TGIF

My school week is basically over, and I'm glad. My classes fizzled out as the week went on and the last one left me seriously frustrated! But I will trudge on...only two more weeks of lessons, the final test and then a big break in December from teaching. That sounds like seriously no work at all! 12 lessons is all I have til the end of December. Wow...way to use that teaching degree Ashley! Although there's not a lot happening on the teaching front, I did get a request today to help a senior student every day for a half hour - do you have any idea how amazing that sounds to me?! A half hour every day is a lot of work for me, and it's still not very much haha. But she has to pass an interview type test to get into college, and since she's going to be an English teacher, a few of the questions will be in English. So she has enlisted my help every day for a month before the test - even though there will probably only be 1 or 2 questions in English!! I am really looking forward to it; I love working with students one-on-one.

Tomorrow I am traveling to Shizuoka City for my first committee meeting for It Takes Two. It Takes Two is a prefectural publication that has lesson plans and ideas for the Shizuoka ALT's that comes out each year. I was chosen for the committee to put this years together, so I guess I'm sorta unofficially publishing something! Pretty small scale, but still pretty cool considering it will be passed down from ALT to ALT and so many people will use it. They will never look at my name on the back cover I am sure, but they will use the book :) I have copies dating back to the nineties that I still use pretty frequently at work. Really, the committee gets me outta school for 3 days with a paid business trip to the city (aka civilization!), it looks good on the resume, and let's face it, I could use more work to do on a daily basis, especially come December when I'm done with lessons and still have to go to school everyday!

I don't want to tell you about the whole weekend before it happens, and frankly I should be packing for the weekend right now haha. But, I'm going out for a friend's birthday, test-driving a car (!!!!!!!!!!!) and doing a homestay with a Japanese family...back to the daily grind on Monday!

Good Day

Today was a good day. I got to teach this week for the first time in 2 weeks and I rocked my lessons. I may just have found a rhythm that satisfies my co-teachers and satisfies what I'm going for too. Just the right amount of fun and learning. So excited. Hopefully tomorrow will go well cuz I teach with two other teachers tomorrow, and lessons tend to go differently with different co-teachers. We shall see.

In addition to classes going well - I had two invites from teachers - one to go play soccer with the teachers (which I unfortunately had to decline! :( I already had plans tonight) and one to go out drinking with a few of the teachers. Hopefully that will happen, just because it's really helpful to socialize with the teachers outside of school here. They spend so much time working, that it's rare they take time out for themselves and they live completely different lives in public than in private. Either way, the invites make me feel good about the relationships I'm building at school. I'm thinking of inviting a few teachers over for dinner some night. They don't really have Mexican food here, so I might try to cook them something Mexican, just for fun. Don't worry though, it won't be too spicy, the Japanese couldn't handle it ;)

I also got together with my "culture exchange" partner tonight. It's so nice to get out and socialize on a weekday, especially with Japanese people. Afterall, I am living in Japan and feel like I don't get enough interaction with Japanese people outside of work. His girlfriend wants to meet me, so I am hoping that him and some of his friends including her can go out sometime on a weekend or something. It would be really fun.

To add to the good day, tonight I found out that I was selected to go on the volunteer trip to Thailand!! So as long as I can get the vacation time from work (which really shouldn't be a problem), I'm going! I'm super pumped and know it's going to be an amazing experience!

And last but not least, I got to talk to my parents and Nicole tonight. It seemed like forever since I got to talk to my Nic, our schedules have been clashing a lot lately! Happy Birthday to my parents - hope you guys find time to celebrate this week! Love you all lots!

Hiroshima Adventure

Sorry for the delay in posting, it’s been a pretty filled up week – really filled up and seeping out the cracks busy! This past weekend was a long weekend, so I travelled to the Hiroshima area.

Saturday I spent the day in Hiroshima. We lingered around the A-bomb dome, went to Peace Memorial Park, and spent a few hours in the museum. I’m really not a museum person, but this one was incredibly interesting. I also don’t know a lot about history, so a lot of things I was reading about were all new information. It was an incredibly intense experience – really sad to see and think that the effects of the bomb that we dropped are still affecting victims today. I really can’t say a whole lot else about the day in Hiroshima, you’ll have to look at the pictures and check out my explanations there – it will give you a much better idea of what it’s like there. Pictures highly recommended! That night we ventured out to Saijo, a nearby city for Sake Matsuri, a huge annual sake festival. It had been going on since 11 in the morning, so when we got there, the train station was surrounded by staggering old drunk Japanese men! The festival was a good time, and I had the opportunity to meet some new people and see Paul, one of my coworkers from UMM info desk!

Sunday we had a slow start in heading off to Miyajima to see the floating torii and shrine. The island is covered in deer that come right up to tourists – kinda crazy! The torii and shrine weren’t actually floating when we were there unfortunately, because the water only reaches that far during high tide early in the morning and in the evening. SO, I guess we’ll just have to go back some time when we have more time. :) We took a cable car up Mt. Misen to get a great view of the water and nearby small islands. We all agreed it was a place we’d like to return when we have more time. Maybe hike up and down the mountain next time. Oh yeah…at the top of the mountain there were monkeys just running around freely. So many animals!

That night we headed out to Kasaoka to stay with Molly, another one of my former UMM info desk coworkers. What a Minnesota reunion it was this weekend! We went to her town’s festival, where the men carry huge portable shrines on their shoulders. They weigh over a ton, some up to a ton and a half! The men (no women allowed!) carry them around for hours around the streets of the city, singing and taking breaks for beer. At the end, they carry them up a steep stairway to the shrine. I can’t imagine how sore their bodies must be the next day! Molly’s fiancé Bobby joined in on carrying one of the floats and the group he was carrying with gave us their robe/shirts so we could be a part of the festivities. It was great! We were a little exhausted at this point from packing so much in the days before, but it was really fun to see.

Monday was a holiday in Japan, Health and Sports Day, obviously worthy of missing a day of school for students and teachers alike. We headed off to Okayama with Molly to Korakuen, one of the top three gardens in Japan. It was amazingly relaxing and we saw a bride strolling in the park on her wedding day. Gorgeous! Our stroll in the park was followed by lunch at an organic restaurant with real wheat bread, salmon, cream cheese and tomato. Amazing closure to a great adventure!

This week at school I don’t have classes because it’s midterms. The students left school at noon yesterday, and I’m not sure, they might do the same today. Since I don’t give midterm tests, they don’t keep me all that updated on what’s going on…but I guess tomorrow in the afternoon the whole school gets to go to the theater, so I get to see a play or something in the afternoon. We’ll hope there’s a lot to look at since I won’t understand a word of what they are saying haha. Should be interesting. Tuesday night I had my second adult conversation class which went really well. I feel like I kinda know where I am going with it now and understand what levels the students are at so that I can actually help them learn more English and practice with what they know! The people in the class are super fun, and I’m hoping to make some of them friends!

This weekend is going to be a weekend of RELAXATION. I need a break from the rat race; I feel like I haven’t stopped going for over 2 weeks now, except when I was sick, which obviously wasn’t really all that relaxing either. Thankfully I am doing much better this week! Like I said, looking at the pics and descriptions on my flickr will probably be much better than reading about this trip! Check ‘em out – http://flickr.com/jans0176/sets

Sick Day

I took a sick day from school today in hopes that sleeping would help my body heal itself...it helped...but I'm defintely not completely better. I am going to school tomorrow, which doesn't mean that I will be working haha, but I will be at school drinking green tea and probably blowing my nose 20 times. 20 times is an improvement though for the record.

My first Eikaiwa class (adult conversation) went well. I was glad I had Dion there to help me. He's really outgoing and it was nice to have another native speaker in the class. Even if he makes fun of my name games :D Things went well and hopefully next week more people will come! There are supposed to be 12 in the class, but there were only 7 there last night. I gotta put my thinking cap on for new conversation ideas cuz there are some people who took the class with Audrey last session - so I gotta come up with new ideas and not reuse too many of hers so those people get the benefit of having both of us as teachers.

I'll keep downing OJ and sleeping a lot, so I probably won't be calling any of you anytime soon since that requires staying up too late. So keep me posted through email...hope things are going well!

sniffle sniffle

So as you can see from my post yesterday I am sick. It seems like it came on all of a sudden :( Sunday night I had a sore throat, then I didn’t sleep well at all and woke up with an extremely stuffy nose. I drank 1 1/2 liters of 100% orange juice yesterday and slept from 5 pm to 10 pm then woke up and had some ramen (closest thing I had to soup haha) and more oj and went back to sleep til this morning. I woke up pretty early this morning since I had slept from 5-10 before going to sleep at 11:30, but I actually feel quite awake today. I do not feel any less sick however. Ugh. Maybe I’ll get a sick day outta the deal, but not today because I teach my first Eikaiwa class tonight! I’m looking forward to meeting new people, and hopefully I can put on a Genki face despite the fact that I am sick.

Since asking me to do the class, the community center has since asked another teacher that speaks Japanese to join the first class to make sure things run smoothly. I was taken back at first because they never told me, and if he hadn’t told me I would have shown up to an extra teacher being there. Despite the fact that they sorta went behind my back, it will probably be a good thing to have him there tonight, especially cuz when I had my first meeting with them I got about 3 sentences of information translated to me. But of course it makes me more nervous and makes me feel like I am being “checked up on” and this is only being compounded by the fact that I feel icky and really just want to be in bed until I feel better!



















I did have a good weekend this past weekend. Jenny came to visit me in Friday and we were able to go out in Fuji with a few other English teachers in the area. We got some dinner and socialized for awhile and then Jenny and I headed to the peninsula for Saturday. I got to watch a high school team that were national champions in taiko. I was quite tired from the night before so the beat of the drums was putting me to sleep for awhile, but it was really cool when I was awake enough to appreciate it! Then Saturday night we ate at a Mexican restaurant, which of course, was divine! I think Mexican food is becoming my new comfort food – makes everything in life feel more normal. Sunday we went on a hike along the Nanadaru Waterfalls – a path with seven waterfalls out in the middle of the Izu peninsula near where I live.

This coming weekend is Hiroshima, hopefully I am feeling better by then! I hope things at home are going well and that this post wasn’t too dry toast. Love you all!

SICK!

I woke up this morning officially sick. Then I had to walk to school in downpouring rain.

Kamakura Field Trip

Yesterday I joined the senior students on a field trip to Kamakura. It took about 2 ½ hours to get there and another 2 ½ hours to come home, and we only spent 3 hours there…1 of the hours spent in a restaurant where I paid $20 for a quite small crock of beef stew and two dinner rolls. Crazy! It was a really cool city though, and I would love to go back. The city is called “Little Kyoto” because it has the same cultural feel as Kyoto. It also has Japan’s second largest Buddha. It is made of bronze and weighs 121 tons!! Although it is second in size, it is generally recognized as artistically superior to the larger one in Nara (near Kyoto). Here’s a picture of me with the Big Buddha and one of me with a few teachers and senior students at one of the temples we visited.

Curveball

Life threw me a curveball this week – a curveball pitched from left field to me at home plate. And I was lost. It was the first time since I arrived here that I really wondered if I should be here or not, if I was missing out on too much at home, if I was making the right decision for me and my life and the life of my family and friends. Tonight, I realized that life is probably gonna throw me more and more curveballs as I grow older, and there’s really no way to escape that whether I’m in Japan, the United States, or Yemin. But I have been unbelievably blessed with those I have beside me, those who support me through thick and thin, and those I would not trade for the world. Thanks God.

Drip Drop Diary

As I stated last night I needed to update more frequently, I'm starting immediately :) Today was a Monday - a rainy Monday at that. Luckily it wasn't raining too hard on my way to school, so I didn't have to change clothes when I got there (although I was prepared with them in my backpack!), but coming home was a different story! I was soaked through by the time I reached the top of my hill and tomorrow evening is supposed to bring quote "heavy rains"...so it looks like I will be getting wet again. As soon as I finished arriving at the top of my hill dripping in sweat, I began arriving at the top of my hill just plain dripping! Oh the joys of being a bike owner. Speaking of, I emailed the car dealer today, and he's looking for a car. He said it might be a week or two...we'll hope it's just one week, not two!

I only had one class today - today the students had to take their phy ed test, so classes were switched around, tomorrow the first year students (sophomores) will be gone and Wednesday all the students will be on a field trip. I am joining the seniors on their trip to Kamakura, which has the second largest Buddha in Japan. Hopefully we can see a few things despite the forcast for heavy rain. Either way, with the long bus ride I think we will only spend a few hours actually there anyway.

Tonight I got to meet up with one of my predecessor's friends. He lived in Canada for a little while and traveled and studied in the United States, so he speaks pretty good English. He doesn't have a lot of opportunity to speak it anymore, so we are going to meet once a week just so he can practice his English. As I learn more Japanese, I hope that I will be able to use him as a resource as well to practice my Japanese. It was refreshing to meet someone my own age who is actually Japanese. I love my ALT friends, but I also came to Japan to meet local people and hopefully make Japanese friends, and this is my first hopeful. It's hard to meet people when you don't speak the language, and I'm a little bit of a hermit during the week since I'm so far away from the main part of the city. Again...can't wait for the car!

So that was basically my day - tomorrow I don't have a whole lot to do, hopefully I won't be falling asleep on my desk! It's so hard when it's raining outside the window right by my desk...makes me want to curl up in bed and drift into dreamland. Speaking of, I better do that right now - it's 12:30.

Good Night!

p.s. If you have any questions about Japan or my life here, feel free to leave questions as a comment here, or send me an email and I will answer in my blog!

A weekful of adventures!

This week has been by far my busiest week yet, hence the lack of posts. I really should start posting more frequent shorter posts - sorry for the novels once a week! On Monday night I headed to Fuji with Dion to meet up with Kelly and Kory, two ALTs in the next city. We had a great time over a mini-feast Japanese style. I felt like I had eaten sashimi (raw fish, no rice) non-stop for the weekend cuz I had eaten it at my welcome enkai too. I'm coming around to the whole raw fish thing, Nicole, you would be proud. We also had some other Japanese delights - crab cakes, soy beans, soba and udon, gyoza, and of course in true Japanese fashion, a large beer to wash it all down with. The men at the next table had a mini-keg, we didn't take it quite that far!

Tuesday was Autumnal Equinox Day, so I planned an excursion for the Fuji area ALTs to go hiking. I plan these "excursions" quite blindly, considering I speak nor read Japanese, but I do have a desire to check out things in the area and it's always more fun with others! We ventured to Lake Tanukiko, an artificial lake in Fujinomiya, but still about an hours bus ride. The lake is surrounded my mountains covered in trees with a bunch of hiking trails. We had quite a mixed group and none of us was really up for hardcore hiking, so we just stuck to the pleasant walking trail around the lake. There were fisherman around the perimeter, waiting for a catch that was actually big enough to take home and eat! The lake is famous for having the reflection of Mt. Fuji in it, making a diamond - it was too cloudy for us, but we did get one sneak peak at Fuji-san. On the way back a few of us took a stop off at Shiraito Waterfalls again - my friend Kari had come up from her home on the peninsula and so we wanted to help make it worth her while! It was a beautiful day and the lighting was nice at that time of day. We finished off with some famous Yakisoba in a local restaurant when we arrived back near the station. It was a long day after staying out late the night before in Fuji, but a lot of good conversation and pretty sights.

Wednesday was a hectic day at school, one I'd rather not write about cuz I'd probably just be complaining, and I don't want to do that. So - it was busy and long, but Thursday I got to leave school at 11 AM! It was an amazing day. I needed to go to Shizuoka City (the capital of my prefecture) to get my re-entry permit from the Immigration Office. It took me about an hour and a half to get there, but getting the actual permit only took 5 minutes...so I explored the big city for a little bit! I wandered through stores and did some window shopping, ate at Subway in honor of my years of service there (haha...it was close to the same actually, pretty amazing), and even at Cold Stone Ice Cream - I had no idea there was Cold Stone in any other country, let alone Japan. It wasn't quite the same, but still cool to see familiar places. I also visit the import store and bought some stuff to make Mexican food - Tortillas, enchilada sauce and refried beans. Soooo awesome!

This weekend was also eventful, as I had overnight guests on Friday night (some ALTs from my area) in preparation for White Water Rafting on Saturday! White water rafting was a lot of fun - the rapids in this area really aren't that challenging or scary, but our tour guide was very fun. When we were in the calmer parts of the water we had water wars, flipped the raft and swam around, had battles to see who could stand on the outside edge of the raft the longest while it was spinning around, and jumped off the side of the cliffs into the river. I met a whole bunch of new ALTs that work in my area - I've already met all of the first year ALTs, but this was a great chance to meet a few people who have been here for 2 or 3 years. There were some really fun people and I am so glad that I took this opportunity to try something new! I also met a girl who bought a car from an English-speaking car dealer, so I got his information and am going to be calling tomorrow to get started on finding a used car in my budget! It was an all around awesome day that I wrapped up by making enchiladas. It was the first time I used my small oven, so it was a good adventure that turned out amazing!

Tomorrow it's back to the working world, but it's a mild week for me this week, as it's a week of field trips for the students. I only have to teach two classes and English club and on Wednesday I get to go on the field trip with the seniors to Kamakura, a city not too far from here. I hope we get to see some cool stuff, although I think much of our day will be spent on the bus. I will get to hang out a bit with one of the English teachers that I don't teach with, but really enjoy talking to. I hope it will be a productive day for relationships and fun with some cool sightseeing.