Awww....I love Sanjo Highschool sooo much!!! My first years (sophmores) are do dang rad!!! I hate that so many of them will loose all that pazaz and zest by the time they are seniors. Anyhoo Sanjo is awesome. No school will get you genk-ed up for the week like Sanjo. I totally love the classes, they participate, they are active and lively and their whole attitude make it so easy to teach. I can play and joke around with them and be goofy and they are goofy back! It's awesome. Plus they are amazing at English! Mainly because of their attitude and the fact that they try. They made up their own dialogs today with their classmates and they are soo funny. Some of them went kinda like this:

A."What's wrong?"
B."I miss my dog"
A."For how long?"
B."Since forever."
A."That's too bad, you should drink water."

(Now, don't think they don't know what they are saying they know very well because most of them are hams and love to make the rest of the class laugh!)

A."What's wrong?"
B."I'm homesick."
A."For how long?"
B."Since I was born"
A."That's too bad, you should go home."

I also love to go around the room as they work in groups and make up funny dialogs with them. It's the best. These are the kinds of kids that in language class would find out how to say. "The monkey is on fire", or "Bite the greasy rat". This is what makes learning other languages so humorous. I try it a little in Japanese and I always get the best reactions from the students. I wish my other schools where as genki as Sanjo. I love to be the goofy clown in class, but when no one else plays along you just feel like an idiot.

Plus at Sanjo I get the occasional student that yells out: "I love you." (To which of course I always reply by yelling back. "I love you too".)

Satisfied Frog - What a nice weekend

Ok, I'm all set and genki for the week! This past week didn't go so hot so I'm changing attitudes for the new week. I'm moving over to the "chill" track line. I think I'm thinking about things (lesson plans and such) way too much here. I'm just going to put together what I put together and try to make things fun. I'm getting way to stressed out about such small things and it's making me really doubt myself so....this week will be different. In fact, I'm feeling different already.

This weekend was soooo awesome!

I went to the Tokyo Temple. (Forgot my camera -____-) But had an amazing time non-the less and a blast in the 4 hour drive to get there. WOW the senery and Japanese country side is amazing this time of year. It's like nothing I've ever seen before! I wanted to cry because I forgot my camera but I'll get down there again sometime. Maybe in August. I chatted with my little Japanese and slow English to the sisters around me and had a wonderful time getting to know them.

This morning I woke up to find my bike had a huge FLAT tire so I ran to the train station and had alreayd missed it so I called church and let them know that they needed to find someone else to lead the music that morning. I got there waaaayyyy late but I got there. Then I went home with Sister Tanabe. She's my Japanese mom. She calls me a sister misionary I call her my companion (we a visiting teachers) Anyhoo she invited me over to have lunch with her and her daughter and her daughters friend who happens to be a JET. So we had a great time yakin' in up with the ladies. Sister Tanabe made really yummy pizza and the JET brought yummy little variety cakes! It was so fun. Then Sister Tanabe droped me off near the pachinko where I met up with Elder SaSa and Gorton to go to a discussion at a members house. Mari is investigating the church. She comes to E-kaiwa (the english classes given by the Elders) I've met her and have visited on serveral occations. We had a great 1st lesson. Then Sister S. drove me home, she even sang me primary songs which was so dang cute! Anyhooo I had an awesome weekend and I feel a lot better about this comming week. I'm not gonna stress, I'll do my part, be prepared and just let the rest roll and take it's course! Whoo hoooo, I'm all genk-ed up and ready for a new week. I'm also excited too because we finally get paid at the end of this month YAY!!! I'll need to get my tire checked out too, good timing I guess.

kickin' it with the colonel

I had to take pictures! As I rode to church on Sunday I noticed a KFC/PizzaHut so of course I had to come back to check it out and take picutes. Aimee Major mentions the colonels of Japan in her book "Japan Ai", and it's so true his hands really do look like hotdogs!

Seed

Illo.Friday: "Seed"

Yahiko Art Museums

Whoa today was pretty rad! So on my way home from hiking on Saturday I ran into one of the ALT's from my group and it turns out she's just a couple stops apart form where I live. I didn't even realise she( Brigett) was soooo close. So we decided to go to the Art Museums today in Yahiko. They were really rad the first one was ok but when I was there I found out that the next exhibit that's planned to come 7/16 is an Ainu exhibit. I'm SOOOO DANG EXCITED!!!!!!! So we'll have to go back. We where both pretty excited for that. The second one we got lost looking for it but finallly arrived. It was all this really cool Victorian, Art Nauvoo and Art Deco exibition! It was pretty rad. While I was there I got a few postcards with prints on them. I took them home and taped them up on my bare hospital walls. Then we went to the Yahiko shrine and found some yummy food and something for our staff members (as is costomary to do when you visit another city). It was fun and cool to actually have someone to hang out with. It was funny though because I thought I got a lot of stares when I meander around. We got a ton more stares when we are gabbering away in English together. It was kinda funny but it didn't make me feel as bad because I was distracted with someone else being there. We had a good time and even got a good laugh at the Yahiko deer. They are really short and fuzzy and we enjoyed watching people feed them potatos. They are kinda cute! I'm enjoying "golden week". I even got my laundry and ironing done. Then I swept the floor for dust bunnies and beat up my futon to fluff it. My sheets are still sitting out drying though. I don't think they will be ready till tomorrow since it's been raining.

Tomorrow will be the best day ever!!!

Rice, Yahiko Mountain, the view and the Park!

So I was telling you all in a previous post that the rice season is on. Well here are a few pictures. They flood the field then plant little riclet babies in them. The little riclet babies are grown in big white green houses. Once they are started and the field is flooded they are ready to go. It's kinda cool when it's all done because the field looks like it has a green fuz glow. I can't tell you how beautiful the countryside is.






I decided to venture forth close to home and into the mountains on the west coast.
It was an awesome hike going up Yahiko Mountain!!!





At the top the view is amazing you can see a good chunk of the prefecture. At least my end of the prefecture. Then you can take other little side hikes to get to different look outs. I figured I might as well since I was already up there. At one end you can see the ocean and Sado Island. (I really want to go to Sado Island in August for break at least for 2 days or so. It supposedly has really nice white beaches and clear blue water.)I ate lunch up here and blew bubbles. A little boy came over and enjoyed chasing them and pointing at them as the floated around. I got quite a bit of sun today too. ^___^








Then you can do a little hike up to the other side where you can see southward on the west coast. Here you can see the mountainrange that kinda meaners along. This part was my favorite. Also here at this view is a shrine. I went to three mountain shrines. This one where the view is, the Yu shrine and the Yahiko shrine.
I tried to piece this together a little so you could get a better scale of view.






Then the Park, and the Yahiko shrine:I watched kids play in the water. I even got my feet in there!







At the shrine there where bonzai displays of different sorts. It was so rad!






Today was pretty rad. Then on the way home I saw another gaijin. So I got closer for a better look. Turns out it is a girl from my training group. We exchanged numbers and I'll probably go back up to Yahiko on Monday since there's no school so we can do see the art museums. Plus I think something is going on because I saw several banners with 5/5 on them. The rest was in kanji so I don't know what, but perhaps it would be a bad idea to be in a place where something may be going on. Anyhoo it was cool to find someone from my group. Turns out she's pretty close and she knows her way around Niigata City very well. I haven't been up there yet but would like to. I want to see the ocean again!

Today was a lovely day!