Very short entry before bed, but! I feel I should ~announce~ that over the past few months I have reached a point where I am 99.9% decided that I will only be doing two years on JET. There are some things I absolutely adore about living here and will pine for terribly when I leave (to the point that I am not going to rule out working in Japan again in the future), but I think you guys have seen that I am not really in love with my house, certain other aspects of where I live, or the A part of ALTing. Plus I am actually really stoked to go back to school. Being here is giving me a clearer picture of the kind of work I want to be doing in the future so here's hoping I can make it happen!

I'm also hoping that my Japanese will be slightly less sucky by the time I leave ...... I might see if I can spend some time in an ~intensive language course~ before I return to Canada. I would really love to but I'm not sure yet whether or not it will work out. Lots of planning to do!

So in the past six weeks I have been to Tokyo three times and Sendai once. Thoroughly awesome, but tiring! I am THOROUGHLY EXCITED to spend tonight moving as little as possible. xD

Unrelated, omg I am loving Tohoku in spring. Maybe it's just because winter was such a long and horrible experience, but seriously every day now I'm like omg it's WARM and GREEN and the sun no longer sets at FOUR and life is wonderfullllllllll

I feel like most people would feel like late May is too late for an "omg it's spring" entry, but most people don't live in northern Japan. So yeah.

omg you guys look! Sarah is using her LJ as an actual journal instead of just a jar to be filled with rants!!

My town is finally warm again!!! In all honestly, I had one of my heaters on last night, but that was the only time I've used it in like the past two weeks and it has been wonderful. I'm actually really surprised how quickly it warmed up. I thought it would be very gradual, but pretty much over the course of a week it went from freezing cold to pleasant. I was in Tokyo (with athena_crikey!) for three days during that time though so maybe my perception of it is just skewed. I was hoping to go out and take pictures of the cherry blossom trees by the river during this second-half-of-Golden-Week four-day weekend but it's been raining enough that I've been discouraged from that plan haha. Thursday I went to Ninohe for an hour to buy bullet train tickets for my parents and I. I kind of can't wrap my head around the idea that they'll be here in six days!!! Pretty excited to see my mom and show her around everywhere. My dad was here in March so I am less excited to see him lololol.

( Read more... )

So it seems that everyone who comes to Japan as an ALT and has at least a little interest in the way languages are taught will go through a process of being frustrated by various parts of the way English is taught here. I personally am finding myself pretty frustrated by things that I knew about years before I came here as an ALT, but I guess even with those there's a process of seeing them in real life and realizing how detrimental they are to the teaching of English as a living, spoken language. Examples of things that I have been frustrated by:

( Read more... )

Anyway uh I didn't mean to get into any of that. I wanted instead to post about two recent happenings that have stood out in my mind because of how much they made me realize that the way English is taught in Japan is very, very different from the way a foreign language would be taught in Canada (and probably many other countries as well):

( Read more... )

Dad: "Your brother seems to really be enjoying Australia."
Me: "Well of course. He's still in the euphoria stage of culture shock."
Mom: "Are you?"
Me: "No."

wait mom and dad why are you laughing

are you trying to tell me I complain too much

hdu

In unrelated news, my super sekrit blogs still suck but I spent some time this weekend trying to make them better! Check out A Jubilation! if you need more of my ridiculous Tokyo and Hong Kong Disney ramblings in your life and The Trojan War Project if you like YouTube videos, because uh that's all I've posted there recently whoops.

- You guys you guys it is past six o'clock and I have not had to turn the heater on yet

It has been above 10 degrees all day

AND IT HAS BEEN GLORIOUS

Of course I have spent the past several days wrapped in a blanket with the heater on high, so I don't really expect this to last, but I was sweating as I walked around town today and that's pretty much the best thing that's happened to me all week.

( mostly school stuff yay! )

So I am seriously in love with living weekend-trip distance away from several major cities. YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED THIS. Recently I was like, hmm, I should Google the titles of plays and musicals I've always wanted to see, just in case they're going to be performed in Japan any time soon. Well I've already seen Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, both of which were amazing. And soon after that I discovered that Roméo & Juliette, a French musical whose music I have enjoyed since early high school, will be in Tokyo later this year. So I am most definitely looking forward to that. But just now I have seriously hit the jackpot and no number of exclamation marks will be able to express my fangirl glee.

So a long time ago Shakespeare wrote a play set during the Trojan War called "Troilus and Cressida." It's considered one of his problem plays and usually is pretty thoroughly ignored. I managed to find a made-for-TV production the BBC did but I've always moaned about how I would probably never get to see it live.

TURNS OUT IT IS BEING PERFORMED IN SAITAMA THIS SUMMER

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You guys, you guys. This in itself is amazing. But please also note:

It is being directed by Yukio Ninagawa, who in the past has directed "Orestes" and "The Greeks" - one of my favourite things ever despite the fact that I've never posted about it. I mean I own five DVDs' worth of this guy's work. In the past I have looked at his web site to see if he was working on anything I'd be able to go see. I AM STOKED!!!!!!!!

It will feature an all-male cast led by Yusuke Yamamoto, an actor I actually recognize because I have seen him in both Puzzle and Atashinchi no Danshi. I really liked him in both of those roles and am looking forward to him taking on something less comedic!

IN CONCLUSION I AM GOING TO GO SEE THIS EIGHT TIMES

AT LEAST!!!!!!!!!!

Also oh man I totally forgot until just now that this play includes my favourite ridiculous Shakespearean dialogue evar:

Pandarus: That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's
Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus.

Cressida: Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pandarus: Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I
marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the
people cry 'Troilus'? Helenus is a priest.

AAAAAAAAAUGH THIS IS GOING TO BE THE FIRST TIME I SEE HELENUS PORTRAYED IN ANYTHING EVER

AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING!!!!!!!!!

So I don't know if any of you remember Kiva, but it's a site I mentioned way back when that works to improve the living conditions of people in low income countries by way of microfinance. Basically, people in these countries who are hoping to start or improve their business ask for a loan, through Kiva you can help to lend them the money they need, and then when they pay the money back you can either lend it again or take it back. I've been using Kiva for a few years now and just made my seventh loan. My preferred sponsorship organization doesn't work in Peru, so I like to lend to small Peruvian businesses through Kiva as a way to stay connected to my favourite South American country. :) Anyway, the reason I mention all this now is because apparently they are offering ~free trials~, where you can make a loan of $25 without having to use any of your own money. Check it out if you are interested: Kiva Free Trials!

6.4 earthquake in Tohoku earlier this evening. I was in the bathtub when it started so really I'm just happy we didn't have to evacuate. Pretty intense though!!

This afternoon my neighbour and I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had never seen it before, and to be honest if I had watched it for the first time by myself I'm pretty sure I would've fastforwarded through the long stretches of no dialogue. But somehow I really liked it? Without really understanding it at all? The last portion is so bizarre and creepy and disconcerting and I have no idea what it meant but somehow I feel like it's going to be stuck in my brain forever. And of course HAL is awesome. Now that I've seen the film it's really interesting to me that it's been such a huge influence on movies since. I mean, I imagine that for every person who likes the movie there's at least one person who hates it!

And now I kinda want to rewatch the Recess episode that was a parody of it lolol

My heater is telling me that it's 21 degrees in this room right now. So why do my feet feel like they're seconds away from frost bite DDDD: