Simon and Mary's visit

Simon and Mary are my younger brother and younger sister. Simon is a junior at Pepperdine University. Mary is a junior in high school taking college classes and is on the swim team. Out of everyone in my family I wouldn’t have picked them to come over and visit me during this year in Japan. Simon spent all last year in Switzerland doing a study abroad so he is proficient in travel but Mary hasn’t left the good US of A so I was excited when they announced first the desire and the means to make it over here. It’s an expensive and a long trip and I am appreciative that they made if for me.

They came the last week in November over Thanksgiving. This was nice because it was my first major holiday away from home here in Japan and they got a couple days off from school.

They arrived on Saturday night, which was also the same day the Harry Potter 7 Part 1 came out in theatres in Japan. Now this is a big deal because most new movies in the States are released months later in Japan but not Harry Potter. So on their first night I dragged them to a movie, jet lag and all. They might try to claim that they were able to stay awake through the whole thing but don’t believe them. They were out for most of it.

Sunday I got to introduce them to everyone at church and then spend the day with some friends.

Monday, Mary and I faced the rain and went to Disney Land Tokyo. When we were kids we didn’t get to go to any of the Disney’s so this was her first time and my 3^rd. (All my times were in Japan, still haven’t been in the States) and Simon discovered the city of Mito on my scooter. (He is lame and claims to not like Disney EVEN THOUGH it’s the happiest place on earth!)

Tuesday was a national holiday here so everyone had the day off. Simon, Mary, my AET friend Emily, my Japanese friend Erisa and I jumped into the car and headed to Daigo. This has a popular waterfall and apple orchards all around so we got to see the waterfall and pick apples. The road trip was good for us to explore Japan a little.

Wednesday my school had a “mini marathon” at the local track so we got to go and watch. My kids were so excited to see Simon and Mary there!

Thursday and Friday, I got to take them to my schools. First my nursery school where I teach 4 and 5 year olds and Friday to my elementary school. We took one of my teachers out to dinner on Friday night because he claims to be a “ramen master” and Simon wanted a challenge. He loved it enough that Yuya took us for ramen on Saturday as well.

The rest of their trip I took them to Tokyo. We wandered around there for a couple of days and then it was time for them to leave again. It was a quick trip but it was amazing to see familiar faces in this new life I’ve made. It was great to show them everything I love about Japan and share some of my experiences with them. Thanks Simon and Mary for taking some time and coming to see me! Love you both!!

Halloween in Japan

This country doesn't really celebrate Halloween. There might be a couple decorations here and there but it isn't anything like the US. I was able to bring a little Halloween spirit to my kids thru classes and costumes throughout the week. My costume run down is as follows...

Monday- Black cat

Tuesday- Baby Minnie Mouse

Wednesday and Thursday I had observations so I didn't think it would be a good idea for the boss.

Friday- Real Minnie Mouse

Friday morning there was an observation as another AETs school, Heather Worsham. They involve the community in that kids get to walk up and down a street "trick-or-treating" to the shop keepers for stamps as well as roaming AETs for stickers. They have the English conversation which sounds like this...

Student- Trick-or-treat

AET- Who are you?

Student- I'm a witch/pumpkin/black cat (these were the main three) but others include Death and a Samarii.

Sticker please.

AET- Here you are. Happy Halloween!

The kids really enjoyed it and I loved it! I felt like I was Minnie Mouse at Disneyland because I had a line of kids for most of the hour lined up waiting to talk to me as well as parents and random shoppers stopping me for pictures. It was so much fun! Plus the kids were able to practice their English with many foreigners which is great exposure.

After the observation I got to head back to my school and pass out candy to all my kids during lunch time. Normal Japanese schools frown upon giving candy or food of any kind (besides lunch) to the kids but my school is awesome so I handed out 333 dum dums to kids and teachers! It was so much to share the US tradition of Halloween to kids in Japan!

The BIG decision...

Every November all the AETs have to decide if they want to sign up for another year or return home in April. This decision has been weighing on me SINCE I got here basically and its good to have it finally decided. I have decided to RETURN to the States after this one year. It was a really tough decision and one that didn't go without much prayer, tears and talking it over with just about everyone and their dog.

I am at peace with my decision. God has provided that for me. There are days that I wonder if I made the right decision but I am learning to trust God and allow Him to work in my life. I plan on returning home for a while until I move to Edmond for the time being. I am looking into taking the pre reqs for PT or PTA school. I haven't decided which yet. I am excited about the road that God has put in front of me and I hope that you all will keep me in your prayers as I finish out a great year in Japan and adjust back to American life. Thanks so much for your support!

Happy Birthday to me!

My friends were gracious enough to plan my birthday for me which was great but also decided it would be a surprise. That didn't really work out that well because they asked one of my Japanese teachers to come along and forgot to tell him it was a surprise so he told me prematurally but thats ok because they requested I be ready at 6:30am and for those that know me...I'm not quite a morning person so it was good I knew.

So my schedule for the day...

6:30am- Picked up by Port and Cole

7:15- Finally leaving Mito City

11:00- Arrive at DISNEY SEA! So what was suppose to take an hour and a half took almost 4 hours because of traffic. It was not such a good start to my birthday!

I had been to Disney Sea once before when on Pac Rim with my host family but visiting again w/ the friends I had made here was a good day. Obviously when I do these things, the highlights of my day is the food that I get to eat so...

• I started with Mexican food for lunch which wasn't that good.
• We then got to ride the little tea cups in Ariels Underground Cove. (Disney does an AMAZING job at creating the environment and makes it the "happiest place on earth!"
• I was told to have a "gouza dog" while I was there so I had that for dinner. It was different and ok but nothing exciting really.
• Throughout the night, we hunted down every popcorn stand in the place to try the different flavors. They had milk tea (decent), black pepper (really good and normal tasting), chocolate (fine), curry (didn't try it but fittingly in the Arabian Nights section, and carmel (favorite and hardest to find!)
• We were able to watch several random shows through the day and catch a couple rides. Because we arrived later in the day we weren't able to get out "fast passes" for all the rides. (I was really fine with it really though.)

We didn't arrive home until after 1am but it was a great birthday. I enjoyed being outside all day. Thanks God for good weather!

This is my second birthday celebrated in Japan and it was another good one!

Today...

Today I was playing around with one of my kids and swatted a name tag from his hand and it magically poked a girl in the eye! She cried and the boy blamed it on me...it was really funny!

She's stuck and crying really loud...

A girl on the playground yesterday got stuck on the jungle gym thing. Now the thing wasn't set up very well because its either climb down on these ladder sets that aren't very easy or walk across either set of monkey bars. Now I realize that she would have had to do one of these to get where she was but there was no discussing that once she was scared out of her mind.

I was the first to "arrive on scene" with her crying her eyes out. I climbed up in my dress (bad decision obviously) and tried to just climb her down. She wouldn't have it. Then my head English teacher,who is also this girls teacher, comes out and tries to talk her down from the ground. I am up there sitting next to her at this point. Then my VP comes out and just watches. Obviously its hard for me to comfort and reassure her because I can't speak Japanese. I was really frustrated but she was scared out of her mind. Yamazaki sensei brings out a ladder and my VP climbs up but she won't let go of the pole she has a hold of. It takes all 3 of us reassuring and prying hands away to get her to come down. Whats funny is that she probably finally came down the most unsafe way possible. I was holding her top half from the top and Yamazaki sensei and my VP had a hold of her feet trying to place them on each ladder rung. It was awful but also really funny at the same time. Poor girl.

The big event!

This starts the blog of my best day so far in Japan!

There is no way to explain the excitement that this event contains for my kids. There is so much preparation that you can't help to excited whether you really are or just want it to be over. My day was suppose to start off at 6:30am to get ready and have a good breakfast to be at school at 7 but that didn't happen. I woke up at 6:52 with no alarm and rushed out the door to arrive at 7:15. My VP gave me a hard time about it but it was fine. I was placed on the set up crew for each event. The beautiful of this Japanese culture is that they allow the children to do everything. So of course they had practiced each events set up several times and so the teachers really had nothing to do. Not that I could actually do anything because I didn't understand what needed to be done. I was the best cheerleader ever today!

My friend Emily came to watch a little and cheer me on, not that I did anything. I cheered as relays and races took place and I watched and cheered as every grade did their dances. As it turns out, I got to learn most of everyones dances because I had so much free time in the weeks before this. I want to be able to explain every event to you in detail but I realize thats boring so I'll let the pictures and videos do the talking.

They will pass this ball all the way around the field. One ball for each team (red and white). It's really funny to watch the first graders get it, they get killed.

Apart of the 5th and 6th grade dance, they also do mounting. 3 tiers is the highest they go but its pretty impressive.

Some of the best 5th graders ever! We have secret handshakes!

I got to help with a couple of the games. This game is called "What color do you like?" and I picked the color that got to bypass the obstacles.

She's the sweetest ever!

Even these pictures don't do it justice so I tried to take some videos to show you exactly how it was.

1st video is of 1st graders playing a game. They are shaking pom poms from their shorts. It was something I hadn't seen before so it was really cute.

2nd video was me getting prepared for my one and only duty of the day.

This is the 5th and 6th grade dance. The sun was at a bad angle but I thought maybe Gamma could use some of these moves for Spring Sing next year. There is no way to get you to fully portray this day. There was so much going on, most of which I had no idea about, that I could only get so much on video without looking like a tourist. One more video. This one is of me dancing the Japanese traditional dance that all the kids learned in the gym one day. Everyone was quite surprised that the foreigner could do it.

This day made me love Japan even more. It got me closer to my kids and my teachers. Afterwards, the teachers always have a party to celebrate Undokai being over so I got to be apart of that. All of these things are helping me bond and get to know me teachers so much better which is helpful when I teach with them every week. So far this was my favorite cultural experience and I'm not sure another can contest with it but we'll have to wait and see. Let me leave you with the 1st and 2nd grade dance. Its a long video and the same thing over and over but I love it. Love you all!!

All pictures and videos needed to be removed. Sorry!