The English teacher, Mrs. Koretsune finally made it to school over 2 hours late. She was only stuck in traffic; she didn't get in an accident. What caused this? About a centimeter of snow on the ground.

Yesterday the 7th graders (the youngest grade) ran directly outside for their lunch break to take advantage of the snow. Gloves or no gloves, everyone participated in a huge snowball fight. As for me, I lent my gloves to a 7th grader, and I made a little snowman.

Overnight it snowed, and today it's snowing. Which probably isn't very exciting people who live in Ohio, Michigan, and Seattle, but it almost never snows on Etajima Island. Anyhow, should be exciting for the kids when I get to school. The teacher that normally picks me up was stuck in a traffic jam because of the snow. Guess how much snow is on the ground? Take a guess. I'll let you know in the next entry.

1.    Aloe
2.    Grapefruit
3.    Pineapple
4.    Peach
5.    Apple
6.    Grape
7.    Carrot
8.    Tomato
9.    Plum
10.   Mango

I learned that it would cost me about $450 in driving school/transportation/test fees to change my Ohio driver's license to a Japanese one, in addition to about $1000 for a car, not to mention the amount of time it would take to deal with all of this, so I am putting my whim of getting a car completely out of my head.

Heating my apartment is stressful, to say the least, and there is no good solution I have found. If I stay in and heat only one room, then the heating is okay, but with my electric heater sometimes it's still not very warm. If I use the kerosene heater, then it smells in my apartment like...well, kerosene. Which isn't very good for the health, I've heard. Unless I open a window or door to ventilate, and then, doesn't that pretty much defeat the purpose of using a heater in the first place? My last and warmest form of heating is the kotatsu...a heater under a table with a blanket over the top to keep me all nice and cozy underneath. That's pretty nice...if I don't want to move for hours. So, I've nearly eliminated doing the dishes, laundry, or cleaning the apartment from my daily routine, which of course means going into frigid rooms. Needless to say, I've become pretty lazy. But it's not my fault.
It's the heater's fault.

I'm not excited anymore about getting a car.

I am so excited! But I don't know why I'm so excited. I should be scared and re-thinking my plans...I might buy a car! No, I don't have a Japanese driver's license yet (I have an International one, though), and no, I've never driven for more than a minute in Japan, but I'm holding onto this excitement for tonight, anyway. I'm going to have dinner with Nathan, who owned a car for awhile, and he might talk me out of it. We'll see. Lots of pictures to come. The International Club had a Kite Day for the kiddies last Saturday and I had dinner with the exchange students study group (with whom I study Japanese) as well.

Recently, I've splurged and did a couple nice things for myself. I bought contacts including the eye exam (from start to finish all by myself, which I consider quite a feat!) I also bought a suit and jacket-blazer to wear this winter. This past weekend, Hiroshi drove us to "Coorhouse", which was not a beer factory. It was a place with a pool (with a curly tube slide) and many massaging jaccuzi areas. I got a little exercise in by doing laps in the pool, as well! It was nice and relaxing. Next Month, I am planning to go to Japan's southern island, Kyushu for Chinatown's huge Lantern Festival in Nagasaki.

This Monday was "Coming-Of-Age Day" in Japan. It's when 20-yr-olds become adults, which mean they can legally vote, drink, and buy anything they'd like to. On Monday, many 20-yr-olds dressed in traditional wear and celebrated the day with their family or friends. However, I spent the national holiday helping Mr. and Mrs. Mizutani pick mikan (mandarine oranges) on their farm. They have about 30 orange trees on a steep hillside, surrounded by an electric wire fence (to protect the oranges from wild boars.)
I didn't see any boars, but we heard gunfire(?) of people hunting them. People in the town also eat wild boar, but I haven't tried it. A couple children tagged along for a few hours were having a blast being monkeys in the orange trees. I had a pretty good time, too, and it was beautiful spring-like weather as well. The Mizutani's were kind enough to treat me to a sashimi dinner, drive me back home, and invite me to their town's kaki (oyster) festival next month!

Tomorrow and Friday is a JET (assistant English teachers) conference in Hiroshima, which means I have to miss school. And Saturday is Kite Day for elementary kids on Etajima Island. We're going to make a kite designed by a company in Hawaii that looks pretty fun, and if we have time, we'll play "Kabaddi", a game in India similar to "tag." 'Should be a good time. If I'm lucky, I'll have time to study Japanese and go to an onsen (hot spring) this weekend as well.

10 Girls Names

1.    Sakura   (Cherry Blossem)
2.    Nozomi   (Hope)
3.    Ai   (Love)
4.    Yuki
5.    Mika
6.    Yasuka
7.    Aina
8.    Megumi
9.    Eri
10.   Risa

10 Boys Names

1.    Yu
2.    Yuta
3.    Yuki
4.    Nozomi
5.    Hiroki
6.    Kenji
7.    Taichi
8.    Masashi
9.    Daisuke
10.   Shogo

The tea ceremony was very nice.

However, I challenge any of you to sit on your knees almost non-stop for 2 1/2 hours. Or a half an hour for that matter. (Ow!) Mrs. Yamatani's backyard is very beautiful, and is a traditional Japanese-style garden. We washed our hands from the water in the picture, using the ladle on the stone. In making our way to the tea ceremony room, we had to (try to) wear these straw sandals. Being that they were 1/2 the size of my foot, and my toes didn't fit very well around the toe holder in sock feet, it was fairly difficult to wear them. They looked sideways on my feet most of the time. Anyhow, we started out admiring the things inside the room including a hanging willow branch, symbolizing long happiness in life. We were served lunch by our host Mrs. Yamatani, in full kimono dress. Lunch included: red bean rice (for special occasions), fish, Japanese pickles, a shrimp, soup, white radish and salmon appetizer, etc...It was very good, and actually, none of us 3 could eat it all. (We delicately placed it in our zip loc baggies.)
After lunch there was the tea ceremony where a special blend of tea was whisked up for each of of us by our host, several times. First was a really, really thick blend of green tea ma-ccha. (Think melted forest-green crayon.) Even my mom didn't get to try this thickness of tea when she visited last spring. Then came the usual frothy blend of ma-ccha. Before drinking this very bitter drink, it is part of the ceremony to nibble on really sweet candies/cakes. The idea is that you can enjoy the contrasting, but complementing flavors of sweetness and bitterness. Also, there are books of information that explain symbolism and ettiquite at Japanese tea ceremonies (that I had unfortunately completely forgotten).

I spent the first day of this 3-day weekend sleeping. It was nice to catch up on sleep, but all my dreams were pretty scary. Well, tomorrow morning I'd like to go to a school-sponsored flea market in Kirikushi, but I think the bus schedule won't help me to return home before the 11:00 tea ceremony Mrs. Yamatani is performing.

Another week finished. I think the months until July are going to fly. I can almost smell the spring cherry blossoms, though I am very far from imagining the sweltering heat of summer. I am going to miss watching the sun sett early in the mountains and the streetlamps reflecting off the black inland sea and fishing boats nearby my apartment.

Because school is just starting up after winter break, I didn't have many classes at Etajima JHS this week. However, I have shared a large package Harmon Middle School students sent to my students in Japan. We also watched some of the video they sent as well. Halloween at Six Flags was pretty intriguing for the 7th graders, and when watching a video tour of a HMS student's house, I had my students guess what a laundry shute was for before it became apparent. Most students guessed it was for trash.

In classes we also played karuta, a card game similar to slapjack and a standard in English classes in Japan. (It is also a famous New Years game in Japan.) The cards had pictures of animals in the Chinese zodiac on them. When I said the name of the animal in English, the fastest person in the group to slap the card keeps it, and at the end of the game, the student with the most cards got "Wendy Dollars". Round 2 included animal sounds (with gestures and exaggerated mimicked sounds provided by myself)!

Tonight I went to pottery class in Kirikushi (on the other side of the island). The teacher is nice enough to pick me up and drop me off for every class I can come to, and is very open-minded. I can do anything I choose to (without using a potter's wheel or playing with firing techniques), and it's a pretty good time listening to the other members, mostly housewives, gossip. Tonight they were saying the perfect age to get married is 28. Or 20. (Depending on which lady you listen to.) Then they attacked the teacher, saying because he had old-fashioned thinking, he'd have a hard time getting married. Anyway, tonight in class I practiced coil techniques to make a bowl. It is really difficult to make a near-perfect one. The class before I made a traditional (come hither with your money) cat figurine that is pretty cute.

Sorry that I've been out of contact for awhile. I haven't been home much, spending time with a few families in Hiroshima. It was very nice to relax with several people over the long holiday break. I made mochi (gooey rice cake--read following entry), viewed Christmas "illuminations", went to temples and shrines in the New Years' tradition (I even prayed for happiness in the coming year), and I spent time just hanging out at my homes-away-from-home not doing very much. It was nice to meet some students and other townspeople I knew while ringing the bell at midnight on New Years in Etajima with Nathan. I didn't get around to seeing Harry Potter 2, but hopefully I'll be able to within the next couple weeks. I hope it's still there. In spending all this time away from home, I haven't had much time to clean my apartment before school starts up again on the 6th/7th, though I've set aside tomorrow to do just that.

Oh. Nen-ga-jo...I don't think I've mentioned that yet. In Japan, there is a similar tradition to sending out Christmas cards in the U.S. No Christmas cards, but everyone sends out special postcards with New Years greetings on them. Most people send the postcards from around December 15th to the 30th,

(nengajo)"> as the post office keeps them to deliver on Jan.1st. Itfs quite fun to wake up after sleeping in on the national holiday, slip out to the mailbox in your slippers to find a stack of mail from people you know and love! And Jan.1st isn't the only holiday. Banks and most stores close in Japan from Dec.31st through Jan. 3rd. That includes ATMs. There is even a New Years food called O-se-chi. It is a box of nicely arranged food chocked full of preservatives that your family can pick at for several days instead of cooking. (Similar to the American tradition of picking at the turkey for several days after Thanksgiving.)

Once again, THANK YOU to everyone who sent me a Christmas card. I hope to send you all a reply soon! Oh, and Cat--if you are reading this--Wow. Your card is great. (Do you have a beard that long now?) I don't know if you've thought about doing jaded greeting cards on the side, but I'm sure you could rake in some big bucks.

Also, Lee...thank you for the cut paper snowflake you sent. It was wonderful!