funniest picture of me ever

so normally i wouldn't post drunk pictures of me, but this picture by far takes the cake. this kodak moment is brought to you by jayne/lurch/david south or whatever we're calling him today.


this almost looks like a Homer moment:


(to jayne: despite your skills, i should still go over there and CUT you for taking pictures of helplessly inebriated people =P)

10 hours and counting...

i'm officially 10 hours away from the start of my winter vacation.... Thailand and Cambodia, here I come!!

Please forgive the hiatus in my blog for the next two weeks. i will hopefully be enjoying warm weather before reluctantly trekking back to the bitter cold here in Tsushima.

Hope you all have an awesome Christmas and New Year's! Don't get too drunk!

*muah!*

--ev

my first snow

so this is winter.

this morning, i woke up to the sun shining over the exact spot that i rest my head at night. figuring it was sunny outside, i thought about how one of my teachers told me on thursday that it was supposed to snow today. yeah right.

an hour later, i finally dragged myself out of my bed, and doing my morning routine, opened my curtains briefly to see what the weather was like. and lo and behold -- it's snowing!!!

if it's one thing i've heard just under a billion times since arriving in tsushima, it's 1) "It's cold here in winter," and 2) "The snow doesn't pack down in Tsushima," or some roundabout way of saying that snow melts pretty quickly, so you dont really get to play in the snow.

as soon as i saw it was snowing, i called my closest neighbor, Jayne/David South, probably woke him up, and yelled out, "Look outside your window!!!" Both of us being Californians, we've been mutually looking forward to seeing snow fall. while i have technically seen snow fall, it's never snowed where I live. looks like things have just changed.

the weather today truly is bizarre though. it's either lightly snowing, or it's sunny. i can't explain it. right now, i'm looking out my window and seeing a greyish cloud, outlined by the sun, and in the background, a very blue sky. i just dont know what to make out of the sky here. usually, back in the bay area, i could wake up in the morning, look at the clouds, and figure whether or not it would rain that day. but here, i can't tell anything at all.

in a stroke of retardation, i thought it'd be a good day to do laundry. so i did. except with the on and off snow, i can't hang my clothes up outside, so i've been hanging them up in my bedroom with the window and sliding glass door open. i finally couldn't stand how cold my room is, so i've shut all the windows, and resigned to the fact that it's going to take the next few days to dry my clothes. blargh.

i'm now officially four days away from my trip to Thailand. according to weather reports, it's something like the mid 80sF in Thailand (~29C), while it's been about highs around 14C over the last week. while i look forward to going to where it'll be pleasantly warm, i'm NOT looking forward to when we come back and are greeted by the blistering cold here. *sniffle* at least it'll be a glorious 2 weeks in beautifully warm weather.

and i officially can't type my hands are so cold.... must... warm.. them... now....

insane christmas lights

highlight of my day, and proof that i'm easily amused:

Christmas Lights

i laughed so hard i was crying already when i was only 5 seconds into the video, and it's 3 minutes long. that's 3 minutes of nonstop crying, pointing, clapping, and enjoyment. it's THAT amazing. watch it! it's enjoy! =P

a classroom no-no

a few days ago i was teaching my third and fourth graders in an elementary school how to say their birthdays in English. After gauging their ability level, it seemed all 10 of them were able to say their birthdays for the most part, so i went around the circle and asked them to answer "When is your birthday?" out loud.

when it was this one boy's turn, he just stared at me in fright, and couldn't seem to say anything. so i tried to break it down for him, saw the slip of paper i asked everyone to write their birthdays on, and tried to help him pronounce his month and date. he just sort of murmured "uhh... uuuh.." without forming any real words. after about 15 seconds, i decided that i should move on and went on to the next person.

as i went down the line, i had the typical reaction that almost all my students have. that is, if there's an adult around who can help them, they won't try to think about what to say first. they will immediately look to the adult for help.

just my luck, the principal was watching all my classes that day, so she was speaking into each student's ear when it was their turn. it normally wouldn't bother me that there was an adult helping them out because that means less of me using my voice (which is really the only valuable thing i have to offer all my schools), but the fact that she was the kind of adult that because she thinks she has such a grand mastery of English and the children dont, that she assumes that the children need her help. i honestly believe that if given a moment, these kids can produce what i'm asking. literally, if the child didn't start responding within half a second, the principal would start feeding them what to say. and it reallllly started to bug me. the kids just look to the principal, she tells them slowly what to say, their turn is over, and the child can happily forget what i've been working the last 40 minutes to teach them. splendid.

call it tough love, but i think if you put someone on the spot, they'll remember those moments better. if you ask someone to achieve something in front of the class and they do it successfully, it'll stick. kids and adults alike will relive it over and over again and they'll remember what they did. in the same way, i believe that if these kids can try and say their birthdays just once in front of the class, just so they can hear their own voice speak in english apart from their voices drowned among their classmates when asked to respond as a mass, and they accomplish that feat, that it'll stick and at least they'll be that more likely to remember what they learned.

what probably bothers me most are the kids who don't try. i know these kids are only 9 years old, but that's not an excuse to not try. the kids who look immediately to that adult behind them... those are the ones that break my heart. i believe they can do it. i wish they'd have a little more confidence in themselves.

anyway, back to my earlier reference about the boy who didn't say anything on his turn to say his birthday. after class, i talk to my English teacher/correspondent at that school, who's the Special Ed teacher there. he told me in english that that boy, "He can't speak Japanese."

well, that changes things a little. he looked full japanese to me too. maybe he just moved here.

and then he goes on to correct himself in japanese. it wasn't that the kid couldn't speak japanese. it's that he can't speak. at all. my first encounter with a mute. i still dont know much about that kid's situation, but i'm really curious how teachers know if he's learning anything without feedback...

anyway, the teacher apologized for not pointing out his 2 special ed kids and warning me ahead of time not to put them on the spot like that. i apologized for being a jerk, and took a mental note to be careful the next time i return.

but this kid got me thinking. the other special ed kid was one of the people who immediately looked to the principal for help. that's fine. she's a special ed kid. hence, she needs more help. but what are the normal kids' excuses? if you're a capable human being, act that way. how am i supposed to know who's special ed or not if everyone acts the same damn way? what distinguishes the normal from the special needs kids? they're not all helpless. i know they're not. kids, here is my bottom line: if you're capable, then try. you may actually learn something in the process.

rant over.

Minikui

So i totally forgot about this, but my roommate from university wrote this song for our japanese class presentation back during sophomore year. the tune and lyrics were all written by her, and if you understand a little bit of japanese, you'd probably find it a riot. during finals spring quarter of senior year, i finished on the first day, so i had tons of time to kill since everyone around me was cramming. sooo, i decided to make a music video for her song.

enjoy!

Click here to see the video!

"Killing Me Slowly"

due very much to the influences of my fellow islanders, i have finally reworded my first song!

granted, i didn't reword the ramblings at the beginning of the song, and i think i added an extra verse, but you'll get the idea and i *think* you'll forgive me ;D Enjoy!


Killing Me Slowly

(To the tune of The Fugees – Killing Me Softly)

I heard it snowed a little

I heard it was minus 5

And so I went back home and laid in bed for a while

And then I heard the rain come

No stranger to my ears

Trapped in my home and it's winter

Watching my day just go by

Killing me slowly with this cold

Killing me slowly with this cold

Longing for Western insulation

Killing me slowly with this cold

I felt a little dizzy

From my kerosene high

And so I got up and sat under my warm kotatsu

I prayed my walls were thicker

But coldness kept right on

Trapped in my home and it's winter

Inhaling kerosene fumes

Killing me slowly with this cold

Killing me slowly with this cold

Praying for summer to come soon

Killing me slowly with this cold

And as I cooked my dinner

My hands were over the fire

And weak person I am I washed dishes with hot water

With my big ugly jacket

I try to beat the cold but I'm

Trapped in my home and it's winter

Lacking feeling in my toes

Killing me slowly with this cold

Killing me slowly with this cold

Seeing my breath as I sing this

Killing me slowly with this cold

cold feet

i sometimes wonder if i'll have 10 functional toes and 10 functional fingers by the time i return to the States.

the weather here is pret-ty harsh. because i'm cheap and determined to un-wimp myself, whenever i use my sink, it's always cold water running. and by cold water, i mean water that feels like there's been 10 ice cubes floating around in a single glass of water cold. there's really no point in refrigerating water; i can achieve the same coldness by just drinking my tap water.

if i wanted to use hot water, i'd have to flip a switch that turns on the hot water for both my sink and shower. but if i'm only going to wash off my hands really fast, and it takes several minutes for the water to heat up, i may as well just use the cold water.

the other day, for the first time ever, i washed my dishes here with HOT water, and it was glorious. i can't begin to tell you how long it's been since i've done that. for once, as i rinsed off my dishes, i saw steam rising up and disappearing... one of the most beautiful things i've seen in a long, long time. tragically, my hands were so cold that i couldn't even appreciate the hot water. my hands and feet get so cold sometimes that it takes super hot water for me to even begin feeling anything. this is in fact the system i use to judge whether something i've reheated is hot enough. if i can tell that the plate is going to burn my hand if i hold it too long (because it's hot enough to tickle my nerves past the layers of frozen-over epidermis), it's ready. sad, no?

luckily, there are remedies to the cold. there's my wonderful kotatsu (which i'm baking under, despite it being sunny yet cold outside, and 1:30 in the afternoon), kerosene heaters (which make me feel like i should wear a gas mask), and although out of the way, an onsen (hot spring/public bath) about a 20 min drive away, which i'll hopefully hit up later today. but until then, i'm comfy sitting where i am =)

feeding the OTHER addiction

just when i thought my chocolate addiction was taking off, someone has tossed a stone in my bowl of soup to stir things up.

being a friday afternoon, i:m at my BOE as usual. when i walked into the bat cave, what:s that thing sitting on my desk? none other than my very own, brand spanking new laminator! my boss then came into my office and said that i could take it home if i wanted to.

alas, my days of dragging oversized laminating sheets to school and back are over.

with the advent of this laminator (it:s a nice one too; the kind all my schools have), i kinda feel obligated now to use it like crazy. they went through all the trouble of getting it for me when i asked like my third week here... my people rock =)

if you have suggestions for stuff to laminate, or want me to laminate anything for you, just lemme know, k? =P