Still Alive

Hi y'all, still alive! I haven't posted in awhile since I was sick. Tomorrow I'm going to Okinawa! Be back in a week with pictures... promise!

-Lisa

Graduation

In my last entry I spoke about graduation ceremony. Mainly I said it was very boring. I had to sit for two and a half hours (in a skirt suit nonetheless) listening to Japanese I didn’t understand. Also, I had been studying Japanese really hard all week, and I was tired of the language and wanted a break, so I did not even try to listen. I just sat there and thought about nothing!

Yesturday one of the English teachers at my school asked me what I thought of the ceremony. I said it was alright. She asked if it was different than an American one. I said it was the same, except there was more bowing and the ceremony was more like a high school graduation. I don’t remember my junio high graduation being nearly as formal. “Also,” I mentioned, “The speeches seemed boring because I could not understand them.” The teacher replied, “They were boring! It was very tiring to sit through the graduation.” I was surprised because I thought it might have been interesting to Japanese people. My supervisor had mentioned how she likes graduation ceremony because it shows the student’s unity, but perhaps she is more of a fan of Japanese tradition. I said so to the teacher. She said that there were not any jokes, and you had to be very quiet the entire time. I do recall that no one laughed the entire time (which is okay with me because I am always over curious to the point of insanity when Japanese people are laughing around me. I want to know what’s funny!!). In American graduations almost all the speeches have a joke or two. So I guess I didn’t miss out on much.

One thing that did strike me about the ceremony was this: as the students were marching out of the hall to forever leave the school, many of them were crying. I don’t remember students crying at my junior high graduation. I do remember many (including me) jumping for joy. Maybe they are sad to split from their friends and go to separate high schools (unlike America, where you often stay in the same town with the same people through high school, students in Japan go off to various high schools around the area and farther away). Or maybe students just show emotion more in Japan. But, I thought, there must be something special about this school if so many of the students were crying.

Tomorrow is the ceremony for the branch school. Since there are only six students graduating (as opposed to my base school’s 100 students graduating), the ceremony will hopefully be a lot shorter! Maybe I’ll even get to leave early!

Signing out,
Lisa

in italiano

Hi all! I wanted to write in Italian today… sorry. If you go to dictionary.com and click on “translator” you can get a very bad translation. But, anyway, anything here that is important will probably be written about in more detail later!!!

Oggi ho deciso di scrivere in italiano. Perche?? Perche sono annoiata! Mi piace il mio lavoro molto, ma sono pochi giorni quando voglio essere fuori, caminando o giacando. Ho insegnato quattro classe oggi, ma le classe erano facile. Domani insegno tre classe, ma tutti di loro sono nella mattina. Giovedi vado al Misaki Bunko per la cerimonia della laurea. Il scorso venerdi c’era la laurea per Mikata Chugakko. La cerimonia era molta noiosa e lungha. Tutto era nel giapponese e non potevo capire molto. Mi ho seduto per due e mezzo ore pensando niente. Ma potevo tornare a casa dopo la pranza! Ho tornado e mi sono divertita per il resto del giorno.

La fine settimana era divertente. Sono andata alla citta’ di Fukui per vedere gli amici e participare nel spettacolo di talento. Le mie fotografie e la mia poesia era sul spettacolo. Il spettacolo era per un beneficenzia. Era un’evento molto bravo! Domenica mattina sono andato al American Diner con i miei amici. Ho mangiato il hamburger e lo shake. Eranno molto buono. Mi piace il cibo di giappone molto ma e buono di magiare il cibo americano qualche volta. Yum!

Allora, ho finito! Scrivo di pui a presto, promesso.

Omizu Okuri-Water Sending Festival

Here is a picure of me and my friends at a festival. (A few weeks ago, but it's never too late to post). I'm on the
left and next is my friend Fumi, from Japan, my friend Rich, from England (looking rather creepy!) and Paul. The festival is
really old. You carry torches from a temple down to a river and send off holy water to Nara, which performs a festival to receive the water one week later. It was absolutely beautiful, seeing everyone carry torches and then seeing it combined with the element of water.

This one of Rich is really funny too:


Anyway, that's all for now!

-Lisa

An Expensive Gust of Wind

Lately the weather has been a little strange. It was really warm this weekend so I had my windows open and I could read in my tatami room with a nice warm breeze and sunshine. It was great! Then on Monday it got really windy and they had to stop the local trains for about an hour because it was too windy to run them! On Tuesday it was less windy in the morning but the ocean waves were very strong and the whitecaps made the ocean have a beautiful shine. Today (Wednesday) it snowed and the plum trees, already in full bloom, are covered in a layer of frost that will probably be damaging.

The weather is not just a little strange, but also expensive... for me that is! (And perhaps for the plum farmers as well...) The unlucky but amusing story goes like this. On Tuesday I went to one of my elementary schools and parked next to one of the other teacher’s cars. As I opened my door, a huge gust of wind blew it open suddenly and it hit the car next to me, making a big “thud” sound. At first, when inspecting the damage, I thought it was just a little paint lost, but then I realized it made a pretty impressive dent in her car. Of course, as it always is in these situations, there was no damage to my car. “Oops,” I thought. “I’d better tell her and perhaps offer her some money... can’t be more than 100 dollars to smooth the dent out again, right?” So after the teacher’s meeting I informed the teacher about the dent. She was very nice about it, and I showed the school my insurance information, but we thought it’d be cheaper to fix without insurance. Later, someone came and assessed the damage, and the teacher in charge of the English education informed me that it would cost 500 to 600 dollars to fix! A gust of wind cost me 600 dollars!? (Note: my car cost less than this.) I’m not sure why the damage is so expensive, but Paul mentioned maybe they need to replace a whole part to fix the damage, not just pound it out. So I went on the rest of the afternoon wondering how to afford such an expensive repair.

Luckily, I found out later that I can cover it with my insurance, and it will only go up 100 dollars next year. Phew! That was a close call. Sure, a hundred dollar gust of wind is a pricey gust of wind, but I’ll take it easily over the actual cost of the repair! So now I can laugh at the situation, being no one was hurt and the teacher’s car can get repaired without a big problem for her or me. It’s just one of those things that happen in life.

March 5

So I STILL have a cold! But it is getting better. Lately I’ve been studying a lot of Japanese and just recovering from my cold. I haven’t done much else. On Saturday Paul had a few friends over (me, Rich, Kimura-san, and my new friend Fumi. I met Fumi at the gym. She is in her 20s and is really nice!!). We played on Paul’s game system called the Wii. It’s a really fun game system because it’s kinda like virtual reality. You play a sports game like tennis or bowling and you actually do the swing. And you can complete with up to four people at once. There is another crazy game where you have to balance blocks or complete other challenges that require physical and mental dexterity. Also, being it’s a Japan bought game system with Japanese games, it’s good Japanese practice too! Paul also made really tasty hamburders, Kimura brought pizza, and Fumi bought delicious cake!

Today is my half day and I am going to go up to Imadate for an early dinner with my friend there. Then next Saturday some of my Italy photos and a poem I wrote are in an art/talent show with Fukui ALTs. If I win a prize I think I get money or something so wish me luck!

I will attend two graduations this week as well. One for the seniors at my base school and another at my visiting school. When I first got here it seemed like I would have the same students forever, and now they’re almost gone! Time sure has gone by fast.

Catch y’all later!
-Lisa

Lately

SO may birthday was last week. It was good. The weekend before I had some friends over for italian food. I invited a bunch of people, but thought only a few were coming until the ight before when a bunch more people RSVPed. So I ended up with a whopping attendance number of 15! It was a lot of fun, but next time I'll make people RSVP earlier as if I had known so many people were coming, I probably would have gone shopping for food supplies earlier to ensure I could get everything (the store is being re-organized and I couldn't find some things!). Then the night before my birthday I went out for honey toast with some friends, and on my actual birthday I didn't do much outside of school, but in school an elementary class of mine made me gifts and we baked crackers together. They also wrote the cutest letters (in Japanese but thankfully mostly understandable!). I also got a package from my family which was awesome, a lot of emails from friends and family(thanks!), a card from my grandma, presents from my Aunt, a present from my friend Jo, a present from my superviser, and a card and present from Paul. Thanks everyone! Sorry if I missed you on this list but believe me everything was appreciated!

I've been MIA lately mostly because cold season finally got to me! Many people in all my schools are sick (some with flu, others with cold... thankfully I've only got a cold *knocks on wood*) and I had a record breaking period of general healthyness. Oh well, had to happen sometime...

Well, the last two days are exams so I've had NO CLASSES. I actually don't mind though, because between two sick days and a bunch of elementary school visits, I haven't had much time to catch up on work at my base school. I finished two projects, completely re-organized my desk, corrected a bunch of papers, and now I am studying lots of Japanese. I will be happy to get back into teaching classes though. I get restless being in the same room all day, though I suppose I shouldn't complain since that's what most jobs are like.


Lisa