im in france

i made it!!!! i am in france i went around in paris yesterdazy and now i am near switzerland with cara and jt. its great. no horrible jet lag. i am so happy to be here. its cold. oh well.

just wanted to tell yuoiu all i made it safely

a bientot

YEAH

no work for 2 weeks!!!!!

je serai en france demain!

あした私はフランスいきます　　

i cant wait! i am going to france tomorrow. i will be in france tomorrow! yeah!!!

i hope you all had a merry christmas! joyeux noel! メリクリスマス!!! i had a great christmas eve. i went to church, and after we went to tiger cafe. un de mes restaurants preferes. it was good. おいしいかた then we had a party at my pastors and his wifes house. it was nice. we ate a lot. had a gift exchange and talked. fun fun たのしかた

monday i worked/ i tried to be jolly. and i think it was ok. i didnt want to go, but i had no choice. after work, i met my roommate and we went to motogen. my favorite restaurant. we once again got free food. this time the owner asked me if i was single. hahah. i am if it gets me free food! haha

today i met up with kanako and jim in nagoya. it was fun and nice to see them again.

ok now its time for a post office adventure story. i went today to mail some packages. it was starting out badly, but fortunatly a man started translating for me. turns out he lives in the UK and is just in town to see his かぞく/family for the holidays. he ended up staying and helping me finish. i was so thankful. so was the post office.

i am almost finished packing my suitcase. i have a lot of stuff. most of it is gifts.... this is good cause it means ill have room to bring stuff back.

i am so excited to go to france but i know i am going to mix in some にほんご when i speak. je suis tres tres tres contente d'y aller! ahhhhhhh je peux voir tous mes amis!

ok back to packing. i hope you all have a happy new year. yeah for 2006. bring on 2007... year of the boar.

EARTHQUAKE

yesterday i was teaching a class of 6th graders. we were doing an activity where oen student is guided by directions around the classroom, blindfolded. Well all of a sudden, the whole building shakes. i freeze and go "ahhhh" "ahhhh" and my mouth is dropped open. the students are laughing at me. my boss comes in and tell everyone to get their shoes on. but then it was over. i had no idea what to do, but i am pretty sure standing there with my shocked face and yelps was not it. way to be a brave girl.

on another note, its 11pm. i had a long list of things to do tonight, but so far i have succeeded in checking my email, facebook and talking to valerie on the phone. and now writing this blog- at least updating the blog was one thing on the list.

we can add to the list of 101 reasons my post office hates me.

i went in today to mail post cards and buy boxes to send some gifts in. i got the boxes no problem, however, the label i need, i didnt get. i had 2 choices (i think) and i tried to ask which one is cheapest. i forgot most of the words i needed, so i just said, after. ill do it later. hahah. this also means i have to go back another time.

kayla told me i can go to the post office to get euros, she said its pretty easy... well nothing is easy to me when i have to do it in japanese... well i mean besides singing grandfathers clock and ordering food.

this week at school is mcdonalds week. haha for real. we changed the mcdonalds menu into english and the students bring money and order and role play a mcdonalds order then my boss goes and buys it and brings it back to the students and we eat and have conversations. at first i thought-no way will this work, oh me of little faith.... its awesome. the students love it. and i think its important that english is fun to them.

hmm what else.... i leave for france in a week. i cant wait. i cant wait to see my friends and communicate easily and just be back.

ok i am off to try and be productive.

cant live in fear

my motto of the week. cant live in fear . or my life i guess.. i mean i live in japan where "the big earthquake" is coming any moment now.

but reading this headline, made me pause for a moment. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/ap_on_re_eu/holiday_terror_threat

yeah for high threats on flights to europe.



on a lighter note. i got a bunch of christmas presents and had a good christmas lunch today with the grandparents and othe random japanese friends.

yeah for a huge box of christmas presents from mom

yeah for shopping with a friend after!

random things to say

i signed up for a marathon on april 15 in nagano japan

i am going to be in france in 2 weeks

only 8 more days of work until my 2 week vacation

its cold and rainy here

last sunday we had all day christmas parties. we did the limbo.

my 3 year old student came to school wearing marijuana leaf socks.

saturday night i thought i was involved in an earthquake train accident-even if ididnt feel the earthquake. turns out the word for earthquake is similair to the word they use for accident resulting in death or something.. really a train before us hit someone. and this caused mass chaos. well especially for me who thought for 2 days that i "just didnt feel" the earthquake.

i have a huge jar of peanut butter and i keep eating spoonfulls of it.

did i mention i am going to france in 2 weeks?




oh here is my tentative schedule for 2007

jan-in france till the 7th
feb- go to hokkaido (the northern island in japan)
march-
april-marathon
may-trip with kayla.. to thailand or some place nice
june-
july-
august-ohio
september-
october-
november-
december-india? australia? YAP?


awesome huh?

ok i need to go to bed so i can get up and run tomorrow. 16 weeks till the big marathon. whohooo.

motogen

as i was walking home from work tonight, i was thinking about what i would make for dinner. pasta or rice or cereal...something simple. i happened to come across my roommate walking home also and made a quick decision to go to the restaurant down the road...motogen. we love this place. weve gone many times before.. but we havent gone recently for who knows why,,, so we went. it was rainy. when we got in, the man was so surprised that we came becuase he thought noone would come due to the rain. there was another man there eating at the counter. so we sat down and ordered. we ordered chicken wings, deep fried garlic, salad, fried cheese, fried pumpkin, fried shrimp and eggplant on a stick and yum yum yum... but the guy brought us out some other food for free. it was soooo good. then when we were leaving, he gave us some souvenirs that the other man had brought him.. some little chocolate cakes.

tonight while walking home, we kept asking the same question...why did we ever stop going. i love that place.





another cute story... one of my favorite students came in today wearing a large purple womans coat...he is a 3rd grade boy. hes so cute. so we say wow, your coat is big and he responds in a loud annoyed voice "grandma!" then as we are in class, his cell phone rings.. he looks at us in the class and says "wait a minute please" leaves the room to take the call and then comes back. then he gets a text message about 10 minutes later. then at the end of the class he gets another call (all 3 times, it was his mother) and he answers, saying (in japanese) "MOM im in english class... what do you want!!" he said this in such a funny tone we all laughed really hard ... in his class there are 5 girls and he is the only boy. so he always gets us all laughing.

tomorrow is friday whooohooo.. however this sunday is our big student christmas party. say hello to jollyness from 8am till 5pm on sunday.. ho ho ho.

well im off to read and maybe study japanese.

goodnight.

fun fun fun

last weekend i went to kanazawa..a 3 hour busride from nagoya. my friend anna and i went to go visit another friend peter who had recently moved there. we got up at the crack of dawn sunday-took the bus- ran all around kanazawa and came back at the crack of dawn on monday. some awesome things we saw.. fun times we had. we went to a samarai house and then we went to a ninja temple. the ninja temple was so aweome. it had secret and trap doors and hidden staircases and secret passageways. it was basically my dream house. hahah. we got the tour. then we wnt to a nice park and you can see the pictures of the changing color leaves. it was beautiful. we also found some random candy at the convienence store sunday night. needle candy. so you can see the picture of us giving ourselves shots with this wonderful candy! hahah

then i have those pics of thanksgiving just so you can see what we ate.

then saturday night we had the big sleepover in kasugai... or just 3 of use who spent the night. wearing hello kitty party hats and eating junkfood till we felt sick. watched greys anatomy and 3 episodes of gilmore girls and talked and went to bed. so much fun with my fellowe breakfast club friends.

today i went to church and after we ate out then we went to a surprise bday party for a friend. it was fun, but i fell asleep during the movie.

now its off for another week at work. only 3 more weeks of work!!!!!!!!!!!! then winter break for 2 glorious weeks.