Tis a good day

And it started yesterday evening when I COOKED MY OWN FOOD!

Oooh what now.

I finally decided that enough was enough. I was going to make a meal dangit! One that didn’t involve popping something frozen in the microwave oven and waiting five minutes. So I went to the supermarket and bought things that I have vauge memories of Mom using to make meals that didn’t come out of boxes. (There is a sad lack of box foods such as Craft Mac and Cheese in Japan.) This included items such as a red and yellow pepper, something that I think was garlic, something that I think was an onion, something that I think was small Japanese celery, and carrots. Then I bought some raw slices of thin beef, the sort that they use for yakiniku (like grilled meat), but can also be used in stir fry.

And then I returned home, convinced to make a stirfry esq meal, minus the rice, as I haven’t figured out how to use my rice cooker yet (don’t judge me!) and because I really need to really clean it.

But it wasn’t until I got home that I promptly realized I have no counter space.

Literally. I have no counter space. Here’s pictures of my downstairs to prove it:











((told you the bathroom and the toliet room are in awkward places. And that bathroom is cleaner now, though I think the tub is a lost cause))

I need to buy a little folding table for the kitchen or something, because I got nothing. As it was I have a little cutting board, that I had to put atop the microwave as the only available flat surface in the kitchen.

For the next hour or two, I chopped too many vegetables, and questioned (aloud incase the spiders wanted to listen in) whether or not the vegetables I bought where the vegetables I thoguth they were, how the hell I was supposed to chop them, and why garlic has to have that many layers of natural plastic surrounding it before one gets to the edible portion.

In the end, I dumped a bowl full of sliced up partial-mystery vegetables into my frying pan, added my beef, and slathered on soysauce for good measure. While it didn’t look like much, it actually tasted pretty good and I am quite proud of that feat.

I call my creation “It’s A Mystery To “Me”at”.

…Get it?

….It’s a mystery to me….It’s a mystery to MEAT……

<.< well I found it hilariously witty.

And I even had enough left over to bring in for lunch today, something that impressed all the teachers as I normally order lunch rather than bring my own in.

Anyway the next day as I got to school, I was greeted by a lot more students than I ususal am. Students who were practicing their clubs in the gym and saw me through the window called out to me and waved, students who were in the field doing their sports clubs called out to me and waved, students wandering the halls have been waving at me….And not just the girls either (though they are by far the majority) but even the boys! And not even just at school, when I’m wondering about the town or the island, and I often hear “Robin! Robin-sensei!” and find a kid or three waving frantically from a sidewalk or from the window of a car as it zooms past.

So one of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English), is the coach for the tennis club. I’m not sure if its just my school, or if its like this in all Japanese schools, bu all the teachers here have to be a coach to one of the clubs.

Even if they’ve never done that activity before in their life. My JTE is no exception. Apparently she’s a new teacher at this school (though she’s taught for a long time), and when she came here, she replaced the teacher that used to be the tennis coach. As all the rest of the clubs already had coaches, she had to be the tennis coach, despite the fact that she’s never played tennis before in her life.

Which perhaps explains why the girls in the tennis club didn’t seem fazed when I came to watch them, and told them I’ve never played tennis before. As it was, I only had plans to watch the tennis club practice. I hope to watch each of the clubs at least once to get to know the kids better during a time that’s fun for them, rather than just in a class room setting. But it wasn’t long before one of the second year students came up to me with a racket, and an offer to teach me how to use it.

How could I refuse? Despite that I was in my nice work clothes. I really need to just start bringing a pair of sports clothes to school and keeping it here, so that when I have time to visit a club, I can just change.

Anyway.

Now I don’t know if its from the hours of playing Wii sports, or if it was just from my natural insitict to keep any balls flying at me at whatever speed as far from my person as possible (Thanks to my father and brother for honing that instinct from all the afternoons of tort-I mean baseball and catch back in the day ;) ), but I was whacking those balls! The kids were quite impressed with my skillz, and kept asking if I was sure this was my first time!

…Granted I couldn’t *aim* my ball for beans, but I was hitting them! And hitting them well!

Oh and I should say, that the tennis club is only for girls, and that the baseball club is only for boys. Added to that, in Japan apparently there’s such a thing called “soft tennis”. Soft tennis is sorta like softball, in that its basically the same thing, only with a differnet ball and slightly different game rules. The balls they were using were not tennis balls, but soft rubber balls. I’d never hear of soft tennis before, but its popular in Japan apparently, and most of the schools have a soft tennis club, if not both a soft tennis and a regular tennis club. At my school there’s just a soft tennis club.

Anyway, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, High Fives are god’s gift to the ALT. They had me stand in line with them, while my JTE gently lobbed the balls, the next girl in line would go up, hit two of them, and then get to the back of the line. They’d (we’d) do this for back hand and front handed swings.

First was backhand though, and they showed me how to hold the rachet. Anyway, so I don’t know about anyone else, but when I played sports back in highschool, when we’d do these line up practice thigns, when a person would go to get back in line, the rest of the team would stick out their hands to high five them or whatever as a general “good job” or “don’t worry about it” group togetherness mentality. The sports clubs I’ve seen though, the kids don’t really do this.

But *I* do. And as I’ve said before, giving high fives, especially in different silly fasions, can bring smiles to the kids faces and lets them loosen up a little and have fun with the gaijin sensei.

And these tennis club girls took to high fiving like an obaachan to ninjutsu. It didn’t take long for them to *really* get into it, shouting “YAY” with each high five given or received, high fiving eachother, doing their own versions of high fiving, and rushing up to me to get high fives rather than the other way around. High fives turned what had been shy little junior high students to rambunctious fun loving kids. If I missed a ball or didn’t hit it very well, they’d say “No problem no problem” or “Don’t mind!” in english, before giving me an enthusiastic high five.

*sniffle* I was so proud.

There was one moment of intense confusion on my part, when, after doing the back hand swings for a while, the kids rushed up to me and said what sounded to ME like “Whore! Whore!” Until I realized they were trying to say “Forward” as in forward swing practice was next, and thus set aside my instant urge to monitor their television and reading materials, and/or throttle my predecessor for teaching them such a word.

Though it is definitely an odd experience to have a bunch of little junior high school girls in tennis outfits beaming up at you and calling “whore!” in their sweet little gumdrop voices.

These kids also got comfortable enough with me to call out to me and chat a bit, calling “Robin!” or “Robin-sensei!” or even getting creative and calling “Robbingu!” as in “robbing”.

Don’t ask me how they know the word “robbing”, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a vocabulary word in their text book or something. This is a textbook in which one of the English lessons is entitled (no joke) “Landmines and Children.”

…wtf mate.

ANYWAY lol the principal of my school also kept coming out to help coach the tennis club. My JTE told me that he used to play a long time ago (he’s a little old and pudgy now, but a nice guy!), and he often goes out to help out with the more coach aspects of life, since my JTE is just leaning the game herself. He’s actually really pretty good too. When he came out though the girls were a little more embarrassed about doing showing loud high fives though, so I taught them how to do a “air high five” which was shortened to “Air!”

You know the ones that you use to high five someone whose too far away to actually clap your hand with theirs, so you both just do the motion? They seemed to like that a lot too.

All in all it was a lot of fun. And I think word has been getting around that I’m going to the clubs, because the teacher who does the Kendo club invited me to come and watch that club sometime later too! She too is a club teacher whose never done the actual sport before lol so it should be interesting to say the least!

Lastly, I will HOPEFULLY be getting internet at my home today (cross your fingers for me!) And when I do, I’d best be seeing you people on skype!

Finally!

The long awaited weekend blog!

I’ll try to do all this in order but it was a long weekend so stuff might be a bit jumbled up.

So the first thing to realize is that all last weekend was the Obon Matsuri. This is a primarily Buddist themed festival that celebrates the dead and helps them to pass on to the next world, while simultaneously allowing the living to remember and let go of their loved ones. The time period has a lot of fire works, as well as people going to the family graves to clean them and make little offerings to their dead relatives with favorite foods or whatever.

So on one of these days, one of the towns that’s perhaps 30 or so (maybe a bit less?) minutes away by car was having this festival in the evening. I don’t have a car, and the busses don’t run that late, so I had resigned myself to not being able to go, when I caught B online (at work). She mentioned the festival and I mentioned how I would like to go but couldn’t. Turns out, her Japanese English Teacher is actually a diver (there is a point to this, bare with me). She is buddies with these other divers of the diving teaching/certification group called Nice Buddy (In English, its actively called “Nice Buddy”). Nice Buddy is run by a nice man and his wife, and it turns out his two daughters are students of mine. Anyway B’s JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) had invited her to go see the festival along with her diving buddies. (B had already met the people of Nice Buddy, cause she’s interested in learning how to dive, infact she’s already dived (dove?) twice). B asked her JTE if there was room for one more, and I ended up going with B and the divers. So B and her JTE pick me up from my apartment and we head over to Nice Buddy. It wasn’t until after the usual round of yoroshikus (ritual-esq pleased-to-meet-yous), that I realized we were going to the town with the festival (Wakamatsu I believe is the town’s name) via boat lol. The man who runs Nice Buddy’s boat to be exact. So we all pile into that (and by all I mean me and B, the man who runs Nice buddy, his wife and two kids, and I think maybe two other families with middle school age kids, and a couple of babies and a couple of other people? Haha so hard to keep track), and we boat on over to Wakamatsu. Apparently the festival was happening at a port, so this was actually faster than trying to have everyone drive there.

The boat ride was actually quite nice nad calm, and the scenery was beautiful. Some of the wives wanted to practice their English, and B and I had fun giving them different words to say. We found that “Flip flop” as in the sandal, is a good exercise for Japanese people to try and say to master new English sounds.

Anyway we get there, yada yada yada. I’m going to skip through the formalties and get right to the good stuff.

The festival.

As we step into festival groups, we find that there’s a live action show going on. B and I, intrigued, move closer.

And we couldn’t believe what we saw.



I think our reaction went something like this

o.o

o.0

>.>

<.<

Um.

Are those….Power Rangers??

We turned to our hosts who assured us that of course they WEREN’T Power Rangers!

Silly Americans, we’re on the Goto Islands!

These are GOTO Rangers!

Go go Goto Rangers!

We watched in awful amusement as these Goto Rangers (apparently the islands could only get two Goto Rangers) fought some Puddies.

You remember puddies, those people in grey suits who ran around making blubbery noises? Well it was basically the same thing, only it was men in black spandex with their underwhere outside their pants wearing puddy masks.

I was to stunned to take a picture of that. I apologize.

But I did take a couple of blurry pictures of the big enemy:




I apologize again for the quality of the pictures. My hand was shaking from the laughter that I was trying desperately to hold inside.

For the Goto Rangers were fighting Godzooky.

You remember Godzooky, from that old cartoon show that combined Godzilla with Scooby do? And Godzilla apparently had a nephew named Godzooky? Well even if you don’t remember, all you need to know is that they were fighting a guy in a Godzilla suit, a guy that was shorter than I am, in a suit that apparently didn’t have eye holes, because any time he needed to move somewhere, stage hands had to come out and lead him.

It made fighting the powe- excuse me, GOTO rangers rather difficult, as one might expect. Though from the bouncing about the Goto Rangers were doing, apparently Godzooky’s short little arms could pack a punch.

Eventually though, with enough cheers of “GANBARE!” (you can do it!) from the children in the audience, the Goto Rangers were able to vanquish their foe.

ACTION SHOT!



Once down, apparently Godzooky couldn’t get back up, and not just from the awesome power of Goto Rangers, but from the weight and unmovableability of the costume. After being dragged off to the side by the stage hands, Zookie’s feet would remain a constant scene in the background for the rest of the show.




Eventually the show ended and the people dissperesed, and I was left with the unsatisfied urge to take out a flute and try to summon green ranger’s zord. Or to poke the feet with a stick.

Once I was able to calm the sadistic nerd within me, we explored the rest of the festival, and B got to play the “scoop the fish into the bowl” game that we seen so often in anime depictions of festivals. She tried three times but only caught one fish, though it’s a beauty of a gold fish. Then the man running the game scooped up a little ugly fish and gave it to her as well, her “pity fish” as I like to call him. As far as I know, both fish remain alive today, and if she can keep them alive for several weeks, she may invest in a hamster.

Anyway after we explored we all trooped back to the boat to watch the fireworks. Now, I’m not gonna lie. The general thought process with myself and my brother is that if you see one set of fireworks, you’ve basically seen them all. But these were actually pretty good, the sort Dad would have especially enjoyed. There was hardly ever a moment where fireworks weren’t in the air, and there were a few I had never seen before, the sort that shoot up into the air then do like zigzags in the sky before exploding and such.

The real show however came afterward on the boat ride home. By then it was pitch black out, especially since we were in the middle of a bay, and there’s not exactly street lights in the water.

B and I were teaching my student English slang, when suddenly gasps came from the center of the boat, along with excited pointing overboard, and cries of “mite mite!” (look look!)

The water was glowing.

More specifically, the plankton within the water was glowing. As the boat plowed through it, something about the waves and the movement of the plankton in the water made them glow like neon green, making the water and the waves light up. And then, glancing up we could see THOUSANDS of stars, shining brightly without the hinderance of pollution or electricity. We even saw a couple of shooting stars.

It was quite a magical moment. I had no idea plankton could glow! I can only hope it’s a natural glowing, or one that will give me super cool mutant powers later. Either way.

So the day was exciting and fantastic. I was on a festival high when I got back to my apartment, and decided to relax with dinner and some movie watch'n. My predesessor has a tupperware full of bootleg movies and shows and one of them is Love Actually! So, happy as the clam I often was back in college I settled down with a oven made pizza, some cola, and one of my favorite movies.

Perhaps maybe 30 minutes before the end of the movie, I decided to pause and go ahead and clean up my dishes. I paused my movie and brought up itunes (any and all chores, no matter how small, but be accompanied by music) and turned around to face my kitchen.

Only to catch site of something large and black clinging to my otherwise pure white towel, hanging outside my ofuro (shower room) door.

I stared at the blotch. Stared long and hard as my stunned mind realized that the large blotch had several tendrils that looked alot like legs coming out of it.

And as (ever so ironically) Seal's "Bring it On" played in the background, I realized that my house had been infiltrated.

By Spizilla. For the first time.

Everything that happened next was something of a blur for me. I think I went into a state that was equal parts shock, panic, and self preservation. I grabbed my broom and spray, and then committed what has to be at the top of the list of Japanese Cardinal Sins.

I put on my hiking boots.

And wore them inside the house!

What happened next was an epic battle of me spraying and flailing with my broom. Then Spizilla, with skills that would make a ninja obaachan proud, zipped into my ofuro.

Panicing, I slammed the door shut, figuring I had locked Spizilla in a cage for the time being, and tried to gather my thoughts.

Perhaps I could just leave him in there...?

But no. I hadn't taken my shower yet (I realized with dawning horror) and there as no way I could get into bed without washing the days epic sweat off my body.

I had to go in.

And so I opened the door.

...Just in time to see Spizilla slip through the bathroom vent that I had absolutly NO IDEA was ALSO a window to the OUTSIDE!!

All my efforts up to this point, never opening my windows, keeping my doors locked and sealed, never leaving the front door open for longer than 3 seconds, spreading poisonous bug killing powder all around the apartment and on every window sill. I twas all for naught. Because all this time there was not just ONE way for them to get in but TWO!

Because my toliet room ALSO had one of these damned vent window things. (in japan, the room with the toliet and the room with the bath/shower are almost always seperate).

I believe I stared at the window-vent for several minutes, in dawning horror, (there might have been several curses involved as well), before I swept into action. Grabbing my spray, I sprayed the HELL out of that window, figuring that not even Spizilla would want to brave slipping through poionous vents.

But apparnelty Spizilla is either much braver, or much crazier than I first thought.

For it was just moments after I lowered my can that Spizilla leapted back through the vents, right before my vary eyes.

I don't know if my scream was from fear or fury. Either way I sprayed and smacked Spizilla like a fiend possesed, causing him to fall into my steel bathtub. Growing weaker from the poision (and realize that I'd already used at LEAST half a bottle on on him and he was still alive and kicking (litteraly)) he was unable to climb out of the tub.

Eventually, with more spray and more whaps, he finally curled up his legs and died.

Or at least mostly died. Everytime I tried to pick him up with the broom, his leg woudl twitch, and I would promptly drop him, for fear of epic Spizilla ninja skills.



Finally I just took my shower and washed him down the drain.

While I may have won this battle, the war continues on, as explained in my previous posts.

Fight the good fight!

Anyway moving on to other days.

So I talked about the social studies teacher here who speaks very good English and is a Shintoist right? Well after school he took me to see a festival-dance practice of 9th and 10th graders (junior high 3rd years and highschool 1st years), for obon. I got to watch the kids practice as well as meet the people who were kinda in charge of the obon festivities. One of them is a guy who I call NewYork-san, because that's how he introduced himself. (His real first/ last name starts with N and Y). He's a nice funny guy, and while he works at the hospitol, he also teaches the kids how to do the festival dance.

The dance is done in small groups of kids, each one with a little taiko (japanese drum) around their neck. They hit the drum and march about in ritualized steps and arm movements while shouting out the same basic thing over and over again. Then one of the older students or a teacher has a gong that they ring over and over, to keep time, and two other adults each carry a very tall (like 12 feet at least) flag with what I think was the town's name written on it.

Anyway I watched the rehearsal, and I promised to come and watch the real thing when they had it that weekend, on Saturday. Now I thought that their dancing was going to happen at night (I was told between 8 and 11) because most obon festivities happens at night.

So imagine my surprise when I wake up Saturday morning to the sound of gonging and drumming. Realizing my mistake, I rolled out of bed and quickly dawned my clothes and ate a quick breakfast, to go find the source of the gonging.

The kids had broken up into 3 or 4 differnt groups, each with 3 adults with them. Working as these separate groups, they troop around town doing the little dance, dressed in old timey uniforms.

The purpose of the dance is to entertain the dead who are still lingering in the area and to help calm them so that their spirits can reach the other world by the end of the Obon Matsuri.



While all the kids in this group are male girls are allowed to get involved. This year however only three girls from my school volunteered. Most kids don't really want to do this, because its hot and tiring haha, which is perfectly understandable. I was walking around with one of the groups for most of the day, and I was hot and tired by the end of it, and I was wearing summer clothes and sneakers! Not these robes and straw sandles.

After watching the above group, I decided to wander about the town to try and see each little group. Eventually I foudn them all, including the one group with the three girls from my school, and NewYork-san, who had done his best to explain things to me in the rehearsal (even though he only speaks the Goto-dialect of Japanese). While I didn't have to, I decided to stick with this group and wander around the town with them, doing a bit of off the cuff anthropology. They didn't mind. The adults, NewYork-san and the two other older men who were the flag carriors, seemed surprised and pleased that I was taking such an interest. THe kids were too hot, tired, and just a tad bit grumpy to care haha, but they also seemed to be having fun, and by the end of it I was entertaining them, just a bit, with my bumbling Japanese and interest in their dance.

It also really paid off to stick around, because they even let me participate! So as they wander around town, each group has a list of houses they are supposed to stop at and do the dance for (these are places that have had love ones they lost, I believe). Then the families there will donate a little bit of money (whatever they can afford). The houses are kinda spread out though, and hte group has to walk between them. Anyway for the last 3 or 4 houses I got to participate! One of the other adults had to run off someone, and he was a flag carrior. So he gave me the flag to carry. The children dance around the flag (and thus the flag carrier) so I was really and literally in the middle of things.

As we wandered around, I was really kinda getting into the beat, in that I was tapping out the gong's chimes against my leg or with my foot or whatever (one time I even pretended to have a gong and chime along with Newyork-san (the gong player for this group) which brought much amusement to the kids and the adults). So for the last big dance, Newyork-san was like "Here you go" and gave me the gong to play! I was rather nervous, because the gong pretty much tells the kids how to dance, but I did pretty well if I do say so myself, and it was alot of fun!

Alrighty almost done! Sunday night!

Newyork-san, impressed that I was so into learning more about Japanese culture, told me that Sunday night (and I confirmed repeatedly the "night" part) there was going to be another bon festival activity at the Buddhist Temple here. I told my neighboor about it, as well as a friend of hers from college who is visiting her. We'll call him NF (Neighbor's Friend). Anyway both of them were intrigued as well, so we headed on over there Sunday evening.

The temple was definitely alive with activity. First everyone trooped into the temple proper, were the buddhist monks there chanted a rather long prayer, and people could come up and breath in the incense and add an offering for a prayer of their own. We didn't go up there, but just watched from the back.

In the courtyard of the temple were I think six of what I'll call the Spirit-Boats (the boats that are built to put the spirits of the dead on, so they can be sent off into the water to the other world.) These spirit boats would be put onto carts, and then they would disperse to differnet parts of the town, stopping infront of whatever houses that wanted to give an offering.



N, NF, and I were just sorta trailing along as the boats were put into carts when NewYork-san found us! He was one of the people encharge of getting one of the boats through the town. He gave us each a paper lantern and lit the inside (everyone who was helping with a boat carried one of these lanterns), and then got us in to help pull one of the boats around! The boats had ropes attached to the front, where several people could grab with one hand and help to tug along the boat, while others pushed from the back or sides. The boat wasn't really that heavy, and there were maybe a dozen or so people helping so our help wasn't really that needed, but it was really cool to be part of this festival, and not just looking on. We helped to pull the boat all over our section of the town, before finally tugging it over to the harbor. Our work was done now, and we became spectators once again, watching as all the baots came together and were hoooked up together, and then hooked up to the back of a motor boat, to trail along behind it in the water.

On the motorboat were a few people (NewYork-san included) who made a big show of putting back and forth in the water, the spirit boats trailing behind, and setting off fireworks from the boat. Then, finally, the motor boat and the spirit boats started to head out, heading west (I think) to help the spirits on their way.

It was very fun, a mixture of solumn goodbyes and happy partying. And I feel like participating in those festivals helps us Jets to become more insiders, and not just outsiders looking in. Either way, it was a great weekend! (Despite that I don't have internet still *SOB*)


That's basically the end! Though here's some random pics for kicks:

My workplace. This is the teacher's office, all the desks. Can you guess which is mine?



And the upstairs of my apartment:






These pictures by the by were taken while I was still in the process of unpacking Its cleaner now, i swear!

I'll post the downstairs some other time.

Okay wait a little while longer...

...on the “what I did last weekend” blog post. My camera battery died and I had to charge it and thus didn’t get the chance to upload the pics.

But until then I’ll talk about my day!

So yesterday afternoon we (and by we I mean the four of us middle school Jets which are um, me, F, N, and B) were taken to meet the mayor, as well as made official introductions to the higher ranking members of the Board of Education. (The reason why H didn’t go is because as H does highschools, she technically works for a different Board of Education than those of us who do middle and elementary schools do. So even though we live on the same island, the four of us often do our work related stuff together). It was a little odd but not really nerve wracking, if that makes sense. Our supervisor introduced us, and we basically just bowed nad nodded our heads at the appropriate intervals.

The most fun though was the barbeque afterwards. Some of the elementary school teachers and some of the BoE (board of education members) threw us a little party with out door barbeque and informal chatting. Mostly in Japanese, but between the three of us who know some Japanese, we could pretty much figure it out. And some of the teachers knew English. It was pretty fun and a good way to take some of the formality out of our jobs. And it was in a really pretty spot, on a bay with clear water and tall mountains. So all in all good times.

The next day dawns.

And its *war* I tell you. WAR!

So today the plan was for our supervisor to pick three of us up, me, F, and N (all of us who came to Japan on Jet’s group B) to get our Alien Registration Cards and then our cell phones, as well as meet the elementary school principals. We’d do all that, go to lunch, then go back to our main middle schools to finish out the day. He was to pick us up at 820am so at around 810 or so I went outside to do my usual bug check.

And once again I found a Spizilla clone, waiting on the side of my apartment building (on the outside) just WAITING for a chance to skuttle inside.

I wasn’t going to play that game (and I think I said as much to the spider), and got my weapons, a can of insect repellant in one hand, my outdoor broom in another. With enough repellent and broom smacking, I was able to get the monster to fall off the side and into the insect murding powder I have spread around my apartment.

It didn’ stand a chance.

Once assured of my opponents demise, I continued my treck around the apartment. I went around the back, squinting up into corners, when I saw them.

My worst fears come to life.

SPIDER EGGS!

EGGS!

PLURAL!

Three of them, way up on the wall just outside my back door. To high for the spray, but NOT to high for the broom.

I started cursing, I’m not gonna lie, when I saw those ticking time bombs of doom, and began to beat at them with my broom, only to curse louder as, when I broke one open, thousands of tiny baby spiders began to jump for freedom.

Spray, brooms, and curses were flying free, when my neighbor suddenly gives a shout scream-curse as well. I look over and I see her back door is open and she’s flaiting about.

Spizilla clones had invaded her kitchen.

Clones.

Plural.

Two of them.

Armed with brooms and spray, we had at them! But the SOUSes (Spiders Of Unusual Size) held firm, diving beneath various kitchen utensils and appliances, and scuttling up into the cabinent shadows.

It was then that my supervisor arrived. It was time to go. But in the midst of battle, I had forgotton I needed to grab extra money for the cell phone buying. Taking a moment I went back to my apartment and went upstairs to my bedroom to find that a little tiny spider was having a grand old time bouncing up and down on my pillow.

WAR I tell you. WAR! As far as I’m concerned, that little bouncing spider was their acceptance of my declaration. And by golly I will destroy all these spiders if I have to bug bomb the island!

*clears throat* anyway.

We got our alien registration cards no problem, then it was off to get our cell phones. Now only myself and N were getting our cell phones today. F was getting a deal with her cell phone from a nieghboor, and thus those details were to be hammered out this weekend.

But of course the cell phone company’s (Docomo’s) represenatives speak only Japanese.

And my supervisor speaks very little English.

And N speaks no Japanese.

Thus it was up to me to translate everything the cell phone clerk was saying into English so that N could figure out the plan/ phone she wanted to get.

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It took about an hour and a half, no joke. And there was a lot of me asking them to repeat, a lot of me asking for confirmation, and a lot of me staring blankly at the clerk, but eventually we figured *something* out. We both now have cell phones (ones that were on sale. Yay cheap!) and thus the ability to contact eachother and the outside world.

And it being Japan, even the cheap cell phnes are uber, with the ability to do music, connect to the internet, do email, and even watch tv!

And it being *me* in Japan of course, the phone doesn’t get tv on the island lol. But the representative assured us that if we ever made it off this little island and back onto the main islands of Japan, we’d be able to watch tv.

Whoopdedoo.

We also had to get a news feed on our cell phones, a continuous news scroll along the bottom of the standby screen. But its all in Japanese. I’m still not sure why we had to get this news feed, but everyone was insistant on that, along with much apologies that we couldn’t read it lol.

But at least I have a cell phone, and the cell phone is in English to boot, so alls well that ends well.

Dad later during the weekly call I’ll give you all the little details about my cell phone plan and such ;) .

After that it was off to the BoE to meet all the principals. Now before our arrival at the BoE, we were under the impression that we’d be going to our elementary schools to visit and meet the staff. Both myself and F, who have the best Japanese understanding, were under this impression, and B, who’s just about as good, had no idea anything was even going on today until someone arrived at her school to bring her to the BoE.

Imagine our surprise when we get there and are ushered into a conference room with a little over 20 old Japanese men (and one old Japanese woman) staring at us. They turned out to be our principals, and we had a formal introduction to them, both with our supervisor introducing us and then us introducing ourselves in Japanese.

Which really was a little pointless since in our supervisor’s introduction, he basically said everything there was to say about each of us.

But what can ya do.

Now I’m back at my school though, waiting out the rest of the day until I get to go home.

Oh! One other bit of great news! So H (the highschool JET) finally got her car. She came to visit me a day or two ago, and I was talking to her about how I don’t have a bike and will have to buy one. And she’s going to give me the bike her predecessor left her! It’s a nice bike, like a sports bike. I’ll still have to buy a helmet/lock/whatever for it, but if its in pretty good shape and usable I won’t have to slap down the 400+ dollars to get a new bike. Pretty exciting stuff.

oh and on another note

I can not for the life of me find oven mitts! Its true, they would be great in handling the ROUSes, but they are non existent in Japan, like deodorant.

I probably will have more luck finding pokeballs than oven mitts ^_~

I did my job!

For the first time! Sure I’ve been going to work for the past like two weeks, but since there are no students I haven’t done my *job*. But today besides the clubs, there were also kids here who had to come do make up work or something, and there was a group of kids who had English worksheets, so I got to go around and help them.

I was a *real* teacher. A _sensei_ if you will.

Albeit an odd one, but still!

And it was a lot of fun too. Most of the work was just them having to say English words and figure out what the Japanese equivalent, or visa versa. Easy enough Japanese that I could help them figure out the English or the other way around. The most fun was when I had to help them pronounce words. I really like “F” “L” “R” and “V”. As some of you may no, there’s no such thing as “F” and “V” sounds in the Japanese language, and ‘L” and “R” are the same sound to them. Whats fun is trying to teach them how to pronounce those sounds. I get to be a bit silly, OVER pronunciating it so they get the idea.

So like for example “F”. I make a show of putting my front teeth on my lower lip and blowing for several long seconds. This normally makes all the students around me collapse in a fit of giggles before trying themselves (albeit with a lot less of the over acting, seeing as how Japanese kids are pretty shy), but we get to have fun *and* learn at the same time. What an odd concept.

After that one of the English teachers I work with took me to see the girl’s ping pong club. She’s the teacher advisor for said club. While the club isn’t as crazy intense as say, the girls volleyball club, these kids are still way better than me, though I am proud to say I could hold my own for a whole 2 minutes before they pummel me to the ground! The English teacher (one of two) is very nice too, and both speak very good English. I’m excited to work with her.

Though it probably won’t be until like September 3. While school starts on the 1st, its just a lot of ceremonies, and then school wide cleaning. The 2nd all the students have to takes tests ALL DAY LONG (which just seems so torturous!) so I won’t have much to do.

But the third! The third I’ll do my job again! Whoo hoo!

I have to leave school early today though, because my supervisor is taking all us middle school JETs out to meet the mayor (*gulp*), and then we have some sort of meet and greet party with the Board of Education. A barbeque or some such. Should be fun, though probably will also be a bit tiring. But free food, so who can complain?

Tonight I’ll upload my pictures from the weekend and write about the goings on there. So don’t touch that dial-er-web..browser? We’ll be right back!

Slight delay!

In the next post. I had a five day weekend (friday thru tuesday) and alot of stuff happened (filled with awesome action and horrific suspense. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and someone won't make it out alive!), but because I don't have internet at my house yet *SOB* I couldn't blog about it. And I have pictures I must post along with said blog post, pictures that, for all the free time I had, I forgot to upload onto my computer >.>;

But tomorrow! Tomorrow all will become clear!

So at ease men! And please continue with your stalking ways ^_^b

Once again...

Pokemon is the answer. Not 42.

So two days ago I was walking back from work when I spotted a group of my junior high boys waiting for the bus, maybe about 7 of them having finished their club activity. I waved and said hello, and they gave me The Look (you know the Pony-Tiger look), only this time is was doubled as I had them cornered at the bus stop. I asked if I was scary, they looked at each other looked away, them mumbled something that I think was no, but was intelligible. Tried to make a bit more conversation, got more Looks, and finally said “see ya later” and made a retreat.

Then yesterday came around. I was walking back from work and spotted the same group of boys, only this time there were maybe 10 or 12 of them. I waved and said hello, fully expecting to get The Look, and really most of them did.

But then one brave soul decided to step it up a notch. He said hello back, but not in the usual mumbly sort of way. He did it in an exaggerated high pitched tone. I’m not sure if he was trying to make fun of me, of English, or just trying to be funny, but he did get a few laughs from his friends, and probably expected me to get fussy with him.

Little did he know I have no problem being goofy.

I stopped and imitated him imitating me, saying hello in an even HIGHER voice. This got more laughs, and the other boys got into it, and there was a round of hellos in varying octaves, until I finally went on my way, waving at them and telling them I’d see them later (still in an exaggerated voice).

In my head I could hear the small crack of ice breaking, just a little bit.

Now comes the answer to life, the universe and everything.

So later that day, after I had already arrived back at my apartment and changed out of my work clothes, I was leaving my apartment to go by food for breakfast tomorrow. As I was walking I heard some people calling out to me. I turned and saw a small group, I think about 4 or 5, junior high school boys walking not really toward me but in a fashion so that our paths would cross. I stopped and waved, and as they got closer they started another round of high pitched exaggerated hellos.

When they finally got tired of that a few minutes later, there was a small pause, a fidget, and finally one of the boys asked *a real QUESTION*! (In Japanese, but baby steps people, baby steps!)

“Do you *really* like pokemon?”

Rewind a bit back to my school wide introduction. I was told I needed to do an easy English intro about 2 minutes long for the kids right? And it consisted mostly of a lot of “I like ___. My favorite ___ is ___ “. The most reaction I got from the kids when I did the introduction was when I mentioned I played pokemon. I couldn’t tell then *what kind* of reaction it was, but any reaction is a good one lol.

And now it looks like it paid off.

I said yes I do really like pokemon, which sparked a discussion of what games and pokemon I like/have played. I spoke in a mixture of English and Japanese (saying something in English first, looking at their blank stares, then saying the same thing in Japanese, then repeating the English), and they spoke mostly in Japanese lol. But it was a real conversation that they seemed into. There was a bit of trouble when they kept mentioning pokemon I had no clue about, because they know the Japanese names of pokemon, and I only know the English names (some like Pikachu have the same name in both Japan and America, others like say Charmander have a completely different Japanese name). I explained there was a difference, then asked them to bring me pictures of the pokemon, so I would know which ones they were talking about. I don’t know if they actually will bring me pictures or not, but they were discussing it as we went our separate ways.

More cracks in the ice!

Pokemon is the answer!

The only other exciting thing that’s happened today is that I met the 9th grade social studies teacher. And in an island full of hidden Japanese Christians (Nagasaki prefecture is like the only place with Japanese Christians), he is a Shintoist, which is very exciting. And he speaks pretty good English. I asked if, when school starts, I could sit in on his class some time, and if we could talk more about Shinto, and he seemed reasonably excited about that ^_^b

And that’s that for today! My plan is to wait out the work day and then go home and get some cleaning done. I have Friday off, and I get two days of “summer vacation” that I can take anytime before august 31st, so I’m going to take them next Monday and Tuesday so I can have a 5 day weekend. (Which they’re fine with, my vice principle all week has been saying I should take my days off, and it’s customary to take them at the same time).

And then I will just get down on my hands and knees and *clean*, the way Mom wants to ;) . I wish there was someone else here for backup though, I’m so afraid I’m gonna move something and Spizilla or his sidekick Spiroach are going to jump out at me, leading an attack of all the creepy critters that have been laying in wait, plotting their revenge of their brethren that I’ve swatted or poisoned.

… If I don’t come back, avenge my death!

Now's the time I really do need blue dude. <.<

Blue Dude: "Why did you summon meeee?"

Robin: "..Clean the bathroom."

BD: "....I don't like this place...."

R: "Here's the sponge, go wild."

BD: "Send me back...."

R:"Don't be afraid to really dig into the toilet too."

*several minutes later Robin, cleaning the living room, and sees Spizilla*

Robin: "Sacrifice!"

Blue Dude: >.>



Oh and I <3 when people leave comments, its nice to know someone is reading this thing haha. Even if the comments they leave are not constructive <.< *coughseerowcough* ;)

I’m not sure which is worse

Getting my butt kicked by little young Japanese girls, or getting my butt kicked by little old Japanese women. Both of which have happened in the past 24 hours. Then again, I expect to get my butt kicked by little old Japanese women, who look like they could whip out mad ninja skills while simultaneously cooking a traditional Japanese meal.

But these middle school girls…dear god. Intense volleyball skillz to the max.

But again I’m getting ahead of myself.

The day actually starts with yesterday. Sometime during the day yesterday while I was at school I got a call from my supervisor, asking if I was going to be at my apartment by 5. I get off of work at 430 and it takes about 20 minutes to get to my apartment, and allowing for Japanese Time (aka everything they say happens at least 10 minutes earlier) if I walked fast enough I would just make it back to my apartment before he got there.

Which I did, but not before spotting a small sports clothing shop along the way, that I resolved to go into for a pair of shorts and some cheap kneepads to tide me over until the first care package (hinthinthint). I got to my apartment just a couple minutes before my supervisor. Now I don’t remember how much I’ve said about my supervisor, but he’s an extremely nice middle aged Japanese man who is so busy that he does a jog-shuffle everywhere he goes. And because its summer that also means he sweats an awful lot, but who can blame him? I sweat an awful lot too (and if this is TMI for you, then you may want to stop now lol it’ll get worse). Though he is like the only Japanese person I’ve seen to not only actually sweat but like seriously SWEAT, so it actually makes me feel better lol. He also speaks Japanese very quickly and with the Goto Dialect that I for one can not for the life of me understand. But this is not my fault. Whole words are different here! Even the way to use grammar is different! But I’m learning. I really want to, because here the reason why things are so different is because they shorten everything lol, so technically once I learn how to use the dialect, Japanese should be easier right?

And as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.

But anyway he came for some forms and to check out my non working air conditioner, as well as to try and get the process of getting me internet started! This is very exciting. There was much phone talking between internet people, and I think some are coming out today or tomorrow to take a look see about setting internet up. But I’m not sure. Either way my fingers are crossed!

He also came to help me look for a bike. So I really need a bike to get around. Even though there are a lot of hills and such, there’s enough flatness involved between those hills that even if I had to walk up said hills, my time to get to places would be much less than if I walked everywhere. I could probably shorten my 30 min commute to school to at least 15, if not 10. Two of the other Jets (B and H) have it nice, because their predecessors left them mountain bikes to use. I however will have to buy my own. There’s a bike shop here that gave me a catalogue to look through and choose the bike I want them to get for me. But I know nothing about what would constitute a “good” bike, and what would just be an expensive piece of crap. And I’d rather not spend good money on crap, so if anyone who knows bikes is reading this, please point me in the right direction.

By the time my supervisor left it was about 6pm, but I still had another errand to run, so off I went to that little sporting goods shop I saw. Its run by a woman and her husband, both very nice middle aged Japanese people, who knew of my predecessor. They were very nice in helping me find a pair of pants that would be long enough for me (no easy feat in Japan), as well as a cheap pair of kneepads (that are a trifle too small but work for now). The woman, a motherly sort, felt for my parents, who are having to deal with the travesty of not having me near (“travesty” I’m sure my parents are thinking) and knocked down the over all price by a couple hundred yen! I’m going to have to stop by there more often just to say hi.

By the time I got out of there though it was already close to 7, and I had yet to have dinner. Then I realized dinner would have to wait for a few hours longer, because at 730 it was to be the first of many tai chi classes I’m taking at the community center, which is about 2 minutes away from my house.

The woman from my BoE (board of education) who cleaned my house is in the class, and two other Jets, B and H, (who also arrived a week before me, N, and F) did the class last week. It sounded like a good way to stay generally in shape while also meet people and get to know the couple of jets who live a bit farther away. And Tai Chi was a lot of fun. The class is basically a bunch of old Japanese women, one old Japanese man, the younger woman from the BoE, and three young foreign girls (me, and the two jets).

And let me tell ya, Tai chi is no joke man. It looks like it should be easy, just move about in slow motion. And if these obaachans (elderly ladies) can do it without breaking a sweat (forgetting of course that the normal Japanese woman doesn’t sweat), then my young college body should be able to do it no problem!

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Long story short (yada yada yada…), I was and am very tired and sore lol. But it was still a lot of fun, and I plan to continue it, especially as its only once a week, 1500 yen a month. And it never hurts to get in good with the Obaachans, get that ninja power on *my* side.

As it was though, by the time I got back to my apartment I was tired and hungry, and then remembered that the next morning I had volleyball club from 9 until 12. I made a snap decision to wake up early and pack a bag for that, and just go to bed early, which I did.

And while it was REALLY HARD to get up this morning, get up I did. I got my new clothes, my shoulder pads, a towel, blanket and deodorant, and had all the confidence in the world until-

((WARNING the next section is rated TMI for Too Much Information. Squeamish men are now advised to turn back to avoid feminine ranting and possible stomach kicks))

I got the first set of cramps. Now those who know me, which should be everyone reading this blog, knows that I’m not shy when I discuss my period. If I had to be uncomfortable and in pain all day, then by golly the rest of you, particularly you who do not to have to share in this misery, shall be the same!

And these weren’t the “oh hey just so you know in the next day or so Mother Nature will come calling with a vengeance!” kind of cramps. These were the “GUESS WHAT B**** I’M BAAAAACK” kind of cramps.

Now in my Terms and Conditions contract, there’s actually a section that talks about this. This is where the love part of Japan’s and mine Love –hate (or amused-frustrated) relationship comes in. In my contract there’s actually a clause, Article 15 if I’m not mistaken, that states that female JETs get Menstrual Leave for, and I quote: “Those days when a female JET is unable to work due to severe menstrual discomfort.” It’s not paid leave, but it’s not my allotted sick days either. Its EXTRA days. Oooh what now.

And now comes the frustrated part of well, not so much my relationship with Japan, but just my relationship with life. I didn’t, really couldn’t, use that leave just yet. The students already knew that I was supposed to come play with them today, and today would be the last day of the club for the rest of the week, until some time late next week. And I didn’t want the relationship I’ll have with my students to start out with a broken promise.

And so, cursing the gods who laugh at me so, I opened the door to step outside and head to school when I happen to glance down,

Just in time to see some unholy cross between a cockroach and a spider scuttle _through_ the poison powder and the bug spray that I had coated my door with and inside my apartment.

I have absolutely no idea what that thing was. Even now. I had never seen the like before, and a good search of “unholy cross between a cockroach and a spider” gives me nothing! Nothing!

Hoping to catch it (and realizing that probably twenty more of these things were about to come in but not being able to help myself) I opened my door again to try and kill it before it disappeared into a corner and be lost in the shadows of my apartment forever.

And to be honest, I’m not quite sure what happened next. I saw it in the corner, I brought down my foot, pressing down and out to either kill it or slide it back outside. There was a blur of activity, and when I lifted up my foot there was…

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t know if I killed it, if I was able to sweep it away, or if it dodged my foot with Obaachan ninja skills and dove into the shadows of my apartment, to spy on me for Spizilla. Thus I did the only thing I could do.

I grabbed my bug spray and sprayed the hell outa my door, both side. On my way home I’ll pick up more bug killing powder, and hire a plane to poor it down onto my apartment from the skies.

But I couldn’t do that now, because if I didn’t get a move on, I would be late for work. As it was I had to walk quicker than I normally do to get to work on time. And today was not a good day for a hard walk, not just because of the cramps, or the soreness and all round tiredness form the day before, but because that little Spider-roach must have brought the MUSHI in MUSHI ATSUI (I made a funny! For you non Japanese speaking folks out there….don‘t bother with the joke. It was pretty bad anyway). Today was the most humid day that we’ve had so far on the island. I’m talking the kind of humidity where you step outside and your *immediately* drenched in sweat, sweat that will *never* evaporate because there’s too much water in the air. It was like the entire island was put into a sauna. By the time I got to school, it looked (and probably smelled) like I’d just gone through a 5 hour intense work out.

But I got in, greeted the *one* teacher that was here, as well as the vice principle, principle, and school clerk (who are always here), changed into my gym clothes, and promptly went to get my butt handed to me by about 13 Japanese junior high school girls.

These girls are crazy good. Better than I am for sure at least. And their practices are crazy intense. I’ve never seen the like in an American High school (and I should know, I’ve been to three of them!) let alone a *junior* high school. It lasts from 9 to 12, first of all, and they work hard at it throughout.

But they’re also a group of very nice fun kids. They were a bit shy at first, and I need to remember that while I’m a different kind of sensei, I’m still a sensei. It took me by surprise when I walked into the gym and all the girls rushed over into a half circle around me and bowed in unison and thanked me for coming in one voice. But when I did the practice with them, and didn’t act like a coach they started warming up to me a little. And I think it actually helped that I’m not as good a player as they are lol, me making mistakes had them relax more, especially when I made jokes about it and such.

A tip to anyone who will ever have the chance to teach English to Japanese kids. High fives are your friend. And not just the normal raise one hand and lightly smack it to another’s. Get creative. We were doing “up highs” “down lows”, double hands, one high one low, etc, and it got so silly after a while that they couldn’t help but laugh as they tried to figure out what position their hands should be in to give me a high five lol.

All in all it was a great time, and its def a good way to get to know at least some of the students. Even some girls from another club, basketball I think, stopped by to watch the practice, and I was able to talk to them a bit too. For me, the girls are much easier to get to know than the boys. Whether its in school or out of school, if I wave and say “hello” to one of the girls, they’re stop, normally giggle and nudge each other a bit, but will eventually answer me in one language or another, and I can get at least 30 seconds of conversation (even if 29.7 seconds of said conversation are giggles and nudges).

When I do the same with the boys however, they stop and give me this look….How to describe it…

Picture this, if you can. A pony is wandering along his pasture, minding his own business, basking in the sun of a nice summer’s day, and thinking about that next patch of juicy grass he’s about to munch on, when he hears a noise. Looking up he sees, running toward him, claws extended and fangs glistening, a giant tiger. Not that the pony would know what a tiger is. The pony has been in his pasture in the suburbs all his life, has never seen a tiger, perhaps never even heard of such a thing before. But while he doesn’t know what a Tiger *is*, he *does* know that it will, in all probability, give him an excruciatingly slow and painful death, filled with terror and unimaginable horrors.

That look, that the pony gives the tiger when it first turns around and sees the tiger coming toward it, is the look the boys give me when I call out “hello”.

Not that I blame them. I’ve the sneaking suspicion that a lot of junior high school boys give most unrelated girls that look, foreign teacher or not.

I’ve yet to find a way to convince them that I will not give them an excruciatingly slow and painful death, filled with terror and unimaginable horrors, but it’s barely been a week. I still have time.

Anyway practice was fun, and I think I *may* even have a couple of names down for the kids. Maybe. Hopefully. I am *really* bad with names. And this is made harder by the fact that all these middle school girls look alike. And I mean that in the least stereotypical slur possible! It’s not even because their Asian! They *all* have the EXACT SAME hair cut! They’re all the same size! And they all wear the same uniform! And I swear it’s true about the haircut. It’s like the standard issue girl’s summer cut here or something. They all have this little bob thing that’s cut just above their shoulders, every single one of them. And I don’t mean just the volleyball girls. Every girl in my junior high school has this hair cut. And I think it’s the same for like all the junior high schools. I was talking to F (who is part Asian), and she agreed that all these girls look alike, because they all have the same hair cut, they’re all basically the same height, and they all wear the school uniforms which are…well…uniform.

The boys at least are much easier to tell apart, as they have different variations of the short boy-cut, and they vary wildly in height. Though this doesn’t help me any because they all give the same look.

But I’m trying to learn their names as best I can, and I’m sure it’ll be easier the more I talk with them and learn their individual personalities.

By the end of practice though I was, am really, quite tired, and my medicine had begun to wear off perhaps 30 minutes before practice ended. I’m pretty sure I was also very dehydrated. Despite that I had a whole bottle of water and tea that the kids kept giving me, I’m sure I sweated out enough moisture to refill a great lake, should one be drained. And then of course there’s the fact that I’m loosing moisture even without sweating, thanks to Mother Nature.

But no joke, my shirt was basically soaked through. Now I thought I was fine though, I have a locker in the teacher’s woman’s locker room, and I have seen a shower in there. I figured I could rinse the worst of the sweat off, reapply the deodorant, change my clothes to my nice school clothes, and be ready and wearing to go.

And then I saw that the drain for the shower was duct taped shut.

Apparently, there really isn’t a shower. It’s a lie.

So I had to do what I could at the sink, and change clothes anyway. In a weird kind of way, the fact that its summer both simultaneously doomed and saved me. Doomed me because its summer’s fault I was sweating so much in the first place. Saved me because, as its summer, most of the faculty is off taking their paid vacation leave, leaving next to no one here to notice my stinky sweaty self. Literally there is like no one here. The one teacher who was here left a few hours ago. Now it’s just me, the vice principal, the principal, the school clerk, and the two janitor women. Out of a staff that’s like 20. The principal has his own office, the vice and the clerk sit in the back of the teacher’s office (I sit in the middle, there are several desks between us), and the janitor woman wander around as they will.

So today, I was saved. But I think from now on, I’ll only go to the volleyball clubs that happen in the afternoon, rather than the morning ones. My luck (if that’s what you call it), can only last so long.

The rest of the day so far has been pretty uneventful. I wrote this blog, ate lunch, and chatted about how hard English is with the Vice principal and the school clerk, who both had a lot of questions about how English works. The hardest one being “what’s the difference between “have to” and “must”.”

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I told them (in my limited Japanese mind) that while they are very much the same, and can be used in the same circumstances, “have to” normally means outside forces are making you do something. (Example, Mom told me I have to clean my room), whereas “must” is something that is used in referring to something your doing for yourself. (I must clean my room because I think it’s disgusting).

I have no idea if that’s right or not, but it seems to make sense. And it’s nice/fun to chat with them. Since there’s nothing for anyone to do, it’s a good time to sort of break the ice between myself and some of my coworkers (whichever ones show up on any given day).

And that’s it! My plan for this afternoon is, unless something random happens (which is quite possible) to take a nap. I really love this concept of when work is over, work is *over*. At 430, I have no more responsibilities in the way of homework, studying, tests, etc. My time is my *own*!!

Such an odd concept, but I love it so.

Oh and just a note, I love to complain, and there’s nothing more fun than complaining about Japan, because its just so different here than it is in the states. But as much complaining as I may do, I’m actually having a lot of fun here, and enjoying e very minute of it ^_^b

Though I would enjoy it more if there was a better toilet situation, but that rant is for another time.

Long time no blog!

And it’s totally not my fault. I don’t have internet at my apartment, and I won’t until like…the 20th. Or later. There is internet at my school though, but I hate to use it all the time because it looks like I’m not working, which I’m not because there’s no work to do.

Its summer vacation for the kids, but the teachers still have to go to work. So they read, fiddle with papers, or fall asleep.

And by they I mean we ^_^b

But now to try and fill in on everything that’s been going on. Geeze where to even begin…

Okay first of all, I’m giving my fellow Jetters on the island code names, so that I won’t have to use their real names on the net, and to try and lower the confusion.

So.

N = the girl who lives Next door to me.
H – the girl who does the High schools
B – the girl who lives about two towns down and Bikes
F – the girl who lives Farthest away. (the other side of the island to be more exact)

Everyone is quite nice, friendly, and funny in their own ways. And (so far) no one has like a Really. Annoying. Trait. (RAT) that will eventually drive us mad, put the JETs against each other, and create inner island war fare.

So that’s good.

But moving on. I’ll put up pictures of my apartment and the island and what not later, when I have net at my house and don’t have to do it at school.

So let’s see general highlights…

So I’m all moved in my apartment now. There were some amusing troubles in the beginning, because a very nice woman from the BoE (board of education) wouldn’t let me in until she had cleaned it a bit more haha. She wouldn’t even let me help her until the very last! Though I still need to give it my own cleaning, it’s really not a bad apartment. Its small but has two floors, a living room, a kitchen, a shower, and two bedrooms, one of which I’m using as my “home office” lol. I don’t know if it was my predecessor’s or one of his predecessors, but *someone* left a totally working computer and monitor in the apartment! It’s a Japanese one, but I’m not going to complain about it!

The only problem with the apartment is the spiders >.>;;; there are a lot of spiders. Like. A LOT of spiders. Like every day I’m killing spiders. My house is full of bug poison, which I’ve spread around every opening, spraying on the inside and spreading this bug killing powder around the outside of my house. I think its working, as at least I haven’t seen any giant centipedes *knock on wood* or roaches *knock on wood again*. But there are a lot of spiders.

…And then there’s Spizilla.

I’ve only seen Spizilla once. On the glass door leading outside. Luckily on the OUTSIDE part of it, and not on the inside of it. But I swear, no exaggeration, it was as big as my palm if it was an inch! It crawled up the glass door, hung out for a bit, watching me, knowing that at any time, it could probably just tap on the glass, break it to bits, come in and eat my face, and there would be nothing I could do about it.

Seeing Spizilla has made me paranoid beyond belief. I refuse to open my porch doors, even though they have screens, to allow air to flow in. They’d probably collapse if Spizilla stepped on them. It wouldn’t be so bad to not open my doors if my downstairs air conditioner was working. But alas and alak, it won’t turn on without a remote, and the remote is lost forever, if it was ever there in the first place. I’ve asked my supervisor about it, but so far no word yet. I’m supposed to meet with him today though so hopefully…

This means of course that my upstairs air con in my room is doing all the work. So after dinner I hold up there and revel in the coolness while the rest of my apartment bakes.

The island itself is very beautiful. And pretty big too, all things considered. There’s buses that go all around, so I don’t think I’ll be getting a car, instead I’m going to invest in a bike, probably this week. The part of the island I live in is surrounded by forested mountains, which I quite like.

The other day us Jets went to a beach that’s near B. It was a nice enough beach, though there’s not a lot of nice sand, just wet sand as the tide was out. We went into the water, and the general thought was that there’s a net around the water area so there’d be no jelly fish.

And then B got stung.

And I was out of there so fast Road Runner would have been proud.

It wasn’t long before the rest followed, though a few were brave enough to go back in after a bit.

I was not one of those few.

But just hanging out was fun, as we slowly get to know each other. Afterwards we tried to do a barbeque at B’s house lol, tried and faaiiiled miserably, because we couldn’t get the fire lit. (I said we could of poured some beer into the grill and light it up but nooooo B didn’t want her house burned down <.~) so finally we cheated and fried it up in her house haha, still just as good though!

Sunday was my first day of work. Normally I don’t work on Sundays, but this Sunday was the Peace Memorial Day (badly translated), so students had to come in as did all the teachers. Right now it’s actually the summer holidays in Japan, so students only come to school to do their clubs, and then they go home. Teachers however are supposed to come in, unless their taking their paid vacation leave.

Its times like these that I realize how much Japan amuses and frustrates me. Only Japan would have the teachers come into work when there is literally NOTHING to do. And I don’t mean just that there's nothing for *me* to do. There’s nothing for *anyone* to do. On Sunday teachers were falling asleep left and right, texting on their cell phones or surfing the net.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s just talk about the school first.

So I have 5 elementary schools and 1 junior high school. Out of us 5 Jets on the island, 4 of us are junior/elementary school jets, and then 1 is the high school Jet. There’s only 2 high schools on the island, so she goes between them. I think either F or B has two junior high schools, and N and I each have 1. B and I have 5 elementary schools each, while N and F only have a couple. The junior high school is my base school, I go there the most and I work out of there. The elementary schools I switch between, a different one every week I think.

During the summer however the only school I go to is the middle school. The summer holidays don’t end until September 1st I think, but still I must come in every day, Monday-Friday, from 830 to 430. Typhoons can’t keep teachers away from coming to school, and they will literally fight their way through the worst storms to come sit at their desks to fall asleep.

Oh Japan *patpat*

Course it becomes less amusing when I realize I must do the same, but I’ll worry about that if the time ever comes.

Anyway there are about 18 teachers, including me, the principle and the vice principle (the Vice teaches too) a clerk, two janitors, the nurse, and a counselor. Everyone is very nice, and the English teacher I’ll be working with speaks very good English, so I’m very lucky. Everyone else speaks to me in Japanese, (of which I understand maybe 60-70 percent at the best of times, with the percentage going down rapidly the heavier the dialect >.>;;) The school itself is pretty big and very nice, the teachers office (in Japanese schools, there’s just one giant room where all the teachers have their desks put together, rather than each teacher having like their own classroom/ a teacher’s lounge), is air-conditioned to boot. And it has wireless, which is the only reason I can post this lol. I sit next to my English teacher, and across from the school nurse, with my own desk and such.
So anyway Sunday was the Peace Memorial Day. It was also the day I would be officially introduced to the school. The school is perhaps between 200 and 300 students, and holds 7-9th graders. (In Japan Elementary school is kindergarten through 6th. Middle school is 7-9 and high school is 10-12). I was told to do my introduction in English, and for it to be about 2 minutes long, but to make sure it was easy enough to be understood by the students. (They specifically told me to use as little Japanese as possible, even though I offered to do it in both English and Japanese, which my English teacher wanted me to do lol. But nope, just English, which is funny because my fellow Jet N, who can’t really speak any Japanese, was told to do hers in Japanese only).

Mom: I wore my nice grey suit, pants and jacket, and a white blouse for the first day, washed my hair the night before, and put loads of hair gunk on it to keep it from frizzing out. So don’t worry I looked quite nice  (even though it was SO HOT to wear that jacket. Thank goodness for air-conditioning.) It’s about a 30 minute walk to school, so not bad at all.

So I get to school and do a short intro in Japanese to all the teachers. Then everyone, students and teachers alike, troop over to the gym. There, in front of the entire school I did my English introduction. I think it was a big hit. I was told afterwards by the teachers (not just the English speaking ones), that it was a very good intro with easy information that they though the kids understood, and I got a few laughs and excited surprise looks when I mentioned I liked Mononoke-hime (princess mononoke) and played pokemon.

So that part was nice and fun.

Then came the slightly awkward part, as they went to the main event about the WWII bombings. Students gave presentations and such, which wasn’t so bad, and I even understood some. The awkward part came when they showed a video about the bombing, complete with pictures and voice overs from people who were deeply affected by it/were in Nagasaki when it got bombed.

I’m talking things like, showing a picture a child who had been there drew of his mother’s skin falling off, while the voice over of a woman screaming ‘ATSUI ATSUI” (HOT HOT) was in the background.

Trifle awkward for the American military brat.

But, as B pointed out later as I was talking with her, while our presence is a little awkward during that time, it’s also really cool that now Japan and America are such good buddies that JETers like myself can be here and share in the Peace Memorial. So good times.

The assembly lasted from about 9 until 1130. And then the kids had homeroom to talk about it, while the non homeroom teachers (including myself) trooped back to the teachers office.

In which, from 1130 to 430, we got to sit and try to look busy while falling asleep, staring out the window and dreaming of freedom.

No joke yo. They were dropping like flies.

I didn’t bring my computer yesterday either, because I didn’t want it to look like my first day of work was all about the internet. So I looked through my desk, sorting through all the stuff my predecessor left me, sketched out a few lesson plans, talked with teachers and what not, but al that took maybe a couple of hours, and I was still sitting there, watching the clock slowly tick by.

Today however, I learned. And brought my computer. In fact, today there’s only like 5 teachers here, and then the vice principle and the principle. Most teachers, including my English teacher, are taking their paid vacation starting today. So there is like seriously no one here.

I did get to watch some of the Girls volleyball club though! My plan this morning was to go around and watch some of the different clubs, work my way through all of them in the next couple of weeks, and then when schools started maybe play with the girl’s volleyball team.

However, since I mentioned I liked volleyball, the vice principle took it upon himself to tell the teacher supervisor of the girl’s volleyball club, and now tomorrow I’m apparently playing with them.

Which means tonight I really need to find some gym clothes. Though I don’t know if I’ll have time to find gym clothes, since I’m meeting with my supervisor today, as well as going to a Tai Chi class.

Aah the busy life of a JET. So Mom, if your reading this, do you think you can send me some gym shorts, tall socks, and knee pads? I think I have t-shirts that will work. Until then I’ll just have to improvise~!

Aaand yeah I guess that’s about it for now. Nothing uber amazing has happened yet, but I’ve barely started my second week on the island haha so we’ll give it some more time. As for skyping, I won’t be able to do that until I get internet in my apartment, which won’t be for at least another week, possibly longer.

But someday! Someday! And it will be glorious!

Tally Ho!

So Wednesday was the day all the new JETs separated and headed off for places unknown. The differnet prefecture groups leaves Tokyo together, so the Nagasaki prefecture group was leaving at around 840, would catch a bus to the airport, then fly into Nagasaki where we would be met by our respective supervisors and taken to our towns.

The day started off with a bad omen.

The button of the nice shirt I had taken out to wear fell off. This wouldn’t have been that much of a problem had I not had to give away my luggage the night before, thus leaving me with only the one shirt. Of course, the button couldn’t fall off at a good time, an hour or more before I needed to meet with my group. No the button had to fall off at like 8 : 00, just when I was about to scurry off to quickly iron the shirt, drop off my card key, and head to the group.

Now for most people 8 is still plenty of time to get things done. But all who know me know I must be INSANELY EARLY for everything I do, and that being late can cause me to go mad (MAD I say!) with nerves. Luckily I had everything packed up in carry on nad random other bags the night before, which allowd me to rush down to the front desk, get a random tiny sewing kit, rush back up to my room, “sew” (I use the term loosly) on the button, and then rush around and get the shirt kinda sorta ironed before rushing to my group’s meeting place, all the while cursing the button gods.

And on the note of gods of random little objects, the zipper gods and are out to get me too. Every zipper I touch seemed to be breaking off. I have broken more zippers in the past two days than I have in a life time. Karma is annoying.

Anyway the plane ride was fine and uneventful, the group was more or less seated together, and we all got along pretty well, chatting about nothing until we landed. When I got my bag, I got my next shot of annoying karma. The handle bar of my carry on luggage had gotton broken in transit. (The one on the top Dad, something ripped the screw out of one side. And it wasn’t my fault!), so I’ll need to tape that together. Luckily there was still the handle on the side, as well as the rolling handle thingy so I can still get by. Just annoying.

Anyway, so myself and the other two girls in my group going to my town all have the same supervisor. He’s a really nice Japanese man a little older than middle aged, who doesn’t speak much English but tries very hard. Luckily of the three JETers of us, two of us (me and another girl) have about the same intermediate Japanese level. What was great though was that she knows words I don’t know, and I can get some grammar she can’t. So between the two of us we were able to figure out what our Supervisor was saying and then translate for the last girl, who has little to no Japanese ability (but is already starting to learn!)

We all ate lunch and chatted about our plans for the next day, the houses, and the rest of the travel plans. We were to take a bus to Nagasaki city proper, about maybe an hour, maybe a bit less, from the airport. There we would catch the boat to the island. The bus ride was very nice and relaxing. Nagasaki prefecture is absolutely beautiful, with rolling forested hills and lovely ocean views. Then we got into the city.

And I almost burst with pure excitement! I totally recognized most everywhere we were going from my internship. And I was excitedly pointing all the differnet landmarks and places to go to my JET-mates, who bore with me quite well despite the bounces and wild pointing.

We got to the mall that’s right next to the wharf (both of which I know quite well), and to all us JETs surprise, our Supervisor took us right into the mall, our baggage and all, to look at microwaves for me, and cameras for a JET-mate. We had mentioned earlier that we would like to someday purchase said commodities (my apartment doesn’t have a microwave and she doesn’t have a camera), and since we had the time apparentely, our supervisor decided to take us to the main mall to take a look, which was really very ncie of him! If a little awkward for us, standing in the middle of the electronics section of the mall, with our luggage and overly filled carryons.

I found a nice microwave oven that has settings I can understand in simple Japanese, and was on sale for about 200 dollars (19800 yen). Then the store called up their sister store on our island, and after much rapid slurred Japanese speaking between my supervisor and the clerk (none of which I understood), I was told I should get the microwave in about two days. So woot desu!

Finally we headed to the ferry. We didn’t seats with windows, which was a shame, but it was still loads of fun. And by fun I mean Mom will hate it. It was about 3 hours long (I’ve been told there are ferries that can get there faster but for whatever reason this was the one we took) and H.O.L.Y. C.R.A.P. This was no casual ferry ride. This was a freak’n roller coaster. We were hitting waves and bouncing like no body’s business, and there were several times when I was pretty sure we were flying. Or we were just hitting whales (read: speed bumps). Either way I got a little sea sick, and I normally don’t get motion sickness at all.

All three of us Jetters had been wondering why the seats of a ferry had seatbelts. Now we know.

When we landed on the island we were met by the other two new jets who had arrived a week before, my predecessor who was leaving the next day, a japanese woman, and a couple of young japanese men (I’m still not sure who they were exactly, but I do know the woman does the Tai Chi class). It was explained that we three newest Jetters would not be able to move into our respective homes yet, but would tomorrow. Instead the two of us who are staying on one side of the island would be staying in a hotel, and the one new Jetter who is on the opposite side of the island would be staying at someone’s house.

There we split up, the one jetter on the other side of the island (I need to think up nick names for these girls), was taken off by our supervisor, while me and the last Jetter (aka my neighbor when we get our houses), were taken to the hotel. After dropping stuff off in our respetive rooms, the two JETs who had been here a week already (they both live on my side of the island too), my predecessor, and the random Japanese people went out to eat.

It was a lot of fun, my predecessor told was greatly amusing stories of his time here, we tried food I didn’t know existed (like deep fried chicken cartilage), and all in all had a great time. I think we’re all going to get well.

Thursday (8-06) our supervisor is taking us newest jetds out to run errands and to move in. Exciting times!

And like 10 minutes before breakfast I realized the hotel room had Ethernet. Go me :P