On the road again

We woke up and got ready in time to meet folks at Shoney's for breakfast at 9. On the way out, I stopped to get a picture of Betty's grease cup.

In my experience, southern cooking revolves around grease, especially from pork and bacon. Whenever you cook sausage or bacon, you pour the drippings from the skillet into a jar or cup. Next time you cook, you grease the pan with those leftover drippings. That means bacon grease is an active ingredient in any traditional southern food involving a frying pan or skillet. I like this.

Mom never did this, because she wisely saw the drawbacks of using grease as an
ingredient when your family doesn't work out in the sun all day burning calories. I've since seen Granny and now Betty with a Pyrex measuring cup full of grease. I especially like that the stuff sort of settles into bands distinguishing the different sources, looking a lot like strata in a rock bed.

We had initially planned on eating at a local cafe, but it had only recently closed down. After a quick round of phone calls--with Betty using her cell phone--the three of us arrived at Shoney's right on time. Ronnie had to work, but his wife, Sherry, wanted to make sure she got to see us. Debbie came, too, along with her girls, Jennifer and Renee. Jennifer brought Jacob, her little boy.

We had a great time catching up with everyone. (Just like me, Mom hadn't seen any of them since Gatlinburg a year and a half prior.) Jacob, all of two years old, was already forming complete sentences. He was absolutely over the moon for Betty, and would readily do anything she told him to.

Saying goodbye was hard, like it always is. Mom and I weren't in a tremendous hurry--especially since Dalton is on the way to Missouri from Toccoa, knocking three hours off the trip--but Mom had to be at work the next morning, so we plowed on down the road. I did all the driving, just like on the way down. And, just like on the way down, we spent most of the time talking. We managed to go into things like environmentalism, education, and politics in general.

We got back home at about 9, ending a six-day, 2,000-mile road trip. I went to bed well before midnight, not even noticing the significance of the date until the next morning.

Family in Dalton

After just a couple of missed turns, we got to the nursing home just fine. (We both recognized it as the same complex where my great-grandma stayed several years ago.) As we were pulling in, we passed Betty, who was pulling out at the same time. We stopped the car and leered at her until she took a good look at us. The grin on her face made the surprise worth it. She was going back to the house to rest up, so Mom and I decided to visit with Robert and my aunt Debbie.

We sat for a while talking to Robert and Debbie. Robert had recently suffered a mild stroke, which had prompted him being taken to the hospital and released to the nursing home. He wasn't having a very good day, and I tried my best not to wonder whether he recognized me or not. Mom and I had talked about it coming in, and we were both prepared for the possibility of his not remembering us. Debbie provided more than enough conversation to make up for Robert's silence.

Mom and I headed back to the house to visit with Betty. Not wanting her to cook, we took her out to dinner at Cracker Barrel. She was every bit as sharp as I could remember her having been all my life, though over the years she's come to look a lot like her mother, my great-grandma. We had a great time talking and catching up over dinner, then headed back to the house.

Betty and Robert have been in that house over fifty years. With the exception of central air conditioning being added and the bathroom being remodeled a few years ago, the house and the property haven't changed my entire life. The way I hear it, Robert worked as a welder, and both of them managed a full vegetable garden. I'm not sure exactly how many different things Betty grew in the garden, but she likely grew some combination of corn, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, butter beans, green beans, okra, squash, and collard greens.

Regardless of what was actually grown in the garden, she can cook the most amazing food I've ever tasted. She learned that from her mother, and in turn passed it on to Debbie. Mom got a good bit of it from a combination of her mother (Betty's sister) and from spending summers at Betty and Robert's. I've only just recently become interested in cooking, so I'm suddenly fascinated by the art.

Betty also did a lot of canning, pickling, and freezing with all the extra food they had. She told us about finding frozen peas a few years ago that were dated 10-15 years prior, and that they still tasted fine.

Several different nurses, upon examining Robert over the past couple of years, have raved about how healthy he is for his age. When they ask what he's been eating, his answer explains everything: home-cooked fresh vegetables, practically every day, for practically his entire life.

In addition to vegetables, they also have apple trees in the yard. Betty named off several apple varieties I'd never heard of; apparently they have one of each kind of tree. They also have pecan trees, which had dropped pecans that fall. That explained the buckets and buckets of pecans in the landing of the house.

The pecan trees had dropped that fall, and she had buckets and buckets to show for it. She insisted that we take some home, so we ended up toting the bucket in the bottom left all the way back to Missouri.

We sat up and just talked. Whether because of how long it'd been since I'd seen them, how long I'd been out of the country, or my being (I guess) a grown-up--or all three--I was perfectly happy sitting up talking. I learned that Betty and Robert signed a $5000 note on the house in '53, making monthly installments of $35.

Betty's always been a huge bookworm. (I wonder if that has something to do with why Mom and Dad read to Heather and me every night when we were little, until we were old enough to read to them.) She still tears through old paperbacks, and her guest rooms are full of kid's books that have been read by four generations in the past fifty years. She really liked my Reader, and seemed to be considering getting one. The thought of my 70+ year old great-aunt using the Sony PRS-505--something I have no doubt she could do effortlessly--makes me smile.

Mom's cousin Ronnie dropped by for a visit. He's a CPA, and before that night, I'd never heard him talk much about his job. None of us could quite figure out what brought it on, but he told us several great stories from his early days as an accountant, involving the ways businesses would try to cook their books and the ways he found to catch them.

He and I spent a long time talking about Japan. He asked me more thoughtful and pointed questions than anyone else has, and I was struck by how interested he was. With most people--even my family--I try to refrain from going into fully-detailed stories, for fear of boring them or sounding conceited. I know folks in my family love me and want to know about my adventures, but I'm also pretty sure there's a limit. Ronnie made it clear he wanted all the details.

Debbie came in at about 9, after having gotten Robert to bed. The five of us stayed up talking until what must have been 11, before Debbie and Ronnie went back home. Mom, Betty, and I stayed up until about midnight talking.

Navigating Dalton

Mom and I headed out Tuesday morning at about 9:30. Though I felt much better than last year about the time I'd spent in Toccoa, it still hurt to leave. It's still hard to get used to not being an hour away from Granny and Papa's house.

Dad's people lives in and around Toccoa. Mom's people are centered more in Dalton. I hadn't been able to visit last Christmas, which meant the last time I'd seen any of them was the summer before JET, when all of us were up in Gatlinburg. I'd been thinking about stopping in for a visit, and Mom was up for it, so we decided to drop in.

On the way out, though, we stopped in Atlanta for an early lunch at The Varsity. I've never much cared for the food, but it's a tradition in the Atlanta area, and I wanted to take some pictures, having just taught my students a restaurant lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed my slaw dog and burger.

We decided not to call and let anyone know we were coming. (Looks like I get that trait honestly.) We pulled up to my great-aunt and -uncle's house, only to find they were gone. My cousin was raking leaves for my aunt, and we asked him where everyone was. My uncle Robert has Alzheimer's, and they'd been preparing for a while to put him in a nursing home. Betty and Robert were up at one of those homes, and we asked my cousin for directions there.

What followed was one of the most confusing sets of directions I've ever been given. I'm generally pretty good about landmarks, but only when I'm familiar with the area. I've been to Dalton twice in the past four years, and those have been the only times I've actually driven in the city. It's my fault for not coming to visit more often; if I had, I would've understood better. Mom didn't do much better.

Mom probably would have had no problem if the landmarks he gave were from when she was little, but parts of Dalton have apparently changed a lot. That left us both at a loss and forced us to use basic terms like road names and highway numbers. My cousin, a lifelong local, kept referring to things like "the bypass" and "the [name of newly-built restaurant]." Rather than take the time to get him to spell it out for us, we listened, interpreted what we could, and decided to wing it.

18 friends in 36 hours, part quatre

I wanted to get over to Alpharetta to see Augustin and Lada, but I was running out of time. I had several people left to see in Athens, and Atlanta traffic was already starting to build up heading into afternoon rush hour.

I headed back to the Five Points Jittery Joe's, this time to see Ski. We had a great time catching up on the past two years--she's another I didn't get to talk to on my last visit--and talking about our plans. She's working on her M.Ed in School Library Media, and is head-over-heels in love with her field. She gushed about it to me, thoroughly dispelling the image I had of what being a school librarian entails. (The last time I paid attention to a school librarian, she was teaching us how to use the then-brand-new computerized card catalog.)

Hearing her describe it, the job certainly appealed to me. She told me about schools where the librarian works with the teachers to help integrate media center resources (books, video, internet) in the students' everyday lessons. That kind of interdisciplinary collaboration is right up my alley.

While she was at it, Ski went ahead and inspired me some more: she told me all about the GACE, a way for me to be certified to teach in public schools without having to invest beforehand all the time and money in a M.Ed. Ski rocks.

After saying goodbye, I headed to Watkinsville. Only halfway sure of where it was, I found my way to Jean's new restaurant. Called simply "Inoko Express," it was tucked away in a new shopping center. As soon as I walked in and headed up to the register, I heard a familiar voice call out in a lovable accent, "Whadayou doing?"

Jean gave me a big hug and showed me her restaurant. It's a much smaller operation than the full-blown steakhouse we're both used to. We both understand, though, that she'll never have half the headaches with hers that Mr. Inoko had running the big one.

She asked me all kinds of questions about me and about Japan in general. Having gone so long without talking to her, I noticed just how much she acts like a mother to everyone--just like Mom does with all her employees. No wonder I enjoyed working for her so much. After talking about me for a few minutes, we shifted over to her. She had tons and tons of things to talk about; I could tell she hadn't been able to vent to anyone in a while. (A small but nontrivial drawback to such a small operation: it's lonely at the top when you've got no assistant managers.)

She'd quickly learned just how many headaches she'd failed to anticipate, headaches that come part and parcel with owning your own business. (I don't mean to sound like I'd be able to anticipate them, but I've heard Mom and Dad talk about them for years now.) She'd been working seven days a week for a while--lunch and dinner shifts--and was clearly worried about building the business.

Despite all the problems, it was plain that she wasn't even thinking about giving up. She was so proud of the place, and of herself for taking such a big step, that I wanted to hug her again. So I did. She wouldn't let me take a picture with her, worried as she always has been about how she looks, so I had to settle for just saying goodbye.

My next stop was Athens proper, and another new-ish Inoko Express. This one was started about a year before by Tetsu, who had for years been the kitchen manager at the main Inoko steakhouse. Tetsu whipped me into shape when I was promoted to manager, and it took me a long, long time to learn how he (and, by extension, Mr. Inoko) wanted me to work. Being in Japan has done wonders for me: I understand perfectly his and Inoko's reasons for having such expectations of their workers in general and managers in particular.

Anyway, I showed up in the middle of a bit of a rush. Tetsu didn't hesitate to show me the place anyway, asking all about me and Japan. I told him I was thinking about leaving Japan after July (more on that later), and he told me that was a good idea, given Japan's recession and the possibility of anti-foreigner sentiment rising. We didn't get to spend as much time talking, as there wasn't a place to sit down, but--unlike Jean--he didn't mind taking a picture with me.

After leaving Tetsu, I headed back to Cord's. Cord, being as flighty and bad at planning as I am, understood just how tentative my plans were. He invited me to a goodbye dinner they were having for Jeremy, telling me to show up whenever I could. I made it by about 8, and found Cord, Beth, Jeremy, Brigitte, Adam Z, and Clay, relaxing in the kitchen.

The menu was prime rib with mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. I asked if I'd already missed it, which they all found amusing. They told me they'd put the prime rib in at about 5. I know nothing about prime rib; I asked if that meant it was almost ready. Turns out those things take a while to cook. They weren't expecting it to be ready until 11.

I did a little catching up with Clay, learning that he'd started working for DFCS, and was thinking about getting into social work. I helped Cord slice some potatoes for boiling, which gave us time to scheme. (More on that much, much later.)

Not wanting to get back to Toccoa too late, I had to leave. I said my goodbyes, thanked them all for making time to see me, and headed out. The trip back was awfully nostalgic, as I've made the Athens-Toccoa drive on Highway 106 easily a hundred times since 2001.

18 friends in 36 hours, part trois

I woke up at about 8, had a quick shower, and managed to have a cup of tea with Cord and Beth before Cord had to go to work. After he left, Beth and I talked for a bit. I knew I had a lot of folks still to see, so I headed out.

My first stop was Duluth to meet up with Khanh. Khanh's one of my best friends from Inoko. She was a waitress while she worked on her Chemistry degree, and now she's trying to get into pharmacy school. My last visit to Georgia was too short for us to meet up, so this time we both planned ahead for it. She met me in the shiny new car she bought and gave me a combined birthday/Christmas present: the first two Twilight books. All I had for her was a dinky stuffed Cookie Monster, but she didn't seem to mind.

She drove us to a not-quite-nearby Vietnamese restaurant so we could have phở. She told me all about her mom visiting from Vietnam for Khanh's UGA graduation, and the cross-country road trip they took. She's thinking about doing pharmaceutical research in Africa, if she can get her pharmacy degree.

After a much-too-quick brunch, she drove me back to my car. I wanted to get a picture, and after a failed attempt in the parking lot, we headed into the nearby PetSmart. We couldn't find any bored idle workers, so I asked a lady in the puppy chow aisle if she wouldn't mind taking a picture. She didn't seem to mind--probably because of how cute Khanh is--and obliged.

We said our goodbyes, and I headed on to my next destination: the Cracker Barrel on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. As fellow polyglots and travelers, Ashley and I have done our best to keep in touch despite our laziness. We picked that Cracker Barrel because she knew I'd love some southern food and because it was the most easily-reached halfway point between us.

Ashley had been a flight attendant for Delta for a few months. She was certified in Spanish, Italian, and Hungarian, which meant she'd been flying regularly to Rome, Budapest, and various places in Latin America. I think that's just about the perfect job for her, as it lets her travel a ton, speak foreign languages almost all the time, yet still live near her family. I hope she realizes it, too.

We spent about two hours catching up and scheming our next moves. Just like with everyone else, I had to leave before I wanted to.

18 friends in 36 hours, part deux

I left Barnes & Noble at sunset, and headed for Inoko. I worked there for two years, going from waiter to manager, and tried to keep up with everybody after I left. The owner, Mr. Inoko, sold the restaurant back in the fall, with Jean--the general manager, my former boss--setting up her own shop. I didn't know who all had stayed behind, but I wanted to see what had changed.

Besides some new carpet, everything was the same: dark, run-down, but serviceable. I didn't recognize the hostess, but Kelly rounded the corner a minute later. I watched Kelly go from itty bitty waitress to bartender, and heard that she got promoted to my job after I left. She had stayed during the change of ownership, and had been made general manager. I'm all kinds of proud of her, but I don't envy her in the least.

After talking with her for a bit, I said hi to Daniel, one of the chefs. They were in the middle of their dinner shift, obviously, so I didn't spend too much time there.

I had called Cord earlier in the afternoon, and he'd gotten the word out for me. Everyone who was free that night got together at Cali N Tito's. Cord, Jeremy, Adam Z, and Cord's roommate, Beth, were the only ones to make it. This didn't bother me in the least. It ended up being a perfect size for the group: everyone could comfortably hear and talk to everyone else. Last year, more folks showed up, but we were so many that it was hard to get to talk to everyone.

My timing was pretty good, as Jeremy was just about to move to Atlanta to start his electrical engineering degree at Tech. We had a great time just relaxing over dinner, talking about videogames, politics, Athens, and education.

After supper, we went to Hot Corner. Well, we tried going to Hot Corner. We went to the site of what once was Hot Corner. In its place, a bar called Trappeze [sic] has taken over. Hot Corner was once a 24/7 coffee shop where folks would go to study, right in the middle of downtown Athens. Business was declining even before I left for Japan, which is too bad.

Anyway, we talked over a couple of beers. The always-lovely Madeline joined us, having apparently just gotten back in town from Christmas in Atlanta. The group slowly dispersed, most of the people having grown-up stuff like work the next day. With lots to catch up on--I didn't get a chance to talk to her the last time I was in town--Madeline and I went to the Jittery Joe's at Five Points. We got our drinks right as they were closing, so we sat in the car and talked.

Cord had offered to put me up--he's an awesome guy like that--and I crept into the house a little after 3.

18 Friends in 36 hours

Having said all that, I can't remember what all the pastor's sermon was about. It had something to do with David, ten concubines, a general, and a guy's head being thrown over a wall. Sacrificing one to save a city? Something like that. Way too much went on after church that day for me to remember it now.

After church, we went to Panera for lunch. Fish, Michael, Liz, James, and Joel were there. I had awesome conversations with Michael about eye contact, Liz about greetings, and Joel about his trip to China. The food was amazing; the company was even better. I'd forgotten just how terribly I miss zany, geeky conversations with at least five subject changes a minute.

After lunch, we went to Barnes & Noble. We managed to spend about three hours just hanging out. Michael taught Liz and me some games he likes to play with people. For example, he'll be talking with someone, making sounds of understanding ("mm-hm," "yeah") where appropriate. Abruptly, he'll stop responding at all, only maintaining eye contact, and observe how long they'll keep talking, trying to get him to understand what clearly confused him and made him stop making sounds. It's a lot more fun to be Michael for that game.

Anyway, we eventually made our way to the in-store coffee shop. We played Twenty Questions using Joel's iPhone and just goofed off in general. I love hanging out with them. (Writing this makes me miss them something fierce.)

Mindful of how limited my time was, I had to bail on the group. I wanted pictures, though, and Michael offered to take one of Liz and me. To get us to smile, he tried telling us a joke. The joke started out pretty tame, but had an awful ending. Here's the first of the pictures; scroll through the next six to see the progression of the joke.

Church on Sunday

I left for Athens Sunday morning. Papa and Brandon were leaving for church, and Mom and Granny stayed at the house. With most of my friends, I knew it didn't really matter what day of the week I was in town. Fish and Michael live in Norcross and drive to Watkinsville every Sunday for church. Watkinsville is a lot closer to Athens than Norcross, and usually other folks I know are at the church, so I planned my trip such that I'd be able to be in town on a Sunday.

Last year, I managed to be drafted into choir service by Michael, but this time I was late. The choir turned out not to be singing that day, anyway. I took the first seat I could find and tried scoping out Fish and Michael. Michael got my attention, and as I worked my way around to them, I had to squeeze past a few folks I didn't know. Michael told me that I bowed at the people as I passed.

During the part of the service where you stand up and greet your neighbors, Michael gave me one of the huge hugs he's always given folks. I also noticed that Liz was there--a bonus!

Sermons used to bore me. (Why can't we be at home sleeping, Mom? It's Sunday.) Then they started to annoy me. (How can people believe in this? It's 400-year-old English translated from Greek, Hebrew, and Latin.) Then I stopped caring. (Why bother challenging them on it? It's a lost cause.) In the past few years, though, I've started paying more attention.

Disregarding the source material, I follow along with the stories the pastor tells, trying to find the moral of the stories. I appreciate the eloquence and intelligence of the speaker and his speaking, and applaud the way he makes the source material relevant to everyday life.

In my mind, I've begun placing his source material in the same group with other forms of mythology and Aesop's Fables: stories believed to be true by some. This neither elevates nor denigrates their beliefs, for, in principle, they all serve the same purpose: transmitting an understanding of the way the world works and the way we ought to behave in it.

Toccoa!

After my August road trip to Alabama, I wanted to make sure and visit Georgia this time. I invited Mom and Dad along, but Dad couldn't pull away from work. Mom, however, still regretting that she didn't go with me in August, wasn't going to miss out this time. We headed out at 9:30 the morning after Christmas.

The trip took about thirteen hours, just like it always does. The time passed quickly, though, since Mom and I talked the whole time. We talked about all kinds of things, from stuff about Japan to my plans afterwards to random conversations about things seen on the side of the road. I'd almost forgotten how much fun it is to have a talkative road trip buddy. It'd been years since Mom and I had been on a trip together, and it reminded me of us talking every morning when she'd drive me to school.

The only traffic we hit was mild congestion between Chattanooga and Nashville, which is incredible: they're almost always tearing up parts of I-24 or I-75. We stopped for lunch at a Subway, and I made it a point to take a picture of a common American sandwich. (Just like in August, I was trying to look at things like my students would, and take pictures of the remarkable stuff.) We got to Toccoa at about 1:30 in the morning, and Granny and Papa's Boston terrier, Pugsley, greeted us excitedly.

The next morning, Granny cooked breakfast--another meal that I almost cried when I saw--and we all sat around talking. It hurt to think about the fact that I hadn't seen them in a full year. On the other hand, I couldn't tell if they'd changed at all. I'm horrible at noticing changes in body types anyway--when I lived in Athens, Mom would always ask me how Granny and Papa looked, and I'd never be able to give more detail than "good"--but they looked just as happy as I've ever known them to be.

For lunch, Mom, Granny, and I headed to town. Bell's is a restaurant famous locally for its hot dogs, and Dad and I always get our fix when we visit. Mom prefers fried chicken livers--another of their specialties--so everybody finds something they want. We three called our order in there, dropped Granny off at the grocery store while we went to pick it up. When we went back to the store to catch up with her, we found her chatting with a friend of hers. Between living her whole life and being the wife of the sheriff in a small town like Toccoa, she knows just about everybody.

In fact, they know so much about so many people that at least one story told at family get-togethers at Granny and Papa's will consist of this exchange:

"He went to school with... oh, I can't remember his name... that Roller boy. Not Jimmy--that was his brother, the one who married Tom Jenson's little girl--but the other one..."
"Roy McCay's cousin, Freddy? The one who crashed that brand-new Mustang in the ditch out on Oak Valley Road?"
"That's the one! I saw him the other day."

She finished shopping and we went to Arby's to pick up lunch for Papa. (They also got a beef & cheddar sandwich for Pugsley. Their dog. I've never quite understood it, but my grandparents have always given people food to their dogs. Dad occasionally sneaks a bite to Buster, our dog, but Papa puts a slice of cheese on top of Pugsley's dog food.)

My cousin Brandon stopped by to spend the night. I hadn't seen him since I graduated from UGA, and he'd grown up a lot since then. It was good to catch up with him, especially given how quick this visit was going to be.

Merry Christmas!

We woke up at 5:30 (yes, a.m.) to do Christmas. Heather made the drive over from her house, and Mom and Dad were up and dressed for work. I got a wireless laser mouse (which will make giving presentations to my students so much easier), Command & Conquer: The First Decade, gift cards, and a big book on sushi (from Heather). Mom and Dad left soon after for work, leaving Heather and me to tinker with our new toys.

I headed out at about 8 to set up some I ASSURE YOU, WE'RE OPEN-esque signs along the town's main drag. It's much harder than I expected to stick metal bases in the ground when it's frozen. After a little grunting, I worked it out, and headed over to Mom's shop to have breakfast with her. Christmas rush doesn't really start in the Springfield shops until 8 or 9, so it wasn't that busy. I headed over to National afterwards, though, to find the shop packed out. I ordered a biscuit and gravy, and watched Dad, Mike, and Nick--probably the three best grill operators of all the shops--handle the waves of orders easily.

After that, I went back to the house, but couldn't get the front door to open. Not wanting to go back and bother Mom and Dad at work, I headed over to Heather's house. We took a drive around her town--Battlefield--and decided to check out nearby Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, aptly named for the Battle of Wilson's Creek, one of the first major battles of the Civil War. Being Christmas, it was closed; we'd sort of expected it, and were trying just in case.

I went back to Mom's shop to have lunch with Heather, making that the third time I'd eaten at a Waffle House that day.

I met Heather and Megan later that afternoon, and we saw Benjamin Button. I loved it for the same reason I love every movie I see--the escape--but I didn't think it was amazing or anything. It was a good movie, but not worth all the Oscar praise it got, in my opinion.

After the movie, I went back home and relaxed with Mom and Dad.

Christmas Dinner

Heather and I wanted to have Christmas dinner. We knew that Mom would likely be far too busy to manage, even with us helping her out. So we talked it over with Megan, and decided to cook the whole thing ourselves. Mom just about cried when we floated the idea by her.

Heather works at a hospital, and every year the hospital gives all of its employees a free twenty-pound turkey for Christmas. We designated Megan the turkey preparer, leaving her the wonderful task of cleaning it. She also prepared some made-from-scratch biscuits using her mom's recipe. Heather and I handled the rest of the menu: mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, dressing, and banana pudding. Apart from the banana pudding--which Mom taught me to make a year or so ago--I'd never prepared any of it, so I learned from Heather how to make the taters and deviled eggs.

We had a blast the whole way through. I strongly recommend against cooking Christmas dinner alone; it's so much fun with other people in the kitchen! We had everything ready right on time, and the five of us sat down for a delicious meal. It was awesome.



After dinner, Dad made his rounds of all three shops, making sure everybody was good to go for Christmas. (Christmas is the busiest day of the year for most Waffle Houses, since they're one of the very few restaurants open.) We got to one of the shops right in the middle of a pretty impressive rush, especially for 9pm on Christmas Eve. It was nothing they couldn't handle, especially with Dad jumping in to help, and it settled down pretty quickly.

Before Christmas

Mom took the day off my first day back. I palled around the house for a bit, before going to Waffle House for brunch. (I nearly cried at the sight of a familiar breakfast.) After that, I drove back to the house and walked to the mall. I walked because I didn't want to deal with the bedlam in the parking lot, but it turned out not to be that bad.

I get a kick out of walking around the mall in no hurry whatsoever, watching people going crazy over shopping. As I mentioned earlier, the frenzy doesn't have any effect on me; I didn't feel any compulsion to buy anything. (TheOrange Julius--one of a few things I would've broken down and bought--closed a couple of years ago.)

Sunday was the Waffle House Christmas party. For at least the past ten years, Dad has thrown a party every year for his employees. (I remember one back in middle school, when he rented the Twin Hills basketball gym for the night, and all of us kids got to play basketball and run around while the parents hung out. Another year, he rented the conference room of Foxwood Country Club, and he and Mom dressed as Santa and Mrs. Claus and gave presents to all the kids. See? Waffle House isn't all trashy and gloomy.)

With far fewer of his employees having younger kids, and many more of them being single twentysomethings, the past couple of years Dad has changed up his strategy, renting a bar for the night. This was the first year I've been able to make it, and (apart from the cloud of cigarette smoke) it was a lot of fun. One of his workers, Dawn, had brought her keyboard and performed for us. After a few minutes, some of us went up and sang along with her. Mom and Dad even slow-danced to a song, something I've never seen them do.

Most of the folks got varying degrees of drunk. One of the most amusing was a lady who sat down with Heather, Megan, and me, and began telling us about a novel she's been writing. Apparently it's fifteen years in the making, and she's spent all that time making amazing characters, but no plot.

On Monday, I drove to St. Louis to visit Wakako. The last time I visited her, she was getting ready for her first semester of grad school. This time, she was just finishing up finals. Azusa, a student from Nagano, hung out with us at Wakao's apartment. Wakako made spaghetti, Azusa baked a pizza, and we pigged out and talked for about five hours.

Azusa worked as an English teacher with Aeon for a few years, which you could tell easily: her English is great. The three of us talked about all kinds of random language things, like slang, figures of speech, and other tricky things in English, like "mm-hm" and "uh-huh."

I made the three-hour drive back home that night, relishing the mini-road trip in my Camry at speeds much greater than the 50 km/hr I'm used to.

I also got my birthday present from Mom and Dad: R2-D2! He's about 38 centimeters tall, decorated just like the real thing, has a swiveling head, and obeys voice commands. You can ask him "Do you remember..." and the name of a Star Wars character, and he'll react based on his relationship with the character. (He tootles fondly for Luke, and screeches in terror for Vader.) He performs a rendition of the Cantina music while dancing along. You can also give him a line of direction commands, then have him execute the program. You can do all kinds of nifty things with his motion sensor, like put him in timeout (he rolls to the nearest corner), play hide and seek (he goes to the nearest corner, waits, then rolls around until he finds something moving), or sentry mode (you have ten seconds to leave the room, after which he screeches if something trips his motion detector). He's awesome!

Consumerism

Over the past few years, my desire to buy things has faded. I care less and less about buying new clothes, a new car, home decorations, electronics, videogames, and books. I'm sure most of it stems from having to pack my life in two suitcases prior to moving to Japan. Limited to two suitcases, I had to take a very no-nonsense approach to packing. (I still can't believe most of the non-American JETs had half the weight allowance we did.) Awareness of my responsibility to ship all my crap back home has kept me from buying much stuff in Japan.

I think paying off my car also contributed to this. I paid almost an entire car note on my own, watching that chunk of my income vanish every month. I'd just as soon not throw all that money at a new car, unless and until my current one ceases to function.

Taking that lesson--if it ain't broke, don't fix it--and applying it to other purchases, I lost all desire to buy new clothes, unless and until my current clothes cease to function. Same for my computer: I need it for school, the Internet, and Skyping home. Whether it can run StarCraft II is of no consequence.

Videogames are a bit different. I tried to stop playing them altogether a couple of years ago. It worked for a while, but I couldn't stick to it. I've since come to view videogames as doing for me what watching TV, taking cigarette breaks, playing golf, going on long drives, going to the gym, listening to and performing music, movies, coloring in a coloring book, cleaning, and gardening do for most other people: they provide me an escape. I veg out for an hour or two a day on videogames, and that allows me to de-stress, to process what happened that day, to settle down, and to collect my thoughts.

Having acknowledged those benefits, I noticed that the game I was playing made surprisingly little difference: I relax just as much playing Guitar Hero 3 as I do playing WarCraft II. That in mind, I took inventory of my videogames--WarCraft II, WarCraft III, Diablo, Diablo II, SimCity 4, and Star Wars: Rebellion, to name a few--and realized that I derive just as much joy from playing them now as I did when I first got them. (Some of them--gulp--ten years ago.) Why should I spend money on shiny new systems and games when the ones I have right now satisfy the same desire just as well?

I consume music, but I don't pay for it anymore. I can't justify spending money on songs. I just can't. I grew up with Napster; I simply cannot bring myself to pay $20 for a CD or $.99 for a song. I freely acknowledge that downloading music is unethical--not to mention illegal. If I could no longer download music for free, I'd simply content myself with what I already have--I would not spend money on new music. The point is, I've found a way to live without spending money on music.

I also consume old videogames the same way. Emulators are a wonderful thing. I'm under the impression that ownership of an emulated ROM image is legal only if you have paid for the original game. If that's the case, there's no problem in my enjoying the old NES, SNES, and Genesis games I used to play.

Eliminating or at least reducing my consumption of books originally proved problematic. Before coming to Japan, I would occasionally spend a couple of hours in a Borders or Barnes & Noble, reading a book without buying it. (I read The Catcher in the Rye and Survival of the Sickest like this in the summer of 07 while driving from Missouri to Utah and back.)

Once I got my Sony reader, this changed a bit. Following the same (admittedly potentially flawed) logic I use for ROMs, I found free digital versions of most of the books I already own--mainly Calvin and Hobbes strips and Michael Crichton and Star Wars books. Sites like Project Gutenberg provide digital versions of thousands of public domain texts; I've downloaded a whole library of books from them.

The upshot of all this is that I've lost most of my desire to buy stuff. I walk through shopping malls without feeling the slightest inclination to buy things. I love browsing, and I don't skimp on essentials like groceries, but I only buy clothes and electronics when the ones I currently own no longer serve their purpose.

When I got home, Mom and Dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Without needing much time to think, I realized that I didn't want them to buy me anything. I told them that being home with them was gift enough for me--not meaning it to sound as cliché as it did. This was hard for Dad to accept, because a large part of his role as a father has always been to work to provide things for us: a home, food, clothes, and other tangible things. It's not that he tried to give us things instead of showing us love--I've never, ever taken it that way. That's just the role he assumed, and not telling him about something he can go out and buy for me for Christmas made him uncomfortable.

One huge drawback to my disdain for unnecessary consumption is how it colors my attitude toward buying gifts for others. I don't want toys or electronics or sports equipment or clothes anymore, so I have a much harder time empathizing with those who do. This creates a serious problem, because trying to avoid getting someone a present for lack of desire to consume can very easily be construed as being uncaring or trying to be cheap. That I'm also a horrible procrastinator doesn't help the impression, either.

Getting Home for Christmas

Just like last year, I knew I had to get home for Christmas. It's not a matter of someone else telling me or pressuring me to come home. I just knew that I'd go nuts if I chose not to be at home with family on Christmas. So I booked my trip: Tsushima->Fukuoka->Tokyo Narita->Dallas-Ft. Worth->Springfield.

I was perfectly content reading on the flight from Narita to Dallas. (I think I was alternating between Of Mice and Men, Congo, My Ishmael, and Beyond Civilization at the time.) Having gotten completely used to my Sony reader, I'd done more reading in the past four months than I'd done in two years.

The lady next to me asked about my reader, and said that she was thinking about getting one for her son. I told her all about it, pointing out what it does well (display readable text) and what it does poorly (color, anything not related to reading). This led to where I was coming from, which got us talking about Japan and teaching English. She was returning from Vietnam, having visited a former student of hers.

I soon learned that I was sitting next to Dr. Susan Day of the University of Houston's department of epidemiology. She had been in Vietnam attending a conference, and her Vietnamese student had invited her to his hometown. He had left Vietnam to study in the States, and his immigration status prevented him from being able to visit home until he finished his Ph.D.

We talked more about teaching, and I told her how disheartened I get when I don't reach all the students with a lesson. She said that failing to reach all the students all the time doesn't make me a failure, and that I should think of all the students I do reach. She told me I should use the ones I don't as an incentive to try harder, to change tactics, to look at the problem differently. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Hearing that made me so happy that I wanted to hug her.

When we started talking about teaching back home, she told me a rather disturbing story about her experience in public schools. The lesson I learned from the story was never to teach in Lubbock, Texas. I'd been thinking about how exactly to try my hand at teaching in America without committing to a two-year M.Ed, and had heard about Teach for America, a non-profit that recruits and places teachers in high-need areas around the country. Having heard some bad things about the program, I asked her if she knew anything about it. She highly recommended it, as she had a few friends who had done it.

Man, this sure beat watching in-flight movies and trying to sleep. We easily killed three hours just talking. Dr. Day gave me her card when we landed, wished me luck with whatever I ended up doing, and suggested I consider graduate work in epidemiology.

Upon arriving in Dallas, I tried discreetly snapping photos of customs and immigration. I wasn't conducting espionage, I promise. Iwase-sensei had asked me to try to get pictures to accompany an international travel lesson for the Toyotama 2s. Thankfully, either nobody saw me or nobody cared.

I got to my gate via the nifty little light rail system they have, which is so much better than the buses you used to have to take between terminals. Satisfied that my flight was on time, and with an hour or so to kill, I made a beeline for a Pizza Hut and pigged out.

The Springfield flight was uneventful. I got there right on time, snuck up on Mom (who was looking at the wrong door), gave Mom and Dad big hugs, and got my luggage with no problem. No delays, no cancellations, no bad weather, no luggage problems. Not bad for peak Christmas season.

Christmas Lessons at Toyotama High

Yoshida-sensei and I gave the Toyotama first-years the same Christmas lesson as Tsushima High. They enjoyed it, with several students turning the cards into creative love letters in English. (That's Kouji on the left, and the card reads "I love your bottom half.")

When I asked my first-years how to say "Iesu Cristo" (the version from which Jesus' name was translated into Japanese) in English, one of my cleverer boys calmly replied "Ieyasu Tokugawa."

The second-years, however, already learned my basic Christmas lesson last year. Iwase-sensei and I decided to focus more on the nativity story. As with our Halloween lesson, we noticed some cultural differences arising from her experience in Ireland versus my experience in America. Sniffing around online, I discovered the account of Jesus' birth that I learned as a kid is a lot more piecemeal than I was led to believe.

Iwase and I settled on this account to present to the students: there was a woman named Mary, whose husband was named Joseph. She was pregnant. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. All the hotels were full*, and they had to sleep in a room with cows.** Near Bethlehem, shepherds were resting with their sheep. An angel came to them, and said, "Jesus has been born! Go and see him." The shepherds followed a star to Bethlehem, and gave Jesus gifts. Three wise men also followed the star, found Jesus, and gave him gifts.

After preparing this as a handout, it turned into an engaging discussion as we coaxed the translation from the class. This is why Iwase's my favorite teacher: thanks to the size of Toyotama, she teaches all the English classes for all the second-years, after having done the same last year for the same students. She knows all of them better than anybody outside their families, and has a pretty good idea who knows the answers to which questions, and--better yet--how to phrase questions to jog their memories.

Finishing that, we taught them a Christmas carol. We'd spent a while searching for a song slow and comprehensible enough for the students to understand and sing along. The day before class, Iwase suggested the Wexford Carol, an Irish carol she had learned as a kid. I'd never heard it before, but after finding it on YouTube, I loved it. Apart from sounding beautiful, it tells the nativity story, making it a nice follow-up for the nativity discussion.

Though we'd decided on the song, we couldn't find a suitable recording of it. I found a couple of YouTube videos, but it was hard to discern the lyrics. Iwase hesitantly suggested that we sing it for the class. Thanks to the Glee Club, Chorus D, and karaoke, I really don't mind standing in front of people and singing, so I immediately agreed. She's much shier than me, which made it all the more surprising when she belted it out with me in front of both classes.

The students listened in total silence, politely declining our invitation to join in. All in all, I'd say the activity could have gone better, but it was fun for everyone.



*It was either this or "there wasn't any place to stay on account of the census of Quinius."
**Oddly, "stable" and "manger" aren't part of the standard English curriculum for Japanese students.

Christmas Lessons at Tsushima High

With exams finished, I had just enough time to teach a Christmas lesson to all my students before leaving for the break. After going all out for Halloween, I realized I'd set the bar pretty high going into Christmas. I wore a Santa hat in class, which got a much bigger reaction than I had expected.

We started with a discussion of Christmas accompanied by pictures. Like last year, I wanted to make it as much a discussion as possible, because turning the lights off to show pictures--no matter how pretty the pictures--makes Japanese students fall asleep just as quickly as it does American students. We began with the date of Christmas, followed by the reason for it. Surprisingly, most of the students knew the answer. As we went on to Christmas presents, Santa Claus, and Christmas trees, fewer and fewer students knew the answers.

Just like last year, all the students answered that they get presents next to their pillow. When asked where Santa puts presents in America, most of them answered "in socks!" When asked where Santa puts the big presents, only a few said "under the tree." I showed pictures to accompany all these--thanks to all the folks whose pictures of family Christmas trees are Googleable--and the universal reaction was shock at the number and size of the presents.

We then did a listening activity with a Christmas song. In groups of four, students listened to a song and arranged the supplied lyrics. For the lower-level classes, we did "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"--I'm pretty sure I used the Sinatra version; I don't know Sinatra's stuff very well--and for the higher-level classes, we used "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The first one was too easy; the second one worked much better, challenging everyone.

We ended by making Christmas cards. I supplied them with their choice of red, green, or yellow construction paper, coloring pages, markers, and crayons. All the students went wild with it. I taught some of them how to make paper snowflakes, and they loved it. I wrote a basic template on the board for them to use, with "Dear __," "Merry Christmas!" "Happy New Year!" etc. A few of the girls asked me to teach them how to write it in cursive. Thankfully their cursive came out much prettier than mine does.

Either because she just had an extra class, or because she genuinely wanted them to see me again, Masuda-sensei asked me to teach a Christmas lesson with the 2-2s, who we taught last year. It was great to see them again, and they were all much more talkative (in English!) than last year.

We did the same basic lesson with the third-years. I had an extra class with Kurokawa-sensei's 3-7s, so we decided to try teaching them a Christmas carol. He plays the guitar and sings, so he suggested John Lennon's "Happy Xmas." I could hardly believe he actually wanted to perform for the class, but he sat right in front and strummed along. We explained the meaning of the lyrics--and tried a quick footnote about rhyming--and had them sing along with us. The students seemed to enjoy it, but I get the feeling it was a lot more enjoyable for Kurokawa and me.

I also showed all my classes the video of the Nintendo 64 kid. They were amused, but I had to explain to several what a Nintendo 64 is. It's a fair sign you're getting older when you know of a Nintendo system that Japanese kids don't.

Birthday!

I turned 25 today. I wasn't expecting a lot of fanfare. 21 was crazy, 22 was a sequel to the craziness, and 23 was a lot more relaxed. Everybody took me out for Tsushima Ramen last year for 24, which was a lot more my style. My birthday fell on a Monday this time, though, so I was fully expecting nothing to happen at all until the weekend (if then).

So I was pleasantly surprised when Joe called me and asked if I had plans for the night. He, Rose, and Gavin took me out to Border, an Italian restaurant in Izuhara. He even gave me presents! Having apparently noticed when I mentioned missing American breakfasts, he gave me pancake flour and real maple syrup from back home. Gavin gave me a nifty keychain from Oregon, which makes me want to drive to Seattle when I get back.

We spent the evening hanging out, catching up and sharing things we miss about home. Nobody got drunk, nobody passed out, and nobody had to be taken home in a cab. It was a perfectly relaxing birthday dinner.