some skype loving recap

These couple mornings when I was studying and on Google chat at work...I was able to chat with the sisters and mom for a little bit in text. It was great. But not awesome. Yesterday morning Becky wanted to Skype with me, but I didn't know how the office would react to that...so we didn't Skype. But I suppose it would be just like a phone call.... Remember I told you, Hannah's office is a lot more noisier than mine? She told me she skyped with many friends at her desk all the time...(I will just bring my mic and webcam to work with me just in case...)

Anyways, Skype is awesome and I'm thankful for internet...:P It helped me to kind of be there for many events and made catching up a lot faster and easier. For example, Skype let me know what Becky engagement ring looked like and how sweet the story was right away.

And because Becky and I couldn't Skype yesterday morning, she emailed me a picture of her looking "more" pregnant. Wonderful wonderful. Thank you email (& Becky, Apple computers and baby!) 

new friend

It is the week of midterms (already!) for the junior high and senior high kids. (Here in Japan, they get done with the school year in Feb/March.) With midterm exams on the schedule, I didn't have to go to my classes for couple of days and I only have one class for tomorrow! Yay for Fridays! :) So, one of the teachers in my department who is just 2 years old than me will take the other TA Hannah and I to the bank and the immigration office in the morning. :)

Hannah who graduated from St. Bens with me, works in the same school also. It has been very fun and I'm glad that our personalities clicked pretty well right away. Hannah and Ryan (SJU grad) came to Okinawa around the end of August, exactly one month before I did. So it was nice that when I first got here, she was able to show me around and brought me to her favorite malls and restaurants. It definitely took a long time for me, Hannah and the school to know when I could arrive in Okinawa with a legitimate work visa..., but now that we found each other to go on adventures together, this year will be very fun and enjoyable.

Hannah works in the junior high English department, while I work in the PR office and help with senior high school students. My office is on the 1st floor and hers is on the 2nd floor. The whole school has 6th floors and it's quite big because the junior high and senior high school buildings are connected.

Anyways, the big spacious office she works in has a lot more teachers there and she is surrounded by fun and nice English/Math teachers. It's pretty much the main staff room so sometimes they will have meetings there.

Fun fact: instead of signing in somewhere to the network when we arrive the school, or getting time card stamped by a machine...I sign in with my own wooden Inkan stamp (印鑑) in that same staff room.

My office the PR department has a quieter atmosphere, but I am slowly realizing that most of teachers are very funny and enjoy each others company very much. The PR office takes care of all the exchange and visiting groups that go out to America, Taiwan, Canada..etc...and helps preparing cultural exchange activities for the students. A group of German student group came last week, and there will be a another group of Vietnamese students coming in around November.

1010

around my neighborhood. 

"The 1010 project was devised as an antidote to everything in modern life always having to be bigger, better, louder and brighter than what’s been before.  

It’s an opportunity to slow down and appreciate the simple, everyday things that make life beautiful."

Click to view pictures by 10 photographers in 10 different cities on October 10th, 2010.

A week after I left home,

mom came to visit. She told me because each time we talked on the phone, she felt my voice was less genki than the day before and to the point that she was worried about the living situation. "I found cheap tickets." she said. <3 

She stayed at my apartment for a week and helped me moved in (with new frying pan, cooker, hangers, food,  and LOTS of cleaning supplies and a suitcase full of winter clothes that I couldn't bring with because of the limit with my air ticket.)

Mom, Hannah and I tried to go out as much as we could after work, but mostly we were trying to clean the apartment. It is a nice and spacious apartment, however because my arrival was postponed...during the hot summer days, many big but thin, long legs spiders came to live in my closet. And hid under the drawers.

I did not touch any of the closets the first week because I was too tired and didn't have time or mainly the motivation to do it... When mom and I have pull all the drawers out and after she had killed 10+ spiders while I was at work, there was 10+ more spiders waiting for us to vacuum. (I am starting to itch as I type this.)

Mom bought me a small vacuum to get the dirty job done, we got wipes for the tatami mats, did hardcore cleaning that week. I didn't remember having many hours of sleep. But it's all clean now...thanks to Mom!

dinner with co-workers, vice principal & his wife

the second week...

of work was a little more intensive, but still I would be team teaching classes with another teacher and I was not as nervous. For a while I felt like I was being watched everywhere I go, and that's normal because I was the new teacher that came when school has already started for a month. And I do not look like a teacher, you know that. ;p

I prepared class materials couple times, help correct students' homework...and continued to fight with the internet. (repairing is the correct Window phrase. How I wish I am a Mac). It always cut me off when I am too fast and furious. Literally.

The work is not difficult , but it requires a huge amount of patient and energy that I am learning to have for the high school students. And the first week of work, I worked for 7 days non-stop because the school was having an open campus on Sunday for interested parents and students to visit.

I was able to get to work and home on time, learned to go to places for my bento (lunch box), got my prepaid Japanese cell phone from Softbank, got my foreigner ID and insurance set up, and learned what's like to be in high school again.

But most importantly to learn to speak in English 24/7 again.

For 4 months, I was at home comfortably just hanging out, later anxious and frustrated hoping to start working asap. Looking back I had too much fun playing, did not have a healthy sleeping schedule and spoke too little English.

But I look very genki (healthy/happy)

So the first week here I was trying to cook, eat, and go to bed on time. AND learned to walk in high heels, and eventually stopped wearing the ones that gave my feet bloody blisters. 

i was losing it

when I was at the all staff work meeting last Friday. It was all in Japanese for two hours and I got really uncomfortable and wanted to cry.

I tend to feel like that when I am very exhausted. So it wasn't anyone's fault, it was all me..

I knew it wasn't about the language too, because it is not the first time for me to be in a meeting like that. On the first day of work, other than I was being introduced in front of 70, 80 teachers that morning, I did about the same thing - I sat there trying to guess what was going on. It was a shorter one, but that Monday morning I was very excited and didn't feel dizzy at all.

Last Friday was my three-week mark. I was very exhausted and have been having too little sleep or food to be honest.

My first week of work has an easy schedule, I went around to meet teachers and tried to remember kids' name when they are being introduced to the new Risa Sensei (teacher). I fought with the wireless at school and in the apartment. My dell was not picking up any signals while my co-workers with light and pretty Fujitsu laptops were just cruising away on the internet anywhere at school.

I somehow found a hot spot near the window in my tatami bedroom. But because I sat there with a bad posture and blood circulation, and constantly being freaked out by the gecko outside my window... going on to the internet wasn't really a fun experience anymore.