|
| The big news is: I have decided to stay here in Kawaguchi another year! I am having a great time here and learning a lot, as well as helping Japanese kids learn to speak English. The snowboarding is great, and very close too. The people are great, and life is overall very good! I have posted some pics online if you want to see them. Just click on the link below. http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u65/raisedbyacupofcoffeeinjapan/ Have a great day! | | |
| What did Salt say to Pepper? Our politically correct way of wishing someone a Merry Christmas: Season's Greetings! Baka ne! (How stupid!) Anyways, I have been absent from my lost planet for a while now, mainly because we have a new computer system at work, and we cannot use it for anything we want now, and I am not sure, but it might also mean blogs cannot be used as well...not that I was using it for anything bad before. (What a poor example of a Christian American would that be! And to think- at school too! So anyways, I take a risk doing this, but I think it will be alright. So anyways, the best way to keep in touch with me is by EMAIL! So please, email me if you want to know stuff... Hockeysnowboard@yahoo.com Happy Christmas! | | |
| My dear fellow people on earth who read this thing,
It:s been a long time since I wrote on my blog. I have become ever so busy, and finding time to write is becoming more and more difficult. But here goes nothing...
The weather is getting colder and colder, and the leaves are turning into a beautiful golden brown and red. It:s getting dark early, and there:s no daylight savings time here. So it gets dark around 4:30. I have been in Japan now for 3 and one-half months (about), and it only feels like a short while that I:ve been here. But when I remember all that has happened, it feels like a lifetime already, and that the blistering-hot days of summer when I walked everywhere and rode a bike in 100-degree weather are far, far away in a distant past. I:ve gotten used to my little tatami apartment, and paying for everything in cash.
What is really strange though, and this is something I did not expect to happen, is that now when I see a gaikokujin- foreigner- it:s really strange. If they are not some other ALT who I already know, I am becoming automatically suspicious of them. Not in a bad way, just rather, something like this going on in my head- What the heck are they doing here!? No one vacations in this part of the country! I wonder why theyre here...hmmm..... - something like that. Two weeks ago there was a big Koi convention here in Ojiya. I didn:t know it at the time, but my town is world-famous for Koi. People come from all over the world to this little town of 40,000 people to buy Koi. And they pay thousands of dollars for them too. So there were all these people who were not Japanese walking around, and quite honestly, it looked strange. I am realizing that I have become so accustomed to seeing only Japanese people apart from the other ALTs here, that it looks weird to me to see another foreigner. It:s going to be really strange going back to the US when I go!
Anyways, that:s all for now. I:ll post more again when I have more time!
Ganbare! | | |
| I:ve started a MySpace account. It:s in Japanese. I:m hoping to be able to track my progress online, and so I:ll be able to go back and see it after I have learned a lot more. And I:ll be able to see it anywhere in the world!
WARNING- your computer/browser/whatever must be enabled with Japanese fonts to be able to read it.
Japanese fonts are easy to download if you want them. Just google em.
Arigatou! Ganbette yoku mitekudasai!
To see it, just click on the link at the top of the page!
or It:s Snowing | | |
| Wow is this exciting! Something out of the blue...or maybe from God perhaps?
A couple of weeks ago, I taught photography here at the school in one class. The students are already studying photography as an elective, and I was asked by their teacher if I would teach a class, and help the students learn how to take better pictures. I obliged, and the class went smoothly. Some of these kids have amazing talent! Their ideas are fresh and new, and they know how to work their little point-and-shoot cameras quite well.
What is so exciting is that just a few moments ago that same teacher came to me with the news that after the class I taught, some of the student:s was accepted by and will be on display at a famous museum in Niigata City, the largest city in the prefecture! This same teacher told the curator of the museum that the students had been given some ideas and new information from their ALT, and the curator said that he wants to talk to me.
This is cool! The curator for a famous museum wants to talk to me about photography! Cool! But I believe that it is the kids who are the real talent here, and all I did was give them a confidence boost. But it:s still cool! I could add this to my portfolio...
Cheers! | | |
|
