Bad things

So to follow up my post on blessings, a few bad things have happened to me this weekend. On Friday I was at school and I fell down the stairs, giving myself a couple of small scratches and bruises along with a large bruise all down my leg. Two of my students saw it happen and they came to make sure I was ok and just after I fell a teacher came around the corner. But I was so embarrassed that I just brushed them all off and went off to my business.
Saturday I had a lot of fun with our little Christmas get-together we had at our house. It was nice and we had some nice Chilean wine and some cake and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. Two of the girls who came stayed late so they just slept at our place overnight. Then at about 6 in the morning a pipe broke and water was everywhere, flooding our apartment floor. Thankfully we were able to get the water cleaned up pretty quickly. Now it's just time to bring an "I'm sorry" gift to the neighbors just in case it leaked on them.
After the flood I started to feel swiftly not well. I checked my temp and it was 99.5. Bummer. Today I feel a bit better, but I would much rather be in bed at home than here at work. I have no classes until  1:25pm but if I leave now I would have to take a vacation day. Bummer again. Oh well, I am very thankful that I have a wonderful husband who has been taking care of me.
But anyway, here's a picture of what I see on my way to school in the morning. It's beautiful, but it's also pollution. Well, I'll try to find the good in the bad, I guess.

Blessings

I was recently inspired by another ALT's blog that I came across.
I realized that I, too, use my blog to complain sometimes about various things here in Japan, but now I want to use it to show the blessings I have:

1. My husband - he is such an amazing support! And it's great because many people have been saying how wonderful an experience like this is for a marriage because we have each other to lean on and we can grow leaps and bounds. I think already we have done so and I am so thankful that God has given us this opportunity!

2. The Huttons - they are friends Matt and I have met while here in Japan and they are such wonderful people! They have deffs become our Japan besties.

3. Costco - strange, but true. It's nice to know that I can zip up to Sapporo and get Mexican if I'm in a homesick phase.

4. Friends - Our Muroran friends are great and we enjoy spending time with them. It's cool to be able to get together and talk about Japan and other things, watch some TV shows together, or go out to dinner.

5. A heater - this is a TRUE blessing. Without it we would not survive. And in this one I'll throw the kotatsu in because it is a kind of heater.

School Loans

Matt and I just paid our first and last payment for my school loans, which means that we are now entirely debt free! Woo hoo!!!

NaNoWriMo

I have just finished my word count at 50,029 words for the month of November! I am a NaNoWriMo winner!!!!

Next on the list:
1. Study Japanese
2. Read some books (LOTR or maybe some C.S. Lewis)
3. Actually keep in contact with people back home.

Worship

I put on Hillsong United's The I Heart Revolution today and felt so much homesickness. We have been going off and on to a church here, but it has been difficult to adjust. The sermon is in Japanese, which is understandable. It is Japan. But for us we're not getting any instruction from a spiritual leader. And the songs are very different. But Japanese music is very different from American. And in Japanese. So while I can understand some of it, it is still difficult to connect with the music because of the language barrier.
The people are really nice and they have tried to make connections with my being an English teacher. But it's tough for me not to feel like they just want to talk to me to get English practice in. So I deliberate. Should I go to church where I feel very alone? Or should I just stay at home and get deeper in the word?
It's such a hard place to be in. I miss worshiping so much. I miss just getting friends together with a guitar and a couple of sheets of music and worshiping simply and purely.
So I think even though I'm not good at playing guitar, I think we are going to buy me one here. I really just want to worship the Lord here and I love music a lot. I feel like I can just have the best moments with God when I worship him through song.
But not being able to worship with my church family back home does make me so homesick. Even more than the thought that I will miss Christmas this year.
I never again want to take for granted the fact that I had and have in the States brothers and sisters in Christ with whom I can worship my Lord and Savior.

Pictures and Holidays

Part I: Here are some pictures of our wonderful weekend that I forgot to post last time. We spent time with the Huttons who have become our very good friends over the past few months and we are so blessed to know them!

Here's the turkey Matt cooked to perfection.

Matt and John pretending that they're upright. They were really laying on the pavement.

The beautiful view from a lookout in Muroran.

Me and Natalie

Nabe party! Nabe is a Japanese soup thing where you cook veggies and meats in the broth and then serve up what you want. Delicious!

Matt and John goofing off.

Part II: It's strange how simple things are what I miss from America. I don't really miss Thanksgiving, but what I miss right now is getting up at the crack of dawn with my sisters and brother-in-law and sister-in-law, going by Starbucks for a peppermint mocha, and standing in line for Black Friday shopping. Weird, but true. I miss the fact that there's a kind of distinct change after Thanksgiving from "normal" life to Christmas festivities. I love the feeling of that change. There's so much excitement and planning (which is something I greatly enjoy doing any day!). I get my shopping list out and check everyone off and try to get as many gifts as I can during Black Friday.
On that note, I think we're going to put up our Christmas tree that was gifted to us this weekend. I haven't seen what it looked like, so I have no idea if it's in good shape or not, but hey, we'll try it.

Thanksgiving and such

1. Lots of things have happened since I last blogged. Classes have gone better than they were going previously.
2. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a bunch of people from Muroran and Noboribetsu. It was lots of fun and I think everyone had a great time. We had a turkey which was so tender and moist it was amazing. Many people said it was the best turkey they had ever eaten in their lives, and the credit I give to me wonderful husband who prepared it all.
3. Our friends, the Huttons, came over for a three day weekend. We had such a blast with them and we really didn't do much other than Thanksgiving. We went around and saw a few sights, ate Curry Ramen, and chilled under our kotatsu, playing Plants Vs. Zombies and writing for NaNoWriMo. They are such wonderful friends and we can't wait to meet them in Sapporo in a week's time!
4. NaNoWriMo has been going well. Due to the long weekend I got behind. Actually Matt, John, Natalie and I all got behind. But now everyone is caught up or ahead, with me as the exception. I'm going to finish and get to 50,000 words, though. NaNoWriMo stops at midnight on the 30th and so far I have about 41,000 words.
5. Today is real Thanksgiving in the States. It's not really strange that we're not celebrating it because it isn't mentioned anywhere other than with the Americans around or on Facebook. I guess since there's no Thanksgiving "spirit" around, I don't know what I'm missing in a way. And we had a good celebration last week, so I'm satisfied.
6. Christmas might be a bit harder than Thanksgiving. Christmas things are around, but it's just not as important as in the States. I am working on Christmas Day and students are coming to school on that day. For Christmas Eve, though, we were invited to a student's church. Yay! And it's a bit strange sounding, but the Japanese eat KFC and Christmas cake on Christmas Eve. I think we'll try it just to have the experience. But we have to make reservations!!!! Even with KFC!!!

That's all for now. Matt and I are going to Sapporo next week and we'll then be done with NaNo, so I'll have more to write about later.

Is this really English class?

I just had a class and it went horribly. Partially because I read the teacher's instructions incorrectly. Partially because it was difficult to understand the teacher's English in a stressful situation (where I wasn't understanding what he wanted me to do).
At the beginning of class I told students that they can say things like "I don't understand," "I don't know," "Could you say that again?," "This is difficult," or "This is interesting." In the middle of class one student asked me to repeat my question in Japanese, but I told her to say "Could you say that again?" But by that time it had been erased off the board, so she couldn't remember it. I helped her along until she said it after me. Then I repeated the question. But then afterwards the teacher told me that my way of getting them to speak English is different than the Japanese way and it's too difficult for the students. What do you mean, too difficult for the students? Just because they can't speak naturally in 50 minutes means it's too hard for them? That's garbage. But then I have to remember that students are learning English to read and write, not to speak. It's a bummer, though...

The Weather

We live at the top of a very big hill, so we get the brunt of most of the winds that come from the ocean. Last night the wind was so strong and it has continued today. When a gush comes through I can feel the entire building shake (we're also on the 4th and top floor, so we feel it a bit more). The windows are rattling as I am writing this. I looked outside to the balcony and found that there are about 2+ inches of water covering the floor of it. Luckily I don't have to go out there for any reason, but still. Couldn't they have just built in a small drain? I mean it's not like rain is foreign to Japan...
Anyway, being at the top of our hill also means that it's quite cold. It is 10 C (50 F) in Muroran now but it feels much colder. The heater has been working very hard to keep me warm. I've had it on the second strongest setting and while that usually heats everything up in about 30 minutes, this time it's been on for 1.5 hours and it's still working on getting to a comfortable temperature.

Last night Matt and I went to this restaurant called "Bikkuri Donkey" (びっくりドンキー). I found out yesterday that it is the place where all the high schoolers go to hang out. But meh, I had seen the restaurant near a shop we frequent, so we decided that we should go at least once. The restaurant serves "Hamburgers," (ハンバーグ) but not in the American sense. It's essentially a hamburger patty that tastes strangely like meatloaf. When we arrived we were seated (the atmosphere is kind of jungle themed) and then our waiter came to us and said, "Hey, how are you guys?" I was completely taken aback by his natural English! Through the night he helped us out and spoke in what seemed to be perfect English. Even the Japanese teachers I work with don't have this natural kind of speech (but perhaps they know much more about grammar than our waiter does?). In any case, it was nice being able to order in English. I haven't done that since I came here.
I still don't have a handle on metric measurements, though, because I ordered a 300 gram hamburger, thinking that the smaller one was going to be itty bitty. But...it was enormous. I felt like a fatty getting an extremely large hamburger patty topped with cheese with a side of fries and fried chicken. But, man, it was delicious.

Today Matt and I will be writing a lot. Our original goal for NaNoWriMo was to get to 30k words by tomorrow night. We have all day today but then tomorrow I am working from 9-3. And...I only have 22k. So a 6k day today perhaps?

Wow...

I now have 10,530 words. I wrote 3,767 words today alone. I think I'm stopping for tonight.