2 Weeks Already?!

Jeez, I can't believe that it has already been 2 weeks since my last blog. I guess the last 2 weeks have been pretty busy. Let's see, two birthdays, a old sport revisted, and a TV season finshed. No wonder I'm so tried.

Anyway the last two weeks have been pretty busy. One weekend was my mom's 50th birthday. I can't believe that my mom has turned 50. I see her almost everyday so I guess the aging goes unnoticed. Its weird because I just thought of a memory when I used to be in 1st grade and I stayed with my biological grandparents every once in a while. I remember sitting in the car as a ride to school asking them how old they were and they said that they were 56 or something. Which means that when I was 5 or 6 my grandparents were already 50, just like my mom. It's kind of weird how time doesn't slow down for anything or anyone. Anyway that Friday we went to Hy's Steak House and celebrated as a family. But I felt that the majority of the night was about Krystal and I getting married. But I guess it was expected from my mom reaching grandma age. After dinner my mom wanted to go singing karaoke so went to the usual place only to find Lauren and Wayne were in the room next door. My mom sang to her hearts desire and that was that.

The next day we went to Kailua Beach to frolic and try the breakfast place Boots and Kimo. They had a famous Macadamian Nut syrup that we just had to try. I guess there's a reasion why its so famous. It was fricken awesome!! The actual meal wasn't anything too special except for the sauce. Kailua beach was its usual windy and somewhat choppy self. We did play for a long enough time to get a little sunburnt. I was itchy all week after that. We also made it a point to try our hand in tennis again. I went into the closet to fish out my old racket. Which looked good as new since we haven't played in forever. I was surprised how fast Jake can move and cut up the tennis court. He was almost as nimble as a gazelle! Our goal was to get good enough to beat Lisa. With Lisa, having experience, in tennis ever since 10th grade I thought that it was a good goal to shoot for. Next time we meet on the courts I know that we're gonna kick ass!

Work is work. The same pressures, the smae worries, and the little triumphs.

The following week was just as

Do you remember...

the 5th night of September? Well its seems like I blog very Wednesday for some reason. But I think its because the ending of the week is solely devoted to getting through to the weekend and the beginning of the week is hectic to prepare for the coming week and my only breath of fresh air is on Wednesday. We just came off a three day weekend and it went by a lot faster than I had wanted it too.

Friday was our first session of eDnD. My friend wanted to try NeverWinterNights. It felt really geeky because it turned into a LAN party with five people playing Dungeons and Dragons on our laptops. It doesn't seem to get geekier than that. But nevertheless it was pretty fun. I mean it does have its pros and cons but I was more on the pro side. It felt kind of like Gauntlet where you run around killing people. But I think the next time we need to plan how we're going to create our party. The characters selection was a little unbalanced and had we actually went through some hard stuff we would have died. Anyway that went into the early morning and we walked away being more of a geek than ever before.

The whole three day weekend was planned by Krystal and day 1 was all about the "Lucky you live Hawaii!" In the morning we woke up at a decent time to go to the Okinawan Festival. Every year Jake is quick to remind us that its that time of year to get our annual fill of andagi and andogs. And it was no different this year. It was crowded as usual but I felt that I didn't stand in too many lines as I did last year. Anyway the andogs were eaten and all of Okinawan culture soaked up to last us until next year. After the festival we decided to cool off from the heat with a viewing of Blades of Glory. But that turned into justification to take a small mid weekend nap. We woke up just in time to go to Jake's house to watch the season opener of Warrior Football. It was a blow out with the UH Warriors killing U of Northern Colorado 63-6. Although the game was no where close to being a super game, it was fun drinking and eating with friends all cheering the same team.

Sunday somehow turned into a shopping day. Jake needed to buy some new work shoes so we made a trip to Waikele. And of course Krystal was in! We started at Ala Moana for some lunch at Genki Sushi and a quick stop at a cosmetic store. Then at the Outlets we found pretty much all the things we set out to find and of course Krystal spent most of the time in one store but everyone left happy and that was the main point. I also got a chance to get some ideas for some Halloween ideas for this year. Last year, I had just started teaching the week of Halloween so I had more things on my mind then how to decorate my room but this year I'm starting early. I know this year my room will be awesome! After shopping all day we made a pit stop at home to freshen up and then we dusted off our tennis rackets and made our way to a court. It had been over three years since I last held my racket and I had to admit it just felt "nice." We went to Kapiolani Park to play but I was surprised at what we saw. On one of the four courts a group of guys had started a dodgeball game. I kept flashing back between Kyoto and the present as I watched the rubber balls of death fly through the air! But the "show" ended abruptly when a snobby looking man started to complain that the "kids" playing dodgeball were to get off because"he" wanted to play tennis. I could understand if they were being hooligans and making a scene but supposedly they waited for their turn and were playing a clean game of dodgeball. The old man threatened to call the cops and I think he actually did but I'm sure the cops have better things to do than to police public tennis court rules. We were on a court ourselves in about 30 minutes or so and had the time of our lives! There was a sense of joy that came from "trying to play" tennis because we weren't all about the rules but successfully making it over the net in bounds. We got a nice workout and had lots of fun at the same time.

Monday was Labor Day so we planned early and made a point to get an early start. we had planned to eat a breakfast fit for a king and have a mini-road trip to the north shore to the Beach of Perfection. It held up all the expectation of a beach of perfection except that the waves were a little stronger than usual. After fighting Mather Nature for about an hour and half we decided to go into town to go to Lisa's pool. But not before we stopped off at Dole Plantation for some Dole Whip and McDonald's for dinner. The pool wasn't as fun as the beach but it did quench my thirst for external full body hydration. We called it a night at around 7:30 and the three day weekend slowly came to and end. I don't have any more three day weekends to look forward but I do have the fall break looming overhead in about three weeks. From here out its going to be fun all the way to Christmas. We got holidays, birthdays, and few long weekends coming up.

I can't believe that its been over a year since we have been back from JET. And even within the year I feel as if we have come a long way and there new experiences popping up everywhere. Let's just hope that lady luck is still on my side for a little while longer for all the good things I am receiving. Let's make Fall 2007 something to remember!

I'm so tried...

Kurisu ou-to

My Humps, My Humps, My Hump Day

Jeez I feel like I'm totally dragging ass this week. But then when I look at it the week is more than half over since we have a teacher workshop day with no kids. So I have Friday to look forward too and then another three day weekend! I'm not one to complain about the three day weekends but they really do seem to mess up the school week for us. I mean we have so much stuff that we need to be accountable on but there just never seems to be enough time. But anyway...

Monday was a very quick day as it was our Resource day where we get with the the other teachers and go to "in school training" for various parts of the curriculum. Anyway we didn't have students on that either. But that was definitely a mental stress day. There was so much that went through the various meetings that I left the day with my brain like pudding. Its so complex that I don't want to go into it again here on the blog. Just take my word for it that it was very grueling. That night I took Krystal home kind of early to chill at the Sakata's. As soon as we walked #5 was having trouble with her birthday gift. I technically only got her a CD/DVD binder but I burned about 75% of all my Japanese dramas on DVDs. She was pretty happy. Anyway it turned out that they were still using Windows Media Player version 5 or something. So there was no way that the avi files would work. So I preformed my "magic" and was able to upgrade the WMP to version 11 and get the thing working. But the funny thing was that we actually kicked off #5 and we started to watch the dramas. There was one in particular that we watched all the way to episode 9 of 11 but stopped for some reason. That night we finished up the drama and commented that no matter where we end up for the night we always end up watching TV.

Tuesday was an ok day for me but turned out to be a hectic day for Krystal. She has all these projects lined up and it took up to 9:00 last night to finish. I thought that it would be nice to bring her dinner and keep her company there since the office would be completely empty. But I think I bothered her more because to pass the time I was watching stupid stuff on youtube that was making me totally laugh. I don't know why it was so funny but at some parts I was laughing so hard that I started to cry. She had to come into the cubicle to tell me that I was too loud. But by the time I took her we both looked pretty hash so I ended up going home early.

OH Yeah! I forgot about Monday night. On the way home I forgot that that evening there was a lunar eclipse. The "blood moon" looked really cool and made me think of Akatsuki from Naruto. Call me an otaku, whatever. But it got me thinking why do Akatsuki have red clouds on their cloaks but the name "Akatsuki" literally translated is "Red Moon?" Anyway after viewing the moon for about 15 minutes I went to Walmart to pick up a copy of Blades of Glory and the first season of Heroes. Everyone has been talking about it for so long and now I can finally catch myself up in Pop Culture. Now I can finally figure what the whole, "save the cheerleader, save the world" thing means.

Anyway, today we just made plans on going to Sunset at the Beach to watch a movie world premiere called Life: Tears in Heaven. Its about a guy who is in the wind surfing circuit and then gets liver cancer. It kind of sounds like a heavy drama but then it is done in Hawaii so maybe I might be a "guy" walking in the background or something. We're planning on making sand chairs and bringing dinner. We'll see if this is a movie worth buying. Hey it worked for Chekeracho!

Kurisu ou-to!

Starbust?

It's Friday! Well technically Saturday morning but it's still the first night until you go to sleep. Anyway originally the plan for tonight was to meet up with Lisa. She invited us to stay at a friend's house that she had been house sitting for. The plan was to cook some dinner sit in front of a giant flat screen and watch a movie. But what happened was that the people that live in the house were very uncomfortable with other people other than the house sitter over. Anyway, Lisa used her puppy dog eyes to get permission for me and Krystal to come over to keep her company. So I finished work, went home early to pack a bag and head over to pick Krystal up.

But before I leave school Krystal calls me to tell me she might have a prospect on a new car. Well not "new" but used and new to her. Anyway I get the specs and we arrange a meeting with the owner. So what the hell do I know about cars? Very close to nothing, but my uncle knows a ton. I call him up and ask for some notes on what to look for. He gives me a pretty extensive list and we're off to Ala Moana. We meet the dude and says that it was originally the grandpa's car but he got too old to drive so he's trying to sell it. It turns out that the car was ridiculously cheap because the car was ridiculous! I mean it was only a '98 but had 175,000 miles on it. Not to mention that everything was manual on it. (except the transmission) Anyway we were polite and said we wouldn't take it but the bug had already infected our brains.

*If you didn't know, just yesterday we went on an amazing voyage all over Honolulu looking for a car for Krystal. I had to admit was having fun too. We started out at a Toyota used car dealership and ended up at the Mazada dealership finance desk.

Anyway we get the bug to keep looking for a car. Even though we caught the "bug" we walked away with nothing. Oh getting back...

So Lisa, gets the "OK" and we're already to go when she says that another co-worker was planning on coming too, with his son. I have no problems with that but it did rule out the fact that we were going to have a quiet dinner. And on top of that we were on the way to the theaters when Lisa called us and said there was a big line. I just told her to start without us and we could totally meet after dinner. We found a nice small Japanese diner in Mililani shopping Center. Anyway we meet with Lisa's friend and head towards the theater.

Ok now for the movie. We went to see Stardust. Everyone I talked to about this movie, they all gave it good reviews. They all said that it was a good fantasy movie about finding true love with princes, witches, and magic. And YES, they did have all the elements for a good fantasy but there was something that wasn't right. I mean I don't even know what that "something" is. It was a little too long. There were very humorous parts that played off the young audience and very adult themes for the older audience. but for some reason the different parts never matched up. I felt that the beginning was way too long. And the important scenes came and left too quickly before the audience can even process it. So I'm torn whether or not I would want to buy the DVD when it comes. I guess it just depends with the mood I'm in when I go to Walmart.

Anyway what's the plan for the weekend? Well I got DnD lined up for tonight and Krystal is going to the Gwen Stefani concert. I kind of wanted to go to the concert but Gwen Stefani has ventured into the type of music that I don't really care about too much. I mean I do have her debut album as a solo artist and yeah some of it is really catchy to listen too but I don't think I would appreciate it in a concert. But then again concerts can be really fun even if you don't know anything about the artist.

As for Sunday its still up in the air. Who knows we could see a movie or maybe even hit up the beach.

Kurisu ou-to!

Nooooooo, MoNdAy'S!!

Oh God, do Monday's Suck. Well I guess I can't complain after coming off a three day weekend. Jeez I was so psyched for the weekend that the weekend started really early Thursday evening.

Before I get to the extra curricular, Thursday was Open House. Meaning that all the parents are invited to the school to check out what their child has been doing the last few weeks. You know they come in introduce themselves to their teacher, check out their kids' work, and take a tour of the class. There are some pros and cons to having the Open House so early. Pros: Because the school year is still young you can get away with stuff that maybe the parents might be expecting like lots of school work. Oh and of course they can't be too upset that there aren't too many things up on the bulletin board. I just pass it off as if we're just too busy right now with protocol rather than work on an art project. Cons: Its never comfortable when parents come into your classroom to criticize and "observe." Not to mention that I did a whole bunch of cleaning and organizing only to have the parent to come in for like 5 minutes. But nevertheless it was causing me stress all week and it was finally over.

As soon as it was done I called the troops and went to check out a movie. We ended up seeing "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry. Which was a very funny "gay" movie. I say "gay" because the whole thing was about gay stereotypes. IT was AWESOME!! There were some really funny stuff in the movie that I was not expecting at all. For example the whole "shower scene" is pretty funny. I mean can't you imagine what the funny shower scene would entail in a gay movie? It may have not been the best movie to see in the theaters but a definite must own on DVD.

On Friday we all planned to go to the beach. It was a very monumentus occasion since Lauren. Lisa, and Jake all came! Actually I was really surprised that Jake came. He's not really a beach person but even he had to enjoy the nice north shore waters and sun. I guess this next coming weekend we're gonna try for Ko'olina. Lats time we tried and it was totally packed so they actually turned people away. Anyway the drive was nice with Lauren at the reigns of her new Mazda 626. It was pretty roomy and the five us fit pretty well. The beach couldn't have been more perfect. Just enough people to make it feel like a nice beach but not too much for us to deter away. We even brought some snorkeling gear but it was more for keeping salt water out our eyes during water play. We finished the day trip to North Shore with some Dole Whip from Dole Plantation. We all then met for dinner at Yen King and watched some Dane Cook. It was a Core Group Day!

Saturday was some what slower than Friday and the day was spent running errands and such. I went over to to Jake's for some manapua and pork hash, from another local eatery that is going to close for good. But because the manapua wasn't enough we met up with Lauren to grab some food. We did make some plans for that night which was to play some of our board games but the location was a little different. I thought that it was a good idea to plan in my classroom where we could take advantage of a location where we could make lots of noise, use a giant white board, and sit in air conditioning late at night... my classroom. It was very cool. We started out with about 5 guys playing but by the end of the night we had gathered 4 more players and there was a lot of competition going around. I believe we left the classroom at 1:00 in the morning.

Sunday was a nice wholesome weekend day. you know those kind of days where you wake up when your body says its ok, the weather wasn't too hot, and you were content. Anyway Jake calls me at 12:00 asking about lunch so we over to the BK lounge. Ordered a gigantic meal with some nice conversation to follow. The one draw back being that the only booth available was in the back of the restaurant behind a 3 generation korean woman pow wow. I get so irritated with Koreans because of their negative attitude and how "Koreans" are God's example of a hard worker mentality that it pisses me off to the core. Anyway trying to block out their conversation and focus on mine with Jake I couldn't help but over hear random stuff from the Korean Booth. One bit of information that lofted over was how the youngest girl claimed that she almost shit her pants waiting in line for the bathroom. I couldn't help but over hear. And that's a word for word translation.

Of course a weekend is not completely done without a shopping spree at Best Buy. I kind of went crazy since its been over three weeks since I've been to Walmart for new DVDs and I had to get caught up. Jake didn't do that much binge shopping but we did spend and hour there. Next stop was a trip to Walmart to pick up some essentials like swimming trunks, sun screen, and beach towels. I guess I've recently gotten the beach bug and can't wait to get into the water every weekend. Hopefully everyone else gets the bug too since the larger the party the better the day at the beach.

I've already done two whole days of work. Picture taking is tomorrow and I need to dress nice. Well maybe nothing out of the ordinary. I can totally see my kids getting dressed up though. The girls usually put thing sin their hair and wear dresses and etc. Boys usually come in a collared shirt with gel in their hair. I didn't have time to get a hair cut but I think I'm gonna go with the spikes for my picture. Almost half way done with the week. Just a few more days than its beach and Best Buy day again.

Kurisu ou-to!

Pop! Goes My Heart

So today was the big day of the Welcome Back Assembly. I've been secretly being super nervous about the whole thing. What started out as me having some fun during class time has turned into a school wide event. I had them do some practices but I was really satisfied. For some reason the more I saw the routine, the more I thought it needed more and intern I kept making the routine harder and harder. But the kids were all goos sports and went along with my "dictatorship" for a while. I was surprised that as the time to perform came closer and closer the more they got pumped up. I was able to squeeze 4 practice runs today before the assembly.

So when we go up it turns out that we're first on the bill. Even before coming down to the cafeteria I had added new moves and more signals for them to recognize. So we get down there and majority of the school is there and all the teachers know whats up and are smiling at me. I'm nervous and as I try to ignore the lump in my throat I see teh counselor getting the speakers ready with my CD. And sure enough within seconds they had asked for my class to coem to the stage. And atthe last minute I got scared for them and retreated to the back of the cafeteria behind the school. And I stood there committed to lead them along the dance. It's only fair that the captain go down with the ship and crew. Anyway the music starts and like a perfectly trained military company they start with the dance. And I'm there to lead them... from the back, safely hidden behind the lunch tables by the student body. After the first verse, I'm feeling pretty good and then a jolt of embarrassment. While the student body is watching my kids dance, and my kids watching ME lead, I notice that all the teachers are more interested in me dancing rather than the kids! They were all watching ME! Some even had the nerve to do a complete 180 and face me to take a picture. OMG! I knew I was turning red. Then finally the sng ended and the kids got a huge applause. They all looked proud and happy to bring joy and laughter to the school. I even got some applause directed to me. But after that intense 5 minutes the rest of the assembly was pretty uneventful.

About a week and a half ago (when Keval and Konopka were here) I twisted my back and totally threw it out it again. Its been a while since the last time it hurt so I guess I was due. I think the last time it hurt this bad was when I was in Japan so its been over a year. Anyway I threw it out last week and was able to take care of it but only for a little while. This past Tuesday my sister's boy friend rrRob let us borrow Wario's Smooth Moves Wii game. And if you didn't know its chalk full of mini games. And we must have played for over 4 hours. The whole time I was playing I felt fine but when I got up to get more batteries it just kind of tweaked out. And it was really bad. I couldn't walk straight let alone stand straight too. the first day was spent drinking down Advil pills while I had my kids fetch things left and right. As I was getting ready to go my room cleaner reccomended that I see a chiropractor that he goes to. I thought that I've tried everything already so it wouldn't hurt. Plus the fee was pretty good.

So I get directions to his out of home office and realize that's no more than 500 feet from my ex's house. That was kind of weird. It has been over 5 years since we broke up so going down that same street was kind of weird. Anyway I get to his house/office and it turns out that my back is totally out of whack. He pushes here, pulls there, and tweaks my spine that way, and tweaks my neck this way and already I feel 50% better than when I walked in. He says that my spine was inverted pretty bad and needed lots of force to pop it back out. I leave his office walking with my own power without my brace. I have two more sessions to go back for but if it worked this well during the first one than why not try the others?

Tomorrow's a big day.. open house and I only have about 60% of the classroom ready. Especially with my back thing going on let's see if I make it to the three day weekend. Wish Me Luck!

Kurisu ou-to!

Stripparaoke . . . ?

Ok so during my semi-weekly car wash my friend "Tomo" calls me to say "hey." I was really happy to talk to her since its been forever since I actually had a conversation with her. She just called me to see how life was and if there was anything new happening in mine. Anyway she said that the main reason why she called me because her and her husband "Red Beard" and friends were on their way to a Stripparaoke. What is that? Well from her description its a strip bar that you sing karaoke at. 2 things of my top 10 favorites were present: karaoke and boobies. But with her first explanation of this "amazing" place, it raised a few questions. Is it in a bar setting? Or do you have a private room? Would that be like a lap dance/song? What if the customer sings songs that are not really for stripping? For example: "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, "Everything I Do I Do it For You" by Bryan Adams, or "My Love is All I Can Give" by Backstreet Boys. That would be pretty weird for a girl to be stripping to some soft love ballad. Would you tip them for stripping and you get tipped for singing? What if there are no singers? Anyway I just got an email and here's what she said:

"how it works: you get called up to sing (i *think* you have to pay to do the karaoke... not sure though since we didn't do it... but that would make sense). and you get ON the stage with the stripper. and then you sing. and the stripper dances/shows her boobies/works the pole while you sing. the strippers usually rotated every few songs (though it was same three girls the entire time we were there) and they dance for the people in the bar AND with/for the person singing.-- the girls were really cute and were kinda "alterna-chick" style... no fake boobies on those girlies!"

The Verdict...
karaoke = good
strippers = good
working the pole = good
showing of boob-age = good
dancing FOR the person singing = good
alterna-chicks = good
no fake boobies = good

Well it seems like a place that I defintely need to do more research on. Anybody wanna join me?