Events of note since my last post:
-- Last Sunday, I was invited to make another appearance in my softball team's golf tournament. Unfortunately, since my golf debut last November, I've been a tad busy working, studying for med school interviews, and pretending to be a Japanese pop star,* so I haven't had much of a chance to work on my golf swing. The softball men reassured me that I was still welcome to play, and took me out to the driving range twice in the week before the tournament. However, despite their advice/encouragement/fervent prayers, I couldn't seem to shake my tendency to slice the ball hard to the right about 3 out of every 4 shots.
After finishing up at the driving range, I casually suggested that perhaps I ought to sit this tournament out,** but the softball team wasn't hearing any of that, so I ended up playing after all. The results?
Well, let's just say I showed a lot of grit on Sunday. Got some good exercise too, chasing my ball all over the course and fishing it out of bushes and drainage ditches....I am, however, happy to say that based on a careful analysis of the trend in my golf scores, I have made a bit of an improvement since last November:
Last November: erm...quite a few strokes...lost count after the third hole or so
Last Sunday: 153
Still have a ways to go though...
-- Still no news from any medical schools, but then again, I wasn't really expecting to hear anything new until at least May 15th. I did, however, receive some interesting news involving a certain Japanese medical school.
This morning, I ran into one of the medical English students in the hallway, and she asked me how long I thought I would stay in Ehime. When I told her that I'm tentatively planning to leave in August, she looked very surprised, and then told me that there is a rumor going around that I'm going to enroll at the Ehime University Medical School next year.
Something must have gotten lost in translation somewhere...although it would be pretty sweet if I were to get accepted to Japanese medical school without even submitting a single form... Anyway, it's good to know that someone cares if I'm around. :D
-- The six elementary school girls at my Friday night lesson absolutely crack me up.
Just recently, we've been learning our colors and talking about our likes and dislikes, so last Friday, the textbook suggested that we do an activity like this. Each girl was supposed to draw a color flashcard and take turns making an "I like" or "I don't like" sentence involving that color. When I was planning the lesson, I actually thought that the activity sounded kind of boring and wondered if it would hold the kids' attention, but in actuality, it turned out to be quite entertaining.
S-chan went first, drew a brown card, and proclaimed that she didn't like brown cockroaches. Next was Y-chan, who drew pink and told us that she didn't like pink shrimp. And then came A-chan.
A-chan is a notoriously picky eater and always asks for no fruit in her post-lesson ice cream sundae, so when she drew yellow and exclaimed, "I know what I'll do!" the other kids and I were almost certain she would say that she doesn't like bananas. But then she surprised us all by saying, "I don't know how to say this word in English, though. Can you tell me?" and I leaned over so she could whisper the Japanese word in my ear.
I could tell that she was very pleased with herself for thinking of her word, because she was grinning from ear to ear and trying not to laugh, so I was quite anxious to hear what she had to say, but although she whispered the same thing to me several times, she was giggling so much that I couldn't figure it out. I finally asked her to write down the word on a piece of paper instead, and when she finished, I looked down to see オネショ (onesho = wetting the bed) written in large neat letters.
So true, A-chan, so true. たしかに、both yellow and unpleasantやね...
*More about the latest developments in my budding pop star career in another post.
**It's not that I mind looking bad in front of the softball men -- I've gotta practice somewhere if I ever plan on getting any better -- I just don't want to make everyone wait on me as I sloooowly make my way toward the green....
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Plan B
Happy April! I hope that you're as happy as I am that spring has come. Here, have some celebratory sushi.
The other day, a few of my students took me to a park for a picnic, and this is what we had for lunch. I'll give a gold star to the lucky reader who can figure out what's odd about this sushi.
Since my med school interview at the UW last October, I've been patiently waiting in the dreaded "competitive applicants pool" for a final decision on my application. And man, five months is an awfully long time to wait...
The UW's final admissions committee meeting was two Fridays ago, so I figured it was safe to assume that I would learn my fate early this week.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Almost a week after the meeting, despite obsessively checking my e-mail and the UW's rather unhelpful application status web page, I still hadn't heard a thing. No phone calls. No e-mail. No snail mail. I was beginning to wonder if I ought to be watching out for skywriting or a singing telegram when my status on the UW's website finally changed to "A decision has been made on your application." (Now really, isn't it just a bit cruel that the website doesn't tell you anything more detailed than that??) Feeling so nervous that I thought I might vomit, I called the UW admissions office and found....that I have been put on the waitlist.
At least I haven't been rejected (yet), but I don't particularly relish the idea of waiting another three months to find out whether or not I can get in. It makes it awfully hard to know if I should cross my fingers and hope for an acceptance, or give up on this year and start looking for a job.
Anyway, I figure it's always best to have a plan B, so I've started to do a little job-hunting research. My first source? The kids at my Friday night English lesson:
Me: Hey, I think I might have to look for a new job for next year. What kind of job do you think would be good for me?
K-chan: Um...umm......oh! I know! Maybe you could work in a convenience store?!
True. I certainly could. I've bought enough convenience store bento lunches in my day that I know all of the pertinent convenience-store-related Japanese phrases! (あたためますか?) I wonder if convenience stores give out working visas.....
This weekend was the spring festival in downtown Matsuyama, so I dropped by the shopping arcades to take a peek at the annual parade. The parade is called daimyo gyoretsu, and apparently it's a re-creation of the processions that daimyo (feudal lords) had to make to Tokyo each year to pay their respects to the shogun. These processions happened around 200 or 300 years ago, so the clothes the people in the parade were wearing were pretty different and cool looking.
Here's the daimyo:
...and the daimyo's samurai bodyguard accompanied by his own personal umbrella holder:
Apparently the archers weren't important enough to merit gigantic umbrellas. :( I dig their outfits though. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how those bows work? Wouldn't your arms have to be super long to pull that huge bowstring back far enough for the arrow to go anywhere?
Here are the ladies in waiting (I think...??) I would hate to have been a girl back then. My students tell me that it took many months to walk from Ehime to Tokyo, and I think I probably would have gone crazy wearing a kimono and walking in little tiny strides like this for days on end....
Last but not least, here are the guys who clean the chandeliers in the daimyo's house. (This one is for you, Mom. ;)
After the parade passed by, I walked out of the shopping arcades toward Matsuyama Castle and enjoyed a stroll in the beautiful weather.
The cherry blossoms are in full bloom now. They're pretty, huh.
Every day on the news here, there's a whole segment devoted to reporting the places where the cherry blossoms have started to bloom. They even calculate the percentage of buds that have opened on a certain representative tree in each famous cherry blossom viewing spot. It's really a big deal. The people in the picture down below are having ohanami, a sort of cherry blossom appreciation party. People spread blankets under the trees and eat lunch together.
Here's more cherry blossoms near the moat around Matsuyama Castle.
That little boat in the background always sits in the moat, but I've never seen anyone use it before. Quite mysterious. I plan to live inside of it next year while I work at the convenience store and study to retake the MCAT. (笑)
The other day, a few of my students took me to a park for a picnic, and this is what we had for lunch. I'll give a gold star to the lucky reader who can figure out what's odd about this sushi.
---
Since my med school interview at the UW last October, I've been patiently waiting in the dreaded "competitive applicants pool" for a final decision on my application. And man, five months is an awfully long time to wait...
The UW's final admissions committee meeting was two Fridays ago, so I figured it was safe to assume that I would learn my fate early this week.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Almost a week after the meeting, despite obsessively checking my e-mail and the UW's rather unhelpful application status web page, I still hadn't heard a thing. No phone calls. No e-mail. No snail mail. I was beginning to wonder if I ought to be watching out for skywriting or a singing telegram when my status on the UW's website finally changed to "A decision has been made on your application." (Now really, isn't it just a bit cruel that the website doesn't tell you anything more detailed than that??) Feeling so nervous that I thought I might vomit, I called the UW admissions office and found....that I have been put on the waitlist.
At least I haven't been rejected (yet), but I don't particularly relish the idea of waiting another three months to find out whether or not I can get in. It makes it awfully hard to know if I should cross my fingers and hope for an acceptance, or give up on this year and start looking for a job.
Anyway, I figure it's always best to have a plan B, so I've started to do a little job-hunting research. My first source? The kids at my Friday night English lesson:
Me: Hey, I think I might have to look for a new job for next year. What kind of job do you think would be good for me?
K-chan: Um...umm......oh! I know! Maybe you could work in a convenience store?!
True. I certainly could. I've bought enough convenience store bento lunches in my day that I know all of the pertinent convenience-store-related Japanese phrases! (あたためますか?) I wonder if convenience stores give out working visas.....
---
This weekend was the spring festival in downtown Matsuyama, so I dropped by the shopping arcades to take a peek at the annual parade. The parade is called daimyo gyoretsu, and apparently it's a re-creation of the processions that daimyo (feudal lords) had to make to Tokyo each year to pay their respects to the shogun. These processions happened around 200 or 300 years ago, so the clothes the people in the parade were wearing were pretty different and cool looking.
Here's the daimyo:
...and the daimyo's samurai bodyguard accompanied by his own personal umbrella holder:
Apparently the archers weren't important enough to merit gigantic umbrellas. :( I dig their outfits though. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how those bows work? Wouldn't your arms have to be super long to pull that huge bowstring back far enough for the arrow to go anywhere?
Here are the ladies in waiting (I think...??) I would hate to have been a girl back then. My students tell me that it took many months to walk from Ehime to Tokyo, and I think I probably would have gone crazy wearing a kimono and walking in little tiny strides like this for days on end....
Last but not least, here are the guys who clean the chandeliers in the daimyo's house. (This one is for you, Mom. ;)
After the parade passed by, I walked out of the shopping arcades toward Matsuyama Castle and enjoyed a stroll in the beautiful weather.
The cherry blossoms are in full bloom now. They're pretty, huh.
Every day on the news here, there's a whole segment devoted to reporting the places where the cherry blossoms have started to bloom. They even calculate the percentage of buds that have opened on a certain representative tree in each famous cherry blossom viewing spot. It's really a big deal. The people in the picture down below are having ohanami, a sort of cherry blossom appreciation party. People spread blankets under the trees and eat lunch together.
Here's more cherry blossoms near the moat around Matsuyama Castle.
That little boat in the background always sits in the moat, but I've never seen anyone use it before. Quite mysterious. I plan to live inside of it next year while I work at the convenience store and study to retake the MCAT. (笑)
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