“Eble”is not a word.

Well, the last few days have been very hum ho!

• My cold decided to hang out for the whole week, leaving me feeling like crap. I managed to oversleep all three of my alarms on Friday, so I was 45 minutes late to work. The good news is no one really seemed to care. My supervisor actually laughed (^o^).
  
• Gnomes broke into my apartment and stole my glucose meter OR I lost it somewhere. Either way, it’s gone, so I have no way to monitor my blood sugar. I ordered one off EBay. With any luck, it’s in a plane halfway to Japan by now. In the meantime, I am convinced I am going blind and will likely die in the next few days.
  
• I tried to play Scrabble with my ninth graders. It was not one of my most successful lessons. Not a complete failure – but none of these kids will be in the next Scrabble world championship. But it was fun watching them try!
  
• The fourth Clair Japanese self study course has arrived. They've stopped putting the vocab words in Romanji – so now I have to decode the crappy words from hiragana and unfortunately kids – I still suck at hiragana (no surprise there). So that’s 150 pages of headache!
  
• I am trying to find somewhere to go over Golden Week (a period of consecutive holidays in Japan – so 2 days vacation = 9 days off). However, as you may have guessed, everyone has the same idea – so airfare and other modes of transportation double sometimes triple – making it very expensive to get around and off this rock. So far, I haven’t found anything for less then a grand and to be honest I am not very motivated to look. Part of me feels it would be a travesty to waste this “golden” travel opportunity. The other part (the cheap, practical one) is saying “Girl, are you effing crazy?? You have an expensive vacation in July – just sleep in for 3 days!!” Very true inner voice, very true! I may just take a road trip to Nagoya, visit the HRC and eat some chicken fingers!

On a happier note, thinking of my vacation in July perks me up (think of all the Russian nesting dolls I am going to buy). I'll get to see Mom and Dad in the flesh (cause I see them via webcam all the time). I’m still trying to convince Mom that she can pack Matador hot sauce in her suitcase and carry the chips on the plane (OH, I can reheat an Arby too!). I’ve been doing research and I’ve found pretty cheap flights to Edinburgh and a very cool three-day tour of the Highlands. It departs and returns to Jess’s city and takes me to Inverness, Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye. Covering all my choice spots and still leaving me adequate time to bug the hell out of Jessica’s husband and spend some QT with the kiddies and Jess. She and I have a date with a tub of popcorn and Harry Potter! So perhaps I’ll just consider this time with my family and friends my own personal “golden week”.

Tis But a Head Cold

Okay, so that cold I complained about a few weeks ago has actually reared its ugly head this week. I’ve got the runny, snotty nose, stuffed up head, watery eyes and all the other fun stuff associated with a head cold. It snuck up on me on Monday and I was using a box of tissues by yesterday. Now when some people get sick here they wear a mask. I’ve been toying with the issue of “Do I wear one?” I’m not sure, because I am sneezing a lot and it would trap the germs. But then do I really want to keep all that snot trapped in close proximity to my mouth? Now if it was just a cough, maybe. Hum….. Anyway, I did ask the Sugihara nurse for a mask yesterday, but haven’t worn it yet.
Today said cold is worse, head hurts and I sound funny. I was finally caught when Hata-sensei came to talk to me. She looked at me with a VERY concerned look (we are teaching an orientation class together today) and said “Are you sick?” And the fun began. I was given a thermometer and told to stick it under my armpit. My temp was 38.5 (which is okay). They asked if I need to go home – I said I didn’t want to waste the vacation – they laughed. Then Hata-sensei told me I didn’t have to teach until 3 and that I should “rest”. I figured sitting at my desk tinkering on my puter, (a typical day for me) was rest. However, she hustled me off to the infirmary where she and Nurse Abe discussed my well-being. I was then tucked into a tiny hospital cot, covered with a pile of blankets and told to “rest” as long as I needed. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I promptly fell asleep for 2.5 hours. I had a crazy dream about my car falling in a gaijin trap and me pulling it out with one hand and then driving crazy down a one-way Japanese street (who knows???).
I got up in time for lunch – crazy egg wedge (yuck) and some delicious fruit whip. I was a bit light headed from my glorious and illict feeling nap but I did feel better. Since then Hata-sensei has been hovering to check my condition (to make sure I can still teach) and suggesting I head back for another “rest”. I’ve successful managed to assure her I am fine to teach and will rest if absolutely necessary. It’s nice to have a “mom” here – LOL. I am now contemplating how to get myself admitted to the infirmary on a more regular basis. Cause there are some times when I would pay good money for a little nap in that room.
On a sad note, I am going to skip English chat tonight (very sad as I like the compensation gift and the people are fun) cause I don’t think I could handle 90 mins of talking. Moreover, I don’t want to wear that goofy mask.

WTF? Where did it go?

Well, with the words of my co-worker “are you making this up?”, I present to you the incident of the “Japanese pastry thief”:
Yesterday was my second calligraphy lesson and I had invited Tiffany to join me. I was picking her up at Tomisho at 5pm and I had some time to kill. So I headed to the ToysRUs/Hi-Tomato shopping center to putter around. After managing to lose some money in the UFO machines, I decided it was time to go. I stopped by the German Bakery for a snack. I purchased a flat bread-thingee with cheese and ham (henceforth referred to as pastry). I was noshing on this delicious pastry as I walked to my car. I was not 100 feet out the door when I felt something hit my right shoulder. I turned my head to look – there was nothing there. When I turned back my left hand was empty and my pastry was GONE! I looked down, then up and saw a HUGE bird flying away from me. Not a pigeon, not a raven (it wasn’t black), not a seagull – a HUGE white and brown bird. As I live in the mountains, and I’ve asked around, it could have been a hawk or possible even an eagle. I scurried into my car (in case the bird had another plan), and just sat shaking my head in amazement. I thought – who gets their pastry stolen by a huge bird in a ToysRUs parking lot? I do folks, that’s who!!

So in a nutshell – in this extremely safe country – I was robbed, in broad daylight, in an urban area, of my tasty pastry by a freaking bird of prey!!!! I LOVE IT! ! Now I know why the Japanese don’t usually eat when walking!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

Still waiting for my "weird" to show up?

Well, it's my 10th Valentine's day as a spinster. I celebrated in style by taking a nap, watching a marathon of Grey's Anatomy and eating rice cookies :P. Perhaps I should try harder! LOL. Nah....あきらめます

Knick Knack, Patty Whack

OHHHHH - this country is overwhelmed with all things child: Girls dressed like dolls, UFO machines, video games, disney characters, stuffed animals, candy stores straight out of the 1930s, and tempting knick knacks at the konbini. With the exception of dressing like a doll and the video games, all of this stuff appeals to my inner child. Sometimes I win the fight to control the urge to spend 100 yen a pop on the UFO game, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I can pass up the cute little stuffed chicken, sometimes I can't. And sometimes I can pass up those knick knacks at the konbini, and sometimes I can't (as evidenced by my embarrassing collection of Hello Kitty cell phone charms). Today, I came across the BEST knick knack ever!!!! Lawsons was selling minitures of junior high school lunches!!! With chopsticks, milk bottle, and even the fish and almond packets!!!! Of course I had to buy a few! I am going to super glue them and make myself a sweet ass magnet to memorialize all the lovely school lunches I have had and will have in the future.

What is that noise coming from your wind section?

It's another long weekend in Japan. No nomihodi on the horizon - so I am sitting at home like the loser I am :P. Went to a Jr High band concert today in the next prefecture (state) over. It was long and the kids were either dressed like beatniks or members of a barbershop quartet - depending on the instruments being played. I found the percussion performances the most interesting cause 4 to 6 kids were running around playing like 20 different instruments - including cowbells, wind chimes, 700 different drums, body parts, and crazy cool xylophones. They made it sound good. Had lunch with Utsu-sensei and her family. We went to the best Okonomiyaki restaurant in Kanazawa and I had my first “Japanese pizza” (okonomiyaki). It was pretty good. Thankfully I couldn’t really taste the generous portion of fish flakes baked into it.

Yesterday I was going to go to a noodle festival (Toga Soba Festival) in neighboring Toga (no - they wear regular clothes) but I got lost. So I ended up driving around for three hours, hitting a dead end no less then three times and giving myself a stomachache. I am now officially convinced that I live in the "West Virginia" of Japan. I am trying to take photos to back up this conviction - but you just got to see it for yourself to believe it. But I think houses sided in sheet metal and men peeing in rice patties put it darn close (no offence to anyone from the great state of WV). The festival probably would have sucked anyway since one of the highlights is 10 ft snow sculptures and right now the entire prefecture is melting into one big puddle. But I ain’t complaining!

Starving Artist

I am now officially a member of the starving artist community!!! My JET Fest photo submission sold for a whopping 1000 yen!! Yes, 1000 yen was the starting bid, and only one person bid on it, but not that many photos actually sold – so I am going to pat myself on the back. The photo, entitled Serenity (cause I needed a name), or as I call it – Bob the Buddha, is one of my favorites. See, dad, there aren’t too many photos of buddhas in Japan!! Picking a picture was a tough choice because we could only submit one and I had two that I really liked. I went with "Bob". So maybe this is the beginning of my budding photojournalist career? Hehehe. I’ll let you decided which picture you like better.



As for JET Fest, this was an event organized by the JET community. There was entertainment from around the world, country booths with food and information about the place, language classes, arts and crafts, a food booth (with rice crispy treats – YES!) and an ethnic costume booth. The last is where I spent a very enjoyable 6 hours. I encouraged folks to pick one of 30 different costumes to try on and get their photo taken. If you know me then you know this was right up my alley!! I tried on a few of the costumes – most of them ended up being from African countries as those were the only ones that would fit my fat ass. Now I want my own dress-up trunk with clothes from around the world.

Shit-san! Atchoo!

MAN!!! I think I am catching a cold. I've got that feeling you get in your eye/nose area when a cold is approching. I am also sporting a headache, increased snot production and the muscles in my shoulder ache (but the ever crafty Fujii-san gave me a compress for the muscle ache - she is a very handy lady to have around). I am pretty sure I can blame Tiffany - cause I was fine yesterday and now this after shopping with her. Okay, just kidding - but she was talking about getting sick. Maybe I'll blame my san-nensei since our last lesson was on getting sick and going to the doctor. (Sidenote: one of their new vocab words was "atchoo" - a very necessary word when communicating in English).

The problem is there is really no time to get sick here - I've got something going everyday this weekend. Guess I'll head to the 100 yen and get myself a germ mask - maybe one with Pooh-san on it.

Thank you mom for your amazing forethought in sending me cold medicane in the last suitcase shipment - now how about some chicken soup??