How to Rock

This is about the extent of my musical talent. But we had a great time playing.

Weekends

As my time here whittles down, I am trying to burn the images of this place in my mind. I want the beauty of the Japanese countryside burned into the back of my eyelids. I've heard that it's painful and that you can't really see anything on the back of your eyelids anyway. Maybe I'll just take pictures.

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Chris and I went fishing after school and he caught this monster. We are such anglers, Poseidon's knuckles are whitening as he clinches his trident in jealousy.


I brought my camera to school one day during the week because I only had a few classes. I love these flowers.


LSU flowers!


This lizard dared me with his over-the-shoulder stare. He looked to be a rough customer.


This past weekend we ventured to Miyazaki. We stopped in a town called Nobeoka, which felt smaller than it was. After a night of karaoke, we woke up early to go scuba diving. Miyazaki was incredibly beautiful but the weather was rainy so I didn't get many pictures.


A mountain road in Miyazaki.


Tim and Eric laid on the beach to "untan". That's when you lay out on the beach when its completely overcast and the possibility of a storm paces around the edge of the sky and your skin becomes whiter. The beach was still really beautiful.


This weird cave thing was on the other side of the beach. I think it'd be cool to camp inside, but its roped off. No fun allowed.


On the side, Tim models for Nutella.


So at the one of the elementary schools I go to, the school with 16 kids, the teachers photograph everything. I brought my laptop this time so I could steal some of the pictures. This is what I look like teaching.


And how about my hot pants?! They are track pants which for some reason pass for acceptable work clothes. We were playing the card slap game. I say "strawberry" and the kids have to slap the card with the picture of the strawberry. The 1st graders need a little help, so I hold up the picture. Gaijin-monkey!


The PRINCIPAL of the school helped me with the game. He's a ham and the kids love him.


After lunch the ENTIRE school had an 'assembly' to learn how to properly brush their little crooked teeth.


Kochosensei hovers over a 4th grader. I love this guy, he's one of the happiest Japanese men I've met.


The 6th graders scrub away. Everyone asked me if they did this in America. It's almost exactly the same thing I did in elementary school.


This is Ririka-chan. She is now my favorite student. She just looks at me and laughs, but I somehow know it's not bad. She's entertained by me, or maybe the idea of me.


That elementary school is my favorite school. It's so small but every student is extremely well behaved. They've all got bright personalities that I think would seem duller in a big school. All the teachers are great, too. I feel bad that they won't get an ALT next year.

Things To Do At Work

I tricked my teacher into reading this while I recorded it. She realized what she was reading about halfway through but played along anyway! Give a second to load.

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Paul is the most handsome ALT(Assistant Language Teacher) in Japan.
He is so smart and funny. I wish all ALTs could be like him. I will name my first child after him because of his wonderful influence. I think he is the most perfect being.

[Japanese]

In Japan he is praised as a god.

Create

Sometimes I get this crazy urge to create something. I am almost always walled by the fact that everything I create is mediocre at best. I have to take a step back and ask, do I really want to add to the enormous body of mediocrity? I don't just want to create something for creativity's sake. I want something great and beautiful. Something that inspires like the stuff that inspires me. I need to learn to be content with just absorbing the art that's already out there. There is some point where I've got to settle with the idea that it's enough to just consume. But right now that idea is filthy to me, makes me feel bloated, old and mortal.

I sat on the beach this weekend and watched this tenacious surfer paddling around. There were literally NO WAVES on the beach. It wasn't even a nice day out. But there she was. Practicing in protest of the ocean's serenity. It made me a little sad actually.