Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been pretty busy
but this time instead of being busy doing exciting things, I've been busy packing and cleaning out my apartment.

And boy is it ever taking longer than I thought it would. Which I guess is the way it goes for everyone, right? Everyone always underestimates how long it takes them to pack, or clean out a place.

I finished school last week Tuesday, so I thought a week of cleaning time would be plenty, but even then the process has really dragged on.

And this is even with the help of the girlfriend, who has so far this month donated a total of four days to help clean the place (two of those days were by herself while I was at work, and also once by herself in the morning while I was napping. She's really been quite helpful).

A lot of my friends have already asked me how this could possibly be taking so long, and I'm really not sure. Part of it is no doubt me and the way I can't ever seem to buckle down and clean. Although I do take comfort from the fact that many of the other departing JETs have confessed to me that the process of cleaning and packing is also taking them much longer than they ever thought it would.

But a lot of it is me. Some people just have trouble cleaning, and I seem to be one of them. I can do all the obvious stuff: wash the dirty dishes, pick up the clothes on the floor, throw away the trash...But after a while I get to a certain point where I think to myself, "I know this apartment is still dirty, but I'm not sure what to do next." Which is why it is good to have the girlfriend come over occasionally and tell me what to do.

When I came to Japan, I only had two suitcases. But now as I go through the apartment and pack everything up, I've got boxes and boxes of stuff. Where did all this stuff come from?

From the moment I moved into the apartment, it was never sparkling clean to begin with. Acceptable certainly. But my predecessor had left behind a bunch of junk that I never knew what to do with, and so it has just sat on my shelves all these years. Things like a miniature replica of the golden pavilion from Kyoto. I never knew what to do with it, but it seemed a shame to throw it away so it has just sat there for three years. In the bathroom is a bunch of half used toiletries from my predecessor that I've never used, but never gotten around to throwing out either.

This is in addition to all the stuff I've accumulated myself. Like the Beatles record. When I first came to Japan, someone found out I liked The Beatles, and wanted to give me their record set of "The Beatles: Red Album". I thanked him, and through my supervisor (I didn't speak any Japanese at the time) tried to explain that it was a very nice gift, but I didn't have a record player. My supervisor told me, "It's okay. He wants to give it to you any way." And so now that record has just sat in my closet these 3 years. And now I don't know what to do with it. It would be such a waste to throw it out, but I don't know anyone with a record collection I could give it to.

Two co-workers today came over from the Board of Education to help clean the apartment out and get it ready for the new JET. They were somewhat disappointed to find that I was still in the midst of cleaning the place out. But, in what I think is an interesting reflection of Japanese culture, they were almost more upset at my girlfriend than at me.

"She comes over to your apartment all the time," one of them said. "Couldn't she have cleaned it a bit more? What good is a woman who doesn't clean." (And this was from a female colleague as well).

I attempted to use this to as my defense from time to time, and it worked surprisingly well. When another co-worker joked, "Your apartment is so dirty, I'd like to hit you just once." I answered, "It's really the girl-friends fault, isn't it?" To my surprise, this defense was accepted.