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.