A New Post!

Call the kids in! Phone your friends! Hamamatsu Life has an update! A new posting! And the lead picture is a generic, unreferenced one, it must be time for one of Todd's miscellaneous ramblings entries! Wow!

Sorry: Yep, I don't know what's been going on, my posts have been a little too much spaced out lately. I guess this week I had two new classes which I usually get a bit stressed about especially when trying to teach a new textbook. I tend to think that in the end the classes always work out fine but if I don't get worked up for the classes, I won't do as good a job- so it may be part of my successful recipe (it's one of my theories anyway). Well even though I haven't been typing in my blog, I often think about what to talk about when I am driving, so this is probably the by product of those thoughts!

Baby Talk: Ritsy finished work this week, and is now on Maternity Leave. I think it's great that she will have a month to relax now, it's going to get really busy for both of us, especially for her in about a month. And wow- that really feels real now- one month away from baby arriving. We actually heard the baby's sex now- but I'm not going to mention it here just yet- I want to personally tell a few people first. We already have a baby bed- thanks to Kouji-san, and we bought a new mattress and blankets for it. We also bought a stroller at a used goods shop and a car seat. So I think that is a good start. I even have been trying to read the What to Expect in the Baby's first year to be prepared for the challenges ahead. Progress is slow...

Baby Talk part 2: I watched the movie Knocked Up the other day and had a good chuckle. Of course the movie isn't for everyone- very adult themes like drugs, etc... Though in the movie the baby comes about thanks to a one night stand- the actual pregnancy and everything after that was somewhat relevant to me, so it was actually good to watch for my situation. Especially when they showed the picture of the baby crowning, that is something I have to work myself up to...

Death Hill: One of my new classes this week was in Morimachi(actually both of them were), which means that for the first time in a long time I had to go out in the direction where I had my accident earlier this year. Well, the old road is now gone, they built a new, much safer road through the hills. It is a gradual incline with a much lower apex and very good sight lines- the drive feels much safer now! Good job government of Hamamtsu!
Not Farewell, it's see you later : Ya it was kind of a sad feeling on Tuesday. Some of my regular students for my Tuesday night class that have been attending for around 2 years will not be joining next semester. So it felt like goodbye, though I hope that we will all stay in touch as they were not only great as students but we also had some great talks and a couple of fun times at Josh's place. Well if you guys are reading this, thanks again!
Lanma: Asked me to put her picture in my blog again, so there it is.

I will try to be more on top of posting again! Thanks for reading!

Let's! English study!

Just wanted a picture for todays post

I was driving today and was reminded of a very common English mistake that is made here in Japan (which I may have spoken about before in this blog...). The car in front of me at the light had a well meaning bumper sticker that said "Let's! Safety" . What the heck does that mean? I especially liked the exclamation point after Let's - instead of at the end of the phrase where it should be.

Now, for a long time- I have been reminded of the "I am a safety driver" phrase pretty much everywhere I drive. How did such a blatant English mistake become so widespread I mean you would think that a politician or PR man somewhere must have taken a couple of English lessons and spotted the error before it was plastered everywhere! Could it be that people just don't care if it is correct or not....? Nah!

On a serious note- I saw on the news (the 10 minutes of CNN headline news I could catch the other day) the video clip of the mom in the U.S. racing the train, and beating it, only to get hit by a train coming the other way. She instantly killed her two daughters and was in serious condition at the time of the report. The whole video sickened me. It's one thing if you are going to drive like a clown and risk your own life.Let's not forget that you are still a hazard to everyone surrounding you on the streets too, but if you are driving your two children around-- you err on the side of caution. I mean what is worse, being a little late for your Pilate's, or killing your children? Don't get me wrong- I am sure she feels like crap about it, but I think that is a gamble you just don't take. Alright- I haven't had a rant for a while. When I think about being a Safe Driver, it is video like that which inspires me to drive well, more than a silly little catch phrase like Drive Safely. NEWS LINK.

Party at Josh's crib

It's been a long while since I have posted, I am really sorry! I have been quite busy over the last week and a half with my mother and aunt being in town, and naturally I will blog about it soon, lord knows I have about 400 pictures to sift through to pick my highlights, but I will get back to that in the next post.

My last post was about the Hime sama doucho festival in Kiga, and I wanted to further post about the history of the festival but was having a tough time digging up the true story, I will keep my eyes open though, and maybe I can tell the story next year! I have uploaded these two videos from the festival though-- one and two. One is about 3 years old from the first time I went to the festival- it includes me trying to be funny with the camera- the second video is just a few clips I took with my camera- I especially like the monks with the basket heads.

On the 8th of April, I had a great little get together with my Tuesday evening Eigo 4 class. One student that has taken my course for 3 terms now and always is not only a great contributor in class, but also contributes to my blog sometimes- Josh- had a little bbq at his house. Unfortunately he only ended up in one of my pictures, this one where I was taking a picture of Harry taking a picture of me(he is in the back with the cap and the grey sweatshirt).
We were also all glad to finally meet Kouji's wife and see his new baby that we have all heard so much about! His wife made some delicious Thai curry that had Ritsy and I humbled in our past attempts to make Thai curry... Kouji also brought some excellent coffee and was hand filtering cups of coffee- it was naturally sweet and delicious! I later learned that it would be impossible for me to buy the coffee as the man who ran the shop in Hiroshima closed his shop.
One of the stars of the bbq was also Takayasu's daughter Yuri, who was shy but absolutely charming!
We also were really impressed with Josh's home in Miyakoda which looked like a log cabin that could have been in Whistler. We later learned that the home was designed and largely imported from Bellingham Washington, just across the border from Vancouver. Ritsy was scaring me talking about making a second home that looked like his.
It was a great BBQ and I look forward to next one there!

Stella!

The great search.... Last year my wife bought a Stella, which is produced by Subaru and is considered to be a 'K- class' car or Konpakuto car (yep that's compact car). The advantage of owning a compact class car is that they are better on gas mileage (though my lovely Vitz gives it a run for it's money) and they fall under a lower taxation bracket so they overall are economically sound. You can usually really quickly tell that a car is a k-car by it's yellow licence plates (regular sized engine cars have white licence plates). Well last month my wife pointed out to me that she has never seen another Stella when driving around. Since then the search has been on, every time I see a yellow licence plate, I quickly look at the car maker and almost always it is either the Honda 'H' emblem or the 'D' announcing that it is a Diahatsu (Toyota does not make kompact class cars- The third most popular k-class car is probably Suzuki). I have yet to see another Stella. To me this is great- in a country where there are so many cars and a tendency to place higher value on what is a popular seller rather than being unique, it's great to be driving a unique car! The other thing is that it is actually a pretty good car, our previous car was a Suzuki Wagon R which I thought was just slightly better than a go-kart, but this car has some pep and is very easy to drive.

My wife attended a funeral for one of her co-workers' son today. He was only 20 years old and passed away in a car accident. What movie was that line from - "no father should ever have to bury their son"...? I think it was a Lord of the Rings movie- but it always held to me as a great quote, there would be nothing sadder than burying your own child.

On a lighter but also sad note, this Saturday marks my last class teaching at Arai's NL Farm. It's been a fantastic year and a quarter teaching there and I am really going to miss teaching the children there, but the hour long travel time really wore me out last year, so I have to take my chances finding work closer to home.

Stuff and things

Picture.I always found Monet's pictures interesting and bought a Page-a day calendar this year. I really liked the picture from today, titled Seascape, Night Effect.

Clearance Sale! Last week, the wife and I took some older furniture to a recycle shop- and were quite disappointed that they only offered us 2000 yen for it. Well, we took it anyway, but we are still left with two things that we would like to find a home for. If you live in Japan and you need a tv- we have a (I'm not sure how many inches it is- maybe19-21?) Toshiba Wide bazooka tv- that we will part with cheap! If you are interested let me know and I will see if I can dig up any information. We also have a Thomas hot oil heater that is good for small rooms, but relatively ineffective for big rooms. That can be had for free- again just let me know if you are interested and I can find some more information for you.

Serika, Natsumi, Neo, Ryuya, Mi Chan from ESLC

Happyokai. I have worked at ESLC for one year now! Sometimes it feels like it has been longer, but it's been a good experience for me all the same. Both Chris and Hisano, the owners and my friends at the school, have been great to me there and helped me feel welcome and really have been understanding considering how hectic my schedule has been at times! On Wednesday we had the end of year show held at the local Bunka Center (Cultural Center) and the show went really well! All the students had worked so hard over the last month memorizing their skits and there was some anxiety about my students, but everyone did a fantastic job! After we finished with the show, a small group of us went to Mainichi Bowl to say goodbye to one of the students that is moving to Tokyo. A large part of the group was made up of returnees that had spent time in America or other countries, and their English was fantastic!
Chris particularly was putting up some good scores, seemingly enjoying victimizing the poor children!
The gang had a great time.
I was just trying to creep everyone out...
I still don't know what she was doing...
We capped the day off with pizza and soft drinks (yes- really- only soft drinks). It was a tiring but fun day!

Saturdays

On Saturdays I work in a town called Araimachi at a farm called NL Farm. That's right I teach English at a farm. In the above picture you can see the view from the parking lot. The big building in the background is where the boat races are held- it is a very popular hangout for oyaji's (a term referring to an 'uncool' old guy- they love horse and boat races!)
The view from the other side is of Hamanako, the large lake that is a popular destination for travellers to the region.
Two weeks ago, one of the goats on the farm had a baby- he doesn't have a name yet but he is pretty cute.
The kids love playing with the animals and today a couple of the students had the pleasure of feeding this little guy. It was a pretty funny day!

Baths, Bikes and beyond...

In last night's class I was talking with my students about Yamaha Living Tech, Yamaha's line of nice looking and well- built household components. This industry is really large in Japan, the kitchen set or bathroom set is usually sold together as a package when you are building a new house. Unfortunately, my home doesn't have one of these nice looking kitchens or bathrooms, and I wish I could change that. My student that works there, Harry, was inviting us to visit the showroom in Hamamatsu. One interesting thing, if you make a reservation, you can actually take one of their baths for a test drive- that's right you can take a bath in the showroom! Don't worry the bath would be totally private and closed to prying eyes! Very interesting idea. I heard they also have a cooking class- but it is for women only! Well if you are in Hamamatsu, check it out!

My mission for the bike ride 2 days ago also was a failure. I wanted to get some serious distance in to burn a few calories, but my tire decided to get punctured only about 4 kms from my home! So I ended up sitting at an Eneos gas station for an hour waiting for them to fix my tire for me. That cost me 2100 yen ($20.00) so I had no money and I lost my energy while sitting and waiting, so I just went home. Oh well, there is always next week! I think the next mission might be to take the bike out to Hamamatsu central to check the job board- I need to get some work for my mornings!(Edit: Just after posting this I received an e-mail from Satomi offering a new morning class! Thanks Satomi!!!)

Pete's wedding party is this weekend, so I have to start working hard on practicing Shima Uta as Chris and I will be performing it during the reception. Could be a disaster!

Bits and Pieces

Today was the first day back to teaching the children at ESL College. Sometimes I really notice how far the kids are coming or am surprised at what they remember from the classes. The kids are always cute, but I was blown away today at the progress not only the students I taught, Koki and Sana have made, but also some of the younger ones too. Today was one of the days I was happy walking out of there. Of course it's not always like that.

Tonight the wife decided to give the cats a shower. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture of Lanny when she was wet, but Santa looked pretty danged funny coming out of the shower.



And here is the after pics of Santa and Lanny looking clean. Of course Santa is still wet, 2 hours later, he has so much fur...



We watched Good Will Hunting on tv tonight. I really liked that movie. I find it hard to believe that Ben Afleck had anything to do with writing that script though and the makers of the Family Guy agree with me as witnessed here (Caution before clicking the link, fart humour). It's just too smart to be him, though Matt Damon looks like he isn't the brightest candle (hence his only lines in Team America: World Police- "Matt Damon!") but I can buy him being the smart one of the two. Also great performance by Robin Williams - he really showed the undertones of anger and delivered some great lines in that movie. If you haven't seen it, I recommend to watch it.

Well time to hit the hay!