Sunday was our friend, Rachel’s birthday, but we were out of town, and she had to do something for school, so we decided to celebrate it on Monday. Kim sent us a funfetti cake mix in her Halloween package, so we told Rachel and Krista to come over on Monday night, and we’d have a Halloween/birthday party and make the cake. I gave Rachel and Krista a ride home from the competition. Krista went back home to get a quick run in, and Rachel and I went for a walk around Yunomae while Ian made dinner. We ran into several students on their way home, and we could tell that they were absolutely dying to know who Rachel was. It’s really funny, and other ALTs have said the same thing. Since all the ALTs in Kuma gun (pronounced “goon”…it’s like a county) lives in a little town, the townspeople know their own ALT. However, if they see a foreigner with me, all of the sudden they want to know who it is, where he/she is from, are they my family?, what’s their favorite color?, etc, etc, etc. On Tuesday, I was grilled time and time again by students asking who my friend was with me on Monday night, lol.
I mentioned a few blogs ago how we were allowing kids in our neighborhood to trick-or-treat. I had a friend translate what I wanted to say, made a flyer, printed it, and put the flyer in each neighbor’s mailbox. I said that they could trick-or-treat from 6PM-9PM. There are about twelve houses in our little rice paddy neighborhood, but not all of them have kids. Ian was terrified that we’d have masses of children begging for candy outside our door. I reassured him that it wouldn’t happen since we only gave out flyers to a few people. However, at the end of last week, some of my junior high kids were asking about it. I was starting to get a bit worried that word traveled fast and Ian’s nightmare was possible. Rachel and I were almost back from our walk when Ian called me and told me to hurry home. When I asked why, he said that he just handed out candy to about thirty junior high students, and it wasn’t even 6PM yet. Yikes! I rushed home and changed into my witch costume.
I’ve never had trick-or-treaters. The Wurth household is situation back off the highway, and the road is too dangerous for trick-or-treaters anyway. When I was at Murray, I always went to parties on Halloween, and last year at the apartment we didn’t have a single trick-or-treater. Therefore, I was VERY excited about trick-or-treaters this year. Every time there was a knock at the door, I was probably just as excited as the kids. The first hour was the busiest. In the flyer, I said that they didn’t have to dress up, but a lot of them did. It was precious! I gave them candy, placed a Halloween sticker on their cheek, and let them select one of those cheap plastic bat or spider rings or vampire teeth that Kim had sent in her package. The teeth went quickly. 
I took pictures of some of the trick-or-treaters, which are already on facebook. It was cute when the parents walked over with the kids because they wanted to take a video and get picture of me giving out candy. For these kids, this might be the only time in their lives that they get to do something like this. I’m not sure that all of the kids understood exactly what trick-or-treating is. One group of kids gave us candy bags. We graciously accepted them and then gave them handfuls of candy, lol. I noticed that a couple of kids double dipped and came back a second time. One group simply knocked on the door and waited for me to give them candy. When I told them to say “trick-or-treat,” they looked terrified, but I gave them candy anyway. I had a wonderful, wonderful time with the trick-or-treaters, and I’m definitely doing that again next year!
Yesterday, I had to go to work early since someone was going to pick up my car to have the shaken done. Shaken is a mandatory procedure in Japan every two years on cars. Basically, I have to have my car inspected at a shop, and they tell me if it’s still “road worthy.” If it’s not, I have to fix whatever they tell me is wrong with it. Yesterday, they took my car and gave me a loaner car. It’s equally as crappy as ours but maybe a little newer. It takes a few days for them to complete the shaken procedure. My supervisor told me that it could cost up to 10,000 yen (about $1,200), but I’ve also heard that most of the time it’s a couple hundred dollars. I’m hoping that it’s only a couple hundred!
I went to nursery school and junior high yesterday. At the nursery school, we played “duck, duck, goose” but without the duck or goose. Instead it was “hippo, hippo, zebra,” “dog, dog, pig,” and “monkey, monkey, kangaroo.” To do it this way increases their vocabulary and keeps their interest for longer. I also pawned off several plastic rings on the kids. I had an entire bowl of rings left, so I’ve been handing them out right and left to students, and they LOVE it! After nursery school, I spent the rest of the day at the junior high. I might have opened a can of worms with the trick-or-treating thing because now I feel like students think that any day they can come up and beg for candy. 
Yikes. I didn’t have any classes yesterday because the students were taking tests. I did get to interact with them at break time, though. I’ve got a group of 3rd grade girls that like to play cards, so on Friday we played Old Maid, and yesterday I taught them Spoons…kinda. I don’t have enough spoons at home to bring, so instead I use chopsticks. There’s no shortage of chopsticks in Japan! They really enjoy playing cards with me and I with them. Yesterday, I got off of work at 4PM…..and I was able to leave at 4PM. It was wonderful. I don’t have to stay and practice English for the competition anymore! Yay!
Despite the fact that there are about a million little pieces of leftover candy sitting around the house, I have decided that now would be a good time to better myself. I’m going to make time to both work out and study Japanese for thirty minutes every day. I need to start working out. I don’t have a lot of motivation, but I know that if I just get up and out of the house, I can do it. That’s the hard part. I also need to start hard core studying Japanese. I feel like my life here could be one million times easier if I knew Japanese. Japanese is not one of those languages that you can just “pick up.” I’ve heard it’s one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn. I know it sounds weird, but I’ve gotten to a point where it’s normal for me to not understand anyone. Japanese to me is just background noise. I live in my own little unable-to-understand bubble, which is very dangerous. When I come back to the States, I’m going to be blown away by being able to understand everyone! Yesterday was day one for my plan, and I did it. Ian and I worked out a little together. We pushed the table out of the way and made each other do push ups, squats, and other inside exercises. After that, I did one lesson on Rosetta Stone and one lesson in my JET Japanese self-learning class.
I think that’s a good note to end on.
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