I know it's been a really long time since I've done a blog update. Yeah yeah, i know.
Anyway, maybe I'll try and be a little better about it. OK, so, i'll just bullet-point the rundown of everything that's been going on.
- mom and pete are coming in just under two weeks!
-i got them rail passes so we'll get to bullet train around quite a bit.
-dad's coming in july! crazy!
-the new school year is going well, but I'm still feeling like I'm not particularly fond of this new 'make my own schedule thing'
- i went to Korea a couple weeks ago, May 9-17. It was fantastic to see bethany. We had a spectacular time and saw tons of great places. here's a little bit i typed up about korea:
oh, and the last things i wanted to mention were some of the lasting impressions i had of korea; these are just the impressions i had from being there a week, they aren't supposed to be a definitive 'this is the way things are' by any means:
korea comes across as a mix between japan and china in many ways. from the literal (the language sounds like both to my ears) to the more abstract. on one hand, technologically korea is just as/more advanced than japan at the proliferation of technology. everyone has cell phones (more seniors in korea than in japan it seems), the whole country is wired, and it's cheaper than japan.
korea is also much dirtier. not as bad as china (especially in pollution) but it's still pretty bad. i often smelled raw sewage which has never happened here in japan. lots of the public transit / works are nearly identical to japan (the yellow blind paths etc) but just dirtier.
to my western notions of what is 'proper' public ettiquete, koreans come off as more rude than japanese but not as rude as chinese. but this is of course a cultural thing.
koreans also seem much more fiercely nationalistic, and come off as having a 'short-man' of asia syndrome. which is unfortunate, korea is, i think, the 3rd largest economy in asia and 13th in the world, which is remarkable, but many koreans always seem to be trying to prove the value of the country.
people trying to interject things like 'miso soup comes from korea. japanese is just another korean dialect, etc.' stuff came up several times. and while korea has every right to be pissed at japan, it just came off as kinda odd
also, i'm so jealous how cheap public transit in korea is.
that's really all i have time to ramble about; but it was a great time
pix are up on bethany's FB, you've probalby all seen them by now. :P
-i've been picking up manga's to read in japanese as a way to work on my japnese / catch up on ones i was reading in the states. it's tough but fun. it's also pretty funny how much faster the action / fighting manga goes when compared to the comedy one (due to much more writing.)
-last week we had 'Undou no hi' or sport's festival day. It was a ton of fun; i snapped quite a few cool pics of students giving it there all, and I also competed with the teachers against the students in a big relay. AWESOME.
-i've practically been burning cash since I came back from korea on bills, but I'm doing a great job of finally nailing down my excell expenses sheet so I can figure out where my $$ is going. YAY.
-i'm making MOONSHINE! Well, technically i'm making a summer fruit sochu. When i was at the liquor store last week, I noticed that they had a bag of liquor that looked really similar to the white peak i normally buy.
TANGENT: in japan, it's really common to offer refills of liquids in bags that are much cheaper than buying the real deal. this goes for shampoo to household cleaners to salt to apparently liquor.
So! i picked up the regular stuff i drink to bring to the party i was going too (MORE ON THAT LATER) and asked the shop owner about the other stuff. she explained that yeah, you just make it at home and you can make all different kinds of stuff using the mix and different fruits. then she gave me an instruction manual / recipie guide for it.
so i asked her, where can i buy glass bins to make it? she pointed to the store across the street, but then was like...'wait a minute!' and came back with a bin and let me have it for free! woo! so anyway, i'm in the process of making a strawberry flavored one right now.
-the first year students are awesome here. 1/2 of them know me from last year at elem where i could be a lot wilder, and so they act really goofy with me. my teachers get confused when it happens.
-i didn't used my heater / ac at all last month since the weather's been perfect, my electricity bill dropped by over half.
-somehow there is still snow on the peaks of the mountains. i hope it lasts until mom and pete visit.
-back to cutting my lawn. using a weedwacker on a whole lawn is a bit rough on the back.
-i got to stand on North Korean soil at the DMZ. Also, the ROK soldiers are freaking awesome.
-Last weekend i went and visited some friends from orientation last summer. I drove about 4 hours or so, but it was a fantastic time. Hopefully we'll be meeting up again in Tokyo when Dad is visiting. :-)
-after i came back from korea i gave my neighbor Yuka some souvenier's, i had a huge bag of korean candies and gave her a lot becuase i knew i couldn't finish them all. she was like, 'wah! this bag is soo full!' like twice. i don't care if she finishes them or not. :P
-we implemented a new network at school, my computer now can't print and the internet sucks too. i'm still hoping to get it fixed, ugh.
-i finally filed my govt. stimulus package yesterday. $120 coming my way! Yee-haw!
-as part of mandatory english study for elem. students (5th and 6th graders) we're actually using a lesson plan at them now. although i found out on monday that i'm in charge of leading the lessons on my own from now on again, but at least i have an idea of what i'm supposed to be doing. i'm just curious if they'll be changing the jr. high books too, because a lot of the stuff i'm teaching is stuff they learn in their first year at jr. high too. hrm...
-for the first lesson at the small elem, there was a mixup and i didn't have the printed story to read to them i was supposed to have, and the teacher asked me if i could just do one on the fly in english. i ended up doing 3-little-pigs and with pictures and gestures they actually got it! it was awesome. the best part was the dramatic knocking on the door for the first two houses, and then for the 3rd house, i wound up to do this huge knock and instead did a doorbell and everyone (including the principal) lost it. that was awesome. :)
-tomorrow night i'm making mexican food with some friends from up north and having one of the english teachers come by. i hope she can handle our gaijin-ness
-friday i'm meeting up with a group of people form the PTA / teachers to have curry after we promised that we would at the spring enkai. who boy it'll be interesting.
-i learned a sweet new work today: huurinkazan or 風林火山 the kanji are wind,forest,fire,mountain and it was some battle cry by an old nagano samurai. AWESOME! i wanna do a calligraphy of it and hang it up in my apt. :D
- i was asked to write two different stories for 2nd and 3rd years. i had to do some tweaking to the 3rd year's one, where i wrote about going to istanbul. i also loved that i followed what i was told and only used what they had studied, but still had one of the teacher's dumb it down because it was too hard. she then also wrote a new one following the model that the book had, nearly identical to the books one, and then had me check the students papers. of course all the studnets ones were nearly identical to hers, and i'd like to see her's because there were so many common mistakes that i'm sure her example sheet had problems on it too. whoops :P
here's my 2nd year one that no one has said anything to me about yet. we'll see if that lasts.
I got up at four in the morning. I went to the bus stop. I rode the bus to Tokyo. I bought breakfast at a conbini in Roppongi. Inside the conbini, I saw President Obama. Obama said, “Dwight, can we go to America together?’’ I said, “YES WE CAN!’’ So, we went to Narita airport. We got on the plane. We flew over Tokyo and saw Godzilla! Godzilla was at Tokyo tower! Poor, poor, Tokyo tower. The plane was very fast. We got to Washington, D.C. at twelve. We ate lunch in the White House. It was very delicious. After lunch, Obama said, “Let’s find Naruto and Sasuke. They can fight Godzilla and save Tokyo!” I said, “This is boring. I live in Iijima and Godzilla is in Tokyo.” I watched TV on Air Force One for five hours. I got to Japan at seven in the evening. I went to bed at ten. Everyone in Tokyo died. The End
Fight: 戦う
Rode: 乗った
Poor: かわいいそう
Air Force One: アメリカ大統領の飛行機
ok, well, i think that pretty much does it for me. i'll try try try to keep up on this. i promise. :P
