Wake me up when September ends

My month so far:

9/1 (Tue)
- Kirita JHS 9:00-17:15
- banking 17:25-17:30
- Global Drums Perfomance @ Bunka Center 17:30-20:30 *unexpectedly awesome
- Japanese dance practice 20:30-21:00
- grocery shopping 21:15-22:00

9/2 (Wed)
- Shimokirida ES 8:45-13:15
- Kirita JHS 13:25-17:55
- pick up E. 16:10
- Global Drums Reception @ Board of Trade & Commerce 16:30-21:00 *made new friends!! <3
- proofreading Hotaru no Hikari v5 ch28 21:30-22:30

9/3 (Thu)
- Kirita JHS 9:00-17:45
- proofreading Hotaru no Hikari v5 ch28 18:00-18:45
- taiko practice @ Chuo Community Center 19:00-20:30
- proofreading Hotaru no Hikari v5 ch28 21:00-23:30 *finally finished!!

9/5 (Fri)
- Ofukanai JHS 9:00-14:45
- office 15:15-16:00
- Daiichi JHS 16:15-17:00
- office/banking 17:00-17:15
- Baskin Robbins & checking for car fair @ Jusco (it's on this weekend, so perfect timing!) 17:45-18:00
- Japanese dance practice @ Bunka Center 18:30-20:00
- taiko practice 20:00-20:30

My upcoming plans:

9/6 (Sat)
- car shopping w/ K @ Jusco 10:00 ~ ?
- driving to Lake Towada 12:00-13:30
- Lake Towada Border Festival (Kirita JHS students performing!) 13:30-15:30
- Horanai ES Festival 17:00-18:30 *I want to go since the students invited me today, but I'm not killing myself to get back from Lake Towada in time for it...
- E's Japanese dance practice @ Bunka Center 19:00-20:00

9/7 (Sun)
- taiko rehearsal @ Chuo Community Center 9:30-11:00
- lesson/material preparations 12:00-15:00
- driving to Lake Towada 15:30-17:00
- Lake Towada Border Festival (D from Akita performing!) 17:00-21:30

9/8-9/10 (Mon-Thu)
- taiko practice @ Chuo Community Center 19:00-20:30

9/11 (Fri)
- Towada Aki Matsuri!! 11:00~

9/12 (Sat)
- Aomori Welcome Party 17:00~
OR
- Towada Aki Matsuri 17:30-20:30 *leaning towards this simply because I'm too tired right now to socialize with lots of people...

9/18 (Fri)
- Towada Board of Education Bowling 18:00~

9/19 (Sat)
- Kamikita Fall JHS Sports Meet 7:00 (?) ~ *This one's a big question mark...
9/20 (Sun)
- Kirita Shrine Festival 15:00 (?) ~

9/23 (Wed)
- Japanese dance rehearsal @ Bunka Center

And of course on top of all this I still have regular eikaiwa classes and Japanese dance practices--probably more than usual since it's the last month before the big performance. @_@

Then I've got the big performance at the beginning of October, followed by my brother's visit to Japan (assuming he ever gets his plane tickets purchased!), and the Kirita Culture Festival.

So pretty much I'm not going to have a chance to come up for air until November--at which point I expect to promptly catch bronchitis for the 8th (9th?) time. =_=

The perils of aging

OK, so the title is a bit over-dramatic, I know, but I've been forced to think quite a bit about aging recently.

Going home this summer I really felt "Wow, I've gotten old." I remember the first time I came back to Canada from Japan (for Alan & Liz's "Excellent Adventure") I had no problem staying up 'til the wee hours of the morning and then getting up early to meet someone for breakfast. Similarly, I never once considered giving up supervising the all-nighter in favour of taking shifts.

Not so this year. Going into camp I already suspected that I might not be able to handle the all-nighter on my own. Then on the actual night, I ended up having to take a nap from around 11pm-1am to get energized for the rest of the night.

Recently, too, I've been in a state of near-constant fatigue. Last week there were actually two nights when I felt so exhausted I actually showered at 10pm and was asleep by 11:30pm! And it wasn't that I just decided to sleep earlier, it was that I was actually falling alseep at the computer and knew if I didn't put myself to bed properly I'd end up sleeping sitting in my chair (resting my head on the backrest of my sofa)!

It was quite shocking for me since I've always been a night owl. No matter how tired or sleepy I was during the day, if I made it to 10pm, I usually perked up and would stay wide awake until 12am or later.

And I've always been able to sleep very late but still wake up at the appropriate time in the past, but recently my body's been rebelling and showing me that I can't act like a high schooler/university student anymore--not sleeping, not eating properly, etc.--without paying for it later on.

This past Saturday, I slept around 4am and ended up waking up late for my Japanese dance rehearsal! I was supposed to be at the Bunka Center at 9:30am, but I woke up at 9:15am and so didn't make it there until nearly 10am!! It was somewhat mortifying because it was a full group (about 12 of us?) rehearsal, so everyone had to wait for me!! @_@;;

And I guess with all the stuff with my dad's surgery and ongoing recovery--and the consequent lifestyle changes--I should really know by now how important it is to take care of your health. My eating habits have improved a bit--still eating lots of locally grown produce!--but I really haven't improved my sleeping habits at all. ^^;;

Ah, it's hard to deal with the changes that occur with aging!

On a completely random note, one of the reasons I stayed up so late on Saturday was because I was watching TV. After watching Otomen (a J-drama based on a manga of the same name about a seemingly "manly man" high school student--he's captain of the kendo team, for example--who secretly loves girly things like baking and sewing), I happened to catch a bit of a program talking about special dog "hair designs."

It was INSANE!! People spend hundreds of hours getting their dogs' hair cut and dyed in the most outrageous fashion! One of the tamer designs they showed was the "panda." The salon that was featured in the program charged 10,000 yen (~$100) for this cut & dye job! (And it takes about 2 hours!) Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a photo of it, but the craziest one was a "flamenco" design. This poor toy poodle had most of its fur dyed red like a flamenco dress. The fur on its head was also fluffed out like a crazy big perm. That cut/dye job took 6 hours and cost 20,000 yen (~$200)!! I just can't believe that people would do such things to their pets!

How to take care of tatami mats (flooring)

One of my criteria when I was selecting my apartment was that I wanted it to be all flooring--i.e.no tatami. Still, I'm sure there are many people with tatami rooms, so here are some of the key points for tatami care/maintenance:

• keep tatami dry--unless you want mold/mildew
• don't wear shoes on tatami (most Japanese even take off slippers before stepping on tatami)
• always wipe (with only slightly damp cloths--no harsh cleaning solutions) or vacuum along the weave of the tatami (going against the weave may damage the tatami or cause dirt to get trapped in it)
• use the weak (弱) or tatami (畳) setting for vacuuming
  
• avoid leaving carpet over tatami as it creates a moist environment for mold and ticks
• place wooden boards on top of tatami under heavy objects (piano, TV, etc.)
• clean and air out the tatami regularly--dry and sunny fall/spring days are best for airing
  

Links/Sources:

• Tatami mat care info (PDF- illustrated)
• WARAKU - How to refresh tatami
• Tatami care (Japan Times Online)

Surprisingly fun

I try not to say anything overly negative about work, but I've got to admit that I've had difficulty adjusting to the change in staff at my base school in April. (In Japan, teachers get shuffled around for the beginning of the new school year--and for the most part the teachers don't have much say in where they're moved.)

The teachers that I talked to the most and was friendliest with were pretty much all transferred, and the atmosphere in the teachers' room totally changed.

But yeah, given my general sense of unease at my base school this entire semester, I wasn't really expecting to enjoy the bowling and enkai (dinner & drinking party) today--the end of the first semester.

Yet somehow, I ended up having a surprisingly good time. With the bowling, well, getting a decent score definitely helped me get into things. My first game was 117 (my 2nd time breaking 100!), but I went downhill from there and only got 87 in the second game. Still, my final (combined) score for the two games was a very respectable (for me, anyway!) 204!

Plus our team was the only one that managed to win beer! Basically the "beer frame" rule was that if a team got all spares and/or strikes in a single frame, each player would get a can of beer. Since our team only had 3 people, we had specific frames (2,4,6 & 8) in which we were eligible to win beer, whereas the 4-people teams could get beer in any of the first nine frames.

Thankfully I was first, so I had decidedly less pressure to perform than my teammates. (Last year I was last in the order, and blew the beer frame by 2 or 3 pins!)

I also got to see an impressive site: one of the teachers in the lane next to ours got four strikes in a row! (I knew 3 strikes in a row was called a "turkey" but who knew that 4 in a row is called "ham bones" or a "4-bagger"?!) So yeah, the bowling was a lot more fun than I expected.

The enkai, too, was better than I thought it'd be. I actually managed to talk/join in the conversations a fair bit, and the food was plentiful and quite good.

All in all, it was a good end to what felt like a horrendously long semester.