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