PANTS

I like to wear anything i like. Sometimes i take it for granted as at other schools ALTs need to wear pants all the time. But i hate wearing pants escpecially when it is muggy and hot. If i could i would wear shorts all year round. I can even wear em in the winter. Anyways in the morning since it was raining i just decided to try out the pants. But when i got to school i felt it was so muggy and sticky that it annoyed me to wear pants. Maybe i will wait another month or two to wear pants. Back to shorts!

MORE RAIN

Another week, and guess what another typhoon. This year is strange where there is 3x more typhoons than usual. Today i am a bit smarter and didnt take the train anywhere, because last time when i went out to kobe, i had to stay overnite. There was a brief strong point in the evening that seemed something like out of a movie where the wind was howling and the rain was shooting sideways causing the power to be out momentarily. But then in another gasp it was over. But unfortunately our other half of Sports Day which is supposed to be finished tomorrow might be over too because the school grounds probably have turned into a swimming pool. Well we will see tomorrow.

JACKIE CHAN?

Today at school i wore my favorite t-shirt. On the shirt is a picture of Bruce Lee on a skateboard. Pretty cool i thought when i bought it in thailand. My students thought it was cool too, just that they thought it was jackie chan!!! I know they both do martial arts but i am not sure how they look alike??? Over 60% were like, wow, jackie chan. Oh how embarassing, maybe it is because they are a bit younger, cuz bruce lee is kinda old. But then again how come they didnt say it was jet li?? After a little explanation, they caught on it was bruce lee and not jackie chan. Maybe i should write bruce lees name on the front next to the picture.

M I C K E Y !

Up late watching tv, tonite was the music video countdown. The top 20 hosted the usual bands and singers of j-pop, rock, and others. But the #1 video was not of the normal. And strangely enough it was all in english. How could the japanese understand this mysterious song? Or heck in my words even endure the harsh lyrics. It was a song brought back from the darkness of time, or sometimes we call vinyl. Oh yes, it appeared on my elementary schools sports day, and that caught me off guard, but i should have been tipped off by the cute little mouse ears they had put on. To have their cute picture immortalized to be only remembered by that number one hit song called "Oh Mickey!" when they twirl around in their mickey mouse outfits. But day by day nothing has ceased to suprise me.

TO QB CUT

Nothing much going on today, just was lazy sleeping in, and got brave enough to go get a haircut. The thing is that my regular guy that speaks english was not in, and damn i needed a cut. Its been awhile, maybe like 4 months or something and i was looking really japanese. So lucky susanne got the idea to use my old id card, has my old picture with my short hair, not the best pic, but hey it worked! So after a quick cut cut and vacum, i was all done, refreshed and ready to go.

BOOM! THUNDER!

Boom, Boom. That is all i heard this morning around 4am. It was the sounds of thunder and lightning passing by. Too tired i didnt think much of it, but today was the same day as my Sports festival at school. A wierd ritual done at every japanese school, passed on from generation to generation. Anyways it was to be held outside. The key word was "was", but to my dismay when i woke up this morning it was raining cats and dogs. Tried to call my teachers to see if it was still on, but to no avail. Of course they call everyone else to say if it is canceled or not, but not me. So i decided to crawl out of bed and make my 5 minute walk to school. At school, there were no bikes nor kids to be seen, but there was a nice sign in japanese which i barely understood. So i just rolled into school anyways. Darn, all the teachers were there, so i guess it was kinda a work day. The kids were told to watch the news for the typhoon warning. If the warning was to be lifted by 10am the kids were to report back to school. How dumb, all the kids arent gonna watch the tv just to come to school. Then what do you know, 10 minutes before 10am the warning was lifted. So the kids had to report. But of course only maybe like a 1/3 of them came. They stayed for a useless hour in homeroom and then were sent home at lunch. Oh my, couldnt really do club practice or sports day practice. No one was at school. So in the end, it was another short day. Noon time equals go home early! Yipee!

ANOTHER ROCK STAR DAY

Just when the class gets slow, and kids are struggling to pay attention, sometimes i am like heck i am glad with that class at the end. But then it takes only one kid to start the paparazzi attack. First one kid wants an autograph on his notebook. Then another and another, then comes the whole class like a swarm of bees. Everything from paper to their hats i am signing. Heck i dunno why, just because i am a foreigner. There are so many kids, that they are pushing me around. There is definetly strength in numbers even if they are in 3rd grade. But ya know, sure feels cool to be loved. Little things like that make me appreciate my job. Somedays i feel like a rock star at elementary school! So cool to just walk into school and everyone under 5 feet tall is saying HI to you. It definetly is a different world from junior high school.

SPORTS DAY PRACTICE WITH THE LITTLE ONES

Another friday, another day at elementary school. Today i was off to issai higashi elementary school. A nice cute small school. Today, luckily only had to teach one class due to what else but sports day training. They were in rehearsal for sports day the following weekend.

I seen my junior high kids sports day but never the little ones. So it was a first. First everyone in the school was split into two teams, white and red. Big kids and little kids mixed together. They had chants at the begining between the teams on the big outside dirt ground. Next came the first event. Two huge balls, almost as tall as me were rolled out. One red ball and one white, the object was the kids to stand in a line around the field, and when the big ass ball came rolling they would have to push it along from their spot. It was quite a sight when they started and the ball was rolling, the ball was so big that i was afraid that some of the 1st graders would get runned over or something. Well no one got runned over in the end, but there was alot of cheering on the white team as they won, but the poor kids on the red side didnt look to happy.

Throughout the day there were a series of events such as that big ball race, kids doing traditional japanese dances, and even a crew of youngings doing a dance to a mickey mouse song all dressed up in mickey mouse gear, oh my how they will not forgive their parents later on for the embarassing outfit, but hey when you are young everything looks cute. Then between the various events there were a million relay races between the teams.

Before things wrapped up the dark clouds rolled in, and rain started pouring like crazy, kids running for cover. Practice was over, but then just like that 5 minutes later it stopped. Oh well it was close enough to lunch time and i was hungry! School lunch here i come!

BACK TO THE HOSPITAL

Today was checkup day, so had to head out to kobe to see dr. kato again. Last week saw dr. kato and she gave me some super drugs that did the trick. No more stomach pains.

Before going out to kobe, it was funny that michele had a appointment too, on the same day. Yes, dr. kato is that good that even my neighbor goes, and to even reconfirm that when we got the hospital we even encounter some jets that we kinda know too, how funny, it was like a reunion of sorts.

Anyways, dr. kato is awesome, even with how busy she is, she takes the time to listen to you, and actually understands you. Then she goes through everything with you. Today she looked over my blood tests, most things good, just gotta cut back on the eggs, aka cholestrol. Then the ultrasound looked good also, liver good, other stuff good, and no baby. In the end, since the pills were working good, she probably thinks that it was stress causing my upset stomach. Guess i gotta chill out more or something. Maybe too many things going on with me. So got an order of months supply just in case and thanked her and i was on my merrily way.

FUMI GOING HOME

Interm roommate fumi had to head back home to tokyo to start school again in the fall. It was nice to have a roomie again and have someone to talk to. Just need a bigger place, the apt here in japan isnt quite as spacious as the one back home. Well heck, currently it is just about half the size. Guess back to my lonely self in front of the computer.

BBQ AND BATH

Nothing like one last bbq for fumi going away. With fumi and yuka, we rounded up the goods at the local jusco store, beef, chicken, shrimp, scallops, and of course beer. Set to go we decided to go to our near by bridge in town, under the bridge was a nice paved piece of cement where we could put out our grill. Not quite the golden gardens bbq of back home, but it will do. Just sat and chatted and had a good time. Nothing like a a good ole bbq in japan.

Of course after stuffing ourselves we also smelt like bbq. Smokey clothes and hair is not good. So to top things off fumi wanted to hit up the local sento in town. A sento is basically a huge nice public bath for the community to use. Very popular in japan, not so popular in america. Anyways lucky since tatsuno is very small, everything is super close. So we rolled down to the sento, i have been to a couple before but not this one. I particularly did not venture to this one in fear of seeing either my students or teachers. It is one thing to see them, it is another to see them naked, or in fact they see you naked. But just for fumi i braved it.

Fumi being the onsen/sento specialist with over 20 in his belt rest assured that this one was very nice, and if not the nicest one he has been to. When arriving, i would believe he is correct. Being brand spanking new, it carried a nice designer look, with an old japanese feel. By far it was the best one i went to. Usually they have their regular baths inside, with cold pools, hot pools. But this one had a electric shocking chair, this was for muscle stuff, then it had the usual sauna, but also included a steam room that was supposed to be good for your lungs. I tried to go in, it smelled like curry, but damn it, i hate the heat, and i dont like curry that much, it was way too hot for me for that brief 5 seconds. My lungs felt better afterwards, but maybe that was because i could breath regular air again. To top off things, they had a nice cave, and inside the cave was a low pool with a rock couch that had water streaming over it where you could sit. And when you sit you can relax to surround sound music, a tv and dark mood lighting as if you were in a movie theatre. That was great! To end things my favorite was the slab of rock. Basically it is just warm trickling water over flat rock with soothing music in the background. Ah it was heaven. All i need was a ocean nearby and some cocktail waitresses to bring me some mango juice. Darn too bad i didnt have one of these in my home, i would sleep on it everyday. As my new tradition after sentos, i bought a green tea and vanilla soft cream (ice cream) to finish off the nite. Yum!

TV GUY?

Back from lunch, and ogawa sensei came and grabbed me to look at the new TVs that we got. So i went up with her and thought the class would be empty, but nope everyone was in there. Sagayama sensei was there too with manuals in japanese all laid out, with a fuzzy tv going in the background. They couldnt get it to work. Lucky that i cant read japanese manuals at all, but i do know how to plug in things. With the kids looking astonishingly, i am sure they were thinking, heck he cant even read japanese how is he gonna get our tv working. But after a minute or two, bingo! TV working! Heck i never even read the english manuals.

BACK TO TEACHING

Just like old business the first day of actual teaching. A little unprepared as usual, but luckily my 1st and 4th period classes were canceled for some reason, i dont really enquire when something good like that happens. Didnt have anything really concrete to teach with today, but hey those photos from my summer vacation were looking good. So bingo, 10 minutes later i had a new lesson talking about my summer vacation. Coupled with some money, and newspaper ads i was good to go. I love it when things come together.

HOLY SHIT!?@#! and another HOLY SHIT!?@#!

Yeah, what the fuck! One second i am washing the dishes, next my toes start twitching from the floor, then the whole apartment is shaking as if the jolly green giant just rolled up and started shaking it. Things were shaking and rolling back and forth. Flash backs of being an earthquake in seattle started popping up in the memory banks. Trying to decide to sit it out in the apartment or flee, i somehow just stayed put. Maybe it was because my place is set on twigs and if i ran out i would probably be crushed, safer inside. The bottom floors is held up with just a couple of columns, i mean if there was a real earthquake i would really be fucked, it would be nice knowing everyone. Well the earthquake was deep enough where it couldnt cause too much damage, but it registered at a nice 6.9.

Well if one wasnt bad enough, just a couple hours later, another damn earthquake shook the apartment, even stronger this time. Just standing and waiting, hoping that it would be little, but it got stronger and stronger, as the floors and walls moved. Usually i thought that aftershocks getting smaller, but damn this was not the case. I was about the hug fumi and call it the end of the world, ha ha ha ... then it stopped. Good damn, this one topped out at 7.4. and praise the lord that my chopstick apartment is still standing. I am having second thoughts of where i live, as it isnt the most earthquake friendly design. Good to live another day.

Luckily i didnt have a earthquake kit prepared, heck and that reminds me that i should make one, but then again, damn i am lazy. Mmmmm ...

CLEANING

Nothing much going on today but cleaning, after being away for a month things tend to pile up as i left in a rush. Clean, clean, clean, damn where is my american windex.