John Stupart.com

This week has been all about the farewells, and it’s seriously starting to rub off on me! It struck me all at once at the Junior High farewell ceremony, when I noticed that some of the students, those who I’d become good friends with, were actually sad to see me leave. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually been able to make some sort of impact in someone’s life. I caught glimpse at that glorious and visceral place where you can begin to understand just why people become teachers. It’s in that moment you are able to realise that, no matter how trivial the ESL education might be, the simple presence of a non-Japanese foreigner is enough. It’s powerful stuff, and needless to say I am now super, super sad. Perhaps in the future, after Masters study, I might reapply for the JET programme and specifically Sarufutsu, so that I might be able to dive back into this wonderful dream world. It would be utterly selfish of me, as it would serve no other professional purpose in my life other than to feel special again, but at this point in time, if someone gave me those recontracting papers again, I’d sign on for another year in a heartbeat!

I can’t of course, and it’s for the better, as I have some very specific goals to pursue in my life that don’t include Japan their designs. I will miss this place for the rest of my life. Hell even if I did return, I think I would miss it all the more when next I left.

To add to this horrendously emotional post, I shall add what I feel is a symbolic last picture before I go back to SA. It’s the last beautiful sunset I saw in Hokkaido.

PS

Johnstupart.com shall not stop! Next up: John goes to South Africa! Posts might take longer to appear, but they won’t stop!

Ok, it was more of a gunboat than a warship, but it was still pretty awesome. All the brochures and stuff that I got were in Japanese so I can’t comment too much on the specifications. Rather, here are some pictures:

Today was the last elementary school lesson to boot, so it’s been a sad week. The kids shower me with origami and crap tons of letters and photos which was very nice. Likewise one of the teachers said that he thought I was the best ALT he’s worked with, which made me feel really great! Kinda nice to know that, even if he’s being polite, I wasn’t a totally dismal teacher of English!

Since day 1 the kindness of the people of Sarufutsu has been simply incomparable to anything I’ve ever experienced before in my life, and it hasn’t diminished at all in the year I’ve stayed here. If anything, I will miss the open generosity of the people here, as well as the immense pride they have in their work and village. A reminder to my hardened heart that there are kinder places in this world than I had previously imagined.

If only they needed someone to teach them Strategic Studies…

As well as being the birthplace for my snowboarding career, Esashi also has a seriously awesome annual crab festival once a year. Going with a friend from Nayoro, I had intended to simply stay for a bit, eat some crab, take some pics and then go home, but it turned out to be much more!

Almost as soon as we arrived some very good friends of Shelly (Nayoro ALT) insisted we stay over the night and partake of much beer-goodness. The festival itself was situated around a horseshoe-shaped peninsula just outside Esashi, ringed with stalls stelling an astounding array of food, oddly enough including crab. We spent Saturday night drinking beer, eating some awesome seafood and watching the shows on the grand stage that had been erected. If I’d planned it a little better I might have been able to simply camp out at the park next door (there were quite a few tents there!), but regardless it was great fun. After the final fireworks display I went with my new-found hosts to a local bar for some more food and beer, extolling upon them the many unique features of South Africa, from monkeys stealing the fruit to chasing away the hobos begging at the robots.

AND THEN, as if one festival wasn’t enough, I went to Wakkanai on Sunday afternoon to get a haircut only to find that the entire street on which my barber was located had been converted into a festival area, with something close to 300 different stalls. This being Japan they mostly sold food, and a LOT of it, and it certainly wasn’t as awesome as Esashi, as most folks simply sold the same stuff as their rivals further down the road, but it was an interesting sight. The downside, of course, was that I couldn’t get a bloody haircut, which means having to make another drive to Wakkanai sometime soon. I’m tempted to try the local village barber dude, but they almost certainly know no English, and I don’t quite have the Japanese language confidence to specify a haircut in detail. Maybe I should just shave my head!

In the work department, conversation classes in the evenings are progressing quite nicely, and the past couple of classes have seen the student ranks swell from 4 to 8! A colossal number! This week’s topic: “What I would do with $10 million”. I’m guessing there’ll be at least one food-related reply! On that note, some of the mothers coming to the class made me some snacks to take home, which was pretty damned awesome! Fresh sushi and some small scallops which I turned into a really nice seafood stirfry were certainly welcome gifts, even if they weren’t asked for. All the better I suppose.

Here’s some video I took of one of the dance groups performing at the crab festival. They were on TV a while ago in a huge tournament. They’re #4 in the prefecture!