Writing introductions is a bit tedious so....just take a look at my first post if you want to know more....

....and if you get curious about the name of this World or my posts, check out the second one.

Karakura Superheroes

In Shizuoka every fall they have this crazy big event called Daidogei. I've never actually been since it's all about street performance and.......yeah, freaks doing stuff in the street with huge crowds watching.....not so much for me, but I know the basic idea. It's something like this.

*shudder*

Yesterday and today I went to a school that I've been to several times in the past 2 years. It's pretty huge though & there's an actual English teacher so I'm not that close with any of the kids since I've never been left to handle them on my own. Yesterday though, one of the 5th grade classes had a couple of handicapped kids and they asked me to come see them perform after lunch. The teacher couldn't fully describe what it was they were going to do she just said, "It's something like........daidogei? I think.........."

Great.

My favorite.

But at least they were doing it in the special ed. classroom, so no big crowds. A few girls from the class went along with me, but that was it. It turned out what one kid was doing was something (I had to look this up) that is probably called a Chinese yoyo. (The other kid just tossed it to him & started the cd player!) It looks like this:

(This is not my student, just some random picture I found online.)

Turned out it was pretty fascinating. He was really good at it. Good to the point that he was dripping sweat after he was finished twisting and turning the rope, spinning around, throwing the yoyo up in the air and catching it on one finger while it was still spinning, somehow making it slow down out of nowhere and sliiiide up the rope.....

I sat there for half an hour without realizing it. He tried to do some juggling too, but he obviously hadn't practiced it much yet & he always went back to the yoyo. I wanted to write about it last night, but I'm getting a cold so I left it, and after today I'm glad I did. I would've had to post again right away.

It's amazing how easy it is to recognize something when you understand it for what it really is. A while back I wrote about how my dad had inadvertently made me sympathetic to kids with disabilities. Today in another 5th grade class there was a kid who was obviously autistic. No question about it. Later on the teacher told me, "oh he's.........got something wrong with him.......it's um.......well, his parents don't want to hear it so he just stays in the regular class all day." Sad. But reality all over the world.

And just like the girl who never spoke at my last jr. high, he fit into the class in his own way. The other kids were nice to him, they didn't ignore him, but they didn't try to force him to do what they were doing either. He did participate in the self-introduction part of the lesson. Came up with his teacher, said "nice to meet you", shook my hand, & gave me a "name card". And I couldn't let go of his hand. Because he was wearing like, 4 different Vongola rings!!! We talked a lot after that while the other kids were moving around, preparing, changing activities. He brought one of the low tables up to the front and sat on the floor behind it and gradually took everything out of his little bag. And by everything I mean about 6 stuffed animals, a pair of slippers made from mostly masking tape, various Reborn! related goods, a small sewing kit, several spools of thread, and a green piece of felt in the shape of a leaf. And when I wasn't talking to him, he sat quietly sewing on the leaf. Not really making anything, just pulling a piece of thread through it over and over. There was no knot in the end though so it didn't leave stitches behind.

After class we talked about Reborn! with some of the other kids & they of course got really excited as he and I compared the stuff we'd collected. I said I had all the rings except Rain & Lightning (that's Sky, Storm, Cloud, Sun, & Mist if you're counting...) He gave me his Lightning ring.

I thought those cheap capsule toy rings made for Japanese-kid-fingers didn't fit my hands (which is why all of mine are on a bracelet attached to my backpack) but I put it on & somehow it didn't get stuck. The kids in the next class called me Lambo the entire lesson.

Monster vs. New Girl part 2 (The Substitute)

This weekend I learned what it feels like to be Dan. I always thought my best friend's husband had it rough, but maybe it's not so bad. It's scary to meet the one who took care of your wife before she met you. But then again, there's something satisfying in knowing you were the one chosen, and not the one who was just always there.

Stroke of Sanity

When I was a kid my dad used to drive me crazy with altruisms. He'd always say things like, "Well, either it'll rain, or it won't." and "We'll get there when we get there." Absolutely infuriating. "Of course that's how it'll happen!" I'd think, "What's the point of saying it?" But it's possible, now that I think about it, that some of my "yes or no" "X or Y" mentality comes from him being like that.

I love baseball. I'd like to say it's because my dad likes it and he taught me to like it too, but more likely it's because it's predictable. It's my "comfort sport". (Not that I have any other type of sport, I've never been especially athletic.) In baseball, you know there are only a certain number of outcomes, and they're all based on one thing: either you hit the ball or you don't.

Today after lunch I played baseball with the 4-6th graders (we were still a few players short since there's only 13 of them) and one of their teachers. I'd been worrying over how to solve a few different problems but I couldn't seem to think of any answers. In fact all I could think of was the things that caused them. There were just too many angles in my head. Too many sticking points to consider. All that was coming to me was feelings of disappointment. I couldn't see a clear outcome for any of it. And then..........I got hit in the head. Literally. Fifth graders don't have the best pitching control.

Our team lost 6-4 in the end, but it didn't really matter. We weren't really playing to win. We were just playing because we wanted to. Because it's fun, and everyone knows how. You just try to hit the ball. And either you'll hit it, or you won't. Doesn't take much thought after all.

Recently I think I've had a breakthrough with drawing. I told myself to stop focusing so hard on every minuscule line and just draw the person I wanted to draw, because, as evidence has shown, I can draw. Might as well just do it already. So after the game I went back to my meeting room and started drawing Mukuro & sure enough it went a lot faster when all I thought was, "I know what I'm doing. It's supposed to look like this."

Rosa Rubicundior, Lilio Candidior

(Can anyone tell me if that's Spanish, Portugese, or just gibberish?)

I like contradictions. I like them in me, in other people, and between people too. The contrasting things that exist that make you go, "Why??" and then smile about it.

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to a few kids. Not an uncommon thing for me since I see most of my students anywhere from 1 to 10 times total. These were somewhere in the middle, about 5 times over the past 2 years. They're in their last year of elementary school now and I won't be going back there before they graduate. I let myself get a bit carried away I guess, talking about Reborn! and other anime, telling them to work hard and not be scared even if the person coming to teach them English wasn't me for a while. I let myself forget for a minute that kids are like rubber bands, and they're pretty good with out-of-sight-out-of-mind. They forget you and they're fine.

But there was this one kid....

This one kid whose name I'd remembered since the first time I went to the school. He's that noisy, smart, "look at me, I'm good at stuff!" kind of kid that only knows how to show he wants your attention by being mean and making jokes when you first meet. Luckily, I used to be (?) that kid too, so I know how to win them over. Ever since my first visit he's done nothing but hang around the meeting room where I stay between classes. To the point that teachers come and try to chase him away. They still don't get that it's boring sitting there all by myself....

This kid is a bit of a contradiction I suppose. Loud and annoying, but thoughtful and in need of affection.

So yesterday as I was leaving the principal and other semi-important adults lined up around the doorway to say goodbye. (This also happens a lot, but I'll never get used to it. It fees like overkill. It's not like I'm going off to war or something.) They'd chased the kids off and though I wanted to go home, I didn't really want to leave. I let myself get carried away. So they said goodbye, and thank you (about 9 times) and I put my shoes on and walked out into the courtyard. And just as I was turning away I heard a little voice shout, "Goodbye!!" and I looked back, back into the school, behind the teachers, up onto the staircase, and there he was waving sadly and even from that distance I could see the look in his eyes.

Maybe I'm just being dramatic and imagining things. Kids forget about you as they grow up. They only think they're attached when you're there.

But still, I said, "Goodbye S******-kun!" and waved. And then walked quickly out the gate telling myself I'd be an idiot to cry over something like this. So I sent a text to my 3 guy friends begging for something to cheer me up. (And here comes the real point of this......5 paragraphs later.......)

Me: " Remind me why I don't need to cry over never seeing a certain kid again?"

Friend A: "it's ok! you might see him again. unless.......is he moving away or something? what happened?"

Friend B: "because when he becomes a jrhs kid you won't like him anymore & when he's a salaryman he'll get drunk, stare at your tits, & take a picture up your skirt to beat off to"

Yes, these 2 are actually friends with each other, not just me......Friend C didn't answer, but I was ok by then so I guess I can forgive him....

And here we see two different ways of....of what exactly? Of looking at life? Of dealing with a whiny girl? Who knows.....the one looking through rose colored glasses perhaps, and the other a little bit ridiculous but perfectly candid. While both the answers made me smile, especially they way they came with the quickness (5 minutes after I sent my message) it's the contrast that I really find entertaining.

So I thought, "hmm.....what a nice contradiction we have here....." and I put the question to my girlfriends.

(aren't they cuuuute??)

I didn't explain the whole story, just asked them hypothetically, "if you said this," (didn't mention to whom it was said either) "which answer would you rather get? A or B?"

Inevitably, because they're girls, and relatively normal, they both said "A". The younger one quite resoundingly, as if there was no possible way anyone could ever want to hear anything else. The older a bit more reservedly, "I guess......A.....", but I think she's reading my questioning a bit and can guess where I'm going with this.

As for me, I much prefer "B". (Not because I'm still slightly infatuated with that particular friend or anything like that....) Because along with contradictions, I like distractions. I might have been sad, but now I'm laughing my ass off imagining S******-kun getting older. I remembered that kids get older. They forget about you, not because they didn't care, but because it's the experience that counts when you're growing up, not the person.

"We may meet today but we may not meet tomorrow. Time never repeats itself"

6/17 op. 8 One-Sided Sympathy

When I was a kid I was terrified of dying in a fire. I had nightmares about it constantly. I'm pretty sure I never knew anyone whose house burned down or anything like that. In fact, I'm pretty sure I never saw, or even heard of a fire in Gainesville when I was growing up. It's a wet place. Things don't just up and burn in a city with daily thunderstorms.

I wouldn't say there's a large incidence of fire here, but it seems that way. It's enough that it's noticeable at least. Last Friday I came home from school around 4 & went out on my balcony to do some laundry, got it all set up, turned around to look at the buildings and the ocean and the mountains and....

....the smoke climbed up and up......and up......and the helicopters went in like insects in a storm. I wasn't really sure what they were doing. I heard the sirens start, stop, and start again. I saw the pillar of smoke billow and widen and reach the clouds, then shrink back down. I didn't watch the news that night (because I never do) so I don't know what was burning.

The windmill down by the ocean blew the smoke back up toward the city, but I kept my balcony door open so I could take a million pictures of someone else's misfortune. The old ladies who work in the office downstairs went out in the parking lot and pointed and stared, then went back inside. Not that concerned I guess.

The next day it started to rain. It hasn't stopped since. Kind of screwed up when you think about it.