Learner

Never let it be said that I am not a genius. In the task of Getting People To Not Try And Kill Me, I have found the ultimate scooter weapon:

Learner Plates.

They are magic. Suddenly, nobody is cutting me up anymore. Nobody is beeping. Nobody is revving behind me, or trying to race me at lights. People are giving me such a wide berth that they`re in danger of driving into the barrier on the other side of the road. With one large sticker, purchased for 60 pence and intended for cars, I`m not That Racer Who Needs To Be Taught A Lesson anymore: I`m Just A Little Beginner, Bless Her. I`m not cocky and arrogant: I`m brave and vulnerable. I`m no longer That Crap Driver Who Wobbles: I`m Doing My Very Best, Poor Thing. I`m not Driving Too Fucking Slow; I`m Being Very Sensible And Respecting Big Dangerous Vehicles Like Us. Nobody glares at me anymore: they look at me fondly and paternally as they take a twenty metre detour around me. Look at her go, I can literally see them thinking. Look how gutsy she is. Why, she could be my own daughter. I must take extra special care not to hit her or frighten the poor little thing with my big angry van.

And, just like that, I`ve finally discovered what most women learn in kindergarten: that faking vulnerability - or simply admitting what was there in the first place - brings fondness and security. That being soft and humble and wide eyed and oh-so-scared-of-the-world makes the world want to protect you. Because as long as you let everyone believe you need them to take care of you - as long as you`ve made it clear that you`re lesser, and softer, and smaller and passive - people will take care of you. As long as you convince them you think they`re powerful, they`ll give you all the power. The trick of wiley women since the beginning of time. The trick that never, ever fails to work: that of perceived weakness.

The trick I`m using this once simply so that the world doesn`t keep actively trying to run me over.

I`m no more vulnerable today than I was yesterday when I was shaking my fist and driving into fences. I drive exactly the same: at the same speed, in the same part of the road, with the same wobbliness. I`m no more or less capable of being crushed by a truck: if something large and steel hits me, I`m still just as screwed. And I`m not scared at all. I`ve jumped off a mountain with a piece of material attached to my back: going 30kmh on a small piece of metal doesn`t frighten me in the slightest. But with one outward sign, I`ve made everyone think that it does.

And that, apparently, makes all the difference.

Face Off

My relationship with Facebook has always been a tumultuous one. Like lovers we've flirted, argued, fallen out, become obsessed with each other, gotten bored, broken up and declared that we will never, ever have anything more to do with each other again if it kills us: repeatedly. I've even done what I do with all of my most passionate relationships: burnt bridges with my writing that ensure - hypothetically - that there is no going back even if I want to (and I do always want to).

Like any love, Facebook is often wonderful: a tool that allows ease of communication that our parent's generation couldn't imagine. Friends in one place: their lives and their pictures and their thoughts in one place. The ability to be constantly plugged in to the people you love, as well as many people you don't. A source of entertainment, of security, of support. A great way to flirt, to hook up, to meet people of the opposite sex (I've started at least two relationships with it). Fun. Interesting. Funny. For many people, Facebook is a great and noble thing.

It isn't for me. And I can't do it anymore.

Facebook creeps me out. The love has gone - died, finally - and the whole thing creeps me out. Never mind that instead of writing a tricky chapter of my book I'm procrastinating by looking at wedding photos of people I've never even seen; never mind that instead of preparing for my classes I'm changing my profile picture. Never mind that I've seen 45 photos of a baby somebody I knew 20 years ago just had. Never mind that I actually find myself caring if somebody tags an unflattering photo of me, as if anyone doesn't know what I actually look like. Never mind that instead of reading Steinbeck I'm reading the status update of a person I met three times in 2002. This is all peripheral: a waste of time, of course, but time is easy to throw away. I also spend at least five or six minutes a day talking to insects, and that's a waste of time too.

No: the creepiness runs deeper than that, and my problem is this:

We have evolved over a very long time to exist as individual entities. In ourselves, with ourselves; with our own thoughts, in private. If we were supposed to be aware of everything that everybody we have ever met is thinking, seeing, doing, or feeling constantly, we would have evolved so that we can do that: we would have a small inbuilt radio in our brains, tuned into our peers. We would be able to convey our thoughts telepathically. If our lives were supposed to be exposed to everyone all the time, we would all live in one large room - like some kind of futuristic orgy - and talk at each other all the time and compare how fat we've all got or how old we're all looking now, or how successful/well travelled we've become, or how quickly each of us got "snapped up".

This hasn't happened. We are still separate entities, and yet we have started living like we're not. And I simply can't handle the noise. I don't want to know the thoughts of hundreds of people at once: many of which I didn't want to know the thoughts of when they were actually in my lives. I don't want to hear their jokes, or know how much they drank, or what they're doing on a Friday night. I don't want to see their new house, or their new haircut. If they're my friends, and I love them, I want them to tell me - properly, in time, as they choose - what they want to tell me: me, and not everyone. How they're feeling, what they're doing: what they've done to their hair and why. But a blanket form of communication? It's just too damn noisy. Like walking into an electrical shop with every single item turned on. I just want to listen to one goddamn CD at a time.

And it's more than even that. Our lives all take one individual direction at a time - we can only ever float on one current - but Facebook makes me feel like everyone is on one big tide: coming in and going out again at the same time. And I don't want to feel that. I don't want to subconsciously direct my life because of what everyone else is doing: feel pressure to marry because everyone else is, or get a real job because my friends all have them, or go to lots of parties so that I have photos too. I don't want to pitch my life into the mass and compare it, contrast it, fight for it, defend it. I don't want to feel like life is in any way a competition. I don't want to either feel proud of it in comparison - as free as I am, and as independent - or ashamed, because I am alone and taking so many risks. I don't want to know if I win or lose. I don't want my life to be in any way pulled or tugged by the lives of others: by the masses that sweep me along every time I click a button. I just want to do what is right for me. And take my own direction regardless.

The thing is: life fluctuates. While making friends is part of its beauty, so - too - is losing them. Just as we take people into our lives, so should we let them back out again: if I've learnt anything this year, it's that holding on to anything is not natural. Knowing everyone forever is not natural. And hearing them constantly - throwing our lives in to their current and letting ourselves be tugged along with them - is not natural.

I know who my friends are. I know the people are who are there when I'm sad, or will laugh with me when I'm not: I know the people whose engagements and weddings and babies I will be thrilled by, because I will be a part of them. I know who I care about, and who cares about me; I don't need to be reminded by a photo of them and a few lines of writing every few days. Because the people I love I will love away from Facebook, and the people I don't will fade away: just as they were supposed to. And my life will continue in its own direction, in its own way, as it should. Quietly and passionately and bravely and independently. Genuinely and with integrity. Without all of the noise.

Contentment in life is not about turning on all the music you can find at once and playing it as loudly as you can: it's about finding the pieces you love and listening to them, one by one. It's about following your own tune.

And now that I'm no longer a part of Facebook, maybe it'll be a little easier to do that.

1.2 billion

Fact: There are 1.2 billion blogs in the world, and 95% of them are dead.

I`ve lost my readers. I don`t know where I put them, but one minute they were here and the next minute: poof. Gone. Much like the keys to my scooter yesterday, which the man at the petrol station put in the bin by accident; leaving me to wander around the garage patting my pockets for twenty five minutes thinking I had finally gone senile. Thousands of readers, skamoosh: just like that. Poof. And I`m patting my pockets but I can`t for the life of me work out where you`ve all disappeared to.

Some countries have run away quicker than others. Japan? Almost invisible, now. America and Australia? Scuttling away as fast as they can. England`s still hanging on in there - thanks to my mum and my sporadically interested sister - and Eastern Europe is still checking in now and then, to see how I`m doing. But Asia? It`s pretending it never even knew I was here in the first place.

I can`t work out what it is I`ve said. It`s all been very sudden. I`ve sniffed my armpits and established they`re okay - normal after a morning spent pulling sweet potatoes out of the ground - and I`ve licked my hand and smelled it: seems fine. I`ve checked my recent posts and I don`t think I`ve said anything more offensive than usual - ignorant and stupid, yes, but no more intentionally than ever - and while my mood has been a little more erratic than ordinarily, I`ve been much worse. Even more worryingly, a lot of my hits now appear to be coming from people looking for "the biggest kissing lips in the world" (no idea: not me), "how to cook goya with natto" (don`t), "naked women in Japan" (plenty, but don`t look on the internet: they`re much nicer in real life) and "where to buy a male bra" (again: not here, although I might look into it). It all feels a bit like I`ve closed my eyes on stage, accidentally broken wind or stuck my middle finger up at the audience and then opened them again to find them replaced with a load of porn-obsessed, natto-obsessed, bra-wearing strangers who aren`t sure why they`re here either and are angry that they`ve been given the wrong directions.

I don`t want to care, but I do. I care hugely. I`m racing around, trying to work out what it is I`ve done. Removed myself from Facebook and thus insulted my friends? Yes: but not because I don`t like anyone; just because I need to focus on my own life rather than procrastinating via the lives of others (I am easily distracted by anyth Ooh, a cat). Stereotyped Japanese drivers? Yes, but only because it made me laugh. Stopped making this blog interactive? Yes, but only because I`m very shy and scared of what people might say. Accidentally insulted God and His Acts? Yes, but only because I`m neither very funny nor very religious. Admitted that sometimes I get sad, and sometimes I feel lonely? Stopped or continued talking about The Boy? ( I can`t work out which is worse, or which I`ve done.) Admitted that I worry, sometimes, for my heart`s future? Yes, but I`m also content with the path I`ve chosen, and aware that with the things I`ve given up I`ve gained the freedom I always needed more.

Of course, the answer`s probably simple: my writing has deteriorated, and I`m no longer saying anything that people want to hear. I`m talking when I should be quiet; making a noise - as my mum would say - for the sake of it. And so every single instinct in my body is now telling me to apologise, hide away, and stay there until I`m doing something interesting again and my skills improve. Until I`m on telly, or I emigrate, or I have my heart broken, or I sink into deep depression, which is what this blog has so far hung from: draped across the events in my life like a flimsy, whimsical cloth.

I`m not going to. There are 1.2 billion blogs in the world and 95% of them are dead. Which means that the internet is a sad graveyard of words: chock full of people who had something they thought they wanted to say and fell silent: who started writing, and stopped. Who lost faith, or got shy, or got scared, or felt lonely - who watched the readers leave and felt every rejection - and gave up. And if I follow them, then this will just be another dead blog. Just another pile of dead words on top of billions and billions of others. Just as useless to start with, but just as important. The basic human desire to communicate, which every single one of us should hold on to. And keep alive.

I`m not killing this tiny corner of the internet: it gives me too much pleasure, too much satisfaction, and it holds too much of my past now. And so - although I want to find you all again - this blog will continue regardless. Because it is my writing and my little life: prone to mistakes and tedium and repetition like anything else. Prone to bobbing along, sometimes, like anything else. Prone to continuing alone, regardless. And prone to getting better and getting worse and getting better again, and trying and faltering and trying, just as we all do. And refusing to shrink down and die with the others.

95% of blogs in the world are dead, and this will never be one of them. I`ll be here, waiting, if you decide to come back. And if you don`t? I`ll be here anyway.

Because - no matter who or what I lose - I will always be somebody`s Write Girl.










PS comments are back on. Call it a compromise. :)

Morning Roads

I love my scooter. I love driving through the rice fields as the sun comes up and watching the birds fly up from the road; I love looking at the mountains and feeling part of the countryside rather than simply moving through it; I love the smell of the petrol and the flowers and the grass and the morning fried chicken from the back of the supermarkets; I love the freedom and the independence and the strength I get from feeling so vulnerable. I love how peaceful it is, and how therapeutic. I love how I feel every bump in the road, and I love how rosy my cheeks get after 50 minutes in the cold on a November morning.

What I do not love is how many people keep trying to kill me.

Japanese country roads, I discovered this morning, contain the following people:

• Japanese boy racers. Found all over the world, except with the notable exception of having so many small, fluffy things hanging off their rear-view mirrors that when they hit the zooped up accelerator, beep and cut you up, they get hit in the face by a small yellow duck. Plus their cars are normally pink. They don`t like going at 30kmh, and so try to kill you.

• Old Japanese ladies. Sitting on five cushions and yet still unable to see over the steering wheel. Treat their car very much like a trolley at the supermarket. Have no idea how to speed up, slow down, stop or direct the car in any particular direction, and are constantly outraged by the fact that other cars - and the people inside them - exist. A permanent expression of rigid concentration belies the fact that they`re actually thinking about which cat to embroider next. They can`t see you, and wouldn`t know what to do if they did, and so try to kill you.

• Old Japanese men. Almost always driving a silver or white van. Usually have a cigarette hanging out of their mouths. Believe without any hesitation that they are Master of everything: the world, Japan, their homes, their wives, their children, and the road. Dislike anyone who has anything to do with any of the above without their permission. Will wait until you`re two metres away and then pull out of front of you with a blank and yet strangely confrontational expression. Believe you deserve to die anyway because you`re foreign and probably want to bomb them. Can see you, and so try to kill you.

• Young Japanese girls. Talking on mobile phones. Distracted by the boy on the other end, the swing of the keyring attached and the bouncing reflections of the stuck on diamonte. Also distracted by how nice your tights are when they drive past, and the boots you`re wearing, and the fact that they can see a blonde curl and therefore suspect that you may be exotic. Unable to hear you over the J-Pop. Forget that they can`t tell you you`re cute while driving, get too close, and therefore try to kill you.

• Japanese mums. Give you a wide birth - because they don`t want to kill anyone - but are usually too busy fighting with the children in the back to notice that they`ve forgotten to get back into the lane, nearly hit a truck and then pull back so quick that you drive into the back of them. Don`t want to kill you so badly that they accidentally try to kill you.

• Japanese motorbikers. Have to prove that they are not on a scooter and in fact have a special license by overtaking as fast as possible and wearing leathers. The need to establish road hierarchy (which goes lorry - truck - car - motorbike - bicycle - pedestrian - scooter) makes them treat you the way a butler treats the little boy who does the washing up, and requires them to sneer at you through their helmet visor. Don`t want to kill you, in case they end up dead too, but would like you to know that if they do they will die far, far cooler. 

• Japanese lorry drivers. Nice men - always men - who are the kindly uncles of the road: give you plenty of space, a wide berth and worry constantly that they are going to kill you. This does not, however, alter the fact that they are 150 times your size, made of solid metal and they wouldn`t even notice if they did. 

• Japanese people putting their rubbish out. Step onto road as if it is not a road and try to kill you.

• Japanese people crossing the road. Ditto.

And, because this pretty much covers everyone in rural Japan at 7.30 on a weekday morning, I nearly died quite a few times today. Which was scary, but also quite exciting: usually by 8am I haven`t even managed to finish my coffee. And extremely illuminating. I had never noticed any of these people when I drove a car.

None of these people, however, want to kill me as much as the following person:

•  Me. Gaijin so thrilled with the rice fields as the sun comes up and the birds flying from the road - and the smell of chicken and flowers yadayada - that she sort of forgets she`s on a scooter surrounded by fast moving metal. So busy shaking her fist at the above list like an old man from the 1940s (because she can`t remember which finger Japanese people don`t understand) that she fails to drive properly with the other hand. And is forced to repeat, over and over again, like a mantra: Do not show off in front of the kids. Do not show off in front of the kids. Do not show off in front of the kids.

Because let`s be honest: if I drove into the fence last week it was because I was showing off in front of the kids. And this morning, as I vvvrrroooommmed in to the school playground surrounded by whispers of "Who is it? Who is it?" and loud cheers and many many "Coooooooooollll"s - my own, sad, personal fantasy (the fantasy that almost undoes 10 years of "Geeeeeeeeeeeeeek") - I was hard pushed not to speed up and drive into another fence. Because I was showing off in front of the kids again.

I love my scooter. I love the freedom and the birds and the chicken and the rice fields etc. But I don`t love the people who try to kill me while I`m on it.

And that includes myself.

Dancefloor

Some emotions are so old, and so well buried, that when you feel them again it's as if they're new.

When I was a child, every year my school would hold a disco. And, every year, I would don my best velvet waistcoat, take my hair out of its permanent pony-tail, and attempt to occupy some kind of space on the dance floor. I would half-heartedly jump up and down, I would twitch from side to side, and - most importantly - I would try to pretend I recognised music that was quite clearly not Tchaikovsky's Dying Swan. And every year I would nervously await the final three and a half minutes of the night: the three and a half minutes that made me try and fake a sickness every single year, on exactly the same date.

It was always horrible, and I can still remember exactly how I felt. I can remember the cold chill I got when the lights went down, and the churn of my stomach when the pace of the music slowed to a rate that forces you to cling in pairs. I can still feel the sense of shame as I immediately retreated to a dark seat in an even darker corner, and the pain and sense of exclusion I felt as I watched every one else choose somebody to dance with that wasn't me. I remember the humiliation - trying to become invisible - and the hurt that I wasn't visible enough. The desperate wish to be somewhere else, and the more desperate wish to be someone else. The hope, tiny and improbable as it was, that perhaps that year somebody would pick me.

And I remember - inevitably - the moment when the teachers would look at the remaining boy (whoever it was that year), and at me, and would then make a little gesture that said: well, go on then you two. You're a girl. He's a boy. Dance. As if we were being problem children by sitting it out, and destroying the happiness of the couples by watching forlornly from the edges: our sadness making everyone uncomfortable. As if we had given up all rights to picking our partners by not being popular enough. And as if anybody would do. Because we just needed somebody to cling to, didn't we?

Of all my memories of childhood, that one hurts the most. And - when I left school - that was the one I left behind with the most gratitude. Never again, I thought. Never again will I have to sit on the edge of the dancefloor on my own and watch the room fill with couples. And I didn't. I stayed away from them during University formals, and I always left the club before the music slowed. I made sure, as an adult, that I never ever had to feel again what I felt as a nine year old girl.

Twenty years later, and the room is filling all over again. And I feel nine, all over again.

Everyone I know has now chosen their partner, and been chosen. They've fallen in love for the last time, and now they're starting the long, long slow dance that will (they hope) last the rest of their lives. And I am still sitting on the edge in the dark, on my own: being pushed towards the leftovers, regardless of who they are, because they're somebody to hold onto. Watching the couples, and watching their happiness, and recognising those feelings of loss and loneliness all over again. Wanting it for myself, and knowing I don't have it. Wondering why. And knowing as I knew back then: that when everyone has chosen, you have to sit the rest out. Because it's too late.

"Do you think," I said to my dad last week, "that most of the truly amazing men in the world are taken by 30?"
I had hoped he would roll his eyes and tell me not to talk nonsense; had hoped I was talking nonsense.
"Mmm," he said. "Probably. Well, the nice ones get snapped up, don't they, and then they stay there because they're nice. I was snapped up at 23."
"Are any left?"
"Possibly. But there's usually something wrong with them. Commitment fear and trust issues and infidelity issues etc. Same goes for women though."
"Do you think I've missed the boat, dad?"
"Maybe. But you can always wait until round Two and go for the divorcees."

And I laughed, but it made me sad. Not because I want to settle down now - the thought terrifies me - and not because I want a house and children immediately, or even very soon. But because I've never really had love - never been in love and been loved back at the same time - and so it seems tragic that I'll never have it when I'm young, and if I get it when I'm older it will never be a fresh love: will always be on the back of something failed and tired and sad. That I'll never get the innocence and hope and whole-heartedness that everyone deserves once in their lives. And it seems tragic that I'm still in love with a man who doesn't love me back - still unable to shake him from my heart - and that while I waited for him everyone started dancing.

When I was nine, I knew there were no real options if I wanted to maintain my dignity and self respect. I couldn't charge on to the dancefloor, picking apart couples or waiting for them to fall apart of their own accord, or stand on the floor shouting in protest, or cry in the corner.  And I couldn't pick up whoever was left, just because they were left. Twenty years later, I still have no options. I won't meet somebody here - we don't speak the same language - and I can't move home to London purely so that I can pick up whatever is left before it's too late. I can't start ploughing through bars and clubs trying to find anyone still on their own; even if I was ready to date again - which I'm still not quite - I couldn't do that. It's too far from who I am. And - more importantly - I have a life to get on with. Plans. Hopes. Dreams. Ambitions. I'm not giving them all up just so that I have somebody to dance with before they're all gone.

There was one secret dream I had, when I was nine, that I never told anyone: the dream that would stop me dissolving into a lump in the corner. When I was sitting on my little chair in the dark, I used to imagine that somebody new would walk in. A boy that nobody had seen before: who was so beautiful, and so intelligent, and so charismatic, that he had been somewhere else when everyone else was choosing. So amazing, that he had seen more than just the dancefloor. And he would walk in, and every single girl in the room would wish they hadn't picked so soon: would regret how quickly they had made their decision. But he would look at them, and look at me, and see all of it. All of me. And he would ask me to dance.

The emotions I pushed down so long ago have risen back up again and startled me. But - as when I was nine - there's absolutely nothing I can do but wait, and use my time as wisely as I can. Accept that perhaps I'm not meant for dancing. And hope that if somebody amazing turns up, I'm the one he wants to dance with.

Even if we're a little late.

Outcome

It missed. At the last minute, it changed direction and headed off towards Tokyo.

But everything is still cancelled. And I still have flu.

Typhoon 1 -- Holly 0.

God wins.

Victory

I`ve totally triumphed over the typhoon. In case anyone was wondering if it`s possible to win against God and any of his Acts: it is. And I have just proved it.

It`s still coming. It is definitely still coming. The wind has picked up, it`s freezing, the corridors at school are making whistling noises, and animals are going bonkers: tweeting and gathering and hiding and getting over-excited and/or anxious about their potential doom (do typhoons kill birds? The Miyazakian birds seem to think so). I haven`t started stockpiling marshmallows yet, but I`ll do that as soon as I get home. I certainly don`t want to be put in a situation where I have no marshmallows left when the wind hits.

However, I`m also a little otherwise occupied because of the following, oft-repeated conversation:

"How are you?"
"I`m fine," reply 36 little voices at once.
"Fine is not an answer I`m interested in. Who`s hungry?"
Fifteen hands go up.
"Who`s happy?"
Two hands go up.
"Who`s sleepy?"
28 hands go up.
"Who`s great?"
One optimistic hand goes up.
"And who`s sick?"
36 hands go up.

And then, in case they haven`t communicated properly, the teeny tiny ones climb on to my lap, wait for me to say something, and then cough in my open mouth. Or wipe their noses on my shoulder or hand. Or - inexplicably - take something off their lip and try and stick it on mine. Or lick my nose. Or lick their own hand and then wipe my face and then lick their hand again. Or kiss me straight on the mouth. Or roll a piece of rice between their fingers and then try and make me eat it. (At least, I hope it`s rice.)

I am therefore - along with most of the Elementary school teaching staff, and all of Kindergarten - sick. Nose running, throat burning, unable to speak properly. Which, I`m beginning to realise, is an occupational hazard, because nobody in the entire world can confront 500 slightly different flu germs a week and remain able to breathe at night and not wake up dreaming that you`re buried in sand. I can pour multi-vitamins down my throat with all the enthusiasm I can muster, but there isn`t a single letter of the alphabet that can protect me from that.

So I win, and the typhoon loses. It can blow as hard as it likes - it can cancel every single plan I`ve made for the next three days, and it can stop me having dinner with my friends - because I can`t go anyway. I`ll be scowling at inanimate objects in my bedroom regardless of what the weather does: I`ll be wrapped up in a blanket eating KitKats no matter how violent God wants to get or not get. It`s up to him. It doesn`t make the slightest bit of difference to me anymore. It can`t touch me.

Thus my flu has given two fingers up to the typhoon, and I am victorious. Snotty, growly, scowly and victorious.

And no matter how sick I get, isn`t that all that really matters?

Typhoon

Sod`s Law is back in full force.

I haven`t stopped asking about typhoons. During Typhoon Season, I drove my friends and colleagues mad with my "is it a typhoon yet?" enquiries. I would text them, I would email them: I would follow them around the staff room when they were trying to make coffee like an annoying toddler.

"Is it a typhoon yet?"
"No. It`s just windy."
"Is it a typhoon now?"
"No."
"What about now?"
"Still windy."
"What about last night?"
"Just wind."
"Tonight?"
"Wind."
"But it`s really windy."
"Yes. It is really windy. But it`s just really windy. It`s not a typhoon."

And, by the end of Typhoon Season, when I had still failed to witness a typhoon, I was having proper little tantrums.

"Is it a typhoon?"
"No."
"But wwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyy nooootttttttt?"

Because we don`t get typhoons in England - we don`t get anything exciting in England - and so earthquakes, typhoons and perhaps tidal waves and hurricanes are unbearably exotic to me, and confirm that I am abroad. Indeed, any violent, extreme Act of God from a God who rarely even notices that England exists -and, when he does, just covers it in a bit of snow - is therefore exciting, and in some strange way acts as a little gold sticker that proves I was here.

However, Typhoon Season came and went with no typhoons, and eventually - with much sulking - I stopped enthusiastically tugging at the back of shirts whenever there was a bit of rain, and muttering "Typhoon? Typhoon?" in my sleep every time the wind blew.

October has been a quiet month, and I`ve been stony broke: eeking out pasta sauce with stolen packets of ketchup, and nicking toilet rolls from MacDonalds and popping leftover bread rolls from the school canteen into my pockets. But this weekend was going to bring relief from that, in the form of an all expenses-paid trip on Friday as part of an International Festival (I am international, and so all I`m expected to do is turn up and be foreign and they`ll pay for everything: a little like an gaijin escort), a huge fancy dress Halloween party on Saturday, and shopping for winter clothes with my new pay cheque on Sunday. Everything had been planned down to the letter: costume, travel, exactly how long I could go without shopping for food because I`d be eating bar snacks, exactly how much longer I could go without doing my laundry or owning a decent jumper.

And what would you know: now the typhoon is coming.

Everything is cancelled. International Festival: cancelled. Halloween party: cancelled. Shopping: cancelled. Offer to buy me drinks and food: cancelled. All interest in me being foreign: cancelled. Imaginative and yet cute Halloween costume: cancelled. And, instead, I get to sit inside all weekend, hoping that my roof doesn`t blow off, unable to invite anybody round because they`re not allowed to go outside in case they get hit by debris and sticks and glass and whatever else gets flung around in a typhoon (I don`t know, obviously, because this is my first). I get to have no electricity, probably, and no hot food, and nobody to talk to, and I get to sit in stinky clothes and freeze to death. Which is extremely far from the weekend I had planned, and somewhat diminishes just how exciting Acts of God can be. Because this God is obviously not as exotic as I had hoped, and obviously just a killjoy and pain in the arse.

Of course, now that I have no interest in the typhoon, or in any kind of weather update, everybody I have ever met is contacting me to tell me it`s coming.

"Typhoon at the weekend."
"I know."
"There`s a big typhoon on Saturday."
"I know."
"Typhoon tomorrow."
"I know."
And then the killer:
"Maybe typhoon this weekend. Maybe not. But everything is cancelled anyway."

To which I can come to only the following conclusion: Acts of God abide by Sod`s Law just like anything else. And if this weekend is ruined, I asked for it.

Many many times.

Meatloaf

My parents just found out about my scooter.

I wondered how long it would take them. Mum's been at school all week, and dad wouldn't find out until she read my blog and told him about it. And read it and tell him she clearly did.

"What the fuck do you think you are playing at?" my dad yelled down the webcam. Or: his shirt button yelled down the webcam. Mum's face was taking up the whole screen.
Mum pressed her lips together. "What is the one thing I have always asked you to never do, Holly? One thing?"
"Don't run holding scissors?"
"No. Don't ride a motorbike."
"It's not a motorbike. It's a scooter."
"It's a motorbike. It's a slow motorbike."
"It's a fast bicycle, mum."
Dad started pulling at the wheelie chair.
"Let me speak to her. I want to speak to her."
Mum leant towards the camera.
"Your dad wants to speak to you now," she informed me, in case I was both blind and deaf.
Dad sat down so that all I could see was his neck and chin, and mum perched on the chair next to him.
"Don't sit on my frigging glasses!" he shouted immediately. "Jesus Christ."
"I didn't! They are not sat on! I sat next to them!"
"Why are they bent in the shape of your butt then?" Dad put them on and glared at me. "One day and you fucking crashed the thing?"
"Only into a fence."
"Who do you think you are: Meatloaf? Sell it immediately. You are not born to ride motorbikes. You're like your mother."
"Oy," mum said. Then she poked the top of her head into the screen. "This is my contemptuous look, Holly. I am giving your father a contemptuous look."
"That's not contempt," dad replied, scrunching his face up and shaking his fist at the camera. "This is contempt."
"That looks like anger."
"No - this is anger." He did the same face.
"That's nothing like anger."
"And this is happy." Dad did the same face. "See how versatile I am?"
Mum pushed him out the way and stuck her face back in the webcam.
"I'm still contemptuous, as you can see. Holly, sell the motorbike."
"Did you get hurt?" dad barked, pushing mum out of the way again. "Did you break it?"
"No, but the basket fell off."
At which point dad shouted with laughter.
"The basket? What kind of motorbike is this? Too right you're not Meatloaf. Meatloaf doesn't have a basket on his motorbike."
"I told you it's a scooter."
"Give it up, Holly. You remember when you decided to ride my bike, eighteen months ago? And you put that poofy girl's seat on it and then crashed it and wouldn't get on again? I still have to ride that because I can't work out how to get it off again. A man's bike with a girl's fat bottom seat. I get laughed at by the boys."
"He does," mum added.
"Although it is pretty comfortable."
"It is," mum agreed.
"But still: a fat bottomed girl's seat. I'm not a fat bottomed girl. Sell the motorbike, Holly."
"No. And it's a scooter."
"Don't make me come over there," mum said, leaning into the webcam again. "See this? This is my threatening face, Holly. Look at it and take note. I don't like motorbikes."
"And you're not meatloaf."
"I know, but it's a scooter."

Parents put a lot of hard work and effort into turning their little spoilt brats into decent, workable human beings: they don't really want to see all of that effort get wrapped around a tree, or ploughed into a rice field. I can see that. But I'm going to be super careful, from now on. So careful, that nobody will have reason to worry about me and my transport.

Which is, for the record, a scooter.

Fried Fish

If you`re interacting with children on a daily basis, the assumption is that every day you`ll become more like a child.

You don`t.

If anything, the inner child recedes: when confronted with the real thing, it simply can`t compete. Whether it`s the simple joy of jumping up and down for absolutely no reason at all, or the stomach clenching fun of looking at someone until they give up and look away again, or the never-ending fascination in Rock Scissors Paper when there`s nothing to win but honour and pride in the shape of your own hand, as an adult you just can`t convince yourself that you enjoy it now as much as you used to. It`s just not easy to air punch and scream with jubilation because your hand is flat and theirs is in a fist: not so simple to really feel the triumph. It`s more of a and there you go, don`t mess with me because I`ve been playing Rock Scissors Paper since your parents were embryos kind of satisfaction (accompanied with a raised and wise eyebrow, because none of them have worked out that Japanese girls always choose paper and Japanese boys always choose rock and so I always win).

Worse: understanding fades away completely. I didn`t understand children when I was a child, and now that I`m a fully grown adult I understand them even less. I`m 28, and I`ve done a lot of things in my life that could be regarded as cool: been to celebrity parties, worked in trendy London media (with sparkley loo seats), been on telly, been told by the (gay) TopShop Creative Director that I`m "totally cute", featured on the front of a fashion magazine, visited 18 countries, paraglided and whitewater rafted and rock climbed and hot-airballooned, and partied until 7am in some of the best cities in the world. But as far as the children I teach are concerned, there is nothing less trendy, less hip and less cool than Holly Smale. The teacher who doesn`t know any songs by Arashi, and who picks up pencil cases covered in celebrity photos and says "Ooh, and who is this lovely chap?" The teacher who has nothing fluffy or sparkley or funky in her hair at all, who wears pink Crocs all the time, has a jaunty, terrible Japanese accent, drives into fences and hands out Winnie The Pooh stickers to 11 year olds.

Which means that as young as I am in adult terms, I`ve become used to seeing myself through the eyes of children: of feeling decrepit and totally, totally past it. I`ve gotten used to entertaining them with my failure to be cool: to dancing like an embarrassing old Aunt at a disco, or singing the vocabulary they`re meant to be learning instead of saying it, or meowing like a cat, or taking my shoes off and wandering around the classroom in bare feet. I`ve gotten used to not really knowing what it is to be a child.

And I have finally, finally triumphed.

For the last week, a small, cheeky little boy has been calling me Muxing. She`s another foreign teacher in the area, she`s of Chinese descent, and I have absolutely no idea why he is calling me by her name because we are not similar in either looks or mannerisms. He shouts it down the corridors, he says it in the middle of class whenever there`s a moment of silence, he waits until I walk past and then yells it at me in repeat. He waits until he has the biggest group of students possible, and then he screams it at the top of his voice. And I have reacted just like an adult.

"Muxing!"
"I`m not Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"I`m not Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"I don`t understand; why are you calling me Muxing?"
"Muxing!"
"Stop calling me Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"Stop it."
"Muxing!"
"Stop it."
"Muxing!"
"Why?"
"Muxing!"
"Why?! WHY WHY WHY WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY?"
"Muxing!"

Finally, something clicked. The realisation that the only way I could get him to shut the hell up (Muxing, incidentally, replaced Fried Fish, which was his previous favourite shouting phrase) was to think the way a child thinks.

"Muxing!" he shouted.
"Oh, I understand!" I yelled back in Japanese. "You love Muxing, don`t you?"
"Eh?"
"You love Muxing! You love her. You luuuuurrrvvve her. Mwamwamwa you want to kisssss her."
"No! I don`t love Muxing!"
"You do!"
"I don`t!"
"You do!!! You love her! You love her so much."
"Yes!" all his little 9 year old boy mates started shouting, laughing hysterically. "You love Muxing!"
"You must love her! You must!"
"No, I don`t love Muxing!" he yelled, stamping his feet in fury, and then scampered off.

I walked past him a few minutes later, and he said absolutely nothing. Not Fried Fish, and certainly not Muxing.

That`s the thing with children. It`s all very well and good keeping your distance and behaving like an adult, as long as you remember what it`s like to be a child.

And somewhere underneath all of it, I think I still do.