. . : : Japan takes the QUEEN : : . .

I just finished watching Chicago (the recent film/remake of the play). It's interesting how I remember almost ALL of the songs from when I was in 6th and 7th grade (I was in teh chorus...never the lead). Before Chicago I watched Bowling for Columbine. I borrowed them from Heiando...I FINALLY went to get a membership to the video store. They have a pretty good selection. I wanted to get a couple of Japanese films, on DVD, so I could put English Subtitles, but I couldn't remember if the format plays in my computer or not, so I just opted for the safe, English language movies. Didn't want to spend 1,000YEN to be upset when I got home.

Before the video store, I headed to the library and got a library card! I am very excited about that. I didn't realize that they closed at 5PM (until I heard the closing music and the lights started going out). I checked out some craft books, a vege cookbook and and Ezra Keats book. I decided that I would begin practicing my Japanese by reading children's books. The Ezra Keats book happened to be on the display table at the front of the library... the title is "Pi-ta- noisu"...Peter's Chair, clearly the Japanese Edition, which was published in 1969, only two years after the regular publish date.

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
Tempura success! It tasted really good. I like Japanese sweet potatoes b/c they taste like Trinidadian sweet potatoes (tasty) and not like American ones :(
The onigiri...aaaahhh...I wasn't to pleased with it. I don't think my palate (sp?) wanted to experience the "sea" taste that nori provides. I like seaweed, but for some reason, I wasn't feeling it last night..oh well.

The ski slope will be opening soon, which means my snowboarding experience will soon begin. I had JTE3 over for dinner last night. I like her a lot. She's pretty cool. She told me that the phys ed teacher was like a snowboarding champion in Aomori. I was like, "Eeehhhh! Sugoi! So he could maybe teach me." Our school ski days aren't until february, so I have a couple months to get my act together. This time I will try to minimize the amount of time that I fall on my booty in front of the school. We don't want to had another experience like the sports day (which was quite funny)!

i visited my academic high school's library today. it is test week, which means i don't teach classes or anything. i just grade papers and finish up things that i have been working on. i miss the students, but it is good to have a different schedule for a few days. so...at the library, i am just browsing b/c, of course, most of the titles are in kanji. aside from the magazines and the books that appear to be novels, almost all of the books appear to be old. so old books only mean one thing.... VINTAGE CROCHET/KNITWEAR PATTERNS! Ya-ta! So I ended my day off pretty good by checking out a crochet book from my school's library. It's from 1975! I love it already.

So now I am eating my candy, an Aomori apple, and with every bite, a whole bunch of juice gushes out and drip down my hand. It is almost like it's completely juice filled and the skin is serving as a cup.

A sistah is officially travelling this winter and I am EXCITED! Travelling from Japan to other countries is really inexpensive. It is unfortunate that 3/8 of my travel costs are just for me to get from Mutsu to Aomori. It's worth it though...20 days..3 countries. Let the fun continue...

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
I'm going to try and make some onigiri (rice and veggies wrapped in nori) and some (sweet potato) tempura tonight. My first attempt at a straight up Japanese dish (minus the dobutsu plus some extra funk, of course)

i had a second birth
when my soul and body
loved one another
and they were married

sand and foam (khalil gibran)


I came across this quote and loved it. I have always meant to read that book.

I really enjoy teaching! It is fun and I get to be creative with how I get my students to understand words and concepts. Communication is a good thing. I taught at the technical HS yesterday and the students were very receptive as usual. They always have jokes, like my ichi nen-sei at tanabu. I leave there feeling good about my day, knowing that I went in there taught my lessons and I leave with the students knowing more than when I entered the building.

After my (adult) English Class tonight at the community center, one of the students said the nicest thing that I heard today. She said, "You are a really great teacher. I have had a lot of classes, nbut you are the best." The the other students who were around chimed in. That pleased me. I tell all of the students that I teach, that my job there is to teach them and if they do not learn, it's up to me to adjust my approach in a way that they can learn it.

By teaching at the academic HS, the technical HS, and at the community center, I get a really good balance of experiences. The students require different things and my approach for the lessons vary depending on who my students are. That lets me know that I can work with different groups. When I talk with ALTs who only work w/ tech high schools, I get the impression that it is very difficult and strenuous. I am blessed that my experience hasn't been that way.

I went to one of the best places that I have been in Mutsu...the library. It is so nice. It's going me be my new hanging spot. I can't wait to go there this weekend. The even have "vege-cooking" books and of course, they have the fly craft section!

...

I finally have a moblog....yay!

Mad props to the Ainu/ESkimo/Inuit, b/c what came out of the sky today was not snow like I have seen before. I KNOW they have a word for it. The flakes were more like mini-snowballs flying all over the place. It seems like I am exagerating however, I am not. They were the size of those styrofoam pellets that they put in boxes...just falling...falling...falling...and sticking...sticking...sticking.

So we have a holday on Monday, Substitute Day, so I wanted to go somewhere, but since I AM TRAVELLING in December and January (YAY!), I opted out of spending too much money to go where I have already visited. So I didn't go to Aomori City like I thought I would. I knew I had to get my snow tires put on so I told myself: Okay, on Saturday, get up, put the snow tires on, pay for the rest of the car, run some errands, buy car stuff, shovels, scrapers, etc. So when I woke up, I looked outside. It was windy like the night before and it looked cloudy, but I didn't think it was a big deal. So I got dressed to go and looked outside again and it looked like a straight up blizzard outside, but it wasn't sticking, very wet snow. In a matter of a few minutes, it turned from late autumn to full-on WINTER. So I pulled my car around to put the snow tires in the back, so I could drive to the dealership. By the time I put all the tires in the back of my wagon, the snow slowed down a bit. They took less than a half hour to put my tires on and I was ready to roll: Winterized. It was a good thing, b/c once I started heading down the road that's when the styrofoam-esque snow pellets started falling and sticking.

So I decided not to go home, as initially planned. Instead I went to the store to look for snow boots (like the kind we used to wear when we were younger, but it is a neccessity in J) in my size. I am a large in Japanese shoes. Most women's shoes go up to 24.5....my size, so that is a blessing. I ended up also buying the plastic mats for my car, a scraper, two shovel, a kotatsu (heated table) set, some fleece shirts, a down feather jacket and few other items. So a sistah is ready for the winter. It is very different from what I am accustomed to. What I am used to experienceing is: cold, a bit of flurrying, possibly some snow (w/ forewarning), cold, a bit a snow, and everything is over with and the process is gradual. But here, it was like the sky open up and started pouring out winter all over everything. Mt. Kamafuse is now snow-covered...I looked at her the other day and she was green, brown, red and yellow w/ leaves.

So, I am basically "in" for the weekend. They don't plow the streets or shovel the sidewalks here. Which is why EVERYONE has winter tires. If things let up tomorrow, I will go to Aomori City (by train) b/c I have some overdue library books. I left them at home accidently when I went to Aomori City last week :o Maybe I'll finally go and get that video rental membership from Heiando...I'll see

peace...

I might as well stay home in Mutsu. I want to travel within the country, however it costs at least 2x more to travel within Japan than to leave Japan! The least expensive options are to stay home or to leave the country all together. To go to Tokyo, it costs the same amount as it does to go to New Zealand. Now THAT is amazing! My winter travel plans are well underway and I am excited.

I came home today and fell asleep and missed Japanese club. The heaters at my techincal school use kerosene and the kerosene drains me. THAT is not cool. I came home and I was sooooooo tired I had to take a nap. Unfortunately my nap turned into a 3-hour sleep. I know people have been using the kerosene for years, but my system is just not accustomed to it.

So of course, I am now awake and hopefully, I can go to sleep soon...otherwise, I'll be up for a while...

One of my students is in a coma. She was hit by a car today on the way to school. As a result, I am in quiet mode today. I will light an inscence stick for her and her family.

The roadways just do not seem to be the safest. After school, I had to go to the Ominato Eki (train station) to get my car. I realized this morning, 15 minutes before I had to go to school, that I left it at the train station on Wednesday night. I was rushing around on Wednesday. In between 4 and 7:30, I was trying to go grocery shopping, clean, cook, pack my clothes for my trip, prepare food with the groceries I bought for my Eikaiwa (food sharing lesson), plan a lesson and trying to make it to the 7:42 PM (last) train to Aomori City. With all of that, I practically ran to the station and dropped my car off...just making the train. So when I returned home on Saturday, I came straight to my house (I got a ride)....so back to picking up my car and the road not being that safe today. Close to the station, a deer was just sitting in the road on the line between the lanes. It didn't seem like it was hurt, b/c it just sat there looking around. Looking at the surroundings, it seemed like an accident or two already happened, b/c thee was a lot of glass on the ground close to the deer. Passing by the same spot, after I picked up my car, the police were finally there, directing traffic around the deer. Perhaps it was hurt... only the deer knows.

Yet another day of being blessed...and I am thankful!

I had a business trip/conference/meeting this week in Hirosaki City. I had a good time. It was good to hang with some folx that I hadn't seen in a while. The conference was really informative.

I just got back in my house after being gone for four days, so I am just getting settled in.

I went to see The Matrix tonight. My first movie in Japan. It was cool and in English. At the theatre you have assigned seat numbers, so you don't have to hunt around for seats. Tickets cost about 1,700 YEN, but I bought my ticket a while ago, and I got it for 1,300 YEN. YAY!!!

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
Speaking of The Matrix, check out The Meatrix website. Quite informative.

I scheduled "Maureen's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies" from How It All Vegan for my English club girls today. So last night I packed a bag of ingredients and items that I wanted to take to school with me today. So in English club, we ended up having al of the ingredients, except for for the bmain one : rolled oats. We (JTE/ALT) forgot to get some. Of course, they not available in every supermarket, so we had to go to Plan B? Plan B? What Plan B? There is no Plan B?

Ah-hah! Plan B! For some reason when I packed the ingredient bag, I also packed the ingredients to make "Takeyah's Famous Popcorn". So when I saw that we didn't have the rolled oats, I just told the students "not to fear" b/c we WILL be cooking today. The students REALLY like the cooking days. It was very clear by the fact that we had 5+ students, who have not been to English Club since I have been there, come to English Club. It was cool and we had a lot of fun. The students and senseis LOVED the popcorn (like everyone else) and we decided to try cooking the cookies next Monday.

We have a prefectural ALT/JTE Conference this week and I submitted the project-based learning activity that I did with JTE3. They liked what we did, so they asked us to create a poster-esque display for other JTEs and ALTs to look at as a "great example". HOORAY!

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
All I must write is that, you know that you have been in Japan for a while when your late night snack (not the Japanese "snack") is tofu...whatever happened to ice cream, cookies, potato chips, etc.?

In the meantime, I will soon put my snow tires on and the warm(toi)let is getting a bit less warm everyday...

*80s song* The heat is on. The heat is on, on. The heat is ...*song fade* Okay, so maybe it's not really on, but I finally filled up my kerosene heater to give her a try to see if she was working. She was. I am sure it will be a surprise to my supervisor that "I, brown gaijin girl, was able to fill up a itty bitty tank by myself". I put it on the veranda, so I wouldn't have the kerosene smell in my apt. Then I turned it off and brought it back inside. I haven't put it on yet and I don't plan on using it soon. Since the winter will be very long, I want to wait until I really need it before I put it on.

Today in English Club, I had a nice time with my girls. This past week they made Penpal Passports to send to their penpals in Wisconsin. One of the little girls wrote to one of my students saying that she likes R. Kelly! : o I raised my eyebrows on that one. I shared my cinnamon graham crackers with them. They were very shocked to know that my answer to the question 'Where did you buy them?" was, Aomori. So after telling them where the foreign food store was located and tht they can use YEN there, they decided that we should take an English Club Field Trip to the Foreign Food Store. I'll have to work on that one :)

Found out today that out of maybe 10 JETs here last year, about 5 got into car accidents. THAT may explain why a couple of the JTEs act like I don't realize by now that we are supposed to drive on the left-hand side of the road. If they told me that I cannot drive to work (which they technically could), I don't think I would care too much. As long as there would be someone at my apt. at 7:45 AM ready to take me to school and at my desk at 4:00 PM ready to take me home, I don't think it would bother me. And as a matter of fact, I will probably walk to school on some days when it snows, b/c it will be easier and quicker than driving.

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
Tried my hand at a new recipe today. It was a Japanese-esque made up recipe. It turned out being a veggie dashi (broth) with daikon (radish) and carrots. I browned some tofu to add to the soup, but by the time the soup was ready, I ate all but three pieces of tofu. It was tasty and I had enough dashi left for it to be a base on another dish. Ya-ta!

is NOT WORKING! Oh nooey! Will have to be figured out ASAP...

COLD! It is basically winter now. It will begin to snow soon and I will not be able to see the ground until March or April.

Monday was "Cultutre Day". A lot of schools use this time of year to have their Bunkasai/Cultural Festival. My school has their Bunkasai in July. So I just had ther day off. Since I didn't go to Tokyo as I initially planned, yesterday, I decided to take a drive down to Misawa and Hachinohe for the day. I went down to Misawa and hung around for a few hours, then I headed over to Hachinohe for the eveninga nd spent the night at a friend's house. I had a nice time, we just got soemthing to eat and went back home, talked a little, then went to sleep. My friend had work today (I didn't b/c I worked on Saturday), so I stayed out the way (to allow the ususal morning routines) then got ready afterwards. I was going to hang around Hachinohe, but I decided to just head back home. I took a different way home and it was beautiful. Even more beautiful than my ride down to Misawa. Usually when coming back from the southern part of then ken, we usually take the same route on the western side of the peninsula. Somehow I managed to get on the eastern side and I was able to pas through a lot of villages that my students are from. The water was soooooo beautiful and the trees were in wonderful shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown. It was a nice drive. At one point I had to basically go over a mountain. The road could "just" fit my car but there were 10-wheelr trucks on this road too (the biggest size truck in J is a 10-wheeler), but I was working it out in my car.

When I got home, I just ran a couple of errands, then came home made lunch and dinner and go myself ready for Japanese class. I really need to start studying more. In a month, I have the Japanese Language Profiency Test, and I have to practice my writing. I decided that I will most likely go to language school in late December and travel in January. I am looking forward to it. It will be fun...

peace....

All Hallow's Eve (or whatevr they call it) has come and gone NOW the world can move on *sarcastic eye roll*. So my two days of Halloween-esque lessons went by and I am happy that we can move on to actually teaching the students to speak and understand English. Only my English Intensive course students had parties (where I sat and watched) and the other students were taught a shortened lesson and "introduced" to Hallloween (where I sat and watched). Everyone got what they wanted. It was fortunate for me, yet unfortunate for the students in the long-run that some of the JTEs put more time and energy into the Halloween lesson than any other that I have seen from them. I learned from another teacher that I talk to often that they were being "forced" to teach the students Halloween...like me, she asked the question "Why?!"... who knows, but we were on the same page about it.

I had to work today b/c my school was having a ceremony for the HS nursing program. My HS is the last one in the ken to exist and it is closing down. I learned today that until recently, students could study nursing in HS and then when they graduate, begin working in hospitals. The nursing jobs require more training, so the HS programs are being closed. It was a major deal. I was at work ALL day...but since it is a 3-day weekend, not only do I get Monday off, but I also get Tuesday off too! I really didn't do much at all...I watched Robin Hood with the san-nen-sei's, then I read about 1/3 of a book about exploring Touhoku (northern Honshu), then I went to the ceremony rehearsal, ate lunch, attended the ceremony (stayed awake by trying to see who I could see sleeping), checked my e-mail, re-examined my Dec/Jan travel plans, then read some more of my book, then got ready to go to the after party.

The enkai/after party was cool. The hotel where it was held is right up the street from my apt. and it is beautiful. I will definitely go there to take some pictures of the view. The enkai was yet another experience in finding out that more and more teachers speak English. When the alcohol gets in them, that's when they begin talking up a storm...it's quite funny. JTE3 (who I really like a lot) asked if I could do some lessons sharing about my culture. I was happy about that...so I have to begin planning some lessons for December. I opted out of the ni jikai (second party) and came home.

Backtracking...I went to the gas station after work to fill up my tank. I wanted to see how much it takes to fill my tank. Well let's just say that once I counted out my money, I was 1,147 YEN short! It takes 5,147 YEN to fill my tank! That was much more than I expected, considering that I have a Subaru Legacy Wagoneer. So I gave them 4,000 YEN and went to the post office to get some more money then drove back to give them the rest. No random driving around for me...okay!

GRANOLA MONOLOGUES
At the enkai today my first dish was a salad. Although I did not get dressing, it was pretty good. My second dish was kampyo maki (sushi roll with gourd shaving) and onari (rice wrapped in tofu). So I definitely got my money worth b/c sushi can be pricey.

peace...