oops...

I just checked my emails and there was one from Asahi Net, my internet provider. They had received an email from an agent of Paramount Pictures saying that my ID had been part of an infringement! Oh my, fully freaked me out, though Asahi Net didn't say that I was in trouble, just to refrain from such activities that are stated as prohibited in the membership agreement. The movie in question is one that I don't even like, but downloaded for reasons of interest because I read about it in Heat Mag. It was Mean Girls, with damn Lindsay Lohan, who I can't stand for stupid reasons I won't go into!

So now I am scared that stuff I have downloaded since is going to come back and bite me in the bum so to speak. Imagine getting sued by a multimillion $ corporation, I really couldn't afford to pay them anything, and I would hate to go to jail... I might have to change download thingy. For years I used Kazaa and never got in any kind of trouble even though people always said that it was the dodgiest site. But turns out Limewire is abunai yo!! Any advice people would be appreciated!

This past weekend I studied all day Saturday (or at least about 4 hours), then I got a train to Hofu and met people for yakiniku. After a couple of drinks with Jenny at a bar, Ann, Jimmy, Paul and I went on to Tokuyama. Ann's boyfriend was playing in a band at a hip-hop night at Tiki-Ta. Interesting night...after paying to get in, we decided to drink cheap by going to 7-11 for chu-his. Then we had to keep doing top-secret, subtle filling of glasses from the cans we bought. There was an eclectic mix of music to say the least, and some funky hip-hop dance groups. One group of 5 Ube girls were super cool! In matching tracksuits, but different colours they bopped around the stage totally in sync, Jimmy and I were well impressed, so much so that Jimmy got his photo with them!

Things got bad after that with these Reggae DJs murdering songs that were already bad by yelling and talking shit over top of them. Time to go home then! Woke up on Sunday, Paul's 25th Birthday at lunch time, went for curry and then Paul, Ann, Amy and I went to Kudamatsu to see the new Miyasaki movie "Howl's Moving Castle". We were meeting Kat and Ellen there, but as we were 15 minutes late, and it was crowded we ended up sitting in pairs with a pair of strangers separating us all! It was a good movie...well at least it seemed to be, from what I understood! There is actually a whole lot of stuff that was way confusing and we didn't understand at all. Even Paul was confused and he'd just read the book it was based on! But Paul and I did hear words that we had to know for our Japanese exams at the weekend so least a bit of study came of it!

And that's it for now. I have 5 days to study for the exam... I am still hoping for either a miracle to occur and I begin to remember everything I need to know, or I happen to guess the right answer on every question (or at least 60% worth) on Sunday... we'll see. Until then though I have to keep studying and I can't blog until Sunday night, unless something happens that I can't wait for Sunday to tell!

And the rest...

I pressed a magical combination of buttons the last blog accidently and it sent the blog off to publish! Spookily it happened right when I had to go to class!

So to continue, yesterday was a public holiday, so on Monday night I met Rei at Onoda station to go to Tokuyama. Rei being holed up in the hospital with a gammy knee was having her first trip outside of the hospital in about 6 weeks (except for one day 4 weeks ago). It's quite amusing escorting an invalid through stations. In my time of doing so, I have picked up a sympathy walk where I too walk up and down the stairs with one straight leg! In Tokuyama we went to the brilliant Ganesh Indian restaurant and had the 'old setto', as one could only get when in the company of Jimmy, who was around when this was just a regular setto! Then we headed off to Ell's Ditch for a few drinks, meeting up with Eleanor and Jamie, and later Paul.

Yesterday was a planned study day. But having gotten home at about 1am, then getting to bed about 3am it was 10.30 before we woke. Then we breakfasted, went to buy prizes for the 'Habitat for Humanity' Thanksgiving Dinner, and tried of 50 paper bags for size (for a game that was a secret, but 'if a bag was to go on people's heads' we needed to know they would fit, so I volunteered!). In the end Paul and I only did an hours half hearted study at Gusto...very poor effort indeed!

Thanksgiving Dinner was awesome. I can't believe Ann and co. put together a huge feast (and I mean it was BIG) for about 55 people. I mean they did have a school home ec. room to prepared and cook most of it (not silly little Japanese oven/microwaves), but honestly it was such a huge undertaking. Jimmy and Paul entertained us with games. The bag game ended up being where we had to put the bags on our heads and then Jimmy said "take off something you don't need". Us smart cookies took off the bags. The not so smart cookies started taking off watches, then shoes, socks, jewellery. The silly cookies kept going til they (he) had no pants on before he said he wasn't taking his top or anything else off! Thank God I had witnessed this type of game at school camp when I was a kid, so not to be caught unaware and embarrassed!

To top off a great couple of days, as Rei and I were hobbling down the platform stairs going home, the train left! The 'fuckers' as Rei so nicely put it! Honestly at least 2 station employees had seen us, one was even coming up the stairs when we were getting nearer the bottom. But no one, tried to stop the driver from leaving and waiting for the invalid and her caregiver! So today I'm tired after getting home at 12.15am and getting up at 6.30am! I can't even vege when I get home cos I have to go to my Bo-nen-kai (End-of-year Party) tonight. I so can't believe it's that time already...scary to think nearly 8 months to go..!

It's been a while...

I've been such a busy girl I haven't even had time to blog! Heavens forbid! I also have class in about 15 minutes, so this may have to be an intro for things to come...

So, in the weekend a whole lotta JETs from the Guch went to Fukuoka for birthday celebrations. Was a fun night. I think the highlight being simply the capsule hotel literally being 20 metres from the small cock bar! How much closer could you be without sleeping on the door step, I ask you!? It was a good night, more gaijins out than I have ever seen. Shimane JETs and Fukuoka JETs had a combined party (Yamaguchi didn't want to be included anyway!), so there were a lot of JETs around. And also lots who were in town for the Grand Sumo Tournament. You know how you can just tell a person is a JET..? I don't know what it is, but a JET seems to have a different look to any other of gaijin you see out in the city...

Then after one day at school on Monday, we had a holiday yesterday. Ignorantly I don't even know what it was for... I must look in my diary later.

News Flash...3 days late!

Been meaning to write this online for days. It will be understood and appreciated by those in the know.

ODB was found dead in his apartment last week.

Obviously I am gutted.

helplessness

I just got an email from friend at home saying that one of my best friend's brother has been in a bad motorbike accident in Aussie and might lose his arm. It's the first time since being in Japan that something has happened to someone at home and I can't do anything cos I am thousands of kms away. I'm stuck at school for another hour or so, and I don't know if I want to cry or be sick or both! Realistically, even if I was at home I couldn't do much cos my friend is going to Aussie tomorrow, but at least I'd be there to see her. There is nothing like being on the other side of the world to make you feel totally helpless.

A day in the life...of me!!

Yesterday I was at Ube High. One class was fine, it always is. I get half the class for 20mins and we do some kind of speaking activity and then they swap for the other half. The other class was blahhh! The teacher gets really nervous when he is in my presence. Then when we get into the classroom we fails to understand the simpliest things I say, and becomes a bumbling mess when giving the class instructions! I wouldn't mind, but the entire class cracks up about it, and get pleasure in asking the teacher to tell them in English what I've said! Then he just cracks up and tells the students in Japanese that it doesn't matter basically, and moves on. I hate it. I end up standing there with a 'you're f#%ke up' look on my face, and the more the students laugh the more I aren't sure if they are laughing at me too... Ah damn it!

Anyway, after school I had English club. I really like English club at this school. The students at genki as, and fully into doing anything, as well as making suggests about what we should do. So yesterday we decided to tell a horror story, by saying a few sentences each and moving on to the next person. So the story didn't exactly end up a horror, but it was amusing and clever all the same. Let me share it briefly with you:

A girl dresses up as a tomato on Halloween and goes trick or treating. She ends up at a abandoned house, goes in and the door locks behind her. She goes up the stairs and into a room that she hears something in, and there are hundreds of decaying bodies some stil moving. She tries to run away but they stop her and one of the zombie body things grabs her, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out mini tomatoes and eats them and they make her really big. So she pushes him thru the wall and rolls over him. (Somehow she ends up really small then can't remember how!). She cries and her tears make a river and she floats down it and a old woman finds her (story begins to be a little Momo-taro like here!). The woman owns a tomato farm so takes her to it. She finds a tomato boy and they fall in love and get married. For their honeymoon they go back to the house and upstairs in the room a zombie chases them. Then climb onto a bottle of farm chemicals and they fall in. They drink the chemicals and turn into real tomatoes. In the end the Zombie eats the tomatoes and turns into a human! Clever eh!

So during the story some students didn't get it if the girl turned into a big girl wearing a tomato costume, or actually a big tomato girl, so I decided to show them what I thought the student was meaning on the whiteboard. There was a orange marker up there so I drew a big orange tomato with the a girls face, arms and legs in black. After we had finished English Club, I went to rub it off, and only the body came off!! Oh my God, the orange was permanent marker!!! We were losing it! I was thinking, oh God, there is a big (really it was quite big!) orange circle with squiggles in the board for the teacher to find tomorrow! A little freaked out, I went to find some kind of cleaning agent, but it turned out that if you go over the ink in white board marker it cleans it off!! Phew!! Safe!! Will be the last time I write on the board without checking what I'm using! And I'm just so pleased it wasn't in a class!!!

Tuesday

I have nothing to say. I stayed home all weekend with the intention of studying Japanese. I studied for probably a total of 3 hours, and i think that is being very generous. Though I did next to nothing all weekend, I still feel tired and like I had a huge weekend out partying and drinking etc. Why!? So not fair, I'm meant to be energised and happy to be back at school. It doesn't help that I have a busy week with full days every day (I know some people have full days everyday, all year...). Can't wait for this J-exam to be over, and then I don't have to be thinking that I should be studying all the time, and then feeling guilty cos I haven't. After this exam I don't intend to study Japanese again!

Side note: Don't you hate it when little, shitty, bratty 1st year J.H.S kids (or one in particular) imitates and mocks you when you say one Japanese word (i.e. shiritori). The little shit. Do I mock his awful, pathetic attempts at English?

So, this weekend we are going to Fukuoka for some birthday celebrations. As it turns out the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament is also on this weekend so accommodation is proving difficult to find. Story of our damn Fukuoka-night-out life! So Louise emails me last night with the suggestion of camping..? What kinda crack is this girl one!? We are going to the CITY, I don't think they have campsite in the middle of the city! We have no tents, sleeping bags, anything. It is freezing flipp'n cold at night now. Louise replies to my reply of these simple observations, that it would be fun and make it seem like we really on holiday for the weekend. I mean really...!?

Oh yeah! The World's BIGGEST Jersey in Geraldine, South Canterbury, NZ!! Sexy thing it is too! 

Going on a bear hunt...

I just got home from watching Bourne Identity at Louise's. Good, fun movie I thought. Then on the way home I was on bear alert. Yip, supposedly there were bear prints in Asa High, South campus this morning, which is near my house. I don't actually know any facts bar what Louise told me, so they might not be that reliable! Actually, I think it is probably kids playing around and making the prints...well I like to think that! So as I biked home, I made sure to go along route 2 so all the heavy truck traffic would scare bears away. I also periodically rang my bell just to ensure they didn't try hassle me. I had already worked out my plan of attack though...kick 'em swiftly between the eyes!

But never fear obviously I got home safely, and I will be able to find out the goss tomorrow at the office. I am actually looking forward to the office, as it means I will have a full day of studying. Honestly this damn proficiency test will be the death of me. Every bloody question I look at in the practice book, is full of unknown words and kanji. What the hell have I been learning for the past 9 years for there to be a whole multitude of things I don't know? I admit I am finding out all this a bit late, with the test in 3 weeks, and I haven't always been the best of studiers (whoa that's a word I think is wrong!), but give me a break! I really hope my power of guessing the correct multi-choice is with me on the 5th, cos I've told too many J-people that I'm doing this, and I think they think I am going to pass... Which I am...fingers-crossed, and 3 weeks of study...!

Finally, I am posting the jersey picture. Jo I am also going to line up some skating photos to prove once and for all that I did skate!

My newly 'styled' hair! 

I haven't blogged in ages, so thought I'd post a quick one before bed...seeing as it is 6.50pm! I'm tired though. I think it is due to the fact that I have been busy every weekend for so long, then this weekend I didn't do much but still was up a little late, so me thinks that if I had just had a huge alcoholic weekend I wouldn't feel so shit... Or maybe I'd just feel shit for being hungover, which would over-ride the feeling shit cos I'm tired...? Ok, too much thinking about that..!

Last night I went to Shimonoseki and met the Shimonosekians at Selena's. We ate and had a few drinks, then what was meant to be a sleepover, turned into just 3 staying and the others deciding it'd be nice to wake up in their own bed, so going home. It was a jolly nice night though.

Then today I went to Kokura to do a bit of shopping and get my haircut. Meag and I started going to this particular hair salon last year, cos we were down there shopping and they had a half price opening sale. So of course it got more expensive after that time, but kept going! So that first time, ended up being over 4 hours long, a info assistant coming up from the entrance to try and translate (we were honestly doing a better job without her!), and we provided amusement for the entire staff and clientele! The second time wasn't much better, but time was down and much less embarrassment caused on our part! So today I went back alone. Straight away my hairdresser (Ikenaga-san), asked about Meagan, then later her last hairdresser came and asked (the first guy didn't make the cut - no pun intended!!). Then Ikenaga made a comment about Meag and I spending lots of time together when she was here, and being lonely now. Seriously I think he thinks I don't have any friends in Japan anymore! Anyway, I love the J-salon experience. I could seriously marry those hair-washing boys with their head massaging service! My hairdresser is good in that he doesn't give me a J-style mullet, with that stringy ultra thin layer-thing happening. I said today that Japanese people often have very thin layers, and I don't want that. I made sure he knew, and then we're all sorted! One thing he does do however is styles it in such a way that I look like I've been dragged through a gorse bush backwards! I usually try my utmost to avoid such a look...argh the endless battle with frizz is obviously over if electric shock victim look is fashionable! A photo will follow...

Ok, owari. oyasumi!

Jocelyn Dinosaur and Osamu Panda!! 

Kawaii yo!! Jenny and Paul off to school...actually the 7-11 to stock up the 'bag bar'! 

Me, Goth Amy, Punk Jimmy and 8 year old Jenny!! 

P.C. Fennell and P.C. Donovan 

THE VISITOR

This is an actual recitation passage that was done at the speech competition I judged yesterday. Thank God I only had to listen to it twice cos I don't think I could have listened to it more with out laughing out loud! Whoever wrote this was either taking the piss, or it's just unfortunately a really poorly written story!!

I dedicate it to Abra. HAPPY BIRTHDAY mate! Hope you had a great day, got really pissed, and generally had fun! Wish I could've been there to do a bit of Snoop Dogg with ya!! P.S. May we never forget the Walla Walla Whitmans.

The Visitor

One day a young hunter met a strange old man. The hunter soon realised that the old man was very ill. The man's lips were big because they were swollen. His eyes were also swollen. All over his body there were open sores, signs of a disease. And the air around him has a terrible smell.

"Who are you?" the young hunter asked.

"I am Smallpox." the old man answered, and the smell of his breath was worse than the smell of his body. "I'm coming," he continued, "I'm coming to your village and I will give everyone my disease. That is what I am here to do."

"Don't do that!" the young man cried. "There are good people in my village. We haven't hurt you."

For a long time Smallpox thought about what the hunter said. At last he said, "Very well, I will have pity on you. You can take your family and friends. If you want, you can take the whole village. If they go with you, they will be all right."

The young hunter went home to his village. He called all of the people together and he told them what he knew.

"Something is coming. A terrible thing is going to happen. A disease is coming that can kill us all. But I can take my family and friends away from it. Follow me and you will live!"

The people were surprised to hear him talk this way. They listened for a while and then they began to laugh.

"I come with a warning," the young hunter said. But still the people laughed and did not believe him. He said, "Stay here if you want. My family and I will leave." He went home to his cottage. The family left the village and traveled west to find a new home.

The next day, all of the people who stayed in the village saw Smallpox. They smelled his terrible breath. And they died.