No, I didn't fall off the end of the earth!
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Well, I knew that the daily blogging wouldn’t continue once I started working, but I didn’t think I could go for two weeks without writing anything. With school starting and moving out of the lodge, we’ve been pretty busy.
The work days at school were full of meetings and very frustrating because they didn’t seem at all organized. Different people were in charge of each segment of time and then when they finished, we were free to go back to our rooms – for about 15 minutes, until the next meeting. There was a lot of time scheduled for the tech department but the new computer system kept failing, so we still haven’t had any training on the new software and don’t have any way to do our grades (even though school has started). I asked if I could buy my own copy of GradeQuick to use and they said no because they want everyone to use the same program…the one that doesn’t work. Yippee! We also didn’t have accurate attendance lists for the first day of school. That still isn’t worked out either. I have 24 students in one World Geography class and 10 in another. The other two have about 18 students each, which I guess is going to be the norm. They said that they will work on balancing our teams on Tuesday. That would be nice so that I could set up some kind of list to start taking grades and keeping accurate attendance, but why rush!!! They finally decided that we could buy a gradebook called “Excel-lent” because it is Excel based. I’m going to look into that tomorrow. Thank goodness we have a three day weekend…I really needed it!
My classes are going very well. The students seem to be well behaved, for the most part, and respectful. Their personalities are beginning to show as they get more comfortable. Having about 80 new students is making learning all of their names very difficult, but I think I’ve almost got them all. There are some very unique names and there are kids from every ethnic background imaginable. It is so diverse that prejudice doesn’t seem an issue.
We had our Open House on the third day of school. Basically it was exactly like Meet the Teacher at SRCS, when parents and students just walk around and say hello to the teachers. It lasted from 16:00-18:00. It seemed like a long, long, long time! The parents who came were very nice and all of them said that they would be supportive if they were needed. J Hopefully the other ones will be also. I have no idea which parents came because at the time, I didn’t even know the kids, but it is nice to have that over with. We don’t have Curriculum Night or anything else with the parents until Student Led Conferences. Those sound like they will be interesting…can’t wait to see how the students do that!
Josh and I moved out of the Navy Lodge on Saturday, August 27, 2005. We should have moved out the day before, but Typhoon Mawar came on Thursday night and made things that much more interesting. Apparently the base commander is relatively new and this was his first typhoon. He decided to close the base at 16:00 on Thursday and that meant that everyone at school who lives off-base had to go home. Since we were still in the lodge, we could stay or go. I had my contract signing, so I went to do that. Luckily the appointment was for 15:00 because appointments that were later had to be cancelled. At the signing I got load of information about garbage. They separate everything here and have 5 different days for garbage. According to several staff members, if you mess it up, your neighbors bring your garbage back to your house and yell at you in Japanese. Doesn’t sound like a good way to start, so I’m hoping to get it right. I think I’ll just have to get several garbage cans and label them.
At the contract signing, I asked about my waterbed because when I read the lease I noticed that I had to get approval from the landlord to have it. She asked how heavy it is. Hmmmmm…I don’t know. So she is going to talk to the builder and see what he says. She is afraid that since the bedroom is on the second floor, it may not be possible. UGH! I love my bed!
Once the signing was over, I went back to school to work in my room. Josh came with because he wanted to ride around base in my new car. We did a little exploring before we went to my classroom. The car is a 1990 Eunos Roadster. In the US, it is called a Mazda Miata. Here though, it is the perfect sized car! Mine is red, and, like all of the others, it is a convertible. The car guy bought it at the auction, so I didn’t get to see it or drive it before I bought it, but he guaranteed that it would pass the base inspection or that he would fix whatever needed to be fixed. I did NOT like the idea of buying from an auction, but it turned out okay. The car is in great shape and the paint only has a couple of places where it is chipped. After being here for about two weeks, I was about ready to drive anything, but I really like the Roadster! The only problem is that the car didn’t have a CD player or working radio. No problem! Josh and I went to the NEX and bought one, and he assured me that he could install it within 10 minutes. A week later, I still have no CD or radio. Apparently since the car is so old, the connections have changed. To complicate matters, I bought an American CD player to put into a Japanese car. I was told to go get a conversion kit at the local “Discount Auto” look-alike and they told me the kit costs about $189! That doesn’t make any sense to install a $79 CD player, so I looked at their Japanese CD players and those don’t have the same connections either. I’m not sure how to solve this problem, so I have put Josh on the job. We’ll see how that goes…
Anyway, on typhoon day, I got the car at about noon and had to go to get Japanese insurance and plates. The car lot guy was great and he sent his associate with me to translate. By the time we finished, I had several documents I couldn’t read, but they assured me I could legal drive the car. We drove around on base for a while and I tried to get used to driving on the wrong side of the car. That is going to take A LOT of getting used to. I’ve had the car for about a week and a half now, and I’m getting comfortable…which is a problem because then I don’t think. I actually pulled onto the wrong side of the road on base the other day because there were no other cars to follow. The car driving straight at me was my first clue that something was wrong! Josh has decided that he is my driving assistant/instructor. Sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes I just want to smack him! J I seem to have overcome the urge to get in the car on the wrong side, but Josh is still doing it…maybe because he wants to drive.
After working in my classroom to pull out all of the junk left by previous teachers (somebody needs to check people out here!), Josh and I went back to the lodge to await our first typhoon. We were not impressed. There was no reason to close the base or cancel school…there were about three leaves on the ground and that was it! It worked out very well though, because the next day school was closed and I didn’t miss anything there. I had to be at the house by 13:00 to wait for the loaner furniture to be delivered and the gas man to come hook up our gas. The loaner furniture is a joke…Josh keeps calling it the fake furniture. The couch is way too small and uncomfortable, but it’ll get us through until my real stuff arrives. With no TV and no computer, we decided on Sunday that we needed to go exploring. I wanted to see the NEX at Yokota Air Force Base so I could check on TV prices (I want a big TV for the living room so I can keep my small one in my bedroom. Yokota turned out to be about 2 hours away and we left early to beat the traffic. That worked out well on the way there but the traffic was horrible on the way home. I realized, however, that we were right by the five-story hundred yen store, so we stopped there and Josh was impressed by the size and plethora of junk available. Yokota had a great store (not called a NEX – Navy Exchange – because it is an Air Force base…duh!) and we got several things we needed for the house. Josh was so excited to have to hold several bags on his lap (the trunk was completely stuffed) all the way home. When we got back to base I wanted to work in my classroom some. He offered to help since it was my birthday. After a while he realized that I had dragged him far away so that he couldn’t tell everyone that it was my 30th birthday. J Hehehehehe! That backfired because he called Debra who yelled at me for not saying anything. No food for Josh this week…I never like him anyway!
Josh was invited to see Dukes of Hazard (yuck!), so I was able to stay in the room and work until it was cleaned up and organized. I felt so much better when I had gotten rid of the junk in there and organized the other stuff. I didn’t hang anything up because I couldn’t stand the thought of having to re-do it when my stuff arrived, so it was a very blank classroom on the first day of school. I told the kids to imagine that it was decorated and I told them what to envision where. They thought that was funny and several of them described what to imagine to their parents when they came in to Open House. They also want to see pictures of Kitty…but I don’t have any because I got a new computer and all of my files are packed with my stuff. Oh well…maybe I can get Diane to take some to send me.
Our team at school, Gojilla, seems to be getting off to a pretty good start. The one guy we have is rather interesting and somewhat hard to work with, but he seems to be learning that he has to compromise. He now compromises a little tiny bit and then complains loudly about how inconvenient it is to change the way he has always done things. He sees himself as a technology guru…and can’t imagine why I haven’t come to ask him for help. Peggy, our team leader, calls him Mr. DeWalt and calls the rest of us by our first names. When he introduced himself to me he said his name was Alvin DeWalt, so I asked if he went by Alvin. He said he does…I call him Al. J
There seems to be some controversy regarding what the word “Gojilla” means. Everyone at the school said it was a gorilla, but the kids think it means Godzilla. Then I saw last year’s team shirt and it looks like a Godzilla. But the other seventh grade teams are Tora (tiger) and Kuma (I think that is their name – but it means bear), so gorilla makes more sense than Godzilla. On open house night I asked some of the Japanese speaking parents and they said it was Godzilla. I looked it up in my handy-dandy translator and it says that gorilla translates to gorira, but doesn’t say what Godzilla is. I am already tired of trying to figure out what Japanese words mean. The Japanese characters (there are more than 2000) don’t make any sense to me and you can’t type them into the computer to figure out what they mean because they aren’t on my keyboard. The spoken language is supposed to be easy, but again the characters are a problem because if someone is asking something, you can’t just look it up the way it sounds without know what character they are saying. Some things are in Romanji which means that the words are written with the same letters we use, but you don’t see that everywhere. Packages and directions and bills and labels on appliances are all written using the Japanese characters. So we have to guess what cycle the washing machine is using and what buttons to push on the remote control for the A/C and heaters. I think my phone does some very cool stuff, but I have no idea how to make it happen. I found some of the user guides and the previous tenant has translated some of the things, but I still have no idea what all of the buttons on the toilet and stove and hot water thingy are. So far, that has been the most frustrating part of moving halfway around the world. I went from being somewhat intelligent and able to figure out how to use my gadgets to being completely illiterate and very frustrated with them. That is why I bought the American CD player for the car and my TV on base! But the washer and dryer came from the base and they are in Japanese, so that is not always a safe be either. And I won’t even go into the nutritional labels on the food!
Speaking of food, Josh and I had our first food related trauma on Friday after school. Evelyn met us for dinner and we walked over to the mall. We decided to try someplace new since we had been to the Korean BBQ place twice. We ended up at Ducky Duck, which had pasta out in front. It looked good so we went inside. They didn’t have an English menu, so we pointed at the pictures we thought looked good. We ended up with fish flavored sauce on our pasta. Mine was also cold pasta. It was soooooo gross! We left and came home to eat Beefaroni…the only thing we can cook with our current kitchen supplies. Who knew Beefaroni could be such a welcome meal!
On Saturday (September 3) Josh and I went for a ride. We decided to go out of our neighborhood and turn right…something we have been dying to do since we moved in. We kept getting home after dark and so figured today was our chance. It is really very pretty over there. We found two beaches…they aren’t as nice as Florida beaches, but they weren’t too bad. There weren’t any waves, but I don’t know if that is how it always is or if it just isn’t the season. When we got back we decided to straighten up. As we were starting, the doorbell rang. It was Knurse Knapp’s brother Jack and his wife Wasana. They were very nice and didn’t even seem to notice our lovely cleaning attire. They showed us their house and I was amazed to see that they can actually see our house from their kitchen window! Jack showed us that we are supposed to have a net in the sink to keep gunk from going down there and told us that it should be thrown out with the Monday garbage…so many little details to remember! Wasana offered to take us to the grocery store and show us around, but we declined so that we could make it to Camp Zama before their bazaar was over. They are very nice, and offered to loan their van if we ever need it to move stuff around…can’t imagine why they would think that would be necessary. J Maybe they heard stories from the neighbors about how goofy we looked moving in from the Navy Lodge! We made it in two trips, but looked like the Beverly Hillbillies each time.
We went to Camp Zama. It is near the five-story hundred yen store, so we ended up going there for the third time in as many weeks. Traffic was horrible on the way there but we made it by 16:00. They had a lot of furniture and a few other little things, but I didn’t buy anything. I need to wait for a paycheck before I do that. It was nice to see what to expect when our bazaar happens at the end of the month (our PTO gets some of the proceeds). I really want one of those cool step cabinets and a Japanese table for my tatami room. After the bazaar ended we went to the 100 yen store and headed home. Luckily traffic was much better. We stayed up until after 22:00 last night…a first for us in Japan!
So far, today was my favorite day in our new house! I scheduled a cleaning lady to come! Hehehehehehehe! I loved it! She brought a Japanese guy and they cleaned out all of the cabinets and closets, the refrigerator and freezer, the bathroom and kitchen, and then washed all of the floors. It was wonderful! Now we are ready for our stuff to arrive. It is coming on Wednesday, so I got administrative leave for Wednesday and Thursday. I have to do sub plans, but I purposely chose Wed. and Thurs. so that I would only have to do one lesson plan since that is one A day and one B day. AND, I didn’t have to find my own sub!!! I have no idea who is coming to cover my classes, but I didn’t have to make a single phone call to make it happen!
While the people were cleaning, I was organizing the billions of papers that I have been given from school, housing, appliance people, etc. since I got here. I made file folders and filled them up…so now my house is clean and my papers are organized! A near perfect day! At about noon, Victoria and her sons stopped by to invite Josh to go to the mall. He was happy to get out of the house, not that we have been here much, and I was glad to have some time by myself. That whole introvert thing hasn’t been a problem for me, but when he left and the cleaning people were gone it was sooooo nice!
All in all, things are going very, very well! I really like Japan and the adventure of having every single place I go be new and different. It is much prettier here that I thought and not nearly as crowded as I imagined. I have been so glad that Josh is here, too. He has been great company and makes it easy to be far away from the rest of my family and friends. He seems to be doing well too. I decided that we would take a break from school work while I got things going in my classroom, but we will start that again tomorrow. In the meantime, he has been coming to the base with me everyday (he isn’t happy that we have to be out of the house by 06:00!) and wandering around talking to people. He has lots of friends and several babysitting possibilities lined up. It hasn’t been a problem getting him on base without an ID. Supposedly he is supposed to have a visitor pass every time and he can only come on base for 60 out of every 365 days. We have been here a month and only had to get a visitor pass for one day!
Well, I think I’ll go on base and post this since it has been so long. I’m sure there are lots of things I left out, so drop me an email if there is anything you are curious about. I’ll try not to let it go so long between updates…when we get internet access, it will be much easier.
PS – I thought I would update the blog first and respond to individual e-mails tomorrow. So if you sent me something, I’ll get back to you soon. Keep the e-mails coming...I love hearing from everyone! Also, I added a few more pictures to my Flickr site. Click the title of the post to see them. :)
Well, I knew that the daily blogging wouldn’t continue once I started working, but I didn’t think I could go for two weeks without writing anything. With school starting and moving out of the lodge, we’ve been pretty busy.
The work days at school were full of meetings and very frustrating because they didn’t seem at all organized. Different people were in charge of each segment of time and then when they finished, we were free to go back to our rooms – for about 15 minutes, until the next meeting. There was a lot of time scheduled for the tech department but the new computer system kept failing, so we still haven’t had any training on the new software and don’t have any way to do our grades (even though school has started). I asked if I could buy my own copy of GradeQuick to use and they said no because they want everyone to use the same program…the one that doesn’t work. Yippee! We also didn’t have accurate attendance lists for the first day of school. That still isn’t worked out either. I have 24 students in one World Geography class and 10 in another. The other two have about 18 students each, which I guess is going to be the norm. They said that they will work on balancing our teams on Tuesday. That would be nice so that I could set up some kind of list to start taking grades and keeping accurate attendance, but why rush!!! They finally decided that we could buy a gradebook called “Excel-lent” because it is Excel based. I’m going to look into that tomorrow. Thank goodness we have a three day weekend…I really needed it!
My classes are going very well. The students seem to be well behaved, for the most part, and respectful. Their personalities are beginning to show as they get more comfortable. Having about 80 new students is making learning all of their names very difficult, but I think I’ve almost got them all. There are some very unique names and there are kids from every ethnic background imaginable. It is so diverse that prejudice doesn’t seem an issue.
We had our Open House on the third day of school. Basically it was exactly like Meet the Teacher at SRCS, when parents and students just walk around and say hello to the teachers. It lasted from 16:00-18:00. It seemed like a long, long, long time! The parents who came were very nice and all of them said that they would be supportive if they were needed. J Hopefully the other ones will be also. I have no idea which parents came because at the time, I didn’t even know the kids, but it is nice to have that over with. We don’t have Curriculum Night or anything else with the parents until Student Led Conferences. Those sound like they will be interesting…can’t wait to see how the students do that!
Josh and I moved out of the Navy Lodge on Saturday, August 27, 2005. We should have moved out the day before, but Typhoon Mawar came on Thursday night and made things that much more interesting. Apparently the base commander is relatively new and this was his first typhoon. He decided to close the base at 16:00 on Thursday and that meant that everyone at school who lives off-base had to go home. Since we were still in the lodge, we could stay or go. I had my contract signing, so I went to do that. Luckily the appointment was for 15:00 because appointments that were later had to be cancelled. At the signing I got load of information about garbage. They separate everything here and have 5 different days for garbage. According to several staff members, if you mess it up, your neighbors bring your garbage back to your house and yell at you in Japanese. Doesn’t sound like a good way to start, so I’m hoping to get it right. I think I’ll just have to get several garbage cans and label them.
At the contract signing, I asked about my waterbed because when I read the lease I noticed that I had to get approval from the landlord to have it. She asked how heavy it is. Hmmmmm…I don’t know. So she is going to talk to the builder and see what he says. She is afraid that since the bedroom is on the second floor, it may not be possible. UGH! I love my bed!
Once the signing was over, I went back to school to work in my room. Josh came with because he wanted to ride around base in my new car. We did a little exploring before we went to my classroom. The car is a 1990 Eunos Roadster. In the US, it is called a Mazda Miata. Here though, it is the perfect sized car! Mine is red, and, like all of the others, it is a convertible. The car guy bought it at the auction, so I didn’t get to see it or drive it before I bought it, but he guaranteed that it would pass the base inspection or that he would fix whatever needed to be fixed. I did NOT like the idea of buying from an auction, but it turned out okay. The car is in great shape and the paint only has a couple of places where it is chipped. After being here for about two weeks, I was about ready to drive anything, but I really like the Roadster! The only problem is that the car didn’t have a CD player or working radio. No problem! Josh and I went to the NEX and bought one, and he assured me that he could install it within 10 minutes. A week later, I still have no CD or radio. Apparently since the car is so old, the connections have changed. To complicate matters, I bought an American CD player to put into a Japanese car. I was told to go get a conversion kit at the local “Discount Auto” look-alike and they told me the kit costs about $189! That doesn’t make any sense to install a $79 CD player, so I looked at their Japanese CD players and those don’t have the same connections either. I’m not sure how to solve this problem, so I have put Josh on the job. We’ll see how that goes…
Anyway, on typhoon day, I got the car at about noon and had to go to get Japanese insurance and plates. The car lot guy was great and he sent his associate with me to translate. By the time we finished, I had several documents I couldn’t read, but they assured me I could legal drive the car. We drove around on base for a while and I tried to get used to driving on the wrong side of the car. That is going to take A LOT of getting used to. I’ve had the car for about a week and a half now, and I’m getting comfortable…which is a problem because then I don’t think. I actually pulled onto the wrong side of the road on base the other day because there were no other cars to follow. The car driving straight at me was my first clue that something was wrong! Josh has decided that he is my driving assistant/instructor. Sometimes it’s helpful and sometimes I just want to smack him! J I seem to have overcome the urge to get in the car on the wrong side, but Josh is still doing it…maybe because he wants to drive.
After working in my classroom to pull out all of the junk left by previous teachers (somebody needs to check people out here!), Josh and I went back to the lodge to await our first typhoon. We were not impressed. There was no reason to close the base or cancel school…there were about three leaves on the ground and that was it! It worked out very well though, because the next day school was closed and I didn’t miss anything there. I had to be at the house by 13:00 to wait for the loaner furniture to be delivered and the gas man to come hook up our gas. The loaner furniture is a joke…Josh keeps calling it the fake furniture. The couch is way too small and uncomfortable, but it’ll get us through until my real stuff arrives. With no TV and no computer, we decided on Sunday that we needed to go exploring. I wanted to see the NEX at Yokota Air Force Base so I could check on TV prices (I want a big TV for the living room so I can keep my small one in my bedroom. Yokota turned out to be about 2 hours away and we left early to beat the traffic. That worked out well on the way there but the traffic was horrible on the way home. I realized, however, that we were right by the five-story hundred yen store, so we stopped there and Josh was impressed by the size and plethora of junk available. Yokota had a great store (not called a NEX – Navy Exchange – because it is an Air Force base…duh!) and we got several things we needed for the house. Josh was so excited to have to hold several bags on his lap (the trunk was completely stuffed) all the way home. When we got back to base I wanted to work in my classroom some. He offered to help since it was my birthday. After a while he realized that I had dragged him far away so that he couldn’t tell everyone that it was my 30th birthday. J Hehehehehe! That backfired because he called Debra who yelled at me for not saying anything. No food for Josh this week…I never like him anyway!
Josh was invited to see Dukes of Hazard (yuck!), so I was able to stay in the room and work until it was cleaned up and organized. I felt so much better when I had gotten rid of the junk in there and organized the other stuff. I didn’t hang anything up because I couldn’t stand the thought of having to re-do it when my stuff arrived, so it was a very blank classroom on the first day of school. I told the kids to imagine that it was decorated and I told them what to envision where. They thought that was funny and several of them described what to imagine to their parents when they came in to Open House. They also want to see pictures of Kitty…but I don’t have any because I got a new computer and all of my files are packed with my stuff. Oh well…maybe I can get Diane to take some to send me.
Our team at school, Gojilla, seems to be getting off to a pretty good start. The one guy we have is rather interesting and somewhat hard to work with, but he seems to be learning that he has to compromise. He now compromises a little tiny bit and then complains loudly about how inconvenient it is to change the way he has always done things. He sees himself as a technology guru…and can’t imagine why I haven’t come to ask him for help. Peggy, our team leader, calls him Mr. DeWalt and calls the rest of us by our first names. When he introduced himself to me he said his name was Alvin DeWalt, so I asked if he went by Alvin. He said he does…I call him Al. J
There seems to be some controversy regarding what the word “Gojilla” means. Everyone at the school said it was a gorilla, but the kids think it means Godzilla. Then I saw last year’s team shirt and it looks like a Godzilla. But the other seventh grade teams are Tora (tiger) and Kuma (I think that is their name – but it means bear), so gorilla makes more sense than Godzilla. On open house night I asked some of the Japanese speaking parents and they said it was Godzilla. I looked it up in my handy-dandy translator and it says that gorilla translates to gorira, but doesn’t say what Godzilla is. I am already tired of trying to figure out what Japanese words mean. The Japanese characters (there are more than 2000) don’t make any sense to me and you can’t type them into the computer to figure out what they mean because they aren’t on my keyboard. The spoken language is supposed to be easy, but again the characters are a problem because if someone is asking something, you can’t just look it up the way it sounds without know what character they are saying. Some things are in Romanji which means that the words are written with the same letters we use, but you don’t see that everywhere. Packages and directions and bills and labels on appliances are all written using the Japanese characters. So we have to guess what cycle the washing machine is using and what buttons to push on the remote control for the A/C and heaters. I think my phone does some very cool stuff, but I have no idea how to make it happen. I found some of the user guides and the previous tenant has translated some of the things, but I still have no idea what all of the buttons on the toilet and stove and hot water thingy are. So far, that has been the most frustrating part of moving halfway around the world. I went from being somewhat intelligent and able to figure out how to use my gadgets to being completely illiterate and very frustrated with them. That is why I bought the American CD player for the car and my TV on base! But the washer and dryer came from the base and they are in Japanese, so that is not always a safe be either. And I won’t even go into the nutritional labels on the food!
Speaking of food, Josh and I had our first food related trauma on Friday after school. Evelyn met us for dinner and we walked over to the mall. We decided to try someplace new since we had been to the Korean BBQ place twice. We ended up at Ducky Duck, which had pasta out in front. It looked good so we went inside. They didn’t have an English menu, so we pointed at the pictures we thought looked good. We ended up with fish flavored sauce on our pasta. Mine was also cold pasta. It was soooooo gross! We left and came home to eat Beefaroni…the only thing we can cook with our current kitchen supplies. Who knew Beefaroni could be such a welcome meal!
On Saturday (September 3) Josh and I went for a ride. We decided to go out of our neighborhood and turn right…something we have been dying to do since we moved in. We kept getting home after dark and so figured today was our chance. It is really very pretty over there. We found two beaches…they aren’t as nice as Florida beaches, but they weren’t too bad. There weren’t any waves, but I don’t know if that is how it always is or if it just isn’t the season. When we got back we decided to straighten up. As we were starting, the doorbell rang. It was Knurse Knapp’s brother Jack and his wife Wasana. They were very nice and didn’t even seem to notice our lovely cleaning attire. They showed us their house and I was amazed to see that they can actually see our house from their kitchen window! Jack showed us that we are supposed to have a net in the sink to keep gunk from going down there and told us that it should be thrown out with the Monday garbage…so many little details to remember! Wasana offered to take us to the grocery store and show us around, but we declined so that we could make it to Camp Zama before their bazaar was over. They are very nice, and offered to loan their van if we ever need it to move stuff around…can’t imagine why they would think that would be necessary. J Maybe they heard stories from the neighbors about how goofy we looked moving in from the Navy Lodge! We made it in two trips, but looked like the Beverly Hillbillies each time.
We went to Camp Zama. It is near the five-story hundred yen store, so we ended up going there for the third time in as many weeks. Traffic was horrible on the way there but we made it by 16:00. They had a lot of furniture and a few other little things, but I didn’t buy anything. I need to wait for a paycheck before I do that. It was nice to see what to expect when our bazaar happens at the end of the month (our PTO gets some of the proceeds). I really want one of those cool step cabinets and a Japanese table for my tatami room. After the bazaar ended we went to the 100 yen store and headed home. Luckily traffic was much better. We stayed up until after 22:00 last night…a first for us in Japan!
So far, today was my favorite day in our new house! I scheduled a cleaning lady to come! Hehehehehehehe! I loved it! She brought a Japanese guy and they cleaned out all of the cabinets and closets, the refrigerator and freezer, the bathroom and kitchen, and then washed all of the floors. It was wonderful! Now we are ready for our stuff to arrive. It is coming on Wednesday, so I got administrative leave for Wednesday and Thursday. I have to do sub plans, but I purposely chose Wed. and Thurs. so that I would only have to do one lesson plan since that is one A day and one B day. AND, I didn’t have to find my own sub!!! I have no idea who is coming to cover my classes, but I didn’t have to make a single phone call to make it happen!
While the people were cleaning, I was organizing the billions of papers that I have been given from school, housing, appliance people, etc. since I got here. I made file folders and filled them up…so now my house is clean and my papers are organized! A near perfect day! At about noon, Victoria and her sons stopped by to invite Josh to go to the mall. He was happy to get out of the house, not that we have been here much, and I was glad to have some time by myself. That whole introvert thing hasn’t been a problem for me, but when he left and the cleaning people were gone it was sooooo nice!
All in all, things are going very, very well! I really like Japan and the adventure of having every single place I go be new and different. It is much prettier here that I thought and not nearly as crowded as I imagined. I have been so glad that Josh is here, too. He has been great company and makes it easy to be far away from the rest of my family and friends. He seems to be doing well too. I decided that we would take a break from school work while I got things going in my classroom, but we will start that again tomorrow. In the meantime, he has been coming to the base with me everyday (he isn’t happy that we have to be out of the house by 06:00!) and wandering around talking to people. He has lots of friends and several babysitting possibilities lined up. It hasn’t been a problem getting him on base without an ID. Supposedly he is supposed to have a visitor pass every time and he can only come on base for 60 out of every 365 days. We have been here a month and only had to get a visitor pass for one day!
Well, I think I’ll go on base and post this since it has been so long. I’m sure there are lots of things I left out, so drop me an email if there is anything you are curious about. I’ll try not to let it go so long between updates…when we get internet access, it will be much easier.
PS – I thought I would update the blog first and respond to individual e-mails tomorrow. So if you sent me something, I’ll get back to you soon. Keep the e-mails coming...I love hearing from everyone! Also, I added a few more pictures to my Flickr site. Click the title of the post to see them. :)
1 Comments:
We were wondering if you had fallen off the face of the earth, but no - in fact, you had only gone somewhere in the far east. Glad you got moved and got a car. Keep us informed. As I type this, Grandma is reading a printed copy of your latest post. She loves it.
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