?

Hmm, just wrote up a review of the past week but it doesn't seem to want to publish.  However I can still see the post on my little list thingy.  I click the publish button and it thinks for like 5 minutes and then says something in Japanese that I can't understand.  Maybe it'll randomly pop up on the page soon.  There are like 15 pictures along with the post (I took pictures of lots of food) so I think that has something to do with it.  But regardless, rest assured that I am doing well, people are super nice, and I have eaten several bananas in the past week.

Candy, Conversations, Instant Ramen

Today our school climbed Mt. Eboshi, a super nice hike but typhoon conditions at the summit meant that we could only go about 3/4 of the way up the mountain before they blocked off the trail.  The nice things today were;

1) A student gave me a piece of candy (a double pack of things like Lifesavers)

2) This student above talked to me for about two hours on the way down the mountain and back to the school.  It was excellent Japanese practice and very nice of him.

3) Shimakawa sensei (the guy I go edible plant hunting with) randomly asked me last week what my favorite instant ramen was in Japan and I admitted that I had never had it in Japan, and when he was over at my house cooking the edible plants, he noticed that I didn't have a small ramen pan, so today he brings me a 5 pack of miso ramen (my favorite), a measuring cup, and a small ramen pan.

Start of a New Chapter

I think I am going to change the purpose of the blog.  I started it out as a way to remember the big events that I participate in but that usually just ends up with me posting facebook pictures and saying "look through them if you're interested." So it hasn't exactly worked out.  That and I'm usually too lazy to sit down and write for the half hour or hour it takes to make the recap enjoyable.

So, after my 14 months in Japan it is clear that the one thing that I want to remember most is the kindness of my friends and coworkers here in Japan so instead of posting once every two months about some event (which I still will do if it's a once-in-a-lifetime type of event), I will try to post much more often very short stories whenever someone is kind to me, because let's face it, being treated nicely and treating others nicely is what makes living so darn much fun.  How's that for a run on sentence?

So I'll start with basketball last night.  Ichinohe san picked me up from my apartment and gave me a sports drink.  Very nice of him.  Also, Kumagai sensei got back from a business trip to Aomori city and gave everyone in the office (there were about 8 of us still here at 6:30pm last night) these super delicious waffles.  And Toki sensei (home ec teacher) made fried rice during class and had leftovers and gave the leftovers to me.  They were delicious.

Mama's Visit

First of all I apologize for the lack of updates.  Thank you for reading this, I should really post more often, but I have lead quite the unassuming life since my last post.  My days recently have consisted of me waking up around 6:45 ish, getting to school around 7:30 and then staying there until 8:00pm or so every night.  Staying late really helps me get lots of studying in because when I'm home I just kill time on facebook or cooking or usually doing things non-Japanese related so I figure I should just stay at school and that would be the best for my goal of becoming fluent.  If I were to post more often, it would be of stories that are something like this;

"I went to school today, taught a few classes, ate some curry and katsudon, then studied a bunch and then around 6:30pm other teachers gave me a bunch of food and it was all delicious."

And lets face it, that's not exactly full of blog-worthy-content.

So since the last update, I guess there are a few things of note:

1) Mom came to visit and wrote nice big summaries of her trip on her Facebook account, and if you are reading this then that means you're probably a close friend of mine and therefore you might as well add my mama to your friends list if you are interested.

2) I spose climbing Mt. Fuji and getting my mother to love sushi are worth noting.

3) Also a decently big typhoon came through last week and I was out of food and so I biked from school to the grocery store in the typhoon, and was surprised to see two other bikes outside so I wasn't the only one biking around in the pouring rain and heavy winds.  My food got a little wet but 's all good.

4) Played another random baseball game or two.  Went to badminton and basketball a few times.  Lifted weights for the first time in Japan.

5) Bought a nice camera, but it has yet to arrive.  And by "nice camera" I mean "cheapest possible DSLR on the market."  Right now it is in Heather's possession, so once I get that, I will be posting much better pictures than what I have been with my relatively crappy video camera.  Don't get me wrong, the video camera is great for videos, but I wasn't liking how my pictures were turning out with it so I got a fancy-pants one.

Then the big thing that has been time consuming has been my kanji project.  My Facebook profile picture shows you where I spend about 8 hours every day and while I'm at the desk, I'm writing out these kanji mosaics for each of my teachers and also making a video on the project.  Each one of these pages takes me around 4 hours or so and I have to make 4 for every teacher plus a few friends, so it will take me the better part of 6 months once I finish it.  I'm shooting for a completion date around early December so I can focus on the video and finish it all up before Heather visits.  Below is a link to the bit of it.  I have most of it done, but I really only like the opening part here, the video really loses steam around the two minute mark so hopefully by December I'll think of something cool in it to add some shizzaz.  In any case, here is a blog-only-special-sneak-peak that only people who read this will be able to see.


WORLD-PREMIERE-SNEAK-PEAK to my kanji project!

Anyhoo, I hope you have a wonderful day.  You really are a great friend/family member and it is humbling that you are taking time out of your day to read this.  Thank you so much.  I'm not going to lie, if you had a blog I probably wouldn't read it unless Heather told me to, so you are a much nicer person than me.  As a reward, if you would like any crazy food or something from the dollar store here in Japan, send me your address (corcorantm28@gmail.com) and I will give you some candy/chips/sake/sauce/Japanese Rubik's cubes/whatever you want.  Thanks again.

Love,

Tom

The First Time I've Slept in a Public Place

I had quite the four day weekend.

It started with morning baseball on Wednesday morning so I got up at 3am and then we had a farewell party for one of our teachers on Wednesday night.  So we had a nice fun Japanese work party with tons of delicious Japanese food and drinks.  Three parties and lots of karaoke later, about 2:30 am, the parties were finally over and I returned home.  I got to my front door about ready to collapse after being awake for the past 24 hours.  I reached in my bag for my keys, and found the bag was empty!  I had left my keys at school! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

So I walk to school and get there about 3am and of course the front door is locked so I just set up shop in the little entrance way and sleep for 4 hours there, using my camera case as a pillow.  It's funny how comfortable a concrete floor is when it's 3am and you're used to going to bed at 8pm.

I wake up at 7am to the newspaper delivery people who thought I was surely either a robber or a homeless guy sleeping in front of the school.  I was too tired to understand everything they were saying but suffice it to say they were pretty surprised to see a foreigner sleeping in front of the school.  About 7:30 rolls around and it's the first day of summer vacation and it's Japan so of course a few students start coming to school.  I'm still in my work clothes from the day before so I just pretend like I'm ready start a day of work while doing my best to hide my current state. Finally an office worker shows up somewhere around 7:45 and opens the school and I get to the teachers room and find my keys sitting where I always put them.  I get home at about 8 or so and of course I gotta check gmail and facebook and I see folks are playing video games so I start playing this incredibly long and boring and pointless game of MineralZ in Starcraft 2 and it was a complete waste of 5 hours of my life since I didn't even unlock the Archon unit thingy, but it was good to play some games for the first time in nearly two months.  After Mike and Andy and folks went to bed at around 3pm my time, I also went to bed.

I woke up at about 6am the next day, sleeping for a total of about 15 hours and still feeling tired.  The next two days consisted of good games during the day and lots of Japanese studying during the night.  By Sunday night I had played a solid 25 hours of video games (bringing my total for June and July to about 25 hours) and written out every word from the movie 秒速五センチ　(5 Centimeters per Second)  It is definitely the saddest movie I have ever seen but it is currently my favorite movie of all time.  It reminds me of Heather and how lucky I am to have her.

This morning was a sad one.  My last morning baseball game.  However, this means I won't be having to wake up at 3am any more so I guess that's good.  The last game went well except I had a crazy time pitching.  I walked the lead off batter every single inning (5 innings) but ended up only giving up one run during the game.  By the 3rd inning, I was like "wtf, I have only walked 3 batters this year before this game but I have already walked two" then I walked the next guy on 4 pitches.  However, the season did end on a good note.  In the 5th inning I walked the lead off batter on 4 pitches and got really mad at myself and proceeded to strike out the next 3 batters on nine pitches to bring the season to a close with a 8-1 victory.

Heather's Third Visit

In case the pictures weren't enough, here's a video of our exploits.

CLICK ME!

久し振り

According to my visitor statistics it shows two people that have checked this site every day and a third person that checks it about 5 or 6 times a week.  I commend you three for sticking with your daily checks of this blog despite me not posting for like a month.

So I apologize for the lack of updates.  I think everyone that reads this is probably my facebook friend.  But if not, here are some pictures that summarize my last 2 weeks pretty well: 


CLICK ME!

Now that she's returned home, I'll probably resume my unassuming life where I only do ten things for six months straight:

1) Sleep
2) Check facebook
3) Eat
4) Cook
5) Starcraft 2 related things
6) Study Japanese
7) Bike around town
8) Shop
9) Teach
10) gchat cool people

However, Mama is coming to visit in a month so that will surely prevent me from blogging again for about 2 months.  Big Japanese test in December, and  I haven't learned any Japanese in about a month so I need to start buckling down.