Overview of week 2

Seriously, it’s only the end of week two? But wait, I have to start teaching on Tuesday? Teaching to 15 year olds? WTF is going on?! The time is simultaneously going too fast but not going fast enough.

I did this when hand washing my laundry. #thuglife

our wacky group with our wacky teacher Natasha

Friday was our "cooking day" where we
had to go to the bazaar and buy ingredients for borscht from the babushkas
and then make it ourselves. It was tasty. 

our pizza

We do this, have competitions like who can hold their
hands up the longest. It's how we relieve stress
(obviously I lost as I am the one taking the picture lol)

A lot has happened this week. So much in fact that I can’t even remember all of it. I know at one point we had a wild bird in our classroom that died after a day. Then we got a little kitten to replace it that (thankfully) didn’t die after one day and is still in fact, alive. Apparently the land lady of my teacher’s house’s boyfriend had the bird follow him all the way home one night (what is he, freaking snow white or something?!) and that’s how we got the bird. Then once it died the land lady bought the cat to replace it. We have a real menagerie up in here. I mean, every morning I have to wait for the geese to be herded across the street before I can continue on my way to school. Not to mention my host family’s 20 chickens (to which we almost added to today but unfortunately the bazaar was out of chickens which was fortunate for the chickens because all my host mom had to transport them back to the house was a burlap sack).

I had a picture of the bird but I somehow deleted it. Stooopid. 

Speaking of chickens. My host mom has been complaining about the neighbor's chickens getting into her yard, eating all her vegetables, and then going back and laying eggs for her neighbor. Well, I guess she had enough of it because her brother came over with some chain link and we all helped put it up so that the chickens will stay on their side of the fence! It was a bit of an ordeal though, when the neighbor lady came over and started yelling at us. Why she was yelling I have no idea, but my host brother kindly explained "she's *points at his head and rolls his eye*". So that's that. We got it set up though and she didn't tear it down or anything so, success!  

My language teacher continues to be the most awesome, kindest, most caring teacher in existence. She told us the other day when we brought her a present for teacher’s day that our group was her reward for working with peace corps the last 9 years or so. Apparently she’s had some tough groups and she thinks our group is fantastic. And we are! We all get along very well, we like each other, we laugh A LOT (perhaps too much sometimes) about the most random shit and it makes our teacher laugh too. I really lucked out with my clustermates and I can’t say that enough.

What else has happened?

I made a pizza with my host brother. It turned out alright. I don’t know what possessed him to want to make a pizza as from what I’ve heard from him kitchen stuff is “women’s” work, not “men’s” work. He did, however, leave me to clean up the mess afterwards, due to this logic. Oh. Well. I have come to the conclusion that I am living in 1950’s America. I mean, if I really think about it:

1)      Women don’t tend to go out unless they look their best, even if they’re going to the store

2)      The stores (or “magazines") are like those old time grocer’s where there’s a clerk behind the counter and you have to tell the clerk everything you want in weight so that they can get it for you. Not modern, American Super-Wal-Marts here. Nope.

3)      The children dress up in their best to go to school (there’s no official uniform but there is a strict dress code).

4)      The children stand up to answer questions and the lessons are very teacher focused, rather than student centered and all the desks are in perfect little rows.

5)      The whole “men’s work vs women’s work” silliness

6)      The cars. All (mostly) classic looking, straight from Soviet Russia kind of cars. I like them

7)      People get married here very young and have kids young.

8)      Seriously, if you’re 25-30 and not married there’s a problem with you and you’re going to have all the babushka’s trying to hook up you up with their granddaughters

I can’t say that I’m not enjoying it though. I find it rather interesting. I’m sure I’m going to find it rather old after a while but for the meantime I’m taking it in for what it is and enjoying it.

It is also cold as shit already and it’s not even winter time. The school won’t turn their heat on until the middle of October and that probably won’t even help much. I heard from other volunteers that sometimes they cancel school because it gets too cold to hold it. This winter is supposed to be the coldest yet. Hooray.

The language is coming along. Slowly, which is frustrating but it’s to be expected. I know that after a couple months it will really start clicking and I’m just going to have to be patient. At least I’m starting to understand my host mom more and more. That’s something.

Also, I want a pet so bad when I move out I’m seriously considering getting a puppy. I saw one on the street today and almost lost it and brought it home. I heard Peace Corps helps their volunteers bring home any pets they have after service. Very tempting.

I love my life

Jamie

Overview of week one

Borscht <3 td="">

It's an old Ukrainian book for kids. Look next to the giraffe's butt.
Is that Morse code? 

The cat likes the compost bin.

It’s been pretty hectic and it’s only going to get worse from here. Let me tell ya though, I got some pretty amazing cluster mates!

I can’t believe it’s only been one week because it feels like it’s been about 3 already. So far we have introduced ourselves to the principle of the school we’ll be teaching at, we have registered ourselves with the administration (which didn’t go so great for me—we had to all give a little introductory speech which I totally botched up), we have gone to our link cluster’s site in Oster (it’s another village about 16 kilometers away from Kozelets were another cluster group lives), we have met the previous volunteers from group 42 who trained in our village and are now on their final two months of service before going home. Not to mention all the language training and cross-cultural training and homework and studying. A lot of studying

I haven’t updated my blog as often as I was because I’m so tired after every day and my host mom wants to talk with me and that’s even more tiring that I just end up going to sleep. Which has also actually killed my studying habits and put me behind in class. However, it’s getting better, I’m slowly able to understand more and more of what my host mom blurts at me (I usually have to have her repeat things a second time; slower). I have yet to hit rock bottom on the culture shock scale but I feel it looming its ugly head and I’m not looking forward to the crash. But since my cluster mates are, as previously stated, such awesome people I think we will be able to help each other through it.

Like the other day.

I had a downer day (the day we went to the administration and I botched my speech) that was all topped off with my blowing a fuse in my host family’s house. I know that it wasn’t such a huge deal, that it’s cheap to replace fuses and these old soviet era houses contain soviet era wiring so I was bound to blow one someday. Never-the-less, due to me already being rather frazzled and upset at the rest of the day, blowing the fuse (and having the ENTIRE house go black) broke me down. It’s fixed now and my host mom is convinced that it wasn’t me that did it. However, the state of mind I was in made me spiral down to “they’re going to hate me and never want to host a volunteer again! I’m THAT American that everyone hates now!”.

Of course, that’s not the case at all but, you know, emotions. They can run wild sometimes.

It was rather funny (to me) how they reacted when the power went out. In America, when the power goes out one can hear people loudly pondering why the lights went out and fumbling around in the dark for some sort of light source. When I walked out of my bedroom here though I didn’t hear a peep. I looked into the living room and no one was there. I knocked on my host brother’s door and he responded to come in. I told him that it was my fault the fuse blew and he responded “no, probably not”. You see, because the power here is so shotty, power outages happen all the time and no one is surprised by them. My host brother just told me “go to sleep, we will fix it in the morning”. And that was that. Lol

It’s fixed now; however, it keeps going out. It totally was me who blew it because when I plugged in my surge protector there was a loud “POP” and then blackness. But oh well.

The past volunteers from our village stopped by to see us which was nice. We got to pick their brain about their stays here, what it was like, how they handled things, how their language improved. There was even a story about how two of the volunteers from their group had boyfriends in America that they stayed together with the entire 27 months. Of course the boyfriends visited and the volunteers went home for the holidays. I think that’s nice and encouraging J There were really no surprising/horrible stories other than one about one of their cluster mates who had trouble with getting cooperation from his school. Apparently it kinda ruined his experience here but he was a trooper and stuck it out at his site even when Peace Corps offered to move him to a different site.

I’ve visited my other cluster mate’s houses and determined that we all have pretty great host families.

I went to the bazaar without my host family or a native speaker and bought goulashes and black socks all by myself! (with the support of two of my cluster mates that is lol). My goulashes are fur lined even. Be jealous. Oh! Before I left for my outing my host mom thrust money into my hand and instructed me to buy half a loaf of bread at the Magazine (picture those old fashion grocery stores where you had to actually ask the clerk for everything). She told me she was challenging me and was curious about the outcome (as was I). Through the act of miming and the few vocabulary words I know which doesn’t actually include the word “half” the clerk turned out to be a master of reading mime and figured out that my hand gesture and my increasingly louder proclamation of “hleib!!” (which means bread) meant that I only wanted half a loaf. Done.

Nothing else interesting has really happened. I’ve been trying to be friendly with the people who live around me by saying “good day” whenever I see them and they usually respond in the affirmative “dobre den” and that’s that. I shouldn’t have been surprised when one of them finally struck up a conversation with me, but I was totally caught off guard. After saying my greeting to an older lady, she stopped and babbled nonsensically (to me anyway) for a good minute while holding a pamphlet. She must have noticed the panicked look in my eyes for she eventually stopped, handed me the pamphlet, smiled, and walked away. I sputtered out “dyakuyou” (thank you) and continued on. Turns out it was a Jesus pamphlet. FTW lol

Some of the kids on my street like to yell random English words at me as well (pencil, book, chicken) and I usually try and talk with them but they just giggle and run away. Today though one of them run up (backwards) to me and asked me for my name (in English) and I asked him for his (Sasha) and, thinking that I had something good going I said “nice to meet you Sasha” to which he just shrugged and said “ya ne rozomiyu” (I don’t understand). So I said it in Ukrainian and he looked at me funny and said something which I think was along the lines of “you are older so you shouldn’t say that to me” (Ukrainian is like Japanese in that they have very stilted ways in which older people talk to younger people and vice versa). However, before I could question him further he and his friends ran off giggling. Le sigh.

Also, soup. I have soup every day, almost for every meal and I am loving it. I love soup. I love making soup. However, my host mom puts my soup to shame because she makes her own broth and it’s amazing.

Also also, what we have been learning in school about how to teach is pretty much everything I learned last year in my grad program so, win for me. However, I was so excited to not go back to grad school this year that this revelation kinda makes me upset lol. Oh well, se la vie or whatever. It’s so hard not to start speaking Japanese to my host mom sometimes. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense but my brain knows I’m not supposed to speak English so it goes to the next available language which is Japanese and honestly, I’ve actually said things in Japanese to her (not that it matters because she probably just thought I was speaking English since she doesn’t understand anyway).

I’m also starting to write English letters backwards from all my studying of the Cyrillic alphabet.

My life, man.

Jamie

  

   

Luck o' the...Russians? Hmm, yes quite.

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I originally wanted this to solely be a travel blog, hence why I haven't posted nothin' in a while. No travel, no post and my life has been pretty void of traveling. However, I have had various requests throughout the year to start this thing back up, despite my current stationary lifestyle. I informed them that if I started back up I wouldn't be posting about anything much interesting, just my life happenings and crazy rants. Apparently that's good enough though. I considered it all year long. Since I have been finishing my last couple of terms for my BA I haven't had much time to think about it, but now that i'm practically  done with my degree I started to consider it harder and now here I am. So here I go. Post one after a long hiatus.


I have noticed throughout the years that I have some of the most ridiculous good luck. However, before that good luck comes a'knockin' things always seem to plummet down a spiraling tunnel of shit for a couple minutes before taking a sharp turn for the best.  


I graduated a couple weekends ago and it felt great. After four years I finally had my degree and I was going to start grad school in the fall (that's right, they accepted my sorry ass into the MA TESOL program, yahoo!).
I had two summer jobs lined up and ready to go.
After a year of "it's your's! ...oh wait just kidding we have no funding...Gotcha! You still have it!", my graduate tuition is going to be paid for by the department I currently work for as part of a graduate assistant program.
I was going to travel to a part of the US I have been wanting to go to forever (although since the East coast seems to be having a bit of trouble with heat i'm a little glad I didn't go).
Life was looking great.
Until I had  4 credits sneak up on me out of nowhere that need to be completed in order to receive my BA. That's right, I made my family sit for 3 + hours watching as 6000+ students they didn't know walk up and receive their empty diploma case for nothing.
DESPITE having two advisers in my department go over my DARS report (my university's system for tallying up credit requirements) and telling me I was on the right track. I guess there was some sort of miss-communication or something because I am for sure 4 credits behind and there ain't no way around it. It's an accreditation issue for the university; all undergrads needs a minimum of 180 credits to graduate and I've got 176. Le sigh. Thankfully all my specific degree requirements have been taken care of so I just need four credits of anything, upper or lower division.  


So, I panicked and scrambled to get into a low level online course (I'll be damned if I'll let this get in the way of my summer vacation!). I'm taking a 100 level women's studies course online. So far it's been easy breezy and i'm not too worried about it as far as school work/effort goes. I am pissed that the university decided it needs an extra 250 dollars for "online class fees", totaling my tuition this term to over 800. All paid out of my pocket (and some of my mom and step dad's pocket--thanks guys!). Oh well, life shall go on.


But like I said, life plummets before taking an unexpected turn. Here's some more examples


I had applied for a teaching job in Chile once I found out that I wasn't going to have the funding I thought I would for grad school. I had a really good interview, the contract the lady drew up  for me was a amazing, and I truly thought that I was going to have to learn Spanish over the summer. Unfortunately the owner of the school did not have the projected enrollment she thought she would so I didn't get the job. However, around that same time I found out that I had the graduate assistant position. Plummet and turn.


Another example, I was told back in November by a dear co-worker of mine that student workers were not allowed to work over 1039 hours in the fiscal year (which runs from June to July for us), otherwise we would have to resign because the university would have to pay back benefits. I panicked and tallied up my total hours for the year so far and I was already at 600. I doubled checked with our lady who deals with HR and she confirmed it. So since November I have been working a measly 14 hours per week, BARELY getting by with 500 dollar pay checks PER MONTH (shit shit shitty shit shit). Luckily I had financial aid otherwise I wouldn't have made it. HOWEVER, I found out a couple days ago that there was a miss-communication (this seems like a pattern with my uni). Turns out my dear co-worker was not considered a student worker but rather was under some other category that rendered her unable to work over the 1039. Student workers, however are not eligible for benefits no matter what and can therefore work up to 130 hours per pay period. I've been living poor for NO REASON. I have since then been racking up the hours like mad. A plummet with a slight turn (if I had been working 130/month hours for the past year I wouldn't have batted an eye at the amount I have to pay for my summer class).


I'm still going to Japan in August though! I'm planning on mostly staying in Tokyo, but hopefully going to Shizuoka to see an awesome friend as well. I am also going to try and drive over to Montana's Glacier National Park to do something camping and climbing and visiting my most awesome roommate Jenn. 
We'll see though. That's one hell of a drive from here and I wasn't the best pilot last year when I did it with friends. 


Today is fourth of July so I feel like I should end this with something patriotic so here ya go 

couldn't have said it better myself!

Happy fourth everyone and expect more posts in the future!

-J

"...if I stay in one place, I lose my mind."

So my host family in Japan wants me to come to my host sisters wedding in November.


The ceremony is being held in Australia.


And they're going to put $1,000 towards my ticket leaving me to scrap up the last 6-800.


I'd be there for about 5 days, and would miss Thanksgiving plus a couple days of class.



I'm not going to be getting as much financial aid for next year as previous years because I submitted my FASFA renewal on the 4th and not the 1st, meaning I was too late to get the Perkins loan from my school.




Should I pay tuition/living expenses or go on a 5 day trip to Australia?



Life sure is complicated.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...."Flyjin"

As Japan continues to grapple with its nuclear emergency, special scorn has been reserved for the "flyjins", foreigners who made their living in the country but fled in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.

Rebuilding Japan: Special scorn for 'flyjin' foreigners who fled country
The Telegraph
Global Bussiness
4/21/2011

"You are the first foreigners I have seen in my bar in a month," said Hidetsugo Ueno, the bartender at High Five Bar in Ginza. "Are you sure you should be staying here in Japan?" he added, with a smile.

Skittish members of the financial community were the first to empty out and Hong Kong has issued around 300 long-term visas to bankers and traders who wanted to continue working in Asia, but not to live in Tokyo.

"Around 80pc of the visas are to employees at international financial institutions earning at least HK$100,000 (£7,775) a month," said Chan Kwok-ki, Hong Kong's immigration director. Five of those went to employees of ICAP, who sent traders to the island as a temporary measure.

 In addition, almost all Chinese and Korean residents in Japan have now left the country, despite no advice to do so from their home governments.

The sudden flight has dismayed the Japanese.
 
"It's not good that they all left so suddenly," said Mutsuko Izawa, a housewife who lives in the town of Ujie, 85 miles the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. "Of course this means that in the future, when a company has a choice between hiring a Japanese and a foreigner they will not hire the foreigner because they will be worried if they are going to stay.

"For senior people in big companies, I think they had a responsibility to their Japanese staff to stay. I can perhaps understand if they wanted their families to leave, but a company operating here needs people who will be here when times are more difficult," she added.

"I think this has reinforced the impression amongst Japanese that a lot of foreigners only look at Japan as a place to work for a few years, earn a lot of money and then they go again," she said. "They're not really interested in the society or the country. This isn't their real home. These disasters have really just shown how true that is."

The managing director of one British firm in Tokyo said he had evacuated only one of his staff because he had a wife and a young child.

"We thought it was only the right thing to do in the circumstances, but only because they had a small baby," he said.

"No-one else left our company and I think that was the right thing to do as if four or five senior executives had suddenly decided to jump ship then it would of course caused great resentment. There are a lot of executives and companies in Japan today who are facing a backlash against them. The feeling is they have lost credibility with their local employees because they left and I think that will cause longer-term problems."

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I fully agree with this! It's silly that practically all foreigners evac'd so suddenly after this happened when no foreign embassy's issued any sort of evacuation notice. When I was still there I checked the US embassy site everyday just so I would know if they did start issuing evac notices, and they never did. When I got the email from my program saying that they were revoking our visas and bringing us home, naturally I was a little confused. If the gov isn't evacing people, why do we have to? But what's done is done I suppose. I don't want to think of my self as one of these "flyjins" simply because I would have stayed if I had a choice in the matter.

My employer Gaba seemed to be understanding and told me to apply again in the future, so no worries there of them not hiring foreigners in the future (not that they really have a choice in the matter of hiring foreigners or not being an English teaching establishment). I don't know how many of the workers there left, but my manager wasn't surprised when I told him that my visa was canceled because one other student at my learning studio called in the day before and reported the same.

What really irks me though, is that I know at least two fellow students on different programs who were able to go back to Japan to complete their studies! Although it sounds like one of them got changed to a school in Osaka, the other one is back at Waseda. *sigh* whatever. I wish our program hadn't panicked unnecessarily with the rest of the world and these "flyjins" and made a better decision to keep us there and follow what the government was doing (i.e. not emergency evac'ing everyone).

Nowadays it's an important skill to be able to interpret the media and filter out the hysterics from the truth. Many, it seems, do not possess this skill hence the wide spread evacs of all foreigners in Japan (okay not all but a good number of them fled).  I just wish this fear mongering on the media's part would come to an end, especially in cases like this! It's already scary enough, no need to hype it up by x10.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

"The Japanese System"

Due to some feedback I received about making my blog a better cross-cultural analysis place, this post is about how to handle differences in "systems" when abroad. If anyone else has any feedback to give me on how to improve my blog, or if there is something you want me to write about, please feel free to leave a comment (comments are open to anyone and you don't need to sign up for anything).

From my experience (so don't yell at me and be like "that's not how all Japanese are" because that's not what i'm saying). Anyway, from my experience, Japanese have some very set ways of doing things, and when they have set these ways they do not like to stray from their set path (aka, not very flexible). And I'm not talking everyday people, i'm talking professionally. For example:

When I went to Starbucks a couple months ago, I wanted soy milk in my tall coffee. Just a splash, nothing more. But they don't set soy milk out as an option on the milk counter, there's just non-fat and regular. So I asked if I could get some, thinking that it wouldn't' be a problem. Well, it wasn't a problem but they wanted to charge me 50 yen for my splash, which is roughly 50 cents (although with the exchange rate now it's probably closer to a dollar). Naturally, I argued. I just wanted a little bit, not even a tablespoon full. No? You can't even give me that? You're sorry, you have no excuse? (they say "mo-shi-wa-ke- a-ri-ma-sen" here a lot which roughly means "I have no excuse", and when you hear it you know you have lost the battle). Well, what if I say please? Not going to work? Okay fine! Here's your damn 50 yen! I pay, and they bring me one of those sample cups full of soy milk. o.v.e.r.k.i.l.l. And I have never asked for soy milk again. Comparing that situation to if it had happened in America, the Starbucks worker would have given me what I wanted without much of an argument because it's not a very big request (perhaps because of the whole "customer's always right thing"?). I think I am pretty used to the way of the Japanese, and normally I wouldn't have argued over this but just said, "oh, I see" and quietly paid. On this day, however I was feeling feisty.. Which was not very grown up of me but hey, we all have our moments.  Which leads me into my next topic of unflinching stubbornnes; the school system. 

I have finals coming up. One of my finals lands on one of the training days for my future potential job (fingers crossed), so I go up to the teacher and am like:

And you don't want this to be a reality when you
are the immigrant. 

"hey teach, if we're not able to attend the final, when is the make-up day?" (like in the states, they have a testing center for people who have a schedule conflict). 

Teacher: "Why Jamie, are you going to miss the final?".

Me: "I might have a problem". 

Teach: "what?".

Me "(stop prying, it's none of your business) I might have a training day for my job on that day and they can't change the day".

Teach: "oh well, we only allow re-takes if it's a family emergency". 

Me: "oh...No exceptions?". 

Teach: "Moshiwakearimasen". 

Me: (Damnit!!!) "Oh...I'll see what I can do then". End of conversation. Okay well, perhaps it's understandable because it is school, but at the same time I believe they should offer some sort of second option for the working people (but then again this is Japan and most students don't have full time jobs or have to pay tuition all by themselves). But I handled it without angering my sensei or breaking any cultural taboos. Turns out I can attend a different training session if I get hired too, so it all works out in the end. I think the most important thing when handling a situation in a different country where you expect a certain outcome because of past experiences in your own country, but receive a completely different (and sometimes nonsensical) outcome;  don't get angry. This isn't your country after all and you should respect their ways no matter how backwards it seems. Just recognize it, appreciate it if you can't understand it, and move on. 

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Although some people just don't give up,
even when failure is evident. 

In related news, I had my second interview with Gaba today! Despite my liking Minerva better, it looks like Gaba might be the winner. I have an interview with Minerva this Friday, but the fact that they only contract out for a year kind of scares me. I don't know how contracts are handled here or if they are easy things to break (don't sue me!) and I really don't want to stay until December (not that I have anything against Japan, I just really want to graduate sometime in the near future). Either way though, I'm becoming a teacher! Who would of thought me being a teacher? Not me certainly, but isn't that always the case? Not everyone can actually successfully pursue their childhood dreams after all (in my case, Sailor Moon).  

I'm having problems getting my work permit though. And by problems I mean I haven't received the notice in the mail to come and pick it up yet. Stressful. I'm going to give them a call tomorrow and see wtf is going on because I applied like, three weeks ago. Curse you government, why are you foiling my plans?!

Let me accomplished my dreams of becoming Doris Day!
...I mean a teacher!

Next post will be on Flamenco in Japan! Ole'! 

p.s. Leave comments! My blog looks lonely without comments and i'm desperate to hear from my readers! Don't be shy!

-Jamie

Phew, I'm glad that's over with

It looks like I have my financial situation under control again. I only have to pay $1,286 instead of $1,686 because I read the bill wrong (they were giving me back $400, not charging me. How nice). The 400 dollar difference is from my dental bill (back in May, WTF?). I guess the insurance company finally agreed to pay the rest of it (thank god, even though I was told that it was all good and taken care of). So my stress level and risk of early heart attack have decreased substantially. Unfortunately I still don't think I'm going to be able to make my little southeast Asia tour this year. Yet, with a little luck maybe I can tour Japan a little bit more before I go home. Thailand isn't going anywhere anyways (I hope) and i'll be back to Japan before I know it and will be able to hop on over there easily.

In other related news, I had an interview today with a little English teaching company called Lilly English Salon. It's owned by this woman who opened a Chinese school (called Lily Chinese Salon) five years ago and decided just last year that she wanted an English school as well. She named the schools after her daughters (Ai-li and something else-li). I guess she lived in Beijin and used to work for a car parts export company before opening her Chinese school and she's fluent in Chinese (pretty badass). She also co-owns a business with her husband (watch making) and she runs a blog site as well; AND has two young children. Wow, that's what I call a career woman! Anyway, we had our interview and she pretty much hired me on the spot to teach on Thursdays. Her last Thursday teacher had to return home because of visa problems but will be back at the end of July when I go home so it works out perfectly! It looks like i'll be teaching an older lady 9who teaches some sort of crafts at a craft school and wants to learn English for some reason), as well as little kids from the ages 5-12 (well, this will be interesting indeed). She also wants me to tutor her as well, but mainly correcting her blog site (she runs it in English). There's no dress code so that's a huge relief ( I own no suits). I went and bought this nice, cheap pin skirt and top for the interview but when I asked her she was like "no, you can wear whatever, it doesn't matter!" so, hurray for that.

To make the day even better, I got a call from Gaba (the big English teaching corporation that my friend works for and that I was hoping would contact me) wanting to set up an interview for this Friday! Unfortunately, I know for a fact that they have a dress code so if I get the job I'll have to drop some money on a couple nice suit-like outfits (sigh, i'll be turned into a suit wearing monkey). Gaba pays bank though and reimburses for the commute so I'll put up with it. Lily also reimburses so that's cool as well. The only reason why I wouldn't get this job is the contract. They contract for 6 months and I'll be short a couple days but the nice lady on the phone today said that it shouldn't matter so long as I work all the way up to the time I leave. FINGERS CROSSED!
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Unrelated stories.

The lovely Aori

Went and hung out with this guy that I met randomly in Shibuya a few weeks ago. He seemed cool enough when I talked with him so I thought, why not? I could use some more friends.Yet, what I thought was just going to be casual hanging out turned out to be a date. And an awkward one at that. This guy is so completely desperate for a white girlfriend it's kind of sad really. I guess he was engaged to this girl from Sweden but they broke up in July after only knowing each other for ten months (great, i'm a rebound). I don't know how many times I said that I didn't want/need a boyfriend that night but for some reason in his mind that meant "I wanna be your girlfriend". He even bought me a Xmas present! Really? We talked for maybe 10 minutes on the street like, three weeks ago! Sigh...needless to say I ditched his ass for some more agreeable company. The story of the ditching is one worth telling though so please, follow me.

screw you creepy guys!!! 

After going to dinner (and him paying for everything) we went to a bar and the whole time I was desperately trying to figure out a way to get ride of him. Eventually, I texted my friend Micah and asked for some advise on how to ditch a guy. Said friend did more than give me advise though, he came and saved my ass. Well, he didn't actually come, I had to go meet him at the station. As an excuse to leave, I told this guy that my friends were really drunk (which they were, hence the enthusiasm in which he said that they'd come save me) and needed my help so I had to go meet them at the station. He seemed sad, but determined not to let me go so easily. He offered to walk me back to the station and on the way there he grabbed my hand (uugh) and asked if it was okay to date me (ahhhhhh!!!) in which I replied "umm...how about we just slow down and maybe hang out a bit first?". I'm afraid that mis-translated again and in his mind I said "yes, I would love to date you" because he didn't seem the least put out and tried to get me to kiss him on the cheek goodbye in which case I was like "I'll give you a hug instead....".

Aori and Yusuke (one of my heroes!)

He left, and I waited for my rescue team to show up. About three minutes passed and this fool comes back! No, i'm fine. My friend isn't here yet (where the f*ck are you!?). Yeah sure, it's okay if you wait with me, why the hell not (starts texting friend desperately). Then I see my friend Yusuke run by (part of Micah's rescue team) and I yell out excitedly and chase after him, leaving said loser behind without even the slightest look back. What a nightmare.

Masaru

However the night ended on a good note with drinking and Karaoke with Micah, Yusuke, Aori (Yusuke's GF) and Masaru (Yusuke's older brother). This team of rascals are really a crazy bunch and know how to have a good time (even if they do get a little bit out of control sometimes in which case Aori runs as far away from them as possible out of embarrassment, poor girl). It seems I missed the bulk of the excitement when I went home early though. Seems some guy on the train, instead of asking my rowdy friends to quiet down, attacked with fists a-blazing. Luckily, Yusuke and his bro are complete badass gangster brothers and were able to subdue this guy before anyone got hurt. What an exciting evening!

You tell them Micah!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Natsuyo

Yesterday was a planned day to hang out with three girls that I met back in Portland. One of them, Natsuyo, has already made an appearance on this blog and the other two were Fumika and Yumiko. Fumi and Yumi are actually the first friends I made when I can to PSU, and I met Natsuyo through them. It's been about 2 years since I saw Yumiko because she was just at PSU for one term through a study abroad program through her university in Hawaii. Fumika I hadn't seen since the beginning of last summer, so I was really excited. Unfortunately Fumika wasn't able to come (poor girl is always so busy with everything!), so it was just me, Yumiko, and Natsuyo but we had a great time ( and had a good laugh when loser from last night texted me wanting to know when we can hang out again. Did. not. reply.). I love all my friends, they're such awesome people.

Delicious Indian curry for Lunch

Yumiko, long time no see!

School starts this Saturday (stupid Saturday class), and I start work for Lily next Thursday!

Until next time folks,
PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

Insomniac; one affected with insomnia

Did anyone ever notice that the title of my blog has been spelling wrong this whole time? It was "insomiac".

That being said (although it really has nothing to do with the rest of this post now that I think about it), right now i'm reading this book by Bill Bryson titled "Mother Tongue" for my Selected Topics in Applied Linguistics class. It's pretty much an intro into the world of English linguistics, laid out in such a way for people who don't have a background in linguistics can follow it with little problems. The author has a very humorous style of writing and since he is British he mainly uses examples from British English. Despite it being a book for beginner linguists I have found it to be rather informative as well as amusing and haven't been able to put it down. I love it when profs assign textbooks that aren't really textbooks. Bryson brings up a lot of interesting topics though, the latest chapter I just read being on "good" English vs "bad" English and the prescriptive and descriptive approaches to each side. I find myself in the descriptive linguist group (embrace language shifts, don't fight them!). The prescriptive people of course are those who want to freeze language where it is (or rather where it was 50+ years ago) and prevent anymore change from happening (which of course would be a Noam Chomsky school of though approach and lets face it, that man is just silly sometimes).

Why would anyone want to stop language change? I mean, I guess I can see why some people would want to solely to preserve the way they themselves speak (sorta like the way older people have their opinions on what we younger people call "music" a-now-days). I find the fact that people here in 2010 use almost entirely different vocabulary than people 30,40,50 years ago to be fascinating! And it's not a new phenomena like some people might think; language has been changing ever since people invented language! You don't see people going around saying "thou" and "hark", etc, do you? Society is an ever changing monster and if the language doesn't change with it, then it will cease to exist because people eventually move onto a different means of communication that better fits their needs (which is one factor that kills so many indigenous languages of small population because they get exposed to, say English, which fits the modern world better than their language therefore they abandon their native tongue for the more useful one). So the next time you think that our language has taken a turn for the worse remember this; people from generations before you would say the same thing about YOU. Just appreciate the changes and except that nothing can prevent it ( as it should be) and that there really is no "correct" way for speaking so long as the speaker is understood by other native speakers i.e. there ain't nuttin' wrong wit dee suthern accents cuz wut dey sayin' is completely understandable to the other speakers around them, even if outsiders have a hard time with it, so who's to say it's wrong?

Even though I am living here in Japan and therefore should be taking advantage of studying Japanese linguistics, I find myself wanting to study more and more about English. Perhaps it's because it's my native tongue but don't know much about it other than how to speak it, but ever since I took my first Sociolinguistics class last winter term (which focused a lot on American dialects and what-not) I have been captivated with all the different accents in America. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not completely wasting my opportunity here in Japan. In fact, I'm extremely interested in Japanese Sociolinguistics and have even found a book that compares Japanese and American Linguistics/Social behaviors (which go hand in hand). And of course just my everyday living here and being in contact with native speakers is a study all it's own! I'll being going on a trip down to the Kansai area of Japan (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, etc) where the dialect there is unlike any other in Japan. In fact, it's so interesting that most comedians are from that region (therefore I can't understand most of the comedians on TV). But I'll be able to hear it first hand in about a months time and I am stoked!

Sorry to nerd out on you. I could go on and on for days about this stuff, so if it interests you too, lets chat privately! :D

Noam Chomsky

out
Jamie

Playing in a Rock and Roll band

So I got asked by these fellows (well one of them asked me anyway,  i'm not entirely sure if he had the consent of his other band mates XD) to be a guest guitarist for them and play at our school's festival last weekend. At first I wasn't so sure about doing it because to be honest, the most I have touched my guitar in the past two years is to move it out of the way while i'm cleaning. So I was a bit nervous and rusty as all hell. But since this sounded like an awesome opportunity that probably wouldn't come up again, I swallowed my nerves and agreed.

The only thing was that I didn't bring a guitar with me to Japan (had too many bags full of clothes XD). Luckily, that didn't faze them and they let me borrow one of their's during practice. I did end up buying a used acoustic for fairly cheap with full intentions of selling it back before I go home to America but so far it has proven it's worth as a good guitar so I shall reconsider this...

Anyway, since I was just their "guest" they only wanted me to play one song for them; that song being "It's my Life" by Bon Jovi. Not what I would have picked but; not my band, not my choice. I didn't complain. It is a fairly simple song that worked well with my rusty, clumsy fingers. XD The first practice was the most nerve-wreaking though; even more so than the concert itself! Before the practice I had only met the vocalist (the one who asked me to join) and the drummer. Did not know who the guitarist or bassist were, or what any of their levels were. I found that out pretty quickly after walking into the practice studio though. These guys definitely were not on the rusty side, or as they say here in Japan; "level takai". But they were all nice boys and made me feel like part of the band right away; didn't even laugh when I made clumsy mistakes on the solo part.

I suppose I could give names to these guys.

Vocal/guitar: Ryuichi
Guitar/vocals: Kazumi
Bass: Norihiro
Drums: Yohei

We had about five practices (*Tangent alert* I had never thought about this before but we had all our practices in this studio by the station that was specifically made for bands to practice in. And there are a TON of studios like this around, well; everywhere. Seems like about half the population in Tokyo plays an instrument. Anyways, it's not like in America where prospective bands will meet in the basement of one members house or something, because here no one has space like that in their house! All practice is done in studios for any level of band. And it costs too which sucks especially if you're a poor student. 740 YEN per person! The thieves!). So, five practices and about 25 dollars later, I somehow got conned into SINGING the whole song "By The Way" by RHCP (originally I was only going to do the rap part but whatever...).

The show went very well in my opinion. We were tight for the most part and didn't have any sound problems as far as I could tell (unlike my last experience I had playing a show...but we won't go into that).  I got a video of it that I plan on uploading as soon as I get a cable to connect it to my computer.

Now that the show is over though, I hope that these boys won't forget me and that we can  hang out again sometime. They're all pretty awesome in my opinion and valuable friends to keep (and it's hard to come by friends like that in this damnable school of mine DX)

PICTURES! These are the best of the bunch unfortunately...there was this damn spot light that turned my head into a ball of light in almost every picture. I put the rest up on FB so if you feel so inclined...

Oh and BTW, the band called themselves Sally, based off of one of the songs they played called "Don't look back in Anger" by Oasis.

Might as well do a song line up too:

"Don't Look Back in Anger" - Oasis
"Help" - Beatles (but a punk version arranged by a band I can't remember the name of)
"It's My Life" - Bon Jovi
"By the Way" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Teh Band.

Best pic I could find of me singing...

Beautiful pic taken by my friend Mikaela.

I wanted a group shot but was let down by people
taking off before I could say something...
But L-R Yoehi(Dr) Me(Gr/Vo), Kazumi(Gr/Vo)

Waseda and Friends

Long time no write! Sorry my faithful readers for being so quiet.

So I've survived the first two weeks of school!

...don't let me fool you though, wasn't as hard as you might think.

Waseda is considered one of the top schools here in Japan but I am beginning to question that.
I came into this program with the knowledge that the hardest part of Japanese Universities is getting into them. After that it's pretty much a free ride until you start looking for a job (which is something else I wish to discuss, but later).
My Japanese friends in America who come over on study abroad programs always complain about how hard American universities are and that how in Japan they rarely went to class and still managed to pull a B, and that they rarely had homework/ speeches/ or reports to do. Yet, I never really took them seriously because  I would think about how hard all my Japanese high school classmates would study and would never have time for anything because class was so hard to keep up with; the exact opposite of American high schools. But again, "the hardest part of Japanese Universities is getting into them", so naturally the high school students must study to the point of suicide. But knowing this still didn't make me believe that a Japanese university was going to be much different than my university.

After two weeks of classes back in the states I would already be freaking out about the final term projects/reports/ presentations. I would already be scrambling to get as far ahead in my classes as possible in order to not fall behind in other classes. I would be loaded down with books and handouts and my laptop would already be feeling overworked.

After two weeks of classes here at Waseda I have had one reading assignment (a book which we're supposed to finish by the end of the semester but which I am already half way done with), the only homework i'm getting is from my Japanese classes which are also the only classes in which I am being challenged. There are no reports/presentations/end of term projects to think about; only tests which will all be multiple choice/ fill in the blank. My laptop is feeling depressed because I only use him for a quick email check in the morning before I head to class. I only have classes Monday-Wednesday (and one class Saturday morning).

I know what you're thinking though, "that sounds awesome, why you complaining?!?!?".
...Because I'm paying x2 the tuition to study here.

But it's really not all as bad as that. The professors include in their syllabi's extra readings and further studying options so I am taking advantage of that. Oh and perhaps you're wondering how the classes here are taught? Shouldn't it be hard because they're in Japanese?

Well, all my classes are taught in English aside from my Japanese classes. Because I am a one year exchange student I am not allowed to participate in classes that are taught outside of SILS (School of International Liberal Studies). All the staff are very international and all the students are likewise very international. This part doesn't bother me so much. I think the reason that my classes are so easy though might be because of this internationalization. Since it's not only native English speakers taking classes but people from all over the world including Japanese students, the professors have to move at a slower pace. Of course, all the non-native English speakers have to take a test before they are accepted into this school; but still, it takes longer for these students to read and write reports and such (not that there are any reports to write). This is just my theory though and since it sounds like a nice theory I think i'll stick to it. My Japanese friends who are in other departments are always alarmed that I have no homework other than Japanese homework so I believe that my theory is probably close to correct.

Aside from all this though I am really enjoying Waseda and all the different people I am meeting (even if I can't remember half their names by the end of the day). And I am learning a lot in my Japanese class. I tested into the 3rd level (out of 8) because my writing/reading comprehension isn't what it once. That said, all my classes are focused on reading/writing/ and vocabulary. Not so much speaking, but since i'm pretty confident in my speech abilities I have no problem with that. I feel kinda guilty for not keeping up on my Kanji practice back in the state. We learn about 16 new characters every week and are tested on them every week as well!

Oh and that little part about the job searching here. The fourth years are expected to start looking for jobs this month. This includes going to seminars, interviews, etc. But the thing that baffles me is they are expected to do this BEFORE they have even graduated. The Japanese school year ends in April so before they even get their degrees they are expected to have a job lined up. I have yet to decide whether this is better or worse but they have to miss a lot of class so i'm leaning towards the worse.

That was a lot of reading so I'm going to allow you to take a break, go pee, get some coffee and come back in 3 minutes to finish up.

I i'm going to be tutoring my first student in English on Friday! A little extra pocket money is always welcome.
Speaking of money, I should be getting my first scholarship install at the end of the month! And it'll be both September and Octobers portion so $1,600 here I come!

and on the 30th there is going to be a Halloween party put on by one of the circles I said I wasn't going to join but ended up "joining" anyway. They told me that if I come I have to dress up as Lady GaGa which sounds like something I can pull off so I think i'll bite.

Oh! and someone from my past has popped back into my life!! It's very exciting and I'll talk more about it later :D

Pictures!

Ma and Pa Chitose
They are so cute together!

Me and Ma Chitose at the beautiful
Shakuji-Koen

Me and the lovely Kanako at
Karaoke

I'll put the rest of my pictures on FB so check them out there!

Now, bleach the hell outta my roots!

peace
Jambly

Settling in

take away the trees and add buildings
and you'll have the view outside my
window right now.

It's amazing to me how much at home I feel here. I feel nothing of that awkward insecureness that I felt when I was here 3 years ago. Might be the fact that I am older now and have been living on my own for the past two years, so the shock of being away from my family is less...well, shocking (but I still miss all of you like crazy!).
I keep reflecting back on those times in Shizuoka and realizing how much that experience changed me and how much I grew from it. I am much more confident in myself and my decisions then I was back then and I think that my whole first experience here is what caused it. I wonder what kind of person I would be now if I hadn't have been able to have that adventure? Although I do take into account that most people do a lot of growing (personality and maturity wise) from the ages 16-20 but I think that I would be a much different person had I not  gone all that. Throwing yourself into a culture that's completely backwards from yours at a fairly young age is pretty mind blowing.

Right now there's a huge thunder storm going on. Listening to the rain pound against the windows has never made me felt more at ease. <3 rain storms.
~

Me and Saki! Hisashiburi ne!!

Monday I meet up with a girl I went to high school with (here in Japan) and we had a fabulous time catching up and wondering around Shinjuku. I guess that quite a few of my buddies from Shizuoka now live in Tokyo, so hopefully I'll be able to hook up with more of them in the future!

Yesterday I went and opened a bank account with Citibank. As soon as I get my account number and card I'll submit that to the SILS (School of International Liberal Studies) office and then i'll be all set to get my first scholarship installment! Yay for money!

Me and Aiko(?) in the park drinking

Last night was also this party for all the foreign students and friends. Pretty much it was a bunch of people shoved into this outside cafeteria and feed some awful food and booze. It cost 1,500 YEN and I was a little angry about going at first (it wasn't mandatory) but then I got to talking to people (and drinking more than the alloted one beer) and I started to have fun and eventually forget about the 1,500 YEN and awful food. Afterwards everyone seemed to go to the same park near campus and drink (all split up in groups of course, no mingling done there. Meaning of course that all the OUS students hung out with all the OUS Waseda volunteers, all the California students with the cali volunteers, etc) until the last train when people either went home or, in my case (and three other students) went to Karaoke until the first train started in the morning. Got home around 7am, said sorry to my host family (I had called them so they knew and just laughed at me when I walked through the door) and promptly went to sleep for 5 hours.

Tomorrow I have another orientation (like part 6 or something, jeez!). But we're going to get reimbursements for the fair from the airport to the hotel as well as all the meals we had to pay for during the past two weeks.
 
School starts on Monday and I couldn't be more excited! Though i'm always excited before each term starts then a couple days into it I can't wait until the next vacation ;D

"don't step on it...it makes you cry."

Oh, then next Friday i'm going to go get my physical on campus so that I can use their gym and pool! Stoked! I brought my yoga mat with me (best decision ever) and have been doing various yoga routines religiously, but  I miss running and lifting weights. And I'm going to start swimming as well! Fitness here I come!!







until next time,
Peace
Jamie
 

The longest three days of my life

On the 15th I left Natsuyo's house and went to Takadanobaba (city near Waseda where a lot of the foreign students live and where most of all the students hang out). Natsuyo was kind enough to help me all the way to the hotel with my bags. When we reached the hotel I was the first one there so I went ahead and checked in; found out that I was sharing a room with one of the other exchange students (which turned out to be fine, I was just hoping to have peace to my self...oh well). Me and Nat went and hung out after checking in with one of the Waseda volunteers. I bought a new wallet! My old one was so ratty and the zipper was broken and Natsuyo felt sorry for it and told me that I had to buy a new one. I didn't really have a choice. The new one is bright yellow and big and perfect! Cost me about $50 but spending $50 is nothing here...it's like spending $20; a fact which I forgot and was a little irritated at because the exchange rate is the pits right now. oh well.

Anyway, on to the orientation stuffs. It really was the longest three days of my life. It was an orientation for just OUS (Oregon university system) students so that was kind of cool. All the Waseda volunteers had these shirts that had "OUS" all artistically written on them and then had a picture of good ol' kulongoski (insert jokes here) with a heart around it. We really didn't do anything the first night other than go out to eat and meet our "buddies" (waseda volunteers that we got paired up with for the next few days). They were all pretty surprised at the level of my Japanese and I had to repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) tell people that I went to high school in Shizuoka for a year, etc, etc...

Me and Micah (friend from PSU) had a chance to catch up that night. There was a vending machine right outside my room that sold beer and these drinks called Chu-Hi ( a lemony flavored Mike's hard lemonade sort of thingy). Me and him both went with the Chu-hi and regretted it the next morning (and that night after we said farewell). Never. EVER. drinking chu-hi again.

The next day we woke up early and got taken to campus for the first time. Ryoma had actually taken me there last year but I really couldn't remember any specific details of the place. It's a pretty big campus and most of my classes will be held in one building called the SILS (school of international liberal studies) so that's convenient.

First I had to go to a JASSO (The awesome scholarship that i'm getting; $800/month baby!) orientation. Have to open a Japanese bank account before I can get my monies, but I knew that already. Then went through 2 hours of introduction and what-not, then lunch with the volunteers, then more info about Waseda, etc, etc. There are two "circles" that all the volunteers were apart of; Niji no Kai and W.I.C (waseda international club). They both are just kinda groups that meet up and occasionally go out drinking or do some other activity. I don't know if i'm seriously going to join either group; from the sounds of it a lot of foreign students are a part of them and I want to avoid those jerks as much as possible. Although since one must absolutely join either a circle or a club in order to be socially accepted in Japanese universities I will most likely "join" Niji no Kai because they seemed the most relaxed and i've made buddy-buddy with some of them already.

That night, despite my better judgement, we all went out to this pub that was right next door to the hotel. Again, another place where foreign students like to gather so, crossed off my list of hang out places. But it was fun with the Waseda students.

Next day was the big Waseda orientation with all the foreign students from everywhere. Just like any other new student orientation.

Went out drinking at a park that night with the Waseda students. I have a feeling this is something they make a habit of.

Then today finally, FINALLY found out who my host family is! They are so awesome (though I don't want to jinx it so i'm going to say no more about that). They have hosted 4 other students, all from Oregon and one was even named Jamie! Who likes a lot of the same things I like! She must die j/k. I live about an hour away from school which isn't that bad. I don't know the area at all but i'm going to use tomorrow to explore. I told them that I was on a diet and they were like "oh we eat nothing but veggies and healthy stuff so you'll be so thin by the time you go home!". Dear god I hope so. They don't eat much meat, only fish. I can deal with that.

I don't know my host mother's or father's name, they just want me to call them "Okaa-san" (Mom) and "Otou-san" (dad). I have a host sister who's 25 and seems really chill.

(L-R) host mother, Miyuki, me

From here on out is where my new life in Tokyo officially begins. Here's to hoping it's a good one.

Peace outside the bacon
-J