It's Official...

As of last week, I am officially recontracted as ALT for a second year! I basically spent almost every moment up until the February 2nd deadline fretting about whether I was going to stay another year or not, and finally decided that it would be a good challenge. Some of my reasons include feeling like I'm not done with travelling around Japan, having fun learning the language, wanting continuity for the kids at the junior high school, and wanting to save up more money before I head home, among many many other reasons. I got my official contract from the Board of Education (BOE) last week. So here we go, yoroshiku onegaishimasu! (roughly translated out to "let's have a good relationship," said usually when you meet someone for the first time or are going to, well, start some sort of relationship). I'll be here until August 2008 now.

I'm pretty content with my decision, but for some reason this past week, I got slammed with a feeling that is difficult to describe. I don't know if homesickness is an accurate enough description, but it's been a feeling of listlessness, being unmotivated, wanting to stay at home alone in my apartment and not see anyone, and just sleep a lot. It could be the winter weather, culture shock finally setting in, or indeed homesickness, but it's a feeling I've never felt before, and a crappy one to feel at that. I'll admit that right up until this morning I've been feeling this way, and when I woke up I was dreading work and didn't want to get out of bed. But today ended up being a good day. I think maybe I've just been too busy lately and was feeling overwhelmed and just needed to slow down a bit.

Tonight after work I hung out with the homestay family as I usually do on Monday nights. Naho cooked tonkatsu (breaded fried pork cutlets) and a couple of random Japanese foods. After dinner we gathered around the kotatsu (heated table) and watched TV. I had received some pamphlet on folding origami in my JET Programme Beginners Japanese Course packet for this month and had brought it with me, along with some origami paper from the hyaku-en (100 yen) store. So while we watched TV, I learned how to fold paper cranes and toy balls. Then we ate decopon (a type of orange) that otou-san had grown (his livelihood is farming) until I decided it was time to head back to my apartment.















Typing this now, what I did tonight sounds pretty mundane, but I really needed it. It made me really happy to just relax with my homestay family. I guess I didn't realize how hard it is to live by myself in an apartment when all my life I've always had other people around: my family, roommates, etc. I guess I also realized that I don't always need to put pressure on myself to constantly be going on trips. The things I miss most about home are little things: going to Borders with my little sister after dinner and browsing, getting coffee with friends, having bonfires at the beach in Santa Cruz. Though the trips and adventures are always fun, I guess the same goes for here; it's the little things that make me happiest.