Dartboard

This will be me after tomorrow’s triathlon.

This is Suyama-chan, a little girl who takes swimming lessons at 5 p.m. in the pool everyday. She’s the daughter of the science teacher at my school—very outgoing and sweet. I walked into the pool changing room this week to find her knocked out and snoring on the bench.

Tanabe's classes are tough!

Tomorrow is the Monster Man Triathlon and the island is really getting ready for it. There are flags, banners, signs all over the place. Excitement is in the air! After my swimming part I’ll volunteer for the rest of the race (because technically it’s a work day for me). Another enkai to follow so lots of drinking, celebrating and very little sleeping. I think Monday is a holiday, but I can’t remember now. I need to sleep sometime.

Friday I weeded the P.E. grounds with students and teachers for two hours. It was hot and it really sucked. I talked to a senior, Keisuke, for a long time though. His dream for after high school? He wants to fish off a dock. I asked, “Catch fish to sell? You want to be a fisherman?” No, just to eat himself. The ambition in this student is killing me. I’ve always thought highly of him, but I’m beginning to wonder why. His mom works in the post office, but I never realized she was his mother so I greeted her today. She’s running in the triathlon so I’ll be excited to see her there! They live just down the street from me too.

[Sidenote: I didn’t realize this until now, but apparently Keisuke’s father, Uraguchi-san will be the runner in my relay team! So, I guess his parents have been training for this together.]

After talking to Keisuke I also talked to some sophomore girls. We discussed crushes! Apparently one student (although I’ve promised to keep it a secret) has a crush on Koichiro! I guess it’s not too big a surprise, he’s young and attractive. I told them about my crush on Tanabe, and that he unfortunately has a girlfriend and they’re all like, “It’s okay! Ganbatte! Fight, Sierra, fight!” Huh? Pursue a taken man? I don’t think so? I’m like, “You don’t understand! He’s GOT a girlfriend, already!” “Daijobu! Fight, Sierra!”

Whatever. I’m not into guys with girlfriends.

Oh, and speaking of relationships, my friend Junji and his wife just had a baby.

They look like happy parents.

And this is random, but a friend of mine, Yuki, went to Kyoto and brought me back this omiyage. Colored sugar candies. Very beautiful, but pure sugar!!

I’ve sort of found an eikaiwa—an English conversation class—to teach. When Teru and I were hanging out on the beach we met Kerry’s friend who organizes the Aokata eikaiwa. She asked me to come join them someday and so I said, “How about next Wednesday?” She emailed me and it looks like I’ll be starting next week. I’m not going to go every week, but I’d love the opportunity to meet some more people and these women sound like great fun. Kerry said they were a very informal class—just a bunch of women who like hanging out together—so I’m looking forward to it.

It also means I have an excuse not to go to Wednesday’s school enkai. I’d rather not go to school enkai for a while because I’m not ready to handle Koichiro while drunk. I may as well tell you, since everyone who reads my blog knows anyway, we had sex a couple weeks ago and I’m still not sure what to think about it. He loves me when he’s drunk, but he’d make a terrible boyfriend. I’m still establishing/balancing that delicate line between friends and friends with benefits. Any advice?

This summer I’m not going to be able to take the Japanese language course in Aichi-ken. There’s a two week English summer camp in Sasebo for high school students and I’m kind of required to attend. It actually sounds like a lot of fun, but I’d rather be studying Japanese. I may still be able to do both, a shorter Japanese course in Nagasaki-ken and then one week of the camp, but that’s going to take a lot of organizing and I’m not sure it’ll really end up happening. Well, we’ll see.

Love, Sierra

Trained Osakan squirrels.

Thanks, Dawn!

Monster Woman

Tsukareta. I’m back from the re-contractor’s conference that was in Kobe this week. I’m so exhausted. Five days of traveling, drinking and socializing. I met some very nice boys and girls and got some great new ideas from the sessions I went to. (Yeah, there were some workshops between all that traveling and socializing.) Bought some new lesson-planning books. cookbooks and Japanese-study materials. I’ve even made a couple goals to improve my language acquisition.

My main goal is to speak to two people in Japanese for at least 10 minutes everyday. I usually do that anyway, but sometimes on a weekend I don't make any effort to speak to the grocery store clerks or fellow gym patrons and I really should. I went to a session about speaking Japanese and they showed a great video called “Good Learner, Bad Leaner.” The good learner spoke to everyone—co-workers, store clerks, children, old people in the street. The bad learner watched English TV, read English books, went through the check-out lines muttering only a “konnichiwa” and missed so many chances!! It really encouraged me to chat up everyone around me. Now I see how many opportunities there are around me all the time. I just need to be outgoing and see everyone as what they are—a wealth of knowledge!!

And the nice people I met! Well, I’ve met Dawn before but we really bonded on this trip! She is so much fun and I’ve promised to come to her island (Ojika, the northern-most Goto island) real soon! I also got to know Kelly, a JET in Saza, much better too. We see each other every few months, but I’ve decided to come to her place for a real visit sometime. I’m still convincing her that a trip to Kamigoto is well worth it! =)

Finally, I met a new dude, Scott. An American from Colorado who lives in Nagasaki City. He’s kept himself well hidden because no one (not even Nagasaki JETs) knew about him until now! But Catherine and I found him!! He’s really cool (and really tall!) and I want to go visit him in Nagasaki. Again, still convincing him that a visit out to Kamigoto is worth the $100!

Look at these beaches!!

How much more convincing do you need? It’s a tropical paradise!

[That’s my sly way of getting old pictures into a new post.]

I just discovered that Dawn also has a blog and it’s much more fun to read than mine, so why don’t you read hers too. She’s really got a talent for writing and you can see just why I think she’s wonderful!

And Dawn just gave me a bunch of pictures from the weekend in Kobe, so I can post them as well!

This is Kelly and Dawn. The four of us (Scott, too) ate a huge dinner at Asian Kitchen on Tuesday night.

A Kobe street. Just to prove I was there!

Wednesday lunch we had Indian (got to get in that Indian before we leave the city) at this restaurant.

Dawn attracts some interesting characters. This Moroccan and Indian came up to us in a bar Monday night and started talking like we were old friends! Dawn has a way with people!! We agreed they were a bit weird, but they were nice people and along with their French and Russian friends who joined us later, kept us entertained for a few hours!!

Josef told us he was an artist. You can see Josef is making us an angel playing the guitar out of cigarette paper. It was actually really cute.

Dawn and I took the overnight ferry from Kobe to Kitakyushu (near Fukuoka). Catherine was supposed to come with me, but she flaked out last minute. Dawn and I had a great time though. It was so much cheaper than the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and we didn’t have to get a hotel for the extra night! Only $50 and there was even an onsen and restaurant on the boat! We met a Canadian who lives in Yamaguchi-ken, she was really sweet. And I, encouraged by the “Good Learner, Bad Learner” video, chatted up some boys on the ferry and we had dinner with Japanese kids. (Not really kids, they were 21, 22 and 26, but they looked really young.)

I was quite captured with Norihito, a super-genki 22 year old. After dinner I saw him in the ferry gift shop and we talked more. We saw on the eletronic map that we were going to pass under a long bridge and we bet long it would take to get to it. I said an hour, he said 2 hours. It was 1 hour 49 minutes so I had to buy him a drink. He was sweet, but communicating was hard because he spoke no English—but that’s the whole point, right!?!

My super-genki Norihito as we passed under the bridge the overnight ferry.

We had lunch in Sasebo before heading home. I indulged in a fruit and sorbet dessert!

I saw two movies this week. Closer and Dance With Me. Dance With Me was alright. Closer was really good. It reminded me of... life. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

I’m so glad to be back on the island now, but my sleeping schedule is all messed up. It’s 1:15 a.m. now and I’ve slept all afternoon so am not tired at all! Late nights, early mornings and naps whenever I can grab them. I completely missed karate tonight and tomorrow, although I should be going to work, have been given permission to rest up instead. It doesn't matter, I have plenty of work to do at home.

Found my first cockroach of the year in my apartment today. Gross.
Love, Sie

I’m not into guys with girlfriends. (Except that once.)

I just wanted to post some pictures of my art.

Remember like, way back, long ago I went to Fukue with Catherine to visit Shingo and we made some pottery? Well, we got it back (now a long time ago too).

Here it is. Cup, plate and spoon.

I didn’t know they would glaze everything, but I like the color scheme generally. The cup has a very uneven rim, and it wasn’t intentional until I realized fixing it was too hard and it became “an artistic decision."

So for the plate I intentionally created an uneven rim to match the uneven cup.

My spoon.

I made chopstick rests too, but they weren’t too special so no pictures.

Instead pictures of my drawing from freshman art class.

I started it just after I got back from the hitch-hiking trip (couldn’t you guess?) and after about three classes this is what I accomplished.

Close-ups of the fingers…

…and sleeve.

What do you think? It’s a little rough, I know, but considering I haven’t picked up a pencil (with the intention of capturing still life) since my college 2D class, I thought it was okay. I learned a lot from Tajima-sensei about shadowing and pencil lines, but unlike my college art prof, he never drew for me, which I really appreciated. I like to say, “This is all mine.”

And, since I’m posting anyway, I might as well post some old pictures of island visitors.

Yuka’s boyfriend John came out over Golden Week and I captured the love-bugs. I gave John the sunglasses with orders not to loose them, but as Yuka predicted they were lost only a few days later. John!!! YOU PROMISED!!! They were so cool too!!!

John was really tall too. It was great to have a tall man around for a while. I miss tall men.

Catherine’s parents came out to Japan for two weeks in mid-May. Here we are eating yakiniku with them in Narao.

They talk just like her too. So English! Me and the padres.

Laura, Catherine and Peter.

I felt extremely outnumbered in this group of Brits, but they were nice to me! Congrats to Papa Wood for his speech in Japanese! Jozudatta!

Love and art,
Sierra

Finding my Don Juan.