meetings, I hate japanese, illegal questions

There was a meeting that Aimi-sensei and I had been planning for all week today. We had to give a regular 50 minute English class for our first years (7th graders), who are our favourites and they freakin' love English.

I made a plan with her and we put it in English and in Japanese. We prepared all of the work sheets and stapled everything together neatly.

When it came to teach the class, we were both nervous. Aimi-sensei was visably nervous while I spoke more in English than I usually do with teh first years (although I doubt any of the Japaenese people there really could tell). Oh yeah, so all of the teachers from our school AND all of the teachers from Honjo JHS came to see us teach class.

AS USUAL, I was never specifically told why we had to do this. I just went with the flow.

The class went very well, the first years were rock stars because they answered all the questions correctly (even though they were visably nervous doing so). We made skits, they did beautifully, and class ended perfectly on time. It was a really good class, actually!

But then we had to go to a meeting upstairs for an hour and ten minutes. All of it in Japanese, which I guess is good practice, but it wasn't interesting (even if it had been in a language I understood perfectly). The definite worst part was when they asked me MY opinion of how the class had gone... I stood up and attempted to say this:

"I believe that the first years did really well today! They answered all of our questions, and they memorised their original skits very skillfully, I thought. I know they were quiet during the Bingo game, but on their comment sheets they all wrote "Bingo was fun!" "I understood everything" "I did well on the skit!", so I don't understand it, but I think it's good".

Who knows what ACTUALLY came out of my mouth. Probably something like, "Hey everyone, I am a big dumb gaijin and I like goats! I never wash my hands, I wear shoes to bed and I never brush my teeth! I hate children!!!! Blagh lbagh!!!!!"

I don't really remember. I do know that I have been made to stay way passed my general 4:15pm every day this week, which I resent only a little... I honestly have nothing better to do when I get home anyway!!!!!

Also Kirby has been spending afternoons curled up on my lap napping. It's passing the winter!

Also I recontracted for another year with Ine.

Also I found out that downloading movies in Japan is perfectly legal. But then why does it still feel so unethical? Oh, because it IS.

Rachel

Damn if those don't be some nasty cookies.

I don't have much to talk about on this day except for a small anecdote.

I altered this comic strip from www.penny-arcade.com for writing practice and so on. I blanked out the word bubbles and showed it to my JTE.

She said, "neat! What are those cookies supposed to be?"

I think my heart literally collapsed into my chest. Cuz... I'm preeetty sure they are supposed to be penises.

The End.

Weekend of anti-anti-socialness

Weekend was more social than expected.

On Saturday I joined a few Tango people for dinner. Due to feelings that I might have to detach a lot of people from my life in order to be happy/make new friends/keep other friends, I had stopped hanging out with a few of them. However, after some self-evaluation, I decided I didn't like that about myself at all, and tried to reconnect with said people. Not be their best friends, not even be good friends, but be an acquaintance. Nobody's really that awful anyway.

That said, on Saturday I met Marina, Desirae, Andy, Eric, Yuumi, Jarrad and Scott at Mipple for dinner at the little restaurant we always go to on the fourth floor. We had lots of delicious food for not very much money and followed it up with ice cream next door at 'pier jolly', as I discovered it is called.

Afterwards, we drove to Nodagawa to get some karaoke time in. We sang for HOURS. I didn't realize how late it was until one person started throwing up from too much whiskey and my voice was about as useful as said puking person's coordination. Andy and I did a mean nirvana duet complete with headbanging/hoarse screaming! And Desirae and I rocked out to some Alanis Morisette as well, which was the end of my voice. Everyone was really drunk except for the drivers/devoted girlfriends of drunken louts. We played in the snow a little bit too

I drove Desi and Andy back to their home and decided to stay there for the night since the snow might make it problematic to get back to Ine (over an hour away) at 2 in the morning. So, the next morning I set off home to feed Kirby and change clothes and then set BACK off to Mineyama to meet Liz for lunch.

I hadn't seen Liz in ages, so it was nice catching up with her even though neither of us had too much to talk about! We ate a lot of sushi (as to say, I ate a lot of sushi) and then went for coffee at a cute little cafe called 'Honeycomb'. Liz got a very nice looking cake!

Together we set off for an IYP event (IYP stands for something official that I cannot remember). We made moss-balls! So, we took potted flowers and ivy/dragon's mustache (yay!) and shaped the soil into a ball, covered it with soft, damp moss and tied green string around it to make it stay. Voila! Moss and ball, together at last.

Granted, they were really pretty! Mine is set up by my kitchen window now, which gives my kitchen the effect of looking non-horrible! (This is always a plus).

That's the gist of the weekend, anyway. I'll put up some pictures as soon as I find my picture adapter thingie.

Rachel

Yuppie Weekend/Sweeny Todd

On Friday, Leigh and I drove in her car down to the city. The roads are icier these days, so the Japanese people have put in hot water sprays that get rid of the ice on the asphalt. Only thing is, some of them reach your windshield and it's fairly terrifying.

I spent Friday night hanging with Megan and Greg watching The Prestige (which was kindly given to me by Desirae and Andy for my birthday) and eating PIZZA (honest to God pizza).

This is Greg. He always has a good time!

Saturday was going out for burgers at an Americana style burger 'joint' with Greg, John and Megan. It was a LOT of fun hanging out with those guys. And adding a burger joint and a dr. pepper to the mix, it felt like I wasn't in Japan.

Not long after, Megan and I put on some dresses and make up so we could look/feel fancy for the opera that Ian had gotten us tickets to! High heels make me walk... poorly. The opera, as it turned out, was a mix of professional singers and community theatre types. It was interesting, and ridiculous. The Japanese people in the crowd took any excuse to clap to the beat of a song, even if there wasn't really a beat at all. And despite the fact that they generally have no rhythm.

As we were all dressed up, we decided to grab some posh food at a restaurant I have forgotten the name of! We ordered lots of delicious dishes and alcohol (for me: espresso drinks as I was battling jet-lag). Twice it was mentioned that we were having a yuppie's night out. Posh food, posh clothes and the fact that we're all way too young to be taking ourselves seriously doing either.

Sunday Megan and I got together with Amy at her apartment downstairs (we were soon joined by Ian and Lauren). Amy fixed us up a 'southern breakfast' with walnut/banana/chocolate chip pancakes, sausages, (Megan made eggs), and tea! It was immensely delicious. We then wandered out to the city of Kyoto to see Sweeny Todd in an actual movie theatre. Japanese movies theatres are very fancy and I was pleased with the over all experience! Movie was good, too!

Then it was a long series of train rides back to Tango. However, fortunately for me, there was no snow to come home to. And there hasn't really been any snow all week!

England thoughts

England and Belgium were good.
I won't write much about them because technically this is my Japan blog and also I don't think anyone would find it that interesting!

But seeing my family was really really really good. I felt refreshed after coming back to Ine.

Getting there and back was definitely a long journey. Getting from my house to England took about 36 hours (driving, train, bus, train, airplane, train) and coming back was about 28 hours (train, plane, train, bullet train, train, drive).

Fortunately the jet-lag didn't get the better of me, I've been busy at work ever since, and I haven't been as sick of Japan as I was just before leaving. Thank goodness for that especially because man oh man I was ready to get out of Asia.

I was culture shocked in Europe though. London, especially. People there are extremely rude or nonchalant. Spikey, I'd say. It's very different after the kindness and humanity you get from everyone in Japan (even at the post office!) But I suppose city people can't be bothered to act like human beings anywhere you go. Maybe small town life has spoiled me! People in Belgium were much kinder and had a really great sense of humour! It was cold but a really good trip, overall.

I am excited for when my family will visit Japan.

I am not excited for a lot of people to leave in July. I don't' think life after that will be very good for some time. But that's not for seven or so more months. It's best to enjoy people while they're still here and willing to visit my house in outer space!

New Years Under the Snow

New Years was an interesting series of events. Most of the revolving around the massive amounts of snow that came to my town in a hurry.

On New Years Eve, I dug my car out of the four or so feet of snow and drove slowly down to Fukuchiyama. As soon as I hit the 'out-of-Ine' border, there was NO SNOW (yet). Naruhodo.

Once in Fukuchiyama, I picked up Leigh and her friend, Gordon. We drove over to the Yoshida's house for osechi New Years dishes, beer, and Canadians. As to say, we met some. They were former JETs who had been stationed in Sonobe a few years back. They were very jet-lagged and nice.

Here is Kumi Yoshida and some Osechi (New Years assortments of food-stuffs)

Around 11:30 we braved the snowfall that had come to Yasaka and walked up to the local shrine. The shrine was absolutley beautiful under all the white powder and we rang some bells, watched some chanting, and drank some hot sake.
Afterwards, we drove home at 0 km/h in Leigh's frozen car and slept/shivered in her house until morning.

I then drove back to Ine to see even MORE snow. I and my neighbour dug out our parking spaces for a good 45 minutes with shovels and gusto. Once we had spaces, I told her she could just use mine (which was more excavated), as I would be gone for 11 days.

And so I began packing for England! It was not easy getting in or out of Ine for those few days because of the snow. It's good to know that my social life will be on hold whenever snow happens though. And by good, I mean lame.