*yaaaawn*

Due to my laziness and my computer's inability to type properly, it has been awhile since I made an update. I have been busy though. I went to Kameoka to visit my friend Nina, who is also a JET, and we took a romantic ride on the river by the valleys near her house. It was quite beautiful i must say. The water was soo blue and shiny.

Then a few days ago, I went to Kobe and saw the illuminaire. It was quite pretty but waaay too crowded. There was even a guy who bleeding from the head and turning pastey white. Man, old japanese ladies are tough. I think the experience might have been nicer if I went there with boyfriend, but it was pretty enjoyable none the less. I got to meet up with a bunch of peeps like dylan, heather, and justin.

For those of you who know about my job, know I am very lucky to have gotten kyoto city as my placement since it is the most desired location. I am even more lucky since they aren't taking any more JET applicants for Kyoto city...ever. I just made it, whooo.

Here's a pic of some of my kids running:

Going back home for Christmas in two days...crazy. I can't wait! I still have to finish shopping though...

5 little monkeys jumping on a bed!

Perhaps you don't know that story. Anyways, I went to the monkey park in Arashiyama this weekend!! Arashiyama was very beautiful as well as warm with all the body heat eminating from the massive amount of sightseers. People were riding boats on the river and there were vendors all around. The leaves were all differend shades of red yellow and green. The monkeys were SCARY...but cute. I had to climb for about 1/2 an hour but i finally made it to the top. the monkeys are roaming free at the top of the mountain. you aren't supposed to look them in the eye, or else they will attack. I took a video...but no sound =(. i didn't notice. dammit. maybe i will put it up anyway.

Anyways pictures are worth a thousand words...or so they say so on with the pictures:

The end of hikkikomori life!

So I finally got out this weekend and hung out with people. Last weekend i was sick so i just stayed in bed and ate oranges...and it WORKED! i'm all better now! So this weekend was the Rits school festival. I hung with Akiko, Daichi, and Daichi's friend whose name I forgot, and Carla joined us later in the day. I realize that you guys most likely have no idea who i am talking about, but that's okay. I just feel weird saying "my friends" all the time. for all you know i could be talking about the same to people over and over. So just in case you thought I might be doing that, I've decided I'll use names from time to time.
Back to rits fest. For those of you who don't know, I studied abroad at Ritsumeikan. It was my first time back at Rits since I left. There were food vendors everywhere. people dressed up in costumes trying to get your attention and go to their stand. Girls in maid outfits, and boys with furry animal ears, or boys with scary-looking halloween costumes roaming around trying to get you to buy their stuff.
So besides eating at a bunch of vendors, I also went to a magic cafe where we sat down with our little paper cup drinks that they gave us, and then magician would come to our table and perform tricks. It was quite entertaining, but out magician talked so fast T_T. But pretty much understood the whole thing, so that was good. I also went to what seemed like an advertising club exhibit. it was pretty cool. you walk in and they give you a survey and you have to check off one in each category that you thought was the best. I saw a bit of the pro-wrestling club, the acapella group, and the japanese classical instruments club. i played the shamisen again. I sucked big time T_T. I tried the flute and wasn't too bad at it. Unfortunately it was pretty chilly. not too bad but the festival just seems like it would be so much more fun if it took place in the beginning of November instead of the end. i unfortunately didn't see rits metal =(. I thought i would be going on Sunday but the people that were going backed out and the weather was pretty crappy.
Saturday night i went to a club, and they had a live band performing. I still can't believe Japanese people dance facing the stage. It gives me a sense of "we are all alone, together" kind of feeling. The other downsides were my feet hurting and condensation dripping on me from the ceiling. The band was quite good though, and I got a free corona from the bartender. I don't think it's because he thought i was hot or anything. The girl before me changed her order after he already opened it, so i guess he had to get rid of it.
I'll try to put up pics soon.
It is very cold now, and it is very difficult to convince myself to leave my room.

Bye Bye Mommy

I spent the past week with my mom, and I won't lie...it was awesome. I had breakfast in bed everyday. She made my lunch for work and then cooked dinner for me when I got home. Not to mention keep my apartment nice and tidy and buy me all my groceries. It was nice being spoiled silly for a week. But alas, all good things must come to an end and here I am now, alone. Back to cooking for myself.

One of the days, I took her to see my really nice school. She asked some of my ninth graders if she could take their picture and then a flood of boys came pouring out of the class room, throwing up their peace signs.
Some of these kids I swore I've never seen before. They are probably the ones that are sleeping in the back of class. Maybe I should whip out a camera in the beginning of every class to wake kids up.

The picture below on the left is of my favorite 9th grade boy wearing the teacher's tie and his own tie on his head, and big dorky non-perscripted glasses. Soo CUTE!! Below is a picture of the same boy NOT looking like omar's friend, Rich. My mom was trying to take a picture of him with his little bell on, and another boy, but the other boy kinda shyed away and he's trying to call him back. His name is Silver (銀) but they pronounce it as Shiruba. Anyways, I think that's an awesome name.


To the right are the 9th grade girls. I didn't recognize any accept the second from the left. She is my favorite out of the girls. She wrote me letter covered with pictures of Johnny Depp. I commend her for her good taste in men.




The 9th grade boys fed my mom lots of complimemts; telling her how beautiful she is and how great her japanese is. They also gave her a tour of the school. So my boys may not know much English, but at least they know how to pick up foreign chicks and show them around.
The picture to the left is of us infront of the pool on the roof.

I took mom to dinner with some of my friends here, and then we met up with some more people and went to a bar. I ran into one of my vice principals there and he asked me to introduce him to my mother so I did, even though he was a bit tipsy. Then his friend who was drunk came and grabbed my mom and introduced her to all his friends. Poor mommy had no clue what was going on. We also went to the Toji flee market and the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of Ages) which took place right outside my apartment.

Here are some other pics, since now I have a camera!! Mostly of me looking cute and some of the Jidai Matsuri.

YATTA!!!

I stupidly spilled water on my laptop yesterday and it stopped working until just an hour ago!!! I'm a rather clumsy person as you all might know, but no matter what i do (mess up my computer, lose my wallet, etc) it always turns out okay. So I feel like god made up for me being clumsy by making me a really lucky person.

In other news, My Mommy is HERE!!! Today I had roti and chicken curry...yummy. it's been a while since I've had a good home cooked meal.

I feel like this entry is too short, so I will continue by telling you a story. I was teaching 3rd graders one day at elementary school, when a few of the boys gathered outside the class and began whispering to eachother and staring at me. I looked like I always did, or so I thought. Unfortunately they know that I know Japanese so they won't talk about me infront of me. But I did hear one of the guys say to another, "Oh, you're right" while staring at me. Then one of them came up to me and asked me "Do you drink milk?" Then I knew exactly what they were talking about. They were talking about my boobs. I'm serious. In Japan, they believe that drinking milk makes your boobs bigger. Which makes sense in a primative thinking sort of way. I always thought it would make me taller but that obviously didn't happen or i'd hate to see what i'd look like if I never drank milk. Anyways, his next question was "When did you start drinking milk?" I think that's a pretty darn weird question don't you. It only makes sense when you connect to the whole boobs thing. I think they were trying to say I have big boobs. Too bad i was getting this from nine year old boys. Now i'm just disturbed. 9 year olds shouldn't be talking about boobs! Speaking of which, bra sizes are totally different in Japan. They can make anyone feel well endowed. I love bra shopping in this country!

A blog is born!!!

There are too many things to update like facebook, myspace, xanga, and probably something else I forgot. So I decided to get a blog too!!! Don't worry I'll still check the other stuff, but i'll actually try to keep this one up to date...unlike xanga.

Okay, as you might have noticed, my address is bananasensei (and so is my cell email). One guy told me that the name was decieving because he thought that I would be yellow (politcally correct term: East Asian). I must say that would be a pretty lame reason to choose bananasensei. twinkiesensei would be more suiting. Believe it or not, every time I tell my students that my name is Shivana, they say "banana! banana!" and this has only happened around a hundred times and in every school i've ever taught. So I am known as BANANASENSEI here in japan-o-land.

Now on to actual news.

I did my first homestay ever, with total strangers this weekend. I stayed at an old Japanese couple's place. They were so cute and nice. When they found out that I could speak Japanese they said that God answered their prayers. Now I know why my Japanese suddenly got significantly better. They own a miso factory and so they had humongous buckets full of miso in their garage. Their house is pretty big. Definitely bigger than my house in America. They had an evil dog. It would have been cute if it didn't look like it wanted to rip my flesh off. They had a chubby son who was around 26 and he refused to acknowledge my existence. He wouldn't even say hi. What a jerk. I thought everybody loved Shivana!

After my lovely dinner with the family, I woke up the next day and participated in one of the local festivals. It was awesome! I "carried" a mikoshi (um it's like those things you carried royalty on, but this on just had sake). It was really easy for me since the tallest people were at the ends and they were all at least a foot taller than me. So i kinda just pretended like i was holding it up.

I was interviewed by some people which i knew would happen, because i am a rare breed even among foreigners. I also had lots of pictures taken of me by old men =D. They eventually chopped open one of the bottles of sake we were carrying, and we all dug in. I had a circle of people around me taking pictures of me drinking sake. They even told me not take wussy sips and to just chug the whole thing. So I did. Then we trecked to a sake factory where we sampled some more sake and then off to recieve blessings from a local shrine that is guarded by the four guardians of the Earth: Seiryuu the dragon in the east, Suzaku the phoenix of the south, Genbu the tortoise of the north, and Byakko, the white tiger that guards the west. Why do I know all that? Because I am a genius, or at least that's what Japanese people think. I'm not actually going to tell you why I know that. Anyways...here's a picture of the legendary phoenix in rock form!


...well i thought it was awesome.

On the way back a drunk old man started talking to us. He was asking people where they were from. Two of the people were from Iran which he thought was wonderful. The next guy said he was from England and the old man reacted by slapping him across the face (haha take that Lau)! He grunted when i said i was American. Apparently he doesn't like America and England. When he decided to leave he shook our hands, but after he shook my hand he wrapped his arms around me and lifted me into the air. He was then forcibly taken away (see pic below). He's the one with the white armband and wearing a suit.


By the way, besides the last picture, all of these pictures were taken with my camera phone. I have videos too but i haven't figured out how to get them off my phone yet. Stay tuned for my updates. I'm pacing myself just for Dylan!