Portraits and windshield wiper fluid

YES! I remembered to blog this week! Just barely- but I did!

I am not really sure what to blog about this time, once again.

Last week, I had only elementary school and kindergarten classes. The outcome- lots of energy drained and my Japanese language brain hardly functioned on Friday.

A few 1st graders took a "draw whatever you want" opportunity to draw me!

Here's my favorite of the ones I managed to take home.



Not bad, huh? :)

It's a sweet feeling when kids decide they want to draw you.

The weather has been AWESOME lately. Did I mention that before in an earlier blog? Well, it's true! I love sweater weather more than I can easily say.

Last weekend, I purchased wind shield wiper fluid for the first time in Japan (and second time in my entire life.)

I don't really know what to call the store that I went to- but it had things like auto supplies, insecticides, gardening things, and the like. I guess I can compare it best with Home Depot or Orchard Supply.

Anyway, I've never been to one of those kinds of stores before in Japan. Traveling people and people living somewhere short term don't go to those stores, right?

So walking around that store I felt oddly happy because I felt that for the first time in a very long time that no one would assume that I am a tourist and that I don't know what I am doing (well, anymore than -anyone- would). It sounds weird, but I can't wait until I have another excuse to go there. (haha)

Pretty grand

Yikes! I totally forgot about this blog last week.

Well, here we go then-

I don't really feel up to doing the Kagoshima touristy places blog right now because I'm trying to get this entry out quickly because I'm pretty tired and distracted by about a million other things.

(Actually, I am having a hard time getting myself into the idea of writing it in the first place.)

This week was my first week teaching again in the new school year. It's been fun with the new middle school 1st years. I really enjoy being part of the beginning of the school year far more than I enjoyed jumping in during the middle of one. The students seem to see me more as a familiar face and I feel like they're a lot more comfortable with me now than they were last term. I think I am a lot more comfortable with them, too.

The weather has been very nice lately- bordering on HOT (at least to Central Coast Californian standards.) I've walked around wearing jeans and a t-shirt and still thought it was pretty hot. Anyway, since I am such a wimp when it comes to cold, I am really enjoying this heat.

I suppose I don't have a lot to say right now, besides the fact that I am really, truly enjoying my life here right now. My apartment feels clean, my job is fun, my bank account has money, the weather is nice, and my overall mood is pretty grand.

Ashes, Ashes

OK- so first of all... a little bit of blog housekeeping-

1) I just realized that the picture links on the top of this page expired, so I updated them. Please please PLEASE inform me in the future if you notice that they expired. I have -no idea- how long those links had been like that. *sigh*

2) I was told that my blog doesn't allow comments? I don't know. At first I thought that maybe the problem was that I accidentally made it so anonymous posters couldn't post comments. I checked and I already had it correctly. If you -still- can't comment here on this site, maybe it's because a pop up blocker is not allowing for the comment box to come up. :S If you have trouble commenting LET. ME. KNOW. If it's broken, I am NOT doing that on purpose.

3) Sorry this is rather late this week. I had a topic but then I got distracted by another topic. I STILL don't know exactly what this blog will be about.

OK, let's move on with the blog entry itself...

The new school year started here in Japan and I have to say that I like it so far. There is a real fresh new feel to it. I think I would've felt a lot better about last year if I were there from the beginning. This time, it really feels like my year- maybe last years left a little bit too much like it still belonged to my predecessor?

The weather had improved A LOT. I went to the city today wearing a shirt, jeans, and a light sweater and was actually feeling overheated. It was rather nice.

Sakurajima, the volcano, erupted the other day. Ashes traveled all the way to Ijuin town. I just walked to the store and I felt ashes getting into my eyes and my lungs even began to hurt.

Naturally, this didn't stop me from walking to the other side of the building and drawing in the ashes that had landed on my car at that point. You can KIND of see it.



And here is Ijuin with ash-y air.



The next morning, I had ashes all over my windshield. So, I used my windshield wipers and windshield wiper fluid (I can't remember what it's called now- haha) to be able to see better.



Yeah, I know it doesn't really look much different from much of California during the big fires last summer, but just knowing that it's from a volcano is pretty neat!

The volcano ash-y air even smells different! (Yes, I know that explains why my lungs started to hurt so quickly, because I was standing there SMELLING the air for so long.)

Anyway, I do plan to write a blog about neat touristy places in the area. Just... meh... why talk about that when you can talk about your air being polluted with volcanic ashes instead?