schools

So heres the list a total of 1,977 students and I've taught each one of them. No I dont know their names but they're all great.

Elementary School

Agata Elementary School - 393 students
Abaratsu Elementary School - 328 students
Sakuragaoka Elementary School - 106 students
Ushio Elementary School - 10 students
Udo Elementary School - 23 students
Agata Higashi Elementary School - 477 students
Katagami Elementary School - 124 students
Yowara Elementary School - 31 studnets

Junior High

Abaratsu Junior High - 234 students
Agata Junior High - 138 students
Udo Junior High - 79 students
Yowara Junior High - 31 students

Special school- student for what ever reason dont want to/cant go to school. This is not special education classes.

partay

So, mid year seminar. Lets talk about it... It might have been the worst day ever in japan. Lets start with waking up at 6am, and getting ready, packing my bags. Only to get a phone call from my supervisor saying that the trains are closed from nichinan to aoshima. Boooo.... So no biggie I will take my car, but WAIT! I cant take my car because its during work hours. Okay then I'll take the bus! What time does it leave? 7am really? thanks for telling me this at 6:55am and the pick up spot was in abaratsu aka 10 minutes away. Mad dash to station in my car(dont ask why I could drive my car to the station) get lost, then ultimately miss the bus, find the station and chillax til the next bus at 8am. Well seminar starts at 9am and the bus ride is almost 2 hours so I'm gonna be late after being warned repeatedly not to be late. Then almost like I planned it I go into my wallet to check how much cash I have on me and lo-and-behold! no wallet. Fan fucking tastic. I drive back to my house get my wallet to arrive exactly as the bus is pulling in. I forgot my facemask so I inhaled what seemed like a pound of ash. Get on the bus and wait. About two hoursish later get off and then get a taxi to the center. Well the taxi took us to the wrong place, then I had to take another taxi to the correct place. Get there late listen to the speakers, finish the day. I hitch a ride to my hotel then procede to get ready for the night ahead.
Trashtastic night! The theme is hostess and hosts. So we dress up, I found a mini tiara and cap, muqing goes as a host, devon and tiff have awesome sparkly dresses. Its a nomihodai for \3000 about $30ish in USD. All you can drink for 3 hours for a flat price. We take care of our 30 in an hour and dance it up. Muqing wins the host division and I get 3rd in hostess. Not a bad haul. Walking back to the hotel I guess in my stupor I decided to tell a random man that his hair looked nice and tried to touch it...oops.. No idea how I got back and now I am sure I will think any guy looks good if he's wearing a scarf.(called muffler in japan.) The next was surprisingly okay and checked out..

Weekends

So the volcano nearby erupted spewing ash and rocks everywhere. There's no lava near me but the ash persists casting a haze over everything in sight. You can't even see the giant mountains in the haze. Lately the ash is subsiding, but it keeps blowing our way. My car is suffering and I have to change the air filter not to mention its filthy. The ash falls like some weird snow and the eruptions sound like bombs going off. Not to mention our share of earthquakes lately. I think the earth is PO'd, take a look at australia. They are screwed. Luckily it rained about a day ago turning all the ash to mud... Yet people are still trying to sweep the ash.
I was going to go to Nagasaki on my birthday weekend, but because of the volcano and bird flu it is a no go. Instead I celebrated my birthday. My co-workers surprised me at 8pm as I was in the office returning from Juku class. The gave me cards, flowers, and sho-chu. Fabulous, they are the best office ever. Then I went with Lola and Kurumi-san to Muqing's house. There I was surprised by more of my friends and office workers. We partook of cake and laughed at all the Bigbang decorations. I got awesome gifts including bigbang bodyspray(hahahha), sweet shochu glass, doll set, cup noodle lip holder, bookmarks, t-shirts, cookies, and posters from my students. My students made the cutest pictures that they wrote in English on. The responses ranged from, you are good at english, to you are my sister. SOoooo sweet. This weekend I decided to go to takachiro gorge. It a pleasant 5 hour drive and there might be snow there.

Jodo temple

So its been a busy week. starting with Monday and having the day off. So it's my day off and so everyone knows I have been studying Jodo, a type of staff art that is defensive and since its the new year my sensei recommends to have our jo(staff) and us blessed by the temple. So 8am Im at the dojo(practice hall) freezing and trying to put on my hakama(special traditional clothing). Once I have it on we all leave for the temple and hakama makes it hard as hell to sit in a seat. We get there and enter the shrine in Abaratsu. Of course other people are visiting the shrine so we get the look at the foreigners stare-fest. Get into the shrine and place the staffs on the alter, and take a seat. The priest blesses the staffs and us by waving the oonusa(paper staff) over us. Then he drums and chants proclaiming that if we put effort into our training we will reap the benefits. Good times. We then return to the dojo and practice for around an hour then get some dinner at a friends diner.
Part 2:Lamenting tickets. To make it short and sweet Bigbang is going to have their new tour in Korea starting at the end of February. So I immediately make plans to go to Korea. Then the very next day I find out that that day I was going to Korea my juku classes are all going to Kagoshima to the zoo...NOOOOOOO!! I secretly think it was sabotage on my offices part. oh well I will wait for the Japanese tour in may and june.
3rd: Partay, so went to a new years party with many jets and friends. I got real drunk, broke a chair, pushed someone into a ravine ( to be fair they tried to take me down first but sadly I am much heavier than him(yes it was a guy)) Then waltzed out for some Karoke, it started snowing, I talked to some random people singing then invited them to join us, walked back, yelled at someone for stealing my blanket and pillow, thus scaring the person sleeping in the next room. So I was productive, partied and was blessed. Good times more pics soon to come.

Recap

reeecap.
Thanksgiving-had everyone at my house for meat, mashed potatoes, rolls, green beans, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Delicious everyone had a good time. Cooking=success.
Christmas-worked all December then left on the 21st for tokyo. I spent about 6 days there in a pretty shitty hostel. Note to self, conveniently located hostel are never convenient. Sooooo far away from the station. Went to the Ghibli Museum and had a blast eating delicious food and looking at all of the exhibits. Went to Ahkihabara where I was going to buy a nintendo ds but ended up getting an ipod touch instead. Ate at the Gundam cafe and had a gundam martini. Went to meiji shrine then visited Harujuku and geeked out out in the idol stores. We went to shibuya on Christmas day and visited all of the stores in 109 station and watched the giant crossing. Then we met up with our juku students at tokyo tower. They were really tired but everyone had lots of fun and they didnt know we were coming. We then traveled with them to asakusa shine and finally out to do purikura with two of my supervisors. We ended the trip with disneyland and went on some ridiculous rides. Captain EO in 3-D was hilarious(aka: Micheal jackson movie from the 80's). Space mountain, tea cups, merry go-round and general eating of food. When we flew back our plane was late and we ended up back in Nichinan about an hour and a half late.

So now I'm up to date...

I have the sickness as previously stated on my facebook wall. I learned of a Korean pop band from some of my favorite teachers at one of my schools. Bigbang is now my favorite band ever. Even moreso than NYSYNC which was saying alot. I started with a couple dvds, and that led to drama's. The drama's led to more cd's(which are expensive in japan) then finally to posters and now the obsession has set in. Or rather the sickness. I had to stop for a moment when i realized i was going to spend $40 on a bigbang backpack. Shit, I'm doomed and my obsession and degree in art only lead to one thing.... Collages. Highly elaborated and obsessive collages. I even chose paper that matched their personalities...Fuck.. and I cant stop. Must get tickets to Korea, then go see big bang concert, buy tons of shit to put in my house, then be taller than everyone else at the concert so I get a good view. Never been happier to be tall in my life.

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...