Finished

No more WARNINGS I am disabling this blog.

When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is the last post

Whale Sharks = Awesome

This weekend was pretty good over all. I mean, I did after all get to dive with an endangered species, and well, to put it bluntly, that is pretty fucking cool.

Jason and I went out on Saturday with Chelsea and her husband and a few of their friends on the Whale Shark Dive offered over at Torii station. We arrived at 12:00 and then found out we were supposed to be there at 12:30. Then we waited for everyone to show up and filled out some paperwork. Once that was done we sat through a 3 minute brief on what we were going to do and watched part of a video of someone else doing the dive quite a few years ago.

Then it was time for more waiting. There was a lot of that for something Torii organizes everyday. Once that round of waiting was done we caravaned down to the Yomitan Port where we assembled our gear and got it into the dive boat. Our boat was a combination of Americans, Japanese and Chinese and about half scuba divers and half snorkelers.

It was a quick 5 minute boat ride out to the net off the coast. The net is about 200 ft wide and 65 feet tall. There were two male whale sharks in the net at this time, one was 18 feet long and the other 22 feet long. The whale sharks in the net are rehabilitated and/or exchanges from the aquarium here on Okinawa and in mainland. As the fishermen often find whale sharks in their nets they need to be rehabilitated and so they are sent here. That and Japan is trying really really hard to get footage of whale sharks mating or birthing as no one has ever seen it. Ever. Private folks I guess.

So once we arrived there was a bit of scrambling to get out gear on and roll over the side into the water. Once everyone was in and underwater holding onto the net they opened a small hole and let us in one at a time. Once we were all in and now holding onto the inside of the net they started to feed the whale sharks. This all seems to be for show really, and it gives the snorkelers a good show otherwise a whale shark would never stay up there.

So they feed them for 15 minutes and we watch and take pictures. Then once that is done it is time for free swim. We get to swim around in the net with the whale sharks at our leisure. We are not supposed to touch them, but they are allowed to touch us. Since the whale sharks think every scuba diver is a feeder, that happens quite a bit.

Once we were out and swimming about it was much easier to get pictures. Unfortunately visibility was only like 40 feet and so it was a bit harder to catch any good pictures. They also keep one whale shark occupied at the top pretty much the whole time so the snorkelers get a good show. He is hard to watch because you have to watch out not to take a tail to the face. You really only get to see his shadow against the sun, which is still pretty cool. I would have preferred they not do the whole top thing, but that was because I was down below sucking air and trying to get some awesome pictures.

Sometimes you would be photographing one shark and the other would come out of nowhere, and I am not gonna lie, when a huge 22 foot long whale shark is coming at you open mouthed or his tail is whipping by your head, you scream a little inside your regulator. Not a scream of abject terror, but a scream of wide eyed holly crap that was awesome.

So before I knew it they were making us go back to the boat. I still had over 1500 psi of air and was a bit disgruntled about that but, well, I already knew it was only going to be 30 minutes. I did hang back and was one of the last folk on the boat so I got to watch them for a while from the outside of the net while everyone else was loading.

It was well worth the $115 for the chance to swim with whale sharks and I would do it again in all honesty. It could be cooler, but I will take what I can get, considering they charge $3000 for it in Australia.

Today Jason and I did another dive at Tengan Pier but there wasn't too much special about that other than that my reg was leaking air. I think it got damaged on the boat dive and I need to take it in. This wasn't really a problem today because the dive was shallow and I still finished with more air than Jason. The nudibranches were everywhere out there today and most of them mating which was cool. But it sort of paled in comparison to yesterdays Whale Shark adventure.

If you want to see the pictures they are up on Facebook, I only have like 2-3 really good ones but I can still enjoy it in my brain! Whale Sharks are awesome, diving with them, awesomer!

Change of Address: Warning 3

WARNING: I am going to disable this blog. When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here soon enough, they are the same thing, there is no point. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is warning Number 3

Ups and Downs

I think today was yet another day where Okinawa snuck up out of now where and kicked my ass. It happens far more than I would like to admit. I was working on surgery side which tends to make me hot and sweaty combined with typical hot Okinawa by the time I was coming home from the Commissary I was trying to pass out. Which is fun and exciting when driving!

That combined with coming home to find the dog had eaten my Taco Rice dinner made things sort of really sucky. So it was couch time for me with a Vitamin water and a movie for a while. Jason saved the day by re-buying me Taco Rice on the way home and by about an hour ago I started to perk up again.

Perk up enough to make some half chocolate chunk and half cranberry almond muffins for tomorrows breakfast! Tomorrow is Whale Shark Diving! So I plan to start the day off right with good healthy breakfast muffins and lots of anti pooing meds! Exciting I know. I also plan to start a Beef Stew in the Slow Cooker before we go so when we get done having a kick ass time swimming with some of the rarest and biggest sharks out there, we can get down on some good grub.

So not a great day for me, but tomorrow is the weekend and some kick ass diving!

Change of Address: Warning 2

WARNING: I am going to disable this blog. When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here soon enough, they are the same thing, there is no point. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is warning Number 2

Restaurant Review: Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin

Today was a new food adventure on Okinawa. Today I got off of work and met up with Crystal and headed towards Torii Station to run some errands at the Scuba locker. Too bad no one told me they changed the days that they were closed. So then we headed off to eat at our favorite little Soba hole in the wall out there and guess what, seems they too decided to take the day off. So with the whole trip out there a bust we decided to look for a new place to eat, an adventure.

This adventure landed us in Mihama as we did not see anything we wanted to try on the main road from Torii. So after a bit of driving we spotted Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin in its bright yellow building. What can I say, it looked tasty from the outside? So we popped in for a bit to eat and it did not disappoint.

I ordered a Bacon Cheddar Burger (M size) set with Ooolong Tea and a side of Fried Potato Cheese and found it quiet satisfying. The burger has a nice hand made patty of decent size, a good whole wheat bun, fresh veggies and soft bacon. They also added wasabi mayonnaise which actually was quite good on this burger and not too much of it, sometimes Okinawans go a bit overboard with the mayonnaise.

The Fried Potato Cheese were also pretty tasty, and I think most people would like them more than I did. I am not the biggest fan of fried stuff and these little guys are like tatter tots with cheese and deep fried. I don't see how most people will not enjoy that, like I said, I enjoyed them and I don't even like fried stuff.

So Ishigakijima Kitchen Bin was a wonderful little consolation prise for everything else being closed! They have a limited menu of only 3 burgers and a few sides along with a selection of baked goods for purchase (what an odd combination burger joint and bakery) but it is tasty and fresh, can't go wrong with that.

Change of Address: Warning 1

WARNING: I am going to disable this blog. When I first moved to Okinawa I started up the Tranquility blog to keep family informed about Okinawa. Four years later I stopped updating them about Okinawa and just started reposting all of my personal blog stuff here. So I am always having to make two blog posts on two different blogs about the same thing. So this post is a warning, of which I will probably give 3 warnings before I stop posting here.

If your still reading my blog by email or any other means you will need to update your addresses to http://jackshoe.blogspot.com/ which is my personal blog. I am no longer going to be updating the tranquility blog here soon enough, they are the same thing, there is no point. Please update your links and methods of checking my blog!

This is warning Number 1

A Busy Weekend: Part 2

I am getting father and father behind! Yesterday was also a busy day and I hope things will calm down a little this week after today. We shall see.

So Sunday was Supper Club where we were doing Thai food. I was very not excited about Thai food, it just isn't my sort of thing. But the whole point of super club is to force you to try to make new things and enjoy that food adventure with other people. So I went at it with Gusto and made two dishes.

First thing in the morning I started my Slow Cooker Thai Pork with Peppers which needed to cook for 5-6 hours. It was my "alternate" dish and turned out to be the one I liked more. Easy and simple, pork with a peanut sauce really.

My second dish was Pad See Ew (Thai Noodles with Beef and Broccoli) which I thought seemed way more Thai but the recipe looked pretty Chinese. I thought I was going to love this dish, I really enjoy good beef and broccoli and rather enjoy oyster sauce in it. But this dish just turned out okay.

I had planned to try to find wide rice noodles at the gourmet store or A Price off base but ran out of time as while the pork cooked I needed to do my English lesson for Tuesday because book club on Monday was stop me from doing it then. So I plugged away at the lesson and cleaned the last bit of the house and then realized it was time to cook my second dish.

So I sent Jason off to MaxValue to look for rice noodles on the chance that they had some. I figured this is Japan, they cook everything with rice and glutinous rice, surely they have rice noodles. So Jason went off and an adventure that took a lot longer than expected. His asking for rice noodles seemed to confuse everyone and people were trying very hard to help him.

In the end he came home with Konnyaku noodles which are nothing at all like rice noodles. They are essentially gelatin in noodle form. The fluid they keep them in reeks of fish and they need to be washed and boiled to be eaten. So we did not use those but instead used the thin rice noodles I had received from a cooworker who got them from some one who was PCSing.

Yuko has offered to make me a dish with them so I can see how one would make them decent in a dish. Otherwise I have no idea what to do with them, they are really odd. It seems, after we chatted with Yuko, that Japanese don't really do rice noodles, go figure. So I am sure the people of MaxValue were trying very hard to explain this to Jason in that uniquely Japanese way of not saying no, they don't have that.

Once Supper Club rolled around I found that everyone struggled with their Thai dish. Most of us were disappointed in how things came out. However when it came down to eating time, no one left the table hungry. All the food came out pretty good and everyone was pretty satisfied. We had Thai Cucumber Salad [Crawford], "Pad See Ew" (Thai Noodles with Beef and Broccoli) [Evans], "Gai Pad Med Mamuang Himaphan" (Thai Cashew Chicken) [Ono], Slow Cooker Thai Pork with Peppers [Evans] and Thai-Style Peanut Sauce with Honey and Fresh Spring Rolls [Crawford] and Sesame Bananas [Dix].

It was a really good spread of Thai food and we even had a little beef, chicken and pork. We all tried new things and enjoyed good company, that is the important part in the end.

After Supper Club we headed down to Mother Leaf right outside my house to try some Okinawan Shaved ice. Japanese shaved ice has a finer "flake" to the ice and if often topped with sweet and condensed milk or something very similar. If you want a real Japanese treat you order Zenzai which on Okinawa is shaved ice topped with sweet beans and brown sugar with a few bits of Mochi on top. It is quite unique and a lot better than what most westerners would think. It really hit the spot after all the Thai food.

Once all the fun was over I worked on my lesson a bit more and headed off to bed.

Monday can be summed up pretty quickly here too.

Work followed by making cookies for book club. Book club, where no one really liked the book and we mostly talked about religion (the book talked about religion so it was sort of related) and ate the food that people brought. After all that fun stuff it was back home again to try to work on some of my ESL book and get ahead and then yet another bed time.

While I am at it. Today, even more boring.

Work, food, nap, ESL lesson and then teaching followed by sleep. Well I guess it can't be all fun, games and food adventures everyday!

A Busy Weekend: Part 1

There hasn't been a lot of blogging for the past few days because I have been super busy! There hasn't been a lot of loafing going on or playing on the internets. That isn't to say that I am nose to the grind stone doing unpleasant tasks, but just rockin' and rollin' with stuff to do.

Friday was O-day and that was a fun and a good time. But I already blogged about that. Saturday started out with Jason and I going out for a refresher dive. We are diving with Whale Sharks this coming Saturday and since Jason has not been diving in over a year, we thought it best to get our feet wet on a dive. We do after all want to enjoy the majesty of the great beasts not fumbling with our gear.

It is a good thing we went out too! Turns out my dive computers batter is on the way out the door. It didn't even want to tell me how much air I had for a while there. We managed to squeeze in that one dive and make it work, but we will be replacing the battery this week before the dive. As I have an air integrated dive computer, it is pretty much vital that the thing work, no diving without it.

We dove at Tengan Pier which is supposed to be a pretty unremarkable dive, and it was. I still wish we had brought the camera though. Mostly the bottom is varying shades of brown. Brown sand, brown coral and brown sea weed. But there are a few spots of amazing soft coral and some very unique fish out there. I think we might dive it a few more times some day just because we live 5 minutes from it and might get some really neat pictures.

After the one tank dive it was back to the house to wash up and change and get off to Foster. I needed to pick up the book club book for this month, Enders Game, and Jason was determined to mount the TV on our TV stand. So we grabbed lunch at Macaroni Grill, mostly because we were there and hungry, and then headed on into the BX to find Jason's stuff. That didn't take too long, though it was a bit difficult to determine what we needed as we are trying to mount the TV on the bars on the TV cabinet not the wall and thats all they sold at the BX.

Then it was off tot he library where it took hell and high water to get this months book kit. I mean really, either give me the books or don't. The woman had no idea how to check them out to me and had the communication skills of a gnat. I had no idea if they couldn't find them or just didn't want to give them to me for about 20 minutes of this fiasco. In the end she checked them out to me with a lot of hemming and hawing and being really unsure of life in general. Ridiculous considering we do this once a month...

Once that task was out of the way it was back home again for some cleaning for me and TV mounting for Jason. I didn't have too much time to clean because I was supposed to be off to a Scentsy Party with Crystal. Scentsy, long story short, is scented wax and light bulb heated warmers. I am not too into it, but I must say sometimes it is nice to "leave a candle burning" and not have to worry about Mao burning the house down. I am not quite sure how all those ladies spend so much money on stuff, I have two warmers and just buy wax when some one invites me or asks. The stuff is cheap, the warmers are not. Really, why would you need so many warmers? But any way.

That took a bit longer than expected and so by the time I got home it was bed time. And today, I need to get off to work! So the rest of the recap, later!

A Busy Weekend: Part 1

There hasn't been a lot of blogging for the past few days because I have been super busy! There hasn't been a lot of loafing going on or playing on the internets. That isn't to say that I am nose to the grind stone doing unpleasant tasks, but just rockin' and rollin' with stuff to do.

Friday was O-day and that was a fun and a good time. But I already blogged about that. Saturday started out with Jason and I going out for a refresher dive. We are diving with Whale Sharks this coming Saturday and since Jason has not been diving in over a year, we thought it best to get our feet wet on a dive. We do after all want to enjoy the majesty of the great beasts not fumbling with our gear.

It is a good thing we went out too! Turns out my dive computers batter is on the way out the door. It didn't even want to tell me how much air I had for a while there. We managed to squeeze in that one dive and make it work, but we will be replacing the battery this week before the dive. As I have an air integrated dive computer, it is pretty much vital that the thing work, no diving without it.

We dove at Tengan Pier which is supposed to be a pretty unremarkable dive, and it was. I still wish we had brought the camera though. Mostly the bottom is varying shades of brown. Brown sand, brown coral and brown sea weed. But there are a few spots of amazing soft coral and some very unique fish out there. I think we might dive it a few more times some day just because we live 5 minutes from it and might get some really neat pictures.

After the one tank dive it was back to the house to wash up and change and get off to Foster. I needed to pick up the book club book for this month, Enders Game, and Jason was determined to mount the TV on our TV stand. So we grabbed lunch at Macaroni Grill, mostly because we were there and hungry, and then headed on into the BX to find Jason's stuff. That didn't take too long, though it was a bit difficult to determine what we needed as we are trying to mount the TV on the bars on the TV cabinet not the wall and thats all they sold at the BX.

Then it was off tot he library where it took hell and high water to get this months book kit. I mean really, either give me the books or don't. The woman had no idea how to check them out to me and had the communication skills of a gnat. I had no idea if they couldn't find them or just didn't want to give them to me for about 20 minutes of this fiasco. In the end she checked them out to me with a lot of hemming and hawing and being really unsure of life in general. Ridiculous considering we do this once a month...

Once that task was out of the way it was back home again for some cleaning for me and TV mounting for Jason. I didn't have too much time to clean because I was supposed to be off to a Scentsy Party with Crystal. Scentsy, long story short, is scented wax and light bulb heated warmers. I am not too into it, but I must say sometimes it is nice to "leave a candle burning" and not have to worry about Mao burning the house down. I am not quite sure how all those ladies spend so much money on stuff, I have two warmers and just buy wax when some one invites me or asks. The stuff is cheap, the warmers are not. Really, why would you need so many warmers? But any way.

That took a bit longer than expected and so by the time I got home it was bed time. And today, I need to get off to work! So the rest of the recap, later!

O-Day

Today was the Vet clinics Organizational day, basically a paid day to have fun with coworkers. We had a cookout at Torii Beach and I think most people had a pretty good time. It was good food and good people so you can't complain too much, and we got paid to do it.

I only wish I was more heat tolerant, today wooped me more than expected. I was only outside for two hours sitting in the chair under a pavilion and still it was a bit much. I some how got sun burned, how that happened I don't know since I was only in the sun for like 10 minutes, but I did.

I also ended up coming home, cleaning for a bit and then I passed out on the sofa. Dehydration is a bitch I tell ya. I thought I was doing okay with one bottle of water an hour and limiting my activity but I guess it was a bit much. Lots of fluids and some resting in the ac and I am doing much better.

Tomorrow should be super busy! Jason and I plan to try to hit the water for a refresher dive before our whale shark dive next weekend. We also need to pop by Foster to grab a mounting kit for the TV and I need to get the book club book for this month. After that if there is time I need to hit up a scentsy party with Crystal and then clean the house because Sunday is Thai Night for Supper Club.

Sunday should be equally as busy with house cleaning, cooking, supper club and doing my English lesson! It is a busy busy weekend for me I tell you, but it seems like an enjoyable one.


-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

A Success!

Jason cooked dinner tonight and though it was a bit late to get on the table, it was tasty. He made inside out chicken cordon blue and a sweet tangy dressing for some mixed greens. Things might have gone more smoothly if we could get fresh chicken at the commissary, but I didn't want to make two trips to get stuff for dinner. So with a not so quick water thaw, things came out just fine. I think he almost enjoyed himself.

In other news I almost burned down the house today.

Yeap, I almost burned down the house, you read that right. This morning I was getting ready to go to work and finished the last of the ice tea. I had 20 minutes before I needed to go so I popped the kettle on the stove to make up a new batch of tea so it would have time to cool and could go in the fridge when I got home.

I then remembered I needed to take Alex in and get her lump looked at today. So I finished getting ready and headed right on out of the house. I spent a good 4.5 hours there and then came home. Just as I pulled up the street heading towards the house I remembered what I did.

In a panic I drove around the bend and found the top of the house unburned and was a little hearted. I hurriedly parked the car and burst into the house and breathed a huge sigh of relief as Mao gave a heartening Meow for me. The house did not smell of gas and the stove was off. But it looked like as if the kettle boiled over and thankfully it had not burned out the bottom of it. It mostly looks unscathed.

Then I proceeded, like a fool, to test the stove. House could have been filled with gas and here I am trying to light the damned thing. I then thought better of this idea and ate my lunch being grateful the house was still intact. After lunch there was a lot more playing with the stove and checking the gas. I assumed my pilot light was out but damned if I could figure out how to light the thing.

So I called the housing company and asked them to send someone, and they did. The polite Japanese man then walked outside to the back of the house and pushed the button to relight the pilot light. 30 seconds later, it was lit and fine. Had I been better at reading Japanese I am sure it has directions on the silly box. I need to work on my Japanese, I have been saying this for quite sometime now.

So this fiasco of course threw off my day and I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. I did get the kitchen clean though and that is something. Tomorrow is another day and I will just get it done then. But today, today I am grateful for a good dinner and the house still standing.

Putting My Foot Down

Yesterday there was a bit of a mishap in the kitchen. My hands were covered in raw egg and buffalo and I realized I forgot to add the herbs. So I ask Jason to grab them and sprinkle them on so I could mix the meat. Dumping then happened and he looked at me with a "what did I do wrong expression" when I became concerned and realized he had no idea what he was doing.

Jason is a "foodie" in that he loves food, not good food or gourmet food, just food. He also has no idea how to cook food or how food is made in most cases. I found this depressing, discouraging and just plane wrong. If left to his own devices Jason would heat and eat everything and be okay with it.

So finally I am putting my foot down. He is going to -cook- dinner one night a week. No heat and eat, not Voilà or frozen lasagna. I may regret this, but he -will- learn to appreciate me cooking dinner and perhaps even learn how to cook a bit. Thursday is his night and so I will keep you posted on how that goes.


-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan

A Perfect Sunday

Today was an excellent day. I rode my bike as planned, I played some Lego Harry Potter, I got to catch up with Crystal and I even got some excellent food at the British Wine and Tea Shop. It doesn't get much better than that.

It was yet another relaxing day on the island spent running from one AC'ed placed to another trying to avoid the heat. The day was gorgeous when viewed behind panes of glass. The sky had the perfect amount of clouds and the ocean was crystal clear and varying shades of turquoise. It was a vividly beautiful day.

It really was a good day, and I am rebelling against writing my ESL lesson plan because I didn't want to spoil my day. But then that means I have that much work left tomorrow! Hopefully my happy Sunday carries me through the week.

The Shocking Truth

So this morning Mao decided that 2:00am was the perfect time to sit on the other side of The Mat and start meowing. This continued until about 5:30am when Jason got up. I of course attempted to sleep and ignored her and had fitful dreams of owning a shock collar and shocking her when she does this. I was so motivated this morning that I even looked for one on the internet, in fact I still am.

The trouble is, Mao has responded so well to The Mat I can't believe I waited so long to get one. Over all she is almost a good kitty now and the behaviors seem to be going away. We are all becoming a lot happier. However, after finding that Mao responded so well with The Mat it really does make me wish I had a shock collar.

Go ahead and call me cruel or what ever, most people on the internet seem to think it is mean, and I used to be one of them. Until I met a cat that positive reinforcement did not work on. I have trained a LOT of troublesome dogs in my time and never once needed a shock collar or even a prong collar. No really, I trained some really special dogs, abused and neglected even. Love and treats, that is all it takes.

But none of them ever liked being yelled at, or swatted at more than love and treats. Mao loves a good game of chase me smack me and yell at me. She could care less about treats, love or even spray bottles and apple bitter. She is a masochist, the worse the punishment the more she misbehaves. The better the reward the more she doesn't care.

I thought I was at my wits end when I got The Mat and now I shake my head at taking so long to get it. In the end, she has had less correction by this method than anything else I have tried. It allows me to correct instantly and even when I am not looking. The shock isn't too bad but enough to make you not want to do that again.

So call me evil, but I am still searching for the kitty shock collar. If I can find one, a few quick zaps and I am pretty sure she will stop eating my plant and wait to talk to me until I get out of bed. Until then, let us hope this 2:00am serenade does not continue.

Adventures in Young Adult Reading

I had thought that today was going to be a very bad day at work. It seems like we have been having a lot of those. We are of course still under staffed, it seems like we are always understaffed. I haven't seen us fully staffed in a long long time now. But then each supervisor I have had has a different idea of what fully staffed is, so perhaps to them we have been. If you ask me, understaffed.

In any case we were attempting to run more rooms than we had people to run them and that is a bit problematic generally speaking. It usually results in us being about an hour behind and feeling a bit frazzled. But somehow today wasn't that bad. I actually got out to lunch at about 12:20 which is really good for me, I normally get out at 12:45. So it was a pretty good morning, though I am unsure about how the afternoon went, as I get to go home, eat my lunch catch up on stuff and then take a nap and get ready for teaching.

It makes napping much easier when the morning is less harrowing, and today was a good day. So I got my nap in and I am feeling just super refreshed and ready to teach a lesson on... Summer! I'll even try to be positive and leave out how much I absolutely hate summer and its cursed weather.


I am a bit eager to see how the new book will be for my ESL class (it is on its way from Amazon). We are going to read "The 100 Year Old Secret" which is a young adult book that sort of goes along with Sherlock Holms. It might be a bit less depressing than the last book we read, but it also may be more of a challenge for my students.

Welcome 12-year-old Xena Holmes and her brother, Xander, Sherlock's great-great-great grandchildren, newly arrived in London from Florida. They are playing a favorite game, guessing people's occupation by appearance, in front of their hotel when a strange man delivers a note written in disappearing ink directing them to the Dancing Men Pub. There, through a set of tests, their famous relative is revealed to them, and they are given his "Unsolved Cases" notebook. Xena, intrigued by it, soon finds a case with modern relevance—a missing portrait by Nigel Batheson, whose other works are being displayed in a nearby gallery. The siblings are off and running through a plot laced with references to the original stories and using similar devices, including a red herring. The main characters are observant, bright, and gifted with powers of deduction. Watson's great-great-great grandson, Andrew, is integral to the plot. Some clues seem to be obvious, but they can lead to a wrong conclusion. A well-paced beginning to a new series.

However students aside it also might even be interesting for me to read. I never read a lot of youth fiction, I sort of went from kid books to Stephen King at an early age. I did read some Nancy Drew and the like but only because our very small library ran out of books for me to read. I much preferred Alexander Dumas' "Three Musketeers" unabridged than I ever did Judy Bloom's "Are You There God? It's Me Margaret". But as I have gotten older I occasionally pick up one of these youth novels and some of them are better now than they were then. Quick little beach reads that remind you what it is like to be young and what it was like back then. Though I still love Dumas who may be the author who inspired me to branch out of horror "read" more than any other author.

So this book is a more modern Young Adult book and will I am sure let me see how old I am. I am always surprised to discover new slang or phrases that "the cool kids" are using. It doesn't quite make me feel old, but it does make you realize your not in "that stage" in your life any more. Reading the horrid writing of Stephanie Mayer did remind me of how in high school boys and school were more important than anything else. Way more important than mortgages, taxes and marriages. Oh how life has changed. Hopefully my books will get here soon, I am eager to preread it.

But on the subject of teaching, it is time for me to be off! I need to change and get out the door, into the 106°F weather that is outside of my air conditioned house. ::sigh::

It's Not The Heat, It's The Humidity

The first year I was on the island, I embraced it. The second year I was on the island I dealt with it. The third year I tolerated and. This year I am throwing a tantrum about it. I, just, can't, take, it, any more. I am sick and tired of the heat and humidity.

Today I thought it would be nice to bring the dog for a walk to Family Mart while we grabbed some lunch there. It is perhaps a 6 minute walk to the family mart and 10 minutes the long way back home. A total of about 15 minutes outside, the sun wasn't even out for about 10 minutes of that.

Yet I nearly died, even the dog, the dog who loves the warm sun, heat and craptastic weather was uncomfortably hot by the time we made it back to the house. However she handled it with a bit more grace and just laid down on the cool floor had some water and panted. I stripped down, sat directly in the AC's blowing cool air and sweat my ass off for the next 30 minutes while I tried to replace the water that was coming out of me faster than I could put it back.

I know this is going to bring a gasp to most peoples lips, but I am just about ready to go back to Omaha if nothing else. At least I can be outside there. Now I am sure by now my Mother is already getting ready to lecture and say that FL's heat wave makes it hotter there than it is here (of which we are now matching or beating them). I don't really care, if Floridians don't like it, they an move. Like I am ready to move.

I am just flat out done with the tropics. It is beautiful and awesome here. And I am ready to flee. But for now, for now I head off to go take a shower so I can try to look presentable at dinner tonight. Even though we will need to drive to dinner and I will melt in the car any way.

Happy 4th!

Today was the 4th of July, in Japan in any case. Jason and I spent a quiet day at home having our own little mini BBQ with burgers, brats and grilled veggies. It wasn't thrilling but it was a nice relaxing day at home.

It is summer time her on Okinawa so there wasn't too much for me to do. Others were out enjoying the beach or the festival they had on base, but I am stuck inside. Scuba diving was an option but it was super windy and didn't seem like a great dive day so decided against that. But then sometimes it is nice to just relax at home, eat some food and relax with the pets.

It was so windy and so hot while we grilled once we were done the pets nearly melted (we even let Mao outside for a bit). We also barely got the grill started due to the high wind! I guess there are small disadvantages to living so close to the ocean, the price for having an ocean view.

Tomorrow is one more day off, one more day to enjoy relaxing at home and then back to work and the daily grind.

Friday Night

"So Crystal, what did you do with your Friday night?"

"Oh I got sucked into editing my blog after dinner."

"The blog that not many people actually read on your blog so they won't actually see the changes?"

"Yeah, that one."

That about sums up my night. I went with Jason to Macaroni Grill at his request and had dinner. It seems they changed their portion sizes to much more reasonable and added some healthy options, however their prices did not reflect this. At least I did not have to roll out of the restaurant.

After that we came home and I tinkered with my blog. I found a fun cool new layout and immediately began making it mine. I like some of the new features blogger added but it can make web editing a bitch at times. The new layout is much more colorful and such, it is more Web 2.0 in appearence than the last one.

I also found some of my old stuff was defunct and needed tossing! So I took the opportunity to scale things down a bit in some places and add new features in others.

One of the new bits is the integration of Foursquare which I think I am going to commit myself to using. It shows where I am at when I am at places, not too fancy but it is something. Now if only I could find a way to force a push to make it post a blog...

Perhaps tomorrow. Tonight it is time for sleep, I haven't seen midnight in a long time!

-- Posted From My iPhone so forgive the typos and spelling mistakes!

Location:Uruma City,Japan