Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Danny in Malaysia
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Pest control
Kana's apartment
We went to her place later and hung out that night before I had to leave the next morning. I needed to be back in Negishi by noon because I had a lesson at one.
I took some pictures of her place before I left. Her main room was about the size of my dorm room in Pullman, but a little bigger.
This is standing near the bed facing the other direction. Notice her refrigerator, microwave, and toaster oven.
When you go through the curtains, toward her door, the kitchen and laundry are on the right and the bathroom is on the left. Looking straight ahead you can see her door and the washing machine/dryer unit. Yes, they are both in one. Kana says the dryer is not very good. All apartments have a small space and bar outside to hang clothes to dry.
Looking to the right you can see her small kitchen. She had some things sitting out when I tried to take the picture, but insisted on moving them because it was "messy". There isn't enough room to be messy!
Last, but not least, is the bathroom. I think the one in my dad and Cheryl's 5th wheel is bigger than this. (In fact, Kana's apartment could fit in their 5th wheel now that I think of it) The faucet for the sink has a turney knob that changes the water flow to the shower. Kind of like the directional nozzle you put on the faucet outside for your hose. The shower is very, very small.
I think I'd go crazy living in a place this small. Its cozy, but so so small. When you look out the window all you see are the apartment buildings next door. Its depressing. Maybe Japanese people can put up with it because they are never really at home anyway. They are workaholics.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Gauge
I guess the one thing I didn't say here was that I finally finished the prayer shall. It took me over a year and I didn't really "finish". Since I had decided to give it to Kana, and I was going to her apartment on friday (more about that later), I had a lot of pressure to finish. Well... I didn't. I had to finish at her place and didn't have the supplies or time to do the pretty fringe/tassles on the ends, but she liked it and that is all that matters. It was a big project... I think I'll stick to prayer socks or prayer scarves from now on! :)
I'd actually like to knit things and sell them, but I don't know how or what or if its worth it. I guess if I came out even I'd be happy. Knitting keeps me busy. I've also discovered that it keeps me from eating anything I shouldn't!
I'll get my camera and attach a picture now of what the shawl looked like; all 73"+ of it!!
I couldn't get the whole thing in one picture.
Folded in half.
Kana bundled up.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Update on "What should I make of this?"
I am sorry that you were not satisfied with the lesson.
Phyllis does have a lot more knowledge and experiance than I do. I promise that I did study the book before our lesson, but I did not know what to expect from your lesson.
I am firstly an English teacher. I've been a Christian for a very short time and don't know everything from the Bible. Now I know that need to do much research before our lessons. Please try to understand that I don't know everything.
I will work better at giving you what you want. Please tell me what you want to do. I am your teacher and am here to help you.
Lori
______________________________________
Hi, Lori
That book is a discussion book and I don't expect you know everything. I just want you are able to reply my basic questions.
For example, at our last lesson, I asked you the meaning of the following sentence and you didn't answer.
"Abraham pestered God over what it would take to
spare the city, negotiating God down from fifty righteous people to only ten"
Now I checked it in web site and understand the meaning why fifty to only ten. Even my Japanese non-Christian friend knows this story. This is a very famous story in bible. I really wanted to have your answer when I asked. If you didn't know, I wanted you study inadvance and explain me. It's our textbook.
2nd, I want to discuss the meanings, because that book is a discussion book. Unfortunately, my English is
not enough to discuss about this matter, please help me.
For my understanding, getting \3,500 is worth 3 hours
work here. I want to request our lesson is worth \3,500. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like that in my last lesson.
For my understanding, getting money is not only just for money, but also improving both characters and enjoying it, because we had a chance to meet among thousands of people. When I don't feel those, I feel it's very expensive. I know this is my opinion and you have yourown opinion.
______________________________________-
Noriko,
Please try to be careful about how you choose to say things. The things you are saying can be a little upsetting.
I am sorry that I couldn't answer your question. I do not know the details of the story and I do not want to tell you something that is incorrect. Please try not to compare me to other people.
I will try my hardest to give you what you want in your lesson. I want to continue being your teacher. Please don't judge me and give me another chance. I know now we need to be clear about what you are expecting in your lesson. We should have a discussion about your expectations on Monday.
Hopefully we can enjoy this lesson and not be upset about the mistakes I make. It would be best for us to talk about this in person.
I will see you Monday.
Lori
Beware!
I called the housing office and they will come fill in the gap between the wall and my cupboard soon.
What should I make of this?
I'm writing this mail because I have been thinking about one thing since our 1st lesson.
You might be upset or find offense with this mail. If so, I'm very sorry.
But I think it's better for us to ask you if our lesson continues.
I had taken Phyllis lesson over 1years. I enjoyed it very much. Yes, she is a extremely great person. My Japanese friend, Miyuki Smith, who gets married with American in Base agrees too. I give her high marks for her diligence. Even though she knows bible very much, she always prepared and studied next chapter, that I respect her.
Lori, I want to ask you to reduce my lesson fee, or increase my lesson time.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Japanese Surnames
Ever wondered what the Japanese equivalent of "Smith" is? Here is the list of the top 10 most common Japanese surnames. It is said that more than a hundred thousand different surnames exist in Japanese, but roughly speaking one out of every
ten Japanese has a surname that is listed here.
Click here to learn more about Japanese names. To see a list of the top 500 Japanese family names ordered by frequency, try here.
1 | Satou 佐藤 |
2 | Suzuki 鈴木 |
3 | Takahashi 高橋 |
4 | Tanaka 田中 |
5 | Watanabe 渡辺 |
6 | Itou 伊藤/伊東 |
7 | Nakamura 中村 |
8 | Yamamoto 山本 |
9 | Kobayashi 小林 |
10 | Saitou 斉藤/斎藤 |
Raining
Looks like it's stopped now though. Sad.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Panorama of Yokohama
Enjoy.
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen5/f23_yokohama.html
Military Post Office
Recently I've been having a lot of issues with my mail. When we went back to the states in May I put a hold on our mail. When we came back, I had two months of magazines and other strange things that gave me the idea that they had a bunch of my mail stashed in the back. In July I ordered a table cloth and curtains. The curtains were from Walmart and the table cloth was from Bed, Bath & Beyond. I ordered them on the same day. About a week later my curtains came. I kept checking for my table cloth but never saw it. One day I got a "second notice". The date was not that day and the mail people said I had nothing. About a week later I got a "final notice" so of course I am thinking "WTF?" I gave it to the postal people and it was my table cloth. That was about a week and a half ago, but the Yokohama post office's date was 7/27. It had been there over 2 weeks!!
Tracy bought me some knitting stuff and sent it to me on August 8th. Today I got a "second notice". I obviously never got the first one or I would have claimed it. I've been checking my email everyday! Today is the 21st and the Yokohama date on the box is the 13th! Holy crap. Thats ridiculous. Now I know that if it takes forever for us to get a package it is because our postal workers are letting it sit in the back room collecting dust.
Maybe when I open th box I'll see that they already knit something for me!
Spider-phobia
This morning (tuesday) I walked into the kitchen and there was a new one, with the old one dead. They were on the side of a kitchen cupboard. I called Grandma trying to find a good way to get rid of it. I finally got off the phone to try to kill it. I went into the kitchen with the broom and just couldn't do it. I started crying, nearly hyperventilating, a telling myself I couldn't do it. This went on for 5-10 minutes before I gave up.
I went next door and their nine-year-old daughter, Renee, wanted to come over and try to kill it. She missed a few times before it managed to escape under the stove. I sprayed a ton of bug spray on the sides and under the stove to kill it... or at least keep it from coming out again.
I know I sound like a big weeny, but I am really, really afraid of them. Cockroaches are still worst, but I have no choice but to kill them.
When I was a kid my mom freaked out about spiders. I swore I'd never be like that, but now I can't help it. I am not much younger than my mother was when I remembered her freaking out over them. Maybe someday a psychologist can solve my arachnophobia.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Lori, the Japanese television star
So, here is the gist of what happened on Friday. I traveled to Tokyo and met my Ladies English School boss. He was there to translate or me. My Japanese is terrible. They had a small room set up as my English school. The board behind me actually said "ローリ ['Roori'] English school" I had to talk about English on shopping bags in Tokyo. I'll tell you, some of the can be hard to understand. It is called Engrish. (For some funny examples of Engrish go to Engrish.com)
The filming took 1.5 to 2 hours and I was reimbursed for my transportation to Tokyo (1400 yen). I don't yet know when the show will be on tv, but I know it is on TV Tokyo on a show called "Symbols" - the website is in Japanese. If you search the website on google, you'll get the option to translate the site. Unfortunately the translation can be hard to understand and much of the site is in graphics.
I talked to Kana and she said Yuichi has a dvd recorder. I hope that when it is on television, he will be able to record it so everyone can see it.
Did I forget anything?
I like cute stuff
And this is the cute thing of the day.
As I was about to post this, I saw the video of the China Airlines plane on fire in Okinawa. I think China just has some bad karma. Poisonous pet food, lead in paint, exploding airplanes... Wow, I'd hate to be Chinese.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Tired of Blogging
Oh, I have a question first. We got a call on skype last week and I couldn't answer it. Does anyone recognize this number? 425-275-4130 I looked up in the reverse directory, but it an unlisted number. All I know is that it is a landline Lynnwood number. If anyone has a clue (which i obviously do not!) please let me know. Thanks.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Grey's Anatomy
You know, I really disliked Isaiah Washington after what he said when ABC fired him and I have never been that fond of his character, but now I am really mad at him. I didn't think that Christina and Burke should get married, but she was so upset it broke my heart. Oh, if Danny would have done that to me.... (I'll leave that sentence for you to finish yourself)
I think Calli and George's grand idea to have a baby is crazy. I know from discussing it myself that it shouldn't be something you just decide one day, especially after the marital problems they have!! Of course that is what makes it a drama aka night time soap opera.
I don't even have a clue about Meredith and Derek. I had the feeling that what she said to the wedding guests was meant for him as well. I guess we'll find this all out next season. Hopefully AFN doesn't wait 300 years to put it on here. Some of us are hoping it is popular enough to start showing before January.
One last thing... The writers of the show seem to know what they are doing. They know how to get "lonely housewife" riled up. Although I would never be so delusional to think that the story is real, I can understand the situations they are in and think how I would feel. Even if you don't watch the show, I am sure you would be amused to see me cry when something is really sad and yell at the people in my computer screen.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Tonight's storm
The point of this blog was to show you a cute picture of Mocha when she got freaked out because of the storm. She crawled inside my purse. Later she crawled into my nightshirt. There won't be any pictures of that last one. This isn't that kind of blog!
I am sure you all want to hear about my day in Tokyo and filming for the television show. I promise I'll get to that.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
One year
To celebrate, Japan gave me a 5.4 magnitude earthquake at 4:15 this morning. Our bed doesn't have a very substantial base, so the shaking woke me up. It lasted for a good 10-15 seconds then stopped. After 5-10 seconds we had another brief shake.
I went online just now to look it up and I guess we had another (5.3) at 8:20, but I didn't feel that one. I must have just got out of bed. Both were nearly 40 miles east of Yokohama.
The funny thing is that I was sitting on the couch last night thinking about how I hadn't felt an earthquake since last month. That was the one on the other coast that caused a good amount of damage in Niigata prefecture.
Anyway, all is well. Maybe I can start predicting earthquakes.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Yokohama weather
Interesting Tidbits of Yokohama
Here is information from a historical almanac about the month of August. I am not sure if the information is from this year (because honestly I haven't seen any rain), but it still gives an accurate idea about our weather. It is incredibly hot and humid.
Yokohama, Japan Climate
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Thumb thing
The Spoon Sisters
Monday, August 13, 2007
Cute bunnies!!
Oh, come on! You know they're too cute and irresistible. How can you NOT love them?!
Ice cream
Some I'd like to try: curry, tulip, cheese risotto, persimmon and miso ramen.
I thought of some people when I was going through the list. Tracy, I thought you may be interested in red wine ice cream. The chili pepper and cold sweat ice creams made me think of Doug and Grandpa Harry.
Go to this website and see what grosses you out the most. 101 Frightening Ice Cream Flavors From Around the World
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Pictures of Museum and Park
This new way takes less than 10 minutes. I connect my camera, start Picasa (a google, photo-editing software) and that automatically adds the photos. Then I create a web album through Picasa. The photos are added to my google account online and I can attach the slideshow right to the blog. The downside is that all the photos go in the slideshow once I add them online, but I could work around that if it was a big deal.
Anyway... The pictures came out a little funny because of the setting I was using. Things look a little ghost-y. I guess that is appropriate since the museum is of typical life in the Edo period (1603-1867). The museum was a recreation of a small village of the time.
After the museum we went to a near-by park. It was called the Kiyosumi Teien. Teien means park, but it is related to a designed garden. I was built by a very rich business man and owned by many other wealthy families.
Enough talk, here are the pictures.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
I need help with this...
My problem is that no matter how much or how little water I put in, the water sits so long that the bottom of the container turns green and there is no way I can get into it to clean it. I guess I could change the water every 12 hours, but I think it would be much nicer if I could just find a way to clean it. If anyone has tips or ideas, please share!
I have small bottle cleaners, but the angle makes it impossible to clean the inside.
Travel to Tokyo
Friday, August 10, 2007
Yum!
Hope you can find some great recipes on it too.
http://www.joyofbaking.com/
How cool is this?
I would get paid 6,000 yen for an hour to say 10 words. I'd have to travel to Tokyo, which would cost me about 1,400 yen, but I think that is a pretty good profit for 10 words!! Looks like they'll want me to come to Tokyo on the 17th.
After I finished telling Danny this in email and I was about to write this blog, I got an email from a student wanting my lesson. She wants to meet every two weeks and lives in Yokohama. I wrote her back and asked her when she wanted to meet. I haven't begun to feel overwhelmed by the amount of students I have yet, although I've got some major sucking up to do on Sunday to Yutaka...
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
New pictures
A beautiful sunset.
Another beautiful sunset.
Radioactive Danny...
I love the colors in this one.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Really? No! (& two posts in one)
Okay, this is like a "Where's Waldo" game.
First background information. This is our weather channel. We see this screen 24 hrs a day.
Now, lets find the truth. Yes, it is Sunday, August 5th at 11:16:52 PM. Maybe that is why I fund this so funny. It is safe bet that we've gotten 0.07" of rain in the last 5 days and that humidity is 69%, although I'll tell you it feel much higher.
Let me promise to you, it IS NOT 113 degrees. It didn't even get that hot while the sun was shining!! I believe is actually about 80 degrees. The high... 325 degrees?! The boiling point is 212 degrees. We are in a lot of trouble. The wind speed is 1-96 mph! Forget earthquakes; our house might blow away. And don't forget, this is updated in realtime!
I apologize for my obnoxious sarcasm. :)
UPDATE: I checked today and the channel said that the temperature equipment was out of service. Boy am I glad they told me that!!
Cute or Creepy?
I finished painting this today, but I don't know if I like it. Should I keep it like this (a ceramic Garfield) or try to change it? I haven't sealed it yet...
ANOTHER UPDATE: I finished touchups on the cat and decided to keep it brown and orange. It is now sealed and sitting in my kitchen window, but I think I am going to move it upstairs.
Now I've earned it
Gotta go. I have a student in 10 and I don't want to miss the second one of the day.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Family Cruise Day
Very, very frustrated
Unfortunately I can't do much because they are coming to me through a school and not directly. I would not allow this to happen otherwise. Now I have no choice. If it were up to me, they would have to pay for at least half of their lesson if they canceled less than 12 hours before the lesson. The only exception would be life or death emergencies or serious accidents. I would express this to my boss, but I don't think he'd understand or accept it.
They've been doing this to me a lot lately and I am at the end of my rope. I would have changed my plans for the day if I knew they were going to cancel on me. The thing that frustrates me the most is that I can't do anything about it. Even if my boss did understand, I don't know what i should say and how to say it. Because of the cultural differences I know it would be easier to say something wrong.
Very, very, very, very frustrated....
Friday, August 03, 2007
Should this surprise me?
This morning I got my lazy bum up and had a pretty decent breakfast and had somethings to take care of before I left the house. Since Danny ordered some name tags for his uniform on Tuesday when he was here, I had to go to Yokosuka and pick them up. I'll likely send them to him next week. Anyway I wasn't gonna drive for two hours to spend 5 seconds actually getting the things so I made as much of a day out of it as possible.
First, I stopped at a convenience store (Lawson or Familymart - I can't remember) to get "lunch". Then I went to the mall to get some English teaching books from the bookstore. I was pleasantly surprised when I actually found what I was looking for! I bought enough to get my parking validated and headed to the base. I got Danny's name tags and then went to the commissary.
I ran into my friend Shannon and her family while I was there. She had to help me find cream of tarter and corn syrup. I really hate that store. Nothing is placed where you think it should be. For example, the corn syrup wasn't in the baking isle, but with the actual syrup which, sorry, I thought was stupid. What I wouldn't give to go shopping at Haggen in Bellingham even though it was a little too expensive when I was a student making less than $100 a week!
On the drive there and home I was listening to podcasts about Harry Potter and another on teaching English. I recently discovered the joys of podcasts and I really love them. I also think the money I spent on my iPod was the best I have spent in quite a while. Boy did I harass Danny when he got his too. Since I made $210 dogsitting I though I'd put that money to good use. At least now I know why everyone makes a huge deal out of iPods. They're pretty great.
Briefly wanted to explain to everyone what I've alluded to before, but never actually explained. So, you know that Danny's ship had to leave when we had the typhoon scare a few weeks ago. They left on Friday but weren't supposed to leave until Monday. They went to Korea and came back this Tuesday. They were supposed to stay all of Wednesday, but things changed. They got to stay the night, but liberty expired at 7 am and the ship left in the afternoon. So I didn't get to spend that day with Danny and he'll be gone for a while, but I am still planning on going with him to Rhode Island for school in a few months. In fact, I was thinking about getting a MAC flight back to Seattle and staying for a little while before flying to Providence. It will be about $1000 cheaper to fly there from Seattle rather than Tokyo. That drops the price from about $1300 to between $300-$500. A lot more reasonable if you ask me.
I've yapped enough. Don't expect to hear from me for a few days unless something really exciting happens. :)