Sick Vacation

So I have my spiffy car, and Friday comes along and on Saturday we are to set off to go to Nagasaki to see the lantern festival. Sadly friday I had an extremly busy day, but was generally happy as all 3 of my lessons went well. Though after my back to back to back classes I had a quick lunch in which I just landed up rushing home to change so I could climb mt. tenppaizan. It was there that I realized a few dumb things.

It had suddenly become freakishly hot and I alwasy thought the students are so dumb why am I the only one carrying something to drink? So with my juice in hand I climb up with the class 3 girls, which is the one class in which I am on more friendly terms with the boys (since they are rowdy and friendly and the girls are less so) So the boys all run up to talk to me, but eventually I try to seg-way to talk to the girls since I had talked with the class 3 boys like on two mountain climbs. (I'm trying to get through all the groups) So after awhile we are basicly running since we have to do some sort of eye brow check (Some rule about students must have eye brows...youd think this would not be a problem but more than a few boys have.....next to no eye brows =/)

So at this point some less in shape students look like they are about to pass out so I start offering them some juice, some accept and one girl who is really bad I basicly just give her the whole bottle. Even then its so bad the final leg of the climb I am dragging her up to ensure she doesnt fall off the mountain. On the way back down I'm popped I am losing my voice from combination screaming at classes and a cold, and I gave away most of my juice so I did something bad and ran away to get some vending machine drinks.

It was then another teacher told me, that drinks are banned untill summer. The students are supposed to suck it up since its cool and they can handle it. Its just insane, I couldnt belive it I mean like 3 girls in just the class I was walking with almost passed out. I thought what horrible rule. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it but I will continue to break it (since no one told me it was a rule, even though I've bought something to drink with me every mountain climb) and pretend I still dont know because its not only dumb, but if the students can't carry somethign to drink I will surely give them some.

Also Shinnae visits my school and its fun, we go to kyudo club and bug the students. I was highly amused when the super tall awsome Kyudo girl (kayo) finds the shoes shinnae is wearing is really high, shes about the same height as shinnae without the shoes but with them on Shinnae looked much taller. When i pointed this out, she was kinda like CHEATER! Very funny as the girl is ussually SUPER shy and quiet. So I was amused.

So Saturday morning comes and Im feeling REALLY bad. I seriously lay in bed for awhile debating if I really wanna suck it up and go. But I do since if I dig out 4 other people are stuck without a ride. So I head over, and there are MASSIVE delays. We don't get out onto the road untill a good 2 hours later, and while on it I follow the other driver and in short we get pretty lost. (and I'm not even leading!) It gets so bad I land up leading (!!!!!) Of course this makes me nervous as I intended to just follow the other car blindly. So I get frazzled and bitchy and scared, since as you all know I have the world worst direction sense.

The whole trip is ok, but I basicly get sicker and sicker as it wears on, and by the next day I feel kinda like dying. I eventually get a bit better (after a bit of a hurl) and on the way back, I freak out since I'm sick, I don't know where I'm going and there are two back seat drivers telling me what to do. Which is good in a way because...I'm basicly like anti directions.

But I realize a bunch of things, I really need to calm down and stop freaking out when I drive. In Hawaii driving by myself, sometimes I would get lost for 3 hours. Which is pretty insane for an island that is so small you could probably drive around it in 1-2 hours. (well the part of the island with roads...) And I basicly accepted a long time ago I'm really bad at directions and sometimes things like that happen.

But in Japan its way scary, becuase getting lost will not lead you in circles it will lead you to god knows two prefectures away in some god forsaken land. And here there are time constraints, and people are almost always in my car. So I freak out and I don't know what to do and I get angry. I'm kinda sick of this feeling of pressure, as I'm a SUPER laid back person with very very little stress in my life. But, I can't just pretend to live a life with the attitude of, whatever comes I'll handle it. I really need to take hold of my life and steer in on my own. I just ussually let my life flow in the relaxed way that is common to Hawaii. But in the real world such an attitude does not work.

In a way truely believe that I will not get that much better at directions. Its not like I've given up and no longer try but trying just seems to bring on diminishing returns. When I first came to Japan I decided I WILL get better, but getting lost for 3 hours on my bike two towns away...kinda killed that idea. But I can't live in a world hopeing there will be someone to guide me the right way. To me directions are like words to a dyslexic person, I understand the rules behind it, its just in my head they get all jumbled up and don't make any sense. I'm not a dumb person and I truely believe that as well, and I refuse to belive that not understanding directions makes me less of a person... but it does. And while it may take me alot of work, if a dyslexic person can eventually learn to read, I can eventually figure out left from right...