Editors Note

I didnt realize my post would be so controversial. I wasnt trying to hate on pies. I enjoy pies. In fact, no pies were harmed in the making of this blog.
Also, it has come to my attention thanks to the lovely Kate Nevens that my blog was only allowing registered users to post, so I have fixed that. Now everyone is free to enjoy my box.

I knew I would be famous some day

I have mad spoon dancing skillz and now everyone knows it. Apparently I was on the news a few weeks back after I went to the festival on the Okis. One of my students asked me today whether I had been the festival and then said that he saw me on TV practicing the dance. I wouldnt be suprised if I am now know across Shimane as "that foreign chick who spoon dances."
This Thursday was one of the best days I have ever had at school. This week there are are midterms so I don't have any classes, though that is usually par for the course for me anyway. But in the afternoon all the teachers played a volleyball tournament for the rest of the day. It was really fun and my team won second place so I got a sweat towel and mens socks that are too big for me. Rock! Way better than a normal day at school.

Pie Making-1, English-0

So here I am updating my blog since my class (the only one) was cancelled today. What class do the students have in its place? The all important home economics. Sigh. It's nice to actually confirm that I am at the absolute bottom of the school hierarchy, below home ec. Sadly, the more I thought about it, it is a lot more practical for the kids to go to home ec. I mean, when the girls are married in about two years time and their husbands come home from a long day of superfluous tunnel construction work/traffic lightstick waving and tell their wives to get in kitchen and bake them a pie, they probably won't be barking out those orders in English.

Random 70's Hotness

Gaijin-1 Nihonjin-0

Haha, I blogged about this before Himene. Anyway, this weekend I went to Hiroshima , nearest big city to me, near being a relative term since it is about 2 and a half hours away. We went to a restaurant on Sunday night and it was relatively empty since a typhoon was supposed coming. Of course we diverted the typhoon single handledly by later singing karoake homages to the typhoon and thus appeasing the typhoon gods. But back to the restaurant. There were six of us and there was a cheap set menu that two people could share. So we paired up with the intention of ordering sets. The waiter then informed us that since we were a group of six, we couldnt do sets, they were not for people in groups. "What if we split up and move to different tables? Then are we technically in groups of 2?" Himene asked. Well this really threw the waiter for a loop. He thought about it and said it was OK. So two of us moved to a different table literally one foot away and we proceeded to bitch about the absurdity of the situation. The waiter looked really confused, went away, came back, and said it was ok for today only if we sat together and still got the set. Not to knock Japanese people, but I am guessing we were the first people to ever ask that question and the waiter was just unable think that he should say we couldn't get the set even if we moved and that would have been the end of it. There is this inability here to think outside the box and deal with a problem thats not covered in the work manual you get on the first day. So thats why...we win! Foreign ingenuity rocks.

I Really Like Japan But...

Dear Japan,
Please stop taking all the perfectly nice vegetables that are in my lunch bento and covering them in a semen-like substance.
Love,
Sara

OKI

Greetings from Oki! Love: Hobo, Slag, and Beatbox

Here are some pictures from the Oki islands. the set of islands off of Shimane whose ownership is NOT being contested by Korea. They are really beautiful, but there's not much to do. Oki makes my town look like a giant metropolis. Some U.C.ers went over last weekend and we enjoyed a spoon dance festival and jellyfish -free swimming. Of course ,we were secure in the knowledge that if we were to come across a jellyfish,we could just punch it in the face. Or the box. It's hard to tell which is which on a jellyfish.

Sports Day!

My school just concluded its school festival. The culmination of the only three days a year of fun that my students are allowed to have is the sports day. They run relay races, as do us teachers, and then they do a dance performance. My team, purple, won the relays, as well as best overall festival performance. Murasaki, murasaki! Sadly, the yellow team did not win in any category and half the team was sobbing uncontrollably after closing ceremony. What a nice high school memory. The best race of the day is called "tire princess." Don't let the cutsy name fool you. It's a vicious bloodbath. Girls from two teams must run to the middle of the field and drag a tire (plus any girls from the opposing team who refuse to let go of said tire) back to their own side. You haven't experienced everything until you have seen sixteen year old Japanese girls mauling each other over tires.

One must always be prepared for a photo op in Japan

I must win the potato sack race or bring shame upon my family.

Procrastination Gone Too Far

Hmmm, so this is what happens when I should be studying kanji...I am going to attempt this blog thing and see how it goes.