2004-04-16

The more things change...

...the more they stay the same. I've been documenting all these new experiences here, and it is true, a lot is changing. Some people have written to me telling me how entertaining it is to read all my fish-out-of-water stories. And I have to admit, it has been interesting if nothing else. Japan does keep me on my toes.

However, there are some things which never change. Here's a little story to show that even though I'm in a new place, doing a new job, meeting new people, I'm still the same person inside.

Yesterday evening there was a Welcome Party for the new faculty and staff. Yeah, I know, it's a little weird to do this two weeks into the new year, but hey--who am I to argue. So I head on out there and they want all the new teachers to sit in these special seats. They didn't stick us in front of everyone on a platform or anything, so it wasn't quite as brutal as the Valentine's Day party where Kathy and I got shoved up to the front of the CHURCH. But it still was a little weird. And it was about to get WEIRDER~!

I was the second one of the new teachers there. The first one there was Ms. M, who's the super-gorgeous teacher I mentioned in one of my old entries. She's working with this group of five Korean families here to get training in Japanese. I've detected numerous people who might think it cute for the two of us to get together, and I think she's picked up on it too because we're weirdly shy around each other most of the time. Anyway, she got to this party just before me, and sat down in one of the designated seats. When I heard that we had to sit in these certain seats, and she was sitting there looking all beautiful and stuff--I PANICKED. I guess I could (should) have sat down next to her and tried to make conversation, but I don't know how much English she speaks and there's that shy weirdness between us anyway. Plus we'd be in the spotlight and all these people would be looking at us and it'd be the Valentine's party all over again. I can just imagine the president of the college and all the English teachers tapping on their glasses like punks trying to get us to kiss or something. So instead of sitting next to her, I pretended to watch the sunset outside, look at the food they'd prepared, all the time praying that someone else would come and sit next to her and break up the weirdness. But NO ONE CAME BY! I ended up taking a seat like two seats down from her, which in hindsight was probably the most bizarre thing I could have done. She likely thinks I hate her or something. And of course that's not the case, it's just my Japanese isn't good enough to say "It's not that I don't like you, it's just that my train of thought gets completely derailed if I look at you too long, 'cuz you're so pretty and classy and women like you make me scared."

If anyone wants to hook me up with a Japanese translation of that, I'd owe you my firstborn and 2 1/2 cows.

So yeah, I'm still the clueless idiot when it comes to dealing with beautiful women. Nice to know that some things never change. Then right after the party I had to go and do a dorm worship--get this--IN THE WOMEN'S DORM. I am SO sure the campus ministries group set that up with evil intentions in mind. And now for more disturbing news: My fan club has seemingly expanded beyond the English department. The dorm I did the worship in last night is exclusively for nursing students. They make up like 80% of the student body so I guess they do warrant their own dorm. I get there for the worship and several girls start calling out my name trying to talk to me, and of course I don't know their names because they're not my students. THEN I get up to speak and all these giggles ripple through the audience. This is getting very disconcerting.

In happier news, the three Japanese hostages in Iraq were freed, apparently unharmed. I got home last night and saw footage of them. I couldn't understand the news report, but they looked relieved and stuff so I figured they didn't have guns pointed at them anymore. I've been praying for their safety for the last week so I was very happy to see them okay. One of them was an 18-year-old guy, which is like one of my students being held hostage so it was great he's fine. And the woman cracks me up. She said she wants to go back and help the Iraqi people, so she's one brave and tough lady even though her mannerisms are mousy and timid as all get out.

Well, I'm almost done with everything I needed to do for today. I may check and see if the cafeteria is open. I'm out. Happy Sabbath to anyone who's reading.