Nihongo FIGHTO

Having neglected my studies for the past year, I decided last week that it is about time I get back on the bandwagon and start properly studying Japanese again.

It is easy to not study here- at school I am either too busy or too bored to look at Japanese and there is no chance I am going to do anything productive after work. Also, with no goal and being quite thoroughly sick of studying non-stop at uni, it all came to a halt fairly swiftly after arriving in Fukushima.

But, BUT, I am giving myself a goal. It comes in the form of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Anyone who has lived in Japan or has studied Japanese will already know about it, but, for those normal people who read this blog (Mum), it is a test that can be taken for non-native speakers to show how good your Japanese is.

This winter, I am going to take level 2 (one being the best, five the worst). I should have taken level 2 two years ago when I was still in Yokohama but at the time I didn't really see the point. Now I am having to re-learn everything- kanji, grammar, vocab. Everything. Damn me for being lazy. DAAAAMN.

It is going to be a lot of work but I am forming a study group to keep myself motivated and, well, I don't plan on failing, even if passing doesn't look too likely. It is a rather tricky little test.

On the positive side of things, starting to study again has reminded me of how much I enjoyed doing Japanese in the first place.

Other things I am keeping myself busy with: applying for post grad (I want to study Chinese, why am I still doing Japanese?! Haha, good question), Fujet (though after our trip canyoning it has been a tad quieter for me), hmm, that's it actually.

Sorry about the dull post- it reflects my mood!

English Speech Contest

I won!

By I, I actually mean my student but since I am the native speaker I think I can take credit for at least 75% of the win. Let's ignoring the fact that I was away for half the summer so the only real job I did was pick her. And that most of her competitors sounded like they had stones in their mouths, were robots or had lisps. We rocked and nothing anyone says will change that.

On a slightly (and only very slightly) more impressive note, she is the first student in this school to win the original speech part of the competition ever. I should have a picture of me holding the trophy framed in gold and hung by the principal's office. Only that would do justice to my marvellous teaching skills.

We go to the prefectural competition next week and if we win that then onwards and upwards to the country wide one. She really wants to win, too. Which is strange as I have spent the past year trying to install a feeling of apathy in my student so they don't cry when they lose.

Fingers crossed that we win!

End of Summer

The summer holidays have rushed past.

It feels strange that last summer, just after I had arrived in Fukushima and started work, went so slowly. Maybe it was because it takes a while to settle in or the mostly free days sat at school doing nothing made time almost grind to a halt.

This year I helped all the new JETs at Tokyo Orientation (by help I really mean took them out drinking) so I spent almost all of the first two weeks of summer down in Tokyo instead of coaching the speech contest kids. I also popped to Fuji Rock music festival in that time and followed up Tokyo Orientation with Fukushima Orientation (this one is held for the new JETs coming to our prefecture in Fukushima city). So for the first three weeks of work during the summer I managed to do a whole three days of real work at school. Brilliant!

I feel a bit bad that I haven't been there to coach my speech contest kids, especially with a couple of them who really could do with the help, but then I remind myself that most of the teachers get extra summer vacation days and take most of summer off too. It just so happens that speech contest is one of the biggest responsibilities for Junior High School ALTs during the whole year.

Despite my absence, it looks like one of the schools has a winner among the kids so if she wins I will make sure I take credit for all the hard work I put in this summer. In all fairness, I picked her out months ago and made the teachers choose her. And she has a British accent. So, that's two things I an cling to if she wins.

Other than being down in Tokyo I haven't actually been on holiday this summer. After doing all the orientations I was truly exhausted so don't think I would have had the energy to go anywhere anyway.

Meeting all the new Fukushima JETs was good fun. So many different kinds of people from different places. I can't say that every single one of the new JETs was my kind of person but as a whole they are a good bunch of people and a very welcome addition to the Fukushima group.

Did it!

After a 8 hour hike up Fuji I made it to the top to see this! I didn't fair too badly considering how much of a fatty I am and was the first back down to the bottom of the mountain thanks to my handy climbing boots.

The mountain was unbelievably crowded. It was a three day weekend so it seemed like everyone else in Japan had decided that it was the perfect time to go up Fuji, too. Seriously, we had to queue up half the mountain and shuffle around tour group after tour group.

They say that a wise man climbs Fuji once and a fool climbs it twice. This is, without a doubt, the wisest thing any wise man has ever said.

Although it felt amazing to reach the top and see such a beautiful sunrise it also felt incredible to know that I was never going to have to climb up it again.

富士山

Climbing Mt.Fuji today- wish me luck!

Bit worried about people coming unprepared but I have all the gear I need so should be alright I think!

will let you know how it goes anywho. Will be gutted If I don't make it to the top but not surprised.

What I have been up to

The amount of time that I have at school let's me do a lot of procrastinating. This generally means surfing the internet and finding fun things to look at. I usually achieve this by declaring I am bored to a friend then waiting to see what funny things I am given to look at.

This blog has kept me very entertained and given me ample opportunity to embarrass myself by actually lolling in the staff room

http://www.27bslash6.com/

This site is good too. Very random and at times funny and touching

http://www.postsecret.com/

Free Day

I pulled into the school car park today to find it deserted except for two other cars parked in the visitors spaces. I was puzzled. Unless it was national walk to school day it looked like the school definitely wasn't open and that I had made a mistake (again) and had not looked at my schedule before leaving home.

I parked in my spot in the teachers car park and rang Chris to get him to check my schedule for me. Last time I got my schools mixed up one of the English teachers I worked with ended up going round to my house to check that I hadn't died in a car crash. And when the head teacher of the school that I should have been at managed to get in contact with me I argued that he was wrong and that there was no way I had got mixed up with where I should be- I was in the wrong... of course. But this time, I wasn't mistaken.

I got out of my car and made my way into the building feeling somewhat confused and a tad angry that I had driven all the way there for no reason. The lights in the office that is by the entrance hall were on but nobody was there. I tried the staff room and that was locked. It was quite creepy to be in the school with no-one around. At this point I started to feel less confused and more embarrassed that I had come all the way here- though, it really wasn't my fault this time- but swallowed this feeling and decided to go on a search for the people that were in the school. I wandered down the corridors calling "suuuuuumimasen?", "Ohaaaaaaaaayo?" until I came to the door of the school kitchens. I had found life- indicated by the slippers that had been left outside the door. Luckily, just as I was about to knock, one of the lunch staff opened the door and looked very surprised to see me.

Lunch man: "Oh, good morning"

Me: "Morning. Where is everyone?!"

Lunch man: "The school is closed today so they are all off" (As he says this he is giving me a face which says 'silly gaijin')

Me: "Ahhh, no-one told me this"

(His face changes to one of understanding and then he laughs at me. I join in.)

Lunch man: "Would you like me to call the deputy head for you? Let's go to the office."

Me: "Thank you! Typical me coming to work when school is closed" *Sigh*

He was really nice and saved me from having to call my supervisor to find out the head teachers number (and also have to go into the BOE to work). When I spoke to the head teacher he was extremely apologetic and told me to take the day off and to not bother telling my supervisor since it was his fault that I hadn't been told. As I was leaving , lunch man gave me a sweet because he felt bad for me and told me to have a nice relaxing day off. I don't think I have spoken to him much before but will make more of an effort to go and hang out in the office when he is around from now on.

Now I am back at home and feeling lucky about my free day off. I will use it wisely and do some bits and bobs which I didn't manage to get done over the weekend like buy birthday cards and take photos for my new blog.

Yuki Matsuri

17 JETs from Fukushima and one from Miyagi all went, by Ferry, up to Sapporo. The boat took 13 hours but we managed to entertain ourselves with karaoke and drinking games (which unfortunately ended up in illness for one of our compadres… which we managed to pass off as sea sickness after one of the cabin crew found the sick-covered futon which myself and another JET had cunningly “hidden” in the middle of the corridor).

When we arrived in Sapporo we had the afternoon to walk around our area before heading off to the beer factory. Gemma, Jen, JD and I checked out the ice sculptures after scoffing down a healthy and very Japanese McDonalds. The ice sculptures were cool (bit of a pun for you there) and were incredibly detailed in their carving. One even had fish frozen in it and another which was advertising a brand of noodles, had ramen slapped on top of it.

The beer factory was the standard fair of all you can eat/drink meat and beer. Personally, I thought the meat wasn`t the best quality so didn`t eat very much. I like to be able to chew my food without pulling out fatty gristle every ten seconds.

After that, our group joined up with some other Fuku JETs, who were in Sapporo, for some drinks. With the exception of only a few we all crashed a small beer bar which had beer from all over the world- the English selection was a bit lacking with only Hob Goblin on offer. Two guys got a beer for 5,000 yen- that is about 30 pounds to you and me.

The next day was our only full day in Sapporo so we got up early ready for a full day of sightseeing. First thing we did was check out the snow sculptures. They were truly awesome and my disappointment in the lack of size of the ice sculptures was made up for by the huuuuumongous snow sculptures. They were the size of buildings; photos really can't capture how impressive they were. We spent the morning walking around checking them out- saw some of my favourite Ghibli characters and also got to hold a gigantic plastic fish. Successful day I do believe.

After some tasty miso ramen lunch (Hokkaido is famous for its ramen) we headed to the out-skirts of the city to go up Mt. Moiwa and see a great view of Sapporo. It was stunning and, again, photos on my rubbish camera really don't capture how awesome it was. From one side we could see all of Sapporo and from the other we could see beautiful mountain ranges. Being responsible, mature adults we felt the need to partake in a small snow fight too, which even involved Brent attacking some nearby American children. But the highlight of the mountain was a group of Malaysian tourists that we happened to ride the ropeway with. The leader of the Malaysian gang wanted to connect with us fellow foreigners (that, or take the piss) so serenaded us with “I can't get no satisfaction". Problem was, he only knew 'I can't get no…' and ended up singing the same line again and again. Then, Mark decided to teach him the rest so jumped into the middle of the Malaysian group with the crazy gang leader and had a quick sing and a dance with him. I say gang leader because he definitely looked like he could be part of the Malaysian Mafia.

Mark dancing with the man only spurred him on to then give us a quick belly dance, get our photos with him and then hand out his business cards… which had pictures of naked ladies on them.

In the evening we went to Otaru to check out some snow carvings which were on the bank of a canal lit up with tea lights. I didn't have my camera on me so you will just have to trust me that it was very pretty and very romantic (if only Chris had come!).

On our last day we only had the morning to do anything so we got up early to find the snowman army which would become part of our plan to conquer the world. Unfortunately this quest ended in failure as no one had bothered to build the army this year. Poop.

It is cold

January flew by! Luckily, it wasn`t too cold with only a week or so of really bad weather.

Since hitting February it has gotten freezing- was -8C this morning and living in an apartment that has no insulation means it is cold inside too.

I usually heat my house with an old style Kerosene heater which, despite smelling funny, warms the house up quite quickly. This is especially great in the morning. I wake up, hit the on button, put my clothes in front of it to warm up before I get dressed and then do some bits and bobs around the house. By the time I have finished it is nice and toasty so I can get changed comfortably.

This morning, however, the kerosene had run out. I turned the aircon heating on but it made barely and difference and desperately tried to warm my clothes by putting them under my kotatsu (a low table with a heating element on the bottom). It was horrendous and meant that I took forever to get ready as I just didn`t want to take of my snug dressing gown. There was even ice on the INSIDE of my windows and my toothpaste had started to freeze (damn me for mocking the other JETs that this had already happened to). From now on I am making sure I have fuel for the heater.

This was the first time that I felt very appreciative of the fact that I don`t live in the parts of Japan that have really cold winters. An hours drive over the mountain that I live by and you get to at least a meter of snow and minus temperatures all winter long. I even heard a story about someones entire toilet bowl freezing over.

Sapporo Snow Festival

Too long to wait!

Even though it is a Monday morning I am very excited. I have a nice busy schedule this week so don`t have much time to sit around being bored. But that isn`t why I am really excited. This Sunday I will be heading up to Sapporo to see the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) and as a result having almost the whole of next week off from work. Again, having time off isn`t actually why I am looking forward to it (although it definitely helps!)- it is that I am finally going to see the Yuki Matsuri.

Ever since I first came to Japan as a lowly volunteer I have wanted to see it. I remember scanning my rough guide for places to travel at the end of my six month stint and being sorely disappointed that I didn`t finish my placement until three days after the snow festival had finished, making it impossible to make it up there.

The next time I came to Japan I actually made it to Sapporo. But, that was in uni summer holidays so I was a good six months out of season. Then, when I was here for a year in Yokohama I wasn`t rolling in money, and chose to go on holiday to Okinawa to visit my friend Alice with all my Yokohama friends instead. This turned out to be a great decision as it was possibly the most fun I have ever had on a holiday. But it also meant no Sapporo and not knowing at the time that I would be back in Japan now, had written it off for another holiday to Japan sometime.

Five years later and I am finally completing my Japan travels- I think I have been to almost everywhere that I would possibly want to go to now. Although there are many more great places to see in Japan, there is nowhere that I feel like my `Japan journey` is incomplete if I haven`t visited them. I would love to go Island hopping down in Okinawa but I don`t think I am ever going to have time to do that.

On the weekend...

Didn`t get up to much this weekend. Had a movie night on Friday with Jen and Gemma- spread the High School Musical love. It was Jen`s birthday party on Saturday night and we went to the Asahi beer factory for all you can drink beer and yakiniku (meat bbq type thing). It was fun to catch up with all the other JETs. I ended up getting very drunk after a rather large sambuca and have little memory from about 9.30. Needless to say, Sunday was spent hungover..

Five month blog

Following the fact that I actually managed to write an entry and put it online yesterday I will try to do it again today!

Yesterday I talked about what the year ahead hol

ds and what I want to achieve, but now I will give a brief outline of what I have been up to since August... I can't do justice to five months of being out here but I will try to round it up as best as possible.

So, after the not-so-brilliant home stay, speech contest

s came about. The kids I taught didn't do particularly well (I think it was rigged) but Natsu, a third year girl who I spent a lot of time with, actually did really well and would have gone through to the next round had it not been for the horrible foreigner on the panel of judges who gave her a low score. I think he didn't like the fact she had an English twang to her voice... what a racist!

When it hit September school started and I did all my intro lessons which took a couple of weeks, then started to do normal lessons and helped out the Japanese English Teachers. I found lessons to be particularly fun at my rural(er) school as the kids are really great. They are so friendly and really get into any English games so it is always a pleasure to teach them.

However, I swiftly found out that being an ALT really doesn't require a great deal of work- at the smaller rural school I have only been doing about 7 hours of actual lessons a

week which gives me a good three days to fill up. I found this extra time quite hard to adjust to. I'm not the kind of person that likes a lot of spare time; I find that I am less productive and just plain bored if I don't have anything I have to do compared to when I am busy which makes me plan time well and get everything done.

With so much time on my hands it really is bad of me to not have blogged even once!.

I do try to be a bit productive at work by studying Japanese, reading and making English boards. These have random facts about England and lots of pictures on them- I made the most awesome Christmas one, will try and get a photo of it.

At the end of September Chris came out to Japan with a working holiday visa. He has been staying with me since then along with a brief stint in Tokyo. He has been looking for jobs but it isn't easy in a recession, especially if you don't want to teach English (a wise move if my job is anything to go by!). I don't mind since it means he gets to stay with me longer and not move down to Tokyo.

I can't remember what I got up to throughout October and November. I think there were lots of parties and I was just generally settling in to life in Fukushima. The Autumn weather was really nice so I took advantage of it by hiking my local mountain and going for nice walks in the prefecture.

Which brings me to December. I did some awesome Christmas lessons for the kids at my schools and was also really excited about going home to surprise everyone. Going back to England was really great, the surprise was a super success (see the pic!) and it was even a white Christmas. It was also the first Christmas where I had seen all my family for a few years so even better.

Exciting white Christmas at home!

I came back to Japan just before New Year and ended up sleeping through the New Year because I was so jet lagged. Chris and I had a nice New Year's Day arou

nd Tokyo though and headed back up to Fukushima where it was freezing.

This month I have been catching up with everyone since the winter holidays- almost everyone went home or away for about three weeks- and have, of course, been teaching. I have also started snowboarding this month- only been two times but it is mega fun. Again, I will save that for a proper post when I have pictures to put up too.

It has already been six months and it has flown by. It hasn't all been brilliant but it has been mostly good with some excellent bits thrown in.

Above pic is Yoyogi park on New Years Day

Ok, so today I promised myself that I would write a new blog entry and actually post it when I get back from school. Will I actually put this online? Only time will tell!

First of all I would like to say a big happy new year to everyone- HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2010 is a great one for everybody. I am hoping mine will be pretty decent too... I have handed in my recontracting papers for the JET programme which means I will be working in Japan (same place, same job) for another year. Though I do have the option to pull out if I really want to, if I don't carry on with JET for another year then I wont be able to save for post grad and I don't want to face the idea of having more loans on top of the massive student debt that I already have.

I am not going to lie, the job can be a bore sometimes but it has picked up a bit recently and I don't have quite so much time sat at my desk wasting my life on the internet. Also I start teaching elementary kids in April which I reckon will be very fun, especially as my mental age is on a similar level.

On top of that, Fukushima is a pretty decent place. I wouldn't say it is amazing, but, I am having fun, have met some awesome people and certainly haven't got all I can out of where I live and my experience on the JET programme.

Next year I would like to help out with running FuJet. FuJet runs events in Fukushima prefecture for all the JET's here- it is very similar to societies in uni, particularly Shef's very own Japan society. Some of the stuff they have done is organise welcome parties for new jets, a trip to the snow festival in Sapporo, and canyoning in Gunma prefecture. If I was to help, I would basically be the person that books all the trips, takes money from people and gets everyone from A to B. It is a lot of work and quite stressful since people often tend to be unreliable and not pay on time, pull out of events and act as if they need someone to look after them despite being adults. However, since I am well travelled in Japan, speak the language and have organised many parties in Shef for Jap Soc then I reckon I will be alright at it. Though, being suitable to do it doesn't mean I will actually get to do it- you have to be voted in by all the other Jets and I have a feeling it will be some kind of popularity contest (a la head boy/girl system or Jap soc voting) over anything else which I really really don't like the idea of. But then again, if no one else wants to do it then I don't have to go through any kind of emotional turmoil that everyone hates me! Eep!

So FuJet is one of my goals for this year- try for it even though I might fail. One of my regrets last year was not trying for the speech contest in Japanese because I didn't have enough belief in my Japanese ability... and also not trying for CIR, the position on JET which would actually make use of my language skills. This year I have learnt from my mistakes and will go for it.

I have some other vague goals for this year too-

1. Join the gym and get fit so I look good at Kirsty's wedding and can get down a hill on a snowboard without my thighs burning in pain. I am joining the gym tonight so this one is getting into motion
2. Try for JLPT 2 in the summer. The JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and although I am fairly confident that I am already level 2 (many of my peers passed it in our last year of uni but I couldn't be bothered to take it) I want to try and get that qualification.
3. Study for JLPT 1. This is the top level of the test and if I pass 2 I want to at least try and do this. I don't reckon I will ever ever be able to pass it but I want to try at the very very least. The taking of the test will likely fall into 2011 though
4. Get better at snowboarding. I have just found my love for snowboarding- will post more about that next time.
5. Remember to blog. Not going to lie, this probably wont happen
6. Save for Post-grad whilst trying to pay off my massive student loan. Seriously, the gov site tells me that if I pay the rate at my current salary by the time I reach 65 they will wipe the left over £9,000. How nice, considering I would have already paid £30,000. What a total rip off!

I guess we will see how all of those pan out... If I actually write this blog in the future!

Aizu Homestay

This weekend all the new junior high school Jets were made to go to Aizu in the West of the prefecture to participate in a homestay so that we could experience 'real' Japanese family life and also do some Japanese lectures.

The last homestay I did which was when I was living in Yokohama went pretty badly, with me being the only person not to have a great family and I actually ended up leaving early as the experience was so awkward and boring.
Needless to say, that made me a tad nervous about doing it again and this time it would be for two nights and if I didn't like my family there was no escape, I would just have to gaman suru (endure it) or sleep on the streets.

We all arrived in Aizu on the Friday afternoon, paid our homestay and course fees then filed into a room full of desks. On the board were our class groups and where our seats were in the room. On each of the desks lay a brown envelope and when I found mine I pulled out random bits of paper with all sorts of informationa about Aizu and earthquakes that I expect I will never bother read. But, nestled among those bits of paper was the information about my homestay family. I was so nervous when I looked at it and everyone else had found their's... there were families with small kids, cats, dogs, who had requested certain kinds of people and had written about what kind of things they would do with their token homestay gaijin.

And then there was mine... three people and the youngest of them was 66. Oh dear. The section about what kind of person they would like... nothing written. The part about what cool Japanesey things they would like to do with their gaijin.... again, nothing at all.
I was totally gutted but not overly surprised. Just my homestay family luck!!!

However, when the time came to meet my host grandparents and be taken back to their place, it soon became clear that there wasn't any need to worry.
Although shy at first, they became chattier over dinner (and alcohol of course) and I had a really nice time with them. They were very keen to show me some good old Japanese culture so in the morning we woke up early to go and have a look at a near-by temple and then after a days worth of Japanese lessons and the most boring history lecture I have ever ever ever sat through, I was picked up by my grandparents and taken to some hot springs followed by some good old Karaoke.
I can't think of a more Japanese experience if I tried! I even had a man at the karaoke bar be rude and racist toward me. So Japanese!


They eventually sent me off with bags of rice and vegetables which they had grown themselves (as they are farmers) and told me to come back soon.

It's sad that I massively judged them before I met them but still, hanging out with an old couple really wasnt what I was expecting to be my 'real' Japanese homestay experience.

Fukushima in Beautiful!

I have been in Fukushima for three weeks now and for most of that time the weather has been pretty disappointing with it generally being cloudy and muggy.

But, last Friday the weather totally changed and the skies became bright blue and there were no clouds at all. As soon as I woke up and looked out of my window I knew I had to go outside and sit in the sunshine for as long as humanly possible (and without burning) and as I had a day off I messaged all the Fukushima JET crew to see if there was anything going on.
Luckily, I managed to get myself invited/ invited myself to a trip to the river about 1 hour north of where I live. So with the others we drove up there and spent half a day jumping off rocks, sunbathing and relaxing.

The weather stayed pretty sweet for the rest of the weekend which was great as I went down to a party in Iwaki on the beach with many of the other JET's in the prefecture.

Fukushima is jam-packed full of hills and mountains and is incredibly green. Before the good weather the mountains which surround the area couldn't actually be seen but now they look beautiful (well not right now, the weather is shitty again today).


Anyway, I think the point I am making with this post is that it is great to know that I am living somewhere which is actually pretty and nice and is far away from the industrial uglyness of many parts of Japan. And to let you know that Japan also has stunning countryside along with big buildings and robots.

Back in Japan!

I have decided to give this whole blog malarkey another go as, so far, I seem to have much more spare time on my hands than the last time I was in the Land of the Rising Sun.

So... where am I?

Well, last time I was in Japan I was in Yokohama, Japan's second biggest city (since it is pretty much attached to Tokyo), which is a huge meteropolitan area. And this time? If you haven't heard of Yokohama before then I am fairly sure you wont have heard of my new town... it's a place called Adachi which is in a city called Nihonmatsu which is in a prefecture called Fukushima... still no idea? oh well, just check out the map.

Last time I was in Japan I came as a student but this time I am here on the JET programme and that basically means I am an assistant language teacher and work in two junior high schools for kids from the age 12 to 15.
There are around 1500 new JETs sent to Japan each year and from most people that I have spoken to, I seem to be the only one who has actually started work! Not that I could really call it work yet- for this first week I have been coaching some of the kids who are entering an English speech contest, helping them with pronunciation and intonation, which essentially requires the skill of being a native speaker and not much else. All the kids are really nice though so I don't mind.
However, I finish doing this by about 2pm each day and am kind of at a loss for what to do for the last three hours of my working day. So far I have filled my time by reading a lot of wikipedia, learning about Japanese cooking and ingrediants and doing a little but of Japanese study.

The summer holidays will finish in a couple of weeks and proper school will be on again so I am looking forward to getting into the swing of things and actually teaching something- from next week I will use my free time at work more wisely and start preparing my intro lessons and get photos together for it.

So that's what I am doing in Japan answered... anything else?

I think I will leave it at that for now, will try to write something again soon

Spring Holiday

I'm finally into my spring holiday (struggled not to call it spring break then, I'm becoming Americanized, yuk) and everything is going well. The weather is finally starting to get warmer so I don't have to walk around in my clashing hat, scarf and coat combo and next week I'm off to the tropical Island of Okinawa to visit the wonderful Alice so I shouldn't need a coat at all.

Since my final presentation a couple of weeks ago I have been out and about quite a lot, had one too many bad hangovers and met lots of random people in random places. Unfortunately, not having to study until I get back to university in April I can already feel my academic Japanese slipping away and my Kanji knowledge flying out the window. I thought I would have lots of free time to study this week but as each day has passed my little schedule book has filled up and so I now only have one free day left until Okinawa which I'm sure will no longer be free by Wednesday.
Other than not studying I have been spending most of my time with friends at Yokohama. Lots of people are leaving now so I have to go to every leaving party to say my farewells. It's pretty sad and I'm not so fond of the change but it makes me appreciate all the awesome people from all over the world that I have had the opportunity to meet since coming to Japan and I hope to someday bump in to in the future. My friend Lauren leaves on Friday which I'm rather gutted about; my dorms are going to be quite lonely without her as she is my tea buddy and com padre. Luckily I only have two days in the dorms after she goes before I set off traveling so I wont have too much time to mope about.
Anyway, for one of Laurens leaving do's we all went out to AgeHa (the biggest club in Asia), and it was perhaps one of the most fun nights I have ever had. It was a good drunken night of general merry making, dancing and talking random crap to Japanese people. In Japanese clubs the use of cameras is banned but being foreign, drunk and having a general dislike of pointless rules Lauren brought one in anyway. This ended in her being caught taking photos by security several times and thus being chased around the club because she refused to put it in the locker and also resulting in many comedy style chases in which we were all involved. Eventually we ended up getting thrown out of the club with some people getting banned but it didn't matter- we about to leave anyway since it was 6 in the morning!

Other than getting drunk and general merry making I also went to visit my friend Jay in Kanazawa and have managed to meet up with lots of other Sheffield people. Always good to catch up with people and hopefully I'll be able to see a few people that I have yet to meet in Japan this weekend when I go to see the plum blossom.

I'm sat down on my bed with a rather over brewed cup of tea trying to waste time until I'm tired enough to go to sleep. I have my last presentation tomorrow, report is finished, as is my Sheffield year abroad project plan. Which means from 11.45 tomorrow morning I am a free agent, no more work for a month and a half. It feels really weird. I hope I don't lose all my Japanese in that time.
The next week and a half is pretty crammed full of stuff so I shouldn't be sat about in my room wasting more time on facebook and youtube. Hurrah!

Rather than telling you what I might be up to though, I'll tell you what I have done in the past few eeks. My amazing weekend of 'opportunity' turned out to be a rather quiet one; never made it out clubbing on the Friday night but I did manage to get drunk enough so that my hangover prevented me from leaving bed for the next day thus missing out on the Hakone trip! Better luck next time , eh!
I did however manage to have a week of childish fun which involved a ball pit, a trip to Disney sea (similar to Disney land... but on the sea), seeing dragons dance at Chinese new year and going out to a gay club. It really has been manic, not to mention expensive, but a lot of fun. I think my Japan cold has got even worse but I've learnt to live with it.
The gay club had to be one of the strangest nights I've had in Japan. It wasn't so different from gay clubs in England only there were more gay people and less 'breeders' (as Colleen so nicely calls straight people). The thing is, since most Japanese people don't actually believe that gay people exist in Japan and that it is some foreign evil culture, gay people here don't really expect straight people to have any understanding or tolerance for them. Which is ridiculous but understandable. Anyway, this meant that there was quite a lot of awkward explaining to be done but it turned out to be a brilliantly fun night and we could not stop dancing to all the cheesy classics that are expected from a gay club. There was even a bit of pole dancing. Luckily not too much from me but my friend Jaycob who must have some kind of pole fetish as we could not prise him off it for the life of us.
After an entire night of dancing, looking sweaty and an encounter with a scary fake French model we finally got home at 7.30 in the morning. I was ready to sleep for the entire day but it was a friends birthday so I had to get up after 4 hours sleep to go for an all you can eat buffet. I thought I was going to die, I have never been so tired in my life. Even worse than the night bus/snowboarding trip.

I think I have managed to catch up on my sleep now. I have got all my work done so that's a good sign and I'm going to go to bed relatively early as I have to get up in time for the presentation tomorrow.

Life here is either extremely tiring or it feels like there is nothing to do. The latter in never actually true, just feels that way sometimes. Not from now on though... yikes!

Taurus

My iGoogle daily horoscope told me this today- 'Don't be afraid of enjoying your own company, no matter what you are doing.' Of course being a highly reliable source and great guide to life I always take iGoogles advice very seriously, especially as horoscopes are so accurate... or maybe not. But this one really did make me think. It's something that I really do need to learn to do; be able to be by myself and not feel really bored, lonely and after a while, quite sad. I don't know if it's just that I am a really 'social' (i.e. can't keep my big mouth shut) person and love company or just that I have no idea how to spend my time if someone else isn't occupying it. It's probably a mix of both to be fair but from now on I'm going to try and learn to enjoy the time I have to myself because sometimes people are just too busy to so something. Like this week, where I have finished most of my work and everyone else still has exams.

Saying that though, I do have a pretty packed weekend ahead- I'm going out clubbing tomorrow night and then to Hakone to go to some hot springs on Saturday night and then I have to finish my report and presentation by next week sometime. So spare time to drive myself crazy in my room isn't abundant to say the least.
I'm really looking forward to having the time to go out and have fun without having to think about any uni work, meet new people and get to know the people I already know even better. It wont be long now, just two weeks I hope, I'm sure I can hold out for that long.

I decided on my new years resolution too- I always go for a nice vague one and it's the same this year- from now on I'm going to take every opportunity that I can. I feel like I've missed out on quite a bit here at Yokohama and also doing things in Japan in general so from now on I'm going to make sure I take every opportunity I have to do interesting and fun stuff here. No saying no to offers, no making excuses about lots of work; I forgot somewhere along the way that I did Japanese to have an awesome year in Japan having loads of fun, not just to get better at Japanese (albeit that is important too!). It's all about the experience and I don't want to waste my time in a tiny dorm room (Someone I know here who only goes out for lectures or to get something from the supermarket).
My opinion might change somewhat when I start all my hard classes next semester but then it'll be about balance I suppose.

That's all for my ramblings today; not got much to say, will write more after this weekend I hope

Snowboarding!

That's right, believe your eyes...it's me on a snowboard going down a mountain! A beautiful vision in red.
This weekend I went to Nagano, a mountainous region in Japan with one of the societies at my university and it was brilliant! I was so nervous about going, what with never having snowboarded before and being a little more than retarded at sports but everything turned out to be great.
The weekend started with a rather hellish night bus journey that lasted 8 hours, regardless of Nagano only being a four hour drive away. We spent the night on the bus instead of getting there quickly and having a nice bed. Japan does have it's ways of saving money. After only having one hours sleep we arrived at 7 in the morning and got on to the slopes straight away. I felt like death and wanted nothing more to be in a nice warm bed with a hot water bottle.
So, as I said before, not having any experience in snowboarding when I stood up for the first time and slipped about 1 meter down hill I was on my arse after a good 2 seconds. Not bad for my first try! Luckily for me I had my friend Lauren on hand; without her I don't think I would have had the will to keep trying. She taught me all the basics and by lunch time I was much further than I ever could imagine and was going down the best of the learner slopes (albeit falling over every ten seconds but at least I was getting to the bottom!). Half-way through the day and I was pooped, I really felt like giving up and going back to the hotel to sleep but my friends persuaded me to go up the mountain instead and give it a go. I'm so so so so happy that I did it! I was terrified at first, the slope was so steep but it was such an awesome feeling to get to the bottom.
After the first day my muscles murdered. I actually couldn't comprehend how I could do the second day because everything hurt so much.However, I don't know why but as soon as you stand up on a snowboard and get started you forget all those feelings and just want to bomb it down the mountainside. By the end of the second day, and the trip, I felt like I had achieved a lot (with thanks to all the people I was with who kept me cheerful, on my feet, having a good time and telling me how to do it :-) ), I had got some basic stuff down and was beginning to get to grips with being able to snowboard properly. I never learned how to turn properly but I did manage to slide down a mountain on a piece of plastic without breaking anything. something to be proud of methinks! I even enjoyed falling over all the time; I must say, I did spent about 60% of my time on the floor trying to get up again. Thanks to this trip I'd really love to snowboard again and I'm already planning a trip to France. Hehe!


I haven't blogged for ages now and ,again, I'm really sorry. What have I been doing? I went to Oz and had a surprisingly not so hot Xmas, been dealing with heart-break and trying to be on top of all my work; this month being even worse than the others... and this coming week is the worst yet as I have two exams and three presentations on top of all the usual stuff I have to do. But as is the way, life goes on and things will get better; some through hard work and others through the time. At the moment it can sometimes feel like everything is hard work, like being smiley and cheerful (my usual self I suppose), but I know that'll fix after a while, especially with the help of everyone here and at home. Thank you to those people- you know who you are!!! :-)