The ol' Red, White and Blue

That's right, as promised i'm back with my second installment of my tour de America.

One of the best things I got to do while home was visit my UB (upward bound) students! It was so wonderful to see them, and see how much they have grown up! It was so crazy walking back into the dorm like nothing had ever changed. I set my stuff on the front desk and looked around as everything hussled and bussled as it usually does in the dorm during the summer. It was also really nice to have kids scream, hug and generally freak out about me being there. I really do miss those kids a lot. It was nice to see so many of them back and always sad to hear how some students aren't in the program anymore. I got to eat in the caf, play some mini golf, go to the movies (ocean's 13 baby!) and even attend the UB dance while I was there. It was nice to see the program had not fallen apart in my absence....haha not that I had assumed it would or that I in anyway had that effect on things.haha. It was also great to see the staff and chill out after hours like good ol' times eating dominoe's pizza!! Overall, a real highlight in my trip home.

I also spent lots of time with the family! Which was exactly what I wanted to do. We went fishing on this absolutely perfect evening. The lake was this surreal still and the sky was crystal clear and there was even a loon cooing somewhere nearby. I caught some bass and bullheads succeeded in keeping daisy calm in the boat.haha.

My mother and I also went on this fabulous bike ride in a town called Lanesboro. We'll it was fabulous for a while. We rented a double recumbant bike and headed out on a glorious morning down a path by a river that would eventually lead to a town called ...well...who knows....that doesn't seem so important. What is important about that town was that once you got there they had homemade famous pie. It kept us motivated. On on our journey there we saw a mother deer and two fawns, just precious. We then made it to the pie and sandwiches by about 11:30 or so. Rhubard custard pie is to die for, trust me.

No more than 10 minutes had past when I heard a firecracker explode right by my head! i was like woah, let's get outta here! It turns out my tire had just popped, easy mistake.haha. Luckily we had a spare, so in no time we were back out there. 5 minutes later, that's right folks, more fireworks. This time no spare. This could only happen to me and my mom. So there we are 5 miles away from where we started with a bike that is goin' no where too fast. We start our walk back while copias ammounts of bikers stop and try to remedy our problem. They all seem concerned, but can ultimately do nothing.haha. So i call the rental place to tell them the situation...they say they are too busy to come give us a new tire. wtf. I was pretty outraged, but we then happened to get passed by someone driving our same type of bike...they gave us the spare. we were back on the road and done with people giving us those looks of pity!haha. All and all an AWESOME day and a pretty good bike ride.

If you know me at all then you know above all, i'm a gambler.haha. It would have not have been a trip home without spending at least one night at the casino. My mother and I decided to start off with bingo. Bingo is crazy now, you don't play with blotters, just these machine's that do everything for you. I personally think it takes all the good out of bingo.haha. However, we ended up WINNING!!! you NEVER win bingo! We won 125$ and 125$ in pull tabs. Then after that, feeling good to have some more gamblin' money in my pocket...i sit down at a 5 cent machine. After spending about $15, I figured nothing would happen, then when I wasn't even looking, I got 5 pinapples and won $ 187.00.

sorry this is sooooo late. I wrote it a while ago, but forgot to publish it, my bad. ;)

I'm a bad person.

So basically I haven't blogged since...oh...MARCH! whoops. sorry to all my devoted fans. I finally decided to get my act together because my pal, atsushi, told me how sad it made him each time he visited my blog and found the same darn thing written there each time!

Anyways, so much has happened since my last blog! To start off i'll make a breif and sweeping statement that i'm doing really great!! My most recent news, other than the famous Chiba beachi paati, was my trip to America!

I made my trek back to America on June 22nd. I stayed for about 10 days. 10 VERY SHORT days. I'm not really sure what I was expecting to happen on my return. I was pondering if things would seem REALLY different. Did I change in ways that were unseen to me? Upon my return, i'll have you know things seemed completely normal. Almost like stepping back in time, like Japan never happened. I fell so seemlessly back into my American lifestyle that it had an almost dreamlike quality.

My plane ride didn't feel too long despite the 11 hour trip, mostly due to the 5 hour conversation I had with the guy next to me. He was pretty awesome and it turns out, just moved to Japan. i'll have to keep in touch! When I touched down I only had one thing on my mind. Thats right friends: CHIPOTLE. After the touching reunion with my mother and sister we whisked off to get the famed burrito bowl. heaven I tell you.


Like I stated earlier, 10 days is way too freakin' short. I only got to see a fraction of the people I care about. And those I did see, I only got see for about a fraction of a second. My lovely friends Matt and Nick came down all the way to NERSTRAND to see me!haha. I was soooo thrilled. We sat around eating japanese snacks and laughing about my insane life. It was wonderful, but like everything that week, toooo short.

I got hang out with my friend Andrea and meet her fiance!! that's right, fiance, congrats girlfriend. It was a spectaular time back in the ol' faribo. Rueben's at the Depot...mmmm.




Oh! and maybe this doesn't sound exciting to anyone, but it's pretty big deal to me, I got to DRIVE! I haven't driven a car in about a year! I was quite fearful i'd never get behind the wheel again. Turns out it's like ridin' a bike. I just had to remind myself a couple of times..."we drive on the right side here, we drive on the right side here..."hahaha. It was a PRIUS! Do you know how sweet a prius is? It didn't even need a key, i pushed a little button. technology blows my mind.haha.



Okay this is all for now, I have to get to my job. I do work sometimes, believe it or not. I'm not done with America yet, so look for part two. ;)

The Graduation.

I hate change. I'll be the first to admit it. I seem to do a lot of it, but it does not change the fact that I despise it. So to no surpise to myself, I was not looking forward to this business of graduation and people leaving and the like. It is strange to think that I have made such strong bonds with these students who can hardly speak to me. I absolutely adore talking/interating with these students everyday. I will miss the way my one badass boy always looked surprised when he saw me and said,"ooooohhhh morrrrry!" in a crazy high pitched voice. I will miss my one boy who no matter day of the week it was said "have a nice weekend!" and then broke down into hysterics. I will miss their funny attempts at making good english sentences and having them awkwardly try to say "you are so beautiful." To which i would respond "no, no, no...you are wrong." Then they would say, "ano...you are so pretty?"haha. The truth is I haven't really gotten to teach the San nensei students for the past 2 months or so, but I have gotten to still hang out during cleaning time. My favorite memory with my san nensei students was when we did interview test. I got to give each student an indivual interview with 10 questions. I would say EVERY student took it very seriously. It was awesome. I even got some of the badass boys, who none of the teachers can get to do anything, to seriously try to do well. It was also a chance to attempt get some insight to each student's life. Some of them were such interesting people! It's so awesome when after weeks and months of trying, you finally understand something that each other says. You have that moment where you both cheer and shout "wakatta!" (I understand, I understand!!) One of them is a hip hop dancer. Several are great pianists. One wants to be in a big city. One has a horrible relationship with his mother. Some of LOVE english. Several claim they will NEVER be able to learn English. Some have mothers and fathers from different countries. One is moving hundreds of miles away from home for high school to follow his dream of being a great soccer star. One hopes to travel the world and told me she truly believes that all people are the same and she wants to help others see that and overcome their own prejudices (well, she speaks better english than most ;), Many of them hate tokyo because there are too many people and the air is not as clean, Many of them love Tokyo because they are fashion addicts. Some of them want to be gangsters and throw up westside hand gestures that would probably get them killed outside of Japan, haha.
These things are just to name a few the things I learned about my 90 san-nensei students in my short 6 months spent with them. I will truly miss them and even writing this blog is making me feel the same loss I did on graduation day.

Graduation in Japan is not entirely different from the US. However, it is a severly formal event. Students practice for weeks to make sure they can sit, stand and bow just right. Everything is in perfect order. The ceremony itself can be quite a lengthy and seemingly emotionless process. The speeches are long and students bounce in and out of conciousness. I am supposing they are saying something about going into the future and being a success, but I can't be sure. The students take their diplomas and we do a lot of bowing. They younger students then sing a farewell song to the san-nensei students, who in turn sing a parting song back. The songs were actually really beautiful and envoked a few tears all around. They then exited in formal fashion with parents, teachers and students clapping and desperatly snapping photos. I found it quite interesting that this was a Jr. High School gradution. It came with all the severity of my high school graduation. I'm sure it is because all of the students are already going their seperate directions and and being routed toward their life's path. After the ceremony the students went back to their classrooms to have one final goodbye with parents and homeroom teachers. They then started the process of exiting the school for the last time. I mulled around the bottom of the stairs with my new digital waiting for my opportunity to capture a 6 month experience in a single photo. But before any student's came down I heard a familiar "oooooohhhh morrry." I bounded up the stairs to find all of my favorite boys waiting to take a photo. I found my english teacher, who maintained they were the MOST trouble all year, in tears with all of them.haha. It was then my turn to be a teary mess. Of courese I was going to cry, who doubted that?haha. So I took my photos with tears rolling down my face, but also laughing at the ridiculous things they were trying to say in english and the westside hands they were throwing up at the camera. Then I tried to say a final "good luck, see you." But it came out mostly in tears. The same situation occured about 50 more times as I kept trying to put on my best smile and say "see you!" Many of the younger students were surprised and worried about me.haha. So my english teacher and I stood together and said our goodbyes and bowed politely to parents. I took my last photos ouside in the sunshine with some of my favorite girls. We laughed waved enthusiastically and then they were gone. I am so happy to have had such a great experience with these students that I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to say one word to. So I guess I have now officially run the gamet of emotions with japanese students. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Flickr.

I now will probably be posting pictures on my Flickr account! I have some up of my school and students!! :) Having a new camera is so freeing.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/missmollywoods/

Camera.

Dear Aunt Terri and Uncle Vavic. I have purchased a fancy shmansy digital camera. It is a Casio Exilim z1000. 10.1 megapixels. I will now be taking pictures of my students and my school. I will update it soon!! :)

I hate butterflies.

This is a little video from my trip to malaysia. I know it's a little late, but it's still pretty funny. There is no sound, stop trying to turn up the volume. the quality is kinda bad, sorry. The take home message is that i never want to go back to a butterfly garden. They are kinda beautiful until a dumb, blood sucking butterfly tries to land on your face. true story.

OGO Ono-loa Hawaii

I know that a lot of my posts are about food, and i'm sorry to say this one is no different. There is just so much great food out there, it is a shame not to tell the world.haha. I had a wonderful outting two weekends ago in Akasaka (an area of Tokyo) I went out with my friends James, David, Garrett, Atsuko and Ellison. We were on a misson to have REAL hawaiian food. I probably wouldn't have known the difference, but Garrett and David are both from Hawaii so we were lookin' for the good stuff. They had heard of this place through the grape vine, it is quite small, maybe 5 tables, but it was soooooo good! I am going to go out on a limb and say maybe some of the best food i've had in Japan! The owner was a real salesman. Not that I think he was trying to be fake at all, he was just really gifted at chatting up all the customers. Lucky for us he was also a master chef! I have a few pics of the food and the people for your viewing enjoyment. :)

Me and James with the Poke Platter, mmmm...heaven.


The Poke Platter stands alone.


This is probably the best edamame ever created. It's just as spicy as it looks and was almost gone by the time we took this picture.


James, David and my sister (Ellison)




Garrett and Atsuko!


The whole gang.