cold?

so its been really hot here. like around 100 and straight up humid. but this past week its cooled off. its only been like 33 or so. and it has felt great! i never realized what temperature in farenheit 33 degrees was.. so imagine my surprise when i find out that 33 is 91 degrees! and i felt good about that. so i decided to check about my air conditioner. we keep it at 28 or 29 and it feels really cool. so i converted that as well and we keep out air on 84!!!!! hhahah i think my body is changing and adjuting to he heat!!!

today was a great day. i got up and went to church. and it was a really good sermon. just reminding me of Gods faithfulness despite my unfaithfulness sometimes. and thinking about how He has already gone before me to prepare the way, and i just need to follow His plan for my life, and accept it. It was really good to hear it.

then afterwards we all wet out and bought food and brought it back to the room thats rented for the church, and hung out and talked and ate. then a few of us went around town (a canadian, a japanese, an australian, and me). A sunday afternoon in the city is never disappointing. we got to see some 40ish year old japanese versions of elvis/john travolta(in grease) dancing these crazy on the verge of breakdancing dancing. then we went to another place and saw some japanese pop singers singing. then another place had some dance competition. so it was cool to see all that.

then i went to the book store and bought a book to study japanese and a french novel. i saw betty, my boss. then i came home and studied with my new book. then talked with tomomi.

overall it was a great day. too bad the weekend is over. back to work, back to the gym.

pictures and earthquakes

in other news, we are lucky that i am still alive to write this. i survived my first earthquake yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! tomomi and i were sitting down to eat dinner at about 9 30 and all of a sudden the whole place started shaking for like 5 seconds. i screamed. i scared tomomi. hahah. then we ran outside and everyone was acting normal. then our neighbor came outside and said something and we all resumed out evenings. however i am paranoid now. everytime i heard something last night, i thought it was an earthquake.

accent

cows moo with an accent. ive noticed the cows here in japan that live by me seem to sound a little different.. lol just kidding, there arent any cows by me, but apparently some english farmers say that cows have an accent when they moo. interesting.


so i did go to the gym and old woman started talking to me. i had a conversation in japanese. (note: i did not say a good conversation) but she asked me questions and i asked her to repeat one more time, and then i tried to answer her. i was so happy. but i have a lot to learn.

off to work i go....ITS FRIDAY!!!!!!!!

the time goes by so fast

i am amazed at how fast times goes by. each week just goes by and before i can think about it, its already friday and the weekend!!! i think its partly because at work, i have like 5 classes boom boom boom right after eachother. so by the time i am calmed down, its my last class of the day and then i can go home.

my friend josh left for new zealand yesterday. we had a goodbye dinner and karaoke on tuesday night. its kinda sad. but it doesnt seem like hes gone yet, it will in a few days when i dont get emails from him on my phone.

tonight after work i may do karaoke with friends or clean... i havent decided...

now i am just procrastinating going to the gym. im tired. but i need to go!!!! when i go its all old people. i shower with a bunch of old ladies. i will so be ready for the onsen this winter! haha

ok i need to get myself to the gym

what a scary tattoo you have...

i forgot one last thing about my gym escapade. NO TATTOOS ALLOWED. a few times tomomi asked me if i had a tattoo. i dont so i was like no... but then i asked why it mattered and she told me there is a rule. you cannot have a tattoo and be a member of the gym becuase you might scare someone. WHAT? id like to see that rule be applied in the US. not a chance.

so then this morning i further questioned tomomi on this subject and she told me that she used to work at a gym and they had a lot of foreigners and someone was scared so they comeplained. saying "this is japan? it doesnt feel like it" and so the best way to eliminate the foreigners was to say no tattoo no service. (in japans defense, apparently its common for foreigners to pick up and leave without paying things casue they wont be traced once back in their country and places will be out some money)

but to add too it, if your tattoo is of mickey mouse or something nice, its ok to have it. but a dragon or something scary is out.

but still....i was amazed at this rule. it made me also realize what a multicultural place the US really is. heck im sure we have gyms where english isnt spoken. i know some people dont like this, but we have so many discrimination laws and so on, so that it would be nearly impossible to make a rule like the no tattoos law.


apparantly black suglasses are also a sign of "that type of person" as well.


but i must wonder, what if some people are afraid of cats. would a cat tattoo be scary or cute? clowns?

45 year old japanese woman

i went to the gym today to get a membership. it started out funny. we called to make sure i had the paperwork, and they tell tomomi that if i go tomorrow i dont have to pay the registration fee of 60 dollars. well tomomi cant go tomorrow and i can go, but i probably wouldnt walk out with a membership if left to me and my japanese ability. so we went and filled out the paperwork, got a tour, i got my fitness test and trained on the machines. tomomi was a good translator. people were really nice.

i went there dressed in jeans and flipflops. figuring you just go, fill out some paperwork, and get your membership.. no... thats not how it works. first a sweaty man came and asked me if i was ready to get sweaty. tomomi translated. i pointed to my flipflops and gave a blank stare.

no fear, the gym had rental tennis shoes. so i rented a pair, took off my shoes to go to the locker room, put on my tennis rental shoes, no socks, and headed upstairs to the gym. i would have been in heaven if i was looking for a nice attractive 60 year old man. the guy who gave me the fitness tests was really nice. did blood pressure, weight, body fat percentage, 10 min bike test. then we waited a few minutes for the results. turns out i have the health of a 45 year old japanese woman. great. my blood pressure is high, my body fat is a little high, my heart works really hard when i ride a bike.... basically im in bad shape. the man enjoyed my looks of horror as he continued on with the bad news of even if i work out and al this stuff, ill still have the health of a 31 year old japanese woman. i told him ill never be a japanese woman. haha. then he told me its ok, i can get healthy in 3 months. if i work out 3 hours a day. i looked at him and said...we friends in japanese. he just laughed. but i think after seeing him every day for 3 hours aday, wed be friends alright. haha

then he showed me the machines and such. he was a really nice patient guy. then tomomi and i went down to finish filling out the paperwork for me to bring back tomorrow so i can get the discount. everyoen was really nice. theres even a pool at the gym.

then coming home, i saw a little baby with its mom and the baby was staring at me. maybe it was 1 year old. so i said hi, whats your name, my name is jen, youre cute, bye, all in japanese. and it didnt really say anything back. so the goodnews is, i have a higher level japanese than a 1 year old.

awesome.

ok well stay tuned, ill have my first day at the gym tomorrow and im sure ill manage to do something embarassing to write about.

pics

the vacation is over...

my 10 days of holidays are finished. so sad. i have to work in a few hours. ugh. but at least its the weekend tomorrow.

friday- i left in a car with 2 australians to go to tokushima to visit jim. 6 hours later i finally found jim and we headed to his place in hiwasa. he has a nice place. near the beach and its really nice.

sat- we got up and played on the beach then we drove to tokushima to get ready to dance dance dance. there was a big fetival, awaordori and we joined a dance group (they close off the streets and everyone dances and stuff) well we danced nd we danced. then i won 2 goldfish.

sunday-we got up and went to church. everyone was real nice. then we took a tour around hiwasa and played on the beach some more. i found so many shells. it was great!

monday- jim and i took the bus from tokushima to nagoya at like 9am. it took like 6 hours, but i slept pretty much the whole ride. we got to nagoya around 3 and met tae-another friend from OU and we ate and went to my favorite bus station-oasis 21- and then to the book store. then we cam back to kasugai and met tomomi and went to dinner at like 10pm.

tuesday- we met another OU japanese guy, kenji, and he was our great tour guide. we went all over town. first we went to some shrine in nagoya then we went to a poppular eel restaurant. it was so good. its basically cooked eel over rice, and you put some in a bowl and eat it, then add green onions and seaweed and wasabi to the 2nd bowl, then add hot water to the 3rd bowl. it was ssoooo good. then we went to part of town where there is a big temple-osu kannon-and there were a lot of little shops and stuff. then we went to a cafe and had some iced coffee. after that we met up with yuki and we all went to nagoya castle because there was a festival there and the whole castle was lit up and we walked around, saw some dancing and drumming. fun fun. then we went and ate dinner and went back. i did teach tae, kenji and yuki what a wet willy is... sorry jimbo.

wednesday- lounged around and slept till like 10 (finally, i had been getting to bed at like 3 and waking up at 6) and tae left. then jim and i got ready and went into town. i met up with kayla and left jim with his friends. kayla and i bought coffee and drank it in the marriot lounge. haha. then we met up with another OU friend, pat, and some other friends. we went to dinner-nagoya has amazing chcken wings- then we decided to go to karaoke. YES! so we had fun.

thursday- kayla spent the night wednesday so we got up late, we went to the store, kayla bought a shelf, i bought groceries, and tthen we watched a movie. haha the 6th sense. i hate scary movies. i dont care if its the afternoon. i get so scared and stressed. then we met up with josh and tomomi at my fave restaurant down the road and we went out for more karaoke.

so i guess we can say that i had a great 10 day holiday from work. i got to do a lot, see a lot of people and places, and do my fair share of eating.

now its back to work... for today..then i can rest up for the weekend.

wow

so i spent all afternoon moving furniture from a 5th floor apt to my place. thankfully, i had the help of 2 guys. then i unpacked and rearrangd and as i look around, it doesnt even look like the same place. it looks like someone lives here. it looks like a home. its really weird. and i know own furniture. i dont know what to think about it. i feel very tied down. haha. and when i think of the future, i know i am gonna have to get rid of all of it when i move again. but sitting here in my living room, and in the process of cooking dinner, i feel like an adult. i feel different. its weird.

in france i had all kinds of stuff, furniture, cookware, but none of it was mine. i just moved into a furnished place and moved out when i was done. but crap-now ive got a lot of stuff.


ok off to eat dinner and fall asleep cause im really tired from moving stuff.

do i work?

nope thats right, im on holiday... so ive been a bum for a few days. i sleep till 12 but stay up till 4 doing random things...like letting goldfish go in the river, karaoke, talking, not sleeping. but sometimes i run errands and clean and unpack. our place is starting to look like weve lived here for a month...although we still have no furniture that comes higher than my knee.

last night i went out to dinner with josh and mie (i work with mie now) and we had a good time. went to karaoke...does that surprise you?

today i am finally going to get some furniture. im getting a tv and sofa and some shelves... horay!

tomorrow i am leaving for tokushima to see jimbo!!!! yeah!!!!!! im riding in a car with some friends, and i hear its about 6 hours or so. but itll be fun to see jim and tokushima! TOKUSHIMA 06!!! so ill be back early next week.

its really hot and sweaty. yesterday it was 38.6 degrees celcius. but with the humidity im sure it was hotter. today ill be moving a sofa and other large furniture. im sure itll be HOT HOT HOT

i just looked at weather.com and it say 95 degrees F but feels like 98. but the humidity is only 46 % and then i looked in athens and there was a higher humidity... but i never felt this hot in ohio. i never sweated like this in ohio. just sitting around sweating without moving. hmm... but at least today is i think cooler than yesterday. by a little. but i dont think it matters.

i love karaoke

so i think most of you have come to the conclusion that i love karaoke. i love it despite the fact that i am not a great singer, and people i am with may not love me karaokying. but oh well i say.

i have been going 1 or 2 times a week. fortunatly i live by a real cheap karaoke place so if 2 people go for 2 hours, its like 4 dollrs a person. pretty good deal... and it gets cheaper the more people you have.

they have a big selection of english songs and i can now go to the counter and ask for an english book or 1 more hour of karaoke, and ask where the bathroom is, all in japanese.


so back to karaoke. with my friends, we like to put this little face judge thing in the corner. sometimes its haappy, sometimes its crying, depending on your singing. my friend josh and i have decided this little face HATES english speakers... or us.

if we go with a group of people, us and japanese, the little face loves the japanese when they sing english songs. they dont even have to say one word right, and they will still get like an 85 out of 100. but when josh or i ing a song in english, we always get in the lower 70s. well not alwyas, but most of the time. so we dont know if this means it hates our voice or our accent. we like to think its the latter. also we always sing together. this way, we can blam our bad score on the other person secretly. haha

but we do have a few secret weapons. our japanese songs. hahah i can sing one song in japanese, and i use this one all the time and we usually get good scores. usually.

but i am kind of sad that our grease megamix doesnt do so hot. i think we sound great.

but i think this is a cheap way for me to learn jpanese. i am learning how to read faster (but i have no idea what anything means-but i can read!) and this way i can practice.

if you ever come visit me in japan, we will go karaoke. i dont know if thats a threat or promise! hahha.

oh yeah i want to add sme more tings to my list of thngs i like about japan.

here they are

there is a bubbleman 3 drink. its space flavored

i like that there are drink machines every like 3 min walking so u never will go thirsty

i love motogen or whtever the restaurant is called that i eat at every friday and we get free things such as watermelon, grapes, or snails.

i love the drama i watch on tv, called orange days. its about a deaf girl and some other people. i dont really know whats happening all the time but oh well, im learning.

freind sweet potatoe chip things. they are too good. i need to stop buying them



hmm well thats all for now. stay tuned

the big switch

so i did it. i bought a mac. i didnt want to buy a computer just yet, considering my other one is like 2 year old. but ive had it. my dell has stopped working. the battery doesnt charge and ecen if it is plugged in, it still doesnt work. so i called dell from the last 10 min of life of my dell from skype only to get talking to a foreign gy who kept asking me to repaeat myself. i ust yelled finally, MY COMPUTER IS GOING TO DIE IN 5 MIN....I NEED YOU TO TELL ME WHATS WRONG. he told me there was a discrepency in my acct (look back 2 months ago when dell lost my computer, sent me a new one, and i ened up with 2 dell computers and gave one to my mom. ) so they basically thought i was someone who stole the computer and couldnt help me fix it, even though i technically still have a waranty. so i hung up and called kayla to vent about my dell hatred. then i decided to go to nagoya to the apple store and buy a new computer.

so tody i went. i talked to a nice japanese man named paul. haha and told him i needed a new computer becaue mine is done. and all my friends with macs are happy and im not. haha. so i bought a computer. then he kept asking me to buy these other things, but i told him id come back another time and get more.... i can only handle spending a certain amt of money a day haha. but then he threw in the whole .mac thing for 18 dollars. apparently it was like 98 or something. so i got a big old discount from paul.

i even got the computer in english with an american keyboard. life is great. so i picked it up after 2 hours (and card buying and chatting at starbucks with some of my favorite people in japan)


so i got home and took it out of the box, and it was all ready. i didnt have to install everything. it ws already done for me. so i sit here wondering why i even got a dell in the first place. oh well. i guess i appreciate this computer more. and i love that i can just go to the store and they can fix it if i have a problem.


last night i went out with tomomi to dinner and karaoke. its sad when my best score for karaoke is with the japanese song i sing. i get like 75 out of 100 for the english songs, and i get an 82 and 86 for the japanese songs. go figure. i dont even speak japanese.

i finished my first week of teaching by myself. it wsa good. i have a lot to learn. but i enjoy it.

ok, off to play on my new computer.

i hate dell and i am buying a mac this weekend. thats that

i love natto

How to eat natto
Nowadays, the natto product is packed in small plastic packages with soy sauce and mustard..
One pack is about 50grams.



Most popular way to prepare natto is as follows.

1. Please put natto into a suitable porcelain bowl.
2. Stir the natto with chopsticks or other suitable tool. Do not mash. Stir fast and well. (Not 1 hour, 60 seconds is enough:-p)
3. Pour the soy sauce and mix mustard.
4. If spring onions are available, it is recommended to finely chop these and mix in. Then put a spoon of natto on steamed rice and eat them together.



i love this food. i think i eat it everyday. wikipedia says "Foreigners in Japan trying natto for the first time generally tend to either love it or hate it." i think i fall under the love it category

not only is it good but according to wikipedia, i shouldnt get blood clots, cancer, thrombosis, dysentery...here read this...


now dont u all wish you were living in japan so you could eat this too? dont worry, if you come visit, ill buy you some! plus its low in calories and cheap.

natto... its whats for dinner... and breakfast and sometimes lunch haha.