Get to Geto...Before it's Buried

What is wrong with me? An entire week of silence, and nothing. I'm ashamed of myself. Hold on while I compose my death poem and sharpen my seppuku knife.



....Ok, I just got a call from my landlord. Apparently blood stains negatively impact my deposit, so I guess I'll just grovel. Really, though, I have no excuse. I'm on the other side of the hill now, in a manner of speaking. The school year is so close to concluding! Third years have taken or are currently taking entrance tests for tech schools or high schools. My first few days back, students were taking exams, so there wasn't much for me to do.

Of course, I had my typical issues with や中学校. I received my SLP late (again) with incomplete information (again) and was told that since the students were taking tests, I wouldn't have to prepare any lessons.

False. I showed up at the school and the head teacher came to me and asked me to prepare lessons for the second and third year classes. I had a class in the first period. 40 minutes after he showed me what lessons to use.

Excuse me? Excuse ME?!

Well, whatever. I buckled down and threw together a couple book-dependent lessons. Luckily both lessons could easily be turned into 50 minutes of class reading or writing. But honestly, I'm so sick of this same old song and dance. It's basically non-stop twerking to a Justin Bieber song on repeat.

So imagine it: this week, February and four days. And I'll have completed a school year in Japan! I'll have done it! I've seen and experienced and learned so much in this past year. I definitely owe a lot of thanks to my new friends, including Harue and Chisa for really taking care of me and being so sweet and fun and introducing me to Japanese social life!

Now before we get to the videos, here's what I did this weekend.

Snowboarding. Twice! Through a miscommunication, I ended up going twice. Kitakami's snow festival was this weekend, and I told my friend about it, and invited her. She asked what day and I said I wasn't sure because I wanted to go snowboarding, too.

"Snowboarding! Yes! Well, let me know what day." said she.

Ok, I took that to mean what day for the festival. She went on to say a few of our other co-workers were going to come to town "for it," too. Again, I thought "festival." I was surprised they were coming to town for a small snow festival, but I was game. So, Sunday was the day we decided to all get together. On Saturday, I went into town to take a peek at the festival ahead of time. The weather was pretty dreary, though. A crew of men were building snow-huts outside of the Sakurano Mall. And down the street in a parking lot was a makeshift hill for children to toboggan. And in front of that, a tent and...mochi pounding!!!

Mochi is a gluey, gooey, delicious doughy paste of rice. The hot rice is traditionally put in a large wooden bowl and then pounded with large, narrow wooden hammers. At New Year's, families make their own mochi, and the children take a big role in the hammering. You can even see mochi pounding demonstrations by professionals where one person hammers with hard, quick whacks while another person's hand darts in and out of the dough keeping it moist with water and always moving, so it's kneaded into the perfect goo-ball.

At the end of the demo, everyone got free samples. I got azuki beans on one and another rolled in a sort of nutty powder. While I stood, chewing my warm, tasty treat, a girl with a camera asked me for an interview! I apologized for my terrible Japanese in advance and she said it was okay. I'm pretty sure she asked if I'd eaten mochi before. I replied, saying, "Omochi ga daisuki desu. Oishii!"

Then, happy and mochi-sated, I went snowboarding. And it was other-wordly! The top half of the slope was completely covered in fog. When you lose all visual like that and you can't hear anything around you, you enter this strange and beautiful trance-like drifting. You aren't even connected to the hill anymore because the board is between you and the snow as you glide down a ghost mountain.

On the way up on the gondola for my second run, I actually got to practice my Japanese even more...with a 19 year old boy from Ichinoseki who had the day off of work. I told him I'm an English teacher in Kitakami and I'm from America. It was his 9th time snowboarding. It was my 5th. He knows Kitakami very well. I enjoy teaching middle school. He wanted to know if I have a boyfriend. So you can see, we talked about a lot. We even went down the hill together a couple times. He was really a great boarder, so I appreciated his patience. Every few meters or so he'd stop and wait for me to pass him again. Nice guy.

Anyway, when I got home, Limor called me to confirm plans and well, it turns out the whole plan was for people to go snowboarding at Geto! So today, guess where I was? On the hill again! Twice in one weekend. Woof. The weather was no better, in fact, it was a lot worse! The wind was incredibly strong, and the fine icy snow got everywhere and stung out cheeks raw. But we had a great time together, and I wouldn't have traded it for the world! It certainly beat staying in town for another dreary weather day. At least we all had a grand adventure in snow-blind conditions. I haven't laughed so much in a while!...at least in the company of other people.

Over the next month, here's what I'll be doing:

Snowboarding a lot more!
Finishing up the last couple of lessons with my students
Attending a few graduation ceremonies (middle school to high school is a much bigger deal here)
Applying and testing for my driver's license
Hopefully renewing my contract
.....maybe looking for a bigger place. We'll see.