Another Looooong Weekend

Disclaimer: I will get that Thanksgiving Post up soon! >.<;;;;

Thursday( Dec 11th) after some bullshit at work, and going to a meeting about ways we can teach our kids to have better speech skills I went to the travel agent to get multiple issues worked out on upcoming trips. Between the meeting and the travel agent meeting I only had enough time to get home, go to the bathroom, fix my hair and run back out to the bank to have money for the Colare Christmas Party. I arrived maybe 10 minutes late and by that time a good chunk of the food was gone and almost everyone was there and seated. So I just rushed, paid, got seated and grabbed what little food was left on the table. I ended up sitting across from Brain and Rie, and to the left of me was an older gentlemen who talked to me on and off through the night. He was a very nice guy who seemed very interested in me and where I came from. I suppose that is indeed the point since Colare events are mostly centered around international culture exchange ideals. Well once I sat down Jack and another Japanese guy who helped him with the Shadow Puppet show sung a few Christmas songs for everyone. It was really nice and set the tone for the evening. Then Brett set up Rock Band with a big screen behind the stage and volunteers could come up and play songs like they were a “real” band. I volunteered twice and was told I was the best drummer. What I find amusing is that my mediocre C+ skills at playing drums earned me that tittle. On top of that having the knowledge that back home I'd have my ass handed to me on nearly any game I play with my friends. I didn't even touch the guitar. Brett did all the singing and Lawrence did both guitar and drums. Me, Lawrence and Brett were the best combination of players having high nineties for all our percentiles and none of us being on easy. When that was over there was a cream puff contest of sorts. Where nine volunteers come up on stage and each person takes a cream puff. In one of them the center would filled with wasabi. It was amusing, and when they did it a second time I volunteered and thankfully got a normal one XD NOW was time for gift exchange. Everyone arranged themselves in a large circle and passed the gifts around in a circle until the announcer said stop.　In the end I landed a 2010 calendar. This was roughly the end of the event, but there were three things that occurred this evening that were a tad out of the ordinary. One that was great, one that was not so great, and one that was quite amusing. The great part was my girl Reina (whom I taught during the summer) came, and she told me one of the main reasons why she came was to hope to run into me. XD! I was soo happy. She is soo cute, and gah! I just love her. The Funny part was at the end of the event, a camera crew grabbed up a few of us foreigners and made a sing we are the world and apparently it will be on TV in early January. And finally the not so good, is that I think I might have a stalker/gang bang kinda guy scooping me out. (More on this at another time.)

Friday Dec 12th
Work as usual at Koshino Jr. High and class was fine. I had one class that I planned and that was as much work as I had. I watched some kinda of election for class presidents at the end of the day, but I have no idea of the results. Once I got home, it was off to buy a Santa hat and something red for the AJet Christmas Party in Takaoka at 7:30. I found the hat but nothing red really. Clothes in Japan to be honest are just eh. Outside of the overly cute things that people love it’s little to be desired. If I honestly wanted to look like a peasant most of the time I’d just stop working. At any rate I got home, thinking I had time when I realized that the train I wanted to catch I had just missed. So I hurried and threw some make-up on and a red shirt. Grabbed my jacket and bag and ran out the door. When I arrived at the train station I was under the impression that I had to take the expensive train in order to get to the party on time. Thankfully I found the equivalent of 60 bucks in my pocket randomly and had money for the remainder of the night. Marissa called me while I was waiting for the train and reminded me that I indeed had enough time and that she would be getting on the train that I had thought would get me to the party late. With a sigh of relief I hopped on the train and met up with Marissa. Arriving at Clover Hall about 10 minutes late wasn’t soo bad. Everyone hadn’t gotten there yet and none of the festivities had started. Mingling with people and then eating the finger food took up the first hour or so of the party and then it was time to play bingo. There were twelve prizes to be won and about forty people at the party. I was the second person to win! I ended up wining two bottles of Belgium flavored beer. I went back to my seat and played some more for fun and ended up winning again even though I couldn’t claim a second prize XD. Everyone told me I was a communist and un-American for wining twice. It was hilarious. When bingo was over all the winners got together and took a picture. When we were all seated again it was tine for the gift exchange. The trick however was it was white elephant style. This means that your name gets called, you get a present, you open it and sit down. When the next person does this and he/she doesn’t like the gift they picked they can trade with anyone who already has a gift whether they want to or not. My friend Tiffany managed to luck out and get a toy alpaca that moved. It was soo cute and such a cool little gift. Needless to say that this poor toy traded hands many times before it ended up in mine, and stayed there!! I managed to not get it switched and people were very jealous! Not only had I won bingo twice but I got the prized Alpaca. It was too funny!. Then Faye who I think is just a riot ragged on me a bit more before everyone started singing Christmas Carols. However the venue told us that we had to head out since we reached our time limit and a group of us decided that it was too early (10:30pm) to head home and so Karaoke we went! The interesting thing about this party of people was it was nearly 15-20 of us and we could only manage to get a small room. Because of this we semi resolved the space issued by up ending the center table and putting it against the side wall. Then everyone with floor cushions managed to find a seat. Half the people there were Asians that I didn’t know and some random Interact people who happen to just show up for all JET events. Of course I sung a song and everyone was surprised. Thankfully since there were sooo many people at Karaoke I only managed to sing three songs. I sung along with ppl of course but as far as my own songs, it was limited. Since it seems like habit, I ended up crashing at Nicole’s place once the Karaoke was over. The following day was chill and then we headed to Caroling which was caroling at all. It was sit in a café and sing Christmas songs with each other and pay for cake. Had me or Nicole known that we would have never went. So after an hour of it we bailed out and headed to the mall. Oh how I love the mall. Such wonderful things to eat and to buy there. In truth I had ideas of things to buy once I was there but once I stepped foot in the mall I completely forget what I was aiming for and just ended up buying whatever came to mind. This means while at the mall I bought a mini light up tree, fabric for clothes making, Starbucks, Baskin Robins, and Mc Donalds. Yes.. t’was a rather unhealthy mall trip >.<;; However with some effort I managed to arrive back in Kurobe around 10pm just to drive over to Jacks house to celebrate the tail end of Jacks, Enrique’s, and Kathy’s three way party. Two out of three of the birthday people were gone by the time I got there, but there was people enough there to have fun. I ended up just eating things that were left over and playing poker. What is sooooo grand about this was one, Yuki loved my alpaca and played with it during the night. Yuki is soooo kawaii. Also I didn’t lose at poker!!. I managed to actually win all the money I put in plus an extra 700 yen. I was sooooo happy. I never gain money much less get it back in poker. It’s a good feeling being on that end of the table for once. When I left Jack’s house it was past one. I was invited to grab something to eat but I declined cause I was just tired of being out.

Sunday Dec13th
Instead of just staying asleep I ended up waking up to a phone call on Skype, and from there on ended up talking for several hours to a few different people. Of course this lead to an overall un productive day and instead of doing some much need housework I sat down to pizza and a marathon of CardCaptors Sakura. (Starting that series over since I only watched a few sparse episodes of it when I was younger and when it was butchers in English dubs.) I got so lost in the marathon of episodes I watched 17eps in a row and THEN decided it would be a good idea to get some sleep for work 4 hours later >.<

Long weekend

Soooo another regular week as far as I can remember XD It’s always hard to remember what I　did during the week because I’m always writing these things a week behind or more.
Monday was the 30th of November and I had my Eikawa class as usual. That day was payday and it was much needed. Tuesday thru Thursday has culminated to a hazy green blur and brings me to Friday. After leaving Koshino far later than I would have expected (because I had to record the speaking part of an English test (( this could have also happened on Tuesday. Refer to the previous blur statement above)) and got home around 5). It wasn’t long after I got home that I packed up my computer and found myself at the train station heading towards Takaoka to meet up with Nicole and her husband. Once I got there we went straight to the Brazilian hamburger place everyone had been talking about. It didn’t disappoint though it was nothing compared to the burgers I had in Tokyo a few weeks previous. After we had ate and talked awhile Matt, Chris, and Zack met up with us and joined us for a chat of utter nerdum. It was here I realized that I was no where near as much of a nerd as they were and need to step up my game. However Matt and I did have a space continuum debate based off the ideas presented in Star Ocean: Till the End of Time about 4D space. Also I realized that the computer consumed others far earlier than it did me. I admitted that when I was young I WENT OUTSIDE and played. Something you don’t see much anymore. Alas I’m sure my choice to do that as a kid spared my hands from intense carpel tunnel and degrading vision in these later years. Nevertheless after paying and wondering around aimlessly a bit we went to a bar and chatted/drank it up there. Kelly and John joined us and it was jolly good times. Around midnight we all decided to pack it in and parted ways at the train station. Since trains don’t run back anywhere that late I ended up crashing with Nicole (which I assumed would happen from the start). On the way back to her place however we managed to get flashed by some random drunk Japanese guy twice. It was rather stupid and we just ignored him and kept walking. What was even more pathetic about this situation was that the man said IN ENGLISH “watch me...”. I mean what kind of crap is that? Either way we quickened our pace reached her house and locked the doors. Her husband was quite ready to bust his skull in but such lunacy wasn’t worth such effort. Instead we settled in and Nicole and I traded media( movies, music etc..) with each other for the next hour or so. I ended up receiving about 8 gigs of data from here while I ended up giving her about 30gigs. Since she posses a Terabyte external memory drive this rather large chunk of data didn’t put a dent in her memory reserves in the slightest. Then it was sleep time. Lately I have had little trouble in passing out which in truth worries me.


Saturday 5th of December started off rather slow and relaxed. Instead of going out and doing much we chilled at Nicole’s place, grabbed food from the Konbini and they proceeded to update me on the episodes of Heroes I was missing. Might I say that this season is crazy and can’t wait to find enough free time to get up to date with the latest episodes. Around 5 we headed out to meet our respective parties for that evening. Catching the train to Toyama I met up with Tiffany while the others headed off for Mexican. Tiffany, Sal, Diku , Debbie, Alexis, Taku (a crew I normally don’t hang with but would like to more) and I headed to dinner. We ate finger food style with others who were already there waiting for us. After a giant fishbowl of liquor later the seven of us hit up Karaoke. Apparently all were surprised at my singing, and at one point started picking songs for me to sing with them. Every time I’d out down the mic there’d be another song I had put in or something someone wanted to duet!. I’m surprised my voice managed to not die! XD ( granted the night held three hours of karaoke between two karaoke places, the latter being an extremely nice place which I wouldn’t mind going to again!) As per usual however it was too late to go home, so Tiff and I crashed at Diku’s for the night.

Sunday morning came far too quick. Tiff, Diku and I grabbed sushi for breakfast and than went to the train station. Tiff offered for me to stay and hit up the arcade but I was fairly done with being out for the weekend. So this is where I parted ways and I went home. Once I got home, I unpacked my computer, started it, picked a lengthy playlist of nice music to listen to, and passed out for a few hours. Once I woke up I grabbed dinner with Rosa, discussed out Christmas plans and then I went home to work on the home test that’s due soon. I got a good chunk of it done then I talked to a couple people on skype (mostly my fam and my brother since it was his birthday) and then went to sleep listening to the Abhorsen Trilogy.

P.S. This is posted has been posted ahead of one that will be posted later, but the dates clarify the time line.

Tokyo!

First off let me say that I am tired as all get out. This was a long but fun weekend, and I have a feeling that this following week will be just as full and scattered with auditions, Thanksgiving, and mid-year seminars all falling in line. I also need to finally get that progress report of things I’m doing outside of work posted. I’ve been making slow progress as of late, but that’s a mixture of laziness, fatigue and plain no time.

Friday November 20th
After work (Koshino Jr. High) and nearly dieing from carbon dioxide poisoning and fumes, I went to Kelli’s birthday dinner at Satoshi’s in Toyama city. I had heard a lot about this Indian restaurant from my other friends so I was excited this was the place she decided to hold her party. Funny enough I was the first to arrive at the restaurant followed soon after by Debbie and Rupa. Being that it was rather cold waiting outside for the rest of the party AND the birthday girl we decided to wait inside for others to come. It wasn’t too long after that more people came and finally the birthday girl and her boy Matt. The group was around twenty people, and it took a seeming long time to get the food. Perhaps it was simply because I was hungry and wanted to eat, or that we were indeed a large party and were not the only customers the staff had to wait on. I had Tandori chicken and two plates of Nan. Nan is soo flippin tasty.. *has small flashback memory of that soft butter goodness* ahem! >.> ;;; There were a lot of people there I don’t get to see on a normal basis so it was good to catch up with them. It’s also during these times where I talk to some of my beautiful and retardedly talented peers that even though measured by some I have done a lot with my life; I have so much room for more. I need to put in the working effort for the ~awesome~ I want to be. So far I’ve managed to obtain most that I have with relative ease, but not all. Needless to say I don’t like to NOT be capable of something, and I’m already a C+ / B- student at many things, but I’m not an A student in much if anything at all. Need to change that. I’d like to be a master at a few things by the time I hit thirty however cocky that may seem. AND I DIGRESS since when has this been a blog about my = feelings = ? XD
It wasn’t to long that everyone was finished eating and floating around the table mingling with each other. Several of us it seems will try out for the talent show. I believe I have found the song I will sing, but the monologue is a different story. Any suggestions? I need one by this coming Saturday (28th). Around 10 something everyone gathered their things and began the slow walk to the cashier to pay their tabs and leave. It was funny because we were the last group to leave the restaurant, and had the owners not looked like they wanted to kill us for still being there I’m sure we all would have stayed there until we had to take our respective trains/cars/bikes home.

Saturday November 21st
Soooo After staying up too late the night before doing a little bit of nothing I woke up and gathered my things to head to the train station to catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo. I met Yasmin on the train and we headed off to Tokyo. We were both fairly tired, and after a short time of talking and a transfer we slept the trip over and arrived in Tokyo around 2pm. After that we hopped on the train to the Tokyo Disney Resort area where the new Cirque theater was built. ( Also a big shout to Yasmin for being the navigator of trip. I would have made it somehow on my own but she made things go rather smooth. I suppose that’s what studying Japanese as a major in college will do for you.) We still had a few hours before the show so we walked around the area and found a restaurant called Kua’aina. A Hawaiian burger joint in the food court area around the resort. Now… all I have to say is I nearly cried at this meal. It was large and tasty and defiantly a slice of what a hardy American burger meal would be like. That and I had real bacon! The Japanese aren’t up on the bacon thing…to them bacon is barley cooked Canadian ham. If there is no crispy crunch when you bite into it, it ain’t bacon damnit!
Once this meal was over we took a look at the Tokyo Disney store. Needless to say all the Christmas decorations were up (much like the entire area) and there were quite a large number of people in there. I spotted a display of Disney Princess mannequins and they were scary as all hell. It was at this moment I figure then was as good a time as any to exit the Disney Store and head towards the theater. A couple dozen pictures later tickets were retrieved and we were seated in the theater. The theater is truly a piece of art. It was so wonderfully and intricately made. Everything between the lighting, the floor design, the yards and yards of glowing royal blue fabric that draped over the stage EVERYTHING! The show was breath taking and I truly didn’t want it to end. The basic story was about “Zed, the central larger-than-life character represents all of humanity in all its guises, from wisdom to folly, from discovery to adventure. Zed grows as he discovers the world on his journey of initiation. Through this undertaking, the people of the sky and the people of the earth are trying to connect with each other; through Zed, they come together.
It was truly a wonderful show and I urge those who have never seen a Cirque Du Soleil show to go see one in the future. I have even decided that I would make an effort to see one of their touring shows they are holding here in Japan early next year. Once the show was over we headed to our hostel, checked in, put away some of our luggage/belongings then went back out to the Shinjuku area for a quick dinner. There we went to this pasta/ramen place. It was basically a restaurant that served Ramen but in Italian tomato based sauces. I even had gyoza filled with cheese instead of vegetables or pork. Once dinner was over we returned to our hostel and rested till the next day.

Sunday November 22nd

Waking up with a considerable amount of sleep we dressed and headed for Ikebukuro and the sunshine city mall. We were to meet Yasmine’s friend there. Today was the look at anime merch and manga/doujinchi day. After grabbing lunch at this Chinese restaurant inside the mall the three of us hit the street directly across from the mall. It was a block full of stores that carried anime related items though from what I saw the majority of the things sold in each store were manga of some kind. The one/two downfalls of this reality is no matter how much I might want to read something I am not proficient in Japanese to read any of the manga there. This aspect kinda sucks considering that the other two girls with me are college grads in Japanese and can read almost everything. Along with that they hold a slight unhealthy doujinchi obsession. XD I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to be so into something. I admit I do really like things but it stops there for the most part. Moving on through the stores I saw some anime merch that was pretty cool. Kuroshitsuji things and Fullmetal Alchemist things were appealing but throughout the entire time we were shopping I didn’t buy anything. Half of it was I just didn’t really want it or the increasing headache. Looking though shelves and shelves of manga that I can’t read though trying to on top of being part of conversations I could not participate in because of my lack of knowledge on all things doujinchi I formed a quite a headache. No worries though, this didn’t stop my fun. I just trucked along grabbed some Starbucks when it was all over and the three of us waited at the station to meet my friend. Mika whom I met in college moved back to Japan a few years ago and since I was near where she lives now we made plans for her to come out and see me. It was great seeing her and she truly is as beautiful as she has ever been. Three years is a long time not to see someone and I was very happy to see her. Once she joined our little group it was off to two hours of Karaoke. Both Yasmine’s friend and mine were both impressed with Yasmine and I’s singing ability. I especially liked our duet to 525,600 minutes from RENT. I played the guy part and that was fun! When our two hours were up Yasmine’s friend had to leave and now that it was three of us we went to dinner. It was a rather long wait for a mediocre place but we ate and talked amongst ourselves. Then Mika had to leave. I promised I’d see her again in the near future and we parted ways. With that the two of us lingered a bit and then went back to the hostel. After dropping off our stuff we relaxed in the common room. Then a group of gaijins came up and made a large group on the other side of the room, and eventually one of them invited us over to join the group. It was amusing watching them acting but it wasn’t long that Yasmine headed off for bed. I decided to stay up and hang with this large group. They even invited me along to go with a few of them to Ruppongi (which is known as the club district) to hang out and go dancing. When we got there we basically walked up the strip. The clubs were all owned by Africans which no offense to my own roots was kinda weird. However we went in and out of clubs staying long enough to dance a few songs in the first one, and me to snag one of the waiters (pretty cute) and dance with him. We left after an hour or so and had no luck with a good bar until around 3am in the morning. We settled here and danced. It was overall pretty fun though the group had a few members which under the influence of liquor were far less cool then when they were sober. The crew I went with were from all over the place; Paolo (NY), Drew(WI), two girls (Australia and Ohio), Cav (VA) and Chris( CN), and were on a pretty sweet program. 11 countries in 3 months is a good deal though it did pull 30k to do it. After all was said and done, I returned back to the hostel around 5:30 am and decided that some sleep was better than no sleep, and passed out for a 3 hour nap.

Monday November 23rd
So I woke up and took a shower. Today was the day to hit up Harajuku, and meet up with Valerie and her friend to try this café called Café Edelstein. Now apparently everyone had been here several times before and thought this was a good place to take me. The concept behind Café Edelstein is a prestigious all boy school off on a lush hilltop whose opened there halls for fellow sister school students, potential students, philanthropists and for those interested in entering their school for a delicious meal. In short they are all in school boy uniform (Specially made for their school) and a student meets you at the door. Welcomes you in (and some can even speak some English) and then set you at a table and wait on you. You can talk to them and they have whole back stories and lives under this guise of Café Edelstein. If I could speak good Japanese I would have asked many questions, especially to the 2nensei who met us at the door. He was ridiculously attractive. At the end of it they handed us two leather bound books. One was full with daily journal entries of all the members in the school. Some had specific doodles and such which made it easier to tell what entries belonged to which student. The other book was for us to record our time there in their records. It was an interesting experience and one I wouldn’t mind undertaking again. After this we left had a bite a Wendy’s (cause the portions are small at Café Edelstein and I only had cake anyway) and shopped around the area. We hit the famous street in Harajuku where all the shops are and looked around. I ended up not buying anything except for fancy fake lashes and food. I randomly ran into Bandou with the Georgia kids in tow. I talked with them for a few minutes longer and continued shopping until it was time to head to the station and head back home to Toyama.

P.S. Sorry this is soo backdated. Side note though; I did manage to eat Burger King in Tokyo! My first time in nearly four months and it was good!!

Bow and Arrow please!!

Sunday November 8th:
So after coming back from Toyama the night before I didn’t manage to get much sleep before I had to get up (earlier then I do for work! -___-) to the dentetsu station for our Kurobe Gorge trip that morning. Twelve of us in total gathered together at the station and then hopped on the train around 8:30 to Unazuki. Once we got there we ended up taking pictures together with little conductor hats, and grabbed a drink/snack before getting on the open window train car up the mountain. Thankfully the weather had been far warmer than it had been the last few days and the open window cars were fairly pleasant outside of the small gushes of wind when we passed through tunnels. The view was lovely. So many trees of red, gold, and orange surrounded by some of the most beautiful water I’d ever seen. When the sun broke the clouds the view was even more breath taking. By the time we reached the top (an hour and a half trip at least) I had snapped over one hundred pictures. After getting to the top we walked about a half mile further up the mountain (which was no small task. I need to start working out asap) to a small restaurant/onsen place. Here we ate (I had udon) and the others were preparing to get into the onsen. I protested on going, but somehow they convinced me that they didn’t care and that in the end if I didn’t get in I would regret it. With more hesitation I finally gave up the ghost and got in. They were happy I joined them, and it was a nice experience, hot!, but nice. Even Rebekah who stood up got a photo taken of her because she wasn’t behind the bamboo wall! XD It was quite funny. This onsen experience however was rather short lived (40 minutes) because our group needed to catch the train back down the mountain. Getting dry and walking back to the station (blissfully downhill XD) we caught the train in time. Unfortunately it was rather crowded and we ended up facing a group of Japanese people (older people who were very interested and nice to us) who talked to Jack about things. They were amusing but I passed out half way through the trip and didn’t wake until we got to the bottom. Un-boarding we gathered in a group and discovered that we had a little over an hour before we needed to catch the dentetsu back to Kurobe. Some of us decided that we wanted something sweet so the group went to a small café and had cake and coffee until it was time to leave. It was when we all arrived back in Kurobe we decided to meet up at Pizza Jam in an hour for dinner and the end of our day. Let’s say we were all very tired because we were all laying down on the table until we got our food. I was very hungry and I ate quite a bit, but I feel the days earlier events balanced out the food I ate XD . Once everyone was full to the gills we called it a night and I went home.

Monday Nov 9th:
Awesomeness at Chuo Elem. and then Eikawa class that night. It was particularly funny because towards the end we talked about Zodiac signs. Well I was trying to explain their western zodiac signs to them and the topic of sex came up. I tried my damndest to beat around about it, but eventually I just had to say it and they all mostly said they just plain stopped having it. O.o To the Japanese women I am so sorry and Japanese men need some help.
Thursday Nov 12th:
After work me and Toshi ( my Japanese teaching partner) had to go to Mikaiji Elem school for a regular meeting which I completely didn’t realize I had. Getting there we were separated into two groups and I ended up working with the table who taught 5th and 6th years. Kathy (another ALT) who is extremely strong willed basically lead the meeting over the Japanese superiors that were there. I offered up my ideas, and was praised by her for them. She said even though I’m a new ALT I am very good at my job, and that I have ideas she would have never thought of. I appreciated the compliments though I’s rather not have too many of these regular meetings XD They are slightly stressful, especially when my original intent was to stay quiet in the corner and listen! After the meeting broken Rosa and I went to Indira (and Indian restaurant as I’m sure you could guess from the name) and had dinner. It had been forever since I had Indian food and it was a welcomed treat. I ate a bunch here too!.I’m really going to have to do something about these eating binges I’ve been on lately. I wonder if they put something in the milk >.>

Friday Nov 13th:
Today was a Koshino Jr. High day and school open house. Basically parents come and watch their kids in class. In my first class one of my BOE (board of education) supervisors came in to observe the class. All the journals I had been grading were put on the walls and she praised me for being so active in the school. Then she observed one of my classes in which she told me afterwards that I did a wonderful job. She also said I shouldn’t put my arm around the kids (boys) shoulder. This boy was 15 and apparently according to her got “excited” by the notion. O.o since when is an arm on the shoulder sexual?? I just shrugged it off and when she left I laughed my ass off. I’m so not going to stop doing that. That’s why these boys turn into perverse old men because a girl touching them in anyway outside of violence is just toooo much for them to handle at 15 XD!
Afterschool around 6:40 Yuko (another BOE member) picked me up so we can go to archery practice together. A guy from the office taught us and another woman. It was really fun (though I pouted cause I wanted to be instantly great at it >.<’’’) I am definitely going to go back and practice as often as I can so I can shoot someone from far away whenever I want to!!!!!!! Ahem >.> so moving on. After the lesson I was dropped off at my apartment and then hopped in my car to drive to Uozu to meet with people for Karaoke. I made it in good time and I was there for about an hour. I sung one song and helped with a few others. Which reminds me, I need to start getting things ready if I am going to try out for the Charity show later this month. >.< I’m going to be so nervous!!!!!

Foie Gras >.> cause someone said so...

Saturday November 7th
So today I was SUPPOSED to be productive, but of course that failed miserably. I ended up sleeping most of the day away, and when I was awake my attempts to clean my apartment were thwarted by phone calls from various people from the states. In the end I ended up getting dress, fixing my hair a bit and slapping on a bit of make-up because I was to head out with Brain, Rie, and Zack for dinner and then later Hilda for clubbing. Everyone was nicely dressed and we hopped the train to Toyama where we were to eat. On the way we ended up picking up one of Rie’s students and laughed at Brain because he had a stiff neck and couldn’t turn his head to a certain side. XD At the restaurant I learned it was French cuisine, and to start things off the table had classes of wine and beer. We toasted to good food and readied ourselves for dinner. Tonight we were taking part in a special promotion where we get a six course meal (all small portions of course). First course was some kind of well steamed vegetables. 2nd was Foie Gras which is duck liver for those who don’t know. On a regular basis I wouldn’t touched Foie Gras if you paid me but I suppose my palette has become more acceptable to different foods since I’ve been in Japan. 3rd round was pasta. 4th round was some kind of white fish that was rather tasty. 5th round was duck and lamb meat with decorative potato garnishes. The final round of food happened to be dessert. A combination of some waffle, ice cream, and fruit. Out of all the courses I enjoyed round 3,4 and 6 the most. During all the eating we had fun conversation and I had more wine while the guys had more beer. Once diner was over we followed Rie’s student to some bar he heard about and sat down for drinks. It was at this time I learned ( after several back and forth text messages ) that Hilda couldn’t make it out to meet me till later ,and since trains returning to Kurobe don’t run late I told her we would hang out some other weekend so I remained with Rie and the others. We had several more drinks and hung there at the bar talking and relaxing for our remaining time in Toyama. After leaving the Bar around 10 something I headed home for the night.

On Tuesday(November) the 2nd and (a day off from school which I wasn’t aware I had until a few days before hand) I ended up sleeping in a bit and then went to Jack’s Shadow puppet show at 2:00. There was a huge turn out for it and it went very well. It was nice to see the puppets I cut out on the large projector. While watching it in the back of my head I was like “I cut that slide out!!!” XD. The main feature of the show was very funny. Though there was much I didn’t understand it had elements that were funny despite the language barrier. After the show ended I went home for a brief time just to head back out to Green Café where they were having a dinner for those who helped out with the show. It was a seven or eight course meal, which by the end I only felt full enough to say I wasn’t hungry. It was amusing since the table where I sat was full of gaijin ,and the food was nearly cleared from the plates once the waitress sat it on the table. I could have eaten more but I decided to just leave it as is. Conversation was nice, and all in all it was a nice time. Very relaxed and not too exciting, but nice. I felt a little out of place for a short time while I was there. A small dose of “you are obviously not Asian or Caucasian” flooded in but I was over it after a short while. 　Once I got home from the event I didn’t do much. Just relaxed and groaned about having to wake up early the next day for school

Wednesday 3rd
Today was a fairly awesome day at Chuo as per usual. Once school ended I met up with Mihoko at her job to head to Coco’s restaurant for our study session meetings. Now that Jack has finished his puppet show I have replaced that time slot with helping Mihoko brush up her English (though her English is really good) and in exchange she is going to help me with Japanese. Something I think I desperately need. I just haven’t been able to kick myself into gear when it comes to studying, but with a tutor I think it will be the spark that lights the fire. It was nice to hang out with her and through conversation alone Mihoko learned a few more English meanings, but mostly she helped me with my Japanese. After spending time with her I completely understand the meaning of several words I hear all the time but never could place, as well as the pronunciation of something I’ve been wishing to say for some time. For those who are curious the phrase is otsukarasama deshita 乙から様でしたwhich means thank you for your hard work. Mostly used from what I’ve seen when you leave your place of work for the day. After around two hours we parted ways and I went home for the evening.

Thursday 4th
Today I had a free day at Takase. My JTE had called me the day previous to tell me he was sick and that I would be teaching my English classes on my own. I prepared a semi retarded lesson for the kids to do to pass the time and headed to school with small confidence. I didn’t realize how mixed up I was until I arrived at school and realized I had went to the wrong school. Once I finished cursing I ran back to my car and headed to the correct school. I was late of course but it seems like no one really noticed. I asked the teachers what classes I had first and that’s when the principle informed me that he simply canceled English classes for the day and I had the day to myself. Needless to say this news was quite the relief and I spent my day at work watching the remaining episodes of Kuronoshitsuhi くろのしつじ（Black Butler）who’s ending was bleh at best. I’m not sure why anime’s have been ending shitty to me but I hope it stops soon. After finishing up Kuroshitsuji I watched “Angels and Demons” (the sequel to the “Davinci Code” starring Tom Hanks.) It was a pretty good movie, though I’ve heard that others weren’t so fond of it. I think my interest in those movies were the histories behind it. I’ve always liked mythology and lore of that nature so when I hear about it I’m always fascinated. By the time I had finished the movie (which ending I also didn’t like >.> ) it was time to head home.

Friday 5th
After a rather sporadic but fair day at work I headed over to Jacks for some poker later on that evening. Brought along some Pizza for myself from Pizza Jam and placed several hours of poker. I’m not horrible but I’m really just not good at these games. However quite a few of these games have nothing to do with skill, but more to do with dumb luck. The games we usual play during nights of poker are: Anaconda, Baseball, Texas Hold’em, Omaha, 7 card stud, Good and Bad, Fuck your neighbor, and fifty five. If I were to have games that I have the best chance to win in they would be Good and Bad as well as fifty five. After spending time in good company and loosing 15 hundred yen I went home. XD

Party 4 or maybe 5!! XD!! Halloween is a Beast!

Saturday 31st:
Today was the day in preparation for Tiffany’s birthday/Halloween party. I managed to get a bit of sleep and during the day I don’t recall doing much. I might have talked to a few people, but other then that I just got ready for Trick or Treating with the Kids in Uozu. So when the time came I got dressed in my witches costume and started putting on my makeup. Of course I couldn’t find the green eye-liner I needed to complete the look but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I grabbed my hat slid on some shoes and walked out the door. However I didn’t realize until I met Brett outside to ride with him that I had put on two completely different shoes. Luckily my socks were black and white stripped and one shoe I wore was white while the other was black. I asked Brett if it looked horrible and he said it looked like it was done on purpose XD So with that I left it as is and rode with them to the place we’d be leading the kids trick or treating. During the ride over I happened to see the prettiest sunset I have seen in my life. It was over the water and the sun was amazingly huge. It’s something about this part of the world that the moon and the sun are harvest size more often then not when rising or setting.

Once we arrived at the area there were far more kids then I had anticipated. They were all very cute. I received my group number and stood where all the other ALT’s who were volunteering so my group could line up in front of me. Once everything was squared away we led our groups one by one around a block where shops were handing out candy. I went around leading my kids and a few especially one kids talked off at the mouth at me. He must have found me intriguing, but he was a nice kid, and he didn’t give up even when I couldn’t answer most of his questions. He was a good kid, and I wouldn’t have minded him as a student. The path was short and took all of 40 minutes to complete. Once finished all the groups gathered back where we started and waiting while they announced a few prizes for costumes. The same talkative kid even game me some of his candy, and apparently I was the only one of us ALT’s whose kid offered them anything.  Finally after the kids had to leave they wanted all the volunteers to take a group picture and gave us our gift for volunteering our time. We each got to choose a bottle of wine from a choice of several varieties. Now this to me was a pretty ritzy gift. I felt kinda G getting a bottle of wine XD. Since I had somewhere else to be, I said goodbye to the others and Brett drove me home. I ran in my house, patched up my make-up, grabbed my camera, put on a pair of the *same* shoes and hopped in my car for the train station.

When I arrived in Toyama I inevitably had no idea where I was going and spent the first 20 minutes there wandering aimlessly. However Tiffany came out and got me and we walked back to her party. There were a ton of people there and I had just made it for the tale end of the dinner. I was able to make last round though and snagged some chicken wings and a glass of water. Others kept feeding me things they either didn’t want or had too much of to eat themselves so in the end I spent less then five hundred yen on food. Once the dinner concluded, and we took a pit stop to get Puri Puri taken (picture booth photos which are all the rage here in Japan. Those pics are on facebook and I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which pictures are Puri Puri XD) most of us traveled to this bar about twenty feet across from the restaurant. Most of us mingled for an hour or so and I simply drank water while at the bar because I was both hot and not fond of all the smoke. After some serious prodding and push a group of us went to Karaoke. This was fun though this was my first karoke experience where people sung over you if they liked the song you picked. I’ve sang several songs and was told I should try out for the Charity show auditions. I was even pulled to the side and told what part I should audition for since a certain song writer wants to write a song specifically for me, and also wants me to possibly sing in his band O.o, Crazy right?!!? One girl just starred at me dreamily while I sung, and though it was flattering I’m not use to someone being like that around me while I sing. Either way I danced around and sang songs with others, had a few jin and tonics and stayed there until leaving at 2 something with Rosa and Lester. The drive home was rather funny as we made fun of Rosa in a joking way about driving, and we stopped off and grabbed a bite to eat at the 24 hour beef bowl place. After all was said and done, I went in my apartment and hit the sheets.

Party On!

Friday 30th
Today I went to school at Koshino but had no classes to teach. Today was my demo class which I left Koshino at 10:30am to get ready for. I arrived at Chuo and went over the lesson plan I was to teach and then from there it was a waiting game. Thankfully however Brett who works at Chuo on Fridays was there and we held conversation until it was time for my Demo. In truth I really wasn’t all that nervous, granted there were far more people then I was originally expecting, but in the end the only thing I didn’t do was act as goofy with the kids as I would normally. The first demo class was the fourth graders. That went pretty smoothly although by the end of the class I was sweating bullets. It was abnormally hot, but with an extra twenty plus adults in the room surveying the class I guess I should expect no less. After finishing that class we rushed back down to the office, grabbed materials for the second demo class, and five minutes later were heading into the 6th class for round two. This lesson went well too, but with a little more effort then it had taken with the fourth graders. Needless to say I had only managed to get hotter, and was all too happy when the class was over. A few adults stopped me to thank me for teaching the classes and tell me that they thought I did well. Once I got back to the office I was sure that I would have to remain at the school until normal work hours were over. Thankfully however we were allowed to leave an entire hour and a half earlier then normal and it was wonderful. Getting that hour back even though I’m not entirely sure what I did in that time it is a good feeling. Either way it wasn’t long after work when I had to meet Brett outside for our enaki at 6:30.

Once we were all situated in our seats at the table our principle gave a speech about the events of the day and thanked everyone involved for their work during the demo lessons earlier that day. Then we filled our glasses, gave a round of cheers and began eating. I ate food though not nearly as much as I have at previous enkai’s and then once everyone had really settled in and bellies were full more conversation started. I talked with those on my end, and we went over nicknames again, and I learned new ones. Ofcourse I remain Ah-chan and some of my favorite players were there to talk and joke around with me, Ma-chan, Su-cha, Tsu-chan, NoriB and others. If you were to ask me what their real names were I wouldn’t be able to tell you. However I would be able to tell you most of their ages, Chinese zodiac signs, cup size (yes, I do mean bras) and if they have children or not. After being on this end of the table I decided to get up and walk to the other end of the table with a bottle of beer to refill their cups (which is custom at an enkai to start conversation and so on). On this side of the table there were mostly women, and they asked me about the Halloween party the previous weekend and if I had a boyfriend/who I thought was cute and so on. Both me and a fellow teacher who are the same age both think our fellow 25year old fourth grade teacher is rather cute. It was fun to talk about that kinda fun ridiculous stuff with them. Then I showed them a picture of me in my Halloween costume and this started a huge frenzy. They all looked at my picture and told me how wonderful my facial makeup was, how they couldn’t believe that I made my own Halloween costume by hand or period, and that I had a good body XD!. I mean they were extremely focused on my boobs which is flattering and kinda omg! At the same time. Apparently having a chest like mine also comes along with an onomatopoeia and they said my boobs were “Bon Bon” while they did a hand motion over the chest area. I was so embarrassed and laughing nervously during this whole exchange, and if I could blush I’m sure I would have. Finally I moved back to the other side of the table and just like at the other end, I ended up showing my Halloween pictures. Well this side was full of guys and boy could you tell!. Some of them were like “EHHHHH!!!!!!!” or others were like “OHHHH!!” and some just lifted up their glasses and starred and others were like “DYNAMITE BODY!” even Ma-chan told me that he “WENT TO HEAVEN” and did the classic anime nosebleed motion. XD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was the talk of that side for a while, and the other women compared themselves to me. I told them it was ok! And they then asked me what my Bra size was. When I told them I have yet to find a bra in this country that could fit me they were most stunned. After some time it drifted away from me and to the other ALT Brett and what he did for Halloween and who his wife was and so on. Needless to say good drinking and conversation continued on until we did our farewell Bonzai!! and the “official” enaki ended.

After leaving the restaurant me and a few of my fellow co-workers when to a Bar, got
snacks, more drinks and sung Karaoke. They remembered my singing from last time
and insisted that I sing this time around. Of course I obliged and even Brett and I sang the Aladdin “I can show you the world” duet. That was fun, and they thought it was the sweetest thing. Brett actually requested that I sang a few Disney songs, and I did. How can you go wrong with lil Mermaid and Aladdin? In one Japanese song I sung the refrain because it was sooo simple, and they got a kick out of it, and so did I. We didn’t leave this bar until we were basically told it was our last song. It wasn’t horrible late so me and five or six other broke off and went to another place to eat while the others went home. At the third place it was simple eating and conversation. I had matcha ice-cream and talked about Naruto, Gundam, and Evangel ion with the cute 25 year old teacher. It was actually the first time I had really had some form of conversation with him outside of class. Its always nice to get to know my coworkers better. The Chuo group of people are truly wonderful and fun people. They also didn’t make me pay for anything other then the enaki price that everyone pays. So flippin awesome!! After a while here we called it a night. We took daiko home and I went in my house and went to sleep.

The lull before another PARTEE!

Monday 26th:

Worked at Chuo elementary, and taught my six graders. Great group of kids, and very excited when I show up which makes things better. They’re going to be something when they get into jr. high. After this I went home and sat around for a while. I withdrew money in hopes to pay on my car note, but when I drove to Nuyzen to make a payment the dealer was closed. Instead of driving all the way back to Kurobe (especially since I had my Eikawa class in Nuyzen in a couple of hours) I decided to go get something to eat at Mc Donald’s. While I was waiting in line, one of my students that I teach English too on Wednesdays was there. It was good to see her since she often can’t make it to class. She is the sweetest and cutest thing (and very hard to believe she is 29). I decided that she should come and eat with me. It was fun. We ate and talked about zodiac signs, the flu (because it might as well be the BLACK PLAUGE) and work. Half way threw our dinner Adam showed up and after grabbing some fries he came and joined us at the table. We talked mostly about the party the previous Saturday and Sachiyo (my student) seemed amused. After a while she ran off to work and Adam and I talked a bit more until it was time for him to meet up with him friends in Asahi and my time to head to my Eikawa class. After pointing me in the right direction ( cause I get turned around easily in Nuyzen) we parted ways and I stopped by a game store. SO MUCH TALES OF (fill in blank) at this store!!! I have a few friends that love it. Not able to drool for long I left the store and had my Eikawa class. Once the class was over I left for home but stopped off in another game store. I ended up buying a new emerald/hunter green PSP. Now I just need to get some games for it!

Tuesday 27th

No waking memory of this day outside of work, anime, and eventual sleep XD!!!!!

Wednesday 28th

Today I was back at Chuo Elementary, and since it was my last day with the kids before Halloween I decided to put some dramatic makeup on to show the kids. Once I got to school the staff room went NUTS. Everyone asked if I used professional face paint, and how long it took me to do it and so on. I simply told them it took ten minutes before work and I used cheap 100yen (dollar store) makeup XD. The students loved it, and it was raved about all day. Lots of random visits from students in the office to say hi to me (not that they don’t do that normally LOL) but still. Once I got home from work I ended up grabbing pizza and left the face paint on. When I get there the store owner was quite pleased with it. He also told me that he heard from some one that I had good make-up skills. I was rather shocked considering I didn’t know who this other person was and that apparently I’m a topic of discussion elsewhere! XD! In between the time of getting food, eating it, and listening to music I was baking a dessert for my last Eikawa class. (Jack’s show will be over by this point so he will get his students back). Once I was finished I made my way over there and we had our class upstairs while the guys rehearsed the show down stairs. Eikawa was the same as usual, talking and calling it English conversation learning which it was but not about of things of much importance!.
Finally Jack came and retrieved us to watch a run threw of one of the shows called Bango Sam. It was fun to watch and even though I couldn’t understand a lick of the Japanese the story boards were enough to explain everything that happened. They also had a run threw of another story which was far more confusing but I got the basis of it, and was completely filled in on the details once they were done. Afterwards they ate my desert that I three together and they loved it. I was more then surprised. I truly just made the recipe up before the class since I didn’t have the ingredients or the time to make a cake. After a while of eating and chatting I left for home.

Thursday 29th
Today I had school at Takase. It’s my least favorite school, but occasionally I have a decent time there. The kids there just seem so drained of life. There are a few that aren’t and there is on class that is down right pleasant, but otherwise they just seem like they really don’t want to be at school in the slightest. Which I can understand, but I don’t think I was quite so glum in middle school. After work I went and did one or two things before picking up Yasmine from the train station. She let me borrow her witch hat for my costume on Saturday, and since she came this way we went and got pizza and had good talks. Talks about things that pertain to us more specially then other people considering were are African Americans in Japan. It was nice to have someone to talk to about those kind of things. After we ate we kinda just chilled and had a big Harry Potter debate, about the characters, disappointments, what we loved, what we hated and why did J.K Rowling have to go crazy at the end of the series and go serial killing people. Soon after I dropped her off and I headed home.

Party3 Halloween Shingdig at Bananas!!

Saturday 24th

So the day of reckoning is here at last and of course it’s too soon. I woke up relatively early in hopes of finishing my costume for the Halloween party. I have realized that talking on Skype to others while attempting to sew and concentrate is something I should refrain from doing in the future. In any case I spent the next seven hours or so in front of the mirror trying things on, sewing things together, killing my lungs and my hardwood floor with obscene amounts of glitter, super-gluing plastics together ( and maybe I’m slow but I didn’t realize that super glue smoked when it is adhering to things) and more. In the end I could have added more details to the skirt and made a far better band to go around my waist but I simply ran out of time. The sleeves of my dress were a bit shabby as well but hopefully it won’t be noticed. I reached six thirty with my dress still drying and no wings to speak of. I hoped in the shower and took a quick shower and grabbed the cleanest clothes available to me as fast as I could so I could go pick up Nicole and her husband from the train station. Some guy trying to sell me new internet (which I should really do cause mine sucks) while I was on my way out of the door ended up talking to me forever which resulted in I picking them up 15 minutes later then planned. Needless to say I didn’t have time by the time I got back to do the makeup designs I had planned on doing, and while I was putting on my dress they were attempting to fashion wings for me. Rosa stopped by as well wearing her decade montage costume and tried to help them. Meanwhile I was throwing some makeup on my face seeing as we were already a half hour late to the party. In the end the wings didn’t work out and I just went as Autumn and not the Autumn fairy. Grabbing money and my purse we scurried out of my house and jumped in the car.

In good time we arrived at club/bar Bananas and paid our entry fee to get in. The club was bigger and nicer then I was expecting even though I was never really sure what to expect in the first place. I looked around to see who I knew but before I managed to do that I got bum-rushed by loads of people telling me how nice my costume was. Apparently according to everyone I spoke to and all those who I met that night told me that they couldn’t believe I made my own costume. Good conversation of course ensued and before long I inched my way to the drink bar. Here I ordered my vodka and orange juice and mingled through the crowd. Most people were talking and mingling even though there was decent enough dancing music to dance to. There were some normal and rather funny costumes to be seen at the party. One guy dressed up as Lady Gaga, while another guy dressed in a Katamari outfit. Van was a mermaid and the only other person to actually fashion her own costume (which makes sense since she majored in fashion while in college). Floating around while Marissa played a very convincing frat boy, I was pushed into some beer bong thing (at least that’s what I think it’s called), and before you know it I was chugging an entire beer in ten seconds! When it’s a challenge the beer doesn’t taste that bad, but it still manages to have that strange effect of making me tipsy. I’m not sure what it is, but beer will get me tipsy before hard liquor will. After that I was a bit looser and started dancing around with those who actually decided to dance. The music wasn’t bad and for a string of thirty minutes or so they were playing rather good music. Everyone was dancing to this and it’s always fun to be a party of a big dance circle. My drinking had lightened up at this point to Smirnoff, but I was drinking them so fast I’m not sure the low alcohol content mattered. The costume contest winners were announced and I almost won both the sexiest female and the best overall costume. I was told if I had arrived twenty minutes earlier I would have won both. However it was ok, because everyone kept coming up to me to tell me that they voted for me, and that I was the best overall costume winner to them. It was nice to hear since I put effort into making my costume. I also heard three statements repetitively all night; First, “I can’t believe you made your own costume, it’s gorgeous!”, second, “ You have the best cleavage at the party/I can’t believe those things @.@”, and finally” please come to the after party!!”. I also found it amusing how random Japanese girls would tell me how sexy they thought I was, how nice my dress was and how they wish they could have a chest like mine. One even asked if she could share! I laughed rather hard at this, and told them it’s ok to not have a chest like mine. (Though it’s good to finally be on the other side of the stick, and not wishing I had one of their features for a change). The party ended around 2am after a long string of not so good trance (not that it mattered at this point considering most everyone was intoxicated) and after nearly strangling someone for things I won’t say (at least not right now lol) we headed home. Rosa drove us since she was the only one out of the four of us that hadn’t had anything to drink. We stopped by the all night beef place and we ordered bowls of rice and other random things. I swear that, that rice bowl with chicken was the best chicken I have ever had!! (Which I’m sure had everything to do with the munchies from being tipsy and the fact that it was two something in the morning!) Finally we got home, I pulled out one of my futons for Nicole and her hubby to sleep on, and I passed out while they were both in my bathroom trying not to throw up!

Sunday 25th:

I was rather tired but we managed to get up around 11am or so, and I took them to Pizza Jamboree for lunch. We enjoyed it and of course they raved over it. Since it’s where I live I buy something from there several times a week. ( I really should get back to cooking most days >.> ) After that I dropped them off at the train station and went home. The rest of the day was spent putting my futon up and not doing much. I believe I watched some anime, but the rest of the day I just relaxed. It was a pretty fulfilling weekend so a bit of rest was indeed in order.

P.S. I should be able to post pictures of the process of making the dress. Most Halloween pictures have been put on facebook, so take a look there!! The link to my facebook is on the right side of the page. ^^

The begining of a string of PARTIES!

Friday 23rd:
Today I was at Koshino Jr. High and work was per usual. After work I had very little time to do anything further on my costume. I don’t remember what I did for the hour so gap I had in between work and going to Mihoko’s except for going to the market and getting food for the party. After that I headed home, slapped on some decorative make-up and met Mihoko at her job. From there we drove to her house and I played with baby Reina (her son and a cute, chubby baby) while she prepared some food. Not too long after her two girlfriends came with their four children. I was designated as the candy giver so the kids had to come and say trick or treat if they wanted any snacks. They were quite adorable and wore little bandanas with Halloween decorations on them. I only spent two hours or so there. Despite leaving early I had a good time with them all. Very family like and close knit. The food was good, and I played Othello and Tap Tap revenge with the kids on my IPhone. They thought it was the funest thing. When it was time for me to head out, Mihoko gracious made me a plate to go and walked me to my car. She also said that her friends are already quite fond of me, and I’m glad to hear that. It just means more chances to hang out, have a good time and with any hope learn something new.

Once I left Mihoko’s house I rushed back to Kurobe and went to Green Café where Rosa was holding her birthday party. I was only a little over an hour late so it wasn’t too bad. Once I walked in a received a large cry of “Ooos” from the table because of my face make-up. It was so bad that Rosa took enough pictures for me to see spots for fifteen minutes afterwards. In any case there was about 10-15 people at the party and of course we had good conversations and a lot of laughs.. apparently mostly my doing. I can be a sarcastic individual sometimes  . Luckily I made it just in time for desert. I ended up having one slice of pumpkin pie that Rosa made and two slices of cake. One from a interesting concoction Rosa constructed and a store bought cake that Adam brought. Needless to say by the end of the night I was fairly full. From there we said our goodbyes, I dropped off a birthday card to Rosa and went home. However instead of working on my costume I decided that I was just to exhausted to be up and took a nap. Unfortunately this led to me sleeping the whole of the night.

Catching up in Small posts: END

So finally on the current week at hand!.

ALTHOUGH there is a P.S for last weeks events!
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Friday I had to stop by Chuo Elementary schools before heading back to my normal school for the day (Koshino Jr. High). I wore my same suit but I left my hair out and had a little bang over one eye. Everyone at the elementary school thought I looked really nice. However once I took the photos with the faculty I went home, changed and headed to Koshino. I was about ten minutes later I ran up into the class. I opened the door and as soon as the students laid eyes on me, I received a roar of “oooooo's” and “ahhhh's” and “beautiful!” all accompanied with a round of the place from the entirety of the class. I smiled so hard, and felt so blessed that I have such a good repore with my students. It seems that they really like me, and I just might be their favorite ALT.
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Monday (19th)

A normal wonderful Chuo Elementary school workday with the exception that I went to Koshino to take faculty pictures. This week I'm teaching shapes to the 3rd graders and 4th and 6th graders are learning countries, food, sports and instruments. After work I did something (perhaps food) and then went to my Eikawa class. It was nice, but I felt sad for one of my students. He lost his cat and he thinks shes gone for good. He looked so sad so I changed the subject as soon as possible and we focused on reading an English brochures of famous Japanese places.

Tuesday:
Work, of course but always an enjoyable experience. Got the first of my English journals back . Of course I didn't get all of them but the few Ive gotten have been fun to read. Ill have to make a post about school materials and things of work/ informative matters soon.
I went out and bought some more fabric and a few others things for Halloween costume. I have no idea how it's going to end up, but at least I can say I tried?!

Wednesday:
So I was at Chuo, good day of course. After work I went to Mihoko's work and waited for Rosa there to talk about our winter trip. To confirm we will NOT go to China as we planned. We will have to work out the kinks and see what will happen. I booked my Tokyo trip next month as well,and I am looking forward to that. . After a very long time in Mihoko's office we headed to dinner at Green Cafe. It was good to be there again, and I should be headed there again on Friday for Rosa's birthday party. This was also the day that started the nights of no flippin sleep. Half because of working on the costume, ¼ distractions buy other things and the last fourth out of simple frustration.

Thursday(23rd):
Coming down to the wire when it comes to the costume, and tired as all hell. Working at Takase was fine, and I think the kids are starting to warm up to me. Its really hard to get use to the students and vice versa when they only see their professor every blue moon (literally, but that rant is for another time). Once I got out of work I took a trip to Apita (think wal-mart kinda) and bought a new camera. The one I brought from home just won't run off of Japanese batteries. The batteries last all of 5 minutes and then the camera is dead again. Ill keep the camera and give it to my sister when I get back to the states. So if she wants to go somewhere she can take pictures. The camera is an Olympus fe 300 and I'll have plenty a chance to work it in on during the Halloween Party Saturday night.

P.S I would also like to mention that my apartment is an absolute disaster. Wish my luck in cleaning this monster after all the weekends festivities slow down.

Catching up in SHORT posts 2 :)

Ok, another short post hopefully, while in the catch up stage!!

Last week was rather lax during the work days. I had Jacks Eikawa class on Wednesday evening, and they are such a pleasant group of people. It’s obvious that they want me to stay longer than a year in Japan. I don’t think it has anything to do with teaching them since I’ll cease to be their Eikawa instructor after this month. I think they consider me their friend, and want me to stick around for a while. I’m truly not sure about how long my term will be here, but it’s refreshing to know that there are places here that I am wanted.

Fast-forwarding to Friday (Oct 16th) because I simply don’t’ remember what happened Thursday (not that it held major importance). It was a good work day at Koshino, (which arguably is my favorite school of the ones I teach). After school I went to the Sneek presentation with Lawrence and saw Reina again face to face for the first time since summer. It was good to see her. Just as adorable and beautiful as ever. I ended up giving a note and present to three of my students, Kahoko and Yuka (those two are the ones I helped on their presentation at Koshino) and Reina because she is a friend. The emails of broken English I get from her always brighten my day, and I know she is going to grow to be something incredible pending she lasts the “fashion and become submissive stage” of high school. After the presentation me and Lawrence met up with some other Niikawa ALT’s at Pizza Jamboree (best pizza in the Ken, and 7 minutes down the street). Good company and conversation as always some in which concluded Canadians, Bears( not the animal but well, yea.. >.>) and more. Once the others had finished their plates we headed off to Lawrence’s house to see his kittens. Ofcourse I’ve seen then being his neighbor but others wanted to see them. Unfortunately we ended up wasting about an hour and a half there because some were just waay too fascinated with the cats. When we all finally got our bearings the troop headed to Uozu for a round of Karaoke. There were eight of us and we sang our hearts out for two hours. Such songs from musicals, Disney, rock & roll to random rap songs which I had to rap parts too because others didn’t want to. Mind you I’m no rapper, I just happen to know songs and thus knowing the beat helps me pretend XD. I really want to be able to sing Japanese songs in the future. I know so many songs and yet cant sing any of them. One day Ill be singing theme songs and L’arc en Ciel songs , and THAT will be a proud day. Once it was time to leave I ended up driving to Asahi (about 35 to 40 minutes away) to drop Adam off. I didn’t want him to miss the fun so I opted to give him a ride instead of him taking a early train back. We had good conversation, mostly about Japan and our comparisons of Japan with other things from back home. He treated me to Mc Donalds along the way as a “least I can do” gesture for taking him home. As simple as that was, I missed going to a random restaurant late at night because I was up and hungry. Something you really can’t do in Japan, and even in places that you can most of them are sit down restaurants and no one wants to deal with that at 2am in the morning. After dropping him off I went back home and passed out. 

Saturday was a day where I rested mostly. I honestly don’t recall doing much. I think I might have gone food shopping but I’m not sure. XD

Sunday(18th) was relaxing for the most part. Matt and Kelli came by to pick of their kitten that Lawrence was giving to them, and I decided to join them for lunch at Pizza Jam (short of Jamboree). No one else in the ken gets the chance to eat pizza all that often, and more often then not when they do it isn’t great. So treating anyone who visits to Pizza is always a fun thing. They enjoyed the pizza and we all talked about random things, trips we want to go on, a fabulous steam punk watch shop that’s in Kyoto,( which hopefully next year in March I’ll have the chance to visit) and more. The rest of that Sunday was devoted to something I don’t remember XD.

**Side Note: Once I manage to catch up, I think Ill explain the scenery around Kurobe and mention a list of accomplishments since I’ve been here, though admitingly some if not all of them are rather miniscule and will not advance my person in the future lol

Catching up in SHORT posts XD

[forgive my grammer and spelling if it totally sucks this time around]

Okies! so there isn't too much to tell this time around. The last two weeks have had it's ups and downs and I must say that some of the whole “Japanese thrill” is wearing off like I knew it would eventually. Last week I had work and was basically still on the mend from illness. There was a Typhoon on Thursday (8th) of last week and I still had to report to work. The children were off of school so basically I just sat in at my desk trying not to stare at my desk too hard. A few times I simply ducked out of the office, went to the Library, turned on my ipod softly and went to sleep for an hour or two. It was a cold and fairly uncomfortable day and to make matters worse half way during the work day half the staff had to run out in all the rain and wind to move their cars else where because of reports of falling trees. Of course I was one of the lucky ones and had to join the race to move my car. Annoyance was the best way I can describe that day.

The following day( Friday 9th) all the classes were canceled because the kids I taught that day were supposed to go to the beach for a BBQ. Considering that the weather hadn't greatly improved the kids stayed inside and cooked all their food in the cooking room. Now this brightened my day. The kids were so fun to be with. I watched them cook, even helped out when I could. I helped stir matcha pancakes, cook yakisoba, and some of the kids handed me food to just eat while waiting. When I had food I offered it to them as well while they continued to cook. Some ate right off my chopsticks which was cute and surprising all at the same time. The boys of course were my favorite to hangout with. I think they are simply more willing to try and talk English with me, and genuinely like me as well as the boys are less shy... well some of them are. When it was time to eat, I sat down with some of my fellow teachers and we ate. I was asked questions and my JTE translated my answers. Of course my ability to drink came up miraculously and they offered to drink with me if there was an upcoming enkai. Needless to say some of the kids came into the room and I spent time walking around their tables. I even sat at the table with the boys and asked if I could have some of their soda. One of the boys was about to pour me some when on of the boys took the bottle from him and asked if he could pour it for me. OMG too much love do I have for the 3rds years of Koshino Jr. High. I even had a semi drinking contest (soda) with the boys.. and they were impressed with how much I could drink. We all were quite miserable afterwards, but in the good way if that makes sense XD Once I got home I don't honestly remember much else of what I did lol

This was a three day weekend, and for all of Saturday and Sunday I didn't do too much. I cleaned my apartment very well and I went out grocery shopping. Other then that I lay in th bed either watching something on my computer or working through Lord of the Rings books. I had thought about getting a came for my PS3 since I find I have no desire to play the game I did buy. I want to purchase Folklore in English, but there have been others saying that it won't work. If that's the case I will be highly pissed and will give the playstaion back to the store and get a American one.

Monday I went to Takaoka to visit, Nicole and her husband. The main objective was to get things for our Halloween costumes for the upcoming Halloween bash on the 24th (yea I know it’s not on the actual date XD) We went to the mall Aeon, which was rather nice. The first thing we did was eat lunch at Mickey D’s and then went to the gaming center. NOW normally I don’t waste money in these places, especially since the majority of the games were the one where you have to try and pic something up or knock something over. Well lets just say I lost umm a unreasonable sum of money playing, but I DID come out with a lot of plushie phone charms and a stuff cat with a ghost costume! All in all I think it was worth it XD After that we did general window shopping and shoe shopping. In truth I need a lot of new shoes because the ones I brought are upon their last days XD In the end after walking around and getting random things here or there I bought a new pair of black, red, and gold adidas shoes. Buying them brings back memories since when I was young I use to be brand loyal and only bought tennis shoes by adidas! Moving on!!! Umm lets see I ended up getting ice-cream at Baskin Robins (its amazing how many Japanese ppl thought it was a Japanese company) and got pumpkin (seasonal) and matcha flavored ice-cream. I managed to grab some gold and red fabric for my Halloween costume, though I am not yet aware of how I am going to use it. Also during the trip we ate at a Chinese restaurant. The food was good yet different. Needless to say this was a long day, though it was fun and had many good eats involved my feet were on fire. I suppose it serves me right to wear flat slide in shoes while walking around a mall for over eight hours. Once I got home I wasn’t long from the bed, and I called that weekend an success.

Well it has been one hell of a dry spell since I placed something here ^^;;; Gomen!! but this time I have an excuse!!! For most of you know after I returned from Silver week I fell pretty ill. It turned out that I acquired viral bronchitis and had a fever. This landed me three days out of work and way too much time to think about things.

Nevertheless I’m out of my head now and am much better for it. This past week was nothing to spectacular. I ended up heading to Poker last Saturday at Amy and Chris’s house. That was fun though I lost all my money. ^^;; The following day I went to watch a bunch of people play ultimate Frisbee. I was still way too ill to actually participate but I was the official photographer and thus I just took pictures of everything, and called the official time out XD.

Then back to school and like I said school was rather normal. I had a good time cause despite small staff irritations the kids make the days bright. I have also taken upon myself to go to my friend’s house after work and a bite to eat at the kabini to help him with his Shadow puppet show. It’s tedious work but the company is rather enjoyable and thus makes it well worth it. ( I also leave his house every night with a pseudo English accent because one of my friends that help out with the show happens to be British! It’s quite funny and he thinks I have a rather good “British” accent. I was too pleased with this!!) I’ve also taken his Eikawa class which looks to last at least a month. So now I work 38 hours a week and teach two adult English classes at night on Mondays and Wednesdays. Needless to say it keeps me busy and I don’t mind it so much. Who needs sleep right??!!!

Moving to this past Saturday (Oct 3rd) The morning was rather eventless, though I did stray out and bought two new shirts and some random materials for my still nonexistent Halloween Costume. Once I got home I kinda lingered around until it was time to go to the Pub Quiz. Matt and Kelli had actually come to the Kurobe area to look at their cat they were reliving Lawrence of. From there we drove to Uozu and walked into a packed Peyote’s and was put on teams. I ended up being out on the largest team and the people were pretty cool. I got to see people I normally don’t and some I do. The questions were rather hard and I had no idea about most of them. I here or there with guesses that happened to be right! XD Honestly I was waiting for the geek questions. The ‘what’s the name of an elven language in Lord of the Rings’ or ‘who were the creators of the Maroders Map’ in Harry Potter kinda questions but there were none. It was sad, and had there been geek questions I’m rather sure I would have been able to contribute more! Never the less our team was fourth place out of eight. I paid for my food and ended up joining a group for some karaoke. We had a thirty minute wait and during this time we exchanged gossip like grade school kids. It was most hilarious and pretty sad!, it’s oh so obvious we don’t live in the city.. Well at least not most of us!. Overall once we got into Karaoke It was quite fun and there was a lot of group singing to Disney songs. Oh how I love the Disney!! I also sung one song on my own and it proved that I am indeed still sick. No lung control and my voice broke all over the place. Not a good look at all >.< Oh well, I just stuck to singing group songs and cheering on those who song songs themselves. Then I dropped Reaven off in Nyuzen after the festivities were over and went home.

I think I have more pics in my arsenal somewhere, however things have been posted on facebook more often than not by others so new pics of things are best found there… sometimes lol !!

Silver week

So let’s see.. if I’m correct I left off shortly before my vacation, so I might as well just start with that. Mind you this is not as detailed as I can be, could be due to illness and me simply blanking on things ^^:;; Gomen Nasi!!

September 19th (Saturday): So around six something in the morning I woke up, grabbed my bag and keys and headed out the door to the train station. The ride from Kurobe to Toyama was relatively easy and so was the transfer to the JR Express to Osaka. I ended up sitting next to African mother with two kids who were speaking fluent Japanese. Apparently the mom was from Africa and moved to France and now is living in a Japan. She was nice but her kids were a tad bit annoying.
The rest of the train ride was fairly normal. Listened to my MP3 player and slept a bit. I arrived at the station twenty minutes or so later then the scheduled arrival time, but it was ok since Phage hadn’t gotten to the station to pick me up yet. However that was shortly remedied as we met up giving each other big hugs, and this was the start of one jam packed vacation. We headed out, and checked out the stations closest Mall at Umeda and looked at Gatchipan (sp??), Video Games, Cell phones, and Camera’s before we both agreed on the need for food. We ended up going to this Ramen shop and it was the first Ramen I’ve had in Japan. I’m sure those would ask what took me so long… well I was too busy eating raw things in the country ^^;; After walking around we found ourselves in this park-ish area and talked for a few hours about various things; mostly our views on Japan as a whole. Then we got up and from there and walked around more and then we went shopping! Now, I am not a person that really shops, but this was the first mall I’ve seen since the states so I was more than thrilled there was a place I could buy stuff. The mall had lots of floors and was rather large. We ended up on this floor which should have been called “We like Black Culture floor” because everything there had some relation to African hip-hop/rock culture. So needless to say they were a bit friendlier or at least intrigued to see me walking in and out of shops there. I ended up buying a hat and some bracelet at this one store because the salesman was so enthusiastic and thought I was the coolest thing since sliced bread. After that we checked the top floors where all the photo booths are at and other arcade games. We played a bit and lost some money in other things trying to win stuff, but it was all fun.
With this we headed to shin sai bashi where we were trying to check out the club scene. With this we ended up running into some gaijin who were on holiday much like I was and were all from Michigan. One looked like he stepped clear out of “That 70’s Show” and the other two just well… weird. Nevertheless we followed them to a Mexican bar where we had drinks and met a cool waitress who showed us where all the clubs were in the area. I remember that we didn’t actually manage to club but after walking around and stopping here and there for random foods we ended up in this lounge place called “Open End.” By this point it was near four in the morning, and we decided it was much better to relax and have a drink at this lounge because we were tired as all hell. The waitress was cute as she could be while she was DJ-ing the rap music and bouncing to it all at the same time. It wasn’t long before she closed up shop and we had to find somewhere else to wander until the trains started running again. Luckily for us we walked into a massage parlor that was still opened. We managed to get some deal to share an hour between us for a fee that wasn’t too bad. We were shown up to our room, where we had personal showers, face creams and hair products, changing robes, the whole nine. Even though we both got treatments that didn’t require lack of clothing, we both were made to put on the robes and then half-way de-robe during the massage process. That massage was nice as hell, and that is all I can really say to that XD. Once it was over I hoped in the shower, changed clothes and felt ten times better and much more awake then I had a little over an hour before. When this was done they gave us tea to drink and beckoned us to come back. It was a wonderful experience, and one I surly wouldn’t mind doing again. With this we caught the train, got home, and took some well deserved rest.

September 20th:
With a good amount of sleep under my belt, and feeling physically less sick because of it Aaron and didn’t start out the day till well after 4pm. The main goal of the day was to get to Den Den town. Basically DenDen town is supposed to be the mecca of Anime and Electronics for the area. So getting to that part of Osaka we took a walk towards everything shinny. This ended with us poking around in an arcade for around three hours. I lost money trying to win things out of those machines and I almost won that Monster Hunter plush doll. I also found this one arcade called Jubeat which was rather fun. Here is a video of someone playing here I wouldn’t mind if this game came to the states. I think people would like it. After playing around in the arcade we spent the majority of the next hour or two trying to find DenDen town. Apparently this was a ghost town because no one knew what we were talking about. So after a while I said let’s give up and we focused out attention to finding food since neither of us had eaten the entire day. After denouncing squid we ended up in this restaurant that serves all you can eat meat. Of course this was right up my alley. The man who owned the shop could speak English perfectly and was a great help to us, and was very kind. We even landed a free drink because we went to a restaurant guide corner to find this place. It was quite fun cooking the food, and it was all very delicious. I ate my full and more. The music was nice and I recognized several songs. I topped the night off with mango or was it green tea ice-cream. The ice-cream was accompanied by the owner whose name was Harry. He told us about how he started his business and how he learned English so well. Apparently he spent 12 years in New York, and liked it very much. Needless to say this resulted in us missing the train again, and we went back to the main area in Umeda and located a manga café which we booked for five hours.

September 21st:
I managed to check my email and listen to some music before attempting sleep. Manga café’s are cool, but it would take another go at it to get the hang of it. It didn’t help that by this point my illness was getting worse. Around 5-6 am we left the café and attempted to get money from the ATM. Apparently my bank is strictly local and does not allow money to be taken out of the bank from other areas. Needless to say this leaves me without much money. Thankfully the money for transportation was given to me , and after some running about and cursing the bagle bagle place for not being open we caught the train to Kyoto for this big outdoor flee market. It was nice to see the shrines and all the vendors. I had to rest for a while cause I felt pretty sick but at the end I scooped up two plush phone/key charms and a kimono. No time to wear it now, but perhaps next summer I’ll have a chance to wear it. We could only stay a few hours because Aaron had class. We made it back on time and walked to his campus which is RIDICULOUS! It is like Princeton/Harvard rich people campus. Those campuses you see on TV shows and movies. Needless to say I waited in the lounge and talked to a Texan for a while, while waiting for Aaron to get out of class. Once he did I met his French friend whose name escapes me and we headed for the train station to eat dinner at Aaron’s former host families home. They were a very nice family, and the father looks like a lot of fun. We had rice and okonomiyaki and sake and wonderful Indonesian snacks. Most of the night was spent talking in Japanese so I stayed quiet and watched the crazy Japanese game show that was on TV. I did chime in every now and again, but I’ll just have to practice more so I can get somewhere near decent at Japanese. After dinner coffee Aaron and I headed back home. When we got there we took showers, talked for a while and slept.

September 22nd:
I stayed sleep for a long time while Aaron went to school. When he returned home we chatted together and then headed to the train station to see me off. I would have like to stay a bit longer for his birthday but schedules and such kinda made it impossible. Needless to say I got my bagel sandwich and got on the train back to Kurobe. Thanks for a good time Phage ^^ and happy B-day ^^

Rest is for the weak!!!! XD

I really need to start writing these things before I have to compile a long list of recaps for you all. ^^;; That and it would make remembering details far easier. Not to mention that this might be the longest post I have, but I’ll cross my fingers for your sake that it isn’t! XD

September 11th (Friday): Today was a day spent at Koshino Jr. High. I enjoy the kids there, and although sometimes the teacher I work with doesn’t quite do it for me when it comes to the expectations of the children in our class he is an overall nice guy. However a day at this school or any of my schools is always a tiring one, and though I planned to go home and simply relax I was coaxed (with little effort) to head out later in the evening for dinner at Peyote’s (Mexican restaurant). The idea of heavier types of food is always an appealing thought while in this country so I jumped on it. Once picked up Rosa and then we went to Peyote’s where we were eventually joined by eight or so more people. There isn’t too much to tell about the night other then the random trash talking of Twilight with the girls and a heated discussion over the Harry Potter series. I must admit I love engaging in conversation about Harry Potter. I simply adore that series, probably one of the only if not the only book series I went out of my way or wanted to pursue. It was great catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while and it was fun watching two of my friends tying their legs together with table towels to run a three legged race against two guys outside the restaurant. I didn’t go personally see it myself but I’m sure it was to die for. After a little while and some frustrating personal traits of a certain someone I decided to head home.

September 12th (Saturday):Today was supposed to be Sports day for my elementary school, but it was cancel due to rain. With this I slept in and was wakened around 11:30 by Matt who asked for me to come and join him in Takaoka( an hour or so by train) to enjoy the festival. Takaoka was celebrating it’s 400th birthday so he invited me for the festivities. I agreed to come so I took a slightly nerve racking train ride (cause I don’t know where the heck I was going) I arrived in Takaoka station. This was where I was confronted with my first Mc Donald’s since Tokyo. Now I know this seems like a rather trivial thing, but when you are used to eating a certain type of way things of the norm look really good to you when you don’t have them. Nevertheless I resisted the temptation and met up with Matt. We then proceeded to head to someone’s house where they were practicing “ A Yellow Submarine” to the crowd at the festival area. They were all wearing hippy 70’s gear and matt ended up looking like a hippy Harry Potter. It was rather amusing. Finally we made our way back to the Festival area where they went in front and sung. The audience was rather slim do to the poor weather but they received and applause and a dancing Brazilian to boot. After this it was all about walking up and down looking at all the food vendors. The major festival activities were to happen on the following day, but that was ok. I ended up buying a rather handsome amount of festival food, including this meat on a stick thing which undoubting had been the best meat I had, had since arriving in Japan. Nevertheless we found our way to an area where a pair of people was playing piano and violin on stage. We sat and chatted and listened to the music until they were off stage. Once that was done we met up with Kelly and proceeded to locate a place for dinner. With a rather long discussion on options and then a brief stop in a non-satisfactory dinner we ended up at this traditional food place. It was cool and there was lots of fun chatter to be had. One topic in which we discussed the vileness of Kelly’s food choice and watched others mutilate the “food” that was on her plate. I of course ordered something that I didn’t really end up liking and just pawned it off onto other people. At this stage we decided to break up the group and me, Matt, Kelly and Chris ( a brit) went to another bar where we all ordered wonderful food and GOOD drinks. Needless to say this ended me with staying in Takaoka for the night. It was my choice and it was worth it to spend time with them. At this point however we (Kelly, Matt, and me) were rather exhausted and walked back to Matt’s place for the night. They kindly offered me their spare room and I slept in a bed for the first time since Tokyo Orientation. Needless to say considering that I was over and hour by train from my house I wished for rain the following morning, so I didn’t have to rush back home. Though I wasn’t as lucky and I received a call from a friend telling me that sports day was on for Sunday.

September 13th Sunday: With a more then tiring fast walk to the station I said farewell to my friends and hopped on the train back to Kurobe. I made it in about an hour. Ran to my parked car and drove home. There I simply put on a hat, grabbed my camcorder and jumped back in the car and drove to the school. Granted this school is in walking distance, but I was trying to make up lost time seeing as I was already an hour and a half late for the start of sports day. Once I got there I found Brett and the rest of the senior staff (principle and so on) and sat with them under the tent. The children were wonderfully cute and still pretty awesome despite how young most of them were. I recorded what I could before the battery died and then during lunch, ran home and ate and charged my battery for an hour. Then I rushed back to the school and watched the remainder of sports day. I brought my jacket along because it was on and off light raining (which the children played through) and it was rather windy. When the sports day was over I said hello to a few kids, confirmed that I would attending the enkai that night and returned home for a short intermission of my rather busy weekend.

Around six that evening I changed clothes and walked back to Chuo to be picked up by a fellow teacher. There I met up with them a few minutes later and we were off to the enaki which was surprisingly close to where we work/ I live. We walked in, I took a few pictures, the opening speech was said and then dinner was up. Now I had expected food to be much like the pervious enaki, but I was thankfully mistaken. There was perhaps one plate of uncooked articles of food, and the rest was lovely. They had yakatori, barbecued beef, lasagna, friend chicken, orange chicken, salad, fresh fruits, tea, wine, sake, beer etc.. I ate rather happily and with some amazing conversation to boot. I was asked many questions and I was given a lot of laughs and responses. It even got to a point where I was speaking to a large group of five or six of my fellow coworkers in a circle where we talked about anime, music, sports, nick-names, zodiac signs, singing, favorite foods and so on. They were wonderful people!!! We all have nicknames and we carried these throughout the remainder of the night. Mine was Ah-chan. The others had some shortened variation of their first name. We laughed and joked and just couldn’t get enough of each other. Then I decided to say hi to the rest of the table because that’s only the polite thing to do, and it’s the Japanese enkai thing to do. So bringing a bottle of beer with me to fill their glasses I walked over to the other side of the table and began talking to a fellow English teacher (Who’s English isn’t that great lol) and I suppose the gym coach. Well I hope he was the gym coach because the man is around 6ft 3in and about 240 pounds. We ended up talking about ages and siblings. I told him that he was very tall and he said in response that this was normal size. I died laughing. I also told him that my brother was around his height and bigger in weight, and he asked if we ever fought. I told him sometimes, but more in a playful manner. He then asked if I could win and told him that sometimes I do. With a look of surprise he asked me how and I told him I just go for the knees. He nodded at this and took a long swig of his beer. Then after stating the fact (at least to him) that I was cute he stood to his feet and said that he was leaving. However before he said his farewells he told me to not take out his knees on his way out, and once again I laughed heartily. Shortly after departing speeches (which spoke very highly of me) it was time to go. However I managed to get friendly with the crowd who wanted the night to continue. So we exited the enaki restaurant and walked five minutes down the road to a bar. It was a cute bar and there we had more drinks, I introduced them to the combination of peach vodka and orange juice, given tests to make sure I remembered all their nick names, and was asked many more questions which I didn’t mind answering in the slightest. Karaoke broke out and I ended up singing some traditional Japanese song with them. I only did the refrain because a 2 year old could have done it and they were very happy I participated. Of course this led them to playing the sailor moon theme for me to sing, which I sung in English. A few more random songs of mine followed and once again it seems I have a amassed a following of people who love to hear me sing. It’s weird XD Needless to say the entire night was wonderful and then we headed home around two where I feel asleep almost immediately.

September 14th Monday: So today is supposed to be a day of daikyuu, which are days you receive when you work on a non work day. Since I attended sports day and the enkai I was allotted this privilege though I think I would have received it any considering the entire school was involved and the school would be inevitably closed. Needless to say I was woken around 9:30 to a call from Chuo. I tried to call back but with no answer. This led to a minor freak out where I got dressed, drove to Chuo in deep worry that I was supposed to be at school. Thankfully I was wrong and I arrive to an empty school. I called my JTE (Japanese teacher of English) anyway to confirm and then decided since I was awake to run a few errands. I managed to finally send things through the post office (Both my Gollyods application and something for my cell phone) and pick up my tickets for my travels during the upcoming silver week holiday. With that I returned home and did some random things that at the moment I don’t truly recall and although I didn’t notice till Wednesday, completely forgot to go to my Eikawa class in Nyuzen that evening.

September 15th Tuesday: Today was a day at Koshino. I enjoy the students there and I had a rather good day at work. Once class in particular where I went to assist a regular English class ( I teach in English conversation classes) it was an activity to help them make sentences and to ask a lot of questions. So the kids had to think of as many questions as they could about me and then when it was time to ask me the questions and I’d give answers. In turn they would take these answers and write a short paragraph about me. I received some interesting questions though none of them were shocking or surprising. I was asked if I was in love, and I told them no. I asked the student if he was, and he said yes, but it was a secret. I was asked about anime, and things I like, how much my watch cost, if I liked to read short novels and so on and so on. This class was wonderful because there was a lot of participation and it made the class fun. At the end of class I was given the papers to grade. It was toooooo adorable that after writing about a few things they learned about me, some students added at the bottom that they thought I was very nice, and some thought I was cute/beautiful. This NEARLY made me cry XD. I finished grading them and I took a picture or two of the papers. Once I got home I was very tired. I wanted to go to sleep but I ended up calling Rosa after washing my hair and such and met up with her at Pizza Jambori for dinner. A short while later Lawrence came in as well and we stayed while he ate. It was a pleasant dinner. Once that happened I went home and I think this was the night where I finished Code Geass R2. *SIGH* I actually shed like a tear or two on this one. It’s ridiculous. I won’t say anything about it as to not spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but damn… just damn.

September 16th Wednesday: Today was a day at Chuo, and also a day where I climbed stairs a whole hell of a lot. I’m not sure why I hadn’t experienced this occurrence since I’ve started working here, but I need the exercise so I didn’t complain. Today was a good day with the kids and I made another lunch speech where I told them how much I enjoyed their sports day and also how I was taking a trip to Osaka during the Silver Week holidays. I had great fun teaching country flags where I added dramatic sound effects and noises to make the lesson more interesting. The kids and the teachers loved it. I liked doing it, and for some magical reason unknown to me I can currently roll my R’s to perfection. Why in Japan does this happen? It would have been more effective in Spain XD. EH, well I suppose it’s no different than me finding out that I think Asians are attractive in Italy. I’m weird @.@ XD Never the less I ended up leaving school around one because there was a meeting for the NIikawa Jet’s. So I picked up Rosa and went to Uozu for the meeting. It was nice seeing faces I hadn’t seen in a while, and seeing faces that I have. The meeting was about confusing money matters and issues we may or may not being having with teaching thus far. It was nice to vent a bit. Not that there was much of a problem, but everyone has quirks, some just show more than others. Well once the meeting was over we ended up going to kitokito, the same sushi place I had went to with Jack and the other last week. So I just ordered the thing I like the most, and ate pineapple ice cream which is super strong in flavor. It was good though  Another successful post-meeting meal out of the way, I left so I can head to Brett’s. He had a football game playing and food up for grabs. Couldn’t past that, but on the way I stopped at the book off store and bought seven CD’s for under twenty-five dollars. I consider that a pretty good deal. After grabbing up the CD’s (which happen to be some of the first CD’s I’ve purchased since CD burners were made >.>) I went to Brett’s. There I ended up watching a Green Bay game, even though I would have never watched it otherwise, it was the first bit of football I’ve seen in a while. Pizza, fries, hotdogs, and cheesecake to eat was more than compensation for watching a team I’ve never had an interest in. I even managed to get a few songs of Rock Band in before leaving his place. One more stop before I went back to my apartment (Brett lives across the street) was to stop by Lawrence’s place and look at the two baby kittens he just got. I was up for one of those kittens. They are adorable, but kittens turn into cats, and well the cuteness kinda fades away. So I passed it up for that and other reasons. If I need to I’ll just go play with the cats when I want to. THEN!!!!! I went home, and I wasn’t up for too much longer though I did stuff a leftover piece of pizza in my face. I simply pigged out today, but I suppose everyone has splurge days where they simply can’t stop eating. Then I went to sleep, and to be honest I hope the next couple days are rather quite cause I’m going to rather busy for most of Silver Week break.

September 17th Thursday: Today was Takase Jr. High and the first time since I’ve been coming to this school that I’ve taught classes. I had four classes, and much like every school I did a form of self introduction. That was the basis of the class so there isn’t much to tell on that front. Other than that during breaks I managed to sketch out something I might want to rework later, and get a blog entry out of the way. As far as work goes there isn’t too much more to tell. It was a good day, though I think the kids at this school are bit more shy then the kids at Koshino, but perhaps they’ll get over being shy and speak up. However when I left the school the yelled out to me from the windows and said hello and goodbye. It was really cute. When I got home I changed clothes and then went with Brett and his wife Nana to deal with some car issues. I went and paid my first ever car payment (*pats wallet*) and then after he finished his car business we went to Mc Donald's. I couldn't resist this time, and I got a meal. IT WAS SO FLIPPIN DELICIOUS!!! Judge me if you will but I am one happy camper!!!