trouble

I got in trouble the last weekend. My friend Shane and I went to a karate camp in the mountains, and after one practice session people were just lying around and we asked what time the next event was, and our teacher told us dinner was at 6:00. So we went for a walk in the mountains and came back at 5:30 and found dinner had already started and one of the senior members (not a teacher) was yelling at us in a furious and unintelligle mix of Japanese and English. Essentially, he was saying it was un-Japanese of us to go off by ourselves in the middle of our camp. It is hard to remember what he said, it was so fast and confusing, but it was something like "By yourself don't go not Japanese style you go you come to my house two days you don't leave you don't leave not Japanese style."

It was hard to keep a straight face, but we did, knowing it would only make things worse if we didn't just stay quiet and apologize. But it turned out just apologizing wasn't enough. We had to get on our knees in front of the shihan, the top guy, and say we were sorry, and then as punishment the next day when everyone had to run up and down a mountian, shane and I had to start an extra two kilometers down the mountain.

The camp was an interesting experience, overall, but not exactly fun. I didn't do so well on test at the end (I'm blaming it on being tired from running up and down the mountain). There were a lot of kids at the camp, and constantly curious about the foreigner, they didn't leave me alone. And although there are some really cool karate people, there's also a lot of machismo and getting looked down upon by people with higher ranks (the shihan, in particular, just seemed completely unfriendly). Oh well. I did get some good training in at the practice, so it had its purpose.

Garden update: the first radishes we planted look big and ready to eat. The basil is big and healthy, and more is on the way. There are two tiny tomatoes growing on the tomato plant and a single green pepper growing on the pepper plant. Aoshiso, a japanese herb is growing quite well, and the strawberries are growing very slowly and I'm not sure if they will work...

Oh no!

Well, I won't be making it into the American Foreign Service this year. I had already been confident that I hadn't passed the test since I didn't finish one section and I missed some questions I really should have known, but even still I got nervous when I knew the results were almost due, hoping that I was wrong (such things have happenned before). Alas, I woke, checked my e-mail, and got the straight news. Oh well. I'll be better prepared when I take it again next April.

Makin Pizza

My first year in Japan I learned how to make pizza by reading online recipes. Soon summer vacation is coming up for students. The other teachers and I decided on a homework assignment for their month with no classes. They must make a instructional cooking video in English. I made this pizza video as a sample for the class. Unfortunately it is not the best example of English, as I mumble at times and I used some subtitles which students might not have the ability to use in their videos, but I had fun making it and I thought I would share it with all my loyal readers. Enjoy.

Let's Chat

It seems everyone I know prefers different internet chatting programs. I started out back in the day with ICQ, but then switched to AOL IM in high school, which I still use to this day with the majority of my friends. For some strange reason, American Online doesn't seem as popular with my non-American friends, which means I also use gmail chat and MSN Messenger from time to time. Now add internet video/audio chat to the mix, and things get even more complicated. My family started using MSN messenger to be able to webcam chat with my brother and his baby. The Mac version of MSN messenger doesn't support audio or video. Supposedly iChat and AOLIM should work together for video and audio, but I have had little success. Yahoo messenger lets people share webcam feeds, but there is no audio. What is the answer to this zany labyrinthine mess of instant messenging confusion? I say, Skype.

Skype is as simple a program as any other IM application. It has both video and audio. There is a mac and PC version. (officially there is no video in the mac version, but it is coming soon, and I am currently using an unofficial beta which has working video). It is popular internationally. Of particular interest to me, you can use Skype to call real-world telephones (free within the US, very very cheap for international calls).

Now I'm not usually keen on advertising on my blog, but I'm doing so here in hope that we can someday end this IM confusion and all settle on a single program. It'd make life so much easier. My skype name is Tangerinemilk. Give me a call or IM sometime.

Happy Fourth of July

This post is a day late. My friends and I planned some summer fireworks that kept getting postponed due to rain. The day we finally ended up doing it turned out to be the 4th by coincidence (or perhaps, magic).

Tanabu High School Festival

Today, Monday, I sit at home on vacation in compensation for "working" this weekend at my school's yearly "bunkasai," or culture festival. In reality, I just showed up at school and proceded to enjoy the restaurants, carnival-like games, haunted houses, shops, shows, music acts, and exhibitions that the various homeroom classes and clubs put on. I did help one class with some curtains, but other than that I didn't have many responsibilities (not that I didn't volunteer). Unfortunately it had been decided earlier, without my participation, that the English club wasn't going to do anything.

In other news, Argentina is out of the World Cup after a painful game that went into extra time and penalty shots. I guess I'll throw my support behind the team that beat them, Germany. It would be nice to see the hosts win it.

Anyway, enjoy some pics: