Visiting my old students in Mozambique during this last holiday season really opened my eyes more than ever to the wonderful opportunities I have had because I was born in the United States. My students are entering 12th grade this year and they are already thinking of what they will be able to do once they graduate from school. They all have dreams of becoming doctors, nurses, engineers or activists, but the question that constantly lingers in their minds is whether they and their families will be able to afford to go to university or a technical school.

Although many students have difficult stories and circumstances, one student really has my attention. Fabião is currently 20 years old and just graduated from high school in Monapo, the town in Nampula where I was a Peace Corps volunteer from 2008-2009. My roommate was his teacher but I grew close to him as he would come over to practice using my computer. The oldest of six siblings, Fabião is soft-spoken and always has a quick smile. I don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. He and his family are humble and kind.

In the two years after I left Monapo, his older brother passed away and as the next oldest son, he began working to help support his large family. During the 12th grade, he switched courses so that he could study at night. Studying at night in Mozambique isn’t always easy, because often, the level of instruction falls because teachers and students often don’t show up for classes. While going to school at night, he began working at a banana farm some 20 km away from Monapo during the day. Every morning, he woke up at 3:30 and got on a company truck to go collect bananas in the hot sun for 11-12 hours. He returned home at around 4 or 5 pm to bathe and have a short rest before going to school from 6:30 until 11:00 pm. After school, he would return home to get a little sleep before having to wake up early again to repeat the same process the next day.

He has graduated now, despite the struggle that stood in his way for getting his high school education, but like most others in town, he does not have the money or the opportunities to go to school. So he continues to work at the banana farm, collecting bananas every day and hoping to save enough money to one day be able to go to school in the city to study English. If he were to go to school, he would also leave Monapo, leaving his family without the income from his job on the banana farm.

Fabião is kind and intelligent and I have been thinking about him a lot. He deserves better opportunities than what he has in front of him, as do so many of our old students who have graduated from Monapo but now remain “parado” - stopped. He and the others students are why I want to go into development and education as a career. Time and time again, visiting with old students, the frustration of limited opportunities and resources was evident. Only a select few with money and connections are able to study when there is so much intelligence, creativity and potential in these young people.

In Portuguese, to say that you miss or have a deep longing for something, you say "tenho saudades." Saudades is one of those foreign words that doesn't quite translate perfectly to English. Here are pictures of my trip to Mozambique from December 19th to January 7th, where I had a chance to "matar saudades" - kill my longings for Mozambique. Sounds dramatic, right? I visited Maputo City and Namaacha (along the Swaziland border) in the south and Nacala, Ilha and Monapo in the north. I had a wonderful time visiting old friends and students. I apologize in advance for these photos not being in any specific order.

The art market in Maputo. You can find some really great stuff here but bring your A-game in negotiating. The vendors used to be on the streets but the city moved them to this really nice park.

This woman made really cool dolls out of capulana material. I couldn't help but buy one.

Maputo city

Me, hanging out with me and my roommate's former students in Monapo

Me with Fabiao, possibly one of the kindest and soft-spoken people on the face of the earth

The sewing master at the back of the market in Monapo. He made me two dresses and a skirt during my stay in Monapo. He used to make clothes for the first volunteers in Monapo and still has old fashion magazines they gave him.

Some of the dress examples he has on the wall. He said that he has made every kind in the pictures.

The Monapo market during a busy time.

Chamussa, a dog left by Megan, the last health volunteer in Monapo, watching everyone play basketball in the local gym. I met him once and as I walked up to the house of the new volunteers in Monapo, he came sprinting up to me to be petted. He is much calmer than Timba ever was.

Playing basketball with kids in Monapo and the new volunteers, Leah and Ariel.

The fortaleza on Ilha de Mocambique. This used to be the capital of the country and was led by the Portuguese. This is also a point for the shipment of slaves from Mozambique to foreign countries.

Walking around the fortaleza. It is an eery and empty fort, full of history.

The view of the beach next to the fort.

Me at the fortaleza on Ilha de Mocambique.

These little girls assumed that I didn't understand any Macua. Au contraire, little girls. I understand you when you call me an ugly white person. I turned around and said "n'sheni?" - "what did you say?" I never got so much joy out of a shocked and ashamed expression on someone's face before.

Castro with Ismael. Ismael was one of my best students in Monapo. He hated when he earned a score any less than perfection. He can converse really well in English and I think that if given the right opportunities, he will have a very bright future. He is full of opinions and never afraid to give them.

Fermino, one of my roommate's really sweet students, grilling the chicken.

Me, sitting and chatting with Ismael and Líle.

Castro, Assane and Fermino as we hung out in Monapo, making dinner one night.

One of my best students, Raimundo, and his cousin in Nacala. He is incredibly intelligent and hopes to study science in Nampula after graduation.

A Nacala sunset.

Some of the best and cheapest food in Mozambique is bar food. This plate of fish with rice and a potato sauce only cost about $3! Nothing tastes better after a long day of walking around in the sun and the heat.

A child taking a break at the Monapo chapa stop to fix his toy car. Kids in Mozambique are incredibly creative in making toys for themselves.

Timba is alive! He's alive! And he's bigger and more muscular and probably would have ripped my hand off if I had stuck my hand there. He didn't remember me but that's okay because he is thriving at the house of Monapo's priests, except for the fact that he has penchant for biting priests rather than thieves. He has now bitten two different priests because they were bothering him.

Women carrying water in Monapo.

Assane, my roommate's former student, working as a volunteer at Monapo's local radio station.

A giant form of mancala being played in the market while vendors wait for customers.

Beautiful nampula. Rock formations that look like they have just dropped from the sky.

Me with Eulalia, one of my students during my time in Monapo in 2007-2009. She is now 17 years old and she is going to be entering 12th grade later this month. She wants to work in the health field after she graduates.

Ugh, hello chapa (the main, sardines-in-a-can, form of transportation in Mozambique). We meet again.

The beautiful new international terminal at the Maputo airport. The Chinese are helping renovate the entire airport and are currently working on the domestic terminal.

The outside of a chapa waiting to fill before it can leave.

Me and my host family. Since I stayed with them four years ago, they have had 5 more Peace Corps volunteers come to stay with them and my host father is a chefe with Peace Corps in Namaacha in helping coordinate the housing of trainees.

I ate a meal at three different houses on Christmas Day and the food was delicious. Preparation of food for special events is a loooong process.

Walking to see the infamous, beautiful mountains of Namaacha.

A funny woman who saw us walking past and wanted her picture taken with me.

Castro and I

Castro and the mountains. Waaaay out in the mountains behind him is the family's "machamba." A machamba is where people plant their vegetables and crops and it is often far away from the family home and requires a lot of work.

Visiting Dona Olimpia, the host mom of my Peace Corps friend, Angie.

Holding Becky, named after a Peace Corps volunteer, Castro's niece.

Castro picking lychees on his mother's kitchen roof, the most delicious fruit in the world.

I got to Namaacha at prime lychee time.

Making matapa - a large pilao for pounding the leaves.

Aninha making batatas fritas (french fries) over charcoal.

Celeste, my host mother's niece's foster daughter. It's a difficult family web to untangle sometimes. She is such a sweet and curious little girl.

Me and Aninha, one of my host sisters with a wonderful sense of humor. She is now 17 years old and will be studying 9th grade starting later this month. She wants to be a doctor one day. She is constantly singing and I told her that she will need to moonlight as a DJ as well once she becomes a doctor.

Me with Pedo, my young host brother and a neighbor and my other host sister with babies. Nelinha, on the left, is holding her niece, Jazy, and Atalia, my host sister, is holding my host mother's great niece, Joyce.

Maputo city, looking good.

I have been horribly naughty with not updating this blog recently and I could inundate you with the million excuses, but whatever. It has been great here in Japan. I really feel like I have grown so comfortable here and I really enjoy working with my students. Especially in the junior high. The students are really funny and I am actually pretty impressed by their level of English. We have numerous conversations regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger, whether we would rather be beautiful and stupid or ugly and a genius, and what the ideal age is for getting married. One day I asked them who their heroes are and everyone mentioned someone on the island and when I asked why they are the student`s hero, they always either said the person is handsome or strong. I enjoy the conversation class because we can just chat and speak in a casual manner.

Tomorrow, the students in the high school and I are making christmas cookies. It was my favorite lesson last year and I doubt it will disappoint this year. I turn on Christmas music, put up some decorations and the whole home ec room smells of delicious chocolate chip cookies from a recipe my mom has always had in the cupboard. They really seem to enjoy the break from the monotony of their studies, even if they don't really celebrate Christmas.

In Japan, Christmas is more like Valentine`s Day with cake. It`s a day for boyfriends and girlfriends to go on dates and families will eat Christmas cake. Other than that, there is nothing religious about it. A lot of my students told me they get a couple of Christmas presents but the big holiday for kids in Japan is New Years because that is when family members give them lots of money. The older you are, the more money you receive, until you graduate from high school. A lot of my students say they don't receive an allowance so this is the money they use to buy things they want during the rest of the year. I suppose it`s good. It teaches them budgeting skills early on.

I know that I have grown quite attached to this little island because I think of how I am going to Mozambique for a few weeks on Sunday and I get sad thinking that I won`t see them for a few weeks. And I will have a whole lot of omiyage to bring back. Omiyage is gift-giving and it's huge in Japan. It is polite to always bring back some kind of edible treat or nick-nack for your colleageus at your job. I have no idea what I could bring them back from Mozambique that is edible and legal to bring into Japan. But I am up to the challenge. I wish you all a very merry Christmas or Hannukah or whatever holiday you celebrate and a Happy New Year!

So I have been extremely MIA lately, but only because I have been juggling a lot of balls. I have a lot going on right now, which is a departure from before, when I could only focus on work. I have work, preparations for going to Mozambique in December (passport pages added + international driving permit = headache), and the grand kahuna - grad school applications. But I am doing everything piece by piece and I know that it will eventually get accomplished. I have this habit where when I want to procrastinate, I read the news. Maybe I am trying to kid myself and tell myself it doesn't feel like I am doing anything bad if I am informing myself on current events.

Hmmm, the latest news?

I killed the biggest spider I have ever seen this afternoon. I was returning from running errands after school when I saw a spider the size of my hand. My hand if I were doing jazz hands. Gigantic! And it was perched right above my door so I thought I could open and close the door fast enough to keep it outside. Au contraire. I was wrong. So it rushed inside and I gave chase. I feel like people who have severe paranoia about what's inside their shoes only live in countries with large insects. Before I ever put on my shoes, I shake them to make sure there aren't any spiders or centipedes in them. It's a valid concern as I now know two people who have been bitten by mukade centipedes in their shoes. (See below, probably the most informative video ever about mukades)

Anyhoosies, I eventually tracked the gigantic spider across my kitchen floor and vanquished it with my shoe. Super nasty. Kind of reminded me of the spider I killed in Moz that had babies inside it. It's a disturbing clean-up that often involves me looking away. I need to start considering living in places without spiders. Maybe antarctica.

I was going to go to the Yosakoi festival in Sasebo this weekend but the weather has turned out to be less than inviting, so I have decided to stay home. Nothing turns me off of a trip to the mainland like a rocking ferry and stomach. But Yosakoi is a dance festival that is held throughout Japan and is very entertaining to watch. Dance groups of up to 150 people parade through the streets, performing traditional and modern Japanese dances for crowds. They often wear costumes and have dramatic hair and make-up. Last year, it was pretty rad so I am disappointed that the weather isn't cooperating. Here is a video I found of a Yosakoi dance from 2009 (not from Sasebo, but from another part of Japan). The enthusiasm of the groups is very entertaining and I definitely recommend attending Yosakoi festivals.

I really wish I was in the U.S. on Sunday, just to watch this documentary on PBS. I have been watching interviews with Ken Burns on Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show about his new documentary called "Prohibition," that talks about...prohibition in America and it looks fascinating.

It is finally getting colder here! I only sweat a little on the way to school but then I have to bundle up in a sweater when I am sitting at my desk at school. To some, this may seem like mundane news, but to those of us who have to deal with the extreme Japanese summer heat and humidity, it is a godsend. A fair part of my day is spent fielding "it`s hot, isn`t it?" or "it`s cold, isn`t it?" type comments.

I have been working with a student on her pronunciation of a text and then we recorded her reading the text when we felt like she was prepared. It is extremely difficult for the students here to understand the difference between "R" and "L." To them, those letters sound exactly the same. You could say "rock" and "lock" and they think you are saying "lock" every time. It`s because in Japanese, and also in many other languages, like Portuguese, there isn`t that hard "R" sound. Whenever I try to get the kids to make the R sound, I think they feel intimidated by how stupid they feel and kind of give up. It`s especially unfortunate when they think they are saying "I like to eat rice" and it sounds like "I like to eat lice." But this is definitely one of the things they struggle the most with.

The student I worked with never complained about having to give up part of her lunches to sit with me or about having to read the same text probably 200 times. What a trooper. And for only being 16 years old, I am very impressed with her level of English. Although I find that most of the students have a fair understanding of the English language, there are some real impressive ones mixed in every couple of years. She actually wants to study English in the future so I told her that I can sit and practice with her if she wants and she said yes and nodded. I hope she actually comes because I think that the best way for students to learn English won`t be with their books and studying grammar, but holding conversation with a native speaker.

I can`t believe October starts tomorrow! My second year in Ojika is already flying past. I still love this island. There is just something so peaceful about this place. I am still leading two adult English classes on Thursday nights. I am tired at the end of the day but I always enjoy working with the adults. They bring a whole different perspective to the table. We talk about the strangest things sometimes and it really spices up my teaching. We had an interesting conversation about plastic surgery last night. I asked an older lady if she would ever get plastic surgery and she automatically put her hands to her face and stretched her skin up and back and gave me the "ok" sign. I probably laugh more with these fun people than I do all week.

I was walking home from school on Monday when I saw the same woman getting on her moped to drive away on the main street. When she saw me, she got off her moped and went up to me and said "Erin, slim!" And pushed her cheeks in with her hands. I burst out laughing. I don't think she is even trying to be funny but she is. She cheers on my weight loss and has said the same thing several times to me now. I like to think of her as my own, personal, Japanese Jillian Michaels.

So we won our softball game last night and it was quite the upset. The high school teachers played the middle school and elementary school teachers team (who brought in outside players). In the elementary and junior high, there are a lot of female teachers and not many of them are willing to play softball it seems. Or from what I can tell because few of them have played in last year's season and this season. The entire league is in good fun though. We all had to line up while some guy gave a speech and the trophies were set on the tables. The trophies are pure photo op material. No one actually gets to keep them. A picture is taken for the Ojika newspaper and then it is put back in its box and stowed on the office shelf at the public gym until the next round of games.

I played first. After one pitcher tried to pitch and failed, I tried and failed. I just can`t pitch slow pitch from men`s distance. It just isn`t going to work. So finally, on our third try, it turned out that the biology teacher was the best pitcher. The other team was beating us pretty bad but in the last inning, the bases were loaded and my fellow English teacher hit a homerun to win the game. It was quite an exciting ending to a night of unimpressive dropping of balls, walking batters and general awkwardness. Our teams aren`t super competitive from the schools but it`s when you start playing teams with t-shirts they had made, that`s when you get into the people who take it a little too seriously.

Right before we had to play, everyone was practicing throwing and warming up. The biology teacher told me to play catch and so I started to play catch with the gym teacher. I don`t think he was expecting me to have an arm so he wasn`t really prepared to catch my first ball. No, I don't throw like a girl, buddy. Softball is very much a man`s sport in Japan so they are a little surprised to have a woman on the island who knows how to play and did so for about 12 years. The men are fun to watch though. I watched the game before ours and it seemed like after every time the defense got three outs and came in to bat, half of the players reached for their cigarettes and lit one up. Must be really stressful out there.

In other news, I am going to be returning to nossa terra gloriosa in December. That`s right. Mozambique. I have been talking to a student through email and I am raring to go. I am extremely excited to see my students and how they have grown up. When I have talked to a couple of them on the phone, it`s startling to hear how deep their voices are. When I started teaching them, they were in 8th grade and when I get there, they will be finishing 11th and moving onto their final year of high school. I will see them before they all scatter to the wind in different directions and convince them to stop calling my parents in the middle of the night. Maybe give a mini-lesson on time zones.

Wow, I really went AWOL. My apologies. Now that summer break is over, the students have been running around with the school sports festival. The sports festival isn`t actually about sports, just running and doing crazy games. The students in the high school and junior high are divided into three teams and they then battle it out for top honors. Each team has to plan a timed and choreographed dance, and they compete against each other in different categories throughout the day. Some of the students seem to take it very seriously, creating cheers and forcing team spirit with the reluctant junior high kids. When I was asked this week if we have sports day in America, they were surprised when I said no. I told them that if students don`t want to do something in America, they usually don`t have to. This was shocking. Here, there is definitely a "you say jump and I say how high" kind of mentality in schools. No questions asked.

Classes are going well. I find forcing conversation with the students to be the most enjoyable part of my job. They obviously never have to have conversations in English in their typical English classes so it obviously makes them extremely uncomfortable when I fix my sights on them. Their first reaction is "if I don`t look at her, she isn`t there." When they can no longer deny my existence, they look frantically around at their fellow students for a life raft. Then they look at the Japanese teacher, who puts her hands up and says "don`t look at me!" Finally, you start to see the cogs turning as they reconcile themselves to the fact that they will have to give a coherent response to "how was your summer vacation?" I feel like they really go through the stages of grief before they can answer my questions.

I have been exercising still in Ojika and the little older ladies at the grocery store ask me about it and pretend to jog in place. Nothing escapes people`s attention here, particularly at lunch. I have been eating raw vegetables at lunch for a long time now. I make my lunches because it`s cheaper than buying the bento lunches at school every day. Japanese people don't really eat raw vegetables and so when they hear a giant "CRUNCH!" and see me gnawing on a carrot, they always look shocked. "Erin-sensei, you can EAT that?!" I have found that cucumbers, carrots and green peppers are extremely crunchy and attract a lot of unwanted attention in the quiet teacher`s room. The last time I brought an entire apple to the elementary school to eat in front of the kids at lunch, they all looked at me like I was trying to milk a dog. The bento lunches in Japan are mostly composed of rice and then pieces of meat carefully separated into separate cupcake tins. There aren`t really any vegetables, except maybe a random tomato. Dessert is usually a slice of an apple or a strawberry. Every time I have eaten a bento lunch at school, I feel comatose for the rest of the afternoon. And as for making my own bento, it seems like a lot of effort for some meat and rice.

Softball league with the teachers starts tomorrow evening and goes for a month. What joy is mine. Everyone is intent on me pitching but can't seem to understand what kind of damage I could do if I hit someone while pitching and they aren't wearing any protective gear.

My, my, my. Someone`s been negligent about their blog again! Time to make amends.

On Monday, I was walking to school and got caught in a downpour. I had my umbrella and thought it would be enough but I was quickly overpowered by the wrath of the torrential downpour. I had to keep walking to school because I didn`t have another method of getting to school. My clothes were getting soaked and I was walking as fast as I could. A co-worker at the high school drove straight past me, completely ignoring my plight. Then, as I was near the high school, a mother who was going to drop off her student, splashed me with her car. Just when I thought the day couldn`t get any worse, I found that my iPod had been soaked in my bag and the screen looked like a shoddy lava lamp, with the water swishing around inside.

I didn`t open my mouth to speak to anyone all morning because I knew that I would have a level 5 meltdown if I did. So I talked to my sister online, watched some cute puppy youtube videos and was talked me down from my anger. I also ordered a new iPod nano from a very friendly Apple rep in Japan. Nagai, wherever you are, you are awesome. But people just never realize how much they depend on something and how great it is until it`s gone though. I use that iPod ALL the time. Especially when I work out (I have officially lost 41 lbs.!!! woohoo!!!). And that iPod has been with me through thick and thin - through Peace Corps and through my first year in Japan. Sweet sorrow at this parting. The iPod had battle scars and scratches from love and a memorable inscription on the back from my sister, who had given it to me as a present. "You owe me! Smooches, Kara" So until I receive the iPod today or tomorrow, I am stuck alone with my own thoughts and the cicadas during my walks, jogs and stair climbings on the island.

I can't express just how much Japanese women hate getting any form of a tan because of their fear of aging. A colleague explained to me that during high school and university, it's more accepted for a girl's skin to be exposed to the sun. However, once you are 22 or older, it`s time to go Edward Cullen and avoid sunlight. Whenever we have to be outside for school activities, it's kind of funny to see the female teachers. Every inch of their body is covered with clothing in the high temperatures and humidity. If they are wearing a t-shirt, the rest of their arms are covered with long fingerless sleeves. And even then, they wear gloves. They wear pants, rather than shorts and long-brimmed bucket hats.

When you ask a guy if he cares about his skin becoming tan, he says no. And he doesn`t. You will be hard pressed to find a guy frantically rubbing on SPF 50 and searching for his wide brimmed bucket hat on an overcast day. As in most countries, it is okay for the men to age normally but women are expected to try to not age because there is this idea that as soon as she ages, her value somehow diminishes. In my opinion, you can`t fight it. I don`t mean we should all run around, slathering Crisco on our skin and sitting in the sun, surrounded by shiny tin foil, but I do think that there should be more acceptance of aging for women. I can't help but wonder if the women ever miss the feel of the sun on their skin and the vitamin D.

I, however, got burned at the softball tournament on Tuesday at the high school. I got to play with the male teachers against the boys and they seemed to have no problem with it. I think I surprised a lot of my students when I played first base and was able to smack a few hits up the middle. I didn`t play with the girls because although they are amazing at tennis and badminton, they play softball like sissies. Softball is a man`s sport in Japan, so women usually sit on the sidelines and cheer. At the end of every trimester, there is a sports competition of some sort. In the summer, it`s softball. In the winter, it`s basketball. And in the spring, it`s volleyball and soccer. I was a fast-pitch softball pitcher in high school and the teachers know this. So of course they wanted me to pitch at the tournament. They seemed disappointed when I said no because the catcher wasn't wearing any protection and the students don't wear helmets when they bat. The last thing I wanted to do was give a student a concussion from a stray pitch or render the catcher incapable of producing children.

Life has been good lately. It has finally stopped raining. Apparently it was just a June thing. But now every day is sunny! The bad part is that my bicycle is still broken. There is a puncture in my tire and I`m going with a friend to the bicycle and motorbike shop today after school to ask them if they are able to repair it. I have been told that they are only capable of fixing cheap bicycles and since mine is a mountain bike, it may be more difficult. I hope that it`s just the tire that`s the problem because that seems like a very reparable problem. Another ALT (assistant language teacher) came to visit Ojika and his tire exploded on the road and when he went to the shop, they couldn`t fix it because they said his bicycle was too nice. So my fingers are crossed. Plus, I woke up at 5:00 this morning to wheel it to school and then go for a run on the high school field/dirt track. I just found it too embarassing to wheel a bike with such an obviously flat tire to school, like normal. I didn`t want to deal with any captain obvious comments of "you have a flat tire."

Exercise has been far more enjoyable with the beautiful weather. With a bicycle, I would be able to get out to the beaches easier. Also, since it isn`t raining anymore, I don@t have to worry about my umbrellas turning inside out in the gusts of wind. Now, I am still using the gym, going on walks/jogs, and doing random things. There is this beautiful park called Bandake that has a dam with a walkway around it. I stole the idea from someone else to walk or jog around the dam and it`s perfect. It`s beautiful and secluded, so I don`t feel self-conscious with all my sweating and gasping.

School is going well. The kids have their summer vacation starting next week and going until the end of August. In Japan, they get about five weeks of summer vacation, in comparison with the U.S.`s three months. I told my fifth grade students in the elementary school that Americans get three months of no school and they all gasped with envy. I really wanted to say "don`t worry, you`re ahead of us in most school subjects." I had read about how some schools in the states are cutting summer school, school hours, and the days of the week down to four to save money on the budget. It seems like they have all their priorities wrong if that is what they are cutting to meet budget restrictions.

The weather is once again unbearably warm. I bought a personal desk fan and I have upped the number of required sweat rags to two while at school. The teacher's room has AC but that's the only room in the high school where they turn it on. The students have to stay in their rooms and roast. I always have to bring a church fan to the classroom so I don' perspire too bad. Along with the heat and the humidity, comes mold. I have been wiping down my tatami but I went to school one day and by the time I returned home, there was mold on my tatami! And no amount of scrubbing with vinegar and water seems to remove it. Very futile and frustrating. And that isn't the only other living organism that has reared it`s ugly head. Hello mosquitos, cockroaches and other large unidentified flying objects. As soon as I see a bug in my apartment, I`m like Xena Warrior Princess with my sandal. Now I just need to learn the battle cry and creep my neighbor out.

So this school in Staten Island, New York has an amazing music teacher who has his chorus sing pop songs. When I was in elementary school, music class or chorus was NEVER this interesting. I remember being generally annoyed with choir in sixth grade and just walking up to the director and telling him I quit. But this guy has energy that shoots through the roof and you can tell he really cares about his students. If you look up this school, they do so many great songs! I am probably late in seeing this because I've been abroad. But wow, so good!

Here is a youtube video that Beyonce did about her creation of her latest album, 4. At about 2 minutes in, she goes tobagganing down the Great Wall of China, which Kara and I did in April! Definitely one of the best parts of Beijing.

But another great part of this video is the preparation of the dancing in the video for her single Run the World (Girls). She uses dancers from Mozambique because she saw a video of them dancing on youtube. At around 7 minutes in, she talks about incorporating their style and eventually brings the Mozambicans over to teach her dancers the moves and they are also in her Run the World video (below), starting at about 50 seconds! They are the two guys who dance with her. Viva Moçambique!

I have had some interesting encounters with people lately. I was playing with the kids in the elementary school on Tuesday and I always have to play outside with them at recess. Since it is becoming ridiculously hot with the summer, I don't enjoy it as much. I think it confuses the kids when "Erin-Sensei" is always gravitating toward the shade of those pine trees rather than trying to save the "tag prisoners" at the jungle gym. The fourth graders are definitely the most scattered group to have recess with (and that is the grade with kancho girl). They rarely have any organized game planned and it usually involves just a lot of running around. So when their "game" had fallen apart for the last 10 minutes of recess, I was pushing some second graders on the swings and talking to a girl trying to walk on stilts. This little girl is super adorable and very intelligent. She saw that I was sweating and looked up at me and said "Are you okay?!" I was stunned. I don't even think that some high schools kids would be able to form that sentence. I heard that the little girl's mother makes her wake up at 5 in the morning every day to study. She is only seven years old so it makes me really sad to think how she is losing some of her childhood so quickly. Let her sleep longer or watch cartoons! Save the strict studying for high school.

I went to Sasebo on Saturday to go to a lady doctor appointment. I was really nervous because I don't know what it's like in Japan. I had been reading on the internet about different experiences and they ranged from the super invasive to "you feeling good? okay, great" types. Luckily, Sasebo is home to an American naval base so there is a doctor there who delivers about 5 American babies a month from the base. He speaks perfect English and his clinic is amazingly foreigner friendly. The staff spoke English and the inside was super swanky. There is a cafeteria and water aerobics for pregnant ladies. My sister and I were joking that people should just go do water aerobics there even if they aren't pregnant. ("Cannonball!") It turns out that this was the non-invasive type doctor visit. All I got was an ultrasound and the doctor said "your uterus looks very nice." It took every fiber of my being to not say "thank you." A friend of mine said I should have said "thank you, do you like the paint and new furniture?" And then that joke evolved into an idea for "Extreme Makeover: Uterus Edition." Sometimes, I just take it too far.

While waiting for the ferry to return to Ojika, I often sit and read or journal. I am just the journaling type. I like to document things and it's like a therapy for me. There is a guard who works at the ferry terminal and he enjoys approaching me and speaking to me in English. I don't mind speaking to people in English (because generally, that is what I do) but this guy drives me bonkers. I am obviously doing something and yet he forces his conversation on me. I never interrupt people if they look like they are vested in some other activity because I know how annoying it is. What does he do for the second time since I have been in Japan? He leaned over to try to read what I was writing! I was flabbergasted. He has little common sense obviously. At that point, I got up quickly and pretended that I needed to go somewhere with all my bags. I went outside and sat behind a pillar but he still found me. So maybe I am going to have to scope out bathroom stalls the next time I want to get some peace and quiet before sitting on a rocking ferry for two and a half hours.

There seems to be an energy initiative in Japan this year. The teachers are much more careful about turning off lights and general use of electricity. There is also something about plugging and unplugging our computers during the day. The part where this gets unbearable is that they haven`t turned the air conditioning on yet. It`s very sticky and humid, and often, during the summer, the only respite in a school is the teacher`s room since that is the only air conditioned room in the building. I am all for saving energy, but within reason. I already show up to school panting like a little dog and awkwardly sweating through a tank top and a shirt. I have been asked on several occasions while fanning myself at my desk to cool down if I am okay or not. Yes, please poke this bear with that stick.

Otherwise, everything is going well here on the small island. I have been much busier at the elementary school and junior high than I have been at the high school, even though that is my main school. After a day with the elementary school kids, I definitely always need a nap. Kancho girl has been at it again - showing off for her friends by picking on the foreigner. I was walking to the gym the other day after school and kancho girl and her friends were walking home. Of course, to make her friends laugh, she charged up after me with her umbrella and walked extremely close. I was not in a good mood so a good glare and a swift "DAME!" (stop!) seemed to do the trick, even though I could hear her mimicking me to her friends and saying "dame! dame!" I think that girl gets teased at school and has pent-up aggression. She is an overweight child and in a grade of 10 boys and 5 girls, she becomes quiet as a mouse anytime we are in class. But none of that is an excuse for her poor behavior. Every time I have told anyone about this child and her intention of making a mockery of me, they simply laugh. It`s driving me bonkers.

In Mozambique, I took a much more straightforward approach. When I saw a gang of children throwing rocks into our yard at my dog, I went to the elementary school next door, where they all fled into a classroom. Trapped in the classroom, the students had no way of fleeing me and I easily apprehended one of the future shotput olympians and took her screaming and crying to the school office. Of course, the school did nothing to punish her because of their lack of organization, but it drove the point home for the girl and the students who saw her being taken to the office. Maybe next time, they would think before they tried to stone my dog. I could easily do that in Mozambique because confrontation was more common there. Here, there is no confrontation. If someone makes you angry, you are usually expected to grin and bear it. You accept another person`s bad actions and horrible personality with a smile, rather than telling them directly that they are wrong. (That is one reason why I sometimes don`t like the phrase "ganbare," which is used often here and basically means "fight through it" - sometimes, you shouldn`t have to fight through it. You should verbally smack the person down like the hand of God.)

I was reading a book about marriage in Japan and an American woman who had married a Japanese man said that she was at the embassy in Tokyo once, trying to get her paperwork in order. While she was waiting to speak to someone, she saw an embassy worker yelling at a woman for not having the correct paperwork and it actually made her smile and become nostalgic for good ol` American confrontation. You really do begin to crave direct interactions with people who aren`t easily offended and that`s where having other foreigner friends or a long phone call home can really make all the difference.

My sister sent me this article from NPR about maternal and infant mortality in Mozambique. Written by Melissa Block, with NPR, the statistics are startling:

"In her lifetime, a Mozambican woman has a 1 in 37 chance of dying during pregnancy or within a short time after a pregnancy has ended. One in 10 children won't live past the first year. One in 7 dies before reaching the age of 5."

They talk about Monapo and Nacala, the area I used to live in while I was a teacher in Mozambique from 2007-2009. I went to the hospital in Monapo when I had a serious health problem. My throat was slowly swelling shut because of a bacterial abcess and a doctor and nurse took a look at me and just started laughing at the appearance of my abcess. The doctor then prescribed me a medicine I`m a allergic to. My experience was small peanuts in comparison to what these women must go through. I can`t even imagine what it must feel like to be a pregnant woman in such an environment.

The hospital is exactly how they describe it in the article. It seems like it`s forever stuck in the 1960`s or 70`s. There are mattresses on floors. Dirt is visible. The sanitation level is poor. Medical utensils and tools lay about. I remember sitting and waiting on a bench to see a doctor, and looking around, I saw an ancient rusted and unplugged refridgerator with an old label of "Blood Bank" written on it. It looked like it had been there when the Portuguese were still in Nampula - in 1974. There is no sense of urgency with staff. The pregnant women or women with babies seemed to sit for hours and hours, waiting for a doctor or nurse to speak with them.

There are not enough doctors to accomodate the population of Mozambique and many of them are overworked. If more nurses were trained in emergency surgical skills and techniques and there was more education about pregnancy and maternal health, the mortality rate would improve dramatically.

Here is also a documentary called Birth of a Surgeon, that follows a woman in the southern part of Mozambique as she struggles to help Mozambican women through midwifery and surgical skills.

I went to Oshima, a smaller island near Ojika, to teach a couple of lessons on Tuesday and it went well. I like to call it my Baby School. The smaller island has a population of 60 people and many of them are older, so one day, I imagine that Oshima will become deserted. Ojika, on the other hand, has just under 3,000 people - also, with many elderly people. There may only be four students in the Oshima school but it`s one of my favorite parts of my job. There is a 1st grade girl, a 3rd grade boy and two 6th grade boys. After the sixth graders graduate to the junior high in April, I am thinking that the school will cease to exist. Very sad, considering there used to be 50-60 students in the school. There are three classrooms, a big gymnasium, playground equipment and two teachers and a principal at the school. It`s such a peaceful little place, where everyone gets along. If there was such a thing as a Utopic school, this would be it.

The newest student is the first grader at the baby school, a little girl with her front teeth missing. Every time she giggles, she hunches her shoulders up to the bottom of her ears. Super adorable kid. We were going over greetings with her and the third grade boy. The teacher was asking the boy about greetings and he just had a blank on his face, when, from out of nowhere, the little 1st grade girl goes "good morning!" She totally whooped him on greetings and numbers, even though she is two years younger. It was awesome. And I never thought I would get so much enjoyment out of playing janken (paper scissors rock) for twenty minutes but it was actually a lot of fun. We ended up doing it at the dock while we waited for the ferry to take me back to Ojika.

I also finally had my first lesson of the school year with the first and second grade students in Ojika. Those classes have around 10-15 students in each. I never thought that in our first lesson, there would be tears, a bloody nose and an impromptu nap in the corner. A little girl in class was extremely nervous when I asked her "how are you?" and I could see the tears forming in her eyes. Later, during the hello song, she finally lost it and started crying - the teacher directed her to a corner, where she promptly fell asleep. And then another little girl started to have blood pour out of her nose onto her clothes and hands. It was a war zone in there.

I just had one of those mornings where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed - or in my case, wrong side of the floor (since that`s where I sleep). At 5:45, I was woken up by a loud television, 45 minutes before I usually wake up. So as my frustration spiraled into annoyed, homesick tears, I went online and my sister managed to cheer me up from misery. Living abroad, whether it`s fairly close or on the opposite ends of the earth, and for no matter how long or how much you enjoy your job, you still get stabs of homesickness every once in a while. You want people who understand you and what you are saying and why you react the way you do in situations. Sometimes, wouldn`t it be nice if we could all just escape for a couple of days back to our home country? Just a brief respite from being "different." For me, it helps talking to my sister and having her send me things like a link to Rep. Anthony Weiner`s apology written on the pictures of sad-looking dachsunds.

But everything is all good now. Nothing cures sadness like giggly games and trying to teach high school students how to differentiate their pronunciation of L`s and R`s. Also, on my walk to school, the previously mentioned student who refused to get out of his mother`s car went sprinting past me up the hill on the way to school. The hill is not fun to walk up so I was impressed by his ambition. Suddenly, his mother`s car pulled up alongside him and he jumped in (like I imagine bank robbers do with getaway cars) and drove on to school. It was bizarre. So I imagine that there was some form of "You can just walk to school then!!!" and a "Fine!" and slamming doors in their house this morning.

Since it has grown hotter and more humid outside, the bugs are making a comeback. More cockroaches and spiders of all sizes. Cleaning the gym last week, I was the bug-toucher. I had to pick up a what-I-hope-was-just-a-beetle-and-not-a-cockroach as I was cleaning the windows. And also I had to free spiders into the "wild" with a broom because no one else wanted to literally touch the insects with a 10 foot pole. We were taking an unofficial break from cleaning the tatami mats in the gym and lying down and looking up, we could see dead spiders the size of coasters in the light fixtures. Pretty nasty to think of all the places those suckers are hidden in the buildings here.

Some of you may be wondering what tatami is. And if you aren`t, too bad. It`s a woven straw mat that`s used as the flooring in traditional Japanese rooms. You are supposed to go barefoot in the room when there is tatami (but you do take off your shoes anyways in every Japanese home). Tatami is also used as the flooring during Japanese martial arts, such as Judo, because it is softer to land on tatami than on a slab of cement. Surprise, surprise.

And here`s an interesting fact. If the mats aren`t kept clean, they attract insects called Dani that bite you. We have adult conversation classes in a room with this problem and those stabs of homesickness aren`t the only stabs you may be feeling.

After having working with REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educacao e Saude - or Girls in Development, Education and Health) in Mozambique, I see even more how necessary this school in Michigan is. So many young pregnant girls around the world are often forced to or feel as though their only option is to drop out of school. They are made to feel ashamed or that their life is over. This school in Michigan has a program that teaches girls to be responsible for themselves and their child. The school offers childcare services to the young women, teaches them how to work on a farm and requires the application to financial aid and post-secondary education.

However, it has been decided that this school, along with many others, should be closed down, despite the obvious opportunities it provides the girls. Rachel Maddow talks about it here.

School cleaning often involves a lot of confusion for me. An interesting thing to note about Japanese schools - they don`t have janitors. The janitors are the students. Every day, at 3:10, after they have finished their classes for the day, the students are then given the task of cleaning the school. This often involves sweeping and dusting and a lot of looking busy (at least, that is what I would do if I were a student). I help out in the teachers` room, with three or four girls who come in to sweep every day while I change the garbages.

While our prefecture is having their sports event this weekend, the only two groups left on the island are the band kids and the baseball boys. Both clubs were given the two-hour task of cleaning the gym. You may think that a task that simple would not require two hours. But you would be wrong. The following are some interesting methods of cleaning I have observed.

The gym floor - washed by hand, the students are required to line up and, holding the cloth down with their hands, they run to the other end of the gym in a straight line. I am pretty sure I have seen something comparable and just as torturous during the last chance workout on the Biggest Loser. I asked if there was a mop - but I got a blank look in return.

The windows - they are washed, then wiped dry...and then rubbed with newspaper. I asked what the purpose of the newspaper was and no one could give me an answer. It seemed to be a "that`s just how we do things" kind of answer with a shrug.

But hey, it could have been worse. We could have been with the baseball club members, who were sitting outside...picking grass off the field.

I would just like to dedicate a post to my wonderful eikaiwa groups. Eikaiwa is a conversation class in Japan. I have both beginners and advanced eikaiwa groups that meet on Thursday nights at the city hall. My beginners group has a solid five people and my advanced has around seven or eight, depending on the availability of the members. My beginners group has a few housewives, an older woman with impressive English skills and a man who is also a member of my advanced group (he is extremely helpful with explaining English to the others when they are confused). The women have no problem laying down the law and telling someone when it is their turn to Go Fish. My advanced group has a few housewives, a nursery school teacher and a couple of shop owners - all with varying levels of English.

After a long day at school, when I feel tired and drained, I still go to eikaiwa and I find these people to be the most enjoyable company out of anyone I know on the island. Their sense of humor and their natural curiosity for learning is inspiring. I am constantly being asked questions like "what does 'I have a bun in the oven' mean?" Their comprehension is so good and they are dedicated to practicing the language so they don't lose it after they studied, traveled or worked abroad years ago. A few of them are the parents of my students as well, so it's fun to hear about the funny things their children say.

I was at my friend's clothing shop on Monday (I had to drop off my frozen burritos to put in her freezer because of a pesky fried circuit breaker - that's a whole 'nuther story) and the second grade students in the elementary school were told to walk around the main street area of Ojika to look at shops and ask the shop owners questions. So they all trudged around with clipboards hanging around their necks, like miniature mall surveyors. You know, the ones you avoid eye contact with. My friend's son is in the second grade and he came into the store while I was talking to his mother. After greeting us, the students in his group immediately began to write down on their clipboards what the shop sells. Apparently, having lived behind the shop his entire seven years, he found the topic boring and instead of writing "I went to the shop and saw socks, pants, shirts, shoes, etc.", he decided to only write "I went to my shop and I saw Erin-sensei." Concise and to the point.

From Wikipedia : "Kancho (カンチョー, kanchō?)[1] is a prank often played in Japan; it is performed by clasping the hands together so the index fingers are pointing out and attempting to insert them sharply into someone's anal region when the victim is not looking.[2][3] It is similar to the wedgie or a goosing, although, as compared to kancho, the former mentioned acts do not involve physical contact which is quite as intimate or direct. A Kancho is often executed simultaneously as the offending party loudly emphasizes the second syllable of "Kan-CHO!".

I have seen both children and adults doing this to each other and I just don`t get it. In the United States, this would be seen as an assault. It`s not funny and why anyone would want to put their fingers in someone else`s private parts is completely beyond me. I had resolved that if anyone ever attempts to do that to me, they will have their fingers quickly and painfully broken.

Yesterday, I was outside playing soccer with the third and fourth grade students. There is one female student who is always loud and obnoxious toward me, which I can`t seem to figure out. But as we were playing the game, I noticed that she was walking closely behind me and her friends were laughing. I turned around quickly and realized that she was miming "kancho-ing" me. Remembering my sworn personal oath, I did what any sane, well-balanced adult would do in the same situation. I chased her around the playground until she was breathless and had learned her lesson. She is no marathon runner, so she was saying uncle by the time we neared the jungle gym.

I just find the whole idea of kancho bizarre and disgusting. Here is a Kancho survival guide.

I was witness to an interesting event this week. A student in the junior high refused to get out of his mother`s car to go to school. She and a group of teachers stood outside the car and appeared to strategize on how to extract the kid - acting as though the jaws of death couldn`t pry that adolescent from the grips of his seatbelt. Like the same feeling I have about petting the dog down the street - I`m fairly certain I`d pull back a bloody stump if I ever tried to pet the poorly socialized little feller. This kid is 13 years old and quite intelligent (he rocks at English), but obviously used to getting his way. When I asked others about it, they shook their heads and immediately claimed that it was a mental problem. After discussing it with another foreign friend, she astutely labeled it "a brat problem." So often, bad behavior is excused as a mental issue here. You live, you learn. When I was younger, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to school. I am convinced that my mother would have pulled me kicking and screaming from the vehicle, letting me land on the sidewalk and drive ahead to work. There were two litmus tests - have you thrown up? Or do you have a fever? No? Get your backpack. Sometimes (stress on sometimes) horrible colds and the flu were negotiable. Not that my mother is a cold human being or intent on opening the pandora`s box of runny noses - she is just not a push-over. I feel like 13 years old is a little ridiculous to be throwing a tantrum and being able to walk all over your parents - that should be reserved for younger ages, when you are well-prepared to throw yourself on the floor of the grocery store and scream for strawberry Twizzlers. You know, the worthy causes.

It has been a slow start to the school year thus far. Between the sweat and the occasional four-hour long work party, it has yet to pick up the pace. When I am not at school, I can usually be found sitting on the floor of my apartment, watching enough episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians to deplete my brain power by half or going to the gym and making the men very uncomfortable. When I was there on Saturday, I checked the log you have to sign in to when you begin. A guy had only been there ten minutes when I got there and he left shortly after. I am super selfish though in the gym and love having the machines to myself. Especially the treadmill, which is quickly becoming my favorite now that I have figured out how to turn it on.

I went running yesterday morning really early and as I slowed down for my cooldown walk and was breathing like a pug with blocked nasal cavities, an old man was walking to his field to look at his crops. He stopped me and asked me two specific questions. How old are you? Do you run here everyday? It took me a moment to respond - partially because I had to catch my breath and also because I was shocked. I understood what he was asking. I had a glorious moment in time where I understood everything a person was asking me in Japanese and responded in kind. My Oprah ah-ha moment. It took me a moment to respond because of the breathing and the shock, but also because, always the morbid skeptic, my initial thought was "Why do you want to know? Are you going to be hiding in that brush pile with a knife?"

Let me start by saying that yes, I did just reference Da Turdy Point Buck. I like to keep it classy. If you didn`t have the privilege of growing up in the upper midwest or being there during deer hunting season, this special song can be heard on the radio about once an hour. Thankfully, the point to which I refer is within the first 15 seconds.

The humidity has officially slammed into Japan. At least, on my island it has. Apparently it is worse here than on the mainland because it`s an island - i.e. it`s surrounded by water. On Sunday, when I had to work, I was walking to work and suddenly realized how much sweat I was producing. And so it begins. Walking to work and the rest of my co-workers driving -> me showing up dripping in sweat and having to change my shirt before school starts and them, foreheads dry, asking me if I`m okay. "No, I`m not having a heart attack. Thank you for the concern." My apartment has constant moisture in the air so I am looking into getting a dehumidifier to fight the damp. I will have to check out the place my sister refers to as Ojika`s Best Buy. You`d have to see the place to see how ridiculous that reference is.

I was teaching my sixth grade students yesterday and I turned to write some numbers on the board and they all went "WOW! SUGOI!" Sugoi means like "amazing!" or to express amazement. It didn`t take me long to realize they were talking about my sweat-covered back. I sweat through two layers. What!? I can`t help it! Later in the day, I walked to the gym to work out and my umbrella was pretty flimsy and turned itself inside out a few times with all the wind. After I was finished, I walked home drenched from my workout and the air was misty from the rain. I was checking out with my items and the owner of the shop said "don`t you have an umbrella?!" I wasn`t about to tell her "oh no, that`s just sweat," so I just told her my umbrella was super small.

My co-worker says they are predicting a hotter, stickier summer for Japan this year in comparison with the last. I`m going to need to save my yen to hire a personal attendant to fan me all day long.

I am in Osaka right now, taking in some sightseeing during Golden Week. Golden Week in Japan is when there are three consecutive holidays in the middle of a week so you can pretty much call the entire week a bust in regard to work. So I took advantage of the opportunity to come to Osaka. So far, I have gone to the Osaka Aquarium, rode the giant ferris wheel and visited Osaka Castle. The Aquarium was okay but super crowded with too many small children. Note to fellow travelers - don't go during GW. Also, while they had the expected fish, sharks and dolphins, it was still kind of depressing seeing their captivity. If you have seen The Cove, you will know what I am talking about. It made me question where those dolphins came from. I still think that Cape Town had the nicest aquarium I have ever been to - barring my dislike for animal captivity. It was impossible to enjoy it when you are trying not to get elbowed. They even spaced out the tourists so that the traffic would flow better but that didn't seem to help much. And parents, note to you: do not put your child up on your shoulders so they can see better!!! You are cutting off the views of the people behind you! When you have that mob mentality, it's survival of the fittest tourism and I prefer the laid back version.

The ferris wheel was fine and did everything it promised to do - that is, turn in a big circle and allow for a few photo ops. And then I headed to the castle, which is pretty but would probably be even more amazing during cherry blossom season, which just passed a few weeks ago.

I saw a Subway for lunch and became super excited for a healthy American-style lunch. I was in for a rude awakening. I ordered the #3 sandwich - a chicken and cheese 6 in. sub with the works on it. It was when I was about to pay, I realized that they had prepared three sandwiches for me! And the resulting conversation was like a bi-lingual version of Abbot and Costello's Who's on First?

Me: Sorry! Just one sandwich.

Sandwich Artist: You wanted three?

Me: No, I wanted one #3.

Sandwich Artist: So, you wanted three.

Me: No, I wanted one.

Sandwich Artist: One?

Me: Yes, I wanted one #3, the chicken and cheese.

Sandwich Artist: You want three?

Me: No, I want one.

Sandwich Artist: One?

Me: (Giving up on life) One.

I am sure that they thought I was an idiot. It is apparent that Japanese Subway shops do not pay attention to the numbers of sandwiches like its American brethren. But then again, why would they think I want three sandwiches? And why do they put a cheese paste on their subs rather than the real deal? So many unanswered questions.

http://youtu.be/sShMA85pv8M

I went to the public gym yesterday and was lifting weights. The only other person in the weight room was the only girl on the track and field team, an 11th grader. She is an amazing runner. This is the same girl whose grandmother commented that her skin is too dark because she is always outside running. The girl obliterates her competition when she runs. We worked out in silence after greeting each other. The girl is strong - it`s impressive. I am convinced that if she was on the track for university, she could win a scholarship. I think she was pleased that there was another woman in there lifting weights. I imagine it can get lonely being the only girl on the track and field team.

Today at lunchtime, I was sitting at my desk, eating lunch when she came in with an apron on. She came bearing banana cake and tea for me she had made in home ec! Such a sweet thing to do. What a kind girl! She said "This is banana cake and this is tea! Here you are!" The kids on the island are conscientious, respectful and kind. A total anomaly in this day and age.

It seems like I am constantly tripping and falling on this island. I usually trip in front of other people or in front of cars driving past. And the first thing I do as I can feel gravity doing me wrong, is put my hands out and fling any precious items in my hands to the side (kindle, iPod). I don`t want to ruin them with my always-less-than-graceful landings. The second thing is to check my pants to make sure I didn`t rip them. The last thing usually involves a lot of swearing and muttering under my breath.

Classes are going well. I think I still intimidate some of the kids but you know you are making strides when they come to collect you for lunch by themselves in the junior high, rather than like a herd of gazelles - safety in numbers. Don`t worry, kids. I got my vampire teeth pulled out in the 4th grade before I got braces. I don`t bite. I am working with the junior class preparing to go to university in the high school. It involves a lot of reading texts and then going over vocabulary and comprehension. It`s a bit of a yawn factory but that`s what I have been asked to do and more interesting changes in activities to the lesson plan have been deemed unnecessary. So far, since I am unable to change the content of the lessons, the only thing that seems to keep their attention is me using my outdoor voice inside. Just talk like you`re enthusiastic and they`ll pay more attention. I know that reading about the fermentation of tea leaves hasn`t felt inspiring - although I did learn that all teas are actually made from the same tree. Fascinating. I really want to push the students but I am told that they can`t handle being pushed in their English skills. I am convinced that if they focus hard enough, they could hold a conversation with me or answer questions. If you start off a lesson by telling students it`s probably too difficult for them, they aren`t going to give it their all.

The weather in Ojika has been fabulous. It is the perfect temperature. It`s between the bone-chilling and windy cold and the dripping sweat stages. There are flowers in bloom all over the island and farmers have planted their rice and other vegetables. I am really looking forward to the summer! In the early mornings and late afternoons, of course. I will be too busy wallowing in my own sweat at all other times of the day. I`m hoping that getting into shape will cut down on misery come July.

When I go for my walks on the island, one thing that seems a bit much is all the nodding people expect you to do. A lot of drivers going past will nod and while I understand this as a courtesy in Japan, I also find it highly unnecessary. I get it. You are being respectful by acknowledging me - but I don`t need to be acknowledged. Just like I don`t need you to acknowledge that I fell back there on the sidewalk. I need to listen to my "Super Sassy Workout Mix" iTunes playlist and think about what I`m making for dinner or about my ten-year plan. I like to zone out during my walks and worrying about offending someone by not bowing with my head seems too much to bear. I have noticed that women are far more courteous toward me in car-bowing. The bus driver and the lone taxi driver in Ojika, however, are always willing to give a wave. It`s all very Mr. Roger`s neighborhood sometimes. I should do some kind of study on this.

I went to the gym the other day and I am going to go back again today. The gym in Ojika is definitely an interesting place. It costs 100 yen to work out and it`s usually pretty quiet, unless there are games or tournaments. For equipment, it kind of feels like you are stepping back twenty years. There are old-fashioned stair climbers and a stationary bike that have lost their resistance, one treadmill (where the belt seems unattached), and a rodeo seat. I don`t really understand the rodeo seat. Obviously the intention is that it`s like you are on a bucking bull, but it just makes grown men look ridiculous, sitting on this small seat that just seems to vibrate. I have yet to figure out the health benefits of the rodeo seat. Other than the machines that are seemingly worthless, there are some free weights and some other machines I`m a big fan of. Of course, there are never any women in there working with weights. Whenever I have asked men if women lift weights, they shake their heads and start laughing. The standard for Japanese women is to be slim - no muscles. Well, they are about to get schooled.

I have friends who have problems with the idea of female perfection here in Japan - getting comments on their size and skin color. I agree with them. While I find Japanese people on my island to be extremely polite and wonderful people, there are other cases where people are rude and passive aggressive to me because I am bigger than Japanese women. Living in Mozambique taught me to love my body no matter what I look like because every culture has a different perspective. In Mozambique, it was great to be a bigger person with hips and curves because that means you are healthy and successful. In Japan, curves are anything but the rage. So far, I have found Korea, China and Japan to be similar in their views on women and weight. There`s a lot of woman-against-woman criticism. Women are supposed to be slim, with white skin and people are quick to point out each others` "flaws." But I think that if you worry about everyone else`s opinions all the time, you will go crazy. It`s all in the confidence. Rock what you got.

I was in the teacher`s room last week when I was approached by an office staff, with a co-worker reluctantly translating, asking if I wanted to take leave for a mental exam. I said no and he kept insisting, saying that he recommended it. That made me question why he would ask me. Do I exude mental imbalance? Do I look like a fruit loop? He apparently didn`t ask everyone (just a few teachers) and I am super curious as to why he would think I need a mental exam. I consider myself a pretty happy, emotionally stable person. I guess in Japan it isn`t considered rude to tell people that you think it`s a good idea for them to be psychologically examined. I can see why my co-worker didn`t want to translate.

Just when I thought I was scot-free from brass band, I got roped in again, unwillingly. Last week, the students had an assembly for all the clubs and sports to talk about themselves to convince the new 10th graders to join. A student came to the teacher`s room to ask if I would play the trumpet with them. I turned to my co-worker and said that I was trying to think of a nice way to say no. She nodded and turned to speak with the student. The student nodded and left and then I asked her what she told the girl. "I told her you had some kind of appointment, so you should probably show up a little late." So I waited and waited, and when I thought it was safe, I went to the gym to catch a few of the presentations. Everyone stood up and talked about their groups and the badminton team even did a demonstration, which roped in a whopping new 5 members! Which is pretty considerable, considering they only had 4 before. But finally, it was the band`s turn and I was sitting on the ground, expecting just to listen when a teacher who works with the band comes running up to me seconds before with a trumpet in her hand. "Let`s play!" This was in front of the entire school so I couldn`t say no so I went up and pretended to play for the entire song. No more! Uncle!

My vacation went well for the most part. Be prepared for a super long post - so...you`re welcome. Kara and I hung around my island for a few days, resulting in an untimely spraining of her ankle walking down the steps of an island cemetery. That`s what you get for trying to photograph the dead. I am still convinced she was pushed. She also got a bad cold from the plane, making me want to spray everything down with lysol. After expressing my concern for her well-being, of course. In Ojika, we had my co-workers car to drive around in and hit up all the hot spots - the pot hole, the schools, the museum, etc., and luckily, we had perfect weather.

After Ojika, we took a ferry to the mainland and hopped on a shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. The bullet train is pretty amazing. It only took about 3 hours to get to Kyoto from Fukuoka. Mind you that that is covering half of the entire nation of Japan in 3 hours. Kyoto was beautiful, even though the cherry blossoms hadn`t opened yet. We saw several temples and ate our way through Japanese cuisine. Okonomiyaki, ramen (not the crappy 49 cent kind), kaiten sushi (or conveyor belt sushi), sashimi, domburi, and the list goes on. Japan really does have some of the most amazing food and fresh fish. You rarely have to worry about food poisoning.

In Kyoto, one of the neatest experiences was sitting at a small local bar, drinking a beer (Kara had a water since she was heavily medicated) and watching the cook make okonomiyaki right in front of us at the bar. Okonomiyaki is like a delicious vegetable pancake. Also, on the outskirts of Kyoto is a place called Arashiyama Monkey Park and you climb this steep mountain and when you get to the top, you get to feed monkeys! It was super cool to put pieces of apple into their grubby little hands - they felt like little human hands. They also had a presentation where they played can-can music and fed the monkeys peanuts.

After Kyoto, we headed to Hiroshima for a somber look at the Peace Park in commemoration of the atomic bomb. It was really interesting and sad wrapped into one. Amazingly, there are still two buildings standing from the bombing and we even went in one of them. After much debate, Hiroshima decided to keep the buildings standing as a reminder of the events. In fact, the most amazing building is a public exhibition hall that the bomb was dropped directly over. You can still see a twisted spiral stair case and you can see the cracks in the wall where the city has fought the building from crumbling.

Interestingly enough, Kara and I were sitting in the park after going to the museum when we were approached by two women who conversed with us a bit. I should have been suspicious because Japanese people don`t tend to approach strangers to chat. In fact, as soon as they said "have you heard the good news?" any normal person would have felt that light bulb go off. But we instead said "no, what news?" They were missionaries of some kind, spreading the word of god. After we had our Oprah ah-ha moment and politely declined, the women gave up on converting the only white people in the park to whatever form of evangelicalism to which she subscribes. Kara turned to me and declared "that`s terrible news."

After Hiroshima, we returned to Fukuoka for a night and did some laundry and cherry blossom-viewing and boarded a morning flight to Beijing. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Beijing, you could definitely tell the air quality was far poorer. After settling in at the hostel and a night`s rest, we booked a trip that took us around to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. Note: never go on a planned tour to those places during a four-day public holiday unless you enjoy being pushed, crowded and just generally annoyed with the world. The Forbidden City was cool but it would have been more enjoyable had the crowd been smaller and less pushy.

The next day, we headed out to do some shopping. There was a gigantic computer center to get not-so-legit-but-probably-of-the-same-quality goods. They had everything and anything electronic in there and would call out as we walked past. "iPad?! Computer?!" They throw it out there expecting to get shut down so it was fun to see the looks on their faces when their calls actually caused us to turn into their stalls.

There is also a market called the Alien Street Market. When you enter, all the vendors are Chinese but almost all the customers are Russians. It`s strange to hear the Russian language at every turn. Russians make purchases in China, apparently, and then take the goods back to Russia to sell for a profit. Another market is the Silk Market, one of my favorite parts of the trip. At the Silk Market, they have everything - clothes, shoes, jewelry, and bags. We haggled and bargained with shop owners in the different stalls for a few hours - finding everything from "pearls" to odd-shaped cigarette lighters for friends (one was shaped like a chocolate bar, the other like a pack of marlboros).

I have a system when I bargain. I set the bar low, work up maybe a little and then when they don`t agree to my price, I act like that`s my final offer and pretend like I`m leaving. They then become desperate, grab my arm and beg me not to leave, giving it to me for my price. A girl was practically skiing across the floor as she held onto my arm to keep me from leaving. It really brought me back to the market in Mozambique and haggling over the used clothing markets and street jewelry. The workers were working hard at their trade, buttering up customers "OOOH! You`re so clever!" Kara, however, was horrible at bargaining. This was the discussion I overheard.

Silk Scarf Seller: I will give you for 1500 yuan.

Kara: That`s too much.

Silk Scarf Seller: Not too much.

Kara: That`s half my mortgage.

Silk Scarf Seller: (blank, confused face and pause) How much you want for?

Kara: Well, I would pay like 500 but I know that`s just way too low for you.

It was hard to keep myself from physically shaking my head in disappointment. It`s also hard to signal to another person what to do when the sellers speak such good English. I am convinced that some of those market sellers could get a much better job with the high level of English they have learned from hawking badminton birdie cigarette lighters in the Silk Market. But the women in the market were a lot of fun to talk to, bringing up their families and talking about their lives. Although they quote really high prices, I have a lot of respect for people with those jobs because they know how to turn on the charm. And Kara did slowly begin to improve her bargaining skills.

We also climbed on the Great Wall. Even the best workout video of Billy Blanks or Jillian doing upper cuts and high kicks couldn`t match the burn and sweat that results from walking along the Great Wall at Mutianyu. It was incredibly beautiful (minus the pollution-laden haze that settled above the mountains). The best part, besides pretending to be Jaden Smith in the Karate Kid in pictures, was tobaganing down from the hill. Yes, you get to ride a tobagan down! Best ride ever. I loved it so much I was willing to overlook getting a mouthful of a dirty "slow down!" flag hanging above the track in my mouth. And we also met a nice South African girl and discussed our love of various reality TV shows for an hour or so.

The next day was, by far, the most depressing part of Beijing. We went to Tiananmen Square. Setting aside the massacre of pro-democracy protestors there, as soon as you step into Tiananmen, you can feel the weight of communism - particularly as you are barked at to check your bags at the locker building across the street. You see old men wearing similar older navy blue clothes and hats buying flowers to set at the memorial of Mao. There are numerous security checks, regular and plain clothed police men and giant TV screens promoting the splendor of China　like a Disney Epcot video.　We went to see Mao mostly out of a desire to see the macabre display of his embalmed body in a glass case in a glass room with armed guards. His body is covered except for his face, which had a bright orange light shining on it. The man has been re-embalmed and re-made up every year since his death in 1976, resulting in a plastic looking exterior. And once in the memorial, in front of Mao, you are not allowed to talk or take pictures. It was one of the most bizarre experiences I have ever had.

Later in the day, we headed to the Olympic Stadium to look inside the Birds Nest and the Water Cube, even though I didn`t catch a minute of the 2008 Beijing Olympics because I was in Mozambique at the time. I don`t personally care much for the Olympics but Kara was excited to see it all.

We went to see the Aquarium and pandas at the Beijing Zoo. Now, mind you, the zoo itself is pretty depressing. The conditions of the animals is less than clean and spacious. The animals look miserable. The Aquarium is well-built and organized but they also appear to never clean their dolphin tanks or create the space needed for the animals to swim around. After the zoo and Kara bought her panda umbrella, we headed to a spa to get a facials and a foot rub. It was nice to be in a pleasant, clean space, getting my pores cleansed. I have never done it before and was suprised by the painful part where they dig into your skin so much that your face begins to feel like swiss cheese.

Chinese food in China is, surprisingly, not that impressive. A lot of peppers but not a lot of taste. What we ate is something you could easily find at a Chinese buffet anywhere in Wisconsin. We had given up on the food for intestinal and taste bud reasons, so after an excellent dinner of Belgian food, we headed to an acrobats show to see Chinese youth contorting their bodies and flipping in ways Americans could never accomplish. It was definitely worth the ticket to watch the performance despite the poor access to taxi cabs.

And now I am home again! It feels great to be back in quiet Ojika, with the new school year just starting. On Friday, all the students and teachers on the island are going on a hike - hopefully there are no stairs involved.

The school year has officially ended today. We had a ceremony this morning that involved a lot of bowing and speeches made by teachers who are leaving Ojika. I just can`t get over the resemblance of Ojika school assemblies to church. And then I have to fight the urge to fall asleep because when I think of standing up, sitting down, bowing, I start to feel that same bored-to-death feeling I would get in church. The best part of church was hearing the tone-deaf lady in the front pew try to wail away at Amazing Grace, silently judging people`s fashion choices and mishaps with holy water (a kid put his gum in it, a lady dropped her purse in it, etc.)

My parents decided they were going to postpone their trip to Japan until later because of the disaster in Japan but my sister (who had a nonrefundable ticket and isn`t going through Tokyo) is going to arrive in Ojika tomorrow night. I am going to Sasebo to pick her up and make sure she was able to get from Fukuoka all right. It`s pretty much fool-proof but one can never be too certain. So I am basically spending 6 hours round trip on a ferry to go get her. But it will be nice to see her and hear about the family and actually be able to speak to someone in fast English again (Lynum fast). I went to Uku island to the north for a band concert a couple of weekends ago and I was talking with the ALT on the island and it felt so good to speak so fast with an American. I am probably going to make my sister wish she had brought ear plugs.

I am brass banded out! I can`t possibly attend or play in any more concerts. I have already played in three in the past couple of weeks and I`m finished. No more. Zero. Zilch. Zip. It`s always the same story – get there seven hours early to practice. We had a concert on Sunday that people were supposed to arrive to by 7 in the morning and we didn`t play until 2 pm. I, however, slept in and said a little white lie of being busy with an appointment – so I got to stall until 11.

Tonight is an enkai to say goodbye to the staff who are leaving the high school next week. There are five of them and we will be getting five new people the week after that. So everything will be kind of up in the air. It`s a stressful time for people working in education in Japan because chances are that their lives will be uprooted and they will be moved to a new school. I`m sad to see them go – especially the music teacher because she has an awesome sense of humor and she`s a great neighbor. But she`s going to the southern-most Goto island in the chain of islands so I am sure that she will be back to visit.

I am really looking forward to my vacation from school. I have two weeks off and I will be returning for the first day of school. My sister and I will be in Ojika for a few days and we`ll drive around the island and she can meet my friends here. After that, we are headed to Kyoto and Hiroshima for the rest of the week. And next, we will go to China! Beijing! I am excited to see the sites there and try different food! Mostly I will be glad to be getting out a bit. I am starting to feel kind of restless on the island! The sun is starting to come out though (cue the Annie music) so it`s nice to finally feel the sun on my face again.

I was sitting at my desk on Friday when a group of teachers called me over to the TV in the teachers` room. That was when I saw the tsunami washing over Japan up north. We watched as people drove along the roads, completely oblivious to the water closing in on them. Cars were swept away. People were abandoning their cars and sprinting for overpasses. People were huddled on the roof of an airport. There were balls of fire sweeping along with the water where there had been explosions. A news reporter wore a hard hat just in case another earthquake struck. The teachers all stood there, amazed and said “it`s like a movie.” And it was like a movie, reminding me of the movie 2012. They immediately began to make a mental list of former students who had moved to the eastern coast of Japan and made phone calls to make sure that the students and their own friends and family in the area were safe.

Here is a video of some of the news footage.

I am lucky because I couldn`t be further from where the devastation has occurred and is still taking place. I live here. We simply had a tsunami warning and the water levels that could have approached our island were first 50 cm and then a possible 2 meters, but our island remained unaffected, thankfully. There are reports that in the devastated areas, the tsunami reached a height of seven meters. Now, there is the possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima prefecture at a nuclear power plant.

Rachel Maddow did a great report on the possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Japan. Check it out.

Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help with the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. You can donate here.

So I just re-read this book written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and I still feel like I can`t get enough of it. So as International Women`s Day has just passed, I felt like I would post about this amazing book and movement. The book is about the inequalities facing women in the world and how, if and when given the opportunities to grow and learn, these women make an incredibly positive impact on their communities across the world. The book talks about three different areas that impact women and those are maternal mortality, gender-based violence, and sex trafficking and prostitution. A must-read for anyone interested in women`s issues and the consequences of inequality. Below, I have posted an interview in two parts by Al Jazeera with the authors.

And here is the website for the movement spawned by the book.

I have vastly differing ideas as to when it is appropriate or necessary to turn on the gigantic kerosene heaters in the teacher`s room. When you turn them on or off, they let off noxious fumes and you have to open the windows in order to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. For safety reasons, I doubt these would ever be allowed within 10 feet of an American school. Being from Wisconsin, I can handle cold. If it`s not below freezing, I will be okay. Today it is a balmy 48 degrees outside and the sun is shining so it feels even warmer in the sunlight. For me, this is great. But the other teachers seem to think that this is still frozen tundra weather, judging by the way they swarm to the heater like mosquitos to a zapper in the summer time. Our body chemistries but be fine tuned to different levels because they are too cold in the winter and I am maybe a little chilled. But in the summer, when I roll up looking like I just dumped a gallon of water over my head, they arrive at school, dry as the Sahara (provided, they all drive to school).

The popular post-graduation activity in Japan seems to be to dye your hair once you are released from the clutches of secondary education. After having spent 18 years in an educational system that doesn`t allow makeup, dyed hair or any major variation in physical appearance that makes you stick out, these kids scream for rebellion - even if that rebellion is them all using the exact same color of hair dye. Rebels! No, you won`t see too many tongue rings or tattoos, since the latter is associated with gang activity. But the students do finally feel the freedom to change it up a bit with their black, close-cropped hair. I just find it humorous and ironic that everyone associates freedom with that same box of brownish-red Loreal hair dye. Some former students of the high school have come to the school to visit teachers since I arrived here and almost all the boys have tried to change their hair and colored it.

Here is how the Japanese education system is set up:

- Elementary - Grades 1-6

- Junior High - Grades 7-9

- High School - Grades 10-12

The new school year starts April 11th. That`s when the 9th graders move up to the high school, the 6th graders move to the junior high and I get to teach a whole new batch of first graders in the elementary who are moving up from the nursery school. The first graders are my favorite, despite one saying he thought I was 40 years old to the teacher - oh, from the mouths of babes. The teacher couldn`t stop laughing at that one. I`ll let it slide. I was walking home yesterday and I was passing the park and it seemed like the entire first grade posse was there and screamed my name as I walked past - even though they only know how to say "I am great!", "Hello!" and "See you!" It`s funny because as I`m approaching the park, I hear "HELLO!" and then as I continue passing the park, they yell "SEE YOU!" They give very fleeting greetings. "HELLO!...,,,SEE YOU!" And it`s hilarious every time.

This summer they are going to tear down the elementary school and begin construction on a new one because the building is in such rough shape. You can see mold on the ceiling, the floorboards are questionable and there was one time that I found unidentifiable animal scat on the floor by the English room. I don`t even use the English room anymore because it smells like something curled up in the walls and died. All of the elementary kids are going to be in the junior high school with the junior high kids so it will be a fuller school with a higher noise level. They are already kid-proofing the junior high, putting up barriers so students can`t slide down the stairway banisters and slip through the railings to fall to their deaths. Below, that is one banister I wouldn`t want to ride.

The junior high kids were in the high school yesterday taking the "entrance exam" for the high school. In Japan, all third year junior high school students take entrance exams to enter high school. While it may make more of an impact on the mainland, where the number of schools and options is greater, in all reality, these students won`t be denied entrance to the high school because it`s the only high school on the island, with a student population of less than 80. But they go through the motions anyway. I am looking forward to teaching those kids in the high school. They have a lot of energy and are surprisingly good at responding to my questions. Sometimes I question the high school students and their lack of enthusiasm/inability to respond to something as simple as "how are you?" I am definitely going to start challenging them more to use language without staring at the Japanese teacher for the answer. One of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) always puts her hands up when they look at her to block their faces and says "don`t look at me!"

The teachers will be finding out by the middle of this month if they are staying or if they are leaving. Normally, a teacher is required to teach on the Goto Islands for five years so most of the teachers have an idea of what instructions they will get from the prefecture. The prefecture is the ultimate decision-maker in the placement of teachers and teachers have little influence over where they are placed - so there seems like there is a continuous uncertainty. I will be sad to see teachers leave. They have been a lot of fun and you can tell that they really care about the students. The new teachers will arrive at the end of this month, right before the new school year starts.

I`m just going to continue putting it out there - it`s killing me not having a computer at my apartment. Although I am averaging a book a day and I`ve finally started to hunker down to re-study all that high school math that will be on the GRE, I am going bonkers. It`s so quiet! And I yearn to google and wikipedia things (I know, I know - don`t trust everything you wikipedia). The other day, I thought "I wonder if Japanese restaurants boil their fish to get it to taste so tender and juicy" and then sadly remembered that the answer was not at my fingertips. "I wonder what was on the Friday episode of the Rachel Maddow show?!" "What is happening in my home state with the Wisconsin protests and that power-hungry, union-busting governor, Scott Walker?" These were all pressing questions that had to wait until today when I could access my computer at work.

I love finding out that students passed major English exams. I worked with a 10th grader for a week, studying for an exam where he had to answer questions about a picture and then answer open-ended opinion questions. It was difficult at first but then he began to improve and he passed! Sadly, he is moving to Fukuoka next year so his family can be near his sister as she begins beauty school. He`s the best in his English class so I will miss having him as a student. A senior I have worked with several times who already has pretty amazing English wants to go to university to become an English teacher and she just passed her exams. I don`t know why she is at school again today. She appears to be the only senior at school studying. Give it a rest! Go enjoy the last days of your childhood and go on a road trip before university begins. The island is like 8 km around but hey, it you take every road and do a few laps, that could constitute a road trip. I can`t help but think about a bunch of kids in a really small car, listening to mixed tapes and whipping donuts in the parking lot of either the city hall or the public gym - the only two parking lots on the island conceivably large enough for whipping donuts.

I had a meeting at the elementary school last week, according to the schedule I received from them at the beginning of the term. Once I got there, I was waiting at the table to have lesson planning meetings with teachers and no one showed up intitially. A very kind woman who speaks English and works at the school approached me and asked me who I was waiting to meet. After I told her, she went and checked and then returned to inform me that the meeting was actually the next week. I said "oh, okay," slightly put out that I hadn`t been made aware of this but it wasn`t life altering. So I began to pack my things and stood up. She apologized and just stood there, looking at me. I find this happening a lot. I say something and people just stare at me awkwardly. I just chalk it up to Americans and Japanese having different ideas of conversation fillers and awkward silences. In the states, when a misunderstanding of a meeting time happens, we sincerely apologize and then drop it. We don`t wallow in the awkwardness. People on the island are super polite though and any misunderstandings of meetings or events is apologized for to the extent of beating a dead horse. I once received a profuse apology and a present of chocolates from a teacher because she forgot to show up to a lesson planning meeting.

I have been roped into joining the brass band for their string of end of the year concerts. One on the 12th, 13th and 19th each. One is on Uku island, the island just to the north of Ojika. I wasn`t going to do it because as I have expressed before, I have never actually enjoyed playing the trumpet. I started playing in the 3rd grade and I just kept doing it because A) my parents had purchased me a trumpet, B) it was my only social activity the two years I didn`t have friends after switching from Catholic school to public school and it only made sense to continue it because my friends were in it in high school and C) my senior year we were going to DisneyWorld. I would be lying if I said C wasn`t the main reason. I am doing it because I like the music teacher, she is my neighbor and she took the time to translate a letter to me in English, asking me to play with them. And signed it "my best regards." I can`t say no to that much effort. I was talking to my English teacher co-worker about band. She plays in the brass band when they ask her and she was a total band geek growing up - evidenced by her ability to play several songs on her flute without reading sheet music. When asked to play in a badminton tournament or any sports competition, you can see a part of her dying inside. She lacks what many would call athletic talent. I, however, have always enjoyed sports and the competition, and I would rather play tennis with the tennis club. So I had to describe to her that her badminton is like my brass band - the krytonite to our supermen. I think that really drove home my point of disliking band. I think the kids in it are great kids but I just can`t match their level of dedication. It`s like a part time job for them, logging at least 28 hours a week in practice.

For example, I was told that band practice would begin at nine o`clock on Saturday. So, despite having attended an enkai the night before, I peeled myself out of bed the morning of and went to practice. I got there a little before nine and realized that I had been Bat Girled. You may ask yourself what Bat Girl is. The Bat Girls was a softball team I occasionally played with during summers and winters in high school. It was this group of extremely dedicated softball players. And by dedicated, I mean, these girls were required to show up two hours before games to begin warm-up. It was borderline obsession and while I do credit the Bat Girls with keeping my pitching arm intact during the off-season, I felt a special kind of resentment to my teenage days of winter and summer freedom being eaten up by hours of batting practice and fielding grounders. I remember faking being sick one time so I could spend a lovely Sunday at home. Sorry, Mom. No matter how much I denied it, I was , in fact, faking it. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt about lying. However, as I sat back watching Meet the Press and reading the Sunday comics in my pajamas, much like the cheerios in my cereal bowl, the guilt faded.

But back to band practice, it turns out that nine o`clock is actually the time that everyone gets there to begin warming up but the actual rehearsal begins at 11. Two hours to warm up! You can imagine my dismay. I had been Bat Girled (two hours early to warm-up). I sat on the gym floor, reading my kindle, while people came and went and practiced their french horns and clarinets to the beat of metronomes. It sounded like that place with all the stashed clocks in the movie Hook (so Captain Hook wouldn`t be driven crazy by all the incessant ticking) when people took breathers. I stayed for practice and then when it was time for lunch, I hightailed it to the high school to use the internet. After lunch time, I went to the baseball game, just outside the gym. I was surprised to see that while a game was going on between the high school and junior high students, the french horn player was outside, still practicing! Her french horn was so loud but she seemed completely oblivious to the baseball game people were trying to focus on. I turned to a parent who is also a member of my adult English language group and asked her if people didn`t find that french horn annoying. She just started laughing and said "Maybe, yes." I know that in the states, we would have asked her to shut up but the people at the baseball game were too polite to ask for peace and quiet.

So I am destined to spend my after school time for the next week practicing with the band, waiting in the constant purgatory of wondering if the band director said "D" or "E" when saying where she wanted us to practice playing on the sheet music. It is great to see how much the kids enjoy band though and how it is their time to socialize with friends and goof around. But after band, I can`t help but looking forward to going home, enjoying my kindle while eating some chicken nuggets, and then re-maneuvering my way through those damn fractions.

I am seriously enkai-ed out. I don`t think I can possibly commit another evening to going out and stuffing myself full of food and beer. There have been two in a row this week to celebrate graduation and it has been a good time but I need my beauty rest. Graduation went well. Apparently, graduations in Japan are more like funerals. Everyone wears suits, except for the mothers who wear traditional kimonos. By the end of the ceremony, all of the students were sobbing as they shook hands with each of the teachers. I have only been teaching these kids for 7 months but I found myself crying. Some people question the water works at other graduation ceremonies in Japan, where there are many students graduating at once. In Ojika, there are 28 of them and I think it`s different for them as island kids. Everyone knows everybody and they are sad that they are leaving their childhood behind and entering the adult world. The school is definitely much quieter now that an entire grade is missing. And now some of them have acquired drivers licenses in the city, so I have been cautioned to take heed while walking or riding in a car on the island until they leave for the mainland because their driving skills are still less than exemplary.

I have been averaging a book every couple of days now that my computer died. It`s driving me bonkers! I love reading and I do it a lot even with computers but I miss reading the news and chatting online. My main mode of communication at home has been cut off. I received a shipment yesterday of candy for student prizes from a COSTCO store and it had been shipped internationally from Hawaii. I saw that they had used a local Honolulu newspaper to stuff the box and I never felt so happy to read the news in English. It was quite pathetic but I enjoyed reading about a bank robbery and a father returning home from military deployment.

At the end of the graduation ceremony on Tuesday, the kids had a going away celebration for the seniors and they had different students come forward and say congratulations in different ways. One of the students did this horrible beatbox impression and then said “yo yo yo” and then congratulations. It was absolutely horrendous, but it gave me an idea. I am doing pronunciation with the 10th graders and I may just incorporate the sounds that beatboxers make into my attention-getter for tomorrow. If anything, I may look like a fool but hey, it`s worth a shot.

And finally, in other news, happy 50th anniversary to the Peace Corps! Here is an awesome video that Lauren, a dedicated PCV from my group of volunteers (Moz 12) in Mozambique made in celebration of the 50th anniversary.

Tis the season for those tax forms to make an appearance. When I was in the Peace Corps, my income was never very complicated. I was paid by the U.S. government and I made a pittance as a volunteer. Now that I am in Japan, it`s a whole different ballgame trying to figure out which forms to fill out and which extensions to file. Ah, the agony of growing older and having to take responsibility for your finances.

My home computer had been having some issues lately and it finally went dead. I haven`t purchased a new computer since 2002. That`s nine years and I`d say that`s a pretty good run. I never buy electronics just because I feel like it but because the previous ones have lived their full lives. I left my very first computer purchase in Monapo with a student and hopefully it`s not being used as just a paperweight now. Without a computer, my apartment seems so quiet and empty. I read a lot and I kind of feel like I am back in the Peace Corps. However, I ordered a Macbook Pro online today and can`t wait to get my paws on it. It will be my first mac and it has a hot pink cover! I am happy to join the ranks of mac users because macs are less susceptible to viruses and they have a solid reputation. Plus, I bought the protection plan that is good for parts and service for three years around the world.

Today is the practice for the graduation. In the morning, we had a ceremony with all the elementary, junior high and high school students in the gymnasium. After practicing standing up and sitting down for about ten minutes and holding a bow for three counts(ichi, ni, san...no joke), we finally did the ceremony. Watching a Japanese official ceremony is kind of like being in church. You stand up and sit. You bow. The speakers bow before they approach the microphone. It is a very religious experience but with a bonzai tree on the stage. Also, I have no idea what they are saying half the time so one could argue that the experiences are one in the same. All I need now is my mother to pinch my leg if I fall asleep or to play paper, scissors, rock with my sister. I still remember when I was younger and I was wearing umbro shorts to church in the middle of summer. When I tried to stand up, my shorts had suctioned themselves to the pew and made the most obnoxious noise. I remember thinking that was hilarious and giggling with my sister and Lord knows, once you get the giggles in church, you are done for. Particularly when it`s during confession and there is complete silence.

When I was in middle school, we had a couple of mice in our basement and my mother set out sticky traps to catch them. Sticky traps are those traps that once they catch a spider`s leg or a mouse`s foot, the adhesive is so strong that you need the jaws of life to detach you. My mom set one out in the kitchen and we went to bed. In the morning, my mother, sister and I went to church and in the middle of the service, my mom got a serious case of the church giggles. For the life of me, I couldn`t figure out why she was laughing so hard. After church, she finally told us that in the middle of the night, my dad had gone into the kitchen and hadn`t turned on the light. He had forgotten about the mouse trap and had stepped right onto the sticky trap. I remember him saying "I thought, oh God, there had better not be a mouse on this trap." So he turned on the light and there it was - a comrade who had also fallen prey to the trap - a mouse stuck to the sticky trap.

There are so many awesome church stories. Walking around, unknowingly, with powdered sugar all over my black jeans during a church social. A child sticking his gum in the holy water. That time at Easter Vigil when everyone was blessed by the priest by the spray of holy water with a palm leave. But instead of just a sprinkling, it was a downpour. People were taking off their glasses and wiping them down. The Knights of Columbus at church and their pirate costumes. Okay, they weren`t supposed to look like pirates but they did. They even had swords. My confirmation ceremony with my sister as my sponsor and accidentally dumping money out of the collection plate rather than putting it in. I remember studying abroad in Ireland and going to Easter mass and having a man ask me to say the rosary out loud. I just shook my head no. How was he to know that I wasn`t that devout of a Catholic.

But back to the graduation ceremony. The gym is decorated like a big candy cane for graduation - red and white draped against every wall. It kind of looks like an American election is about to take place. When they were setting up for the ceremony, they actually measure the distance between the chairs! That`s right. They pulled out a measuring tape. I was astounded. Now that`s thorough. On the stage, they have the flags for Japan and Nagasaki prefecture. And in front of the lecturn, they have rows of potted flowers. I was told that there is a plan on how to set up, measured out completely, and they follow those same instructions every year.

There are more ceremonies this afternoon and a graduation run-through practice. Tomorrow is the big day when the students and their families come to graduation. Three of the students haven`t found out yet if they have passed their exams and they won`t find out until March 6th - which I`m sure to them feels like a lifetime away. And if they don`t pass that, they have to take another examination a week later (at least from what I understand from talking to a co-worker). But they are definitely more relaxed now than they have been all year and it`s nice to see that they can now enjoy themselves.

I am sad to see the 12th graders go but there is always the next batch of kids. After talking with a co-worker, it seems that they want me to lead more classes only in English next year and I think that will be great. So many English classes are led in Japanese right now and speaking in English will make more of an impact on their English comprehension. Maybe I can get rid of that deer in the headlights, oh-my-god-the-foreigner-is-talking-to-me look I get every time I speak to some of them.

This project is amazing! It`s called the 10,000 Girls project. It was started by an American woman in Senegal to help give girls an education, real life skills (sewing, cooking, etc.) and business lessons. So often, in the developing world, girls and women are forced to leave school early in order to care for their families, because there is no money or for other reasons. The goal is for the school to be self-sufficient by their entrepreneurship program, not counting on foreign aid or charity. Take a look!

I would just like to take a moment to sing the praises of one of my most treasured valuables: my Kindle. What an amazing electronic! No matter where you are or what time of day, you have access to a library of books. Mind you, the books aren't free but some are, including classics. Long gone are the days when if you wanted to travel abroad with books, half of your luggage space was taken up. I will acknowledge that sometimes it's nice to hold a book in your hands and be able to dog-ear and smell those pages but for convenience's sake, the kindle is a go-to for travelers and anyone who has no access to an English library.

After Mozambique, I really realized how much I took libraries for granted in the states. You get to read or order any book you want...for free! Well, kind of for free since you are paying taxes for the luxury. But in many countries of the world, this system is nonexistent, therefore it's something we should never take for granted. A system like that would never work in Mozambique, for example, because of the sad but true likelihood that the books would be stolen and/or ruined. In Monapo's high school library, students couldn't take the books out and on the occasions in the past when they had, the books were then stolen and sold for a profit. An example of the few ruining it for the majority but out of desperation for money.

So I say that Americans are pretty lucky to have that convenient access to knowledge. There are libraries in Japan of course but I have only ever frequented our island library to read to the kids in English, which I haven't done for a few months. All of the books are in English except for a small section of English children's books. But the library is very quiet and organized and it seems like a great place to bring your children on the island. Often, after school I see the students from the elementary school and junior high stopping at the library on their way home. Half of them are actually going behind the library to run around and tackle each other but the other half actually go in the library and check out books. One of my adult language group members has a son in the first grade and when I visited their house recently I saw that there was a huge bag of library books on the floor. I remember being young and being excited to take out books from the library and even when I returned from the Peace Corps, I made biweekly trips to the library to check out books and movies.

My nostalgia spilleth over for libraries right now just because I think they are amazing. And the closest thing I have to a library now is my kindle, a Christmas present for which I am forever grateful. The Japanese, while the king of the electronics industry, has yet to come out with an equivalent as far as I know for the Japanese people. Every time someone sees my Kindle, they ask if it's a computer. I imagine it won't be too long until they do. Most of my students here enjoy reading Manga, Anime and comic books - books that have colored illustrations.

On a different note, we lost our game last night in the badminton tournament but I had a wonderful time at an enkai afterward. There was some great food and beer. The food included, baby squid in soy sauce dressing, fried chicken, fried what I think were sardines, kimchi (which I actually like more than the stuff I ate in the country that prides itself on its creation of kimchi - sorry Korea!), sashimi (raw fish - see picture below), battered and fried pork and cheese with ketchup, and cabbage with a mayo dressing. Before I came to Japan, so many people commented on how they thought the food in Japan isn't very good but it's delicious! And not always healthy, judging by all the fried foods on that list, but it is yet another reason why I love my island and living in Japan.

I have this habit of agreeing to things that I decide I didn`t want to do in the first place – but then once I go to it, it`s actually a lot of fun. If that makes any sense. My latest example is my second island badminton tournament. I am playing with the biology teacher again, so we will probably win just because he`s the best player on the island. I was watching him play with another one of our teammates, an office worker, while sitting and talking with my co-worker, another English teacher. This biology can bob and weave and can pretty much dominate the court on his own. The office worker, on the other hand, was flailing around like a dead fish with a badminton racquet and shrieking. My co-worker said “it`s like he is playing against three opponents” – he being the biology teacher. The tournament prize is Kleenex and beer again. And they pull out an old trophy from a box, your team takes a picture with it for the island newspaper and then they pack it away again. It kind of reminds me of those old western style photographs you can take with your family at amusement parks.

The weather has been gorgeous this week in Ojika. I think that Japan is making up for the rainy, dreary weather that we were subjected to last week. The sun is out and it actually smells like spring again! I love the smell of the sea!

I am gearing up for the family to come to Ojika. It should be a good time and I look forward to showing them the sites. On the list are the pothole (a decidedly underwhelming sea-made stone ball), Madara Island (a smaller, beautiful island connected to Ojika by a bridge) and maybe Nozaki Island. Nozaki Island is an island close to Ojika and used to have quite the population. However, everyone eventually left the island in or around the 1970`s or 80`s when fishing declined and now there is no one there but old buildings, deer and a maintenance man. You can go camping on the island in the old school and go hiking. There is the only church in Ojika on Nozaki but it`s no longer used except for special occasions. Now that I write it, it kind of sounds like something straight out of a horror movie - isolated island with a ghost town and no one but a caretaker living there. I doubt there are tumbleweeds.

Graduation is on Tuesday. So everyone has to work on Sunday and Monday to prepare for it. As far as I can see, the preparations involve practicing the school song and maybe setting up chairs? I don`t really know but I am intrigued by this graduation ceremony. I have heard it`s pretty serious, formal occasion – a far cry from my graduating class and people doing cartwheels on the stage and handing the principal a roll of toilet paper in commemoration of some of the members of our class being the best at TPing the school. I remember graduating from high school and arguing with my mother over which shoes I should wear with my graduation robe. A lot of the people I have graduated with now have children and/or spouses but I still feel like I am light years away from that stage in my life. I get varied reactions with that – some people talk up the joys of marriage and having children and how they wouldn`t have it any other way and I have other friends who are also single and focusing on their careers or school. I like having that balance of friends.

Some people in my graduating class could choose to remain in the same city and that`s a difference between Japan and the states. In Japan, when you are going straight from high school into a job, everything is prepared for you and you go straight to your new life and job directly from your childhood. In the states, you have the freedom of choosing your job and if you want to stay in your area, you can choose to do so. That umbilical cord isn`t cut as swiftly. I don`t know of many students even staying in Kyushu – the lowest of the four islands that compose Japan and the one where Ojika rests off the coast. They are all relocating to the central region of the country and starting fresh with completely new friends and responsibilities. I think that it would be scarier to be a Japanese graduate because your ties are almost entirely cut with your community and family, except for phone calls and the occasional holiday visit home. I have gotten to see the students going to university relax now that they are finished studying – which is nice because for the past several months I have seen them walking around with worried expressions and wearing masks so as to avoid getting sick. I honestly didn`t recognize their faces at badminton when they played in the tournament last night.

I just signed up to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) in Osaka in May. I am extremely excited and nervous to begin the process of taking the exam and begin applying to graduate schools. So begins the next step to continuing my education! And I am also thrilled to get to travel to Osaka and look around a bit on my own. My sister has advised me that Anthony Bourdain had a good time in Osaka, so clearly I will too.

So I turn 27 on Sunday! My, how time flies. It feels like just yesterday I was graduating from high school or college. I still feel like the same person and I have yet to find a gray hair. That`s the bonus of having what my mother jokingly refers to as "mousy brown" hair. I believe another phrase is "dishwater blonde." I have yet to hear a lot of positive terms for my hair color. Anyways, I will spend my birthday in Ojika, relaxing and having lunch with some friends. I never do anything crazy on my birthday and when I was in Wisconsin, it feels like I was always sick for my birthday. I remember my junior year of university when I studied abroad in Ireland. I had a bad cold AND I was turning 21, a typically exciting birthday in America, in a country where the legal drinking age is 18. Very anti-climatic. My best birthday in recent memory would have to be the one I had my second year in Mozambique, sleeping on the beach with friends, sand fleas and a bottle of wine.

Life in Ojika is running on as normal. I have spent most of my time this week at the elementary school and those kids have been endlessly entertaining. Every time I am walking to school, I pass the window of the first grade students. As soon as they see me, they all run to the window and scream "Erin-sensei!" and wave to me. They are adorable and have been some of my favorite students based on their enthusiasm. They aren`t shy like some of the older students. When we sing the hello song and bounce around the room, I have to shake hands with them to introduce myself. There is always a student who rushes up to me to shake hands with me. It`s totally different with the third graders. I practically have to tackle them with a vulcan death grip to get them to shake my hand.

I was in the fourth grade classroom yesterday and in the middle of class, a boy plugging his nose said "Erin-sensei! Gas-u!" and pointed at the boy in front of him. Now one would think that someone who is about to turn 27 wouldn`t find flatulence humorous but the kids were dying in that corner of the room so I couldn`t stop laughing. It was pretty pungent. Finally, he who dealt it got up and fanned out that sector of the room, trying to push it out the classroom door like he was exorcising a demon. The student who did it is so loud to begin with that he completely owned up to it and didn`t seem embarassed. It`s difficult to continue on as normal with a lesson after that.

One area that I vow to improve in at the high school is cleaning time. Japanese schools don`t have janitors. They have the students clean all the rooms except for the bathrooms. Every day for about 20 minutes, the students have a scheduled time to clean a designated space in the school. My space is the teachers room and I always feel like I don`t know what I`m supposed to do. We remove the garbage and cardboard and sweep or wash the floor almost every day. I do this with the first year students in the high school and I just feel like I am in the way more than anything. Also, washing the floor down every day on your hands and knees seems a bit excessive to me. Students asked me "do you clean your high schools in America?" and I said there were jobs for that. They said "America is rich." That was the same reaction I got when I said that Americans heat their classrooms in the winter. You call it rich, I call it sane. I prefer to not feel like I`m practicing present continuous in a workhouse in a Charles Dickens novel.

On another note, I have been helping a student practice for an oral exam he has this weekend. One of the questions I asked him was "some people say that Japanese students don`t study enough. What do you think about that?" He agreed and said that Japanese students don`t study enough. I almost guffawed out loud. In my opinion, Japanese students study extremely hard - at least in their senior year of high school if they are planning to go to university. After our practice time yesterday, we were walking down the hall and my co-worker pointed out an article on the window that said how Chinese students are very intelligent, study hard and get the highest test scores. Japan and China are too competitive. I guess that from my point of view, the time and stress put into high test scores and bragging rights don`t necessarily equal happiness.

Last night I had an enkai (party) for work that lasted for a few hours. If you know me at all, you know that I have a limit when it comes to sitting on the floor with nothing to lean against for an extended period of time. I hail from a chair-loving culture. The enkai was on a Monday night so there was obviously work the next day. I barely drank anything but I was super tired today from a night that varied from my normal routine.

I had a fairly good start to the day, mustering up the energy and enthusiasm to teach rowdy classes of first, second and third graders. Half of them have masks on so I cringe every time I have to shake hands with any of the plague-makers during the Hello Song. It was between four and 4:30 this afternoon that it all came to a screeching, half humorous, half mortifying head.

I was walking to the elementary school for a meeting and the sidewalks here are uneven because they are made of brick. So of course, when I am walking near two high school students and five elementary school students, I trip and fall. This wasn't a "fall on your knees" kind of graceful fall. This was a slow-mo, books go flying, sprawled out over the gutter kind of fall. I hate it when you can feel it happening and can do nothing to stop it. Resistance is futile. So I laid there for a few seconds and laughed like a crazy person. My hands were stinging from grinding into the gravel in a failed attempt to save my money-maker from hitting the pavement. The students helped me pick my books up and I continued on my way while feeling their eyes burning into my back. I just feel fortunate that nothing ripped.

Once I made it to the elementary school, I meet with teachers to go over lesson plans and prepare for the next few classes. The teachers are always a little late because they send kids on their way at the end of the school day. It's okay because I sit there and look at lesson plans or at the schedule until they come. Today, during a meeting, a teacher was trying to make small-talk with me and asked the one super insulting question that one should never ask another human being - I don't care what country or culture you are from or what language you speak. "Oh, you got your hair cut. Did you cut it yourself?" Zing. It was a completely innocent question and I know they weren't trying to be insulting but I automatically added up my great gutter fall of 2011 with the hair cut comment, counted my losses and then headed home after school for some secluded American R&R - watching Modern Family and Glee and eating tacos.

I went to Sasebo on Friday morning and the ferry ride wasn`t too horrible. Everyone and their brother was leaving Ojika for the extended weekend. I helped a kid with his English homework on the trip so one would call the trip productive. I had to create a cereal box barrier with my bags while I slept though because the family next to me had a first grade student and her little brother and he kept staring at me. I can`t fall asleep with people watching me. It`s just too much pressure and I`m afraid that my mouth will fall open and I will start to snore - becoming a part of the latest tidal wave of gossip on a tiny island.

I got to Sasebo and sat at a Seattle`s Best coffee shop and read Three Cups of Tea (highly recommend it!) until my appointment. My stomach was in knots over this hair appointment. I`m usually only ever this nervous for certain doctor`s appointments. Anyway, I showed up at the hair place and immediately knocked over the umbrella stand with my backpack. The receptionist, who also ended up being my hairdresser, was also a bit awkward so we were a match made in beautician heaven. He was super nice though and he spoke a fair amount of English. Turns out they get a lot of Navy wives there since there is a U.S. naval base in the city.

One thing I love about living and traveling in other countries is how blatantly honest people are. They are naturally curious about you as much as you are about them and you can strike up some great conversations. Another woman came over and started speaking to me in English that was pretty impressive. She had a bit of an American accent and said that when she isn`t working at the salon, she is studying English. As they were blowdrying my hair, she asked me if I knew about karate. I said I know what it is and she pointed to my hairdresser and said that he used to be a champion at karate. When I asked if he does karate now, she shook her head and said "oh no!" And then she blew out her cheeks like a blowfish and pointed at her stomach.

I am considered huge in Japan. Women in Japan are super tiny - which is surprising considering how many carbs and fried foods are consumed here. But people are obsessed with losing weight and staying tiny. You can often see ads for weight loss pills or doo-dads that will make you lose weight or give the illusion that you have lost weight. A male student came into the teacher`s room and some teachers were giving him a hard time about having gained weight. I don`t blame him. All the kid does and is expected to do is study. You aren`t exactly doing wind sprints when studying calculus or English irregular verbs so I said "you look fine. Don`t worry." That seemed to get a shocked look from one of the teachers. In my opinion, the kid has enough to worry about without people picking on his physical appearance.

Some kind of weight loss belt.

A weight loss bath....mhmmmm. It appears that you take a bath in a plastic bag.

There I go, off on a tangent. The hair cut ended up going quite well. I will probably return for my next cut. After that, I wandered around and bought some things I needed for the apartment and I went and sat and read at Starbucks. That`s right. I hit up all the western coffee shops in Sasebo in the span of four hours. It`s just relaxing to sit there and drink a latte while reading my kindle. I bought a few other things - stickers for my students, a hairdryer, and moisturizing cream. Now normally I don`t care to mention something as small as moisturizing cream on my blog but I just want to point out something about creams in Japan. Most facial moisturizers in Japan have a whitening agent added to them because women are obsessed with having "pure" white complexions. In the summer, you will be the only woman wearing a tank top. It could be over 100 degrees and you will still see women wearing long sleeve shirts and pants, wearing hats that are the closest relatives to the sombrero they can find.

No one seems to buy into the idea that your skin color is beautiful the way it is. So every time you buy a cream in Japan, you have to be careful that you don`t buy the skin moisturizing equivalent of Crest White Strips. Unless you enjoy looking like a mime in order to achieve someone else`s idea of beauty and lining the pockets of beauty product companies forever telling you that you aren`t good enough until you are buying what they`re selling. I remember in Mozambique, some women wanted to have lighter skin because they thought it was more beautiful. Some of the most beautiful women in the world were willing to bleach (and sometimes irreparably damage) their gorgeous, dark skin to meet other people`s warped definition of beauty. So sad.

I had such a difficult time picking out creams because A) it`s all in Japanese and B) it seems like there are even more choices in facial products in Japan. I thought America was thorough enough in their skin care until I watched a Japanese friend go through her beauty regimen before bed one night when I was visiting her. It was more complicated than and took about as long as a ProActiv infomercial. It took about twenty minutes, from cleansing and scrubbing, to applying syrum, and a special formula to treat the T-zone and then moisturizing. Long gone are the days of rubbing some Irish Spring soap on and splashing it off before bedtime.

I was at an enkai (party) last week and was sitting next to an older woman. Toward the end of the evening, she held her arm up next to mine and seemed disappointed that my skin was whiter than hers - not taking into account that genetically, I should be lighter than her. This was the same woman who laments over her athletic granddaughter`s skin being "too brown." Hopefully, this idea of desirable skin color being only white changes in the next generation or two.

I have a three day weekend and my only plan so far is just to get my hair cut in the city. I am tired of looking like I just descended from a three month Everest expedition. I have to go to my haircut prepared though with everything but pie charts and graphs. I am going to ask my co-worker if she can write in Japanese my instructions for my haircut and how I want it to look. Either way, I guess it doesn`t matter too much because it`s hair and it will eventually grow back.

The three day weekend is attributed to "National Foundation Day" tomorrow. I didn`t really know what it is until I googled it and discovered that it is celebrating the founding of Japan. In other words, I am going to sleep a lot and relax. Japan has a lot of holidays that mesh into three day weekends it seems - that is not a complaint. That`s a deeply rooted appreciation on my part.

School has been far more quiet now that most of the senior boys are gone until graduation day. They are all on the mainland getting their driver`s licenses. I now assistant teach two less classes a week since their classes ended. They graduate at the beginning of March and then they head off to their jobs across Japan. Many of them are moving to big cities, which I think will be a sort of shock to their small island systems. I was talking to a teacher about them leaving and she said "They all go to the ferry terminal. Say goodbye. Many tears." If I grew up sheltered on a very traditional, country island, I wouldn`t know how to behave in the cramped city of Tokyo or other large cities in Japan. My senior class basically took an exam and got offered jobs while the other seniors are still studying for their exams. The university kids will be at school all weekend, living and breathing the fear of university exams.

I have started to wake up early to go running/dragging myself around the high school sports field. I am sure that if you happened upon my running in the dark, you would be frightened by all the wheezing and gagging. I go four laps or about one mile and then walk the rest. I don`t want to overdo myself right away. Last year I experienced the scorching, sticky summer that is Japan and want to be more comfortable this time around, rather than rolling up to school drenched in my sweat and out of shape. You could water a ficus with all the sweat I would produce in one day. Plus, in April, I am climbing the Great Wall in Beijing. I hear there are a lot of stairs.

My bicycle has a punctured tire still and I haven`t ridden it in a while. I will take care of it eventually but getting it fixed requires walking it to school and then taking it to the mechanics after school to try to communicate with them. People are constantly asking about my bicycle and why I don`t ride it to school. I try to explain that walking up that hill to school isn`t easy either way so I might as well just walk. Otherwise, I am just heaving a bicycle up a hill. I am the only teacher who walks to school - even though it only takes about 10-15 minutes to get there by foot from most points in the town part of Ojika where the teachers live.

One thing that is driving me bonkers is nervous giggling. I will be trying to talk to some people and they just start giggling for no good reason. They are simply just nervous with my presence and speaking English. I know someone who can`t go a full sentence without giggling and putting her hand over her mouth. It`s super awkward because I obviously am just waiting for her to respond and she catches a serious case of the giggles.

Her: Do you (giggle, giggle) like (giggle, giggle) Ojika(giggle, giggle)?

Me: Yes, I love Ojika. Have you traveled outside Japan?

Her: I (giggle, giggle) visited (giggle, giggle) California (giggle, giggle) for three or four months (giggle, giggle).

In the junior high, the teacher has me ask the students questions and they are visibly relieved once they finish answering my questions and can sit down. I also eat lunch with the kids and I will ask them a question and they will immediately turn to someone for a translation with a deer in the headlights look. You can`t phone a friend in a conversation, kiddos. You just have to let it marinate in an uncomfortable silence.

So apparently today is the celebration of Setsubun in the schools on the island. At least in the elementary school. At first I was extremely confused to have students throw peanuts at me but it kinda sorta made sense after the teacher explained why. Setsubun is a Japanese tradition on the first day of spring when you throw beans or nuts at each other as a way of chasing away bad luck. Apparently people shout "get out demons!" and "come in happiness!" while throwing the beans or nuts at each other. I thought it was an interesting tradition. The kids were super excited to get to eat their peanuts at lunch, occasionally stealing some from a classmate`s desk. In my opinion, the pilfering of peanuts completely negated the good luck they were supposed to instill.

Image from: http://madsilence.wordpress.com

I am generally against throwing small objects at people. Who knows what could happen. I remember when I was in Girl Scouts and we were learning about Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. And in her story, at her wedding, as people were throwing rice, a grain of it got lodged in her ear and when it was removed, her ear drum was punctured and got infected. She lost hearing in that ear for the rest of her life. Now that is what could go horribly wrong. That may be the only thing I learned in Girl Scouts but let it be a warning to us all. Keep your rice and nuts to yourself.

Image from: http://www.themoralliberal.com/tag/juliette-low/

I have one student in that class who whispers everything. Everything. I have never heard this kid raise his voice above a whisper. His name actually means "quiet." I don`t understand if he`s taking his name super literally or what. But he seems to have taken a vow of making it difficult for people to hear him. Every time he talks, I have to pull my hair back and lean in. And he is always wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Seriously? Your mother can make you an intricate bento lunch with specially formed eggs, hot dogs and rice but she can`t make you wear pants to school when it`s a crisp 30 degrees outside?

Every time I go to the elementary school to teach, I eat lunch with the kids and then am assigned a class to play with at recess. I used to be such a recess person when I was little - playing four square and kickball. Now it seems more like a chore and I watch the outside clock as it slowly works its way around to 1:45. The kids just have so much energy and seven times out of ten, the game involves being chased around the playground. It can get pretty tiresome, so by the time 1:30 rolls around, I am usually hiding peacefully behind a tree or disguising myself behind a jungle gym somewhere and just letting the time run out for the last fifteen minutes.

It looks like I am officially re-contracted and I`m looking forward to my second year on the island. I turned in my paperwork the other week and I received my "tentative reappointment notification" today. So there is plenty of time still to throw peanuts at people and learn how to properly camoflauge myself with leaves, mud and other natural earth materials during recess.

Image from: http://securityitems.guidestobuy.com/paintball-ghillie-suit

First of all, I would like to offer my sincere apologies for being MIA. It has been cold and almost miserable, weather-wise. And when the sun isn`t shining, I have little desire to leave my little heater and venture out of my apartment. In fact, after school every day, I have been going home and planting myself in front of the heater while studying for the GRE. I agreed to play with the brass band in March but I`m feeling reluctant to go practice because spending two hours in a freezing band room, playing the trumpet, isn`t my definition of a good time. One should never be able to see their own breath in a classroom. And something tells me it would be difficult to play the trumpet with mittens on.

All of the teachers continue to be in charge of their extra-curriculars at the end of the work day: tennis, badminton, baseball, track and field and brass band. They stay at school often until 8 o`clock doing this but I feel like that is highly unnecessary. No one should stay at a job for a full 12 hours. You can stay for 20 hours if you want, but time isn`t always an indicator of quality work or dedication. That`s just my opinion. In Japan, people spend hours upon extra hours in their jobs in order to create a favorable impression. As an American, I guess I see more importance in showing that you can use your time wisely during the regular work day, rather than missing out on time with your family or friends in the evening or on the weekends. How can you learn how to bother the crap out of each other if you are never home!?!

I was talking to someone who said that during their first year at a job, they wouldn`t take vacation days. I asked why not and they said that it`s because it`s their first year and that it looks bad to take a vacation. When I said that Americans take their vacations because it gives them time to relax or spend time with their families, he seemed surprised. I tried to explain that often, when people are given this time to relax, it makes them better workers because they are less stressed.

Stress is such a problem in Japan when there really is no need for it. People work extremely hard - even more than many Americans. But at what cost? There is a lot of pressure to succeed, less family bonding, and a higher rate of suicide. Japanese people, like Americans, have so much to be thankful for. They have jobs, their physical health and a comfortable lifestyle. But in terms of happiness, they seem far less happy than people I knew in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Related to stress is this website, entitled "The 25 Most Ridiculous Stress Relief Products." I don`t doubt for a second that people actually use these.

But there are obviously many good things about Japan as well. A good point is that I am working in the junior high more now. I really enjoy going there. My students are all so respectful and enjoy having fun (I can`t generalize on that because according to other teachers, the island kids are totally different than mainland kids). The junior high students are at that perfect in-between stage where they aren`t super immature children but not bored and jaded high schoolers. They are always happy to see me and excited when I sit down to have lunch with them at school. I had a lesson with them yesterday and we played a game at the end where they were up and moving around. I talked to the home ec teacher later and she said she taught them after me and she asked them "why are you so happy?" and they said "because of English." Awww. I also like teaching with the junior high teacher. He is a good teacher and you can tell the students are comfortable around him. I also appreciate the fact that he uses the phrase "that sucks."

We are doing this thing during class where I ask them questions and they have to figure out what I`m asking. It puts each student on the spot. Some of them freeze, nervous to be spoken to by a foreigner, but some of them thrive under the pressure. One student who is going to be in high school next year is amazing at his English. And extremely formal. He bows after giving every response. I feel like I should curtsy or something to level the playing field.

In other news, my parents and my sister are coming to Japan next month! (Side note: shout out to my sister who will be taking the bar exam toward the end of February and will be in desperate need of a vacation. She just graduated from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul and I`m so proud of her for all her hard work!) First, I will show them Ojika and then we will head back to the mainland to visit Hiroshima (to see the atomic bomb memorial) and Kyoto (for cherry blossom viewing and the traditional fanfare). It should be a good time and I look forward to seeing my family after what will be eight months apart. My parents are staying for a week and then my sister and I are traveling to Beijing for an extra week. I am super excited to see the Great Wall and Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. It is obvious that I cherish my days off and will happily use them all. Carpe diem, people.

I spoke with my mom and she told me all the Japanese she is learning. Apparently her and my dad have been practicing eating food with chopsticks. So far, that list of food includes scrambled eggs and tuna helper. Oh, if only the dogs had opposable thumbs to take a picture of that for me.

I'm back in Ojika after a week in South Korea and I had a blast. I spent about five days in Seoul and about a day and a half in Busan. In Seoul, I traveled with a friend from here and her sister, who is a teacher in South Korea. We did a lot of eating, shopping, eating, walking, eating, sightseeing and eating. Turns out, Seoul has a lot of foreign food and Korean food itself is delicious, so I was in heaven because I had grown tired of the same old grub I make every day on the island. In Seoul, I ate this really cold North Korean dish (I guess that's how the North Koreans do their food) and a lot of Subway sandwiches. Busan was where I got to try Korean barbecue (the Japanese have something similar where you can grill your meat at the table) and bibimbap. Bibimbap is a layer of rice and then topped with separated portions of vegetables, maybe some meat and an egg. You then mix it all together with this paste and eat it straight up. It was so good that I had to replicate it when I got home. Of course, mine kind of ended up looking like dog food but it was still good.

Travel in South Korea was incredibly easy. I know I am making a broad generalization here but people in Seoul speak English quite well. I was impressed. I know that outside of the capital is probably a different story, but still. I took a train to and from Busan and I had no problems with my flights to and from Seoul back to Japan. Although transportation in Korea was pretty flawless, it was great to return to Japan, where I understand more of the language. When necessary, I can make myself understood. However, it was when I returned to Japan that I hit a rough patch. From Fukuoka (the closest Japanese city to Korea), I had to take an evening express train at 9:30. There was a family sitting in front of me and about 30 minutes into the train ride, their 12-year old daughter voms on the train. She must have showed no warning signs because it was definitely not an organized sickness, with a plastic bag or some kind of receptacle. This was one of those where the mother is on her hands and knees, trying to scrub the mess with napkins and paper towels while the father looks on. They ended up just moving the family to different seats - unlike the rest of us trapped in the car. I kept praying that my iPod battery wouldn`t die so that I wouldn`t have to sit in silence with the smell. There was also a crazy lady to my right who kept doing a bunch of strange things with her hands and I couldn`t help but think of the Canadian greyhound bus where one passenger murdered and dismembered another random passenger. I scooted over in my seat and created a cereal-box buffer wall with my backpack.

After I arrived in Sasebo city with my life and body parts intact, I stayed at a hotel and woke up in the morning to catch the ferry back to the island. New Years is huge in Japan. It`s their Christmas. Everyone and their brother were trying to go to the islands to return home or to visit their family so the ferry was packed to capacity. Once you sat down, you couldn`t change your position because it was too crowded. There were people sitting in the halls and luggage was in the walkways. Organized chaos. Apparently, that ferry was going to Ojika come hell or high water because the ferry trip included both of those. I have never been on a ship that rocked so much in my life. I was leaning against my bag and the ship was lurching so much from the high waves that my body and stomach kept involuntarily rolling over. Among the passengers, you have several who don`t usually ride ferries since they live on the mainland. So, just an hour into the trip, a guy starts making continuous trips to the bathroom to throw up loudly, in the bathroom sink. Now, I`m no vomit expert, but I have seen a few people throwing up in bathrooms in Japan so far and I have seen none of them go to throw up in toilets - only in sinks. That seems highly unsanitary to me for a nation that insists on having a different pair of shoes for everything to maintain cleanliness. It also makes me want to carry a miniature bottle of Windex and paper towels with me whenever I use a public sink. I was overjoyed when we docked in Ojika and I had to fight the urge to elbow the elderly and children out of my way to get off the ferry first. As I stepped off the ferry, that was the first time I had ever seen it snowing/hailing in Ojika. The ground was white! I was so annoyed and felt so nauseous that I couldn`t appreciate the snow/hail, since I had to trudge uphill from the ferry terminal to my apartment with all my luggage strapped to my back.

Okay, like everyone else, I am going to make a breakable New Years resolution. My resolution for 2011 is to learn more Japanese. I'm terrible and it`s a reachable goal. I have been picking up more and more phrases that people say, so that has to be some kind of a sign. It's not an easy language to learn. You run into other foreign English teachers who studied abroad in Japan, studied Japanese in college and speak it well and they talk about how important it is to learn the language. I agree. I don't walk up to everyone and get upset when they can't understand my poor Japanese (althought I have had a couple of frustrating encounters where I just had to walk away). But I also envy the structure in which these other English teachers learned the language. I'm doing this on my own, with help from a few friends along the way. Also, my goal for January is to not eat any chocolate. I`m just doing that to test my willpower. I`m on my 6th day and having serious withdrawal symptoms. Someone get this girl a Snickers.

Merry Christmas everyone! I thought I would write a preemptive blog, since I will be traveling for the holiday. Tomorrow, I am heading to Fukuoka, the biggest city in Kyushu (the southern most island of Japan's four), and then Wednesday evening, I fly to Seoul with a friend who is a teacher in Nagasaki City. So, a South Korean Christmas it is. I can't wait, despite North Korea's threats. I will be in South Korea for a week, hitting up the Seoul area for 5 days and then 2 days in Busan. Two of my friends from Peace Corps Mozambique live around the Seoul area and I am beyond excited to see a couple of familiar faces at Christmas. Our Peace Corps group of about 64 people is a pretty tight-knit group and there is a planned New Years party in Florida that I will obviously be unable to attend, so it will be great to connect with a couple and have our own mini, Asian version of a reunion. After Seoul, I will travel by train to Busan to visit with a friend from high school. She and I have taken similar post-university paths. She did Peace Corps Morocco and is now a teacher in Busan. She has a great blog and you can check it out at http://rawsquid.blogspot.com.

The worst part about a trip is planning for the trip and packing. I am trying to pack like Japanese people do. If you are on a ferry or any other public transportation, you look around and wonder where everyone's luggage is. But a handbag is usually all they need. I am going to be walking around one of Japan's biggest cities for a few hours so I would rather not be wheeling a gigantic Sampsonite suitcase behind me and knocking things over. It's way too bull in a china shop for my liking. Tonight is like the season finale of American idol in my apartment - which articles of clothing has what it takes to make the cut. I also gave my fish (Chikamaru-kun) to a friend to fishsit while I am gone. In order to do so, I had carry my fish tank through the streets of Ojika to her shop. That was no easy feat, seeing as it was all downhill on uneven cobblestone streets. I had to dump out about a third of the water in his/her tank while I was walking (on purpose and not). Chikamaru-kun, you are going on a diet when I get home. I am pretty sure that seven people now think I'm crazy. Like the lady riding her moped who called out "What is it? A goldfish" over traffic. Always excited to understand anything anyone says, I shouted "HAI!" back with fish water dripping from my sweatshirt cuffs.

I did my Christmas lesson as a baking party for three of my high school classes. We made chocolate chip cookies and it was by far, one of my most enjoyable/hectic classes thus far. I wanted to make it fail-proof so I prepped, labeled and pre-measured all of the ingredients, besides handing them each a recipe in English. It basically went like this: "OKAY! (shouting) BUTTER, SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR! (dumping motion with my hands) MIX MIX MIX!" It got the point across and there were zero burned cookies. All the kids sat on the floor to watch the cookies bake and they got to divide them up and keep a plateful to take home. I even decorated the home ec room where we baked in a Christmas winter wonderland theme. Snowflakes on the windows and cool table settings. Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade on the Food Network would have been proud.

I have noticed that the kids love it when I blaspheme. I almost burned myself on a cookie sheet and said "Jesus!" and the kids burst out laughing. "Erin-sensei, what is Jesus?" I just shrugged and brushed off the deep question that most Christians spend their lives trying to figure out. It's like "Oh no!" Around Halloween, the senior boys made a haunted house and they told me to go through a tunnel on a test run and then proceeded to drop a swinging decapitated head and I yelled "Oh my god!" and all of the undead in the haunted house were laughing. I know my mother is frowning at this paragraph. Sorry, Mom. It just slips out.

I did what felt like about a billion Christmas parties in the elementary school. And nothing says Christmas like a forced Christmas card to the teacher. The entire 4th grade class presented me with colored Christmas cards. I was pretty impressed by some. The kids had written to me in Romaji, which I appreciated. Romaji is the romanization of Japanese characters - so it's all spelled out, rather than written in characters. A few were unenthusiastic, run-of-the-mill Santas but the rest were pretty vibrant, complete with an extra portrait of myself wearing a Santa hat or of anime or cartoons. I passed out candy later and the ones who drew me skinny got the best flavor.

Christmas is never easy away from my family but it's not as sad when I have friends to celebrate with. I hope that wherever you are in this crazy world, you have a wonderful Christmas!

The other day I went to the post office to mail Christmas presents to my family. I thought it would be a fairly simple transaction but I made the mistake of asking the question of what the price and delivery time differences were between express and regular. And by question, I mean, one word at a time in Japanese with a vocal question mark. “Price?” (making the money sign, rubbing my fingers together – still not entirely sure if that’s a legitimate hand gesture in Japan) “How long?” (pointing at my wrist like a watch). Sometimes my life just seems like a giant game of charades. But my questions sent the post office into a frenzy. The clerk hurried around, looking for a book and uttering “America, America, America” like a crazy. Another came to the cash register and spent about 10 minutes trying to find it in the system. And another clerk came over to serve as a spectator and to occasionally gesture back at me. It was like we were battling; a gesture-off, if you will. It all eventually worked out.

Then just the other day, I received a notice in the mail from my internet company. Of course, it’s all in Japanese. So I took it to school and my wonderful co-worker told me that it was a bill and that I hadn’t paid my internet in the last two months and the deadline is tomorrow. You can imagine my horror at the possibility of having my internet cut off. I have also always been one of those people who is careful about paying bills on time. My co-worker explained to me how to pay the bill at the post office. You can do so much at the post offices and convenience stores here, just at their ATMs. I took the bill to the post office and put on my lost puppy face and a friendly clerk helped show me how to pay bills through the ATM. It’s magical. You just slide the bill in and there is a barcode that gets scanned and you insert your cash. Voila, paid. I was relieved to take care of that and I am sure the post office workers were relieved to learn that I wasn’t there to send any more packages.

My next hurdle is figuring out the hours at the post office. There are few things I hate more than receiving an “undeliverable package” notice (i.e., I wasn’t home to receive it) and spending the evening knowing that something wonderful from home is only a block away and I have to wait until the next day to receive it. But anyways, apparently you can’t pay for more than one bill at a time (?) at the ATM and have to pay more in the actual post office. And when I wanted to do that, they said that the post office doesn’t do bill transactions after 4, yet they are open until 5. I had a Mozambique moment where I felt exasperated by the whole system. I had so many tantrums/meltdowns at the bank in Monapo. I hate things that don’t make sense. And the clerk just laughed nervously as he explained it and then slowly stepped away while facing me, like I was a Grizzly bear he didn’t want to agitate. So I had to walk there today during my 45 minute lunch to do so. It takes 15 minutes to walk there from school so the whole thing ate up half an hour. Then I had to shove my lunch down and go to class. Needless to say, it was exhausting. Especially since there were hills involved with the walking.

I am teaching three classes of 10th graders this week and they are a lot of fun. There are 27 of them and it’s an oral communications class. Oral communications class = just have fun. I am totally down with that. Today we played the Lifeboat game, where you pretend like everyone has to get on a “lifeboat.” When I would shout “five people in a lifeboat!” students had to find four other people to link arms with to make their lifeboat. Whoever didn’t find four other people, died a terrible death and was out of the game. It got pretty rowdy with shouting and flailing on the floor. It was funny because the boys and the girls refuse to create lifeboats together until absolutely necessary. People were grabbing each other and trying to force them onto their lifeboat. Tomorrow, we are playing the “mustache game.” I made mustaches out of colorful origami paper and wrote the names of famous people or cartoons on them. Each student, without seeing the name of the person or cartoon, has their mustache taped on and has to ask everyone questions to find out who they are. It should be pretty ridiculous. Can’t wait. I did a similar game with the 11th graders and one student had a really hard time guessing Beyonce. My co-worker even sang part of a Beyonce song to him (complete with jazz hands) and he still couldn’t figure it out. Once he finally did, I ordered him to look her up on youtube. It’s always a sad day when someone doesn’t know who she is.

My adult English classes are going great. I have two groups: beginners and advanced. It’s fun sometimes to just sit there and chat. As the “teacher,” sometimes it takes a bit to keep the conversation running. Plus, if I don’t, then they will all sit and stare at me. Sometimes I feel like a nervous date who has written talking points down so I don’t run out of them or like Sarah Palin and her hand during interviews. My English groups have great senses of humor. I asked one student, a housewife and shop owner in her 60s, “what do you say when your husband doesn’t like your cooking?” She thought about it for a moment and then turned to me. “Shut up.” She’s the same one who had to finish the sentence “I am…” and she said “I am a beautiful madam.” I gave her applause for originality and sassiness. She also brought a catalog to my house today so I could look at heaters her shop sells. Anyone who can offer relief from the cold and a small shipping and handling fee is my new best friend.

One thing that has been irking me lately has been some of the students in the elementary school and their fascination with poking me in the stomach. Now, I’m no Barbie but I don’t have a ridiculously large stomach. Some of them seem to have taken to me like their personal Pillsbury dough girl and it’s driving me up the wall. I am just generally against random people touching me (borderline mild obsessive compulsive), so when I greet a student in the hall with a wave and they walk up behind me and grab at my stomach, I start to feel a little bitter. The next time it happens, I am going to give them a serious “stop it” in Japanese. Sometimes when class begins and I am greeting the students, the teacher has me shake every kid’s hand as I ask them how they are. I’d like to keep the colds or flus to a minimum this winter season and I haven’t counted out carrying a latex glove with me each time I visit. Or maybe whipping out a bottle of Purell after each handshake would send the right message.