U I vethed na I onnad.

♠Followed my desires and did some baking. Honey and ginger cake (made on Sunday) and lemon cookies (made today). Next up will probably be scones. Or I will be going out and getting chocolate to make that molten cake. Maybe tomorrow.

♠There's a group that gives English Country Dancing lessons that I never knew existed. Beginners class starts at 7 so I'm thinking it's time to start a slow walk to Washington Square Park, find some dinner and see what it's all about. It'll give me something to do with myself through all the nothing that's been happening.

♠Kuroneko wants me to pay Mizuho Ginko for moving my things. Sure, Kuroneko, because the streets are just full of Japanese banks around here. And, you know, because your customers can only pay once everything has gone through and been charged at customs here in the US. Yes.

♠I'm alive.

♠Looking for a job but still minus one. (And possibly going to kill my mother within the next week. I get she wants to help, but she's not, and she's not listening to me when I tell her she's not helping, which helps even less.)

♠Someone is making something or eating something somewhere nearby and the smell of it is drifting into my apartment. This is okay, though, because IT SMELLS DELICIOUS.

♠Saw the Yankees win at the Stadium last night. It was lovely. <3

♠Am I the only one who thinks that Gardner looks a lot like Nick from CSI from the side? Because I do think that. It's weird.

♠I have not yet been to Alice's once since I've been home. This has to be changed.

♠I need to get up to the Met one of these days.

♠Got my teeth cleaned today.

♠Still waiting for May 7th. I want one of those picnic baskets T^T

Today has been a good day. Not only did I see Dana for lunch, but we went to one of the few theaters still playing The King's Speech. I've been wanting to see it since it came out here, and would have gone while in Japan but for the earthquake. The cinema was blacked out for nearly two weeks - we had to push back seeing SP until just before leaving and it didn't make sense to try while in Tokyo because we had two other movies to see. But my desire to see it is finally filled, and I LOVED it. The story is incredibly touching, it's just such a Human movie. Artistic and simple and of course the leading men are amazing.

But other than that my room is coming along. The white shag monstrosity is gone and I tackled the dirt underneath my desk. Now that space can actually be used instead of being a minefield of wires; it's holding my DVD cases, doujinshi, and some manga. I also pulled a few old things out of the chest by my desk for throwing away - mostly the leftover blank pages in old school notebooks that I told myself I'd write in some day. That's not happening. I can barely get my act together for the JE fqf.

There's more to do - I have to haul everything out of there tomorrow so I can vacuum inside the chest (it's covered in glitter). I also have more notebooks and folders I haven't looked through yet. I'm not sure what I'm going to put in in their place. Old journals, maybe. My clothes problem isn't really sorted out either, but that's also for tomorrow.

As of 20:30ish or so last night, I am back in the states at least for the foreseeable future. To celebrate my return, the first thing I've done is gone and caught a cold. Or allergies. Or something.

I need a new cellphone, and to finish unpacking, and then a job. (That last one is going to be fun, I know.) I don't think I'm done with Japan. I know I'm not done with the world. I'm thinking that I may try to enter the State Department. My mom knows a few people I can talk to and consult with before I make decisions. Until then? Not a clue what to do with myself.

I guess I could start writing my fqf assignment.

One of these days I will have the brain power to finish the 30 days of baseball. One of these days.

As it is, today is the last day of school. We had the Ending Ceremony in 20 minutes, during which I had to give a speech (shortest. speech. ever). After said speech the children were parted like the red sea. I was left to walk down the aisle while they clapped. Well what's a girl supposed to do but wave like the Queen? So I did. That's a parting I don't think those kids will ever forget. XD

Following the ceremony the kids had one more period where last minute business was wrapped up. After that, the kids left for home and I saw them for the last time. Miori-chan came to give me her address and then six of my second year boys came to the teacher's room specifically to see me one last time and thank me for teaching them English. I also got such greetings as: "Ms. Lisa is the most interesting person. In the world!" I am also apparently very kind. (To second year boys, perhaps, because they're hilarious and not little hellions.)

Milling around outside produced several gaggles of my first year girls also coming to say goodbye. As one said it: "Forever! ... Forever... um... forever... goodbye!" They're adorable. I'm going to miss them, seriously.

Then we came back to the teacher's room for lunch and cake. Flowers are given to all the departing teachers, who then are expected to say parting words to the staff who are staying. Now, I sort of knew this happened, because I remember it happening last year. But I forgot about it, and nobody reminded me. I didn't have anything prepared, but that's apparently okay. When the foreign girl says "Atashi kiitenai kara, nani iebaiin warakanai", they burst out laughing. AND I got a present from 'everybody', AND AND I got a present from Tasaki-sensei with the nicest letter ever.

It's really, really weird to think that I'm leaving here in less than three weeks. It's like I lost an entire week of my life following the earthquake - I feel like there should be more time, more school, more classes to deal with. My house is not taken apart at all. We got our moving boxes, but we haven't put them together and we haven't started packing because of the detailed inventory the company requires. We haven't started getting rid of anything, either. I'm not sure we can put things up on Gaijinpot at this point because of the last minute nature of this all. Don't suppose anybody knows someone in Japan who needs household appliances? l-lol orz We'll see how it goes.

(PS: Still not dead, and still not glowing. 8Db)

Mostly I want this for the memories. I hope I'd never be in a situation to go through this again.

A couple days ago, I noted a very big earthquake, because Tochigi doesn't get earthquakes. We get teeny tiny little things that don't matter, come and go in a minute, and people don't even blink at. That was, on the Japanese scale, a 6-strong off the coast of Ibaraki, and by the time it got to us it was about a 2-strong. Maybe.

That is not what hit us on Friday afternoon. What hit us in Tochigi was a 6-strong, down from a 7 in Sendai, Miyagi. There was no real warning before it happened on the day of. It was immediate and it was immediately bad. The confusion was apparent - Tochigi has never had an earthquake of that magnitude. All of us in the teacher's room grabbed our desks as the shaking started, looking around for some hint of what we should do. Two of them went under their desks. It was only after the first round of shaking stopped, five, maybe ten minutes later, that it finally came into everyone's mind to leave the building. The emergency doors were all shut. The building was dead quiet. The teachers started running through telling everybody to get out.

The kids are good at this. They go through the drill every year. They came out and into the yard where there was nothing to fall on us, getting into lines according to class while the only thing I could do was walk around and offer hugs to anybody crying. And there were many kids crying.

The clock on the outside of my school building had stopped. A suspended TV nearly fell on one of my girls before the evacuation order was given. We spent almost two hours in the cold (and it even started snowing on us twice, though that didn't last long), huddled for warmth under tarps, while the boys acted like, well, boys, and half my girls cried and the other half alternately comforted them and asked me if I was scared. (Like I could tell them 'yes', I'm the adult!) We talked. I tried to take their minds off it as much as I could.

We were blacked out all night. The blackout continued until about 2:40 this afternoon.

It was damn scary. Still is. The aftershocks - many of which were awful and continued to shake everything in the apartment - lasted all night, keeping me awake for most of it, in the pitch black, and have continued all day today. They're getting smaller, but they're still noticeable. They're still strong enough to shake things. The roads are pushed up, cracked, and blocked off. Houses are mostly standing, but roofs and stone fences around them are gone. There's minor damage everywhere. My school is actually going to be closed on Monday, which would be nearly unthinkable at any other time.

But!

I'm alive. I have power back. I have food and water. Now I just have to worry about the nuclear reactors in Fukushima. 8|b There has been an explosion and the roof and walls are gone, and it's leaking. However, we are approximately 150 kilometers away from this plant. We also have several planned blackouts between 4 and 7 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

This has not been the best weekend ever, and it's not even half over.

[EDIT] AND THERE'S NO GOUKAIGER TOMORROW. WHY SHOULD I SURVIVE A HORRIBLE EARTHQUAKE ONLY TO BE DENIED MY SENTAI???????!!!!!!!

(All for you, Amanda.)[/EDIT]

We have just been through a very long, very big earthquake. Long enough that I'm not sure if the building has stopped swaying (though I'm pretty sure it has).


Here's hoping my apartment is still standing. (It probably is.)

Things, they are a---- sort of changing.

I have a job. It is in a private school in Kisarazu, Chiba (which is down the peninsula and on the water). I will be doing *le gasp* actual teaching - there will be a Japanese teacher in the room, but they will sit in the back and grade papers unless I specifically ask them to help me with a dialogue or somesuch. I also get to make the tests, give the homework, and grade the children.

And I am nervous as all hell about it. 've been trying to talk myself into believing it will all be okay, I've only been getting worse as this year comes to a close.

I don't know when the position starts (or when the vacations are). Sometime in April. I have to move to Chiba between March 25th and then, so I won't be able to make it back to New York for the spring.

My roommate is leaving the country and leaving me all alone. Of my coworkers two others are moving as well and at least one is moving to Tokyo, but he's also moving in with his girlfriend. I doubt there will be much communication from him. At least two others are staying out here in Tochigi - I may be able to see them at least once during the year, but they have their social network and I'll be too far away to be a part of it.

In light of all that, I think this will be my last year in Japan, unless something makes this job so awesome that I'd die if I left it or unless some other offer comes in that I would die if I didn't take it. I am ready to return to the familiarity of New York and the wonderful people there whom I have the privilege to call friends. I miss being able to take an afternoon jaunt to a museum or walk into a movie theater just on a whim. I miss my friends. I'm not sure what I'll do for work, no, but I'll find something - even if it's school. I always did want to learn Italian.

JPLT results came in. They were not good. So I no longer have that leg to try and stand on in finding myself a new job. I may be headed back to America in a hurry at this rate, with no more insight into what I want to do with myself and nothing to look forward to when I get back.

Oh well.

The science teacher, one of the Phys. Ed. teachers, the janitor, and THE VICE-PRINCIPAL are all standing at the desk opposite mine and playing with dry ice.

And I just got fed yaki-imo.

I love my school a lot.