Another quick update. Hurrah!

ON DRIVING
It's been almost a year since I came to Japan, and you know what that means: time to get stuck in yards and yards of silly Japanese bureaucracy! Woohoo! Before I came to Japan, I got an international drivers license, which allows me the privilege of driving in Japan for 1 year. After that year, though, I've got to get a Japanese drivers license. Now, if I was from any one of 27 different countries, including England, Canada, or Australia, I could just go to the Japanese DMV, so a lot of complicated paperwork, and get a Japanese license. Headache over. Since I am from America, though, I get an extra helping of headache. Hurray for me!! So not only do I have to do some really spiffy paperwork, I also have to take a written and driving test. Extra fun for me!!! I hate bureaucracy!!!!

I have to make 2 visits to the Japanese DMV. The first visit was just to do some boring and tedious paperwork so they could approve me to take the tests on my second visit. Not wanting to do this alone, as I have the Japanese language skills of a ferret, I brought a lady from my BOE who speaks a decent amount of English. She called ahead of time and told me that I had to bring several documents, including proof that I had been driving in my home country for more than 3 months before leaving. Unfortunately, I renewed my drivers license just prior to leaving America, so my license indicated that I had only had it for 1 month. So I had to get in touch with the Ohio BMV and explain to them what I needed. They were actually quite helpful (maybe it had something to do with my mom calling and roughing them up a bit first?) and even tried to fax me a letter in Japan, which consequently didn't work. I eventually got the letter thanks to my parents (who deserve extra rooms in their mansions in heaven for all the work they've done for me since I've been in Japan), who scanned it and sent it on to me through email.

So the day arrived when my BOE lady and I were supposed to go to the BMV to get the paperwork done. We triple-checked that we had everything and went to the BMV. We drove about an hour and a half to get to the capitol city of my prefecture. We walked into a large room with 2 walls of numbered windows. My BOE lady said we should go to window 2, so away we went. We got to window 2 and were then told to go to window 12, which directed us to go to window 13, who sent up up to the second floor room 2, where we were directed to sit in the seating area until 2 o'clock, when we were then told to go sit in the 1st floor waiting room until someone came to take us to a different room on the 1st floor. And that's not exaggerating at all. We certainly got a work-out.

When we were finally led into the interview room, the man asked me tons of questions about driving in America. I didn't INTENTIONALLY lie about any of them, but how many people here honestly remember how many questions were on their driving test? Or how many hours of classroom work they had to do before they could take the practice test to get their temps? I was grilled for about half an hour on things that I've long since forgotten, and he sat waiting patiently for me to answer every question. I didn't have the option to simply NOT answer, so I had to do my best to make plausible sounding answers. The man then looked at my paperwork for about 5 minutes and asked me about 60 times how old I was when I got my first license. Fun stuff. After a few minutes, he had us sit in the waiting room again, then he came back 15 minutes later and gave me all my stuff back and said it was okay for me to take the test on my next visit. Hurray! So now I get to go back in a few weeks and take a written test (10 multiple choice questions, 3 hours to complete it) and a driving test (90% of all Americans fail it at least once). I'm so looking forward to it!

ON PEP
We had a pep rally on Friday. In Japan, pep rallies are solemn occasions. It's a time when the school body says to athletes, "Here is our pep. Guard it well." And the athletes respond, "Thank you for your pep. We will do our best." There is no spontaneity, no cheerfulness, no random fun. It is highly organized, highly boring, and highly annoying. Students file into the gym. Teachers say stuff. The athletes with games come up on stage. The principal addresses them. The student council addresses them. A student with a headband comes up, and 2 students with flags follow them. He chants, then the student body chants in response, then he chants more, the students chant more. Then they sing the school fight song. Isn't that happy? With pep rallies like that, I guess it's not surprising Japan doesn't do as well in international sports competitions.

ON LOVE
So I've fallen in love with one of the new teachers at my school. He's a first year teacher, and as such, he attends a lot of classes with the other more senior English teachers. He happens to be at the school I really don't enjoy. At this school some of the students will come up during class and look through my stuff. I tell them to stop, and they just say, "No English [I don't speak English]". And the classroom teacher lets them. She has got to be my least favorite teacher. The students are always talking, yelling, and throwing things in her classes. But ever since this new teacher came, the students haven't been as bad. He prowls around the classroom and stops students who are talking or being disruptive. I think I fell in love with him on my first day of classes with him. I was in my worst class, and a student came up to try to look at my things. Before I could even move towards him, though, the new teacher walked up, smacked this kids hand, and said 2 words that every woman (or, at least me, in this situation) loves to hear: "Don't touch!" I seriously could have hugged him at that moment. For all I know, he could be a serial killer, but at this point, I don't care. He has made my life at this school slightly more bearable at this horrible school. So until the moment he tries to kill me, I am going to think the very best of him.