is different though, I will admit. For example, i do miss the way my friends and I have the comfortability and history that allow us to have immediate understanding of everything we talk about.
It's different with new friends. They require more attention, more thought. Remembering names, pertinent details, and when there are so many people from all over the English speaking world...the accents become hard to distinguish. Can you tell a New Zealand accent from South African accent? Well, I can, but it takes about 20 minutes of waiting for them to use their funny little words for things. Anyhow, lonely, kind of.
As of now I have nothing but good things to say about this program that I work for. The only other time that I've been able to say that was when I used to work for the Preschool in Berkeley. I suppose programs centered around education, they find that they must try and keep their employees healthy and happy so that it may trickle down to the main consumers, the kids. I like it here. I like this. Kore wa suki-des.