From: Peter Rivard
Date: Sat Mar 8, 2003 2:23:44 AM Japan
To: Rochelle Cohen Lodder
Subject: Coming home

Hi, Rho,

     I just got some news. Just today, Fukui announced that one city here (I don't know which one) will hire one current third year Fukui ALT to work a fourth year as their new elementary school ALT. I'm applying, as are a few others. It would be great fun, it would spare me the job hunt, and it would pay dramatically more than the non-JET ALT jobs I've seen advertised. Plus, I've gotten kind of attached to this area; it would be great to be able to drop by Shingozushi or march in the rural festival near Go-chu. I don't know who else is applying yet; I'd suspect a woman, if one applies, would have the edge. I have a good reputation here, but so do the others who've stayed for three years. But it will likely be decided before other jobs for September start being advertised anyway. I'm curious to see where it is.
     What else? Nothing else. I've had a good week, really feeling warm and fuzzy about my kids. One kid told me his parents (link to picture of his mother) are already thinking about a going-away party for me at their izakaya. I had a "what the hell do you think you're doing" talk with a girl I found out had an adult boyfriend--"this is dangerous, this is why it's dangerous, tell me what's really going on, I'm worried about you"--but it went better than I'd expected and she thanked me afterwards and has seemed quite friendly to me since (she'd already broken up with him a long time ago). And after that I got to deal more with the sweet, innocent, goofy kids who haven't discovered the opposite sex yet, which was refreshing. Tried halfheartedly to squelch a student assignment of an interview of me which got more information out of me than I should have given (do they really need to know that my first kiss took place in a closet with a girl named Missy when I was their age? What was I thinking?), but really squelching it would have made it into too big a deal, so I'll suffer it through. After the embarrassing question and much laughter about the closet (and the shock that I was so young), I got revenge and asked them about their non-existent love lives and teased them about their wanting to kiss the weirdest (and my favorite) boy in the class (hi, Takafumi). Miki (her nickname is "Mojya," from "mojya-mojya," frizzy-haired) will be red-faced for days, but it serves her right. Just occurred to me that perhaps "in a closet at a party" wasn't what she meant by "Where did you kiss?" Some kids in their class probably are dating, but not these three.
    Yes, I have no life aside from my work.
     But I did just get a big honkin' 120 GB hard drive, and I know my guy-genes must still be having some effect because that somehow having new hardware makes me feel better.

Peter

p.s.--after embarrassing Mojya, I'll have to use her real name for a week.