Tonight I am without the normal entertainment that keeps me busy throughout most workday evenings. Thus, I write.

"Why no entertainment?" you ask? Well, Amy and I are having a little belated Thanksgiving gathering at her place this Saturday and in attempt to give that real holiday feeling to the whole affair I am recording a football game, which of course means I can't watch it. So the recorder is going and the tv is off. I will do this again tomorrow night so that we can have at least two games for the day.
Yeah, we're (or maybe it's just me) a little crazy, but one of the guys that is coming has already expressed his excitement about being able to watch football, so it's worth it. He lives way up in a small town and I don't think he gets the satellite service that I do which affords me the opportunity to watch my favorite team sport in the history of man. Between technology and sport a guy can waste a lot of time. But waste is such a strong word. I choose to call it research. Research on which kind of defense I should use against the run when playing my football video game.
Shutup.

Today was fun. Yuda is always fun.
On the way to my first class my teacher told me, "Ah, tomorrow is Thanksgiving in America."
"Yes," I answered, "It is," thinking about the fun I would be missing.
Then she came back with, "Today, please tell the students about Thanksgiving."
A year ago I would have sent that being in my head back to the file room where he would have scrambled in a sweat to find the files on Thanksgiving. "Thanksgiving files...Thanksgiving files...I know they're here somewhere...!" But now I am used to the whole idea of winging it and I allowed that little being to continue drinking his morning coffee with his feet up.
Actually the three minutes notice I got was about two minutes and fifty seconds more than I normally get with this teacher and class. A few weeks ago I was suddenly bombarded with questions on Halloween and more recently the students hit me up for info on Xmas.
It's all rather interesting, this perception of American holidays they have. They tend to just scratch the surface with their knowledge of them but I guess knowing about them is better than not knowing anything at all. Imagine what you know about Japanese holidays and I bet it's much less.
It seems that their two favorite American holidays are Halloween and Xmas. They like to be told about children dressing up and trick or treating and about the idea of Santa Claus. Not two subjects about which I know more than the average American so I just wing it and tell them what I know. They seem happy and soon we are on to other things.
Getting back to today, though, for about five minutes I gave them the lowdown on Thanksgiving and then opened it up for questions. At this point you could have heard a feather fall off of a dead turkey. They had no questions. Not one. Why? Well, it might have something to do with friends, family, food, and football. Four of my favorite things but not four things that these girls seemed interested to learn more about. No candy, no costumes, no Santa, no presents, no questions. So we moved on to a little textbook work.

In my last class I was asked about my girlfriend, "Do you have girlfriend?"
Well, they know damn well I do as this has been mentioned before. They just like to ask. They are all girls afterall. But I decided to screw with them.
"Yes," I said, "I have many girlfriends."
"Ohhh," they jumped, "How many?" (all of this is in slow, searching-for-the-words English)
"I don't know," I said, "But many."
"Who?"
"One American girl and many Japanese girls," I answered, indicating with my hand that by "Japanese girls" I meant all the girls in this class.
They liked that and cheered to which I rolled my eyes. But then one of the girls asked the teacher, Miki, something and then came back at me with, "Tell truth, when marry your girlfriend?"
At that I cut the conversation and moved on to other things. I don't know why certain girls keep asking me about my marriage plans. A couple weeks ago at another school, I was asked the same thing and when I answered that I had no marriage plans at the moment all the girls pointed at another girl in the class and screamed, "Oh, please, with her, with her." She just sat there blushing and I just smiled at her. It's all very flattering but as these girls are 16 or so it's a little too late for me to take advantage of my popularity. Much to my chagrin, nothing like this ever happened to me in high school.
Ah, well, I just hope Amy realized how lucky she is. Heh heh.

Ok, that's it for tonight. Happy Thankgiving to all of you. And go Cowboys!

Well, I had a bit of an awkward experience today. I was at Sundai junior high and in the middle of my third class when a loud bang/boom happened behind me. Both Kiyanagi-sensei and I had been walking around the room helping (or picking on, in my case) individuals in need. We had given them a short assignment which involved answering some questions about themselves and were both helping out with word choices and spelling.
Anyway, I was at the back of the classroom with my back to the front of the room when this loud boom inturupted something I was telling the class clown. At first I thought something had fallen off the wall or that a bookshelf had crashed but when I turned around I saw a boy standing over another boy in a threatening manner--all big chested and attepting to look as imposing as it is possible for a somewhat tubby 8th grader to be.
Turns out that the boom was this kid throwing his desk away from him (he sits in the front row so no one got hit) as he got up to confront his neighbor. At this point it didn't seem like much but he kept standing over the other kid and slightly pushing him when Kiyanagi-sensei ran up there and tried to control the situation. The other kid just stayed in his seat, looking at his would be attacker and trying to keep his hands off him. It really didn't seem like much to me but it was obvious that this boy was seriously angry and that Kiyanagi was having a bit of trouble calming him down.
Now, my loyal readers, I ask you, what could I do as a member of the non-Japanese speaking club and as a teacher who shows up to this school twice a month? That was the question running through my head as I slowly walked towards the situation. I don't really know these kids all that well. I don't know how this culture deals with kids like that. And I didn't know if my interfering with the situation would be frowned upon. Of course, I also didn't know if Kiyanagi would be able to handle this boy who was not exactly giving up on trying to get to his new (or old, for all I know) found enemy.
It didn't seem that the kid was really trying to do anything too extreme, other than to perhaps scare the other kid, but he wasn't allowing Kiayanagi to ease him away from the other boy either. So I walked towards the three not really knowing at what point I should interfere or how I would in the first place. But luckily just at this point a male teacher (who had heard the crash from the next room I assume) came in and said something to the kid to which he kind of gave up and was then escorted out of the room.
During all this the class was watching and some were laughing. The clown even told me, "He is crazy." So I just kind of gave them all the look that says, "C'mon now, keep it down," and they did. Sundai really does have a group of good kids--for the most part.
Anyway, I am still not sure exaclty what transpired between the two boys. After the kid was taken out of the class, Kiyanagi and I just continued as if nothing had happened. I thought she might say something to me after class but it didn't happen and I left the school about 45 minutes later wondering if I should have gotten involved sooner or if I played my cards right.

Sumo has started again. The boys are in Fukuoka this month, which is quite far from here on the island of Kyushu, thus I won't be attending. But as usual I am keeping my eyes on it though the magic of tv.
Asashoryu, I'm sure you all remember, lost his form in the last basho so I expect he will have awaken and will be back on top this month.
Kaio was the victor in that basho and is up for yokozuna promotion depending on how he fares in the next couple weeks. I'd like to see him get it.
Chiyotaikai is looking for a good record (as they all are) but is not up for that top ranking. He'll have to do well here and in the next basho to regain the chance.
Anyway, I'll write about it all later.

Over and out.

What's new? What's new?
Well, let's see....

Yesterday in class things were going normally when the students alerted their sensei to someone at the door. So I paused in what I was doing and she went to greet the intruder. Turns out he was a photographer and he was there to take...that's right...pictures.
So as he and the sensei talked and the students listened, I stood there in a bit of confusion. But all was cleared up for me when I was told, "He is photographer."
"Ahha!" I thought, "So that's what the camera is for." Mystery solved.
Anyway, we were then instructed where to stand so that he could take some "action" shots of us teaching out amongst the students. We all were laughing most of the time; the teacher out of nervousness, me out of confusion, and the students at me. Was a fun five minutes.

Last Thursday and Friday the JETs of Yamanashi had a seminar. Was basically the same as last year with one major perk.
"What's the perk?" you ask?
"Were you taught about some great lesson plan that you can use in the classroom?" "Did you learn some great game for your Friday school?" "Or did you come away from the seminar with a renewed interest in teaching?"
No. No. And no, I answer.
"Well then, what is it?"
I'll tell you. The great thing about this seminar is that Amy came out of it with an interest in cooking. That's right. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly Amy seems gungho to do a little cooking. Allow me to explain.
There is a gal here in Yamanashi named Jamie. Jamie is a one of a kind person that exudes energy and happiness and all things wholesome. In fact, upon meeting her and knowing her for a few hours, I told Amy, "She kinda reminds me of those stereotypical 1950s American housewives." And I don't mean this to be negative in any way. Jamie has got a sexiness about her in a kind of Marilyn Monroe way but also reminds me of June Cleaver from the show Leave it to Beaver. Enough with the stereotypes.
Anyway, Jamie is cool. If I wasn't hooked up with Amy I'd ask Jamie to marry me (not that she'd accept). But she's that great. She's got a great sense of humor, is a little bit nervous in a very charming way, and likes a good drink. She really would be a fun character to watch in a movie.
So at the seminar Jamie did about a half hour presentation called Live Well! In it she talked about various things to make life outside of work and in your apartment more fun. Mostly it was cooking stuff, but she did mention where and how to shop for everything from vegetables to seafood to dishes. So anyway she put together a small cookbook and handed one out to all of us and then proceeded to entertain and teach us (in that order).
I think what caught Amy was the enthusiasm with which Jamie presented cooking and living well to us. This is stuff that I knew for the most part, but stuff that I think is good to remind people of. Things like putting on some jazz music and having a drink or two while putting together a good meal seem obvious to me but not everyone knows this. It's the little things and the right attitude that make it fun and Jamie reminded us all of this. And her humor was great. I don't think she tries to be entertaining, she just is.
So anyway, the combination of the cookbook, the presentation and Jamie just being herself seems to have had some affect upon Amy (much to my delight). Sunday evening Amy and I pulled out three receipies from the book, went to the store, came back, put on some music and cooked together. And it turned out pretty well.
But that ain't it. Amy is going to put together a little Thanksgiving get together at her place where she plans to make a few dishes for about 8 of us. I will, of course, help when need be but I must say that Sunday night during our cooking session Amy got after me a few times when I took it upon myself to do something--"I thought I was making that dish"--so I will mostly just step aside and help when asked.
I hope her enthusiasm continues for years to come.
So anyway, the conference was a normal one--good at times, poor at others--but I consider it a success for the above reason.

Tuesday I stopped by the travel agency to make plans for Xmas. Amy decided not to go home this year so we talked about going somewhere. We had talked about New Zealand but after looking into prices, money dictated we do something else. Funny thing about this (my apologies, mother) is that dear ol' mom had the "Oh, you're so close you should just go" mentality with regards to New Zealand. But if you know your world geography you might realize that Japan and New Zealand really aren't all that close. Now if she had said this in regards to South Korea or China she might have made sense but New Zealand?! Go look at map and you tell me. Sure, as the crow flies, Japan and New Zealand might be a little closer to each other than are New Zealand and the USA but calling them close is like saying, while you are standing in Chicago, "Hey, since we're in the neighborhood, let's stop by Rio de Janeiro."
I heard somewhere that when it comes to world geography Americans are sorely lacking. I'm not sure if this is true, but my advice to each of you is to go buy a nice world map and hang it on your wall. Then when you watch the news and you don't know where a bomb when off, or where a man was arrested, or where all that hunger is taking place you can check it out and learn something. Truth is, I think, my mom is pretty good about what countries are where; perhaps she just thought the world was a lot smaller.
Anyway, we decided on Xmas in Hokkaido.
For those of you not familiar with Japan's geography here's a very simple explanation. Japan is about the size, in land mass, of California--making it a small country by American standards, but still quite a large piece of land. There are four islands that make up the bulk of the country: Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido (here's a map http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/asia/japan/maps/Japan_pol96.jpg). Honshu is the main island (the one I'm on). To the southwest of me is Shikoku and to the west of that is Kyushu. I've never been to these islands but have been on the main island north of them (when I was younger I went to Hiroshima and Kyoto with ma, pa and bro). Then there's Hokkaido. It is far to the north. It lies just north of the northen tip of Honshu. The biggest city on the island is called Sapporo (yes, like the beer) and it sits at about 43 degrees north latitude. For your benifit I've looked up latitues of three cities in the US: Portland, OR is at 45 degrees north, Chicago is at 41 degrees, and New York City is in the 40 degree range. I didn't want you people thinking that I was approaching the Alaska latitudes.
So after about an hour and forty five minutes with a nice young lady who spoke very good English named Sakura our trip will look like this:
December 24th we leave from Haneda airport in Tokyo and fly to Sapporo. We get in rather early in the day and on the top of my list of things to see is the brewery. Then we stay the night (in Sapporo, not at the brewery although I would have gone for that) and get up the next day--Xmas day. After eating and perhaps seeing some more sites we make our way east to a small city called Otaru. The trip is only about 45 minutes by train. Sakura told me that Otaru is a good place for couples, whatever that means, but I have read that it has a kind of Venice, Italy feel to it (I'll be the judge of that--no wait, I've never been to Venice so I won't be able to judge that) and I also noticed that there is brew pub with lots of microbrews (getting better).
We stay the night in Otaru and the next day head back west, then south, then southeast to a place called Norboribetsu. This place apparently has the most famous onsen (hot spring) in all of Hokkaido. I'm not much for sitting in hot water and looking around, but Amy likes it so after two days with beer sites to visit I figure I can do this one for her.
The next day we wake up and make our way to a place called Hakodate which is on the southern coast and from what I understand has a lot of Russian influences. We stay here two nights during which time we will find things to do and places to see and beers to drink and then on the 29th we fly out of the Hakodate airport and back to Tokyo.
Should be fun. I've already got the flights reserved, the four hotels reserved and even managed to get bus tickets to the airport in addition to a 3-day rail pass good only in Hokkaido which worked out perfectly since we'll really be using the major railway on only the 25th, 26th and 27th. All in all, I am ready.
And...we'll back here for New Year's and I'm going to try to drop some hints to Yamashita-sensei to see if we can spend one of the days around then with him and his family. I did it last year on the 2nd and had a great day.

Ok, that's enough for now.

Can't remember when I last wrote in here. Was it last week?

Anyway, you'll be interested to know that last week at the academy I was asked to review some vocabulary words with one of my classes. I don't often see this class, in fact I think I've only seen them one other time, maybe twice at the most, so I don't know them very well. But I was asked to help them learn how to pronounce these relatively new, to them, words.
So I was given the list and was reading through it to make sure that I could pronounce them when I came across a strange word. This word is easy to pronounce and is known to all English speakers I imagine but is one that you really wouldn't expect on a list of vocab words. This list included words like experience, collection, importance, symathized, and many other common and multi-sylabic words. But right smack in the middle of all these legitamite words was the word poop. Now, I have nothing against the word itself but it's rather strange when you are asked to say this word so that the class can repeat in unison. I was just glad no one asked me to explain what it meant.

Other than that, schools go pretty normally these days--if it can be said that there is anything normal about my schedule. Today I was called at 745am and told that there was something special going on and told that I didn't have to be there until 1020am. So I took my time getting ready, cleaned the place up a bit, and headed out in light rain at about 950.
When I got to school I had no idea which classes I would be teaching as no teachers came to tell me anything. So before my first class and then between classes I simply sat at my desk and waited for somebody to come and tell me something. Not much else you can do when you aren't sure which teacher you'll be with. As it happened, for all four classes I had today I was told what I would be doing in that class as the bell was ringing to start that class. Sure gives me a lot of time to get my thoughts together but as I've grown used to this I can't say I care too much. I come to this school not knowing what I'll be doing, the teachers don't have adequate time to inform me much of anything, and most of the students don't seem to care about learning anything anyway. It's a great situation in which all of us probably wish we were somewhere else.
Don't get me wrong though. The teachers are nice people, some of the students are fun, and there are great moments with laughter sometimes. Anyway, I have very mixed emotions on my days at Tokai.

Saturday I went to the hospital. I can hear the gasps now. "Oh my god, what is wrong with our favorite writer and explorer?" "Is he long for this world?" "Oh, how I wish I had told him how much he means to me!"
Ok, enough of all that.
You'll be pleased to now that the doctor did not give me six months to live. He didn't even give me 6 years to live. In fact, he didn't mention it which says to me that I might be around forever.
What he did give me though was a hole in my wrist. For a month or two now I have been keeping my eye on this rather strange bump I had on the inside of the left wrist. Right where I'd cut myself if I wished to take an early leave of this world and decided to do it that way. This bump was about half and inch long and about a quarter inch wide. It was under the skin, stable--in that I couldn't move it when I moved the skin--and kinda hard. It didn't hurt and for the month I was watching it it didn't seem to be growing so I wasn't too worried about it, but I did wonder about it.
So after mentioning it to Amy and Dilek, they decided that I should get it checked out. So Dilek, an excellent speaker of the language of this country, said she'd go with me to help me out. So Saturday we all went and the doctor explained that he thought it was something called a "ganglion cyst." He explained it was harmless and nothing to worry about. But to be sure of it, he said, he could stab into it with a needle and extract some of its contents.
Now, as Dilek and I were going to the hospital to simply make an appointment I wasn't mentally prepared to be stabbed and hestated a bit when he asked if I wanted to do it. The nurse laughed at my hesitation as did the doctor and Dilek. But it seemed a good time to get it over with so I went with it.
So I lied down on the bed and gave them my arm. As the nurse cleaned the area to be attacked I wondered about a local anesthetic when the doctor said and Dilek translated, "This is going to hurt a bit."
And it did. It wasn't unbearable but it did hurt. There were moments where I could hardly feel a thing other than pressure and there were moments were it hurt pretty bad. At one point the doctor said in English "No pain?" with rising intonation and I answered, "Nope, there's pain."
So after about a minute with a needle in my wrist I was turned loose and he showed me and Dilek what he had sucked out. It was a clear liquid with just a slight red tint. At this point he was showing it to us in the syringe but then he did something which I think kinda grossed both me and Dilek out. He grabbed a pan and from distance of about a foot pushed the liquid out of the syringe so that it oozed out of the needle and dropped into the pan. The consistency of the stuff was like a really thick snot and it hung from the end of the needle for a moment before it dropped into the pan. Dilek kinda laughed, "Oh, man, I didn't need to see that."
So that was that and the doctore explained that all was ok.
Only it wasn't ok. For some reason I was feeling sick. I'm still not sure what happened but as the doctor was asking us if we had any questions I felt the blood rush out of me head and started to get dizzy. Somehow I managed to not fall over and get out to the waiting room but as I was walking I was feeling that I wasn't going to make it. So I sat next to Amy and immediately she and Dilek realized I wasn't ok.
I think that a combination of factors were at play here: I'd had a few the night before and stayed up late, I hadn't eaten breakfast and had drank only coffee in the morning, and then all of this at the hospital. Anyway, I felt I would be ok if I could just rest and get something to drink so Amy ran down and got me a sports drink out of a vending machine (gotta love this country for the vending machines) and within about five minutes I was feeling well enough to walk down to the third floor to pay the fee.
In the end all is well and I only have a small bandage I'm supposed to wear for a week. And on top of all that I only had to pay about $10 for the whole experience. The Japanese health care system is a good one and as an employee of the country I am privy to it.
So, no cancer for me and I will live to write a little more for you.