Ahh, this is a nice change of pace. riding the bus around the city, taking in the scenery and fascinating, muted snippets of strangers' lives glimpsed through the window, choosing the long route to where I'm headed and having no reason to rush it. 95 percent of weekend mornings I'll end up sleeping in until at least eleven, but every once in a great while I find myself wide awake, out and about before 8am on a sunny sunday. My laptop happens to be with me at the moment since it served as the jukebox for the JET fundraising valentines day party this last friday. The funds were being raised for a volunteer trip to India to build a house in late april that I'm real excited to join.
Later today Alex and I will host the first ever monthly Ueki teacher's eikaiwa (english conversation meeting) with whoever shows up. We have high hopes for a solid turnout of 2 or 3 this time, but with greater advance notice and fun little event cards we may be able to double those figures next month. Big changes are happening in Ueki, yes suh. This last friday we laid the planning foundations for a kids' easter egg dying and hunt on easter sunday and a (hopefully) big fourth of july bash this summer. Alex and I were both feeling we could try harder to bring some cultural flavor from home to our new hometown (it's Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program after all), so we're endeavoring to start some small-scale community events. So far they are fully comprised of american holidays we would otherwise miss celebrating, but it's a start. the Ueki board of education seems receptive to our efforts so it just might work.
Alex certainly earns her money teaching 5 elementary classes a day, making posters and planning lessons, but sometimes I wonder if the stated requirements of my position in junior high really warrant the pay grade JET has allotted me. Fortunately a combination of mind-numbing stretches of free time at work and a vague sense of unproductive guilt, coupled with the cheery determination of a friend with much better people skills and practical organizing sense, can help produce some good holiday family fun for the whole community.
I have a few minutes before getting off the bus, but I just want to note that this has been an amazing week and weekend. Two nomihodai parties in two days is a pretty fail-safe recipe for meeting some new people and having a story to tell, but a lot of factors combined to make this weekend especially memorable. For starters I was single on valentines day, which manifested itself as it should- with me hanging out watching movies and 30 Rock with two other single dudes all weekend, enjoying a romantic stroll around a beautiful lake in central Kumamoto and taking some pictures with the aforementioned dudes, and spending the special night itself passing out exhausted on my (younger) karate sensei's couch at his apartment in the city.
Saturday night's party took place at a friend's English conversation school, so there was a serendipitous mixture of English-speaking foreigners with varying degrees of Japanese-speaking abilities wanting to make Japanese-speaking friends and vice-versa. So I met some interesting new people, including a trilingual guy from Belize who professionally plays the steel drums (amazingly graceful and beautiful to watch-both the instrument and the man himself of course) and is seeking a pianist who only has to know basic chords.
Alright, time to wrap things up. I think I'll actually post this blog entry after only one (make that two) revision(s), rather than putting it up after 4 or so revisions then immediately deleting it and starting from scratch again later. I just want those few of you who read this blog to know that I sincerely do want to keep a decently substantive running account of my life, but I have a troublesome touch of semi-neurotic perfectionism that prevents me from being satisfied with almost anything I produce, compounded by the formidable goal of trying to please a varied audience that includes both my grandmother and some meathead fraternity brothers, to whom i would normally speak a little differently. but if I can get in the habit of putting down a stream of consciousness after significant experiences here, revising it a few times then posting (and leaving) it, hopefully I can break down the mental barriers and update this more regularly. I do love writing, and i'd like to do more of it. well, that's all for now, thanks for reading.
1 comment:
your teeth look nice, despite the ging.
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