nashoba_girl

I have internet and it's not going away!

2007-03-25T11:40:37Z

Hi Everyone! I finally have a permanent internet connection! Celebration!

I'll start off by saying that I'm fine, in case anyone heard about the earthquake in Japan and got worried. It was in Ishikawa which is on the Japan Sea side (in other words on the other side of the island). I didn't feel a thing.

Here's a riddle for everyone. How many women does it take to put one foreigner into a kimono? (hint: it's not a single digit number)
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answer: 12 - 3 women to actually put the kimono on me, 1 to try and translate what is going on and 8 to stand around, offer suggestions and point, laugh and/or clap on cue with whatever was going on behind me.

I'll have pictures to post after the Easter mass.

You'll hear again from me soon!

Update from Toni

2007-01-16T21:42:12Z

Via Mom: Hi All !! I'm having a great time here. Lot's of things to see and do over the New Year holiday. I counted down the old year in Tokyo with friends from Hitachi. I don't think I'll ever forget it. Tokyo is crazy to begin with; but 12am, January 1st ... WOW

I've been doing some exploring of the National Parks near me. Even in winter the mountains are beautiful. I don't care about the ocean, give me trees!!!

Japan has also been having some high winds (around 90km/hr ~ 55mph). Thankfully, it hasn't been raining at the same time.

In a month or so, is plum blossom season (the end of Feb. and early March). There's a park in Mito (an hour train ride south of me) that is full of plum trees. I can't wait to see them. I have no idea what a plum blossom looks like.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year celebration. It's now the year of the Boar; the last animal sign in the Chinese Zodiac. I think the boars know this; because Japan has had at least two incidents of wild boars coming down from the mountains and terrorizing the school yards.

I hope for the best, for everyone in this New Year!!!!!

Gambate!

surprise it's me!

2006-10-09T05:27:47Z

Hi Everyone! I have no idea how this happened but when I booted up my laptop to recharge my ipod it connected to the internet! I have no idea where this mysterious wi-fi came from but right now I don't care! Here is my long awaited update. I'm going to post stories that I wrote while waiting for an internet connection. More to come, hopefully! Please keep checking my blog. Thanks!

I don't know where to start. Yes I do! Hitachi is awesome! I'm loving it! Of course it is taking me forever to find internet which isn't cool but Hitachi is pretty great. My apartment is small (big surprise) but it isn't too small. Mike, the other teacher, is in the same apartment complex one floor above me. Okay, now to start the stories!

Story 1: K
My first story has to be about K. It's Thursday night around 11pm and I've been in Hitachi for five days. My doorbell rings. My doorbell has a monitor so I can look to see who is at the door without actually going to the door (don't know why, the door is only 6 feet away from the monitor). I look at the monitor and someone is waving at the camera. Check that, some guy is waving, no wait, some white guy is waving at the camera. What a minute! I'm in the middle of nowhere in Japan, late at night with a white guy on my doorstep? I had to open the door and find out what this was about. "Ello Toni! Mauy name is K! How ya doin'?" And 'K' precedes to go off talking about, well...I'm not too sure what, his accent is so strong sometimes I'm not sure if he is speaking English or not. The part that I do get is that I'm invited for karaoke on Saturday night at 'Big Echo.' The next morning I ask Jen (the girl I'm replacing) who THIS person was. I find out that, yes, his name is 'K' (just the letter) and he's from England. He teaches English for another school here in Hitachi. I should say he teaches what is supposed to be English. If you ever wondered what a full blown cockney-British accent sounds like just listen to K. So Saturday night comes around and Mike, Jen and I meet up with K and a couple other English teachers (there are two other schools/businesses that teach English in Hitachi). Richard is from England as well. He just got married two months ago to a Japanese girl he meet here. Danny is from Oregon. Asher is from...I forget where Asher is from, in the US somewhere. Heather is from Vancouver and she lives next to K (I feel sorry for her). So now ever Saturday night after we get off from work Mike, K, Richard, Danny, Asher, Heather and I get together for food and sometimes karaoke. It's great having other foreigners around. I think we are the only foreign people in all of Hitachi. Speaking of which, this leads me into story number 2.

Story 2: Being blonde, blue-eyed and pale in Japan
I definitely stand out just a tad. There is one bus stop I pass by everyday on my way to work that watches me walk towards them, then they turn around and watch me walk away. You'd think after three weeks the novelty would have worn off but not yet. I also get random elderly ladies come up to me and comment on my skin and hair. They love it. Although they all describe me the same way...kawaii (kawaii means cute for everyone who doesn't speak Japanese). Cute? CUTE?! I'm a giant! I'm at least three feet taller than you are! What do you mean cute? I don't do cute! I hate being called cute! Of course this means I hear 'kawaii' every day. From the kids I teach, from their parents, the cashier at the grocery store and random people I pass on the street. The best part is the random people who come up to me on the street and start rattling off in Japanese and then look shocked when I don't understand them. Do I look like I'm from here? I don't know what you're saying!

Story 3: Appliances
Big thank you to kiji_kat for the kanji dictionary! Without it I never would have figured out how to use the microwave, rice cooker or washing machine. Now I'm not saying that I completely know how to use the afore mentioned appliances, but at least now when I turn them on, random light don't start flashing and alarms don't go off with too much frequency anymore. The TV is bilingual. What that means is that I get a half an hour of Japanese news in English every night and an English movie twice a week. Everything else is in Japanese. My new favorite channel is the weather channel. They use pictures! No language experience needed! It's also helping me learn kanji! I've learned the kanji for Tokyo, Hitachi, Kyoto, Mito (the capital of my prefecture) and typhoon! Speaking of natural disasters, I found out what the Japanese word for 'earthquake' was during my first day of teaching when a good size one hit. I spent the rest of the class time convincing them that what I said was NOT the English word for earthquake and please don't say that word in front of the manager. I'm also slowly getting used to Celsius (25 degrees is not cold, 25 degrees is not cold, I have no clue what 25 degrees C is in Fahrenheit but it's not cold). Speaking of conversions...

Story 4: Money
Money is Japan is like monopoly money. It's colorful and you get used to carrying around 10,000 yen bills. Not 10,000 yen in bills but carrying around an actually 10,000 yen bill. It took the British guys a while to get used to the money. 100 yen is about 1$ which is about half a pound. (Here's 10,000 yen, I'd like to buy Broadway please)

That's all for right now. I'll hopefully be back soon with some more stories!

no internet, yet

2006-10-01T16:49:00Z

Hi everyone, this is Toni's Mom. She is still without internet access. Hopefully, by the end of October she will have it in her apartment; or on November 1st, the library that is near her apartment, will open back up and it has internet access. The library has been closed since she got to Hitachi, for repairs or re-stocking. She is missing being able to communicate with all of you and feels a little out of touch with everyone back in the states. But she is doing GREAT. LOVES her teaching job and has made some great friends. On Thursday and Sunday nights at 9pm there is a TV channel that shows english speaking movies. I'll just write a few excerpts from her letters to us to share with you: 9/4/06 Today is my first full day in my apartment. So far I have found a large grocery store, a 100 yen store and the Post Office! I have the basics! My apartment is great; small like the rest of the city. This place is pretty rural. I already like it. You can see the mountains from one window and the ocean is a 15 - 20 minute walk. The ocean! Not a lake or river but the Pacific Ocean. I made an amazing discovery "Okayama Fruit". Okayama is famous for having the best peaches in the world and it's true. They are larger than fugi apples and just melt in you mouth. Also, I found grapes that taste exactly like jelly. They are huge! About the size of a silly putty ball and they taste exactly like grape jelly! I wish we could get these in the states. And yellow watermelon. Taste Great. Fruit is expensive but amazing. I cherish every bite. 9/06/06 I've found a Japanese TV channel that I can understand ... The Weather Channel! There are a lot of pictures and I'm starting to remember the kanji for certain cities; even the kanji for high and low pressures. More good news ... No Allergies! I'm looking forward to seeing the mountains turn colors in the fall. There is a national famous park in Mito. I'm hoping to see soon. Mito is a big city to the south. About a 30 minute train ride, apparently it's the major shopping center around here. I've already used my dictionaries. To figure out how to use my washing machine and the microwave.
9/10/06 This week I officially start teaching! This past week I taught a few classes and shadowed Jen and Shawna, who left for their new posts today. Next weekend the office is going out for a welcome dinner. I'm looking forward to it. I need to learn where the good restaurants are. There are a lot of "hole in the wall" Japanese restaurants here. I'm going to have to ask the other Japanese teachers at my school about them. So I'll know which ones are the best. 9/24/06 I saw a festival in Hitachi Square today. Local middle school cheerleaders were performing to Jpop. Then they had a dance school perform. There were two different age groups, but the best was this traditional/modern dance group. It was in the style of dance done with taiko drumming but the music was recorded. They were amazing! They did three different routines. After them was a good taiko drumming group. They had probably 30 members and not one of them was older than 6. They were fantastic and I doubt any of them were in school yet! I went to Mass today. What a group! The priest is from New Jersey!!! But he's been in Asia since the 60's. He gave the homily in Japanese and then summed it up in english. They don't kneel but they bow a lot. After the readings the people keep their hands in the prayer position for the rest of the mass. The older ladies that sat next to me were very helpful in showing me what to do and say. After mass and the announcements, everyone turned about and looked at me! Father translated, that they wanted me to introduce myself since I was new. And the only non-Asian person there. That was a bit nerve wracking. I think I'm going to like this church.
Now I'm sure Toni has a lot of stories to tell her very special friends; so just hang in there a little longer. She should be on-line in a few weeks. She had all her addresses on a electronic device (I can't remember the name of it) but it died right after she got to Japan. So Dave, down-loaded her address book from the home computer and mailed her the disk. She said she got it Wednesday. So now some of you my receive a hand written letter from her. I takes about a week for a letter to arrive. If you know our home phone number you can call here and I will give you her address. But she asked me not to put her address on this web site. For privacy reasons. Dave and I miss her very much, but every time we talk to her, she sounds great and has some of the neatest stories to tell us. Thank you for regularly checking in; hopefully by November 1st she'll be telling all of you about her adventures.

Update for Toni

2006-09-15T02:07:12Z

This is an update to Toni's LJ by her dad.

She has been having quite a difficult time locating an internet cafe in Hitachi so she has asked me to update her LJ for her.

She is now in her apartment in Hitachi and has started teaching at the school there. She seems to like the school and her co-workers a lot. She says that the food is good, even if it has tentacles sometimes. Toni says that her Kanji to English dictionary was a life-saver when it came to trying to figure out how to operate the washing machine and microwave.

She wanted me to let everyone know that she is fine and having a great time. She just can't get to her email or blog easily right now. She does hope to have an internet connection in her apartment but it may take a month or more. I'll post updates as they come in till she can get to it herself.

Toni's Dad

Day Seven

2006-09-01T22:54:52Z

Today is our last day of training! We are teaching our last class but this time instead of the other new teachers acting as the students we are getting actually kids! They are bringing in kids between 4-6 years old. We will be in charge of teaching 2-3 kids. They will be bringing in the kids throughout the day so the same kids don't have to sit through 4 or 5 lessons. The lessons are only 16 minutes each. Not much time. I'm hoping I can get through all the material I'm supposed to cover.

Tonight after training the company is taking us out to dinner. That will be fun. Then we have to go back to the dorm and pack because we leave early tomorrow morning for our branch schools. Finally we get to see where we are going to live and teach. I found out last night that my school in Hitachi has been recently remodeled within the past 6 months. It's one of the few schools with two floors. Once I get moved into my apartment I can finally see what my city looks like and hopefully find a karate dojo. (Have to find another internet cafe too!)

I hope everyone is having a good time in the states.

Good luck to everyone who is competing this weekend at Nationals! Gambatte!

Day Five

2006-08-30T22:36:07Z

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it's taken me so long to update. It's been pretty crazy here now that training has started up. We're learning about the kinds of classes we teach, books we use, and how to create lesson plans. I've made and taught a lesson plan for junior high school students. Today we are 'teaching' a baby class. 1-2 year olds take the class with their parents. It's mainly English for the parents but we have to incorporate a lot of colors and songs for the kids.

We also got to tour an Amity school. Our training facility is next door to a school. It was neat to see the places we're going to work at. We saw a little kid (2 or 3 years old) discover what the word 'pull' looks like on a door. He went running full tilt for the restroom and slammed into the door, gets up, stops, looks at the door and then pulls the handle to open it. It was hilarious! Freaked out the teacher but hey, kids that old are made of rubber.

The group decided to go bowling last night. The bowling hall was across the street from a pachinko parlor. Wow are those places loud!

I've also finally had sushi! It had cucumber, egg and some unidentified meat. It was really good! Dawn and I picked up a sushi bento from this bento place near our school. Definitely going back.

The humidity has gone down a little bit. We had a light rain last night that helped cool the city off. We've been told to enjoy it because both the temperature and the humidity will go back up tomorrow.

We only have two more days of training and then we go off to our branch schools. Saturday night, after our last training, the company is taking us out to dinner. Looking forward to that! It will be nice to finally move into our apartments and get settled down. Stop living out of a suitcase. Thankfully we arrive in our city's on Sunday and don't start work until Tuesday morning. That will give us a little time to put everything away.

Everyone have a good day!

Day One

2006-08-27T10:03:12Z

I've found an internet cafe that also serves a really good chilled mango drink. Yum! My roommate Andrea and Mike (the other NET - native english teacher - at my school) and I went to the gardens and a castle today. It was great! We asked a couple of high school student for directions. I was actually able to remember some of my japanese directions words so we were able to find the place! At the castle they had kimonos we could put on and take pictures in a room that was replicated to look like the lord's room back in the 1600's.

I'm not to sure what the plan is tonight. I've heard mention of a beer garden. I'm sure we'll all do something considering this will be our first night in Japan that we are actually awake!

We've been given two hugh packets of information that we are going over. Our training doesn't start until Tuesday but there is so much info to cover that they told us to go over the packets ahead of time and that there will be a quiz on the first day of training! The more I read about Amity the more excited I am to start learning and teaching. We should be getting our class schedules soon for this month. They will give us our schedules during training so we have an idea of what kinds of classes we are going to teach and how we need to prepare for them.

It's pretty humid here! I'm hoping I'll acclimate somewhat, I don't think you get complete used to this humidity!

I'm Here!

2006-08-26T23:08:38Z

I'm here! I'm in Japan!

The flight went well. Had a bit of turbulence coming into Japan. At least they had movies to watch. The TV screen was in the seat in front of you. They had multiple channels. Each channel showed a different movie. The lower numbers had the movies in English and the upper channels had the movies in Japanese. I watched 'Pride & Prejudice', 'The Sentinel', and '16 Blocks'. The plane touched down a little late in Osaka, we encountered a 60 mph head wind. I got through Immigration and Customs without a hitch. Got my baggage and a company rep was waiting for me as soon as I walked through the doors. We sent my two checked bags on to my school in Hitachi then meet up with the rest of the group.

We boarded a train to Osaka city and then got on the shikansen to Okayama. Roughly we traveled two hours west. Once we got in to Okayama around 7:30pm (Saturday) we walked over to our dorm and training facility. The rooms are great. My roommate is Andrea from Hawaii. She is going to teach in Iwaki (about an hour north of my school in Hitachi!). The beds are very comfortable although last night I could have fallen asleep on the floor easily enough. I tried to stay awake for a little bit but couldn't keep my eyes open after 9:30.

This morning my roommate and I woke up around 6am. Went down to the kitchen room and had toast and orange juice. (Japanese bread - thick, dense and delicious!). Currently we are sitting outside of an internet cafe (Seattle's Coffee - go figure). We're planning on seeing the Korakuen Garden today. It's one of the best known gardens in the country apparently.

I'll update as often as I can and don't worry, pictures are coming!

At the hotel

2006-08-25T00:11:03Z

Good Evening Everyone!

I'm at a hotel near the airport. Since I have a morning flight I figured it would be best to get down here the previous evening. With all the airport security to go through and the fact that there is a lot of road between my house and the airport where accidents and traffic jams could occur I'm not taking anything for granted.

I was able to pack everything into two checked bags, one carry-on bag and my book bag. It's interesting to see your life become so compact. Give me a few days to get use to Japan and locate internet hot spots. I'll update as often as I can.

CHARGE!!!!!!

nashoba_girl @ 2006-08-22T20:09:00

2006-08-23T00:15:22Z

I visited Athens today for the last time before I head off to Japan. It was great to see the place I called home for the past six years. Thanks Athens for all the memories!

Tentative Japan Schedule

2006-08-17T00:10:24Z

I talked to Scott, my company recruiter. He's been helping me get everything ready for my trip to Japan (he's also an OU alumni!). He gave me the low-down of my trip. I'll arrive in Osaka around 4pm on Saturday. There are 16 total teachers coming in on Saturday for training. One of them will be on my flight, the rest arrive an hour earlier. We will be met by a company trainer at the airport after we've gone through Immigration, baggage and customs. We send our checked baggage off to our branch school (mine in Hitachi). We will live out of our carry-on for a week during training at the company headquarters in Okayama. From the airport we ride the subway to Osaka City then get on the shikansen to HQ. We'll be getting in Saturday evening and then going to bed! We'll live at the training HQ in dorm style rooms (just like college!) We get Sunday and Monday off for sleeping and a little sightseeing (lots of jet lag). Then we start training on Tuesday. Training will go from 10am-7pm. (not too bad! 10am is practically afternoon for a morning person like me) We finish up training on Saturday and everyone goes out to dinner. Then Sunday we get up and go to our branch school. (All of the transportation to HQ and our branch school is paid for by Amity, yes!) One of the trainers will put us on the train to Tokyo. Apparently we change trains in Tokyo to get to Hitachi and one of the teachers at my branch school will meet us in Tokyo and make sure we get on the right train! There will be one other native English teacher with me at Hitachi. His name in Michael and he's from California. He's part of the group of 16 with me so he's a newbie too. We can be confused and lost together, that way I won't feel as bad! So that's the general game plan at this point. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing will happen with airport security between now and next Friday!

nashoba_girl @ 2006-08-11T22:01:00

2006-08-12T02:03:24Z

I honestly didn't expect this but, yeah, I think it works!

You scored as Blade. Thats right you are the booty kicking you cross me and I will stomp a mudhole in your butt type. Sexy and a great fighter with mad fighting skills

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Blade

92%

Dracula

83%

Armand

75%

Louis

67%

Angel

67%

Deacon Frost

58%

Lestat

42%

Marius

33%

Spike

33%

Akasha

25%

Whose your Vampire personality? (images)
created with QuizFarm.com

nashoba_girl @ 2006-08-07T21:03:00

2006-08-08T01:07:00Z

It's here! My visa is finally here! I can legally go to Japan now. I was getting worried. So now I have all my paperwork. That is definitely a hugh sigh of relief. I'm going to start organizing everything this week. That way I can see what I need to get. Hopefully this will eliminate MOST of the last minute panicking. Not all but most.

COE has arrived

2006-07-18T12:54:33Z

My Certificate of Eligibility has arrived. Finally! Now to get my visa paperwork together. Once I send it off to the Consulate in Detroit I will get my visa in 3-4 days. Pretty quick!

paperwork is on the way

2006-07-13T02:08:22Z

I got a call from the Japanese consulate today. I should be receiving my Certificate of Eligibility by Fedex tomorrow. I then can fill out the rest of the paper work and send it all back to the Consulate by Friday. I should have my visa sometime late next week. Can't wait to get that out of the way.

Business clothes!

2006-07-11T20:17:10Z

I'm going corporate! I just order my sets of business clothes. Blazer and nice pants. Ugh. I'm already missing my jeans and sneakers uniform.

Michigan Camp Rocks!

2006-07-09T22:33:44Z

I'm back! Extremely sore but back. Usually Michigan camp has a total of five trainings over three days (Friday night, three on Saturday and one Sunday morning). But not this year! We had five trainings on Saturday! We had the usual 6:30am - 8am training, followed by a 9:40-10:40am training for brown/black belts, the 11:00am training, then another brown/black belt training at 2:30pm that went until 4pm and then the Saturday evening training from 5:30-7pm! After the 2:30pm training I knew that if I took a nap I would not be getting up for the 5:30 training. Only about 20 people showed up for the 2:30pm training. Not surprised. That was getting to be too many trainings in one day. Learned a lot through. Almost too much to keep in my brain. Seven trainings in three days. More than I usually do in a week! It was a blast through! Michigan camp is always one of the best times of the year!

Michigan Camp!

2006-07-07T02:03:28Z

Hey Everyone!

I'm going to be up at Michigan Camp this weekend. I'll be back Sunday late afternoon. Three days, two nights, and five trainings! I call it heaven on earth!

I have plane ticket!

2006-07-05T21:21:51Z

I have my plane ticket! I hate having to wait on paychecks. My dream is to one day live better than paycheck to paycheck. I can always dream. Anyway...I will be leaving Cincinnati at 9:35am, after stopping in Chicago I will then go to Kansai/Osaka airport. I will be on Japanese soil at 4pm the next day! Sweet! This whole process doesn't seem complete real at times so buying the ticket definitely hits home that this is happening.

What have I gotten myself into?

2006-06-30T20:17:04Z

I just recieved a letter from my branch manager in Hitachi. His/her name is Yu Akai. He/she (I have know idea about Japanese names so I can't tell male or female) also sent me three flyers. One appears to be an intro to Hitachi. One I think is a brocher of Ibaraki prefecture and the third...I have no idea. I can't read any of it! Oh well, where would the fun be if I moved to a place where I actually spoke the language. Boring! Completely boring! If anyone has ANY suggestions for a good Japanese/English dictionary I would really appreciate it. There are so many from which to choose. I'm definitely taking my first and second year Japanese textbooks over with me!

First entry

2006-06-29T21:19:20Z

Well, here I go! First time on live journal. This should be interesting. Keep watching for information about my upcoming move to Japan! I should be receiving my Certificate of Eligibility soon. I leave for Japan on the morning of August 25. This gives me plenty of time to hangout with my friends until I have to leave. That's all for now!