Melanie's Muses

Many Exciting Things!

2011-03-09T05:09:00.003-06:00

Many exciting things happened today and I feel the need to blog about it.

Number 1: We had a HUGE earthquake today at school. Magnitude was 7.2 which is pretty dang big. The news said that because of the earthquake a tsunami is now coming to the east coast. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/08/japan.quake/index.html Here is a link to read about it on CNN. Says they could feel it all the way in Tokyo which is over 250 miles away. It shook for about 2-3 minutes. I was singing graduation songs with my kids and during the middle of a song I stopped and said, "Is this an earthquake?" Then all the kids stopped and we crouched down and had our very first earthquake at school... it just had to be the largest one too!

Number 2: Today I had a parent/teacher conference with one of my student's mothers. She was so cute and kept talking about how sad she was that I'm leaving. She even got teary eyed and asked me to please come back and teach here again. She said she notices how her son always gets very close to my face when he talks to me. Apparantly he comes home and talks about how "beautiful" and "cute" I am every day. Then she said "I wish my son was older because I would want you to be his bride" hahahaha So then I started cracking up and she did too and she said, "Now I'm all sweaty because maybe I shouldn't have said that" hahaha. I could not stop laughing and blushing because I was so embarrassed. If only he was 20 years older... jk.

Number 3: On a sad note, my external hard drive decided to break today thus, losing all my pictures from college, china, post college, and many pictures from Japan. I hate technology. I'm praying that it will come back to life. After all my computer from college broke and I lost all my pictures from college. Then almost 2 years later it came back to life and I recovered them. Technology miracles can happen!

Number 4: I come home 3 weeks from tomorrow!!!

Number 5: Today I decided to try Shirataki noodles. Those are the noodles that are in many asian soups... not to be confused with rice or ramen noodles. I was reading some recipes the other night (my usual nightly ritual) and came across shirataki noodles. Apparantly they only have about 20 calories for a 4 oz serving. So I decided I better like these and be able to substitute in pasta dishes. At first I was unsure then I took a giant bite and almost vomited it up because the texture was so chewy and disgusting. If I hadn't been eating lunch with a Japanese person I would have spit it out and maybe up chucked. Instead I swallowed and threw the rest away. Tonight, I made a new recipe using them for lunch tomorrow so I'll let you know how go number two goes. Hopefully much better. I'm determined to like them even if they do smell like fish.

Food, Food, Food!

2011-03-02T05:02:00.003-06:00

Those of you who know me well know that I think about food approximately 100% of the time I'm awake... I even dream about it, no lie! So it should come as no surprise to you that I'm finally blogging about my gluttony. My sisters and I all enjoy talking about food with each other. Maybe too much because it's been known to get on people's nerves. Since we all love food so much naturally we also enjoy talking about our weight. I mean, none of us are trying to be a future contestant of the biggest loser here so if we think about food 100% of the time then we also need to spend at least 50% of time thinking about our weight. HA! It may be annoying to some... ok most but we just can't help it.

Before I even eat my breakfast I'm thinking about lunch and dinner. I like to know for sure what I'm going to be eating. It truly stresses me out when we make last minute plans to go out to eat. I've planned my day around my meals and what I eat when so I can't just be making last minute changes like that! It's crazy talk! Unlike many of my friends and family I prefer to eat a bigger lunch and a light dinner. I don't like feeling full at night and that sure makes having a social life hard. I wish being social didn't revolve so much on going out to eat... I guess that should just make me more motivated to throw my own dinner parties where I can control what's being served... control freak? maybe. :)

When I got home from work today I immediately started reading my food blogs (I'm not even going to tell you how many of them I read daily... it's embarrassing). Then I looked at the clock and OH NO! 2 1/2 hours had gone by. I'm not kidding! So I thought... well it's as good as time as any to start blogging about food. I mean, I'm fully committed to food. That will never change. Sometimes I even eat it 3 times a day!!! *gasp* and so why not blog about what I love most.

I have something I need to get off my chest: I just counted and I've saved over 450 recipes this year on different food sites. How can I even cook all those? I've decided to make a goal for next year: Cook at least 2 new recipes every week. Now I haven't admitted to you yet that those goals I made for my 25th year of life... I didn't do! I started it and then gave up. So I'm counting on you to keep me accountable! Mom, Grammy, Jenny - that's you! (I think you are the only 3 that read this!) The question is when to start: When I get home, when I move into my new apartment, or on my birthday? When I first get home I'll be living with mom and dad till June.. and I just don't know if I can compete with mom's cooking. I mean how do you compete with cooking perfection? It's too hard. Not to mention I'm practically a vegetarian these days and I don't think it's fair to make everyone else eat that way when I cook. I think I can count on one hand how many times I've had meat since August... and none of those times were more than a bite or two. I just don't like it. Red Meat = EWWW! Anything from a pig = vom! Chicken = eh. Turkey = I don't remember... it's been over a year! And fish = don't even go there. So what are your thoughts? When should I start?

1 Year Anniversary

2011-02-01T15:34:00.002-06:00

Well, I started my post for Rome and then I realized that today is my one year anniversary in Japan! Crazy that I've been here for SO long! 2 more months left...

So, I decided to post my top ten things about living in Japan in no particular order:

1. Cleanliness - public places are SO clean here! I really noticed it in the public transportation when I was in Europe and everything was so dirty. I definitely appreciate living in a country that is clean

2. The ease of walking everywhere I go. I love that I don't really need a car here to do everything I want to do. Of course I do like to check out the car in the summer and winter when I get my groceries haha

3. Tokyo Disney... you know I couldn't do this post without including Disney. Disney in Japan is a culture all on it's own. It's the weirdest, funniest, most entertaining thing I've seen... I love it!

4. My students. I don't know why but Japanese children are like the cutest children on earth! I love my students and will miss them very much!

5. Learning about a different culture. It's been interesting to learn things that I wish were different in America or things that I think are so completely weird and America has it right in that department. Definitely will be things I miss about the culture in Japan

6. Plethora of Indian food... it's everywhere and it's delicious everywhere you go!

7. Cheap bills. My house bills are definitely cheaper here than in America. Even though I have a tiny apartment they are still significantly cheaper than a small apartment in America. It's very nice!

8. When my parent's came to visit me! It was really fun having them here and going to Tokyo and Kyoto together!

9. My many trips to Tokyo to shop at American stores, eat American food, and go to Disney. Definitely good memories there!

10. Now I won't particularly miss Japanese food and I probably won't eat it for a long time after this but I've really enjoyed learning how to make certain Japanese dishes and getting to teach that to other people.

Bonus: The safety! I always feel safe in Japan. Even in the summer I would have gone on a walk by myself at night and felt safe. I would never do that in Dallas. I also would never live alone in Dallas because I'm a scardey cat but it never bothered me here!

On top of all those things Japan has made me appreciate America more than I did before. Before this experience I thought I didn't care if I never lived in America again... don't get me wrong I still want to live in Italy some day, but I'm definitely more content with America now. I also appreciate living near my family much more than I used to! I used to think well as long as you are a plane's ride away it's fine but now I want to be a short drive away haha.

I plan on doing a blog about my top ten things in America right before I leave here!!

See everyone in about 56 days!

Roma

2011-01-30T02:50:00.005-06:00

So I forgot that I started this post like 2 weeks ago and then never finished or posted it haha. Thanks to Grammy for reminding me of that today!

So Roma... here it goes.

January 5th - The days started off with our alarm going off at 2:45 so we could make it to our very early morning flight. Our taxi driver actually dropped us off at the wrong terminal that morning... the one he dropped us off at wasn't even open!! So Kelsey and I left our luggage and walked over to the other one to see if he happened to be wrong. He was haha, good thing we checked!

When we got to our hostel we realized that we booked an Asian hostel haha. It was decked out in Asian decor and Asians owned it... Asians named Lorenzo that is. I don't think I can fully express on here how hilarious our hostel owner was. When we were paying for our stay we accidentally gave him like $10 extra. Instead of just handing it back he was like freaking out so concerned, "Why YOU pay MO! I GOOD people!"(*Asian accent) Over and over again. We were doing our best not to laugh. He then spent about 30 minutes showing us a map of the city and telling us where we were allowed and not allowed to go. Once we got to our hostel it was about lunch time so we just checked in and headed back out. He then followed us out the door and was like, "Wait where you go?" He was pretty concerned about us.

We then went to lunch where in very stereotypical Italian fashion our waiter was a major flirt. He was trying to play Kelsey like nobody's business. He kept kissing her hand and forehead, smelling her hair, asking her out for that night, telling her she had a beautiful face... and nose. We were quite entertained to say the least. Kelsey was doing a good job playing it off and just laughing with us but when we were waiting for our ticket he came up and grabbed her face and stared into her eyes for seriously a full minute while she looked away awkwardly... finally she broke the silence with, "where do we pay?" Naturally we all cracked up because it was so awkward after that.

Anyways after that we went to the trevi fountain, spanish steps, shopping, dinner and bed at 8:30 after our early morning wake up call. Pictures follow...

This guy would not leave me alone trying to sell me a flower. He kept saying it was free but I know that trick :) As I kept refusing and refusing he all of a sudden just jumped in my picture hahaha.

This picture shows how close our hostel was to the coliseum. It was a great location!

January 6th: The day started out with breakfast in our room brought by Lorenzo himself. When we were walking out I told him we wouldn't need breakfast the next day because we were leaving so early so he put a to go breakfast in our room that night so we could eat in the morning. So nice! He also left us a little note to remember him by. This was after many questions of where we were going and what we were doing. After that we headed to the coliseum where we basically just went inside and took a bunch of pictures. It was cool to see the inside!

After that we took the subway to the vatican. It was so crowded we had to get on different subways. Worst subway system ever but it got us to our destination! When we got to vatican city we were talking about food and how it was sad that it was our last day of good food till America. So we decided to eat as much as possible on our last day to fulfill us for the next couple of months. And boy did we eat!! It started off with breakfast, then we got a giant donut to split at the vatican... like maybe 10 inches in diameter. Then we sat down for some pizza at like 11:00... early lunch? I don't know we didn't call anything a meal bc we just never stopped eating.

The vatican line was ridiculously long so we just took some pictures and got gelato. About an hour and a half later we got gelato again. Then Ally and I split a panini (I forget what the other girls ate) at around 6 pm. THEN we sat down for dinner... I was only able to eat a little bruschetta because I was so full but the other girls got a full meal... then we had dessert. It was quite the day!

I'll leave you with a picture of Logan reading the Japan Times before getting on our flight... Just catching up on all the current news in Japan :).

P.S. 44 days till I'm in America!

Barcelona

2011-01-30T02:26:00.003-06:00

OK I'm finally getting around to blogging about Stop Number 3: Barcelona.

Janauary 2nd:

The morning of the 2nd we woke up early and flew to barcelona. We got there sometime after lunch and by then I most definitely had the flu. I stayed in that afternoon and then decided to get up and go to dinner. Unfortunately that just made me feel even worse. So the 2nd wasn't too much fun for me. Our room (pictured below) smelled pretty nasty.... luckily ally had brought some travel febreeze and we may have used the whole bottle in a matter of 2 days. Also, our towels smelled like cigarettes.

January 3rd:

Stayed in bed pretty much all day trying to get better. I won't go into details of the sickness because I'm pretty sure everyone reading this has been sick before and knows what it's like :). I did get up at one point and go across the street to the market to buy something to eat. Crackers and sprite thank you! Basically the highlights of my day are as follows: finished two books, maid knocked on my door OVER and OVER and I kept telling her no please I'm sick but there was a language barrier... she finally left after the 3rd or 4th try. Our neighbors were two creepy looking men and our bathrooms shared a VERY thin wall. At one point a girl came up and they took a shower together and I got to listen to that. Then later on that night one of them came up to go poop for like 5 minutes and I got to listen to some unfortunate noises with that one. As you can see I had quite the eventful day.

January 4th:

YAY! I finally feel well again! That day the weather was so nice that I didn't wear my coat. I did get a little chilly though and ended up buying a zip up hoodie to wear haha. That morning we headed over to Sagrada familia and spent a couple of hours there thanks to the English headsets we got. It was pretty cool to listen to everything about how it was built and designed. Here are some pictures:

Then we headed over to the Picasso museum. The girls had tried both days before to go without me because I'm not really into picasso but it was closed both days. After that we ate at Hard Rock... mainly because a) I remember going there last time I was in Barcelona and b) we always eat there when we are in Tokyo. I'm not even sure if I've ever been to a Hard Rock in America.

As we were heading home we came across this little beauty:
That would be a gigantic vending machine in case you were wondering. Anything from an entire bottle of orange juice to feminine products to medicine. Basically a mini grocery store.

Also, when we got to the subway there was a little band playing and people dancing in the subway terminal.... only in Barcelona! Kelsey got her groove on with an old guy. It was pretty funny. A really creepy looking guy asked me to dance and I'm sure you'll all be surprised to hear that I said no. I just video taped and took pictures.

And that was pretty much the end of Barcelona. The next morning we had to leave at 3 am to get to Rome so we tried to go to bed early that night. Unfortunately, I was only able to enjoy Barcelona one day so if anyone wants to go back with me sometime I wouldn't hate it :)!

Next post: Roma!

Paris

2011-01-19T03:10:00.004-06:00

Before I can tell you about Paris I have to tell you a little about our flight getting there. The morning of the 29th we left to hop on a Ryan Air flight to London and then connect to Paris. We had about an hour and a half layover so all was good. Unfortunately our flight to London left about an hour late. When we exited our plane we of course had to go through customs and security again since we were in another country. The lines were SO long. Naturally I'm freaking out thinking we are going to miss our plane and that this totally sucks!! So let's make a list of what happens 1) Flight to London was delayed 2) I dropped my passport AND boarding pass while going through security and a 12 year old girl picked it up and gave it to me... I had no idea I even dropped it 3) I was wearing snow boots which I didn't have time to zip or buckle after security 4) we see a sign that says our gate number and says 10 minute walk 5) It was already 5 minutes past what time our flight was supposed to leave 6) We start sprinting through the airport with our 20 pound carry ons, jeans, long underwear, coats, 2 long sleeved shirts, sweater, and boots undone 7) We arrive at our gate sweating profusely to find that this flight had been delayed too.

Needless to say we were frustrated and thankful haha. I think it took us about 30 minutes to cool down from that short sprint simply because of the amount of clothing we had on. Anyways because of all the delays we arrived in Paris late that night and went to bed.

December 30th - Paris Disneyland

The next day we decided to go to Disney because when else would we go to Paris and actually go to Disneyland if not with each other. First of all it was FREEZING! The sky was overcast and misty all day and so it just made it feel so very cold! The first ride we rode was Space Mountain and let me tell you it was crazy! That thing went upside down, side ways, and it's faster than any of the other space mountains. This was the day I first started feeling sick so I felt a bit nauseous afterwards. I kept my eyes closed the entire time hahaha. The park was fun but definitely not as fun as America or Tokyo Disney's. It felt much smaller and there was less to do. That night we rode the Indiana Jones ride which was also quite different than the other ones. It's an outside roller coaster which is completely different. I think because I was feeling sick I just couldn't get warm and so after that outside roller coaster I was literally shivering uncontrollably. I couldn't stop shaking and as we were walking away I tripped and seriously face planted haha. I blame it on the shivering because there was nothing I tripped on. I just fell. And I fell on top of Ally yet somehow she managed to stay up. Also, as I was leaving I went to bathroom and I was the only one in there other than two grown women who went in the same stall together. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Here are a few pictures of the day.

Entrance to the Park

View of Castle in the morning

Castle at Night

As we were taking the subway home a subway car performer got up and started playing the guitar and singling la bamba. It was pretty awesome and made me forget about the sickness for a while.

December 31st

The next day I woke up feeling good and we headed out for a day in Paris. We started the morning off right by going to the Louvre. Ally and I had been before but the other's hadn't and I think they really enjoyed it. It was fun to just walk around and look at art work.

Money exchange at the Louvre = the blend of my lives at that moment (yen, euro, and dollar)

Outside the Louvre

After that we headed over Muse de Orsay. It's a smaller museum that we had heard good things about. They had a van Gogh exhibit there and he is my favorite artist so I really enjoyed that. By the time we finished that it was about 4 pm so we headed back to the hotel to put on more layers for New Years Eve. By 6 we were back on the train heading over to the Eiffel Tower. We found a small Italian restaurant to eat dinner at and had a great time. By the time we finished it was around 10 pm. We decided that it was just too cold to be outside for 2 more hours and plus I wasn't feeling great by that point so we went back to the hotel... we're pretty cool like that! To make a long story short we spent new years eve reading in bed and it was quite enjoyable.

New Years Eve Dinner

January 1st

We started off that morning heading over the Champs Elysees to get our shop on. I was feeling pretty terrible that morning so I was thinking I was going to head in after lunch time. At lunch Ally gave me some advil and I started feeling a little better after that. I decided to brave the flu and stay out the rest of the day. And I'm glad I did because if I had gone in I would have missed Kelsey getting kissed on the cheek by a subway car performer. It was quite the magical moment for her. I also would have missed being called Miley Cyrus by a street vendor.

After all that fun, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. We stood in line for 2 hours in the freezing cold. Then the top was closed because of the overcast. I think we all agreed that it was definitely not worth it. I decided not to put the picture of me on the eiffel tower up because I definitely look like I have the flu in that picture ha. After that we all went back to the hotel to warm up before dinner. I ended up staying in that night and going to bed at 8 because I felt so sick. I also woke up freezing at one point so I put on a bunch of layers including my coat and then woke up an hour later drenched in sweat haha. Poor Ally had to share a bed with me.

Eiffel Tower

Arch de Triumph

Eiffel tower from below

Next up - Barcelona, feeling sicker than ever, and then finally feeling better!

Frankfurt, Germany

2011-01-16T05:27:00.003-06:00

Ok, I'm finally getting around to blogging about Europe!! Yay!! I have so many pictures to share that I decided to do my blogs per city. I'm going to try to do them all this week too... crazy I know!

Our first stop was Frankfurt, Germany. None of us had ever been there before so it was exciting for our first stop.

Here we are on December 26th about to hop on our night bus to Narita airport. Our bus was actually quite comfortable (seats went almost all the way flat back) and we were all able to get a little sleep. We arrived at Narita at 6 am on the 27th. The check in booths don't actually open till 7:30 am so we sat around and waited for a bit. As we were sitting there a huge line formed from all the other early arrivers. We were dreading waiting in it and there were two ladies at a different counter but no one was in line. It said something like premium first class boarding. We ignored that and walked up and they let us check in. We figured they didn't want to explain to us that we were in the wrong line haha. Then since we were the first to check in and the flight wasn't full they let us change our seats... and we got to choose the quite roomy exit row!!! Yay for being foreigners haha!

Our flight didn't leave till something like 1 pm so we had quite a bit of time to kill at the airport. Here we are getting our exercise on in the airport haha. As you can see Ally wasn't so into it... she was busy playing her DS.

Here we are in our spacious seats. My shoes basically came off the second I sat down as you can see.

When we got to Frankfurt it was late at night so we basically got to our hotel and went to bed. Above is a picture of the most confusing ticket machine I've ever had to use. It made no sense whatsoever and we still don't know if we did it right because no one ever checked our tickets and we didn't have to put them through any machine.

We only had one day in Frankfurt, and we didn't actually have any plan for the day because none of us knew much about what there was to do. We ended up at a few churches, museums, and in the old town square and had a great time.

We went into one church called Kaiserdom and I thought the stained glass there was really beautiful. The coloring was lots of greys and light blues and it was a nice contrast to the normal stained glass.

Here we are in the old town square area. It was the only part that looked exactly like what you think Germany should look like. We ate lunch at a "traditional" German restaurant in this area as well. Ally and Logan tried some wienerschnitzel while I went with the ever safe tomato soup.

After that we headed down to a different area that we were told had good shopping. We heard a group of people singing in German in the street and when we walked near them two girls jumped out and started talking to us. They were a group of American mormon's. We thought it was pretty funny that we would go to europe and still wind up talking to a group of mormon's. We actually have these 2 ladies in Japan who show up EVERY saturday to our apartments and try to talk to us. They don't speak English, yet they still come and I always try to remember not to open my door so I don't get stuck for 45 minutes. Anyways, we also tried to go to this tower that we read in our guide book had the best city view from the top floor. First we went to the wrong tower, then when we finally made it to the right one it was closed and we couldn't get in. So after that we headed back to the shopping area and ended up eating dinner at an italian restaurant inside this mall area.

All in all it was a successful day in Germany. The weather was sunny and so it was not near as cold as we had expected! Thank goodness!

The next morning we headed back to the airport and check out what we saw in the train station. That's right a vending machine selling hot dogs. No thank you!! Also, this homeless guy came up to us and was speaking to us in German. When he realized we didn't understand he started speaking english. As he was walking away we noticed he was wearing Lacoste jeans. We thought it was pretty funny that not only could he speak more languages than us but he was also wearing more expensive clothing than us.

And that concludes our time in Germany. Next up, Paris, sprinting through the airport, and getting the flu...

Christmas Caroling

2010-12-16T06:15:00.004-06:00

Early this week Kelsey and I got to take our kids Christmas Caroling around the school. They all came decked out in their best red, white, and green and it was so cute! Here are a few pictures to document the day.

First stop: Caroling in our teacher's office. Notice the kid in the second row. He's totally getting it. I teach my student's well.

Here they are caroling in the school's main office.

Then outside to their Japanese teacher's class. She had the K4 class in there at the time so they just opened the door and window to listen to us outside.

Here we are singing to Ms. Ally (friend's club office) and the Japanese regular kindergarten teacher's office... we have lot's of offices here at Meysen. One of my students, that's her in the far left smiling, is such a character. She is not Japanese at all... in other words she is loud and crazy and I love it! When we were leaving I said to my kids, "say goodbye to Ms. Ally". So Dana screams goodbye at Ms. Ally. Then I said, "and say goodbye to the Japanese teachers." And here is Dana's response, "Goodbye... um... Japanese people." hahaha.

Then here we are at our last stop for the day caroling to the other K4 class that was eating lunch at the time.

Then I needed a picture of my class buy the Christmas tree since we were all dressed in our christmas best... aka the only piece of red clothing I own. Notice the christmas ornaments dangling from my ears.

Christmas Program

2010-12-13T06:07:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging! It's been a busy couple of weeks getting prepared for the Christmas Program. This past Sunday we had our program... Takamori Kindergarten in the morning (that's my campus) and Mauryama kindergarten after lunch. We worked both and so we were at work from 8 till about 8. It was pretty fun though and so the time went pretty fast.

Below is a video of all the Takamori Kindergarten classes singing O Holy Night. My class is on the far left. I've never uploaded a video before so hopefully this works! I would try to upload more but this is already taking forever!

Last weekend we had a cookie exchange with all the teachers. Everyone made a batch of cookies and then we each got one cookie from every batch along with recipes to take home. There were probably 20-30 different kinds of cookies at the party. I took so many home and then ended up throwing them away in the morning because it was too much temptation to eat (don't tell the other teachers :)).

This post is kind of random but I have a few countdowns to share.

14 days till I'm in Europe - guess I better start making some kind of Itinerary!

102 days till my last day of work

103 days till I leave Japan and go to Hong Kong

108 days till I arrive in America

Time is flying by here and yet it seems like 3 months is pretty long till I'm home! Now I just need to line up a job for next year!! Wish me luck!

Christmas Disney

2010-11-26T19:17:00.005-06:00

I know you will be shocked to here this but.... I went to Disney again. It is Christmas season after all and I NEEDED to see the decorations! Having seen pictures of Disney in America at this time of year I had very high hopes. Let's just say it didn't live up to my expectations. The trip was fantastic but the decorations were sub par. However, I have some pictures to share.

We got there around 6:45 am to get our tickets (It was a holiday weekend so we knew it would be crowded). First thing we saw was this kid with a GIANT duffy on his back. Don't worry it only cost his parents about $596. Chump change when Duffy is involved.

That afternoon we went to see the Christmas Wishes show at Disney Sea. It was so cute. The best/most hilarious part was when Minnie came on the stage about 2 min into the show. There was a collective *gasp* by the audience followed by 100's of people saying "KAWAIII" (meaning "cute" in Japanese). Then camera's started clicking like crazy. It was so funny!

Here's a picture with a random Japanese girl that wanted to take a picture with us. The Americans in this picture are Katie (K4 teacher), Ally, me, Kelsey, and Rebecca (new teacher that came in October). You can also see our awesome costumes in this picture. Purchased at the Daiso (Dollar store). One of my straps broke about half way through the day. Luckily Ally had bought a Disney Christmas pin so we pinned it together with that.

Don't be fooled by the giant bags in this picture. They aren't even close to full. We just wanted the bag... you know because there are so many uses in life for giant disney bags.

Day 2: Disney land. As you can see I actually can dress/look normal while at Disney. The minnie around my neck holds my ticket and fast passes. Probably the most useful thing I've bought at Disney this year.

Ally and I waiting in line to see Captain EO!! It's a Michael Jackson show that was made in the 80s and is just now making it's way to Disney. It was pretty much awesome!
And that's it. I got sick and was pretty nauseous while at Disney. However, that did not stop me from having a great time!

Random story about Disneyland Day 2. So everyone gets to Disney like an hour to an hour and a half ahead of time just to wait in line to get into the park. When they start letting people in it's like mass chaos. The nicely formed lines turn into one big blob and people start sprinting as they get through the gates. Ally tells me this is not normal at Disney in America. Only the crazies start out running. Last time we were at Disneyland we really wanted to ride Space Mountain and when we went straight there the line for a fastpass was already like 45 min long so we didn't end up getting to ride. Even though I was feeling sick and nauseous we decided that as soon as we got through the gates we were going to join this group of crazies and sprint as fast as we could to Space Mountain. I really REALLY wish I had my camera on video so that you could have seen the hilarity. Here we were sprinting through the park, weaving through people, jumping off the curbs and when we get there... absolutely zero people were in line for space mountain. We were like "Sumi Masen??" ("Excuse me?") how is this possible. All that sprinting for nothing! So we got fast passes and then went ahead and rode the ride so we would get to ride it two times. We then power walked every where else. There may have been a few more running steps throughout the day. We've turned into those Disney people. Pray for us.

It's been so long...

2010-11-12T03:08:00.004-06:00

So... I uploaded these pictures like 3 days ago and then forgot that I was in the middle of a blog till just now haha. I've been horrible about blogging these past few weeks. Time has ben flying by and I keep forgetting about it. Here are a bunch of pictures to make up for it.

A week ago (or maybe more... I can't remember) we took all the kindergarten kids to Michinoku Park. You have to pay to get in and it's AWESOME! Below is a picture of the most fun part of the park. It's this giant bouncy donut that the kids can run and jump on. I don't know why but it is so fun! We were playing tag on it and the kids were falling all over the place and just cracking up.

I thought this picture was funny of one of the teachers playing with my kids.

After the bouncy donut we went to this ball room that was just a bunch of balls in a bouncy pit. The kids had a lot of fun playing in it... I think this picture is kind of blurry but I didn't realize till just now.

These big balls were like swings that you straddle. When you swing on them you start hitting all the other balls (or children on the balls) and the kids thought it was so fun!

There were also the bouncy balls with nets over them. So to sum up Michinoku park it's a bunch of balls and things you jump on. Pretty much the best park ever.

Later that week was the 100th day of school. Don't my kids look cute in their 100 day outfits? When school started we set the timer for 100 minutes and on the 100th minute of school we started our 100 day party. The kids got to collect 100 snacks, give 100 high fives, jump 100 times, etc. It was pretty funny.

That weekend was Friend's Club Jamboree. Below was my favorite costume of the night. I give you... Michael Jackson.

The school has like 100 costumes that the teacher's get to choose from. Below you will find a lady bug and an ace of spades. Both of which are extremely flattering.

Then the next day Ally, Kelsey, and I had an elf day celebration. In other words we watched the movie Elf. We decided to make spaghetti and put maple syrup on it a la Elf. I'm not gonna lie... it was goooood.

Countdowns...

2010-10-25T05:31:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I forgot to post this past week! I guess that means I'll be posting twice this week instead.

This post is going to be lame but I have a few countdowns for ya...

151... days till the last day of work

62... days till I'm in Europe for 12 days

60.... days till Christmas!!!!

25... days till Tokyo

What to look forward to in the next post:

Kids and Parents Day update

Michinoku Park

100th Day of School Celebration

... that is if nothing better happens before my next post

Animal Day

2010-10-16T05:30:00.003-05:00

This week we had Animal Day! Basically that means all the K5 kids (and teachers) dress up as animals for the day. It was so cute and hilarious. We sang songs to the animals at school (weird and funny), we ate candy corn since mice eat corn, and we went on a hayride. It was quite the day. Back in August when I went home I knew about this day and so I brought back my penguin costume from sing song a few years ago. Since I teach the Penguins class I thought it was fitting. A lot of the parents drop their kids off on special days to take pictures and videos and they were all cracking up at me.

Here is a class picture in front of the barn. The shadows are blocking it a bit but you get the idea. I was a little disappointed that some of my kids only came with things like cat ears on but there were some pretty good costumes. You might be thinking, "what is that kid supposed to be with the cape and wizards hat on?" Oh that's just mickey mouse of course.

Here is Mickey Mouse again with my favorite costume of the day, horse. This kid was so hilarious... he kept picking the horse's nose and all the kids thought it was SO funny!

One of my kids, Kevin, wanted to take a picture with my camera and he proceeded to pose us in this awesome pose. In the front is Candace, one of our new teachers. He kept making her scoot over so her ears weren't blocking anyone and he made me get in the back hahaha.

And then of course I had to show one picture with the other K5 teacher. a) She is a dolphin (Dolphin's class teacher) b) I made her do that pose c) she didn't hate it and d) everyone thought she was a butterfly.

On another note, tomorrow is Open House so I've had a pretty busy weekend. We had to go help at the other campus' open house today and it turned out pretty good. I will be teaching English, doing stations, playing games, and eating lunch with my kids and their parents tomorrow. Once again I have the most parents coming... I like to think it's because I'm so popular. Should be an exciting day!

10-10-10

2010-10-10T20:40:00.004-05:00

I'm a day late on my posting!!! I went out of town this weekend and I forgot to do it early so I guess this is my first mess up on posting once a week. I'll just have to post twice this week I guess!

Friday night: On Friday night we went out one last time with our friend Shoko. She is moving to an island near Okinawa so we might not get to see her again before we leave Japan! We went to a restaurant called Vindome down town and it was delicious!

Saturday: Saturday Ally and I headed down to Tokyo. We decided we wanted to see Disney decorated for Halloween so why not head on down. This first picture is to show you what time our Shinkansen got here.... it was supposed to be here at 2:26 but they had electrical problems. This is like a first in the history of Japan. Also, since we don't speak Japanese we had no idea what was going on but at like 3:30 I texted Shoko and she called and figured it out for us. Because we ended up getting to Tokyo so much later than anticipated all we did on Saturday was eat American food for dinner then go to sleep. We had a busy day for Sunday so of course we had to go to bed early.

Sunday morning we woke up at 5 so that we could leave at 5:45 and be at Disney at 7. The park opened at 8 but it was a holiday so we didn't know how crowded it would be and we wanted to make sure we got tickets. First success of the day.

When we got there it was pouring rain and supposed to rain ALL day but it cleared up around 8:30 and we never had another drop! First stop was shopping because some of our friends had sent us with money to buy things for them or their kids. Needless to say I had a ton of bags before 9 and none of them were mine.

Second success of the day: We found out why everyone is always staring at the wall of stones. We've walked by this stone wall a few times and have seen a bunch of people staring and pointing at something but no idea what is going on. This time we heard someone say "mickey" and Ally said, "I bet there is a hidden Mickey in the stones!" Found it and now the mystery is solved!

Third success: Everyone was decked out in their halloween gear and I happened to see someone wearing this awesome hat from Nightmare Before Christmas. Since I'm never sure if that is a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie I had no idea if they got that today or last year at Christmas. I stated that if I found it I was for sure buying it because what do I love more than Christmas? Nothing. Next store.... found it!!

Bought it... and wore it! This is kind of a weird angle picture but you gotta do what you gotta do when their are only 2 peeps in your group and you are trying to get your awesome hat in the pic. From then on every time Ally looked at me she started laughing... I have no idea why!!

We got to ride a few rides even though it was crowded (thank you fast passes) and see a few shows. The best attraction of the day was definitely the Mysterious Mousequerade halloween show. It was awesome! I really wanted to buy the sound track but 3 songs for $28 is a rip off.

Of course you can't have a disney show without a few Disney characters showing up.

One of our favorite shops at Disney Sea would be in Tritan's castle. First of all this area of the park is where all the kids rides are but the shop is awesome. It has everything! Plus it's inside this awesome whale's mouth. Now if that isn't cool then I don't know what is!

So our halloween trip to Disney was a major success. Since we will probably never again have the opportunity to visit Disney as many times as we do this year we have been trying to take maximum advantage of it. Of course we will be going during their Christmas season to see all the decorations and Christmas shows.

Pictures Only!

2010-10-02T20:49:00.002-05:00

My Parents came to Japan!

2010-09-25T21:25:00.005-05:00

This past week my parents flew in to Tokyo and I got to spend 7 1/2 days with them in Japan. Our first stop was Tokyo. We got to see a few things and the weather was pretty nice. The only disappointing thing was not being able to see the Tsukiji Fish Market. It is supposed to be the biggest fish market in the world. Since we were there on a weekend it was closed. However, to make up for it we got to eat a lot of really disgusting food :). One night we went to eat yaki tori which is grilled chicken on a stick. We decided to get the set which is one of everything. The picture below is chicken liver and chicken skin on a stick. That's right... no meat on that one, just skin. NASTY!

The picture below is my dad eating chicken sternum (the bone/cartilage in your chest). Gross!

On Monday we headed down to Kyoto. Kyoto was really cool and much more traditional looking compared to Tokyo. The only downside was it was so hot! We survived though. The first day we went down to Gion street which is where Geisha's still live and entertain. We actually saw a real Geisha walking down the street but I didn't get my camera ready in time to take a picture. Below is my mom and me on Gion street.

The second day we went to some temple that I can't remember the name of (mom if you remember can you remind me!). It was really pretty and my mom made me and my dad do this really cool pose in one of the archways.

The last day we went down to Nara which is where part of Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed. There is a part in the movie where she is running through a bunch of red gates and this is where they filmed it. It was cool to walk along them and supposedly the gates go for 4 miles. We did not walk all of it!

On Thursday we headed to Sendai so my parents could see where I lived. They got to meet some of my friends that night at dinner. On Friday they came to see my class and meet my kids but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it. I left work early that day and we went downtown to look around. There happened to be a German festival going on so we stopped by there for a bit. Oktoberfest in September... I guess that's how they do it in Sendai.

Here's a picture of the band.... all their songs sounded the same but it was still fun.

Mom and Dad - thanks for coming! It was fun to have you in Japan and I'll see you again in 6 months!!

The Ocean

2010-09-17T04:04:00.002-05:00

Today we took our kids to the ocean for a field trip. We had a blast! The kids collected sea shells, built sand castles, buried themselves in sand, and played in the water. I don't have time to write a lot so I thought a few pictures could talk for me.

Look at these cuties having the best time of their lives!

Check out this poser. I told him to smile and this is what I got.

On the bus ride back a few of my kids fell asleep. One of my girls thought it was so funny that he was asleep and kept laying on her so I gave her my camera and she took this picture.

Field Day

2010-09-12T03:10:00.003-05:00

Technically I forgot to post this past week but since Sunday is on the weekend let's just pretend I didn't forget. Plus it's still Saturday in America!

So today was field day for us! Field day in Japan is a crazy production that the kids put on and let me just say there is SO much pressure on everyone involved. We've been prepping since before summer break and we spent pretty much all day Saturday making sure everything was ready for today. This morning we woke up to rain, rain, and more rain! We decided to move everything to the elementary school across the street because they have a bigger gym than us. We had to be at the other campus at 7:00 am so I had to leave my apt at 6:40 am. Unfortunately, I was up all night feeling like I was going to throw up so I only slept about 3-4 hours. We got there this morning and spent about 2 1/2 hours re setting up before all the kids and parents got there.

Once everyone started arriving things went so smoothly! My class did great! They were the best class at the maypole dance (in my opinion!). They lost the K5 relay race but that wasn't surprising... my class may be competitive but sporty they are not. They did awesome at the pom pom dance and everyone had so much fun!! It's 5:16 pm here and I just got home about 20 min ago! Needless to say it's been a long/fun day and I'm definitely tired. I didn't get to take any pictures since I was doing things the whole time but once I get some from the photographer I'll post them on here!

Stories

2010-08-31T07:01:00.003-05:00

Ok sorry but I don't have pictures for this post! I know I'm supposed to be taking a picture a day but let's get real... I never remember! This is a hard goal. On the flipside I'm doing better than good on my 50 books... thank you 12 hour plane rides with no sleep for that.

I do have 2 funny/depressing stories to tell you this week though.

1) Yesterday one of my kids, Kevin, asked me, "Ms. Melanie why no baby?" Aka why don't you have a baby. So I said "because I'm not married Kevin." And he asks "what married?" So then Tammy comes up and says, "oh I know! because no ring!" So I confirmed. Fast forward to lunch today. I'm sitting by Kevin and he says, "why no marry Ms. Melanie?" And I said, "Kevin I don't have a ring remember?" So he says, "oh JUST YOU!!!" And I said, "That's right". He then says, "why no friends either?" So I said, "Ms. Kelsey is my friend." He then runs around the class screaming that, "Ms. Melanie has no friends... in America." I thought that was pretty funny and so did he so then he made me name all my friends in America and he died laughing at every name. Basically, if they haven't heard the name in one of their classes then it is just a totally weird name to them. He always asked if the name was a girl or boy so if it was a boy he would say, "why no marry?" Oh Kevin! *Disclaimer- please excuse any grammatical errors... quotation marks always get me in trouble!

2) This story has to do with the pure honesty of young kids which I love and hate at the same time. So, it's that time of the month for me, TMI I know but since only grammy, mom, and Jenny read this I feel that it's ok, and I got a pimple right by my nose. Thank you hormones. One of my kids today pointed at my face and said, "What is THAT?" I seriously had no idea what they were talking about so I'm like, "What are you talking about?" She makes me get down so she can point right at it and says, "that red dot... is it bad?" Thank you 5 year olds.

Back in Japan...

2010-08-26T05:34:00.002-05:00

Well, I made it back to Japan safe and sound! This past week has been kind of crazy... First I left for Japan on Monday morning... 12 hour plane ride with zero sleep is never fun. Once we got to the station in Tokyo (to catch the bullet train to Sendai) I realized I had already sweated more in the past hour than I did the entire time I was in America. I only have two things to say about that 1) I hate the humidity!! and 2) Japan- please invest in some more air conditioning units! I actually had to open my suitcase in the station and change into shorts before I got on the bullet train because I was so miserable haha. We didn't get back to our apartments until about 9:30 pm on Tuesday and I pretty much fell straight into bed. I then had to work the next day and was surprisingly jet-lagged. I don't usually get jet-lagged so it was a bit annoying. I had to fight to stay awake till 8:30, but last night I got a good nights sleep and I feel great today! Today the kids came for a half day and it was so fun to see them again and tomorrow will be our first normal day!

It's good to be back into a routine but I miss America and vacation time! While I was home I took the GRE and the plan is to come back to America in April and start going to grad school full time! Wish me luck...

The picture below is of the Jillian Michels workout DVD, 30 Day Shred. It has pretty much kicked my butt these past 2 days. I thought it sounded pretty easy but basically my entire body is hurting so I guess I was wrong haha.

Of course, I couldn't go to America without posting a picture of my cute nephew. This is right before they got on the plane to head back to San Antonio.

Coming to an End...

2010-08-19T13:13:00.002-05:00

First of all, I can't believe no one commented on my last post since I put up the most hideous picture of all time. Second, this post will have no pictures bc I've promised not to post any more fatbooth pictures on my blog. I didn't, however, promise not to show them to you in person.

My break is almost over! I only have 3 more full days in America since I leave on Monday morning. It will be sad to leave but good to get back into a routine. Just 7 1/2 more months and then I'm back in America for good...

This week has definitely not been as hectic as last week was. On Sunday my friends left early to get back to their cities and I had a relaxing day at home. Monday... I don't even remember that day it was so long ago. Tuesday I went up to my old school to eat lunch with my old roomie Kyla and see all my old co workers. It was so fun to go back and made me a little bit sad to be missing the first day of school with them this year! Who knows... maybe I'll be back there someday. My grammy and grandad also drove in that day from Abilene to see me so all my mom's side of the family came over for dinner that night.

On Wednesday my dad's side of the family came over for dinner and that's about all I've done this week. It's been nice to relax and rest while I'm home because I know things will be crazy when I get back!

Sorry this post isn't exciting or interesting...

American food = stomach pains

2010-08-12T16:26:00.005-05:00

I've officially been back in America for 6 days and have 11 more to go! I feel like I've been going non stop since I've been back but this next week should be a little more relaxing. I'll take you through my week using my picture a day:

August 5th: Here is a picture of the "luxury" night bus I took from Sendai to Tokyo. I boarded the bus at 10:30 pm and arrived at the airport at 6:20 am. I then sat around till my plane left at 11:30. It was a long night. Naturally I only slept 1-2 hours on the bus and another 1-2 hours on the airplane.

August 6th: My first day back in America! My parents were out of town when I got in so my Aunt Paula picked me up at the airport and then she drove me to San Antonio so we could hang out with Jenny, Chris, and Jude. After I got off the plane we went to Paula's house to shower and eat lunch and then headed out. We got to San Antonio just in time for dinner (Jenny made pizza) and then we relaxed and chatted. I started feeling tired around 9. I've actually been pretty good with jet lag. I've taken 2 naps since I've been here but other than that have been sleeping regular.

August 7th: Saturday we woke up and had doughnuts and then we went to bueno for lunch... I obviously ate healthy on Saturday. After that we went shopping around San Antonio. When we finished we decided to do Saturday night church at Oakhills Church. Then we ate at La Fogata for dinner. We were sitting outside but were getting attacked by bees. Cara was freaking out so we finally moved inside to eat. I had a vegetarian taco and it was delicious!

August 8th: I forgot to take a picture!!! Only 2 weeks in and I've already forgotten. That day was Jenny's birthday but unfortunately we didn't get to stay for long. Chris was on call so we woke up and just relaxed around. Jude was having lots of diarrhea and he ended up having a fever so we all felt bad for him and Jenny. We stayed and ate lunch with Jenny and then hit the road back to Dallas.

August 9th: Just a normal day. Went to the dentist and naturally needed more work done, went to target, picked up the dog, etc. I can't put up the picture I took on this day because Cara would kill me.

These next two pictures are a before and after....

Before coming to America (Above)

After coming to America (Below)

Hahahaha jk!!! But if that isn't the most hideous picture of all time then I don't know what is. Let me explain...

August 10th: Casey came to spend the night with me and hang out. That night we were introduced to the best app on Iphones. It's called fatbooth. You take a picture of someone then they make you look fat. I mean my cheeks are fat, my double chin, my large nose. Not to mention I slicked down my hair especially for the picture. I'm taking fatbooth pictures of everyone while I'm in America... the best to remember my friends and family by.

August 11th: I have a picture of me with Casey and Valerie from going to lunch.

Today: I had my followup dentist appt and then I went straight to take the GRE. I did a little better than I thought so that's good but now we will wait and see. Time to start feeling out those applications for grad school! I also got to go to dinner with my good friend Melissa! We had a blast hanging out together!

First of my weekly posts!!

2010-08-04T05:42:00.004-05:00

Well it has been a crazy past 7 days here at Meysen! First of all we had two days of Summer camp. The kids started arriving at 8:30 am on Friday morning. We did Stations, Challenges outside in the hot hot sun, water play, ate lunch, dinner, snacks, sang songs around a campfire, made s'mores, watched fireworks, and much more. It was extremely tiring. Then all the teachers did a skit and we put our kids to bed in their tents at 9:30. Our boss gave us time to run down and shower before we had to be back up at the tents with our kids. Lucky me, I had the class that cried literally all night. Really just one boy but I don't ever remember falling asleep. The next day we "woke up" at 6 to get ready before waking up the kids. We then ate breakfast, took class pictures, took our kids through a "haunted house", and played games before they left at 11:00 am. After that I took a 3 hour nap.

The next day we had a much needed day off and then started three days of summer school. Summer school was 9 to 5 with the kids and it wore me out! My body feels like it's 50! Tomorrow we have a work day and then I'm off to take the night bus to Narita... my first leg of my trip to America!

Below I posted pictures from my goal of "Take a picture every day". This goal is SO hard and I usually forget until I'm in my pajamas... this is why I'm not in hardly any of the pictures. Enjoy.

July 28th... my Birthday. Jenny made me this sign and so naturally I hung it up on my wall.

July 29th - I knew I wouldn't have time for pictures with the kids at camps so I took a picture by my schedule for the day.

July 30th - not to be shown in any public forum. This picture was taken after the LONG day of summer camp and I'm not exaggerating when I say it is DISGUSTING!!!!

July 31st - Day of rest and relaxation. Aka me and Kelsey poppin' popcorn and watching a movie.

August 1st - Almost forgot to take a picture. This is the book I'm reading this week. It's a travel book about Ireland (Nonfiction number 1).

August 2nd - 1st day of summer school. The kid's made Hawaiian Lei's that day.

August 3rd - We went to the garden and these are the zuchinni's we picked. That is next to my water bottle so you can really see how gigantic it is!

August 4th - Almost forgot again and am currently in my pj's. Almost finished packing for America!

26 before 26

2010-07-26T20:13:00.003-05:00

Some of you may remember that when I turned 23 I decided to make 24 goals before I turned 24. I only ever completed about half of them and never documented it. So... I decided to try again. I'm hoping that posting it on my blog will keep me more accountable. Since I turn 25 tomorrow I'm making 26 goals before I turn 26. Here they are:

1. Update my blog once a week

2. Take one picture every day

3. Go to a country I've never been to

4. No Chocolate for a year

5. Go skiing in Japan

6. Go to a Japanese Onsen (Bath House)

7. Hike Mount Fuji

8. No Carbonation for a year

9. Go to a Japanese Soccer Game

10. Take the GRE

11. Get into Grad School

12. Read the Bible in a year

13. Participate in the 21 day no Complaint Challenge http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=2889

14. Go to a Sumo Match

15. Go to Kyoto

16. Go Vegan for a month

17. Adopt an accent for a weekend

18. Read 50 books in a year

19. 15-25 must be non fiction

20. Get a Japanese Massage

21. Hike Yamadera

22. Go to Hong Kong

23. Sing everything instead of speak for 7 non consecutive days

24. Lose 10 lbs

25. Save x amount of money

26. Go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef - based on plane tickets there is a high possibility this won't happen so I'll put a bonus one on here just in case

Bonus: Get a library card in Japan

That's it! Wish me luck!

Long Overdue

2010-07-20T08:21:00.004-05:00

Ok I know I haven't blogged in 2 months but that's all about to change very soon. I turn 25 next week and so I decided to make 26 goals to accomplish before I turn 26. One of them is to blog once a week but I won't give away the other 25 just yet...

A few funny things happened today and I thought I would share them as my kickoff post to a year of consistent blogging.

1) I should preface this story with letting you know that I never fall asleep facing the wall. I've always kept my bed in a position that if I sleep on a certain side I can see every aspect of the room when I open my eyes. I'm pretty paranoid especially when it's dark and so I like to open my eyes at random and make sure nothing scary is in my room. This might be why I've always had a hard time falling asleep. With that being said, every morning my alarm goes off around 5:40. Lately, I've been waking up earlier though because it is starting to get bright pretty early here and so I can't sleep. This morning I woke up around 5:25 and to my surprise I was facing the wall. I never wake up in this position. To my horror I truly truly thought I heard someone breathing heavily in my room. Naturally, I stayed very still for a few seconds then jerked my head around and to my surprise, but I'm sure no one else's, there was no one in my apartment. Of course I couldn't fall back asleep so I kept opening my eyes because I kept hearing it. I even thought, "could that possibly be my breathing?" So I held my breath but no it was still going. I would like to say at this time that it WAS early in the morning and I had only had about 5 1/2 hours of sleep so I was quite groggy. Finally I realized... it was my neighbor, Kelsey's, alarm. It was so muted through the wall that it seriously sounded like heavy breathing. When we were walking to work I asked her if her alarm goes off at 5:25 and sure enough it does.

2) Today Kelsey and I went to the store to pick up groceries and get pictures printed. While we were waiting for our pictures to develop we decided to get a drink at Starbucks. When we sat down these two girls starting whispering and laughing at us. This really isn't completely unusual... probably due to our beautiful looks and humorous vibe that we give off. Finally after we finished drinking we got up to leave and Kelsey hears, "sumi masen". That means excuse me in Japanese. So she turns towards them and they don't say anything. So I guess they said it again (I was throwing away my trash but came right back). This time, with much gesturing and hand motions, they asked us (in Japanese) to edit something in English. It looked like they were teaching some story and had probably used something like freetranslations.com to translate it to English. So we sat down and edited their story hahaha. Every time we made a correction they would nod and say "ooooohhh" or "the" which is what we kept adding. It was pretty entertaining. Then they bowed to us about 1,000 times and thanked us over and over again.

I'll leave you with this picture of me, Ally, and Kelsey at Disney Sea two weekends ago. Yes we went again! How could we not after the joy of our last trip. If you read my last post on Disney.... yes I bought a Duffy. Best/Worst decision I ever made? Of course! And do you spy three hair accessories in my hair? Yes you do! There was another one on the back. More to come about that later... I'll save it for a week when I have nothing else to write about :).

My Kids ROCK!!!

2010-05-11T06:02:00.005-05:00

Here are the top 10 reasons why I love my class:

*in no particular order

1) Tammy and Kevin were holding hands for the entire 40 minutes of first English circle one time. They kept looking at each other and smiling. I could not help it I kept laughing and all my kids were like, "Ms. Melanie, why laugh?" It was so cute!!

2) They are seriously the cutest little 5 year olds I've ever seen. The other day we had "Fun with Mr. Jonathan". It is basically a time where they play with one of the male teachers from Friend's Club. They all had to change in to gym shorts and tuck their polos in. Now, if it wasn't the cutest/dorkiest thing I've ever seen then I don't know what is. Just imagine tiny little 5 year olds in tight gray shorts pulled up way past the belly button with a white polo tucked in and their class cap on. The class cap is basically a baseball hat but it has a strap under the chin and most of them keep the bill flipped up. Hilarious looking!

3) Whoever I sit by at lunch cheers because I'm sitting by them. Now that just makes ya feel good about yourself. haha

4) They think I smell good, run fast, push the highest on the swing, sing good, I'm funny, and they like my clothes (ha!). Everyone should be a kindergarten teacher.

5) They love Michael Jackson! Today I had my Michael Jackson mix on during lunch and all the kids were like, "Ms. Melanie - Michael Jackson? I like him." One of the students said, "Ms. Melanie! Billy Jean! I love this song!"

6) One my girls, Leslie, always will look at me and say, "Leslie likes Ms. Melanie!!" hahaha. Another of my girls will look at me randomly and say, "I love you Ms. Melanie". They are so cute!

7) The other day I happened to have my phone in my back pocket because I forgot to wear my watch for playtime. One of the kids decided to karate chop me in the butt and he realized my phone was back there. All of sudden like 6 of the boys are screaming, "oooohhh Ms. Melanie phone... in pocket!!" So they were all trying to touch it but I was blocking them. Then Kevin ran up and put his finger in my pocket, held up his finger and ran around screaming, "I touched it, I touched the phone!!!" It was pretty much the coolest day of his life.

8) A couple of days ago one of my little boys came in to the class and said, "Ms. Melanie, mother's underwear is gold today."

9) Apparently I say the phrase, "Oh My!" a lot here. All my kids are saying it to me about everything lately and it is so funny how they pick up on your mannerisms and start copying them. They will drop something on the floor and say, "Oh My Ms. Melanie!" Funny!!

10) Today was crazy hair day and the kids were so into it! You know how I love to dress up and get into to things like this so I love that they love it too!

I'm not supposed to put pictures of my class on my blog but I'll do it just this once so enjoy it while you can :). Yes I have 11 balloons in my hair in this picture!

Golden Week

2010-05-11T04:11:00.005-05:00

Ok, So Golden week is 4 different national holidays that all fall on the same week. This year I had Thursday off, worked Friday, then had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. We decided to stay in Sendai since we didn't really get a chance to get our plans going. Here's what we did!

Thursday: We were supposed to have a faculty picnic on Thursday but it got rained out so instead I slept in, cleaned, read, and then Ally and I went Bowing with Rumi, her husband, Shoko, and her friend!!!

Me and Shoko bowling!

Group photo!

Photo booth picture! Love them!!

I don't really remember what day this was on so I just stuck it in the middle. I bought a couch!! My butt has seriously been hurting since I got here. There is nothing soft to sit on in my apartment so I went out and found the cheapest couch I could find without being completely disgusting. I went to this place called Hard Off that has used furniture and ended up with this. It was kind of awkward buying it bc I didn't know if I should try to carry it to the front or what to do since I can't speak Japanese. I finally communicated that I wanted the couch and then two boys went to get it. I pulled the car up to the front and then we couldn't figure out how to get the seats down. So the workers had to do it and it took them like 20 minutes. haha!
Sunday: We went to Downtown Sendai and Shopped the entire day. I didn't get too much on this day. Me, Ally, and Hope ate at TIROL (one of my new favorite italian food places). The we met up with Shoko and Laura for Dinner at Namiskar which is an indian food place (Delicious). Then of course...took more sticker photos! In case you were wondering the vacations was mainly focused around food...
Naturally, we then took some more photo booth pictures. We pretty much do this every time we see a booth because they are soooo funny here. This was on the outside of our booth... "For all cute, sexy and beautiful girls. Girly Girly". Since that is so obviously us we chose that booth.
Monday: We went back downtown (Ate at a new italian food restaurant). I bought a lot on this day, mainly room stuff and oh ya cell phone charms!! Cell phone charms are a big deal here so naturally I had to go all out! Not one... but 4 charms for me please. See that care bear? That's a charm!! I was in a pink mood that day. For dinner we ate at yet another italian food restaurant. They are everywhere here. We don't eat Japanese food when we are on vacation. Oh and I also bought a blanket/summer bedspread from this Indian store and it is super cute!

And then Ally and I found a Texas license plate.

Tuesday: Today was Ally's birthday. We were going to go to the park on this day but it was cloudy, so instead I slept in and cleaned/relaxed! We went downtown for dinner at a Mexican food place called Casa. It was sooooo good! I think I miss Mexican food. I plan on eating there every time i'm downtown. The we of course made more sticker photos. It seriously never gets old!

Wednesday: Just a day of relaxing, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, and getting a little bit of work done.

Golden Week=Success

This weekend we had a Cinco de Mayo celebration. Naturally Kelsey and I decided to dress as Mexican as possible. Here you can really only see our lips but that pretty much says enough... brown lip liner and goldish lip stick? I think so! I had on a Mexican shirt and Kelsey was gangsta mexican with her sweatpants down low, pockets pulled out, and high tops. We rocked the party. We also did the macarena. If you want to have a fun Cinco de Mayo next year... you know who to call.

School...

2010-04-29T16:52:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! School/Work has been crazy busy. I'm not allowed to put up pictures of my students on my blog so I thought I would post some pictures of the classroom. This first picture is outside my classroom. Our classroom name is the penguins (given by the school) and so here is our first day of school bulletin board.

Our first unit is about sea life and so the kids made these jelly fish for one of our bulletin boards.

I decided to do a tree on one wall so that I only have to change it each season. I really hate bulletin boards and so this one is nice to know I only have to put up 4 times.

Here is my word wall. Every classroom has to have a word wall. We put up the words per level so slowly my word wall will become more filled.

Anyways we share our classroom with an immersion friend's club teacher and so the other 2 walls are hers.

Tomorrow (or tonight) I will post some pictures of the Sakura (Cherry Blossom) festival that we went to and from our bowling adventure last night.

Since Vacation...

2010-04-09T04:14:00.003-05:00

Sorry it's been so long since I posted. Things have been crazy ever since I got back from Tokyo! The past week and a half have been work days and I have been getting to work early and leaving late so I could get my room set up and get prepared for Opening Ceremony Day.

Today was Opening Ceremony and we finally got to be with our own class. My kids are so cute! The day went pretty fast and I thought it went pretty well. It was only a half day and the parents stayed for the entire time. They were in meetings for part of it and then there was a 30 minute ceremony time. The other parts they were watching me "teach" aka play games and sing songs on the first day. After that I had to go to the dentist. Sunday night my crown broke when I was just sitting watching tv. I got the crown about a year ago and had to pay $600 for it. I went to the dentist on Monday and she told me that the crown wouldn't fit back on. To replace it will cost about $800 here. Which totally stinks!! I went back today to get part of it put on and I go back next Friday to finish it off. The dentist's here like to stretch out your appointments. I had to go by myself too which is kind of nerve racking to figure how to drive there and then communicate to them.

Anyways that's the only new stuff here. I will post pictures later of my class.

Tokyo - Post #2

2010-03-31T05:45:00.006-05:00

Day 4 and 5 of Tokyo we spent at Disney. Tokyo has 2 parks, and one is called Disney Sea and one is Disney Land.

Day 4:

Our first day at Disney we went over to Disney Sea. That day was fun/miserable. It rained for the first half of the day and was seriously miserably cold. Apparently it snowed in other parts of Tokyo. I pretty much had to buy out the park of Disney gear just to keep warm. My first purchase was the Minnie mouse ear and neck warmers. Below is a picture of Ally and me with our new items.

I then had to buy some thicker socks and a sweatshirt. Plus that morning I bought a poncho and about 8 hand warmers to put all over my body. We got to ride 4 rides that day: Indiana Jones, Sinbad, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and one I can’t remember. Journey to the Center of the Earth was funny because a) no Japanese people would sit in our car (weirdos) b) we faked screamed the entire ride c) we didn’t know there was a huge drop and then we screamed for real). We also went to like 8 shows. All were hilarious because they were in Japanese and it was just funny for some reason.

Disney Sea had the best restaurant EVER! We ate at this Mexican food place called Miguel’s and they had the best soft tacos! Below is a picture of my meal after I ate it…. There are 3 forks there because they thought my meal was for 3. I seriously did not get that much either - 2 soft tacos and tortillas.

Day 5:

Disney Land: The weather was much nicer this day but the night was freezing. I managed to get a little sun burnt on my face during the parade. We only got to ride one ride this day because it was seriously jam-packed with people. We spent much more time walking around, seeing the sites, eating the food, and shopping. We went to a few shows and ran into two of our Japanese co-workers at one of them.

So this next part really includes both parks. Japanese people LOVE Disney! It is crazy!! You can’t go one foot without seeing 800 people in Disney gear. I have a picture below of a middle-aged man in a huge Disney Hat. I mean everyone is decked out! It is just crazy. I bought this huge puffy bow to wear because everyone had one and they were hilarious. Ally bought a clip in crown (picture below). Also, popcorn is like a big deal there. I mean there were lines of like 75 people to get popcorn and it was like that the entire day. Grossest popcorn flavor of the day: Soy Sauce and Butter or maybe Curry.

Middle aged man in a crazy disney hat.

DUFFY!

Ok so Disney Sea sells this teddy bear called Duffy. We haven’t figured out what it is since they don’t have it in America but it is a HUGE deal. You can’t walk past five people without seeing a few Duffies in there. It is really weird. Babies with Duffy? Check. Old men with Duffy? Check. Teenage boys and girls with Duffy? Check check. Business men with Duffy? Check. Couples with matching Duffies? Check. You get the idea. I just don’t get it. You seriously see them so much that you start wanting one bad! So…. Then Ally bought one J. Below you can see a few pictures of Duffy around the park and hanging out with us. There were no Duffies for sell at Disney land but that didn’t stop people from bringing their Duffy with them. People would pose their Duffy as if it was a child with different things around the park… so we did it too hahaha.

Duffy flying in front of the castle.

Duffy eating popcorn.

Only three Duffy items per person please.

Couple with Duffy.

Tokyo - Post # 1

2010-03-31T04:51:00.003-05:00

So, I just got back from Tokyo for spring break! I'm going to try to keep this to two separate posts because there is so much to tell. The next one will be all about Disney. First of all, I went on this trip with two friends: Ally and Logan. We left on the 26th and were able to spend 2 1/2 days sightseeing around Tokyo and 2 days at Disney.

Day 1:

Our Shinkensen (bullet train) left at 11:30 am from Sendai and arrived at 1:00 pm in Tokyo. The first thing we had to do was figure out how to switch to the regular subway which was super confusing!! We finally figured it out then we just had to go one stop to get to our station. When we got off at our station we had to find our way to the hotel. Below are the google directions to our hostel. Needless to say we cracked up at those and they were no help. Luckily our confirmation email had better directions. After we checked in we went down to Shibuya. This is the district that has the HUGE crossing in Tokyo. Below is a picture that does not do it justice! We wandered around, ate at Sbarro's (we managed to eat zero Japanese food this whole trip hahaha), got starbucks, shopped, etc. It was a successful day!

Day 2:

The 27th we slept in and got a late start to the day. Once we got going we went down to the Sensoji Temple (Picture below with Logan). This reminded me a lot of China with all the street markets and food vendors. We walked around there for a long time and then we went into a Pachinko place (japanese gambling) and wasted a few dollars just so we could do it once.

After that we went over to Tokyo Tower. Tokyo Tower is pretty much the exact shape of the Eiffel tower but taller and uglier. We didn't go to the top because the line was so long but there were tons of shops inside that we walked around and browsed. We also got a snack at McDonalds.

After Tokyo Tower we went to a district called Roppongi. This is basically a big tourist area with lots of American restaurants. Logan really wanted to eat at Hard Rock Cafe. So we walked for an hour trying to find it (I was frustrated because I was freezing and tired) and we never found it. We ended up eating at this Italian place and when we walked out we were facing Hard Rock Cafe. How we missed that we don't know. So we stopped in and it was like the craziest Hard Rock ever! Music was blaring and Japanese people were dancing... these are not normal sites here.

Below is a picture in front of a Tex Mex restaurant (the sign also says Gringos). Logan is from Seattle but she is obsessed with Texas! Weird, since Ally and I aren't. We made it a point to take pictures in front of places like this a lot and we ate 3 meals at Tex Mex restaurants haha. They don't really have that in Sendai.

Day 3:

We slept in again and this day ended up being somewhat of a bust! We started out going down to Harajuku St which was CRAZY!!! It was so crowded! The fashion in Harajuku (which is literally one street) is kind of hard to explain. Lots of teased hair, party dresses with big tulle, fish net stockings, but then there is also the girls that dress like Little Bo Peep, the goths, etc. It is seriously odd. No pictures to show (people kept catching me trying to take their pictures). We then tried to go to a Kabuki theater and it was closed. So then we tried to go to the Imperial Palace and we couldn't find that. So after we had walked around FOREVER and were freezing we ended up just going in early so we could rest before Disney the next day.

Last two random pictures. Below is a picture of Ally and her travel books. Ally really did a great job of finding places to go and knowing what we were doing. However, we gave her a really hard time for being super Tourist with all her books. There were a lot more pictures like this, but this one shows how annoyed she was with us and wouldn't even look at the camera.

The other picture is a picture of Logan with the "Texas" burger. All things Texas for Logan!

Since the Earthquake

2010-03-20T21:05:00.003-05:00

This week and weekend have been pretty fun since the earthquake. Instead of observing and teaching in classes, this past week I was pulling kids out and working on the graduation songs with them. We have kindergarten graduation coming up on Monday and it is a pretty big deal. Japanese people are all perfectionists so everything has to be absolutely perfect including the children's singing. They've had graduation practice each day and it is so cute. The kids march in and are so serious with their hands perfectly by their sides. They march up on stage absolutely quiet and begin singing. I've never seen kids who take a performance so seriously. Parents really push their kids not to make any mistakes here so it kind of scares the kids into being good.

This weekend I was determined to buy a small couch or chair for my apartment. Nothing in my apartment is soft to sit on and I feel like my butt has been hurting for 7 weeks. I really need a couch or something. We went to four different stores and of course I found nothing I liked for the right price. However, Ally bought a couch and Kelsey bought a chair. That usually happens when I shop for a specific item. Everyone else finds something they like and they weren't even looking haha! Here is a picture of Ally carrying her couch up to the register! It was only $52 at a second hand store!

On Saturday night we had bought tickets to go to the 89ers game. That is the basketball team in Sendai. We took the bus down to Izumi Chuo so that we could hop on the subway, and when we got there it smelled like smoke and it was all blocked off. We waited for about ten minutes of, "What do we do!!!" and then it opened up. Apparantly, there had been a fire in the subway.

Once we got to the game it was so fun! Half the team looked like they were from America and they were seriously giants... then there was the 5 foot 2 Asian on the team. Pretty funny. They were so awkward and lanky that I don't think they knew what to do with their arms and legs. The game was pretty good though. The funny part was that all the songs and everything was in English. They said, " Let's go 89ers, Let's go". They did the defense chant. The dancers/cheerleaders danced to Men in Black, Jump on it, Calle Ocho, Joy to the World (Three Dog Night version), Pretty Women, etc... It was pretty entertaining to say the least.

Also, when we walked in they gave us a free pair of chopsticks as a gift. I thought that was pretty funny too!

Earthquakes...

2010-03-14T17:26:00.003-05:00

Well I've officially lived through two earthquakes!! I've actually lived through 4 but I didn't feel the first two. On Saturday night I was hanging out in my apartment with Ally and Kelsey. We had decided to cook dinner and watch a movie since we were trying to be cheap. Anyways, I don't even know what time it was but all of a sudden we were all sitting on the floor and I was like, "is it just me or is my entire apartment shaking?" Then we all screamed "Earthquake!!!" Of course Ally and I jumped in the doorway laughing and Kelsey just sat on the floor laughing at us. Apparently the number one thing not to do is stand in a doorway... whoops. It probably lasted about 15 seconds which felt really long. Then my light fixture was shaking for another minute or so which means a small one might have been going on at that time.

Sunday... It was like 5:30 pm and I was talking to Cara on skype with my friend Jessica at my place. All of a sudden we were like, "ahhhhh it's another earthquake!!!" This time it was worse and longer and it was funny because Cara could see my apartment shaking while it happened. Jessica was crouched by my bed (which is the correct position to assume) and trying to hold my hand and I was like, "What do I do I'm on skype!!!" So I just sat at my desk... I'm obviously not the best in natural disasters. I hear there are more earthquakes in the Spring so we will see what that's like when it happens. Kind of exciting and a little bit scary.

In other news, has anyone been watching American Idol? I've been watching it with my friend Katie. I think my favorite so far is Casey James. Anyone else have a favorite?

10 Things I haven't told you yet...

2010-03-09T16:26:00.002-06:00

Top 10 things I haven't told you yet....

1. Hick Accent. Yesterday I subbed in a K5 class because the teacher had to do some training. One of the chants we had to do said something like, "I heard the song." A little girl was practicing and said, "I hear the song." So I corrected her... and to my surprise she mimicked me in the most Texan accent ever. All I could think was... "Do I SERIOUSLY sound like that!" It is now proven that all my students next year will speak with a Texan accent.

2. Singleness. (I stole this one from my friend Kelsey) I celebrated my 24th year of single Valentine's Day haha. It was pretty fun. A bunch of us ate at a burger place and then we went downtown and shopped. In Japan they don't have Valentine's day but a few days before the 14th they have a day that all the girl's buy the guy's a gift and then on March 14th they have White Day where the guys buy the girls a gift.

3. 25 at 25. This year I'm doing a list of 25 goals for my 25th year. I only have like 5 thought of so far so if you can help give me some ideas that would be great. These can be big goals or small goals. In example, go skiing in Japan, go to a country I haven't been to, etc.

4. Change of Plans. We have a spring break coming up from the 25th through the 31st. Our original plan was to go to Thailand and it has seriously changed about 8 times. So annoying! The ticket prices went up so then we changed it to Bali. Then we heard that wasn't safe so we switched it to Guam. Then we couldn't figure out anything about Guam and so we changed it to Taiwan. Then that was too expensive so we changed it to Singapore. Then we couldn't figure that out so we changed it to Hong Kong. Then we changed it to Okinawa and that was too expensive so it was back to Hong Kong. Right now I have no idea what we are doing.

5. Snow. I never ever thought I would say this but I'm SOO sick of the snow! It has snowed so much since we've been here and I'm cold ALL the time. They say this is a mild winter so I don't know what next year has in store for me. My dream of living in Colorado has been thrown away. I want four seasons but not the longest winter in history.

6. Snow Day. It has been snowing since 4 pm yesterday... that is 16 hours straight. School got cancelled today!!! However, we have to go in and have a work day. Still excited.

7. Numbness. For the past 2 weeks the left side of my left thigh has been numb. My dad said that it is caused by gaining weight and I would just like to make a public announcement that I have not gained weight thank you very much.

8. Pizza. Last week we had a half day so some of the teachers decided to order pizza for lunch. When they were splitting the cost I heard them say that it was $64 total. I was like, "say what!!!???" They ordered 2 larges which is equivalent to 2 small/mediums in the states. And each large is $32!!!! That is so crazy!

9. No Dairy. I've decided to give up eating dairy. And it is seriously hard. I didn't realize how much I ate dairy until 2 weeks ago when I gave it up. (I cheated once but I didn't eat that pizza). Considering I'm lactose intolerant I thought now was as good as time as any to get it out of my system.

10. School lunches. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the kindergarten teacher's get a lunch from the school for free. They are seriously so disgusting but not everybody feels this way!! First of all you pretty much NEVER know what you are about to eat. Second, it is always cold but it is food that should be warm. Third, they make these cute little pink hello kitty things that is actually pressed fish. Nasty!

That's all for now!!

My Weekend

2010-03-08T05:44:00.004-06:00

It all started with a make over: Sooooo, Friday Night I was hanging out with Ally and Kelsey at my apartment and it was getting later and later and Ally kept getting up to leave and of course we kept convincing her to stay. She has to work on Saturday mornings so this will probably happen a lot. Ally kept saying that she had to shower so of course I convinced her to shower then come back over so I could do a make over on her. We then of course took some progression pictures (enjoy below). Then Kelsey and I went over to Ally's that morning and did her make up and picked out her clothes. Make overs are awesome!

So on Saturday we went over to Maruyama to learn from one of the Japanese Teachers how to make Miso Soup. Once we got there we walked over to the store and bought the supplies then made it at the Maruyama Kitchen. After that we went over to one of the old teachers house who was giving away some of their stuff. Don't worry I got a Christmas Tree!!! I also got a lot of other great stuff but that was definitely the greatest! The night was pretty relaxed after that. A few of us girls went over to Tapio, a mall near us, and just shopped around and ate crepes. After that I came home at about 10 and watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday we went to Kame House again and we met up with some of the Maruyama girls and Shoko!!! Shoko is a hilarious girl that works in the office at the Maruyama campus. After that we shopped a little and went downtown....I bought a lot of really fun things! I bought three cardigans, a shirt, a skirt, a graduation gift for Cara, and some other random stuff. Jessica bought a K-Pop (Korean Pop) cd, and she described the lead singer as "Delicious" lol, he was wearing blue lipstick in the pictures (just like Joey from Friends in the Japanese commercial...hahahahaha). After that we went home because it was about 9 and we have to work in the morning. It was a very eventful weekend for us!

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Phase 4

Final Phase!

The Cabin

2010-03-03T06:02:00.002-06:00

So, this past weekend all the new teachers and a few old teachers headed down to the cabin for a weekend of relaxation. The school owns a cabin on the Pacific Coast that they always take the new teachers to and then we can go down there throughout the year whenever we want. It was so much fun! We left on Saturday and ended up just playing games and eating a lot that day. Around 4 we headed down to the coast to check out the view. Here are a few pictures:

Jessica and Ally being weird.

Our view of the coast from our cabin.

Some of us girls hiking down to get a closer look.

On Saturday night I ended up getting sick and throwing up for 2 hours!!! I haven't thrown up in 8 years and then to have 2 girls watching you that you only just met.... can we say embarrassing!! I also woke up the entire room of girls that I was in since I tripped over people's bags on the way out the door. Pretty graceful. Sunday I woke up and felt a tiny bit sick but pretty much fine.

Around noon on Sunday there were announcements going on that there was going to be a tsunami of about 3 meters. Since that isn't too big we decided we would hike down to a cliff to get a better look. It was supposed to come at 1:30 and there were supposed to be 3 right in a row. The whole time we were outside there were helicopters flying overhead and announcements being made to evacuate the area and not to come back until announcements were made declaring that it was safe. Around 2:15 Kelsey, Ally, and I were bored and decided to head back. We got back and the radio said that the "tsunami" was 10 cm. We all were laughing pretty hard at that. In the meantime we started playing games and thought all the other girls had come back and were taking naps. 4 hours later... the girls came back hahaha. They had been watching the entire time with their cameras ready. Just imagine the tiniest wave possible and that was our tsunami. Pretty exciting!

Tomorrow the K4 kids find out who their K5 teacher will be so that will be exciting for the kids to finally know who their new teacher is. I will finally get a chance to get to know them better. Today I got to observe one of the K4 classes and they are so cute. However, one of the kids told me to push him really hard on the swing and so naturally I did and he decided to let go and fell smack on his head from the highest part of the swing motion. I about had a heart attack. It's not a good idea to cause brain damage in the kids so early on. Anyways one of the boys that will be in my class is a real drama queen and toot but he can be really cute too. He just likes to pout. Around lunch time he decided that maybe he did like me so he started playing with me and then he said, "Ms. Melanie, you cute." So I pretty much won him over now!

First Days Teaching

2010-02-26T17:55:00.003-06:00

Short Story:

Ok Thursday was my first day of full teaching in a K5 class. I think it went pretty well and I really enjoyed it. However, one interesting thing did happen. Right after lunch one of the little boys came up to me and said his underwear were dirty. I knew he had accidents so i knew he had pooped his pants. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the teacher anywhere so I had to ask one of the office ladies what to do. She handed me a pair of gloves, baby whites, new underwear and said "you might have to help him wipe". I was pretty disgusted. So I took him to the bathroom and he didn't need help wiping but you can't flush the baby wipes so he handed them to me after he wiped... wonderful. He then needed help changing. Then because in Japan everything is about presentation I got to carefully and nicely fold his poopy underwear and slide them into a bag with a note. Nasty! 6 year olds should not be pooping their pants or need help cleaning it.

On Friday.... it happened again.

Anyways that's the most exciting thing that happened while teaching. Oh and when I cleared my throat a student said, "Ms. Melanie what is 'clears throat'". hahaha! In about 4 hours I'm leaving for a weekend at the cabin on the coast. I will have pictures in my next post from the weekend!

Practice Teaching and Church

2010-02-24T05:39:00.004-06:00

So this past Sunday Ally, Kelsey, and I decided to go to a Japanese church that meets in our school building. One of the teachers who goes each week invited us because they were going to have English notes that week. It was interesting because I recognized every song they sang but couldn't sing any because I couldn't read the characters. We then had a sermon and it was somewhat boring because we couldn't understand anything so we just read the notes. We said the Lord's Prayer (in Japanese) and sang Doxology to end. The layout was very similar to my church back home. At the end they served everyone a cup of tea haha. Anyways I don't think we will go back very often unless we miraculously become fluent in Japanese.

Anyways this past week I've been observing and "practice teaching". Tomorrow will be my first full day of teaching which will be interesting because I've really only seen 2 normal days. I think it will go well though. The class I'm teaching is very well behaved, which is good because I really hate disciplining other people's classes. I will also teach on Friday and get observed so that I can get feedback. Next week all I know is I'm observing a few days and Thursday they will announce the K5 classes to the kids so I will be there to welcome them. I don't get my class though until the 12th I believe. So that means 3 more weeks of practice teaching and observing, 1 week of vacation, and 1 week of prep before the kids get here. Hopefully it will go by fast.

In other news, I don't think Thailand is going to work out anymore! When we originally looked at plane tickets they were about $700 and the next day they went up to $1200 so that isn't going to work for us. Tickets to Bangkok aren't bad but we are hearing mixed reviews about the safety so it makes us a little bit nervous. We have somewhat narrowed it down to Singapore or Guam though. If anyone has ever been there let me know so I can bombard you with questions.

P.S. I haven't received any mail yet.

Forest Park 101, 3-4-11

Takamori, Izumi-Ku, Sendai

Miyagi, 981-3203, JAPAN

Just Sayin.... :)

This week...

2010-02-18T01:50:00.002-06:00

Sorry it's been a week or so since I posted. I'm really going to try to get back into blogging. Unfortunately no pictures for this post. Sorry!

So, this past week I've been observing K5 and K4 classes. That's 5 year old kindergarten and 4 year old kindergarten. In Japan kindergarten is optional so only private schools offer it. Monday I got to see a normal day in a K5 class (which I will be teaching) and the other days I've been observing Open Houses. Basically that means all the moms and some dads come and watch you teach for a day. They do that about 3-4 times a year depending on the program. It's been fun to meet the kids and see which ones will be in my class next year but also a little boring to watch the same thing over and over. Next week I will begin "practice teaching" and that should be a little more interesting. I've also been busy learning Level 19 and 20 songs right now. I will be teaching Levels 11-20 and each level has 3 poems, 3 chants, 3 stories, and 3 songs... and I have to memorize them all.

Yesterday I officially took my "driving test" in Japan. It was actually pretty good. They drive on the opposite side of the road and the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car. That didn't bother me but the windshield wipers and blinkers are switched and every time I wanted to turn I would turn on the windshield wipers. Also, everybody here backs into parking spots because the spots are small and there isn't much room to back out into the aisle. We had to practice that and I was pretty bad. I might just be the stupid American who parks front forward. Oh well.

In other news, I now have plans for my spring break. Their spring break is actually the break between each school year and it starts at the end of March. Ally, Logan, Mallory, and I are all going to Krabi, Thailand. I've never heard of it but it sounds cool. It is a tourist town smaller than Phuket (so much cheaper) and it is right on the ocean. We are going to layout, get thai massages and hopefully ride an elephant :).

Karaoke!

2010-02-09T03:12:00.003-06:00

Well, the past 2 days we have been in LONG meetings about training. Yesterday (monday) we spend 9 to 3:30 in training and then played a game of dodgeball. Dodgeball in Japan is not the same as dodgeball in the states. It is much more exciting here. First if you get out then you go behind the other team and when the ball goes out of the line you can grab it and throw it from behind them. Then if you get one of them out you get to go back in the game on your side.

Today we spent the same amount of time in training, plus they gave us homework! After that we went to sing some Karaoke! It was hilarious! It is definitely not like what I thought it would be. First of all you rent a room that holds about 8 people. Then you are in this tiny room just singing to your friends. You can also rent a tambourine if you so desire... we desired. Some of the songs we sang: Truly Madly Deeply, I'll make love to you, You're the one that I want, Hollaback girl, Mmm Bop, My Heart will go on, Girls just want to have fun, Everybody (Backstreet Boys), Britney Spears Medley, etc. We only had the room for one hour but as you can see we got quite a bit accomplished. Enjoy the pictures!

Mallory isn't so sure about Ally singing along.

Tambourine? Yes please!

I'll make love to you...

I'm not sure what is being sung here but I'm sure it was funny!

Sendai

2010-02-06T05:22:00.004-06:00

Hi Everyone!

I finally was able to upload a few pictures to blogger! They are somewhat out of order but it won't let me rearrange them so oh well. Here is a picture of the outside of my building covered in snow. Last night it snowed all night and this is what it looked like when I woke up. It continued to snow all day and we probably got another 6 inches throughout the afternoon.

The third picture is a picture of Ally and I this morning in front of her building which is right next door to mine. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the inside of my place yet. I will be moving in to a new place at the end of March (same building) but I will take pictures soon of the inside to show you all.

Today 3 of the current teachers took all of us new teachers to downtown Sendai to see the sights and shop. We first had to take the bus from our apartment and then get on the Subway. Ally and I were saying how much more confusing this seems than China and we think it is because we have so much more help. In China we were just kind of thrown out there with a figure it out your selfs and so we had to. Here everyone is helping us with everything. It is pretty nice!

By the way you can see more pictures of downtown Sendai on my facebook. Blogger just takes forever to upload pictures. Downtown has kind of a main shopping area that we stayed in today. We got to eat lunch at an Italian place and it was pretty good. However, they had no pictures for us to point to! Their foreigner menu was in Japanese and Italian so we were able to decipher the Italian enough to say what we wanted. We then went to the 100 yen and 300 yen store (1 dollar and 3 dollar) and shopped around. They have EVERYTHING you would need for your apartment at the 100 yen store. It is kind of amazing.

We also stopped at Starbucks and had some delicious green tea! After we got back I hung out at my new friend, Kelsey's apartment for awhile. It was fun and I'm excited about all the fun people I'm getting to meet! I then cooked dinner, and by cooked I mean I toasted an english muffin. I don't think I will be doing a ton of cooking here. My actual oven is smaller than my toaster oven and the two halves of my english muffin barely fit in my toaster oven. Oh by the way below is a picture of a dog in downtown sendai that I thought looked like a lion.

Well I better run! Some friends are coming over for a movie night in a few minutes.

First Day in Japan

2010-02-03T19:39:00.004-06:00

Hi everybody,

We finally made it to Sendai! Tuesday morning I flew out from DFW at noon. 13 hours later we arrived in Tokyo and a 6 hour bus trip later we arrived in Sendai. I got to my apartment at 1 in the morning Thursday and fell right into bed. Unfortunately my heater chose not to work last night and so I pretty much froze to death under my bed. The vent is pointed right at my head too so that didn't help. This morning I started pushing all the buttons on the heaters remote. I had no idea what they did but it couldn't get any colder and miraculously the heat turned on!

Thursday (today) we left our apartments at 11:00 to go eat lunch and it was pretty good. I ordered Doria which is basically rice with spaghetti meat sauce on top. We then went to the immigration office to register as aliens and get our health insurance. After that we met up with Melissa who took us on a tour of our campus. Our campus is beautiful but I didn't get any good pictures so that will come later. We will see the other campus next week. Right now we have a small break before dinner with the other teachers and volleyball. Now, those of you who know my sport skills would know that volleyball is my absolute worst. Have I ever made the ball over the net? No. Have I ever hit the ball and it went towards the net? No. It usually goes behind me. So... if I actually play or if I even make it that far into the night is debatable at this point. I have only slept about 6 1/2 hours in the past 48 hours so I'm not exactly at my most energetic right now.

Everything has been great and exciting so far! Tomorrow we go to the bank to set up our account and that is pretty much all I know at this point!

Melanie

2009-06-07T19:33:00.003-05:00

-In case anybody hasn't heard... I got the job in Japan! They offered for me to come up either in September or February. The school year starts in February so if I went September it would be as their substitute until February. I'm VERY excited!! I've decided to go in February because my current principal has asked me to remain as the secretary.

-In other news I start summer school tomorrow. I had originally not signed up for it because I wanted my free summer. However, since I'm not going to be making the same salary as last year I need something to help my income a little. It's only three weeks and 3 hours a day so it shouldn't be bad.

-On Friday night I came up to my room at 12:30 and realized the power was out in my room! I didn't want to deal with it at 12:30 and so I just went to bed and decided I would just wake up when I woke up since I didn't have my clock alarm. I really never do this so I was afraid I would end up sleeping the entire morning away. Sure enough I woke up at 6:30 a.m. I just can't get out of my work schedule. During the school year I wake up at 5:30 and every Saturday and Sunday this year I have woken up promptly at 6:30. I can usually force myself back to sleep only to wake up every 30 minutes until I just give up and get out of bed at 8:30. So Saturday morning I went down to the garage to check the breakers, which were all flipped to on. I decided to just flip each one, then run up to the third floor (where my room is) and see if the lights came on. So after I ran up two flights and down two flights 20 times it was finally the very last breaker. I was sweating and so tired haha. I figured that was good enough exercise for the day though. Anyways that's the only story I have for now.

Summer Time!

2009-05-30T17:26:00.002-05:00

Well I've had a busy last week which has kept me from updating!

Last weekend I went to Seattle with my friend Blair. We got there Saturday morning and stayed until Tuesday. We had such a great time! The weather was perfect... not a cloud in sight once! We loved the Pike Place Market and everything about Downtown. On Monday evening we went to go see this big folk festival called Folk Life. We were both looking forward to hearing some good Seattle folk music but it was not what we thought it would be. The main group was screaming instead of singing. There were a lot of local singers on the side and we heard some pretty nasty lyrics. It was great people watching though.
On Tuesday we had our interviews for Japan! Blair had hers early morning and I had mine in the afternoon. I think it went really well. She told Blair that she would contact her in 2 weeks. She told me very soon. So I guess 2 weeks is very soon to her. I'm anxiously waiting to hear back!

When I got back it was a whirl wind of a last week of school. The kids were super hyper but we had a lot of fun activities planned. On Thursday it was field day. One of my students challenged me to the 50 yard dash even though I was wearing flip flops. He beat me... barely :). So I challenged him to a rematch. He beat me again. I also got to play in the baton race, ping pong blow, javelin through, 3 legged race, and water balloon toss. I think the kids thought it was hilarious that I played so many of the games with them.

Friday was our last day of school! It was kind of bittersweet. Excitement for summer but also sad that I won't be teaching there next year most likely. We did get to go to the after school swim party which was awesome and then Kyla and I went out with our coworker Chaz for one last hurrah.

Update on summer: I will now be teaching summer school! I taught last year and it was pretty fun. Other than the fact that I now don't get to sleep in for the next month it is easy and they pay you well plus it's only from 9-12. I will be co-teaching with one of my teacher friends and I'm pretty excited about that. So now I'm just looking for a job after that. If you have any leads let me know!

A Post in Pictures

2009-05-18T20:14:00.005-05:00

Today I told my kids I was going to take some pictures of them at recess for their scrapbooks. I specifically asked them not to pose and just to go on playing. Of course most of them didn't listen. Here is what I got:

This is them playing Star Wars. Hunter caught me taking their picture and put bunny ears on Grant. A kid after my own heart.

This is Ryan. He likes to throw out Star Wars poses.

Here's Hunter again. He got stuck. I took a picture of it.

This is Grant. He likes to throw up the peace sign.

This is Will. He really likes to pose and paid no attention to my request of no posing.

See what I mean? So hilarious!

This weekend my parents and I went to Houston for Jenny and Chris' baby shower. We had a great time and Jenny got tons of cute stuff! Here is a picture of me with the future parents at dinner one night.

"The Swine"

2009-05-02T22:32:00.003-05:00

I'm sure everybody has been hearing tons about the swine flu. None of the teachers are too worried about it at my school. However, we have had to remind the students to wash their hands often and use hand sanitizer after sneezing or coughing.

A couple of my students this week have been really worried about it. Not only do they think it's called "The Swine"... which only makes it more dramatic... they also are very scared they will get it. To make matters worse I was feeling sick on Thursday and Friday this week. I didn't feel horrible and it definitely didn't keep me from work. I was a little bit less patient though and told the kids it was because I wasn't feeling well. This practically created hysteria in my classroom. The kids would lean away from me if I talked to them and kept asking me if I had The Swine. They were very concerned! I told them no of course not, but I couldn't help but play a few jokes on them.

It started out as a, "Oh I think I should sit down I feel really dizzy. I think I'm going to faint... it must be the swine" Then it turned into, "Quick get the trash can I think I'm going to throw up". They were taking it so seriously and then I would yell gotcha. I even would pretend like I couldn't understand what they were saying and all I could hear was buzzing. So I would make them repeat their questions like 5 times before I "heard" it. This went on till about 2:30 when they started catching on and it wasn't as funny after that. Needless to say, I think they realized they were being a little silly about The Swine.

I love playing jokes on my kids because they think it is so dorky. And the best part is that I can play the same joke on them over and over and they still think it's funny. They also try to play tricks on me and think their really hilarious when they do it. On Thursday they didn't realize that I was walking behind them when they were coming back from recess. They were all hiding behind the door ready to jump out and scare me when I walked in. Instead I jumped in and scared them. They still can't figure out how I knew what they were doing when I wasn't even in the classroom.

Say No to Smoking!

2009-04-30T14:10:00.001-05:00

2009-04-29T07:58:00.004-05:00

Ok! I'm trying to get rid of a few pieces of furniture.

I have a green leather couch that is currently in my classroom. It used to be in parent's house and then when I was a junior I took it to college. It is in pretty good condition as you can see by the picture. If you need or know anyone who needs a couch I would be willing to sell this one!! Please please let me know! I need to get rid of it by mid-June.

Second item up for sale is my desk and chair. These are both still in great condition. The chair can easily be recovered. My mom has probably popped this one out and recovered five times. All you need is a hammer and staple gun and you got it made. Here are a few pictures of both items. The desk has a tv on it right now so you can't really see the top of it. Trust me it is in good condition. If you or someone you know wants a picture of the top just let me know and I'll do that.

Update on life!

2009-04-27T14:09:00.003-05:00

My lack of blogging has no excuses. So I will not try to explain myself.

I feel like an update is needed and I would like to make my third attempt in getting back into the blogger world.

First of all, I'm not sure how many people know this but I'm currently in the interviewing process of trying to go to Japan. I'm sure everybody has heard me talk about wanting to teach overseas since I've wanted to for 8 years. I've also been applying and attempting for 2 years now. I met with the recruiter two Sundays ago and it went great! The school is called MeySen Academy. It is located in the suburb of Sendai, Japan. The school is a program for kindergarten Japanese students. They learn English through immersion. They also have an after school program for grades 1-6 and Ally Ferrell is applying for that position. My official interview is May 26th in Seattle. I will be flown up there to interview with 4 representatives from the school! Wish me luck! The bad part is this: If I am offered a job I will have to accept sooner rather than later. Ally will not be able to interview until October because of the position she is applying for. In other words, there is the possibility that I would be going all alone. I have come to terms with that but I REALLY want Ally to get it too.

The school year starts in February and ends in March. That means starting in June I'm jobless! I will still be getting pay checks through August though so really starting in September I'm jobless. I've applied at Anthropologie but haven't heard back. I really want the discount! I will also be moving to my parent's house until I leave.

Anyways, that's the update on my life. I would say there is a 98.7% chance I won't be in Texas next year. I say that because as I'm sure most of you have heard me talk about, I have about a million back up plans. These currently or have included the following: Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Colorado, Washington D.C., Tennessee, etc. Australia being the main one. So if I don't get hired to go to Japan then I still won't be in Dallas.

Update on my current teaching gig: It is going great! We have a countdown till the end of the year. All my students have started getting in summer mode and are super hyper. Not that they weren't always hyper but it is out of control. Sometimes I just want to sit down and not do anything. Testing is in 2 weeks so I'm prepping for that. My kids are still hilarious and weird.

2008-10-15T14:07:00.002-05:00

Ok I really am trying to get back into blogging. I guess compared to a two month absence a two week break isn't too bad!

Last weekend I went with Casey to get her bridal pictures taken! She looked so pretty and I still can't believe she is getting married in just 2 short months. We also spent all weekend eating really nasty and then doing yoga. My body was actually sore afterwards though.

The weekend before that I took Friday off and Stephanie came into town. We went to Canton on Friday. We saw this man in a motorized wheel chair with a wagon tied to the back and his wife was sitting in a chair in the wagon while he was wheeling them around. It was awesome. Then on Saturday night we went to the fair with our friend Kyle. We saw a pig race, Kyle ate a fried truffle and a fried snickers which we tried (not horrible actually), I rode my first upside down ride and screamed. It was pretty eventful. On Sunday we tried to go to an Eastern Orthodox church for a project Stephanie is doing. When we drove up all the women who were walking inside were either wearing skirts down to the ankle or head coverings or both. So we decided we were inappropriately dressed and left!

To leave ya'll with something funny: One of my student's loves whisper sweet nothings to people. Here is what he said yesterday. Keep in mind this was just in confines of one day and it happens every day.
"Hello Sweetie"
"You're a superstar Ms. Fullerton"
"Hot mama"
"You are my darling little muffin"
"You're hot Ms. Fullerton"
"You look quite lovely"
So to sum things up, if you ever need a good laugh or even a small ego boost you can join me for the day in my class.

I'm back... and tag

2008-09-30T07:50:00.005-05:00

Well after I don't even know how long I've decided to post again. Since I last was on school has started and I am now in the 7th week of classes. For those of you who don't know... I have all boys in my class this year. Little Adhd 9 year old boys. All of them. I also moved into a new a house with new roommates. It's been a little crazy! But I'm getting back into the swing of things. So here are some pictures of what we've been up to.

My family went to DC together. Here is a picture of my parents and my little sis standing in line for food during the depression. Don't they look so dorky!

Here is a picture of some of my class at the Grapefest fieldtrip. Don't I look awesome. We had to wear that outfit... visor included so don't judge. If anyone has a fanny pack they can loan me for the next field trip I would be forever grateful.

This past weekend my good friend from back home and college, Josh Edwards, got married in Abilene. It was so fun because all our friends were there and we just got to have a good time. It almost felt like we were all in college again. Here I am with Catie and the two Stephanies.

Now for the tag. About forever ago Jenny tagged me to tell six random things about myself. So here goes.

1)I love winter more than anything! I guess that isn't random since everyone who knows me knows that. But I love everythign about it: the cold air, the fires, the hot chocolate, christmas, christmas music, decorations, family time, everything. I even listen to Christmas music every Friday all day.

2)I hate crickets and roaches! I mean I get so scared when I see one that my hands start shaking and I almost start crying. It is really ridiculous but I can't help it. The other week I had my whole class trying to kill a cricket in the room with me standing behind my desk...

3)I like Abilene, Tx. Even before I went to college there I just liked the town. I could see myself living there in say 10 years and enjoying it. I like the slow paced feel and the relaxation of everything. It only takes you 10 minutes to get across town and I love that when you are there that feels like a big deal to trek across town to go eat.

4)I want to start my own store. I would just sell all my favorite things. And all my friends could make stuff to sell there.

5)I want to move abroad. I don't care where I go and I don't know how long I want to stay. I just want to go and figure it out when I get there. I would like to move around to a lot of different countries so I could have lots of experiences.

6)I think it would be neat to teach at a college one day. Maybe in like 10-15 years after I have some experience and go to grad school then that could be possible.

I tag Catie and Cris!

Finally...

2008-07-10T15:02:00.003-05:00

Ok sorry everyone. I know it has been another month in between posts! Now that summer is here really nothing exciting has happened. I sleep in, watch tv, eat meals. That's about it. Living the dream!

Well I just got back from a mini road trip! Last Thursday I spent the night in Abilene and then I picked up my sis Cara and we drove to Houston for the weekend to see Jenny and Chris. We cooked, watched movies, shopped and just caught up on everything. It was pretty fun but that six hour drive is not fun! When we got back to Abilene I stayed on Sunday night with Casey and then had so much fun that I decided to stay Monday night with Ally. haha I decided I miss the easy lifestyle of Abilene. Really there is nothing to do and no one has money to spend anyways and so you just sit around and hang out with your friends visiting. I love doing stuff like that because you always end up with really good friendships. I also miss all my friends that still live in Abilene but college is over so time to move on from Abilene. I decided that I am just restless in Dallas because I want it to be a temporary thing before I move abroad for awhile and so far there is no end in sight. Oh well at least I am having fun here while it lasts.

Anyways it looks like moving plans are moving along and the girls have to be out of there house probably by August 12th so tomorrow Kyla and I are off to look at some apartment complexes. I'm so excited to move and have my own place and to finally feel settled. I never really had everything completely organized here because I thought I wouldn't be here this long. This will finally feel a little bit more permanent even if it only lasts a year! I also am starting a new project. I'm taking my bookshelf from my college room and I am painting it green. It is called crushed oregano and is a really pretty shade. Then I am painting the inside (but just the back) a dark brown. Then I am distressing it. I think it will turn out cool. At least I hope so! I bought the paint today and I will start tomorrow morning while it is still cool outside. I also picked up my headboard today. My first piece of brand new furniture that I purchased. Pretty exciting! Plus it was 50% off. Even more exciting!

So there is the update on my life. I will try to blog better and come up with some more interesting stories. I'm sure I have something if I dig deep!

Update

2008-06-13T14:55:00.003-05:00

Man, it's been a while since I last posted! Sorry about that. 2 reasons: busy, and no good stories. I still don't have anything insightful or interesting to say but I'll try.

I'm about to head out to a wedding in Arkansas with my parents for one of our family friends. My mom took our dogs to the kennel today and we found out that what we thought was going to be a $30 charge each for the weekend was a lie and it is now going to be $65. I was pretty angry because that is expensive for 2 nights. I also got my dress back from the cleaners and it shrunk. Like a lot. It was the dress I wore to Melissa's wedding and I was planning on wearing it in Casey's. I'm going back on Monday to see if they can give me money for it because it wasn't cheap.

Anyways on a lighter note summer school started monday. It is over in 2 weeks so it has gone by pretty fast. I have two 13 year olds in my class. Can you believe it!! The ages go from 9 to 13 in my class. Huge age difference but we're working with it. One of the teens the other day was being annoying when we were reading aloud so I gave him a look like "if you don't stop I'm going to get you but I'm not really mad at you" and then he goes, "Wow Ms. Fullerton you are looking exceptionally good today. Did you do something to your hair?" Such a little suck up but I couldn't help but laugh because that was a good try.

One of my students (9 year old) cried today because he thought he was in trouble. And he wasn't. He mistook something I said as a punishment and started crying. Whoops. I really don't know how he thought he was in trouble though. Oh well.

Update on Jovi: Cute still. Peed on me last week. Like literally was laying on me and sat up and peed on my stomach. So nasty. I screamed and spanked her. This is completely unusual for a dog to do and is not a good sign. Though she did make her first break through in potty training. Finally!!! Here is what happened: I leave her in the bathroom during work if I know I will be gone till that evening. Somehow on Tuesday the door must have not gotten shut all day and she got out. She roamed the whole upstairs and somehow found a ball of yarn and dragged it everywhere. But after walking around the entire upstairs for some time I realized that she didn't ever pee up there. She went back to her spot in the bathroom each time. So she is still peeing in the house but at least she realizes there is a certain spot. Anyways she has also learned to sit. Next up: Down and Come.

CHINA!!

2008-05-15T09:33:00.003-05:00

I'm having China withdrawals! I want to go back so bad and this summer it is just not possible. I'm hoping to go next summer but that seems so far away! So I decided to make a post about my China experience.

If anyone read my old China blog then you have probablly already heard this stuff but oh well too bad. Last June Ally and I arrived in China for the best summer of our lives! We ate lots of Chinese food, pastries, and then we walked everywhere. People say you lose weight in China because the food is so nasty. We loved the food. Luckily since we walked all the time at least we didn't gain weight but we definitely didn't lose it since we ate bread and dessert every night for dinner :)

Anyways here are some of my Top Fourteen memories. In no certain order.
1) Every day when we walked to school creepy men would say, "oooo hallooo" to us. Then we would say Ny Hoa and they would giggle. If we were really lucky they would stroke our arms. oo la la. Yummy. They love American woman over there. It really doesn't matter what you look like they think you are beautiful.
2) The day we rode our bikes for the first time. Click here to read the story. It is about 3 paragraphs down on the page.
3) Sun. That was one of my student's names. He was hilarious! And I mean this in the weirdest sense possible. Whenever he had a question he would run up and press his body against mine and yell the question at me. When this first happened I jumped back and almost burst out laughing. Then he would give me the peace sign constantly which was awesome. He also had a habit of scratching his butt. You know I lauged at that alot.
4) One day something smelled horrible in class. And all the kids starting going, "ewww sick who farted. Gross!!" And I mean it really smelled nasty. All of a sudden this little girl just burst out crying. It was kind of funny because she could have played it off and not said anything but now everyone knew it was her.
5) Forbidden City. Worst day of my life. Funny now to think about. Click here if you wish to read it.
6) Pearl Market. Pretty much enough said. I never knew I liked pearls so much until I could buy a real strand for $4. Needless to say we shopped a lot in China.
7) The day our Air Condition went out in our 7th floor apartment. Right after we had walked 30 minutes home and then climbed 7 flights to our apartment. We were dying. Luckily Tim, our boss, fixed it for us.
8) $10/hour massages. They even massaged our butts. And it was good.
9) Chinese men wanting to take pictures with us for no reason. Especially when we were wearing our pointy hats.
10) Talking in Mexican accents with Ally for half the trip. Still not sure why people kept giving us weird looks.
11) The friends we made in the market while bargaining.
12) Dancing to "Beat it" by Michael Jackson while playing the bongo every morning and evening.
13) My kids thinking that Dr. Pepper on our noun worksheet was a person. I kept getting things like, "Dr. Pepper is funny. Dr. Pepper is kind. Dr. Pepper likes to eat." I finally figured it out near the end what they were doing.
14) My kids writing things like, "My blood type is O. Eye: My eye is as deep as the black sea. Height: I am as tall as a cello. Foot: My foot is big as bear's. Hand: My hand is strong like giant. I love myself" on their auto biography's.

7 Random Things

2008-05-05T17:14:00.004-05:00

I got tagged by Catie to tell 7 Random Things about myself. I usually don't do these but I thought this one was fun so here goes!

1. I can't sleep with out ALL the covers on.

This is a very hard thing to deal with I have to say! Even when I'm burning up they all have to be on. This is why I keep only a sheet and a comforter on the bed. No extra blanket. This dates back to when I was very young and scared of EVERYTHING at night. I somehow came up with this idea in my head: If someone comes in to my room to kill me with a knife then I have all my covers on it won't go through them. Very logical you see :) Well now I know that is not the case but I still have to sleep with them all on and if I take one off I get really anxious until it is back on.

2. I hated dogs until about 2 months ago.

I always thought puppies were cute but I didn't like dogs. They stink and they try to lick you and you have to wash your hands every time you touch them. Then two months ago after living with my parents I decided I like dogs and in fact I want one. I then bought one and I love her. Who would have ever thought that! Needless to say she gets a bath at least once a week, she is learning not to lick me, and my hands are dry and were bleeding on my knuckles from being over washed.

3. I love diet coke!

I drink one diet coke a day and that is on my way to work. I know that is weird and it just started this year. Every morning I eat breakfast with a glass of water and then on my drive I drink a diet coke. I then drink water the rest of the day but I have to have a diet coke on my drive now.

4. I hate breakfast food.

I'm hungry in the morning but I hate breakfast food! This has always been a dilemma. Sometimes I eat peanut butter toast or honey on toast but for the past couple of weeks I've been eating an english muffin with hummus. So good.

5. I'm early to everything! (Catie I'm stealing that from you!)

I absolutely hate being late and in fact it stresses me out in other people too! I like to blame this on being late to everything while growing up and the scars it left on me (plus I try to blame as much as possible on my parents... you know how it goes). Anyways I'm usually about 10 minutes early to everything. Yet still I always think I'm going to be late and then I rush more. In the mornings I get ready so fast that I have about 30 minutes of time just to check my email and do other things. Even if I wake up 20 minutes late I still have 30 minutes because I rush so fast! I'm really trying to work on this because it is annoying but I can't help it I just like to be on time!!

6. I'm scared of the dark.

You can make fun of me all you want but it's true. I've always gotten scared at night and have always had trouble sleeping! I now think it's probably because I'm scared of the dark. I still sleep with my closet light on. I keep the door closed and it really doesn't do anything but just the thought of it helps. I also will turn on the light and check all around the room about 3 times before I can sleep. Plus I check my closet and under the bed before I get in bed. ha ha I realize this is dumb but hey what can I say. Don't ever try to scare me at night or I will probably cry.

7. I love other cultures more than anything!

I want to move out of the country and teach oversees but this has not worked out yet! I was pursuing it pretty hard last semester but everything kept not working out so I had to take a break for awhile. I still hope to do this and I think I will always regret it if I don't. If I can't live over there then at least I have my summers to go over there. Vacations are just not a long enough amount of time to leave!

I now tag Jenny. I hope this wasn't too boring to read!

Old Lady

2008-04-28T18:18:00.003-05:00

This happened to me last Friday.

The kids were talking about how they can do handstands, flips, cartwheels etc. and so I said, "wow all I can do is a cartwheel and a roundoff." Then one of the kids said this, "Wow now that is pretty impressive for an old lady like you... i mean not that I'm saying your old or anything but you are kind of old". "I'm not old!!" I said. A different kid then says, "Well I mean you could seriously be like grandma, Ms. Fullerton!"

Ok so people usually think I'm still in high school which is annoying and now people think I'm a grandma! Where did my 20's go!!!

This is what I put up with!

Same kid who said I was an old lady talks non stop in my class. I mean running commentary to everything I say. There is no stopping him from talking so I just try to ride it out and then refocus. Friday we were going to go on a field trip and we had about 15 minutes in the class before we were leaving so we were playing addition/subtraction bingo. This is what I was hearing. I'll type what I was saying in all caps. Oh and this is at the speed of about a mile a minute no joke.

"FOUR PLUS SIX" "4 plus 6! Oh my gosh I don't even know 4 plus 6. I don't even know what comes after four. What comes after four!!! I think it's 5. 5,6,7,8,9,10. I think the answer is 10 is the answer ten Ms. Fullerton. oh ya you can't tell us! oh my gosh I don't have any tens!" I interrupt the ongoing commentary with "THREE PLUS FOUR" "3 plus 4!!! oh my gosh 3 plus 4! I don't even know 3 plus 4!!! I don't even know what comes after 3!!I think it's 4. Is it 4? 4,5,6,7! I think the answer is 7. Is the answer 7? I don't even know. Ah dang it I don't even have a 7."

This goes on and on with the same thing after every question and usually I just interrupt with the problem. None of the other kids even act like this is strange and no one looks at him except me. I'm thinking "What the heck! How can he never stop and how do I handle this for 6 more weeks!!!"

Sorry about the many posts with kids stories! I'll try to make my next post about something more interesting!

Nell No!

2008-04-16T19:20:00.004-05:00

I have a funny story for ya'll. There is this little boy at my school who is so cute and hilarious. He pulls his khaki pants way up high and then tightens his belt as tight as it will go with his short tucked in. His pants needless to say are a little on the short side. Side note story: One day he told his teacher, "Sometimes my pants get stuck around my wazoo!" Well ya that would be because you keep pulling them up. We think he likes it but we won't go there today.

Anyways last week some of the first grade boys were talking about how they wanted to go to one of the boys house to play. Well this boy's mom works at the school and they live way out in Decatur. She was telling them that her house is pretty far and so maybe they could meet in the middle somewhere and go to a movie or something. George decides at this point to say, "If I asked my mom that she would say no. Actually she would say NELL No! That means really really no." hahaha yes he actually said nell. We all had a good laugh at that one because he obviously did not know what he was saying right then.

Another story for your enjoyment. Two of the fourth graders got in a fight one time. One of these boys is really good and never fights so it was kind of shocking. The teacher had them come inside and sit while she went to talk the principal. When she comes back out this boy has his head down on his desk. She says, "Fred (names have been changed :)) Mrs. Edwards wants to see you in her office" He holds up a finger (as if to say hold on a second.... not the other finger). She waits a few seconds and says again, "Fred, Mrs. Edwards would like to see you right now." He holds up the finger again. Now she is getting irritated. So she says it one more time. He waits a second then stands up and very seriously says, "Sorry, I was praying before I had to go in to see Mrs. Edwards." She had to turn around because she was laughing so hard. He was so serious and scared that it was funny. Oh man kids are so hilarious sometimes!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

2008-04-15T21:19:00.004-05:00

I have a confession. I have been listening to Christmas music in my car non stop since Thursday. Yes this is true. One of my friends introduced me to what she likes to call Christmas Friday two years ago. Basically that means that every Friday you listen to Christmas music in your car. It is joyous. I suggest it to all. Well I took that to heart but soon that just wasn't enough. I needed Christmas music whenever and wherever I wanted it. So I did just that. Usually a couple of weeks after Christmas I get burnt out of my 50 favorite Christmas songs ( I have more but I have a playlist of about 50 that I like best). Then in about March/April the fun starts up again. This year was a little late.

Thursday morning as I was driving to work I didn't know what to listen to. Usually I listen to peppy music in the morning so that I will be all ready for the day. Ex. Hairspray was on the list for awhile. Well I couldn't decide and I was feeling a little down about it not being Friday and I was tired so of course I threw on some Christmas tunes and boy was that a good decision. All day I was singing and dancing to Christmas music when alone. I did it again on Friday. Then Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and even Tuesday! I just can't get enough!

You probably all know about my love for the holidays! I love winter time. The cold weather, snow, fires, family, skiing, Christmas music, lights. It's all so fun! I don't know why others don't celebrate for a little longer. Christmas music and lights do not just have to be celebrated during the weeks after Thanksgiving and before New Years. No I say! They should be extended to all cold months! Summer celebrating does not end on July 4th. People go swimming and have back yard get togethers and all things summer even after school starts. It is celebrated till the last hot day. Why can winter not be this way? Christmas music and lights just feel right even in November and February. And even this morning when it was so cold it felt right. Call me crazy. I will continue to celebrate this way until it catches on. Yes I will probably be that weirdo old lady that keeps up her lights into February but who cares at least it will be fun! So put on your favorite Christmas tunes and give a little dance. I'm sure it will make your Wednesday just that much better. I'll be listening to my tunes tomorrow morning. If you need any suggestions just let me know.

Happy Winter!!

Melanie

School

2008-04-10T06:22:00.003-05:00

I forgot I started this post on Wednesday. Just now getting around to finishing it.

Well I just finished my second week of school! It has been so fun so far and way better than my old job! I don't remember what all I said about it in my last post but I teach Classroom 3, ages 9-11. Basically what that means is that at the beginning of the year we test the kids and then group them into ability level groups and place them in a classroom. The kids call it 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc, but since for example the first grade class has two 7 year olds, a 9 year old, and a 10 year old they just call it classroom 1.

Anyways I have 6 kids. Four of them have Aspergers and two are dyslexic. They are all pretty high functioning except for one but he is smart, you just have to really work one on one with him. They are so hilarious though! I have one kids who is the most enthusiastic kid you have ever met. It is his only emotion. Everything I say he shouts out, "GOOD IDEA MS. FULLERTON!" or "GOOD POINT MS. FULLERTON!" or "GREAT JOB ------- (insert anyone's name here)" It is so funny! Sometimes he will suggest that he puts his paper on my desk and when I say that is fine e tells me that I had a good idea for him to do that. He is also VERY smart. He makes A's on everything and is super excited to get papers back. He wants to know if everything is going to be graded. On the first day he made all 100s and one 96 and he was disappointed so I told him that an A is still really good. So the next day he happened to make a 76 on something. He looked at the paper then looked at me and screamed, "ALRIGHT PASSING!!!!!" I almost died laughing!

The class also likes to sing A LOT! I tell them that as long as they continue working then they can sing so we play a lot of music in my classroom. The funny thing is though that sometimes when we are working one fo them will all of a sudden stand up and say, "a 1 a 2 a 1,2,3,4" and then somehow they will all break out into the same song. Usually they sing, "bow chica wow wow" from Chipmunks or "the continent song" or "I like to move it move it" from Madagascar. Then they start saying, "What's cracka lackin Ms. Fullerton?" This is like my dream classroom if you can't tell.

So now you know what my classroom is like every day. We usually never get all the work done that I planned but that's just how it is. You just have to see how the kids are doing that day and let them work at their pace.

Update on Jovi: I have spent the entire day sitting on the couch and getting up every 30 minutes to take the dog out. She is having a nasty case of the runs. I woke up this morning to see that she had gone diarrhea 5 times in her cage last night. Cleaning up diarrhea is not my idea of a fun saturday morning activity. I'm hoping it is just because of the change from her old food. She wouldn't eat since yesterday morning though so I went to find what she used to eat and couldn't find it at PetSmart. They had the brand (Pedigree) and the wet food but not the same one. I still bought it and she ate it but so far the runs are still going strong. I'll keep you posted. I know you were just dying to read something like this on a saturday. yummy.

New Puppy!!!

2008-04-06T19:45:00.004-05:00

I got a new puppy this weekend! No I was not planning on it but she was just so cute! I've actually been thinking about getting one for a couple of months but the plan was that when I move I would get one. However, this weekend my sisters, mom, and I all went to Canton and well I came home with this little thing!

Isn't she cute! Her name is Jovi. You know off Elf? As you all know I am a Christmas fanatic. Casey Lewis had the great idea that we should name all the pets we ever get after Christmas things. She actually came up with the name Jovi for me and I thought it was so cute.

She is so tiny! She weighs about a pound and shouldn't get bigger than 3-4 pounds full grown. I went to PetCo yesterday when I got home with her so I could get all the essentials and I found this tiny little shirt. The shirt said "Let it Snow" on it and well since she has a Christmas name I thought she needed the shirt. Plus it was on sale for $3 and I got it in the smallest size and then I realized that it just drowns her out. Maybe one day it will fit her. I will post a picture of that later.

Everyone is welcome to come see her. Ok she just woke up and is trying to jump around so we're going to go play!!

I have Issues

2008-03-30T21:03:00.002-05:00

I've had a few things on my mind lately. One of which is why I am scared of so many stupid things. I'm not talking about real scares like murders...see The Murderer Who Came For Me Last Night (Post 2), no I'm talking about stupid things. In the next couple of posts I plan on telling ya'll things I'm scared of and why.

I'll start with Roaches. I have always been scared of roaches. They are black and they scurry real fast. They creep me out. I'm getting the shivers just thinking about it. I'm not talking like a normal girl scared either. I'm talking like one time when I was home alone (for a whole 5 hours or so) I saw a roach in the study and ran out screaming and shaking and then after watching the door for about 30 minutes finally got the nerve to run and shut the door and stuff towels under the cracks so it couldn't get out and my parents could take care of it when they got home. I have never killed a roach. I'm too afraid that they will be faster than me and when I go to squish it will climb up my foot.

One time in high school, I believe this was the summer after my sophomore year... maybe junior year our family friends, the Bryan's, oldest daughter was getting married. My mom volunteered to house the grooms family and all the groomsmen for the entire weekend of the wedding. We had never met these people and so my mom was freaking out trying to make the house as clean as possible before anyone arrived. We spent weeks trying to get everything perfect. My mom was in high stress mode and we all know that when this is the case we should just stay out of sight and pray that she doesn't spot us.

Well it was the day before everyone was to arrive and my mother had ordered us to scrub our bathrooms and do one final room clean. I was in the bathroom, minding my own business, sitting on the side of the tub and scrubbing away. I was wearing shorts and the shower curtain was lightly touching my leg. All of a sudden I felt something drop on my leg. At first I assumed it was the shower curtain and kept on with my business. Then it moved. And to my complete horror when I looked down... there was a big, nasty, disgusting, horrible roach crawling on my leg. I immediately jumped up and started screaming my head off. My mom is downstairs and screams to see what is wrong. I run to the banister and start yelling that a roach is in my bathroom and the water is running and there is no way in H-E-L-L that I am going back in there until she kills that thing. She starts yelling that there is no way she is coming up there and I better take care of it myself. By now my entire body is shaking and I am crying hysterically. Seriously I am. After about 5 minutes of my mom yelling at me to get my butt back in there and turn off the dang water and stop acting like such a baby I get the nerve to go check out the situation.

And what do I see you ask? Somehow the plug has stopped so that the bath tub is filling up and the roach is SWIMMING in the water. Oh ya right!!! Like I am going to stick my hand in there and unplug the drain. So I return to the banister and cry some more. Hoping my tears will soften her heart to come help her darling second child at the age of 15 to just kill the roach for goodness sake! It didn't work. By now the tub is about to overflow and I am tearfully on the floor begging my little sister to do the job for me. She says no. I beg and beg. It doesn't work. I say I'll pay her 5 dollars to pull the plug and then kill the roach. She says okay. Finally, someone is on my side. She gets the job done and I pay up. I still think about this almost every time I get in the shower. I look up on top of that shelf above my toilet and pray that there are no roaches up there today. Thankfully it hasn't happened since. But I have never done a great job cleaning the tub since then. I just get in and get it done asap. The faster the better.

Next to come: Crickets in my pants and in the car.

New Job!

2008-03-27T06:41:00.002-05:00

My parents left yesterday for New York. That means another weekend home alone. I'm hoping everything goes smoothly this time so I can report back and not sound like a total loser. So far so good. I'll keep you posted though. Yesterday I tried to post a video of my mom and two of her sisters doing the dance to soulja boy but it wouldn't let me post it. This is horrible because you people really need to see this video. And I just want to go ahead and clear up my good name and tell all of you that I do not know this dance and did not teach them this dance. But these are the type of things we do at Christmas time. There are no words for what happens in this house when my mom's side of the family comes over. You just need to experience it first hand. Anyone want to come to Thanksgiving this year? I'll really try to get this video to work because it would be a real tragedy for the whole world not to see it.

On another note, I got a new job today! I will now be teaching third grade at Hill School in Grapevine. It is a private school for kids with learning disabilities. I spent yesterday and the day before that over there all day to get a feel for the school (hence the no posting). I start on Monday! AHHH! Oh ya did I mention that they are moving to a new building this week and so I also have to go set up a room and be ready for the open on house on Sunday afternoon. hahaha! No but seriously I am really excited and I can't wait to start! I will have an assistant teacher until the end of the year too. She has been substituting the past 2 weeks while they haven't had a teacher and she has subbed for them bfore and also has a kid in the 2nd grade there. Since the kids are familiar with her she will stay to help me out till the end of the year. This is great since I'm sure I'll be asking her alot of questions about curriculum. Wish me luck!

Addictions

2008-03-25T08:20:00.004-05:00

I need to talk to ya'll about an addiction that I have called puzzles. I love them. I'm not talking like sudoku or crossword or word searches...though I love those too, especially on car rides, I'm talking like real 1000 piece puzzles. Usually this addiction only takes place during Christmas/Thanksgiving as my granddad and one aunt are also puzzle maniacs. Please please hold your laughing judgment. These things can not be helped. Well I have to say that it has gotten worse. You see I have this problem that I have to multi task all the time. I can't do just one thing. It drives me crazy. Mostly this really bothers me when watching TV or movies. I just can not sit still through a TV show. So When I first moved back home and after Christmas was over and everyone went home I still didn't have a job. And I was bored to death!!! So I proceeded to conquer half the movies that we own and doing every puzzle that we have. I had alot of time on my hand.

My usual schedule went something like this: wake up at about 9 and do DDR for an hour... I love that too. What can I say; I'm a girl of many addictions. Then I would go take a shower and get ready for the day, go downstairs, talk to my mom, check my email and facebook, eat lunch and then go back upstairs. This is when I would pop in a movie. Well as you know I just can’t sit there so I decided to see if we had any puzzles. And by golly we did. So this is what I did during the month of January. Then I got a job and it was sad and now I have to work and don't have as much time for puzzles. My life is so hard these days! *sigh* So I had to put my puzzle mania on hold until about 2 weeks ago. I decided that I wanted to watch this TV series that I had so of course I needed a puzzle.

Side Note: I really do have friends here in Dallas. I promise. No really, I promise. And their not so bad either even though most of them went to Harding. They just live far away and so I only hang out with them on the weekend. Seriously I do!!

I just want to show ya’ll a picture of the puzzle yesterday when I got home from work. I started this puzzle on Sunday after church and this is a picture from Monday at 5.

Ok I have another confession to make. I've done this one puzzle about 5 times. Stop laughing. I love this puzzle. Not because of the picture, because frankly I'd rather it be a picture of a diet coke, or maybe a piece of cake or something. I'm hungry right now if you can't tell. Ok so here is why I've done it so much though. All the other puzzles are either too easy or too hard. I know I know you're probablly all thinking, "if she's such a puzzle maniac then whey does she not do the real hard ones?" Well although I do like to multi task that doesn't mean I like to think to hard. And when all the pieces look alike and are the same shape... it's just not that much fun.

Ok now here is a picture of the puzzle later that night. I did eat dinner and even watch a movie downstairs with my parents so let's pretend like I didn't spend two hours upstairs puzzling and will just say I'm really fast.

Almost finished! I think tonight while I watch the Biggest Loser I'll finish it. I love that show. Oh and I really don't puzzle every night. I mean on Wednesday night I watch American Idol with my mom and on Thursday night I watch Lost with my parents. So stop judging me already. If you have any puzzles you were thinking about getting rid of then send them my way. And if you have any advice of how to overcome my many addictions then please let me know.

Wrecks

2008-03-24T09:17:00.001-05:00

So yesterday my little sister Cara and her friend Melani came home for Easter. I know I know… a bff with the same name as her sister? No e though. Sorry Jenny…I guess I’m the favorite sis. Anyways they left after church yesterday to drive back to Abilene and they got in a big wreck. Their car flipped five times and flew across the median all the way on the other side of oncoming traffic. Thank goodness they were ok. Onlookers said that at one point their car went 25 feet up in the air. They were taken to the hospital in Eastland. Cara had some cuts on her knee and her hand and then she has a big contusion on her shoulder. Melani had some glass in her arm. Other than that they were fine. They were pretty shaken up though and her car is totaled. The people who received the car said they thought for sure someone would have died based on how bad it looked. Anyways just thought I would let ya’ll know what happened. Cara was embarrassed because they sent out an ACU email to the entire school about what happened haha and that means they will probably pray for them in chapel too.

This reminded me of another wreck we had one time. About 6 years ago we were in Breckenridge for Spring Break. We were supposed to leave on Friday morning but there was a big snow storm coming in so we decided to come in early on Thursday and leave that afternoon since my dad needed to catch a flight back on Friday afternoon. We got in the car and started heading out. Thank goodness we left when we did because the storm started and only got worse that weekend. If you know me and Jenny at all you know that we are both freaking out!! I mean I don’t like driving in the mountains even when it isn’t snowing; all that winding makes me nervous.

So we’re in are old suburban with one of those big things on the top to pack all your suitcases and skis in. Jenny and Cara are in the middle bucket seats and I’m in the back in the middle seat. Well my dad is probably going about 10… maybe 15 mph. Though still we kept seeing cards skidding and sliding off the road. Me and Jenny are saying “slow down dad, slow down!!!” about ever 15 seconds. It’s just what we do ok. I’m in the back and I’m thinking well if we get in a wreck then I’m going to be the one to die since I don’t have a shoulder strap. Ok so I’m a little dramatic but I can’t help it. So all of a sudden our car starts to skid. My mom, very calmly, says, “Don’t scream girls but we’re going to flip.” Of course Jenny immediately starts screaming and I immediately start yelling, “SHUT UP JENNY SHUT UP!!!” I don’t think this really helped at all. So then our car is spinning in circles on the road and we start to slide off the road. Oh ya did I mention we are on the side of a mountain? So we start sliding off the side of the mountain. And then we stop.

We all scramble to get out of the car ASAP in case it starts sliding more. Now guess what two cars were behind us? A triple A truck and a police car. So this teeny little truck attaches the wire from his car to our car and attempts to pull us up. Our car is so heavy that his car starts to slide even with the cement blocks against the tire. Ok long story short is about 30 minutes later we finally got pulled out. He told us if we had gone even 5 more feet we would have flipped down the entire mountain. Then we had to all squeeze into an eighteen wheeler that towed us to a car station… all we had was 2 flat tires. Of course they stuck me right next to the driver with no seatbelt… middle children really have it hard. We were pretty lucky.

All this to say… I think Cara handled herself much better in a way scarier situation than me and Jenny could have. Sorry Jenny… we may be older but I think we are the more dramatic ones of the family.

Drag Queens

2008-03-21T15:17:00.001-05:00

Well I’ve been out of town this past week in Ft. Lauderdale with some friends and quite a few interesting things happened. I want to tell you about one in particular. Since I don’t have my pictures up yet I’ll have to describe in detail until I can give ya’ll a picture to look at. Don’t worry it will be coming soon hopefully!

So on Saturday afternoon three of my friends and I all flew to Ft. Lauderdale for a much needed vacation *note: I have only been working for a month and a half but I don’t care I wanted a vacation. Anyways the first day we were there we were looking through and little booklet that the hotel gave us of activities to do in Ft. Lauderdale and we came across a restaurant called Lips. I kid you not the name of this place was Lips. And you’ll never guess what kind of restaurant it was… a drag queen restaurant. And so of course we thought, “um we HAVE to go there!!” So on Tuesday night we took ourselves out for a nice night at Lips.

Well Stephanie didn’t come with us that night. She wasn’t feeling so good so she stayed in and Kyla, Leah, and I went out for what would soon become the best night of our lives. We got to the restaurant, which was all neon with huge lipstick containers as the pillars, and got our table. We were sitting in great viewing pleasure of the stage. Our waiter/waitress?... we’ll just say “waitress” and “she” to make it easier, came out to take our order. Now this diva/queen was a sight for sore eyes. She had great dark lipstick on and eyes all done up in a metallic silver dress. Her name you ask? Martina Sky!! She took our order and we were just all smiles and excitement to be there. Well then Porscha, the head diva, came out and she sang us some songs. She was pretty good too… had a real good impersonation of a ladies voice and was hilarious. She then announced each Diva… one of which had better legs than all three of us… so not fair and they lip sang to their favorite songs. Well Martina of course sang “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. Well obviously we were probably the loudest and happiest people in the place. Just dancing in our booth and singing along. How can you not be joyful in a place like this I ask you?

So about this time was when our new best friends walked in and sat down in the booth right by us. Paul and Ken have been together for 25 years and married for 5 and yes they are gay. Well of course we just HAD to talk to them. I mean hello they looked fabulous! So after we met Paul… Ken didn’t really talk to us, Porscha got the mic and said “who in here is a heterosexual???” Of course we cheered loud and danced around… one of about 3 tables in the house. Then our friend Paul looked at us like he was real disappointed and said, “oh really? That’s too bad” Well whatever Paul. So we were just living it up talking to Paul, taking him and his man’s picture on his camera phone and having him take our picture.

So then after the performance and dinner it was karaoke time baby!! Well so sorry to tell ya’ll this but I DO NOT sing karaoke. I don’t care that everyone in that place was drunk and I would never see them again because after some real bad acts of other girl groups I was not about to get up there. Well we find out Porscha is from Midland and so of course we call her over to tell her we are from Texas and Leah is in fact from Midland, also we just wanted to meet the Queen Diva. Paul was disappointed in our Texas background too but we made up for it by being awesome. So then Porscha wants us to sing Dixie Chicks, “Earl Had to Die” So Leah and Kyla prepare to go up there. Well it starts off with Leah saying the following in a complete hick accent, “We’re here to do everything we can to make all ya’lls Texas stereotypes come true”. Then she inserted a few “yeehaw’s” every now in then during the song just to top things off. *Video to come later*. Paul then leans over to me to say, “Oh gracious I hope she doesn’t remember this in the morning!” I reply with, “oh totally… and that right there is why I did not go on stage.”

So then Paul and I start talking about Dolly Parton. Now Paul just LOVES Dolly Parton. So I mention that one time in New York I saw her at a Broadway musical. His reply was, “OH… MY… GOD was she just GORGEOUS?” I reply with, “OF COURSE!!! When is Dolly Parton NOT gorgeous?” Then he says, “You are telling me? She is just absolutely fabulous!!” “Fabulous and breathtaking” I mention (P.S. I do not believe any of this to be true of Dolly Parton…. I’m just playing into the night) so then he wants to know who she was with etc etc. Oh Paul and I were just having a grand ole time. Man what a night.

Oh did I mention that Martina Sky thought she was HOT STUFF? Every time she passed a mirror, (which were on EVERY wall in the place) she primped her hair and made a kissy face at herself. When she sang her song she changed into a super short tight pink with black dots dress and pink tulle around the bottom with fishnet shirt that ended just below the boobs. Of course when she came back to our table we announced to her, “how FABULOUS and AMAZING she looked in that outfit” Her response was that she is, “going for the Cindy Lauper look” Leah then told her that she should try some “red in her hair” She said “of course, I would LOVE that”. Oh we were just chatting it up. She is our best friend now.

So anyways that was our night out at Lips. If only this could happen again. It was the best part of our vacation. That and the 19 yr old guy who sang us a song he wrote… I’ll save that for a later post.

Annoying

2008-03-14T11:57:00.004-05:00

Why do people feel the need to talk while one person is standing right in front of your desk and the other is standing right behind your chair? It sure makes it awkward for the person in the middle. What do you do? Listen and look back and forth? Stare at your blank computer screen like you are contemplating on the background? Or get up and walk away? I mean it's just weird. That just happened to me for a full 4 minutes. I know because I was watching the clock and thinking, "please just step one foot to the side so I am not positioned in between ya'll and the situation would be solved. Alas, they did not step to the side.

Optimism

2008-03-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

I want to start out with telling ya’ll a story about how my optimism affects me. Now I would say that I’m a generally happy and optimistic person. I tend to think that everything is going to work out great and even when it doesn’t I jut make a new greater plan. This usually doesn’t work out either but will get into that later.

So about a year and a half ago I decided that I would get a gym membership with my friend Casey in Abilene. Now I’m sure every female can relate to what I’m about to say. About once a month I make a new plan about how I’m going to lose a ton of weight for this upcoming thing and man will I look good. It never happens. So last year when we got these memberships we were doing really well about going every day and working out. In fact we were doing so good that we decided we were actually going to train for a mini triathlon and eventually do a whole triathlon. Now those of you who know me well will laugh in my face about this and if you don’t know me well then you should laugh too.

So here is what are training consisted of: we would do a few miles on the elliptical each day (you see because I just don’t like the treadmill or running… oh wait you mean you have to run in a triathlon? Dang it!) And then maybe 20-30 minutes on the bike every now in then. In fact I even had to teach Casey to ride a bike. Sure she used to ride as a kid but couldn’t remember how. So after buying a bike at Wal-Mart… a little boy’s bike at that… I’m short, get over it, and those are the cheap ones, we embarked on our adventure. After hitting a few parked cars and some trash cans we were on our way to accomplishing our mini triathlon. Did I mention that one time someone talked me into trying to pop a curb on my bike and it was the most painful thing I ever did? Let’s just say it didn’t work out. Don’t listen to your friends when they tell you to do stupid things. Now Casey also decided to start swimming because as you all know swimming is part of a triathlon. Well to tell the truth I really just don’t like to swim so I decided to ignore that part because when the time came the love for swimming would enter my body as well as the stamina to go the whole way. At least that is what I thought. So now from what you can see the only thing I’m actually doing that will benefit the triathlon is the bike and to be honest we only did that about once a week. But boy were we excited. Every day when we worked out we talked about our mini triathlon and we told our friends about it (they probably laughed behind are back). We are both so optimistic that we never thought for a minute that this might not happen. In fact eventually it faded out and I never thought about it again until today when she brought it back to my memory. I guess I was suppressing those negative thoughts of not completing my goal. Oh ya I forgot to tell ya’ll that this training, though it sounds like we kept it up for quite sometime, actually only lasted about 3 weeks. That’s when we started playing basketball at the gym. And when I say playing I mean we would talk about running lines but then we would just shoot free throws. We were pretty good if anyone wants to challenge us to a two on two match. At least we had good intentions. I really think that we should lose weight by having good intentions and not just by working out.

I have one last story for ya’ll and this story is about the time I decided not to be optimistic anymore. So last semester I began my search for the perfect teaching job. In fact I found one at Dallas isd. It wasn’t too far from home and it was Kindergarten. I love kindergarten because they learn so much and say the funniest things ever. Plus if you need an ego boost just go into a kindergarten room. They are obsessed with you and think you are the prettiest person that ever lived. It’s awesome. So I began the process of the online application. Now this took me about a week… I sometimes “feel” like I’m busy and can’t get things done but really I’m just “busy” hanging out with people. So during this week I began to picture my dream job. I imagined the lessons I would do and how much the kids would love me and how the parents would love me so much that I would get teacher of the year my first year and just exactly how I would decorate my perfect little room… in fact I even drew a diagram of that (don’t judge me). So I was in such a state of happiness I didn’t even think about the fact that I still had to apply, call for an interview, ace the interview, and get hired. Well I finally called the school and to my dismay the job had ALREADY BEEN FILLED!!!! Why God??? Why did you let me get so excited just to dash my dreams! Nothing will ever be the same again!! These were the thoughts running through my head.

Oh wait the next day I found a 1st grade job online. Ok so it’s not kindergarten but wow will first grade be so totally awesome and everyone will want my advice even the veteran teachers because I will have such innovative ideas. Man will I be good. Ok that job was already filled to. This happened about 2 more times before I decided to forget optimism. It was just too hard having my dreams dashed each time. So I finally landed an interview for a 2nd grade job. Ok forget it I just can’t help being optimistic because obviously this is my new perfect position. And since I got the interview then they were going to LOVE me and nothing was stopping me now. Ok so I didn’t get that job. Then a school contacted ME I mean I didn’t call them they called ME! Man I must have done something good and that surely meant I had it in the bag or they wouldn’t have even called me right? Nope didn’t get that one. Ok this happened one more time before I decided to forget teaching for the semester it was just to hard to get a job. I know I know I only went on 3 interviews but I’m not used to being rejected, after all in my mind I’m apparently the perfect teacher that everyone wants at their school. They probably didn’t hire me so the other teachers wouldn’t be jealous.

So I’m trying not to dream so much. Well it’s not working yet but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. That’s not working either. Oh well I guess I’m confined to a life of optimism. I hope you don’t have problems like me!

The Murderer Who Came For Me Last Night!!

2008-03-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

Subtitle: The longest blog in history! But trust me it is worth the read!

Ok so you might be thinking, “What prompted Melanie to finally start this blog?” Actually it was something that happened last night and I would like to share with ya’ll the ridiculousness that is my imagination.

To start things off I would like to say that after graduating from college in December I have been living with my parents. This is not at all a bad set up, free food, free rent, people who have to listen to me talk, I mean it’s really quite nice but just to be honest I’m ready to leave. So I met some girls in Dallas through a friend and they “asked” me to live with them one day when they move out of their current house… if ya’ll are reading this I still plan on taking ya’ll up on that offer… hopefully it was real offer and not one of those fake invites! But if they do not move out I have considered moving in to a one bedroom apartment for a small period of time. My plans have completely changed after last night.

Yesterday my parents left for California before I even woke up. Now as many of you know when I have the house to myself I do not automatically think “freedom baby!!” I think “ahhh this is scary. Be brave. You can do it. No you can’t. Get out now!” Well awhile back they went to Honduras and I braved two of the nights alone at my house and it went quite well. I’m still sleeping downstairs when I’m alone but it’s a huge step especially considering I actually fell asleep at a normal hour. Hold your applause please. So when they told me they were going to California I now thought, “all right this is good, I need to get used to this.”

So yesterday I arrived home from work at about 5:15 and promptly set the alarm as I wasn’t planning on going out for the rest of the night, I mean hello American Idol comes on at 8 and I have a puzzle going on upstairs that I’ve been working on. What more could a girl in her early 20’s ask for… exciting I know!! So my night was going great. I was puzzling and watching TV, and then at 9:45 the dog decided she had to go to the bathroom. So I went to let her out. When I opened the door I heard a faint bell like sound in the distance. “What is that?” I wondered, “Oh well” I thought and shut the door. About 60 seconds later I thought, “Oh shoot that was the alarm!!!” So I ran to turn it off. I then rummaged around looking for the alarm code key to give the alarm company when they called. They never called. So I went up stairs, turned on some good tunes, and proceeded to dance around while I packed for my trip on Saturday… Now everyone here knows I’m a good dancer so don’t even think about judging me just beacuse I often go to my room and dance around when I’m bored/in the morning when I get ready/every Saturday when I clean. I then proceeded to change into my nastiest of nasty pajamas. I’m talking pants that are 2 sizes to large and the crotch literally comes down to my knees and a shirt that is also 2 sizes to large. Don’t judge. You know you have them too and they are dang comfy if I do say so and who’s going to see me anyways. So I dance my way downstairs (this time to the music in my head) and get on the computer for my nightly email check before I turn in. It is now 10:30 fyi.

Sorry this is getting so long but I like to get the details right. I want ya’ll to feel what I was feeling. So all of a sudden someone is knocking on the door!!!!! Logically I think, “Oh my gosh a murderer has come to kill me while I’m home alone!!!!” This is no joke I’m actually thinking this. Then the dog starts growling. And usually she just barks at the door so I then think, “Oh gosh!! Dog’s KNOW when a murderer is at the door and she is trying to protect me” So now I’m crouched in the study and I grab the house phone to call my parents. The phone doesn’t ring. So I hang up and call the neighbor. The phone doesn’t ring. They have obviously cut the power lines to come and get me so I can’t call 911. This is straight from a movie. *NOTE: Actual thought process. Oh wait!!! I have a cell phone in my other hand! Thank the Lord for technology. I call my parents. They don’t answer!! They hate me and want me to die! I call the neighbor. She doesn’t answer. Why does everyone want me dead!! I’m about to dial 911. In fact I have it dialed and my finger is on the talk button just in case. I know all you girls have been there. Don’t try to deny it. Just accept.

All of a sudden they are in the garage and trying to open the door into the house!!! Oh my gosh how the H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS did they get into the garage! I shut the garage door for goodness sake! Then they are at the back door that leads into the backyard trying to open that. Then they are at my parent’s back door trying to get in. I promptly drop to the ground and army crawl/run *it was awkward I know* to the dining room so I can peek out the window. By now my whole body is literally shaking and my heart is about to pound out of my body. What do I see you ask? A man in all black with a chainsaw? Someone in an army tank trying to take over my house? Hillary Clinton trying to kill me so I won’t vote against her? No I say to you, there were two police cars in the front of my house!

All this freaking out for nothing!!!!!! I then run to the back door to open the door for these nice men who have come to check on me and to find out what the heck is going on that they would show up at my house at 10:30 on a work night. So when I open the door of course what is running through my head is, “are they going to pull their guns on me?” Don’t worry, they didn’t. But what IS happening is my alarm is going off and they have come to check it out. Here is what comes out of my mouth when I open the door, “oh my… scared, home…. alone and um the alarm and um I had the call to card and card to call alarm... company... card... i'm freaking out" What I meant to say was, “Wow ya’ll had me nervous, I’m home alone and the alarm went off when I let the dog out but the alarm company never called me and I forgot about it because it was 45 minutes ago.” What I wish I had wanted to say was this, “Hey guys what’s up? Ya’ll doing ok? Ya I’m just hanging out at my house and I was having this rad party upstairs and didn’t hear you knock. Sorry about that. Can I get you a cup of coffee or a diet coke?” I think they got the gist though. So I show them my id and they are on there way.

My neighbor calls back and 15 minutes later after I’ve finally recounted the whole story I’m starting to calm down. Then what do you know the doorbell rings. The police are back. The alarm went off again. Oh ya Melanie that would be because you opened to door for the police the first time and didn’t turn the alarm off. Oh wait you are doing the same thing right now. So they come in and chat with me awhile, my neighbor comes over to check it out as they give me the up down look probably thinking “she is a fashion nightmare thank goodness we came… now she will have the sense to not wear such nasty pajamas even if she is home alone.”

So that’s my story. I blame it on the dog. I mean she was the one who had to pee. I usually thank God for my active imagination but last night as I was cursing the dog I sent curses upon God as well for that imagination of mine. This is what I said, "I curse you god, you mighty spiter, you laugh upon my scardy catness and I curse this dog too for having to pee and setting off the alarm" Ok I didn’t really curse God but I did think things like “that stupid butt head dog. I dislike her”… just trying to keep it PG 13 here. She must have heard the curses because this morning as I showered she decided to leave me a little gift right outside the game room and as I went to walk down stairs I stepped in a big puddle of pee. As it oozed between my toes and my new perfectly manicured toes that I did last night I cursed her again.

That’s all friends. Sorry the first post is so long but when something like this happens I just feel the need to share it with everyone. My deep down gut feeling tells me ya’ll really don’t care, but I ignore that and I believe ya’ll are on pins and needles just dying to know what happened to me last night. Thanks for caring guys! I’ll try to keep my future posts smaller and incorporate some pictures. Thanks for reading.

Side Note: I forgot to tell ya'll what happened with the phones. Earlier that evening I had been talking on the phone to my grandad. Now the idiot that I am instead of pressing end when the conversation was over I pressed mute. So that is why the phones weren't working. I blame this on my lack of home phone use in the past 5 years.

My New Blog!!

2008-03-13T11:12:00.000-05:00

So I’ve been thinking about creating a new blog since sometime last semester when these hilarious things kept happening to me while student teaching. I’ve finally decided to start it! I know you are all jumping for joy right now as you have most likely been checking my old china blog every day/hour/minute to see if I have updated it. Unfortunately I decided that was a blog only for China and I now need one for every day life.

I plan on just writing about the things that happen in my strange life as well as the even stranger things that go on in my head. I hope you all will enjoy this… When I say “you all” it really probably means Jenny and my mom... okay actually just my mom since Jenny is in grad school. Ok Ok I know I'm a loser but well you have to start somewhere and maybe someday my blog will grow so large that my fans will demand that I put my blog into book format and I will have written the autobiography that I plan on writing one day and everyone will want me to speak at conference's and want my autograph and I will be able to buy all the cool shoes I've ever wanted… but first I have to have a cool life though. Still working on that one. It's going to happen. Believe it.