It comes up more often than you’d think – what “you want to be”.  English teachers in Japan rarely plan to do it for life.  There’s something else we’d like to become but for now, for whatever reason, teaching English works just fine.

When I say I want to be an interpreter the response has been more negative than positive.  “Oh my friend is an interpreter, she has all these awful stories.”  “Don’t do that, there’s no money in it!”  “I hear the market for Japanese – English interpretation is going down… Chinese would have been more practical.”

My answer to all those people is RAGH!  Commenter number one – I have “awful stories” from every job I’ve ever held.  Your point?  Commenter number dos – I’m not looking to be a millionaire, just to make a living doing something I love.  Commenter number 三 – what’s the point of studying something for years and years if you don’t like it?

I recently came across a song from Marina and the Diamonds that expresses my point perfectly:

People like to tell you what you’re gonna be
It’s not my problem if you don’t see what I see
And I do not give a damn if you don’t believe

So there.  Pfffffffffft.

I’m getting a little better at the bento thing.  Here’s what I’ve been taking to school recently:

Roughly clockwise from left: salmon, rice, broccoli, two kinds of pickles, persimmon, garnished with a lettuce leaf.

One day when I opened this some of the sixth graders actually clapped.  But others soon chimed in – the bento box is too small, I need more rice, aren’t there too many veggies in there?  Tough crowd.

This morning I cut my thumb while slicing up a persimmon.  Nothing terribly deep, just enough to draw some blood and sting.  The following ensued (all in English):

Me:  Ow!  I cut my thumb.

~Ken rushes in and has a look~

Ken: Oh, I thought ~mimes thumb falling onto counter~

Me:  That’s “I cut off my thumb”.

This is the stuff you can’t find in a textbook but really should know.

Just got my (eight!) stitches out today and all looks good.  Especially since the report came back on my mole and it’s not cancer!  Woo!  She said everything quickly and while I understood it all I’m not sure if she meant “benign” or “precancerous”.  When I go back in two weeks I’ll try and nail it down.  Either way the thing looked scary so I’m glad to have it out of me.

In other news we’ve had a ton of earthquakes here!  A decent sized one hit Shizuoka earlier this week and while there were injuries I don’t think any deaths were reported.  It did have a 50 cm (roughly 20 inch) tsunami though, oooo.

Other small tremors have hit throughout the week, including a larger one that woke me up at 5 am.  Those are the good earthquakes, though – everyone is asleep in their (hopefully) well built homes.  I’ll take that over a lunchtime quake any day.

Tonight I’m off to Yokohama and tomorrow my friend from Germany is coming to stay for a few days.  Can’t wait!

Surgery went well – I love my doc and my hospital.  Just about everyone in dermatology is female, really good vibes there.  A couple of points I wanted to write down before I forget:

- In the States a doctor says, “This shot might sting a little bit” to get you ready.  There’s usually a “might”, “maybe”, “could” or other hedge.  Here in Japan my doctor said, “This is going to hurt.  Prepare yourself for it.”  It did and I did.

- When all was said and done the nurse held up a tiny bottle of liquid with a thing in it.  “It’s your mole!  Wanna look?”  It’s thicker than I expected.  I paled.  “Guess not,” she replied.

- I learned a new word I love – 消毒 (しょうどく、shoudoku).  Literally erase-poison… disinfectant.  So.  Cool.  I love this language.

Tomorrow I go back so the doc, Fujida-sensei, can make sure it’s healing well and show me how to change the dressing.  It’s a 9 am appointment so I’m planning on treating myself to a breakfast out afterwards.  Tea and pastries, I’m thinking.

Tomorrow I have surgery to get that scary mole removed.  I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the procedure but I am looking forward to having it over with.  This six week summer vacation I have is betting split up five different ways and I want some solid me time.

Even if I won’t be able to lift my right arm.  Pesky stitches.

When I go to the seafood section of my supermarket and see something moving I’m intrigued.

沢ガニ（さわがに, sawagani）, or freshwater crab.  The one on the bottom had seen better days but the rest were alive and kicking.

I am now at day 457 of my 101 in 1001 – nearly halfway done!  Looking at my list I found some things that need to be updated so this morning I armed myself with a favorite pen and went to work.

Removed

14. Review 10 pieces on PRX (0/10)

Great website but I don’t use it any more.

18. Make 10 new cookies/treats (0/10)

Managing cholesterol and sticks of butter don’t mix.

26. Take vitamins every day for a month (0/30)

Recent studies have shown that taking multi-vitamins don’t really improve your health.  As long as I eat healthy (leafy greens!  fruit!) I think I’ll get all the vitamins I need.

51. Write 10 bilingual blog posts

53. Write a letter to Ken’s grandmother

Both designed to keep my Japanese fresh when I wasn’t in Japan… not really a problem now.

55. Buy a rice cooker

There was one here in the apartment waiting for us!  Woo!

Six out, six in.

Added

107. Get 10,000 cards and 5,000 facts in Anki (my flashcard program)

108.  Get 2,000 kanji in Anki

New study goals.  Current counts – 4,172 cards, 2,076 facts, 1,186 kanji.

109. Buy a fashionable outfit for “going out”

My American wardrobe is woeful – 20 somethings don’t really do the t-shirt and jeans thing here.  That is, unless it’s a really hip t-shirt with really hip jeans and accessorized to the hilt.  I may not be hip but I want to look at least “with it” now and then.

110. Buy a bicycle

Freeeeedom…

111. Go to Okinawa

112. Go to Hokkaido

All the way South, all the way North.

When I was done I crunched some numbers.  If you count multiples like “try 20 new recipes” as 20 items I have 339 things on my list.  I have completed 124 of them, or 36%… not so great considering that nearly half of my time is up.  Time to get cracking!

There are a couple of things I can do right away to help.  I’ve been trying out new recipes (#17) but haven’t made them in big enough batches to freeze (#18).  I’ve been eating out (#71) but haven’t had many “me” lunches (#72).  I’m way behind on watching documentaries (#11) so I’m, uh, acquiring some right now.  To finish half of my items I’ll need to polish off 45 things in roughly 50 days.  It’s worth a shot.

Today the longest total solar eclipse of the century will pass right over Japan.  A few lucky people on some very remote islands will get to see the full shabang but near Tokyo we’ll still get roughly 75% totality.  Not bad.  That is, if we could see it.  The view from my window not five minutes ago:

Can’t exactly tell from the pic but there’s rain falling, too.  Ah well.

The word for solar eclipse in Japanese is 日食（にっしょく、nisshoku）.  The two characters mean sun and eat/food, respectively.  So… the sun is being eaten!  Ahhh!

Today is exciting – it’s Ken’s first day of work.  He found a job at a smaller game development company.  He likes the size because he’ll be able to do all sorts of things (3D, background, character design and what have you) without being pigeonholed into one category.

This marks a big change for us.  Up until now Ken has been mostly at home while I’ve been working mornings and afternoons.  I usually get home by four and we would have the late afternoon and evenings together.  No more.  Ken will probably be leaving the house around nine (the company gets a late start) and coming back around eight.  So those chores we used to share?  Those are mostly mine now.  Grah.

I knew this was coming.  Japanese companies value time put in at work, sometimes more than the actual amount of work done.  An hour of overtime each day is du rigueur at many offices with more around deadlines and other big happenings.

While doing a mad google search for “daily/weekly cleaning schedule” I came across the Flylady.  Her philosophy is that your house didn’t become dirty in a day so it won’t become clean in a day, either.  By slowly establishing a cleaning routine and not overwhelming yourself you can get a lot done.  One mantra on the site is to take baby steps and not rush anything.  The first baby step?  Cleaning your sink until it shines.  Sounds corny, but my kitchen looks much better with a happy, gleaming sink greeting me.  Not to mention that it’s such a big piece of real estate the shine adds an extra 10 watts of light to the room.

While there are a lot of things I’ll have to modify to fit my needs (“air the futon” isn’t exactly on her list) I think it’s a great foundation for my own cleaning routine.  Leo at Zen Habits advocates a similar approach but the Flylady makes everything dead simple, telling you where and how to concentrate your efforts each week.  I like.

In other news I had a very interesting class today.  One of the Japanese teachers I work with is part of a program developing new ways to teach English in Japanese schools.  This guy is amazing – he lived in England for over three years and is quite conversational.  He uses English every day and as a result his kids know things like, “Let me try!”, “One more time!”, and “How do you say ___ in English?”.  This is leaps and bounds ahead of most sixth graders.  In other classes I pretty much run the show but in his I sit back and enjoy, providing pronunciation models and playing the games with the kids.

Well, today a bunch of people came to evaluate his technique and discuss his methods.  I knew that much.  I didn’t know that there would be two people with home movie cameras recording us and that the people coming were mostly higher ups from the local Center for International Education.  Wah!

Luckily the class went off without a hitch.  The kids were great, the games were fun and everyone spoke a lot of English.  Success!

Afterwards a nice lady from the Center complimented me – she was surprised to hear I’m a first year teacher, my technique was so good.  Woot!  She also said my voice was clear, easy to understand, and overall very nice.  I was interested in a career in radio at one point (heck, I still am) so that made my day.

Only two more days of work before my six week summer vacation!  May it be filled with sunny days and gleaming sinks!