Time flies when you live in the future :)

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this blog! I knew it had been a while since I had last posted, but I didn't realize it had been a whole week! I knew I wouldn't have the time to update everyday, so maybe shooting for once a week will be a "happy medium" if you will.
So there's a lot of catching up to do here...let's play out the last week.
Sunday was full of downtown Sendai, Thai lunch, a Sendai professional soccer game (Go Vegalta!), and Fellowship. I love going downtown and riding the bus and the subway. Those things were never a part of my life in the States, and it's a nice reminder that I am somewhere totally different. I expected this move to bring with it many things including a huge dose of culture shock. So far, that has not happened. I feel like I was adequately prepared for the different culture and am dealing with it accordingly. With that said, I was just at the store and I told my friend, "I bought some sugar so I can make more kool-aid. Well, I think it was sugar. It might be salt." Thankfully, I used my years of deductive reasoning training and guessed correctly. This time. So far the hardest things for me to "deal with" have been doing laundry, shopping, and prioritizing my time. Laundry is difficult because it is such a long process because we have to hang everything up to dry outside and hope it doesn't rain. Shopping is difficult because what seems like a good deal sometimes isn't, and hoping you buy sugar and not salt. And we all know i haven't been very good at prioritizing my time. Ever. So no change there. Fellowship is a time when some of the teachers get together on Sunday evening, eat dinner, worship, and fellowship. I really enjoyed the closeness of the group and worshiping with people I have gotten to know. I am so blessed to have a community here to lift me up and to be a part of.
Anyway, back to my week. There was talk of camping/hiking on Monday, but that did not happen for me. Instead, I was able to relax all day and enjoy dinner and granola bar making with friends in the same apartment building. Unfortunately, Tuesday brought headaches and nausea, so I was in bed most of the day. That night for dinner, we were to meet some of the people who helped develop the curriculum MeySen uses. I felt a little better and was able to enjoy another new experience for dinner. When we ordered there, all our food came to us raw. But thankfully there was a "griddle" (or what I would equate to an American griddle...it was about 2ftx1ft) in the middle of our table. The uncooked food came to us in bowls, and mine was filled with cabbage, shrimp, egg, ginger, unidentifiable (but tasty!) food, and a batter that was the same consistency of pancake batter, but it was not sweet. We stirred the contents together and poured our dinner on the griddle, flipped, and ate our "pancakes." It was so different than anything I had ever really tasted, but I am definitely not complaining! Wednesday started early and was full of training. It was nice to have a day to learn just a few of the "whys" and "hows" behind the things we had seen in the classroom the previous Friday. The biggest part of the training included learning to "air write" which means that the teacher has to "write" the letters the students are learning backwards in the air so that when the students mimic, they are writing them correctly. And it is NOT EASY. But I will get better with time. I also hope to get better at driving with time. We got our first driving session, and it was so...backwards! I only drove on the wrong side of the street and turned on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker ONCE. Not a bad start if I do say so myself. Thursday was GREEN DAY at school, so we had Green show-and-tell, Green relay games, and Green snack-lime koolaid and popcorn dyed green using butter and food coloring. The kids get cuter and cuter the more time I spend with them. I already told my teacher that if some of them end up missing when I leave, not to come after me because I probably took them. Friday was a "normal" day at MeySen, which means nothing as there is always something special or different. The kids have so much fun at school, and I can't blame them. The school is seriously like an amusement park with some songs, stories, poems, and writing added in. Today at school there was an "Experience Day" for 3 year-olds who are new to MeySen and are interested in enrolling. We sang songs and made a craft and played with the kids for about an hour and then our work was done! Tomorrow I have laundry, cleaning, reading, and running to look forward to.


Here's a link to the pictures I have taken here so far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015860&id=1534140031&l=25127d008e

P.S.
A few quick headlines from this week:
>I got my bike!! I have been riding every chance I get. It has 6 gears, a basket on the handlebars, and is gold. Yep, GOLD.
>The process has started for me to get a new bed frame. Soon I will have to say goodbye to sleeping on the floor. I don't think it will be that difficult :)
>I saw a man with a mustache today. First one I've seen here.
>Listening to the radio via the world wide web has never seemed so cool to me. Until now.
>I have taught the girls in my class how to spider-swing. They are in love. I am also going down the slide every chance I get. I think when I have to find a new job, the length of the slides at their playground will make or break the deal. That said, if you want me to move back to the US, start finding me schools with ridiculously long slides :)

"Help me, please."

Yesterday was my first day actually working with the kids at MeySen. I walked in at 8 am not knowing what to expect. Katie, the teacher I am working with for the next 10ish days of school was already there getting things ready for the day. The first round kids started to arrive about 8:30 and got started on morning stations where they worked on their farm animals book. The second round of kids arrived about 9:15 and it was time for the first circle time in English. We sang songs and read poems together. After first circle, it was playtime...the kids favorite. The play equipment at MeySen is like an amusement park. The playground is huge, and play between teacher and student is strongly encouraged. After playtime, we went back inside and the kids had their Japanese lesson for the day. It is about 40 minutes long and that is when the teacher gets a break during the day. After the Japanese lesson, it was finally lunch time. As the students were finished with their lunch, they were able to go play outside again. The last part of the day was another English circle time where we read a story as a whole class. Most of the students who arrived on the first bus in the morning ride the first bus home in the afternoon, so after circle time, they were dismissed to go home. The rest of the students worked on the morning stations from that day. After all the students were gone, we cleaned the classroom and started preparing for the next day.
It was so wonderful to work with kids again. I had forgotten how much I missed it. I also found it refreshing that the adults in the school trust the students to do what they are supposed to do. When my 4 year old class went to the bathrooms as a class, they were all dismissed at the same time to walk down the hall, go to the bathroom, and come back with no teacher supervision. And they all did. With no problems. There were very few discipline problems in my classroom. When a student was acting in a way that was inappropriate, the teacher simply pulled him or her aside, and told them that their behavior was not appropriate for the activity. The student stopped, and continued the activity the way it was intended. When a student made a mistake, they were not called out, but instead the teacher just said, "Oops. That was a mistake. Let's fix it." The student was given the help he or she needed, and moved on. These students are not afraid to ask for help when they need it. If they are unsure of what to do in a situation, whether it be work or play, they simply say, "Help me, please." I loved when a student would ask me to help them because as I speak no Japanese and know very little about the culture and environment here, usually I am the one asking for help. However, when I am at school, I can be the one who offers the help. It's nice to be on the other side every once in a while.

I can't read anything in my mailbox...

Yesterday I said that parcels were always welcome...but then my mom pointed out that no one had my address to send me anything! And let me tell you, it is very sad to check the mail and have nothing you can actually read. Everything I have gotten so far has been in Japanese and I have thrown it away. I hope none of it was important :) I did however get an advertisement about motorcycles and mopeds that are on sale. And I found the motorcycle I want! It is purple and just over 1 million Yen, so I am starting to save! Anyway, it is late here and I am constantly tired (I think the combo jetlag/Japanese mattress is no help here) so I will leave you with this important information: my addresses!
If you want to send me a letter, the address is

Hope Anderson
Forest Park 101
3-4-11, Takamori, Izumi-ku
Sendai, Miyagi, 981-3203 JAPAN

However, if you want to send a package, the address is

Hope Anderson
c/o MeySen Academy
1-1, 4 Chome, Kamiyagari
Izumi-Ward
Sendai, Miyagi, 981-3121 JAPAN

Please send me things to read in English!!

I'M HERE!!

Well, it's been approximately 24 hours since my arrival in Sendai, Japan and so far I love it here! I am so excited to get to know the town better and be able to survive on my own. Everywhere we have gone so far we have been taken by staff of MeySen. And thankfully they have been with us because otherwise we (me, Kelsey, and Deborah-the other girls who are coming to teach) would have been so lost! On our drive up from the airport in Tokyo, after 14+ hours flying, we got to see a lot of the Japanese countryside and other towns betweenTokyo and Sendai. We got to stop at a rest stop that was incredible. It was HUGE! There were 2 floors in the building. The bottom floor had restrooms (squatty potties...google it!), a supermarket-type place, and a restaurant. The top floor also had a restaurant, which is where we ate fried pork, sticky rice, and a broth-based soup with noodles and spinach and heard Taylor Swift and Keith Urban playing in the background. It was really comforting to hear music I knew playing while I was eating, seeing, smelling, and touching, new things. When we got to Sendai, we were able to make phone calls to our families to let them know we arrived safely. My mom was already at work, so we didn't get to talk for long. We then got dropped off at our apartments, and received a crash course on how to use the things we would need for the first few days here. I never thought I'd need someone to tell me how to use a toilet, but after using it for the first time, I sure am glad I got directions! This morning, we got to sleep in, and started all of the legalities of living in Japan. While at the office to become a legal alien, I saw many children and they opened my eyes to so much. Seeing a 4-year-old child in Japan playing with a rolled up piece of paper and making sword fighting sounds was what made me see and realize how different everything is here, but at the same time, how everything is very much the same. The people here all look different as we do in the US, children play and yell and scream in public, some people are very friendly while some are more standoffish, the red flashing lights still mean that there is an emergency...et al. I do have to say there are more bikes here though. And I will have one soon. Tomorrow involves more paperwork, interacting with numerous people I will not have the capacity to verbally communicate with, and a welcoming party for me as well as the other teachers and interns who have just arrived. Prayers, words of encouragement, and parcels are always welcome. :)

Follow me...

on a magic carpet ride! ok, not really. but hopefully this blog will be an easy way to keep in touch with everyone who wants to keep up with everything going on while i am in japan! i will try to update as much as possible, but unfortunately i don't know exactly when i will be getting internet in my ONE BEDROOM EFFICIENCY APARTMENT! (which i am excited about as you can see) as soon as i do, you will be the first to know.

thanks to everyone for the words of encouragement, the loving hugs, and the prayers. it means so much to me to know i have so many people who love me and want me to return to the states as soon as my 18 months are up. in the meantime, come visit! plane tickets are only $1000 :)