Good ole сша (USA)

It’s odd to think that I’ve been away from home for a little over a month and a half now. Living here in Ukraine has been a little surreal and I’m wondering if it will all finally hit me once I’ve moved to my permanent site and have to actually start doing meaningful work (not that the work we’re doing now in training isn’t meaningful). It’s hard for me to put into words how I feel. It’s like, my brain hasn’t accepted yet that I’m going to be here for two years and it’s really rather hard to conceptualize what two years here is going to feel like/be like. I almost feel that I’m going to be going back home soon, that I’m only here for a little stint and then I’ll be back home, ready to push the restart button on my life. But no, I’m not going back home soon. I’m here for two years and while I’m already a month and a half in this realization that I’m not going back home for a while still hasn’t hit me. I don’t know why but it’s a very strange feeling that I haven’t felt before, even during the other times I lived abroad. Those times weren’t the same as now, those times were just child’s play compared to what I’m doing now. And oddly enough, coupled with this feeling of unreal-ness I have this feeling that my life in America is simply on pause and that when I do go back everything will be as it was when I left. I know this is going to be false but that’s how I feel and it is a very 

unnerving sensation knowing that I will not know what my life will be like when I do finally go home.

Anyway

We’ve had the past week off from teaching because of fall break. It’s been nice having more time to dedicate to my language studies (read: it’s been nice having more time to sit back and read a book in English/watch American TV shows). Honestly though, my language is really catching on. I’m able to understand a lot more than I was just a couple weeks ago (hell, I’m able to understand more than I was able to last week even!). We have been working with our rotational language teacher for the past week-ish and she’s been wonderful (halfway through training they make the language teachers rotate to a different cluster for two weeks so that us trainees can get a taste of a different teaching style/accent). Ira has been a wonderful teacher and has been pushing us a lot more than Natasha did as far as speaking strictly Ukrainian when we’re in class or speaking to her. She even threatened us with a yellow and red card system (sports fans, I’m looking at you) and if we get three strikes that meant we got a red card and we’d have to write a poem in Ukrainian and present it to the class the next day (dear god, anything but poetry. My arch-nemeses of high school English lit. –however writing a poem in Ukrainian would be extremely comical to say the least). It worked for the first day but then the second day we seemed to have forgotten the threat and spoke English with abandon. However, she never followed through with the threat. Poor move on her part—never threaten and not follow through when you’re a teacher, otherwise the students will never respect you). Granted, it’s not that we don’t respect her, it’s just that we have a lot to say all the time and, well damnit, sometimes you just have to say it in English!

In other news,

I am always very sad to be away from the States on Halloween. It is most definitely my favoritest holiday because I love to go all out with my costume. I found a way to compromise though and I did get to dress up but it just wasn’t the same. I watched Hookus Pookus, which brought back lots of childhood memories. And yes, I also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

A lot of impromptu costuming supplied by Jake's host mom 

Me and Ira

I'm a fish!

We have a fish, a pumpkin, a cat-princess, a lampshade, and a racially inappropriate Asian costume (I guess, work with what you got? Sorry if it offends anyone out there.)

Did I mention that we have a menagerie? Like, seriously, we have 4 cats; we did have a bird but it died after one day; we now we have two bunnies (one photoed above). All animals that I am not found of. I am waiting for the day that the puppy arrives because honestly, puppy HAS to be the next step. 

Which brings me to my next topic of I have Wifi now. However, having wifi has been pissing my host troll off immensely as for some reason I get the stronger connection and he’s left with the end dregs. I told him it might be the USB he’s using to connect to the wifi on his desktop but I don’t know if he listened. He complains quite a lot though and I do believe he complains the way he does strictly for the benefit of my hearing it.  Because, after all, it was me who suggested us getting wifi (you’re welcome next volunteer that stays here). I think he’ll live though. Although my host mom doesn’t like the troll being such a troll, she thinks that it’s better for him to be plugged into the computer than drinking at the local dance club, which is what a lot of teenagers do here, unfortunately. There’s a dance club here in town named “club tornado” and while I have no desire to ever go there I am rather curious. We have been warned that only the secondary school kids and creeper adults frequent this place so it’s strongly advised that we do not even look sideways at it least a Ukrainian notices us looking at it and starts a rumor that we also have been frequenting the place (seriously, the rumor mills in this country are enough to make your head spin). However, I’m feeling that forbidden fruit sort of curiosity leerking every time I pass it and while I will most definitely not go inside, I can’t help but wonder what exactly is going on in there…

Here's some pictures to help you to conceptualize where I live!

The living room

The eating table

The kitchen

the bathroom

the mudroom

the hallway looking into my bedroom

mah bedroom

Kozelets group 46. Good looking group indeed.

-Jamie

Halloween!

Despite Japanese people not really understanding what Halloween is all about or where it came from (although you could argue that most American's don't know either) shops still hang ghosts and spider webs in their shop windows and Halloween themed candy is distributed countrywide.

There are no little kids running around in costumes from door to door yelling "trick-or-treat" but the grown ups do get their freak on and dress crazier than usual (for Tokyo fashion anyway) and go out and party till the wee hours of the morning. They even had some parades I hear (although this might have just been an extraordinary amount of drunken dressed up fools walking the streets of Roppongi and other big party areas and someone just miss-took it for a parade).

The Niji no Kai circle at my school put together a party and I happily bought a ticket to go. They held it in this club in Shinjuku and though the ticket was a little pricey it was worth it non-the-less.

I had great fun putting together my costume. I was originally going to go as Lady Gaga but then I decided that would have been to boring and so I put a twist on it and went as ZOMBIE GAGA. I watched Youtube tutorials on how to do zombie make-up as well as a tutorial for how to get the HUGE eyes Lady Gaga sports in her Bad Romance video. I spent about 3 hours putting it all on (three pairs of fake eyelashes on EACH EYE) and the result was satisfactory:

I scared the shit outta my host dad three times that night!
XD

My clothes were inspired by her Telephone costume. Instead of cans I used curlers and instead of just a bra under my leather jacket (I can be modest) I tied up my David Bowie shirt on the sides and tucked it in around my bra. Then of course short-shorts instead of underwear and my 6'' stilettos were in order XD

Not quite the same but you get it lol 

The rest of the costumes there ranged from zombies to Teletubbies; my favorite was a guy dressed as V from V for Vendetta):

He made the mask himself! 

There was plenty of drinks and food for everyone (but no candy!?!) but the music pretty much sucked. Someone just had their Ipod plugged in on random so I asked my friend who had an IPod as well if he had any Lady Gaga music on it. He did; I told him to plug it in and play Bad Romance. He did; I got up on one of the tables and started to dance while everyone around went wild. I was epic. Until I was asked to get off the table by one of the people who was running the show. Damn Japanese etiquette.

The party lasted for about three hours and by the end of it the organizers got up and started to announce the winners of the "Best Dressed" contest which I had no idea was taking place so I wasn't really paying attention. Until they called my name. I won the grand prize!? TWO FREE TICKETS TO EITHER DISNEY LAND OR DISNEY SEA!?! AND I HAVE UNTIL NEXT NOVEMBER TO USE THEM!? 

Of course since there were two tickets the announcers asked who I was taking and I was all like "uuuhhh..who wants to go?" at which everyone was like "ME!!". Embarrassing. But so as not to hurt anyone's feelings (and so that no one would be all "ooooh, you like him don't you??" If I asked one of my guy friends there, I asked my friend Natsuyo to go with me! XD

Although I really think either the Teletubbi or V should of won but i'm not complaining.