Hey gang. Sorry to not post lately. It's been a pretty busy week. Monday night, I was exhausted from the weekend's festivities and had a bad headache, so I went to bed early. Tuesday night, we went to Hitoyoshi with my supervisor to buy phones, and it was 8:30 before we got back, so by the time we cooked and ate dinner, showered, and did other things, it was time for bed. Fortunately, I have time tonight to write for your reading pleasure. :)
On Tuesday, I went to my nursery schools. I have three in Yunomae. The kids there are PRECIOUS! The first nursery school I went to I just met the teachers. The kids there seem really young, like 3 or 4ish, so I'm really not sure how I'm going to play English games with them. The second school was more fun. I gave a little self introduction and taught colors. We then played a game called "fruits basket". All of the kids sit in a circle and have a piece of paper with a color on it. One person is in the middle and calls a color, for example: blue. Everyone with blue gets up and runs to another person's seat. The person without a seat becomes the person in the middle. It's really fun for kids of all ages!! At the third school, the kids were older, so they repeated everything I said. I would say, "I'm from Kentucky." They would say, "I'm from Kentucky." lol. They had no idea what that meant, but it was so cute that they repeated everything I said! :) When I left that school, I made the mistake of giving one of the boys a high five. Suddenly, ALL of the kids swarmed me and wanted a high five. They were hitting anything hand-related.....arm, elbow, whatever. lol. Those kids really didn't want me to leave. They kept saying goodbye and walked me all the way to the gate saying, "bye-bye!"
When I got back to the BOE, I had an interview with the Yunomae newspaper. Good gosh! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to conduct an interview in a language that you don't speak?? It's probably going to be printed that Melissa Reed likes Adolf Hitler or something as silly b/c I have no idea what I was agreeing to! I felt sorry for the reporter. He was having difficulty understanding me, and he had no idea how to ask the questions. haha! Life's an adventure. After the interview, he wanted a picture for the paper. Honestly, why do I always have to take a picture when I look the worst??? On my picture for the alien registration card, I look like a hot mess. I had to get a picture on the first full day Ian was here, so I was in everyday clothes. I wore my Twilight shirt that says, "Hey Edward! Wanna neck?" and has an arrow pointing toward the neck. And yesterday, I looked like I had been running around with sweaty kids all morning....probably b/c I had!
Last night was a bad night for me. :( I kinda fell into a aggravated/depressed/angry/sad mood. As soon as I got off of work, I picked up Ian, and my supervisor took us to Hitoyoshi to buy cell phones. Hitoyoshi is about the distance and time from Paducah to Murray. We left a little after 4:30, and got there around 5:20ish. We knew we wanted to buy iphones for their smartness. Seriously, the translator alone on those phones makes them worth it! There are three major cell phone companies in our area, Soft Bank, AU, and Docomo. Soft Bank is the only one that carries the iphone. We had budgeted 60,000 yen for two phones and a plan. That's about $800. More than enough, right? My supervisor talked to the sales rep, and she said that it would be 63,000 yen for ONE phone!!! She asked if we wanted to shop elsewhere. I said yes. She took us to AU. I knew I didn't want to get a phone there. I've heard a LOT of negative things about AU and how their plans seem cheaper, but there are a lot of hidden fees. We looked there, and Ian and I discussed what we wanted to do. I said why not just get one iphone and split it? We went back to Soft Bank. It just got worse. We were trying to ask if we could buy a Japanese SIM card and put that in our American iphones to make them work, trying to decide to get one or two phones, trying not to spend an arm and a leg on cell phones, and I felt like I had all of this stress building up. Couple that with the fact that I was signing my name to paperwork that I couldn't read. I had no idea what my plan consisted of and what the contract was about. Usually you want to know that kind of stuff, you know?? They got an English speaker on the customer service line, and she explained some things to me, but there's NO way I could remember EVERYTHING she told me! She did tell me that one phone would cost 40,000, not 63,000, and they would divide the cost between months on our two year plan, so we decided to get two iphones. We were there until about 8:00 PM (they closed at 7:00 PM). I felt bad for all parties involved. My supervisor would get home very late, the store employees were being held up, and we were supposed to have supper with a friend. Finally, we had our phones after a stressful 4 hours! As it turns out, we will be paying less for more features than we would in the States!
Once we got home, I sank into a funk. I kept thinking about how things would be sooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier in the States. I rarely understand what's going on at work, and the language barrier is something that I deal with on a daily basis. Also, situations like not being able to understand the cell phone plan are common in my Japanese life. All of this hit me, and I kept thinking, "What the HECK am I doing here?!?!?!?!?!" I laid down and had a good cry time. :( Ian was like, "What's wrong?!?!?" I know it's not all sunshine and rainbows in Japan. There are going to be ups and downs, and last night was a down night. Don't worry, today was an up day. I feel like this blog is long enough on its own, but I'll blog about today tomorrow. :)
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