LOL I Might Be in Trouble (and a few other thoughts)

So, I’ve been so busy (and sorta lazy I’ll admit) that I am nowhere near where I should be on that blanket!!  I just have this week left!!!  I’m really gonna have to buckle down and get to work this week.  It’s not that hard to connect the squares together, and I have just under 10 squares left to finish preparing to join.  I need to really work it tonight though.  Good thing I have some leftovers and instant ramen at home.  I think that’s going to be my dinner tonight!

I’ve found that I should probably be more careful with some of the things I buy at the market.  LOL I have a few items in my fridge that I haven’t used, but they’re kind of odds and ends too.  I should probably make a better attempt at planning out my meals for the week, and buying only what I need.  That and I want to find more recipes that I can use.

Right now I’m contemplating some purchases to add a few things to my apartment.  I know I need to go buy at least another set, maybe two, of bed linen.  They weren’t that expensive though so it shouldn’t be a problem.  I am also contemplating buying some new pillows for the bed as well.  The ones I have right now are kinda hard, and look very old.  I also need to buy a thicker futon for the bed (something that will hopefully help me get by in the colder months with my heating blanket on low).  If I have time this weekend, I might attempt to do so in town.  I do want to check the local Jutendo as well to see what they might have.  I know they have garden and outdoor stuff, but maybe they will also have a couple of the other things I’m looking for.  I found a sort of area rug in the closet, but the bottom is super slippery to use in my bedroom, and it’s actually a little too big for the area that I’m looking at buying it for.

Another big-ish purchase I’m looking into making is a single portable burner with all the extras!  I would need gas cans for it, an earthenware pot, serving ladle, and either a sukiyaki pot, or grill plate.  Aside from just being able to cook with it, here in the winter months it would be perfect to be able to enjoy nabe!  The first time I tried it was at one of the temples here after Saturday English class.  It was so good!  It was sooo good to eat the super-hot soup and veggies to fight of the cold of the night!  I’d imagine if I spent time cutting the extra vegetables as well, it would be a super quick dinner another night later in the week!  I’m not sure if it was just the way they served it to us, or what, but I don’t even think I’d want side dishes!  Just a nice big bowl of meatballs or salmon, vegetables, and either konyaku noodles or some other kind of noodle like udon.

The last really big item that is going to take some consideration is… a kotatsu table.  I think I have enough space for one in my living room, but there are so many things to consider as well.  The table will cost me close to ¥8000 by itself, and then there is the cover and floor mat to consider as well (almost the same price as the table together).  While I can use the table itself without the cover and such after, I only have one chair for it so a second for guests would be mismatched (although I think I have some floor cushions in the top of the closet), and then there is guest sleeping space to consider.  I think I’d still have room for it, but I’d have to move it out of the way to make room for my guest air mattress (something else I need to buy linen for).  For a lot of this stuff, I’ve been considering getting a Japanese Amazon Prime account.  It is waaaay cheaper than back home (approx. $30 instead of the near $100 it is in America), and a lot of what I’m considering buying would be able to be delivered to my door without me wasting the gas to drive all the way to Matsue or Izumo.  I know winter is fast approaching, so I’ll have to make these purchases soon.  Not to mention I’d probably want to bring my kotatsu table home if I could!  The problem would be that American outlets send out waaay more power than here in Japan.  I’d have to find some way to either get an adaptor or something that would be able to help me manage the power flow out of the outlet.  Could you imagine though?  A kotatsu in my house!  I’d get a little apartment, and instead of a coffee table, I’d have the kotatsu at the center.  Of course, I’d also want to find a way to bring the little burner too, that or I’d have to look into finding one that I could buy back home and use.

What do I do with free time?

As I mentioned before, there really isn’t all that much to do in this little town I live in.  So how to I fill my free time?

If I am home from work early enough, then I will most likely walk to the supermarket close to my apartment and pick up something to make for dinner, though one of these nights I might stop in at PicoPico (a local hamburger/pizza/pasta restaurant that is on my way to the supermarket) for dinner instead of cooking it myself.  As long as the weather stays nice (I dunno how well I’d be able to stand walking in the snow to the market lol) it’s a nice little break at the end of the day.  Again, if I get out early, and I might also take the opportunity to stop by the bank to withdraw money for the weekend.  I may not need much, but my bank’s ATM is not open on the weekend, and if I go after hours I could be charged as well even though it is my own bank’s ATM.  Not sure why, but that’s just how it goes here…

From time to time, I will also clean up the apartment.  Not a hardcore break out the sponge, bucket, gloves, and cleaner type of cleaning!  To be honest, sometimes when I get home I just kind of toss things to the floor and let them be, so every now and then I’ll pick them up and put things where they belong.  It will all just depend sometimes on how I feel when I get home.

Once dinner and dishes are done there are a few things that I consider doing.  First and foremost would be a call from family via Skype.  If someone is up (it is usually pretty early in the morning back home by this time), I might call and chat about what my day was like, how things are going, etc.  While I am eating dinner I will usually watch something on my PC Tablet (either the limited Netflix selection, or perhaps a movie from my small collection on my iTunes account), and this might carry on into the night.  In the future I might invest in a tiny TV (there is a satellite set up on the balcony left by a previous JET), but depending on how much it costs, I may or may not use it…  I also have my Nintendo 3DS that I brought with me.  I might turn on some music, and play for a bit.

More recently, I bought some yarn online and had it shipped to my apartment so that I could start work on a blanket.  It’s not really for myself for warmth, it’s for a festival that will be coming up in November.  They have this sort of craft festival, and the blanket will be my contribution.  I’m not sure exactly what the procedure for it will be (is it just going to be on display? will I be trying to sell it?) but I guess I will find out as the day gets closer.  For now I’m working on it little by little and hoping that I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew with the pattern I selected. LOL!

One thing that I have noticed, is that the chairs in my apartment can be pretty tough to sit in for an extended period of time.  I may invest in some chair cushions soon!

The last thing to consider depends on what kind of free time I have, and that is sightseeing/trips!  If it is the weekend, I may venture into town (either Matsue or Izumo) and either do some shopping for the apartment, or if I feel like it, just make the trip out to unwind and spend time with my fellow JET.  It’s nice to familiarize myself with what is close to me, and I want to be able to navigate my way around a little bit and only using the GPS as little as possible.  I know it’s going to probably take time though.  The other option here is if it is an extended holiday.  In that case, I might plan a trip to go sightsee somewhere.  There are a couple of places that I’d like to go, and I know that the other JET in town would most likely be interested in going.  A small part of me though is also a little excited at the idea of possibly going on a trip by myself.  It would certainly cost more money, but if possible I’d like to give it a shot!  I’d like to go and see what Osaka is like, and re-visit Kyoto as well.  I think there is also the Universal Studios in Japan at Osaka as well.  I know that Disneyland is in Tokyo, but I don’t know if I’d be able to ever afford to visit either.  It’d be something interesting to look into I think.

Adventures to Matsue

So, as you’d expect from most small towns, there really isn’t much here in terms of shopping.  Sure there is the necessities (supermarket, drugstore, some mom and pop businesses, and a few clothing type boutiques that I most likely wouldn’t find anything in my size anyway), but if you’re looking for a specialty item, or something bigger in terms of entertainment you need to make a trip out to one of the nearby cities.

They are equal distance apart, but depending on which direction you head, you will either end up in Izumo or Matsue.

By now I’ve visited both, but I’ve spent more time going to Matsue than Izumo.  The first time I went was with my fellow JET, supervisor, and a worker from the town office that acted as a translator.  The main purpose of the trip was for my fellow JET and me to go and buy things that we might need for furnishing our apartments.  I got to visit some various home goods stores, a cute boutique, and the Daiso (100¥ shop, their version of a Dollar Store, but better in my opinion).

The following weekend I ventured out again with my fellow JET (who had been to Matsue more than I have) to try and get practice driving to Matsue.  By then I had gone a week in my apartment, and was better able to figure out some of the things that I was still missing.  It was a fun adventure for us, as we tried looking up stores and such that we needed to go to.  We even stopped in a little café for a sort of midday snack.  With the exception of a sports store that evaded us, we were pretty much able to find what we were looking for without too much trouble.

The next few times I’ve gone have either been with my supervisor (I went to church, and she helped me find a wireless router for my apartment), and a few trips on my own to try and get the hang of driving to town.  I know it’s going to take some time, I’m already starting to get accustomed to driving around my own side of town a little, but hopefully I’ll be a fast learner.  As of right now I still rely on the Google Maps app on my phone to get me to and from town.  The way there is starting to become familiar, but it will take me a while longer to get use to driving around Matsue on my own.  One of my missions is to be able to go back to town and find that cute boutique we went to the first time!  It had a lot of cute bags, home decorations, and most importantly for me, a nice price for the socks I like to use with my work shoes.  Either that, or I need to find something that I can put on my socks to make them non slip on the heels.  It’s really annoying, but the ones from home have that annoying habit of sliding down my ankle and bunching up under my foot. 

I also went on my own the other day to attend a Speech Contest that some of my Junior High students were participating in.  I had been helping them prepare after school, and I wanted to attend in order to support them.  They worked hard, but unfortunately didn’t place.  Still, it was interesting to attend and see other students recite in English.  It was also during this trip that I was able to do a little more exploring on my own.  I was able to park and shop around the mall a little bit, and had my first taste of a McDonalds since arriving in Japan this time around (my study abroad group a few years ago also wanted to stop and see what McDonalds here in Japan is like).  It kind of made me realize how annoying it is that the window on my car’s driver’s side doesn’t work properly.  I had to get down and go into the restaurant to order. 

All in all I enjoy getting to know both my town and Matsue.  I’m determined to make it out to town completely on my own, and can’t wait to see how my next adventure in Matsue will unfold.

First Week at School

Ok, so first and foremost, there are quite a few things about Japanese schools that are way different from what you might be use to (for sure it is way different from American schools).

There are the obvious differences.  Practically every school has a school uniform that the students wear.  It kind of seems like the junior high requires them to wear it more than the elementary schools here though.  Though for the elementary schools I teach at here, some of them have a very small population, so that might have something to do with it too.  Then there is the fact that you have to take off your shoes before you step up into the building, and switch to either slippers or a pair of inside shoes (and it’s kind of cool cause some of them have cubbies with my name on them J ).  There are some major differences too.

While it generally starts at around the same time (technically a bit later since the first thing in the morning are staff and student meetings), it can get out wayyyy later depending on if you are a part of a club or not.  If you are, you can anticipate being at school for much longer!  While in America there is usually only about an hour to maybe an hour and a half for club activities, here in Japan they can easily run until about 6 or 7 in the evening.   That doesn’t even include the extra time some students have for cram school in the evening!  We have it easier by far in America in that aspect.  They also go to school year round, with a short summer vacation (about a month I believe), as well as some small breaks for national holidays and I think in between semesters.

I also found it a little interesting that here it is considered part of the child’s education to learn manners, and etiquette.  Each child is taught how to give thanks before and after the meal at lunch (they even all say it together), brush their teeth after eating, and show proper respect to their teachers in how they speak (though granted, like in America, just cause they were taught that doesn’t mean they stick with it lol).  Even lunch is interesting.  Here, everyone gets served the exact same thing.  You aren’t allowed to bring anything from home for lunch until you are in high school.  You are also expected to finish your plate (with the exception being allergies I would think, though I don’t think I’ve run into anyone with that kind of problem).  This is followed by everyone brushing their teeth together.  I really haven’t had any problems with it so far, I find it is all really good actually!  My only problem comes to the fact that at every lunch they drink milk!  Normally I would suck it up and just drink it (I’ve sort of gotten over my aversion to tomato and lightly with shrimp this way), but it is more because I can’t digest it well.  Milk always ends up making me feel sick if I drink too much of it, and I’ve apparently been this way ever since I was a baby (my parents had to get a special kind of formula for me because I would keep spitting it up).  Small amounts are ok, and if it is cooked into something (essentially any way that it is not just by itself) I am usually okay with it.  I just do feel a little bad that I can’t drink it.  That aside, I’m also not that much of a fan of the taste either.

The one thing that can get pretty tiring really quickly is the amount of times you have to introduce yourself!  This of course is a sort of case by case thing.  Some JETs (lol I think on rare occasions) will only be assigned to one or two schools.  Others will have a surprisingly large amount of schools to go to.  I myself had to give my own sort of self-introduction to 7 schools (and this was actually doubled as I had to do it once for the staff and then another for the students), and at least 3 or so departments in the Board of Education building.  There were even a few of the schools where I addressed the whole student body (in this small town that isn’t very much in each school), and then again later to the English classes.  At the junior high I actually had to do so for at least 4 different classes.  This also usually meant that for at least the first week of school I was essentially repeating the same lesson over and over with each new group of students.

While all the students are usually on the shy side (lol I think the junior high kids the most to be honest), the elementary kids are so cute and very energetic!  One of my favorite times is at one of the smaller schools (lol population of maybe 14 or so students), where a group of 2^nd graders come up to me and ask me to join them for the end of the day after my lesson.  They usually go to finish their homework in the library, and then after that they pretty much have free time to themselves.  It is a wonderful end to the day!

My First Week at Work (sort of)

I keep putting off writing a new entry every night, but I think it was understandable that at first my time here in Japan would be one big whirlwind at the start.

So here are a few brief things about my literal current situation.  In between classes (and unless you are allowed, or invited to sit in on other classes) you get to sit in the staff room at your desk.  Being an assistant, and not yet fully trusted by some of my teachers, this can be a VERY boring time.  This is what I’m doing right now.  I’ve finished giving my lesson for the day, so until lunch I have pretty much nothing else to do.  But why waste this time?  Instead, if I have the time and I can, I will be trying to write out some of my blog entries.  At least it will give me something to do and give the appearance that I am working to my co-workers.  LOL one of the advantages to being the only fluent English speaker in the office I suppose is that it will just look like I am typing something up, not many will be able to fully understand what exactly I am writing.

What I really wanted to reflect on during this post was what my first week here in Japan was like.

Since I was a late upgrade, that means I missed most of the nice long orientations in Tokyo.  After I landed and was gathered together with some other late arrival JETs we were then taken to the same hotel orientation was at, but for only two nights.  Our one day in Tokyo was for a major crash course orientation session, and then the next morning we would depart ways to our designated towns/cities.  For me that meant a bus ride to the second airport in Tokyo (Hanaeda), and then an hour and a half or so flight to Izumo, followed by an hour drive to my small town.  There was a Shimane Prefecture representative to guide me along my trip to Izumo, and then at that airport I was met by my supervisor and another worker from the town office that was kind of my translator.  I didn’t have too much time to myself at first since there was sooo much to take care of!

During the weekend I was taken on trips to the larger town of Matsue for supplies that may be missing from my apartment, set up my cellphone contract, and car insurance.  I was also shown to a local supermarket that I could buy food for the weekend at (which is actually a short walk from my apartment, so yay!) The rest of the week was also packed full of various appointments, and showing me around town a little bit.  During the week, I was officially starting work at the Board of Education Office, but through the week I had various meetings with people and traveled about town.  A couple of the days had time dedicated to my supervisor driving me around town and showing me how to get to the various schools.  This also gave me the opportunity to briefly meet the staff and give a short self-introduction to them.  It was also during this week that I had an appointment to meet with the mayor of the town!  There was a brief ceremony in his office where I was presented with my official contract for the school year (Definitely something to frame!).  This did mean though, that the rest of the day while I was in the office I had to once again make myself look busy.  This included making lists of things I needed still for the house, practicing writing my self-introduction to my future students, and whatever else I could scribble.  At least there was something to do every day to break up the long hours of “working” at my desk, and every day my supervisor took the other JET and me to eat out at these really good restaurants!  I also had to go get my bank account set up during the weekday, and I got my inkan (personal seal) officially registered.

During this first week as well (and actually even a little bit longer) I also didn’t have access to my internet connection.  It was already set up, but the PC tablet I brought with me only had USB ports, so I didn’t have anything to connect it to.  This meant that my evening activities were pretty much limited to the iTunes movies that I already had saved on my external hard drive.  Though this wasn’t always a bad thing, there were times that I was pretty tired when I got home anyway, so I was fine with it.

One of the exciting things that happened my first week being in town was that I was right on time for the next festival!  There was all kinds of yummy food booths, some that were merchant stalls with various things to buy, and the highlight was by far the beautiful fireworks display!

All in all a pretty good start to my year here I think!

More late night blogging

It's a little odd, laying here in my room for the last time.  These past couple of days I've been hit with odd fits of nervousness.  While it is not ideal, this has also led me to refrain from eating in fear I might throw it up.  I honestly wasn't expecting to feel this way until after I arrived in Japan (the same thing happened when I went study abroad for a couple of weeks one summer).  I think part of it comes from the fact that I will be living on my own and very far away from home for a significant amount of time for the first time in my life.  And then, almost as suddenly, it goes away leaving behind a slight rumble in my stomach from the lack of food.

I know that I'm going to have a blast, and adjust to my new life soon enough though.  I've wanted this kind of experience for a very long time already.  It's just slightly annoying to feel this way when in my mind I'm all ready for this adventure.  Lol I guess it's a classic case of the heart going against the brain.

Sorry that I don't have much to write about this time.  Gonna keep this one on the short side so I can try to get some sleep before my early day tomorrow.

Countdown Continues!

It's crazy to think that it's getting closer and closer to my departure date!  I just received my passport back in the mail today with my visa for Japan.  I'm now 12 days away from my flight, and I keep running through my mind a list of the different things I need to make sure I pack.

Aside from thinking of what kind of lessons I can plan, I've been having fun dreaming up all kinds of information about my new life.  Most importantly I've been dreaming up what my daily life is going to be like, and what kind of furnishings I will be getting.  I'd like to find things to make my new little apartment ready to receive guests.  I'll have to look for some linen, at least one futon, and possibly a day bed/couch that would fit in my living room.  I'm also really looking forward to finding the little furnishings as well.  Things like dishware, and other home furnishings.  Oh!  I'm also looking forward to finding a quilt to use with my kotatsu table!

I've also been getting my wardrobe together, fitting in as much as I can for both warm and cold weather.  I think I'll find little in my size as I can be bigger than most Japanese people.  LOL!  One thing that I will most likely have to find when I get there will be things like winter jackets.  I can't wait til I can explore the area and do some shopping!