Two Weeks of Crazy Part 1

So I missed a week in there. But I think you'll excuse me when you read about what I've been doing for the past two weeks.

Ok so I wrote the last blog before lots of things happened. The week following that blog was pretty normal, except for our Thursday holiday. Even after all this time, the fact that Japan has several National Holidays that fall all by themselves in the middle of the week is still just a little weird to me.

But that's Japan, at any time I'm only about 80% certain whats going on.

But after that, things proceeded as usual on Friday. But Saturday was a working day for me, as it was OMGHuge中's Culture Day. So instead of sleeping in I woke up at the usual time and went into work. So for those of you who don't know, Culture Festivals in Junior High School revolve primary around the singing competition between the classes. And because this school is SO big (15 homerooms total), this goes on for a REALLY long time. Each homeroom sings two songs, a required song for their grade and a free song. So that's 30 songs total at this school, and a lot of them are repeats. Its kinda boring, not gonna lie. But 3-4 really cutely dedicated their performance to their homeroom teacher who is about to be 60 and retire next year, and they ended up winning the day. In the afternoon they do things like club demonstrations and showing off projects they have been doing. And during that part my four girls who have been practicing for the speech contest had a dry run of their speeches. So I was pretty involved in that. Also the Rhythmic Gymnastics club presentation is always really good.

And straight after the Culture Day I went home and hopped in my car, and drove down to Masuda. That's all the way on the other end of Shimane, and Shimane is Looooong. It's about a 3 hour drive, if you are me and you speed a lot. I was going down their because my friend Jessica and I were going to drive to Hiroshima the next day for a Tackey & Tsubasa concert (yey!). But now that I think about it, I'm not really sure why I drove instead of taking the train.

But I made it there, and we had a good evening in Masuda, having yummy dinner and watching tv/DVDs. And the drive to Hiroshima was uneventful until we got to Hiroshima and kept missing our turns. But eventually after much adjusting the GPS on my phone and turning around we did make it. And had a lovely day shopping and poking around Hiroshima before the concert. And the concert was pretty awesome too. But I already wrote about that elsewhere, needless to say I made Jessica a fan too! The next day we spent looking and looking for mexican food but couldn't find it! OR couldn't find one that was open for lunch. But we did end up finding this cute little cafe where they served yummy sandwiches, pizzas, and burgers. And had cute English speaking waiters. I will have to go back there someday!

After we went home and I turned around and drove BACK to my place is where my weeks of crazy really began (really why did I not take the train?). See I'd taken that Monday off cause of the Culture Festival, and I just decided to go ahead and use my compensatory leave. And Tuesday was Rowdy中's Culture Festival (which was honestly quite vanilla this year). And then on Wednesday I went with Oshare先生 to a speech contest in another city to cheer on my girl. That actually was a lot more trouble than it should've been for me to go, and reaffirmed that my motto in Japan should be 'Just do it, and then if you have to apologize for it later'. Because getting permission can be a PAIN in this country.

My girl couldn't win, it was really too bad. But she worked really hard and I thought she did a really good job. And I had a really fun ride down to the contest with my teacher. It was interesting to get to talk to him like that outside the confines of the office. I think I learned a lot of things about him.

And then Thursday and Friday was the Mid-Year Conference for ALTs in Shimane. Which Oshare先生 also attended. That's always a fun event because all of the JET ALTs get together, and its fun to see everyone, and I feel like that conference is probably the most useful event of the year as far as work is concerned. After that Jessica stayed the weekend with me, in addition to a bunch of us having yummy dinner on Thursday night.

That Saturday was ALSO a working day for me, because it was the second speech contest. This one was in town, and I had three girls participating. It was a big contest, and went on all afternoon. Only one of my girls won a prize, but I was so proud of all of them. They really went for it! Jessica came with to that, and then together with Heather we all had dinner and saw a movie at Youme Town. We saw the Three Musketeers. It was fun, but I had to suspend my disbelief HARD the whole movie. And on Sunday we just relaxed until she could get the train home.

It was a busy week, but the BIG event at my school was still to come...

A (Tentative) Resolution (Even though its not New Years)

Ok, so I'm not good at this blogging or vlogging stuff. And I really don't know why. I LIKE to write. The vlogging may be because, well frequently I am lacking interesting things that I CAN film and safely post publicly. Also because I'm weighing the idea of a new camera, which I'd like to use for that purpose so I can stop carrying so many electronics around. Its probably just laziness, as is my problem in all things. BUT in an attempt to remedy that (I'm never gonna get ahead in life unless I can learn to turn it off more reliably) I'm going to make a resolution now. But its kinda tentative, so if I don't keep it don't be too surprised. I tend to have a lot of free time on weekends, so its going to be my goal to type a blog entry once a week. Sometimes it may also be video entries. I don't know who is listening out there, truth be told, but here goes.

Ok. So. This week in Japan.

In all honesty, this was a fairly standard week for me. Coming off from last weekend, where I went to the onsen and then dinner with some friends from Unnan, it was the pretty standard get up and go to work routine. Its been kinda grey on and off lately, but the weather has cooled down a lot. Fall is here, thank god. I'm a big fan of this weather, for the sort time we will have it. When its not gray and rainy, the sky is a lovely blue and everything else is still green. The air is delightfully cool and crisp. Someday soon the leaves may start changing colors. While on general purposes I really hate San-in weather, when its nice it is REALLY nice. For instance on Thursday it was one of those rare days where it was clear enough to see all the way to Mt. Daisen from Rowdy中. Amazing.

I took a sick day for my horrific cramps, thank you body, on Wednesday but I was back at full strength on Thursday. And on Friday I had elementary school visits. And they were to schools the feed one of my junior highs which is a VERY rare thing. Even more rare, one of the other ALTs joined me at these schools. All in all that was a successful day teaching. But I was SUPER amazing that morning and forgot I was doing that instead of going to TeenyTiny中 like I usually do, and got up and hurried my butt there. I didn't remember I wasn't supposed to be there until I pulled up and saw the bus that was taking my 1st years on their field trip. Ugh. At that point I just did a u-turn and went back home. Elementary school visits typically don't start till later, and I had just missed my opportunity to sleep in. Damn.

Did I mention the kids were going on a field trip to the local nuclear power plant? It sounded all sorts of interesting and I really wish I could have gone.

I am now considering buying a new heater for the winter, and I think I have picked one from amazon japan. Free shipping yey. Oh, and a rug, cause while nice the wood floor is FREEZING in winter.

Have a mentioned that I broke down and bought a LCD TV here? I got a pretty good deal on it, and in the end I'm really happy with it.

For future reference, I think I have finally stabilized all my code names for school related things in my head. So here is the run-down:
✧I work at three JHSs (Junior High School)right? They are, in order from largest to smallest - OMGHuge中, Rowdy中, and TeenyTiny中.
✧At OMGHuge中 I work with four (and one extra at the moment) JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English), this has changed since last year and is well...kinda in flux. But they are OMUTea先生(woman), OF先生(man), Oshare先生(man), PYT先生(woman), and Y²先生(woman).
✧At Rowdy中 I work with only one JTE and that is Giggles先生
✧And TeenyTiny中 I also work with only one JTE and that is SmileyK先生, and that has changed since last year when it was Majime先生.
✧And my supervisor is the ever wonderful K-san.

I suppose if you actually know me and these people, you'd probably be able to guess who is who but I think this preserves some level on anonymity and doesn't just...use their initials or something. They are for the most part nicknames based on various aspects of their personality or my experiences with them.

Outdoor Vlogging

Blah blah blah, I'm terrible at keeping up with this Blah

so its newly August. I AM currently editing a new video for the vlogging attempt, so its not like those intervening months went completely undocumented. But still. Why do I suck at this? I like to write, I'm even somewhat good at it I like to think.

Taking a personal day because I had some mild insomnia last night. I did manage to sleep all morning, but I've never been good at this sleeping in the afternoon thing. So hopefully tonight will be better. So it has come to pass that I have been in Japan for a whole year now, without having gone home. Its kinda weird, but certainly interesting food for thought as the new ALT in my little town arrives. She seems like a cool chick, heres the hoping we'll get on great! This summer has been a bit of an excercise in trying to get myself out there more, since its become rather clear that my living situation isn't about to change. Time enough for that next year, and more on that at a later date. Safe to say I've made some tentative descisions that seem to be best for my own personal wellbeing, and well, we'll just have to see where things go from here.

Corey was here recently, and we had some fun little adventures running around Japan, we both took a bit of a punch in the bankbook, but it was all good fun. We saw Erin in Kamisu and Lexi in Hiroshima. And I'll see Lexi again soon, as we are attending a Kissmy concert in her prefecture next week. It was fun hanging in Kamisu with Erin since she will be going home shortly, and I wish she weren't. I've seen her quite a bit in the past six months, considering how far apart we live. I'll be sad when we can't hang out anymore, no matter how inconvenient the travel is from Kantou to Chugoku. And it was great to see Corey, and have the chance to go crazy in Japan again. I was thinking we wouldn't get that chance so, I'm really really glad. The only thing I really wish we could have done, but lacked time was to go to Osaka so I could show her around my favorite place in the whole wide world. But we had a good time in Tokyo and Shimane and Hiroshima, and lots of walking and sweating was done by all. Anyway, I'm gonna try and put together my video in a way thats not boring now! Maybe more later

A Vlog without issues? Madness!

- Blogging on the go! The great Japan adventure continues...

Attack of the Vlog!!

- Blogging on the go! The great Japan adventure continues...

So there was supposed to be an entry before now

Ok so I was gonna make a video blog last month but obviously it didn't happen. A lot did happen last month though, as I'm sure everyone out there is aware. And between one thing and another I got really stressed, started doing what I do when stressed which is overeating a bit, lost all progress on that front and now I'm really irritated with myself about it.

So the first thing that happened in the end of the school year was over the course of two days both my computers harddrive and my external harddrive crashed. I managed to save most of the data on my computers drive thank god, but everything on my externals drive is gone. Some of it is backed up on my drive back in America. But anything I have added since I came here is gone. All in all it sucked hardcore. I learned my lesson last tine and most things were backed up, but then my backup failed too. What are you even supposed to do when that happens?

But I totally lucked out in that regard because my warranty was still valid...by 16 days! Man that was close. Not to mention they honor that warranty in Japan! Go Mac! So I was able to speak to people in English about it and they picked it up, took to be serviced in Hiroshima, and brought it back. No charge no questions asked. And I got a new battery, for free, not sure why.

I'm just glad my baby is back, especially with the crazy that has been this last month.

There will be a video post soon, I've already recorded it!

- Blogging on the go! The great Japan adventure continues...

This may not be my homeland, but I love this country

I'm planning an update that has to do with the situation I had with my computer and so forth, as well as nice things like graduation season here. But I felt a to the point post was in order, for the people reading and for my own record of this trying time.

I am an American through and through, I would never consider leaving my home country permanently, because for all its troubles I love it. But pretty much the same thing goes for Japan. This place has been my home away from home. This land and these people have been extraordinarily giving of their time and have shared their lives, and their joy with me. After all that they have given me, its only right that I be with them in their suffering as well.

I love this place, and it goes way beyond the love of that teenage girl who loved to watch anime. Now not to overstate, I am not in danger in Shimane, and it is rather unlikely that I will be in danger here in the future from this. Facts are, I am roughly 460 miles from where this is happening. And based on what I have seen of satellites/radar in the weather patterns since I have been living here, its just not typical for the wind to blow from that direction. It mainly seems to blow from the continent towards the pacific. Even a touch northward from me.

So I'm not leaving. If the situation calls for it, which I think is unlikely, I will consider driving further south, maybe go to be with Lexi, who is a further 150 miles away. But I'm not going to run to another country unless I have to.

And I really don't think I'll have to.

That being said, if you read this, please do everything you can to donate to the relief efforts. They need it so badly up there. And as wonderful of a nation as this is, they are sometimes too proud to ask for help when they need it. Please remember that in the coming months.

Vlogging to rescue again

So in the next day or two I will type up the awful thing that happened with my computer recently. But for now, here is the vlog that I recorded right before it happened.

I have a Youtube Video!!

So here is something I'm gonna try to do to supplement my normal blogs, and maybe it will work better :) Enjoy my first ever Youtube Video

I didn't post in December. It was a busy month and I've got some videos of moms visit. I'll try and post them up. The kids were especially busy, having tests extra. But I tried very hard to stay busy while they were testing. And of course there were also the year end drinking parties. But not too many in my case. And then mom came and we did lots of fun things. It was a good visit, and I guess its made me appreciate some things about living on my own, but also the house seem a bit more lonely for a little while. Its nice though to have some more organization going on here, so thanks mom for that! So the holidays and the New Year have come and gone.

This year I'm going to be trying something I read about online, taking one picture for every day of the year. I'll be starting a little late, but I thought it be an interesting way of documenting my life here. Maybe I'll throw them up here in batches from time to time. Tomorrow I go back to work after my long vacation. Oh its hard to think about. Times like these are when I think I miss being a student the most. Its hard to go back to the daily grind after break, and its a lot longer between breaks unless I take them myself. Urgh working is hard!