Christmas Break

Christmas break was full of good stuff. I got to see everyone I planned on seeing, and it even worked out that I got to see some people even more than once so that was cool. And I got to see 4 movies (Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, Did You Hear About the Morgans, and New Moon), Avatar twice (both times 3D, but once in the IMAX), New Moon was way better than the first Twilight movie, and my dad was able to get us tickets to this movie theater with huge comfy reclining chairs where they serve you dinner and stuff during the movie. That was really cool. I definitely want to try that again. I also got to go see the musical Mary Poppins down in LA. It was amazing. I must admit that I wasn’t ever completely in love with the Disney movie, I mean, it was alright, but I never had an urge to watch it or anything, but this was so good. And I still listen to the music from it at home and have the songs stuck in my head for days at a time. And they aren’t the same old songs from the movie, there are new ones and good ones, and the story actually follows the story in the book, instead of the Disney version, although most the songs in the Disney version are still in the musical, but just seemed better. It’s darker than the Disney one with toys that come alive, and an evil nanny with disgusting medicine, but it is still magical and touching, and Mary Poppins was really good and funny. Practically Perfect. Lol. Ok, I will stop going on about it now. But it was good, so if you get a chance to see it, then please do.

Let’s see, when I got home I got some welcome home balloons and a slight scare as I came through the door, lol, but it was cool, and I got to meet Kevin’s fiancé, who is also cool.

Christmas was excellent, as always.   I’d say that my biggest and most exciting thing was my Kindle. There are no book stores with English books here, so I was running low on things to read, and suddenly my problem was solved as I could buy and download as many books as I wanted to read onto it and read it wherever I want. 

And it’s the global version, and works on a 3G network (like cell phones), so I can download even here in Japan (all of Japan is a 3G network so it works anywhere). I also finally got an IPod. My very first, lol. It took a while to go through and organize all my songs and play lists again on ITunes, but the job is finally done.

And we went to Disneyland!!  I will let the pictures show the awesomeness that happens when someone goes to Disneyland.   

 

 

 

Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

 

Space Mountain and California Screamin

 

Hollywood Tower of Terror

Need a closer look to find me?  Here ya go on the left.  That is not pretend.  That is real terror you see on my face, lol.  And Splash Mountain is on the right here.

  

Toy Story above and more Buzz Lightyear below

It’s a Small World

Dumbo 

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

Body Alphabet Game

I have started playing this game in my classes whenever I do the alphabet, or days of the week. I found that the students almost always already knew the alphabet by sight, as well as the song, but they don’t start to write the letters themselves until middle school. So I started doing this as a type of prep for that. I split the class into teams and call 3 students from each team to participate at a time. Then for the alphabet version I call out a letter of the alphabet, and the students have to make that letter, using all 3 people, with their bodies. The fastest 3 to make the letter gets a point for their team. Then, they get stickers for their points or something at the end. For the days of the week version it is the same, except that the kids make the kanji (Chinese characters) for the days of the week after I call one out (Sunday 日, Monday月, Tuesday 火, Wednesday 水, Thursday 木, Friday 金, Saturday 土). The kids especially get creative on Friday because there are more strokes than the others that they have to make. I even had some kids pull off their shoes to use, lol. I don’t have pictures of the days of the week that the students did, but I have pictures of one school doing the alphabet, which are the ones I have posted here.  I made a small album with 2 of the 4th grade classes here with only 9 pictures, have a look.  I especially enjoy the one where the kids make L, and since they had to use all 3 people, the last kid just up and plopped himself on top of the other, lol.  So cute. 

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Laziness brought on by Cold

So as some of you already know, I have opted out of using the actual heater in my house, not wanting to pay for it since I hear it is kind of expensive. It’s kind of weird because I actually have money to pay for it now, but I still have the mindset I had at BYU that I can’t spend more money than is necessary. And since I have a kotatsu (coffee table that has a heater thing on the bottom of it, where you put a blanket over the whole thing and sit under the blanket), and it is cheaper to use since it doesn’t have to heat up the whole apartment, but just the small space under the coffee table, I just use that. While I have undoubtedly saved money, it definitely has its downsides as well. Like seeing my breath every night in my apartment, lol. Also, for a while, I didn’t want to get out from under my kotatsu and would just sit huddled in my blankets and be warm there, so my apartment got dirtier and dirtier. All my dishes were dirty, my clothes unwashed, and my fish water was turning a darkish brownish black (and yet the fish lived on). I had piles of random things everywhere, my trash was overflowing, I didn't cook real meals hardly ever (it took far too much time standing in the cold), and I didn't even go into my room to sleep on my futon anymore, lol. I would just stay and fall asleep under my kotatsu. So I was always sore, because that left me sleeping half on the couch, half on the wood floor, and not being able to turn freely in my sleep because the table was too low. Lol. It was shameful. The cold made me lazy, and I was gone for a couple weekends in a row and I do most of my cleaning on the weekends. So I had like 1 plate left that was clean (I stooped to using tupperware as a glass as well as for my cereal), my clothes were running out, my fish lived in filth, my floor had cereal and other food bits scattered on it, my body ached, I would sleep in normal clothes, my nutrition had taken a plunge, and I had bags of trash waiting to be disposed of. Lol.

But don’t worry people. I shaped up. Before I left for Christmas I decided something had to be done, lol. Obviously. It was disgusting. I finally did my dishes, swept and vacuumed my floors, and even vacuumed my couch since I ate my meals there too. I washed the table and stove and stuff, and things felt a lot better. Marisa is actually the one who cleaned out my fish water (props to her especially since she is not the biggest fan of fish). So while they were still living in a plastic mixing bowl (had no idea where to buy an actual fish bowl), at least their water was clean, lol.

Now I have things worked out. I still don’t use my heater, and I still sleep under my kotatsu, but I change into my pajamas before going to sleep, lol, and I have put cushions under it and arranged it so that I have room to turn in my sleep. I got a mat to put by my sink so that my feet don’t freeze off when I do dishes or cook, I got a clear fish bowl so that I could see when the water was getting disgusting, and I whipped out my water heater-upper thing that makes water for drinks super hot (I make hot chocolate and herbal tea mostly so I can warm my hands on the cup while its heat lasts). So now I have a clean apartment, better meals again, and no more aching muscles. Although my neck does kind of hurt right now. But I am not putting that down as a result of my sleeping arrangements. Also, I’ve done my laundry, lol. That is important as well. Although it is a pain since I have no dryer (most people don’t here) and it’s so cold that the clothes just hang wet for days, and you can never really tell if they are still damp, or just really, really cold. I still have the problem of being fa-reezing while I go to and from the shower, but I’m working on that.

Plane Tickets

Recently I have had to buy lots of plane tickets to different places. I bought my round trip to America for Christmas, my tickets to Korea and China for when my parents visit, and I tried to buy another trip to America for when Kevin gets married, but ran into problems. I had booked with Travelocity before, and everything was fine, but that was using my debit card. After being told that I should have used my credit card and then just paid that off with my debit so I can build up good credit, I decided to try buying the of my trips with my credit card. So I go through everything, have a good priced ticket, and then when I click the confirm reservation button, it says it had trouble processing my card, so I tried it like 5 or 6 more times, with no luck. Then I check my account and there is zero credit, and I was very confused, because that should definitely not be the case. I thought that maybe since I had used my credit card while in the states for Christmas once at the post office that maybe they had frozen my card since I hadn’t told them I was back in America, so I called the bank, and they said that they had a plane ticket charge and then like the same thing charged 5 more times.

So I had no plane booking, and yet there was all these charges from all those tries on my credit line. So I called Travelocity and they said they should be dropped within 24 hours, and within 24 hours, it still wasn’t dropped, and then Travelocity said it would be dropped within another 48 hours, and then it still wasn’t dropped so I had to make several calls back and forth between the bank and Travelocity, finally get them to talk to each other, get codes, send faxes, etc and finally the charges were dropped. So after getting advice on how to do it from the Travelocity agent, I tried again, and the exact same thing happened. No booking, and yet it took credit from my card. This time though, since they said to wait so many days before, I waited 5 days and the charges were dropped by themselves. However, by then the good ticket price was gone. I had to go with another ticket, through other means. So everyone, be careful when trying to book online with cards. I have purchased many things online before and this is the first time it has gotten out of hand, but once was enough of a pain.

Front room light

My front room light is out. It has been out for a month or so and I had recently decided to buy more bulbs for it. It’s actually 2 bulbs and when you pull the little string, they both light up, pull it again and one goes out, pull it again and they both go out, but a little red bulb lights up (reminds me of a night light), and pull it a fourth time and everything goes out. So I had thought it was a little weird that both the bulbs went out at the exact same time, but not knowing anything else to do I just got another 2 lights and switched them out. Those don’t work either, so I have come to reason that it is something else, lol. Now I am still without light. Anyone know what might be wrong?

Picassa

So recently, as those of you in my family know, I have made a picassa photo album so that everyone who took pictures over Christmas break at my house could share them all and everyone could have them. What I didn’t know, was that in order to actually download pictures that were uploaded by other people, I had to have the Picassa program on my computer. So I downloaded the program, not really a big deal, but then it started going through all my files and drives looking for every picture and video that I have, and that is a lot. It took forever. It turns out I have like 17,000 pictures and like 60 or 70 movies. Then, as if that weren’t enough, it started doing facial recognition. I thought it was cool at first like, “cool, now I can have who is in what picture, nifty” but with that many pictures to go through, and me having to confirm every single face in every single picture, whether it is the tiny blurred face of a passer-by in the background, or even a drawing I did in paint, if it looked like a face it would have me ID it. And for some reason, it seemed to have me having doubles of everything. Even after leaving my computer on all day, it was only through 30% of my pictures with almost 2000 faces for me to confirm or label. I don’t know if I will ever have them all labeled and confirmed. It is just dull, time-consuming work. So those are my Picassa woes.

Embarrassing

Today, when being dropped off at the train station after church I practically fell on my face a few steps out of the car and in front of everyone. I usually get stared at anyway because of the blonde hair, white skin factor, so that practically ensured that everyone there was watching this humiliating act. Luckily I was unharmed and got immediately on the train where thankfully it was mostly empty, and is actually where I am sitting now, writing this.

Church

So I’ve realized that I haven’t written a blog about church yet. So I have church from 10-1pm every Sunday which is really a very nice time, but there are some complications. Namely location and trains. My closest church building would be in Kochi city which is 2 hours from where I live. Then there are the trains. Since I live on Shikoku, the smallest and most rural of the 4 islands of Japan, the trains are few and far between. So I have to take the 7am train, having me get to Kochi by 9am, then wait an hour for church to start. Not all bad except that puts my alarm going off before 6am. And since I am not a morning person I of course hit the snooze button an million and a half times which most always results in me leaving my house late and then biking furiously to the train station and barely making the train. I’ve actually even had a guy run ahead of me and have to stall the train and then once I was just told to go through without paying because there wasn’t time and then pay when I got to Kochi. Not the best of me, I know. But I have for the past 2 Sundays discovered that I have plenty of time if I just shower the night before. Anyway, so then I get to church and once chutch is over, the next train isn’t for another 2 hours until 3pm, and then another 2 hours till I get home. I get home around 5:30pm usually. So the act of going to chutch takes about 11-12 hours of the day. Luckily it doesn’t cost as much to get there because I have a discount card called the Young Weekender’s Card which gets me 40% off the roundtrip price so I end up paying ￥1680 ($18) instead of ￥2820 ($30). It would of course be more for the express train which only takes an hour, but that gets to Kochi when church starts so that wouldn’t work.

Anyway, about the actual church going. The people are so nice. They tell me it gives them encouragement to see me come from so far away to church every Sunday, but I really think it is them that are the amazing ones, coming every Sunday when it is so different from the rest of Japan. There are so many Japanese who don’t know anyting about Christianity, it being such a foreign thing, and then not drinking tea, coffee, or alcohol is unheard of. In America there is so much cariety in preferences and life style that it may be a surprise to learn that about someone but you can get over it pretty quick because you are more used to differences fgrom all the different cultures that make America. But in Japan, they seem to be a lot more sheltered when it comes to cultural differences because there simply aren’t any (or hardly any) when it comes to this sort of thing. Everyone drinks tea all the time. I feel like I’m offered tea every time I sit down somewhere. Once I decline the tea, coffee always comes next. Once I decline the coffee it’s like they don’t know what to do with themselves. Every once in a while I will get offered a sports drink after that. Then there is the drinking. Drinking is a huge part of Japanese culture. Because of the very separate personal and private way of life, it is hard to get to know anyone. Their way around that I guess is after work drinking. For even the littlest occasion, they could set up a get together where everyone drinks. Like a drinking party. I have been told (more like lectured) many times by Marisa’s section head guy, while he was drunk, that it is the Japanese culture to drink and let the guard down so to speak to connect with eachother. So by not drinking, I’m not wanting to connect with the Japanese or my co-workers. So to live such a foreign way of life with so few others doing the same, and not being able to claim being from a foreign country, is the amazing thing I think.

Anyway, the people at church try to make everything easier on me since I come from so far away. They give me food, rides, English printouts, clothes, etc etc. they try their best to include me in the lessons, which I must admit, is sometimes too kind, seeing as I mostly don’t know what they are talking about so when they call on me and ask what I think everyone just stares at me while I probably look like a deer caught in the headlights, having no idea what to say. It’s rather stressful actually. And they ask me to give prayers and such as well. I was asked to give the opening prater in Sacrament Meeting the other week and I was so nervous that I forgot half of what I was going to say, stammered over the same word 4 times, and ended it rather abruptly after like 2 lines because of it all. Then, as if to confirm how bad it really was, I swear every member came up to me after and said it was beautiful and thanked me, lol. Anyway, since then, when they ask me to give a prayer, they always say that English is fine, lol. Sad isn’t it?

Bonding with the Kids

So now that I have been here long enough to have met many of the kids repeatedly, I think they are more comfortable talking to me, even if I don’t know what they are saying, lol. At the festival in town a few weeks ago a few of my junior high students were there and they came running up to me and tried talking to me, but it ended up being short because we all didn’t really know how to say anything other than the simple things that they learn in class. And I guess as you get older it gets harder to just talk to someone even if they don’t understand, which is what a lot of the elementary students do with me all the time. Not to say that I don’t understand anything of what they are saying, I understand a lot more these days, but still. Anyway, while I was at the elementary school closest to my house the other day, I was visiting the 1st graders, and they pulled me outside to play with them between classes. We played a game called Daruma-san ga koronda (Daruma-san fell down), which luckily I already knew how to play. The game that is most like it in America is Red Light Green Light, except I have to say, the Japanese version is a little more fun with its variations. Then we went inside and I did my next class, and then they all converged on me with their notebooks and all wanted me to sign their stuff and were shoving hands in my face to sign there as well, lol. Then they just wanted me to write random words in English , like America, and Happy Birthday, and stuff. When I was about to leave, a little boy ran up to me and handed me a little ripped paper and was like, it’s a letter to you! And then ran off. So I put it in my bag and left, and then when I got back to the office I read it. It essentially said his name, Kakeru Nakao, and that it was ok if I wanted to go to his house, and that I should also come again to his school. Lol. It was the nicest thing ever. There are a lot of students at that school and I always end up going away with something like some stationary, a phone charm, some origami, or something, but this was by far the best (not that I didn’t wholly appreciate the others). Anyway, at my junior high this past Wednesday, in one of my classes they had to come up and do a conversation with me and I had to ask what certain people were doing in this one picture, and the three times that this one girl, Karin, came up, I asked about the same person every time. “Emi is buying an ice cream.” Lol. So when she said it the third time, I looked up and realized, and I mentioned something about it, and we both laughed. I guess she was excited about our little moment because she told the teacher about it after class and he mentioned it to me that she said “Buri-chan (what they call me) and I laughed together.” And I had a conversation about what boys this one group of girls liked, “nice, cool, etc” and then they did this weird thing where they all sat on each other and wanted me to be the person sitting on top of all of them, lol. I don’t know why. Today I went to the 6th grade at the local elementary school and taught about Christmas in America. Then we played a bunch of games with Christmas related themes. After which a few girls stayed after and were talking to me, asking questions, and one girl kept trying to tickle me so a small war broke out. And on my way out of the school a little 1st or 2nd grader (I don’t remember what grade she actually was in) saw me, put her hand up to her mouth in surprise, and ran all excitedly toward me to give me a high five. And once she slapped my hand she just kept running, lol. Little weirdo, lol. Anyway, those are my stories of my small bonding times with some of my students. I hope more come, and that I’m not too foreign or intimidating for more students to talk to me. Gotta love it.

eNgLiSh

There are a few things that are kind of weird that I’ve seen since being here, the most recent of which happened to be something written on a shirt I saw at school the other day. I was in an elementary school, watching Candice teach when I saw a jacket that a little girl wearing. On the back it said, “Playboy makes me happy” and had the playboy bunny next to it. What is that about? I’ve read some pretty crazy things on people’s shirts, with weird English that doesn’t make sense, and sometimes even swear words written all over the shirts. I wonder if they even bother to get the things proof read by someone who speaks English at all before sending it to be printed for all the world to read on the back on some small child. I admit that the grammatically incorrect attempts at English are sometimes highly amusing, but in terms of swear words, since there aren’t really swear words in Japanese, I understand that it might be harder for them to grasp what is actually being conveyed, but still, find someone to look at it who would understand first.

Pictures of stuff from the past month

Discovered this display of scarecrows when we went to go get some delicious and oddly flavored ice cream (seaweed, salt, black sesame, chesnut, etc).

This is another time we went to go get ice cream.

These next ones are of the park that Marisa and I took a look at in town.  

That huge slide is a slide of death.  It has rollers that you slide down and by the time you reach the end there your bum is burning.

Ya, they have little go-karts for the kiddies, lol.

These next are of the TV station and from the time Marisa and I were interviewed there.

Then there was Halloween in Kochi.  We went to a couple parties, but I didn’t want to carry my phone around so I didn’t get many pictures.

And although it’s blurry, this is when we went to the onsen.  It was hidden in this remote part of the mountains. 

And this is my office and then my desk.  And last is the picture that was put in the town pamphlet that I just got today advertising my dance class that starts on the 20th.

Festival Dancing

ひさしぶり皆さん、ごめんなさい！ It’s been a while everyone, Sorry! This past weekend on both Saturday and Sunday there was a festival in town. It was pretty fun. I had signed up to dance in it with the Town Hall’s team. I had the 3 nights in a row at 45 mins each before Saturday to learn the dance. Apparently they had done this same dance for the past 3 years so most people already knew it, lol. It was broken up into 3 or 4 parts and the first part was done to the song “We Will Rock You” by Queen. Except it was some of the guys from town performing it and I guess they were asking Marisa how to pronounce some of the words in it. Lol. Good stuff. Anyway, I finally got the dance down, and then when the festival started, I discovered that it was actually a competition with other groups that had formed in the town. There were a couple elementary schools and some other groups that put stuff together.     At the end, this one elementary school, which I go to teach at, won first and my team won second. When they presented the prize they had us three foreigners go up and claim it and the man that was waving the flag gave me the flag to take up there with me, lol. So it was pretty cool. Oh, and they had the camera people out there filming again so the camera was in my face a lot while dancing I’m guessing because I am the foreigner that stands out the most, and then again when they presented the award, and then again they tried interviewing us after the dancing and awards were given. All I said was it was fun, lol. I’m going to try and catch it on TV with my webcamera so we’ll see how that goes.    It’ll be on TV from the 12^th to the 19^th. Then I tried my hand at the fish game again, but I lost. I had the fish in my little paper hoop, but it broke. The guy gave me 2 fish anyway, which I still have. I wonder when they will die. Not that I am hoping they will by any means. But they are probably the lamest fish in existence, sitting at the bottom of the bowl all day long so I wonder if something is wrong with them. I have to tap the bowl to get them to swim around and see if they are alive still. I hesitate to name them because these fish won at games usually only last a day or 2 at the most before dying because of their traumatic lives. Also, these fish had it especially bad because they were being man-handled in the bag by a little 1 year old who seemed fascinated by them, and then had a rather bumpy journey back on my bike, as well as going through the trauma of getting swished around and caught before even encountering me.    Anyway, I visited a bunch of stalls set up and bought too much food that I couldn’t finish, and helped out at Marisa’s Hawaii booth for the international club where I was told, as I have been told many times before, that I have a small face. Still don’t know whether it’s a compliment, observation, or what. Also, for some reason, a bunch of people think I’m Russian. They think Russians are petit with blonde hair, which does not seem to be the case in my mind, but oh well. Nordic I would think more than Russian. Oh, and I was also told I was like a fairy, and some older guy came to the booth a little drunk and bought the rest of the phone charms, and then started asking how much it was for me. Don’t know whether I should have been insulted or not, as I don’t think he meant it in a demeaning way, lol, but he put down a little pile of money which I think was around the equivalent of 30-40 dollars, lol. Overall it was lots of fun.

The Dangerous Harry Potter Game

The last time I went to the Kindergarten, we did a huge Halloween party. We explained the origin of Halloween and the Jack-o-lantern (I even told part of the story in Japanese from memory – yay for me!) and what Americans did on Halloween and then the kids said trick or treat and got some candy, and we made paper jack-o-lanterns. It was a success. Here are some pictures of that.

Today however, I went to the Kindergarten alone since Marisa is at a conference in Tokyo. All yesterday I had planned out doing this Harry Potter game. It was going to be awesome. First I would have about 14 cards with pictures of different animals on them, and would teach the kids the name of the animals in English. Then we would play charades (what they call the Gesture Game) with the different animals so the kids could get familiar with acting like the different animals because they would need to do that for the Harry Potter game which would be next. So then, the kids would have rolled up newspaper wands and 1/3 of them would be Voldemorts (sorry for mentioning his name), and the other 2/3 would be Harry Potters. The Harry Potters would get 10 seconds to run away, and then the Voldemorts would chase them down. If a Voldemort caught a Harry Potter, then they would wave their wand and say an animal at the Harry Potter who would then have to act like that animal. The only way that Harry Potter could be human again would be if another human Harry Potter came around and waved their wand at them and said the animal that they were acting like to break the spell. And then game would go on. What actually happened at the kindergarten was craziness. The first two parts of teaching the names of the animals and charades was fine, although the kids kept shouting Harry Potter and waving their wands sporadically. When it came to playing the game, because it was raining we had to keep it inside, which meant cramped space with 40 kindergarteners running around shouting and brandishing newspaper wands. The English names were forgotten almost instantly as kids just tried to run as fast as they could and hit as many other people as possible with their wands, lol. As the game went on, they got the idea more and you could see more and more kids acting like certain animals (gorillas, snakes, rabbits, frogs, etc), but they were using the Japanese names for the animals instead of the English. That’s ok though. They are only Kindergarteners. It’s mostly just supposed to be fun for them anyway. So in all the chaos, lots of things happened. Kids were slamming into each other, being thrown onto the floor, tripping over each other, knocking heads, etc. I even saw them corner an adult with a baby in the corner of the room and start attacking her with their wands shouting animals. At one point a kid ran up to me in the middle with a bloody hand raised. He started shouting at me asking if there was really blood on his face and if I could see it. He had a little stream of blood coming down and when he showed me his head I could see a little hole there where it looks like he was somehow punctured. Luckily he seemed in control of himself and wasn’t crying but more in shock. So I led him out of the fray and one of the teachers took him aside. Apparently he had been hiding under the piano and when he went to get out he stood up too early and hit his head on the corner of it. So then he sat in the corner with his wand and a towel held to his head. Poor kid. Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and other than the bloody kid and one that hit his head on someone else and started crying, there were no other injuries. Anyway, then I went and played with the kids for a half hour and had lunch with them and played this playground game that I kind of got the idea of after having played it outside with the kids last month. One kid is sitting with their head down and the others hold hands and circle him singing some song. Then they stop and start pushing the kid on the floor around and ask him a question at which time the kid answers saying they are going home. Everyone asks why and he says its dinner time and they ask what he’s having, and he answers with something like curry and everyone says “thank goodness” (except in Japanese of course) and starts again. But if the kid answers with “snake,” then everyone runs away and the kid has to catch someone. (or something like that). So we played that game after which the kids saw fit to climb all over me like monkeys and have me drag them around. Then I returned to the office where I am now. Pretty crazy.

For You Michael Jackson Fans..

So this is totally unrelated to my stay in Japan, but I was thoroughly impressed and had to share. So if you love Michael's music, you have to watch this:



Thanks be to Kevin who showed me this.

Things to Do

When talking with co-workers Marisa and I said that we wanted to join some groups or classes around town and found out that they have some people that get together to play basketball every Monday night for a couple hours. So I was invited to go watch and play with them. I didn’t have inside gym shoes (required to play in there) so I just went and watched the other week. I finally found out a place where there are young single people. The team was made up of single guys in their 20s or early 30s. There used to be girls, but I guess they all got married and pregnant, so they don’t play anymore. That’s too bad. So I watched, and it looked like it would be playing with a group of guys like I used to up in Seattle or Portland, but this time around I wouldn’t know anyone, and I wouldn’t even be able to really get to know them, because I can’t really talk to them. Plus, I think I make them nervous being a foreigner with blonde hair and such. So it might be awkward if I go play. And I haven’t played in a really long time, so I wouldn’t even be very good. Right now I’m still debating on whether to actually play with them. They said I could just show up when I wanted so I don’t have to like join their team, so we will see.

On another note, my request to start a folk dance class was approved. It'll be starting on November 20th. I wouldn’t be nervous except for the fact that again, I can’t really speak freely about things because I don’t know the language that well, but I will just have to see how it goes. I’m really excited for it. I have no idea how many people will show, if any, but whatever. I hope it will be fun for the people that do come. There is going to be an ad going out in the next town newsletter, so we’ll see how many people respond. Here are some links to watch the dances I will be teaching that I found online for anyone wondering:

D’Hammerschmiedsg’selln - Germany
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=D%E2%80%99Hammerschmiedsg%E2%80%99selln&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

Doudlebska Polka - Czech Republic
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=D%E2%80%99Hammerschmiedsg%E2%80%99selln&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#q=Doudlebska+Polka&hl=en&emb=0

Cumberland Square - England
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5061717781478339729&ei=G6HBSsakMYzOwgOOi8DaCQ&q=Cumberland+Square+&hl=en

Canadian Barn Dance - Scotland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cReYv8NfNpw

Road to the Isles - Scotland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8atNdDA3oQ0

La Bastringue - Canada
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7kXysxLtpA

Rustemul - Romania
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkcWd4uJFQ8

Korobushka - Russia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luv6fbUr1qw

Bucimis - Bulgaria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzScEd5wy4A

Mona’s Festvals - Sweden
no vids found.

Armenian Miserlou - Armenia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKHxZfU32o

Salty Dog Rag - USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6zSOC9FZTs

My Little Lizard Window Friend and the Flies

So almost every night I get a little scare when I walk into my kitchen. I walk past the window and out of the corner of my eye I see what looks like a hand pressed against the window and of course I jump and sometimes even let out a little scream/shout only to discover that it is a lizard’s underside. I don’t know why he chooses my kitchen window as his post every night, but no matter how often I see him, he continually makes me jump in small moments of fright more often than I would like.

And speaking of my kitchen, I have had a problem with little mini beasts flying around because of fruit peels and such. Trash is collected every Monday and Thursday morning, so Fruit peels just sit in a little bag in my sink and no matter how tight I tie the bag, the little devils are there. They are too small to be killed by the fly swatter because they just go through the little holes, and bug spray seems to have little or no effect. The first time I encountered them, after trying everything I could think of, I resorted to using my vacuum to suck them out of the air, and probably looked ridiculous to anyone who might have seen me thorugh my window, waving around the vacuum in the air, but that’s what I did. It wasn’t the most efficient way to go about it because it seems the vacuum only sucks like right where the hole is, so I had to sneak up on the little things and slowly draw them in, but I had to be rid of them. The whole operation was too troublesome. Yesterday though, I didn’t have my kitchen light on so the only light was from the sliding doors in my front room, and I discovered that they had migrated over to the sliding doors, and I simply had to open the doors and they all flew out. It was amazing. And Marisa told me her trick is to put her fruit peels and such in a bag in the freezer until trash day, and the little flies stay away. What a relief.

Typhoon and Freddy Dream

So there was a typhoon that came through the other day. It was raining for a couple days before it actually hit, and the day before it was getting pretty windy. Apparently it wasn’t very big, but it was the strongest Kochi has seen in 21 years. The winds were at 60km/second. People around town were calling the office about it and meetings were being held in schools about it and all that, but everything turned out alright. I closed my storm shutters and went to sleep around 11pm, with the typhoon having been predicted to hit around midnight. However, I didn’t wake up for anything, so how bad it really was I don’t know, but when I went outside to head to work that morning it was sunny with a few white clouds in the blue skies. The only evidence that the typhoon had even been through was the wet ground and remaining winds. Well, that and the fact that 2 of the umbrellas that I’ve already broken were strewn about in front of my house, lol.

Anyway, so that morning, because I had shut my metal storm shutters on the outside of my windows, it was pitch black when I woke up. I actually woke up from a scary dream and that whole morning while showering and getting ready I was all jumpy and scared. For those of you that have heard some of my dreams, you know that they can get kind of crazy and intense. It was a dream about Freddy Krueger. I don’t even know how his horror films go normally since I don’t think I’ve even seen one, but it was kind of like The Ring in a way. This particular dream was kind of disturbing and scary so you don't have to read it, but it went like this:

The idea in the dream was that if you watched one of his movies then he would come after you. After having watched his movie you would get a warning and start bleeding because of something, like cutting yourself or being hit with something. And then online you would get a riddle about how you were going to die and if you figured it out you could escape being killed by him. So it was night and my friend had a guy over and they were going to watch a movie. I told them that they absolutely couldn’t watch a Freddy Krueger movie and then I went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night and walked into the front room to find the only light being the snowy screen of the TV and my friend and the guy asleep on the couch. I walked up to the DVD player and found the Freddy Kruger DVD in there and knew they had watched the movie. Then they woke up and I was frantic about them having watched the movie. Because I was in the house, even though I didn’t actually watch the movie, I was now implicated. Then something flew across the room and hit my friend in the head and she started bleeding. That was the first sign. She was the first target. So we got online and sure enough, there was a riddle waiting for her. It had the numbers 20,000 and 8,000 repeated twice in it (that’s all I remember of the riddle). We were sitting on the couch trying to solve it and thinking of how much time we actually had until he struck, and then I had a flashback to something. It was like I had been involved in the same situation before but was the only one to survive the last time. I saw flashes of blood, people dead, and how they died, and I thought, it’s happening again. And then I woke up.

So anyway, I was thoroughly freaked at home that morning, but once I left the house I was fine.

School

First of all. There are a few things that I have discovered about students in Japan. First, every elementary student knows how to ride a unicycle. Second, . And third, . Anyway, school so far as been good. Well a few weeks ago I did have this class with a bunch of wapaku boys (misbehaving). They called it the ichiban mondai class (number one problem class) for all of Shimanto. They were a little crazy to say the least. Paper airplanes and balls flying all over the place, shouted conversations across the room, jumping out of seats, etc. The poor teacher, she would go to one area to try and settle them down and the rest of the class would be going crazy. Then this teacher came in and just smacked a kid on the head and told him to be quiet. In another class this one teacher grabbed a kids arm and started yanking him out of his desk really hard and then tried to fornce him to sit on the floor in the same fashion. In other words, discipline in schools here is way different than in America. I'm still working out exactly what the rules are because it seems to be the opposite for most of the time, where the teachers just ignore the problem children and continue with class. Perhaps it was just becuase I was a guest that they were cracking down. I don't know. Anyway, in Japan, kids all have the right to be in the classroom, so if they are really bad, they don't get sent out or to the principal's office but are just ignored for the most part. I hear carious stories from different ALTs of bizarre situations like this. For example, this one ALT was in class when all of a sudden a student just took out scissors and started repeatedly stabbing the wall, but the teacher just kept teaching. Discipline is done outside of class time I guess. And it's not the parent's responsibility, but the teachers's. Even if the student gets in trouble outside the calssroom and school, like with the police, they go to the school first, not the parents. The school and teachers are responsible for a large part of raising children. Therefore, teachers are a lot more respected here and it's harder to become a teacher. Pretty different huh? Anyway, I guess I will end that there. Till next post.

TV Interview

So. I was interviewed for TV the other day with Marisa. In retrospect it was fun to do, but while actually doing it I felt like a big idiot. And I dread tomorrow. That's when it first airs. Then it will continue to air for a week...14 times a day. And it doesn't stop there, they'll continue to show it periodically for some time to come. They still show interviews of people who have already left Japan. Oh gosh. Everyone is going to watch it. My students, the parents, the other teachers, my coworkers, neighbors, etc. How can they not see it when it's on 14 times a day and there are only like 4 channels to watch?! Oh gosh. I don't think I'll be able to show my face anywhere. It was all in Japanese so just for that reason I'll sound weird, and then my answers were kind of ridiculous as well. I said I was from Palmdale and it was hot there but Shimanto was more humid, and that I started getting interested in Japan when I was younger becuase my brother watched Dragonball Z and played video games and I watched and played with him. Yes, Kevin, I mentioned you (but not by name), and now they will all know what a nerd I am. Sigh. And I was talking all stilted because I was nervous. Luckily I was barely saved from 1 major embarassment. After asking what I thought of Shimanto (I said it was a lively town) the lady had skipped a question and asked the one after, which was to ask the people of Shimanto if we had a request for them, and since I was so nervous, I wasn't listening to the lady's questions, but Marisa answered first and I realized she was looking at the camera making her request. So I didn't give an answer to a different question. Ugh. That would have been the worst. Anyway, I just said that I wasn't good at Japanese yet, so please take care of me. The guy who drove us to the interview said Marisa sounded fine but he could tell I was nervous. Lol. What does that mean??!! Lol. I almost don't want to watch it. But I will. I have to. I have to find out what all the other people in this town will be seeing. Plus, we had to smile like the whole time and the muscles on my face were protesting in the form of spasms. Maybe they will edit it so I don't look so unfortunate, but I don't know if they can work such miracles. They have only had cable since April afterall. Well, I guess that is all. Pray for me people. Lol. I have to face these people who will have watched it tomorrow.