Entries this day: I_Love_You_Just_The_Way_You_Are.... Last_day_of_orientation State_of_My_Life_Address karaoke

I Love You Just The Way You Are....

9:00am JST Wednesday 21 December 2005

Before and after being stuffed with the futons into the closet, Phil kept singing, "I love you just the way you are" over and over until it became the catch phrase of breakfast with all the GETs and CCs. I was quizzed on 玲's kanji and enjoyed watching Kellie do a short version of her animal guessing game and everyone marveled at the cards she made!

Breakfast was lovely and continental.

I love you just the way you are...

After カラオケ tonight with Tomoko and Sumida, I will look into joining these guys for more of the same!

Last day of orientation

1:12pm JST Wednesday 21 December 2005

Had lunch with Maruan, Kellie, Elizabeth y Pepe at a Japanese curry shop. Not sure how most people would describe it, but.

Walked back to the meeting place with Elizabeth; she's cool, and wiser than most women her age (22).

We're outside in the sunshine and cool slight breeze checking email and stuff on a beautifully free wireless signal.

I've been looking for someone to go to Karaoke with Tomoko and Sumida, but have had little luck; too short notice, it seems.

10:40am JST Thursday 22 December 2005

After lunch there was not much more orientation left, but in four different teams we presented ideas for open lessons. Kellie, Mauran and I did the advanced level, variants of "supposed to," a grammar we kept using when talking about how we were supposed to have set up the presentation. After all the opens, I got to do about an hour long portion, playing a Jeopardy(tm) style game to seal into people's minds the random data about things related to the voyage and GET program. Kellie called me Alex, and I tried with some success to keep the eruptions of discussions under control, and overall we had a lovely time. Teams were reallly keen on winning, though no prizes were involved, and Matt quickly erased the board and scores after the game was over.

Yuuka presented a few points about scheduling over the next few days and then we rocked outta there!

State of My Life Address

1:31pm JST Wednesday 21 December 2005

State of My Life

1. The battery on my computer doesn't last very long. Maybe about 30 minutes. I'm thankful for the extra battery given to me by Jay from Gaba (via Jesse), although it lasts about as long.

2. Today is the fourth and final day of 52nd PB voyage GET Teacher Orientation. I feel like I'm far more comfortable this time around, sorta knowing what's going on and what to expect; it's a big help. I've enjoyed being able to answer questions that some people have asked.

3. It seems that I have the equivalent of $24 in my Japanese bank accounts (combined total), and $600 of space available on my credit card, and 40,000 yen plus maybe $200 in my PayPal account. It is with these finances, plus the universe's backing, that I embark on this voyage. Oh, and 18,000 yen in my wallet, plus some miscellaneous notes from a few of the countries we'll encounter: Singapore, Vietnam, South Africa.

4. I found out yesterday that Rie from 49th voyage will also be on 52nd voyage!

5. I don't really know Stacy, who was been involved since 33rd voyage, but I look forward to talking with him a lot more.

6. I'm planning to be exemplary in many ways on this voyage.

7. A bit worried about cash, but I plan to spend approximately 0 yen onboard. Maybe even generate some income (cash or chocolate) through giving back massages.

8. Met Kip Cates, who gave a really inspiring thing about Global Teaching, and I look forward to implementing some of his ideas in the classrooms.

9. I'm wearing no jewelry except the bracelet made by microseed.org from Sri Lanka, brought to PB by Allison on 49th voyage.

10. I wear glasses most of the time. These are the ones I bought with janette back in Dallas after losing my glasses in the ocean in Hawaii after asking for guidance from my angels about the wisdom of trying to climb onto a basically submerged rock. These glasses are definitely cool, but a bit flimsy and superglued together for strength.

11. I'm most looking forward to hanging out with Carla during the voyage to make up for all the times I didn't back in my Nova days when I was always so intimidated by Benny; I just couldn't keep up with his style of communication.

12. I think I can identify 1/2 of the CCs/staff at this point: Rie, Yuki, Ken, Osawa, Ozako, Maiko, Misato, A-chan, Ai.. I get Rei and Sono and some of the others mixed up still.

11:05pm JST Wednesday 21 December 2005

13. Have just done karaoke with Tomoko and Sumida. I felt quite a pang when leaving them; I told them they've become my Tokyo Touchstones.

14. Orientation is finished and now I have a couple days to get the rest of my stuff done before going; actually I'm ready, but I have a list a mile long of website stuff and emails to catch up.

1. design and write image upload and manipulation interface (a ridiculous proposition; it's certainly been written)
2. catch up on email
3. think of a way to organize my existing photos without breaking links Basically mySql that has attributes to photos and points to all the URLs
4. collect addresses for voyage
5. write SOML
6. update Rob Update email list
7. write Rob Update

3:00am JST Thursday 22 December 2005

15. I've just helped Anthony with two things: getting him hooked up with the PB url so he could write to them, and telling him how to set up a website on geocities. He was asking me how to do all the crap that I've done on my site, and I was like, "that shit is too hard to explain" and he was like, "I've got HTML; I just need a server" and I was like, "oh, do you have a yahoo account?" and got him hooked up on geocities.

    I was really happy to see him so happy with the results. Turned him on to htmlgoodies.com when he started having HTML questions.

16. Also looked at a bit of code by Ikumi (pretty fly looking flash code that she hacked together from bits and pieces found online) and she has been asked to expand it, so I offered to help her with that if she sends me the source of her .swf file. I think I can figure out a way to do it... but goodness knows I'm short on time.

17. I saw Michael Heatherton at the other building; great to talk to him again. He offered props to Kellie and, as always, busted out with some way funny anecdotes and variants thereof. I really like chatting with him.

karaoke

8:41pm JST Thursday 22 December 2005

Last night, Karen and I jetted from the orientation, and I used her cell phone to tell 朋子 that I might be late meeting her in 品川 at TGI Friday's. Karen and I got to the station and actually it appeared I would be on time.

I debated between walking over the bridge and walking along the sidewalk, and literally backtracked twice before I chose the sidewalk. Waited for traffic before crossing the street and then while walking up along the shops, I saw Rie from 49th and 52nd PB voyages!!! She and a friend were chatting over coffee-type beverages. Jumped in there and gave her a hug and invited her to join us after she was done. She declined; she was headed to Hiro. Last hug, then zipped over to TGIF to meet Tomoko, who was not there.

Crap. My phone was quite dying after having been charged for four days (my own silly fault; Petra had a charger, but I never actually borrowed it from her) but I called /トモ and learned the awful truth. They were at TGI in 銀座. Dammit.

Well, good thing Rie couldn't join me. Well-embarassed for having barely arrived on time at the *wrong* place, I walked back across a bridge so she and her friend wouldn't see me during my blunder.

My phone was too dead to tell me which way was most efficient to get to Ginza, so I made a guess as to which line would work best, then (missed the first train that left, knowing an error going the wrong direction is worse than missing a train as it's basically twice the time to recover, and) talked to the guy on the platform who confirmed it would have been the right train. blah blah blah got to Ginza, used a payphone to call Tomoko and she led me to TGIF.

We chatted and chowed and ate a rather tall dessert with three plates: bite sized cakes, three sauces, and brazed/glazed fruits. I told the manager it would be better with a fourth plate of ice cream after he asked how we enjoyed the meal.

To カラオケ and sang songs for an hour of Eminem and Prince and some choices by Tomoko and Sumida.. Lovely fun.

When we got into the elevator, I was barely able to get all my bags into the doors, and Tomoko was like, 「大丈夫？」 and I go 「今からオケーです。」and the guys in the back of the elevator laughed. My first joke in Japanese that got a response from strangers! Funny times.