:Japan )

Well… the test has come and gone and I have failed. There are quite a few things that surprised me. First the testing track (closed course test) is small compared to what I had imagined. So that made it all the more surprising at how much craning your neck goes through: check all the mirrors, then behind you, oh make sure to look at that side steet there, okay turn to the other half of your lane…okay do all that neck stuff again now actually turn. Then there was “the crank.” An ultra narrow dog-leg piece of road…well more like sidewalk actually…There’s so much looking in the mirrors because the course is so short that it almost feels impossible to keep your mind straight.

The other surprising part was how nice my officer was. There were all these stories of no one ever really getting an explanation of what they did wrong and plus they had to drive this old black “Cedric” car that are quite large. Well my experience was a complete 180 from that. My officer first had me get in the back seat of some slightly-above-Civic-value Honda, he explained everything that was going to happen from the starting gate, and then he drove me around the course as an example “passing” run. However now that I’ve failed I’m a little worried that my second visit might not be so pleasant

I’m not sure if I had points deducted for it, but I was a little bit angry when he said my manual shift was incorrect. He seemed to want me to stay in first gear just to get the car in forward motion and then go to second. I learned by listening to the motor and his method seems like a bad way to ruin a good motor. … and now I know why a lot of my taxi drivers lug the damn engine so much.

Now this week will prove to be interesting as today I failed my drivers’ test, 13 people from Maine have arrived for a 2 week home stay, and the new ALTs going to the neighboring town also arrived. Might be doing some driving on the sly after all…

Well the day is fast approaching but with any luck, next Wednesday at approximately 13:40:32 JST I hope to be a fully legal Japanese Driver. I say with any luck because this test is going to be hard. The Test is one of the Joys that all car driving Americans are entitled to while on the JET program for more than a year. If you are born in virtually any other english speaking country you get robbed of this Joy by paying 5000 yen and getting your home country’s license translated. How lame is that? Who in there right mind would rob a good portion of foreigners of such Pleasures as having points deducted for such minutia as ’starting a turn too far away from the white line’ or ‘not accelerating fast enough’

So maybe the more accurate thing I should say is that with a LOT of luck I’ll pass on Wednesday. I have yet to meet any American who’s passed on the first try although there is rumors of a couple. If I fail on my first attempt I might have to consider taking a driving school. I don’t know how much they cost but if it’s affordable I’ll do it. There’s not much of an option really. If I do fail I will be in quite a pickle though because my international license runs out on Aug 1st. So actually getting back to the testing center will be quite hard. The infinite wisdom of Aomori has supplied only one testing center for all of the prefecture and for us foreigners the time between 1 pm and 2 pm on days when the moon is blue and there are exactly 3 frogs croaking outside is when we can be tested.

If you happen to live in Aomori, know me, and have read this …take this as a notice that I might be requesting some car favors in the near future

Well it looks like I had to go to hospital to stop the neglect of this blog. When I say hospital is more like a fancy upscale clinic. There were no rooms as far as I could see. Anyhow the story goes that 2 Fridays ago toward the end of the business day, my co-worker starts giving me his usual teasing about my belly and tells me I should run 5 km in the “マラソン大会” (Marathon festival) on the next day. I figured if he was gonna tease me about my weight I might as well show up and give it a try.

Like everything involving sports and weekends in Japan, it started early. At 8 am I was at the park and after setup we were all ready to go at 10 am. Since this involved all the kids in our town, there was to be three heats, one for the elementary and 5 km Adults, another for junior high kids, and a third for… ah well I forgot the third. I ran in the first heat so I didn’t see much of anyone else. So there I was running 5 km with no practice or training in any of the days previous. Of course I had no real expectation of winning or even placing, the goal was just to finish. That’s the part that makes me the most angry because I almost did it.

After running (well there was a little walking after the half-way point) almost the whole distance, I was about 100 meters from the goal. Down the stretch I could see a couple of elementary kids who I skate with cheering me on. I couldn’t hear them yet but I could tell they were yelling “頑張れ！(Ganbare!)” And in the next split second my foot was on uneven ground, my weight was shifting, the feeling of a quick stabbing pain and then numbness in my ankle as my foot folded sideways, then I was on the ground. The soft crunching sound that traveled up inside my body to my ears let me know exactly what happened. Something similar had happened to me before 4 or 5 years back on my other foot and while it didn’t hurt as bad this time, I knew that it was most likely going to be the same prognosis. So I limped back to the goal and passed the tape all the while being helped by those previous cheering elementary schoolers.

The next I received the prognosis I was expecting: 2 to 3 months to heal. Godammit. So much for summer sports or exercising for the most part. I may be able to go swimming or maybe bicycling at some point but for now I’m stuck wearing this ankle brace day and night. In the mean time my co-worker has the new nickname of ‘Bastard’… and he loves it.