Beat this blunder!

You’ll never guess what I did last night! Before I went to bed, I was going to hang the clothes that I had just washed earlier that evening. But when I opened the lid to my washing machine, I noticed a strange smell coming from it that I have never smelled coming from a washing machine before. I thought, “This doesn’t smell like freshly laundered clothes. It smells like…..” And as I investigated by taking out some of the clothes, my eyes immediately confirmed what I thought I couldn’t possibly be smelling: CHOCOLATE! I had washed two bars of Meiji chocolate with a full load of clothes! I laughed hysterically as I looked at the pieces of chocolate scattered throughout the washing machine and all over my clothes. And I laughed even harder when I pulled out the clothes and they smelled heavily of chocolate. I thought, “Well, instead of scratch and sniff stickers, I’ve got scratch and sniff pants and shirts.”
Perhaps what made it so funny to me at the moment were the events leading up to this scrumptious discovery. The night before, we had a bonfire devotional/Bible study on the bank of a river just outside of Mito City. It was quite enjoyable, especially since we made S’mores (the ingredients of which aren’t so easy or cheap to come by in Japan). At the end of the night, there were a lot of chocolate bars left over, and being the chocolate lover that I am, I bought two of them at the bargain price of 100 yen each. I stuck them in the pocket of the my huge fleece jacket, and when I came home, I immediately put all of the clothes I was wearing into the dirty clothes basket because they stunk like smoke and needed a good washing. Somehow, I completely forgot that the chocolate bars were in the jacket pocket.
The next day when I came home from work, I was craving chocolate really bad (which isn’t unusual). I remembered those chocolate bars and started looking for them everywhere. I thought I had put them in the fridge, which is the first place I put any chocolate that I keep for more than one day (which is rare), but they weren’t there. I looked in my car, all over my little apartment and even thought in my head “Travis stole my chocolate because he thought it would be funny.” (He has done it to me before and I had taken him home after the devo, so I thought he saw them and swiped ‘em as a joke.) I eventually gave up my search, considered them lost or stolen, and contented myself with a few precious chocolate chips from my special chocolate chip stash (chocolate chips are really expensive in Japan, so I had bought a whole bunch from the U.S. so that I can make chocolate chip cookies without spending a fortune). After I finished the chocolate chips, I started the load of laundry (somehow not finding the chocolate bars in the jacket pocket) and went to dinner with some friends. You could imagine my surprise when I later opened my washer and thought I smelled chocolate.
So there’s my crazy blooper for the week. Not only am I very sad that I lost two perfectly good chocolate bars to such a horrible fate, but I owe my good friend Travis Powell an apology. Travis, if you are reading this, I’m sorry that I blamed you in my thoughts for stealing my chocolate bars. As for my clothes, I have already washed them a second time and I think that I will have to wash them a third time tonight because they still smell like chocolate. Luckily, they are dark clothes, so there seem to be no stains on them.
Can anyone beat this blunder?

100% Okie

I am not the person to forward forwards, but this particular forward deserves some attention. My momma forwarded it to me, and it made me think a lot about my home state of Oklahoma. I was born, raised, and went to 4 different colleges within the Oklahoma City area, and it is a place that I love very much. Most people who move to Oklahoma want to move back to wherever they came from, and even those who have lived there all of their lives want nothing but to get out, but I have always considered it a place that I could live for my whole life. Besides the fact that a lot of my family lives within the OKC area, Oklahoma is also full of really nice people (anybody who says different doesn't know what they are talking about). And perhaps one of the greatest things about Oklahoma is the weather: you've got unbeatable sunrises and sunsets, gorgeous summers, and grrrreeeaaatttt thunderstorms (huge thunderheads, electrifying lightening displays, and terrifying tornadoes).
Without further ado, here is the forward I received this morning and the real reason I am writing this post:
You are 100% Oklahoman if:
1. You can properly pronounce Eufaula, Gotebo, Okemah, and Chickasha.
2. You think that people who complain about the wind in their states are sissies. Yup.
3. A tornado warning siren is your signal to go out in the yard and look for a funnel.
To get an idea of how true this is, check out the website of some of my greatest friends at www.stormgasm.com.
4. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
5. You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
6. You know that the true value of a parking space is not determined by the distance to the door, but by the availability of shade.
7. Stores don't have bags, they have sacks. Who calls them sacks?? Weirdos...
8. You see people wear bib overalls at funerals. Never seen it, but I know people who would do it.
9. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
10. You measure distance in minutes. ("I'm about 5 minutes away.")
11. You refer to the capital of Oklahoma as "The City." It is the only city I knew for most of my life.
12. It doesn't bother you to use an airport named for a man who died in an airplane crash.
Will Roger's Airport...I knew he died in a plane crash, but I never thought how strange it was to name an airport after him until now.
13. Little smokies are something you serve only for special occasions. That's right!
14. You go to the lake because you think it is like going to the ocean. And most of them are man-made.
15. You listen to the weather forecast before picking out an outfit.
16. You know cowpies are not made of beef. My brother's would make anyone who didn't know this the butt end of a very bad joke.
17. Someone you know has used a football schedule to plan their wedding date. Boomer Sooner!
18. You have known someone who has had one belt buckle bigger than your fist. My brother Jon.
19. A bad traffic jam involves two cars staring each other down at a four-way stop, each determined to be the most polite and let the other go first. A very common occurance.
20. You know in which state "Miam-uh" is and in which state "Miam-ee" is.
21. You aren't surprised to find movie rental, ammunition, and bait all in the same store.
22. Your "place at the lake" has wheels under it.
23. A Mercedes Benz is not a status symbol. A Ford F350 4x4 is. Amen!
24. You know everything goes better with Ranch. French fries, pizza, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, tacos....
25. You learned how to shoot a gun before you learned how to multiply. My brother Brandon is a fine example of this.
26. You actually get these jokes and are "fixin" to send them to your friends.... Hence this blog.
27. Finally, you are 100% Oklahoman if you have ever heard this conversation:
"You wanna Coke?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?" Get that? "Coke" is a general term for any type of carbonated drinks.
"Dr. Pepper." Don't forget to ask an Okie what kind they want.

Undokai!!!

This past month has been busy. Not only did my students, fellow teachers, and I have to get back into the swing of things after the summer, but we had to prepare for the undokai (sports festival). Since I am an AET at three schools this year, I was expected to go to all three undokais. Unfortunately, the two Elementary Schools that I go to had their undokai's on the same day , so I only went to two (actually, I feel pretty fortunate about this). This is my second year to go to the Junior High undokai, but it was my first time to go to the Elementary one. You can swing over and take a look at some of my pictures of the events, but I am going to elaborate a little on the amazingness and the exhaustiveness of this event.
The undokai is usually held on a Saturday or Sunday so that parents and school officials can come and watch the students compete against each other. As with most things that are going to be shown to other people outside of the school (e.g. parents, education board officials, etc.), teachers and students spend an amazing amount of time preparing and "practicing" (I call it rehearsing) for the undokai. It starts during the summer break with students making team flags and choreographing dances and making "fures" (cheers Japanese style). Once school starts, there are classses, but they are on a shortened schedule and the afternoon part of the days are spent "practicing" (again, rehearsing) the events the students will compete in. Oh, I forgot to say, there are two teams - white and red. This is usually an even split of the students with an equal amount of each grade on each team. The sempeis (upper-classmen) usually take the great leadership roles of being the leaders of the their teams since this is their last year in Junior High/Elementary School.
Anyways, the weeks up to the event itself seem pretty stressful to the students and especially the teachers. I wouldn't know the full extent of the stress because, being a foreigner, I am usually forgotten about (which really doesn't offend me. It comes with the package here and I quite understand how much time it would take them to explain everything and they are just busy anyways.), so I usually sit by and watch and try to help when I see it is needed (the Japanese way is to help when their is an opportunity. You aren't usually asked to help.). This year, I was happy that I could understand more of what was going on because I had already experienced an undokai last year and my Japanese was better.
The day of the event came along with everybody up and at the school really early on Saturday morning. There was the usual opening ceremony (they seem to have a ceremony to begin most things in Japan) then the fun began. My students performed cool Japanese stlye dances, had cheers and dances for each team, and competed in some very interesting games. My favorite for the boys is what I've called the "Horse Game". Three boys would make a horse through linking arms where a fourth boy can sit in. This fourth boy has a bicycle helmet on with a Japanese paper balloon on it. He also has a rolled-up wad of newspaper in his hand and the whole point is for the boys to run around and pop the balloon on top of the other team's heads. Of course the boys just swing that stick of newpaper as hard as possible and sometimes the horse boys and the rider himself were smacked in the head and face. It seemed pretty dangerous to me, but it was great fun for the boys and really fun to watch.
In fact, us foreigners often talk about how the events at the undokai would never fly for any event involving kids in America. There would be a lot of sueing going on. For example, there is a popular past-time event they play every year at most Junior Highs. It is like the three-legged race except you tie up a whole bunch of students in a line instead of just three. I just happened to be at school the day they first started "practicing" this event, and there were some pretty nasty spills. It was scary and hilarious all at once to watch a whole line of them running with their legs tied together and then fall over onto the ground in a domino effect kind of way because one person got tripped up. Its amazing how the idea of what's "safe" in one country is totally different in another.
This is becoming a very long, boring blog, so I will just wrap it up in saying that the Elementary School undokai was similar except there was a lot more parent attendance and participation (from the fourth grade down, parents participated with their children in the events). Both of the undokais I attended were held on different Saturdays, and after each undokai, all of the teachers went to a "nomikai" (drinking party) to relax and say "otsukaresamdeshita" (something like "good job, you worked really hard and now your work is finished"). Someday, in a different blog, I will talk about Japanese nomikais.

The Flying Gokiburi

Tonight, as I was cleaning my apartment, out of the corner of my eye I saw something fly and land upside down on my ceiling. I immediately looked and saw that it was a huge cockroach. Now, before you judge me as somebody who lives in filth because I have a cockroach, let me tell you that the cleanest apartments can have a cockroach - especially if you live in Japan where there is nothing but thin walls that separate you from the outside world.
The girly-ness inside of me immediately went to my door (giving the cockroach on the ceiling a wide birth), into my flip-flops, and out the door to get one of my manly neighbors, Peter, to come and kill the nasty pincher-baring thing (yes, it had pinchers!). But half way there (about 4 feet outside of my apartment) I thought, "Wait a minute! I don't need no man to take care of a bug. I am a big girl and I can kill it myself." So, I marched right back into my apartment, took off the flip-flops and grabbed one of them to do the dirty work. The plan was to get on the stool (not directly under it 'cause it could take revenge in its last dying breath and fall on me) and use my powerful right arm (the one that I can smack a ball out of the ballpark with (okay, I only did that one time in my whole 9 years of playing softball - but my right arm is strong)) to kill that gokiburi in one, powerful strike.
This apartment wasn't big enough for the both of us, especially since he was as big as my index finger (seriously) and he could fly. So he had to go.
I moved the stool into position all-the-while watching him taunt me with his pinchers. Before he could see my intentions and fly off (possibly at me), I mustered all of my power and thrust the flip-flop towards the ceiling intending to smash him on the spot. Unfortunately, I didn't calculate well enough my shortness as compared to the height of the ceiling so I only succeeded in swiping him off the ceiling (it was a really good swipe, though) in a ninety degree angle from me. To my horror, he turned around the whole ninety degrees and flew right at me! I let out a scream as it was coming at me. It was heading for my chest. I started swinging the flip-flop around trying to get the horrid creature away from me as a series of screams proceeded from my mouth (I laugh now at what it must have sounded like). It bouned off of my chest and I started flailing - I mean swinging - harder and faster trying to get it away from me. I think that it was actually attacking me! The rest is kind of blank in my mind. All I remember is coming to my senses turned the opposite way I had been on the stool, with my feet planted firmly on the ground, and the horrid gokiburi writhing in front of me on the floor. For fear that it was still well enough to fly at me again, I quickly finished it off with one swing of my flip-flop. It was no more and now it is happily flushed down the toilet.
I didn't come out of the whole battle unscathed. Somehow I managed to get two good-sized welps on my left arm that obviously came from the flip-flop (knowing myself, I'm just lucky that I didn't slap myself in the face with that weapon) and one of them is staring to bruise slightly. But it was worth it to get rid of that horrid creature. I thought about pinning the dead thing to my cork board as a death message to any other cockroach that should choose to be in my apartment in plain sight, but then I figured that was stupid because then I would have to see it everytime I came into my apartment and it would give me flashbacks of that life threatening moment when it came flying at me. Too much trauma....so I decided that I will buy those little roach motel killer thingies tomorrow as soon as I get up.
So that was my showdown with the flying gokiburi. To any women out there who are reading this, I hope that this story is encouraging to you in that you have the courage inside of you to take care of a huge, flying cockroach. You don't need no man to take care of it for you. Just don't forget to always have a flip-flop handy....

Those Summer Nights

Summer vacation is over. In fact it has been over for about two weeks now. Everytime I have tried to sit down and write a post, something has happened and I didn't do it. But here it finally is.
Some of you might not know that in Japanese schools, the students have a little over a month of summer "vacation" where they don't have to go to school. They call it vacation, but the students still come to school to do their club (sports) activities and to get help with their summer homework. The teachers still must go to school. Last year, I thought it sucked, but this year I just simply accepted it. Sure we must go to school and sit in the sweltering, humid heat (two of my three schools don't have air conditioners - but I would still rather it be hot than cold), but most of the time we can go in late, get off early, and go play sports with our students. At my two elementary schools, the students don't come to school, so I spend most of the day trying get really creative with a few lesson plans so that I can fill up my day with a lot of "work". And it is a really good, relaxing time to get to know your fellow teachers better. This summer wasn't as bad as last summer in that area because I can speak a little more Japanese this year. On top of all that, we got to visit nursery schools and teach English to 4 and 5 year olds (yeah, it was really basic, but dang they are soooo cute) and we had two whole weeks of AET training which is always a good time for me to learn how to teach my students better.
And this summer, our wonderful bosses gave us 5 whole days of paid vacation. As far as I understand, they have never done this for the AETs before, but they did this year because they have really worked our butts off last semester (as I think they should) and they will continue to do so.
So, with two weekends and five days of vacation, I took 9 whole days off and it was awesome. I did a whole bunch during that time and during other times throughout the summer. Take a look at my webpictures and see for yourself my experiences at Tokyo DisneySea, Yokohama, Kamakura, Saitama City, different festivals, AET training, Latin dancing, and Oarai Aquarium. It was an awesome and exhausting summer.
Also, I have added some new links to the websites of some good friends and acquaintances here in Japan. You should check them out if you have the time. Most of them are witty and just so darn interesting, so I don't think it would be a waste of your time.
Adios for now.