Where Did February Go?

It's been awhile since I last posted and, seriously, I have no idea where this month went. It fleeeeeeeeeeew like Michizane's plum tree to Kyushu. Which, by the way, should be in bloom now. Yes, it's plum blossom season, and I'll slap some pictures of local plum tree blossoms up as soon as it stops this awful drizzling rain. Some of the plum trees in my neighborhood's private gardens (viewable through fences or over walls) could pass for sakura, or cherry blossoms, which Japan is more famous for. Frankly, I prefer plum blossoms. Aside from their amazing connection to my man Michizane, they last longer than sakura and, in my personal opinion, have a stronger and more pleasant scent. They also come in an assortment of colors for all of your kimono-matching needs; there's a line of plum blossoms in front of my Board of Education that shows off the hues from white to dark pink bordering on red.

I took a few moments to admire this line of trees after getting out of the BOE on Friday and ran into a bunch of my elementary kids on their walk home. We smelled the flowers while waiting for her mother to come pick her up and collected fallen petals and a few rare fallen whole blossoms.

...aside from random encounters with students and their relatives, my life has been busy with my usual taiko and kendo activities. Tonight I'm busily churning out activities for tomorrow-- I was informed at the end of the day today that I would need to plan for classes first and second period tomorrow. At least I was given some warning. The lack-of-information gap between my JTEs and myself has grown increasingly more frustrating. I am learning to be more flexible and adaptable, but there comes a point where not informing me of scheduled activities is plain rude.

In some ways I have been treated like a third-class citizen since starting work here here-- at most of my schools no one usually tells me about changes in the daily schedule or even which class I'm eating lunch with. It's a constant struggle to obtain information necessary for daily functioning within the schools. Most of my schools are pretty good about telling me when I arrive in the morning when I have will classes or posting a list somewhere, but two of my middle schools still stubbornly make me beg for it... last week I thought I had only one class and ended up having three, the second of which I was only informed of 5 minutes before it was supposed to begin.

At some point, the bamboo reed will discover it's really an American elm twig, discontinue its attempts to bend, and pointedly bitch-slap all who have repeatedly refused to respect its basic needs. I'm still trying to work within the system at the moment, but really, is there that much of a difference between Japanese and American bureaucracy? The rules are made for the game to be lost.

Thank goodness February is so short, really, and punctuated by the start of plum blossoms. It's a depressingly cold month and enough to push this lonely homesick adventurer to her last ounce of compassion.