It is mikan season. Do you know how I can tell?

Well, yesterday the teacher who sits across from me had a huge bag of oranges. He asked me to take some, and I took two. I kind of wanted more, but I didn't want to be greedy, and maybe I had precognition or something.

Because today, I went to elementary school, and the office lady there gave me a bag of oranges of my very own! There's about fifteen in it. She tried to get me to take ANOTHER bag, but I cleverly pretended to forget it, because seriously I cannot eat thirty oranges. (Well, I could, but I'd get sick of them fast.)

Then I went back to the junior high. One of the other teachers saw my oranges and asked where I got them, and asked if I wanted more. He showed me the box he'd brought today, about two feet on each side, FULL of oranges from his brother's farm.

No thank you, I said. I have some already.

It's a good thing I like mikans, or my life would be a sad place.

Also, this shows off the little known bonus to working at country schools instead of city ones. Sure, in the city there's lots of stuff to do, but in the country... your kids are nicer, the classes are usually smaller, and people give you food they've grown themselves ALL THE FREAKING TIME. I don't even know how many mikans I got last year, plus some yuzu, ponkan, sweet potatoes, handmade caramel, and lots and lots of omiyage from people's trips. This year is shaping up to be pretty good, too.

Now I will go eat a mikan.

Okay! I guess now is a good time. I want to send out Christmas cards again this year. If you want one, just leave your name and address in the comments - they're all screened so only I can see them! I won't stalk you, I promise. I am far too lazy for that.

I'll buy cute cards, and possibly write you a wacky message depending on how I feel that day. It will be fantastic.

Super-popular boy bands Arashi and Exile are both on this episode of Music Station (a Japanese music show)!

I was thinking that they should probably have a rumble, and decide who is most loved by the teen girls of Japan... with their fists.

But then I thought, who would win?

It seems obvious. Exile has 14 members while Arashi has only five, so clearly they'd win, right?

However, I'm firmly convinced that Exile would lose. After all, wouldn't it be just like their actual songs? Only two guys doing the work while the other twelve stand in the back and dance?

So I'm coming down on Arashi's side.

Oh man, let's do a poll! Just pick a choice at random if you don't know what I'm talking about.


Poll #1484784 ARASHI VS EXILE
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8

FISTFIGHT OVER THE HEARTS OF JAPANESE TEEN GIRLS. WHO WINS?!

I have a cold. I'm having a bad time. It's sad.

I also finished correcting all of the diaries, finally! So here's the last installment of beautiful, amazing diary entries from my students.

( My English Summer Diary, Part 3 )

Here are some more gems from my students.

I made a cameo appearance in one journal today, with a girl saying she saw me and we talked (we did) and that I was cute and she was happy I live here. I drew happy faces and stars on her paper. And she didn't even know I'd be correcting it, so she wasn't sucking up! How nice.

( My English Summer Diary, Part 2 )

I hope everyone has a nice Halloween! I'm doing nothing for it, as is normal - Japan doesn't really do Halloween. I will just relax and laze around.

So recently one of the teachers I work with asked me to help her. Apparently, she'd assigned diaries for her students to write over summer break, but now she didn't have time to correct them - so would I mind doing it? Sure, I said. She thanked me profusely and stressed that it didn't have to be done anytime soon, since it had taken her so long even to realize she was never going to do it.

What she doesn't seem to realize is that I LOVE correcting things the students have written, because they write hilarious things, whether on purpose or not. Sure, some of them will just write basically the same thing over and over because they dislike English/don't want to do any actual thinking, but the ones who make an effort to be creative are just... amazing. So amazing.

I will share with you some of the things I've come across so far. I have a huge stack left, so I might post more. Anyway, for reference, the actual assignment was that they write three sentences in English every day. Sometimes the definition of 'sentence' was stretched a little... sometimes I've just quoted little parts that I particularly liked. English mistakes are included, of course.

( My English Summer Diary )

Long time no see!

That is what my 2nd year junior high students say whenever they see me. And sometimes I'm like, "But I saw you last period, remember?" and they just go like this :D. One of the girls has also started randomly touching me - not anywhere weird, just poking my hand when I wave hello or something. It's strange. She's an odd girl.

At our last enkai, one of my English teachers (very drunk) turned to me and said, "Do you know MAO?! Second year? She is crazy! Her name sounds like MAOU! In Japanese that means SATAN! So we call her MAOU!" It was amazing. But I don't think Mao is that crazy or evil, though she's also a (different) odd girl.

Anyway! I went to Tokyo and hung with Allie and her friend, which was really a lot of fun. Hopefully they'll come back to Honshu eventually. I didn't get to go to Disney Sea, though... maybe next time.

There's a typhoon coming tomorrow. It's supposed to be pretty big and all my teachers have been warning me about it. The students don't have to go to school, but I do! Thanks, Japan. You're a pal. Luckily the school is right across the street so I don't have to go far, though the vice principal did tell me to be careful that I don't get blown away by the wind tomorrow on my way. I don't really mind having to go in, actually, because I really really need to study Japanese and I can never concentrate on it at home.

Recently, we've been doing oral tests with the first years, which is pretty entertaining. They're very low-level, so all the questions are really easy. For example, "Are you a student?" One of the questions is "Which is your favorite?", and they have a selection of three movies to choose from. The ones I had were The Exorcist, Anne of Green Gables, and Forrest Gump. It boiled down to 95% The Exorcist, a couple Forrest Gumps, and a few girls for Anne of Green Gables - and one boy, who very loudly announced that he liked it. Rock on, kid.

My favorite question, however, is 'Where'. I've got a world map without names, and I ask the kids, "Where is [country]?" THEY ALL SUCK AT GEOGRAPHY. These are not HARD questions. Countries I'd ask about: China, Korea, Australia, Africa (yes, the continent), America, Canada, Brazil. Sometimes England if they seemed to be doing well. I'd ask three questions, all they had to do was point and say "It's here". IT WAS SO BAD. I have never been so amused by poor education. "Where is America?" "Uh... um... *points at Canada*" was common. And NOT KNOWING WHERE THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA IS was also a little too common. One kid pointed to Papua New Guinea when I asked him where Brazil was, and one pointed to India when I asked for England. It was good times all around.

I had two favorite students, though. One was a boy. I asked him where Brazil was and he just gave me a big smile and proudly announced (in English!) "I DON'T KNOW!" The other was a girl. Everytime I asked her where something was, she would point to Russia. For my last question, I asked her where Russia was... and she pointed to China. I love her. She will go far in life.

I'm going to Hong Kong for winter break! How are you guys doing?

So sports day at my junior high school is on Saturday. Sports day is a big deal here, there's your usual races and competitions and stuff, but most importantly there's a cheering competition. Cheering here isn't really the same as in America, here it's done as a whole class, with no tumbling or anything. Basically, the class stands on bleachers with pompoms, the goal is to be as loud as possible while staying in unison and being entertaining. At least, at my school it is.

It's a big deal because the students do it all themselves. They're divided into teams with the classes from each year grouped together, so class 1-3, 2-3, and 3-3 all cheer together and so on. They write the cheers themselves (generally to the tune of popular songs), they choreograph the pompoms, and at some point the 3rd years in each class come down out of the bleachers and onto the field to do a cheer/dance thing. It's actually pretty damn impressive, considering that all their teachers do is lend the occasional helping hand and stand around and watch them practice (I personally don't help at all, I just watch :D).

At sports day, there's a competition, and the people who come to watch get to vote on the winner.

General consensus among teachers and even some students is that ichigumi (classes 1-1, 2-1, and 3-1) proooobably have it in the bag this year (unless there is some huge upset!).

They were working on a TOP SECRET dance for the 3rd years, which wasn't that top secret because everytime someone mentioned it to me it went like this: "Ichigumi has a top secret dance! Guess what it is! NO DON'T GUESS I WILL TELL YOU :D"

And now it's not secret at all anymore, because they've been practicing on the field with the other classes. So I get to watch them practice the dance from 'Thriller' over and over. It is FANTASTIC.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. The class leader of 3-1 is one of the three boys who did a drag show at the farewell party last March, so in retrospect something like Thriller is right down his alley. I expect this to be the BEST SPORTS DAY EVER.

It's September 2nd, which means: Happy Birthday, purveyorofchaos!

Those two days where I am only a year younger than you go by so quickly.

I know no one outside of Japan cares about Japanese politics, but wow. So, one of my Japanese English teachers told me that he thought that Japan's opposition party would win in this election. I thought that would be cool, but that it wouldn't happen - for context, the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has been in power since 1955. Which is when it was founded.

But it seems to be happening. I don't know if it will actually CHANGE anything in the long run, but I think it's pretty cool that Japanese voters actually had enough initiative to turn over the status quo.

Also, Prime Minister Taro Aso resigned and will be replaced. I was just thinking it was about time for a new Prime Minister... (lol I am so funny, Japan has had a new Prime Minister every year since Koizumi left).

In other, FAR more important news, today is my birthday! Yaaaaay! I am now 24. Year of the Ox, represent! Of course, nothing cool happens when you're 24, but hey, I survived another year, all of it spent in a foreign country. THAT MEANS I AM AWESOME AND ALSO SLIGHTLY OLDER.

Okay, time to get ready for work.

Sigh. Life.

Kelsey was here, and it was awesome. It was so, so good to see her again. I didn't entirely realize how much I'd missed just hanging out and having someone to talk about stuff with, especially Kelsey, since we've always had that twin brain thing going on. We spent time in Tokyo and out here, and it was all great... I spent more money than I should have, but it was so worth it that I just don't care at all. I want her to come back soon!

It's made me homesick, because every time I have someone here (like when my mom came before), I realize that I'm pretty lonely all the way out here. I'm hoping I can manage to swing a trip back in March - I'd go in December, but my winter break is only like a week and doesn't start until AFTER Christmas, so really what's the point? I'll go during spring break instead.

But yeah. If Kels comes again I may never let her go home at all. Muahaha.

Also, my bike tire is nearly flat. My bike pump does not work. The bike shop here is closed. So I'm stuck with my own two feet until I get a chance to go to the city and buy a better bike pump... luckily I'm doing that tomorrow.

Last of all, and... well, something-est, I talked to my mom this morning. She's mentioned before that she and my grandma are planning to sell my grandma's house and have the two of them move in together, which is a pretty good idea. My grandma is getting to the point where she can't live alone anymore, especially with the schizophrenia thing, and I'd feel better if my mom wasn't living alone either (just because).

Well, I called this morning, and my mom told me that they got an offer on the house almost immediately after listing it. A good offer, one they're going to take as long as everything checks out. Which... you know, that's great. No waiting. But I spent a good portion of my childhood in that house. My mom and Alicia and I lived there with our grandparents for awhile, and even after we moved out, we'd go there after school so our grandparents could watch us. Even after we moved to Seattle, we'd go sometimes for dinner and almost always on holidays. My grandparents, especially my grandpa, did a lot of stuff for that house, like making a lovely garden and building a shed and a deck and things.

It's really sudden, I guess. I thought it would take a lot longer - the housing market's supposed to be bad right now, right? It's weird to think I'll never go back there when I have so many memories there. All this stuff seems to be happening while I'm away... I guess that's what happens when you leave, though. Things will be different when I go back.

Today I'll post some photos of my apartment. Unlike a lot of ALTs, I do not have a tiny place, nor do I have a Leo Palace apartment. My place is nice! I took these pictures in March right before my mom came to visit, since I cleaned my place up for her... it's messy now. I need to clean it before Kels gets here! Uh oh. Anyway, here are some pictures, since it's likely that vaultedthewall is the only one who'll actually ever see it in person. (I'm so excited! Just a few days more!)

( Amanda's Swingin' Pad )

Next time: Princess Road! It's not a Mario Kart level.

I hear it's really hot over in Seattle right about now. Don't die, guys! Stay in a cool place and drink lots of water! To do my little bit to help, I'll post some cool mountain photos. These are actually from February, but I've been too lazy and forgetful to do an image post until now. But in the interest of cleaning photos off my camera, I'm going to do a few photo posts over the next few days. First, Mt Fuji and surrounding lakes and rivers!

( Mt Fuji )

Next time: my apartment! (Ooh. Ahh.)

I am desperately in need of a hug!

Will you give me one? I would appreciate it greatly and it would cheer me up a lot. :) Or any affirmation I guess! I'm feeling pretty down about myself. In return, I will tell you something awesome about you.

I arrived at my school today to discover that it was full of H1N1.

Okay, not that full. But a few students got sick, and they're worried, so they closed school for the rest of the week. Of course, since it was the last week before summer vacation, the students seemed pretty happy.

It's not super fab for me, since I have to go to an elementary school tomorrow anyway, but I DO get Thursday and Friday off. I agreed to come in on Monday to help some students with their preparations for the speech contest (which was originally going to happen on Thursday), though, so I really only get one day off. But hey, one day is better than none!

Now I just have to try not to catch new-type flu myself. I have had a suspicious headache recently...

Since English books are kind of hard to find around here, I've been reading a lot of things I normally wouldn't. One of the bookstores in a nearby city has a small bargain book bin that's generally full of a random selection of English books, so when I go there I take a few that look interesting (actually I'm going again later today, but the train doesn't come until 11:40 so I'm posting instead). I tend to get a wide range of quality doing that... I've picked up some books I normally wouldn't have read but that turned out to be really good, some that kind of sucked, and some that were meh.

Recently I finished reading a particular book. It wasn't a badly written book or a terrible read, I was just totally boggled and disgusted by the ending. Am I supposed to be? Am I just the entirely wrong audience?

( Cut for spoilers and disgust, and now more homophobia! Hooray! )

It was raining hard this morning.

I grabbed my umbrella on the way out, stuck it in the umbrella stand at my junior high school. Then I left again to go to the elementary school I was working at for the day - but my umbrella wasn't there, a student had taken it to go out and use while hitting the bell (which my school does at the beginning and end of every day, it sounds like a gong, and it's outside so if it's raining the students assigned will just borrow an umbrella from the teacher's entrance since it's closest.)

So I took someone else's umbrella, since there were a million there and I'd be back before the end of the day.

By the time I left the elementary school, it was sunny, and so I forgot the other umbrella there.

Whoops. :\

At least it wasn't a nice one? It was cheap clear plastic, so I don't feel too bad... plus everyone in Japan has like twelve umbrellas because they fear the rain.

More importantly, Kelsey is coming to visit me in August! YAAAAAAAY! I'm so happy, you have no idea!! I'm thinking of good places for us to go in Tokyo and here. It'll be so much fun!

The reason Japanese music shows are the best ever:

"So, you guys debuted 10 years ago today! Congratulations! And you're going to perform your new song later, that's great!

But first, we polled 100 drag queens to find out which one of you they'd want most as a boyfriend. Let's see the results! :D"

It's always entertaining.

So one of the nearby towns, Inasa, is sister cities with Chehalis. Because of that, a lot of the teachers in my schools have been to Washington State, though they only make a quick trip through Seattle on the way there. Yesterday (well, the day before, now), I was talking with the principal of one of my elementary schools and another teacher about the teacher's trip there. She talked about how Chehalis is very 'inaka' ('out in the sticks', more or less, it's one of those words that almost all foreigners here use too, as a noun and an adjective - for example, I live in the inaka and my town is very inaka), and then asked me how Seattle was, compared to that.

I could've told them plenty of things, my usual favorite being explaining that Starbucks is from Seattle (most Japanese do not know this, though Starbucks is EVERYWHERE in Japan). Or I could've told them that Seattle is the biggest city in Washington, there are lots of people, etc.

But apparently all I needed to say was that Seattle is sister cities with Kobe, which in addition to being a big port city is also supposedly the fashion capital of Japan (despite what Allie may say).

That prompted simultaneous exclamations of "Oshare! (Fashionable!)" from the principal and the teacher. Now they think Seattle is a very fashionable city, and I didn't have the heart to correct them.

Sorry, guys. Be more fashionable, please, or you will disappoint my coworkers.

And now you know 'inaka' and 'oshare', two important Japanese words. You're welcome.

Today I worked at one of my elementary schools, and afterwards I went to the store because I have no food. At the store, I ran into one of my students from the school, one of the fifth graders - I think. She might have been a sixth grader. I asked her if today had been fun, and she said yes. I thanked her, and she was quiet for a second and then told me that she LOVED English. I told her that made me really happy, and we parted ways.

It made me so happy, you guys. ;_; Particularly since elementary school English often feels pretty pointless. You don't visit the kids often and they have no reason to remember anything, so they usually don't. In junior high, no matter what they've learned, they start from scratch again.

Her school in particular is one that I have trouble with, which made it even better. I visit there twice as often as most of my other elementary schools, so I have to make twice as many lesson plans, which means that sometimes the lesson plans... well, aren't that great. The kids at the school are hard to teach, too - not because they don't like me, but because they do and they express it by having WAY TOO MUCH ENERGY ALL THE TIME. So at the end of the day (like today), I'm usually tired and have a sore throat from yelling over them.

So that made me feel like my day was worth it. Thank you, little girl. You are now my favorite student in that school.

Oh, also I went to visit Allie in Hokkaido for Golden Week, and lost my jacket and hairbrush. Drink in moderation, guys, drink in moderation. It was awesome, though. Hokkaido is like another land that has lots of 'Hokkaido only' stuff and special horrible mascots with hard-ons. I will always remember it.