Today I had some free time at work, so I pulled out some scrap paper, picked up a pen and wrote this:
I feel bored. I feel like there is something I want/need to do but can't do here. I want to run about loony-like, as I was last night. I VERY MUCH want to read A Wizard of Mars. I shouldn't have been reading Wizards at War last night: I only reopened the wound. The jolt of energy I got when I touched a 'Young Wizards' book last night has not been let out properly yet. I want to run and yell. I always do. That is why they are my favourite books. Other books may be better structurally, but they don't affect me the way YW does.
And the next book is going to be a Kit book! Nita used to be my favourite character, but now we have seen inside Kit's head, I think he is. He's so cool, and he has his own style. Nita is still borrowing others' styles.
Ahh, I'm feeling the pull of the imaginary. I need to take a trip there. Now. I can always come back later. It is hard being at work when I feel like this. I need to be alone with a good book, or with pen and paper, or with a great fantasy movie. I kind of feel like watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I want to go see good ol' Captain Jack Sparrow.
Doing art and reading my way (slowly) to the end of The Sandman is taking the edge off things. Writing my own story helps too. Or wait, is that causing the trouble? I mean, I wrote a lot last week, and then on the weekend I got the calling again, renewed.
Should I figure out some way to channel the lion's share of the calling into my writing efforts? If I could figure out how to do that, I would get so much done. I would have Acorn's story finished within a few days, and be well onto the next by spring break. It is also good to save some of the calling for my art. I got some good stuff done over the weekend. I am proud of that.
I need to find some way of making sure that whenever I read or watch something, that I am charging. At the moment that is not so. Sometimes when I read or watch stuff, I am letting it out. No, I need to charge my creativity. How? Maybe if I take the time to think about why I enjoyed something, that will inspire me to put what I learned into practice.
Another thought. Writing this piece is letting some of my urgent inspiration out. It is not so urgent anymore. I am not writing as fast as I was a minute ago. Have I done something bad?
Moo, I ran down. How awful. No . . . inspiration . . . fading. Must . . . . recharge . . . . . __________
BTW, it's 3.05. I have 70 minutes to kill.
What if I make a charging ritual? What do I associate with increases in creative power? I ought to make a list of books that have a good noticeable impact on my creative power; books I can re-read when I am feeling poor. YW obviously should be written at the top of the list. The next down should be The Sandman because it had already demonstrated itself with the Mara story. What else? Hmm . . .
55 minutes to kill.
Let's just say anything by Neil Gaiman. I think I need to read more Discworld books to make myself more funny.
45 minutes to kill.
I ate grapefruit yesterday. I will eat it again today. I will also draw. I will work on that blue thingy that I don't know what it is. I also need to clean a little. I am doing nothing now but writing random things, so I can spend half an hour when I get home on cleaning, can't I?
I need to go to the toilet. I will go do that now. Okay, I'm back.
35 minutes to kill.
I have tried to associate the green star necklace with creative power. Have I succeeded yet? Hmm, not really.
Should I blog this rambling whatever that I am writing now? This direct transfer of random thought to written word? Would that tell people too much about me? Would they think I am weird? Am I weird? I don't know what other people look like from the inside of their heads, so I don't know how I compare.
This is not an accurate protrayal of how I think anyway. I think too fast for me to write everything down. I wonder what percentage of my thoughts I am catching here.
I have 'Train train' in my head. I guess it must have been played during lunch or cleaning time. When I write 'cleaning' by hand it looks like 'deaning.' My writing is very messy. I guess that's just one more thing to convince me to be a writer. Don't most writers have messy handwriting? Like there's no time to care about the writing style because we are all too busy just trying to capture alll of the fleeting thoughts and get them recorded on the nice paper (computer screen).
I read an article in New Scientist magazine, how many years ago now? It was about how in a decade's time or so they might be able to make paper computer screens tha can be rolled up. Imagine that. If I had one, it would get rumpled within two minutes and irrepairably damaged within four. And I take good care of my stuff compared to other people.
25 minutes to kill.
I just thought of Rumplestiltskin.
The article also talked about how product wrappers will be little computer screens capable of playing videos on them to attract customers. I can imagine all too well what it would be like to visit Japan after that technology becomes widely available. Buy a bottle of tea and find some lethally cute thing jumping around all over the outside of it and doing little dances. Oh no! All foreigners who come to Japan will die of the horrible cuteness! And then they will go to Korea and die again! Because Korea has caught the cuteness fever!
15 minutes to kill.
How come everytime I look at the clock, exactly 10 minutes have passed? This is getting weird. And it never feels like ten minutes, more like five. Is that just another example of my terrible time sense? Or is time flying because I am having fun? I usually have fun when I am writing. Most people hate having to write more than 100 words at once. I love writing 1,000 or 2,000 all in one day. It just makes me happy. As long as it is something I want to write, then writing is one of my favourite things. It cheers me up when I am down, and calms me when I am frustrated. I really ought to write more. I must have written 5 or 6,000 word last week all together. No, probably more like 7,000. Excellent.
We had kinako bread with school lunch today. That stuff is so difficult and messy to eat. But yummy. Who would have thought a hotdog roll covered in oiled, sugared bean powder would taste so good? I can eat it again when I get home because I got a spare one. Maybe I will eat it with my grapefruit. I won't be able to save it until breakfast tomorrow. It will lead me into temptation long before then. Did I just quote a Christian prayer? How rare.
I am onto my sixth sheet of paper. Sure, I am writing big and only on one side. (because there is something on the other) but even so, this is getting long. Maybe I will not write this on blogger after all. I will intend to but then procrastinate, because it will take so long to type out.
No! Do not be so lazy!
I am hungry. Maybe I should put the kinako bread in my bag so I can't keep looking at it. it's tempting me already.
Still no snow that lasts more than a couple of hours. The real snow is a month late now. I have only been in a country that has winter snows for a few years, and already it doesn't feel like winter without it.
5 minutes to kill. Didn't I write '70 minutes to kill' not so long ago? I guess it must have actually been 65 minutes ago, unless there is something seriously wrong with the clock.
Stop looking at me, kinako bread.
The third grade boys are singing in the corridor. How old are they supposed to be again? Older than they act, surely. They are not as interesting as last year's 3rd graders. The girls too. I know that is not a nice thing to say, but it is true. They really are a 'broken class.' They are only just getting better now, but they will be split up forever in a few weeks. Too little, too late.
My hand hurts. But it is time to go home now, so that's okay.
Wow, finished. Sorry about that. I ended up cutting some things out because it was taking so long to write. The actual version was about 15% longer. Maybe 20%. I think everyone should try doing this, at least once. Just write down as many of your random thoughts as you can as you think them and then read over them afterwards and look for patterns, be amused etc.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Thursday, January 18, 2007
The Forces of Nature
Something rather rare and frightening happened in Konoura today.
The weather forecast for today was for rain. Throughout the morning it was drizzling. A little after 1.30 I was sitting in the staff room typing on my computer. Also in the staff room were Hosoya-san and Machiko-san sitting behind me by the window; a female teacher called Aiba-sensei sitting across from me; and to my left with their backs to the door and to a set of equipment (the school bell system and the surveilance system screen) were two male teachers. All of a sudden there was this click sound just like a camera shutter and a flash like a camera flash. It seemed to be coming from one of the two men, Hiroshi-sensei's direction, and all four of us women thought that he took a picture of us and made to turn our heads to find out why he would do that. But a fraction of a second later there was this HUGE crash of thunder. (It's times like that when you realise just how fast the human mind thinks; that most people can have several complete distinct thoughts in a row in such a small time that the body's reflexes don't even have time to react is something that I find fascinating.) We all jumped up and kind of went 'wow!' and compared stories. The two men had no idea until we told them that to out eyes it looked as if the lightning had come from them. We at first assumed that lightning had struck behind the school and we had seen it flashing through the glass panel of the door from the window in the corridor just outside the door. But then Togashi-sensei came into the staffroom and said he had been looking out a window when the lightning struck and it had shot up from somewhere to the west, which is in front of the school, in the opposite direction. (Did you know that lightning bolts go upwards? Not everyone does.) About this time Mitsunori-sensei (the other male teacher who had been sitting next to Hiroshi-sensei) started saying that he had a sore back. We wondered if the flash had come from the equipment behind the two teachers, but we couldn't see any damage. The surveilance TV was still working fine. All the computers were fine. We all ran around checking to make sure that there was no damage or anything in the school; no blown lights or singed areas, stuff like that. Nothing.
Togashi-sensei could not say how far away the lightning had struck. All he could say was that it was beyond the train line. There is only about half a kilometer of land between the train line and the ocean, if that. We all sat back down at our desks and had a (tension-relieving) laugh about how Aiba-sensei, Machiko-san, Hosoya-san and I had all thought that Hiroshi-sensei had taken a photograph. We were all still feeling shocked; there had been no lightning that day so we were not at all prepared for it. About ten minutes after the lightning struck, the sirens started. Uh-oh, somethings on fire. There was an announcement over the town speakers saying which neighbourhood the fire was located in. The two male teachers started going through the student records checking how many children lived in the area, while the rest of us went to the window, peered through the sheets of rain that had been coming down since the lightning struck and saw that there was indeed a column of smoke starting to rise to the sky. At first the teachers were saying that they did not think many of the students lived near there, but when they checked the records they found they were wrong; many students live in that neigbourhood. A call came to the school from somewhere telling the name of who the house was registered to. The teachers started to go back through the record again looking at each child from the areas' father's name. At first they thought there were no students affected, but then it was noticed that one of the second grade boys grandfather's name matched. Less than a minute later another call came through confirming that yes, that boy lived in the house that was on fire. Someone double-checked with the elementary school and found that the boy's little sister had already been taken to the house by her teacher (I don't know, to watch it burn I suppose). The boy was taken out of class, sat in the Principal's office for a few minutes with a glass of water, and then the second grade dean took him down too. I think the fire had been put out by that stage. As an aside, every single student in the school knew what had happened to whose house about 30 seconds after the boy himself knew despite the teachers trying to keep it hush.
Many other students were worried about their own houses. It turns out that on every side of the lightning-struck house (both sides, behind and across the road) for several doors down are the houses of other students. But luckily for them the fire did not spread. If heavy rain had not followed the lightning, who knows what could have happened? The firestation for Nikaho City is close to Konoura, but the house is in an area of town with narrow winding streets so it still took the firetrucks long precious minutes getting there.
It was just chance. If lightning strikes enough, sooner or later it is going to hit someone's house and set it on fire. That's just how nature works.
The weather forecast for today was for rain. Throughout the morning it was drizzling. A little after 1.30 I was sitting in the staff room typing on my computer. Also in the staff room were Hosoya-san and Machiko-san sitting behind me by the window; a female teacher called Aiba-sensei sitting across from me; and to my left with their backs to the door and to a set of equipment (the school bell system and the surveilance system screen) were two male teachers. All of a sudden there was this click sound just like a camera shutter and a flash like a camera flash. It seemed to be coming from one of the two men, Hiroshi-sensei's direction, and all four of us women thought that he took a picture of us and made to turn our heads to find out why he would do that. But a fraction of a second later there was this HUGE crash of thunder. (It's times like that when you realise just how fast the human mind thinks; that most people can have several complete distinct thoughts in a row in such a small time that the body's reflexes don't even have time to react is something that I find fascinating.) We all jumped up and kind of went 'wow!' and compared stories. The two men had no idea until we told them that to out eyes it looked as if the lightning had come from them. We at first assumed that lightning had struck behind the school and we had seen it flashing through the glass panel of the door from the window in the corridor just outside the door. But then Togashi-sensei came into the staffroom and said he had been looking out a window when the lightning struck and it had shot up from somewhere to the west, which is in front of the school, in the opposite direction. (Did you know that lightning bolts go upwards? Not everyone does.) About this time Mitsunori-sensei (the other male teacher who had been sitting next to Hiroshi-sensei) started saying that he had a sore back. We wondered if the flash had come from the equipment behind the two teachers, but we couldn't see any damage. The surveilance TV was still working fine. All the computers were fine. We all ran around checking to make sure that there was no damage or anything in the school; no blown lights or singed areas, stuff like that. Nothing.
Togashi-sensei could not say how far away the lightning had struck. All he could say was that it was beyond the train line. There is only about half a kilometer of land between the train line and the ocean, if that. We all sat back down at our desks and had a (tension-relieving) laugh about how Aiba-sensei, Machiko-san, Hosoya-san and I had all thought that Hiroshi-sensei had taken a photograph. We were all still feeling shocked; there had been no lightning that day so we were not at all prepared for it. About ten minutes after the lightning struck, the sirens started. Uh-oh, somethings on fire. There was an announcement over the town speakers saying which neighbourhood the fire was located in. The two male teachers started going through the student records checking how many children lived in the area, while the rest of us went to the window, peered through the sheets of rain that had been coming down since the lightning struck and saw that there was indeed a column of smoke starting to rise to the sky. At first the teachers were saying that they did not think many of the students lived near there, but when they checked the records they found they were wrong; many students live in that neigbourhood. A call came to the school from somewhere telling the name of who the house was registered to. The teachers started to go back through the record again looking at each child from the areas' father's name. At first they thought there were no students affected, but then it was noticed that one of the second grade boys grandfather's name matched. Less than a minute later another call came through confirming that yes, that boy lived in the house that was on fire. Someone double-checked with the elementary school and found that the boy's little sister had already been taken to the house by her teacher (I don't know, to watch it burn I suppose). The boy was taken out of class, sat in the Principal's office for a few minutes with a glass of water, and then the second grade dean took him down too. I think the fire had been put out by that stage. As an aside, every single student in the school knew what had happened to whose house about 30 seconds after the boy himself knew despite the teachers trying to keep it hush.
Many other students were worried about their own houses. It turns out that on every side of the lightning-struck house (both sides, behind and across the road) for several doors down are the houses of other students. But luckily for them the fire did not spread. If heavy rain had not followed the lightning, who knows what could have happened? The firestation for Nikaho City is close to Konoura, but the house is in an area of town with narrow winding streets so it still took the firetrucks long precious minutes getting there.
It was just chance. If lightning strikes enough, sooner or later it is going to hit someone's house and set it on fire. That's just how nature works.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Gaudy Asia
It seems as if the school network and Blogger are willing to talk to each other now. Here are some disturbing pictures.
The lobby. Notice the giant snowman and the Neo-Classical restaurant.
The lobby. Notice the giant snowman and the Neo-Classical restaurant.
This was decorating the bell boy counter. How embarassing.
The headboard of my bed.
A drawer. One of many.
A drawer. One of many.
This was on the cabinet that held the fridge.
This footstool was sitting in a corner where it could not be used. And who would use it anyway? Who sits on the edge of a bed and then puts their feet on a footstool?
This is not quite so disturbing. This is a department store (I think) located in Meongdong.
Day 1 in Korea
Well, I was going to talk about my trip to Korea with pictures, but blogger and the Nikaho City school network are not communicating very well at the moment and I can't seem to upload any pictures. Instead, I will just write and then post the pictures later.
Last Monday morning, Sayaka's friend Taisuke who has now become Miwa's friend drove Miwa and I to Akita airport. I was expecting there to be snow at the airport, because it is in the mountains an hours drive north of here and in winter is usually snow-bound (as in last year Amanda couldn't find her car in the carpark when she got back from Australia because it was buried under the snow). I don't know how so many planes can still land and take off at Akita during winter, but they can. Although, not all of them to be sure. Cancellations are frequent. Anyway, instead of the mountains of snow and the climbing over snowbanks to get into the terminal like there is most years, there was just a sprinkling of snow on grassy areas and none at all on any concrete. We checked in, drank coffee (no tea available) and were in the air by lunch time.
We got to Incheon by mid-afternoon and were picked up by a guide from the travel service we used. She was holding a card with Miwa's name on it. I've always wanted to be met at an airport by a card-wielding person. Next time it will be my name written there! (BTW now I think of it Mum, if you pick me up at Wellington airport when I return to NZ, please bring a card with my name. With the frequency that your hair changes colour, I might not recognise you.)
We were taken by van into Seoul with another family. We were dropped off at our hotel at about 4pm. The first thing I noticed when I entered the lobby was the twinkling tree and the next thing was the 8 foot tall inflatable snowman that was behind it. The hotel room was well and truly tacky too. I will post pictures later.
We went to a convenience store around the corner for snacks and then back up to the room. It was at this point that Miwa noticed that she no longer had Atsuko's camera, which she had borrowed for the trip, in her pocket. She remembered walking to the store with her hands in her pockets, so the camera couldn't have been there then. She spent 15 minutes tearing the hotel room apart before ringing the guide to ask whether a camera had been found in the van. The guide told her to wait while she checked. Twenty minutes later she rang back to say that the camera had not been found. No doubt either the van driver or the guide pocketed the camera, because it never did turn up in the hotel room, and we hadn't been anywhere else at that stage but the store.
We couldn't do any more about the camera, so we went into Myongdong, a famous cheap shopping area to spend the rest of the evening. I bought a few eye shadows at a pharmacy and got a free eyeshadow case, face cotton and if you believe it or not, a free Gucci rip-off cosmetics purse, with 'e's embroidered on it rather than 'G's. I mean, those things are illegal, and have to be smuggled out of the country. And I got one for free. I don't particularly want it - I don't really like Gucci.
Last Monday morning, Sayaka's friend Taisuke who has now become Miwa's friend drove Miwa and I to Akita airport. I was expecting there to be snow at the airport, because it is in the mountains an hours drive north of here and in winter is usually snow-bound (as in last year Amanda couldn't find her car in the carpark when she got back from Australia because it was buried under the snow). I don't know how so many planes can still land and take off at Akita during winter, but they can. Although, not all of them to be sure. Cancellations are frequent. Anyway, instead of the mountains of snow and the climbing over snowbanks to get into the terminal like there is most years, there was just a sprinkling of snow on grassy areas and none at all on any concrete. We checked in, drank coffee (no tea available) and were in the air by lunch time.
We got to Incheon by mid-afternoon and were picked up by a guide from the travel service we used. She was holding a card with Miwa's name on it. I've always wanted to be met at an airport by a card-wielding person. Next time it will be my name written there! (BTW now I think of it Mum, if you pick me up at Wellington airport when I return to NZ, please bring a card with my name. With the frequency that your hair changes colour, I might not recognise you.)
We were taken by van into Seoul with another family. We were dropped off at our hotel at about 4pm. The first thing I noticed when I entered the lobby was the twinkling tree and the next thing was the 8 foot tall inflatable snowman that was behind it. The hotel room was well and truly tacky too. I will post pictures later.
We went to a convenience store around the corner for snacks and then back up to the room. It was at this point that Miwa noticed that she no longer had Atsuko's camera, which she had borrowed for the trip, in her pocket. She remembered walking to the store with her hands in her pockets, so the camera couldn't have been there then. She spent 15 minutes tearing the hotel room apart before ringing the guide to ask whether a camera had been found in the van. The guide told her to wait while she checked. Twenty minutes later she rang back to say that the camera had not been found. No doubt either the van driver or the guide pocketed the camera, because it never did turn up in the hotel room, and we hadn't been anywhere else at that stage but the store.
We couldn't do any more about the camera, so we went into Myongdong, a famous cheap shopping area to spend the rest of the evening. I bought a few eye shadows at a pharmacy and got a free eyeshadow case, face cotton and if you believe it or not, a free Gucci rip-off cosmetics purse, with 'e's embroidered on it rather than 'G's. I mean, those things are illegal, and have to be smuggled out of the country. And I got one for free. I don't particularly want it - I don't really like Gucci.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Greetings From Korea
Hi, how are you? I am in Korea. I'm using a computer in the hotel lobby to blog, so I won't write long. The weather is great here, only chilly not bloody freezing like Seoul in January is supposed to be. It has been sunny with cloudy patches the whole time I have been here. I went to a palace yesterday. It was impressive. I will post some photos later.
BTW, blogger is all in Hangeul (the Korean alphabet) and I can't remember which button is which. Wish me luck posting this.
BTW, blogger is all in Hangeul (the Korean alphabet) and I can't remember which button is which. Wish me luck posting this.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Happy New Year!
Welcome everyone to 2007. How was your new years? I saw in the new year with Atsuko, Miwa and Taisuke (a friend of Sayaka's). We had been planning on going to an onsen, but of course the plan got cancelled. We had dinner at Atsuko's house instead. I cooked a beef mince pie for them. We spent hours watching the K1 because Miwa loves it, and Atsuko loves Masato. (Ok, maybe I like him a little bit too ;) )
When the K1 finished at 11.30pm I put on Pirates of the Caribbean 2. What better way to see in a new year than by watching a Johnny Depp movie?
After midnight we went for a walk to the shrine. It was actually quite a nice walk on account of the unseasonably warm weather. No snow has lasted in Konoura for more than a couple of hours yet this winter. I spent pretty much the whole time at the shrine saying 'Happy New Year' repeatedly to students of mine both past and present. I went home at about 2am.
Today I didn't go anywhere. I watched a couple of DVDs and cooked a spinach, tuna and cheese pastie for lunch. The weather was disturbingly nice, and I briefly entertained the idea of going somewhere until I realised I had nowhere to go. Such is life.
When the K1 finished at 11.30pm I put on Pirates of the Caribbean 2. What better way to see in a new year than by watching a Johnny Depp movie?
After midnight we went for a walk to the shrine. It was actually quite a nice walk on account of the unseasonably warm weather. No snow has lasted in Konoura for more than a couple of hours yet this winter. I spent pretty much the whole time at the shrine saying 'Happy New Year' repeatedly to students of mine both past and present. I went home at about 2am.
Today I didn't go anywhere. I watched a couple of DVDs and cooked a spinach, tuna and cheese pastie for lunch. The weather was disturbingly nice, and I briefly entertained the idea of going somewhere until I realised I had nowhere to go. Such is life.
Monday, December 25, 2006
. . . everybody's having fun
Merry Christmas!
I'm at work today, because Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan. It just doesn't feel like Christmas, not at all. Not that I am not having any fun: I got to play hangman and fruits basket today with the first graders, who are just young enough to enjoy playing games (the second graders are too 'cool' for them).
I was looking forward to a white Christmas, but the weather has been doing some very strange things recently. The bitterly cold weather of the middle of the month has ended, the snow has turned back into rain and the sun has come out. It looks like spring is on it's way already, which is ridiculous. The grass even looks greener than it did the other week. Yesterday the ticket booth lady at the train station told me it is the first non-white Christmas she can remember seeing in Konoura, ever. She placed the blame on the shoulders of Global Warming, ignoring the fact that last year's winter was the snowiest in 86 years, with blizzards for the two weeks leading up to Christmas.
Kamagadai however is an utterly different story. 20-30 minute drive away (depending on the driver) though it may be, it has been covered in a constant blanket of snow for three weeks now. I won't be going back to Kamagadai until the start of term three in mid January. By the time I return there, the snow will probably be several metres deep.
On Friday I went to an end of year work party. We all stayed at a onsen/hotel in Yamagata Prefecture all of 30 mintes drive away. We had a dinner and played a lot of silly games, like charades. We also played Secret Santa Bingo. I won a string of Christmas lights, the type designed to be put in ones garden or on ones Christmas tree. As my Chritsmas tree is 10cm tall and I don't have a garden, I have put the lights up on my wall. They look a bit funny because the cables are dark green and my wall is white, but that's okay.
I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep that night because four male teachers in the room next door were playing Mah Jongg until three in the morning, and having a fine time of it if the noise level was any indication.
Yesterday I took the train into Nikaho to pick up my tickets to Seoul. There is a two and a half hour wait between when one train arrives in Nikaho and when the next train back to Konoura leaves. It took me less than 15 minutes to pick up the tickets. What to do with the rest of the time? Go shopping of course. I went to Daiso and surprisingly did not buy much. What I did buy was mostly practical stuff like new kitchen cloths which are cheaper there than at the supermarket, a new paring knife etc. Then I went to the drug store and bought such interesting things as soap, air freshener, pain killers and obscenely cheap sanitary pads. (New Zealand should be ashamed of itself, charging women so much for their necessities. Here in Japan a woman can get a double pack of Whisper pads, 44 in all, for the equivalent of about NZ $3.50 so long as she goes to the drug store and not the supermarket. You can't even get 20 pads for that much in NZ unless you buy No Frills brand, which can't absorb a sparrow's piddle. The downside is that all tampons here are applicator.) Then I went to Max Valu and bought things that aren't available at Konoura Max Valu such as cheese that doesn't taste like soap, croissants that were baked on premesis and not in a factory on the other side of the country somewhere, and a turkey leg. Then I caught the train home again. I am turning into such an adult.
I ordered a Christmas present for myself over the internet, although it probably won't arrive for another couple of weeks. I didn't think of doing so until last week. I ordered three items through Amazon.co.jp's marketplace, from an England-based discount book and CD distributor. What I ordered was two CDs by a group called Mediaeval Baebes: Mirabilis and The Rose. They are not my usual fare, but what is? The Mediaeval Baebes sing songs that for the most part borrow lyrics from mediaeval poetry, to music that they compose that is inspired by real mediaeval music and played on mediaeval instruments such as citerns and recorders. They sing in all sorts of languages: Old English, Latin, 11th century Irish, 15th century Spanish, French, Russian . . . Good stuff. It's not all flowery high-brow stuff either. One of my favourite songs of theirs tells part of Chaucer's 'Milleres Tale' or possibly another fabliaux of very similar theme. Another song on the same album is a 15th century Welsh poem that was outlawed because it was in praise of female genitalia. It's such a pretty sounding song too; what a laugh! Not all of their songs are crude; they have also done renditions of Scarborough Fair and the story of Tam Lin.
The third thing I ordered for myself is the new book by Bryan Sykes, Blood of the Isles. I already own 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' and 'Adam's Curse'. I can't wait to get my hands on Blood of the Isles. I guess that not everyone is as interested as me in books on human genetics, but if you are, you really ought to read Bryan Sykes' books.
Anyway, everyone reading this either: I hope you have a merry Christmas or; I hope you had a merry Christmas.
And let's all have a Happy New Year.
I'm at work today, because Christmas is not a public holiday in Japan. It just doesn't feel like Christmas, not at all. Not that I am not having any fun: I got to play hangman and fruits basket today with the first graders, who are just young enough to enjoy playing games (the second graders are too 'cool' for them).
I was looking forward to a white Christmas, but the weather has been doing some very strange things recently. The bitterly cold weather of the middle of the month has ended, the snow has turned back into rain and the sun has come out. It looks like spring is on it's way already, which is ridiculous. The grass even looks greener than it did the other week. Yesterday the ticket booth lady at the train station told me it is the first non-white Christmas she can remember seeing in Konoura, ever. She placed the blame on the shoulders of Global Warming, ignoring the fact that last year's winter was the snowiest in 86 years, with blizzards for the two weeks leading up to Christmas.
Kamagadai however is an utterly different story. 20-30 minute drive away (depending on the driver) though it may be, it has been covered in a constant blanket of snow for three weeks now. I won't be going back to Kamagadai until the start of term three in mid January. By the time I return there, the snow will probably be several metres deep.
On Friday I went to an end of year work party. We all stayed at a onsen/hotel in Yamagata Prefecture all of 30 mintes drive away. We had a dinner and played a lot of silly games, like charades. We also played Secret Santa Bingo. I won a string of Christmas lights, the type designed to be put in ones garden or on ones Christmas tree. As my Chritsmas tree is 10cm tall and I don't have a garden, I have put the lights up on my wall. They look a bit funny because the cables are dark green and my wall is white, but that's okay.
I had a bit of trouble getting to sleep that night because four male teachers in the room next door were playing Mah Jongg until three in the morning, and having a fine time of it if the noise level was any indication.
Yesterday I took the train into Nikaho to pick up my tickets to Seoul. There is a two and a half hour wait between when one train arrives in Nikaho and when the next train back to Konoura leaves. It took me less than 15 minutes to pick up the tickets. What to do with the rest of the time? Go shopping of course. I went to Daiso and surprisingly did not buy much. What I did buy was mostly practical stuff like new kitchen cloths which are cheaper there than at the supermarket, a new paring knife etc. Then I went to the drug store and bought such interesting things as soap, air freshener, pain killers and obscenely cheap sanitary pads. (New Zealand should be ashamed of itself, charging women so much for their necessities. Here in Japan a woman can get a double pack of Whisper pads, 44 in all, for the equivalent of about NZ $3.50 so long as she goes to the drug store and not the supermarket. You can't even get 20 pads for that much in NZ unless you buy No Frills brand, which can't absorb a sparrow's piddle. The downside is that all tampons here are applicator.) Then I went to Max Valu and bought things that aren't available at Konoura Max Valu such as cheese that doesn't taste like soap, croissants that were baked on premesis and not in a factory on the other side of the country somewhere, and a turkey leg. Then I caught the train home again. I am turning into such an adult.
I ordered a Christmas present for myself over the internet, although it probably won't arrive for another couple of weeks. I didn't think of doing so until last week. I ordered three items through Amazon.co.jp's marketplace, from an England-based discount book and CD distributor. What I ordered was two CDs by a group called Mediaeval Baebes: Mirabilis and The Rose. They are not my usual fare, but what is? The Mediaeval Baebes sing songs that for the most part borrow lyrics from mediaeval poetry, to music that they compose that is inspired by real mediaeval music and played on mediaeval instruments such as citerns and recorders. They sing in all sorts of languages: Old English, Latin, 11th century Irish, 15th century Spanish, French, Russian . . . Good stuff. It's not all flowery high-brow stuff either. One of my favourite songs of theirs tells part of Chaucer's 'Milleres Tale' or possibly another fabliaux of very similar theme. Another song on the same album is a 15th century Welsh poem that was outlawed because it was in praise of female genitalia. It's such a pretty sounding song too; what a laugh! Not all of their songs are crude; they have also done renditions of Scarborough Fair and the story of Tam Lin.
The third thing I ordered for myself is the new book by Bryan Sykes, Blood of the Isles. I already own 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' and 'Adam's Curse'. I can't wait to get my hands on Blood of the Isles. I guess that not everyone is as interested as me in books on human genetics, but if you are, you really ought to read Bryan Sykes' books.
Anyway, everyone reading this either: I hope you have a merry Christmas or; I hope you had a merry Christmas.
And let's all have a Happy New Year.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Kiritanpo
The other week I made kiritanpo for myself for dinner one night. Kiritanpo is a traditional dish of Akita Prefecture.
The ingredients I used were:
Chicken soup stock that came in a packet from the supermarket
Kiritanpo. These are made of rice that has been wrapped around a stick and then lightly grilled by an open fire.
The ingredients I used were:
Chicken soup stock that came in a packet from the supermarket
Kiritanpo. These are made of rice that has been wrapped around a stick and then lightly grilled by an open fire.
They are cut like this before being cooked.
Chicken
Vegetables. Specifically, leek, chinese cabbage, Japanese parsely (both leaves and roots), burdock root and long white mushroom thingies.
Here it all is boiling.
And here it is served.
Sick, sick, sick
I have a cold, a real one this time not a mini-cold caught eating lunch with hundreds of kids. I feel wretched.
On Saturday morning I helped out with a Christmas party for the Challenge Club kiddies. I think I mentioned it last week. Anyway, it was lots of fun. We made advent calendars, ate junk food (only one mother brought along nice healthy fruit to the tea time - everyone else brought chocolate, cookies, chippies etc.) and then played a few games. At the end I read 'The Night Before Christmas' to them. Someone else read the Japanese version of the book to the kids. Whoever did the Japanese translation did not bother to rhyme the sentences or even to put any rhythm into them; it is pure prose. It sounded odd.
That evening Miwa came to my house and we looked at some travel books for Korea. I couldn't read them of course, but I pointed out pictures of places I thought looked interesting and food I thought looked good. I really should start studying some Korean phrases and written Hangeul. It will make things easier for me.
Yesterday I had to go shopping because there were some things I had to buy. I didn't really want to go because I already had a cold, but I had no choice. Because I went out into the cold while sick yesterday, that is why I feel so bad today.
On Saturday morning I helped out with a Christmas party for the Challenge Club kiddies. I think I mentioned it last week. Anyway, it was lots of fun. We made advent calendars, ate junk food (only one mother brought along nice healthy fruit to the tea time - everyone else brought chocolate, cookies, chippies etc.) and then played a few games. At the end I read 'The Night Before Christmas' to them. Someone else read the Japanese version of the book to the kids. Whoever did the Japanese translation did not bother to rhyme the sentences or even to put any rhythm into them; it is pure prose. It sounded odd.
That evening Miwa came to my house and we looked at some travel books for Korea. I couldn't read them of course, but I pointed out pictures of places I thought looked interesting and food I thought looked good. I really should start studying some Korean phrases and written Hangeul. It will make things easier for me.
Yesterday I had to go shopping because there were some things I had to buy. I didn't really want to go because I already had a cold, but I had no choice. Because I went out into the cold while sick yesterday, that is why I feel so bad today.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Flicker and Dash
My airplane ticket to South Korea is ordered and hotel room reserved. I went to the travel agents with Miwa last Friday. There is a bit of trouble with my travel insurance in that because I have health insurance through the JET Programme I only want to buy baggage insurance, but the travel agent will not sell me it separately. Either it comes as an add-on to health insurance or you can't buy it at all. I'm sure I will get it sorted out. Either that or I will go without my luggage insured. No biggie, I suppose: I didn't have my baggage insured when I went to England last year either.
Things have been a bit boring recently because (shhh) Atsuko has a new boyfriend although that is a secret, at least from people on this end, and the weather is bad so I can't muster the motivation to go somewhere by myself on the weekends. But inversely work has been fairly busy recently. I have been asked to help at the Nikaho City Challenge Club (weekend English club for elementary kids) this Saturday. We are going to have a Christmas party. Yay! I will make Xmas cards with little kids and then read them a simple Xmas story book. Also, this week and next week I will be spending my Thursday evenings teaching useful English phrases to the 13 Jr. High kids and their parents who will be going to NZ in January. They will be staying in homestay, and since they are mostly 1st graders their English is not very good. I don't get to go with them, despite how much I could help out, being a Kiwi myself and all; I just get to teach them a bit of English. In one month time they will be in Christcurch and then in the Wellington sun and I will be here in the Akita snow . . .
Things have been a bit boring recently because (shhh) Atsuko has a new boyfriend although that is a secret, at least from people on this end, and the weather is bad so I can't muster the motivation to go somewhere by myself on the weekends. But inversely work has been fairly busy recently. I have been asked to help at the Nikaho City Challenge Club (weekend English club for elementary kids) this Saturday. We are going to have a Christmas party. Yay! I will make Xmas cards with little kids and then read them a simple Xmas story book. Also, this week and next week I will be spending my Thursday evenings teaching useful English phrases to the 13 Jr. High kids and their parents who will be going to NZ in January. They will be staying in homestay, and since they are mostly 1st graders their English is not very good. I don't get to go with them, despite how much I could help out, being a Kiwi myself and all; I just get to teach them a bit of English. In one month time they will be in Christcurch and then in the Wellington sun and I will be here in the Akita snow . . .
Sunday, December 10, 2006
AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Today there is more than 80 yen to the NZ dollar! I want to send money home, but the exchange rate is against me. When will the NZ dollar weaken? I've been waiting for months and months . . .
Friday, December 01, 2006
Nanhan
I see that I haven't been blogging much recently. This is a combination of being eternally just a little bit sick, of being up to my eyebrows in 'The Dark Tower' series by Stephen King, and of being lazy.
The reason I can't get entirely well is because every week I go to the elementary school, and so every week I am exposed to kid-germs. The perils of being a teacher.
I haven't really done anything over the last two weeks. Last Sunday I went to the school festival at Kamagadai. Because I had to get up early in the morning, I did not go out on Saturday night. Anyway, at the festival the students performed speeches, research projects, a piece of music and a play. Because there are so few students at the school, every single student had to participate in the concert, all the elementary students had to talk about their research, and all the Jr. High kids had to perform in the play.
Afterwards we had a mochi-zuki taikai (rice-cake making competition). We all had to take turns at bashing the rice with a mallet, me included. What we made was mochi - a sticky heavy play-doh like food. I know it sounds disgusting, but actually I'm quite fond of mochi. Then we ate lunch: mochi with boiled red beans (azuki), mochi with white bean powder (can't remember the name) and mochi in vegetable soup (zouni) and one mandarin each. Although I like all three dishes, especially zouni, eating them all together is very hard on the stomach. Straight after lunch there was volleyball. Although the volleyball was a student vs. parent tournament, I had to play too because of the scarcity of Jr. High students. I hadn't played volleyball for a decade or more. Despite that I did better than the parents if not as good as the students, so I didn't embarrass myself.
When I got home I ate some left-overs from the night before and then lay down to take a nap. I woke up 45 minutes later with the most painful stomach I can remember having experienced. It had bloated up up so that I looked 7 or 8 months pregnant, and was very hard. Moving sent stabs of pain shooting through me as if my stretched flesh were about to give way and rip open. It must have been the mochi of course. My stomach is just not used to eating so much of it at once. It probably didn't help that the left-overs I had eaten had been curry. I actually wondered if my appendix had burst, and if I were about to die. But I told myself I was being stupid, that it was my own fault and that there was nothing I could do about it. So I went back to bed for another 3 hours and when I woke up again I was mostly better again. But I still had a sore stomach on Monday. Then, horror of horrors, the school lunch was curry bread and zouni, the lumps of mochi floating therein laughing at me I'm sure. *sigh*
I have one other bit of news. It looks as if I will be going to South Korea over winter vacation. Nuclear missiles, bird flu and -7 degree temperatures aside, it is a great opportunity. I will be going with Miwa, and Miwa can speak Korean. As well as being able to navigate Seoul with ease, Miwa can also book hotels that only locals usually know about, instead of the over-priced ones tourists usually end up in. This means as well as my trip being language confusion-free, it will also be cheap. Yay!
The reason I can't get entirely well is because every week I go to the elementary school, and so every week I am exposed to kid-germs. The perils of being a teacher.
I haven't really done anything over the last two weeks. Last Sunday I went to the school festival at Kamagadai. Because I had to get up early in the morning, I did not go out on Saturday night. Anyway, at the festival the students performed speeches, research projects, a piece of music and a play. Because there are so few students at the school, every single student had to participate in the concert, all the elementary students had to talk about their research, and all the Jr. High kids had to perform in the play.
Afterwards we had a mochi-zuki taikai (rice-cake making competition). We all had to take turns at bashing the rice with a mallet, me included. What we made was mochi - a sticky heavy play-doh like food. I know it sounds disgusting, but actually I'm quite fond of mochi. Then we ate lunch: mochi with boiled red beans (azuki), mochi with white bean powder (can't remember the name) and mochi in vegetable soup (zouni) and one mandarin each. Although I like all three dishes, especially zouni, eating them all together is very hard on the stomach. Straight after lunch there was volleyball. Although the volleyball was a student vs. parent tournament, I had to play too because of the scarcity of Jr. High students. I hadn't played volleyball for a decade or more. Despite that I did better than the parents if not as good as the students, so I didn't embarrass myself.
When I got home I ate some left-overs from the night before and then lay down to take a nap. I woke up 45 minutes later with the most painful stomach I can remember having experienced. It had bloated up up so that I looked 7 or 8 months pregnant, and was very hard. Moving sent stabs of pain shooting through me as if my stretched flesh were about to give way and rip open. It must have been the mochi of course. My stomach is just not used to eating so much of it at once. It probably didn't help that the left-overs I had eaten had been curry. I actually wondered if my appendix had burst, and if I were about to die. But I told myself I was being stupid, that it was my own fault and that there was nothing I could do about it. So I went back to bed for another 3 hours and when I woke up again I was mostly better again. But I still had a sore stomach on Monday. Then, horror of horrors, the school lunch was curry bread and zouni, the lumps of mochi floating therein laughing at me I'm sure. *sigh*
I have one other bit of news. It looks as if I will be going to South Korea over winter vacation. Nuclear missiles, bird flu and -7 degree temperatures aside, it is a great opportunity. I will be going with Miwa, and Miwa can speak Korean. As well as being able to navigate Seoul with ease, Miwa can also book hotels that only locals usually know about, instead of the over-priced ones tourists usually end up in. This means as well as my trip being language confusion-free, it will also be cheap. Yay!
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