5-month Restrospection

Okay, so I will freely admit that restrospection after only five months sounds kinds of lame; but as I get ready to head back to The Bay for a short visit with family and maybe a few friends, I know I will be asked many a question about everything I’ve experienced thus far.  This is a good way to get all that out because also, I’m pretty happy about some of the things I’ve done =D  So check out my little accomplishments after the jump!

Resolutions… You’re Talking Pixels, Right?

One thing I never do at New Years is make resolutions because I have always felt that if there was something I needed to change about myself, why wait until the end of the year to set yourself up for an epic fail by adding so much pressure, right?  Well this year I’ve decided to change it up a bit… only because it was already close to the New Year when I decided to make this change.

I'm on the far-left.

When I was a kid, I’m talking maybe four or five years old, my mother decided that my siblings and I would sing a song together for Easter at church.  Now before I go further, just realize that this is coming from a woman who sings regularly together with her sisters in churches; who’s mother and sisters sang regularly together in churches.  My family is a singing one.  Anyway, I told my mom that I didn’t want to sing.  She didn’t care, she said I was going to do it.

I spent every home rehearsal either begging her to let me out of the “gig” or pouting.  She was not fazed.

Easter morning we get up, get dressed, go to church and when it’s time for us to do our number, I cry through the entire song; I lie to you not.  But even though I cried, I still sang the whole song; I would just like to point that out.  After the performance was over, my mom says to me, “I can’t believe you cried through that entire song!  I’m not going to ask you to sing anymore…” and I responded through tears (and even a snotty nose) “That’s all I wanted!”

I used to tell people this was the reason why I didn’t sing in public like my siblings went on to do along with practically everyone else on my mom’s side of the family.  My mom thought I was making it up or something until about two years ago when we stumbled upon a video recording of this traumatizing moment in my young life.  When I watched it (in agony), I pointed out to my mom that this epic moment in my personal history is the story I relate to people and the reason I don’t sing in public… she just shook her head.

Lately a good friend of mine (who has heard me sing several times) told me that that’s a lame excuse for not singing in public, even though I love to sing; even after that terrible incident… after his encouragement (and a little bit of nagging) I’ve decided that my New Year’s Resolution will be to get over my irrantional fear of singing in public and just do it.  At music gigs or jam sessions… just do it.  So that’s what I’m gonna do.  egh.

I’m definitely gonna have to 頑張って.

2008… What Did You DO To Me?!?!

I don’t know if any year of my life has ever been so epic and life-changing.  I was looking over the blogs from the past year and I can’t recall any other time in my life that has been as epic as these as these last twelve months.

In January my Grandmother was diagnosed with bone cancer and after a few months of caring for her weekly, she passed at the end of April this year.  My sister learned she was pregnant and the baby was born in October.  I had also heard from the JET programme about my application just before beginning my last semester of college.

In February I interviewed with JET and both my brother and Grandfather were in and out of the hospital a few times.  March was kind of quiet aside from working on school projects and trying to learn Japanese while I was still waiting to hear back from the JET programme about my interview… that was agonizing.  Oh yeah, and we moved.  I hate moving.

In April I found out I was accepted into JET and just two weeks later my Grandmother passed away.  I drove cross-country three days to attend the funeral.  I also found out the baby would be a girl.  In May I finished my final project for school and graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree after what seemed like forever.

In June I just spent time with family and in July I spent countless hours staring into my closet figuring out what to bring to Japan.  I had a going away party and in August I moved to Japan.  The last four months of the year have been an absolute whirlwind.  I’ve picked up a lot of Japanese already, I’ve met lots of great people, and have traveled to several places across the country.

Nara, Japan

I’ve had many firsts this year, like a great leap in feeling independent and having a disposable income.  2008 made me feel death, life, divorce, ridiculous drama, knowledge, growth, accomplishment, fear, apprehension, shame, pride… and love.

If this next year is anything like the one that’s coming to a close; I should prepare to get my socks rocked off.  So let’s get ready to eat some mochi, drink some sake (everyone else… not me), and ring the temple bells into the Year of the Cow!

雪, 雪, 雪!!!!!!

This past Thursday in school on Christmas (yes, I had to work on Christmas… lame, I know) the teachers put the weather channel on the television at the end of the room.  All day I kept hearing them say “雪 (ゆき), 雪 (ゆき)!” [yuki=snow]; now as you may know, I’m still learning Japanese but there are some words that stick in my head like glue and I knew that one!  I turned to one teacher and said  “yuki? Is it going to snow?” And I got a bunch of “はい!… たぶん”s [Hai!... tabun=Yes!... probably].

Sure enough the next morning when I stepped out of my apartment, I looked down over my landing steps and saw bushes and cars and everything covered in white stuff.  I am 24 and that was definitely the first time I had been in falling snow.  It was AWESOME!

Some people may not like snow but I thought, “Well, hey, I already have to deal with the cold… I might as well get some snow with it!”  I was so excited and I wanted to take pictures of EVERYTHING and so when I got to the bottom of my steps and whipped out my camera, I was able to take one shot before the battery completely died on me because I forgot to charge it:

Right outside my apartment building.

Lesson learned, that’s for sure because while I was at school the sun came out and melted all the magic away.  It hasn’t snowed for two days.  I know we will have some again soon and next time I’ll be ready.  It looks like icing was dumped onto everything!

For now it’s just cold… no snow – just cold.  How lame.

Have a Very Merry

It’s Christmas here in Japan… well… what’s left of it anyway.  At 11:30pm Christmas is pretty much over; especially in a country that loves the commercial aspect of the holiday and believes it is celebrated with buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Christmas cakes.

I don’t even know what a “Christmas Cake” is; all I know is that when I asked my students what they wanted for Christmas, several of them said Christmas Cake.  I don’t know what type of cake is used for Christmas here in Japan: chocolate, fruit, rum… I have absolutely no clue.

I do know that this Christmas has been kind of weird and a little lonely, even.  I mean, it hasn’t been completely lonely… I got to spend an early Christmas with a family and have a turkey dinner and play some Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii with a set of gorgeous and absolutely amusing children… but having to work on Christmas (because I couldn’t justify to myself taking paid-leave to sit in my apartment all day alone) and then come home to a lonely apartment with no music, no family, no comfort foods… it was chotto tough.

I don’t want to sound like a wet blanket, though.  I will admit that I did get a nice little mini-vacation the weekend before Christmas, and I will be going home on the 9th for a visit with family, so I don’t have too much be negative about especially since school is out for vacation and (because of my trip home) I won’t have to teach until late January.  That’s a nice feeling.

So, Merry Merry; Happy and the like.  Spend time with the ones you love.  =D

Lame-sauce

Yeah… gomen nasai for not posting frequently.  Bad blogger/daughter/friend lately for being pretty slack on communications outside of Kobe, no lie.  In fact, even inside Kobe I’ve just been a bit lazy.

Also, I haven’t felt like anything too spectacular happened to post about, besides the epic visit of several other San Francisco JETs placed in Southern Japan… but it was also a little too much drama on one particular day so I didn’t want to share that =/  But having the friends over was a good weekend.

Uh… right now I have a weird throat thing going on.  Itchy, coughy, sore.  I actually called in sick today.  I felt really bad because I was supposed to be doing an elementary school visit today, too. For the next three days I’m going to be doing Christmas lessons for each grade.  yay.  Hope that goes well, I even have backup plans, for real.  Some of the kids can be hard to please.

Oh yeah, it’s recontracting time.  I sent in my essay about 10 days early, but I just wanted to hurry up and get it outta the way so I don’t have to worry about it in the upcoming chaos that seems to be the end of the term.

Umm… otherwise life is good.  If people want to holla at me, you can always email me at gmail.  The pre-@ is stina.christina.  Bust a line and I’ll get at ya.

Toys!!!

I’m just a big kid at heart and I love toys.  I’m not a huge collector or anything, but I like to buy little things that jump out at me.  Japan is already rocking my world because I found two awesome things in the same day.  I’m just going to show you some of the toys I’ve gotten here.

When I first arrived in Japan in August, Pepsi and Medicom Toys were having a promotion where you get a 70% Star Wars-themed Bearbrick with the purchase of soda.  I didn’t see those things ANYWHERE because they sold out so quick.  I had mentioned it to a friend and he ended up scoring one for me that had been abandoned (or lost) by a kid at school.  The toys were keychains and this one doesn’t have a hook anymore, so I’m assuming that’s how it came to be lost:

One of the Fetts, I can never remember which. Don't kill me.

Then this past Saturday I was walking with a friend through the main shopping street, Center Gai, and we took a random detour and found a tiny little used-toy shop.  It looked like the owner just went around to garage sales buying all the little toys he could find and then re-selling them.  He had a heavy cache of stuff, but what really caught my eye was a 100% Bearbrick/Medicom toy from a Sesame Street series:

Remember Count? Ah ah ah!

You can see by the quarter that he’s just a bit bigger than the 70%.  He only cost me ¥380!  That’s about USD$3.50 or whatever.  The ultimate score that day, though, was found in the endless blocks of used clothing/toys/games/electronics/etc. stores we spent a good part of the day strolling through.  I have no idea how my eyes found it, but when I saw it, coupled with its ¥100 price tag, I KNEW I had to have them.  I did an eBay search and could not find these same metal binoculars anywhere!  Check it:

BEST BINOCULARS EVAR!!!

Favorite place to shop?

So being in Kobe I now have a disposable income.  I really never had that luxury in college, so I’m enjoying it while I can.  Kobe is known for its metropolitan atmosphere and fashion savvy… and also its bakeries, apparently; which would explain why nearly every other store downtown is a womens shop and about every fourth store is a bakery or parfait place – no lie.

Anyway, after being here a couple of months, I have realized what store I love to shop in most…. the Hyakuen! Hyaku En literally means 100yen and these stores are AWESOME!  My personal favorite chain is Daiso because sure, we have a few back home in the Bay Area, but for some reason, they don’t sell all the same stuff.  Daiso in America is a little more boring.

You can get so much stuff at a Hyakuen for so cheap!  Like, every element of home life exists in these places: plants and gardening, toys, food, pet supplies, stationary, home decorating, craft (knitting, sewing, crochet, etc.), cosmetics, etc. etc. etc.  A new Daiso just opened up near a train station one stop away from my neighborhood. I think everyone knows that’s pretty dangerous, haha!

I could waste so much time in there finding things I just realized I needed…

There are probably some “real” clothing stores I will come to love but for now, the Hyakuen is king.  I mean, I can buy 100% wool yarn for about 1 US dollar!  I worked in a fabric store and couldn’t even get a decent amount of acrylic for $1.  All you can get for a dollar back home is that weird eyelash crap that makes it look like you maimed and killed a muppet.

Anyway… yeah.

Barebones

I will update soon, I’ve been really tired lately, or not in the blogging state-of-mind if you understand.

Here’s a barebones update:

• My birthday was last Tuesday, it was pretty cool.  I went to Kyoto with my Ni-Nensei students (7th graders)
• I got a package in the mail from home, thanks Mom!
• I might not go home to visit in January as planned because my sister, her husband, and baby Gabby may be in Antigua for half the time I want to come home. My opinion: it’s almost pointless to come if the baby won’t be there. Almost.
• The temperature here is playfully dipping between winter colds and autumn warms on an almost daily basis.  I’m afraid for the winter that’s around the corner… my first one with snow.
• I’m getting along really well with my teachers and students.
• Some other JETs from San Francisco will be coming to visit next weekend.  I’m excited.
• I would have to take a paid day off to avoid working on Christmas.  I just might do it because that might be too hard for me to handle – working on Christmas, no family around, not being home, etc.

So… yeah. Hopefully I shall return soon.

Just Epic

I almost couldn’t believe Obama won.  Friends were saying before the election that he had it clinched but I felt that there could always be that surprise move or something like that.  I didn’t want to say he clinched it because I believed just a little that it might jinx his chances, but I held out hope.  And I was happily surprised when he made history.

I only wished I could have been back home so I could dance in the streets of San Francisco and the Bay Area and cry and celebrate with any and everyone who wanted.  I’m glad I could witness this historic event so early in my lifetime but still be old enough to actively participate by voting and really be able to understand and almost taste the weight of this issue for my country.

Obama has a lot of cleaning up to do, but he will definitely have a lot of help.  I love my President-elect.