Monday, December 20, 2010

Thousand layers of awesome


When I first came over to Japan, I vowed that I was going to have a kick ass christmas, since I wasn't planning on going home (too expensive). Sadly, through a series of unfortunate events, my Christmas plans have pretty much changed into staying in Okayama in order to avoid having to spend Christmas (and New Years) alone. Cause let's face it, that would suck. A lot.

So, because many people who aren't me are heading off or heading home for the holidays, we decided to throw an early christmas party and have a kind of white elephant esque gift exchange. We also decided we were going to make dessert after having dinner somewhere in the city. Our dessert of the evening was crepes, but, not just any old crepe. We were planning on doing a mille crepe.

It's actually kind of funny how I initially was like OMG LET'S DO A MILLE CREPE. It started when my sister introduced me to this anime about kids who wanted to become patisseres or however you spell it. They wanted to be bakers of sweets. Granted, these are middle schooler's we're talking about, but the show, called Yumeiro Patissere, is super super cute. And the food looks really good. You know me. I can't pass up a good anime about food. :)

But one of the first things the main character (Ichigo) has to make (which she has no idea how to do) is a crepe - the mille crepe, to be specific. I saw it and went "OH HELL YES." :D I haven't been able to stop watching it now hahaha.

Now I really want to make another one. But I want to do it in a slightly... less OMG WHIPPED CREAM EVERYWHERE kind of way. I was looking at pictures of them online, and they actually don't put any fruit in between the layers (of which there are about twenty). That explains why it looked so much nicer...

They also use much thinner layers of whipped cream. Like really spartan kind of, just enough to coat it. I think we used a little bit too much this time around, but hey, it was our first time and we were just having fun with it. :) I got really good at making nice round crepes too lol.

But yeah! Imagine the things you could do with it. I want to try doing chocolate crepes! I imagine you just have to add chocolate to the batter and mix well? I'm hoping that's the case. Either way, I'm super excited!

I swear though, crepes are like, the new tortilla because they're way easy to make and I don't have to go all the way in to the import store to buy tortillas, they're less messy, and they're cheaper. Crepes it is! I have this sinking feeling that they're not really healthy though... lol.

I was reading somewhere online that some people put ratatouille in the savory crepes; it sounds intriguing and I want to try it sometime. I predict that this year will be the year of the crepe experimentation!

It's funny, because as a kid, I always wanted to eat crepes when we went out, but they were these like, forbidden restaurant foods because they weren't really like a real meal, they were more like a snack sometimes or dessert, and they were usually pretty expensive because they seemed all fancy like.

Now, my crepes aren't near as perfect as the kind they make at the stands, but they are quite delicious and I don't need to shell out 500 yen for one. Hell, I can shell out 500 yen and get like... 8 of them lol. And damn do they make good substitutes for cheese quesadillas. I'm actually kind of liking Japanese cheese now, because it tastes fantastic on these crepes.

I need more suggestions of what to put in it... I'm thinking maybe bananas and chocolate for the next ones. I've also been meaning to try doing the just plain sugar and cinnamon (kind of like lefsa) with a thin coating of butter just to hold the cinnasugar on. I have very high hopes for that.

In fact, I ate dinner tonight early. I might just have to try making those as a reward for taking out all my cardboard even though my kitchen is super clean right now.

Man, being an adult rocks sometimes. :)

Friday, December 17, 2010

BINGO!



So, in America, when someone mentions Bingo, a couple of things come to mind (for me at least. One, Japanese-American (JA) Bingo around Christmas every year because my family always goes to it. It's fun. There's mass bingo. We get those cards that have the sliding windows. Two, following that, Bingo at like, every JA obon festival in California. I swear to god. At some point in time, they all have a bingo tournament. Three, old people who play bingo. I've always thought of it as a JA game and an old person's game.

Needless to say, I was very surprised when I found it here in Japan, and even more surprised when I found out that it was super popular. I don't quite understand the entire fascination with it, to be honest. I was never much of a bingo fan. I've always hated having to stand up and say bingo. I mean, the prize is nice and all, but I hate drawing attention to myself like that.

In Japan, Bingo is played a little differently. The BINGO is only the name - you don't actually use it for calling out the numbers, which I thought was really strange at first. The number pickers are super high tech too lol. No wooden balls here... the one we had tonight played music and everything. It even had its own mic.

Oh, let me rewind a little bit. Tonight was my bonenkai - year end party - for my Niimi schools. The main event was bingo. Main event. Whaaaaaaaaat? Also, the first week i was in japan, I saw a huge crowd turn out for bingo.... at the grocery store/Polka. That was like, what, seriously?!

Another big difference is the significance Japanese people give to "ricchi" or basically, when you only need one more to win. They get so excited for that! I mean, we do too, but they'll announce it to everyone even more so than when we did it. Or than I remember it at least.

But yeah. The cards most places use are like the ones above - you just punch the holes out of the numbers. Very good Japanese counting practice.


Picture from flickr.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Catch up


Wow, so it's been almost a month since the last time I made a post. Oopsie. What can I say, I got slammed pretty hard in November between work and NaNoWriMo.

A quick word on that one, I did finish. :) Hooray! Or well, it's more accurate to say that I hit 50K words. My story is nowhere near finished. I intend on finishing it though. Sometime. Hopefully soon, otherwise it'll never get done. :< I won't go on too long about this, because I get a little embarrassed when I talk about it actually lol. But suffice it to say, it's about a girl who goes to Japan to work, is tricked into becoming part of the yokai world, and must find a way to return back to being just a regular ol' mortal again. Oh, and her yokai power is that her food is so goddamn tasty that people have reactions. Not in the yakitate sense (though kinda) but more like the ratatouille sense. Her food is transformative, shall we say? :)

And then work hit. Oh work. The kids have had their exams and I've been busy making the listening sections for the tests with garageband. It's really really funny. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I've had to record (for several teachers now) a dialogue with two people speaking (or one time, three). And the teacher apologized for making me have to do that and so on, since when we demo'd the dialogue in class, I basically just pitched my voice really really high for the woman's part, and kept it regular for the man's part. The class thought that was highly amusing. I did too. I think I had to stop at one point cause I was laughing so hard.

I didn't want to do this for the oral exam though. What if the kids missed a part cause they were laughing too hard? Their problem, not mine? Well, thanks to the magic of garageband, I was actually just able to slide the pitch bar down for the man's part, and either leave my voice or pitch it higher for the other part(s). The end result? I showed the clip to the first teacher, and she asked who my friend was. I had to tell her several times that no, all those voices were me. Her reaction was incredibly hilarious to watch because she was so shocked, though I think my face only gave away a bemused look. The same thing happened with all the other teachers who heard the clip. Love them all to death. I think they think I'm a computer genius now, which is so far from the truth. Hell. My computer (my baby) is let's see now... gonna turn four pretty soon. :) Which doesn't really seem like that long when I look at the number, but seems really old when I look at the other computers around here. I'm just praying that it carries me through the JET program. Note to self, save up money so you can buy a new computer when you go back.

I'm thinking of doing a desktop/iPad combo. X3 That way I can still do stuff outside, like type (cause I mean, I have a purse yeah, I'll just carry that around with my keyboard when I feel like typing, or, I'll eventually, like the iPhone, learn how to type fast on the iPad) but I have the gorgeous and beautiful desktop waiting for me back at home. And then, I can be in bed and surf and stuff, and then actually do work at the table or desk or whatever. Save me some money too. Though I do admit, I type a hell of a lot in bed and work from places that aren't normally a desk. I don't actually have a desk here in Japan. So the thought of being tethered to one place is slightly intimidating. But that's what the iPad is for... right? Hopefully, I'm hedging my bets that one will come out sometime in the spring and that it'll be a gazillion times better than the current one. While part of me wants to wait for at least the third gen to come out, (like the 3Gs for the iPhone) part of me wants it now. Part of me says, well, you should have just bought the first one and then upgraded to the third one. But if I get the second and fourth...

That's assuming I'll have enough money for the fourth one. But I digress. Back to work.

The picture, above, is related to the oral exams I've been giving. We've been doing a "make a monster" activity which I really like, cause it lets the kids be creative and it's pretty fun. It works on their listening too. I basically read off body parts (though so far I've only done the face) while they draw them. We've had the class do it as a whole group activity too. Fun times, and some of them are really freaking awesome. :) Woo creativity!

But yeah, unfortunately, with exams, comes grading exams. That's sucked. A lot. I spent the whole day grading on wednesday. I thought my mind was going to explode.

So far though, November was really quiet. I didn't really go anywhere. Or well, I went places that were close to home. I spent a lot of time in Okayama. I went to Naoshima. I cooked. Kinda.

I made crepes! :D Jeana gave me a recipe that's waaay super easy and doesn't require too much. Mostly flour, water, butter, and... salt. Was that it? Probably. It's really simple. So I've been making crepes, and they've kind of become my new "tortilla". I just cook them until they're a little crispy, and add cheese (the Japanese cheese, which I have formerly complained about how much it sucks, is actually quiet good for this) and TADA, cheese crepe. Crispy. :D I had some tunafish too, and I added a little lettuce and mmm, tastiness ensued.

I also bought a new kotatsu. It's super warm. It got rather cold, rather quickly. Like, inside my bedroom is 6 C right now. That's almost freezing. My fingers are so cold... :< I need to order those stupid gloves already and figure out how to pay for them. >_O

I also need to send money back home. -_-; Craaaaaaap I should do that before I spend it all lol.

What else... I've bought winter clothes. SO many winter clothes. And a kitchen island! HOORAY! I have yet to put it together though. That's today's project. I know I'm not going to be living here for a long time, but two years is a while, yeah? It wasn't too expensive either. And I'm starting to get really annoyed at having to sit at my table to chop stuff, cause the tables are tooooooo freaking short to be able to cut properly at without your back starting to hurt.

I can't believe the year end is coming. Holy crap.

I won't be going home for christmas. :< I didn't know I could take off that much time for work... though now that I think about it, the time I can take off is pretty much the time after the 1st, which is when everyone goes back to school. So what would I even do at home anyways?

I might try to see if I can make it out to okinawa for that week or something. That'd be super fun. :) But I might be lazy lol.

I am planning on doing a couple of shorter trips over the winter vacation though. :) That'll be fun I hope!

And February is looking like it's going to be pretty busy... and full of awesome. :D

So that's all for now. I'm trying to kick my butt into writing christmas letters and postcards cause like, yeah, those need to happen. I've been soooo bad at that. So I'm going to try and be better about it today.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Chinese Food



I don't care what they say, I will never ever EVER think of ramen as Chinese food. It's a completely, 100% Japanese thing, even if the noodles and the chashu did come over from China thousands of years ago. Seriously. All my students tell me that ramen is Chinese and I'm always like whaaaaaaat noooooo.

It's one of the things I absolutely LOVE about Japan. Handsdown. I think if I'm ever not feeling sure if I like Japan or not (and believe me, there are days when things don't go quite right), I have the feeling that if I sit down to a good bowl of ramen, all things will be better once more.

Today, I didn't feel like cooking so I gathered up my warm clothes (though I forgot my gloves - big dumb mistake I will never make again) and rode out. Originally, I had intended on visiting Chateau and having something like hambagu or omurice or something and get a bit of typing done for NaNoWriMo. I'm a little bit behind, so today was pretty much get stuff done and write day. I need to be at 25k at the end of tomorrow. And I was doing so well too...

But I digress. Chateau was closed when I got there, despite having checked it earlier to make sure there were cars and stuff. Turns out it closes at 5 (I think) on Sundays or something. Lameface. So off I went instead in search of something else to eat. Since it was pretty freaking cold, I decided that I was going to try a ramen place. There was one small place I had tried before pretty close to my house, but there was another place that some of my students actually had recommended (via a presentation).

So I figured that what the hell, why not try to find this place. I rode back towards my place on a different road, past the izakaya place I had been to before (and was also pretty good, but they didn't really do ramen). Finally, I saw it. A little red lantern with another white sign with more kanji I couldn't read. I think one of them was either the kanji for flavor or for Japanese style. 味 和. Well, I don't remember, but it was one of those two. As I rode up, I smelled something... distinctly Japanese smelling and not altogether pleasant. Kinda not so great, actually. But these kinds of things are good signs, no?

Hesitantly, I opened the door. It felt like I was intruding on someone's house. In a way, since they lived (probably) upstairs, I was. This place was super cute on the inside. Loads of knickknacks and magazines and tables and chairs crowded the small room. There was a tiny counter that looked in on an equally small kitchen. I think this place had room for maaaayyybe 16 people at most. It would be a squeeze.

I ordered chashu ramen. There was no menu. Only strips of paper with different items written on the wall above the counter.

Oh. My. God. Best. Ramen. Ever. So far, anyways. Seriously. The chashu in this was all buttery tasting and full of deliciousness. I nearly wept with joy as I ate the chashu. The ramen noodles were a little on the soft side (I prefer my pasta and most noodles a little al dente), but they were still super tasty. :) And the broth. I dunno what she put in there (other than copious amounts of pepper, for which I am thankful for) but holy wow. That stuff was amaaaaazing as well.

I will most definitely be coming here more often, especially as the weather gets colder.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four~

So ever since my mom sent me this nice medium sized thing of Lawry's season salt, I've rediscovered my love for potatoes. If you count only the foods I make (and not the foods that I've been buying for lunch, since that either comes from the convenience store or whomever the school gets their lunches for teachers through), I've probably consumed more potatoes than any other starch this week. That's a lot, considering I love rice.

Today though, I played around with making mashed potatoes (again) and gravy (again). I tried something different this time though; I tried doing a roux. (Special aside, I don't actually know how to properly pronounce 'roux' despite several Speech attempts and listening to other people say it. I keep thinking "roxx" instead of "rue." Another interesting aside, the main character for my nanowrimo story is named Rue and her special power is cooking. Coincidence? I THINK NOT. I didn't actually know this when I picked the name though. Anyways. I digress.)

Something tells me I used way way way too much butter. My gravy taaastess liiike buuuutterrrr.

Oh well, you live and you learn right? I've learned that I cannot eyeball flour and butter to be the same amount. Nope. That stuff needs to be measured.

At least the gravy is still tasty, albeit now really unhealthy and probably can clog an artery or two.

It also didn't help that the mashed potatoes I made *also* had butter in it. I made it with milk for the first time though. Hooray! They actually turned out really nicely. I thought they were too runny at first, but I guess they thickened up upon standing. In the end, I had these really damn good mashed potatoes.

In other, equally exciting news, I've finally found some type of low-fat/skim milk! I have no idea what percentage it is! All I know is that it had less calories (I think that's what they were) and most of the numbers on this carton (which is green) were lower than the numbers on the blue carton. I can drink it without feeling all sick! Hooray. :D Dairy in liquid form re-enters into my life. I'm pretty sure it's not non-fat though, but it might be 1 or 2%? Maybe? At this point, after having drank whole milk, I'll take 2% and be happy, dammit.

I should also, probably, really, go to bed. It's past midnight. I'm not really doing anything productive any more.

Tuesdays are both awesome and long. Awesome, because I get to go to kyuudo. Long, because I don't get back home until pretty much 8pm. And today, I had it in my head that by the gods, I was going to COOK. This was mostly because the meat that I got at half price (3 steak things for ~600 yen! They were kinda small though) was well, half price. I got it on monday. Usually the stickers are on there for a reason.

Yeaaaaah, I'm really hoping they didn't actually go bad. Asides from a little browning, they smelt perfectly fine (and tasted fine). I was only really a day off. ._.; They stayed in my fridge all day. For some reason, instead of thinking today was the 9th, I thought it was the 8th. I thought I had time to freeze it and everything. Nooope. Not really.

So yeah, cooking took some time. I also wanted to do laundry (though I hate doing laundry over here even more than I did back at home in the States). I also couldn't find my camera, so spent a good hour turning my house inside out (there's a pile of clothes on my futon now that I have to clear before I can sleep. Sigh.) before I found it in my Halloween bag. And I was good and washed all my dishes. Didn't quite get around to putting away all my clothes... but hey, it's a start yeah? I even vacuumed a little bit.

But by the time I did everything... it was kind of past midnight. Yeaaah oops. My bad. So much for trying to go to bed early. -_-;

Maybe next time gadget... next time.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Gravy Mashed Potatoes

Hmmm... so I tried making mashed potatoes out of the need to use this bag of potatoes that's been sitting in my pantry for a while. They're milk-less and cream-less, since it was late at night and I didn't want to run down to lawsons for some milk.

You know what, they actually turned out somewhat decent. There's no picture of them, cause they look atrocious, but they're pretty tasty. Instead, I used copious and probably unhealthy amounts of butter (like, 1/4 T or something, whatever is a little less than a cm when you slice it off the chunk) plus a couple scoops of garlic butter (because I was being lazy and didn't feel like chopping up fresh garlic). And apart from not being as creamy, it was pretty decent.

Today though, I had this leftover gravy sitting in the fridge from... a while ago an thought hey, mashed potatoes and gravy here I come! So I added a little bit of water to the gravy and reheated it and nuked my potatoes again and added the two together. Very tasty.

...but then I mixed it a little bit more and the potatoes actually like... combined with the gravy into this new, much more awesome, creamier mashed potato mix. It's freaking amazing now. I was like, holy crap, I have real mashed potatoes that are garlic and gravy flavored rather than just a sad attempt at garlic mashed potatoes and gravy.

Hell yes.

It also just occurred to me that I just made my own mashed potatoes and gravy. Wow. I feel like an adult. And not just that. I didn't make it from packages or anything. I made it from scratch. Holy crap. Who have I turned into? I practically never made mashed potatoes at home. Jeana was the one who did that. If I made them, I made them from those awesome packets you get from costco and add water or milk to. Now, here I am in Japan, mashing up potatoes and using drippings for gravy. WHO IS THIS NEW PERSON AND WHERE DID JESSICA GO!?

My only hope is that when I get back to the US, the persuasive power of many restaurants and convenient pre-assembled dinners does not change me back to being lazy, and that I keep on cooking. Cause eating stuff that tastes awesome, that you like, REALLY made is an amazing feeling.

"Yeah," I can tell people now, "I made these mashed potatoes."

I don't have to add in any more that "Costco/Betty Crocker/X helped though."

...does this mean I'm turning into my mother?

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Orphanage Visit



And now for something completely not food related, I swear.

One of the things Okayama AJET does is organize visits to the local orphanage in Okayama City. It's seriously one of the most fun and mutually-beneficial things I've done, volunteering wise in my life, I think. The visit was fun for pretty much everyone, and required only us to be able to make it into Okayama. I completely forgot which day it was on, but it was some time over the weekend. Sunday. It was Sunday, October 24, the weekend before Halloween weekend. So of course, our visit was Halloween themed. One of the dudes organized a bunch of Halloween games for the kids to play and a couple of us brought things like stickers. Oh man. So many stickers.

Eventually, I will get my album of this up. The kids were really really really cute. And wow. So much energy. If that's what teaching at elementary/preschool is like, I don't think I would have the energy for that. I think we spent a good hour minimum running around. Actually, we probably spent more time on that since the first hour we were there we pretty much played several games of tag with the kids (all independent of each other. It was more like, a kid or group of kids chose you to be 'it' and you chased them). At first, a bunch of us were super shy (others dove straight in) but eventually, I think everyone was involved in at least one game of tag. And seriously. I haven't played tag since like... middle school at least, and quite possibly elementary school. I forgot how much continuous running tag requires too. I was tired after several rounds.

We also played variations of tag, including "stuck in the mud" which was hilarious simply because there were us huge adult people and these tiny kids, and it required you to dive through people's legs to unfreeze them...

Some of the larger dudes made a tunnel. I kind of shied away from unfreezing anyone lol, cause I was like, ummmmm no not happening. There was this really adorable little kid who was sitting on the sidelines and would run out and unfreeze people. Super duper cute. :)

What else did we do... let's see...

There was a game that, I swear, was exactly like sharks and minnows except for not in the pool. That was fun. So much running. So much confusion at first lol.

We played 'telephone' or 'chinese whispers' with halloween too. The second round we got all tangled up in our section, but, as we discovered, it became hard to pass on. But man. It was funny. I might have deliberately "misheard" whatever the kid sitting next to me said, especially since I knew what the word was supposed to be...

The game we ended on (and when we finally got to pass out all 209348235 stickers we had brought) was with Heads Up 7 Up. It had a different name, but I forgot what that was. I had a small girl sitting in my lap. X) I was like YAY when that happened. It felt so... maternal lol. Even though I have no sense when it comes to taking care of or really, what to do with kids. I am not a good babysitter cause I have no idea a) how to hold babies b) how to get kids to stop crying and c) what to do with crying kids. Eventually, at the end we just started handing out stickers left and right. Some kids were *literally* covered in stickers. One kid's arm was covered in stickers. It was one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

The other fun thing about the visit is I got to see a whole different side to a bunch of other people that I usually don't get to see, since whenever we hang out, generally it's not work related (or even if it is, it's not teaching). It was a more playful side to everyone, because well, most of the kids were really young (like elementary age I think; I'm bad at recognizing what age people are or what level in school they are if they're younger than high school).

That day might have been raining, but it rocked kinda hard. Like those kids are fantastic. There weren't many older kids, but there were a whoooole lot of younger, crazy, high energy, super genki little ones. It made me kind of wish I taught younger kids too. It seemed like they had fun. We had fun. I've never run that much in my life for that long hahaha.

I will most definitely be going back on the next trip.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Churros



Completely unrelated to Japan is the super tasty Mexican dessert known as the churro. Thanks to a little wiki-chain (Mister Donuts -> Fast Food restaurants Japan -> FF Restaurants USA -> Taco John’s -> Churros) I now know that churros, despite us calling them Mexican desserts, actually comes from Spain (according to wiki anyways, but the articles cites no sources). Normally, without sources I would be in a considerable amount of doubt, but I would actually guess that they came over to Latin America and the “New World” with Spanish explorers. Supposedly, churros themselves came with Portuguese explorers from China originally, stemming from the Chinese donut (aka, youtiao). Because they did not know the proper technique for making the Chinese donut, they used their own, creating the five pointed star shaped churro we all know and love. According to someone on wiki, anyways.

Another website actually says that it was invented by shepherds as a food that could be easily cooked in a pan or even over a plain fire. From there it spread to Latin America. This website supports that idea as well, since they say that frying the bread was the only way to prepare their bread since “the microwave had not been invented yet.” Um, what happened to baking bread as a method of preparation?

Actually, this would be super interesting to figure out where it really came from, mostly because I love learning about where things originated (must be the Japanese side of me) and I love food.

Interesting food for thought though, even if it doesn’t actually cite any sources.

Oh, and through a google search, churro is also, apparently, a type of sheep. And supposedly the people who make the churro are called churreros.

They actually have churros here in Japan, though I haven’t been able to find a decent one like the ones back at home. The ones here… aren’t crunchy at all. They’re this kind of soft, donut like thing that, while tasty, doesn’t have the juxtaposition of crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside like churros do. And they had a glaze; no sprinklings of sugar waiting to drop nicely onto your pants. Those were just the churros at Mister Donuts though. I have the suspicion that if I go to Disneyland, I’ll be able to find a nice proper churro.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Badger badger badger badger

MUSHROOMS MUSHROOMS

So I'm at my agricultural school in Niimi today. It's FREEZING here! I think the weather said it was like... 12-8 C. ._. I mean, that's how cold it got in San Diego at its COLDEST. I'm going to freeze, hahaha...

But I did a little bit of exploring today around the school. Guess what I found?

A PONY.

AND DUCKS. AND CHICKENS. Though these were the fluffiest chickens I've ever seen haha. I don't know if they were being raised for food or for their eggs.

But they also come around to the teachers room and sell things that they grow at our school. So far, they've come around with GIGANTIC grapes, GIGANTIC mushrooms, and today, regular sized mushrooms but for insanely low prices.

It's a shame I don't like mushrooms more.

They had a bunch of different varieties too. There were shiitake mushrooms, but also hiratake mushrooms that were this gorgeous steel blue/grey color. I wanted to buy them just for the color, but what was I going to do with a whole tray full of mushrooms?

Maybe I'll end up liking mushrooms by the time I leave here.

There are like, a billion different mushrooms they sell at the grocery store. Some of them are really really really expensive. Matsutake are generally the most expensive; some can get up to 10,000 yen (about $100). Craziness.

The kids also came around with nametake mushrooms, which were this beautiful caramel color. And, they had shiitake. Seriously, grand shame I don't like mushrooms.

Thankfully, this fascination with mushrooms has been enough to dispel this feeling of homesickness for thanksgiving holiday food. Some people would argue that it's these foods - turkey, ham, pumpkin pie, cranberry stuff - that makes up the core of what is considered 'American food'.

I'm probably one of them. Yeah, burgers are American I suppose, and garlic fries, but turkey... oh man. I miss turkey. And delis. And ham. And pumpkin pie.

I also miss driers. I think if I had to chose one thing I could have brought from home, I would have brought a drier with me. I hate having to hang dry my clothes. :< They end up all stiff, and they don't always dry super fast. Plus, I don't want to hang my clothes outside for all my students to see... so I hang them inside, where they dry more slowly. I miss warm, just out of the drier clothes. Sigh.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Dearest Sensei

Dearest sensei,

What gives? Last week you were on board with this idea of having a dialogue for Halloween. You even asked me to make a sheet and stuff, and were excited when I showed you it. But today, you came up and asked for the other worksheet I had prepared earlier, photocopied that, and then informed me that for today's lesson, we were doing the normal listening warm up and then the numbers worksheet.

Uhhh, that's not what we talked about last week.

So forgive me if I'm mildly annoyed that you did not tell me about this last week, and that you decided to switch plans last minute rather than tell me no. I don't really care that you told me last minute and decided to change plans (okay, well maybe I care a little). But the biggest reason is that you told me to do more work and prepare things, and I DID, and THEN you changed it AFTER I did all of that. Not cool dude. At least don't tell me to do things if you're planning on changing the plan last minute to something way not as fun.

Love, Jess

------------------------------------------------------------

I don't even get to give the kids candy. :< That hella sucks for them, cause my other two classes are totally getting candy. Man, I wonder if he's pissed at the kids or something to change like this.

At least I get to give the kids Halloween stickers. Lord knows I have a billion of those to get rid of.

But! I won't let this ruin my week since it's a Monday and all. I mean, I still have all week. Halloween is this weekend. Then NaNoWriMo, aka, the descent into insanity, starts.

EDIT::

Well. I am properly mortified. So it turns out, that this whole rant... was untrue. He DID want to do the Halloween thing. There was a miscommunication, where I thought he had said that we were doing the numbers worksheet first. So I didn't think we were going to talk about Halloween, so I didn't bring any of the pictures or anything. Imagine how embarrassed I felt after he said we were going to do that and I didn't have pictures. I forgot to bring the candy up with me the second time too, so I had to run down to the teachers room TWICE in one lesson. That was embarrassing.

Sooo yeah. The lesson was pretty fun, even if for half of it, I listened to a tape recorder and my sensei speak English phrases from the book.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Vending Machines



You might see these around Japan's big cities but generally the smaller city ones are more... normal? They do have a battery vending machine and beer vending machines out here. Cigarette machines are quite common. A couple of my favorites are the ice cream vending machines, and the hot riceball/french fry vending machine (somewhere near tokyo).

For the record, that last machine in the video clip is NOT a vending machine. It's an arcade game, and thus, does not count. You shouldn't have to pay money and walk away with nothing at a vending machine, called "jihanki" by the Japanese people in my area.

China, however, has a vending machine for LIVE CRAB. Buwhuuuu? What's this craziness?

There's also something I don't understand about vending machines. As you can see from above, sodas, water, and the like are somewhere around 110 yen, which is roughly a dollar by my standards. Other, more awesome drinks like tea or juice or coffee are going to run anywhere from 130 yen to 150 yen, roughly $1.30-$1.50.

Now, in the states, I would never ever pay that much money unless i was desperate. $1.50? That's a lot for a soda. Even more if it's just a mere CAN. Canned drinks should cost like... 50 cents or maybe 75. Any can that's $1.00 is a pure ripoff.

Yet here I am, in Japan, throwing down way too much money on vending machine drinks. Why? Is it the mere presence of the constant onslaught of vending machines? Is it because I'm in Japan? I have no qualms about spending 130/140 yen to get that tasty looking tea. At 150, I'm slightly hesitant, but nowhere near as hesitant as when I was in the states. I mean, even for awesome drinks like Frutopia, $1.50 made me squirm. I usually didn't buy them. Now I'm grabbing milk tea, apple tea, milk coffee at this actually quite high price, and barely thinking twice about it. When I buy a drink in the morning, it usually costs around 137-150 yen a go. That's kind of expensive.

What is with this strange spending habit of mine? o_O WHY CAN'T I CONTROL IT?! WHY MUST APPLE TEA BE SO DAMN TASTY?

Magical Stickers



Eventually, there will be pictures of not food. But today, the actual object I'm going to talk about *isn't* the meat itself, but rahter, those magical stickers that sometimes adorn the surface of the meat packages at the grocery store. Those magical stickers that look kind of like hand thingies, in case you can't read kanji, means "half." Combined with the kanji on the right, you get the magical combination known to super market shoppers as the half price off stickers. What does this mean?

See that 580 yen meat? Ignoring the yen's really strong stance against the dollar and just taking things 100 yen to 1 dollar, it's roughly $5.80 for that nice chunk of low quality meat. I don't know what kind of meat it is, and I'm not really at the point where I care right now. It's meat. I have seasoning to make it awesome. So with those stickers, I can buy not one, but TWO of these magical meats and cook one up to eat right that night. The only downside to these meats is unless you freeze them (which isn't that hard, I just hate having to plan well enough to have the meat defrost in time) they go bad relatively quickly because the *actual* reason those stickers are on there is because they're about to expire.

But hey. 2 Steak things for 580 yen? Two giant hunks of meat? Yes please.

This is why Japanese grocery stores are awesome. Half price off stickers. They also have these stickers for premade foods (generally, towards 6pm every day since those foods are perishable). Generally though, I avoid anything that has mayo. I had a very uh... unpleasant encounter. I'm pretty sure it was due to mayo being left out. Lesson learned. No mayo that has been left out for a while or unrefrigerated. No thank you.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Cheesu



I am well aware of the fact that feta cheese is not Japanese. In fact, the little package I bought it in was kind enough to proclaim in capital bold letters that this cheese came from Greece. But oh man. Oh man oh man. Feta cheese, I can say with confidence, belongs in the privileged circle of "my favorite foods." Good feta, anyways, with that nice salty sharpness. Mmm. It immediately makes the day a thousand times better.

Feta cheese, in fact, has already made its debut in my Japan life several times. Once, I bought it from the store and it was a sad sad feta. They only sell them in blocks here; I thought that was super weird. I guess I was spoiled from living in California where most of the feta I bought was already crumbled, ready to go on salads in pieces that made you want to mop the plate up with your finger.

The second time was at our fantastic cheese party. Everyone brought either an article of cheese, or something to go with cheese. It was grand. One dude brought feta cheese, and I ate them with raw tomato. Raw tomato! I used to hate that stuff. Now tonight, I just sliced up the tomato and ate it with a thin slice of feta and a little bit of salt to take away the tomato-y flavor. I've come a long way since high school, I suppose.

The third time, was an exclusive trip into the import store at the station, just to pick up a block of feta. Expensive feta. I had no idea how much it cost until I bought it yesterday. It's definitely one of those more... special things, clocking in around 950 yen (which I count as practically ten dollars). Ten bucks for a block of cheese! Damn tasty cheese, granted. But ten! Holy crap! It's probably for the better, otherwise I'd be eating this stuff every single day. I used it in my pasta salad, which has become something of a comfort food to me. It's super easy to make since they sell italian dressing, cucumbers, red onions, and pasta here, which is basically what I use for mine. Maybe some garlic. Oh, and jalepenos! They make it FANTASTIC. And feta cheese when I have it.

I also discovered in my grocery store that they in fact, have a somewhat small selection of cheeses. Most of them are that kind of gross cheese that reminds me a lot of American, or the white Japanese baking/cooking cheese that they use in dishes like gratin or doria (which is wow, amazing). But they also had parmesan. And, strangely, gouda. That was weird. And they had Philadelphia cream cheese! It made me miss home a little. And even though the Giants are playing the Phillies, I gotta hand it to Philadelphia for making kick ass cream cheese. That's about it though haha.

I also discovered that my big grocery store, Polka, stocks hershey's kisses. HELL YES BABY. They also stock an amazing amount of other foods that I thought would have been impossible to get. Like Jelly Belly jellybeans. Now THAT made me feel nostalgic. It's funny how little things like that can make your day just a little bit brighter. Finally buying chinese soupspoons also made my day much more awesome. So awesome I might even sleep in my cockroach infested room. Maybe. The more I look, the less Takahashi feels like a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. They even had things like... oreos and nice chocolate like Lindt's. I'm saving those for emergencies.

But back to cheese. However unhealthy cheese is though... it's still one of the only ways I'm still getting dairy here in Japan. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to find non-fat or skim milk. I can't drink the regular milk here since it's like... super whole. I get a little sick and nauseous, despite how it's probably all in my head. Cheese, ice cream, and yogurt. Hooray.

It's kind of amazing how many different types of cheese we've managed to develop. I think it's interesting though, that cheese isn't that popular over here in Japan, but dishes like gratin and doria are. I mean, they might not be as popular as something like omurice, but I've been seeing it all over. And that thing is practically covered in cheese. Gratin, the ones I've had here, are made with pasta. Kind of like a macaroni and cheese, pretty much. I still think of potatoes when I hear Gratin.

But doria. How to explain this. It's like someone took mac and cheese and went "hm, how can we make this better?"

Their solution?


This, my friends, is doria. Take mac and cheese made with kinda crappy Japanese white cooking cheese. Add super tasty flavored rice. Layer mac and cheese on top of it. Sprinkle more cheese on top. Bake until the cheese is all brown and tasty looking. Not only do you have a kickass awesome (super unhealthy) dish, it stays warm the entire time you eat it! The only downside to this is that it stays hot for the first like... fifteen minutes you're eating. It's like eating Korean hot pot. You go to take a bite and then realize OH SHIT IT'S HELLA HOT. OW OW OW. Worse, doria has cheese. Cheese sticks to the roof of your mouth. Hot cheese burns. I do not want to think about how many times I've burned the skin off the roof of my mouth. Too many to count.

But man, doria is pretty tasty stuff. It would be even tastier if one were to use Kraft's mac and cheese. Or home baked. Mmm... I'm going to stop thinking about that now and focus on cooking.

Monday, October 18, 2010

A Thousand Words to Explain a Picture

A master at work

I think I'm going to try something different with this blog. Maybe. Hopefully, it will make me more diligent about actually posting, and hopefully, less whiny and more interesting!

The plan: Post a picture. Explain picture in ~1000 words. Or something like that. :) It provides an elaboration on a picture that I've probably either put on facebook or in the newsletter, but has a longer version of the story to go with it. Or more complete. Or untold parts. Or something. I'm trying to make everything as... independent? from each other as possible, so hopefully, this accomplishes that and turns this blog from "jessica's wine-fest" into "hey awesome." Hopefully, it will also help me remember the smaller things that happened that day.

And now, the story.

Hiroshima, 18 September 2010
We were sitting on the curb not because our feet were tired, but rather, because it was in the shade and relatively out of the way. Our group was waiting in Hiroshima's famous peace park (which is, in fact, very peaceful), just outside the museum, for people to regroup so that everyone could go to lunch. Since we had all split up to cover the park in our own time, people were trickling back in small groups; we were waiting for two more people. Girls. British. They had chosen to do the peace museum after touring the park area.

Me? I did it first so that I could get it over and then walk around the park and contemplate. Originally, I wasn't going to go to the museum since a) I had done it already 5 and 6 years ago b) I didn't want to go a third time and c) It's really really really depressing. Somehow I managed to convince myself that this was a good idea because I was older and theoretically wiser now.

Anyways, we were waiting for these two girls, one of whom gets rather emotional over things like this so... we weren't entirely sure when she'd get out of the museum. Others were getting impatient, since it had been a while since any of us had eaten.

Finally, the majority of the people waiting decided that food was really important and split. Three of us from that group chose to wait for the other two. I mean, we're adults and everything (gasp) so it wasn't like we had to eat together for everything. Just that waiting seemed a little more polite than just up and leaving the poor girls after they walked through that depressing place.

So instead of having omurice (which is super tasty), our group went on an adventure to find this okonomiyaki area in Hiroshima that was particularly famous. We actually walked by the building without being able to find it haha. It was weird, because this was the same place I had eaten 5 or 6 years ago. I remembered it... kind of. It looked so familiar. Not in the dejavu sense, but in the "oh shit, I know I've been here before and I can remember doing these things.." sense. It was weird.

We almost didn't go to this place either, since I was in charge of picking where to eat since I had made the mistake of uttering "oh this looks familiar." I chose the place with the giant okonomiyaki sign outside of it. Or rather, building. We were so confused. No idea of what to do. There were stairs, and an elevator. The other girls took the elevator up, while Will and I actually took the stairs. Unfortunately... we kind of didn't talk to the others about where they were getting off at, so we wandered up the stairs in search of food, not knowing where they were getting off. Yeah. Poor planning on my part. BUT. We discovered that every single floor pretty much, was a cluster of okonomiyaki grills with bar seats. Freaking amazing I tell you. There had to have been at least 20 different places total in the building. We made our choice by who answered "can you do vegetarian?" since one person's a herbivore.

Our choice was a good one though. That okonomiyaki was so freaking good. It had a layer of crepe, cabbage, noodles, bacon-like pork, garlic, and mochi in it. Mmmmmmmmmmmm tastiness.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Interwebs

Soooo. It has finally come to my supervisor's attention that a) I don't have virus protection software on my personal computer any more. b) I used to have it. and c) I took it off.

I don't know why I so vehemently dislike virus protection programs on my machine. I understand why they need them for the computers at work - I mean, they're really really old, running outdated versions of IE, and they're all windows machines. Virus protection is like, the first thing you install on them.

But nobody here knows anything about my mac, and I think they treat it as some really really foreign windows machine. Which is completely reasonable and stuff. But like, yeah. Now that I have my internet set up at home... I don't need to rely on the interenet at school to accomplish the things I want to do. That actually might be more productive really. So I might actually just hold off on putting it on my personal computer, and just use it to make all the handouts and blah blah. I mean. It would be really nice if I could just use the internet (maybe I can find a way to extend my network at home... I think it ALMOST reaches the teacher's room at school). Sigh.

I wouldn't be against using the school computer if it like... you know... wasn't ages and ages old and had a good working copy of things like Word and stuff on it. Or if I could use firefox. Mmm... firefox.

On a more random note, the tshirt/vest combo I wore today happened to pretty much match another teacher's (who's a dude). I am slightly mortified.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Work as Play: Club Sports

I think I might have just extended every day that I work by another good... two hours maybe. Hooray for me! But this is the fun part of work, the part that I don't really mind asides from the getting back late and not feeling like I want to cook something because it means I'd have to wait another hour or so. Seriously, why does it take an hour to cook most things that I like to make? Sigh. Freezers are your friend...

But I think I just signed myself up to do basketbal practice at Jounan, which means that I'll be joining the basketball club on Mondays at Jounan, going down to Kyuudo at Niimi South on Tuesdays when I'm working at Niimi North, cooking club on wednesdays at T Senior high, English club and then basketball on Thursdays at Takahashi Senior high, and then on fridays, every other time when I'm at Niimi South I'm going to kyuudo when I can after English club. The other fridays, I'm stuck at kenmori until around that time ANYWAYS so I'm still getting back to Takahashi around 7pm. Helloooo restaurant meals by myself!

But yeah, good bye afternoons, hello getting home late in the evenings, all in the name of building relationships at my different schools with kids outside of class. Okay, and a little bit of personal interest as well. I think I'm going to try to get to the other clubs when I can or when I'm too tired, but yeah, we'll see how that goes. Seriously, I wish I was at some of these schools more foten just so that I could try out all the different clubs.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Spice up your life

"It makes me realize that the world is divided not between rich and poor, or male and female, or East and West, but between those who like spicy food and those who do not."
(from http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Fire-in-the-Belly)

Never a truer sentence has been spoken.

I finally got the wireless up in my house! I'M SO EXCITED AND HAPPY. Finally, I get to put this time capsule of mine to work. It's doing quite well, too. Internet is still roughly the same speed. Now I can actually lay in my bed/futon and use the internet, which is nice. I'm not bound by cables any more, unless I want to plug in my external that hosts all my pictures. I'd plug it into my time capsule, except I'd need to get another power strip then for the TV area since apparently, I'm all out of plugs. Sigh.

Oh yeah, I've put up a few pictures on facebook so far. They should be public. I'm planning on putting some up on mobileme eventually, but I've been trying to prioritize things around here. Like vacuuming. I still need to do that. I still need to put out my newsletter too; I've been bad and haven't sent the fourth one out yet, nor have I finished writing it. It's about halfway done. There's just been so much to do right now, and I haven't felt like staying at home.

One Piece is back up though! YAY. I'm so happy.

Today we went to eat parfait in Takahashi, my town. Oh my god. Holy crap. it wwas gigantic. I think it's one of the biggest foods I've seen ever in my life. Holy wow. Thirteen of us failed to finish it. I think I've had enough sweet desserts for a while, after eating that. I had 2.5 bowls, I think. Maybe 3. No more than that, I remember. Someone had 4. Holy sweet jesus.

It's funny, because I don't actually like sweet things like, that that much. I'm a savory/spicy kind of girl. I don't have that much of a sweet tooth, and I can't really eat a lot of sweet things. Savory? Sign me up please. I can pack that away. But I could never ever finish a pint of ice cream in one go, nor can I understand how people can. I like to finish things on a salty note rather than a sweet, though the sweet might taste fantastic. I don't know why. But sweet foods are really, for me, enjoyed within reason. Unlike savory, there's no sense really in stuffing yourself silly (I think anyways) (and unless said dessert is from extraordinary desserts). I'm getting to the point in my life where, when I eat sweet desserts and foods, I want something to balance it out. Tea with no sugar, just straight and black.

Oh, they gave me free tea today at Chateau. It was kinda funny, because I eat there a lot (though usually on my own) since it's the closest restaurant to me and they make a really tasty hambagu and omurice. And their curry isn't bad. But they recognized me. I think that might be why the tea was free. Plus it was not the kind of tea I was used to. It was kobocha, a type of seaweed tea. It had a very interesting taste to it, one I would have pegged as a soup rather than a tea. It was savory, with a kind of sweet taste to it. Very very... interesting. Unfortunately, it lacked the bite good ol' regular tea has to cut through all the sweetness from the ice cream and desserts.

I need to get myself a good tin of English Breakfast tea. I love that stuff. I've found that I really miss black tea, just plain black tea over here. I can only ever find it as sweetened tea, which, don't get me wrong, I love, but it's not quite the same. I can find nearly any other tea, but regular black ones like English Breakfast and earl grey are a tad harder to find. Interestingly enough, jasmine is a little more on the rare side. No awesome 1 L bottles for me. Guess that just means I have to make my own. :3

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Basuketoboru

Today has been highly productive, I think. Many things were accomplished, and I feel relatively good about things. One of the JTEs (Japanese teachers of english) is coming over to my place later to help me out with the internet. HOORAY. I'M SO HAPPY.

Plus, I have the day off tomorrow. Granted, it's a forced vacation and really, I'd rather just go to school (and play kyuudo) but oh well. Tomorrow will also be my "get stuff done" day. I have plans. Mostly housekeeping things, like getting my re-entry permit since I can visit things during daylight hours.

I also want to go back to korakuen garden. I've wanted to see it ever since Paul & Ava put up pictures and told me it was in Okayama. It's actually really really pretty, and I even bought a year pass to the gardens. I want time to go down there by myself and just relax, enjoy nature, and think. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's cool with friends, but I've always found something peaceful about gardens. Same thing with aquariums, during non-busy hours. It's just peaceful.

I had no idea I liked gardens and stuff so much haha. I mean, I know I love aquariums. I will pilgrimage to a city that has a great aquarium, just like how I'm planning on visiting the aquarium in Osaka as well as the aquarium in Okinawa. I'm really really excited for that one! X)

But gardens... as someone pointed out to me, I really like them haha. I won't quite make the trek out to find that awesome garden, but if there's one in town, there's an 80-90% chance that I will want to see it, and make the trip out to go visit it. It's weird. I don't... love flowers or grass really. But gardens are peaceful. In Panama, I even went out on an adventure to try and find the botanical gardens near Panama City. And holy crap, was that an adventure. We ended up going to this park area, hiking, finding red ants, taking a taxi out to the real botanical gardens, found out that it was more like a zoo with lots of green leafy things around it, went around and looked at the animals, saw wild monkeys, debated about taking the (supposedly dangerous) bus back, couldn't figure out when the bus was, ended up hitch hiking since we couldn't speak spanish and had no idea how to find a cab since it was kind of in the middle of nowhere, hitchhiked back to NOT panama city, ended up in the City of Knowledge, found other members of the scholar ship, and hitched a ride on the bus back with them to our ship.

Yeah that was an adventure. And an awful sentence and poor display of English. Oh well. :)

The point is, I like gardens, and some of them have given me very memorable... trips.

Oh yeah though. I got kinda sidetracked (something that is quite rare for me...). I finally got the nerves to ask if I could join the girls in practicing basketball! It took the foreign exchange student, Axel Lee (who was born in Singapore) to get me to follow him to the gym and shyly ask the girls team if I could practice with them.

Also, note to self, don't run without shoes for prolonged periods of time. It is painful. My feet sting, cause I was rebounding for them for a little bit and doing some of the drills with them. In my nice work clothes too haha. That wasn't smart. I think I'm going to have to start bringing an extra pair of shoes and change of clothes. Sigh... just when I thought things were going to get simple, I have to go and make it complicated.

I'm really excited though, because it's finally a way I can exercise. I'm horribly out of shape. Kyuudo club is also going to lend me one of their rubber bows (gomuyumi) to strengthen my arms with. Hopefully, between kyuudo and basketball, I will slowly yet surely get back into shape. I hope.

It kind of makes me think though. As JET participants, part of what sets us apart from others is that we're suppose to not only teach, but also... what's the word... propegate? Encourage? Encourage the exchange of culture between our own and Japan. That means joining clubs, because not only are we learning things, but, we also get more exposure to the students, and can start building relationships. Part of the whole cultural exchange is building relationships with Japanese people (and other foreigners!) I think. It's an important part of what we do. God my feet hurt right now. But the more that we can do, I think, and the more we can "hang out" or whatever outside of class in the clubs and stuff with our kids, the more... we're actually working.

This basically means, that unless we're staying in our houses all day, really, we're always working. Depressing thought? I'm not sure. But I mean to have fun with it. :)

That being said, I need to LEAVE WORK. X)

Frustrations

So, normally, I would feel bad about making this rant post at work. But I'm sooooooo annoyed right now.

Also, I swear, eventually, this blog will contain posts that AREN'T rants or "oops I forgot to post while I had internet."

But it's been two months almost. I've been patient. Really patient. I've been a good girl and not gotten all princess fussy. But two months. TWO MONTHS. You'd think I'd be able to be a little bit more patient at this point since I've already waited so damn long.

For some reason though, it is way harder, and way more frustrating to wait right now. They finally came to my house and got the internet connected. I thought I would be able to set it up pretty easily, since I was able to do that fine at home. But no. Japan has a F'IN' CRAZY AS SHIT Internet set up. Seriously. If anyone EVER tries to tell me that Japan is super advanced in technology so naturally everything in Japan is superfast easy to use wifi, I think I might start to giggle hysterically. It's so not. While the speeds are definitely fast, the set up, the process, and the attitude towards wifi here, ESPECIALLY in not the cities (which, asides from the sprawl that is Tokyo, Japan is probably mostly made of). I never thought I'd be able to survive this long. But a lot of the teachers and students don't have internet at home. If they do, generally internet is wired. Granted, it's blazing fast, but Japan's still tied up (bad pun yes) in wires.

It's that ARG I'M SO CLOSE feeling that's really frustrating. Unlike in the states, you don't just plug things in and they work. Or even, plug things in, determine connection, and it works. They leave you with a modem, and another box thing. This other box thing is completely foreign to me. I've never seen it. All my "hey I set up internet back in the states once" training goes out the window. I'm f'in' clueless.

So I went to bed last night a little angry.

I had this... oddly realistic dream too. Jeana was in it, as well as some family and some friends. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that I was constantly getting left behind. Like, I'd be a minute late and they'd just LEAVE. I'm sorry, but it's kinda annoying when people leave right on the dot. lol. Talk about cultural differences of time. I mean, I'm all for waiting a minute or two, but I can understand when time is of the essence and you must be exactly on time. But unless you like, warn me early about it...

I like, literally just kept missing them too. I was like, OMG JUST WAIT ONE MINUTE AND I WILL CATCH UP. I had to take a *taxi* to try and rondevous with them, and it cost me a fortune!

I think I woke up at that point.

It was raining this morning. I really need to buy a real umbrella. For all Okayama calls itself "the sunshine prefecture" sorry, you ain't got shit on San Diego. Actually, it's probably raining more often than it did in norcal too, for all I haven't been here for very long.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Apparently, I failed at getting entries up while I had free internet in Hiroshima. Oops. Everyone was pretty wiped at the end of the day, and I spent my valuable time all on... you guessed it, facebook. Stupid stalking timesucker of a website.

I'm at my school right now, the one in the mountains, and I gotta say... it might have thundered and lightninged yesterday morning, but today is absolutely gorgeous. It's crisp, cool, and beautiful. My favorite kind of weather. It reminds me a lot of the bay. <3

I got to hang out with the high schoolers today. That was pretty fun, albiet a little on the boring side. I watched them make paper. I got a gift (hooray!). We ate lunch. I didn't drink my (whole) milk. I played wataiko and zenitaiko with the kids.

Zenitaiko is actually really interesting. It's a traditional type of performance taiko, except you're not actually hitting anything. All you're hitting are the sticks you're carrying, the ground, and sometimes yourself. My palms were sooo sore after that. But they're basically sticks that have 5 yen coins on the inside so that they shake, and you smack them together and rattle them and -coolest of all- flip them. Yeah I'm all sorts of awful with that.

It's fun talking to the teachers though. I'm learning more and more japanese words every day. I probably should uh, be more enthusiastic about teaching the kids English words, but I can't help but want to learn Japanese words for things while I'm here. I feel like we're doing more of a trade; I'll teach them the English word, they teach me the Japanese one.

I didn't expect this to bug me so much, but there's this one teacher who -swear to god- is always on the laptop at school. It's kiiiinda annoying because that's the one I want to use. And she is on it every single time I have a break. It's like arrrggg can't we share? I mean, I can go on some of the other ones, but that one is the least awkward to go on. I don't know if I'm in the way for these other ones, and sometimes I feel like I'm on the wrong computer, or like, the comptuer is really really really slow.

Last night I had a house party. :) that was pretty freaking sweet, but man, was there a lot to clean up after. THankfully, my friends are awesome and helped clean up. <3 the people I know!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Hiroshima

I'm in Hiroshima! The hostel I'm staying at has free internet!

That being said, I don't know if I'm actually going to be at my hostel long enough (or be awake enough) to properly get an entry done or a newsletter done. Probably not, at the rate we're going haha.

It feels so different though. I'm turning into a country girl haha.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Homesick

Alright, I admit it, I'm a little homesick. And I mean sure, I miss people. Friends, family, food buddies. I'm well on my way through stage two right now in the Great Cycle of Culture Shock. I've learned about this cycle like... formally three times now. The Scholar Ship was probably the most thorough about it though.

In case you haven't had the talk, I mean, you probably know what culture shock is. Going into ANY new culture. And I mean any. Culture shock varies in degrees, and varies with each person of course, but it's a cycle. You have the honeymoon phase, where things are faaaaaaantastic. Most people go through this. Unlucky people don't, or have a super short one. Things are looking up.

Then comes the dreaded stage two. The most obvious part of the cycle. Things suck. Things go wrong. Things are frustrating. It's like PMSing on your period. You get tired of things. You're not as happy as you were before. Sometimes, you suck to be around.

Really though, it's like menopause. You have your good days, your bad days. No hot flashes though. Or it's like brainwaves. When you're measuring EEGs, and looking for waves, when you look at the big pattern, they look like curves and stuff. But, upon closer inspection, these hills and valleys are actually made up of smaller hills and valleys of their own. It's a rollercoaster. Just cause you're headed down doesn't mean you can't also go up for a little bit before going back down.

But anyways, I digress from what I wanted to write originally. I miss people, but most of all, I'm homesick for food.

I've been looking at pictures of food with every self intro I do, and menus, and oh my god, bacon food truck and bacon popcorn. I crave bacon popcorn. And hotdogs. Proper hotdogs. Or Costco hotdogs. I'm so hungry. Hotdogs and bacon just aren't the same over here. The bacon, while tasty, is limp. I'm a fan of crispy bacon. The hotdogs... aren't the same. Their casing is a little tough to chew through. I miss hotdogs. And garlic fries lol.

FOOOOOOOOOD. I wonder how it became to be such a big part of my life. I'm pretty sure I can say now, with certainty, that I am obsessed with food. Friends like Viv don't help either lol.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

In Shape

I might not lose weight in japan, but I sure as hell am going to be more fit by the time I leave.

And I complained about the hills in San Diego. HA.

I swear I'm always finding myself living on a hill of some kind. My house is on a giant hill. Going to the train station rocks (I can book it there in about 5 minutes if I try) but going back? 15 minutes at least, with the last half of it going all uphill.

I'm also going to have stronger leg muscles I think.

So there's that. it means every time I leave home I have to climb a hill to get back, and then I'm all gross by the time I sit down at home. Winter's going to be fantastic.

Then, in Niimi, both my schools are at least half an hour away. North campus is up a giant hill that puts Peterson Hill to shame. I swear to god, that hill never ends. You start going up and then it will plateau for a little bit... and then go up again. Tease. Then you reach the campus and you're like, HOORAY I'VE MADE IT. ...and then you have to go up another super steep hill with ALL THE STUDENTS watching from the window.

Fantastic. They're going to know me as "that sweaty foreigner."

At least the walk back is downhill, I guess. Still doesn't change the fact that it's really freaking far.

I wouldn't mind it so much, except for the fact that my train doesn't quite come in on time for me to walk there. Like, I'm late by 5-10 minutes. If I wanted to get there on time, short of buying a bike (unsure about the buses - going to check them out for my one other school where they actually want me to be on time) I need to catch the train that leaves AN HOUR EARLIER. So that I'm not ten minutes late. WTFFFF.

Unhappy Jessica is unhappy about her commute.

Whatever though, it'll get better haha. I'm sure of it.

Really, it's a nice walk. Very pretty. Just holy crap, that hill.

And the stairs. All of my classrooms are like, on the third level. And these are no small stairwells. I swear, between the stairs and the hills and the walking I'm gonna be in great physical shape. I'll make sure of it. Because walking up the stairs next to my 60 year old JTEs and panting as I walk into the classroom is undignified and mildly embarrassing.

GANBARU~

Monday, September 13, 2010

Atarashi Friends~

So, for at least a month, I hadn't seen any traces of any other foreigners in Takahashi. I had heard, from some of the JETs up north in Niimi, that there were other ALTs (assistant language teachers) from this private company called Interact. I hadn't seen anyone though.

On Sunday, I met not one, not two, but FOUR foreigners living and working in Takahashi.

I guess it's true that when they say when it rains, it pours!

It made me super happy though, because I finally have people within like... ten minutes from where I live. I don't have to take the train to the next city 30 minutes away to find people to do stuff with. I have bar buddies, so I don't have to go to bars by myself. HOORAY.

Three of the people I met were part of Interact, and they told me that there were actually three more guys (they were all guys) in various places in 'takahashi.' 'Takahashi' because the city is actually a conglomerate of smaller villages and towns that got absorbed into what is known as Takahashi. In reality, there's central Takahashi (aka downtown), the places across the river, and a whole bunch of places that are too far to reach without a car or motorcycle. It's kind of like how San Diego has the neighborhoods of La Jolla, Pacific Beach, Kearny Mesa, Ocean Beach, etc etc. They're still technically San Diego. But you need a car to get to them. The difference is, in Japan these places are more like villages, small pockets of houses and buildings nestled in the mountain foothills. But, they didn't live in Central Takahashi like I do. MOst of them are a little bit further out in the country side. And I thought I was rural... some of their schools only have 8 kids.

The even cooler thing about meeting these other ALTs is that they all had cars. Hell yes baby. It's like freshman/sophomore year of college all over again. OMG YOU HAS A CAR CAN I BE YOUR FRIEND????

Haha, seriously though, that's not why I want to be friends with these people...

I also met another girl through this company called Amnity, which is an after school English class. One of the girls I was helping at school also goes here, and gave me the number of this chick from Amnity. So I figured what the hell, I have no friends here, and sent her an email.

Turns out she's a super fun chick from hawaii. Sweet.

Oh, on a side note, I taught one of my classes to say 'that's sweet' haha. I giggled.

It was really amusing, meeting all those foreigners, because I met them all in one day. It was the day I decided to bug bomb my house, so I was killing time at the department store Polka in the 100 yen section.

That's when I heard it. Those magical words. I don't remember what they were. But, more importantly, they were in English. I feel like kind of a stalker, but I followed them through the 100 yen store and finally stopped them and asked if they lived in Takahashi.

I was practically jumping with joy when they said that they did.

The same day, I got an email from the Hawaiian chick. Saturday I guess, is the day to find foreign people.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Name change

I'm changing the name of this blog, because I think this new one is a little bit better.

It's called, The Spirit of Adventure

Is it a rip from Up? Why yes, yes it is.

But it's because I love the movie and I think it's better than Wilderness Explorer. I'm not exactly going and climbing massive cliffs and exploring lush jungles (yet haha).

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Special post from yonago!

Thanks to the internet that comes for free with this hotel, I bring you... the post from Yonago, where it's currently raining CATS AND DOGS. I mean, holy crap. It's POURING.

I hope it won't do that tomorrow... otherwise weeell, i'll have to rethink just wandering around attempting to find something to do. >.>

Tonight's been fun though. I had two dinners, on accident. I was wandering around looking for something to eat, and I stumbled into this ramen place with pretty decent ramen but better gyoza. That was tasty. And then I wanted to get this dessert I saw on the way over (and figured hey, I deserve it since it's RAINING and all) and went into the restaurant, which turned out to be an izakaya (japanese tapas bar) and then they went and got the waitress who could speak english for me and the menu in English... and I couldn't find the dessert on it and I was like uhhhhhhh and she was standing there so I just ordered tofu (which, btw, was really freaking tasty). And a chuhai since it felt um... right? Hahaha...

Chuhai is kind of like a wine cooler cocktail thing. It has chuhai in it (which is kinda like vodka) and soda and is really freaking tasty. I had white peach (which was a bright pink drink) and calpis, which was actually pretty tasty.

But I really wanted to get dessert, so I ended up eating two things of tofu, two chuhai, and dessert. Welcome to second dinner lol. I feel like a fatty. So full...

And then, the hotel I'm staying at has an onsen (really small hot spring bath) so I figured I'd go try it. It was pretty nice, and I had a whole conversation with this lady in the bathroom. My japanese still needs work though hahah.

Oh High Schoolers...

Today was my first day at Kita-kochi, which pretty much means North Campus. It's a trade school (ie, non-academic) so most of the kids aren't going to university, and will probably have very little practical use for using spanish. Kind of the same way someone who learns Spanish will find it useful if they live their whole lives out in a place like Walnut Creek or Danville or say... Ohio. Granted, English is probably a little bit more common than Spanish is in those places, but honestly, it doesn't really seem like it when I'm out here. Sure, there are words in katakana. But then again, who really knows where those words come from anyways? We have plenty of loaner words in English.

Despite the fact though, that I pretty much taught the same exact lesson (or rather, gave the same exact presentation) each class was very very very different. Today I did three classes in total. One was mixed, one was all boys, and one was all girls. The mixed one got a relatively moderate reaction; that class was alright, I didn't feel like I massively screwed up and it was relatively fun. That was the first "do you have a boyfriend" question I got since I started the q&a session at the end. They said they didn't believe me hahhaha. I think they might have even called me a liar. This, I found highly amusing. There was a girl at the end though who came up and asked me which anime I liked. She was kawaii~ :D I'm really glad she came and asked questions, since she looked a little shy.

The second class, not a single peep. That was the all girl class. I did get them to chatter a little bit when I showed them Snorlax and talked about Disney. Just a little. Small victory for Jessica!

The last class though. Oh man. That was actually kind of fun. I had to be loud (which for me, is no small feat) because this was the class full of boys, and they kept coming in late... but they had pretty good responses during the presentation and actually came up with questions. Granted, the questions they came up with...

The first was the "do you have a boyfriend" to which I responded LOLNO. Then they asked how old I was. Then they asked which guy in the class was my type. LOL. So I looked very thoughtful. And then I looked at the boys. And then I smiled and said, "Secret."

Oh first year high school boys. You make me giggle. I hope they don't actually think I like one of them. That might be bad. But after that, the one very talkative boy (who was asking most of the questions) got up and did this little swagger walk and flipped his hair before sitting back down to laughs. And then got up again. And swaggered his way over to me, put out his hand, and said "NICE TO MEET YOU."

I think I nearly died laughing. Especially when he went back to his seat, and promptly slid out of it because the chair had slidden back or something. That had the whole class laughing.

All in all, not that bad. Despite doing "first days" at the other schools, I still get a little nervous when it's in front of a new group of 40 faces. Lord help me, I don't know how I'm going to remember their name.

Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of boys, one of the other JETs came over to visit Takahashi's castle on the weekend, and me, stupid me, thinking that the school would be deserted (like it would be in America) decided to walk through it so I could show him the school (which is rather charming).

Yeaaaaah. There were so many students there. I think some of them I taught. I'm pretty sure some of them were in classes I taught. The first thing that went through my mind? "OH CRAP."

In a couple of seconds, they confirmed my fears, and undid what hard work I was trying to do at staying under the gossip-boy-talk radar.

"BOYFRIEND?!?!?!?!!?"

Both of us yelled out "NO" almost immediately, though I think I was a bit quicker than he was at firmly denying it. The quicker you deny it, the faster they get over it and stop right?

Silly me. I have younger siblings. I should know better.

"LOVER?!?!?!?!?!" was what followed. I think I nearly died of embarrassment. Needless to say, we did not go that way on the way back.

At least it makes a good story, I guess?

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Today I had to give my speech to the students and teachers from my base school, the school I've been hanging out and bumming internet off of since I came here. So like, these teachers KNOW me. And these kids have seen me. I live right next to the school.

So what did I do? I practiced. I even had it written down and practiced from that. Then what did I do? I IMPROVED HALF OF THE SPEECH. Seriously, major mind blank right in the middle. I think I rambled and said dumb things. I think I was too quiet.

It's not like this was the first time I've spoken in front of a large crowd of students, but it was the first time I had already stood in the classroom in front of a good quarter of them, perhaps, or had seen elsewhere.

Yeah way to botch it Jess. The other English teachers said it was really good, but I'm not sure if any of the students actually figured out what I was saying. Maybe. Hopefully? I had originally planned on doing it in Japanese and English (more like English with brief amounts of Japanese here and there) but the kencho-sensei said pretty much everything I was going to. So yeaaah. Oops. That's what prompted the whole improving thing.

Ahhhh well.

Afterwards, I had no class, but instead spent time making posters about myself lol. Seriously. There are like... four or five posters with my pictures on them. BTW, Jeana, your picture is there, large, front, and center lol. The one with the duck. :D They think it's cute haha.

I swear though, it was more work than being up in front of the class room almost haha. I'm SO TIRED. And hungry. Two posters were posters of FOOD. Not my idea, actually. Suga-sensei's. So hungry because of it.

I also made a 25 minute video of pictures and short videos of me and friends and family lol. I didn't think it was possible to go on for so long about me.

This also prompted cleaning out my computer, because I'm desperate for more space. Seriously, I don't know what's eating up all this space. I cleared out two or three gigs worth just from deleting old mail and attachments from Finder (not entirely sure if that'll screw up something else but I have my backups...) and deleting program supports of programs I'd already trashed. Woo. I'm sure there's a bunch more in iTunes, especially since I downloaded a billion different podcasts haha. I think I have 5 gigs or something there. o_O I kindddd of want a new computer haha, but not until I leave JET. My next large purchase, I think, will be an external hard drive. That, I need.

Seriously though, where is all the space on my computer going? >_<

In other news, I've been cooking a lot at home. I think being stuck out here in Japan has made me want to cook more, to have foods that are a little more familiar to me since - lets face it - food is a central part of my life. What did I bring from home in addition to pictures? The family cook book (half of which I cannot use, due to lack of oven or lack of ingredients).

Which reminds me. If anyone has recipes for things that are cooked with basic ingredients (not things like Lawry's season salt - I'm planning on getting my hands on those soon!), rice cooker recipes, or microwave/stovetop recipes, I WOULD LOVE THEM. Seriously. Anything. I'm so down for trying to cook new things. Hell. I'm even making tortillas out here. So send them recipes my way and I will love you forever~ :D

Monday, August 30, 2010

Koi

...are among the small group of things in Japan that are larger, rather than smaller than their counterparts in the US. We have a little pond at school with some massive koi there. They have to be like, the length of my arm or longer, at least. MASSIVE.

Also on this list:
- spiders
- butterflies
- most bugs in general
- cockroaches
- public transportation
- trees

On the most definitely smaller in Japan list:
- portions
- cars
- streets
- drinks
- water cups at restaurants
- ice cubes <3
- living spaces
- clothing
- ovens (if they exist at all)
- stoves
- toilets
- height of tables, etc

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Niimi

So I teach primarily in two different cities: Niimi and Takahashi, about half an hour away by train. In Niimi I teach at Niimi North, Niimi South (both high schools), and kenkou no mori (a special needs school). Today was my first day actually going to Niimi North by myself and - I kid you not - my directions on how to get here were "well, there are going to be tons of students walking to school so just follow them."

Needless to say, I was slightly apprehensive. Instead of taking the hella early train, which gets in right before 7 am and leaves somewhere around 6:30, I took the later train, which gets in just after 8 and leaves around 7:30, so that I would have plenty of students to follow. Naturally, it takes half an hour to walk to school, which ends in a giant uphill climb. I was not only late, but also sweaty when I got into the teacher's room since the meeting had started right at 8:30 and I was a couple of minutes late. >_< First day on the job and already, I'm late.

Lame. D:

But I guess I might turn into a morning person with this stupid commute I have to make haha... Especially if I start taking the 6:30 train. I might have to just bite the bullet and take that godforsaken early train and use the extra time to buy breakfast and lunch for later.

It's just so early though. I mean, I had to wake up this morning at 6 am - and that was early. Normally for Takahashi, I wake up at 7. To catch that train, I'd have to wake at 5. I shudder to think of it. That essentially means that I would be going to sleep no later than 11 pm. ._. yeah... fmylife haha. I mean, it's not the most horrible of commutes but jesus is it hot right now.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

KABI KIRRAAAA

Yesterday, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to ride home with two brooms just chillin and hanging out of my basket. But for some reason, the mood to clean hit yesterday and I found a bottle of this stuff called kabi kiraa (mold killer) that had been recommended to me by another JET for cleaning mold.

So I changed into my cleaning gear once I got home and attacked the shower, which, regretfully, I have no pictures of prior to the attack. Literally, the ceiling around the tiny room was COVERED with spots that looked like it was or had been mold spots. All over. Not subject to being rubbed off either; I tried.

But I sprayed it with this magical stuff and WOW. Wow. My walls are white again. Like seriously. It's pretty amazing cause of how awesome it looks. I had to close the door to the shower room because I was spraying above the door, and was also using water to spray the top stuff (since I wasn't sure if I was supposed to rinse or drench in water or what...). It turned into a virtual sauna in there. I was definitely sweating enough for it to be.

It's so clean though~

I'm so happy about it. I used the whole bottle of cleaner though, and it is probably not the best for one's health. Oh well. My bathroom is clean. It smells an awful lot like chlorine, so in essence, my bathroom smells like a swimming pool. But it's clean!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Food club

There's a FOOD CLUB here! OMG~ I'm so excited! :D :D :D :D I am slightly worried though, that it will conflict with the English Club, which is my priority club since really, I'm here for teaching English and so on and so forth. Plus Suga sensei is the main one on that.

Also on the note of food, I need to really start bringing my lunch more often. Or I should. Cause I'm spending a good 500 yen every day on buying lunch at school which, I suppose, isn't too bad but still. I feel bad about buying my lunch all the time. One of my super-pred (since I'm assuming it wasn't Andrew) left me a bento box buuut I think I'm going to throw that away. I wish I knew where there was like, a goodwill or something here.

That being said though, the food that we can order through school is pretty tasty. Your standard range of foods: bento boxes (which I don't care for very much) yakimeshi (fried rice), curry, yakisoba/udon, udon... but I'm sure I'll get tired of it eventually. It's just that it's way too hot to cook right now. And bento boxes are small. Like seirously. The teachers next to me all pretty much bring their lunches and they're so tiny! I'm like, I would need to eat FIVE of those to not feel hungry. Maybe when it cools down, I will attempt to bring my lunch to school every so often.

It's been super hot lately, to add to the misery that is muggy humid weather. I don't hate much but this is just awful. That, and heat attracts bugs. Yesterday, on top of the excruciating humidity, the temperature was 37 C, which is about 98 F. 98 F is hot on it's own but then you add in the fact that you feel like you're being smothered by some intangible yet tangible thing out there every time you step outside... Oh and the sweat. It just doesn't stop. It's disgusting. I live in fear that someone will try to shake my hand (gotta love bowing) or touch my arm or shoulder or back or something (doesn't matter where) and they'll be all "EW GROSS IT'S ALL WET."

Yay humidity.

One Week

So I'm finally starting to work, and I'm not entirely sure that having my laptop at work is the best idea. Probably not, since my ability to get distracted is liiike really really high. I like to think of it as multitasking but - who am I kidding - it's probably detracting from my work. And I really want to do well at this job. I might have to forcefully disconnect myself from the internet while I'm at work haha... unless I'm just using it to look up pictures or something.

Even then, I've noticed that I get distracted really easily. Like somehow I stumbled on an article about "Emerging Adulthood" that's SUPER interesting, but I told myself to save it for later in the day for home, when I need something to read. Maybe, in the absence of books, I will read articles instead. Haha, I feel super nerdy thinking about that. But I mean, it makes sense. Kinda.

I've also been downloading podcasts through iTunes to listen to while I'm at home since, whenever I'm in my air conditioned sanctuary, I don't have access to the TV or dvd player. So I need something else to fill my time, and I really like listening to some o the podcasts. If anyone has a suggestion for a good one, I would love to hear it. Maybe I'll check out iTunes U and do a bit of learning as well. I should really see if they have any Japanese language ones... that would actually be helpful haha.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Mr. Moo Cow

I bought a fantastic pillow at the mall the other day. We ended up at the mall in Kurashiki because the Kinoshita Circus (like the one from Yakitate! Lols) had completely sold out. I still want to go, but hopefully it will be cooler...

But anyways, this pillow I bought is shaped like an adorable cow, and I'm normally not a big cow person. So it's pretty freaking awesome and adorable. It even has a little pouch where you can put one of those cold packs so that you have a cold pillow! Sweeet.

Maybe there will be pictures, if I ever get the internet at home. I feel kind of guilty for using the computer here, but I really don't know what I am going to do at home other than sit there, type, and watch movies.

I need like, a life or something.

Oh wait, I actually have movies I want to watch! HOORAY. lol.

But like seriously, it is way way too hot here to explore or anything. Last night, I forgot that I had set my aircon on the timer (what a dumb idea) and fell asleep super early (before 10pm). Guess who woke up at 1 am sweating? ME. :D Yaaay. Yeah, not doing that again. I'd rather pay an expensive bill and have to use blankets than sweat while I sleep. No thank you.

I am praying for a long autumn and spring haha.

As far as my desk goes, today I pretttyyy much went through it and organized stuff, sorted things, and worked on the speech I have to give in front of my coworkers tomorrow. Nerrrvous!

Maybe I should take the train somewhere haha. It's only 4pm, so if I go to the next city up, that's only half an hour. At least it would give me something to do. Maybe I should rethink about living closer to the train station haha.

But yeah. I should go home eventually. Or figure out if I can practice with the basketball people haha.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Paper Shredder

Seriously, this thing is super fun to use. And I have a lot of paper to shred. My desk -literally- has things from 2003 and later. Holy wow.

Today was my first really official day here, working, and I am definitely still learning things. At least, today, I got my official schedule on when I am supposed to be working where. At least, I know the days (but not the times for the other schools).

Twice a week, I am at my base school, Takahashi Senior High. Wednesday and Thursday, to be precise. Two schools, Niimi (North) and Takahashi Jounan I visit once a week, on Tuesday and Monday respectively. Two other schools, I visit every other week: Niimi (south) and Kenkounomori.

Takahashi Senior High and Takahashi Jounan are both in Takahashi, and Niimi (North) & (South) are both in the city north of me on the train line, Niimi. It's like, half an hour away or so. The other school... well, my pred said it is in the middle of nowhere. I get to take a bus to get there.

Already, I have a bunch of things to do, like, actual work haha. This is kind of weird... it feels like I am back at school (which, I am) but this time, I am on the other side. I actually have to plan and remember stuff. Time to ramp up the remembering game I guess. I have to make a speech in Japanese on the 19th... in Japanese! They said they would help me out with it. I think I was supposed to prepare something over the holiday, but with everything going on, I kind of forgot. Seriously, I need to figure out a good system for this now that I am not connected 24/7 with my iPhone.

Maybe I should have waited after all.

But I want to figure out how to live without it. Surely, it can not only be done, but done well. I will figure out a way. Mobileme made things waaaay tooooo easy lol. I guess I could use google calendar since really, it does the same things as mobileme. I suppose. Since I can't even access it.

I also have to make a decision whether or not to stay at the place where I am right now. Like, it does need some fixing up, but really, the place is growing on me. I'm willing to give it a good cleaning and see how it holds up and all. My other option is to see if I can find a good cheap studio that will rent to me for not very much near the station. That makes it a pain to come to takahashi, but that means it will be much easier to go to Niimi since I will need to go by train there.