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• sailor firestar

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Birthday
• 1979-05-10
Gender
• Female
Location
• Shizuoka, Japan
Member Since
• 2004-03-06
Occupation
• English Teacher
Real Name
• Katy

Personal

Achievements
• stayed alive for 28+ years
Anime Fan Since
• 1997
Favorite Anime
• Sailor Moon, Naruto, Spirited Away, all things CLAMP, all things Gundam
Goals
• to not freeze during my first Japanese winter!
Hobbies
• Rollerblading, Writing, Drawing, Reading, Karate
Talents
• Pretty much the same as those *points upwards*




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myOtaku.com: sailor firestar


Saturday, August 18, 2007

   We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge, unable to step out into the sky like that fearless flower. - Bleach vol.12: Flower on the Precipice

Kon nichi wa minna-san! Ahh...well, I haven't updated in a while so let me think of what has been going on. I'm definitely calling NTT for my own internet service tomorrow so I will be more reliable soon! I tried to do it from the office both Thursday and Friday, but there was never really a good time. I am off work until the 29th though so I will have plenty of time to take care of things. Then I get to visit my school on the 30th and start teaching on the 3rd. It's all happening so fast! I think I'll be ready though. It seems like they really want us to speak only English with the students to make them practice using it. Apparently they're pretty competent at reading and writing but don't get much practice at speaking and listening. They even said we should speak to the teachers in English unless they invite us to practice our Japanese. It's a little weird to me, but I guess the job really is teaching English so our own learning comes second.

On Wednesday we took a tour of a Japanese Jr. High school. There was no central air conditioning, which is common here, so it was really hot except in the staffroom. We did get to see that and were told we would get a desk in our own school, as well as a locker. There is a tiny kitchen in the staffroom and a really tiny locker room with curtains to divide men and women. I don't know how I feel about that...but they're full size lockers! I've never had one of those in my life, and I always had to share with someone before! We're allowed to use the kitchen for whatever we need, and there's also a little "rest area" which is really just a couple of couches and a coffee table, but that's no big deal. Actually I'm skeptical as to whether or not my first school will have all these things since it's so small.

Anyway, when we got there we were served freshly made Shiso juice, which is a kind of super concentrated plum. I really like it, but not everyone does. Poor Lauren kept trying to tell them she didn't it and they kept giving her more! Then we walked around the school and saw the classrooms, gym, copy room, etc. Of course none of us had brought our indoor shoes so we had to wear the school slippers, which was a bit dangerous since they were very slick on the bottom and several people nearly fell down the stairs. They also have separate shoes for the gym and you can't wear your indoor school shoes there either! After that we got to practice our self introduction lessons in a classroom with all the other ALTs being our students. I went first to get it over with and they said it was good, but I talk too fast. I have to remember that little Japanese children don't understand me...

Thursday and Friday were kind of boring since orientation was over. We were mostly just sitting around the office trying to finish our materials. But....*singsong voice* I saw the Shippuden movie! I saw the Shippuden movie! (that's the second series of Naruto for you non-otaku out there) Stacey was nice enough to go with me since we had a half day Friday. Miki-san kept saying, "It's just in Japanese..." like that would make me not want to go or something. It's perfectly easy to understand what's happening. OK, so we missed the finer points like why the villain was doing what he was doing, and what funny remark Naruto made at the end, but still...we got the gist of it. It's a shonen movie, I mean, come on, you just watch it for the cool fighting scenes after all! We saw a preview for the second Bleach movie too, it appears to be about Hitsugaya getting kidnapped or something, but it won't come out until December.

Yesterday was the first rainy day we've had here so I couldn't go out with everyone. We had a girls night at a restaurant on Thursday, but there wasn't much I could eat. Yesterday was more of a clubbing night, but being the one that lives the farthest out from the train lines I would have had to bike in the rain for about 15 minutes and it just wasn't worth it. Today the weather is very nice though, and I wish my neighbor would come out on the balcony so I could say "Tenki wa ii, desu ne?" (The weather's nice, isn't it?) to him or her since we're both doing laundry, but oh well....I wouldn't be able to continue the conversation much beyond that anyway. After this I'll probably go get some groceries and stamps and then see what else I can find around here. We've all decided not to do any traveling this week so we can save money, but maybe something interesting will come along...
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