"...in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."
-- Daniel Webster

I wonder if the Old Man of the Mountain's descension means that God has taken down his sign and closed up shop here. Might have something to do with the lame ass afternoon DJs on WHEB who spend most of their airtime talking about how they have such a hard time "getting laid" and wondering what the cause for that is. Guess that they have never stopped to think that any woman with half a wit about her might figure that if these guys spend so much time talking about it when they aren't getting it, they'll spend twice the time trumpeting when they do get some. Who wants to be "the chick I laid last night" on a public broadcast?
And as they mentioned themselves on air (and as you can see for yourself on the website), they do have "faces made for radio".

It's been just over a month since I moved back here and I still do not have the casual social interaction thing down yet. Maybe I never did in the first place, but there are times I feel I am really awkward. What the hell am I talking about? Here's an example. The other day I went to an auto parts store to get some kind of oil absorbing oil pan so that Shiro could change the oil in the car. I went in and talked to the guy behind the counter and first of all he didn't really know what I was after so I tried explaining it again. He told me what they carried and after a quick call back home I realized it wasn't what I was after. The guy was nice and told me another shop in town probably carried it. I must have come across as too apologetic about not dropping my cash in this guy's store because he ended up telling me it's ok if I didn't buy anything.
The post office is another situation I am slowly getting used to. "Going postal" is a term now used that pretty well maps to the Japanese kireru. It's when someone goes off and gets crazy and violent. Well, the Dover post office is nothing like that. They are always happy, always friendly, cracking jokes and chatting while still giving great service. Yesterday I went to mail out some packages to Japan and Marty (gotta love those nametags) says to me, "Hey, you're awfully quiet today. What's the matter?" My answer was that I have a cold, which is true, but the real answer is that I'm not used to postal workers offering conversation and human interaction. I am used to "Irasshaimase", "hyaku-ju en desu", and"arigato gozaimashita"-- interaction complete. It may take me a little while to get up to speed in trading wise cracks with Marty. It seems reacculturization is in the details.

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Photo of Bolt at Kelley's Row courtesy of the WHEB (The Rock Station) website.

I'm starting to get jazzed up about the idea of teaching Japanese here in NH, even though it's almost 4 months until I actually start. I even ordered a used copy of Genki from Amazon to see if it's a textboook I'd like to use. I've read good reviews about it and I probably could have waited a bit and found some way to get the university to buy it for me, but my impatience was worth the $16 it cost me to just order the copy myself. I have no idea what the students' levels are going to be. I could continue using their current text because they've only finished about half of it, but I don't like the fact that they have a textbook that is all in Japanese and then a supplementary text that gives them all the English translations of the textbook. Making students buy a new textbook when the old one is only half finished is not something I consider lightly, but I also don't want to lock myself into using a textbook I don't like just for the sake of frugality. We're looking at 50 hours of classtime per semester, plus at least that much time again for study outside of class. If I were a student I'd rather spend an extra $20 to get a text I like to work with.
I have heard from the university that 9 students have already registered for the class. Nine students, four classes per week, 50 minutes per class. Man, it looks like I will actually be able to teach, which is something I never really felt like I was doing the way I wanted to in Japan. How much teaching really takes place when you have 35 students per class and 10 different classes that only meet once a week? I never even learned half the students' names.
It was so long ago that I don't even really remember when the conversation took place. It might have been over beers at Manoa Gardens at UH or even after that, after we had all moved back to Japan, but I do recall sitting around with the boys (this includes Dianne, who like myself tends to be guy-like in her thought processes) discussing the ideal teaching position, kind of like the way Genji and his buddies sit around discussing the perfect woman somewhere at the beginning of the The Tale of Genji. I believe we came to the conclusion that the ideal job teaching Japanese would be at a small university where you work alone and create the Japanese language program by yourself. That way you can (hopefully) avoid a great deal of the politics that are always involved when academic types work together. UNH is not a small university, but the Japanese program couldn't be much smaller without being nonexistent, so I've landed pretty close to the bull's eye.

Today is soup-eating kind of weather-- cool, misty and green with daytime temps in the high 40s (that's around 8 degrees for you celsius types). I'm eating split green pea soup. It's from a can but that's okay because, in general, I've been cooking up a storm since we got here. I'm doing my best to keep things simple in life for a while. It's a very hard thing for me to do, but I do really enjoy cooking so that helps. I guess my big "problem", the unspoken "issue" that I tend to nervously skip over is that I am slowly coming to accept the fact that I am now a ... fulltime homemaker. OK. I said it. Secret's out. Get over it and move on girl!
And I guess I will indeed do just that because I believe Bolt is going to attempt to play a few tunes at Hoot Night at Kelly's Row in Dover tonight. I believe Stephanie is going to have Rebecca, her business partner, videotape us because Stef is thinking about submitting us as a package deal to Courtney Love who is looking for a female guitarist and bassist for an August tour or some big British festival or something like that. I haven't paid too much attention to the details because I think the chance of anything coming of it are as close to nil as is cosmically possible, but what the hell. A gig is a gig.

The couple who live across the street, Tom and Betty, are like the perfect neighbors, and not in a cheesy, tv sitcom kind of way. From the day we have moved in they have been so welcoming and kind, offering us use of their home, major appliances and home and garden tools if we ever need them. Last September when we were here during summer vacation and playing out in the yard one evening, Betty called us over and showed us where a doe and her fawns were grazing back in the fields and then invited us in and gave us a little tour of their house, which I had been dying to see. Their house and yard are beautiful and provide us great views out of the front windows of our house and are an inspiration to get me out into the yard and working to make this place look suitably pleasant from their side of the street. They "hired" Rachel to collect their mail and newspapers when they went away to visit their kids a couple of weeks ago, which was a sweet thought that helped Rachel learn about being a good neighbor and part of a community.
Yesterday when I was out in the yard patching a bald spot on the lawn the plow had chewed up over the winter Betty came over and asked if I was interested in some perennials they were taking out to make room for shrubs. Free flowers? Sure! Now I have what should become a fine day lily garden going in a corner around the side of the porch. When they come into bloom their orange and golden flowers are going to look great against the dark red of the house as you come up around the bend in the road from the south.

Suppose all the internet hip kids already know about this, but if you haven't seen this yet you're likely to enjoy playing with Rob's Amazing Poem Generator

I got up this morning and threw on a different t-shirt over the sweats I sleep in and went down to the corner store for a half gallon of milk and the Sunday paper and this is the headline I found--New Hampshire�s icon is gone.

The Old Man of the Mountain's face fell off. Not sure how many of you outside of New Hampshire are familiar with the Old Man of the Mountain, but he is our state symbol-- a craggy granite profile that overlooks (overlooked) Franconia Notch. It's the symbol of what we like to think of as the state's natives' character-- strong, sturdy and rugged.
At least the tragedy gave me the chance to read this quote from Daniel Webster, a 19th century NH lawyer and statesman, "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men." It's not exactly a politically correct statement in this day and age, but I like it anyway.

Hey. You people who search for "random stuff" on Google and end up here. I'm talking to you. Did you actually have anything particular in mind when you punched that combo into Google or can anyone possibly be that bored and yet unable to tear themselves away from the computer?
Just wondering.