Winter Has Finally Started

and by that i mean real winter, the kind with snow and ice and horribly cold mornings. it's a real struggle to crawl out of my nice warm blankets in the morning, i have to admit. it's a good thing i like my job or i'd be very tempted to go riiiiiight back to sleep.
sorry it's been so long since i wrote anything- i'm really not particularly good at remembering about this blog. or any blog-like thing, for that matter. on the few occasions that someone bought me a diary to write in, i'd usually fill out a max of two pages before losing all interest.
the winter term has started- it's a short one. only two and a half months before spring vacation. it's currently snowing big flakes outside and i'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a snow day. liking my job is all well and good, but given the opportunity to sit in a nice warm office and drink tea and draw monsters all day, i will GLADLY take it. no question.
christmas was strange- it's a party holiday in japan. people go on dates and sit around and eat cake and get a little crazy with their friends. looking at the pictures of my family sitting around at home, with the decorations and the tree and everything, was the closest to homesick i've been since i moved here. luckily i've got some awesome friends to spend time with instead. without them, living here would be much more difficult. i really think i got lucky with this job- nice town, relatively friendly people, and cool co-workers. it's a shame a bunch of people are leaving next year, but i'm happy with the thought of staying here. it's a good place to be.
i spent new years' in osaka. THAT was really cool. we went to a countdown party at a rock/metal/punk bar and enjoyed the hell out of ourselves. lots of dancing, giggling (at the absurd song choices) and singing along at the top of our lungs along with the rest of the bar. they played "the final countdown" as it was hitting midnight. best decision ever. it was crazy amounts of fun. two days later, i got sick sick sick and that sucked. it was totally my own fault though- i didn't bring a coat with me to osaka and the hostel i stayed at had no heating, which meant i was insanely cold all week. didn't really help preserve my health, deshou?
let's see... oh yeah! i also went to tokyo and met a cool new friend, went to a dinosaur museum and had the best time ever, and saw my students at a matsuri in town jumping fences in order to cause some sort of trouble somewhere.
i adore my students.
anyway, i hope all 5 of you who read this are having an awesome winter too- and i'll talk to you soon. promise.
probably.
-andrea

hello, eburiwan

OK so instead of making an actual post about my actual life, i will make a pseudo-post with actual answers from the actual tests that my actual students wrote. today. actually.

question: H____ the money
answers include: Hi you are the money Humuch the money How! the money

attempted word: important
answers include: inspirekt interlesheing instrornent impotrument

attempted word: everyone
answers include: evriwan eburiwan

attempted word: second
answers include: sekanbo

attempted word: children
answers include: tiraboren

attempted phrase: take care of
answers include: talk car of take cera

I went to the school to play sfutoball.
I want to be tennis.
I went to the baesboll prepyar.
I went to the ingurando soccering. (translation for those of you who don't teach ESL- I want to play soccer in England.)

When a language dies, the culture a________ dies out.
guess: astoronant astoraunt

listen to speech, think you.

I want to hoom to steby English.

I want is to spuun.

Second, I will thehe a tirub.

I went to shoop to shooping.

I went to be a dog and cat shop. My home in the cat. Is very very puritie.

I want to be a writing mup.

No I whasn't.

If I want car enjineer, many cars supeird.

I want someone to eat.

First, likek space, I will go to the space.

I think that there is her that he to cool.

I want sat the sat.

and to finish it off for today, the classic: I Am Dream. Are You Dream?

November is the best month so far

admittedly, pretty much every month has been 'the best month so far', so that isn't saying too much. my students continue to be amazing, the teachers i work with are gradually wrapping their brains around the fact that i'm not some strange alien creature, and fall is in full swing. the mountains are beautiful. there are a couple views i see all the time while driving that make me want to pull the car over, climb on the roof, and sit and stare.

tomorrow is going to be a long, long day. i'm teaching every period, no breaks, from the beginning of school to the end. this is outweighed by the fact that i'll be spending all of friday watching my students put on plays and sing songs.
for the last month i've been heading to my friend's house once a week to help her with her new twins and entertain her other two kids. i started giving them cooking lessons (mostly eating lessons, admittedly)- all basic comfort food type stuff. so far, apple crumble has been the biggest hit. i don't blame them. apple crumble is super awesome.

i'm crazy tired, for no real good reason that i can think of, so this post is gonna be short. i'll try and remember to write a real one with pictures and stuff fairly soon.

Adventures in Essay-Grading

it's possible that i'm a bad person for enjoying the mistakes my students make in their papers quite as much as i do... but in all fairness, they are EPIC in their level of entertainment.

example: I want to be a baker and eat many people.

it was a good attempt- she'd searched through her memory and picked a word that was allllllmost right. the end result was something rather different than she expected. she looked a little horrified when i explained it to her.

in other, non-essay-related news, i'm still having an awesome time playing taiko. i'm definitely still not good at it, but it's incredibly fun and i'm getting a little better. so- hurray! this is just a mini post to let people know that i haven't died mysteriously, because my taiko group is playing at a shrine festival in... oh about 10 minutes. i should really start booking it, considering they're playing ten minutes away. luckily, i'm not playing this weekend, which is a good thing considering i'm still not perfect on my songs.

the picture is from a couple days ago... it's turning into a beautiful fall over here.

1! 2! ah ah ah

One! Two! One Two Four Three!


went and saw a great show on sunday and that was definitely my favorite count-in of the night. the venue was awesome, the bands were great, and the scene was remarkably similar to the scene in every other city i've been in. the obligatory tall-guy-with-fedora was even there. it was a pretty great night minus a few pitfalls but hey, things are rarely perfect and it was a lot of fun.

saturday i went to the sport festivals at both of my JHS. there is nothing like this in the states and that is the truth. these kids get super intense about the competition (which is mostly relay races and gimmick races) and the losing team generally breaks into tears at the end of it... there's also a dance competition which is pretty fabulous. the music tends to span several genres and is never less than ridiculous- my favorite of the day was probably the vocal-less ska cover of Thriller, followed by what appeared to be the austin powers theme song.

got invited to a few enkais last minute, but couldn't go. also, steph and i failed epically at locating our taiko group in their new location... we really are trying to practice, i swear. really, really trying. after all, if we don't we get to fail horribly in front of hundreds of people on a main stage in a major festival. next month. oh god oh god what have i gotten myself into O_O

so i have a day off today (to make up for the sports day on saturday) and yesterday was a major holiday which is pretty awesome and thursday is ANOTHER major holiday so the long and short of it is that i only have two days of work this week. hurrayyyyyyy! gonna spend a bunch of today on lesson plans and props. i have some good ideas... i hope the other teachers like them.

i spent yesterday on an island drawing the ocean. it was pretty amazing with the exception of the lunch, which was both amazing and completely inedible due to being Creepy In The Extreme. as in, hey here's an octopus on a plate, cut it up with some scissors and eat it. gee, suddenly i'm really not hungry, you can have my share.

i'll add some photos later, when i get around to putting them on my computer.

Two More Days And Then Back To Work

i met the new twins the other day- they're adorable! so cute... they're fraternal twins, not identical. the boys were born just on either side of midnight so they have their own birthdays. maybe it'll make up for having nearly identical names.

this weekend was packed. i spent most of it in Nagoya, listening to bands and chatting with guitarists and watching parades etc etc etc. i met some extremely cool people and got some cds and other people took photos of my friends and i holding said cds in order to display their 'international appeal'.
i'm planning to continue my insinuation into the nagoya music scene. soon i will be a staple at shows, and eventually i will find a band to sing in, and then my assimilation will be complete. bwahahaha.
or something like that, anyway.

my friend ella performed in a dance festival on sunday! she kicked some serious ass. it was incredibly hot... the dancers pretty much collapsed as soon as they left the stage. they all put on some stunning performances though. as far as ridiculous goes, though, the guys who were not in any contest at all won by a long shot. photos are posted... words escape me. they were certainly memorable, that's for sure. the best part is that this is apparently a multi-city phenomenon, there was more than one group of them in the park, and they start and end every song by combing their hair.

Approximately Seven Million Festivals Later

i'm still not done with summer and the festivals keep coming. so far i've gone to... at least five? seven? lots? not sure. the last one was about slugs, which did not make an appearance, and buddhist monks, which also did not make an appearance, and nothing to do with tv crews even though they showed up anyway.

two more weeks until work starts up again. i'm actually looking forward to seeing my students, although i'm not looking forward to wearing unnecessarily hot clothing and standing around like an idiot. in the meantime, i've got EVEN MORE festivals to go to... there's a couple in nagoya and one of them is a mandatory-attendance type thing because my friend is dancing in it.

honestly, even if she wasn't, i'd probably go anyway. she's just a convenient excuse to watch people dance and wear interesting outfits and generally cause some trouble in a publicly acceptable fashion.

today i'm heading out to lunch with one of the teachers from work, and then... something? and then i have taiko practice! first practice ever. i have high hopes that this will be a better fit for me temperamentally than kyuudo was. being very serious and standing very still and posing until it was time to shoot arrows was extremely cool, but i'm neither serious nor cool. maybe jumping around and making a lot of noise will agree with me.

art-wise, i've got another couple of people who are looking for tattoo designs so i'm gonna try and get that done soon. i wish i had some studio space... it's hard to keep focused in a one room apartment that contains all your stuff.