I passed the 3 month mark!

And I'm looking more like a teacher everyday!!! Today I had to sub for a friend of mine who covered for me when I went to Hakuba. The classes were actually really fun and I'm really learning how to get people to take chances and not be afraid to speak English. It's funny though, just about everytime I learn a new word or phrase it gets incorporated into my lessons. I know I shouldn't, but I do use a lot of Japanese to try and teach. It's slightly frowned on by my company because I'm strictly an English speaker but shooooooot! These kids are really struggling and I help them out by explaining things in Japanese..or wheter try and explain it.

I think that's how I get them comfortable however because once I start speaking I obviously butcher just about everything but they know I'm trying to help them out so they kind of put that extra effort which makes things work. This Wednesday is a holiday so I get to go snowboarding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This weekend I couldn't unfortunately because I'm stupid and spend my money on the wrong things :( BUT! Payday is tomorrow so things will be looking up! But look what I made with about $3 american munz



Ok AJ I know you're going to get a little upset when you read this or even see the pic because that cous cous is one of the boxes that my mom sent for you. So, thanks mom...and thanks AJ I still have another box with your name on it but shooot I was trying to cut corners and I'm broke :) But I promise I'll make it up to you. Anyways I did a little chicken with baby asparagus, carrots, onions, and garlic. The cous cous is indian curry flavored and tastes awesome!!!!!!!!! This coming week I'm going to try my hand at fish!!! Wish me luck everyone!

This coming month should be really exciting. My friend Andy and his girlfriend are coming to Japan @ the beginning of March so it'll be great to jet into Tokyo to meet up with them. LOL it's funny because I've heard of a lot of great mexican restaurants in Tokyo but I'm sure they'll just want Japanese food unfortunately but ohhh well I guess I can just make mexican food!!!!!!!!!!

Today I had my first language exchange. This is when I meet with a friend who wants to practice English, and I try to speak Japanese too...it went really well. I'm learning more and more everyday and some of my sentences are getting longer and sometimes I'm able to make jokes in Japanese! I even had a dream slightly in Japanese the other day too....LOL I was talking to my cousin who lived in Hawaii and he was speaking Japanese for some reason!! I realized it was a dream when later I was talking to my sister and she was in her car...then she drove away but her steering wheel in her civic was on the other side(ie passenger side). I was like damn this is a dream and I've been in Japan for too long :P



This is my latest bike!!! I got it for free too!!! Diggin the rims because all bikes in Japan look exactly the same...except mine!!!! Also with the bike I got a jar of homemade grape jelly!!! It's a bit of a story that I'm really lazy to tell right now but just another reason why Japan is great. OoooooK, basically I told a friend that my bike got stolen, she talked to a relative and told me that he can hook me up with a bike because he owns a bike shop. We go to their house, which is also a grape farm for wine, after he fixes the bike up for me we go in and have tea and as a parting gift the guys wife gives me a jar of grape jelly!! = w00t! People in Japan are soooo nice!!!! Anywho till next time I hope all is well !!!!!

Post Super Bowl

Ok,

So the Cardinals didn't win but at least nobody spoiled for me as I was the only person at the bar interested in the outcome of the super bowl. Luckily my bartender was awesome and made sure to tell everyone to shut up when they were talking about the game.

OOo....I also got my new bike which is awesome, I forget if I mentioned that in my last post... I'll be sure to put a pick up it's wicked sick. It has Turquoise rims!!! And I got it for free, I overheard that the person who gave me the bike his grandaugter is going to Austrailia in a couple months so I thought it would be nice to give a couple english lessons in exchange for the bike. Afterwards we did some tea and chilled it was actually really fun.

Also here's my latest omlette creation!!!



and finally teaching kids there body parts...this was pretty fun because everyone was afraid to be on the top!!! These are my Wednesday kids....they're actually annoying as f***!!!!



Anywho so this week I'm mostly going to be chilling. I have another language exchange next week, this one I didn't speak too much Japanese. The whole deal is I meet up with someone and we speak English for 30 minutes, then we speak Japanese for the next 30. But, this person asked me to meet them at the vault, which is my local bar while the Supe Bowl was on so I wasn't really in the mood to think :( But now I'm a little more driven and have a lot of time this week because I really shouldn't go out(because i'm broke) and I should really buckle down and start studying more.

Tonight I actually think I'm going to be doing some shrimp tacos with guac though so that should be exciting, don't worry if they're lookin good a pic will be up here shortly. Thanks to myspace I got to watch some of the super bowl commercials too. GI joe looks pretty cool but everything else wasn't too funny but ohh well.

Can't wait to go snowboarding again...I was talking to one of the other people that work at the bar and he said he was doin 540's over 15 meter kickers on Saturday, he said we'd be going next time so i'm pretty stoked to see how good this guy is.... iiiiinnaaaaaaa. LOL I think if we go though I'll work up the guts to try something other than a giant 180 over the kicker...we'll see though. I hope everyone is having a good week back home!!!!!!!! Take care!

Superbowl Monday!!!!

Well, that's just the way it has to be here. It's around 2 pm Monday afternoon, which means the superbowl is probably over and the winning team is giving speechs and what not. I've made it this far without spoiling the winner but who knows if I can do it the whole day. I'm about to go meet up with another teacher who is getting me the hook up on a bike. I forget if i mentioned this but last Saturday my bike was stolen from a bar. I didn't lock it though, but never have before...but don't worry I learned my lesson. This past weekend was great, went to Nagano again and has an awesome day. The night before it must have snowed about 10 inches so there was some nice powder but you had to go hunt for it. They also had a couple kickers(jumps) one about 30 feet and the other around 15. It was my first chance to hit jumps this big this season!

I was a little nervous at first because I really don't want to mess my shoulder up again but I never fell once the whole day actually ...wait no I did doing something goofy..just a switch 180. It's funny though the line to hit the jump takes forever so I try and kind of cut in, because everyone just friggin looks at the jump and I'm wondering why nobody is going. So the guy in front always lets me go ahead of him and I think I've perfected my bows while going pretty fast to people...it's a funny feeling actually :P Oddly enough it was the same guy a few times who happened to be the best guy in the park that day...he was doing backflip's with 360's at the end. Some of the guys here are nuts!!! Ok then another japanese lesson for the day

いいな = iina = I envy you, or I'm jealous

So quick example...he would do the backflip and I would say, " iiiiiiiiinaaaaaaa" I really like it because even when you say i'm jealous in english it always seems like there's a bit of envy, yet in japanese it's more of a good thing or, " you're lucky,I'm jealous."

Well I'm trying to upload pics of the day but something is acting up for the blog site. soon to come will before my latest cooking feat = pedthai along with some pics of students and what not.... stay tuned

TODAY IS AUZZIE DAY

Lol like that really means much for the people who read this....

But my local bar is doing a lot because the owner is from Austrailia, I'm going because I want to try a kangaroo burger. Just beforehand I'm going to join a gym, it's about time I get back into shape. If you weren't aware I dislocated my shoulder twice snowboarding last year, once on St.Patty's day and then again two weeks later :( It's a lot better now so I think I can really start to fully exercise again = w00t! I also have some news that will make some of you very happy. Goodbye mustache, I wanted to try and keep it for a month, since I started it on New Years. But it'll be my celebration for Auzzie day. To think it's only been a month is amazing. A lot has happened in 09 already. Had probably one of the best snowboarding trips in my life, my Japanese is getting great and I'm cooking tons! Catching up on my flicks too. Just watched HEAT until the wee hours of Sunday morning...great flick! It makes me miss LA and America a lot. There's many shots of LA and I forgot just how large it is...and that was shot in 1995. It also made me realize how small Kofu is. Although I think it's really big it's not compared to LA, but, it's one of the biggest cities in the US so...yeah! also here's my latest song of the week. It's by Weezer's frontman Rivers Cuomo, he made a couple solo cd's that are very very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtxnRT0IaXg there's anothe link in case that doesn't work. Been listening to a lot of Weezer actually...it's just really relaxing music I suppose.

Everybody has been saying my Japanese is improving tons which is awesome. This week I learned some very cool and important words....

うざい：uzai : annoying

さいきん: saikin : recently

かんぺき : kanpeki : perfect

なんというの : nan toiu no: how do you say that?

おけいかい : okeikai : check ( as in the bill @ a restaurant)

I also have been getting better at using of でしょう(deshoo) which is probably my favorite type of slang Japanese has. It means...right? you use can use it at almost the end of everything, and as my friends you know when I like something, ie a song I nonstop play it so just imagine how much I use でしょう :P Nah it's not that bad. But it also means , "don't you think so" or "don't you agree with me" or "am i right." It also depends on what you say to make deshoo important. It's very fun!!!!!

I would go on with other slang, but I don't want to bore everyone. Such as ちょう(choo) which means something like "very" or a word that's more than "very." I kinda think of it like super, but you can't use it alone it has to have a noun or something to follow it. Honestly, I think of it as the english equivelent to "fuckin"

like...fuckin awesome! LOL it's true though. So quick lesson! すごい = sugoi = awesome. ちょうすごい = choo sugoi = ....you get it!

Anyone who knows Japanese and is reading please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But, that's that for now. I hope everyone's doing well!!!! I'll take blogging request's just let me know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hakuba was great!

Although this pic was taken when my head felt like it was going to explode...I had a great time @ Hakuba. My friends and I left late Friday night and left late Sunday night. Saturday morning I was riding with powder up to my knees!!!!

On about the 3rd run I met a really cool guy coming out of a chute I just tore through...as I was waiting for my friend Jyoti to dig herself out of the powder I decided to chat it up...turns out this guy (Leo) has been traveling around for the past two years and plans to travel for another two!! Sounds like a good idea...right! He was from France too which was interesting. I didn't see him riding with anyone so I told him hey we're exploring the mountain just like you so you're more than welcome to tag along with us, and it was great we had a lot of fun! So it was a really tight trio in the morning and we ended up meeting some great people who was in the group we went up with and had a blast! There was a really fun party on Saturday night and everybody was really happy to meet my UNITAS(where I work) friends and get drunk! The group that went up was giant! About 70 people...we had our own seperate hotel which was great and slightly めどくさい( the japanese word for bothersome or annoying). It turned out great though and is probably the highlight of my stay in Japan so far!

The guy on my left is Fred...you may remember him from my other post the first time I went to Fuji-ten and I believe my first blog ever :P He's the guy that put this all together and a very cool peep might I add. Lol if you look at his hand he messed it up majorly because he works hard....and plays hard too!!! Drunken Fool!!! lol.

Don't worry everyone I plan to break-up with my mustache soon....but it's hard to fight love :) Fred really does rock though for how long I've known him he's always been super cool. It's really how it is with most of the people here...everyone rocks and is always really genuine which is awesome!! I want to put up some videos of me on the gondola and a really funny one of us @ dinner but for some reason this blog uploader sucks, sorry peeps! More pics for now!

These three are probably my closest friend I see on the regular and who are always down to hang out whenever! The guy is james, next Eiko, then Hazuki. All super rad...James busted his kness on the trip. This is the second time I've taken him snowboarding and the second time that he's fucked his knees up :( Like I'm talking very bad...they both swell up with fluid that looks really nasty. But it's funny he's like ok let me heal up then we'll try it again! Great guy...English though so it's really funny we're always busting each others chops because of our different slang. He's even got me saying "bloke" sometimes and I tell him to " bugger off" it's really funny! LOL and he's worried he's going to come back home with an american accent because of how much we kick it.

I wish I would have taken more pics of the snow but I think I was just too excited...Jyoti is going to put up some pics so I'll put more up in a blog later this week.

On a resolution update note...my cooking is already getting better. I'm getting pretty good at pastas and what not... yes I know it's easy but they're tasting good. Tonight it will be pasta with chicken, broccoli, and bell peppers in a tomato basil sauce!! Next week I'm thinking about getting a wok to work on stir fry's and then next is going to be Thai food!!!! Wish me luck...Till nex time everyone hope you enjoyed!

Want to see my Saturday students?!?!

These kids are great!! And now that I've been teaching for a little while it's great to see their personality a little more because they were so shy at first. I'm teaching the boys how to play uno, which could be a bad idea because when I play uno with my other classes all they want to do now is play uno...but they listen very well so I don't think it will be a problem.

Saturday's are actually my favorite days...although it's a 9-5er as opposed to 1-9 I like it because the kids are friggin smart! Then I go back to the central branch and teach two adults that are really fun. Teaching is weird, and teaching English without that much experience is funny as well because I'm just talking to them...and correcting their sentence structure. Especially without training it's hard to decide what to teach my adult students who don't prefer to follow a textbook because it's too basic, but their English isn't that great either. In the coming weeks I think I'm really going to buckle down and develop my teaching style.

I have noticed that I do get my students to laugh, and laugh often...lol not at me don't worry but with English it's very easy to make jokes I guess although the language barrier is there with the little kids.

All in all Japan rocks!! People are commenting on my Japanese getting better and I notice it too because I'm understanding more of what people say, and just nodding my head pretending I understand to everything else. Which is very hard might I add because I can tell when somebody doesn't catch everything I say when I talk, it's in their eyes you can just see it. So when I pretend to understand I really try to convey it in my eyes but it's hard! Here's a couple more pics from last night (1/10) Me and my friend James and our local bartender Marc/Mac/Mic lol. Despite the scary appearance this guy is great!

I only wish I could grow such a mean mustache!!! I think I'm going to give up on mine in another couple days and try again in a couple years lol. Later this evening I will be snowboarding in Fuji-ten!!! Their park is finally up so I can ride on some jibs, then Monday I'm going to get crackin on my new years rezzzy's and spend some of my hard earned cash vampin out my pad. My rezzy's for this year are!!!!!!

1. Get better at Japanese(I figure I'm in Japanでしょう？)

2. Get an idea of what I want to do with my life(quarter-century old I figure it's a good time:)

3. Become a better cook

There's of course the exercise on the regular but that's a given resolution on everyone's list right. These will be tough, especially #2 because I feel that wherever I'm living I'm visualizing what I will be doing with my life there. So now I don't ever want to leave Japan and I think it's an easy place to make money. That is if you have your own business. Japan is very funky in the tiers of money making, they are very spaced out. I feel the only way to make it here would be to have my own business so I can dictate and have some control over how much money I can make.

Japanese people are crazy about saving!!! Which is great for me because I'm horrible with money. I blame it on the restaurant biz because when you get large amounts of cash every night in lieu of a big paycheck once a month it's easy to spend your money then the last week will just pay for your bills. I have to say if there's one thing I will bring back from Japan I want it to be their saving ethic.

That and all my resolutions :) I'm going to grab a cup of coffee before I go rip so until next time....

09 baby!!!

Hi all..

Yes I know it's been a little while but I felt as if I didn't have too much to say. The New Year has been interesting so far and today I woke up to it snowing here in Kofu!! Here are some shots as I'm making breakfast :)

lol the one on the left is from my porch as I have my clothes hangin up outside under a little overhang. There's no way I'm going out there to take them down it's freezing. As I'm typing my fingers are freezing :( I'm about to jump in the shower to get ready for work. So stoked it's payday today this month my budget was strecthed and broken...just ate all the food in my house. Well, besides some tortillas and like 6 cans of refried beans :) This weekend should be great!! I'm going to Nagano for the first time with some friends and plan to shred...I think everywhere will have really good snow since it's been snowing here in Kofu!!! We shall see I'll keep you all posted :) PEACE!