Thursday, September 08, 2005
Improvements
I’m really looking forward to my trip to Okinawa. Sept 17th-25th. It seems as though those plans are finally falling into place and hopefully I’ll be scuba-diving-certified by the end of the month! Nine hot days, eight long nights—just me and the ocean as far as I can see! (Thanks Peter for all your help researching the ferry to Okinawa and the capsule hotel you stayed in! It looks like it’ll be almost the same price to fly both ways (once I calculate how much it costs to get to Kagoshima and the return air ticket discount) so I probably won’t take the ferry, but I was looking forward to it!)
A little joke for your amusement:
Q: How many Bush administration officials does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. There is no shortage of filament. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?
Thanks George. [George Kocher, not George Bush.]
This weekend there is going to be a HUGE party on our island. I believe this shindig is being organized by Vicky—quite the socialite, by the sounds of it—and I’m looking forward to attending. Unfortunately one of my eikaiwa students, Toshie, is also having a BBQ that evening, but if I’m tricky I may be able to attend both.
I made the mistake of telling my eikaiwa about Masaharu. Oh man, they ask me all kinds of embarrassing questions and I just blush and try to change the subject. Even the old woman in the corner, whose largest contribution to class thus far has been fried food and watermelon, (and not to appear ungrateful, I love her delicious delights!) looked up in her textbook “What kind of man is he?”
I showed them a picture of purikura we did together (it’s small and hard to really make out facial features) and Toshie said she thought she’s seem him! Yikes! I don’t know why I’m keeping this such a secret, but it’s just rumors get so carried away. Satomi (a JTE) kept hinting she heard all kinds of things about him, but refused to tell me what or from who… it’s driving me crazy!
A picture of my cousin Jane and her new dog.
The typhoon came and went without any major damage, to me anyway. Apparently a Korean ocean liner crashed into some rocks near Aokata and some oil spilled into the ocean. They have the oil under control now, but it’s always scary! A stoplight in Urakuwa also came down in the typhoon, but it’s up and running again. Finally, a cargo ship somewhere around my island (helping with road construction, I believe) was badly damaged, but it didn’t sink. The worst part of the typhoon for me, was again, the windows and sliding glass doors in my apartment. When I put my hands on the glass I can feel it bending and buckling under the weight of the wind. It’s pretty scary because I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before a branch or flying object comes crashing and breaking a window. The wind is so strong I’m sure everything in my apartment would be blown to bits so I just have to hope the windows stay strong.
One of the English teachers just told me “ふといよ” under his breath. Oh, Japan.
I told my senior class today that this is my last year at Nakagoto and asked if they wanted to make something for the new ALT next year. We decided on a video to produce over the next three months, introducing the school and the island and featuring Nakagoto students speaking English! I’m especially excited because these are mature and (mostly) motivated students whose English abilities are appropriate for a project of this nature. And the teacher is Hatakeyama-sensei; I love teaching with him. It’s only unfortunate that these students will graduate in April and probably never get to meet the new ALT (who will arrive in August when my contract is up).
I want to post some pictures from the English Summer Camp I went to. The camp was made up of high school students from all over the prefecture, but I had THREE students from my high school there. It’s quite rare to get even two students from one school, especially such a small school, but it’s because two of them were boys and there were only three boys total at the camp of about 50 students. Any boy who applies is automatically accepted.
My students were a junior girl, Natsumi, and two sophomore boys, Satoru and Ryo. The boys were “volunteered” by their homeroom teacher (my supervisor) and forced by their parents to go to the camp. Satoru, although he would prefer to be at home hanging with friends, rose to the occasion and had a really good time. Ryo, however, whose one passion in life is baseball, was very unhappy he wasn’t practicing with the team for these two weeks and only spoke when absolutely necessary. He is incredibly intelligent, however, and his written English skills are certainly the best in his grade, and near the top for the school. It’s unfortunate he was forced to go because there were lots of students who would’ve have loved the opportunity to go to the camp. I also saw a side of Natsumi I had not seen before. She’s intellectually provocative, brave and has a great sense of humor.
This is my group “The Hungry, Hungry Hippos” A very sweet group of girls who I got to know pretty well over the week. The red-head is Neil, an American Counselor. They all seem pretty sober but it's because we're saying goodbye!
Our group musical was called “PoohRing.” It’s based on the movie “Ring” (with the videotape and a girl who crawls out of the TV to kill people—you know, her mother attempted murder by throwing her down a well and this is her revenge…), and then with characters from Winnie-the-Pooh. I know what you’re thinking—this sounds lame!-and I was thinking the same thing at first, but actually, it was pretty cute. The songs were great:
Winnie-the-Pooh, he’s gonna kill you.
Cover you in honey and put you in a stew.
Winne-the-Pooh, he’s gonna kill you.
Silly, willy, nilly old bear!
We’re lucky we got this picture because about a 1/3 of the way through the performance, during a fight scene with Pooh and Tigger, Tigger throws a pretty realistic punch and whoops!—Pooh’s bleeding out the nose. Pooh’s rushed to the nurse’s room—but the show goes on! Neil recommends that I, narrator, take the role of Pooh and in my shock I decide to do it! So I try to act out all of Pooh’s scenes and remember her lines as well as continue to read the narration. It was a disaster and all the characters were shocked by their friend’s blood on the stage floor, but followed Neil’s orders to go on! Anyway, they were given another chance after Pooh’s bloody nose dried up and the team did it all by themselves—I happily remained narrator and the TV crew (which got the whole thing on film) was sure to rush back stage and film all the girls crying and hugging each other after the second performance. I think the experience really brought us all closer.
Another musical photo. The guy on the far right was the jerk Texan camp leader that no one got along with. He was pompous and loved he sound of his own voice. He constantly gave us ALTs what he might call “inspiring speeches” but were really lectures on why were are bad teachers and put everyone off. The boy next to him is Satoru with a paper moustauche.
This is Natsumi, as The Terminator. She gave a great performance, I wish you could see the paper eye and the hurmorless expression. She had a watergun and terminated everyone (like Darth Vader on her right).
This is Steve, another Oregonian ALT. I thought I’d never see him in a hat like this again so I was sure to get a picture.
One night I snuck out with Steve and we went to his town festival. The 1000 Lantern festival. This is the lantern pyramid.
Just a typical camp picture. Satoru is there on the left.
This is the whole group signing a song to the counselors and ALTs on the last day. Lots of tears…
And this is Bill. Oh, Bill. A very handsome camp leader. Sorry he’s waving in front of his face so you can’t bask entirely in his handsomeness.
The exchange rate is still ¥110 to the dollar. Soon I’m going to break down and exchange at this rate, although I’d really prefer to wait until it’s nearer to ¥100.
Gotta go,
Sierra
