Memoirs of a Gaijin

Quick annecdote: my 5th graders made menus today and I was going around ordering from them. One group asked me “What do you want?” I said “Hmmm, I want….” and looked at the menu. The kids started yelling out things I should order osusume style (osusume = recommendations) and once again I said “I want…” at that moment one kid looked me in the eye and said very seriously, “Nakamura Sensei?” Yes. Yes, 11 year old girl, I do in fact want your smoking hot homeroom teacher standing a few feet away. Yes I do. Thank you for your recommendation.

If she only knew how right she was. (This post is all the more creepy due to the fact that Nakamura Sensei is sitting only 2 desks away from me while I type it!)

First of all I realize this is not what I usually write about, so apologies for the momentary change, but something hit me today and has been slowly eating away at my thoughts. I biked home fast so I would have time to get this off my chest before meeting friends for dinner.

One year. 12 months. 365 days. In the grand scheme of things its really not so long. There have been times in everyone’s life, I’m sure, that a year has passed and nothing of significance changed in their lives. I can’t say that this has been one of those years.

Yesterday was Valentines Day. I don’t normally pay too much attention to this holiday, relationship or no, because I don’t think you need a special day to show someone you care. And the way you show them definitely does not hinge on empty calories and even emptier displays of grandieur. This year Valentines Day didnt have the normal effect on me as it seems to have on the masses. It didn’t throw me into a wild tail-spin of happiness and love over any special someone, nor did it hightlight my single status and throw me into a wild tail-spin of depression and eating. However, I can’t say that Valentines Day didn’t spark extreme emotions in me.

This year, V-Day was a catalyst.

The day itself was pretty great. I taught my first grade class how to make little heart envelopes to stick on their desks and then we spent the rest of class writing notes to each other. I got a lot. It made me really happy. After work, I went to Chelsea’s and we spent a minute exhanging candy and cards, watched Grey’s Anatomy over dinner, and then I graded papers for her while she studied Japanese until 1 am. As we went to bed we laughed about how romantic our Valentines Day had been and she made a comment about it being a unique way to spend the holiday.

Today at work, I was reminiscing about our night and not that strangely, last year’s Valentines Day popped into my head. The moment I thought about who and where I was that day, it hit me like a brick wall. How was that only 12 short months ago? How has my life completely changed in that time?

Let me paint the picture for you:

Feb. 14th, 2011. I was in California at Humboldt University for ACTF with my WSU theatre department. I was watching Irene Ryan performances all day and in the afternoon I got a text message with a picture of a handmade card that said “I love you”. One year ago, I was in a serious, what I thought was going to be long-lasting, relationship and I was completely in love. I spent the whole day in the sunshine with my friends flirting with my boyfriend and trying to hide the hickeys on my neck. On that day, I was a senior in college. I had no money. I had a thesis to write that I wasn’t done with. I had just heard I got an interview with the JET program. I was young and I thought I knew exactly where my life was headed. That night I watched more of my friends act, I performed in an improv show, and I talked to my boyfriend before I went to bed.

Yesterday, Feb. 14th, 2012. I live in Shiga, Japan. I am an elementary school English teacher. I spent my day covered in glue and handing out chocolates to 6 year olds who make me so happy. I biked home in the snow and spent my night eating Nabe and correcting grammar in High School papers about rice balls. I am single, the person who I was so in love with a year ago and I don’t talk because I don’t want to and he doesn’t care. I have plenty money in my bank account. Great friends in Japan as well as the US. I have no idea where my life is headed. February 14th, 2011 seems simultaniously ten years in my past and the day before yesterday to the me of February 14th, 2012.

In 365 days my situation has changed, and so have I. Sure I dropped a few pounds, changed my hair color, moved to a new country. But also I just can’t relate to that Kaitlin. I can’t feel the emotions she felt. I can no longer connect to her story. Since then I have gone through complete heartbreak, confusion, extreme happiness, and a lot of sleepless nights. It’s hard to catalog the milestones that lead from the person I was a year ago, to the person writing this.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t envy that girl in California. The craziest part to me is that it’s not absurd to think that I could have been in the exact same situation this year, had I not left. Same ACTF, same friends, probably the same boyfriend. The complete and utter difference is the thing that really hit me. It’s not that I want to be that person, and it’s not that I don’t want to be that person. It is just so incomprehensible to me that every single factor that made up my day, hell my life, a year ago have altered to drastically. Every situation that held my day together on Feb. 14th, 2011, every person, every action, every word, every feeling I met, did, said, or had on that day has changed, some for the worse.

There are parts of me that want to be that Kaitlin again, despite knowing that I could never fit who I am into that girl’s body anymore.

It’s a strange feeling looking back. I can look at a calendar and see that 365 days have passed. I can count if I really need to double check. I can go back to each month that has passed and name something that has happened in it. But once you say it. A year. One year. One little span of time. In it, my whole life has changed.

I wonder if the Kaitlin of February 14th, 2013 will even recognize me. I hope she does and I know she won’t.

killthemuse:

Yes. Yes. A thousand and one times yes. 

(Source: thatdeepshit, via megbert)

Boy have I been a busy bee! With my Thailand trip looming on the horizon I haven’t had a minute to myself in the last week, and I’m only getting busier! Not only do I have my normal lessons to plan but I also have games and materials to make for the orphanage and am planning a huge Christmas party to raise money for the orphans. Man oh man. Because of this, I have been very bad about updating my blog. So I will attempt to do that now.

CUTE STORIES GALORE!

Ok here we go. I have a bunch of cute stories for y’all.

Last week we were doing our ending hour of the What Do You Want? lesson for my 5th graders. I made menus for them and had them working in groups. The waiter would say “What do you want?” and the customers would order using “I want”. It is starting to get really cold but when the kids have PE they have to wear their PE outfits which include Japanese special order embarrassment short shorts (for some reason the boys always have the shorter of the short shorts… I don’t quite understand.) One boy was very cold and when it was his turn to be the waiter he started to do a little dance to keep warm. I noticed this and, jumping on any chance to embarrass a small child because that is just the kind of teacher I am, told his whole group “Oh you are very lucky. You have a dancing waiter!” Instead of becoming super embarrassed like I expected the kid laughed and starting doing the hula while chanting “whaaaaat do you waaaaant?” This continued for a good three or four minutes. It was frickin adorable.

During the same lesson at my base school, everyone who came and ordered from me would add something extra on. I only taught them the words for the food but they would continually order things like “mega hamburger” and “10 bigu pizza”. One group even made ATM cards out of scrap paper and paid with them at the end of their purchase. I swiped the cards through my book and everyone’s cards were accepted… everyone except for one boy. His card I declined, just for fun. He surprised me by pulling out ANOTHER card from his pocket!! It’s like he knew that the first one had no fake money on it. But I was one step ahead of him, I declined that card too. He started to look at little worried and looked down at his pockets even though we both knew he hadn’t doodled a third card. Just then, one of his friends who had been in his group taps him on the shoulder and says “here use mine”. I was dumbfounded! I swiped the card and it went through. The two boys walked away with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Feel free to AAAAAAWWWWW to your heart’s content. I know I did!

When I asked the class “What do you want?” They were supposed to tell me what the meaning was. But instead kids started yelling out their desires. One girl (the one I call Doraemon) yelled “I want kareshi” which means she wants a boyfriend. This prompted a kid sitting really close to me to say in all seriousness “I want wife”. Now usually when a kid yells something out when I am trying to teach them somthing I either laugh (if its funny and I cant help myself) or ignore it, but this one actually made me stop in my tracks, mostly because I wasn’t sure if I heard him right (wife in Japanese accent sounds more like waihuu). I asked him “You want a wife?” and he points at me and repeats it, “I want wife”. I wish someone would have taken a freeze frame picture of my face at that exact moment. I could actually feel my facial expression transform into one of shock. He wanted ME to be his wife. I didn’t really know what to do so I just continued to look shocked for a second, then shook it off and moved on with the lesson.

My second graders still remain the cutest and sweetest things in existence! I taught animals last week and they crawled around like animals for a game. It was frickin too cute. They also taught me all about bugs. Great.

One of my first graders saw my coffee mug and now is going to call me Keito-coffee sensei. Too cute!

With my first grade class earlier this week, I had to eat a huge ball of mochi in front of them. I, of course, picked THE WORST flavor (vinegar and daikon) but because they were all watching me I had to eat it. In one bite. It was disgusting. I had to pretend like I liked it and even had to leave the room (under the preface of washing my hands) just so I could let my face show my disgust. The things I do for these kids!!

THE WEEKEND

This part of the post should be pretty short. I have been so busy that I don’t really have a lot to report. Friday night I stayed home and slept. It was glorious. I didn’t wake up until 9 on saturday. Sweeeet sweeet sleeeep!

Saturday I went to Hikone and stayed with Chelsea. We studied Japanese and had lunch with a friend. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon/night planning our trip to Thailand with friends! After that we went to dinner and an onsen. It was great.

Sunday I had friends visit from Osaka. They came to Hikone and we went to the castle, Indian food, and then a bar. It was a lot of fun. They dont speak a lot of English so it was good practice for me with my Japanese. Chelsea got to meet them and they really liked her. At the bar we played poker and I won! Then we played darts and I won that too! I was on a winning streak! Go me.

SO MUCH CULTURE!

Ok! My cultural note for this week is an interesting phenomena found here in Japanese schools. There is actually a large number of children at Japanese schools who are afraid of coming to school. Be it the stress or the environment, they just can’t bring themselves to come. Often times they will leave for school and then instead of getting there just go somewhere else. When they are forced to come to school they don’t want to interact with anyone and shut down when it comes to participating in anything.

While the US has it’s slackers, I cant remember the last time a child had to be dragged kicking and screaming inside the building (past kindergarten that is). Here it is very common among JHS students and even SHS kids. It seems that the high stress environment of middle and high school in Japan is causing an adverse reaction in some kids in, not only homework, but the idea of school itself. I even have a few kids in my elementary schools who suffer from this!

I used to think it was so weird when I pulled into school and saw a parent pulling up with a kid. (Usually all of the kids walk together to school, getting dropped off is highly unusual. Then when the parent had to physically pull the kid out of the car and was met by a teacher who helped them drag the kid into the school I had no idea what was going on! Later I found out what it was about and ever since then I have been fascinated by it.

One of these students at my school is a 5th grade girl. Because she is so introverted and afraid of social interaction, she spends most of her day in a special classroom one on one with a special teacher (yeah it’s that intense). I have always tried to smile and greet her when I see her but I am afraid of doing too much more because I don’t want to spook her; but lately I have been seeing her inching closer to the english room everytime I have a lesson. During my Thanksgiving lesson she even sat outside in the hallway and I brought her a piece of paper to make a hand turkey. She started too but I think I rattled her because when I looked out later she was just sitting there, balled up, with half a hand traced on her paper.

I am undeterred. Since then I have been trying to speak to her. In Japanese, I feel like English would make her feel like Im trying to push her to study and I can only imagine what that would do. So everytime I pass I say “Hello. Genki?” which means how are you. She usually smiles back at me and then shyly hides behind whoever she is with.

THIS WEEK THOUGH, we’ve had a breakthrough! Yesterday I ate lunch with the 5th graders and she had joined them for the beginning few minutes. She was standing by me smiling so I smiled back and told her that I made my lunch myself. She poked the girl she was clinging to and repeated what I told her. Then a few minutes later she ran out of the room. Today, I walked out of the teacher’s room to go to the 1st grade classroom and low and behold, she was there, clinging to another 5th grader. I smiled at her and she smiled hugely at me and jumped on me! Literally put her hands on my shoulder and back and jumped! I was so shocked. I asked her the usual “Genki desu ka?” and she replied with “Genki ja nai!” which means “I’m not good!” and then we parted ways.

That my friends is called PROGRESS!

somanymiles

(Source: drunkonstevphen, via megbert)

oooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkk SO! I didn’t write this last week, I know. BUT I have a good reason… well goodish… Thur/Fri of last week I had training in Otsu which means my normal Friday telling of student funnies was ruined because I only had 2 days with the kids. Then coming back on Monday I was insanely busy. Literally, I dont think I sat at my desk for more than 20 minutes Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday means switching schools and also since it was the end of the month I had all of my monthly paperwork to turn in. All of this put together = one busy Kaitlin and no time to blog.

So… sorry.

Catching up!

MONDAY’S POST

The weekend! It was quite an eventful one! Saturday I went to donate blood with my Japanese friend Ai. Unfortunately neither of us were able to yet again. I am starting to get really frustrated by this. In the US they were begging me to donate and always telling me how I was above average when it comes to donation qualifications. Here they are always telling me that being a vegetarian = unfit blood (ummm what?!) and that I am too stressed at work so my blood is suffering (ummm… ok, that one might have some factual foundation to it).

After our unsuccessful bout with the needle, we met up with Ai’s boyfriend and one of my best friends, James. We had lunch and then hit up Chelsea’s apartment so that Chelsea and James could study while Ai and I had the much more important and stressful task of building a chocolate house. Yeah you heard me right:

Chocolate house!

That night Chelsea and I hit up Osaka with some friends to celebrate Geoff’s 23rd birthday. Yep, another birthday! This one was an all-nighter. We stayed out until after 5 am and then took the first train back. Once we arrived at Chelsea’s we hit the hay…. for 2 hours. Then it was back on the train to Otsu!

We met up with a Japanese woman (who is completely beyond awesome) named Satoko and she took us to the philharmonic to see an orchestra play 3 symphonies! It was amazing. Totally worth the lack of sleep. After that was over, I headed up north to Adogawa to meet up with my friend Kenji. We hung out for a few hours, had dinner and then I was back to the trains! I felt like an old-timey hobo with how often I was on a train this weekend. All I needed were some toeless shoes and a bundle on a stick to make it official!

TUESDAY’S POST

 Culture. Ok, this will be a short post but it is something that frustrates me. I have heard multiple Elementary School teachers talk about how their kids are “assholes”. I’m sorry? What? A child of 12 or younger cannot, by my understanding of the definition of the word, be an asshole. An asshole to me is someone who is supposed to be at a certain level of maturity acting below that level. A 16 year old who kicks you in the shin and then runs away is an asshole. A 6 year old who does the same thing? Yeah, we call that a child! Obviously it is ok to express your displeasure if they were actually trying to cause you harm but most of the time this is simply a child who is trying to interact with you and doesn’t realize the violent implications of their actions. A 20 year old who cries because they don’t have the same amount of cards as someone else: asshole (and kind of a pussy). A 9 year old who does that? NOT AN ASSHOLE!

It just frustrates me how children are now somehow expected to be and act like adults. When did that happen? Children do something that therapists everywhere are trying to get grown-ass adults to do everyday; feel their feelings. Children dont have the capacity for maturity the way teenagers do so why should they be punished for being less mature? It irritates me. Ugh. And it’s worse in Japan than it is in the US. Next time you look at a 7 year old and think “What an asshole” why not look in a mirror next and re-evaluate who actually holds that title.  

That is my rant/cultural note for the day.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS

Ok, I know I skipped last week’s Friday post but, like I said, I didn’t actually spend a lot of time IN my schools last week. You best believe that tomorrow you will get the Cute Things Kids Say post that you have been waiting for. I have been stocking up all week :)

See you all tomorrow!

OK! It is Monday and I am blogging. This is exciting. I believe I said Mondays are for the weekend, right? Is it bad that I am already forgetting what I said? Ok, let’s go! AND it is still Sunday for all of you reading this so this is a post FROM THE FUTURE!!!! (That is how timezones work…. right?)

FRIDAY, FRIDAY, GOTTA PARTY ON FRIDAY

I hate myself for going Rebecca Black, but it happened. Deal with it. Friday ended up being a lot of fun! My friend Sharon from New Zealand just moved from Nagahama (a city about 20 minutes north of me) to a town called Kinomoto (a few stops MORE north from Nagahama). It was sad to have her move further away from me but it is better for her since her schools are in Kinomoto and her apartment is absolutely beautiful there!
So on Friday she had a house-warming party. Chelsea and I went up a little early to help her shop for supplies. We had nabe which is a Japanese style soup where you boil veggies, tofu, and meat (optional) in a soup base and keep replacing the stuff you take out with more veggies and things as people eat. It basically is a continuous eat-until-you-burst type eating style. We got our groceries and were returning to Sharon’s when craziness ensued.
Chelsea had brought a bag containing about 6 cans of beer and a bottle of wine and while we were walking that bag broke. The bottle of wine crashed to the ground and in Chelsea’s desperation to save it (she is a major wine-o) a beer also fell out and shotgunned itself as it hit the ground, misting us with beer. It was hilarious to watch because I heard glass clinking on the ground and then a loud ksch-psssssssss sound and when I turned around Chelsea was running towards the wine bottle with a look of pure terror in her eyes while Sharon dove for the beer yelling “Don’t waste it!” (These are my friends.) The wine ended up  being fine and Sharon refused to let the beer go to waste so we took turns sipping beer through a hole in the side of the can as we walked. Thank you Japan for your lack of open container laws!
We were stopped at a crosswalk and I was casually and classily slurping beer through a hole when two of Sharon’s middle school students pulled up by us on a bike. She started talking to them and I ashamedly tried to hide the fact that I was slowly shotgunning Asahi… but they saw. They saw.

I wish I could say this would be the only time this weekend that a student saw me drinking alcohol but, alas, there will be more.

So we finally get to Sharon’s and start chopping veggies and, shortly, everyone arrives. The night was a huge success! Sharon’s new place is absolutely beautiful; a fact which is highlighted by her amazing decorating skills. The company was good and finally at around 2:30 Sharon, Chelsea, and I hit the hay.

TOMORROW IS SATURDAY…

We planned to sleep in but I think all three of us were surprised when we woke up a little before noon. I felt a little bit like a bum but after the last few weeks I’ve had I think I really needed that! We woke up and had the carbiest, sugariest breakfast known to man! That being, toast with cinnamon-sugar paste, doughnuts, and banana bread. Mmmmmm. After that, we took a guided tour (Sharon has a car) around Kinomoto. She showed us her schools and the town square. It really is a quaint little town.
I was in dire need of coffee and I know Chelsea was too so we hit up a local McDonalds and got caramel lattes (and fries because we couldnt resist keeping up the fatty theme of the day). Sharon had to go pick up her washer and some other things from her old apartment so she dropped us off in Nagahama at our friend Dane’s apartment. From there we spent the rest of the day…. PLANNING A TRIP TO THAILAND!
I don’t know if all of you know this, but for 2 weeks over winter break I am going to Thailand! I am very excited about it. The first week is already planned. We are going with a group of about 25 JETs to two orphanages on the border of Myanmar (the country formally known as Burma). We will be teaching English, playing, helping with repairs, and donating money to the these children and I can’t wait to go do my part.
The second week, however, is just 4 of us exploring the southern islands of Thailand! We are going to a place called Krabi which is, as far as I have seen, the definition of paradise:

We are staying in a little bungalow on an island and will get to do things like rock climbing, cave diving, coral exploration, kayaking with monkeys (yeah you heard me right, MONKEYS), walk through a national park, and whatever else happens to catch our fancy. A friend of mine has fraternity brothers who live in Phuket and will show us around so I’m sure we won’t be at a loss for activities! I can’t wait. I plan to be a dirty bikini hippie the whole time I’m there!

After planning our trip (and buying plane tickets) we headed to a restaurant called Roman Beer for a friend’s birthday dinner. Yeah, I wasn’t kidding last time when I said EVERYONE’S birthday is this month. I wanted to stay about an hour but my neighbor was going to stay longer and I figured it made sense to wait since we are both going the same place. So we ended up staying much later and taking tequila shots because of a crazy Japanese teacher who kept ordering them as punishment for a Japanese game we learned.
Cue day #2 where I drink in front of students! One of my friend Patrick’s 4th graders walked up while we were all playing this crazy thumb game (it’s really hard to explain otherwise I would try and explain it) and started talking to us. she was really shy and you could tell her mom was forcing her to come talk but it was still cute. Meanwhile we all had huge cups of beer and a few of us had penalty shots waiting for us to take them (I was one of those people. I am sooo classy it is scary sometimes).
At around 9:30 Jerry and I headed back to Omi-Nags (that is what I call Omi-Nagaoka which is my train station) while everyone else migrated to a new bar.

…AND SUNDAY COMES AFTERWAAARD

And it’s true. Both that the end of the week progression, does in fact, go Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but also that I did not want this weekend to end! (To save what is left of my soul I will now forevermore stop quoting Rebecca Black.) Sunday brought about a quite unexpected, but much needed slow-paced day.
I was supposed to go on a bike trip to Eigenji with a bunch of other ALTs but when I woke up at 6 am to prepare for it I knew immediately I wasn’t going to make it. The trip would require me to ride my bike an hour on a route I had never taken by myself to then get on a train for another hour just to get to the starting location of the trip. Normally I would be up for something like that but this particular morning it just seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. Instead I went back to sleep for another 4 glorious hours.
 I woke up in later in the morning to a call from my neighbor saying that I needed to come outside because there is a traditional Japanese wedding happening. Having never been to one before this peaked my interest and I hurriedly got dressed and headed down to check out the action.
As it turns out there were actually FOUR weddings happening. And by that, I don’t mean the ceremonies but only the ending wedding procession where they walk around and chant and take pictures. The weddings themselves had already happened but the women were dressed in amazing kimonos and their hair was done up all extravagant like! It was such a sight to see. My whole community was out to watch this and because of that I got to see a few of my kids. Two who consistently hung around were a few of my 5th grade boys. One in particular I really like because he is very energetic and always speaks in class (even if it is waaay above the decibal level I would prefer). They came up to us asking for gum which we didn’t have so they ran off. I thought that would be the end of it, but silly me, I did not anticipate them running back with 4 packs of gum and offering us some. Jerry and I got a meager 2 pieces while the boy shoved the rest of the box in his mouth. Afterwards I asked him “How are you?” and he replied (through a mouthful of gum) “I’m fine… no, chotto matte, I’m hungry!!” (the piece in the middle means wait a minute). All of my kids think it is hilarious to tell me they are hungry no matter what time of day it is or whether they are, at that exact moment, eating something or not. All that does is lead me to wonder if their parents feed them..
While we were in the middle of having a contest to see who could blow the biggest bubble (the kid had a clear advantage with about 20 pieces of gum shoved in his tiny mouth) two women with stacks of paper cups shoved under their arms and gihugent bottles of sake came around, silently handed us cups, and filled them to the brim with sake. Really ladies? I thought I was going to get through one day, let alone one MORNING this weekend without drinking in front of students. This was not destined to be however. Cue Kaitlin drinks too much in front of young, impressionable children encounter #3. My student just looks at the cups, looks at us, and says “Sake?”. Yup, we reply. He just nods like this is the most normal 10:30 am situation to have and runs off to practice blowing bubbles.
After the wedding procession, my neighbor and I parted with plans to meet up later for dinner and I went home for some much needed R&R. I had the best afternoon. I ate lunch while watching Beauty and the Beast, cleaned my room, did laundry, finished my work I needed to get done for school the next day, bought presents online for the boys of my family, and then showered and watched The Lion King while waiting for dinner.
At 7:30 Jerry and I headed to dinner at a local place. We had invited our other neighbor Patricia but she was having some of her former students (they are now 1st year high schoolers which is equivalent to our sophomores in the US) over for dinner so she told us to come by afterwards to meet them. We headed over around 8:30 and these girls were absolutely amazing! There were 8 of them there and they all had amazing English. I think I maybe used 2 words of Japanese the entire night. They were all so eager to speak English and it was really cool to hear that half of their ALTs are my really good friends! Among the students were kids belonging to my good friend Chelsea, and 2 really good guy friends named James and Josh. I gave the girls some good dirt on their teachers and told them to use it when they felt necessary. I’m a horrible friend!
At the end of the night the girls’ parents came to pick them up and we took a bunch of pictures and Patricia promised to send them all my email address.
When I got home I got to talk to my family from home and then workout. (Got to look good for Thailand!). I even got to talk to a good friend studying abroad in Italy. It was a great day and much needed after the busy time I’ve been having!

Well folks, that is my Monday weekend update! I hope you enjoyed it and please don’t think I’m an alcoholic or a bad influence on my students!! I’m not and drinking is a completely normal and expected part of Japanese culture. Until tomorrow, peace out!

OK! I have been thinking a lot lately about how terribly awful I am at blogging. I feel really bad about it but these huge posts take a lot of time to write (believe it or not, I have to work at being this humorous!) and I don’t have a lot of that time thing these days. I have decided that after today’s long catch-up post I will set down some guidelines that will give some structure to this lovely little site of mine and force me to keep to a slightly more strict schedule.

This new schedule will be as follows:
         Monday - The weekend! This will be a post about what crazy shenanigans I got myself into over the weekend since last we spoke.

         Tuesday - Life in general. Tuesdays are generally when I have the most free time so this is the day I will try to mention things about life that are not included in the other 2 categories.

         Friday - My kids! Every week I have at least 5 stories of cute, funny, random, or confusing things my kids do. I want to allow plenty of time for these little buggers to say as many crazy things so at the end of every week I will document all of the stories from the days before. I think this will be the most entertaining of all the days!

Ok, there you have it! Structure. I feel like breaking this up into smaller, more manageable pieces will allow me to actually stick to a plan. Here’s to hoping!

Now, onto the tricky part. Catching you up on the last few months. Here goes, nothing.

BIWA BIKE TRIP

So last time I wrote I said that I was prepping for a 2 day bike trip around lake Biwa. The bike trip went off without a hitch and was one of the most amazing trips ever! Not only was the scenery amazing on the way, but I also got to talk to a lot of people I don’t normally spend the majority of my time with. It is safe to say I have my core group of friends, the people that I would call first if I want to go do something. But on the bike trip I spent a lot of the biking time with a group of people who I really like but just don’t spend a ton of time with. It was really nice getting to know those people better. The first day was the harder leg, I thought, because it involved a lot of hills. My poor bike is only a 3 speed and of those 3 speeds, one is functioning. The other two are so low that it would be about as effective as taking a stationary bike on the trip. We rode through a few mountains and it was pretty rough on my knee.
We stopped in a place called Omi-Maizo for lunch and there we met a group of middle school girls who were in the park practicing a dance routine for their school’s culture day. We ended up talking to them for a long time and it was really rewarding to see them trying so hard to use English. Chelsea and I wowed them with our grass-acrobatic abilities (and by that I mean Chelsea was awesome and could do handstands and round-offs while I did the worm..) and we asked them what songs they picked for their dance. My soul was sad when they said AKB-48 (again.. just don’t look it up if you don’t want to cement every Japanese stereotype you’ve ever had into permanent belief). When it was time to leave we took pictures with them and went on our way.
We got to the place we were staying around 4:30 pm. It was a beautiful place called Omi-Maiko. Our hotel (B&B Dylan because the owner is obsessed with Bob Dylan) was directly overlooking the lake. It was breathtaking. That night we went up to the onsen. I will admit that the onsen was super relaxing, however, I don’t think I will get used to being so publicly nude anytime soon.
The next morning we had to be up veeeery early for breakfast before hitting the road for day If you know me at all (which you do because you are reading this.. if you are a stranger reading this; I’m sorry you are so lonely that this is the best entertainment you can find. Please go outside. See the sun. Find a friend!) you know that I HATE MORNINGS! I despise the morning. But this, this I could get used to: 

The second day was very tiring but when we finished we all went to Indian food and it was VERY satisfying!!

BIRTHDAYS BIRTHDAYS BIRTHDAYS

 I don’t know what was going on around January/February 20-25 years ago but it seems like EVERYONE was getting down and making babies! Between the end of September and now, I must have gone to about 12 birthday parties! They have all been really fun and even my bestie Chelsea had her birthday! They have ranged from Kyoto, Osaka, Otsu, Takashima, Maibara, and many other locales. It has been great experiencing everyone’s birthdays in unique and fun ways…. but now, maybe I would like a birthday break.

ENERGERMS

In the last 3 months as an Elementary School teacher I have had two big revalations.

1) Kudos to Bill Cosby because he pegged it; Kids Really Do Say The Darndest Things.
2) Kids are comprised of two main elements: pure, unadulterated, neverending energy and disgusting, dirty, poisonous germs. Therefore, I think an appropriate synonym to “small child” would be “energerm”. (Use that in a sentence you ask? OK! “The snot radius eminating from that spinning energerm is easily reaching the 10 foot mark”).

As far as the latter revalation is concerned, that’s really all there is to it; children are dirty and wild (if you are doubting this, remember that these are the same children that find joy from sticking their fingers in their peers’ backsides) but, ultimately, uber cute! Which brings us back to revalation one, and boy do I have stories to back that claim up! I will only throw in my top 5 favorite stories though for time’s sake (in descending order for your suspense!).

5 - FORGET AND FORGET

Spending time with my younger students (most of these stories are going to come from my younger students) has made me realize how much I wish I could live in the mind of a 5 year old for just one day. I am baffled by the pure joy and simplicity of the lives they lead. My first graders have brought me some of the biggest smiles because they are just so ridiculously adorable. During question time (this is a time when I introduced myself for the first time and the students got to ask me questions about myself) the children would raise their hands and the teacher would call on them to ask their question. Now before I go on, I should explain something: getting called on as a Japanese child is a vastly different process than it is for an American. In the good ol’ U.S. of A. if a student is called on they simply yell out their answer and continue picking their nose or drawing on their desk or whatever it was they were doing before and, let’s be honest, probably during answering said question. In Japan, when a student is called on they loudly proclaim “HAI!” (which simply shows confirmation that they have been called on), stand up, push in their chair, stand behind it, answer the question, and then return to their seat. I actually really enjoy this method of answering questions because it allows the child to focus on their answer and it forces all of the other students’ attention at the child who is standing. HOWEVER, most of the time where my first graders are concerned, somewhere between raising their hand and standing to deliver their question, half of the students will have forgotten what it was they were going to ask. Instead of simply sitting back down though, I would have a small concerned child standing behind their chair just staring at me with a look of consternation or fear on their face for a loooong time. Finally I would ask them, “Did you forget your question?” to which the child would reply “hai” and quietly sit back down. The best part about all of this is that 2 seconds later another child would be called on and ask a routine question such as “What is your favorite color?” or “What is your favorite food?” and that same kid who forgot their question will look at them with despair because that was the same question they were going to ask. SO CUTE!

4 - CONFORM ALREADY!

This story comes from one of my sixth grade classes. Like most mornings, I was barely able to wake up and get out of bed in time to go to school (YEP! I still hate mornings). But this particular morning had been most difficult and by the time I got out of bed I was running very late. I took a shower and because my hair was still wet I threw some mouse in it and scrunched it for the first time since I’ve been here. The day before I had straightened it and the time before that had been a ponytail or braids. I don’t know, something up. When the students come in for class later that day they all say hello and take their seats or come up to play with the 8-ball like always… except for one girl. I look up and she is just standing in the middle of the aisle, arms crossed and an irritated look on her face. I was caught off guard a bit but decided to go for the hello anyway.

Me: Hello! *big cheesy smile*
Girl: *No response except for crossing her arms even more decidedly.*
Me: …….*still smiling but not really sure what to do in this specific situation*
Girl: Your hair is always different!! (said in a very accusatory tone)
Me: Yeah! I like to change it often. Today is curly day!
Girl: *sighs moodily and stomps off to her seat*

To this girl I apologize deeply. In the world of conformity and doing the same thing every day in a monotonous stupor, my desire to bust out the occasional ponytail is just downright offensive.

I think one day I’m going to come in with cornrows just to see what she’ll do.

3 - IT’S LIKE 20 QUESTIONS BUT COMPLETELY RANDOM

This section is simply going to be a list of all the questions that my 2nd graders have asked me that made me either break out in hysterics or just scratch my head. Oh to have the thought process of a 6 year old… P.S. I am numbering them because I don’t know the childrens names. Also, because I’m still not fully convinced half of the Japanese children I’ve met are not mucus-producing cyborg geniuses. P.P.S. Almost all of these conversations were in Japanese, to me it made them that much funnier.

1: How wide is Washington State?
Me: How wide..?
1: In meters please.

2: What is your favorite bug?
Me: None. I don’t like bugs.
2: Does not compute… does not compute… shutting down main thought processing functions.*

*This was not actually what he said but the look on his face was painting that picture and his mouth was open so wide that he could have caught flies (although I think he would have loved that.)

3: What is your favorite color?
Me: Red. Yes, next?
4: What is your favorite color?
Me: Umm.. red. Ok, next?
5: Do you like red?
Me: *sarcastically* No.
5: I knew it.

6: Have you been to Ichiro’s house?
Me: Of course! We are best friends!
6: Wow that’s cool. Give me his autograph now!

7: What is your job?
Me: Umm…. This. I’m an english teacher. I’m doing it right now.
Whole class: EEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?!?!

8: ……….
Me: ……….
8:………… I FORGOT!
(It still happens sometimes in 2nd grade too)

9: Do you like Korean people?
Me: Of course!
9: Really! Liar! No way you like Korean people. 10-chan, do you think Kaitlin likes Koreans?
10: Nope.
(this one happened today.)

11: Do you like frogs?
Me: YES! Rrrrrrrriiiiiiiiibit.
(At this moment the entire first row throws up their hands to protect their face and screams as if I am going to pull frogs out of my pockets and say “OH you mean THESE frogs?? Yeah I love them, here catch!”)

12: What is your favorite type of human?
Me: Umm there is no way I heard that right. Sensei? Could you translate?
Sensei: *laughing hysterically* You heard right. What is your favorite kind of human?
12: *waiting expectantly*
Me: Umm…… 2nd graders! *the whole class bursts into applause*

2 - EVERY MAN’S NIGHTMARE

Most of the gems from the last section come from my second graders at Santo. One second grader at my base school Ohara, however, takes the cake for saying the most unwittingly funny thing I’ve ever had to encounter. My dirty mind and 6 year old innocence do not go together.

At lunch last week, I was talking to this one small boy a lot. He had lots of questions and was cycling through them. Let me tell you they were nothing if not creative. Among the many awesome questions he had such as “Do you know ninjas?” “What is your address?” and the many creative ideas of what he thought I had in my water bottle, he eventually asks me the question, “What is the scariest animal?”. Now at the time I couldn’t think of anything that was scarier than a spider. Little did I know what was in store.

Me: A spider.
Boy: Spiders? Whaaat? They aren’t animals and they aren’t that scary.
Me: Well, I’m sticking with spiders. What do you think is the scariest animal?
Boy: -Insert Japanese word I don’t know here-
Me: Oh, I don’t know that word. What animal is that.
Boy: A fish!
Me: A fish? That isn’t scary!
Boy: This fish is! It is so scary because if you get close to it it will eat you! It can eat your skin!

Now it is at this point that I simultaneously realize he is talking about a piranha and have to cover my mouth to avoid spitting water all over him due to hysterical laughter. Apparently I wasn’t getting it, so he was going to physically show me how this fish operates via hand gestures. With one hand he makes a circle, with the other he starts jamming his index finger into the aforementioned hand circle in a motion that any less than saint-like American would associate with sex.
As he repeatedly jams his index finger into the hole, he keeps repeating “…and then it just takes the skin right off! Yep. Strips that skin down to the bone. Just like this. Do you see? Just takes the skin right off!” One girl feebly attempted to change the subject to how scary lions are (bless her soul) but the boy was persistant and this motion continued until another boy came up to inform me that the class had come to the consensus that my eyes are scary. I love that class.

NUMERO UNO (1) - HEBICOPTER

This is, by far, my favorite story to date. It comes, surprisingly, from one of my 5th grade classes at Ohara.

We were finishing up a lesson on “I like” and “I don’t like” and because it was the last time we were talking about it I had the kids put together a little speech. Nothing big. I even made them worksheets that said, I like___________. I don’t like____________________. so all they had to do was fill in the words. Yet as with anything that involves original thought in the Japanese school system, some kids were having a hard time coming up with ideas. I walk by one student and see that he doesn’t have anything in any of the I don’t like slots so I stop to try and help him think. I run through everything we’ve been studying like sports and foods but when those fail I turn to animals. Animals always work.

Confidently I ask him, “Ok well you like all of that but do you like *dramatic pause for effect* SNAKES?!” At which point I make finger fangs and hiss menacingly at him. He laughs, thankfully, but says that he does like snakes. “Really??” I returned, surprised that he wasn’t hiding under his desk after witnessing my best King Cobra of the day.

“YEAH!” He says enthusiastically, and before I can even comprehend what is fully happening he begins searching the hypothetical tall grasses of his desk, spots a snake, picks it up by, what I would hope to be, it’s tail, and proceeds to emphatically swing it around his head like a helicopter!! I can honestly say I was struck speechless by this response. Apparently this kid, in his free time, finds snakes and swings them around his head…

I was later telling this story to my Japanese friend (after having spent all day trying to describe the concept of puns) and I showed her the motion. I said, it looked like a helicopter. To which she replies, “No, a HEBIcopter!!”* I have never been so proud!!

*Hebi is the Japanese word for snake.

Believe me when I say that there are SOOO many more stories where that came from, but now they will be much easier to relay. Thanks for sticking by my inconsistent writing and I promise to try my best to stick to this schedule and keep this both shorter and more frequent. Thanks for tuning in, and for all you gents out there, NEVER stick your dick into piranha infested waters if you want to keep that thing intact.

Hebicopter, over and out.

Once again I am forced to start this off with an apology. I have been so busy I actually have not had time to blog! Because another typhoon is roaring through today I arrived at school to find no smiling little faces greeting me. What was supposed to be a day filled with 6th grade classes has now been transformed into a day where I have to be at school but have nothing to do. Feels like summer all over again. The one tiny bit of faux-silver lining to this is that I now have ample time to update this blog (since the morning was spent napping in my English room… shhhhhh).

I guess the best place to start would be with the job itself. My kids:

5TH GRADERS (GO NEN SEI)

These kids are really genki (which translates to energetic, wild, upbeat, etc). I have found the 5th grade classes at both schools to be my favorite. The kids are pretty much down for anything and, for the most part, participate fully in all activities. There are a few standout kids in both classes but my favorite encounters have been involving the whole class at both schools.

Santo: My visit school. During the last class there I had made them little fill-in-the-blank speech sheets. The goal was to have each student come up to the front of the class, introduce themselves, and say 3 things they like and one thing they don’t like. Since this is the first time that they have had to perform in front of the class, I fully expected the kids to bring their sheets up with them. The JTE and I were blown away when each kid came up and recited their whole speech from memory. Here is an example so you know how the format went: “Hello. My name is Kenji. I like Strawberries. I like Anime. I like sticking my fingers up random kids’ butts in the Kancho formation. I don’t like being told to stop kanchoing people. Thank you. Goodbye.” Ok, so maybe that isn’t exactly what they said but it’s probably what they were thinking! But really, the whole structure is the same. Just replace kancho with baseball or AKB 48 (I would tell you to look it up but for your sanity… just…. just don’t). The impressive fact here is that they MEMORIZED THIS! I gave them 10 minutes to write it but in that time they wrote out their speech and committed it to memory. In another language. Keep in mind the fact that this is more advanced than my own quick intro that I stressed over to give my teachers, and if you aren’t impressed yet your standards are too high.

I didn’t think it was possible to be more impressed with my kids but they continued to surprise not only me but also my Japanese counterpart when I asked them to explain in English certain Japanese words some of the kids had added into their speeches. For example (this one ACTUALLY happened):
Kid 1: I like shoudo.
Me: Can anyone tell me what shoudo is?
JTE: Kid 2 (Ok I don’t know their names yet. There are hundreds of them, SO SUE ME!)
Kid 2: Shoudo is calligraphy.
Me and JTE: *jaws drop to the floor*

Now at first glance this may not seem that impressive. But let’s think this through critically for a second. Not only is this coming from a student from a class where I had asked what is “remon” in English and no one knew the tranlation (which, coincidentally is LEMON) but it is also coming from a student who lives in a country where I have seen such signs as “Bluebelly and Yogult” and “Prease Cally Your Garbage”. Yet a ten year old could not only understand and translate the word calligraphy but did it in perfect English. Yeah, I was a proud sensei that day.

Ohara: My base school. One of my favorite moments in this class so far is when I was teaching them the appropriate ways to say words that are similar in both languages. The word Banana in Japanese is pronounced ba-nah-nah where as we say it more like ba-nya-na. While I explained this difference the kids burst out into a chorus of giggles and began yelling Ba-nyan-a. I tried to get them to calm down, I even turned to my teacher for help but was despaired to find that he too was saying ba-nyan-a with a huge grin on his face. This is when I knew I had lost them. You see, in Japan the cat sound isn’t “meow” but “nyan” (youtube Nyan-cat at your own risk). Needless to say, I had a chorus of 5th graders impersonating cats for a good 3 minutes. After I finally got them back we moved on to the word bird. In Japan it is pronounced bahd. I was trying to teach them the hard eerrrrr sound and this just meant breaking out into another lively round of “eeeerrr. eer. eeerrrrrrrrrrr. eeer er er er eeerrrrrr.” This reminded them of the cat sound from earlier, naturally, and so that made a comeback as well. Just imagine this. Me standing in front of a class of 35 fifth graders holding a picture of a bird and looking helpless while every student AND the homeroom teacher are loudly and happily yelling “eeerr. NYAN! er er er. Nyan nyan.” I think my class unknowingly wrote Ke$ha’s next hit.

6TH GRADERS (ROKU NEN SEI)

My 6th graders at both schools are a little more reserved. They often aren’t as excited to participate as the 5th graders and there are always a few students who begrudgingly put in as LITTLE effort as is physically possible. Some can’t even be bothered to keep their eyelids open. I think this is partly contributed to their classes being directly after sports day practice and partly because they are going into Junior High next year which means they are, in the words of the teacher who hates me, very “pubic” right now. However, I really like my 6th graders. They are, with those few exceptions, hard working and very curious. They are almost more willing to come talk to me after class than they are in class. The one thing I have noticed about the 6th graders is how attached they are to their homeroom teachers. At both schools the 6th grade teachers are by far the most outgoing and lively. I enjoy talking to them most of all and they are actually really nice to me which is much appreciated when all the other teachers are ignoring my very existence.

FUTABA (SPECIAL NEEDS)

I was originally very nervous about my special needs classes. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t even know that I was going to be teaching them until about a week before classes started. Thankfully, my Ohara futaba class is an absolute joy to work with! The lesson I did for the futaba class, as I mentioned in a previous post, was basic primary colors. When I say basic, I mean basic. In the entire class period I taught them 4 colors: red, yellow, green, and blue. In fact, the first ten minutes of the class was just them learning my name. When I got to class I quickly realized that I will only be working with the young futaba students. There are about 7 students in the class and none of them are older than maaaaybe 7 or 8 years old. I had made a huge 4-colored rainbow before class and had little worksheets of empty rainbows for them to fill in. They really loved the activity and got involved easily in the lesson. After the class was recess so the kids were fighting over who got to play with me. Eventually a young girl named Erika won out and she took me on a school tour. When she first told me she was going to take me on a tour a sense of dread spread over me. This would be my third tour around the school. The principal had already taken me on two. It is a big school. Surprisingly, however, the tour this 6 year old special needs girl took me on was ten times more helpful than the one the prinicipal had done! She showed me rooms and places around the school that the principal had apparently deemed unimportant. She even showed me the pool. WHAT? THEY HAVE A POOL?!?! WHY DID NO ONE MENTION THIS?! After the tour was over I went back to the futaba room to grab my supplies and the teacher flagged me down with this look of wonderment on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she had no idea how I did it. APPARENTLY these kids had spent the whole last semester not paying attention. They never participated in activities and never talked. Judging by the amount of hugs and chattering I got, I think it is safe to say these kids like me :D

MAGIC 8 BALL OF WONDERMENT!

This is really just a random factoid but one that I was shocked by. My pred. Sarah had left a magic 8 ball in the English classroom at Ohara. I remember the first time I walked into that room I saw it sitting on the desk and thought “what a random and strange thing to leave behind”. Little did I know that small black plastic orb filled with blue water and a floating dice would be my key to English interactions with my students! Every day after class, EVERY DAY, the students will come up to play with the magic 8 ball. At first it was just one or two, but now there are lines. They actually wait in line and rip it out of each other’s hands. When I first explained it to them I told them it was magic and it answered questions. I told them it had to be a yes or no question and that the magic 8 ball only understood English. At first the kids looked a little scared and confused so I demonstrated. I said, will I find money today? The magic 8 ball said “My sources point to yes” so I made the fist pump motion and said “yesssss” The kids loved it and soon the lightbulb lit up and they were asking that thing so many questions I could barely keep up! Every time I have to try my best and not laugh because these kids haven’t quite grasped the predictive nature that makes the magic 8 ball so much fun. Will I find money? Will I get a pony for Christmas? Will Neil Patrick Harris suddenly realize he is straight and fall madly in love with me? Alas, these are not the questions my students ask (which is good because NPH is ALL MINE!) Instead they ask “Do you like strawberries?” “Do you like Kaitlin Sensei?” “Is Hora-chan my friend?” People, the magic 8 ball doesnt have opinions on food and it doesnt need to tell you things  you ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWERS TO! But I never say anything, because at the end of the day, I have 10 kids fighting over the chance to ask questions in English to a tiny plastic ball and in my line of work, that is as close to heaven as you are going to get.

UNDOUKAI (SPORTS DAY) AND ENKAI

This last Saturday was supposed to be my schools’ Sport’s Days. Unfortunately rain postponed them to Sunday. I say unfortunately because Sunda was SUPPOSED to be the day that my friends from Kyoto visited. Cest la vie I guess. Instead I spent Sunday morning at my visit school’s Sports Day. It was really fun. The kids ran races, relays, did dances, and competitions. I even helped participate in a huge double dutch jump rope competition! After lunch I hurriedly biked over to my base school to catch the last half of their undoukai. The fifth and sixth graders performed an intense gymnastics routine that left my hot 5th grade teacher teary-eyed and after that I had an hour to head home, change, and get back to the school to head to our enkai.

Enkai is the Japanese word for Office Party. But really it should be called the “everyone get smashed and then do embarrassing things” Party. We were at a super fancy restaurant serving traditional Japanese dinner, including unlimited beer. Unlimited beer + Japanese people = an interesting night. I was challenged to many a chugging contest and told on many occasions that I am crazy and can drink too much for a girl. My hot teacher even got mad at me for being able to out drink him because “In Japan men can drink more than women. That is just how it works”. After enkai often times there is something called nijikai which is basically enkai round two. This involves switching locations (usually to a karaoke bar as was our case) and, of course, continuing to drink. Our nijikai was only a few people. Me, a 6th grade teacher, one of our curriculum coordinators, the 1st grade teacher, and hot teacher. The 6th grade teacher seemed to be leading the party. He ordered us all drinks and then told me I was going to sing with him. Not asked, told. Luckily it was Bicycle Race by Queen so I was very ok with this selection. Not so fortunately, after that he kept putting on random songs and telling me to sing them. When I told him I didn’t know the song he would say “But it is in English” like that should mean I have to know it! I tried my best but usually ended up handing the mic off to extremely intoxicated hot teacher after only a minute or two. Around 11:30 I decided it was time to go but seeing as how we were in Nagahama and I had missed my last train it was time to call in my reinforcements. I texted my friend Sharon who lived close by but she wasn’t at home so next on the list was a good friend named Dave. He said I was welcome to crash his couch. He was going to bed but he left the door unlocked for me. Perfect. So I told my teachers I had fun but I was heading to a friend’s house for the night. “Oh. What is their name?” Innocent enough, right? “Dave.” Silence. “Nope.” “I’m sorry, what? No?” “No, you can’t stay with a boy. Stay here. Sing this. It’s in English.” At some point in the next few minutes a random string of events ensues. Starting with my 6th grade teacher handing me $100 and refusing to take it back and ending with me and the curriculum coordinator taking a taxi back to Omi-Nagaoka. I much would have rather stayed at my friends because that cab ride was bound to be about $50 but since I had a new $100 in my pocket and it was obvious that rumors would fly if I stayed at a man’s house for the night, I got in the cab. When we got back to my place the teacher REFUSED to let me pay for any of the taxi. I argued with him for a good 3 minutes about letting me at least put in $10, but he said “No, this is Japan.” As if that made perfect sense as to why I shouldn’t pay. Whatever. I was tired. I went in and went to sleep!

Now you may be thinking this is a crazy night, but as far as enkai’s go it was actually pretty normal. Tame even, some would say. And as is law in Japanese society, today at work nothing of enkai has been mentioned and eveyrone goes on about their day like I didn’t see them spill beer all overthemselves while singing “Endless Love”.

SOCIAL BUTTERFLY

So in short, work is fun but playing? Yeah that is a lot of fun too!! My weekends (and ok, sometimes the weekdays too) have been jam-packed with fun. I feel really popular and although that means no chances to sleep in I think I am ok with that. In the past few weeks I have been to BBQs, karaoke, Nagoya, multiple castles, shopping, shopping, and of course a lot of eating. I have met a lot of new people and gotten really close with a few of the ones who have been around for a while. My favorite event so far has been weekly dinner.

Each week, one of the ALTs in our area throws dinner for however wants to come. They usually have a distinctive theme and are ALWAYS tons of fun. So far we have had tacos, okonomiyake, pasta, pizza, yakiniku, and last night I finally got to throw mine: Brinner. For those of you who are not aware of what this is, it is BReakfast for dINNER. Yummm..

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love to be in the kitchen. Since I didn’t have school yesterday (a throwaway day to replace the work I did on Sunday for Sports Day) I spent the day in preperation for my dinner. Well, that was the ORIGINAL PLAN. What actually ended up happening was spending most of the morning in a really upset mood after hearing unfortunate rumors from Pullman and then moodily cleaning my apartment for about 2 hours. Then I had to go to the store for supplies. I rode in the pouring rain for 20 minutes and then got waaaaay too much food at the store. What does this mean? It means I have to find a way to carry 4 huge bags of groceries back on my bike. This is doable, but not with me on the bike as well. So I got to walk my bike home in the pouring rain for about 35 minutes. This did not improve my mood as you can imagine.

Luckily, my friend James came early and we watched Zombieland and laughed about our train attendent mishap (this story is really long but basically involves us acting like stupid foreigners twice in the span of a few hours to the SAME train attendant who now hates us).  After a while more people showed up and I went into full chef mode. I was simultaneously cooking french toast, omelets, pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon, and prepping/cleaning for 9 people. It was such a rush and really helped me de-stress for the day! The company was good, the food was delicious if I do say so myself, and I ended up having a great night! Brinner was a success!!

This coming weekend is going to be a lot of fun too. Tonight I am going to Hikone to have a girl’s night with Chelsea, tomorrow is a party to fundraise for a friend of mine who is running the Tokyo Marathon for charity, and then Saturday and Sunday involve a 2 day bike trip around Lake Biwa: the biggest natural lake in Japan! I’m really excited for it but I am not excited for how my bootay is going to feel come Monday.