Tonight I bought a cool shirt that says “FISH AND CHIP”, with a heart with the American flag in it. HA! It’s got long sleeves so it’s perfect for the weather. I wore it, and took some of the most hilarious purikura I’ve ever taken.

Purikura is short for Purinto Kurabu (Print Club). It’s a magical photobooth where you choose from a zillion different frames and styles, take about 8 photos, pick the best ones, and then step into another little booth to decorate them with doodles and stamps and backgrounds and all sorts of crazy things. Then you print them out and cut them up and stick them on things!!

Check out this crazy page for one girl’s example of her purikura.

If you ever visit me in Japan (I’m looking at YOU, family!) we will take purikura.

Purikura is super fun, and I don’t know why I don’t do it more often. OH WAIT YES I DO. It’s because I never think to, and when I do, I’m usually by myself. There is a kind of idea… that doing purikura by yourself, and having a picture album full of pictures of yourself alone is kind of a sad thing. Well yeah, but it’s also good to just take a photo by yourself… I get to take excellent series photos, and can make all the decisions about poses and decoration.

And then I get to keep all the photos, too (except for the ones I give away). I thought it would be funny recently to “attack” someone with purikura, and so I took a series by myself and then left them for this person to find (Ok, it’s my gentleman friend. HA! I love saying that). The first set I took was a little disjointed, but the ones I took tonight tell a funny story. I can’t wait to use them.

Now, I have a lot of funny ideas for purikura photo series. I need to get a stuffed dog for the next one, and write a little story line that can be done in 4-6 photos.

Hurr hurr hurr.

Let’s see. Today, I taught at Rogakko, and it was awesome. I did arts and crafts all day, with the 2-3 nensei in Jr. High (8th/9th graders), and the 5/6 nensei in elementary school. We made paper pumpkins and talked about Halloween and decorated a Christmas tree with Halloween cutouts. HAHA! I also had kids finish up their Halloween mobiles and paper maché pumpkins.

Lunch was a delicious piece of fish with skin on. At first it looked dry, but when you bit in, it was sweet and fishy and just the right amount of juicy. MMMMM. Couple that with a bowl of rice, miso soup, and a carton of milk, and you have a perfect lunch. WAY TO GO, JAPAN.

Seriously, I love the food here so much. I can’t believe the things I eat, but it’s soooo good.

The rest of the day I spent studying and preparing for classes. Tomorrow and Thursday, I have no class because of exams. Study party! If I was really smart, I’d take a day off and clean or go get my re-entry permit, or do something productive. But actually, I think that I have a day off coming up soon… a substitute holiday for a weekend I’ll be “working” (going to the school festival. Heck yeah!).

My English club is having a Halloween party on Friday, and on Friday night, I’m heading out west. Saturday morning, we’ll drive even more west, rent bikes, and bike for something like 70 kilometers across the bridge/island system that gets you from Shikoku to Hiroshima prefecture. Oh my yes. They say it’s a 4-7 hour trip one way. I’m super excited, despite having no “serious” bike experience.

I mean, I ride a mamachari. It only has one gear. A mamachari is a “Mama Chariot”, the bike with the big honkin’ basket in the front, and the really 1950’s design. It is the bicycle version of a people carrier, because you can put at least 2 kid seats on it, or put your friend on the back shelf bit (if you are lucky enough to have a shelf on the back). I feel like I should be wearing penny loafers and a pleated skirt when I ride mine. OH WAIT. That is what all students wear every day (and they ride mamacharis). Yup, pretty perfect, Japan.

That’s my days lately. And now, to the store to get potatoes for potato soup!!!

Today at Rogakko, I taught the students the story of Dreamcatchers, and we did arts and crafts. Later, we had a Ballet workshop with the entire school.

Lieutenant, please file today under “Super Special Awesome”.

Other great stuff:

I climbed the Bizan in the dark, and was not eaten by wild dogs.

I learned how to play a song from “The Little Mermaid” on the ukulele.

The weekly home-cooked meals and ladies-only movie nights have begun again at the Shogakko Queen’s house. Viva! The Queen, the Fashionista, the Kiwi, and myself gather for delightful evenings. Ho har har.

Daniel Radcliffe is apparently going to star as Dan Eldon in the movie about Dan Eldon’s life.

The Wizard of New Zealand has a great wikipedia page.

I get enough sleep every night despite crazy dreams, because I am not up till all hours of the night worrying about things.

In a sudden burst of creativity, I started scrapbooking and making collages again (see: Dan Eldon).

The new JETs came, I realized how much more capable I’ve become as a person, and, aspiring after the archetypal French Girl, to realize that I can only improve and grow.

In other words, it can only get more fabulous!

So the more I read about the things happening in Iran, the more it was seeming that as a number of countries (read: the US) have some interest in the situation, their fingers were perhaps pulling the strings behind the spontaneous outbreak of a color revolution.

At first, that made me feel crabby, because a revolution of the common folk is again chalked up to sticky fingers manipulating the populous and in turn, the bloggers who have been (therefore) mindlessly spreading the information about the Iranian people. It cheapens honest people’s efforts to get the word out about something they believe in.

Then I thought about it a bit more. A comment from someone here in Tokushima was that “is there any country that could have a revolution now a days that you would not [speculate] was the US covertly overthrowing the government?”

And here it is. I don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, as it were. While I think it’s important to know what governments are up to, what we’re forgetting here is that while we marvel or speculate over how and what has happened in terms of turning this revolution into a more global cause across the internet, people die on the ground. Who cares who the players are when the pawns die for them? I don’t need to hear one more conspiracy theory that removes focus from the fact that someone somewhere is standing up for something.

Maybe it’s a masterful work of international politics. Maybe the people are manipulated into wanting what the player wants. Does that invalidate their wants as a people? When we forget about them as a people and see them merely as means to an end, then yes, it does.

And on a different note (because Iran really is difficult to put into good words) today is Tuesday, and I love Tuesday. Tuesday is the day I go to Rogakko. Rogakko is a always a day of small classes, lunch with students, and enjoyable class activities.

Today for example, we used kid’s doctor toys to act out conversations in a hospital (Senior High School 3rd grade). Then (SHS 2nd grade) we played a game about taking a bath that I had drawn up the night before (using my phone bill as a straight edge: take THAT, fiscal responsibility!) Later, (SHS 2nd grade, Academic course) we did one-on-one reading and past participle work. Lunch was curry rice.

I love Tuesdays!

Lastly, a cool thing that happened today was when I sat down to study Japanese. I recently bought two new study books, geared towards Grammar and Reading, and Vocabulary and Kanji for the JLPT Level 3 (which I’ll take in December). And lo, it all just clicked today in my Grammar book.

I really enjoy these particular books because they give you kanji within the readings and examples, but only give you the furigana (telling you how to read each kanji) the first couple of times. After that, you’re expected to remember what you’ve read. So I’m working harder. I’m remember more, because I’m expected too.
The other thing is, the examples and general explanations are all in Japanese. All that my workbook says for a grammar point is “While …ing”, to tell you what the point means.

It’s all because of my reading intensive Japanese lessons, and because I started playing attention to when my JTE would explain English grammar points in Japanese.

That’s about all I have for today. It rained the most amazing ocean-storm style rain last night, and I’d like to go outside today before it rains again.

Currently Rocking the Heck Out To: Gavin DeGraw
Current Activity: Cleaning up after houseguests/1 am apple fritters/midnight hilarity

Yesterday I was correcting papers, and I saw this sentence:

“I think “mottainai” is down charbache important”.

I looked at it. My JTE looked at it. We scratched our heads. I wrote a question mark (What the heck are you trying to say, kid?) and was putting it in the corrected pile when I stopped, and with a mighty slash of my pen, changed it to say the following:

“I think “mottainai” is important for reducing garbage”.

HA. YOU CANNOT FOOL THE ENGLISH NINJA!

It’s a sign you’re getting good at this when you can take completely incomprehensible made-up stuff, and figure out what the writer was trying to say.

Editor’s Note: “mottainai” is a sort of catch-phrase used by the Eco Friendly movement, which basically means “What a waste” or “It’s wasteful (to do whatever)”. Used in a sentence, “I think using a plastic bag instead of a My Bag is mottainai”. Or “All you did on your day off was sleep? Mottainai”.

This post is dedicated to my Dad, who gave me the appreciation for gardening.

No, I didn’t garden today. But I did go outside and attack the sports field with a hoe for 40 minutes with the rest of the school.

Saturday is our undokai at Deaf School, our sports festival. For preparation, we have to remove all the grass and debris from the gravel track and field at the school. So after school, all the teachers and students raided the shack in the corner of the school garden. We got buckets of trowels, small scrapers, and weirdly enough, tiny scythes. I got a hoe with a long handle, and we all went at it.

My hands remember holding the handles of rakes, hoes, shovels, and scrapers. Can’t say I remember such an attack on grass before. I certainly can say that I was responsible for a great deal of it though. Come on, students. I was your age recently. I know what it looks like when people are goofing off instead of weeding, but are trying to make it look like they are weeding.

I got sunburn and a monstrous back ache.

Rather that than sitting at my desk all afternoon.

I woke up today, Sunday, glorious Sunday, at 6 am. As I went to sleep (glorious sleep) at 1 am, I think to myself that maybe I ought to just stay in bed for a bit more. And so I do, laying there, idly turning over some thoughts that had visited me in my dreams.

In particular, I try to answer a question posed to me by a dream character. She was rather insistent that something be explained to her, so I try and form a nice answer to her question.

In one of my favorite books, “Carter Beats the Devil”, the main character dreams up an illusion that launches his career in magic.

This morning, I dreamed up a worksheet activity practicing “Which person” and “Who”. My god. I cannot escape this job sometimes.

(But I did jump out of bed and write down the worksheet design and instructions in a notebook. It’s a pretty good worksheet).

Oh, subconscious brain. What the heck is up with you?

A few things from the past week:

Simone and I rode the train home from Ishii after the Burn’s Poetry Supper. Getting into Tokushima, Simone had to switch trains, so we listened to the train announcements as we were pulling into the station, and were able to figure out which platform she had to run to in order to catch her train.

When we first came here, we frantically counted the stops on a map. Now, we can listen to announcements in Japanese and understand the general information.

As per the request of the musical folks, I went and got contact lenses, on the 3^rd floor of the train station, of all places. With extraordinarily broken Japanese and English, I was able to have an eye exam and buy some contact lenses.

To have a proper prescription is amazing. With fuzzy glasses for the past 2 years, I forgot that the world actually is sharper than it had been appearing. It was like seeing all of Tokushima for the first time.

When Russ lost his glasses while swimming in the Indian Ocean, he had to buy a new set, and let us try them on. Wearing his glasses was like a roller-coaster ride, suddenly things were too sharp, the ground was far away, the dirt path we walked curved unnaturally.

With my contacts, it felt very much like that. Biking to work, I thought I might be riding a Salvador Dali elephant, with tall crazy legs. In bicycle form, naturally. The ground was simply too far away. I love looking around me. I love reading things, seeing far-away details, and not worrying about rain clouding my vision.

On Wednesday, I saw Quantum of Solace. I must say, the opening credit sequences from QoS and Casino Royale are quite lovely.

Also, the influenza (Japanese: infuruenza) is running rampant across Japan. Schoolchildren are out in droves, classes are cancelled, half my kids are wearing masks. I’ve been drinking lots of Vitamin C drinks. I think this, and my warm coat, cancel the fact that I am biking to work in the cold and damp every day.

Add to that the fact that I am working with high-schoolers and not grubby Shogakko (elementary school) kids, I think I might be able to squeak through this unscathed.

Love and peace,

emily

Cool things that have happened lately:

• I bought a nice scarf. It’s getting cold out!
• I decided on my Halloween costume. Now all I have to do is get off my lazy bum and actually MAKE the darn thing.
• Big American Shop does NOT sell Big American Clothes. It is a trick!
• Talking on Skype. Yes, that’s right! I have Skype~! If you don’t have it, you should get it: it’s free. And we can chat like we’re on the phone~!
• I’m officially able to come back once I leave. Also, I have my loan repayment all set up. Hooray!
• Tonight I threw an awesome Halloween party with English club. We painted pumpkins and gorged ourselves on sweets and tea. Also, the French exchange students showed up. English club was a little cowed, and wound up getting kicked out of their own table… but they were cheerful about it.
• I’m teaching a solo class tomorrow. OH GOD WHY? What am I going to do? The theme is Halloween, of course, but… suddenly I’m all worried. Mostly, I don’t have confidence in my Halloween lesson, and uhhhhh it sucks. I’ve got a few ideas, but they’re… argh! It’s an upper level class that I see every week, so I know them and I know we can communicate OK, but I always worry about this class. I always worry about if I’m challenging them enough, or making English interesting or fun.

But here is something neat from class. Yesterday, my students busted out in hysterical laughter at the phrase “Our town”. The excellent part was, I laughed too because I understood the joke (and thought it was funny).

The joke is that the old name for Tokushima is “Awa”, and consequently a lot of things in Tokushima are called Awa (for example my bank is Awa Bank, my friend lives near Awa-Akaishi train station, we dance Awa Dance). When you say “our town” in a Japanese accent, it sounds like you’re saying “Awa town”, which is funny when you’re talking about the song “This Is Halloween” from “The Nightmare Before Christmas”.

It made me pretty happy to understand a Japanese word joke

Until tomorrow!
Emily

Today is Wednesday, hump day. Today is also Practice Test day for the ichi-nensei ) first graders = 10^th grade) and ni-nensei (second graders = 11^th grade), which means I have no classes until 3:20, when I will play bingo with my 104 class. Hahahah! Take that, education system! Except that just leaves me with a day full of not much to do… I already graded 80 worksheets and wrote some mock answers for exams, and now I’m just sort of… well, waiting. Maybe I’ll retool my jeopardy game, or go on a walk and buy some candy as a prize for the winning team(s).

Well, let’s see, what’s been going on? Life is kind of stressful lately, but in weird and unexpected ways. For instance, there is a typhoon coming that is supposed to hit the mainland tomorrow (right now it is stompin’ through Okinawa), so the weather has been rainy and crappy and humid, which makes for the delightful mix of being cold and damp and having horrible bad hair days. And yet, I am really really excited for this typhoon! Because it is my first typhoon, and I want to see what will happen. According to local wisdom, in a typhoon you buy a lot of food and stay home and don’t hang out next to windows. This applies to the entire population except for teachers, who go to school to protect the school. I figure this is because Japanese schools are 85% windows, and therefore more likely to suffer damage.

Mostly, I have just been really busy! We had a three-day weekend, because Monday was Respect for the Aged Day. On Monday, I walked around the city and moped in the rain and read magazines and tore apart my apartment and reorganized it. That night I got zero sleep, probably because my bed is in a spot of bad karma or something. On Friday, I had dinner with two friends, then met with two other friends to go to karaoke bars and to a dance bar that I had never been to before. Then we crashed, awoke, and met with a lady who runs a kimono company and participates in kimono-wearing competitions.

Later we met up with even more folks, and took the trek out to the movie theater, which is perhaps 15-20 minute by car from Tokushima city. I had already seen Batman, but it was just as good the second time around. Seeing Batman was one of the last things I did in the US before I left, so I had a partial feeling of nostalgia, and a partial feeling of “Batman is really awesome”. Tonight, a crew is going for Ladies Night (“half” price tickets (actually 40%), which are still more expensive than in the US) to see Batman again, but I want to see Nim’s Island, so I will be biking out bravely. I do mean bravely, this is a trip I have never made before.

On Sunday, I volunteered with another group of folks at Heart Tokushima’s adopt an animal event. It was held on the riverbank, with tents and pens for the animals. We sat and played with puppies and kittens and talked to n-jins and tried to convince people to adopt an animal. I got terribly sunburned.

The rest of my life is just… school. Getting there early, staying late. I left once at 7, and it was darker than the bottom of a well inside the building and outside in the courtyard. That was pretty surprising. I shop in my off hours, just walk around the stores reading magazines and looking at things. I climb a lot of stairs, and see a lot of people.

Sorry, this entry has suddenly wound down with no proper conclusion. I’m pretty tired today, since I didn’t sleep that much. Rumor has it there is a room in this school with a nice tatami floor, and you can just go there and sleep… I would be worried that I wouldn’t wake up in time for class! Teachers sometimes plunk their heads down on their desks and sleep, as do the kids. Yesterday at Rogakko, I was writing in one of my free periods, and fell asleep with my chin in my hand. I kept waking up when my arm would fall and drop my head, and then resume position and go to sleep again.

This is especially not cool when you sit right in front of the principal’s desk, like I do.

Love until next time, when I am more coherent,

Emily