bitchy

I'm back. Things have been seriously busy around here, as in making my head spin with the amount of stuff I have to do. Today I have a little bit of time, so here I am. I've been in a bit of a funk lately.
I think part of it is that I feel bad about not being nicer sometimes. My husband has frequently told me that I'm too nice (in a complaining way, not in a good way) and I always thought there's no such thing. And it's because of this I've been having some problems. Like I have my own, personal Jehovah's Witness (or at least that's what it seems like) come to visit me every weekend. I should have told her to leave me alone or I'm not interested in what she has to offer, but instead I talked to her and now she keeps coming back. Not to mention the fact that every time I see her, she offends me in some way, asking me questions that I think are none of her business (Why do I answer?!)

Another example, there's an old man that I sometimes see on my walk to the train station to go home. He used to be a student of mine. He's very interested in learning English and is always writing stuff down in his notebook or reading his notes or whatever. So, you guessed it, when we end up taking the same train home, he goes through his notebooks and shows me what he has written or asks me questions about English. After having taught all day, on my short break-before the start of my next class at home. Anyway, it's not what I really want to be doing. Well, lately, if I should happen see him on my way home, I just don't see him. I can walk pretty quickly if I want to. :)
Before I just felt bad about that but after seeing this, I don't.
So to the kid in class who won't stop talking-f*ck you. And to my Jehovah's witness- f*ck you! And to the little boy at my kid's kindergarten who asked me dozens of times if I 'do English'-f*ck you. And to whoever decided that I have to fill in a survey to give to my kid's kindergarten to say what his dream his and what my dream is (WTF?!)-f*ck you! Not to mention all the other people pissing me off-f*ck you!!!
Ah, I feel so much better now-thanks!

blown away

earlier this week when the boy came home after being out with his grandma and had met one of the other foreigners in this wee little town. We know her but he couldn't remember her name, so he told me by asking me who the girl is with the same colour skin as mine....does that mean he thinks we have different coloured skin? We've talked about skin colour a little bit, but I really had no idea that he thinks of himself as a different colour. I'm also not completely sure if he meant skin colour or hair/eye colour.
I think he looks pretty Asian but it seems like a lot of people here don't think so-we get so many comments about how white he is/how he looks like such a foreigner blah,blah,blah. How about the other ladies in Japan?

pix

Happier times, before the pool incident

But you should see the other guy

So son has a new, big bicycle. He got it earlier in the summer from his cousin (I love hand-me-downs!)who used it while he was in grade 1 to grade 5ish (he's now in grade 6). Anyway, it's a little big. He decided to start riding it about 3 weeks ago. He's also started to come and meet me at the station on his bike, by himself, which is scary enough given the things that have been in the news lately. He came to meet me on the first day-I was so surprised. I saw a kid on a big bike but didn't think that was my kid. Then I realized who it was and was really surprised to see him there, and see his face cause there was blood on it! He fell while trying a hill, I guess. A little bit of blood was coming from his nose and he had hit his cheek, too. That was on a Tuesday.
Thursday he came to meet me. Friday he came to meet me. Again, blood on his lip. This time it wasn't the bike but the pool-he was walking and fell down and smacked his mouth on the ladder, I think. He split open his lip and hit his front tooth, actually got his gum. I remember how my mom doesn't like to see blood and I can understand it so much more now-don't mind my own but when it's my kid's...I guess I feel bad. The first night I was at a loss of what to do for him-can he eat? Do I have to mush up all of his food? I think that night he didn't eat much but by the next day he ate normally. His lip gradually healed.
Last Friday I noticed that the tooth that got hit is a different color, so we went to the dentist on Saturday. They gave him an x-ray and basically said that we should just wait and see what will happen. I guess he hit the vein that brought oxygen to his tooth. It seems like nothing will be wrong with the next tooth but again, waiting to see what happens.
Not a very nice welcome home :)

oh

This story makes me so sad.

again??!!!

C'mon!

how I spent my summer vacation

Ok-not really, but it sure felt like it. I don't know how many times I cleaned out this stupid fish tank....
By the way, does anybody know the name of the fish we have??! (I think it's getting too fat!)

wordless wednesday part 2

wordless wednesday

Well, here I am again. I had a pretty good day yesterday and looking forward to today, too. Yesterday I went out in the morning for a coffee with my friend. Alone. We had a good chance to chat for a while. We work at the same school-she at the high school, me at the junior high school. She is also married to a Japanese man. Yes, lots to talk about.
After we met, I bought myself a lunchbox. I have been using the free one we got from a car dealership when we went to look at cars. It's too small, so I have to pack it and then 2 or 3 more little tupperware to get enough for lunch. Hopefully this will make things simpler. (plus it just looks a lot better!)

Can you tell which is the new one?!

After lunch, I went to the post office and finally handed in my application to take the Japanese test in December. The testing group really wants you to make sure that you want to the test, I think. First you have to write the application form, then get a passport sized picture to glue on to the application. Then you have to go to the post office to pay the 5,500 yen test fee (plus the 125 yen handling fee), putting the receipt in the envelope to show you have paid. Then you have to send it all by certified mail (another 210 yen). I hope it will make me study harder, knowing how much money I spent on this!
Today we are meeting friends at a pool in the morning, spending most of the day with them. In the afternoon a couple of Hiroki's cousins are coming to sleep here-he'll have lots of fun and hopefully I'll get some time to study!
Have a great day!

here's what I saw today

I love watermelon. I love chocolate. But I think this is pretty dubious.

Has anyone tried it?

summer update

Summer vacation is here, I have been on holidays now for however many days but still not managing to do this. The first week was due to those evil auctions, but I have cleansed myself from that sinful addiction. The second week was due to studying Japanese or various things on the computer/around the house that need to get done. Sigh. There is so much that needs to get done. I already feel like my summer is going to finish soon, you know?
Next week is o-bon, or the holidays when people are supposed to gather and remember the dead in their families. Then, we are going camping for 3 nights. (3!) I'm not sure if I am looking forward to that or not. I mean, I'm not sure if I like camping, first of all, and there's so much stuff I have to remember to pack. If I don't remember something, somebody will be a grump and that's no fun. ach.
Last week DS woke up and told me that his tooth is loose. He has been saying that for a while so I looked at his mouth and it IS!! I know this is normal and a good thing but WAH!!! my baby is growing up so fast! He shocked us at the end of July. We were staying with friends and there is a pool at the apartment building. Anyway, he jumped into the shallow pool and started to swim a little, underwater. omg! I didn't know he could do that!!
Of course he's been taking swimming lessons for a year now, but we can't really see him there. He always goes to the back of the big pool, far away from the window. He's been practicing at home in the bath, though. Every night he puts on his goggles and puts his head under the water to see how long he can stay there. Or he'll turn himself over in the bath, like doing a somersault, giving me a great up close view of his bum.So I guess I shouldn't feel surprised.
Just feeling bittersweet.
Here are some pictures from when we went to stay with our friends. It's always so nice to go and stay with them, it's at an apartment with a hot spring, so first of all that is really relaxing. Then we get a long well with the couple who stay there with us, and their daughter plays with Hiroki really well. So by the end of our time there we feel pretty relaxed and happy. How can you beat that?!

This was taken en route, at the restaurany we stopped at for lunch.

This was the beautiful (and yummy) sashimi that we had for dinner that night.

This was taken in Shimoda, where we spent the whole day at the beach. We'd been before but this time Hi-man was able to have a lot more fun. He was using his floaty thingy and saying how much fun he was having (tanoshii!) the whole time! (especially when the waves came)

Enjoying a nice cold one on the beach. (Can't get your picture taken without flashing the peace sign!)

The huge grin on his face is because of the 3 trains lined up there, including the one on the left, the Super-View Odoriko.

VACATION!!

Woohoo! It has started!!and I still haven't blogged!;P
I have had a lot of things going through my mind to blog about but haven't actually done anything about it. It's not like I'm not using the computer-I have been, just not blogging.
Instead I've been auctioning. Thanks to Gina. She started me on the auctions when I asked her where she got her overalls for her boys as H wanted a pair. Anyway, I found a pair and and bid on them. They were new, usually sell for about 9000 yen, but nobody else bid on them, so I got them for 1000 yen, or about 10 dollars. yay! And we even got them on time for his b-day. Cool.
So here he is wearing them.

Anyway, now I'm bidding on a skirt. One of those really long ones that were probably popular in the 80s or so-they call them Bohemian skirts on most of the auction pages I have looked at.
I'm really bidding on 4 skirts, so we'll see what happens. A couple of them still have another day to go, and a couple will finish today. I wonder if I'll get any of them :)

exams again??!!

Last weeks was finals week-so been busy marking again! LAst Friday was supposed to be the last day of finals but we had horrible rain early in the morning, and school got cancelled. Which means today was the last day of exams, and tomorrow we have to give back ALL of the tests. Whether we have a class or not. We just have to somehow get the tests to the kids.
sigh. Looking forward to things easing up a little next week!

one more thing

that I've been thinking about lately-It's JUNE already!!! That means I only have 5 months left...
All along I have been comforting myself-it's okay, I still have lots of time to study for the test (Japanese) and then I woke up and it was June and June is almost over and the test is at the beginning of December and CRAP!!!
Do you think that means I've started studying yet??!

still here

Haven't written in a while, I know. Lots of thoughts rumbling around in my head about what to write but just haven't had the chance lately. The kids had mid-terms so I thought that work would be a little easy but it ended up not being the case. One of my coworkers had to fly back to Canada briefly, leaving me with all of the marking. All of the marking of the writing tests-so I ended up marking over 80 essays, and of course it had to be done quickly because we had to get the tests back to the kids immediately. It ended up taking lots of time as my days were interrupted by speaking tests, too-we had to interview about 20 kids each day and mark those tests immediately, before we forgot things. Anyway, got them done. Now I'm trying to get used to my new schedule, new since April but with lots of events happening in April and May, we didn't have full classes until June. Now we have full classes and the final exams are at the end of the month, so I have to make another test! Never ends.
Some things amusing me lately:

Been listening to lots of Tom Waits again. The song Big in Japan just makes me laugh, cause of the song and because I take it literally- he sings I'm big in Japan. It's like my own private joke (because I feel big in Japan.)

Bought a pair of gauchos last weekend. Gauchos!! Ok, the name alone makes me laugh but also the fact that they are popular again...I don't know, I think it's funny.
Enough for now, just wanted to get back in touch.

here and there

Friday, the boy had a field trip. This means I had to make him lunch. Here's his lunch: (not nearly as cute as the other moms do but oh well)

Yesterday we went to my school festival. This was at the train station.

This was painting senbei, or rice crackers with syrup, then adding sprinkles to make a picture.

Hard to see but he's painting a train...

eating jelly made by my students-cherry in his cheek

at a restaurant for a yummy lunch with my friend


Home again-doing piano homwork-this is his book for piano class. You can see what fingers we're working on.

The 'song' he's practicing.

this is scary

article from the news
Holy Crap! last repaired in 1975!

all about fish

our at least my kid's fish, anyway. Last September we went to our local city 'festival'. People who live in Japan know that that means you can pay a couple of bucks to try and catch goldfish (with kind of a paper net-it sounds lame because, well, it is.) Of course, little boy had to try it. Of course, we didn't catch any fish but the people who take our money for this seem to feel like they owe you something and so they scooped a couple of fish and put them into the plastic bag to take home. (Let me just say that I wasn't there!)
Anyway, when I got home, little boy shows me his fish proudly. I believe I said something to him about giving them to his cousin who already a fish tank and everything set up, but he told me that his grandmother had told him that she would get him a tank. Great. More things for me to take care of. sigh.
They got the fish tank, food, whatever else they needed. We put the fish in the fish tank. They died, one by one. (There were 3 of them?)
Little boy's dad, trying to make him feel better, decides to get more fish. They look on the internet for fish and choose some of the ugliestfish I have ever seen. Their name, which I can never remember, is something like demekin, de meaning big ass, me meaning eyes, and kin meaning goldfish. So it means big ass eyed goldfish. I found a picture on line that sort of resembles the ones we got.
Anyway, we got 3 more fish. I was not terribly impressed with them. We put them in the tank. They did nothing. We fed them. They did nothing. We didn't feed them. They did nothing. They were so uninteresting! Not surprisingly, they died one by one.
Got 2 more fish. One big ass eyed and one something else (I know, I'm so technical). These ones move! They seem excited to see us, and always very happy to be fed! I can sort of think of these ones as cute. So my next question is, if your pet fish has a long string of shit coming out of it, does that mean you are feeding it too much?

just letting you know

in case you have read something in the news about Japan-I didn't even feel the earthquake early Thursday morning.
We are fine :)