Variety is the spice of life...

...and because of spices, I have variety!

Callie, the ALT who lived in this apartment before me, left several different herbs and spices in the kitchen. So I can put oregano or rosemary or basil on grilled chicken or fish or whatever. I have garlic to put on my noodles or bread or meat. Oh, the possiblities! I could spice up some foods with chili pepper if I so desire (but I don't really desire).

There are also several unidentified Japanese spices sitting on my countertop, so I can experiment. But I will use them sparingly until they are identified. Too bad I don't like black pepper because I have a whole lot of that!

I eat the majority of meals in my apartment. I've discovered that the frozen pizzas here are quite delicious; I had a fantastic shrimp and corn pizza the other day. I like to fix things that are also pretty easy -- like grilled meat, steamed vegetables, spaghetti and sandwiches. Below is a picture of tonight's dinner -- my rice, corn and eggs concoction. It doesn't contain any herbs or spices, but there's a lot of soy sauce in there!

Ok, I admit that the chopsticks are just for show. :) When I'm in my apartment, you'd better believe I use silverware!

I will occasionally eat dinner out, such as last night when I went to a sushi bar with Liz, Sean and Oliver -- a new ALT in Kuji. (So I'm not the newest ALT anymore!) Sitting at the sushi bar, watching the different types of sushi go around on a conveyor belt, was a neat experience. I've been wanting to go to one since I arrived in Japan. I didn't take a picture of it because #1 I didn't have my camera. (That's the main reason.) And #2 I don't want to seem like a tourist. After all, I'm a resident now. :)

Besides eating in and eating out (at a restaurant), I will sometimes have lunch at school. At Misaki Junior High School on Friday, I had the choice of going home for a late lunch or eating the school lunch with the students. The teacher suggested that I would probably want to bring my own lunch from now on, like Callie used to do. Hmmm...suspicious, indeed. But for the first time, I could try the school lunch. So I tried it.

The main dish was tofu/ground beef? maybe?/who knows what else was is that? soup. That's mysterious, I thought. One of the side dishes was a cucumber and seaweed mixture. That's unique. And very green. And also not good. The soup and seaweed was served with a bowl of white rice. That's standard. It also came with what I thought were onion rings, but turned out to be fried rings of squid. That's tricky! There was also a thimble-sized portion of what they called "jelly," which they said was my dessert. That's funny! My idea of dessert is a hot fudge sundae. Oh well, at least the half-bite of jelly was tasty!

So I think I'll be bringing white chocolate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch when I go to Misaki. :)
I now have four jars of it that have been mailed to me, haha!

A view from where I was sitting of what it's like to eat lunch with the students.

You'll notice that they eat lunch in the classroom, unlike in America where there is a school cafeteria. The teacher brings in big pots and conatiners of food to the room, the students line up, and a few of the students serve the line. They don't have a choice about what they eat. Even the teachers eat the same lunch as the students.

Yesterday after the church service, I stayed for a church luncheon. I ate tuna and potato salad (yes, together!) sandwiches, pumpkin soup and soybeans. Of course they also served tea, which I always turn down. Maybe I'll learn to like tea by living in Japan? I thought the lunch was delicious! I really like the soybeans here, and I often eat them as a snack.

And today for lunch, I ate at Osani Elementary School with a fifth grade class. The menu was some sort of tofu soup (different from the one on Friday), bread, pears, an unidentifiable fried thing and mashed pumpkin with peas, carrots and onion in it. It may not sound appetizing, but I thought the pumpkin stuff was amazing! The teacher said there was lots left and I could help myself to some more, so I did.

They look like little surgeons (love the outfit!), but they're actually just getting ready to serve lunch. So sanitary!

The little surgeons in action! You've probably already noticed that throwing up the "peace sign" is quite normal.

A close-up of the meal -- those are pears in the sack. And I just noticed the kid with his hand dangling in the container of bread. Hey, that's not sanitary!

I think I ate too much of the pumpkin stuff since my stomach kind of hurt afterwards, which wasn't good because I played volleyball this afternoon! (Yeah, you read that correctly, haha.) All of the middle school classes in Kuji were cancelled for the afternoon so the teachers from the different schools could have a volleyball tournament! I went just to watch, but instead I ended up joining the Board of Education team. I tried explaining that, "Trust me, you really don't want me on your team. I'll just cheer," but my teammates didn't understand English and seemed to really want me to join them. So I gave in and played (wearing dress pants, oh well), and it was a lot of fun!

Hooray for the Board of Education volleyball team! Peace out. :)

One of the teachers at Okamawe Junior High School who I met the other day, came up to me after the first game and said, "Your playing is charming." I couldn't stifle a laugh! Maybe she thinks the word charming means "ridiculously embarrassing?" Because there is absolutely nothing charming about the way I play volleyball! In fact, whenever I joined the Board of Education team, we lost. And when I sat out and watched, we won. Coincidence? I think not!

I'll end this long blog post now by wishing everyone in America a happy Labor Day today. Celebrate for me by eating a variety of picnic foods, ok? :)

***This post is dedicated to my dad, who has a fondness for food as I do and is always interested in what I'm eating!***

Congratulations to the contest participants!

Speaking English comes naturally to you and me. But that's not the case for the 30 students who participated in "The 8th Kuji City Inter Junior High School English Recitation and Speech Contest." (Whew, talk about something that's not easy to say!)

That's why I'm so proud of all the students. English isn't easy for most of them, yet they each memorized a one-page story or speech in English. I can't imagine memorizing a whole page of Japanese and then reciting it -- focusing on my expression, intonation and pronouncing everything correctly -- plus doing gestures. There's no way!

Last week, I went to an English-speaking contest in a nearby town, as one of five judges. I had a good time judging the contest and was impressed by those students as well. It was harder to judge than I thought it'd be. Although judging was fun, I was happy to not have that pressure and to just watch the Kuji contest.

I was especially interested in watching three girls from Okamawe Junior High School compete because I helped them practice their speeches. For the last two weeks, I have spent an hour and a half almost every afternoon/early evening working with them. (So I couldn't be a judge at the Kuji contest because I would have been biased.)

I found that the hardest letters for the girls to pronounce in English, as well as many of the other speakers at the contest, are "th," "r," and "w." For example, the word "everything" usually sounds more like "everysing." Often during the contest, words that started with the letter "v" sounded more like they began with the letter "b."

Each of the girls I worked with had her own "trouble words" that I had to pronounce over and over again. One of the girls had problem pronouncing the word "problem," and the way she said the word "wrong" was wrong. Oh, the irony!

During the speech contest on Thursday, my girls made me proud! Here's a picture of me with them, following the contest:

The girl beside me was one of the students who went to Franklin last January with Yamadate! She recognized me from the dinner at Franklin College, where I spoke about coming to Kuji. So now she's seen me speak in public, and I've seen her speak. And the girl on the left won first place in her division, making me very happy!

I enjoyed listening to all the different stories and speeches. My favorite part was the end, when the winners were announced. Except the announcer lady called them "weiners" instead! I about lost it when she ended the contest by saying, "Congratulations to all of these weiners!" :)

She proves my point that English is not always easy to pronounce for non-native speakers!

This is Amber Hall, the funky building with an auditorium where the contest was held. I've been wanting to go inside since I arrived in Kuji, and I finally had my chance. :)

Cutie pies and butterflies

My job in Kuji has two parts -- teaching in schools and sitting in the office.

Every morning, I go to a classroom to help teach English, but it's a different school each day of the week. Monday is the only day I go to an elemetary school; I spend the remainder of the week at different junior high schools.

Teaching is my favorite part of the job because I like being with kids! And I'm pretty sure that Monday will become my favorite day of the week (pretty unusual, huh?), because the little kids are SO cute!! This past Monday, I went to the same elementary school as Liz because the one that I was supposed to go to changed their schedule around, so they didn't need me.

I had such a good time observing "Liz-san" as she taught several lessons. And I loved interacting with the kids, just as I did with the kids in Nicaragua. In the first two classes, we sang "Heads, Shoulders, Kees and Toes," read the book "Brown Bear" and talked about colors, and finished by playing/singing "London Bridges." In the third and fourth classes, we sang "Bingo," then taught the children the English word for a variety of fruits, and finished by playing "fruit Bingo."

Here are two pictures of cutie pies that I met at the elementary school:

Click here to see more pictures from Monday morning.

Every single afternoon after my lunch break, I report to the third floor of City Hall. I go my desk in the Board of Education office, and I stay there until 4:30. There's really not a whole lot to do in the office, so I have to find ways to keep myself busy. I'm able to use the internet, so I can check and write e-mails and blogs. I've also been using the afternoons to start memorizing Japanese hiragana characters. By the way, Tomoki came over this evening and was so proud of me because I've memorized half of his chart!

Last week, Liz got bored in the office, so she drew butterflies on colored paper. I helped cut them out, and then she hung the butterflies on the strings that dangle from the lights and blinds, so it looks like this:

So yeah, that's what we do in the office! We're the self-appointed decoration committee, haha.

Even though my boss, Yamadate, is the only person in the office fluent in English, it's fun to interact with everyone else, too. I enjoy passing out candy to everyone -- especially watching their hilarious reactions to sour skittles! And Yamadate keeps things lively, that's for sure. He's hilarious. In his own words, he's "noisy crazy," while some people are "quiet crazy." I get along very well with Yamadate. :)

There was a welcome party for Liz and me last week, and we took a group picture. That's the Kuji City Mayor between Liz and me, and all the other guys in suits work for him. Yamadate is on the far left of the front row, in the short sleeves. Everyone else works in the Board of Education Office.

The welcome party included karaoke after dinner, which was a blast! Watching my co-workers sing English songs was pretty entertaining. The vice mayor is now my "Beatles buddy" because we sang a few Beatles' songs together. I sang "Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel. I knew all the words. :)

My washing machine makes me laugh!

**Note to reader: I don't know why it says this blog is being posted on Friday, Aug. 22 at 11:11 p.m. because that's all wrong. It is definitely Monday evening, Aug. 25 as I write.**

Obviously, this is my washing machine. It looks fairly normal. But looks can be deceiving!

I admit that I'm easily amused.

But if you were here in my apartment right now--listening to the crazy sounds coming from my washing machine and watching me check on it every few seconds to make sure it isn't exploding water and clothes all over the place--you'd probably be cracking up, too!

It started out normal. Then all of a sudden, without warning, it sounded like someone was drilling something into my wall. The sound of pouring water soon accompanied the drilling noise. At this point, I ran to the laundry room, feeling sure that I would find a giant puddle to mop; fortunately, water had not spilled all over my floor. Not so much as a drop, in fact. After the drilling and the waterfall stopped, it sounded like a bunch of balloons popping one-by-one inside the machine. Next came the "helicopter-preparing-for-takeoff phase," followed by the helicopter soaring for a while, with its propellers moving at a rapid pace. Now it's sounding like there is a working blender inside tumbling around, instead of my chothes.

This was going to be a blog post about my weekend, not my washing machine. But it's hard to concentrate on writing about anything else with these kind of background noises. I just can't get over this crazy appliance!

Anyway...moving on now...

I went to a parade yesterday. It was pouring rain the entire time, but it was still fun. Fun until I was completely soaked and freezing, anway. I don't think I've written much about the weather, but for the last few days it's felt more like April than August! I've already been wearing my jacket since the air is cool. It's also been rainy/dreary, and I've been told that this is just the beginning of the rainy season. Great. (*sarcastic voice*)

The parade took place in Noda, where Jemma lives. So Mayla and I went to see Jemma participate in the parade with some of her co-workers. We were standing on the side of the road underneath our umbrellas, when a group in the parade motioned for me to join them! So I jumped right in and marched along for a while. :) There's going to be a festival in Kuji next month, and I'm going to be in that parade too, along with my City Hall co-workers. Hopefully it doesn't rain on our parade! haha.

On Saturday, I went for a 45-minute "wog" (walk/jog) in the morning and then came back to my apartment, where I made and devoured a batch of banana granola pancakes! In the afternoon, I sang karaoke with Mayla and Sean -- an ALT in Kuji who was home in Atlanta for his sister's wedding until just a few days ago. This was not my first time to go to a karaoke bar while in Japan. I went last week with some co-workers, but that's for another blog post! So stay tuned...

And by the way, my clothes are done now. They survived!!

I'll teach you, you teach me

Tomoki is excited about learning English. There's no doubt about it.

The boy has come by my apartment and/or e-mailed me almost every day since I've been here, eager to practice. In one e-mail to me, he attached a picture of his room. I immediately noticed the American flag on his wall, which he called his star-spangled banner. He knows the words to the national anthem better than most Americans probably do! I know because he was more than happy to sing it for me.

He asked me if I speak Japanese, and I told him no, but casually added, "Maybe you can teach me." Well, he's taken that to heart! He came over last week with a chart of 50 hiragana Japanese characters and told me to study them.

While that's very nice of him to make me a chart, this is how I feel when I look at it...

Slightly overwhelmed!

The following e-mail from him made me chuckle:

Hi Dana, I'll come to your apartment. For me, meeting you is the enjoyment. The hiragana might be difficult. But I teach plainly to you. I bought camera. Because I want to take your smile and my smile. Hope you are well. Tomoki.

The picture he wanted of our smiles together :)

Because of the way he words things, it may come across like he's somewhat creepy, but he's really a cute kid who loves to learn. He just doesn't have perfect English....yet. ;)

Our first lesson last week went well. We were going over the difference between the pronunciations of "ear" and "year"; he pronounced both words as "ear." I also had him differentiate between "pool" and "pull," as well as "tool" and "tell." When I asked him if he knew what a tool was, he said, "Oh, Avril Lavigne! Tool me!" He was thinking of the song "Complicated," -- the part where she sings "Tell me..." I thought it was funny.

When his lesson was over, he asked me if I have laundry detergent. I have no idea why. Only he didn't know how to say detergent, so he acted it out, and I had to solve the mystery of what he was trying to say. Then he said to let him know if I have an accident. What?!? "E-mail me." Ummm...okay?

We've set lessons to be twice a week -- every Monday and Wednesday after school. I gave Tomoki a list of English words to review before his next lesson on Monday. And meanwhile, I have a chart of hiragana characters to memorize! Wish me luck.

Driving and singing--but not teaching--with Billy Joel

I made a discovery earlier this week.

I was playing with my car radio on Monday, trying to find a song with English lyrics. It didn't happen.

But what I did find were some cassette tapes on the floor of my car. So I picked up the handful of tapes and browsed through them: Beethoven...Mozart...more classical music...this is likely to put me to sleep if I try driving while listening to it...and then, Billy Joel Greatest Hits.

Hmmm. I popped the tape into my car's cassette player and started driving. I quickly discovered that I'm a Billy Joel fan! Many of the songs I already knew, I just didn't know who sang them. And I'd definitely heard of Billy Joel before Monday, I just didn't know what he sang. So now I've put the pieces together. :)

Billy Joel and I have driven to three schools this week. (Actually, to clarify -- I'm the one who drives; Billy just serenades me.) On Tuesday morning, we went to Okawame Junior High School. All of the students were taking a test, so there was no teaching for me to do. But I got a tour of the school and met the teachers, which was productive. I spent the afternoon in the office.

On Wednesday, it was a different school, but the same story. It took me 30 minutes to drive to Yamane Jr. High School. I was excited to finally get to teach English, but was told when I got there that the students (all 9 of them in the entire school!!) were testing. No classes. But again, I met the teachers and got acquainted with the school. Yamane had a welcome ceremony for me, where the principal gave me a speech about how I'm to join the "Yamane family." And the students did a cheer of my name ("Daay-na, "Daay-na"), complete with hand motions! It was very thoughful and made me feel welcomed.

Oh, and I have to add that all of the teachers laughed at me as I was leaving the school because I got into the passenger's side of my car (which is the driver's side in America.) When will I get used to that? I also frequently turn on my windshield wipers instead of the turn signal, since that's also on the opposide side of what I'm used to. HA!

Today, I drove up to Mugyo Junior High School, located on a mountain. Believe it or not, it's smaller than Yamane since there are only four students! It's actually going to close soon. But anyway, I finally got to help teach the students English! They are preparing to give speeches for an English-speaking contest next week, and I helped them practice. I was there all morning, and then drove 20 minutes back down the mountain (singing with Billy, of course).

Although I am quite happy right with Billy's company as I drive ALL OVER Kuji, listening to "Piano Man" and "Only the Good Die Young" over an over, I can see this getting old in the near future. (He keeps singing me the same songs! haha).

So this leads me to an announcement/request....
If you have any old cassette tapes that you don't listen to anymore and don't know what to do with, you could consider mailing them to me. :) I would greatly appreciate it! I know that sending things internationally isn't exactly cheap, but in case you feel compelled to send me tapes, here's my address:

Poetori Potto18 No.103
2-5 Jyuhachinichimachi
Kuji City, Iwate Ken, JP 028-0065

I'm not very picky when it comes to music. After all, anything is better than incomprehensible Japanese songs on the radio! And I'd love to have a "variety of company" during my drives. :)

A lovely weekend outdoors

This was the view from the cabin where Liz, Mayla, Jemma and I stayed Friday night through Sunday morning.

The scenery was fantastic and the weather was wonderful. The month of August in northern Japan feels more like June in Indiana -- it's warm, but not hot. The campsite we went to was about two hours northwest of Kuji, located on Lake Towada.

Our cabin (and Jemma's car). Sorry about the overexposure!

When we got to our cabin on Friday night, it was so dark that we couldn't tell how close we were to the lake. So on Saturday morning, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that not only did we have a spectacular view of the water and mountains from our cabin, but it was also a beautiful day to enjoy it. (The weather forecast has predicted rain. It did sprinkle a little bit in the afternoon.)

I walked down to the lake with Jemma and just admired God's beautiful creation. Liz joined us, then Mayla, and it was a group consensus to go for a morning swim. The water was warmer than I thought it would be, and the swim was so invigorating! We had a breakfast picnic by the lake with the foods we bought the night before.

The swim was followed by a hike along the lake, which is when Liz took these pictures:


And the pleasant hike along the flat area by the lake led into climbing in the woods! I'm smiling in the picture below, but at this point I didn't really feel like smiling. I'm not used to so much uphill/downhill walking, and my legs felt it afterward.


Looking back at what we just climbed.

After the hike, Jemma, Liz and I went for a refreshing swim in the lake. (which I had been daydreaming about nearly the whole time hiking uphill!) We spent the late afternoon and evening in a nearby, touristy town. The four of us went inside the shops, ate dinner at a nice restaurant and then went to a natural hot springs bath! Lovely. When we got back the cabin, we went outside and played with sparklers like kids. So much fun!

Isn't Liz such an artistic photographer? I think this picture is so cool!

Sunday morning was spent taking a walk along a gorge, where there were several little waterfalls. Again, the scenery was beautiful, and I was inwardly praising God for His magnificent work. On the drive back to Kuji, we stopped at a mall and ate at an Italian buffet for lunch -- a nice ending to a great weekend trip.

I thought this man was doing a great job of capturing what we were seeing in nature.

One of the small waterfalls we saw while hiking along the gorge.