Since the Last Time

Also the title of Arrested Development’s last record, and I JUST got it! It’s good but nothing can really beat “People Everyday.” After hearing from Pablo how awesome they were live I decided to check out more of their songs. As long as they stay funky I can get down with them. Since the last time lots has happened but here’s most of what I still remember.

Halloween

I was Lara Croft, Brenda was Skully, Kelly was Britney Spears and Heather was cute. Oh yea, the restaurant burnt down due to a circuit problem five hours after we left. Scary.



Food Poisoning

The day after the Halloween party I got sick with a fever of 39C. Brenda emailed me the next day and said that was 104F. After two days of staying home with what my nurse and Google say was food poisoning, I went back to work once my fever dropped.


Martial Arts Festival

Every year in Himeji they have a martial arts festival where they offer free lessons for various martial art forms (like judo, karate, aikido and lots more) to the public. In the afternoon, they have a long show where different groups perform. Taekwondo was my favorite, not because it’s Korean but because they broke wooden boards with their hands and feet.


Heather's Birthday

The girls got together to celebrate her 26th birthday! We had delicious steak with not-so-delicious Kobe wine and took sticker pictures after. This girl is awesome and she has guns. She’s who inspired me to work on mine. I <3 these girls. Thanks to Bren for the picture.



Softball

About fourteen of us got together at my school for some softball. My team won. Boo yea! It’s going down again this Sunday!

 
Shag's Tacos

Taco night at Shag’s, one of the best cooks I know (recently met him through Brenda). We watched Babel without subtitles, so we had fun trying to understand through body language.



Sasayama Weekend

We had a lovely dinner at Okamoto’s (wild boar nabe, yum) and decided to walk off our meal by going to Tsutaya about 3 km away. Pablo took us to a famous 48-waterfall hike near his house, and it was FUN. I felt like we were hobbits, using ropes and chains to get up the mountain, rock climbing and trying not to fall off. Sasayama reminds me a lot of Oregon with the mountainous landscape and trees everywhere. What better way to wind down than INDIAN FOOD and ONSEN?! It was one of the best days I’ve had this fall in Japan.

Funny story: I like to tell people I bruised and scarred my right leg from mountain climbing, but really it happened the night before on our way to Tsutaya. Granted, I was a little buzzed but nowhere near intoxicated enough to do something stupid. Allow me to refresh your memory of the “gaijin traps” in Japan. There are two feet wide gutters on each side of the road, sometimes completely uncovered and just waiting for someone or something to fall into them. My worst nightmare is falling into one with my bike and flying off only to land face first in a rat-infested, muddy rice field.

So I was walking along the side of the road on top of COVERED gaijin traps when suddenly I disappeared. Imagine old school cartoons like Road Runner and Coyote when Road Runner dug up a deep hole for Coyote to fall into (Road Runner = Japan, Coyote = Lena). It turns out my foot fell right into the ONLY 8 inch hole visible for miles (maybe I’m exaggerating but there were no holes up until that point). This begs the question: WHY DO THEY LEAVE SMALL HOLES WIDE OPEN IN A LONG STRETCH OF COVERED GUTTERS?!

My knee was bleeding a little when we got to Tsutaya but it was dark and I couldn’t see the wounds too well which helped lessen the pain. I came back to school and told a couple of my teachers who laughed WITH me. They said that’s never happened to them or anyone they know, and the only reason we could come up with is because they’re Japanese. A few days later my whole leg turned green, then purple and finally black. I have two new scars and they will forever remain the scars I got from mountain climbing one day. Japan = 1, Lena = 0.


The Optometrist
My first doctor visit

There’s no such thing as making doctor appointments here, at least not for your first visit. People just go when the office opens and wait to get in. At home, the only place that happens is urgent care. In some ways, it works better than our system because most people get in when they need to without making an appointment months in advance.

The office was set up differently, too. There’s not much privacy when doing your eye exams and other eye checks. There was always another person sitting a few feet away from me getting the same thing checked. Only the optometrist’s room had some privacy where he examines patients’ eyes with that special machine.

This brings me to what Japanese people consider PERSONAL and PRIVATE, especially in the workplace. Much to my surprise, it’s perfectly normal for people to talk about the health and medical condition of their coworkers with each other and sometimes even in front of students. One of my friends had surgery back at home and was asked if it went well by her students when she came back. Another friend got a bladder infection and everyone (students and teachers alike) knew about it the next day. 


School Field Trip & Enkai

Every year my school takes the kids to Akashi City Hall to watch a performance. This year it was a circus act performed by Chinese teenagers, my favorite being the two women act at the end where the smaller one balanced on the feet of the bigger one and did flips, jumps and tricks. Once again I joined the third year group for their after party and had a lot of fun chatting, eating, drinking and laughing. Enkais are the only outlet for stress and venting about their frustrations that teachers in this country have.

Big news: Hyogo Prefecture is cutting every teacher’s salary by 4% starting next year. That’s huge!. Everyone’s frustrated, nobody likes it and people are considering transferring to a different prefecture. At first we were told there might be a 30% pay cut, but it was SO outrageous that nobody believed it. Apparently, Hyogo Prefecture is bankrupt and in some serious debt (probably from more money scandals by dirty, dirrrrrrty politicians). Of course the only thing these politicians can think of is to make up for it by stealing from educators who already don’t make enough. * Borat style * High five Hyogo Board of Education! Way to lose the respect of your colleagues who do more in one day than you do in a week. Exaggeration? Maybe…but still…


ESS Speech Contest

My kids didn’t place. They didn’t get honorable mention, either, but they tried their best and I’m proud of them. The competition was really tough this year and the kids who won were amazing. Their pronunciation was the best I’ve heard from students in this area. Fortunately, there was no crying and no sad faces this year so I took my girls out to a hamburg steak lunch with bottomless fries. We took sticker pictures together and called it a day. Who eats steak right before Thanksgiving dinner? Lena. That’s who.


Tam's Thanksgiving Dinner

This lady is the closest thing to Martha Stewart I know. She organized a lovely, lovely dinner at the community center in their area and we stuffed ourselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, pie and stuffing. We went to karaoke after and had more fun. It was a great night with great food, great people and great singing.



Fall in Arashiyama

Before heading to Shag's (and needing a break from the stress of studying for the JLPT) I took a day trip to Kyoto alone to enjoy the fall foliage. Arashiyama isn't too popular among foreigners who visit this country, but it's a hot tourist spot for Japanese people. It's one of the most beautiful, romantic places I've been to in all of Japan.

Starting from the station, you walk along the bamboo path and get to an area on top of a hill with lots of small temples and shrines. I visited a small shrine then a templed called Nizonzo and spent a good half hour walking around the grounds. Next, I went to Tenryuji (the most famous temple in Arashiyama) but found fifty people standing in line with more sitting around waiting, so I admired it from the outside and moved onto the Togetsu Bridge.

It was about noon when I got to the bridge and the crowds had grown exponentially since the few hours I'd been there. Finally, I made it across and walked along the river, probably the most beautiful part of the whole trip. What made it so romantic were the trees, the river, the birds flying so gracefully, the boats and all the couples in it...Then I ventured out to the monkey park. I was wearing my uggs, and the lady at the front asked if I'd be ok in them. Thinking it would be a simple walk up to the viewing deck I said sure. Wow. I was wrong. This was a serious CLIMB, and I was sweating by the end of it. The adorable monkies were worth it, though, not to mention the breathtaking view at the top. Did a little Christmas shopping at Kyoto Station and slept on the local train all the way to Motomachi.

I took too many pictures and couldn't choose my favorites to post so take a look if you're interested:
http://linfield.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017738&l=2c19b&id=65200779

Shag's Grill

Man, this guy can cook! He made ribs and roasted chicken this time and I ate like it was Thanksgiving all over again. Maybe it’s not so much my body’s natural reaction to the cold as my eating habits that get me plump during the winter. Every gram of fat was worth it, though!



Iced Pumpkin Cookies

For our last ESS meeting before final exams, the girls and I made iced pumpkin cookies using the recipe we'd translated from English to Japanese the day before. They turned out better than any of us had imagined and we shared leftovers with other teachers.


JLPT: Japanese Language Proficiency Test

Oh, tests. I’ve forgotten how hard they are and how much studying they require. There are four levels, one being the hardest, and I took level two. Why not one? Well, level one tests you on about 2000 kanji, whereas level 2 tests you on 1000. Yes, it’s pretty embarrassing that I didn’t feel comfortable taking level one but trust me when I say LEVEL TWO WAS CHALLENGING ENOUGH.

This is why Kristine, Brenda and I decided to meet up at Mister Donut for some much needed cramming the night before. After a few cups of coffee and donuts, we went for dinner and “studied” some more. They spent the night and we stayed up until three in the morning doing more “studying.” The three of us left my house before seven, grabbed breakfast in Akashi and got to the test center just in time. Fortunately, Kristine and I were in the same room so we could talk to each other during breaks. As for how the test went, let’s just say I’ll be surprised and ELATED if I pass.  Results come in February. Please forget I mentioned this when February comes (=don’t ask if I passed or not later because if I did I’ll post it with a picture of my score).


Feeling like we’d gone to hell and back, the girls and I relaxed at a cute little café on the way to the station for some beers and good food. Check this out; the café is actually for people who are waiting for their dogs at the dog salon next door. The menu even had a dog section! The more we observed the clientele that walked in, the more we realized we were in a swanky part of town. No worries; we fit right in. Before going home, we met James for some Christmas shopping and ate at another cool place called Mothermoon Café inside a really cool interior design store.


You noticed how most of my pictures are of food? Maybe I should start a food blog…

Click

Before you vote you should check out this site: http://glassbooth.org

There are a lot of reasons I don't want to go too deep into politics, the biggest being that I'm no expert and acknowledge I'm just the average person reading CNN, listening to my podcasts and searching stories and candidates that interest me on the Internet. The second reason is because my parents read this blog religiously, and let's just say we disagree on several issues. Four years at a small, private, liberal arts college can change a girl.

That being said, I'll tell you WHY this site is so cool. You take a quiz rating about twenty important campaign issues on a scale of 1-5, 1 being you strongly disagree and 5 being you strongly agree. What the site then does is match your answers to the candidates that have similar opinions and ideas for the future. It gets better. Not only do they give you the top three names of candidates that match you, but they also show you how the candidates differ on the issues you clash with them on.

My results were a bit surprising: the two candidates I'm rooting for ended up second and third. Based on the quiz, a candidate I'd never been interested in is my best match. I've seen this guy in a few debates and while I agree with him on several issues, his debate performances are unimpressive. He comes off as a bit weak, eccentric and tends to ramble on instead of getting to the point. This goes to show how influenced I am by public appearance and speaking skills.

To put it simply, the next President of the U.S.A. should NEVER, EVER talk like Dubya. Of course I know there's more to the Presidency than making public speeches, but being a good public speaker does NOT hurt (icing on the cake). Ultimately, it comes down to this: we may agree on the most number of issues, but my top two candidates agree with me on the issues most important to me. Add to that the fact that this guy comes in last (or second to last) in polls and supporting him becomes pointless; there's no way he'll get past the primary election. Might as well keep supporting my top two who have a much greater chance of making it.

Still, I'm glad I took that quiz because it made me research this guy and it turns out he's great, just not the next President. It also made me dig for more information and familiarize myself more with the two candidates I am supporting. All I could find out about glassbooth is that they're a nonprofit organization claiming to be nonbias. Have fun with it. I sure did.