#10 Happy 4th of July and Happy Canada Day!

 Hello everyone! Again this post is late, but I have a proper reason that doesn’t include laziness!

So of course the day after I made my last post, my computer broke, and it stayed broke for 2 weeks. Ha ha such is life! But it is alive again! I took it apart myself and cleaned it out and now it works better than before it broke! There was an outrageous amount of dust built up inside and that was the only problem. I think I may have to clean it out again before I leave Japan because things get REALLY dusty REALLY fast here.

So let’s get caught up. Teaching has been quite an experience. There has definitely been a steep learning curve and its had its ups and downs to say the least. Some days the kids are fantastic, and other days it can be like pulling teeth to get them to do anything. It’s also a thing in Japan that parents rely on teachers to teach their kids discipline where it American it is the other way around and society expects parents to teach discipline to the kids. So that is sometimes interesting. (I have yet to learn how to teach the 5 and 6 year olds to stop trying to punch me, anyone have any ideas?) Overall I find that I really like teaching high school level kids and above the most. Mainly because I can get more creative and use less energy trying to keep them entertained/awake.

In other news, those of you who know how much I completely love to sew, I finally got a sewing machine! It’s super exciting and the machine is really pretty! I was having a tough time finding one that I liked because ordering online would have been a major hassle since it requires registering with the website in Japanese and that whole process and I really just didn’t want to do that. So just when I was going to buckle down and shell out the money for a machine I liked at my local sewing store, I found the exact same machine at the electronics store for $50 less! So that is what I bought. It is a Jaguar machine and it has 28 stitches and 2 buttonholes (Which is okay since I hate buttons.) And it can sew through denim without a problem! I can’t wait to start sewing up a storm! I also think that having a sewing project will keep me motivated throughout the week when I start feeling really sluggish and down and homesick.

Last week I went back to Okayama city for a friend's birthday party. It was a lot of fun! I met up with Misty and Melinda (They are some of the folks who trained me for the job when I first arrived in Japan. We became pretty good friends!) and it was a while before we were supposed to meet up with the birthday people so we went out to dinner next door to where we needed to meet them. The restaurant was set up where several different parties sit at one big table. So we sit down, order drinks and order some food. Just as we get our salad, this group of 3 guys get the courage to talk to us and ask if they can scoot their party over to join us. Because you always need to be polite in Japan we said yes since it would have been super awkward if we said no. So they shifted down and started chatting with us to the best of their ability. They knew broken English and we knew broken Japanese. It was really amusing. Then the group of guys from the other side of the table (to my left) started talking to Misty and kind of joined our group too, then no more than maybe 10 seconds later these two girls show up and sit down right next to me and one of them is really really drunk and she starts talking to me about how she studies English and that she's in college studying English and she wants to be my friend and practice English with me and so on... She was very touchy feely but only because she was so drunk. Overall she was a completely harmless girl.

We ended up staying at the restaurant until 1:30 am. I had more wine than food because the guys talking to Misty (one of which totally fell in love with her) kept offering me wine and free booze is free booze. When we left we hadn't really eaten anything and I had only had like 2 glasses of wine and one of the guys drank Melinda's beer but someone ended up paying for our bill and it wasn't any of us. So we got a free dinner that we didn't eat and free drinks from someone else's tab and our drinks were dunk by other people and paid for by yet a different person. (Confused yet? Cause I am!) After our dinner, we met up with the birthday folks and went to a club called MARS. It was supposed to be a dance club of some sort but it was only playing really really awful rap music and people were just standing around bouncing their knees acting like wannabe be-boys. The whole place reminded me of an awkward middle school dance. The music was way too loud too and it was the first time that my ears actually hurt because of how loud it was and Misty had to scream in my ear in order to talk to me which hurt even more. Needless to say Misty and I left and went to Matador which is a bar that is owned by a guy from Peru which we had the pleasure of meeting two weeks ago on a Sunday night. (We chilled at his bar that night until 4 am. And the place was empty! This is how entertaining he is!) But on Saturdays its a dance club so we went to dance and it was great and the music was awesome and the loudness levels didn't hurt and I was about a billion times happier. We stayed at this place until 4:30 am. (again...) and went home after that and showered and went to sleep by 5:30 am. I woke up with a bunch of heat rashes and was really sore but it was all worth it. :D So that was a really fun weekend last weekend.

Yesterday we had a fancy dinner for one of our Japanese teachers because she is leaving. She was at the school for 3 years but she chose not to renew her contract because she is getting married. So there was delicious fancy food in a really nice upstairs room. It was really nice to eat good food for once since I usually get my food pre-preared from the convenience store or the grocery store. Here are some photos!

Next week my old Co-Net is leaving! My next Co-Net is already here though. Her name is Natalie. She is also excited to travel around Japan and see things so it should be a lot more fun and a lot easier to plan trips now!

That’s really all that’s new. Not much has happened since golden week because I’ve been working so much all the time and it’s going to get busier because I will be teaching extra classes as summer seminars… which I still need to plan out…

Next post: Who knows! We’re all caught up now! :D

#8 First Week in Kurashiki

Sorry this didn't get posted this weekend. Blogger was having some issues with working properly.

So my first week in Kurashiki started with meeting my manager and the NET I was replacing when I got off the train in my city. They took me to my apartment and showed me how things worked and where stuff was. Overall the apartment was in decent enough shape. Osama, the Emergency Teacher I was replacing had done his best to clean but since he doesn’t usually cook, the entire kitchen needed a good scrubbing. But the bathroom was spotless! The rest of the apartment also needed some TLC but nothing major. The only major thing was the faucet in the sink. It was leaking pretty bad to a point where it was spraying water everywhere and I was told that it would eventually get fixed. However when the whole thing popped off later in the week, the company got someone to fix it really fast.

Anyway, after I was shown my apartment and my futon set, we stopped by Chelsea’s apartment (who would be my co-NET.) And she was on her way to a wedding so she left pretty quickly. However manager invited me out to lunch with her and Osama, so I accepted since I always like food and we went to a pasta place that is walking distance from my apartment. I think it’s really funny that an “Italian” place is right around the corner from my apartment since I LOVE pasta and I had been feeling less than fantastic lately with the msg-heavy foods. The pasta was pretty good! I wasn’t expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. Manager let me try some of what she ordered and she called it “Japanese flavor” and it was actually pretty good and it was the first time I liked how a mushroom tasted! I normally can’t stand mushrooms and I liked the mushrooms in this pasta. They didn’t make me want to spit them back out! After lunch I went back to my apartment and started unpacking. The rest of the day was spent organizing. I cleaned out my whole closet and found a lot of useless junk left from previous tenants and threw away the majority of it. I kept the floor fans and space heaters and of course the kotatsu. I had to vacuum the closet out before I put anything back in. Everything was REALLY dusty. (The rest of my apartment was also caked in dust but I only tackled the closet that day so that I could at least unpack my bags.)

The next day I walked around Kurashiki with Osama and he showed me the historical district and a bunch of other places. It took a long time because I wanted to walk due to the fact that it was pouring outside. We didn’t get too wet but the bottom of my pants were soaked and we were really tried towards the end of the day because it was constant walking. We did go to the local conveyor belt sushi place which was a lot nicer than the one I found by accident in Okayama and everyone gets their own booth and you can order on a screen if you want to special order any sushi that you don’t see on the belt. Or you can order desserts or other non-sushi items, then when your order comes up on the belt, the screen beeps at you and that is how you know it is yours. It was pretty fancy.

The rest of the week consisted of going to work and following around Osama and learning his duties. It was good because I could see how he interacted with the kids and how to keep them entertained while trying to teach them something. There were only a few classes that have a TON of kids and I find that there isn’t really any good way to keep that many kids amused and that it is a struggle for any teacher, even the really good ones. But for the most part I have a lot of private or semi-private lessons, and I really like those the best because I can really teach them better like that.

On Saturday, the last day of our work week, we all went out after work to a big dinner. It was at this cool “traditional” style place and you have to take off your shoes when you go to sit down because everyone was on tatami mats and there were cushions on the floor to sit on. We were such a big group though that there was a little room under the table where the floor dipped down and you could put your feet down and sit like you were in a chair. I was glad for that because sitting on the floor for many hours gets pretty uncomfortable and we were there for a good 3 hours too. After the dinner party there was a lot of bowing and “Otsukaremashita” and more bowing. Then we kind of went our separate ways. Many of us were going in the same direction so we walked together as well. Once we got to a bar that Chelsea really likes, all the Americans broke off to go have more drinks while everyone else went home. We only stayed for about an hour because we were all really tired as it had been a really busy week plus work-related dinner party.

Now we are up to April 24 and 25, which for me is my weekend because I get Sunday and Monday off. I’ll talk about this week and weekend as well since it was mostly uneventful and I really want to get to my golden week post because a TON of stuff happened during golden week.

So that weekend was another cleaning and organizing weekend. I pretty much spent the entire weekend doing that too. I bought a futon pad and a tiny shelf at the home goods store that is practice around the corner from my apartment. I got the expensive futon pad because I knew that if I got the cheap one I would still be uncomfortable at night. The cheap pads were made of normal cushion material and squished pretty easily and the expensive one felt like memory foam. Since the pad is the barrier between the floor and the futon I went with the memory foam. My floor is pretty hard. I also went to the dollar store and bought a bunch of other organizing stuff to help with my kitchen and my bathroom situation.

Speaking of the kitchen this was when the faucet popped of the sink too; which definitely made cleaning the whole kitchen a lot harder since I was in the middle of cleaning all of my dishes. (They were also caked in dust and I was sick of having to wash a dish right before using it.)

And now for a bombardment of apartment photos:

The Shower Room

The "Bathroom Sink" and a cabinet and the washer on the left.

Kitchen dishes on the left, the walkway into the bathroom sink and and you just see the bath tub in the shower room

My cabinet for all of my dishes. It's almost useful.

My kitchen. (I am standing with my back against the dishes)

My front door and tiny shoe area.

The main room. Desk on the left, dining table on the right. (I am standing in the bookshelf corner)

The Bookshelf on the left, then the tv, my computer on a coffee table and a floor couch on the other side of the desk.

My hanging stuff. The hanger contraption doesn't fit in the closet because of the way it is set up. The double doors on the left are the closet doors and the HUGE window leads out to a tiny balcony where I hang my clothes to dry.

The toilet room. It gets its own room. Its next to the shower room.

The next work week was only 3 days long and they were my first 3 days teaching on my own. It was really crazy because I needed to get my sink fixed and go to the bank to deposit some of my traveler’s checks and I still needed to try and lesson plan since I hadn’t had any chance to do that the previous week because I was brand new. The 3 days went by really fast and it’s a miracle that I was able to keep up!  But then it was Golden Week and I had a whole week to do whatever I wanted!

Next Up: Golden Week!