3.18.10

I said goodbye to the first graders at Usuchuu yesterday for the last time. I didn't even get to say goodbye to the second and third graders. Knowing I'll probably never meet those kids again leaves this massive gap- a kind of crushing anticlimax. I gave a little speech at the end telling the kids the power of language, my own feelings, etc, but I don't think any speech would give finality. There was just no sense of closure.

Today was Hoshinooka, and a few of those kids are leaving, too, for other schools. Ayaka was one of them. She let me fill out a "profile"- an interview-like stationary sheet asking things like who came to mind at the word "おもしろい", or if I could be anything else or have any wish, what would I choose. I actually rather liked that and I may have to find one and distribute it to my friends. It seems like I have only just begun to really win over hearts, and now we won't meet again. I didn't make any noise but in the car on the way back with Mrs. Takekawa, I cried a bit.

It's been totally gorgeous weather today. The light is brilliant and the snow is drifting lightly down like flower petals. The line of sunlight reflecting off the ocean cut through a misty blue sky thick with billowing clouds, the distant silhoette of buildings a pale blue cut out sitting just above the horizon. The snow has all melted, so the orange and battered leaves hanging off the trees and the muted, tired green of the tall grasses added some life to the dark gray skeleton of a forest surrounding the school.
I told the teachers that the lightly drifting snow in the sunlight is not something I'd seen often in my life, that it felt magical, and they were baffled. "It's just like always", they said.


Yesterday after school I was emotionally drained from losing Usuchuu for good. I forgot Yuki had asked me to give a presentation for some kids in her Hokago club and was jerked rather roughly from complete turn-off mode to running in high gear again. Getting yanked from cool down time wore me out harder. It went well enough but I was crashed by the end.
I made a decent meal for myself. Beef, green peppers, and bean sprouts cooked in shoyuu with hotel bread, a salad, and some apple. I am both shocked and appalled.


Today I want nothing more than to crash. I am completely drained. But Yuki told me this morning the son of one of the hokago club's coordinator's son has come into town. He's studying international relations and wants to talk to me, but is only free tonight and tomorrow.
So tonight I'll be going to talk with a boy my same age.
There is nothing I am worse at than talking to boys of my same age.

I'm so tired.
I have to plan my trip to Kumamoto, send my money back home, and get to mailing things for friends. I need to stop thinking about saying goodbye.