I feel so sneaky. I’ve decided to write the occasional post on my computer so I can pop it onto my blog when I use the internet-enabled everyone computer at work for printing. This means I don’t have to cramp my poor thumbs typing on my cell phone to e-mail people. The poor thing will recognize and suggest Japanese words after the first character or two but doesn’t know any English words.
Anyways, work is going well. I went and watched my kendo club two mornings this week and they’re awesome. I adore my children more than I can say! I actually think I’m happier working at a ‘rough’ school than I would be at a ‘good’ school. These kids are really good kids (on the inside, outward appearances and behaviour can be deceiving) they just don’t like to study. I can’t blame them, I didn’t like French much when I had to learn it myself either. But, they’ve got lots of energy outside of class so I hope I can harness that in class. If not, oh well. I’ll hang out with them at clubs and lunch and the like. Next week is opening ceremony and self-intro week so I’m excited. We have our annual Sports Day next Saturday, too, and I’m on Blue Team so I get to practice with them all week!
My teachers don’t come and ask me for anything. So I’ve started hunting them down and harassing them. I’ve come up with some ideas for each level of class based on the textbook so I ask them if that’s the kind of thing they had in mind, if they think it would be okay, all that stuff. I think they’re lying sometimes when they say it looks good but hopefully that will pass when they realize I don’t get bothered by that sort of thing. So far I think we’re set to go for the first week or two though. Now I just have to get all my materials printed off and practice my introduction. I spend a lot of time making clip-art since I don’t have access to the internet on my computer yet, too.
Speaking of printing I decided to invest in a printer and lo and behold the printer I wanted anyway was on sale for 13,000 yen down from 22,000! When I first got here I’d just take two zeros off each number to approximate the amount in dollars, so it’s a difference of about $100. I was so happy! It’s a lovely Canon scanner/printer/everything machine and I’ve been told that replacement Canon ink is cheap here.
When I’m out and about I occasionally get recognized by a kid and they yell my name and run over to say hi and then stand awkwardly near me because neither of us have the ability to converse well in the other’s language yet. I bug them a little in English anyway before saying, ‘See you’ which means they can go. It’s so nice! I’m feeling like I’m becoming more a part of the community.
Last week Elissa came to visit for two days and we had a lovely time wandering around when I was off work and shopping. Then this last weekend I went to visit Midori in her home town (her family is lovely!) and we went to Nara on Sunday. I was mobbed by the ‘friendly’ deer who wanted the deer cookies we’d bought and got to see the biggest Buddha statue in Japan and some gorgeous temples. I can’t wait until I can upload pictures again!
My only trouble on my trip was when I took the last bus from the train station home and picked the wrong one. Apparently there is another town with exactly the same kanji that’s south of Ogaki instead of north. But after a very stilted conversation with the poor bus driver and a few minutes of frustrated crying at a dark bus stop I called Ryan on my cell phone and we managed to figure out where I was using a road sign. I cannot be thankful enough for this because road signs are few and far between in Japan and I’d just gotten my cell phone on Friday. Anyway, he and Alice came and rescued me in her car so everything worked out okay. And now I know which bus I should not take again.
Actually I went to pick L up in Ogaki last night because she’d just gotten into Japan around lunch and was really jet-lagged. The way to Ogaki station is actually ridiculously easy! I was so pleased! No trouble getting there and back even in the dark! The map books they’ve got in Japan really are awesome. So she’s going to stay for the weekend before she goes on her pilgrimage in Shikoku which is exciting.
My other exciting news is that not only did I survive my first real adventure in Japan but I’ve got a drivable car now, too! Dan and Ryan helped my get my insurance over the past few days and then took me out to practice driving on the wrong side of the road. I’ve done a couple of shorter trips by myself and I think I’m going to be okay. I just keep turning my windshield wipers on when I want to hit the left turn-signal.
Anyway, I see another teacher I need to bug so I’ll sign off for now. I hope all of you are doing well!
Friday, August 31, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
August 22nd
The rest of my weekend consisted of hibernating in my house and getting some alone time. Ryan was a sweetie and changed the tires and grips on my bike with the ones from his broken bike. So I think I’ll stick with it for a while, although it’s tempting to get one of the ones with the gear cover so I can wear skirts and bike.
Monday was pretty fun. My first real day at school and I did my self-intro and then learned CPR (luckily I was drilled to death during multiple years of swim lessons and my occupational first-aid a few years back) and how to use an AED (defibrillator thing to help restart hearts) in Japanese. I didn’t understand the majority of the talking but I took my turn with the Little Anne doll and the practice AED machine. I can tell someone to call the Japanese 911 (119) now.
After lunch I went to Ogaki for a meeting about the Seino summer workshop for ALTs and we got the rundown on judging the regional speech contest and the various activities for elementary and junior high students. Afterwards we picked Elissa up at the train station and we all had dinner at Cocos then she came home with me.
Tuesday was awesome, too. I spent the morning alternately puttering away at my self-intro class and introducing myself to the huge number of students who were there for a homework check. (Remember, in Japan summer is the space between 1st and 2nd semester. Third semester runs from January to the beginning of March) I got to watch the basketball and volleyball teams practice, too. At one my Kyoto-sensei (Vice-principal) said it was okay to leave when I told him Elissa was here. After I got home Elissa and I spent the afternoon shopping downtown and exploring some. We would have taken an evening walk, too, if it hadn’t suddenly poured rain fifteen minutes after we got home. It was fun, though! I hadn’t been to a lot of the stores yet, either.
Today we dropped Elissa back in Ogaki on our way to the Seino workshop. I’m sad she couldn’t stay for longer but she wants to come back next summer so that’d be awesome! It was so good to have her here and to be able to talk with her and explore with her!
Today was fun but tiring. I was assigned to the elementary group in the morning so we played a few games with 120 children in the main hall and then we broke into groups to learn veggie names and play karuta (a slap card game) for an hour. We ate lunch with the students and in the afternoon I was with the elementary students again. I ‘read’ The Rainbow Fish to four different groups of children, by which I mean I summarized it loosely for them and two other ALTs acted it out with a few paper fish cut-outs. Then we endlessly repeated ‘which color would you like’ while all the children made their own rainbow fish from paper and glue. It was actually not too bad but I’ve learned that I most definitely prefer to make my own lessons to using a lesson plan someone else has handed me. It’s really tiring working with so many students over and over again, too. I definitely need to work on stamina for my Monday schools.
Tomorrow I’ll be helping a group of junior high students draft a play on the situation ‘samurai in the airport’. I’m interested to see how things go!
Monday was pretty fun. My first real day at school and I did my self-intro and then learned CPR (luckily I was drilled to death during multiple years of swim lessons and my occupational first-aid a few years back) and how to use an AED (defibrillator thing to help restart hearts) in Japanese. I didn’t understand the majority of the talking but I took my turn with the Little Anne doll and the practice AED machine. I can tell someone to call the Japanese 911 (119) now.
After lunch I went to Ogaki for a meeting about the Seino summer workshop for ALTs and we got the rundown on judging the regional speech contest and the various activities for elementary and junior high students. Afterwards we picked Elissa up at the train station and we all had dinner at Cocos then she came home with me.
Tuesday was awesome, too. I spent the morning alternately puttering away at my self-intro class and introducing myself to the huge number of students who were there for a homework check. (Remember, in Japan summer is the space between 1st and 2nd semester. Third semester runs from January to the beginning of March) I got to watch the basketball and volleyball teams practice, too. At one my Kyoto-sensei (Vice-principal) said it was okay to leave when I told him Elissa was here. After I got home Elissa and I spent the afternoon shopping downtown and exploring some. We would have taken an evening walk, too, if it hadn’t suddenly poured rain fifteen minutes after we got home. It was fun, though! I hadn’t been to a lot of the stores yet, either.
Today we dropped Elissa back in Ogaki on our way to the Seino workshop. I’m sad she couldn’t stay for longer but she wants to come back next summer so that’d be awesome! It was so good to have her here and to be able to talk with her and explore with her!
Today was fun but tiring. I was assigned to the elementary group in the morning so we played a few games with 120 children in the main hall and then we broke into groups to learn veggie names and play karuta (a slap card game) for an hour. We ate lunch with the students and in the afternoon I was with the elementary students again. I ‘read’ The Rainbow Fish to four different groups of children, by which I mean I summarized it loosely for them and two other ALTs acted it out with a few paper fish cut-outs. Then we endlessly repeated ‘which color would you like’ while all the children made their own rainbow fish from paper and glue. It was actually not too bad but I’ve learned that I most definitely prefer to make my own lessons to using a lesson plan someone else has handed me. It’s really tiring working with so many students over and over again, too. I definitely need to work on stamina for my Monday schools.
Tomorrow I’ll be helping a group of junior high students draft a play on the situation ‘samurai in the airport’. I’m interested to see how things go!
Saturday, August 18, 2007
August 18th
I finally got to cook my first dinner this evening. It was a really tasty Italian donburi recipe that I pulled from some Japanese cooking show I watched. I love how many kinds of mushrooms the grocery stores have here. No white button ones though.
I am sad to say that I have reached a new level of horror/ amusement at the state of my house. I went to use the microwave to reheat some frozen rice and I just... couldn’t. I don’t even want to clean it I just want to trash it straight away. The inside is covered in baked-on black crud and there are bits of mummified and scorched food lying around in there. It’s a biohazard in an extreme sense. I made new rice and saved the other stuff for later.
After deciding to make ice cubes today I discovered that one of the trays (which had both been sitting in the freezer since before I arrived) had brown stuff and mold in it. It must have grown when the electricity was off, but really now. *sighs* Almost half of the pots hanging in the kitchen are too rusted to use. The unusable ones were just put up or tucked behind the good ones so they weren’t visible at first sight.
Today turned into deep-clean-my-apartment day as soon as things cooled down enough for me to move around. There are still a few places that need a good scrub or dusting but my list is getting much shorter. I hearby resolve to make enough time to properly clean before I leave so my successor doesn’t need to deal with icky things right away.
I am sad to say that I have reached a new level of horror/ amusement at the state of my house. I went to use the microwave to reheat some frozen rice and I just... couldn’t. I don’t even want to clean it I just want to trash it straight away. The inside is covered in baked-on black crud and there are bits of mummified and scorched food lying around in there. It’s a biohazard in an extreme sense. I made new rice and saved the other stuff for later.
After deciding to make ice cubes today I discovered that one of the trays (which had both been sitting in the freezer since before I arrived) had brown stuff and mold in it. It must have grown when the electricity was off, but really now. *sighs* Almost half of the pots hanging in the kitchen are too rusted to use. The unusable ones were just put up or tucked behind the good ones so they weren’t visible at first sight.
Today turned into deep-clean-my-apartment day as soon as things cooled down enough for me to move around. There are still a few places that need a good scrub or dusting but my list is getting much shorter. I hearby resolve to make enough time to properly clean before I leave so my successor doesn’t need to deal with icky things right away.
Friday, August 17, 2007
August 17th
The Gifu orientation was pretty fun. We finally got a few good lectures where I learned some techniques really applicable to teaching. I’m getting really inspired to do the best for my students that I can! I tried an Onsen (public bath) for the first time, too. Luckily not a mixed one. It was the only option at the Sports Centre where the orientation was held and another first-year girl and I acted as moral support for each other. It’s really more like a hot tub that requires you to bathe first and has no gross chemicals.
I just got home from Gujo dancing! It’s this amazing evening town festival (matsuri) held over most of the summer. The big event is the folk dancing which happens around a lovely tower in the centre of a town square. The people in the tower have instruments and drums and sing five different songs for two hours and everyone rotates slowly around the tower doing one of five different traditional dances. I was totally awful but just went ahead and tried to learn the steps anyway. Luckily it was fairly simple and all of the dances had some sort of sequence that I decided started at the clap(s) and then ran for five to ten moves past that before repeating. It was really fun!
Ashley and Brandon’s supervisor (such a nice guy) drove us and two other ex-JETs and their lovely girlfriend and wife respectively out to Gujo. I haven’t managed to find a yukata (summer kimono) to fit me yet but I plan to look consistently for the next month and then check into custom-ordering one if I have no luck.
The drive was almost two hours each way so we had some great conversations in the van as we traveled. When we arrived we had enough time to visit the Food Replica Workshop before the festival started and I bought a Hershey chocolate square dangly with an H on it for my keitai (cell-phone) when I get it next week! It looks so real I’m almost afraid it will melt on my fingers! I also tried fish chips of some sort that are a full, gutted fish that’s been sliced into cross-sections then breaded and deep-fried. It was... interesting. Eating the fins and bones kind of freaked me out although the taste was okay. Seeing heads left attached to things I might eat still makes me squeamish. I had partially mashed and grilled rice on a stick with sweet miso sauce after that.
Before I left home I was really uncertain about where I was being called to go and if I was making the right choices but now I’m certain that I’ve found exactly the right place to be at the moment. After eating and dancing and talking with everyone this evening I just felt that comfortable sort of rightness that makes me almost drowsy and lethargic. I’m just so in love with my town and the nature around me and I like all of my new friends so much that I couldn’t imagine leaving.
I haven’t even been in Japan for two weeks and already my new house feels like home. Being so far away from family and friends is difficult and makes me sad and I’m not sure if I could be much more nervous about teaching and working with my new teachers but just existing here really feels right, something I haven’t felt in a really long time. I don’t even have the time or desire to think about the things I couldn’t get out of my head before.
I just got home from Gujo dancing! It’s this amazing evening town festival (matsuri) held over most of the summer. The big event is the folk dancing which happens around a lovely tower in the centre of a town square. The people in the tower have instruments and drums and sing five different songs for two hours and everyone rotates slowly around the tower doing one of five different traditional dances. I was totally awful but just went ahead and tried to learn the steps anyway. Luckily it was fairly simple and all of the dances had some sort of sequence that I decided started at the clap(s) and then ran for five to ten moves past that before repeating. It was really fun!
Ashley and Brandon’s supervisor (such a nice guy) drove us and two other ex-JETs and their lovely girlfriend and wife respectively out to Gujo. I haven’t managed to find a yukata (summer kimono) to fit me yet but I plan to look consistently for the next month and then check into custom-ordering one if I have no luck.
The drive was almost two hours each way so we had some great conversations in the van as we traveled. When we arrived we had enough time to visit the Food Replica Workshop before the festival started and I bought a Hershey chocolate square dangly with an H on it for my keitai (cell-phone) when I get it next week! It looks so real I’m almost afraid it will melt on my fingers! I also tried fish chips of some sort that are a full, gutted fish that’s been sliced into cross-sections then breaded and deep-fried. It was... interesting. Eating the fins and bones kind of freaked me out although the taste was okay. Seeing heads left attached to things I might eat still makes me squeamish. I had partially mashed and grilled rice on a stick with sweet miso sauce after that.
Before I left home I was really uncertain about where I was being called to go and if I was making the right choices but now I’m certain that I’ve found exactly the right place to be at the moment. After eating and dancing and talking with everyone this evening I just felt that comfortable sort of rightness that makes me almost drowsy and lethargic. I’m just so in love with my town and the nature around me and I like all of my new friends so much that I couldn’t imagine leaving.
I haven’t even been in Japan for two weeks and already my new house feels like home. Being so far away from family and friends is difficult and makes me sad and I’m not sure if I could be much more nervous about teaching and working with my new teachers but just existing here really feels right, something I haven’t felt in a really long time. I don’t even have the time or desire to think about the things I couldn’t get out of my head before.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
August 15th
Yesterday morning I got my bank account set up. Ryan was nice enough to get me set up at one that’s got branches all over Japan so that I can take out money when I travel if I need to. I tried to get a cellphone, too, but I don’t think that’s going to happen until I get my gaijin (foreigner’s) card. They have some pretty neat waterproof ones that I’ve got my eye on.
I tried to go to work but the door was locked so I gave up and went home. I got a bit of cleaning and laundry done (it is so nice to have my washer right in my house) and then Alex called me and she took me to an awesome housewares store where I was able to get some proper summer bedding instead of the heavy quilts in my closet and a few more towels and the like. I spent the evening hanging out with her little girls and then Alex and her husband took Sandra, one of the new JETs in their area and me out to dinner at one of those sushi places where the food travels around on a little conveyor belt.
I tried to go to work but the door was locked so I gave up and went home. I got a bit of cleaning and laundry done (it is so nice to have my washer right in my house) and then Alex called me and she took me to an awesome housewares store where I was able to get some proper summer bedding instead of the heavy quilts in my closet and a few more towels and the like. I spent the evening hanging out with her little girls and then Alex and her husband took Sandra, one of the new JETs in their area and me out to dinner at one of those sushi places where the food travels around on a little conveyor belt.
Monday, August 13, 2007
August 13th
This last weekend was pretty busy. Visiting with Alex and her family was great! She came to pick me up with her two daughters, who are lovely, and we went to the local big mall. I’m debating whether to get a color printer so I can print things like photos at home. Since I can get paper at some of the hyakuen stores it’s probably cheaper overall. They showed me around the mall and we picked up the replacement that the store gave for the youngest daughter’s new bike that wasn’t working right. After that we went back to their apartment and I met her husband and had lunch with them. She was so nice, she even let me use her internet! When she drove me home she had a look at my place and taught me how to clean out the sink and my air conditioner and how to hang my futon out to dry! Her daughters play animal crossing so I’ve promised to come over and play sometime so they can get the next level of store in their town. Cute little things :)
They stayed until Alice, Simon and his girlfriend came to pick me up for the Seino welcome dinner. We picked up Ashley, too and drove to Ogaki where the dinner was being held. After meeting all the other ALTs we went to this restaurant where we had nomihoudai (all you can drink) and a sort of tabihoudai (all you can eat) where they brought out about five different courses over the evening. The food was okay but about half the courses were meat-only so those of us who were vegetarian had to wait a little for the sashimi, salad, and bread courses. The nomihoudai is nice because you can try new drinks without worrying about prices. I only had two but they were pretty tasty. There was a little kid (maybe 4 or 5) with another group who came over and beckoned me down to his level so he could give me a kiss on the cheek and then insisted on taking pictures of some of us! He was such a cutie!
After dinner those of us who didn’t have to worry about taking the train or bus home went 10-pin bowling. I got three strikes my first game, which I think is a first for me. One of the other guys (extremely drunk) got eight strikes in one game! I made friends with a Chinese CIR who’s trying to improve his English, a really cool girl from Scotland, and got to talk with at least half a dozen other new people over the evening.
On Sunday I went back to Ogaki with Alice, Ryan, and Brandon and met Dan and one of his Japanese friends. We went out for lunch and then after a bit of wandering the mall and playing in the Arcade we went for karaoke. It was my first time ever so I had to really work myself up to it. I don’t actually like my own voice much when I have to hear it and singing into speakers is pretty intimidating. Everyone was really encouraging though so I got into it after a little bit, too. I need to see what songs on my computer are in the karaoke catalog so I have a better idea of what to pick next time.
Last night was my town’s Obon festival. I couldn’t find a yukata yet (but I’m going to try again this week since I’m going to learn some traditional dancing on Friday evening with some of the others. It was a really cute festival though! They had a main tower where they were leading dancing and a lot of little food and game booths for the children. I met a whole ton of kids and teens and one of the little ones even came by and very seriously gave both Ryan and I each a milk candy. They’re all so sweet when they’re out of class! A bunch of my Junior high students-to-be were nearly jumping over each other to introduce themselves to me and a mother from Tokyo nearly cried she was so delighted that Ryan and I stopped to speak English with her. From the stories I hear I need to stay prepared for anything in the classroom though. Right at 9 the festival ended and everyone headed home.
Japan is so interesting. Town bells go off at 7 with announcements and then the bells go at noon and 6, too. Or those are the ones I’ve head, anyway. By 9 everyone is at home and going to bed. It’s so very civil.
Today was a little more normal going in to work and looking through all the activity books and the like for a few hours. My predecessor’s predecessor left a lot of stuff to work with. I hope I can make some decent games from it all! I’m still nervous about teaching and activity planning and all of that stuff.
Tomorrow morning I get my bank account set up and I might get my keitai in the evening, we’ll see. I’m asking Shiloh what went on when she tried to get high-speed internet and I’m hoping things might be different for me. If not then I might be able to get a phone I can use as a modem since my computer has Bluetooth. Hopefully there will be some way that I can set up internet so I can use Skype!
They stayed until Alice, Simon and his girlfriend came to pick me up for the Seino welcome dinner. We picked up Ashley, too and drove to Ogaki where the dinner was being held. After meeting all the other ALTs we went to this restaurant where we had nomihoudai (all you can drink) and a sort of tabihoudai (all you can eat) where they brought out about five different courses over the evening. The food was okay but about half the courses were meat-only so those of us who were vegetarian had to wait a little for the sashimi, salad, and bread courses. The nomihoudai is nice because you can try new drinks without worrying about prices. I only had two but they were pretty tasty. There was a little kid (maybe 4 or 5) with another group who came over and beckoned me down to his level so he could give me a kiss on the cheek and then insisted on taking pictures of some of us! He was such a cutie!
After dinner those of us who didn’t have to worry about taking the train or bus home went 10-pin bowling. I got three strikes my first game, which I think is a first for me. One of the other guys (extremely drunk) got eight strikes in one game! I made friends with a Chinese CIR who’s trying to improve his English, a really cool girl from Scotland, and got to talk with at least half a dozen other new people over the evening.
On Sunday I went back to Ogaki with Alice, Ryan, and Brandon and met Dan and one of his Japanese friends. We went out for lunch and then after a bit of wandering the mall and playing in the Arcade we went for karaoke. It was my first time ever so I had to really work myself up to it. I don’t actually like my own voice much when I have to hear it and singing into speakers is pretty intimidating. Everyone was really encouraging though so I got into it after a little bit, too. I need to see what songs on my computer are in the karaoke catalog so I have a better idea of what to pick next time.
Last night was my town’s Obon festival. I couldn’t find a yukata yet (but I’m going to try again this week since I’m going to learn some traditional dancing on Friday evening with some of the others. It was a really cute festival though! They had a main tower where they were leading dancing and a lot of little food and game booths for the children. I met a whole ton of kids and teens and one of the little ones even came by and very seriously gave both Ryan and I each a milk candy. They’re all so sweet when they’re out of class! A bunch of my Junior high students-to-be were nearly jumping over each other to introduce themselves to me and a mother from Tokyo nearly cried she was so delighted that Ryan and I stopped to speak English with her. From the stories I hear I need to stay prepared for anything in the classroom though. Right at 9 the festival ended and everyone headed home.
Japan is so interesting. Town bells go off at 7 with announcements and then the bells go at noon and 6, too. Or those are the ones I’ve head, anyway. By 9 everyone is at home and going to bed. It’s so very civil.
Today was a little more normal going in to work and looking through all the activity books and the like for a few hours. My predecessor’s predecessor left a lot of stuff to work with. I hope I can make some decent games from it all! I’m still nervous about teaching and activity planning and all of that stuff.
Tomorrow morning I get my bank account set up and I might get my keitai in the evening, we’ll see. I’m asking Shiloh what went on when she tried to get high-speed internet and I’m hoping things might be different for me. If not then I might be able to get a phone I can use as a modem since my computer has Bluetooth. Hopefully there will be some way that I can set up internet so I can use Skype!
Friday, August 10, 2007
August 10th
After waking up later I went into the office today for the first time. I met another one of my JTEs who is also near-fluent and he seems really nice, too! Shiho-san took me on a little tour of the school and my desk and prop cupboard. The schools here are organized by year so there are three floors for second year, third year, and first year bottom to top. We all eat in a central lunchroom with the children. We’ve decided that I’m going to bring a lunch every day while I try out the Kyushoku lunches we pay for so that if it’s got a lot of meat then I still have food. This means I need to make things that won’t go bad if there’s no fridge space for me. I also don’t have to go into work over Obon next week since almost no one is going to be at school, so I’ve got three more days off before the Gifu orientation and when I really start to work.
It sounds like my predecessor didn’t take her job very seriously so I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to actually teach eventually and that the JTEs will want to let me really work with them. I don’t want to just be the stereotypically lazy ALT who plans a few activities, says a few words, slacks off at her desk and goes home as soon as she’s allowed.
I rode a bike for the first time in more than six years today. It was actually pretty easy, I only messed up one time and there was a metal fence I could catch myself on. Here’s hoping that I get better and less wiggly over time. If I can walk to and from school every day and do some biking I should be in great shape in no time! Haha, if that doesn’t do it the constant sweating buckets should! Don’t worry, it’s only 3 now and I’ve had way more than 8 glasses of liquid already.
I got my first call today, too! It was from my Seino PA just checking in on me and seeing how things are going for me. He also wanted to know if I’m going to the Seino welcome dinner tomorrow. My town festival is on Sunday night, too! This weekend is going to be really, really fun! Ryan said I should be able to find a nice men’s Yukata that will fit. Tomorrow Alex, a lovely older JET with a family who I talked to a lot on the Shinkansen, is going to pick me up and take me to visit her town and family! Everyone is so nice~!
Hm, hm... Tonight I’m going out with Alice and some of the other local JETs for sushi. She came over with Brandon and Ashley last night to say high and I’m so brain-dead that when she said she was one of my students (accent and everything) I actually believed her. XD And I thought I was becoming less gullible, haha! I haven’t met Dan, the English teacher who’s been here for 13 years now (or our crime boss, as Brandon says) but the more I hear about him, and everyone really, the more excited I get to meet them!
P.S. So this evening I met Simon who actually lives like right by where we parked to go to the temple yesterday. His students gave him two little Rhinoceros beetles to raise recently. *envy* Sushi was good and we hit up some more stores I hadn’t been to yet. I saw a huge toad on the drive home. I thought he was a fist-sized rock at first.
My new futon is actually absurdly comfortable and easy on my back and man, the only time I stop dripping sweat here is when I’ve been lying down immobile for at least 20 minutes with the fan on me. I even sweat when I sleep. I don’t want to be an inch higher than I have to be. I’m going to sweat off a few pounds if nothing else, I think! I actually have a mild rash on my throat from sweating so I’ve been trying to rinse it whenever I can and keep it as dry as is possible in this disgustingly hot country. Gifu is the hottest prefecture in Japan and more humid than Tokyo, hey? I’ll appreciate it in the winter but for now it sucks.
It sounds like my predecessor didn’t take her job very seriously so I’m hoping that I’ll get the chance to actually teach eventually and that the JTEs will want to let me really work with them. I don’t want to just be the stereotypically lazy ALT who plans a few activities, says a few words, slacks off at her desk and goes home as soon as she’s allowed.
I rode a bike for the first time in more than six years today. It was actually pretty easy, I only messed up one time and there was a metal fence I could catch myself on. Here’s hoping that I get better and less wiggly over time. If I can walk to and from school every day and do some biking I should be in great shape in no time! Haha, if that doesn’t do it the constant sweating buckets should! Don’t worry, it’s only 3 now and I’ve had way more than 8 glasses of liquid already.
I got my first call today, too! It was from my Seino PA just checking in on me and seeing how things are going for me. He also wanted to know if I’m going to the Seino welcome dinner tomorrow. My town festival is on Sunday night, too! This weekend is going to be really, really fun! Ryan said I should be able to find a nice men’s Yukata that will fit. Tomorrow Alex, a lovely older JET with a family who I talked to a lot on the Shinkansen, is going to pick me up and take me to visit her town and family! Everyone is so nice~!
Hm, hm... Tonight I’m going out with Alice and some of the other local JETs for sushi. She came over with Brandon and Ashley last night to say high and I’m so brain-dead that when she said she was one of my students (accent and everything) I actually believed her. XD And I thought I was becoming less gullible, haha! I haven’t met Dan, the English teacher who’s been here for 13 years now (or our crime boss, as Brandon says) but the more I hear about him, and everyone really, the more excited I get to meet them!
P.S. So this evening I met Simon who actually lives like right by where we parked to go to the temple yesterday. His students gave him two little Rhinoceros beetles to raise recently. *envy* Sushi was good and we hit up some more stores I hadn’t been to yet. I saw a huge toad on the drive home. I thought he was a fist-sized rock at first.
My new futon is actually absurdly comfortable and easy on my back and man, the only time I stop dripping sweat here is when I’ve been lying down immobile for at least 20 minutes with the fan on me. I even sweat when I sleep. I don’t want to be an inch higher than I have to be. I’m going to sweat off a few pounds if nothing else, I think! I actually have a mild rash on my throat from sweating so I’ve been trying to rinse it whenever I can and keep it as dry as is possible in this disgustingly hot country. Gifu is the hottest prefecture in Japan and more humid than Tokyo, hey? I’ll appreciate it in the winter but for now it sucks.
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