Mended?

The weekend? What weekend? I hardly remember anything that happened.

Saturday I recall talking to Nate and not much else.

Sunday I met up with some folks and went for a swim at the legendary Niko Waterhole. I'm always cursed to swim on cloudy or rainy days there. Sometime the weather will cooperate with me. I've had the pleasure of jumping off the 30 foot tall waterfall 4 times now. Not that I'm so cool or anything to that extent, it's just that every time I get up there it makes me feel crazy. The satisfaction after the fact is even better. As I drop 30 feet through the air toward the water. My mind lets go and isn't sure what is happening. Impacting the water and sliding into a dark abyss of bubbles around my head is reassuring as I know I'm back down to earth so to speak.

After some talk of Japanese and cookies and who knows what, the friends and I trekked to the local ramen joint which serves up delicious and simple noodle bowls. Always good no matter how many times I eat it.

The best part was probably when we were leaving. I look over at the car next to me and I see something riding shotgun with the lady in the passenger seat. I glance back into my car then look back one more time. No it wasn't really anything. I look at my steering wheel and think that I surely saw something. I look one more time and much to my surprise a giant rooster is riding up front in the car. Now I know people keep pets of all kinds but this is a first to see a rooster riding up front in a car. I turn to my friend's car and smile. I tell them to put down their window and look over at the car next to me. They bust out in harmonious laughter at the sight of a chicken hanging out in a car. I never looked over to see the reaction of the people with the chicken being laughed at. It wasn't so much they were the center of the laughter but the sheer fact of it being a rooster. I wasn't aware chickens made any sort of good pet. Maybe this rooster had some great genetics for reproduction. I will forever wonder in my imagination of such things.

School is still very quiet. I often wonder what the other teachers think of me while I sit there minding my business day in and day out. I like it when hardly any of them are around in the afternoon. It's so peaceful and relaxing in a way. It just so happened that my arch nemesis and I were left alone in the afternoon. Realizing I wasn't coming in tomorrow because of another event and the end of the day was approaching I had to break the icy atmosphere to tell her. Now I could have just left and not told anyone but if I didn't show up tomorrow they might wonder and it would be extremely irresponsible and un-Japanese like to not indicate my whereabouts to some extent. As a side cultural note it's very common for Japanese people to say where or what they will be doing if they leave the room. Just a common courtesy thing I suppose or something to do with the communist ideology permeating the countryside through the sirens and announcements over the loud speakers. Anyway... before I could explain where I was going tomorrow I thought my nemesis was getting ready to leave so I sheepishly asked if she was leaving soon. She informed me that she would be around still and that it was okay if I was still there.

I've had a long standing cold war with this teacher ever since last November and the fateful cultural festival at school. It's been awkward to say the least. But in that single moment of asking a simple question it seems the Berlin Wall has come down between us in some form. We went back to the old times of talking about English and Japanese. I think she was probably happy and so was I. I wonder if she has been waiting this whole time for me to talk to her again or likewise. Perhaps from now on we will have some sort of friendship again. I guess I should have tried to talk to her again sooner.

However you have no idea how prepared I was to win this cold war if it meant leaving without ever speaking again. You know I would do it...