Weekend of October 25th!

Sorry friends for not blogging more. I know my blogs recently have only been recaps of what I have been doing. I want to blog, but I am always swamped with work or other distractions from many different sources.

Let's start with Friday, shall we? As we always do!

Friday:
The start of maguro matsuri was not a good one. Well from the looks of an inside office to the outside, it looked windy and cold for the true spirit of the festival of tuna. Mike came up on Friday evening at about 7:30 PM and we kind of dilly dallied for a bit before really settling down to getting some food. When we did, we went to Maeda first and we saw the JTE from the middle school whom Mike already knew. It was nice chatting to him and finally getting to meet him. His English was very good! He told us that we should try Satou because the food there was better for freshness. We heeded his advice and went to Satou. When we were all done shopping, Mike did not have enough money and I had forgotten my wallet back at home. We had to rush to the ATM and get some money as Satou was about to close. It was nice though, because they kind of kept it open for us, the gaijin. haha Anyway, we got the food and then headed back to my place for some shabu shabu pot and sake! Mike drank beer and I drank chu-hai. It was really nice. We ate a feast fit for kings!! It was so good. Totemo oishii! Once we were finished, Mike and I watched a rented movie called, "Mongol." It was very good and I enjoyed a lot. We then hit the sack.

Saturday:
We decided to go the 11:00 AM cutting of the maguro. I didn't what to expect of the festival. The Blue Marine festival was rained out and I didn't end up going. It was a little disappointing, but I will have more opportunities in the future. Anyway, Mike and I went and were expecting to see people there, but no one contacted me, so I didn't know if we would see any other JETs there! We go there and walked around for a bit, when we saw the cutting area, we were immediately attracted to its magical power. We wanted to get our picture taken with the massive maguro and we did! It was a big surprise for a lot of the people in my town to see an Japanese looking mofo with a white gaijin. It was funny! We did see Bec, Karen, Will and Michelle. Yay for reunions in my small and quaint town of Oma. We witnessed the carving and then walked around outside and got some food from the vendors. I talked and said hi to some of my students who were surprised to see me. It was funny. Karen was not funny and trying to be all lovey dovey with me so as to start gossip about me! haha Mike was going to Hachinohe that day for the Halloween festivities and wanted to get on the road at a certain time and I wanted him to meet my eikeiwa students, so we stopped by at the local sushi place, Manae dad's joint. He wanted some hot asake, but the wait time was like 30 minutes. Too long for us, so we just said hi and then went back to find everyone! They were standing in line to buy some maguro and we waited with them! When everyone got their maguro, I invited everyone back to my place. It was the first time people came back to my place!! I was determined to impress, so I did the only natural thing I knew how to: host and cook! I ended up cooking mabodofu and some gyoza. It was a nice little lunch, light and delicious. They stayed for like an hour and then everyone decided to go on home. I did some shopping after and then decided to head up to Mutsu. Alex and I went out to some good ole McDonald's, cheap and easy. Then we went to One Love. There Ichiro tried to introduce me to Akiko-san's daughter, Yurie. She was very cute, but I knew she was not interested in me, but still we took her to go to karaoke. After that, Alex and I headed back. I went back to Mike's and Alex went home. Good day and good night!

Sunday:
I ended up going back at my own pace to Oma. It was nice, I enjoyed the drive back and it was a nice-ish day. I headed up to the festival to see if any more people came up, from what I saw, no one came out, so I just walked around, said hi to more of my students and then headed to the ramen shop for some delicious lunch. I only had gyozas, but it hit the spot really well. The place was really busy, so I didn't mind waiting a little bit. Japan has done that to me, it has taught me to be patient and really savour the moment and the experience. I am glad for this! I ended up being lazy at home and watching, "Zodiac." It was good. Good weekend!

Weekend of 10.18-10.19

Friday:
So I went to rugby practice for the first time in a very long time. I need to reconnect with the team and show that I want to be a part of it. It is interesting how the practice is structured, Nakamura sensei does not actually come out until a certain time, maybe like one hour into the practice. Practice is held from 16:00-18:30 PM. I helped the new players figure out how to deal with kicking and field strategy. I had to leave a little earlier because I had to be in Mutsu to teach the Tanabu SHS kids about essay composition. I was a little late to Skylark Gusto, but it was still a good time with those kids. They are super smart and motivated to want to learn English. I wish I could teach at an academic school, but I am sure that the teaching would be very different. I don't foresee these sessions to be very long because it is essay composition and I would read their essays the day before and just give them the comments.

Afterward, I met up with Mike at his apartment. He was supposed to have a dinner party, but people ended up canceling. It was me, Mike and Keiko. Mike made us all heaping plates of spaghetti and his version of garlic bread! It was very delicious. I was very grateful for that. I didn't even expect that!! ^^ My plan was to just drop stuff off at Mike's apartment and meet Alex for drinks at One Love. I called Alex and he said he would meet us there. All of us ended up going to One Love and just enjoying drinks with each other. Satoko came a little bit later and then Keiko's friend came as well for as little bit. Keiko ended up driving me back to Mike's and he stayed out more to drink. I was really tired and I needed to get some sleep!

Saturday:
I actually went back to Oma on Saturday morning because I had promised to meet Norie's husband and meet their dog, Dai. He was very excited and had a lot of genki! He was going to be nudered that day and I felt kind of bad for him. I assured Norie and her husband that they had nothing to worry about. It was kind of late though, he is about 3 years old. We had poker that night at Mike's! It was also the night of the Hachinohe Halloween party.

Sunday:
I went home and just watched movies! Nothing too exciting!

Dinner Party B neighbours!

So last night, I had a dinner party with the neighbors of the B apartment. They are 5 of us, but only 3 made it to the dinner last night. I invited everyone, but I don't know if the one who is not a teacher ducked out because he was uncomfortable because he is not a sensei... It was sad because the whole point was to get to know the people who live around me! Anyway, I am not going to let that small incident spoil the rest of my post!

I had set the time for 19:30 and it was perfect timing. I was a little paranoid as I always am because I didn't go to get the actual ingredients until 18:10! haha ^^ I found everything except the two types of cream, but decided milk would be a good substitute. It ended up working out well! People were on time and I was all ready making the first dish. I chose two American dishes, baked potato soup and chicken cordon bleu. It turned out well and I improvised to create the dishes and left out some stuff and they still turned out very well! It was Maruyama-sensei, Suzuki-sensei and jumachuo (sp?). They brought over some sushi, edimame and of course, sake! I think they brought some souchu and beer. This added onto the beer I had gotten from Sato! It was really nice.

The dishes turned out well as I mentioned before and I was very happy about the success of the night. It was good to learn more outside of the working environment and every was happy! Yay for the power of food to bring people together!

Normal weekend + National Health and Sports Day = Another fabulous three-day weekend! (10.11-10.13)

Sorry for the late post on my weekend activities! I have been falling behind on my blog and have been struggling to keep up! *I love the national holidays strategically placed within the year. Oh, how I love Japan! More countries should take note! ^^

Thursday:
My weekend really began on Thursday evening. We had cooking class for the month of October and it was a lot of fun! I was the leader for the class, so I had to be there a little earlier than usual. I was there around 6:30 PM and people were already starting to prepare the ingredients for the recipes. The recipes for the night were buttered balsamic vinagrette asparagus, buttered rice and tatertot hotdish (or the equivalent form of it) and nashi! It was a lot of fun and we did a lot of improvisation to make the potatoes work, but in the end it worked out! Toby's mum was there with us too! Mrs. Verna Walstod was amongst us and I had a good time chatting to her about my impressions about Japan and the group dynamic of Shimokita! Afterward, I went to McDonald's to chat with Alex Q. and it was a good time as always. It is nice time just to catch up and see how each other is doing in life.

Friday:
Culture day was finally upon us! I remember signing up for this almost three weeks in advance and then forgetting about it! It was nice because it was considered a business trip, but the ALTs all knew it was just a day off from the drone work of teaching. We all got to be relaxed and I learned a lot about Japanese culture. The seminar I chose was about Sumo wrestling and the three workshops were Japanese cooking, kingyo Nebuta and karate. It was all good and fun. I learned to make some delicious dishes, got to make my own goldfish and learned the deeper meaning of karate. After the day was done, I helped clean up for a bit, then headed to Mila's place for some tea with Yuan, Shuang, Mike and Angella. I ended up leaving a little earlier because I had to get back for the field day and it was also my first night of, "working," at ONE LOVE. I volunteer there and get paid NO MONEY, but I learn valuable lessons about people and how to bartend! I love to work with Shino and Ichiro. They are great and I feel as though I am making invaluable friends for life! I finished work and then went back to Mike's and decided to stay there for the night instead of going back to Oma.

Saturday:
I got up early and had to drive back to Oma to make it back in time for the preparation day! It was a long drive, but it was pleasant! I got back and changed into relaxed sports clothes and went to school. The day of preparations was really just the students having time to practice their dance routine and also practice some more technical things such as marching and the traditional dance! The day was rainy and very windy and it cut the preparations short and we were allowed to leave at 14:00 PM that day! I took a nap and then decided to head back to Mutsu. I ended up working again that night at ONE LOVE and there were more people there! It was a good night for ONE LOVE and we went out afterward to a local restaurant for a late night snack! It was good and I headed back to Mike's for another nice sleep!

Sunday:
Sunday was my typical lazy day. I went out to eat and just chilled around Mike's apartment. Mike came back and said he had a festival, so he went to that and I went somewhere, I can't really remember. Alex B. had told me he was coming back from Noheji and we would be able to hang out later and possibly play some Wii! I was excited because I have not really spent much time with Alex and knowing he is now engaged, he will have less and less time to spend with people. We went to Alex's place in Ori and played Wii! Nobuko's friend, Yuko was there and it was nice to meet a new person! ^^ Nobuko had a cake to celebrate Yuko's birthday and I told her that Mike's was the day before hers! So it ended up being a double celebration! We had some dinner that Nobuko cooked, which was very delicious and then went to bowl and play pool. Yuko went back to Noheji which was unfortunate, but still we had a lot of fun. Of course, I suggested we have a wager of pushups. 3 and 6 for strikes and spares respectively. After that, we played some pool and it was fun.

Monday:
I came back on Monday in the early afternoon and got a nice email from Julie and Taylor. They came up from Noheji and wanted to see Oma. Unfortunately, I did not know of the places yet and I just entertained! They bought some stuff from Maeda and I cooked for them. I made some mabodofu and miso soup. It was nice to just talk for a bit. What a full weekend!

大間 SHS Field Day? Or was it sports day...

So I had the amazing opportunity to participate in Oma SHS's Field day. It was a pretty big event and it even required us to come in on Saturday, Oct. 11th for preparations. The whole week was used to prepare for the event! Every day after school, each team, divided by a random selection of classes from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years would practice their dance routines. The 3rd years led the dances and got to chose the music and choreograph the routine.The colours representing the teams were red, white and blue. I don't know why they chose that and as usual, there was no explanation on why it was like this. I was assigned to the 青組 (ao kumi, or blue team) and it was led by 32 HR. I didn't know the work put into the actual event as I didn't participate in any of the building of the billboards or the painting and design of the posters. I was very impressed at how much the students put into it!

All the students and teachers came in on Saturday and we quickly went to practice in the two gyms and outside. It was mostly the dance routines and a little bit of marching and the Oma traditional dance. The whole day was spent on that and also preparing the field outside for the appropriate use. Unfortunately, that day it was very rainy and windy. At about 12:00 PM, the students were allowed to go home, well the girl students were allowed to, whilst the boys had to work and prepare more. But due to the weather, it was cancelled and they were allowed to go home early. The teachers stuck around until 2:00 PM and then were allowed to go home for the rest of the day. The weather postponed field day until Tuesday!

On Tuesday, I got to school at my usual time. When I got in, my supervisor advised me to help the boys' set up. I went out to where the field was and there was all of the boys from every year setting up something or another. Even the girls were helping out! Something that I noticed is that if there ever was an event like this in the US, the student's would help out to set up, but most of it would be done by teachers or parents or staff. The students here in Japan did everything. There is no fear of suing anyone from doing heavy lifting or using carpentry skills to build the poster boards. It was nice to see that the students put in full effort into their own day as they will benefit the most from it! After setting up for a while, the longest thing was securing the poster boards to metal stands and making sure the strong winds of Oma did not blow it down! There were events such as 100 M, 100 M obstacle, tire pull, tug-of-war, 100 M relay, dance contest and etc.!

At the end, the winners were the white team and the closing ceremony was very interesting to watch. Everyone, and I mean everyone helped take down all the things used for the day!

The [almost] impossible task of 漢字 (kanji)!!!

Hello friends!

I am super stoked and motivated to learn 漢字 (kanji = Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) lately and have been taking advantage of my new found energy to learn the beautiful and complex language of Japanese. I will go over my new experiences with kanji and some of the basic, general ideas behind it provided by Wikipedia! ^^

My energy for learning kanji came to me on Thursday evening and continued onto Friday, so I had to take advantage of it! I had only one class that day, so I taught that and then tried to figure out how to tackle the almost impossible task of kanji. I thought I had it down, but trying to teach yourself was going to be a little bit harder than I had thought. I have a natural affinity and attraction to languages, so I am very motivated to learn!

常用漢字 (joyo kanji) is a list of 1,945 kanji set by the government that includes the 教育漢字 (Kyōiku kanji or the educational kanji, it is a list of 1,006 kanji taught in elementary school) plus 939 kanji taught in JHS and SHS. It is considered the general list for everyday use! There are more and more lists out there and if you want to read about it, please visit the link to Kanji provided by Wikipedia.

After conferring with the Japanese teacher and other friends who have studied kanji, I thought I would be able to tackle it and used the list of 部首 (Bushu or radicals) for my starting point. I was quickly shot down by my Japanese teacher saying that even Japanese people did not know all 214 部首 and it would be pointless to learn them. Also, my friend Dave F. who is probably the most expert person I know in learning Chinese and Japanese said that to learn 部首 is only if you want to become a kanji professor. I agree and disagree at the same time. I think 部首 are important because if you can recognize the radicals in the kanji you might not understand, you might be able to deduce the meaning through the context of the radicals. But what do I know right? I remember when I took my brief forray into learning Chinese that Jin laoshi told us that most Chinese people know all the radicals and it made it easier to learn new characters. Granted that Chinese has over 20,000 characters (a small estimation, probably off by a lot) and most people learn Chinese all their lives, I was still kind of iffy. I decided that learning the radicals would be kind of pointless in my stage of development and if I wanted to later, I could learn them as well! They are included in the 1,945 kanji required to pass the JPLT 1 anyway, so I thought I will get to them eventually! >_<

JPLT Level 3

1. ~300 kanji which is the equivalent to approximately 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade in elementary school.
   
2. ~1,500 vocabulary based on the kanji, hiragana and katakana.
   
3. ~300 hours of studying.
   
4. Passing grade is 60%. The test is out of 400 points. So I need 240 to pass with a 60%.
   
5. The test is comprised of three sections: Kanji and vocab, listening comprehension and reading.
   

I want to learn the first 80 kanji or the 1st grade elementary kanji by the end of this year and then trek on from there! Wish me luck!

All ALTs Soccer Tournament 菅平長野県 (10.03-10.06)

Sorry for the late post, I have been super busy these past couples day of the beginning of the week.

So a recap of last weekend amazing adventures begins... now!

Friday:
I had to take one hour nenkyu. It was weird doing that as I only left at 2:45 PM. I left and rushed to Mutsu only to find that Mike was not at his home yet. I knew Amy was there, so we ended up just talking for a bit whilst waiting for Mike. It was not long and we got all our stuff together to go! Mike ended up driving and it was a tiring drive to Aomori Minami SHS. We stopped at Sunkus to grab some food before the long trek up on the bus. We left from the bus stop at Aomori Minami at 6:30 PM, making stops in Hachinohe and another place I forgot. We then made a final stop at Morioka and their huge shopping center! It was really cool, it reminded me of the US and their huge shopping malls. After that, it was the long drive down to Nagano-ken to Sugadaira! I think it was around 11 hours or so from Aomori-shi. Soooo looonnnng!

Saturday:
We arrived at the 7-11 in Sugadaira or outside of it around 5:30 AM. It was a long drive and I was ready for more sleep. I got some fruit, a vitamin water and some vitamin C pills. I was starting to have cold sores from the lack of vit. C in my diet. Ahh, the wonders of scurvy! We got to the hotel and they allowed us to check in early. So we got in and our room just ended up sleeping until about the time we had to go for our first game of the tournament. We got up and I was ready to go and play! I was really excited for the tournament and at that point had high expectations for the team! We got there and immediately three of us had to ref a game prior to our first game. I didn't like how it was set up, but we had to take it. I reffed for a game of Nagoya against Nagano and it was a bit edgy throughout the whole time. The Nagoya team was from Brasil and they are always a little complaint heavy on the referee at times. We finally finished the game and the three of us had to rush to our game. I was unprepared and it definitely took me longer to get accustomed to the game speed. I can't remember the score now, but I think it was like 2-0. I thought for a team mixed of people whose skill range was from college play to never having touched a soccer ball in their life, it was OK! I looked forward to the next game! We played again a couple hours later and unfortunately got spanked by the next team, I think it was 4-1. I scored our only goal of the game and tournament by getting the ball at about 40 yards out. At the same time, my calf cramped and I decided to play it out. I took on three players and then had the keeper to get past. My last touch let me down and the keeper smothered it. I thought it would end there, but he lost control and only had one hand on it and I took my opportunity and kicked it out of his hand. It went out a little bit and I chased, turned around and shot, scored! It was a very hard worked goal and it was very sloppy, not the goal for the highlights, but it was something that the guys enjoyed and I did too until the pain in my left calve forced me to the ground! I limped off and then collapsed on the sidelines and Hideo helped me stretch it out. I know my left calf was due for a cramp as it had been bothering me at home too. Oh well! One more game to go and I didn't think I was going to make it. On game days, I don't usually eat a lot, so an apple juice and Snickers bar held me up through the day accompanied with Calorie Mate before the games for extra kick of energy. The last game was kind of frustrating for me as the team really showed its lacked of communication and how we had never practiced before. The second half went better, but we still got flakked 6-0. The team was a good team and basic organization. It also seemed like their players all played before. We got back to the hotel and we were all just exhausted. Playing three games of soccer plus the fact of 11 hours of traveling made it very difficult. I made my way to the onsen as many of the players did the same. It was nice and relaxing, also to get a shower in was amazing. After that, I headed down to dinner and didn't know who was down there. I saw a bunch of people and ended up sitting next to Amy and Mike. They had already started eating dinner, but I had no trouble catching up!! I was starved and the food and portions were perfect for the occasion! Afterward, Amy and I went up to their room and we wanted to nap for a bit, but everyone came back and it was just a good time hanging out with people from the ken! I felt like a lot of people did that before the party anyway, it is hard to break away from what you are comfortable with to be with new people! There were drinking games and massages going on! It was nice! Amy and I ended up going to the captain's meeting and found out who we would play for the next day. The girl's team did very well and were in the championship round and the men's team.... did not do so well and we were in the plate round or the consolation bracket. We got back and then I headed to bed early. I was the third person in my room and others were already fast asleep! It was a good, but exhausting day!

Sunday:
I got up early on Sunday and took advantage of people being hungover to hit the onsen. It was so relaxing and it really gave me genki for the rest of the day! I made my way to breakfast and was the first one there from our ken and just sat and enjoyed the meal they had given us! Soon, some of the people from the ken slowly trickled into breakfast, some of the girls had the same idea and hit up the onsen before hand! The guys left first and played our first game. That day we ended up winning one game and losing the next two! It was a little disappointing, but it was OK! The girls took third and we took the bus back to the hotel to get a quick shower and onsen! We ended up leaving at around 4:30 PM and got back to Aomori at about 2:30. Then the long drive up to Mutsu, which Amy was good enough to do and then I got back to Oma around 6:00 AM! I saw my friend at the Circle K and one of my eikeiwa students! Weird!