Hello all.
Sorry to not write for so long, but I have a brilliant excuse.
Last week I was sick. Properly and dramatically sick. I got a nasty infection that went to my kidneys and I had a fever and I kept vomiting up the anti-biotics so I had three visits to the doctor. Number one discovery... the time when you are whimpering because the pain is bad and fever is so high everything is bright and confusing is not the best time to finally watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... it was the first thing I found to put in the video player and that took so much effort I couldn't get up to change it. Had the craziest dreams when medicine finally made me sleep. Fear and Loathing made more coherent sense than either Gigli or Totally Blonde though I don't think this is health related. The doctor ordered me two days off and thus I worked only one day last week because Monday and Friday were both public holidays.
On Friday I was up and about and feeling much better and my very first ever visitor arrived on Oki! Carole from Canada was a most excellent first visitor. We bummed around on Friday and then went to a singing festival at one of my schools (endless enquiries about my health).
Saturday we purchased peanut butter (cheaper here than on the mainland) and went to the school sports festival for the dances... they were one of the strangest things I've ever seen. The students were divided into two big groups and had choreographed their own dances to 80's music. All the boys were in little skirts and glitter, the was a lot of body paint and one child was randomly dressed as a horse. I kept waiting for the horse to do something cool but he just followed the same choreography as the other chorus dancers. I felt cheated.
We then embarked on a whirlwind sightseeing tour of Oki with Rika as our guide and ended up having afternoon tea with an ex-English teacher Akiko who has two adorable kids and a four month old baby. They were so much fun we ended up going out for dinner with them and then stole Akiko from her young family for a night in a karaoke box. Boy can she sing! We were as enthusiastic as ever but she put us to shame. I even found Crowded House and Bic Runga (someone else found doh-a-deer...)
Yesterday we visited beautiful Nishinoshima one of the wee islands near me and wandered around the tallest cliffs in Japan before watching a primary school sumo tournament. All very action packed and exciting.
I'm starting my adult English course soon and hopefully will begin playing badminton this week... slowly working my way in to island life!
Hope you are all well and happy.
I'll put up some photos next week. Email me!
donna
I have managed to get into yahoo again so I'll start email people back. Yay you say.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Monday, September 12, 2005
School girl
I survived the typhoon... actually it was a lot less exciting than we thought it would be because it ended up missing the island. All we got was really really strong winds and heavy rain... and a day of school! My very first day off school was a half day because of the approaching typhoon and the second day was cancelled. Apparently this is really unusual but this year everyone is paranoid because last year there was a really bad direct hit and the kids had to go home in the middle of the typhoon the the power and phones were out. In some areas the power was out for three days and the damage was extensive. So we were super prepared this time, all the windows were taped and some of the trees were tied to things, cars were put as close to buildings as possible and so on.
I spent the day listening to my house rattle and watching movies. It was nice. I also made a woolly hat and started crocheting a tree out of plastic bags. Unfortunately they gave me the wrong tape for one of my movies (I KNOW it said subtitles on the box because both boxes were the same and the other movies was in English) so I ended up watching Vanilla Sky in Japanese. Twice. And I still have absolutely no idea what went on. Maybe I should try again for English? Is it worth it?
Anyway... school is fun. It is kind of tiring trying to introduce myself every hour in an energetic and appropriate manner to kids who are often too scared, too excited, too busy sticking cut out pictures of poo to the blackboard, or too hot to listen but for the most part it is good.
Today I was at a primary school. I did the introduction thing and then we around and shook hands with all the kids. One poor wee girl was shaking with fear with tears rolling down her face (I like to think it was talking in front of all 17 students in the school and not me that was the problem) and all she could do was hold out her hand and look away... but after we had made traditional riceballs and green tea together she was my best friend and gave me a lovely self portrait to take away. I like the little ones.
The big ones are a bit scarier. I went for a run the other night (blisters on blisters owww) and thought I would be safe from students at 6:30. But no, I ran straight into and through a whole bunch of them. Nothing like a group of whistling and cheering 13 and 14 year olds to give you a spurt of genki energy.
So that was the week that was. Hope you are all well in your times and places. I can probably only get to the Internet on Mondays now and probably not for all that long as I'm skipping off to primary schools all over the place. Next Monday is a public holiday so I'll see what I can do.
loves
donna
It is kind of scary not understanding the warning system there have been two while I have been writing.
Wish me luck for my first day at school tomorrow!
I spent the day listening to my house rattle and watching movies. It was nice. I also made a woolly hat and started crocheting a tree out of plastic bags. Unfortunately they gave me the wrong tape for one of my movies (I KNOW it said subtitles on the box because both boxes were the same and the other movies was in English) so I ended up watching Vanilla Sky in Japanese. Twice. And I still have absolutely no idea what went on. Maybe I should try again for English? Is it worth it?
Anyway... school is fun. It is kind of tiring trying to introduce myself every hour in an energetic and appropriate manner to kids who are often too scared, too excited, too busy sticking cut out pictures of poo to the blackboard, or too hot to listen but for the most part it is good.
Today I was at a primary school. I did the introduction thing and then we around and shook hands with all the kids. One poor wee girl was shaking with fear with tears rolling down her face (I like to think it was talking in front of all 17 students in the school and not me that was the problem) and all she could do was hold out her hand and look away... but after we had made traditional riceballs and green tea together she was my best friend and gave me a lovely self portrait to take away. I like the little ones.
The big ones are a bit scarier. I went for a run the other night (blisters on blisters owww) and thought I would be safe from students at 6:30. But no, I ran straight into and through a whole bunch of them. Nothing like a group of whistling and cheering 13 and 14 year olds to give you a spurt of genki energy.
So that was the week that was. Hope you are all well in your times and places. I can probably only get to the Internet on Mondays now and probably not for all that long as I'm skipping off to primary schools all over the place. Next Monday is a public holiday so I'll see what I can do.
loves
donna
It is kind of scary not understanding the warning system there have been two while I have been writing.
Wish me luck for my first day at school tomorrow!
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Typhoon
The typhoon is coming!
Very scary. We keep getting warnings over the loudspeakers that are all over the town. It has been raining heavily on and off for the past couple of days. I have never seen such heavy rain, it is truly amazing the drops must be bigger or something because while it is raining the ground is flooded about 5cm deep and it disappears as soon as it stops. The boats are cancelled from tomorrow and if it gets bad enough the kids will be sent home from school (not the teachers though) so we will see how my first days go!
There was a typhoon while I was in Tokyo and it didn't seem like anything too exciting... rain and wind, just a Wellington day... but here on the island things are a bit different. We are such a small land mass or something that the wind is truly incredible and changes fast. Also last year the electricity was shut off during most typhoons, once for three whole days!
There was a fireworks display in Goka on Saturday night (just as the wind and rain arrived) and I went with someone from the office and their family. We tried huddling at the hot-springs with everybody else and then gave up and went back to their warm dry garage for BBQ and watched the fireworks from there. Very pleasant.
Yesterday I was invited out for lunch and dinner! Lunch was a BBQ huddled on a front porch getting a we back but very tasty nonetheless and my hosts gave me a bag of rice they grew themselves when I headed home.
For dinner I was treated to big purply boiled squid... it was better than I thought it would be the tentacles were not as tentacly as they looked and I became a master at squeezing off the eyes with my chopsticks. We had to go home early before the weather got worse and driving was too dangerous though.
Very scary. We keep getting warnings over the loudspeakers that are all over the town. It has been raining heavily on and off for the past couple of days. I have never seen such heavy rain, it is truly amazing the drops must be bigger or something because while it is raining the ground is flooded about 5cm deep and it disappears as soon as it stops. The boats are cancelled from tomorrow and if it gets bad enough the kids will be sent home from school (not the teachers though) so we will see how my first days go!
There was a typhoon while I was in Tokyo and it didn't seem like anything too exciting... rain and wind, just a Wellington day... but here on the island things are a bit different. We are such a small land mass or something that the wind is truly incredible and changes fast. Also last year the electricity was shut off during most typhoons, once for three whole days!
There was a fireworks display in Goka on Saturday night (just as the wind and rain arrived) and I went with someone from the office and their family. We tried huddling at the hot-springs with everybody else and then gave up and went back to their warm dry garage for BBQ and watched the fireworks from there. Very pleasant.
Yesterday I was invited out for lunch and dinner! Lunch was a BBQ huddled on a front porch getting a we back but very tasty nonetheless and my hosts gave me a bag of rice they grew themselves when I headed home.
For dinner I was treated to big purply boiled squid... it was better than I thought it would be the tentacles were not as tentacly as they looked and I became a master at squeezing off the eyes with my chopsticks. We had to go home early before the weather got worse and driving was too dangerous though.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog
Hello all just a quick end-of-the-week update!
I spent the first few days of the week being oggled at as I went around my soon to be workplaces, sitting in very hot offices talking to principals and leaving little sweat-pools on their lovely leather chairs... mmmm. one principal had his fan aimed at himself going full strength (doing terrible things to his combover) while the rest of us sweated it out. But all in all they seem like a friendly lot and most of the other teachers seem goodly too. They all do the oggling and then suddenly when I leave yell in English "good bye it was nice to meet you!"
So next Tuesday it will all begin. I have a kiwifruit, a kiwi and a weetbix box all lined up for my first day as a human computer.
In other news the heat is back with a vengeance. There were several nights earlier this week when I slept with a SHEET on one occasion I even closed the ranch-slider. But yesterday got up to 36 (although the mist never quite cleared) and I was splayed under the air conditioner for the better part of the evening.
One of my English teachers got me to read out her daughter's competition piece on video and pronounced me "most dramatic person". She then took me shopping and recommended all sorts of things that looked like dried entrails of toad and squid... some are quite tasty...
Righty, fireworks tomorrow!
Have a lovely weekend in all your corners of the world.
lovely
donna
Thanks for the seaweed sympathy Debs and Fran! It has given me the courage to share my phobia with the youth of Oki (i have included it in the 'my secrets' section of the third year jepordy quiz)
Good to hear from you Alana! I don't think we are going to the tournament in October, we are going to somewhere in south Shimane on the 9th but i think it is just a friendly. Can you still swim in the sea now? These parts have been infested with jellyfish since Obon. Grrr.
I spent the first few days of the week being oggled at as I went around my soon to be workplaces, sitting in very hot offices talking to principals and leaving little sweat-pools on their lovely leather chairs... mmmm. one principal had his fan aimed at himself going full strength (doing terrible things to his combover) while the rest of us sweated it out. But all in all they seem like a friendly lot and most of the other teachers seem goodly too. They all do the oggling and then suddenly when I leave yell in English "good bye it was nice to meet you!"
So next Tuesday it will all begin. I have a kiwifruit, a kiwi and a weetbix box all lined up for my first day as a human computer.
In other news the heat is back with a vengeance. There were several nights earlier this week when I slept with a SHEET on one occasion I even closed the ranch-slider. But yesterday got up to 36 (although the mist never quite cleared) and I was splayed under the air conditioner for the better part of the evening.
One of my English teachers got me to read out her daughter's competition piece on video and pronounced me "most dramatic person". She then took me shopping and recommended all sorts of things that looked like dried entrails of toad and squid... some are quite tasty...
Righty, fireworks tomorrow!
Have a lovely weekend in all your corners of the world.
lovely
donna
Thanks for the seaweed sympathy Debs and Fran! It has given me the courage to share my phobia with the youth of Oki (i have included it in the 'my secrets' section of the third year jepordy quiz)
Good to hear from you Alana! I don't think we are going to the tournament in October, we are going to somewhere in south Shimane on the 9th but i think it is just a friendly. Can you still swim in the sea now? These parts have been infested with jellyfish since Obon. Grrr.
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