This summer Samantha and I will be returning to America. For those of you who are hoping that we will come all the way back the Chattanooga we may disappoint you. We will be moving to Columbus, Ohio. We are both really looking forward to going back to America. Not looking forward to the many, many things necessary to get ready to go back. Seriously, there is a ton of stuff to try and do, both here in Japan and in Ohio. The thing that is most occupying our mind though is finding somewhere to live. We thought about living in married student housing at OSU, where Samantha will attend. Then we noticed that the website doesn’t even have pictures of the buildings just artist renderings. It’s not really a good sign if the school is too ashamed of its housing to show pictures of it, so we are looking off campus. You would think after living in Japan, which is famous for high rent and small spaces, almost anything would be an upgrade. However, for us this is not the case. We have really cheap rent here and have a fairly spacious house because we live in the country. So pretty much no matter where we live in Columbus the rent will be higher and the place smaller. There will be two huge benefits to anywhere we live in Columbus that I can name right now: central heat and an unbroken roof. Central heat will be so great. Another great thing about Columbus will be that we have friends there. I have moved across the world knowing no one twice in my life and it will be great to head back to somewhere I know people. Also, our Columbus friends have been great about answering question and have even made us maps of the city marked out but what areas are good and safe to live in and what aren’t. One area is labeled, “a very bad choice.” The area between “best part of town” and “a very bad choice” is labeled “pushing it.” There are plenty of things that I will miss about Ichinohe but it will be great to live in a place with more going on.
I will be starting at Methodist Theological Seminary in Ohio this fall and be going for a Master of Divinity. I’m really looking forward to going back to school. It’s been long enough that most of college is starting to get the rose tinted glasses treatment. Though some parts definitely aren’t, like navigating school bureaucracy. Still, there is no way a small seminary and ETSU can be equally confusing. There are two things that I’m most looking forward to about starting Seminary. One, being forced to do disciplined study which will expose me to ideas that are important but I might not encounter in normal life. Lately I have been reading a lot of non-fiction but there is no real rhyme or rhythm to it I just go with what’s available and what interests me at the moment. Class forces you to focus on things and go deeper then you might otherwise. Also, in the area of disciplined study, hearing what other students get from the subject will be great. Here I read a book, bore Samantha to tears talking about it, reread it and end up with two prospective mine and the authors. (Three if it’s something that interests Samantha too.) I miss kicking around the ideas of a book with other people. Here is a rose tinted glasses moment because in college class it was never the ideal discussion, there were people who didn’t read, people offended by and only interested in minutia, people who refused to understand any other point than their own, people who raised less than stellar points like they where handed down from on high and then the small group of students trying to really understand the piece. Looking back though I have to wonder how many times other students thought I was a part of the groups of people who made the discussion suck. Probably more times than I’m comfortable admitting and they were probably right sometimes too. With Seminary they’re hopefully won’t be anyone who doesn’t read and we will all probably take turns focusing on minutia, not understanding each other, and raising bad points like they are great. That’s all a part of the process of understanding. The second thing I’m looking forward to about being back in America in general and school in particular is a library full of English language books. This is one area I don’t think I’ve exaggerated how great it was in my mind. A well stocked college library and city library can provide 80% of the books I want to read and a college library can usually borrow another 15% from another college. It’s great. I even started a list of non-fiction books I want to read when I get back. It’s at around 37 books now and will get longer before I come back. It’s also kind of an odd list so definitely some inter-library loans in my future, but I can do that.
On an unrelated note here is something that recently happened at Chokai Elementary. Since the weather is nice I have gone back to riding my bike to school. As it happened last Thursday was bike safety day at school. That means that the students, who usually aren’t allowed to ride to Elementary school bring there bikes for a safety class from the local police. Since I was the only teacher who had a bike I got asked to help out. The first part though was a safety lecture that never brought up the importance of helmets. That’s right even though so many people ride bikes in Japan the only people who wear helmets are middle school students (required), serious road bikers and me. So that bit was strange at least. After the rules of the road lecture, I practiced riding in a large figure 8 with the fourth grade. Then, I rode with them thorough an model intersection that the police had set up on the soccer field. Lastly, I road chase behind the classes as they practiced riding on the open road, WITHOUT HELMETS, to make sure they all would pass the safety check. At recess the older kids and I played cops and robbers riding on bikes in the field ,which probably flew smack in the face of safety but was a lot of fun.
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