Things are getting better.

Things are starting to look better around this blog thingy. The last few weeks I've been working pretty hard to make it look better. It's been tough seeing I haven't dealt with HTML since...oh let's see....grade 10? maybe? It's been a learning experience.

Speaking of learning experiences....

Holy crap giving directions in Japanese is hard. HOLY CRAP.

Tsugi no kosaten o hidari ni magatte kudasia. = please turn left at the next intersection (crossroad).

I'll break it down.

Tsugi no kosaten - o - hidari - ni - magatte - kudasia
the next intersection - at - left - ? - turn - please

And I'm not even using any of the Japanese alphabets.

Yes, there are three.

Rain Rain go away

Come back next year.

So rainy season was supposed to be over last week I believe...however it's been raining ever since. Seeing I have a washing machine, no dryer, and only enough space to hang my clothes on my balcony...

Let's just say I've had some clothes that have being 'drying' for about 3 days now.

Summer here is gross. It's hotter than Canada, about 4 times as humid. The humidity is just terrible. However, on the flip side, the winters are quite mild. I wanted to post some more ‘new years resolutions’, but the battery in my camera is dead.

d.

Students

When I think about my job, it isn't the money that makes me really stay. It's my students. The worst parts of my day at work are generally when I'm not teaching. Doing hours of prep and sorting through infinite Japanese paperwork in the office drives me nuts. Whether they are just learning, or producing some of the worst (and often funniest) sentences known to English ears, they are usually pretty great.

Back in January, I had all my students write 'English New Years Resolutions.' Here's a really sweet one:


(removed)

However, some people have good intentions but they come out sounding a little muffled:



I think leaving the names is ok, seeing they're not really their names. Just Roman representations of how their names sound.

Oh, and please read the post below this if you haven't yet and give me your thoughts.

d.

What to do...

So, I'm having a little dilemma here, and I need some advice.

Right now my contract is until January 28th or something like that. By July 25th I have to tell my work if I want to extend. Now don't get me wrong, I like it here a lot, but I miss home a lot too (everything about it). Sounds like an easy question so far right?

'just come home'

The problem is that I want to go back to school in September 2007. So that means after about 1-2 months of traveling in Asia, I'd be back in Canada April-Mayish. Sounds ok. But by that point I won't know about school yet, so I won't know where to live. Also, I'll have like 3-4 months to work...which will probably be a crappy job because I'll be a student again a few months after. So I won't be able to save much money. So I'll come home, not know where to live, and I'll probably have to work a crappy job.

For every month I say here I can save $1000 CAD, so two of three months makes a huge difference. Plus, if I stay a little longer, then I'll be home for Christmas anyway, seeing I've already taken the days off. Plus, in March I get a raise. I dunno. Any suggestions?

I gotta get ready for work.

WOW WHAT A MEETING.

not like super awesome or anything...I just had 12 people there. So it's me, a ton of information that I guess I know pretty well, and two hours to get it across.

My tools:

A whiteboard
Markers
CD player
Notebook
Chocolates

My legs and brain are tired. Otsukaesamadesu.

early morning

8 am. (ish)

coffee is perkin'.

I'm all out of Tim's, anyone wanna send me some more? Today is the Area teachers Meeting (ATM) where I get to go to Eki Biru (Central Station) Aeon and have a meeting with all the little nublets. (noobs) It's pretty cool actualy, I get to go to Honsha (head office) once a month on the Shinkonsen (bullet train) and have a meeting with the other area leaders, and then run my own meeting two weeks later. Plus, I get paid a little for it. This month it's about Study Strategy Meetings (SSM), set up councilings, and renewal councilings. Now doesn't that sound exciting? I bet those are the kind of things you think about when you think about teaching English. thinking about thinking about...drinking?

Sigh, I miss good music.

Maybe I'll post about how it went later.

d.

Farewell

And Amy is off this week, finished her ekaiwa career. It's been fun. We had a good party last night, went to an izakaya, an Irish bar, and then...you guessed it: karaoke. I think our crowd was about 25 people at one point. Mild drama occurred.

Best of luck aim, hope the East treats you well.

Not much else new on the J-front here. I'm getting stoked about my road trip about Kyushu. I kind of want to see Nagasaki. Hey, maybe on my next vacation I'll go check out Auschwitz. I've heard it's nice in the winter.

d.

Well this sucks. Hamada camping may be off. It's the end of rainy season now, or getting near the end at least....but it seems there is a typhoon coming to hit Japan. More specificly, hit Hamada. This morning it looked as though it was going to miss, but it'll probably dump some heavy rain all over the beach for about 4 days.

Amy and Yuji (yugi) -------------------->

What makes this worse is that Amy has about one week left in Japan, so this was going to be a nice weekend for us all to say goodbye. What gives this event double the suckyness is that it's not even typhoon season. It's just momma nature giving us all the finger I think. I think I won't sort my garbage this week. That'll show her.

Sweet. I have an Obon plan. I know what you're asking. What is it, Derek? What's your plan? And wtf is Obon?!

Obon is a weeklong summer holiday over here. It's in the middle of August, and it's similar to....Halloween. When I say it's similar to Halloween...I mean that really loosely. In the Shinto religion, there are hundreds of gods (so I've been told), and during this time they all go to a certain shrine on Shikoku to honour the dead. I think some dead are supposed to roam around too. I may be way off with this, but the stories I get from my students never make much sense. Trying to figure out what Shintoism is, is even harder.

It has something to do with bowing and clapping for good luck.

So, back to my plan. So far on my holidays I've been to Shikoku, Osaka, Tokyo, and Thailand. Now I'm heading down too Kyushu...the sound western island. However, it's going to be a road trip! Tony got his drivers license, so we're renting a car and hitting the road for about a week. I think this will be an entirely different Japanese experience. I'll post more details as I find them out.