J

Hi. sorry for not writing anything for the last few months but I will try to give you the highlights. The last few months have been eventful to say the least both in good ways and bad ways. towards the end of November I had a confrence in Naha which was a lot of fun. I got to go and check out mainland Okinawa which was great and I got to check out the aquarium on the upper end of the island. In mid December I got into a car crash. I am Okay but the car was totalled and it turned into a big debacle because my supervisor either forgot to or didn't bother checking what type of insurance I had and just assumed and told me that I was covered for anything, which I ... read more

Ok so maybe I have been gone too long. Can somebody please explain to me how Bush won. I mean (Pardon my language) WHAT THE FUCK?!! Well I can say that I am happy to be out of the country for the next few years, but what happened. what happened to Edwards' states. Middle America sucks as usual but I would of figured that most of the east coast would of been democratic or something. I just can't believe that we actually re-elected this guy again, when all is said and done he is going to be known as one of the worst presidents in the history of the united states and we freaking reelected him. It still seems sureal. Anyways all I know what I have been able to follow on the web if somebody ... read more

its been about a month since I last wrote so sorry about that. To give a quick synopsis of what I've been up to, a while ago I went to the Pontu festival which was interesting. Its a festival were these guys dress in monster costumes covered in mud and run around. they chase people and it is said that if you get mud on you it is good luck. it was fun and I guess I've got some luck coming my way. other than that there were a few undokais or sport festivals that I went to. I also went to a dance competition which was kinda fun. Kim another ALT organized a halloween function for the younger kids in miyako which most of the alts helped out with and was fun. There was also ... read more

So last friday there was a track and field tournament that was pretty fun. All the middle schools is Miyako participated. Since I was at Fukumine for the week I pretty much stayed with them. The highlight for me I guess was when they had a relay race for the teachers and I pretty much blew the competition away for my leg. Its really not saying much since I had about 10 to 15 years on all of them. The school seemed really happy though. It allowed us to get first and so all the teachers and the principal of the school were pretty happy. The day was cool too because it was on a friday instead of the weekend so I wasn't screwed out of a day. friday night I went drinking with the people ... read more

The first week at Gusukube went well. I felt that it had a bit of a shakey start for what ever reasons but it all worked out. the students are all pretty active. I only ended up teaching here three days this week though because of monday's holiday and a holiday again on thursday. I have a lot of control over the lesson planning here which is nice also. This week I've also really started to get serious into the fishing scene. I went night fishing tuesday and wednesday and thursday I spent the day exporing the island and fishing. I've only caught a lot of small stuff recently but I bearly missed a huge fish yesterday. I could be doing better but I've refused to to resort to what I have deemed as cheating. There ... read more

SO I haven't written in a while so I will give a quick synopsis of whats been going on so far. well my first week and Sunagawa was great the teachers were all really cool and the students were great.I was working with a student teacher again and we seemed to mesh well. the week also was a great help in figuring out how to be a teacher. On Saturday I played basketball with the Sunagawa basketball team which was quit a workout but a lot of fun. After that I met up with owen and went fishing. didn't get much though. On Sunday there were sport festivals (undokais) going on at two of my schools. I spent the morning at Fukumine and the afternoon at Seijo. The sport festivals were pretty cool. they are pretty ... read more

Well its my first day at Sunagawa and things seem to be going well. I already had my 2 classes of the day which were pretty easy because it was just my self introduction. It seemed to go well though. The weekend was pretty casual too. The weather here has been pretty misersble its like being back in portland almost. there aren't any typhoons but its be consistantly cloudy and raining on and off. it sucks. all I want to do is go to the beach or do some fishing. On friday night I went to Pizza which is a weekly ritual for most of the foriegners on the island. the owner of the pizza place is really cool. he is old and doesn't speak much english but he gives us a pretty good deal (1 ... read more