Stage 1, Evacu-cation

"What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family"

-Mother Teresa

Have you ever experienced the feeling of unreality? Have you ever been walking around in the most familiar surroundings, or shooting the shit with the most familiar people when all of a sudden this wave of uneasiness and apprehension that none of it is real just crashes into you? Well, I have/am currently drowning in these waves. But it’s not a bad sort of drowning, at least, not all the time. I mean, right now my adorable little beagle has her front paws resting on my leg as I pet her head, a ritual we have gone through many times before but now there’s a feeling of a strange sort of nostalgia that I’ve been missing since I’ve been in Ukraine, mixed with regret. I’m not supposed to be here right now, yet here I am. Surrounded by the people I love and have been missing dearly for the past 6 months and yet I can’t help but feel guilty and out of place. It’s not that I don’t love and appreciate being home and with my family and my loving, amazing, fantastically supportive boyfriend (gods know I missed him SO MUCH), and I wouldn’t trade the world for the time I get to spend with them, the time I get to hug them and talk with them and share memories with them. It’s just…well...

Let’s go back about a week when I was sitting comfortably in my two room, five bed apartment in Bohuslav, writing lesson plans for the next two days while simultaneously studying Ukrainian for my tutoring session, while also fighting off a cold that was ruthlessly trying to take over. I really was comfortable. My lessons were a success and I was beginning to devise plans for reaching out to a secondary school to start an English club. I was even enjoying going to a fitness class that idolized Cindy Crawford workout videos.

I wasn’t blind or deaf though and wasn’t ignoring the atrocities happening just two hours away from my comfortable town of 16,000.

When the violence broke out in Kyiv I got worried. I got sick. I got disappointed. I got scared. Not scared for my life, no. I didn’t think that any violence would come to my town (and it still hasn’t). I was scared for the future. Was the country about to burst into civil war? What was this Yanu guy thinking (the President)? I monitored the situation the best I could and as the numbers dead started to rise it only lowered my spirits more. The cold I was fighting off grabbed hold in my devastated state and I canceled my Ukrainian tutoring session.

Peace Corps meanwhile, after a week of having lowered us to security stage 1 (see blog post: http://weloveme07.blogspot.com/2014/02/standfast-and-stock-up-on-wine.html for explanations of said stages), automatically put us back on to stage 2 when the violence erupted. My thought process was such: Alright, I just got my bags unpacked from the last security downgrade and I don’t really want to pack them again only to have to unpack in a couple days. However, things are getting more serious than before and I would hate to be that volunteer who consolidates with nothing but the clothes on her back because she was too lazy to pack her emergency bag.

So I packed. I packed EVERYTHING. My entire apartment into two suitcases, plus my emergency bag equipped with everything from shampoo to plates and utensils. Good thing too.

This was Thursday. That evening my counterpart called me and requested that I come and stay the night at her house. She heard that titushki (hired thugs) were in the surrounding villages and were burning down schools as they made their way to Kyiv (which might have them pass through Bohuslav--thank god they didn't. Presumably they were stopped by one of the many road blocks). My counterpart, a woman who whenever I asked her about her feelings on the whole situation would give me the calmest, most matter of fact answer that Bohuslav was safe and we don’t need to worry. Well, that night she was a little worried, which made me a little worried. So I took up my emergency bag and trucked over to her house for the night. We had a lovely meal of homemade soup and pasta. Then she showed me the presentation she was working on about Taras Shevchanko (a famous Ukrainian poet and human rights activist) for the national holiday in his honor. I gave her some power point advice, we laughed at T. Shev’s moustache, and we just had a real relaxing night.

I couldn’t go to sleep though. Not only because I couldn’t breathe out of my left nostril and my eyes were a watery, itchy mess from the best of a cat she owns. I was still worried about what the future held. So I checked my email after about an hour of tossing and turning (and nose blowing) and sure enough, there was the consolidation notice (or stage 3 of security statuses).

My regional manager (a wonderful Ukrainian woman who was on the phone the entire 5 hour car ride to our consolidation point) called me the next morning and said that she was coming to get me in a Peace Corps van later that afternoon to take me to the consolidation point down near the Moldovan boarder. But rest assured though, we were only consolidating for a few days. She had picked up the other volunteer who lived in Kyivska Oblast (we were the only 2 volunteers in that oblast) who I hadn’t met yet (there was a planned “meet your neighbor” event that was coming up where we would have met along with all the other volunteers in region 3 but, you know, circumstances). As we drove out of my town, we passed the administration building were, low and behold, a PEACEFUL, mind you, peaceful, protest was taking place. I had heard rumors of protests happening in my town but that was the first time I actually saw it. On the way out of Bohuslav we passed on of the many road blocks that I had been hearing about. This road block (like many I have heard about) was set up by protesters to make sure that those hired thugs didn't make it to the capitol. Thank god we didn't look like hired thugs. 

We picked up one more volunteer on the way and as we were finally embarking on the last 2 hours to our 

hotel we got the email to evacuate.

To be continued…    

Arts and Crafts at 20!

I had my second interview with Minerva Intelligence (that's their official name! Spoooooky) last week was it?

I was going to win this battle. 

I was told that it was going to be more of a trail lesson to see how I teach and less of a question/answer how do you deal with grumpy customers sort of deal; so I was relaxed. This is my element. I already went through this process with my second interview with Gaba so I was ready.

There were about 6 of us waiting in the little cubical shaped room, and when the nice recruiter walked in carrying purple books titled "Magic Time" with white paper, coloring crayons and safety scissors, you could see the same thought running through everyone's head "uh oh". Our task was to create a full 50 minutes lesson plan introducing shapes, and we had to include a song and a game; all in the course of thirty minutes.

So...are we actually going to be teaching children then?

Recruiter man chuckles (he was rather chuckly actually) and said "weeeell", in his Kansas drawl accent, "yes and no". Yes and no? What the hell kind of an answer is that?

Well, minus the suspenders and
goofy shirt.

He went on to explain that our "children" were in fact going to be all the other "contestants" in the room, including himself and one other guy that worked as a teacher there and looked a lot like Steve Urkle. Depending on where each and every one of us decided to place our maturity level during the lesson was up to us. He himself said, "Tomorrow I turn 63, but today i'm going to be about 6".

Let the arts and crafts commence! We all started frantically cutting out shapes and grumbling about how we didn't know any songs and looking over each other's shoulder to try and steal ideas. At the end of thirty minutes Mr. recruiter comes back in and says "shall we begin?", and we all get commanded to sit criss-cross apple sauce in a circle on the floor by the first one up.

Problem Child's Micheal Oliver
standing in for
Oreo.

I ended up going second, and decided that instead of using a song that everyone knows, I was going to write my own song...about shapes. It's going to go platinum. I think I handle things very well, especially when Mr. Recruiter's 6 year old personality named "Oreo" turned out to be the dreaded "problem child". Needless to say though it was all fun and games; literally, and I don't think i've had that much fun at a job interview ever. This company has really great energy and would be awesome to work for.




So, the million dollar question. Did I get the job?






no.


They were sorry to inform me that they would have hired me if only I were able to stay in the country longer. Please contact us again after you graduate and decide to come back to Japan.

Thank you, I will.

Now i'm just waiting on Gaba to call me back. Said that because I had a schedule conflict with their training days (curse you Japanese final!) they wouldn't be able to let me know if I got the job until February. So i'm left at the edge of my seat waiting, waiting, waiting. I don't see why I wouldn't get the job though so...yeah.           

BTW, I really <3 this song.

"The Goddess That Lives in the Bathroom"

Just porcelain holes in the ground. 

It's about how this girl was pretty much raised by her grandma and she would always help around the house, except for when it came to cleaning the toilet. To that, her grandma would tell her (The chorus line) "There's a beautiful goddess that lives in the bathroom and if you clean the toilet everyday then you'll become as beautiful as her". I asked my host family if this was a widely spread belief and they said yes because, in the past Japanese homes were equipped with Japanese style toilets instead of western ones and would smell horrendous if you didn't clean them everyday. The song goes through how the singer grows up and away from her grandma and then her grandma dies without her getting a chance to say goodbye. Ends with her  wondering if she really has become as beautiful as the goddess or not. Like I said, sad and sweet.

Love you g-ma! (But i'm not going to clean your toilet). <3

お正月~Japanese New Year

Well this year started off looking like it was going to be a good one. That is until I got this notification from PSU that I owed them $1,600+ for unpaid tuition this term. Can you say, F*cked. Well, not entirely but it still shocked the hell outta me. I knew that this was going to happen because I knew that I wasn't going to get enough financial aid to cover the international study abroad fees. This is why I was so desperate for the Scholarship from the Japanese government (which I do receive) so that I could save up and pay off what was left. Well, for some reason I forgot that this was what I had planned on doing (i'm so used to my tuition being taken care of) and I went ahead and planned a trip to Thailand with another girl, bought the tickets and everything. Going to have to cancel and hope that they give me at least a portion of my money back. Oh well, Thailand isn't going anywhere, i'll be able to go there some other day. The most stressful part of this ordeal is figuring out how i'm going to get the money to PSU because the money I have is in a Japanese bank account that I'm not able to just transfer money around like that. I have to fill out a form, physically turn it into the bank then wait for however long it takes them to process it, then transfer money from here to my bank account in America so that then I can pay with my credit  card and in turn pay my credit card off with my American bank account. It'll all work out. It always does. Right? *nervous laugh* T.T I've applied for some more teaching positions so hopefully someone will get back to me.


To top it all off, I have gained 15 lbs since I've been here. 15 FREAKING pounds. I've been wondering though, why have I gained this much? I mean, my eating habits haven't changed that dramatically...I am eating regularly and getting the required amount of nutrients which is more than I can say I got when I was living in the states. So why have I gained this much??

Well, let me tell ya my theory.
Before I came here I changed my birth control prescription. a couple weeks after I arrived here is when I started on the new prescription so I have this feeling that this is partially to blame for this unexpected (and unwelcome weight gain). Another part might be stress because lets face it, living abroad is stressful no matter how much you think you're used to a certain culture (that and things like unexpected money issues popping up on you!). Long story short I've stopped taking the BC and we'll see what happens from here. Starting tomorrow i'm going on a strict diet (whether my host sister thinks I'm able to do it or not! She laughed at me when I told her my plan. I'll show her!!) and hope that my waist line beings to decrease (already can't fit into some of my pants...oh how depressing).

How about something happy?

JAPANESE NEW YEARS!
Completely different from how we celebrate it in the States. It has more of a Xmas feeling to it, with all the family gathered, great food, TV programs and movies on all day, lamentations/recollections from the previous year and hopes and dreams for the year to come.

My host mom spent practically all day in the kitchen New Years Eve creating one hell of a dinner consisting of crab, tempura, shashimi and a whole lotta alcohol.

Isn't he beautiful! And so tasty...XD

Tempura

She's drinking sake out of the crab skull!
HARD CORE OKAA-SAN!

He tired to kiss her

And she disapproved 

My host sister is so pretty! XD 

Sake I bought in Kyoto for just
such an occasion  

He loves his Sake and Nihonshu

mm,mm quail eggs and salt!

That New years thing I talked about

Not bad wine from France

How I love you shrimp

I didn't realize it was a bunny until they pointed it out to me,
almost too late 

We started eating at about 6:00 and continued until 12:00, switching between drinking and eating, drinking and eating. I was so full and drunk that I fell asleep on the couch at around 11pm with instructions to wake me up 10 minutes till. Then we partook in another Japanese New Years tradition of eating Udon/Soba noddles at midnight. 

Me and Miyuki went for udon

Oton, and Okan went for the Soba

But I was so full I could only eat a couple bites before giving up and going to bed (And you're wondering why you gain so much weight?! Geez! But then again, they say never try to diet during the holidays, and I took their advice to heart ;P). 

New Years Day woke up to even more amazing food!

And of course more alcohol, and this time with
gold flecks in it!

"it's okay to drink this early in the morning
cuz it's new years!" 

Even though we were all still full from the previous night, we tucked in while watching the Mummy Three (which SUCKED!). 

Then came dinner at around 5pm 

Suki yaki baby! XD

You dip the cooked meat and veggies into the raw
egg and eat it. I don't know either but it tastes good.

dried persimmon. Yum!

New Years soup with mochi!! XD 

Another tradition of New Years is to give young people money! I received about $100 from my host parents (despite much protesting) and from my host sister I got a Vivienne Westwood towel! I didn't even tell her I liked Vivienne Westwood, don't even have anything Vivienne Westwood but she choose well! She also gave me a Vivienne Westwood scarf and another towel for Xmas. And my Okan gave me a cat purse for Xmas as well (she really loves cats and wants me to love them too). 

Ugh, next to her I look even worse! T.T 

Now i'm going to crawl into bed and watch The Lord of the Rings. Tomorrow i'm going to wake up early, do some over due yoga then head off to a US Navy base in Kanagawa to hang out with Natsuyo and her boyfriend.

Good night y'all and hope you wake up to a better new years than I did! The rest of this year is going to be better! Off to a bad start but it'll look up! It has too!!! T____T

Kyoto Part 2

Woke up hella early (7:30-ish), showered, re-packed (can't believe how much stuff I bought and how it can all still fit in my little bags!), checked out and headed to my first temple of the day! I left my bags in a coin locker at Kyoto station (I love those! So convenient for the weary traveler), and grabbed some breakfast at a little bakery before jumping on a bus to Kiyomizu Temple. I guess the place that I thought was Kiyomizu yesterday actually was a different temple...I was in the right area though, just didn't walk far enough. It was a beautiful day and the tourists were out in full force! In order to get to this temple you have to hike a bit but there are a lot of little shops to stop at on the way that sell neat hand made crafts and the usual tourist goods. The path that I choose to take up there (there are three different ways to choose from) was called something like "pottery road" so they had a sort of pottery museum of hand crafted things that were also for sale. Price tag on most of them were a little beyond me but they were nice to look at. A lot of Chinese zodiac related statues and what-not. This coming year is going to be year of the rabbit so all you people born in the years 51, 75, 87, or 99 it's gonna be your lucky year! Anyone know what this year was??

There was an entrance fee of 400 yen (about $4.00) but that's no surprise; it being a main tourist attraction and what-not.The structure of this Temple is pretty neat.  It half hangs over a cliff and there is this underground portion that holds a lucky boulder. It's completely pitch dark inside and the whole time I was terrified that there was going to be stairs and I'd fall down them (great tourist trap, eh?). But luckily they aren't that malevolent  and I eventually found the hand rail you're supposed to follow until the rock "appears" before you. The rock has a spot light on it and it's on a spinning pedestal. You're supposed to touch it and make a wish or something silly like that.

The temple grounds were pretty spacious and there was a nice view of Kyoto city. Most the foreigners around me seemed to be from Australia...I think they're all running away from the massive floods or something. Anyway, I asked one of these nice Australians to take my picture for me (I always feel kinda lame when I ask someone to take my picture because then they're like "oh, are you travelling alone?" and i'm like "yeah..." and in they're like "oh, that's nice" but in their minds I know they're like "poor lonely thing, has no one to travel with". But anyway, I digress.

I gave in and bought some charms there even though I told myself I wouldn't but they are just so cute and they had an Aries charm so I had to buy it! XD My next stop was the famous Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). It was quite a ways away from Kiyomizu (about 40 minutes by bus) but it was nice to be able to see the rest of the city. Kyoto is very different from Tokyo and Osaka. A lot more historical feeling with all it's old-school style buildings and very narrow winding streets like you see in the movies. Old ladies were out in full force as well, but that's because it was around 11am on a weekday and that's their time no matter what part of Japan you're in.

Kinkakuji wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be, but maybe that's because i've seen so many pictures of it and knew what to expect. Non-the-less, it was beautiful and they offered a little tea ceremony with sugar cake. Met another group from Australia and asked them to take my picture ("sorry little loner, of course we'll take your picture for you"). Unfortunately you can't go inside this temple so all you're left to do after you've stared at it for a sufficient amount of time is walk around the gardens. I believe this area was built as some sort of summer home before it was converted into a temple. It's not even the original though because like all other castles and temples in Japan it's made out of wood and, well, wood likes to burn. It burnt down in 1950 and they completely had it rebuilt to the tee by 1955 (not bad).

By the time I left it was only about 1pm and my night bus back to Tokyo didn't leave until 10pm so I decided to stop at the monkey park in Arashiyama! This place was probably my favorite place in Kyoto. It's way out in the country side and so amazingly beautiful. There's a river that flows from the mountain down the middle of the town and it's not all murky and gross smelling like the rivers in Tokyo (or any big city with a river). I had lunch at a nice little restaurant (tempura udon, yum!) then made my way toward to monkey park.

The park has about 130 monkey's living in it and there is an observatory at the top of the 20 minute hike up the mountain. When you enter the park however, there is a sign that reads "don't pet the monkeys, don't show food to the monkeys, and don't look them in the eye". Don't look them in the eye? What'll happen? Are they like gremlins where they'll turn evil if you get them wet (except in this case if you star at them?). Anyway, I made it to the observatory with no evil monkey encounter and paid 100 yen to feed the little devils. They were so cute! They're the Japanese brown monkeys with no tail and red butts. It was so strange feeding them though because their hands are like little human hands and their hairless faces so much like a little person face; felt like I was feeding hairy midgets or something XD Ah, evolution theory. There was this one though who was a real jerk and would push all the littler monkey's outta the way and scream at them. He intimidated me so I gave him all my apples. There was an even better view of Kyoto from here and one of the monkey keepers offered to take my picture with one of the monkeys (great, even he thinks i'm lonely). By the time I climbed back down it was about 4 so I decided it was time to head back to Osaka (because i'm a noob and booked my bus outta Osaka instead of Kyoto even though I spent my last day in Kyoto...such is life).

Didn't take as long as I thought it would to get back though and I found myself with nothing to do for 3 1/2 hours. I had dinner at the station then went and found a cafe to whittle away the last couple hours with episodes Family Guy. Bus ride back sucked just as much as it did getting there except this time instead of being exceptionally hot it was really freaking cold. Got to Shinjuku at 6:30am, home at 7:30am. Now i'm doing Osouji (sorta like spring cleaning except in the middle of winter. They do it in preparation of the New Year), then i'm going to watch all the Biohazard movies because I told my host dad that I haven't seen them so he went and rented all of them for me as a late Xmas present. Also gonna make Enchiladas for din-din because my host mom has been super busy lately (their eldest daughter is moving back in because she has some sort of mental issue going on, but more on that later).

Like i've said before, New Years here is kinda like Xmas where you spend it with your family and just eat and watch movies/tv and take it easy. Looking forward to it.

I'll post pictures probably later today or tomorrow so,
Until Next time!
Jamie    

Personality Check'd

It's actually a lot lighter now, and I cut it a bit shorter too.

So after about half a year of debating, I finally changed my hair color back to it's natural (or at least what I think is it's natural, it has been a while...12 years a while) color. I also cut it short again to go with the overall change of things. It's a little strange having my eyebrows match my hair color (or is it strange to think that strange?) but otherwise I like it! My host family said that it fits me well and they didn't even notice at first when I came downstairs after drying it because the color looks so natural on me (as well it should, seeing as it is natural).
Now I don't have to waste money on pricey hair dye/bleach and can just let it grow out natural and beautiful. I do wish I hadn't of cut it so short but, oh well.

Nothing much as been happening recently, hence why I haven't updated in a while. The OUS (Oregon University System) program put on a Thanksgiving party last Friday. We (the other Oregon students and some Japanese students) went out to a buffet that the program coordinator (Marie Sato) had reserved and although they had no turkey, stuffing, or cranberry sauce, I was able to eat myself to the point of almost throwing up so; mission Thanksgiving dinner accomplished I think :O. We all gorged ourselves on sushi, pastas, curry, cakes (they had pumpkin cake even!) and ice cream. I missed having my family around me but I'm glade at least our coordinator realized that we'd all be homesick and brought us all together for a nice meal.

And I was shocked to find out that one of the students in my group who did not come to the dinner had actually found a whole turkey somewhere in Tokyo and had a thanksgiving feast with his roommates and some of their friends (hence why he didn't show up to the group dinner). They don't have turkey here as far as I have seen, just chicken. And this lack of turkey in Japan is why Damian's turkey cost him about $70! For one that was pretty small!

BLAAARGH

Anyway, Christmas will be interesting. I will be in Osaka with no one to hang out with. Well, I'm hoping to make some friends in the hostel I'm staying in but if not, maybe i'll go clubbing or something :D. I plan on being in the Kansai area for 6 days (23rd-29th) so if anyone else out there in internet world will be in Osaka or surrounding areas and wouldn't mind hooking up, please let me know! No one likes the spend the holidays by themselves!

I am looking forward to New Years though! They spend New Years here like we spend Christmas; family, food and relaxation. The difference being that the holiday lasts for about 3-4 days and during these 3-4 days no one does anything. Not even cook. They buy special New Years "Obento" enough to last the holiday and everyone just relaxes, which in Tokyo is a foreign concept so I'm excited to see how the city handles this dormant period.

No joke either. This city is bustling 24/7. My host mother is always running around saying how she's so busy and doesn't have enough time for anything. And she literally runs too. Or at least shuffles about at a surprisingly fast past for her age. But I can't help but think that it's not so much that she (and everyone else in this city) has no time, it's just that they don't know how to take a breath and asset the situation. Move through their day at a smooth pace instead of a hurried pace. I wonder how cities get like this? Is it just the ambiance of a city that drives people to crazy self-centered hurriedness (I say self-centered because people here in Tokyo are pretty self-centered)? and if so, where did the ambiance come from? How did it begin? Hmmm???

In other news, I found someone to go to Thailand and Cambodia with me in February! I was a little nervous to go alone but would have even if I hadn't found someone but, yay that I did! It's a girl in my program who I don't really see that often (not that I see any of the other exchange students that often) but she seems really cool and is a photographer so some awesome pictures are in store I think!

oh! I just remembered that my friend Natsuki from Toyama came and visited me this weekend and we went to Disney Sea! But since i'm tired I will write about that in another post.

:D