Saturday, November 09, 2002

*... smack! smack! ...*
Initially I thought my apartment was falling down around my ears, but it just turned out to be a quite frightening combination of wind, thunder, and hail engulfing my humble abode. In fact, I thought I almost won my bet this morning (where will it snow first? Med school or middle school?) but it turns out, as I looked out my window, mouth gaping open and breath fogging up the view, that the white speck flying around were only hail. But the scary part was the wind would make it completely impossible to predict where the hail was going to fall. It could be coming down normally, then all of a sudden coming straight for your face. I actually jumped back when it did a turn like that, even though I was safely (I think) behind glass. And at the moment, it is brilliantly sunny... oh wait, no, strike that; it has started to pour. Dang.

*britt* is not a happy camper.
12:42 PM

Friday, November 08, 2002

*... rain rain, go away ...*
Yesterday was brilliantly clear and crisp, a hint of the autumn we never had over here. The difference being that off in the distance was this great white looming mountain, which seemed to appear suddenly, but only because it has been so overcast and cloudy that it was not possible to see before. I had hoped that the nice weather would carry over on to today, but apparently my hopes have been dashed. Probably a good thing too, as it will encourage me to go home and sleep as opposed to adventure along the coast as I had planned. I am, not surprisingly, sick again, and I have discovered that this time it is due to the fact that EVERYONE is sick, and this being a country where they do not believe in public sanitation (like soap or toilet paper in restrooms... what is up with that?!) nor do they believe in anti-bacterial anything, and the fact that hacking up a lung while standing on top o' someone is perfectly acceptable, it is really no wonder that I am feeling the bug. I am borderline opting for the fashion of the sick, which is a surgeon's mask looking thing, either intended to keep bugs in or keep 'em out, I am not sure which. Either way, I bet it would keep my nose warm.

Speaking of warm, I have had to face one of my big heeby-jeebies over here, for the sake of my sciatic. There are 2 things that reduce me to a shivering, psychological mess, one being pinatas (don't get me started on pinatas) and the other being when something is warm when it shouldn't be, like public phone handles or toilet seats. It's just a gross reminder that someone was there before you, and who knows what they left behind. I am not an all-together paranoid freak about germs, but I'd rather feel the familiar cold round of plastic, then be reminded that this item has had previous users. I have had to face this fear in my own home recently, as I have found it necessary to plug in my electric toilet seat just so I would be able to get back up after I was finished. Otherwise I would be frozen straight to the seat. And as you can imagine, that's no good.

By the way, here's a random happy: guess who I talked to last night/this morning? (Okay, really only my family is going to know who this person is, and Nat and Nic maybe...) None other than Miss Suzanne Oakland herself. I emailed her yesterday just to say hi, and she called me! From Germany! Crazy! And I have discovered that she is 16 hours ahead of me in time, and I am 16 hours ahead of you guys (in SoCal... actually 17 now with Daylight Savings), so I thought that was kinda weird, that I am right smack dab in the middle. Crazy internationalityness. (There D, I guess I do make up words!)
10:12 AM

Thursday, November 07, 2002

*... my vision, my dream ...*
I just had the opportunity? job? to evaluate 27 speeches and 5 skits at the 12th Annual Niigata City JHS Speech Presentation. For the most part, very boring and impressive at the language skills, and the majority of them were about, if not directly titled "My Dream." Though, there was some variety, like the kid who showed up in a basketball uniform, and one girl's speech was actually about the TV show "Friends", which she called "a love comedy drama" and spent a good time of her speech explaining about Chandler's gay father and singing "Smelly Cat"... that just about sums it up, don't you think? Some of them I just couldn't understand at all, or would wrack my brain trying to figure out what they were saying, like one girl who kept saying that we must protect our ass, and that our ass was progressing and growing, and that english was very important across our ass... at the end of the speech (so 5 minutes later) I finally understood that she was saying "earth." I think some pronunciation lessons are needed at that school, although it did make for a really funny speech!

PS -

happy bday, mister matthew steven powell!!

5:27 PM

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

*... an aside to Captain Obvious and Spike ...*
I hang my head in shame, guys. Last night I bought Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits from our beloved BNL and paid 2400 yen for it. I almost croaked at how expensive it was. But, in feeble attempt to justify the cost, I did introduce my kids over here to the fabulous musical stylings of BNL by using "If I had a $1,000,000" to teach if/when conditionals. Thank you, thank you.
And just so you know, don't think that I would traverse the countryside without being thoroughly prepared, packing BNL with me. It's just that the burned CD I have with me doesn't work over here, as most of these places are still using 8-tracks. On the upside, I get the lyrics translated into Japanese, AND I get to see their funny attempts at translating the lyrics, like "hot like wasave"(uhh, 'wasabi', maybe ya think?) and "Speaking when I die" (not "speaking as a guy") or "I'm the me lean anatomy" instead of "I'm the me in 'monogamy'."

*... other than that ...*
I was wondering why my back hurt so much this morning, till I remembered that I lugged a good 30 pounds of groceries on it around yesterday. My kitchen looks like I'm my own little farmer's market, it's got so much produce in it. Mikey, I was going to take pictures of the 1980 yen melons yesterday, but I forgot my camera. Can you believe it? Sheesh! The deceiving part is that the 1500 yen melons look like cantaloupe on the outside, and the 2000 yen pumpkins look like watermelons (but smaller, like cantaloupe size). Break 'em open, and surprise! Something quite different inside...

I have been involved in the last 2 days with some fascinating, and equally disturbing conversations about how teachers are treated here. I'm not talking socially, but more employability. Teachers have to stay at one school for 3 years, but they can stay no longer than 7. They also can't work in the same city for more than 14 years. If their tenure at one school is up, or if they are recruited by another school, the principals do a heavily negotiated trade... So teachers are like baseball players, without the notoriety or pay. I can't actually believe it.
3:46 PM
*... playing catch up ...*
Editor's Note: Blogger has had no love for me the past few days, seemingly sending my posts into a black hole in cyberspace instead of sending them to my site. Or maybe it was hungry and needed a few bytes... HARHARHAR (see, I still have a little bit of nerd in me). Either way, I will try to recreate and catch you up on the goings ons over the last week. Forgive me, this may be loooooong....

*... new hobby ...
I spent the majority of last night chasing my breath around the apartment, a sport that I used to find in San Diego as quite amusing and horrifying at the same time. Now, however, the novelty has worn off. It's just annoying now, especially when you have to wait for the self-made fog to lift after you let out a hefty belch (yes, i do burp, despite what any contest in Utah/Nationals may have shown... I just don't do it in front of other people. I am THAT MUCH of a lady, dammit!) There is now really no difference between my refrigerador and my apartment anymore. In fact, i can leave some stuff out of the fridge and it will be okay, while there are other things (face wash, toothpaste, cooking oil) that I actually have to put in the fridge to keep from congealing into a solid. Crazy.

*... mountain girls unite! ...*
My "mountain girls" are going to laugh at me. Gloat and laugh. But that's okay, i can deal... 2 things that my mountain girls know me for: 1) I don't do the outdoorsy, camping, that whole nature, let's-go-for-a-hike-in-the-middle-of-a-swamp-at-midnight kinda thing. (You girls still owe me for that, by the way!) So they will be delighted to know that during my train travels through the countryside and mountains, my breath was actually taken away at the sight of the autumn leaves contrasted against the snowy mountain background and not-yet-frozen rivers. Words can't describe. And the pictures I took probably can't either, as the train was not very accomodating... and 2) I don't generally get along with anyone between the ages of 0 and 17, although I have made a few exceptions to that. But Japan has some of the cutest kids that I have ever seen (I believe I was sitting next to an angel on the train... she even had a little furry-lined cape on... sooooo cute!!! Like a little doll, I wanted to take a picture of her, but figured I7d get the pic back and think "who the fat is this?!") plus these 2 little balls of energy at an enkai that apparently mistook me for a human jungle gym, and we're climbing ALL over me for about 3 hours. And I didn't mind... too much. ((I can hear the mountain girls laughing at me... sad.))

*... traveling tips ...*
Do not leave home without the following items, in order of importance - money, tissues (as the trains and other public facilities lack paper products for toilet use and other) and febreeze. Everything else can be considered amenities. Also, it's probably a good idea to take along someone who knows Japanese pretty well, or at least well enough to book a hotel room when you go to an all-nighter in a town that's not yours. On Saturday night, I headed into Takasaki (about 5 hours away from me... I was visiting a friend about 4 hours away from me) for a Halloween party, and having done a birthday party the night before, i knew I was NOT up to another all-nighter. So once we got to the club, I grabbed a quite fluent in Japanese Czech girl and headed for the closest thing that said "hotel". After we located the attendant (?) after hunting around in a weird back-room kind of hall, Lana got the room. Turns out it was a love hotel, complete with Pachinko games and our very own sex-toy vending machine and private entrance. Good thing for that too, since the landlady (?) only was allowing 2 people in the room (supposedly me and Lana... you KNOW she's running off to tell her friends about the 2 lesbian gaijins, hahaha!) so the 2 other people in our party (guys, at that) had to go thru the private entrance to avoid being exposed... so to speak. I ended up being the first to crash there, not feeling so well (throwing up, despite the confused comments of my comrades saying "how can you be throwing up? You didn't drink anything!")... at least the bed was comfortable!

*... mochi, mochi! ...*
On the trip home, i was feeling better enough that I indulged in some really really good mochi. Mochi is actually rice flour itself, but in this case, I am talking about the little cakes made up of a filling (like a fruit (let's say banana... surprise!) embedded in a firm kind of mousse (like chocolate)) wrapped in a layer of dough made from glutinous rice flour. It's super soft, and to prevent sticking, the little cake has a bunch of flour on the outside. So by the time I was done, it looked like it had snowed INSIDE the train instead of outside. Though that would be impossible, since they have the seat warmers turned up so high in there that I actually think I got a 1st degree burn on my bottom...

*... it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...*
actually more like Xmas, since I don't think they techincally believe in Christmas over here. But they definitely are into Xmas. I guess I never really knew how to distinguish the 2 before, other than thinking that Xmas was kind of a cop out for saying Christmas. Well, the Japanese have summed it up like that nicely. Xmas over here is the most gaudy, flashy, glittery and shiny bright thing I have seen in a while. Everything is flocked and reflective. They actually offer feather boas and fuzzy, Britney Spears pink stars to decorate your tree with. Not that I am necessarily against that, but it's the principle of things. It's not like they have trees bigger than a foot here anyway... fake of course. Sad.
1:23 PM