And now, Part 2

Having said what I’ve said in the last blog (my Mr. Hyde blog) and in the fifty other blogs before it, you might be tempted to conclude that the experience I had here was not a good one. That would be wrong. My year in Japan with the JET program was undeniably worth it, and was one of the very best years of my life for one reason and one reason alone: The people. It’s true that in my year in Japan I have stumbled across moments of almost unbearable beauty, quick flashes of poignancy and ancient culture that have astounded me in their power, and, unfortunately, in their briefness. But in the end, the JET program, like so many other things in life, is made or broken by the people involved in it. For me, the people made it all worth it.

I’ll be honest, when I signed up for this gig almost two years ago, I was convinced that if I actually got in, I would be surrounded by wierdos. The bad kind of wierdos. The kind that dwell in the opposite extremes of personality types: They either make every conversation painfully awkward because they live completely under the radar, never making decisions and always lingering about like a barfly, contributing absolutely nothing to the social makeup of the group, or the other extreme, where they compensate for their insecurities by going way overboard, yelling all the time and jumping about like jackasses saying “look at me! Look at me! I’m sooooo drunk!” or some such nonsense that makes you just want to hit them so very, very hard.

To my complete delight, I found myself surrounded by the good kind of wierdos. The kind that know their limits, and that know the proper times in which to break them. The kind of people that are very aware of themselves and where they stand in life. The kind with super dry senses of humor, that know about timing, not just in comedy, but in life. Not even in college, where I was surrounded by literati, did I meet such a unique group of forward thinking, gutsy individuals. Every one of them had a serious pair of brass balls on ‘em (or brass fallopian tubes, whatever the case may be). I feel privileged to have lived and worked amongst such a diverse crowd of kickass people. That type of environment doesn’t come around a whole hell of a lot, and I tried to take advantage of it as I could. Time will tell if I got anything out of it, but I’m pretty sure I did.

I’d also like to say that I felt very blessed to have worked with the Koho High School Staff. Don’t get me started about the Japanese school system, but the staff I worked with and hung out with I was very happy with. I had heard nightmare stories about the Japanese workplace, and I am happy to say that Koho never lived up to any one of them. I didn’t think such a laid-back job existed in Japan, and aside from that one at Koho, I’m still not sure they do. The staff treated me with a type of deference and respect that was never aloof, and always welcoming and friendly, and for that, I thank them all (while praying that none of them ever get a hold of this blog to read that thanks)

Obata, my supervisor, saved my life in that country. I owe him every shred of sanity I managed to maintain, and can source him for my general state of wellbeing throughout the program. Good, honest, thoughtful, hilarious, selfless people like him are a rarity in life. I hope he gets out of that school before they kill him. He deserves much more general contentment than his current job can give him.


And that’s that, Dear Reader, we’ve come to the end of this chapter. It’s time to move on to the next. Whatever that may be, rest assured that should you feel the need, you can read up on my lack of progress right here.


Thanks for hangin’ with me.

-BBG