Dartboard

I finally got to video-chat with my mother! She can only do it when she goes to the university and has high-speed internet so it’s a rarity! Some pictures of us “together.”

Telling some crazy story…

(Yeah, and that funny light is my heat lamp. It’s getting cold enough at night that I’ve brought out the heat lamp. I feel like Iggy, our pet Iguana, that loved to bask in the heat. Sometimes I even close my eyes and stretch out my neck like she does—but only when I’m alone in my apartment and no one is looking.)

The most exciting news yet: Yesterday I went scuba-diving with Yoshida-sensei. He's the visual/audio specialist at the high school. Fukuda-sensei (my junior high school English teacher) was supposed to come, but she canceled and it was just the two of us. It was scary and exciting and breathtaking! Literally breathtaking. I was so afraid to breath! The concept of breathing underwater is just so wrong! The first time I went underwater I had a bit of a scare trying to hold my breath, but obviously I couldn’t do that for long so I took shallow breaths that weren’t really effective. I came up and realized that wasn't going to work so I practiced inhaling above the surface and then slowly went under again. Drowning must be the worst death.

But anyway…

Diving is amazing. I felt like I was on another planet! It's not like earth, but it's definitely not like swimming either. Swimming is staying near the surface so you can come up for air, diving is like being on the moon!! I don't think anything will be like that first time again. It was beautiful! We saw so many fish and amazing underwater life. I had no idea what was down there. I thought movies and photographs made it seem better than it really is; movies like "Finding Nemo" spice up underwater life to make the movie better, right?? No way! Movies don't do it justice! It was when I found a little nemo swimming around some coral that I fell in love with diving. I thought, “How can I make a profession out of this? How can I do this everyday?” Yoshida-sensei had a little metal pointer underwater and he kept pointing out the fish that looked like rocks and touching the critters that did funny things. He made me look up to see a school of fish and the sun rays as they shone down through the surface of the water. Yeah, nothing will be like that first time.

Yoshida-sensei told me we dove about 10 meters deep for 30 minutes. Sometimes it seemed like it was over in an instant. Sometimes it seemed longer than that—particularly when the water started creeping up in my goggles and I had to blow air through my nose to get the water out. And also when the salt got in my eyes and they started stinging but I couldn’t touch them through the goggles. Yoshida-sensei lent me all the gear (we are about the same size) so I only had to pay for filling the tank. I gave him some banana bread and extra money for the inconvenience, but it was really kind of him to take me. We dove in Wakamatsu, a few miles from my house. I was really surprised how warm it was for November. Can you imagine diving in the Oregon coast in November? I couldn’t do it with a dry-suit in July. I’m so lucky to be here with all these opportunities to do new things. I love this place!!

My patient teacher, Yoshida-sensei.

Me after the dive. I’d show you a picture of me in my wetsuit, but it’s not complimentary to my hips… =)

Who knew there was so much life under there?

Tonight I had “Children’s English Night: Third Edition.” There was absolutely nothing English about the evening, except maybe the songs we sang, but we had a great time anyway. I had some clay left in the apartment from my predecessor and we made little animals and a Christmas scene. Oh! I did make them name the animals in English, does that count?!? I know it’s a little early for Christmas, but I didn’t think they could do a Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce.

Pictures from the evening…

Mami and Haruna show us their ice cream cones.

Sota (Haruna’s older brother) made a really good soft-serve ice cream.

“Mold me a rabbit!” I said.

Rie and her niece, Tomoka, were our special guests. Rie is a part-time Japanese teacher at Nakagoto and Tomoka and her mom are visiting the grandparents in Narao for two weeks.

Sota’s rabbit.

I made a bunny too!

Mami-chan made this great little Santa Claus for our Christmas scene.

After the other kids when home, Rie and Tomoka stayed for a while. I even got to cuddle under the blanket with her! She’s so adorable!

Tomorrow night I’m going over to Rie’s house to have dinner with her family. We’re eating sukiyaki—a wintertime Japanese meat soup. I’m excited to experience it for the first time! It’s not exactly Thanksgiving dinner, but it will be nice to be with a family. Some of the ALTs are having Thanksgiving dinner at my house on Sunday afternoon. I’ve agreed to do all the cooking and host the party for our friends who’ve never been to a Thanksgiving party before.

Well, that’s all from me today. I’ll write again soon with pictures from Thanksgiving dinner!

Love, Sierra