Whoa
Today I am in Tokyo, yesterday I was in Kyoto. It's not a far distance but I get overwhelmed with the "whoa really?" feelings every once in a while--life sure is interesting.
Posts
Just about 1 year ago (pt.1)
It would take a few minutes for me to place the exact date, but basically I wanted to take the time and think about these events during a time that impacted my life so much. It must be the combination of Brown's Spring Weekend events and watching kids receive First Communion at the church I go to in Kobe, but it sparked a lot of thinking back and wanting to express it. Brown's Spring Weekend in 2011 was a week earlier I remember, because I actually skipped out on Spring Weekend to go to Indiana on a weekend retreat from April 15-17 to visit Notre Dame University. I had been accepted to a 2-year teaching program there that placed recent college grads in Catholic schools. The acceptance came soon after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan, and feeling unsettled over waiting for JET and the desire to keep my options open, I took the program's offer and was invited to visit campus with other members of the program. A free trip to a college campus, and the people I had been in conta...
Teachery Moment
Sometime soon I'll post about my cherry blossom adventures! But first... The new school year is finally finally here :) In Japan, the school year ends in March and starts again in April. It's a really weird state of mind for those of us leaving in August. Since signing re-contracting/not re-contracting papers in February coincide with the slowing down of classes, exam periods, etc, I felt like I was inundated with the messages of LEAVING, FINISHING, GOING BACK, from my friends here, from my friends back home, teachers, and so on. But to tell you the truth, I'm really not into that right now, because there's still a whole lot of teaching to get done and a whole lot of adventures to be had, and well...it really isn't all that close you know, and until I can really see leaving on the horizon (plane tickets bought, packing boxes, contacting my successor and working out that stuff), I can't really look forward to that yet. It's like thinking about ...
Hanami or Cherry Blossom Parties
View Larger Map 19. It's been a terribly terribly long winter, but the cherry blossom season has finally arrived! This Saturday I found myself exploring Lake Biwa in Otsu-shi, the capital city of Shiga prefecture. A couple of my fellow JETs and I thought that the largest lake in Japan would be oober picturesque and filled with lots of cherry blossoms. Unfortunately, the lake looked more like this. Beautiful, no doubt, but also very very desolate. And very very devoid of sakura trees. We were hungry, however, so we set up our picnic and started to eat. The weather was highly uncooperative, and less than halfway into my sandwich, it started to rain. Like the wicked witch that would melt with water, we fled to a nearby mall. Completing our lunch indoors, we decided to try our luck at Miidera temple, about a 20 minute walk north. But alas, our luck continued to sour, and though I thought it was a beautiful area and would have been satisfied simply wandering for the rest of ...
Cooking in Japan
18. When I arrived in Japan, my apartment was so beautifully spacious and furnished, complete with an air conditioner to stave off the humid July. One thing thing that I couldn't find? An OVEN. Now, this wouldn't be a problem except, after living in Young O senior year and being off meal plan, I became very attached to my oven baked dinners: baked mushrooms, baked veggies, baked fish, baked chicken, etc. Not to mention my already existing obsession with baking sweets: cookies, brownies, birthday cakes. But alas, my baking ways had to end. Until now :) Yesterday I had a craving for brownies, maybe because my cute people brownies left me on Sunday and chocolate brownies could fill the hole, but I was determined to make use of the brownie mix that I brought with me from America. It was going to be used, it was. Yay google! "How to make brownies without an oven" led to a string of webpages informing me that using a microwave would not only be a suitable device for...
