First off...

           This blog is not intended to have awe inspiring words of wisdon nor is it meant for me to bitch about how much life sucks.  This is meant to be mere observations of my time in Japan and to perhaps one day look back on all of the stuff that used to confuse and frustrate me and have some sort of revelation or a good laugh at the very least.  If perhaps along the way I obtain readers (which would be a huge shocker in it of itself) than all the better. 

             A little bit of prior information about what this blog is going to be about.  I am 21 years old and have just been given a great opportunity to teach English in Japan in Kumamoto prefecture in Yamae village for a year (though I have been given the option to stay up to 5).  I  arrived on July 26th and have already found a dozen different things that I should be writing about already.  The first thing that must be known before I continue writing is that Yamae is....well it's a whole lot of nothing.  Don't get me wrong it is a lot of beautiful nothing but it is considered the "sticks of Japan".  Yamae use to be two different villages but because the government wanted to save money they forced the two villages (Yamada and Mae) to combine and become Yamae; not a whole lot of good that did considering that the population is still under 4,000 people.

          Another thing that I feel might be beneficial for people to know before I continue with this blog is that I have little to no Japanese language skills.  I studied for about a year when I was 16 years old, and it was a pretty bad attempt.  Most of my time was repeating whatever the teacher said.  I did spend a small stint of time in Japan when I was 18 with some of my Japanese students from America.  But within the first week my host parents had already given up on my language skills and gave me a small white board to communicate by pictures....it's safe to say that I am kick-ass at pictionary and charades now.  But back to the present, I am now in the boonies of Japan working for the board of education and the teachers from all the schools in the village and not a single one of them knows English.  I'm sure many would say that this would be very demoralizing and upsetting having little to no way of communicating with those around you; to be perfectly honest I think being oblivious to some things that are said is actually preferrable.
         For example, my first week in Yamae I went to several different enkai (drinking parties with co-workers).  During these "parties" many of your boss's and those who normally don't talk with you will suddenly develop the social skills of a small child, where they say whatever is on their mind with no concious idea about what is appropiate to say.  Many of these older men, who were to the top guys on the board, suddenly developed a sudden interest in my breasts as well as commenting on my giant butt.  In Japan women are told to ignore these type of comments and just let them slide, I on the other hand laughed and made inappropriate comments back; not that it was much considering my lack of vocabulary. 

I don't want to write forever but let this be a lesson that sometimes being oblivious can make things that much more interesting.  I also apoligize for my spelling and grammar ( a little embarassing for an English teacher) I am writing in this blog in the only place that has internet; in the board of education office in front of all the people whom I'm writing about.  I attempt to type fast in order to avoid any of the members recognizing that I am typeing their names (they may not know English but they seem very skilled at identifying their own name in Romanized letters).  Until next time :D