Tuesday, January 12, 2010

more snow last night, this time it stuck. lots of wind blowing it around, ominous, dark clouds over both mountains and the sun trying to break through created a really beautiful contrast of dark and light. great way to kick off the day. :) it's pretty chilly too. trying to stay warm!

Monday, January 11, 2010

snowy afternoon

snow showed up outta nowhere during lunch. i love being surprised by it like that. i also love when snow comes down on days that aren't windy. it just slowly floats down at it's own pace. fantastic. :)

4 months now? haha. does anyone even read this then?

wowza, i wonder if it's even worth updating anymore since it's been 4 months. well, it's a new year, so might as well give it a shot then.

it's hard to stay on top of this, especially after this long of a time, since things lose their luster and nothing is eye-poppingly new anymore.

i'm back from x-mas break. i spent 3 weeks at home seeing friends and family and travelling. i didn't realize how much i missed the good ole US of A. of course, i realize that my trip was a 'best of' kinda deal, as i won't be able to goof that much when i'm back for grad school next fall. :P still, madison, washington, and florida were all good times. i'm happy i could go.

my time between the last post and my x-mas vacation wasn't particularly exciting. i mainly just spent lots of time with friends around nagano. Thanksgiving was delish and jesse and I purchased a fishing trip for next spring. i went to a game place in nagano called 'round 1' in december that was intensely fun. the block meeting the day before i left was also fun: i met a girl at the high school we were at who had done a study abroad in Iowa. wooo!

we'll see if i can be better about this blog thing from now on. but i'll try to be realistic too. :P

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Two months, already?

Man, I'm really slippin' here with this blog huh? Well, a lot has happened in two months, so I'll just do little bits of things as they pop into my head.

The newbies are here, and I like them. Yay for having great replacements.

School festival was last weekend, it was a blast. The band concert in particular was great.

drinking party after the festival was also fantastic. talked with lots of people, had lots of fun. the after-party was also epic. Great times.

typhoon came through a couple of days ago at night. woke me up from the wind, but wasn't any worse than a storm. mainly because of the mountains breaking it up i think.

i'm almost done with battlestar galactica. probably my favorite show in terms of enjoyment ever.

i'm reading the wheel of time series, so far, awesome.

i'll be waking up early on saturday to watch the hawks play their night game. :D

i went to kanazawa a couple of weekends ago for the 'silver week' holidays with chad. it was a blast and we saw some great things; ninja-temple, 21st centurty contemporary art museum, and the famous japanese garden there.

i'm bummed harold, the american staying in iijima, is gone. we hit it off really well and liked a lot of the same things. it's a shame i only knew him for two weeks :P

made burgers a couple of nights ago, it was fantabulous. minus the part where i fell in the gutter walking to molly's car becuase it was pitch black outside of her apt.

all day meeting for english teacher's yesterday. it was horrible and i wish i could have snuck out, like some other teachers (american and japanese both) did.

kasuga seems really bummed at his new school. it makes me appreciate what i have in iijima.

i might try hiking a trail outside of iijima in the mountains this weekend. but we'll see. haha.

i randomly decided (after reading the last book), that splitting the harry potter book seven into 2 movies is actually great for everyone, in terms of making money and covering more of the epic story.

the brazilian restaurant in ina will be shutting down sometime in the next couple of months. I'm going to miss it dearly.

the chinese restaurant in iijima has a pretty good sweet and sour set. i may go there tonight.

i did a presentation about graduate school applications and how to find what's right for you. it was fun, but i felt weird talking about it like i was an authority. far from it i feel.

i feel that the yamagomi (the nagano magazine about anything) is always awesome, but the last one was particularly epic. great pieces.

having elementary on friday afternoon is far and away the best way to start a weekend.

3 day weekend this weekend, i'm unsure what i'll do....probably just be a bum.

i really, really need to get my passenger-side door on my car fixed. it's like prying open an oyster every time.

i feel like i'm eating out more with the newbies here, but my food spending isn't really higher since i'm spending less on meals at home. yay.

i keep meaning to go to pachinko...why don't I? oh right, i see the guys camping outside of them at 8:45 in the morning before they open.

i made janis' spinach salad for the first time last week, my how i missed it.

i think i'm hungry, judging by how many of these lines are about food.

i'll be going to kyoto in november to see old friends, kansai gaidai, the leaves changing, and to show stephen kyoto. should be great. :)

booked my ticket home for the winter. 19th of dec through jan 11th. going to be great to be home.

after halloween last year, i tossed the two pumpkins we had...and they took root and grew this year. we have two pumpkins, both around 40kg, sitting in the school right now. AWESOME.

i'm going to go to a halloween party this year, should be fun. i'll get pictures of my costume. :)

i keep using glue on to keep my school sandals in good condition because i didn't wanna spend another 8$ on a new pair and i had this glue sitting at my apt not being used.

it's starting to get cold, and i see leaves falling here and there even though the trees are still green.

swine flu is still around and plenty of people are sick, but it's not the terror it was a couple of months ago.

is it really almost 2010? i remember 1999 wasn't so far away. how did this happen? where is my decade? am i old now or what, musing on lost years?

spying cats sunbathing outside my apt is like, the best thing ever.

there's a spider just outside my apt door that i've taken to feeding. i had high hopes she would have been able to handle the grasshopper i tossed in her web, but alas, it got away.

i still stare at the mountains in wonder, every day, without fail. i'm going ot miss them.

i feel a lot more laid back in the class now, and i think the students like that.

pen pal letters came a couple of weeks ago. the students LOVED THEM. i introduced them by asking the class "whats the date today?" "september 25!" "boo! december 25th!" "whaa? huh? christmas?" "yes, it's christmas, because....i brought you PRESENTS" *holding out the letters* "WAHHH (as the students lose their minds)."

one of my co-teachers ahd to have surgery on her intestines, but was back early to keep teaching. she's a trooper.

there's probably more, and maybe i'll be more on the ball from now on out. ;)

Sunday, August 9, 2009

SUMMER!

Well, bethany has rolled on home after you trip in Hokkaido. She's been home and had her welcome home party.

As for me, I'm enjoying my summer vacation. I came back to school on wednesday to find out that after all that discussion about it being IMPERATIVE that i'm at school during break to find out that it's just like spring break. In the sense that there's absolutely nothing for me to do at school, and most of my teachers are gone. Nice. :P

Well, that of course means that I'm bored outta my mind at school. Some JET's get to stay home over break, but as per our contract, it technically states taht we have to be at school all break unless our principal allows us to go home. The thing is, I think mine would let me go home, but he doesn't know. He came by on thursday and was like, 'you haven't gone home? you have business?' So...yeah. That of course means that i'm pulling a spring break, and taking long lunch breaks and leaving early. Blarg. It's just a bummer that I can't do a proper trip. Not that I could afford it anyway. :P

I talked to my buddy Chad, a friend from Kansai who's back in Japan on JET right now, we're hopefully going to get together over 'silver week', a one in 7 years lucky line-up of holidays in September.

the new JET's have arrived too, but I haven't had any luck meeting up with them just yet. I'll be able to see them on Wednesday though, at the orientation meeting up in Nagano-city. The parties after orientation should also be a fun time too. Yay! :-)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

sapporo

bethany's here, we're up in sapporo, things are going well. :) we'll be off to asahikawa tomorrow, and hopefully be getting a nice look at daisetsuzan in the next couple of days. should be a great time!

sapporo seems nice enough and we might poke around here tomorrow before we take off to asahikawa. we'll see!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

yea yea

It's been forever, I know :P dad visited, we had a great time, i'll get pictures up here eventually, bethany's visiting now, we're going to hokkaido on thursday morning. the summer break is about to start, i've been having some issues with school but it seems to be about cleared up. things are great, albeit warm, and I'm looking forward to starting year two here on JET. Holy cow, are we really moving that far ahead already? ay yi yi!

I promise I'll try and stay in touch! although I have a feeling most of you have moved on from this already since i'm so darn infrequent, my bad-desu.