kanada ni kaeru, yo

So, it's finally time. Two weeks from today, we'll be hopping on a plane from Fukuoka to Vancouver. Well, more precisely, the plane will fly from Fukuoka to Taipei, Taipei to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Vancouver. Twenty hours later we will touch down on our native soil, and my heart will rejoice and the mountains will ring. Or something like that. Perhaps we won't be "hopping" on that plane, more like hobbling after we get through the marathon pain in the a** that is an international move. Actually, nothing could really compare to the day we moved from Iowa City, when we pulled out around 2 p.m. with about two hundred pounds of clothing on the roof of our Ford Escort (yeah, the one with the massive dent in the door), only to find ourselves on a rural road, in the middle of a tornado a few hours later. About 20 hours of non-stop rain and driving later, we arrived in Moose Jaw at 2 in the morning and did laundry for four days straight. It was a real good time.

I wish I would have written more on here now. It's funny how at the beginning of an experience you really yearn for an outlet, and this blog provided that for me. After awhile, you get accustomed to where you're living, and even though absurd things happen every day, you don't feel such urgency to record them (because they start not to be so absurd to you.) Like for instance today, a conversation I had with one of the agriculture teachers I've become friends with at my school went like this:

Kate sees Kentaro Matsumura (the guy who came up to me the day I arrvied and said, "My name is Kentaro Matsumura, but please call me Kenny." He'd learned on a Greyhound bus trip through the U.S. that North Americans, instead of learning new names, just like to adapt the names of people from other countries to ones that are easier for them to pronouce.)
Anyway, today Kenny comes into the staff room drenched in sweat (36 degrees and rising- OMIGOD!) and, frankly, not smelling very good.

Kate: Kenny, kyo, nani shiteita no? (What have you been doing today?)
Kenny: ushi ni notta. (I rode a cow.)
Kate: notta? (Rode?)
Kenny: hai. (uh-huh.)
Kate: nande? (Why?)
Kenny: asobi ni (For fun.)

And that was about that.

Tomorrow is my soubetsukai (farewell party), for which I wrote a speech today. My favourite teacher helped me write it, and I almost burst into tears about five times while we were doing it. I got a bunch of goodbye notes from students the other day, and he said "Seeing you read goodbye letters makes me cry." It's so hard saying goodbye to people you don't know if you'll ever see again. I have no idea when I'll be back here, and how I'll feel about coming back when I get home. It really has been amazing, and I know I'm going to miss so much about the place and the people I've met (okay, not all of them...)

I'm going to post a few photos from the past few weeks now. I have no idea if anyone still reads this, but I'll do it anyway. :)