So A Whole Lot Of Stuff Happened

And I Didn't Tell You About Any Of It

because i am a jerk.

it's probably genetic. (love you mom.)

so approximately a week and a half ago, i got a call from my fellow philadelphian expat, a really awesome girl named vash, asking if i'd be up for a trip. to tokyo. in two days.

being insane and bored, i said HELL YES and proceeded to make no concrete plans of any kind beyond buying a backpack covered in ska-check and looking at prices of train tickets. we headed out of nagoya and after approximately a million years on a train with some really pretty scenery and adorable small children speaking bad english at us, we arrived in tokyo.

weirdest question of the trip: "why are YOU speaking japanese?!" said in tones of shock and horror. luckily, every other person we talked to was pretty awesome, over all.

we spent a night in roppongi at a karaoke place and the zombie-march as the clubs emptied the next morning was enough to give a girl nightmares. i was amazed they were all still conscious enough to totter down the street in 7 inch heels, considering they looked like death spat them out and were about 60 pounds shy of a healthy body weight on average.
we ended up spending a big chunk of the next few days in shibuya and harajuku, with a brief jaunt over to akihabara. all places i wanna go again. when i have more money. tokyo is a money-eating machine O_O and i didn't even really do much shopping.

also, i met a kid who was wearing a philly cheesteak t shirt who ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT IT SAID and had worn it on purpose. apparently he really likes oldschool R+B and was pretty excited to meet two girls who were actually from philly. considering he's the first person who hasn't either mentioned rocky, creamcheese or the 76ers who actually knew where philadelphia was, i am super impressed.

also also, a very sweet japanese boy asked me for directions while i was sitting in yoyogi koen, which did not do any good at all as i could barely answer him and had no idea how to get him anywhere. he looked so disappointed... poor guy. however, points to me for not looking like a tourist in a city i don't know! hooray!

in other news: nagoya had a world cosplay summit and i missed it. steph talked me into buying a yukata and i'm wearing it next week at a festival at nagoya castle. i am in the process of conning people into coming to my tiny town and hanging out with me for a few days. everyone i know who lives close is on vacation or busy and i'm going crazy.

oh! and my friend just had her twins! i'm going to go visit them soon- twin boys! i'm so happy for her!

quick post!

ok, so a fancy new outfit has been procured. it is the only one i've found that was 1) not covered in flowers or 2) not pink. i love it. definitely wearing it soon.

Fireworks are awesome, and now I need fancier clothes

i'm less than a week into summer vacation and i can already tell it's going to be epic. fireworks were phenomenal (i'm going to see some more this sunday) although i felt inadequately dressed... everyone was all dolled up in yukata. on top of that, the fireworks took up more than fifty percent of the sky. it was indescribable... and apparently they get better.

i attended a work party yesterday night that involved far too much eating of strange things. i feel like i may have passed some sort of secret test, and now i will be allowed into the special clubhouse and taught the secret handshake. maybe. if i'm good.

the rainy season is officially over! hooray! now it's just the hot and humid less rainy season - read: summer- so i better suck it up and get used to it. in unrelated news, i have figured out how to bake using my new toaster oven. it's surprisingly different from using any other oven ever, but it works just fine.

i'm not sure what's going on tonight but if no one has anything planned, i'm going out anyway. i have no intention of staying in tonight- it's way too much fun to go out.

NATSUYASUMI! yaaaay

So it's now officially summer vacation for me. six whole weeks... i intend to fill them with anything i can think of. this week has been intense- there were flood/landslide warnings three out of five days, which meant canceled classes and me sitting in an office pretending i had work to do. on top of that, someone from my company came and observed one of my lessons...

luckily it went pretty well.

i'm really looking forward to the end of the rainy season. apparently, there's just a couple more days and then i'm in the clear. finally! there's only so much grey humid nasty weather i can take before i start to get a little crazy. i'm planning on having a girls' night this weekend, which will be awesome, and watching hanabi (fireworks) in nagoya on monday. i got invited to a couple of teacher parties, but they're at the same time (laaame) so i'm going with the ones who asked me first.
the other school retaliated by inviting me to the next school party... which is in october. they figure there's no possible way for me to have a conflict with that.
i gotta say, i'm really going to miss my students all summer. they're awesome kids.
i'll probably see them around town, though... it's not a big enough place that i won't run into them. this could be either good or bad. i'm hoping none of them are traumatized by my suddenly visible tattoos and multiple earrings. however, unless they're a little dim, they should have figured out that i'm not entirely respectable- so it shouldn't come as TOO much of a shock.
i hope.

anyway, i can't think of too much stuff to write currently. i'll try and update again in a few days, when i've caught up on sleep and stuff.

in other news, here's a picture of the sunset near my house.

Ok, so i may be a little behind with this.

i think at this point it's well established that i'm very bad at remembering to update blogs. it's something that all two of you who read it will have to deal with, i'm afraid.

I taught at my first kindergarten today- I have five of them but I only visit twice a year. The kids were incredible... I taught them some songs and how to play duck-duck-goose (which is harder than you'd think with three year olds) and some basic colors, and was used as a jungle gym. I've really missed being around young kids... hanging out with twenty 3yr olds made me lonesome for Jay and Alex and Philadelphia in general.

My senseis are taking full advantage of the fact that I can not only draw, but like doing it (to an extent. this is beginning to get silly.) This means I'm basically producing massive amounts of pictures of random things... this weekend's project is adjectives. This is actually insanely hard- for example, how do you illustrate "awesome" and "wonderful"? So far I've managed "loud" "popular" and "difficult/exciting". i think it's exciting, my sensei thinks it's difficult. can't it be both?

In closing, very few things are more difficult than trying to walk with four children attached to one arm, two attached to the other, and three fighting for a space to attach themselves. However, I totally managed it. Also, the shyest 3yr old they've got decided I was there specifically to play with him only. He got very upset when I had to leave. Also, I made one of my JTEs laugh hard enough that he spit out his drink. I feel accomplished.

Also Also, I read my first (non textbook) sentence. It involved ice cream.

You... eto... Have... eto... Very Beautiful.

The weather's amazing right now- sunny and breezy and about 25 degrees c. I'm giving myself excuses to walk around town just so I can bask. I feel like I have to store it up for once the rainy season comes. I'm not looking forward to a solid month of rain, I have to admit. Ick.

It was yet another friend's birthday this past week- there's been some sort of major event every weekend since I moved here it seems. This was the last one for a bit, partially because we have no real excuse to get together but mostly because we're all counting our yen. That's what moving to a new country, going to Nagoya three out of four weekends, and not getting paid for two months will do for you.
Tsushima has a gorgeous park. It's so restful... we ended up hanging out there for hours, watching turtles and blowing bubbles and entertaining small children. Between that and eating awesome food and screaming ourselves hoarse at karaoke, it was a pretty wonderful weekend.

I finally get to make the game I've been working out! I'm test-running it on Friday, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I think it'll go over well, but there's no real way to know until I try it. AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa suspense! Hopefully my ni nensei will like it as much as I do. I'm making a few different character sets to use so there's some variety if we end up doing it every class (which is what my JTE would like to do).

I got invited to chatsumi- tea harvesting- with some of the teachers at my shogakko, but I can't go and that sucks. Turns out I'm only working the morning with them and then switching over to another school and they'll be gone before I get off work. Grr! That would have been kinda cool. Oh well, maybe next time.

Alright, I'mma go work on the characters for my game- there are six sumo wrestlers and one piece of cake that are patiently waiting to be drawn.

Can you show me the way to the way?

I am probably the only person in the history of ever who actually enjoys grading papers. It helps that my students have such awesome translations... one of my personal favorites is the title for this post. There's a poster in one of my 3yr classes that states that it belongs to the "Best Groop". I have to stifle giggles every time I see it... gotta admit it's hard to look professional when you're snickering at the front of the class.

I'm kinda slowly putting down roots here. I feel like I'm sorting out who I am and what I need... and right at the front of those things is learning katakana, because I freakin need to know it. This is getting ridiculous- I can only read a third of the language currently. I'd like to at least be able to figure out the damn menu with some facility. In pursuit of this lofty goal, I'm getting together with one of the other ALTs and we're gonna drink coffee and learn this second alphabet and hopefully remember it and not get distracted (too much).

Another awesome quote from today's papers: "I mast have the way i happy. arong from you, from japan across is this."