Sakura Sneak Peak!

Blogs I've Yet to Post:

-Konpa (Japanese Group Date) Adventure

-Rock Climbing Progress

-Christmas Card Anecdotes

-Koyo High School Photo Blog

I am getting seriously behind! And this weekend is already shaping up to be extremely blog worthy! It is the weekend of Sakura (cherry blossom) Matsuris (Festivals) and I am going to be photographing and soaking up that festive atmosphere like nobody's business!

There is a festival in my town, Yaese.

At a park with this gorgeous outlook:

Instead of catching up on blogs now, though, I am going to take a minute to give you a quick glimpse of the cherry blossoms.

My friend-coworkers and I went up to Yaese Park after work today to check out the blossoms before the crowds arrive for the festival.

My crazy coworkers. :)

No crowds!

The cherry blossoms bloom earliest in Okinawa but are still pretty sparse right now.

However, there are still plenty to photograph!

I can't wait to go back tomorrow when it is full-blown party time! I love Okinawan festival music! And the food!! Droooool!

Festive lanterns light the way after dusk.

My battery died right before dusk. Oops!

One more sakura photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebekhamichele/4312977911/

Heart on Your Leaves

My lovely friend posted a great site on her blog, and I've been wanting to try it out but have lacked inspiration.

Today, I taught my sweet friend the expression "heart on your sleeve" and she loved it. At lunch, when she accidentally replaced "sleeve" with "leaves," I found the inspiration I was looking for.

This is my second attempt. This touch pad mouse takes some getting used to.

I love interesting English errors. :)

Speaking of which, I want to post a blog with some of the expressions my students used on the Christmas cards they made me. Always classically entertaining, and terribly heart warming.

Speaking of heart warming:

I love my job.

Terrible Teacher >_<

Today I feel like a miserable, awful teacher. No matter how hard I try, I just can't get anything right. My students are lost, I am stumbling, the material is lacking... I don't know what it is! During first period debate class I couldn't get my point across with a sledge hammer. It doesn't help that I didn't have any coffee this morning and that the material is about as interesting as my blogs. (heh. ;) Sorry, readers.)

Some of the fumbles this morning were due to being under prepared, I must admit. During second period, I didn't have enough copies made and had to rush to the computer for more. My co-teacher looked at me like I had grown an extra set of eyeballs out of my forehead. uuugh.

I think the worst part about this day in particular is the wacky schedule. Koyo (my school) is holding entrance exams (for potential students) this week and everything is messed up. Really messed up.

For example:

Monday was Friday's schedule, but only in the morning. The afternoon was all entrance exams.

Today's schedule is Wednesday's full schedule.

Wednesday's schedule is Wednesday morning's schedule only with exams in the afternoon.

Friday's schedule is Friday afternoon's schedule in the morning with exams in the afternoon.

Thursday is the only day that is normal! So, I have my Friday afternoon and Wednesday morning classes twice this week, but my Tuesday and Monday classes not at all. Why?? I really, really don't understand the logic there.

This weird schedule lead to my final mishap of the day. I confused today's "Full Wednesday" schedule with tomorrow's "Half Wednesday" schedule and thought I was free after lunch. I was sitting at my desk doing some grading when my co-teacher rushed down to get me. Five minutes late for my fourth period class. GAH! It has happened once before with this teacher, too. I agreed to teach an extra Christmas class to some second year students, and then it slipped my mind because I didn't properly schedule it.

What an awful feeling.

Now I am actually free for the rest of the afternoon, but am so flustered and discouraged that I can't bring myself to do any work. I really need to. I have to prepare for my second Wednesday morning classes of the week o I don't have to come in early tomorrow, am not all exhausted, and don't make so many mistakes again.

I think I am going to go close my eyes in the tatami room for a bit. Have I told you we have a room just for napping? Yeah, there are advantages to teaching in Japan.

Maybe when I wake up this whole day will have been a nightmare.

Sesame Seed Fried Rice

We interrupt this Subtropical Christmas series to bring you the latest breaking news: ReBekha can cook!

Now before you get too excited, you should know that I am starting slow. So far, it has only been simple recipes except where heavily assisted by others (such as the surprising turkey success), but I am doing pretty well.

Now, if you haven't known me for longer than a few months, you might not know that I have never considered myself capable of really cooking--aside from top ramon, that is. It isn't that I horribly mutilate everything I touch, I simply don't attempt it that often. Recipes tend to terrify me.

The exception is pancakes. I love to make strange pancakes. I even submitted my baked

apple & cinnamon recipe to the JET newsletter. :P Simple, but yummy.

Well, since I moved to Japan, and have this nice apartment to myself, and a huge assortment of strange foods to choose from, I decided to give the whole cooking thing another shot. My fantastic coworkers, Max and An Yang, come over to my place semi-regularly for a little cooking party, and that has definitely helped. An Yang is a walking cookbook of Japanese and Chinese recipes and makes it all seem so easy. One of the first things we cooked was cha han, or fried rice.

What I love about cha han is that it is so simple, so versatile, and so delicious. All the time.

Well, today, I made my own variation of cha han that I want to share with my other cooking-challenged friends. :)

Sesame Seed Fried Rice

It's easy.

1. Prepare the rice ahead of time. I use white rice in a basic rice cooker. Wheat rice would probably work just as well.

2. Combine diced chives, green peppers, yellow peppers, and tomatoes in a frying pan with seasame seed oil, sesame seeds, salt and pepper (to taste) in frying pan.

(I would also usually add fried egg, but I didn't have the energy today.)

3. Fry until veggies are crispy and oil is hot.

3. Add the rice to the frying pan, mix it with the other ingredients, and cook until fried.

I think the most important thing about this is to fry the veggies in sesame seed oil before adding the rice. It makes a major taste difference.

I've learned that I am not very good at measuring when I am cooking for myself, but I don't think exact measurements are necessary in this case. The beauty of cha han, for me, is being able to just toss ingredients together. So far, this is the best combination I have come up with. :)

Subtropical Christmas Part 2: Food!

(If you are receiving this in email form and don't want to receive it anymore, please let me know. I promise not to be offended. :))

This next installment of the Christmas Party story is about the food. We had SO much food! We were eating leftovers for DAYS! I still have some stuffing left!!

I can't type much because of a small fingertip injury, so I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

Truffle pasta by Max.

Amazing cake by MaryAnne.

Japanese Christmas cake from one of my coworkers. They love to eat cake on Christmas. :)

Cocoa with marshmallows and candy canes! Aren't these jars sweet?

Green salad by An Yang.

Cheese platter by Max.

Cookies by Julie (who also made yams, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and more!

Gingerbread house! (Group effort. Mostly An Yang's creation. :D)

And the turkey!! Now this one I have to talk about a bit more. This was my first attempt at making a turkey (which I bought frozen from Costco), and I was so happy with the turnout! Sarra coached me through the preparation process where we removed all the nasty insides and then coated the thing in butter and fresh thyme and rosemary. Then we baked him (we named him Takumi the Turkey) until he was crispy, juicy, tender, and incredible. We had to borrow a confection oven from Julie, and it worked out perfectly.

I can't believe my turkey turned out so well! I already told my mom that I would make the turkey at home from now on. ;)

Subtropical Christmas Part 1: Decorations

There are so many exciting things happening that I can't keep my blog up-to-date! Hooray for happy business. ;) But, I want to share some of these joyous occasions with you, my dear friends and family, so I will do my best.

First, I must tell you all about my Christmas party! Back in November, a few of us JETs were talking about Christmas and who would be left behind and we decided to pull together a little shindig. Well, this little shindig evolved into quite the extravaganza so I have to tell you about it in parts. So, here is Part 1: Decorations.

One of my favorite things about Japan is the hiyakuen (100 yen) stores. They are roughly equivalent to dollar stores in the states. This is where I bought the vast majority of my Christmas decorations. Such as this little reindeer stocking.

I also like this photo because it nicely displays the awesomeness of my new camera lens. See how the reindeer is (mostly) in focus but the tree and background and lovely and fuzzy? That is thanks to my shiny new 5omm lens. It makes my heart happy.

I bought this Merry Xmas thingy at the 100 yen store, too. It is actually a large gift bag, but I thought the Santa Clauses were too adorable so I used it as wall decor. This greatly confused one of my Japanese guests, but it's how I roll.
This is my kitchen tree. It is decorated according to the red and green color scheme. :) Yes, I color-coordinated my rooms. ;)

Here are more decorations from my red and green room: 3D snowflakes and paper chains. Both were made with help from my students. :) A very fun class.

We used them to decorate the classroom and then I brought what was left over to use for the party. Convenient recycling. :)

This is the tree for my blue and silver room (living room). You can also see my cozy fireplace. It crackled and everything! It only emitted the tiniest bit of heat though. ;P

Here's a tiny snowflake from the blue and silver room. I hung it on the light switch and people thought it was so clever. =P

Sorry for the blur.

In this picture you see the centerpieces for one of the tables. You may be confused because it is a mixture of blue & silver and green & red.

That is because these tables were in my bedroom, which was a fusion of the other two rooms' color schemes. :) Ridiculous, huh?

These tables are really low to the ground (about coffee table height) because that is the preferred dining style here in Japan. Everyone sits on the floor! More about that later. :)

My family sent me a wonderful care package which also contained some decorations:

beautiful silver stars (including the tiny ones you can see in the centerpiece photo)

and a nativity. Apparently the globe part is supposed to hang over the Jerusalem part, but I didn't find the wire for it. Oops. ;P

As I mentioned before, I decided to use candles instead of Christmas lights, and I think they worked really well. They made the apartment so cozy on such a blustery, rainy day, and I think they were kinda classy. :)

Finally, I found some fresh holly at the Max Value grocery store here, and picked it up at the last minute for about 300 yen ($3). It made a gorgeous centerpiece for the food table in the red & green room. :D

Decorating my apartment was a long, drawn-out process, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am glad I didn't wait until the last minute to decorate, but took my time and did everything gradually. It would have been much more stressful to try and decorate while getting everything else ready!

Well, I hope this blog didn't bore you, but I wanted to share the details because that is where I poured a lot of my energy. Keep your eyes open for Part 2 when I find the time to post again!

more thoughts than words

I'm too young to be a teacher. When my student's are giggling and drawing in class, I just want to join them. ;)

 I am nervous about hosting Christmas lunch at my apartment and really, really excited. I get to share my favorite holiday with so many people who have never experienced it and a lot of people who will be fighting homesickness like me. I want my home to be a haven of happiness for fellow JETs and Japanese Teachers alike. 

My friend Shoshana will be here in a week and a half and I want to cartwheel with excitement. I never could cartwheel. I was the shame of my junior high cheerleading squad. 

I don't have any Christmas lights so I am going to light candles instead. Innovation. :P

My house is cold, but I am stubborn. This is Okinawa, and I am not ready for it to be cold. Therefore, it isn't.  See, delusions work great!

I drink cocoa every night to take the edge off. Ha ha!

oOOOh update on my car! The garage that is loaning me this current car and scrapping my old one said that they would like me to buy the car I am borrowing. Yay! It will only be about $800 but I also need to pay for new tires. So, I will continue to be dead broke for awhile, but I will be free to drive this car around with a clear conscience! :D It is an ugly little clunker, but it is familiar and comfortable now. :) 

Speaking of being broke, is it pay day yet? I am so glad that Thatcher bought a giant bag of rice when he was here, but I am getting sick of eating rice and eggs every night. :P Now I know better than to take a trip and buy a laptop on the same paycheck. Whoops!

Teaching is so enlivening! I wish I could teach more classes every day. It is the down time in between classes that exhausts me. Well, that and lesson planning. Eek. 

My English is degenerating more every day. I am shocked that I remembered the word degenerating, but I am not certain I used it right... er,  correctly.  

Every time somebody goes out of their way to speak English, I feel so blessed and thankful. I will forever be in awe of people from other countries who can function in America where people can be so unobliging.

Mrs. Over-committer needs more outlets for her energy. I need at least one choir, some sort of leadership position, and more dancing. Minimum. ;)

Okay that's enough scattered thoughts for today. :) Thanks for tuning in!