Alright, now a letter for the masses:

I'm going home! So I'll have actual e-mail access, and can catch up there. Please give me a call if you'll be in Michigan, or if you just want to say hi. I'll be at my parent's house, their number is listed so you can get it off the internet because I don't want to publish it here.

Otherwise, today's been kind of rough. I'm really good about waking up here -- usually up by 6:30, 6:45. Today, I woke up at 9:30, 10 minutes before my first class of the day, when my teacher called. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't good.

Anyways, time to get off the computer, and get a few more papers graded before I take my much-needed vacation! I'm so ready!

Ps, A preview of a future blog: I have finally experienced one of the best things about Japan- sentos. Onsens will come and be better, I'm sure, but the sento is wonderful. More later,

s

alright, my battery will die soon, so this will be short.

in brief:

last thursday i went home and curled in a ball in my bed and shook. friday i went to the doctor and got antibiotics for strep. so i spent the weekend in bed and resting, which was nice because i needed rest, but i'm going to get it next weekend -- i had plenty of things i need to get done before i leave that i didn't have the energy for. and i missed a few parties.

i just was watching cleaning period at school, and the kids outside were instructed to shovel the snow banks _into_ the driveway. i was cracking up, and so were the kids who were watching with me -- it made absolutely no sense! i suppose it's so the snowbanks will melt sooner, but they're snowbanks! who cares! now i won't be able to ride my bike out of the parking lot, because it's 6 inches deep in snow. but good thing the edges are clean.

it's also really funny to see a large hoard of (very obedient, of course) 8th graders in uniforms using shovels.

alas, the doctor only prescribed 3 days of antibiotics, so i think i'll go back this afternoon and try to get more. i'm healthier, but i haven't beat it quite yet.

otherwise, just cleaning, cooking christmas treats for the offices, and organizing my photos this week before i come home. and yes, a bit more christmas shopping. anyone, let me know if you have any requests from japan!

bye,
sarah

Yikes, haven't written for a while. Yikes seems to be my new word... only when I'm writing e-mails or texts, I don't really say it yet...

So I can't figure out how to stay healthy here. I was doing really well Monday through Wednesday -- I'd been going to the gym, not getting enough sleep, but eating well and keeping pretty busy. Last night after school I was pretty tired so I didn't go to the gym, and I went to a friend's apartment for a long dinner party. (no alcohol, just lots of food). Got to bed by midnight - reasonable. This morning I woke up with a fever, inflated thyroids, and a really sore throat! I can't explain it, but it's no good that I'm always sick on Thursdays - the days I teach 4 classes (1st and 2nd years) with Japanese teachers (alone). But I'll rest tonight and get better soon.

I'm excited to be coming home (Dec. 20). I've pretty much decided I'm going to stay here for 2 years, (not official, but I've been on the fence and last sunday I just had the feeling that I wanted to stay) and I miss home a lot but I don't think I'm really home sick. Regardless, home is where to be for the holidays, especially after I've seen pictures of my house with the Christmas tree this year. I'm very excited.

We had a huge snowstorm in Toyama Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday alone it had snowed 30 cm by 5pm. A lot! It was gorgeous but is already melting because Toyama doesn't really get below freezing. I don't have proper shoes yet, so my feet were a little wet and cold.

The Toyama method of snow removal is ridiculous. There are _sprinklers_ in all the sidewalks and roads, and the water melts the snow and creates large puddles which don't disappear. Plus, the sidewalks and side streets aren't really plowed, so I walk in the car tracks of the road which is very dangerous. The streets are narrow enough anyways... But the snow was beautiful and I really enjoyed it.

Only 5 more days of classes. At this point my classes are pretty fun - singing/christmas themes... V., B., and I made a Christmas video for one of the classes, which was a good little project.

I just had a dried kaki (persimmon) which was really good.

So the big news here is that the one and only English teacher/ speaker at Oizumi, my smaller school, has just had a miscarraige, but not really because the baby is okay, but she's gone for the rest of the year. This has been a difficult thing for me to get from the other teachers -- we spent a half hour with dictionaries looking up medical terms, etc. But I'm very sad, and will miss her. I didn't know that she was pregnant - it kind of justifies some of her crazy behaviour (although I still believe she's a crazy person)

Must run for my train!
Until tomorrow or next week,
Sarah

So much to write, and so little time has passed...

First I'll give you an overview of the past four days, kind of a table of contents for this blog entry.
Thursday - thanksgiving
Friday - Elementary school visit (new school) and English dinner club/kareoke
Saturday/Sunday - Tokyo
Monday - Elementary school number 2.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, and I was kind of sad to be missing out. Thursday night Brian made pumpkin pie, and despite the fact that it had no crust and he had to make it in his microwave, it was very tasty.

Friday I went to a new elementary school and taught 3 classes and ate lunch with the students. It was a blast -- definelty the best elementary school experience I've had. Since I don't usually go there, and I didn't have a chance to talk to the teachers about lessons in advance, I planned all the lessons combining the best bits from my previous elementary school visits. The classes went really well and the students were adorable. I got on especially well with the 2nd graders -- we ate lunch together and I discovered that we could communicate very well in simple Japanese. They speak pretty slowly and with the formal tenses I've been taught, so we had nice conversations about the kinds of food we like to eat, about our dogs, and about how much we all like swimming (we went around a circle during lunch, saying things we like, and after I went last and said I liked swimming, we had to make another round so all the students could tell me how much they also like swimming). Then I played games with them (juggling and a version of marbles -- how cute!). Today I went back to the elementary school for 3 other grades and the 2nd grade class had made me a book - each had written me a letter (illustrated, of course) about how much fun they had with me. And another point of confidence is that I can read everything in the book! I need to hang out with 2nd graders more often.

Friday afternoon I crashed at my desk and researched digital cameras on the internet.

Friday night was installment 3 of the English club, with the Deputy mayor making a special appearance. This time was at nice hotel (the previous had been at restaurants) and I didn't like the formal atmosphere so much. But after champage and a few glasses of wine, atmsophere didn't matter so much. We played bingo (they seem to be really fond of this game) and I was appointed the roller girl (meaning I rolled the thing and called out the numbers). The first prize was a 100 dollar gift certificate to the hotel for dinner (donnated by the hotel - we think it was because the mayor was there) which was won by one of the Japanese men. Second prize - monopoly - went to nadia. I took 3rd prize -- a set of tickets to minority report which opens in japan pretty soon, which I've seen but am very happy to see again. 4th - bing crosby x-mas cd and a photo book of various cities at christmastime. It was won by a Japanese guy who gave it to victoria because he felt bad she didn't get a prize. After much prodding, the winner of the 1st place prize was pressured into giving Brian his gift certificates -- he refused 'a respectable number of times' (victoria) and then had no choice but to take them.

Then on to kareoke - same nice kareoke bar with the whisky that was magically refreshed every 10 minutes.

Called it a night around 9:30, went home and to bed for the tokyo trip.

I had to leave my apartment at 6:15 to catch my 6:40 train, so I meant to wake up at 5:30 to shower, pack, etc. Of course, my alarm didn't go off (which isn't my fault, i discovered a fluke in my cell phone this morning -- the alarm was set for 6am monday, and i woke up a bit before 6 on my own and the alarm didn't ever go off. i was confused and didn't think much of it until i was at mr. donuts at 7:10 and my alarm went off -- i looked at it and the clock is screwed up -- the date says december 2nd, and the calander day says monday, but day written out says wednesday so the alarm went off at what time it went off last wednesday - so something wierd must have happened to my cell phone -- now i need to get a new alarm because my backup alarm sometime stops or randomly skips an hour)

Back on track -- woke up at 6:15, dashed out the door, leaving essentials such as my cell phone, planner with maps and phone numbers, and tokyo guide books in a neat pile on my bed.

made it to the train station with 5 minutes to spare, made the train change (the shinkansen was really cool, although I didn't have a reserved seat, wasn't sure if I was supposed to be on the train, but the connection was only a few mintues and i didn't have time to talk with the attendent when the machine gate thing rejected my ticket so i just hopped on - once the train started it wasn't going to stop until tokyo and i did pay for a shinkansen ticket to tokyo... ) and made it to tokyo.

The JR tokyo station is an underground maze (actually it's not underground and didn't seem at all confusing on my way out of the city - maybe it was just travel fatigue, a lack of maps, and a lack of a plan). But luckily Lorraine Wichern (meghan wichern's mom (NU) whom I was visiting in Tokyo) had sent me a great e-mail with suggestions for things to see and how to see them. So I walked out of the station and headed for the gardens of the imperial palace. it was a gorgeous day (tshirt weather) so I took out the lining of my coat and changed my sweater and undershirt for a long sleeved-shirt. Okay I'm going to start abbreviating because I did so much in Tokyo and all the details will probably get (if they're not already) mundane. Oh but it's just so tempting to tell you about the throngs of Japanese tourists I followed in a big arch around the gardens -- men with florescent jackets and batons waving us on past the 3 entrances, until i saw that these people were then crossing a bridge over the road, climbing a hill, and going somewhere completely different. So I went to the imperial gardens (after I departed the millions of tourists who walk _so_slowly). At the exit of the gardens was the Tokyo Modern Art Museum, so I went there. Spent an hour, stuff in my locker, it was nice.
Then on to Akihabara. I was looking at digital cameras, and I had already figured out which one I want online (a bit out of my price range but i expected that in tokyo it would magically be cheaper -- it was just a bit cheaper), didn't buy one because I was tired, a bit confused, and hadn't really shopped around too much. also was starved, and hadn't been able to find a suitable cafe/western style thing that I was sure would be all over tokyo (and were all over tokyo in the right neiborhoods) so I had a kebob from a street vendor. After my browsing, I found the station and made it to Roppongi where the Wicherns live. Travelling took a lot longer than I expected, so I arrived at their amazing and very western residence just a bit before 5. Other dinner guests - an American couple who used to live in Tokyo and were stopping by on their way back to singapore from florida, a woman from IBM who used to live in France, and a grad student from Brandeis who was studying in tokyo at waseda university (plus the wicherns - i'm probably spelling their name wrong - who recently moved back to tokyo). It was a very international crowd, very interesting hearing all the stories of the ex-pat lifestyle.

Their home was amazing -- a really cool neighborhood, a really nice building, and a very nice and _western_ style aparment. I can't explain what a wierd sensation it was after being in Japan for 4 months to step into a living room (yes, a living room - couches and arm chairs that were higher than 6 inches off the ground, in fact very very nice), and a living room filled with nice Americans who were drinking champagne (with strawberries!) and eating olives, and a very good assortment of music. It was like home but with people I didn't know. It was very strange. I wasn't in Kansas anymore - certainly not Japan. Thanksgiving dinner was great - turkey, potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin and apples, brussle sprouts, beans, shrimp, pumpkin pie, apple pie, a very nice evening.

After the festivites I got to... gasp... sleep in a real _bed_. I can't describe what a wonderful experience this was - just imagine that after sleeping on an elevated futon (it's called a bed but it's really metal bars with the padding _in between_ go figure, so I threw a futon on top and don't feel the bars as bad)... In the morning had a nice shower and relaxed, read an english newspaper, had english muffins with strawberries and a pear for breakfast. Then Steve and lorraine took me out and around Tokyo, which was great. They were so nice and helpful with everything - it was great to have insiders show me around the city, to not have to hassle with where i was going and how i was going to get there and how to read a map, asking directions, etc. We went to an area where a lot of youth go and shop and hang out -- and when I say youth of tokyo I mean jhs, hs kids wearing clothes that make absolutely no sense. There were the goth kids who were crazy looking, but I was totally blown away by the innocent-seeming girls who were dressed in the most ridiculous things I've ever seen -- red plad skirt with matching bag, cartoon sweatshirt and fuzzy leopard print knee socks with little bats hanging off them -- it really is a fashion world of its own.

Went to the Meiji shrine and saw a few weddings and little girls dressed up for the 3-5-7 holiday, very beautiful and cute. Then the Wicherns terated me a really nice Chinese food lunch (gochisoushite kudasaimashita), and we saw a great store where I did some x-mas shopping, and we walked back the their place ( a really nice walk through a graveyard). They escorted me to the Shinkansen platform of JR Tokyo station (with a homemade bento in hand - leftover turkey sandwich and fruit) -- so nice and helpful! and I got on the train for home. I saw 2 people from Toyama on the platform so I had some company on the way home.

The turkey sandwich (on really nice bread, with cranberry sauce) was amazing. I savored every bite.

Stopped by Victoria's last night for a glass of wine and to rehash the details of the trip, so made it home around midnight (my train arrived at 10). A very nice trip, and it made me realize how nice it will be to go home in 3 weeks for x-mas. Yay I'm so excited! But I do still like Japan, the comforts of home are nice sometimes, also.

Whew! This morning I finished elementary school visits at hoshichoshogako. Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat, which was scratchy all day, and this morning I woke up without a voice. Plus, after waking at 6, drinking way too much coffee at mr. donuts for breakfast while I planned the lessons, I was a little worn out. but i made it through the lessons, and they were very nice and gave me throat drops, plus a ridiculous amount of omiyage (italian chocolate, australian beef jerkey, a box of cookies from a department store, and a gold pained gourd on a pedestal, still trying to figure that one out...)

So now I've been writing this for nearly an hour and it's well past time to go home.
Tomorrow and Wednesday I'm off to mid-year seminar, so I probably won't check my email until Thursday, but of course when I did on Thursday I would love a flood of notes mentioning how you've made it this far through my blog site and you had a wonderful thanksgiving in your respective areas of the world.

Sayonara,
Sarah

Hello,

I don't have any classes today -- Students have exams tomorrow and Friday so they need the class time for study/preparation. I showed up to work this morning and my supervisor handed me a pile of English books to read -- how fun! So I read an English translation of "The Wonderful World of Sazae-san" a very famous/popular Japanese post-war comic. I also read a good book about the titanic -- although it was just a children's book, and I've heard/read about it a million times before, it was very moving.

I also had a large package sitting on my desk from city hall -- they supplied me with free medicine. 3 packs of Ibuprophin, some vitamins, cold/flu/fever medicine, a bunch of stomach medicine, throat gargle. maybe because toyama is such a medical capital, they can provide this stuff for free. (it's famous for pharmacuticals).

On Sunday I went to the Toyama Suiboku(ga) Bijyutsukan -- Japanese Ink Painting Art Museum. There was an event sponsored by a women's group, or something, and they made a real effort to extract many of the ken's foreigners. I was shocked at how international the event was. The Japanese really seem to put a lot of effort and pride into internationalization -- it's kind of a wierd mix of being a really homogonous culture, very self-conscious of its Japaneseness, and being fascinated and proud of its international ties. Anyways, in the evening at this event, there was a dinner, and (ah - it's so difficult for me to communicate -- it seems like my sentaces are really strangly constructed -- it's wierd how much i can feel myself loosing english ability, although i do use it 90 percent of the time... some crazy things come out in conversation) at this dinner they would say a coutry and everyone from that country had to stand up... not only america, canada, england, oz, many asian countries, south american, african, european, probably more than 20 countries -- it was really impressive.

So anyways, this ink thing. It was a beautiful day so I rode my bike there (30 minute cycle). I came alone, and as soon as I walked up to the registration desk and tried to mutter some broken Japanese there was a nice 40 year old japanese woman there to take me by the elbow for the afternoon. The people are really friendly -- you just have to go with the flow in Japan because things happen a little differently here... But this woman was really nice and spoke some decent English, so she escorted me around for the afternoon. First we went to a room where you can experience suiboku-painting. I was sat down, shown how to use the brush, practiced (we were given a painting we were supposed to duplicate) and then was ready to do my painting, but the crowd of Japanese women standing over my got the teacher (sensei) so he could show me how to begin. The teacher came and stood over me, and then I was supposed to paint this thing. So I dipped my brush in the ink and was about to paint when the teacher decided to show me how to do it, grabbed the brush, and paited half of the painting. So I started on the second half, and after a moment he took a brush and changed it until he was satisfied, and there I was! The rest of the day, the woman I was with showed people we met the painting and everyone commented on what a talented painter I was -- and it was my first time!

Also did tea ceremony, which was nice because it was gorgeous out, and a really nice room, looked at the museum's paintings, had coffee, etc. As they were setting up the hall for dinner, a woman had some strange music and was doing really strange dancing on a hill, and over 60 percent of the people had made a large circle around her and were following her. My friends joined in, but I was enjoying coffee and watching. Then we played bingo, and i won a box of chocolates. We went inside for dinner and sat with a few chinese medical students with very good english, and it was nice to meet some foreigners from a different background.

The rest of my weekend was nice, Friday and saturday nights I went out - Friday night a bunch of foreigners went out (drank way too much) met up with some japanese people and had this feeling of 'it's really fun to be going to bars, and in _japan_' at least that was my feeling. Saturday night i went out with some alt's and some of their japanese friends, and that was a completely different experience of 'it's really fun to be going out with japanese people since i'm in japan'. you might be able to imagine.

This friday I have the third installation of English club (have I written about this?) City hall employees can join an English conversation club, and basically victoria, brian, this girl jen and i go out to a really nice (western) meal (on them) and drink a fair amount and speak english. most of the people who come are pretty high ranking city officials (deputy mayor, etc.), they're pretty internationalized, and some of their english is very good, so we can have pretty interesting conversations about books, movies, travel, japan, politics, etc. After the first time we went to a posh kareoke bar (where they served fruit and whiskey), and there might be a kareoke repeat this friday.

Then, sat. early morning (6am) I'm getting on a train for tokyo, yea!! I will be seeing a bit of tokyo saturday morning, then going over to the witcherns' in the afternoon for thanksgiving. sunday i'll tour a bit more and head back. unfortunately, because i took so long making reservations, i only got smoking section of the shinkansen. but it will do.

ps, i repeated the banana bread experience and made two loaves for one of my schools. they really loved it (except they kept calling it pound cake -- i don't think they understood that we consider it bread). as I was remaking the recipe, I realized i head misread it and added 5 spoon (which i am guessing is equivalent to 1 tsp) instead of 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda. but, since it worked the first time i made the mistake again and the loaves were still wonderful.

Last thursday I had a demonstration class, where the school shuts down and teachers and officals come and watch me and another teacher teach an english class. it went pretty well, although i really don't have a good sense of the feedback. My supervisor came but had to leave before the feedback section, and she only said it was interesting. When I asked the teacher i team taught with what the feedback was, she said it was only 'good job'. but i was sitting in the meeting for an hour, listening various speeches, and i'm sure they said more than just 'good job' as in they gave some criticism, but i guess it's not for me to hear...

Brrrr, i didn't wear enough clothes today, i have to remember that this is the cold school.

battery power's running low, i forgot my power adaptor today, and i don't have any classes, what will i do!

sarah

ps, just a note, i'm coming home on the 20th (till the 3rd) so give me a call in michigan or e-mail me if you're in the area.

pss, happy thanksgiving

I think I've inherited a gift from my mother. I won't boast too much, but, despite all odds, I turned out a wonderful loaf of banana bread yesterday.

First there's the problem of buying groceries. The banana's aren't hard, and I had gotten a huge bunch (12) of over ripe bananas for 50 yen (33 cents). So I decided to make the break, and other banana products. But first I needed flour. I went to the very small baking section of the grocery store across the street. There were 3 different bags of flour-like substance, and I puzzled about them for about 20 minutes -- I didn't see the katakana for flour anywhere, but i also didn't know if flour was the kind of thing that would be written in kanji. So i compared the kanji from these packages (which I suspected were some sort of mix, since they had speckles in them and pictures of rope on the front) to the ingredient list on the back of the cake mixes... Finally I asked someone who took me to a different isle with flour. I had already bought eggs and white sugar, my predecessor had left me baking soda and powder, and I so I picked up some walnuts, a chocolate bar (no choc. chips, so I guessed that the bittersweet chocolate bar would be similar if I chopped it up a bit), something I thought was brown sugar (I don't know why, I thought I needed it but I didn't, and I already had some, although really chunky), and milk which I didn't need, and raisins because I like to eat them with yogurt and mashed up bananas for breakfast ( I probably eat an average of 12 bananas a week since I've come to Japan). I was still feeling pretty aweful yesterday so the whole grocery store bit took me a while (another side note-- I've been sick for over 2 weeks and I woke up today and I'm not sick anymore!!!) Then after cleaning my kitchen and hanging up my laundry over my bathtub (no one has driers here) I could start. But I hadn't bought butter, so I went back and bought butter.

Okay time to start cooking. I put the sugar in a bowl and grab the butter. Uh oh -- absolutely no way of measuring it -- no lines, nothing... I can tell from the outside package that there's 200 grams, and the recipe calls for 1/3 of a cup or 75 ml. This is not helpful. So I take out a book of conversions and a calculator, and draw all sorts of diagrams, turn off the music, the fan and the washingmachine, sit somewhere else and think about it, and finally deduct that I need to use 37 percent of the block of butter. Which still isn't that helpful, and I eyed it just as I would have to begin with. So I cubed up some butter and softened it in my glass loaf pan in my toaster oven (a good idea since I needed to grease the pan but don't have cooking spray). Okay, butter and sugar combined, time for the eggs. I take the eggs out of the carton, and there are small pink stickers of baby chicks hatching out of the eggs on each one...... so i guess these eggs are fertilized? they're bright orange, but no beaks or baby chicken eyes so i guess it's okay. (I could tell they were different when i bought them, but all i could read was that they contained vitamin E, so I just thought they were fortified... and on sale!)

The rest of the ingredients were easy, and I threw my batter into the loaf pan and into the oven. I set it at 175, which i think is about 350, for 1 hour (for some reason the recipe i had stopped when the batter was finished). Half-way through I realized that the "emission" was on "toast" not "yogurt" for the toaster oven, so I switched it, and I think maybe it will be a bit smoother next time. But when finished, it was very delicous. Now wasn't that the most long-winded way of telling you I made banana bread? It certainly felt like a long process.

But, it was so wonderful and home-like to have my apartment filled with the baked goods-specifically-banana-bread smell. Other things I did this weekend: saw Mothman Prophecies in the theaters (didn't care for it), ate Nabe, went cosmic bowling, watched the godfather on video, ate tacos a la brian, drank whiskey a la victoria's kitchen sink (that makes no sense, but I don't want to directly implicate victoria), and picked up some of my photos from kyoto. one notably nice picture of brian.

PS, victoria's limerick is probably best read with her british accent, if you can manage it.

Victoria wrote me a limeric the other day:


There once was a girl called Sarah
Nobody's face could be fairer
When she walked down the street
Men fell at her feet
Oh, that pretty young lady called Sarah.

There once was a tall boy with blond hair
With him Sarah made quite a pair
They both spoke quite queer
For Victoria to hear
Oh that funny young American pair.

So:

She had these rather strange friends
Who played with string and things
When she asked for a pram
Their mouths opened and closed like a clam
Oh, those funny American friends.

They decided to go for a walk
And with the usual problems they could talk
When they climbed up a yama
Sarah met a nice Japanese farmer
So now there are four not three on the walk...

Hello,

This will be brief because I'm going to leave school soon, and I'm a little tired and not feeling well. But, I have a few interesting things to quickly write.

First of all, you should read Brian's blog (http://brianirwin.blogger.com ) if you want a detailed, interesting description of our Kyoto trip. I learned a lot from reading his blog that I didn't know, and I was there! Also, if you click on highlighted words it will take you to pictures of what he's writing about. He's so clever! I almost wrote cleaver!

My day has been so strange. First, I realized I forgot the video of all the family meals, the focus of one of today's lessons, about 15 minutes before the lesson. Luckily, I had another lesson with me that we never did in that particular class (watching a scene from the Misanthrope) and I had the misanthrope dvd, plus the appropriate video cables and worksheets on hand. So I figured it would be okay. But, in front of class I realized that I didn't have the right audio cable with me. So after 10 minutes we got a microphone and amplifier rigged, and it worked with just a bit of feedback.

Then, in my only other class of the day, I was trying get the students to understand what 'university' was in japanese without just telling them, so i drew a campus and i was going to draw stick figures wearing backpacks. unfortunatly, i didn't distiguish which side was the front, so it really looked like stick figures with really large breasts... the teacher and i were cracking up for about 10 minutes, but i erased it before the students really caught on to what we were laughin at.

this morning i went to make hot chocolate, and there was a plastic _spork_ in the hot chocolate mix. kfc is the other big fast food here besides mc. donalds.

Hi all,

You can check out a few pictures at my new home page http://www.geocities.com/sbroshar .

2 things that were very nice in the past few days:

1. Yesterday, I was walking home from school (it was very nice out), and I saw this giant golden retriever sprinting towards me from a block down the opposite side of the street. It's owner was stumbling and running and trying to pull it back, but the dog was too big and energetic. It was causing such a commotion I stopped to watch. The dog dragged its owner across the street, sprinted up to me, and obediently sat in front of me, waiting for me to pet it. It was the cutest thing in the world! It was so nice and soft and had a really big head. I thought it was very cute. The owner was also very nice and seemed proud her dog liked me so much and wanted to speak english to me (the owner not the dog -- isn't my english terrible!). So it was a very nice experience.
This is only a few moments after I passed a woman walking her small, wimpy dog and I thought how much I missed dogs in America, because all the dogs in Japan are small and wimpy.

2. This morning I was waiting for the bus at the station, and across the way I saw this woman in a red coat making these crazy signals with this huge white cloth. The way she moved her body and the way the cloth moved was amazing, and I thought she was signaling with the busses or some deaf person or something. I was very confused. Then I realized she was washing a window. But still it was a nice experience.

That's all for now.
Sarah

Hello,

Last week I had a cold. Not a big deal, but it slowed me down a bit. I had a very relaxing weekend catching up on sleep, going to the gym, seeing a film (Monster's Ball -- at an actual movie theater!!) and reading a book (The last of Mr. Norris, the other story in The Berlin Stories). Going to the movies is kind of a production in Japan-- the only movie theater I know of in Toyama is a 25 minute drive out of the city. And of course it's difficult to figure out which movies are which, because they often change the titles when they release films in Japan (Monster's Ball was called Chocolate, or chyokore-to in katakana). Other options on Saturday where Changing Lanes, 9 days, Mothman Prophecies (considered), and Serendipidy. Road to Perdition is also still playing, but not as late as we were at the theaters. Movies are also really expensive here -- 1800 yen, or 14 dollars a ticket. But for some reason Satuday the tickets only cost 1200... not sure why. Concessions are, on the other hand, quite cheap: they love sets in Japans so you can get M popcorn and a M drink, or M carmel corn and M drink or hotdog and M drink for 500 yen -- a little over 4 dollars. I though the movie was well done but way too dismal for my taste.

I'm freeeeezing right now in the teacher's room. I've worked out that my airconditioner in myapartment also serves as a heater, which is nice because I don't have to use space heaters as much (only when it's really cold). Unfortunatly, the principle at my base school has mandated that heaters will not be used until mid December, so I'm constantly cold. I dread going home and standing by the bus stop of riding my bike (because I've been freezing all day) but I'm always pleasently surprised that it's the same tempurature outside, if not slightly warmer, then what I've been enduring throughout the day (without my coat). Oh yes, I bought a new coat. It's very Japanese, which means it has many layers and part of a dead animal around the hood (but this one's not really a dead animal). Very functional tan denim with a thick inner layer, lots of buttons and zippers and removable things. Very nice. Also bought a Japanese style sweater at the same time (which I'm wearing right now) which has a wonderful amount of material piled around the neck -- it's like wearing a scarf.

I'm sure these details are very boring, but it's what I feel like writing right now, so sorry.

Alright, I don't have too much to say about the trip to Kyoto, except that it was beautiful and amazing and temporarily made me want to become Buddhist. First of all, it was so nice to be in a proper _city_!!! I like Toyama, but it doesn't have that big city feel of Chicago, and I think after living in a small city, I'm definetly ready to move somewhere very urban. We arrived an hour late (trains in Japan are usually on the minute!) at the train station -- one of the most amazing structure I've ever seen. Very metalic structure, with stuff projected on the roof, etc. There was a large escalator, and as you rode it up one the first few levels, you realized it kept going until you were higher than the ceiling out onto an open air roof patio. I'm very bad at describing it now, but it was beautiful and neat and scary. You should all come to Kyoto to see it. And the temples, of course.

So the first day we walked around and saw a bunch of temples. This is what we did the next day also. It's very hard to describe this very well, you just have to see it. And it really is worth seeing. Especially in the fall, when the leaves are gorgeous, and you happen to be on a mountain with high red temples overlooking the sun setting into the city and mountains behind it. I'll try to e-mail my pictures, when I get them.

Other big city pleasures where Starbucks and a large bookstore with a good English language section.

Alright, I've been drinking so much tea to keep warm, that I must now go to the bathroom -- something I kind of dread. If it's cold in the teacher's room, it's 10 degrees colder in the oterai. but at least the toilet seats are heated.

Bye,
Sarah

So things are very up and down right now...

but first I want to correct the spelling error in the last blog: I haven't watched, and have decided not to watch _The Exorcist_. This is actually how I tried to spell it at first, but second guessed myself and after a while gave up.

Monday (last blog entry) became a bad day by the end of it. At 6 in the evening the city supervisor of JETs came by my apartment with an electrician to see what's wrong with my small, cheap vacuum cleaner (provided by the city) that was made in 1990. The two of them sat on my floor and cut the filter into various shapes, then played with a hanger for a long time until they removed a bottle cap from the nozzle. Now it will actually suck stuff up, but only a little bit of stuff. After a half-hour of fishing out the bottle cap, the electrician mentioned that the extension doesn't work for it, and that it would be more economical to buy a new vacuum than a new extension. However, it sucks enough for me to keep my 1990 model, according to my supervisor.

So I put on a move I had rented, I'm sure if I tell you the title you will groan and say "that's supposed to be the worst movie ever made" because that's what happened when I mentioned the title to anyone, english or japanese. I had never heard of it -- Pret a porter -- ready to wear in america? - and thought it wasn't a good movie by any means, but I definetly didn't think it was the worse movie ever made. I can think of a million films I would rather not watch. So anyways, I was in a lethargic place -- near the end of the film, when I got a knock on my door. This guy said he was here to check my water, and I was a little dazed... I tried to read his badge, but there wasn't enough light, and I wasn't sure if I would have been able to make out the kanji anyways. I told him to wait a minute, I was going to call downstairs to Victoria and Brian in case I needed reinforcements, but then thought otherwise -- Japanese people stop by at all times day and night (I've had a fed ex guy pounding at my door and ringing my door bell over and over again at 8am on a sunday, and also a fed ex delivery after 9 at night). So I let him in. He seemed strange because he wasn't wearing a uniform, and he was wearing normal trainers (most of these people wear shoes they can get into/out of faster). I thought he was going to just write down a number from a dial, but he walked over to the sink and asked me for a glass so he could check the water... I was pretty freaked out at this point, so I walked back to the door... After a moment I asked him to leave, pretty sure he wasn't from the water company. He left, and I was really freaked out. Okay -- no one who reads this is allowed to comment that I shouldn't open my door for anyone, shouldn't let anyone in my home, etc., I knew it at the time and I've heard plenty of it this week.

Anyways, I called a teacher from my school to ask if this was really abnormal, as if whether I should call the police, etc. She came over and checked things out, and then called the apartment management company the next day.

So Tuesday, I was at a different school. On the train to school a friend asked me if I'd had my water checked the night before. I told him I got freaked out, and kicked the guy out. My friend told me that he let the guy check his water, and that all of sunshine's water was contaminated, had been for years, and that we were going to get cancer, muscular dystrophy, etc... I thought this was all strange.

When I was finished I came over to Nanbu to see what my teacher had discovered. It was apparant that everyone in the office knew about me letting this guy into the apartment. From the management company, they learned that this guy was trying to sell water purifiers, and that we should beware of similar scams. At this point, they had decided we should contact the police, and we also had to make signs to post in the apartment building that no solicitors are allowed, anyone coming must provide advance written warning, etc. I also got phone numbers of other teachers in my neighborhood, and the next day, my kyoto sensei (v.p.) told me she'd stopped by my apartment building to talk to my neighbors and ask them to look after me. Wow! All very taxing, but also very nice.

Wednesday night I had another stressful moment during my Japanese lesson, when my teacher told me that there was mold growing on one of my floor pillows, and that meant that there's mold in all of the other pillows/blankets/my sofa/tatami, etc. I asked her if I should throw out the 2 floor pillows (normally all 4 are in a pile together) that I had been sleeping with for extra support, and she flipped out "dame dame dame dame dame!!!" ("bad bad bad bad bad!!!") uh oh, she seems to think that I'm going to get really sick. I would like a second opinion, before I throw out all my blankets and pillows... Anyone?... I had thought that the mold was just something that had been spilled on the pillow a year ago, blackish hard stuff on one corner. Little did I know I'm breading GERMS.

Alright. I had a good night last night. I went with Victoria and Brian to buy train tickets to Kyoto for the weekend. yea! We are staying with victoria's friends, so lodging is cheap and we have cool experienced tour guides. After buying the tickets we went to this Italian restaurant I'd been eyeing for the past few months. It was great! A really warm, nice atmosphere, pretty full for a toyama restaurant (3 other tables of people, more than half the place) and good food and wine. It was really nice to go to a warm restaurant and get out of the cold. But that will be the topic of another blog. Maybe after my freezing, rainy weekend I'll write about how miserable it is to be cold ALL THE TIME. As in, I was sitting in the gym today for the school festival, with the entire school, staff and parents, and everyone was shivering. I'll also mention the school festival some time, it was pretty cool.

But that's all for today, class. Goodbye!

At some point this week I'm going to watch the Excersist (i give up, i really tried to spell that word right... that will have to do). I rented it this weekend (in Halloween spirit)... maybe I'll get to it, maybe not. I did another radio show today at lunch, this time I didn't laugh (during the show).

I'm really liking this job. I wouldn't have written that last Friday -- it's really up and down. Last week I wasn't doing much, so I wasn't working very hard at lesson planning or anything. Then I knew I had a lot to do for this week -- 5 classes today (3 new lessons) plus a new lesson Tuesday, 1 for wednesday, and 2 for thursday. Plus an elementary halloween party tomorrow. For my 3rd year lesson today, I was asked to prepare something about cultural differences. I was planning on putting together some video clips I recorded before coming to Japan -- extended family Broshar and Werger meals, b-day celebrations, etc. But last night, I couldn't find the tape anywhere. I combed the entire apartment for several hours... Finally at midnight I found it where it was supposed to be, and where I had looked, sorted, re-arranged 15 million times. So then I was watching this video for an hour or so - no idea what I was going to do with it, when I decided I'd just not plan that lesson and do halloween activities instead. So I went to bed stressed that I hadn't prepared any of my lessons for today, woke up at 6 (4 hours sleep) and came to school early. I got here and my supervisor was sick and since we hadn't really prepared, she cancelled our classes for today. Then my 1st year classes were a piece of cake -- preparing for a shopping game -- and my 3rd year commercial class wasn't actually scheduled for today. So I've been planning the rest of the weeks classes, drinking tea, and laughing with my teachers about how I'll get stressed out about something, and it always turns out fine. I think it's because I like the people I work with, they seem to like me, and everything works out.

So I'm having one of those "I really like the fact that I'm in Japan" days. I think watching the video from home did it to me. It was great to see my family and bits of Chicago, etc., and instead of getting pangs of homesickness I got pangs of "I really want to show my teachers, students, etc. what this is like because it's really sooooo different from things here. It's pretty exciting for now.

Yesterday morning I had an elementary school festival. Yes, at 9 am on a Sunday morning. Cold, rainy. The night before I went out for dinner and to a few bars in Toyama, which was nice (except I find I keep going back to same bars and restaurants... ), so the 9am thing seemed a little ridiculous. it seemed more ridiculous when I was in the packed gymnasium watching 2nd year elementary students sing songs about the 4 seasons (very very cute, of course, just strange that it was a freezing, rainy, sunday at 9:30 am). The music at this school is pretty amazing, though. Skits, costumes, and the best was (a very abreviated) production of the sound of music by the 6th graders -- in amazing 4 part harmony. Then there were games, food, activities, drum groups, art projects, haunted houses, etc. Very interesting, but by 12:30 I called it a day.

The eveing adventure was a road trip to a festival that had happened the night before. We got to the ugly, empty town and decided to find a pizza place we had heard about. We started walking around and it just got bad, weather-wise. I won't go into details.

It is officially cold here. Normal autumn, I think mid-40's. But no central heat. Lots of tea. Soon I'll get out the space heaters (I have 2).

By the way, I bought this stuff that's now my favorite nomimono (beverage) in the world -- macha milk. bascially green tea milk, kind of like green-tea flavored hot chocolate. It's wonderful.

Alright, time to go plan more lessons.

I'm going to Kyoto this weekend, looking forward to getting out of Toyama ken.

I had a good weekend... didn't spend much time in my apartment, which was nice although I would have liked to get some things done.

Friday night was a ken-wide halloween party in a nearby town. It was a great party. They got a really good dj, and the bar/club was good, all you can drink (tanqueray!), everyone in costume. I wasn't too inspired before hand, so I only put about 15 minutes into making my costume (on the train to the party), but it was successful enough (i was the elephant again -- gray hoisery stuffed with packaging peanuts, tied around my neck, tin foil ears, tusks, and tail). Plenty of Japanese seemed to want to take my picture, strangely.

Lunch time, I'll write more later...

Hello. I'm on my third cup of coffee this afternoon. There's something about being underworked that is very exhausting... Coffee is essential to survive. I've only taught an average of 2 classes a day this week due to midterm tests, seminars, etc.

I've got to start writing this blog at night or in the mornings... In the afternoon my brain is so fried.

I've been cooking shrimp creole every night this week. I'm trying to improve my recipe, which is good, but not great. It probably needs more time and ingredients than I have available, however.

My private Japanese lessons are turning out pretty well. They're kind of more than just the Japanese language classes, it seems like unfortunate things happen during them that my teacher gets to help me with. 2 weeks ago, I had a series of prank calls on my cell phone. It's very important that you don't answer the phone if it starts with a certain 3 digits, because it will charge you lots of money, etc. I'm not sure how it works, but basically, I accidently answered it. I haven't yet seen the phone bill.

Then this week I was making us tea and spotted a large _cockroach_ in my sink. I became paralyzed and my teacher was running around asking for something to kill it with, but of course in Japanese. By the time I got her a book it was gone. I had a hard time sleeping that night, and there is now cockroach poisin all over my kitchen.

also cooked s'mores over the gas range. i wonder why i didn't discover this earlier -- you can achieve perfect marshmallows, and have complete control over flame size and heat, and it takes minimal time and effort!

Today at lunch I helped some students with an "english conversation radio show". It was really funny. I had a dialogue with a student about directions, and after every sentance a third student would translate it in Japanese. Then I would say some key phrases and they would repeat. It was pretty difficult, though. For some reason, I thought the whole thing was hilarious -- the dialogue was pretty funny, and the two boys who were reading it with me had a posse of 5 backing them up. We were all sharing the same mic and script, so there was a lot of shuffling. My supervisor told me she could tell I was laughing the whole time, because there were long pauses when I was supposed to be saying something.

Classes are going pretty well. I only taught 2 today, because today is midterm tests... Ah where is my english going???? Anyways, the first class was really fun, and the kids were great. The second was the exact same lesson, but it was terrible because the kids don't really get along... We were playing hot potato (listen to the white stripes and throw around a potato and a bag of questions, music stops and person with questions asks person with potato) and one girl got hit in the head with the potato, for an example. (last week a potato accidentally went out the window)...

My supervisor just asked me about security/surveillance cameras in American schools... I couldn't remember if there are at not, I told her probably some. Any opinions?

I also changed the format since I was getting a few complaints about the scrolling thing (which doesn't happen on my macintosh).
Let me know if it's better.

I taught the 3rd and 5th grade classes at an elementary school 'trick or treat' yesterday, and they loved it. I thought I would really like the elementary school visits, but I like junior high much more. Elementary is difficult because the teachers don't speak _any_ English, and will roughly tell me what they want me to teach. When I come with some activities, they will either tell me (as we walk to class) that the activity won't work, or I just won't have a chance to explain it... So I've got to keep the activites very simple.

But I enjoy the junior high classes more. More organized, disciplined, interesting... some can be pretty fun.

All for now. I haven't been doing much, but my days are full. Go to school, go to the gym, pick up dinner at a grocery store, cook dinner, and it's 9:30. study japanese/plan lessons, go to bed. okay, it does get more interesting than that, but that's the routine.

I'm reading goodbye to berlin by christopher isherwood right now (thank's to victoria's kind b-day present) and enjoying it very much.

later,
sarah

Alright,

I always have plenty of little annecdotes (sp?) to write, but i forget, or do other things instead.

And whatever energy I've had the rest of the day has suddenly disappeared.

Let's see. Uh, I'll write in a bit, when I remember what I've been doing for the past few weeks...

Sarah

Hello,

I'm not very good at writing to this thing... Probably just because I don't have a lot of time at the internet. But I have a few minutes now. So let me take you back a week and a half to talk about horse meat. And other various meats.

I met about 10 people from one of my schools for 'yakiniku' or barbequed meat (as opposed to 'yakitori' which is barbequed chicken). The place was a small (a narrow bar area and a small tatami room with two large tables) and only a block from my apartment. The night started with assorted sashimi, or sliced raw meat. We had three kinds of sashimi -- lean horse meat, fatty horse meat, and horse neck. I really didn't care for the horse neck, but liked the lean horse meat okay. It's kind of hard to talk about liking raw horse meat in retrospect, but when you're eating it it's just like eating raw tuna or something... except it tastes like mammal. Anyways, I was feeling adventurous.

Then came the grilling. (I'm leaving out the various salads, vegetables, beer, wine, and sake because they're not as interesting). Plates of raw meat were placed on the table at intervals, and we grilled the meat ourselves on a little grill in the center of the table. We ate various horse and cow meat which tasted pretty normal, good. The pig's tongue was something I couldn't stand -- the texture was just like eating your tongue -- it did bad things for the imagination. Then a soupy bowl of white-yellow stuff was brought out. I asked -- cow intestines. Next time I wouldn't ask, I told them. So I grilled and ate my fair share of cow intestines which had a managable flavor but terrible texture -- it was like eating rubber. There was no way to chew them, so after a while you just had to give up and swallow. Worse than chewing gum.

After the grilling had subsided, a special plate of raw meat was brought out. I asked, but they were vague. I figured out that it was horse. For some reason, only the women seemed to eat this. The men adamantly refused. I was sitting in between the principle and vice-principle (both men) and asked why they wouldn't eat it if it was 'so good,' but my principle said it was 'private matter' A little confusing. I was eating a slice, strange texture, not much flavor, and my principle decided to volunteer some information -- ' horse is big and long. horse is big and long' at this point I didn't want to acknowlege that I was eating what I thought I was eating, so I just nodded and smiled, and everyone laughed and continued talking Japanese (no one at this dinner party spoke English).

I had another 'enkai' or office party this Saturday for my other school. This one was much tamer. It was at a new hotel restaurant, which was very western. Huge chairs, long tables, cool decorations, high ceilings, it was great. And the food was also great -- real cheese, pasta, steak, salad, wine -- the only other time I've had food this western and comforting in japan was at the english club dinner party, which I'll write about later (it happened over a month ago, so I'm already behind. but there's another one coming up Friday, so you'll hear about it this time).

Last weekend was welcome weekend -- we went to Toga again for a JET party. The party was okay -- it was fun to see so many people I hadn't seen in a while, but otherwise there wasn't much to do besides drinking games... The next day we took a little hike, but we were all feeling a little sick and tired so we turned around after an hour or so. We can't climb every mountain.

This weekend I relaxed around Toyama. Brian has tonselitis (sp) so he had to make a hospital trip Saturday. I've joined the gym-part of the sports club, so I spent a few hours there yesterday. It's been a great way for me to work on Japanese conversation -- the staff are really friendly and I usually talk to a few of them for 15 minutes or so. Yesterday I had a long conversation about Bjork and Dancer in the Dark.

I'm getting ready to re-decorate my apartment -- rug, curtains, comforter, etc., but am still doing a little planning. It really needs some work.

Oh, one more thing.

On Monday's, I'm doing a class of advanced 3rd year students -- their elective class. I kind of talked to the teacher about doing video projects -- and somehow I've kind of turned the class into my design, which I really liked. So today, I found a bunch of commercials and transcribed them. They broke into groups and worked on the translations. Next week they'll teach each other the meanings/content of the commercials, and when everyone's solid, we'll watch them. After studying some American commercials/culture for a month or so, they'll start writing their own. We'll video them in the winter, and by the end of school they'll have some polished English commercials. I'm pretty excited, and will probably have a class or 2 about making movies, stuff like that. It's fun and laid back. Other classes are going well, I think the teachers all like me because I work pretty hard and come up with some cool activities.

Alright, see you later.
Let me know how your falls are going!
PS -- and if you want to tape some prime-time TV (such as sit-coms) and not edit out the commercials, and send them to me, I would love it...

Sarah

Hello,

This week has been really busy -- I've pretty much finished my self-introduction lessons and planning new lessons has taken a lot of time and energy. Now that I'm in the swing of things, I teach more frequently. Monday, Wednesdays and Friday's I teach 4-5 classes at Nanbu (my base school). Tuesday mornings I teach two classes at Oizumi and then two more at elementary school (Shimizumachi or Nishidenjigata). And Thursdays I have 4 classes at Oizumi. Teaching is fun. The planning is interesting and it's nice to sit and work with a cup of coffee, but being in the classroom is the best part of this job. The students behavior in the classroom is similar to in an American JH, I think... a few sleep, a few will never pay attention, a few have all the answers, etc. Some classes are better behaved, more shy, more obnoxious, etc., than other. The students are much less show-off-y, though. It can be hard to get them to participate, and they are very shy in the classroom. The students are amazingly disciplined in school functions, though. At assemblies, students sit silently on the gym floor in perfect rows. I couldn't imagine a few hundred American JH students listening to the principle talk for 15 minutes... Same thing today -- it's the Toyama city-wide sports day, where 6th and 7th graders have club sports tournaments at various schools and 8th graders take exams. The city-wide Batminton tournament is at Nanbu, and there are several hundred JH boys behaving perfectly in the gymnasium. When they're not playing, they're watching other teams. It's very strange that they can have this huge event and it's no big deal to pull off -- no extra supervision, etc.

I'm not sure if I already mentioned this, but the students here have one homeroom class and never leave that room (except for gym, etc.). There are 10 minutes in between classes so the teachers have enough time to go back to the teachers' room and have a cup of coffee. Then, when the bell rings, the teachers get up from their desks and make their way to the classrooms. Very strange.

I had a pretty crazy day yesterday -- Wednesday I was really busy planning lessons, teaching 5 classes, eating lunch with students, studying Japanese, and having a private Japanese lesson, and then more lesson planning. When I finally got to bed, I was so stressed that I couldn't sleep most of the night. Thursday morning I showed up at school, fully planning to utilize my 1st and second free periods to finish preparing for 3rd/4th period classes -- actually type the handouts, make photocopies, etc. I was exhausted, but thought that 2 planning periods and plenty of coffee would help me. The bell for first period rang, and the 1st year teacher came to me and reminded me we were teaching together today. "5th and 6th period, right?" Was my reply. "Yes, 5th and 6th period. Let's go now." "Uh... after lunch, right?" "No, today it is 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, lunch, 2nd, 1st" "What!!!!" So I stumbled to class, without my stickers or stamps or photocopies, and the teacher went back to the teachers room for a few things while I was left unprepared with a room full of 1st years who spoke absolutely no English. It turned out fine. Then, in the 10 minutes between 1st and 2nd periods, I frantically came up with a new lesson plan for 2nd years, since the one I had planned needed at least 30 minutes to gather the materials... it was a little crazy, and I was especially cranky after not having slept the night before.

I talked with one of the teachers and she agreed to tell me next time they decide to change the schedule (before the class begins!)

Well, that's all for now. I'm going back to Toga this weekend for a JET welcome party. It should be fun. I'm working on a video right now to send home, my apartment, Toyama, etc. So, if you're lucky enough to see my parents, you might be able to see it. I've also bought a plane ticket home for x-mas. Travelling crossed my mind, but I probably would have gone alone rather than my other options, and there's no place like home for the holidays...

Sarah

Monday, September 23


I’m currently driving back from Taki-cho (village) in Shimane-ken (prefecture). We left Friday around 6:30 in the evening. Friday was a long day—home from work around 5, then had to get the rental car, pack, etc. We thought it would be around a 6-hour drive to Shimane, but actually arrived after 3am, quite delirious. There were no problems or hold-ups, just a long drive and a tiny engine. We got the cheapest rental car, a Toyota Platz, which has 4 doors and plenty of headroom, a small trunk and a tiny bit of leg room for back seat passengers.
Now in the car we’re having a discussion about defining ‘classic rock’, and how we define it. Victoria is constantly surprised/annoyed/amused at how Brian and I seem to rank, classify, and categorize everything… It must be an American trait, or possibly because Brian and I are particularly anal.
So, our drive Friday was fun, I drove the first and third shifts, which was the majority of the driving, and Brian drove the middle shift. By the time we were in Shimane, we were all incredibly delirious, but it was a fun caffeinated, loud music sort of delirious. Night driving in Japan is very exciting – there was a lot of road construction on the small highways in Shimane, and road construction involves hundreds of flashing colored lights, cones, trucks, signs, mechanical men waving their arms (the first one we saw had Victoria and I screaming hysterically – we didn’t realize it was a dummy from a distance), and also a ton of construction workers in full suits waving light sabers. Very entertaining.
Saturday we spent the afternoon at the beach. Paul (Brian’s younger brother – my age—also a first year JET) lives in a gigantic house overlooking his tiny town and the ocean. It was gorgeous, and the beach was wonderful. Perfect sized waves, the water was warm, but not too warm, the sand was pretty, the air was nice. We spent a lot of time in the water. That evening we went to a JET dinner in a nearby city. The JET situation in Shimane is a lot different than the situation in Toyama… There weren’t as many JETs, and there were more families and married couples (although there are quite a few couples in Toyama). We were sitting with a Japanese family at dinner, and the 9year old daughter and I got along quite well. The girls taught Victoria and I Japanese hand-clap games, and we drew pictures, etc. It was really fun. Yesterday was low-key—we visited the oldest Shinto shrine in Japan, which was neat, but I don’t know too much about Shinto-ism yet, so I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I could have…
Anyways, it’s a beautiful day, it’s fun to be typing on my computer in the car, but I’m getting a little car sick.

----------------------------------------------------

Here's a compilation of my past group e-mails. I've edited out the personal information (but not the typos!). Please contact me through e-mail or telepathy if you want to get in touch.
--------------------------------------------------

Sat, 3 Aug 2002 00:40:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Hello, I’m going to Japan…
Body:

... in less than 12 hours!

As some (hopefully most) of you know, I'm going to Japan for at least a year to assistant teach
English at two public junior high schools in Toyama City, Toyama, Japan. Toyama is 3 hours west
of Tokyo (by train) on the coast of the sea of Japan, and is a nice-sized city of about 330,000
people. I will be able to bike to the beach for an afternoon, or take a train 1/2 hour to the
surrounding mountains for hiking or skiing.

Tomorrow I'm flying to Tokyo for several days of orientation, then I'm flying to Toyama. I have
an appartment all set up for me in Toyama (on the 6th floor!) and I hear it's across the street
from a health club with a pool, so I'm very excited.

My contact info:

Sarah Broshar
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Toyama-shi, Toyama 930-0010
JAPAN

I'll be e-mailing the developments of my journey, so please stay tuned and keep in touch!

Sarah

Tue, 6 Aug 2002 03:42:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Japan
Body:

things i love;
the sky pool at the hotel
kareoke bars
bowing
japanese kids

things that confuse me;
toilets
bowing
shoes
japanese keyboards

things i don`t like;
jet lag
so many elevator rides
the humidity
staying in the hotel for 2 days straight.

i`m going to toyama tomorrow.

more news later,
sarah

Thu, 8 Aug 2002 19:49:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: News from Toyama
Body:

hello all,

so this will be a real letter because i`m effectively over my jet lag and relatively settled.

Japan is crazy! Everyone here speaks a different lauguage! And I can more or less get by, which
is really fun.

My apartment is great, the biggest and nicest of my apartment building. It is really small at
first, but I`ll get used to living in a compact space. Basic layout: walk in, there`s a little
stoop where you take off your shoes, a washing machine, and a toilet room, all about 6 foot square
maybe. Then you cross in through a door and into the kitchen, which is much better than what I
was expecting: I have two burners, a really nice large sink and counter thing that`s all metal,
nice just because it`s so big. There`s a tiny fridge which is fine, because the APA giant
shopping center, with both a grocery store and a natural foods store is right across the street.
Also a rice cooker, squre fairly large toaster oven. Across is the bathtub/sink, and the shower
is the entire room. Then the main room has my bed, built in cabinets, two bookshelves and a stero
cabinet w/tv--that`s about 12` long and 10` wide maybe. Actually more long than it is wide. Then
a cool Japanese sliding screen door, wood with translucent squares, into a 6 tatami room, with a
low table and a japanese style couch on the floor. Then out two sliding glass doors to a small
porch with a table, a plant, and a wonderful view of the city and the mountains, which look very
close (I`m on the 6th floor so I have a great view).

The first night I went to a festival in a nearby town on the ocean - the tatemon festival. It was
so cool! There were about 8 sailboat-floats... This will be kind of hard to explain... The
floats are made of wood and are shaped like sailboats with sails made of lanterns - 60 meters
high, and then long swaying things haning from the top, with lights. They weigh over 100 tons,
and require 100 strong young people dressed in traditional happi to pull them through the streets
-- no wheels, just a wooden type sled. I got to pull one a little bit! Then the men hold on the
ropes from the top of the sails and everyone pushes it around in a circle, and the guys swing out
and int he air ont he ropes. Lots of people were there, and it was fun. And I got a free
t-shirt!

Yesterday I went to school for a couple hours. No one who was there spoke English, so I got to
speak a lot of broken Japanese, but it was fun and I think they appreciated the effort (most of
the teachers are on vacation - the english teacher won:t be back till the 20th!)

Last night we went to a yakitori place with a bunch of area ALTs. there must be around 30 of us
in toyama city, and there are over 10 in my aparmtent building.

this morning was a brief contract-signing ceremony with the superintendant of schools, then me and
this other girl didn:t have to go back to work so we:re exploring toyama a bit.

anyways, it:s really fun, really beautiful and interesting, and i think will be a little
challenging...

for a short list*

things i:ve liked the past few days;

- in order to get an automatic car wash the car is parked and the building moves!
- japanese communication
- how everything here is clean and bright

things that confuse me+
- riding a bike
- getting around toyama (it:s been difficult to get hands on a map)

things i don:t like+
i thought i had mice in my apartment -- the bottom of one of my cubbards had wires and plastic
chewed through, and fuzzy nests, then i learned my predecessor had had a gerbil but it got lost
and escaped.

next week i have a three day conference, and the last day am climbing mount tateyama, the 2nd
highest mountain in japan and only an hour or so away (in our prefecture!) two days later i:m
climbing mount fuji! i:m also driving to mount fuji, which is going to be a scary experience
itself.


i promise to try to improve my japanese keyboard skills soon, but until then thank:s for bearing
with me.


Sarah

Wed, 14 Aug 2002 17:37:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: New contact info
Body:

Hello everyone,

I got a new fancy Japanese cell phone with e-mail and everything...

Here`s the number:

From the US - 011 81 xxxxxxxxxx

From Japan - xxxxxxxxxxx

And if you want me to read an urgent brief e-mail or feel like I need to see a low-rez JPEG
picture asap, you can e-mail my phone at xxxxxxxx

I might go to Kanazawa today, a nearby city, for exploring. Also, am still planning to do Mount
Fuji this weekend, and I`m officially driving. I`m joining the health club accross the street,
which has really nice facilities, including saunas, massage, baths, nice pool, etc. I think it
will come in very handy after climbing Mount Fuji.

One of the teachers took me to a flower design class the other day -- really georgeous exotic
flowers in a really cool design -- there might be pictures to come. Otherwise, things have been
nice but low key... It`s been really hot and sunny but then will rain for an hour or so each day
-- the rain makes the humidity worse.

I`m over my jet lag and waking up at 6am has once again become extremely difficult, but it`s nice
going to school and talking with the teachers.

Take care,
Sarah

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 19:35:05 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: mount fuji h.e.l.l. ...........
Body:

Hello all,

My Mt. Fuji trip was a little bit of a nightmare, but at times was pretty cool...

I won`t go into details of the drive over, but just say that the 6-hour trip took 12 hours... My
legs of the driving went smoothly -- driving in Japan on the wrong side of the road is fun!

So we got a late start climbing the mountain-- we started at 10pm, only 2 hours behind schedule.

The mountain was really neat -- actually it`s a volcano... we could see the city lights way below
and pretty mist and a few trees. The climbing was definetly tough -- it varied between steep
dirt/rock slope at a zig zag and large rocks you had to use hands and knees and feet to get up. I
thought the slope parts were harder because it was tough to keep up the energy for every step --
plus it was easy to trip or twist in the uneven surface. The large rocks were more fun and
climbing them was more like a monkey game than work. At various points there were stations where
we could use a toilet (a hole in the ground) or buy a drink or food. We started climbing in a big
group, and Victoria (England) and Brian (North Carolina) and I had plans to stick together the
whole time. After a while, though, Brian and I were climbing at a pretty fast pace so we got
ahead of everyone else.

What I wore: it was dark, obviously, so I had bought a headlamp the day before which came in very
very handy. Sometimes it was better to climb in the dark, though, because the beam of light
became mezmorizing. At the same hiking store the day before Victoria and I bought matching pants
that were also very nice -- we zipped off the legs and wore shorts in the car when it was hot, and
also they were waterproof and lightweight. I switched between a tank top, t-shirt, windsurfing
long sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, cotton long sleeved shirt, and a raincoat, all in various
combinations. I carried my backpack with snacks and water and money and bandaids and talc powder
and other toilettries. I also wore 2 layers of sock and talced my feet because I had some pretty
serious blisters from a few days before. Luckily blisters were no problem! I also wore my
glasses, and then took them off and wore nothing when it started raining.

Anyways, to get to the only really interesting part of the story:

After a few hours it started raining, misting, which was expected. But the rain got really really
bad, and it got really really cold and windy. The higher we got, the worse it got. Which to
Brian made sense, but I for some reason thought it would clear up at the top. Plus, you had to
pay for shelter at the various stations up the mountain, so I kept pushing us to keep climbing.
We were wet to the bone, our bags and everything soaked through, and freezing... At the last
station before the top we met 2 other Americans - non jets - and joined forces since we`d seemed
to lost all traces of the other 28 members of our group. We thought the top was only 30 min.
away, but the last leg was the worst part of the climb... There was a really slow-moving line,
and the wind was really strong and dangerous, the rain was torrential, and feet hand and legs were
completely numb. For a while we sang songs to take our mind off, but it didn`t last long. We
couldn`t see the top of the mountain, just that the line kept zigging and never seemed to end.
The fact that it was moving slowly was fine, taking one step and then waiting was all we could
physically manage. We didn`t know what to expect at the top -- only a weather tower was maked on
the map, but we thought that even the shelter of the other climbers hudled together would be
better than being on the side of the mountain. At this point I was shocked that so many people
climbed mt. fuji and lived to tell...

We were at the point of collapsing when we made it to the top at 3:15 -- luckily there was a hut
and we waited with a crowd until it opened at 3:30. We found another jet friend who`d gotten lost
from her other friends, and we were all in pretty rough shape. When the hut opened, we quickly
got a seat near a little coal thing, and took off our shoes and tried to get warm. Ate ramen and
hot tea, and tried to get strenght to eventually go down. We were worried that we were going to
get kicked out to make room for the next group of freezing climbers, but that never happened...
shortly after we left the last station they closed the trail to the top of the mountain because it
was too dangerous -- we had been climbing through a typhoon.

Eventually, the sun rose, but I only ran out of the hut for a second to glance at the red sliver
in the sky (you couldn`t actually see the sun because of the storm). Quickly ran back in...
Brian was having stomach problems and eventually threw up, so we had the excuse to wait for a few
hours for him to recover and the weather to die down before we climbed down. We also found one
other JET girl who had made it to the top and was in the other room from us. The climb down was
really difficult but because at this point it wasn`t raining, we were very happy and loopy. I
even had enough fake energy at the bottom 1.8 km to race on of the other americans we were with --
we both actually ran about half of it and I won because his flashlight dropped and broke near the
end... Got to the bottom at 9am.

The drive home was okay... I got 20 min. of rest in the car before my shift to drive... Got home
at 8pm and immedietly went to bed.

Will have pictures eventually -- I`ve finished 2 rolls now!

Take care,
Sarah

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 01:51:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: food, daily life, etc.
Body:

Hello,

Amy asked me about food, so I thought I would be intrusive and e-mail everyone about it...

First of all, I eat far more donoughts than ever before... Mr. Donuts is the cool hang-out place
in downtown Toyama, free coffee refills, hang out there for hours, and the donoughts are pretty
good. All of the breads here are really sweet and sugary or buttery, but I did find one loaf of
whole wheat bread at the `supa` (grocery). ((it`s time for me to start injecting nihongo words
into these e-mails, sorry!))

For breakfast-
I didn`t eat as much breakfast in the US, but it`s essential here because I get up at 6:30 every
morning... I`m always starving by noon, so i have to have something pretty substantial. So
usually cereal or toast and nashi, or apple pear if i have one. maybe a banana. sometime pb\j.

Lunch -- usually eaten out, usually cheap japanese food. yesterday i had a bento at the city hall
cafeteria during a conference-- it had a lot of assorted foods, rice, fishes, beens, vegetables,
miso soup, etc. I`ve liked almost everything I`ve tried so far. Sometimes I`ll have a sandwich
from a conbini - convenience store - or sushi or whatever. i`ll eat school lunches when that
comes around.

Dinner -- I`ve been a lot more inspired to cook. Last week I cooked for about 12 people, which is
quite a feat in my tiny apartment... I made a vinegared rice thing with shrimp and shitake
mushrooms and lotus root and a ton of tempura. very dangerous! the other night i experimented
with grated daikon (like a 3-foot carrot-shaped raddish) and tomatoes and vinegar/oil for a really
good salad. So I`ve liked cooking japanese foods and might take a cooking class to get me
familiar with more ingredients/techniques, etc. Eating out is either cheap japanese noodles,
bentos, sometimes italian food, once we tried a restaurant which seemed french themed, but the
food was definetly strange japanese. There`s a pizza delivery place in the first floor of my
apartment building which I`ve tried once and loved -- totally unexpected. there are only 2
safe/normal pizzas on the menu -- pepperoni/mushroom/onion or chicken/bacon/mushroom/onion/herb
stuff. i had the second. the rest have mayonaise on them, and fishes, corn, tuna, etc.

The coffee here is at times surprisingly good. A little more expensive for cappucinos, lattes,
and the cafes aren`t for take-out.

I`ve had fast food once or twice -- today we were in a rush and mcdonald`s was the only option.
the mcdonald`s here is much better than the us -- really really hot and more fresh. but i`ve only
tried a hamburger, not chicken salad or anything. and mos burger has a wierd taco thing on indian
bread which was edible and kind of good.

The only food I miss from home is wine. It`s really expensive to buy wine here, except for the
really sweet plum wine. So I mostly drink beer, which is very unvarried and unoriginal. But the
cans are bigger...

Good cheese is also harder to come by -- I had a creamy camabert (sp?) that was okay, but most
everything here is processed.

There are 3 foreign foods stores in Toyama that stock things like chocolate, pasta products, wine,
teddy grahams, etc., but these are pretty expensive.

So, I think I`ve been keeping pretty healthy -- when I first got here I lost a bit of weight
because of culture shock/not eating enough, etc., but then had another wave where I ate tons of
oreos/chips/soda/junk food. now am back to normal eating, i think all this mountain climbing and
biking inspires me to keep a fairly healthy diet.

I have no handle on how much things cost here. the fruit tends to be more expensive... eating
out is between 4 and 9 dollars for lunch or dinner -- pretty cheap! groceries are a bit
expensive, though... maybe close to 50 dollars for the big dinner i prepared.

i think all the vending machines suck up my money the most -- 100-150 yen for soda, coffee, tea
(hot or cold!). the soda`s are usually limited to coke and grape fanta, and the machines are
mostly coffee/tea.

alright, i think that covers it.

Sarah

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 01:56:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: quick shot of my apartment
Body:

(taken with my cell phone so it`s bad)

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 01:06:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: finally some pictures
Body:

I'll try not to flood your inboxes, but I've composited a few pics together courtesy of Brian's
digital camera...

Last Thursday I climbed Mt. Tateyama, which was a lot of fun. A tough climb -- lots of loose
rocks, large rocks, and really steep, but it was brief (only 2 hours) and we had perfect weather.
I went to a shinto shrine at the top of the mountain, but I don't think those pic's are in this
collection.

This weekend, had a great weekend, and saw a lot of Toyama prefecture... Went to Tonami Friday
night, but missed a connecting train so had dinner in Takaoka on the way. Tonami was really
fun--about 40 jets got together and drank a lot and did kareoke--which is soooo fun over here.
Then Saturday we went to Toga, a tiny village in the mountains, at least an hour away from any
substantial civilazation, to go to a theater festival (that we got free tickets to!) The next
morning we did the fish festival described in the photo and visited a meditation center (no pics,
sorry). It was wonderful and gorgeous, and I can't wait for snow so I can go snowboarding in
these beautiful mountains!

Sorry my English is so poor--I'm brain-dead from being at the office all day (it's 5pm, what am I
still doing here? I could have left hours ago!) Plus whatever brain I have left is in Japanese
mode...

Now how about you send me pictures of you???

Sarah


Wed, 11 Sep 2002 22:19:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: School and social
Body:

((!!Warning, the contents of this e-mail are extremely long!! May need to be read in several
sittings!!)

Hello! How are you? (I am fine, thank you, and you?) I am very good! My name is Sarah! What
is your name?! (takemmmmm summmmmm.) Nice to meet you! (shake hands) (...nice to meet you, too)

The job is monotonous in the sense that I'm doing the same self-introduction lessons for 18
different junior high classes, but it's fun because of their different personalities and ability
levels. And it's neat to single people out. I make everyone ask me a simple question i've
printed out and illustrated, such as "Do you like Japanese food?" or "Who do you like better, Brad
Pitt or Tom Cruise?" (definetly not Tom Cruise). So far it's going pretty well. There was an
awkward moment in a class today when I was encouraging a girl to tell me her name... "What is your
name? My name is Sarah, what is your name...?..." until the teacher finally told me this student
can't speak... ah, okay. The students are most interested in my dog, Chelsea (kawaii! or cute!),
my age (now 22!), and whether or not I have a boyfriend.

So backtracking, since it's been a while since I've written...

School started! 2 weeks ago, I gave several speeches in Japanese then English to my two junior
high schools. Last Monday morning I cycled to school in my suit, in spite of the 99 degree
weather, and spoke in front of the entire school. When I got to school, I was walking around,
talking with teachers and students, and sat down to feel an unusual amount of legs touching the
chair. I felt, and had ripped my suit skirt all the way up the seam in the back while riding my
bike. Ahh! I told the vice principle, and one of the english teachers gave me a pair of pants to
wear while the Office Lady (that's both her title and job description...) mended the skirt before
the ceremony.

Speaking in front of several hundred kids in Japanese really wasn't as scarry as it sounds... I
can't explain why it's easy, it just is. They're interested in who you are, what you look like,
what you have to say, so you give them your best Japanese and have fun with the fact that they
can't understand you're English.

After a similar ceremony (wearing pants) at my second school on Tuesday, I had to visit an
elementary school for my first day of teaching, plus a 15 minute speech about myself and interests
in Japanese, to the entire school... It was pretty fun. No one at this particular school speaks
any English, so most of my lessons that day involved a bit of Japanese...

Last weekend was sports day -- a really difficult concept to explain. Let's see. The entire
school is organized into 3 or 4 teams, depending on the size of the schools. I was on the byakko
team, or white tigers, at both schools. These teams make up traditional cheers (cheerleading) and
spend hours every day at school during summer vacation perfecting their routines. On sports day,
the teams compete in running, relays, and other silly events. My favorite is kibasen, where a boy
is hoisted on the shoulders of 3 others, and a bunch of these groups run around in a circle and
the boys on top have to take each others headbands. Very violent and exciting.

My elementary school visit this past Tuesday was really fun -- the elementary kids are really
energetic and they have an amazing ability for vocab. I pulled out a flashcard and they all yell
"Giraffe!" ... What? I wish my junior high kids would do that, let alone be able to pronounce
the word 'giraffe'.

So, typical school day: Wake up between 6 and 6:30. shower, watch news or listen to music, bike
to school (20-30 minutes, depending on school). Arrive at school between 8 and 8:30. Then
there's 4 periods, lunch, and 2 periods. My schedule changes daily. Yesterday I was scheduled to
teach periods 1-5, but I luckily got #4 off -- it was exhausting! Today I only taught 3rd and
4th. So now, after lunch, I'm sitting and writing you this e-mail! I probably should be planning
a lesson or something, but it's okay.

I get along with everyone at the offices. There are three english teachers at my base school, and
my supervisor speaks very very good english, so that is nice. the english teacher at the smaller
school is very odd. she doesn't get along with anyone in the office, and she's very blunt,
abrupt, and rude. but i get along with her fine. i don't team teach with her since she's the
only english teacher and has 6 different classes... she's very busy, even too busy to tell me
when and what i'm teaching. the other teachers at this school are very nice and welcoming,
although they don't speak english. it is a little difficult team teaching with a non-english
speaker since i don't want to use any japanese in the classroom, and often she can't translate
what i'm saying, so the students miss out on somethings...

after both sports days, there were office parties, or enkai. (my writing is getting worse and
worse!) these were at banquet rooms at nice hotels, and there was a lot of really really good
japanese food and alcohol. I love Japanese dining--it is perfectly suited to my eating habits.
They serve you a ton of different little tiny things so I can try everything! For instance, at
one enkai there was a seafood pasta, beef/vegetable type stew thing, smoked salmon, cheese, fish,
egg, japanese pickles for the first course. other courses included meet, sushi, sashimi, soups,
noodle dishes, just pieces of fish, chicken, or meet, salads, random little cups filled with sea
urchin, crab, whatever, fruit seed type things for desert, etc. plus beer, wine, whiskey, tea,
orange juice, etc. kind of ridiculous, but really fun!



Part 2 to come in a minute, i need to stretch.

sarah

I’m currently driving back from Taki-cho (village) in Shimane-ken (prefecture). We left Friday around 6:30 in the evening. Friday was a long day—home from work around 5, then had to get the rental car, pack, etc. We thought it would be around a 6-hour drive to Shimane, but actually arrived after 3am, quite delirious. There were no problems or hold-ups, just a long drive and a tiny engine. We got the cheapest rental car, a Toyota Platz, which has 4 doors and plenty of headroom, a small trunk and a tiny bit of leg room for back seat passengers.
Now in the car we’re having a discussion about defining ‘classic rock�E and how we define it. Victoria is constantly surprised/annoyed/amused at how Brian and I seem to rank, classify, and categorize everything�E It must be an American trait, or possibly because Brian and I are particularly anal.
So, our drive Friday was fun, I drove the first and third shifts, which was the majority of the driving, and Brian drove the middle shift. By the time we were in Shimane, we were all incredibly delirious, but it was a fun caffeinated, loud music sort of delirious. Night driving in Japan is very exciting �Ethere was a lot of road construction on the small highways in Shimane, and road construction involves hundreds of flashing colored lights, cones, trucks, signs, mechanical men waving their arms (the first one we saw had Victoria and I screaming hysterically �Ewe didn’t realize it was a dummy from a distance), and also a ton of construction workers in full suits waving light sabers. Very entertaining.
Saturday we spent the afternoon at the beach. Paul (Brian’s younger brother �Emy age—also a first year JET) lives in a gigantic house overlooking his tiny town and the ocean. It was gorgeous, and the beach was wonderful. Perfect sized waves, the water was warm, but not too warm, the sand was pretty, the air was nice. We spent a lot of time in the water. That evening we went to a JET dinner in a nearby city. The JET situation in Shimane is a lot different than the situation in Toyama�E There weren’t as many JETs, and there were more families and married couples (although there are quite a few couples in Toyama). We were sitting with a Japanese family at dinner, and the 9year old daughter and I got along quite well. The girls taught Victoria and I Japanese hand-clap games, and we drew pictures, etc. It was really fun. Yesterday was low-key—we visited the oldest Shinto shrine in Japan, which was neat, but I don’t know too much about Shinto-ism yet, so I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I could have�E
Anyways, it’s a beautiful day, it’s fun to be typing on my computer in the car, but I’m getting a little car sick.