Easily Amused

a year later

2009-11-21T05:11:00.004+09:00

After a year of being back, I have to admit that not much as has happened. I finally decided to stop stalling and finally apply to nursing school, as I've been thinking about since about sophomore year of college. So since January, I've been getting prereqs done, and since August, actually filling out apps and writing essays [till the end of time]. Between harassing about 20 different people to proofread 20 essays in 13 weeks, I'm finally over the biggest obstacles of writing and mailing applications, and all that's left is to cross my fingers and hope. It's probably good to note that I almost never write essays (because i loathe them), much less with this high frequency in such a condensed time period. So just finishing all these essays is a major, major milestone for me.

Looking back at my time in Tsushima, I'm realizing how much island life taught me about flexibility. I'm fine with air-drying clothes, sleeping on the floor, cold water at faucets, ignoring small bugs, being away from family for long stretches of time, using a sub-par shower.... the little things that used to be normal I now consider all luxuries, and I think it's important to keep believing how privileged my lifestyle is. The way i see it, the lower the standards I keep, the more I treat life like it's a gift, and there's nothing like being grateful for one to really appreciate life.

One of the many things that life in Japan drastically changed was my sugar tolerance. My whole life, i've been a sugar fiend. We're talking about, "keep pouring on the sugar... it's still not sweet enough." Now, 50% of the sweetness i used to be able to handle is super sweet to me. Which is great; Japan and its unsweet sugar has just staved off diabetes for another 5 years hahah.

Although my response a month ago would have been very different, from my vantage point right now, I'd say the best word to describe where I am in life is: happy. I really can't remember the last time i felt this happy. I've just finished applying to 8 very competitive, but excellent, nursing schools. In fact, I finished and submitted the last app on my birthday (this past Tuesday), and followed it up with a fantastic evening of fabulous food - always the best way to celebrate a memorable occasion. And, it was my *gulp* 25th birthday, so I'll have many good memories of that day for years and years to come.

I initially told myself that Japan was going to be my thinking time; my time to figure out what i wanted to do with my life. And when i came back, i realized that my goals hadn't really changed. in fact, i wanted more than ever to help people, and nursing definitely fits the bill as well as feeds off my strengths and interests. Even though i'm guaranteed nothing at this point, I feel so much better knowing that i've made that first major step towards going in the direction i want to be in. That in itself is worth celebrating. That combined with realizing how many wonderful people I surround myself with is making life oh so sweet. So yes, "happy" is definitely spot on :)

Do I miss Japan? Sure. Do I miss the people? Of course. Do i miss the lifestyle? Frequently. Would I want to be there right now instead of being in limbo between somewhere and nowhere in life? Most definitely not. Even with all the uncertainties in the air, life is great, and I wouldn't trade this state of limbo for anything in the world =)

...4 months later

2008-12-09T06:54:00.002+09:00

So it's been 4 months since ending my JET life, and I can't say I have much to show for it.

After the great debate of whether to pursue a job in Tokyo or just come home, I eventually settled on coming home and getting started on my truly intended career path: healthcare.

Except, what I didn't expect was that I'd be greeted by a failing-further-by-the-day economy, a 7.7% unemployment rate in the Bay Area, and a hiring-freeze that seems to have affected every imaginable industry.

Compared to my former employed-lifestyle, I now spend most of my days playing with my nephew, looking for jobs, studying Japanese (I'll get to that in a second), or catching up on movies/TV shows that i've been deprived of for 2 years.

After a solid 1.5-2 months of job searching, i finally landed a part time job down in Los Altos. I now work for a doctor with a small-but-growing practice who specializes in helping unfertile women. He uses a combination of both western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (like acupuncture and herbs). I actually feel very lucky i found this job at all... Still thinking that i want to go into nursing, this is the best first step i can take . I was looking for a medical assistant job, and it just so happened that this doctor was willing to train a part-time medical assistant (as opposed to most places who want someone who has medical assistant certification). Also, at one point, i toyed with the idea of studying acupuncture, so i get 2 experiences in 1.

However, i was ideally looking to land a full time job with medical and dental benefits. That search continues. If i find nothing by the end of January, i'm heading back to school to take the last few classes i need to apply to nursing school, although i suspect applying next year is going to be rough considering everyone will probably be fed up with being jobless and go back to school as well =(

The last month, however, i started to study Japanese intensely again. I foolishly thought that I stood a chance of passing level 1 of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) this year, but i doubt that's going to happen. The test was yesterday, and needless to say, it was horrendous. I failed all the practice tests I took and I didn't expect much better on the real thing, but i'm glad i didn't chicken out. I'll be more prepared next year.

A few people have asked me how I like being home and just about the most common question I've gotten is: What do you miss most about Japan?

The first time someone asked me, I literaly stood there frozen for about a minute thinking super hard (granted, i had been drinking, but still). In the end, i couldn't produce an answer. To be honest, i think the thing i miss most is taking care of myself. Having my own apartment, complete with its mess, upkeep, bills, laundry, etc... was actually a great joy for me. I've never really lived on my own or had my own space, and it was refreshing to not have to rely on anyone. I miss my daily cooking experiments, baking under my kotatsu in winter, lying in the draft of my AC... but i certainly DONT miss waking up to the sound of koreans outside my window going for an early morning hike EVERY morning, my students heckling and following me outside of school, the fear of pit vipers or centipedes jumping out and biting me, or the general lack of privacy.

Also, now that i can enjoy central heating, sleeping in a spring-loaded bed, chairs, and hot water at every sink, I find it harder and harder to believe that I lived so long with out them. I dont think I could live in Japan on the long term like that again. It was an AMAZING experience for so many reasons, but the western luxuries I've become so used to are just so hard to live without.

One last thing: people have told me for so long that this and that is sooo sweet in america, and i never really believed it because i'm a total sugar addict. since everything is only moderately sweetened in japan, now that i'm back, everything tastes intensely sweet to me. damn japan for making me so sensitive! i guess i've at least warded off the diabetes for another couple of years of my life =P

and so it's final

2008-07-14T18:43:00.002+09:00

what i never thought i'd say: my last week of teaching has commenced.

the rainy season is finally over, so it's been humid as hell the last week or so. seriously, unbearable. but along with the incredibly nice (but muggy) weather, my last rounds at school have been well underway, and as of this instant, i have 3 days of school, and 3 schools left to say goodbye to.

i can honestly say that despite all the Farewell Assemblies i've been to over the last few weeks, i've hardly shed a tear, since i know i'll probably run into more than a few of my students in my remaining few weeks on the island. i plan to hit up as many festivals on the island before i head out, and since we're approaching festival season, i'm sure i'll see a ton of people between the end of school and my departure.

speaking of departure, i've finally done it. i've finally purchased all my plane tickets which will ultimately bring me home. yes, that's right. i'm going home. about a week after my interviews, i decided that the only reason why i wanted to stay in japan another year was so i could perfect my writing and professional speaking skills. but really, i live in the bay area. that means that if i look hard enough, i can probably find a native or at least pretty damn fluent japanese speaker who can be my language buddy. so if i can find someone who can give me that one-on-one attention at home, there's really no need to put myself through the misery of living in Tokyo again.

soooo, i emailed 2 of the companies that i interviewed with (the JET like companies) and told them i just wasn't interested anymore, and that i was going home. i could tell i disappointed both of them, but i know this is what is best for me. i also soon got a rejection letter from the translation company... no surprise there.

SO, here's the "Evelyn's-ACTUALLY-going-home-for-good-plan":

Mon, Aug 4th: Leave Tsushima and head out towards Kansai

Thurs, Aug 7th: Watch my quite possibly last Hanshin game ever in Osaka vs. the Hiroshima Carps

Sat, Aug 9th or so: Head out to Tokyo to visit people

Thurs, Aug 14th: Depart from Narita and go straight back to SF

So to all you folk in the Bay Area, if you're free after Aug 15th, let me know and let's meet up!! It's going to be weird being home after finally getting used to the slow island life, but i know it's time to leave... i'm finally feeling the aching need to re-Americanize myself. I'm counting on you all to ease the process ;D

See you all soon!!!

in transit

2008-06-26T16:41:00.002+09:00

(from 2 days ago at Fukuoka Airport)

So it’s 4:30 Tuesday afternoon, and after nearly 5 hours in transit, I’m still not home yet.

As I’ve previously mentioned, for a while now, I’ve been debating whether I should just go home, or if I should try and stay in japan for another year doing something/anything that will help me improve my Japanese in the long run so I can go back to the States someday and use Japanese on the job there.

As a culmination to all my job searching, Sunday through today, I’ve been in Tokyo, interviewing with 3 different companies.

First, I need to talk about Sunday, which was decided not my day. After 2 weeks of contacting the essential Japanese people I needed to meet in the Tokyo area, I got rejected by 2 people, and FINALLY found someone to meet Sunday – my host sister, Sayoko. Since my flights to Tokyo were in the morning, we planned to meet mid afternoon through early evening.

HOWEVER, thanks to crappy weather that is Tsushima, my first flight got delayed, hence screwing my plans to take my connecting flight and arriving in Tokyo at an hour early enough to meet Sayoko and her family.

With nothing else I could do, Aaron drove me back to his place and I proceeded to take the most unsatisfying nap ever (I had slept at 3am, and had woken up at 7:30 to make my flight). Panicking this whole time over what to do should the next flight get canceled, I started to map out different ways I could get to Tokyo that day without need to fly off of Tsushima. But luckily, the second flight was allowed to go, so I left the island at noon.

After a few hours waiting at Fukuoka airport, I finally managed to fly out and arrive in Tokyo late in the evening, which meant that I definitely missed my entire window of opportunity to meet Sayoko. Grrr….

Since it was pouring rain, all I could do was ride like 3 trains to finally get to my hotel, get a bento (boxed meal) at the local convenience store, camp out in my room, and watch the Japanese volleyball team play America (America won!!!).

Then came Monday: my marathon day. The first interview on the agenda was with a private company that like JET, recruits ALTs from overseas and places them all over Japan. I applied to a Coordinator of International Relations position, thinking that like Sujin, I’d be working mainly from a city office, translating various things for various people and events.

However, at my interview, I found out that whoever gets this job will be ALTing 2-3 days a week when there’s not that much CIR stuff to do. Not that I completely hate kids or anything, but I really wanted to stop the ALT gig. Had I known that THAT MUCH teaching would be involved in the job, I would have backed down sooner. However, they did pay for half of my airfare to Tokyo, so hey, I can’t complain. But to be fair, I had to work harder for this interview than any other jobs I applied to (form after form and requirement after requirement… it was like applying to JET all over again=/)

After spending my morning there, I headed out to Ikebukuro where I caught a McD’s lunch, then set off on an hour and a half train ride to northern Saitama, where I interviewed with Private Company Like JET #2. Here, I was applying for Assistant Human Resources Manager. Last week, I had an hour long phone interview with the two current managers, and for the most part, they sounded like pleasant people.

Since it was raining when I got to Saitama, I wasn’t too taken away with the scenery. It’s rural, so I can’t expect much, but hey, anywhere where you can get there by train is a considerate upgrade from living 2 years on Tsushima. But anyway, I thought I was completely lost, but it turns out I can read a map. Yay!

This place turns out to be a house converted into a place of business. For nearly 3 hours, I just chatted with the 2 people I had previously spoken on the phone to, and honestly, it felt less like an interview and more like a training session. They were very good about giving me an idea of what they deal with on a day-to-day and year-long basis. While it sounds like there would be times where I’d have to last minute do ALT stuff, it’s definitely not set in stone like the place I interviewed with in the morning, which is comforting.

As the interview progressed, I realized that since I’d be dealing with ALTs a lot, I may not be utilizing all the Japanese I was hoping to (although the lady that was interviewing me said I’d probably be using Japanese about 75% of the time… and I can see why – there are Japanese people working alongside them). However, I also realized that getting experience in a management position would definitely boost my resume. Every company that has spoken to me until now has asked me if I’ve had any experience with management, and each time, I unfortunately have to say no.

Some people at home are probably thinking, if you want to get into management, you can do that in America. While this is true, I wouldn’t be able to speak Japanese to my coworkers, now would i? This is why this job is tempting, if I get an offer, that is. The biggest downside would probably be that I’d be taking a paycut. While there are chances of getting promoted, I think I’d still max out at what I’m making now. Plus, there’s no promise of Aaron or anyone I already know in the immediate area, so weekends could get lonely…. =/

Speaking of lonely, after riding trains all over Tokyo the last two days, I was hit with sooo much nostalgia. Riding the Yamanote Line was probably the most positive form or nostalgia. I rode that line everyday back and forth from my dorm to work, and I remember how fascinating it was to watch the in-train TVs and just all the information they displayed.

Looking out the window and seeing the slummier looking areas of Tokyo are what brought back all the negative memories. I was sooooo lonely during my internship in Tokyo…. I could feel the familiar overwhelming sense of “I need to be with someone I know” all over again. Unpretty.

Anyway, since my second interview went late, I wasn’t able to get back to central Tokyo until 8, at which time I met up with Chris Cornute. Fellow lame-history-of-China classmate and co-SJEC officer, I found out last month that he got a job in Japan and would be moving here for a while. Sooo, I met him up at his office, where there was an open house event. Can I just say, the finance/business world is so NOT my scene. I felt SO out of place. The atmosphere just feels so competitive. I don’t have that kind of animal instinct and ability to schmooze for hours. I just felt so uneasy there.

After shaking hands with the appropriate people, chris and I set off to find dinner, and mind you, it’s 9 at this point. he swore there was a good udon place, so we started walking towards it. kinda. we got lost/ he couldn’t remember where it was, so I took us a little while, only further crippling my already crippled toes. (on a side note, I sat soooo much on the train out to saitama and in interviews, and walked sooo much in my heels between trying to find all these places, to the point that it hurt to sit, and it hurt to stand/walk. what can you do in times like that???!!) We finally found the place, ate some awesome udon, and after chatting for a while, both headed back to our respective train stops.

But, as my luck SUCKS, since I got off at a different train stop than I got on in the morning, I didn’t know where I was when I exited. wanting company on the walk back ot the hotel, I called Aaron as I walked in the direction I THOUGHT was back to the hotel. However, I just kept on walking, and more and more NOTHING looked familiar, and once again, nostalgia hit in. As a culmination of the 2 most miserable days of my life (in Tokyo), I went running to distress. However, since I only had my mp3 player and keys, I didn’t have money, glasses, or cellphone to help me when I got ENTIRELY lost. what I was hoping would be a 20 minute run ended up being an hour plus because I had run to basically twice the distant to the next train stop. it was awful.

and so was last night. I think I ended up walking an extra mile on my already throbbing feet. when I finally recognized the road again, it turns out that I WAS walking in the right direction, but the stupid freaking road went UNDER the road I wanted to be on. grrrr!!!!! so I basically made this gigantic circle when in truth, my sense of direction wasn’t crap. arrrrrgh Tokyo and your stupid senseless roads!!!!

anyway, today. this morning was my final interview at a translation company that is based in japan, but also has branches all over the world (and what particularly attracted me, their branch in LA). I was scheduled to go at 10, but I cleverly chose my hotel based on proximity to this company (since I’d have to bounce out of Tokyo quickly to make my 1:50 flight back to Fukuoka and hence Tsushima). I chose this hotel so well, that my room actually FACED their building, and they’re literally next door to each other. I was there about 30 seconds after I left my hotel hahah.

luckily, they let me in early, and we started at 9:40. in 20 minutes, the interview was over. I dunno how I feel about it. the benefits and pay are the best, with the treatment of an average Japanese person (like health insurance, commutation stipend, etc). however, the guy even said that judging from my resume, looking at manual after manual day in day out to translate would be a boring line of work for me=/

I originally thought this last company would be a good way of transitioning back into America with possibilities of a job in hand, but he’s right. it would be boring.

I have the best impression from the second company, and it really looks like it’d be fun to work with them, but is it worth staying another year away from family and home for?

All things I still need to think about… but alas, it’s finally time to board my plane, these dumb layovers. I swear, I’ve lost several days of my life just waiting at airports.

Anyway, I’ll be sure to let you all know the results of these jobs. and don’t worry, if I get nothing, I’m going home=)

closing time

2008-06-08T22:43:00.002+09:00

i can barely believe it, but it's already june, which means that i have roughly a month left of teaching english in japan. it's crazy how fast these 2 years have flown by, and alas, i'm forced to move on to the next step. the big question is, what is that next step for me?

for about the last month or two, i've become very panicked about what i want to do the rest of my life. now that i'm 2 years out of university, i should theoretically have a better idea of what i want to do the rest of my life, right? well, kinda.

i've recently come to the conclusion that i want to do something, anything, that allows me to use japanese and english. i've also come to the conclusion that by only having passed level 2 of the japanese proficiency test, i can't find a job in the states because if i were the only person in a could who could use Japanese, that company would be screwed. seriously. this is why i feel that if i want to use japanese for real in the future, i need to spend at least another year in japanese, staying far away from the english-as-a-second-language gig, and instead working for a legitimate business or company. i'm pretty open minded to what kind of job it is. so long as i'm challenged to read, write, and speak japanese at a higher level that i currently am. i really want to be able to learn from my next job, and more than biotech or computer programming, i can see the direct effects of being able to communicate in a foreign language (as in, either people understand me or they dont).

feeling like my best option is to work in japan for a year, i've been scouring various japanese job search engines, so far to no avail. actually, i've been in a lot of contact with one company in particular in tokyo, but long story short: i applied, they rejected me, but they won't stop emailing me questions. i feel so insulted, but hey, if they're interested enough to keep talking to me, i guess that's a good sign, right?

most of the job sites i've been looking at list "must currently be in japan" as a major requirement. considering that i still have a year left on my visa, i feel like i should take advantage of my foot being in the door and at least having an advantage over the thousands of people overseas who i'm sure are also trying to find a job in japan.

but to tell you the truth, i could just as easily go home. i've been so on the fence for the last month regarding whether i should just go home or stay in japan and try to find a job... it's a daily battle in my brain over what i should do. tomorrow is my nephews first birthday... i've missed everything so far, from my sister being pregnant, to him standing, him talking... everything. i'd like to be the cool aunt that he likes to hang out with.... i wanna babysit him while i job search in america. i guess what i mainly want is to not have him growing up thinking i'm a stranger. he's family after all.

other reasons for going home: spending time with my family, seeing friends i haven't seen since graduation, catching up on 2 years of news i've missed while i've been hiding out on my rock in the middle of nowhere.

i guess what it boils down to is this: staying in japan and while there's the potential to learn a lot, i feel like it'd be really lonely (my last experience of living in Tokyo did NOT leave a positive impression, and i fear reliving the loneliness all over again...), or going home to family and friends, but no direction in terms of career.

the plan for now is to wait out the job search.. if something should land on my doorstep before mid-August, i'm staying. if there's nothing, i'm going home. goodbye visa, goodbye japan.

oh, in other news, i know who my successors will be! there will be 2 new girls and 2 new guys to tsushima (replacing me, aaron, rob, and mitch, who has already left). mitch's position is being moved out of the middle of the island down to where i am, as most of the schools are in the south anyway (seriously, it took the Board of Education long enough. i had 15 schools at one point, while that middle position only had 4... disgusting, no?). anyway, my position is being divided between one of the new girls and one of the new guys. i'm excited for them. i remember how much i craved information on tsushima, and how panicked i was about being in the middle of nowhere. they both seem like friendly and energetic people, and i wouldn't be surprised if they were multiple-year ALTs.

at any rate, it's closing time for my JET experience. i'm glad i did it, but at the same time, i'm glad to be done. i know now that i have the patience to teach, but i'm not cut out to be a teacher. the repetition is slowly killing me (like my first month in tsushima when i did my self-introduction about 45 times. i'm not joking either! @_@). i'm glad i had the opportunity to see how a small community runs, but alas, it's time for me to move on.

whether or not i find a job, i'd still like to take advantage of my free ticket home. so folks in the bay area, if you're around come end of august/beginning september, keep a day open so we can meet up! =)

post-parent visit

2008-04-30T10:44:00.004+09:00

what i never thought would happen has happened -- my parents have come to visit me! in tsushima!

after a week long tour between areas in tokyo to kyoto, my parents ended their trip with a weekend visit to my little island home. as mountains separate anything worth seeing here, after a weekend of driving all over the place, i'm thoroughly exhausted of being a motorist.

i think that being our parents, we make a lot of assumptions about them.... especially me regarding mine, as i'm not used to seeing them handle new situations. in fact, i'm used to them solely dealing with the home and matters pertaining to it.

this is why i figured, them going to a new country? with all the nitpicky things that japanese people do? oh, they're in for some culture shock.

surprisingly, my parents were pretty open-minded about trying new things. for example, i got a call one night from my mom while they were in a hot springs town (one of the most famous in the country). she told me how the previous night, some of the people on their tour tried out the hot springs, but she was too shy to get naked in front of other people. after telling her how it's not that big of a deal, and that when in rome, do as romans do. so that night, she ended up trying the public bath, and she actually enjoyed it. she claims it was nice and relaxing.

when they first arrived, what i feared would happen happened: issues with ordering food. here you have me, the japan inhabitant; my dad, the hearty meat eater and relatively open-minded; and my mom, the buddhist vegetarian with all types of food banned from her diet. now place us in a tiny restaurant overlooking the sea, with a menu only in japanese with no pictures, and me trying to relay back and forth between my parents what's on the menu, and asking the waitress what to leave out of the food they serve my mom. it was kind of an issue, and became and even bigger issue when we went to the best restaurant on the island their first night. after all that hassle, we figured that cooking ourselves would be easiest, so we did that instead the rest of their time here.

after just their first day here, i realized something about them that never occurred to me: they are really westernized. when i'm at home, they are pretty traditional chinese, which is contrasted easily by the western culture outside my home that i grew up in. but after seeing them in japan, i realize how much they are used to western luxuries like beds, chairs, keeping your shoes on, and warm water at all sinks. just seeing how they kept asking me, "why dont you ~~?" i realized how much they are used to their own lifestyle, and they tended to assume that certain luxuries were available, when in truth, the japanese norm is way different.

by far, my most surprisingly enjoyable moment was when i took them to the beach. god knows how long it's been since my mom has been to a real beach. the moment she smelled the salt in the air, she told me about her childhood memories of swimming at the beach with all her siblings and father. it was adorable when she started combing the beach with a random stick to find seashells buried beneath the sand, all with the intention of putting the shells in my fish tank at home.

there was even a moment when aaron came over for mom-cooked food one night, and my dad went into his story-telling mode (the kind that's about family history -- those are my favorites. lectures about how my pictures suck are the kind of storytelling i can't stand). as usual, entertaining. i miss those storytimes that i can only really get at home.

all in all, i'm very happy they came. it's a lonnng way, especially for them going home (they were in transit for 19 hours on the way back home.... they started in tsushima, which means transfers at fukuoka and narita before finally heading back to SF). granted, it was all paid for by my brother, but the fact that extensive traveling is hard on the body, especially at their age, made it especially impressive that they made the trip out here.

i know i tend to get short with them and really sarcastic, but i hope they know that i was very happy they were here. i guess everyone has their own way of showing affection for their parents. i feel like traditional asian families are a little more distanced emotionally than american-bred families (we dont talk about boyfriends, relationships, "love" or mushy stuff like that), but i think that at the end of the day, both sides have a mutual understanding of the other.

i know this sounds cocky, but i think after seeing my home and the insular lifestyle that i lead, they are proud that i've made it this far and this long. for the first time, i could hear a slight ring of pride in my mom's voice when she introduced herself as my mother. even though i've barely seen them in the last 2 years, i dont think they've completely forgotten or given up on me (even though both of them kept calling me by my sister's name.... my mom even called me my brother's name once...*sigh*). and despite my long absence from home, i was glad to see they were in good health, and the same as ever.

bottom line, i love my parents.... though i can never actually say that to their faces, cuz that's just too mushy for us f(^_^;;)

beginning of the end

2008-04-20T17:24:00.002+09:00

it's been quite a while since i've written, but as usual, not much is new. my last two months can be summed up with 3 points:

1) I went to Taiwan with Aaron over Spring Break
2) First semester has started, which is the beginning of my JET end
3) Us ALTs had the wildest/longest day up north in Hitakatsu 2 weekends ago, and was by far, the most fun i've had all year

first off: Taiwan. after planning the packed trip that was Okinawa for me and 2 other people, i felt really adverse to the idea of planning yet another trip so soon afterwards. originally, aaron and i wanted to travel all over the place during spring break (singapore, manila, hong kong, and taiwan), but due to cathay pacific failing us again, we just decided to do taiwan only, and it actually worked out for the best.

we spent a week there, including 2 days in Tainan and 4.5 days in Taipei. since adam had gone to Tainan earlier in the year, we figured Tainan could offer us the non-metropolis view of taiwan, and all in all, it seemed like a pretty nice place to live. i think it's currently the 4th most populated city in Taiwan (i think the old capital of Taiwan if my memory serves me right), so there's a good balance of people, sightseeing, and places to go. we figured taipei would serve our shopping cravings, so we spent those two days in Tainan walking endlessly, seeing just about everything there was to see tourist-wise.

then it was taipei. man, is food cheap in taiwan. i ate like a king for a week, and still didn't need to break into my emergency piggy bank fund. off the top of my head, i recall going to Taipei 101 (the tallest completed building in the world), the Shilin Night Market (which was insanely packed and huge), Maokong Gondola (takes you to the top of a mountain for a view of Taipei... and home of many tea farms), some electronics market (where i got the pimpest electronic dictionary ever), the and National Palace Museum (home to one of the largest collections of Chinese art in the world).

while i've come to expect a lot of walking on vacations by now, i didn't foresee just how much we'd be walking in taiwan. by far, our most ridiculous day was our first whole day in taipei. our hotel was the second to last stop on one of the metro lines, and from our hotel, we could see Taipei 101. so that morning, we figured we could walk 10 mins to the station, take the metro for 2 stops, then walk another 10 mins to Taipei 101, or we could just walk straight there. so being the foolish people we were, we walked about 45 mins from our hotel to Taipei 101... you know, it's deceivingly far... but i guess you'd have to expect that since it's the tallest building in the world and all. also, up close, Taipei 101 didn't feel that tall because all the surrounding buildings are short. i still recall visiting the Twin Towers in NY the summer before senior year and thinking, daaaaamn they're tall, but then again, all the neighboring buildings being tall to begin with kind of accentuated how tall i perceived the Twin Towers to be.

after taipei 101, we went to an electronics market because for years, i've wanted an electronic dictionary that can go from english to mandarin and cantonese. particularly, i want it to pronounce it out loud for me so i can speak better. after wandering the market for nearly 2 hours, i finally settled on one that had what i wanted, and had a good price. for only about US$170, my dictionary can not only do cantonese and mandarin, but it can also go from chinese <-> japanese, german, french, spanish, and italian. not to mention it has a study function where you can learn conversational phrases in languages like thai, vietnamese, russian, and god knows what else. it's pretty insane.

as if all this walking wasn't enough, that night, we decided to hit up one of the highlights of taipei: the Shilin Night Market. it's famous for it's specialty foods, and just having a giant market that sells everything from shoes, to knock-off DVDs, to clothes, to accessories..... you name it, they probably have it. fulfilling yet another dream of mine, i purchased a real mahjong set... it was a bit pricey, but for the future joys i'll indulge in with my very own joy luck club, i can't complain. despite the market being pretty huge, i'd still have to say the weekend market in Bangkok is the most impressive market i've ever seen. i mean, there's something like 10,000+ stalls there, and no one has ever been able to count them all. THAT'S lunacy.

so to sum up, in that one day, we probably walked about 7 or 8 hours total... which is why it was no surprise that we were shells of human beings in the successive days. we'd aim to do something that day, and by the time we finished it, we were like, screw it, let's go back to the hotel and nap. all in all, though, i had a great time, and it was due mainly to the company and to not having a strict plan of what we had to do every day... going with the flow definitely made it that much more relaxing.

after our vacation, it was school. so far, i'm finding that teachers who have been reassigned schools have managed to stay within my town, which means that at the end of the shuffle, i still get to see my favorite teachers in new environments, while at least 2 teachers i disliked have been moved out of my town to aaron's schools muahahaha (^ ^)v it's weird to think that i've spent a whole school year with all my students, and that now they've moved on to the next grade. it really doesn't feel like i've been here that long, much less that i've been here for over half of their school year when i got here, saw them through a whole school year, and now am beginning a 3 school year with them. at the end of this semester, that's it... i'm gone. i don't think it's really sunken in... the year is fresh for everyone around me -- teachers and students alike. since my schedule doesn't change, and since they all know me, my life is relatively stable. i'm the type of person where once i'm used to a certain lifestyle, i dont change unless i need to. which is why now that i'm set in this routine, it's going to be strange uprooting myself and moving back home.

finally, the 3rd exciting piece of news... the funnest day ever this year. 2 weekends ago, all of us got together up north for a day at the beach. for about 4 solid hours, we played volleyball, baseball, soccer, and frisbee. as if all that running around wasn't hard enough on our bodies, we followed that up with a night of drunken debauchery. we gathered at joey's to ultimately enjoy a bbq, beirut, and dancing. i can only imagine how loud we were. poor mike got completely trashed and passed out shirtless on joey's couch early in the night. so what does joey do? break out in the sharpies... mike said it took a few days to get all the sharpie mess out, and i dont blame him...

in short, i'm glad we had that bonding time. it was an insane day, but i had a great time, and i think everyone else would say the same.

it's back to work tomorrow, but at the end of the week, guess what i have to look forward to? showing my parents around Tsushima! that's right --- after allll this time, they've finally given in and decided to come to me (on my brother's tab =D). i'll have them for the weekend, and then it's only a few more months till i'm destined for home.

that's all the news for now. tah tah!

obachans

2008-02-15T16:24:00.002+09:00

a long time ago, long before i first started living in japan, my image of japan was that everyone here was super nice, super friendly, and super gentle. if you had asked me 10 years ago, i probably would have told you the most dangerous people in japan were probably the japanese mafia, or yakuza.

however, had you asked me that question at the time of my last post, i probably would have told you it was rebellious kids, who live up to no law. too young to care about real japanese laws, and old enough to know that teachers wont do shit to stop you from what you're doing.

now that i've just come back from the supermarket, i have yet a newer perspective on how to answer this question. my answer now: obachans, or japanese grannies.

here's why:

i dont know if i've ever expressed how much i dislike driving in japan, but i really do. it's actually pretty scary. i mean, LA driving is SCARY, but obachans on the road are in their own separate category. i'm sure you've all heard female asian driver stereotypes, and i can assure you, those stereotypes start with obachans.

i feel like a lot of the time, grannies can be put into two categories: the very sweet, cake-baking grandmother whose excellent cooking makes up the majority of your childhood memories of her, or you have the scary grannie, the take-no-bullshit type who really knew how to screw with your mind and knew exactly how to put you in your place. japanese grannies exhibit a different kind of characteristic, that being "ruthless".

if you're driving down the road and you see a car inching out into the lane in front of you, but you're driving so fast and you're so close that you think, "no idiot would try to pull in front of me---" when all of a sudden, you see a little old lady pulling out at about 2 mph in front of you, causing you not only slam on your brakes, giving everyone in your car whiplash, but also causing you to scream obscenities out loud -- only to face the fact that that obachan will never know how she ruined your day.

this is no abnormal occurrence. this is daily life (at least for me on Tsushima). granted, anyone who's been in my car knows i get pretty bad road rage, but obachans definitely earn their reputations.

and since most roads in Tsushima have at most 2 lanes etched out (one for each direction), if someone is driving slow in front of you (like most obachans), it's tricky to pass them with all the snaking mountain roads and just narrow roads in general. however, every so many hundreds of feet, there will be a particular area on the road that gets a little wider for people to pull aside so others can pass them. guess who NEVER takes advantage of those pullouts, hence making the drivers of the 20 car caravan behind you just want to put bullets in their brains? that's right. you got it.

like i said earlier, i just got back from the supermarket. a normal supermarket obachan encounter also occurred. i always scout out my local grocery store's frozen aisle because every couple of weeks, there is a half-off all ice cream sale, which i always use as an opportunity to stock up. anyway, i'm standing there, finally decided which ice creams i'm getting, open the freezer door, and as i'm reaching in for my boxes of ice cream, i feel the weight of the freezer close suddenly disappear. as my hands close around my ice cream, i look over my right shoulder, and sure enough, an obachan is all up in my personal space, holding onto the door with one hand and reaching into the freezer with the other even BEFORE i've finished fishing out my ice cream.

and i may i just note, the freezers are fully stocked, as in there are at least 10 boxes of every kind of ice cream. and please also note, there is NO ONE within 30 feet of us. obachan, who is going to take allll that ice cream between the time i leave the freezer aisle and the time you approach the freezer? you could have, oh i dont know, WAITED until i was done getting my ice cream before besieging the freezer door. and the best part of this story is that even though i got there first and yes, i may have threatened her selection, she didn't even get the same ice cream as me! **smacks forehead**

this is only one of many times obachans have exhibited such competitive behavior around me. it seems as though every time i'm anywhere in a supermarket, if i'm standing there looking at the baking section, or pasta section, or meat section, an obachan HAS to walk up RIGHT next to me, and proceed to grab exactly what i'm staring at. i sometimes wonder if a) obachans have this evelyn-homing device or i unconsciously exert this infrared bat signal that tells obachans to home in on my location and 邪魔 my world, or b) i'm a natural born silent food advertiser. *shrug*

i sometimes wonder with all the hate i express in my blogs if i'm some kind of misanthrope... i'd like to think not, but correct me if i'm wrong..

anyway, one final comment about obachans. a while ago, i was watching a variety show where they were going around to preschools and interviewing little kids. they asked this one girl, who was probably about 4 years old, "are you scared of anything?" to which she answered, "nope. nothing."

"are you sure?"

"well, there's one thing. obachans at a supermarket sale. they don't care about kids, and they will run right over us."

i rest my case =)

i am a lousy teacher

2008-02-05T11:46:00.000+09:00

for months now, i've had a 2nd year student in middle school (an 8th grader) who is uncontrollable, obnoxious, violent, a disturbance, and a plague. in a class of only 14 kids, it's hard to ignore him when he's being so loud and offensive. till now, i've been a lot more patient with him than i would have been with, say, cousins who anger me, or some of my more annoying younger students. like i said, till now.

when i first started teaching here a year and a half ago, i noticed that the class had a pretty low english level (coupled with the fact the teacher is the most clueless when it comes to how much English his students actually know). the boys would always cheat on the activities i came up with, and the girls would just kinda stare at me not knowing what to do.

however, starting sometime last semester, sometime after i came back from the States, suddenly a lot of the students have had a boost in their English ability. i can't explain it. whereas before, most of them would have this blank or lost look on their faces, now they can actually understand a good portion of what i say, and sometimes even answer me. and it's been great. everything except this asshole.

while everyone seems (at least to me) to be getting better at English, this asshole has been getting rowdier, more offensive, more violent, and just angrier. every class with him now is a struggle to get ANYTHING done. the thing is, when he's not there (like yesterday), we can actually get stuff done. people actually get something out of class. it's just when he's there that his control spreads over all the boys (all but 2... the smart kid and the weak kid, who gets picked on for not bowing down to the asshole). then, all but those 2 boys end up being assholes on varying levels. they'll all start picking on the teacher, and apparently beating him as well as i witnessed today.

to my memory, only once have i taken out my anger on him. this is quite a few months back. as usual, he was being annoying and talking all over the class, and when i finally couldn't stand hearing his voice anymore, i walked up behind him and hit him lightly on the backside of his head with the textbook, and simple said to him, "Shh!" i think if anything, everyone was just shocked that i did that. the class is usually silent (especially the girls) because no one wants to be in the line of his fire. after that, the whiny little fart he is, just complained about how his head hurt and how he wanted to go to the nurses office. c'mon now. you're telling me that after all the fist fights you've been in, being hit LIGHTLY with a 70 page paperback book HURTS? cry me a river.

anyway, today. before class even STARTED, the asshole was yelling at the teacher AND choking him. this is only the beginning. then, i start to explain my simplified version of monopoly, which isn't about monopolies at all. each square has a question. you answer the question correctly, you get however many dollars is written down. if you land on a Oh no! box, you put your money in the middle. you land on Yes!, you get all the essentially Free Parking money in the middle.

as simple of a game this is, i still needed to explain it. the ENTIRE time i'm trying to explain this, he's talking louder than me. so i try explaining it louder, but still, all i can hear is his voice. at my wit's end, i finally "Shhh!!!!" him, and give him my i'm-gonna-chop-your-balls-off look. for about 2 seconds, the entire class was silent and taken aback. then, he regains footing. he starts yelling back, swearing at me. to which i respond, "SHUT UP!!"

now you have to understand, this has been bottled up inside for a VERY long time. i wont get into details, but after shut up, i started talking back in english (which he of course can't understand because he doesn't study and doesn't care). and since i'm talking back period, he's getting more pissed, and stands up and walks towards me like he's going to beat me. you know, i'm at the point where i'd welcome him punching me, because it would accomplish 3 things: 1) allowing me the right to punch him back, 2) getting him sent out of class, and 3) maybe, just maybe, excusing me from ever coming back this school. now dont get me wrong. i love my 1st years and 3rd years. i love having class with them. but having to deal with him that one hour of the day just sends my stress hormone levels through the roof. i seriously think i'm going to have a heart attack every time i'm in that class.

anyway, he approaches, the teacher intervenes and steps in front of him, he's still yelling at me, i'm standing there looking pissed, never taking my eyes off of his. if it's one thing, it's that i'm NOT afraid of him. he may scare all the other teachers, but i have done NOTHING to deserve the rage he channels at me. and to act like a little dick in my class all the time.. shit like that needs to be earned. i certainly dont think i've earned it.

at one point, the teacher next door comes in and asks him to stop yelling (cuz he is LOUD). the asshole eventually throws a friends metal pencil case in my direction (but really, i think he meant to throw it just onto the floor). then he comes up and shoves the teachers podium which i'm standing behind, hence everything that was on the podium and on the hidden shelf just fell to the floor and on my feet. this whole time, i didn't take my eyes of of him. i am WAY to angry at him to let him think for even a MILLISECOND that i'm afraid of him.

he finally, after several minutes of him swearing and yelling at me, sits down, keeps on swearing out loud and ranting to his friend, while the teacher goes on to repeat my explanation in japanese. the kids break up into groups and start playing. everything's good again, right? the asshole goes on to trying to fight the teacher, the whole time the teacher trying to get him to stop (even though the kid is obviously trying to hurt him for real).

about 10 minutes later, i'm flagged over to the asshole's group, consisting of the asshole, one of his lackeys (who has gone from being a very good student to from what i can tell, becoming a slacker and a back-talker), and another lackey (who has in recent times shown that he's been working hard on his english). the conversation went on for quite a while, but most of what was said:
him: why did you tell me to shut up?
me: because i heard you louder and clearer than i could hear myself.

me: why were you talking?
him: because i didn't understand what you were saying.
me: then you could have ASKED me, AFTER i finished explaining the game the FIRST time.

me: why do you hate me?
him: i hate english. and i hate him (the teacher), and since i hate him, by association, i hate you.

him: i hate english.
me: well, you can hate me and english, but you can't be disruptive in class. you can sit in the library and study if you want, just dont ruin class for everyone else.

me: you know, the only one losing here is you.
him: no, you're the loser.
me: no, you are. i know japanese and english. i'm here to help YOU. if you dont want my help, that's decidedly YOUR loss.
him: the f*ck do i have to learn english for?! i hate english!

me: *sigh*

basically, i could only understand half of what he was saying because he talks like a low-life hoodlum. and even though i didn't understand what he was saying, i'm pretty sure he ended every statement by calling me a fucker or a bitch. whatever. i could care less what he calls me.

in retrospect though, i do feel like a lousy teacher. i know it was wrong to have lost my cool in front of class like that, but it was a long time coming. and i dont even feel satisfied by my outburst. i really just want to sock him in the face. he has no right to disrespect all the people that he does. where i come from, you earn your respect, and until you do, you respect others. he has made zero effort in either realm.

and to top things off, after class, my teacher went to the head teacher/vice principal and told him about class. right afterwards, he tells me that he needs to write a report about class, documenting what happened and what was said.

now, all i can think about is, can i get fired for this? i didn't touch him at all (i restrained myself at least THAT much). can i get deported for bad conduct? part of me is worried that the report is more to report what I did as opposed to how much of an ass the asshole was being. his behavior has just gotten worse over the months.

here's the thing though. as a teacher, we're supposed to encourage all kids to keep at the school thing. we're supposed to make them think about their futures. want to be better than they are. but what do you do in the case of an overly aggressive student, who obviously doesn't care about school, doesn't care whose face he gets in, only thinks about beating or bullying people all day... is there a point where it's okay to let a child go? to just give up on a student? is there such a thing as a lost cause?

the asshole even said to me today that he doesn't even care if he ends up in prison. how do you get through to someone to value their OWN life? without even that little ounce of appreciation, wouldn't it be impossible to get him to respect others?

*sigh*

i'm kind of at the point here where i wouldn't really care if i got fired. yeah, i'd be pretty bitter that he was the reason why, but at the same time, if something as retarded as this can cause me to be kicked out of the country, well, i guess i was never meant to do this from the beginning.

more than anything, i'm just frustrated right now. i wish there was someway someone in his life could change his mind. he's apparently the youngest of 5 brothers, the second youngest who was one of my students when i first got here. that brother is now a first year high school dropout. i see him wandering town all the time with his dropout friends. i hate to say it, but dont you think this is all the product of poor parenting?... in japan, teachers are responsible for moral education. but if you go through the trouble of birthing, raising, feeding, and housing a child, you should step up and take some goddamn responsibility for it turns out. granted, peers have a big influence on kids. but if your kid is the reigning asshole and is proud of it, that makes YOU a lousy parent.

it's sad. the more i learn about the japanese school system, the more depressed i get. here's the thing. there's the moral education thing that's put on the teachers, but to make things worse, the system here doesn't end up punishing those who deserve it; it punishes the brightest kids.

for example, a while back, some of my students decided to pluck their eyebrows. eyebrows people. it's body hair. girls should have a say about stuff that grows out of their face. right? wrong. these girls got reamed out by their teachers. they're not allowed to wear makeup to school, or do stuff like plucking eyebrows.

then there are the kids who go to their teachers and ask them for their homework early so they can go to a baseball game or track meet on the mainland. what happens then? the teachers use this opportunity to lecture them about staying on top of their work, and asking them why this and that was turned in late.

and still, there are the kids who are good students, but kinda sloppy. teachers are always yelling at them about uniforms being orderly and whatnot.

like i said, the good kids get punished.

and then there are the handful of out of control rebels. when your system is based on a lofty expectation like, students actually caring about school, there is no built-in rule about what to do with problem students. which is where the asshole comes in. he doesnt fall into the regular student mold of students caring about their future. in fact, he goes to school solely TO rebel when he gets there. what's anyone going to do about it? from the looks of it, absolutely nothing. he still has over a year of middle school left. how much worse is the situation going to get? at what point will some lazy old fart finally step up to the plate and just kick him out of school? that's what he wants isn't it?

*shaking head*

i feel like i'm just stuck.. until i leave, it looks like there's no way i can avoid him. he's not going to graduate before august. at least i'm done with the school for the month, so i dont have to feel shitty about it for a few weeks. but oh man. i can only imagine how painstaking this school is going to be in the future.

and dont worry -- if i get deported, you'll all be notified =P

my winter vacation

2008-01-23T10:57:00.000+09:00

although it's only 11am and it's a school day, i'm in massive danger of falling asleep at my desk, so i thought i'd write here to keep me awake.

quite a bit has happened since my last post. namely: my okinawa and kansai trip, helping aaron move, and seeing Natsukawa Rimi. i'll start with Okinawa.

since my crew's (me, aaron, and david) original plan of seeing malaysia, taiwan, hong kong, and singapore was foiled by Cathay Pacific, in a last ditch effort to get off this rock, i planned a trip for us to go to Okinawa instead. since okinawa is a chain of islands, we focused our little expedition around three islands: the main island where Naha is, Ishigaki, and Iriomote.

Naha is where all the tourists go. it's where all the souvenir shopping, shopping in general, and tourists trap are. most guide books say naha can be seen in a day or 2, but really, after doing extensive sightseeing in japan (particularly around kyoto), i'm really tired of all the touristy places, and of late, have been more into "experiencing" a place... going to the heart of the place is (read: boonies), and trying out local foods to get a feel for not only cuisine, but local culture. this said, the most exciting part of naha for me was all the souvenir shops, getting a bunch of freebies through our travel package, and at long last, buying a sanshin.

setting out on christmas eve and having roughly 7 days in okinawa, we spent 2 days in naha, then flew to ishigaki where we stayed till our return to mainland japan. we spent 2 days looking around ishigaki, 2 around iriomote (ferrying RT each day), then our last day bumming around ishigaki till we could fly back to naha then fly back to fukuoka.

so on day 3, the 3 of us flew to ishigaki, and after a 2-hour morning joyride in our rent-a-car, we headed out to a sanshin lesson (which i think may have come out to be free in the end... does it count if i don't remember paying for it?...). so this is going to sound retarded, but from looking through all the pamphlets i got from my travel agency, i was determined to go to this place that had an hour and a half long sanshin lesson in a cafe environment for only 10 bucks (by far the cheapest i saw). this place just happened to be in ishigaki, which is why from the get-go, i wanted to go to ishigaki, and not another popular island (Miyako, home of the guiness world record holder for greatest number of minerals [15 i think] in natural salt. i saw a thing on it on tv a while back...)

it turned out that the guy i bought my sanshin from insisted that if i buy a sanshin from him, that i know how to play it. so on day 2 of our trip, i got a private hour long lesson from one of the sanshin makers, just before purchasing my beautiful sanshin. then, the following day in ishigaki, as a group, the 3 of us learned how to play Nada Sousou. a little tiring, but very worthwhile in my opinion. one cool thing we found out from our instructor was that ishigaki island is actually the hometown of one of my favorite japanese singers -- Natsukawa Rimi (a point i'll emphasize later). Rimi also plays the sanshin, which kinda got me started on the whole sanshin/okinawa obsession to begin with. fitting that i stumbled upon her hometown, don't you think? =P

that evening, starving and wandering aimlessly around the "downtown"ish area of ishigaki, aaron chanced upon a yakiniku joint, where their specialty was Ishigaki beef. omg. sooooo good. ishigaki beef is heavenly. if you ever find yourself there, try it. you can grill it yourself jussst enough so that it's not drippy with blood. seriously. delicious. pricey, but delicious.

day 4 was a very full day of driving all over, sightseeing, and beach hopping. although the water was a bit cold, the sea was absolutely beautiful. i can only imagine how breathtaking it can be during summer.

day 5 was our first day in Iriomote island. to start off festivities, we went on a mangroves tour along Nakama River that runs from the SE end of the island towards the middle of the island. i got some nice pictures along the tour and saw some interesting flora. the highlight of the ride was definitely this big tree with tall ripply-looking roots. you can see pictures of it and the rest of my trip on facebook or shutterfly.

so why iriomote in the first place? it's home to the only other place in japan aside from tsushima where yamanekos (leopard cats) can be found. the way we figured, how many foreigners who come to japan get to see BOTH kinds of yamanekos on native soil? not very many (so i'll keep telling myself). since the yamaneko center was going to be closed the following day for new years vacation, we headed to the southern port of iriomote (Ohara port) and bused up to the wildlife center. rating: poor. there was a small exhibit on the yamaneko, but when it came to actually seeing the cat -- close but no cigar. rather than a viewing room where you can see the yamaneko through a glass window in tsushima, all iriomote had to offer was a TV connected to a camera installed inside the yamaneko cage, broadcasting the cat during visiting hours. in one word: LAME. the tsushima yamaneko by far rocks the iriomote yamaneko. and as far as i could tell, the iriomote cat wasn't dying of feline AIDS or anything. that to me should mean the iriomote cat should be more able to handle visitors gawking at it live. but that's just my humble opinion.

since the bus system on iriomote is as inefficient as tsushimas, we had the option of waiting 2 hours for a bus to take us to a place that was a 5 minute drive away, or walk. so we walked. boy did we walk a lot that day.

our next goal was to ride a water buffalo-drawn cart. we didn't even care where it was going. turns out that on the eastern coast of iriomote, you can ride said cart for about 10 minutes to cross over between the larger iriomote island to a teeny tiny island called Yubu-jima. this is where i fell in love with cutesy water buffalo imagery and blew a bunch of money, but all in all, a worthwhile experience. the water buffalo cart is a must if you ever find yourself in okinawa.

the following day (day 6) we attempted to get into the northern port of iriomote (uehara), but thanks to unpleasantly high waves, we had to pull into ohara port, then bus ourselves to our only destination of the day: Urauchi River.

from there, we went on another short tour of mangroves, then were dropped off to do a 2 hour hike to see 2 waterfalls: Maryudo Waterfall, and Kanbire Waterfall. Kanbire was cool because you could get right up to it, whereas Maryudo you could only take pictures of from far away. good exercise regardless. i'd also recommend this hike if you ever found yourself in iriomote.

like all good and expensive things, our trip was coming to an end. our final day in okinawa was spent wandering the streets of ishigaki, making last ditch efforts to find souvenirs for friends and family.

after finally returning to fukuoka, we spent the night there then set off the next day via shinkansen to spend more quality time with david in kobe. it was a slow new years eve, but after getting violently sick after going to a club 2 years ago, i was okay with celebrating at david's place.

as all visits to kansai include, i trekked up to kyoto to visit my host family. i decided to invade them on the evening the whole family was meeting up. i really wanted to see my host sister, as the last time i saw her, she'd just given birth 3 days before. now both she and her brother have growing families, both with 2 year olds and 7 month old sons. ayasa, the oldest and the only girl among the grandchildren, was born while i was living with my host family. it's crazy to think how much time elapses between each time i see her. her existence marks how long ago my kyoto days are. i can honestly say kyoto was one of the happiest times of my life, and while i do miss it the sense of adventure, independence, and fascination, i know it's not a period of my life i can repeat, which i feel is something that took me a while to accept.

so, upon my return to the rock, aaron decided that he was going to move, so that first weekend back was all about helping him pack, clean, and schlep boxes all over the place. thank god he moved too. his place was falling apart, his landlady couldn't really care less, and his upstairs neighbor was a sack of dirt. plus his new place has really shaped up now, and is slowly becoming a pimper and pimper apartment.

the only other really exciting thing that has happened in my life has been Natsukawa Rimi. earlier i mentioned that she was native to Ishigaki in Okinawa, but what i haven't mentioned yet is that she has the prettiest voice i've ever heard in my life, and i'll stand by that claim. and after going to her concert (and hearing Rob's expert opinion on her singing), she is also one of the most talented singers out there.

even though no one aside from me knows who she is, luckily Rob was willing to go with me to Nagasaki (the land of nothing) to see her concert. i was hoping so much that she'd play Nada Sousou on her sanshin, and sure enough, she did! yaaaaay

perhaps more amazingly, though, she opened with Hana, which i'd never heard her sing till that night, but it was so good i cried. her voice is that beautiful. she just strolled out on stage, and started singing it a capella (just like the above link, except imagine the first minute and a half of just her voice). despite the distance and time it took to just get to the venue, i totally think it was worth it. the way i figure, i could have seen muse last year with the guys, but muse is the type of band i could potentially see in the states. but in the case of natsukawa rimi, i feel like this is a concert i'd only be able to see in japan.

it's been a very eventful month, but alas, it's back to class. i can't believe the short amount of time i have left here. it's only about 7 months from now that i'll be leaving japan for who knows how long. i've already started the job/life panic.. the whole what am i going to do with the rest of my life and where do i want to be quarter-life crisis.

at any rate, i finally have class... more [hopefully] soon

oh students...

2007-12-19T13:59:00.001+09:00

while there are bunch of things my kids do that amuse/annoy the crap out of me, the latest and greatest one is how whenever kids are copying down stuff word for word from the blackboard, they still manage to make spelling errors. like today. my kids were making xmas cards, and i myself wrote on the board what to write on the inside (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year), and as i went by each student and pointed out where their errors were, immediately, they would look at the blackboard, then look at what they wrote, then say, "Oh! You're right."

dude.... who do you think wrote the example on the board? i'm telling you directly that this is wrong.... dont you think i'm telling you the truth?.... would i lie when i'm the expert English speaker in the room? *shrug*

and in other news, while this isn't exactly something annoying, i think it's adorable... one of my junior high schools had a "spelling contest" for the 2nd years (8th graders). while my image of a spelling contest is a spelling bee, where people take turns spelling words out loud, my teacher's idea of a spelling contest is to give students a list of 100 words, and whoever spells out (writes out) the most amount of correct words is the winner.

some of my favorite mistakes from correcting all 70 or so odd papers were:
- liver, which was supposed to be "river"
- buring, which was supposed to be "bring"
- kids being able to spell "brought", but not "bring"
and
- hore, which was supposed to be "hour"

life is the same as always... school everyday and it's freezing cold (roughly 50F wherever you go... even your own bedroom as you wake up in the morning). compared to last year, i've finally wised up and started to double layer my jackets. last year, all throughout winter (it feels like winter through march), i wore only my traditional t-shirt, fleece jacket, and 1 pair of pants... this year, i feel all the shivering i suffered last year can be prevented, which is why i now wear 2 pairs of pants everyday, 2 jackets, and a t-shirt. i suffer far fewer shivering spells now =D

probably one of the biggest changes in lifestyle now compared to a month ago is that my japanese test is FINALLY over. yay!! whereas before i was studying day in and day out, i now have resigned to reading manga, watching movies everyday, and toying with the idea of making everything i see a new hobby. in my post JLPT days, i've now fulfilled some dreams of mine including FINALLY finishing my 28-volume manga (｢天は赤い河のほとり」, which i started over a year ago, but stopped reading in September in order to study for my test), and finally getting to make peanut butter cookies! not to toot my own horn or anything, but i thought my PB cookies rocked. you know how store-bought PB cookies are always really hard and crumbly? well, i like softer, sweeter cookies, so i didn't bake them as long, and they came out heavenly. and when your "oven" can only fit a pan big enough for 5 cookies, it takes a LOT of patience to make 4 dozen cookies.

i have one more day of real school left, then a joke day of just end-of-term ceremonies, and on saturday, i'm officially on winter break! next monday, me, aaron, and master lees head out to okinawa to enjoy a little bit of warmth before the bitter winter sets in. should be a blast! it was a headache to plan (4 hours of my life sacrificed to the travel agency between 2 afternoons.... talk about decidedly UNHAPPY times), but i think it'll be worth it.

hope all of you back home are doing well... enjoy your christmas and new years!!!

halloween(s)

2007-10-30T18:42:00.000+09:00

sorry for the delay! as promised, my Chun-Li pictures! f(^_^;)

a triumphant moment: when it all was finally DONE

at my first of 6 Halloween parties... here's me and one of my favorite teachers, who i used to play badminton with every week

at party #3: Nishi Elementary School. check out my ghetto-rigged spikes!!

^^me trying to capture the impossible: a giant red apple hanging on a string

party #4: for the kids of my town. like last year, this is the first time all 8 of us are in the same place at the same time. historical, really. featured here are: Chun-Li, Waldo, a pirate, Anpanman, a mummy, 2 obachans, and Dracula.

so during this party, kids get a map and set off on what can only really be described as a scavenger hunt, but instead of finding objects, they're looking for people with bags of candy. all they have to do is say "Trick-or-Treat", and candy is as good as theirs.

here are some of the many cute kids that visited my post. please note: the Cinderella and Belle-like costumes were made by the SAME mother out of GARBAGE BAGS. incredible.

despite making a lot of kids happy that day, i have to say i look back on this experience rather unfondly.... i dont know if you can tell, but just to the left of where this picture was taken is the main road, which means EVERYONE passes through here, which also meant a LOT of people saw me in my chun-li outfit... including a lot of middle-aged men driving solo who slowed their cars down, gave me one long look, then suddenly had this sketchy look come across their faces.... *gross*. not to mention all the obachans who walked by and gave me this look like, "what's a prostitute doing in the middle of the morning in the middle of town?"

**sigh**

and finally, here's brian! as always, he was looking for a random adventure in japan, so he figured, why not go to an island right near korea? =P thanks again for coming out here! you're one of the few and the brave (^ ^)v

euphoria

2007-10-16T17:02:00.000+09:00

three weeks, countless blood-drawing stabs, numerous trips to the 100yen shop, and thousands of hand-sewed stitches later, i'm FINALLY, finally done making my Chun-Li costume. *phew*. despite having no access to a sewing machine, that didn't stop me from making what is probably one of the most difficult outfits to be born from Street Fighter 2. and, despite everyone dropping out of doing the Street Fighter idea (about half of us were gung-ho about it in the beginning, but now i'm the ONLY one doing Street Fighter), i decided that after all the blood i've sacrificed making this outfit, i had no choice but push on till the very end.

last night, i finally decided that i was finished, and i have to say, what makes chun-li more than anything else, is the hair. if you have the hair accessories and the stray pieces of white cloth hanging down, in addition to being asian (especially... well, Chinese), you're halfway to looking like her.

thursday marks the beginning of my halloween marathon. i'll have THREE SOLID DAYS of halloween parties... 2 elementary schools on thursday, 1 up in the middle of tsushima on friday (where near all the ALTs are invited to host a day long party for the school), and 1 on saturday for my town, where theoretically all ALTs will be gathered in one place for the first time this year.

only twice before have i attempted to make a shirt for myself, and both times failing miserable. considering i just made a dress completely by hand, and what at least i feel looks halfway convincing, i'm very much in my happy place right now. once my parties are over, look out for pictures which will hopefully be posted this weekend.

now that this costume ordeal is done, i guess it's time to strap down for the JLPT.... *gulp*....

flags of the world

2007-10-02T10:40:00.001+09:00

after being introduced recently to an add-on in facebook, i've been obsessed with upping my traveler's IQ. what the hell am i talking about, you say? it's an application offered through TravelPod (you can click on "Try the Traveler's IQ Challenge" at the top of the page). after many rounds of the "Original World Challenge", where you have to click on a world map as closely as possible to the place they're directing you. for example, if you get Washington DC, you have to be able to place where that is in the world. the more accurately and quickly you can place the location, the more points you get. this has singlehandedly improved my geography knowledge from practically nil to fairly decent in no time at all.

anyway, along with placing cities, capitals, and famous places, there are also other challenges, such as Asia, North America, and the one i've taken a particular interest in, Flags of the World.

after playing this flags of the world game several times, i've come to a new conclusion: some countries have some dumb flags. no offense or anything, but seriously. so many flags have similar colors and styles, or even the same colors but in different orders. what kind of symbolism is that? i'm sure those colors must have some particular meaning, but from just looking at it, it's hard to understand what kind of patriotic feelings they must instill in their people.

3 that have been truly making me angry are the following:

can you figure out which is which?...

answers are: France, then Netherlands, then Russia. to think, horizontal vs. vertical lines make a dramatic difference. and then just the simple swapping of color order makes that drastic of a change. nuts, right?

so this is what my life has been about this past weekend (flags, the traveler's IQ game, and making my Chun-Li outfit). i know talking about flags won't do much to actually change anything, but i just thought i'd express my musings over them.

take a look at belgium and germany:

i dont know about you, but they look pretty similar to me. and to think, again, it's all about vertical vs. horizontal stripes. *sigh*

the one flag that i'm a very big fan of, though, is Cyprus:

it's so brilliant... it has a picture of itself on it!!

i guess what i'm getting at is that i admire flags with symbols on it.. makes them unique. not just bands of color, yanno? even the States has a unique pattern, which makes it so readily distinguishable. i even have to give Canada credit. the maple leaf -- so simple and yet so fitting, no?

another favorite flag would have to be macedonia. very unique pattern:

if i could go back to college and choose a random flag to hang on my wall, it'd hands down have to be macedonia. very bold colors.... maybe i'm just lame, but i find the design inspiring, and i think i'd have liked it hanging over my bed, encouraging me to not give up amidst studying for midterms and finals.

to see every flag of the world, check out this website.

so if you're bored and you feel like freshening up your geography and vexillology, go to facebook (where you kill most of your time anyway =P), and see what your traveler's IQ is!

tragic discoveries

2007-09-25T15:02:00.000+09:00

last week during my adult english conversation class, i found out something utterly shocking to me about japanese people. for a long time now, i've wondered why it is my kids always shy away when i ask them something, and why adults always seem to be at a loss for words to explain something to you. but more specifically, i discovered why it is that no one ever seems to express an opinion around here.

in the american education system, we spend many years from high school throughout college, to perfect an essay: how to write introductions, state your hypothesis, support it in your body, and wrap things up in your conclusion. i dont know about you, but for me, that was what i hated MOST about school. i loathed writing papers. but at any rate, learning to write those papers kinda inadvertently taught you how to defend yourself in conversations. you say something, people will challenge you, and you have to either defend what you say, or admit that maybe what you originally thought had some flaws. i dont know about you, but many of my first impressions of people are based off of how intelligently they can explain and support their opinions. i feel like that's how we judge educated people in general (or maybe that's just me...).

in other words, we learn to say opinions and explain why we think whatever. right?

well that's not how the japanese people roll. when i asked people why it is they can't seem to state their opinion, it's because.... they dont have an opinion. because they're never really taught to have an opinion. you know those hours and hours we spent on papers? not in japan! they learn that an essay has an intro, body, and conclusion, but they never really write papers, and they definitely dont have back-and-forth discussions like we do in the States.

when you think about it, their never really learning how to argue something explains why they never state a solid opinion. japanese people hate conflict. while i understand conflict is sometimes bad, as a human being with a functional brain, you gotta have opinions on SOME things, right? am i wrong to assume this?

for the last few weeks, i've been trying to teach my english class how to have a discussion: how to ask someone's opinion, how to respond to their opinions (agree/disagree), how to state your own opinion, and how discuss ideas in a non-confrontational manner. simple enough, right? i guess not, because i keep drawing blank stares and uncomfortable shifting. i finally understand why this is so difficult for them, and maybe i'm just asking the wrong questions, but i'm genuinely interested in what they have to say... if only they wouldn't give up trying to say it in english.

perhaps my approach is too radical for them. what's this? state my opinion? but that means disagreeing with someone else, and if i disagree, i'll look like an asshole... i really wonder if it's that extreme in their minds.

i think the reason why this bothers me so much is that if you want to truly be functional in a language, you have to be able to do more than just 1) talk about yourself and your hometown, and 2) ask about where someone else is from. if you want to develop real skills, i think discussing something is a vital tool you need. while it's interesting to learn that "wow, you're from an island in japan??", i think it's even more fascinating to ask a japanese, "what do you think about wearing uniforms to school?" or "what do you think about japanese baseball players in the major leagues?" or even "what do you think about Sailormoon?!"

we face this cultural and educational gap with the japanese, no question about it. so what can we do? encourage them to be like us? egg them on till they become opinionated? or just let things go and deal with the thought that hey, s/he probably thinks i'm a jerk because i come off so strong?

as the foreigner of my town, i'm supposed to not only spread my language, but my culture too. carrying on discussions is a part of my culture. i want to share it with japanese people, and yet i'm not seemingly getting through. to give up or not give up? that is the question....

english in japan

2007-09-12T13:55:00.000+09:00

from my time in japan, i have formed a few theories on english. here's what i've observed:

- about 85% of the population here is too embarrassed to speak english, despite studying the language starting in 7th grade, and having compulsory classes until the end of high school

- younger kids (like 1st, 2nd grade) seem to treat english as something of a game, and are more likely than older kids (5th, 6th grade) to voluntarily use it. during classes at my elementary schools, the 1st graders are all about raising their hands and trying to read off all the animals i have posted on the board, as opposed to the 5th graders who are terrified of volunteering because they're afraid of being wrong. note: they haven't even officially started studying english yet!

- the vast majority of adults have a good vocab in english, especially when it's in written form. they understand a lot more english that i'm spitting at them than they're willing to admit. however, when put on the spot to use english, they'll madly shake their heads as if there's a bee in their hair and start wildly crossing their arms as if they're trying to ward off a vampire. in other words, getting adults to form and say a whole english sentence is like pulling teeth.

with these observations in mind, i've repeatedly stumbled over a puzzling question that everyone seems to have their own opinion on, and here it goes:

at what age should japanese children start learning english?

this question first came to my attention when i was being worked like a monkey at my largest elementary school. they were cramming classes in for me every period i spent at their school. at every other school, every child was receiving exactly 1 hour of english each month. why did 1st graders at the largest school deserve 2 hours of instruction each month over the junior high school-bound 6th graders at smaller schools? something in the system seemed out of whack to me.

as you may know, i've been teaching english conversation at night, once a week, to adults in the community for free. into my 10th week now (only 5 more to go!!), i felt it was finally time to teach them how to debate/express opinions and respond to other's opinions.

as the final practice topic last night, i decided to ask them this question and see what a regular japanese schmo thinks about english education in his country.

class consensus: out of 8 people, 7 agreed that english should be taught as early as possible, 1st grade being the latest.... most said starting in kindergarten would be best. the reason for starting as early as possible is because kids are like sponges.... the earlier you start them on something, the more likely it'll stick and the more confident they can be in it.

the remaining person said english should be started in 4th grade because at that age, they'll be able to comprehend what a foreign language is.

and here's my opinion:

in the case of japan, it's apparent to me that 1st grade is too soon, and 7th grade is too late. i've taught 1st graders in their first week of school as 1st graders, and you know what my impression was? that they barely understand japanese. if they can barely comprehend japanese or that they live in a place called "japan", how can they be expected to understand what a "foreign language" is? i seriously still know 2nd graders who spell piano ピヤノ instead of ピアノ. shit, I'M better at japanese than they are.

seriously, if i were those poor group of 1st graders looking up at me on that day, i would have said to myself, "who is this and why is she here?..."

i dont, however, want to take away from what those little 1st graders accomplished that day. they indeed, had excellent pronunciation, considering it was only their first time being introduced to english. they were quick to volunteer to try to repeat what i said, and they were definitely excited about my teaching them (or about my being there?..). while their response was positive, i still don't feel like they realize what i'm attempting to teach them.

one thing that makes japan vastly different from the states is that about 99% of the population grows up knowing only 1 language. in the states, it's not uncommon for people to grow up bilingual, if not trilingual. the struggle to learn english comes from needing it to survive. in japan, the struggle to learn english comes from needing to pass tests, to be able to read papers written in the scholarly world.... this is probably why so many japanese people are terrified of actually speaking any english.

so i look at the energetic 1st graders with their excellent pronunciation and confidence in english, and then i look at the shy 7th graders, terrified of making mistakes, and terrified of saying something wrong. somewhere in between is where these kids need to build their confidence in english, so that by the time they hit 7th grade, they're ready to be taught grammar and tested in a foreign language.

here's my opinion: japanese kids should start learning english in 3rd grade. this way, kids will have the first 2 years in elementary school to get a grip on japanese, and understand that the world is round and that people that live on the other side of the world in many places other than japan speak english. by third grade, there'll still be time to instill confidence in them. i'd suggest just teaching basic greetings and vocab, much like ALTs currently do.

then in 5th grade, i think they should start learning how to write the alphabet. at that time, they still have 2 years before they're tested in english, and that way, they can put in writing what they've been saying for the last 2 years.

at my special english school, kids learn english every week starting in 1st grade. despite this, they are at the same level when they enter junior high school because they can't spell for crap. and that's almost everyone's problem. so what happens to all their confidence in english that's built up since they were 6? gone. out the window. those kids who have been happily using english all those years suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the curve in english, which generates yet another japanese clone who's afraid of english.

this is why i think it's important to start writing earlier than later. for me, if i can't put a kanji to a vocab word in japanese, i can't remember what it means. also, when people can see the power of phonics and sounding out a word, they become that much more empowered in english.

this is all, of course, just my opinion. english will eventually become mandatory in elementary schools. who knows how that'll work out. most elementary school teachers are no different than the average adult: they're just as terrified at the thought of trying to pronounce english. i've seriously asked some teachers before to just say a few words in english, and they all freeze up and do the mad head-shaking-hand-crossing dance. *sigh*. teacher, if i can't use you as a role model for these kids, who can i?

if anyone else is fascinated by this question, let me know what you think. how old should japanese kids be when they start to learn english?

back to school

2007-09-11T22:22:00.000+09:00

so my long and beautiful summer finally came to an end, and alas, i'm back at school. so far, though, my schedule has been pretty light. last week (the first week back), my first two days were completely empty, and this week, because all my students are done taking tests and preparing for Sports Day this Sunday, there's been a moratorium on classes. i had one today, none tomorrow, and one again on friday. sweet? i think so.

so far, the highlights of my last week and a half:

- trying to teach my kids body parts and verbs to go along with it, such as stand up and sit down. when i tried asking them, what's [stand up]? a kid replies: "Stand down!"

- my largest elementary school FINALLY listening to me (and my higher ups) and cutting down not only the number of classes i have at that school, but the number of students per class. what used to be 6 then 4 classes on a wednesday and friday have now turned into 5 and 4 (only 1 class less, but you have no idea how less painful that makes my day there). also, what used to be 60-80 kids per lesson is now magically 30-40. all of this equals a MUCH happier evelyn.

- finally discovering that the evil, highly explosive propane powered shower of mine actually DOES have more settings than scalding hot and freezing cold. note that i have lived here since the beginning of may, and this whole time, i've been trying to find some magical button that will give me less than scalding water, while still maintaining the flame that warms my water (having that flame stay on is even less predictable than when a baby is going to take its next dump). and last week, just last week, i FINALLY found it. it was set to "medium" gas quantities till now, and it was hidden behind the hose that directs my propane to the shower. this WHOLE time it was RIGHT frickin there... arrrgh. anyway, i now enjoy lukewarm showers! granted, it's still not the ideal temperature, but i'll take whatever i can get.

- i discovered that i can kinda bake! in preparation for a BBQ, i made oatmeal raisin cookies, and they actually came out pretty well if i may say so myself. it definitely had the right amount of sweetness to satisfy americans (i wonder if it was too sweet for japanese people?...). they were probably a little too much on the soft side, but when i think about it, i really dont like hard, crunchy oatmeal cookies. so yeah... my soft cookies were a pleasant change =) although i have to admit, it's kind of a pain when my oven can only fit 4 cookies at a time.... needless to say, it took a slight while to bake all of them.

that's about all i have to say for now.... that and i can't believe it's already been 6 years since 9/11. that's kinda nuts... has time already flown by that fast?

and with that, i'm leaving you with a picture of my new ALT family (well, most of it):

Aaron, Mike, Mitch, Rob, Adam, and me at our Mexican Food Party!

The Money Pit

2007-08-27T15:04:00.000+09:00

this weekend, in a last ditch effort to get stuff i'd like/need before school starts up again, aaron and i decided to take a trip to Fukuoka, the closest mainland city to us. i've lost track now, but this is probably my 4th or so trip to Fukuoka, and just as i feared, history repeated itself yet again.

it is officially, for me at least, the Money Pit.

every time i've made a trip out there, i've consistently gone there with the intention of buying a thing or two, but it ALWAYS comes out to be a $500 trip, blown in one weekend to say the least. for me, going to fukuoka requires at the bare minimum, roundtrip tickets on a ferry, jetfoil, or plane, so that's at least $80 you're locked into. then you have the at least one nights stay in a hostel or hotel, and that's generally $40-70. so right off the bat, you're down, say, $150 (on the conservative end).

so where does the remaining $350 go? i don't know. really -- i dont know. times before, it's been a Costco run (which i did this time too).... a badminton racket, speakers, clothes, used manga... food.... i'd like to think that my frugality would naturally limit my spending, but somehow, fukuoka always magically takes all my money away.

but this time, i know exactly why i got back to the island with as little change as i did. i did it folks -- i turned to the dark side. i bought a DS Lite.

**blush**

as random as it may sound, and i'm not much of a gamer if you know me well, i've actually been eyeing DSes for a while now, with the sole intention of obtaining these kanji games (yes, i know, i'm a nerd). with the test i plan on taking in december, i figured a DS would be a more enjoyable environment to drill those kanji into my head.

as fate would have it, aaron bought a DS since they didn't have dvd-burners that would work with his computer. watching him play made me realize how much i wanted one too (yes, i'm a biter), so i too gave in.

since he got the kanji game i wanted, i instead got this game training you in [japanese] common knowledge. so far, it's proved to be long-winded for me, mainly because i have to stop every few seconds to look up kanji in both questions and multiple choice answers. regardless, i have managed to learn quite a bit from it, and that's enough for me to justify my purchase o(^ ^)o

however, i quickly realized how straining it can be to only have games that are more focused on studying than mindless play. so yesterday, i gave into temptation yet again, and got Mario Kart. it's quite fun and i'd highly recommend it to people who like racing games (like me!).

i can't believe how fast my summer went by.... but at the same time, i feel like it's been pretty eventful. went home home, came back, got my license, got to know some of the newbies, went to fukuoka, got some volumes of my current manga obsession read.... productive indeed =)

oh, and one last thing: if you're into psychotically HOT food, especially indian food, and are passing through Fukuoka anytime, i'd HIGHLY recommend a place called Shakti. it's an indian restaurant that aaron and i stumbled upon on the restaurant floor of Yodobashi Camera, which is right next to Hakata Station.

first of all, this is the first place i've heard of a spicy scale that goes over 10. instead, they go from 0-50. but this being japan and japanese people not really doing the spicy thing, indian restaurants tend to be a crapshoot in that you never know if the spicy scale is the TRUE spicy scale (like what americans are used to), or the pansy scale (ie. what japanese people consider hot).

being daring, i went for a 30 while aaron went for a 40. can i just say, OW.

i drank so much water to mitigate the burning that by the end of dinner, most of the curry dish was still there, and i wasn't full so much as full of water. i barely ate anything because my tongue couldnt touch anything without extreme pain. never have i experienced food burning my tongue when it was in my mouth, burning my esophagus when it went was passing through, and burn the lining of my stomach as it was being digested. i dont know what was in that curry, but it had some atomic power.

so bottom line: if you dare to eat hot food, i dare you to go to Shakti =P

getting my drivers license... all over again

2007-08-17T10:31:00.000+09:00

wow, has it been ages since i've updated this thing. to highlight what's happened in the last month and a half:

- went back to America
- met my nephew
- saw my family and friends
- came back to Tsushima (after a solid 24 hours in transit)... puked on the plane as it landed in Fukuoka (my 2nd plane back)... you now know someone who's used a barf bag! my final mode of transportation was a ferry, which you'd think sounds like a bad idea just after throwing up on a plane, but i passed out so hard it didn't even matter (the ferry took off at midnight and docked at 5am)
- left Tsushima a week later to go to Nagasaki-city where i tragically had to take my driver's license test.... details which i will divulge now.

so some of you have asked me, wait, haven't you been driving for the last year in japan? why do you suddenly now need to take a licensing test? so there's this rule that if you have what's called an International Driver's Permit (IDP), which you BUY, not EARN by taking some test, you can carry the IDP along with your home country's license for one year and be a valid driver in Japan.

so relax! i've been a legal driver for the last year. however, once your IDP expires (which is only good for a year), you have to get a Japanese license to drive here. which is why i had to go to to the mainland to a city called Omura in my prefecture.

i've been driving for about 4 years now. you'd think that makes me a pretty decent driver, right? WRONG. let me now describe to you the pain of obtaining a license in this country.

first off, before you make any phone calls for an appointment at the japanese DMV, you need to send a copy of your home country license to a separate agency to translate it into Japanese. of course, you have to pay for this translation. after it's mailed to you (which they're luckily very quick about), THEN you can make your appointment at this place in Omura.

lucky for me, this is prime foreigner-trying-to-transfer-licenses-time, so under panic, i decided to get all this crap done before i left for the States. between talking to my office and Toyota-san, i sent in my request for a translation, booked an appointment at the DMV, and booked a plane off the island for the morning of my appointment all in the day before i left for home. not bad, eh?

then came the hard part. after getting back to japan, it started to sink in that i was going to take this test. i have 3 free vacation days this month (a special thing through my prefecture), and since i can't use it any other time, i figured i'd use these 3 days to get my license. after that, my vacation days would start coming out of my 20 days of vacation in the year (everyone holds onto vacation days like gold coins here).

after a lot of prepping from Aaron and reading up on a couple of sites, i think i had the main idea of what i needed to do. just go give you an idea of what they're looking for, you need to:

- constantly look over your shoulders for bicyclists and moped drivers
- constantly bear to the left part of your lane, even though you have the whole lane to drive in
- look twice over your shoulder for bicyclists when trying to make a turn, and pull waaay into the bicyclists and mopedists way so they dont try to pull up beside you and you eventually hit them as you turn
- constantly look into ALL your mirrors for other drivers
- did i mention the test takes place on a course?
- hug the curb TIGHTLY whenever turning
- constantly have your signal on well in advance
- adjust your seat, put on your seatbelt, and adjust your mirrors IN THAT ORDER
- brake fully BEFORE entering a bend in the road, as opposed to the American thought that says brake as entering the bend
- successfully drive through an S-Curve and what they call the "Crank"
- the S-Curve is shaped like an S, but is outlined by sidewalks on both sides. think of a parking spot. take that width and stretch it out into an S. yup. THAT tight.
- the Crank is shaped like one line of a swatstika... so you pull into the Crank, then you're looking at a right angled turn to the right, then an immediate right angled turn to the left. painful. again, sidewalk/curb on both sides, parking spot width, and also these hanging yellow bars that flank the turns that will move and jingle if you hit them.

so to summarize, during the test you're constantly looking everywhere EXCEPT directly in front of you, your signal's constantly clicking, and you're sweating bullets through these 2 near-impossible turns designed to be impossible. awesome, no?

so monday, i arrive in Omura, and 10 minutes after landing, i'm at the DMV. i check in, except i'm "too early" because foreigner drivers can't check in until 10:30am. i look at the clock and it's 10:10. *rolling eyes*. so as i sat and waited, i saw on one of their marquees that foreinger check in is everyday from 10:30-11am. talk about a tight timeframe.

finally, it's 10:30, and they take all my documents (including my current and former California license, passport, and Alien Registration Card), essentially holding my identity hostage. after a bit, they come out, and tell me that it's time to take the written test.

their written test is a joke. it's 10 questions, true or false, complete with pictures and poor english. seriously, you'd have to be a retard to not score at least 8/10 on that test. i mean seriously. one of the questions were:

"I hear the sirens of an ambulance behind me as i'm approaching an intersection, but i hurry up and speed along ahead anyway."

another brilliant one was:

"I'm about to turn right through an intersection, but because there's a car approaching the intersection from the other direction and going straight, and yet another car in the opposite direction about to turn left at that corner, i can't turn yet because i'll disrupt the flow of their traffic."

it really isn't brain surgery, folks. anyway, i passed my test with a perfect score. but that was the easy part. by the time i'm done with this , it's 11:30, i'm starving, and i need to check in for my practical at 1:00.

so i walked down the street to a convenience store, bought some lunch, walked back, ate it, and headed over to the course. the nice thing about their system, i have to say, is that they at least let you walk the course before your test. you're also given a map of the course, so you should be at least able to remember in part where you're going and what challenges are up ahead. i walked it twice, and after being thoroughly soaked in sweat from humidity and dragging my overnight bag around with me, i finally decide to sit in the waiting room and await my test time.

finally, i'm up, and i'm the first one to go in my car. usually, they let the next person sit in back when it's your turn so they get a feel for what the course looks like. mind you, there's 3 foreingers that day taking the test, and i'm the only one taking it for the first time, and yet, they STILL make me go first.

i thought everything was going well... that is, until i ran over a curb. you know, i really can't remember ever running over a curb, except maybe the first few times i parked or parallel parked, but definitely never as i was turning onto the road. it was just after getting through the S-curve, and of all things, i had to run over the curb coming OUT of it. not getting IN, not DURING, but coming OUT. arrrgh. i got through the Crank fine too (granted i had to back up, but it was better than running over the curb again).

but here's the messed up part. the S curve was at the beginning of my test, and right after i ran over it, the proctor told me i failed. i know, because i understand japanese, that the proctors were giving all the japanese people taking the test for the first time that you need at least 70/100 points to pass your test. you're telling me that running that ONE curb cost me 30 points? that's such crap.

this is where my conspiracy theory comes in. the more times foreigners fail, the more everyone benefits (except the foreigner). people like me, who aren't from the mainland, and instead are waaay out on an island, are forced to stay an extra day, so there's at least 1 nights lodging. everyone in the DMV will ask you, "did you take a practice test? did you go to the driving school across the street and try to practice? it's hard to pass on the first try without practicing..." and each time you take the test, you have to pay for the test again (about $20). the more people taking the test, the more money the DMV gets, and the more job security all the proctors are given. makes me sick.

anyway, day 1: failure. to cheer myself up, i explore the area, and stumble upon a Best Denki, kinda like a Best Buy. in the back, there's a big screen section, which faces a massage chair section. what else better do i have to do than score a free 15 minute full body massage from a $2,500 chair? =D

day 2: i spot a white girl, who i know instantly is a fellow JET. but from the ungodly hour that she arrived, i know she was a first timer. i eventually befriended her, and together, we vowed to not spend anymore vacation days on this bs.

turns out we were the only 2 foreigners taking the test that day. since we're only transferring our license and not learning to drive for the first time, we go before all the japanese people. the proctor who's testing us comes up to us, gives us some advice, and then we were off. he didn't signal who to go first, so i insisted that she go first.

in my opinion, she did a fantastic job. nothing major she could have been dinged for. then it was my turn. rather than tell her what she did wrong before my test, he tells us to switch, so i start my test as she waits in the backseat.

i go through my test, doing every anal thing i've been told to do, hit no curbs, and think to myself, i had to have passed. i MUST.

my test is finally over, and he starts to tell me what i did wrong. takes my sheet, and starts docking points all over the page. then he tells her what she did wrong. docks points all over the place. he adds up her points.... and she passes. then he adds up my points (mind you the jerk knocked off more points for me than her because my test was fresher in his mind).... and i passed! thank god i didn't have to stay there one more day.... i think i would have started to slaughter proctors.

anyway, we both graciously thank him a billion times, then walk back elated to the DMV building to obtain our licenses. after ensuring i had a spot on the last plane back to the island, we sat around waiting for them to call our names. by 3:30, i was an unproud holder of a japanese drivers license.

unproud you say? granted i worked my ass for it, but at the same time breaking all the driving logic i've ever known. my proctor on day 1 even said to me that i was "good at driving", as in staying on the road, not turning the car as i look over my shoulder, stopping appropriately and stuff.... but like i said before, this test isn't about skill. rather, it's about conforming to their dumb little "driving dance". if anyone actually drove the way you're supposed to during this test, i guarantee you, this country would see a lot more accidents caused by rearing-ending the person in front of you.

i now kinda understand the whole bad asian woman driver stereotype. if half the asian women out there drive like how japanese people are SUPPOSED to drive, then i too would fear for my life. no worries, i plan on promptly forgetting all the japanese driving habits i've picked up this week, and return to driving like a sane, logical driver.

how to annoy a japanese child

2007-07-03T10:56:00.000+09:00

this month, i plan on teaching my elementary school students directions, and at the end of class, i'm having them play "pin the tail on the horse" (much because they know how to say "horse" and not "donkey"). anyway, before they come to class, i draw 2 horses on the board (one for each class in the grade), without tails, and for the game, i blindfold a kid, and have their classmates give him/her directions as to where and when to pin the tail.

however, little did i know that with japanese children's upbringings, they can't stand imperfection. between only 3 classes, i must have had at least 30 or 40 kids come up to me or yell at me from across the room that my horses were missing tails. my response: "you'll find out later" or "they're NOT missing tails", and proceed to hold up the beautiful tail i drew, laminated, and added magnets to.

so bottom line, if you want to annoy a japanese child, draw a picture of an animal that needs a tail, DON'T draw the tail, and force them to stare at it for 30 minutes before you start the game. muahahahah! ;D

(believe it or not, i dont torture japanese children on a regular basis...)

narcoleptic

2007-07-01T17:02:00.000+09:00

after 14 elementary school classes in only 3 day, 2 of which were at my biggest school, i am officially a broken person. friday evening, my friends and i went to the beer garden for some ram's meat (which was awesome as always), but after completely stuffing myself, i have become completely narcoleptic. between all those classes, very little sleep this past week, the cough that refuses to go away, and a ton of recently acquired mosquito bites (6 on friday night alone, 3 of which are on my ankle and all within 1 cm of one another), i've found myself unable to stay awake this weekend.

nothing really exciting has happened, except for finally deciding to entering the sea-kayak marathon in a few weeks. i also realized only last night that it's july now, which means very very soon, i'll finally be going home. it's weird to think that i've been away from home for so long. between my siblings and i, i feel like i'm the most attached to home, and yet i've spent the most time away. funny how things like that turn out.

for all the sleep i've done this weekend, i'm still incredibly drowsy. *sigh*. and can i just say, i *hate* mosquitos (fighting back the urge to scratch).

that's all for now. i'll write more when i'm not so, you know, narcoleptic.

pictures from the last few months (whoops)

2007-06-25T21:00:00.001+09:00

i know, i know... my pics are waaaaay overdue, but alas, here they are!

the past few months have included quite a few outdoor adventures. here's one of them. this is the view from the top of Mt. Joyama -- by far, my favorite mountaintop. it's got a great view over the rias and all the small islands in Mitsushima.

me at the top of Joyama

this is the top of Mt. Shiratake, by far the most difficult climb so far (for me at least). it's known for being a fertility mountain. there's a saying that whoever goes to the top will have a male child within a year. *looking around*. here's hoping that's false. also, the reason why it's a fertility mountain is because, well, look closely.... this view is the "female" part...

...and this is aaron on top of the "male" part. can you see it? =P

the view from the top is nothing but rolling hills in every direction... sooo cool.

at the top of shiratake

the waterfall at the base of shiratake. nice, eh?

so in attempt to keep ourselves unbored, rob and i got a 1000 piece puzzle back in october that we worked on verrry slowly at his place. basically, each time i went up north (which wasn't often), i'd stay the night and we'd work on it all weekend. finally, after about 6 months of turtle-pace assemblage and seemingly 500 pieces of cloudless sky, our masterpiece is finally complete. i can also honestly say that every Tsushima ALT contributed it to it too. thank you everyone!

after being fed up with replacing tortillas with naan bread, aaron and i finally decided to make flour tortillas. the last time we made them, we fed glorious mexican food to a party of 7. needless to say, it was amazing, as mexican food always is (especially when it's homemade ;D). check out the recipes here.

at the end of may, i went to kobe for the recontracting conference. but beforehand, i was sure to visit my host family in kyoto. first stop: the hospital to visit my host sister (sayoko) and her newborn baby. in this picture: me, Ayasa (in the red... Sayoko's oldest child. she was born while i lived with my host family), Yasuyo (married to my host parent's son), Hiroto? (Yasuyo's baby boy, kid #2), Sayoko, Tatsuki (Sayoko's baby boy, kid #2), and Atsushi (Sayoko's husband).

baby boy cousins: Hiroto (i think...) and Tatsuki. in this picture, they're 2 days and 3 days old, respectively.

proud mothers and their baby boys

me and ayasa... how she's grown since being a newborn baby... haha

the hospital visit was followed up by going back to the home i know so well. here: my host mom, their current student (Emily), and her brother (John, who happened to be in town the same day as me). needless to say, there was a big, delicious feast.

me, my host dad, my host parents' son (Junpei), and Haruto (Junpei and Yasuyo's oldest son). This was my first time meeting Haruto, as i only knew him as the baby that Yasuyo was pregnant with during my stay as a student.

the following day was none other than.... a Hanshin Tigers game!!! here's my main man, Akahoshi, in an action pose! this is by far, the closest i've ever been to him...

...although regrettably, my seat was much closer to Hiyama. they lost horribly, but it was nice to see a home game after following them so many nights senior year.... 4am trudging through a bio pset, and refreshing the website every 2 minutes to see how the live game was going.... never again.

akahoshi up at bat!!!!

after months of waiting, i FINALLY got to wear my Akahoshi jersey! and of course, aaron sported his Hanshin colors with a Kanemoto jersey.

during my last night in kobe, i got in contact with 2 of my favorite former SJECers. together with rob, we chatted and drank the night away. here: mutsumi, me, and miki (aka mikiti). both are SJEC alumni from my junior year.

and last but not least, my nephew, Alexander!!! granted, i have yet to meet him, but isn't he darling??

those are all the pictures i've got for you guys for now... *phew*. i feel tons better now =)

my apartment!

2007-06-23T15:03:00.000+09:00

at long last.... pics of my new apartment! (please dont scream...) =P

first, just to demonstrate how much unbelievable cleaning i did when i first moved in, and particularly how much grease was layering over everything, please see Exhibit A:

Exhibit A: the before picture

Exhibit B: the after picture. That was about 30 minutes later of scrubbing.

The building. I'm on the 2nd floor, the one closest in this picture.

Can you tell how painful this hill is to walk up everyday? Needless to say, it's unpleasant.

The view from the stairs. Mine's the closest door.

The view from my balcony (eastward)

The view from my balcony (westward). That building you see is where i theoretically play badminton every week.

My showeroom before its much needed paint job. This is what i call "prison style."

Another wall of the showeroom before painting

During painting...

Only the ceiling left to go...

My now beautiful (and bright) showeroom!

What's this? you say. So Toyota-san, a godsend, was helping me the first 3 days i moved in to massively clean the place. in the process, though, she knocked off this clip that held up my drying rack. being the master ghetto-rigger i am, i taped 3 pairs of disposable chopsticks together then taped them to the wall. my shelf has been sturdy and happy ever since =)

the view from my front door

my kitchen

more kitchen

oh how glorious it is to have more than 2 shelves for all my dishes and cups!

kitchen \ bedroom

my cozy bedroom...

surprisingly, i still have roughly the same about of storage space as at my old place

the bedroom view from the kitchen

i dont know whether to shoot or hug the architect sometimes. i would definitely hug him for this: that white wall houses my dishes and cups on the kitchen side, and on the lower portion, is a shoe closet accessible from the front door side. brilliant, no?!

my freshly repainted showeroom =)

my bathtub and the annoyingly complicated highly explosive propane-powered shower. i literally laughed in the face of the guy who showed me how to use it. you would not believe how much effort it takes to get hot water.

my ghetto toilet... notice anything missing? and yes, it came like that.

this is why i would shoot the architect: notice the door jamb that runs along the leftside of the picture. that door is between the showeroom (duh) and the kitchen. then, point your attention to the direction the toiletroom door slides. yup. that's right. i have to enter my wet showeroom in order to access the toilet. it's not as annoying anymore, but definitely took some getting used to.

as you can probably tell, this place isn't very big, but i have to admit, i like it a lot better than my old place. first of all, i can just roll and reach just about everything in my apartment. i have a ton of shelves to put dishes, which is excellent, and this place is just big enough to fit everything i have. there have been less bugs than my old places (although the mosquitoes still magically get inside, and the geckos run larger here). but at least i dont have to climb up and down stairs to pee or run upstairs to answer the phone. also, i can cook and watch tv at the same time, and even use the computer while still keeping an eye on the stove. and did i mention i went from having the most expensive rent of all us ALTs to having one of the cheapest? hell YAY-AH! =D

in other news, it's official: the new ALTs have been decided, and they'll be coming at the end of July/beginning of August. and guess what: i'm going to be the only girl next year! what a loss for this island. tsushima has apparently suffered some bad experiences with past females. they're under the impression that us females can't handle the extreme ruralness (which is crap), so they decided, let's go for guys. *shaking head*. i really hope everything turns out okay. luckily, i still have Sujin, the Korean CIR, who is living next door to me. at least i have one person i can girl talk with *phew*

i have more pics to upload, but i think i'm going to save that for tomorrow. hope you all got a good laugh out of my apartment pics! =)

my first eikaiwa

2007-06-14T19:41:00.000+09:00

So Tuesday night, i had my first english conversation class (from here on out, i’m just gonna call it eikaiwa 英会話). There’s 15 people enrolled in the free course offered through the local community center, but only 13 showed up to the first class. I actually managed to plan just enough stuff to do that we finished just on time.

Despite being on an island where Korean seems to be the foreign language of choice, the people who signed up for my class have a shockingly high level of ability. Considering the only two types of people i hear english from are either elementary/junior high school kids, or my english teachers, it’s amazing to hear other people out in the community actually string together a coherent, grammatically accurate sentence @,@ i was highly, highly impressed.

For the last week, i’ve been dreading going to eikaiwa, mainly because of my inherent fear of people realizing that my english has major gaps. Stuff like nursery rhymes, idioms, vocab, expressions... i still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to english, and yet i’m supposed to be able to teach a motley crue of people with drastically different levels of ability.

All day yesterday, i was just nervous. Even after getting into the classroom and seeing that they weren’t scary looking, i was still uber nervous the entire lesson. And when i get nervous, i start to talk fast, which is obviously bad if there’re people who can’t listen very well.

Even though i’ve technically been teaching English since September, my eikaiwa class was the first time i’ve actually felt like a teacher. And dude, is it scary. I mean, you’re RESPONSIBLE for EVERYTHING... usually, my school classes aren’t that daunting because there’s always the homeroom teacher or the english teacher there. But this time, i have to plan everything, make copies.... and all eyes are on me.... =(

My lesson actually worked out pretty well (i think at least), and afterwards, i was chatting with aaron. I told him about the whole feeling like a teacher for the first time thing, and he said, “i understand what you mean, and it’s because with the elementary school and junior high students, everything you say is at least a little bit helpful, so their expectations are very low. But when it comes to the adults, since everyone’s level is all over the place, their expectations are just unreasonable.”

At first i just laughed, but after some thought, i realized that he’s right. In future lessons, i’m sure i’m going to have lessons at just the right level for someone, but it’ll be too easy or too hard for someone else. Literally, i think it’s impossible to please everyone. But for now, i’m just going to revel in a successful first lesson.

As i’m sure everyone could use a good laugh, i’m going to end with a few quotes from the surveys my students filled out at the end of the lesson. Enjoy!

How long have you studied English?
I don’t have time.

How long have you studied English?
I’ve studied for tree years.

What are your hobbies?
Growing flowers, making pottery, baking cakes, playing bound tennis

The most puzzling one:

How long have you studied English?
Tweyear – Sometime!

And last, but not least, my favorite:

What are your hobbies?
Chat (finger lanquage)

i'm an aunt!

2007-06-12T08:48:00.000+09:00

as of last saturday, i officially became an aunt! my sister gave birth to a baby boy, and as far as i know, everyone is in good health. my new nephew's name is Alexander Olson.

being on gchat lately, i've noticed that everyone's away messages have been things like "last final" or "finals" or "studying"... and it's hard to believe, but nevertheless, it's been a year since i've graduated from university. isn:t that crazy? i:ve been out in the "real" world for a year now -- bubble-free if you may. man how time flies.

in the same regard, i can:t believe how long i:ve actually gone without seeing my family. it:s going to be nearly a year by the time i go home this july (yes! i:m coming home at the end of july!!). both of my siblings and i went abroad at one point for either school or work (or both), but the longest they were away was something like 3 months for my sister, and maybe 4 months-ish for my brother. i was in kyoto and tokyo for 5 months, and being on the JET Program is going to bring me to about 11 months without seeing my family. the strange thing is, i feel like between the 3 of us, i:m the one who needs to see family the most. that is, i feel like my siblings are independent enough that they can go long periods without needing to see my parents. and yet strangely enough, i:ve found myself repeatedly in japan....

so, if you:ve ever seen pictures of my extended family and i, you:ll noticed that i:m a giant. i:m a beast compared to how small my cousins and sister are. which is why it:s always been a kind of dream for me to see her pregnant. and yet, i managed to not only miss the birth of the first person in the next generation of my family, but i:ve also managed to miss her ENTIRE pregnancy. talk about disappointment.

for the longest time, i kinda felt like my family never changes. they:re a source i can count on being constant. even if i go away from home, when i return, everything will be the same, and it:ll be like i never left. right? wrong. once i hit university, everything started to change... my dad retired, my parents kept fixing up this and that around the house, getting new furniture, etc. and ever since graduation, not just my family, but a lot of my friends from home have been changing. i can:t even name all the people i heard about who got engaged during winter vacation. RIDICULOUS.

i guess what i:m trying to say is that whether or not i like it, the world goes on changing. and whether or not i:d like to admit it, i:m getting older; i:m no longer a kid. i:m becoming (if not already) *gulp* an adult, and with it come responsibilities. i:m soooo dreading going back to the states and actually having to decide what i want to do with the rest of my life, but nevertheless, the time will eventually come.

anyway, i gotta run to class now (i think i have 5 today at 2 elementary schools, as well as my first english conversation class for adults tonight... yikes). i hope you:re all doing well, and let:s meet up in july!

--ev

old people

2007-06-06T15:56:00.000+09:00

i'm strangely fascinated by this article i stumbled upon in wikipedia:

Read this!

can you imagine living until you're 122? how bizarre is that? just reaching your 100th birthday seems to be an impossibility.... if i were to live to 122, i'd still have 100 years to go.... isn't that nuts??

sorry, i'm in a weird mood...

back from kobe

2007-06-04T17:11:00.000+09:00

despite being a very expensive trip, my trip to kansai was a success! as planned, i departed last last friday for osaka with rob, aaron, and master lees. saturday morning i set out for kyoto, and visited my host family the whole day.

so get this. when i first went abroad, i lived with my host parents, host sister, and dog. however, my host sister was pregnant at the time, and was doing this tradition called satogaeri where a girl goes home to live with her parents just before her baby is born, and stays with them for about a month afterwards. so, about a month into my stay in kyoto, my host sister gave birth to a baby girl, which they named Ayasa.

to make things more interesting, my host sister wasn't the only one pregnant. my host parent's son's wife was also pregnant. so when i first got to kyoto, both my host sister (Sayoko) and the sister-in-law were pregnant. while Ayasa was born in May, her cousin, a boy, was born in August.

back in april, when i found out the dates for the Kobe Conference, i called my host mom and told her i'd be visiting, at which time she told me that Sayoko was once again pregnant AS WELL AS the sister-in-law. and even weirder - THEY HAVE THE SAME DUE DATE. *shaking head* strange, strange, strange.

so saturday morning, the day i was supposed to head up to kyoto to visit them, i get a call from my host mom (which woke me up), at 7:30am, telling me that Sayoko had her baby. AS WELL AS the sister-in-law. Sayoko had her baby on wednesday, and on Thursday, the sister-in=law had hers. both are baby boys, and both gave birth at the same hospital, and were also still in that hospital (the same one i visited Sayoko at after giving birth to Ayasa). so, my host mom told me that she'd drive us to visit both ladies and newborn babies at the hospital.

my afternoon was all about visiting them, while my evening was all about meeting my host family's current student and her brother who was visiting from out of town. so before the student got home, i was helping my host mom out with dinner preparations when she told me that the student (Emily) was happy i was coming over, because then i could help translate for her. upon meeting her, she struck me as the quiet type. it's not so much that she can't speak japanese so much as she doesn't speak much in English unless necessary (which of course has its pros and cons).

however, as the night went on, being as it was the only evening the brother was going to meet the host family, i felt like it wouldn't be right for me translate. it was her chance to prove herself to her brother.... show him that she's made progress during her stay, that she's happy and having a good time, and that she could get by. i dont know if it's messed up that i left her hanging when i could have translated for her.... but i just think back to when my brother visited me in tokyo, and how happy i was when i could take him to a restaurant and order for him, or translate between him and our family friend... i really didn't want to deprive her of that chance.

all in all, i had a good time seeing my host family, and i feel like they felt happy knowing they haven't been forgotten by students they've welcomed into their home.

sunday i met back up the guys and headed to none other than a HANSHIN TIGERS game. it's the middle of interleague play at the moment, and they were up against the Chiba Lotte Marines. i'd rather not relive how horrible that game went, but i was closer to Akahoshi than i've ever been (even though i was pretty close to Hiyama the whole time). at one point, Akahoshi ran towards rightfield, at which i got the best live glimpse of him i've ever had. *sigh* other highlights: i finally got to wear my Akahoshi jersey! it was a birthday present from Aaron, and since then has been hanging in my bedroom as decoration. i also finally got a pair of skinny bats for noisemaking and cheering throughout the game. those will definitely go back home with me.

monday though wednesday was the actual conference, which actually wasn't so bad. it was actually semi-helpful, which is a welcome change from the absolute crap that was Nagasaki Mid-Year Conference (which is essentially a b*tchfest).

highlight of this conference: spending a lot of time with rob and oliver, the other 2 recontracting-for-a-second-year alts in tsushima. on monday night, rob and i were wandering around kobe when we stumbled upon an arcade. i wanted to find those bubble machines where you stick in 200yen or so, and you turn a knob and out pops something in a bubble (i like those machines because you always win (^ ^)v ). however, while we were looking for those bubble machines, we saw this UFO catcher game with the CUTEST Jack doll EVER (jack from the nightmare before christmas). now, if it's one thing about our students here, it's that allll of our students love Jack and Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. i can see how Jack is cool, but i think Stitch is straight up ugly.

anyway, the instant we saw this Jack doll, both rob and i agreed that it was the cutest jack doll either of us had ever seen. normally, i shy away from UFO catchers because i suck at them, and i know they just suck money out of you. but we both wanted it so bad.... that we ended up getting sucked in and finally, finalllllly, won it =) we jumped up and down and screamed and were soooo excited. we had at one point flagged down one of the workers and asked for tips, to which he responded that the machine we were at was the most difficult in the whole arcade. yay us!!

tuesday night rob and i headed to osaka to see two students that were on SJEC 2 years ago. speficially, we met up with mutsumi and miki. miki actually stayed in my room, which mutsumi was at one point staying next door in the quad. it was hilarious. i never spent time with only the two of them, but after that evening, i realized how opposite they are. mutsumi is really feminine and girly girl, while miki is a big tomboy. both of them cracked me up sooo much though. it felt good to talk to young people for once (as they're hard to find in tsushima).

again, i had a very good trip, and saw all the people i really wanted to see: host family, Akahoshi, and the SJEC girls. mission accomplished, indeed =)

that's all for now. and to top things off, i'm at my favorite junior high this week. yay!

tunnels

2007-05-20T19:59:00.000+09:00

so the other day, i was in a taxi on my way home when random chit-chat led into a conversation about tunnels in tsushima. now, one thing you must understand about tsushima is that it's super mountainous, hence the windy roads and me always getting carsick. during that car ride home, i pointed at some construction on the side of the road, and inquired what it was for. my driver explained that they're in the process of building a new tunnel and a road that leads from the main road to the town of Uchiyama (where my school just closed... *sniffle*).

it order to get to Uchiyama, you have to climb this really obnoxious mountain, only to decend it and enter the valley where Uchiyama lies. the thing is, it can get really foggy in the mornings, and during rainy season, it gets really slippery and dangerous. this is why they're building the new tunnel and road: because of the fog and rain.

this led to my driver explaining that there are currently 50 tunnels in tsushima in use. at first, i thought, "wth?! there's that many?" but in retrospect, there are a lot of tunnels.... there are tons of tunnels on off roads i've never been on, so 50 is definitely a reasonable number (not to mention all the tunnels not in use anymore that aren't included in that number).

then he got on the subject of tunnels currently in construction (all over the island really), and how all tunnels and roads always have a reason for being made. but in terms of tunnels that would affect my commute, there's the one i mentioned before and one more out in Are, one of my furthest schools (if not my furthest... *shrug*). Are is so far from me and there are so many mountains between my home and it that it's easier to go through the neighboring town of Mitsushima to get to it (it'd take longer to go through the windy roads in my town). all the kids that go to that school eventually go to Sasu Junior High School, which is about a 10 minute drive down a very windy road.

anyway, they're building a new road between those two places (Are and Sasu), and what's the reason for that road?

"Kodomo ga yoimasu." (The children get carsick)

i quietly laughed to myself as he went on to explain how parents kept placing complaints, and eventually, word gets back to the prefecture, and the prefecture okays the project.

as odd as this sounds, and as annoying as construction can be to traffic (and harsh on tires), seeing constuction makes me really happy here. with the declining population on the island and the number of mom and pop shops closing down, unemployment has also been on the rise. but when there's a big project like digging out the side of a mountain or paving new road, it means someone's parents have a job and at least for the next year or so, that family is pretty set.

in other news, yesterday i went sea kayaking with all the guys (literally... aaron, jayne, master lees, rob, and oliver), in addition to finally going back to badminton last thursday. i hadn't gone to badminton practice since february, but i did surprisingly okay. still lost my matches, but not by as much as usual (^ ^)v needless to say though, these sudden bouts of activity left my right arm in sh*t shape. *sigh*

time to watch shawshank redemption... yay $1 DVDs from china!

apartment done!

2007-05-15T17:54:00.000+09:00

3 weeks later, my apartment is finally complete! my shower room walls have magically transformed from prison cell grime to blinding white. for once, the shower room is well lit, and at night when the light is on, the room is ultra bright. i love it!

many thanks to aaron, who stuck it out with me for 5 hours painting and repainting the walls and ceiling. it's not the most professional thing you'd ever seen, but if you saw what was there before, you'd realize just how dramatic the difference is. (pictures coming as soon as i upload them to my comp)

can i just say, i LOVE my apartment. there are so many things i love about it, including:
- it's all on one floor, so no climbing stairs to grab stuff or going downstairs to pee
- it's concrete, which means less bugs
- huge closet
- better bathtub. my old one was marred by memories of cockroaches on my first night, so i never used it. this one though, no bad memories, and it also has a function to keep the bath water warm
- water heater over the sink, so i have HOT WATER to wash dishes
- more shelves to store dishes, cups, pots and pans
- a second sink (in the shower room), so i have a sink especially for brushing my teeth
- the kitchen is next to the tatami bedroom, which means i can cook and enjoy my tv at the same time
- my balcony has an overhang, which means less clothing getting soaked by the rain (my former one has no such covering)
- i'm on the second floor, which also means less bugs
- a SHOE CLOSET!!! ridiculous!
- did i mention i'm saving like $400 a month?

there are, however, a few downfalls...
- it's half the size of my old place
- i have to pass through the shower room to get to my toilet
- my toilet spits out an insane amount of water (environmentally unfriendly), even on the "small" setting (as opposed to "big" setting)
- everything i do now takes place in my bedroom/tatami room, which means more frequent cleanings
- everything at the moment jusssst fits in my place... if i gain too many things to take home, it's going to become an issue with space
- it's on a semi-steep hill, which equates to my huffing and puffing everytime i walk home from "downtown"
- at the moment, it still reeks of paint in the shower room

all in all, a very good move. thank you to everyone for your advice, and sorry it took me so long to decide.

not much else is new except that this coming weekend i plan on going sea kayaking for a second time. if it's as awesome as the first time i went, i'm highly excited about it. my first time going was less than a week after my arrival in tsushima. till this day, i still have not felt more perfect water than that day at sea. you seriously couldn't tell if you hand was in the air or in the water. the water was a perfect temperature and it was a beautifully clear and sunny, which just the slightly breeze. this time around, it'll be 7 of us: the northern trio (ollie, master lees, and rob), the southern trio (me, aaron, jayne), and sujin, my new next door neighbor and korean CIR friend.

the following weekend is going to be busy, but a blast. after 2 years, i will make my triumphant return to kansai! saturday i'll be visiting my host family, sunday will be a ***HANSHIN TIGERS*** game at KOSHIEN Stadium, and mon thru wed will be a JET conference for all ALTs recontracting for a second year in Kobe. it's going to be soooo sweet. my host sister is pregnant [again], and it's going to be weird seeing her daughter, Ayasa. Ayasa was born while i was staying with my host family, and to have my host sister (Sayoko) pregnant again, except this time with a little girl running around the house, is going to be a blast of deja vu mixed with confusion. i am truly saddened though that i won't be greeted by Baru-kun, my host family's [former] dog, who passed away a month and a half after i moved out to tokyo. he was a truly awesome dog.

work fatigue has caught up with me.... many of my elementary schools have decided to up the number of classes i have (making my first month back at school very frustrating and angering). 8 elementary school classes in 2 days is not my idea of fun, despite all the ADORABLE children i teach. my vocal chords are without a doubt taking a beating these two years during my stay. i fear i'm going to sound like chain smoker by the time i get back with all the talking/yelling over a full house of kids i have to do every week. we'll see.

that's all for now. tah tah!

almost settled in

2007-05-11T10:27:00.000+09:00

after a very busy Golden Week, i think my new home is almost complete.

Golden Week, for those who dont know, is a bunch of public holidays that occurs at the beginning of May every year. there are 4 official days of holidays, but many people tend to take time off from work/school for the remaining days for travel, rest, etc. Golden Week is also an extremely popular time for Japanese people to travel within the country.

for me, i kept it really simple. this is how my golden week went:

Fri (4/27): move into my new apartment
Sat (4/28): clean new apartment
Sun (4/29): clean new apartment
Mon (4/30): clean new aparment
(you think i lie, but i literally spent 3.5 days just CLEANING the recently moved out of apartment.... stupid middle aged single men.... arrrg)
Tues (5/1): school
Wed (5/2): my most hated school
Thurs (5/3): left Tsushima for Fukuoka. drove all day to Omura in Nagasaki Pref.
Fri (5/4): Went to Arita in Saga Pref, famous for its pottery and blowout sale during Golden Week. I, of course, went nuts and bought a lot of china. Ended the evening in Fukuoka
Sat (5/5): Saw Dazaifu in Fukuoka, and the new museum in Fukuoka (for those of you who care, it was the 九州国立博物館. i rather liked it.. it was huge). was back in tsushima by evening.
Sun (5/6): read my manga all day because i was bored to tears.

all of the guys were in tibet from the day before i moved till this past tuesday, 2 days after i had been back at work. it was kinda lonely, but i kept myself busy. i read 2 volumes of my manga in 4 days. that's a personal best for me. that was the longest i've NOT been around a native english speaker since i got to tsushima, and it was weird going days without using a complete english sentence.

so, in the process of moving in/cleaning/unpacking, i have unwittingly learned to overcome a few fears, namely:

- cleaning a toilet that i've never used
- cleaning the hair out of a drain of a shower that i've never used
- scrubbing metal shelves that were caked in rust until i could see my reflection in them (took me 2 hours with the combined power of a cream cleanser and steel wool. can i just say, steel wool is my best friend)
- using a vacuum cleaner to remove spider webs lacing my concrete walls
- wrapping my hands around a grease and oil laden fan cover, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned once in the 30 years of its existence (i dont know how old this building is, but i'd easily put money down saying it's at least 30 years old, and that that fan has not been cleaned). needless to say, my hands still felt sticky 3 washes later.
- using a sponge-on-a-pole contraption to wash away the years of grime and dirt on my shower room walls (it was quite disgusting). note: my walls remain brown even after this initial wash.

all i feel i really have left to do is paint the walls to my shower, which will theoretically happen tomorrow. wish me luck!

frustrated

2007-04-25T12:08:00.000+09:00

today is just one of those days where i am just frustrated with the world.

over the last few days, life has suddenly become super busy, due largely to the fact that i'm moving into my new apartment on friday. there shouldn't be much packing to do, but i still need to clean up the new place a bit before i get a parade of japanese people to help me move.

between the physical action of packing and moving, other stuff has been stressing me out. taxes for one. details of my new apartment for another (when i can get electricity, gas, phone lines working, etc...whether or not to paint my place...where to even find paint). then there's the japanese test i need to mail out by either tonight or early tomorrow morning. i've been taking a JET Program administered correspondent course, and although it's been only marginally helpful, i'd still like to send in stuff on time, and try to keep on top of things.

then there's been my whole hanshin scare. since i've decided that i was going to stay a second year, i decided that i would not only attend the free conference in kobe (well, it's mandatory), but that i'd also latch on a visit to my host family in kyoto as well as a visit to a hanshin tigers game at their home stadium, Koshien.

sooo, last week, i finally figured out how many of us were planning on going to the game, so i started to search for tickets. except all legit online tickets were sold out.

*weeping into my sleeves*

but after doing a little more searching, i found a scalper's site, and started to debate over whether or not it was worth it to pay significantly more per ticket....

but luckily, i was persuaded to not be so frugal, so after some email exchanges, i finally bought the tickets yesterday. at least that's out of the way.

then there's been the mad search for hotels during my kansai stay... story short, i finally knocked that down too.

but then there's the junior high i went to yesterday and today. now, i really like the current 3rd years, and i really like the current 1st graders. it's just the second graders.... i dont know if there's much else they could do to prove to me that they haven't learned a THING over the last year they've been learning english. i'm talking about simple stuff. words like "where", "what" and "man"... stuff they definitely have learned.

it's one thing if you try and dont get it. it's another when you refuse to try because you believe you can't do it. i just can't stand the attitude towards english on this island sometimes. i understand that english is hard. but really -- the questions and activities we set up for them are mind-numbingly easy, and they still choose to take the shortcuts and just copy one another's papers. don't they see it's benefiting no one? am i asking you to do this activity for the purpose of filling out some piece of paper and turning it into me? i already know english. i'm here for YOU. i'm here to HELP you. why do you still refuse my help? why dont you try to think about what i'm saying to you instead of turning to your friends and asking them in japanese, "what did she just say?" and another thing, LOOK at me when i'm talking to. LOOK at me when you're answering. you're being RUDE when you dont.

arrrrrgh. so FRUSTRATING.

the other thing that frustrates me at this school is that my JTE always asks me to sit in the hall and interview each student one on one. and every time, it's the same result: the kids who try at english can answer the questions. the other 90% of kids just sit there, looking at everything except at me, and wait for me to feed them the answers. today was the first time it wasn't graded, but still..... i hate how he makes me do this every other time i come here. if he were to sit with them one on one and do these dumb interviews, maybe HE'D realize how low the level of that class is. until he realizes this, i dont think he's going to change the way he's teaching them.

i understand that there are just some classes as a whole who are unmotivated when it comes to english.. but shouldn't that mean that you should try new methods to encourage them? boost their confidence a little? ask them what would help them learn? what would make them care?

this week has been the first time i've really questioned whether staying a second year is a good choice for me. it's heartbreaking to see the kids who have NO CLUE what's going on in class. but what can i do? i come here twice a month. i try as best i can to harass kids during breaks, just get them to say hello.... basic stuff. ask them interesting stuff if i can. like, what singer do you like? do you like fish? basic stuff to boost their confidence in the language.

*sigh*

i really hope i'm not becoming a misanthrope. teaching is a lot rougher than i originally thought it would be. i'm not giving up on them, but it's hard to see hope sometimes.

sometimes i wonder if i'm one of those people that believes hard core that the subject i teach is the most important subject in the world. while i do believe it's really important, face it... if you want to travel the world someday, english is arguable one of the most useful languages. is it then so wrong that i want so badly for these kids to learn english and actually give a damn?....

moving?...

2007-04-16T17:02:00.000+09:00

since about october, i've been debating whether or not i should move. at first, i was spending money like crazy between buying stuff i needed for my home, renting a car, car insurance, rent, setup fees for this and that... by october, i was still bleeding money, so i talked to Murase-san, one of the ladies (er.. the only lady) that works in my BOE. after informing her that i had a slight interest in moving, she and another guy in our office convinced me that it would probably be a lot of trouble and money to move (key money, moving expenses, cancellation and startup fees for my phone, internet, etc). so after that, i kinda gave up on the idea of moving, and resolved to make the best of my situation.

first, a few things i need to explain.

- of the 9 of us ALTs on the island, i have the highest rent at 50,000 yen/month (a bit less than $500/month). the least expensive, from what i've heard, is around 9,700 yen/month (roughly $90/month). that's kind of a big difference. of the 9 of us, 2 of us live in privately owned housing (me and aaron), while the rest live in either high school or city-owned buildings. because the buildings are owned by the city or whoever, rent is significantly subsidized, so everyone ends up paying between $100-$200/month on rent. unheard of in the states, yeah?

- if you all remember, the new school year starts in april here, causing a massive shuffle of not only teachers, but city workers too. this means that if city or prefecture-owned apartments open up, it'll most likely happen between march and april. if they're filled up by april, you have to wait till next year before you'll really have a chance to move into cheap housing.

so, back in october, there weren't any city-owned apartments open, so i had to just suck it up and deal with my beautiful, yet expensive, home. however, the end of the school year rolled around, and Murase-san asked me if i was still interested in moving. it turns out that there was a prefecture-owned building about a 4 minute walk from where i presently am, that looked like it would be losing its current residents.

due to population and economic decline in Tsushima, the prefecture has sent fewer and fewer prefectural employees to the island. foreseeing less and less use for the building, Nagasaki-prefecture sold the building to Tsushima-city. so now city employees (like myself) get first dibs at 6 suddenly available apartments.

over my spring break, i actually got to take a look at the open apartments. if i were to move, i'd want a second floor home. my korean CIR friend, Sujin, was already set on moving, and had already decided which apartment she wanted. the apartment everyone was thinking i should take was the one next door to Sujin, which at the time was still occupied (but that guy has since left). after a LOOOOOT of thinking and mulling over the pros and cons, i decided that i valued comfort over money (that place was realllly old and about half the size, if not smaller, than my current place).

however, yesterday, me, aaron, jayne, sujin, and kim-sensei (a korean woman who teaches at jayne's high school and lives directly above jayne and is also good friends with sujin) had a potluck party at sujin's newly spruced up apartment. and i have to say, she did a very good job with the place. she really cleaned it up and turned it into a very liveable place.

which got me thinking. maybe i could do the same thing. hmmmm....

so after yet another round of deliberation yesterday, i finally decided that i want to move after all. rent is only 10,000 yen (less than $100!!). and this being sujin's 3rd apartment in this last year (she's all about saving money so she can travel), she assured me that it costs nothing to switch addresses for my phone, internet, etc). feeling a lot better about that, i went ahead and told Murase-san that i want to move after all. gosh am i a terrible person or what. *shaking head*

i found out today that the apartment is still available, but what i was worried about all day was whether or not i could break my current contract. my baker neighbors are AWESOME and the sweetest people in the world. i feel so guilty wanting to move, but yanno, you got to do what you got to do. i could tell by rereading my contract if i had to stay a year or if i could move before the end of the year... rather than asking Murase-san to ask them for me when i see my neighbors multiple times a day, i decided to be a grown-up about it and tell them myself that i was thinking about moving.

i can honestly say that i've had to say some challenging things in japanese, but this by far was the most difficult. having to explain to your landlords that you're thinking about moving because you still owe a disgusting amount of money in college loans, even though you really like your current place, but really need that extra bit of money each month... not easy. and trying to probe them for whether or not it's possible under my contract to move without having to pay for the rest of the year... it was indeed a very delicate subject.

nonetheless, i did the responsible thing and told them my reasons, and found out that i can indeed break the contract. excellent.

i have no idea when yet, but it's looking like i will move. stayed tuned for more news on that.

one more interesting tidbit. my predecessor actually lived in a different apartment when she first got here, but it was supposedly really small and really expensive (like 40,000+ yen/month). she stayed there for 6 months before finding out about my current apartment and moving in. granted it's an awesome apartment surrounded by a beautiful garden and a spacious (yes, chieze -- spacious) parking lot, i feel like a smaller but cheaper apartment will suit me. i spend all my time upstairs in my bedroom anyway. the only time i'm downstairs is when i'm cooking or eating dinner. and i hate dealing with all the random bugs that appear downstairs. this is why i'm all about moving to a second floor concrete apartment, which i'm hoping will be less hot in summer and less cold in winter (it doesn't seem to make sense, but jayne and aaron live in apartment buildings, and of the three, my apartment consistently has the most drastic temperatures).

i kinda wonder though... between me and my predecessor, if i move, that'll be the 3rd apartment in only 4 years that this position has existed. from her perspective, i'm sure she felt her successor would thank her for the amount of space gained for the money we pay. but from my perspective, i feel like my successor will thank me for the amount of money s/he will be saving (in the words of my dad, i can afford more food. spend $10 instead of $5 on dinner. count on my dad to target food references when talking to me... *sigh*). which brings me to a question i have for anyone who's reading this:

would you rather have a pretty pimp aparment that's only 2-3 years old for $500/month, or have an apartment that's half the size, old, but only $100/month?

glorious mexican food

2007-04-06T20:23:00.000+09:00

i just died and went back to california.

for a while now, my fellow ALTs and i have been making ghetto mexican food in order to feed our cravings for mexican food. since our little island lacks a lot of crucial things needed for said mexican food, we've had to be creative.... namely, instead of using tortillas, we've been using packaged naan bread. we've been lucky that aaron's predecessor left behind a few packages of taco mix (which ran out as of last weekend).

slowly, our act has come together..... we've (ie. aaron) acquired refried beans at the last visit to the costco in fukuoka. crushed red pepper was also luckily at costco. and finally, chili powder is actually available at the grocery store at the local mall.

but tonight, we gave up on being ghetto and decided to go all out. tonight, we made real mexican food.

tonight, we made FLOUR TORTILLAS. and it was glorious.

since we were going through all the trouble of making tortillas, we decided, hey, may as well go all out and make mexican food and make our own taco mix.

so with the help of two online recipes:
- Flour Tortilla Recipe
- Taco Mix Recipe

... we had an AWESOME dinner. i seriously was on the verge of crying it was so wonderful.

i only regret not making more tortillas.... i've recently been craving appetite-satiating snacks soooo badly... i can never get full off the snacks that they sell in this country without breaking the piggy bank. oh well.

anyway, if you have time to kill and you're extremely removed from and desperate for mexican food, i highly recommend the two above recipes. enjoy!

--evelyn

ps. this craving for mexican food has been going on for a while now. jayne and i are both from california, and whenever we get on the topic of california, it always leads to mexican food. it got to the point where we were going the extra distance in thailand and even cambodia just to get our fill of enchiladas and tacos. jayne, aaron, and i have even had several mexican food parties where we've been using naan and prepackaged taco mix. thank goodness for the internet, and thank goodness there are people out there with easy to make recipes =)

judgement day

2007-03-21T13:03:00.000+09:00

many hearts in nagasaki prefecture were broken yesterday.

granted it was still pay day, but yesterday, my experiences in japan were once more expanded.

first, you need to understand a little something about the education system in japan. every year just before the end of the school year in mid-march, there is this mad shuffle of teachers all over the place. whereas in the states, the same teacher can be at a school for 30 odd years, in japan, there is a limit to how long you can be at a certain school. how long you stay there is dependent on how some really high up person decides to dish out your fate.

nagasaki prefecture is also unlike any other prefecture. whereas in other places in japan where they notify you about a month in advance whether or not you're moving, in nagasaki, they tell you the week before you need to report to your new schools. just to give you an idea of how little time they have, this is the timeline:

- monday, march 19: principals are told which teachers are leaving and coming in
- tuesday, march 20: notify teachers starting at 3:30pm
- wednesday - sunday: the time you have to pack up your desk, cancel all your bills, find a new home if you're going to the mainland or somewhere significantly far away, move allll your stuff to your new home, and say goodbye to all your friends
- friday, march 23rd: last day of the school year
- monday, march 26th: report to your new school in the morning

insane, no? you get LESS than a week to pick up your life and go somewhere you may not even want to go.

now, nagasaki is unlike most prefectures in that it has many, many islands:

the only way to make things fair is that people who are from the mainland have to go to the island at one point (because you'd figure there wouldn't be enough teachers to teach on the islands). generally, teachers stay at a school between 3 - 6 years, but if you're from the mainland and you're out at an island, you have to do 4 years on the island. if you're from the island and want to stay on the island, you have to serve 4 years on the mainland (that may be wrong, but you have to serve mainland time at least once, and afterwards, you can return and keep rotating around the island). you can stay at a certain school for up to 6 years.

the thing is, this system is arbitrary. even if you've only been at a given school for 2 years, you can still be moved to another school for another 2 years. and if you've been at a school for 5 years, that doesn't mean you'll automatically be there for 6. the boogey man will find you and tell you you have to move to a new school. bottom line: no one is safe from the lottery.

which brings me to yesterday. i was at my favorite school (a junior high). i can honestly say i like both teachers and students equally there, whereas at other places, i like teachers more or students more.... i have truly become attached to this school. which is why when 3:30 rolled around and the principal was walking nervously around the teachers room, i knew it was coming.

he first tapped the kyoto-sensei on the shoulder, who everyone knows, is my favorite kyoto-sensei ever. i always end up having really awesome conversations with him in japanese and in english, and we always walk away learning something really crazy about one another's culture/country/people. since he's in a higher position, his job says that he has to rotate every 3 years as opposed to 3-6 for the teachers. which is why when he was tapped first, i KNEW that meant he was leaving. *sigh*. you have no idea how bummed i am about that. he is truly an awesome person, and i really really respect him.

he followed the principal into the principal's room, and afterwards, the kyoto-sensei came out and tapped 3 teachers on the shoulders, and led them all into the principal's room. remaining in the room were the school nurse, the tea lady, the clerk, the history teacher, and me. if only you guys could have seen the looks of sheer shock and disappointment on their faces. they kept whispering, "uso..." which means, "it's a lie...."

of the 4 people leaving the school, you could kind of predict that 3 of them were at the end of their stay on the island (they're all mainlanders), but the 4th teacher, the music teacher, who i've come to realllly like because she realllly tries hard to speak with me in english, was the total surprise. no one expected her to leave. she's into her 5th year at that school, and she's from tsushima now. everyone just thought she'd stay for 6 years, but instead, some higher up decided to mess around with her fate, and she's moving to a smaller school in the neighboring town... at the exact opposite end of that town. it'll be about a 30-35 minute drive for her, but add in her 2nd grade daughter who will still be going to school near home.... and you get panic, resentment, indignation, you name it.

20 minutes later, the principal took off for the BOE, and the rest of the teachers returned from 6th period classes. the kyoto-sensei then hung up a poster that had all the leaving teachers' names and all the names of the incoming teachers. all the teachers in the room at that point gathered closely to the poster, which meant standing in front of my desk.

please try to picture this: the poster is hung up behind you. you're still sitting at your desk which is in a line of 3. all the teachers in that school are standing in a line surrounding those three desks and gawking in resentment at this poster behind you. you peer up at the teachers surrounding you and all you can see are their hearts breaking for their leaving friends. they all start to discuss what they think the newbies will like. "judging from his name, he sounds like he's from tsushima..." "that name sounds like he's a little older, doesn't it?..."

i cannot begin to explain to you how bad and out of place i felt sitting at my desk with all the teachers around me trying to fathom what their school will be like next year with the loss of their loved colleagues.

experiencing all this has given me a lot more perspective. i now understand why the JET Program operates the way it does. last year in may, all incoming SF JETs got emails at the same time saying where they'd be placed. in my case: "Nagasaki-prefecture, Tsushima-city." after that, oh man, the mad scramble to scour the net for any at all info on where in the world tsushima is and what it was like. i can remember clearly the months of panicky waiting to find out where i was blindly agreeing to pick up my life and move to. i wish i could i say i understand my teachers' disappointment, but i really can't. i didn't have less than a week's notice to move. i'm not committed to 3-6 years of my life at a single school in the middle of nowhere. and i'm not the homeroom teacher for who knows how many students. very different indeed.

i'm still torn as to whether i think the japanese system of rotating around schools is good or bad. i can definitely see pros and cons to their system compared to the states. in japanese, you guarantee that teachers are always challenging themselves, and that they're reforming the way they do things. in the states, if a teacher has been teaching the same class for 30 years, they tend to be out of date, and inflexible when it comes to how they teach. then again, i think it's charming how in the states, the same teacher can teacher a whole family over the years, and even multiple generations of a family. i also like the thought that teachers can create a new class, and be the one who nurtures it for years and years. in japan, you can't do that because you have to move in 6 years anyway.

the one thing i definitely disagree with in japan (at least in nagasaki) is the amount of time you give a teacher to move. they're professionals teaching us and our kids how to think. you'd think they deserve the respect of at least, i dunno, 2 weeks to prepare for their departure. we're talking about 5 days to get your life sorted, and start all over again. ridiculous.

i have yet to find out about how my other schools are going to look next year teacher-wise, but here's hoping the new bunch are a group of cool people [like my kyoto-sensei =P].

--evelyn

ps. i appeared on prefectural television with my bf on the evening news and didn't even know it. what are the chances??

new pictures site

2007-03-07T10:42:00.000+09:00

my everlasting quest to find the perfect [free] photo storage website continues. my lastest attempt: Picasa. i'm testing out this program at the moment, so i've posted some pictures. i'm plannning on posting random favorite pictures here, so check back every now and then if you need someone to laugh at.

See pictures here.

does anyone out there have a suggestion for a photo storage site that fulfills all the following criteria:
- FREE
- can go to a homepage/main page that shows all my albums
- can display pictures at a decently large size
- significant amounts of storage capacity (obviously unlimited is ideal...)
- slideshow capability
- viewers can download fairly high resolution pictures
- fast upload

till now, i've tried/looked into the following photo sites, but found pitfalls with all of them...

Yahoo

I like how you can see someone's albums from the main page, but the pictures are too small when you view them individually.

Sony's Imagestation

The slideshow function is very nice, and i like how you can change the album's background color. Unlimited space is also a plus. however, you have to pay in order to view the original image at full resolution, which is kinda unfortunate. Till now, this is my most frequently used photo site. however, i'd really like the ability to allow everyone to see all my albums without giving out my password.

Flickr

I've never actually used this myself, and it looks a lot like what i'm looking for. high resolution picture downloads for viewers... just about the best site i've seen in this category. however, Jayne tells me you have to pay to have unlimited storage. the thing that makes me nervous about paying is that when i decide to stop paying, do all my pictures disappear?...

Photobucket

All the ALTs in Tsushima are using a photobucket account at present, and they even let you store videos. while it has a lot of storage space (1GB i believe), i feel like the design is a bit too simple... I'd also like to see an album cover picture for all the albums, but instead, they only have radio buttons (so no thumbnail album cover).

Facebook

Facebook got it right with having a ton of sponsors and allowing users to make a ton of albums, being able to display fairly large pictures (though bigger is better in this case), and unlimited storage space. however, i doubt my parents feel like setting up a facebook page.... the goal of this whole photo site search is so that anyone can view and download my pictures.

Picasa

Picasa would seem to be the answer to my prayers. quick upload, ability to upload from the program on my computer directly, captions that stay forever with my pictures... they even have the whole main page with thumbnails to my albums function. however, it's slightly depressing that i only have 250 mB of storage on there. we'll see how picasa turns out.

yeah.... i know i'm super picky, but this search has gone on for years now. it gets tiring to keep downloading uploading tools only to abandon these photo sites in the end. and i HATE the whole starting over again and again thing. each time i use a new site, i end up uploading the same old fav pictures all over again, but that still takes time to do you know. *sigh*. i'm very open to suggestions if anyone has any.

the ULTIMATE fortune cookie

2007-03-04T00:32:00.000+09:00

as a gift for helping out with some English, the music teacher at one of my junior high schools gave me this bag of fortune cookies. except it's not your regular american fortune cookie. rather than slips of paper with fortunes on them, they're filled with little toys. toys!!! you see the pictures on the package? that's what you find inside!!! insane!!!! this is one thing the japanese definitely got right.

sick sicker sickest

2007-03-02T14:56:00.000+09:00

last sunday night, just after watching a movie, i suddenly started shivering like crazy, but my body was totally burning up. come monday, i have a nasty cough, but thankfully no fever. this continued through tuesday. the nasty cough that is.

then wednesday, i was on the recovering side of the cough. i didnt have so many coughs where all the air in your lungs have been expelled, and when you try to inhale, something gets stuck and forces you to cough out what little air you:ve sucked in, leading to this vicious cycle where you just CANT breathe in. wednesday, however, started with this dull headache, and after the 45 min ride to my school, it turned into full blown headache. the first 2 periods of the day i thought i was going to die i was in so much pain. i really just wanted to put my head on my desk and start crying it was so bad. i popped 2 tylenol and went on with my 3 classes. by the time i got home that afternoon, i was fine, but oh what a miserable morning that was. not to mention the runny nose i had the WHOLE day, and in case you dont know, it:s a no-no to blow your nose in the teacher:s room. i can:t even tell you how many times i ran to the bathroom just so i could whole-heartedly blow my nose. *sigh*

then came thursday. yesterday. i woke up fine. trace amounts of coughing. no headache. excellent. but then 4th period rolled around. i was at my first elementary school of the day, and in the middle of my 3rd class of the morning. it was only 10 minutes into the period, and as i stood there in front of the 3rd through 6th graders, one teacher, and the vice principal, i realized all of a sudden, omg i feel like i need to puke. luckily, i didn:t. i trudged on through class, prayed that i could make it to lunchtime, and continued with class as planned.

i almost made it through the end of class. 5 minutes before the end of class, i start telling my kids to clean up, when i realize that my head is beginning to black out, and i feel that familiar feeling of my stomach wanting to spit out whatever:s in there. i whisper to the teacher that i feel like throwing up, quickly say to my students "i:ll see you in april! goodbye!" and scurry off to the bathroom, students and teachers alike staring at me in puzzlement as i run away.

i made it to the bathroom stall just as i was getting to my saturation point of blackening-out vision, and let my body get that vomiting action out of my system. nothing actually came up; figures as all i had was some toast at 7:30 that morning. i was definitely not a happy camper though. a minute or two later, still hunched over the Japanese toilet just in case i felt the need to throw up again, i hear an adult woman:s voice asking if i:m okay. it was the school nurse.

figuring i was in the clear, i followed her back to the nurses room, where she put me in bed for the rest of lunchtime. for once, i had NO desire to eat or drink ANYTHING (and those who know me well know i NEVER refuse food). so i skipped lunch completely. unable to fall asleep, all i really did was just lay there.

around 1:20, the nurse comes back and tells me that the principal and vice principal were worried, so they called the branch school i was supposed to go to in the afternoon and told them i wouldn:t be able to teach that day, called my supervisor at the BOE to tell him i:d be taking paid leave, and called me a taxi so i could go home and rest.

it was my favorite taxi driver who came and picked me up too. such crappy luck that of all days, i can:t really talk to him. and he could tell that something was up if i was going home so early, so he was driving faster than usual so i could get home faster. except he failed to realize that the girl in the backseat felt like puking earlier, and she gets carsick really easily on these roads.... it got to the point where the last 5 minutes of the ride, i was clutching for dear life onto the barf bag the nurse gave me. thank god i made it home without puking. thank god indeed.

i slept the rest of the afternoon and felt a lot better when i woke up. jayne called me asking to be picked up from the hospital (he:s not doing so hot himself). since i didnt have the stamina to drive, i asked aaron to pick him up, and afterwards to bring me some soup. and wonderful people they are, they bring me a lot of soup, ginger ale, and yummy fancy bread. mmm.

today, i:m doing loads better. a little bit of coughing here and there, but for the most part, MUCH better. so good that i think me and the guys are having a bonfire tonight. more accurately, a book-burning party at the beach. a what you say? a book-burning party to finally rid our apartments of all the outdated textbooks and retarded books that our predecessors left behind. i:ve been helping aaron clean out his apartment the last few weeks, and goddang all the crap that his predecessors combined have left behind... that apartment has been rented out to the town ALT for at least the last 16 years. that:s a lot of shit that builds up over the years. anyway, he has a whole box of books to burn. i have at least 11 textbooks to set ablaze. man is this party gonna ROCK. muahahha. and i could use the good time after how lousy i:ve felt this week.

next week will be a better, healthier week. *nod*

zhang ziyi

2007-03-02T14:45:00.000+09:00

so i can admit when i:m wrong. and i was wrong about zhang ziyi.

the first time i really heard about this chinese actress was back in the summer just before senior year in high school. i went to see Rush Hour 2 with the guy that i liked (who didn:t at the time know that i liked him), and the whole movie he just went on and on and on about her... to the point where i just hated her simply because he was obsessing over her. that and the fact that she didnt smile the whole movie truly irked me. i find it very unattractive when people never smile. hence, i had issues finding her as "hot" as my friend did.

over the years, i:ve watched a handful of her films. she was still kind of annoying in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but then again, her role was the young naive girl.

despite seeing so many of her movies, i still disliked her. that is, until i saw House of Flying Daggers. OMG what a good movie. i was duly impressed by her acting, and would almost dare to say, started to respect her.

and then this past weekend i finally saw Memoirs of a Geisha. i:ve been torn over this movie since i first heard she was being casted in it. i LOVED the book, but totally DISLIKED who was playing the main character, if you catch my drift.

at any rate, this was the final straw. i have been defeated. she is a good actress. and damn, props to her english accent. i was extremely impressed by how well she could pronounce English words. i didn:t even really detect an underlying chinese accent. that:s talent.

what i guess i:m trying to get at is, i know a lot of the time, i tend to be stubborn, and that i stick with what i know and what i believe pretty firmly. but that:s not to say i:m never persuaded differently. i can admit when i:m wrong.

zhang ziyi, you have my seal of approval. now folks, go watch Memoirs of a Geisha.

sick and angry

2007-02-26T13:54:00.000+09:00

all of a sudden last night, my body decided to cave into the crippling powers of the flu.

despite shivering and feeling feverish last night, i woke up this morning with only a painfully burning throat. naturally, i decided to come to school.

so far, i:m not doing too bad, but of all the days i have 4 instead of 3 classes at my elementary school, it has to be today. *sigh*. i think i:m going to leave a little early and catch a nice long catnap before dinner.

in other news, a friend just sent me this article, and it is seriously enraging. http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article-eastasia.asp?parentid=64334

time for 5th period...

weird week

2007-02-23T22:23:00.000+09:00

so i've had an odd couple of days. some moments funny, some moments sad, but all were mostly amusing. enjoy!

- Till now, I've discovered that between one of my small elementary schools and the fairly large junior high it filters into, there is a family of 5 sisters. the 2 oldest are in middle school, and the 3rd and 4th sisters are in elementary school. the youngest isn't school age yet.

by now, i've figured that because i look asian (because i AM asian), that you generally have to know who i am in order to accost me. that is to say, random people dont greet me for being a foreinger because i normally dont stand out.

i was waiting for the elevator at the mall the other day when i say a little girl sitting in her mother's shopping cart and eating a popsicle. she was having some issues, so her mother helped her squeeze some of the popsicle up. i thought it was absolutely adorable, so i started to chuckle to myself. then out of nowhere, i realize that the mother just said, "Eberin-sensei?" to me.

stunned, i answer, "Yes?" and she goes on to thank me for teaching her kids that go to such and such schools. once i heard the school names, i figured that the only family it could be was the family with 5 girls. and then i realized, "Oh! Is this #5?" to which she laughed and said, "yes."

i told my JTE the next day who teaches at the junior high. i told her that i now know the whole family, to which she asked, "have you met the father yet?" "no. i guess i dont know the whole family after all."

literally, an hour later, a man comes up to the teacher's room window looking for the principle, and my JTE turns to me and says, "it's natsuko and akira's father! now you've seen the whole family!"

pretty nuts, eh?

- hands down, my favorite Kyoto-sensei / Head Teacher / Vice Principal is the one at Kuta Junior High School. since my desk is next to his, i always turn to him and ask him random questions, and they always lead to awesome conversations. he reallly puts thought into his answers, and he always goes out of his way to explain something to me. not to mention the fact that everytime we finish a conversation, we both feel like we've learned something about one another's culture.

thanks to chieze, his DS, and his kanji game, i've discovered over the past month how i've been writing chinese characters and kanji in the wrong stroke orders my entire life. quite upsetting really.

in attempt to start afresh, i turned and asked the kyoto-sensei what the stroke orders were to a few of the words that always mess me up. the kocho-sensei (principal) overheard us talking, and walked over to where we were and decided to join in on the conversation. he then started quizzing me on some kanji, all which i failed to write correctly. and he knew some pretty tricky kanji too. he seemed pretty confident with his stroke orders, and considering he's a principal, been teaching for years, and is 59 years old (no really, he is), i take his word for it.

our 3-person conversation eventually spread throughout the entire teachers room, and i can honestly say not a person in the room went home without having his or her world rocked.

one of the teachers found a stroke-order website that illustrates how to write correctly, complete with an animation: http://kakijun.main.jp. my JTE then started inputting words she always wondered about, one of which was the first kanji in Hakata (an area of Fukuoka): 博. most people in the room thought that the dot in the upper right hand corner goes last, but actually, it's not. everyone was shocked. ESPECIALLY the principal. why? because it's IN HIS NAME *gasp*. poor guy. he's been writing his name wrong his whole life. he can get difficult tricky kanji correct, but not his own name... felt so bad for him. on a funny note though, he said, "i really just want to go home now and ask my wife to write my name for me... see if she gets it right" =P

- i went to my BOE yesterday after school, my BOE being on the 4th floor of the mall. i always end up running into students there because the library is also on the floor. when i went in, i saw 4 kids sitting around on a bench, and when i was about to leave, i ended up waiting with them at the elevator to go down to the first floor.

one of the girls i recognized from my huge elementary school. i asked if they were all from that school. they shook their heads. my student then said, "they're from fukuoka."

Fukuoka?? it's a school day. what are they doing on tsushima??

i started to ask if they were siblings or cousins (they were all realllly young by the way and all around the same age-ish). the boy of the group, who is obviously the oldest, points to my student and says, "she's my sister's daughter."

????!!!

i immediately ask the boy his age: 10. the girl: 8. wtf?! you're telling me that your mother is this girls grandmother? which would mean that the grandmother was still having kids until at least 2 years before her daughter was having kids? does that not sound messed up?

pointing at the boy, i ask my student, "so... so -- he's your uncle?"

*she nods*

but it gets better.

i then ask about the remaining two little girls in the group. i ask the boy who they are. "my siblings."

???!!!!

i ask the two little girls their ages. 6 and 6. "are you twins?" "no." HUH???!!! and the boy explains that one of them is going to turn 7 very soon.

*looking around*

is anyone else out there mildly to extremely disturbed by all this? i didn't have time to ask if my student had any younger siblings or how old her mother is, but assuming that her mother was at least 16 when she had her, that's still at least 16 years after giving birth to the mother that the grandmother is still having babies. i personally feel like once you become a grandmother, you should stop having kids of your own. cuz then things just get too weird. like this group of kids. i mean, if you think about it, those 6 year olds. they're BOTH my students' aunts. and they're both younger than her. i can't even begin to describe to you all how much this all distresses me. very Father of the Bride 2.

______

more weird crap happened, but i'm beat. bedtime!

to phil

2007-02-19T20:14:00.000+09:00

this one goes out to "Phil, ex Tsushima JET 2003-2004 Kamiagata ALT"

first of all, thank you for your comments. and also, for completely ruining my day.

so before i came to japan this time around for the JET Program, i swore to myself that i would NEVER become one of those JETs.. you know, the kind of JET who thinks s/he knows everything there is to know about Japan. the kind of JET that makes all other JETs ashamed to be fellow JETs.

i've always tried to take a step back at any given point in my life, take a look at where i am, what i'm thinking, what i believe in, how i act... and try to make sure that i'm not being too bias or too ignorant or too unfair. i'd like to hope that i'm constantly trying to take strides towards becoming a better human being.

so when something like a stranger halfway around the world whom i've never met, much less even heard of, decides to berate me on something i decide to write on MY personal blog detailing my own personal thoughts, i take offense.

in case you haven't seen it yet, mr. "phil", a former Tsushima JET, decided to "educate" me on how much i should "appreciate" where i live and how i should stop "bitching" about my placement.

Asshole -- you've got it alllll backwards.

i'd like to point your attention to the first thing you wrote to me: "Wow, you're probably the 10000th person on JET who has bitched about their placement in 20 years." I'm sorry, sir. where in my post did i SPECIFICALLY mention that i hate living in Izuhara? or that i hate living in Tsushima? or that i hate living in Japan? or did i once even use the word "hate"?

secondly, do you even KNOW me? have we ever met? last time i checked, i didn't even know you existed. how long have you been reading my blog? and how long did it even take you to find my blog? and does anyone find it uncanny that the one time i decide to poke fun at some aspects of japanese culture, that mr. japanophile here decides to get all up on my case about not "understanding the awe, the inspiration" that is tsushima? did you even know that i studied japanese for 4 years in university? or that i studied abroad in Japan for 5 months prior to the JET Program? kinda weird that someone with so much background in japanese would want to live in japan again, especially if they hate it so much and can't appreciate it, dont you think?

i dont know how long you've been reading about my experiences here, but if you bothered to read past the post you so rudely voiced your unwanted opinions on, you'd find that i LOVE it here. i love tsushima so much that i have the guts to do what you never did -- stay on the island a second year. that's right. i've only been here for 6 months, but after month 3 i already knew i wanted to stay a second year. you say it took you "a solid 8 months" to like tsushima? what the hell gives YOU the right to preach to ME about liking it here??

what i found most upseting about your comments is that they actually made me question myself. between you and me, one of us is being one of those JETs. the kind who thinks s/he knows everything about japan. one of us is being ignorant. i can't believe i for a second believed it could be me.

anyone who knows me, such as the people who i keep this blog up for, know that i wrote that entry half-jokingly. that as sarcastic as i may sound, deep down, i love being in japan. i like learning about how different my culture is from japan's. i never write with the intention of insisting that the US is somehow superior to Japan, or the other way around. i simply write with the intention of sharing my experiences and insights with people i care about. it is NOT for embittered ex-JETs who believe they're somehow better than everyone else to piss all over. take your ego and your pretentious bullshit and harass someone else. move on with your life. you're no longer in japan, and i'm sorry if you're jealous that i am. stop stalking people on the internet and trying to pick fights with people you dont even know. get up from your computer, go outside and enjoy the sunshine. sounds like you could use it.

conspiracy theories

2007-02-15T19:17:00.000+09:00

now officially past the living-in-japan-for-6-months-straight point, and bringing me to a grand total of 11 months spent living in japan in my life, i've stumbled upon a couple of conspiracy theories which i'm sure are wholly unoriginal, but i'm going to voice them anyway.

- Japanese people only drink diuretics. At least that's all they sell or offer you when you pay them visits. Vending machines, home visits, school visits... everywhere you go, the most readily available liquids are chock full of caffeine, which for me spells out multiple trips to the bathroom. what do you do when you want to quench your thirst? drink coffee or tea. and what does that do? make you more thirsty. this way, you keep evilly spending money on drinks that keep making you thirsty.

- Non-insulated homes keep the blanket, heaters, and kotatsu-makers in business. Why is it that as brilliant as insulated homes are, japanese people still build non-insulated homes? because it's cool to have a kotatsu in your home. because it's neat to have a toilet seat warmed 24/7. because fuzzy blanket and heater manufacturers all over this country would be bankrupt otherwise. if you make an insulated home, you're taking away from the traditions of desperately staying warm during winter, and we couldn't have that happening, now could we.

- Japanese people wear layers and layers of clothing during winter because they have no body fat. Why is it that I, who has only known the Bay Area's Mediterranean weather (which is always mild), can get away with wearing only a t-shirt and a fleece to school in the dead of winter, while the teachers around me that have lived in Tsushima the majority of their lives need to wear 4 layers at a time? because they're super skinny and possess no body fat. they need to keep in all the heat they can make. i, on the other hand, don't have this issue. my body is fine with breaking down fat to create heat. i only wish it'd break it down more rapidly *sigh*

- Teachers keep offering me stick-pointers so i dont ghetto-fy their kids. I dont know if stick-pointers are what they're called, but they're the sticks you use to point at stuff during class. you know, like a long skinny pole. a while back, i invested in a 100 yen fly swatter and cut it up so that it'd come to a point, and have been using it since during class when my arm gets tired. the kids think it's hilarious whenever i pull it out, and it says something about my personality: i dont mind being laughed at, and i'm frugal as hell.

i've now on 3 or 4 separate occasions at different schools been offered stick-pointers. the first one gave me a real stick pointer with a hand pointing at the end of the stick. the second occasion i was offered to use the teacher's stick pointer. today, one of the teachers offered me his high quality stick pointer that can extend/collapse into something the size of a ballpoint pen. it's so nifty it lights up at the end when extended. if teachers are trying to tell me they feel bad for me cuz they think i'm poor and they're trying to help me out, then i appreciate the sentiment. but if what they're really trying to say is, "we dont want you to ghetto-fy our kids and encourage them to do low-class stuff like cutting up a fly-swatter," then hell no, i'm going to keep using my fly swatter. it's got charm =)

- Japanese will never come out and tell you what they really mean. It's recently come to my attention that all the, "Aren't you cold??" comments i've been getting from teachers may not actually mean, "Aren't you cold?" Instead, it's been suggested that they're hinting for me to layer up. are you kidding?? if i'm comfortable with a t-shirt and a fleece, then i'm going to wear a t-shirt and a fleece to school, Homes. just because you're weak and possess no body fat and need to wear 5 layers of shirts and jackets to school doesn't mean that my body works the same way.

Also, it's recently come to my attention that i'm not supposed to eat in my taxi ride to school, or eat snacks (as in bread) in the teacher's room at school during non-lunchtime hours. i've only been doing these two things for the last 6 months, people. and no one ever decided to tell me that i shouldn't. my taxi drivers will on occasion ask, "so did you eat breakfast this morning?" or if i'm at school, a teacher will say, "is that breakfast?" when i'm eating at 10:30am, but no one in either department has ever said, "you're offending me by eating here." well, that's your loss. until you outright say i can't do something, i'm going to keep playing the oblivious gaijin card. muahahhaa.

Japanese people sometimes make me want to cry from their being so circumlocutory and backwards. Japanese society also makes my soul die a little more each time i find out something new. *sigh*. dont worry people; someday i shall return permanently to the States =)

chopsticks

2007-02-15T18:05:00.000+09:00

i was at my biggest junior high school the other day when one of the japanese teachers comes up to me and asks if i was free that day. i said, sure, since i usually am. she then hands me a stack of essays written by the third years, and asks me to read and comment on all of them. the topic was japanese culture, and they were specifically written so that i could theoretically read them (despite being written solely in japanese, kanji and all).

it took me about a day and a half of reading during free periods and in between classes to finally get through them all, some better written and more thoughtful than others. by far, the funniest thing that i read was this one girl's attempt at english amidst her explanation of "Rice and Chopsticks:"

"Chopsticks is very good.
Chopsticks is very pretty.
It is fighting for world peace.
Let's use chopsticks."

and here i thought only paid adults could create quality engrish. somehow, i feel like she got this off of a chopsticks case... only props to her more if she didn't ;D

valentines day in japan... so far

2007-02-14T13:10:00.000+09:00

so i:m at my biggest, busiest elementary school today (the one i loathe), and so far a couple of things have struck me:

- so during class, i:m teaching them how to make this valentines card mailbox which requires some tricky weaving of paper. for the nation that gave birth to origami, these kids are pretty slow when it comes to the concept of slip the paper INSIDE the other one, not lay it on TOP of the other. *sigh*. so long as they:re being quiet and i dont have to talk much, whatever.

- i just had one of the most bomb ass chocolates of my life, and it was made by a teacher. think of a bar of rich milk chocolate, and mix it with a brownie, and you have a soft, yet delectable piece of chocolate. i really regretted not janken-ing (row-sham-bow) for more.

- by far the randomest thing to happen to me today: at the end of lunch, one of the 4th graders comes up to me and shows me a ball of tissue in his hand and says, "Evelyn-sensei. My tooth fell out."

??!!!???!!

WOW. that:s soooo romantic, kid.

thailand and cambodia pictures!!

2007-02-09T00:50:00.000+09:00

at long last, i've finished uploading and posting my pictures from thailand and cambodia. i'm sorry for being such a slacker and not getting these up sooner, guys =( at least now i can start blogging again without feeling guilty about not having pics up yet ;D

no offense to anyone who's posted pictures of their trips before, but i tried really hard with my pictures to only post pertinent pictures. that is to say, i didn't put up EVERY SINGLE PICTURE i took. i tried my best to only put up representative pictures. so those of you who want an idea of what i did, you should feel relieved. those to want to see every step i took and every angle of every building i saw, you're out of luck =(

you can check out my pictures in three movements:

Album I: First 3 days or so spent in Bangkok

Album II: The trip to Siem Reap (Cambodia) and back to Bangkok (~4 days)

Album III: Our last week, spent in Thailand. Mainly pictures of Krabi (where we did all sort of non-sightseeing activities), and some of our day trip to Ayuthaya, the former capital. Pictures of our last few days in Bangkok, as well as some of Jayne's pics, are scattered throughout the album too.

Enjoy!

easily amused.... by the garbage

2007-01-30T21:05:00.000+09:00

i'm sorry, but i just have to share this. the other day when i was at an elementary school, i glanced over at the garbage can that is between my desk and the Vice Principal's desk. there i made the following shocking discovery:

(sorry, it's not funny unless you know japanese..)

i was laughing to myself like an idiot the ENTIRE day because of this, so i finally gave in and took a picture of it with my cellphone. isn't it hilarious??!!

thoughts and updates

2007-01-30T20:29:00.000+09:00

boy do i suck at life. i'm sorry i haven't updated this thing in so long, but i've been pretty busy lately. somehow every weekend has been jam-packed with gaijin gatherings, movie-watching, and generally being away from home. i'm still in the process of getting up pictures up from thailand and cambodia on imagestation and slapping some captions on them. if only my computer could get internet at school.... *sigh*

in other news, i had a very LAST MINUTE *ahem* guest come visit me from the States. none other than mr. chieze okoye, whose new nickname is Panda-chan. it's pretty funny how that came about. i originally started to call him Kuma-chan, kuma which means "bear" in japanese. what could be more fitting than the tallest black guy to ever step foot in tsushima, right? so i introduced chieze to mr. matsumura and his family, that family being my favorite here, and the one i'm most indebted to. that and the fact that they love meeting foreigners.... it's a no brainer that they all had to meet.

so, i tell mr. matsumura that chieze's nickname is Kuma-chan, and chieze immediately begins to deny it. my teacher's face started to scrunch up, and a few seconds later says, "wouldn't 'Panda-chan' be better? it's a softer name." and there you have it. history was made.

thanks for coming out, man. it was good to see a familiar face again.

in all the JET orientations and conferences, everyone keeps talking about how january-february are prime culture shock periods. everyone goes home in december, has a good time, comes back to japan, and boom -- you're freezing your butt off, you can't leave your home because it's so cold, you see less and less of your fellow english-speaking friends, you realize how backwards japan is.... recipe for homesickness and culture shock, right?

actually, i can honestly say that despite the reallllly cold weather, i'm happier in tsushima than i've ever been. our gaijin community is so small that everyone's gotten to know each other pretty quickly, and for the most part, we all get along super well. us southerners (me, jayne and aaron) are also super tight, and i can honestly say that they feel like family to me, to the point where i dont miss home at all. yes i get the occasional flashback of my bedroom, my mom cooking in the kitchen, my dad in his chair eating peanuts and channel surfing, my brother passed out on his bed from "studying".... then there are the times that i wish i could hop on my bike and head over to west campus and watch some dled tv shows... or just stroll down the hall and talk to my drawmates till 6am.... i sometimes forget that college life is behind me. but, with everything, i suppose there's a time for a beginning and a time for an end.

and speaking of endings, my time in tsushima has yet to end. just last week, i turned in my forms to recontract for a second year here. same job, same home, same community. one less school. unfortunately, my smallest school is closing at the end of march with the closing of the school year. for you people who have read my blog religiously, you'll recall that my smallest school is only 4 kids. they'll be merging into my second largest elementary school (Kuta Elementary) in april. actually, uchiyama is a "branch school" of Kuta Elementary, so there's no surprise there. but, some of you will also recall that mr. matsumura is a teacher at that small school. he still has no idea where he'll be teaching next year, but i really hope he stays in Izuhara. he's soooo gung-ho about team-teaching english with me, and it'd be a shame to stop when we just figured out a system that works for us.

since i haven't figured out what i'm doing with the rest of my life, and since i know i'll be in japan for another year, my new year's resolution is this: to pass Level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. it'll be in december, and i never intended on taking it before i got here. believe it or not, i feel like my japanese has gotten worse.... speaking-wise, i can bs a lot better now, but my reading and writing has gone downhill. telling myself i need to study for this test will be a good way of making surei dont squander my time in japan. again.

how've you people out there been? drop me a line somtime. i still care =)

--Evelyn

back in tsushima

2007-01-10T12:22:00.000+09:00

it's my first day back at school already... where has time gone?!

rest assured, my travels were safe and tons of fun. luckily, over New Year's, my friends and I were in Krabi, Thailand, which is over an hour's flight from Bangkok. in other words, we were safe from the bombings in bangkok on new year's.

to sum up what we did....

- fly from Tsushima ->Fukuoka
- fly from Fukuoka -> Bangkok, Thailand
~~~spend a few days in Bangkok~~~
- taxi from Bangkok -> border btwn bangkok and cambodia
- taxi from the border to Siem Reap, Cambodia
~~~spend a few days in Siem Reap where Angkor Wat is~~~
- taxi back to the border and back to Bangkok
~~~spend a day in Bangkok~~~
- fly from Bangkok -> Krabi, Thailand (a resort town with many beaches and foreigners)
~~~spend a few days in Krabi~~~
- fly from Krabi -> Bangkok
~~~spend a few days in Bangkok~~~
- fly from Bangkok -> Fukuoka
- ferry back to Tsushima

my 2 week trip was a blast. warm weather, good company, lots of sightseeing, playing in the water and being out under the sun.... good times.

pictures and stories are coming soon! (^^)v

--ev

ps. i had the weirdest day yesterday. i found out 2 of my friends are engaged and that my cousin had a baby. i didn't even know was cousin was going to have a baby. you people rock my world.

funniest picture of me ever

2006-12-20T21:13:00.000+09:00

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...

2006-12-20T21:04:00.000+09:00

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

2006-12-17T14:10:00.000+09:00

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

2006-12-12T00:24:00.000+09:00

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

2006-12-10T21:29:00.000+09:00

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

2006-12-06T21:58:00.000+09:00

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"

2006-12-04T18:30:00.000+09:00

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

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

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

Seeing my breath as I sing this

Killing me slowly with this cold

cold feet

2006-12-02T13:20:00.001+09:00

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

2006-12-01T14:33:00.000+09:00

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

super parking garages

2006-11-30T21:12:00.000+09:00

as usual, i was watching my daily 10 minutes of tv in the morning. today they talked about new-age parking lots, and i have to give them credit -- they sound pretty cool.

first, it's valet. duh.

second, it's 1000 yen to start, and 300 yen per 30 minutes.

let's say you're shopping in the mall. you buy something. you buy a lot of stuff let's say. carrying it around the rest of the afternoon is going to be a pain, yes? instead of carrying it around, your bags can be passed along to the parking service, and one of the valets will bring your bags to your car for you. this is included in the price of your parking.

next, say you buy cake or something that requires refrigeration. they will keep your items in a fridge until you're ready to leave.

as you're paying for parking at a machine, if you have kids, a clown will sneak up on you out of nowhere to entertain your kids for you.

when you're ready to leave, you walk up to one of these stations that has a large barcode (hard to describe.. not the skinny bar, fat bar types you see in the States, but instead, it's square and looks like some sort of decorder with all these black blobs). some phones (like my kick-ass one) have built-in barcode readers. soo, hold up your phone to the barcode, tell your phone to read it, and on your phone, you'll see a map pop up of that parking lot, telling you how to get to your car. nuts.

apparently, they have the garage also divided into female and male drivers. the female spots are slightly wider than the male ones, because apparently, we don't know how to pull out of a parking spot (i slightly took offense at that one).

at the end of the segment, the commentators said something to the effect of "with the advent of these parking garages, i guess we'll see less fathers at the mall." haha... stupid, but i think it's a fair statement.

the whole time i sat there watching this, i couldn't stop shaking my head, partly because i thought, "this is soooo japanese." partly because i was fascinated that they seemed to have thought of everything. and partly because a little part of me was dying inside, wondering how japanese people can think it's ingenious to come up with the ultimate parking garage, and still fail to realize that hey, insulation in your home ain't a bad idea after all.

quality day of engrish

2006-11-30T16:54:00.000+09:00

i went to two elementary schools today, and for some reason, i kept seeing quality engrish, which i just have to share...

- at my first school, we were doing a Christmas lesson, which included flash cards, memory, and BINGO. it took a while for the kids to fill out a 3x3 BINGO card, especially since some were trying to be fancy and write out the words in English as opposed to hiragana. words to choose from included Santa Claus, bell, angel, wreath, socks (it was written on her card, and i felt bad about correcting the teacher...), tree, cake, star, and present. as i peered over one girl's shoulder, i nearly died laughing: she had written "wrath."

- at my second school, one of the teachers handed me today's lesson plan, which was apparently food themed. as i scanned the list of words that i would be teaching, something caught my eye that totally threw me off. look at this list, and you tell me what doesn't fit =P :

tomato potato lettuce cabbage carrot onion cucumber
bread bum rice
flour egg

I still have no idea what it was supposed to be.

- during lunch with the 4th and 5th graders at my second school, i was looking around the room at my students, when i noticed a large boy with an English sweatshirt on. written in Oakland A's script was the single word, Sturdy.

- on my way home, i walked by a bicycle with something written on the seat. when i looked closely, it read: Hip UP Saddle.

gotta love my island =D

japanese middle schoolers and uniformity

2006-11-28T22:57:00.000+09:00

if you're wildly opposed to generalizations and stereotypes, then please read no further.

despite being in a very neutral mood right now, i feel the need to share my thoughts on japanese middle schoolers, and my occasional frustrations with them.

but first, think back to your days in middle school and high school. if you semi-cared about what the teacher was talking about, what would you do? you'd nod, right? or squint a little if you didn't know what was up? or if the teacher asked a question, and you weren't positive your answer was right, but you wanted to take a chance anyway and be heard, you'd raise your hand and answer the question, right?

that's what i feel class should be like. you pay attention, send the teacher signals that you're understanding what's going on or not, and on occasion, dare to be different, raise your hand, and try answering the teacher's question. at least that's what i feel classes in the States are like.

but not in japan. at least not in junior high school. maybe it's just because i'm teaching the foreign language class that i get so many blank stares and non-moving bodies aimed in my general direction. it's so frustrating to know that most likely half or more of the class knows the answer to my question, but no one dares to speak up.

which brings me to the point of this rant: uniformity is [in this case] bad.

let me explain a bit more. seeing how i'm constantly jumping around from school to school and classes ranging from 1st grade in elementary school to 9th grade in high school, i've gotten a little sample of what classroom atmospheres in japan can be like. from the time japanese kids are in their beginning years of elementary school, they're taught to be a part of the whole. to be one in a unified mass.

there are 3 things i can think of off the top of my head that i feel are unique to the japanese student experience. the first is cleaning. everyday, every school will have a "cleaning time" where every student and teacher has to clean a certain part of the school, from wiping windows, sweeping or mopping floors, emptying garbage... everything but scrubbing toilets. everyone has to work together to clean the school; hence, everyone's role is equally important.

secondly, there's the recent development of kyuushoku (給食）, which is the school lunch that's served in the classrooms. each student helps in the picking up of the class's food, delivering it to the classroom, serving food, cleaning off desks if necessary, bringing trays of food to each person's desk, and bringing dirty dishes and utensils back to the distribution point where they picked up the food to begin with. so no cafeteria; you eat in your classroom with your classmates and homeroom teacher. again, everyone has to work together to pass out food and clean up. plus, you can't start eating until everyone's ready. you start and end your meal together with unified chanting of set phrases.

thirdly, in at least middle schools here, you don't move around from classroom to classroom for every subject. instead, your teacher comes to you. soo, your classroom is your home. you and your classmates have the same schedule. you take the same classes, move around as a flock, eat together, breathe together, work together; everything but sleep together (that's not meant to be dirty).

with that said, back to my point. uniformity is sometimes bad. why? at least from my perspective from the front of the classroom, it looks like if everyone doesn't know the answer together, no one can know the answer individually. this is a grave overstatement, i know, but i sometimes get that feeling from some of my schools.

similarly, i was in one of my second year classes the other day, and i asked them, "What to you want to be?" and to say one more thing in addition to what you chose, but they all lacked creativity in their answers. They dont quite get yet that in a foreign language class, you can make up stuff. lie like crazy. have wild answers. that's what makes a foreign language class fun. I was trying to give them examples like, "I want to be a baseball player so i can be famous," and "I want to be a cat so i can sleep all day." instead, they bit off the example i put on the board (I want to be a nurse so i can help people), and was getting answers like "i want to be a taxi driver so i can help people," and "i want to be a police officer so i can help people." frustrating i tell you.

i just think back to one of my first days of class with one of my junior highs. i was doing my intro, and said, "this is my mother. what is 'mother?'"

*silence*

moments like that just made me want to HULK SMASH! them all. you're telling me a room full of 3rd years who've studied English for 3 years didn't know the word "mother?" i'd think we have more serious issues than learning to speak up.

days where students either dont know how or dont try to make crazy/amusing statements, or even try to break away from the mold on the board and experiment with the new grammar point, make me long for the days when i was in a language class. i can understand if you haven't a clue what's going on and don't raise your hand, but kids, look alive sometimes. nod. or blinker faster. give me a little hope. dare to be different once in a blue moon. individuality isn't such a bad thing. a little confidence sometimes doesn't hurt.

A 短歌 (tanka)* for the Jimny

2006-11-26T13:19:00.000+09:00

Suzuki Jimny
Piece of crap finally gone
No more feeling bad.
Situation just dragged on.
Thank you Ushijima-san!**

*A tanka is a type of poem that goes 5-7-5-7-7. In other words, two lines longer than a haiku.
**Ushijima-san is the mutual friend who found a buyer for me

ridiculously good day

2006-11-25T18:54:00.000+09:00

He’s finally out of my life. After 3 months of seeing him multiple times every single day, he’s finally gone. Thank god.

Who’s this mystery person I speak of? None other than Jimny. My Suzuki Jimny I should say. The big hunk of metal i bought off of my predecessor. Through some miracle, a mutual friend managed to find someone who would buy my car, and tonight, my friend and the buyer came over. There were issues starting it up (the battery was shot), but after replacing it with a new one, the engine FINALLY started. The man got in the car, drove it off the driveway in front of my home, and now it is finally out of my life. What a wonderful day =)

Even though i sold it for much less than i bought it for, at this point, seeing that car angers me so much that i would pay someone to get it out of my sight. The money i’m getting feels more like a bonus than anything else at the moment.

Also due to some freak happening of nature, the weather was beautiful today. For the first time in what feels like a month, i woke up from the SUN filling my room. It’s been freezing and super windy for the last few weeks, and seeing sun on a weekend nonetheless is quite miraculous.

Bored with nothing to do, David and i went furniture window-shopping. I think i may have found a cabinet for all the plates my predecessor bought (and i suspect never used). It was awesome though. David, being a 6’2” hairy white guy, and me being a 5’4” undercover gaijin, the lady who runs the store totally thought we were married (lol) and that i was japanese with exceptionally good English. David also being a goofball, would not stop with all the married-couple-looking-for-furniture-for-their-new-home jokes. Needless to say, i was dying of laughter the whole time. Just about the best joke he came up with was this:

Me: (pointing at a wooden baby high chair) What baby needs an excessive wooden chair like this?
David: Our baby does.

Indeed, it’s been a good day. And now i’m off to make some yakisoba. Mmmm mm!

--Evelyn

quintessential island songs

2006-11-25T12:52:00.000+09:00

as karaoke is one of the few pastimes on this island that's readily available (and by available, i mean a 30 second walk from my front door), my friends and i have had multiple excursions just singing the night away. and till now, i've noticed that there are usually one or two songs that always show up, and they're always one of the only japanese songs any of us will attempt. and after having them both stuck in my head the last week or so, i thought i'd share them with the rest of you. if you ever want to impress people who've lived on an island in japan (yes, i know, all of japan is an island), sing these songs for them ;D

島唄
THE BOOM

　　でいごの花が咲き　風を呼び嵐がきた

　　でいごが咲き乱れ　風を呼び嵐がきた
　　繰り返す悲しみは　島渡る波の様
　　ウージの森で　あなたと出逢い　　　　（※ウージはさとうきび）
　　ウージの下で　千代(ﾁﾖ)にさよなら
　　島唄よ風に乗り　鳥とともに海を渡れ
　　島唄よ風に乗り　届けておくれ
　　私の涙

　　でいごの花も散り　さざ波がゆれるだけ
　　ささやかな幸せは　うたかたの波の花
　　ウージの森で　歌った友よ
　　ウージの下で　八千代(ﾔﾁﾖ)の別れ
　　島唄よ風に乗り　鳥とともに海を渡れ
　　島唄よ風に乗り　届けておくれ
　　私の愛を

　　海よ宇宙よ　神よ命よ
　　このまま永久(ﾄﾜ)に　夕凪を

　　島唄よ風に乗り　鳥とともに海を渡れ
　　島唄よ風に乗り　届けておくれ
　　私の涙

　　島唄よ風に乗り　鳥とともに海を渡れ
　　島唄よ風に乗り　届けておくれ
　　私の愛を

　　ララ　ララララ　ラララララ　・・・・・

(taken from http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/momose/mu_title/shimauta.htm)

島人ぬ宝　（しまんちゅぬたから）
BEGIN

　僕が生まれたこの島の空を
　僕はどれくらい知っているんだろう

　輝く星も流れる雲も
　名前を聞かれてもわからない

　でも誰より誰よりも知っている
　悲しい時も嬉しい時も
　何度も見上げていたこの空を

　教科書に書いてある事だけじゃわからない
　大切な物がきっとここにあるはずさ
　それが島人ぬ宝

　僕がうまれたこの島の海を
　僕はどれくらい知ってるんだろう

　汚れてくサンゴも減って行く魚も
　どうしたらいいのかわからない

　でも誰より誰よりも知っている
　砂にまみれて波にゆられて
　少しずつ変わってゆくこの海を

　テレビでは映せないラジオでも流せない
　大切な物がきっとここにあるはずさ
　それが島人ぬ宝

　僕が生まれたこの島の唄を
　僕はどれくらい知ってるんだろう

　トゥバラーマもデンサー節も
　言葉の意味さえわからない

　でも誰より誰よりも知っている
　祝いの夜も祭りの朝も
　何処からか聞えてくるこの唄を

　いつの日かこの島を離れてくその日まで
　大切な物をもっと深く知っていたい
　それが島人ぬ宝　それが島人ぬ宝
　それが島人ぬ宝

　　　　　　※　「島人」の読みは“しまんちゅ”

(taken from http://www.hi-ho.ne.jp/momose/mu_title/shimancyunu_takara.htm)

good day

2006-11-24T14:40:00.000+09:00

despite the wet and cold weather, i:m having an unusually good day. yes, i:m typing from work. i have to retreat to the bat cave every friday afternoon, and since i have nothing to do, i thought i:d tell you about the good mood that i:m in.

first of all, i:d like to point out what a weird week i:m having. last week was my birthday, and that meant seeing a lot of my fellow foreingers. since they have to venture all the way down the island, they tend to stick around and hang out the following day. that meant seeing english-speakers all weekend.

i had work mon-wed and thanks to Labour Thanksgiving Day, i had thursday off. but here:s the funky thing: i had to go back to work on friday (now). so thursday felt like saturday, but all of a sudden the next day was work. and today feels like a thursday since i:m in such a good mood, but lo and behold, it:s suddenly the real weekend. yeah, i have no sense of what day of the week it is right now.

i had a really hard time motivating myself to come to work today, but i:m super glad i did. i went to my second largest elementary school today, and since i had the 1st, 2nd, and 6th graders on monday, today was the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. all of my students were so well behaved today.. it was awesome. i actually had a fun time teaching today. not that i never have fun, so much as it:s rare that i come out of a day of teaching and still feel good about all my classes. a good day indeed.

for lunch, i ate with the 4th graders, and it was the class with all the girls i hung out with at the school picnic i went to. those girls are hilarious. after lunch, they figured out how ticklish i am, so several of the girls in the class and i started dying as we ran at each other trying to out-tickle one another. wow, if i were a guy, that:d sound so wrong, but anyway, i was laughing like a maniac and so were they. good times. times like these make me really happy i decided to take a chance and come to japan to teach.

my good day comes with interesting timing too. last night i saw the majority of the ALTs on the island, and we all started talking about recontracting. up till now, i:ve been thinking that i:ll most likely stay for a second year, but after talking to alicia, for the first time, i started thinking, maybe it:s not a good idea to stay. at our mid-year conference, the pref. advisor was saying how not knowing what you:re doing the rest of your life is not a good reason to recontract. that and procrastinating from entering the real world back home is a bad reason.

honestly, i dont know waht i want to do with the rest of my life. i still tell people that i want to go into nursing, but i:m just not sure. i like the thought of helping people, and being able to translate for people on occasion. but the nightmare stories i hear of getting crappy work to do... that deters me. friends have suggested being a physical therapist or physician:s assistant before too. i definitely dont want to be a doctor, and thats about the only thing i know for sure. will staying here an extra year make a big difference in the grand scope of my life?

my main goal while being in japan is to learn japanese, and i feel like in the 3 months that i:ve been here, i haven:t learned much... yet. now that i:m settled in and getting my nerd on, i foresee myself really sitting down and starting to study again (my brain is hungry...). gut instinct says that two years of living here will improve my japanese tremendously. maybe even become fluent. i:m tired of packing up my life and moving every year. it:d be nice to know that all the work i:m putting into making my apartment my home has long term benefits. it:d also be nice to know what i:m doing next year as opposed to always starting my augusts/septembers at square one. decisions decisions.

sorry for the rant... i have until january to decide, so until then, i:m probably going to have this conversation with myself countless times. for those of you who know what you want to do with the rest of your life, i applaud you. one of the consequences of being the youngest of 3 kids: too much flexibility. necessary when one is younger and needs to niche pick, but only leads to indecision later.

...and now my brain feels like mush.

hope everyone back home is enjoying thanksgiving dinner! go to bed early and prepare yourselves for black friday. oh, how i miss getting up at 5am the day after thanksgiving to road trip with my siblings down to gilroy to shop. sorry i:m breaking tradition this year, guys. have fun! be thankful!

--Evelyn

feeding the addiction

2006-11-22T16:26:00.000+09:00

hands down highlight of my day: coming home to a care package filled with 3 POUNDS worth of Plain M&Ms, an assortment of gummi rings, and a tube of Blistex (har har...).

thank you sooo much Harrington!!! o(^ ^)o

--Evelyn

PS. I've been shivering allllll day.... *sniffle*

realizations

2006-11-21T23:16:00.000+09:00

today has been a day of random realizations and for me, rude awakenings. maybe that's an exaggeration. it's suddenly hit me that..

1) this is the first november in at least 17 years that i haven't been enrolled in school. isn't that crazy?

2) i can't stand trying to be tough and resist the cold anymore. i finally gave in and set up my kotatsu (basically a coffee table with a built in heater) in desperation. my masochistic goal was to make it to december without using it, but i'm sick of cold feet, so i finally took out the kotatsu blankets and plugged it in. and it is sooooo nice. november 21st. not bad. close enough to december, right?

3) today is at least the 4th or 5th time i've felt like i'm borderline losing my voice since starting to teach. today was particularly bad in that i really wouldn't have made it through my 3 classes had i not been chugging water and sucking on cough drops the whole time. at the rate that i'm going, i'll sound like hole-in-her-neck-from-years-of-smoking Debbie by the time i return home. whenever that is.

4) i am not invincible after all.

quote of the day

2006-11-21T18:37:00.000+09:00

during lunch with my 2nd graders at one of my junior high schools (in Tsutsu, my southernmost school), i asked everyone something and got one of THE most randomest responses ever:

Me: So were all of you born in Tsutsu?
*pause*
Boy: I love you?

birthday surprises

2006-11-18T11:05:00.000+09:00

i had last night, which can only be described as one of the best birthdays EVER. the only other one that can compare was the time my drawmates and i all went to San Francisco, and at the end of the day, 3 more of my friends magically appeared and we all went to see The Lion King on stage. All sorts of great memories.

Yesterday was equally as shocking. So on Wednesday, i talked to Sujin, the Korean CIR from Pusan. She said she had something to show me on Friday, but that it'd be around 8pm. I figured we'd eat dinner together or something along those lines first.

After going to my junior high in the morning, from 2pm onwards i'm usually at my BOE on friday afternoons. i sat there and didn't do much of anything, but since i was in my bat cave by myself, it didn't really matter (the office is in the new shopping mall building, and since the outer room is small, my and Aaron's desk has been left in the backroom which i've deemed the Bat Cave). Around 3:40, Ueda-san (the young guy that works for Aaron's city at my BOE) comes into the batcave holding a tray with a cup of coffee and a plate with just a plastic yellow fork.

Thinking, why is HE serving ME coffee? He disappears out the door, and 2 seconds later reappears with a box that obviously contains pastries. After thanking him like crazy, i asked if anyone else in the front room wanted any cake, and he said, "There's a lot of people there that can't eat sweets, so go ahead."

After he left again, i was in that room by myself. I looked around, saw a bunch of boxes and stacks of paper laying around, and thought, "Somehow, i can't bring myself to eat this by myself. I think that would be the saddess caking-eating i've ever done." So i didn't. i decided to wait until after dinner to eat it with Sujin and hopefully Jayne (David's new and more appropriate name after a character from Firefly) and Aaron.

Determined to call home, i spent about an hour after coming home trying to setup Skype, and i would highly recommend it! Talked to my parents for about 15 minutes and it cost less than 40 cents! Excellent, excellent.

Afterwards, i gave Sujin a call, and finally decided on eating okonomiyaki at my place before going to the thing at 8. I had promised her when i went to her place for dinner, that the next time we ate it would be okonomiyaki since i'm a big fan. So, i went out, bought some materials for the okonomiyaki, made a salad, and called her over. They turned out huge and took a while to heat up, but we both thought they came out well =)

Then, it was off to whatever she was going to show me. Now keep in mind, Sujin is the type of person who is genuinely SUPER nice, very accomodating, very responsible, and honest. Which is why when we ended up in front of Roxy's (a burger joint in town), she said, "I have to talk to the old guy here really fast," i believed her. I followed her in since i know the waitress there, and as i step inside, i look off to the right where our gaijin troop usually sits, and see a blond head of hair.

"That's odd..."

As i walk in further, i realize, "Wait! i know that blonde head! Whoa, David North is here too--- wait..."

And then i realize that EVERYONE is there. Even the way northerners came down!! Everyone but Oliver was there (to be expected). I was soo touched.... speechless in fact. Aaron had apparently contacted everyone and told them not to say Happy Birthday to me all day unless they had to, that way i'd think they'd all forgotten (which i did...), and had organized the surprise party. Surprised indeed.

The wonderful and excessive people they all are, they got me presents!! Honestly, i take birthdays as a time to spend with people that mean a lot to me, and it's more about being surrounded by good friends and good company than about cake and presents. Maybe i think that way because my parents never got me anything; they feed, clothe, and shelter me. They always believed that was enough, and i totally agree.

But yes, my islanders = AMAZING. Panda slippers that look super warm from Sujin, candy and a compiled CD from Master Lees (a mixed tape, dare i say =P [sorry, Avenue Q reference...]), my favorite Japanese omiyage of all time called Hakata Torimon (below)

and a head-bobbing toy (see below)

that i've wanted for a while because it's soo adorable and sooo soothing from Rob (i've named it Bob.... ingenious, no?!), and last but not least, the most impressive thing of all from Aaron: a Hanshin Tigers Akahoshi 53 jersey!!!

So i can't find a picture of it at the moment, but it's basically the above jersey with a 53 on the front, and AKAHOSHI 53 on the back. Seriously, this is going to be a family heirloom. You laugh, but i'm serious. Literally, back in April or whenever it was, i told several people, when i go to Japan, i'm going to get this jersey, i'm going to wear it all the games i go to, and this WILL be a family heirloom. Yes i'm crazy. Yes i love this team to pieces. Yes, i love Akahoshi. No, i dont know why.

While we were still at Roxy's, all of a sudden the lights dimmed down, and the owner came out with a huge ice cream sunday with a paper Happy Birthday tiara, candle, and sparklers coming out of it. Quite awesome (and delicious!).

After Roxy's, we swung by the Coco's (the ONLY convenience store on the island), and then it was off to karaoke. Lots of fun songs were sung; quite a few japanese songs too. i completely butchered "Eternally" by Utada, but it was the only song slow enough for me to read. And speaking of trip down memory lane, i sang Waterfalls by TLC, and not even the radio version, but the real one with Left-Eye's rap in the middle. Somehow, it's become my thing that i HAVE to rap a song before a night of karaoking is done. Though honestly, i'm running out of songs that i know.... I'll gladly take suggestions though =)

By the time karaoke was over, it was 1:15ish, and deciding to be random, the Davids, Rob, Aaron and i went to get Aaron's car then went for a joy ride. We went up to Kamizaka, which is a lookout point over the ria in Mitsushima. Since Aaron has a kei car (small), and since there were 5 of us, needless to say, it was quite a cozy ride. But i must say, it was one of the most hilarious and enjoyable joy rides i've had in a long, long time. Being 1:30 in the morning, it was pretty dark out, and seeing how Tsushima only has windy, narrow, mountainous roads, deer and ten coming out at night to play only make driving all the more scary. Many, many good memories made.

As was my whole evening. From okonomiyaki to a surprise party to karaoke to joy-riding, all very, very memorable and fun. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes, and especially to my islanders for the trek down south and the amazing love and joy you've brought to this poor soul on a cold November day. Thank you!!!

--Evelyn

Hmm...I still have yet to eat my cake...

this and that

2006-11-17T12:31:00.000+09:00

I’m not sure why, but lately, i’ve been in super weird moods. For example, yesterday, i got super angry at the world. Well, more specifically, angry at my predecessor. Long story short, she sold me a car for $500 before i arrived in Tsushima. I get here, realize it’s a piece of crap, can’t drive it because it’s manual with no power steering, figure i’m a danger to myself and everyone on the road if i use it, so i went out and got myself a leased car (it’s a wonderful Honda Life. I call her Snow White o(^ ^)o ). After getting my leased car, i tried selling it, didn’t work out because the car’s shaken (government mandated car inspection once every two years) runs out in December, it’s an old car, and would probably cost more to keep up than to just scrap it. In other words, i bought i car i can’t use and can’t sell. Thus, i have to scrap it. Damn her.

This car issue is just about the only thing that has repeatedly stressed me out since getting here. I seriously believe that once i get rid of it, as in it’s no longer parked outside my home and reminds me each time i come in and out that i have to do something about it, that quality of life will go up a notch. I will be happier. More importantly, i won’t feel guilty and stressed out. Let this be a lesson to all of us: NEVER buy a car you’ve never seen or test driven before, no matter HOW CHEAP you think it is. There, i’ve said it.

Moving on.

As of last week, i’d honestly say that my japanese hadn’t improved much since getting to Tsushima, largely because i’ve been really lazy about studying or reading newspapers and the like. I have no idea why, but the last 2 or 3 days, i’ve been on a Japanese-geek-high, and have been studying day in and day out. More importantly, i’ve been stopping random teachers and office workers to teach me Tsushima-ben and Nagasaki-ben (ben = dialect). Maybe this is just me, but i feel like when i know what to listen for, i’m much more likely to hear it.

2 examples.

First, before going to Kyoto last year to study abroad, during one of our orientations, we were given a short list of Kansai-ben that we were likely to hear often. And indeed, after i studied that list, my comprehension of random conversations between my host family members or just people in general, went up significantly.

Second, i could totally be remembering this incorrectly, but when i took Developmental Psych freshman year, i think i heard this one experiment where they sat kids in front of the tv, and every now and then, they’d insert a voice randomly speaking German. What did the kid’s brain waves look like? You’d think that because they’re hearing something foreign, their brain activity would be all over the place, but actually, when the German came on, their brains didn’t react at all, and when their native language came on again, brain activity resumed.

In the same way, i honestly believe that once i know what to listen for, i’ll be able to understand what’s going on around me. Equipped with my short list of local dialect words, i actually have noticed, “Hey, that person just said ----!! That means ----!!” Exciting for me indeed. Maybe now my taxi drivers wont have to repeat themselves about 15 times before i register what they’re saying to me. Or maybe they can, i dont know, learn to ENUNCIATE. Wouldn’t that be splendid? =P

In other news, i have officially chosen a favorite [Japanese] comedian (second, of course, only to Dave Chapelle). His name is Jinnai Tomonori, and his skits are like crack. Once you start watching them, you can’t stop. He speaks a ton of Kansai-ben, but his timing is so on key that even if you dont really understand what’s being said (like me), you’ll still think it’s a riot (like me). Here are some of my favorite acts:

Alibis Through Sound: http://youtube.com/watch?v=F5fyU-8hNgs&mode=related&search=

Lost and Found: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-Z3HtVUGsYI

Quiz Show: http://youtube.com/watch?v=etgZ9uC75ls&mode=related&search=

Counting Sheep: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqz6ePoWyoA

Tetris: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9bXyZTF2TH0&mode=related&search=

And speaking of the devil, i found out yesterday morning during my daily 10 minutes of tv-watching, that he just got engaged. Yay for him! Funny people deserve to be happy.

Finally, i think i’ve found a new pastime on this island. And no, it’s not more laminating. It’s putting puzzles together! Rob has a room and table perfect for puzzle assembly, so last weekend he, David North, and I started on a 1000 piece puzzle of Himeji Castle. I think i’m going to hate sky blue after this, but it’s all good.

And with that, i’m off to enjoy the rest of my birthday o(^ ^)o Darn, no more shocking people by saying, “I’m 21.” Oh well, i had my fun!..... Wow, i’m spending my year being 22 on an island off of South Korea... I wonder what this year has in store =)

--Evelyn

pissed

2006-11-16T16:52:00.000+09:00

i hope my predecessor dies a slow and horrible death.

my addictions

2006-11-15T22:31:00.000+09:00

Since coming to Tsushima, i have inadvertently developed two addictions. The first is not too hard to guess: chocolate.

Now, most things in Japan are not sweet enough to me. Sadly enough, to my Korean friend, Japanese sweets are too sweet, which i can only assume means that when Korean people eat American sweets, they feel like they're going to go diabetic. ANYWAY, i managed to make it through my first month here without buying chocolate. But one random day at the grocery store, i decided to reward myself with a bar of DARS, and since then, it's been all downhill.

While nothing will ever compare to Plain M&Ms, a good ol' Crunch bar, or one of those fun size Hershey's Milk Chocolate bars you get during Halloween, I have managed to find a suitable replacement. And the winner is.... Morinaga Milk Chocolate! I discovered this based solely on chance. Fate made it only 78 yen. Fate made it mine.

But today i discovered an even more brilliant chocolate product. What is it? you ask. LOOK!

Literally! LOOK Cafe a la Mode is THE BOMB. So get this: there are 12 pieces of chocolate inside. BUT, there are 4 different flavors, so each piece is already separated and its own entity. The four flavors in this package are Espresso, Caramel Latte, Cafe Latte, and Almond Latte. MMMM MM! Espresso realllly hits the spot. And this lucky find was only 75 yen!

On to addiction number 2. So, if you know me well, i'm really into making stuff with paper, right? Well, seeing how I'm now a pseudo-teacher, that occasionally means making materials for my students. Particularly flash cards and games. So what do i do to make sure my materials survive being used over and over again? That's right. I laminate them! Every school i go to has lamintor, but not necessarily laminating sheets. SO, so long as i have my own sheets, i can use their laminator all i want. Sooo, the other day when i was shopping at a home improvement store, i stumbled upon cheap laminating sheets. 100 sheets of A3 film for only 1700yen! Japan has a weird paper system, so A3 is the size of two A4 sheets, A4 being slighty longer and skinnier than Letter-sized paper in the States. Bottom line: huge sheets of film. Cheap. Plentiful. Ability to laminate to my hearts content =)

I now look forward to making cards and the like. i used to worry over how long they would last, but with the advent of my beautiful laminating sheets, i can screw up a billion times and still not feel bad. Yay to making stuff with paper!

And now that you've probably started shaking your head at me and started thinking, "Oh, Ev," in your head, i'm going to stop rambling about chocolate and laminators. Even though they are both some of the most AWESOMEST things ever made by man ;D

--Evelyn

Halloween Part II

2006-11-13T23:51:00.000+09:00

So within the span of 2.5 weeks, i had 5 Halloween parties. The first was at Nishi Elementary school in Fiona's neck of the woods. The second was at Izuhara's new mall geared towards the children of my town. Third was in Mitsushima (the neighboring town) geared towards the chidlren of that town and planned mainly by Aaron. Fourth: my special strong-English-program elementary school (both Lurch and i went). Fifth: one of my small elementary schools threw a party anyway despite it being 5 days after Halloween..

The following are from the Mitsushima party. Let's enjoying!

The Mario Brothers!

Look! it's me and Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventures!!

Our Iki brethren. Iki is the next island over from us, and 5 ALTs came over for what seems to now be an annual tradition.

The entire English-teaching foreinger crew for miles! Here's all 9 of us ALTs in Tsushima plus Patrick (the former JET who loved Tsushima so much that he came back. he makes very rare appearances, so this is a rare moment indeed). Our 5 Iki peeps are also here.

The three pinata's that Lurch and I made. Note to you all: don't use layers upon layers upone layers of newspaper. The pinata will never open that way. Also, don't stuff the pinatas with jelly cups (like those small lychee jellies). It WILL make a mess when it falls. Bachelors #1 and 3 went to the special English school, while the middle one went to my 5th party with me.

....and i can barely keep my eyes open. Time for bed!

school picnic pictures

2006-11-13T23:34:00.000+09:00

pictures from my school picnic:

The lunches of the 4 girls who adopted me for the day, and my lunch. Guess which one wasn't made by her loving Japanese mother?

My lunch buddies! My favorite is Rika, the one on the right. She's going to break so many hearts someday.

Magori-sensei, who has exceptionally good English for an elementary school teacher, got ambushed by a ton of students and got absolutely caked in those flower buds i was describing. See how evil little kids can be?

Me and my posse! Aren't they adorable???!!

the phantom taxi driver

2006-11-13T22:45:00.000+09:00

within my first week of being in Tsushima, my supervisor had taken me around to each of the 4 taxi companies that i was told to use throughout the year. i was told i can use whichever i want, switch off every week or whatever i felt like.

here are my following four first impressions:

Company #1: I walk into the headquarters/tiny office, where i see 4 or 5 friendly, jovial guys. plus one super cute young guy. Score: very high. i think i'm going to like this company.

Company #2: In their tiny office are a few middle aged men. seem friendly enough. no one that seems like an evil jerk or anything. Score: neutral.

Company #3: I walk into their tiny office, and as my boss is introducing me, i take a look around at the 5 or so guys in there. Literally, each man has a cigarette in his hand, the room reeks of chain smokers, and they all look like sleaze to me. Score: I hate smokers. Thus, i'm NOT a fan of this company.

Company #4: No office that i see. just a line of taxis with their drivers sleeping inside their cars waiting for the Bat Signal. Score: one notch above neutral since the guy that my boss was talking to seemed genuinely nice and cool.

Now, if you recall what i said about company #1, there was a cute guy in the office who i saw for not even a split second, but from the glance that i got, i thought he looked pretty young. Company #1 being my favorite from the start, i use them the most frequently since 1) almost all the drivers are really friendly and i genuinely have good conversations with them, and 2) i get carsick in their cars the least out of the 4 companies. Out of all the riding i do around town, i'd say i use that company about 60% of the time. When you combine that with the 3 months that i've been here, you'd think that i'd ridden with each of the drivers at that company at least once.

By last month, i'd given up hope that i saw a cute guy, much less a young one. But the day of the Halloween party in Izuhara, i swear, i saw that guy driving people around, and literally was in histeria telling my fellow foreigners that "That's the guy i saw!!! I think that's my cute guy!!" Of course, no one else saw who i was pointing to. Taking into account how blind i am, i could have made him up that time too for all i knew.

That is, until today. FINALLY. FINALLY, finally, my day arrived. Or i should say, he arrived. After three months of thinking that i'm insane and not only blind, but delusional, my cute taxi driver came to pick me up. And he's indeed young. 27 to be exact (yes, yes people. i'm still 21...). And for that half hour i got to stare at the back of his head and his left ear, i was on a school girl high. Good morning indeed!

Actually, i had an exceptionally good day. First was finally meeting my phantom taxi driver, then i nearly made a hole-in-one during "Grand Golf" at my elementary school as we were playing with the old people who live in the surrounding area (my ball hit the wiring surrounding the goal. if that wire wasn't there, it would have gone in), ate some kick-ass cake during lunch with the old people, and finally filled my heaters with kerosene so they actually, you know, HEAT my home now. Literally, when i got my upstairs heater filled and plugged it in to try it out, when that first blast of warm air shot out, i literally had a smile from ear to ear, shouted out with glee, and belted out an evil cackle as i celebrated the victory of owning a beautiful heater.

hmm... looking back at how much i've gone on during this entry about my disappearing taxi driver, really, i have no intention of doing anything about it. he's way out of reach, and to be completely honest, there's someone else on my mind that i'd rather see for 10 seconds in person than sit 3 hours everyday 8 inches away from my already-divorced-once-phantom driver. but alas, even he's more out of reach, and i mean that in both the literal and poetic sense. *sigh* sometimes it truly pains me to realize how much of a child i am living in an adult's world.

at any rate, i'm going to post pictures now. enjoy!

--Evelyn

random updates

2006-11-04T17:34:00.000+09:00

Nothing truly exciting has been happening lately, but to briefly update you all on what's been going on in my life:

- i FINALLY finished reading High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. This is seriously the first book i've read for fun since The Da Vinci Code a few years back. That plus the fact that reading nothing but Bio and Chem textbooks for the last few years has caused my ability to read for long periods of time to go down (as in i can read something for about 10 minutes before i being to majorly pass out). An accomplishment: I think so!

- I went on a death walk with one of my schools. Actually, they called it an 遠足（えんそく）, which translates to a picnic or school field trip. Normally, you think, "oh picnic! how fun!" Let me explain why i wasn't. First, the elementary school i was with is perched on a very steep hill. AND, there's a super narrow busy road that leads to it from downtown/where i live. With that said, we had to walk from the school to across from the city office, which is pretty close to where i live. Rather than walking that narrow busy road with 100+ kids, we took a side street where no cars usually go, but adds about 20 more minutes of walking. That leg of our trip (from the school to the city office-ish) took over an hour. Plus there were some crazy steep hills.

After visiting the museum that is across from the city office (where i was falling asleep from Japanese listening overload), we continued walking to a park. Except that park is perched on yet another extremely steep hill. That leg of the trip had to have been at least another 50 minute walk, majority uphill. *screaming*

The actual time spent at that park was pretty fun. During the walk, these 3 4th grade girls befriended me, and their friends befriended me at the park. Those girls are now my favorite students at that school (picture of us coming soon).

Granted, since we walked to the park, we had to walk back to school too. That walk was about another hour. All in all, we had spent about 3 hours or less at the park, and the rest of the "picnic" marching ourselves from place to place. That just may be the last time i get fooled into going on a japanese "school picnic"!!

- I started to play the koto! It's the japanese piano i suppose you can say. It's long, has 13 strings, and sounds very asian. I asked one of my junior high teachers to teach me as i know she really likes playing it. Literally, she taught me how to play in 20 minutes, and at the end of the 20 minutes, i was already playing my second song. It was shockingly easy to learn, although mastering technique is another story. Even though i can't practice very often, it'll be a cool random thing i can go back to the States being able to do.

- I also started playing badminton again. Considering it's been 4 years since i've played, and when i was at the peak of my playing in high school i majorly sucked, I'd say 4 years hasn't changed much. However, not that i dont have the pressure of games that'll count for my school or my peers judging me, i feel a lot more relaxed as i play in Tsushima (although it's SUPER intimidating that everyone that plays has been doing it every week for the last several years and everyone is SUPER good).

- I'm finally done with my Halloween parties! 5 parties in all this year, which is 5 more than i usually have. Pictures of those coming soon too.

- Tomorrow i'm headed out to Nagasaki for our mid-year conference (even though i've only been here for 3 months). This probably would have been an excellent time to go traveling around Kyushu as the trip is paid for by the city, but i really am not in the mood to travel. Plus, there's nowhere particularly thrilling that i'm really gungho about seeing. I'd rather pocket the extra money they're giving me and apply it towards my winter vacation (which is still yet to be determined).

Time to pack!

--evelyn

on top of spaghetti

2006-10-26T14:21:00.000+09:00

That's right. That "On Top of Spaghetti." I'm talking about none other than that famed children's song we all sang when we were children. i dont know about you, but i never reallly learned the words to that song. in fact, i dont think i learned any children's songs to completion when i was little, nor did i learn any nursery rhymes. last year i was mercilessly mocked numerous times by people i knew (you know who you are you evil people! =P) because i couldn't say any nursery rhymes correctly.

Today i was scouring the net for flash cards when i chanced upon a site with children's songs and lyrics. It just so happened to have "On Top of Spaghetti" on there. Just before opening up the page, i thought, "Hmm... do i know this song? Doesn't it go something like:

'On Top of Spaghetti!
Da da da da daaa...
I lost my poor meatball,
da da da da daaa...'"

And that's about all I knew of the song. Now that i've read all the lyrics, i have to say that it makes soooo much more sense now, and it is officially the highlight of my day. It's such a cute song!! So cute that i'm posting it here for everyone to relive the magic once more!

On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese.
I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed.
It rolled off of the table, and on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball, it out of the door.
It rolled in the garden, and under a bush,
And then my poor meatball, was nothing but mush!
That mush was as tasty, as tasty could be,
And early next summer, it grew into a tree.
The tree was all covered, with beautiful moss,
It grew lovely meatballs, and tomato sauce.
So if you eat spaghetti, all covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatballs, and don’t ever sneeze!!!

SUCH a cute song!! o( ＾-＾)o

my address

2006-10-24T23:04:00.000+09:00

i just realized that i never put my mailing address on my blog like i thought i did, so here it is!

Evelyn Chin
598 Nakamura, Izuhara-machi
Tsushima-shi, Nagasaki-ken
JAPAN 817-0013

T　817-0013
長崎県対馬市厳原町中村５９８
エベリン・チン

(If anyone can tell me what that "T" looking symbol that goes before the zip code is called, or better yet, how to type it out on my computer when typing in japanese, i'd be eternally grateful)

Halloween Part I

2006-10-23T22:53:00.000+09:00

So last Friday was the first of 4 major Halloween parties I'll be attending over a two week span. 8 out of the 9 of us ALTs went to an elementary school in Mine (pronounced meeh-nay, not "mine"), which is probably the most rural (ruralest?) out of the 6 towns in Tsushima. It was a lot more fun than i thought it would be, considering it was mainly planned by japanese people, but still had games resembling what i thought an American Halloween party should have. Wow, my English is going down the toilet.

ANYWAY, i unfortunately dont have pictures of that day, but i do of the following day. Saturday was the Izuhara Halloween Party at the new shopping mall. This party was advertised through my two largest elementary schools, and rumor has it that about 180 children were there. The lady with perhaps the best english on the island organized it (her name is Midori and was my predecessor's best friend). She asked me to recruit ALTs for the event. Little did she know that I'd be able to get all 9 of us here! That's right, all 9 of us got together for the first time EVER. It was quite glorious.

Just to back track a little, a few weeks ago, my town also had a big festival at the local shrine. There is where we met Japanese Hip-Hop Style for the first time. Lurch (David South) was accosted by this guy who was dressed all ghetto with this huge necklace hanging low (which upon closer inspection was this 2"x3" Jesus head), who said upon their first meeting, "[pointing at himself] Japanese Hip-Hop Style!" And ever since, the name stuck. We have no idea what his real name is, but the nickname is fitting. Now, wherever Lurch goes, he runs into him (the second night of the festival they ran into each other again, and that time he pointed at himself and said, "Japanese Reggae Style!") And of all the places, he happens to stroll into the 3rd floor of the new building where our Halloween party had just ended, and that was it. We had to take a picture of him:

Japanese Hip-Hop Style (left) and friends

Lurch and his buds

This one dude was particularly fascinated at the sight of a bunch of oddly-clad foreigners, so he posed for my picture:

Mr. Japanese Hip-Hop Style wannabe

All 9 of us together for the first time ever!! Who would have thought.. "Halloween: brings people together."

As my party was in the morning, we all had the afternoon to chill and do nothing. So we all went to Aaron's place and took a nap. Afterwards, Master Lees and I went to visit one of my JTEs at his home, as he had randomly met David last year. That was my first home invite since coming to Tsushima, and i have to admit, it felt nice to be in a Japanese home again.

Due to our inability to say no, my JTE (Matsumura-sensei), his wife, and daughter ended up coming to dinner with our gaijin crew. That night, since everyone was in Izuhara, i called out the Korean CIR (Coordinator for International Relations... basically, the Korean<->Japanese translator hired through the JET Program who works at the City Office). That was my first time seeing Sujin outside of work (i met her my first day at the City Office, and was shocked to find out there even was a CIR in Tsushima. Until Saturday, i was the only ALT who had met her. Most of the others didn't even know she existed).

Everyone at dinner: me, Rob, Sujin, Fiona, Alicia, Lurch, Yuko (Matsumura's daughter), Aaron, Sylvia, Mrs. Matsumura, and Matsumura-sensei.

Education being one of the steadiest jobs in Tsushima, everyone is somehow connected with someone else whether you're in school, your family member is a teacher, or you just know people at other schools. Check this out. In this picture is Aaron, Mrs. Matsumura (who is the school nurse at one of Aaron's schools), Yuko (the daughter, and one of Lurch's students at the local high school), Matsumura (one of my JTEs), Master Lees (who randomly met Matsumura through Lurch's predecessor), and me.

Times like these my island feels a little too small.

Despite the variety in personalities and people we had going on that night, i got the general feeling that everyone had a good time. Yuko spoke incredibly good English. And she's only a second year in high school! Shocking really. Sujin is from Pusan, and even though she's the Korean/Japanese expert, she could still form whole sentences in English, which after teaching nothing but students with no motivation to learn English or students too young to even know what English is, was absolutely remarkable. Now that i think about it, we had a pretty international night going on. Sweetness.

This Saturday is Halloween Party #3, and our neighboring islanders on Iki (about 2 hrs away by ferry) will be making special guest appearances. Should be a blast! Party #4 is on Tuesday at my special English-focused elementary schools. Hope it turns out well. Will keep you all posted on what happens!

Oyasumi!

--Evelyn

PS. if you're bored, check this out: California Love

my last month (w/pics!)

2006-10-16T22:17:00.000+09:00

it's recently come to my attention that i haven't put up pictures in a month. sooo, here's a pictoral view of my last month:

At a festival in Rob's town in the north. David North, David South (aka Lurch), and Rob pounding themselves some tasty mochi

"Tsushima.... BYAHHH!!" -- the official Tsushima ALT cheer. If you like Dave Chapelle and Howard Dean, you'll know what I'm talking about (YouTube it if you don't get it). Here: Sylvia, Rob, David North, Lurch, Aaron, me

Watazumi Shrine in Toyotama (little over an hour away by car). This is one of the places that Tsushima frequently puts on its postcards.

At my enkai with my huge junior high. Here: me, Lurch, our JTE (Katsumi-sensei), and her two adorable kids. Katsumi-sensei is seriously super cool and super nice.

Same enkai. About a third or fourth of the teachers are in this picture. This is the party that supposedly started the whole, "Evelyn is a drunkard" rumor. Really though, I've stopped caring.

One of my favorite Tsushima pictures yet. Lurch and I decided to go to the beach one day, and i took this picture there. This beach was empty save for this one fisherman. It was a gorgeous day, tons of clouds in the sky.... you do the math.

Yup, this is my home.

"Hi! My name is Evelyn and I'm 21 years old. I like okonomiyaki, learning Japanese, and long walks on the beach..." o(^-^)o

Another typical postcard picture. Rice paddies in Mine (about 1.5 hours away). Very charming place.

A hike up to Shimizu Castle (the bottom is about a 7 minute walk from my home) will get you this view. You're looking at Izuhara -- apparently the "city" part of Tsushima. The area pictured here is about a 10 minute walk down THE road (there is basically one main road in Tsushima, and 4 of the 9 ALTs live on it, including myself)

Hachimangu Jinja Festival. The kickin'-est festival around for about 2 days. Seemingly everyone within a 3o minute radius of here descended upon Izuhara to see it. Oh yes -- this shrine is LITERALLY a minute walk from my home if even that.

The main attraction of the festival: Umeboshi (supposedly an up and coming duo)...

...and we foreigners got a picture with them! My junior high boys: eat your hearts out!

While in Fukuoka last weekend (first weekend of October), we were strolling along in a shopping center, when --- wtf -- are those flamingoes?!! This almost ties the live giant shrimp arcade game in randomness.

One of our mainland visit goals: DRINK. Here's Lurch, me, and Ryo (a fellow Nagasaki Pref. ALT) about to down tequila shots. If you look carefully, the smile on my face is more out of terror than it is excitement. This is also the drink that completely finished me off that evening (a Cassis Orange, beer, Fuzzy Navel, and tequila shot equal a recipe for my Asian glow and sleepiness)

What drinking party wouldn't be complete with foreigners singing awful karaoke? Here: the Nepalese waitress, Aaron, Ryo, and a sobering-up me

This past weekend: hiking/climbing Mount Mitake (Mitake Mountain?...). Here: David North looking like he's Paul Bunyan =P

2.5 hours later: at the summit!

Our victorious group at the top: Aaron (in the tree), Lurch, Sylvia, me, and David North

Later that day: the closest we've gotten to an all ALT get-together. Clockwise: Sylvia, Alicia, Fiona, Lurch, Oliver, David North, Aaron, me (Rob, of all the weekends you had to go to Fukuoka!!)

taro is evil

2006-10-14T00:25:00.000+09:00

thinking it would be neat to make something new for dinner, i decided to try the little taro balls that one of my teachers bought me yesterday at an unmanned veggie booths. another teacher told me how to prepare them, so i thought i was all good to go.

as i was about to peel these taro balls, i recalled my mother telling me years ago that taro is a skin irritant, and that i should wear gloves when peeling them. recalling, however, that the taro that we was referring to was not only humongous, but a different color from that of the taro balls that i got yesterday. i then concluded that these taro balls should be okay to peel without gloves.

i got through peeling all the taro i cared to eat, but it wasn't until about a minute after peeling my last taro ball that the furious itching started. both of my hands seriously felt like they were on fire. just think the hottest pepper you've eaten plus 10 mosquito bites within a very small area on your skin. that's how much these taro itches itched.

i got so desperate for a remedy that i proceeded to call every person i knew, gaijin and japanese people alike, asking for any ways to relieve the excruiating pain. i hit a point where i seriously just wanted to bawl my eyes out. it hurt THAT much.

luckily, the majority of the painful itching was over within a half hour of the onset of itching. let this be a lesson to all to always wear gloves when peeling taro!! because taro is evil!!!

on numbers, a bag, a proposal, and the country

2006-10-12T16:35:00.000+09:00

now past the one month mark of teaching, i'm finally beginning to teach real classes instead of just doing my self-introduction day in and day out. at my junior highs, i'm finally beginning to team-teach with my teachers, and actually contribute something, no matter now small, to whatever the students are learning. at some of my elementary schools, the good ones, teachers are all ready with the materials i'll need to teach for the day, so i basically just show up, take a quick look at what they have lying on my desk, and 5 minutes later, i'm teaching a class. at the remaining schools, i have complete autonomy over what i teach, which brings me to the my last two days.

yesterday i was at my super huge elementary school, and it was my first time teaching the entire day. for 6 out of 6 periods, i went through each grade and taught them numbers, which i've now come to conclude: it's hard to count in english. today i went to two schools. my first school (which i'm in love with) is about 35 kids, while my afternoon school was my smallest (4 kids). i taught the morning school numbers, and at my second school, after an hour of doing origami, the everyone decided to just end school for the day so i didn't even teach anything (haha).

as these classes were my first real planned out classes teaching real material, one is bound to run into some problems. my first three classes yesterday were all failures. i wont bore you with why, but they were. by the end of 3rd period, i seriously began to think i was in way over my head, that teaching wasn't for me, that having to teach 60-80 students in one class is just psychotic and sadistic, etc. however, i changed things around for my 4th period, and it went absolutely beautifully, as did the rest of my classes yesterday. today, all my classes went beautifully too, which is why i'm writing in such a happy mood right now =)

there are some thoughts that have popped into my head over these past two days, that i just have to share:

On Numbers

- numbers are hard to learn. who thought it was smart to call 11 "eleven" and 12 "twelve"? and why did the genius who named numbers call it fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, but shaft fifteen from being "fiveteen"? never thought about that, did you?

- on the same topic, kids will consistently say "fiveteen" instead of "fifteen." can't say i really blame them.

- they also keep calling 12 "twenty." at first i thought that was random, but it makes sense. both start with "twe-", and if i were japanese and had the option of trying to say "twelve" or "twenty," hell yeah "twenty" is easier to say.

- for some reason, kids like to call 7 and 17 nine and nineteen. that's a puzzle to me.

- somehow, eight and eighteen got lost when being taught in japanese english classes. consistently between yesterday and today, i've witnessed every class be unable to count seven-eight-nine and seventeen-eighteen-nineteen. in EVERY class, kids ALWAYS somehow forget that eight and eighteen succeed seven and seventeen. they ALWAYS skip from seventeen to nineteen. the younger grades consistently skip from seven to nine. how is that possible? what is it about the number 8? isn't it supposed to be lucky?... this topic absolutely fascinates me.

The Bag

yesterday, after my 3 straight failed classes, i was pretty down in the dumps (not to mention exhausted), when 2 fifth graders came up to me at the beginning of 4th period. they were giggling and super smiley as they approached.

Girl: "Evelyn-sensei?"
Me: "Yes?"
Girl: [Holds out a colorful, girly-looking bag] "I made this for you. Please use it!"
Me: [in complete shock] "Really???!! You made this?? And for me??!"
Girl: [Smiles and nods]

Upon further inspection of the bag, it was actually pretty well made, complete with a pocket inside for holding more stuff. it's only about a foot by a foot, but it's soooo sweet of her. when i opened up a bag, there was a note inside with "Evelyn-sensei" spelled out of construction-paper- punched-out-flowers in japanese. At the bottom, they wrote, "Kore kara mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu" which I have no idea how to even begin translating, but basically means, "I'll be counting on you," or "I look forward to working with you" maybe. two girls signed the note, so i'm guessing one made the bag and the other cut out my name.

at any rate, that put be in a great mood. i mean, who sits and home and decides, "i'm going to make a bag for my undercover gaijin english teacher"?? really, these kids never stop surprising me.

The Proposal

today during lunch, i was eating with the 3rd and 4th graders when all the 6th graders suddenly appeared right outside the 3rd/4th grade classroom. one boy stutters something at me, and all the students inside and outside the classroom, as well as the 2 teachers in the classroom with me, all burst out laughing. completed stumped, i look to my advisor (i guess my supervisor) at that school, who was eating in the room at the time, and he says to me, "Joke, joke," all while shaking his head.

10 seconds later, that same boy appears at the door, and asks me if i can spare 10 seconds. sure why not. he walks up to me and says, "Evelyn-sensei. Ore to ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-kekkon [bunch of sounds i couldn't make out]?" Again, everyone starts laughing. my advisor then says, "Proposal. Marriage proposal."

Gosh, i'm so popular. only 21 and i already got my first marriage proposal!

just to complete the cycle of harassment, i went up to that kid (a 6th grader) during lunch while he was drawing something at his desk. when he looked up at me, i said to him, "Ja, kekkon shimasu!" which means, "Sure, let's get married!" How i wish you could have all see the look of shock and horror in his face (lol).

The Country

my second school today was my smallest school as i mentioned before. if you've been reading closely, you'll remember that this is the place where i had quite a bit of country-culture-shock (see what i'm referring to here). today was no exception.

so what do kids in the country do to pass the time? like i mentioned some posts ago, they apparently love to catch bugs with nets. charming, no? today, i discovered something else they love to do that you can't help but think, "wow, that's such a countryside thing to do... would city kids ever think of doing that?"

since everyone decided to end school early, we walked the 1st graders down the road to meet their grandmothers to take them home. i went along because i wanted to score some 100 yen vegetables. however, the 4th and 6th graders weren't allowed to go home yet, so they went walking with me and the only teacher at school that day (only my advisor, Matsumura, and the tea lady were at school today.. the other 2 teachers were on a business trip).

after leaving the 1st graders with their grandmothers, the four of us walked around to the nearby stalls to buy veggies. as we headed back to the school, i heard the kids giggling and thought i felt something lightly touching my back, but i decided that i was just being paranoid. a few minutes later, i see akihito (the 4th grade boy) run past me with a whole bunch of flower buds stuck to his back. at that point, i started laughing uncontrollably.

the whole way back to the school, the kids kept picking these flower buds (which weren't sharp, but circular and pointy enough to get caught on clothing easily), and sequentially chuck them at one another, me, and Mr. Matsumura, trying to get them stuck on one another's clothing. just think of one of those games from way back in the day where two people are playing each other, each has a frisbee shaped disc on their hand that has a ton of velcro on one side, and the ball being tossed from person to person is wrapped up in the complimentary velcro material. the frisbee = everyone's clothing. the velcro ball = the flower buds. the objective = get as many flower buds stuck to each other's clothing as possible without him or her realizing it.

i laughed sooo much on that walk back, and it didn't help that i had five bags of vegetables in my arms. at one point, i tossed three buds at once at akihito and managed to get all of them to stick to his back and the back of his arm. oh yes -- i rock at this game =)

so next time you're in the wilderness or admist a bunch of rice fields and you're bored, now you know a way to pass the time!

--evelyn

a shopping mall.... in Izuhara?!

2006-10-11T22:50:00.000+09:00

that's right folks. history has been made in front of my very eyes. there is now a SHOPPING MALL in Izuhara, not a 5 minute walk from where i am. sweet!

the grand opening was this past saturday, and i can tell you now, the highlights of it are:

- Red Cabbage, which is from what i can see, a kick-ass supermarket with items that no other supermarket on this island carries, such as regular salad dressing that we'd find in the States, and *gasp* --- cartons of ice cream!!!! this is the first place in JAPAN that i've seen sell cartons of ice cream! and only for 1000yen a box! haha

- 100 yen shop!!! better selection than the 100 yen shop 20 minutes north of where i live

- Mos Burger! It moved from it's old location 20 minutes away into the new mall. Guess where i'm going to be eating often from now on? =)

You know, as much as i hate dealing with centipedes and cockroaches in my kitchen, i am very grateful that i live where i do. it is definitely up there in terms of convenience (strategically close to the ferry terminal, the new mall, and a bunch of izakayas (restaurant/bar? that's probably a bad translation/comparison... you go there to drink basically, and order a lot of expensive food that wont get you full). my place is also up there in terms of price. i've now confirmed that i am indeed paying more than any of my fellow ALTs in terms of rent. even though it would be nice to save money, i have to admit that it's nice having everything essential nearby me.

one more cool thing about the new mall: i work in it! my BOE moved into the new building last week. So, it's not just a mall. it's technically called the "Koryuu Center", or exchange/interaction center. It's a mall on the first 2 floors, community center on the 3rd floor, and library on the 4th floor. whereas my office used to be across the street in the City Office, we're now on the 4th floor right next to the library, in what i can only call the fishbowl.

actually, to be more accurate, our office is actually 2 rooms. two very small rooms. with a wall in between them. two weeks ago when i went into the office for my weekly visit, i had to pack up all my stuff in my desks and whatnot so they could move everything into the new building the following day. when i got there last friday, i find that all my coworkers are in the outer room with a huge glass window, so it's like a fishbowl. but, there's also a back room where there's lockers and the photocopier. and 2 desks. that's right, that's where my desk goes haha. when they tried moving in, they didn't have enough room for my or Aaron's (the ALT in the next town over who's BOE people share an office with my BOE people) desk. so, that back room now has two random desks parked face to face and plopped smack dab in the middle of the room.

being all alone in that back room isn't all that bad. i can now use the photocopier mercilessly since my coworkers dont use it that often. plus they wont be coming in and out of the room that often, so i can do basically whatever i want back there. i contemplated playing music, but decided that time that i should focus on unpacking, and worry about music the next time i go in. and btw, aaron never goes into the office because he doesn't need to (whereas i was told i have to go in every friday afternoon). that means i'm basically the only one using that room. when you look at it that way, i get a sweet air conditioner to use all to myself. i can just see myself next summer -- shutting the door, propping my feet up on my desk, listening to my music, and blasting the AC. muahahaha!! ;D

anyway, i've babbled on long enough about the new building, although i assure you you'll be hearing more stories about it in the future. for now, this'll have to do.

teaching 6 classes and seeing all 390 students at a school in one day will really burn you out. with that said, i'm off to bed!

--evelyn

double standards

2006-10-03T11:33:00.000+09:00

so irked right now... my JTE just turned and said to me, "I heard you got drunk at the Izuhara Junior High enkai."

?!!!??!!!

first of all, i'm not going to deny the fact that i indeed did drink a lot at that party, and that was the longest i've ever sustained a buzz. however, what probably bothers me the most about this is that the JTE that just said this to me heard it from another teacher at this school, whose wife is a teacher at Izuhara. what ever happened to the whole "what happens at an enkai, stays at an enkai" policy??? i feel so violated right now.

my JTE further went on to say to me, "I think that's your reputation now. "

dude... the ONE night on this island that i drink a little more than usual, and bam, i now have a "reputation"?? what?!!!!

damn double standards. make me so angry!!! you dont see me running around telling everyone who i saw groping a hostess at my second party after my welcome party, because you're supposed to forget about what happens at enkais! you're not supposed to talk about it! that violates the basis of the whole thing! arrrrggggggh!!

yeah, still angry.

sweetest japanese poem ever

2006-10-01T10:46:00.000+09:00

unfortunately, this post will only make sense to the people who know japanese.

recently, i saw a postcard with the following poem. now, i dont know much about poetry, and the japanese poetry i've attempted to read i've understood even less, but this poem is concise, cute, and meaningful. i love it!

前に向いてから
　　　道が見えました。
道が見えたから
　　　歩いてゆけました。
歩いてゆけたから
　　　あなたに会えました。

sweet, no??!!

yes, i am a hopeless romantic.

HULK SMASH!!

2006-09-26T22:42:00.000+09:00

Today was the first time i've seriously wanted to scream at a class. Granted, most of my classes are pretty neutral -- dont particularly like or dislike them, but today, man... talk about pulling teeth. I was at one of my junior highs for the first time, and today is really easy on the students. they just have to listen to me, and on occasion nod or shake their head so i know if they're following what i'm saying. Easy enough, right? Apparently not!

So this school only has 30 students. 9 1st graders, 9 2nd graders, and 12 3rd graders. the 1st and 2nd years were fine, but the 3rd years were sooooo painful. The entire class, just blank stares from everyone. Everyone but one that is. This one kid i gathered pretty quickly is the ringleader. The boss. You can't act outside of what he does because that would just be poor form, right? Soooo, because his English ability out of everyone in the class is the lowest, he has to sit there the whole period nagging at my JTE to translate what i'm saying, and also repeatedly say, "I told you we DON'T understand English!" in Japanese. Seriously dude, someone from Zimbabwe could understand what i'm talking about with all the gestures i do. All you have to do is look up and stop complaining! sheesh.

To make things worse, all the girls' English ability is apparently pretty good, except they are the epitome of shy, and refuse to move during class. Because you know, it'd ruin their image of being shy if they nodded for me on occasion (arrrgh). And this is apparently common all around my island. Girls like English and their ability is high, but they're all super shy. Boys on the other hand, have less of a grasp of English, but are chatty during class. This equates to the type of class I had today. *sigh*

I think the point at which i almost cracked was when i pointed at a picture of my family and said, "This is my mother. What is 'mother?'" Blank stares from everyone. And this goes on for several minutes! They all refuse to mutter out even guesses! C'mon people... you all knew this before you even started learning English in school. Just looking at my picture you could tell it was my mother. Is it sooo much to just take a chance and say okaasan? Their silence as i went on to ask them what "father" "brother" and "sister" meant only increased my anger within, to the point of seriously wanting to walk up to each of their desks, slam my fists down on their desks, and yell out, "Speak up! Do something! Move! Don't just sit there!!!! Look alive!!!" My anger can only be equated with a description that my friend often uses:

"It's good i'm not the Hulk because really, with how angry I sometimes get, it'd seriously be 'HULK SMASH!' by now."

In other news, i think i found at another one of my junior highs, perhaps the only child in all of Izuhara and maybe Tsushima even, that likes the Hanshin Tigers. Totally made my day!! I have one slide of just the Hanshin Tigers logo in my powerpoint self-intro. there's always a commotion, but when i ask who likes Hanshin, no one ever says they do (they're all Softbank Hawk fans since the Hawks are from the nearby Fukuoka). BUT, in this class, one boy raised his hand! Score! I literally ran up to where he was and hi-fived him. Two slides later, i have 2 pictures of Akahoshi (only my favoritest baseball player EVER), and again, that kid got all excited. After class, i went up to ask his name and also who his favorite baseball player is. Guess who it is? That's right -- Akahoshi! I think i officially have a favorite student at that school now =)

And now, it's bed time. Oyasumi!

--Evelyn

real conbinis

2006-09-22T18:09:00.000+09:00

after a trip to Coco! the other day, a thought crossed my mind. Coco! being the only real convenience store on the island (conbini = convenience store; like 7-Eleven, Lawsons, etc), it's come to my attention that there are other places on the island, particularly 2 doors down from Coco!, that think they can pretend to be a conbini, but they never will be. soooo, i've come up with 4 things that really make a conbini a real conbini, and which define themselves from all the poser-conbinis littered across urban and rural Japan alike. my 4 qualifications are:

1) They must carry a basic selection of magazines and recent comics. Many of the posers forget this.

2) It must be open until AT LEAST midnight. The later the better! Posers wimp out and close early. Granted, i know there are some Lawson's Stations out there that close at midnight, but because there is probably another one nearby that's 24 hours, i'll forgive those few dumb Lawsons.

3) They must have a selection of freshly made conbini food, like oden, yakitori, croquettes, hotdogs, pizza, etc. Posers lack the manpower and customers to keep that sort of operation going.

4) It must be SUPER well lit. Posers can't afford to be that bright!

What makes a conbini a real conbini to you? I'm curious to hear what you all think. There were other things that i thought were key, like always having Coolish and Choco Chip Snack (those chocolate chip sticks that are super addicting and usually come with 8 sticks or so), but i decided that those expectations were too easy to fulfill. Leave a comment! I'll read 'em =)

Off to an enkai now... my and David's welcome drinking party at our shared junior high (Izuhara Junior High... the big one). Ja ne!

--Evelyn

Ode To My Home (a haiku)

2006-09-22T00:41:00.000+09:00

Just like Santa Claus,
They see me when I'm sleeping.
Damn you, cockroaches!!

video of my home

2006-09-21T22:05:00.000+09:00

here's a video of my home, but i warn you -- it's massive and it expires mid-October:

http://www.stanford.edu/~echin/myhome/

kids say the darnest things

2006-09-20T20:48:00.000+09:00

so there's probably thousands of entries by ESL teachers all over the world with the same titled blog entry as mine, but hey, there are just some ridiculously funny stuff my students have been saying that i just have to share.

in my two weeks of visiting schools now, i've been to 3 junior highs and 6 elementary schools. by far, elementary schools are my favorite -- especially the super small schools of 30 people or so. the kids and teachers are so much like one big family... so different from my huge schools. i apparently teach at the largest elementary school and junior high in Tsushima. Izuhara Elementary School has 390 students while Izuhara Junior High has 234 students. Yeah, no so big compared to American standards or the mainland for that matter, but for Tsushima i guess those numbers are pretty big.

so now that you know where i'm coming from, without further ado, what random stuff my students have said to me:

- By now, I've figured that my predecessor has taught all the children of Izuhara 3 things super super well. They are 1) Hello, 2) Please, and 3) See you! Since i have so many schools, my first month of visiting schools is basically going to be my self-intro. However, since i have to do it for each class i go to for the first time, by now, I've figured out what i'm going to say so well that i just go into dummy mode and i dont even need to think anymore as i'm speaking. I've also figured out by now when to show my realia (postcards of SF, american money, a calendar of Stanford).

Whenever i hand out the SF postcards, all the kids tend to gather around wherever the postcards are circulating, and conversation tends to escalate to the point where no human could talk over everyone. Sooo, all i need to do now to get their attention as they're looking at the postcards is to just stand there and hold up my clear folder with american money taped inside. Within seconds, some kid will notice i'm holding money, who will immediate scream, causing everyone's attention to turn towards me, and eventually, the whole room is screeching and everyone's sitting up on their knees with their hands outstretch, opening and closing their hands, eyes bulging out at me, and shouting out, "Please! Please!!" This phenomenon has consistently occured between the grades of 2nd and 6th grade. Somehow, the 1st graders have yet to master "Please."

- In addition to the above story, one time, instead of yelling out "please" like everyone else was, one kid shouted out, "Thank you!" while opening and shutting his outstretched hand.

- At my junior high once, i was wandering through the halls during lunch, when one boy was walking away from me down the hall, but he turned around towards me as he was walking away and shouted out, "I'm fine, thank you!" to which i burst out laughing so hard that i was crying in the middle of the hallway, with all his fellow 2nd graders (8th graders) looking at me in puzzlement and astonishment.

- In my elementary school, when class was over, a handful of 5th graders started to crowd around me, just smiling at me since they couldn't think of anything to say in English. So, to get the ball rolling, i tried reading their names written in kanji on their PE uniforms (my elementary schools dont have uniforms for class, but they do for exercising/PE) (yes, i'm a kanji nerd). the teacher of that class was also there, and everyone was impressed with how many names i could read (little do they know how much i stalk japanese baseball players...muahaha).

then there was one girl who got all excited, and said, "What's my name?! What's my name?!" and pointed at her own shirt. Then at the same time, the teacher, the other students, girl, and ALT alike, all looked down at her chest to read her name. Except her name wasn't there! Her shirt was completely void of the sewn on cloth with students' names written on them. I had absolutely no control over outright laughing in her face in front of everyone, but she thought it was pretty funny too that she had forgotten her name wasn't there. She was embarassed to say the least, but hey, at least i know her face in the hallways now!

- So yesterday. I was at one of my elementary schools for the first time, and this is actually a designated special English school, where they really emphasize and encourage learning English. Anyway, when i was with the 5th grade class, after i gave my self-intro, the students went around and told me their names and then proceeded to say one additional thing, whether it be something about themselves or a question for me. By far, my favorite intro was:
Boy: Hello!
Me: Hello!
Boy: My name is Ryoya Setoguchi. Nice to meet you!
Me: Nice to meet you too!
Boy: Please call me "Bob!"
..at which point i burst out laughing so hard that i was crouched over hiding my face in my hands. all the students of course thought that my reaction was hilarious, which caused the whole room to eventually be cracking up.

- In that same 5th grade class, one kid insisted i call him "Boss." Yeah, sure buddy. Whatever you say =P

And finally, my favorite random adorable English moment:

- Yesterday i had lunch with that same 5th grade class (which i may as well say now, is by far the best class i've had at any school). I was grouped with 4 boys, all of which were rather shy. However, the boy sitting next to me was brave enough to start a conversation with me, and he said in perfectly grammatical but adorably Japanese-accented English: "Excuse me. What would you like for Christmas?"

Needless to say, i was dying of laughter to the point of needing my handerchief to wipe away the tears streaming down my face.

More stories hopefully coming soon!

Ja ne!

--Evelyn