We got up, showered and dressed in something of what may one day become a normal pattern. Julia even crashed early last night, so Tomo and I got to snuggle and look at stupid funny things on my laptop as we haven’t done since 2012.
This is after we went over the questionnaire we’ve had for weeks but Tomo never read to me or made a big deal about. I didn’t realize it was a self-assessment of eligibility to enter the kindergarten, and perhaps on some level it wasn’t. Tomo is sure it was, 100%, and we failed miserably because my daughter’s been learning English phonics and spelling and songs and having fun instead of being productive. She doesn’t always listen or know what she’s supposed to do and some stuff doesn’t work the way it should, but for my country and upbringing, this isn’t a big deal. She’s fine.
Keep in mind I never had an interview to get into a school and wasn’t really great at interviews for jobs either. I got to Japan for teaching experience. I got to teach for writing a book. I got to write a book for one features article in the TCU school paper and a willingness to conduct surveys and interpret the resulting data. I got into TCU with a worksheet they sent me in the mail.
I’ve never done anything like this, and we’ve already failed to properly prepare her because it never occurred to me that I was supposed to be training her for this, which is really my fault for being distracted. I’m surviving and she’s surviving and where I come from, that’s not bad. I forgot to tally that in with the whole Japanese moms making their kid the center of their universe and their only reason for existing. I’m not big on that, though she is the center of my universe. The thing is my value as a human is not equal to her impressiveness toward others. We’re okay, really. I just realized that I was shirking a societally preconceived responsibility that isn’t as innate in my culture.
Oh well. And I say that after spending a night crying and feeling like the least useful thing on the planet. In my dark moments, my laughter came from the realization that they should not expect more from a country that produced people who celebrate the election of a billionaire sociopath as a champion of the middle-class.
So we went to the school, played briefly and got called into the interview room, where Julia could name all the colors of all the things asked, only in English, and I should have pushed her to name the things and the colors in Japanese, but instead she got up and started exploring the room, and tried to roll on the floor when I tried to bring her back to the table.
The up-side? If we lost it today, we lost it based on Julia being a child and me not restricting her to such a degree that she could perform as a miniature adult. I think I can take that.
We went to get flu shots afterward, then McDonald’s. By the time we got home, Julia was asleep, so I tried to watch Brazil, which I hadn’t seen since I was an undergrad and won’t see for a bit longer. I was too exhausted and my post-lunch Julia snuggle turned into a full on nap. Tomo elected to watch Dragon Ball Z while the rest of us slept on the couch and eventually we all came together for a family snuggle.
For a fitting end to the day, we’re watching The Little Prince, as I’ve got Netflix this month and Tomo hasn’t seen it and I missed half of it on the Day of the Akebi.
We’re going to be okay.
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