: notes to self :

oh to be there

i forgot how much i love dodgeball. the kids at my elementarys play it during every break and after school as well. after checking out possible teammates/enemies between classes, i am pretty sure i can smoke these kids... yeah...i can take `em. so what if they`re not even five feet yet...no one thought spud webb could dunk and the man DID! excuses. =) hahaha....

best organized games from the playground

1. dodgeball (but not with the "if caught in mid-air, thrower is out" rule. jean-paul belanger ruined that version for me, dirty cheater)
2. british bulldog
3. octopus ("fishy fishy come swim in my sea")
4. capture the flag
5. HiLoMediumSlowJollyOldRockyPeppers (jump rope; especially dangerous during "peppers" stage, or if played on gravelly playgound)

oh MAN!!!!! i got an extra cup of the reeeaallly good Yakult yogurt (sofu-lu) during lunch! holyCOWisitgood... wooohooooooooo!! i need to buy cartons and cartons of this stuff, and eat it plain, or with some granola/muesli mixed in (kathy!!!). oh sweet goodness. i love school lunches. the rest of it wasn`t too shabby either, ma bo tofu and rice, and pickled cabbage w.wakame and corn. and did i mention TWO CUPS OF SOFULU!!!!

(insert cheesy joke)

I will never be so full of Sofulu!!!

(insert mass apology)

shitsureishimasu.
_______________

i mentioned to linda while we were walking to kaiten sushi that it was so weird to hear an extended and in depth conversation about.... hockey. to hear two people (wayne and shiu) talk about hockey players and discuss respective players` strengths and weaknesses... and game strategy... whoa, blew my mind. to hear the name Mogilny and goal in the same sentence...and for "Philly" to mean Flyers, and also for "Philly" to immediately conjure up negative sentiments since they are once more, an obstacle on the path that will hopefully definitely lead to a picture of Sundin victoriously hoisting the Cup over his head, grinning that big sleepy-eyed grin of his (aw Swedes). the CUP! PLAYOFFS!!! Yonge/Queen St succumbing to blue and white madness!!

and i don`t even watch that much hockey!

i need to go and play road hockey again with the nerd squad from Canada FIRST (eheheheh). or maybe just drink some maple syrup, shaken, not stirred.


(and have a sofulu on the side!!! woooohooooooooooooo!! come 3 o`clock i`m downing that extra one!!!!)

Winds of change (eww cheese)
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pronunciation is fun
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no
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ah!

some crazy people

Today is Nanko, and ONLY today, since Thursday is a holiday (former emperor`s bday). It was raining like crazy this morning, and then during second period, ARASHI came… no not the skinny JPOP boy band, but ARASHI… strong spring wind. I had two teachers announce its arrival to me in the teacher`s room. Hahahah! First by Konishi sensei, the new Japanese teacher, and then the crazy science teacher, ___oka (I am so embarrassed I don`t know his name). He used to be a businessman for a medical company. He actually wanted to be a doctor (majored in Bio), but couldn`t get into med school because his “atama wa tottemo warui.” Then when the recession hit, he jumped ship and became a teacher cuz he thought it was much more stable (yes, he used English to explain this to me… geez). He is so flipping funny. He talks aloud to himself at least 5 times a day, and not little mutterings but full out conversations, along with heavily inflected statements/exclamations. It`s great!! He doesn`t really hang out with the other teachers; I think they kind of regard him as the school eccentric (you always need at least one). I didn`t really speak to him at all during 2gakki, but for some reason, maybe cuz he is now teaching 3nen, he talks (rather enthusiastically) to me a lot more. I ran into him once on the train to work (majorly bikkurishita), and during the walk to school he educated me on the plants in and around Nanko. And he told me I couldn`t eat and walk at the same time cuz the other teachers would not approve. And that he was a troublemaker. Freaking hilarious =) So today, with ARASHI blowing full force outside, he looked over, stood up and walked to my desk. I wasn`t sure what he was going to say… I never am. Then he pointed to the window and said,
“It`s, WINDOW…”
I thought he was trying to explain ARASHI, so I asked, “mado?”
“No! You say window?”
“oh! Um, Wind? Yeah… Konishi sensei alrea…”
“WINDOW! WE SAY SPRING WINDOW COME! ARASHIIIII”
“Oh ARASHI, yes, Konishi sen..”
He then tapped on the window and said, “Window!”
“Yes…”
He opened the window and let in a big gust of ARASHI, and asked,
“WINDOW??”
“Ah! No, just, winD. Like winDY”
“Souka!…no DOW?”
“umm… win-D[uh]. Wind-D[uh]”
“OKAY!! Wind-D! Somejapaneseicantunderstand I was mistaken! Somemorejapanese….”
fins


The man is a mix between jerry lewis (a la nutty professor) and de-caffinated Mad Hatter. =)

Woooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooo 4 day work week!! The Fujiyoshida-ers are coming!!! Kathy has a freaking PLANE TICKET TO JAPAN and she`s arriving next MONDAY!!!!!!!!! WITH DOCTOR HO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh the insanity!!!

"naomi`s illusion"

I had really good classes today… super cute first and second graders, and then the genki 5-1 and 6-1. Plus lunch was pretty good. The school lunches are often the closest thing I get to homecooked food, scratch that, GOOD homecooked food, unless I`m over at my gparents/aunt&uncle`s. It still drives me crazy when I walk down my hall every morning/night and I can smell REAL meals being made. Darn those kitchen fans =). And it stopped raining in the morning. During break between class, I realized how much I enjoy “work” more when kids are outgoing & active—genki—and it is making me rethink my position on quiet kids. Since I`m an introvert, I have (had?) this bias towards really Genki kids, regarding the introverts with a higher regard cuz I just KNEW lurking beneath that quiet surface was a character just as likable—they just didn`t have to blatantly showcase it like the Genkis. But honestly, the Genki kids are the ones that make my day, the ones who have the nerve to come up to me and shout “hi!!,” the ones who love to copy and exaggerate gestures which is always good for a laugh, the ones who ask me the meaning of “funky,” and so on and so forth. =) I know the meek shall inherit the earth, but do the Genki put people more at ease? Make life easier? I wonder how often I frustrated people when I was smaller (or still do?) because of my shyness. I know Seiji gets mad at me sometimes for that, and Ee sometimes did. Sigh.

On a totally unrelated note, I have now learned an amazing magic trick. The second graders loved it =) watch out david blane, u gots nothing on me. it has been dubbed, "naomi`s illusion" hahahahha

random


i have lots of cabbage in my fridge.






this might make rainy season go by a bit faster... along with lots of half-pants and waterproof shoes/socks...





there are tons of these around... =))





and i know it`s a bit late, but the apartment, minus washroom & wet room

saikou!

After a long day at work (arrival time 9am, departure time 7:15pm) I got to go to dinner with Nishino at a nearby Ohsho (the gyouza wasn`t as good as matt`s ohsho, but had more menu options, rawr). I wish my Japanese was sooo much better, since it was a bit trying having to look up words in the dictionary every few minutes. Nevertheless, I managed to convey my shock and AAGGHHH at the fact that ppl in China sometimes eat monkey brains (“use a spoon! like pudding!”), and that if I had to live with any animal, I would want to live with a turtle cuz he could double as a chair, is quiet, and could be a really fun pool accessory. Also on the list were a koala (cute, vegetarian and thusly inspire me to be such, and quiet) and pandas (could match v.well with a black and white interior, be a fierce bodyguard, cute).


hmmm.... i blame possible sun-stroke/marker fumes for the conversation.


i may complain about the annoying katakana-ization of english words, and how it interferes with "native" pronunciation, but honestly, them katakana words have saved me a time or two when i have been struggling to communicate something in japanese.

"umm... like... everywhere...you know... world? `wa-ludo...`"
"ahhh!!! wa-ludo!!! wakarimashita."

i found my hanko!! it was in my desk at Ikuno, middle drawer. i`m a dork. Mendokusai!!! especially since I cancelled my passbook and already ordered a new hanko. booooo. but i got a stack (literally) of new (burned) cds from Nishino, including....


wait for it...



THE DREAMS COME TRUE 15TH ANNIVERSARY DOUBLE CD COLLECTION (ROUGE AND BLEU)!!!!

wooohooooooo!!!!!




i`m really looking forward to next week`s lesson... it`s just a normal "how are you, i`m ____" (YES i am teaching them alternatives to "fine"), but for the game, we constructed a huge TV frame, complete with an old school dial, and will get the students to act out the gesture while "on tv." and they`ll have printouts of the gestures to guide them. but kawaiiso cuz they have to deal with pictures that i drew. sigh.

two omiyage:
-i was able to communicate with ishihara kun yesterday during and after class, which was really cool cuz he is autistic. nakagawa sensei told me that he has "savant syndrome." ("saba-nto shindoromu"...oh!!!SAVANT SYNDROME.) Everyday while riding the bus to and from school, the route takes him past 20-30 hospitals. Apparently ishihara remembers the name of every single hospital, AND their phone numbers. the names and numbers are always correct. amazing!!!!
-i played kanji karuta with three of the 3-2 kids, and i got smoked =) hahah...it was really great.

Thank You.

isobela!!!

i`m reading a book on american movies from the 50s and am SO going to rent a whole bunch when i get back to see if they`re really worth the fuss =) i really want to see Vertigo, Who`s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Some Like it Hot, one Doris Day movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and if i`ve got enough gumption left, Psycho. You in?

on the job

Some interesting facts:
1. By this Friday, I will have done my self-introduction 34 times, to about 800 students, in 8 different schools
2. Including this term, I will have worked with only 5…or 6… well 5.5 (yajima counts as half hahah) teachers who are actual JTEs. The rest have been homeroom teachers who usually tell me when I first meet them that they don`t speak any English.. It goes without saying that my Japanese skills have definitely been tested when I have to try and explain a lesson plan in Japanese. Spontaneity be damned. Yabai.
3. my shortest commute has been 35 minutes (shikitsu) by public transportation, the longest, 1 hour and 5 minutes (nanko).
4. I notice that when I do my self-introduction in Japanese, the response I get from the teachers is really different than when I do it in English. Take this morning for example. I popped out of the principal`s office, and then launched into my “tottemo kantan” self-intro in English. Everyone was standing very straight, and expressionless… then I said it in Japanese. People`s shoulders actually slumped in relief (!?!!!) and faces grew considerably more animated. I seriously wonder what it would be like if I spoke NO Japanese. How worried do Japanese people get around “real” foreigners?
5. When I teach 1-nenseis (grade 1s), I am about 18 years older than them
6. My largest school is Tokiwa (800 students, and they actually use two separate buildings!!). My smallest school was Shikitsu (100 students. They have lots and lots of empty rooms =>).
7. Considering the country, I have actually taught a lot of foreign/mixed kids. At Tokiwa, there`s a white girl in 6-4!!! Bikkurishita! I think she has blue eyes… oooooooh =) At Joyo, I taught Arjana, who is Middle Eastern. At Nishi-Kujo, in 3-1 there was Nin, who is Chinese. Also, when I was eating lunch with 3-2, one girl asked me what my “type” was. =) So I said someone who was really nice. Immediately, she pointed to this cute and quiet boy across the room and exclaimed he was perfect for me because he was soo nice AND he was half Japanese just like me!!! But darn the luck, he is like 8 years old ahahahha =). After class at Nishi-Kujo I would sometimes go to Matsushita sensei`s class for foreign kids which was attended by Dante from Brooklyn, Anna-Paula who is Brazilian, and a cute Korean boy. On the first day at Shikitsu, there was a light-skinned Egyptian girl, but she went back to Egypt the next day. Shikitsu itself is an exceptional case. Out of the 100 kids there, 20 are either foreigners or have one non-Japanese parent.

come june/july...







i may not survive the rainy season.

they say memory is the first thing to go...

-i forgot how much i love hyperballad...


bjork | hyperballad

We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around

It's become a habit
A way
To start the day

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

It's early morning
No one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks

When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you


--i left my umbrella at ikuno. apparently it will rain on monday, but am "saaaafe" cuz i have a few backups, since i seem to really like leaving home without an umbrella on overcast days
-so i`ve lost my hanko (inkan). and consequently, my agenda, bank passbook, a bunch of sentimental stuff from students, and pictures of remy since all of the items were in my yellow drawstring bag thing. but i KNOW i had it on tuesday, since i hanko-ed at the meeting... and it`s not in my apartment since i cleaned like a fiend today (it was actually quite fun! the clothes in my closet and drawer are now arranged by colour!!!! ahahahahha! this will not last the week. fresh laundry, dried courtesy of wind and sun! sutekiiii). rawr.
-ots called me today... at the end, he told me that the leafs and senators were playing today, in ottawa. if the leafs win, they will move onto the conference finals (i think?). ummm, since WHEN has my dad become a leafs/hockey fan???!!!! i canNOT remember him ever talking about hockey, EVER!! what tha haycke is going on! am i seriously not remembering an interest in l`hockey?? hoooooo.

wit`s end=pieces of wood with nails in them



newest line of defense against the pigeons. not really working. notice the grossness.

me and rob

not Tsai, cuz i never see him.

In one part of High Fidelity, the character of Rob waxes enviously on the beauty, money and intelligence/sophistication of the other people gathered at a dinner party at Charlie`s place. Something along the lines of, `these people finished college, I didn`t. as a result they have all of these intellectual and material trappings that i don`t have, but wish i had. Instead I have lists.` When i read that last part, though it was supposed to be a slightly self-piteous moment for Rob, I couldn`t help but smile. Rob, I have lists too.


Some Remedies for a Navy-Blue Funk

1. hot shower. water pressure is overrated*
2. blast j.lo`s "feelin so good" cuz it reminds you of clubbing w.your girls (good parts only hahah). In the same vein, j.timberlake
3. eat at the mexican place in shinsaibashi w.some osaka girls, including a rad & gnarly geezer. Order the to-die-for churizo quesadilla or chicken burrito (yes LinWay we are going there when you come!!!!!)
4. get assigned to work at Ikuno Yougogakko, and hang out with Nishino. Wednesdays are going to be fuuun!
5. read a really uplifting verse/rediscover letters and verses given to you by your ladies` Bible study before you left for Japan
6. discover Peter Turnley and his drool-worthy photographs in Parisians
7. wear new shoes
8. hang out with Lucas Scott, the most adorable bundle of giggly, two-toothed smiling, crawling baby goodness. that child gets more irresistable every single day. amazing.



*okay so i lied... water pressure is Not overrated. but i can deal with lack thereof =)

dancing in the aisles

natsukashii

Now, at night, it smells like summer.

Specifically those nights where you just wander outside for no reason...

for some reason
(the cool twilight plays irresistible)

Those nights where all you need is one deep breath of that air. You know. Air scented by sunlight and freshly cut lawns--promise and anticipation. Just one breath, and you are settled, by that familiar heavy sweetness. Those nights that demand indecision: debating the real length of kilometres, again and again in school parking lots, while sitting on the picnic tables behind Johnny`s Hamburgers, on a curb outside of a Tim`s (any will do), its yellow light splashing over the mottled concrete, onto your feet, finally coming to rest on the empty cups of coffee/hot chocolate discarded in mock dismay. Those nights after tennis when you race through the twisting streets of Valleymede, the wind pushing past your face, to fill the car with that cool and dark sweetness, slowly evaporating the sweat at your temples (the only evidence left of the asphalt battle you fought in just minutes ago). And you think to yourself, this is so perfect.

Now at night, in Osaka, it smells like summer.

if you`re ever in nishiumi...

look this woman up... eiko will take care of you =)





don`t expect to eat at shaun`s, cuz this is what he consumes over the course of one week, i kid you NOT:




although, he has the occassional bout of hunger and goes to joyfull, where he proceeds to order everything and anything... teishoku my foot!

whu??!! an exercise in randomness!

psst! the woman beside me has a big cup of hot chocolate!! smells soooo good.......!!!

so i`m excited about my schools this semester... well, pretty excited. i got nanko-minami again, and will still be teaching with kimoto sensei, even though it`ll be for 2nd year students. apparently hamada sensei is teaching 3nen and watanabe is teaching 1nen. hmmm. i wonder if wada sensei is still there? super funny lady =) i got two elementary schools, and a special needs school =))) it`ll be interesting since i will be their first ALT ever, and the guy i`m teaching with declared nervously that he was definitely NOT an english teacher. aw cute, i felt kind of bad for him, but i`m sure things will be peachy =) but alas, no shikitsu or joyo, although emma got shikitsu and john got joyo, which i am totally happy about. i had these totally evil thoughts beforehand where i imagined that my 3gakki schools secretly adored me so much that my successor would have an indecently hard act to live up to.. muahahhaha... but emma and john are super cool and nice so i`m glad my favourite schools are well taken care of =)

i don`t have to work till monday (yatta!) so am currently re-watching taped episodes of SMAPxSMAP, trying to memorize dorikamu`s lyrics, making ojiYAH!!, figuring out naniwa-ku by bicycle, trying Not to shop too much, overloading on sakura, trying to finish a roll of b&w, and discovering more quality japanese tv dramas...like today!

okay, so it`s about this high school teacher, who is the nerdy guy from Ping Pong! (pin pon), a teacher named Asami. He meets this woman, Misaki, in a bookstore (i think..prev.episode), and they hit it off. they then run into each other again at Asami`s highschool where Misaki, who works with her dad as a florist, is tracking down a deviant teacher who sent flowers to her student and now refuses to pay for the order (phew). Misaki actually walks in on Asami when the latter is caught in a compromising position with a female student who has declared that she thinks he is super hot (or whatever the translation is for "sukiyatte!" =)) Then they battle it out, and Misaki shines in this scene, launching into a full verbal attack which renders Asami into a incomprehensible twit. so great! i was like, goo woman! Very different from the googly twirly haired Japanese woman that frequents the screen (coughUno/Satocough). Later, it is revealed Misaki used to work at that school, and quit over a student. the student, a guy named ryutaro, (who is played by the guy in the new AU commercials) was a punky kid, always getting into serious fights, but was still a sweet guy underneath it all (jamesdeanwannabe?). Misaki worried and cared about him a lot, and made him promise her that he wouldn`t fight anymore. anyways soon afterwards, ryu got jumped at school by guys whom he had beaten up before. when ryu was about to be taken away to the authorities by other teachers, misaki basically jumped in and took the blame, which resulted in her firing. Anyhoo, Ryu is now done right, and is working at a sushi restaurant, and then at the beginning of the new year, calls up Misaki, and arranges to meet up with her, at noon. She agrees, but first goes to the highschool, with a renewed spirit, to try and get this catty teacher to pay her for the flowers. When she is about to leave, Asami stops her and they both have that delayed, soap opera pause where they have to try to find the words they want to say.... then suddenly there is a big boom! that shakes the town. at first u think, it`s an earthquake... but then... it is revealed that the entire school has suddenly been swallowed into the earth, leaving an enormous crater in its stead.


WHAT!!!?????


BIZARRO!!!!!!!!!!!


I TOTALLY WANT TO SEE THE NEXT EPISODE!!!!!


JAPANESE TV PRODUCERS/WRITERS ARE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!



to add to this good natured nonsense, here is the Freakiest colonel sanders ever, at the KFC near taiko masa:




i need to buy milk. and rubber cement. seriously.

easter on sunday!

ohisashiburi

sooo nice outside! and when i ride my bike, my beyond COOL asashoryu keychain makes nice jingly sounds cuz of the bell stuffed inside his belly.



sumo was so cool btw. i ended up sitting in front of 2 german guys, and down the row from them were a bunch of reeeally enthusiastic frenchmen/women. and on my left were these two asian guys and an older european gentleman... i think they were all russian (!). and on my right were an elderly grandma&grandpa who were so cute. the grandpa would try and point something out to his wife, something he must`ve thought was sooo cool, and then grandma would be like, "yeah yeah, i SEE it already!!" ahahahaha... nice. when takamisaikara came out, people went crazy! soo funny... at first when he set up to do battle, he didn`t do his trademark pounding, and i was a bit disappointed. but then the two sumo reset, and takami went to his corner and did his thing... the crowd loved it! and of course, there was a parade of banners displaying the ochazuke mix that sponsors him. cheeeese! i was surprised at the number of foreigners there... and i thought if there were any, they`d all be in the cheap seats with me =) not so, i saw a bunch of `em with the rich old baachans and ossans, half-hidden behind the enormous loot bags that they got with their seat. and asashoryu was yuusho. "Of Course!"

went to shaun`s for four days. sun! fresh air! mountains! ocean! beach!






well... i would if not for the DEAD BLOWFISH that kept washing up onto shore




bowling night w.shaun`s basketball buddies:
(back row) the last samurai, small head, monkey boy, girl who shaun punked off
(front row) miyuki "how are you", thebestbowlerever, AKIHITO suzuki




shaun and his ladies...and lady`s son (how awkward..hahah). us girls ganged up on shaun and berated him for not eating enough. the funniest was when kumi was like, "um in japan guys are cool if they can eat a lot".. and then silently passed a plate of food past shaun to yoji who was shovelling down the leftovers. sniff, makes me miss seiji =) shaun it`s true, you freaking eat like a bulimic asian girl!!!! =)



but he did drive me to Joyfull 3 times!!!! wooooo!




it was good to get out there and breathe in real air and clear my head. well... sort of, shaun kept on interrupting my attempts at serenity with rants about how girls are insane and how he is some kind of deformed alpha male, never able to get a girl unless drunk or becoming an internet/tv stalker. ewww creeptastic...heheh.

but i noticed that something was happening to me when i was out in nishiumi... like i was slowly coming apart. example? i wanted a trucker hat, in black. huh!!??? my first game in bowling sucked!! i was only slightly saddened by Grave of the Fireflies...! but the most disturbing thing was when i tried to play volleyball. the first time was with junior high school girls, and they are Good! way better than the Joyo girls... and when we played a game against them, i was quite hapless. but as soon as i felt capable, the game ended. hmph. but then i remembered my performance could be vindicated during soft vball with the mommies from the area. Hah! I scoff at you, soft volleyball! this is what i said before shaun and i entered the gym, me armed with the notion that this would be an experience similar to the time i played beach volleyball with my mother at centre island. easy peasy my friends... mommies, get ready to eat my dust...er... vball dust... whatever.

well, to make a long and extremely painful and bitter story short, i freaking sucked. the soft volleyball is evil. it weebles and wobbles in the air during its unnaturally long hangtime, and when it makes contact with (my) limbs it takes flight on a trajectory similar to that of a drunken pelican. i do not respect the soft volleyball. it does not respect me. i don`t think the soft vball moms respect me either... when i decided to, at the last minute, go into an ugly and ungainly dive in attempts to retrieve an errant ball, i ended up crashing my knee into the floor, without any triumphant return. when i slowly got to my feet, the grandma with the curly hair, perhaps tired of my horrible play and she herself tired of the false smile and words of encouragement they had to give me, looked at me, spread her arms out about the width of a yellow school ruler and said, "you missed it by this much." ARGHHH!! for his part, shaun couldn`t stop giggling like a small schoolgirl.

tomorrow is the principal`s meeting... sigh. pleasepleasepleasegivemegoodschools... preferrably all elementary!!!! i don`t know what to wear. maybe i`ll see tashiro sensei and shikitsu`s kyoto sensei. so hungry!! need to buy some kimchi and ramen tonight.


byebye