hey all,
We finally got internet yesterday. At first, I couldn't figure out how to login to it, but we eventually figured out that a piece of mail containing our login info had either not arrived or had been accidentally thrown away. After Michi waited on the phone for 20 minutes or so, talked to a bunch of different customer service people, confirmed our information at least a dozen times, they finally gave us the username and password.
Both the wired and wireless seems to be working fine, and it is relatively fast.
The only other story of interest is that I caught some kind of cold that knocked me on my butt. I woke up yesterday with a pounding headache and a stuffy nose. I didn't think too much of it, and still went out shopping despite feeling really tired. I made some chili, and we got the internet hooked up, but by evening I was really pooped out.
Today, I woke up with the same headache and stuffy nose, and a slight fever, and stayed in bed until around 1PM. I got some medicine from Michi and she even made me some chicken soup. I'm feeling a lot better, but despite staying in bed almost the whole day, I'm probably going to go to bed around 10:30PM or so.
Cheers,
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Beet Red
hey all,
Not a whole lot new here. Michi had an infected tooth taken care of, but had a bad reaction to the antibiotic and has a bright red rash over most of her body. It seems to be getting better, but slowly.
Classes are going. Lots of stress and pressure, but they are still going pretty well. We`ve got another TV crew coming in in a few weeks, so the pressure is always on before that.
Still no internet, but supposedly it should be arriving this Saturday. In any case, I`m addicted to my Kindle app on my Android. I don`t know why I ever lugged all those books around in the first place. I wish they had more titles available, though.
The weather seems to be playing tricks on everyone. It will rain all day, cool down briefly, then become just as hot and even more unsufferably humid than before.
My fingers have still not recovered from their injury when I tried to flip that box over during moving myself in. Michi wants to go climbing, but I could barely hold the knife to cut some carrots the other night. I`ve got them taped up again, which seems to help.
Living together is...interesting. Tough some day, fun others, and just boring on others. Sometimes it is all three the same day.
Cheers,
Not a whole lot new here. Michi had an infected tooth taken care of, but had a bad reaction to the antibiotic and has a bright red rash over most of her body. It seems to be getting better, but slowly.
Classes are going. Lots of stress and pressure, but they are still going pretty well. We`ve got another TV crew coming in in a few weeks, so the pressure is always on before that.
Still no internet, but supposedly it should be arriving this Saturday. In any case, I`m addicted to my Kindle app on my Android. I don`t know why I ever lugged all those books around in the first place. I wish they had more titles available, though.
The weather seems to be playing tricks on everyone. It will rain all day, cool down briefly, then become just as hot and even more unsufferably humid than before.
My fingers have still not recovered from their injury when I tried to flip that box over during moving myself in. Michi wants to go climbing, but I could barely hold the knife to cut some carrots the other night. I`ve got them taped up again, which seems to help.
Living together is...interesting. Tough some day, fun others, and just boring on others. Sometimes it is all three the same day.
Cheers,
Friday, August 19, 2011
Still Not Here
hey all,
So I`m typing this on Michi`s laptop. Below, you can find several posts that I typed up on my own computer and saved so I could post them later.
We should be getting a LAN installed in the next two or three weeks, I hope.
The situation with the air conditioner seems to be as follows. The landlord knew about the air conditioner, as it seems that he used to live in this apartment and now lives next door. The problem is that the bedroom window faces the walkway that connects all the apartments together, and if they had installed a proper air conditioner, they would need to place the compressor on this walkway. This would make it hot and also might be a hazard during an emergency.
Of course, it is not as if Japan had all the sudden become an unbearably hot country during the last 20 years. The summers here have been hot for hundreds of years. So who ever designed the building was just retarded. We`re getting by with cooling the room down before going to sleep, then shuttung the air conditioner off. It means taking a second or third shower in the morning to wash all the sweat off, but it beats not being able to sleep at all.
The first week of living together has gone pretty well. We got into a fight about the air conditioner at first, but we seem to have worked past that for now. We`ve gone shopping for some home supplies a few times, but I think we`re going to go this weekend as well. Money is quite tight, for me at least, since I had to cover move in expenses, health insurance, a newly expensive phone bill, and taxes.
Classes are going. To be honest, I`m really stressed about them, but they seem to be going well.
Cheers
So I`m typing this on Michi`s laptop. Below, you can find several posts that I typed up on my own computer and saved so I could post them later.
We should be getting a LAN installed in the next two or three weeks, I hope.
The situation with the air conditioner seems to be as follows. The landlord knew about the air conditioner, as it seems that he used to live in this apartment and now lives next door. The problem is that the bedroom window faces the walkway that connects all the apartments together, and if they had installed a proper air conditioner, they would need to place the compressor on this walkway. This would make it hot and also might be a hazard during an emergency.
Of course, it is not as if Japan had all the sudden become an unbearably hot country during the last 20 years. The summers here have been hot for hundreds of years. So who ever designed the building was just retarded. We`re getting by with cooling the room down before going to sleep, then shuttung the air conditioner off. It means taking a second or third shower in the morning to wash all the sweat off, but it beats not being able to sleep at all.
The first week of living together has gone pretty well. We got into a fight about the air conditioner at first, but we seem to have worked past that for now. We`ve gone shopping for some home supplies a few times, but I think we`re going to go this weekend as well. Money is quite tight, for me at least, since I had to cover move in expenses, health insurance, a newly expensive phone bill, and taxes.
Classes are going. To be honest, I`m really stressed about them, but they seem to be going well.
Cheers
August 9th
hey all,
So tonight marks night number 4 under the new roof. I've given up trying to sleep in the bed room. The first hour or so of having the air conditioner on is no problem. But after that, when it phases into active and passive modes it sounds live a lawn mower turning over. I've called the management about it, but they referred me to the realtor or the owner. Since I didn't have the owner's number, I called the realtor. I'm sure this is the kind of call they love getting.
It has me really pissed off. Saturday night I barely slept, but there were other excuses for that. Sunday night and Monday I was able to put up with it until 2AM and 4AM respectively, but tonight I'm just going to sleep in the kitchen.
The thing that really has me going about it, aside from just not being able to sleep in my own bed room, is that on Friday night while waiting for Michi I started to read Dogs and Demons by Alex Karr. The author has spent the better part of 30 years in Japan, and as he sees it, he is tired of seeing a country he loves go down the drain. The title comes from a Chinese story about an emperor who asks a painter what is difficult to paint, and what is easy to paint. The painter says that dogs are difficult, but demons are easy. Why? Demons are fantastical, and you can get away with anything, while dogs are encountered everyday and thus people are less tolerant of strangeness. In terms of Japan, Karr sees Japanese companies and governmental agencies spending huge amounts of time, energy and money on pie in the sky projects, such as putting concrete embankments on all the major rivers for flood protection, while at the same time failing at such mundane things as burying telephone cables.
In my case, this means having a TV I don't want and don't necessarily need IN THE SHOWER, and having a toilet that will warm my bum if it is cold and spray water to clean me after using it, BUT having an air conditioner that is so loud that I can't sleep in my own bed room. Why and how is it possible for a supposedly technologically advanced country to fail at these things?
I can't complain about Japan the way that Karr does, which is to see the whole system as broken. I think some things work really well, for instance, payment of health insurance, taxes, rent, phone bills, and utility bills can usually be done at ANY convenience store. No need for stamps or envelopes, checks, etc. Just go to the nearest Seven Eleven with the money and you're done.
I still don't have internet, but hopefully that will change in the next few days.
As for school, we've been having the parents stay out of the rooms for our classes. So far, it has gone really well. The kids are motivated, and are trying hard. And it seems they spent a good amount of time over the break studying, because they can answer questions about the material and use pretty decent complete sentences to do so.
I guess tomorrow will be the real test, because we are starting new material for all of our subjects, and we will be learning new vocabulary, etc. My boss has informed me that almost all of the parents will be watching my class tomorrow when I teach them chemistry, and I'm a little nervous about that. The kids are doing well with the material, but it is always hit or miss whether the kids will show off or clam up when a bunch of people are watching.
I've only had one student show up for my PM class this whole week. The boss and I had discussed reducing the number of times we hold the class from 5 days a week to 2 or 3. This would ease the class load on the teachers, and also give more free time to the students. Compared to other schools, our students come more often, but it seems our test results are not as good. So clearly coming more often is not helping. We're planning on trying some different approaches to try and fix the issue, and of course, I could always use the extra class preparation time.
Cheers,
So tonight marks night number 4 under the new roof. I've given up trying to sleep in the bed room. The first hour or so of having the air conditioner on is no problem. But after that, when it phases into active and passive modes it sounds live a lawn mower turning over. I've called the management about it, but they referred me to the realtor or the owner. Since I didn't have the owner's number, I called the realtor. I'm sure this is the kind of call they love getting.
It has me really pissed off. Saturday night I barely slept, but there were other excuses for that. Sunday night and Monday I was able to put up with it until 2AM and 4AM respectively, but tonight I'm just going to sleep in the kitchen.
The thing that really has me going about it, aside from just not being able to sleep in my own bed room, is that on Friday night while waiting for Michi I started to read Dogs and Demons by Alex Karr. The author has spent the better part of 30 years in Japan, and as he sees it, he is tired of seeing a country he loves go down the drain. The title comes from a Chinese story about an emperor who asks a painter what is difficult to paint, and what is easy to paint. The painter says that dogs are difficult, but demons are easy. Why? Demons are fantastical, and you can get away with anything, while dogs are encountered everyday and thus people are less tolerant of strangeness. In terms of Japan, Karr sees Japanese companies and governmental agencies spending huge amounts of time, energy and money on pie in the sky projects, such as putting concrete embankments on all the major rivers for flood protection, while at the same time failing at such mundane things as burying telephone cables.
In my case, this means having a TV I don't want and don't necessarily need IN THE SHOWER, and having a toilet that will warm my bum if it is cold and spray water to clean me after using it, BUT having an air conditioner that is so loud that I can't sleep in my own bed room. Why and how is it possible for a supposedly technologically advanced country to fail at these things?
I can't complain about Japan the way that Karr does, which is to see the whole system as broken. I think some things work really well, for instance, payment of health insurance, taxes, rent, phone bills, and utility bills can usually be done at ANY convenience store. No need for stamps or envelopes, checks, etc. Just go to the nearest Seven Eleven with the money and you're done.
I still don't have internet, but hopefully that will change in the next few days.
As for school, we've been having the parents stay out of the rooms for our classes. So far, it has gone really well. The kids are motivated, and are trying hard. And it seems they spent a good amount of time over the break studying, because they can answer questions about the material and use pretty decent complete sentences to do so.
I guess tomorrow will be the real test, because we are starting new material for all of our subjects, and we will be learning new vocabulary, etc. My boss has informed me that almost all of the parents will be watching my class tomorrow when I teach them chemistry, and I'm a little nervous about that. The kids are doing well with the material, but it is always hit or miss whether the kids will show off or clam up when a bunch of people are watching.
I've only had one student show up for my PM class this whole week. The boss and I had discussed reducing the number of times we hold the class from 5 days a week to 2 or 3. This would ease the class load on the teachers, and also give more free time to the students. Compared to other schools, our students come more often, but it seems our test results are not as good. So clearly coming more often is not helping. We're planning on trying some different approaches to try and fix the issue, and of course, I could always use the extra class preparation time.
Cheers,
August 7th
hey all,
It is the evening of my second day of "living alone." I exaggerate, of course, but that is how it feels. Michi ended up working all day, fixing one of the mistakes of a new employee who has earned the dubious honor of being called "the stupid girl."
For myself, I didn't sleep to well last night. I was worrying about Michi and her brain attack, and then it was the first time I'd slept in this new apartment, so there was that as well. Lastly, the air conditioner turns itself off after getting to a certain temperature, and then loudly turns itself back on when it senses the temperature start to rise again. Maybe I'll be used to it this night and it won't dispurb me as much, but it seemed like I was waking up every ten or twenty minutes.
Today was spent cleaning the old room in Yokohama. I got on a train that somehow took about 1 hour to get to Yokohama station. By normal trains, from Shinagawa to Yokohama takes about 20 minutes. Anyway, I cleaned the old room, swept up all the dust and hair and places where something had spilled and I hadn't noticed.
On my way back, I bought a vacuum cleaner. It wasn't the cheapest model, but it wasn't one of those Dyson contraptions that cost as much as how cool they look, either. I also picked up a foam pillow from Muji, and I wanted to buy a chair as well, but I couldn't find one that suited me at Muji. I also wanted to speak to the apartment complex manager, but the little office on the first floor was empty all day, or at least every time I went by to check it.
After getting back to the new apartment, I started arranging my things for the second and definitely not the final time. The arrangement I've got now is a little better use of space than before, but the "final solution" will have to wait till Michi gets her stuff in. I've got all of my books and DVDs (here in Japan) on my particle board book shelf that I bought from Muji when I moved into the guesthouse in Tokyo last year. The thing is, I usually don't need that quick of access to most of my books. And I could really use one of the shelves to store my electronics, which I do need more frequent access to. And then I need to wait to buy a computer table until Michi and I can confirm that it won't take up too much space, etc.
I also got my tupperware, the pots from Michi, and my spices all arranged in the kitchen and picked up a sponge and some dish soap. For when the refrigerator finally arrives, I cut out some cardboard mats to put underneath it.
I've downloaded a train schedule app onto my smartphone, and looked up the train schedule for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the first day of the semester at school, so I want to make sure that I get there on time and that everything goes well.
Cheers,
It is the evening of my second day of "living alone." I exaggerate, of course, but that is how it feels. Michi ended up working all day, fixing one of the mistakes of a new employee who has earned the dubious honor of being called "the stupid girl."
For myself, I didn't sleep to well last night. I was worrying about Michi and her brain attack, and then it was the first time I'd slept in this new apartment, so there was that as well. Lastly, the air conditioner turns itself off after getting to a certain temperature, and then loudly turns itself back on when it senses the temperature start to rise again. Maybe I'll be used to it this night and it won't dispurb me as much, but it seemed like I was waking up every ten or twenty minutes.
Today was spent cleaning the old room in Yokohama. I got on a train that somehow took about 1 hour to get to Yokohama station. By normal trains, from Shinagawa to Yokohama takes about 20 minutes. Anyway, I cleaned the old room, swept up all the dust and hair and places where something had spilled and I hadn't noticed.
On my way back, I bought a vacuum cleaner. It wasn't the cheapest model, but it wasn't one of those Dyson contraptions that cost as much as how cool they look, either. I also picked up a foam pillow from Muji, and I wanted to buy a chair as well, but I couldn't find one that suited me at Muji. I also wanted to speak to the apartment complex manager, but the little office on the first floor was empty all day, or at least every time I went by to check it.
After getting back to the new apartment, I started arranging my things for the second and definitely not the final time. The arrangement I've got now is a little better use of space than before, but the "final solution" will have to wait till Michi gets her stuff in. I've got all of my books and DVDs (here in Japan) on my particle board book shelf that I bought from Muji when I moved into the guesthouse in Tokyo last year. The thing is, I usually don't need that quick of access to most of my books. And I could really use one of the shelves to store my electronics, which I do need more frequent access to. And then I need to wait to buy a computer table until Michi and I can confirm that it won't take up too much space, etc.
I also got my tupperware, the pots from Michi, and my spices all arranged in the kitchen and picked up a sponge and some dish soap. For when the refrigerator finally arrives, I cut out some cardboard mats to put underneath it.
I've downloaded a train schedule app onto my smartphone, and looked up the train schedule for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the first day of the semester at school, so I want to make sure that I get there on time and that everything goes well.
Cheers,
August 6th
hey all,
So I've just moved in to the new place. The water and electricity are on, but I don't know how to get the gas going and we need to make arrangements for internet.
Most of my stuff has been put away, but I'm exhausted. It was a mad dash to get everything ready this morning, and I didn't have time to clean my room. I think I will head back tomorrow to clean it.
I'm typing this up in OpenOffice Writer right now, but I really hope we can get the internet going.
Let me go back a bit. I picked up the key for the apartment yesterday night. Yesterday, I also visited the city office and got my foreign registration taken care of, my health insurance taken care off, and updated my address at my bank and for my phone service company. Plus, I did a little more packing, but clearly not enough.
This morning, there were still lots of things to pack, but nothing major. I think I might have torn something in my ring and pinky fingers trying to roll one of the boxes over to put some reinforcing tape on it. I've got my fingers taped up, but from my Training for Climbing it seems like it could take 2 to 10 weeks for the pain to go away. And after the pain goes away, you're supposed to stay off the finger for another 2 weeks.
In any case, I got all the items together just in time for the moving guy to show up, and it only took about 20 minutes to get everything loaded, including my bike. It took much longer to drive up to Shinagawa, but the mover/driver was a very friendly guy. We chatted most of the way up about my job and his job, and the earthquake and different foreigners' reactions to it.
We finally arrived, and we got everything into the room, and I proceeded to unpack everything. Right now, I've got my dress clothes and climbing gear more or less situated. When Michi arrived after her yoga lesson, she was horrified to see the mess I'd made. I had random pieces of paper strewn everywhere, the kitchen/living room was a mess, the bedroom was a mess. My climbing gear and most of my clothes were set up, but I've got so many mementos and souvenirs that every time I move it is getting harder to keep track of them and keep them organized.
We got the rooms better organized, and she called the gas guy to get that set up. Michi's mom bought me a futon and even sheets to go with it, which was really nice. Michi has some errands to do on Sunday, so she went back to her apartment. On the way back, she had a seizure. I had walked her to the station, and she made it home OK, but this is only the second one I've seen. She's been really busy and not getting enough sleep, which always seems to bring one on.
Tomorrow, I need to see if I can get a hold of the manager to get the world turned on (ahem, I mean the internet). For now, I'm by myself in my new apartment and I'm lonely and worried about Michi. Also tomorrow, I need to pick up a pillow, a chair, and go back to Yokohama to clean the place up.
Cheers,
So I've just moved in to the new place. The water and electricity are on, but I don't know how to get the gas going and we need to make arrangements for internet.
Most of my stuff has been put away, but I'm exhausted. It was a mad dash to get everything ready this morning, and I didn't have time to clean my room. I think I will head back tomorrow to clean it.
I'm typing this up in OpenOffice Writer right now, but I really hope we can get the internet going.
Let me go back a bit. I picked up the key for the apartment yesterday night. Yesterday, I also visited the city office and got my foreign registration taken care of, my health insurance taken care off, and updated my address at my bank and for my phone service company. Plus, I did a little more packing, but clearly not enough.
This morning, there were still lots of things to pack, but nothing major. I think I might have torn something in my ring and pinky fingers trying to roll one of the boxes over to put some reinforcing tape on it. I've got my fingers taped up, but from my Training for Climbing it seems like it could take 2 to 10 weeks for the pain to go away. And after the pain goes away, you're supposed to stay off the finger for another 2 weeks.
In any case, I got all the items together just in time for the moving guy to show up, and it only took about 20 minutes to get everything loaded, including my bike. It took much longer to drive up to Shinagawa, but the mover/driver was a very friendly guy. We chatted most of the way up about my job and his job, and the earthquake and different foreigners' reactions to it.
We finally arrived, and we got everything into the room, and I proceeded to unpack everything. Right now, I've got my dress clothes and climbing gear more or less situated. When Michi arrived after her yoga lesson, she was horrified to see the mess I'd made. I had random pieces of paper strewn everywhere, the kitchen/living room was a mess, the bedroom was a mess. My climbing gear and most of my clothes were set up, but I've got so many mementos and souvenirs that every time I move it is getting harder to keep track of them and keep them organized.
We got the rooms better organized, and she called the gas guy to get that set up. Michi's mom bought me a futon and even sheets to go with it, which was really nice. Michi has some errands to do on Sunday, so she went back to her apartment. On the way back, she had a seizure. I had walked her to the station, and she made it home OK, but this is only the second one I've seen. She's been really busy and not getting enough sleep, which always seems to bring one on.
Tomorrow, I need to see if I can get a hold of the manager to get the world turned on (ahem, I mean the internet). For now, I'm by myself in my new apartment and I'm lonely and worried about Michi. Also tomorrow, I need to pick up a pillow, a chair, and go back to Yokohama to clean the place up.
Cheers,
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
Curriculum Planning and Kamikaze
hey all,
So our week of curriculum planning ends tomorrow. I think we got some stuff done. I wish I could say more than that, but I'm of kinda mixed opinions about the school right now.
This is our vacation time. We get 2 weeks off in summer, and two weeks off in winter, plus an additional week off at the end of April (for curriculum planning). That is it. Because we really needed more material and to get things organized, I asked the other teachers to come in and do planning and preparation. And we have in fact created some new materials, edited some old ones so that they better fit the levels of our current students, and planned class schedules out for the next several weeks.
But our boss has also taken up several hours each day with rants that I don't really understand. One day the rant will seem to conclude with X as our best option, and the next day's rant will conclude with Y as our best option (where X and Y are impossible to do at the same time). And half of the rants just don't seem to make sense. It seems like it has been several years since teachers have done the kind of preparation that we volunteered to do, and we have to put up with these rants? Along with complaints that our boss was tired of doing all the preparation work? The teachers have 4 solid hours of classes in the mornings, and then various private and groups lessons from 1:40 until 7PM. When are we supposed to do preparation? After 7PM at home? When we aren't being paid? At best the rants accomplish nothing, and at worst they are a waste of time, confusing, and serve to alienate and frustrate our teachers, myself included.
I'm a bit stressed out about the move, and the situation at work doesn't help. At the same time, I feel like I've created some cool things, like the image below. If you follow the directions, you will have colored in a map showing ancient Egyptian civilization, complete with Red and Mediterranean Seas and the Nile River.
I've got coloring maps like this for Minoan, Indus Valley, and Sumerian civilizations as well. Everyone was very impressed.
Still, my 5-year plan might be pushing it a little bit too far. That is, around 2015 changing jobs and/or careers. I guess it depends on how the next few years go here, what my financial situation is like, whether the teaching/preparing ratio changes for the better, and whether I can tolerate these rants. By this time next year, I should have completed the certificate for curriculum planning, and if I have time, I'd like to take up my Japanese study again. I've seen several translation job offerings recently, but each of them requires the JLPT level 1 or 2, and I've only got the level 3. If translation doesn't seem like a viable option, then it would probably be best not to waste the curriculum planning certificate, and go into that field.
If the situation at the school worsens, or at least doesn't improve between now and 2015, then I might decide to leave before then. Still, we'll see.
Tomorrow is our last day of planning and preparation. Friday I have to clean my room, do several loads of laundry, go to the city hall to tell them that another dangerous and not to be trusted foreigner will be moving in, head over to the bank and phone company and tell them about the move, and also go to the realtor for the contract signing and to pick up the key. Saturday will be the actual move.
Last item is the phrase kamikaze. Most of you will know it from the suicide bombers during WWII, but in fact the term comes from the attempted and unsuccessful Mongolian invasion of Japan back in the 1300's, when a freak storm destroyed most of the Mongolian fleet. The only reason I know that is because of playing RTS games like Shogun: Total War. In any case, I probably haven't mentioned that the temperature has been about 10-15 degrees C cooler than just a few weeks earlier. This is all thanks to the typhoons, which Michi has been referring to as kamikaze, the wind of god or the divine wind. Why? Because it has saved Japan's butt yet again. Only last year old and young people were dropping like flies in the hottest summer that Japan had seen in decades, and now that we have a power crunch, it has surely let us survive without turning the air conditioners on too high.
Cheers,
So our week of curriculum planning ends tomorrow. I think we got some stuff done. I wish I could say more than that, but I'm of kinda mixed opinions about the school right now.
This is our vacation time. We get 2 weeks off in summer, and two weeks off in winter, plus an additional week off at the end of April (for curriculum planning). That is it. Because we really needed more material and to get things organized, I asked the other teachers to come in and do planning and preparation. And we have in fact created some new materials, edited some old ones so that they better fit the levels of our current students, and planned class schedules out for the next several weeks.
But our boss has also taken up several hours each day with rants that I don't really understand. One day the rant will seem to conclude with X as our best option, and the next day's rant will conclude with Y as our best option (where X and Y are impossible to do at the same time). And half of the rants just don't seem to make sense. It seems like it has been several years since teachers have done the kind of preparation that we volunteered to do, and we have to put up with these rants? Along with complaints that our boss was tired of doing all the preparation work? The teachers have 4 solid hours of classes in the mornings, and then various private and groups lessons from 1:40 until 7PM. When are we supposed to do preparation? After 7PM at home? When we aren't being paid? At best the rants accomplish nothing, and at worst they are a waste of time, confusing, and serve to alienate and frustrate our teachers, myself included.
I'm a bit stressed out about the move, and the situation at work doesn't help. At the same time, I feel like I've created some cool things, like the image below. If you follow the directions, you will have colored in a map showing ancient Egyptian civilization, complete with Red and Mediterranean Seas and the Nile River.
Still, my 5-year plan might be pushing it a little bit too far. That is, around 2015 changing jobs and/or careers. I guess it depends on how the next few years go here, what my financial situation is like, whether the teaching/preparing ratio changes for the better, and whether I can tolerate these rants. By this time next year, I should have completed the certificate for curriculum planning, and if I have time, I'd like to take up my Japanese study again. I've seen several translation job offerings recently, but each of them requires the JLPT level 1 or 2, and I've only got the level 3. If translation doesn't seem like a viable option, then it would probably be best not to waste the curriculum planning certificate, and go into that field.
If the situation at the school worsens, or at least doesn't improve between now and 2015, then I might decide to leave before then. Still, we'll see.
Tomorrow is our last day of planning and preparation. Friday I have to clean my room, do several loads of laundry, go to the city hall to tell them that another dangerous and not to be trusted foreigner will be moving in, head over to the bank and phone company and tell them about the move, and also go to the realtor for the contract signing and to pick up the key. Saturday will be the actual move.
Last item is the phrase kamikaze. Most of you will know it from the suicide bombers during WWII, but in fact the term comes from the attempted and unsuccessful Mongolian invasion of Japan back in the 1300's, when a freak storm destroyed most of the Mongolian fleet. The only reason I know that is because of playing RTS games like Shogun: Total War. In any case, I probably haven't mentioned that the temperature has been about 10-15 degrees C cooler than just a few weeks earlier. This is all thanks to the typhoons, which Michi has been referring to as kamikaze, the wind of god or the divine wind. Why? Because it has saved Japan's butt yet again. Only last year old and young people were dropping like flies in the hottest summer that Japan had seen in decades, and now that we have a power crunch, it has surely let us survive without turning the air conditioners on too high.
Cheers,
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