Mo' Bugs

Today, the teachers at my base school also told me that the next time I see one of those kabutomushi bugs (see previous post) that I should definitely capture it and they'd buy it off me, and then I could make money on the side.

I told them it was impossible, and we laughed. Seriously though, doing that is impossible for me. Even if it were dead, I wouldn't pick up the thing. One of the teachers pointed out that it looks like a cockroach (which was why he didn't like them). They both have hard shells, it's true. They both make that sickening crunching noise and feeling if you step on them. Gross.

I had another interesting run in with some bugs today. Spiders, to be exact. So like, I've been seeing these little round cocoon things all around my house, outside the windows, etc etc, and I've just thought that they were cocoons that the spiders had spun around their dead victims to save for... a rainy day or something. I don't know why. It never occurred to me that there could be living things inside of them.

Well, it turns out there are. I got my full sized refrigerator back today, and when I went to open the door, I noticed this like... swarm of small bugs in this spider web. I knew about the spider web. I had seen the spider there before - black, round body with white spots. I was kind of like, okay spider, you can stay there so long as I can still walk out the door. But I bent down to look at the small things - I thought they were ants or small gnats that had gotten caught in the web - when I realized that these tiny things were actually moving. Along the spider web. And they weren't flying bugs. They were mini spiders. At least a hundred of them (it's so tempting to say hundreds, but that's probably exaggerating it a little bit). All crawling around.

Disgusting.

If they were on the outside of my house... maybe it would have been different. But inside my house. Ew. Do not want. Especially do not want to wake up and find them crawling around in other places, so I asked people what I should do.

One of my cool JTEs told me about this bug poison that you can get at drug stores. Apparently though, it's like... super strong poison. The strongest. Which is saying something, because Japanese poisons and bug sprays are really strong to begin with. Like, they generally won't sell you the bug poison just over the counter (he said). Actually, he advised me that if I wanted to buy them, to tell the person that I have cows and I need to keep the flies away or something. Me. Cows. I kind of giggled at that, and he was like "no I'm serious."

Yeah though, I found a much better, healthier solution that involved a little bit of grovelling and humiliating myself in front of the old lady who works at the dormitory cafeteria. I thought about asking one of the students, but she just came out and was like "are you okay?"

So I asked her what I should do about the tiny spiders, and she recommended getting a broom and just sweeping them away. I gave her, I guess, a look, and she asked me if I was afraid and I was like "yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, ONEGAISHIMASU." So she came and I gave her one of the old brooms and she just briskly swept them all away. They didn't jump at her or anything, and she just kept sweeping until they were allgone.

yah, I need to buy her some nice present or something. She's always really nice. And by always really nice, I mean she's said hello and we've had a little bit of smalltalk conversation.

Thank goodness for that though. I mean, if there had been a way to remove them and place them far far away, I'd totally be down with that.

Oh! So for some good news, I tried my hand at planting zucchini the other weekend. THERE ARE GREEN THINGS GROWING IN MY BOX. O_O Like, actual plants and stuff. I was kind of shocked and astounded. I also planted them wrong though, too close together, and too many in one little hole so now I'm like "ahhhhhhhhhh what should I doooo?!"

I know absolutely nothing about gardening. The internet has only been minimally helpful. It told me that I should thin out my plants (thin! Earlier on I was trying to think of the word and all I could come up with was 'cull') buuuut it said "the weak looking ones". To me though, they all look the same.

Even if they don't actually end up growing zucchinis, I will be happy they sprouted in the first place. :) For so long I was like "nah I'm not going to do a garden because I'm afraid of bugs" (and I still am) but then I found out how much zucchini cost out here... and I do enjoy cooking zucchini. They also said zucchini was really really hard to kill. So I'm hopeful. It's my first time gardening though, so I'm like Ahhhhhhhhh! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO.

Also, I'm not sure if the old man who comes and keeps my lawn tidy (he's the school gardener) is watering them or if it was raining, but the soil was moist when I checked it today.

Yeah, I'm still super happy about the leaves. :3 My tiny basil plant also has leaves! Though it would take three or five of those to actually get enough basil to actually cook or do anything with other than use them as a garnish or something.

Birthday presents

On Tuesday, I was at my high school in Niimi. Tuesday also happened to be national parfait day in Japan (supposedly) as well as the day I was born (3 am, as my mother likes to point out). Niimi has an unfortunate lack of air conditioners.

But anyways, I was in class and this one boy was gesturing back, and at first I thought he was gesturing towards the door since there was a cool breeze blowing through it. I thought he was telling me "oh stand in the cool breezy part." Imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw what he was *really* gesturing at. This huge, giant, horned, beetle, on the floor, about a foot away from where I was standing.

My reaction was something I heard them talking about to other students on the train. I literally jumped a foot, up and back, and screamed quite loudly. Part of the class erupted in chaos. One of the students went over and picked it up with his fingers. Disgusting.

After I got over my initial surprise and shock - I don't like surprises - it actually wasn't so bad. It was really interesting, actually, and my first time seeing one of these out in the wild. I think it was one of these kabuto mushi, or Japanese rhinoceros beetles. That or it was a stag beetle. Either way, it was huge and it was on its back, flailing its legs around. The teacher told me (later) that they could actually fly. So glad I did not find that out until afterwards.

The kid who had picked it up was going to toss it out the window, but everyone was like "NOOOO DON'T DO THAT" so instead they put it on the ledge outside the window.

When we were back in the teacher's room and telling the other teachers about this, all of them were like "dude why didn't you catch it?!" or "omfg luckyyyyyyy I want one of those!" This put me at a loss for words. Apparently, according to one teacher those kind of bugs go for 5,000 yen in the stores. Five *thousand* yen. In dollars, it's over $50 - probably more like $60 with the exchange rate now. For a bug. Granted, said bug was the size of my palm about. That bugger was HUGE.

So while it looks really cool (I'll give it that) I think i'd rather it keep its distance so someone else can enjoy playing with it instead.

I understand now though, why the pokemon Heracross was in so many of the animes. These beetles are HUGE in Japanese culture (as seen by how much they cost in the store!) and they even have a show about them. They're nicknamed "the king of bugs" and kids use 'em to fight. Apparently, you can also find it in the mountainy areas.

Summer Hideout

In the winter, it was so cold in my house. I had no central heating, so I would bundle up and sit under my warm kotatsu and then sprint into bed with my heated blanket (when I didn't fall asleep under the kotatsu). Basically I lived in my living room under my kotatsu for all of winter.

But now that it's summer, I've found myself holing up in my bedroom, since that's where the AC is. Last summer I managed to go for decently long without running the AC too much (and then I caved) but I feel like I've turned on the AC really early this year. But my room is the one place that's really nice and cool in my house - though when I need to use the bathroom or cook, it's like running into a wall of disgustingly thick heat when I step out of my ice box of a room.

Not having wi-fi (since my time capsule broke) is making this experience much more annoying. Also, the fact that my softbank internet thingie has no signal in my house (but my phone has full bars! I don't understand! Augh!) makes it even more annoying.

Oh! So for something not heat related, I *finally* did what people have been telling me to do for AGES. I planted a small garden in a planter box. It looks really awkward and a little stupid (I have this giant long container thing that's this not-so-pleasing color of pastel-y green). There's also the chance that nothing will actually grow there, since I'm planting my seeds really really late. I mean, I know it's a little on the late side to be planting stuff, since generally that's done in the spring (thank you Harvest Moon) but I didn't find the proper seeds until just last week or so.

I'm trying to grow zucchini, since it's EXPENSIVE over here for zucchini! One zucchini at my grocery store today was about 180 yen - almost $2 (with the exchange rate, probably $2) for a single zucchini. Wat. The. Fak. So I found the seeds at the hardware store (and was like "omg where have these been?" since I've been looking for zucchini seeds for ages, and I swear those weren't there when I went to the store in the earlier months.

I also think I planted them wrong. ._. After I planted them, I was reading that you should plant one seed per hole thing about a couple inches or so apart... I kind of just dug holes in a -_-_- pattern and planted them there like that. Yeah. Probably shouldn't have done that. Sigh. And I dumped two to four seeds in each little hole.

I'm growing a little basil plant though, that's doing quite nicely. If I want like, a couple of leaves it's fine for that, but I'm like, for cooking purposes it's not really... yeah. I'd have to have like, a couple of basil plants. Maybe I'll do that sometime. But I think I'm supposed to thin the plants out, you know, like survival of the fittest style.

Last night I went over to Hannah's place with Caroline and we watched Up and Tangled. :) Good times. I love being able to just hang out like that sometimes and not like... do anything but watch movies and eat. We found a cockroach in her house partway through the movies though, and had a... an interesting time freaking out and standing on the couch and the bed haha. Regular bunch of girls we were. This was promptly followed by a trip to the supermarket she lived by (it was 24 hours! Had a nice bout of city envy right there) where we stocked up on things that can kill cockroaches. Sticky roach traps, roach dango, and this nice spray stuff that we used to also kill several flying bugs that had come in when we opened the door. I don't think I could do the traps, since it means I'll have to remove it too... and that's just kinda gross.

I'm pleased to report though, that I was not among the hysterically screaming. Nope. Freak out yeah, but like, there was very little screaming and swearing from me. Probably because it wasn't my apartment.

It's kind of weird though. The roach was about the length of my thumb - super huge! We were like GOOD GOD. But roaches don't actually bite or anything. They're just really annoying and move really fast. (Most of them) don't even fly or jump. You'd think that we'd react worse to mosquitos or something. But yeah, they're kind of disgusting. And by kind of, I mean, really are.

Someone also said they were never visiting me during the summer because of all the bugs haha. I don't quite blame them; there's a ridiculous amount of flying critters around light sources (like the train station) during the evening.

I think I'm getting a little bit better at bugs. The ones I can anticipate anyways. Maybe. Haha. I am still, by no means, "good" at being around bugs. I still freak out. But I like to think that I freak out a little less. Maybe. Probably not.

Replacement Fridge!

Today, after much "Jessica must locate obscure piece of paper with the refrigerator contract on it" hunting, the electronic store people I'm leasing the fridge from finally came around 2:30 today.

But first I had to find the paper. I am so very glad that I did not throw that away. I was actually going through all my papers and didn't know that was it until my supervisor told me to "look for the B4 sized paper with lots of japanese on it" and then I was like "hm, I have no idea what this paper is and it has lots of Japanese on it" and he was like "aha! That's it."

Yeah. They were supposed to come today at lunch, so I quickly ate everything and went to wait at home. Yeaaaaaaaah. They didn't come. I suppose some things don't change? And then when they were supposed to come later, they were late. My supervisor actually commented on that, and how in Japan punctuality was really important (but no company).

I think it was something wrong with the power cord. Either way, they took my old fridge and gave me a temporary replacement.

It's about a third the size of my old fridge. I mean, this thing is TINY. I'll get pictures up sometime. The freezer... is meant to hold like, maybe a pint of ice cream, one ice cube tray, and maybe some frozen veggies. The fridge is also tiny. I kind of laughed when I saw it. But I mean, a tiny fridge is better than no fridge, right?

I'm sorry I ever had smug thoughts at having a big fridge.

Also, apparently, according to my teacher summer has not come yet. It's still the rainy season. But today was soooo friggin' hot and humid, so I don't know what she was talking about. Yarg. I'm not a summer person.

My goal is to try my best at reducing the amount that I complain about it being hot. Yep.

Juiceboxes & Trash Schedules

Alright. Halfway through the day. Two and a half hours of sleep under my belt. Two coffees - have I mentioned how wonderful the vending machines here are? I feel much better now than when I was coming to work in the morning. Sometimes I'm a morning person. Today, I was not. There was a guy at the conbini at the station who, as I was grabbing my coffee, stood in front of me to grab his, thus forcing me into line behind him. I was kind of like, wtf dude. You make me late for my train, I will not be happy, since the train will not wait. And as he got up to the register, he wasn't just buying coffee, but he also bought a newspaper and a pack of cigarettes. Agonizingly slowly. I was starting to worry about whether or not I would make my train.

I did, for the record.

The weather is really starting to heat up, but then again, it IS June after all. June, the rainy season in Japan, where things start to get humid and not-so-great weatherwise (though mostly it's because I can't stand the humidity; it makes me irritable). Back home, sometimes it would start to get hot in May. Those were not so fun times. There was condensation on the floors though from all the humidity.

Carrying around a hand towel/sweat towel has never been so important. Or those face/freshener wipes. I carry around both, cause sometimes the towel isn't enough. Thank goodness you can get all this cheap at the 100 yen store.

I'm dreading going home a little though. Today was trash day, but because I was a train wreck this morning and totally not together, I completely forgot to take out the trash today.

Japan has a special trash system that varies from city to city and housing complex to housing complex. There are specific days you're supposed to put out your trash (so the wild critters don't get into them) and certain days for bottles and stuff. Not so different from the US. At first.

It's the degree you have to separate things here that makes it seem really crazy. Things that you can make into a merry fire go in one pile (burnables), while things that don't go into the un/non-burnable trash. This includes things like plastics and whatnot. Some cities make you separate even further: milk cartons from plastic from styrofoam from paper from wood from metal from glass. Bottles (pet bottles), cans, and glass bottles (bins) usually get separated as well. Some places make you remove the cap and the plastic wrapping from around the bottle (which usually comes pre-perforated).

I live next to the school dorms, so they told me it's okay to not separate as much, for which I'm super grateful. Especially since I just threw out a whole bunch of food. That is sitting in my house. Roasting. In the heat. Because my refrigerator is broken and last night it seemed like a good idea to clean out at least the rotten meat from my freezer.

Yeaaaah. Home is gonna reek when I go back. I'm praying very very hard that there aren't cockroaches. Sigh.

Guess I'm eating out for a bit though. That or having tuna pasta. No leftovers. Or rice. But yeah, pretty much everything had spoiled in the fridge when I checked it last night. REALLY EFFIN LAME.


But oh yeah! What I wanted to talk about. Juiceboxes. And Japan's LOVE for them. To me, juiceboxes are things for small children and elementary school. Once you graduate to middle school and especially high school, it's can or bottle. But here, there are actually vending machines that sell juiceboxes and more! For it's more than just juice that comes in these small boxy things. They also have milk. Instead of milk cartons (they have that too) they have milk boxes. Flavored 'au lait' milks. The strawberry one is fantastic. One of my teachers bought me one and I was like OMG, MY CHILDHOOD. I love(d) strawberry milk. :)

But. They aren't cheap like I thought they'd be! Sometimes they cost as much as the stuff in the cans! It boggles my mind every time I see it, since it seems like it's not as much liquid for the same price... and in a carton. Maybe the boxes are more expensive here? But my students seem to like them a lot! They're tasty, but I feel like I'm a child again when I drink them.

Monday fail

Apparently, monday has something against technology.

My friend's computer died just as she was sending her phone in to get repaired.

My time capsule is still dead.

And today, around midnight, I discovered that my refrigerator and freezer are broken and probably have been broken for a while. Out of all the meats that I had in the freezer (and I had a bit) there was maybe one bag that I wasn't skeptical about being bad. THe rest of them had defrosted and started to turn colors on the sides. Even if they were good... they wouldn't have been good for much longer since they had already melted in the freezer. So much waste.

But yeah, I managed to save some ground beef and had a really really really late dinner. At 2 am. Wee.

I'm mostly annoyed that all that meat had to be thrown away. Meat here is *expensive*. Augh. I think I threw away at least 20-30 dollars in meat today. ~_~ Not to mention the rest of the stuff.

I have a little nonsensical theory as to why it happened. It's because I had bought ice cream and hadn't eaten any yet. Clearly, a sign that I shouldn't buy ice cream (or, as someone on facebook pointed out, that I should eat it faster next time).

On the plus side, I finished reading American Gods today. Very good book.

I crave salad

It's pretty much official; I'm coming back to California for about two weeks at the end of July/beginning of August (until the 14th), and will be back in Japan before the last day of the obon festival here. Two obon festivals in four days. Yea-yuuuh.

I wanted to come back earlier, but I actually got chosen to be one of the orientation assistants for the Tokyo Orientation, and on top of that, I was picked to be one of the CLAIR (official) workshop presenters. The application for Tokyo Orientation Assistants (TOAs) are based on the outlines for two workshops you submit, as well as comments from your supervisor. In some places, getting a TOA spot is harder than getting into JET in the first place, so I'm super excited! It won't, however, be a free ticket into Tokyo; they're actually going to make us work by helping people get from place to place, from the airport to hotel, answer questions, give workshops, act like Role Models (ahaha...) but in exchange, we get our ticket to and from Tokyo paid for PLUS accommodations (and breakfast). So yeah. I'm excited for it. :) I've been working on the powerpoint with three other people, though one of them, I swear, it's like, did you even LISTEN to the "how to give good powerpoints" presentation? STOP WRITING SENTENCES ALL OVER THE POWERPOINT. It's distracting. And Y U NO LIKE PLAIN B&W BACKGROUND? Sigh. lol. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Immediately following orientation, I will be flying back to the US. It was too good of an opportunity (not having to pay for the shink or a hotel) to not come back during this time.

I also need a little sanity break, I think.

By sanity break, I mean visit my family. My grandma. My friends. Eat food. Oh god. The food. Mom asked me what I wanted to do when I got back and I could not think of anything else other than "see friends" and "eat ____________." Since I listed everything out individually, this was a long list.

Don't get me wrong. I love Japan. I love the food here too. I have not lost weight here because I love the food so much.

But I really miss the wide range of foods you can get in California. I miss easily prepared dinner salads. Cheddar cheese. To make a proper dinner salad here, first you have to buy a head of lettuce, wash the lettuce, cut the lettuce, buy the (expensive) vegetables to go on top of your salad (I like to put baby corn, 500 yen; onions, 158 yen/bag; red onions, 1 for 300 yen; bell peppers (red, yellow, green) - 198 each for reds and yellows, 300 yen/bag for greens; button mushrooms, 400 yen for 6; and cheese. I won't even get started on how much the cheese is. Tofu is super cheap to put on, but things like meat, especially beef or steak... yeah, that gets expensive. Occasionally they'll have it on sale, like today. I got a strip of steak (dunno the cut) for 500 yen! Woo hooo! But yeah. By the time you buy all the ingredients - and remember, this is a dinner salad so most of the ingredients will actually be used - it's one hell of an expensive salad. Of all iceburg. Romaine lettuce is really hard to find. Arugula is out. You can get spinich here, but not baby spinich. Have I mentioned I miss bagged salads?

There's this fantastic bakery under one of the department stores in my area that sells a ham on ciabatta sandwich. Oh god. It's amazing. Seriously, it's a good thing I don't live near these places, otherwise I'd be even fatter and more broke haha.

Hotaru Matsuri

Tonight, I went with some of the ALTs in Takahashi (and one from closer to the city) to a local firefly festival in this area of Takahshi known as Nariwa. Technically, until a couple years ago, Nariwa used to be its own town proper. Then Takahashi, giant sprawl that it is, kind of swallowed up Nariwa. But even still, a lot of the things are kind of distinct about it, and you kind of need a car to get there proper.

They were holding a firefly festival along one of the riversides in this absolutely gorgeous area. I'm quite sad that I didn't have my camera on hand to capture the gorgeousness of the area; nestled between mountains, the firefly festival area is considerably more rural than where I live. There are loads of rice paddies in tiered hills with traditional style houses. There's also a river that's mostly overgrown with grass where we watched the fireflies. Some of the roads were about as wide as my friend's (tiny) Kei-car and had no guard rails and lead to a steep drop into a flooded rice paddy.

The festival itself was held at one of the middle schools (that I don't teach at). They had festival snacky foods, but I had come from my friend's birthday celebrations in Okayama city prior to this, so I wasn't super hungry. They had the usual though - takoyaki, fries, crepes, karaage, meat on a stick...

The area it was held in is also famous for this dance story thing about a monk who has his holy water stolen by demons who then transform into a giant 8-headed snake. Kagura... I think it might be called? I forget. Either way this town is famous for that, and you can find statues and other references to the dance all over the area. They performed the dance in the gym for us, and afterwards were throwing out snacks and mochi. Like, hard mochi in plastic bags. Like, potentially dangerous if you weren't paying attention and got beaned in the face by one. As it was, everyone (adults included) were scrambling to get the food so if you weren't careful, you might find yourself elbowed by a sweet looking grandma.

I actually ran into a couple of my students at the festival, and two of them hung around to talk to me in this Japanese-English kind of hybrid. It was quite fun actually, and the kids were sweet. It was really fun talking to them too, outside of school. I got to dispel the "you're with boys therefore boyfriend?" thing yet again, but this time, I explained to them that the other ALTs in Takahashi were all dudes (no joke) so that if they saw me with a guy he was FRIEND ONLY since there were lots of guys out here. Thankfully, they understood. Hopefully they will spread this to the other students so that the first years aren't constantly thinking I'm dating a bunch of different guys haha. Ha.

Anyways, the fireflies were gorgeous! I don't remember ever seeing fireflies (though I suppose it's entirely possible since we used to go to Minnesota in the summer), so I counted this as my "first firefly seeing experience."

And wow. They're absolutely gorgeous. They also stay sufficiently far away so that I don't get freaked out. There were tons along the river. Some floated high in the air, their lights easy to see against the backdrop of the forest-covered mountain/hills. Others floated just off the road, making it slightly dangerous for those who were trying to catch them. It was so serene though; we were in an area with not many people, so it was really quiet, and you could just hear nature all around you. It was in a super rural area, so there were little to no lights around to compete with the fireflies (though the moon was pretty bright).

Absolute gorgeousness. I can see why they put a level like this into Katamari, and how well it's paired with the music on that level.

Japanese Eye Doctors

So today I went to the optometrist in my city for the first time. My JTE had called them and they said there was someone who did a little bit of English (which, when I hear that, means that they speak pretty decent English but are really shy about it).

It was really interesting. There were a lot of the same things, like those giant large things that you look into and they make your vision go woaaaah - even if you're there without glasses or anything. The one where they ask "one, or two. One or two. Three or four... three or four."

Their vision checking thing though... where we would look at the letter chart, the japanese optometrist has a circle with a segment of it gone; either the top, left, right, or bottom. So instead of squinting to look at Ps and Qs and Ds, you're trying to say which way the circle opens to.

Turns out, it makes for a much easier time when the patient can't speak Japanese really well. I ended up pointing for a lot of it.

There was also this machine that sounded like an old video game or something the way it moved - in chunky blocks. Very mechanical, a sharp contrast to the way everything else smoothly operated in the office. And they would get it up really close to your eye and then... blast a huge puff of air straight at your eyeball making you go "WTF?!"

Then they'd do it again. So glad we don't have that much in the states. It's quite annoying.

Oh yeah, and my eyes are fine. The people in the office were super nice, so I didn't have to pay anything since they said my eyes were fine and all. I was like, hooray! Two of the staff members could understand a little bit of english, and one could speak it pretty well too. :) The main sensei/doctor though, he was very adament in his "I don't English" and I was like "日本語大丈夫。少しわかります。”

Hooray though. Oh, we had to do it twice because I forgot to mention that I wore contacts. Woops. And they told me I'm near sighed. Yep. :D

Mu-friggin-kade

Mukade are the poisonous (giant) centipedes in Japan. While there have been stories about people dying from these bug bites, most of the stories end up with people getting sick and horrendous scars.

Either way, I don't want one of those things touching me.

I found one in my sink today tough. Anyone who's seen me and bugs interact (more like me running away from bugs) knows that I scream. Loudly.

Thank god that they don't move as fast as cockroaches. Or jump. Or fly. I think I would have cried if they did.

I got back home and I was being all productive, doing my laundry, washing the dishes in my sink... when I noticed something moved from under my dishes. That something looked like mukade legs.

Naturally, I freaked out, but stopped just shy of being completely useless. THank lord I found it in my sink. I turned the water to almost the hottest (the hottest would have just been a small trickle, and I wanted full on like, lots of water) and sprayed it so that it slid back under the frying pan, and kept the water on so it couldn't come out. Every so often I would fill a cup with more water and pour it around the sides, just in case.

I had heard somewhere that you're supposed to boil it in water, and figured, that no way in hell was I getting close enough to pick it up. Pouring boiling water over it was going to have to suffice - and someone said later that it's actually what you're supposed to do. We ridiculed this at first, saying "we'll never have the time to boil water if there's a mukade in our places." Ha. Ha. Ha.

God bless hot water boilers. Scalding water in less than a minute. Beautiful. I poured it around the drain thing and refilled the pot and boiled more water.

I didn't see it after a while, so I was hoping it was dead. By hoping, I mean, some rational part of me figured it was dead but the more dominant, completely irrational part was like OMG IT'S STILL ALIVE. I also have that kinda small problem that well.... I don't want to get within arm's reach of the thing, let alone touch it. So I left the water running (god my bill is going to be high this month) and ran to fetch one of the students that live either across from me or the boys dorm. After cautiously checking my shoes for more mukade, I ran outside, looking slightly hysterical. There were two girls just kinda sitting there checking their cell phones. I don't remember which school they went to. I know they're not first or second years at Takahashi. They might be from Jounan (the other school I teach) but I'm not sure.

My conversation with the two girls in front of the dorm went something like this:
Me: 男の人がありますか？　「Are there any boys here?」 (yeah, I realize now I totally used the verb for inanimate things. Oopsie).
Girls: Eh? なぜ？「Why?」
Me: 台所でむかでがあります！SINK の中で。「There's a (MOTHERFUKKIN) mukade in my kitchen! In the sink! OMFG」
Girls: ... *run to put on shoes* (I thought they were gonna go to get the boys) *run over to my house*
Me: EHHH? 大丈夫ですか？
Girls: DAIJOUBUYO~
Me: O_____________O 皿の下で！「It's under the dishes! I'M REALLY SORRY IT'S SUPER DIRTY」
Girls: *run inside after customary "Sorry for intruding on your house but Jessica forgot the japanese word ness"*
Me: 一番下！！

(Note: the above is a paraphrasing of what happened)
At this point, they were lifting up the pot and pan that was in my sink (I hadn't done dishes for two days) and I caught a glimpse of mukade and SCREAMED super loud. The girls were quick to assure me that it was dead. They were all, "IT'S DEAD IT'S DEAD." I think that's what 死ぬ means anyways. I still freaked out. I think this amused them. I think they might have said "dead" in English too.

Then they picked it up with (my favorite pair of) chopsticks and asked if I had a tissue. There was a moment where they debated where to put it. I kinda motioned towards where the paper towels were. They wrapped it up and I think took it with them, bless their souls. I'm so thankful they didn't put it in my garbage can. I think they figured since I had freaked out at them picking it up and just from looking at it that leaving it inside my house was probably not the best idea.

Ugh, the idea of being able to feel the body through the paper towels grosses me out though.

But yeah. That was my mukade adventure that I never want to have again (though if I have to find mukade again I'd rather it be in my sink where I can pour water over it). I mean, I never want to have any mukade experiences ever again. Unfortunately, I don't think that will be the case. They said mukade come out with rainy weather. It's rainy now. Crap.

I'm stuck in this weird limbo of I really want to clean but I really don't want to clean because I might find more bugs which means that it would be better to clean, じゃろ？

Looks like I'm sleeping in the mesh tent again tonight.