Uh..久しぶり～ Long time no post

Hello family and friends who might possibly still check this blog!

I haven't posted since October last year and its now February.

Let me give you a quick run through of what I've been up to!

• October 19th, my paperwork at the town hall in Ooyodo Town, Nara Prefecture, Japan for marriage went through. What a hassle that was! Because J is from a small, small, TINY town in the middle of a range of mountains, the government office located there had probably never dealt with a foreigner before.. And the worst part is that they had no clue what a "Marriage Certificate" was!!! So I don't actually have one... I'll make sure to get one when I register my marriage in the states at my future wedding.

• I applied for a marriage visa at the end of November after a 4-week long paper chase for documents I need, don't need, etc. We needed a marriage certificate, but the office we got married at had no clue what that was and then we found out that only applied if we had been married in America. Then we needed a tax-return file, but because J was under 21 at the time, he had NEVER PAID TAXES before. So he didn't have one. So we didn't need it in the end. Finally we got all the papers together and went in to the Immigration Office and hours drive away from our house to apply, and one week later, I got a stamp in my passport to stay for a year. Renewable of course.

 

• I let J buy a new motorcycle for his 21st birthday on the 15th of December. He was a good boy~

• Christmas was a rather sad affair. I got cards from my aunt, uncle and cousins, my Nana, and J and my old home room teacher from when I was an exchange student and we met. We didn't have a tree, so I drew one on a piece of cardboard. I did receive a huge box of spices, presents and a recipe book from my mum though. IT HAD FISHY CRACKERS!! It made me happy! But J and his family don't really celebrate and holidays so it wasn't as big of a deal to them as Christmas has always been to me. However I had my Straight No Chaser holiday CD that I played numerous times, and singing christmas carols over and over again without getting yelled at helped me to celebrate in my own way.

• I cooked a christmas breakfast of eggs, toast and miso soup as well as christmas steak dinner with mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy~ I even found sparkling cider!!!! It was delicious~ J loves mashed potatoes now and I'm very happy I bought a food processor~

• An import foods store opened at the trainstation near my house!!! So I was able to make TACOS WITH SALSA INCLUDED! It was also delicious. Real cheddar cheese that I ordered from the Foreign Buyers club was a great help as well.

 They don't sell sour cream here, but the plain yogurt as seen in the last picture, tastes great with tacos. Its a good substitute!!

• And J felt guilty and ended up buying me a Wii system as a late christmas present. 

I accidentally made Michael Jackson...

However...

• I've been too busy with my new job to play it!!!! @.@

• I GOT A JOB! Two offers! One was at a school about a 2 hour commute one-way away, with children at about 4-5 hours of work a day, 5 days a week. So about $1500 a month, which is nice. But then I got an offer from a new, much closer school (only 30 minutes one way) that payed $2500-3000 a month. Wow.

• So I took the closer job. It was a hard decision as I love the school thats far away, I enjoy M-sensei whom I work with and the children are adorable. But right now I guess having to travel that far would be a major strain on my home life, and more money is a benefit right now while starting a new life.

• This new school is called EEAK,I'll only give the anagram because I don't know if I can get in trouble for mentioning the full name. O.o I've heard of that happening. But here, it is a new school that has yet to open, that will happen in March of this year. So I don't know what age range of students I will be teaching, but they said anywhere from children to adults. I don't even know if they have any students signed up yet!! And I do know for the first couple of weeks I have to interview prospective students to get a feel for their level  and give them a sample lesson. I don't really know how they expect me to do this competently as I have no actual experience, but, we'll see. I'll do my best.

• I'm also the only teacher at the school. Thats terrifying, slightly.
• It means sick days will be limited, because if I need a day off, then we have to cancel classes for the day... >.>

• I get to plan the lessons and how I teach as long as I use their selected text books, and I'm assuming classes will be a maximum of 3-5 students. So even if I'm teaching at the 35 hour-long classes a week maximum its a maximum of 175 students (which I highly doubt we'll reach even in the first year), but still only 4 different levels each. It might even be a bunch of one-on-one or one-on-two classes only! I'm fine with this. Its just having to seem like a competent teacher right of the bat to draw in possible students rather than having a class I'm taking over from someone who can walk me through seems mildly intimidating. They said my first three months would be training, but I'm still going to be teaching paying students so.. We'll see how that works out.

• I'll be making the equivalent of $3000 a month after the initial 3 month trial/training period. Holy crap. That's a lot of money. My student debts, J's student debts, his car and bike payments will all be paid for within my 2 year contract. 

• And I'll be able to afford the digital TV recorder I bought today to record all the good TV shows that are only on when we are both either at work or should be sleeping. :)

• My final piece for this post is.. Mommy dearest and my Brobro will be coming to Japan for Golden Week! From the last week of April through the first week of May! What a great birthday present that will be. :D

I promise to try and update more. My reason for not updating was that first life was too boring and nothing interesting happened so there was no reason to update, and then life got really really busy so I didn't have time to update. Here are some more pictures to appease you~

 Here's the view from my balcony, including the soba noodle wheat processing factory across the way.

 I think I mentioned the month long festival that was happening from October to November? Here's the giant float/temple that was being pulled around by a bunch of the neighborhood men!

 These pictures turned out really nice! @.@

 The inside of our apartment tends to average between 8* and 12* C this winter. So This is me hiding under the kotatsu, or heated table. You drape a blanket between the frame legs and table top, and the heater heats the space trapped by the blanket to 38*+~ It's very nice.

 J got a haircut.

 I didn't like it at all. Its grown back since then and looks much better but I've forbidden him from cutting it this short again.. How ironic that I love men with long hair and my guy loves his hair super short.

 toast and eggs from Christmas!

 Miso soup! Its fermented bean paste soup with seaweed, radish tofu and onion~ Salty and yummy~

 MASHED POTATOES!! HOMEMADE WITH BUTTER, SALT, HERBS AND GARLIC! It was delicious~

 Gravy and beans~

 STEAK!! These are really tiny and thing and the 5 of them only fed the 2 of us, costing $20-25.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and Happy Belated Holidays~!