a mind numbing day on thursday/gorgeous day on friday

my face hurt from straining so much on friday. i wore my concentration face all day- you know, the scrunchy one when youre working on something. i think i do it often. i stared at a computer/made little memory books for 3rd grade/and studied japanese for like 9 hours straight. i swear the most boring days exhaust me. im never this tired from a day that i actually do something.

i went for a bike ride in a sweatshirt and i was hot sometimes!… it was amazing. really strange though considering yesterday there was still so much snow all over the place and it hurt to be outside, it was so cold! in the fall i went for a really long bike ride every friday to explore since i have half days on fridays. i cant wait until i can do it all the time!

thursday:

friday:

here’s me in a neighborhood newsletter. i joined a chopstick competition in an elementary school. i got second place by moving dried beans with chopsticks from one container to the other with a score of 22 beans in 30 seconds!

and here is some nice packaging i’ve seen:

pancakes and karaoke

every weekend is filled with something, even if it involves way too many episodes of the OC and my bed. this week it is pancakes and karaoke.  I go on kicks of eating the same thing over and over because i remember it, love it, eat too much of it, then get sick of it, and never eat it again for a long time.  pancakes, the perfect snow storm food! besides miso soup and mochi- which i also have been eating every night for dinner. most of the time i am not very creative in the food department when it comes to me cooking everything.

Karaoke.  the japanese love it. even in my small town, we have a few places to sing karaoke. On friday it was at a snack bar in takahama (a beach town about a half hour from me). a snack bar is where you basically pay for the company of girls to clap and sing or sit there and pour your beer. it made me feel a little uncomfortable until i realized that the owner was my friend’s host mother and daughter and that’s why we were there. usually its massively expensive. they were so nice and made us sandwiches and gave us chocolates and oolong tea while we went nuts to favorites such as lisa loeb, christina aguilera and mariah carey. 

 

last night it was at a place in my town of obama for lisa’s birthday. highlights include my heart will go on by celine dion and lisa loeb, yet again.

 

on tuesday i went to my smallest elementary school.  it is a beautiful drive through the mountains- and there was still a lot of snow. this school has 5 kids, 5 permanent staff members and 2 part time ones that do accounting and school lunch planning.  Initially i was really excited to go to this school for the first time.  it’s a very interesting feeling, but one of my most low key schools due to lack of students/energy, so things tend to be a little less exciting there.  I feel bad for the kids because i think they miss out on a lot of social interaction. i wonder how they will react when they go to middle school with 600 other kids when they’re used to having their 6 year old brother as one of their only friends. its an interesting way to grow up, something that i never experienced- hence the reason why it is so foreign to me.   

 

the school nurse was putting together all the old books of photographs into a new book.  (see above pictures- so nice!) i asked why she was doing it and they told me it was because the school was closing after this school year. this is happening a lot all over japan. most of my english teaching friends have atleast a few schools with 10 or less kids in them. It makes sense because i can’t see how that’s economically efficient- but i think about how one day there were plenty of kids to fill this school, and now there are just a bunch of creepy empty classrooms.japan is having a problem of having not enough children. and most young people move away to cities so mostly old people are left in the country side. the japanese are notorious for having very long lives, which also leads to a lot of old people.  these are some interesting articles on it that i found through jason:  

part 1

part 2

part 3

the last article also talks about racism in japan, and how japan is now attempting to bring foreigners in to help with the changing demographics.  i think there’s only about 1 % or so of foreign people in the population of japan.  At first i felt no feeling of ill will towards foreigners or myself here, people were only ever so helpful and accepting of me.  After a while though, and after learning some japanese, i see more and more cases of it. i would hear kids call other kids ‘gaijin’ (foreigner) in  not so nice ways and often it irks me because of how differently i am treated. mostly this is due to the fact that i am 1 of maybe 6 foreigners in my entire city.  some people never ever see non japanese people so i am constantly being stared at, constantly have people scream and tell their coworkers at the grocery store that i, too, buy soy sauce, and am constantly having my chopstick skills commented on (a skill that i guess only japanese people can most often do).  I brought a teen magazine in for my middle schoolers to look at, and the most often laughed at page, was the page with a black guy on it.  maybe it’s just culture shock, but lately i am dwelling on how differently foreigners are treated.

on to a story about the only time i have ever felt like crying in class:  

most of the time, i never have to interact with the other teachers in my school besides small talk.  last monday though, 2 of my teachers were sick so i went with this one older man to class and i would listen to speaking tests while he would control the kids in the classroom.  in any case, this guy is a little bit strange. he never acknowledges me. when he found out he was going to class with me he sort of grunted then left the teachers room. i ran behind him to catch up because obviously we’d be in the same room working together so i was going to make some sort of effort to communicate with him in japanese (which would have been the first time ever).  for the entire walk to the classroom he walked in front of me and ignored my quiet attempts to talk to him.  i would try to scoot up beside him and he obviously wasnt having it. hed walk a little faster or edge over so i couldnt be beside him. i knew however, that he knew i was behind him- i saw him side eye me!  when we got to the class he openned the sliding door to the classroom and then immediately shut it behind him. in my face.  with a glass window so that every kid in the classroom could see that he had just shut a door in my face.  I seriously just didnt know what to do. i stood there with this astounded look on my face and then started nervously laughing. i could see all the kids on the inside do some silent hand motions trying to tell him that he had just shut the door in my face.  he didnt even turn around when they told him that i was standing there with a door 2 inches from my nose. this all happened in a matter of seconds, but when i realized he wasnt going to open the door for me and i had stopped nervously laughing because i didnt knwo what else to do to save face, i opened the door and walked in.  he didnt even look at me or apologize. i could see some kids giving me a knowing eye.  my natural unconfident reaction was to be sad and almost cry. but i couldnt do that so i just sat there looking at the class trying to hold back tears and telling myself over and over what a jerk this man was in my head and that i did not need to let him make me feel this way. then i got angry and i felt better. i went into the hall and did the tests and then the class was over.  

now, i give him the serious stink eye every time i see him. seriously, what a jerk. i have never been made to feel that way, ever, by anyone… and it just made me more thankful for the teachers that i actually work with who respect and appreciate me. it also makes me realize how important it is to make someone feel like they are loved and respected and needed… in any part of life. 

in other news, here are a few links/short stories

my town is even more famous in the new york times now and various other places:obama  

last summer i rode bikes with a then new friend, ian, and liana to ian’s friend’s house. they had constructed a dream machine in their empty living room.  so we turned the lights off, closed our eyes, and sat with our noses almost touching it as it spun around. nothing happened for me, i think im too anxious and stressed out, though i’m still very curious.  this is a link to a website that does the same thing: 

online dream machine

im too afraid to do it though because i feel that i will have an epilepctic fit in my apartment alone in the middle of japan.

kelsey finally received a birthday package i sent her on november 27th 2007 from japan, on february 20th 2008. sometimes miracles do happen. it was a mild cause of anxiety for me that she had never received it

and i finally saw “harold and maude”. i feel that i missed out on a bunch of classics growing up- like 90210, saved by the bell, dirty dancing, harold and maude…. i’d like to say that harold and maude certainly lived up to the hype, but sadly… when i saw dirty dancing for the first time- it did not.

last but not least, here’s a picture of my neighbor- and his first experience with conversation hearts:

 

i smell like buffet food

so this weekend was spent hibernating and eating, and so have the last few weekend and nights minus a few small trips and regular activities. i have seen the results of this hibernating, as i am storing my fair share of food on my body. i think i’ve gained like ten pounds. good thing noone sees me nekkie lately. maybe the old ladies at the onsen?

today i was supposed to go to kyoto, i wanted to see two shows that ended today. i have to get my game face on next time and get there earlier instead of trying to go on the last day in a snow storm…. which didnt work out so well… 

  

i woke up and threw open my curtains to a blur of white. i went down and had to dig out my car. the snow was higher than my tires. that was fun. the roads were kind of dangerous but at that point it wasnt snowing any more…  i figured since i had done nothing all weekend i should try…. i drove for like 40 minutes and got to the mountainy part and you couldn’t see anything in front of you and the roads were terrible.  i decided to call it quits instead of falling off a mountain. 

so on my way home i stopped at one of my favorite towns/one street in japan called kumagawa. in fall i had gone there for a festival. (i will take kelsey, nicole and jordan when they come!) it wasnt snowing when i first got there so i went for a long walk. all the trees had a thick layer of snow on one side of their trunks… strange? alot of the time i was the first person who had walked on the snow which was fun, and there was no sound… you could see a storm coming because the sky in the other direction was pretty ominous. all the sudden it was like crazy windy and i couldnt see anything. i walked back and tried not to fall over then sat in my car until i could see in front of me.

 

 

afterwards i stopped at the japanese version of walmart and bought some watercolors. i had bought a dollar set at the japanese dollar store with beautiful colors but nothing really happened when you added the water— they were a little cheap… what did i expect?i wandered the aisles of plant 2, feeling at home. its the closest thing to anything american feeling in japan- high cielings, gross lighting, bulk food, junk food, 8 kinds of everything.  i looked at the stationary section- my favorite, and the new playboy bunny memorabilia section in the front.

anyways- i told michiko later i had gone there and she told me that a lot of her friends had stopped going there because they sell food from china. they hate food from china— even before that whole recent gyoza incident. but there sure as hell is a ton of it in the markets so someone must be buying it? 

michiko texted me at like 6 in the morning asking if i wanted to go to a japanese buffet, im glad i hadnt  responded with a no, because i ended up not having anything to do. so after i watched a few episodes of gossip girl she picked me up and we were off! she took me to a place where you can make chopsticks and i made some really unfortunate ones. then she took me to some wierd glass exhibit but i thought we were going to a gRass exhibit. a mix up with the L/R situation here… she kept looking at her watch, she seemed really concerned that we get to the buffet first so we could have first choice of food. so we went there 30 minutes early and they werent ready…. so we went to another chopstick making place across the street and food museum. then we went back, and we were the only ones in the restaurant the whole time because of the weather. michiko was happy. we ate way too much food. and i discovered what my favorite mystery tea is- genmai. i always have it but never knew the name- i would always just buy it by chance.. how nice!

 

on friday i went for a bike ride in a sweatshirt which was strange considering my town was covered in 8 feet of snow the day before and after.  i rode to the video store and opened an account. my conversation with the clerk was an adventure to say the least. i made sure to ask about the movies i was renting not being dubbed over in japanese (mika had made a similar mistake). anyways, i got the movies home and they were mostly in spanish or japanese even though they were american movies. what a bummer. 

im getting very excited thinking about showing good friends around my town- i live in a beautiful place!

also- i found out a friend i went to college with was on conan with his band- awesome! i love seeing people i know in magazines or on tv or anything of that sort… 

yeasayer

and my other friend from high school, will, is in a band thats getting a lot of attention- which they should- they’re so good! thao 

my favorite things this weekend: genmai tea, rubber boots, waterproof clothing, figuring out torrents, the juno soundtrack, and the movie ‘once’ (thanks nicole!)

i am seriously bumming

i would go so far as to say that my favorite restaurant that i have ever been to throughout the entire world closed in january. it was a japanese vegan place in kyoto called ‘peace cafe’. unbeknownst to me, i had my last meal on december 7th… i went by myself to have lunch before i went to a film festival in kyoto. i sat at the window and had the set lunch menu. it was amazing.

 

this weekend i havent done anything but make valentines and watch movies and hibernate.  i’m avoiding the massive amounts of snow. i’m going to meet shawn tmw in kyoto because he had a bike race and we were going to go get lunch at peace cafe. i’m pretty sure my heart dropped when i looked at the website and it had closed.  i guess im going to have to explore some other options now…. 

 

i was also thinking lovingly at the thought of me, nicole, and kelsey having one of the best meals ever when they came to visit. and also taking my family there in april. what a bummer, they never even got to experience it.  

 

RIP peace cafe. 

my town is famous!

i forgot to mention this, it’s the town i live in :OBAMA

happy valentine’s day

oh man- exactly one year to date i drove to dc in a snowstorm with nicole. we made mnemonic devices to remember which president was on every bill and coin.  we talked about current events in japan and the US… and why we wanted to go to japan to teach english when we went to school for fashion design and marketing? and how to say ‘how about this weather?’ in japanese from a ‘learn japanese’ tape that nicole had so we could impress them with our japanese skills. we brushed up on our valentines day history in case we had to do an ‘impromtu’ lesson… all the while i had that horrible feeling in my stomach of absolute nervousness.  nicole and i made it to dc, drank like 5 espressos and a nasty cuban coffee, and trudged into the interview full of snow and sopping wet.  well, they asked what japanese i knew and somehow all i could remember was- ‘how about this weather’ — so its a good thing i studied it because they seemed pretty impressed. they didn’t ask me about me about any sort of money which was dissapointing, and most every other question they asked i had prepared some sort of answer for. in anycase, i did something right because here i am… and here nicole is… on valentine’s day- in the middle of nowhere at opposite ends of the country (we might as well be) in another big snow storm (except this time to a greater degree in nicole’s case).   who knew this is what id be doing in a year:  this weekend kristin invited me to go to traditional japanese theatre called Noh that her friend Ike has studied for 25 years. 25 years!!! he says that you study for about ten years thinking you can learn everything but then after that you realize you’ll never be professional.  when i got in the car to make our way to osaka, ike expressed how he was worried that we would be bored and how he was going to fall asleep and that not even japanese people can understand what they are saying.  i was like “NO WAY! this is going to be awesome!” i changed my mind after we sat watching a woman in a mask painstakingly shuffle around stage for 1.5 hours while two people banged on drums to no particular beat and made animal whooping noises and everyone sang in a really stressed out manner that made me want to have an anxiety attack that ike calls his “noh voice”.  The costumes were really amazing, but they only keep you entertained for so long. i positioned my watch so that i could see it w/o looking obviously rude then glanced at it every minute while obsessively doing fractions in my head on how much time i thought i had left to sit through this.  there were two noh shows, one “kyogen” show which was supposed to be some sort of jester but we didnt get any of the jokes because they were all in japanese, and a couple of noh dances.  i think kristin summed it up at the end with “i think i now  know what purgatory is like”. in anycase, it was one of those things i was really happy i went to but will most likely never go to again.  i did however, love the costumes, and had an awesome day overall…. ike took us to eat at this amazing japanese restaurant with his friend rieko.  she came dressed in a kimono looking so cute. she is a packaging designer, boxes, and studies noh also. she wrapped his valentines day package in the nicest way. the japanese love wrapping and presentation.  ike says “the japanese taste with their eyes”, which i love. its a mentality i will take with me when i leave. that night we went to korea town in osaka and i ate a meal that comes fresh in a big hot stone bowl and you stir the ingredients until they cook in the bowl.. i hope to eat much more of this when i go to korea at the end of march!!  in other news, my favorite thing as of late is mochi- pounded rice. you put it in the toaster and its a gooey, hot, delicious, filling treat! and lately they have strawberry mochi! mmmm! today i bought local mochi from the market and it was so much tastier than the packaged…   last night i packaged 60 little baggies of conversation hearts and wrote out valentines for all my teachers. it was a long process but the teachers loved it. in japan, girls give boys chocolates on valentine’s day. and on march 14th, girls get chocolates. everything about what i gave them was crazy to them– everyone was ooing and ahhing today i spent the day at one of my favorite elementaries. i actually love all of them but this one has a few unique qualities.  when i arrived all the kid were shoveling the front of the school in shorts. i dont really get it because i seriously wear long johns , 2 pairs of socks, and literally 5 shirts and am still freezing— and somehow kids are wearing shorts in elementary and girls are wearing knee socks and pleated skirts in junior high? i dont get it…. i spent the day doing magic tricks i had learned off the internet, playing basketball with a cute kid that looks like a japanese harry potter, buying paper hamburgers, washing my hands 8000 times, following around this adorable kid that is the japanese little kid version of my friend alex, and jumping rope with all the girls but always being the one that messes up and catches my big huge clumsy body on the rope. its pretty fun. last but not least- this is my favorite japanese junk making company called san-x. they make the cutest stuff and i am definitely a sucker for it… this is the world of kitties rolled into food…i watched juno on the internet and it made me pretty sappy about love and boyfriends, especially with it being valentine’s day today, too!  sigh…  

4 month recap :)

okay so i’ve been mia

alot has happened obviously, you may want to look at nicole’s blog for a very detailed recap of my trip to cambodia and thailand  

here are some highlights:

FRIENDS: 

this is my bff ayana at onyu elementary school- kelsey will be meeting her in t-minus 39 days when she come to visit. my immediate friends in japan consist of a few elementary schoolers and a number of cute old ladies…
 

my other elementary school bff:

on our stoop:

HALLOWEEN:  

my halloween: mr shikimi’s costume is a pirate with a biore face mask on his forehead and scott is some sort of sexy cat, michiko has a pumpkin napkin around her neck and im a five minute mummy
 

apparently this is what i look like:

and we make pie:
 

more of what i do

MY BIRTHDAY: 

my birthday was in november- its been a while— im 24! i had a taco party, went and ate shojin ryori (special buddhist monk food), and went to tokyo the following weekend to chill with shawn and nicole!
 

CHRISTMAS: 

i made a pipe cleaner christmas tree with john because all the trees here are fiber optic and cost 90 dollars, made christmas dinner for my old lady friends, played a reindeer at an elementary school and celebrated my christmas eve by spraining my ankle doing the running man on some international frat boy full moon party on an island in thailand…

THAILAND:

It was awesome! i met really great people that i wish i lived closer to. i want to go back because i only went to koh samui and bangkok. highlights include multiple motorbike accidents that i wasnt involved in, spraining my ankle on christmas eve, drinking 5 coconut milkshakes a day, the beach, sticky rice with mango, easy vegan food, and many other things i can’t remember. i really had a great time though…

CAMBODIA:

was even more amazing, but very poor. i finally saw ta prohm (the temple with the trees growing through it), it lived up to my expectations. i spent new years eve at another gross place like christmas eve, but i was with friends and the first song of the new year was sandstorm (meaning its going to be a good year!). i was also attacked by a monkey on the moat of angkor way and it may have been the funniest thing on the trip.  i probably wont be going back unless it’s with my family or to volunteer and help.— or in the very far future

 
back to JAPAN, BON ENKAI:

new years eve work party. they gave me a vegan meal! and most of the teachers never talk to me because they are afraid of me… but this is where they drink ALOT and suddenly every english word they can remember gets screamed at me from across the room.

this is the art teacher, hes a buddhist monk after school, and really funny. the other day he kept telling me i was a “wiener” and it was really funny but i couldnt figure out how he would know that english word or why he’d be calling me a wiener… and then i realized he was trying to tell me i was a “winner”….

i had never talked to this guy before this night. here he is with a chopstick rest up his nose. he kept screaming “I am comedian!”

more ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

this is the “mother finger” game where you put pictures of your family on your fingers and sing about them…. the mom is on the middle finger, we’re singing about her…

AMERICA:

i went home for unfortunate reasons but i was really happy to be back. the only draw back is that i got a taste of how much i miss my social life, my friends, and my family…. but ill be back soon

 

<

SETSUBUN:

japanese coming of spring. we made giant maki and ate it whole in the direction of the southwest. then threw beans out the door telling the devil to go away and beans inside telling good luck to stay in… then  ate 24 beans plus one for a 25th year of fun!

 
 
that’s my life: kelsey comes soon! lauren and kate couldn’t come this weekend and im not recontracting which means im probably leaving japan in 6 to 7 months. who wants to come home with me on the transsiberian railway?   

ahhh my computer died and i lost everything. bumout. when i get a new computer or fix my harddrive or something ill post again… alot of stuff has happened! and my birthday is friday!

okay its been forever! sorry!

congatulations megan booth! she got engaged on saturday! and congratulation ashley stoner, who has been married for a year last sunday! crazy. everyone i know is getting married and having babies.

culture shock has finally hit me and im finally sad.  i miss my friends. i miss having friends. i have a few friends, but theyre not good friends who are interested in the same things as i. so often i am spending time by myself. which im not even spending that much time by myself- its just the fact that u have no other options that gets to me.  school is crazy and i stay late every day and then do work at home. it keeps me busy so its not annoying…. yet.

somehow, while in japan i have managed to squeeze bugs on two occasions.  i was at a festival this weekend… playing with something in my pocket… when i finally looked at it i realized i had been manhandling a hard beetle for like 5 minutes. i almost barfed.

ive actually done alot of fun stuff though:

here i am holding babies with my school. wierd but cute.

here i am wearing a pregnant suit with my school:

i came back to my desk to find this random sweet potato that my smart old guy (not real) crush at school gave me. often teachers give me parts of their lunch hat i can eat haha

this is my gaijin card, probably the worst photo ive ever taken- taken on the hottest most disgusting day on earth.

this is a drunk man on the street in osaka ( i went last weekend with shawn-fun!). this happens alot.

i take alot of photos of my town bc i go alot of bike rides  by myself:

i took purikura with my students last saturday- really fun! this is what the screen looks like to decorate!

i went bowling, and this is what the shoes look like!

and i went to the best festival i’ve been to in Japan- on the cutest street i’ve been on in Japan! and its only 20 minutes from me… so whoever visits can go

this is jason and michiko. jason is an ALT, too. and michiko is the cutest, nicest lady who takes me everywhere and makes me vegan food! i really enjoy her!

i was in the newspaper

i went to my neighbors house for dinner and we talked about halloween and it got me so excited. i think i will be sad bc i want to have fun with my friends! but scott and i want to do a haunted house for the neighborhood kids. im not sure our budget will allow it but its fun to think about for now…

i found this little guy on me. i squeezed him then was really grossed out like what the hell kind of food did i throw all over myself then realized it was a living thing. kind gross but then kind of awesome:

and today i did a lesson on my brother learning some grammar, this is for him