time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

changed my profile info.

cause now i'm in my SECOND year of the jet program.

cannot believe it. cannot believe that this time, a year ago, i came to japan so nervous that i didn't buy a single piece of food for the first two days! i even had trouble saying "arigato gozaimasu."

and look at me now--fluent!

jokes. but i did manage to communicate with the gas man today, who came to fix my shower crank. hooray!

ready for round two,
riri

snapshots

my blob feels quite disjointed due to random outbursts and my not finishing my golden week travel log yet (you all are still waiting on the rest of australia and the hong kong surprise, in case you forgot!). no bigs that they happened over two months ago.

but now i'll try to recap a few of the stand-out moments of the past month or so. get ready, kiddos!

june 25: early 4th of july party in kobayashi. aka lots of homemade foodstuffs, print-out decorations featuring uncle sam, fireworks, almost losing our football in the nearby cornfield, singalongs, police showing up, and beer. i tried to hit the sack early, then got eaten alive by mosquitos. luckily, everyone had salves, balms, and creams, so i had a cocktail of healing powers slathered all over me by my dear drunken friends.

a bunch of non-americans celebrating america by wearing wifebeaters!

the next morning, we went for brek at a nice little coffee shop. i had cake and ice cream for breakfast. I'M A GROWN-UP!

sam kindly drove us back to miyakonojo. you can't see me behind his big fat english head. but our car was totes international! 5 countries reppin, say what!

june 28: went to dance with tracey again. our usual sensei wasn't there, instead the male teacher took over. i hadn't brought any sneakers (aka because none of my sneakers are "indoor sneakers"), so i had to borrow some from the studio. i hilariously ended up with a humongous men's pair, which flopped about and made my feet look gigantic.

more importantly: our friends matt and martine had their little baby, noah!! so excited! as a present, kibbuh and i had given a noah's ark mobile a month before...and we hadn't even known the bebe's name was gonna be noah! fortuitous much?

june 29: had to attend a CPR-ish practice in the gym with other teachers. each of us had to perform on the dummy, including me. when i had to practice bringing the AED machine, i didn't know how to say "i brought the AED machine," so instead i shouted in japanese, "THIS IS AN AED MACHINE," causing everyone to pee their pants laughing. haha!

essay excerpt: I want to visit America. But I have one question. It is if I visit to America, I get fat?? American are almost put on fat. I don't want get fat. What do you know to America?

june 30: found out who is replacing hansam mattsy. nice married couple from utah. got a little sad!

july 2: mattsy drives up, gets his long locks shorn. samson effect. jokes!

also, tracey and keith's birthday party! we went to some izakaya that's famous for their fried pork. i got some, and my goodness, it was tasty! we followed it with some baskin robbins "easter party," aka ice cream with candy chunkos and fudgey swirls. mmm!

july 3: matthew reveals a surprise he had brought up to nobeoka. behold....POAP CLOCK!

handcrafted, no less! so now jp2 is overlooking my kitchen, keeping the time and the faith! heyo!

then, as if my day couldn't get any better, my hello kitty ipod touch case arrived!

cuteo cuteo!

july 5: my kyoto (vice principal) and another teacher started shouting a little, then kyoto started stomping around. there was a centipede, and all the teachers were freaking out because mukade (centipedes) are poisonous. after killing it, kyoto wrapped the squished mukade into like 20 layers of newspaper and made a ball. then he walked around tossing it in the air and saying, "mukade bo-ru, mukade bo-ru," while everyone watched. then, seeing my squeamish face, he chirped, "riri, CATCHI!" and started to throw it at me. i screamed, "NOO!!" and everyone cracked up.

also taught in third year classes that i usally don't attend. students could ask me whatever they wanted, and the class clown bellowed at me, "why...skin...white?" i answered, "because my mother's skin is white," and everyone thought that was just priceless. but really? that's like me asking them, "hey, why are you japanese?"

july 6: tracey's birthday! we went to get haircuts at a different salon--a smaller, more intimate one. jokes on jokes, thought i'd end up with bangin' bangs, but instead ended up with a useless cowlicky chunk. disappointing!

july 7: was walking home from school, when i spotted this mini-hawk (according to wikipedia, probably a northern goshawk) chilling on a road mirror. he let me get really, really close, about a foot away. but then his yellow gaze proved way too intense for me, and i backed away!

PRETTY BIIIIIRD, PRETTY BIIIIRD

july 8: jessica alba sensei (the one who thinks i look like JA and always puts apple juice on my desk) was blabbin to another teacher about the vending machines not having apple juice anymore. then i was all, "ima, watashi wa painappuru ju-su kaimasu" (now, i buy pineapple juice). he started screaming in japanese, "I BOUGHT SOME 10 MINUTES AGO!!" then i said "onaji idea" (same idea), and he and another teacher cracked so hard the windows rattled.

party for all the departing JETs in miyazaki city. about 50 of us had a nice dinner in a restaurant, then went out dancing. in true lilly fashion, i became rather comatose circa 1am. i've never been nocturnal, and i think i never will be!

july 9: breakfast of champions at mcdonald's. drove back to saito with kibs and napped until it was time to return to nobeoka!

july 10: ran two miles. after an 8 month hiatus. it was really nice, besides the heat turning me into mrs. tomatohead

july 11: brought a hot glue gun to school to fix my supervisor's broken necklace. i had bought it at the 100yen store here, but everyone was amazed by it. after i plugged it in, 3 different teachers stopped to ask me about what it was! i'm glad my purchases are so impressive.

walked to the yuubin kyoku (post office) to mail some letters, and a taxi driver who always says hello offered to give me a free lift. i declined, then on my way back home, trotsky appeared and gave me a ride FO FRIZZLE. it also happened to be a beautiful day, so i snapped a wee pic:

pretty, ne?

july 12 essay excerpt: I have a dog. It is violent, is a small lion. I have a father. How old is he? I don't know. LoL. I have a grandfather. He always says "Into early bath!" I'm tired. I will have a wife. But she must be very cute. This is my family. Do you understand?
july 14-15: kurasu machi (class matches), aka sports days! i got to sit around in the heat and watch the kiddles battle it out in volleyball, soccer, and basketball. it was way fun, especially since i got to know some of the students a lot better, and practice lots of japanglish. a few choice pics:

not everyone can go to a school framed with such beautiful hills. then again, not everyone can go to a school where p.e. uniforms are made to be as dorky as possible.

cheering on their classmates!

boys tryna be fly in the gym; mission impossible

then and only then, on friday i had to hustle to the train station to ride on down to takanabe to see mattsy for our last full weekend together! we started things off right with a tasty meal at our favorite udon restaurant...weekend adventure deets to come! maybe next week? don't wait up!

oh yes, and for good measure--here's me at my desk, with my japanese bebe. surprise!

air conditioned,
riri

google it

this has nothing to do with anything. but tonight, out of boredom/curiosity, i typed "h" into my search engine to see what things beginning with "h" i have googled since i bought this computer last year.

highlights:
"hip hop corporations"
"how to prevent arthritis"
"how to pronounce hungarian words"
"how to send large power points"
"heart symbol"
"higashikokubaru"
"how to tell if your muscles are tired" (umm...be human?)
"how much is a kilo of gold worth?"
"how do you say 'sir' in japanese?"
"how to cure wheeze"
"how long does it take to learn latin?"
"how to invest $20,000"
"has obama aged?"

so many questions. so much free time at work.

quasi-informedly,
lilly

everything in my life is rotting

literally.

for a few hours every day, i crank up my floor fan and open up all my windows/doors (obvio leaving screens closed so bugs don't come in) to air out my apartment.

it's not enough.

the air is so hot and sticky that i actually cannot get the moisture out of my apartment. my clothes smell like bad cheese because of mold spots. my jewelry has tarnished. the insides of my garbage bins, despite my scrubbing with bleach, get black streaks of stank within days.

i went on a sniffing rampage tonight, checking to see which clothes are okay, which have succumbed to the horribleness. as a result, my throat is coated in sour slick, and despite scrubbing with soap and hot water, my hands still faintly smell of corpse.

i can't take it anymore! MAKE IT STOP!

summers in japan are beautiful. but they also make me wild with rage.

extremely pissily,
riri

no big deal, just the cutest thing of all time

seems like i'm getting back into the swing of updating this beezy! or maybe since the weather is heating up like whoa, everyone is getting crazy again and i have more to write about. at any rate, i wanna tell you a story.

the lady that always gives me discounts on snacks works in a little room stocked with pastries, juice, etc., across and down the hallway from the staff room. her daughter (or granddaughter..?) is the adorable little girl in the checked dress in the picture with me that periodically flashes on the right section of my blog.

anyways, we always say hello and attempt to chat for a little when i buy something, but communication is a bit difficult. like i mentioned, last time she showed me a little english book that belonged to rin, her daughter/granddaughter/mystery child, that she borrowed and was studying.

a little while ago, inagaki-san (i learned her name today!) said hello during cleaning time, and in japanese asked me to teach her english this afternoon. i excitedly said yes, especially cause i have nothing to do today (currently sitting in an empty staffroom while all the legit teachers are in a meeting).

so i decided that i'd teach her greetings. i bowed upon entering the snack shack, and must have looked utterly frightening because i was carrying a truckload of english/japanese books, pen and paper, and a whip. jokes.

but her eyes widened when she saw the materials, so i put them down and didn't really use them (other than my dictionary). i taught her good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight, which took a good 15 minutes (understandably! i used to get my japanese greetings way mixed up). then we chatted about our names and where i'm from, and when all was exhausted i complimented her and prepped to leave. but before i went, she insisted i take a drink...FO FRIZZLE.

my favorite snack shack drink is the elephant milk tea box. it's big, sweet, cold, and delicious. especially on a scorcher like today! so, thanking her profusely, i got the goods and bowed my way outta there like a boss.


and now i'm sipping my milk tea and feeling very proud of myself. kind of like a child that gets complimented on her amazing bellyflop abilities.

milky, tea-y,
riri

foot in mouth disease

that's a tasteless joke, folks, since miyazaki has had a problem with foot AND mouth disease for the past year.

but my foot is wedged nicely into my own cake-hole. i spoke far too soon with last night's post, saying that my towel was "never to be seen again."

in my heart of hearts, i was hoping that japan would come through yet again. and it did.

people here are super responsible with lost items they find. they try their darnedest to return things to their rightful owners, and they don't believe in "finders keepers."

lucky for me! this morning, i was a little early getting ready for school, so i decided to go on a reconnaissance mish for my towel. oh, happy day! it was carefully folded and hanging on the fence surrounding our apartment complex. nihon, arigato!!

chuffed,
riri

things that happened today

morning
- woke up drenched in sweat in my sweltering bedroom
- walked into my bathroom to see that a not-so-fine layer of black mold had appeared, literally, overnight, all over the walls, mirror, and shelf, due to trapped moisture
- avoided stepping on at least eight crabs on my walk to school
- arrived at school perspiring an embarrassing amount
- observed a trainee english teacher's lesson. in said lesson, as an activity, students had to describe something to each other. one of the topics was me. winning remarks:
"gold hair!"
"brown hair!"
"blonde hair!"
"she is a woman!"
"she speaks english well." (awww, thanks!! LOL)
"SMILE!"

late morning
- went to buy an apricot ku-ki from the super-nice lady who works in our little snack shack. she always gives me discounts for no reason, and i try hard to speak to her in japanese, and generally fail. today she showed me a little book of english phrases, and told me she was trying to learn. i left smiling so hard that the back of my skull hurt.
- was walking to class with a group of girls, and spectacularly tripped on the stairs, but didn't fall. the girls were very sweet and didn't laugh, but gasped in horror for me. aww.
- administered yet another round of speaking tests for the first years. as part of their oral communication term grade, we decided to make them actually, you know, get tested on their speaking skills! some of the kids obviously prepped really well. others, not so much. today's highlight: a girl becoming so frustrated that she began stomping her feet like a toddler and screaming, "YAAABBBBEEE!!!" which roughly translates to "TERRIBLE/OH CRAP." and the kids who said they ate hamburgers for breakfast also made me smile. with their lies. oh yes oh yes, and lastly, the girl who said, "for breakfast i ate br..br..bre..brea..rice."

afternoon
- usual lunch of pb sando and fruit. was good-naturedly mocked by other teachers for eating pb yet again. they think it's a riot that i eat it every day! welcome to america, suckas. sidenote: i have never seen another teacher eat fruit in the staff room, ever. and teachers think it's amazing that i eat apples off the core, not sliced.
- observed the other english trainee teacher, in one of my fave classes. the kids are total cheeksters. "miss moe," the teach, asked "MOON IS MINE" boy, aka conrad (english name) to read. he said "NO WAY" with a goofy little smile, haha! then later he said "miss moe is dream girl." CUTE!
- stayed late to debrief about the trainee teachers' lessons. was trying to find the other english teachers when a rando teacher that never talks to me invited me to come drink coffee in the library in very rapid japanese. i was so confuzzled that i agreed, then wondered what i had just done. he led me into a little side-room in the library, where two female teachers were grading things. they fussed over me and scurried around making me coffee and putting sweets in front of me while i feebly tried to protest in japanese and turned bright red.
- a student came in to talk to the teachers, and i went to clean my cup. i accidentally used the sink-cleaning sponge instead of the cup-cleaning sponge, and i think the student saw, and it caused me lots of anxiety.

evening
- left school. group of girls walked past, and i said "seee youuuu" to them. as i walked away, one yelled, "RIRI RIRI!" i turned, and she blew me a kiss.
- came home. thought about how this time next year, i'll have to make a goodbye speech to the school. got teary-eyed!

night
- killed a spider, a fruit fly, an unidentifiable, and a mosquito in my apartment. unhappy.
- looked out the window and realized that i had left my laundry hanging. then realized that one of my towels had blown away, never to be seen again.

reeling,
lilly