Whale Watching

I went on a last-minute whale watching trip today. It started out terribly boring with one whale making 25-minute dives, but we stumbled upon a pair making 10-15-minute dives. Got a few decent pictures:

Even Pre-School Gets a TV

For about five months I've been trying to get my school district to order $150 worth of English children's books for my elementary classes. The Board of Education told me they had no money, so I should ask each school to cover 1/3 of the cost. I started today at Geruma by asking the English teacher for a $50 commitment. She passed the request along to the school secretary, who said they probably don't have the money.

Just ten minutes later we had a meeting in the teachers' room where the vice-principal announced that next month all 11 teachers (I'm number 12) are getting new computers and all five classrooms are getting 52" flat screen televisions (recall this is Geruma where the class sizes range from 2-5 students). I smiled at all the excitement in the room, but could only think 'no fair!'

Cinnamon-Apple Twist Bread

I made Cinnamon-Apple Twist Bread tonight. As with nearly all bread recipes, it was easy to make but took some time. Breakfasts this week should be quite nice.

My First Cell Phone

Last weekend I got my first cell phone, ever. (cell phone = keitai in Japanese) I haven't been delaying it on moral grounds, but rather I think cell phones are generally expensive and I don't talk much on the phone. I feel like most people spend over $500/year on their cell phone, which is a lot of money to me for something that would only occasionally be useful.


So why did I get it? Because it finally made financial sense. Because of a girl. It's really (really) expensive to call her cell phone from a landline (or from Skype to a cell phone). But with this service provider (AU), I can get the cheapest plan (~$20/month) and pay for a 'friend plan' (+$4), which allows me unlimited calls to three fellow AU users. When it's all said and done, I should pay about $26/month and get ~30 minutes plus the use of email. This is far cheaper than my recent phone bills. The problem with cell phones, of course, is that one must sign a contract. So before we walked through the doors of the AU store, I checked with the girl: "you're not going to break up with me soon, are you?" She smirked and said "I don't know?"


I was pretty happy to score a used phone off a woman from a military base. It was $70 - about 30% of its new price - and, more importantly, cheaper than the brand new most simple phone offerings available. So I spent less money and got a semi-high-endish phone (not that I even know the difference, except it's thinner!). See that little lion thingie (Okinawan shisa) attached to the phone? It's called a 'strap' and actually included a pink strap, which I removed. They are really popular in Japan. I was keen on not acquiring one, but then Mariko gave this to me as a present, which prompted the question: "should I use it because she gave it to me?"

So I don't really know how to use this phone. I can make calls and write and send emails, but I'm super slow at it. But I don't know how to exchange info through the infrared, or access the internet, or use the dictionary, or the camera or video, or.. many things I don't even know exist. (One cool feature is the ability to watch live tv for free - unfortunately I don't pick up any stations where I live.)

Running Log: August-December, 2009

So I'm running the Tokyo Marathon this year. The race is Sunday, February 28th, so I'm just over eight weeks out. I've been training specifically with this race in mind since the end of August. I used the tail end of a 'spring training' plan I found, then moved into the 18-week Advanced 1 program from Hal Higdon's site. Last weekend I ran my first 30km piece (19 miles). I will follow that with three 32km (20 miles) runs over the next five weeks before beginning my taper down to a peak at the marathon.

This is the worst time of the training year. The weather is cold, the runs are long and fast, and the marathon is still far enough away that I can't feel it yet. Of course I envision it every day, but the connection just won't happen for another four weeks or so.

I'm serious about doing well at Tokyo this year. Last year I set a goal of breaking 3:10, but that was interrupted by a knee problem. That's why I (a) started training in August and (b) only scheduled one major race this year. My goal is again 3:10. More on the attainability of this goal the week before the marathon.

Here's a summary of my numbers so far this training season:

August: 25km
September: 163km
October: 178km
November: 132km (10 days of not running in America)
December: 276km

Total: 774km (480 miles)

A Few Days Too Late..

I took my bow and some new arrows (thanks mom and dad!) to my favorite target shooting beach a couple days ago. After shooting 40-50 arrows at my new archery range that I built in the forest, I took a wander down the beach. When I got to the end, I found this dead goat:

It's a bit gory, so I chose the distant picture to post. The goat had died a few days ago by falling off that cliff from above. I am 98% sure of this outcome because I've been watching the mother and two young (now one) living up there for the last month. In this next picture, the dead goat is in the lower left, but if you look in the upper right you can actually see the nanny up there feeding (look for the white speck):

Here's a close-up of that picture. You can see her other baby (down and to her right) is also tempting fate:


I've seen the goats living close to the edge of these cliffs for the last year and it's inevitable for me to run the 'falling off' scenario through my head, no matter how sure-footed they are. This incident must have been a rush for that little goat, if only 1-2 seconds long. It fell on a pile of rocks so I imagine it was over quickly. I walked away uttering some swear words - not because of the unfortunate death, but because I didn't discover it quickly enough to salvage the meat.

New Year's

Mariko and I had a late night on New Year's, but before it was over she made sure to take me to a shrine. Judging by the number of people there at 4am, I think it's a traditional activity.

[Mariko selecting her New Year's charm]

[We each paid 100 yen to buy a fortune for 2010. Mariko hung hers up on this 'wall' of fortunes. I kept mine because it contained such gems as [for study] "Work hard, and you'll pass the exam" and [for love] "Everything goes well. Nothing to worry about" and [for game and match?], "Don't get so excited. Be moderate."]