It will get better tomorrow

I did my speech and I bawled. The tears started forcing their way through before I even got on the stage. I was able to muster up the strength and stop the tears...that was until I got half way through my speech and I had to stop. I said "chotto matte kudasai"(one moment pls) before I could start again. Good thing I had put tissue in my pocket beforehand. So I got through it and as I was heading off stage, everyone stood and started to applaud aaaaaand yea I lost it again. Afterward kyouto-sensei(vice principal) continued on with some more assembly stuff and I was good, or so I thought. Suzuki-sensei informed me that after the assembly, I should stay a few more minutes because the ichi-nen(first year) students wanted to say thank you. So I waited. I was instructed to stand in front of them(about 120 in total), as a class representative from each section came up, gave me class cards that all of the students had signed and said thank you in various ways. I was a mess! It was such a bittersweet moment, but at the time it felt more bitter. I got it together and went back to the staffroom to get the last set of birthday cards I would hand out at the school. After school was finished, Kawamoto-sensei told me there were some san-nen(3rd year) students that wanted to speak to me. When I got outside there were 6 girls just waiting there to talk to me. The way they exclaimed when they saw me almost made me burst into tears again, but I held a brave face as they said their personal goodbyes and how they would miss me...not knowing how to say it in the proper tense and just saying "I miss you"...it was so sweet. We parted ways and as I rode home all I could think was 'why would they structure the teaching program like this? how could they make someone stay at a school for enough time to get attached and then rip their heart out?' hahah seriously, I was really sad. I went home and went straight to my bed feeling miserable. I'm here now, feeling a little bit better and trying not to dwell. I will be going back to the school for lunch tomorrow as my special needs student and her teacher will be cooking for me courtesy of "Rika-chan's kitchen" hahaha. I can't wait. Hopefully tomorrow will be much easier.

It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...

Boyz II Men sure did know what they were talking about when they sang this song. That is precisely how I'm feeling at this moment in time. I am sitting at my desk struggling to put pen to paper in an attempt to write a farewell speech to those who have grown near and dear to my heart. How do you say farewell when you don't want to leave? This is really difficult. A couple weeks ago, the thought of having to leave brought tears to my eyes, but in the last week I thought I would be ok. Now as I sit here, every time I pick up the pencil and think about what I want to say, tears well and I feel a huge knot in my throat.

It's been 3 months since I've been working with the students and teachers of Futaba Junior High School. I must say these 3 months have become some of the most memorable times in my life. Everyone here made me feel like I was part of their family, differences and all, they have accepted me and I feel blessed...Oh gosh, there it is again, that lump in my throat. I tell you the staff and students at the next school have big shoes to fill.

I'll still be living in the same city and I will probably see some of my students here and there, but it won't be quite the same. I will miss speaking to Kocho-sensei(principal) in English because he is verse in the language, I will miss Miss Inoue-san always feeding me or giving me some new type of food to try at lunch, I will miss Kyouto-sensei's(VP) day-to-day Japanese lessons as we compared what was equivalent to what in eachother's language, I will miss the way I laughed at the teacher's jokes in the staffroom even though most of the time I only understood them purely through body language, I will miss certain students yelling 'Amanda-sensei!' or 'Hello!' down the hall, I will miss the quirks of each of my team teachers, especially Suzuki-sensei's humour...I will miss it all.

How do you say farewell when you don't want to leave? I think that is how I will start my speech.

Futaba Cultural Festival

This past Sunday was my school's annual cultural festival. Aside from not wanting to get out of bed to go to work on a Sunday morning, I was pretty happy to be there. It was basically a music/chorus festival or competition. Each class in each grade competes for the yearly title. I can't get over how multi talented these students are, it's insane! These 13-15 year olds put me to shame when they sat down in front of the piano to play...my mouth dropped a few times.

For the competition, each grade has a specific song that they have to sing. Each class has 2 songs...the mandatory piece and a free piece. It really is surprising hearing such amazing voices come from such tiny bodies.
I sat with one of my favourite 3rd year classes and caused trouble with some of my students, which I found funny. Instead of enforcing like the other teachers, I was there chatting and cackling about foolishness with my kids. I couldn't help it, they made me do it. Man it was freezing cold on Sunday and the gymnasium is not heated, so aside from the body heat emitted from the hundreds of bodies in the space, it was just cold. Nishigo-kun, who I was sitting beside, gave me his little heating pack from time to time so I could warm up. I thought that was so sweet of him. Every time I started to rub my hands together or show any sign of being cold, he offered.
When lunch time came around I was so happy, not because I was hungry, but because I could go back into the heated staff room. I didn't even go back to watch the band part of the festival, I was way too cold. I popped my head back in the gymnasium for the last 10 minutes when the results were being announced. Afterward, I headed home, had something to eat around 5ish and I slept for the rest of the day until Monday morning. I guess the cold really took a toll on me. It was a good thing I had Monday off to recuperate.

Stop the Presses!

I was pleasantly shocked yesterday while conducting one-on-one interviews with my 3rd year students. In this particular class (3A), there is a girl named Nomura-san who NEVER speaks in class. She keeps her head down and when called on her answers are prompted or said by Tsukahara-sensei, my team teacher. I swear to you until yesterday I was convinced that she was mute, all jokes aside. Before heading into the corridor I asked my team teacher if Nomura-san would be doing the interview. He said yes and I was happy, because I thought, even though she doesn't speak it would still be good to make her feel involved as a part of the class. My exact words were "that's good, I know she probably won't say anything, but at least she can participate". So, imagine my shock when she answered ALL FIVE of the questions I asked her without hesitation!! She answered in a very low voice, but she answered the questions with ease, where other chatter-box students had to think about the same questions for a while. Needless to say after all of the interviews, Tsukahara-sensei and I did a silent victory dance. We were so happy! He even announced it to the class like the poor girl is some kinda papi show (read: public spectacle). Outside of my shock, I was just VERY happy that she has actually been listening and taking in everything that I've been teaching. It's such a great feeling.

My Cherie Amour

I feel sick to my stomach, truly. I am sitting at my desk(at work) typing as I feel queasy, seriously queasy at the thought that my hubby was in Toronto and I WASN'T THERE! Do you understand what I'm feeling right now? I don't think I can accurately conceptualize the love, respect and adoration I have for this man that has stemmed from my youth. I would try, but it wouldn't do this feeling that I have in the pit of my stomach any justice.

Before I left Toronto, I found out Stevie was going on a US tour and that I wouldn't be there to witness any of it, there wasn't even a tour date scheduled for New York! Once I arrived in Japan, I searched to find he had already done his Japan tour for 2007. I thought these blows were hard enough, but imagine my state when I found out more dates were added to his North American tour, one of which would be right there in Toronto! Sunday night as I flipped through my agenda I felt a sharp twinge...I was reminded again as I saw "Stevie in Toronto" in bold red letters. My only consolation was blasting my 'Innervisions' and 'Definitive Collection' albums until it was time for bed.

For those of you who were blessed to be at the concert on Monday night, I hope you understand that you were in the presence of greatness. Don't worry, I am keeping hope alive. I will see him some day soon.

Weekend in Takebe, Okayama Prefecture

Friday evening after work, I rode over to the apartment where the other ALTs (assistant language teachers), Jeff and Laura, live to meet up for the ride to Okayama. I met Craig, from Britain who drove there. The ride there was pretty smooth, it took about an hour or so to get there...maybe less. We arrived at the Takebe international villa about 7:30-8pm. Craig left to go pick up the others who took the train down. After checking out the villa, Jeff, Laura and I started preparing dinner. Fajitas were on the menu. First to arrive were Nate & Miho, followed later on by Amanda, Chip, Jenai & Wendy. Dinner was ready around 9ish and we ate until we were going to burst. We had SO MUCH FOOD! I don't know who put Jeff in charge of buying the groceries but we had nuff! For dessert we had brownies and then we started a game of pictionary, which was jokes to say the least. My belly was hurting from being full and from laughing so hard because some people's drawings were just horrid. After pictionary we played a game of Jenga and headed to bed about 1:30am.

Saturday morning , to my surprise, I was one of the first to wake up. I tip-toed around and took some pictures, then went downstairs. Amanda was awake and we went to the kitchen and were met by a mess in the fridge. The bag of berries for the pancakes somehow got punctured and the juice leaked all over the inside of the fridge and out onto the kitchen floor overnight. After cleaning up the mess, Craig and Jeff came in from the onsen and made breakfast while Amanda and I had a brownie pre-breakfast snack. Breakfast was VERY filling! We had breakfast bagels with egg, cheese, spinach and bacon (mine was without bacon). We lounged around for a bit and then went on a walk around town. So we get to this bridge and Jeff decides the only way we can cross is to race in pairs....ok cool. So it comes time and I'm racing him, only half way down the bridge his wallet flies out of his back pocket and his money flies out of his wallet. I was a little behind him so I dashed to stop all of his money from flying over the side. Unfortunately one lone 10, 000 yen bill had other plans. The funny part came when Jeff, Jenai and I went wading in the river to see if we could find it downstream. Just imagine the jokes at the close calls of us falling over in this rocky river with all of our clothes on. After giving up the feat, Jeff consoled himself by saying someone who needed it more than him will find it downstream and the river was dubbed "river of karma". Next we visited a nearby shrine and took some pictures before heading over to the yogurt and ice cream shop. We sat outside for about half hour before going back on our trek toward the park to play and watch Frisbee. After the walk we went to the onsen. Now, before we got to Takebe I was already freaking out about this because in Japanese onsens everyone is butt nekkid. Yea you read right....I don't change in front of my momma so you can imagine my reservations. I had to mentally coax myself through the whole process. Thank GOD for my modesty towel lol. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...once you realize everyone around you is also butt nekkid it makes it a LITTLE bit easier. It was worth the trepidation because that hot onsen water felt GREAAAAAT!!! After the onsen everyone chipped in to make dinner after stretching to literally make room in our bellies...we had roast, mashed potatoes and macaroni pie a la Amanda. They loved the pie. We couldn't move after we ate for about 20 minutes or so. Once we did get up I started my soca 101 dance lesson, which turned into an electric slide and step lesson all in one. I had a blast and now I want to start a step or dance class nearby. At some point in the night some of the ladies wanted to celebrate learning how to wine by taking shots...they wanted me to take 3 but I had to let them know they were smoking crack if they thought a non-drinker like myself could handle that so I had one. Jenai poured me some antiseptic-tasting sky vodka that burned and made me grow chest hairs! Needless to say I ran to the fridge and drank off my carton of orange juice. I was tired from the eventful day so I went to bed around 12am.

Sunday morning we all had to get up early because check out was at 10am. We had berry pancakes for breakfast, my stomach could only handle two, and then I went and took a quick shower and dip in the onsen. I was quite happy because I was the only one there so I didn't have to cower behind my little modesty towel. Onsens are the bomb! We packed up, split up the hordes of leftover food, cleaned and Craig drove the train people to the station while Jeff, Laura, Wendy and I waited and talked until he returned. We were on our way back home about 11-11:30 and arrived to Aioi at 12:30. All in all it was a GREAT weekend! I got some much needed relaxation, onsening(kinda like hot-tubbing) and pure jokes! We had so much fun we've already started planning the next trip!

ENJOY THE PICTURES!


Bridge race


Wining 101


Electric slide!

Aioi Scarecrow festival

On Friday afternoon at lunch, Yamashita-sensei (Rika's speacial needs teacher) asked me if I wanted to go to the scarecrow festival with her, Rika and another teacher. I told her I wanted to go, but couldn't because I had a lesson scheduled when she would have been leaving. Little did I know that by the time lunch had ended, my regularly scheduled lesson would be postponed because the other teachers told my 3rd grade team-teacher that they wanted me to go enjoy seeing the scarecrows? Who does that? And on top of that my team-teacher didn't even put up a fight? He was like yea OK, no problem we can reschedule. WHO DOES THAT?

Around 11:50am, after I had recovered from my shock, we got ready to head out. Yamashita-sensei drove out to the countryside of Aioi and we arrived to look at the scarecrows. The actual festival did not start until Saturday, so we just walked around and viewed the displays that were set up for the weekend. Before doing this, we ate our lunch in a beautiful park area. I felt instant serenity. Afterward, I was able to let out my inner child again as we all acted like fools on the playground. This is how one should opt to keep their sanity lol. I'm not going to say much else, but I had a wonderful Friday afternoon.

ENJOY THE PICTURES!

I don't know what to call this entry

Nothing much to update you on today. I woke up feeling refreshed after an extra long night of sleep. Had a great work day. I taught three classes, one in each grade and chilled out and blasted music in the staff room for the rest of the afternoon. I don't know what musical spirit caught me today, but I felt the teachers needed some soca in their lives so I didn't turn it down and they didn't seem to mind. Now I just have to work up the nerve to get up in front of my desk and show them how to whine lol. I ended up staying at work about an hour later than normal because I was caught up listening to music and updating my blog. When I finally went home, I stopped by to see my supervisor at the BOE(board of education) so he could translate my mail. I then went to the post office to pick up my box of sweaters etc. that pops sent for me, came home chilled out, ate dinner, listened to music, spoke to Jatty on skype and here I am about to head to bed. That's it for today, nothing too exciting. See you soon!

Himeji jyo yo!

Our day continued after a much needed few hours of sleep around 11:30am when we finally got out of bed. I spoke to pops on skype for a bit while we had breakfast and burned a few cds. Khaleelah got her stuff together to go home and we headed out to 7-eleven, then the train station. We got to Himeji about 2:30ish, went to Mr. Donut (their donuts are heaven...keep in mind I was never a real donut eater in Toronto) and then headed North on the main road toward Himeji Castle. On the way to the castle, which is across the street, the bimonthly flea market was in full swing with tons of different ceramic vendors. What amazed me was the disabled woman who was shaping some pottery. You would never guess this woman had any type of disability at first glance, the things she was doing on that potter's wheel had me in awe. On to the castle, we walked around and took pictures for about an hour and a half. I took pictures as though I hadn't been to the castle before. The place is just beautiful. At about 5pm we left the castle and went to eat a Turkish restaurant before going back to the station. Khaleelah caught the 5:57pm and I caught the 6:08pm train back home. By this time I was so beat, I knocked out on the train even though the ride is only 20 minutes. When I got to my city I had to face the task of riding my bike while wheeling the next one beside me. I didn't want to think about any other options, just wanted to get the bikes home lol. I got home, walked through the door and changed into my pjs right away. I spoke to Herc for a little on skype while trying to google what the hell was wrong with my home phone to no avail. Once I got the text from Khaleelah that she got home safely, I closed my book and actually went to bed at a decent time, around 9:30-10. What a busy weekend.

P.S. Jyo means castle in Japanese

SEE WEEKEND PICTURES HERE

S is for Saturday in Shinsaibashi!

Saturday morning Khaleelah and I woke up about 8 'o clock and prepared for the day ahead. I put in the mixed reggae cd that Thomas had sent for me and instead of getting ready as fast as we could have, each movement involved rocking to the music. We did actually end up leaving the house on time, rode to the station and caught the 9:25am train to Osaka Umeda JR station. From there we walked over to Umeda subway station and took the train to Shinsaibashi about 15 minutes away. We met Dale on the subway platform and headed out to walk around Shinsaibashi. We went to the Loft department store. This was my first time being in this store and I can definitely say it won't be my last. I really had to exercise every ounce of self control while in this store. After loft we walked around some more, took pictures of people and their outfits and played Taiki(I think this is the name). Khaleelah and Dale introduced me to this arcade-type game. Let me just say I had SO MUCH FUN playing this game. I laughed until my belly felt like it was gonna bust. Basically, it is a drumming game, kinda like the dancing game you see in arcades in Toronto. You have to hit the right part of this drum depending on the colour and size of the circles that come up on the screen. You pick the song that you want to play to and the circles come across the screen in a pattern specific to the song. Hopefully once you see the pictures you will get a better idea of what I'm trying to describe. We worked up an appetite playing the game and then headed over to a Mexican restaurant. Can you say GOOD food! I am eating some good food here in Japan so you know I am happy about that. The restaurant had an authentic feel to it with all the Mexican-themed knick knacks around the place. All of the walls were concrete so that people could right on them. None of us had writing utensils so we couldn't grace the walls with our presence...ah well next time. I couldn't get over the amount of food in our plates for the price and the fruit drinks that we got were heaven. I got Strawberry/Mango, while Khaleelah and Dale got Strawberry/Banana. We walked off our fullness through the streets of Shinsaibashi in an area called America Mura where there are tons of stores and clubs. We found a record shop called Cisco and let me just say this was the highlight of the day for each of this. It was wrap, I didn't have to do anything else but stay in there for the rest of our day. We spent about an hour or two in that place listening to music...I was listening to a bunch of Studio One albums on wax. I had my own little party singing and dancing in front of the record player and no one seemed to care. I loved it, the atmosphere was so free as everyone in there was in search of good music. By the time we left I added record player on the list of things I need to have in my house. At about 5 or 6 we headed back to the station to go back home. We parted ways with Dale at Osaka Umeda JR station and went to Yodobashi Camera, a big electronics store. K needed to get some blank CD-R's and I wanted to look for the camera that I wanted. I ended up buying my camera!!! They were having a sale for the weekend and I got the Nikkon D40x with 2 lenses (18-55 and 55-200) for a great price. I thought I would be more ecstatic, but I don't think it has hit me yet. We left Osaka and got home about 8:30pm. We looked up some clubs and figured which we would go to, actually Khaleelah did that as I sat on the ground and fiddled with my camera like a child with a new toy. After deciding we where we would go, we got ready and took the 10:51pm train to Himeji. Once we got to Himeji we followed the useless map on the flyer. Khaleelah used her Japanese skills to ask some people on the way where we had to go and we eventually found the club. It was a little hole in the wall spot that has potential. To my surprise there were more than 5 black people in the club, not including us. When we got in they were playing some whack hip hop, so we just sat at the front near the dance floor and were entertained by the dancers on the floor. One of the guys, his name was Green, came and asked us why we weren't dancing. When we told him we weren't feeling the music, he asked the DJ to change it up which he did for one hot set of music. Sadly, the music went downhill after that and the smoke wasn't helping at all. I had my worst reaction to cigarette smoke that night. Burning eyes, burning throat, swollen glands and acid reflux. Man I can't take this about the clubs here. We left early. Now comes the interesting part. The trains in Japan stop running around midnight and start again at 5:30am. The club we were at closed at 3, we left around 2 and we were going to take a cab home. We had to go to the ATM first. I had just under 1000 yen on me, but the ATM was also closed (that will be explained in another blog). So, we found an udon shop ordered some noodles and fell asleep in the people's place until about 4:45am when the owner came and said we couldn't sleep there lol. We walked to the station and waited another hour before catching the 5:31am train back to Aioi. It didn't help that it was cold at all. I don't think either of us could've been more happy to finally be back at the apartment. We showered and went straight to bed. It was a very eventful day.

First Friday

This past Friday was Khaleelah's first visit to my little city of Aioi, coincidentally it was also the first Friday of the month making my blog title quite fitting don't you think? After work, I rode straight to the station to leave the bike there for her to ride when she got in. My supervisor, the sweetheart that he is, got the key fixed for the other bike at my apartment. I had know idea this bike was there. I walked back to my apartment, taking a route that I had yet to take. Once I got in, I did some last minute cleaning, washed and then braided my hair in sections, then let it dry before I left for the station. I met Khaleelah at the station just before 10 and we rode back to my apartment. We basically chilled out for the night. We ate some food, pasta that I made, and talked to Herc on skype. He was giving us jokes some of which had us on the floor laughing. I think we talked for about two hours. We retired for the night around 1am and didn't stay up talking because we were too tired.