V's Birthday, Pics Edition

V opens her present from Angie...


Chocolate and a vibrator, happy birthday, indeed!


Dirrty


K, kinda blurry, but hello, food!


I doubt Pete will appreciate me posting this pic, but it's the only semi-group pic from the night


Emily, Minako, Mami and Theresa


Jenny and Sean


NOW do you understand how huge these beers are?! No wonder I was drunk enough to make out with a girl (but V, I'm always up for a repeat performance...)

Shougakkou=tsukareta!

I woke up today feeling really genki for being drunk-as the night before, but I am definitely ready for a little nap-ski (Kris, I don’t know how to spell that word?) right about now! I have had a vitamin drink, four cups of coffee and two cups of tea and I am still worn down! Bad news bears!

Anyway, classes have gone well today; the kids are so cute! I have all of the 3nensei, and two classes of 1nensei combined into one today. I am doing the same lesson for ALL of them, which gets tiring, but it makes it better when they are so happy to see me. After my jikoshoukai (self-intro) I let them ask as many questions as they want to, and a bunch of them were writing down what I said. So cute!!!

I ALWAYS get asked if I have a girlfriend, to which I respond, “I have many” (the “I have seven; one for every day of the week” is saved for the junior high kids). After being asked that in one class today, the follow-up question was, “Do you have a boyfriend?” All of the kids were like “Haha, he’s a boy, he doesn’t have a boyfriend!” to which I assured them I wouldn’t take part in such disgusting activities! Hee hee hee. I do believe I blushed a little bit at that question. What kind of person do they think I am ;)

I ate lunch with a 3nensei class today, which was fun but SO tiring. I can only handle being the gaijin monkey for so long! Yes, I’m tall, huge, big, etc, let’s move on! Hehehe. But they were cool. They asked if I wanted to play with them during recess, and I did, tho I shouldn’t have expelled the extra energy, yo! I fear I may fall over in my next (last) class. Hmmm. Dammit, I’m a sucker for them lil’ kids! Which is weird since I hate kids. On that swell note, time to go teach some 3nensei!

V’s Birthday

Yesterday was Veronica’s birthday (happy birthday, V!), so we all went into Ota for dinner and drinks at Ikkyuu. Ikkyuu is an izakaya, which means they serve yummy-as food that you’re meant to share while drinking. We got sooooooo much yummy food, mmmmm, so good! While Ikkyuu is a bit expensive, it’s worth it for the food and for the HUGE beers. Their daijokkii are 700 yen, which sounds expensive until you see the damn beers! They are literally bigger than your head! So, nothing like having three of those on a school night! Hee hee.

Anyway, the whole night was a TON of fun. My darling Angie was kind enough to get Veronica chocolate and a vibrator (what more do you need in life?), and Emily picked up the yummiest birthday cake ever! Might I add that all of these gifts are perfectly fine for me come February 22nd, folks!

Highlights of the night include:

-V and I getting a bit drunk and slipping each other a lil’ tongue (happy birthday, indeed!)

-While describing Ikkyuu’s salmon salad, I apparently made up a new word, “amawesome.” I sadly didn’t even realize that I mixed amazing and awesome until everyone was like “um, HUH?” but it’s okay, as Veronica had just called the salad “that salmon sandwich thing.” Hee hee. Did I mention we had three beers the size of our heads?! Amawesome, indeed!

-Cindy and I talking about our water heaters and how much we missed them, like thirty times.

-Everyone being completely full but still wanting to eat anything that was put in front of them. And really, isn’t that what Japan is all about?

Dirrty Boggle

So, this week I only have real classes on Monday and Tuesday, so I had to make lesson plans that were interesting, but not too hardcore, since half of the students won’t have the pleasure of experiencing them. For 2nensei classes I planned like four games, but we only ended up playing two in each class because the kids LOVE them some Boggle, apparently! I thought it’d only last like 10-15 minutes, but every class did it for 30. Craziness! Anyway, I was really happy that the kids were excited about playing and thinking of lots of words, but I felt really bad when they’d read them out loud to me ‘cause I couldn’t understand half of them. They’d have to repeat each one like ten times, and finally just spell it at times. I’m sure that helped their confidence! Sad!

Anyway, in the last class I had, I was getting a long list of words, when all of a sudden a student excitedly yells, “COCK!” I bulged my eyes, paused for a second, and calmly said, “What?” as normally as one could in the situation. “COCK!” To this I couldn’t remain calm anymore and started giggling like a schoolgirl to myself until he was like “oh…COOK!” For the rest of the list I couldn’t think of anything else, but apparently the students didn’t notice. I do believe it affected my next list of words that I thought of, however, as the list included: head, rim, ram, hard, and wet. Damn kids are making me dirrtier, if such a thing is possible!

Expenses since Friday

Um, I’m not liking how much money I have spent since payday! Spent 4000 yen on groceries on Friday, 48000 on rent, 19000 on who-knows-what while shopping, 4500 on Disneyland ticket for Friday, and now 70600 today for my Thailand ticket. K, I’m not allowed to eat, go out, or have fun for the rest of the month! Bad news bears.

Rather than making another post, I must link you to an amusing story (thanks, Granto-san!). Check this shit out. How fucking gay is Ken these days?! I don’t think he’s getting together with Barbie any time soon, although she does look rather fag hag-ish. Hmmmm.

Menopause at AEON

So on Sunday I went to AEON (the mall) with Granto, Shindy, Jenny, Anna, Emily and Ann. It was fun, but weird? I don’t know what was wrong with all of us but halfway through the day we decided we were all overly-emotional and depressed for no reason? I literally felt like I was going to start randomly crying a few times. What the hell? At first we decided we are all on the same cycle (hehehe), but after Shindy and I kept having hot flashes throughout the mall, it was decided that we are all going through menopause. Sad!

To add to the 50 year-old woman thing, the most exciting purchase of the day for Shindy and I was a water heater for tea. Yep! I will pretend not to be very excited about it, but we may have chatted about them for an hour last night online (I will refrain from saying the dorkier parts, but believe me, they exist!). But yeah, they kick ass ‘cause they keep water hot for as long as you want, which is good considering I drink about ten gallons of tea at work, followed by ten gallons when I get home. Gas (for the stove) is so expensive here that it’ll save me a bunch of money. BUT, I must tell you about the best deal of the week! So we didn’t want to spend more than about 3000 yen on ‘em, but the only ones for that price were heinous flower-print ones that you would only find at schools that are too cheap to buy the cool ones. They had these cool metallic ones, but they were like 7000 yen and more. Disappointed, we started leaving the store, when we found a sale table of display models of random shit. They had two of the metallic water heaters on ‘em! It said “5waribiki” so I was like “oh, only 5 percent off, meh,” but then I remembered that means fucking 50% off! So, we got them for 3500 yen, and they look cool (no flowers, woot!), and we don’t have to worry about recycling the damn box we would have gotten with the full price one. Yay for Japanese people being snobby about opened things!

Oh, I also got The Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD, as well as a kick-ass British charity compilation album, but I am far more excited about my water heater.

To add to the gaijin-ness of the weekend, I had Starbucks for a second time (I barely have it once a month, let alone twice in 2 days!), AND the cute Starbucks boy was working! Sadly some others don’t share our love for him, but he is cute, dammit!

Woke up to a phone call at 6 in the bloody morning today, and it was my mother, who thought it was 6 PM! Um, I was NOT amused by this at all! Perhaps I should make a timetable to prevent further incidents in the future!

Anyway, first class of the day starts in a few, time to get genki!

Catching up on the week…

So I have been a bad blogger lately, but I think it’s an epidemic ‘cause everyone else is leaving me with no reading entertainment. Blog, people, blog away! Anyway, highlights of the week….

On Wednesday night Jenny, Grant and I went to Darin’s house for a yummy-as dinner. We had chicken tacos, guacamole, salad, etc. It had been SO long since I had anything remotely Mexican that I am afraid I devoured everything in front of me (what else is new). After that we had ice cream bars, and Darin, Jenny and I each ate a third of a pumpkin pie. Um, yeah. Definitely regret that decision! I was tired at 9 am that day, but after eating that much food (and drinking a bit too much wine) I was wandering my house at midnight with more energy than I’d had all day. Whoops! J

Friday was FINALLY the end of the longest and most boring work week EVER! I went to Nacchan’s restaurant for dinner, then Mami, Minako and Grant came over to my place late at night and stayed over. It was fun, but the whole only-3-hours-of-sleep thing definitely bit me in the ass on Saturday!

Saturday was the most American day EVER. Well, I guess Sunday was, too. K, this was the most American weekend ever! On Saturday I went with Emily, Ann and Shindy to the Sano outlet mall, which is exactly like American outlet malls. They even have the same stores (tho, sadly, no Dress Barn or Vitamin World. I refuse to buy my clothes from anywhere that is NOT a barn, thank you). It was the day after payday so I totally expected to come back with tons of bags and no money, but I didn’t buy anything? What the hell? I was ready to spend my salary at the Diesel store, but it was just……weird shit. Like……weird shit, yo! Not funky/cool-weird, just fucking WEIRD. I was surprised to find semi-helpful workers at a Diesel store, though, considering in the States they are like “We’re hot and you’re not, fuck you!” Oh, yeah, at Sano I had my first McDonald’s meal since coming here. Sadly, it was rather yummy!

After Sano we went to Corona and went to Mr. Max, which is like Target or Wal-Mart or somesuch. I got boring house shit. We then went to the HUGEST 100 yen store ever, but it was just too overwhelming, I didn’t even know where to start. Then we finished our American day by having “tacos” from a cart. I question whether or not they were tacos, but they were good, and that’s all that matters!

Shindy caught a train before me (since I have the fucking inaka line and three trains come on her line before one comes on mine;I’m not bitter!), and right when I got the train she texted me saying “Man, I’m glad I just missed the rain!” It wasn’t raining in Ota yet, so I was hoping I’d be okay, when all of a sudden HUGE rain drops start pounding on the train windows. I get off at the Yabbers stop and it is fucking CRAZY. It was literally the craziest thunder/lightning/rain crazy-as storm I have ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating. Holly, you would have died. At first I wanted to wait it out, as it would surely calm down, but after waiting about 10 minutes it only started raining harder. I refused to spend my night at the damn station, so I got on my mamachari and rode like the wind. Well, not really, considering the road was covered in a permanent sheet of water. Not only that, but you could see where the fucking lightning was. It was above the fields and the sounds came IMMEDIATELY after seeing the flashes, which is never a good sign. While fearing for my life (and after getting the saddest “KAWAISOU!” look from a lady in her comfy, warm car), I had the following conversation with myself: “Fuck Japan! Fuck this country! Fuck bikes! Fuck having no car! Fuck anything that has to do with anything! FUCK THIS RAIN! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUCK YOU! FUCK JAPAN!!!!” I’m sure the neighbors thought I had Torette’s (sp) or something. Of course as I reached home it started lightly sprinkling, which only helped my love of the world, hehe. I stripped off my soaking clothes, took a shower in 45 degree water (mmm (might I add that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit, crazy Americans), then stayed in my ofuro (Japanese bath) until I was lightheaded from the heat. ‘Twas great! Might I add that Muji honey bath essence kicks ass!

K, this post is long. I will post about Sunday latah.

Reason to apply for JET #783

You know you are spoiled when you put $250 in your wallet and tell yourself "K, you can only spend THIS much this weekend, Jeff." God, the real world will suck, whenever that happens!

Damn you, John Lennon!

So, I was excited for today’s 3nensei lesson, as it was an easy one and pretty easy for students, as well. The first half of the lesson was going to consist of the students listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and filling in the missing words I took out of the lyric handouts. I also had Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” and Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’” ready in case we had extra time. Anyway, so all is going well with Imagine, although the kids are having some troubles understanding good ol’ Johnny Boy.

Then Ms. Ito, my JTE, is like “Okay, now you (Jeff) will sing a line a cappella, and the students will sing it back to you! They are very excited to sing!” K, two things are wrong with this! 1) Um, have you ever heard the song Imagine? It is like, a real song. Not a rock song or an ‘80’s song that you can yell along with. And it has high notes and crazy shit like that. And it is NOT a song that you want to sing a cappella in front of a bunch of 15 year-olds! 2) By looking at the students’ faces, it was very obvious that they were NOT waiting on the edge of their seats for the opportunity to start belting out the oldies. First of all, they have all been practicing for like three weeks straight for next week’s chorus competition thing. Secondly, I don’t think they would be too thrilled even if they weren’t being forced to sing every day!

So, I had the pleasure of “singing” Imagine while being judged by 3nensei. Might I add that they did not sing back very enthusiastically for being incredibly excited to break out the jams. Oy. I will have my revenge on Ms. Ito!

Other “events” of the day:

- I am proud of myself because I turned down the leftover kyushoku meal that wasn’t eaten today. It was offered to me like 30 times and I said no each time! Yay, I’m kicking my problem!

- The 6th period 1nensei class that I was dreading (6th period is the most pointless class of the entire day, as everyone (including the teachers) is just thinking about being at home) was cancelled because of the choir contest next week! Woot!

- For some reason there have been about seven million flies in the staff room lately, so I have become one of those teachers I usually make fun of who look busy by swatting flies all day long. It is kinda fun, tho! Die, bitches!

- I am going to book my Thailand tickets today, even though I have yet to ask either school for permission to leave before the term ends (both the chuu and shou vice principals were on a trip today so no dice. I wanna book it before it gets more expensive/is sold out, so they will just have to deal with my absence!).

Yes, I lead a very exciting life….hehehe.

BORED BORED BORED

At Minami Shougakkou with NOTHING to do...lalala. I sense this will be a very exciting entry ;) I don't understand why they give me 6th period off, as I literally have nothing to do for over an hour, so I just sit here. Well, usually I have classes to plan for two weeks from now, but the lady in charge of me hasn't made next month's schedule, so I don't know what to plan. I was trying to think of excuses to leave early ("er, I have to go to chuugakkou for some reason!"), but sometimes people call for me here and I don't wanna be caught in my ALT web of lies. Boo for being a semi-honest person!

My classes were fun today, though, so that's good. For some reason the Sensei for my 5th period class had to go somewhere, so I had the whole class to myself. It was nice, as that is the one teacher here who is like, "Be quiet, you're not allowed to be having fun RARRR!" so I made it into a big American loud-ass classroom, which was a nice change. We moved all of the desks to the front and ran around the back of the room and stuff. I even got to sit on top of the desks! Ah, how I miss such Western things.

Speaking of Western things, I haven't bitched about something yet. SO, some fucking mother complained to Mr. Onda (the Ota BOE ALT supervisor) that "four ALTs and one JTE" were fucking chewing gum at the speech contest. Um. What the fuck kind of dumbass would take the time to call up Mr. Onda and be like "Oh my god, I can't believe these people were CHEWING GUM at my son or daughter's English speech contest! They only fucking wrote the entire speech for them and spent a million hours with them for two months! How dare they have refreshing breath! CRAZY GAIJIN GAHHHH!" What the fuck? Might I add that that was the only sustenance we had for like the whole eight hour-long speech contest. Grrr. Im not bitter! Hehe.

Hmm, 45 minutes 'til I am outta here! I def. felt the keitai love today, as I got messages from eight people in one hour! Anyhoo, I'm going to Darin's tonight for dinner in Isesaki. Hello, I would travel to like Tochigi for FLAUTAS and possibly pumpkin pie?! Yes, orgasm. I am so overwhelmed by the thought of such delicacies that I can't possibly write any more. Time to go find a quiet corner and fantasize about the food that will be in my tummy tonight. Fuck porn, I need to start downloading videos of people eating Mexican food, it is so much hotter!

Those crazy dehydrated Japanese folk

This is a conversation I had with a student in half English/half Japanese yesterday. I should point out that every Japanese person has a heart attack when they see my Nalgene bottle full of water, as they have no idea why anyone would need that much liquid (let alone much water).

Student: What is in that huge bottle?!
Me: Water.
Student: Why?!
Me: Because I like to drink a lot of water.
Student: Why?!
Me: Because I’m a human being?
Student: That’s so strange!
Me: Why do Japanese people never drink water?
Student: .........
Me: Why do Japanese people only drink tea?
Student: We don’t only drink tea. We also drink coffee!
Me: ........
Student: And Japanese people drink alcohol, too!
Me: .....you’re strange.

Long long long long Tuesday

Even though I only had three classes today, it has been the longest day EVER! However, there have at least been some amusing observations for me to make, as it is a “special” day. Today a buncha people from the BOE came to observe classes, so every teacher was pretty much crapping their pants all day long while I didn’t have to worry about anything. Everyone is wearing suits as if they do so every day, but they look so uncomfortable in them! It is freezing and raining outside and this one teacher was like “It’s so humid today!” I think he may be suffering from non-track suit shock.

The students were supposed to be on their best behavior today because of the visitors, but I think it got them more anxious, as I was very near killing a few of my bitchy-ass 1nenseis today (and usually 1nenseis are really cool). Somehow I (and they) survived the day, at least!

I think the Japanese gods may have been listening to me and Cindy bitching about the tasteless loaves of bread they give at kyushoku ‘cause today I had the most American-ized bread EVER. It was a loaf of bread fried and covered in cocoa powder. Um, yummy! Can I please have that for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Actually, I hear that’s what they eat for every meal in England…. ;) Oh, I merely jest, ya crazy wankers!

I was fortunately saved from having to attend the meetings on teaching with BOE peeps, and was chilling with the other pointless “teachers” in the staffroom. I decided that I forgot a very important item in my apartment, so I was able to leave for a bit. God forbid I not have my colored pencils! Hee hee hee. I actually did need them, as I had to color in a buncha flags (K, the Australian, New Zealand, and American flags are not fun to color in on a big scale) for shougakkou tomorrow, but I assume there are colored pencils somewhere in this school. Ah, I am such a rebel ALT.

K, so do you want to read the most depressing thing ever?! 3nensei were assigned to write about the housework done at their house and whether or not it is shared equally by their family. I had nothing to do with the assignment, but based on the writings I read, they were allowed to either use their present situation, or pretend they were in the future and talking about their own family (in which they are the mother or father). So, here is one student’s essay:

“Hello, everyone. I’m going to talk about sharing the housework in my house. I have many maids. First, my exclusive maid is Ms. Mariko. She is very kind and good cook. Next, my husband exclusive maid is Ms. Naoko. She is very beautiful. But she is bad character. HA HA HA. One day, my husband and maid (Ms. Naoko) were daiting is secret. The news made me sad. But, now, I’m happy!! Because I’ll bear twins baby. Them name is Kazuo and Kazuko. It is good name, isn’t it? Oh, housework is leave maids. It is wonderful, isn’t it? Good bay.”

The depressing thing is not the bad English, but the fact that a girl would fantasize about her future husband cheating on her with a maid?! What the hell? Note to self: if you are upset about your husband cheating on you, just get pregnant and everything will be better.

Yes, I am an evil person and the worst teacher in the world for posting that online, but this is what happens when a JTE you don’t even work with has you correct 200 essays just because she is too lazy to correct the homework she assigns! No, I’m not bitter at all. ;)

On that horrible note, this post is done.

Crazy-as Weekend, Part Dos

On Sunday I got up semi-early-ish and met up with Veronica to train it to Maebashi for the International Festival they were holding at the kenchou (prefectural government building. Or. Um. I dunno what it is in English). I pretty much went there to eat food and see friends, and succeeded in both! Hehehe. ‘Twas good times! They had a ton of booths, most of which sold food, but there were others with wine, hand-made stuff, etc. I had a pita/kebab thing that was cho oishii, as well as fries (for only 100 yen WITH real ketchup! You have no idea how rare that is in Japan), and yummyyyyyy green tea ice cream. Oh, and s’mores from the GAJET booth.

A buncha ALTs were buying Japanese dolls from this booth for ridiculously cheap prices. I swear they all must have fallen off a truck because I have no idea why they were so cheap. They had these swords there that I barely noticed and thought were dumb until I heard they were only 100 yen, in which case I couldn’t live without buying one! Perhaps I should bring it with me to school for self-defense from my students! Screw rape whistles, bring on the swords!

Anyway, after having a fun at the festival, a group of us went out to a shabu shabu restaurant to eat even more. It was yummy and fun, tho we truly were old people, as we had finished dinner by 6 PM. It’s all right, that way we could get home in time to catch Murder, She Wrote. That crazy Jessica Fletcher always knows what’s up!

Minako is the greatest person in the world and offered to drive me home, woot! Much more entertaining than listening to my iPod on myself on the train, plus good Japanese practice. Plus I love me some Minako (and, yes, Veronica, I do love me some basket, too). Fortunately after she dropped me off I realized that both of my bikes were still at the eki, so I was forced to walk and burn off some dinner before sitting on my ass all night long.

I stayed up late ‘cause I had to write a paper and prepare for my 3nensei class. I was all stressed out, and then of course I come to school today and am informed that 3nensei has tests today so the class is cut. Grrrr!

Technically not the weekend, but I feel very productive, as I went to all three of my schools by 9:30 this morning. I had to bike to Minamishou for the yearbook picture, then went to Yabushou for the same thing, then came here to work. Crazy busy Jeff (well, not really, as I have had time to write the past two posts and it isn’t even 2 PM).

Crazy-as Weekend, Part Uno

Seeing as how I actually did stuff this weekend, this will be part one of two, methinks. Anyhoo, so Friday was the craziest day at work EVER. Fridays are always crazy because I have to prepare the whole week’s worth of lessons, as well as teach four classes. However, last Friday was even busiers ‘cause I hadn’t had 3nensei all week, and hadn’t had a chance to talk to my JTE all week either, so I had to plan Friday’s 3nensei class that morning, as well as plan that morning’s class for special needs. Then I had to plan for all three grades’ classes for the next week, so I planned six classes and taught four classes and killed about 300 trees by making so many photocopies (sniff!). I even worked through my lunch break! What the hell? Anyway, it went fine, but it was like I was a real teacher or something….scary, indeed ;)

Cindy came over on Friday night and we had dinner at Kadoya (Nacchan’s restaurant that is like two minutes from my house, and is CHO OISHII!). It’s funny ‘cause I never really order at Nacchan’s, I just eat whatever she puts in front of me (which is always a ridiculous amount of food…not that I’m complaining). Cindy and I each got a big bowl of yummy tomato-y soup (it made me natsukashii, as it was Western-style soup), a salad, a huge plate of yakisoba, tea and dango. God, the dango was good! Nacchan always tries to charge me only 300 yen ($3) for the meals, so I always secretly leave her extra money, ‘cause that is ridiculous!

After that meal, it only made sense that Cindy and I went to Fujimart and bought a bunch of desserts for the rest of the night! The huge news of the week (perhaps month?) is that there is a new kind of Country Ma’ams (best cookies EVER)!!! They are chocolate chip and almonds. Cindy and I may have gotten so excited about this that we started screaming in the aisles of Fujimart….I kid you not. I also introduced her to MOW ice cream, which is SO good, and everyone that reads this must try it. Never knew vanilla ice cream could be so good!

Anyway, we later realized that we got so over-excited about desserts that we totally forgot that the reason we went to Fujimart was to get food for lunch during Saturday’s hike (more on that later). We brought our desserts back to my place and watched three episodes of the second season of Veronica Mars. Holie, it’s so good! We also watched Everybody Hates Chris, which is pretty amusing.

I got up at 6:30 in the bloody morning on Saturday so we could both have time to get ready and get to the eki in time to meet Sean and Jeff. Jeff had some problems finding Yabuzuka, but he eventually met up with his and we started driving towards Mt. Miyogi for our hiking adventure! Little did we know what was in store for us ;)

So, the plan was to drive to a certain place by Mt. Miyogi and meet four other cars of ALTs that signed up for the hike (every month or so Daniel organizes a hike for any interested ALTs to go on in or around Gunma). Even though we were running late, an emergency conbini run was in necessito for morning snacks, as well as lunch for the hike. Seven bazillion yen later, we finally got going and were happy-go-lucky. So, as we were zooming along the highway and enjoying actually 1) driving and 2) driving fast in Japan, I started seeing signs that worried me. All of the town names were not only completely inaka, but inaka towns that are in central/Northern Gunma. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that we were supposed to be going to southwest Gunma. On top of that, we were paying to be on the expressway going the wrong way!

We called Daniel and explained that we’re all retarded and told him we might meet up with them later. However, we were so far from Miyogi that we just decided to have our own exploration of Gunma day. After about 5 years of debating what to do, we decided to go to Minakami, a famous town in the mountains of northern-ish Gunma that has a bunch of onsen (natural hot springs), nature, etc. After getting lost about 300 times, we made it there and went on a “hike.” By hike, I mean walking on the flattest ground possible with a bunch of 70 and 80 year-old men and women. It was really pretty, though, as we got to follow the river and were surrounded by the mountains and trees. We ate lunch right on the river, which was really cool (though I’m sure the Nihonjin were shocked that we veered off the trail, hehe).

We ended the day by going to the Tanimura onsen, which is apparently pretty famous. It was sooooooooooooo relaxing. I can’t believe I hadn’t been in one since coming this time! We spent about an hour in the onsen. Tanimura has a small inside part where you wash up, as well as a few baths in there, but the best part is outside, where there is a fairly large bath (I don’t know what else to call it?) surrounded by trees and other purty-ness. God, it felt so nice! Poor Shindy was by herself on the other side, but she had a good time, too, yay!

After getting out of the onsen one feels relaxed but also completely dehydrated and about to faint, so I bought Pocari Sweat from the vending machine and got the deal of the week, as bottles just kept falling out! Hell yeah! You know Jeff is the cheapest bastard in the world, so it made my day! Hehehe.

Feeling completely relaxed and ready to go to bed, we left Minakami and headed towards Omama so Jeff could drop us off at the station. The first half of the ride went fine, as we knew where we were (for once) and what we were doing. However, the whole relaxed feeling we gained from the onsen was completely lost in the last half of the drive, as we all nearly died on the ghetto-ass roads of Gunma! We seriously found the most foggy, abandoned and scary road I have ever seen in my life on the base of Mt. Akagi and got completely lost on it. It looked like we were on the set of a fucking horror movie. Gunma Chainsaw Massacre, anyone? It was so sketchy! I really can’t give the adventure any justice, ‘cause you had to be there to understand, but we were totally lost in the most inaka of inaka you will ever see. By the time we reached the inaka town of Omama, it looked like fucking Tokyo, we were so excited to see PEOPLE and ELECTRICITY. Hehehehe.

Anyway, by the end of the day, we had been in the car for God knows how many hours, and poor Jeff was in it even longer. He drove over 200 km by 4:30 PM! I went home and promptly became anti-social by eating dinner alone and watching half of The Two Towers before completely assing out. I was also thoroughly amused when I opened Firefox, only to see that the Kanji of the day to study was mayou, “to be lost.”

Anyway, this is the longest post EVER. Thanks, Jeff, for driving us! I don’t blame you if you never want to see us again ;) A fun was most definitely had, though, as I don’t think you can NOT bond when being lost in a car for however long we were! Maybe we will actually see Mt. Miyogi at some point in the future!

My Weekend in Pictures

Since I had a crazy weekend and I am too tired to type it all out right now, I'm just gonna post pics for now.....words will fill in the blanks tomorrow.



Cindy, Sean and Jeff


Chiiizu






100 yen sword fight!




Veronica and Grant being sexy


Grant, Minako, me and Darin


I don't know why (and neither does Grant, based on his facial expression)


A giant onigiri?!


Darin (taking a bite), the boy onigiri (again, I ask why) and me


Gunma peeps

Cock-a-doodle-do

Today was testing at chuugakkou, so it was the acceptable day for me to go to Takasaki to get my re-entry permit for my visa (so that when I go somewhere, I can actually come back into the country....why do they not give us with the visa, I ask?). Anyway, it's a good thing that one has to go to Takasaki to get it 'cause it gives ALTs excuses to leave work and shop, woot!

I woke up at 6 to catch the train....that was interesting ;) I rode my bike to the eki (station), and what did I find? A ROOSTER. Yes, a motherfucking rooster was just chillin' where you park the bikes at the Yabuzuka eki. Um, if that isn't a sign that I live in the inaka, I don't know what is. The most amusing thing is that the locals just walked by it like it was a normal occurrence. "Ah, yes, there's the bike parking lot, there's the rooster, there's the train...." It was even weirder than being mooed at by unseen cows while biking to the station once (one doesn't expect to meet cows in Japan).

Anyway, I trained for about seven million hours, then got to Takasaki and booked it to the immigration office, where I discovered 20 gaijin in front of me, sniff! That wasn't very encouraging, but I only had to wait a little less than an hour, which wasn't bad at all. I do have to say that government workers are slow in any country. Seriously, I don't know what they were doing, there are literally only five things that are done there, so you'd think they'd be really good and quick with those five tasks since they do them every day? Who knows!

Fortunately there was some sketchy lady at the third window who didn't take ticket numbers, but if you went up and gave her your stuff, she would just do it? It took me a while to figure this out, but I gave it to her and got it done within five minutes. I still have no idea why she was doing that, but I'm not complaining, considering they were on number 10 when I left!

So, what does Jeff do when he is done with his business trip by 10 AM? Go shopping, of course! And shopping, I did, deeamn! I definitely enjoyed being in a proper city! I miss it! I made up for the crazy 6 am by getting some oishii Starbucks.....mmm....I wish they had the pumpkin spice lattes here (mmmm), but a caramel macchiatto was enough to make me happy!

How to be even happier when drinking Starbucks? Get pastries from a bakery! I got melon bread (hello, it's necessary for existence), and tried my first andonatsu, which is a donut with sweet bean paste inside (k, in English it sounds gross, but...yeah). Anyway, it was fucking good, so now I have yet another new addiction, sigh.

I then proceeded to spend WAY too much time Vivre (department store). I took my sweet time and ended up with: 2 belts (one normal-ish, and one Japanese-ish), 2 pairs of sexy new underwear, a pair of the most comfortable (and cheapest!) pajama pants in the world, a leather bracelet thing that is totally not me, but I am making it me, hmph!, honey body wash and a loofah (I have NO clue how to spell that). This is the second loofah I have bought in a month, but fortunately I didn't mysteriously leave the bag somewhere like I did at Aeon. I still have no idea where that loofah is, but hopefully a poor person with lots of dry skin found it. I'm sure it changed his or her life forever. Oh, I also bought a ring, too.

Maybe it is a fortunate thing that I can't fit into any Japanese pants because I kept eyeing the most Japanese style-type of pants ever and wanting them really bad. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but a) I bought like five pairs of jeans before coming and b) they are expensive here, so it's good that I am too huge for this country.

Found a Korean place (well, a very Japanified Korean place!) and got a HUGE lunch special for 600 yen. That helps me pay for some of the shopping! It was good and muy filling, woot.

Did a bit more window shopping, then forced myself to leave the city before I spent my entire salary. It took more than two hours to get back, so thank god for keitai and iPods! I used up my entire keitai battery by 4:00 today. It can last me two days at a time, so I must have used that thing a lot today!

Anyway, here are random pics of the day, thanks to my keitai...


.........so strange


Mmmmm!


My an donut



The cutest pastries EVER! These are of Totoro. If you haven't seen Totoro before, you need to fucking rent that shit NOW!



What does one do when eating by himself? Take pictures of his food!


And, by popular demand, a crappy picture of some of my students running from the imaginary fire on Tuesday....

Lessons Learned From Tonight

1. While Yabuzuka may be a smelly town, and the normal ride to Nitta may be even smellier, the shortcut to Pete's house is somehow even smellier than the two combined. The whole bike ride literally smelled like I was biking through a bag of flaming shit. Yes, not appetizing, but the ride wasn't, either!

2. When bored on a bike ride, just start making up songs and sing them to yourself.

3. When singing gets boring, just start talking to yourself about how the ride is going, and any other thoughts that may be in your head.

4. I love me some Ota ALTs!

5. How does one deal with the lack of cheese in the Japanese diet? Make up for it every Wednesday by eating about 10 pounds of cheese, with or without bread to put it on.

6. Japanese pastries are amazing.

7. When horny, just hump Veronica. She will partake in it with no question.

8. When horny, back your ass into Veronica. She will partake in it with no question.

9. Wine makes your body forget that it's sick.

10. Follow your instncts and don't trust any bottle of wine with Japanese writing on it, no matter what the price. Even a 1000 yen ($10) bottle of Japanese wine will taste like over-sweet grape juice.

11. No matter how many pastries and how much cheese, bread, pasta, salad, and ice cream one has had, there is ALWAYS room for Country Ma'ams (especially when microwaved).

12. Listening to Rent makes biking uphill for 45 minutes a lot easier to handle.

13. (just 'cause it needs repeating) I LOVE MY OTA ALTS!

Another day at shougakkou

K, so my post every Wednesday is always the same. "Today is Wednesday, which means shougakkou! We have an ALT dinner party tonight!" And yep, that's the same thing as this week, hehe. As always, I dreaded coming to school today, as I haven't been sleeping enough the last two nights, but it has turned out to be a good day, as it always does at shougakkou. The kids are always so happy to see me that it's impossible to be in a bad mood here. I can't imagine doing it every day, but once a week is really fun.

There is a family that lived in Oregon living somewhere in Yabuzuka, and their two kids (well, there might be more, I dunno) go to Yabushou....I met the younger brother two weeks ago, and he was really young when he was in Oregon, so he can speak English way better than most shougakkou kids, but not great. However, I met the older sister today (she is a 6nensei) and she is fucking awesome at English. She has the American accent and everything! So that was both strange and cool to hear in the classroom. Plus, what are the odds of Oregon people being in Yabuzuka???

Today I have five classes, all of which are self-introduction, followed by fruits and vegetables. I calculated (yes, I was bored), and realized that by the end of next month, I will have done my self-intro about 70 times. Um, that is crazy. And I will have done fruits and vegetables about 40 times. Um, that is also crazy. Needless to say, I know my fruits and vegetables in English by now. It is kind of a pointless lesson, as half of the words in Japanese are Engrish anyway, so they already know orenji, banana, appuru, sutoroberii, etc. So, I trick them by throwing random-ass vegetables in there, muahahaha.

Tonight the weekly dinner is at Pete's, which will be fun. This damn cold is sucking all of my energy out of me, but I refuse to be anti-social!

Um, could Cindy and I please get a round of applause for choosing to go hiking on Saturday? How productive and exercise-y are we? I think we are secretly just doing it so we can eat as much as we want this weekend and be like "oh, I went hiking, its okay if I eat that third bowl of ice cream!" Hee hee, you know us and our motives...

Anyway, the Totoro theme song is playing, which means class should be starting soon. That is the coolest way to start class in the world, I fucking love that song. I could wake up to that every morning and not curse my keitai like I do with whatever damn alarm song I have it on right now. Tonari no Totoro, Totoro.......

“Are you going to run from the fire?”

So after being productive and making an audio CD for the midterm test on Thursday, one of my JTEs suddenly asks me, “Are you going to run?” to which I of course was very confused. She cleared it all up by asking, “Are you going to run from the fire?” Um, what?! Apparently there was a fire drill planned today that I wasn’t aware of, so 6th period consisted of running as fast as possible from the school, pretending it was on fire.

I am amused that in America, the land of chaos and individuality, we are all told to walk calmly in fire drills (‘cause, ya know, everyone would be very calm as the school burned down), while in Japan, the land of order and collective-ness, everyone is taught, “Every man for himself! Who cares if people are trampled, run from those flames as fast as you can, bitches!”

I didn’t feel so bad for not running ‘cause like 2/3 of the kids barely even moseyed away from the burning building. We then got lectured from a fireman for 20 minutes for not running fast. I hope they didn’t notice me taking pics of the fire drill with my keitai, ‘cause they probably wouldn’t approve, hehe. Sadly, I took the pics too sneakily, tho, and they didn't turn out, hrm.

Free time….talkin’ ‘bout free tiiiiiiime

Boy, do I have a stressful week! Yesterday was a holiday (I celebrated “Health and Fitness Day” by sitting on my ass ALL DAY LONG) and today one of my classes was cut and another one was cut in half (that is bad grammar, I think, but meh). Tomorrow I have shougakkou, which is legitimately tiring, then Thursday I don’t have to go to work! The students are all having their midterm tests, and I should be there, but instead I’m going to Takasaki to finally get my re-entry permit for my visa. I’m gonna get there early so I can get that done by the morning, then shop for as long as I want! Then Friday I have a normal day, then it’s the weekend, yay!

It’s a good week to have it easy, tho, because somehow my cold is getting worse, despite resting and drinking tea all weekend. Crazy Japanese colds!

Anyway, yeah, I’m beginning to understand what it’s like for ALTs who have nothing to do all day long. I really don’t know what to do with myself! I am catching up on month-old E-Mails, but I’m almost done with that, and I have 2 1/2 hours left. I refuse to study for my Japanese Proficiency Test, dammit! If I don’t think about it, it won’t happen, right?

P.S. Holly, just so you know, the title of this entry is sung to the tune of "Night School," hee hee.