Dartboard

It’s only 9:45 a.m. and I’ve already had seven visitors to my website. We’re moving at a pretty good clip today.

I’m very tired this morning. Thank god for my cell phone alarm, man. I always have it set for 7:40 a.m. as my “back-up” in case my regular doesn’t go off or I run through the entire snooze course without arousing. My snooze alarm only works three times and then it turns off completely. So after the fourth time I’ve heard the alarm each morning, I really have to get up or risk oversleeping. Today I was so tired that I just couldn’t get up after the third snooze and reset my alarm for 15 minutes later.

Somehow that never works. My alarm clock thinks it has one job for the day and after that it’s over... I’m on my own! I was (happy to be) awoken by my cell phone at 7:40. To think I almost didn’t turn it on last night.

"Why am I so tired?" you might ask. Well, I stayed up late making a “Who’s Who of IP Addresses” list last night. Major dork, I know, but I love to know who’s on my website and how often.

Congratulations to Miss Scotland who accounts for 24% of my total visits! You’ve monopolized the continental share! Even my own mother only represents 5% of total visits. That’s dedication.

If you have your language set as Esperanto, I’ll track you down! You can run to Australia, but you can’t hide!

Islanders, I block your visits so you’re safe. I don’t know who visits when or for how long!

Then I’ve got some questions. There are visitors from all over Japan and I just don’t know who you are! Toyama, Osaka, Saga, Tokyo, Chiba (Chiba, you’re here all the time!), Fukuoka, and Shimane—I don’t even know where Shimane is! Many of your computers are set in Japanese so I doubt you're JETs, but I don't actually know. Drop me a line sometime. I’d love to know your name… since you have my entire life—or at least as much as I choose to share—at the click of a mouse!

And where the hell is Slough, England?

As much as I love blogging while at work, I have to balance my procrastination by emailing some now.

Sierra

Let’s track Sierra’s weight gains and losses over the last year!!!

How is it that before I even realize that I’ve lost or gained weight, the people around me are making conversations about it? I swear every time I’ve altered even a kilogram, someone has mentioned it to me. Luckily, yesterday at karate I FINALLY heard what most of us want to hear, “You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”

It’s true. Yours truly has lost about 7 pounds (wow, that’s actually pretty impressive when I say it in pounds—it’s just 3 kilos!!) since June. However, I only just began to FEEL different, so how can they already know?

So maybe my karate belt is an inch longer or my face is slightly thinner—but you have to be WATCHING for these things and making weekly notations in a dairy or something.

Don’t these people have LIVES outside of my bathroom scale?!?

Sorry, I just recently had an episode that’s making me more sensitive about this. I finally broke down crying in a restaurant bathroom when someone at a party patted my belly and told everyone that no one had to worry about what I was going to eat that night because I’m fat. (People were concerned because I don’t like sashimi and that was the main entree.)

I’ve tried very hard to remember this a “cultural difference” and not let it affect me too much. I can handle “Have you gained some weight this winter?” from friends, but a stranger PATTING my belly and telling me I’m fat? I don't think so. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer and I was fortunate enough to have two wonderful friends to call and they both told me everything I needed to hear. (Thank you, you know who you are!)

Cultural difference… Humph. You try slurping your soup without cringing—it’s not as easy as it looks!

Okay, but seriously! I need to be a trooper. I have to fully accept my body so that I can let these comments roll off my back like agua on Gortex.

Gambaru!

With love, Your Fat Friend!

Having a day off makes me wanna jump, jump!

I got the day off ‘cause I had to go to the hospital again. Although I only needed about 6 hours (praise be to state health care) they gave me the whole day. I originally planned going in really early so to get a good spot in line, but sleeping in on a weekday was too tempting to resist. I left my house about 9:30 and actually my wait today was even shorter than the last time. To beat the crowds you gotta go LATE! I brought students’ homework with me and finished correcting every notebook—most weeks the pile of notebooks sit on my desk haunting me all week and I plow through them two and three at a time. Today I got them all finished in one sitting without distractions. I feel great.

Now I’m just sitting on the beach, enjoying the sunshine, crashing waves, and a quiet lunch. Eventually, I’ll get to the gym, but for now I’m content.

My Aokata eikaiwa officially loves me. They gave me $100 worth of gift certificates good at any of the major places I shop for groceries, movies rentals, books and even Aqua Blue, my gym! They aren’t allowed to pay me cold, hard cash because of my contract, but this is virtually the same thing. I was surprised and happy about this unexpected little gift. Now I feel I should actually plan activities for them! Ha!

Oh, last week we played Charades and it was so much fun. Mizorogi-san kept saying, “Oh, this game so good for your acting skills,”—and I’m all, “Yeah. It’s Charades.” Eventually we worked out that they don’t DO this game in Japan. They had never heard of it! Vicky and I dropped our jaws in shock. Charades is, like, the best game ever!!! So that explained why it took them some warming up to act out even easy things like “book” and “fly” and why one guy thought “menu” was impossible. We’re definitely playing again.

Even my neck is sore. I love yoga.

Love, Sierra

Before you say anything--in my opinion, the definition of a driver's license picture is "Least Favorite Mug" and so I'm not surpised that mine is no exception.

I’m a legal driver again. I finally passed the test for a Japanese driver’s license—the written part was a synch (I don’t think I’ve ever typed that word before), just ten questions in English. The practical driving test, however, is impossible. Not because the course is difficult to drive, but because you have to learn all kinds of stupid tricks before you can pass. While some people have passed on their first try (I’ve only heard of two people ever doing that) I think it’s pure, dumb luck who passes on which attempt. You have to remember to do so many impractical procedures that I actually drive better outside of the testing course than inside it.

The first time I failed for driving in the middle of the road. Heaven forbid! You’re supposed to drive as far to the left side of the road as possible—even on left hand turns! I was told I drove too slowly and given a public lecture about how Americans don’t realize they have to be careful of bicyclists because in America we don’t have bicycles! You should drive as far to the left as possible to CUT OFF bicyclists!! What. Ever. I was angry and embarrassed because I thought I drove the course perfectly and he was just being a jackass. I cried.

Second attempt: I had a wonderful man testing me. He asked me if I had any questions beforehand, then gave me the directions in English even though I didn’t need them. He told me afterwards that I was a very good driver, but I didn’t pass because I ran over a curb on a left-hand turn. I NEVER do that, but I was trying really hard to stay as far to the left as possible—Gotta cut off those bicyclists! Common sense says should make your turns a little wide or you’re going to hit the curb. Common! Sense! People! This time he told me I was going too fast although I never went above 30kph the entire course. I cried.

Third attempt: I was determined to find the perfect balance between too fast, too slow, too middle, too left, NOT hit any curbs and pass the test. I did everything fine and had one stoplight before I was homeward bound. I stopped at the red light, put it in neutral, put on the emergence brake, took my foot off the clutch—and killed the engine! I wasn’t in neutral!!! I swallowed hard in my already dry mouth and started planning my next trip to the testing center. I calmly finished the test and the tester reached for his Success/Failure form. He paused his pen over the Failure box for a moment, but finally circled “Success.” I kind of felt like a charity case, but I quickly got over that. I still think I demonstrated my best driving and deserved to pass the first time around. He probably thought I was hopeless and would never pass without his hand-out. I didn’t cry.

Three tests, $100, and two days of annual paid leave later, I am an official Japanese license holder. I only drove illegally for about two months, and never got caught! My school did find out, but that was only AFTER I had passed the test and all they could do was frown.

Yippie! Sierra

The bugs this year are out of control! Spiders were big last year and going on a hike without feeling the stringy webs across your arms or face at least once was impossible, but the spiders this year aren’t sticking to the woods. Several beastly bugs moved into our apartment stairwell (which isn’t hard as it’s outside) and started to take over the halls with their webs. I started coming in and out of my apartment each day, ducking as low as I could. I even stopped getting the mail for a couple days while one spider build a web across our mailboxes. My upstairs neighbor finally cleaned them all out last Thursday (Thank you so much, Naoko!) and they’ve stayed away, but that’s only half the problem.

Ever since Joelle and Steven left I’ve had a serious ant problem in my living room. They started by the TV, crawling between the small openings between tatami mats. Everyday I came home and killed them with a spray, but they kept coming back. I cleaned and checked for crumbs or anything else that might attract them, but there was nothing that I could see. Despite my mass killings, they always kept coming back.

They eventually became smart enough to leave the TV and east wall and migrated west toward the sliding glass door. I find them other random places like behind my couch or at the kitchen door, but they never actually enter the kitchen. You’d think the kitchen is the best place for food, but they totally avoid that area and hang out around spaces between the tatami mats.

Do ants eat tatami? Is there something under my tatami they are eating?!? Or worse… are they living there?

There are never very many at a time (except my I came back from Okinawa and they were INSIDE my computer!! Gross!!!!) and whenever I see them I spray them and tell them to go away, but for months now it doesn’t work. Masaharu says as they don’t speak English trying to convince them to leave will never work. I’ve vacuumed a billion times for food and wiped the area in case something sticky was spilled, but generally I’m a clean person and I’m confident they are not here for food. They just need somewhere to live too.

Today I practiced yoga for the first time since Joelle gave me the Bikram CD. I’m so happy I finally got around to practicing today because I always feel so energized afterward. It wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting it to be, but I also wasn’t doing it in the hot studio either! I’m certain just being in the studio raises your heart rate. Bikram on the CDs is really tough, but also encouraging and funny, and I laughed even more than I groaned.

This weekend was a three-day weekend and I did absolutely NOTHING! Well, that’s not true, of course, but I didn’t go anywhere or make any plans or get further behind in my long list of things to do! I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned—and it felt soooo good! I really love cleaning and the sense of accomplishment afterward. My windows are clear and my floor… well, on Saturday night it shone, but I can’t say much for it now.

I even cooked again!! Baked whole wheat bread (Thanks for those instructions, Mom, I knew eventually I’d get around to it!), made a weeks worth of chili and ate wonderful weekend breakfasts. Sometimes my only regrets on weekends like these are not working out, but I did some exercise on every day—lifting weights, hiking with Masaharu and finally yoga, today.

It still sounds like a really busy weekend, but it was actually well-balanced with a fair share of relaxing, too. I watched a ton of Friends episodes and two movies and Masaharu and I finally got to our favorite Okonomiyaki restaurant together. We sunbathed atop Komeyama Sunday at noon and in the afternoon he helped me learn a Japanese rap song. Yes, perhaps my proudest accomplishment was learning how to rap in Japanese. I’m not good enough to karaoke yet, but so long as I have my notes I can sing along with the artists pretty well! And I have no idea what I’m saying!!! But it’s fun!

I slept! It was so nice to finally sleep-in in the morning! I haven’t done it for ages, but it felt so good!
Love, Sierra

On the not-too-bright side of things, an unexpected person lost my “Favorite Teacher Award” last week! My ex-supervisor, who I’ve always loved and respected: Hatakeyama-sensei. He planned a teacher’s trip to Kumamoto this weekend and didn’t tell me about it. I’m not sure I would have gone anyway, but I would have liked to be invited. It was him and six female teachers and two children and they all drove to Kumamoto together.

I don’t know what they did there—I’ve already been to Kumamoto and I did need my weekend at home, but I STILL don’t understand why he didn’t ask me at least. I can assume all sorts of reasons, some more angering than others, but I can’t bear to ask him to explain himself! I thought we were friends!! It’s so forward to ask a question like that and because—this is the Japanese coming out in me—I know it could put him in an awkward position. I assume if the reason for not inviting me was a logical one, he would have told me, but the fact that he didn’t isn’t a very good sign.

The really unfortunate thing is that I’ve been wanting to honor him by nominating him for a Kyushu Japanese Teacher of English Excellence Award but I can’t bring myself to do it anymore. (Yeah, I wasn’t kidding when I said he lost my award!!) I know this is a silly reason because it has nothing to do with his teaching, but there have been other things that have been making me rethink it and this is more like the straw that broke the back.

Honestly I think if anyone deserves the nomination it is Norimura-sensei because she, too, is an excellent teacher but unlike Hatakeyama who teaches only the brightest students, she’s stuck with the I’m-so-frustrated-I-want-to-tear-out-my-hair kids. Teaching the top students is easy—they want to learn and study hard and come to class prepared. Teaching those punks in commercial courses is a challenge—a real noteworthy achievement—and she always surprises me when she steps up to the plate. I’m more likely to get burn out in those classes than she is, and I think she deserves recognition.

…So perhaps I shouldn’t look at this as Hakateyama loosing anything, but as Norimura gaining something. Besides, there could be any number of reasons Hatakeyama didn’t ask me to go on the teacher trip and I shouldn’t jump to conclusions!

Sierra