Elina in Japan

Of Yanbaru Kuina and Goodbye

2008-12-07T12:05:00.005+09:00

Hai Sai!

This will be the final blog entry for this "Elina in Japan" blog. It was three years in the making, and I hope some of it was interesting to read. The blogging experience has been a great one for keeping the memories of my time in Okinawa fresh in my mind, for being a collection of moments that I might forget but now will have a tangible place to recall, and also a wonderful exercise in public writing.
The last entry will be a lengthy one because it is an article I wrote for the July issue of the YAK (Okinawa JET publication). I feel that it's a good way to close the blog and to share again a little about Okinawa with anyone who might happen to pop into this place through a search. And if you've happened upon my blog because you were searching specifically about the Okinawan Kuina, please please please, leave me a note. :)
I left Okinawa at the end of July and from there traveled through parts of Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Greece and finally the UK. I'm considering putting up some of the thoughts from the trip in a separate blog as a start to a new space where I'll be sharing some thoughts about my life back in the United States. So stay tuned for that. The link to it will appear here once it's up and running.

And so without further commentary, here's the article, hope you enjoy it!

Of Yanbaru Kuina and Goodbye

Until recently one thing has repeatedly eluded me on this island—meeting the one and only Yanbaru Kuina. Ever since coming to Okinawa three years ago, I have heard about this unique creature that lives in the jungles near my home. But for three years I haven’t been able to get a glimpse of the tiny, black bird, and so I started doubting its existence. Maybe it was just a hoax created by the tourist hungry Yanbaru authorities. A way to justify building a giant Kuina-shaped outlook at the northernmost cape of the island, or a reason to order and sell cute Kuina Hello Kitty merchandise, or a lure for unsuspecting tourists into the jungle cafes of northern Okinawa. Any of these and numerous other clever schemes could be perpetrated in the name of a defenseless, flightless bird. And yet the evidence showed otherwise. For one, I have seen plenty of photos of the bird to convince me that it is not a fictional creature of the north. And secondly, a friend told me he saw one on the road between Ogimi and Higashi a few weeks back and my hopes for catching a glimpse of the bird after years of fruitless driving around the windy, northern roads have been rejuvenated. But before I speak of my success—and as you might have guessed I did get to see this beautiful creature with my very own eyes—a little bit about the hero of this piece.

Yanbaru Kuina’s full name is Gallirallus okinawae and it’s known in English as Okinawa rail. It’s in the Rallidae family of birds and its only habitat is the Yanbaru area of Okinawa’s main island. In the Yanbaru it is primarily confined to the area around Mt. Yonaha. And even though large portions of Kunigami-son were officially designated as a national park in 1996, Kuina’s numbers have been on a decline and in 2006 it was put on the Red List as an endangered species. It is mostly flightless and feeds off the ground floor. It also builds nests on the ground and lays 2 to 3 eggs in the spring. Kuina’s numbers have been decreasing for several reasons, including loss of habitat to logging and dam construction, road and golf course building, as well as attacks by mongoose which are foreign to Okinawa and were brought to the island in 1910. Speeding drivers are also responsible for a small number of birds being killed every year but because there are so few birds already—less than a thousand by recent estimates—even a few birds a year killed by drivers is a significant loss to the overall population. So if you come north in search of this tiny black bird with a red beak and red matching legs, please remember to drive slowly on the 70 north of Higashi and on any of the roads in Kunigami that link the west side with the east.

Which brings me to the logical conclusion of this tale.
One sunny Okinawan day in late May, I went to a beach on the east coast of Kunigami-son. To get there I drove on the 70 north from Higashi for twenty minutes or so and as you guessed, a Kuina bird ran across the road in front of my car, forcing me to slam on my breaks and my mouth to hang open in disbelief. I sat there for a few seconds savoring the moment of pure happiness at finally having seen my query! But that was not the end of my perfect day. Two more Kuinas graced me with their presence on the same day, on the same road. The second one I saw as I was walking from the beach to my car. It simply walked out in front of me to the middle of the road, stood there for a moment looking around and walked back into the jungle. The third bird startled me on the drive back from the beach as it nearly flew across the road but slowed down enough for me to catch a glimpse of it walking into the forest as I slowly drove past. Three Kuina sightings in one day! Three beautiful birds for the three amazing years I have been lucky to spend on this gorgeous island.

Okinawa has opened up itself to me in more ways than I could have possibly imagined when I first stepped off the plane in Naha. I don't think I’ll ever be able to fully describe what living here has meant to me, but I will say that you absolutely must explore this prefecture and let its islands open up a little bit of their soul to you. Just like those Kuina did for me on that brilliant May day.

And if I may, in conclusion, also thank all the fantastic people who have become my friends during the last three years on Okinawa. Without them, this island, as beautiful as it is, would not have become the best place for me to be. It has been an absolute pleasure sharing my Okinawa time with the people I am lucky to call friends and I hope our paths cross many times again and we can find some Orion beer and reminisce about our time in paradise.

2008-06-30T20:01:00.002+09:00

i just had an outstanding week on Okinawa and because it's one of my last few and i don't want to forget it, and most definitely want to share it it's getting written up.
As i'm sure it'll take you a week to read it, enjoy!

So this will be an attempt at a brief recap of my week starting on Monday June 23 and ending with Sunday June 29.

Well. I guess it's best to start with the fact that on Saturday 21st, my 3rd grade student took first place at the Kunigami (northern area) English Story contest which most definitely colored the rest of the days in a very positive light. It's certainly a very nice high note to leave the professional JET experience on, amongst others.

So, Monday was an Okinawan Memorial Day which
commemorates the victims of the Battle of Okinawa and is a day off in the prefecture for work and school. It was a lovely, sunny day but as I spent the weekend doing various things and not taking care of my home, I decided to do a little bit of that. But a few JETs from the south called me up and said they were coming to my neighbrohood, so I of course offered a quick tour of Kijoka with a stop at the waterfalls near my house. We had a lovely stroll, Meaghan caught some bugs, a lizard jumped on me trying to escape her net, and I got some sun--a perfect afternoon all together. I took it easy the rest of the day and went to karate in the evening.

Tuesday was school day, first one since story contest, which i didn't realize and was quite pleasantly surprised by shouts of congratulations after the compulsory "morning" greetings from all the teachers. The giddiness over having a student place first carried the principal so far as to say a few nice words in English during the morning meeting which i really appreciated. :) First time i actually fully understood what was being said at a morning meeting. Nice.
The rest of the day went easy enough. I think I had one class that day and spent the rest of the time on trip details and leaving prep.
Eisa practice in the evening followed by some reading.

Wednesday I took a day off well in advance because Chiye, Yasemin and I had planned a day out to the Hiji waterfalls north of me. No day is without drama of course and Yasemin had plenty for all of us that day with her diving suit disappearing off her 2nd story balcony that morning. But she regained composure and decided to drive up to hang out with me and Chiye anyways. The morning started out clear and sunny but by the time Chiye and i finished lunch the sky was clouding over in a very threatening way. After some turkish coffee and a dark chocolate snack at my place to regain energy, the three of us set off for the waterfalls. It was a good half hour hike through a very windy but well built trail with lots of stairs and even a suspension bridge. The jungle was hot and muggy and I was regretting the decision not to swim at the waterfalls, but not to fear! the weather had decided we all should have a nice shower that day. With a few minutes to go to the waterfalls it had started to drizzle and by the time we reached it, it was pouring. So we just stood there in the rain, gazing up at the water gushing down from the rocks while buckets of rain water fell on our heads. It was an incredibly beautiful and refreshing experience.

The rain had subsided by the time we made it back to the car and had stopped all together when i got back home. :)
After a warm shower, I was off to karate to be drenched all over again, this time in sweat. Lovely.

Thursday, I took another day off work so that i could take care of some leaving stuff in Nago and Okinawa city. Also i knew that because all the students were off on their "job" experiences that day, there were no classes to be had. Everything got sorted that needed to be and i drove home in early afternoon and took a very long nap. In the evening it was off to eisa practice. That night i practiced at Kijoka's community center with some of my students actually and a few people who live in Kijoka that don't regularly do eisa. Reason is that next week there will be a small traditional festival in my little part of Ogimi and they've asked some regular eisa members who are from Kijoka to organize a performance for the festival. It was a nice practice even though the mosquitoes were aplenty, and i think i lost more blood than sweat that evening. When i got home, I decided to do some laundry but must have been overly tired because i made a big blunder. I washed a pair of pants from India (that i could have sworn i've washed several times previously so the following shouldn't have happened) with my karate gi. Guess what? Yep! Yellow stains all over my gi. >.< And my last belt test in two days! Can you say, "freak out session"? I doused the gi with stain remover and threw it in the wash again. Didn't work well at all, so i spent the rest of the night getting very bad sleep and worrying about it.

Friday was back to school but a small surprise awaited me there. Instead of two scheduled classes, I had none, and so could take it easy after a sleepless night. I told the office lady and librarian my sob story of yellow gi and bleach was quickly produced. I was told to just go home and take care of it while no one was about, and so I did. The yellow faded a bit but i could still see it and didn't feel much better about the prospect of showing up in front of sensei in my destroyed gi.
But the afternoon brought some surprising relief in form of farm animals.
A few of the students were doing their "internship" at a cow and goat farm in Ogimi and one of them didn't show up. They were meant to be making some butter that afternoon and the woman who runs the place asked if anyone wanted to join the students. I volunteered.
Making of butter wasn't at all what I imagined--no churning was involved. Well maybe a little. We were given small jars with milk and cream in them and were told to shake them as hard as we could for about a minute after which we had apparently made butter! Cool, eh? We got to try it with a bit of salt and fresh baked buns. It was fantastic, though eating hot buns on a muggy day wasn't necessarily the most pleasant experience. There was more talk of butter and cows and then we played an interesting karuta game which involved matching parts of Okinawan songs with hiragana cards on the floor. I even got a few right, so that was nice. After this I fed a three day old baby goat some milk from a bottle and petted a mini pig's belly. Couldn't have asked for more on a Friday afternoon.
So in a much more cheerful mood, I went home to discover that my gi wasn't as bad as I thought and i spent the next couple of hours reading my hefty book (only 400 more pages to go!) That evening I went to a teachers party but didn't stay long because of the karate test the following morning.

Which brings me to Saturday. Incredibly nervous going into the karate test, I was made even more so when i was told that i'd be doing it all by myself in front of others. The previous tests I've done with one or two other people by my side going through the same motions which is very comforting, but because I was a level or two ahead of others, my punches and kicks had to be different for the next level and I had one extra kata to perform. So I was the last one and at one point I thought I was going to hyperventilate and sensei kept telling me to breathe. :) But I think it went mostly well--at least I feel good about my effort.
After a well deserved lunch of delicious hamburgers for everyone, Vaughn and i took off for the south where we joined Yasemin and friends at a free concert organized by THE Okinawan band, Begin. A free outdoor concert at a gorgeous venue near a beach, with a giant stage, lights and a big screen TV. With festival tents set up with all sorts of goodies and staff members all around, unobtrusively making sure that things run smoothly. AND! the music was fantastic! 6 highly professional and fairly famous bands paved the way for the kings of the night, Begin! These guys are synonymous with Okinawa. Even before I knew anything there was to know about living here, I knew the tune to "Shimanchu nu Takara" and it's been an anthem of sorts for myself and am sure many others during our life here on Okinawa. So to finally see them live for me was major and I enjoyed every second of it. :)
But the night of music did not finish there! Oh no! We were off to Naha for some karaoke fun and of course the first few songs were by Begin. Good times!

Sunday started about hot and sweaty in Yasemin's apartment but quickly improved with a stroll through the Haebaru mall and a lunch with miss Kitty. I even ran into three of my students which surprised us all. After buying a present and a couple of things for myself (gasp!) I was off to Ogimi by late afternoon with a watermelon in tow. That evening, my Sunday night conversation class was throwing me a goodbye party and the watermelon was my contribution. The party was wonderful. The meat was grilled over an open fire pit, there was a paella made with squid ink, homemade granola cookies, presents, speeches and watermelon. And even though I didn't quite see them coming when they did, I shed my first goodbye tears in front of others. But I left the party in very high spirits and with new heartwarming memories as gifts in tow.

Whew!
That was last week.
Today was the start of the first week of the last month.
And here's a quick preview for this one:
English story practice, eisa, karate, sweating, lots of showers, plenty of coffee, lots more typing for new ALT, light stressing over trip details, heavy stressing over packing for the trip, start of apartment clean out, the English story contest, Peaceful Rock Festival, David!, Kijoka festival, my first and last festival eisa performance of the year.

love
-e

2008-06-20T16:09:00.004+09:00

today during lunch we were chatting about me leaving and the new JET and somehow the conversation turned to the first JET in Ogimi, O'Neill. The young teacher sitting next to me graduated from Ogimi Junior High School and O'Neill was actually her ALT. She remembered him fondly but said he was difficult to understand because he had a very heavy dialect in his American. Apparently he was from rural Nevada but I honestly don't know why that would be difficult but that fact was very memorable to her. The librarian and the office lady also remembered him well and they exchanged a few quick stories about him with each other. I thought how nice it was that there is such a community in this school and in this village. Of course it might be annoying to some how much people know of each other's business here, but I never felt that it was a malignant thing. People seem to actually care and don't seem to use the information they know to speak badly of others. Not to me in any case. :)

Anyways, I just thought about the ALTs before me and the ALTs after me and how we've all impacted this community in one way or another and what a unique experience it must be for the students. I don't know if I've ever sat down to reflect on the "internationalization" aspect of my job as an ALT and how much I've done to make sure that my being here hasn't just been about teaching English but also about sharing the cultures that I come from. All right. Note to self--reflect before leaving. :D

Speaking of leaving. It's been absolutely crazy and it's only about to get even more busy and so forgive me if this might be the last entry before the very last entry. I hope to take the time and fill you in on what is happening as I go through the process of wrapping up my life here, but the actual process might be too time demanding to allow for blogging. Hopefully not.

Tomorrow is my very last English story contest. We've worked hard this year and the two students I've been practicing with have been an absolutely pleasure, and I'm really looking forward to their performances tomorrow. Though it is going to be quite a long day in the process with 31 students signed up for the contest. >.<

Next week is my final karate belt test. Speaking of which. Two things. My story contest student also does karate but at a different dojo in Nago. He told me today that his father won't be able to watch him tomorrow because he'll be going directly to Naha because Sunday night he has a belt test--he'll be going for 3-dan. Cool, eh?
And secondly, wanted to mention that I watched the inter-junior high school karate competition last weekend to see how my story contest student did as he was the only one representing my school. I also went to see the junior high school kids that study at my dojo. The Ogimi student did great--he advanced into the final round and was the only green belt surrounded by brown and black belts. In the boys competition however it was quite obvious that the students from my dojo would be unchallenged. The three places went to them. The girls from my dojo took 1st and 3rd place. It was so wonderful to sit with the mothers and the elementary school kids and to cheer them on.
Here are a couple of photos I really like from that day.

This is a 3rd grader from Yabu JHS who trains at my dojo. He took 2nd place.

These girls were practicing for the 3 person kata competition which followed the individual competition. The girl in front is a 3rd grader from Nago JHS and also trains at my dojo and has taken first place in Kunigami for the last three years.

2008-05-28T11:03:00.002+09:00

the last few days were quite interesting and a few of the happenings are worth mentioning i think..

On the amusement side there was my phone call to the Mongolian Airlines office in Korea. For those who might not know, I'm planning a Trans-Siberian train trip and starting it in Ulaanbaatar, so David and I decided to fly from Seoul to UB and there are two airlines that make it possible: Korean Air and Mongolian Airlines. I called Mongolian Air's office in Japan and was told to contact the Seoul office directly. My phone call went like this:
".....blah blah blah foreign language something something"
"Is this Mongolian Airlines?"
"Yes"
"I would like to reserve a ticket from Seoul to UB"
"(silence) Waiting please"
"Excuse me?" (i didn't hear her clearly)
"Waiting please!"
"Ah ok. Thank you"
(on the other side I am not actually put on hold and i hear keyboard keys typing away and two women conversing about something in Mongolian, at this point I realize that she didn't ask me the dates and am not sure what the hell she is looking up)
(less than a minute of listening to keyboard keys)
"Excuse me?"
"Yes. Waiting please!"
(i wait. and listen to keyboard keys and realize that perhaps this is a way for them to get rid of a pesky english speaking customer so that they don't add extra stress to their data entering day)
"Hello?"
(nothing)
"Excuse me?"
(nothing but there's still background noise of people doing something, so i decide to let them have this victory over the customer and hang up)

Next phone call was to Korean Air in Seoul. Both the airline's websites btw are not able to process reservations at the moment. Actually on the Mongolian Air's site nothing happens when you click the search button after entering the dates and locations; the Korean Air will give the flight details but will show an error page when trying to find a price or reserve and that's the reason for resorting to phone calls. So Seoul's office in Korea can't help me and they tell me to call the Japanese one. Japan's Korean Air office is super helpful, likes my american credit card and is ready to do business. I will most definitely miss this country!

On Sunday I learned how to make gyoza and spring rolls at the house of one of my Sunday adult conversation students. She lives in Higashi and has a lovely but small house with a pretty backyard and a great view of the ocean. She has been talking about teaching me and K-san's daughter how to make gyoza for months now and finally we arranged it. It was a wonderful experience and even though I'm really not that good at making gyoza, I really enjoyed spending time doing it. I brought a russian salad to the potluck dinner and had a great time eating, talking, sharing, learning, and generally being very pampered by my students.

One of the topics that evening was the amount of time Ogimi students spend playing sports. K-san's daughter is my 3rd grade student and she plays tennis. The tennis team meets at 7am for morning practice before school and they practice for 2 to 3 hours after school. Other clubs don't meet in the morning but practice for 3-4 hours after school. There's a big inter-JHS tournament coming up next week and so the students are practicing more these days and basketball teams are at school sometimes until 8pm. This is not ok with quite a few parents who find their kids exhausted at the end of the day without any energy left over for studying when they get home. Some parents have brought this up to teachers, but teachers just shrug and do as they like. It's a big deal to have your school place high in the tournaments--it's a big pride and I'm sure teachers are highly commended on their work if the team is in the top 4 and so they place more value on the sports and insist that kids like to practice and so it's not a problem. But what kind of a decision can a junior high school student make when placed with a choice of study or playing sports with friends?
It's ridiculous to push the kids this far and it's really no wonder that no one learns anything at school and the only kids that are academically successful are those who place more value on the studies and are intrinsically motivated to do so.
The kids practice so hard that they hurt themselves as well. In the last week three students sprained their ankles. That's just crazy to me.

Another thing that I'll never understand is the student teaching experience for future teachers in Japan. Two English student teachers are coming to the school next week. They'll be here for 3 weeks and so they'll each teach maybe two to four classes during that time because some classes will be cut because the sport tourney is coming up and schedule is amended to give practice more time. So two student teachers will be sharing student teaching time during one of the busiest times for JHS (another busy time is around Sports Day in September and guess what? that's also when student teachers are placed into schools). Of course, this timing is not up to the school but has to do with university scheduling and I don't know enough about Japanese universities to guess as to why this time is chosen over any other time in the school year and also why 3 weeks in the classroom is considered sufficient to prepare someone to teach on their own in a few months time.

GRRRRRR

that's all i got on that.

Time to wrap up a varied and long post.
Oh yeah. It's officially Atsui, desu ne? ("Hot, isn't it?") season, but the AC is not yet on and so am slowly melting at my desk. (not really, but will definitely soon)

love
-e

2008-05-23T14:41:00.004+09:00

it's been a long week.
and yes, the Hokkaido blog is not up and no, it probably won't be.
Will say that
a) Hokkaido is amazing and if you're even slightly considering a trip there, let me push you to book the tickets, 'cause the nature is grand, the sea food is the best i have ever had and the people are kind and speak with a great, sharp, rude-sounding-but-not dialect.

b) Japanese fashion is hilarious and it's been proven to us yet again while wandering aimlessly through the upscale supermarkets of Sapporo. On a floor filled with unaffordable boutiques, Ralph Loren, Gucci, Chanel, etc we came across a bag shop and on one of its shelves several canvas bags were displayed. The bags had bright, shiny english lettering all over them and one said plainly in big, sparkly print, "I heart (as in the symbol) crap" Sofya picked up the bag and we looked at it for a little while making sure that we didn't miss the sentiment it so obviously was putting worth. We both assumed that there's a designer out there still laughing his/her pants off that their design is being sold for hundreds of dollars while at the same time poking fun at the consumers themselves. I had a feeling the Japanese love for English lettering just for the sake of it will eventually get them into some kind of trouble and irony is not very prevalent in Japanese culture (or so i've learned) they're in much greater danger of being toyed with by clever designers. :)
And the next day, we spotted a young kid waiting for the subway with his gf in Sapporo. He had on very trendy looking jeans that sagged just enough to expose his Calvin Kleins. Out of his back pocket, a Louis Vuitton pocketbook stuck out just ever so nonchalantly; he was wearing a very cool looking black jacket and had on brand new Adidas shoes. The black cap on his head was seemingly too big for his head and swung off just enough to designate the owner a hip-hop fan. It proclaimed in big, silver letters, "Fashion is Dead" and well.. i don't have to tell you that even though the irony was entirely lost on the kid, Sofya and I enjoyed it for our entire ride in the same car with this fashion king.

I have been practicing for the English story contest for a month now with two very bright Ogimi kids. We have another month to go and they're doing pretty well and am happy with the progress. Yesterday, made a hilarious mistake and we both got a kick out of it, but it made me giggle so much every time we came across the sentence that we couldn't practice that paragraph and had to concentrate our energies elsewhere. The sentence read, "..and the entire family was scared." He was reciting the story from memory and without stopping or hesitating said, "...and the entire family was pregnant." I lost it; he got the mistake right away. We laughed. I'm still laughing.

I have new glasses. They're tres kawaii. Well, i think so anyways
Picked them up this week at a shop in Nago. Vaughn and I went together to support each other in decision making process--I don't think I would have picked out a pair on my own, but somehow it's easier making a decision like that with someone else's opinion readily available. So on Saturday we picked out our pairs and had free eye exams right then and there and yesterday went to the shop to get our glasses. The world now has a sharpness to it I hadn't noticed in years! ha ha
I wore them to school today and surprised all the kids and though most of them gave me positive feedback on the change, one student was entirely against my new accessory. He even came up later to once again lodge his complaint with the newly learned "no good fit" vocabulary. I'm assuming he's just not happy about change in general and it's really not because they're a bad fit. At least I hope not. It could be that everyone else is politely lying to my face and he's the only brave soul who decided to speak up and tell it to me like it is.

This week was very long but nonetheless pretty good. It started off on Monday with interviews for the home stay program in Minnesota that Ogimi kids will participate in for the first time and finished off with a successful English Elective letter writing class. Today is Friday, humid, and all the teachers are in a meeting--most of them visibly ready to get it over with and go play basketball with the boys' basketball team. We played with the girls a couple of days ago to encourage them in their practice for the big JHS tournament next month. Today, it's boys basketball who'll get to laugh at the teachers as they easily beat them; and next week it'll be the baseball and soft tennis teams' turns to be encouraged by a fun game against the staff.

I'm off through Monday, so hope it doesn't rain too much this weekend, although it's about time the rainy season started; i've been ready for weeks.

and here's me on a friday afternoon with hair entirely too long and new glasses.

love
-e

2008-05-13T15:09:00.002+09:00

last Sunday I took my usual walk around Kijoka. It's one of my favorite things to do and inevitably something happens that makes me smile--whether it's meeting my current or former students, being followed by a cute little dog, seeing new flowers bloom or watching seniors play "put put." This Sunday, I wasn't even going on a long walk--just to the local store for some onions, but on the way i spotted a dark mess of crushed fruits on the ground. I recognized them as mulberries (тутовник) and looked up in hopes of getting some off the tree. But the branches are up way too high and so i just stood there, wanting the sweet fruit and not having any means of getting at it. Past goes a little white truck and an old man sticks his head out and tells me what the fruit is called in Okinawan language and that they're delicious.
Yes, i know they're delicious, I tell him, smile, and continue on my walk. He drives slowly around the corner, stops, runs over a piece of wood that was just cut down inside his yard, and beckons me to join him on the porch of his house. He's got the cutest little garden and two of his friends were cutting down trees near the entrance so it was hard to hear him over the din but we chatted for a bit. His daughter brought green tea and spicy chips and he asked me questions and I think i mostly understood everything he said. I don't know how old he is, but he did tell me that he has 6 grown children, only three live in Okinawa. His wife passed away 10 years ago and he mostly lives by himself but his daughter stops by sometimes. He told me he drinks in the morning and likes to play the sanshin with his friends. He asked if i was by myself and when i told him, yes, he said that we should hang out, 'cause it's much better to be with company than alone and i agreed. I promised to stop by, and I actually think I will, bid him farewell, and walked to the store smiling. The onions were old and so I walked away buying nothing, but am really glad i went for that walk and met this cool grandpa.

I have been wearing a wrist wrap thingie since Saturday, 'cause apparently i sleep funny and no one's laughing, least of all my sprained wrist. Whenever my wrist has hurt like this in the past, i always attributed it to karate, but it was always the left wrist for some reason. After two weeks of no karate and a week of traveling on mainland, my wrist flared up again after the first night back home; and because i'm all for seeing less of doctors and doing more of nothing, i decided to stick in the middle and buy the wrist thingie at the drug store to at least remind me not to bend my wrist for a while to make sure it heals. Interesting side note--at school only one teacher (my JTE) and one student have so far asked me what's wrong with my wrist.
Kind of strange. I guess people don't like to pry. Don't know.
Although i did tell all my 1st graders that i got into a fight with Sofya, punched her and sprained my wrist.

I started reading the new book for book club called "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon. It's the first book that I nominated to be picked this year in book club and I'm glad it's this one. I'm loving the read and would recommend it.
Here's the premise. It's a murder investigation taking place in Alaska, but here's the catch, the novel is set in alternate history and in this history, the Jews were resettled in Alaska after WWII instead of Israel. If that just put a smile on your face, then I suggest you pick up the book and read it.

yes yes
I know. this post should have been about my and Sofya's trip to mainland, primarily Hokkaido. that post is coming. end of the week, perhaps? If you're on Facebook, i've put up a few photos. Otherwise, stayed tuned.

love
-e

2008-04-18T15:11:00.007+09:00

this week on tuesday a dog followed some students to the school. Where the dog came from, no one knew. He had a collar on and seemed a very friendly little puppy. He was entirely white except for a few pink spots on his curious little nose, and was immediately dubbed yagi (goat). He was tied up to a water hose that morning to prevent him from walking into the school and that's how i met him when i walked towards the main entrance. He spent the morning tied up with the water hose, which must not have been all that comfortable and wined whenever no one was around him. At lunch we chatted about little goat and how he was probably abandoned by someone from the south. Apparently it's a common thing for people in the south to bring their unwanted dogs and cats to the jungles of the north and leave them here to fend for themselves. During Golden Week when people have time off in the beginning of May this happens quite often. This explains the large number of strays that mingle all around the northern area and make convenience stores their homes.
I asked what was going to happen to the little goat and was told that school will call the village office to take care of it. I asked why people just dumped the animals--isn't there a proper facility to leave them at? A shelter? Turns out there's one in Nago near us but sometimes when it's full people get turned away when they bring their pets in. I then asked if it was usual for people to get their pets from a shelter, and most teachers sort of shrugged unknowingly but the librarian told me that she actually adopted a dog from a shelter years ago. I wonder if there's much awareness about animals in shelters here. The little goat was taken away, but not by the village office. He spent the night at the school and the next morning followed the school's bus driver into the hills. I guess we proved not to care as much for the poor bastard as the people that dumped him. I brought him milk during the day when he was tied up to a different spot--didn't seem to have been fed all day. I wish I could have taken him, but his second morning at school it was decided that he would definitely not remain at the school by the office lady. The vice principal seemed open to the possibility but she rejected the idea right out. I don't blame her. In the end, the responsibility of taking care of it would fall to her, and a dog is not like fish or a little bird that we already have at the school.
So i hope the little goat has been picked up by someone who thought a white, friendly puppy would add happiness to their lives.

In other news, I walked into a glass door at the Nago library because it was cleaned too well and i thought there was no door. Also it is entirely my fault for not paying attention and not looking where i was going. Classic. The best part was, though, when i walked away dazed from the impact and then came back to the same glass door to properly walk through it, i noticed a half face imprint on the glass.
It's like the movies but real and every time i visualize what it must have looked like--me, distracted by something on the left, walking straight into a clean glass door with the right side of my face, i laugh. A lot. Surprised it didn't leave too noticeable of a bruise.
Don't you wish you saw it?
ha ha

best
-e

2008-04-10T15:35:00.005+09:00

the best medicine for waking one up and raising one's spirits are a room full of fresh faced, eager, and slightly scared 7th graders who like English! or at least they like it enough to jump into lessons with positive attitude and energy.
today i met all 38 of them in two separate classes. 19 kids in a room is a wonderful thing; I am really gonna get to like the small number in the classroom. Originally all 38 of them were supposed to be in one class. According to Japan's rules, if the number of new students entering is 41 or under they are all to be put in one classroom and the teaching staff is to be hired/dismissed accordingly. Because of this rule we have one less staff this year, but because our teachers are not afraid of a little extra work and because our classrooms were not made for more than 35 kids at the most and because having all 38 kids in one class when we have two empty classrooms available is sheer insanity, they decided to split them up. Whoo hoo!
Today, I introduced myself, my 4th and last time of self-introduction using the same laminated photo cards i made when i first arrived. The best part was, however, when they introduced themselves because most of them were able to do it without skipping a beat and because thanx to Cliff! i found out that some of them like "fishing" and "listening to music" and "cooking" and "running" along with the usual fare of watermelons, strawberries, basketball, and baseball.
Way to go, Cliff! Thanx to him also the kids surprised me by asking me on their first day in school, "What's up, Elina teacher?" and when i ask them the same question in return some of them know to say, "Nothing much!"
That just made me laugh out loud. Awesome!
So a good start with the 1st graders. Seeing them also made me feel like i know the community a little bit through them--or at least the children's community because about half of them have older siblings who are either still at the school or whom i've taught in the previous three school years. And that's a wonderful thing--recognizing kids based on the siblings I've already met and seeing how they're different and what traits they share. One of them in particular looks so much so like his brother did when he was a 1st grader 3 years ago, i almost called him by his brother's name.

the rest of the blog i'll do in pictures.
Enjoy!

Three 3rd graders were asked to screw in grade plaques at the top of each classroom entrance. This is the point at which they gave up because they chose the wrong screws and couldn't undo what they'd done. I tried helping but it was finally obvious that they needed another adult but all the teachers were in a meeting. This was during Monday's afternoon when all other students went home after the morning's ceremonies.

2nd and 3rd grade students hold a flower arch way for incoming 1st graders to walk through on the way to the front of the gym. This was the last ceremony on Monday. The first ceremony was to welcome and introduce four new staff members and tell students who their homeroom teachers will be in the new year. The second ceremony was the official openning of the new school term. And after an hour and a half break, parents and village officials joined for the final ceremony of the day--the welcoming of new students.

Last Sunday I went for a drive on the eastern side of the island looking for random roads and things. Here's a picture i took near Arume village (Higashi-son).

The previous picture i took while driving along to find a wild boar place in the hills of Arume and here it is! At the gate it said that entrance was 200Yen for adults, so i drove just a little ways in to see what it was all about and noticed the boars behind a fence to the right of the car. I got out and snapped some pictures and reversed out of the driveway. Feel a little bad for not going all the way in and paying to see these loudly snorting and easily scared animals. Maybe I'll come back.

This is Bunsei Shimabukuro, an accomplished potter in Ogimi whom we visited while Anna and Brad were on Okinawa. He lives in the jungle hills with his wife where they built a home and he has built two kilns and is working on a third. He was incredibly kind to us in showing us around his place and I think really impressed Anna and Brad. I particularly liked his wife's cooking. :)

Anna and Brad were introduced to Okinawa's instruments while at K-san's house during their visit. Brad really took to sanshin, the three stringed instrument. That night we had a wonderful time at K-san's house who is one of my adult conversation students and she and her family have become great friends to me.

I sent a photo of this giant kiln in Yomitan village to Anna two years ago, and seeing it up close, I think, has been a goal of theirs in coming to Okinawa. Here they are very happy in having accomplished it. The Yomitan visit was a learning experience in many respects for me because through Anna and Brad I discovered quite a bit about Okinawan pottery traditions and I was looking at the same pottery I saw so many times through the new knowledge which made it so much more enjoyable and interesting.

Here is Anna behind a wall of a man made waterfall at the Fukushuen Park in the middle of urban Naha. It's a Chinese style garden park that was built 10 years ago to commemorate a 20 year anniversary of a sister-city relationship established between Naha and Fukushu, China. The garden is free to visit and is a wonderful, mid-city spot to relax amid nature and beautifully arranged Chinese-style buildings, bridges, and pavilions.

This is the first picture I snapped of Anna and Brad on Okinawa. We were walking along Kokusai street and an awamori shop caught their eyes, so we walked in. First they were amazed to discover snakes in the giant glass sake jars, but next their attention was drawn by beautifully fired ceramic awamori vessels. They were struck by everything from form to color to size and style, and I knew they were gonna love Okinawa because this was our first stop and pottery is all over this island. :)

So that's the end of the photo journey of the last two weeks. I'll try not to take such long breaks between blogs--but i believe it's a promise i've been making for last two years and 8 months and am still not able to keep.
Less than 4 months to go.

best
-e

2008-03-25T13:52:00.002+09:00

first day of spring vacation.
overslept. sat alarm for 8am, shut down snooze and fell back asleep. woke with a start at ten to nine. the dream was vivid and not at all pleasant. in the dream i was back home and for some reason again working at Hama. it was my first night back and there was only a high school girl there setting up. i was asking where things were, because there were all sorts of new cupboards and closets and i couldn't find an apron, and the whole time i was thinking of what i would answer to other staff, who were all young teenagers and unknown to me, when they asked me about.. well...me.
i was thinking i can say that i used to work here and that i'm only back here because i need time to figure out what to do after my years in japan. at around then i woke up. and it was not a pleasant awakening and i what i immediately realized was that the place were i was starting my night's work was not actually Hama but the backroom of Audubon bookstore's coffee shop (this won't make sense to most readers.. sorry). it was strange. i knew i was at Hama but the place was just an updated version of the front and back of the cafe. i don't know what any of it means, but i was not pleased that in the dream i felt like i needed to explain myself. and i also thought that there's no way i was gonna go back and work at Hama as an intermediate job between this and whatever's next. and all i wanted to do was go back to sleep but had to come to school.

got to school at 9:30am. half the teachers are here. the kids are outside practicing their club sports. several newly minted second graders are inside swinging brooms about and generally pretending to be doing cleaning of some sort. i eat breakfast in the kitchen room and solve a sudoku puzzle to wake myself up. wakefulness does not come. i grab the book i'm meant to be translating, the DS, notebook and pen and walk up to 2nd floor and head for the library for a change of scenery. on the way i stop at the 2nd floor window and watch the tennis girls (and boy) practice down below. they notice me and shout "hellos" while dodging and smacking balls. I watch for a few minutes while behind me in the music room three 2nd grade girls are "practicing" their horn instruments. two trumpets and a trombone, all spewing out unconnected, seemingly out of tune notes. the sound of bouncing balls, the bellows of trombones, the shouts of "onegaishimasu" from below every time a ball is to be served... all mix together and i stand transfixed. spring vacation. must do something.

in the library i open up the shutters and windows to let in the sunny air. with purpose i choose one of the center tables and start on the translation. i'm working on an Okinawan folk tale for the english story contest. this year i'm having the two story kids choose the stories they'd like to tell. one picked a story the english translation of which i already have. the second student has given me a good reason to do some japanese studying by choosing one which hasn't been translated yet. so here i am, with a DS, scribbling down sentences that later i'll have to rewrite into a nice sounding story. the folk tale itself is actually interesteing and i understand the general gist of it, but translating it sentence by sentence is a challenging process, especially on a morning when i'm not awake. i'm nearly finished, with only a couple of pages to go.

had a couscous salad for lunch that i made myself. super easy to make and delish. all you need is some plain couscous, tomatoes and cucumbers cut up into small squares, raisins or craisins or both and pupkin seeds, all mixed up with a bit of olive oil, pepper and salt, and ta da! a lovely, light salad, perfect for a sunny spring day.

after lunch, i chatted with a couple young lady teachers about this and that, started on the Tuesday crossword (NY Times, in case you asked), and then decided to write this blog. about the first day of spring vacation when only half the teachers are here, kids have gone off home, and i'm debating taking off an hour early for a quick nap.

tomorrow a whole new fun adventure will begin with the arrival of Anna and Brad on the island. Can't wait! We're gonna go to some places i haven't been to yet and some places they'll enjoy that deal with pottery. I've put off the Tsuboya Pottery Museum just for Anna's visit and will now have two experts to explain things to me and give me a new understanding of pottery in Okinawa. Am really looking forward to hearing about their week long stay on mainland as well.
A few things i already have planned and they include a PTA party for leaving teachers, a lunch with English club students, a pot luck dinner with adult conversation class, a night out to izakaya and karaoke, visits to cafe/galleries in the north, just to get us started, with general Okinawa exploration sprinkled in between. should be good times. so stay tuned for photos and a follow up blog.

love
-e

2008-03-07T13:06:00.003+09:00

This past weekend I ventured off the island of Okinawa and went to Nagasaki-city. Ask anyone and the name Nagasaki immediately invokes the thoughts of atomic bomb, destruction, and WWII. I went to Nagasaki exactly for those reasons--to connect the abstract images in my head of what those words represent with the reality of the now thriving city and the relics of its damaged past. I got to do that and more. I learned that Nagasaki acted as a very important port city that for over 300 years was the only "window" to Japan open to foreign traders. The influences left by the Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, English and others can be seen and eaten throughout the city. The most popular present to bring back from Nagasaki is castella, a Portuguese sponge cake that is quite delicious, actually. For more interesting facts about European contact with the city of Nagasaki, which also includes the history of the Christian influence on the Japanese as well, check out this wiki article.
My first day in the city was devoted almost entirely to learning about the destruction caused by the atomic bomb when it was dropped on the city at 11:02am on August 9th, 1945. To have heard so much about the atomic bombs and the destruction they have caused, and to finally stand at the epicenter was a really moving experience for me. I took my time walking around the grounds surrounding the epicenter, reading all the markers, looking at all the statues. All the photos are on the fotki site and some contain further information about what i saw and what the statues represent.
Next I went to the Atomic bomb museum, which I found to be really informative and nicely organized. By the end of my visit though, I was emotionally exhausted, I think, because I skimmed through the last exhibition which showed the history of atomic bomb development, the testing done by countries around the world, and the movement that is in many instances lead by the Japanese to completely rid the world of this type of weaponry. I did stop to listen to the video interviews of ex-Soviet citizens who worked at the atomic test site near the city of Semipalatinsk. The Soviet Government the vast steppes of Kazakhstan to conduct its tests and thousands of people have suffered either from direct or indirect exposure to the radioactive materials released during the testing from 1949 to 1989. Similar video interviews from England, France, USA, and China also testified to the lengths to which governments go to assert their superiority to their friends and enemies. It's all incredibly disgusting and depressing, and I spent a bit of time walking around the neighborhood to clear my head before visiting the quiet space of the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims.
The rest of the time in Nagasaki, I did a lot of walking and saw buildings built during before the Meiji Era, and Catholic churches, and Dutch slopes, and many many Chinese temples. I also spent a couple of nights walking around the Shianbashi area, which is the "entertainment" center of Nagasaki but both nights I found that I couldn't wait to leave the area as soon as I got there. I have been to many of these districts in several Japanese and Okinawan cities and I still don't understand the appeal. It felt slimy to me but there were tourists and couples everywhere seemingly enjoying walking around and looking at "snack bar" ladies and their touts standing in front of dark establishments with innocent sounding English names. I know it's not meant to be prostitution and I know that Japan has a long history of city quarters where geishas entertained, not far from Shiambashi, in fact is Nagasaki's historic "red light" district, but it still felt strange being there. Yet Nagasaki, outside of that area, and a big shopping mall near Deijima warf, doesn't seem to offer much in a way of evening entertainment. I did go to see a movie one night, which ended up being "Jumper" 'cause it was the only one playing after 9pm. It wasn't a terrible movie, mostly entertaining, but thoughtless and with a very thin plot.
But I've digressed. What I did want to mention about Nagasaki was that I encountered a lot of kindness from strangers in the way of help when i was lost, or though i was lost. The hosts at my hostel were also incredibly nice and helpful and if you plan on traveling to Nagasaki, I'd recommend Akari hostel. It's cheap and very centrally located.

So to recap--I am glad i went to Nagasaki and saw first hand the destruction caused by the atomic bomb and also learned a little bit about its pre-war history and met some really nice people and ate some really really good ramen!

This weekend is graduation. The 3rd and last one for me at Ogimi JHS. I met the kids graduating this Sunday when they were half way through their 1st grade, and I have gotten to know them pretty well. I've watched them grow as individuals but I also feel like I don't know them at all because there has always been the language barrier to prevent full understanding. But I think we have done well and I hope they have learned something from me, because they have taught me quite a bit.

2008-02-15T14:37:00.003+09:00

This week one of my fish was eaten by a crow.
Nice start for a blog don't you think?
And then you might think, "how could such a terrible, yet slightly amusing event occur to begin with?"
Well. I'll tell ya. But first a quick fill-in for those who didn't know that i even had fish. I got five of them from a JET a year and a half ago. The JET was leaving for an outer island and couldn't take them along, so i volunteered to take care of them. I had never owned fish before and thought they would be nice to have in my apartment--a pet of sorts since i can't own a dog.
They didn't stay at my apartment too long, however. That summer I went home for a 3 week visit and moved the fish to the school to be fed during my absence. When i came back, i decided that it would be best to keep the fish at school and so they have been swimming in the tank behind my desk ever since. A few weeks back, one of the 2nd grade girls expressed interest in one of my fish, and since I'm not emotionally attached to them and because i am generally a nice enough individual, i gave one of them to her. To thank me, she brought me home made Okinawan cookies and they were delish.
At about them same time some 1st grade boys noticed that one of the fish was pregnant. They seemed to be very enthusiastic about the prospect of tiny little fish emerging in the future, but i had to shatter those fantasies by telling them that she's been pregnant numerous times and that every single time the eggs get eaten by the other fish (just as well for me, really; don't know what i'd do with all that fish). Anyways. The boys thought it would be nice to separate the pregnant fish and we inserted a net into the tank two weeks ago for that purpose.
All this commotion aroused vice Principal's curiosity about my fish. He remarked several times about how big two of them have gotten over a year and how they're probably crammed in that tank. I agreed but didn't see an alternative and didn't think about it very much. Yet, he apparently spent a bit of the free time he has as a vice principal (which in all honestly is not that much) contemplating this problem and finally came up with a solution! "We'll move them to the pond!"he said. I was skeptical at first. Isn't the pond occupied at the moment but gigantic koi and wouldn't my tiny little goldfish get mauled by them? No! He already investigated the situation and found that a part of the pond can be easily separated with a large brick so that other fish can't swim in and this separation created a nice little 1meter long piece of fish paradise at the end of the pond stream. He asked if i wanted to move the two big fish, and i said, how about moving all four remaining fish and he said, won't you miss them terribly, and i said, uhmm. not really, plus i can visit them often. And so...on Tuesday the four goldfish were moved under the watchful eyes of 1st grade boys into their new home. We watched as they seemingly happily acclimated to their new surroundings, sprinkled some food stuffs and went away. A couple of the boys, however, expressed their pessimistic views that the fish won't survive over night, but i shrugged that off as utter nonsense--those fish were resilient! They survived me and tap water! They're no ordinary goldfish!
The next morning, after dropping my bag at the desk, I went to check out how my "pets" were faring in their new home. I counted three, looked around for the fourth, but not finding him thought nothing of it. There are plenty of water plants and dark corners in that pound under which the small goldfish could hide.
A few hours into the day, it was casually observed to me that one of the fish was snatched up by a crow at some point last night. What!? i thought. How could that be? And wouldn't the vice principal, who has been sitting at his desk and who has said "good morning" to me a couple of hours back, have told me about this because as the story went, he heard of this tragedy from some of the students already. Well. Nothing for it. I go outside to ask the vice principal who just happened to be standing by the pond. He proudly pointed to a sign he made and put up on the walkway near the pond which asked the students to take care of the fish because i have taken care of them since they were small and they're very important to me. I thanked him for this kind gesture and then asked him if he had seen four fish today. And he somewhat shyly recounted the truth of the hungry crow and unprotected goldfish.
Apparently the shiny scales of the curious little fish who ventured from the cover of the plants attracted the giant, black bird from its resting spot on a nearby tree. The crow descended, saw an opportunity and very literally snatched it. There went my fish.
Sad. But sort of funny. sort of.
the best bit, is that the boys are now in the process of constructing a scarecrow to stand in front of the pond. So far it's just an umbrella but i'm sure it'll turn into something appropriately scary.
And I learned the words for crow and scarecrow. So the fish did not die in vain.

Hmm. I was gonna mention a couple of other things, but i fear this post is long enough already.
In short, the spring is on its way and the clouds are back to their light and fluffy pre-winter shapes, and i am once again enamoured with them.

best
-e

2008-02-15T14:37:00.002+09:00

Yesterday we played volleyball at school. Well, actually the teachers stood around or sat around or like me, walked around and took photos while students played. It's an annual tradition--a fun school event to send off the 3rd graders who will be graduating in a little less than a month. This year we have 4 classes and they were all paired into a complex tournament table that i didn't even bother to figure out but even with nearly 2 hours of quick play, they didn't get a chance to finish and find out the class that beat them all. At the end teachers were supposed to have played the winning team, but alas, it didn't happen and I changed for nothing. But it was great fun to watch--especially how valiantly the 2nd grade boys fought against 3rd grade boys on the court. They have the energy and the talent but overall, the 3rd graders were just too strong. I took way too many pictures and hope to put the best ones up on fotki by the end of the weekend.
The volleyball game was played during 5th and 6th periods, which on Thursday is usually the elective class hours, but because it was Valentine's Day I decided to have class anyways and to do a chocolate fondue party after school. The girls, there 11 of them this semester, brought their own snacks, i provided some fruits, buscuits, and chocolate of course. Before we ate our fill of sugary snacks, I gave each girl a Valentines card and told them how the holiday is celebrated in America. After that they each made a Valentine of their own and for an hour or so after that, we were experimenting with various ways to eat chocolate, marshmallows, bananas, cookies, strawberries and other goodies. It was delicious fun and way too much sugar for anyone to handle, so a great success from anyone's point of view.

On Wednesday this week our school received a gift of nearly 500 English books and magazines. An Okinawan NPO and a group of military wives organized the donation. This is their fourth donation to an Okinawan JHS and we were very happy to receive it. Representitive of the NPO and three military wives arrived at 10am and three students, along with the librarian, a gushing vice principal and myself led them around the school and chatted to them about this and that. They were all very pleasant and seemed genuinly interested in the school and students and how their books would be utilized. I was told about the donation late last week and was looking forward to the books we would get. Overall the experience was a bit bitter sweet. While the idea is wonderful and the enthusiasm seemingly genuine, the result left me wondering about their opinions of the Japanese and the kind of effort they put into the enterprise. I thought the books would be new, but they weren't, which in itself is not a big dissapointment. But when I started looking through the books, I kept thinking that the women who brought them probably hadn't. They organized a book drive and collected books from military families. There were books for babies and books for adults. Most of the books' reading level was sadly beyond any of the students in the school. For example, there were Star Wars books as well Young Adult books. But I couldn't entirely fault them for that--they don't know what the japanese junior high school kids are capable of--ok. But why would they include a H.S. Geometry book? And why would they put in several books that were in such sad state, with writing all over them, with pages tathered from wear, unless they a) didn't go through the pile of books or b) didn't care to take the time to think through their donation. It seemed more important to be able to say "We brought you 500 books! Aren't you just so grateful to us?" Then to take the time and pick out books that would be more age appropriate and presentable but would perhaps boil down to 200 in number.
So in the end, I was a bit dissapointment with their effort, but the kids seemed to be pleased, so hopefully the books will spark their interest in more serious English study.

Speaking of kids and high level of English interest. This past weekend I helped out Chiye at her school's English camp. The camp was a day and a half event organized for by a homeroom teacher for her 1st grade class. Chiye asked if i'd join in the fun and give a presentation as well as help out with activities on Satuday and Sunday. Saturday was rainy and cold and we gathered in the big gym of Kyuyou HS (an English immersion public HS in central Okinawa). My presentation was first on the menu and I delivered a power point about myself, my life in USSR and my move to the United States. Students seemed to enjoy it and I think more than a handful understoood every word, and some of you know what pleasure that would be after teaching for two years to a room full of kids who take a double take on "how are you?"

So the camp was a great time. The kids were fantastic and we played fun games to introduce them to other countries and to test their cultural, geographic and of course, English knowledge.
In the evening, Mick, Chiye and I took a break from the kids and hung out at an arcade in Chatan. The morning activity was a clever combination of English study and strengthening of group dynamics. The kids were given an envelope with strips of paper with phrases like, "best smile" "most level headed" "down to earth" "best athlete" "most artistic," etc. written on them. They had 10 minutes to translate ones they didn't understand and to decide which classmate would get each slip. 8x11 sheets with each of the student's names written on top were laid out all around the room and for 30 minutes or so, students and two homeroom teachers walked around and attached the slips to the sheets of students who they thought they deserved them.
It was a fun activity and everyone enjoyed it. I hated leaving the kids when the time came to finish the camp. We helped out with the cleaning and then took off for an all american Sunday brunch at Awase around noon. After that Chiye and I went on a shopping adventure to two recycle stores and a big electronics store and at the end of 2 hours came out happy with brand new red Nintendo DS Lites, a game each (mine's a dictionary) and cases. I also lucked out with a used soundtrack CD to a French film, "Swing" that I'd never seen. The cover looked promising and i recognized the name of one of the songs as a Yiddish song I've heard covered by Barry sisters, so I bought it. The CD turned out to be a wonderful collection of whimsical arrangements of gypsy and yiddish songs. Now, I just have to track down the film.

Those who are aware of my "bike in a box" saga will be happy to know that both the bike and box are now out of the scary room! The box was destroyed with flare and purpose on the sands of the Kijoka beach and burned on a bonfire built specifically for that purpose. The bike is now in a shop being put together by a professional and hopefully will soon after be sold without returning back to my apartment.

The weather has been a bit psychotic of late. It's sunny now, but not even a nhour ago it was cloudy and freezing. It's still cold but the sun outside makes it seem like it could be otherwise. It now rains every night instead of day and night, so that's an improvement. I'm aware that Wisconsin has had a record snowfall, or near that amount and so am not really complaining but record snowfall with central heating in every building is not the same as a rainy and windy winter with no heating anywhere except the AC in my apartment which is only strong enough for two rooms.

In other news, I passed 3rd level of the JLPT (that's why I am now the owner of a DS Lite) and my karate sensei thought i showed enough promise to move up to the next level, which is 5-dan and I now have a bright yellow belt to wear with my gi. I still don't think i truly deserve it but i did work hard for it, so am happy to have it.

Tonight's book club will be at the new location in Yomitan, which is closer for the northern members. The cafe is called "Rainbow Bridge Cafe" and I checked it out last weekend on the way back up north from Chiye's. It's lovely and spacious with a nice menu and a friendly staff (or at least the one guy who worked there that I chatted with seemed nice enough). The place also has a garden which might be nice when the weather warms up and we can have meetings outside. Tonight's book is "God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy.

Tomorrow is the Gumball Rally. It's the third one for me, but only the 2nd I'll actually be participating in. Last year, during mom's visit, I organized it and had a blast, but this year am really looking forward to playing again. Should have some fun pictures to share after the weekend.

that seems to wrap things up, and it's nearly 4pm so time to head home.

love
-e

2008-01-29T12:00:00.000+09:00

six months. i have six months left here, and i'm starting to feel bad for asking all those people who left before me about their plans when they were in the same position as i am now. it must be one of the most difficult questions to answer, especially once you've answered it two to three times. but i understand how it's the first question one thinks to ask, 'cause the leaving marks an end to one moment in life and and a beginning of a new, yet unknown one. it's like everyone asking a fresh college graduate his future plans. remember how annoying getting those were?
i have answers, though. i shrug and i say, "i'll teach, i guess"

but anyways. this post is not about that.
last weekend i took the next belt test in karate. I'm going from orange to yellow belt, which actually means going from 7-dan to 5-dan. i think i've improved. don't know if i've improved to justify the yellow belt but i feel more in control of my body now than i did two years ago when i started. everything was difficult then; now the most difficult part is trying to understand what sensei is saying at all times and staying in "shikodachi" (sp?) for prolonged periods of time.

it's raining. it's been raining. it's gonna continue raining. but just as i'm typing this a few struggling rays of sun have graced us with their presence. it'll be brief, though. i want this weather to pass but that also means time passing and i don't want the time to pass too quickly, so I'm gonna pretend to be enjoying this so that it doesn't fly and so that i notice everything.

time is zooming past, though. in a month's time 3rd graders will be graduating and a month after that a new school year will start and in between, my sister Anna will visit here with Brad. I look forward to that very much, but i'm not looking forward to saying goodbye to the 3rd graders. I met them as 1st graders when I came here, and I've gotten used to seeing their faces every day and now that they're grown up and are becoming interesting individuals, it's even harder to let go. Funny, how we're able to form relationships in spite of language barriers. Granted, of course, that if my Japanese was at a higher level when I arrived, my relationship with these kids would be much different, but I like that they have to work to explain themselves to me and I to them. It's never stressful with students; only with adults.

I've watched the entire first season of "Bones" in two weeks time. I must say I enjoyed it, although the writing in a couple of episodes seemed overly forced and unnatural, overall I like the show. I do think that the character of Dr. Brennen seems overly sheltered sometimes. In one episode she doesn't seem to know who Grinch is which really makes me wonder about her childhood. She didn't lose her parents until she was a teenager and so it's easy to believe that once she started her studies and retracted fully into the world of academia she has lost touch with the popular culture, but did she not watch cartoons and movies as a child?

Two weeks ago I noticed a petition looking sheet in the teachers' lounge and asked about it. I was told that it was a sheet provided by the Japanese government that is considering putting fluoride into schools' tap water system in all of Japan. The petition is for students to have their say whether they approve of the idea or not. At first, I thought, how silly. Of course they should want fluoride to be in their water. We've been told that there's no fluoride in the water, no fluoride in the toothpaste and that leads to Japanese notoriously bad teeth. But before making hasty judgements and because the school nurse is against the fluoride in the water, I decided to google it. And guess what? Turns out fluoride is not all that good for yah. Turns out it can be damaging to children when ingested in certain amounts. The FDA is actually starting to rethink the levels of fluoride it has previously approved to be in US' tap water system. And some researchers suggested that one doesn't need to have fluoride in their water as long as they use toothpaste with fluoride or any other treatments, like sprays and such, that contain it.
I don't have the links right now; I googled this last week and so I know what I'm saying is very general, so if you're curious, the information is definitely out there and the Japanese, it turns out, are not kooky for going against the national injection of fluoride into their tap water.

I have a suspicion that there was something else I wanted to write about, but it's time for lunch and I always help set up, so 'til next time!

love
-e

2008-01-16T15:28:00.000+09:00

The Thailand post is all in my head. Ask me about it sometime. Putting it down on paper, am sure will help me digest it better, but it is apparently not that time yet.

Instead. Let's get back to Okinawa.

Last Friday, for a brief instant, in the middle of Okinawa I experienced an alternate reality experience. I would recommend it, but it's certainly not for the faint of heart. This experience took place in Chatan, a place in itself a bit surreal, where Okinawan and American cultures merge and create a unique spot, a place where for the last few years the Okinawa JET book club has met to discuss books and life.
I arrived with a friend at 6:45pm, a full 15min early, which in itself is a bit trippy, considering that I have never even arrived exactly on time. So after parking at a pretty good spot near a burger joint on the beach, we leisurely made our way to the cafe, chatting about this and that along the way, not paying attention to our surroundings because once you know where you're going and you have gone there nearly every month for the last 2 years, you don't expect to look for it, it'll just arrive at your feet and you'll walk up the stairs, across the rickety wooden bridge and into the open space of one of the coolest cafes on the island. As we walked, an uncomfortable nagging feeling started creeping under my skin. Something was amiss. We stopped at an area of long wooden tables. Where's the stairs? The bridge? The cafe? None of those things were in front of us. Instead the long tables stretched out towards the park behind them and a tiny little bar blared its music at us from the far right corner. Ahead of us along the street, the bright pink sign of a "relaxing house" seemed a bit too close and we turned back. The cafe should have been behind us, before the stretch of wooden tables. But where was it? We walked back. And there it was. Set in between the two apartment buildings, the walkway and all underlying, shack-like structures gone, the stairs now an open space with no sign of them ever existing, and the cafe! Its front ripped open, it stood exposed, its innards open for all to see, if there was anything left to see that is. All that remained were crisscrossing wooden boards and one panel that separated what used to be a cozy, warm room filled with low coaches and uncomfortable bar stools, and an open area that offered beautiful sunset views over the sea. Friend and I stood in disbelief. Welcome to an alternate reality! Hope you enjoy your stay!

Yep. Sad, but true. Celluiloid Cafe is no longer. That night we went to the burger place by the seaside. Its burgers are tasty and it has plenty of room for us, but it's lacking the atmosphere conducive to book discussions and so we are now out hunting for a new location. Hopefully, one will be deemed suitable by all so that we don't have to move for the rest of the year. I suppose, before we settle in, we should ask whether they plan on selling their property anytime soon. I don't think I could handle another heartbreak of losing a favorite coffee shop in the near future.

love
-e

2007-12-27T13:59:00.000+09:00

Writing to you from Ayuthaya, the ancient capitol of Thailand or Siam as it was once known. We spent one night here after two in Kanchanaburi and one in Nakhon Pathom before that. Today we will make our way back to Bangkok and then almost immediately will be on a train down to Trang to start the "island" part of our journey. We're all very excited for the overnight train trip because we had to purchase 1st class tickets and will now have two compartments to ourselves. we purchased first class because all other s were sold out but i'm glad. I think it will be a fun train journey. The island adventure will start off in Ko Lanta and from there plans are yet uncertain. But we didn't have specific plans for the first part of the trip and things worked out just fine.
It's still very hot, though nice and cool in the early mornings and evenings. Wonder what the south will be like.

Most things on the trip have been fantastic so far. The food, the people, the places we're staying have all so far been exceptional, surprising, and enjoyable. Highlights so far include the visit to the Tiger Temple, the thai massage, the ruins in Ayuthaya and near Kanchanaburi, and in Bangkok our stay at Suk 11, a fantastic place!
Thanx again, Kelly and Craig for planning parts of our journey for us. :) We loved Chakumvit market Bangkok.
More later, i'm sure!

love
-e

2007-12-21T21:43:00.000+09:00

am in Thailand! Having a really good time so far. Shelley and Thomas surprised me by showing up a day earlier than they told me they would and that was definitely a good surprise to get!
Today we did a lot of walking and booked our tickets for a train south next week. Tomorrow we&ll go check out the market scene and do more walking around until of course we decide not to and just collapse somewhere in front of a Wat and stare at the sky.
The weather's a balmy 30degrees Celsius and certainly quite a change from my Okinawa weather of late and Shelley and Thomas' weather from Colorado. We're enjoying, though being sweaty and stinky again is not all that pleasant.
Going to be in Bangkok until 23rd at which time we'll venture a bit north, then a bit east and then finally way down south.

hope everyone are having great holidays!
Happy New Year!
love
-e

2007-12-17T14:57:00.000+09:00

this weekend seems to have been all about food. And delicious food at that. I think i've gained several pounds just from eating the last three days. That's definitely not a good thing, but the food has been fantastic, as has the company!
Friday night, I went to the Board of Education's Year End Party 忘年会. The party was held at a giant beer hall in Nago and we had a separate room. Four tables were set up and on top of which were two heaters, one with a metallic pan for sukiyaki and one with a clay pot for nabe and it was my first time for both. I guess that's a bit surprising since i've been here nearly 2 and a half years, but both dishes are commonly eaten only in fall and winter months and also they are a mainland staple rather than an Okinawan one. Both are fantastic dishes and you must try if ever presented with the opportunity. Sukiyaki is eaten by dipping into raw egg and it was actually quite tasty. And our nabe that evening was seafood.
And here's a nice little Wiki article about nabemono in Japan. The end of the year party was quite fun, actually. Everyone made a speech, even Cliff and I. I wrote mine in advance, as last year and had it double checked at school, but in the rush to leave the house on time left it at home. I remembered most of it and did a decent job, I think. After speeches, the head of the office came in dancing to Jingle Bells dressed as Santa with a sack full of presents. Everyone got something fun and useful and two lucky ladies got underwear. But actually because they were the ones who randomly received giant, white underwear they received a beautiful and somewhat expensive piece of jewelry each. Lucky!
After 忘年会 it was off to karaoke which was quite hillarious with office chief dancing like a maniac and doing pretend striptese to me singing "Dancing Queen" ha ha

The next day, I took it easy and during the day went to see how normal people live by enjoying the zooming speed of wireless on my Mac at an internet cafe. It was a very nice and relaxing 3 hours spent downloading podcasts at (to me) unbelievable speeds, watching re-runs of the "Daily Show" (it's all new to me), and some KBH on YouTube. Plus the internet cafe has an open drinks bar that includes juices, teas, coffees and ice cream. All drinks are of course machine-made, but decent enough.
That evening Brett and i talked about having our second Russian lesson and he invited me over to his place for some.... nabe! Brilliant! Him and his lovely gf cooked up a nabe fit for sumo wrestlers and i brought cake. We threw Russian words around the dinner table and then learned some more alphabet and later watched a Christmas movie that I had rented for my English Elective kids. The movie was "Surviving Christmas" with Ben Afflec and James Gandolfini and was actually quite funny! If you're looking for a light Christmas movie without Tim Allen in it, I'd recommend that one.
Sunday was cleaning and cooking day. I made a russian salad, oliv'e, for the potluck dinner at my Sunday night adult class. More food! All beautiful, home-made, healthy, delicious food! Even pizza! It was a fantastic, relaxing evening of good conversation and yummy food. My salad went over well, even though i had to subsitute corn for sweet peas, 'cause apparently Japan hasn't heard of "sweet" peas yet.
So that's my full stomach weekend. Today i'm dieting! Which is gonna prove impossible once i get home because i was given quite a few leftovers last night plus a slice of home-made cheesecake that i didn't get to try last night due to being overly stuffed already. *sigh*
Tough life, eh?

love
-e

2007-12-07T14:35:00.000+09:00

the last few weeks have been busy and uneventful all the same time. how's that possible? not sure, really, but seems to be.
most of november i concentrated on studying for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level 3. Last year i passed 4 th level and thought i'd take it again this year. 3rd level was definitely a challenge since i hadn't done any serious studying for it until late September; i'd only been studying kanji. So the last couple of months have been semi-intense japanese study and the i think i did all right on the test this past sunday, the 2nd. At least it's over and i do think i've learned quite a bit, hopefully i can retain it and keep up at least half the studying pace. The listening portion was the toughest by far during the test, which proves that a) i should listen to more Japanese by watching TV and talking to people and b) that standard spoken Japanese is entirely different and much faster than the Okinawan dialect i've come to know and appreciate. Though of course it is only possible to understand middle aged women on Okinawa, who speak slowly and clearly. The men speak a language i can't even begin to understand, and it's not as if they're speaking hogen, i know they're not, but sometimes it's like i've never studied any japanese and have just stepped of the plane and been thrown into the midst of an unknown, inarticulate, hurried, and full of jargon language. it's tiring but amusing.

this week has been slow at school. 2nd graders (8th grade equivalent) have been preparing for standardized tests in japanese, math, and english, which has meant practice of past year's tests and no need for me in the classroom for last 2 weeks. They finally took the test on thursday and i fear probably didn't do so good. Undoubtedly there are a handful of students in the class that aced the test, but a large majority is average or lower. which is sad.
3rd graders were on a school trip this week. It's a traditional trip that happens annually for 3rd graders, and from Okinawa all 3rd graders seem to go only to Kyushu on a pretty standard itinerary of Fukuoka, Dazaifu, Nagasaki, Mitsui Greenland (an amusement park), Mt. Aso, etc. They get back today around 6pm to the school and will be greeted by steaming hot soba and onigiri. Every day of their trip we have received faxes of their experiences. Students have made out sheets where they would write little comments from the day's experience, mention how cold it was (and they lucked out, it was cold and even snowed!), there was even a sheet mentioning all the december birthdays they celebrated while away. The librarian has been coloring the faxes and posting them up on bulletin boards for 1st and 2nd graders to read. Fun.

This week i also managed to catch, fight and win over a cold. It wasn't anything bad, but i was afraid i'd turn into the dreaded influenza that we get scared with every once in a while. I seem to be over it and feel good enough to go to karate tonight.

After the JLPT on Sunday i had the pleasure of meeting a russian speaking woman that lives in Naha. After 2+ years, i finally meet a genuine Russian! Very exciting! She's been living here for five years, has an Okinawan husband and an adorable son. We met for a quick meal and had a pleasant chat. She says there are a few other Russian speakers on the island that she knows of, so maybe i'll get to meet some of them through her as well. That'd be fun.
And on the Russian note, i started teaching Russian to a friend here. So far we've had one lesson, but it went well. Think we'll have one more before winter trips and then pick up after that. It's strange thinking of ways to teach the language i didn't have to think much to learn myself. I don't remember much from school, only a few simple spelling rules but the grammar will be tougher. There are quite a few good sources on the internet, i've discovered, so with their help we're gonna attempt these teaching sessions.

The rest of the time the last week has been occupied by planning for trip to Thailand. Going there with the lovely Shelley and and we're gonna have a fantastic time, as we usually do when traveling together. Nothing's set in stone yet, which somewhat worries me, but i have accommodation for the first time in Bangkok and the next day Shelley and her bf fly in, so we'll take it from there together.

Started watching the 2nd season of "Heroes" and 4th season of Bravo's "Project Runway". "Heroes" is not as good as last year, but still entertaining enough and i am really enjoying Project Runway--haven't watched it in two years and i think it's even better than 1st season.

well. think that's enough blabbering for now. hopefully will have more to write before i leave for Thailand.

love
-e

2007-11-19T20:33:00.000+09:00

In my 3rd year here everything i do has the sense of being the last time i see and do it. All the school events and JET events are the third and last ones. This last week was the MYC. A gathering for the JETs on Okinawa to learn from each other new games and techniques for the classroom; to share with each other their frustrations and successes. I presented a seminar about English Clubs and helped Yasemine with her seminar about getting more engaged within the Okinawan community. They both went really well as did the MYC itself. We missed our friends, however, and being there was somewhat bitter sweet.

Saturday and Sunday after the MYC i stayed in the north and enjoyed music and dance performances. On saturday night at the Ogimi community center, the village held its 13th annual
"Evening of Island Entertainment". All the performers were from Ogimi, some of them included my and Cliff's students, people who work at the Board of Education and the village office. On Sunday, Ogimi JHS participated in the annual northern JHS arts cultural performances. The morning was filled with Okinawan dances and songs, as well as a very cool marching band. In the afternoon, the JHS choirs performed. This is the 3rd time I've attended it, and the students still sing the same songs for the choir portion. But the morning performances were wonderful. A couple of the kids from my karate dojo performed katas and it was great to see them up on the stage.
So i'll stop blabbering and show you some of the photos from the weekend's entertainment. :)
A performance of traditional Okinawan songs. Men play sanshin and sing.

2007-11-12T22:40:00.000+09:00

Living here, things become so familiar that I don’t notice the differences between the Okinawan society and my own background as often as I did before. Every once in a while they do strike me, but I tend to forget to write them down or don’t think about them much, shuffling them off into a pile of unexplainable and inconsequential. Friday, however, I participated in a cultural experience that at its root shares similarities with both American and Russian cultures I know, but has very revealing differences.

On Friday, I was invited to celebrate the 100-day birthday of my supervisor’s son. First, and most obviously, of course is that fact that I’ve never been to a party celebrating 100 days since birth of a baby. Baby showers, I’ve heard of (somehow haven’t made it to one yet) and of course celebrated yearly birthday parties of people I know, but the tradition of celebrating 100 days is very new to me. I haven’t researched it and so don’t know whether it has ties to any Chinese traditions that might have come to Okinawa from there, or whether it is a Japanese tradition brought here a couple of hundred years ago or is uniquely Okinawan.
Prior to the party, birthday celebrations in Okinawa came up in a couple of conversations. Most recently, a teacher shared a story of a JHS student who confused the date of his birth with another number. I asked why that would happen and was told that in Okinawa some families don’t celebrate birthdays as we do in the West, every year. While the child is young, his birthday might be an event, but as children get older it ceases to be so important (it might have happened due to poverty Okinawans have been subjected to after WWII and nowadays younger parents tend to follow the “Western” way of celebrating birthday).
Yet there are other birthdays that are considered worth celebrating here. For example, turning 13 in Okinawa for boys and girls is an important coming of age that is celebrated with family. Likewise, when young adults in a community turn 20 in the same year, their birthdays are celebrated in a colorful fashion on a specific date in January. 88th birthday and 98th birthdays are also marked as important, as I believe is the 60th, but I’ll have to double check. So 100-day birthday seems to fall into that same category of specific birthday events.

When the baby turns 100 days, the family “introduces” him or her to the world at large. Relatives, friends, co-workers, etc, are invited to the family home to celebrate the arrival of a new member into their society. Since my supervisor’s baby’s birthday is the only one of this kind I have been to, I will not presume that all other 100-day birthday parties are held in the same fashion, though at its core, I’m sure they all are.
A flier announcing the party has been at the school for a couple of weeks, and my supervisor has mentioned it to me a couple of times himself. What first tipped me off that this party was going to be a bit different from birthday parties I’m used to was the lack of time mention on the flier. I asked what time I am supposed to arrive and was told that anytime after work hours up until 9pm would be all right. I asked whether I should bring money or buy a present, and was told that if it were someone I didn’t know too well, money would be preferred, but in this case present would be fine. I like shopping for presents, and so decided to go that route. Cliff and I went together around 6:30pm. The party was held at my supervisor’s parents’ house in Ogimi. Outside their house in an empty lot, tables were set up under tents. We went into the house with our presents. Inside, the mother and father were fussing over the baby, presenting him to others who came in. I noticed a basket set up in the middle of the room with lots of envelopes inside. I handed my present to my supervisor and noticed that ours were the only present bags in the room that didn’t look alike. These other, identical presents, were intended for the guests. Everyone, after congratulating the parents and grandparents, were given two bags of presents. There must have been a couple of hundred of these identical packages stacked along the living room wall. In the altar room of the house very important people, like the superintendent ate and chatted. All others sat outside.

After we received our “return” presents, we went outside and sat down. A lady followed us with trays of food. Each tray contained a giant bento box with homemade and store bought delicacies, a bowl of pig intestine soup, brown sugar coated Okinawan mochi, a mikan, and even a plastic bag to take what you don’t finish of the bento home with you. Outside, under a separate tent, a man was stirring and pouring goat soup. This was my first time trying it, and it wasn’t so bad, though some pieces in the mix of unidentifiable parts seemed way to suspicious for me to try. As we sat and ate and chatted with our neighbors, I noticed that people that were there when we first arrived were leaving or had already left and more people were coming into the house and then taking their seats at the outside tables. It was a constant coming and going of people. They all walked into the house, ate outside, chatted, went back inside to say “goodbye” and left. I realized that it was an expected behavior and felt that I shouldn’t sit too long, lest there isn’t room for newcomers. Cliff stayed to enjoy more conversations with the men at our table, and I went home after saying “goodbye” to the family. My visit lasted an hour at the most.
And so where do I begin with the differences? I guess most are quite obvious from the telling. The visits of people were erratic and the time they showed up depended entirely on their own schedule and not on any agreed upon time. Of course, showing up too late would have been a faux pas, though the office lady told me today that she went there just a little before my supervisor, his wife, and baby left the parents’ house for their own home around 10pm. The party was still going on, she said, with people drinking and partying until midnight or so. Of course the receiving back of presents is an unusual thing that I have to date only encountered in the Japanese society. Receiving of a present after giving my own was not new to me at this party, though the fact that it was a sizable cake as well as towels was impressive. But the gifts that are “returned” are usually worth about half the value of the expected present, so I felt bad that I didn’t spend as much money as was in each individual envelope lying in the basket. Oh well.

During the party what I was struck by as the difference in celebrating this birthday and the ones of all my Russian-speaking friends and relatives. There were no toasts! Granted I haven’t been to that many celebrations here, but so far only at the one wedding were there any toasts given by the guests, and those were only from the father of the bride and her best friend. At the parties I’m used to, people would all sit together, drink and eat and every once in a while during the festivities a toast would be made to the person whose birth/marriage/anniversary/new house/new job/home coming, etc (ok so Russians like to celebrate for many reasons) was being celebrated. And that aspect was entirely lacking. Congratulations were given individually and people came and went to allow for more people to take their turn with the baby and at the table. This way has the benefit of allowing for a greater amount of people to visit the family and to celebrate with them. In order to accommodate the number of people that must have came to the family that night, they would have had to rent a giant hall. The amount of food might have been greater, though the bentos were quite substantial… and now I’m rambling.

I was going to add a couple of other things that have occurred, but they’re of less consequence. I really wanted to write about this birthday party, so I hope I didn’t bore anyone with the details. It turned out be much longer than anticipated.

Love
-e

2007-11-05T21:39:00.000+09:00

Here are a few images from last week's Halloween.

I revived my pirate costume from two years ago, but updated it with a sword to the stomach, eye make up and a for the 1st grader's class, a mask. The pumpkin next to me is one of 5 carved by the English Elective students.
The witch eats lunch, and apparently enjoys it. :) The office lady, the accountant, the librarian all turned into witches the morning of Halloween. It was quite fun.
The first grade students posing in the masks they made during their Halloween lesson. They came to trick-or-treat, but got asked to pose. :)

This weekend i was one of the judges for the All Okinawa High School English Debate Contest. It was my first time and I signed up just to see what an English debate in a non-native language is like and also I really wanted to be impressed by students' English abilities. And was I ever! Those kids are amazing. I chatted with a few of them, and they all could hold a pretty relaxed English conversation. The ones I talked to all studied in an English speaking country for a year and are now continuing their studied at academic schools, some of which are immersion. Some of the debates were tough to judge because I was constantly being impressed with their ability to think on their feet in English during Question/Answer sessions and wasn't sure where I was supposed to take off points, if any. My fellow ALT's team from an immersion high school took first place, and we even took one of the team members out to dinner and ice cream after. He is a wonderful kid with a great sense of humor whose goal in life is to be rich. ha ha :)

I think that'll be it for this post. Am off to bed, as I feel that I am getting sick and I really shouldn't be considering how much vitamin C i've been eating.

love
-e

2007-11-02T14:23:00.000+09:00

couple of things quickly.
i've updated the Fotki album for October and I've even put up some commentary for the Tokyo trip and the rest. In case you were wondering when i was gonna get to that.
Also, please check out Craig's blog. If only 'cause a whole post has been written just for me, and that's just very special. :) Also informative and fun to read.

the Halloween week has gone great! Did pumpkin carving on Tuesday with the English Elective girls. Wednesday had all day classes and played games with 2nd and 3rd graders and made masks with 1st graders. All activities were enjoyed and I had enough candy, that being the most important part of the holiday. Thursday during English Elective class, had a Halloween party with the girls. We pinned warts on a witch, watched Charlie Brown's Halloween and ate lots of snacks and candy. Fun was had.

But it is said, that with Halloween comes the end of the most gorgeous month on Okinawa and it is wind and gray skies from now on. Though, as I'm writing now, the sun peeked out and it's a bit nice outside again. :)

Am judging the high school debate contest this weekend, so hopefully will have some impressions to report from it. Am really curious and not quite sure what to expect. Hope I'm a good judge. I've never done debate myself.

2007-10-25T20:48:00.000+09:00

last weekend was the Northern Youth Group festival. やんばる青年祭り and even though the weather wasn't the greatest, i think it was a success. This is the third time the festival has been held and the first time it was held in my village of Ogimi. I went to the festival in its first and second year and looked somewhat jealously at the young men and women who walked around wearing "staff" shirts and were busy with the organization of the fest. This year, I got to wear the shirt and look important in it! I went to help set up on friday night, but there didn't seem to be much work, so most of us just hung around and chatted and any time a job came up we'd rush to do it. At the evening's end we had food and drinks. Saturday, before the festival, we started set up at around 1pm and once again not much work was actually needed from a large group of people but we all tried to look as though we were just moments away from doing something helpful. I guess that's just how it works for most things. There are a few people who know exactly what needs to be done and do it and other that stand around until they are told what needs to be done. That was me. Standing around. But feeling pretty good about it nonetheless. My job for the fest was to help make popcorn for sale at a booth, but there was a lot of time to just walk around and watch the festival. During the day there was a hip hop group, elementary school kids danced, a jazz band performed and after 6pm it was all eisa groups from the northern villages and towns. Our eisa group performed last and that was probably my last time performing eisa. It was good times, and I'm really glad i joined the group to participate in these events.

The evening was cold, though. The wind blew from the sea and kept tossing sand in every direction. But people stuck around and a large enough crowd was there through the end. When most of the take down was finished around 11pm, the guys and some girls sat around in a large circle in the middle of the field and made speeches, ate and drank. Sunday was the rest of the clean-up which was done by mostly our group and when finished, we had barbeque and played volleyball. It was a gorgeous day, the morning of which i spent driving around new roads. I was trying to find a way from Kijoka to Higashi and also was hoping to catch a glimpse of the illusive kuina, the endangered flightless bird that lives exclusively in the jungles of northern Okinawa. I did find a way to Higashi but no kuina was sighted.

The week went well. The schedule has been through all sorts of permutations this week. Today for example this was the schedule (火曜日these kanji means Tueday and 木曜日these kanji means Thursday so 火２means Tuesday's regular second period)
(1)木３
(2)木４
(3)火４
(4)火６
(5)木２
(6)cut
crazy, really. this whole week has been like that. some of it for teacher's being absent but mostly because we were picking shiquawasa and it had to be done this week because the company paying the school for it was only going to pay full price until the end of this week. The kids (and teachers helped) picked over a ton of shiquawasa between Friday and Tuesday. Pretty cool.

Today, during lunch time a package arrived for me at the school. I thought it was the next book club book from Amazon so was surprised to see a large box. In it, to my utter amazement and amusement, I found an instant ramen set and then some! I completely forgot that about two months ago I entered my name and address into a ramen set giveaway advertised on some JET website. Somehow, I actually won it! I think they were drawing 10 names a month or something, and so I lucked out, which is amazing 'cause I never win anything.
The set is awesome. It has portable chopsticks, a cup and small burner to heat up water, a cooler sack, some cups of instant ramen and even three water bottles. There's also a wet paper towel, and a lighter to light the burner.
Here are the pics. Sorry they're tiny, I had to use my cell phone camera 'cause my digital camera is out of commission. Actually a bit irritating that. Only bought it a few months ago and the shutter stopped working last week. But since it's semi-new the warranty still covers it and the fixing should be free. So much for getting a Cannon. I've had my Minolta for over two years and have dropped countless times and it still works, but this new Cannon has already crapped out on me. :(

anyways, here are the pics. and i'm off to watch the first episode of the new season of "Heroes"! Yipee!

2007-10-17T21:46:00.000+09:00

The most exciting thing happened tonight! We had an earthquake! An actual honest to goodness, the building was shaking for more than ten seconds and i jumped to stand in the doorway, earthquake!! I've felt a couple here before and slept through a couple I'm told, but this one was something else. It started shaking and it didn't stop, it got stronger and the walls were moving in front of my eyes and I even waited a few seconds before i jumped up and went for the doorway, laughing all the way. And thanx to a friend on the island, I have a link to prove it. A couple of the dots seem to be hovering right over my village, so no wonder it was strong enough to make the dogs go mad barking for minutes after it stopped.
Here's the link. Fun times!

Tokyo was also fun times, but to keep the blog short, I'll try to say it all through photos. They will be few in number, as I have a few of them up with comments on Facebook and all of them will be up on Fotki site with comments by the weekend. I'm assuming there are only a couple of you out there eager to see the whole bunch (hi, mom!) so hope couple of days wait won't be a problem.

Here are some of my favorites from the trip.
Btw, if you'll be in Tokyo, I highly recommend you stay the Oak Hotel in Asakusa. They have singles, doubles and small dorm rooms for very reasonable prices. The staff are helpful and nice and they internet, small kitchen, common room, and tons of info. Plus a convenient location.

These tablets are hung up at temples and their writers usually ask for travel protection or safety of their loved ones.
The walk up to the Sensou temple in Asakusa. One of the most visited, if not the most visited temple in Tokyo, even at night.
The back of the gate with the famous, giant, lantern
Peek inside the Asakusa shrine. A shinto shrine quietly hidden behind the overwhelming Sensou-ji
What do you think? 20kg?
A cigarette break next to shoe polishers. All over Tokyo, I saw special corners set up for smokers with ash trays with messages to keep Tokyo clean.
A hat store in the fancy Isetan department store. With an even fancier clientèle.
"Piss Alley" in Shinjuku
Entering the teenage crazy zone, Harajuku
Style blending. And yes, that is one building and not a camera trick of superimposition. I like this one.
And of course, what we all came here to see, the Harajuku kids. I only caught a few of them as i came to Harajuku too early. These two were just getting set up but kept getting interrupted by the camera clicking tourists. After snapping that photo I had to rush directly to the airport. Glad i caught them.

2007-10-13T22:54:00.001+09:00

it's my last night in Tokyo and with all that's been going on here and the pics i'll be posting later from the trip, i don't think i'll have time to tell you all about my last weekend sooooo
i propose you check out Kevin's blog and read his post from Okinawa. I have been coded as the "friend" in the post. I think you can figure it out.
:)
Things are good. I do like Tokyo, but i am ready to get back to the casual pace of life in Okinawa. It's too hectic here. Too fashion driven, too many stores and too many pretty people. They make me concerned about my appearance. I don't like that.
I was so worried about my slightly dirty flip flops that i went out and bought a new pair of shoes. Ha ha. i love them though. I'll post a pic of them.. They're tres kawaii. if i do say so myself.
and worth every penny.

ok
time for last night sleep in Tokyo

love
-e

2007-10-09T20:18:00.000+09:00

oh no! the blogger is in japanese and the space bar keeps getting stuck! hmm.. not sure how long i'll be able to type in these conditions. ha ha

had in mind to sit down and type about last weekend, but can't. way too tired. i think i've had a combined 10 hours of sleep in the last three night so brain is on very rapid shutdown. hoping to write down today's events, sign some postcards and crash early.

am in Tokyo, btw. staying at a nice hotel in asakusa area, not far from Ueno station, if you're familiar. Got here early this morning. Left Okinawa on what was promising to be a gorgeous sunny day and stepped out into a chilly drizzle in Tokyo. but did get a single room for one night at the hotel. not sure why exactly, figured they saw how tired i looked and decided that instead of 4 nights in a small dorm i should only spend three there and one night resting fully on my own. yipee!
i walked around quite a bit today. walked into a soba shop for late lunch and was seated with a nice elderly salaryman. apparently at these small places it's customary to put solitary costomers together to accommodate all. makes sense. most of them looked like local workers in for a quick bite. so i got to try out my japanese on an unsuspecting tokyoite (sp?) and we had apleasant chat. he claims to be a Packers fan but says he's dissapointed with this year's performance. since i haven't watchef ootball in over two years, i just nodded and said that favre must be getting tired.
sorry for all the types. the comp is acting very strangely. there's alag of 5 seconds between me typing and the words showing up on the screen which makes it hard to go back and correct typos. so now you can see how many i actually make while i type and you'll be glad to know that i try really hard to clean up my posts before exposing you to them. but not this one 'cause i'm lacking for patience on this comp already and will finish here.

hopefully am genki enough tomorrow to sit down and write up about last weekend 'cause it really deserves an entry. quite something.

wherever you are, hope you're having a lovely day

-e

2007-09-30T19:07:00.000+09:00

my eyes are stinging a bit today. must be from all the sun and the swimming in the salty water of the sea. yep. just another late september day. i think late september and october are basically the best months on Okinawa. just calm, sunny with a light breeze and cool water. paradise, indeed.

went to two of Ogimi's four elementary school undoukais today. All four schools hold their sports day on the same day but making it to all four would have been quite a task. Plus i sort of slept in so only showed up to Kijoka's (my village) undoukai around 11am. Walked there with hopes of getting a free lunch but those hopes weren't too high. Walked to the pitch, a sweet woman who works at the BOE and always looks after me walked me over to the tables under the shady tents, pointed to a chair, brought me a cup of cool tea. Just as i was sitting down, a junior high school student was passing out the bento lunches to everyone seated under the tent. K-san motioned for the student to place a bento in front of me as well. I looked shocked but inside happy that my plan worked out perfectly. :) ha ha seems rather shallow, eh? but really this is just how it works and after two years of these events i know what to expect. but there is no such thing as a free lunch in japan either and so after watching a relay of parents and their elementary school kids, i was invited to participate in the rope pulling event: men vs. women, though they politely referred to us as team "red" and "white." The women won the first time, then we switched sides and the men won the second time. The whole thing was quite fun. After lunch the kids performed a beautifully choreographed and brilliantly executed eisa routine. Junior high kids from Kijoka helped out as well as the fathers who were dressed in Ogimi's eisa costumes and were dancing with the poll of Kijoka. If you live here or have lived here that might make sense, if not. sorry. it's hard to explain. but i'll post pics later on.

I went to Ogimi elem. school's undoukai after Kijoka's eisa. Got there just in time to watch adult vs. elem. kids vs. junior high school kids relays. Kids won out every time. Then it was the finishing the dance with everyone on the pitch, including me. Then it was off home to grab beach stuff and go lounge about for a couple of hours after a refreshing dip in the sea. The water is perfect right now. Chilly at first but under the blazing sun, a welcoming sensation on the sweaty skin.

Yesterday I joined two hundred people or so from Ogimi village in the protest against the proposed changes to the Japanese history textbooks. The protest took place at the park near the Ginowan Convention center in the south of the island. Hordes of people were walking to the sight with placards and signs. It was my first such gathering--not counting the anti-war protest Shelly and i walked into while in New York...and quickly walked out of.
I walked with the superintendent of Ogimi schools and he explained to me the situation, so i'll relate it to you hear as i understand it. During the battle of Okinawa numerous atrocities against the peaceful Okinawan civilians took place and most of them were perpetrated by the Japanese military that came and occupied the island drawing American forces away from mainland Japan and to this tiny chain of islands. One of the atrocities that are well documented was the forceful way in which Japanese military encouraged Okinawan citizens to commit suicide if the arrival of American troupes was imminent. Men and women were given grenades to use on themselves and their families in case the Americans landed on their islands. This happened on Zamami and Tokashiki island and hundreds of people died. This fact is currently written in the Japanese textbook but sometime last year the Ministry of Education proposed to cut out the part of the history which paints Japanese soldiers in the bad light. The bit will be re-written so that suicides are mentioned but the role the Japanese military played in those suicides is not. And that outraged many on Okinawa, an island that is still dealing with occupation of American forces and feels that Japan still treats them as second-rate citizens whose opinion is not worth knowing.
The protest has been in the works for 4 months. Village, town and cities governments were asked to send people to represent themselves at the gathering. 120,000 people were at the park yesterday and the sight was awesome! I didn't understand every word of the speeches but I understood the feeling behind them. My favorite speech, though, was by two senior high school students. I did understand their shouts of "We want to learn the truth, so write the truth!!"
The whole two hour event was seemed really powerful to me so I really hope it causes a few heads to turn in the Japanese Ministry of Education and the proposed changes are abandoned.

i'll finish here.
but here's a BBC article i got after googleing "okinawa and textbook and protest"
Huge Japan protest against textbook
am sure you can find more if you have time. i'm off to my adult conversation class. ta ta

-e

2007-09-14T20:25:00.000+09:00

on the agenda:
the lack of posting
my addiction to green mikan
the typhoon threatening to tear down my curtains and flood my balcony
studying Japanese
needing the school to block Facebook

so where should i begin? the Facebook issue. all right. that's a bit of a disaster zone. i am hooked on the walls and the "home" updates and adding and deleting of applications (thought i've gotten much better about that by just not adding any), and the instant notifications in inbox. Maybe that's what i should irradicate. Perhaps if i politely ask the Facebook system to stop sending me e-mails any time someone signs my wall or comments on one of my photos, i'd be less likely to spend twenty to thirty minutes (ahem hours) nosing about in there and would just go through my inbox and get off the school computer as i'm sure most teachers would want me to do.

mikans are the wonderful citrus fruit that is like a tangerine but slightly more tart. They'll ripen in winter months, but right now they are sold green and i'm addicted. i love the sourness that just overwhelms the budding sweetness within. you might ask, what is so wrong with being addicted to mikan, a fruit jam-packed with vitamin C and other unknown beneficial substances, but what will i do when the season of the green mikan is over? or worse yet, what if i develop an allergy by eating too many and won't be able to enjoy them again?
my addiction is not being helped by the generous presents of principals from neighboring schools who in lieu of the upcoming undoukai (sports day) have gifted boxes of these delicious, green, juicy, little fruits. We've also been given a box of giant apple/pears that are quite expensive and the former principal who is now at one of Higashi's schools has brought enough pineapple to share with the whole student body at lunch for dessert. Undoukai. Craziness itself.

Which brings me to the typhoon that is quite inconveniently ruining the undoukai plans for the weekend. That and also most likely canceling the Okuma festival, second year running. It will be rescheduled, i'm sure, but i doubt the same acts will show up and the crowds will be much fewer, as was the case last year. But the biggest concern for the school is of course the sports fest on Sunday. It's Friday night now and the typhoon is supposed to touch down in a couple of hours; it's a not very strong one but i'm certain it will rain all night and most of the day tomorrow. The hope is that it'll miraculously stop overnight Saturday to Sunday, the school field will dry up and we'll be able to set up without a problem early Sunday morning and have a wonderful display of student and teachers' 2 months worth of planning and preparation.
This being my last undoukai, i'm quite sentimental going into. It was almost like the other two, but this year I was able to jump in and help with eisa practices and that felt really good. Nice to be involved from the inside and not always as a welcomed outsider.

I haven't posted in a while 'cause it's been busy and every night when i come home and think I should write post, i instead watch a movie or read and then only have an hour to play on computer before bed time and that's never enough to write a substantial post 'cause there's Facebook to distract me. So luckily, the typhoon has extended my weekend and i don't have to go to bed early and so here I am, ready to upload some pics to share with you my last two weekends.

and a note on studying Japanese. it's a ridiculous uphill battle and i'm not made for it, but yet i try every once in a while to pretend that i can do it. i guess it is nice to be able to understand things and i'm encouraged at the times i grasp the meaning of things going on around me or listen to the village speaker announcements and know what they're talking about half the time. and it is quite pleasing to study a kanji and then to see it in context and feel a tenth of a thousandth percentage more literate. ha ha
but it is a fun language and i wish i was more self-motivated. hoping that signing up for the 3rd level of the JLPT will kick me into a higher gear, and i'll actually study a bit on the weekends as well.

and now on to the pics

Two weekends ago was the Shioya Ungami which is a festival that takes place in a few villages in the northern Okinawa dedicated to the gods/spirits that control the sea. Priestesses offer up prayers through special ceremonies like the one on the picture. The men sat in a circle while the women walked and chanted around them.

The religious portion of the festival used to be closed to the public and only certain individuals were allowed to accompany the priestesses to the sacred prayer spots. This year it was opened to the public and lots of photographers showed up. It seemed there were more people with a camera than the locals. A bit overwhelming but also nice. It means the community is receiving attention and people will learn more about the traditional Okinawan culture. But it was overbearing at times. The priestesses didn't seem to mind too much. Or maybe they're just too cool to betray their annoyance. It was nice to notice that no one put a show on for the photographers. The men sitting in a circle drank their offering of awamori from plastic cups and not anything fancy that i'm sure could have been brought. Made realize and appreciate the fact that I am indeed observing an active tradition and not a reenactment of one. A bit daunting, that.

This is the portion that's always been opened to the public. The hari race of the 6 little villages that are a part of Shioya, which is itself a part of Ogimi-son. Quite a few of Ogimi's villages have their own, unique festival around this time of the year to offer prayers and to celebrate sea and field gods. Shioya's is well known because of the beautiful landscape that is the backdrop to the hari racing across the Shioya bay and the dancing women in the water who chant and cheer on the men of their villages to row faster.

The smiling girl is one of my students and she's surrounded by other women of her village, Shioya. The race just finished and the women are celebrating and are continuing to dance. Actually, i think due to their persistent dancing and singing, the hari raced again but this time purely for entertainment.

the girls and women leaving the bay with the men behind them still in the water near their hari boats.

the priestesses performing one of the last rituals after the hari race and before the sumo wrestling matches.

two years ago, i watched the ungami festivities a month or so after arriving. i had no idea really what was going on and watched truly as a tourist. this year, however, it was a different experience all together. i knew some of the men racing the hari, i knew the women cheering them in the water, and i knew almost all the kids who stepped up to participate in the sumo match. i only knew the elementary kids by face, but the junior high schoolers, like the ones in the picture i know personally and it made the experience that much more special and enjoyable.

the ungami fest is a two day event. first day is the hari and the sumo. the second day is dancing. it rained heavily during some of the dances and the women still performed, by the end of the dance, completely soaked. Here is a junior high school student dressed in the outfit of a farmer with women in the background in the more splendid outfits of the ryukyu royal court.

i really like this pic
The following weekend was a similar festival in another of Ogimi's villages, Nerume. The hari race only involved three small boats. Cliff and i came to watch but quickly Cliff was asked to participate. I think he enjoyed it.

After the hari race we hung out with some darling elementary school kids before the womens' eisa and sumo wrestling. Here i am with three of those cuties.

oh no! the pic is on its side. well. you get the picture. :)

The women of Nerume dance a very traditional eisa dance.

The view of the Nerume village set up before the start of the sumo wrestling taken from the 2nd floor of the community center where we watched surrounded by junior high school and elementary kids of that village. Only 6 or 7 of my students live in Nerume and they were all involved in one way or another in the day's activities. The sense of community is extremely strong here; maybe why i enjoy staying in the village so much for the various activities that take place almost weekly, especially during the summer months.

Well. The typhoon is not as strong as i thought it would be, but the balcony door won't stay open anyways--the winds are strong enough to shut it with force anytime i try to peek at what's happening outside.
So fingers crossed for a successful undoukai. I'll try not to be as delinquent with future posts. They end up being way too long.

love
-e

2007-08-30T20:52:00.001+09:00

long time in the making this post might be long. or it might be a collection of photos. haven't quite decided what to do at the moment as i start typing it up.
you might notice i've changed the template color and updated some links as well as the header description. i am counting months. i have eleven of them left here in this place that i now call "home," and so it's really time to re-evaluate, set and achieve goals, outline some future plans, and enjoy! Because what i really, truly want to do this year is enjoy it. Fully and without regrets about things not accomplished, not finished, not tried, not visited, not seen, not felt. Friends leaving made me consider how i want to approach this time on the island--what i want to do to prepare so that leaving is done with least amount of hassle or at least the hassle i have control over. i've set a few goals and have some itinerary of travels floating around in my head as well as things to do when people come visit, as i hope a few do. Am most looking forward to the visit of my sisters sometime this coming spring.
so this year, like this blog is being refreshed from outside in--let's see what happens. :)

the events of the last month have all left a mark. it's been a hectic time but if you asked what i did exactly, i'd have to pause and think a while.

the main event of last week has been my visit to a family dinner for the last night of Obon. Obon is an Okinawan Buddhist cultural landmark in the lunar calendar. Okinawa Obon is very different from mainland one, which took place a week earlier this year. Since i don't live on mainland and never studied that culture or participated in it, as i do with Okinawa culture, i can't do an intense comparison. let's just say they're different and mostly, i think, because the Okinawa ancestor worship base which underlines all the traditions on the island overwhelms the Buddhist rituals it incorporates. So the Okinawa obon is a three day event. On the first day, unkei, the spirits of ancestors descend back into the family home and are welcomed with special prayer ceremony at the family butsudan (altar) inside the home of the eldest son into whose house the altar is passed through generations (although there are exceptions). The family gathers to celebrate the arrival of the ancestors, has dinner and offers special foods and items to the visiting spirits. The middle day is simply named, nakabi and is a time for family to relax together. The final day is called uukui and on the evening of that day the family thanks the ancestors for visiting and bids them farewell. During the time of obon, actually throughout August, Okinawans don't go into the sea because it's believed to be full of spirits going from their own world into the world of the living for Obon visit.

My supervisor invited myself and Cliff (the new Ogimi ALT) to his wife's family home in Nago for the third night of Obon. The head of the family, my supervisor's mother-in-law, was in charge of dinner but serving us were her granddaughters. The two lovely girls brought out dishes for us to try--it was my first time to eat nakamijiru, a pig intestine soup, quite delicious actually. We were the first to arrive, excluding the eldest son whose daughters were our servers that evening. As we ate, more family members began to arrive and settle themselves around a small table and in front of a giant TV. We chatted and watched the IAAF broadcast live from Osaka. The male hammer throw competition was on, as one of Japan's medal hopefuls competed. I learned that his mother is Russian but father Japanese. He did not medal, but it was fun watching the competition.

I loved being with a family for a dinner, like that, sitting around a TV, chatting casually. Some of them hadn't seen each other in a while it seemed and lots of news were being exchanged. It's been a while for me to be in a midst of a family, and it made me miss mine but also really appreciate the time i was spending with them. A little after 9pm, the family gathered in a guest room where the family butsudan took up a primary spot in the wall. Tablets with ancestors' names as well as decorative urns representing the main ancestors being welcomed took center place. The urns had lots of incense burning inside. Lots of fruit, flowers, incense and personal items, such as cigarettes were placed all around the altar. The matriarch sat seza in front of a low table placed under the altar with three boxes of specially prepared foods placed in front of her. She also had a small round tray on which she had grains of rice and a small bottle of awamori. The grownups made a sitting circle behind and around her, Cliff and i were welcomed into it and i felt really privileged. The younger family members stood or sat on outskirts of the room or in the hallway. Everyone prayed, then the matriarch offered rice and awamori and pieces of food to each of the ancestors and after offering them with a simple upward motion of the chopsticks towards the altar she placed each item in a small, round grill situated to the left of the table. After the food was offered, the sons took down all the fruits, flowers and special items from the altar onto the table and she tossed in a bit from each pile into the burner. She even tossed in a couple of cigarettes from a pack. The sons chatted and even laughed as they cleared the altar, the other members of the family were quiet but not too somber. Everything inside the burner was sat on fire and as a last gesture, special pieces of paper called uchikabi which represent money to be used in heaven were also burned. Actually so many of them were being burned that my supervisor joked there will be inflation in heaven this year. Soon the room filled up with smoke and people were fanning themselves to keep from breathing it in. Once the burner was well lit, the sons took down the urns with incense and all three, along with the burner were carried outside to a corner near the house.

In an amusing turn of events, when i set out to follow everyone outside, i discovered that my shoes were missing, after a few moments of looking for them it was decided that someone put them on by mistake, i was given shoes to trade for mine once outside, but because of the search for them, i missed out on what happened once the urns and burner were brought outside. I'm assuming the family once again prayed and the ashes were dumped out and ancestors bid farewell. We said our goodbyes to the family at that point as well, because our kind supervisor drove us to and from Nago so that we could fully enjoy our experience and drink with the family and we had to leave right away so he'd get home to his new born child at a not so late hour. It was sad leaving the family; for a moment i felt really comfortable and at home with them--i hope i get to experience that sort of a feeling again while here.

for more information about Okinawan rituals, religion and Obon, please check out these two links from Wiki:
Ryukyan festivals and observances and Ryukyuan religion

I'll post some pics at the bottom of the post and also on my Fotki site--which I do update btw, and will even attempt to label all the new photos there tomorrow from school. Also at the bottom of the post is a very short video from the eisa routine performed by the Ogimi seinenkai during the 10,000 men eisa event in Naha. You might spot me in it. It's really short, sorry, but thanks to Kelly for shooting it and sending it to me!

The moon has been absolutely gorgeous the last few nights--full and splendid--it has been brightly overwhelming the sky. Two nights ago there was an eclipse and thanks to Cliff, I got to see the last bit of it. It was raining all that night, so I wasn't even aware of an eclipse happening, but the weather cleared just in time to watch its departure.

School. Well. School is just a plethora of activity. There's the sports day to prepare for, the track and field event in October. Students just came back from summer vacation and already took tests to prove that they did absolutely no studying during the summer break. It's been rather depressing grading the tests. Oh well. They've been busy with extracurricular stuff this summer to do much about relaxing or studying. I also have one student to prepare for the speech contest at the end of September. This will be my third and last English speech contest. Mixed feelings.

This weekend will be a very special day in the Ogimi event calendar--the unjami festival. I shall write about it when i have the photos to back it up.

And to finish off this impossibly long blog, here are a few photos from the last month.
love
-e

the three fourths of the Fearsome Foursome! Miss ya, guys!

Early in the morning after tens of cocktails and hours of karaoke...Goodbye!

the goat won by the Ogimi seinenkai (youth group) during the Ogimi festival's rope tug of war .
I do no know the goat's fate. Perhaps the members enjoyed a goat soup a few days after the fest. The eisa during the fest was by far the best we've performed and my goal of participating in eisa during Ogimi festival was accomlished. It was a fantastic feeling being a part of something that took my breath away during the first few weeks on the island two years ago.

from a viewing spot near cape Hedo where Chikara took us the other day.
mostly new JETs taking in the beauty of northern Okinawa
the family butsudan after it's been cleared of fruit, flowers, and other objects. the three blue, ornate urns are for the three ancestors being honored during Obon.

2007-08-06T20:16:00.001+09:00

i owe an update. but give me a week or two. things are happening every day and half the time i don't know what day it is and when was the last time i slept for more than 5 hours. naps is the way to go apparently.

i went to Izena and learned all about its spiders and hermit crabs thanx to Mr. Izena, Craig.

been playing eisa around Ogimi and Sunday went to Naha with the youth group to participate in the 10,000 men eisa parade down Kokusai dori (International street). It was a fantastic experience and i was happiest during it when i saw my friends waving at me from the crowd.

lots of karaoke.

goodbyes, tears, sun= my last week and a half.

am tired. i'll do a better job of posting and recaping in a few days.

sorry, Craig ;)

2007-07-22T23:47:00.000+09:00

i have a new camera!!
i've been considering getting a new one for a few months now. i love my trusty Minolta but it's 3 years old now and pales in comparison to what is out there on the market. i of course can't afford anything super fancy, nor do i want 'cause i wouldn't know what to do with it. photography has never been my strong point. Unlike my sister, Sofya who in my eyes is an expert, i just point and snap. Sometimes i get lucky and the compositions turn out to be worthy of printing and displaying. i've taken some great shots with the minolta, and i hope i can continue with my new Canon PowerShot A710IS.
It's a bit heavy but seems sturdy. i don't know what all it can do, have to search for manual on-line as i only got the japanese one. but i can change the language to english or russian if i want to, which is cool.

so here are a couple of shots i took today driving back home. they're not great, and the second one has been edited, but am sure more good ones are to come.

also this weekend Block1 hosted a successful goodbye party for the northern JETs and their friends. it was wonderful to have everyone in one place. the weather was fantastic and the bbq went off splenditly. in the late hours of the night we enjoyed watching african dancing and drumming and some fire twirling on a beach. good times.

2007-07-04T12:12:00.002+09:00

the end of school term is in the air. we are done. we are finished. we have one more day! arrrrgh.
to be fair, i don't have one more day. i am done today. i'm not coming to school tomorrow because i'm going to the airport to bid farewell to Gabrielle. She's leaving the island after five years on JET, and i am sad to see her go. really sad. but such is JET experience--friendships are made quickly and then one has to say "goodbye" until next meeting. because i don't believe i won't see Gabrielle or any of my other close friends again. i'll visit them or we'll meet up elsewhere in the world.

Saying all this doesn't make the prospect of separation that much easier to face.
頑張りましょう、ね！

i have a new keitai. it's a Motorolla Razr. i heard that in the States it's considered pretty cool, or maybe that was a year ago. I got it 'cause it was the 2nd cheapest option for me at the shop. The cheapest phone would have been nearly free but didn't have a camera but did have a radio. i declined.

the typhoon was actually a big hit. It canceled school on Friday and we ended up with a 4 day weekend, the first part of which was spent mostly indoors.
Before typhoon hit us, I picked Ben up Thursday night and it was already apparent then that his coast would get hit harder than mine. Whereas on my side the sea was still peaceful, on his side it was already throwing sand and debris onto the road across barriers.
Saturday, Ben and i went to check out the damage on his, eastern, coast.
The damage was minimal compared to other places on the island but there was lots of sand and roads were blocked off for clean-up. The kids had a blast, though, playing around on large sand piles pushed off the road by bulldozers. The houses along the road in Kawatta collected sand inside and out and we saw people spraying them down with water and sweeping sand off tatami. The kids told us that 4 cars that were in a parking lot across the road got pushed into each other by the waves and the wind, and one was even lifted up and crushed down onto a nearby tree. When we went to look, the cars were already gone, but we did see the broken tree.

Across the island people lost power. I was lucky that and Ben, Gabrielle and I only went without aircon for 5 minutes. We watched movies, and Tv shows, and cooked delicious food, drank chu-his and played boardgames. For being the first truly typhoon party, it was a success!!

i download the free NPR shuffle podcast and it's great. i love the variety and the unexpected turn the collection sometimes takes. i also like NPR's fresh air, although sometimes Terry Gross' questions strike me as overly simplistic, she feeds the answer to her quests through her questions. but not all the time.
anyways. i recently listened to a Fresh Air podcast about Victor Bout, the infamous arms dealer. His story is amazing--it's bewildering to think how many conflicts, genocides, revolutions, rebellions, etc.. he has helped supply with firearms. He has no identifiable ideology and the most fantastic of all is that his planes have flown arms and essential supplies for the UN and United States, most recently into and out of Iraq. The two men Terry spoke with, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, have written a book about him called Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible. They spoke casually about their subject and every once in a while even laughed about the ways he has built his far-reaching business. At first, i was appalled by their seeming lighthearted approach towards the topic, but then i started laughing with them. This is the age we live in--and it's amusing to say the least. Here's one man who has found a niche and in the best example of capitalistic entrepreneurship has built himself an empire by selling weapons. But not only has he not be caught and stopped, his planes have been used by various "anti-terrorist" governments, most prominently the United States, to advance their ends in conflicts around the world. And that's how the world spins round. Ya gotta laugh.

and i'm awaiting the delivery of the new Harry Potter book. Should be coming to my door Saturday or Monday. Yipee!

love
-e

an ode to keitai

2007-07-04T12:12:00.001+09:00

to my trusty friend
who's always been
the one to ring
when times are dim

whose music tones
were cool and new
whose swishing sound
made all want you

with clear alarm
you woke me up
with blinking light
you've kept me up

without you life won't be same
you've been replaced, your numbers saved
but as my first keitai you stand
forever flipping in my hand.

well... i guess you can deduce from the poorly written lines that my cell phone has been damaged beyond repair and replaced by a brand new shiny model.
what happened? well. if you must know.
a dog ate it.
nah. actually it was a pair of wild geckos.
nope. also not true.
David put it in his mouth and it stopped working.
yep. that sounds plausible enough. but also not exactly correct.
i'm a bit of a klutz and i let it fall out of my bag next to my car and drove over it? do you believe that? you do? well. good for you, 'cause that's the sad truth. and only a month shy of a 2 year anniversary. *sigh*

in other news. a typhoon Man-Yi is on his way to Okinawa mainland. Don't be alarmed, it's only projected to be a trocal storm strength, but there's a possibility of Category 1 winds. Which means school might be canceled, but i won't hold my breath, since in two years here a typhoon hasn't yet managed to affect school schedule.

i've put the link to Tropical Storm Risk website back up, so you're welcome to track typhoon's progress yourselves. Enjoy!

love
-e

2007-07-04T12:12:00.000+09:00

updates:

1. My students did not place in the story contest. They did a good job. One of them was the best out of the 10 students that performed before her. I am very proud of them and the work they've put in. It was a fun contest, though. In the second half the competition picked up and the best stories were performed. Ben's student and Rodger's student both placed, getting first and second respectively. Rodger's kid's performance made me laugh so hard, I cried. It's odd however, being in an audience of 40 but being one of a handful who actually understands what is being said at the podium.

2. my car's airconditioner has been fixed! yipee. it didn't cost me a grand, but half of that, which is still no small amount, but the pleasure of driving and not sweating should not be underestimated. next step, do something about the CD player thing.

3. it is so so so hot now that it's harder to think in the classroom. seriously. i get all sort of ideas while sitting in the air conditioned teacher office but in the classroom the response time is slowed down to a mere crawl. ha ha
kidding. but it is hot and i do wish we had aircons in every classroom because the last 3 weeks before summer vacation are torture here. がんばりましょう、ね！

4. 4th of July has no bearing whatsover on our life in Japan. Except that a bunch of US ALTs got invited to a celebration of the 231st anniversary of American independence tonight at the consulate office in Naha. I was gonna go, but now am thinking not. Still might change my mind. have 4 hours.

5. My sister is the coolest for hanging out at the same bar in New York as Drew Barrymore and Zach Braff. No. Not at the same time. ;)

love
-e

2007-06-28T21:51:00.000+09:00

my day.
overslept.
actually it would be more correct to say that i hit the snooze way too many times thinking that i'm somehow owed an hour of extra sleep for staying after school for 2 extra hours.
show up to work 30 minutes late. Empty school. Nearly. 1st graders are the only students in attendance. 2nd and 3rd graders are at work sites, 2nd graders have been at them since Monday, 3rd graders only today and Friday. Have a meeting with JTE for 2nd period class with 1st graders. We're entering dangerous territory--3rd person singular "s" addition to the verbs. It is the most common mistake and the more frustrating for the fact that if students don't have this down by 3rd grade, what chance do they have with past perfect construction?

So. Plan to actively pursue education of fresh minds. Recently I realized that when i took foreign language in high school the classes were every day and in the German classroom. Therefore everyday we got to see the posters with common rules on the walls. The more you see those rules, the better they sink in, i think. Since in Japanese classrooms it is the teachers that move and not the students, having permanent subject posters like that is impossible. So I asked if we could have students glue inside their files a cut out with the explanation of how the "s" gets added on to the 3rd person singular verbs. He went for it! Yipee. The inside of their file covers are going to be filled by end of school year!
Class over, I stay around and chat with a couple of the kids. Back in the teachers' office, I savor the coolness of the aircon--the only one in the school. Few minutes of kanji study are followed by a completion of a Sudoku puzzle--I've renewed my interest in these puzzles after finding a book of them under others while cleaning the shelves behind my desk.
Next, time on the internet, chat with my sister and bring Facebook up to date. Then i realize i should be going to the BOE to talk with my supervisor about my wanting to get the AC in my car looked at. I call, he's on holiday today, they say the superintendant will be back in 15 minutes. I leave school in 20, get to BOE and am told the superintendent went to lunch already. It's 11:30am. I mention that I want to go to a repair shop in Kunigami to have AC fixed. While one BOE lady looks up the phone number the other remembers that this shop will not do AC work and I have to go elsewhere. Men in the accounting division are asked and there are now 3 people trying to figure out where to send me. They map out a place near Nago, and I think i know what they mean (the subject of how maps are drawn here should be fully explored at a later date). The new concern is whether I will be able to get a loaner car from the shop. The phone call is made and it is found out that no loaners are available at that shop or another one like it in Nago. What to do? The discussions that follow are mostly beyond my comprehension. I just politely stand off to the side as the issue is hashed out. I am next told that there is a place in Tsuha (the northern most village of Ogimi-son) that I should go to. Another map is drawn, and this time I know exactly where I'm going as the car place appears to be right next to a new soba shop I've eaten at several times already. I thank everyone profusely and go back to school for lunch.
Lunch time. One of the dishes is tiny salted fish mixed in with caramelized peanuts. But we also got a watermelon today! Hurray! And it's delicious! I eat three pieces as there are extra. Yum.

After lunch, drive to the car place but warn two people at school prior to my going that the shop might be calling them if I don't understand something important. Drive to shop, thinking that I'd pay 500$ to fix the AC as opposed to the previously self-imposed limit of 300$. Limit upgrade due to the intensity of the heat during drive over. Get to the shop. One of the workers immediately points me towards Nago as soon as I say, "koolah" but I insist that I was meant to come here and he goes to ask. A minute later I step outside the comfortably air conditioned tiny office to find another man pulling up in a small white car. When he steps out he attempts to explain to me the details of the situation. I gather that I'm getting a loaner from them, but they will actually take my car to Nago to get it looked at. It dawns on me that the man back at the office arranged this with the owner of this shop who is possibly a friend if not a relation. Sooo. I have no idea when I'll see my car again, how much it'll cost me or anything else for that matter. But I do get to drive a tiny air conditioned car for a couple of days, and that's all right with me.
A year ago I would find this to be extremely frustrating and nerve wracking. I am much calmer about these situations now. Am not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps it's due to the fact that nothing really has gone wrong for me here yet. This will be the first thing, eh? Watch me shell out a grand for AC repairs next week! But if I do, it better work like new.

At school I do more sudoku, study more kanji, read a grossly entertaining book called, "Stiff" about human cadavers and their adventures in the land of research.
I can't leave.
I am waiting for the story contest students and so have to stay at school past my contract time. One of them shows up a little after 5:30pm. We have a quick practice; she is nearly ready. I call a couple of teachers and some 1st grade basketball girls to listen to her tell the story. She does it beautifully and in well under 5 minutes. I'm relieved and we both go home.

Quick, improvised dinner of stir-fried wild rice, tuna, green onion, and leafy frozen veggies. At around 7:30pm I'm at eisa practice. Tonight we get to put in orders for pants and shoes. I try on the L size baseball pants and they fit. I sometimes wish i was back in a country where I was Medium size. We go through the songs three times and at the end of the 2nd round i enthusiastically hit my thumb instead of the drum. AGAA!

After eisa practice, i watch some women from the village practice a hari boat dance inside the gym and feel a part of a community. Sort of. Still sometimes just an outsider looking in.

Have an exciting weekend coming up, starting with a carefree Friday. No students will be at the school at all, and I'm staying at home in the morning 'cause only 4 people will actually be at work. I will have to go in around 4pm to wait around for the story contest students again. But thankfully tomorrow is the last day, and Saturday we get to show off our students and stories. Goodluck to all! :)
I'll let ya all know how it goes.

love
-e

5:45am. near Ogimi, looking north.

2007-06-20T22:25:00.001+09:00

the test scores are in and they are pitiful. students took their midterm tests yesterday and today, and i graded all the English ones, because i could. the part where i could actually read their japanese and grade it was exciting, the part where the class averages where in the low 60's was depressing. 2nd and 3rd graders' scores made me want to cry but grading 1st graders today was the highlight of my week so far. they're well into high 70's and 80's and 3 or 4 scored above 90. i know you must think that it's a bit sad to be excited about 2 or 3 high scores but after seeing test after test of below 60, i was nearly beside myself writing those numbers on their test sheets.
two reasons for low test scores: the absolute certainty that all students will pass through junior high school no matter what their scores are on the test and second is that the language is taught in a completely illogical manner and there is too much information and not enough time to process. sub reason: the teaching enthusiasm of a certain person has transferred to the learning enthusiasm of most students. 1st graders so far seem immune. The 1st grade textbook is actually a bit better than the ones we used in previous years and also they had 5 years of Gabrielle's brilliant teaching in elementary school. It also helps the class averages that most students are either good learners or well above average. In other classes there are handful of students with obvious learning disabilities who get lost behind when the textbook tempo picks up at the end of 1st grade.
i would love to be able to say that the reason 1st graders are doing so well right now is due to my inspired assistance. perhaps in parts, i could attribute it to it, but certainly not all. the fact that we introduced phonics differently this year and have tried teaching reading a bit differently might have contributed to it, but i don't have any data other than these tests to support it.
i am happy to say that on the listening portion of the tests, in all grades, students scored high. So i guess i'm doing something right. oh well. we'll keep persevering.

in other news. the mosquitoes are out in full force! I am being eaten alive at home and out. Last night went to eisa practice, thinking it was going to be indoors like on previous tuesdays, but the weather had cleared up right before practice time and we were out on the field--in full range of the mosquito population. most ladies were itching and i learned the word for "itchy" and won't forget it now.

Eisa is turning out to be a lot of fun. The dances are a bit complicated, but have gotten a hang of most of them. Am having trouble with transitions from one song to another, but that's probably 'cause we haven't practiced the full set of songs with transitions. Yesterday, they added the cheers, and so i now can rightfully scream "ha ee ya!" in response to the "ee ya sa sa" of the big drum dancers. and of course, this will actually make sense to only a handful of you, so i just gotta say to the rest of you, try to make it to the Ogimi festival this August 10 and 11th when i'll hopefully be performing the eisa with the group.

and it's looking like the rainy days are finally behind us. although, i say that now, and watch it pour down again this weekend. enough rain already!!

love
-e

2007-06-15T20:22:00.000+09:00

i hadn't actually realized it's been a while since i posted. guess i been busy. doing what, though, you might ask. well. a few things. for one, growing a year older and a year closer to the overbearing number 30. But since i've met several wonderful and youthful 30 year olds since being on Oki, i'm not so fearful of the number.
but still 29 for now.
so i shall mention that my birthday has been quite a successful one this year. it just keeps on giving. the actual bday was on a tuesday but my first and very enthusiastic birthday song was sung on a monday by high school students. This happened because i didn't have school on monday and drove south to spend time with Kel and Yas. While driving down, Kel asked if i wanted to stop by her high school and maybe even visit one of her classes. I agreed. Been curious about an Okinawa high school for a while. all those stories of make-up sessions in class, cell phones, short skirts, Yonkee boys, etc. So i was in quite a surprise when i walked through the halls of Kelly's school. They're all respectful, tidy, smiley individuals who were very enthusiastic about seeing a new foreign face in the halls. and the class i visited blew me away. Kelly had them ask me questions and one of the first i got, said with perfect grammar mind you was, "why do you have so many pockets," this was in regards to the cool skirt i was wearing that does have a large amount of pockets. Next questions came shyly and some under coercing from Kelly but they were impressive when they came. I got asked about my hobbies and sports i liked, but also about the reasons my family moved from Kazakhstan to USA and why i wanted to come to Okinawa to teach. A really inquisitive bunch of high school seniors. And propped by Kelly, they all burst into a rendition of a birthday song when i was asked the appropriate question. Fantastic! I had a great time in the class and walking around during break. It was fun seeing what a high school is really like. It was very intimidating, realizing that there were 1200 students at the school and several teacher offices full of staff that taught them. Quite a shock to the system after my 108 youngsters.
So yeah. that was the first birthday present. I've also gotten a 1440 page book, a giant watermelon, a website with a message just for me, a package of random goodies, two bright red shisas, numerous messages on the Facebook wall, and of course, the best birthday surprise ever from two beautiful women i'm lucky to call friends.

and the rest of the post will be in pics, 'cause i'm starting to get tired.

Ogimi boys in the final game against Nago Junior HS. They're number 1 in the north, and will play in the all Okinawa tournament at the end of July. Go Ogimi!
The cheering section at a baseball game. The card at the bottom shows the name of a player at the plate. During a cheer his name is yelled several times.
Ogimi baseball team taking a bow to the cheering section after winning their first game. They unfortunately lost the next one.
A beautiful tree in Yomitan. The school went on a field trip to learn about the experience of Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa. We started in Yomitan at a cave site where numerous Okinawans hid and later committed suicide. The students listening to the guide tell them the sad story of the ChibiChiri cave site.
At the Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum students have a chance to read personal accounts of survivors of Battle of Okinawa. This was a very bloody battle, and most of the blood was spilled by the Okinawans caught up in the fighting.
The view from the top floor of the Peace Museum.
That's me being super excited about a surprise birthday cake on the evening of my birthday.
And here are two lovely ladies responsible for the best surprise ever! Kelly and Yasemine snuck into my place, blew up baloons, taped up photos, lit candles and hid in the livingroom for me to find them. I was keeled over and speechless for several minutes. Naughty monkeys!

snippets from last two weeks

2007-06-03T18:15:00.000+09:00

on the way to school in the morning i now get to see some of my students waiting for the school bus at the bus stops. if we make eye contact, i wave and they wave back.
i started going to school a half hour earlier to practice for the story contest with one of the students. she's been busy after school practicing for a basketball tournament and mornings seem to be a good time to have a story session. sometimes she's late, though. and starting next week tuesday her morning "job" at school will be to stand with 3 or 4 other students and greet everyone as they come in to school. she'll have to do it for a week.
actually, because i usually don't get to school until 8:15am i don't get to see all sorts of things that happen before classes start. there are students who come in early to practice sports, and some are there to water the plants in the morning and to do a bit of clean up around the entrance. and of course, the greeters, whom i always miss because at 8:15am as i walk into school, students rush to their homerooms for a morning meeting. So i've been enjoying coming in early and seeing a new side of my students and school.

at first being back from home was really odd. and sort of difficult. my trip was so short but so wonderful that all i wanted was just to be back there still, surprising the dog with my presence every morning. but alas, i was back at school, thrown into a busy, ever changing schedule, and the first couple of days were tough. but it's back to normal, and the trip home feels like a dream that i had to reluctantly leave when i woke up on a school day morning.

tomorrow two student teachers start at the school. one is for English, the other is for Home Economics, i think. i really don't understand how they schedule these students teaching stints. they're only 3 weeks long, but during those three weeks the school will be super busy. we're having the biggest inter JHS sports tournament this weekend, which could be the last one for 3rd graders if they don't win in their respective team sport. Our school has girl and boy basketball teams, girls' soft tennis team and a boys baseball team. I think a couple of students will be competing in karate as well, but we don't have a formal team at school--they practice at private dojos. So we get a friday and a following monday off because we'll all be expected to be at the tournaments' various sights this weekend to cheer on the students. Also the following Wednesday all the students are going on a field trip to two places in Okinawa to learn about WWII and the peace movement. So lots of interruptions, during which the two young and scared student teachers will have to attempt to practice their budding teaching skills. seems ridiculous to me. but at the same time, very japanese.

this past weekend was filled with all sorts of cultural and learning activities. On Friday, the school was visited by a singer/songwriter who performed for the students and the community. She's Okinawan and in late 20's and suffered from an illness i didn't quite understand which, i think, resulted in her losing vision in one eye. not sure exactly how it happened, but she wears a patch over her right eye. She battled through a serious depression after it happened but with the help of her friends and music was able to pull through. She seriously got into singing and song writing to help her through and has been performing since 2003. She plays the guitar and has a lovely and strong voice. Her music is Alanis Morrissete influenced and not bad at all. I enjoyed her singing.

But i had to leave the concert a half hour early because i got invited to join a few friends in watching a performance by a troupe from India at another village community center. Craig saw them perform on his island of Izena the previous night and said they were worth seeing, so we invited a few people and went to see it. The performance included classical and traditional dancing, singing, drumming and even a martial arts dance with swords. It was great to have our very own Indian expert in Juhi, who explained the story behind one of the more beautiful dances which involved a Krishna flirting with cow shepherdesses. The evening's event also included several performances of Okinawan traditional dance and music. This troupe from North Eastern region of India has been traveling Japan for a month and has another month of daily performances ahead of them. Their performances are a part of the Japan-India Friendship Year 2007. This is to commemorate a cultural, historical and more recently business connections between the two countries. There are numerous events taking place all over Japan and India to commemorate it. I'm really glad we got to see it. It's really great to see a live cultural performance, and i seem to appreciate those very rare opportunities more here.
Here are the students setting up their chairs before the performance on Friday. They bring their own chairs from the classroom. Each chair has their name sticker on the back, unless of course they scraped it off at some point. And then i don't know how they figure out whose is whose.
The singer/songwriter performs at the school on a Friday afternoon.
Prior to the performance at the Nakijin Community Center, the dancers and musicians are introduced to the audience.
The shepherdess dance. When they came out in their stunning costumes, the "awe" in the audience was audible. They were gorgeous and graceful. The best dance of the evening.
Krishna flirting with the main shepherdess. Their love, as Juhi told us, has been deified in Indian mythology. A beautiful, classical dance.

Craig has an interesting story about the performers' visit to his island, and i hope he shares it on his blog. so watch for that.

I also wanted to mention two movies i recently watched, Libertine and Stage Beauty. I watched Libertine first last week, and i had no idea that the two movies took place during the same time period. Each movie's focus was the theater life during the reign of Charles II in England in the 1660's. And the two movies couldn't have been more different in their portrayal of the times. I enjoyed both movies and the stories they told. The differences in how they told the stories of the time made me think in how we look at history of centuries past. We can have a story of depravity and excess be shrouded in dark colors and not shy away from gruesome and highly sexual imagery that prevailed then, or we can have a story of love taking place in the same period where stepping into a pile of horse dung represents the discomfort of life, and the ending stops on an uplifting love moment instead on the image of a death of a syphilitic man. Of course, both films bend history to their liking in order to promulgate their stories.
Would films two hundred years from now be able to romanticize the tragedy of our times? Will there be films two hundred years from now is probably a better question, eh?

and on that note, i'd like to end this blog, so i can get back to watching the 4th season of the Simpsons. The true cultural genius of our times. :)

love
-e

2007-05-23T18:30:00.000+09:00

Congratulations Dr. Kats!!!

i went home for five days. a short but wonderful trip. i went to see my sister graduate from Marquette's School of Dentistry. Got back last night, drove home and called in sick today for work because was a bit dizzy and out of it this morning. Still am a bit. so here are some pics to make the posting easier for me, but more interesting for you. :)

Anna and Sofya at Anna's studio apartment with one of her newest pieces.
Have you ever heard of hurling? Well, if you haven't, then you'd be like me. A good friend joined the league in Milwaukee which is apparently the largest league outside of Ireland where the game is from. I went to see his practice to see what it looked like. It looks difficult, streneous, but fun.
Molly at the dog park. It was truly warm and sunny one day in Milwaukee while i was there. Molly and I enjoyed a stroll in the park.
Sofya at the brand new (to me) Bayshore mall. The newly redone mall was opened in the winter time. It's done like a mini-city with stores lining streets, each building architecturally different. but the large building behind Sofya is mostly condos and offices.
Prior to the hooding ceremony on Saturay night, Sofya and grandmas.
Walking into the church for the hooding ceremony. The ceremony was held at a cathedral on 12th street in Milwaukee across from Marquette university. Marquette is a Jesuit university.
Sofya is honored for her top grades with several other classmates.
2007 Marquette School of Dentistry graduates. Congratulations!
with the happy family after the hooding ceremony which official inducted Sofya into the dentistry profession.
On Sunday morning at the graduation luncheon, Katie and Sofya show off their hoods. The lilac color is for the profession of dentistry. Blue and gold are Marquette's colors.
Sofya poses with one of the cards my students made for her.
Early monday morning we had breakfast with grandmas before my sisters drove me to the Chicago airport.
One of the reasons i love being home is the comfort of being with my family. This photo reminds me of that. Grandma Nina fortune tells on the coffee grounds every time we have turkish coffee. She's lovely when she does and i look forward to it every time.

2007-05-08T11:22:00.000+09:00

i wanted to do a photo blog, so forgive me for not doing what i wanted to do even though you had no idea i wanted to do it.

i thought it'd be the easiest way to share with you about what's been happening lately. mostly about the Golden week weekends, so perhaps i'll add them in a few days.

the first weekend i was meant to participate in an adventure to an uninhabited island off Izena island with several wacky and determined friends. i backed out and spent the weekend in the north. it was a good decision, although i do regret not exploring the village that has been abandoned on that island for 50 years or so. heard it was creepy but very interesting as most of the buildings were quite old.

saturday it rained all day and i wasn't quite up for anything more than going for a walk in the neighborhood. The lovely turk stayed with me friday night and it was wonderful to catch up with her and hear all about her trip home during spring break. She brought me a great gift--an actual turkish "chevz", a russian name for a turkish coffee cooker. Sunday the weather was lovely, sunny and bright, and i went to the Shioya village to watch the trim runs. My students were helping out and all the village officials were there and i walked around Shioya after and took some pics from spots i haven't been to before. On saturday, boys and girls basketball teams played in a tournament between northern junior high schools. The girls, unfortunately, didn't get through the firs two rounds, but the boys team did. Sunday afternoon, i drove to a junior high school in Nago and watched the Ogimi boys' team play for the 1st place. They were fantastic and won easily. That was very exciting. The teachers who left Ogimi in March were there to cheer them on, which was great to see. And the cheering squads of both schools were unstoppable. The entire baseball team of the opposing school was up in the rafters doing cheers along side their girls' basketball team. So even though our team beat theirs, i think their cheering squad easily overtook ours.

Later that day Kelly came up with her visiting friend. First we went to see a movie at Schwab, called Number 23 with Jim Carrey. Kelly once again went to a movie with me without knowing much about it and i couldn't remember anything about this one to tell her, except that i wanted to see it based on the previews and it seemed intense. It was that and also slightly convoluted and a bit predictable, but film noirish (is that a word?) in parts and creepy. I enjoyed it. Kelly didn't. She will never go to movies with me again, i fear. After the movie we hung out at mine, drinking wine and playing games and mentioning the Number 23 every once in a while to bring back fond memories of the film.
On Monday I spent time with Gabrielle and later on David and Andy came up after their "lost" adventure and we walked around my village and they told me all the stories from their trip. quite hilarious. During our walk, we stumbled upon a tiny place that at first looked like a shop, but turned out to be a small museum with a collection of items and photos from Kijoka's history and culture. The owner collects items that have to do with the local folklore, specifically the tree sprite creature, bunagaya. This red headed tiny being is more commonly known as kijimuna on Okinawa and can be sited in their home, the gajumaru tree.
Here's a link to a more detailed explanation of kijimuna Kijimuna inkblot art

The next weekend David, Ben, Juhi and i ventured to Kume island. This island has been on Juhi's "most wanted" list for a long time, nearly as long as she's been on Okinawa. The 4 hour ferry ride brought us to the beautiful and quite big Kume jima. We rented a car and camped near the beach. It was a wonderful weekend and i have photos up on Fotki and facebook.

There's a spot on Kume island that is known as the ghost road. Juhi had some "google translated pages" about certain places on Kume and they were mostly gibberish that made for funny reading. The ghost road was essentially described as a place where the ghost spirits can create optical illusions to confuse people. On this road, in a certain spot, if one were to put the car in neutral the car would move forward even though it appeared to be climbing up. It took us a while to find the road in the first place because of the rain and the dusk and the fact that Kume government has seemingly decided to let their tourists strain their eyesight at tiny, nearly rubbed off signs posted right at the corner of the turn off for an attraction. Having found the road, i put the car in neutral in several spots without any success of involving the ghosts in our faiths. We gave up but when the road took a dip, i decided to put it in neutral and let it roll down the hill. I took my foot off the pedals and the car rolled downhill and then, as it came to a slight incline, it kept rolling. I excitedly pointed out the fact that the car was still in neutral and my foot was still nowhere near the pedals. We decided, that because i first went down a hill and then up, i might have had enough momentum to continue upwards. So i reversed the car to a spot about halfway on the decline, stopped, put the car in neutral and took off my foot. The car slowly rolled down and then up the incline. For a moment, we thought it wouldn't roll much further but it kept going reaching the top. Spooky! But mostly an optical illusion. Ben claims that he figured it out. Ask him about it. :)

So am back in school and it's nearly lunch time. Wanted to quickly rant about the lack of a coffee shop concept in Japan. or maybe it's just Okinawa, though i doubt it. A giant, three story building was being renovated for the last two months in the middle of Nago. The signage proclaimed the coming of an internet cafe, billiards, and darts. I was excitedly anticipating its opening because from the road it looked like that along the side of the regular cubical reading spots, there would be comfy couches and chairs set up by the large windows. Finally! i thought, A place where i can sit and read with a cup of tea or coffee in Nago. I have been very much missing a coffee shop atmosphere that i've grown fond of in Milwaukee. The place opened on the 27th and i went on the 28th. As i parked, i saw through the windows a couple of people reading on the cream colored, comfy looking couches. I grabbed my book and headed in. A guy approached me with a shiny, explanation pamphlet. I said i wanted to read, he asked if i wanted a cubicle or to sit by the window. I motioned to the windows. He took me to the counter and i asked about getting a coffee. He pointed to a menu list, except it didn't list the types of coffees the place had, instead it listed durations of time, locations and the price. So to sit on the couches for half an hour costs 200Yen (roughly 1.5$) and a drink from a coffeematic machine is free. I think my look of disbelief must have confused the guy further and he kept pointing at the price list, which by this point, i had perfectly understood--NO COFFEE SHOP FOR ELINA!

bleh.

today is Goya day. Because it's the 5th month, May, which is called Gogatsu in Japanese. and the 8th day of that month, which can be read as "ya" sometimes. So 5/8 is "goya" day. Clever. We're having goya tempura for lunch along with fishy smelling spaghetti and baked potatoes topped with bacon and a small side of a an egg salad with some green looking things. nope. not the healthiest of lunches. and no dessert! :(

Yesterday i was at the local shop in Kijoka and over heard a couple of old ladies chatting inside. By overheard, i don't mean, i understood them because there was no way i could. They were speaking the Okinawan language, Uchinaguchi. I've heard people refer to it as a dialect of Japanese but have also read somewhere that people outside of Japan and Okinawa consider it a distinctly separate language. Since i haven't done much research into the area, i can't confirm either way. But i can tell you that the language the ladies were speaking was NOT japanese. It didn't even really sound like it. It actually resembled Chinese to me. Uchinaguchi or the Ryukyu language is also referred to as hogen and i have learned a few words, but not very many. Some of my friends who interact more with the locals know quite a few words and older Okinawans appreciate people learning their language. Sadly, though, the language may die out in a couple of generations as young people don't speak it and their parents don't speak it well or frequently. Hogen varies from village to village as we discovered while trying to compare our knowledge of it. Andy knew words that David didn't but they also knew differently sounding words for the same things. Ben told me that even villages located relatively close to each other, like the 3 villages of Higashi-son, will have hogen words unique to them. Interesting. Maybe one of these days i'll look a bit more into it.

and in other news.
am going home next week for my sister's graduation from the Marquette School of Dentistry. It is definitely an unexpected visit and will be a short one, but i felt that it had to happen and so am going. The next few days will be slightly more strained for me because i'm just really wanting to see my family already!

love
-e

2007-04-25T21:14:00.000+09:00

meant to write about this a while ago. but what with the old laptop/new laptop transition and believe it or not, being very busy at school, only just sat down to write it.
what i wanted to mention was a curious thing that happened a few times while my mom was here and that was confirmed somewhat during the first monday morning teacher meeting a couple of weeks ago.
having mom here made me look at my life through an outsider's perspective. but not just where i live and the customs and culture i'm surrounded by, but my own actions and perceptions and how they've been modified by living here. mom thought it was odd that i would cover my mouth sometimes when chewing and attempting to talk, but even though i'm conscious of when it happens i can't always help bringing my hand to my mouth to cover it after putting something bigger than a niblet in my mouth. the women do it a lot and i guess i've picked it up. mom also noted that whenever i can, i hand things over to people with both hands.
she didn't mention it but i noticed how odd it was to have my mom extend her hand everytime she was introduced instead of bowing. something about her forwardness was uncomfortable for me, and it could only be because i've already been accultured to certain ways of interaction here that anything out of the ordinary really sticks out to me, even though it's a part of my primary culture.
Craig mentioned in a comment that i must be becoming Japanese if i'm starting to talk about appreciating simple and natural things. that's very possible. i guess after the period of culture shock comes the period of acculturation.
and here's a perfect example. during the spring break, the teachers' desks got shifted around, as they usually do during this time of transition from one staff to another, from old school year to new. so my desk got moved closer to the computer, but it's now also closer to the head teacher's desk and vice principal desk and farther from the office lady's desk where it was the last two arrangements.
at the monday morning meetings teachers sit in the spots that somewhat directly coordinate to their desk location. so i used to sit at the very end next to the office lady and the accountant. and it seemed like a reasonable position. i sit in that spot for lunch as well. my position in the school is very clearly defined. i think i've mentioned the hierarchy system that exists within the school and not just mine. so. at the very first meeting of the new school year i go to my usual spot and the office lady motions for me to go sit next to the head teacher, at the head of the table. it would certainly make sense according to the system of how everyone else is seated but i felt extremely out of place there. i was all of a sudden sitting across from one of the senior teachers, diagonally from the principal, next to the head teacher and the vice principal.
and i honestly thought that it had to be wrong, and i shouldn't be there. a part of me knows that thinking that way is a bit screwed up, but a part of me still believes i should be at the other end of the table. and there ya have it. i'm turning Japanese.

and it has been extremely busy at school for me. but a lot of fun as well. several changes to how we teach have been implemented since the start of the year and they're working out smoothly so far and i'm happy, but also busy. and the story contest practice started and the two students are putting in serious effort in already, which makes the job so much easier.

but Golden Week is coming up and we'll all be taking a bit of a break thanx to the great Japanese system of forced vacation through public holidays. this weekend will be a camping trip, and then work tuesday and wednesday, and then nothing planned for the other 4 day weekend.
looking forward to it.

oh. and the macbook rocks!
and i've just uploaded the photos to the April Fotki folder. they're from a trip to Iheya from a week and a half ago.

love

2007-04-20T13:56:00.000+09:00

yeah! i've finally figured out a way to let the silly computer at school let me into blogger again. the whole logging in automatically with my google ID is making this comp too edgy and tired.

but i won't post much right now, as i have a couple of things to take care of at school before i hop off to pay bills (it's pay day, yipee) and then play with my new Mac notebook at home. that's right! i ordered a mac laptop upon several recommendations and my own research and have just received it yesterday, two days after making a call to a nice young man in Tokyo who spoke nearly flawless english and seemed to have developed a crush on me, 'cause he asked me to call him "anytime" and then called me himself a couple of times to double check some things. very cute.
the fun part will be setting up the internet connection on it as it's been more than a year since i did it on my previous laptop and even then i had the help of the vice principal. will attempt on my own and then will call in the cavalry when i fail.

so if all goes well, i'll post a fresh blog this weekend on my verynew, white, and slick notebook from my apartment.

fingers crossed.

while you're here, though, click on the link for Doc's blog. He's got a curious map posted from Google and also a couple of worthwhile articles to read.

laters
-e

2007-04-13T14:56:00.000+09:00

there are so many things to discuss.
the new 1st graders that rushed into the school on monday, scared and eager and bewildered. the new teachers that came in two weeks ago but whom i haven't had a chance to really meet because i've been busy with mom's visit. they seem like wonderful people: serious, diligent, ready to take charge of this mass of bumbling youth that is Ogimi JHS. there's the total shut down of my laptop that could be mentioned: it was its time to be sure, but it's sad nonetheless that i didn't properly get to say goodbye and take away all that i really wanted from it. nearly 7 years is a long time for a laptop. it did its job.
there's also the fact that i will get to teach my own english elective class this year, once a week for two periods on thursdays. 12 students signed up, 6 boys and 6 girls, and the first class is next week and i'm already quite nervous about it because now that it's a regular class (though it was advertised as a replacement of the after school english club i had last school year) i now feel i need to map out a strategy, a curriculum to improve these kids' knowledge of English. but first, i suppose i should meet them and see what they want to do. A couple of the students who signed up were a surprise; they are lower lever and i only expected students with English skills to join, but i guess they were enticed by the mention of movie watching and manga reading and perhaps their friends suckered them into it. fools! ha ha. they'll be learning and they don't even know it!

all the above things are good to talk about. and i've had lots of thoughts about all of them the last week when i was attempting to sit down at the comp at school and start a blog. i kept being rejected--the blogger page wouldn't load at school and then my comp. crashed and so i had to wait until today to sit down and write. took a day off today and am now on Schwab (that's a base) at the library. i didn't actually took a day off to write a blog. that would be rather excessive. nope. took a day off to lick my wound about not seeing my favorite band play tonight and monday on mainland Japan. after two months of internal dancing to the future possibility of Gogol Bordello live on stage in front of me, i was neatly brought down by a short e-mail from the band announcing their canceled dates for Australia and Japan. the crash inside me might be likened to a vacuum. oh no, i am so lacking for words now that i can't even describe a complete lack of space and depth as a feeling. regardless. i had to return my air tickets but decided to keep one of the three days of vacation i was going to take for the trip. so today i woke up around 11am thinking that in another reality i'd be in my car right now, on the way to a friend's place to park it, going to the airport and tonight i'd be in a blissful state of dance to the best live band ever. i hope me, in the other reality, appreciates it.

speaking of appreciation. that's what i actually really want to talk about. appreciation of insignificant things. of things that are primarily on the periphery of our daily vision as we move through busy lives filled with concerns over medical insurance, job pay, vacation days, new wardrobes.. always moving, always rushing, always on the lookout for the better, the bigger, the more stable, the more complete, the more acceptable.
i haven't been doing that for a little over a year now and i would highly recommend it. and i don't want to speak of it as if i'm better and i've decided on something profound while the masses out there are in an unenlightened world that needs to be shattered for them in order for them to see the truth that i have found. far from it. i know nothing of truth. i just now what touches me, and i have known for a while, but it's harder to focus in america. it's harder to slow down and pay attention to yourself there. i guess i had to come here.
this is all very personal and so i'm putting up a disclaimer....this is not about you. this about me.

Igor just posted an article that i took to heart. it's an article about a musician who is considered to be the best in the world, who plays one of the finest if not the finest violin in the world and who have some dubbed genius though he would quickly defend himself from that title. it's an article about Joshua Bell playing at one of the busiest metro station in Washington DC, performing some of the most brilliant and divinely inspired pieces of music and out of over a thousand people only a handful taking note.
it made me think of my friends and my sisters who are attempting to create things in this life that are to them beautiful, that might be considered inspirational and unique and people in their lives nagging at them for not following the "right path" in life. what is that path that they or i must chose? what is the path that is acceptable, that is productive, that is promising of fulfillment? why must it be determined by the external forces and not the internal needs? why do we have to conform and resign ourselves? because the money isn't right? is that it?

i'm a bit angry and sad and i hope it comes through, because i never am on this podium i've chosen to be mine. i have never considered this blog space to be an opening into me, only into my life. but that's me, isn't it? my life that i live here. the fact that the clouds in this place make me inexplicably happy. the fact that the positioning of shisas on the rooftops is a good thing to chat about on a sunny day. the fact that i can expect every weekend to be thought provoking and new even if i spend it alone.

it's going to be hard to leave this place. this place where i'm finding peace. there are things i struggle with daily: my laziness about Japanese, my weight, my occasional insistence on seclusion..but those are the things that are helping me grow here as well. i have less than a year and a half. i'm in the 2nd half of this Okinawa experience. i'll try to be more appreciative of the life people lead here, of their culture, of their stories, and of mine as well.

also, and this should have been first and foremost, i just learned about the death of Kurt Vonnegut...it's been an emotional afternoon.

here are the links to the article from Washington Post about Joshua Bell and Kurt Vonnegut's obituary.
Pearls Before Breakfast
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., 84; Keen Observer of Humankind

hope you take the time.

love
-e

2007-03-25T22:32:00.000+09:00

am tired. mom's in town and we have been busy ever since she landed wednesday night.
she has been to my school and visited a class during which the kids managed to ask her a few questions and involved her in a game they played. she ate school lunch which also happened to be her first japanese food. she has been officially welcomed by my BOE with a party at a local restaurant. My supervisor presented her with a present and flowers and speeches were made. On saturday she was a great help to me during the Okinawa JET Gumball Rally, which turned out to be a great success. 6 teams participated and gathered lots of hilarious photos and surprising objects as well as the ones required by the list. I hope the photos turn up somewhere in the future and i can copy them and post them. During the race mom and i went to the Urasoe Art Museum and saw an exhibition of Asian fiber art recommended by Brett. The exhibition was small but wonderful. I have never seen fiber art so formally presented and it was quite intriguing. The museum itself, however, is not so impressive with a small permanent collection of Okinawan lacquer ware. After the gumball rally finished a few of us went out to dinner at an izakaya and then it was karaoke time. Mom was a brave soul and stayed up 'til 3am with us and sang a few songs, including the only russian selection available, TATU's "Ya soshla s uma."
This morning was cloudy and rainy and my plans to take mom to her first Okinawan castle were ruined. But we had a great day, nonetheless. First lunch with the wonderful and stylish, Ms. Wiebe at DFS and then a stop at Cape Manzamo in Onna village on the way back home.
Back in Ogimi we stopped at home to pick up some russian sweets mom brought and went to the Sunday night adult class i teach. The members of the class decided to welcome my mom with a potluck dinner, so we gathered at Kei-san's house and mom was treated to beautiful food and wonderful company. I think she enjoyed herself. i know i did.

so that's the start. mom will be here for another 12 days and we hope to make the most of it without tiring ourselves out too much. no more staying up 'til 3:30am unless we can sleep in after.

i'll try to update but most likely won't have much time to....so check back in a couple of weeks.

love
-e

2007-03-15T10:18:00.000+09:00

apparently this thing called Facebook is a bit addictive. Fun, too. I like the layout way better than Myspace, and I only got on to Myspace at first so that i could read Ms. Kitty's enlightening blogs. But now i'm settled there but don't quite feel at home. Facebook is another story. Most of my friends on Okinawa are on it and a few people from back home as well. It's a fun way to connect during the day. Just another format for communication. E-mails no longer do it for us. They imply time consuming lengthy responses. But Facebook or other formats like it, provide a space for quick messaging, short replies, witty comments, and pokes. It's easier to let someone know that you're paying attention to them without having to go into details about your life as well. Someone should write a thesis about the ever changing communication patterns of the 21st century and how tons of kids out there can't even imagine a world without the 2 second responses.
So here for your enjoyment is my Facebook badge. Don't know if i'll keep it here for long.

A week before my mother visits the island and it's very exciting to be waiting for her to come here. A couple of welcome parties have already been planned for her and i have a little surprise in the works as well. Should be a good time; hope i don't get sick before she gets here though.
Three teachers and at least 10 students are absent today due to influenza. 'tis the season for it, but some suspect that the students brought it from mainland when a couple of them went there on an exchange trip along with several elementary kids. Influenza ain't pretty here; i remember being sick last year and losing my voice; so crossing my fingers and trying to peel oranges to keep away from the illness.

The days are quiet now at school. The 3rd graders graduated on Saturday and are now free to roam the village streets until the start of their 1st high school year. The ceremony was wonderful: lots of emotions, some singing, presenting of awards and lots of speeches. One student received an award for not being late or absent for all 9 years of school (elementary and Jr. H.S.) and a couple of students haven't been absent or late during the 3 year Jr. H.S. carrier and 9 or so have not been absent or late during their entire 3rd year. I thought those were interesting awards to give out. I'd personally think the girl who hadn't been absent for 9 years is a bit of a loser, but i'm a teacher now and am not allowed to think those thoughts.

I took some pics around the school the day before graduation and on Saturday as well. During the ceremony, however, a 1st grader asked to use my camera and i thought i'd get interesting pics that way, but unfortunately all i got was extremely zoomed-in and blurry photos of crying 3rd graders. Lesson learned--take my own pics from now on.
During this graduation, i felt a bit more emotionally attached to the kids than last year. I felt that i knew most of them very well--some have been in my English club, with four of them i practiced for speech and story contests, a few boys would always attempt to converse with me between classes....so i actually came close to tears when one of the twins, the class leader this year, was giving a thank you speech and broke down half way. I didn't understand all of it, but it was easy to understand the emotion. So now they're gone, but not really. Most of them were in school yesterday because the H.S. test results came out and they were here congratulating each other on having gotten in. A few students didn't get in. I was only surprised that it happened to one of them, a girl who attempted to get into Nago H.S. So her homeroom teacher and principal were on the phone for a part of the day, her mother was here chatting with teachers about what's to be done, and i think she's going to attempt again for Nago H.S. and if not, will go to the high school in Ogimi, Hentona.

With 3rd graders gone, i have a bit more time on my hands and have been studying Japanese and planning for mom's trip and also thinking of ways to improve our classroom techniques for next year. Have a couple of ideas that hopefully will get implemented and the students should benefit from it. We're also starting the process of choosing next school year's participants for story and speech contests. I hope a few kids try out next week so that we can pick the best ones. I have a feeling, though, that if 4 try out, we'll be lucky. So now i have to start thinking of stories for them to do next year. The story contest is in June, so we'll only have 2 months once the kids and stories are picked and i'm done traveling by mid-April.

In other news, on Tuesday Ben, Rodger, David and i as well as 3 other adult students had a karate test for the next belt. It was a bit nerve wracking. We had to do 5 skills and then three katas: two mandatory and one of our choosing. But the test went fine; the Sensei seemed pleased with us and even commented on the individual things he thought were good about our performances. We should know next week if we passed and are ready for orange belts.

I've been a bit sluggish with running, but ran twice this week and hoping for a 3rd time on Friday. I seem to think that if i make my attempt at running the Shioya run public then there will be more people i'll be lying to if i don't actually do it because i'm an extremely lazy person when allowed to be. So there you are. The run is on the 29th. It's 9.5km and i'm hoping to do it with Kelly and Yasemine. So here's to doing something i've been swearing up and down i would never do....
things change, eh?

cheers

2007-03-08T13:23:00.000+09:00

Поздравляю всех женьшин, девушек, мам, бабушек, внучек и особенно сестер С Международным Женским Днём!!!

The above is to wish all women a Happy International Women's Day!

and now, because every women is a piece of art--depends on the day of course, if it's the serene Mona Lisa or eccentric Frida Kalo but a piece of art nonetheless--here's a test to find your own, daily piece of art. and today....

I am Best Described By...

San Giorgio Maggiore, TwilightBy Claude Monet

Famous Work of Art Are You?

and also, because i found it hillarious, here's a test to see if you're a dumb american--or are not American and to shame them all know more about US history.

though, not more than me it turns out, because...

I am a Smart American

You know a lot about US history, and you're opinions are probably well informed.Congratulations on bucking stereotypes. Now go show some foreigners how smart Americans can be.

Are You a Dumb American?

a good monday

2007-02-26T22:08:00.000+09:00

my mp3 player is on full shuffle. something i don't think i've attempted before. i've shuffled folders before but recently been on a kick of listening to albums or folders straight through. so two days ago i put it on random play and it's been great. it just went from Reservoir Dogs soundtrack to a song by Vissotsky i haven't heard in ages to Radiohead's Lucky. random is right and i'm liking it.
but that's not why today is good. it helps having the music though as i write about the reasons.

i don't share details often; i give out snippets and stories and sometimes observations, but to have a full day deserve a blog is a rarity mostly because i'm too lazy to write everything down.
so today started out with me snoozing for nearly an hour. i meant to get up at 6am--am starting to do this whole "running in Okinawa" thing that has suckered in a bunch of JETs i know. of course, i don't foresee myself running marathons, but it would be nice to run the 10km in my village. but at 6am it was too cold and too dark and i was not convinced that it was a good time for me to get up. so i postponed the waking 'til 7:15 and told myself i'd run after school.
on the way to school was thinking of how lame a couple of my classes might be a) because one of them will be a repeat of a hair pulling experience from Friday, albeit this class is way genkier and so the repeat at least promised to be livelier and b) because you all know my feelings about my co-worker and some days i'm more pessimistic about the prospects of working with him than others.
but the clouds were gorgeous, the sun was climbing and making the blue of the sea sparkle and so i was disinclined to be truly down as i pulled into the school's parking lot.

i walk into the teacher's office, smile and "ohayo gozaimasu" whoever happens to be in my line of sight and go to my desk on which a faxed note from my JTE greets me and my day is immediately not what i expected.
the note says to expect a two hour delay and to teach at least one, mayhap all three classes on my own because he might be late for 2nd and 4th period and during 5th period he'd like to finish up the "checking of files" and so he'll be present but i'll do "activities" and entertain 1st graders.

am a bit upset at first because it's not what i expected my day to be, and then i give myself a good mental thrashing because my day just went from me being potentially frustrated in the classroom to me being able to lead the classroom and thus control my level of frustration. and so i get into the planning; i refuse with 3 weeks of school left and us being behind in the textbook in 1st and 2nd grade (3rd graders are already finished but in the most hurried fashion towards the end) to play games during classes. So i plan out how to move the classes forward and yet not having to "teach grammar." For 2nd graders it involves some silly acting out on my part and some writing of dialogues on theirs and for 1st graders it involves an introduction to "can you" grammar through a bingo game i found months earlier on a KitaKyushu JETs' website.

my coworker comes back before my 2nd class of the day and wants to join me just to hang out and make sure there's no behavior problems. i somehow manage to convince him that he need not bother because i feel that the lesson i have planned for this class relies greatly on the fact that i'm on my own with no Japanese backing and them having to do a lot of guessing. During the 1st graders' lesson he does join in to hand back some papers and files and then i'm on my own with him at the back of the room. The kids are unclear about the bingo instructions and instead of prolonging their torture of having to figure out what the highly animated Elina is trying to say, i turn to him and he prodes the kids with hints in Japanese to figuring out the game, and i appreciated that instead of a full out translation. progress!

so three classes with prep between them and i'm done around 2:35 and i haven't had time to study japanese yet, but had three good classes and hang around a bit after the 1st graders' class and chatted about Donald and Daisy Duck.
and with this "i can do things" mood i get into writing down new kanji to study for the week and it's a bit after 4pm when i go home ... and oh my! go for a run. well. it's a half walk/half run deal but i'm happy about it.
after the run, a salad with tofu for dinner, then some reading time and up the stairs to Gabrielle's at 6:30 for our Monday night yoga session. Tonight i had a really good session--broke a sweat and everything and with Gabrielle's assistance attempted a headstand, though am nowhere close to doing it on my own.

at 9pm back to my apartment and reading for about an hour before i decided to write it all down because i'm feeling good about today and about where i'm at right now and that's not always the case but i don't ever feel like describing the days when i'm down and it's gray and all my plans have been rained out by weather or mood. but i think it's good to remember the good days in detail, 'cause they're possible and possible to replicate. so here's hoping i have another good one tomorrow and wish one for you as well.

PS. am reading a great book right now thanx to Shelley. It's called "Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist" by William R. Maples, Ph.D. and Michael Browning. It's been a while since i've read anything related to my original field and even though it's a bit gory at times, it's nice recognizing some of the terminology and feeling a connection when a Marshalltown trowel is mentioned. And according to this book the belief that human hair and nails keep growing a while after death is a myth. Good to know.

Grooving to James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" as i'm finalizing this post. How appropriate.

2007-02-16T21:48:00.000+09:00

listening to the soundtrack from the film, Marie Antoinette that i picked up in Taipei. I saw the movie before the trip and enjoyed it. It was certainly ambitious and didn't always deliver but it was great visual fun and i thought Kirsten Dunst's performance was wonderful. I also enjoyed the music, so when i saw the soundtrack at a music store , i bought it budget be damned. Also picked up Pink Martini's Hang on Little Tomato album which is a french import and seems to be disliked by the windows player on my computer. Only plays it for a short time. figures.

so yeah. went to Taiwan for 6 days and had a wonderful time. Went by myself and don't really regret that decision. It would have been a different kind of fun with a friend or two--Taipei is a great town with lots of options for entertainment, but i had a good time on my own, more subdued but relaxing and reflective.
I put up all the pics on the fotki site with short explanations for most of them, so check that out if you want a visual story of the trip. Of course not everything i saw and did is on the photos. I had a great time meeting people at the hostel and during my trip to Taroko National Park, and those things can't be transcribed through photos. Not my photos anyways. :)

I spent the first 3 days in Taipei, and then very early Sunday morning took a train to Hualien, a city on the east coast of Taiwan, south of Taipei. My goal was to go to the Taroko National Park from there, which was another hour by bus. I didn't have a clear plan for my trip to Taroko, but it all worked out splendidly. I took a bus about half way into Taroko NP and stayed over night in Tiansiang, a small village in the forested hills of the gorge. I walked south from Tiansiang on both days to explore the sights. On the first day it was cloudy and a bit chilly towards the evening and i didn't make it as far as i wanted to, but i did meet a fellow walker and we made it back to Tiansiang and had dinner together and enjoyed a great show of native taiwanese dancing.
The next day brought sunshine and with the pack on my back i walked south following the same road as the day before hoping to catch a bus when i got too tired and after i had walked the trail called The Tunnel of Nine turns. After the trail and about 11km later, i missed the bus and was seriously considering hitching when a car pulled over and the driver motioned for me to get in if i was going their way. I stuffed myself and bag into the back seat with two grown children of a husband and wife in front and their two cute dogs (pic on Fotki). The university age kids spoke broken but decent English and the father chimed in a bit as well. We had a great ride all the way back to the Hualian train station, which was my destination and since they were staying the night in Hualian they offered to drop me there. But not only that, the kids walked with me to a local specialty shop and helped me pick out sweets to bring back as omiyage(gifts) to my school, BOE, English class, etc. It was one of the kindest gestures i've experienced in a long time.
So that's just one little story from a great trip, which also included lots of stinky tofu, night markets, late night hostel chats, wrong metro stops, and more stinky tofu. So perhaps if you're curious, you can ask me about it in person sometime, but now i'd like to tell you a bit about my job since i don't seem to have done that in a while.

I came back late night on the 13th and i had promised my English club students a Valentine's Day fondue during our club meeting the next day, so on the way home had to stop by a store and pick up all the delicious ingredients. First, we made Valentine's cards and the girls went all out with decorations. Then i melted 4 chocolate bars and we dug in with strawberries, marshmallows, bananas, apples, dried pineapples and apricots, cookies and sprinkles to top it all off. Delectable! I've never had a chocolate fondue, or any fondue for that matter, and it was quite fun.

Classes are their usual mixed bag of fun. But since the 3rd graders have their high school tests coming up in a month, we have to finish up the textbook in a hurry and so we're skipping over a few things, but there's no new grammar, so apparently it's all right. We are doing something we haven't done before--we're attempting to have students write down their opinions based on a debate lesson in their textbooks. The debate is "school lunch" vs "boxed lunch". So we had both classes vote and in one class only one student and myself voted for "school lunches" and in the other class about 2/3 of the students voted for it. So i had students divide into groups and write down three reasons for their opinion and hopefully during the next lesson we can have them take up positions on opposite sides of the room and read out their reasons. But I do have to share two that made me chuckle. One was, "Boxed lunches are better because they are made with mother's love." and i didn't edit it. there's one very high level student in that group. and the second one was, "Boxed lunches are better because school lunch is cooker DEATH." i think they meant to be negative towards the lunch ladies. ha ha. thought it was funny.

in other news, the boys basketball team won first place in a tournament between northern schools at the end of January and the PTA threw a party tonight for the teachers, team members, and themselves. It was nice and made me want to check out more sports events, it's just unfortunate that they usually start early in the morning on Saturdays.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my English club students for an afternoon of karaoke fun as a going away party for them. They'll leave the school in mid March and i'm going to miss them a great deal. I made real connections with these girls and other students in the 3rd grade classes. Sometimes i don't feel like going to school because i know what the teaching experience is like, but when i'm in the classroom with them or greet them in the hallways, or have random conversations about "corn candy" and "landmines," i feel that i'm a part of their lives and a part of the school and they care that i'm there, and that feels great and i have a better day.

and on that sentimental note, i bid you adieu.

cheers

PS here's an excerpt from my journaling in Taiwan:
Oh yeah. Before i forget. had a revelation of sorts about being in an Asian country. It's like constantly being yanked from a state of comprehension to a [state of] complete lack of bearing in a present situation. There are so mnay signs in English, western companies, recognizable brands. The eye moves along the varied surface of the new surroundings and is instantly attracted to anything that holds familiartiy, from a sign for a dentist office to McD's to an upscale store front and then once those have given the brain a moment of clarity next come all those things that make the connection between seeing and understanding arduous to establish in best circumstances. Usually the connection is established via numerous clouded links and assumption or not at all, as is the case with most signs in the [chinese and japanese] hieroglyphs. I constantly go from understanding a feeling of loss. It's tiring. Funny though, that anything Japanese related [and sounding] brings me comfort here in Taiwan. Perhaps because i've already settled with those misunderstandings.

Ein's my favorite, but i suppose i'm more like Jet-san

2007-02-05T15:29:00.000+09:00

Which Cowboy Bebop Cast Member are You?

You are Jet Black! You have done the best you could and it still seems as if that's not gonna be good enough. Deep down your friends make it all worthwhile.
Take this quiz!

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2007-02-02T10:12:00.000+09:00

on wednesday i went to play volleyaball with the young women of Ogimi. i invited myself through a friend because i've been wanting to get more involved with the locals but haven't been getting around to it. the women's club plays on wednesdays from 8 to 10pm at the Ogimi elementary school's gym. Some members are high school students and others are 20something women that live and work in Ogimi village. This week they were practicing with the men's team because at the end of February they have a tournament and so apparently are getting more serious with their practices. I haven't played volleyball in a very very long time, but apparently still remembered how to hit the ball and was able to serve over the net every time. Two high school girls and me were put on the men's side, and at first i was fairly nervous, but as we started playing i realized that no one was extraordinarily good and everyone made mistakes. We played 8 on 8 and there was lots of confusion sometimes, but it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Everyone was in good spirits and joking with each other and the game wasn't taken that seriously and we all had a good time. So even though my forearms now are bruised and hurting, i'll be joining in on the volleyball practice again in the future.

Just found out that the 3rd grade student who won 2nd place at the all Okinawa Story contest last year will be presenting his story on Sunday at Shioya elementary. No one told me and he hasn't approached me for practice. Hmmm. I guess i'll have to get a hold of him today and practice. We have school on Sunday and then in the afternoon we'll be going to observe classes at Shioya elementary. Gabrielle will be teaching a 5th grade class so i plan on observing that.

This week and last have been rather odd for me. My co-worker has been brought down with a serious flu. He has taken two sick days and a couple of afternoons last week and hasn't been to school at all this week and actually might not come back until thursday of next week. I have been teaching on my own and that has been lots of fun, but when it was found out that he'll be gone all this week and through next, it was decided that from today (friday) through next week other teachers will take over the scheduled English classes. Teaching on my own has been going really well with almost all classes, especially the 3rd graders. But i have hit a wall in a way. I can't move in the textbook because i can't explain grammar properly and playing games every day for two weeks is tiring and stops benefiting the students after a while. So I taught through thursday this week and had to resign to the fact that other teachers will have to take over. But now feel rather guilty as they have more classes to teach and i have nothing to do. It's odd. But now have time to sit down and write up a lengthy blog, and that's a positive, right?

So, we have classes from sunday through thursday this week, and friday is a day off as a substitute for working on sunday. Sunday classes will be short because of the afternoon visit to the elementary school and Monday classes will be short because the lunch ladies are taking a day off since all 4 of the elementary schools will have a day off, which means no lunch for junior high school students and so they can't be kept at school past 1pm. Anytime i think i've gotten used to the flexibility of scheduling and the bendy logic behind it, something like this will come up just to reassure me that the japanese education system has lots of tricks up its sleeve and they'll do most anything to avoid actual serious academic pursuit. ok. that was slightly exaggerating but not by much. This week thursday i will be missing out on one of the funnest concerts that take place during a JHS school year, in my opinion--the 3rd graders goodbye concert. It was supposed to be on wednesday and so when i planned by trip to Taiwan i knew i couldn't miss out on it and didn't take the wed. off, instead took the thursday and the following tuesday (february 12th, monday is a national holiday)...but at some point during the crazy school year, the event scheduled was rearranged and the concert moved to thursday and i will be missing it! am not happy a bit about it.

and so it is that time of the year. the hectic time for 3rd grade homeroom teachers when they have to make sure that all their charges' paperwork and high school applications are in order and ready to be sent off to high schools of choice. JHS students who want to go to high school have to take an entrance test in math, science, japanese, social studies, and english. the tests are tough and those who want to make it into their high schools of choice have been studying since before winter vacation. some students can bypass the testing process by attempting the early addmissions option. Some high schools that are generally tougher to get into, allow a few students to be recommended for attendance. So homeroom teachers and administration send glowing records of recommendation and student's records. The high schools look them over and decide whether to grant the student an interview. All the students from Ogimi who applied for the early admissions got to the interview stage. I coached two of them for the English portion of Koyo HS's interview. I am happy to say that they both got in. Actually out of 7 students who went throught the interview process only one was denied automatic admission. She now has to take a test like the rest of her regular admission classmates. When it was announced that 6 other students made it, the yelling and cheering was near ear splitting. It was quite exciting for all. And i felt that i had a part in it. These students i have known for a year and a half. Some of them i have worked with more than other, like Yuu who was in the story contest and is now slated to attend Koyo high school in hopes of becoming a journalist some day. It's exciting being a part of shaping a young life.

oh yeah. the weather. almost forgot to mention how cold it's been.
the temperature may only be at 10C but the wind and lack of central heating are doubling the effect of the cold. Yesterday i was unprepared for the cold and shivered all day. Today i have three layers on, including a thermal undershirt, and so am doing better. Two pairs of socks are also helping. The sun is shining but it's deceptive. Nothing warm about it today. I wish i brought a pair of fingerless gloves for easy typing. I tried typing with gloves on yesterday but it's a slow and mistakes riddled process. I hope you appreciate that this blog has been typed up with nearly frozen fingers.
ha ha

and so i come to the end of the blog, and i still haven't shared with you the saddest news from the last two weeks.
Some of my dearest friends on the island are not recontracting for another year. For a few it was unexpected and others have known for a long time that it would be the case. But we have nearly half a year left on the island together and we shall make the best of it yet! Plus, i don't believe that when they leave it'll be the last time i see them. Knowing people all over the world is only a plus, right? :)

love
-e

2007-01-25T09:32:00.000+09:00

how appropriate. :)

You Are Not a Cook

You know cooking isn't for you, and you wouldn't even consider trying to make a homecooked meal.And this is a very good thing. You've saved all your friends and family from unintentional food poisoning!

Are You A Good Cook?

2007-01-21T23:45:00.000+09:00

And Now For Something Completely Different...

i promised a "reasons for staying" blog and perhaps it's coming, but right now, i wanted to share with you an article i wrote for the Okinawa YAK. I hope it makes the next issue, but our editor is rather strict and my culinary exploits might not be considered YAK material. :)

meh. am sure he'll print it.

but first, in other food related news! On January 4th, a trusted health TV program in Japan (AruAru Daijiten) that has been on the air for 10 years broadcast a story proclaiming that the health benifits of natto (fermented soy beans) have been linked to weight loss. They introduced two people who have lost weight after eating natto every day for two weeks. The Japanese trust their TV, and this program is very popular and they showed data to prove their statements, so this caused a natto buying frenzy all over Japan! Stores ran out of stock. Manufacturers ran out of stock and had to issue public apologies in newspapers! And of course prices of natto went up. Whereas before a small pack of natto was 100 yen, in less than two weeks it went up to 140 and then 170yen. Pretty spectacular, eh? But not anything surprising. But wait! Here's the kicker! It was just found out (the story hit the newspapers today) that the TV show fabricated their data about the benefits of natto they proclaimed! They LIED and everyone literaly bought it!

i did a quick search and this is all i can find right now in English to summarize the story. Also, click on the "100 natto-related searches" link to get more scoop on both natto and the story.

and now, here's my article for the YAK.

Cooking for Clueless

To be in Japan is to enjoy its food. I have been gladly doing that for the last year and a half. Yet, one of my goals while living here has been to improve my abilities in the kitchen. So slowly, I have been pushing myself and trying to overcome my unexplainable anxieties when it comes to cooking. I am constantly afraid of screwing it up and so I don’t attempt it to begin with. But that’s no way to be, and so I bought a couple of books, and a few essential Japanese ingredients, and have been mixing it up in my most unfriendly to cooking kitchen. I don’t understand why Japanese kitchens lack counter space, but adapting is what we’re here to do, so I do and so far no major disasters.

I’ll share a couple of recipes with you and also some definitions of commonly used Japanese ingredients. Most of these things are coming from two great books I picked up from amazon.co.jp:

Bento Boxes: Japanese meals on the go by Maomi Kijima. I like this one because it’s written using simple instructions perfect for me, has lots of step by step photos, and uses actual Japanese ingredients that I can buy at a local veggie stand or grocery store. Am so going to miss that when I move back home and the book becomes obsolete there.

A dictionary of Japanese Food by Richard Hosking. This one is great if you constantly ask what it’s in your kyuushoku (school food) and then can’t find a translation in your trusty Japanese-English dictionary for it. It’s not a recipe book. It gives definitions for lots of ingredients found in Japanese cooking and gives the names in romaji, hiragana and kanji for easy look up at a grocery store. But of course, if you don’t want to buy one, just give me a shout, and I’ll look it up.

I would recommend buying several ingredients that appear in most of the recipes I have found. They are mirin(みりん）, cooking sake, and of course, soy sauce. Mirin is sweet cooking rice wine. It gives a sweet flavor to food and is great for glazes. You can substitute with 1tbsp sake and a teaspoon of sugar. Sake tones down raw tastes and strong smells and improves flavor.

So without further ado, here’s a couple of things I have been testing out in my kitchen.

Sanma teriyaki. This recipe in my book is for mackerel but I thought I’d try it on the slightly cheaper sanma. Sanma is pacific saury, a fish I have never heard of before coming here. It has made several appearances in my school’s kyuうshoku, so I thought I’d try it at home. FYI, both sanma and mackerel are fatty fish.

For this recipe you’ll need flour, soy sauce, mirin, sake, oil, salt and pepper.

I used two sanma fish and cut each one up at an angle into 4 pieces.

Then I combined 4 Tbsp of soy, 4 tsp of sake and 4 tsp of mirin in a bowl.

After sprinkling salt and pepper on each piece, I dredged them in flour. Heated oil in a frying pan and then briefly cooked each piece of fish. By the time I set down the last piece, the first piece was ready to be flipped. They cook super quick, so don’t walk away. After turning the fish on all sides, add the mixture of sauces to the pan and cook over medium to high heat. The mixture will turn quickly into a glaze, so let each piece soak up the glaze for a bit on all sides. And that’s it!

Boro Boro Jushi This is a simple Okinawa dish that I learned from the home economics teacher at my school. For this you’ll need rice and whatever veggies you want to use. Jushi is mixed rice that I’m sure you’ve had for kyuushoku or as onigiri. It usually has thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, seaweed, sesame seeds and is brown in color. This boro boro variation I am told is Chinese in origin and looks more like risotto because a lot of water is used to make it.

So for one cup of rice, you’ll use three cups of water. This is not cooked in a rice cooker but in a regular pan. Cut up really small whatever veggies you like and are taking up space in your fridge. I am told that this dish is usually made when there are a few leftover veggies that might spoil if not used, and so they’re all chopped up and thrown in. Carrots, shitake mushrooms, konbu (a type of seaweed), and anything else you like should be chopped up and combined with rice. Tiny shrimp would probably work well, but I haven’t tried that. Then add the water and either soy sauce or miso paste and salt and pepper and any other spices you like. Don’t use both soy and miso, however. After the water boils, let simmer for about 30 minutes. Done!

And as a final addition to this YAK, I thought I’d type up an explanation of how to make curry using the solid curry bricks sold in all the grocery stores. I bought a box of “Golden curry” because that’s the mix the chefs at a restaurant I worked at used as a base, but couldn’t bring myself to try and cook with it because I couldn’t read the instructions and I’m not big on experimenting with food when my dinner depends on it.

So I finally asked for an explanation and here it is.

On the back of the box I bought it suggested 200 grams of meat, one carrot, one large potato, an onion, and something called “sarada.” I used chicken, three small potatoes, and also added frozen broccoli and frozen sliced peppers. Cauliflower would be great as well.

So chop up all the veggies. You can fry up the onions before using them, as most Japanese do if you, like them, don’t care for a strong onion flavor in your curry. I don’t mind, so I used them raw. First bring water to a boil. The box suggested 700ml, I used a bit more because of all the veggies I added. When the water is boiling add the meat. Once the meat is cooked, add all the veggies. Reduce the flame to medium. Once the potatoes and carrots are soft, add curry brick. Might help to cut it up into bits before throwing it in. Mix it in as much as you can and then just let it simmer for another 5 or 7 minutes. Mix again and you’ve got curry!

When I made it, I added a bit too much water so watch out for that unless you like the curry more soupy.

Enjoy!

In the next article, I’ll hope to share a recipe for a soup and maybe something with udon.

Those are the goals for my own experiments in the kitchen, so if they work out they’ll make an appearance. Wish me luck!

2007-01-10T13:56:00.000+09:00

I felt a bit lonesome going into the New Year. It wasn't overbearing. It didn't bog me down and leave me laying on a futon in a dark room listening to Pulp. It was more like a fleck in my peripheral vision--something that only became visible to me when i'd stop and take a look around. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
It's reasonable to say that New Years holiday carries as much weight for my family as Christmas does for yours. It was a big holiday in Soviet Union and is still huge in the former Soviet Republics. Most everyone i know who came from Soviet Union starts preparing for how they'll spend New Years at least a month in advance. Reservations are made at russian restaurants, trips are booked, outfits are carefully decided, and of course, presents are bought. On 31st, most people will take a nap during the day, so that they can party through the whole night; it's reasonable to expect to stay out 'til 6am. New Years' eve is spent with family when one's younger and with friends, when one's older. On New Years day, families get together and presents are exchanged and left over food is eaten. We usually put up a tree after Christmas in my house. We started doing that because years ago my father found out that live trees are given away for free on the 25th. These days, my mom puts up a large, fake tree and all the presents get piled under it. So you see, spending New Years alone was not something I'd have wished on myself, but this year i wanted to spend it Japanese/Okinawan style, and so i had to deal with the fact that midnight was not going to be a big deal and i would have to be alone.
So here's a picture shorthand of how i spent my New Years with Okinawans.

The New Years is a major holiday in Japan. It's a time for families to gather and relax together. For this purpose, the special New Years food, osechiryouri, is prepared in advance so that the females of the family can also relax and join everyone in celebrating the holiday. On the 31st families relax together by going on outings, playing games at the house, watching TV, visiting relatives' homes, etc. New Years is not a holiday that celebrates the one moment when the old year becomes new; the holiday is celebrated over a period of several days during which New Years food is eaten, people don't work, and children are given envelopes of money as presents.
Follow the wiki links for more info on Japanese New Years' Eve, New Years and osechi-ryouri.

On the 31st, the Taira family picked me up and we went to play park golf in Kunigami. This is Mr. Taira who is the Ogimi BOE's superintendant, his wife, their youngest daughter and their grandson. Park golf is not quite mini-golf, because there are no funny obstacles, but it's played with giant balls on a mini version of a regular coarse. It was my first time and so naturally, i came in last. There were quite a few families on the coarse; it was a clear day and really lovely.
After park golf, we went to the Taira house and had a simple lunch of miso soup and rolled mochi. The mochi was sent to Mrs. Taira from a friend in the Sendai prefecture in the north of Japan. On New Years, friends, and collegues send each other presents that are usually drink or food. It is customary to send a present like that to your elder, senpai, or a higherup at work. So mrs. Taira received quite a few presents, so did grandmother Taira, but Mr. Taira didn't get as many because he works in the public sector and so it could be construed as bribary and is not done.

This is Kai, the son of the eldest Taira daughter. See if you can spot a giant caterpillar near him.

After lunch, Nao, Mr. Taira, Kai and i drove to the aquarium in Motobu. Even though i've been there 3 times already, it's still a nice place to walk through, and i noticed that they change up some of the smaller tanks. The aquarium was packed with mainland tourists, foreigners (by that i mean US military), and Okinawans. It was a bit cloudy and gray, and Kai fell asleep on the ride there and back. It was the first time that we were given a break from his rendition of Mr. Ozma's "Bounce with me" song. Unfortunately Kai could only remember a small and very repetitive bit from the song, but he cracked everyone up every time he'd do it, especially if he had space and freedom to combine the song with dance.

This is the Taira family gathered around a dinner spread on the 31st. We made our own sushi hand rolls, which so incredible delicious, i can't even begin to describe my happiness with it. One of these days i'll have to throw a sushi temaki party at my house. It'll be great.

After dinner we sat around and chatted and played games and watched NHK's "Red vs white concert" which is a staple of any Japanese household on New Year's Eve. Famous Japanese bands and singers perform popular songs and it's a competition between men and women. At the end of the evening, the audience gets to vote on who's won. I didn't actually get to see won that evening, but more about that in just a moment.

This is Saori, the eldest Taira daugher. I taught her how to play backgammon online that night. We were playing a children's board game called sugoroku which in the electronic dictionary translated to "Japanese backgammon". It looked nothing like backgammon to me, just your simple boardgame with obstacles. So i showed Saori the backgammon i'm familiar with and it got her hooked.

At 11pm. Mrs. Taira prepared a New Year's soba dish. Eating of the long soba noodles symbolically says goodbye to the old year while welcoming the new. It's a tradition from mainland, as most that are observed in Okinawa on New Year's are, but in Okinawa the buckweat mainland soba is substituted for the Okinawa kind. Yum. After eating the soba, we watched the concert for a few more minutes and around 11:45pm Mr. Taira politely indicated that it was time for me to return home. Actually i wasn't their only guest that evening; the man in the above picture oposite me is a good friend of Mr. Taira's who came over around 9pm and brought sake with him. I was home with 10 minutes 'til midnight, so i opened a bottle wine, poured myself a glass and decided to take a picture of myself at midnight. By the time that all got set up, it was midnight already and fireworks coming from Okuma resort started off outside. I ran out and to the road and watched them with a glass of wine in hand. Fireworks, wine, a great feeling of serenity from having spent a day with lovely and goodhearted people put me in a wonderful New Year's mood. Nothing to dread afterall.
On the 1st, at 11am i was back at the Taira house for osechi-ryouri. If you followed the wiki link above, you already know that the food is served in large stackable boxes and is not just an everyday Japanese fare. Each dish in the osechi box has a deeper meaning that has to do with the New Year. Red and white are majestic colors that can be found in major Japanese celebrations, and of course in their flag, so certain foods are arranged to show off those colors. Other foods carry messages of fertility, prosperity, abundant harvest, and health. I think that's one of the amazing factors about being in Japan is the constant reminder of how traditional and deeply cultural the people's lives are. It's a modern society with all the comforts that that can afford, but it's still very firmly rooted in very concrete and all enveloping cultural ideals and principles.
I haven't told you about Kai's greatgrandmother yet. Grandmother Taira is an extraordinary woman. She has been named Japan's National Treasure and for good reason. This woman singlehandedly brought back the nearly lost art of Okinawa bashofu weaving. In the 60's and 70's, she organized the women of Kijoka into a bashofu workshop and it is now the only place in the world where bashofu cloth is woven. At nearly 90 she is still an integral part of the tradition. She goes to the workshop every day and has a room for weaving set up in the house where she sometimes works with Mrs. Taira and Saori. She participates in and supervises every arduous step of bashofu weaving, and her indigo stained hands show it. A wonderful story from a little village where i live. After eating, i went back to my apartment to call up my family and friends on their New Years eve. Later in the afternoon, Mr. Taira and the usual crew picked me up for a leisurely drive through Kunigami. A nice and relaxing conclusion to my New Years with the Tairas.

This is my supervisor's wife and their dog, Candy at a shrine in Naha on the 2nd. We went to a shrine called Naminoue. It is one of the biggest on Okinawa and a popular spot for those wishing to make their first visit to a shrine in the New Year. At the shrine we threw in a coin and clapped our hands to wake up the gods so that they could hear our prayers. After that we walked past several stalls that sold amulets for the new year in form of prayers sown into decorative pouches, beautiful arrows to display in the house, representations of various gods, etc. It is traditional to receive New Years fortune at a shrine as well, so we each paid 100yen and picked one out of a box. They have some with english translations as well. I read my fortune and tied it to a rope as did every one else. My fortune for the year is "very good," so let's hope that's right. There are several degrees of fortune ranging from "excellent" to "poor".
After walking to a Buddhist temple next to the shrine we bought some yakisoba at the food stalls and ate. This is a photo in the park next to the shrine; a family enjoying a lunch after their shrine visit. I just thought it was a perfect way to show you what Okinawa is like during New Years. Gorgeous, peaceful, and all about the family.
Here's a giant stalagtite that hangs in a cave in Tomagusuku. After the shrine visits, my supervisor drove us to a Ryuku culture park that was initially built to show off a nearly kilometer long cave. It took nearly a half hour to walk through the cave, which in parts was decorated with christmas lights in a no longer surprising to me Japanese fashion. There was even a giant, lit up Shisa near a beautiful display of stalactites to provide a fun point for a picture. On top of the cave, the park is an exhibition of traditional Okinawan arts, crafts, dance, and food. There is also a small museum about snakes, specifically the poisonous habu that live on Okinawa. We even watched a show with live snakes. A ferret was also involved. No worries, no animals were harmed during the show.

So here i am near a giant Chinese shisa in the cave park. Happy New Year!! Sorry this post took so long in the making and turned out to be exceptionally long but hopefully not too boring.

In the next post, i might get up the bravety to try and explain why i've just signed my recontracting papers for a 3rd year on JET. Although, after seeing the pics and reading the stories, some of the reasons are quite evident, no?

2007-01-01T00:10:00.000+09:00

С Новым Годом!!!
Happy New Year!!!
Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu!!!

2006-12-30T20:28:00.000+09:00

a new post with a new Blogger. fancy.
this is an e-mail i just wrote to a friend and thought it summarized well my current mood and state of affairs. hope he doesn't mind that i copy it here. i promise to write in more detail about my New Year's experiences.

sitting here in my apartment with the AC blowing hot air, it feels nice and cozy, but also a bit lonely. it's the night of the 30th, New Years right around the corner and i'm on vacation, but am restless. for what, i know not.
had dinner by myself and maybe that's what got the lonely mood started. i actually don't mind eating alone. had a good book with me and it was fine, but towards the end of the meal, looking around at all the families and couples, it kind of nagged at me that i was alone.

tomorrow one of my bosses and his family will pick me up and take me for a drive, and lunch, and maybe bowling. should be nice and fun, but am dreading the night because i have a feeling that they'll just drop me off in the early evening and there i'll be, by myself on the night of New Year's Eve, all alone at midnight. that'll be a first. maybe it'll be a good experience..something to write home about. it's just like any other night, after all...sun goes down, clock strikes twelve...happens all the time. but it's not. it's new year's. a holiday that i always spend surrounded by those i love. last year i was in India and it was with mostly strangers, but a few close friends, and that was good, not the best, but good.
alone? i really dread it. got myself a bottle of wine, but can't get too drunk, because the fun starts the next morning. for the Japanese the morning of the 1st is when the New Year celebrations really start. I'm being picked up again and taken to my boss' house for a breakfast that will turn into lunch and then perhaps dinner. should be really good, actually. am looking forward to it. i haven't been to many Okinawans' homes, especially on an important holiday like that. on the 2nd, my supervisor will pick me and we'll drive down to the southern part of Okinawa with his wife and dog to visit an important shrine where Okinawans go during New Year's holiday to pray for the coming year. am really happy that the bosses i have are as nice and thoughtful as they are. they knew i'd be staying over the break and planned all these outings for me. they want to share their culture and show me their lives. am really grateful to them.
and i'll still have through the 8th to enjoy the vacation. nice.

so... the point is.. :)
Happy New Year!!!

miss you..

love you
-e

2006-12-15T13:50:00.000+09:00

snippets...

it's officially the "samui" season in Okinawa. さむい　means "cold" and as some of my adult students have told me recently, there are only two seasons in Okinawa, winter and summer. I've translated that into, "samui" and "atsui" seasons. So now it is officially ok to walk around and say "samui, desu, ne" to everyone in the school.

yesterday i was so frustrated and angry with a certain co-worker that i thought my fists were going to involuntarily punch something while in class. i even seriously considered switching to elementary school position next year (if i stay that is), and if you don't know, that means serious business...i'm not a fan of little kids in large numbers. well, that's not true. but it's quite a change and to consider it means that i was pushed to a very dark place. what did my wonderful co-worker do, you ask?
well. just be his usual self, really, just 10x worse for some reason on that particular day in that particular class. anyways. i spoke up. said my piece about what i found frustrating, yet again, but as politely as possible. we'll see how long that sticks.

had a Block Gift Exchange party on Wednesday at a pasta place in Nago. Most of the block were able to attend and it was great. We played "white elephant" for gift exchange, and funnily enough i ended up with my own present because Ben M. decided to steal a wonderful stirfrying pan from me and grabbed a gift from pile in exchange. was mine. no worries, though. i wanted the cute pig looking chip clip i bought, and i shared the gummy bears at the table.

1st graders are singing a song with me in class. My first attempt at singing with students. Going well so far. We started with a song in their textbook, Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye". It's easy enough and uses words they know, so they're getting into it. Hopefully most of them will sing in two or three more lessons. We're only doing it during the beginning of class. Good times. Ms. Kitty told me that she does it at her school months ago and i've wanted to try it since then. I suggested and he actually agreed to try. So am gonna try and push for it to be a regular thing. 1st graders are genki enough to get into it if we do it every lesson.

English Club girls showed off their pics from 3rd grade school trip to Kyushu. They went to 3 cities in 4 days, including an amusement park, a national museum, and a trip to the Aso volcano. Japanese style bus touring. Fantastic.
We also wrote Christmas Cards to their new penpals in Wisconsin. There was one card that i had to veto, however, because on front, in classic Engrish style it said, "Hey Ho!! Merry Christmas. Wishing you good time with family, lover, and friends."
Didn't think it would convey the correct spirit to the 8th grade catholic school students. ha ha

Speaking of Christmas. It's all over Okinawa. There are decorated trees everywhere. Houses are lighted up, stores are filled with new, Christmassy merchandise, and ALTs are having Christmas parties and holiday lessons.
I'm not, but no one's asked, and also, there doesn't seem to be a good time for it in any of my classes. Might do a new bulletin about it and New Year's for next week.

Thanx to Shelley, am wearing Hanukkah socks today, on the 1st day of the holiday. She sent them to me last year for New Year's present. They're great; blue with golden stars of David, minoras and dreidels. Used them today to explain to Akino what Hanukkah was during lunch. So, Happy Hanukkah!
and if you never knew but always wondered what this holiday is, here's a a wiki link
Also, it is quite a testament to how overbearing the Christmas/Hanukkah season is when a non-practicing Jew is wishing you a Happy Hanukkah.

Here's a question for ALTs that might be reading this. Do you brush your teeth at school when all the teachers do? My teachers brush their teeth in the office, next to their desks, by the kitchen sink, while walking around teacher's office, while talking to each other, while reading a newspaper. I haven't brushed my teeth at school yet and don't see myself doing it. I do, sometimes, feel a bit of pressure to conform and bring a school toothbrush and paste and join the "clean teeth army". When that feeling comes over me, i pour myself a cup of coffee and grab a cookie or candy from the kitchen. But seriously. Do you brush?
I just sort of feel odd seeing people brush their teeth in front of me. It's been a year and a half and i still feel odd about it. but maybe that's just me.

in the news:
we have a new UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon from South Korea. Goodluck to him, but here's another question. How much power does UN have when it deals with issues unfavorable to the White House? right.

A 2-day Holocaust conference just finished in Iran. The conference was called by the Iranian president to shed light on the historical facts of Holocaust. Experts from different countries flew in to discuss the thick web of lies Jews have been spinning for 60 years about the extermination of 6 million of their people. I wonder if they discussed whether gassing of Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, and political prisoners also took place. Or are Jews also responsible falsifying those deaths?

and to link the two stories, here's a link from Haaretz.com

shalom
-e

2006-12-08T13:40:00.000+09:00

i'm going to try something different for this post, only because my mind has been a bit scatterbrain this week and nothing seems to be going on.
so i'll make up questions and answer them. maybe that'll focus me.

How are you feeling right now? Hmm. Can we start with an easier one please?

Ok. What have you got planned tonight? Right on. I can do this one. Tonight is the bookclub meeting for "Perfume." A fascinating novel by a German author, Patrick Suskind. It's a story of a murderer with an extraordinarily heightened sense of smell and no moral sense to speak of. It takes place during the 19th century in France. It's beautiful and gory and haunting and stunning. So i'm looking forward to a good discussion because i quite enjoyed it, but can imagine that some people might not have as much.

What sparked your interest this week? BBC stories about young people and their beliefs, values, ideas, ambitions, apprehensions. It's been a great series for reading and listening on the radio, but wish i had more time to devote to it. BBC sponsored a school-to-school link up in several countries. They also conducted surveys of young people in several countries, asking them the same questions. It was interesting to find out that around 70% of those under 18 believe that people should be able to migrate freely around the world. Just shows how differently they are growing up from me and anyone older than me. Their world, from birth to now has always been globalized. Connections between countries across the world is nothing to them, just as it is not new that one can speak to a person via internet for free in different parts of the globe. So, of course, why should there be borders if we're already functioning on so many levels without them? Them growing up and taking charge should be quite interesting.
btw. here's a link to the photo vote connected to the stories on BBC this week. Under 13 photo contest

How's the weather? Well. It's lovely, actually, thanx for asking. Sunny with a slight wind. The wind is not warm, of course, but the sun helps. It rained on and off this week, though, with yesterday bringing the heaviest downpour. Am worried about mold again.

What have you been involved in this week? Well...because 3rd graders went on a school trip to Kyushu this week and 2nd graders had a standardized test to take on Thursday, i only taught 1st graders this week, so it's been a bit slow. On Wednesday, though, the 1st graders went hiking up a "mountain" and i went with them. It was a beautiful, sunny day. A bit windy, but gorgeous, otherwise. 29 lively 7th graders, their two homeroom teachers, myself, and the principal were guided on a trail through Ogimi "mountains" by 6 or 7 expert naturalists from the village. It was great! And i keep putting mountain in qouatation marks, 'cause they kept calling it "yama" but they are just really tall hills. beautiful tall hills. the hike was great. it's good to know a trail that i can now show others. it took us 4 hours but that included stopping every once in a while for explanations from guides, brief water rests, and lunch. And of course, kids walk slowly, especially when there is a plethora of bugs, and weird plants around. So i'm sure adults can walk it in under 2 hours. See new photos in the December album.

What are you looking forward to this weekend? Started reading the 7th and final book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Am looking forward to more of it. But it'll be sad when i finish and there won't be another volume to look forward to.

Who's your favorite sister? Hmm... that's a tough one. You mean, i gotta pick from my own, or someone else's?
Your own, of course. Ahh. k. well. How about the one who posts a comment on my blog first?
Ok. That'll work. Any more questions?

Nah. I think it's time you went home. It's Friday! Go get the oil changed, and make a reservation for the Block Gift Exchange Party next week, and drive to Chatan and enjoy company of good, literate folk. Oh. Ok. If you insist. ;)

2006-11-27T22:05:00.000+09:00

november has zoomed past. honestly, i have no idea what happened to the month. it was busy, and it's not quite over with. On the 3rd of the December i am taking the 4th level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Quite a few JETs are taking it, but most of them are levels above me. 3rd and 2nd levels are quite popular. I'm nowhere near that stage. But then again, unlike most of the folks taking 2nd level JLPT, i haven't studied Japanese for 2 to 3 years prior to coming here.
Other brave JETs will be running the Naha City Marathon on the same day. We shall have an "otsukaresamadeshita" dinner/party after to be sure.

I'll make this post a photo blog. Will be easier to fill in the holes, and also organize my thoughts about this fast fleeting month.

am sure you're curious as to what the wander crab looked like. Here he is after his initial capture by 3rd year boys.

a couple of weekends ago, Ben, JingJing and I went to the Ada falls. My first time back in a year. They're gorgeous in the fall but i didn't even think of swimming. Ben, on the other hand only had the swim in mind. Here is JingJing taking a photo of him dancing on the stones after coming out of the freezing water.

During the MidYearConference for all Okinawan ALTs, we had several fun activities planned. One of them was a block photo scavanger hunt. Only three blocks participated and true to last year's spirit, Block 1 won. Here is one of the photos where we had to capture a Kokusaidori sign. Liz and Thai Bui are 1st years in our block.

MYC also saw the spectacular return of the Color Rangers. This is my favorite photo from the night they showed up in their infamous tracksuits, in white t-shirts with colorcoordinated markers for signing.

After the MYC i rushed home for a sunday afternoon of concert watching and seeing artwork made my Junior High school students of Yonbaru. Here are some of Ogimi boys checking out bobbinghead dolls.

A very international thanksgiving gang at Okuma buffet. Should have taken the pic when we had just got there and filled our plates with all the yummy food. But was too busy eating.

Harleys!! on Gate2 Street in Okinawa City. Was wondering about the area and stumbled on a Harley fest of sorts. Lots of riders on the island, Japanese and American. Impressive bike display. For a second felt like i was on Brady street, the only things missing were the bars lining the streets with their tables on the sidewalk and their customers.

かには天国に行きました

2006-11-14T13:14:00.001+09:00

as all stories that involve children and animals that are not meant to be touched by children end in sadness, ours is no different.
the story of a crab who went too far is not an inspiring one. it is sad and also truly revealing of the human nature's cruel, though unintentionally so, side.
but it's really not all so bad. the crab came into our lives a healthy specimen of an otherworldness; a creature thriving for experience. we learned from him and hopefully before his spirit passed on to crab heaven he also pondered about the various new things he came across.
the last i left the story of the crab, he had stealthily escaped his confinement and was constructing a masterplan that would lead to his eventual escape from the starkly white confines of the teachers' office. his plan worked, but he got distracted. he noticed the joy of basketball gaming and went towards the noise. he wanted to get in on the game. so it was because of his curiousity that he was found Saturday afternoon in the school's gym, instead of making his way towards the ocean (although how the poor thing would have crossed the road unharmed remains a mystery and a flaw in his original plan). By the time he was found in the gym, however, he had already used up most of his energy, poor creature and was deemed unhealthy enough to be released into the wild. not genky enough to be free or to be eaten, he was back again in the original glass cage. He was given a banana to keep him occupied as well as several roots and twigs. But when a spirit is thwarted so is the will to carry on. It is with sadness that i report the demise of the crab, today (time unknown but sometime after 3rd period and before lunch ended) Tuesday October 14th.

i was going to write in more detail about the educational curiousities i have encountered in the last week, but i am sad enough at the moment. if i start talking about JTE's demonstration class from last week, or the English teachers meeting, or the student teacher's last day, i might just start crying.

but for all those with an educational experience, i will say this. Japan does not have grade specific, subject specific standards. I learned this information from a University professor on Friday. He came to observe his student's (my student teacher's) last class, and we had a meeting after it. He is attempting to work the standards into the Japanese system but it is a slow going process. Bureaucracy ain't pretty here.
Once again, dear readers. There are no standards. There are no behavior specific goals. There is nothing that can guide a teacher except a textbook, and how textbooks are written without standards is a complete mystery to me.
There are general objectives, however. So for example, students after completing several years of English education are expected to be able to make a speech.
Want more specific instructions? Goodluck!

sadder than the crab story?
to me it is.

cheers
-e

2006-11-10T15:19:00.000+09:00

i'm in danger. not in any imminent kind. but i am. actually, it'll be more accurate to say that my feet are. in danger of being snapped at by a giant crab while i sit here typing away at the school's computer. am not kidding either. A giant crab is on the loose in the teacher's office. although right now it's probably snoozing away in a dark corner under some boxes, waiting for his chance to sneak away undiscovered under the cover of darkness. poor thing doesn't yet know that the office doors will be locked over the weekend and he might have to spend three days running around amongst chairs, tables, boxes and books to no avail.
how did this come about, you might ask. or if you've taught in a japanese school system, you might not ask--you'll probably just laugh.
well. what happened was. a 3rd grade student found a giant crab. and by giant, i mean its claws are about 10cm long. so this beast sat in a cardboard box while everyone looked amused and asked whether it will or should be eaten. then it was transfered to a fish tank with nothing to keep it company. it was left in the teacher's office overnight with heavy books and a box covering up the tank. it was given a mikan (a citrus fruit) to keep it from starving. the room was locked and during the night the crab pulled itself up, pushed aside the books and the box and crawled out of his confinement. this was discovered in the morning and ever since then, every once in a while a teacher or two will "search" the room with a concerned look on their face. i did my bit. i pushed some boxes and looked under some shelves. right now two 3rd grade girls have taken upon themselves to find the poor bastard. so far, no luck. the search continues and my feet are still in danger.

lots of things happened. i'll try to give them to you in short snippets.

went to a wedding last Sunday. It was a wonderful event. Lovely and happy. I have pictures from it on the fotki page in the November album. What i found interesting was that the ceremony took place at a catholic style church adjacent to a giant hotel. Only close friends and family were present at the ceremony and others were invited to celebrate at a reception after. Round tables were set up in a large banquet hall. It was very western style, even a giant cake was present. I did notice later that the cake was entirely fake and there was a premade slit in it where the couple held the knife pretending to cut the cake. But in a very Japanese fashion, the first person to give a toast was the bride's boss. The family actually didn't give any toasts. His was the only toast before dinner and other events. Congrutulations were shown through dances and skits. I along with all the teachers from Ogimi Chuu performed a dance skit during which the couple was called out onto the stage and made to kiss. The groom's sisters also danced and so did the girls basketball team made up entirely of 3rd graders. The whole reception was a lot of fun and the food was delicious. At the end, people piled out and personally congratulated the parents and the newlyweds. We gave our money envelopes in the beginning and all were given a nice present in return. I found it amusing that it was cookies and cakes made in traditional Pennsylvania Dutch family style.
When driving back, I asked about the ceremony taking place in a church, whether the couple was Christian. I was told that most likely they are not. It's just a current style for young women to be married in a church after the couple is officially married at a city hall. They think the churches are beautiful and they like the way the ceremony looks. So then i asked how the marriages were performed on Okinawa before. Turns out the ceremony was done at home in front of the groom's family's shrine. A person of rank who knew both the groom and bride would officiate. The bride was also given a dowry and moved into the groom's house. But before the ceremony at the groom's house, a ceremony of giving the daughter away was performed at the bride's family. I was told that some people may still chose to do it that way. Mainland is different because of Shinto, of course. I saw a wedding ceremony performed at a Shinto shrine when i was in Fukuoka. The bride was dressed in a very traditional wedding kimono. The bride at the wedding i went to wore the same dress the entire time, whereas i heard that if the bride wore a traditional dress for the ceremony she would change at least once for the reception. Some of my friends have been to weddings like that in Okinawa.
whew. that took longer than expected, and i've yet a few things to share. but it's time to go home, so perhaps i'll pick up here sometime during the weekend.

cheers

2006-11-02T12:05:00.000+09:00

there's nothing like a bit of schedule manipulation to get one going in the morning. schedule changes are certainly nothing to marvel at after 15 months at a Japanese JHS. i am deffinately used to the idea of classes being "cut" and schedules shifted for multiple reasons and purposes. This week, however, has been a wonderful exercise in keeping teachers on their toes. Tuesday, Halloween day, 5th and 6th period were meant to be cut for shiquasa picking. By this point, dear reader of blog, you should have an idea what shiquasa is and its importance as a prominent citrus in my stories. but if you don't, here's what wiki has to say about it. Spellings are different. hmm. maybe i should expand on that stub?
anyways. we have lots of shikwasa bearing trees all around the school and twice a year students pick them. They are quite ripe now, the skin is actually starting to turn yellow. But the weather turned sour at the start of the week; it's been rainy since monday and so the picking had be canceled and 5th and 6th period reinstated on Tuesday. That meant that student teacher and i had 3 Halloween lessons that day and one regular lesson. Wednesday, the weather didn't improve and all classes stayed on schedule. Then i accidently overheard that 1st period would be canceled on Thursday. That meant a 2nd grade class had to go. When a class is cut, all others move "down" so i knew we'd have 3-2 2nd period and 2-2 3rd. So in the morning, i confirm that schedule with JTE and look at what will have to be taught--am also assuming that student teacher has planned at least an outline of a lesson plan. 10 minutes later, head teacher changes the schedule and cancels 2nd period as well. That's right folks. Now 3-2 is 1st period of the day and we have 25 minutes before it starts and student teacher is with her homeroom class, and i have no idea if she actually prepared anything.
so i look at the lesson, get an idea for an activity to do for practicing new grammar and make up the worksheet. student teacher comes to the office, 15 min before class starts, realizes she has two classes in a row starting NOW and is visibly frazzled. poor thing. fortunately, she did plan for it a bit; made up a worksheet with grammar explanation. so i went through the lesson plan with her and we went to class. and it went well.
next class. uhm. not so much. but ya know. we had to prep for it in 10 minutes and she did well enough.
so there you go. the beauties of a japanese scheduling system. anything goes!

it's now sunny but windy and actually....colder. ouch. anything but that! oh the grayness of Okinawa winters; how sad i'll be to see the sun go.
anyways. the students are out there picking shikwasa or making it look like they are. Nearly 30 students are however training for an eikiden race on Saturday. I think it's 20km. Don't know if i'll be going, as there might be an ultimate frisbee game in the works for Saturday afternoon in Okinawa City.

oh. and tomorrow is Culture Day, which means day off, which means i get to sleep in and call Shelley and those are two very wonderful things to have to look forward to.

also, i must say that the new Tropicana Dark Cherry Juice is a lovely addition to the convenient store's selection of juices. I've only tried it once and was a bit uncertain of it. It's deffinately a cherry flavor but there's something odd about it. Will have to try again to make sure my preference.

I am told there is a 5 storey 100Yen store in Tokyo. It's owned by the Daiso company, which i believe owns most of the really nice 100Yen stores. I am very curious indeed.

Oh, and am very excited for a chance to experience my first Japanese wedding this Sunday. Most of my friends on Okinawa have been to at least one and i was starting to feel left out but that will change on Sunday. yipee.

ok. enough randomness.

2006-10-26T20:32:00.000+09:00

failed to go to karate today. i'm not always so good at showing up twice a week there. some days, my brain just doesn't want to consider the option of driving 35 minutes to sweat for 2 hours, drive back, and crash. although i always love it when i leave class. but today, i decided to take it easy and accomplish a few other things. like writing this blog for instance.
i went for a walk after school and climbed a hundred or so steps to a shrine in Kijoka, sat there for a while and read. Current book is the sixth in Dark Tower series by Stephen King called, Song of Susannah. It's taken me quite a while to read this series but it's been good.
At home, i cleaned up and started cooking. The plan was to make a soup from scratch, a never before attempted task, and to see what happens to a butternut squash when it is a) cooked in a soup and b) baked. At the time of writing, the soup is still too hot to enjoy, but quick tastes have proven that i am not a terrible cook and there might be hope for me in the soup department, although i should have added more water. The baking went well as well, and as you know, i don't own an oven, so the little fish frying thing had to do. with a bit of sugar on it, it turned out quite well, although after some salad and chips with salsa, i am too full to eat either the squash or the soup. but it'll be a good lunch tomorrow and the soup will last a while.
and i have Matt to thank for all this squash goodness. Matt brought it yesterday when he paid my English Club a visit.
We planned to carve some pumpkins. I already had one, it was a surprise present from one of my student's parents, so Matt offered to bring a few more. At school, the reaction to my little pumpkin was great. The students and teachers have never seen an orange pumpkin of its size (and i'm telling you, it was small as Halloween pumpkins go) and students kept touching and asking if it was real. So i thought my English club girls would get a real kick out of more pumpkins and actually getting to carve them. Matt surprised us all by coming to school with three good size pumpkins, carving implements, a huge bag of candy, Halloween cookies and even some iced tea. It was great. He got everyone's attention walking through school bearing his gifts. and the girls just loved him. The carving went great. First, Matt showed the process on my little one, and then girls split up into small groups and carved their own. Theirs turned out great, but i didn't have my camera. So i hope to get some pics from either Matt or off the school camera that Akino-san used to take pics.
I set the jack-o-lanterns at the entrance and hope they last for a couple of days. Matt threatened to come back with more pumpkins for the actual Halloween.
I'm planning a lesson for each grade revolving around Halloween. A new student teacher has been at the school since Monday and will start teaching on the 30th, so i hope we can work together and make some lessons for the kiddies that involve them getting lots of candy. That's all they want really. My favorite 3rd grade boy has been by my desk every day for the last week asking for candy. They've put in their requests for gummies, chocolates, and lollypops.

and now, to share some pics from my trip to Fukuoka this past weekend. Brett wanted to go ride some coasters and invited people along; i was the only one who decided to join him, and am glad i did. It was a great time. A trip full of genuine kindness from strangers, lots of art, and nature, lots of laughs, and street music, and rabbits everywhere. plus of course good food and drink. naturally.
i'll let the pics do the rest of the work.

We stayed in an area of Ohorikoen, a beautiful park around an artificial lake. The Fukuoka modern art museum is in the park, and i took this pic on the walk around the lake after our visit to the museum.

first rabbit sighting. a sculpture outside Fukuoka Modern Art museum, Ohorikoen.

Mitsui Greenland. An older but fun amusement park an hour train ride from Fukuoka.

yep. that's a bear pushing acrobats on a tight rope. A small troupe of the Big Russian Circus performed at the Mitsui Greenland amusement park and i absolutely had to see them.

and this is Brett and i with Daria. the acrobats were taking polaroids for a fee for the audience. i walked up and spoke with them, asked them how much it was 'cause i didn't understand the japanese announcement, and they kindly offered to take the photo for free with my own camera.

at a great and hospitable establishment called Blow in Tenjin area of Fukuoka. I'm trying something called ginnan or Ginko biloba. They are roasted, the shells cracked and the inside reveals a greenish, soft, salty, and bitter nut. The owner who offered them to us to try claimed that they would give us "power". Brett didn't need more energy suppliments that evening.

i lucked out in seeing a traditional wedding ceremony at a Shinto shrine in the Hakata area of Fukuoka.

a street leading up to a temple in Dazaifu, a small city half hour train ride from Fukuoka. It used to be the governmental hub of Kyushu ages ago.

The amazing Kyushu National Museum. It's a year old and stunning architectually and has wonderful collections of Japan's prehistory and history with an emphasis on its connection to Chinese and Korean cultures. Ask me about it; we were lucky enough to have a guide lead us around and tell us all the details. It's number two on my list of top museums I have visited.

2006-10-15T22:10:00.000+09:00

the mp3 player selection went from Crimea to Decemberists. nice. perhaps a perfect accompaniment to a new blog entry.
today i had my 2nd English conversation class for adults. as i was driving from their beautiful house in the hills of Ogimi, i was thinking of what this blog entry would be about and decided that i will share with your the things i've learned this past week. a week off school doesn't mean a week off learning. :)
i really enjoyed the lesson tonight. i only teach for an hour and today we did an activity i made up for learning how to ask for a product at a fruit market and to say the price. the students were buying and selling fruit (in form of lamenated cards) and seemed to enjoy the activity. after, the conversation steered towards the fake US dollars we were using for the game. a set with paper money and coins can be purchased at any 100Yen store. Mine even has a set with a cash register, and another one with a safe. most of my students are over 40 and one of them told me that until 1972 American dollars were used on Okinawa. that shouldn't have surprised me, of course, but it was weird realizing that the Okinawas in front of me, people i am getting to know well, lived when their islands were under US mandate. I asked about the switch from right to left side drive. It took place on July 30, 1977 at 6:30am. At that moment everyone had to switch sides. K-san tells me that a lot of people were scared of driving for a while. Her husband, T-san, told me that he has driven in all possible combinations:right side wheel on left and right side of the road, and left side wheel on both sides as well. weird, huh?
he said that one of the hardest thing still is looking over the correct shoulder when backing up.

this week school was on fall vacation and i was only at school on thursday and friday. monday was a national holiday and i drove to Gushikawa Jusco to shop at one of my favorite stores, Nitori. They have everything one needs for a home and it's not too expensive. I also bought a couch that evening, which was unexpected, and learned that purchases over 1 man (10,000Yen) are delivered for free. Yey!
Tuesday, went to finally receive my drivers license. The video they promised turned out to be a brief lecture delivered by two important looking gentlemen. One of them walked up to the stage with such non-chalance, that i thought for a moment that he was someone who showed late and was walking through to get a seat, until of course he walked all the way to the podium and started talking. am glad i brought a book and sat in the back. i don't like my photo on the license.

that day i had a leisurely drive back up north by way of cape Zanpa in Yomitan village. the pics are already up from that afternoon. i learned that the natural beauty of Okinawa will always be a source of pleasure to me. I feel happiest on this island when am simply enjoying its uniqueness, simplicity, and the tranquility of its waters.

This week has been very inward for me. I went from very low lows to pleasant but not extreme highs. My lowest point was triggered by a movie i highly recommend called "A man who cried" with Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp. a movie i didn't know existed until i saw it at the rental store. But even my lowest times this week were not for nothing. They brought understanding with them and i feel better for having been made immobile by grief; i am stronger for it, i know myself better. i learned that it's necessary to allow such moments into one's life because they're the ones that trigger the thought process necessary to glimpse into the workings of the soul, the psyche, the inner self.

i have also been reading a bit this week. am almost finished with Kundera's Unbereable Lightness of Being, which i have been leisurely reading while enjoying isolated beaches on Kouri island. Kundera's definitions which underline the boundaries and structure of his book are wonderful. "Flirting," he writes, "is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee," and "vertigo is something other than the fear of falling...it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves." in short, it's been very thoughtprovoking to me, and am glad it was chosen as the next bookclub book because i'll deffinately need to discuss with someone when finished.

I have also somehow stumbled on a series of articles about Israel's place in world politics and Israel's relationship with Palestinians. It's been a very eye openning experience for me. I don't immediately agree with everything i've been reading, but it's been good for me to see Israel not as a victim state, but a strong country who has been overstepping its boundaries and borders and allowed to do so because of unquestionable but befuddling support of the United States. Am reading an article called "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt Now, i am not taking everything they write about at face value, but it has certainly put me on a path of unveiling things about Israel's history that i have considered impossible, or at least, against my belief of what Israel's stance in the world is. Unveiling "Israel kitsch" as Kundera might say.

and finally, a bit about Japan. Started reading, A Traveller's History of Japan by Richard Tames. Not very far in it but thought i'd share with you interesting statistics that backed up ideas about Japan i started developing myself.

Surveys reveal that 90 percent [of Japanese] consider themselves middle-class, 87 percent say they like to look like everyone else and 84 percent confess themselves unable to turn down requests from other people.

And here's a little present for our very own Okinawan bunny, Kelly, whose birthday it is tomorrow.
I hope you're seeing this on your birthday, dear. Lots of love and hope you can always get the cheese you want when you want it.

2006-10-06T15:24:00.000+09:00

to liven things up, 'cause it's friday and i've got a chill weekend coming up and a fall vacation next week.

from the Simpsons calendar:

In "Poppa's Got A Brand New Badge" (DABF17, why isn't Ralph Wiggum in school?

A. His teacher said she was tired of trying

B. Everyone told him it was summer vacation

C. April Fool's Day holiday

D. He forgot how to open the front door

and from the ever stimulating blogthings

You Passed 8th Grade Science

Congratulations, you got 6/8 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Science?

2006-10-04T21:35:00.000+09:00

it's not always easy standing in the classroom knowing that i'm in the middle of a crap lesson. a lesson so beyond saving that it's painful to roll my eyes. he's cut the reading section once again. G thinks he does it because he can't teach reading. Since he has never attempted to teach it while i've been here, i am inclined to believe her. His reasoning, most last times, "no time." we have no time! of course we don't. students are barely given a chance to have two weeks worth of classes without any interruptions. We have covered 3 lessons in 4 months. How does that make sense?
Today, it was a section entitled "Chat Corner." Had eight or nine ways to describe an experience, such as "great," "exciting," "boring," etc.. He had a plan, i didn't have time to even consider different options. we get into the classroom and all of a sudden we're having a conversation that wasn't in the plan. i follow along. instead of having them look at what we're talking about in the textbook, he hands out a worksheet with all the eight or nine words written with their japanese translations, followed by a dialogue, basically made up for students to use in interviewing a friend and me. so then i say a word, they repeat in voices that do not sound "fun," or even "not bad" and he tells them the japanese translations.
i know for a fact, they can read Japanese; it's the English they have trouble with.
at least they enjoy interviewing me and i attempt to walk around as much as i can during the activity and ask students the questions to get them involved.

on tuesday, played jeopordy with both 3rd grade classes and one 2nd grade class. the 2nd grade class was the last period of the day. it's unfortunate that they are my least favorite class out of 5. the kids in that class do not get involved at all; nothing is ever good enough for them to pay attention to. yesterday, two girls in a group were laughing at something i said, i don't even know what it was, but it really got to me. and then half the class would talk as i was asking other groups questions and nothing the teacher said to make them be quiet worked. i almost gave up.
it's probably my fault. the questions were too hard, only three groups got to play 'cause the "smart" students were in them and dominated.
same thing happened in one of the 3rd grade classes were only two groups actually got to play because for half the game a group with Ryo, a top English student, dominated, and then they faltered and it went to another strong student, one of the girls in my English club, and stayed there for the remainder of the period. i felt bad for the students in the other groups, but couldn't change rules half way through the game.
next time we play, i'll modify it so that it doesn't happen again and everyone gets to play.
thing is. it's not that Ryo or the other students who answered correctly are brilliant. it's just that they actually study. the rest of them, especially in 2nd grade right now, just don't bother. they don't have homework that makes them repeat the things they've covered in class. they don't have reading or writing assignments. it's all just a bit frustrating sometimes.
and i'm not angry with the students. 'cause the students are good people most of the time. i handed lottery tickets (a prize system i started a while back) to the top two groups in each grade that played Jeopordy, and the group with Ryo wrote his name on all 4 cards. that made me smile.

it's not all bad, really. had a good english club. played a couple of games and then watched "billy elliot." didn't want to do too much with them today, 'cause half the kids from the club were practicing for Saturday's athletic meet. the movie went over well, although i wish i had time to explain the story line with the miners and the strike, but prolly too much for my japanese and their english. they liked the movie, and i'm glad. although i forgot how much swearing is in it; i really hope that the subtitles didn't reflect too much of it. oops.

oh. and on monday we were at the All Okinawa Speech Contest. my student didn't place and i only had a faint hope of it anyways. not 'cause she's bad, she's quite good, but her pronounciation just wouldn't improve beyond a certain level and i knew that the competition would be tough. and it was. and i don't envy the judges, although i did not at all agree with one of their picks for a place. i asked for comments, and was told that the theme of my student's speech was too serious for a JHS student. they had decided last year, apparently, that speeeches shouldn't be so heavy handed because it doesn't reflect the JHS students' actual opinions. They're telling me that a 15 year old girl can't talk about war because it's too much? Didn't want to argue right there with the judge, it's a tough job, but i didn't write the speech. she did. i didn't tell her to think about war, and stories that are lost with each survivor that passes--she wrote it. made me angry. monday afternoon was not happy.
good thing i met Kelly for dinner in Chatan, and we had yummy pasta and i felt better. Then had tea at Starbucks with Louise and was feeling much better when set of for drive home after 9pm.

Chiye and i are doing a seminar during the Mid-Year Conference. It'll be exclusively for the JTEs and we'll have it both days of the conference. Am looking forward to it. It'll be good to talk to the JTEs and get their opinions and to find out how they feel about working with ALTs and to clarify some things from our perspectives.
Like the fact that most people i know don't think that teaching to the lowest denominator in a classroom is a good idea. but that's what they do here. which is why we have classes like i did today.

my supervisor showed me the papers for re-contracting. he'll give them to me on Friday. I have until the 3rd of February to make a decision about staying for a 3rd year.

To stay?
or..

i know it's on a few 2nd years' minds..
how to make the decision that feels right? it needs to feel right, right? or does it need to add up to everything that seems right?

also, please pick up a copy of "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss from your library or bookstore. You'll be doing yourself a great favor by reading it. I can actually say i have a favorite book now.

love
-e

2006-09-28T15:24:00.001+09:00

been a while but for some reason can't bring myself to actually sit down and write.
prolly 'cause i know that i have a few things to mention and that takes time.

first. The Answer to the Simpsons quiz from last week's post is A, congratz to Kevin who is the only winner and will get a super duper prize that is so cool it cannot be mentioned for fear of unsurmountable rage of jealous that it'll put everyone else into. i am trying to keep this blogger a happy, safe space for all to visit.

last week saturday, two students from my school participated in the Kunigami area English speech contest. One of them took 2nd place. Actually, it should probably be referred to as third place, but they don't call it that. For some reason they award a first place and two second places. a bit odd. maybe 'cause it's nicer to say that she got second and not third. anyways. we're going to the all Okinawa speech contest on Monday. Should be interesting. I think the speech contest is more tense than the story contest because it's a national thing. The winners from Okinawa will go to a competition in Tokyo. I hope that my student does well but I am not stressing her out. The point of all these contests is to enjoy them, I think. In the long run, I don't know how much good it does them, except to teach them public speaking (in a foreign language) and public speaking should be enjoyed rather than feared.

the other success of recent days has been my passing of the dreaded Japanese practical driving test! I took a two hour course in a neighbor village and think it greatly improved my chances of passing. Am very happy, even though i don't actually have my license yet because i have to go back to Naha and watch a video, after which i will be officially legal once more. Don't know when i'll get a chance to get down there, though. The video is shown only once a day at 1pm, and i'd rather not skip out on any more classes, so it'll have to wait 'til Fall break, which thankfully starts soon.

Won't be going anywhere for the break. Have to put my car in the shop to renew my shaken. Shaken is like the yearly emissions test back home. It's a check of car's safety for which i have to pay an exorbent amount of money, especially if any work has to be done on my car to bring it up to speed on standards. I really hope that it won't be more than a grand, although because my car has a bigger engine, the shaken on it costs more. Sigh.

I have been staying in the north the last couple of weekends and have been really enjoying it. Last weekend went to a festival put together by the 20somethings living in the northern villages and towns. Last year was their first festival and this year was the 2nd attempt. It was wonderful. Very chill, on the grass, a few food stands, five eisa groups, a couple of garage bands, a breakdancing group. Am really glad i went. I told a couple of people in my village's Eisa group that i want to practice with them for next year. They start practice in June.

On sunday our village held a track and field event. I went and watched most of it. Didn't participate because i wasn't asked to and couldn't have joined on the day. Everything was very meticulously planned out. Who, where, when, wearing what color head band. The athletes were mostly adults, although there was a relay for elementary school through junior high school kids. And also some of my students ran the 100m dash. The competition was between the tiny villages that make up Ogimi-son. I heard some names for the first time. Most of them are just a few blocks big, but historically are a separate place.
The Okinawans are very community oriented. Perhaps this can be said about Japanese as well. It seems that people are very involved in the things that happen in the village. Sport events, cultural events, festivals, school activities--all of it is always a joined effort by many people. Things and people are connected here in ways that i have never observed in America. It's really comforting.

This weekend I'm going to check out Hentona High School's fest. Should be fun. High schools have sports fests, undoukais, every other year. On the off years, they have culture fests, which i am told are a lot of fun. I have not seen one yet, so want to check one out and it just so happens that there is a high school within walking distance from my house.
This weekend is also the Okuma fest which is open to the island and i'll be checking that out Saturday and possibly Sunday nights.
Sunday, i've been asked to participate in a relay at the Ogimi elementary school's undoukai. I'll go early and take some pics. am thinking elementary school undoukai should be quite fun. Each of the four elementary schools will be having it on that day, so maybe i'll start at my own, Kijoka, elem. and move onto to Ogimi then Shioya, then Tsuha. we'll see. am gonna be biking to it all so all depends on my energy.

see. told you. too much writing.

cheers
-e

2006-09-18T20:57:00.000+09:00

monday night. the Respect for the Aged holiday is coming to a close. Today Ogimi JHS had its 27th undoukai or as translated into English, sports day.
Due to the typhoon, the event had to pushed back one day to allow for set up on Sunday afternoon instead of Saturday afternoon. Saturday the typhoon swept past Okinawa inflicting minimal damage but making itself known with strong winds and rain. The rattling of window panes is extremely loud here but i only really noticed it when i couldn't hear my movie and had to turn up the volume. I think i've grown quite used to the banging of the panes; i'd probably be startled if my house was in complete silence.

The painting of the bathroom went quite well despite my complete lack of qualifications to take on the task. I started painting without putting down the newspapers if that gives you any idea of my inadequacy. I'm just not a painter of surfaces. or canvaces for that matter. all of that ability skipped me entirely and doubled itself through my sisters. i'm ok with that.

i'm happy to say, though, that my bathroom is now somewhat happy looking which gave me the idea to move on to the toilet next. i figure if i buy a can of paint that's gonna cost me an arm and a leg, it'll make me use it.

i've recently noticed that when i type, my fingers reproduce the words from my brain phonetically rather than how they're meant to be spelled. i have also spelled out words correctly but they were the wrong words needed at the time. some sort of connections in my brain are being strained with the increase in Japanese study of recent weeks. I worry.

Although, at least my Japanese is improving. So much so that i surprised myself today by giving a brief speech to the PTA and teachers gathered to congratulate themselves on a job well done. I'll admit that it wasn't the longest or most elaborate speech, but it was in complete sentences and grammatically correct and surprised people who expected to have Mr. Chinen translate for me.
Otsukaresama to me!

Below are a few photos from the last two days. The first three are me playing around with the editor on the undoukai photos. And the last two are of me, one in the teacher's office in my new Ogimi Chuugakko sports shirt designed by me and ordered by all the teachers for the undoukai. And the second shows off my cool shades with the ocean behind me a day after the typhoon.

Also, photos have been added from the Undoukai and to the "keitai" folder.

2006-09-14T10:54:00.000+09:00

it's raining. must be typhoon named ShanShan on its way. It's coming to spoil weekend's plans for quite a few people. I plan on painting my bathroom.
The students are on their way to the gym to practice for the undokai. Again. Hopefully the typhoon will give us a clear day on Sunday so that it can take place.

The student teacher is letting me lead. As much i like that initiating role, i don't think she's getting much out of the experience if she keeps turning to me to start up activities and to remember what is next on the lesson plan. She has done that several times already in classes and it's either due to nervousness or forgetfulness or lack of confidence. I don't know. I think she could be a good teacher but she needs to start trusting in her own abilities. I wonder, though, if i'm being a bit to ready to take charge. Today, i tried to let her initiate and it didn'T work. She waited for me. She turned, expecting me to go to the next stage in the lesson plan. It's sad that the one of very few times i get to lead in the classroom, i am not looking forward to it. Oh well.

And here's a couple of things to spruce up the blog a bit.

First, a quiz from my Simpsons calendar. This one really made me chuckle so take a stab at the correct choice and i'll post the answer next week.

In "Sweets and sour Marge" (DABF03), what does Homer lick off the floor of the Kwik-E-Mart during his sugar withdrawals?

A. A mixture of blood and VapoRub
B. A Squishee spill
C. Donut powder
D. Broken glass

and here's the latest quiz from blogthings.com

You Are 48% Cynical

Yes, you are cynical, but more than anything, you're a realist.
You see what's screwed up in the world, but you also take time to remember what's right.

How Cynical Are You?

oooh. it just thundered really loudly and the music teacher said, こわい

2006-09-11T23:31:00.000+09:00

had a great weekend with the Block. On Saturday we had a special and secret activity planned to be followed by a bbq. Due to weather, however, the plans had to be changed up. The bbq was still held at the Nago 21st Century Park when the skies cleared up after 2pm. There's a shop in Nago, probably one of a few, where one can rent a bbq and purchase all the meats imaginable for it, including weeners, several varieties of yakitori, yakisoba noodles, veggies, sauces, etc. one stop shopping for a succesfull bbq outing. which is what we had. Not all from the block could make it but those who did proclaim they had a great time. After the bbq we went on to bowling and that was followed by karaoke late into the night.
Sunday some slept in, some got up early to bike their way to Arume, a village on the east coast of the island where the vice blockhead, Ben, resides. He reserved us an afternoon of sea kayaking at one of the Ecotouring locations. We kayaked to a secluded beach, had a swim, and kayaked back. It was great. Thanx, all. :)

school is busy and so am i. staying late to practice for speech contest but enjoying it.
the student teacher is really getting into classes. we taught her first one today and it went well, i thought. she really gets into the grammar explanations, unlike someone i know. it's just too bad that the classes have been cut to a third this week because of the afternoon practices for the undokai.

2006-09-07T13:29:00.000+09:00

on the way to Naha yesterday i was passed by an ambulance. The lights were on and the sirens were blaring. I would like to say that it wheezed past me in a disjointed cacophony. It's good imagery. But this is Okinawa and no ambulance has ever "wheezed" past me. They have gone slightly faster than the average speed, and they have slowed down at traffic lights. Yesterday, the ambulance was just a couple of cars ahead of me and going slower than the cars around it. It was obvious because the cars around it where trying to slow down so that they wouldn't be overtaking the ambulance and possibly embarassing the driver. i'm sure lives are saved in a timely fashion. Rushing is not in the vocabulary.

the schools is in a frenzy. the pre-undokai frenzy in which i am trying desperately not to get caught. on tuesday, when the school was practicing eisa in the gym, i went home to take a nap; on wednedsay, when girls were outside dancing and boys inside practicing with bo, i was profusely sweating in my car on the way back from Naha. Today, i won't be so lucky. Today, i will join in the "folk dancing." At least it'll be the same as last year, and i won't have to do too much thinking.

after undokai preporations, i will practice for the speech contest with two students. They're both 3rd graders and good students. One has good pronounciation but is quiet and lacks confidence. The other speaks fast, loud, but is missing "m" "b" and "v" in most words. I enjoy the practices but they are tiring. I try to remind myself, whenever i get slightly frustrated with them, that they are memorizing a 350 word speech in English majority of which they don't understand.

I have ordered two books that might help me cook Japanese. One is full of pictures and has simple recipes for bento lunches. And the other is a dictionary of Japanese food; no pictures, just descriptions and explanations of all foods and ingredients that might be considered japanese. btw, i learned that if a food can't be eaten with chopsticks or drunk from a bowl, it is not considered Japanese. I think my new goal for being here will be to create good looking bento boxes. Should be fun. Am glad i canceled school lunch because now i have to make my own and sandwiches can get boring after a while.

A young female student teacher will be working with me in English classes starting next week. She speaks English! She's been here since Monday, but hasn't had much to do with classes yet since we had final tests and then they had to be given back. Today, she observed the three classes we taught. I'm really glad they went well because sometimes they don't, and it would not have been a good observation. But we had really good classes today--i can tell 'cause my larigintis started bothering me. I should go see a doctor. My voice goes hoarse after two class periods.

Interesting thing about tiny cafes in the middle of the jungles. By the time one finds them, one won't care that they only serve one dish. It's usually a really tasty dish, though.

On the agenda--absentee voting 2006. A few things are at stake. In Wisconsin, for example, a referendum is being voted on that would push for an amendment to the constitution banning gay marriage. Irritating.
So, if you're like me, an American living abroad, Get the info and the forms and Vote!

Been watching the 2nd season of "Lost." Finally got my hands on all 24 episodes. well actually they arrived in my mailbox in a pink envelope, thanx to Perry. I had seen up until episode 13, and am now on 18. Slowed down after watching several in 2 days to prolong the process. Intense.

Also, I highly recommend renting "The Edukators," a german film. Watch it with a few friends and then discuss it. The movie spun David, Ben and i into an hour long conversation.
Also, "Kontrol" is a cool hungarian film that takes place entirely underground in Budapest's metro system. Slightly allegorical but not heavyhanded.
Ben brought over 30 films from Indonesia--we have been slowly watching them. Some don't work on my laptop. Unfortunate.

Am reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krause. I haven't finished it yet but want to re-read it already. That very rarely happens to me. The words in this book are making me stumble through my beliefs. They're also bringing up emotions that i don't always want to feel on a school night. Remarkable.

I feel unusual. I think we should go outside.
if you know where this quote is from, then you know exactly how i feel.

cheers
-e

2006-09-01T11:51:00.000+09:00

One thing i missed was all the delicious food my grandmothers can make. I got to eat all the things i like when i came back.

Shelley showing off a promising schedule of Wisconsin State Fair activities. Somehow we spent 8 hours there that day. Probably helped that we both haven't been there in years. It was quite amusing, really. And to me, a cultural shock of sorts: so many people of so many sizes and colors and attitudes. And of course the animals were nice to look at as well.

No comment.

In the Junior Cattle Area, kids resting.

my height in horses.

mom walking along side the woodfire kiln Anna and Brad built with the help of Sofya.

Anna and Sofya having delicious fun with the shishkebob.

Mom and I at a park on Lake Michigan.

2006-08-23T22:57:00.000+09:00

am listening to Regina Spektor right now.
Got a CD of music from Sofya when i was home, and a couple of her albums are on it. I heard of her for the first time a couple of years ago; downloaded her song randomly when was looking for Strokes' songs. She toured with them, i believe. She's got a very pliable voice, she can go from low and hoarse to high and clear. Quite nice. Writes and plays her own songs.

anyways. this isn't about a new musician i have discovered, although, that's important. i've been feeling disconnected from the new and old music unknown to me. When i came home, i was asking people if they would recommend i listen to someone they've been into so as to expand the selection on my MP3 player. It worked, somewhat. Now i just have to start searching and downloading. A slow process with the available connection speeds.

But at least the electricity doesn't go out on me anymore. First time it happened, Ben and i were celebrating David's bday party at my house. We had lots of lights on and they all went out. a few times during the evening. A couple of weeks later i went home to the States and didn't think of it again, until Kelly mentioned that while her parents and her were visiting my place in my absence, the lights went out. Her father felt bad because he thought he did something to my AC, but it wasn't their fault at all. When i got home, late last Monday night, i turned on a few lights and the AC and they all went out on me. I checked on the neighbors' windows but i was the only unlucky on. Started flipping switches in the box and they came back on. This happened three or four times that night, until i finally gave up and fell asleep with open windows, frustrated but too tired to do anything more. The next day i complained to my supervisor, fortunately i told him about the lights going out before my trip home so that he knew this was a repeat of an issue and not just me being a whiny "gaijin." An electrician was called, he putzed around (this is an actual expression meaning "to putter about"), and the lights and AC worked. Earlier that day i was trying to do laundry and vacuum after a 3 week absence and things kept going out on me. You can imagine my frustration. So i was very happy when it got "fixed." Yes, in quotes, because it didn't. Not really. I was carefully using the electricity that night and the next, but was gone Thursday through Sunday, so didn't know that i had lost and regained electricity at least once during my absence--my answering machine resets itself when the power is lost. Oh, and my fridge stank of slightly melted then refrozen meat. Great. Ben came over Monday night, i had lost power twice in a row already before he came at 6pm. The electrician lives across the street, so i went over to get him, but he wasn't there and i called Mr. Taira, the man of the hour, the boss of all bosses, the awesome, english speaking superintendent of the Ogimi schools. am sure i have mentioned him before. He was over with the electrician within a half hour. Ben and i were eating couscous out of a pot with two candles glowing by our side. Ben was telling me about his very recent trip to Indonesia and i was telling him about the new JETs and the weekend trip to Tokashiki island. The electrician came in and smelled slightly of alcohol and was very confounded by the loss of power when all the switches in the box were "on." He went to work. Close to 8pm, i had power. Yeah! Mr. Taira, knowing that we hadn't yet had dinner and were hungry (couscous doesn't count), took us to a nearby, previously undiscovered by me Chinese restaurant. Delicious gyoza is worth going back for.

So that settled, i can tell you all about everything else. but briefly, you must be tired of reading already.

Last week was hot, humid and busy. Flew in Monday night, met a few new block JETs Tuesday, failed a driving test Wednesday, drank with old and new JETs at the Beer Dome on Thursday, was late for a Junior H.S. Q/A i co-lead with Jaimee (the aussie) on Friday, joined a bookclub meeting that same night and had a couple of drinks at Paul and Mike's before retiring to a comfy bed in a cheap hotel in Naha. Saturday morning took a ferry out to Tokashiki with almost all the new JETs and a handful of "old" ones. The Tokashiki trip is an annual tradition that takes place the weekend after the "New JET conference" which is mandatory for all new ALTs and so a perfect opportunity to gather them all with a few of the experienced crew and send them to a gorgeous tropical island for a day and night of chilling, snorkeling, camping, drinking, swimming, etc. Good times. It was very different for me from last year, but that's understandable. The 1st year JETs were having a crazy good time, and I sort of stayed on the sidelines and had a relaxing couple of days. Not the best behavior for a blockhead, should have mingled more, but that's just me. I am very shy when surrounded by new people. Being here in Japan, on JET, has pushed me to come out of my shell and pretend i have a persona that allows me to be more relaxed and open to strangers, but sometimes that persona retreats and i remain behind. And i'm not as good at letting go of hesitations and self-consciousness. But i did chat with a few new people and they seem like a good bunch that are at the moment a solid clique of Group A and B, much like we were when we arrived. I will host a Block Event in the next few weeks to give time to the new kids to bond with the old ones in the northern area, although most of them have all met each other, so it'll be more of an excuse to do something fun on a Saturday afternoon.

Nothing much is happening at the school. Summer vacation is nearing the end; classes start on Monday. I went into school Monday and Tuesday and did nothing much. Today, Wednesday, i was learning about the different processes involved in creating Bashofu fabric that my village of Kijoka is known for. It's a two day workshop organized by my supervisor, Tatchi. He was there, and Akino, the substitute accountant at my school who speaks English as well three teachers from Shioya elem. school. In the morning we learned how to cut the fibers off the banana-like stalks of bashofu plant. Then we watched how they were boiled and sat inline with all other workers at the factory and learned how to take the impurities off the fibers with bamboo after they've been boiled for the first time. That particular task proved very difficult for me. I sat across from a young guy who was expert and after he was done with each strand of his fibers they were nearly white, smooth and wide. Mine were coming out all thinly twisted together and dirty yellowishbrown. And my back started to hurt after an hour of sitting cross legged. After lunch, which i ate at my apartment (a 2 minute walk from the factory), we cleaned the fibers some more and then Mrs. Taira (the superintendent's wife and a bashofu weaving veteran of 30 years) put me behind the weaving loom. I was weaving at a loom!! and it was working out. That's just almost unreal to me. Except i know that i had done it, and it was hard, and enjoyable and i was sweating buckets and really getting into making sure my borders were nice and neat and the weave tight and even. We were making coasters that we'll get to keep, and i realized that of course the fiber we were using wasn't the nice, final product type of Bashofu, but the crazy, almost falling apart fibers i was creating when i was learning how to clean them. So there ya go, everything can be used. I think the coaster came out good. Tomorrow we'll be learning how the fibers are joined together with weaver's knots to create one long string that is then fed through the loom with a spooler. That'll probably be tough. I'm thinking of asking if i can come in sometime and just practice weaving. Prolly not, they don't have time for eccentric "gaijin" but maybe not, maybe they'll let me enjoy myself a wee bit more behind a loom.

The weather has been changeable. It rains for no reason. There aren't any typhoons but the rain comes in strong, brief gusts and leaves a clear, scorching sun behind to dry up my laundry after it's been made wet yet again.

In the process of putting up pics from trip home right now. I might do a photo blog with a few of them in a couple of days.

I just finished a children's book of Terry Pratchett's, The WeeFree Men. Not his best work, but i suppose good as a kid's story. Has some of his regular characters from the Discworld series, like Granny Weatherfax. She says something interesting at the end of the book when talking about witchcraft:
The thing about witchcraft...is that it's not like school at all. First, you get the test, and then afterwards you spend years findin' out how it happened. It's a bit like life in that respect.

So this here experience is a test, and maybe that's why i sometimes have a really hard time being introspective about it--i haven't passed it yet.

love
-e

an inconvenient truth

2006-08-04T16:53:00.000+09:00

climatecrisis.org

please check it out.
and if you're in Japan and you have no way of seeing the movie at the moment--download it.

i have been overdosing on movies but this one is the only that matters.

and check out the site.

it's hard sometimes to think that somehow a person can do something to change a way the world works. and one person can't. not really. but if a few people decided that they could and then they told their friends about how important it was and how it could be done then perhaps we'll have started something.

and Clerks2 is damn funny.

cheers
-e

2006-07-20T16:12:00.000+09:00

a bit at a loss here. too many things to mention.
let's start with the more pressing and annoying--the getting of Japanese Drivers License.
ok. so after a year of driving with the International Drivers License, Japanese government requests that foreigners change their license to the Japanese one. Easy, right? not so much. For most nationals this would require a trip (or two) to Okinawa's capitol, Naha, standing in a couple of lines, filling out paperwork, paying nearly 70$, standing in a couple of more lines, waiting for a couple of hours, and then coming back on another day to receive a brand new japanese license!
for Americans, as well as Brazilians, South Africans, and a handful of other nationals the process is a wee bit more dragged out. We actually have to take the written and practical tests to receive the coveted piece of plastic. No big, you'd think. Make an appointment, show up, fill out paperwork, take the tests. Easy.
Ah, but what's the rush, my friend? Why not go once to fill out the paperwork. Second time (and only on a wednesday) to take a 10 question T/F test, come back again (again only on a Wednesday) and take the driving test. Pass?! Great! Come back again, mon ami, watch a video and get your license. Four trips to the capital..if you're lucky. More than likely, you will fail the driving test and will have to come back again and again to retake it. It is actually recommended that foreigners pay 50$ to go to a driving school for an afternoon to better their chances of passing the test. But why is it so hard? you might ask. I've been driving in Okinawa for a year and I've been driving in my home country far longer than that, what's the difficulty in passing a test, one that doesn't even require parallel parking?
A few. First, please be sure to check under the car for animals and children, then readjust the mirrors several times, don't forget to look over your shoulder a few times as you drive on a encloased course with no other cars, also when you speed up to the required 40km/hr and then have to turn right, please drop your speed within seconds to below 20km/hr in order to take the turn. When deciding to change lanes, first check your blind spot then turn on blinker then proceed to move (i've been trying to practice that while driving and always fail. am i wrong or must one first turn on blinker then check blindspot?)...and so on and so forth.
So i've been down to Naha twice already; took the paper test which was a complete joke and more aggrivating that it was so easy because i had to spend 4 hours in the car to get there and back. I can't take the driving test until i get back from the States, so wish me luck then. Hopefully i'll pass but more than likely not. Nearly 100$ spent already and counting.

In other news. Summer vacation has arrived! Today was last day of classes and students cleared out their desks and classroom nooks. That used to be my favorite part of finishing a school semester or year--going through all the paper and tossing 90% of them out. Ok, lying. I have tons of papers, but some came in handy. For instance, i kept my notebook from 9th grade U.S. history and used the outlines from it when i taught the same class last year at Bayview HS.

Last week we watched fireworks in Motobu at Ocean Expo Park. This was the 30th year of the fireworks and instead of the usual 5,000, 10,000 fireworks were shot from two locations off the coast. The first part of the show was done in sync to music and the second, more spectacular part was only accompanied by the "ooohs" and "aaaahs" of the enchanted crowd. They were truly the best fireworks i have ever seen.

I've signed the new contract for the upcoming JET year! Something ritualistic about that.

I am missing out on several festivals when i go home next week to visit family and friends. The most dissapointing will be the Ogimi festival; it's nowhere near the biggest or coolest but it's our own and it would have been cooler this year 'cause i actually know many more people and over a hundred kids by name.

Happy Birthday yesterday to David Crennen. I hosted a small dinner party and made mashpotatoes, a japanese style salad, and we each cooked our own Aussie steaks. 'twas delicious and then the three of us watched, "Run Lola Run." Good times. The cake was great too, as it should be, as i am the best cakegetter.

Saw "Superman Returns" the other day on base. Not bad, actually. i don't know much about the whole Superman saga. Just that he's super but as any hero has a weak spot...for a certain lady. nah, kryptonite.
Am really looking forward to the Pirates film which will be at Schwab on Monday.

I went to DFS yesterday. It's a store in Naha where one can only shop with an airplane ticket as it is all duty free. Well, not all, there's a small shop with local gifts and that's where i went. But i had to walk through the rest of the complex to get there. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry, BLVGARI all fancy shmancy cosmetic lines, Rolex, Cartier, Tiffany & co. and so on and so forth. Clean, fancy, sophisticated and way too rich for my blood, of course. It was a world of magazine covers and impecable dress. It was too much and yet I was drawn to the lights, the flare, the colors. Why do we need items to reaffirm status, or better yet, why would someone who intellectually can reason through a need for a status item can still be drawn by it. How much are we affected by advertising and glitter, and why even awareness of the gimmick can't protect us from it?
I tried on a pair of Oakleys, and i actually really wanted to buy them. A practical purchase on a island with blaring sun. But my international ticket was no good; i had to have one that first made a stop on mainland Japan. Foiled again.
the DFS in Okinawa also has a Food Colloseum which is a cool spot.

So many things to do before leaving. I have to pack and clean my aparto. People might be staying there while visiting the north. on Saturday I am going to Ie island with some teachers and parents and then in the evening there is the Block 1 goodbye party in Nago. Sunday i am driving south again to work at the examination of future high school English teachers. Monday i have to transfer the gold fish from my apartment to the school so that Noriko-san can take care of them while i'm away....and a few other little things, like changing money and paying bills.

Perhaps i'll write a blog while visiting home. wouldn't exactly be fitting with the title of the blog but hey.

cheers