Bereft of Mitch, flat tires, and crane games

After I got back, it took a couple of weeks to get together with the other ALTs on the island. Mitch, Mike, and Joey spent their Golden Week in a bungalow on the beach in Vietnam, and their trip started just before mine ended. Aaron and Evelyn went to Korea, and they didn't get back until after I did. The readjustment to Tsushima was especially hard on Joey and Mitch. Going from a tropical paradise to still-just-a-little-too-cold-for-shorts Tsushima was rough for them. Mitch had for a long time commented that he wasn't happy with his placement. His Japanese, though much improved, still wasn't enough to communicate with his teachers, and he was living in the most remote part of Tsushima. Suffice it to say, loneliness hit him very hard.

Readjusting to Tsushima myself, I didn't take the time to hang out with the guys like we'd been doing in the winter, so I didn't get to see Mitch until about halfway into the month. By then he had more or less decided to go back home. He had been thinking on it for a few months, and had finally reached his breaking point. He broke the news to his schools. Instead of being offended or angry, they took it in stride, and helped him make preparations for going home. Mitch told me that as he was leaving school after telling his supervisor, she met him at his car, crying, and apologized for letting him down.

We all got together for a send-off party and said our farewells, something I wasn't remotely prepared for. After he left, I felt the urge to get away on my own somewhere to think. I immediately booked a trip to Fukuoka. I tried to take the first flight out on a Saturday morning, but it was cancelled on account of fog. The next flight didn't leave until noon, so I had a solid four hours to kill. Normally that would be fine, but I had already prepared myself for going on a trip. More than a little cranky, I headed back to my apartment. As I got out of the car, I noticed that I had a flat tire. I sighed, kicked it, and headed to the car dealership.

Taking your car to the shop in America is usually an ordeal. The best I've learned to look forward to is no initial wait--walk right in, explain the problem, hand over the keys, they drive it right in and get to work. Even in that best case, though, getting a flat tire fixed has taken me no less than half an hour. If there's a wait, well, don't plan on getting the car back until around suppertime. That's what was going through my head as I sped along to the dealership--skipping my trip to Fukuoka all on account of a crummy flat tire.

The owner and his wife had taken the day off, so only the actual garage was open. There were two on-duty mechanics, and they were tinkering with two cars whose driver didn't seem to be around. I pulled up and explained the problem. (Well, actually, I pointed to the tire; these things tend to explain themselves.) The mechanic didn't miss a beat: he had me pull up to the garage while he ran in to get the tools. He came right out, jacked up the car, popped off the tire, took a look at it, rolled out a new one, popped it on, lowered the car, and bowed. The whole thing took about eight minutes.

Why can't we have it this way back home?

Stunned, my mood salvaged, I caught the noon flight for Fukuoka, and spent the weekend processing everything. I asked myself whether I had the same desire to leave that Mitch did--if I was unsatisfied, if I would be better off at home--acknowledging the possibility that I had been ignoring it or concealing it. After a day or two of dwelling on it, I determined that I'm right where I need to be. I love my job, I'm learning tons about Japanese culture, Japanese language, and even about me and life in general. This remains what it was when I signed on last year--just something I need to do.

While I was in Fukuoka, I also finished War and Peace. I started it sometime in November, and I'm usually a bedtime reader. That means I read just before bed to put myself to sleep, and Tolstoy, bless his heart, can put me to sleep sometimes with five pages. The Penguin edition I borrowed is about 1,500 pages long, so you can imagine my progress. I recommend the book to everyone. It's an epic in every sense of the term: it takes a long, long time to grasp the scope of the narrative, but once you get up to speed, it's great. I agree with what Aaron told me when he lent it to me: I can understand why it's still so highly recommended even after 140 years.

I also finished Brave New World, which I had started in Indonesia. I loved it, especially because I've spent almost as much time thinking about it as I did reading it.

I finished both of them while sitting at the McDonald's at the Hakata subway station in Fukuoka. I'm so easy to please these days that an underground fast food chain is close enough to a coffee shop setting for me to enjoy reading.

I took full advantage of all the creature comforts of the big city: Mountain Dew, Mexican food, and movie theaters. I went to the theater in the mood to just see a movie, without having much preference as to which one. On days like that, back home I would just close my eyes and pick one, but in Japan, only a few of the movies are offered in English. So I chose Prince Caspian, having neither read nor seen any of the books or movies. I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially Eddie Izzard's role.

After that, I took the bus over to Sasebo to visit the girls. Rachel was busy, but Mutia came to town to hang out with me for the afternoon. We caught up on things, reminisced about the trip, and went to an arcade. She loves one particular kind of stuffed toy that can only be found in the little crane games, so she tried to win more of them. I've only played a crane game once or twice in my life, but I gave it a try. In two tries I managed to win her three of those little toys, and all three were ones she didn't already have. I think I was sort of her hero for the day.

All in all, the weekend helped me cope with Mitch leaving and reaffirm my desire to be here.