Extroverts, introverts, and ambiverts

Our youngest was sad on the first day of school last week. It was a half-day. CAJ always starts with a half-day (8.30-12) and it just wasn't enough social interaction for him after 11 long weeks away from his friends. He is a classic extrovert. When he came home he stuck to me like glue, hoping I'd give him the happiness he wanted.

Our strongly introverted son working quietly on his own.

He is such a contrast to our middle son who is quite the introvert. Thankfully he's beginning to understand that instead of taking it out on us when he returns home, he can retreat to his room for some time to recharge.

I've been thinking more about extroversion and introversion recently and I've discovered a term that suits me far better than these extremes: ambivert.

ambivert: a person who has a balance of extrovert and introvert features in their personality (Origin: 1920s) From here.

 This blog post describes my dilemma very well. The comments after the post are from people like me, who have been confused by the strong dichotomous descriptors of extrovert vs introvert.

Here's another article that talks about the complexities of personality and how we're all on a continuum. I love this quote from the webpage:

The notion of Ambiversion changed my life. Previously, when filling in a personality type questionnaire, I”d hesitate when answering questions like: “would you prefer to go to a party or read a book?”  My first thought was “Depends on the party or book and also how tired I am from the previous night.” But that contextual option wasn’t available. Now I realize what a gift it is to be sensible, reasonable and well balanced enough to have the freedom of choice.

And this one:

I’m an Ambivert with 70 shades of Introvert and 30 shades of Extrovert! What are you? 

The Myer-Briggs calls me an Extrovert with a strong Introvert shadow, but I think an Ambivert is a more helpful descriptor. I couldn't understand, for example, why I could be so excited about having visitors to stay, and yet after a day or so, find myself seeking out privacy in my bedroom (something I rarely do when it is just the five of us here). It seemed weird, but now I understand. Sometimes my extrovert side is stronger, other times my introvert side. And I need to work at getting a balance because if I get too much solitude or too much social interaction I get worn out and grumpy.

Try this simple questionnaire, if you're thinking you might be in the ambivert range.

Our Hokkaido Adventure Days 23 to 25

Wednesday 17th July 

Takayama, Sendai

The first jigsaw puzzle we completed.
This oversized burger was just too big.

And in fact we did survive (see my previous post here). After removing the more obvious spiders (and their webs and poop), wiping down important surfaces, covering the dirty mattresses with sheets or blankets and using our sleeping bags and pillows it worked okay. We found evidence of small rodents in the cutlery drawer so we cleaned that whole drawer out, washing everything and replacing the drawer liner.

Being Australian, I’m a bit of a beach snob. I haven’t seen many beaches in Japan, but most of them are not that appealing to someone who doesn’t even much like Australia’s beautiful white-sand beaches. But we did our duty and took the boys down for a paddle/sand castle building.

Actually three out of five of us would choose mountains over beach anytime. Beaches are lacking in shade and are so, well, sandy.

It was pretty wet and miserable.

Again I didn’t feel tempted to get wet, in fact the temperatures didn’t rise much above 20 degrees Celsius, so the spectators on the beach were wrapped up. I don’t know how the younger ones managed to cope in the water for as long as they did.

Thursday 18th July 

Takayama, Sendai

Wednesday was grey, and we went to bed with the sound of rain on the tin roof (bliss!). We all slept in again on Wednesday and were greeted with heavy rain that didn’t tempt any of us to venture out until it slowed down towards lunchtime. After lunch we had an errand to run at a hardware store. But other than that we stayed at home, doing jigsaw puzzles, playing word and card games, and reading. A lovely day indeed!

That night we celebrated the end of our holidays with an inside BBQ. Lots of meat and not fancy, just how the boys love it.

Last night BBQ using a Japanese hotplate.

Friday 19th July 

Sendai to Tokyo

We packed up and cleaned the house again. And then took off for our last drive of the journey: back to Tokyo.

The second puzzle we completed in three days.

Tokyo surprised us with not being as hot as we'd imagined. Though I was sad our adventure was over, it was good to be home and back in our solid beds, enjoying our own shower and toilet. It was nice to put everything away and know it would be there when you got back. One of the difficulties of camping is that everything gets moved around all the time, so it is easy to lose things, especially at night! I developed the habit of using a bag for my "bedside table".

We'd definitely love to do another camping tour like this one again sometime in the future, but with our home assignment coming up next year, it may be a couple of years before we can. Perhaps we could explore down near Osaka, Kyoto, Nara area, or over on the western side of the island near Nagoya. 

Anyways, we now have our memories of Hokkaido, and dreams about the future to sustain us through the coming months of heads-down-tails-up of work and school.

Potpourri of news from Japan

A samurai statue in Hokkaido. Reminder of the violent
past of Japan.

I've had people in Australia ask about violence in Japan. On the surface it appears to be a very low-violence country, which is a big change from what happened in the Pacific War. 
This article shows that violence lives on, though there appears to be mixed opinions about it, it does seem, from the article, to be an ingrained part of the culture, and not just in sport. From our own limited experience in Japanese sports and schools, this isn't across the board, but it is worth knowing about, especially if you pray for this country.

As much as I hate to bring it up, there has apparently been radioactive water leaking at Fukushima. I've tended to ignore the news, because it is hard to know the real truth. Japanese authorities tend to suppress it and journalists tend to hyperbolise it. Nonetheless, here is an article about it.

The ageing population is an ongoing story. This particular article, however, talks about some people who are doing something to address the suffering of the aged and lonely.

In a bizarre law suit, a 71 year old Japanese man is suing NHK, the national broadcaster in Japan, because he says they use too many non-Japanese loanwords.

Subway hero helps Tokyo citizens. This one's been going around Facebook.

Starting school again

School started again on Tuesday for us. It's been a long 11 weeks, though going away for a month really helped. It would have been easier if I'd been able to be 100% on holidays with the boys, but the last five weeks I've been trying to work part-time too. I feel, though, like I've been treading water. Now school's in again, I can take some bigger strokes and make better progress.

CAJ's field.

Starting school, however, has gone very smoothly. Probably due to the unprecedented occurrence of all three boys entering the same school for the fourth year running. None of them have ever done that before. Our eldest has moved up into the high school section of the school, but thus far that hasn't been too big a change. Compared to my change from  a 250 student private primary school to a 1000+ student state high school, it's barely a blip on the graph.

I'm enjoying the space; it gives me the energy to deal with them for the time that they are at home, but it also gives me room to pay attention to the non-parenting jobs I have. But we're all enjoying the return of schedule.

Starting school has brought with it the reminder that this time next year we won't be here. From June next year we're headed back to Australia for our regular 12-month Home Assignment. I can already tell that this year will be a year to focus on:

"Casting your cares on him" 

(paraphrase from Ps 55:22 and 1 Peter 5:7)

and

"Do not let your hearts be troubled" 

(from John 14:1 & 27)

Our high schooler is facing the challenge of thinking about what subjects to choose for the rest of his high school "diploma". This year wasn't too hard—there wasn't a lot of choice. But then he's changing schools and systems, landing in the middle of grade 10 in Australia, six months before the end of the two year Junior courses. Not the best, but difficult to avoid.

So this morning I sent off an enquiry to the school where they attended last time we were in Australia, informing them of our intention to return next June, but also asking for some guidance about joining the school half-way through grade 10. We await their answer.

That is just one detail in a myriad of details that we'll be working through in the coming 12 months. Is there any wonder that I need to keep my eyes focused back on those Biblical promises and commands?

Our Hokkaido Adventure Days 21 & 22

Monday 15th July

Sapporo to the ferry

We camped at A, drove to B to meet with friends, and
C was the ferry terminal.

For the last time this trip, we packed up our camp, and headed to northern Sapporo to meet up with another OMF family. This family is one of the few in Hokkaido (with our mission) who have children similar ages to our kids (most of the families up there have very young children). 

I regret that I forgot to take my camera out at anytime that day with our friends, so we have no photos whatsoever of our time with them.

It was a public holiday, so their children, who are in Japanese public school, were home. Being a hot day, we decided to go to a small water park on the west of the city. But of course, the rest of the city was also feeling hot and having a day off, so it seemed as though half of Sapporo was there (which, of course, couldn’t have been the case as there are 2 million people in the city). It was crowded, just like it would be in Tokyo, but we’ve apparently gotten used to that kind of crowdedness, unlike our English-New Zealand Sapporo-dwelling colleagues. I guess that is something of a comfort.

There was a smallish wave pool that only ran for ten minutes every half hour. To watch it was to see a sea of black heads rise up and down. Over the top of the crowded joy, there were four or five lifeguards frantically blowing their whistles and shouting directions into their megaphones. They were somewhat distressed because few people were taking notice of them!

After a hot start, the day didn’t get much over 22 degrees and, sitting in the shade, I didn’t feel hot enough to have a swim. I’ve grown to be like my Mum—only interested in swimming when it’s really hot. So I mostly just talked with our friends.

In the mid-afternoon clouds came over and a breeze whipped up, the crowds started to thin and we gathered up our family too, for we had a boat to catch. We were to board the ferry at 5.30 in Tomokomai, about an hour or so away. So we said farewell and took off for the final leg of our Hokkaido Adventure.

On the way to the ferry we were looking for some take-away dinner to eat after we’d boarded (saving an expensive dining-room meal). We discovered an Aeon Mall (the closest Japan seems to get to Western-style malls) with a Subway, so we dashed in an bought some take-away Subs.

Strolling on the ferry's upper deck.

This ferry was even more luxurious than the one we’d traveled on three weeks earlier, as it was newer. This time, though, we shared a room with others. However, the way it was designed, we rarely saw the others. The room had a central aisle with aisles off each side, each aisle containing two bunks, either at floor level, or up a few stairs and above the bunk in the neighbouring aisle. Each bunk had a pull-down blind that made you invisible to outsiders. Very cosy!

My youngest son kindly demonstrating the bunk's privacy blind.

After settling in, we ate our take away dinner and went off to experience the Japanese-style baths. Then I read the second last chapter of The Hobbit to the boys before we all crashed in bed; it had been a big couple of days!

The cabin on the ferry with one of its
aisles. Two of my boys slept here.

Tuesday, 16th July

Ferry to the beach in Sendai.

Sendai

Everyone slept in the next morning: we were all quite relaxed by this stage in our journey. We eventually made it to the buffet breakfast in the restaurant at about 8am. After breakfast we played games in our cabin for a bit and then it was time to pack up again and disembark.

Arrival in Honshu didn’t prove to be a heat blast as we had expected, the temperature being very similar to Sapporo the day before. We were headed to an old OMF cabin at the seashore, not too far from the ferry terminal, but stopped at another Aeon Mall to pick up some groceries before we got there.

It was odd to be buying food to go into a refrigerator! Additionally the store had self-checkout, the first time I’ve seen that in Japan. So I tried it out with my helpful youngest son. It got a bit messy because the computer was very precise and we didn’t have quite the right amount of bags, so it was hard to pack as we went, but we made it through, hopefully without ripping off the store or being ripped off ourselves.

The cabin we stayed in. It's over 100 years old.

The cabin, after we'd cleaned (lots of spiders, and
and their poop).

We’ve never stayed in the OMF cabins at Sendai, so we weren’t sure what to expect, but we were a bit shocked with what we found. It was hard to look past the dirt and insects, the spiders and their webs. I spent ages vacuuming and cleaning. Upstairs in the bedrooms it felt worse because the mattresses were dirty. After travelling around in our clean tent, and being self-sufficient with all our kitchen implements that we knew were clean (and worked), it wasn’t that fun. An hour or so after arriving we adjourned for lunch and the boys weren’t happy about staying. But we persuaded them we would manage, at least for one night.

The view. We struck mostly rainy days.

The beach. Not much to boast of by Queensland
standards, but the two younger boys loved it. Our
eldest didn't go near the beach. He hates the sand.

Some interesting photos

I collected the following photos over the holidays. Thought you might be interested.

I found this novelty iPhone case. Really,
can you imagine actually using this?
It is about three times the size of an iPhone.

Can you buy cans this size in Australia? You can here. That OJ is 1L, for comparison.

You've got to love the creative English spelling Japanese people get up to,
but here we have some creative capitalisation. This was in a train station.

Found this on the side of an apartment building in a nearby
suburb. Japanese name their apartment complexes. I can't imagine
how a missionary living there could give out their address!

Inner Bottom? Really?

I really don't understand the numbering system on the roads here.
I mean really, which road do you want, 299 or 299?

Our turtle trying to escape after his active time with friends
while we were in Hokkaido.

Our Hokkaido Adventure Day 20

Sunday 21st July

200 km journey back to Sapporo along the motorway.
It didn't take very long, compared to our more remote
driving at 60km/hr.

Naka Satsunai to Sapporo

It was a busy day. We packed up after breakfast and headed off to Sunday school and church, at the local civic centre, with our colleague. This church is just as small as the one we went to last week, but with a big difference. A larger church in the nearby regional centre has a pastor with a vision to plant seven churches in the region. This town is the place they began to work out their vision. Our OMF colleague has been here for five years with the support of the church and one local couple. They’ve seen no fruit for their labours.

More lovely flat fields. If only the spiritual work here
produced such harvests.

 If you didn’t know that, and walked in on this small church on the 21st of July, you would have thought the situation was quite different. At church that day there were 12 Australians (two missionary families of five, plus two visiting parents) and one German missionary, plus several Japanese Christians. There were almost no locals. Most of the Japanese people were "loaned" from the mother church.

Part of the Hidaka Mountain Range that separates

the Tokachi Plain from Sapporo.

We don’t know what will happen next with this church. The missionary goes on home assignment at the end of the year and next March the local Christian will move with her youngest son, after he graduates from high school, to Sapporo to help him find a job.

It rips your heart out to realise that all the work that has been put into this location hasn't
produced fruit. It is, unfortunately, the reality of church work in Japan. Much seed sowing, but little fruit. In the rural settings, it is even harder so this isn't an isolated incident.

The other Australian OMF missionaries there have just begun a work in another nearby town, the second town that the mother church has turned her eyes towards. 

Driving towards the Hidaka Range

We only saw part of their family at conference, because they’ve just had their third baby in three years and so mum stayed home with the younger two. So it was an unexpected bonus to see them all. The husband preached at the service. But we didn’t get a lot of time to talk with them because we had to race off afterwards to lunch.

Special Lunch

Lunch at the school summer festival.

We’d been invited by the local Christian family to the summer festival at their son’s local high school for lunch. We enjoyed some Japanese fast food: fried pork noodles (Yakisoba). Additionally some kebabs, local ice cream (including a tub of pumpkin ice cream), and drinking yoghurt. I especially enjoyed some rich coffee milk (equivalent to the the best coffee-flavoured milk you’d buy in Australia). But I drank too much and suffered with headaches in the next couple of days!

We also left lunch quickly as we had to get to Sapporo in time to set up camp before dark. We had access to an expressway for the first time in a couple of weeks and took advantage of it to get through the mountains separating us from the capital of the island.

This was our "fridge" for two weeks while camping.

Food while camping

On the way  to our campsite we had to find a grocery store to provide us food for our last two camping meals of our trip. One of the big differences for this camping trip was the necessity of buying food along the way. It was one thing that worried me, knowing what little rural shops can look like in Japan. 

Camp cooking was fun.

However, we found Hokkaido not to be as isolated and rural as we’d expected. If we’d been stopped for many days in a very isolated spot, it would have been a different story. But because we moved along regularly, each travel day we encountered towns of several thousand people, with more than adequate grocery stores.

Our last camping spot. It felt naked without our familiar
blue annex!

Lacking a fridge, it was a challenge to buy and cook just the right amount of food. Every day we bought ice and we didn't have any spoiled food, though the milk wasn’t always as cold as the guys would have liked (but they weren't allowed to drink as much of it anyway). The boys got used to the “no leftovers” policy for main meals and in our two weeks of camping we didn't have to throw out much food at all.

Couldn't see the sunset for we were surrounded by tall
trees, but the clouds were gorgeous.

So I’m really happy to say that the food aspect of our trip went really well. We had a good variety of meals, and a fairly balanced diet. I loved the challenge of it too. I've kept a list of all our meals, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in a blog post about what specific meals we ate?

One-nighter

This was a familiar sight. A number of campsite in
Japan have these carts, especially if you can't park next
to your campsite. They are pretty crude home-made
boxes with bicycle tyres. Great for carting your gear.
Fantastic for getting the kids involved in carting gear,
they love manoeuvring these around.

That Sunday night we eventually found our campsite, which was just on the east-north-east edge of Sapporo. It was a picnic spot hidden in a forest. It had toilets and a shelter with sinks for washing up dishes, like most camping spots, but no showers, so for the third or fourth time in our trip, we skipped showers for the night. There were many campers (it was a long weekend), and for the first time since leaving Sapporo a fortnight earlier, we encountered young families camping. Mostly, on our journey, we’d met bikers and older couples/singles, because it wasn't yet holiday time for Japanese schools.

A slightly strange photo. After two weeks
of living outside, I found my arms were
as brown as they ever get.

Because we were only there for one night (the only time in our journey we did a one-nighter), we didn’t put up our annex, which sped up the set-up and pull-down the next day. It did, however, mean that we had dew over everything the next morning.