Avast, mateys! It be Talk Like A Pirate Day, savvy!

Ahoy, ye landlubbers!  Today be September 19th and it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  I not be kiddin' yar.  If ye have not yet heard of ITLAPD, check out this link on t' Wikipedia.  As we all be knowin', if it be on Wikipedia, it be legit.  There also be an official ITLAPD website, for all yer piratey needs.

So, why should ye be talkin' like a pirate?  'Cause it be fun!!! I ain't be much good at it, arr, but I enjoy it nevertheless.

On this culturally enrichin' day, thar be a perrrfect way for ye to join in.  It be changin' yer Facebook language to "English (Pirate)".  If ye be a firrrst-timer, I'll show yar how!

First, ye be clickin' on the cog in the top right corner tharr, and click on "Account Settings".

Next, ye be clickin' on "Edit" next to "Language", and choose from th' drop-down box "English (Pirate)".  It be amazin' the many options there arr for English!

Arrrfter ye click "Save Changes", ye should be seein' results immediately:

Then ye just need ter do some explorin' and enjoy th' fine linguistic changes, which break th' monotony of th' averrrrage day!  This is what me personal page now be lookin' like:

Ye should be seein' gems, such as "Amend yer particulars" (update info), "Log o' adventures" (activity log), "Scour fer scallywags, islands or general thingies" (Search for people, places or things), "Arr!" (like), "Weigh in" (comment), "Blabber t' yer mates" (share), and "Me Hearties" (friends).

Even yer little pop-up boxes and notifications be much more interestin'!

Even th' simple things such as likin' a post be more excitin'!

If ye be worried about findin' yer way home after yer grand pirate adventure, fear not!  I be givin' ye th' treasure map now.  Click on that wee cog in th' top right corner again, and choose "Ye Ship's Rigging".

Then ye be clickin' "Mend th' sails", next to "Tongue", and choose ye yer preferrrred language, and seal th' deal with "Stow Changes".  

So, what say ye, yer scallywags!!  Will ye give it a real pirrrrate go?  Well, if ye don't at least give it a hearty try, I and th' crew be sending ye down to Davy Jones' locker!!  Arrrr!!!

If ye need some help shoutin' like a scurvy pirate, I also found 'tis great scurvy pirate translator! 

May yer day be entir'ly unmonotonous, and randomly entertainin'!  Well enough talkin' from me.....swab the deck, yar scallywags!!

My Brilliant Day

First I will need to back-track.  Last night, I woke up from a much needed nap after work, and checked my emails.  There was one from work "reminding" me about my morning standby assignment the next day.  Morning standby is where we need to be at the office by 7am and sit and wait for those dreaded footsteps of someone coming in to tell you that you need to to go out for a substitute teaching assignment.  It's basically like a long game of Russian roulette - except there's a chance all of us could end up 'dead' before 10am.

"WHAT?!"  If I wasn't awake before, I was definitely awake now.  Well, long story short, I had not been informed I was doing morning standby that day, but I got assigned.  So I went to bed early-ish in the hope I wouldn't be too tired for the 4:30am start.  I spent the next 6 hours laying in bed...not exactly sleeping.  Not only was morning standby stressing me out, but also my two Elementary School substitute assignments next week, and a lot of other things.  

Well, when the time came I got up and got ready.  About 5 minutes before I planned to head out the door I heard that familiar sound of a sudden heavy downpour of rain, which had happened several times through the night.  "Of course," I thought.  "Why wouldn't there be torrential rain and potentially life threatening bolts of lighting on this lucky morning?"  (There had been a few KER-POWs which sound more deadly than the normal low rumble of thunder.)

I made it to the office on time with very wet shoes.   Luckily (and unluckily), one of my friends was also on morning standby.  I actually met her at my first morning standby when we had a lot of fun chatting and laughing.  Until I got called out.  Of course.  As for today, we had fun time again.  And then those dreaded footsteps came, and someone walked into the room holding a bunch of papers.  

"Mari-Anna?"  I knew it, I just knew it!  Always first to get called out.  (Okay, so once I was second...still, close enough!).  Out of 5 people, it was me.  Last to be called in, first to be sent out.

But, here my luck changed.  Because instead of receiving the usual Elementary School assignment, which I have very little experience in and requires a lot more work, causing me to stress out immensely, I was given a Junior High School assignment.  Yay!!  JHS is right up my alley, because that's what I do every day.  Also, the school wasn't too far, just a few stops over, which meant I didn't have a long commute back home at the end of the day.

As I was walking from the train station to the school, it started raining again.  Hard.  I managed to avoid the puddles mostly, but when I had to cross a road which sloped downhill, I found myself facing a "river" of water running down it.  So I walked through the river.  Then found I needed to walk down that footpath on the side of that road - with the flowing river.  By now it was clear my feet and shoes would not have a spec of dry left.  So I walked down the river, got to a "valley" in the road, only to find I need to walk up the next hill which also had a river of water flowing down it in the opposite direction.  Suffice it to say my shoes and even my skirt were very wet by now.

The school I was assigned to was in Shinjuku.  Judging by this school, I am guessing that Shinjuku is kind of a rich area.  Either that or they have much more funding.  This school looked very shiny and new.  The floor boards were polished to perfection.  The shoe locker doors were made of glass, not wood.  It even had an elevator!  And the classrooms had whiteboards...and projectors!  I know for a lot of us the whiteboard has been around since our primary school days, but in Japan, every single school I had been to was still using a blackboard.  Until now.  Fannncy!  Also they had an actual running track outside, instead of the usual dirt/sand mixture.

The day went pretty well.  I taught 6 half-lessons, most of them were just my own self-introduction with lots of pictures of Australian animals, food and sport.  I love doing the self introduction because I get to talk about my two favourite topics:  Me and Australia!  I always have a lot of fun, and these students responded really well.  Despite there being a mix of different personalities, I've found for the most part JHS students are essentially "the same" every school I've been.  Which means I can feel at home no matter where I go.  This is why it was such a blessing to be sent to a JHS today.

There have been a lot of other blessings too.  My friend didn't get sent out today - lucky her!  My skirt had dried out by the end of the day and the sun was shining.  I found some (English) calligraphy pens which I had been searching for everywhere, at a shop nearby.  I was able to go for some post-work-stress-relief karaoke near the station, as I was hoping to do, and had a glorious time.  And some bad news I was anticipating actually turned out to be good news.  

It's funny how a bad day can turn into a good day :)

Random Thought of the Day: Assertiveness

You know your Japanese skills must be doing okay if you can speak well enough to assert yourself at the bank to avoid paying that 525 yen fee for a deposit transfer that you were told last year you wouldn't need to pay after six months.  After double and triple checking, she checked with her supervisor and I was asked to fill in some forms to fix things so the fee wouldn't be required!  Yay!

Nature and Parasites

I am a huge fan of nature, and like to go out and enjoy it when I get the chance, so today that's what I did.

And then it's times like this that I'm reminded why I live in a house, outside of nature.  Because when I do go out, I usually end up with ants crawling on me, a spider claims my bag as their personal hunting territory, and/or my blood gets sucked by hundreds of parasites (mosquitoes...).  And yes, I was wearing insect repellant this time - apparently not enough.  

Note to self:  Next time I notice the presence of mosquitoes, I should move away no matter how well my drawing is going.  And bring that bottle of insect repellant with me!

Needless to say, my trip to Shakujiikoen park today was quite an eventful one.

Still, it was a rather educational trip - I learnt a lot about the mysterious (yet oh-so-loud) cicada, as I was able to observe several, some even while they were buzzing, and saw many of the larvae's previously shedded skins.  Those good old Zoology skills from Uni come in handy sometimes!

パソコンのアクシデント

月曜日の夜にうちでアクシデントがありました。テーブルの上に麦茶が入ったカップのそばでパソコンを使っていました。でも、手でコップをひっくり返してしまいました。キーボードの上に麦茶が大量に こぼれした！すぐに拭こうとしましたが、すでにパソコンがバリバリと音をたてていました。パソコンの電源を切って、3日間に乾かすためにそのままに放置しています。その後で電源を入れてみて大丈夫かどうかが分かります！

On Monday night at home there was an accident. I was using my laptop on the table, near a cup of barley tea (mugicha). But I knocked over the cup with my hand. There was a lot of  barley tea on the keyboard! I tried to dry it immediately, but it was already making a crackling noise. I turned off the laptop power and am leaving it like that for 3 days to dry out. After that I will turn it on and see if it is okay!

It's A Love Story

One of my favourite things to do is ask my many married friends about their love story.  How did they meet?  When did they "hit it off"?  How long did they date for?  When did they know they wanted to spend the rest of their life with that person?  How did he propose?  

I think the reason I like asking about these love stories is because they're real!  It's not just a movie someone wrote with unreal characters.  This actually happened in someone's life, and they are happy!  Sure, it's not a constant bed of roses, but I love being around two people that I can see love and serve each other as a married couple.  

It inspires me and gives me hope that one day I'll have my own love story to tell.

And I can possibly get some cool dating tips from those who have been successful ;)

So I would like to feature some true Love Stories on my blog!  If you have a real-life love story you would like to share, please let me know :D  Even if you have already told your story to me, if you would now like to share it on my blog for others to read that would be great!  Or perhaps you'd like to share your parents love story, or your grandparents love story!  Or your best-friend's cousin's uncle's love story!  Just as long as they are real. (I can change names to keep anonymity if you like).

Because I believe in love, and want to inspire others too.

For the time-being, see my previous post featuring some YouTube videos of true love stories.

Game On

I had a very entertaining game of Hide And Seek with a praying mantis today!  First time I've seen a praying mantis, so I was pretty excited.  I recognised it by its front legs and triangular head.  When I first saw it low on a wooden pole I thought it was a little green shoot coming out of a tree trunk, until I noticed how insect-shaped it was and stopped to take a look.  I took out my trusty little Lumix and took this digital photo:

I wanted to take a better photo, so I stepped a little closer and that's when it noticed me and did some pretty sweet (and quick!) side-stepping around to the other side of the pole.  So I walked around to the other side, but...he was gone!  I walked back to where I first was, but still no sign of him!  Well he must be somewhere, I decided, and went around to look again.  This time as I got around I noticed some legs disappear around the side.  Aha!  So I moved around further, slowly this time, and saw a head poking out from the side of the pole.  The mantis cocked his head a little then spotted me, and we held eye-contact for a split second before his head popped out of sight, like something from a cartoon!  Then I knew the game was on. 

It got harder after that, as he's pretty quick with those side steps, swinging effortlessly around the trunk.  I kept walking around the truck back and forth, trying to catch him, and I'm pretty sure the other people at the park thought I was a little weird.  But I didn't care, I was having too much fun.  After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally stepped back and looked up - and there he was, very high up above me, doing his careful back-and-forth walk in an attempt to fool any more potential predators.  And thus ended our game. 

My Life In Memes

 Here's a few memes created recently from events in my life.  Because it's just fun to express things this way.

 I had this problem recently when I was applying for university and realised I had to make that choice here and now!  I do really like chemistry,but...truth be told, it wasn't my best subject.  But science just seemed so....general.  I wasn't all that thrilled with science in grade 7 when we were just learning general stuff.  Well, I ended up choosing chemistry because I'd studied that for 2 years at university (well, technically 3 if you count the year I repeated it...:S), and was told by someone in the know that I could still teach science anyhow with that qualification if I chose.  But it was quite a dilemma at the time!

It hasn't happened for a few weeks, but when I hear strange and faint screaming noises from outside I'm often faced with this question.  Are there children screaming? (Admittedly I'm sure they're playing, not being tortured).  Or is that actually just the sound of a cat fight?

This has happened to me a lot lately.  I live in Tokyo and I don't have a car.  Which means a lot of walking to and from the train stations, and just around in general.  Fashion is rather a big thing here, and you often see women wearing the most uncomfortable shoes!  I'm not so into fashion that I'm willing to sacrifice all comfort.  So lately I've been looking for shoes that are a little more fashionable, but still comfortable.  And I thought I found them!  They felt so comfortable when I tried them on at the shoe shop.  But alas, once put to the real test, I have often discovered they are still uncomfortable.  Needless to say I have a lot of blisters right now.  I'm hoping things will improve once they are "broken in" a little more.

The Reason

Sometimes I feel like the reason for being in Japan is for me to go through a whole lot of embarrassing and stressful situations...

...and somehow come out of them having found a bit of enjoyment in there!  I am beginning to learn that I can survive embarrassing situations.  And maybe even turn them into something good.  Maybe!

A Song for Michael

One year ago today my little nephew, Michael, peacefully passed away, under the loving watch of his father.  He was born very early and very frail, and fought for as long as he could.  He is sorely missed by his family.

Today as I was thinking about Michael, I thought of a lullaby which I first heard a few days ago, having had the privilege of hearing Hayley Westenra sing it live.  

It now has special meaning for me, as I realised that Michael does indeed "Sleep On", as the song is entitled, and his path has been made clear, from further pain and suffering.

I know that his spirit lives on, that through Christ he will be reunited with his body to live again, as we all will, and that I will get to meet him one day.  I imagine him now enveloped with peace, and waiting patiently for the reunion with his father as he watches lovingly over him.

Until that day, little Michael, "Sleep on, sleep on, sleep deep and sleep strong."