so the basics since i last said anything to anyone via the internet are:
1. staying in japan for a third year. this was a tough decision, but the facts that my car and my pets at home are gone, i have no boyfriend at home anymore, no job, no place to life or college plans yet to speak of, and overall enjoy my life here made me decide to go for the full 3year possibility. this means if you still haven't visited me in japan yet, you have a while longer to do so.

2. my work is pretty crazy, since my board of education just adopted the schedule changes i proposed back in feb. approximately 3 weeks after the school year had already started. this is going to take some getting used to all around.in theory, it'll give me less work and more time with a smaller group of students. we'll see if it works out as intended after this initial run.

3. the change at work really surprised me, as the new rotation requires 2 English teachers and i thought as of next august we were going to have only one. yet, i walk into a meeting to find my old proposal laid out and translated, so it seems as though there will be more than one person next year. mixed messages from the board of ed. aren't helping. if i do end up on my own next year, things are going tobe really messed up.

4. i ran for a position in AJET, the association for japanese exchange and teaching participants, but i lost. slightly a relief, though a bit of a let down.

5. went to hong kong to visit my friend robin one last time before she heads off on the rest of her adventures through india and china, after which she'll go back to canada. she was my only friend from tokyo orientation onward, and it really saddens me to see her go. still, we had a great time in HK, and if you want to see photos, they are available on my facebook, let me know and i can send the link if you're not already part of the fb masses.

feeling good on the whole, although things can be stressful at times. it's now golden week here in japan, a time of national holidays and vacation, so hopefully a couple of these days will help me unwind.

i'm not dead, just boring.

also, is this really a new Bonnie "Prince" Billy album, or just some random songs thrown together for a kind of EP? Because it's kind of...disappointing.

insomnia? but why don't i feel awful then?

Even with the total and complete bombing of the JLPT, I had a fantastically fun weekend. The best in a long time. Cities and friends and plain old good feelings. My failure today was a huge success, hehe.

Also, why didn't anyone tell me "Conversations with Other Women" was so damn good? You all get 2 demerits!

okay, what the hell is this??

first the cat, then the car, then my mp3 player, and then the hamster. add to the list of dead things demonoid.com. jesus. talk about going into a harsh winter...

EDIT: sad news. Dave is officially no longer with us. I had hoped he'd mend enough to make it to Christmas, even though I knew it was unlikely. A night of quiet mourning is called for.

my sister's dwarf hamster Fluffy passed away today. Fluffy was the best littlest creature i ever knew. she's the only hamster we ever had, so i don't really know if 3 years is a normal age for a hamster to go, but i do know they were 3 adorable, fluffy years.

seems to be a bad time for pets in the Kennedy household.

it's like christmas here in fukusaki! i got all kinds of goodies today.

first, my new mp3 player came a day earlier than expected. sweet! her name is gigi, as that just seems to suit her. she's been charged up and filled with music, and we'll be getting better acquainted in the next couple of days i'm sure. super exciting.

while i was waiting for her to charge up (the instructions indicated it was best to charge it up before putting data on it), i went downstairs to the sushi place next door and had a nice dinner. then, because the weather was so lovely, i decided to go for a bit of a walk. ended up at the second-hand media store that sells movies, manga, video games, etc. i found the first 5 volumes of Kare Kano (an old favorite of mine, and probably good for studying) at the very reasonable price of 150 yen each. looking around a little more, i found a used copy of the DS Zelda game, another fun item that i've heard is helpful for kanji study. i'd been looking for a second-hand copy for a while, so this was a pleasant surprise. picked up all this for less than 4,000 yen.

now, time to play with all these fun new distractions. work or no, i may be up later than i should be tonight.

today, my mp3 player met its end, at the very start of the day no less.

on the way to work, just out of the door, i pulled it out of my purse to choose the music before i got to the car, to save a little time. it slipped out of my grasp on the stairs. short of defenestration, stairs are absolutely without a doubt the worst places to drop things. they hit and bounce and hit and bounce until they've come to a stop at the bottom. such was the case with my poor little mp3 player. i knew it would be the end of her. i felt it in my gut as she slid out of my hands. after picking it up, it would turn on, but only to make an unpleasant whirring noise then say, "Error! Cannot Read from Disk" and gave me only one option: power off. ::sigh::

she didn't have long to live, i know that. she wasn't holding a charge the way she should have, and she would randomly shut down on me more and more frequently. but it was a slow, steady degradation. i was holding out buying a new one because this one still had at least a few months left in her. but instead of a long, lingering illness, she went out with a bang. like a cancer patient getting hit by a bus. poor old girl.

though i mourn, i am not overcome by grief. i spent my free periods at work today looking up replacements. these new-fangled mp3 players have more space and functions than my old one, and cost less than mine did when i bought it. i really can't complain about that too much. i looked through a few choices and purchased one online this evening. for that week or so before it arrives, a friend has been kind enough to offer the use of an ipod shuffle, which is much appreciated.

still, let this post serve as gravestone for my little archos gxmini. may she rest in peace.

my family skyped me today with some crazy news.

first the good news was that Dave came home today. the vet called them to say he was eating (which he hadn't been), and that he could go home for a while with some medication. it won't make him better, but it'll keep him from being in too much pain, and he can spend a little more time at home rather than never coming back from the vet like they'd thought was the case. he may only be home a couple days, could be a while, the vet couldn't say for sure. i was glad to hear this though, cuz i know i would want to go home first if i was Dave.

bad news came next. my father and my sister got into a car accident last night. another car lost control on the highway and hit them in the right lane. they spun around 360 degrees and went over the curb onto an embankment. thankfully, no one was hurt. except Tula, my car. they've been using it in my absence since it makes no sense to just let it sit. looks like she gave her all to keep my dad and sister safe. I'm amazingly glad they're okay, but the news my car is dead makes me kind of sad. it was my first car!

skype dropped out on my family's call, so that was all the news i got, but that's still a lot. but i'm still sleepy, so with more good than bad, i'm going back to sleep.

even if you didn't really like the latest vanderslice album, this concert is really fantastic. a great mix of old favorites (in particular a great performance of time travel is lonely) and new tracks that makes me appreciate the recent stuff a hell of a lot more than i did just listening to the album.

cuz no one no one no one no one no one knows what happens...NEXT!

Maybe it's the cold weather or the wine talking, but I definitely like The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter better now than I did this summer.

EDIT: His NPR live concert is also quite good. NPR fills the lonely spot in my saturday nights, it seems.

they're putting down one of our cats tomorrow...apparently poor dave has liver cancer. i wish i could be there. i have always missed our cats being here in japan, and now i'll miss him even more. dave was one of the most affectionate and funny little creatures it has been my pleasure to co-habitate with, and everyone in my family loved him dearly. eleven is a pretty good age for a cat, but it doesn't seem nearly long enough now...

we'll never forget you, dave. thanks for being the best cat ever.

if you liked cute japanese girls doing funny little dances, you'll want to tune back into UniQlock for cute japanese girls falling asleep (in the fall lineup, of course). once again Fantastic Plastic Machine sets the mood.

and on that note, i'm going to bed.

EDIT: Apparently they still dance during the day, and sleep at night. Makes sense.

I haven't complained that much about work lately, except for having fucked up weekends due to sports festivals. The reason for this is that, on the whole, being a second year is WAY better than being a first year ALT. Everyone knows you, and is more relaxed around you. They don't talk about you in front of you thinking you won't understand (as much, anyway). Even the kids at the middle schools seem a little more receptive to me than they were last year (even if it's just a tinsy bit). I've also got a great co-worker, which makes my life better all around.

But the thing that drives me the worst (as we say) is this one teacher, we'll call him Mr. N. I've had it up to about here (indicating a high level) with this guy. Mr. N may speak decent English, but he should NOT be an English teacher. He talks through most of the class in Japanese, often going on long tangents about things not even marginally related to English or the topic at hand. His pronunciation is terrible, and he insists on reading all the new vocab words himself, as well as all the dialogs, so even when I'm there, the kids don't hear natural English pronunciation, just katakana-ed crap. He loves Jeopardy and always wants to play it...unfortunately, his students hate it, and playing it is like pulling teeth. He doesn't give a shit if they like it or not, of course. He treats the other English teacher, who is a woman and a much better teacher, like she's some sort of servant in his classroom. It's the same for me, if he decides to let me do anything at all. Last I checked, that wasn't the definition of "assistant", but I guess it's an English word so he doesn't really get it.

Today though, was the worst. I thought it was insulting when he insists on reading the new vocab first. It's even MORE insulting, however, when I'm standing in the classroom and he decides to USE THE TAPE RECORDED VERSION of the new words. That's right, went across the room, plugged it in, set it up and played it twice while I was standing there with the book in hand open to the correct page. I was livid. At least have the decency to let me be the dreaded "human tape recorder", if nothing else. I fumed pretty heavily until he asked to read the dialog, but my god, how hard is it to ask me to read something? What a fucker.

Later on, it turns out he had a demonstration class other teachers were attending. I'm starting to think these demo classes are really for evaluating the teacher rather than giving tips to others, but each school I've been at so far has asked me to come help with their demos. One school even asked me to come in specially for it. Did Mr. N ask for my help though? Of course not. I sat in the staff room and worked on materials for the next day, so my time wasn't totally wasted, but he probably would have looked a lot better doing some team teaching. But then again, he's got no clue how that works, that much is all too obvious.

Aya has had the same problems with him. We're crossing our fingers he gets transfered next April.

apparently i've had an underactive microwave replaced by an overactive one. i set popcorn for 2 minutes and went to the bathroom, and found when i came back that my entire kitchen was filling with smoke.

it seems that someone out there doesn't want me to have popcorn ever again.

good music is saving my soul these days

while the rankings change incredibly fast on the Uni Qlo contest, I just got a huge rush by seeing my design ranked at 20. that's the highest i've gotten yet!!

it doesn't REALLY matter, but it's a thrill.

also, this weekend my town was full of moving shrines that blocked traffic, exchange students from WA, and crazy underground music festival goings-on. i'm beat.

I made the top 1000 designs in the Uni Qlo Grand Prix!! VOTE FOR ME!!

This is my entry:
http://ut.uniqlo.com/utgp/#lang=ja&content=detail&item_id=3392&view=home

This is my profile:
http://ut.uniqlo.com/user/profile?id=11529

Start voting here:
http://ut.uniqlo.com/utgp/#lang=ja

If I get enough votes, I get a T-shirt made by a huge Japanese clothing company. If I win the grand prize (unlikely, but still!), I get my shirt printed along with 3 million yen (about $30,000)! Please vote for me!!!!!

EDIT: Voting is kind of obnoxious and the flash is even more so, sorry about that folks. Thanks to any and all who have the patience to look!