I don’t remember Japan being this humid the last time I was here. I’m not sure if it is the mountains or what, but it is HUMID. I walked to elementary school after school and now am soaking wet. I can assure you that when you start teaching a bunch of elementary kids and you have already broke a sweat, you are not going to cool down anytime soon. I’m already looking forward to an ice cold shower after work… I do enjoy jumping in the river after a long run in the hills, but these days it has rained so much that the river isn’t safe to jump into!
I finally got my visa and will be coming home July 16th. In my head, I am already there. I am thinking about what kind of pizza I want to order from Pazzos and trying to remember where I put everything that I will need when I get home. I can’t remember what I did with my keys and where my knife and other necessities have gone off to. I am sure when I get home I will ask mom where the keys are and she will know where I put them. I think I stashed them in a special spot before I left in the winter—now if I could just remember where that special spot was.
I’m excited about coming home and getting to spend a long vacation in Kentucky. I have to admit that this job is awesome in the aspect of vacation time. I get about 3 months off a year when it is all said and done, and they are paid. That’s quite a bit more time than most jobs at home! This does make me consider going the teaching route since I love to have the summers free!
I have been enjoying spending time with Nate before he goes back to KY for good. He’s been here three years and I know he’s ready to go home. Living abroad for live is for some people, but not for Nate. (or me!) I think we both enjoy the adventure, but we are ready to get home and start another one as well. I will be staying for another 6 months, and I am sure that I will miss hanging out with him on the weekends!
Michael Jackson is all over the news here, and I am sure he is at home. It’s amazing to think about what an impact he had on people around the world. My young kids here know who he is, and they have never heard of John Lennon. That ought to tell you how much his music and his personality traveled around the world. I know a ton of people are all bent out of shape about how much coverage this is getting, but they need to get over it. To many, Michael was a symbol of their youth and a reminder of good times and I think many are mourning over the loss of their youth just as much as they are mourning the King of Pop. I will always remember him as Captain EO from Disney’s EPCOT center.
Tomorrow is Michi’s birthday! Make sure you send her a note if you remember it in time. I don’t have her anything for her birthday, what a good boyfriend I am! I better dig up something on the double or I am in deep trouble! This weekend we are going to go out to a nice place in Nagoya on Saturday night, and I am sure that it won’t be cheap. Dinner will probably run us about 100$, which is pretty normal for a restaurant in downtown Nagoya! Crazy huh?
I am trying to get everything packed and ready for the trip next week. My biggest concern is cleaning my apartment and making sure I don’t leave any food behind to rot and attract more cockroaches. Living practically in the woods makes it hard to keep critters out of the apartment. I haven’t seen any more interesting animals lately, but I have been on the lookout since I heard that bears patrol the area where I run!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
I'll be home in two weeks. wow. It seems like the spring and summer have just flown by! Where did the time go? I guess when we get older that happens.
Life is good, it could always be worse. I have been blessed to have done all that I have!!!!
Can't wait to get back for grill outs and swimming at my house with mom and dad, long late nights at the apartment, and friends. I have missed it so much this time!
Life is good, it could always be worse. I have been blessed to have done all that I have!!!!
Can't wait to get back for grill outs and swimming at my house with mom and dad, long late nights at the apartment, and friends. I have missed it so much this time!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The weeks keep rolling by. I admit that I am busy and I am teaching a lot of classes here. When I was in Tahara I usually taught about 15-20 classes a week, sometimes way less. Many times it seemed like I didn’t teach much at all since I didn’t design any lesson plans in Tahara and basically was a very basic backup to the teacher.
Here in Toei, it’s a whole different ballgame. I have classes of my own, and about 20-25 each week. Of those, at least 8 are elementary school classes, which I am completely on my own. Most of my kids are great, and my only complaint with a few is that they are too excited. I don’t have the problem that some teachers in the big city have where the students don’t want to learn and sleep at their desks. My kids are pumped about getting to spend time with the foreigner, and some of the little kids don’t let me leave school without playing with them for a long time, and even then sometimes it is a fight to get away.
Of course as summer draws close and I hear (and read) about friends having fun at home I long to be back in KY. Nate has always said that there isn’t anything better in the world than a summer in KY, and I think he’s right. It will be great to be home this summer and have at least a month to relax and hang out with friends. For sure I am long overdue for some fishing, and I can guarantee that more than a few nights will be spent with the boys on the third floor talking about old times.
It rained like the dickens this morning and now it humid as can be. I walked to the elementary school from the junior high and now I am just wet with sweat. Nothing gets you into a good mood to teach some rowdy kids like being sweaty and hot. Of course schools in Japan aren’t heated or cooled, which I still believe is cruel and unusual.
I’ve been running after school in the mountains behind my apartment. So far this week I have seen two dead snakes on the road, one of which was the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild. I am half glad that it was dead when I saw it, cause I think it could have eaten me otherwise. Near my apartment this year I have seen pheasants, quail, a weasel, a Japanese raccoon, and tons of other creepy crawlies.
I miss all of you at home and hope to be there sometime in the end of July. I have to renew my visa, which of course isn’t a process that Japan makes easy. (not that anything here is ever easy!) As soon as my new visa is in hand, I will be on the next plane home!!
Here in Toei, it’s a whole different ballgame. I have classes of my own, and about 20-25 each week. Of those, at least 8 are elementary school classes, which I am completely on my own. Most of my kids are great, and my only complaint with a few is that they are too excited. I don’t have the problem that some teachers in the big city have where the students don’t want to learn and sleep at their desks. My kids are pumped about getting to spend time with the foreigner, and some of the little kids don’t let me leave school without playing with them for a long time, and even then sometimes it is a fight to get away.
Of course as summer draws close and I hear (and read) about friends having fun at home I long to be back in KY. Nate has always said that there isn’t anything better in the world than a summer in KY, and I think he’s right. It will be great to be home this summer and have at least a month to relax and hang out with friends. For sure I am long overdue for some fishing, and I can guarantee that more than a few nights will be spent with the boys on the third floor talking about old times.
It rained like the dickens this morning and now it humid as can be. I walked to the elementary school from the junior high and now I am just wet with sweat. Nothing gets you into a good mood to teach some rowdy kids like being sweaty and hot. Of course schools in Japan aren’t heated or cooled, which I still believe is cruel and unusual.
I’ve been running after school in the mountains behind my apartment. So far this week I have seen two dead snakes on the road, one of which was the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild. I am half glad that it was dead when I saw it, cause I think it could have eaten me otherwise. Near my apartment this year I have seen pheasants, quail, a weasel, a Japanese raccoon, and tons of other creepy crawlies.
I miss all of you at home and hope to be there sometime in the end of July. I have to renew my visa, which of course isn’t a process that Japan makes easy. (not that anything here is ever easy!) As soon as my new visa is in hand, I will be on the next plane home!!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I could speak fluently and I could say what a normal American would say back home. Today when I came to school the notoriously strict principal (at one of my elementary schools—the same guy that scolded me last week for not saying hello to him every time I arrive) ask me who the red car belonged to that was outside of my house last weekend. He also asked whom the other two people were that I was driving to Toyohashi with. I felt like telling him the car belonged to a Mr. Biznass, A Mr. Nunya Bizass to be specific. He ended his inquiry into what I was doing with my life by telling me that everyone here is watching me, and that I need to be careful. I might let it get to me, but I know that all of the other teachers in Toei can't stand this jerk—so knowing that makes him easy to ignore. I would love to let him hear it just one time though.
Everything else is Toei is going great, except for one small thing. The teachers at my junior high give me so much to eat, I am going to have to talk to them. Every day they load up my plate with a TON of food, and I can’t take it anymore. Some Japanese people think that just because I am a white foreigner that I must eat a ton. I have pointed it out to many of the other teachers that I am not any bigger than any of my Japanese teachers, and that I can't eat that much. Nevertheless, the fact that I am white trumps all other reason.
The weather is getting warmer and I am ready. I have been enjoying exercising after school and getting home in time to enjoy the sun—unlike winter here when it got dark at like 4:30PM. The only downside to the summer is that I think it now gets light here at like 4:15AM, and by that time the birds are up and going nuts each day. I like getting up each morning at like 5AM though…gives me time to ease into the day, drink my coffee, and chat on the phone before the work day begins.
Michi and I have been reading the Bible a lot together these days, and I have go to say that I am now convinced that most people, especially Christians, have no idea what the Bible really says. Even if I do think I understand what it says, when I start to break it down and explain it, I realize that I don’t know a thing about what I am trying to explain. We are plowing through John, and we are in the middle of chapter 3. If there is anyone out there who can explain what Jesus meant in John 3:18 when he said that those who don’t believe are ALREADY condemned—I’d love to hear you give it a shot. And while you are at it, go ahead and give me an explanation of the last four or five verses of John 2.
I have been listening to and reading a lot about different translations of the Bible and where our current text came from, and I am amazed by so many that can follow every word that we have in English and not even wonder about where it comes from. I admit that living in a foreign country and learning different languages makes it obvious how meanings do change with each translation. To my knowledge, when we read the Bible—we are reading text that has been translated through at least two languages. I can imagine how the meaning gets lost… Kentucky English just doesn’t translate into Japanese. You can imagine how even the smallest things are lost in translation. Think about how many ways we have to express the simple but always funny act of passing gas. Translating, “Who cut the cheese?” or “ripped a big one” into Japanese just doesn’t work.
Everything else is Toei is going great, except for one small thing. The teachers at my junior high give me so much to eat, I am going to have to talk to them. Every day they load up my plate with a TON of food, and I can’t take it anymore. Some Japanese people think that just because I am a white foreigner that I must eat a ton. I have pointed it out to many of the other teachers that I am not any bigger than any of my Japanese teachers, and that I can't eat that much. Nevertheless, the fact that I am white trumps all other reason.
The weather is getting warmer and I am ready. I have been enjoying exercising after school and getting home in time to enjoy the sun—unlike winter here when it got dark at like 4:30PM. The only downside to the summer is that I think it now gets light here at like 4:15AM, and by that time the birds are up and going nuts each day. I like getting up each morning at like 5AM though…gives me time to ease into the day, drink my coffee, and chat on the phone before the work day begins.
Michi and I have been reading the Bible a lot together these days, and I have go to say that I am now convinced that most people, especially Christians, have no idea what the Bible really says. Even if I do think I understand what it says, when I start to break it down and explain it, I realize that I don’t know a thing about what I am trying to explain. We are plowing through John, and we are in the middle of chapter 3. If there is anyone out there who can explain what Jesus meant in John 3:18 when he said that those who don’t believe are ALREADY condemned—I’d love to hear you give it a shot. And while you are at it, go ahead and give me an explanation of the last four or five verses of John 2.
I have been listening to and reading a lot about different translations of the Bible and where our current text came from, and I am amazed by so many that can follow every word that we have in English and not even wonder about where it comes from. I admit that living in a foreign country and learning different languages makes it obvious how meanings do change with each translation. To my knowledge, when we read the Bible—we are reading text that has been translated through at least two languages. I can imagine how the meaning gets lost… Kentucky English just doesn’t translate into Japanese. You can imagine how even the smallest things are lost in translation. Think about how many ways we have to express the simple but always funny act of passing gas. Translating, “Who cut the cheese?” or “ripped a big one” into Japanese just doesn’t work.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Yeah DAD!
My dad is on the far left. His group came upon a bus crash in Ecuador!!!!
http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/802405.html
Sunday, May 17, 2009
$100 Challenge
This weekend I was in Nagoya with Michi. I decide to do something that I had never done before, and something that I didn't think I ever would do. Michi wanted to go shopping, so I took her to her favorite store and told her she could shop as much as she wanted, and that I was going to walk around downtown for a while. (I get bored after being in the store for 5 minutes.)
Before I left I gave her $100 and told her that she could only buy things for herself and that the money was hers to spend on anything she wanted. She was amazed and immediately was so happy. The rest of the weekend she told me about how it made her feel so happy that I wanted to be generous to her and wanted to make her happy.
She was in the store for over an hour, and she came out empty handed. She hadn't bought a thing, but the simple fact that I was willing to sacrifice something that was mine for her, made all of the difference in the world.
Whatever $100 is worth to you, I dare you to do the same for your girl. FOR SURE, it will be the best $100 you will ever spend.
Before I left I gave her $100 and told her that she could only buy things for herself and that the money was hers to spend on anything she wanted. She was amazed and immediately was so happy. The rest of the weekend she told me about how it made her feel so happy that I wanted to be generous to her and wanted to make her happy.
She was in the store for over an hour, and she came out empty handed. She hadn't bought a thing, but the simple fact that I was willing to sacrifice something that was mine for her, made all of the difference in the world.
Whatever $100 is worth to you, I dare you to do the same for your girl. FOR SURE, it will be the best $100 you will ever spend.
Friday, May 15, 2009
The summer is almost here in full swing. The nights are getting warmer, and it seems like the birds are up and chirping at 3:30AM every morning. I woke up to a bright sky this morning and could have sworn I was late to school, but when I checked my phone I saw that it was only 4:45AM. It makes me happy when I do that though, because after that I can get the best 15-20 minutes of sleep.
School is going well the days come and go just like the ones before them. I wake up and do my morning rituals: email, read the news, shower, make my coffee, ichat with Michi, call friends and head to work. My afternoon rituals vary somewhat—usually I get home from school, check the news, run/exercise for about an hour, make dinner, eat, read/watch movies/relax, and hit the sack early. I know my life during the week sounds a bit boring, but believe me that the alone time can be nice and that I do make up for it on the weekends.
Usually I spend the weekends with friends and traveling and just about every weekend is spent with Michi. I have a room in her brother’s house that makes it real easy for me to stay in Toyohashi on the weekends. Sometimes life in her brother’s house gets a little wild with the four kids—but it is exciting.
It’s hard for me to believe that I only have about two months of school left until I will be home again for another visit. Time here passes both fast and slow. Sometimes I look at a calendar and wonder where the month went, and other times it seems like lunchtime will never get here. I do know that it seems like it was just yesterday that I was back in Japan—but in another sense it seems like forever since I have been at home relaxing. I have one sweet break lined up this summer (more than six weeks off!) and I am looking forward to making the most of it.
These days I have been reading a lot more, partly because I am trying to learn a lot and partly because I want to finish all of my books before summer so I can stock up with new ones when I am at home. Now I’m reading Sex God by Rob Bell. He says some good stuff but the way he writes and his endnotes are not to my liking. Sometimes I think he just wrote a bunch of sentences on a piece of paper, cut them out, put them in a bag and shook them, and dumped them on the table. Wherever they landed they stayed. He is full of great info and good information though.
I have two more classes to go on this Friday afternoon before I am done for the weekend. I’ve already taught two at the junior high this morning, and today I ate so much for school lunch that I need to explode or take a nap—or maybe a combination of both. Now, it’s time for me to put on my best smile, muster all of the energy that I can, and go teach some elementary school aged Japanese kids a few English words and games.
I am taking a nap after my afternoon run. For sure.
School is going well the days come and go just like the ones before them. I wake up and do my morning rituals: email, read the news, shower, make my coffee, ichat with Michi, call friends and head to work. My afternoon rituals vary somewhat—usually I get home from school, check the news, run/exercise for about an hour, make dinner, eat, read/watch movies/relax, and hit the sack early. I know my life during the week sounds a bit boring, but believe me that the alone time can be nice and that I do make up for it on the weekends.
Usually I spend the weekends with friends and traveling and just about every weekend is spent with Michi. I have a room in her brother’s house that makes it real easy for me to stay in Toyohashi on the weekends. Sometimes life in her brother’s house gets a little wild with the four kids—but it is exciting.
It’s hard for me to believe that I only have about two months of school left until I will be home again for another visit. Time here passes both fast and slow. Sometimes I look at a calendar and wonder where the month went, and other times it seems like lunchtime will never get here. I do know that it seems like it was just yesterday that I was back in Japan—but in another sense it seems like forever since I have been at home relaxing. I have one sweet break lined up this summer (more than six weeks off!) and I am looking forward to making the most of it.
These days I have been reading a lot more, partly because I am trying to learn a lot and partly because I want to finish all of my books before summer so I can stock up with new ones when I am at home. Now I’m reading Sex God by Rob Bell. He says some good stuff but the way he writes and his endnotes are not to my liking. Sometimes I think he just wrote a bunch of sentences on a piece of paper, cut them out, put them in a bag and shook them, and dumped them on the table. Wherever they landed they stayed. He is full of great info and good information though.
I have two more classes to go on this Friday afternoon before I am done for the weekend. I’ve already taught two at the junior high this morning, and today I ate so much for school lunch that I need to explode or take a nap—or maybe a combination of both. Now, it’s time for me to put on my best smile, muster all of the energy that I can, and go teach some elementary school aged Japanese kids a few English words and games.
I am taking a nap after my afternoon run. For sure.
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