It's been a really good day. I haven't been training at E.P. this week so Mariko has been taking me home. Today when she came into where I was making crafts to tell me it's time to go she giggled and said "Why do you look so happy?" I didn't even realize I was smiling until she said it... "It's just been a really good day." "hehe I'm glad Elise! Time to go." I have my days. But these last two have been great. I always try to soak them in especially since Tuesday and my last Friday at work were pretty "eh". I was wondering if I'm up to acting so peppy ALL the time at work when kids can be rude and annoying sometimes. It's tough honestly.... and I'm a pretty peppy person. But after leaving today I can happily say I've won over most there little hearts. When I was saying goodbye to Kizuna today: "BYE Kizu-chan! See you tomorrow! ::Big hug and kiss::" "Noo Elisei (Eli-say... she can't quite pronounce my name) Come home with me!!" "Ohhh I'd love to, but I have to stay and work! I'll see you tomorrow though?" "Ohhhh kayyy." It's awesome. I love them so much. But there are a couple that hate me for some reason. Maybe its because when they're telling me to go away or I'm yucky haha I just leave. I want to say "shut up you brat" But I think that leaving the room or just ignoring them completely is a better idea. You know... so I have a job the next day. I guess I should be trying harder with these kids but its harder than you think to keep trying when they're shouting at you "NO THANK YOU." or "EWWWW YOU'RE GROSSS GO AWAY" I just stand there like "huh.. you are extremely unpleasant to be around so I'm going to choose to not be near you." Buttttt back to the good days right?
Yesterday at play time there was a little boy Eiia (EEE-AYY) who's name tag didn't say Eiia it said ninja. I saw this and started laughing. "Ninja?! I had no idea we had a ninja!" Nalette starts laughing too"Yeah, his mom says that some days he shouts that he doesn't want to go to school, so to get him to come she says 'you can go as a ninja' and he decides to go." HEllll yeah I'd go to work everyday super excited if I was a ninja. So I decided to be a ninja with him. Mirei gave me a scarf and I tied it around my nose and mouth ninja style and crept around the kindergarten doing ninja kicks and tucks. Mirei, who's DEFINITELY one of my biggest fans there was following me and explaining to all the other kids that I was a ninja... in case explanation was necessary. I thought not. With my moves anyone could tell, yup she's most definitely a ninja. I decided yesterday to break out the little kids hula hoops. The play room was pretty empty except for some of the little kids and becky playing Restaurant. So I bring out like 3 little hoops and this one weird hoop thats slightly bigger than the others but still really small with these like hand grips all over it? Well the little kid hoops are impossible for me to keep up. I can like do basic hand tricks with them but thats it. The weird hand grip one I can keep up on my waist and vortex and jump through. But its too small and light to move down my legs or do around my chest. So I start hooping and vortexing and all of a sudden I have all the teachers and little kids in the playrom staring at me. haha I feel pretty stupid actually because its a little hoop and I can't do too much with it, but considering I'm the only one there that can even keep a hoop up on their waist everyone's pretty impressed. I do a little 5 minute show and all the little kids want to hoop so I go back into the closet and bring them all out. Theres like 10 kids trying to keep it up on their waists. They're trying sooooo hard. haha I keep just encouraging them "Good job Sora! You almost did it!" So all in all we did this for like 10 min and I feel stupid for even bringing them out though Becky was like "We should have just left all the restaurant stuff put away and you could have just hooped with them to make them happy!" I decide to wait till I know some more tricks and then I'll bring my hoop in and really blow them away : ) But I was wrong. Today halfway through playtime/recess Mami came running up to me "Elise sensei!! Hoop again please!!" hehe I should have just brought my hoops in today... but I'm going to tomorrow. I tried again with that awkward one. I can vortex really good with it now considering how strange it's shape is. But I can't wait to bring my light up one for them to see. They're going to love it.... I can do way more with my hoop than the school's. But yeah I had a group of like 10 kids trying their hardest to keep it up. Two are really close, Mami and Sora (pronounced like Soda) So I'm hoping that when I bring in this little taped one I made while I was here that they'll be able to keep it up, because its a little heavier and sometimes just a little weight will make all the difference.
Today and Yesterday were my first tries at teaching at the kindergarten too. Up till yesterday I'd just been watching Rachael and Becky. I was super nervous because I was pretty awkward teaching at E.P. But I was surprised how good I did. I picked it up really fast! I was super energetic and animated and I had all of their attention the whole time! (Again it sounds easier than it is.. These kids have attention spans like flies, so you have to pretend EVERY LITTLE THING you do is the coolest most interesting thing in the world. LOOK AT ME I'M PICKING UP THIS PEN AHHHH SO COOOOOL!") hehe but yeah Yoko and Rachael both told me I did an awesome job for my first time. Eeeek I was nervous for nothing. ; )
Monday we had off because it was a Holiday. A japanese Holiday celebrating the coming of Spring. Its also a day where the Japanese go to temples and mourn/pray for the dead. (Kind of like the Mexican day of the dead?) Yoko invited me to dinner at her families house. I was really excited to accept her invitation, not knowing what to expect. A japanese feast? Is it going to be her entire extended family? How big is this holiday in their culture? I had no idea but wanted to find out. Well Yoko picked me up and Nalette was in the car. Awesome! It's nice to have another foreigner because there is a huge language gap. Yoko knows a lot of English after living in New Zealand but still has to ask me to rephrase a lot because she doesn't understand. Well the meal wasn't a huge feast or anything. It was just her immediate family (Mom, dad, and sister... who's my age. Yoko is 26 and so is Nalette) and we had this meal called Okonamiyaki. SOOO good. I'm going to describe it... and probably not do the description justice but here it goes. Its a cabbage, pork, egg, pancake dish? hahah Its topped with this sauce that I'm not sure exactly what it is and Japanese mayo (which is a million times better than american mayo if you've had spicy mayo at a Japanese restaurant you know what I'm talking about.) They made four different versions of it. All with the initial ingredients I just listed but then some additional ones. One had some noodles added to it, another had kimchee, and one had squid. I think the fourth had noodles again. I'm going to try to make this soon because they told me how. I'll let you know how it goes. But Yoko's family is really really nice. They have an adorable dog too. It was a dachshund but it had the hair of a golden retriever. And its face looked like a little narrow golden retrievers. So sweet. hehe her name was Hime (he-may) which is a japanese princess. Her dad knew the most english after Yoko because he lived in Nebraska for 6 years. So he knew a good amount. Yoko's sister was stunning, really really stunning. They call her a city girl since she lives in Tokyo and is really fashionable. Nalette says that I need to go to Tokyo soon (I know... really) because i'm going to be shocked with their fashion. "I felt underdressed when I went... these women know how to dress." Yoko's sister started dancing at one point when music came on t.v. and was awesome! haha she really broke it down, this one move where she touched the floor and did this hip sway thing was like a dance I'd never seen before! haha really really funny/great stuff. Nalette said "I'm going to have to tell Becky I saw a Japanese girl with moves, because she's convinced the Japanese have no rhythm." Her mom was really quiet but an awesome host. She made the dinner and served us such good coffee and dessert after. Nice night really.
This post is going to be jumping all over the place. But I was getting bored of typing out every single day and then that routine. So I'm just going to write about what was most memorable.
Tuesday Melony took me downtown to get my foreigners card. It was a nice break in the day. We were talking about how I like japan so far. Maybe its because its all so new, but I LOVE a lot of their culture over ours. I kind of feel like a traitor to America haha but I would love it if we adopted some of their ways. ((Really all of this stuff is MY opinion I apologize in advance if you find it offensive... but I'm really open minded and my thoughts do change... so I'm going to write freely about this stuff now. I'm not going to pretend that in a couple months my opinions might be different, I've only lived here for about a month.)) But
I was telling her how I really enjoy how communal this country feels. It's seriously on the other spectrum of America. In America it feels like everyone is very self centered. ESPECIALLY coming from a college town.... WOW what a difference it is going from college kids who are all into their own looks, their own plans for the weekend, their own jobs, me me me me me. To a country that's focused on the bigger picture. Their role in society as apposed to their singular life. Their job isn't just a job in order to gain money to gain objects for themselves, their job is an important function for their country. I really enjoy this probably because it's so new, I might get sick of it... but I might not who knows. Really what would be best is a happy medium. I wonder if that's how Europe is. I want to live there and find out. But for now I think this lifestyle is really nice for me. It's helping me think about the bigger picture. I came out here to get my head focused. To find out what is most important to me and to find out if this dream I'm about to work my ass off for is a dream that I really want. I really hadn't anticipated making myself less self centered along the way.... but I'm definitely going to embrace it. It's funny because I think the religions of these country's reflect what the country stands for too. Catholicism and Christianity have the idea that if YOU believe YOU yourself is saved. It brings it back to the individual. Where as Buddhism is about living in harmony with everyone around you. I'm not going to talk about religion anymore... Especially since I've only taken religion classes on western religion and don't know enough about Buddhism to hold any kind of argument or anything. While I'm out here I would like to learn more about it though. I find religion extremely interesting. But I like to learn about it as an observer almost.... not as a participant, because i don't know which one is right. I've kind of formed my own beliefs through studying some religion classes in college. I like Taoism the most but label myself as agnostic.
In the car ride with Melony she acted surprised I jumped to these opinions in sucha short stay. (I really couldnt tell if it was a "wow thats awesome" surprised or a "hey kid- slow your roll" surprised) But she put her own input "Aaron's Mom (aaron's her husband) never understood why in all place's we chose Japan. She's never even come out to visit, so of course she wouldn't understand. Japan's beautiful and we found a company that's given us security we wouldn't have in America. Japan's such a nice place to raise your kids too, in a lot of ways it's such an innocent country. The crime just isn't there. I just read about kids in America that are soaking tampons in Vodka and then inserting them in to get drunk and pass breathelizer tests. Even the boys are putting them in their butts!" (This really disgusted me.) "haha yeah thats absurd. But don't think that's youth these days in America... that's not common teenagers doing that. Really I've never heard of anyone getting drunk that way" She must have such a skewed veiw of America now-a-days from reading little tid bits about it here and there. Just like I had a skewed view of Japan before I came out here and saw it for myself. "But kids in america are seeming to grow up faster than they should. You're right. Have you heard about Bratz dolls?" hahah I told her about bratz because I remember how disgusting I found them. I still don't understand why parents got those things for their kids. "But don't get me wrong, Japan's not perfect. I was walking in a bookstore the other day and there was a big animated school girl moving her underwear to the side showing everything boobs hanging out and water squirting everywhere. And Japanese business men.... I've only heard stories but it's custom for Japanese business men to go to these places with co-workers or host them to future clients and practically cheat on their wives." "Like strip clubs?" "Yeah but worse, I don't want to go into detail but tricks with beer bottles....And all of it is really expensive" This conversation led to only curiosity. It definitely made me feel bad for Japanese women... to just be expected to let their husbands go out and "practically cheat" I don't know what that is. Somewhere in between a strip club and actually cheating I guess. Soooooo yeah all countries have there flaws. hahah
So since I haven't had to go to E.P. and train my afternoons have been spent making crafts for my new students. I'm so excited, my classroom is going to look awesome! I hope I have the sky class because I'd much rather make hot air balloons and kites and swirly clouds than boats and crabs... though a big octopus might be cool, or a mermaid. But right now I'm making these feather name tags. They're turning out soo pretty. hehe I love just being able to sit back and listen to my Ipod (ughh Today I've been listening to emancipator and I just think how happy I'd be to get married to him and have him play beautiful melodies and put me to sleep everynight. I've seen him play twice now and he's soooooooo CUTE and dreamy. hehe I have a big monster crush on him.) and craft. AND get paid for it all. I'm able to design and hoop and play all day. What have I lucked into?
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