It's been a real up and down kind of week! On the up side, I joined the Ako International Friendship Association, found out about some Japanese classes running in Ako and developed an interest in kendo. On the down side, Ako smells like manure (haha - faaarmin' season is a-comin') and I've realised that there are a couple of routines I've fallen into that I need to improve on.

On the good side, AIFA seems pretty cool. The guy who runs it, Sekiyama-san, seems like a decent bloke. I met him for the first time yesterday when I went to get the application form. To give you a bit of background, AIFA used to be very active and organised a lot of events in Ako - barbecues, cricket, international food days and so on. It died down a lot when the local coordinator, Yuka, and a very active ALT, Nick, both left Ako. Hopefully it's going to make a bit of a comeback though! Nick visited recently and had a chat to Sekiyama-san about organising some events. He also told Claire and I about AIFA and recommended that we get involved. As it's part of my job and because I really am interested to be involved, I said I'd do anything I can to help out. Hence the visit to get the application form.

I don't know whether it'll actually take off, but we'll see. Apparently they have a meeting every month to discuss events and so on, and I've already been asked to help out with writing an English description for something to do with the story of the 47 Ako Ronin. Good times :) Here's to hoping this is the tip of the iceberg. Also, while I was chatting to Sekiyama-san, he mentioned that AIFA does indeed still run Japanese lessons in Ako. I'd heard about these but was also told at the time that they'd been cancelled. I was pretty happy to learn that they're still going.

Apparently there's a good crowd at these lessons - some of the Indonesians who work at the boat builder, IHI, in Aioi (and ironically, the team I played against in badminton on the weekend), some Chinese people who live in Ako (wow, I had no idea!) and some gaijin from as far away as Okayama. I was a bit hesitant to begin with, to be honest. I don't particularly like meeting gaijin here in Japan. I can't really find a good reason not to though, so I snapped myself out of silly anti-gaijin mode and decided I should just go! I might meet some really cool people. I could do with the practise, too. I'm horrendously distrustful of new people, and need to learn to open up a bit more. Inevitably the people I meet are great :)

Finally, the last 'up' thing that has happened recently is the interest in kendo. For various reasons I never went to see or get involved with kendo at school. I saw it in action at the recent ni-nensai end of year sports competition. There were judo, kendo and dance competitions, and everyone had a great time! Watching the judo made me even more certain that I want to join the judo club from the new school in April (more about this later), and watching the kendo made me really want to do that too! I asked Kuroda-sensei, the Kendo teacher, if he knew of any classes in Ako. The only one he knew of was the same as the one I already knew about, at Jonan. Not very useful, as it's late on a Saturday afternoon, and I'm hardly ever in Ako at that time.

I was feeling a bit down when, to my delight, another teacher jumped into the conversation and told me that her husband is a kendo instructor in Ako. She was very kind and found out about his classes for me. Unfortunately, again, they're not convenient. They run three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but you have to attend all three classes. I can't really attend the Wednesday and Friday classes as I'm not prepared to give up my badminton practise. Poo. It wasn't all bad news though. Hearing that I couldn't attend the classes, she simply suggested that I start taking the kendo classes with the students at school. I was a bit taken aback as I didn't think I could do this (apparently no previous ALT ever has), but it makes perfect sense. I have so few classes that I may as well do something more useful than sitting at my desk trying to find something to do! It'll be a little harder in the new year when I have maybe 8 classes a week, but I can surely work a few kendo classes in around it! Even just two or three a week would be great. One or more every day would be fantastic. Like I've always thought, why not make use of the cultural classes available at school!? :)

From here, I also learnt that I could take part in the other PE classes like soccer and so on. I just need to check if it's ok with Tomiyama-sensei and the other PE teachers. It's definitely worth considering! Again, probably more job related than sitting at my desk (getting to know the students, English practise for them, Japanese practise for me) and a great chance to do more exercise. A couple a day would be great :P I'll see what happens.

On the down side, as I wrote before, it's now really clear to me that I need to change my sleeping habits. I haven't really been getting enough since arriving in Ako, and it's really beginning to take its toll. I get irritable when I don't get enough sleep, and although I can keep it under control, it's not cool. Still, it's easy enough to fix - just sleep a bit more earlier. I'm working on summoning the necessary willpower, hehehe.

The other negative realisation that hit me recently was that I haven't really been very involved in Japanese 'sports' or the school clubs. It's just been a habit thing, really - I never noticed it. When I first arrived in Japan I wanted to do kyuudo and judo, and although I tried, it wasn't really possible. There are no clubs in Ako that have classes at a convenient time and I couldn't really play in the kyuudo or judo clubs at school because I was too much of a beginner. Also, there were always some excuses (some valid, some not) in the way to stop me dedicating myself to one club or even just visiting various clubs to hang out - for example, settling in, heat, being sick, the cold and so on. Hehe. So some were rather silly, but they worked into my routine, and the rest is history.

Thankfully, again, this one is pretty easy to fix! Rather than get down about what's happened in the past, I'm being positive and aiming to improve in the present and future. I had some valid excuses for not joining one seriously (as opposed to just watching, which I probably should have done more), but they now fade with the coming of the new school year in April. A whole bunch of new first year students will come in and join the clubs. That's the perfect time for me to join, as some of them will be beginners too. I'm planning on joining the judo club. It's a fairly serious dedication, I think, as I will probably need to go every day. I'm happy enough to do that, though, to make up for lost time. Focussing on judo club will mean I can't visit any other clubs, but given how many I visit now (zero), I don't think that's really an issue :)

So there we go! Lots of good things around. A bit of bad, yes, but that's life. And bad is good if you approach it in the right way. I'm leaving my bad in the past and using it as a base to improve from. So life is good again :) With a bit of catch up sleep, I think life will be back to peachy again. The rest of the week looks like it'll help out there too, after the rather shaky start. I'm seeing Kazuyo again tomorrow night, badminton and the Rengaya crew on Friday night, a St Patrick's day party on Saturday and then some serious chilling out on Sunday. All good!