Saturday, Apr 24

IN A NUTSHELL: Kudos to My Neighbor!

Hubcap Humdrum I finally had my snow tires changed back into regular tires yesterday. THAT took me long enough. It's almost May! However, I realized last night that I had only brought two hubcaps over to the gas station and therefore, I only had two hubcaps on my car. I took the other two out of the shed and attempted to put them on. After a bit of struggling, I realized that these hubcaps were supposed to be attached to the tire using the tire screws themselves (unlike my last two cars, where I just kicked them on, basically.) After a bit of searching, I realized I owned absolutely NO car tools. So I went to my neighbor's house. He was so nice, he came out immediately and helped me out. He got his tools from his car and, very impressively for a 60something-year-old, unscrewed the giant, tight screws and put the hubcaps on. He even offered to do my tire changeover next time (instead of me having to pay the gas station.) I don't know if I want to put him through that much trouble, but I'll see, Anyway, I spent a lot of the afternoon at his house. As usual, he gave me lots of coffee and munchies and I chatted with his mother and him. It was a nice afternoon.

IN A NUTSHELL: Concert at the Canoe Park

Random Koto! I'm glad I made the effort to get up this morning to go to the "Canoe Cup" at the Canoe Park. As the canoes raced down from upriver, a small concert was put on by locals. Tomoko sung four songs - one of them Amazing Grace - with her beautiful voice and then her mother, Maruyama-san, together with seven other women including my koto teacher and Odagawa-san, played about five songs on a very unusual instrument that looked like an electric koto but with a bit of keyboard on it. One of the songs they played was, of course, a rendition of Sekai-ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana. I tried to take a picture of the instrument, but I was too late. It was really neat, though! And, as a bonus, my allergy medicine is working quite well.

Why, Yes, I Am An Elf After the concert, I went up to the canoe park restaurant with Maruyama's daughter-in-law (the one from the clinic) and got one of the "only fifty cream puffs left!" they advertised. We drank coffee and watched the canoers come in below with her four-year-old son. She asked me if I had a boyfriend. No on that. For some reason, we got talking about hair and I told her I was thinking of growing mine out. She said, "then you'll look like Legolas" which totally cracked me up. She also taught me fun new verbs like "Popuru" which means "going to Popura." I guess that's kind of like "Safewaying."

Not A Stupid Thing of the Day Because No One Saw Me After chatting some more when Tomoko showed up and having some udon for lunch, I headed out. I drove out of the canoe park and turned left... into the right lane! D'oh! it took me a few seconds to notice, but luckily, no one was on the roads this Sunday at noon.

IN A NUTSHELL: The Hunt

More Easter Eggs Today was a fun day at the elementary school because my activity was something I did myself with my friends last Easter. An Easter Egg Hunt! I brought in my several dozen plastic eggs filled with goodies from the 100 yen store (like shiny beads, stickers, and color paper clips) as well as the mini erasers I got from FBC. I also brought in a Japanese handout that explained the different aspects of Easter (spring festival vs Jesus resurrection.) I had half the students hide the eggs and the other half search. Then I switched. I made sure that, by the end, every student had 2 eggs then I let them open the egg and keep what was inside. They had a lot of fun comparing contents. I got a lot of 'thank you's too. Way fun!

IN A NUTSHELL: Better than Real Nature

Ah, Birds Singing I think it was in the clothes store where I heard the soothing sound of birdsong serenading me while I shopped. I suppose its a step up from muzak, but still a bit strange.

IN A NUTSHELL: A Kid Called Genki

I Don't Know What To Think of This One I had four classes in a row at Miyoshi today, which involved a lot of stair climbing since they're all on the third or fourth floor. I had two new 8th grade classes today with Tamai-sensei and I did my Grooving Music and Question Envelope mini-self-introduction lesson in both. I was forewarned that there was a student in one of the classes who did not participate. Sure enough, when I walked in, this kid was just sitting in the back. Sometimes he would say something incomprehensible and walk to the back of the room and look through the books. Otherwise, he just sat at his desk and looked out the window. As I had the students pick names out of the envelope, I crossed my fingers and hoped that the kid in the back would not be called. When I said "okay, this is the last name," and had the student choose, the name "Genki Matsuoka" came out. Tamai-san gestured to the kid in the back. Trying to be game, I walked over and asked him for a question. He muttered something then ignored me. I leaned in close then came back up, pretending he asked me something. "Good question! Do I have a boyfriend? I'm surprised no one's asked me yet." And I answered and finished off my introduction and we continued with the lesson. I don't know if doing that was a good idea or not, but he didn't seem to react. Very strange kid. What makes it all ironic, of course, is his name. I've never met anyone named Genki before. Genki is one of the most commonly used words in Japanese. "Genki desu ka?" Is the equivalent of "How are you?" and "genki" literally translates as "happy" or "energetic". Maybe having that name was too much pressure for him?

Harry Potter Required Reading? In my 9th grade class, I gave a quiz to practice passive voice. One of the clues was: "This is a book that is written mainly in English. It is read by every student at this school." The answer was their textbook of course, but one girl guessed the dictionary and Harry Potter before figuring out the right answer.

My Doll Trick Worked I bought a cute witch doll at the 100 yen store and put it on my desk. Sure enough, everyone is coming up and looking at it, picking it up, and saying "cute!" It makes my desk friendlier-looking, I think, not the kids here need any incentive to come up and chat with me.

IN A NUTSHELL: And Golden Week Has Begun

Come On, It's My Day Off! The phone rang at 8am, dammit. It wasn't exactly a prank call but it almost seemed like one. Maybe it was a junk call from a person who was baffled when I answered the phone "Hello? Hello? Moshi moshi!" At 10, some random guy came to my door seemingly to tell me that he had the wrong door. He showed me someone else's nameplate and walked back to his scooter and left. Huh? Are people always this weird on weekdays and I'm just usually at work? Anyway, I took advantage of my day off and talked to everyone on the phone, including my sister, Ann, and Erik. It was a very nice, relaxing day off and I took a nice bike ride in the gorgeous weather (that thankfully cooled off from that random Day of Heat before).

Thank You Narita, Thank You Carina I got a text message today that made me very, very, very, very happy. Carina was able to change my Chinese money back into yen! Yay! My research on the internet confirmed that there were two banks at the airport in Tokyo that would change Chinese yuan, but I didn't really believe it until today when Carina, who was headed to Narita anyway, offered to change it for me. That's a weight off. That was a lot of money.