How Do You KNOW THAT?!?!

I had a huge shock the other day and figured enough of my friends and family know about my martial art to share this with you all.

Going to Shima are four interac agents: myself, a Canadian girl named Jennifer, Travis from Washington state, and another girl named Bridgette from Jamaica (or the Bahamas - she was not at orientation with us, so we have not met yet). Jennifer heard a rumor that all the Shima girls were going to have to share one apartment which, I didn't like too much (three Western girls squeezed into a small Japanese apartment?? One bathroom?? That doesn't sound like a party), but I was willing to deal with for short term or for the sake of the contract. So, our branch leader here in Nagoya, Richard, called us in to explain the situation (in a wonderfully strong British accent, which did make things sound more optimistic) and at the end he mentions what "A lovely area Shima is for surfing, if you like surfing that is, but its dreadfully far away it is from Noda, yeah? *turns to look at me* So no Bujinkan unless you're willing for a long train ride, in't it?" 

And me "How do you know about the Bujinkan?!" 

"Well, I read all the resumes don't I? I know all about your hobbies and such." 

"But how do you know about the BUJINKAN?!" 

"Well, why shouldn't I know about it? Lovely martial art that is." 

"But HOW do you know?! We are pretty small, no one cares about us. NO ONE knows us." 

"Well, Hatsumi is a wonderful sort in't he? And for all you know, I could be a 10th don." 

"HOW DO YOU KNOW HIM AND HOW DO YOU KNOW WE HAVE 10TH DONS?!?!?!?" 

Jennifer is really confused about all these names and terms we are throwing about and I'm freaking out at this point. You expect some people to talk about some things and some people to mention others. I fully expect that during a visit to the dentist that he will spout off tooth jargon and drop a hint or two about flossing. The hot dog vendor on the street corner in Cleveland will talk to me about ketchup and horseradish. But if I ever hired a plumber and he started mentioning Orthodox theology, I wouldn't know what was happening!

After he had a good laugh, Richard told me that he had practiced in England with a guy whose name sounded really familiar to me. My dojo knows him, as it turns out, so small world! Also, quite a lot of our Chiba stationed ALTs do Ninjutsu and some even get asked to be stationed up there specifically so that they could go to training as much as possible. But when their schools find out that they train, they get fidgety because the ALTs have a bad habit of leaving early from work or missing out on school events to get another training class in. Hopefully I'll have someone to work with out in Mie, but one of our other trainers (a very nice Californian named Jeff) heard that I did Bujinkan, he made a list of martial arts related museums in Mie for me to check out! Once again, I was shocked! But he told me that in California he was in the Gembukan, so we joked that Richard had only told him about me recently because he didn't want our "ninja clan rivalry" to explode in the classroom. I'd like to visit some of the places he suggested, but I'll probably wait until the weather gets a little nicer and I know my way around Shima, let alone Mie.

Off to Health Checks now. I get to have a drug test, my chest x-rayed, and all sorts of measurements taken. Then, more practice for jr. high teaching!!