Earthquake!

I can't find a dismayed looking smiley to show.

I hate them! I've never even been in a bad one. This is only my second (possibly third, it's debatable). BUT, I hate them. They are scary!

This was a super gentle quake too. The building wobbled for about 30 seconds. That's it. Just wobbled. Like, the ground shook, but very slowly and gently. It should be exciting, right? No! It's scary! All I can think is that I'm on the fifth floor and if the earthquake decides to be worse, I could be in a lot of trouble! Scary!!

I hate earthquakes. All the hanging things in our apartment are swaying back and forth, so I know I'm not just crazy. There really was an earthquake! We are all ok though. No worries...I just don't like earthquakes.

I also feel like poo today. I don't think I got better at all. No sign of voice at all. I'm not even audible anymore. Boo...

grumpy day for Susie...

Can you guess what stupid thing makes me feel like a grown-up?

I caught myself doing this today and it just occured to me that it must mean I'm a grown-up. What was I doing? Tearing paper in half (neatly!) without using scissors. I have now achieved the ability to fold paper in half and then tear it in two nice halves. Weird! I can just remember my teachers always being in a hurry when I was little and doing this for me. I always used to just tear a big chunk out and make it all wonky. Now...well...you should just see my most excellent tearing! It's lovely. Maybe I will take a picture (no really, I'm going to make a display for my students that involves the paper)!

I still can't cut a straight line to save my life though. I guess I will have to stick to tearing (although now, with me being over confident, I feel I might just make things worse).

In other news, last night I started a new class at Kisuki! Ok, that's a lie, I started it last week but I think I forgot to mention it. Anyways, I guess the kids really liked me, because yesterday, Nonoka (an 8 year old girl) gave me a gift! It was sweetly wrapped and everything! You see, last week I struck up conversations with the new family to try to make them feel comfortable with me. I like to have students feel like they can talk to me and relate to me, even if I'm 15-20 years older than them. And they do because I like Spongebob and Pokemon and other silly little things. It's a good thing though, it lets me have conversations with the kids and lets them feel comfortbal around me.

ANYWAYS (side-track!), after an extensive conversation about pokemon and which type I liked the best (water pokemon for me!), we talked about how I really like Spongebob. So yesterday, Nonoka gave me a cute little Spongebob bag thing, a special fuzzy rabbit sticker, and a really cute cellphone charm from Osaka. I was really touched. It's always nice to know that your students like you. Sweet girl! I have he charm on my phone right now! Maybe I will take a picture of it too. It's a little kitty (with a tiny duck on his belly) made from leather. Interesting. It's something I hope to keep for a long time.

Let's see, what else? Oh, Chris...poor dear. He's gotten very sick lately. He's been having problems with his ears since December. And this week, he seems to have gotten tag-teamed by allergies and a cold. Poor baby. He feels icky. He even stayed home from work on Monday and Tuesday. He still feels poopy but doesn't think he can take anymore days off. He's really pitiful. But, I'm pitiful, too! I seem to be getting my yearly bought of laryngitis. My issues stem from allerigies so I'm not so crummy feeling as Chris, I just sound like I am. I sound really high and squeaky. It's a sign that I will feel better tomorrow, or have no voice at all! I'm confident that I will be feeling much better in a day or two!

{4 hours later}

Oh...I am not feeling much better at all. I had to stop in the middle of my post to teach! I was updating in Kisuki and right when I finished that last paragraph so I had to stop. Anyways...my voice had come back to just raspy when classes started. By the end of the last class (I just had 2 today) my voice was so bad I had to call it quits early. Now I can manage bare squeaks. Stupid allergies. Boo! I think I will have to miss class tomorrow. We shall see.

Anyways...back to what I was saying before. Oh...I was rambling about being ill. That's boring! New topic!

On Sunday, I met with a Japanese friend. We were just going to go to a coffee shop, but instead she surprised me by taking me to a tulip festival. How nice! Actually, the festival was on the weekend before we went, but the tulips were still there. Here are some pictures!



Pretty yellow tulips. They were so vibrant. The red tulips were SO RED it was crazy. I don't believe I've ever seen flowers so red. I didn't get a picture though. :-( I do like the geometric shape of this flower. Pretty pretty!



Oh look! A shot of the yellows and the reds together. Also, some purple ones behind the red but hard to see.



These were very small little tulips. I thought they were cute.



Shot of the tulip farm ground. They have crappy windmills scattered about. They didn't work but I appreciated the effort!



Oh look! Me standing in a mess of tulips!



A shot of the flying fish. These are displayed for Children's Day. Something to do with boys. I honestly don't really know. But, there are lots of these flying fish being displayed all over the country. It was a windy day, so they were absolutely beautiful.

And that was the tulip festival. Beautiful flowers. The smell was absolutely amazing. So sweet.

Ok, so that's all I think that's happened in the past few days of note. Nothing else interesting going on. I hope you are all having a great week!

Peace!

Dude! I'm just like Jack Bauer!

Mmmm...Calorie Mate...it's so...chalky. It tastes like Slimfast but in cookie form. It's kinda *kaff kaff* dry.

BUT! I can just be like Jack Bauer. See!?







Heh. That's some funny stuff! We've actually seen the last commercial on TV but I think the first is my favorite for many, many reasons.

I really am eating one right now. It's not really healthy or anything. But it does have a lot of vitamins and it's better than cookies or ice cream. It's not so bad. Maybe I will bring some home for everyone to try!

Nothing new around here. I am losing one of my first students at Kisuki at the end of this month. It sucks. Especially because it cause the other student to quit as well. We shall see.

Hope everyone is well. I'm off to finish this yummy "chocolatey" treat!

Pink and Burritos

What a lovely Saturday! We got up and did some laundry. Had some McDonald's for lunch and then proceeded to play a boardgame. Chris won the game...the smarty-pants. He only beat me by a little though. I will catch him next time!

Our dinner was wonderful. We had burritos! But not just burritos, we had burritos with refried beans! Yum! The beans added so much to the burrito. It's crazy. God bless that import store we found. It's certainly been great to eat real Mayo, refried beans, and barbecue sauce (not all together! don't be gross.).

In other news, hooray for pink! I don't know if you know this about me, but I have become really into pink since I left. Not the singer, but the color. I find it cute and tend to react girly to it. I don't know why. I used to always hate pink, especially on me, but since coming to Japan...I dunno. My Nintendo DS is pink (and now has stickers on it that say Princess and some little red hearts). My cell phone is pink. I have some pink shirts. Chris taunts me with the pink PSP (but it's way too expensive to justify). Now...my shoes are pink! Look it!



Aren't they just too too? ... Ok, I've been getting my hip lingo from cartoons on Nickelodeon...maybe I should avoid that from now on. Let's try again!



Aren't they really cute? It's even better when you realize they aren't Adidas. They are Adimouse! Hah! Off brand! They have little mice on them. So cute. The tongue also reads: "Adimouse. The best shoe for all conditions original brand." Nice! I changed the shoelaces for the pink polka dotted ones. I just had way too much fun in the shoe store. I think it made Chris smile because he knows I have been hard up to buy new shoes here (my size is 24.5 which is the absolute top size in Japan for women and they are really hard find so I haven't been able to buy shoes). They have these awesome Purple converse (in my size!!) that I hope to get when they come down in price.

Anyways, I'm really excited about my news shoes. Too cute!

In other news, I have found this picture that was taken when I first got to Japan. It's a purikura (print club) picture that was taken on our first trip to Yonago with everyone. It was really the first time I got to hang out with the other ALTs and stuff. It was a good trip (can't remember what we watched, though). It's bent because it was in my wallet for the longest time.


(Angharad, Chris, Me, Jason, Mark)

Anyways, I find myself just staring at this picture all the time. Seriously, I think it weirded Chris out until I explained my motivations behind the staring. You know how when people decide to go on a diet, they put up a picture of them that makes them look really fat? That's never really helped me. It's always just depressed me (and when I'm depressed, I tend to comfort eat). Well, turns out, the opposite helps me much much more. This picture was taken not long after I went on my diet in America. I lost a lot of weight and had finally reached a weight that was in the recommended range for my height. Anyways...I like to look at this picture to give me determination not to snack during the day. Or to stop eating when I'm full (which is dumb, but Japan doesn't do doggy bags so it seems like you HAVE to eat it all or it's a waste).

I now keep it by my computer. I still stare at it. It's probalby unhealthy or something. But it's my hope that it motivates me to not be such a lump-lump for my last few months here. To stop sitting and watching TV and just get out and do something. Even if it's just to bike around. We shall see how it goes!

Now, American Idol is coming on in 30 minutes! How exciting! It's a new one for us (about 2 or 3 weeks behind you guys). Hope you have a happy Saturday as well.

Schools days

So I've finally gotten my schedule figured out for this next semester. And I've decided that I'm going to refer to them like I refer to them here. Last time, I always would type what I normally say and then go back and 'translate' it. So try to remember, because I'm not going to do that anymore. This will be the last time.

Anyways at Nishi (highschool), I will be going on Mondays and Fridays (which is awesome, because most of the time, special things are on Mondays and Fridays since they are next to the weekends, so it means some free time). On Monday, I teach the 3 no 5 (Third years/seniors, fifth class) during second period. On Friday, I teach 2 no 5 (second years/juniors, fifth class). But! They have split this class into two different classes, the advanced (S) and rest of them (R). I teach S second period and R fourth period. So my Monday and Friday mornings are going to be filled.

It's cool because I am team teaching this year. The teacher I am with is named Rika Tanabe. She is so nice. She's only 22 though! It's so funny because when she said that I was like "ahhh! You are so young!" which is the same thing that everyone used to say to me when I came (and it annoyed me). It's just very rare for someone to get a job teaching English straight out of university. Normally you have be in this weird limbo position where you are an assistant teacher at a school but not really a teacher. For some reason, most people tend to do that for a couple of years until they pass a mysterious english exam and are suddenly qualified to teach. It's odd. But anyways, I was just very surprised to see a teacher so young. We've had two classes together, both the 2 no 5s. It was very nice to teach with someone. It seemed to go a lot smoother. Or, at least, it will once we iron out the kinks and she gets more used to teaching in front of students that she's not that much older than.

Kisuki is always moving around and bouncing. I went from three students in my little kid class to 6 in a week! It's crazy. I think there are some more potential students, and if they pan out, James will split that class. Right now it's still on Wednesday and Thursdays but I think that's going to change to Tuesday and Wedensdays. Who knows though! Only time will tell...or something.

I do want to take the time here to say, you remember how I ranted and raved about that old guy who was so rude? Yeah...I'm going to redact that complaint now. Heh. Anyways, turns out that when I teach him and James isn't there and the old flaky lady isn't there, he's really really nice. He's genuinely interested in learning English. He already has a pretty large vocabulary, it's really just his syntax that is so bad. We also had a long chat discussing the TV shows 24 and Prison Break. He likes Prison Break the best, but he think The Fugitive is a way better show. n He liked the character Richard Kimble. Says Prison Break is fully of very young people. Heh. It's pretty funny. Chris and I are watching Prison Break right now (and just about to finish season one, so no spoilers!) and now I really have to finish this week so I can go discuss it with Mr. Takeda. How fun. He's probably one of my best students. Not in terms of ability, but because he's interested in English the way I'm interested in Japanese. So it's cool. The other student in my adult class never comes! She always cancels or just flakes out. It's bizarre because she came by last week and paid for last month AND this month and then totally flaked out of class again. I really just don't get it. James and I both call her the flake. Isn't that mean? Who knows what's going to happen to this class. It's a shame because I enjoy teaching Mr. Takeda. Who woulda thunk?

Chris also went back to school this week. He was at his Junior high and did absolutely nothing for the first four days. Poor guy. I think the doing nothing but sitting around for 8 hours really sucks. Drives him crazy. On Friday, he did his self-introduction but made it funny. He did things like talk about how Mt. Fuji was the most famous mountain in Japan and that Abe Shinzo was his brother (look him up! Wordly people should know who he is). Chris used pictures and did a slideshow for the kids. The best part of his slide show, and what I shall leave you with is this, his final picture. When showing a picture of himself and his hobbies, he popped this picture up:



Have a great week!

Oops!

I linked to the wrong set of pictures and whenever I try to edit my journal it deletes half of it! SO new entry!

Here are the right pictures!

Click on the above sentence to get to the pictures.

Long time no update! This one is really long and moderately interesting

The Easter bunny came!

This morning (Easter morning) I got up and headed to the grocery to get some food for lunch. In our mailbox, someone had left 2 Cadbury Eggs. :) How nice of someone! I don't know who left them, but I have my suspicions! I already ate my egg. It was tasty (but SWEEEEET). Hooray! And Happy Easter to all of you at home.

Yesterday was the big parade. I will put pictures in my photobucket account soon and then edit and link you to the page. It was really cool. We dressed up in "fuedal" Japanese armor and marched down the street. I was a woman warrior (onnamusha). We had ugly costumes. They were turquoise and peach. I don't know why. There were also spear men, archers, rifle men,
hand maidens, samurai, generals, colonels, princesses, and a lord. Some guys got to ride horses and there was a big wagon with an ox/cow pulling it. So nifty looking. We've been practicing for 3 months now (actually, I only went to two practices because really...how much do you need to practice walking slowly?).

Actually doing the parade was less cool. I am positive that within the next few weeks, the really sucky parts of the parade will fade and I will be left with the coolness of it. I got there at 7:30 in the morning and put in armor. This was a HUGE blow to my self esteem because the armor is one size fits all, but I am no where near Japanese shaped so they had to jimmy-rig it to get it to stay on. There were leg things that we had to wear, and while it fit on one leg, they had to tie it on my other leg because my leg was too big (however, not because it's fat! I will get to that in a moment). The armor was moderately comfortable in the beginning. The problem was that you could NOT go to the bathroom in it. Like, when I got there at 7:30, the lady who was to dress me told me to go to the bathroom, because I would not get a chance to go until the armor came off. That is kinda miserable.

So I got dressed by 8:00 and headed out to a gymnasium to wait. There...we waited from 8:00 to 10:50 to get bussed over to the parade site. Why did we have to get ready so early then? *sigh* Who knows. I think they just wanted to make sure everyone was ready in time. There were about 300 people participating in the parade and EVERYONE had complicated costumes to wear. But still, there were enough people dressing us and helping that we could have gotten there at 9:00 and been fine. Well, the hand-maiden outfits and make-up probably needed to take a long time because it was make-up and wig intensive. But the rest of us would be ok. It only took me 30 minutes to get ready and that took so long because they put the wrong armor on me and when they went to put the right armor on, they had to fix the straps to make it able to fit me.

We got to the parade site at 11:00 (they actually were bussing us over in groups and for some reason, my stupid group was second to last and that's why we waited so long. They started bussing at 10:00). There, we waited for the parade to start. I think it was more of a photo op for people. There were people everywhere taking pictures of everyone. We all did look amazing. At the parade site, they finally armed us. We had a Katana strapped to our left side (katana = Japanese style sword) and a naginata held in our right hand (naginata = polearm with a long curved blade on the end). Don't worry! It was made from wood and really much lighter than I was anticipating.

At 12:00 they lined us up in parade order. There was a speech that we couldn't hear because we were pretty far away when all lined up. We were pretty much in the middle of the procession. We stood and waited for a pretty long time.

I guess now I should pause and tell you about the parade. It just occured to me that I haven't actually talked about it before. The parade was in Matsue. 300 volunteers (we signed up in January) were accepted and we were dressed as warriors from about 400 years ago. This parade was supposed to be a recreation of the old processions that used to take place whenever a lord/landholder/daimyou (whatever you want to call him) was instructed to go to Tokyo. Chris chose not to participate. He decided he had enough of parades from doing marching band and would rather just take pictures (which was really a good thing). There were special tryouts to be one of two princesses, the landlord's wife, the landlord, the prince (5 year old boy) and a few other people. I actually tried out for the princess but they were going for authenticity for these people and I am not very Japanese princess-looking. About 20 other foreigners volunteered to be in the parade as well.

Ok, so back to the day of the parade. So we lined up at 12:00 and waited to hear the signal to start. The signal was for the guy playing the lord would yell the orders to head out and then they would blow the conch shells (for real yo, they had conch shells!) and then the music would start and we would march. That happened at 12:50. Because it was such a long line and such a slow pace we were to take (we were to take a step once every 3 or 4 seconds!), we didn't actually move from our spot for another 20 minutes!

I'm guess the parade route was 2 km long. It took us until 2:30 before we ended up at the Mastue Castle. During the middle of the parade, we stopped marching on an old bridge and did a dance-routine thing with our weapons. I sucked at it! My excuse is this, we had to wear old fashion Japanese style sandals which are essentially flat, vaguely foot-shaped soles made of woven straw and wrapped around your feet and ankles with rope. These were very uncomfortable AND slippery on pavement. Since we (the woman warrior group) were the last group that was to dance (other groups didn't have to) and on a bridge and I was in the back line of our group, I was on an incline. I kept slipping down the bridge when I would take a step back. Very difficult. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Anyways, we marched those 2 km and got to the castle at 2:30. Chris had basically followed the parade the whole way taking pictures and met us at our stopping point in the castle gates. It was funny because we started with the slow, slow march but by the end, the drummers sped up the beat and we were actually marching a more normal speed. I think we were running out of time.

When we got to the parade end, we were instructed to wait. You see, this was another photo op for people. Anyone who wanted, could ask to take pictures. And many many people took pictures. We were also supposed to wait for big group pictures. At 3:30 they had a closing ceremony. At 3:45 my group photo was taken and I was finally allowed to go back and change out of the armor. By this time, the moderately comfortable armor was super uncomfortable. There were several sashes tied tightly around me and my back was just aching. The shoes weren't much like shoes at all and it felt like we walked all that way barefoot except for the rope stuck between our toes (they were designed like thongs, though we did have socks with split toes so we could wear socks). My arm ached from carry the naginata in the same position for 2 hours.

And I had to pee. >.<

However, I will take the time to mention that my group was very fortunate with the costumes. We had the lightest armor (except for the hand-maidens who didn't wear any armor) and the fabric of our costume was a light material that let air move through and kept us cool. Other people had some heavy heavy armor. I am willing to say that they were probably way more uncomfortable than I was. Some guys even had huge helmets! Poor guys (we had headbands with a metal strip in the front that kinda hurt, but it was just a headband and not too bad).

At 4:00, I was finally back at the gym and able to change. Every layer that I took off felt so wonderful. My legs were killing me. I was also parched since I didn't drink any all day and I hadn't eaten anything all day. I got dressed and Chris picked me up at 4:15. What a long day! Do the math! I went from 7:30 to 4:15 without going to the bathroom once. I didn't eat, didn't drink, and wore uncomfortable and ill-fitting costumes for that time. It was actually quite miserable. Everyone was very good sports about it (even me) though. Because it was a special thing to do. And like I said, I'm sure the miserable parts will start to fade and only the coolness of it will remain.

But still...you guys should give me mad props. You know me very well and my fear of not being able to go to the bathroom. Almost 9 HOURS without going to the bathroom even once! I did very good.

When we headed home, we stopped at a convenience store and got two bottles of water (Chris was hot and tired as well, since he stayed with the parade and walked a lot) and some chips for something to eat. I downed one bottle in a matter of minutes. I don't think I have ever been so thirsty in my life.

We got home at 5:00 and my intentions were nothing but to nap for a bit. So Chris and I took a nap for an hour. When we got up at 6:00 I found out why my right leg wouldn't fit in the leg-armor thing. We had a practice on Friday night. It was the last practice. I stretched my right calf funny when I took a step. I felt the muscle spasm and it started to hurt. Turns out, I pulled a muscle so my leg was swollen. Ahhhhh. It all makes sense! However, I didn't realize that at the time of the parade yesterday morning. I thought I just had a cramp. This was unfortunate, because I ended up walking on my pulled muscle for many hours and pulled it even worse! When I got up from my nap, I could barely move my leg it hurt. However, I got up and stretched a bit and it felt better. But I was relieved to figure out that my right leg wasn't just hugely obese...it was just swollen! :)

Today, my leg is still ouchy. But it's livable. I do have a large bruise on the back where I pulled the muscle but it's probably just a small strain and walking on it yesterday so much aggravated it. How silly!

Since I had a practice on Friday night and Chris wasn't in the parade, he dropped me off and found the import grocery store. Oh my gosh! We have been having the tastiest meals these past couple of days. Last night, we had chili-cheese dogs! Aiiyeee! It was heavenly! It's been so long since we had chili. Chris found chili in the import store (both with and without beans). Hormel chili too! And then today for lunch I had a ham sandwich. But wait...I had a ham sandwich...with Helmen's Mayonnaise! OH! It was so so so very good. Japanese mayonnaise is very, very vinegary and not much like American mayonnaise at all. It's not bad, but it took some getting used to. But Chris surprised me with mayonnaise and it was divine. It took my regular ham sandwich and kicked it up a notch!

Chris also bought tortillas (because the store that had them in Izumo stopped selling them because they hate us and are evil), barbecue sauce, refried beans, and nacho topping. The import store is a fabulous find and something we will take advantage of for our remaining time here.

Today we went to hanami. Hanami is a huge tradition in Japan where you go and have a picnic underneath the cherry trees. A lot of other ALTs were going to meet up in a park and we would picnic together. Chris and I didn't really want to picnic but we figured we would meet them for a bit and visit. We have some really pretty pictures of the trees and different groups eating. It's the last real day of cherry blossom viewing so it wasn't that busy. Again, I will put the pictures in my photobucket soon. When we got there, two other ALTs had beat us and been invited to another group's picnic. While it was extremely nice of them to want to share their food with us, I was really disappointed that we merged picnics. It was my intention to relax and spend time with people I haven't seen much lately (being vacation time, everyone has been off doing their own thing). But sharing with a Japanese group, it made it feel like work. Like we had to entertain them. It really really felt like a work party and not like a time to relax and enjoy that sakura (cherry trees). Oh well, Chris and I left after about an hour so it was all good. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the sharing and stuff. It was nice to meet those guys but just not my thing.

And I think that's it! If you are wondering why I haven't posted about Will being here and his trip it's because of this: what we did with Will, was what we did with everyone who visited. I've talked about it before and just posting about seeing Taisha or going to restaurants seems repetitive and boring. It's actually why I haven't updated in so long. I just had no energy to write about something I've already spoken about three times before. Just know it was wonderful having him here. I think he had a lot of fun and an interesting time. I know we had a good time. He got here safely and returned home safely. It was an all around good trip.

I know this was a super long entry, but I figured I could get away with it with doing the parade and all. I hope you enjoyed it!

Edit: Pictures!
Mastue Parade
Hanami