Four Hundred Days Til Re-entry

Saturday in words - Pictures couldn't describe it

The reason we were there at all was because, sadly, the Great Andini is off back to down under with (how many prespositions, eh?) his missus and this was the last time we would see each other in Japan. Sad days, but happy for him.

This is one of the big things about being an ex-pat about 12,000 kilometers away from home: You can become great friends and fill big holes in each others life, for a time. The lifestyle has useby dates by the ton. There is the need to escape (which I am getting very close to), where you just want to go home. This can vary from two days up to twenty years. I know of one guy who got off the plane, had a look around and decided he couldn't bear it and went home on the next flight. I reckon, the further away from your own culture the shorter an individual can manage.

There is the "life holiday" aspect to it all, where even though you are not there, your life at home sails on as innevitable as a hard-struck ball for a window. I have four brothers and sisters who basically don't know me apart from an occasional phone call. At least I haven't asked them how school is yet. I do sometimes tell them how big they are getting, just to check if they are listening.

Some people outstay their welcome or run out of potential employers. Especially,the guys have a habit of going out and making beasts of themselves with their students (not the kids, the adults at the language schools) and have to leave. Or turn up for work drunk and late more than is thought normal here. You get the picture, many of the people who come here to teach are hardly professional in any sense of the word. "On holiday with English teaching" sums up about half the language teachers in Japan.

Whatever the reason, you have to get used to saying goodbye to good friends, bye to friends and not a great deal to the guys above. For the brits, it is far from the end of the road. Whilst I am back over the summer I will hopefully see four or five of the good friends I have made over here during my sojourn. For those from Ausatralia, like Anidini, it is more likely to be once or twice more before I die. In a way this last four years has been a bit of a taster for getting old. Of all the people who left my life, only one actually died, though.

So what's the big deal? You only saw the guy three or four times in the last year, online efforts aside. Well, true, once the honeymoon period was over and I had set sail for my new job there was a whole bunch of geography inbetween. The difference lies in the possibility of catching a train to see the guy and the impossibility of catching a plane and still being able to afford University in a years time. There was a comforting presence over there which is very soon going to have gone.

And now when I email and say, "this guy at work fucked-up my class by being an ignorant twat," I will not hear that he gets that sometimes, but that he got that sometimes. We are no longer in the same boat. Head down and forwards. Two hundred and eighty days to go.

posted by Between daisies @ 16:03