I saw snow on the top of Mount Iwate (or Iwate-san) yesterday morning. The temperature hasn’t dipped below freezing yet, but I’m sure it will very soon. Luckily, a landlady is coming on Saturday to teach me how to drain the water from my pipes. My heater is still broken. Yesterday, Yamashita-sensei, the third year industrial arts teacher came by my apartment and looked at it, but he said that he couldn’t fix it. Next week I’m going out with my board of education contact, Ito-sensei, to buy a new one. In the meantime, my junior high school is lending me one of the heaters they use in the teachers room. The teachers here have been very kind lately. I told them about my problem with the dust in my apartment and Yamashita-sensei took me to an electronics shop and showed me vacuums and air cleaners that would be good to buy. They keep on telling me to ask for help if I have any problems. Earlier, I’d been hesitant since everyone is so busy, but they all don’t seem to mind.
I also went to the doctor here for the first time yesterday to get my ears cleaned out. Fumie-sensei took me during a free period. The doctor did a really thorough job and it only cost me 900 yen, which is around $9.00. Last time I had my ears cleaned out in the States, it cost me $40.00 for two doctors visits, plus the money I spent on ear drops and a flushing bulb. Of course, as nice as the Japanese system can be, if I get cancer here, they probably wouldn’t tell me (it’s a cultural thing; many Japanese doctors won’t tell a patient if he or she has cancer if they think there’s nothing they can do) and would let me die a mysterious, slow, wasting death, but it looks the system has some definite advantages over ours.
I’m going to the wedding of the school maintenance man tomorrow. It’s going to be at a nice hotel and apparently there will be both Western and traditional Japanese style services. I’m looking forward to it. Despite all this, I’ve been feeling depressed a lot in the past few days. A large part of that was my inability to keep my room and clothes clean, despite vacuuming and dusting. I hated going into the work with dusty clothes and I constantly worried that people thought I was dirty and filthy. Even though it’s still a problem, I know now that I was overreacting and I feel a lot better having talked to some teachers about it. I’m still a little down, though. Part of it is probably because of winter. It’s suddenly gotten much colder recently and since Japan doesn’t have daylight savings time, it gets dark around 4:45 PM here everyday. I’m concerned about Seasonal Affective Disorder and I need to find ways to deal with that. Also, I’m just feeling lonely. I actually prefer staying later at school because I’m around people. Going home means being by myself for the rest of the evening. Part of it is my fault, though. I’ve been lax in maintaining contacts with people through e-mail and instant messenger. I need to be more active and motivated. Or I could just start telling everyone to call me “The Dude” and start drinking White Russians all the time. There is a large bowling alley right down the street…