for those faithful readers

My mom and dad have been here so I will have to write later. Tomorrow we are off to Kyoto for New years and my birthday. After that I am off to Nagano to do a little snowboarding. So I won't be on here until after the 8th of January, unless I find internet at my hostel.

Hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

random thoughts

After some contemplating on what to do with my life. The only one that would be up at this time was Maree. She wasn't even up at first. Don't think I didn't try more people, they were smart and were sleeping. So I told Maree my thoughts on what I might want to do. It was really only 2. She said "No Britt how are you going to save the world". That just reentered my mind a second ago and thought I would write that. I am going to save the world, but I have too many possibilities and could do it in many different ways. The question is, will some company hire a girl who can't work all year around to save a world for a full time job? If anyone knows of employing a motivated girl to save the planet from environmental problems, please tell them I am a good candidate, but if I work my brain to the bone, I could loose sight of what I am working for.
Don't worry mom and dad, this job will pay. (I hope)

I will tell you about my weekend when I get pictures. Idiot Britt forgot her camera. It is a good one!

Cooking with the 7th graders

What is there something in my beard? No Santa try your moustache.... The kids came in screaming wonderho. Hmmm could that mean wonderful! They were so proud. As I walked out the door to take my recycling to its place, the taxi was already waiting. So what did I do? I brought it with me along with all of my baking supplies, shoes, school bag, purse, and bag of bowls and pans. I was a mess. Then at school I figured out that I forgot the list of who won the semester contest with the most points. Idiot Britt.

I first see my desk as Milton does in Officespace. More and more stuff on it, and I thought I was going to get moved into the copy room. I have a computer sitting there, books and librarian stuff. I just slide it out of the way. Come to find out about 20 minutes later that I can use the computer. Maybe they are being really nice so I don't have to use the smoking room for my computing or they want to monitor what I am looking up.

I have cooking with the 7th graders at 2nd period. I go to the cooking room and put everything in bowls before they arrive and find the Japanese words on them. I was trying to encourage as much English as I could. They were not to speak Japanese today. Instead I got lots of grunts and ehhhHHHhhhhh. We tried to make pecan sandies. The class of only 9 was great and meant more cookies for me. I put the dough in the fridge to cool.

Off to 9th grade class where they are working on travel guides. I find one of my favorite students, Yousuke, had written "Because I am delicious, the Yuubari melon is famous." I cracked up out loud.

Back to the cooking class. Takata sensei and I went to go and preheat the ovens. We tried with the main one- found out it didn't work. So she starts pulling these boxes down from ontop of a cupboard. Okay I thought, she knows what she is doing. They were portable oldstyle ovens that go ontop of a gas burner. I went with it because she is the teacher and knows what her school has. The kids walk in and look at the other ovens sitting on top of a counter. We had totally missed those. (The ovens are the size of a big microwave). Okay off to baking. Hurry hurry hurry. We got them done and they smelled delicious. The bell rings and the kids hurry to PE. So all of the cookies are sitting on the tables "cooling". Little did they know- I ate about 4 from each group to taste test. They were good. They came back later to put the finishing touches on them. I asked for more cookies to give to the teachers. Yes I am a suck up. Just getting in good with the right people.

Christmas lights around town! Yay for the spirit.

Slash my new addition. You can call me billy bad ass.

Riding around town causing some ruckess. Watch out for the SLASH (name of my foldy bike). Gears, folds, lucky.

The giant Christmas tree outside of the Cred building. There's a bigger one in front of the train station, but the lady who took our picture was incompetent. We had to keep trying until we got it semi-right.

The elementary Christmas lesson. Make them run a little to make the next class hell for the teachers. Energy energy energy. So I bought 2 santa suits for the kids to put on and race down the other end of the room and take it off.

Is that santa? No it is one of my first grade students.

The santa suit is meant for a man. You can see here how large the pants are. He is also one of my troublemakers in the class. According to the teacher behind him. He just is a boy with lots of energy.

Some have to be restrained while playing games.

My first grade classroom. They are brushing their teeth after lunch to a video. All kids in school do this now. It is a great idea because I see many black teeth among smiling faces.

Some more of my first graders. The sea of black hair. The uniforms are their PE outfits. They wear little suits and skirts to school, change out of that and right before they go home, change back into their dressy uniforms.

This week was just a plain week. Toodled around in my car and visited a new bar that is owned by a white person. He named the new bar Club Bob Dance Cafe. WHAT? No he is not Japanese. There is NO excuse for a retarded name if you are an English speaker. AHHH. I give it til the summer until a new owner takes over.

I have watched ELF to get into the spirit. Plus I love Will Ferrell. Now I am on Anchorman while making paper dolls today. Gosh I am an exciting soul. I will try harder next week to get a better story. I might have to make it up.

No more school lunch

I cancelled my school lunch at my junior high school because I sit at my desk with no children interaction. I thought it would be okay to bring in my own or buy it from the bakery next door. Yes more pizza with corn and mayo on it. Yuck. I went to the microwave to heat up my food. I pushed a few. Beep, beep-beep. Nope, try again. Beep, beep, beep. Maybe a different combo. Beep...... beep.. beep. Still no. I turn around to ask the secretary. She had set her chopsticks on her tray with a big smile "need some help?" Ohhh my mistake- red means start not stop. Most countries you want to stay away from red. This time it means hot. Okay I will remember that next time. What is the color to stay away from then? Still got me some learnin to do.

bundled up for the cold

Not really, but I did have my vest on and a scarf. I went to the taxi man's house/office to get a ride home like I usually do. I banged on the door for the first five minutes and knocked on the window hard when I can see the kids playing video games and 2 dogs going crazy at me knocking. I would have opened the door, but I didn't want my leg bit off. I kept banging away. The lady saw me FINALLY and insisted that I sit inside because it is cold out. No I am warm because I am bundled up. YOU should be inside with your short sleeves. Saying I am fine over 8 times, I had to go inside and cook myself while I wait another 15 minutes for the taxi to come back. So why can't I drive myself like a grown adult? Well they think I will get in an accident. The benefits of me driving: I can sleep in longer and I don't have to wait for a dang taxi to never show up. I could stop along the way and run errands before I go home at a grocery store that is just a smidgen bigger than good ole Party's (the size of my apartment). Neither of them have juice for sale if that tells you how big it is.

I was asking in the office today of someone who does caligraphy around the area. They came up with no one that does it to make a living or as a side job. Who did they find? My Kocho of the elementary. So I am going to pay him in sake. I have seven things for him to make and for him to come up with some kind of Japanese proverb that will be good for a gift. It is going to be a surprise on what I get.

I am going to be the styling kid on the block with a new coat on the way! Now Britt is going to wear pink. Yes I said pink a girls color. I am broadening my horizons. Actually the other colors were even worse than pink.

I spent my weekend playing with little orphans in the city. It was quite fun watching them go crazy. I caught up with lots of different people and chatted with new ones I hadn't before. My 6 year old little girl wanted some red lipstick. What did I get my little hooker in the making? Everything the job needs to look good. Fingernail polish, red lipstick and I didn't hold back on the red, makeup bag, chapstick, and stickers. She is going to rock the town. Everyone will see her coming a mile away with the reddness.

Sorry haven:t written in a while

So I have found the reason that everyone is sick over here. They don:t have hot water to wash their hands, they don:t blow their noses so they pick them for long extended periods of time and then use the keyboard WHICH I AM USING RIGHT NOW. Don:t worry, I disinfected it. I am normally a healthy person only getting a slight cold when the seasons change. But I will have to work extra hard over here because the booger picking teachers are everywhere. I witnessed my Kyoto sensei pick is nose for a good 15 seconds and then SWITCH fingers.

So my little neighbor girl helps me out and I have named her my own personal secretary. She helped me last night with my kerosene pump. I ran out of kerosene last Sunday. I looked around the house didn:t find a funnel or anything to fill it with. so i cut apart a plastic bottle- didn:t fit, used some paper after consulting my pyrotechnic friends on what i should do about spilt kerosene. The paper leaked out and now I have a gas spill outside my house. SHHHH. I wiped down my kerosene heater and started it up with me and the fire extinguisher right next to it like idiots. There behold the kerosene pump. I found it. After struggling all afternoon.

So I didn:t know it needed batteries good thing my flashlight batteries were the same. (I am deathly scared of the dark). Waaa la. Heat ladies and gentleman.

Oh I have my paper tree up with garland and Christmas balls hanging from my ceiling. Now it is home and I feel alright in it sitting in my 3 shirts and a vest and 2 pants and 2 socks.

so the teacher right next to me has been picking his nose constantly the whole time i have written this. the kicker is he just ATE it. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. This country. Just blow it, will ya?

With the Hiroshima clan

So this last Friday I made my way over to Fuchu to hang out with Amy, a crazy girl from Miami, NYC, and Spain. She shares my love for yakiniku. We ate 6 plates of meat and one of veggies. Man was it good. We made paper geisha dolls til the wee hours of the morning. Gotta love that for a Friday night.
Saturday we had a mission. We picked up Roo at the train station for a full day of randomness and shopping. You never know with Roo if he is going to slobber on your face or just give you a hello peck on the cheek. I always make sure my cheek is the only thing he can hit. We hit up the 100 yen store. We each went through our shopping to make sure to put back anything we didn't need. Roo got some ear muffs, a neck warmer, some chopsticks, notebooks, a tray he is going to use as a frisbee, a statue of a Miss Porky Pig with her boobs uncovered, all approved by me. But I didn't watch him after that and he snuck up to the register with 6 other statues. No porky pig, but black naked lady, wizard, knights, skeletons, maybe a buddha, and another one I said NO to right away. I approved the lady, the knights because he was soo soo insistant on it. So he told the lady that he didn't need the other ones so she put them behind the counter. I am hanging out by the door ready to go when he tells her he NEEDS the wizard. Why? I don't know. Now he was wearing he earmuffs everywhere.
Next stop, UNIQLO. The Old Navy of Japan but possibly cheaper and way cooler. Once again we spent over an hour in this store approving all purchases. Roo found a coat that made him look like Kenny off of South Park. Amy found some good fleece for China. I got a wool sweater, pajama pants, and more fleece tops. All approved by them.
We shopped until about 8 then made our way to Fukuyama's downtown. First we got changed in the Lawson's bathroom into warmer new clothes. I met some more of their crazy friends and drank at a little pub called Charlies.
As I was buying some spaghetti at the combini, I told some guys that there hair was really bad and looked like the 80s. I mean Nelson brothers are now in Japan, but they turned Japanese, too. Oh well. You win some you lose some. If I did that in the states, they would have pummeled me, but since Japan will do anything not to fight, I thought I could go ahead with it.

Since I am tall

My favorite part of elementary school days is when the first and second year students finish before the rest. The put their uniforms back on, and run down the hall telling everyone sayonara. Sayonara, sayonara, the door opens to the teachers room, sayonara, oooo burrito sensei- see you, good bye, sayonara. The all come with a little wave too. A little first grader even made her way to my desk and grabbed my hand and said "sank you vedy much" (thank you very much).
The kids usually run off their energy while the rest finish up learning. Yesterday just happens to be the best frisbee weather with a slight wind that can easily provoke that frisbee to the roof. All of the kids come running to the teachers room telling the secretary that the frisbee just happens to be on the roof. They tell the whole story like 7 year olds do. Then I heard my name Burrito sensei blah blah blah takai (tall). They thought I could just reach right up there and get it down for them. I know I am a giant over here but not THAT tall.