Announcements
In case anyone hasn't heard, I'm coming home for 2 weeks in July (the 14-29). So if anyone wants to visit, I'll be home some time during that period. We already have family events scheduled, so for any of my friends, fans, or stalkers, please email me to set up a time to meet if you want. :-)

ON GETTING A JAPANESE DRIVERS LICENSE

So I went to get my drivers license on Friday, June 1st, leaving bright and early in the morning. I left my BOE at 8:15 to the applause and wishes of good luck from my BOE bosses (embarrassing much? And of course, it didn't add any pressure to the situation). I headed out with the same woman who had helped me before (and who should be nominated for sainthood, I think). I reminded my BOE that 9 out of 10 foreigners fail the Japanese driving test their first time, but I don't think it really sunk in. I think they thought I was just exaggerating. I wasn't.


More fun times at the Japanese DMV. We got to enjoy the window hunt again, but luckily we actually got to the right windows. Our first window stop (window 12-14) led us to the guy who had "helped" us last time. He did my paperwork, welcomed me back, and wished me good luck. We got through all the necessary paperwork (hand in paperwork Window 12, pay fee at Red Window3, show stamps obtained from paying fee to person at window 10, get more paperwork from Red Window 4 and have police officer X help fill it out [ever tried to ask someone who doesn't speak your language if they have narcolepsy? That was some fun paperwork, let me tell you. My poor BOE lady...] go to big booth 2 to get eyes tested [by a sweet old man who spoke no English, but told me I could use English for the eye test if it made me more comfortable], then wait upstairs in waiting area 2 for someone who will give me the written test), and went to our assigned waiting area. There were already about 150 Japanese people in the testing room (for native Japanese, they have to answer 100 questions on the written portion of their driving test - I had 10. Sweet.); at 10:20, a police officer came and took me into the back of the testing hall.

I was slightly worried about the written test, as if I failed that, I would have to go home and come back another day, which would have been horrendously embarrassing. Other AET’s have said that the test is very easy, and if you fail you shouldn’t be let within 10 feet of a car. Even more pressure, because if I’m the one idiot that fails this thing, I’m never going to live it down. So I listened attentively as the officer explained (in Japanese) how I was supposed to take the test (circle True of False - he was worried I didn't understand those complicated directions, so he repeated them about 3 different ways, then asked for confirmation that I understood.). He led me to the back of the testing hall where I sat down and opened a notebook with 10 pages (clearly marked with numbers 1-10 on 10 different colored tabs). The examiner told me I had 10 minutes to finish the test - it worried me a little that I had so little time, so I hurriedly opened to the first question, which was a really tough opener. "If the traffic light is green, but there is a police officer signaling for you to stop, you should obey the police officers' directions. True or False." I think I agonized over that one for AT LEAST 10 whole seconds. The other 9 questions were just as difficult. It took me almost THREE WHOLE MINUTES to answer said questions. I went through the test twice, and after 4 agonizing minutes, I turned to the officer to let him know I was done. He smiled and said, "Easy, right?" He directed me back to the waiting area where the BOE lady looked up at me amazed. "That was four minutes. You're done?" Ten minutes later, the guy came back and said that I had, of course, passed (his words, not mine).

The officer then directed us to a room overlooking an enclosed driving course. He gave us a sheet of paper with a course mapped out and said the testing would start at 1:00, and we could walk the course at 12 if we wanted to. So I had roughly 2 and 1/2 hours to memorize the course, which was easier than I thought it would be. After 20 minutes of studying the course and memorizing it, my BOE lady asked if I wanted to go get lunch so we could walk the course at noon. I was feeling really nauseous and didn't want to eat anything for fear of booting in the course car (we didn't get to drive our own cars for the test, we had to drive cars the course provided for us), but I knew that if I didn't eat, this woman wouldn't eat, either. We headed down to the cafeteria and I was delighted to see that all the food served there was deep fried, greasy, or piping hot. Just the thing for a nervous stomach! I got a bowl of noodles, hoping it wouldn't be to horrible on my gut, and finished in about 3 minutes. We headed back to the course and waited another tense 10 minutes (SERIOUSLY the woman with me deserves SAINTHOOD) before we walked down to the course. I didn't know how long it would take, so I started walking fast before I realized my BOE lady is a good foot shorter than I am, so it was taxing her a bit to trot at my pace. I tried to slow down, but my nerves were having none of that. We walked the course in about 15 minutes, talking through when to stop, where to look, when to signal, etc. When we got back to the start point, I told her I wanted to walk again, but didn't want to drag her along, so she took my things and went back upstairs to wait. This time through, I flew. I walked the course in about 10 minutes, paying particular attention to the trouble areas.

The trouble areas in this course were 2 particular spots. There's a part called the "s-curve", which is an sharp s-curve about the width of a parking space. The next tricky part is called "The Crank." The crank is 3 very sharp 90 degree turns with flexible poles lining each corner. Rules of the test are: if you fall off the road, it's an automatic failure (they built a trench alongside the road, so if you accidentally get too close to the edge, it's rather obvious that you're off the road), and if you hit a cone or pole, it's an automatic failure.

I looked at my watch after my second walk through and saw that I had 5 minutes before the course closed, so I went back up to wait. Ms. Saint Theresa and I waited for another 15 tense minutes before a guy came up the stairs and confirmed my identity. There were 2 other Japanese guys waiting, so he talked to them for about 5 minutes (they would be driving a different course than me, so he was explaining their route). Then he got to me, confirmed that I spoke a little Japanese, and we were off. Now, there are a lot of routine things one must do when doing a Japanese driving test. The test itself is not so much a driving test as a test to see how truly serious you take driving. You get TONS of points taken off if you don't do certain things at certain times. The key to passing this test, I had been told, was to drive as slowly and as carefully as if you were going through a field full of puppies frolicking around children playing dodge ball.

Before the test, the instructor got in the car, as did the next driver (the driver that will drive after you sits in the car as you take your test. Really, great fun. I highly suggest for your next driving test, you get someone who's never seen a foreigner in their life before and stick them in your car. It's really quite fun to have someone staring at you from the back seat of your car while you're trying to concentrate. And I mean staring. EVERY stinking time I turned around to check my blind spot or looked in my mirror, he was staring at me.). Instead of getting in right away, I had to walk around the car, check the tires, check the mirrors, and make sure no stray object, cats, or nuclear devices were located near the car. I then opened my door, said "Excuse me" in Japanese, and got in once the instructor gave me permission. I checked my mirrors, checked my seat, checked my mirrors, looked to the left, looked to the right, checked the mirrors, checked that everyone was wearing their seatbelts, checked my mirrors. This test is all about over exaggerating everything you do so they can see that you are serious about driving. Every time I checked a mirror, I made sure to swivel my head so that he KNEW I was checking a mirror. Every time I checked my blind spot, I almost literally turned all the way around in my seat so that he couldn't miss what I was doing.

So, starting the test. Turned on the car, put it in drive, took off the parking brake, signaled to go out, checked my mirrors, checked my blind spot, waited for the bus, and released the brake. I had been told by other AET's to drive insanely slowly on this course, like around 5 kilometers an hour (I think that's -.2 miles per hour or something). I started off at about 10-15 kph, and that seemed incredibly slow, but I kept at it. Around a curve, turn left, approach a blind stop. Stop. Count to 4, roll forward, stop again, count to 4, check, recheck, triple check, okay. Pull out right turn stop light is green, slow down, check crosswalks, speed up, left turn into s-curve, go slow, stop breathing, keep tears inside, finish s-curve, thank God, signal left out of s-curve, stop, count to 4, go left, stop, count to 4, another left, traffic light, stop, green light, go slow, look at crosswalk, go left, go straight, another left (for the love of all that is holy, ENOUGH with the lefts!!, go straight, another left, and left into the crank, passenger seat passes corner, crank the wheel, drivers seat passes corner, crank the wheel, slow down, passengers seat passes corner, crank the wheel, signal left, start breathing again, count to 4, turn left, go straight, look at crosswalk for stray dogs, children, or gorillas, turn right, turn left, turn left, go around a corner, go straight, go back towards the car garage, look both ways, slow down for crosswalk, signal right, turn right, pull into parking space, brake, car in park, parking break on, car off, check mirrors, get out of car, cry yourself into oblivion, pass out. And thus ends the driving portion of the test. I thanked the instructor. The whole time I was driving, he hadn't been taking any notes. In Ohio, I remember that my instructor was grading me during my whole test. Once we got back to the driving center, she added up my score and told me straight away that I had passed. But not so in Japan. They like to make you suffer. Must be part of the code of Bushido or something like that.

The driving instructor then confirmed that I knew a little Japanese, and proceeded to reel off some very fast Japanese. I knew I failed at that point. And I had no clue what he said, though I caught the words "left" and "bicycle." Eventually, he realized that I had no idea what he was saying, so he took me back upstairs to Ms. Theresa. He reeled off his stream of Japanese again, she listened, and he left to go give the other 2 their tests. I thanked him again for his time. Then my BOE lady turned to me and said, "He says that you need to stay more left when you drive in case bicycles or mopeds come beside you. And he says that when you stop, you do stop, but you need to stop longer." Oh yeah, I so failed. She looked at my disappointed face and said, "I think you passed. Probably."

Now came the fun part. I had to sit in a waiting room for half an hour until the guy could come out and tell me that I failed for sure. Fun stuff. Poor Ms. Sainthood had to sit while I was in a depressed little funk for half an hour. And when I'm depressed, it can be an almost palpable thing. The minutes dragged by, and I was cursing myself for not falling off the road or something. At least if I had fallen off the road, it would have been automatic failure instead of this waiting for 30 minutes and THEN failing. And still, a small part of me was hoping that I had passed. I kept playing all sorts of scenarios in my head where I had to go back and tell the BOE that I had failed. Somewhere inside of me, my mind kept trying to think positive and show me scenarios where I came back triumphant. All those scenarios ended with Godzilla attacking my city right after that, so my victory was always short lived.

After a very, very tense half an hour, a different police officer came down the stairs and called for me and my BOE lady. He was not smiling and really looked liked the messenger who was about to tell Vlad the Impaler that his subscription to Horrendous Torture Implement of the Month Digest had been canceled. He then, still unsmiling, said something in fast Japanese. My BOE lady turned to me and said something in English that I didn't understand. But she was smiling. Hope, a thing with feathers that sits unseen in my soul, tried to take flight directly through my intestinal wall. "I passed?" I asked, and she nodded, smiling. My mind then digested what she had originally said, which was, "He says 'you are very rare'", which could be a great pick-up line, but wasn't intended to be in this case. Apparently he had explained to her how rare it was for a foreigner to pass the test on the first time (finally, she believed it - she thought I was over exaggerating until then), and that was his way of saying that I passed. He then broke into a grin when he saw how happy I was (my knees almost gave out), and said we had to do some more paperwork (I was so relieved at this point that I was positively skipping to go do more paperwork. Yea! Paperwork! I love this stuff!!). He escorted us to the appropriate window like a proud father, and every officer he saw along the way, he stopped to tell them that I got my license on the first try. Rather hilarious. Some of these officers I'd never seen before, so they just smiled in a vague sort of way and congratulated me. The officer I had seen a few times before shook my hand and looked very happy for me, though he was probably actually just happy that he would never have to see me again.

Yea for more paperwork. I was floating at this point. We then went upstairs so I could watch a safety video in English that taught me how to drive in Japan. Since I had just passed my test, I figured I knew how to drive in Japan; but I was so high on joy at this point that I swear I have never watched a movie as attentively as I did this one. My BOE lady and I talked a little bit (we were the only 2 in the room, so we didn't have to worry about disturbing others), and I think she wasn't as sure as she had seemed about me getting the license. She kept saying, "I'm so relieved!" She was preaching to the choir on that one. After the video, we asked the police officer what my driving score was. He said that there are 100 points for the test, and you need 70 to pass. Then he said that I "giri-giri pass", which means I barely passed. I got 70 points. But who cares? I passed!!

I then went to get my picture taken. Some really nice ladies were operating the camera. They congratulated me and told me to sit down and look at the camera. I sat and started fixing my hair and adjusting my shirt, then I got ready to look at the camera. "Ii desu" they said (it's good/okay); "Ii desu" I responded (yup, we're set, take the picture). My BOE lady then said, "Oh, no, they meant they had already taken the picture." ..... What?! This is a picture I'm going to have to live with for how many years, and I didn't even know they took it? What the heck? I was probably looking off-screen, drooling, and fixing my lopsided shirt. Great. I'm going to look like the hunchback on Notre Dame. Whatever. I got the license. Now I just have to be careful to not get pulled over so that I don't ever have to show it to anyone.

A few minutes later, and we were out of the DMV. I was so happy (have I expressed that enough?). I offered up so many prayers of thanks it was insane. The drive back to the BOE was much less tense. My BOE lady and I said we should pretend I failed just to see how the BOE reacted, but once we got back, we couldn't hold back our giggles. My section chiefs all stopped work when we came in and asked, very kindly, if I maru (circle/passed)? I think they were worried I didn't, because they were all looking very kind and concerned (man, you break down crying once, JUST ONCE, and everyone thinks you're going to do it all the time). I waited for a few seconds because everyone needs a little dramatic tension in their life, then I held up my hands in maru. The whole BOE cheered and told me congratulations. I told them "giri-giri pass", but one of my sections chiefs said, "We'll take it. A pass is a pass!" I had people crowding around me asking to see my deformed drivers license picture (it looks like a mug shot), and telling me how impressed they were. It was 4:00 at that point, and my boss looked at me and said, "Your work is done for the day. You can go home and relax now."

The rather ironic thing about all this is that I almost got into an accident on the way home. I think I had been so overly vigilant in my driving for the past few weeks that my mind snapped now that I had my license. So I went across a busy road and failed to notice the car speeding towards my side. They breaked just enough and I floored it just enough that we barely missed each other. I thought how wonderful it would have been to have to call the BOE 1 hour and 20 minutes after I got my new license in order to tell them that I had just totaled my car. But luckily, I'm okay. I just didn't drive for the rest of that weekend, and then I went back to driving as normal the next week. The poor Japanese DMV. They have no idea what kind of monster they've just unleashed on the roads of Japan. (*insert generic evil laughter here *)