long time, no write

Sorry guys, I�m lazy.

weak afterall

It took quite some time [18 months], but a serious bought of homesickness has finally struck me. I thought maybe I�d be one of the lucky ones and complete my stay in Japan without any brushes with �culture shock,� but I guess not.

While we�re on the subject of �culture shock��I�d like to express my utter disgust with the phrase. It�s overused, and its overuse has rendered it somewhat of a misnomer.

It�s been made evident to me since coming to Japan, that people frequently use it to describe homesickness, loneliness, or general dissatisfaction with one�s life abroad [as I did in the first paragraph]. They use it to account for their own weaknesses, things that are not the result of submersion in a different culture. People so often seem to use it to assign blame to someone else, something else, a cultural scapegoat.

Let�s stop being so lazy. Let�s admit to ourselves that we are responsible for our own unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Let�s not blame a whole culture for Christ�s sake.

good bye cows

I remember having fierce competitions with my twin brother while sitting in the back seat of my parents� maroon Volvo station wagon on Sunday morning drives to church. As we would pull out of the driveway and start down the road, my brother and I would say �good bye� to all the things that we saw that were worthy of our farewells. The challenge was in being the person who said �good bye� to the most things.

Being the first to say �Good bye, Cows� was always a big score. They were big, they were beloved, and they were many.

Recently, my grandparents and my parents decided that they were no longer able or willing to run a dairy. Last I heard, all but one cow has been sold.

It breaks my heart to know that when I return to the farm there will be no cows. When I was a child and my brothers wouldn�t play with me and my mom only wanted to give me more housework to do, I could go out to the cows. I could be amongst them�walking in the cow lot or pasture, playing in the hay sheds, or exploring the shelterbelts�and be completely at ease. I didn�t care about the dirt and manure; I loved the smell of the cows, the sounds they made while eating, their slow, easy walk, and their somewhat pesky, inquisitive nature.

When I was about 13, I started showing cows at the county fair. I led the young heifers around the farm, brushed them, and washed them. Sometimes they were skittish, dumb, and dangerous, but usually they were calm, friendly, and extremely patient. When the heifers grew to be cows, they didn�t forget what they were taught and remained the same good-natured animals that they had been as heifers.

Outside the show ring, I would be nervously waiting with my big beautiful show cow. She would be standing at ease, chewing some hay, and letting great gusts of air escape from her nose in a slow, even rhythm, only slightly excited by the presence of the other cows standing around and the noises of unfamiliar farm animals nearby. At these times I would drape my arms over her boney, ridged back and lean my full weight into her, letting her breathing lift my body up and down, while I admired her short, glossy hair and the great bones of her body that protruded underneath her skin.

When I started going to college, I all but forgot about the cows. However, I was always proud to quietly admit to my predominantly city-raised architecture classmates that I came from a dairy farm. Not the typical farm, but a dairy farm. I was proud that I grew up drinking raw milk as though it were water. And everyday at the cafeteria I would secretly scorn the stuff that they provided us. To me, it was just a temporary substitute necessary for moistening my cereal. Someday I would be back in the land of free-flowing, fresh milk.

And then instead of returning to the farm for even a summer, I chose to stay in Lincoln before my departure to Japan. It�s been a year and a half since, and I haven�t been back once. Had I known that there would be no cows and no fresh milk when I returned to the farm, would I have spent the summer there instead of in Lincoln? Would I have gone back for at least one visit after my first year in Japan? I think so.

I�m curious what it will be like to return to the farm when I visit this summer. Will the familiar, welcoming smell have lingered long enough? I doubt it.

Always, when coming home, I would look for the cows in the north pasture. Whether coming from the east or from the west, one crests a hill and then our pasture comes into view. We would keep a group of heifers in the pasture during all but the winter months. I always anticipated spotting the cows in the pasture and would often make a bet with myself as to where they would be grazing. My great uncle told me once that the cows grazed according to the direction of the wind. Despite knowing this, I usually guessed wrong. However, no matter where the cows were, I felt satisfied to see them in the pasture because spotting the cows meant that I was truly home.

chemical treatment

When I was young I had blonde hair.

As I grew older, my hair became darker, but, provided that I spent enough time outside, my hair stayed fairly blonde. However, it was never really blonde, and never really brown� just some funny in-between color that irked me.

Up until recently, I was able to resist temptations to dye my hair so that it could be definitely placed in a color category. What helped me remain so steadfast against hair-dye was a healthy negative stereotype of the sort of people that do dye their hair, distrust of the capabilities of hairstylists, and a dislike of chemicals�not to mention the extreme pride I felt in 1) living a fairly �natural� lifestyle and 2) being able to accept my genes for what they are rather than bitching and moaning and resorting to artificial means (i.e. saying �I�m so fat� to my girlfriends and then attempting to diet).

And then I dyed my hair� a nice, medium brown.

What happened? Where did my resilient character fail? Why did it fail?

Even though so many Japanese choose to dye their hair a lighter color, often to a color similar to my natural �color,� my hair attracted more attention than I was able to appreciate. It, in partnership with my skin color, enabled strangers to label me as a foreigner in the blink of an eye. Being labeled as a foreigner, I would then receive whatever positive or negative attention that my being foreign somehow warrants me. I believe that now that my hair is less outstanding, I am able to skirt some unwarranted attention.

I feel that the decision to dye my hair was a good one, but I don�t believe that I�ll ever do it again. Nothing that stinks and feels as bad as hair-dye could possibly be healthy or inconsequential to one�s health.

Now that my hair-related issues have been addressed, there are issues of gender that must be addressed. It seems that the Japanese find girls in short hair and pants to be as much of a rarity as foreigners, but are unfortunately unable to recognize them as easily. I have been asked whether I�m a girl or not an uncommon number of times. If I�m in a good mood and my hands are free, I generally deal with this by putting my hands on my chest, squeezing, and saying, �Yes.� I�ve tried wearing skirts more often, but they just don�t provide the freedom of movement that their design would seem to suggest. Growing my hair long simply doesn�t suit my athletic lifestyle, nor does it suit the shape of my face nearly as well as short hair does. Besides, even if I did manage to let my hair grow to chin-length, there�d still be a fair number of Japanese men with longer locks.