Update Junk Drawer

[A random cataloging and tagging of happenings and goings-on from the past three months that never made it to full post.}

ITEM #116A -Birthday

The warranty is officially up… I turned 30 last month.

My friends are awesome and surprised me with a cake!

ITEM #604A - Compare

Holiday similarities between Japan and America:

-the malls are jampacked.

-I’m actually stressing out a little bit. I’m spread thin between friendly good-byes, work parties, and packing. Yowzers!

ITEM #604B2 - Contrast

Holiday differences between Japan and America:

-Many Japanese eat fried chicken from KFC for Christmas. I have no idea how KFC did this. How does a company wiggle itself into a national holiday and insert its own product into tradition? It is nothing short of miraculous. arigato for the chicken, St. Sanders.

ITEM #957c - ThanksList

Thanksgiving Thanks Post of Thanksgiving Past Not Posted Prior.

I’m thankful for my family, aunts and uncles, and grandmother, all who keep in contact with me and, when they are not sending me jokes of varying quality, let me know how things are going on their side of the world fairly regularly.

I’m thankful for e-mail, without which the above would not be possible without draining my bank account on international phone calls.

I’m thankful for my job and location. I live in an amazing town. It’s peaceful, relatively quiet, and from what I’ve gathered, my students are uncommonly well behaved for the average English teacher in japan. My colleagues are also very kind and go out of their way to help me all the time. They rock.

I’m thankful for my friend Hitoshi whom I met a few months ago…from teaching me modern conversational Japanese, showing me how to rock at karaoke, to coming over and playing music, he has been the best thing to happen to me in Japan.

I’m thankful for my CD player and speakers that replaced the ham-raido static-player that was in my car. Driving in japan has actually become fun!

ITEM #B212 - Tutor & the Blowfish

A few months ago [August], I noticed a girl working on a mountainous graduate application essay at Starbucks. Watching her quickly go back and forth between her paper and her electronic dictionary, I decided to help her. Four months of tutoring/editing later she finally had a well-polished, thought-out essay in her hands. To celebrate this minor victory over Mt. English, she offered to take me to dinner. We ended up driving almost two hours to a Japanese/French fusion restaurant, but it was well worth it. The food was probably the best I had ever eaten in Japan.

At the restaurant I finally had my first piece of fugu; blowfish meat that, if prepared incorrectly, can be fatal. Funny enough, I didn’t know it was fugu until after I ate it. As trite as it sounds, it actually tasted like chicken. pictures forthcoming.

ITEM #713922-3373 - Not Crying Over Sour Milk

Fujiya, the national sweets company that was responsible for making my, Hitoshi’s, and countless others’ birthday cake, and who’s shop was deliciously located not 700m from my doorstep, has been ordered to shut down because of the use of expired dairy in their products. Currently the sign says they are on a “quality assurance review” hiatus but Hitoshi says it will likey just stay closed. How sad. Sayonara Fujiya pudding cakes, custard pies, and choco-bread. Your milky treasures will never expire in my heart.