Because I am a total geek I need to show off the awesome 'potion' drinks I found when I went to my Circle K to pay for my Amazon order yesterday. (Clicking on the pictures makes them bigger) As the cans say it's the 10th anniversary of Final Fantasy this year which means some neat kitsch like these! ^_^





Today I also saw a fantastically large (almost two inches long) hummingbird moth! He was flying around in my school and when I followed him he came within a foot of my face twice!

I got to watch a Chorus Festival practice run for one of my 1st year classes. They're really good! I'm looking forward to the finals even though I have to miss the competition.

Little visitor

So when I got home from school today I saw something squiggle into my genkan (in Japanese houses the entryway is always at least five inches lower than the rest of the floor to catch dirt and small invaders) as I opened the door. Turns out it was a little gecko whom I managed to catch and take some photos of. I considered keeping him as a bet but decided to let him go because I'm not sure if the local pet stores have heated rocks and worms. I'll have to look into that. These guys live all over my building in assorted sizes and colors.





I've been taking more time out for myself recently so not as many adventures. But I did visit a friend in Gifu city and had a Go lesson yesterday. More info on Go here if you don't know the game. And I successfully took the bus to Gifu city and back yesterday for a Go lesson. It was exciting. I like the Gifu station bus stop a lot more than the Ogaki one. Much easier schedules to read.

I've also turned 24 since my last post! On my birthday I went and got some tasty ice cream parfaits with Alice and Ashley after their Japanese lessons. And on the weekend Yumiko and a bunch of our friends had a potluck dinner and then went out to karaoke, the birthday standard here.

Yakiniku is awesome. Says the vegetarian. But it really is good, I like watching the meat cook and eating all the grilled veggies my tummy can hold. Especially the mushrooms. I got treated after helping with another teacher's Halloween party on Saturday.

Classes are going well but everyone has been on a shortened schedule again for the past three weeks because Ono-chu is gearing up for their annual Chorus Festival. I'll miss the main day thanks to a JET conference in Gifu (not happy but it's non-negotiable) but I'll get to see the top class from each grade and when the whole school sings together. And I've been treated to the lovely sounds of my students singing before and after classes everyday.

Some of my students brought a cold into the school a few weeks ago, too, so I caught a nasty cough and a dripping nose cold. Half of my teacher's room is already sick and the other half is getting there too so I'm not alone. Luckily as a foreigner I'm not expected to wear one of the cloth masks (like surgeon's masks) that everyone else wears when they're sick.

Things are cooling down so I might get to use my kotatsu soon. I bought some kerosene for m space heater a few days ago with Ryan. But luckily it's still holding at around 20 degrees at the peak of the day and around 10 at night so my winter quilt is still a bit too warm still.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now.

Yay!

So I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon wearing a happi (happy) coat, walking around in a very large circle, and helping a huge band of drunk foreign and Japanese people carry a gold mikoshi (portable shinto shrine)while screaming... some word? and being followed around the street by a cart of booze. I had OJ. Because I had to drive home and I am cool that way.



It was heavy!!

We were only one small group in the giant circle of groups of drunk Japanese screaming, carrying and spinning mikoshis and drinking their hearts (or stomachs) out from the many booze carts.




Afterwards I stood in a crowd and was pelted with mochi (a rice cake made by pounding rice into a paste) by men standing in towers. I have learned that I am quite adept at catching small heavy things when they're flying at my head.



It was so interesting, and so fun, and so absolutely unlike anything I have ever done before. I'm doing it next year for sure!

Yay, weekend!

Well, I tried to make cookies with my new toaster oven (with convection ability, which means a fan to blow the air around, ooooh) today with mixed results. I can turn out either slightly burned or totally white cookies. I think I almost had it perfect once but I let them got for two minutes under a higher setting to brown more and the edges burned. *le sigh* I will get the hang of this though! Next project will be scones. Unsurprisingly the challenge was finding the ingredients to bake with. I took a picture. Thank goodness I can read hiragana and katakana! Brown sugar and raisins in particular were difficult. Luckily the import store had the big bag of raisins and I was able to find (the sugar section in general and differentiate it from the salt section) brown sugar near the white sugar.

This week went okay as far as classes go. I'm back on the ball with planning activities ahead of time. I did my first special (as in kids with special learning needs, so positive context) class and it went well, too. I love them, actually, they're really sweet kids. And most of them are really smart and like English class.

I visited with Yumiko last night and afterwards we went to her house and I talked with Keith,too. He gave me some awesome recommendations for an electronic dictionary to buy since my DS version can only go so far. He's also lent me some textbooks since he's already passed his JLPT (Japanese Language Profeciency test) level one, which means he's fluent enough to work for a Japanese company.

Oh, also, with my Amazon.jp order this week I finally got the right version of the translation and notes guide to go with my Japanese textbook. The first one I bought had all the Japanese words written in the English alphabet. I think it's better to be able to recognize them when written in normal Japanese letters, too, so I had to get this new one. (I also now have all of the 'Catwings' books by Ursula K. Le Guin which makes me really happy, too.)

My brain has finally let out enough useless info that I can read again. I've gotten through five books since arriving. This is a record for the past few years. It's so nice to not worry about stuffing my brain for exams anymore!

Anyway, I'm off to do some knitting or something else to relax!

My first earthquake.

Happened just as I was starting to fall asleep last night. According to Yahoo Japan's Weather Information service it was only a 1 (out of a possible 7) but was a Gifu earthquake! I very much hope that they're all so small while I'm here! It only rattled my house like a train was going by for a couple of seconds and then nothing more.

I don't think it's a really big event though, it was the 10th earthquake in Japan since October started (Yesterday was only the 3rd) and almost every single one is only a ranked as a 1 or 2.

Update!

My walk to school on a nice, sunny day~

I'm discovering that I suck at being a teacher, but mostly only because I lack experience and training. It should get better with time. Maybe. After my first class with any particular activity/topic things go a little smoother but the first one is usually rough. When a class goes well and the kids have fun though... Oh, that's a nice high. It's worth staying for.

Hm, I haven't done a lot of travelling recently but I think I should be looking into doing more. Or at least more exploring. I've been hanging out with lots and lots of people but not doing much exercising or just plain looking around. I haven't even gone hiking although there are tons of places to do that near me. I am going to go to Tanigumi temple for Momiji viewing (enjoying the fall colors in the trees) though. Turns out it's actually a really famous place to go hike and watch that. Who knew? I do want to go north to Toyama-ken to do some hiking though. They have a lovely looking two-day hike on a pair of mountains (some info here) that I want to check out sometime. Perhaps in May.

Let's see... So I haven't become alcoholic from stress like so many other expats (click word for definition), yay me! I'm actually usually a DD now. I was a little worried about a major personality change but it doesn't seem to be. Or not in that regard, at least.

I saw my first hummingbird moth today!! (And guess who looked at her camera and then left it on her table this morning?) It was feeding off one of the bushes outside my school! It was only about two inches long but it was beautiful. I got so close, too! I'm going to take my camera every day from now on. Just in case. I think George, the huge spider living over the stairs to the teachers room, is dead though. It's sad. We were friends in that, 'you exist and I exist, that's nice. Please don't touch me.' sort of way.

I have also successfully paid for and received my order from Amazon.jp. You can pay at convenience stores here and I managed to understand the delivery lady when she called so I'm feeling pretty good about my infantile listening and communication skills right now.

Oh my that was random.

(I'm working on a potential photo gallery program. Hopefully I'll be able to post lots of pictures if it pans out.)