safely in the Philippines. :) Expect updates... sometime hopefully soon, as soon as I finish applying to grad school!

Ahhhhhhhhh I leave for the philippines TODAY. THIS MORNING. AH.

I haven't slept yet.

Christmas was fun.

I'm kind of sad I'm going to miss the Japanese New Year with my family. Last year was a lot of fun. My Japanese got sooo much better with my relatives too. I should go visit them again haha.

...I have so many relatives I "should" visit. Sigh. Don't get me wrong, I want to. It's just finding the time to, when getting up to Tokyo is kinda expensive in the first place. :x

Happy holidays and mexican fun!

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!

I'm home for Christmas, but only for two more days. Then it's off to the Philippines for me, to visit one of my good friends from my study abroad. :D Hopefully I'll get the chance to update (I've been meaning to while I'm home, but yeah, we've seen how that goes... though, I do intend to get a new years post up!).

A quick word on Christmas in Japanland, since I spent last year there and did a bunch of Christmas lessons this year. I was really proud of my students; they all answered false to the question of "Do Americans eat Christmas Cake?" since that's one of the stereotypes/traditions in Japan. Christmas cake, and KFC. Last year everyone was really surprised that we actually did... neither.

I did manage to blow their minds with a couple of facts. Namely: a) Santa lives in the North Pole b) the red nose reindeer's name is Rudolph (the song in Japanese only sings about an anonymous red nosed reindeer) and c) Santa has 9 reindeer including Rudolph.

I think my new hobby is surprising Japanese people/blowing their minds ohohohoho. It's actually quite fun.

Today, one of my students made my morning when I logged in to facebook and found a happy christmas message. :) I was like, awwww. Yay. Warm fuzzy feelings.

Time to go stuff myself with breakfast casserole and glorious bacon and potatoes. OMMMMMMMMNNNNOOOMM. Real bacon! CRISPYYY.

Like usual, my uncle is very late and "breakfast" has turned into brunch since it's already 11 am. That's one of the traditions in my family; Christmas breakfast with the family at my parent's house. Usually (though not always) my mom and dad's siblings come over. This year is a little smaller, since we're missing two aunties and their spouses/families.

I guess I should go down and be like... social or something hahaha. Since this is what I came home for, after all! This and my friend's wedding. And driers. And Mexican food. OH. I should mention. While I was home, my family took me to Mi Pueblo, the Mexican supermarket. Oh my god. Mind = blown. IT'S AMAZING. THEY HAVE GIANT BARRELS OF HOT PEPPERS AND GUAVA AND ALL SORTS OF AMAZING THINGS AND THEY HAVE AGUA FRESCA THERE AND LIKE A HOT FOODS SECTION THAT MAKES BURRITOS AND TACOS AND ALL SORTS OF OTHER AMAZING MEXICAN FOODS AND IT'S LIKE SO FREAKING AMAZING BECAUSE I COULD PROBABLY LIVE THERE AND THEY EVEN HAVE AN OVEN SO I WOULD LIKE NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE THE PLACE CAUSE I COULD JUST COOK THERE AND I WOULD GET SO FREAKING FAT BECAUSE THEY ALSO HAVE A BAKERY SECTION AND THEY HAVE THIS AMAZING LOOKING FLAN AND TART AND I GUESS THEY HAVE OTHER THINGS TOO LIKE STRAWBERRY CROISSANTS BUT THEY LOOK MORE LIKE DANISHES AND THEN DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE MEAT SECTION IT LOOKED AMAZING AND THEY HAD SAUSAGES AND CHORIZO AND THEN THEY HAD A WHOLE SALSA SECTION THAT GAVE YOU FREE SAMPLES AND IT WAS SO TASTY AND THEIR CHIPS ARE HELLA GOOD AND THEN WE FOUND TAPATIO FLAVORED DORITOS AND RUFFLES AND I WAS LIKE OMFG OMFG HAVE I REALLY FOUND HEAVEN BECAUSE DAMN THIS IS KINDA AMAZING BUT THEN I GOT DISTRACTED BY THE MEXICAN CANDIES AND THOSE WERE KINDA COOL BUT DID I MENTION THE SPICE SECTION AND HOW AWESOME IT IS AND HOW THEY SELL WHOLE CHILIS AND DRIED CHILIS AND OMFG THEY ACTUALLY SELL STALKS OF SUGAR CANE LIKE IN THE GROCERY MARKET JUST CHILLIN THERE NEXT TO THE GUAVA AND THE PEPPERS IN THE SHELLS AND STUFF JUST LIKE GIANT SUGAR CANES AND THEY ALSO SELL MASA AND THEIR TORTILLAS WERE GOOD AND OH GOD THE AL PASTOR STUFF WAS FREAKING AMAZING THOUGH IT SHAMES ME THAT I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS BEFORE IT WAS LIKE WUTTT IT'S PINEAPPLE MARINATED PORK OMFG TASTYYYY AND REAL AGUA FRESCA NOT JUST HORACHA AND JAMAICA AND TAMARIND BUT ALSO MELON AND STRAWBERRY AND IT WAS SO AMAZING AND OH GOD WHY HAVE I NOT GONE THIS PLACE BEFORE ESPECIALLY SINCE MY BROTHER SAID THERE WAS ONE IN SAN DIEGO CLEARLY I FAIL.

Haha, that was longer than I intended it to be.

TLDR; Mi Pueblo is a Mexican supermarket that's effin' amazing and kind of like my personal heaven.

Hope you have/had a fantastic christmas where ever you are!

Wedding Ceremony 結婚式

Today I had the honor of attending one of my college friend's weddings. She was getting married to one of my friends from high school, which is still kind of weird for me. The wedding was beautiful (and felt kinda short, actually, but you won't hear ME complaining about that), the bride gorgeous, the groom handsome. They're really cute together.

It reminded me of a post I had been meaning to write, about marriages. I've spoken to my JTEs several times about this, actually. Or well, one JTE in particular. This year, he sits two seats down from me in the first year section of the staff room at my base school, so it's easier to talk to him (last year, he sat in the third year section, which is pretty much on the opposite side of the room). We talk about a lot of different things, like alcohol, students, English/Japanese grammar, and cultural differences. Since he recently got married, he was telling me also a little bit about how Japanese weddings work, which, as it turns out, is a little different from the workings of an American or Chinese wedding.

Firstly, you don't give gifts. There's no gift registry, no wrapping stuff, no buying things for the new couple. You give them cash instead. And not just like one hundred dollars or however much you would have bought a gift for them for. Oh no. My teacher was telling me you give them a few hundred dollars plus, at least, depending on how close you are. I think gifts can also be average of like, 500 or 600 dollars or something high like that. Japanese weddings, to my understanding, also don't balloon up to epic attendances, as some weddings with large families have the tendency to do (I'm pretty sure mine will be one of them, if I ever have one).

Part of the reason, I think, is due to the fact that the bride and groom usually are the ones to foot the bill for everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. Not just the reception and ceremony and food and stuff, but also the cost of flying/train-ing/transporting their guests out as well as their lodgings. CRAZY. The huge gift makes a little bit more sense.

Also, the dresses. Women usually buy a wedding dress for the ceremony, as well as a different dress for the reception. And not any cheapo dress. Oh no. It's of the same caliber as the wedding dress, from what I heard. Or sometimes they'll do the ceremony in Japanese style, with the kimono and everything, and then have a western style dress for the reception or something. Either way. They're spending loads of money on a dress they will wear once, at most twice. Perhaps it's because they don't have prom to do that on. Who knows.

I'm glad I won't be socially obligated to do that. My extended family on my mom's side alone is around 50-60 people, since that's how many people we cram into our house/will be crammed into our house the day after christmas. I told my students this and they were all like "NO FREAKING WAY" and "YOUR HOUSE IS HUGE" My dad's side also has a lot of people. And that's not even counting friends.

Thankfully, that's not something I'll need to worry about for a long time.

*

Woah, random, but I hear someone snoring through the wall. I'm not sure who it is, but wow. Wow. It's either my brother, my grandpa, or (unlikely) my grandma.

Also, I think I might die a little when I go back to okayama and it's FREEZING COLD. Being at home is making me spoiled. It was 60 degrees today, and sunny. I was able to wear just a shirt as long as I wasn't sitting in one place for a long time. Woaaaaaah.

I've missed California weather. :D

christmastime

I'm still having a hard time believing that I'm in Osaka and am flying out of Japan back to home for a bit (and Christmas) before spending new years with my friend Maxine in the Philippines. It just feels so... surreal. I've finally gotten excited about going back (for the longest time, I wasn't. I'm still kind of like, aww, I miss Takahashi.). And what am I excited for?

Driers.

Man, I feel old saying that.

You know what else I'm excited for?

Elevators everywhere. Now I really feel old. But seriously, two of the five stations I was at today had no escalator or elevator, meaning I had to haul my suitcase up and down a flight of stairs. While I try to go by the golden rule of "don't pack what you can't carry" it's still a giant pain in the rear.

*

I'm actually kind of sad I don't have more time at my schools. Today we were doing christmas lessons in all but one class (we watched Marmaduke in that class instead, which actually wasn't too bad). I wore reindeer ears! They're little clip ons I bought from the dollar store, and they're friggin' adorable. Oh man.

Today was also a little stressful due to the ridiculous procrastination ability I have; I was still packing this morning and afternoon. Plus during 7th period, I went with my JTE to go buy stuff for English club, which was actually happening at my house. I suppose it's good, because my living room was pretty clean for that and was left in an even cleaner state.

Japanese people cleaning = no joke. My students... woahhhh. I mean, my version of clean was like, make sure the dead bug gets swept up, make sure there are no horrible stains or huge crumbs lying around, pick up the house, make sure you can see the majority of the table...

My kids managed to outclass me. Sigh. They came in and the first years, bless their sweet hearts, had nothing to do so they asked where the broom was and they started to sweep around my table and stuff. Every parent's dream - getting your kids to do their own cleaning. I suppose that's what you get when your culture has institutionalized cleaning in education, and doesn't actually have janitors to clean up after you at school. And then they wiped down my table. I felt kinda ashamed. My mother would probably kill me.

But I had thought it was clean with it you know... being picked up and all. Sigh.

Despite the huge amount of stress it added, I'm glad we had English club at my house. I made frosting from powdered sugar (thanks Jessi for the tip!), milk, and vanilla. It turned out pretty good! We used the frosting with graham crackers and the students went about making a gingerbread house with the zillion different candies I had bought for them. It was a lot of fun! I think (I hope) they enjoyed themselves. Sadly, there was no time to eat them, so they put the gingerbread house in the International Room (where I hope many people see it and go, "oh wow, English club is AWESOME I want to join!"

Hopefully they'll eat it soon though. Dunno how long that stuff lasts.

*

Speaking of clubs - I absolutely love my cooking club members. Yesterday I was helping a student out with speech contest practice (pronunciations, stresses, etc) and it took much longer than I expected, cutting in to my club activity time. I don't mind though, because I like doing these kinds of things. I mean, it's essentially what we were paid to come over here to do, so usually I'm more than happy to help students out with that.

But alas, by the time we finished, it was already like... 5:30, so they had finished making their food. As we walked by, the students saw me, flagged me down, and told me that they had left mine on my desk. What sweet girls! I got to my desk in the staff room and indeed, there was a little.

so much love to the students

ONE APP DOWN

New goal for the new year: don't fall asleep under kotatsu as much!

EDIT: this never ended up getting posted for some reason, so I'm backdating this one :)

Midyear Workshops

December feels like it's moving way too fast.

In about five days, I'll be back in California for my friend's wedding, as well as for Christmas. It would be a lie to say I wasn't excited...

...but at the same time I'm like "OH GOD NOT READY TO LEAVE JAPAN YET."

This past week (and by week, I mean wednesday, thursday, and friday) we had our midyear seminar (or, to go by the new name, "ALT skill development conference"). It was three days of seeing a lot of people I haven't seen in a while, and it was kinda weird actually seeing so many foreigners for three straight days in a row and hanging out with people three days in a row. I mean, that kind of stuff just doesn't happen very often. Usually I'll see people on the weekends at best. One of my friends was kind enough to put me and another girl with a 1.5 hour commute up in her house for the past few days (since we went to Kobe the day after - more on that later!).

At midyear, I was selected to be one of the speakers (an honor, really, as much as I complain about how much work and stress it caused hahaha) for a topic about "Team Teaching Positively." It was only given to the senior high school JETs, which was less than half of the overall JETs, which was nice. Everyone's Japanese Teacher of English (JTEs) was there as well, since our teachers attended the conference for the first two days, and my workshop was given on the first day as the last workshop.

I was really surprised that it went off quite well, since I felt a little under prepared for giving the workshop since I was constantly glancing at my notes since I hadn't the time to memorize the general outline of the presentation. All the feedback that I got from everyone else was positive (though some small part of me can't help but wonder if they're just being polite and not criticizing my presentation) and during the workshop itself, when we divided into pairs to make mock-lesson plans, groups were actually pretty enthusiastic and actually wanted MORE time to work on their things and needed MORE time during the group work. We were actually over our time by about twenty minutes. Twenty! But people wanted more time to share stuff, and thankfully the workshop before ours ran really really short. I'm taking that though, as a sign that people at least didn't think the workshop was boring, and that (hopefully) they got something out of it. And possibly even liked or enjoyed it. I know I thought it went pretty well. Hooray! Even our Coordinator of International Relations, who joined in as an ALT because we were one person short.

Super props to my JTE though, since she was giving the workshop with me! I mean, it's hard enough getting up there and speak in front of a bunch of your peers in your native tongue... but she did it all in English. I'm super proud of her. :D I really enjoy working with that JTE, and she's nothing but supportive of me, so I'm really really lucky that she works with me. Thankfully, I've had little to no problems working with her and planning the lessons. Like really, she's one of the best JTEs I've had.

This brings me to the next thing I want to talk about. Well, rant, really. I'm still not happy about it. The first workshop, the one before mine, was supposed to be about Problems with Team Teaching. In theory, we were notified at least two weeks in advance, since we had to turn an outline of our workshop in to the prefectural board of education by November 25th, while the seminar itself wasn't happening until the 9th.

I don't understand then, how the presenter managed to talk about absolutely NOTHING RELATED TO TEAM TEACHING. I honestly couldn't tell you what the point of her presentation was. The only things I got out of it were: Different grade levels have really similar interests but different things they're worried about; Use pop culture in the classroom; the opposite gender is on JHS people's minds; my group was really not creative and really kind of Gold/Green groups (aka, had really strong personalities and had to Make Lists First and Use Bullet Points before we could even THINK about drawing pictures); If You Use Pop Culture For Lessons Things Will Probably Be More Interesting. I guess I should elaborate. For the workshop, we were split into groups by trying to find the animal we were given without talking (save for animal cries, but I got a kangaroo so I just looked for everyone else who was jumping). Then we were told to "use our imaginations" to draw a student from X grade (ours was 3rd year senior high school - they ranged from 1st year Junior High to 3rd year senior). This took the entire time, along with doing a presentation and her small conclusion at the end of the workshop.

Yeah. Nothing to do with team teaching AT ALL. In fact, her JTE pretty much introduced himself AND THEN STOOD TO THE SIDE THE WHOLE TIME AND DIDN'T SPEAK FOR THE REST OF IT.

I guess I'm kind of annoyed because I know I put a lot of effort into making my workshop. I put effort into creating it and making sure my JTE could share part of the presentation since it was a presentation about team teaching. We didn't get any feedback from the BoE... but seriously, how did this girl's presentation even get through?! How did this girl become an ALT if she can't even give a workshop that's on topic?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. There was also a mix up of time; she thought that she had gone over in time or something, because she apologized at the end. So perhaps she got the workshops mixed up? Maybe she was given very little notice to make this workshop? Maybe there was miscommunication about the topic and the time?

Either way though, even if there was short notice and communication failure, I still think it's not that hard to make a workshop that's at LEAST on topic. Even if she thought her workshop was about I-don't-know-what-the-hell, and she didn't get the schedule from the prefecture (which she should have) she should have seen on the day of that her workshop was going to be on "Problems with Team Teaching" and panicked and either changed her workshop or at least said something before her presentation about the change of topics.

Hell, I would have been willing to come up with a freaking workshop over lunch and I'm willing to bet it still would have been better.

I think I'm also annoyed/angry because that workshop had real potential to actually be useful. I was looking forward to talking about problems with team teaching, as well as solutions to said problems. Like how to approach your JTE about being used as a tape recorder. What JTEs think is the best way to solve the lack-of-time-to-talk-to-you problem. The not-being-used-in-the-classroom problem. Or I don't know, SOMETHING useful.

I am disappoint. D: But I guess at least my workshop went well-ish, and the people at the JHS/Elementary seminars heard workshops on the right topic.

The rest of it was alright. There were some good workshops, but there were also some bad. One talked about "Self-Access Learning" which is basically a pretty good way to go about teaching a language to students who have a high level of motivation and provides a framework for doing self study. It encourages the use of materials the student finds interesting and the teacher is there to guide the students by offering ways to evaluate learning, strategies, and material sources. It would work really well with students who choose to take a language, or at a university setting. But for a bunch of students who are required to take English? No. It would end up with a bunch of students who aren't doing anything but pretending to study. Maybe. And he was telling us that we should implement this kind of study, and asked us where we thought we could do something like that. Us high school teachers were lucky, since we at least have English Clubs/English Speaking Societies, but at JHS and Elementary? Or at Technical high schools? Fat chance. It's not a realistic expectation, so that workshop was not helpful at all since we couldn't really use anything he talked about. Shame, because there was another workshop that should have been two hours instead of this one.

The speaker was also using really academic language to give the workshop, which would have been alright if he were only talking to native speakers of English (aka, us ALTs). However, the JTEs were also in that workshop, and there were some teachers whose English wasn't super strong; academic English was far too advanced for them. I guess it was probably a good thing that my other JTE didn't come with me, because I'm pretty sure that would have shattered her confidence in speaking English. Having watched Tale of Genji today in Japanese and having understood only when they say things like "wake up" or "goodbye" or "good night,"my Japanese confidence got pretty shattered as well.

Guess I'll have to work on that. Sigh.

Ahhh I'm leaving too soon! NEED MORE TIME.

Brain = 'asploded

The JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) was today. Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Basically, the only day I really properly studied for it was yesterday, where I spent the majority of my day indoors in my pajamas studying or working on finishing my application.

Two applications down, lots more to go. Sigh. The next is due on the 15th, so I have a small breather. I need to open up my other applications though.

I got my ass kicked (again) by the JLPT. The grammar and reading section... was just wow. I don't remember it being that hard last time. Last time I took it, I finished the grammar and reading with time to spare, but this time... I'm not sure what happened. I kept zoning out during it, and I don't actually remember that part of the test. It's like one big giant black hole in my memory. After that test... oh man. It had felt like someone had kicked me in the intellectual balls.

The listening section wasn't so bad though. I'm so thankful that we ended the JLPT with that instead of grammar, cause it was a bit of an ego/mental capacity boost. Have you ever had your brain just shut down when you're reading too much that you can't understand? Yeaaaaah that happened in the middle test.

It was a little frustrating though because there were hella people cheating who weren't being punished at all. They would have their test books open, and in a test like this, time is very very precious. The proctors kept waffling on giving them yellow cards, so a lot of people got away with looking at the questions, to my annoyance.

Afterwards, to celebrate (and/or drown our woes) we went to the new mall and the buffet place there that had steak (!) and also a chocolate fountain (!!!!). Oh god, chocolate fountain. <3 I only dipped bananas though... but they were amazing. It made me miss Sixth College a little, since our college has an annual chocolate festival, where student fees are put towards excellent use and free chocolate and chocolate fountains.

I think I set a new record for the number of mikan (clementines/tangerines) eaten in 24 hours. Because oh man. I ate so many. When I study I can't help but munch on something while I study and usually I chew gum... but I haven't really found any gum that I like here in Japan.

This week is midyear seminar! I need to give a presentation for it. Ahhhhhh....

And then two weeks from last friday, I come back to California! WEEEEEE. I'm excited.

On a related note, the topic of recontracting came up. Seeing as how I'm applying to graduate schools this year, I'm probably not going to recontract, but it made me think. If I don't get in to graduate schools, would I still want to stay another year?

Who knows.

Ahhh I'm almost done with this wave of applications. Finally.

I was going to sleep instead of type, but today stuff happened that I want to remember, so sleep will have to wait a little linger.

Today I super failed at riding my bike. I was going down the start of the hill, and just after I gained enough momentum to be going rather fast, I decided to put the finger cover of my gloves on. Normally this is fine but today for some reason I must have clipped my handlebars because before I knew it the handbag was turning and then I was flying forward in the air with one of those 'ohhhh craaaaap' expressions on my face.

Amazingly, I managed to come out of the whole thing with my bike mostly intact and only a hole in my gloves and a couple of bruises. At least I'm hoping they're all just bruises. I landed pretty hard on my knee (there's a part of my kneecap I can't feel) but people think at worst it's a torn ligament. Kneeing, squatting, even getting into my futon hurts though. Oh, so does lying on my stomach.

A couple things made my day better though. First I saw a baby duckie on the way to work. It was sooo cute!

Second, during cleaning time one of my students wrote that he was happy Because I was cleaning with them. I didn't have the heart to correct the usage of Because. I did teach them to spell my name since they had written it in katakana, bless them. That made my day. He also said my voice was nice when i was singing today lol. And after students kept going "OH, JESHIKA" from the hall whenever they passed the room, he was like "you're popular at Niimi!" and i asked him why and he said because I was interesting. I'm sure he meant that as a compliment lol. but I was like aw, what a nice kid. I should learn his name. It made me sad I don't go there more often.

My exchange diary student also gave me these bead animal things. I'm really sad the diary with her is ending though. Sigh. Guess I need to find a new victim. :D

But yeah that was today. It was raining so I made dumpling soup. I forgot how much I like soups.
My application is almost done though, I just need to wake up, edit it, and then submit it in. Weeeeee!

So much pain. X_x

Pajamas be damned

"...I'm only going to the store to pick up some eggs so I won't really run into my students... Right?"

That's what I thought anyways. I was making wonton today and I needed an egg, but forgot I didn't have any. I had already changed into my pajama pants (they're red and black flannel) and I really didn't want to change just to run out. So what did I do? I put on my jacket and went out in my flannel pants. Thankfully, I didn't run into anyone on my short trip.

I did find a really small grocery store about half the distance from my house as the normal small grocery store in the covered mall. Unfortunately it's at the bottom of the hill and across the canal but oh we'll, it's still closer than essentially biking tot the station. The old guy running the store was really nice too, as was the old woodman. She gave me an orange. I thought I was supposed to take it back but apparently, I was supposed to peel it and eat it there since when I failed to peel it, she took it from me and peeled it for me and have it back to me. She was super nice though, like one of those stereotypical hunchbacked old Japanese ladies.

The tangerine (clementines are the same thing as tangerines... Right?) was really sweet and then the old obachan lady told me that one of the tangerines had mold on it so that one was bad. But she specified and said that because it was white mold it was bad to eat. Black mold was also bad. But apparently, if your tangerine grows blue mold (or green mold... the Japanese is unclear) it means it's a really good time to eat it.

Not so sure how much I believe that.

I'll try to post something about English camp sometime, but right now I need to focus on my applications.
I sent one off today (to Hawaii via EMS which is pretty. Much the equivalent of both rush service and guaranteed delivery/registered mail I think). So now all that app needs is my letters of rec (and possibly my study abroad... But I really hope they don't request that).

Next up is Berkeley's app, hooray. But for this everything is going to be online so that's way less of a headache.

What time is it?

It's kotatsu time. Winter time. Ugh it's friggin cold time.

Busy time. I'm afraid I won't be able to complete the one entry per day challenge (lord knows I've slipped lots already, but the point was to get around every day... I guess...). But yesterday was a holiday, tomorrow and the day after are English camp, I've had to work on my presentation for mid-year seminar, get my applications done for grad school (one is due in a week... ACK) and on TOP of that, study for the Japanese proficiency test.

Oh, and I've developed a rather bad cough. Coughing kind of hurts right now. I'm half tempted to run down to the grocery store for an actual lemon... but for now, lemon juice will have to suffice. Ugh, I really don't need this right now. I've decided that I can't get sick until I get back from winter holidays in January. Yep.

Can't get sick this weekend, English camp. Then after that, applications are due. Then next weekend is JLPT. Then after that, midyear seminar. Then the week after that, I go home, and hell NO I'm not getting sick while I'm back at home. Then I'm going to the Philippines to visit Maxine (still need to buy the ticket... arg...). Then I come back to Japan. Then it's okay to get sick. But not until then.

I don't care if it's silly. I refuse! THEY CAN'T MAKE ME or well actually I guess they can BUT IMMA FIGHT CHUUUU.

I did have an interesting talk with my teacher today about the hospital. When I told him I was sick, he asked me if I had gone to the hospital yet. I told him, (with surprise) no. He told me that the Japanese people love hospitals. I guess so. I told him that if I went to the clinic or the doctor in the states, they would tell me to get some rest, drink fluids, and then come back in a week or two if I still have a cold or cough.

Hm. It makes me wonder kind of, if the Japanese go the moment they get sick to the hospital for meds...

Though then again, stuff like sudafed and alleve are actually prescribed drugs, so that might explain why. That and we all pay into health care, so might as well use what you pay for, yeah? I wonder if other places with socialized healthcare are that hospital-happy as well, or if they're more hospital-avoidant, which I suspect America is.

I am kinda amused with our assignments for English camp. Today has been very uhhhh, how can we say it... informative? kind of day.

We got our group assignments, songs, and skit topics for English camp. We'll be performing in a skit as well as singing a song and helping out with other various duties.

That reminds me, I need to finish my cultural presentation and decide on my "cultural greeting." Ugh.

My group, apparently, is singing Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" which I am completely okay with. I actually really like that song. It's kind of funny though that out of everyone, I get the Lady Gaga song; at the last English camp in my group's skit, they had me play the role of Lady Gaga. I dunno what it is.

One of the guys has to sing Baby by Justin Beiber. I am so very very very amused with that, since I'm pretty sure he's one of the people who really doesn't like Beiber. Personally, I don't mind that song. Sure he sounds like a girl, but so what? Anime characters are voiced by women all the freaking time. Deal people. I'm not a huge fan of Beiber himself (way too young for my tastes) but honestly, Baby isn't that bad. It's kind of like Twilight; I'm really guarded about saying in public and around people that I like it because if I say something, the likelihood of provoking unwanted hating and bashing is high.

Also, I found out today (finally) who I'm teaching with for my demonstration lesson... next week. I'm teaching with my supervisor for the "Living English" class.... which I don't usually teach in because I can't normally go. So yeah. Yeahhhhhhhhh.

I guess I'm kind of excited to be able to go to a class where they want me to come. My teacher said they're always asking why I can't come, bless their souls. :) So I'm really excited about that, even if it isn't a class I normally teach.

Sigh.

QUAKE WITH FEAR

I've had a million thoughts running through my head, most of which I go "oh wow I should write about that!"

And what happens when I start typing?

Yeah.

Nothing.

Oh! There was an earthquake here about an hour ago. It was a relatively small one; a 3.something here but the epicenter clocked in at around 5.4. So not gigantic or big enough to cause a lot of damage, but large enough to spook people and startle my facebook feed into a flood of posts about the earthquake (of which I participated in).

Having grown up in California, I've been doing earthquake drills and safety things about it since we were old enough to be in school, yet when it comes to being in an actual earthquake... I'm pretty sure that I'd die.

This time was not as bad as the last time I felt an earthquake. Last time, I just sat there and went "...there's an earthquake. OH I SHOULD CHECK FACEBOOK." This time, I was on my iPad and I was like "...oh snap son there's an earthquake, imma check facebook while getting up and walking over to the doorway" since there was one decently long shake followed almost immediately by another shake. I stood in the door frame near the table (I forget if you're supposed to duck under something or if the doorways are supposed to be better). My thoughts after that went something as follows:

"Woah the earthquake is really long. Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Wow other people have posted about it too. Dammit I need to make dinner. Hm I wonder if my kotatsu would be better to go under than the table since the table is really close to the cabinet. ...is concrete strong? Is it good earthquake material, or will I just get crushed and die? I guess at least it won't really burn."

At this point, the shaking had stopped and I slipped on some shoes and went outside... carrying my iPad and no jacket, only a long sleeve t-shirt. It's about 4 or 5 C outside. "Priorities. I have them." I thought. I also thought, "I would so die in a real earthquake. My priorities are kinda... off. Why did I bring my iPad and not my laptop? I should have brought my jacket. I would freeze to death."

Nobody was outside the dorm though, so I went inside, grabbed my trash and got rid of that while my shoes were still on. So it actually wasn't a very big deal. Go figure. You think I'd be over it by now, but the shaking was kind of like hm...

It occurred to me as I walked back in that my house is ridiculously old. Like over 40 years old. It probably has weathered its fair share of earthquakes, and it's still standing with minimal cracks in the wall (though I'm guessing that's just the wallpaper being really old). So I should be fiiine in my house.

...right?

Hot Hot Heat

I'll keep this short. This is kinda sunday's and friday's... since I'm behind by a day and I don't actually have the time to write like I normally do.

It's finally dropped down to the under-ten-degree weather here in Takahashi at night, which means it's *cold.* I stupidly, haven't gotten around to ordering more kerosene for my heaters yet, but I do have those foot heaters. Oh god they're wonderful. I have one sitting right in front of me right now, and it's quite lovely. Honestly if it weren't for the fact that I'd probably burn something (like myself), I'd leave it under the table and use the kotatsu blanket with it instead of the built in kotatsu heater.

That reminds me, I need to pull out the blanket for that and also look at putting down carpet or something. And buying those insulating pads for the floor, and a rug for my bathroom. The tiles in the bathroom have been like stepping on ice with bare feet.

I miss central heating and a well insulated house. I guess my house has reduced the cold somewhat, since with my dinky heater running the house is still at a nice 15 C.

God I'm tired. We have a holiday in the middle of the week to celebrate labor thanksgiving I think? A couple of us might have our own thanksgiving that day too. That means getting through Monday and Tuesday first though. You know how tired I am right now? I just tried to type "thursday" as I was thinking in my head, "oh the first day of the week..."

Invisible

Yesterday I went to kibichuo cho with the two JETs there for a really nice thanksgiving dinner and general hanging out.

Kibichuo cho is beautiful and really quaint, though parts of it made me swear I was back in irvine and the lake forest area.  It made me do a double take ahaha.

Oh yeah, we had parfait too, earlier in the day, but it wasn't the huge one that I had been expecting. There were 14 of us so it was fiiiine and actually I was a little hungry afterwards since I hadn't eaten anything the whole day out of anticipation and forgetfulness.

After parfait though, one of my friends drove me back to kibichuo cho where we picked up her monk friend who doesn't really seem like a monk. He works and lives at the Buddhist temple... But he smokes, drinks, swears, and drives a Harley (and speaks really good English!). Cool, just not what you'd expect from a monk! He gave us a tour of his temple though and explained things about the inside.

It was wondrous. I geeked out so hard, since I had studied Chinese Buddhism in college. It was like oooohhh my gooood. Most of this stuff (he said) was the same as the Chinese version that had been imported so many ages ago. They had had some of the original sutras in a lacquered wooden box (is it redundant to say lacquered wooden?) and there were six that unfolded to reveal original Chinese script that was at least 700 years old.

700 years. Holy crap. That's really old. So it was kind of amazing, being able to see them. He also took us into the epitaph room, where they had the epitaphs of all the ancestors... Though he didn't mow ( or didn't say) how old they were. He said ancestors go in kind of forever and possibly these went to the beginning of time.

We also saw the calligraphy one of the calligraphy masters in china had written. They were really gorgeous. What else was there...

They had bodhisattva statues and the whole place smelled of incense. There were also small mukades crawling all over... That was kind of gross. But their slippers were amazing. They were the nicest slippers I've seen. They were green with gold patterns that were all swirly... and Chinese.

The tablet of the former ANA president was there too. He told us about how the president's house was in kibichuo and how he worked really hard at improving Chinese and japanese r elations after the war after an experience with his Chinese roommate. His Chinese roommate eventually went back to china hating Japan and Japanese because of how he was discriminated here in Japan. I can kinda understand a little.

But yeah. The temple was amazing. So amazing to go into and see.

After, we went to dinner after that at a really cute British themed place called the Bernese house. They made us thanksgiving dinner... And holy wow. It was amazing. We had a chowder soup, salad, walnut bread, and some of the best chicken I've had ever. Seriously, it was delicious. I'd take that over turkey any day. I think he tried to make it look a little like turkey; there was a piece of foil wrapped around a part that you could grab and pick up and eat like a savage haha.

The cook was ridiculously nice. Since he didn't know what a thanksgiving dinner was, he actually looked it up online and based the dinner around what he found (I guess, sadly, he found no mashed potatoes) :) He was from. Hokkaido. We had a fun talk about food afterwards. :)

Seriously though. Ridiculously good food.

Afterwards we went back and talked until eventually both of the guys left. Oh yeah, the monk also studied agriculture in salinas valley so he had been to places in California! But after they went back the really good talk started. Girl talk. We vented to each other hahaha. But we also talked about what it was like to be an Asian American and she talked about how it was hard to always be in the shadow of a fellow jet because their skin was white and they didn't look like Asian people. I don't get that too much - only when I hang out with some of my other friends. But the poor girl gets it all the time in the town, and sometimes people completely ignore her because they think she's Japanese or Chinese. I know how that feels, and to feel it all the time like that...

None of us (or well, most of us) come to Japan seeking attention, and it's not like we're saying we want lots of attention. It's not that. I actually prefer to not have much attention on me. But when you're standing next to someone with the same qualifications and everything else equal. (or maybe your Japanese isn't as good but you both still got hired, so nobody is 'better' than anyone else in that sense). The only difference is the color of your skin... not something you can so easily control. And they get showered in attention (some pr a lot of it unwanted) while you get mostly ignored because they make the assumption that you're Japanese or because you just don't look that foreign. I've been fortunate enough to where sometimes when I'm out with my friends and that happens sometimes I do get included... but sometimes I don't. And to have that happen all the time is taxing.

There are good aspects about being Asian too, don't get me wrong. My friends have all told me that it gets really annoying having people come up to you, or yell at you, or interrupt what you're doing to try and speak English, and I can understand that. I can understand that it's probably annoying to always be in the spotlight and stared at. But sometimes we get a little tired of being ignored and invisible. And yeah, I know the grass is always greener on the other side... But if it were you, would you rather be an invisible nobody, or a celebrity?

Hard call.

Well if I didn't have diabetes before, I probably will after today.

Today we do giant parfait, take 2. Twice in one month. Oh god.

So. Very. Not. Healthy.

I think I'll let other people pig out on the ice cream and just take a couple bites :)

Superman

Today has been one monumental effort to either drive me insane or test my patience or my sanity or something.

I think I'm a little sick. I had a ridiculously awful headache by 4th period (and it wasn't from caffeine - I had my coffee {when did I start drinking so much coffee anyways? And by coffee I mean milk coffee sugar} so my only conclusion is that I'm a little sick). I didn't have a second period class since we didn't teach the second year home ec girls today, and my third period class was watching a "comedy drama" that was basically a very clever "show" whose overall goal was to teach English in a more casual and natural way.

I dunno, I thought it was actually pretty decent and interesting, which surprised me a lot. Even if the clothes were like... from the 90s. Overalls and pigtails on grown women, anyone?

But yeah. Today. Yeah. I'll write more about it tomorrow - I'm too exhausted now to write as much as I normally do. Not going to let that ruin the one a day thing though. Suffice it to say, I was working until 7:45. Working. Not doing Japanese studying. I didn't actually have time to study today (wtf). I did come to school a little late, about ten minutes because I stupidly left my alarm on mute and my other alarm in the living room. Oops. But yeah. Yeah. Most of my time after school was devoted to correcting student's speeches for the speech contest. I felt a little bad, because I told one kid that if he wants to make his speech strong, he needs to take out a significant chunk of what he wrote and rewrite it or omit it because it doesn't actually go towards supporting his main idea.

I just had this random memory of going to the library in Sydney. It was a nice library. I think we went there for internet hahaha. Dunno where that came from.

But anyways.

The TL;DR version:
There was a discrepancy and general lack of communication between my teachers about who would be doing the observation lesson with me. Discussions, freaking out, anger, and more discussion ensued. So did pep talks. I was told I sounded like a mom, or that I was mom-like. What. The. Fak. MY MOM VOICE IS GETTING STRONGER.
Overall feelings towards the whole thing: amused, but only because I think I was getting slightly hysterical and shaky towards the end of the day.

Okay, I told myself I'd go to bed early. Go go before midnight!

Conversations

Wednesdays are my ridiculously busy days, but one of my most enjoyable ones. Usually anyways. All my first year classes are on wednesdays, and I usually really enjoy teaching my first year home economic girls. They're just so... energetic. All the time. But they're always alive so they're always pretty fun to teach. The others... sometimes they're kind of dead. Sigh.

After school though is cooking club. Normally, it makes me really happy to join cooking club; even after a bad day with cooking club (and food) things are okay.

So I dunno what was up with today. Maybe it had something to do with how my teacher said she had to stand in the back of class in order to discipline the kids - which I get, but it makes it really hard to attempt to do team teaching. She's been leaving a lot of things sometimes up to me... and sometimes she doesn't listen when I talk so I ended up repeating myself... three times in class today. Sigh. What're you going to do about it though. Nothing.

Today's recipe was butter corn and cheese in hamburg(er). Hamburg(er) (or hambagu) here in Japan is only the hamburger patty, no bun. No nothing. It's usually eaten with corn. When I heard that I was excited. But the girls who I'm on the cooking team with... one of them is an awesome second year, and one is a sweet girl who's a first year. The third girl... I don't know. I don't think she likes English. Or me. Sucks for her though.

The task they gave me was cooking the butter corn, which was hardly a task at all. You dump the corn into the buttered frying pan and add a pinch of salt and a shake or two of pepper. Then you warm the corn up. The end. Seriously it's ridiculously hard to screw up unless you're not paying attention and you burn all your corn. I'm probably making mountains out of molehills but it was like "seriously, you're going to give me THIS task?"

I felt like I was just the potwasher or something. I asked if I should mix the ingredients for the hamburger, and then they told me that they wanted to wait for the onions to finish... and then one of the girls ended up mixing the hamburger while the onions were cooling anyways. I was kind of like... arg. I might not be able to speak Japanese, but that doesn't mean I can't cook. For the love of christ, please give me something to do other than the dishes. I don't mind doing the dishes. But when that's all I'm doing... I don't care if I'm getting tasty food out of it, eventually it becomes kinda annoying if that's the only contribution I'm making, especially in a club about cooking food.

*

In class today we did analogies. I was under the impression that they had done similes as junior high school students, yet the review activity we had intended on doing for only a little bit of time ended up taking up most of the class. I'm not sure how. And for some of them, it was like they had never seen it, while others understood relatively okay.

I had a hard time explaining why, when we use "like" in our analogies, we don't normally use adjectives.

Consider a simile that is trying to convey "she is pretty"

She's like Marilyn Monroe.

...that's a proper simile... right? I feel like we would also say "she's like Marilyn Monroe - a timeless beauty." (would we?) The question though, is do we say:

She's pretty like Marilyn Monroe.

According to the example we had on the worksheet, and my initial response, I told my teacher no, and so she wanted to know why not. I told her that it was because that's the nature of a simile; you should be able to tell from the noun what she's like, otherwise it's not a very good analogy! Yet, I realized later that we do elaborate on the analogy after the noun sometimes, like "Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know which one you're going to get" or whatever. That doesn't mean it's a bad analogy per say, but I couldn't think of how to convey this. I guess I should say something like "sometimes you're not trying to only use an adjective to compare things"? Or, "that's what "as...as..." is there for?

I don't know though. Maybe most of this is just hot air I've been blowing.

imma barrrrrrr

Minor correction to the previous post. Ahem, the highest grade out of ten hasn't been ten (otherwise they'd all be doing pretty good). It's been something lower. I think there was one eight, one seven, and a bunch... lower.

I worked through a bunch more tonight after dinner. Originally, I was going to make pasta or something cheap at home but then decided that nah, it was too cold and I was too tired. So I decided to have ramen. But the ramen place I wanted to go to - of course - was CLOSED. I've never, in all the Tuesdays and Fridays I've walked by it, seen it closed! AND THE ONE TIME I HAVE THE TIME TO GO TO IT, it's not open. Sigh. I was kinda annoyed. But I got on the train and came back to Takahashi instead, and revisited my pasta idea. But I was still feeling lazy, and now I had a craving for ramen. And gyoza. I friggin love that stuff.

So as I was cycling home, I decided to try the chinese restaurant's ramen Since this is Japan, and pretty much all Chinese restaurants have A) chanhan, or fried rice and B) ramen. Ramen because the noodles came from China some time ago, and despite the Japanese having made this their own dish, many many many people still consider it to be a CHinese dish. Oh, and most of the Chinese restaurants also have C) gyoza (or potstickers... but they have a thinner skin than Chinese potstickers) and also D) mabodofu which is this spicy tofu and (usually) pork dish that's reddish brown in color. I really enjoy eating it.

After thorough ethnographic participant-observation, and taking many many field notes on the topic, I have come to the general conclusion that ramen from Chinese restaurants is inferior in most ways to ramen from dedicated Japanese ramen restaurants. It's funny, because the ramen places... pretty much serve ramen. Sometimes they'll also have stuff like gyoza or maybe udon... but they never call themselves a Chinese restaurant, or a Japanese restaurant. They're simply a ramen restaurant.

And man are they good. If you ever come to Japan, I'd definitely recommend the ramen. But that's almost a given.

Anyways, after I ate dinner, I was like "hm, it is cold outside and it will probably be cold in my house, so why don't I grade papers here?" So grade I did. I actually managed to get through the whole stack that I had, and as a reward about halfway through I ordered this tasty kiwi chuhai (chuhais are almost like fruit cocktaily drinks... like if you mixed a fruit mixer and vodka, but it uses uhhh sochu, which is the asian version of vodka) and ordered (more) gyoza (since I mean, naturally I had already ordered some gyoza with my meal).

I feel much more alive after all of that. I had been starting to slip into the grips of "culture shock wave two" also known as "oh god winter and cold weather." My body reacts to winter the same way a bear does: it puts on weight and gets very very sleepy. So I have less time to actually do things during the day because of a tendency to pass out sometime around 10 or 11 (which is probably better that I sleep around then, but it's just so... early...). This, combined with the general crankiness and the insanity that November brings (I don't understand why it's always so busy)... well, not being a hermit and not just sleeping all day under covers and not curling up in a ball until everything passes takes effort.

Can't really help that I suppose though. I guess I need to get kerosene sometime soon, and bust out the kotatsu blanket. I'm excited for that... but I'm also kind of dreading it because I know that getting up will be fifty times harder.

*

In other, slightly more depressing news, I think I've finally managed to kill my basil. My one regret is that I didn't pick the basil before the plant died. -_-; I had managed to grow so much too! I'm really proud of that... even though now all the leaves are turning yellow because I think I'm not watering it enough or it's not getting enough sunlight or something like that. The basil I made was really tasty though (even if it was a little too salty).

I never thought I would have made my own basil. I mean, costco was only a 15 minute drive away. I'm glad I have though~

*

Also in other news, I think I'm getting sick. D: My head has been kinda warm lately and I can't find my thermometer. I think this morning I had a mild case of food poisoning too. That was probably because I ate something from my fridge after discovering it had been broken. Of course, I had forgotten the cardinal rule of when your power goes out aka your fridge has no power: don't open the door otherwise the cold won't stay in and all your stuff will go bad. Opening the door to check and see if the freezer and fridge were REALLY broken was probably an unwise idea.

Gastronomic Cultural Exchange

Today, my vice principal told me something interesting about Japanese food and Japanese cuisine, which explained a LOT of why it can be frustrating to order food here in Japan.

He explained that when it came to making and cooking Japanese food, a chef makes sure to make a dish that can appeal to all the senses - including a sixth sense which he termed as "inspiration" (his English is really really good). He continued on to say that it was important to make things that taste good, smell good, feel good, look good, (and sound good?) but also go well together. Japanese people are a part of the natural world, he told me, and there's a desire to use natural ingredients and so on to stay part of that world, so the chefs make sure to pick things that go well together in the natural world; all the ingredients must match just so. This ties in to the Japanese idea of "wa" or harmony.

This also lends to the popularity and importance of seasonal and regional foods. Regional foods emphasize the locality and the whole "one with the area around you" thing, and foods that go well together in nature probably occur around the same time and place, so seasonal foods get a bonus here as well.

But because of this emphasis on having the right foods in the right combination, Japanese culture tends to shy away from using substitutes in their dishes, which in turn leads to, in some restaurants where they've got serious chefs anyways, distain towards anyone who wants to customize their dish since they're in essence "ruining" the dish by changing it so that the ingredients aren't in perfect harmony. It's hard for people from other cultures to see this though, since we often don't have that background of "all ingredients must exist in the right proportions in harmony together with the natural world." Instead we place a priority on "I want to have a dish that fits my tastes and by god I'm PAYING for this and I'm the CUSTOMER so I have RIGHTS."

Or something like that.

That's what I thought anyways when I first got here. Maybe not in those words. But I was often confused and annoyed when we went to restaurants that were like "sorry no, we can't 'just not add chicken' to this" or "sorry we can't leave out the peppers" or "sorry we can't take out the tomato for you" even though they were making the dish from scratch and could indeed very easily omit adding in the peppers or the tomato. Instead it was this idea that the ingredients must go together when they serve it (probably) that informed their refusal to acquiesce to our requests.

Actually, it's a lot more along the lines of those infamous Italian or French chefs who also refuse to customize orders that I've occasionally heard of, who go into a rage or a fit when someone even thinks of asking them to make a simple omission, or to substitute tofu for chicken or whatever. Substitutes and omitting ingredients harms the purity of the dish, or in the case of the Japanese, the harmony of the ingredients, nature, and the dish.

How's that for culture clashes and exchange? 

* 

On a more random note, I'm correcting compositions on one of the tests that my academic students took. It's supposed to be between 40 and 60 words but so far... it's pretty dismal. Out of ten points the highest has been a ten, and it's not like I'm being a hard grader. They've just failed epically at responding to the prompt, which was "you met a person at the mall whom you fell in love with. Describe their appearance and what they look like." 

Not too hard, we figured, and we had just done a unit on describing people, body parts, and clothes. So in theory, they had all the tools they needed...

But reading them kinda makes me wish I had a pitcher of sangria next to me. Or a can of beer. Some of them are really amusing to read though. Some students wrote stories about how they met the person of their dreams (and some pointed out that they already had a boyfriend or girlfriend and I was like... how sad! Why would you write that your dream person that you fell in love with had a significant other already!?) like about what they were doing and about their attributes and how they looked kind because they were helping old people or had found the author's ring... 

Part of me feels kind of bad for giggling at this (lord knows my own mistakes are pretty awful and widespread) but some of them are most amusing.

I shall leave you with one of my favorites so far:

"The boy was special face and nice hair. I was surprised it. I think that very very cool. If he is human, it is great."

Precious, precious, wonderful students.

KARAOKE~~

Today... has been a long and eventful day. I feel like I've done a lot of traveling. Okayama, Kurashiki, and Yakage... all in one day.

I think I'll be staying home for a while. Yep.

Last night/this morning was all-you-can-karaoke, aka all night karaoke. For charity. We got two rooms at this karaoke place, one for English and the other for Japanese and I bounced back and forth between the two rooms for a bit before settling down into one, since I could sing *some* Japanese songs (and figured why not try) and some of the songs in the English room I didn't really know.

Or well, I could sing some Japanese if they PUT FURIGANA ON MORE KANJI. Furigana are those small hiragana characters above kanji that show you how to read it. They're kind of a huge crutch when it comes to reading Japanese, both in the good and bad sense. Good, since if you don't know how to read a kanji, you can use that and sometimes you'll be able to recognize a word once you know how it's read, and therefore, you'll know the meaning. Also good for when you're trying to sing and you get to a kanji you don't know how to read. Instead of going "... :D " you can read the furigana instead! The downside to furigana is that it's really hard to NOT read it... so you end up constantly reading just the furigana without actually learning the kanji. If the furigana gets taken away...

Destruction.

Anyways, last night, we started around 8pm and there were a good number of us. I wanna say somewhere around 10-12 people... perhaps more? But around there. And we started to sing, and around 11 to midnight, people started to leave to go to bars or catch last trains back. There was a bit of confusion on whether or not we actually had the rooms until midnight or if we could stay there later, since at first they told us midnight (since the place was kinda busy) but we went and asked and they told us we could keep one of the (larger) rooms. Fine by me. But a lot of people left by midnight. I think after that, there were maybe... seven of us left? Two more left right after that, so then there were only five of us. And then that number dropped to four. And by one or two am, there were only two of us left. We had the room until five.

At that point, we could have gone home. But where's the fun in that? It's not like we had to pay anything extra for the room - we had already paid for it. And we only paid 1500 yen, which is somewhere around the neighborhood of $15. For nine hours. And we sang it all.

Karaoke is one of my favorite things here in Japan (if you couldn't tell). It's really fun, once you get over the shyness and embarrassment of singing in front of people. Some people are AMAZING singers. There's a couple of JETs whom I can think of... and a couple of people overall who have the voices to hit them high notes in songs sung by the like of Utada Hikaru (her vocal range is amazing) and Mariah Carey. They're brilliant to listen to.

Everyone else, it's all just fun. A lot of the songs I like to sing tend to be slower... or like, R&B songs or love songs (or Disney) so sometimes if it's a larger crowd it's a bit embarrassing to sing them or I feel like it's a mood killer. Yet last night, we managed to find a ton of amazing songs, and when it went down to just the two of us... yeah, we busted out all the crazy and embarrassing songs.

We sang a huge range of stuff; we had a Goo Goo Doll power period, Train, Sugar Ray, BBMak, Ghostbusters, Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, girl power songs, heaven, raining men (which was ridiculously fun to sing)... among other things, and we ended with Queen's "We are the Champions." It felt rather fitting, considering that neither of us had dozed off during the entire marathon and we had lasted until the very end when they were gonna kick us out. Plus we still had most of our voices (though clearly, we did something wrong?)

Ahhh, in retrospect, we should have sang "Just the Two of Us" hahaha. That would have been fun.

I don't know what it is about karaoke that makes it so much fun, but it makes me really happy that karaoke is really cheap here.

I did get some sleep though. After we got kicked out at 5 am, I caught the first train home (achievement unlocked) and stupidly didn't go to sleep until 7, despite getting home around 6:40. I slept until about 9:20, so I got about an hour and a half of sleep... plus the thirtyish minutes on the train I slept that morning. So I got like, three hours today.

Then I woke up and went to Takahashi's festival, kind of. I wanted to go for longer, but I found out really last minute that my friend was performing taiko in Yakage's festival (which was like, 40 minutes from me). I was planning on showing up to that later in the day, around 12:30. But then I found out she was performing around noon, and the train I had intended on taking wouldn't get me there in time. Instead I had to take the train that was 40 minutes earlier, cutting in to my festival time. I had originally planned on chilling at the festival in Takahashi until I had to leave for my train, but since I had to shower and get ready, I didn't get out of my house until rather late; twenty minutes prior to my train. It was hard - did I stay at this festival, or go out to watch my friend?

The festival looked rather interesting too. The people who did calligraphy class were there (one of the students was the emcee for the event) and they had tables selling stuff as well as food and performances on a stage. They were really cool! I was really sad that I couldn't stay for longer. the festival was for like... health or something? I'm not entirely sure.

The other festival in Yakage was the daiyamo festival, where History Is Remembered in the form of a parade with people dressed up in period costumes. The ALTs in Yakage get all dressed up as well, so we got to see our friends in period costume and several pounds of make up.

Slowest. Parade. Ever though. They were slower than a wedding. And worse, there was no music. But it was really interesting to watch; I got several good pictures that I swear I'll get up one of these days.

We didn't stay til the end of the festival, since that would have been until approximately 4 or something and the parade still had a ways to go when we left (though, we ended up leaving around 3:10 anyways...). Instead, we stopped by kurashiki's AEON mall to grab some bread and make a daiso and subway run. Yay not having to cook tomorrow!

Ah crap, I forgot I was supposed to do the laundry with my new laundry bags. The washing machines DESTROY clothes here... so laundry bags are supposed to help with that. Also I dunno why but I cannot get my clothes to smell clean for the life of me. It's kind of concerning. I miss washing machines and driers in the states. Sigh.

But yeah. Today we also agreed that laundry, cleaning, and uhhh, studying kanji were all categorized into the "futile" category since you're always doing them, and you can't really win (though maybe at kanji you can get close... or at least think you're close). Everything else... you clean, it's nice, but then you have to keep cleaning or it gets dirty, and even if you do a little bit here and there, it's still a kind of futile task.

If only clean things weren't so nice and relatively bug free.

OH. THAT REMINDS ME. I think I'm getting better at dealing with insects. Today as I was getting ready to go out, I was getting changed and had pulled my pants from my drying room into my bedroom since there's a full length mirror there. As I went to pick up my pants, a freaking kamemushi (these potato bugs that are really really stinky if you squish them) fell from them.

And what did I do?

I didn't scream. I was surprised and I gasped... but I didn't scream. That's like, a first for me. Normally (especially before I came to Japan) all bugs terrified me. Surprises got screamed at. The girls in the dormitory next to me have heard my screams from bugs before.

I even managed to get rid of it myself, though I couldn't bring myself to kill it. I was lucky in that potato bugs aren't very fast moving, and generally don't jump at you or fly... that I've seen. So I got my broom and dustpan and coaxed it into that and then chucked it outside. If I had squashed it, a) I would have squashed it straight into my bedsheets (gross) b) it would have let out an awful smell, and c) that increased the chances that it would have moved or something.

But yeah! I got rid of the bug all by myself. Wee~

Watch, next thing you know, I'll be touching them. lols.

Festivals festivals festivals!

This weekend is a festival weekend, for some reason. I'm going to (or will try to go to, at least) not one, not two, but THREE festivals in only two days.

Three festivals in two days?

Challenge accepted.

This first festival was today. It was my Takahashi technical high school's open festival day (there are also performances and stuff but that is usually on a weekday). They had stalls and cares and a haunted house and displays and crafts or things the students made that you could buy. 

And so. Much. Food.

Once again, I purchased more food tickets than my stomach had room for, because it is so freaking hard to say no to students you actually like (and want to like you). Thankfully for my waistline, the portions were all Japanese sized (that is to say, tiny) so having two cookies and some juice meant having a small cup of milk tea (like teacup size... A small tea cup) and two cookies about the size of half dollars.

Basically, I ate my way through the whole festival, since I lack the desire to not be able to sleep at night (no おばけやすい, haunted house, for me). I could probably be coerced into that if I had a copious amount of alcohol in my system. But I was at school, so I didn't. 

So what kind of food did they have at the festival? There were a lot of repeats from the other festivals...

Yuzu ice cream daifuku (ice cream wrapped in mochi)
Yuzu pound cake
Two country ma'am cookies (country ma'am is a popular cookie brand here, like nabisco)
Oden (I got set A which had daikon, or Japanese radish, konnyaku noodles, and a cabbage roll, which is just cabbage wrapped around meat. The cabbage rolls are pretty tasty. But. It had no chikuwa (fish paste) or the other things I don't like in oden! It also came with this Yuzu flavored pepper paste stuff that was AMAZING.)
Curry and rice
Milk tea
Black tea
Cold green tea
Chocolate churro
Plain churro
Kinako dango (mochi balls rolled in this peanut-y powder)
Azuki dango (red bean paste mochi balls)
Mitarashi dango (mochi flavored with a thick soy sauce and sugar sauce)
Chicken yakisoba

I ate the dango and yakisoba after I got home. But I also bought bread they had made (how could I not!) and an apple pound cake. I'm saving those for later. The bread has cheese and BACON in it. I'm excited.

Other foods they had but I didn't eat:
Frankfurter and juice (despite this being sold by one of my favorite classes, I really don't like the frankfurters here. I really want to... But every time I buy one it just turns out to be a disappointment since the casing is usually ridiculously thick).
Caramel popcorn
Zaizen (I think,that's what it's called... It's mochi in red bean soup. Not the biggest fan of red beans)
Udon
...these pancake things with custard or chocolate or red bean paste in them
And
Deep fried takoyaki (takoyaki are balls of dough with pieces of octopus in them. You should google them if you don't know what they are. But these were deep fried and the line was always at least 30 minutes... So I bought a ticket but ended up giving it to my team teaching partner instead cause I wanted to go home and work on my grad school app)

I also missed out on eating at one of the cafes. THERE WERE THREE CAFES. WHY WERE THERE THREE CAFES?! Seriously... I think they were all run by the design classes. There was one themed around Christmas (there were a lot of christmas themed things... It made me kind of sad...) run by the third years, and the second year's was called Hayabusa, after the... Space thing. They built a model of the satellite and had the movie running. It was pretty.

The one run by the first years had one of the male students (whose english is pretty okay) in a dress and long brown wig. The poor thing looked MISERABLE. Some male students wear drag and girls clothing proudly and seem to be even more excited about wearing a skit and a wig than they do in their own clothes... But this kid was a poster child for unhappiness and embarrassment. I wonder if he lost a bet or dare or rock paper scissors... Or was being punished. But their theme was a manga cafe, so they had a bunch of people,dressed up in cosplay. It was really cute.

Yeah, the design kids usually have amazing things. They also had a life sized model of the wolf from princess mononoke- the one that she rode. Like, you could ride the model if you were a small Japanese person. It was really really good.

Oh I should make a note, that here, juice is sometimes used the same way 'soft drinks' or 'pop' is used or 'cold beverage.' IE, orange juice, soda, cider, calpis, and  sometimes tea are all included in this category. It still throws me off sometimes.

But yeah. That was my school festival. A lot of fun. I think the students were happy I came? They seemed excited... Especially when it came to selling me things lol. 

But now I am off to an all night karaoke... For charity! ALL YOU CAN KARAOKE FOR THR CHILDREN. And tomorrow there are two festivals I will attempt... Providing I can catch the first train back, get at least an hour of sleep at the karaoke place or McD's, change, and get out the house again. One festival is on the way to the station and the other is out in Yakage. Weeeee. Full weekend go! I guess it's a good thing I basically have a holiday on Monday... I still have to go to school, but I have no c,asses. And it's my base school. So yeah. Excellent.

And I mean, I'm doing cultural things, so like... That's a good thing to be out all weekend for, yeah?

Ugh, there was something I wanted to write about... But I forgot. u_u

I wanna say it was something about school, and something I found interesting but I really can't remember.

I spent today practicing the Asian squat for two hours and peeling garlic. Like, peeling, and not "crushing and then peeling." Made things a lot more different. Harder, for one. We were peeling garlic so they could plant the garlic at school to make garlic and herb olive oil. Typical friday stuff.

My hands reek of garlic now though. Sigh. 

Hm, I should write about chikuwa sometime. Chikuwa, for those of you who have never had the pleasure of making its acquaintance, is fish paste in the form of a long, cylindrical tube. It's in the nerimono family, or the 'ground up fish' family with kamaboko. The outside is kind of... Wrinkly. We had it for lunch today in the school lunch, along with hijikigohan, a kind of rice with these small bits of sea weed... not so tasty.

Ah! I remembered! I wanted to write about dolls. Yesterday in the culture class we made paper dolls, 避難人形... Early for dolls day. Doll's day is actually in March, but for some reason we're making the dolls now. The old lady who taught us, supposedly, started making these dolls, so they're kind of like her style or something? They're really cute either way. They're made with strips of hard poster paper and really pretty origami paper. We got to make them with her guidance. Or at least, we tried to make them.

I fail at crafts. 

Somehow I managed to make my strips of paper too long so the finished thing sat kind of lopsided... But one of the Korean girls at my table fixed it for me. They're ridiculously cute.

Also I somehow managed to a) put them on wrong and add too much glue so the glue showed when you looked and b)  reverse the order of the dolls. Oops.

Yeaaaaaaaaah.

I'll get pictures up eventually of them. They're adorable!

Supposedly it's bad luck to display them any time other than March, otherwise you'll never be a bride. Oh no. What ever shall I do. :)

History

So when I was talking to one of the students whom I do exchange diary with and one of my JTEs, the topic of world history came up, since the student was studying for a test. So naturally, I asked about what kind of world history they were studying, and the student replied that he was studying Chinese history.

As someone who took loads of Chinese history courses, naturally, I was interested to find out what period they were studying. But when I asked what time period they were studying, he told me "gi" and I was like "...what?"

I've never heard of that dynasty, and they were confused because they were like "well, but that's the kanji for the period and kanji is Chinese writing, right?" to which I replied "yeah but well, we used romanized versions of the words using the pinyin system. They mentioned that they were studying the three kingdoms period, and I was like "oh yeah, the Wei, Wu, and Shu" since a) it's a pretty famous period and b) there are like, over 7 games made about this time period.

They had no idea what I was talking about, even when I tried to pronounce their names with a more Chinese accent.

Later, I found out that the "gi" they were talking about was actually the Wei kingdom, I think, since I was looking through a chinese history site for something that matched a kanji that was pronounced "gi" (the state of Wèi 魏, I found). So yeaaaaaah they don't really sound the same. The Japanese might use the kanji, but I feel like we use the pronunciation. They were going off the on-yomi reading, which generally is the Chinese reading of it, but I have the feeling that wasn't actually how it was pronounced anyways.

From what I've noticed too, the Japanese don't exactly have a good track record for pronouncing things the correct way all the time either when they katakana-ize certain words like "coffee" or "sandwich."

They also asked me what I studied about Japanese history, and I told them I knew woefully little. Basically, there's the Edo period. It happened. Lots of stuff happened then. Stuff happened during the Meiji Era, and also Commodor Perry and WWII. And that was about the extent of my knowledge on Japanese history (short, I know, but I studied China in college). They were kind of surprised that we didn't learn more about Japan in world history and stuff.... and I told them that we learned mostly European/Middle Eastern history, the history of the Americas, and China since China's history is really long. We don't actually learn much about the rest of Asia, India, or Africa in world history in high school (or if I did, I was asleep).

Yay history!

Good things start with C

Like Calligraphy and Cooking Club. :D

(Ack, I've already managed to fall behind... I won't let this challenge defeat me even if it means I have to post twice in one day! I shan't let it fall further behind than that! ...shan't is a fun word to say. Totally going to say it more often.)

Anyways.

Wednesdays are my awesome days, mostly because of what comes after school. School itself... well... Wednesdays are my first year classes at my base school - usually they're so-so. I only have three, so I can't really complain too much about having a heavy workload. It's just that usually, that's the first time we do a lesson (I feel so bad for my class who gets that first lesson... we're usually still working out the kinks). They're good kids though so... usually it goes alright. It's just that sometimes, they're so dead.

The last class of the day is a handful as well. It has the class with the really loud boy hahaha. But it also has the class full of the kinda smart boys; I don't know much about the relationships of the students in the class, but I'd bet that a couple of the kids with glasses who are the eager to please ones are kind of nerds. I think they get teased quite a bit too, or at least, one of them does.

Yesterday, my team teaching partner caught one of the students doing work from another class in our class, so she took it away. The paper was some advanced math homework (like, extra homework) so I'm assuming that the student was one of the good students. She was super angry, and didn't really want to give it back to him right away, since she thought it would mean the students wouldn't take not doing other class's homework in our class seriously. I mean, I was a little disappointed that it was one of the better kids, but I've been there before so like... yeah.

This kid though, I think it was the first time he'd been scolded by her like that, and the math paper was really important. So he was super down the whole class, and I think, actually started to cry during class at some point. I felt so bad for the poor kid! I don't like when people cry. I don't really know how to respond to crying people, whether they're my friend or they're a stranger or acquaintance. Sigh.

But yeah, the worst happened after class when he tried to get his paper back. She didn't want to give it back to him right away and wanted to talk to him but I guess he was crying too much to actually talk. The other students, who had been teasing him before, were also up there telling my partner that she should give the paper back. Since I couldn't hear what they were saying, to me it just sounded like they were trying to butt their heads in and be there so they could watch the other kid cry. So I'm not exactly sure... whose side they were on?

Dunno, if it were me, I'd take away the paper and give it back with punishment. Like an essay or something, since there isn't really detention here.

So that's my last class of the day, one of my academic ones.

The third class (that I have second, right before lunch) is my home ec girls. Boy are they loud ones. But they're super fun and they're always willing to volunteer, so despite how loud they get and how slowly we go in the class, I really enjoy them.

After school though, is what I really enjoy.

Cooking club meets on wednesdays, so I usually join them and have a kind of small(ish) Japanese one portion sized meal early on around 5pm. Yesterday we made gyoza and tenshindon, a Japanese Chinese dish that's basically an omelette over rice with thick sauce on top of it (we concluded yesterday that the sauce reminded us of mitarashi dango, these mochi balls covered in sweet sauce). SO TASTY.

Gyoza are ridiculously hard to fold though. Mine looked awful haha.

I also had this interesting conversation with my partner and one of the students about Chinese history, where we had no idea what time period the other was talking about. They were using kanji, and I was using romanized-via-the-Pinyin-system Chinese names. Maybe I'll write about that next.

Wednesday nights after cooking club, I get a ride to calligraphy class at this old lady's house in Takahashi with one of the other ALTs who actually introduced me to the classes. They're really calming and relaxing (though last night a bit frustrating since I couldn't figure out how to get the stroke right).

Calligraphy, as it turns out, is hard. But at least I get a tangible kind of thing that's made by my own power... unlike flower arrangement where I just have no idea what I'm doing and I don't know why one form is better looking than the other and the teacher comes over and rearranges most if not all of my flowers so they look better.

Jeeze, I didn't know that still bothered me.

Class Types

I love my students in the agricultural classes. :) I don't know why but all three of the agricultural classes I teach in Niimi are full of just the nicest kids. They're english isn't the greatest (it might actually be the worst out of all my classes) but the at least usually make some effort in classes (even if it's all in Japanese) and most importantly, they don't look so dead in class. 

Those classes, in my opinion, are the worst. Worse than the classes with the rowdy kids (who have all tended to be boys, with the exception of two of my home ec classes). Like, they might be loud and some might be hard to control, but at least the class is alive and full of energy. We might not get through all the material, but I know that in my loud classes, I can usually count on the really loud kids to try and answer thing (even, or especially when they don't know the answer). I actually enjoy the loud classes now, mostly because I get such a good response from them. It's frustrating sometimes, but it's really nice to have students who actually want to answer things, even if it means them screaming your full name at the top of their lungs (my third year home ec girls do that, much to my dismay). 

The quiet classes on the other hand... The quiet classes, you sit there waiting for someone, anyone to answer. Even when you call on a student, in the class I had today they would just sit and stare at their desk, not speaking a word, not even in Japanese. At least some of the other classes would answer in Japanese. But no... These girls would just sit there and stare with this awkward silence that you would have to endure unless you picked someone else... And then the whole cycle would repeat over again.

It's not like that class wasn't smart; on the contrary, they got the best English score. And I know some of them knew the answers. But everything we did, from the activity to the worksheet to the questions... A brick wall of awkward silence. I've only seen them really alive when we play karuta, the card game where you have to slap the correct flash card on the table first. Otherwise... Silence. I'm kind of curious if we could get them to move more by having more activities that force them to stand or to do some kind of action or something. Who knows. You can lead a horse to water... but you can't make it drink.

Some of my other classes are like that too, some of my academic ones. So silent. Quieter than one of the Silent Sisters. Generally this is after gym or something, but sometimes it's not and you're just like, jeeze people, work with me here. The weird thing though, is that they're perfectly glad to talk to me outside of class... but inside class, they're quiet as clams. 

*

One of my schools is doing their culture festival this weekend, and it is, by far the festival that has had the most money spent on it, the performance stage actually has extensions, and the sound system... is no joke. They've got two massive speakers on either side of the stage, sophisticated sound control for all outputs, and a ton of mics. 

And then, there's the lighting. Most of my schools (ie, all the others) use spotlights that need to be manned by a student or someone and have an external disk they can rotate to change the color of the light. Jounan, the school with the amazing sound system, has full sets of lights on either side of the stage. I think there were like, twelve lamps in each set? The lights are controlled remotely, allowing for really gorgeous color changes. At the back of the stage is another long lamp that changes the color of the background. In the foreground, across the gym from the stage was another set of spotlights that had enough power to turn the gym into a brightly lit arena with the three lamps alone. It was AMAZING. I mean, it looked like they were going to put on a small production or something. These lights were nicer than the lights at the concert venue I went to. 

I am super extra sad that I can't see their stage performances. From what I saw from the preview, they looked kind of amazing. I'm super excited for their culture festival though. I'm going Saturday morning. Last year... Was nothing short of amazing. They can build ridiculous things out of cardboard, tape, box cutters, and paint alone... So combine that with access to things like proper wood and stuff and real tools (since they're a technical school) and holy lumberjack batman. 

For their sports day festival, as a banner, the third year design students made a dragon. A freaking dragon. It was AMAZING. The second year design students made models of Thomas the tank engine... That could be worn by people. They were probably larger than some of the students who made it. Those were also amazing (and a little creepy too - I mean, Thomas' face without the engine behind it is just WEIRD). 

This, combined with how some of the students will actually talk to me (even if it's in Japanese with bits of English thrown in) is why I've come to really like my technical schools, even if their English isn't supposed to be as good. Whatever; some students use more English outside the class and speak it more than my academic kids. Maybe it's because they're not expected to be so great so they're not as embarrassed to try and make mistakes. 

They're also not afraid to, in word association games, go from sunny to summer to sea to bikinis to SEXY hahaha. Though I have the suspicion that's not limited to just them.