A Year, 年を通して

Four days ago, on August 1, I turned 1 in Okinawan time.

I have lived abroad for one year. And it feels good. Here's to another year. Or as my supervisor and superintendent put it as I signed the official contract that lasts until July 31, 2009, "また一年間、宜しくお願いします。"

Of course. I'll do my best.

Dandy

Like I do a few times a week (perhaps more than is healthy for my wrists), I updated my Facebook profile status last night. I typed, more or less, that I was feeling pretty dandy. Still am. I had a great weekend. The sun is shining. And I feel good (imagine me smiling with a twinkle of light off a bright and shiny tooth).

The only problem is that I don`t really know what "dandy" means. So here`s a little bit about what I found out about the word...

dandy (n.): a man who is greatly concerned with the elegance of his appearance
dandy (adj.): very good

Needless to say, when I saw the noun definition, I had a laugh at myself - good choice of words, Weiss! I`m sure there have been a few times where I acted like a dandy, to the point of obnoxiousness (apologies to those who had to bear it?). The adjective definition, though, was what I was going for. Very good; very good, indeed.

In case you`re really interested, you can read about the history of the word "dandy" at Wikipedia by clicking here.

I'm too sexy...

for my car, too sexy for my car, doesn't get me very far.

Well, whatever, it's turning into a piece of crap. Or I'm just not treating it very well.

For example, after karate today, Cliff dropped me off at the usual beach meeting spot (how cool is that - we meet at the beach like it's no big deal? Never did that in the States!). I unlocked the FRONT driver's side door. I then pulled the handle for the REAR driver's side door. And I hear something break, fall through the interior of the door, and land with a *thunk* at the bottom of the door. After unlocking said door, it won't open. No matter of movement on the rear driver's side door handle will open it.

I broke a car door. I had to reach inside the car and use that handle to get the door open. Clearly, the reason for this is because I'm too sexy for my car. Or I'm too stupid. Let's pretend this is a "Choose your own Adventure" and you get to decide. If you choose sexy, ...

Special events

I've been working since Thursday, but it's been great, because it's not the typical work of a teacher or ALT on summer break (perhaps sitting in an office). Instead, Higashi has been host to 30 students and 6 teachers from Hawata, Yamagata-ken participating in the 14th of a series of annual exchanges between the two towns.

We've been lucky with weather, especially considering Typhoon 8 about hit Taiwan had a significant chance of turning northeast and ruining a lot of our outdoor activities. Instead, we were able to make everything happen, from the afternoon of Physical Adventure at Higashi's Eco-Park, to the Ocean Experience day and final evening BBQ yesterday.

A student leaping from the 10m tall "jump-pole"

Especially interesting was me being asked to play and sing a very well known song called "Shimanchu nu Takara" at yesterday's BBQ. Nervousness was low, and I attribute that to the years of performing on stages in front of people and having taught the kids of Higashi for a year. And I know the song by heart. What I didn't know so well were the guitar chords. Unfortunately, wind was high, and the chord sheet kept getting folded in half, meaning I couldn't see. After getting a little bit flustered but unable to fix the problem or stop they song (you can't stop the music!), someone finally realized what was happening and came to hold the paper down. After that, it was smooth sailing. Of course, everyone was in high praises, despite my knowing that I could have done better (I've resolved to rock next years whatever special event).

Today is the farewell meeting, a 15-minute goodbye to be held in a couple hours from now. The students and teachers will then head to the Churaumi Aquarium and a few other places before taking their lodging for the night in Naha. Tomorrow they return to Hawata, hopefully taking with them some pretty fun memories.

So yeah, I've had to work this past weekend and another day or two yet. But it's not the normal sitting in an office kind of thing most people do all their lives. For that reason, among the many many others, I'm so glad to be on JET.

Learning from scratch

I recently signed up for motorbike lessons at the driving school in Nago. My friend Ollie and I are working on this together, though separately - as he lives on the far south of the island and I live north. We're both taking the middle class license class (400cc and below). And today (Thurs) was my first day on the bike.
It was awesome! Sure, I didn't actually do that much, other than learn how to lift the bike from a tipped position (heavy - use your legs!), how to mount, operate all the basic controls, set the bike into a standing un-manned position, manage the clutch and gas, manage simple turns, proper acceleration and braking, and enter into traffic.

My instructor today, Uechi-sensei, was cool and he inspired confidence in my own ability right away. Though I forgot to turn off my blinker for about half a lap, and stalled the bike 3-4 times (once in 4th gear going sooo slow - but I was only following his lead), I didn't drop it and it felt really good. There's definitely a lot of room to improve in shifting, meaning reducing excessive revving or smoothing out the starts and gear changes. But who wouldn't have lots of room for improvement after only one formal lesson. I once rented a 125cc bike in Thailand for two weeks, but that thing seems like a toy compared to a 400cc machine.

So I'm really excited to get back and knock off a lesson here and there. Since I had already successfully converted my US license to a Japanese, not only is the class cheaper, but the coursework is reduced to practical lessons only, meaning just driving and nothing in the classroom. This is good news, since it let's me get done more quickly, but not too quickly as to blow through everything and not learn any good skills.

In fact, the course consists of 17 total classes: 9 in the first step (or １段階 ichi-dankai) and 8 in the second. After succesfully completing the first step (and I believe after an evaluation), I'll move on to the second step, completing the course with a succesful run on the examination, which includes the following: basic setup and manuevering, slalom, the ippon-bashi (google it), emergency braking, rough terrain (maybe?), the crank (think Tetris shapes on the road), the figure 8, and various other basic safety considerations when turning, accelerating, braking, etc.

Perhaps the coolest part of it all is having to have bought gear for the class. I got a helmet and basic leather gloves as required. Of course, once all is said and done, I'll have to upgrade the gloves to something more suitable to my style. And boots; don't forget boots. But I'm not going to worry about that. There's still at least a month to go before finishing the course, given intermitent work assignments, travel, and my brother's visit to Japan.

But rest assured, once Ollie and I have completed our training, passed our tests, bought and insured our bikes, and reached beautiful points on Okinawa on two wheels, we'll flood you with pictures and stories and have a good time doing it.