is absolutely amazing. the people are friendly, the food is spicy, the weather is balmy. it's been great.
in the beginning, not so much.
flew in december 17th expecting to take an overnight train down south the same day. couldn't get tickets and had to spend a night in bangkok. next day tried to buy train tickets leaving in the morning, but couldn't get a sleeper train til 3 in the afternoon. bought that and spent a day wandering around bangkok. took a river trip and went to a few temples. the grand palace was spectacular. very shiny.
december 18th. train down south to surat thani. arrived at train station at 4 in the morning. played rummy with hisa and the locals. good fun.
december 19th. took bus/ jeep thing/ boat taxi to our first and VERY overpriced bungalow hotel. that was one of my major mistakes. booking hotels ahead of time. if you go and just wander around thailand it's possible to find hotels for 200 - 300 Baht. but booking ahead of time, i got one for 1,750 Baht!! yikes. and it wasn't even that good. went to a cave and laid around on the beach for a bit. the scenery was amazing. karst formations along the coast and lots of people rock climbing. beautiful sunset.
december 20th/21st. boat taxi to Phi Phi Island. Where the movie The Beach was filmed, I believe. reputed to be the most beautiful beach in the world. I don't know about that, but it was pretty fantastic. hisa and i went on a snorkelling/kayaking/swimming full day boat cruise. almost got stranded in the middle of the ocean kayaking because we were dumb and kayaked away from the bay and into open water where the waves where too strong for us to navigate. fortunately, a boat taxi picked us up and dumped us back to where our boat was moored. man that was exhausting. and the fishies were purty.
december 22nd. boat taxi to Phuket. got ripped off taking a taxi between town and beach when taking the bus would have been just a fraction of the price. stayed in Patong Beach, supposedly gorgeous with good night life, but wasn't that impressed with the beach. We watched muay thai boxing (accompanied with traditional thai instruments. where can i get a cd, i wondered) and went clubbing. the club was packed and thirty minutes into it, the cops came and tested all the thai girls for drugs. they had to pee into cups and get OKd. party killer. we left after everyone started ditching the club. came home. slept.
december 23rd. hisa leaves for home. meanwhile, am still in phuket and i spend the day looking for a place to get my hair cut.
>>>> to be continued. when i find cheap internet again <<<<<
thailand
my left nipple itches
apparently the having a theme thing doesn't work. i just have nothing to write about really. i spent the entire weekend at home sitting on my ass. not to say that i didn't have a good time; it was fabulous. i cleaned a little. washed dishes i haven't washed in three weeks, aired out the futons, did laundry all that jazz. lotioned my legs. watched Crash. read a romance novel. talked to my mom, my sister, and my best friend. but still felt guilty about not going out and enjoying the beautiful weather or doing something Japanesey or calling a friend or even responding to anyone's texts. sorry kaoru. or writing any texts. sorry Nick. I meant to say good luck on the test but woke up too late to do so and then meant to write a "how did it go" but just never got around to it . .
a theme
i decided i needed one to get me writing in this blog again. i just haven't had any motivation to write nor anything particularly exciting to write about. but i figure if i have a theme, i can jot a little something down to bore you with. and besides, this is my last year. i really ought to write down some stuff otherwise i'll forget. "Huh? Japan? Yeah, I think I've been there. . . Wait. I think I lived there."
TO: Miako
i had fun in itami! i'm gonna find myself a pool in thewad (eventually) and practice my frog swim. good luck with the move back home. i'm sure i'll see you again on the habitat trip :P
remember to keep me updated on the man-situation! i give it four weeks :).
~ until our next spontaneous shopping excursion ~
one last beer with the boys at our bar in kishiwada, labo. my stomach was hurting, i thought, from excessive drinking but now i realize that my stomach was cramping at the thought of saying goodbye. it's been an amazing JET year and i'll treasure these memories always.
Fw:Mt. Fuji
Fw:Mt. Fuji
Originally uploaded by thechristine.
climbed the beloved fuji-san last weekend. we made it to about 3,400 meters out of 3,776m. it was fun but exhausting. way too many people on that mountain. it was like disneyland without mickey mouse: one long line up to the summit. we did have captain japan, our tour leader, and he was just as ubiquitous as mickey. his somewhat annoying voice with the stretched out vowels (nishiitaanii-saaan! arre?!), ordering us to walk slowly and to drink water. he stopped us from climbing any further up the mountain because the rain and heavy wind made it too dangerous. we were shocked and disappointed but were too tired by that point to put up much of a fuss. slept for a few hours and woke up at dawn to make our way down the mountain.
[[my eyes are sweaty]]
maybe. if. i. don't. move. and. don't. breathe. . . I'll stop sweating like a pedophile in a playground (okay maybe not the most appropriate analogy). it's so freaking hot. weather.com tells me it's 84 degrees but feels like 95 (84% humidity). damn right it feels like 95 degrees!! uck. half the kids are asleep in class because it's too hot to concentrate (nothing but weak fans and open windows to relieve us from the hell-heat). i don't bother to wake them up because all i want to do is pull up a chair next to them and go to sleep myself.
貿易摩擦
(two years of japanese in college and this is the one word that sticks the most in my mind.)
it's really hard to articulate but sometimes i feel like i'm not really living my life. i feel like i'm living in this hazy cloud and i recall memories like i had seen them in an album and not really experienced them. this is actually kind of true because i take hundreds of pictures. which is good and bad. good because i can look and remember otherwise i'd forget. bad because instead of living in the moment, i'm focusing on the angle of a shot. vicious cycle. i had thought it was depression but now i just don't know. it's like i'm not mentally THERE a lot of the time and it's incredibly frustrating. i have to focus really hard to listen to people and to pay attention to my surroundings otherwise my brain just drifts back into its hazy cloud. i don't think i used to be like this . . .
OW
a side effect of doing absolutely nothing all day, woke up this morning feeling like i'd gone through the spin cycle of a very large and sadistic wash. stiff neck and very sore lower back. i am waddling around school like a grandma. i've heard one "otsukare" today (which in that instance had a general meaning of "you're tired because you've worked hard. good job"). i vehemently denied it and told her that my back was hurting and wasn't related to anything that i've done.
on a more exciting note, leaving for Seoul tomorrow! 4night trip with the Sapporo crew: Nick, Mike, Chris. Can't wait!
ho hum
a little too relaxed at this school, i think. i come in late, i do nothing all day, manage to grab a nap in my nap room everyday (and some teachers know that i'm in there so if they really needed to find me, they can come wake me up), play frisbee with the kids at lunch, i don't plan lessons. yesterday i just half-heartedly pulled one out of my ass and the teacher loved it. (shrug.) today i have two lessons and i don't have any clue what i'm going to do and i quite frankly don't care. my desk is overflowing with garbage, papers i can't read, and worksheets that i should have checked and given back weeks ago. it's gotten so bad that there's no space on the desk for me to work (or nap). so some of the papers have found their way to another desk in front of the secretary's. it's become my worksheet checking station.
today's agenda: find the top of my desk.
the nick/helen goodbye party
at some points, it was unclear who was really leaving. classic helen.
we were supposed to bbq it up at osaka castle park, but since it was raining like a motha, the partay was relocated to helen's apartment. and it was hellishly rainy. i was biking around, with an umbrella, getting completely soaked and my fingers were actually starting to prune. i was on the hunt for a frisbee. i was bound and determined to have a frisbee for the barbecue even though there was no way in hell we were going to be able to play what with the rain and all (also ignoring the fact that no one is the least bit interested in frisbee except for me). had to go to three stores up and down thewad to find one. as i clutched my frisbee ready to make my purchase, i thought to myself, this will be my amulet. this frisbee, automagically, somehow, will turn this nasty weather into sunshine. yes. yes. frisbee. do it. no pressure. i have faith, oh-frisbee-amulet.
the rain didn't stop but the party was fun nevertheless. loads of people i didn't know but still felt completely at ease. the party ended when the neighbor a few doors down grew increasingly irate about all the noise and came to the door every few minutes to tell us to shut up. we decided to venture out into town for an all-nighter. got into town and realized that everyone's energy levels were a few notches down and away from what is required for staying out all night. the motivation just wasn't there. after a beer or two at an outdoor cafe/bar a hundred meters or so from the train station, we ran back and managed to grab the last train back to helen's town. went to karaoke and spent an eternity there (although in actuality it might have only been an hour or so). got back to helens around 3. slept.
i haven't slept at a normal hour and gotten a normal amount of sleep in what feels like forever. need to stop staying up so late. went to bed around 2 last night and was late, yet again, to work this morning. not only did i oversleep, i belatedly realized that i had left my bike parked at the station and would have to walk to school.
really only writing this much because i'm procrastinating on cleaning off my desk and checking papers and writing that stupid article about habitat. that was due last week. that only needs to be half a page long. pathetic.
most recent pictures!
man i love modern technology. and flickr. which has a webpage that is a bitch to navigate. or maybe it's just me.
pictures are from:
Chika's party - June 3rd
night out at Beer Belly - June 10th
day trip to the garbage incineration plant - June 11th
also had some pictures from that posh hotel lounge where we watched the England vs. Paraguay match (at which i probably spent more time scoping out the paraguay players than actually paying attention to the game) but for some reason flickr isn't letting me upload them. oh well.
recent-ish pictures
before and after habitat. my life really doesn't revolve around habitat. it's just that i have a buttload of pictures from the trip.
oldish pictures from habitat trip
will put up a different set when i get it together. it took me forever to get this thing to work. enjoy!
what? where am I?
it's sad how compulsively and a tad too obsessively i check my e-mail only to find e-mails from Victoria's Secret (who has already taken way more of my money than i should have ever allowed) and Astrology.com. i should actually SEND some e-mails. that might help the situation.
lately been feeling frustrated with my lack of memory. it's never been particularly good but now it's deteriorating at a noticible rate. i can't remember events, conversations, sometimes people. my mom says it's the booze and that i should stop drinking so much. okay, okay. i don't drink SO much compared to others around here but more than what is healthy. i fell in love once and it took me a long time to heal and forget. but now i wonder if it was time or did alcohol wipe that bit of my brain clean? hmmm.
i WOULD like to spend less time hugging toilets. hate being a puker.
funny though how i can remember really random things like the names of the crushes of my sister's crushes. ??? something definitely wrong with my brain.
i really need to straighten out my priorities. dig them out from underneath all the clean laundry tossed about in my room and iron them out a bit. i can only focus on what is five minutes in front of me, and at most, a week ahead of me. it's really impossible though. every time i sit down with my GRE prep book i get distracted within minutes.
i'm fine really.
i just feel dissatisfied. dissatisfied with my life. dissatisfied with my work. dissatisfied with my level of japanese. dissatisfied with my relationships (or non-) with my family and friends. dissatisfied with the fact that i can't lose weight. dissatisfied with not getting a move on with GREs and other applications having to do with post-JET life. dissatisfied with myself.
dissatisfied with the fact that i'm dissatisfied. which leads to stress and feelings of guilt.
and when i'm stressed i sleep. a lot. i don't even want to think about how many hours i've slept this week and how many commitments i've cancelled.
how do i fix it. i don't know.
| How to make a ChRiStInE |
| Ingredients: 5 parts success 3 parts crazyiness 3 parts |
| Method: Blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Serve with a slice of lustfulness and a pinch of salt. Yum! |
I will dominate this crater!
The Habitat team and the finished product. We built a row house (one unit, eight houses) out of steel frame and a sort of compound hard wall.
new school. school personality in general: "playful." however, these kids are going to be the death of me.
day 1: "Cup size? What?"
day 2: school check up day-> height, weight, eyesight, hearing stations. at the weight station, as i look down at the numbers, boy drops trou and hops onto the scale saying "this will make me lighter" as he cups his miniature jewels.
day 3: ambushed by the same boys and bombarded with questions of "cup size, what?" "want to see my penis?" (as he pulls his zipper down) "want to fellatio me?" and general comments of "ooh! she touched me!" and "give me vagina"
email me please with suggestions on how to deal these kids and stay on their good side while managing not to egg them on.
p.s. freaking noisy in here.
at an internet cafe and all the geeks are playing some sort of rpg game and yelling back and forth at each other. there're random yells of "FATALITY!" and other game-related gibberish. i'm outta here!
i LOVE the PHILIPPINES!!!!!!!
It's so amazing. I'm getting to see a side of it I've never seen before. The clean country side. The breathtaking views. The lovely people. When I lived here, it was mostly the dirty streets, the non-running water, the people who steal and rip you off. And every time I've visited, I've stayed in the house I grew up in with my aunt and cousins. I couldn't ever really go sight seeing because I would feel bad that I couldn't take them all with me (and they can't come because they don't have money). So I would just stay at the house and help with my aunt's little mom and pop store and play with my cousins.
Also, being here with non-Filipinos--specifically, two canadians, two americans, one australian, and four brits--helps me kind of pull back and look at the Philippines through their eyes. I am an American who can speak Tagalog visiting the Philippines. It's pretty great.
Today we went on a long, scenic bus ride to Taal Lake and Volcano Island. We got to the lake and took a really cool boat (I think they called it an outrigger) to the Volcano Island. We rode horses up to the top of the volcano and looked down at the crater lake inside.
Came back to Manila after partaking in some Halo Halo (a dessert made of shaved ice and various tropical fruits and desserts). Everyone else made the smart choice of napping and/or showering before dinner tonight (after which they will probably want to go to bars and clubs and such), but I want to do some exploring on my own. So off I go!
hmm. i like this layout but it doesn't allow me to write a title for journal entries (which isn't that important) nor does it allow anyone to write comments (and by anyone i mean cassie). so if you want to comment, please email me!
another day, another dollar. . . yen
pulled off two super high energy performances today first and second period. no classes for the rest of the day but now have to plan for two private lessons tonight. never quite know what to do with these kids who, at best, have the attention span of mice on crack.
i have that one private lesson tonight that i have once a month. students include:
- 1 8th grader, very smart
- 1 7th grader, unnaturally slow
- 1 adult
- sometimes that adult's kid who is a 10th grader. a little slow for 10th grade
- 1 9 year-old who is as smart as the 8th grader but can't read as fast.
and then the woman who runs the class that i basically team teach with. she's okay.
all ingredients for one very painful hour of English teaching.
the lesson before that is with the 7 year old kid i've been tutoring for a year with results yet to be evident. he's getting more hardheaded as he gets older i think. all his mom wanted is for him to be conversational. last week he answered my, "How are you?" with a "I'm six years old." which is 0-2 in the correct answer department.
amidst all this is the nagging worry about taking the GRE, applying for Peace Corps, applying for grad school, buying that plane ticket to 'merica for Cassie's wedding, doing my taxes, booking ticket/hotel for Hawaii, mailing certain packages home and having enough money for all this. i get tired so easily lately (or perhaps not lately. it's just me being lazy) that i all i want to do when i get home is go to sleep or read some fluff romance novel.
from hibernation and into the sunlight
I have been so out of it for so long that I don't even know myself anymore. Don't know how to fix it. Don't know how to fix me. But I'm trying so bear with me!
Habitat for Humanity
Is costing me a fortune . . . volunteering is expensive work. I have spent over $1,000 on hotel, flight, and (ironically enough) fundraising.
at the Charity Benefit Concert in Kobeonly in japan . . .
. . . can you have a conversation at school with someone who has foam and toothbrush in their mouth.
. . . I hope no one was reading that
If you are, comment. I'm curious to see who actually checks my blog after months of inactivity. I was posting today and discovered that it's possible to click twice and make your entire blog disappear. What can I say? I have talent. This is what I get for randomly clicking on Japanese links and thinking that everything will be fine.
Oddly enough, I feel no particular emotion after deleting nearly two years worth of half-hearted public journal keeping. Perhaps resigned amusement. I've gotten used to my screw ups.
