People

More pics from my life:
http://uwec.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2100616&l=e000d&id=59501063
And pics from my biking and apartment:
http://uwec.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2100617&l=ac7cd&id=59501063


I’ve never doubted God’s existence before. I’ve ignored him though. Ignoring God led to the best, and subsequently, worst year of my life.

I’m actually here to write about people. Specifically, the people I’ve met in Japan. These people are mostly gaijin or foreigners, because admittedly, these are the people I’ve been spending the most time with.

Who should I begin with? (Or is it With whom should I begin? I really have no idea why I’m a teacher…)

Ruth- Ruth is from Scotland. I met her right away the first morning of orientation in Tokyo. We introduced ourselves to each other, I was Luther and she was “Rth.” “What?” I said. “Rth,” she answered. “What?” I said again. “Ru-uth,” she emphasized this time. You see, “Ruth” is from Scotland. They speak and entirely different form of English over there, only about 65% compatible to Midwestern English, or at least I could only understand about 65% of what she said that initial conversation. Now it’s much better. Today I’m about 19 out of 20 words compatible.

Ruth is a great girl, very honest very real. The kind of girl who goes to church on a Sunday morning and within minutes of stepping back into her house has a gin and tonic in her hand. (This is actually a self-admitted true story.) During our initial conversation she said to me, “I’ve been told to look out for you.” I at first thought this was a warning “Look out for that Luther guy…” but what she meant was to look for me in Japan. Ruth had done the Navigators summer missions BEST program last year, the same one I had signed on for this summer. I obviously pulled out because I was accepted to JET, but they still knew who I was and that I would be here. It was a blessing to meet another Christian right away. There aren’t very many of us here in Japan. Less than 1% of the Japanese population identify themselves as Christian, and I’ve only met 4 other Christian ALTs.

Ruth keeps inviting me to go to Church with her and some people she knows from last summer, but I keep being out of town or wanting to sleep. I’ve been having so many crazy adventures that I’m just ready to have some normalcy for awhile. I’ve been exhausted and up and around all over the place. I haven’t wanted to turn anything down. Like today’s excursion to the Izu peninsula with Ruth and Liz for onsen (basically a day spa, but not as expensive and very popular among most Japanese).

That brings me to Liz. Her real name is Elizabeth Trevathan which gives her the same initials as E.T. This was immortalized by her portrayal of the character in her small group’s skit at the English Retreat. They rode in her bicycle and she even delivered 75% of E.T.’s vocabulary: “E.T. phone home.” (I believe the only other word he knows is ‘friend,’ but correct me if I’m wrong. Does a loud shriek count as a vocab word?)

Liz is from New Zealand and is desperately cute. She lives right around the corner from Ruth, but her living situation is nowhere near as cush. Poor girl just wants to sleep and cook and bathe without rubbing up against grime and mold. And her teachers haven’t been the most helpful either. New Zealand English is easier to understand than Scottish, but I still have to concentrate. Why do I have to have to start with the most neutral accent as my basis for English? I wish I knew some fancy form and then got the privilege of listening to my smooth, sensual, deep sexy voice all the time.

Luke is from New Zealand too. He’s a bit older than I am, but still in his 20s. Luke taught English in Korea for 4 ½ years. He has his master’s degree in Linguistics and wants to get his doctorate so he can teach English at a University in Japan. He’s going to have to learn Japanese first though! Luke is a chain smoking, staggering drunk. No, that’s too harsh. I have seen him take an extra couple of steps while under the influence, so that’s where the title comes from. He says cigarettes are too damn cheap here. Luke is honestly a great guy too. He has made my time here much more enjoyable. He likes to use his hands to gesture while talking, especially this one where he pinches his fingers and his thumbs of each hand and then points them at about eye level while squinting his eyes slightly. He then begins to unwrap a tiny invisible gift in mid air while still talking about whatever it is he’s talking about. Possibly reciting the lyrics to some New Zealand parody band’s song. Luke and I are going to sit out on the sea wall and smoke cigarettes some evening this week.

More on the people I’ve met coming up in future posts. Right now I have to do some ironing because my washing machine doesn’t have an agitator, leaving me the agitated one. (Wow, that was a dad joke…notice the visual and aural similarities between “dad joke” and “bad joke.”)