Active Week, Part 2

It was Ann's birthday on Saturday. Happy Birthday, Ann! Ann, Jeff and I went to the Korona onsen and sauna for the first time. OMG...it was the best experience EVER!! Angie and V had raved about it for awhile, but I hadn't made time to go for a visit till Sat. The onsen itself is pretty amazing. There are two outdoor baths with different water temp., two private bath tubs, a lazy river (which takes 10 steps to walk thru and is apparently made for senior citizens, children and ALTs), and a bench area with water flowing down it so you can put your naked ass up on display. Hehe. And yes, of course I tried it! The indoor area was just as great. There were three seperate jacuzzi areas and a microbead bath which is suppose to make your skin soft and smooth...this is according to Ann. Anyway, that's on the 1st floor. On the 3rd floor is the best co-ed sauna EVER! No worries, you get to wear a comfy-as pj outfit made of towel material. I want one of my own now! So yeah, the sauna room is more than 2x the size of my apt, and there is also a separate smaller room filled with hot rocks on the ground and you just lay there. It's pretty hot but feels so damn good as well! Outside the sauna room you can buy YUMMY soft cream (soft serve ice cream) and fruit juice and all you have to do is show them your number and then you pay at the end when you leave the place! They think of everything! There is another theater room where you can just lay on a futon and watch movies. Also, there is a relaxation area where you can just lay on a futon and watch TV, read, or even take a nap! It's wonderful!! All this for guess how much?? Less than US$10!! It's crazy cheap, yo! I don't know how they make money! If this were back in the States, people would charge over $100 for sure b/c you can spend an entire day there! Ann called Korona and they said that for an extra 700 yen (less than $7), you can spend the night there. However, you'd be staying at the common relaxation room with tons of other ppl. No, thanks. It's a nice room to rest in but not stay overnight with 10 million other people as if you're in a Thai prison.

After Korona, the three of us walked back to Em's place near Niragawa station. Em, Jeff, Ann and I then went to the Thai restaurant in Ashikaga for dinner. The four of us ordered eight, yes EIGHT entrees and we finished EVERYTHING, not including drinks. Damn, we're pigs. As if I didn't eat enough Friday night! Anyway, it was cool b/c we are gaijin and we are too big so they gave us our own VIP room! It's sad but we were happy to have our own private room! Haha. After dinner, we headed back to Korona and played at the game center there. We played the taiko drums and Jeff kicked ass on it! However, he did get crazy-as blisters b/c he was SO intense with his drumsticks. WTF?! Haha. After that, we played darts next door. We really had no idea what we were doing but I randomly won a game! Woohoo!!

That was the end of our productive Saturday out. I'm proud of us b/c we'd usually just go out and eat dinner since it's cold out. We most certainly do let the weather determine our activities. Haha.

On Sunday, I did absolutely nothing to make up for being active on Saturday.

Lesson of the Day

Ok, so this didn't happen at my school, but I'm just stealing something that Ann wrote to me in an email just now. Thanks, Ann!

"I'm grading papers right now and the essay is about "the best advice I've
ever had" this one kid wrote: i wanted to enter this school so I had to
study hard... and told that "Don't sleep or you won't be able to pass the
exam." ... thanks to those words I can enter this school."

Ya hear that, kids? If you deprive yourself of sleep, you will go very far in life. Hahahahaha.

Active Week, Part 1

When I say "active," I mean active in relation to my recent winter schedule.

Last Monday, I got out of my apt and met up with Jenny, Sean, Pete, Jeff, Ann, Em and Helen to watch Walk the Line at AEON. I thought the movie was great, especially the singing. I really don't know much about Johnny Cash but the songs in the movie were so fun and catchy! Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon were excellent in it; I can't believe they were actually the ones singing! I'd see the movie again just for the singing. Walk the Line gets a thumbs up from Cindy the Critic.

Wednesday was Jeff's birthday. Happy birthday, Jeff! Can't wait for part 2 of the celebration! A group of us went out to dinner at Moti for some VERY filling Indian food. It's always abunai when one goes to eat Indian here. It takes me hours to digest the curry and naan every time. I know, I know...TMI, right? Haha. At least I got to walk off 1/1000th of the calories I ate by trekking to the station with Jeff.

I held a Golden Globes party at my place on Friday night. We all dressed up in evening gowns and walked down the blue carpet in my apt. Not really. Actually, I had Anna send me the recording of the Golden Globes and various award shows/interviews on video tape, so I decided to invite people over to watch it. I bought enough dessert to kill 10 diabetics but in the end, only 3 Country Ma'ams showed up. No worries, Jeff, Jenny and I ate PLENTY of food. It was a really nice Friday night, just to relax and watch TV and judge/mock celebrities. We are really nice people, really! Haha. Jenny and Jeff had to leave by 10:30 b/c of last trains and all. Damn those stupid last trains...they suck!!

So yeah, there's part 1 to my "active" week for ya. Hehe.

Got Hitched!

Well, not me, of course. =) This morning, kouchou sensei (the principal) made an announcement that the math teacher, Aizawa sensei, was not at school b/c it's her wedding day today. Everyone in the staff room acted surprised, then clapped for her. Later I spoke with my 2nensei JTE about it, and she said that almost all the teachers had no idea Aizawa sensei was getting married today! WTF?! Dude, the teachers probably spend MORE time with Aizawa sensei than her own fiance. HOW could they NOT know?! Well, I guess this is just another one of those cultural divides. It's SO strange to me how one's work life and personal life are SO separate in Japan. Now do ya understand why I'm bored outta my mind at school?? I can't freakin' talk to anyone! Haha.

Does Chinese sound like English??

So as you know, I have a radio program every Wednesday at lunch. Well, I totally forgot about it till this morning, so I grabbed a few random CDs at my place. One of them was a mixed CD with Chinese pop songs on it. I figured...hey, why not right? Hehe. I'm sure some of my students probably couldn't tell the difference anyway...between Chinese music and English music, that is. What surprised me was that right after I played the songs and returned to the staff room, my 3nensei JTE came up to me and said the Chinese songs sounded like English. She also said that everyone in the staff room thought I was playing English music. Hahahahhaahhahaha. Dude, if the 3nensei English teacher thought the music sounded like English, I'm SURE all my students couldn't tell the difference either. VERY SAD, indeed. Hmm...this could be VERY entertaining...hehe. What shall I play next week? Any suggestions??

Thoughts of the day:

Did you know that there's a new TV network in America called, "AZN Television"? Hahahahahhahahaha. Is it me, or is that HILARIOUS? Ok, maybe it's just me. I may be on drugs.

Daniel Dae Kim on Lost is HOT!! I mean, he's really not, but he is!! Just like Hirai Ken....the not hot, hot!

Ok, that's as much Asian-ness as you can get outta me for the day. Hehe. ;-)

Shamelessly Stealing Pictures from Jeff's Blog

Here are some pictures from Jenny, Skye and Helen's birthday party. I forgot my camera so I am stealing photos from Jeff's blog. Thanks, Jeff!


The birthday girls blowin' out the candles. Mmm...cake!


The Ota Crew...well, not all of us...but we sure ate enough in the others' absence!


A pix of me and the birthday girl! Happy birthday, Jenny!


Nomihodai with hot chocolate floats...we need more of this at karaoke! Well, at least for us non-drinkers...


A Whole New World, indeed! What the heck were we doing?!


Two seconds after this shot was taken, Skye almost fell over due to Jeff's powerful pelvic thrusts. Haha.


Just the girls


Jeff doin' Heath....an impression, that is.

Funny things

One of today's comments in the question box from my ichinensei:

"Is you a fool?"

The ichinensei students also had to write a dialogue for an international call. This is one of the dialogues that a pair of students came up with:

A: "Hello."
B: "Hello. This is Takehiro. Is Takuma there?"
A: "Speaking."
B: "Hi Takuma. How are you?"
A: "I'm so-so. How are you?"
B: "I'm stomach cancer."
A: "Oh, really?"
B: "Yeah."

And it goes on from there. Hehe, I love my students.

Recap

Another weekend, another post. Last Wednesday, we had the Tobu ALT and JTE seminar in Tatebayashi. It didn't start until 1:10pm so I conveniently didn't go to school that morning. Hey, it takes a long time to travel to Tatebayashi; 4 hours and 50 minutes to be exact. Hehe. The seminar was held at Scott's school which is the nicest school in ALL of Gunma, for sure. It is only 3 years old and doesn't look like the old worn down buildings that make up my school. Their school uses solar power and even has heated floors in some rooms! Ii na. Anyway, Scott's students were exceptionally good and attentive...something that is rare in a Japanese classroom. After the seminar, Mami drove Jeff, Angie and I back to Ota and we met up with others for some yummy-as kaiten sushi. Because none of us wanted to go home to face the reality that we had school the next day, we went to Typhoon for some unneeded dessert and drinks. I ended up calling in sick the next day, anyway. ;)

On Friday, I roamed around AEON with Emily, her friend, Jeff and Pete. I bought my much needed Brita filter which cost a bizillion dollars but there's no way I'd go w/o it at this point, as pipes in my apt are sketchy-as! We went to Ootoya for dinner and dessert. Their portions are HUGE and prices VERY reasonable. I don't know why we don't go there more often. Wait a sec...I may know why. MAYBE it's b/c you overload on food SO much that you can't digest anything for the next two days!! Yes, that's been my problem this weekend: A lack of appetite. I'm afraid I'm gonna a get a notice soon saying I've been kicked out of the over-eaters club.

On Saturday, I trained to Jeff's place for some Veronica Mars. We all need some VM in our lives. It has been SO long since we last watched VM that we got SO confused as to what was happening on the show! Sad. That, or we're just stupid. After VM, Jeff and I biked to Co-op and Ministop for some drinks and munchies for game night at Em's. I almost fell off his bike and had trouble mounting on multiple times b/c I am too short for it. Sad. We met up with Sean and Jenny on the train and walked to Em's apt together. Tim and Doris were already there and Em had dinner waiting for us! Thanks, Em!! Dinner was oishiiyo! We decided to start off game night by playing Taboo. Jeff, Jenny and I were on one team and Sean, Emily, Tim and Doris were on another. It was a lot of fun!! I think my favorite card was when Jeff said something like, "This guy fell off the dead animal we ate at Gen!" The answer: Christopher Reeve.

Thought of the day:

I owe you one.

A Request....

I totally forgot about this until just a few minutes ago when I opened my ninensei textbook and found it again. Last week, I received a note in my question box in one of my ninensei classes. It says:

Dear Cindy
Please dei

I guess I didn't think much of it at all, other than the fact that the person who wrote it needs to know that "dei" is spelled "die". I didn't even show it to my ninensei JTE b/c I didn't think it was a big deal for some reason. Dude, I've been in Japan for too long. Anyway, I showed Keiko this note and Mr. Watanabe looked over and saw it as well. He said I had better tell the ninensei teacher, Ms. Sasaki about this. Hmm...I can't even remember which class I got the note from! I guess it was written so politely that I figured it's not a big deal, right? Haha.

Happy Happy Carpet...

My apt still smells like bleach from when I scrubbed the heck outta my floor this past weekend. I sure hope I don't die from the fumes.

Anyway, on Saturday I rode in Emily's car w/ Sean and Jenny to head to Maebashi for Jenny, Skye and Helen's birthday bash. Happy birthday, girls!! Nomihoudai and tabehoudai (all you can drink and eat) for two hours...what more can you ask for? Well, how about another two hours of nomihoudai (all you can drink) at karaoke right after dinner?? Yep, that's right...four hours of nomihoudai...abunaiyo!! Well, not for me. Hehe. I did have my share of all the girly drinks in the world tho. ;-) They were oishiiyo! I think we took up the whole garlic restaurant, Ninnikuya's the name.

It was such great fun! I really enjoyed seeing everyone there, though like Jeff said, we were bitches and didn't mingle with anyone we didn't know. Oh well. Sad how all the food seemed to disappear from the "Ota" table in a matter of seconds. We're such pigs. Hehe. Karaoke consisted of more drinking and some bad bad singing. Jeff and Jenny fell to the ground which I found quite amusing =) and everyone still managed to get home ok by the end of the night. Thanks again, Em, for the ride! We should have "birthdays" more often! I think Jeff or Scott suggested we do this again for Flag Day? Sounds good to me!!

On Sunday, I decided to check out the Ota Public Library. Not much there. I didn't borrow anything b/c I was Steven Seagal'd out and ended up at Time Clip again to rent a movie for my kids there instead. At least I tried. I also went to Cainz Home and managed to buy carpet and fit the sucker in my backpack! That's right, I fit an entire 176 x 176 carpet in my freakin' backpack! I've never been so proud...haha.

I also caught up to the entire second season of Grey's Anatomy in five days...I think I have a problem.

Thought of the day:

Cleaning is much easier if you do it little by little every week so you don't have to do it for hours and hours as I did this past weekend. I concur with Jeff; I don't want to do anything in my own apt now b/c I don't want to get it messy again! I think I'm halfway there in that I'm a vegetable at the moment anyway...

Who's Claudia??

I came home from work this afternoon and this is what was in my mail slot...


Ah yes, lovely Kizaki....a family-friendly community, indeed. I told Lynnette about this and she said maybe it was meant for my predecessor. Sketchy, yo! I sure hope not!!

Don't let the alligator eat Koizumi!!!

I had planned on playing Hangman with my ichinensei this morning. Right before the class started, Mr. Watanabe came up to me and told me that he didn't think Hangman was such a good game to play. In not so many words, he pretty much implied that a man being hanged is not a good thing to show the students. I guess I'm fine with that. SO INSTEAD, he pulled out a magnetic picture of an alligator and one of Koizumi's (Japan's Prime Minister) head screaming "Help!" on it. Thus, instead of Hangman, the students were trying to guess the sentences on the blackboard to prevent the alligator from eating Koizumi's head. Hmm...so let me get this straight. Mr. Watanabe didn't want me to show a stick figure being hanged yet having the students watch as poor Koizumi gets eaten alive by an alligator is okay? Strange, indeed. Oh well, they're the ones that missed out on my talented stick-figure-drawing skills! So ha!

More Eating and Not Moving Around

I've been lazy with blogging lately; actually, I've just been lazy with life in general. All I do is eat, watch t.v. and eat again, with a lesson plan thrown in here and there. I really don't think I'd survive in a place where it's cold all the time; I might as well be a vegetable.

Last Friday, Ann, Jeff and I took Emily out to dinner for always driving us places. Actually, she took us out (since she has the car) and we just treated her. Hehe. We went to a Japanese buffet place in Tatebayashi. Needless to say, we got our money's worth.

On Saturday, Jenny, Ann and I trained over to Jeff's to watch Brokeback Mountain. Thanks Jeff, for LEGALLY downloading the movie! My review? Great acting and great directing. Heath Ledger was awesome, although we could hardly make out what he was saying most of the time since he mumbles throughout and plus the copy we watched was a bit quiet. Jake was good as well, of course. However, how is he in the supporting actor category anyway? Oh yeah, I thought Michelle Williams was good too (I always knew she was the most talented out of the Dawson's Creek cast, though there wasn't much competition then, with Katie-look-at-my-crooked-smile-and-confused-expression-as-I-go-insane-and-have-Tom-Cruise's-baby Holmes) but she barely had any screen time! We had a debate over who's hotter, Heath or Jake, and I chose Heath. I loss three to one. More Heath for me! Now if he could just dump Michelle Williams and their newborn baby...

That night, many of us ALTs attended the Ota Intl Xmas Party? Not sure about the Xmas part, but yeah. There were various performances which were pretty cool to watch. Jenny and I decided to look for the best-looking boy during the Indonesian dance. Good news: We found him. Bad news: He's probably still in jr. high school. For the Samba number, a few scantily clad women came out and danced for the audience of horny-as teenagers and old men....and I'm not talking about the ALTs nor the life-long ALTs. I thought it was very bold of those women to wear their outfits, ESPECIALLY in Japan. Good for them...and I'm not being sarcastic. After the party, a group of us went to karaoke...on top of Gen. Where else would we go, right? We get the same room every time; it's like they know we're coming or something. Anyway, that was really fun as we haven't been to karaoke in ages. What did we do after karaoke you ask? Uh huh, you guessed it.

Wednesday was another Ota night out. We've suspended the potlucks recently since it's SO cold and no one seems to want to cook or bike to someone else's apt. Not me, at least. Meeting at the station and going to a restaurant seems like a good substitute for the winter. However, only Sean, Jeff and I showed up this time. Sad! We had yakiniku and then decided we needed some exercise so we walked to Sean's place. Not really. Well, we DID walk to his place but NOT for the exercise. Instead, it was for our nerdy exchange of important computer programs, t.v. programs, that is. Hehe. Jeff and Sean swapped t.v. shows and movies from their hard drives as I stole stuff from the both of theirs. Thanks, guys!! Come to think of it, I don't think having more t.v. and movies to watch at home by myself is a good idea at this point...hmm. Oh well!

No thought of the day today b/c I am lazy. So there!

Frustration in the Classroom

I had Class 2A today with Ms. Sasaki, the teacher that has NO control over her classes. Anyway, we walked into class and Shotaro (my new neighbor) was hiding in the back of the room on the floor. Yes, the floor. He just laid on the floor as if he were dead, not willing to move an inch. Shotaro actually belongs to Class 2B, so Ms. Sasaki asked me to take over the class while she DRAGGED Shotaro out of the classroom by his legs. She literally used all her strength and pulled him across the floor and out of the room. He quickly came back in and laid on the floor AGAIN. The students were laughing as Ms. Sasaki continued to drag him out of the classroom. He came back, this time standing outside of the classroom and staring inside while laughing. Ms. Sasaki continued to pay him lots of attention as the other students began the Harry Potter word search handout given to them. He finally left, thank goodness.

When time was up for the handout, Ms. Sasaki asked the students who found 7 or more words to raise their hands so she could give them a sticker. Masaki (the "cool" kid) raised his hand to get a sticker. I knew for a fact he didn't even find one single word on his paper. I asked him why the words weren't circled and he told me it's all in his head. I asked him to circle them and he proceeded to circle random letters. As Ms. Sasaki walked by, I told her that Masaki didn't find any words, even though his hand was raised. She then nodded and walked past his desk. Masaki got upset and ripped his paper in half. Right after he ripped his paper, Ms. Sasaki walked BACK to Masaki's desk and handed him a sticker. WTF???!!!

See why the Japanese school system is frustrating?? The students aren't disciplined AT ALL so they can pretty much do ANYTHING they want and not get in trouble. Students can't be sent to the principal's office or anything during class time b/c EVERY kid is entitled to an education here, meaning they remain in the class even if they are distracting other students AND the teacher from teaching. It makes NO sense. I know all the ALTs here know what I'm talking about. The bad kids run amok in class and the teachers do NOTHING. ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!

Right before the annoying 2A class today, Ms. Sasaki told me that the students have a "morals class" once a week. I asked her what they teach the kids in this "morals class." She said they are taught to be kind to the elderly, be honest, honor their school?, etc., etc. I wonder if they can slip in a "DON'T BE AN ASS IN CLASS!" lesson at their next meeting.

Thought of the day:

K, I'd say 99% of foreigners hate natto (fermented soybeans in all its smelliness and gooeyness). Anyway, today for lunch we had natto and tuna w/ mayo. One of my students put a huge glob of natto and tuna w/ mayo and mixed it ALL into his rice. I seriously wanted to vomit. Even if you ARE a natto fan, WHY would you mix natto and tuna w/ mayo TOGETHER??

Yet Another Lazy Weekend

I know, I know...this has been the story of my life since the beginning of the new year. I can't help it though, it's just too cold to do anything that requires too much movement! Thus, I spent last weekend mainly eating and hiding in my apt. Well, I wasn't that bad.

On Friday night, I met Jeff, Sean and Jenny on the train to go to Takasaki to attend Teresa's birthday dinner. It was nice to see everyone there, even though it was a bit of a trek to get there. It's alright, I don't mind the train at all when I have company! Anyway, Happy Birthday, Teresa! The next afternoon, I trained again to Jeff's place (this time by myself, boo!) to watch some t.v. It's like I went all the way to Yabuzuka just to stare at a computer screen. Not like, I did. Haha. We watched the first two episodes of the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini-series. Colin Firth is definitely a hotter Mr. Darcy than the guy in the movie. However, I think that the movie has an overall better-looking cast. Well, IT IS a movie, I guess. Jeff and I are fine with the entire cast (of the BBC P&P), but our only complaint is that Jane looks like a man, when she should be the "beautiful" one. Strange. After P&P, we watched Margaret Cho's Assassin. Not very good. Like Jeff said, I think she's run outta things to talk about. Sad. Later that night, Nacchan picked us up and we went to Moti (Indian food) w/ Sean and Jenny. It was really good but really filling...so typical of our nights out. On Sunday, I actually cleaned!! Woohoo! The only reason for that was b/c Sunday was a SUPER nice day and it was warm enough for me to air out my apt and get up off the couch to clean. Yippee! However, I still have lots to do since I haven't really done much lately due to the the cold-as weather. Yes, I let the weather run my life.

Thoughts of the day:

Yesterday, my school had an assembly about keitai (cell phones). I didn't attend, but my JTE told me that the assembly was to warn kids not to respond to random text messages they get from strangers about winning a prize and meeting up with them in order to get it or something. UMMM.....I really hope my kids aren't that dumb in the first place. "Oh look, a random stranger has texted me saying I've won a prize. Yippee! Let me meet him at midnight at that abandoned warehouse to get it!" Ok, I'm retarded.

Masaki (the "cool" kid in my 2A class that EVERYONE follows) told me today that Shotaro (the biggest ninensei trouble-maker and good friend of Masaki) has moved into my apartment bldg. Great. Now on top of my bike borrower, I have to look out for Shotaro and Masaki possibly pulling pranks on me. Nice.