Marry Me or Blueberry Me

Sept. 8-Sept. 13

Well as I mentioned, last Wednesday we had another typhoon. As a whole this one was more impressive than the last for sure! It was so windy that when I opened my front door while my back screen was also opened I created a wind tunnel in my apartment that made all my papers go flying and tore stuff off my walls. Also, it rained. A lot. But you've already heard my tale of woe about my pants getting soaked despite my rain gear. The weather has still been stormy recently (I don't think it's typhoon related) which let me see an amazing display last night. Out over the bay there was a lightning storm. I sat with my glass of wine and just watched the lightning streak down to the water. Absolutely breathtaking!

By the end of last week I finally had my first full classes dedicated to something other than just my self introduction. The students did a lot of different activities but I really liked doing the charades as they were learning "I can ~./I can't ~." I also liked when one of my elementary school classes introduced me to famous aspects of Himi by showing me pictures they had drawn including blueberries, fish, some sort of nut, the Himi festival, and some other stuff. It was very cute and I get to reciprocate with pictures from North Carolina (I'll have to come up with something different than what's in my self-intro powerpoint). As of right now I'm think BBQ and Nascar...but I don't know if my drawing ability is up to the challenge so I'm open to suggestions before this Friday! Overall I have enjoyed the classes but at every school even with my JTE's English and my Japanese there are still many communication barriers to overcome. I'm sure we will find ways to work around this and that it will become much easier as we get used to working with each other.

The second half of Friday was another JET training day. As usual there was a lot of reiteration of important stuff we had heard before but this one was different because beforehand we had to submit a lesson plan to share. Luckily new people were told we could just use our self-intro if that was all we had done. It was good to hear what some of the lessons the seasoned JETs had submitted.

That evening some of ALTs went out for yakitori which is explained best by saying chicken kabobs. Though you can also get other food, chicken is the most common ingredient. We went to a really small place very near Sun Stage about the size of Toufee's (shout out to my Roxboro crowd) and it was amazingly delicious. I did manage to embarrass myself as soon as we walked in by knocking over a partition between two of the tables as we were sitting down. Luckily nothing broke and no one else was there yet so I didn't get us kicked out of John's favorite restaurant.

Saturday was fun because a group of us all went to Furari. This is a restaurant located near one of my schools whose main ingredient is blueberries (like the pictures my ES students drew for me). It was really delicious too! I had a ham and cheese sandwich with blueberry spread and a blueberry milkshake that was pure heaven. Also, this restaurant is owned by the family of one of my elementary school students. So when I see her later this week I'll have to tell her that I went and loved it. All my pictures today are from Furari so I'm just going to put them at the end of the post.

Sunday I got up early and went to Church...or at least I tried to. John had tried to call for me several times to confirm mass times but no one ever answered so I just had to trust the internet source I had found. Turns out the internet isn't always correct. Who knew? So instead of an 8:30 and 9:30 service I got there right as the 8:30 one was ending and was told that that was the only mass for the day. I won't be able to go next weekend either because I'll be on the trip I won. I did make the most of being very near Takaoka by catching the train towards Toyama to go visit David in Kureha. We had fun exploring his town and we found a yummy cafeteria type place to have lunch.

For today I've had my first classes at Jusan so I've given my self-intro three times today and now I'm just using my free period to write this. This was probably the best my intro lesson has gone so far. Kozuka-sensei had me hand out my quiz beforehand and made the kids guess what they thought the answers were. This actually worked pretty well because when we got to the part in my presentation where the answer to a certain question was you could hear the kids exclaiming if they got it correct or not.

During Q&A time I finally got the type of questions that we had been warned about. The very first question I got was "Do you like...me?" by a 3rd year boy egged on by his nearby laughing friends. I just laughed and answered that I was sure I would like all of my students. Next came some more normal questions and then the "Do you have a boyfriend?" When I said no several of the boys exclaimed "Lucky, chance!" I couldn't help but laugh at this because what else are you supposed to do when a student who is probably a decade younger than you thinks they have a "chance" with you? This happened in all three classes I had today. Though there was one incident where one of the boys was trying to ask if I was married but his friends started teasing him because they thought he said he wanted to marry me. Again I just laughed because it was nice to have a class where the students were lively (in the good way) and interacting with me :D The only question that I didn't know how to answer was when one girl asked me what my "type" was. I just said he had to be nice because I really didn't have a better answer than that.

I'll be back soon with my more anecdotes of my students!

Furari

Here was the view on the opposite side of the road from Furari. You can see the rice starting to be harvested.

Sign at the door of Furari.

Part of the inside. As you can see it is two stories.

My milkshake was sooooooooo good!

My sandwich was also pretty yummy but the milkshake was so good it gets two photos.

Blueberry waffles that John and Cody had.

Blueberry ice cream with anko (red bean paste) and mochi (a rice something or other). A very Japanese ice cream dish that Mariko and Tamaki ate.