banjo=happiness

spirit of old time

audience3

audience2

audience1

banjogal2

Banjo gal

Me and Master jam some Cotton Eyed Joe

Bryce and me at the Mexican restoraunt

Mark at the forge

jesse

down the road

roses

dainingu

ima

tonari no niwa

mailbox

Pecan tree

Peaches?

favorite spot

pink dogwood

azalea flurs

Family House

Homecoming

Home in Laurens, SC now in the living room watching The Patiot on TBS with my dad. It's rather interesting to watch again after attending a rev. war reenactment today at Musgrove Mill in Clinton...about 30 min. from home. As I thought, my pals Mark and Stephen were there all dressed up playing fiddles and banjos and we played a few tunes. It was a beautiful but windy (and a bit cool) day.

In some ways it seems like I never left, but some things stand out more after having a look at the other side of the world. Of course, there's the expected things like feeling uneasy on the right side of the road or staring in amazement at my room....it's bigger than my apartment! I mean the whole apartment! Then there is the southern accent thing...first at a Wendy's on the way home "what wudju laik ta drank hun?" Though I was surprised to receive some Japanese greetings at church today...like King Dixon busting out with some "Ohayo gozaimasu!" Everyone said there "welcome back, it's good to see you"s and "how d'ya like Japan?"

There were a few surprises at home...like Cadbury cream eggs in the fridge and a bed with new mattreses that looks like it's from the Biltmore house! The dog still remembers me and the cat too, yep even my brother does. There's a woodstove and a stereo in the garage with a coupla chairs around to listen to some good tunes and chill out..my dad's antique tools hanging from the ceiling like a Cracker Barrel. Ya' know after meeting so many people from all over the world and the states I've come to realize that when it comes to culture the south is definately a country in itself. And most people here are quite proud of it...."southern pride"isn't a catch phrase without reason.

On a final note my lost luggage was delivered by the airport tonite and my fiddle is okay...though rather out of tune! Well, tomorow is another day....in the sunny south.

Mark makin' with the merry at Musgrove Mill

Me,Mark, & Steven

Revolutionaries

"Fiddlin" Mark Simpson

Steven of olde

airport

Brookie

kiwi geyser

Brookie

Learning something important

Here`s a quote a friend sent me which is awesome....."Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." Thomas Szasz

Hmmm.... I think I`m about to learn something important...and I`m rather nervous about it....perhaps that`s why.

On a lighter note, you can see Hanami below, which is a really amazing festival...God love the Japanese and their picnics on blue sheetos, frisbee in the park, sake under cherry blossoms (not much of that myself though). There was one huge frisbee/ball game on the athletic field involving 3 frisbees and let`s see....Carolyn, Alexi, Conrad, Kiwi Dave, Scottish Chris, Tori, John, Chuck,hmm...surely a few more.....
Then Saturday night there was open mic night and I toted my banjo to the stage for a few tunes...luckily there was an awesome crowd there!

As for the next round of excitement...home in 3 days...It:ll bee good to see my folks and brothers and animals and friends and musical family, and breakfast food. The crazy part is a taxi coming to pick me up at 5am on Saturday to drive me down to the airport in Tokyo.....is there even daylight then?

sakura

sakura, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

kori

kori, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

Tokyo fella

Tokyo fella, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

showtunes Tokyo gal

showtunes Tokyo gal, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

a colorful mix

a colorful mix, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

Tori eats festival food

Tori eats festival food, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

weeping cherry

weeping cherry, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

Heather

Heather, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

John and Carolyn

John and Carolyn, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

The i-ching and now

Isn't it great when you get a different perspective on things and it just changes everything....in a good way. After a little straigtening up the other night around my bookshelf my hand brushed over my copy of the i-ching, a most important gift I received in high school from someone who understood me very well. Knowing full well I didn't want to put off having a personal with the big guy any longer, I grabbed the box from between sketchbooks, manga, japanese instruction books, Fannie Flag and Haruki Murakami and cleared a spot for it on my kotatsu. Wearing my friend's Chinese silk jacket( it's always been more fun to wear things borrowed or given from someone else, rather than anything I bought myself, plus I figured it suited giving the Chinese origin of the I-ching).....I lit a candle and lifted the well worn box top. Rather old yet powerful incense wafted from the box and the fakey chinese coins clinked and settled on the table....6 times per question... drawing...well, lines from God I could say....."what should I do with my career" My answer: Life is too short to be wasted questioning how life should be spent. So I'm not worrying about that anymore and boy I feel like my creative energy has been finally released after a long time. I still have other questions and answers to ponder of equal importance, but perhaps with some sought out guidance I can find complete freedom from, well from myself I suppose.

New Look for Hanami

Thought I'd spiff up the site for a little cherry blossom appreciation. Tomorow is another chance very blossom viewing in Takeda...let's hope it's warmer than the last one. Also added this time is a couple of links to friend's sites that rock.

I've been very productive besides this site actually doing school related things...spiffying up the English board w/ paper daffodils, organizing files, coming up with lesson plans for passive verbs...difficult I say, but not impossible. It's a beautiful sunny day today, and anything seems possible. The Oshima JHS kids are sloshing around buckets of snow and water on the school grounds, trying to make it melt faster. Ganba! Also working on an English newsletter after inspiration from 5tringsamurai and his 2 issues. Hoping to get a few picks of Takeda blossoms for the news before the first printing on Tuesday. Well I have a bit more to do for Yachiho JHS tomorow and I've been playing with this web page too long...it's already 5:15! Ja, hosha matta ne!

maple cinnamon crepe with snow

Brookie

strawberry crepe

Brookie

Tickle Test ....my destiny

So I was looking at my friend's blogs, cause hey, my friends inspire me, even if they don't always keep up their blogs, I have no room to talk I spose. So I decided to check out this tickle test thing...you can pick from alot of different types of tests. I did the evil test and the destiny test. I found out I'm kinda evil and I'm a Provider....read on to see the results:

Brooke, your destiny is to be a Provider

Whether you know it or not, this is the role that is most in tune with who you are at your core. As a Provider, you have a genuine nurturing concern for the welfare of others and you're eager to serve them. You can recognize exactly what people need and your friendly, helpful, social nature makes them feel comforted. With your kind and generous heart, you are personable, talkative, and outward with your emotions, and your openness and sensitivity makes you concerned about the way others view you. Along these lines, be careful not to blame yourself when things go wrong. You cannot prevent bad things from happening, even though your tendency to be orderly with a strong sense of right and wrong may lead you to believe you can. Accept that you do what you can to take care of things and that this will get you far in the world.

So I guess that's sposed to be me. It sounds kinda gushy, but feels about right. Anyhoo, I watched this great Japanese movie called "Ping Pong" which has a great soppy sporty storyline about this highschool ping pong team and two best friends since childhood who lose and find themselves along the way and even have to face each other (and themselves) in a match at the end.

As for school, things are really looking up at Oshima Chu as well as Yachiho. It's great being able to relate experiences from both schools to one another. I forgot to mention that the principal at Yachiho told me my opening speech was suberashi (wonderful), and asked me when I'm going to bring my violin to school. He observed both of my classes yesterday. As for Oshima, the dollars awards system and translating crossword puzzles is going really well. I hang a couple of crosswords on the bulletin board for the kids to do...and well at least the boys seem to really be going for it. While at Yachiho I was winning over the girls with my Power Puff Girls English board. Makes me wonder why I'm leaving after this year again????

Working at the New JHS

Today I taught my first English classes at Yachiho Chugakko which is a Junior high school, and quite a drive from Oshima. I barely crawled out of my bed at 6:30 this morning to get ready and head over to Oshima JHS to make some copies (my printer wasn't hooked up yet at Yachiho, though I figured it out easily once I actually got to school...sigh..coulda slept in!) Though, traffic was super slow today so it was good I left early. I had 3rd year students only today and I tried to be ridiculously loud and boisterous and even played the banjo and got ovations from both classes. Both classes are a little noisy and I can tell I'm gonna have to win some particular students over if half the 3B class is going to pay any attention in class. I heard they had a bad English teacher last year so some of them rather dislike English, but I'm encouragin alot of smiles so maybe there's hope for a come back.

This school seems to be alot crazier than Oshima's. For example we listen to rap during lunch...."Ya'll gonna make me lose my mind, up in hea up in hea!" and all the girls, more so than boys where there pants way down on their gym suits letting their white shirts or underpants show, takes me back to JHS really. I'm also really excited about getting real bottles of milk for lunch with a bottle top you have to punch in and everything, just pull your sleeves back and plunge in a chopstick.

Went snowboarding yesterday...what beautiful weather. It's strange how it can be hot outside when you're sliding around on snow. I even went over a hill jump (without jumping). The whole trip was awesome even if they didn't have kabocha pudding.... The company wasn't half bad either. Course I was showed up by the pros who caught wicked air on the jumps unlike me, but I did get down the hill the most times and the fastest I've ever gone. It's such a shame that snowboarding is about over.

Saturday was hanami, or flower viewing, in the park, the 3rd most famous in Japan....although the flowers weren't really out yet, and it was a bit chilly, but there was lots of festival food and frisbie throwing and sitting around on blue sheeto's and playing the banjo and singing with the guitar and getting to wear my black and white stripe leggings...yay! There may be some more fun this friday after an ALT meeting and the cherry blossoms might actually be bloomed out this time.

new english teachers

Brookie

Watanabe

Brookie

Mizushima

Brookie

milk bottle

Brookie

Yachiho lunch

Brookie

me 2 clifftop

me 2 clifftop, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

Back when I was 22. Sigh.

me clifftop

me clifftop, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.

Look it's me in August 2003! Thanks Ninian.

watashi

Brookie

Kyoto and Tokyo

So I'm back from a wonderful fun-packed sleep-deprived spring break. Me and Tori, well I'd like to say we saw it all, but it'd be more correct to say we shopped it all! In Kyoto, we stayed with my friend, Bosco who is definately Japan's best fiddle player and an awesome person, as well as his wife Keiko-san who was so kind to us. Most of the time me and Tori went out to see temples and buy things like tea cups and gifts for family members, but I did squeeze in some time to play a few tunes with Bosco and his wonderful guitar playing friend. See below for lots of pictures of Kyoto and what we saw and explored. Of course we met up with Chuck and Jen who were also in Kyoto to hang out and make kung-fu moves on stepping stones on ponds and such. I lost my favorite hat (Tori is wearing it in some of the pics), but I found the 2 issues of one of my favorite series in manga...very hard to find....at a Book Off near Bosco's place...see below..Niea _7. The other thing I got in Kyoto was a cold, I lost my voice for a few days, followed by sounding like Marge Simpson (er still do).

After fun in Kyoto, we took the train on Wednesday to Tokyo and stayed in Victoria's friend Kaori's friend, Yusuke who was really awesome and basically gave up his apartment to us and stayed with his friend down the road! Speaking of his friend, his name is Nari, and he does awesome claymation..think Wallace and Gromit. I was very inspired. Hope I can make some time to do my own animation work. Tokyo was good, not much site seeing like Kyoto, rather shopping and exploring and dancing and thank god....real pizza! I even picked up an electronic Japanese English dictionary to help me with my studies....now I just need to find the time to use it! Do things ever slow down?

School officially starts tomorow but I went to an all day meeting yesterday for Joetsu area ALTs which was actually the most productive thing we've ever done, with great plans to make activities for each page of the 3 grade's text books. Today I leave the JHS early to go meet the new teachers and find out where my new JHS is located, since I have to start tomorow. Then tomorow afternoon I come back for Oshima JHS opening ceremony (its the start of the new school year). Elementary schools don't start up yet, but I'll have 3 more in addition to my previous 2 so now I have 7 total schools to visit and am looking at a lot of driving. I thought about changing apartments for the convience but I kind of like the pace of Oshima and it'll be really pretty again and good for walks once the snow melts off. It's wierd because the snow has all disappeared in Joetsu, but a 45 min drive back here and every inch of unpaved land is still piled with it.

Last thing....isn't it wierd when something seems to keep coming up in your life on such a regular occurance that you start to believe there is meaning to it. Yes this is leading to a strange conclusion. It seems like India (where I visited almost 4 years ago) keeps coming up in my life almost every day. Maybe its time to go back for a visit or a stay. I don't know for what, when, how long, etc...but I figure if it is a hint from the big guy then the details will work themselves out in time.

morning at Kiyo Mizu Dera

Cnv0365, originally uploaded by gritsblogger.