Is It Really Autumn?
I'm listening to Atobe's new single that just came out this month, coincidentally on his birthday (Oct. 4).
When I first heard the title, "Suki sa, Suki sa, Suki sa." (Literally Love You, Love You, Love You), I was a little "meeeeeeeeh???" about it, but they played a part of it on Prince of Tennis radio the other night, and it sounded awesome, so now I am listening to it at least twice a day. LOL.
Cannot believe it's already October, well...it's been October for a while. But I know, I know, I haven't really been updating this thing with what's going on in my life in Japan, right? And plus I need to start putting up more picture on this thing. :-)
So I guess I'll make this simple, and make a list of what's been going on with me lately so it'll be easier for lazy blog readers (don't worry, I'm one of those too):
- Bought myself a new Playstation 2
- Also, bought myself a new Dating SIM game to play with my new Playstation 2
- Went to a tea-ceremony lesson along with some other ALTs
- Realized that tea-ceremonies are definitely NOT my thing
- Faced some really difficult days at one of my junior highs because of the JTE having really poor classroom management skills
- Entered the city-workers annual volleyball competition with some of my co-workers and lost horribly
- Went through a slight phase of homesickness once again
- Started seriously studying for the GREs
I know I explained what was going on at the junior high with the really horribly behaved kids and my JTE with the poor classroom management skills in an earlier post, so I won't really go into that. For now, I think the situation is going towards a positive change...so I will leave it at that for now.
The Annual city-workers volleyball game was an interesting experience. That happened in the beginning of this month. I just remember myself being super tired that day from a whole day of work. I was put in a team with one of my supervisors and some of the librarians that work right next to our BOE. And oh my goodness, we sucked. When they first told me about the volleyball tournament, the members all told me, "it's all just for fun Joanna. Nobody is that good at playing. We just go for the raffle at the end of the night. Don't worry about it."
Of course that was a big fat lie!!!! When we got to the gym, you would not believe how some of these city employees were dressed. They had matching team shirts, shoes, hats, scarves, you name it. They were definitely there for more than the raffle. Some of them were WAY serious about winning, and I was scared to death. At first I thought it was only the women who were serious, but oh no how I was so wrong...it was almost all of the other teams....ARGH. Man, I so wanted to yell at some of these people, "no fair!!! You guys practiced!!!" LOL. We even get to name our own teams. Some of the teams were obvious...for example "Fire Men 1" and "Fire Men 2"...were of course the Nachi Fire Department crew. Whoever had to play those teams in the first few rounds...I felt really bad for them. LOL. They're too good. Our team's name was : "Joanna desu Yoroshiku" (literally, I'm Joanna, Nice to Meet You)
Dacia and Marissa came to visit me one weekend from Gobo and Kainan. :-)
We inittially planned to go to the Nachi waterfall (I mean, who comes to the Nachi without seeing the waterfall?) but we just ended up going to the local Onsen!!!! Yaaaaaaaaaay ~!!!! It's pretty unbelievable since I've been here for a while already and I haven't been to the onsen yet...so we finally went! It was so awesome! I think I should go like every other weekend or something. I don't have pictures from when we are actually taking the bath, hahaha, but it was just so awesome.
We went to the Great Urashima Onsen. People around here keep telling me that it's the biggest hotel/onsen in Japan. I don't know if that's true...but yea the place is pretty huge. It has about maybe 9 or 10 onsens inside of the place. And you have to go along the right path to get to the right onsen. There's weird themed onsens like the Jungle onsen too. But the one we went to was the one inside of the cave right next to the ocean. So basically we get to bathe in the onsen while we watch the ocean. Really beautiful, but it might be a little too cold in the winter time. There's small shops along the paths while we walk to the different onsens. We stopped by this one shop...with one crazy lady. She just loves the octopus.
I don't think I've talked too much about the other schools I go to. I know 've mentioned the elementary school a lot but I guess I'll talk about one of the other junior high schools I go to. Well, that's because I only have pictures from this one. LOL. I'll try to take more pictures of the other schools this week.
Shimosato Junior High School is about three train-stops away from my apartment in Katasuura. I get off at the unmanned train station and walk along the path right next to a bunch of rice paddies. Talk about rural. Hahaha. This school is a medium sized school out of all of the schools I go to.
They happened to have PE class this day so I took pictures of the students doing their warm-up exercises. Hahahaha. Some of the exercises looked really funny!!! Hahaha. These are the 7th graders, the youngest bunch in the school. They're all so adorable and innocent. Hahahaha. They were too hilarious in class too. Hahaha So the teacher had them all come up with random questions to ask me. And one of them asked me, "What is your phone number?" LOL.
Last weekend, I actually went to the town next door called Taiji. I went there with the ALT from Shingu, Rose. She goes to Taiji almost every weekend because she has a friend there that is taking Japanse lessons. We stopped by a tiny little art museum called the Ishigaki Art museum on the way to her lesson.
Taiji is an adorable little town, but it's also actually the center of a huge political debate. And that's because Taiji is known for its whaling industry. On this day, there were actually people from PETA protesting and taking videos of the whale fishermen killing the whales. I don't know on which side I stand with this whole issue. I mean, people in Taiji need jobs...but...I actually get sick to my stomach just thinking of eating Whale sashimi or fried whale....ick.
October is supposed to be the middle of autumn here in Japan, people used to go watch the leaves fall and stuff. But man...it's still sort of warm over here. I wonder when it's going to get cooler.