donna in exile

Anyone wanna buy my things?

2009-08-18T07:14:00.020+09:00

I seem to have accumulated a great many things in the two years I've been back in New Zealand. My nesting instinct is well and truly ingrained. Many of these things are practical and useful and it is the practical and useful things that I thought people might like to take off my hands for a few dollars. I hope this doesn't seem cheap! I just seem to buy the same things over every time I move (stupid countries with stupid different electricity thingees) so figured you all might also need such things. I don't want much for anything. Some stuff just a couple of bucks and maybe $10ish for the bigger things. Chur.

Here they are.

Tools. Good for building.
There is a hammer, three sizes of nails, screws, screw drivers, wire cutters and pliers. I found building with these tools most satisfying.

Phone. I think I bought it 2 years ago. Battery still seems to be working well.

Sake set. Only had one bottle of sake so not much used. Not awesome quality but the jug is good for filling the iron.

Cooling racks. Small one is cake-sized, the large one is many-biscuit or excess-dishes sized. Highly practical.

Salt shaker and pepper grinder. Good as a second set if you want one for the dining room and one for the kitchen. Grinder grinds, shaker shakes. Yus.

Wee rimu chopping board. My hand isn't hiding anything, it's just there for size-indication.

Bowls! Excellent quality heavy pottery. A few week chips around the edges.

Cheapy wee teapot with filter.

Tea cannisters.

Another cheapy wee tea pot with a filter.

Lovely wee teacups.

Electric beater. Less than a year old. Makes an excellent banana cake. I still have the box.

Whizz stick. Tehehe.

Many many 80's patterns.

Good scales. Just replaced the batteries. They do pound and ounces and grams and mls and all sorts. The bowl is a bit damaged, I think it much have had a run in with the stove.

There are a few more tea cups and a box of clothes and fabric people are welcome to look through on Friday before I op-shop them on Saturday.

So long and thanks for all the fish

2007-08-24T09:58:00.000+09:00

After I left Hamada I bounced around Japan for the better part of a month. I went to Lena's in Yakami, Janelle's in Yonago, Marie's in Matsue, back to Lena's, Leah's in Hamada (sans Leah), Maddy's in Matsue, Steph's and Setsuko's out on Oki, Karla's in Yakami, a wee hotel in Osaka, Damian and Kaori's in Choshi and lastly at the house of their lovely Obachan in Asahi. It was quite the trip. I got back to NZ thoroughly exhausted and spent a couple of days with the extended family in Auckland and then got down to Wellington and...

I've been back in New Zealand for over a week now but have yet to re-enter life here properly. I've spent a week holed up in my parents house being sick and doing absolutely nothing. This will end today, but before I start life here I'd just like to say how much I am missing Japan.

I am missing Japan, and I think I will keep missing Japan even once my time there starts seeming like a dream, or a movie I used to watch too often. Right now I am missing the food - Japanese food was good to me and I wish I had paid more attention when Setsuko cooked or when Yoshida guided me through tricky techniques or when Funada and I gossiped and made sweets. I am missing my wee house and knowing exactly how everything around me fits together (I am prepared to accept I went a little strange living by myself, but I am honestly finding this big house and its having other occupants rather odd). I am missing the community that I lived in, the guy at the bus stop who would shake his head sadly when I had missed the bus, the nice ladies at the supermarket who know I don't need bags. I am missing Nori. I am missing my bike and biking around all night and never feeling nervous in the dark. I am missing school and teaching. I miss my kids a lot, and I miss my office ladies (hmmm maybe I miss employment? nah). I don't miss being so noticeable but it does take some getting used to being so very ordinary. I feel invisible walking down the street here, being average height with normal proportions and normal coloured hair. So yeah. In my limbo state, before I launch myself back into life in NZ. I just wanted to say. I had an amazing time. And I miss Japan.

But more than that I am almost scared to start again here because as it is everywhere we go, whatever we are doing and for whatever reason, it is the people we meet who make life the ridiculous, rich, riotous experience that it is. And I don't want to forget all the wonderful people I have met over the past two years. I have met some pretty incredible people. On the island I met my ladies who kept me sane(ish) and well fed, and who taught me so much about being just where you are. On the mainland (both years) I met crazy gaijin friends who shared the strange and unusual trip that is Japan. And everywhere I went I met people who I danced with, drank with, laughed with, shared a moment on a train with, argued with, went crazy with... people who I will keep thinking about, people who I will lose touch with but whose memory will make me chuckle at inappropriate moments for years to come. Thanks guys.

Now to ditch the dressing gown and find a bus timetable...

Gnah. I must sleep now.

2007-07-24T16:05:00.000+09:00

Another month...
All you really need to know is that everything has ended and it has rained.
I'll put a whole bunch of photos over on flickr to catch you up on where, what and how I have been, because I really ought to be cleaning.
But I shall tell one wee story tonight.
Yesterday was the first day that it has not rained in many, many weeks, and I was feeling a less cranky and having-a-coldy than I have been in about as many weeks, so I decided that conditions were ripe for a run. I didn't run. I decided I didn't have time and so biked my old running-course (I did of course have time for a quick run, what I really shouldn't have made time for was the cutting and sticking of many purikura, the reading of Hardy (comfort food for the brain) , the baking of two carrot cakes, one apple cake and one lemon slice (would be such as shame to see those ingredients going to waste), the watching of inter-net TV and ah... the uploading of photos. Running would have been much better for the stress/sleep thing. ) (I like brackets.)
I was thinking as I biked my old run-way, about all the last times I have been having. There have been so many conscious endings going on and because I am happy here they've all been sad. But it is all the unconscious last times that have been making me most melancholy. When I went running for the last time those week ago before the rain and the coughing started, I didn't know it was the last time. Did I look around? Did I nod to the bald quartet (two men, a woman and a dog) sitting on their door step? Did I exchange ganbarre!s with the arm-swinging old couple? I dunno. It's like after a break-up when you think about all the little things you took for granted when there is no-one there who knows to order extra condiments with the chips. A little off track. Forgive me. It is 2am.
So. I guess all I'm really saying is that I hate good-byes and all the forced memory-making. It doesn't matter what I did on my last run because running was a cumulative memory (and an oddly addictive activity for someone who has always avoided exercise on dry land (except soccer)) and it's the same with my fine friends, super students, tenacious teachers and all.
I'll be back in Wellington in less than a month now. I'll be out of my house in a day and a half... which means I have to be all packed tomorrow. Panic. Panic... sleep.
The last eight hours of merry making are starting to take their toll. It is time to sleep.

The running place

Taiko

Tubing

Primary school goodbyes

School trip to AQUAS

Chess

Hamada farewell party

Enjoy!!

JAGS has JAGSded

2007-06-15T12:32:00.000+09:00

I really am sorry about the lack of news on this thing. Since discovering TV on the internet my life has become filled with the the inanity of re-runs and the obsessive need to watch every last episode of Scrubs, Six Feet Under and many shows of a much lower calibre. It keeps occurring to me that this is an odd way to spend my last few months in Japan, but then I choose to view it as both a necessary escape from the reality that my time here is ending and a tool of reintegration back into English speaking society.

But my time has also been more gainfully employed. For the past few months I have been involved in the planning and execution of an art exhibition called JAGS (that thing what I made the plastic tree for last year). Now that the actual exhibition has begun (it opened on Saturday) I have time to draw breath again and take stock of my situation and impending departure.

My impending departure scares me silly so instead I am going to ramble about the exhibition and post some nice photers.

Fundraising stuff for JAGS went like this:
First we baked delicious foreign treats...

...then we sold them to the curious localsThen we raised funds with an exciting rock concert
Then there was an 80's party in Matuse which I sadly couldn't go to ...Then we exhibited!
Rebecca and I took the Friday off school to get stuff set up, but the day before opening we still had only half the artwork... but thankfully almost all the JETs from Hamada and it's surrounds came to the rescue the next day and everything went swimmingly.
I don't have any photos of the opening because I was running around like a sleep-deprived headless chicken (they are the worst kind) trying to make sure everything was ready for everybody. I was interviewed by three news papers in which I tried to put a positive spin on my rather critical artwork and Nori's Mum's kagura group did an awesome performance. I will post pics when I get them.
So for the last week and a half the exhibit has been ticking along. I took some photos one grey afternoon when there was no one there and you can find those here.
I shall leave you all with a picture of my tree.
It is made of used (then cleaned) disposable chopsticks. Japan uses over half the world's disposable chopsticks and when China slapped a tax on them in an effort to curb deforestation, Japan took its business elsewhere - to Indonesia and Thailand where illegal logging is rife. And they are totally unnecessary. No restaurant I went to in Korea used them.

2007-06-01T19:11:00.000+09:00

Der Besuch der alten Dame

2007-05-18T10:08:00.000+09:00

I know that is a wildly inappropriate title but it was the first thing I thought of when my office-lady-friend commented "Your old-lady-friendo visit. Wow."

Yesterday morning I got an email on my phone from Yamamoto Obachan (little aunty) from Oki. It was long, detailed and in kanji. It saddened me how difficult it was to understand - when I received such mails daily my Japanese comprehension was much, much better. Anyway. I managed to get through all the bit about how she was and where she was living and how her aunt and uncle were doing and how the weather was warming up, and then I went to class without reading the last sentence 今おばちゃんは、アクアライナーで浜田に向かってます。 "Right now, I am on a train to Hamada."

And so it came about that at cleaning time, Yamamoto Obachan and three of her obachan friends came to visit me at school. Due to various untimely happenings (including Obachan having to leave the island half an hour before I arrived to visit a sick relative) I hadn't seen her since shortly after I left the Oki, so I was really touched that she still thought me worth the effort!

We stood in the corridor while she and her friends prodded me to make sure I was good and healthy and then talked about food, the weather, old times and old friends, while my students and teachers gawked and giggled. It was lovely to see Obachan, and her friends (one of whom was a ni-chu alumnus and another of whom taught one of the teachers here) have promised to look after me. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy and cared-for.

Those of you who read my rambles in my first few months in Japan will recall my adventures eating various sea creatures at Obachan's and my bafflement at evening after evening of Japanese game shows. Before I leave Japan I plan to spend a week on Oki. I am looking forward to cooking with her again and sitting in her little front room on hot summer evenings and watching still-incomprehensible Japanese TV. I am just really not looking forward to saying goodbye.

Today everything smelt wonderful.

2007-05-16T23:17:00.000+09:00

It might just be because I am finally regaining my sense of smell after a couple of weeks of being sickly, but today everything smelt wonderful.
It was dim and grey this morning (when I got up early to call the IRD) and the whole day was cool but very humid. The morning smelt like dirt, good earthy spring time dirt. It is a smell akin to rain on hot concrete, but more... subtle. Then the wind came up off the warm sea and the kids playing soft tennis on the balconies started shrieking and everything smelt salty. Now the wind is blowing a gale and my doors are shaking and everything smells new.

Kagura and all that jazz

2007-05-09T21:53:00.000+09:00

I went for a bike ride tonight to seek out the source of the kagura flute music that was drifting in my ranch-slider. It was the first time this year I have ventured out without a coat of any kind. The air is getting warmer and tonight it smelt like the dandelions. Actually it kinda smelt like the bitter white stuff inside dandelion stalks, but it was pleasant and spring-like nonetheless. The kagura that I found was really cool. It was at this tiny shrine two streets away from my house and I think it was telling the story of the origins of Japan. Or maybe just of Shimane. Anyway there were dragons and goddesses and a landmass was fished out of the sea with much banging of drums and trilling on the kagura flute. I had my camera handy but it was such an intimate wee performance with lots of wee kids running around and old people parked on chairs at random intervals that I didn't want to touristise the experience. I left when a bunch of high school boys turned up and started with the "Oh! Hello!" "Yes! hello!". Now that I am home I sense the story on stage has taken a dramatic turn. I can hear the drums getting illustrative over the whine of mosquitoes trying to circumvent my fly screen.
I wrote that last Tuesday and for some reason never put it up. It is nice to spend the evenings with the windows open again, rather too nice to spend them sitting at my computer it seems.
I shall briefly catch y'all up on the events of the past few month.
I went to Taiwan.
Taiwan was lovely. We didn't see or do very much, it rained all the time and we were only there for 5 days and one of those days we didn't go out in daylight hours, but it was such a buzz to be in a city, hanging out with a group of friends and going out and meeting people. I love this sleepy wee town but I just don't think I am the fishing village kinda girl. Enlightening times.
There were pretty flowers.
Japan is always gorgeous in the spring and this year was no exception. Much earlier than last year. And there is a bonus photo of the butterfly who took up residence in my light shade.
I played rugby.
I kid you not. I went down to shikoku and played a weekend of touch rugby. I got a nasty cold and hurt for a long time after. It was nice to see my countryfolk out in force. Felt right a home I did.

mmmmmm

2007-05-06T23:15:00.000+09:00

I just had some blue cheese and it was simply delicious. I purchased this deliciousness in Fukuoka. I shall soonly write about Kyushu and all the excitement that has been mine in the last month, but I just wanted to share my cheese delight. Yes.

I don't wanna go to class or even meet my students in the corridor...

2007-04-11T19:34:00.000+09:00

...because the little monsters keep making me smile. Something funny (bad funny) happened to the nerve that goes to my upper left teeth last week and now it hurts to expose them to anything slightly chilly - even classroom air. But! this has made me realise just how smiley my students make me. Even when I am trying to be grumpy-not-showing-teeth-lady.

Oki again!

2007-04-02T21:58:00.000+09:00

I went back to Oki last weekend. It was lovely. The weather the first day was awful but after that the island turned on two such gorgeous days that it was hard to tear myself away.I spent the first night at Setsuko's big beautiful house out in Tsudo and it was good to get some quality time with her, then on the second night I went to the farewell party for Kamada and Kuroda, two of the teachers I worked with last year at Saigo Minami.
It was really lovely to see folk again, but almost without exception, everyone who hadn't seen me since last July told me how much I have changed. The most common descriptor was tough. I have (apparently) now become really tough. When asked to elaborate, they also came up with more confident, more energetic (and seemed to relate this to me having lost a bit of weight by not needing to warm myself with chocolate-and-peanut-butter-goodness all winter). I puzzled over whether this was just because they only saw a happy me making to most of time with friends who I miss a lot, or whether I really have changed.
And I think I have.
When I was on the island I was never bored or lonely like I have been feeling lately, but I was very alone. And being alone makes you rather introverted. I thought too much about what was going on in my head and I kind of lost the ability to guess (as one must for everyday interaction) what was going on in the minds of those around me (also they like, think in like, Japanese and stuff, so it is kinda tricky to mind-read). As Helen said it "there are some days when you just don't smile." And it is true, not because you are sad but just because you are weirdly calm.
Or something.
Anyway. I think what I am getting at is I spent a lot of time this year wishing I was somewhere else. Whenever I was frustrated at school, or uncomfortable in social situations, or lonely, or hungry for tasty Japanese dishes, I wished I had never left the island. But I don't think I have changed for the worse, so the me that has been missing that life is not the me who would be living it had I never left. I spend a lot of time living in a future that never comes to be or a present that isn't. It is time to take the advice of that great sage of Aurora Illinois, Garth: "It'll never happen man! Live in the now!" I shall try. Um and I shall also try to give a little thought to that fast approaching future of not being in Japan.
With that load of self involved soul-search-a-rooney. I shall leave you all and take off to Taiwan.
Mwah-ha-ha-ha.

An ode to teachers

2007-04-02T16:55:00.000+09:00

I have been meaning to post this for a week, the lion thing (which was a page from the text book as hilariously mis-copied by one of my first graders with a d-b recognition problem) was just supposed to be a stall. So.
Another school year has finished. I am now on holiday.
In the final week of school we had graduation. I think I described the ceremony last year but I will do a quick recap. It is cold. And long. We spent about a week preparing to farewell the third graders, kids were making cards to give to leaving students from their clubs, making decorations for the classroom and rehearsing marching in and out of the hall for quite some time. On the day before we made the gym fit for the ceremony by meticulously measuring the distance between rows of chairs with a big tape measure. I kid you not. Since I was playing with the brass band this year I felt a lot more involved than I did at any of the ceremonies I dropped by for last year, But it had been weeks since I had had any real contact with the 3rd graders and I didn't really feel swept up in the graduation hysteria that was gripping the school... until the final parade.
After the ceremonious ceremony stuff. After all the students have gotten their certificates and bowed at all and sundry. They walk thorough the corridors while the remaining students cry, hug, take photos and thank them for their leadership and support over the past year or two. I had photos with a bunch of my kids. Some of whom I can remember the names of - others who have a nickname in my head they don't know about. And I was sad to have them go. They may not have been the easiest class I ever worked with, or the most enthusiastic, the friendliest or the smartest, but they were a good bunch who have now been dumped out of their comfort zone and out into the big bad world. And I will miss them.
The third year teachers took it pretty hard, as I guess they always do. They have worked with these students for three years and teachers here are far more involved in the life of their students than teachers back home. If a student is missing class, the homeroom teacher will visit their house. If a student is having any sort of trouble anytime, anywhere it is the teacher who is responsible. At the enkai, (the graduation after party) the homeroom teachers all talked about their time with this interesting bunch. It was amazing to hear just how much they cared for these kids who often to me didn't seem to care particularly about their own education. When the teachers watched the video messages from the students, there was hardly a dry eye in the house. Watching the ratbags sincerely thank the teachers for their patience and perseverance really helped me to understand what it takes to be a teacher, I think.
I am in awe of people who can care so much about their work and put so much of themselves into their job. Teachers get a lot of respect here, but they earn it. Yeah there are shitty teachers, I have worked with a few, and their students suffer from their lack of passion for education - a far greater handicap than (in the case of my subject) poor English skills. I know the huge difference a committed and enthusiastic teacher can make in the life of a student. I dunno if that life is for me - maybe I am still too selfish, but maybe when I am a bit older and wiser. I felt kind of ashamed farewelling my students. Last year my departing kids got cards or notes. This year I was going through such a funk in the month or so before graduation that I was just going through the motions at school and scraping by with the bare minimum. Not really good enough I guess. I suppose I am lucky to have a chance to experience school life (even in it's bizarre Japanese manifestation) with out the full responsibility for the minds of these kids.
Hmmm.
But sometimes I do get to feel like I've done something cool.
When I get a note like this from one of the kids at my bullied school.

The Hungry Lion

2007-03-16T13:53:00.000+09:00

One day a hungry lion slowly came out of the forest. He wanted some food.

He sat on the grass and looked around. He waited for a long time.

The lion saw a rabbit under a tree. He ran after the rabbit.

Just then, a beer ran in front of the lion. The lion wanted a big dinner so he ran after the beer.

The beer ran away very quickly. The rabbit ran away, too. So the hungry lion got nothing.

Sometimes we are like this lion.

Vag Mogs

2007-03-09T11:37:00.000+09:00

I started this post a long time ago. I wanted to write about the Vagina Monologues but it turned into a hugely confused, emotional something about how lost and out of it I have been feeling lately (worrying my poor parents by going incommunicado (does that make sense?)) and a rant about Japan what I've found here and what I will be happy to leave behind.
Since my home Internet is bung, I was adding snippets and stray thoughts every time I checked my email at school. It all got a bit much. I will try and order my thoughts and then will write something to let you all know where I'm at.
Here is the fairly lucid stuff I wrote about the Vag Mogs...
Although preceded by the craziness that precedes any production, thanks to the dedication of Titia who organised the whole shebang this year, everything came together on the day. I offered to make sashes for all involved which turned out to be far more of a headache than it should have been, but we all looked splendid on stage. I was involved in a few of the monologues, but my main one was "My Vagina was My Village" about the systematic rape that took place during the Bosnian war. It was pretty intense and knocked me around a bit, but I think it went OK (there is enough of the egotistic actor in me that I wanted some critical assessment of my performance but the best I got was "wow, awful"). We raised 80,000円 (about 1000 NZD) for the local woman's refuge. I shall post pictures if I can.
This year the spotlight (the Vagina Monologues focuses on the plight of a different group of women every year) was called 'reclaiming peace' remembering the women of the world affected by war, and the women left picking up the pieces when the fighting stops. Last year the spotlight was on comfort women, those 200,000 women from all over South-East and East Asia forced into prostitution by the Japanese military during the second world war. As you may remember, we elected not to perform the comfort women monologue for a number of reasons, one being that it is a condition of our visas that we do not make political statements. As I was writing about this year's performance, I read something that made me really, really angry. In 1993 the Japanese government issued a half-hearted apology to the surviving comfort women (but refused to offer any compensation) and it gave hope to the thousands of women still alive that something official might follow. Last week the Japanese Prime Minister denied anew that the military was involved in coercing (abducting and forcing) these women into prostitution. Some members of his party are calling for the apology to be rescinded. This made me grimly satisfied with my decision to be leave Japan and it's baffling nationalistic treatment of it's past. I need to be somewhere where I am not prevented from taking part in the political process on any level. But... is leaving really the most effective protest? where would a country be if every resident/citizen who cared about social issues skipped the country because they had a government who didn't? I joked about never coming back to New Zealand if National got into power in the last election, but what good am I overseas? I don't quite know what I am getting at here, or how this all ties together and honestly I don't think I'll be living in New Zealand long-term in the near future. But no matter where I am, I think I can safely assume I will be somewhere less frustrating, where I can make my voice heard. Here endeth the rant. The original was crazier, I promise.

Snow!

2007-03-07T12:46:00.000+09:00

It's snowing! After Sunday's scorcher I thought it was about time to get the woollies packed up and posted out of the country, but yesterday morning I awoke with an even stronger than usual aversion to getting out of bed. It wasn't until I was shivering in the shower that I figured it was gonna be a cold one. (At least it gives me and bus-stop-fellow something to talk about, the weather is an inexhaustible conversation topic in this country. Next week we can talk about how cold this week was. Joy.) Yesterday there were wee flurries of snow. Kinda like ash after a burn off. But today school has been looking like a run-down snow-globe all day. It's days like this that I wish I could eat the hot school lunch... even if it does smell like socks.

Something I'm really not gonna miss about Japan is my pajamas always smelling like my lunch. My morning schedule is finely tuned, every second counts. In the 20-30 minutes between prying myself out of bed and racing for the bus... the hot water goes on, the veges go in the frying pan, the rice is out of the cooker, I shower while it cools, I dress, I dash. Um... breakfast happens in the shower. So you can see, until I am in a country with wheat-free sandwich possibilities, I shall bear the delicate scent of fried vegetables in the evening. Living alone huh.

a
a

+
a
a
a
a
a

臭い

Taiko!

2007-03-07T09:30:00.000+09:00

Taiko!
Since the very first festival I attended in Japan (wow, that incomprehensible evening on the island cruising around with Kentaro in his SUV seems a life-time ago) I have been captivated by Taiko drumming. The rhythms get into your chest somehow and it makes me silly-grin-happy to watch taiko... and playing taiko is better yet.
Last year towards the end of September, Rebecca and I joined an all-women taiko group up in Kanagi, about 20 minutes from Hamada. For the most part, those months last year were spent watching the others practising for festivals, but they always made time to teach us a few rhythms, and so every Wednesday and the odd Saturday that we were free, we trekked up there to get our taiko fix. Since we started again in February, we were been learning in earnest, in preparation for last weekend's festival. I have a a callous of which I am terribly proud.Our last practise was on Saturday and just when I thought I had mastered the rhythms... I managed to send my stick flying right to where I imagined a wee granny, or one of the cute taiko kids sitting during the next days performance. To calm our pre-performance jitters Rebecca and I met Ed for a quiet one after practise finished at 10ish. At around midnight it suddenly seemed like a stellar idea to repair to my house and watch Once Were Warriors. After which, of course, no one felt like going straight to sleep... it was almost four by the time I got to sleep. Sunday was HOT. Twenty four degrees HOT. I think that is hotter than it got the whole time I was home for Christmas. Doesn't sound hot to you? Try leaping around a drum for quarter of an hour. I was terrified, my hand were sweaty, my feet were slipping in my tabi (hoof feet, will post a picture) and my bee-antenna headband was giving my poor tired head a headache.
But once we started everything was OK, the rhythm took over and I was on a drumming high. Kiri-chan our ever patient and friendly sensei, had told me before-hand that i should smile nicely every time I made a mistake... as was to be expected there were a few rhythm errors and a wee issue with leaping out from behind the drum in my tabi... and somehow my smiles compounded so much (still smiling from the last mistake? stretch it a bit more) that by the end I was grinning like a crazy person and all the kids in the front row had stopped pulling faces to try and put me off and were looking rather scared. I can't wait to get back out there.
As a self-assured seven year old told me just before the concert...
7: "Once you've been out there as many times as me, it's just not scary any more."
Me: "How many times is that?"
7: "Hmmmm (in Japanese this is eh-to eh-to)... this is the second."
So I'm set. Next time (May I think) I will be cool, calm and collected like this guy.

Taiko makes me happy.
Thanks to the lovely folk who came to support us and take pictures.
(Pictures to come when my home Internet stops being a dick.)

I shall call him silver...

2007-02-27T20:35:00.000+09:00

I have a brand spanking silver new bike!!
Actually, despite the enthusiastic punctuation, I am finding it rather difficult to be excited about this circumstance. It is nice to have a new bike and all but I miss my old crimson conveyance. The seat on the new one is a funny angle and the breaks both work and are kinda stiff and there are gears and other entangling gadgets on the handlebars.

You see, when I came back from the dance last weekend, after a gruelling several hours of rain-drizzled rugby and a long sleepy car trip and some unsettling Chinese food, I found that my darling bike had been taken from the station. Just why they chose my bike I will never know. It wasn't special to anyone except me and even had a protective Hamada city sticker on the mudguard. Fortunately my friend Darrell had parked not far away so I didn't have to gloomily trudge home in my girly dancing shoes or rugby boots (my sneakers did a disappearing act at a wee bar called Hideout).

But I am getting way ahead of myself with these current events. I shall now tell you of the dance, the dresses and the boys who strutted their stuff.

I did manage to get the dresses finished last week. Rebecca needed to do more than a wee bit of the cutting on her dress herself due to arm-bungness but we got there. And people told me how cool her dress was (slight grump that mine didn't garner the same comments) and the Mr Shimane sash and crown worked out fine (despite an unfortunate sitting-on incident with the crown - I must learn to be more careful with my bottom).

The party was great fun and thanks to Will's terrifying vodka martinis we were all boogieing in no time. But the highlight of the night was the Mr Shimane competition, it is always nice to see young men attempting to impress. Two of my friends from down here Ken and Darrell had decided to throw their hats in the proverbial ring (actually all the boys were from the south, which either means that we have the hottest boys living down this way, or that all the southern boys were desperate to catch the attention of the northern ladies... hmmm). They both performed admirably. Ken's dance was almost frighteningly animated. I only saw those two perform because I had to dash back to the door to let in a couple of stragglers, but I am convinced that was all I needed to see. I will post photos. You can be the judge. The actual competition was won by a fellow from Nima who sang a song about Japan.

The next day I played rugby in a rather sorry state and you know the rest.

This weekend just gone (hmmm a few days back now - curse the 'save as draft' function) I took part in the Vagina Monologues. I shall make a separate post for that one though. It deserves one.

Love to love you all.

Foxy

2007-02-14T15:34:00.000+09:00

Deary, this thing really does get away on me. I spend so much time cyber-stalking my friends and obsessively following the links from their blogs that I forget to write my own.
Since last time I have been back to the needle-man once. It does help, and I can still almost see over my left shoulder and stuff, but during the last treatment the needling bit got pretty damn painful and I haven't been able to screw up the courage to go back.

On to happier things. Two weeks ago today, I went to my first English camp. And it was bucket-loads of fun. It was for the high school in the next town that runs a special English programme. I remember way back when I got my placement on the JET programme, that in amongst my angst at not being able to find Oki on the map, I was relieved that I had been placed at junior high school. I guess I don't feel far enough away from high school not to find the students slightly intimidating.

But these were first years and entirely unscary. My kids (the CC Lemon Shakers) were awesome and it was great to get the sort of quality time with students that for some reason I seem to be lacking at this school. The absolute highlight was getting the kids to write a play. It all began with a frog suit and a devil hat, and snowballed into a modern parable about bullying, drinking CC Lemon, and foxy boys in skirts.
A sample of the dialogue written and performed by the two boys who played the star-crossed lovers:
Kevin (aside): Oh she is foxy.
Julia (aside): Oh he is double foxy.
Kevin (aside): I want to drink CC Lemon with her.
Julia (aside): I want to drink CC Lemon with him.
Julia (to Kevin): Who are you?
Kevin (to Julia): I am Kevin. I am your hero.
Julia: Oh I'm Julia, I am your heroine.
Kevin: I love CC Lemon and you?
Julia: Yes, I love CC Lemon, and I love you.
Kevin: Shall we dance?
If only it was that easy.

The weekend after the camp, I took a trip to Hiroshima with Rebecca and Darrell to get some fabric for this weekend's prom (two nights to make two dresses... no worries) and eat some delicious Indian foods. Both of these goals were achieved. Unfortunately I also managed lose my cell phone. I realised it was gone pretty early on in the piece and spent the rest of the evening wandering the streets, retracing my steps and exhausting the batteries on my friend's phones calling over and over. All to no avail. We must have rung that number hundreds of times, but none saw fit to answer until half past eleven when I was safely home - a two hour bus ride away. In my infinite disorganisation, I managed then to dispose of the phone number of the fellow who had my phone. After a week of hoping he would call me I manage to acquire myself a new phone with the same number by only slightly underhand means and then very next day, the fellow called back about my phone. Which I now have. Hmmm... there was no point to this story, except maybe as a long winded apology for not getting back to those of you who have emailed my phone. I was, however, terrified by how lost I felt without it, I don't think I was ever so phone dependant before. Funny how a few short years ago I had no problem with wandering around foreign cities in an uncontactable state but now the thought of a message-less day is so unsettling.

Hmmm...I started this post several days ago. Life is a bit hectic because I bit off rather more than I can chew getting various bits and pieces made for the 20's dance this weekend and vagina monologues. Am sure it will all work out, but I hope I survive the working out and get can this bung body some sleep sometime soon. I will post pictures.

Also (not helping with general bung-ness) I have started playing the flute again. It is early days yet but it looks like I'm gonna play at school graduation with the brass band. It is much fun.

The machine that goes 'ping'!

2007-01-29T20:45:00.000+09:00

It finally happened today. After a year-and-a-half of avoidance, I visited a Japanese physio-equivalent. I have been a little naughty lately you see - I have been stretching and carrying on as usual, but I have also snowboarded and taken part in a snowball-throwing competition (albeit in a gym with bean-bags for snowballs) and have somehow managed to anger my temperamental neck.

After not sleeping so very much for a few nights and a few days of headache, the inability to rotate today drove me to consult the school nurse on where best to get myself seen to. She recommended a wee chiropractic-type clinic (where I ran into my JTE - it is obviously oft-recommended) and so I trotted off with Nori (without whom I would have been lost in the scary maze of stretching contraptions and needles, dear Nori) to get chiropratored.

I wanted some neck-work done, but as soon as the man started prodding my back I knew all was lost. My back is just too bung to resist and he had a lot of fun popping and realigning bits (no girl can be told too many times that she has the back of a 60 year old) and then it was was time for ye olde acupuncture... or so I thought. Ye olde it was not. In Japan, ancient Chinese medicine has met bit shiny machines that go 'ping!' - each needle was hooked up to an electrical current and I spent 20 minutes twitching involuntarily from hair-line to knickers-line. There is no sensation quite like having quivering needles electrocuting one in the neck - and I am quite convinced this is a good thing. Then to calm my twitching I was given an a full body hot-pack... which would have been quite pleasant were it not for a few strategic needles placed to keep me awake. Throughout, I was told to let them know if any of the needles were hurting, unfortunately when I complained at a few of the particularly achy spikes, the fellow would pinch one of my belly rolls and say "That hurts, the needles are just a bit uncomfortable" (Or something to that effect, it is hard to concentrate on Japanese when you are concentrating on keeping still). I felt vindicated when all the ouchy ones bled when they took them out.

But the end result... I can almost see over my left shoulder, something I haven't been able to do for quite some time. I also have wee aches where there were no aches before though. I will see if I have nightmares about vibrating electric needles, and then decide if I shall return.

Not scary needles

Scary needles

My poor bottom

2007-01-23T16:40:00.000+09:00

Thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes and belated birthday greetings and such. I had a very nice day, even if I was reminded by several of my students how very old I was now. My ratty second years even sang happy birthday for my in class and some of my adorable wee first years made me appallingly-spelled card. Much love.
Gemma and I had a preemptive birthday celebration last Saturday after the English camp at which I played some mean JENGA with Leif, Barbara and Darrell and then we karaoked the night away.

On the actual day I made me a birthday carrot cake which we decorated with terrifyingly sweet marshmallow (don't worry Rebecca, I did appreciate it, really) and then more karaoke ensued.

This first weekend of my next quarter century I decided to try something new and exciting.
After years of being too stingy and convinced of my own innate uncoordination to join expeditions to Ruapehu, I bit the bullet and snowboarded.
And yes, I do believe it is accurate to say I snowboarded. There was a lot of falling and bruising and tumbling and swearing and falling involved, but I don't think I sucked completely.
We got there bright and early on Saturday to discover there was no snow, or at least no natural snow, and only two runs were open. This may have worked to my advantage though because in the morning there was lots of room to practise. My friend Darrell was an excellent teacher and after a few goes I could make it down the mountain without falling... as long as I didn't turn around - that took a lot longer to begin mastering.
I very enjoyed, and even think I will go again.
But oh, oh my, it hurts.

Scraps

2007-01-19T10:53:00.000+09:00

That nifty little video of David's trackies the other day was to be accompanied by an detailed post about where I'm at and why. Unfortunately, where I was was my flat and in the grand tradition of multi-tasking, I was attempting to keep warm, update my blog, and bake a cake all at once (note THREE appliances (4 with fridge)) and my fuse blew. Deary. I spent a good half an hour with an umbrella, a collapsible table and taped-together milk cartons remedying this situation and as a result the cake was tough, the house was chilly, my cell phone light was dead... and my insightful post was lost.

Well.

Since December...
I went home. It was many things. It was lovely, confusing, comforting, COLD, tiring and refreshing. For details of what I did and who I saw and where we went, please wade through the uberfluss of photos on my flickr.

ALSO...
A few of you know that I have been toying with the idea of another year here, but (don't worry family) I have come to the conclusion that that was just an ongoing "Rarrgh! What next?" panic reaction. While I was home, (odd, in NZ, Japan was 'home') Japan barely existed in my headspace, I talked about it, I thought about it, but I didn't feel it the way I did last time. Though I missed Japan, I know it was the people here that I missed and I'll miss them just as much no matter when I leave. I realised that I missed my kids, but not my job and I think I've gotten as much as I 'm gonna out of this gig. So it is definitely time to move on.
I located and signed the papers this morning.

Gracious. I will honestly endeavor to keep this thing up to date better. These random condensed posts are all a bit heavy. I will leave you with the story of Shinya.

Shinya hates English. I like to think he hates it no more than any other class in school but I can't prove that. He claims to have destroyed his text book, he comes to about half the classes and never, ever faces the front or stops talking and glowers at me in the corridor. Yesterday however, Shinya learnt a word of English. Suddenly English was the shizzle, it made him funny, it made everyone look at him and it was the perfect vehicle for his creepy stare (most kids don't look you in the eye - at least not for long). Unfortunately, Shinya's new word is DIE and all class he randomly called out classmates names and told them to DIE.
He got clever...

Me: Could you tell me how to get to the hospital?
Shinya: DIE?

Today he was all about English, he bellowed relevant sounding syllables during repeat after me and came up with an extensive list of fast food restaurants and electronic stores that we don't have in Hamada. But at the end of the class it was time to return to the old favourite. He told me to die. But! when I pretended to choke and fall down, the dear boy changed his mind, shrugged, said "Eh, sensei. Die, no." and walked away. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Trousers in the wind

2007-01-16T22:22:00.000+09:00


We took our togs. Oh dear.

Tasty

2006-12-12T18:45:00.000+09:00

Mother said my blog has been rather confusing of late so this evening - instead of cleaning or packing or pursusing any mundane, necessary employment - I will offer a selective and consise update of my recent doings.
As the one person who views all of my flickr photos will know, I have had some delicious experiences lately.
The first was in Tokyo in a dear place called MOS burger (I don't know if it is always necessary to capitalise the entire word but I like to) me and Kaori went for some delicious MOS while Damian was at his band practise with a fellow in a bear suit. The lettuce-encased freshness burger has since become an option at my local MOS outlet. This is intensely pleasing.

Also (not pictured) I went to Hiroshima to sit a test that I didn't know the answers to and ate deliciousness in an Irish pub. Also the cricket was on TV. Pleasant.
Then.
This weekend.
We had a Christmas party.
And it was delicious.
And later I was a polar bear.
We all cooked many tasty things.

2006-12-06T10:05:00.000+09:00

The Heater

2006-11-30T17:21:00.000+09:00

Donna bought a heater
An electric heater
The elements were made of wire and clay
She reached out to touch and she heard a voice say
And she heard it say
"Come on and plug me in
I want to feel that heat begin
Don't move till the morning comes
And you can fly up to the sun
So come on and plug me in
Plug me in
Plug me in"
Donna liked her heater
Her electric heater
Upstairs alone with the elements
She dream of gold and frankincense
(frank, frank, frankincense)
And she heard it say
"Come on and plug me in
I want to feel that heat begin
Come close and listen while I sing
I won't melt your precious wings
So come on and plug me in
Plug me in
Plug me in"
"Come on and plug me in
I want to feel that heat begin
Although my body is rusting through
I have carried this song for you...
It's from the Sphinx and the Serpent too
So plug me in"

It's most true. Except the wire and clay bit... and I think my heater speaks Japanese... and I haven't been dreaming of frankencense lately - I had a weird one about performance artists in polar fleece this afternoon though. Also I didn't buy the heater, it was purchased for me by my BOE. But I spent so much time singing this song on my bike (I've said it before and I'll will say it again, biking and singing is a most rejuvinating thing) that I just wanted to share.
All credit and glory to Don McGlashen.

I love dates

2006-11-20T17:37:00.000+09:00

Sorry it has been some time since my last post but I am currently without computer. It will be returning to me this Wednesday though, and I am very excited. Also in the exciting things catergory is my upcoming trip to Tokyo. I will be taking the night bus (not exciting) on Wednesday night and staying with Damian and Kaori in Chiba until Sunday. I will shop. And stuff.
So, the last threeish weeks... um. We had an open mike night at the beginning of the month and to compliment (and contrast with) the classy blues, stirring protest songs, and delightful ballads, Ed and I decided to sing One Day a Taniwha, Tu Tera Mai Nga Iwi, and Po Kare Kare Ana we stopped short of Uma Rapiti - we need to keep a few tricks up our sleeves. Then we had Guy Fawkes at which much fun was had by me lighting fire works and running on rocks. There was also a roaring fire and fine company. T'was nice.
Um we also had Mid-Year Seminar, the annual gathering of JETs from all over the prefecture and I played touch rugby with much enthusiasm and little skill (have mastered the running up and down bit but not the passing/catching bit) then I played soccer in much rain.
This week I taught Ti Rakau for a cultural workshop at the biggest Junior High School in Hamada. It was a bit of an eye opener. I find the kids at my school pretty rough compared to the island kids, but these kids definitely out-scary mine. Their trousers are wider, their jackets shorter, mullets spikier and dyed-oranger and their respect for authority of any kind is markedly less. I was rather concerned about giving then sticks and making them sing but E Papa Waiari went down a treat.
This weekend my school had it's cultural day. But that is another story.
So now you know.

And since the chronology isn't electrifyingly interesting, here are some random facts about me just now.

Bad things:
My lip hurts because I zipped it into my jacket this morning.
My elbow hurts because I tried to climb a tree on Friday night.
My house has no heating of any kind.
I have not done any sort of Christmas shopping.

Good things:
My house is sparkling and clean.
I made a bag with a dog on it.
I now have 2 pairs of polar-fleece trousers. They are pleasing.
I will be at home in the sun in three and a bit weeks.
After feeling pretty muh for a while I have been much chirpier this past week.
I found a pair of stripy socks I had forgotten about in a box in my bathroom.

Other things:
I can fit 19 dates in my mouth. (Mum sent me dates)
I am having my first hair-cut in Japan tomorrow.

Halloweening

2006-10-31T21:14:00.006+09:00

On Saturday we had a Halloween party for primary school students here. Much fun was had by all (at the party at least, I am sure there would have been a few rather disgruntled parents and tears before bedtime when then sugared, scared and face-paint-smeared wee ones got home). We have been sort-of rehearsing for the Halloween play for the past few weeks but the preparation began in earnest on the Wednesday afternoon and continued apace until minutes before the kiddies arrived. On Friday night I carved my very first pumpkin. It was fun and far less dangerous than I had imagined due to some specialised tools we had been sent from the States.

On Saturday morning we all showed up bright and early (and looking spectacular)

for last minute practise (I was reminded that I was in charge of a 15 minute dance... which I successfully delegated) then we divided up the afternoon's responsibilities...
I have to say that sitting in an dark room, waiting to scream at small, terrified children was one of the odder things I have intentionally taken part in, even in Japan. My first haunted house and I was a haunter. Reactions ranged from yelping, to charging (one particularly boisterous child I dumped from a considerable height and then tickled) to uncontrollably shaking, to dismissing me with a "uh, Donna-sensei da". Indeed.

Other highlights of the day were me as the devil in the Jack-o-Lantern story and a small child backing away from me and crying when I entered the room. One of my favourite things in costume is when people don't recognise and a couple of my kids refused to believe I was me until they spotted the eye-brow piercing. Grand.
After a night of little sleep I headed out on a field trip with a lovely bunch of exchange students on Sunday. There are some pictures which tell the story passably well on my flickr page. Enjoy.

Hope you are all thriving and I will try and catch up with emails properly this week.
loves much

I ate till it hurt tonight. It still hurts. Why are roasted root vegetables so irresistible? I just don't know.

The time has come

2006-10-16T17:22:00.000+09:00

Talking about last weekend has become rather overdue. I am forgetting the finer details so I will do what I can to offer you a brief but exhilarating account before I lose all sense of my Oki-time.

From the top: the enkai (work party) on Friday wasn't much to write home about, we had a tasty dinner at which everyone consumed a modest amount of beer and/or chuhai and I was then officially welcomed and asked a few questions (like why I decided to pierce my eyebrow) and the hot caretaker was officially farewelled. The second party of which I had such expectations was only me, the principal, the vice-principal, the disciplinary teacher, and another old fellow who lived on Oki long ago. I was urged to sing unchained melody and perform a duet with one of the old ladies at the bar that the headmaster was trying to crack onto.

I headed for Oki on the Saturday and had to get ready all in a rush to get the train to get the four-hour ferry because the fast boat was cancelled because of the 4-and-a-half metre waves.
I was picked up by Mis. Nobe and Helen and Steph, (my friend/former JTE and the two new ALTs respectively) and taken to Tsudo to stay at Ms. Nobe's house and be fed many kinds of deliciousness. The next day we were picked up by Yoshida, Funada, Tori and a few others for a pleasant day of surprise expeditions. It was most excellent. We had many more kinds of my favourite foods in picnic form up by a waterfall and collected delicious spring water, and then hung out at a small lake with retired ducks. There was also chestnut collection going on. It was so nice and comfortable to be with all these familiar folk and know I have not been forgotten. That evening I we went for some karaoke with Rika(rika) and the next day Helen and I baked a cake which we ate with Konaka-san (my old supervisor) and then with Kate (really Yawata) and then I went back to Hamada on the ferry.

So all in all it was lovely. But it was lovely like staying at my parents house now and then when I was having a hard time at uni was lovely - I felt rested and reassured but I don't think it was the place for me to be living all the time. I do think I made the right decision to leave - there are negatives to being where I am, but they are certainly no worse than the island negatives, and there are also nice things and people in both places.

In other news on Friday I went to Matsue with Makiko (one of my students) and Hinohara-sensei (one of my two JTEs) for the prefectural own-composition (read: ghost-written by yours truly) English speech competition... and Makiko won! So she will now be going to Tokyo for the national competition. I want also to be going to Tokyo for the national competition but don't think I can afford it because of all that coming home for Christmas stuff. But still, it was very exciting.

In other, other news, there was a cockroach in my cutlery drawer this morning so I just spent lots of time scrubbing all the poison and cockroachy-ness off all my utensils and I now have pruny hands.

A ponder on the subject of transportation

2006-10-10T21:28:00.001+09:00

I am not feeling up to describing my whole entire weekend just now (see what I am cunningly doing, is building up suspense with these tidbits so when I finally write about it you will all be ready to understand how lovely it all was) so I decided to report on my musings about boats, trains and planes.
I will first have to reveal a segment from the very end of my weekend...
I had waited until what my companions considered to be the last minute (not to be confused with the actual last minute in which I usually operate) to board the boat. There being quite a few actual minutes left I spent a long time watching my friends from the boat and intermittently waving. During this time I took some photos of the port and on the ferry I pondered them.
I think I have decided what it is I like so much about train stations and ferry ports but not airports. When I first left New Zealand for Germany back in 2000 I took a picture of the railway tracks on the way from Petone to the airport and it was so pleasing it stayed on my desk all year. I like the way that these places all all set up with ingenuity and precision, in straight, clean, shiny lines - and then the world around them (the sea air and the commuters feet and the city dust) comes and has a nibble, and dulls the tracks to the colour of the rocks and chews little random patterns into the paint and everything adjusts to its surroundings. As a passenger on such services I appreciate both the shiny new times and the grime, shadows and (reasonable safety-wise) signs of age. I don't like airports because they are the opposite, air travel is so necessarily artificial and wrenching. Humph.

All that said and I just realised I managed to leave my USB cable on Oki so no pictures for tonight.

Who could ask for anything more...

2006-10-09T22:41:00.000+09:00

My weekend even had ducks.
And I like ducks.

It's gonna be a long weekend (in a good way)

2006-10-06T16:48:00.000+09:00

Thanks folks for all the emails, I should send out an "Oy yew, read thus" message more often. In retrospect the crazy awake post was possibly not the best note to advertise myself on... you can all rest assured that I have been resting since and am becoming saner by the day.
This evening I (finally) have my welcome enkai for school which will be interesting. Normally workplace relationships in Japan are jump started with a bout of drunken humiliation but I have had to wait until I have formed some fairly clear ideas about my co-workers before I've seen them cut loose. Watch this space...
Tomorrow I will be heading to Oki for the long weekend. I am sure I will have some amusing anecdotes to share with you all next week.
Today while trawling the internet like the diligent employee that I am, I found a tribute site and I would like to leave you with some of the joys of Michael Leunig.
I like the way he thinks about:

GoatsWar
Law

and Ducks

I really like ducks.

Netai (want to sleep)

2006-10-03T17:26:00.000+09:00

This writing thing could become addictive for me and tiresome for you all, but I just thought I'd write about my last night because there was such a lot of it.
I have been building up (unintentionally you understand) to a no-sleep for a week or so now - I started last Sunday and have have been getting less and less sleep since (which made me rather surly last week (sorry) and also made my primary school visit seem particularly cruel and unusual) but this was the first time in a very long time that I have had an entire night without a wink. I had quite forgotten how the no-sleep process works.
Normally, although it is dependant on the the timing of the original sleeping attempt, I give up on sleep at about 3-4ish and then can get on and do something productive, but last night, despite my filthy apartment and my many planned sewing projects, I was extremely loath to commit to not sleeping and instead I played Civilization for an hour and achieved nothing (except partial world domination).
I finally had my 'no sleep is going to happen tonight' moment at 5:42 when I noticed how light it was getting outside, but by that time it was too late to be creative, innovative, or hygiene-restorative so instead I tied a sock around my head and put on Leonard Cohen (I have this theory that his voice slows down my heart-rate) and hummed along until my alarm started. I spent today in the unsteady foggy place that one's brain goes when it hasn't had enough time out (which could be a rather nice place were it not for the funny shaky body) and now am trying to while away the hours till I can get a good nights sleep (attempt to go to bed to early and I risk rebounding into wakefulness). If I don't get a solid slumber I believe I shall have to go begging for a place to crash on Thursday night because despite my complaints about the years of sharing a room, I always sleep better with others around.
Right am off to have some dinner and a nice cup of herbal-absolutely-decaffeinated-tea.
loves much
donna

September happened

2006-10-02T21:45:00.000+09:00

While changing this over to the new site, I saw just how diligent I once was at keeping you all informed about my various doings. Even when there really wasn't so much doing being done. Imagine the things you could know about my new and exciting life! But somehow my people based interactions don't seem as writable-about as my little musings and happenings. I will offer for you all a sample of my recent party going and exciting social life and then, if I am still communicative, I will tell you all about my new school. Desperately intrigued? Totally riveted? Mildly flatulent? I know you are.

Anyway. As you can see by the photo that I will figure out how to attach to this post with hopefully a minimum of naughty words and computer-focused anger, I have been out and about dressed in glittery spandex. Why? Does one really need a reason? It was entirely justified I promise. I was at a 70's party being all sociable and stuff. I made four costumes in all. All of which are hopefully pictured here. Darrell and Rebbecca won the best men's and women's costume prizes respectively and I got the specially-made-up-on-the-spot-for-me best designer prize. Zang. The party definitely lived up to the aviators. Indeedy. T'was quite a party. As you can maybe see here.

A few weeks ago now I had my school sports day. My first few weeks at school were spent in obsessive preparation for this terrifyingly well coordinated event. The kids spent the better part of every day yelling their slogans, practising their dances, marching endlessly around the field, painting banners and making paper flowers. Sports day, you see, involves very little actual sport. I put some photos of what it does involve on the site. Particularly notice the scary saluting. This produced a physical reaction in me that is the exact opposite of the inexplicable joy I feel when hearing a large group of people singing.

Righty... some time has passed since I wrote that lot...
Now October has begun and the new JETs have been welcomed at Mt Sanbe in the customary manner. I am still very, very tired. I feel I need a bit of a weekend to recover from this last weekend. Friday we had a quiet wee indoor BBQ at Darrell's, of which I have posted some pictures, then Saturday we all dragged ourselves up a mountain (in motorised transportation) and partied the night away. Due to my playing RUGBY (mmm hm) for what felt like four or five hours during the afternoon, I was messy and in bed at the reasonable hour of oneish. So that brings y'all up to speed on my speedy social life.

I promised some insights into my school life (and intended to post some pictures of my house but it is awfully messy and so will have to wait). School is a completely different kettle of fish to last year. I am at the same school every day and so my lessons are not considered anything special (and certainly not "most very precious time for students") and the teachers don't put much planning into them, we just bumble on with the text book. It is difficult to get used to after being so involved in planning my classes last year and playing games and having routines to follow with the students (which should really be easier here but it is a bit of an uphill battle to even open the class in a consistent manner). BUT it is not all doom and gloom. There are definitely advantages to being at just the one school. I am getting to know the students which is excellent and rewarding in itself. There are some interesting characters and I have a couple of wee fans who show up in the staffroom every lunchtime. I also get to spend a lot more time with the kids who are training for speech competitions and am gaining a much more rounded view of Japanese school life in all it baffling glory.

If I don't put this up now I shall never get around to it. I hope everyone is well and good. It is lovely to hear from people so keep emailing!

Hamada lively

2006-09-04T21:02:00.000+09:00

I have Internet at my house. It is terribly exciting. So exciting in fact that I am unable to realise it is truly real and keep checking my email on my cellphone.
I have been in Hamada for over a month now and I am slowly acclimatising - at least I am realising that I won't be going back to the island any time soon. I don't think I had any expectations for this place but it feels more different than I would have imagined. This doesn't seem like Japan to me. Being around people is also kind of tricky. You-all who do it every day don't appreciate just how skillful you really are. Yay for all those out there who socialise with ease. I don't think I am doing horribly, but I have become quite used to having time to prepare for each foray into the world of my English-speaking peers and space to ponder every aspect of the interactions after. I realise that this wasn't necessarily a healthy way to be and I will, in time, readjust to living a life unpondered, but in the meantime I fine myself doing a bit of part-time, as-I-go pondering which results in my looking alternately vacant and suspicious of those around me.
Anyway. I will take some pictures of my wee apartment for your viewing pleasure. It is substantially smaller than my previous one. It took me a while to settle in - mostly due to the fact that is was a beastly disgusting mess when I got there. I have never seen, nor suspected the existence of, such very large cockroaches. I have had fun building myself lots of lovely green shelving and decorating lampshades. I am now quite terrified of meeting my neighbours, nightly fun with a hammer is bound to make one unpopular. Perhaps I will construct some wooden treats for placating purposes.
That is quite enough. Next time I will try to provide more factual information. T'would be lovely to hear news from all and any of you,

Goings and comings and other such confusions

2006-07-25T21:01:00.000+09:00

Goodness, how time does fly... and as most of you know, so did I.
It is a strange being here again after my trip home. I have to keep reminding myself that I actually did come home, it has been so easy to slip back into life here. Here feels like home too, and I'm moving in just over a week. Everything seems quite surreal at the moment. Like I have stepped sideways slightly from real life. School doesn't feel finished despite the farewells, my Oki-life doesn't seem to be winding down. It's the same as any other change. I never believe in it until a significant amount of time after it has happened. I still tell people I am 23 and then look confused at the sound of it which must make an odd impression.
It was lovely to see those of you that I saw when I was home. There wasn't time for much just being, most of it was spent catching-up. The catching up process feels like trying to get back to the level of understanding that allows one to just be. Very deep I am. But truly it was great to switch of the "heads, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes)" that has been playing on a loop in my head for months and talk to people who actually knew me. So yeah. Thanks all.
Today I saw the mayor for the goodbye talk. It was very like the hello talk, incomprehensible and hot. He talks like Animal from the Muppets.
Must go and keep cleaning my wee house. It is pretty clean really, what with me becoming obsessive about vacuuming and scrubbing the floors/bench/stovetop/etc. this past year. I wonder if my new love of shiny surfaces and order will survive a more active social life.
Next time I write here it will be from my new home (‘new home’ seems a bit of an oxymoron, it takes a bit more than setting up my sewing machine and a few sleeps to make it home – maybe I will shock the neighbours and have a flatwarming).
It feels strange to be homesick for New Zealand and nervous about Hamada and sadly about leaving Oki and ridiculously overheated all at once but that’s me just now. Thinking of you all much.

A prodigy of fear and portent

2006-06-14T21:00:00.000+09:00

There is a snake in my gutter, in my dreams, and, in my dreams, in my shower. Most concerning. We saw him first on Saturday when he slithered out about thirty centimetres to have a look around, and I thought he was gone until I saw him again yesterday. There have been other strange animal behaviours, all very portentous, like the crows that have taken to congregating outside my house instead of down the road at the butchers, or the VERY large beetle that decided to take up residence in my shoe which I then put on. (Sudden flashback, I was seven and decided to ignore the 'stone' that had found its way into my shoe over night. About half an hour later I extracted a fairly mangled looking weta from the aforementioned shoe and felt terrible about it for days. This time around I reacted speedily, removing the shoe, shaking out the rather large beetle, yelping, and falling into a coat stand - all in one graceful movement that brought teachers running from the staffroom.) Nature seems to have gotten wind of my impending departure and decided... um... they like me here, really they do.
Sorry I have been so remiss in my attentions to this site but time is really moving far to quickly here. Such a short time ago it was months and months till I would be leaving Oki, then it was just months and now it is getting to the lasts - last visit at that primary school, last dinner with that group of people... next week will see my last times at three of my Junior High Schools! Woe is me.
Enough ranting.
What have I been doing for the last month or so?
In late May I went to the recontracting conference in Kobe. It was most bewildering. There were far too many foreign people for my liking and it took a while for me to figure out that that were all conversant in English. When this finally sunk in I took to ranting at people until they began smiling fixedly, nodding, and slowly backing away. Not quite the social triumph we had hoped for. I also met a classmate from Nelson Girls in the toilet queue at a Brazilian beef restaurant.
I have also been to a festival where drunken horses rampaged their way up to a shrine and hosted a 'New Zealand food' dinner.
Lovely.
I hope you are all well in your various ways and situations.
Also, I am playing soccer this Saturday and have been making an exhibition of myself every night for weeks huffing and puffing my way to the docks and back trying to get fit. Wish me luck.

Mosquitoes like sake

2006-05-14T20:58:00.000+09:00

I meant to add more to the last entry but haven't got around to it. I think I'll just do detailed captions for all the photos and you can experience my family time like a good old fashioned slide-show.
So, back to talking about me. Just over a week after the family left was 'golden week' a run of public holidays that coincides with the first good weather of the year.
I went to Kyoto again to catch up with Sophie who I hadn't seen in 4 years. We stayed in an excellent we place called Kyoto Cheapest Inn that was only ￥900 a night (plus high season charge) and had an excellent time roaming the city and checking out various shops and shrines.
Her friend Simone (an Italian wine-maker) joined us on the second day there and one night Soph and I left our bags with him and decided to rough it and go camping. The original plan was to get out of town and do a hard-core hike, but the attractions of the city proved too strong and instead we spent the better part of the day lugging our packs around the shops and didn't head for the hills until late afternoon. Since it was too late to get anywhere wild and rugged, we went to the nearest hill we could find, nipping through a lovely shrine complex, we found a relatively secluded spot in the town belt and pitched our tent.
Although our site was completely out of sight and surrounded by nothing but trees, we soon found a parking area a few minutes walk away with a lookout and a man who sold sake. I blame the sake for making me ridiculously tasty to the hosts of mosquitoes in attendance. I still have little bite-scabs all over my legs.
I love Kyoto and I am glad that both my trips there have been somewhat shambolic so I still have so much to see (or re-see a more opportune time than on the way back from a night in the mountains.) I have many lovely moment-images, like sitting in the sunshine by the river with Japanese buskers (a very rare sight) busking in the background. Or running around in the rain to find some Japanese-style drinks and Simone making friends with an enthusiastic fellow when we finally found Tatami three floors above the river. Or when I found the three storey fabric shop… mmmmm lycra. So all in all it was lovely. Lovely to yarn with Soph and walk the nightingale floors, lovely to find a shop that sold me some foreigner-sized shoes, lovely to meet random Polish people in the Cheapest Inn kitchen and lovely to have so many holidays at once. Next week I am off to a conference in Kobe. Ahh my jet-setting lifestyle…

Extraordinary adventures

2006-05-01T20:55:00.000+09:00

I had intended to spend today writing a brilliant travelogue of all the extraordinary adventures I had with my family. Unfortunately I am not feeling very up to being brilliant today so you’ll just have to take it as it comes. Today I am feeling grumpy and tired and achy, oh so achy, because yesterday a man hit my bike with his car. I am very fortunate that he did not hit me with his car, he only got the front wheel (which was impressively buckled) because I managed to brake a bit when I realised that he wasn’t going to stop pulling out of that driveway just because I happened to be biking past. He was terrifically shocked and apologised hundreds of times and got me a new wheel/mudguard/light and had my bike reassembled very quickly (too quickly for me to get any photographic evidence) I have bruised knees and various twisted bits and decided to purchase a helmet.
To the story… until last Monday I had family at my house. It was strange and wonderful and we used all the rooms at once, before that though there was travel and mishap by boat, bus, aeroplane, taxi, and several types of train.
A quick overview.
I met Miriam in Osaka on Friday the 14th where we shopped and walked quickly and it rained. On Sunday we went to Kyoto which was beautiful, delicious and peaceful. On Tuesday slow-bussed to Hiroshima where we met Mum and Dad and on Wednesday went on a morning-trip to Miajima to see monkeys who failed to show up (the monkeys have gone into the forest to find food, the monkeys will be here soon…) We rushed to Hamada on Wednesday afternoon so they could check out my from-July-home and on Thursday were kept from the island by six-metre swells and spent the day in Matsue. We got to Oki on Friday in time to watch a thousand year old dance and then made “New Zealand food” for a collection of island folk. On Saturday we vegetated (and I drove!) and on Sunday we toured the island.
Now you know where the lines are, I will colour in a few bits.

A badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...

2006-04-11T20:52:00.000+09:00

Three days now until Miriam arrives and a week until we meet Mum and Dad. Definitely very exciting. I have purchased a larger teapot in their honour.
The day after I last wrote I did indeed go mushroom picking. Spring-time mushrooms (shidake) are grown on logs in shady wooded areas and there were a great many to be picked. It was a lovely afternoon though, perfect for wandering through the Japanese forest. I am very jealous of the basket-backpack that Yoshida-san had. I will try and invest in one for future foraging or going to the vege-market if I move back to Welly. Next month we will go collecting the "child of bamboo" while it is still young and tender.
I ate mushrooms every day for a week in an attempt to use up what wouldn't fit in the freezer, mushroom soup, fried mushrooms, baked mushrooms, mushrooms and rice... then salvation from my mushroom diet came in the form of 5 fellow English-teacher types coming to visit Oki for a stitch'n'bitch. I made them meat and mushroom pies that were rather light on meat...
It was nice to have more visitors and we did the essential Oki tour - the ￥100 shop, the 'mall' and the liquor store - and stitched away the grey afternoon.
Apart from that I have pretty much just been hanging at the office everyday and rewatching movies every evening. I am not sleeping terribly well so it is nice not to be in the classroom. I have a whole two days of school before I take off for the family tour!
An odd thing. On Saturday the sky was a funny shade of brown. Apparently this is a phenomenon called kosa which means Yellow Sand. It is dust from the desert in China blown over to Japan but strong spring winds. Although it has been common in spring for centuries it is getting more intense as the desert in China expands through environmental mismanagement. It was like living in sepia.

Marching on...

2006-03-24T20:49:00.000+09:00

Three weeks today until Miriam arrives! Exciting times.
Not a lot is going on with me just now. It is spring holidays so I am at the office every day. 8 hours is a long time to have no work to do but I seem to be filling it without resorting to keeping up to date with my Japanese course. School starts again the week after next and today all the leaving teachers are coming into the office and bowing a lot. I try to keep up with the bobbing but always manage to miss a few or interpret someone looking down as wrongly and do one extra...
Recent events.
The Vagina Monologues went really well. I think we raised about NZ$900 for the women's shelter which was good and there is a group of Japanese women who are interested in doing it next year which is exciting. I was much more nervous than I thought I would be but I managed to get through my bit okay. I can't get to the photo album on the web from these computers but I'll put some up when I get back to school.
The Chinese CIR who works in my office and lives upstairs left on Tuesday. It was very sad. I am sure I will be just as much of a mess when I leave. She came over for (really odd looking) cake on Sunday and we exchanged email addresses. It will be hard to keep in touch in my crappy Japanese though. I will try! Would be good to have a friend in Beijing.
Tomorrow I am going mushroom picking but otherwise I'm having a quiet time of it. Plenty of time to get my house in order for the family visit (yay!).

When where what?

2006-03-09T20:48:00.000+09:00

Just a quick note to clear up some confusion. When I said I was moving to Hamada this year I meant when my new contract starts this year in July. July 25th to be exact. I'm on the island until then. I must say I appreciate the place much more knowing I'll never see another Spring here, another winter (yay oh so yay) another graduation etc. So I won't be readdressing or nuffink until after then!
One thing I will miss about this place is the random innundations of produce. When it rains it certainally does pour! First it was squid, then radishes and now we are in the month of the mushroom. Last week three sources gave me them by the bagful and I have been chowing down on the fungus day and night.
That's all.

The Visitation

2006-03-08T20:47:00.000+09:00

Sorry I have been terribly remiss in my writing. More than a whole entire month! I have wrangled some computer time to write a happy birthday email to my brother and am now abusing the privilege.
What have I been doing so secretly?
I had a visitor! and not just any visitor, I had Pam to visit. She is the first homeperson who has seen my funny little world. She didn't get to see much of it though cos it snowed lots and we had to go to school both days that she was here. She was terribly confusing for the poor students. They just couldn't seem to get their heads around the fact that she is a Kiwi with Indian parents who was born in Mozambique. They are still talking about her.
Pam and I also built a lovely snowman (and woman) together, much to the amusement of my students who were walking home past my house. I guess we must have been a sight in the thick snow, alternately doubled over with laughter and crawling around making snow-body-parts. I developed an excellent method I dubbed the hug and roll. You make a wee snow-ball and then hug it downwards to collect the underneath snow. I'll post pictures next time I'm at the BOE.
It was soooo lovely to have someone to talk to who I knew. My wee house seemed terribly lonely when she left and she was only here for four days.
Fortunately I went to a Prom that weekend which prevented my sitting at home and brooding. The Prom was fun. It was 50's themed so I made a 50's dress. I forgot to take the appropriate bra with me and had a terrifying experience buying one. I was still pulling up the straps when a woman came into the dressing room, said "chotto mate" (just a moment) pulled on some white gloves and started ah, rearranging things. It was deeply odd and apparently I had things positioned all wrong. I wasn't keen for more of the same so I bought the bra and left. It made me so busty I kept a cardy on all prom.
Um... what else?
I taught my kids to say arse last week. Inadvertently. I was high on sugary coffee and no breakfast (damn 7:30 taxi) and I snickered when student after student read:
"I'm standing on the moon. I see stars all around. I also see the arse. It's shining over the horizon just like a ball. The arse is blue and white and beautiful..."
It got worse when they started reading about mother earth. I know, I know, I have sunk so low, but really I think someone needs to tell them what not to say. Otherwise they will end up like the poor woman on TV who made the classic Japanese 'L' 'R' mix-up when saying how surprised she was by the prime minister's election. Apparently many people were surprised by the election. Oh dear.
This weekend I am off to Matsue again to participate in the Vagina Monologues. The theme for the V-day campaign (which raises money for victims of domestic violence) is comfort women. This puts us JETs in a rather uncomfortable position as we are not allowed to make political statements (it's a condition of our job and therefore our visa). I haven't said anything about it to my superiors and we are not performing the actual comfort women monologue, so I am sure it will all turn out okay. It's pretty challenging stuff for this country as it is. For those who have seen it I am doing part of "I was twelve, my mother slapped me" (the period one) and "The Vagina Workshop".
I'll let you know how it goes down.
Loves to all.
Keep in touch!
Happy Birthday Mark.

More for Me

2006-02-05T20:44:00.000+09:00

It is signed and faxed and final. I will be staying in Japan for the next 17 months. I don't like the look of that number. Let's say for another year, another home and a new adventure. Last Thursday night when I tried to turn over my paper with the "will not recontract" option circled I was such a mess (and my supervisor was so worried about how she was to explain this turn of events to the good people in Hamada) that an extra few days was negotiated for me to think over my decision. I think it may have been the extreme coffee drinking that went on on Friday to get me through school, but somehow I decided to change my mind again again again, and stay and go to Hamada.

The teachers at the school I was at got the idea that my spending another year on Oki was still a possibility (the English teacher told them I was deciding to explain my jittery confusion and strange aversion to the sound of the telephone) and two of them told me they thought I was tender. Had visions of self trussed up and slowly spit-roasting.

Thank you muchly to people who offered opinions and stuff. I know and knew I had to decide by myself but it is really hard to argue it out with oneself. I end up placating both of me and telling all involved that everything will work out fine and why don't we just have some chocolate and a nice spoonful of peanut butter.

I will be home for Christmas this year though. Am looking forward already. It is hard to feel festive when cold has deprived you of feeling of any kind in your extremities.

In other exciting news I will have Pam visiting from tonight. I am sure she would be quite terrified if she knew how much I am looking forward to seeing her (although that hasn't translated into the flurry of cleaning I had planned for the weekend, I spent most of the time sitting. Sitting and feeling dazed and reading the Dompost from January 24th - thanks Lisa!)

Happy Waitangi day also. I hope you are all basking in something somewhere and celebrating as you see fit.

Cabin fever

2006-02-01T20:36:00.000+09:00

Well. Time seems to be passing rather quickly at the moment as time does before essays, during holidays and while playing civilisation. I have until Friday (2 days) to decide if I am going to do a second year in Japan. I went and visited the place I got the transfer to last weekend hoping that it would help me in my decision but unfortunately it hasn't. It is a nice place I am just not sure if Japan is the way for me. Next year will be another new set of people and expectations and students but without the novely factor. The point of the move is supposed to be that I will have some friends. Oh oh lonesome me.

Hmmm. In an attempt to make myself more decisive I have stopped sleeping and begun eating only peanut butter and chocolate and rice crackers. Unfortunately this has made my brain about as fast and gruntled as a guinea-pig swimming in porridge. I don't know if you have ever tried consulting a breakfast encrusted rodent on any matters of importance but I'll tell you it is no fun for either party. I just have this horrible feeling that making this decision is going to be a bit like trying to bite my elbow. Frustrating in the attempt and ultimately impossible.

I feel like a possum caught in the headlights of an approaching vehicle but instead of doing the decent thing and squishing me I just know it is going to stop and ask directions.

I know that it really doesn't matter what I do, that either decision is fine fine fine but that is probably the most discomforting thought of all - that really my year is not worth so much y'know? I'd like it to have some empirical value.

Enough rant. If, dear reader, you have any suggestions, rational or irrational, considered or cute, trite or trying, please, please give them to me. I have spent too many months alone with my thoughts and we have cabin fever.

Harppy Barssday

2006-01-18T20:35:00.000+09:00

Hey all, thanks for all the Happy Birthday emails - I am terribly shocking at remembering birthday dates and end up feeling guilty for a week or so around an estimated date. This of course means I spend most of the year with a vague guilty feeling... so sorry if I forgot yours, you have no idea how I suffer, such tremblings, such flutterings all over me such spasms in my side, and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I get no rest by night or by day... hmmm I may send out one of those birthday calendar things.

It was a nice birthday. The kids at school played a Harppy Barssday song on the intercom for me. Sadly also the anniversary of the Kobe earthquake which killed over 6000 people and I was constantly reminded of this.
Liz took me out to dinner at a wee place that makes dinner sets (a compartmentalised box with many tiny dishes) in a place that I always thought was just a house and then we watched Alexander which I wouldn't if I was you, and drank some Jackson's Creek wine. I even made cake which worked surprisingly well with the funny flour. Nice.

I had my first real yucky bout of homesickness last week. Maybe because I've been here long enough for my surroundings to seem totally familiar, I just had that weird ache where you want something truly, properly, really, familiar y'know? Maybe it is just the weather getting me down but I would have given anything to smell some warm sun screen or run down a hill into the Wellington wind or hear someone quote The Castle in daily conversation... maybe it has just been too long since my last hug. Ay me. At least I have chocolate. And too many socks. And movies starring Colin Firth. Any my crocheted tree. And my sanity.

Planes, trains and everything else

2006-01-05T20:30:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year all!
I hope you had times that were smashing and splendid wherever you were and whatever you did. I was at the oldest shrine in Japan listening to a gong gonging and being cold and sober. Then I ate hot chips and mushy rice balls with bean paste. As you do. There were many scary ladies in highest heels and mini-skirts. They looked cold.

The day after I wrote last I was to catch the boat to the mainland and from Matsue take and night bus to Tokyo. 10 hours on a bus, then fly fly away. BUT it was not to be. For once the problem was not island-ish. We could have gotten off the island fine but the Matuse-Tokyo bus had been cancelled. So I ended up spending about $400 (more than my ticket to Korea) flying from the island to Osaka, busing from Osaka airport to the train station, bullet training to Tokyo, staying overnight in Tokyo and training to Narita airport in the morning. PPPFFFWWWA

Sooo by the time I arrived in Seoul on Christmas Eve I was feeling all travelled out. Fortunately the pane was on time and my friend Rachel and her mum Raylene were there to meet me at the airport.

The best thing about Korea has to be the heated floors. The are glorious. All countries without chairs ought to heat their floors. I swear I wouldn't have so much trouble getting out of bed in the morning if the floor (and everything else) wasn't so damn cold. Granted, I'd probably start just rolling out of bed and lying on the floor for extended periods, but maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty about staying in bed...

Christmas day was definitely one of my odder Christmases. After a quick chat with the family in NZ and devouring about half of the chocolate my sister sent me, I met the others and we set off across Seoul in search of bubble show. We had missed the early session so we had a much needed lunch before the afternoon session. The bubble show was um... a bubble show. Fun, odd and um bubbly.

Most of the rest of the time was spent shopping and shopping. I went to the biggest fabric market in Asia which was just plain silly. There was so very much of everything and few double-ups of anything. It is difficult to believe that that many fabrics exist let alone come together in 3 five-storey warehouse-sized buildings... I spent a lot.

The food... Koreans are obsessed with leaving food till it goes bad and then making it super spicy to disguise the weird taste. This I believe is the origin of kimchi, the rancid spicy cabbage that is the local speciality. I tried it. Once. I don't really dislike spicy food but it really truly dislikes me so after a few uncomfortable days I tried to stick to the blandest stuff I could find. It was all really cheap though and there was some good stuff. I especially liked the-middle-of-the-table BBQ and the breakfast sushi.

After a day of fast shopping where I spent far too much on a set of grinning pigs and a rather gormless wooden duck, I caught up with Simon in the western area. Korea is so much easier to get around than Japan! Everyone seemed to have a bit of English which was nice. I felt like an evil tourist though, expecting everyone to English at me. I could just be the country/city split though. Anyway, we went to a Chinese restaurant where I accidentally ordered something cold grrrr and then to a local for a few drinks. T'was nice and I ran into Rachel and Raylene on the train home (the last apparently).

I managed to fall asleep at the airport and woke up at boarding time still needing to go through customs and immigration. I just just made the plane, I was thundering along the horizontal escalator things when they were doing the 'all passengers should now be on board' calls, but I got there and back to Shimane without incident.

I hope everyone is rested and recovered from their adventure. Please do email me and keep in touch. Winter is long cold and a silly time to have the Christmas holidays.

TV Star Me

2005-12-22T20:26:00.000+09:00

I was on TV! A few weeks ago on a freezing Saturday night, I made buckwheat noodles in a community hall with a bunch of kindly older people. There was a man recording it all and I never asked why (note to self, must not let strangers video me). Turns out he was from the regional TV station and I was on the 6 o'clock news last night, red-faced, messy haired and chopping soba with precision. I remember that everyone was so surprised that I was competent in the rolling and chopping of the dough that they all gathered and stared and lo and behold the camera caught them all gathered around and gaping at my culinary expertise. Now the whole of the Sanin region know how jouzu I am at soba.
Neways... Merriest Christmas and Happy New Years!!

Make it stop!

2005-12-18T20:04:00.000+09:00

Since my last writing (post? hehe technical terminology) it has not stopped snowing for any significant period of time. It has broken all the December records and is not looking like stopping. The current cold front is supposed to peak today but there will be another one here by Thursday or Friday. I have taken to wearing three pairs of socks. The outside pair is expendable warmth-wise and can therefore be removed if too much snow collects in my shoes when I try to get out of the house.
My house is becoming more and more nest-like. It is too cold in the sleeping room to be anywhere except bed so my unsorted clothes are piling up around the futon. The other night I must have been rather chilly because I woke up under a mountain of clothes that I had scooped onto my bed. Everything I need in the living room is within reach of the Kotatsu so I never have to remove my knees from their toasty place.
My predictions of enforced decisiveness of a few weeks ago were greatly exaggerated. When I went to hand the papers to my supervisor she asked me if I was sure and I said absolutely not and she asked me to think about it for another week!
Fortunately there was an opinion sharing session over on the mainland that weekend and I managed to find an Irishman to tell me what to do. So now I am just avoiding telling people as best I can until I find out whether or not I got the transfer (January sometime).
SO after that wee tempest in a teapot... (cup?)
I'm off to Korea on Friday (actually Saturday, Friday is the 10 hour bus to Tokyo) for a white Christmas.
Hope y'all are having good Christmas times and have spectacular New Year plans!

Let it snow, let it snow...

2005-12-05T17:56:00.000+09:00

(Customary apology about extreme writing slackness)
It is snowing muchly. I woke up and refused to get out of bed until it was far too late and then looked out the window and got back into bed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of whiteness. I managed to get ready at great speed which kept me from being snap frozen in my drafty apartment and now I am at work and it is really coming down. So much extremely exciting snow.
I haven't seen snow like this since the German times!
It will be a very white Christmas if this keeps up. (Though I will be in Korea for Christmas where it is much colder than here.)
I went to Hiroshima in November which was awesome. It was a flying visit, I got in late Friday night and left early Sunday morning but fitted a lot in to my Saturday. We got up early and went to Miajima to see the famous gates in the sea. I was attacked by many scary wee deer when I touristishiously bought some food for them. The man yelled at me to get away from the food stall after they looked rampagious.
In the afternoon I shop-shop-shopped (and bought a T-shirt with the baffling slogan "Stupid people shouldn't breed. The president Clinton is a two-timer" surprisingly good English actually) then did the serious stuff.
It was difficult to stop the tourist holiday whirlwind to really see what is and was in the peace park and peace museum. I want to do it again at a slower pace now that I know what there is to see and contemplate.
Life on the island keeps on as usual. I am starting to get invites to a few more events here and there. Last Sunday I went to a mochi naku. When a family moves into a new house it is customary to throw mochi (a kind of rice cake) from the roof. Four big mochi with money in them are thrown from the four corners of the house and little ones with 100￥ in them and chucked all over the place. It was a lovely morning and the villagers, grandmothers and children alike were chatting happily and politely and there was much bowing... but as soon as that first mochi hit the ground they went nuts! I sustained a big red scratch on my hand from a particularly zealous Grandma when I reached through a bush for a mochi baggy. Very scary. I also copped a mochi in the eye and got a nice red bump. But they are delicious! I still have plenty because that afternoon I went to a mochi festival at one of my primary schools (paying for my own taxis bites! I was a $40 meal of mochi!) and they gave me a bag of them to take home instead of the Donna-unfriendly cookies they had baked.
This weekend just gone I played soft volley-ball on the Friday and then went to Karoke with the people from work. I didn't realise how frightening Bohemian Rhapsody would be if you had never heard it before. Hehem.
Final news is that I have been driving myself (and those unfortunate enough to be in ear- and mail-shot) insane trying to decide about what I'm to do next. If I want to transfer off the island for next year I have to hand over the transfer papers today. BUT in the beautiful way of Japanese bureaucracy I don't actually have to decide if I'm staying until February. So it is a matter of IF I stay, where will I stay. By the next time I write I guess I will have decided... by then end of today I will have decided one way or the other... what a frightening thought!

Abunai Ushi (the danger cow)

2005-10-18T17:35:00.000+09:00

What a long time it has been since my last entry!
Life is settling down here into a rhythm of teaching and evenings at home watching Meg Ryan boxing movies and crotcheting/knitting/sewing.
The weekend before last I went to the mainland for one of the JET gatherings. I took half a day of leave to get off the island on the Friday night and went to stay with Wellington people on the mainland. It ended up being 7 New Zealanders (4 imported from other regions) and a few other JETs and Japanese supervisors hanging out for the evening. Was just lovely. We played the 'oh so you studied at Vic?' and 'you were in the hostel with twelve of my cousins and lived in three of my flats?' and 'ah so that was you in met at beats and bubbles in old Bodega one ill-fated Tuesday... well then...' game. And we listened to Kora. And others played guitar.
The next day (after bacon, eggs, paua and pineapple) we travelled to the party proper and due to the universal laws of road-trip without actually getting lost we managed to arrive about 5 hours late in a car painted like a cow.
The actual party wasn't terribly exciting, a lot of drinking in dark alleyways between cabins keeping the noise down to avoid waking other campers but it was good to see (squint in dark at) the mainland people again. I even met someone from Paraparaumu.
The next day one of our drivers had lost his keys. This is not good at any time but I think a secluded mountain holiday park in a foreign country has to be one of the worse places to do such a thing. Many hours of search and then waiting to key-man to arrive from the nearest town to charge a ridiculous amount of money ensued.
The Monday was a public holiday and since I had to spend most of it getting home I planned to spend the rest of it shopping and instead spent most of the rest of it sleeping... but! in a super organised speedy shopping mission I bought a sewing machine! (had I been less speedy I might have realised it had no foot-pedal but I am slowly getting used to button control). Then I ran around buying all the ￥100 wool I could find. Now have enough crafty supplies to keep me at home for months.
So that's sort of what I've been up to I guess.
In other news, it looks like I am going to Korea for Christmas. Exciting stuff.
In all the diary writing I neglect to talk about the little things that preoccupy me every day so here are some.
Cool little things:
1- The giant yellow and black spiders outside my house have gotten tiny little mates. I check daily to see if they have eaten them yet.
2- Biking without a helmet makes my hair large and furry, and is quite exhilarating. (I have tried to be good but the only adult-sized helmets on the island are for motorbikes.
3- Eel. it is the best food ever.
4- I have a plush leather armchair with no legs. It makes me feel like an emperor of a nation of tiny people.

Park 'er 'ere

2005-10-05T17:49:00.000+09:00

Goodness it's a whole 'nother month. What have I been doing? A more interesting question, what have I been? I have been a park is what at a Halloween gathering/ pub crawl (a frightening (for the locals) combination in a small Japanese town. And I got tonsillitis grrr). I made my costume out of fake grass from the local hardware store. It tested the limits and patience of my new, dear, wee sewing machine that I have tentatively named Lorna. I wanted to be a rugby field but could find no players. I wanted to be a farm (even made fences) but could find no animals. So I was a park with dogs, trees and rabbit. I won most original costume and got grass burn on the inside of my upper arms.
Another something I have been is sick again. Grrr indeed. My own silly fault for park-being but grrr anyway. I went to school after being anti-bioticed to spare my dwindling (and few to start with) sick days only to be told I was to sick to teach and that I should sit in the corner and face the wall. I gave up and went home. I hate tonsils. What are they for anyway? grrr again.
Now that I have thoroughly cleared my throat...
Also I have made some delightful jandals (zorri). The are good for stimulating the nerve endings in one's feet and stuff. Very fetching when made in paisley.
ANOTHER making of mine was cookies for the culture festival. As they were laced with butter and flour I didn't try them and was rather nervous about their sales. I shouldn't have worried. Once a student saw them they sold mighty fast. Yay for giving children sugar (three kinds).
Twas a lovely day despite the gusty rain and wind shaking our little sale tent. I ate a lot of Filipino coconut rice.
Nice.

Weak/weekend

2005-09-26T17:25:00.000+09:00

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.

School girl

2005-09-12T17:18:00.000+09:00

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!

Typhoon

2005-09-04T16:47:00.000+09:00

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.

Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog

2005-09-01T11:55:00.000+09:00

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.

Superstar me

2005-08-29T11:49:00.000+09:00

What a week it was last week. I am sort of glad to be hidden away in this tiny corner of the world, I don't think I could handle the pace of life on the mainland for too long... it was like being back at uni with the daily/nightly drinking but this time with karaoke, high-tech cameras and confusing foreign money.

I spent Monday to Wednesday biking around the city (which is scary, the roads are narrow and people bike in both directions on both sides of the street) shopping like a manic with a credit card (but of course you can't use those here). I have never enjoyed shopping in New Zealand, I think it is just an absence makes the heart grow fonder thing. Having been deprived of shops for so long I went a little crazy at the range of goods on display. Most of the damage was done at the 100 yen shop though so it wasn't as poor-making as it could have been (those shops are incredible everything from cushions to garden rakes, peanut butter to lap-top carry bags... I purchased many, many pairs of toe socks there).

But most importantly of everything... I believe I have found me a sewing machine. Oh blessed day! One of Nic's workmates had one but it doesn't go so well. I will pay the repair costs and it is all mine, mine, mine. I have bought fabrics in anticipation.

My new favourite thing is biking at night and singing. I frightened some locals with a particularly enthusiastic version of 'horse with no name' at one traffic light.

The conference itself was goodly, more useful information to try to cram into my poor wee head. I am sure it will all fall into place once I finally actually start doing my job... I keep telling myself it will anyway.

Saturday I started exhibiting unusual behaviour and played soccer (in a team called the Shimane Samurai Superstars) and watched the rugby. I thoroughly enjoyed doing rather badly at both. Playing soccer I managed to give someone smaller than me a bloody knee and shut my eyes twice when the ball got too close... but apparently I will be allowed to play again should the occasion arise. In the general excitement of the rugby I managed to consume 5 chuhais (the cheapest most potent alcohol I have met) and spent the night talking thirteen to the dozen to anyone foolish enough to be in my general vicinity... so I think it best that I hole up on the island for a while...

In other news I have gone technological and purchased me a cell phone. They don't have text here, they just email from phone to phone so you can email it and I can email back any old time anyone feels like saying hi. I won't put the address here in case the odd message leaving person is as scary as they seem.

Sorry to people who are eagerly awaiting emails from me (you know you secretly are) but I can't get into yahoo from this computer. I think I may just have to suck it up and convert to evil gmail... can someone send me an invite just in case I get into my account one of these days? Sorry to non-gmailers but these are desperate times. Hotmail has stopped working here too.

Matsue

2005-08-19T19:02:00.000+09:00

Hollo!
Just a quick note because I am in an Internet cafe over on the mainland. I got here yesterday and it is lovely hanging out with another kiwi! I am staying with Nic who was the Japanese teacher at Hutt High (well after our time to those fellow HVHS personnel)
I spent today wandering round a very old castle and a rather dilapidated English style mansion thing that replaced lots of samurai structures when it became the done thing to modernise just over a century ago. I spent the afternoon biking in a storm that even Japanese people mistook for a typhoon! much fun. very wet.
On Saturday I met the Japanese learning club on Oki. They are a lively bunch of Filipino women and I think it is going to be a fun class! We had a BBQ at which I was plied with alcohol from 11am and then given several children to watch. My new best friends are 3 and 5. I'll see if I can load the photos.
I'll be here until Sunday so I don't think I'll get another chance to write. Am looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday night in a hotel with delightful air-conditioning. Mmmmm. Sweet cool air.
Must go as the Internet cafe very expensive (but has all you can drink slushies and tea)

Run run run run run runaway

2005-08-19T17:56:00.000+09:00

Well,
You know how I said I was going to a sesai festival on Monday... to my eternal disappointment (oh no! no more bitter crunchy slime?) we either couldn't find the festival, or it actually didn't exist (I couldn't quite figure this out) so instead we ate oysters and went on a boat ride around a bit of the island. I think the pictures attached themselves to the last entry. Not a bad day at work.
The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful.

On Tuesday I had a meeting with my supervisor and my English teacher friend and I found out all sorts of things. Apparently my not eating certain ingredients has caused a spate of meetings about my school lunches (which I would happily not eat) and this is still causing some headaches. And also I have three summer holiday days that they want me to take next week. So after a flurry of emails I am off the the mainland for a week! It works rather well since I have orientation (flash hotel, free food) Thursday and Friday anyway.

The heat is still preventing me from sleeping well or long so I decided last night that I needed to exhaust myself so I wouldn't notice the heat.... so I went for a RUN.

First to the actual run. I was apparently quite a sight. I caused cars to miss their lights, people to stop and exclaim and in the dark I nearly ran down and old lady. (I credit myself with one actual crash so far. Last week this man on a scooter was staring so I called out konnichiwa! He konnichiwaed back and then made a right turn into a small side street with an SUV in it. No one was hurt but I think the SUV got a bit dinged.)

The run went well to start with, I ran away from home and down the river and as I got around to town I realised the only way I knew how to get home (apart from the considerable distance I had just come) was through a badly lit tunnel and up a rather overgrown road. So I chanced running through the town. Not a good idea - I got so lost! So many tiny, narrow identical streets!
And as soon as I slowed to a walk I noticed my heels seemed to have turned into giant blisters. Eventually I found the river again and ran a few hundred metres at a time before resting my blisters and then deciding that the faster I went the sooner I got my shoes off and running again.

Just before I got home I bought what I thought was water from one of the many many vending machines. It was that super-sugared sports water that makes me really jittery but I drank it anyway. I have resolved to belatedly desensitise myself to sugary drinks. I will endeavour to drink at least 1 over-sugared beverage every day. I may even try to drink coke. This will protect against future accidental sugar jitters from sports water should I ever run again.

I took photos of my blisters, they are well worth photographing. I should have done mugshots of them holding a ruler... the cover most of my heel and are red and angry. I am wearing socks now and you can see them sticking out. Mmm.

Anyway. Blah blah blah had a visit from SUV man while I was cooking today's lunch (generously seasoned with running sweat mmmm) all very embarrassing. Had cold shower and then made discovery of the day... running makes you hot. Not just while you are running but forever after. It was like all my cells were combusting or doing their thing at a faster hotter rate. No amount of standing under the air conditioning in my native-frightening-stubbies would cool me down. I am still hot today. Amazing. I will keep this in mind for winter. So less sleep, more heat last night but I am now so body-tired that I think I will sleep tonight no matter what (surely I will have cooled down by then?)

Wow. That is a lot about nothing. Next week I will be all exciting and on the mainland! Promise!

PS Simon! what could possibly be wrong with Korean BBQ? It is not like a REAL BBQ I know, but surely there is nothing offensive about a gas fired hotplate and a cook-your-own pile of marinated meat and veges? It is one of my favourite foods! I like to well overcook everything - to a state of extreme crispiness - to make up for all the raw stuff they feed me.

Sesai

2005-08-15T19:22:00.000+09:00

Goodness it is a while since i wrote.
I tried on Friday, honest I did but I was just too tired to lift arms to keyboard and brain was reluctant to form coherent sentences. In a good way... I just rather over exerted myself on Thursday.
Where to start. Hmmm....

I had my welcome party on Tuesday at which the head teacher got decidedly sloshed and kept asking me questions like "So tell me, do you find sumo wrestlers arousing? no? why? they big strong men!" delightful dinner time conversation. But it was a very pleasant evening. They all seem like really good people (although one doesn't speak much English) and I am much reassured about starting school.

Surprisingly, the head teacher recalled the next day that he had invited me to attend the ceremonies and activities of an exchange between his school and one on the mainland. Wednesday was not so exciting but Thursday was marine sports day!

What a way to start the day! I ended up arriving at the sports beach by speedy little boat. Unfortunately it was cloudy and really windy (wellington styles) so I was semi-drenched by the time I got there...
My first marine sporting of the day way a tandem-style jet ski ride. My driver seemed to be suicidally intent on heading as fast as he could for large obstacles like the jetty or the odd rocky island and at the last moment turning and yelling LEAN! LEAN! (at least I think that is what he was saying).
I spent the remaining hours before lunch diving for seafood with with boys. I was rather surprised when they made it clear I was expected to keep my t-shirt and shorts (almost longs) on over my togs. Made swimming much tougher since I didn't have flippers.
I managed to collect nothing truly edible and have conclusively proved I suck at finding things in the seaweed-infested ocean (more on that later) but it was much much fun.
Finally back on land I managed to feel cold(!) for the first time i think since i got here. Sitting in the wind in soaking clothes will do that in most conditions I think. So I got showered and changed and failed to re-sunscreen my arms. Within an hour I had my very own two-bar heater. It was fascinating for the kids. They poked my glowing red skin and said atsui? (hot) in surprised voices. Yes I said, hot. And sore. Stop touching me!

In the evening we barbecued our catch (well supplemented by market-bought local delicacies) and the teachers got drunk on two beers in front of the students. Good family fun.
Then we played games and I had the best most exhausted sleep (apart from the occasional ow! sunburn! wake up).

Friday night I met Eri the High-school assistant English teacher who has another English-speaking friend staying and we went out for Korean BBQ, Saturday we played pool and talked the night away.

The swimming... I like the sea. I love the sea. I hate being away from it... but I can firmly say that I never want to go to that bay again. I don't remember exactly when I started disliking seaweed. I have scrambled semi-formed bad childhood memories but I didn't realise just how horrible it is until yesterday. Who knew fear could come in so many shapes, forms and colours. I spent a terrified hour or so in the water desperately trying to convince myself that these were discrete, mindless, plants and not some malevolent being out to entangle me. It was horrible. everywhere I turned another infested rock loomed. At one point I couldn't handle and scrambled madly out of the water on to a rock and scraped up my leg. I wanted to howl, not cry, but actually howl in desperation. Maybe that is what people feel when they shriek at the sight of a spider? But do they dream of evil spiders? Getting back to the beach was the worst, the shallower it got the closer the seaweed was... I would swim and perch and shudder on a rock and then get the courage to go a little further. yuck yuck.

On a nicer note, I danced around another lantern-lit tower last night and impressed at the locals with my energetic interpretation of the dance steps.

But the absolute highlight of the night has to be my stirring rendition of the Guns 'n' Roses classic "Don't you cry" in a private Karaoke box down the road once the festival was over. I was shocked and disgusted to discover that some of those present had never experience the wailing beauty of G 'n' R. Aye me.

This afternoon I am off to a sesai festival. Sesai are the gross periwinkle things and the festival is all you can eat! I can't eat so much... and tonight there will be more dancing. Good season to arrive I say.

Hope all is good welly and your various other locations? Thanks for the emails it is nice to hear from y'all.

Taiko

2005-08-08T17:50:00.000+09:00

Rarrgh how annoying I was at full tilt describing my weekend when I was informed (in Japanese) that using a computer was very bad. Then someone managed "electricity!" and I shut it down fast without saving anything...

umm...

the weekend.

Friday was the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I spent the evening watching horrific TV shows about it with the dairy lady and the Chinese CIR. The dairy lady, (who is in her 60s) is from Nagasaki. Not much you can say. That was one of the few times when it is better not to have words. Some things are best communicated in silence.

Saturday... due to some miscommunication I believed I was swimming on Saturday and so waited for Rika to call. by the time I realised she wasn't going to I had the house spick and span and had wasted away the afternoon reading. At around 6 my predecessor's friend Ken turned up in his big black SUV to go to a taiko drumming festival.

The festival was over the other side of the island at a village/hospital/hospice type place for mentally disabled people. There was a big tower with a drum and chanting men set up with lights all around it and the place was full of extended families and locals.

When it got dark the villagers (including an English teacher yay!) all began to dance around the tower using what looked to me like an impossibly complicated step... after some hours of my future students pointing and giggling and the patient attentions of the English teacher and a lady in scary white pants and a mickey mouse t-shirt I was a pro! (until I fell in behind some boys and accidentally mimicked boy-steps causing much laughter from the sidelines)

Sunday I went swimming and got to explore the island. it is just beautiful. There is one little rocky bay that is incredibly home-like. Kuoatunu with pines for pohutakawa (and a concreted walkway), or the west coast. Nice.

Swimming went better than last time... but we now think it is the little animals on the seaweed that are eating me, didn't I always say seaweed was evil!

Righty
Have decided to learn taiko and failing that, will take flower arranging classes.
donna

So-ba

2005-08-06T13:22:00.000+09:00

Hello all I had a brilliant day yesterday! I was trying to do my japanese learning at work and it was the hottest day this year on Oki (don't belive the thermometer thing on the homepage those reading are taken at the port, our thermometer said 35) when I realised someone had been calling Donna-san for some time and was approaching me rather menacingly with a telephone. On the phone was Rika, one of the English teachers that I met at my predecessor's farewell, and she was asking if I wanted to go buckwheat noodle (soba) making. I surely did! five teachers and me set out to find this buckwheat mecca and ended up deep in the forest on the other side of the island in a tiny soba restaurant with a gnarled old soba-making couple to teach us. I have to say it, my soba dough was the best. I had the perfect combination of buckwheat flour and water and made a smooth, firm, yet moist dough. (cullinary genius) sadly the rolling it into a wafer thin disk didn't go so very well and I was rather scared of the ruler/razor sharp knife combination used for the noodle cutting, but everyone seemed impressed. AND I got to wear a cute apron. Very housewifely (I later heard that the male teachers were doing a manly activity in the forest). After eating my own soba served in two traditional styles (I couldn't finish it soooo much soba) we went to visit some of my future students at their class camp. Oh my. Every single one asked me "do you have a boyfriend?" when I got bored of saying no, I started asking "do you?" the girls blushed and the boys lookind confused. Two boys who wanted to be my boyfriend, but I said were to young, came up with "together we are old enough". Delightful teenagers. Made me look foward to the primary schools, but they assured me "you very popular teacher". Then, while the other teachers went off for a communal bath in the hot springs, the English teacher and I went to the sea! Sweet sea! Bath-warm on top but blessedly cool underneath. I swam for two hours. This seemed like a long time to be stared at but somehow my many starers didn't lose concentration. At least I put on a good show. It was all going well until the giant jelly fish showed up and the biting animal got into my togs and gave me big red spots all over my tummy. Still, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. As soon as my bike is fixed I will be there every day. Mmmmm sea. Apparently Rika, my English teacher friend, is going to try and persuade my various bosses that exploring the island is offical work. It is indeed very important that I am geographically orientated .

Sun scorched, itchy, tired and happy.
donna

lisa! I was indeed rather alarmed when they showed me what to do in my litle house in case of an eathquake and gave me a textbook in Japanese about emergency proceedures... but I am assured that Oki hasn't been shaking for a while? I hope I understood them right!

Make party

2005-08-03T23:39:00.000+09:00

Life continues to be hot hot hot and my body doesn't seem to be programmed for hot climates. It has come out in peculiar rashes and refuses to sleep for more than a few hours at a time with demanding to be watered. Oh well, it will have to learn or pop or something. At the moment popping seems to be the favoured option my feet are swollen and huge, and not just bigger than anyone else's feet huge, but sideshow bob huge, and my hands feel like I am wearing rubber gloves. Maybe they have secretly sent me to clown island... on top of that i have somehow managed to catch a cold! It must have been the single only piece of coldness on the whole island. Goodness this sounds moany.
Enough about the heat!

I continue to be that talk of the town with my peculiar feeding habits and people are coming up with ever stranger things for me to eat. There has only been one wee stomach churning disaster... the other night the old dairy lady, who seems to be feeding me at the moment, pulled a periwinkle out of it's shell and left the room because a customer came. Not wanting to be rude, I ate it... the whole thing, not just the edible bit, but the bit full of periwinkle poo and mud. So gritty and so gross. I had grit in my mouth all evening.

Next week there is a welcome party for me with the other English teachers. first we have a meeting and I introduce myself then we "go somewhere and make a party" I am intrigued.
Speaking of party making, tidying my house I found a quite considerable stash of alcohol much whiskey and shoyu (fruity white spirits) so I can make my own party anytime. And I just may.

Thanks for the messages! It lovely to hear from you all.

Sylvia, sorry i accidentally deleted you! i am not so good at making this site go.

Mate! (that is ma-te, japanese slang for see you soon, not aussie-style mate)
donna

All by my se-el-elf

2005-08-01T23:35:00.000+09:00

Not much point in starting this thing if I don't tell anyone about it! I'll send out an email today. This is my first day at work as the only English speaker... the English guy who I am taking over from left on Saturday and the Canadian girl who I'll be working with has gone home for a month so I am all by my confused lonesome. But! this means people are being ultra nice to me.

I don't seem to be able to leave the house without being whisked away to some wee house for dinner. I set out on Saturday evening to buy cornflakes for breakfast and ended up watching crazy TV and being fed (and fed and fed) three courses by this lovely lady who runs the local dairy. She is a friend of the Chinese JET who lives upstairs and apparently I am eating every meal there for the foreseeable future!

On Friday night we had the leaving do for Phillip - a BBQ Japanese style. This means small chunks of flame grilled vegetables for starters and then buckets of still-living sea creatures tipped onto the fire. I can't name most of what I have eaten in any language. I will post a picture when i can. As the evening went on and the sake flowed people began discussing karaoke. Due to language difficulties my conversations consisted of people naming songs and me singing a phrase to make sure we were on the same wavelength. By the time we got to the bar I had apparently promised to sing just about every Beatles song and an unhealthy amount of Billy Joel... all good. I specialise in making an arse of myself in public and it went down well (as far as i could tell).

Anyway. life continues to be hot (33), muggy(90%), confusing and exciting.
Hope you are all keeping well.
donna

OKI

2005-07-28T19:31:00.000+09:00

Hello people. I am now on the island. It is tiny and wee. I think half the town knows I am here and I have been here less than 24 hours. There is an aussie on an island about 3km away and an American on the next island which is offically the most isolated JET posting in Japan. So I guess I am the third most remote posting. I have so far eaten many kinds of raw fish and some sea snail things that have a salt fire lit under them while they are still in their shells and been given beer and rice balls by random people in the street at a festival. Day 1 has been interesting.
I don't have a house yet because the guy I am taking over from is still in there. I am accross the hall with the Canadian girl who is staying for another year. The houses are very cute a pretty spacious... remember there is always a spare futon should anyone want to visit!
Unfortunately I am unbelievably mind-numbingly tired! This comes from total lack of comprehension of anything, I believe. I keep thinking people are talking about me (which they often are) becuase my name is Japanese for 'what'.
Ah yes, and to explain the title of this thing, these islands emperors and aristocrats were sent into exile here for hundreds of years so some of the wee nearby islands have cool castle which I hope to explore some time.
that's all I have time for today I think.
hope everyone is well and good. I don't actually know how the message board works on this thing so please email me still.
no sign of monkeys yet...
donna

2005-07-03T18:53:00.000+09:00