reeeecap.

So I haven't blogged in a bit seeing as I only blog at work and it is a task and a half to type anything reasonable on the Japanese laptop I have. If its not freezing every two seconds it's trying to type in about eight different fonts. I know how to use them all, but the computer wants to make that decision for me. Im gonna do it, I'm going to cook a full thanksgiving dinner for 10 people. No turkey because I truly think they do not exist here in japan. Here's the list of delicious food stuffs: pumpkin pie, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, beans, stuffing, whipped cream, gravy, chicken, corn, macaroni and cheese, rolls, and wine. ugh and I only have a microwave oven! Luckily my new Japanese friends are bringing pumpkin soup and small cakes. We'll see how this goes. On another note school lunch. I luvs it and eat tons of it meaning I keep getting fatter. I hear people bitching about how nasty school lunch is but I live in the boonies and luvs me some really weird food. I dont even know half of the things I eat. I like natto, cognac(sp?), various roots, and even the strange things they tell me is a salad. School lunches have way to many calories, but for growing children they are fine. Also the Tokyo trip has been planned and Tickets have been bought.
day 1: land in Haneda, visit the imperial palace, and chillax
day 2: Fish market, Meiji Shrine, Ghibli museum
day 3; Goverment building, sunshine, shinjuku and shopping
day 4: odaiba and in the morning harujuku. I am meeting my juku students for tokyo tower, and dinner
day 5: Tokyo disney and free hotel room!
day 6: dont have to leave until 1 so gonna chill around the airport

All in all a good haul, Im trying my hardest to get reservations at the butler cafe in tokyo but man is it a bitch. Didnt realize how popular they are.
NEXT TIME: how the hell thanksgiving went

the deadly black bag

So I have realized japan can be kinda prudish about certain subjects and way to open about others. Sorry if your a guy reading this but I must talk about the women in my office. And the fact that they keep their tampons/pad not in their purse's but in a cute little bag....in the bathroom. Yes, they keep them on the special tampon shelf probably bought by an embarrassed male co-worker and put the shelf in the far reaches of the toliet area. The shelf has this hideous print all over it and was probably marketed as the tampon/pad shelf. This shelf is filled with small bags that look like the little bags my elementary students use to pretend to brush their teeth after lunch. With hello kitty , jewel pets, and even anime characters all over the bags. All of the bags are then labeled with their name. Guess it just makes it more embarrassing when you find out your boss(my boss in fact) keeps all of her time of the month products in a cute little hello kitty bag....sorry for this rant it is really strange to me. Moral of the story keep your pads in a small bag in the bathroom lest you been seen with them in your purse. Also on a side note if you buy pads at the convini you get a black bag, I guess to hide your purchase all the better, but think about it. If your the only person to get the black bag its completely obvious what you bought, actually making you stand out more with your purchase...

we are worried about you!

So the day begins with me brushing my teeth in the small cramped space known as my shower...and as I am brushing I look down into the tub at the drain and notice there is a lack of bright yellow cork things. To clarify my shower/tub(its not meant to be a shower but I have converted it to one) can not filter hair, or frankly anything other than water. When you wash your hair some falls out and should go down the drain right? well you'd be wrong in my case. I need a plastic sponge thing that fits into the drain and it needs to be replaced about every 3 days. Back to teeth brushing, I look down to see the yellow sponge missing, there are little things that hold sponge in place and after two months of living in japan they have finally failed me. So the sponge is gone, sucked down the drain, and it is know plugging up my shower making it unusable do to water taking like 5 hours to drain. I took a flashlight and look, stick a hanger into the drain, no sign of it..damn... So I leave for work and finish my school day and as I'm sitting in the office I finally remember to tell my supervisor about it. Hell if I know how to fix it. My supervisor is a super sweet woman a few years older than me who after me describing and drawing a picture of what has happened to my bathtub starts freaking out and babbling away in japanese to everyother co-worker in the office. I'm thinking shit now everyone knows about the plight of my shower, then suddenly someone in my office starts making what is the universal sign for plunger. That would be charades version of plunging the toliet. So I say 'a plunger??' they all continue to charade along with the sound effect of doko doko. Then they ask if I have a plunger, I say no but I can buy one at the hundred yen store cheap, and in that brief second of hesitation the co-worker who sits next to me runs away and returns with the nasty office plunger and offers it to me..To apparently take home and use..IN MY BATHTUB.. No way in heck do I want it but after me saying no no no no no no no repeat this several hundred times my supervisor lovingly says they are worried about you and your safety. UGH now I have to take it and the co-worker sets the plunger right next to my desk. Great.....I tossed it into a bag and put the whole thing in another bag. As I'm leaving the office gives a horrified gasp because I put the plunger(it was cover in plastic) in my work bag and they kept saying oh but its dirty dont put it in your bag!! Do you want me to take it or not!! I took it home(yes I walked home carrying a plunger) and fixed it and now all is well. Today everyone asked is your shower fixed and I can smile and say yes it is. Thanks to a stinky office plunger.

New posty

Sooooo, its been a bit and now I have time to write. I have been teaching for two weeks now and have only covered SOME self intro's rinse and repeat....I can officially say I hate myself and never want to speak of myself again.hahahha no really introductions are actually great teaching practice but the reactions of my students are priceless. When I told the elementary school students I have a pool one boy clutched his chest gasped and fell onto the floor. He was wearing his socks so it looked like he slipped. He just laid there babbling away in Japanese... Good times. I thought I had given him a heart attack but he recovered enough to hit the kid next to him. I teach at elementary schools and junior highs in equal parts. Its easy to forget what each school knows, and doesnt know. In all I have 13 schools but its cool because I can attend at least 7 sports days!!!!! Again let me say sports day is the shit and I would have been SUPER competitive if my school had, had one. Hopefully my most recent Junior High will let me try the tug o war. seeing as I weight twice as much as any one around me Ill just lean on the rope and drag 5 people down with sheer weight. I have also begun trying different things in the community. Ikebana was a great stress reliever. Flower arranging(to put it lightly) has so many different meaning here in Japan. It is a system, tells a story, and has a method so perfect my teacher didnt even seem to be able to explain. I got a good reception from my flowers and am going back once a month. Yesterday I went to a martial arts class. It consisted of staff fighting so you know this picture isnt me. I was practicing so I didnt take any pictures. I have to learn all 12 positions, but I am miserable at the first one. When I try the move it looks pathetic. Halloween is already in the works with my juku class. Ghosts, pumpkins, and scarecrows are being built. I NEED to think of a costume.No ideas yet. I am in charge of games and have to make 60 popcorn balls, bobbing for apples, pin the tail on the black cat, and possibly a cake walk. Does everyone remember cake walks???? Best things about elementary school was to win a whole cake. Thats it...Going to Kagoshima for a vacation I dont deserve and gonna partay it up at a volcano and yakoshima island..wooowooo

Wow, what?

After several weeks of non-stop working I finally have a moment to myself. I'm sorry to anyone I havent called but holy heck i've been busy. Lets start out the explanation with monday the 9th. Pictures will eventually be added. My co-workers asked if I wanted to go to a cooking class. Me, not being able to cook anything agreed and went with Muqing. I showed up to find that they were cooking for us(all of my co-workers wearing aprons and bandanas on their heads) and that we actually didnt have to do anything but eat. Tuesday was Juku and that was smooth sailing with the shapes lesson. Apparently rubber band animals are popular here to. Wednesday I went out to eat with tomoyo, Muqing, me, and. Had great food, including fried cheese. This weekend I dragged my butt up and went to some shrines. I wanted to go swimming but everyone warned me that you should not swim during obon. I went to Udo shrine and loved it. Beautiful cliffs, caves and the shrine are neatly tucked in a large mountain side directly on the coast line mountain. Sunday I biked with Muqing to Obi castle. We had some trouble with knowing where we are going and what people were saying to us but it was awesome none the less. We also did archery I managed to hit the target several times but got a wicked bruise from the feathered end. I need to bike more and the hills were wicked after sweating to death earlier at Udo. Monday thru wednesday I was in Miyazaki city for an orientation for all Jets in this prefecture. Monday we arrived at the station and went shopping at book-off a huge used book store and then a small thrifty store next door. that night I got to play some ddr and tekken. I definately got whopped at tekken. Then we ended the night with purikura! Tuesday was brutal, after dealing with orientaion we headed to the hotel got ready and made our way to the restaurant for the welcome party. 30 bucks got you all you could eat AND drink. Lets just say shochu is delicious. After lots of drinking(you can be drunk anywhere in public in Japan) we headed over to karoke for 2 hours of all you can sing AND all you can drink again. I then crawled back to the super hotel and had to wake up to the final day which had a japanese lesson and then we shopped. I have three weekends already filled with activities and hope to fill more. I might sleep in tomorrow before I get to see 5000 fireworks and a river swimming party!

shopping and swimming

So had a great weekend that consisted of swimming and shopping. First of all I was unprepared for the level of sunburn I received. I neglected to realize that I have not left my house in America for longer than 30minutes to go swimming. I stayed at oodotsu beach for 4 1/2 hours swimming for almost all of it. The water was warm and it was super nice out so I ended up swimming with lots of little kids who stayed near shore. One thing to note was that the announcement system was kind enough to tell us when to get out of the water and rest. It would announce, 'Please get out of the water and rest you may go back in, in 20minutes.' As time went on lots of high school students kept trying to say hello to us in english, it was good for a laugh. Then a group of small students asked us to break watermelons with them and so we helped out. After melon icee's I swam out to a large rock in the middle of the ocean and climbed up. I have a nice collection of scratches but am happy I made it there. The little kids kept jumping off the rocks so I would count down for them to jump off of the rocks. We then all dragged our sunburnt selves down to abaratsu for some karaoke. 3 hours later we had sang through the 80's and early 90's and had plenty of drinks and food from an amazing restaurant upstairs. Then Sunday. I got to shop my ass off. I need some essential items to make my apt way more comfortable. Finally got a shower shelf to hold the shampoo, a rug for washroom, and finally a towel big enough to actually dry with. Now for the work week. Monday cooking, tuesday juku, enki wednesday, and thursday and friday to myself!

turtle neck sweaters* yes people wear them

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Housing and bad exchange rates!

Well saw my housing and I'm happy tatami floors and a sweet looking couch. I exchanged only a small portion of my money because exchange is 80yen to $1. SOOoooo sad. I'll get the rest in Tokyo by dragging my butt up and finding a bank. A little worried about getting access to my money but super excited nonetheless. I will be using my magic jack for a bit so give me a call I'll be posting the number soon. .

Miyazaki-Ken!

Just found out where I will reside for the next year and it's definately tropical. Miyazaki prefecture in nichinan-shi(town) on Kyushu island it is and its climate is an average 65degrees!! It is known for it's beaches, paragliding, and scuba. Luckily it's only 9 hours from tokyo(boo hoo) but I could fly into Japan core in about an hour. It's definately going to be different than anything I could imagine so I'm going to keep an open mind.

Being an Alternative on the List of doom

So you have interviewed and hope that you didn't make a complete fool of your self and then the waiting begins (again). I interviewed in February and didn't hear anything until april 1st. The news came in the form of email, not snail mail. It said to the effect that I am not a shortlist candidate(got the job), but I was not rejected either. I was on the alt list.Woooooo!! Insert more waiting and then on may 21st I was upgraded after an email was sent saying, "We have a position open do you want to take it?" Of course the answer was yes. After all of that work and preparing I made it onto an exclusive list of people destined for Japan. A week later I still have no idea of my placement but I'm not expecting any answers for a while. For know I am content making giant list of packing information.

Interview

So to remember what this whole trip began with I will start this blog to keep my memory fresh. So it all began in November when I discovered JET a japanese english teaching program. As a substitute teacher who has ALWAYS loved Japan and who has already traveled there this was perfect. So after buggin everyone I know for letters and help double checking my grammar The giant 3 packet, packet I sent it off only to be told it did not arrive on time for the final deadline ^_^ needless to say after many phone calls all was well.
On a seperate note here is some quick info on my interview. I was first notified of my interview via online. Once I found out my consulte and time I dress up and drove into chicago. I wore black dress pants, high heels, nice shirt, and black cover up. I was immediately greeted by people at a desk who asked for my passport photos and asked to take a seat. I sat quietly and watched a video about JET's who already live in Japan. Then everyone in the room was lined up and sent into there interview areas. I then met 3 people, two of them were Japanese men and one a women who was a former JET. The women proceded to ask me very quickly why did I choose JET? The rest of the interview went smoothly until they asked me, " In a Japanese classroom you represent America how would you describe America in 5 WORDS. Let me repeat this 5 WORDS, not phrases or sentences. Me being stupid, I said Diverse(true), educated, and I cant even remember the rest I was so embarassed. Well this is all for now I will update as the date to leave approaches!!