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gothpride
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Name: Aeternitas
Gender: Female
Interests: foreign languages and cultures (japanese, russian, german, spanish, some African); writing (stories, poetry); cello and viola da gamba; b&w photography; urban tribal belly dancing; traditional Japanese dance and music (koto); oil painting, tattoos, piercings, shaved heads, body modification, free lance roleplaying; unix, apple computers, mac os x[musik]: [favourites]: Industrial: EBM, rhythmic noize; minimal electro (Le Syndicat, Legowelt); Slagsmålsklubben, classical (Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Martinu, late Mozart) ..... [I also enjoy]: Gregorian chanting; aboriginal; foreign traditional (folk); death rock; opera; futurepop; synthpop; darkwave; tribal; jungle; dark trance; dark house
Expertise: cello, writing, paying attention to detail, empathetic, dance (classical and ethnic), drawing, painting, singing; being at peace and one with nature
Occupation: English Teacher
Industry: Education
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  macabrecognition
Yahoo:  macabrecognition
Member Since:
5/26/2001
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It's very cold here. Not as cold as some midwest states, but cold nonetheless, considering we don't have central heating here. I use a kerosene heater in my bedroom and close the shoji screen between my room and the kitchen. That creates a nice pocket of warm air and happiness. However, when I step into my kitchen or go into my bathroom it's so cold that I can see my breath.
It's been snowing since last night and everything is covered in a blanket of snow. The landscape is very soothing and beautiful. I've never lived where it's snowed before, but I can tell I am going to love it, aside from the whole sliding-in-the-snow-whilst-trying-to-bike-to-work thing.
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| So, it appears I have a "stalker".. and he doesn't even live on this continent!
I guess in all fairness, I can't really call him a stalker. I did make it awfully easy to find information about yours truly via old links, and frivolous uploads. I'm also guilty of doing the exact same thing. When I find someone who fascinates and captivates me, I spend hours upon end reading about the object of my affection, searching him (or her) out within the infinite confines of the internet. So, I suppose I can't blame my stalker for his curiosity especially when I am equally as curious about people. And to be honest, I'm incredibly flattered. It's more than a passing fancy if one keeps up with a virtual stranger through the internet for years on end. I'm looking forward to meeting my stalker.
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I'm sitting at my desk in the Foreign Language office. For once I'm comfortable with the temperature in this large, poorly insulated room. The kerosene heaters are turned down low, and the sun has started to set in the west. One day down and one more to go before I return home to sunny Southern California. I've been in Japan for over four months now, but I don't feel homesick. I miss my family immensely, but I don't think that qualifies as homesickness. I love my life here, in the City Above the Rice Paddies. This was my first time to Japan, but as soon as I landed I felt as if I was slipping back into an old life that I had once had many years ago. Things didn't seem foreign or strange. Things were as they should be. I'm happy to say I now have two homes, and I love them both dearly.
Though I do wish I could get a good burger out here. Some Mexican food would also be amazing.
[ Listening to: Das Bunker Rad/io ] | | |
| I made it! I did it! I'm living in Japan. やった！
I've been here since the end of July, and it's everything I thought it would be (aside from the lack of street names and ATMs that only work from roughly 8am-8pm, that threw me for a loop). Now with the shortening days and the dark cold nights, I find myself missing central heating. Central heating is definitely something I took for granted back in sunny southern California, where the temperature rarely dropped below 40ºF. Now, the warmest it might get all week is 35ºF. And many of you may say, "Why - 35ºF, that is nothing. It's colder than that in [insert almost any other US state]." But if all you have is a small gas heater in your office or apartment that is not insulated well, then yeah, 35ºF -is- cold. Thank you very much.
I'm growing used to the cold though, and I'm enjoy all of the hot dishes that are served in the winter months such as nabe, and hot soba. I also think I'm going to try and learn how to snowboard the rest of the winter. There's not much else to do here in the mountains high above Japan. Well, snowboard, drink, eat, and enjoy the wonders of the onsen (public baths). There's nothing like soaking in hot water on a cold winter day. I can't wait to go to the onsen when it's snowing (most are outdoors).
[Currently listening to the kerosene heater groan and the quiet conversations of the other Japanese teachers in the office.] | | |
| So my JET interview went extremely well, except for the role playing part. I knew role playing would be a possibility, I just wasn't aware of the constraints put on my imaginary lesson before hand. The panel wanted me to pretend they were elementary or junior high students with very little knowledge of English. I wasn't comfortable using Japanese in my lesson (plus I'm not sure if that's what they even wanted me to do, since you don't need to know Japanese to apply for this job), so I instead opted to draw a few pictures and label them with simple vocabulary. I was frustrated that they didn't really allow me to state what props I would have ahead of time (I was encouraged to use invisible props, but that doesn't really help when I'm holding out my empty hands pointing to the air) nor did they allow time for me to clarify the point or goal of my imaginary lesson. While I felt like I crashed and burned on the actual lesson, I felt that I stated all my objections and the reasons I had difficulty with the role playing clearly.
I guess I'll just have to wait until April like everyone else to see whether or not my performance was convincing. Either way I'll be pleased with the results. | | |
| It's been so long since I've logged in here on Xanga, everything looks different.
Well, I've been working at the high school for a little over a year now, and I have an interview for the JET Program on Tuesday! I'm so excited!  I've been doing a lot of reading about the program and possible interview questions so I feel like I'm pretty well prepared. If I make it to Japan I'm going to post on a regular basis. However I haven't decided if I want to keep using this blog, or if I want to make another one since I'm pretty sure my family will be checking in on my blog from time to time once I'm in Japan.
Hello to everyone I know who is still out there and actually reading this. Hehe, I know I've been horrible about keeping this blog current over the years. I was better about it when I was in high school and even college for a little bit. I'll try to be better about posting, at the very least I'll let everyone know how my interview went and what happens over the next few months. | | |
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