Blah!

It's SO humid...(how humid is it?)

It's so humid, that if I don't dry my hair, it stays damp the entire day! Bah-dum-bump!

But seriously, Chris and I are both struggling with this problem. The air is so damp that our hair just never fully gets dry. It's troublesome. And I'm not just talking about when you keep your hair in a ponytail all day it never dries in the middle. But just when it's down and air drying, it stays damp. Ugh, my hair is not doing well because of this. Chris' is super curly at the moment. Normally his hair is just wavy, but lately it's been very curly. He got a haircut to try to combat the problem, but it's still much curlier than normal.

In other news, I've finished with my school in Kisuki. No more of that! I'm free! Hooray! We had a goodbye party for me last Sunday and this was my last week. The new guy, Adam, came a few times. Turns out, he's a bit of a tool. Poor James (owner of the Eikaiwa). He's kinda apprehensive about the new guy because he's so annoying and clueless about things. I don't have much good to say about this guy, so lets move on!

It's finals week at Nishi so I have so more time off. I really only have 3 days left at Nishi. It's hard to believe it's all coming to an end. I like Nishi. I think I will definitely miss it, even though it's gotten kinda boring since I'm not the main teacher anymore. I've been hanging out with Rika more, which is cool. She's a nice girl. I hope she's able to make friends with the remaining JETs.

I've also been hanging out with Imaoka-san lately. We've been doing lunches on Wednesday. I really wish I had started that earlier because it's something to look forward to. We meet on Wednesdays, have lunch, and then we've been doing work on translating and editing a pamphlet for Izumo-Taisha. It's interesting!

Next week is when I will official start getting ready to leave. I will sell off some of the stuff sitting in the back bedroom and then start organizing stuff to be packed, thrown away, or even shipped home. It's all very exciting. I'm sure it's going to be tough when I start. Especially because I have a LOT of big boxes of appliances to drag down to the Off-House. I sure hope they take it all. Otherwise we are going to have to find people to just take it. Since there are 6 other people leaving at the same time, there is a surplus of stuff out there. Oh well. Good luck to me and the Off-House.

Tutoring and guitar lessons have also officially come to an end. Soon the satellite subscription will be cancelled and we will be having to turn off a lot of out services. 4 weeks left, man. Lots to do lots to do.

We also have some more leaving parties to go to. It should be fun. There is a big Leavers Party somewhere in Sada, but Chris and I chose not to go since it's an overnight thing and that's not really our style.

And lastly, just so you know. This is PROBABLY going to be my last journal entry. I'm definitely not going to keep writing when I return to America and my last few weeks here are going to be super busy as I pack and spend my last bit of time sight seeing and taking pictures that I haven't got yet. So, don't worry if I don't update again. I have to stop sometime and now seems like as good a time as any!

See you all soon! Love you all!

Days turn into weeks

Hello hello! I'm am feeling rather perky. Probably because I just ate yummerific tacos. We made them (of course) but they were still very tasty. Mexican food is always a great revitalizer! Also, we had chili dogs for dinner last night. American food for the win!

It was a good day today. Chris got home at 11:00 am and we spent most of the afternoon just hanging out. It's Izumo area middle school sports bonanza! Well, that's not what it's called in Japanese, but since I don't know what it's called, I thought I would give it an English name (it was going to be sports fiesta, but that sounds so cliche. Anyways, because all the middle schools are doing major sports competitions with each other, Chris gets to come home after 3rd period. He's supposed to go see sporting events but...whatever. We did go see some 3chu baseball. Baseball is more boring in Japan and middle school than America, though. Did you know they almost always bunt? No really. They will try to bunt even when no one is on base. I don't get it.

I did have classes this evening but they went fine. When I was driving to Kisuki I stumbled across the brilliant idea of making Father's Day cards! Woo! That takes 30 of my 60 minutes of class and is cool for the kids to do. Or at least I think so. I make them write English greetings and phrases on the cards and stuff. Man, David better look out. He's already got two cards that I made and will probably get 2 more! Too bad he won't get them in time. But shhh...it's a secret. Does David read my journal? Don't look David! It's a secret/surprise! (ok, now that I've gotten that covered).

We got our plane tickets today! Not the ones from Narita to Atlanta, but the ones from Izumo to Haneda. We fly out of Izumo at 7:40 am on July 26. Then, we arrive at Haneda around 9:00. After that, we take another hour or so bus to the airport. We are going to be there way, way early (flight leaves at 3:30). But whatever, it's way better than missing our flight! Plus, we will have Chris' computer and so we can watch movies and stuff on it while we wait. Still, getting the tickets is very exciting! It took Chris three tries to get his ticket because the poor dude at the travel agency kept spelling his name wrong and inserting extra A's. We figured out the Chris has an insanely long name ('Christopher' alone has 11 letters). My 5 lettered name was much easier on the guy. Though my name in romaji is rather silly (Suuzan uirisu).

On Sunday night, Chris, Jason, and I went to the arcade. Jason wanted to get some Purikura (Print Club photobooth thingies) for a camp he was going to this week and asked me to help him out with it. Purikura was fun, kinda hot though in those little booths. Jason mainly took pictures by himself and I helped him decorate one set. I did abandon him to play some games though (bad me!). Between Chris and I, though, we came home with 5 toys/prizes! Let's see them!


This is a mushroom! It dispenses toothpicks. Hee. We haven't opened it yet, but I am more than happy to have it at home and maybe use it there. It's cute. You press down on he button that looks like a chimney and it pokes out a toothpick. Precious! Chris won it from a pusher game. The prizes sit on a spinning round thing with a hole in the middle and you try to push the toys into the hole and win them. We found one that was really easy to win (it didn't have a lip like most of them so you could just push things right into the pit).


This is Mario running. I won him from a crane game. I didn't think I would, Chris just thought I should try it. I got him on the first try! I just caught him by his head and arm. I really thought he would drop before it got to the prize hole, but it didn't! Awesome. He stands on his own too. Sweeet!




Hah. This is a voice amplifier. You talk through the microphone and it makes your voice louder. That's pretty much all it does. Chris gets a kick out of it though and keeps threatening to take it to school and freak out the kids. This was also won by the pusher game. Chris won it while I was doing purikura with Jason.





And finally, these! These are Yawaraka no Sensha. That means fragile tanks. They are tanks that go to war and get bitten by mosquitoes, eaten/pounced on by cats, and poked by mean little children so they bruise like children. So cute. I won the baby tank and Chris won the other one. Here is where they are from (watch and enjoy):




This is Gordo. He's a monokuro boo. I won him several months ago, I just forgot to mention him. This was from a lifter game. He was sitting on a seat thing and I spun a spinner and tried to make the seat lift 5 times and dump him down into the prize hole. It was kinda hard because you could hit any number from -5 to +5. There is a white pig that pairs with Gordo (the black pig) and Chris tried to win him for me but couldn't. And then it wasn't there anymore. Oh well. I still have Gordo. He's pretty big too. (gordo means fat in Spanish, Chris named him)

So those are our arcade prizes. Pretty nifty, huh?

And finally, in other news, we've started watching Heroes from iTunes. It's a really awesome show, though really complicated and one that you really need to watch from the beginning. The only reason I mentioned it is because there are two Japanese characters in the show who speak Japanese a lot. It's fascinating to be able to understand what they are saying in the original language while reading the subtitles. It's a whole new way to watch things. It's like we get two different dialogues and is pretty rad. Also, we noticed right away the Masi Oka is NOT a native speaker of Japanese. His accent is pretty much on par with my Japanese accent and is really noticable to someone who is surrounded by native Japanese. I can tell that he can speak Japanese, but it's not one of his native tongues. Ironically, the other Japanese character is played by a Korean guy and his accent is better and much closer to being fluent. Nifty! Sometimes, there are Americans speaking Japanese on the show and they are TERRIBLE. You can really tell they don't know Japanese and have just learned it phonetically. They put too much stress and intonation into the words. It's bizarre.

Anyways, I thought that would be interesting to mention. I never thought about watching shows in Japanese with English subtitles and understanding both at the same time. It's neato. Plus, being able to hear accents in Japanese is a huge indicator that my listening has gotten much better since coming Japan. I'm still far from fluent, but I'm much closer than when I started.

So that's that. I hope I didn't ramble too much. Now I have the yawakara tank song in my head. Oh dear...

And now, for something new!

Chris wrote a short note and posted it on his facebook. I've asked for his permission to post it here. :)


What I've gotten out of Japan...
- official documentation that I can skillfully drive on the wrong side of the road.
- appreciation for anyone who could live their entire life here.
- sympathy for anyone who could live their entire life here.
- far more help from Mihara-san than I probably deserve.
- a marriage certificate.
- tonsilitis.
- the ability to play upwards of fifteen chords on the guitar.
- 431 raised eyebrows, 856 cocked heads, 225 wide-eyed stares, 5,016 funny looks, 485 confused handshakes, and 8 disturbing winks.
- heavier.
- homesick.
- innumerable photographs
- what is surely a life-long distaste for teaching elementary school.
- the chance to ride THE WORLDS FASTEST TRAIN IN THE WORLD.
- gray hairs.
- at least one hilarious story about slicing my hand open on broken glass.
- ok, well maybe it's not that hilarious.
- improved comprehension and fluency.
- the wrong impression.
- a few friends who will remain so after I leave.
- a few "friends" who will not.
- mad dollaz yenz.
- a mix of emotions.
- a .028 mm pen.
- the KANCHO.
- a burning desire to NOT eat rice everyday.
- retractable adamantium claws.
- ok, not really.
- experience.
- a taste for seaweed.
- this list.


isn't he a funny guy. So cute.

Happy Sunday!

Stupid hammers. They've been building a house across the parking lot from us for about 2 months. They had stopped though, for about a month and I got my guard down. Recently, they've started back and it's really REALLY annoying. They build all 7 days a week and they always start at 7:00 in the morning. Because of the way the buildings are situated, it creates quite an echo chamber and it sounds like they are hammering right next to your head. It's really a pain in the ass. Even worse, is that it used to be a lot of people working on the house so there was a lot of noise going on. And for some reason, that made it easier to tune out. Now there is just one hammer going at a time so you hear the "BANG BANG BANG BANG PAUSE BANG BANG BANG BANG PAUSE" over and over again for hours. Hmph...

Anyways, I don't think it's going to be too much of the problem because I think the rainy season has started or will start soon. It's rained every day this week. Not all day or anything, but it usually rains for about an hour in the afternoon, if not the whole day. It's keeping things really humid, but it does cool things off in the afternoon.

On Monday, we had a wicked thunder storm. It was so LOUD. The thunder seemed to rattle the entire apartment. One especially loud clap woke me from a deep sleep. Because we are in a valley, the thunder just echos off the mountains and the noise just seems to roll around. I like thunder storms at night because you can just listen but not have to go out and get all grumpy wet or anything.

My co-teacher seems skeptical that the rainy season is starting. I think there is an official day they declare the rainy season open and that's when everyone thinks it starts. It's really kinda dumb. I mean, it's been rainy all week and it doesn't seem likely to change for a bit. To me, that says 'rainy season'. Sometimes, people are a little ridiculous here when it comes to dates. They have unofficial dates that they do things and they never change them no matter the weather. For example, most people are STILL wearing long sleaves and the students are wearing winter uniforms (although without the sweaters). I can't figure it out really. It's so warm now, but the never spoken date to change to summer clothes hasn't happened yet (or maybe it happened on Friday when June started?). I guess it's like the old saying "don't wear white after labor day" that some people take to heart. I always thought that was dumb, too.

Nothing else is going on really. I have four more weeks left at Kisuki and I am definitely excited for that to end. The kids are great, but I just hate working that late at night. I feel like I waste my entire day waiting around to go to work at 4:00. Of course, I don't have the wait to go to work and the smart person would spend her mornings being busy...but...I'm a lazy bum. If I have to go to work at 4:00, then it just makes me completely unmotivated to do anything. It's terrible, but how I am.

In other news, I got a nice letter from Grandma. That really made my day. Both Grandma and Nana have been absolutely wonderful when it comes to sending me cards and letters. It always makes my day to go to my mailbox and see a letter waiting for me. It's just nice. Grandma even included a clipping from the newspaper about Linkin Park's new CD. Very interesting.

I can't wait to come home though. Less than two months. Something like 53 days or so (depends on how you count I guess). I really tried to not count days, but I think I am failing. Oh well. It's just very exciting. 4 more classes left at Kisuki, 4 more tutoring session, not that many more Nishi (especially when they keep being canceled) and so on. Sometimes I think about what less than two months means in weird terms.

For example, Chris and I go to the Italian restaurant about once every 3 weeks (unless I get a hankering). So that means only 2, maybe 3 times left to go to La Piace. We eat ramen once a week, so that's down to only 7 more trips to the ramen restaurant. I buy toilet paper once a month and I just bought some, so only one more time! I go to the Hok about twice a day so that's like 100 more times. Oh. I only have to spend 12 more days having late nights at Kisuki. Only 7 more Thursdays (I hate Thursdays). And so on and so forth. It's amazing how short less than two months can seem if you count the right way! :)

Speaking of happy things and food! Coco Ichi Ban Ya Curry House has REOPENED. Huzzah! (7 more trips to the curry restaurant!) One of my favorite students at Nishi works at the curry house and I finally asked her when it was going to reopen and she cheerfully said it opened last week. Huzzah! Chris and I went on Friday to celebrate. It's very brown. The remodeled the entire place and it's kinda dark and weird. I liked the orange. They also got rid of the Beatles music which is kinda sad. But that's ok, since I probably won't eat in the store many more times, just do take out. Hooray!

Well, that's all the chattiness I have in me I think. I'm going to go watch some tv! Hooray. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

He's alive!

Kumo-san is happily alive and living outside where he can be happy and free. I ended up just leaving him underneath the bowl and James dumped the spider outside yesterday. So I happy ending for everyone involved. :) How pleasant.

In other news, we mailed off our last two boxes today without any problems. The people were nice to us and very helpful. We sent a box that weighed 16 kg (35 pounds) and one that weighed 17 kg (37 pounds) by ship for only 19,000 yen ($190). Awesome. Apparently, we should have just taken back the giant box and broke it up into two boxes and saved like $100 but whatever. The giant box has made it home that. Merely a week to get home. So...I will just have to let go of my upset and get over it. Our stuff made it and we are officially done with shipping things home (I think).

We also found out this week, that the Izumo Board of Education is willing to not just pay for Chris' plane ticket from Narita to Atlanta ($1200!), but also a plane ticket from Izumo to Tokyo's Haneda airport ($250-300). Nice! That's going to make our trip home so much easier. Instead of taking an 8 hour train ride from Izumo, it's just an hour and a half flight and then another hour and a half bus ride to Narita. Cool. This means we don't have to spend the night in Tokyo. Woot!

Let's see, what else? I only have 5 weeks left at Kisuki, which totally rocks. I am ready to be done with that school. I really dislike working in the evenings. It's a drag and annoying. Just 5 lessons left per class. Also, for those keeping score at home...61 days until take off. :) How fun!

Oh! I punched Chris in the face the other night! Isn't that terrible? Ok, it wasn't a hard punch or even fast, but it made him grumpy. You see, he was sleeping really close to the middle of our futons. Usually, he likes to sleep against the wall, but apparently the curtains were blowing out onto his head so his scooted near me. I half woke up to find my elbow was aching (I sleep curled up in a tight-tight ball, so sometimes my joints will ache because they were stiff). Anyways, I decided to stretch out my arm to make it feel better and...well...BONK! I put my fist right into the bridge of Chris' sleeping nose.

Oh dear. So I cracked my eyes open to see if he woke up but he didn't appear awake so I just went back to sleep thinking I got away with it. Apparently, I was wrong. The next day he fussed at me for punching him and then going back to sleep. Oops. At least he can chuckle about it now. And he totally doesn't even have a bruise, so I think it didn't hurt. Heh.

Dangerous!

Well, I think that's all that I have to say today. Have a lovely weekend.!

Oh kumo-san...

Do you ever have one of those days? You know the kind? Extremely motivated and empowered? Like "I am Woman, here me roar" days. Where you know you are cool and hip and just awesome?

Yeah, me neither, but it would be nice, huh? ;-)

Anyways, I am a huge shrieky child today, apparently. And it's all kumo-san's fault. I HATE kumo-san.

Today is going well. It's boring as ususal (Thursdays usually are, I don't know why). It's not a bad day, not a great day, just another day to get through before moving home. I leave for work a little bit early to get a soda on the way over and get here without much incident.

There was some super slow lady in front of me that was driving me CRAZY! She was going 50 kilometers per hour. 50! Thats about 31 miles per hour! Ok, imagine having to drive 30 miles an hour from the Valley on Hightower to Blairsville with NO PASSING LANES. That's annoying. Like...eye explodingly annoying. However, no wrecks or even scares (and I did get to pass her in a passing zone at the end of my trip) so it wasn't that bad. Just a test of my patience.

Then...I get to Kisuki and it all comes apart.

I go to unlock the doors and I see through the glass that Kumo-san is just sitting in the middle of my floor staring at me. *shudder* Waiting for me! He's HUGE, too. Seriously. HYOOOOGE. He has to be the size of a half dollar if not bigger. Ick ick ick.

What do I do? I can't squish him. He's pure evil, but I always feel terribly guilty for squishing anything bigger than a fly. It's just icky and Chris' job. I was thinking I could wait for Mr. Takeda to come and squish me, because...you know...he's a dude and that want the men-folk are for. But that's a bad idea because as soon as Mr. Takeda walks in, he will pass Kumo-san and send him fleeing under furniture. Also, shrieking like a little howler monkey is probably not that good to do in front of a paying student.

So it was up to me to CATCH Kumo-san. Ooooo...terrible idea by the way. I did think smartly though, by turning on my new Linkin Park CD to drown out the screaming.

I arm myself with a styrofoam bowl and sneak up to Kumo-san (who is still sitting in the middle of my floor, as pretty as you please) and toss the bowl at him. Dumb! It's a styrofoam bowl so it of course throws as well as a paper plate. This also scares Kumo-san causing him to JUMP.

Squee! Cue me running in circles screaming because he jumped AT MY FACE (not really, he hopped like a half-inch off the floor...but still). He also scooted forward a couple of inches, no doubt mocking me. Hmph.

So I shuffle around and pick up my stoopid bowl and try again. This time, my idea is to drop the bowl on Kumo-san and hope that I'm so ninja fast that he won't see me coming. Would have worked too...except I approached Kumo-san from the front and he saw me coming. >.<>.<;;

Round 3. Attempt to drop the bowl on him from the back. Hah! Genius! Except...I'm slow. I just startled him again and sent him fleeing AND HOPPING again towards the desk with the computer on it. Grrr...oh of course I shriek again and bounce a little, but no running in circles this time. Take THAT Kumo-san.

Round 4. KO! I quickly drop the little bowl on him before he can really settle. HAH! Gotcha! He's there right now (causing my skin to crawl a bit...guuuuh...blehck). I will just leave him there for James tomorrow. He can dispose of Kumo-san.

Actually, I feel guilty because I think he will die if I leave him trapped in the bowl. I should do the catch him on paper thing and set him outside but that's too scary. As of now, he's still under the bowl, which is under a box of tissues and a shoe. He's not escaping on my watch. Maybe I can take the bowl off and let James know there is a huge spider running around in the classroom that he has to get rid of before I come back. Of course, taking the bowl off means possibly being jumped on by Kumo-san. And that's not going to happen. Decisions, decisions.

Ick. My little girly heart can't take it!

What WILL become of Kumo-san? Tune in later to find out!

kumo = spider in Japanese for those not in the know. San = respectiful title. Kumo-san means Mr. Spider.

Has This Ever Happened to You?

So I was closing out my bank account yesterday. I finally got my tax return deposited in my account so I decided to close out my account since I no longer needed it (Nishi and the Kisuki eikaiwa both pay me in cash). I decided to tackle this one on my own since we already ask so much of Mihara-san. So I went to the counter and said that I wanted to close my account. The lady just smiles and hands me a couple of forms to fill out. I start writing my name in English (but they have a small place to write your name phonetically in Japanese script) and I'm doing great! I mean, I've been writing my name since I was about 5 or so and doing it in Japanese for the past 6 years.

So I'm filling out these forms, pleased with my unrivaled ability to spell my own name in two languages when, out of no where, this old man runs up making an "ooooh!" noise. He then proceeds to watch intently as I write my name (there were a couple of forms and i already did the address stuff). He tries to read my name and then claps with glee when I spell it phonetically. No, I'm not making this up. He tells me I am very excellent at Japanese. Skill-full, that's me! The lady at the window and his wife just smile apologetically, but in the words of Tony Soprano, what are you gonna do?

So after I sit down and wait to be processed, the old guy sits next to me and we chat. He declares that I am highly skilled at Japanese. Weird! Only in Japan...

Anyways, it's weird how different the mindset is in Japan vs America. In America, if you come into the country, you are assumed to speak English no matter your original nationality. It's just expected. And if you don't, you are called stupid and looked down upon. In Japan, if you are foreign, it's assumed that you don't speak Japanese at all. But, if you speak even a little of Japanese, you are considered a genius. It bizarre and kinda sucks that both countries have these attitudes.

note: I'm not saying everyone in America feels that way, but it's a definite overall attitude that the country tends to have.

Anyways, I did get my bank account closed with no problem. On Monday, I took our change bowl in to get counted and put in my account. It was awesome. It turned out to be 4732 yen in change! Awesome, considering that it was mainly 1 and 10 yens. Woot! I had so much change that it kept jamming the counting machine. Woops. It seriously took like 30 minutes for them to count all my change. I almost broke the machine because I had accidentally left 2 nickels, a penny, and a quarter in the jar. Oops.

Let's see...what else? Heh...I seem to be getting everything out of order.

Monday morning was kinda a bust for Nishi. I got up early and biked all the way over there. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed riding in the sun and getting some exercise. I even wore a cap and everything. Unfortunately, when I got there...Rika came up to me looking very, very...abashed. Apparently...my class had been canceled AGAIN but she forgot to let me know. Doh! Oh well...at least it got me out of the house. If it were rainy or windy, I probably would have been upset...but I really wasn't. It was just a nice day.

On Sunday, Chris and I had a nice day. We went to Matsue in the afternoon and I got a new purse of bigness! It's really big! I like it though. I can fit almost everything in it! I can carry my text book and all kinds of things. It also has a smaller bag that I can snap on and off of it with it's own strap. It's really neat.

After we got back from Matsue, Jason came over to play some games and watch American Idol's Idol Gives Back performance show. It was really nice. We had yummy pizza and everything!

So things have been going good. We have two smaller boxes that we will ship off soon and that should be the last of our shipping stuff. The next step becomes organizing things and seeing what we want to sell and want we want to pack. Most of the stuff in our apartment will be sold. I imagine that a lot of things will be given away as well. Like toilet paper or food. I kinda expect Jason to come raid out cabinets, which is fine. I actually hope people want the stuff because we won't need it.

Huzzah! Have a great week! (wow! It's already wednesday! What a quick week)