February, so far…
So yet again, I’ve been pretty lazy with my updates…school has not been too busy, so I don’t really have too many excuses for that. Although a few of my schools have blocked all email servers, which can make for a fairly long day if I don’t have too many classes! But I’ve been in the habit of bringing in my computer to listen to music and such. Work has been slow the past week or two, since the students have had some tests. So they review beforehand (don’t need me), have the test days, and then hand back the tests (also not needed) – so I have spent quite a few days bored at my desk with nothing to do! The school year is almost finished here – the last week of March and first week of April is their holidays before the new school year begins. It isn’t really a holiday for me, I still have to go into work, but there are no classes or anything…so I guess it gives me more time to prepare…maybe...or just sit around at the Board of Education, like I did in the summer!
Anyways – I will continue my update on the past few weeks! At the beginning of February, the Sasebo crowd (mainly Hitoshi), hosted a Cheese Night – where we had free reign of the music at a new bar in Sasebo. 
It was surprisingly quite a large venue, and the staff was very nice and friendly – but the “DJ” didn’t play all of our stuff, and put in his own mix. So it was a little less “Cheesy” than we wanted, but we still had a great time! Lots of dancing! And also quite a few Japanese teachers came out for the event as well, which was a nice change! It was quite a success, and we are thinking of hopefully being able to have another one sometime in the future!
It was also the Setsubun festival, which although it had been explained a bit to me in Japanese, I still do not fully comprehend what it is all about. It has something to do with the New Year and the coming of spring…at the beginning of February…who knew? 
Anyways – we went to a Shinto shrine with my Japanese class/group and took part in their ceremony. The people who’s year it was (its my year this year – year of the boar), were presented to the crowd (sadly, I was not invited!) and threw beans. If you catch them, it is said that you will have good luck in the upcoming year. Then they gave us all mochi, lit a huge fire pit of offerings, and we toasted them and put them in a sweet bean soup (soooo not my thing…I just ate the rice). It was pretty cool to see.
There was a workshop for new teachers in Sasebo, and a few of us ALTs were asked to make a presentation on our countries and our education systems, as well as play a few games which could come in handy for these teachers. I was a little stressed out about my presentation, especially since our supervisor had originally asked if we could do as much of it in Japanese as possible (for 10 minutes!). Thankfully he changed his mind, and everything went quite smoothly! It turned out to be quite fun, and the teachers were pretty competitive and into all of our games, which is always very rewarding!
It was my friend, Jenny’s birthday last week, so we had a 
mini birthday party for her. I had made her favourite food from Canada (Nanaimo bars) and Claire and Nic made a feast of other sweets and goodies. It was sort of a surprise, she heard Ben laughing when she was walking up. But it was good fun, and I had a sugar high for the rest of the night!
Last weekend I went to Omura to visit some 
fellow JETS for the night, then went to Nagasaki for the rest of the weekend. Had a chance to go skating – Nagasaki has a small skating rink, where you can rent skates (which were seriously from the 1960s) – but it was very nice! Definitely not the Rideau Canal – which I really was missing…although I hear it was too cold to go out skating there! It was a long weekend, so it was pretty much just lots of partying and such…you know…the usual shenanigans.
Valentine’s Day in Japan is celebrated, only quite different from ours! Of course there is the commercialism of the boxed chocolate and such – but on February 14th, only the women give chocolates and gifts to men. There are two kinds of chocolate – homei chocolate, which is the bigger boxed chocolates and other gifts that you give to your husband, boyfriend, love interest, etc. And then there is giri chocolate – which is basically “obligatory” chocolate, which you have to give to the men in your life, such as co-workers, friends, fellow students, etc. So I had just bought a few individually wrapped chocolates (giri...not homei!) for the men at my school. But come February 14th, no other teachers that I saw were taking part in this “tradition”, and it seemed pretty much ignored in the office….soooo I kept the chocolates to myself and saved them for Valentine’s Day night, when Claire and Nicola came over for a girls night with chick flicks, chocolate, junk food and wine. A very nice way to spend a Wednesday night!
This past weekend, I had my first experience with beer pong…although I had been introduced to this by many of my high school guy friends; I had never played or seen it played. 
Well, I can easily tell you that it is not one of my talents, but we had a pretty funny time! On Saturday, there was an ALT soccer game in Sasebo, so we went out for that (I clearly didn’t play – as soccer is also not one of my talents…), which was fun. Then Sunday we headed down to 
Nagasaki for the beginning of the Lantern Festival. There is quite a large population of Chinese people in Nagasaki, and the lantern festival is also a celebration of Chinese New Year. 
There were many people out and about, and the lights and dances were quite entertaining. It is actually going on for almost two weeks I believe. 
They also had a shrine type thing set up among the lantern statues which had pig heads all in it…I guess as some sort of offering. But it was also year of the boar…hmmm what do they do for year of the dog, snake, dragon, etc?! jk.
Anyways – all in all, things are pretty good! The temperatures are still really mild, last week it was 12-15 degrees in the morning on my drive into work…so no complaints here. I am definitely not missing the Canadian winters, and could definitely get used to this! A few things are planned for the upcoming months – there is a few possible weekend trips, a trip up to Kyoto to meet up with Lisa and Akina (who I used to baby-sit), and I am saving up for a trip during Golden Week in May. I have my sights set on Thailand, but with the costs and time restraints, it may be put off a bit….we shall see!
I hope all is well with everyone! Take care!
So yet again, I’ve been pretty lazy with my updates…school has not been too busy, so I don’t really have too many excuses for that. Although a few of my schools have blocked all email servers, which can make for a fairly long day if I don’t have too many classes! But I’ve been in the habit of bringing in my computer to listen to music and such. Work has been slow the past week or two, since the students have had some tests. So they review beforehand (don’t need me), have the test days, and then hand back the tests (also not needed) – so I have spent quite a few days bored at my desk with nothing to do! The school year is almost finished here – the last week of March and first week of April is their holidays before the new school year begins. It isn’t really a holiday for me, I still have to go into work, but there are no classes or anything…so I guess it gives me more time to prepare…maybe...or just sit around at the Board of Education, like I did in the summer!
Anyways – I will continue my update on the past few weeks! At the beginning of February, the Sasebo crowd (mainly Hitoshi), hosted a Cheese Night – where we had free reign of the music at a new bar in Sasebo. 
It was surprisingly quite a large venue, and the staff was very nice and friendly – but the “DJ” didn’t play all of our stuff, and put in his own mix. So it was a little less “Cheesy” than we wanted, but we still had a great time! Lots of dancing! And also quite a few Japanese teachers came out for the event as well, which was a nice change! It was quite a success, and we are thinking of hopefully being able to have another one sometime in the future!
It was also the Setsubun festival, which although it had been explained a bit to me in Japanese, I still do not fully comprehend what it is all about. It has something to do with the New Year and the coming of spring…at the beginning of February…who knew? 
Anyways – we went to a Shinto shrine with my Japanese class/group and took part in their ceremony. The people who’s year it was (its my year this year – year of the boar), were presented to the crowd (sadly, I was not invited!) and threw beans. If you catch them, it is said that you will have good luck in the upcoming year. Then they gave us all mochi, lit a huge fire pit of offerings, and we toasted them and put them in a sweet bean soup (soooo not my thing…I just ate the rice). It was pretty cool to see.There was a workshop for new teachers in Sasebo, and a few of us ALTs were asked to make a presentation on our countries and our education systems, as well as play a few games which could come in handy for these teachers. I was a little stressed out about my presentation, especially since our supervisor had originally asked if we could do as much of it in Japanese as possible (for 10 minutes!). Thankfully he changed his mind, and everything went quite smoothly! It turned out to be quite fun, and the teachers were pretty competitive and into all of our games, which is always very rewarding!
It was my friend, Jenny’s birthday last week, so we had a 
mini birthday party for her. I had made her favourite food from Canada (Nanaimo bars) and Claire and Nic made a feast of other sweets and goodies. It was sort of a surprise, she heard Ben laughing when she was walking up. But it was good fun, and I had a sugar high for the rest of the night!
Last weekend I went to Omura to visit some 
fellow JETS for the night, then went to Nagasaki for the rest of the weekend. Had a chance to go skating – Nagasaki has a small skating rink, where you can rent skates (which were seriously from the 1960s) – but it was very nice! Definitely not the Rideau Canal – which I really was missing…although I hear it was too cold to go out skating there! It was a long weekend, so it was pretty much just lots of partying and such…you know…the usual shenanigans.Valentine’s Day in Japan is celebrated, only quite different from ours! Of course there is the commercialism of the boxed chocolate and such – but on February 14th, only the women give chocolates and gifts to men. There are two kinds of chocolate – homei chocolate, which is the bigger boxed chocolates and other gifts that you give to your husband, boyfriend, love interest, etc. And then there is giri chocolate – which is basically “obligatory” chocolate, which you have to give to the men in your life, such as co-workers, friends, fellow students, etc. So I had just bought a few individually wrapped chocolates (giri...not homei!) for the men at my school. But come February 14th, no other teachers that I saw were taking part in this “tradition”, and it seemed pretty much ignored in the office….soooo I kept the chocolates to myself and saved them for Valentine’s Day night, when Claire and Nicola came over for a girls night with chick flicks, chocolate, junk food and wine. A very nice way to spend a Wednesday night!
This past weekend, I had my first experience with beer pong…although I had been introduced to this by many of my high school guy friends; I had never played or seen it played. 
Well, I can easily tell you that it is not one of my talents, but we had a pretty funny time! On Saturday, there was an ALT soccer game in Sasebo, so we went out for that (I clearly didn’t play – as soccer is also not one of my talents…), which was fun. Then Sunday we headed down to 
Nagasaki for the beginning of the Lantern Festival. There is quite a large population of Chinese people in Nagasaki, and the lantern festival is also a celebration of Chinese New Year. 
There were many people out and about, and the lights and dances were quite entertaining. It is actually going on for almost two weeks I believe. 
They also had a shrine type thing set up among the lantern statues which had pig heads all in it…I guess as some sort of offering. But it was also year of the boar…hmmm what do they do for year of the dog, snake, dragon, etc?! jk.Anyways – all in all, things are pretty good! The temperatures are still really mild, last week it was 12-15 degrees in the morning on my drive into work…so no complaints here. I am definitely not missing the Canadian winters, and could definitely get used to this! A few things are planned for the upcoming months – there is a few possible weekend trips, a trip up to Kyoto to meet up with Lisa and Akina (who I used to baby-sit), and I am saving up for a trip during Golden Week in May. I have my sights set on Thailand, but with the costs and time restraints, it may be put off a bit….we shall see!
I hope all is well with everyone! Take care!
posted by megpruner @ 7:47 PM
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