CHRISTMAS CAKE

It is part of the Japanese Christmas tradition to eat Christmas Cake on the 25th. Japanese people don't really celebrate Christmas as we do in the States, they just like seeing the lights and decorations. In Japan, Christmas is a couple's holiday, where they romantically exchange gifts and stare lovingly into each other's eyes over dinner for two. And here is a picture of it: the amazing, delicious, deceptive, and very christmasy Christmas Cake! I knew you were wondering what it looked like and how it tasted (yummy by the way). And it is important to know about it because the last question on my Christmas Quiz is, "Do Americans eat Christmas Cake on Christmas?" Well.... do they? Hmmmm, having trouble with this question? The only question that my students had trouble with was, "where does Santa Claus live?" They all think it is Norway for some reason. But don't worry I set them straight! And then had them write letters to Santa begging for him to forgive their ignorance!

Merry Christmas!!

More Fun Keitai Photos

Recently, while sitting at home trying to keep warm in my inhumanly cold house I began to contemplate the greatness of the Japanese cell phone. They are great. They have a ton of functions on them, look cute, and are not ridiculously small like Americans like them. And the best thing about Japanese cell phones is the camera. Everyone takes pictures all the time. It is perfect for those moments when you see the most interesting or hilarious thing and wish you have a camera on you. I know I sound like the official spokeswoman for keitais but it is one of the biggest things I will miss when I leave Japan. Consequently, the lack of heat that is prompting me to sit in front of the computer in the first place is not one of the things I will miss about Japan.

Anyway, here is some randomness that I recently caputred with my keitai.

This is a photo from the elevator in one of the nearby stores in lovely Unnan (Cheriba). Apparently, if you get one of your appendages caught in the door, they will send out a huge crab to pinch your finger as punishment.

I was standing in the train station waiting for Todd to get back from orientation in Okayama when I noticed this sign by the doors. They graciously translated it into English so that the foreigners who are around have no reason to disobey it's logic. While there is nothing wrong with the English, it is just a big odd, isn't it?

And it is enkai time here in Japan. Enkais are work parties where you drink copious amounts of alcohol with all your co-workers in the effort to bond. The end of the year party is one of the biggest and therefore has the best food and games. Yes, you heard me, games. So we played bingo and guessing which was the least important event to happen at the school, followed by an invigorating game of junken (rock, scissors, paper). Anyway, I took a picture of this cool fish they used as decoration for the sashimi (raw fish). Apparently this fish is quite rare and has

cool poka dots. I did the foreigner thing and took

a picture of it.

Funniest Exam Ever!

This week the end of the semester exams are taking place. So, like usual, I was put in charge of making the 3rd grade listening test. This semesters topics are weather, expressing opinion, and halloween. (By the way, not a single student got the date of Halloween correct. Either that means I am a bad teacher or my students are retarded, I am betting on the later.) Also, the third grade, since it is an elective class, can do special projects, like make an English movie. So we did. We have two groups in our class and two very interesting movies that are still going through the editing process. The theme of movie making was also included on their exam. The students were required to write about their role in the movie, what they thought of editing, and their overall thoughts on making the movie. One of my students wrote for his thoughts on the movie,

"I was excited to make movie. I'm a hot dog."

I found this incredibly hilarious for a few reasons, first there is no hot dog in any of the films we made and second, his English is excellent. My third grade elective class does not have the best English ability in the school as one would have thought. They were made to take an elective class and they hate all the other options more than English. It makes for an very enthusiatic class some days!&#*^@! So I have no idea why my student wrote this but he got full points for his response! Awww the power of being a teacher!

Happy Birthday Me!

Kyoto Fun

I think there could be no better birthday trip then the one I just took. I decided to go to Kyoto for three days and visit friends I had made way back in May. You might recall the story I have often told of the dentist I met on the train to pick up my Dad from the airport when he visited. The dentist was terribly nice and invited my father and I to dinner. Since then we have kept up contact through email and I had been wanting to see them again. This time when I visited I stay at their house and they showed me all the sights in Kyoto.

The best thing I did was go to the Iwatayama Monkey Park! It was soooo cool. There are monkeys just walking around everywhere and you can stand right next to them, they are so close. There are no cages. I did notice signs that warned us not to make eye contact with the monkeys or try to touch their babies (just good common sense really). Then in an enclosed area you could feed the monkeys. Of course I paid my 100yen and got a small bag of bananas to feed the monkeys. They stick their tiny fingers through the bars and ask for the food. It is soooo cool. I highly recommend going there if you are in Kyoto!

Also, I went to Nara and saw the big buddha. It was good fun cause there are deer roaming around and you can feed them too.Overall I had a fantastic time. The dentist's family took great care of me and took me around everywhere so I could relax and enjoy. There is nothing like Japanese hospitality. I just hope I can return it so well if they come to visit me in the states!

Softball Day turned into Cricket Day

After some planning, asking, pleading, hoping my school agreed to let me hold an English (as in the language, not the country) Softball Day. In the end, Roger (an Australian CIR) and I managed to prepare everything and even got the Daito Softball team to come along. Finally, the long awaited day came. But what could ruin a softball day more than no one showing up? Well that is an easy question, Rain!! Not that we were unprepared. Roger had brought a cricket set and we had made sure the gym was available to use, just in case. And it was good we were prepared because it rained all morning and afternoon. On the up side, I got to play cricket for the first time. It was interesting and the watered down version that Roger taught us was alot of fun. In the end it was a good day. I am glad I got to do something international at my school even if it was not exactly what I had planned. A big thank you to everyone who helped out, Janelle, Sara, Hugh, Todd, Nick, Naoko, and Mishima-san!

More Halloween

Just when you thought you had had enough of Halloween pictures I have a few more up my sleeve! These pictures are from my own high school, Daito. Enjoy!

The JET Halloween Party

Here are the pictures from the JET Halloween Party. Jenny, Nick, Todd, and I went as greasers and pink ladies. It was very cute. We participated in the pub crawl where we had to go around to 7 bars. And thanks to Jenny, since we had a drink in each bar, we won the bonus prize, which was a free drink at one of those bars! Good looking out Jenny! This was a really good time. So good even, or maybe cause he was drunk, Todd got up and sang Karaoke!! Isn't he cute.

Halloween Fun

This past week has been filled with Halloween fun. I had a Halloween party for my students at Iinan High. Only five 3rd grade girls showed up but it was alot of fun. Signe also helped out and brought some cool games. We bobbed for apples, played the 'what is the creepy thing in the bag' game, made cookies, and then made halloween shapes out of clay.
The clay picture is a picture of the scariest thing of all, a gaijin (foreigner)!






















Then on Sunday Janelle and Gabi held a Halloween Party for elementary school children. I work at the craft booth. We made Halloween finger puppets (yubiningyou). It was good fun! The kids were real ly cute and into it. They came in great costumes, some of them that their parents obviously made. There were different workshops for the kids to go to. There was a haunted house, a scary story telling workshop, outdoor games, and the craft workshop. As you can see Jen was the mad scientist!

Random Things

So I figured I would post some random keitai photos I have. I will warn you they are mostly of my cat. I know it is sad, but she does lots of cute things. She is always trying to get into the shopping bags after we take the groceries out of them and attacking things in the house. The other night a tiny lizard got into the house and Kitty stalked him until he was close enough to attack. We did rescue the lizard because we couldn't let kitty kill it. She kills enough things already. My drive way is littered with mouse parts. She tore head off of a mouse and just left it there on the ground. She is a killing machine but she is cute while she is doing it!

So this is my life now, talking about my cat. I mean I do 'things', just not exciting things right now. For example, I am spending a third of my time in Japan just within the glorious establishment of Green City. One reason I give it my loyal patronage is because it has 8 slice bread. This is a treasure and should get them some kind of award. Also, my fridge is tiny so I have to go to the store all the time to buy stuff cause it can't hold anything. And recently Todd and I bought a DVD player from Inai. It was only 4000 yen, so being that cheap, it doesn't have any region restrictions on it. Therefore, I can play DVDs from Europe, Japan, and America! Whooooooo! Life is good!

Oh! and more exciting news. Two of my friends from home, Andrea and Dave, just got engaged! Congratulations!! I am thrilled to be able to go to the wedding next September!

Let's Enjoying Japan

Just for the record, this is how Todd spends his time in Japan!

Aquas

Here are some pictures from Todd's birthday trip to Aquas, the aquarium in Hamada. It was a really good time. We got to see a ton of things that live under the sea. It is a little known fact that under the water fish don't stink, just wanted to let you know. Anyway, we also got to see the smallest member of the whale family, the beluga. The clever Japanese taught this whale to blow bubbles! AMAZING. Enjoy the pictures!

Here is a hammer head shark! Isn't it cool looking?!! It is so crazy that of all the tools in the world this shark wanted to look like a hammer! What was he thinking!


Can you see the bubble? That whale is a genius cause we taught him to do human things!!


This is just a crazy fish that we snapped a pictures of. Will the wonders of the sea never crease?

Here is a picture of the trainer with a whale. It was just as cool to see him hanging out with them as it was to see the actual whales.

Do you remember Ursula from the movie 'Little Mermaid"? Well I think these were some of her villainous henchmen! They were trying to hide out at the aquarium in Hamada! Pesky beasts.

Let's Take A Vote

Ok, so I have decided I am in no way, shape, or form recontracting for a third year in the JET program. Therefore I am faced with the horrendous decision of deciding what I will actually do in a year's time. I have a few options but I would like you to vote and help sway my decision one way or another. But remember if my life is a complete failure in the end I will have your votes on record and be able to blame you upon my death bed! (kidding! ...... or am I?)

Options:

1. Peace Corps (potentially going to the Ukraine where I can learn Russian and talk about everyone without them understanding me, though, I do that now in English!!)

2. Law School (who doesn't want to sell their soul?)

3. Picking up alcoholism and living under a bridge, (I should be so lucky to live under a bridge, most people only get cardboard boxes! ask Sara about that!)

4. Graduate school for Japanese (why not continually remind myself of how retarded I am for not being fluent in Japanese after two years in the country!)

5. Becoming barefoot and incidentally pregnant (descending to women's rightful place in society)

6. Moving back to the states (but this time to a cool city like Chicago, New York, Seattle because I am never again living in a rural area!)

7. Stripper (what!?! I would just be putting myself through college!!)

8. Moving to London and crashing at Kate's apartment (who wouldn't want me sleeping on their couch and eating all their food!!)

9. Investing heavily in the stock market and hoping I will make enough money never to work again!(Of course, first, I must learn about the stock market, but... details, details)

10. Astronaut (why not? It is as reasonable as the rest of the options listed above)

Making Movies in Yasugi

This weekend was one of the most exhausting but fulfilling weekends I have had in a while. Instead of boozing it up in the dark rooms of my house alone, I decided to spend the weekend making a movie in Yasugi. It was part of this project to teach people how to make movies. So about 80 people assembled in different teams to make a movie. We had only Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to get all the filming done. So the movie I was working on is called "maede in yasugi". I won't spoil the story for you because I want you to come see it when we have the premiere, but I will give you a teaser. It is about a woman waiting for her date to arrive and the person who arrives is quite a surprise. I had the honor of being the camera man which was challenging in many ways. First the language barrier and second the fact that I had never really used a high tech camera before. But the whole camera was in English so the actual operation of it was not difficult. We filmed each day from 7:30 am until 6pm and then we ate dinner and went to the onsen. On Sunday night we had a party and enjoyed yaki niku. It was a really good time.


This is Aikiko, the woman in charge of the audio for our movie. She is great! I loved hanging out with her. She taught me a ton of new words. For example:
1. onra - fart
2. yuuki ( ゆうき) - courage
3. saparri(さっぱり) - something compeletly done
4. bachiri - complete
5. ijiwaru (いじわる) - mean
6. honban (ほんばん)- the actual performance (movie stuff)
6. sukebe - word used for men who like having affairs!
7. nanpa + suru (なんぱ) - skirt chasing

I learned alot this weekend








This is Minako, the actress of our modest film. She lives in Tottori and wants to be an actress in the future so this was good practice for her. I had alot of fun hanging out with her as well.

Birthday Boy!

A Birthday Poem for Todd becasue today is his birthday!

There once was a boy named Todd
He was thought to be quite odd.

His 23rd birthday is today.
So I would like to read him this little essay.

This birthday is like no other.
For he is not in the land of his mother.

Cast upon the shores of Japan.
He feels like an unholy man.

The language is perplexing.
And the food is more than vexing.

For a steak his heart does ache.
But his search shall receive no break.

Japan it seems blows,
But, how was I to know.

In the winter his toes were frost bitten.
And in the summer his body was bug ridden

He now lives with a cat named kitty,
Who he gave the great nickname 'shitty'.

Also he lives with a goofy girl.
Who sometimes makes his anger unfurl.

For that she does apologize
But never is she wrong, you realize!

And this girl may be quite odd.
For her love of the boy named Todd.

But her love for his is second to none.
Even next to a cookie all cooked and done.

She wants no other boy you see.
For any other boy would make her want to flee.

Happy Birthday Todd!!!

I love you like no other.
More than you mother
And at least twice as much as your brother.

I hope you enjoy your time in Japan.
And it ends better than it began!

Daito School Festival

So this is Daito High School Festival. It is one of my favorite times of the school year. For one week the students don't have class, they don't have to study, and they can be creative. This year there were four teams, red, green, yellow, and blue. (I was part of the red team and they were the overall winners!) They competed for overall winner of the festival. They decorated their classrooms, held dance competitions, and competed in sports events. I loved to see the students acting natural outside of the classroom, they are almost like different students.


This is Naoko and Todd in the blue team's room.

These are two the students on the green team. They are also really good students to have in class.

These girls are some of the nicest and sweetest I teach!

This is Todd and I at the festival. He enjoyed himself immensely because he guessed the right answer in a Japanese quiz game and got a cool prize.

Kanji Of The Day: 卒中

romanji: socchuu

hiragana:そっちゅう
definition: noun (meishi) ; cerebral stroke; apoplexy

As many of you know I take a kanji test every Monday with my first grade students. This is one of the kanji for the test today. I love kanji, so many words I am just dying, or in this case, having a stroke to know!!

Yatta!!!

I am finally a whole person again!! I have done it, I passed my drivers license test! Yeaaaaaah!

(so shut up you filthy deer!)

Japanese Driving License Hell

It is that time of year! It is the season for your International Driving Permit to expire. And if you happen to be a lucky American it means that you will have to take all parts of the Japanese driver's test if you ever want to drive here again! It is not only a fun experience but a money wasting one as well. Don't get me wrong driving for 7 years should give me some sort of credit towards driving in Japan but it does not!! So what happened that would make me sound so bitter? Bitter? Who, me? Anyway, now that you are done unscrupulously labeling me I will explain.

My supervisor scheduled an appointment at the Japanese DMV. First I had to have an interview where he asked all sorts of driving and non-driving related questions. Like, "How much did you pay for driving school?" and "It says in your passport you went to Germany, why did you go there?" Then I scheduled another appointment for the actual test. I went with one of my Japanese teachers to take the test. This is good and bad, she interpreted for me but was also more anxious than I was! Then I took the test and it went awful, once being told, "Stop, Stop, Stop" by the instructor!! Damn it! So I must return and take it again. I hate having to do this. I really thought when I was 17 that I would never have to go through the anxiety of doing it again and look at me now. I was so nervous I had labored breathing, sweaty palms, it was like I was at a porn theartre!!

I hate this! I hate this! I hate this! (said screaming as I pound my hands and feet on the floor!)
And here is something I did to kill a whole Friday morning at work because the one class I had was cancelled!! Whooo! Love my job!

Home!

I had a wonderful time visiting home for two weeks. I had stayed abroad for one whole year before returning to the great state of Ohio. While there is nothing that would attract people normally to buy an expensive plane ticket to a place that could only brag of having lots of corn and cows, I need to see my friends and family. I needed some time to replenish my soul with stimulating conversation and taking naps on comfortable sofas! I love living abroad but I am glad there is always a place I can call home. Thanks family! Enjoy the pictures.


This is my newly arrived nephew Tyler Alexander!! Good job Kenny and Laura!


This is my famed roommate from college Suzanne in the Yukata I bought her!

This is some of the ladies in my family. From left to right, my sister-in-law Laura, my cousin Sarah, me!, my sister Colletta, and my cousin Heidi.
I

Mushi (bug)

What is this? It looks like an awesome crazy bug!

Seek Sack Mama

Awww, I have returned to Japan, the land with the inability not to write foolish English! Soon after arriving I decided to visit the fabulous grocery store in Kisuki called Cheriba and I stumbled upon this gem of a magazine. I asked myself, "Who wouldn't want to be a Seed Sack Mama?" I love Japan!

Rain Rain Go Away

There are many natural wonders in my part of Japan but perhaps we are experiencing one of the natural horrors this week. It has been raining constantly since Tuesday. Classes have been cancelled for fear of the trains derailing due to flooding and the possibility of students being stranded far from their homes. There was also a mudslide in Kakeya, a town close by. I hope this doesn't prevent me from breaking out of Shimane to come home. Fingers crossed!!

This picture is of downtown Matsue by the station. (ps. I must accredit Maddy with this fine photo she sent me. Way to brave the rough weather!!!)

Universal Language

This is the universal sign for impotency. Thank you Jon for an educational and enjoyable birthday. Here is to 25! I hope you never have a day of impotency but if you do, you will now know how to explain it to a Japanese person. "Gambatte, Gambatte, Oh, Zanen!" Emily you are genius!

My First Married Friends!!!

We all know it is going to happen one day, we are going to get old. There are signs along the way that show us the road to old age like forgetting people's names, wanting to play shuffleboard, and wearing our pants too high. But there are also less depressing things like your friends from College getting married!!!

But putting my own insecurities and apprehensions about aging aside, Congratulations Todd and Rebecca!! You both look so lovely! I am very, very happy for you. You were the most lovely couple I knew and now you are the loveliest married couple I know! And who is that hot guy in the picture with you? The one with the red tie. Is he available?

C.H.E.S.S.

This past weekend saw the efforts of 51 English teachers in Japan realized. We all gathered for a three day, two night camp in Mt. Sanbe to teach 61 students English for the weekend. It was a really good time. It is great to finally have met students who want to learn English and enjoy speaking it. It doesn't get any better than this! Enjoy the pictures!