November Darkens the Mind and Heart...

Today's my first day back to teaching classes at Kita after almost a week away. I've realized that as much as I love this job, the social situation here is... limited. I think I'm really starting to miss home. There's a very strong streak of homesickness rising in my subconscious here as I while away the days to my flight home. It's not that I'm not busy, and not that I'm not interested in what I've been doing, it's just that I'm having trouble feeling like I fit. I've never really fit anywhere, but here most of the folks I meet have little stake in anything and only connect in the most superficial way. I guess I'm a little tired of feeling alienated and would like a little break from it. I sometimes wonder if my Japanese was better if I'd still feel the same way. Hard to say really. It's probably all cultural exhaustion. I still step on people's toes even though I've been trying to be polite and go along with the culturally important things. It's really frustrating.
Don't get me wrong, I do love being here. There are lots of fantastic people I've met and the kids are just super! I get to teach at Seishin twice a month, which means I get to play with elementary school kids for a day every second week. Yesterday they had made me a really cute pamphlet about Matsue. There was the Matsue song hand written on it and everything and it brought tears to my eyes. I guess I was just really missing honest expression of feeling. The kids haven't learned all the subterfuge of Japanese society yet, and maybe, given their special needs, they never will. As such, the teachers that work with these kids are much more relaxed about it too. I really love visiting that school. I practically squirm with anticipation. Which I have to admit is a really strange feeling. It's like one of the only things I really look forward to with excitement.
Anyway, my mind's pretty tired right now. I had a bit of a rough night and got to Kita a bit late this morning. A few cups of coffee and I should be alright. I was probably just freezing all night, but sleeping too heavily to wake up and do something about it. Getting out of bed this morning was brutal. It was 13 degrees in my apartment, and although that's lots warmer than my room when I was growing up in Lucknow during the winter, coupled with all the other pressures, it becomes quite difficult. I'm a little ashamed of it, but shikatta ga nai. So, I'm off to teach the young keeners again... more later. Hopefully.

Back to Basics.

So I've decided to do a body-building contest in July. The gym I work out at is run by a guy named Aoto-san. He was the national javelin champion when he was in University and he's an all-round good guy. He doesn't speak any English at all, but we have some good chats. I wouldn't say he's exactly a friend though. Hard to get a good idea of what a friend is, but i quite like him and the feeling seems to be mutual. I'm a bit of a hamster at that gym, but I can deal with it. I don't speak English when I'm there because no one understands it. So I watch Japanese TV on the bike and talk to the women and old men doing cardio. It's always the crazy stuff talk-game-shows, so it's always kind of interesting. I usually get off the bike when they put the medical horror stories on.
So I'm lifting pretty heavily again. I'm sitting at 94 kilograms and roughly 18% body fat, which is pretty good for not focusing and eating out too much. I'm going to aim for 8% body fat by April at around 100 kilos. I'd forgotten how much having focus at the gym makes the rest of my life just work better. I only wish that Aoto-san opened the gym at 5 or 6 am. Realistically though, no one would show up that early in Japan. Very different culture in so many ways.
The workout culture is something that lots of people feel is sort of a sub-culture or cult in the West, but it's thoroughly Western, no matter how alien it feels to people who feel ill at ease with gyms, exercise terminology etc. In Japan, it's completely different. Obviously they work the same muscles, they're human after all, but the reasons they do it are quite different as is how they go about getting results. I remember reading somewhere years ago that Japanese people, by and large do things for how they make them feel rather than how things look or what other effects they will have. I'd say that health is a pretty primary focus, but the looking good factor that drives so many Westerners into the gym doesn't seem to drive Japanese people into the gym. People eat natto for protein instead of chicken and there's almost no one trying to get big and muscular. There's lots of bouncing stretches, lots of fast exercises and stuff that I'd always assumed or had been told would wreck a person. There's also what seems to be very little in the way of exercise knowledge. Aoto-san knows what he's doing, but there are people in there working out with weights long after their body chemistries have shifted into a catabolic state.
Still, there are quite a few guys in there who do the amateur contests, so it's a good place to workout, a good place to spend time talking with Japanese folks about something we're both interested in. That's something I feel I've been missing in much of my interaction with natives. They're just not interested in the same things, so asking them questions about themselves really only goes so far. Basically to the edge of my vocabulary. Talking with the guys at the gym goes beyond my vocabulary as they help me out when I'm fishing for a word.
So, I try to get to the gym about 4 times a week for a bunch of cardio and a weight training session. I'm doing a two day split, alternating lower and upper body. I'll probably stay with it until I leave for Christmas. It'll be kind of hard to stay lifting through the break as I'll be all over the place, but I'll try to give it the 2 or 3 times a week while I'm back in Canada. Ganbatteimasu.