hey all,
Hope that everyone had a great thanksgiving holiday. Its hard to believe its the end of november already! I had a good holiday over here. last sunday we had a thanksgiving dinner at a fellow ALT's apartment, she made turkey in her microwave/oven, and we had mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and numerous other yummy dishes.. it was great! Really nice to have a break from Japanese food. I made pan roasted apples with cinammin sugar syrup and brandy.. yummy! and I had another Thanksgiving dinner on Friday! at another apt. It was really nice too.
I was really tired all day cause I woke up at about 5:30 am my time to call home and talk to everyone at my house for thanksgiving dinner. But it was so great to talk with everyone and to hear voices from home.
It was a slow yet busy week at work last week, and this week is going to be pretty crazy... I have to grade a crap load of papers, and I have to finish writing the final for my oral communications classes, plus I have to prepare a lesson to turn in for the Toyama Jets hand book. I have 2 full days of meetings on wed/thurs and finals start on friday.. so i'm cutting everything a little close. Monday I have 5 classes in a row.. so not excited about that one.. but oh well.
Its getting really cold here!! it snowed briefly the other day but it hasn't accumulated to anything yet.. just wet and cold. Here they use water to melt the snow.. they have pipes that run under all the main roads and most of the sidewalks.. and when it rains these things that look like little sprinkler heads pour out water to melt the snow.. its weird.. and it means that the roads are really wet all winter long. I'm working on finding ways to stay warm in my uninsulated apartment.. apparently they don't really believe in insulation here... so my apt gets cold at night... so far I'm making alot of use of my hot carpet.. an electric carpet.. and my electric blanket that I can sleep on top of. I also have a heater.. its my AC unit and also does heat.. but apparently its really expensive to use.. so sometime soon i need to go buy a small electric heater.
well thats it really.. not much going on as of now. I'm really starting to look forward to my christmas trip to sunny and hot Thailand!
hope everyone is doing well! miss and love yall
me
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
update
hey all,
realize its been a while.. promise not slacking. So lets see what has been going on. A few weeks ago one of my teachers had mentioned a freind from Kureha who teaches english to elementary aged students, and was doing a sunday party/camp like thing, and asked if I wanted to help. I was really excited to help. So on sunday the 4th I got picked up by one of the teachers along with her husband and daughter. They both lived in England for several years and spoke great english, so that was great. We drove into the Kureha hills to the Kureha outdoor center, we were going to be making curry with the kids and doing some english activities.
It was really fun, there were kids from pre-school to middle-school there, and there parents, the kids all had pretty good english and some of the parents had some basics as well. What made it really great was that the kids and their parents were all from Kureha, so i met alot of people in my neighborhood, infact I met the family who owns the flowershop I live behind.
Any way I learned how to make curry, which was yummy, we cooked it over fires outside, and the kids did all the work, it was great.
Infact tonight I am going to make curry for dinner! lets hope it turns out as good as the kids.
Also last week I went to a musical, there is a group in Japan, its all women and they put on plays and musicals and dance. There are a like 5 different troups, and each does different plays and shows. But one was on tour in Toyama so a group of ALTs got tickets and went. It was really cool, all in Japanese so I didn't understand much of the play but there singing and dancing was awesome.
The JET halloween party was also on Friday night, it was really fun! it was about a 30minute train ride up in the mountains, I went as the cheshire cat (pictures coming) and one of my freinds was the Queen of Hearts, and another was the Mad Hatter. It was fun! of course the pary lasted until 2am and there aren't any trains that late, most of the alts who live out there had full houses, so my friend and I slept in her car. That was an experience.
Any way I made it home and spent the entire day sleeping. It didn't help that I managed to catch a major cold, so I actaully spent all weekend in bed sleeping and feeling all around gross. What really stinks is that I didn't bring any cold medicine from home with me, so I didn't even have anything to take.. I just drank alot of tea and felt sick.
I still feel kinda gross, but I can't miss work, so I found some cold medicine and hope that I feel alot better soon.
I have a quiet next couple of weeks/weekends coming up in November, and then December picks up again.
So thats about it, I really can't believe its already the middle of November!
Hope things are going great back at home for everyone!
Love all!!
Me
realize its been a while.. promise not slacking. So lets see what has been going on. A few weeks ago one of my teachers had mentioned a freind from Kureha who teaches english to elementary aged students, and was doing a sunday party/camp like thing, and asked if I wanted to help. I was really excited to help. So on sunday the 4th I got picked up by one of the teachers along with her husband and daughter. They both lived in England for several years and spoke great english, so that was great. We drove into the Kureha hills to the Kureha outdoor center, we were going to be making curry with the kids and doing some english activities.
It was really fun, there were kids from pre-school to middle-school there, and there parents, the kids all had pretty good english and some of the parents had some basics as well. What made it really great was that the kids and their parents were all from Kureha, so i met alot of people in my neighborhood, infact I met the family who owns the flowershop I live behind.
Any way I learned how to make curry, which was yummy, we cooked it over fires outside, and the kids did all the work, it was great.
Infact tonight I am going to make curry for dinner! lets hope it turns out as good as the kids.
Also last week I went to a musical, there is a group in Japan, its all women and they put on plays and musicals and dance. There are a like 5 different troups, and each does different plays and shows. But one was on tour in Toyama so a group of ALTs got tickets and went. It was really cool, all in Japanese so I didn't understand much of the play but there singing and dancing was awesome.
The JET halloween party was also on Friday night, it was really fun! it was about a 30minute train ride up in the mountains, I went as the cheshire cat (pictures coming) and one of my freinds was the Queen of Hearts, and another was the Mad Hatter. It was fun! of course the pary lasted until 2am and there aren't any trains that late, most of the alts who live out there had full houses, so my friend and I slept in her car. That was an experience.
Any way I made it home and spent the entire day sleeping. It didn't help that I managed to catch a major cold, so I actaully spent all weekend in bed sleeping and feeling all around gross. What really stinks is that I didn't bring any cold medicine from home with me, so I didn't even have anything to take.. I just drank alot of tea and felt sick.
I still feel kinda gross, but I can't miss work, so I found some cold medicine and hope that I feel alot better soon.
I have a quiet next couple of weeks/weekends coming up in November, and then December picks up again.
So thats about it, I really can't believe its already the middle of November!
Hope things are going great back at home for everyone!
Love all!!
Me
Thursday, November 1, 2007
random
okay this just amused me.. this last week I have been telling my first years about halloween.. and in my presentation I mention that older students like to play pranks on Halloween.. I mentioned and described TPing someones house.. or the trees out front.. and oh my.. in one class the eyes of this one student just opened up.. i could litterally see that gleam in his eye that means trouble..
it was fantastic!! Totally a Sam moment.
anyway.. off to not enjoy the rain
me
it was fantastic!! Totally a Sam moment.
anyway.. off to not enjoy the rain
me
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