August 12, 2005 - Friday (((What's with the white space???)))
Today we had to go to the safety briefing to learn about driving in Japan. We’ve been working on memorizing the “international” driving signs all week – of course the international signs look nothing like anything in the US and the people from Germany said that they are different international signs than they learned over there. Go figure! Anyway, from 08:00-15:00 we watched videos of people getting hit by cars, cars running over motorcycles/mopeds, and the results of drinking and driving. In between the gruesome videos the instructor talked about what we would need to know for the written test. The whole day could have been much shorter if they had just said, “Stay sober and drive slowly.” I passed the written test and was able to schedule my road test for Monday at 09:00. Evelyn and Debra chose the same time, and since they test three people at a time, we will all be together.
After that we walked over to the school to check in and then went back to the Navy Lodge. Amazingly, Josh had done the math AND civics assignment for the day, and was waiting for me to arrive so that we could do English together. (We had a heart-to-heart on Thursday night that seems to have made an impact – for the moment.) We didn’t get to finish because at 17:00 we had an appointment to see our house one more time. We borrowed a tape measure and waited for the agent to arrive. She is great! Unlike most of the other agents, she speaks excellent English. That is a major plus because she is also the owner, so any problems we have will be addressed by her. Her father was American, so the family is more tolerant of the American customs…like hanging pictures on the wall! Most of the owners don’t allow you to hang anything up without permission. The permission must be given to each individual picture rather than in general. We took lots of pictures and measure all of the rooms.
Have I mentioned that I love the house??? I can’t wait to move in and get all of my stuff! Unfortunately when I called the Inbound Personal Property Office, they said it would be here by September 17th. I don’t know what happened to the September 2nd date I was given by the outbound office in Miami. Oh well! The housing office here will loan out furniture for free while you wait for your own things to come, so I plan to move in as soon as my pay advance comes. In Japan, you have to pay your security deposit (two months rent if you have a pet) and first month of rent, as well as an agent fee and an owner fee, each equal to one of rent. That is a total of five months of rent to get into a house! The agent and owner fees are nonrefundable and non-reimbursable (unlike my rent), but there is a possibility that I may only have to pay one fee since my agent owns the house. I’ll find out on Wednesday at my SPW (Start Paperwork) Appointment. (The acronyms are driving me crazy! They are worse than the Japanese language because no one expects you to know Japanese and everyone just takes for granted that you know what all the letters stand for! UGH! People keep promising to give me a list of important acronyms but it has yet to show up.)
After taking lots of pictures and measurements, the agent brought us back to base. Josh got through the gate again without having to do the visitor paperwork, so we are going to try to redo that in order to allow him to come on base more later. He is only officially allowed to come on the base for 60 days a year, but we have been here for almost a week and he hasn’t had to sign in or anything, so that should work in our favor later. I haven’t done anything about getting him more than 90 days, but he keeps telling me to work on that. I was really surprised! I figured he would want to go home as soon as possible, so I asked why he cared if he could stay and he actually said he likes it here! That was nice to hear. The other teachers have all said what a great kid he is and how he gets along with everyone. He really likes Duke (Debra’s husband), the entertainer. The joke is that it takes a village to raise a child and poor Josh’s village is full of teachers now.
When we got back to base, Josh met up with his friends to go to a movie and I went with all of the new teachers to go to dinner at the mall off-base. Wow! It is huge! Rather than a food court, the second and third floors are mostly restaurants. We ended up going to a place where you cook your own food in the middle of the table. It was really good and lots of fun. Unfortunately, after we were finished with dinner we were too tired to wander around the mall so we walked back to the Navy Lodge. The walking thing is getting a little old since it is so warm here, but I’m okay with it since it is walking with a purpose. ;)
Josh wasn’t in the room when I got back and didn’t get back by 22:30 which is the on-base curfew for kids his age. His excuse was that he was still in the movie. Hmmm, wonder if the military police would buy that excuse? Somehow I doubt it!
After that we walked over to the school to check in and then went back to the Navy Lodge. Amazingly, Josh had done the math AND civics assignment for the day, and was waiting for me to arrive so that we could do English together. (We had a heart-to-heart on Thursday night that seems to have made an impact – for the moment.) We didn’t get to finish because at 17:00 we had an appointment to see our house one more time. We borrowed a tape measure and waited for the agent to arrive. She is great! Unlike most of the other agents, she speaks excellent English. That is a major plus because she is also the owner, so any problems we have will be addressed by her. Her father was American, so the family is more tolerant of the American customs…like hanging pictures on the wall! Most of the owners don’t allow you to hang anything up without permission. The permission must be given to each individual picture rather than in general. We took lots of pictures and measure all of the rooms.
Have I mentioned that I love the house??? I can’t wait to move in and get all of my stuff! Unfortunately when I called the Inbound Personal Property Office, they said it would be here by September 17th. I don’t know what happened to the September 2nd date I was given by the outbound office in Miami. Oh well! The housing office here will loan out furniture for free while you wait for your own things to come, so I plan to move in as soon as my pay advance comes. In Japan, you have to pay your security deposit (two months rent if you have a pet) and first month of rent, as well as an agent fee and an owner fee, each equal to one of rent. That is a total of five months of rent to get into a house! The agent and owner fees are nonrefundable and non-reimbursable (unlike my rent), but there is a possibility that I may only have to pay one fee since my agent owns the house. I’ll find out on Wednesday at my SPW (Start Paperwork) Appointment. (The acronyms are driving me crazy! They are worse than the Japanese language because no one expects you to know Japanese and everyone just takes for granted that you know what all the letters stand for! UGH! People keep promising to give me a list of important acronyms but it has yet to show up.)
After taking lots of pictures and measurements, the agent brought us back to base. Josh got through the gate again without having to do the visitor paperwork, so we are going to try to redo that in order to allow him to come on base more later. He is only officially allowed to come on the base for 60 days a year, but we have been here for almost a week and he hasn’t had to sign in or anything, so that should work in our favor later. I haven’t done anything about getting him more than 90 days, but he keeps telling me to work on that. I was really surprised! I figured he would want to go home as soon as possible, so I asked why he cared if he could stay and he actually said he likes it here! That was nice to hear. The other teachers have all said what a great kid he is and how he gets along with everyone. He really likes Duke (Debra’s husband), the entertainer. The joke is that it takes a village to raise a child and poor Josh’s village is full of teachers now.
When we got back to base, Josh met up with his friends to go to a movie and I went with all of the new teachers to go to dinner at the mall off-base. Wow! It is huge! Rather than a food court, the second and third floors are mostly restaurants. We ended up going to a place where you cook your own food in the middle of the table. It was really good and lots of fun. Unfortunately, after we were finished with dinner we were too tired to wander around the mall so we walked back to the Navy Lodge. The walking thing is getting a little old since it is so warm here, but I’m okay with it since it is walking with a purpose. ;)
Josh wasn’t in the room when I got back and didn’t get back by 22:30 which is the on-base curfew for kids his age. His excuse was that he was still in the movie. Hmmm, wonder if the military police would buy that excuse? Somehow I doubt it!
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