more pictures!

At the Tsushima ALT gathering at a beer garden. Everyone chowing down on Genghis Khans -- ram's meat and veggies (from 12 oclock: David North from the UK, Rob from NY, Aaron from Philly, David South from CA, Fiona from Vegas, Alicia from Oakland, and Sylvia from Canada. The David's aren't actually named North and South. For the sake of clarification, we've given them those geographical nicknames)


Aaron with the ultimate American look: wearing shorts, cooking meat with one hand, and drinking beer with the other


Random guy, me, and Rob. Random guy we picked up at the Beer Garden who joined us for our Second Party. The only reason why he was invited was because he helped us get someone from his party at the Beer Garden to come sit with us since that guy was fairly attractive and Fiona totally wanted him.


Singing my heart out to Britney Spears' "Sometimes" at the Second Party.


Outside the Second Party joint, Billy's Bar. That's David North, me, Rob, and Alicia.


At the southernmost point in Tsushima


How beautiful my island is


At Ayumodoshi Park where we swam in the freshwater pool


My fellow swimmers: Sylvia, David, me


The port-a-potty outside the lookout point in Izuhara. I found its being held down by cinder blocks absolutely hiliarious. Then again, i'm easily amused ;D


Taking in the beauty of the moment.. my smallest school of 4 students is in the valley i'm partially blocking in this picture.

pictures from my last few weeks

The statue at the Nagasaki Peace Park

Me, Rob, and Alicia (fellow islanders) at Nagasaki Harbor

The tiny airplane I ride between Tsushima and Nagasaki that seats about 40 people, and i swear, i've sat on buses bigger than it before (so the company is called ORC: Oriental Air Bridge. Where "ORC" came from, i haven't the slighest clue)


One of the many views of Nagasaki Prefecture's many islands from the plane ride


My supervisor, Mr. Matsushima, at my Second Party (my Welcome Party with the BOE was the day after i returned from Nagasaki Orientation)


A random statue in front of Kumamoto Castle


Kumamoto Castle and me


Oh Engrish, how i've missed you


At the top of Kirijima-dake, one of the peaks surrounding Aso Mountain (the active volcano)


Check out the name of the smoking area!


Hell


More Hell (in Unzen)


Sunset in Unzen (my friend swears this one was pansy, and that sunset is usually better)


A shop in Fukuoka. I have no idea what it was actually advertising.


A usual sight: a gecko on my kitchen window. His name is Bo. Bo lives on my kitchen window, Gary lives on my bathroom window and front door, and Donnie lives on my living room window. I like geckos =)


An unusual sight: a gecko in my bedroom. I had to get a chair and use my broom to get him off the wall. Once he jumped onto the floor and started running away, i tossed a towel on top of him so he couldn't run away. I then used the towel to scoot him onto my dustpan, and from there, released him outside. This gecko doesn't get a name because i hope i won't see him again in my bedroom.


Yet another uncommon but horrifying sight. I went downstairs one morning to brush my teeth, when i noticed out of the corner of my eye, "Gee, that's a long piece of hair i left in the sink." When i looked down, to my horror, there was a centipede. Of all the insects and animals to beware of in Tsushima, centipedes are one of the worst as a bite will send you to the hospital, cause you to swell up tremendously, and send shooting pains and crazy itchiness throughout the infected area for over a week. Centipedes are no joke, and of all places i find it, it's in my kitchen. blargh. my kitchen is constantly warzone. I've now fended off cockroaches, ants, roly polys (that's what i called them when i was little... no idea what they're really called. they're black and curl up into a ball when you poke them), and apparently centipedes from my kitchen. Bugs, you can roam all you want outside, but just don't come into my home! grr!

random vocab

So i just realized that i probably use a lot of random abbreviations, acronyms, and japanese words that may cause some of you to raise your eyebrow from time to time. Sooo, here a master list of vocab that may come in handy in my blogs about Japan. I’ll keep adding onto this list if i think of new stuff, and please, let me know if there’s anything i should add to this too.

JET – Japan Exchange and Teaching

ALT – Assistant Language Teacher (aka my job title)

JTE – Japanese Teacher of English

BOE – Board of Education

Ichinensei – first years (US 7^th graders)

Ninensei – second years (US 8^th graders)

Sannensei – third years (US 9^th graders)

Sensei – teacher

Kocho/kouchou – Principal

Kyoto/kyoutou – the Head Teacher; my guess is what we’d consider a vice principal. He’s in charge of the teachers. How he differs from the principal i still dont get.

-Ben - dialect. Tsushima-ben = Tsushima's dialect. Kansai-ben = the dialect in the Kyoto region

Conbini - convenience store (7-Eleven, Lawson's Station, Coco!, Family Mart, etc)

Enkai - drinking party, banquet, feast

Gaijin - foreigner (ie. me)

Genki – vigor, spirit, pep, vitality

Inaka – countryside, the sticks, where all of my schools are, etc.

Kawaii – cute

Taihen – much, extremely.. sorry this word is hard to translate. I use it a lot to mean something oppressively sucks or is overwhelming.

Zannen – pity, shame, regrettable, unlucky, unfortunate

Ja ne – See you!

Oyasumi or oyasuminasai – Good night!

First day at elementary schools!

I survived my first day at elementary schools! As i mentioned in my last post, today i visited my smallest school, Uchiyama Branch School, which is technically a part of a larger elementary school, but because it's damn far from that main school, they have that branch school set up for the local kids. I started out my morning with Uchiyama, driving about 30 or so minutes to get there. Being the overachiever i am, i got there like 3o minutes before i was requested to arrive, so i just sat in the teacher's room and chatted with the tea lady (side note about "tea lady": so each school i've been to so far has had a "tea lady" who sort of does all the odds and ends around the office... i saw one shredding paper, another cleaning the fish tank, another setting up the school lunches for the teachers... but their main job is to serve tea to guests. i think. well, serve tea to teachers too. i prefer the term tea lady over janitor, because in the US, janitors, well... they don't serve tea too). after my teacher (the one out of the three teachers there that is in charge of me and who team teaches with me) came back from class, we had an hour to chat about what we were going to do for the hour of class we had next. figuring my intro would take most of the period, we chatted briefly about work and then quickly started talking about all sorts of random stuff.

so this is how bad my japanese is. when i first met this guy two weeks ago, i was with my supervisor who drove me to Uchiyama. since we didn't have much time to talk, the teacher (Matsumura) wanted to explain something to me/my boss and leave it up to my boss to make sure i understood later what he was talking about. i *thought* i was following what he was saying, and by the end of his schpiel, all i could think was, "what a dick!" what i *thought* he said was something about how i have 15 schools, and because i have so many schools, i can't visit them very often, and hence i can't be a very good/effective teacher. and my boss just sat there nodding his head! i was quite miffed by the time my boss and i left that school. as we were driving onto the next school, i asked my boss what the hell that guy had been talking about, and he explained that Matsumura thought it wasn't fair that i have to go to so many schools, because if i dont spend that much time with each school, that means less English exposure for not just kids, but the teachers too. Since only junior highs are required to have an English cirriculum, elementary schools dont necessarily have good English teachers. Sooo, Matsumura was saying that it was unfortunate that HE couldn't be a better teacher because i can't visit them that often. Yeah. this is why it's important to 1) listen to the ENTIRE schpiel, and 2) learn the language, fool!

At any rate, my first class at an elementary school went really well! Matsumura was there translating everything for the kids, and since there were so few of them, it was easy to maintain eye contact and all that good stuff. Even the other two teachers were there to listen to my self-intro. Oh, and get this. During that hour before class where I was just sitting in the teachers room chatting with everyone, one of the teachers kept phoning people, and i slowly gathered that one of the students was complaining of a stomachache. 5 mintues before class, Matsumura tells me that the kid went home. So, my smallest school of only 4 kids turned into 3 kids for my first lesson. Hilarious, don't you think? That school has 2 first graders, 1 fourth grader, and 1 sixth grader. one of the first graders is brothers with the 4th grader, and the other 1st grader (girl) is cousins with the 6th grader (girl). omg. i soooo wanted to take that girl 1st grader home. soooo adorable!!! she had the typical little-asian-girl haircut (you know, the one with the bangs and straight haircut that stops at the chin), the innocent high-pitched, 6-year old voice, and a cute pink top and denim capris. plus she's super tiny. so you have that image in your head right?

so, after my lesson/intro, we (the three students, matsumura, and one other teacher) went for a walk around the town. or should i say, around the rice fields. this school is seriously in the sticks. then again, which of my schools aren't? anyway, if you step outside the school, you'll find yourself surrounded by rice fields which are sort of in this valley surrounded by mountains (although i guess that's the definition of a valley..). after each kids was armed with a net to catch bugs, we were off. most of the time, that little girl was holding the female teacher's hand since we were walking alongside the road. but at one point, she let go of the teachers hand, stopped dead in her tracks, pointed at a plant on the side of the road and said, "Kawaii!" In that single word, she had my dying. (kawaii means "cute"). There's just something about an adorable 6-year old pointing at a flower and calling IT cute that absolutely makes me melt inside. Don't you feel the warm fuzzies too?! =D

There were two other very memorable moments on that walk that i just have to mention. First. As we were walking along, we passed by this tree with a fruit i'd never seen before. i asked the teachers what it was, and Matsumura pulled out his dictionary to tell me it was a camellia. i didn't know camellia trees had fruits. anyway, so show me what the inside looks like, he yanked a fruit off the tree, stuck it in his mouth and managed to crack it in half. he then removed a seed from the inside and then cracked that open. there was white flesh on the inside of it, and he explained that back in the day, women would use the oil of the seed to make their hair shiny or something. just as he held out the open half of the seed, the 4th grade boy ran up with net and stuck out his hand to reveal the dragonfly he caught and was then holding through the net by one of its sets of wings. The dragonfly was still alive and twitching its free wings too. That was definitely my first time seeing a dragonfly up close though. It was in that moment though, with the little boy and his dragonfly and the teacher with the camellia seed that he obtained by just chomping off a chunk of the fruit fresh off the tree, both with their arms outstretched showing me stuff my foreign eyes had never seen, that an epiphany hit me: "Dude man. I'm in THE STICKS."

Second memorable moment. Along the road, we saw several random booths with a bunch of bagged up veggies like potatoes, onions, cucumbers, etc. Matsumura asked me if i knew what they were. Nope. "You put 100 yen in this box, and then you can take any bag you want." Such a cool system!! Where do you ever see that in San Francisco, right? I'm totally getting my veggies there from now on. So much cheaper than the supermarket!! Anyway, as we walked away from one of those booths, the children were way up ahead of us running around trying to catch butterflies or dragonflies. Aside from the sound of giggling children, the village was pretty serene. Rice fields for as far as you can see. the occasional farmer tilling his land here and there. ladies all decked out in bright colors and bandanas on their heads, ready to work in the fields.
I stopped for a second to truly look around at my surroundings. And i felt something that i normally dont feel in the Bay Area. Peace. Uchiyama is so beautiful, so simple. The lush moutains that surround the valley, the rice fields that await their farmers.... you can't capture that kind of feeling of peace in san francisco. i could be mistaken. but geez, in that moment, i realized just how far removed my new life is from my old one. I'm not saying i prefer one over the other. I'm just saying that this experience has definitely already begun to open my eyes to a totally different lifestyle than the only one i've ever known. mind-bending.

After returning from the walk, we all ate lunch together, and afterwards, the kids asked me to play with them outside. we ended up playing this game that's tag and hide and seek at the same time. basically, someone is "it." "it" has to tag someone, but if you're not it, you have to get up as high as possible so "it" can't tag you. i didn't start as it, but the majority of the game i was. mainly because i refused to take a cheap shot and tag the little girl. i can't even remember the last time i ran like that. that little boy was FAST. sooo out of breath by the end. we played until i saw my taxi, and then it was time to move onto my second school of the day: Otsuki Elementary School.

This school has rubbed me the right way ever since i first stepped inside. the place is sooo new. i think it was built 3 years ago or so, but it's sooooo new, the people are nice, and after today, i know that i'm going to love this school. All the kids are soooo energetic. i can't tell you how great that feels after all the blank stares i got from the middle schoolers the last two days. from the moment my taxi pulled up in front of the school, all the kids started to crowd around the entrance hall, and they were all lined up along the stairs that overlooked the entrance to try to get a look at the new foreinger. i had like 15 minutes of prep time before i had to start my intro in front of the whole school (only 34 kids), and during that time in the teachers room, a bunch of kids would pass by the teachers room slowly to look at me, or just stand in the window and look at me and giggle. i smiled and waved at one of them, and he went wild. he jumped up and down and ran down the hall. it was awesome! haha. for my intro, i spoke super slowly, showed a bunch of pictures, got so many oohs and ahhs at my SF postcards and Stanford calendar.... it was great! anything would impress these kids! they're perfect!! hahaha.

After my intro, i went around the semicircle and shook each kids hand after they did their self-intros for me. After that, there was only about 3 minutes left, so my teacher (Kondoh) opened the floor for questions. Every other kid had a question! it was awesome! again, sooo much better than the middle schoolers! the first question, as i expected, was from a 6th grader wanting to know if i had a boyfriend. To avoid harassment regarding whether i would date this teacher or that teacher, ALTs at both Tokyo and Nagasaki Orientations recommended that you say yes and say they're back home and that's the end of the story. So, i told him yes, i have a boyfriend. And immediately, every child in that room began to giggle and get all excited. i got questions like what food i like (i said okonomiyaki and the kids were elated), what food i didn't (i said natto, which are nasty fermented beans, and the kids again went wild and all began nodding at me), how old i am, etc.

After class was over, they were all supposed to go back to their classrooms, but instead, a group of girls came up to me, one held my left hand, while another held my arm. these girls all surrounded me and just sorta smiled at me. i of course smiled back, but couldn't figure out what they were trying to do. then finally one of the girls started asking me questions and successively everyone started asking me questions. when the teacher said i had to leave, everyone all of a sudden wanted to shake my hand, so i shook everyone's hand. i told them about how a good handshake is a solid one and not a pansy one (don't you hate pansy handshakes too where the other person sort of starts withdrawing their hand when you haven't even clamped your hand down yet? i hate that...), and that made them even more excited to shake my hand haha. seriously -- LOVE those kids. can't wait till i go back!... next month =( unfornately, with my packed schedule, i can only visit elementary schools once a month, and have to visit junior highs 2 or 3 times a month. bummer, huh?

before i wrap this up, i wanted to mention one more thing that cracked me up that i forgot to mention yesterday. two posts ago i made a crack about how the uniformed junior high schoolers reminded me of the army, right? and how japan is probably secretly training its children to become a part of the armed forces in the future? as if all the uniformity wasn't enough to get you suspicious, during 6th period, all the Sasu Junior High students (46 people) were in the gym practicing for their upcoming Sports Day. Can you guess what they were doing? They were marching!! It was hilarious! every last student was marching, kicking their feet up a certain height, stepping in sync, swinging their arms in sync, keeping an exact distance from the person in front of them... totally made my day and totally reaffirmed my conspiracy theory that children are japan's upcoming secret army. muahahhaa.

and with that, i'm off to bed. g'nite!

--evelyn

my last two and a half weeks

so a ton of stuff has been going on lately, but very briefly:

- Two and a half weeks ago on a Sunday, i left my island for the first time since my arrival to go to Nagasaki city for Prefectural Orientation. i was in the city till Sunday, but in that time, i had a chance to see a "big city" for a little bit, meet a few more JETs in my prefecture, see the Nagasaki Peace Museum, visit a Uniqlo (only my favorite clothing store in the world), and fall in love with the Nagasaki Harbor. most people probably don't find it all that impressive, but i dont know... i love harbors. just the way the water glittered during the day... how the lights of the surrouding buildings reflected off of it at night... i know i sound cheesy, but there's just something i find very romantic about that place. Being that it was an orientation, it was of course boring and quite useless at times, but hey, my Board of Education treated me to a free trip to the mainland. I'm not complaining =)

- After returning from Nagasaki on Tuesday, my boss/supervisor picked me up from the airport, and in that car ride, i discovered that i got 3 extra days of vacation in the month of August like many of the other Nagasaki JETs. we get 20 days of vacation time throughout the year, but these 3 days are in addition to that. If we didn't take it, we'd lose it (it had to be taken before the end of August). So, deciding to be wild and spontaneous, i decided at the last minute to take off Mon-Wed last week and head back to the mainland (Kyushu that is) to explore Kumamoto prefecture with a friend.　during my 5 day vacation (i left Saturday morning after only returning from Nagasaki on Tuesday evening), i saw Kumamoto Castle (still think Himeji Castle is my favorite), Kurokawa Onsen (a town made for Japanese style vacations.. nothing but traditional hotels and hot springs there... very beautiful, but only go if you're willing to spend A LOT of money for quality relaxation), and Aso Mountain (Japan's largest active volcano). Afterwards, we visited Unzen in Nagasaki, which is known for its hot springs as well, and also known for Hell. Yes, that's what i said. I've been to Hell (har har har). The place reeks of sulfur and is damn hot. I'm pretty sure people set up the place because it definitely has an eerie Hell-ish feel to it, and there's steam constantly rising from the ground. Charming really. No worries, pictures of Hell are coming soon. On my last day, we headed back up to Fukuoka so i could catch my ferry back home. I ended up getting back at my island around 1:10am, and as luck has always been on my side, i had to walk 20 minutes in the rain back to my apartment, lugging a rolling suitcase behind me, with my hooded sweatshirt hiding my misery, and my capri pants and three dollar shoes getting soaked to the core.

- In the few days i was back on my island between the time i came back from Nagasaki and left for Kumamoto, i started visiting each of my 15 schools. I have 11 elementary and 4 junior high schools in total. i got through about 11 or 12 schools in those three days, and i visited the remaining ones once i returned from Kumamoto last week. My poor boss played chauffer to 14 of those 15 schools, and let me tell you, it is no joke driving out to my schools. if you look at a map (which i know you won't =P), i sort of live on the northeastern side of my "town", my town which is the southern end of the island. however, Tsushima being 89% forests and mountains, that translates to 1) many many windy mountainous roads, 2) many very very NARROW roads (the "two-way" mountain roads have no median, about as wide as maybe a freeway lane in the US, and "gaijin traps" on generally one side of the road which are these 2 foot deep ditches all along the side of the road for what i can only guess is collecting rain water), and 3) me having to spend a lot of time traveling to each of my schools since several are 20-50 minutes away. The upside to visiting all my schools with my boss is that i got to see a lot of Izuhara scenery, Izuhara being my town in Tsushima the city. The downside was that i went to so many schools in such a short time, that i have no idea which school is which in my head, and no idea which teachers i've "met" already.

- Last Friday. Tsushima ALTs gathering! 8 of the 9 of us ALTs got together in Mitsushima (neighboring town) at a beer garden and ate ram meat and veggies. Surprisingly very good. Afterwards, we migrated to Izuhara (my town) for the Second Party, where we went to a snack bar to karaoke and get very wasted. Cheapskate i am, i chose to keep my 10 bucks and save getting plastered for another day.

- Saturday. Sylvia, an ALT two towns over, and David, my fellow Izuhara ALT, spontaneously dropped by my house asking me if i wanted to go swimming. Sure, what the hell! So we went down to Tsu Tsu where two of my schools are to check out the southernmost point in Tsushima, then went to Ayumodoshi Park (i've posted pictures of them before) to swim in the freshwater pool. Soooo refreshing to swim there. Cool water, no salt or chlorine in my eyes.... wonderful wonderful.

- Then there was this Monday. My first day at school! I visited one of my "base schools" called Izuhara Junior High School, which is the largest junior high in Tsushima at 234 students. All junior highs in Japan have 3 grades and are called first years, second years, and third years. High school is also 3 years, so junior high would be our american 7th through 9th grade, and high school would be 10th through 12th. So get this: Friday was the first day of the 2nd semester for all Tsushima students, and they all just got back from their summer vacations. Guess what many did on Friday, Monday, or Tuesday (or some combination of the three)? Take tests! Each junior high student had to get tested on 5 subjects (japanese, english, math, history, and social studies). i inquired as to whether or not students took tests at the end of the first semester. apparently they do. then what are these tests for? "To make sure they did their summer homework. And they had a LOT of summer homework," said my Japanese Teacher of English (JTE). Sooo, since my Monday school had to take tests all day, all i did was give my brief English introduction in front of the entire student body with my JTE translating my speech each step of the way (i'm trying to hide the fact that i can speak Japanese for as long as possible... i hear that once students know you can speak Japanese, they refuse to try speaking in English). As the teachers walked into the teachers room where i was camped out for the day, they kept saying "Gambatte kudasai" in reference to my speech in the morning. Honestly, after all the presentations and school plays and speeches i've been forced to do throughout my life, standing in front of 250 odd people was really no big deal. and plus, after watching both GTO and Gokusen which are about untraditional teachers in Japan, i sort of had an idea what it would be like to stand in front of what looks like lines of soldiers all perfectly spaced out and dressed the same perfectly groomed way. I can honestly say that not for a second was i nervous about my speech, even though my JTE was nervous about talking in front of everyone (although you'd think that she wouldn't be since everyone knows her and she stands in front of the classroom everyday...). I think i've finally purged stage fright out of my system. yay me!

- Day 2: Sasu Junior High. About 40 minutes from my home. out of 6 periods, i got to go to 3, where i did my self introduction for the entire period. That's right. all about me for 50 minutes. Times 3. I was quite sick of talking about myself by the end of the day, but then i realized i have to do this at least 20 more times, so hey, better stay positive about being myself, right? heh. I mainly got blank stares from them, but i have to admit, everyone's attention was peaked when i put up pictures of arnold schwarzenegger during his body building days and the logo for the Hanshin Tigers followed by pictures of Akahoshi. That's right kids -- you know you love Akahoshi too!!

- Day 3 (today): Sasu Junior High. Today was the first day of covering actual ground in English. I had prepared questions for this Baseball Game my JTE described. Kinda complicated, but it makes the students practice spelling, filling in the blank, and translation. All in all, very fun for both teachers and students alike. All three classes were in the morning, and lunch was right after. Now, my biggest challenge for the last three days has been finding ways to get my students to talk to me, especially during lunch when i'm eating with them. They've in large part ignored me. SInce this was my second day at this school, and each student (the entire student body is only 46 people) came up and shook my hand after saying their name at the beginning of each class, i felt like it'd be more likely for them to strike up a conversation with me. right? wrong. Refusing to go home a failure today, i chose to be more aggressive and just walk up to people and try to get them to talk to me. Using mainly the "your name is ___, right?" tactic, i got people to stop and actually try to communicate with me. By the end of the lunch hour, i had found several favorite students because they persevered and communicated with me when they thought i couldn't speak any japanese (muahaha). yay them!

Tomorrow, or should i say today, is my first day at elementary schools. I'll be visiting two today, including my smallest school at *drumroll*..... 4 students!! Absurd, don't you think? 4 is the smallest, followed by 6, then 8. yup. i think i'm going to really get to know those students. All the better! Bed time. I'll be putting pictures up soon. Look out for them!

--Evelyn

First impressions of school

it's day 2 of school for me! i'm currently at Sasu Junior High, about a 40 minute drive from where I live. Sasu is one of 4 junior highs i'll be teaching at, in addition to 11 elementary schools. yesterday i went to another one of my junior highs, which is also the largest one in Tsushima. that one had 234 students, and is called Izuhara Junior High School. yesterday was test day alllll day for the students, so all i did was give a short speech in english in front of the entire student body in the morning, and sit at my desk the rest of the day making a ppt presentation for my introduction classes today at Sasu. it's currently my lunch break, but already, i've had a few first impressions of teaching at my schools (i had 2 classes this morning and one after lunch).

- at my school yesterday, i realized just the power of uniformity. and when you have a lot of people gathered at the same time, sitting the same way, turning all in unison, saying hello in unison, bowing in unison, dressed the same way.. you can't help but get the feeling of "there will be no individuality. you WILL act with the whole. you ARE going to be a part of japan's future army" -- oops =P

- as i was walking through the halls in my free time yesterday, i ran into a bunch of girls. i asked them what year they were, and they said third years. "All green shoes are sannensei." and it wasn't until then that i realized that each year was indeed wearing a different color. green for 3rd years, blue for 2nd years, and light blue for 1st years. i had noticed the ugly blue shoes earlier in the morning during the huge assembly where i gave my speech, and i remember thinking, "damn, they have nice looking uniforms, but they ruined it with ugly plastic shoes." after hearing about the color coding of grades, i couldn't help but get a familiar feeling of Brave New World.... remember how alphas, betas, and gammas all dressed differently? slowly japan is moving toward being a utopia... is it just me that thinks that?

- every school has warned me that the third years (equivalent to high school freshman, as junior high and high school are 3 years each) are extremely quiet. now i know what they're talking about. i gave my introduction for third years just now, and damn, it's like talking to stones in a zen garden. no one reacts to ANYTHING. not even pictures of arnold schwarzenegger. c'mon people! it's arnold! it's the terminator for crying out loud!!! *sigh*

- i feel sort of like schools are everyone's stage. these kids change their clothing sooo often. there's the class uniform, the pe uniform, the lunch coats, lunch masks, bandanas for when you get your food, indoor shoes, outdoor shoes, gym shoes, and your regular shoes. it's like they're constantly in a play, constantly running backstage for a costume change or something...

omg... there's a staff meeting all of a sudden right now. i should probably stop typing now... more later!

Izuhara video

Check out an awesome view of Izuhara from up in the mountains:

http://www.stanford.edu/~echin/tsushima

(it's rather massive... sorry)

and that would be my friend Patrick you see at the end of the video.

random thoughts

most of you in america probably dont know, but typhoon #10 has been wreaking havoc the last few days. it was centered around kyushu, and has slowly made its way towards tsushima. last night, there was an announcement on the town announcement system (speakers are set up EVERYWHERE.. you can even hear daily announcements and chimes in the middle of the forest. i can't remember where i read this, but i recall somewhere mentioning that you know you live in a small town in japan when your town has its own megaphone/announcement system) saying in short that Typhoon #10 was going to be in Tsushima this afternoon. rather anticlimatically, today's weather is much much much more tame than the last 2 days. the last two days have been horrifyingly strong winds and oodles and oodles of rain. the last two nights, i've been awoken frequently during the night to the sound of my windows banging (even though they're all shut), and the constant whooshing of wind slapping around the trees that surround my house. i've learned new meaning to the phrase, "when it rains, it pours." i think that could be appropriately applied to tsushima. also, i've discovered new meaning to the term, "torrential rains." enough said.

as has been the theme with my last few posts, i'm all about adjusting to my new lifestyle and everything that goes along with it. as i've walked around town, there have been a few things that struck me that don't usually cross my mind...

* The other day, i was heading towards David's house (the other ALT in Izuhara... his place is about a 15 minute brisk walk for me), when i had one of those split second epiphanies: "I'm a gaijin living in Japan." And i dont know about you, but sometimes with those epiphanies, I'll get a split second of panic. I suddenly had this onslought of thoughts racing through my head, including, "what the hell am i doing here??" "am i seriously on an island in the middle of the sea of japan??" "am i really not going to see my family anytime soon?" But rest assured, I haven't changed my mind Tsushima. I think it was more of the fact that I hadn't had time to really register that i had in fact moved to Japan that i experienced my panic attack. And by now, I'm fully aware that i'm here and not in california. i still have yet to break into a daily routine as i dont start teaching until September 4th, but until then, i guess i'll have time to get used to my environment at least.

* I was walking home pretty late at night that same day, and as the street i use to get home is lit, I didn't have that much to worry about. While they're lit, they're not exactly well lit, so there was a slight possibility of heaven forbid, something "bad" happening. But after carefully analyzing why i didnt feel entirely safe walking home, i realized it was more of my fear of a huge bug leaping out and hitting me in the face, than it was some weirdo jumping out of some bushes and mugging me.

* Never have i felt like my roof is about to fly off. That is, until i started living here. The winds have been so strong that as i lay in bed (err, futon) trying to fall back asleep, all i can think about is the movie Twister, half expecting my roof to rip apart from the rest of the house, or my windows to suddenly shatter, sending thousands upon thousands of shards of glass flying into my bedroom. Yeah, the bad ideas that Hollywood implants into my brain.

* I always find it fascinating who thinks I can and can't speak Japanese based off of what little information they have regarding me. This is going to sound weird, but bear with me. If i were white or black, i'm pretty sure everyone would assume that I can't speak Japanese, right? But since i'm asian (and according to everyone -- i look japanese), when they hear that I'm from America, it's interesting to see who assumes I'm fluent in Japanese and who assumes i dont even know how to say hello. You know when people think you dont know what they're talking about and they'll talk really quickly in a hushed voice to someone else? Yeah, i've had some weird moments like that. The other day, i was so fed up with finding roach poop everywhere that I called up Patrick, the American who loves Tsushima so much that he's been living here for 13 years now, and asked him to take me shopping for plastic boxes to store my food. We drove about 20 minutes away to the best household goods store around. After visiting several stores, we ended up going back to that store again so i could buy more boxes. Both times when i was checking out, the same guy was at the cash register. Now, living in Tsushima for 13 years, Patrick tends to know a lot of people who were formerly his students. The cash register guy was no exception. When i bought my second round of stuff, the guy at the register looked up at Patrick who was standing about 5 feet behind me, and asked him in Japanese, "Deeto desuka?" which means, "Is she your date?" To not make the register guy feel embarassed, i withheld from laughing out loud, and just looked back at Patrick, who was laughing and shaking his head. Patrick later explained, "He probably thought you were my friend from home and hence didn't know Japanese..." Yeah, i sort of figured that too. There have been a few other "you wouldn't have said that while i was standing RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU if you knew i could actually understand what you were saying" moments, but as I dont know for sure i heard them correctly, I wont repeat them here.

Tomorrow I'm headed for Nagasaki for Prefectural Orientation. Sounds incredibly boring, but hey, it's a free trip to Nagasaki and I get to see people I haven't seen since Tokyo Orientation =) Tragically, i'll have to come back Tuesday night, but I'm not complaining. I haven't really been doing much to earn my pay (monday is payday. yay!). Wednesday I'll start meeting the teachers i'll be working with, so that'll be exciting. I hope they like having ALTs... it'd be very sad if they dont want me there (which i'm half expecting because many japanese English teachers don't like their authority taken away, etc.). Well, I'll let you know what happens :)

--Evelyn

New cellphone!

I finally got a cellphone! woohoo! among multiple obstacles in my way from getting a cellphone, i finally got my gaijin card (alien registration card) today, which inspired my boss to call me at 12 today and ask me to go into work at 1. s'll good though; i haven't been doing any real work. plus, i got my card AND managed to get my cellphone all in one day. excellent!

For those of you in Japan and ever feel moved to text or call me, here's my info:
Cellphone #: 080-1766-2278
Cellphone email address: ebechan.tsushima@docomo.ne.jp
Home phone: 0920-52-0137

And unlike my prepaid phone from last year, it looks like i'll be able to receive messages from gmail. sweet! So i'm super in love with my phone because i dished out quite a bit of money to get it, but i think it's worth it to be able to return home with a phone that america probably won't see for another 5 years. Look how pretty it is here! =)

My poor boss... He's had to fill out so many applications for me that by now, he's memorized my birthday and home phone haha. We were going to open up a bank account for me this afternoon since i had my gaijin card, but alas, it being japan and rural japan for that matter, the bank had already closed (dude -- banks close everyday at 3pm. 3!! wth?!). when we talked to the bank though, they handed him a flyer that said the exceptions to making a password for withdrawing money out of the atm. it said basically no using my home address, birthday, etc. But, as my boss can't speak English for the life of him (the only english i've heard out of him has been "Thank you," but even then, it was more like "san-kyuu"), he was trying to explain this as simply as possible in japanese. So, he said, "These are numbers you can't use. For example, you can't use 1117 because that's your birthday." When he said that, i tried so hard not to laugh. I can only imagine all the bs paperwork he's had to fill out for me.

Looks like from tomorrow on out i'll begin doing real work. i have to go in early to meet 13 principals out of the 15 schools i'll be working at. *yikes* looks like i'll be getting up early to practice my self-introduction. always a fun time practicing groveling! ;D

Oyasumi!

--Evelyn

Week 1 Pictures

At the airport with my folks


Okonomiyaki dinner with Ben-kun and Kevin-kun from Japanese class in Roppongi


The last time i'm seeing Chris for a while (*hand stretched out* "Nacchan!!")


The welcoming committee at Tsushima Airport: Hosa from my Board of Education, my superivsor (Matsushima-san), me, Alicia, some guy from Alicia's BOE (?), and Alicia's supervisor (Sago-san, who i think looks like a japanese Dustin Hoffman...)


One of the many cockroaches that chose the wrong house to invade


The first Tsushima ALT get-together: me, Sylvia (Canadian and 2nd year), Aaron (2nd year), Oliver (from Ireland and a 1st year), Alicia (1st year), David (1st year), Patrick (former ALT but loved Tsushima so much that he came back and is now in his 13th year here teaching privately), and Rob (1st year). All 5 of us newbies are in this picture, but there's 2 other 2nd years who didn't make it to this event.


From one of the lookout points in Izuhara...




A statue in Ayumadoshi in Izuhara


When i find out what this is and where i was, i'll write it down here. Pretty though, no? ;D

My first week in Tsushima

So today marks a historical moment for me: the end of my first whole week in Tsushima, Japan, my new home for the next year. So much has happened already that i dont know where to begin, but a brief summary of what i've been doing: meeting a lot of important people like the mayor, slowly breaking in my boss to my eccentric personality (i'm determined to make him laugh; my boss last year was very traditional and very down to business, but i'm determined this year for my boss to see ME and my personality. i dont want to be like the typical obedient peon, yanno? well, if you've worked in japan before, you know what i'm talking about), walking around town (which i'm living in the middle of), lots of joyriding up north to other towns (mine town, Izuhara, is furthest south, but has the most stuff to do of the six towns in my city), sea-kayaking, meeting other JETs and one former JET who lives here permanently, cleaning my house like CRAZY, sweating bullets day in and day out, and killing giant cockroaches.

To say the least, life here is completely different from everything i've ever known. trees and forests everywhere, not many people crowding the streets, super super narrow one-lane seeming streets that are two-way and have "enough room" for pedestrians, cicadas chirping alllll day long, the most ginormous bugs i've seen in my life, but all in all, a very peaceful life that's down to basics, yet still has luxury, that i've never really experienced before. this year will definitely be a learning year for me, and i think it's going to be a lot, a lot of fun.

2 things so far that i'm sure of: 1) my fan is my new best friend. It's way too damn hot and unbearable without it going all day downstairs where my kitchen and "dining room" are. And 2) cockroaches are the bain of my existence. To elaborate why...

Random Story #1
On the day that i arrived in Tsushima, my supervisor and his superior picked me up from the airport and took me straight to my new house. At first look around, i thought, "Dude, my place rocks." That night, my boss's superior, a lady from my office, and my predecessor's good friend took me out to dinner nearby my house. By the time i got back, it was about 9:30, and i had yet to open a single bag to unpack. deciding that i would take a shower and worry about unpacking in the mornig, i went downstairs to where my kitchen, bathroom, shower, and dining room are. as i approached my bags sitting in the dining room, i noticed a black spot on the wall that wasn't there when i got home. upon intense staring from across the room, i realized it was none other than a gigantic cockroach. EWWW!!! I seriously stood there, frozen, for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do next. As i stood there and debated with myself, i decided to go on with the shower and kill that cockroach in the morning. But, as i stood there, i shifted my eyes towards my shower room, and on the inside wall, there was yet another cockroach. In horror, i realized that i couldn't get away with not doing something about the cockroaches. but as i agonized on how to kill those 2 cockroaches, i realized that there was yet another one on the door jamb to the shower. Yikes, right?
Still thinking i could deal with them in the morning, i finally stepped forward towards my bag to get my clothes, and as i stepped forward, the 3 cockroaches i had spotted suddenly scattered, and 2 more ran out from underneath the bag i was reaching for. That being the last straw, i went next door to my landlord's/neighbor's house and knocked on their door. Luckily, the wife was still awake, so she came over with a fly swatter, and helped me kill 12 cockroaches as all i could do was helplessly point at where i found a cockroach. After she left, i still had to shower (did i mention it was ridiculously humid that day? well, it was). In my shower room, though, there's a removable bathtub that takes up half of the room. Not feeling comfortable going in until every last cockroach was out of there, i hosed water around the tub for a good 30 minutes, and in the process, 3 more cockroaches floated out from underneath. So in the end, on my first night in Tsushima, my neighbor and i together killed 15 cockroaches. Did i also mention that i'd never seen a cockroach in my life until that night?...

For the most part recovered from that experience, I've since found different ways of battling the insects invading my home. The cockroach problem still stands, i had an ant problem for a day, and mosquitoes still tend to prefer my left leg. To battle the cockroaches, i've now invested in 3 techniques: 1) roach motels, 2) poison traps (i dont know what the real name is, but it has this goop that attracts the roach, the roach eats a little, and later hopefully infects its friends), and 3) lining all the major gaps on my staircase with baking powder (it theoretically expands in the roaches' stomach, causing it eventually to explode). I know i sound evil, but it's either me or them =(

And did i mention the gigantic creatures that live here? my biggest challenge so far that has kept me from totally falling in love with my new home, are the gigantic bugs that live here. seriously. THE. MOST. GIGANTIC. BUGS. OF. MY. LIFE. i can't begin to describe to you how much island bugs are changing my view of living in californian suburbia. we really dont know anything about bugs there. i scream over the occasional spider or two, but the bugs here seriously make my skin crawl. one day i was talking to my neighbors (who own a bakery that's 10 steps outside my front door, and are super duper nice), when i saw this black thing swoop down and fly by. i thought it was a black bird at first, but when i thought about it, i was like, wait a sec -- the wings look funny and it's got this random yellow color in its midsection. and after staring at it for a second, i realize, "holy crap -- it's a gigantic butterfly!!!" seriously, this thing with its wings spread out was one and a half times the size of my hand. and the cockroaches of course. never saw a cockroach in my LIFE before i got here. gokiburi, japanese for "cockroach," was sadly the first word i learned on the island. and the hawks. i have yet to see one up close, but from what my friends tell me, their wingspan is greater than mine. then theres the geckos i see climbing my windows every night, the scary centipedes that bite and WILL send you to the hospital for a visit, the mosquitoes which live about a foot from my front door, the run of the mill spiders, noisy cicadas, giant beetles, and rumored gigantic, and i mean gigantic, spiders that live outside david's (another ALT that lives in my town) apartment. my goal for this first month is to learn to make peace with insects and the like. if i plan on surviving here, i have to learn to deal with them, and not scream everytime i see one or one flies in my face (which they have). i think once i get over this paralyzing fear (seriously, PARALYZING) of giant insects, i think my home will finally feel safe, and only then can i really enjoy living on what is a truly beautiful island that has already taught me the value of preserving nature.

I can already see myself going sea-kayaking often. I went with 2 fellow ALTs and one of their brother's on Sunday to Aso Bay where there's a bunch of tiny islands between the main southern and northern islands that make up Tsushima. Many are too small to be inhabited, but since there's a ton of small islands, sea-kayaking really is a treat because you see a totally different side of Tsushima. I know many people have laughed at me for never feeling warm sea water before as northern california water is COLD and the 2 times i went to San Diego to swim the water wasn't exactly the greatest thing ever. But the water here.... soooo gorgeous. Kayaking in the bay was the first time feeling PERFECT temperature water (it's been super humid, and the cool water felt soooo awesome). Plus, the water was realllly clear. I could see straight to the bottom in many places. And i dont know if you remember my mentioning this before, but Tsushima is 89% forests and mountains. And no doubt, it is. You really see it come out from the water. Tsushima is truly beautiful, and i'm not just saying that because i'm stuck here for a year. This place is truly remarkable, and I can't wait to explore more.

One more thing i have to mention before i forget...

Random Story #2
So from Tokyo Orientation, i had to fly into Nagasaki Airport, and from there, i had to fly to Tsushima. Since Tsushima's airport is pretty small, there are only so many flights a day from and to Tsushima. All the Nagasaki Prefecture bound JETs had to fly into Nagasaki together, so Alicia (fellow Stanford grad AND Tsushima ALT) and I had to wait about 3 hours until our flight out of Nagasaki. Her supervisor met us at Nagasaki and later escorted us to Tsushima (where i met my supervisor). Since we had so much time to kill and it was only noon when we flew into Nagasaki, her supervisor (who looks like a Japanese Dustin Hoffman may I add) took us out to a sushi lunch. After lunch, we still had 2 hours to kill, so we started to look around at the various gift shops in the airport. While we were looking around, Alicia's supervisor comes up to us and says, "Would you like to see Koizumi?" Koizumi being the prime minister of Japan. When we heard that, we thought, he must mean on tv or something because he was pointing behind him. But then he said, "Ima was imasu" which means "He's here," but he said it so calmly that it took a moment for us to register it. I asked him, "What?! he's here?? NOW??" and he nodded. As i looked around, there were indeed, men with ear pieces talking into the mics not hidden in their suits, and there was definitely a crowd gathering. As i was trying to take out my camera dug deep in my backpack, Koizumi emerged. What are the chances of seeing the freaking Japanese prime minister?? Unfortunately, i dont have picture proof that i saw him, but i assure you, if you ask Alicia, she'll tell you she saw him too.

And with that, i'm going to start making dinner now. Ja ne!

--Evelyn

btw, it rocks to blend in ;D

How Japan puzzles me

After living in Japan for 5 months, you'd think that I've witnessed a lot of random stuff there, and that there wasn't much left that could surprise me. Stuff such as never passing stuff from person to person via chopsticks because that's what you do with a dead person's bones; not licking off the single grain of rice stuck to the side of your chopsticks because that's improper; being sure to turn your shoes around when you take them off when you visit someone's home; saying random phrases in specific situations, etc. Like i said, really random stuff. Perhaps the culmination of all weird stuff i saw in Japan was during my final week there, where I was in Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture, where the few of us doing research there decided to visit a local arcade (because it was one of the only places in that rural town open past 4pm), and saw this:

That would be Jeff fishing for a giant shrimp at only 100 yen a play! Complete with preparation directions above the tank

Giant shrimp aside, there were other things that i observed and heard that I found counter-intuitive.
- My host mom asked me on my first day staying with them to avoid using the AC unless absolutely necessary because electricity expensive. Reasonable enough, right? I found it odd, however, that she'd be willing to dish out the extra money to keep two toilet seats in the house warmed 24/7. Maybe you're the type of person that doesn't like sitting on cold toilet seats, but personally, i find sitting on warm toilet seats reminiscent of the thought of, "Eww.. someone was just here..."
- As a soon to be Assistant Language Teacher in Japan, according to many orientations and emails from my predecessor, it is unacceptable to wear jeans to work. However, teachers often will dress nicely to work, then change once at school into track suits and wear them the whole day. Track suits! How are track suits more professional than jeans?!
- Women would rather buy cute high-heeled shoes that absolutely kill their feet, rather than flat, comfortable, non-attractive shoes. Whatever happened to health first?
- Most stores only sell women's shoes from size 22 to 24.5, which roughly translated i think, are sizes 5 - 8ish. So if you're one of the unfortunate souls whose shoe size is a 8.5 in America, you're not going to easily find shoes that are size 25 or higher without a hefty price, as only large department stores only carry those sizes at $100 or more (trust me, i've looked...@_@). Is Japan not aware that not every woman living in Japan is the size of a 12-year-old? There were definitely people I saw there who were taller than me who would need shoes larger than 25. Oh, and get this: sizes 25 and over are considered "Model sizes." What a laugh. I guess that means either 1) most models have big feet, and hence are probably taller, which according to the Japanese shoe system, makes about 2% of the population even eligible to be a model, or 2) I should be a model in Japan!

As if all that and other stuff in between wasn't odd enough, I was flipping through my JET Handbook today when i found more shocking stuff. Like what, you say? Like...
- "The place of honor in a car is the seat directly behind the driver. In the elevator, the rear left corner of the elevator (when looking in the elevator)."
- Regarding funerals: "At the wake, if there is a reception desk, offer your condolence gift consisting of cash in a special envelope or place it in the enamel tray next to the register and sign in. For funerals, giving old notes is symbolic of being caught unprepared for an untimely death."
- Regarding births (which i didn't know even though my host sister had a baby while i was in Kyoto): "Gift-Giving Tradition: Gifts (clothes, toys, cash) given 1-2 weeks after a healthy baby's birth. Gift-Returning Tradition: A simple gift (wooden bowl or cup) with the baby's name on it, or a thank you note. Comments: Make sure the baby has been born healthy before giving a gift." Uhm, what if it's not born healthy? It doesn't deserve presents?? *looking around*...
- Regarding hospital visits: "Gift-Giving Tradition: Cut flowers, books etc. Don't give plants (their roots imply a long hospital stay) or camellias (the way the blossoms drop reminds Japanese people of death)." What?!!

While that's all that i can find for now, I'm sure there'll be even more oddities as i learn my way around the sticks. Stay tuned for more puzzling random customs of the Japanese (^^)v

I'm in the mood to put up wedding pictures!

Morning of the wedding: me on only 4 hours of sleep

My attempt at an artistic photo. In the back: the makeup artist working on my sister's hair

The makeup artist perfecting my sister's makeup

One of my favorite pictures. Earl and my dad, the fathers of the groom and bride, before the festivities begin

The best man, Ford (the groom's nephew), and me, the maid of honor

At the Tea Ceremony: the bride and groom giving relatives tea, and in return, they [usually] receive money or some sort of gift


My dad concentrating much too hard on what i think *should* be the easiest job in the wedding party


So my sister met Loren at her first job out of school at a biotech company called Lynx. While they were working there, they both met Francesca, and since the three of them are good friends, they made her the chaplain at the wedding. You can see her working hard in the picture above =)


Me giving my toast


... followed by my brother giving his

My parents getting a good laugh out of their attempt to dance

The bride and groom, Lana and Loren

Perhaps the best picture I've ever seen of my maternal grandmother

me, my sister, and my mom

If only I could look like this everyday ;D


Before the cake cutting. My sister in her Chinese dress


Seriously, my sister hired the best DJ ever. He played music that everyone would know, and was smart enough to lure everyone onto the dance floor by starting out with some 70s music (ie. Bee Gees - Saturday Night Fever), and just played some really fun, non-annoying songs. Here we are dancing the night away following the reception (getting jiggy to the YMCA). I dont know if you can tell, but I have this huge look of satisfaction on my face. Could be from the quality music the DJ was playing. Most likely it was from the thought that we successfully married my sister to a really great guy *sniffle*

Sweet Victory

After what's felt like an eternity, I've finally done it. I've finally managed to convince my sister to move her clothes out of the closet in my room. Victory!

Since I was about 5, I've shared a room with my sister in my San Bruno home. Needless to say, two girls can acquire a lot of stuff over the course of 18 years. Now, she lived in that room by herself when we first moved in, so she's had a longer claim to the room than I. Plus the fact that we're 8 years apart, she had more personal possessions and clothing than I when i was 5. Long story short, the closet in our room has always been "her closet."

I think back in November of 2003, she moved to San Jose with her fiancee at the time. She and Loren have been living there ever since, slowly acquiring furniture and all the necessities of a real home. Even though they have a 3 bedroom home and each of them have their own storage bedrooms complete with closets in each to store all their junk, my sister has not moved the other third of her wardrobe out of the closet in my room. That is, until this past Sunday.

Since moving in back home after graduation, i've been struggling to figure out where to put all my clothes. A few years ago, my parents bought a wardrobe for all of my stuff since my sister left no room for me in the closet. When i took a look at my wardrobe upon moving back home, it was stuffed with my dad's shirts. Fine, i'll put my stuff in my sister's closet. Right? Wrong. That was stuffed with my brother's clothing. An hour later, I shifted everyone's clothing to their own closets to make room for my own. However, since i lack drawers, i sadly still haven't emptied out my giant garbage bags full of my clothing. In a conversation with Jonny last night:

Me: Sadly, I still have all my clothes in the blue garbage bags. And it's not even the light blue bags. It's those bright blue bags that make it obvious when you pass by my room that "hey, she's got garbage bags in her room."
Jonny: Wait, what about your laundry?
Me: What?
Jonny: What do you do about your freshly washed laundry? Do you fold them up and put them back in the garbage bags?
Me: *sigh* Yeah.

Anyway, on Sunday, my sister came home for dinner, and afterwards, i marched her over to our closet, presented her with two bags (one for her, one for charity), and asked her to empty out her clothing. She was actually really cooperative, which is surprising considering she had said an hour earlier that she was leaving. "If you're so willing to do this now, why didn't you move your clothes out earlier?" To which she replied, "Because mom didn't want me to." Regardless, she got out the majority of her clothes, but still has a few piles to go.

The next day, i was eating dinner with my family when I realized something, which i promptly told my dad: "It's taken her 9 months to finally do as I asked her on her wedding day," in reference to my toast at her wedding back in October. I thought it was amusing, but my parents didn't seem as excited about her moving out the last of her clothes from my room. At which point, my dad said, "You know, it's sometimes a good thing to leave some clothes back at home in case she ever decides to come back."

"Uhm, she's been moved out for 3 years now. Don't you think she's decided by now that she likes Loren enough to spend the rest of her life with him?"

"Well, to her, leaving her clothes here could be a sign of ties back to here. If she moves all her stuff out, it's as though she's breaking all her ties with her family, which we don't want."

"But knowing her, leaving clothing at home isn't because she wants to maintain ties at home. It's because she's too lazy to fill up her own home with junk."

I do have to admit though, my dad brought up a good point. Does leaving our junk at home secretly mean for us that we belong there? That home is where our stuff is? Is it an excuse to go home every now and then? To retrieve this and that? As much as our parents complain and nag us to clean up or throw out our stuff, do they deep down want our stuff there to reassure them that we remember them? Is it mutually welcomed bait for us to go home? Would our parents feel abandoned or forgotten if we moved all of our stuff out of their house? Think about it. Feel free to comment on it -- I'd be interested to hear/read your thoughts.

Finally, in reference to my wedding toast earlier, I'm attaching it below because I'm so dang proud of it. I practiced that thing for countless hours, executed it perfectly, and to this day, can still say the whole thing word for word (yes, i know i'm a nerd). Enjoy!

My sister (the bride), and me, the maid of honor (and only bridesmaid)

"Hello everyone and thank you for coming today. My name is Evelyn and I’m Lana’s little sister. Coming from a family of only three kids, two of which are girls, in a 3 bedroom home, naturally, the daughters will share a room. Soo, Lana was my first and longest running roommate. Now, since there’s an 8-year difference between us, we were always experiencing different things at different times. For example, I’d want to play Monopoly or UNO, and she’d just want to finish her Physics homework.

But despite all that, we both grew up. I went to high school, she graduated from college and started a new job. I was learning Algebra, and she was getting to know who would become the fine gentleman sitting next to her today.

I can’t quite remember my first occasion meeting Loren, but I do remember my first impression: “Wow. He loves Biology.” But joking aside, over the past few years, I’ve come to see what a good match they make. And after living with them every other day last summer, I’ve also seen the cozy home they’ve made for themselves, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

So, to Loren: Welcome officially to the family!

And to Day-Day: From the days of “Evelyn, get me my slippers,” to “Evelyn, let’s go shopping!” to “Evelyn, you want to be my bridesmaid,” thank you for being my first best friend, and for always watching over and taking care of me. Now please move your stuff out of my closet☺

To a long, happy, fruitful marriage! Cheers!"

My Big Backyard

Yesterday, for the first time since i've graduated, i actually extended the effort to exercise. Yay me! I decided to run around my neighborhood, quickly forgetting that i live on the only flat road in my suburban paradise. everywhere surrounding me are hills, and lucky for me, to get anywhere away from my house, that means travelling up steep inclines first. I ended up getting winded on steep hill #2 as usual. Someday, i'm going to conquer that hill. I really will. Perhaps when i'm in shape.*sigh* after getting past consecutive steep hill #3, i finally arrived at my old Chinese school, which faces a former high school in my district, but for as long as i can remember, has not been used. It would have been perfect though, as getting up there is only a 10 minute walk. When i was little, i'd often bike up there with my brother, and together, we'd circle the school for a while. He, trying to be the cool guy he thought he was, would try making me race him down very long straight lanes in the back of the school, attempting to simulate a drag race he wasn't old enough (or dumb enough) to participate in, as he didn't have a driver's license at the time.

It wasn't until I got up to the school that i realized how long it really had been since i had walked around that area. I stopped going to Chinese school sophomore year of high school, but on occasion will run past it. But this abandoned high school... I think the last time i stepped foot on the campus was at least middle school if not even before that. I realized how similar its construction was to my high school, and couldn't help but wonder how many people in my area still remember what it was like to go to school there.. have it as their home for the 4 years before their cliques broke up as they each parted ways to pursue higher education or otherwise. It was kinda deja vu-ish. It had the familiarity of home even without my ever truly entering it. Odd.

After my run, i made my way back home, but this time different from all my other runs in the past. I actually slowly made my way home, carefully looking at each of the homes on my block for the first time since high school. Even though i went home every now and then while i was in college, i never really appreciated my neighbors' homes. Had i taken a look sooner, i would have seen how different the face of my street is from the days of my childhood. My first best friend was named Renee, and she and her family lived at the end of my block (my house is pretty much in the middle of the block). I played at her house countless times during my childhood, and most of my fond memories of my street surround playing with her and her sister. However, she and her family moved away just after 4th grade, and with her departure, my frequency of playing outside and visiting her end of the street. Since then, the new family that lives in her home has repainted the outside of the house, planted new trees, replaced the shutters, and countless other things that just make the house look different than it used to. It's no longer reminiscent of the peeling off-white paint it once had on its walls.

As i progressed closer to my home, i looked at the other houses. Across the street from Renee's house was the policeman's home. he has 3 kids and i can't even keep track of how old they are now. his youngest was probably 4+ years younger than me, but at any rate, they've completely painted their house too. and the house next door to them. and the house next door to that, where one of my classmates from elementary school used to live. i'm not sure if he's still living there, but when my family moved in back in '88, his family was already there. the house across the street from them also was repainted a few years back, and yet another one of my classmates lives there (yeah, 3 of us in the same year within a 4 house radius from one another. go figure).

As i kept walking down the street, i noticed really drastic changes from the image i still have from my childhood. cars parked in front of homes, house trims, house colors, shrubbery, floral colors... so many things have changed, yet i've never really let myself take it in.

As if this rude awakening wasn't enough, once i got home, i was still pretty hot from my run, so i decided to walk around my backyard for a bit to cool down. goodness -- even my backyard has changed without me knowing. when i was still little (sizewise), i would bike around on my [at the time] kickass purple bike. and really, i'd do it for hours. i just remember the backyard being juuuust big enough for me to be able to keep up my momentum. Now, i'd say on average over the last 8 years, i've probably stepped outside onto my backyard about twice a year. and that's being generous. i generally never go out the backyard, because there's really nothing out there for me to do. there's a lot of dead grass, funny looking fruit trees, dirt, and squirrels; and that's about it. mostly the only reason why i'll go out there is for a bbq when my dad fires up his grill once or twice a year.

I walked around the corner of the house to where my bedroom window faces the backyard. And for the first time, i noticed that the huge shrub that would always grow so tall that my dad would have to keep trimming it because we'd be unable to see outside my window without the shrub obstructing the view, was cut down pretty far. in fact, i wouldn't really call it a bush or shrub anymore. maybe a stick and a couple of leaves is more appropriate. I hadn't really thought about how much that bush/shrub reminded me of when i was little and my sister still hadn't started college yet. she'd make a point of opening the drapes each day so we'd have natural sunlight in the room, but we'd always see the shrub peeking into our room. now the shrub is no more and my sister in my room is no more. oh how time flies.

despite all this nostalgia running through my head, the biggest surprise came last. As i headed out of my backyard, i saw a cluster of 3 plums sitting on top of the dirt at the bottom of the steps of our raised garden area. And then it hit me. Why it was i loved summer so much when i was younger. The plum tree. I loved that plum tree. Every summer, it have bountiful fruits just dropping everywhere. and then there were the times that my dad and i would use his homemade plum-picker to get the ripe looking plums higher up on the tree. That tree was enormous. it was so big that a good portion of it would umbrella over our neighbor's yard, so every summer, they'd be eating our plums too. We had so many plums that the moment we picked them, we'd have to put them in bags and give them away to neighbors, family, friends, etc. Those were truly glorious summers. There'd be this rotating pattern of tons of plums, many but not as many plums the next year.. my brother and i would try to predict how many plums there'd be that year relative to the year before... And speaking of my brother, that reminds me of plum pits. you know, the huge seed in the middle. So birds were always the enemy. The goal was always to get to the good fruit higher up in the tree before the birds could, because birds would peck at the best fruit once or twice, then abandon that plum and start pecking at another one. So by the end of the week, there'd be this huge collection of shiny, ripe fruit on the floor of the tree... but when you turned it around, there'd be a huge hole from where the birds would have pecked at them. darn those birds. anyway, a lot of times, the pits would fall down too if the fruit never reached full term, so my bro, in attempt to be athletic and abuse his big brother powers, would make me pitch plum pits to him as he used his favorite stick as a bat (probably a good 3 feet long) to try to hit the pits over our fence and onto the hill that lies beyond my backyard. Ah yes. Those were the days. But what happened to the plums? A few years ago, my dad had to cut down a part of it because the tree was dying/dead. Now only about half of what i remember that tree being remains. There are still some fruits, but we're lucky to get very many that birds haven't claimed for themselves first. I actually walked up to where the tree stands, and for the first time since at least middle school, i took a good look at the tree's branches. whereas ten years ago i was plotting a way to somehow climb onto the branches so i could sit there and read (it always a little bit too high for me to attempt to climb), today, the branches are covered in moss. many of the branches come to a sudden stop where my dad had the tree cut. there aren't nearly as many plums littering the tree floor anymore. And then something else struck me. There was this feeling of openness in the backyard that i never felt before. That's when i realized that it was due to the neighboring tree being completely gone. You see, back when i still played in the backyard, all the trees were big and dominating, and my parents had such an extensive garden that there were trees and plants were forming elegant and colorful walls everywhere you turned. however, i dont think el nino treated our backyard well at all, and life in the back of the house has never been the same since. between the missing tree, a large portion of the plum tree gone, and the shrub outside my window diminished to hobbit size, there's a feeling of a lot more open space... the sky is more visible.... but consequently, the backyard feels more desolate and less thriving with life.

And as i sit here in retrospect, i see now what people mean by our childhoods flying by. Sadly, i'm slowly seeing how growing up means going out into the unknown and unexpected. As much as i want them to, things wont stay the same forever. People will come and go from my life. Neighbors will move out and new ones will move in. Others around us will seemingly grow older, only for us to slowly come to terms with the fact that we ourselves are growing older too. My days of running around on Renee's front lawn with her and her little sister in our bathing suits through the sprinklers are past. I won't ride my bike up and down the street with Lisa from up the street anymore. Days of my father asking me, "which one should i pick?" and me pointing at the ripest plum i see and him getting them down for me because i was too short and too small to handle the plum-picker have past. Houses have lost their old coats and donned new ones, while i still have yet to shed my old skin. i still wander around believing that time hasn't passed at all. But alas, my time has come. I have no more school to use as an excuse to delay adulthood. I'm stuck on a never-ending conveyor belt that doesn't let me walk backwards, shuttling me onto the next phase of my life already when again, i haven't acknowledged much less accepted the fact that the past can't be relived. Despite the fact that i'm sad that my youth has come to an end, i know i have a lot to look forward to. Life doesn't just freeze frame. That's why we have to keep moving, and with it, keep up our optimism that there is something more exciting up ahead. Even though we should look ahead, i also believe that we should cherish memories that mean a lot to us. What we love, after all, is what makes us all unique and who we are. Even though now, when i stand next to my plum tree, it seems a lot smaller than i ever remember it being, and the rest of my backyard seems to be smaller as well, the image i'll recall in my mind will be the backyard that made me happy. My big backyard of my childhood.