green blood

mjam....Just been warmed by a hot chocolate with marshmallows..mhmmmmmm.

Anyways. Got to bed pretty late yesterday again..or early..(3.30am..?), had an awesome night at SpeakEZ! Well..actually it started off quite calmly...it was Dj night..so for once us gaijins were actually outnumbered by the japanese people. Which was great really...gives an entirely different atmoshphere. The music was a little annoying after a while though, as it was all boom boom with no words or melodies..which is great...if you're at a rave...and maybe high on milk? but not when you're sitting down...and tired..then it's quite annoying. Add the neverending strobe lighting to induce epilepsy even in the ones with no genetic possibility of ever getting it..and it was a tiring beginning.

It got better though. I got talking to a japanese girl which was good..her english was chouso! Then I got talking to a portuguese guy..which was interesting because he couldn't speak any english, just portuguese..a little spanish and japanese. So we had a spanish/japanese conversation. I then built up the bravery to talk to a group of japanese guys. One of them was standing next to me..so I swallowed my fear and tapped him on the arm and asked if he could speak english (in japanese of course)...we ended up playing darts as a group which was hilarious. We also had some random conversations in english/japanese...I learnt some more vocab like blood (chi), music (ongakku), and maybe (tabun). It was really funny. They were very unjapanese to what I have been told japanese guys are like (shy..too scared to talk to gaijing girls), they were proper cheeky and confident!It was freezing in the night though. I actually woke up in the middle of the night because I was so cold. Apparently it's gonna get worse....ghosh..scary. I went on a spontaneous shopping trip with Imogen, ended up buying clothes making me look like a japanese girl! I bought knee high boots and one of those jumpery dresses! What do you guys think? can I pull the girl look off? we then went up to a manga cafe where we stayed in a room with cats..which was an odd new experience. There was actually a ragdoll cat there which looked remarkably like a mini version of Max.

After that I cycled off on a big mission to find my Monday school. I cycled that way once with fran a while ago, and wanted to see if I could remember. It took some time...and it got darker and colder. I found it though!!! Not sure if I am going to cycle it though. the street is so narrow and when it's filled with kids in the morning..I am not sure that'll be a pleasant ride! still contemplating anyways. raaaar...and now I am huddled in a blanket..very cold..and in need of more tea!

Arigato gozaimashita!

Ahhhhhh I got my first "west packet" today!! Thaaaank you so much! the chocolate is much appreciated, and so are the CD's and books! I am so gonna get fat while in Japan due to the supply of sweets I am getting! anyways..just thought I'd dedicate a quick blog to that! As you were!

kinyoubi!!!!

argh! Stupid pc man! crashes on me when I am writing my blog! No I gotta do it all over again!

ok..take 2.

Yesterday was my fave school...and I was tanking up energy to face today's school with pure genkiness. It was great actually. We finally finished all the advent calenders for each class...seeing them all lines up...makes me so proud! I also had lunch with grade 1 which was pretty cool. There was this watered down hip hop song on during lunch (The schools always play music during lunch time), and the kids were trying to do like "gangsta" style things with they're arms. So I joined in, and they loved it! So I had 11 7 year olds copying me "gettin doooown!"...it ....was...hilarious. They're soo cute! They then got me to play tag outside which was pretty exhausting.

Today I was pepping myself up with coffee and playing my new bouncy compilation CD in the english room. Turns out I didn't need to. Grade 5 were amazing. They joined in with the song..and did everything. They played all the games and joined in. It was really great. They were totally hyper but who cares??? They joined in!!! Then grade 3 came in..and again they were enthusiastic too...and actually did everything I asked them too..really well. It's amazing..I am teaching the same lesson to grade 3 and 4 yet grade 4 totally fail to learn the key sentence..or use any of it...whereas grade 3..are younger...yet better at english.....strange huh? I was even allowed to leave early because I needed to pick up my gaijin card from town hall. So I finally have it!!! I am officially allowed to be in this country! yaaay! There was this massive thunderstorm/rainstorm during school too. I loved it!!! You couldn't see anything outside because the wind and rain was so heavy! It made all the teacher's go in to some sort of evacuation mode though. Organising all the kids in to rows and to wait until all parents (which had to be called) picked up their children...was a bit odd...it's only rain...

So I was on my home, when I got shouted at by Amy and Doran. I was swiftly invited to out eating with them...gyosan...niiice stuff! We then went off to cats cafe for ice cream sundaes....seriously that place is amazing! We also met 2 new japanese girls who were friends with Amy. We spent hours in that place - I haven't laughed so much in ages. We then went upstairs to the game centre, where we played some cool games like throwing balls at a screen to prevent a giant meteor from burning our virtual animal like selves.
We also did that photo thingy where you can draw all over the pics...My first time!

Now I am ....nemuiiiiii!

Amazing what can change in a day

My title was originally gonna be something like " I hate children" or "When they turn 11 I am sending my kids to boarding school, so I don't have to deal with their BLOODY OBNOXIOUS WAYS!!!!!" or "Where is the iron so I can throw it at her/his FACE???!!"But.....the day turned out to be pretty good...

Let me explain; The morning started off quite well! I had my first hot vending machine coffee (actually quite nice!!!), and then I arrived at school on a caffeine/sugar high. I went straight to the English room, put on my Christmas compilation CD (Thanks guys for sending me songs!), and danced around the room to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is youuuuuuuuuuuuuu". My first class were grade 6's...and I had the awful task of introducing the new song for this month "we wish you a merry x-mas"..I officially hate that song now....the kids kinda joined in...but all looked like they wanted to be somewhere else....The lesson went ok...they participated alright, and generally joined in. There is this one girl in the class who is always really shy..but she's not shy in the usual sense of just quiet. She looks only to the floor..or hides behind her friend when I come near her..and whines like a baby when I wanna ask her something. She's taller than me...and I don't think I look that scary....anyways I felt a little exhausted after that.
It then got a whole lot worse when I had grade 4's. OMG I wanted to just walk out. They failed to participate completely. Just stood there like lemons. Then when I was drilling the words, they would mainly not say anything....but the worst was when I wanted to play the games to practice the phrases, and they all just played stupid and took the piss. You cannot tell me that they are THAT slow at picking up game rules...if my grade 2s manage it at all my other schools. I also had the feeling they were just taking the piss out of me the whole lesson. I was so close to exploding...and utterly relieved when the lesson was over. Gawwwwd I am gonna have to teach those things for the next 4 months!!!! I don't want to! Don't make me pleaaaase!
I then had to have lunch with the year 6s...really didn't want to...it felt like they were mocking me. Luckily their teacher was chatting to me, so that was kinda cool.
Then during the lunch break one of the teachers encouraged me to go out and play with the kids. I was like..."they probably don't want me to be there" As it turned out, it was good though. We played a game called "fried egg" where a fried egg is drawn on the floor, and one team is in the yolk the other in the outside bit. Outsiders have to run around and not be pushed out or pulled in..similar for the yolks. It was fun! the kids had transformed in to actual nice beings!

I spent the rest fo the day making christmas cards for the teachers at the other school. When I came down, all the teachers had left to go to a meeting and I was left with the secretarial staff and the assistent teacher. We ended up having one of those half english half japanese conversations, and then she taught me how to make origami santa clauses. I spent the rest of my free time at school practicing that. So all in all it was a good day. The adults are great at that school...it's just the kids...or the older ones anyway that darken that school.....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

oh well..fave school tomorrow! yay!

my weekend part 3 (actually just a quick thank you)

I just wanted to share with you my excitement at receiving 2(!!!!) advent calendars over the weekend, and 30 minutes ago!!! Dyl sent me a kinder one from england, and Antony sent me a fairtrade one...from...well..he is in Japan..so I'd like to know where he got it from.

But I just wanted to say Thank youuuuuuu! they're amazing!!!!

My weekend part 2

Riiight...Sunday! I wake up because I am actually cold! bizarre huh? Anyways. I met up with Steve and we went to....some place with Sh.......Ghosh I always forget that name!!! But it's basically a place in the countryside where you can see the famous red leaves. So we make our way there, and it really was beautiful the trees were all different colours. The sun was shining, it wasn't that cold. It was just a beautiful day! We could also see Mt Fuji in all it's glory! We then went off to mishima to have some cake at a fuji cafe. The cakes are the most delicious things ever, and the coffee was free refill...dangerous stuff really. I had 3 coffees that day because I was worried I was going to crash..only that the coffee gave me dizzy spells afterwards..which I think was not intended.

I get home late, and realise that my internet is still not working. So I end up going on Fran's pc and log in to msn in the hope that one of my amazing computer whizz kids is online. Lo and behold Dyl was online, and we ended up probably spending 2 hours or so...or more I don't know..trying everything out. I feel I am enriched in knowledge of computers now! I have done cmd command giving stuff..pings....I have discovered safe mode...and all sorts of random things a pc can do!!! The long and short of it is , is that we managed to fix it...so..Thank you Dyl!!!!Monday, my first day at my last school to visit. I could not for the life of me remember how to even get to it..which was worrying. I got on the right bus and all...(which leaves at 7.15 am..argh), only to be stuck in a traffic jam because there was a car crash. Great. Late on my first day. I ring Rina and she explains it to the school, who apparently already know because some of their teachers are also late. phew. I arrive late, and immediatley dive in to photocopying many many sheets. My classes at this school are a lot bigger. They also put together 2 grade 1 classes because today was a fire drill during one lesson. So I ended up having 54 kids in one class!!! That was certainly a challenge! My voice hurt by the end of that! Right I'd better go off now and cook, Steve is coming round in a minute!!!

My weekend part 1

Right, because of all this lacking of internet malarkey, I haven't been able to write my blog. I also have more pictures now, and because there is quite a few, I am just going to write a blog entry for Friday/Saturday, Sunday and Monday as 3 separate ones.Ok, Friday I should technically have gotten an early night, as I was a little dead from getting up at 6.30 every morning. but hey..I am supposed to be "wakai" (young). A few of us went off to "wave" where daniel was djing. It was quite full this time round actually. Though I have to admit that I must be getting old, a few girls that walked past us, were wearing...not very much...and I was shocked in the way of "girls you look 15!!! what are you doing out at this hour dressed like THAT???"...ohhh dear... I have the feeling I am going to be an annoying mum if I ever am one...to a daughter. Anyways, after that we went off to Roops, which is a club and had a bit of a jiggy on the dance floor. I have to say I really hate it when Djs constantly interrupt the song to shout some stupid stuff in to the microphone...I mean..hey I wanna dance and not be interrupted by your dialogue! It was around 1 ish when we decided to go back to wave, where I was promptly roped in by a random japanese guy who was doing magic tricks with cards and coins and stuff. It was pretty cool really! I managed to figure out one of his tricks too!!! ha! At around 3 am I decided I really need sleep and cycled home.Saturday I met up with Amy and we went to the Numazu street festival, which was literally 10 minutes from our doorstep. It was more of a food stand collection than it was a festival. So basically we ate a lot. I had takoyaki (squid balls..the most amazing thing ever), and a blueberry crepe (with faaar to much cream in it!), and some weird cakey things that were advertised by a hamster. I was very proud of myself because I could read the kanji for the different signs telling me the prices. Amys school kids were all out as well so we got stopped every 3 metres, most fo them did a double take at me too, and went...erm...."Mai sensei???" they remembered me!! yaaaay.In the evening we went to a friends house for nabe (hotpot). I swear its the simplest most delicious thing ever. There was a little 2 year old girl called Hana who was also adorable, and we all danced to music in the kitchen. She was quite hyperactive, but amazing with chopsticks!!! At 2 years old! We chatted lots about random things. I was the only foreigner that stayed till 3 am (again!!!). It was kinda cool...and what I came here for I guess. To hang out with just japanese people, chatting about language barriers, cultural differences, relationships etc. It was really sugoi.