Phew.
So my weekends have been filled with crazyness for the past…for the whole month! Haha.
For Independence day weekend, Lupita and me threw our second Mexican dinner party (this time, it was called Mexi-Nite) and then it was our friend’s, Carl, birthday BBQ the next day. The following weekend, my friend Emmett had an English-club-BBQ-party. It was a lot of fun! It was interesting to me how his students were more willing to speak in English than some of my students are.
Then on Tuesday, I had an early dinner, took a shower and then took a nap. I got up around 9 and then headed for the train station to meet up with Lupita and Matt. In the city we met up with Matt’s girlfriend, Rena. And then at the karaoke place, Aki met up with us. Yes, karaoke. Yes, somewhere around 10 or 11 at night. Why?? Because we planned to karaoke until 4 in the morning. Yes! Until 4 in the morning on a weeknight. Why on earth would I do this craziness? Well because in the city at 4:55am, there was a festival known as Hakata Yamakasa. Mainly men (there were a few little boys and even babies “participating” in the festival too) take turns carrying huge and amazingly heavy mini shrine around the city. They get splashed with water here and there too. I think it was done this early in the morning to avoid the heat wave from mid-day…but it may have some other kind of traditional reason too…
So anyway after this crazy night, we all hopped on a train to go back home. I took a taxi from the station to my place, took yet another shower (it’s pretty humid these days…boo) and then biked to work. I was fine until my breakfast hit in and I immediately started getting sleepy….despite the coffee I had drank. So after a fun day at work where I helped teach, showed pictures and took naps at my desk (not uncommon in Japan, but a bit embarrassing when 2 of my students caught me…haha) I went to my Japanese class. And this time I actually stayed up (I’m usually the sleepy one…), participated more than other times and actually got some things right! Yay! But in my defense, we were reading a story this time (no grammar drills).
Then there 2 days worth of classmatches at my school (all the students get separated into groups and they play either soccer, dodgeball, volleyball and basketball. So I pretty much spent those days outside…and only on the second day did I get some sunburn. ><” Luckily, not a lot.
Friday night, I went with some friends to go watch the new Harry Potter movie! Yay! (more on this later)
The next day, Saturday morning, I got up early (ugh) to go to my friend’s high school to help her with her English Camp. She asked a group of us…and I was happy to know I wasn’t the only one that needed coffee first thing in the morning to properly function…especially for a Saturday morning. But man, once we met her students, I had all this crazy energy running through me!
Later that day, there was a Sayounara Block dinner. JETs in Fukuoka (maybe other prefectures do this too…I really don’t know) get separated into blocks, or groups. Then our “block heads” are in charge to doing events for everyone in the block to meet up, connect and stuff like that. The block heads are also like the ones the block members can go to to ask questions. I’ll be one for next year. ^^v
Then, on Sunday morning, I got up early (yet again) to go on a road trip with Grace, Carl, Emmett and David to Miyazaki Prefecture. Man…most of the weekend was spent in the car…but we did get to see some awesome things! (yes, I have been slow at uploading pictures…they’re still in my camera…photo updates later…)
Then on Wednesday night, instead of Japanese class, we went on an outing. We went to a beer garden. Or so I thought but it turned out to be a “Maid ‘n Beer” garden. It was a mix between a beer garden and a Maid café. So…interesting…
*breathe*
Ok, where was I???
Oh right, so then on Friday night, I had an enkai with the teachers for the 1st years (enaki = business party). We had dinner and drank and had a jolly good time…despite the crazy rain going on outside! After the dinner, some of them were going to go karaoke and I soooooooooooo wanted to go with them but I had told Lupita and Julie that I’d meet up with them for our unofficial “nijikai.” (nijikai = it’s an after-party but usually associated with an enkai). So I got a ride from my JTE that was heading home (and it was luckily on her way). So I had my “nijikai” with the girls at our favorite place (well, at least for like Lupita and me), Son House. It’s an awesome family hamburger restaurant with an awesome owner who knows English and has traveled to San Francisco and whatnot. So we’re getting to know them pretty well now. ^^ So much so that we stayed until they closed…ehehe^^;; But the night doesn’t end there, we decided to go karaoke after that!
Then we took a taxi home (because it was raining yet again…boo) and slept in for Saturday. But in the evening, we ventured out to the mall to look for yukatas. Sadly, I couldn’t find a yellow one…but we got one for Lupita who, until now, did not have one. After we got back to my place, we ended up staying up until 5am again! But this time it was just spent looking up bands on youtube and general chatting…
Sunday morning though…it was raining cats and dogs!!! So some trains were stopped, some rivers were in danger of flooding over…but aside from huge puddles around my place, my area was generally ok… So once the rain stopped for a bit, my gals went back home and I just stayed inside all day.
…ok…this is pretty long…I’ll stop here…
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Mexi-Nite
Hello~!
So, I’m finally re-connected! Yatta!
(By that I mean that I finally have internet at home again. Woot!)
Long story short, from the time I got here until I moved to my new apartment, I bummed the internet off of my neighbor. He’s the one that told me the passphrase so it was really easy…and then I easily forgot it wasn’t mine… But anyway, I have it now and so I should be better about replying to e-mails and I’ll most likely be spending more time on myspace and facebook. Forgive me eyes!
Now for updates:
…um…nothing much…
At the moment, I’m watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Japanese (because it’s on TV and my TV doesn’t have the language button…) but since I own the movie, I know what’s supposed to be said so I can catch the Japanese and learn new words. :P
Last weekend, Lupita and me had our Mexi-Nite. It was our second time doing it and it took us just as long as the last time to prep and cook everything. Boo~. Actually, it was longer this time around… :/
We woke up around 7 in the morning, packed up pots and pans and other essentials from my place and took a taxi to her place (she had come the night before to bake the desserts with me and ended staying the night), cleaned her place, starting prepping, ate a quick lunch and then cooked cooked cooked until 6:15. That’s when I got ready really fast and then walked to the station to meet up with some friends to that were coming to the dinner (but obviously didn’t know where Lupita lives). But everyone came and it well rather well. This time though, we didn’t have a lot of left-overs like before (we had over-estimated how much chicken we’d need…). We tried to make our own corn tortillas this time but the mix we found didn’t work out too well… So our attempt at making enchiladas rather failed…and I got my finger tips a little burned in the process. Boo!
However, everyone seemed to really like it. We put the “tortilla” dough as the first layer in Lupita’s hot pan and then added the meat we cooked with the enchilada sauce (which we found cans of in an international food store). A little before we expected our guests, we added some spicy mozzarella cheese to half of it. The cheese side was the first to be eaten. It was all eaten by the end of the night. You know what the funny thing is? Lupita and me didn’t even taste it! We have no idea was it was like. But according to our friends, it was good! Whether or not it really tasted like enchiladas…we don’t know…
The Menu:
“Enchiladas”
Re-fried beans
Spanish-style rice
Flour tortillas
Steak-picado
Mole
Papas fritas
Salsa
Sour Cream
Guacamole
Margaritas
O-cha (cold tea for anyone who didn’t want to drink alcohol)
But all in all, it all went great. Even our late visitors (late because they had to work and they close at midnight) came, ate and 2 stayed until 5 in the morning! It was crazy but also great fun! :]
But of course, we were rather tired the next day. I didn’t wake up until like 1 (when Lupita came to wake me up. Hahaha. Oh yea, I spent the night at her place) and then I helped her clean up her place.
And then we took a taxi back to my place where we joined many friends (some again) for Carl’s birthday dinner. After eating, avoiding mosquitos, getting a little wet from the on/off rain, we had fireworks! So it really felt like the 4th of July. ^^b
Most of this weekend was spent on catching up on sleep. ;P I caught up on some on Sunday night and through out the week…but because I had to wake up early to go to work, I never felt fully rested. But ah, this weekend was great for that. Sleeping in is what I love about the weekends. x3
Alright. I’m gonna go hit the hay.
Can’t wait for Friday!!! Imma go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with my friends!!! ah~
So, I’m finally re-connected! Yatta!
(By that I mean that I finally have internet at home again. Woot!)
Long story short, from the time I got here until I moved to my new apartment, I bummed the internet off of my neighbor. He’s the one that told me the passphrase so it was really easy…and then I easily forgot it wasn’t mine… But anyway, I have it now and so I should be better about replying to e-mails and I’ll most likely be spending more time on myspace and facebook. Forgive me eyes!
Now for updates:
…um…nothing much…
At the moment, I’m watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Japanese (because it’s on TV and my TV doesn’t have the language button…) but since I own the movie, I know what’s supposed to be said so I can catch the Japanese and learn new words. :P
Last weekend, Lupita and me had our Mexi-Nite. It was our second time doing it and it took us just as long as the last time to prep and cook everything. Boo~. Actually, it was longer this time around… :/
We woke up around 7 in the morning, packed up pots and pans and other essentials from my place and took a taxi to her place (she had come the night before to bake the desserts with me and ended staying the night), cleaned her place, starting prepping, ate a quick lunch and then cooked cooked cooked until 6:15. That’s when I got ready really fast and then walked to the station to meet up with some friends to that were coming to the dinner (but obviously didn’t know where Lupita lives). But everyone came and it well rather well. This time though, we didn’t have a lot of left-overs like before (we had over-estimated how much chicken we’d need…). We tried to make our own corn tortillas this time but the mix we found didn’t work out too well… So our attempt at making enchiladas rather failed…and I got my finger tips a little burned in the process. Boo!
However, everyone seemed to really like it. We put the “tortilla” dough as the first layer in Lupita’s hot pan and then added the meat we cooked with the enchilada sauce (which we found cans of in an international food store). A little before we expected our guests, we added some spicy mozzarella cheese to half of it. The cheese side was the first to be eaten. It was all eaten by the end of the night. You know what the funny thing is? Lupita and me didn’t even taste it! We have no idea was it was like. But according to our friends, it was good! Whether or not it really tasted like enchiladas…we don’t know…
The Menu:
“Enchiladas”
Re-fried beans
Spanish-style rice
Flour tortillas
Steak-picado
Mole
Papas fritas
Salsa
Sour Cream
Guacamole
Margaritas
O-cha (cold tea for anyone who didn’t want to drink alcohol)
But all in all, it all went great. Even our late visitors (late because they had to work and they close at midnight) came, ate and 2 stayed until 5 in the morning! It was crazy but also great fun! :]
But of course, we were rather tired the next day. I didn’t wake up until like 1 (when Lupita came to wake me up. Hahaha. Oh yea, I spent the night at her place) and then I helped her clean up her place.
And then we took a taxi back to my place where we joined many friends (some again) for Carl’s birthday dinner. After eating, avoiding mosquitos, getting a little wet from the on/off rain, we had fireworks! So it really felt like the 4th of July. ^^b
Most of this weekend was spent on catching up on sleep. ;P I caught up on some on Sunday night and through out the week…but because I had to wake up early to go to work, I never felt fully rested. But ah, this weekend was great for that. Sleeping in is what I love about the weekends. x3
Alright. I’m gonna go hit the hay.
Can’t wait for Friday!!! Imma go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with my friends!!! ah~
Monday, June 29, 2009
Mua-haha!
So after about a year of being in Japan, I've noticed that not only my students but my co-workers wave more. mahahahaha.
My co-workers seemed a bit surprised by it in the beginning...and then I tried to hold back...but by then they had started to wave back so I've stopped trying to fight it. hehe
:P
It's fun to walk in the halls during lunch and have kids saying "hello" left and right (both in Japanese and English) and then having most of them wave as well.
Some of them have started imitating my double-handed-uber-excited wave. That's the best!
ahahahaha!
^^b
My co-workers seemed a bit surprised by it in the beginning...and then I tried to hold back...but by then they had started to wave back so I've stopped trying to fight it. hehe
:P
It's fun to walk in the halls during lunch and have kids saying "hello" left and right (both in Japanese and English) and then having most of them wave as well.
Some of them have started imitating my double-handed-uber-excited wave. That's the best!
ahahahaha!
^^b
Thursday, June 4, 2009
My Birthday
So yesterday was my birthday and it was quite fun! Sadly, it was my first time not celebrating it with my family and my mom’s delicious food and home-made vanilla cake…*drool* but it was still an awesome day! :]
I came to work and found a cute bag with 2 small dried roses on it. They were from my JTE (the one that happens to sit next to me. Hehe) and inside the bag were some sweets. Then, my second host mom (the one that lives in Amagi) sang the “Happy Birthday” song to me and gave me a present (they were 3 really pretty Japanese handkerchiefs). Oh, and they all gave me really cute cards too. ^^
Then I was invited to have lunch with the ladies in the main office (I used to have lunch with them all the time but once I started teaching, it got harder to meet because they eat lunch during 4th period). My first host mom was sweet enough to make me lunch. And Moriyama-san (one of the ladies that really helped me out in the beginning. She took me to the department stores to buy stuff like towels and bedding and water filters…) bought a green tea cake that we all shared after eating! It was so yummy. Oh, and she gave me a present and a gag present. Hahaha.
So in Japanese, you can play with the sounds for my birthday and get “mushiba” which means “decayed tooth” (or cavity). So Moriyama-san gave me a toothbrush and toothpaste. Hahaha.
Oh, and since we shared the cake with the 2 guys in the main office too, they found out it was my birthday. So one of them decided to buy me some flowers. (Occasionally we get eggs and flowers from another high school, an agricultural high school actually, which get sold to the teachers and administrators and that day they had sent some flowers. So Yamamoto-san told me to choose the ones I like that that’ll be his present to me. So sweet, ne?
I also got some sweets from another pally-wally teacher.
Surprisingly, I didn’t get attacked by my kids…but I think they forgot since they just finished midterms and are now preparing for the Culture Festival.
Anyhoo, after all this, I went home, did some cleaning and got ready to go have dinner with my buddies. We went to a local restaurant we like to go to (so much so the workers kinda know us how. Haha) that sells good hamburgers and “Mexican” food. Sure, it’s not really Mexican but it does taste good. (But I’m really glad they sell actual hamburgers. In other restaurants, their idea of “hamburger” is really just the meat patty. It’s good but it’s a bit of a disappointment when you read “hamburger” and just get the patty…). Oh, and I got lots of cool mugs! One of them looks like a mushroom! Ahahaha. So I will have fun drinking about my new mugs in the coming week.
After having a delicious dinner, we all went to a mall to go to Baskin Robbins! And then we all got a sugar high. Hehe. But I bet it would have been a crazy sugar high if I had eaten some of Jenn’s home-made cookies. I had some this morning and they’re sooooooo good. But I definitely need some milk to go with it! ^^v
And yea…that was pretty much what I did.
Tomorrow though, I’m waking up at the crack of dawn to train hop to Tottori-ken. That is where the next Oxy Ohana reunion is being held! I can’t wait!!!
\(^_^)/
I came to work and found a cute bag with 2 small dried roses on it. They were from my JTE (the one that happens to sit next to me. Hehe) and inside the bag were some sweets. Then, my second host mom (the one that lives in Amagi) sang the “Happy Birthday” song to me and gave me a present (they were 3 really pretty Japanese handkerchiefs). Oh, and they all gave me really cute cards too. ^^
Then I was invited to have lunch with the ladies in the main office (I used to have lunch with them all the time but once I started teaching, it got harder to meet because they eat lunch during 4th period). My first host mom was sweet enough to make me lunch. And Moriyama-san (one of the ladies that really helped me out in the beginning. She took me to the department stores to buy stuff like towels and bedding and water filters…) bought a green tea cake that we all shared after eating! It was so yummy. Oh, and she gave me a present and a gag present. Hahaha.
So in Japanese, you can play with the sounds for my birthday and get “mushiba” which means “decayed tooth” (or cavity). So Moriyama-san gave me a toothbrush and toothpaste. Hahaha.
Oh, and since we shared the cake with the 2 guys in the main office too, they found out it was my birthday. So one of them decided to buy me some flowers. (Occasionally we get eggs and flowers from another high school, an agricultural high school actually, which get sold to the teachers and administrators and that day they had sent some flowers. So Yamamoto-san told me to choose the ones I like that that’ll be his present to me. So sweet, ne?
I also got some sweets from another pally-wally teacher.
Surprisingly, I didn’t get attacked by my kids…but I think they forgot since they just finished midterms and are now preparing for the Culture Festival.
Anyhoo, after all this, I went home, did some cleaning and got ready to go have dinner with my buddies. We went to a local restaurant we like to go to (so much so the workers kinda know us how. Haha) that sells good hamburgers and “Mexican” food. Sure, it’s not really Mexican but it does taste good. (But I’m really glad they sell actual hamburgers. In other restaurants, their idea of “hamburger” is really just the meat patty. It’s good but it’s a bit of a disappointment when you read “hamburger” and just get the patty…). Oh, and I got lots of cool mugs! One of them looks like a mushroom! Ahahaha. So I will have fun drinking about my new mugs in the coming week.
After having a delicious dinner, we all went to a mall to go to Baskin Robbins! And then we all got a sugar high. Hehe. But I bet it would have been a crazy sugar high if I had eaten some of Jenn’s home-made cookies. I had some this morning and they’re sooooooo good. But I definitely need some milk to go with it! ^^v
And yea…that was pretty much what I did.
Tomorrow though, I’m waking up at the crack of dawn to train hop to Tottori-ken. That is where the next Oxy Ohana reunion is being held! I can’t wait!!!
\(^_^)/
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Updates caught up yet???
Finally back in the writing mode:
Yes, I am back in the mood to write about my life so far here in Japan. Various things have happened and sadly I’m starting to forget certain details…but the main stories will be told.
Now…I think I’ll work backwards: current to past (hopefully connecting to where I last left off…)
So, at this very moment, I’m in on my sofa, listening to Asian Kung-Fu Generation and chilling. Sounds the same, right? But there is something different; I am now on the 3rd floor. :]
Yes, with sooooooooooo much help from my friends and neighbors, I have moved to the 3rd floor of my building.
The reason for all this mayhem is that I never liked being 1st floor. It’s the first time I’m living on my own and so I’m naturally a bit paranoid about certain things. Although I tend to here, “It’s Japan” a whole lot, I still cannot control all of my paranoia. I did grow up in Los Angeles (and not in the nice area and luckily not the bad area but still…) and my father did a good job of driving his paranoia into me. Of course, I doubt he knows the extent to which his paranoia teachings have led me but it has definitely made me paranoid about the world…(and yet I had enough courage to do this…hmm…)
Back to the topic!
Yesterday, Saturday, my stuff was moved, junk was thrown out and (as embarrassing as it was at the moment) I went through and dumped stuff that were on the upper shelves of my closets. So now, I get to have the joy of unpacking everything…yay… At least this time around, I know that all the closets and cupboards are empty. Woot. ^^v (So that you can really understand my joy here, when I first moved into my apartment, there was a bunch of stuff left over. It didn’t even feel like my predecessor had left. More like he left on vacation and I was crashing at his place. Yea, pretty much that bad. And then I had to clean up his mess. I’m not trying to bag on him. He was friendly and gave me good pointers when I first came. But we have very different living styles and very different ideas on what’s “clean.”)
*small note: Because I have moved to the 3rd floor, I no longer have internet…><” I will work on that this week…and then hopefully I’ll be fully connected to the world instead of only during work hours. Haha. :P
Work
Lately, I have been busy at work. I don’t know if I’m as busy as some of my other friends can get but I’m glad to be busy. I feel better when I do many things throughout the day rather than finding things to keep me busy. But I guess I like this busy because it gets me involved in all the grade levels! Hurray! My first and main teachings go to the first years. But I have been asked to help with the speech contest with the 2nd years (my first 1st years) as well as read some of their journal entries. And I’ve also been lucky to help out with some of the 3rd year classes. I was able to help teach 2 classes (both of which had students who were very surprised to see me come in) and weekly weekend assignment to two other 3rd year classes. Sadly though, they’re not always happy to see me since it means work from me…
Golden Week
So, there’s a time in the Japanese calendar when 3 national holidays are back-to-back. Children’s day, constitution day and Greenery day (I don’t remember the order they’re in though…). And so, these days, along with the weekend make for a since long holiday weekend. Most people travel around this time. Which is great since we wouldn’t need to ask for paid leave. But it’s a double-bladed sword because everyone else wants to travel too so there’s huge masses of people (at mainly touristy areas) and if you don’t plan this in advance, traveling can be really expensive.
Well, anyway, this time around, one member of the Oxy Ohana came down (yay Steph!) as well as my fellow Kyushu buddies Celeste and Daniel (who oddly enough live closer to me than the Oxy Ohana but I never really met up with until then…). So I had a full house once again. Yay! But it was a bit difficult to plan out the week since everyone had different things they wanted to do. Sadly, the mass e-mails in attempts to plan out the week didn’t really work this time around…FAIL… sadness…But, the important thing was that we had fun. :] We had karaoke fun, restaurant hopping, ramen eating, train hopping (and running to to catch the last train in. haha) and crater watching. :P Oh! And purikura of course! ^^v
Oxy Ohana
So the most recent Oxy Ohana reunion was when we all ventured out to Wakayama-ken to visit Terence for his birthday! We decided to hit up Universal Studios Japan on the Saturday of that weekend. Since I’m the furthest south of all of them (and Terence in Wakayama is the farthest away from me) I decided to come in on Friday night so that I could get some rest before we take on trains to get to Osaka. (haha. So much train hopping that weekend). So, I planned out which trains to take and all that. But the dummy of me still left some packing to do after work. So I rush home, finish packing and jet to the train station to go to the main train station to hop onto the shinkansen. I was going to change my tickets for a reserved seat but I had no time. Luckily, Hakata station (the main one I was talking about) is where the shinkansen going north start from. So I was able to find a seat in the unreserved seating cars. :] But I got a little lost and confused when I got to Shin-Osaka. There were so many different train tracks and with only a little bit of time to read the kanji for the stop I’m looking for to calculate how much to pay and then trying to figure out which train was the one I wrote on my little itinerary I ended up on the wrong track. But luckily I asked to I tried to get to the right track on time but missed it. Asked where the train in front of me was going, not fully understanding I still boarded and listened really hard to the announcer. I ended up getting off at the next stop (Osaka. Haha) and asked the workers there how to get to Tennonji. I finally get onto the right one but because I had missed the other train, my ETA for Terence was off. But eventually I hopped onto the right trains and made it to Wakayama. There, Terence and me had a rather late dinner and then hoped on yet another train to get to his neck of the woods. Blah. We then stayed up a little late chatting and then got up early the next morning to meet the rest of the Oxy Ohana at USJ. After a day of ride hopping and general awesome times, we went back to Terence’s place where we surprised him with a Marvel themed birthday card and presents. And then Steph me and also surprised Kelly with some belated birthday presents. Hehe. Sunday, we had lunch and ate some brownies I made. Then Kelly and Steph. So Terence and me wandered about and ended finding a Japanese band that was playing Green Day songs. It was awesome. I wanted to talk to them but some random older guy was talking to me (and I think kinda scared off the band guys. Boo) And then I traveled back home (this time, taking a Limited Express train from Wakayama to Shin-Osaka to avoid all the crazy transferring…
Oita
So, a friend from Oita invited me to go this hanami party. Hanami is only during the sakura season. Usually, you have a picnic under a sakura tree, eat dango and drink sake. But since it was a bit rainy that day, it was held in the building next to the little park. But that was the hanami with his Japanese teachers. There was also one with the JETs in Oita. That one was definitely more of a “party” than “hanami.” But it was fun. ^^ There was one on Sunday too but I had to get back to my place because I “had” to bake cookies for school.
(I had handed out “free cookie” coupons to all the students that had turned in all their homework. Sadly, many forgot. But I guess that was good for the teachers since they ended up getting them. :P )
…is it connected to when I stopped writing yet???
Yes, I am back in the mood to write about my life so far here in Japan. Various things have happened and sadly I’m starting to forget certain details…but the main stories will be told.
Now…I think I’ll work backwards: current to past (hopefully connecting to where I last left off…)
So, at this very moment, I’m in on my sofa, listening to Asian Kung-Fu Generation and chilling. Sounds the same, right? But there is something different; I am now on the 3rd floor. :]
Yes, with sooooooooooo much help from my friends and neighbors, I have moved to the 3rd floor of my building.
The reason for all this mayhem is that I never liked being 1st floor. It’s the first time I’m living on my own and so I’m naturally a bit paranoid about certain things. Although I tend to here, “It’s Japan” a whole lot, I still cannot control all of my paranoia. I did grow up in Los Angeles (and not in the nice area and luckily not the bad area but still…) and my father did a good job of driving his paranoia into me. Of course, I doubt he knows the extent to which his paranoia teachings have led me but it has definitely made me paranoid about the world…(and yet I had enough courage to do this…hmm…)
Back to the topic!
Yesterday, Saturday, my stuff was moved, junk was thrown out and (as embarrassing as it was at the moment) I went through and dumped stuff that were on the upper shelves of my closets. So now, I get to have the joy of unpacking everything…yay… At least this time around, I know that all the closets and cupboards are empty. Woot. ^^v (So that you can really understand my joy here, when I first moved into my apartment, there was a bunch of stuff left over. It didn’t even feel like my predecessor had left. More like he left on vacation and I was crashing at his place. Yea, pretty much that bad. And then I had to clean up his mess. I’m not trying to bag on him. He was friendly and gave me good pointers when I first came. But we have very different living styles and very different ideas on what’s “clean.”)
*small note: Because I have moved to the 3rd floor, I no longer have internet…><” I will work on that this week…and then hopefully I’ll be fully connected to the world instead of only during work hours. Haha. :P
Work
Lately, I have been busy at work. I don’t know if I’m as busy as some of my other friends can get but I’m glad to be busy. I feel better when I do many things throughout the day rather than finding things to keep me busy. But I guess I like this busy because it gets me involved in all the grade levels! Hurray! My first and main teachings go to the first years. But I have been asked to help with the speech contest with the 2nd years (my first 1st years) as well as read some of their journal entries. And I’ve also been lucky to help out with some of the 3rd year classes. I was able to help teach 2 classes (both of which had students who were very surprised to see me come in) and weekly weekend assignment to two other 3rd year classes. Sadly though, they’re not always happy to see me since it means work from me…
Golden Week
So, there’s a time in the Japanese calendar when 3 national holidays are back-to-back. Children’s day, constitution day and Greenery day (I don’t remember the order they’re in though…). And so, these days, along with the weekend make for a since long holiday weekend. Most people travel around this time. Which is great since we wouldn’t need to ask for paid leave. But it’s a double-bladed sword because everyone else wants to travel too so there’s huge masses of people (at mainly touristy areas) and if you don’t plan this in advance, traveling can be really expensive.
Well, anyway, this time around, one member of the Oxy Ohana came down (yay Steph!) as well as my fellow Kyushu buddies Celeste and Daniel (who oddly enough live closer to me than the Oxy Ohana but I never really met up with until then…). So I had a full house once again. Yay! But it was a bit difficult to plan out the week since everyone had different things they wanted to do. Sadly, the mass e-mails in attempts to plan out the week didn’t really work this time around…FAIL… sadness…But, the important thing was that we had fun. :] We had karaoke fun, restaurant hopping, ramen eating, train hopping (and running to to catch the last train in. haha) and crater watching. :P Oh! And purikura of course! ^^v
Oxy Ohana
So the most recent Oxy Ohana reunion was when we all ventured out to Wakayama-ken to visit Terence for his birthday! We decided to hit up Universal Studios Japan on the Saturday of that weekend. Since I’m the furthest south of all of them (and Terence in Wakayama is the farthest away from me) I decided to come in on Friday night so that I could get some rest before we take on trains to get to Osaka. (haha. So much train hopping that weekend). So, I planned out which trains to take and all that. But the dummy of me still left some packing to do after work. So I rush home, finish packing and jet to the train station to go to the main train station to hop onto the shinkansen. I was going to change my tickets for a reserved seat but I had no time. Luckily, Hakata station (the main one I was talking about) is where the shinkansen going north start from. So I was able to find a seat in the unreserved seating cars. :] But I got a little lost and confused when I got to Shin-Osaka. There were so many different train tracks and with only a little bit of time to read the kanji for the stop I’m looking for to calculate how much to pay and then trying to figure out which train was the one I wrote on my little itinerary I ended up on the wrong track. But luckily I asked to I tried to get to the right track on time but missed it. Asked where the train in front of me was going, not fully understanding I still boarded and listened really hard to the announcer. I ended up getting off at the next stop (Osaka. Haha) and asked the workers there how to get to Tennonji. I finally get onto the right one but because I had missed the other train, my ETA for Terence was off. But eventually I hopped onto the right trains and made it to Wakayama. There, Terence and me had a rather late dinner and then hoped on yet another train to get to his neck of the woods. Blah. We then stayed up a little late chatting and then got up early the next morning to meet the rest of the Oxy Ohana at USJ. After a day of ride hopping and general awesome times, we went back to Terence’s place where we surprised him with a Marvel themed birthday card and presents. And then Steph me and also surprised Kelly with some belated birthday presents. Hehe. Sunday, we had lunch and ate some brownies I made. Then Kelly and Steph. So Terence and me wandered about and ended finding a Japanese band that was playing Green Day songs. It was awesome. I wanted to talk to them but some random older guy was talking to me (and I think kinda scared off the band guys. Boo) And then I traveled back home (this time, taking a Limited Express train from Wakayama to Shin-Osaka to avoid all the crazy transferring…
Oita
So, a friend from Oita invited me to go this hanami party. Hanami is only during the sakura season. Usually, you have a picnic under a sakura tree, eat dango and drink sake. But since it was a bit rainy that day, it was held in the building next to the little park. But that was the hanami with his Japanese teachers. There was also one with the JETs in Oita. That one was definitely more of a “party” than “hanami.” But it was fun. ^^ There was one on Sunday too but I had to get back to my place because I “had” to bake cookies for school.
(I had handed out “free cookie” coupons to all the students that had turned in all their homework. Sadly, many forgot. But I guess that was good for the teachers since they ended up getting them. :P )
…is it connected to when I stopped writing yet???
hahaha. High school kids
So something funny happened today.
(today = May 21, 2009)
So I was in my team-teaching class. It was the beginning of class when they were having their vocabulary quiz. So it’s really quiet and I heard someone’s cell buzz. I didn’t think too much of it (but I’m not that familiar with school policies and being that I hear the teachers’ phones buzz, I got used to ignoring it). But immediately about 4 or 5 boys started “coughing.” Of course I noticed it and just looked up at them and laughed quietly. One boy, whose phone I’m assuming was buzzing, noticed and just sort of laughed too.
It just happened to pull me back into my high school days. I was quite grateful for this because it always pulls me back to remember what I was like as a high school kid. That way, I can better relate and understand them (and then hopefully am able to create better lessons plans that they’ll be into and actually do).
(today = May 21, 2009)
So I was in my team-teaching class. It was the beginning of class when they were having their vocabulary quiz. So it’s really quiet and I heard someone’s cell buzz. I didn’t think too much of it (but I’m not that familiar with school policies and being that I hear the teachers’ phones buzz, I got used to ignoring it). But immediately about 4 or 5 boys started “coughing.” Of course I noticed it and just looked up at them and laughed quietly. One boy, whose phone I’m assuming was buzzing, noticed and just sort of laughed too.
It just happened to pull me back into my high school days. I was quite grateful for this because it always pulls me back to remember what I was like as a high school kid. That way, I can better relate and understand them (and then hopefully am able to create better lessons plans that they’ll be into and actually do).
Packages!
About a week or so ago, I was getting a package about every week. And they were all from home! ^^
I got a package from each sister. Each with a person note/letter from them that just made me wish they were here with me. And then an awesome surprise package from my papa. It’s a little ridiculously early but he sent me 2lbs of See’s Chocolates for my birthday. Yay!!! And of course, a card where he writes all over the inside of it. Hahaha. :]
I got a package from each sister. Each with a person note/letter from them that just made me wish they were here with me. And then an awesome surprise package from my papa. It’s a little ridiculously early but he sent me 2lbs of See’s Chocolates for my birthday. Yay!!! And of course, a card where he writes all over the inside of it. Hahaha. :]
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