What to Do With the Blog….?

For the past two years I’ve documented darn near every detail of my life on here.  I’ve written about crazy adventures, times when I was absolutely furious with Japan/Japanese culture, travel stories, amazing cultural experiences, and so much more.  Throughout all of it, you wonderful blog readers have read this, commented on it, and encouraged me to write more….and I thank you for that!  While I’m happy to have this blog as an online journal that I can refer back to my “Japan days” for years to come, half the time I feel like I word vomit all over the screen.  …….but for some reason you all keep coming back for more, so once again, I thank you for continuing to read this!!

Now that we’re getting ready to leave, I’m at a crossroad.  Do I continue to blog or stop once I get home….?  I’ll definitely make a few entries once I get home to get caught up on Hawaii and describe any reserve-culture shock experiences.  But after that……?  To continue or to not……?  That is the question.

I feel like this is special.  It’s something that I did while in Japan.  If I did it at home, it wouldn’t have the same significance.  Plus, my life at home is….normal.  It’s boring.  I understand what everyone is saying, I don’t stick out like a sore thumb, I don’t make silly mistakes because I don’t know the cultural norms, etc.  I don’t feel like I should continue blogging.  HOWEVER, I was talking to friends this past weekend, and they encouraged me to continue it. 

“But what will I write about?” I asked.  “Everything at home is normal.”

“I don’t know.  Just write about something.  I just enjoy reading your blog,” they said.

Clearly I won’t have NEAR as much time at home as I do now.  Working three jobs will keep me too busy to write a lot.  So I’d like to throw out the question to those who enjoy reading my blog:

Would you like me to continue writing, or is enough enough?

A Side of Yunomae I’ve Never Seen

Last night was my farewell party from my BOE.  While it started off a little slower than normal nomikais, the ending made up for it.  Since it was on a Monday night, a lot of people didn’t drink heavily and get crazy like normal.  Instead, they went home at the normal time.  However, the group that Ian and I were chatting with stayed behind and talked for another hour.  It was a lot of fun.  My supervisor and I talked about how we’re basically the same person….just different cultures.  She’s shy and doesn’t feel comfortable speaking English.  I’m shy and don’t feel comfortable speaking Japanese.  Neither of us have super outgoing personalities.  Despite all of this, I could not have had a better supervisor!  What’s even better is that she gave me a yukata (it’s kind of like a kimono).  It’s beautiful!  It was a pink cherry blossom print on it.  She asked me if I knew how to tie it.  I said no and that I’d watch a You Tube video to figure it out.  I asked her if she knew how to tie it, and she said something to the manner of, “Oh no.  I always go to the store and have them do it.”

We also were talking with Mr. Murai, the Buddhist priest in charge of the temple in town, about the differences in religion and why the Japanese do some things some ways.  Something that blew my mind was the mindset.  He said that the Japanese feel that someone is always watching them, whether it literally be someone else or an invisible god.  That’s why they always do the right thing.  He said that school children, from a young age, are taught that if you find 10 yen (worth about a penny) on the ground, you should take it to the police office in case someone tries to reclaim it.  I COULD NOT BELIEVE THIS!!!  I always enjoy finding change on the ground in the States (I’ve never found money on the ground here) because it was like a little present for me!  It has never, EVER occurred to me to pick up that nickel and take it to the police.  I’m pretty sure that if I did take it, I would be laughed out of the police office.

Ian asked Mr. Murai if it would be OK to go and take pictures one morning of him doing his morning Buddhist ritual of ringing the iron bell and saying prayers.  Mr. Murai said, “Why not tomorrow morning?  You can ring the bell.”  Ian, who rarely sees the sun before 10 AM, nodded his head anxiously and agreed.

I set my alarm for 5:30 AM and went to bed around 11:30 last night.  The next thing I know my silly alarm is buzzing at 5:30.  Neither Ian nor I are happy morning people.  Both of us fought tooth and nail waking up.  We were literally sitting up in bed staring at nothing for probably ten minutes before we started getting ready.  Then we made the five minute drive to the temple and staggered out of the car.  Mr. Murai was already dressed in the traditional robes and ready to ring the bell.  While we were both yawning, he said that he wakes up at 4 AM every day.  Ugh!  Since the temple is on the hillside, we could look down and see Yunomae below.  It was a great view!  We waited until the exact moment of 6 AM.  Mr. Murai dinged the bell first and then allowed us both to take turns doing it.  We were Yunomae’s alarm clock this morning!  It was a great cultural experience!!  After that, Mr. Murai had to go say the Buddhist prayers, so Mrs. Murai took us up the hill to the……I’m not sure what it’s called, but it was an area where she lit candles and incense.  We asked what it was for, and she said to clear your mind for prayer.  We returned to the temple and watched Mr. Murai finishing his Buddhist prayers, which included a lot of chanting.  I’ve never really had any experience with non-Christian religions, so it absolutely fascinates me.

    

As we were leaving, Mrs. Murai walked us to our car.  She gave me a birthday/goodbye present of a picture book and Kumamon towels and told me that I would be missed.  The whole family is just the sweetest, and it’s moments like those that I’ll treasure long after we have left! <3 <3 <3

Although it was only 6:30, sleepy little Yunomae was waking up.  Old men were going for their morning strolls, kids were already on their bikes planning today’s big adventure, women hanging out the laundry, men going to work, and even JHS kids riding their bikes to school.  AT 6:30 IN THE MORNING.  At one intersection, I saw one of my eikaiwa kiddos.  I waved and smiled at her, and she genuinely looked surprised to see me.  Remember this….it comes into play later…..

This was a side of Yunomae that neither Ian nor I have ever seen.  We both hate waking up that early, so we never knew that kids still wake up at 6 AM on their days off or that Yunomae starts its day bright and early.  (It kind of reminded me of the opening song of Beauty and the Beast when Belle is walking through town and everything is opening up for the day.  Little town it’s a quiet village.  Everyday like the one before.  Little town full of little people waking up to say Bonjour!  Bonjour!  Bonjour!  Bonjour!  Bonjour!…..)  I felt renewed and thought that I should wake up early more often!  With an extra two hours of free time before I had to get ready for work, Ian and I decided to have a picnic breakfast beside the river.  As we walked down to it, I saw more kids and their parents doing rajio taiso, the morning exercises that the Japanese enjoy.  They smiled and waved as they reached over to touch their toes.  We enjoyed our breakfast down by the river.  However, as the sun rose up, it became too hot to sit in direct sunlight, so we returned home.  I still had about an hour and a half, so I started making marinara sauce for some lunchtime spaghetti.  Then I packed up some more stuff and cleaned out our car.  I don’t want to brag, but I got all of this stuff done before 8:30 AM.  I really do need to wake up early more often……..

Okay, flashing back to the eikaiwa kiddo who saw me.  Her mother works at one of my nursery schools, so today as I was leaving, she said, “Melissa-sensei, Izumi said that she saw you this morning.  Where were you going?”  (Welcome to Yunomae where the fact that the foreigner was up earlier than normal is big news!)  I told her that I went to the temple that morning.  She told me that Izumi really liked me and always enjoyed eikaiwa.  AWWWWWWWWWWW!!  I told her that I also loved Izumi, would miss her, and showed her the pictures of us making pizza last Thursday night.        

I think that’s all for now.  As it’s beginning to hit mid-afternoon, I’m feeling slightly drowsy.  However, it’s nothing that a little caffeine or sugar won’t fix!  Hurray!

You’re Already Dead

Call me crazy, but I have a wild hair.  I thought that next summer Ian and I could take a motorcycle trip out west.  We have all of these friends who live out west now, and it would be great to see them again.  I pitched the idea to Ian, and he immediately agreed.  He started planning our stops in South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore, Seattle, San Fran, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and a few other stops.  We only have about two weeks of wiggle room, so I’m not completely sure how much of that is physically possible, but I think it’s a great idea!  Being on the bike would require us to travel EXTREMELY light, and I think it would be fun to live on the road for a bit.  Plus, neither of us have seen the west (outside of our honeymoon trip to Washington).  While I’m not already planning out our stops like Ian, I am excited for the possibility of this.  It really depends on a couple of factors…….so we’ll see how it goes!

And speaking of Mr. Reed, we’re both excited to announce that he found a full time job!  Woo-hoo!!!  He’ll be going back to the winery in Paducah, which is excellent on all accounts.  Not only is it full time, but he knows the owners.  He loves working for them, and they (for whatever reason, ha, ha, ha!) love him.  They know that he is going back to school, so his working hours can easily incorporate his school hours.  We honestly couldn’t be happier about this situation!!  Woo-hoo!

For me it’s so weird to think how only just a month ago I was hating things here and ready to leave.  I hated going to class, I hated the kids, I hated the racist things kids would say, and I was just ready to go.  I’m not sure if it’s because my time is coming to a close or what, but for the past several weeks, I’ve been loving my kids…..even the ones who I dislike!  It seems like lunch room conversations have been great, at break kids have been coming up to me in the library, and the little meanie-weenie kids haven’t been bothering me as much.  It’s times like these when I wonder why the heck I’m not staying for a third year!!

During break time, I’ve been going up to the library and working on goodbye presents, paper necklaces for my eikaiwa kiddies.  I know it sounds weird, but the way you roll the paper, the necklaces don’t look like paper but rather textured beads.  It’s actually pretty cool.  Everyday kids come over to me and ask what I’m working on.  When I show them, they think it’s the coolest thing that I take paper and make it into necklaces.  When I offer for them to try it, nine times out of ten, they do it.  Since it is a time consuming process, and it takes about forty beads to make one necklace, I don’t mind their help at all!  It’s been pretty funny to see who will help….I’ve had both girls AND boys come over and want to roll up some beads.  They’ll work on them for the entire break time, which leads to great conversations!  Plus, I wore my paper bead necklace the other day.  I didn’t even think about it, but one of my 2-nen boys immediately recognized what it was as soon as I walked in the door and said something like, “You finished it!  That’s so cool!”  For the rest of the class period, I heard whispers about Melissa-sensei’s cool paper necklace.

A few weeks ago, one of my JHS boys asked me, “How are you?”  I told him, “I’m happy!  It’s Friday!”  He said, “No.  You are already dead,” and walked away laughing.  I had to pick my jaw up off the ground after that.  Had I just received a death threat……?  I was confused about where he learned that.  (However, kids learn A LOT from TV and movies and will pick up on these phrases.  For example, Obama’s “Yes, we can!” phrase was all the rage when I first got here.)  It took me a couple of weeks to figure it out.  The same student approached me again in the library one day and asked me the same question.  I had forgotten our previous encounter and fell for the line again.  Once he saw the horrified look on my face, he said, “Joke…..Japanese…..comedian.”  Apparently it is the punch line of some comedian’s joke.  OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.  That now makes a LOT more sense now…kind of.     

Anyway, that’s all for now.  We had a wonderful, wonderful weekend in beautiful Amakusa (the islands of Kumamoto) this past weekend, so I still need to blog about that.  I’ll write another blog tomorrow!!

Adventure Day

After all of my vacations this year, I had one day of paid vacation left over.  I debated when to take it….in June when there are no national holidays..?  Extend the one three day weekend in July to a four day weekend….?  Take off the very last day of my contract…..?  In the end I decided to attach it onto my birthday weekend.  After a weekend of festivities with the Kuma-gun farewell party, I thought that it would be nice to have some down time after a hectic weekend.

I wanted to go hiking in Ebino, but Ian said he wasn’t feeling up to it, so we compromised: Adventure Day!  We did something that I’ve always wanted to do and that was on my “bucket list” before leaving Japan….taking the Hitoyoshi looped bridge to Ebino.  It’s basically taking the old road to Ebino, and it’s a gorgeous drive.  The day we had made it even better because the sky above was an amazing blue with white puffy clouds above and down below were the constant rolling green mountains.  There were a few times when we had to pull over along the side of the road and take pictures because it was just too beautiful. 

 

It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would to get to Ebino.  Dare I say that it took the same amount of time that it would have had we taken the tolled IC….?  Once we got to Ebino, neither one of us really had any plans, so we just turned around and came back to Hitoyoshi.  I know it seems like a wasted drive, but I absolutely love mountain drives, and I have to soak up as much mountain lovin’ as I can before heading back to flat Kentucky. 

By the time we got back to Hitoyoshi, it was past lunch, so we stopped at Nishimuta for a bento.  Low and behold, I saw what I’ve wanted to get a picture of for the past two years…..the Kuma-gun BATMOBILE!!!  I have seen this car numerous times and wanted to get a picture of it, but I could never get my camera out quick enough because we were driving.  I have no idea who owns this car or why they created a Batmobile out of their van, but I love them for it!!

We took our lunch to the riverside park in Hitoyoshi and spent the afternoon in/beside the river.  That was another “bucket list” item of mine…..to spend an afternoon relaxing and picnicking by the river.  Since it was such a beautiful day, Ian decided it would be a great time to take pictures.  We waded through the foot deep water to a sand bar and left our stuff there.  Then we walked out as far as we could…..which actually wasn’t very far because the dang current was too strong!!  Both of us sat in the middle of the Kumagawa on rocks and admired exactly what we were doing….enjoying an afternoon in the middle of the river in Japan.  This led into an epic discussion of our time in Japan coming to a close, the next step for us, when we wanted to start have kids, where we thought we’d be in ten years, etc.  What a beautiful day and surroundings for such a heavy discussion!

 

One thing that I want to get before we leave is a Kumamon bumper sticker to put on my car at home.  Therefore, once we finished our river play time, we went to the Hitoyoshi Craft Park to see if the gift shop would have any.  It didn’t, but Ian and I wandered around the park for a bit taking pictures before leaving.  On our way back into town, we pulled over to investigate a coffee shop that we had never been to and heard was great.  It’s right off the 219 and serves fresh roasted coffee.  While I don’t enjoy coffee, I do enjoy the coffee shop feel, so I agreed that we should go.  It was such a cute little bohemian shop!  There were all kinds of trinkets and gifts to buy in there and was just a cool place in general!  The clerk gave us both samples of iced coffee to try.  I didn’t want to be rude, so after Ian had finished his coffee, I switched the glasses when the clerk wasn’t looking.

As we were walking along the sidewalk back to our car, a convoy of Japan’s SDF (Self Defense Force) rolled by.  One of the guys in a Humvee smiled and waved excitedly at us.  Ian didn’t see the guy, so when he looked up and saw me beaming and waving at a mysterious man in uniform, he asked what I was doing.  I told him that the guy waved first, and he said, “Riiiiiiiiiight.”  He thought that I was being a flirt!  As if flirting in gym clothes, tennis shoes, and with sweaty hair is a turn-on………

After that, we drove to Mollee’s house on the other side of Hitoyoshi to surprise her and tell her to come out and play with us.  She did, so we went to Aoiaso Shrine in Hitoyoshi to get some pictures.  We’ve lived here for two years and driven by that place multiple times, yet neither of us have taken pictures of it.  I especially wanted pictures of the entrance.  A red bridge crosses a pond covered with lily pads.  The deep green of the lily pads mixed with the bright red and the clear blue sky is an amazing combination.  It’s a shame that we haven’t been there before!  Mollee, Ian, and I stood on the bridge for a while gazing out over the pond and reflecting on our time here.  It seems so weird that all of this is coming to a close!  Gack!

  

We wrapped up our day with dinner in Hitoyoshi.  Another item on my list was to go to our favorite restaurant, Everest, one more time.  We invited everyone, but only the three of us plus Melissa, David, and Lucas could make it.  We stayed there for a long time enjoying one another’s company and talking.  Yet all good things must come to a close, so as the night wrapped up, Ian and I headed home.  Shortly after we left the city lights of Hitoyoshi, I leaned forward to the dashboard and admired the bounty of stars.  Ian even commented on it and pulled over so that we could star gaze.  Together we sat on the hood of our car watching shooting stars and trying to pick out constellations.  It was late by the time we got home, but I didn’t regret it.  What a wonderful day of adventure!

Kuma-gun Farewell Party

The past couple of days, I’ve been having rather lively and interesting lunches with my kids.  It certainly makes me realize how much I’m going to miss that!  The other day when I was eating lunch with some of my JHS boys, one of them asked me if I was going to have babies in America.  I don’t plan on popping any out any time soon, but I told him yes, and he asked how many.  I shrugged my shoulders and said I didn’t know.  He continued.  1….2…..3….?  How many?  So I told him 100.  Every kid at that table who was listening to our conversation stopped mid-bite and stared at me.  100 babies?????  The kid reconfirmed what I said, and I said yes.  I would have 100 babies.  I asked him how many babies he was going to have.  He told me eleven.  “Soccer team,” he said.  HA! HA! HA!  Go right ahead and repopulate Japan so that you can have a whole personal soccer team, kid. 

When I was eating lunch with my 6th graders last week, I told one of the boys that we could be boyfriend/girlfriend and started blowing kisses at him.  He dodged the imaginary air kisses furiously and rejected my love.  Then he bent over his desk and let out the grossest burp.  Revolted, I wrinkled my nose and had a clear look of disgust on my face.  I immediately stopped blowing kisses and moved onto another boy at the table.  I pointed at the other boy and said, “You.  Me.  Boyfriend.  Girlfriend.” and made a heart with my hand.  The first boy told the second boy to just burp at me, and then he wouldn’t have to be my boyfriend, so boy #2 did that guy thing where he sucked in air and burped on command.  This continued for the rest of the lunch period as boy after boy came up to me and burped so that they wouldn’t have to be my boyfriend.  Awesome.

Last weekend was our Kuma-gun farewell party, and we had it right here in Yunomae.  We decided on a BBQ and booked cabins at Green Palace, the park in town, so that people could enjoy and stay the night.  We had such a great time!  Ian had bought lots of meat at Costco, so we had brats, burgers, and plenty of veggies.  As the night progressed, it kept hitting home that this would be one of the last times that we’d hang out with some of these people.  It was hard to mope and/or be sad with all of the laughter and happiness around, though.

Despite the fact that we were having such a good time, things started to get real as people left.  Mary, Yusuke, and Jen all had to head back home since they live outside of Kuma-gun, but for the most part the rest of us cleaned up our BBQ area and headed back to the cabins for dessert time, drinks, and lots and lots of talking.  The guys got a bit distracted by finding a giant toad along the side of the road.  They captured it, found another one, and (like the five-year-olds they truly are) proceeded to make the toads dance, kiss, and drink alcohol.  Boys!  While they were doing that, some of us girls went back to the cabins and grabbed the water balloons that we had filled up before we walked down to the BBQ area.  There were enough for each of us to have two or three a piece, so we waited for them to come back to the cabins before BAM!!! surprise attacking them!!  HA!!!!

Since it was my birthday, Melissa had made cupcakes, Shara made brownies, Sara a whipped cheesecake, and Margo rice krispies.  Candles were lit on the cupcakes, and everyone sang happy birthday to me.  Surrounded by my best friends, I was elated at that moment.  Thoughts crept into my mind that the end is nearing and this might be one of the last times we enjoy each other’s company, but I refused, REFUSED to think about that as I shoveled dessert after dessert into my face and continued to laugh and talk about the most random stuff for the rest of the night.  I cannot express how much I love these people and how awesome it is that they have become my family over here.

Ian and I left around 1:30, went home, showered, and got in bed.  We invited everyone back over to our house the following morning for pancakes.  Everyone started arriving sooner than expected, so I had to rush a bit in order to get everything finished in time.  There was lots to do!  While last year we crammed a record breaking fifteen people inside our house for morning-after-party pancakes, this year it was a much more manageable nine. 

Mollee, Lucas, Joe, and David stayed for a while, so we decided to walk to the river and go swimming.  It was a ridiculously hot day, so what could be more perfect?  Except as soon as we got ready to go, the heavens opened up.  It had been doing that for the past two days!  It would be bright and sunny outside, and within thirty minutes the clouds would roll in, and the clouds would pour down rain.  Then it would clear off and repeat.  We waited until the downpour stopped, the clouds broke up, and then decided to go.  We were hot and sweaty by the time we got there and ready for a dip……only the river wasn’t.  Since it had rained so much, the river was a raging torrent.  There was NO way any of us were getting in that.  The current would have sucked us downstream in a heartbeat.  We sat at the edge, put our feet in, and talked until we heard the distant rumbles of thunder. 

It wasn’t too soon after that that it started to rain.  At first it was a gentle shower, so we gathered our things and waited under a tree.  However, it soon turned into a torrential downpour, and we faced the inevitable: we were going to get wet.  The river is a thirty minute walk home.  At first it sucked getting soaking wet, but David put it best.  “It’s pretty liberating once you stop caring.”  Liberating indeed.  Since we were already soaking wet, we were acting like five-year-olds and splashing through puddles.  I’m sure the drivers that passed by us were completely shocked at a group of foreigners walking down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.  I saw a car full of my ES kids.  Their faces were plastered to the back window of the van with the most innocent what-is-Melissa-sensei-doing??? look on their faces.  Ha, ha, ha!!!  By the time we got home, the sun had already come out, and we weren’t ENTIRELY soaking wet anymore.  We all dried off before warming up leftovers from the party and eating a late lunch.

That was my weekend.  It was one of the most event-filled, memory-making, fun weekends I’ve had in a while.  I know I keep saying it, but I’m really going to miss all of these crazy kids that I call my friends!! 

Enjoy the Moment

Ian and I lost our house key about six months after we got here.  That’s right.  For the past year and a half our house has been unlocked, and not once were we worried about that.  (Yay, Japan!)  What I was more concerned with was telling my supervisor.  I had heard horror stories about how other ALTs who had lost their keys had to pay hundreds of dollars for a lock change and was really, really afraid of that.  Since we’re leaving in less than a month, I finally bit the bullet and told her that we had lost them.  She immediately asked if Ian was at home so that she could go try a spare key that was at the BOE.  He was, so she went.  That key didn’t work, so she said that she’d be right back.  I’m not sure where she went, but when she returned, she had another key, and that one worked.  Hurray!  She said that she would go make a copy for us, but that we’d have to pay for that.  Not a problem.  I asked Ian how much a spare key costs to have made, and he said that it was only a few bucks in the States.  Certainly not the hundreds of dollars I was expecting for a lock change!  When my supervisor returned about an hour later with the key, we thanked her again and again.  Bonus: she didn’t make us pay for the key!  She said that it was a present.  Have I mentioned how cool my supervisor is….?

While rainy season is mostly over, last week we had a couple of storms.  It NEVER storms over here, so to see the skies get black, hear the thunder rolling across the mountains, and seeing the lightning flashing across the sky reminded me SO.  MUCH.  of home.  The storm blew up late in the afternoon as the kids were getting ready to leave school.  All of the teachers were freaking out with the thunder and lightning and confused as to why the crazy foreigner was standing by the window and creepily smiling.  The kids always practice sports after school, and just like normal I saw a few of the baseball kids walk out to the diamond…… AS IT WAS LIGHTNING.  It didn’t take long before one of the teachers got on the PA system and basically said, “Hey, idiots.  Get off the dang field and back inside!!!”  For the next thirty minutes as the storm passed, it was basically like a tornado drill at home.  (Not that going into the hallway would help much during a tornado.  The hallways are basically all windows, and Japanese school buildings would crumble in a heartbeat.)  All of the kids had to wait in the hall while the teachers stood around guarding the doorways so that no one would leave.  I was really crossing my fingers that the storm would pass before I left because I was going to feel really awkward walking outside while all of the kids watched me from their spots on the floor.  Luckily it quit storming about five minutes before I left, and the teachers decided to release some of the kids.

Since last Thursday was the 4th, Ian and I decided to celebrate by having big, fat, American foods.  On Wednesday I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and peas.  On Thursday, Ian took Krista’s mom back to the airport in Fukuoka and stopped at Costco for supplies for our farewell party.  Since he was there, he decided to get a whole Costco size pizza and bring that home for dinner.  Therefore, we celebrated the 4th with Krista by stuffing giant pepperoni pizza slices into our mouths.  Happy birthday, America!

 

Since our time is running thin in Japan, I’ve decided to take a new approach.  Enjoy the moment.  If that means staying out an extra hour at night to hang out with friends, losing some sleep to go star gazing, eating an extra piece of mochi, or driving out of our way to see something interesting that we’ve always wanted to see, then so be it.  We’ll do it!  We know that once we leave Japan, we probably won’t come back to Japan.  As much as we love it, there are other places in the world that we want to see and visit.  Ian and I both agree that it doesn’t feel like we’re leaving.  Instead it feels like we’re going on a long vacation and that we’ll be back in a few weeks.  *sigh*  Not so…… 

This has been the first week in a while that isn’t calling for rain.  The forecast Monday-Friday is sun, sun, and SUN.  It’s been great!  I think I can safely say that rainy season is over.  Woo hoo!  However, when one bad season ends, another begins.  I think the rain and cloud cover was maintaining the temperatures.  Now instead of it just being muggy, it’s sunny, hot, and muggy.  UGH!  While I enjoy the sunshine, I don’t enjoy drinking four liters of water every day just to replenish what I sweat out.  Ian and I are still keeping to the not-turning-on-the-AC pact, but our fan has been running like crazy!  Yesterday I came home from school drenched in sweat, so I changed into a tank top and shorts.  I had to run to the post office, and I have never felt so scandalized as I did in that tank top.  I feel like I might as well have worn no shirt considering some of the looks and double takes I got.  Come on, everyone!  Cut me some slack!  It’s HOT!

I’ll stop here for now.  Woo-hoo!  Two blogs in one day!  I haven’t done that in a while.  Can you tell who had a full free afternoon?  Hint: IT WAS ME!

It’s My Party, and I’ll Cry if I Want to…..

Sooooooo much to write about.  Sooooooo much to catch up on.  It seems like the last couple of weeks have been super busy for me both at school and home, so I’ve been putting blogging on the back burner.  Here goes…..

Last Saturday was my birthday.  I never really like to rub it in people’s faces that it’s my birthday because I feel like it makes people think that they have to get me things or something.  I’m just not a fan of those people who run around saying “It’s my birthday!” or “Only two weeks until my birthday!” as if by knowing that information I owe you something.

Anyway…I didn’t tell anyone at school.  I hung it on my English board, but the kids generally only look at the pictures, not the words.  Last Tuesday I went to my nursery school like normal and did my lesson.  I’m Facebook friends with one of the teachers in my class, and as I was packing up my flashcards and getting ready to tell the kids “See you!!!” and be assaulted by the kids rushing at me to high five me before I leave, the teacher said, “Wait a minute.”  He proceeded to tell the kids that my birthday was on Saturday, and they all sang happy birthday to me.  Awwwwwwwww!!  Not only that, but the kids had made a birthday necklace for me.  Too cute!  I was utterly happy when I left nursery school that day (not that I ever leave nursery school in a foul mood, though….)

I did milk my birthday a little bit when it comes to Ian.  “Ian, it’s my birthday week.  Can you get me a glass of water?”  “Ian, it’s my birthday week.  Will you take out the trash for me?”  “Ian, it’s my birthday week.  All I want to do tonight is cuddle and watch a movie.”  The biggest thing that I asked him to do was wash the dishes.  I said that he didn’t have to get me a present or anything if he would just wash the damn dishes.  I wash the dishes about 99.5% of the time, and I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO DURING MY BIRTHDAY WEEK.  Call me a princess or whatever, but I didn’t think it was too much to ask.  However, never in my life have I heard so much complaining and whining when it comes to dishes.  There was a huge stack of dishes leftover from the weekend that Ian started on Monday.  ………And by started I mean that he sorted and stacked them so that it looked like fewer than it actually was.  By Tuesday the dishes were overflowing out of the sink and onto our minimal counter space.  By Wednesday, we were out of eating utensils, cups, and plates, and he had even started putting dirty things in our bathroom sink.  On Wednesday night when I saw two roaches in the kitchen I. FLIPPED. OUT.  I got extremely angry that he had let the dishes get so bad that we had roaches.  Uncool.  After he washed all of the dishes, he told me:

1) I make too many messes,

2) I wasn’t allowed to cook anymore because I dirty up too many dishes,

3) we need to stop cooking so much because it makes a mess,

4) he was hot because the water was hot, and

5) his hands were dry because the soap had dried them out.

NEVER.  IN.  MY.  LIFE.  HAVE.  I.  HEARD.  SO. MUCH.  COMPLAINING.  He NEVER cleans up his messes, so he has no idea how big his messes are.  (People who know how Ian cooks will agree with me that he’s NOT a clean cook.)  As far as the hot water and dry hands go, I wanted to play him the world’s tiniest violin.  I have literally been sweating in our hot kitchen washing dishes since May.  Plus, I have man hands now because of all the dishes I wash.  (Japanese soap has ZERO moisturizer in it, so all of my natural oils are sucked out of my skin.)

I did tell some of my kids about my birthday on Monday, but only after they asked what I did over the weekend.  I was eating with a group of four 2nd grade boys at the JHS.  One of the boys stood up and announced to the class that my birthday had been on Saturday, so everyone started singing happy birthday.  I don’t even like that class, but it was the SWEETEST thing for them to do that!  They really can’t stand to be nice for too long because shortly after that one of the boys asked how old I was…200….400….? and called me an obasan (old woman).  Turds!

I’m going to end it here for the day, but I still have much to catch up on!