Mondays almost a go

I called the english speaking japanese woman today, to say about holding a meeting on monday and all seems well, so all I got to do now is to tell the boss tabout the meeting on monday and then I can finally tell them Im leaving. I will be so happy once I`ve told them, it will be like a big weight off my chest. There is only about 9 days left until my birthday and till Yukari gets back to Japan and there is just 16 days until I go to my new apartment. YAY. I just want it to be july 9th now. GAP said it might be a good idea to help out with some of the end of year cleaning at the nursery, which I will happily do, but I am not going stay past the 16th. Yukaris cousin will come and pick up my luggage on the 16th and take me to the apartment, so Iit would be abit stupid if I wasnt going with it.

I just want everyone to know that I`m leaving as soon as I can because I dont want them planning anything and then saying (before I tell them) "this is the camp you will be going to in august, you will have so much fun" and then I will go "erm umm". I have thought alot about leaving and its not like its a split minute decision because it is costing me alot to do this. For starters the apartment is costing around 350 pounds then theres food and extra, so my university saving will end up been pretty low, whereas if I stayed here I would have a nice little fund to cover most things, but at the end of the day, money is money, I can always make more, but I cant live on my own in Japan for awhile and be able to do whatever I want. So i`m going to choose the adventure :)

Stage 2 and a half complete. 1 more to go

Well I have let GAP know that i`m leaving and to be honest it went alot better than I expected. They are pleased that I have thought about it carefully and they feel that I have handled the situation very well. Though they say they are disappointed, they understand my reasons and as the nursery didnt set a program after the summer holidays it is understandable.

So now GAP knows and pretty much everyone else so all thats left is to tell the nursery. So I am going to call the English Speaking church woman tommorow and arrange for a meeting with the boss of the nursery for monday and then tell them of my plans and from there I will have just under 2 weeks until I move. So wish me luck (I have a feeling that I will need it)

Stage two complete

I have now sent off emails to the GAP people saying that I wish to leave Nogata, so it i`ve almost completed my "tell everyone im leaving" task. Hopefully they will get back to me by monday, and from there I can tell the nursery, which is the worst part im dreading. To be honest I would prefer just to leave and avoid all of that conversation, because I know whats going to happen. Everyone is going to say "but you only have until the end of august, is it really worth it" and "but you have a contract" or "japan is dangerous now adays is not a safe palce anymore you have to be careful". I know that they will try and talk me out of it, but my mind is made up and nothing is going to change it. I suppose the good thing is, is that when they find out and talk to me (most likely using the english speaking church woman to be a translator) I won`t have to worry about what they think of been worried that they have the power to send me back to England because I already have an apartment ready, money and a flight home, so all they can do is talk, talk, talk. Maybe shout, but I doubt they would.

I don`t really care that I will "no longer be under the auspices of GAP" because I can take care of myself and its what I mainly want to do here. Thinking back from before I came here it seems wierd because so much has changed, in England I would never have got in trouble, but here it seems that whatever I do is bad, or unsafe. Oh well. I have about 20 days left and only 13 until Yukari comes back, so there is alot to look forward to. All I have to do now is keep my head low and avoid there gaze once they find out, my mum said it will be like the time my sister decided to quit been an au pair and the family weren`t exactly please about it to say the least, but short of their *cough* God *cough* striking me down I can`t see what they can do.

And dont get me started on Religion. I just had to delete a page of writing about what I thought about it, so not to offend anyone. I will keep my views to myself. (maybe)

One last thing. On Friday I went to by some drink and bread and a few other bits and pieces at Halloday which is a 15/20 minute walk away and I was at the cash counter and saw the guy that I bought my suit off at (of course) the suit store. I said Hi (Konnichiwa) and then he said if I was on my bike but I said no because it has a puncture, so he offered to give me a ride back, which I accepted considering I was carrying a ton of things and it was already dark, so he gave me a ride home and said about going for a meal (I think that what he said) he was saying something about tempura and about monday or tuesday and about the phone, so I out 45 and 34 together and got whatever it equals (79 im not dumb) so this week I will most likely have dinner with my new friend the suit man (I think hes called Yoshikawa, but that might be his last name) . I was so suprised that he gave me a lift home, I`d only met him twice when I got the suit and again when I got shoes, but it just goes to show how nice some people are (there not all murders and thieves like the nursery wants me to believe).

Well for now I will go back and make dinner. I would have had eggs but I dropped the pack with all 8 in and only 1 survived, so that wasn`t the highlight of my day.

Oyasumi (goodnight)

Here are some wierd statues that I found on my big walk on saturday, in which I walked for about 6 hours but I didnt realy end up anywhere. Oh Well it was fun :P

Stage one complete

I rang David B today and told him that I am planning on leaving e.t.c and his opinion is that it would be best to stick it out but its my decision. The thing is he isn`t excatly employed by GAP, he is just a helper in Japan for the volunteers, so he can`t make anything happen or change anything, but its nice to tell someone that I`m leaving. So the next step is to write a letter to the GAP people saying that I am leaving. As everyone says I wont be associated with GAP anymore and I will be taken off their records, which to be honest I don`t have a problem with. I`d rather do what I want to do rather than "stick it out" because whats the point of sticking it out. The whole point of coming here is to do new things and be responsible for yourself, its not like I planned it from the begin, but if this is what will happen then this is what will happen and I am very excited about it :)

Fish fish fish

Well it seems that the computer situation wasn`t as bad as I thought. I can still use it. I just have to use it at the nursery, so its apart from the heat its almost the same. I still havent told the nursery i am leaving yet, but I am going to call david busk tommorow, which should be fun. Tonight I am cooking fish and that will be interesting because Ive never cooked it before. Whoopee

Computer, Computer where for art thou`

Well here is another blow to my already beaten enjoyment. It seems that in 2 days the computer (that is in the church) is going to be moved to the nursery, meaning that I don`t have any idea when I will be next able to use it. I have began to use the computer quite abit, when I have nothing to do, I have even managed to download loads of anime, to put on DVD (I dont have a DVD player yet, but will in Muromi). So, my last luxury here is been taken away. It at times like this that the doubts of leaving are chucked out of the window. To be honest computer or no computer I am still going to leave, I have about one more week until I tell GAP and then we will see what the nursery says. I know I am going to have to have a long conversation about staying, but to be honest, there is nothin they can say or do to stop me. I have a place to go, I have cash to live on and I have a return ticket back to England, so my VISA would be invalid if I just leave. Sure some people will be sad, but in September they will have a new volunteer to take care of (or over take care of). I wish it was July 16th now. I am really excited about moving and if it isn`t what I expected and things go wrong, well then its only for 6 weeks and I can come home anytime I want. I can even stay until March 2006, but I doubt that will happen, for one thing I have to go to University in September and that means leaving my girlfriend behind, but we plan to stay together even when we are apart and can always save up to see her again. I like Japan, but I don`t like been alone in Nogata. It never bothered me when I was alone in Hull because I still had my family there and I enjoyed it. I do enjoy my time here in Japan and I am very happy I have had the chance to do this, but I don`t feel as though I am an adult. People treat me like a child and I just want to do things for myself. I appreciate when people help alittle, its just when people are telling me to be careful every step I take and when everypart of my life here is pretty much published to everyone it starts to piss me off. There was one time when I was told that "I belong to the nursery and I belong to Goda-sensei (the boss) " and that made me so angry. I am a volunteer here and that means that although they have given me a chance to come here it doesn`t mean they own me, I am still giving up my time to help them (although I feel as though I am not needed anyway, which kind of makes me feel I could be doing something productive with my time). I need to do something and meet people, not just bestuck in one place for 6 months. I guess it would have been nice if I was one yaer earlier because that would have meant I would have spent 3 months here then 3 months in Fukuoka and I would have had another volunteer close by, but because the other nursery stopped accepting people I was left alone in one place for 6 months.

Some things have been great here, like going to Nagasaki, homestaying and going to Kumamoto and Kagoshima with the Yamamoto family, meeting Yukari and going places like Haus Tein Bosch, Dazaifu and about a million more. There is alot of things to list what I have liked here, but there is also alot that I don`t like. In sort I am 100% certain about leaving and even if they take away my computer, they can`t take away my freedom. FREEDOM!!!!

And the news at 10 with Trevor McDonald

Damn, I miss English news, I have no idea whats going on in the world apart from the farmers rice crops and the rivalry between broadband and tv companies, which dominates the most of Japanese TV. Although some tv is better than non which I am pretty much left with at the moment because my aerial broke (it was already broke, it was just biding its time till I felt like putting the TV on and then it went snap) but I do have one channel, which is fuzzy and contains the same blaaa as the res t of them (which unfortunatly I cannot even check as I have lsot the TV remote). God knows how that happened. The room isnt even that big and there is nowhere it could have gone. Thankgod I bought a Playstation.

Anyways moving on.... In current events (in order of appearance) I went to Tobata church to have a get together with some of the members there and see some of my friends, who are students in Tobata. We had pasta for dinenr then went to Karaoke on the night and then slept in my friends apartment. Now, I know student apartments are messy but.... well im lost for words. Once upon a time it was a reasonably sized apartment, but over the years, manga and anime began to pile up, so did the cheese sandwiches, the school work, the clothes and the mice (ok maybe thats going abit too far) but it kind of left there 3 of us that had to share floor space with abit of a tangle. Luckily we got to sleep unharmed by the surrounding mountains of books. In the morning we went to church..... (enough said there) and then we went to the arcade, which was nice (Say in a "Fast Show" style of way, it makes life so much more interesting)

After Tobata there was the nursery.monday.tuesday.wednesday.thurday (see what i`m doing?) although Friday was a pretty different, for starters it was at a rice field a.k.a Tambo and the aim of the day was, well, there was no aim, there was just mud. So off into the mud we went and out of the mud we came (a few straglers got sucked under and we will notified their parents the next day). Its hard to describe what we did, it was pretty much, jumpy, jumpy, squelchy, squelchy, muddy muddy., in that precise order (I mean it!)

After the day of "Hey look mum, im covered in.... (take your pick)" I went to have alook at the apartment in Muromi with Manami (try say that fast). The apartment was a short train ride away from the central hub bub of of tenjin, and it nestled across a pizza shop and pretty damn near a liquor shop (wayhay). You can also see the Fukuoka tower and I doubt its too far too walk to the baseball ground (join me in a mexican wave, japanese style, with a slight focus on the america sport). The apartment was nicer than I expected, especially for the price and I will be sharing with 2 Japanese women and a Japanese guy for the remainder of my stay when I leave Nogata. Its pretty much a don`t bother other people rule, which I love the idea of and I can`t wait to move in. I`ve began to like the nursery abit more now, but I still have no intension of staying until when I go back to America, because I do value the thing called "Life" its an addiction. I plan to leave July 16th and I plan to tell GAP and the nursery June 20th ish, im sure its not going to be the highlight of my day when I tell them, but whats got to be done, has to be done. Another problem I have just discovered is that the nursery have camp, which is held on July 7th, 8th and 9th. Now normally I would be looking forward to it, but the 9th (which is a saturday) just happens to be my birthday and the first day that I will see Yukari when she returns to America, so thats a big problem for them. Fine, fine I know that I will have 1 and a half months of free time, but the 9th is a special day and its doubly special in Japan, because when you turn 20 you are classed as an adult (which may mean that I will get took off the breast milk) and as I will have not seen Yukari in 2 months, no camp, no nursery, no bloody Japanese samurai, will stop me from seeing her then.

I`m not one for getting or giving bad news, so this is all abit Waa Waa (I can`t even think of a proper word right now, but when I do I will edit it *I promise*) for me. Its a pity I can`t just get someone to say that I am leaving into a tape recorder then send it to them, it would be so much easier than me having to say and then having "Dum Dum Dum" (dum it in a horror theme) THE MEETING. Ahh the meeting, twas many a day when one could have a nice chat about ones personal life, which any regard for ones privacy and respect.

Im running out of interesting things to write at the moment and I want to go to bed, so I store em up and spill em out at a later date.

Oyasumi (good night)