Pumpkin treats and Mr. Miyagi-ing

This past weekend was an experiment.  We are having our Thanksgiving dinner on November 23rd (the day after Thanksgiving) over here, and I agreed to make pumpkin pies for it.  Good and great.  The only downside is that Japan doesn’t seem to have cans of pumpkin lining the grocery shelves this time of year like grocery stores in States do.  Actually, they don’t have the orange vegetable that we would consider pumpkin at all.  They have a smaller, denser, green gourd that they call pumpkin (it’s actually acorn squash).  Ian managed to find a couple of real pumpkins at Costco in Fukuoka back in October and got them with making pumpkin pie in mind.

I researched online how to make a pumpkin pie from scratch.  I stumbled across a WONDERFUL website that gave tons of helpful hints and tips….even for people living abroad!    The greater part of my Saturday afternoon was dedicated to baking delicious pumpkin treats.  After I steamed and peeled the skin from the pumpkin slices, I pureed it until it was completely smooth (below, right).  Then I mixed in the other ingredients.  The only other ingredients that I couldn’t find in Japan were evaporated milk and allspice.  I was able to make my own evaporated milk on the stove and substituted additional cloves for the allspice.  I also had to make my own pie crust…..which really wasn’t that big of a deal because I’ve never actually bought a pie crust…..I’ve always make my own!

 

After I put the pie in the oven, I had to figure out what to do with the leftover pie filling.  One of the tips on the website was to throw it into the rice cooker for one cycle, and it would make a pumpkin pudding.  Yum!    I had just about a cup of pumpkin puree leftover, and another suggestion was to make pumpkin muffins by placing a marshmallow in muffin tins and covering it with the puree.  The final thing I made was roasted pumpkin seeds.  I saved the seeds from the pumpkin, mixed them up with olive oil, salt, pepper, a little garlic, and slid them in the oven for ten minutes.  It was early evening before I finally finished everything, but we definitely had a feast of pumpkin treats that night!  I was pleasantly surprised with the way the pie turned out (below, left).  It was perfect!  I do believe that from now on (even with the convenience of a can of pumpkin) I will make my Thanksgiving pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin. 

 

Breaking news: In case you didn’t already see the Facebook pictures, Ian shaved his beard. (He had some fun with the process as shown below.)  *gasp!*  Yes, it’s true.  He does it occasionally to start anew.  He says that the hair starts to irritate his skin, so he shaves it all off to get rid of it.  Let me tell you that after having the beard for so long and being used to seeing his beared face, it’s SO WEIRD to see him clean shaven!  I used to think that I NEVER wanted him to grow a beard, but now I NEVER want him to shave it!!  He looks like a little baby face boy without the beard!  He agrees with me that his face just looks better with a beard.  Plus, that’s his token trait in Japan….he’s Beardface!  I showed some of my kids at lunch the other day a picture of clean shaven Ian, and they were in shock (and then started giggling).    Plus our American friends have also done double takes.  Melissa B. said that she barely recognized him right after he shaved.  Luckily for Ian, his beard grows at an exponential rate.  We were both laughing because only a few hours after he shaved, he already had 5 o’clock shadow. 

 

This week at the JHS, I have had exactly ONE English class.  That’s right.  In three and a half days, I’ve had a total of ONE.  Why, you ask? This weekend is the culture festival at the JHS, so the majority of the days’ class periods have been dedicated to practices and prep for that.  It has certainly given me plenty of time for things that I usually put on the back burner: ie, blog-writing and TEFL course-doing.  Thanks to the lack of classes this week, I actually finished my TEFL class, and now all I have to do is take the final test!  It’s an online/open book test, and once I complete that (and hopefully score a 75% or above) I will be TEFL certified!  Hurray!  I’m planning to take that test either next Sunday or the following Sunday.

Speaking of the cultural festival……it’s a collection of skits, dances, speeches, and performances done mostly by the kids.  However, all of the teachers are singing “We Are the World” together.    The past couple of nights, Ian and I have been going to an hour long practice at night to practice and help others learn the words.  Each teacher has his or her own section to solo, and Ian and I were paired together to have the longest solo part.  This makes me both excited and terrified.  I’m happy because they trust us enough to have such a large part, but at the same time I’m terrified to solo that much in front of the entire school and part of the town!!    We’ll see how this goes……

On Wednesday at my ES I observed something rather funny.  There were a couple of flies floating around at the lunch table, and the kids were trying to catch them.  It wasn’t just willy-nilly catching, either.  It was a very calculated Mr. Miyagi-fly-in-the-chopsticks sort of way.  It literally reminded me of a cat stalking its prey.  I watched one girl sneak up and pounce on a fly the way a cat would a bird, and SHE CAUGHT IT!  She opened her hand and out flew a fly!!  I couldn’t believe it!  The only thing that could have made that better is if her last name was Miyagi.  Alas!  I thought that Mr. Miyagi with the chopsticks was a rarity, but apparently that’s a thing in Japan….catching flies.  For the rest of the lunch period I watched one kid after another wait for a fly to land and then sneak up on it.  I secretly referred to this action as “Mr. Miyagi-ing.” 

That’s all for now!  I’ll have plenty of time later to write another blog and definitely have more to tell….including about the COLD weather we now have in Kuma-gun.  Ugh!!  Winter is NOT welcomed here!!

Uncomfortable conversations…

Last week, I got into a bit of trouble about my time card.  I gave my supervisor my October time card at the beginning of November, and she emailed me and said that she had checked it, and I was “late” a couple of days.  I knew that I hadn’t been late, so I asked her to explain.  She said that I had clocked in at 8:35AM (the time I am required to be at school) and was late.  While I knew that it was customary in Japan to arrive at work 5-10 minutes before your actual shift, I never knew that I was going to be considered “late” for arriving ON TIME.      Someone please explain this to me!  I usually do clock in a few minutes beforehand, but I guess those days I didn’t.  Here’s the kicker: the clock in the office that I use for my time card is five minutes fast.  Every other clock in the school is normal, but that ONE clock is five minutes fast.  If I clock in at 8:35, the actual time is 8:30.  Even though I’m there five minutes early (like a good little Japanese employee), according to my time card, I’m not.  My supervisor told me that I need to get to work five minutes BEFORE I’m supposed to be there and should be clocking in at that time.  Even though I’m not technically supposed to be at work until 8:35, she wants me to clock in at 8:30…….which is actually 8:25, meaning that I now have to arrive at work ten minutes before I’m actually supposed to be there.  Blarg.  I know that I shouldn’t complain about this because I’m very fortunate to have such a great job, but little things like this get under my skin.  I always stay a couple of minutes after my clock out time, and if you added up my total number of work hours, I’m positive that it would exceed the thirty-five hours I’m required to work each week.  Plus, I didn’t clock out until 5:20 (a whole hour later than normal) the day of the English speech competition because that’s what time we got back to Yunomae.  However, I get chastised for clocking in ON TIME…..  Sometimes I will never understand Japan…..

Anyway, onto a happier subject.  I was extremely giddy about some of my kids and the things they did last week.  My two third grade girls who I helped with the speech contest gave me the SWEETEST thank you card!  One of the girls caught me outside the library at break time and asked me to wait there for a second.  She went and brought back her contest partner and together they gave me the thank you card.    It was SO SWEET and appreciated!  It said:

Dear Ms. Melissa,

Thank you for teaching us last time.  You are a good teacher.  Sweets are very good!  [I gave them a candy bag for participating in the contest.]  We love you! 

It was just so sweet and so unexpected!  It’s things like that that make me love the individuals from my third grade.    Every day in my classes, we play hot potato as a warm up game.  I try to tailor the questions to something in reference to pop culture or something like “Are you a monkey?” to get their attention and make them laugh.  I think I mentioned in a couple of blogs back that two of my third grade girls confessed their love of One Direction to me.  I made sure that I threw in a One Direction question during our morning hot potato warm up game, and you should have seen those girls light up!!    As soon as they heard “One Direction,” both looked at each other and squealed (like teenage girls do).  The final cute thing that made me feel great was that three of my third grade girls came up to me after class.  They caught me in the hallway and had their textbooks in hand, flipping through and asking every question that they could find. 

“What….are….you….doing…..now?”  “Are….you….going….to….the….library….tomorrow?”  “What….is…your….favorite….food?”   

I was so proud of them for trying so hard.  Plus, approaching me like that definitely took a lot of courage! 

Ironically I also have a funny story from my third grade class at the elementary school.  Last Wednesday we went over animals (dog, cat, frog, elephant, etc) in class.  When I hung up the pig card, one of the girls in the first row said, “Oishi so!” (Looks delicious!)  I had to stifle my laughter because it was hilarious!!!

All week last week at the JHS there was a group of tree trimmers.  There is quite a lot of bush landscaping around the JHS, and they spent the entire week perfectly manicuring the bushes and rounding off the evergreen trees to make them look like perfect mounds of green.  It didn’t surprise me that it took them all week to complete the task.  Japanese gardens are very precise and manicured.  Think of a zen garden and how EVERY rock has its place, every twig has its distinct length.  Yes, everything definitely is trimmed or sculpted to perfection in a Japanese garden.  On the downside the sounds of the tree trimmers could be heard throughout the school for the entirety of the week.  I could hear the weed eaters and hedge trimmers in every classroom and could watch the trimmers meticulously sculpt a bush from the teacher’s room.

After the election last week, I got into QUITE the discussion with two of my co-workers.  We were the only three in the teacher’s room on Thursday afternoon, and they started asking me about the election.  “Did you get to vote this year?  Who did you vote for?  Are you happy with the results?  Why are so many Americans upset?”  It was totally cool UNTIL the subject of Okinawa was brought up.   

Back story on Okinawa:  A LOT of bad things happened to the locals there during the war when the Americans conquered, and many Japanese still harbor ill will for that.  Fast forward a few decades….after most of Japan was rebuilt, Okinawa continued to be the BIG military hub of Japan.  There are several bases around Japan, but Okinawa definitely has the most military of any other prefecture in Japan.  Many Japanese believe that the American troops need to leave Japan.  They still see the troops as the “conquering forces” and feel like they need to leave ASAP.  I can see both sides of this issue because when we were in Okinawa, it was definitely less like Japan and more like America.  There was gum on the sidewalks, trash in the streets, and Okinawa has the highest crime rate of all Japanese prefectures.  It’s the one place in Japan where I haven’t felt 100% safe.  Not only that, but the military in Okinawa are often rude to the locals.  Whenever we went to shops or restaurants, the clerks or workers would always say things like “You’re not military, are you?”  When we said no, we asked them how they could tell.  They told us that most military don’t bother to learn Japanese and seem to have a more arrogant attitude about them whereas we actually tried to use Japanese and would say “excuse me” if we bumped into anyone.  Bottom line: There are many, MANY Japanese who don’t like the troops and want them to leave.  HOWEVER, if the troops left, two things would happen.  a) Okinawa’s economy would tank.  The economy is based on two things: tourism and military.  Without the military, the island wouldn’t be able to support itself.  b) Some other country like China or North Korea would gladly try to take over Japan.  There is a deep, DEEP hatred between those countries and Japan.  As is now, they won’t mess with Japan because they know that the American troops are here.  However, if the military left……..

Okay, so back to the teacher’s room last Thursday….. my JTE asked me how I felt about the military in Japan.  I AUTOMATICALLY knew I was in deep doo-doo because there was no way I could correctly answer that question.  If I said that it was good, I risked the possibility of them disagreeing with me.  If I said that I wasn’t for it, I would be lying.    I finally said that I thought that it was OK.  My JTE recoiled a bit, so I asked him how he felt about it.  He said, “Many Japanese do not like.  Many Japanese want them to leave.”  …..meaning that HE doesn’t like the military and HE wishes that they would leave.  *insert cricket noises*  There was an awkward pause, but thankfully it was then time for me to go home.  I was glad!        

My finally story of this blog is about a lady who I randomly met.  I took off my recycling the other day.  We have a recycling center in town where we can just drop off our stuff.  As I was finishing up, a car pulled up and a lady got out to drop off her own recycling.  When she saw me, she seemed kind of surprised.  I greeted her and dropped off the last of my recycling.  When I went to get back on my bike, I noticed that she was still staring at me.  It wasn’t like she was being rude, but she was just curious.  We had the following conversation (in Japanese, of course):

Lady: Hey….so…..where are you from?

Me: I’m from America.  From Kentucky.

Lady: Kentucky……Oh!  Like KFC!

Me: Yeah. 

Lady: So…….what are you doing here?

Me: I’m the ALT.

Lady: The what?

Me: The ALT.  The English teacher.  I work at the JHS and ES.

Lady: Really?  How long have you lived here?

Me: Since August a year ago.

Lady: Really?  Where do you live?  Do you like Japan?

Me: Oh, yes!  I live over there [I pointed in the general direction of my neighborhood.] by the JHS.  I like Japan, Kumamoto, Yunomae, the inaka.  I like it all!

It totally blew me away that this lady had NEVER even heard of me!  I’ve been here for a year and a half, been in the town paper a couple of times, ride my bike through town all the time, but she had NEVER heard of/seen me.  WHERE DID THIS WOMAN COME FROM?!?! 

Anyway, that’s all for now.  Stay tuned for more fun blogs! 

Baby names

Before the rumor mills start going, NO, I’M NOT PREGNANT.  However, it will happen one day.  Ian and I were bored last night and discussing back and forth what our children could be called.  We came to the consensus on both first names of boys and girls: William for a boy, Elizabeth for a girl.  (Wow, could we get anymore British?! ) 

William is both Ian’s and my dad’s name, so I feel like if we didn’t name a potential future son that, it wouldn’t seem right.  My dad goes by Willie or Will, and Ian’s dad goes by Will.  Here’s the most adorable part: we’ll call him Lil Will.      How cute is that?!?  (Bonus!  If he decides to be a rapper later on in life, he’s already got his name!)  Both Ian and I have a grandmother named Elizabeth, and I quite fancy that name myself.  No nicknames, either….no Betsy, Liz, Eliza, Beth, Lizzy, Betty, or anything.  Just Elizabeth.  It’s a good, strong name. 

That’s the easy part, right?  WRONG!  When we went on to middle names, we found ourselves questioning each other’s choices.  I suggested “Alexander” for the middle name of William.  Not only do I like that name, but it’s my grandmother’s maiden name.  Ian looked at me suspiciously.  “William Alexander Reed?  That sounds like the name of a conqueror.”  He’s got a point!  Not only that, but the kids initials would be WAR.    ……..I forgot to think about the initials as well……….  His initials would be WAR, and his name sounds like a conqueror.  Things are NOT looking up for this kid…….  William is a strong British name, and to avoid having our kid sound like a conqueror we shouldn’t have another strong British name right next to it.  Ian suggested Richard.  Both his father and grandfather are William Richard Reed, but I just don’t like the name Richard.  To me, Richard is the name of some middle age balding guy.  (Sorry to all of the Richards of the world!)  One by one we threw names back and forth but each of us had reasons for not liking them. 

Switching to girls’ names wasn’t any better.  Ian reminded me that we need to consider not only the name, but any nicknames and how kids might tease or make fun of those names later on in life.    We want to give our kid a fighting chance!  Thankfully, Ian has the ability to think like a thirteen-year-old boy and could very easy shoot down a few of my favorite names by coming up with some childish nicknames.    I finally gave up and started throwing in a few wild cards.  Since we’ve spent so much time in Japan, how about we throw in a Japanese name?  Elizabeth Kaneko Reed.  William Rinpei Reed.    It could work, right?

So that leads me to my next point…….WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO PICK OUT MIDDLE NAMES????  We already have the hard part done with.  We both agree on William and Elizabeth for kids’ names.  Why is the middle name….arguably the name that doesn’t even really matter….so difficult for us to pick out??    Unless something drastic happens, we don’t have to worry about selecting names for a little while.  It was just a funny conversation that we had! 

A view of Election Day 2012 from an ex-pat

Yesterday was Election Day……..well if you want to get technical, Tuesday was Election Day for us.  Instead of finding out who won on Tuesday night like the rest of America, I didn’t find out until Wednesday afternoon.  My Wednesday afternoon is late Tuesday night in the States.  This presidential election has definitely been different for us.  It’s very weird to passively sit by and wait for results to be posted somewhere online so that we can check them out instead of watching live coverage of the election.  Instead of watching state after state declare which candidate would get their electoral votes, I checked facebook in between classes.  Instead of watching the ticker at the top/bottom of the screen that gives local election results, I tracked it on WPSD’s (local news channel) website.  To tell the truth “stalking” their website is probably a better description for what went on.    It wasn’t until about 3:30 yesterday afternoon when I finally found out that Barrack Obama will be the next president of the USA. 

*begin rant*

Which leads me to this…….I’m not a political person.  I’m not.  I hate discussing politics.  However, since I was on facebook so much yesterday, I was seeing some VERY nasty comments about our CURRENT and FUTURE president.  This just makes me question people more and more.  It’s okay to disagree with someone.  Shoot, it’s okay to disagree with the president of the United States, but for HEAVEN’S SAKE quit talking smack about him!!  Gah!  I have a couple of the things that I was really surprised that I saw time and time again from friends’ posts on facebook.  If you will, please humor me and continue reading. 

1) I can’t stand friends utterly BITCHING about how the next four years is going to suck.  Honestly?!  Four years is a LOOOOOOOONG time, and they’re telling me that EVERY moment of those four years is going to suck?!  Are they telling me that every moment of the past four years of Obama’s term have sucked?  Yes, it is taking a while to get the USA back on track.  However, we HAVE to remember that the recession was the WORST economic disaster to hit our country since the Great Depression.  How long did it take to get the country back on track after the stock market crash of 1929?  I’ll give you a hint…..the greater part of the 30s. 

2) This leads me to my next point…..I can’t stand friends who blame the current situation on JUST Obama.  Let’s remember that our government is made up of more than just the president.  That’s the whole point of elected officials…..so that everyone in the country can have some form of representation in the government.  Think back to high school American government class.  Our government is made up of three branches with a system of checks and balances to ensure that one branch of the government is not more powerful than another.  In a perfect world they would all work together so that new and helpful legislation would pass.  As we have recently seen, it doesn’t always work out this way.  So how are these people able to point a finger at ONE person and say that it’s his/her fault?  The president doesn’t have power to just create and establish legislation.  If those ranting want this type of government, they could move to a dictatorship.  Blaming everything on Obama would be as if your boss blamed YOU singlehandedly for screwing up on a work project that was actually a team effort between you and ten of your co-workers.  You wouldn’t call that fair, right?

3) I can’t stand friends saying that they might as well move to Canada.  If someone really feels that way, I said: good.  Go.  Make good on your promise.  I guarantee that those friends won’t find happiness there.  The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side, remember?  Chances are those people will just find something else to complain about in Canada.  Also, are those people really THAT upset with the USA that they are willing to quit their jobs, uproot their families, and move to a completely different country??  Are they not proud to be an American???  I might see the downfalls of America and make fun of them sometimes, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.  I’ve traveled the world pretty extensively and have seen the way other countries work.  Yes, America has its faults, but I’ve never been prouder to be an American and would NEVER want it any other way.  I might be living in Japan right now, but I know that once I decide to quit my nomadic ways and settle down, I want it to live in the USA.    

4) I can’t stand friends saying that Obama is quashing their religious rights.  WHAT?!?!  Before I begin my rant on this, I want to say that I’m a Christian.  I was born a Christian, try to live my life by being the best one I can be, love me some Jesus, believe in keeping holy the Sabbath, have high morals, and I’ll die as a Christian.  I believe in praying before meals and waiting until marriage to have sex.  Just to re-iterate: I’m a Christian.  However, I honestly DO NOT understand the people who say that Obama is going to stifle their religious freedoms.  Obama himself is a Christian.  (Don’t even get me started on the people who STILL believe that he’s a Muslim.  Unfortunately, I know that those people are STILL out there.  Just because he has a name that isn’t “Tom,” “Bob,” or “Pete” doesn’t make him a Muslim.  My name, “Melissa,” is actually Greek.  Does that make me a member of the Greek Orthodox church??  Furthermore, is everyone named “Rachel” Jewish??  Moreover, even if he WAS Muslim, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to try to convert everyone.  Far from it.  JFK was Catholic.  Did he try to convert everyone to the Catholic church?  No!  The religious denomination of elected officials shouldn’t matter.)  I’ve heard that friends don’t agree with Obama’s beliefs on abortion, gay marriage, or birth control.  I want to tell these friends “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me that these issues didn’t decide how you cast your vote!”  I hate abortion.  I would NEVER get an abortion.  I actually worked at a crisis pregnancy center counseling women to NOT get an abortion for a while.  However, I would NEVER vote for a president solely on this issue.  It’s a non-issue.  Do I want to see abortion repealed?  Yes.  Do I believe it ever will be?  No.  How many Republican presidents have we had since Roe vs. Wade?  Did they repeal it?  Why would I believe that had Romney got elected he would have repealed it?  Besides there are way more important things to fix in the country instead of birth control, gay marriage, and abortion issues.  Let’s fix the economy, unemployment, government spending, problems abroad, and broken programs that cost Americans thousands of dollars in taxes each year before we work on non-issues.

5) I can’t stand friends who say that America is losing its Christian religious values.  HUH?  The last time I checked we had FREEDOM OF RELIGION in the good ole USA…..as in not one religion should control how the country should run.  Yes, the majority of Americans are Christian, but that doesn’t mean that Christianity should control the nation.  Far from it.  If people want a government controlled by one religion, I would like to point them in the direction of some middle eastern countries.  We have the separation of church and state or a reason.  Not only does it protect us from a government sponsored religion, but it also protects religion from the government.  Imagine living in a dictatorship (I’m making this imaginary dictatorship up.  Please no one get offended.) where the ONLY religion is Judaism but you are not Jewish.  You pay taxes to the temple, but you don’t reap the benefits.  You can’t practice your own religion because you could be persecuted or imprisoned.  This is what it’s like to live in a place where religion controls the government.  In the USA we have a choice to practice whatever religion we want—ever the ones that we might not agree with.  I digress…..   

Time and time again I saw friends posting about how much this country was divided.  Coincidentally it was the people who consider themselves to be the most honest, stand up, love-your-neighbor Christians who I saw the most dreadful posts from.  How on God’s green earth can these people call themselves a Christian when they are filled with so much hatred??  A LOT of mud-slinging and name-calling went on during the election from BOTH parties.  Now that the dust has settled and a man has been elected to govern our great nation, why don’t we use that Christian love-your-neighbor attitude and see where these next four years will get us.  Ian stated it wisely yesterday.  He said that it used to be that once a candidate won the election, everyone would concede and work from there.  Now it’s like the losing party actively seeks to destroy the winning candidate.  However, what happens when you try to destroy the man leading our country?  We ALL LOSE.  Yes, I voted for Obama, and yes, I’m happy that he won.  However, had Romney won I would have supported him.  Why?  BECAUSE HE WOULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  Instead of complaining about how divided we are as a nation, let’s see if we can’t work on some compromises together and stop the name calling!

This is not to mention that the the rest of the world is satisfied with the outcome.  Many countries around the world are celebrating the Obama victory.  Regardless of what may be said about him, Obama has fantastic foreign relations with other countries.  The USA has gained stronger allies in the past four years due to the fact that Obama has done his part internationally.  For example, he has even affected middle-of-nowhere Yunomae, Japan.  I asked my JTE this morning if he heard about the election and Obama winning.  He said that yes, he did and was glad that Obama won because it seemed like Romney didn’t like Japan.  I don’t know that Romney did anything personally to offend Japan, but a good part of the international community is glad that he didn’t win the election.     

Finally I conclude by saying that we should all be PROUD to be Americans.  We should be thankful for our rights and freedoms.  Instead of complaining about who won the election, how about we just be thankful for the right to vote??  Quit complaining about how the country isn’t this perfect little cookie-cutter nation!  Like I said earlier, I’ve traveled quite a bit and have seen other ways of doing it.  I have the unique opportunity right now to never go back to the States.  I could literally live abroad for the rest of my life if I wanted to.  However, I don’t want to.  I LOVE my country and WANT to come back to it regardless of its imperfections or who is president.  I’m sorry if this blog was too political for you guys.  After the stuff I was seeing/hearing yesterday, I felt like I had to say these things.  No worries….I promise my next blog will get back to crazy stories about Japan! 

*end rant*

How Kuma-gun ALTs spend their Saturday night…

This weekend was great.  Absolutely great.  In the last blog that I wrote, I mentioned that on Friday night I was going home and making pumpkin soup.  It was DELICIOUS!  The only downside to pumpkin soup is that Ian doesn’t like pumpkin, so I won’t be able to make it often.    This saddens me greatly.  However, he wasn’t there, so I got to make whatever I wanted.  Yessssssssss!!  I was very excited with the way that it turned out.  It was the perfect meal to have on a cold Friday evening.  I snuggled up in bed with soup, tea, three layers of blankets and enjoyed my Friday night!

On Saturday I continued my cooking craze.  I cleaned the house and skyped in the morning and cooked in the afternoon.  I had two things that I wanted to experiment with: pumpkin seeds and a new rice cooker cake recipe.  I’ve heard that you can cook the pumpkin seeds for a healthy snack, and I wanted to try that.  I washed the leftover orange goop from my seeds and left them to dry for a bit.  Then I brushed the seeds with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and slid them into the oven to cook for a few minutes.  I was very pleased with the results!  I feel like I might have overcooked them slightly, but they were still excellent!  Next up: chocolate ganache rice cooker cake.  I’ve written about rice cooker cakes before.  They’re a great substitution to box mix cake over here.  It seems like most Japanese cakes are light and fluffy—tasting more like angel food cake instead of delicious dense pound cake.  Rice cooker cakes provide a welcomed relief from this.  However, they are never really a true delicious cake like what we have in the States.  That is where my chocolate ganache cake comes in.  I made it in the rice cooker like normal, but this one was super moist and ridiculously good.  I don’t want to toot my own horn on this one but………  It will definitely be the cake of my choice for rice cookers from now on!  It might have taken a little bit more work to bake, but it was totally worth it!!

Saturday night we all went over to Margo’s for an informal welcome-to-the-gun party for Devin, Rachel’s replacement.  Since Ian was in the city and had the car and Devin doesn’t have a car yet, I rode my bike to Devin’s, and we took the train from Taragi.  I wanted to take my cake to Margo’s, so I had to pack my cake and balance it in one hand while steering my bike with the other.  Multi-tasking at its finest.    (However, once we finally got to Margo’s and looked at the cake, it kind of looked like a pile of poop.  It had slid around and fell to the side.  )  Devin has a new apartment, and I knew the general area where she lived but wasn’t sure of the exact location.  It was getting dark, and I got lost on some back streets but finally figured it out.  We both hopped on our bikes and pedaled to the train station, arriving in plenty of time to take the train to Asagiri where Melissa picked us up.

The rest of the night was ridiculously fun.  We made dinner and played games until the wee hours of the morning.  Shara is quite the character and likes to do improv.  She taught us a game called “word salad” in which everyone writes down five famous people on a slip of paper and drops it into a bowl.  One by one, we went around in a circle and had a minute to describe as many people on the slips of paper as possible while our team mates try to guess who it was.  That’s the first round.  In the second round you can only use TWO words to describe the person.  In the third round you can only use gestures.  It was FUN!!  Then we decided to play Rock Band….except we didn’t have a play station, PS game, controllers, or anything.  Did that stop us?  HECK NO!  Instead, we made up our own version.  Melissa and Brian were chosen to be the “band leaders,” and each person hand to audition to be in their band.    I’m not joking.  Once the band members were decided, we practiced one made up song together and preformed it.  We were a bunch of idiots, but we laughed so hard at our stupidity.  Shara then suggested doing improv.  I’ve never done improv before and this scared the crap out of me, but it ended up being lots of laughs!  Two people’s names were drawn from a bowl.  They had to sit on the couch and completely make up a scene.  It was really interesting to see where some of them went!    We played a couple of rounds of this before moving onto another game in which three of us sat down on a couch and were the “expert.”  The “audience” had to ask us questions.  However, we had to make up an answer speaking only one word at a time.  The first person would say one word, second person another word, third person another word, and back to the first person until the answer was complete.  This game was also a riot!  We finally left Margo’s around 1AM, but I really didn’t want to go.  Usually I’m the one who wants to get home and go to bed, but all of us were having such a great game night!  However, we were taking Devin home, and I could tell that she was tired.  Plus, it was 1AM, and it was time to get going….  

That night was the BEST time I’ve had hanging out with the group in a while.  It’s amazing how something as simple as dinner and a few games really makes for such a great time!

3 AM phone call

It’s the saddest thing to have an American holiday pass by and not celebrate it.  It definitely reiterates the point that I’m not in Kansas anymore, Toto.  While we did throw the Halloween party for the kids a few weekends ago, we really didn’t celebrate the actual day of Halloween.

Both this year and last year the annual Kuma-gun English speech competition was held that day.  I had two students from each class memorize a dialogue and attend the competition.  It pretty much took up my whole day.  I had two class periods in the morning, and then after that I headed to Asagiri with my JTE and six kids.  We took the train, and while we were waiting for the next train, we ate our lunches.  I knew that we’d have to eat on the run, so I didn’t bring anything that required a microwave that day.  Instead, I brought a peanut butter and honey sandwich with some carrot slices on the side.  As I ate my carrot slices, I noticed them staring at me in a what-is-the-foreigner-doing way.  They started giggling.  Do you want to know why?  They thought it was odd that I was eating carrots—plain, cut up, without anything on them carrots.  To me this made no sense.  They’ll eat fish—bones, eyes, and all—or something disgusting like natto (fermented soy beans that have the consistency of boogery snot), but it’s weird for ME to eat CARROTS.  Yes, this makes sense…….. 

One of my first grade girls who was in the competition really likes me.  I’m not sure why because I haven’t gone out of my way to be her friend or anything.  However, she really likes English and is actually very good at it.  She sat beside me on the train and when no one else was around asked me if I would be home on Sunday (in English!).  I said yes, and she said, “Halloween cake…….for you…..I make….bring……your house…..Sunday.”  Awwwwwww!!!     She’s absolutely the sweetest!!

It was interesting to see the students from around Kuma-gun and their language abilities.  The three junior high schools in Hitoyoshi all placed, Mizukami raked in a few awards, and Taragi and Asagiri each pulled one placement.  While none of my kids placed, I was still proud of them.  It takes a lot of courage to recite a WHOLE speech in a foreign language in front of a crowd.  Yes, there were other kids who were better than them, but still….they got up and tried!!  After my third grade girls went, I went up to tell them that they did a great job, but both girls shook their heads and resigned that no, they didn’t do well at all.    Poor kids! 

That night we attempted to do something fun for Halloween, but it was just so-so.  I didn’t get home until 5:20 since we had to take the train back from the speech competition.  Ian had to quickly call his boss, and then we were off to Hitoyoshi to meet up with David and Mollee for dinner.  Oh how I wish that I could tell you that we dressed in costumes, went to a haunted house, or ate pumpkin-flavored treats, but the fact of the matter is that there was absolutely nothing special or noteworthy about our dinner.  It was just a regular run-of-the-mill dinner…….nothing significant or out-of-the-ordinary about it. 

A thought occurred to me yesterday.  While at work, I am aware of my co-workers talking around me.  However, I don’t understand most of it, so I tune it out.  It’s very easy to do, and at one point or another in all of our lives, we’ve done just that—tuned something out.  Maybe it was the noisy neighbor who lived downstairs, the annoying little brother, or even your parents trying to give you advice….  Regardless, we’ve all been there and done that.  However, it occurred to me that what if I’m so good at tuning out co-workers that when I go back home, I forget to listen to people?  What happens then?    I know that it’s a silly thought, but what happens at that point in time?  Is that a possibility? 

Today and tomorrow, Ian is in the city working at his two day class.  It’s an intensive all day English training class for factory workers.  The company pays for his gas, tolls, hotel room, and food while there.  He really can’t pass up this deal!!  He had to be there at 7AM this morning (the city is at least a good two hour drive from us).  We both knew that he was going to wake up EARLY in the morning and drive in.  While I kept encouraging him to not wait until the last minute to pack, when I crawled into bed at 11:45 last night, he had yet to pack.  I’m a very light sleeper, so I didn’t think that I would fall asleep until he quieted down for the night.  However, I was wrong!  The next thing I knew, I opened my eyes, and the entire house was dark.  I rolled over but didn’t feel Ian in bed.  That’s VERY strange considering we share a TWIN size bed.  I checked my phone…..3:08 AM.  Since the paneling separating our bedroom/office from our living room was closed, I assumed that he had pulled the futon out of the closet and was sleeping in there as to not wake me when he left early in the morning.  I grabbed my blanket and pillow to join him, pulled back the paneling, and was in complete shock to see a completely EMPTY room.  No Ian.    At this time, I was WIDE AWAKE and slightly thrown into a panic.  I rushed to the hallway hook where we keep our keys, and they were gone.  Immediately, I went back to my phone and called Ian.  The first call rang once and went to voice mail.  He answered on the second call as if me calling him at 3 AM was the norm.  “Hey sweetie.  What’s up?”

Me: “WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU?!?!!?”

Ian: “Um….I’m on the way to the city.”

Me: “HUH???”

Ian: “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d drive in and get a quick nap before I’m supposed to be there.”

Me: “You didn’t think to tell me????”

Ian: “………I did.”

Me: “………you……..did?”

Apparently before he left he told me that he was leaving.  I even acknowledged him, and he told me again to make sure that I wasn’t sleep talking and actually knew what I was saying.    I don’t recall this conversation.  I don’t even recall an inkling of this conversation.  (You know how sometimes you just have a FEELING that you talked to someone even if you can’t remember the exact words?  Yeah…..I didn’t even have that!)  I don’t know what I said to him, but I’m guessing it was enough to make him believe that I was awake.

He said that he even left a note in the hallway, but of course since it was 3 AM, I couldn’t see any note in the darkness.  So that happened…….

This morning whenever I for reals woke up, it was COLD!  My bed felt like a little cocoon, and I didn’t want to forego its warmth to get up and grab my breakfast.  UUUUGGGGGHHHH!  So winter has finally shown its big stupid head….  As I was getting ready for work, I noticed that Ian packed as if he had waited until the last minute to pack.  Instead of packing his own deodorant, he took mine.  (That’s right, Japan.  I’m not wearing deodorant today!  World, watch out! )  Even though we have an overnight bag with the amenities like toothbrush, toothpaste, Q-tips, etc already packed, Ian took the one toothbrush and toothpaste in our cabinet.  I wasn’t about to go to work without fresh breath AND stinky armpits, so I dug around and found another toothpaste in our cabinet.  On my bike ride to work, I was wishing for a pair of gloves.  I’m soooooooo not ready for this winter thing!  All day it has been chilly, but for some reason the window are still open.  Go figure.

I have less than an hour left in my work week, and what are my plans for the weekend?  None.  Tonight, I’m going home, cleaning up, making pumpkin soup, and then curling up in bed with said soup and a cup of milk tea to enjoy the rest of the night reading and/or watching TV.  It’s going to be a good night.