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!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
apartment done!
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!
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!
Friday, May 11, 2007
almost settled in
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!
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!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
frustrated
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?....
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?....
Monday, April 16, 2007
moving?...
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?
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?
Friday, April 06, 2007
glorious mexican food
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 =)
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 =)
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
judgement day
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??
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??
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
new pictures site
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.
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 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.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
the ULTIMATE fortune cookie
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.
Friday, March 02, 2007
sick sicker sickest
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*
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
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.
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.
Monday, February 26, 2007
sick and angry
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...
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...
Friday, February 23, 2007
weird week
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!
- 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!
Monday, February 19, 2007
to phil
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.
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.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
conspiracy theories
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 =)
- 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
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
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
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
valentines day in japan... so far
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.
- 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.
Friday, February 09, 2007
thailand and cambodia pictures!!
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
easily amused.... by the garbage
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??!!
(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
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
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
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