Tooth aches, head aches, dragons, and earth quakes.

Well last week started off to snow and being lost downtown in a new city.  Let me catch you up on the rest of the week:

On Tuesday I went on another field trip, this time with the youngins; Sky and ocean classes.  This was their first big field trip 45 minutes away.  They’re finally old enough at four to all hold their bladders for that long and take a bus ride without being too rowdy. In Japan schools all have their children uniformly topped with the same color hats so you can easily identify which little ones belong where.  All the hats come with little flaps to protect their tiny necks from the sun.  And the parents of these kids all put patches and sew on some of the childrens interests into the hats so the kids are all capped the same but differently.  In our school a lot of the kids have their names in English on the hats.  The Sky and Ocean kids all where little blue hats.  Last Friday when I went with the Forest kids on their field trip they were all in Green hats. (Green-forest, star- yellow, sky and ocean-blue)  Any way Jimmy cho (that’s the schools maintenance guy/bus driver) drove Becky, Rachel, Yoko, Mariko, the kids and I into the mountains far aways away from B.B.K.  The bus ride there consisted of the teachers all leading the kids in songs and reading them books to keep them happily entertained so they wouldn’t get antsy and cause trouble.  Most of this was lead by Becky being EXTREMELY animated to the point where Mariko once asked if she wanted to calm down and have another teacher take over so she’d have energy for the park.  Becky replied with a “Nope, I’m good” And continued reading “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” complete with different voices for each animal she swallowed.  All in sing song.  She’s crazy haha but the kids don’t let their attention stray.

            When we get to the park way up in the mountains I’m excited along with the little ones to see what this park has in store.  The last park I went to on Friday was pretty crazy with like 5 different elaborate jungle gyms.  We park the bus and climb up the mountain, the kids in pairs holding hands with their buddies or teachers.  The playground was massive.  All built into the mountain having jungle gyms everywhere.  One all metal bars in the shape of a rocket.  4 different types of see saws.  A giant roller slide like the one I encountered and loved at the other park.  A HUGE bar tunnel creeping up the mountain 40 or 50 ft long.  Letting the kids creep through tunnels then guiding them on top of bars above the ground.  Then down below again.  And a metal hedge maze.  Another bar obstacle course looking thing but the bars are bigger for larger kids or even us teachers (our 4 year olds weren’t allowed to go on this because the gaps were too big and they could slip right through) And then on the top where we let the kids put their book bags and jackets there was a large wooden jungle gym with even more different kinds of bridges and gaps and logs for the kids to try to hop across.  Oh lets not forget the space ship up here and two zip lines.  Hahaha These Japanese are intense with their playgrounds.  Haha We let the kids all go off and do their things.  I started at the bottom on the 40-50 ft tunnel structure to go to the top.  I had three kids ahead of me all calculating their steps on the bars very carefully.  Aoba (Ah-oh-ba) turned into my little buddy.  Looking back at me a little scared I asked if she wanted help.  This is a quite little girl with large brown eyes and perfectly parted pig tails.  She looks back at me with her big eyes and nods her head.  So I grab her little hands and hop her along the course.  Letting go at times to encourage her to do it alone just to have her grab my leg for support.  Halfway through I ran into Rachel who’s kind of sliding her but down the whole thing with two little girls and a boy riding on her stomach.  Haha aoba and I go around her finally making it to the top.  I pick her up real high and then place her down asking if that was fun.  Silently she nods her head with a smile.  I start to walk off toward these big giant drum looking things where you can jump on them at different heights and hear different thuds.  I feel a tugging on my shirt.  Little Aoba wants more help.  Haha ok little buddy.  I jump her onto the first one and then let her go to do it herself.  And I’m jumping all around them making rib bit noises pretending to catch these two little boys as my flies.  Aoba isn’t asking for help but just following my exact path.  Well this day was good.  Nothing really happened that’s worth reciting.  We all played and had a good time in this forest/mountain playground where you could peer through the trees and see our cities plus another.  At one point on the log obstacle course I was trying to hop on these wobbly logs because Reina (ray-na) really wanted to see it done.  These things were hard.  They were literally one foot log blocks stringed through a rope.  Where you had to try to balance on one and then hop to another but the logs would wobble all over the place as soon as you placed one foot down.  I end up swinging my shin into one of the blocks really hard.  Fighting back the initial surge of tears in my eyes and a large curse word I want to belt, I instead smile at reina and tell her I cant do it.  Only to go off and ten minutes later see her still trying and succeed.  So she asks me to watch her and try it again.  I watch her and realize its all upper body strength.  You have to latch your hands around the rope holding your body up long enough to place both feet down on the block without swaying.  I do it successfully… though my shin still hurts.  This was a fun day.   Rachel told me in the morning her goal was to tire the kids out at the park so the bus ride back they’d all sleep.  Well we succeeded.  And I passed out too.

Wednesday:

Melony is home sick so Mayumi comes up to me and informs me that I’ll be going on a field trip with the forest kids.  Ok.  Two in a row, cool.  She hands me a paper that tells me my schedule that day.  9-10: Recess 10-11: Forest kids start the three mile walk to E.P. 11-12: We stop in a park to eat lunch. 12-12:30:  We finnish the walk to E.P. and all get icecream at the tea store that’s right next door to E.P. 12:30-1:  The forest kids and teachers all play with the 0-2 year old class at E.P. then Jimi Cho will drive us back to the kindergarten.  At the end of this note it says Elise please take pictures of the kids on their walk. I read this and tell her I didn’t bring my SLR like I did on Friday.  And Meyumi says I could use her Nikon D50.  I think its the Nikon two steps below mine.  Ok.  I guess they’re slowly going to turn me into the schools photographer. Haha I kinda wish I was getting a bonus for my artistic eye but whatevs.  I’m more annoyed with the fact that this field trip is basically wrangling up 23 six year olds and walking three miles on a road.   Umm the other two field trips were way more entertaining for all of us.  I’m not looking forward to this walk and I don’t think any of the little kids would really lose sleep with excitement over this trek either. 

I go outside with Becky and Rachel for recess.  A lot of the kids are playing freeze tag.  And they’re strict on not coming in mid game.  If you didn’t start out in the game then you’re not in it.  Haha its also funny because they don’t use real freeze tag rules.  They play where one kid runs around freezing people while other kids unfreeze them until they say they’re tired and another kid will jump up to be “IT”.  I remember how badly we would avoid being “it” when I was younger.  It was the worst thing in the world trying to tag someone three times before they were finally the one to be the alleged “IT”.  But I don’t try to tell them the real rules because this is one of their favorite games and they seem happy playing it wrong. Haha. Theres always a volunteer to pick up the “it” spot when the previous one is too tired too.  Funny kids.  I decide to play soccer with this giant kick ball instead.  They LOVE soccer here.  Each prefecture has its own soccer team and the kids all are really into them.  Theres a stadium in Showa where Yamanashi will have their home games and some of the kids will go with their parents to watch.  Anyway soccer was the only sport I ever felt good at and after my 3 year run I was a little better than mediocre.  That should tell you something about my athletic abilities.  (Well that’s kind of selling myself short.  I love to run and skateboard and rollerblade and bike… but as far as team sports go I’m pretty lousy.)  As soon as I start dribbling the ball through kids and to the net and kick it in and scream “goal”.  I get like four little ones interested in playing with me.  One of them stays in front of the net as goalie while the other two are chasing after me for the ball.  I feel like a soccer superstar.  Kicking the ball in and out of frozen kids.  Letting the ball stay stationary long enough for one of my opponents to think they can kick the ball away and then I roll it out of their reach again and back into my possession.  I’ve never felt like such an atheletic champ.  I continue my little superstar game for a minute or two before I decide to switch into the  “Oh-no-you got-it-im-going-to-run-after-you-in-slow-motion” gig.  Chasing the two little ones like a big clumsy oaf who woud pretend to be about to kick it from them just to fall back again. “Ah you’re too fast”.  Recess is about to end and I leave my soccer friends behind to get ready for this stupid walk haha.

All the forest kids are already waiting by the door when I run in to grab my Bambi jacket and bookbag with my lunch in it.  We start the walk.  I have the D50 and start walking alongside the kids running ahead to snatch some pictures whenever we’re in front of something cool.  Ahhh I don’t think I’ve mentioned Sohta yet.  Haha I think this little boy has a giant crush on me.  Its pretty cute.  My second day at BBK when really only one or two kids acknowledged my existence and showed interest in me he came right up to me after lunch and stood in front of me smiling.  I looked down at him and asked him something in English when he kind of swayed and just continued to look at me smiling really big. Haha I picked him up and tickled him and put him down.  This is the kid who said I was a forest.  He’s also the first kid who remembered my name and uses it all the time.  Anyway I’m running alongside the kids when him and these two other little boys keep calling me over to them to try to get me to hold their hands on the walk.  HAHA Its really funny how they’re fighting over it.  I tell them I’ll switch and hold all their hands.  Feeling kind of funny that none of the little girls want or care about where I am.  So I’m walking with them singing “The ants go marching one by one harrah harrah”  A song that none of them have heard before but all really like watching me perform it.  This starts to get the little girls interested in me.  I finally break free from the little boys grasp and tell them I need to have both hands to take pictures.  This stops their constant asking for their turn.  By the time we get to the park for lunch I’m really tired from all the running around I’v been doing for pictures and the little sing song skits I’m performing.  UGhhh I cant wait for my stamina to build up so I can do all this without feeling like I need to crash for a nap mid day.  We eat lunch in the park I’m sitting next to two little girls.  The little hello kitty sandwhich girl has another one and she shows all her friends excitedly again.  Hehe I thought this was a one time deal last time the way she reacts but no…  its like groundhog day with each day still being just as surprised as the last.  I eat my lunch which I got at the convenient store (Melonys advice… they have good little lunches)  IT consists of rice and like three different meats that I’m still not 100% sure what they were, shrimp tempura, a little taste of asain flan (which is sooo good…  I didn’t even know asains made flan until this past thanksgiving when I hosted a work potluck at my house in Tallahassee and our company asain hehe butch brought in some that his mom made.  He left all the leftovers for me and I was so stoked about it because its SOOO good.) And a weird seaweed looking salad.  Seaweed looking but its not seaweed.  I’m really lucky I’m not a picky eater and will happily try anything in front of me because I’d be pretty miserable here if I were.  All the meats were really good.  One I’m 95% sure was a fish sausage which sounds gross but was quite tasty.  The only thing that threw me for a loop in this lunch was a sour plum they put in the center of my bed of rice.  I wasn’t expecting sucha  sour bitter taste.  I’m not the biggest fan and I LOVE sour/bitter.  Can eat a lemon happily and chug some ruby read grapefruit juice.  This little sour plum though gave me a contorted face I couldn’t control.  Kind of like the faces I make after doing a shot of liquor.  Mmm Attractive.

            After lunch the boys are running around crazy.  The little girls all kind of taking their time, talking.  I watch the boys exhausted.  Fighting with my eyes to stay open.  I look at Meyumi, Sensei B (shes melony’s co-teacher and the one teacher who hasn’t really tried to talk to me.  We talk little bits but not long enough for me to remember her name… I’m also meeting a lot of kids… well I’m making excuses really I should know her name by now. Ill get on it) and Jimicho.  The two women are eating their lunch talking with the kids while Jimi cho is running around with the boys.  He’s stolen this one kid Tristen’s hat and is wearing it running away from a little Tristan who is dying of laughter demanding his hat back.  Ummm they look like they can handle it on their own.  I think I might just rest my head on my bookbag for a sec…. out like a light.

            I wake up to giggling girls poking me “Elise Sensei WAKE UP”  haha I get up with a start almost forgetting where I was.  I laugh off my sleepy eyes so the girls don’t see zombie-wake-up-elise.

Woah… its Sunday night here.  9:30 pm and I hear someone outside talking in Japanese on a giant megaphone.  : (  I’m scared.  I can’t understand what they’re warning.  And everythings been kind of weird here since the tsunamis and earthquakes.  Ughhh fuck I wish I could understand what they’re saying.  I’m going to miss the warning. : (  I’m calling Melony now.  Ok it was just reexplaining something I already knew.  Because of the power plant disaster the cities that need power most right now are out of power.  So tomorrow and probably all week they’ll be taking power from various Japanese cities at different times each day.  Melony whos in Minami said they’ll be without power tomorrow from 10am-1pm and then 7pm-1am.  I don’t know what Showa’s is because I couldn’t understand the message.  Hopefully not when I usually skype.  Skype has really been saving me from feeling THAT homesick so…

Anyway.  We start walking again.  I go to the back this time.  I gave Mayumi the camera.  Its heavy with my bookbag and everything.  She can handle the rest of the pictures.  I’m walking with this little boy and girl who both want to hold my hand.  They tug at my jacket and ask why I’m wearing it. “Aren’t you warm Elise Sensei?”  HAHHA No you 40 pound freaks.  Sure the sun is warm but theres these icy winds that chill me to the bone.  You can literally feel the struggle between the sun and wind.  One trying to warm while the other swoops in with cool.  I’m shocked all these little ones are basking in these cold cold breezes.  The little girl Noa (yeah like the ark builder) whos to the left of me is biting the breeze smacking her teeth down into it saying “Yummy yummy”  I join in “Nom nom nom nom nom.  This is the best.  Just like the icecream we’re about to have huh Noa?”  “Haha yeah!  Mmm vanilla!”  She’s doing this for a long time.  Cracking herself up.  But this last 30 min bit she keeps turning to me saying “I’m so tired.”  “I know little one… hahah me too.”  Still not understanding the motivations for this “field trip”  Traffic safetly?   I pick her up over the staired bridge we use to cross the street.  Supermanning her up and down the stairs because she’s clearly struggling.  In my arms still biting the brisk winds.

We make it to the tea shop and all the little kids pick out icecream.  They get to choose from four different soft serves.  Vanilla, green tea, green tea vanilla swirl, or shoot. I cant remember the last one but it’s a flavor that just started getting popular back in the states.

We all eat our icecream at E.P.s play area.  There’s cornflakes at the bottom which is a nice surprise.  Then we play with infant class.  THIS was adorable.  Watching all the six year olds coddle the babies.  Play with trucks with them.  This one little six year old boy was hugging a little toddler so tight.  You can tell the toddlers LOVED this.  The toddlers all got a kick out of me being the only foreigner in the room.  Some of them running up to me and then when I turn their way they would run off screaming.  I was playing trains with two toddlers that ran after me when I had to go. <3

I get back to the kindergarten about to get ready for my last three hours at E.P. when Encho comes up to me and tells me to skip E.P. training today.  She said she heard I was really tired at lunch and I should just go get some rest and come back really genkei (gein-key) tomorrow.  This word is a Japanese word I really love.  It means happy and energetic.  She’s not saying any of this in a mad or pissed off way.  All teachers starting out are like exhausted the first month-month and a half because these little kids are all nonstop.  I get super excited.  I needed to go to the supermarket anyway.  I’m planning out the rest of my day super happily on the bus ride back over to E.P.

I go to the supermarket.  This isn’t the one I’ve been writing about, the one I met Andy and his family at.  This is a different one that Diana and Carolina took me too before our arcade adventure.  They always go to this one because the prices are lower here.  It still has a lot more than just food but its not as massive as the one I went to.  When I came to Trial (the new supermarket) with Diana and Carolina, Diana was kind of giving me a tutorial on whats good, what to get, what a lot of these foreign foods are.  Diana can read and speak in Japanese, English, and Spanish.  So awesome.  On that trip I basically grabbed a lot of what she was telling me about.  And I’ve been turning into quite a little asain cook.  I love it.  I’m more adventurous with cooking here than I ever was back home.  I’m making miso soup and fish and beef dishes nightly.  Mixing sauces. Most of the dishes pretty simple but they’ll get more and more advanced as I get better.  I’ve been eating so much edamame too.  Mmmm its just so perfect that vegetable.  Other than that first bad soup and eggs… I haven’t had any other bad food experiences.  Ohhh that sour plum!  Ughhh. Unpleasant surprise that was.  I get an area rug so I can practice hooping again.  I was progressing so fast back in the U.S and its kind of been on halt here.  I look at the bikes a little bit.  I’m going to need to buy my own bike soon since I’m borrowing Enchos right now.  The bikes here are awesome.  They come with built in baskets, lights, and locks.  You don’t need to buy all these separate things, its just one big package.  There are some really cool looking ones but I don’t really know what I’m looking for.  I don’t know how to gage bike quality or anything.

I go home that night and relax (Enchos wishes)  I take a bubble bath, hoop for the first time in a while.  Watch t and pass out.  Ahh the simple joys in life.  I’m going to stop here and post this at work tomorrow.  My internet isn’t working again just skype for some weird reason .  And I’m really sick. : (  I’ll write about my adventures Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday tomorrow.

Thursday:

I eat my breakfast and halfway through it feels like my tooth is cracked or something it really hurt.  I had to eat the rest of my breakfast on the other side of my mouth because it was so tender. : (  I end up going to school and forgetting about it.

The kindergarten is surrounded by a grape vineyard.  Which is pretty awesome looking, I’ve never seen one before.  I was picturing thin fleshy vines like the ones I see grow on fences and houses.  But no these are full on TRUNKY vines.  They have a horizontal lead for them to grow on.  So its like a massive tree growing sideways.  I love it.  Its still winter so theres no leaves or grapes to distract you from the really pretty river-like paths these thick thick wooden vines make.  I need to bring my SLR to take pictures of them. But April 1^st I’ll be living right amongst them so theres no rush.  Well Thursday all the kids go outside for recess when the owner of the grape vineyard is burning a lot of brush.  The smokes flying right onto the hill where Haru is standing taking no notice.  This little boy is so funny.  He’s 4 in the Sky class and he’s so quiet and dreamy looking.  When you talk to him and he’s looking at you it kind of looks like he might be looking through you.  Haru-kun (In japan they add kun ((coon)) onto the ends of boys names and chan on the end of girls names as a kind of pet name.  Meaning little loved one.  I love doing this.  You need to make it two syllables though so for example there’s a little girl named kizuna ((ki-zoo-nah))  and for her name you would drop the na and just say kizuchan.  Kind of chiming it as you say it.  This comforts the kids when we’re asking them not to do something or if we just want to call them over or whatever.)  Anyway “Harukun what are you doing standing in that smoke? Come on little one move out of the way.”   Rachel, Becky and I are looking around at the smoke and playing kids and decide it has to be an indoor recess day.

I go into the star classroom where Ryhu and Raimu and two other kids have brought out babies and a little kitchen are and blocked out a house with chairs.  I grab one of the naked babies in the bin and look for clothes.  I find a shirt and socks.  No pants.  I start rocking the baby and say “I’ll be mom” when Ryhu says “Noo I’m the mom!”  “Ok… I guess I’ll be dad”  “No I’m dad!” Raimu chimes in.  “You can be grandmother!”  “Ohhh ok.”  So I rock the baby and talk in my best old womans voice.  Eating my daughter and son in laws “fruit punch”  which just looks like a bunch of the fake fruit we have at the kindergarten put into a soup bowl.   I get bored of this really fast.  Haha Not going to lie the first week was way easier to get excited about all this stuff because I forgot all these little kid games.  Now I remember why we all grow out of these games… because really they’re only a blast everyday if you are 3-6.  But its not like I hate it now or anything.  I just have to work at liking it a little more than these little kids.

I end up going over to the legos with Emma and Mami.  Emma’s gathering all the lego animals and is making a kind of zoo with them.  Mami… I’m not sure what she’s making an aircraft?  I ask her and she looks at me slyly and doesn’t say.  I decide to make a house.  I don’t know what age you start to color coordinate well but when these kids build legos color really isn’t a concern.  They look like abstract art pieces almost.  Just throw up of whatever color is nearest them.  I build my house with perfect stripes and a door and windows.  I look over at mami’s craft thing again.  “what are you making mami?”  She laughs.  Then Nalette says “probably a gun… this girl is always making guns.”  “Is it a gun?”  “Yeah hehehehe”  This makes me laugh.  Mami reminds me of myself at her age.  I was always making aircrafts and cars and trucks with Mikey.  I really had no want for any type of girl toys.  This one birthday party a girl gave me a barbi and I went right up to her and told her I really don’t like barbis.  I’m pretty sure my mom made me apologize.  Boy toys were way more interesting then brushing hair and accessorizing.  Mario I remember always had the best action figures.  All the ninja turtles.  All the characters from aladin and Lion King and Little Mermaid.  Nintindo characters.  And mikey had matchbox cars with tracks and everything.  You could make loopdi-loops with the tracks and watch the cars do little flips.  Anyways I finnish my house and start gathering the lego people to bring to life with mami having them go in and out of the house and such.  I try bringing some Animals in but zoo keeper emma just doesn’t agree to this.  Mami’s gun turns into a dragon and the rest of playtime I have to try to shelter all the people and zoo animals from the dragons wrath.

This playtime I see one of the Ocean kids has a runny nose.  Whenever the other teachers see this they just tell them to go grab a tissue.  I decide to try like I’v been witnessing the last two weeks.  “Kyoske, go wipe your nose please!”  “No.”  Well that was a fail.  I go up to Rachel and ask what to do next since I’ve never seen the kids straight up refuse.  She then explains that this kids a BIG baby and hates wiping his nose. “Kioske did Elise Sensei just ask you to wipe your nose and you didn’t?  Here’s a tissue please wipe your nose”  Blatent ignoring. “Ok” she wipes it for him.  And then he starts crying.  Just sitting on the floor completely defeated as if someone just smacked him or something.  Rachel and I both just leave him… I don’t want to encourage this behavior and neither does she.  Yoko comes up with tissues and is wiping his tears off his face and now the floor since he’s creating a little river.  Shes talking to him in Japanese.  Rachel tells me later that she basically was like “you know that didn’t hurt… you’re being a baby.”  Hash but true.  In april I’m going to be dealing with three year olds a lot of whom have never been socialized before or used to leaving their moms.  Rachel warns me theres going to be A LOT of crying.

At lunch my toothache gets worse.  By the end of lunch it feels like whenever I even drink water I can feel it seep into my tooth. : /  makes me wince just thinking about it.  I go to Encho and tell her because that’s what all the girls say I need to do.  Melony is still out sick.  She tells me that I don’t have insurance until my visa is in effect (which is like a week or two)  and I can go to the dentist but it will be kind of expensive.  I tell her I want to wait another day and see if it gets better or worse.  (Glad I did because it ends up going away completely.  Phew dodged that bullet.)

At E.P.  Tuerre lets me try to do a bit of the lesson on my own.  I wasn’t AWFUL but I was very timid and not used to having a little class watching me.  Well kind of, they watch and fidget and look around a lot.  Tuerre and Becky and Rachel all make it look REALLY easy an I was surprised at how… well not easy it was.  Tuerre tells me I didn’t do bad and I just need another try or so and I’ll have it fine.  She says not to get discouraged.  Sometimes it doesn’t seem like they’re paying attention or even retaining any English but they are.  She says when she started she thought the kids weren’t learning anything, but the parents would all come in and be excited that they were singing songs in English or just pointing out things and saying what they were in English.

Friday:

Each month the school has a “Birthday celebration” for all kids born that day.  So Friday we had marches.  It was really cute.  I sat in on Becky’s class because the Sky kids had two birthdays in it.  Before all the classes get together and celebrate, individual classes do their own thing.  The two birthday kids stand infront of their classmates.There was a little girl and a little boy in it. Becky puts the crown on this little girl Yuka and says “oh princess yuka so beautiful”  This little girl is dressed so cute in a black and white fluffy dress.  Its her special day.  Then Becky puts the crown on the little boy. “Oh and a prince!” I say  And then Becky smiles and says “No it’s a girl, TWO PRINCESSES”  eek I look around but none of the kids seemed to notice or care about my mistake.  They’re still too young and don’t know English well enough to get the prince princess thing maybe?  None of them wanted to tease Shiori or anything and Shiori didn’t look the slightest offended.  Becky told me later that everyone does that with her.  She said “The parents have talked to us concerned saying that everyone mistakes her for a boy all the time.”  And I’m like “Well maybe if they didn’t dress her like a little boy?”  “Haha exactly. And cut her hair like one! But we can’t really say that to them… so we always just go, Ohh I don’t know….”  Haha They’re monks so they think maybe that has something to do with it.

Well the birthday kids get to hear messages from their parents.  And its pretty sentimental to the kids.  Rachel says a lot of them get really choked up hearing how proud their parents are of them. <3

Skipping through the celebration… recess that Friday was pretty obnoxious.  I was getting rejected by a lot of the older kids… none of them wanted anything to do with me.  I really wanted to just be like “Fine play by yourselves I’ll just watch..”  But that’s not really what I’m getting paid for. Hehe.  At one point I find a puppet and I go under a table to put on a puppet show hoping that will attract some kids when a little boy tries to take it out of my hand.  “I’m using it right now I’ll give it to you when I’m done ok?” Nope not listening to anything I’m saying. Grab grab grab. “No that’s not how we share?  I’ll give it to you in a minute.” Grab grab grab.  Then Sohta comes out of nowhere and pushes the boy and says “She’s using it right now. You can use it after.”  Haha I want to praise Sohta for rescuing me but I know I can’t because he pushed him.  I actually just pretend I didn’t see the push and continue my puppet show half heartedly.  Eh I don’t really want it anymore anyway.  I go find the kid that ran off and give it to him.

After recess I’m sitting in Rachels class and we have a halfhour extra to play with the kids.  I teach a lot of them how to make paper airplanes and we decorate them and sore them around the room.  I play superman with suzenne and Reina.  Then they just sit on my stomach and I just slide around the room on my back. Making broom broom noises.  They’rs bouncing on my stomach giggling.  Then suzenne starts grabbing my boobs.  Melony warned me about this.  She said there are different ways to deal with this… I can do what Melony does and just ignore it, if the kids see it doesn’t get a rise out of me they’ll get bored and stop.  Or I can do what Rachel does and just explain to them it makes her sad and uncomfortable.  Or I can do what becky does and just do it back and say “Do you like it?” In which they ALWAYS respond “NOoo” and stop immediately.  So shes grabbing away and thinks its really funny.  I think its really weird and try Melonys tactic… but when she sees I’m not telling her to stop she gets more forceful.  Haha So I try my own tactic.  “ok Suzenne you have to get off the plane I don’t like that.”  “no no no I’ll stop!  I’ll stop.”  Hehe problem solved.

OK so this was the earthquake day.  I took my nap up in the loft like usual.  And I wake up to the floor shaking.  It feels like someone beneath me is just pushing the walls.    It gets more intense.  I realize its not someone pushing the walls “Hey you guys feel that?”  I shout down to Becky and Rachel who are taking their breaks beneath in the teacher area. “Yeah Elise!  Make sure you aren’t under anything.”  And then they both bolt out of the room.  I sit there not knowing what to do.  Well I know I’m not under anything and I can’t walk down the narrow stairs so I just have to wait it out.  It continues for a couple minutes and then stops.  But it was kind of intense I think we felt a level 4?  Looking out the window I could see BBKs bus teetering like mad.  It didn’t take long at all before we were gathered around a computer watching the tsunami sweep that city away.  It was really sad.  Becky tried making jokes to lighten the mood.  Nobody wanted to hear them.  Nobody acknowledged them. “Too soon eh?  I just really don’t like thinking about it.” “Yeah too soon Becky….” I reply.  I know she doesn’t mean it but its pretty disrespectful.  Ugh I’m watching thinking how insanely lucky we are.  How I’m fighting back tears thinking what a nightmare this has just made so many peoples lives.  How its just destroyed so many peoples lives.  Rachels crying because she just found out her boyfriend is ok.  She thought he was close to it.  Yoko leaves immediately because her grandma doesn’t have a phone and lives north of Tokyo.  She ended up being ok.  After that half hour around the computer though everyone went on the rest of the afternoon like normal.  Every once and a while someone would bring it up “wow I can’t believe that just happened”  And it would be somber for a second.  Or we would feel one of the two aftershocks and get a little scared.

Soo after work I ride my bike to this thrift store because I want to get some play clothes for work.  OH MY GOSh.  BEST EXPERIENCE EVER.  I posted pictures on Facebook.  But all of the clothes fit me perfectly and were super stylish ad cheap.  I couldn’t have been more excited to flick through the thousands of clothing items they had.  Thrifting in America is not like this at all.  I’d have to sift through a bunch of crap most of it would never fit me or even come back into style.  All of this stuff was awesome.  It was either chic vintage or fashions of today.  Cute little Asians thank you.  I only went on the first floor because I was so hungry and I was already there for 2 and half hours but it was amazing and had anything you could think of.  I can’t wait to go back.

Saturday I decided to stay in and rest.  And I was going to leave Sunday to go explore.  Wrong.  I wake up Sunday with really bad body aches and a high fever.  I write a lot of this blog but I can’t do anything.  I was sooo bummed a weekend wasted on rest. : (  No exploring.  This past week I’ve been so sick with the flu. They took me to the dr. on Wed.  When they tested me and confirmed that I had Influenza.  Admittedly I didn’t know this was just a fancy name for the flu.  I didn’t find this out till later when a friend on skype pointed it out to me.  Hehe I felt kind of silly. Its kind of been a blur of sleeping and fevers and waking up in sweats.  Cleaning the sheets and baths.  Thinking I’m better and then relapsing.  Hearing a lot of Japanese loud speaker announcements of expected blackouts (I ended up pretty lucky being one of the very few little square blocks who don’t get any blackouts?  I have candles and flashlights though.  I need to figure out what to do with them.)  But yeah these speaker things along with my sisters trying to talk me into coming home to deciding I am coming home to finding out I am safe and don’t need to come home.  Well this week hasn’t been the best.  I felt an even more intense earthquake on Wed night.  It felt like I was on a boat.  I could feel waves in the floor.  It really freaked me out.

Then I finally was fully healed and ready to party on Saturday.  Encho and Jimi Cho (Jimi cho is Enchos husband)  Threw a welcome party for Nalette and I and a goodbye part for Rachel.  It was awesome.  Really amazing Japanese tappas.  And Never ending drinks that Rachel and kept giving me.  Rachel ordered me two at one point and was like “well its not like you cant have two at a time”  And Mariko said  at another point in the night “Alcohol is used to disinfect and heal, so drink up girl you need this alcohol the most!”  This was an awesome night.  We all were so drunk and laughing constantly.  Japanese and English intertwined.  We went to Karaoke afterwards. I woke up this morning not with a fever… but a HUGE hangover.  A happy trade.

Alright Im caught up.  I’m going to go read and go to sleep. Haha sorry I kind of rushed the last bits but I need to get better at deciding what I can leave out.  I get too detail happy : )