Ye Olde Chat Threade

[Squeekness]

I do feel much better today, I think I am finally over the worst of it. I actually worked out a little today and though I was really weak, I wasn't too breathless. That's the hardest part for me, getting back to the gym after losing so many days. It's like starting all over again. At least I should be well enough to go see Battleship this weekend.

I would think that running a rec event like that would eat up a lot of time. Do you know anyone who's done that before? Maybe you can get some advice from their experience. I wouldn't have the first clue how to do anything like that, lol. Is there a handbook for that sort of thing?

[coldfire22]

Glad you are feeling better... are you fully recovered or are there still some lingering sniffles and what not? As you saw on FB, I had a horrible day with allergies on Saturday. The day itself wasn't bad, but the allergies and all the tissues used up was annoying.

That night a women thats worked at my university and some others part-time for like 20 year or so had her farewell party. Her daughter, who is right about middle school age, wants to move back to the US. Barb is white.. from the US and her husband is white as well.. from the UK... so their daughter pale as can be... blonde hair and the whole nine yards. So she sticks out a lot at schools here. A few years ago during a vacation, Barb too her to a school in Wisconsin for a few weeks and she really enjoyed. So since then she has been getting on her parents about how much she wants to go to school in the US.

Now, I am sure Barb whats to go too... at least to a certain degree or she wouldn't have agreed to the move, but I think thats a huge step. Especially since her daughter doesnt really have any friends there in the US and a 3 week vacation is going to be way different than living and actually going to school there full time. Barb and her daughter are leaving on June 10th and the husband is staying behind for a couple of years. He is nearing retirement age, so I think he is sticking around to get that.

But yeah.. fun night, but good byes suck. Im just glad with things like FB you never really have to say good bye for good.

Sunday we had a bbq at my place again. Two other families plus ours... so 6 adults and 4 kids. It was a whole day event that went from 2pm until 930pm. So I was able to get some sun... I finally got a bit of color.. It'll be gone in like a day or so, but its nice to have a bit of a tan. lol

I dont really know what to do for that rec event... Lukcily its a one time thing and I have a few months to prepare for it, but I might just do some sort of easy home work out type thing. You know... everyone here in Japan will have small apartments so they won't be able to really buy any work out equipment and gyms are a bit expensive here. So with that in mind I guess I will just go over and make up some basic work out routines they can do at home.

Uggh... well.. Monday morning.. I should get cracking and prep for classes. Well.. refresh my memory as I prepped last week already but forgot. lol

Hows life your way?

[Squeekness]

Well, my weekend pretty much sucked. My brother in law who I am rather fond of collapsed at work on saturday. It was at night and he was in an outside break area so no one saw him right away. Luckily the security guard making rounds saw him and he called our FAST team members who are trained first responders. Granted they mostly deal with cuts and falls since we work in a factory but they are also trained in CPR. They got to work on him right away and pretty much saved his life. He was taken to the hospital and I guess he was so weak they sedated him and kept him on a respirator for a couple of days. They woke him up this morning and he was fine, thank God. They don't know yet for sure why he collapsed but he isn't so good about sleeping so it could just have been pure exhaustion. There is the possibility that he had a heart attack. It's just that he's 45 and there is no history in the family though he is a smoker. Guess he'll be quitting now, lol, if he likes it or not. I am just glad he is all right, it's just been very tense the past couple of days. I've been getting to know these local hospitals just a little too well, you know, between him and my gran.

FB really is a great site for keeping in touch. I hear more from my sisters and some school friends more that I ever would otherwise.

My cold is gone but I've still been having headaches. The pollen is just crazy right now. My husband has a shiny black sports car and he's been washing it like crazy only to wake up the next day and see it all covered with green, lol. At least my car is a light blue and doesn't show it as much. Been breathing it all in though. I hope the trees quit with that soon, it's driving me crazy.

[coldfire22]

Whoa... Is your brother in law ok?? Were they able to determine why he collapsed? Thats pretty scary. My father in law collapsed last year and we got a text message just telling us that. My wife tried to phone her mother (we were about 2 hours out of town at that time) and her mother wasn't calling. We dropped everything we were doing and started to head back. The entire time wondering what happened and my poor wife was worried sick. We finally got back, were about 10minutes from the hospital (its literally a 1min walk from my inlaws house) when we got a call... turns out he drank too much and the heat from the sun just all tooks it toll on him. lol he was fine. But the idea of it was very scary.

We have a different type of pollen here. A lot of people that are normally ok back in the US come to Japan and have the worst hayfever. Its all rice and what not here, so I guess thats the main reason. There are the normal other thigns.. trees, flowers, grass, but its got a lot of the rice thrown in. This year I am only occassionly bothered by it, but my son got hit hard this year. And instead of the green stuff we get dust blown over from china this type of year. I gave up on washing my car (also black). In a few weeks we will have what is called the Rainy Season. It will rain for like 3 weeks or so... well if its a bad rainy season it will rain almost the whole time. There have been the years where you get one or two days of it, but basically within those weeks it could rain like crazy. Although weather reporst are way more accurate now so its pretty easy to know when you will need an umbrella I guess. But yeah, I'll just wait until after that to keep my car shiny! lol

Sorry to hear about the headaches... maybe a massage or something to relieve some tension?

So this morning I ran into a now part timer but he was the guy that I was up against for this job my first three years here. So he knows a lot of the crap involved with stuff. Well we have a new person on the same contract as me... which means I am now up against her. Anyway she is VERY academic... I am not sure how good she is with other stuff or even how good she is in her field of study, but she plays the part well. Well we have this one professor here that is very... feminist I guess. Her field of study is gender equality. BUt its becoming very clear that gender equality in her eyes means more benefits for women... so not really equal at all. She gave this new teacher all high level classes, and actually very few classes. She is only teaching like 5 classes this semester and they are all top level. So it makes her job super easy. She isn't on any committees either here at work.

Well every year there is a book the department publishes. There is usually some theme you ahve to write about, and it has to be in Japanese. We are given the option to do it, but we don't have to.

Last year I tried to publish a paper in Japan here at my University and it was rejected. I found out later that the person that rejected it... this gender equality prof... didn't even thoroughly read it. She mentioned I should have done it in English, but stated that it was the content that was off.

So if she didn't really read it.. her words said when talking about something else (Im fairly sure it was a slip) how would she know? Also, the same paper.. albeit the English version is in the process of being published outside the university... and its a much more thorough review board and what not.

Ugh.. the more I think about it the more aggravated I get. Anyway this professor that was saying I should do this stuff in English had told the new teacher she should write a chapter for this book. Well the new teacher cant really do it in Japanese, but get this.. the professor told her to get it translated by someone else. The new teacher doesnt really even want to as its not her feild of study but was told she has to by this genders equality prof.

My thinking is the prof is trying to make this new teacher look really good. I am not a lone in this thinking either as one of the senior profs... a native english speaker who is unfortunately retiring this summer, has also noticed it.

As we are both on the same contract this is just more negative stuff on my plate. Im not a happy camper. I don't need or want more stress!! lol

Anyway sorry to blab on.

[Squeekness]

Yeah, my brother in law is okay now. They took him off the machine on monday and he woke up just fine. He recognized everyone and was bright and alert. No brain damage at all, he is very lucky. At least his usual wicked sense of humor was in place. He was given a stuffed monkey as a get well present and he was playing around with it, spanking it, lol. You know a Baptista is okay when they wake up and make dirty jokes right off the bat. His memory is all over the place though, from the meds. You have to repeat things to him all the time. He's been getting a lot of texts from friends and was joking about how there was this rumor going around that he collapsed at work when in fact he only hurt his back. My husband had to correct him saying, dude you did collapse and your back is sore from spending so many days in bed. It's kinda funny. They shipped him up to Boston and they are going to implant one of those mini d/fib thingys in his chest today or tomorrow. They still don't know for sure why it happened, but I think it's from not taking good care of himself. It was a scary close call but it looks like he is going to be fine. Really have to be grateful that we work for a company that cares enough to have first responders on site fully trained and with the equipment they need.

My cold is pretty much gone, no more headaches. There's been a lot less pollen. Hopefully all the trees around here got happy enough that they can just go back to being shade givers, lol.

It's a shame about that prof getting things all screwed up. Seems to me that if you take the time to write something up the way they tell you to they should at least take the time to read it and take it seriously. Who is goign to want to submit if it's going to get jected for some stupid technicality? Hopefully that other review board will like your paper and it will get published elsewhere. I can see how all that would be very frustrating and stressfull. Favortism is never easy to deal with either.

My sister went to see the Avengers movie and she liked it so much she might start reading some comics. Another fan is born. She is watching all the other movies now -- Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk. Nice to have another person on board to talk heroes with.

[coldfire22]

Glad to hear your brother-in-law is doing better. Thats pretty interesting about how the memory works. Forgot he collapsed but remember the humor behind spanking that monkey!! lol I read that there are cases when people have strokes and weird things happen to them memory.. like they will see a picture of a tiger.. know exactly what it is, but insist its called a dolphin or something like that.

Or in my grandfathers case, everything else is fine except his ability to comprehend the alphabet. He will try to write something and letters are now backwards, or just something totally different. He has gotten better over time, but yeah.. interesting stuff.

At least in your brother in laws case its just the meds. lol

Rainy season has started here... only one day of pretty bad down pours though..Saturday. And Sunday I was in doors all day long so I didn't get to appreciate the sun light at all, but today.. Monday.. it was HOT already at 7am. Im in my office now and I hit the button for the AC, but its just air being blown out, nothing cool about it. I REALLY hope that they turn on the ac. I mean I understand we need to save power and money and all that stuff, but they don't seem to get that we teachers use a lot of energy teaching.. all the standing and talking and moving around in front of each class for 90min straight. Where as the kids may be at a comfortable temp, Im normally sweating at the end of the day. its NOT fun.

But yeah... I don't know what to do with my job.. I can only keep on going though. I am hoping to hear positive news back from that one place. My paper was approved on the condition that I revise certain things. I did that.. or believe I have... and resubmitted. Its a really lengthy process. But I really hope to get that done this year, so I have something for 2012. There are also two others my university publishes... one is from my department and I am hoping to do a paper on using Error Correction in a Speaking class, the other is a more practical based center that is mainly for our other department but I am allowed to submitt to it as well. Thats a smaller one and I will be doing a paper on Reading classes and how translation method is not needed. I THINK the smaller of the two is published in 2012, but the other will be like Februrary so 2013. But thats three publication I am hoping for... Technically I only need 2 or 3 in five years. So this will push me ahead.

Problem is I am sure that the other teacher is way ahead of me anyway. She is more a researcher type.. lookds great on paper. Now if she is truly a plus to this University... I don't know. I mean she isn't social at all, and I haven't seen her with students yet either. I have a feeling she is rather dull and dry... which I mean.. you know... its not a popularity contest, but at the same time, with low level kids you need to motivate them somehow and she may not have that. Luckily for her, she only has 5 classes to teach this year and all of them are our top level students. She has no idea what our schools true level is like. Teaching all the top level classes is a very very sweet deal. I have a feeling they did that to sort of trick her almost. Like, see... our classes are great.

Our Dean asked us last week to teach in the summer. I accepted... I don't want to, but you know... extra money and extra face time and what not will make me look good. The other new teacher had to decline as she doesn't like being in Japan during long vacations. So I don't know... it made me look good in that regard I guess. lol

So you got a new comic book lover recruit??? Nice. I have yet to see the Avengers;( It comes out next month here in Japan. Of course we are going to see it. I can't wait!!! I haven't kept up with anything though. There is a ton of Wolverine stuff I haven't read. I guess I just needed a break... the good thing is that when I get back into it again... probably sometime soon as its been a while and I picked up some old comics I had laying around last week and started rereading them... I'll have a TON of stuff to read and keep me busy. I just have to go and figure out where to start up from again. lol

As you saw on my FB, my son FINALLY won a kendo match. He was super happy. He lost his 2nd round and that got to him, but he did well in that he at least won one. It sort of set a fire in him which I am very happy about. He lost all his previous matches and that sort of made him feel bad. When he didn't really focus on what he was doing I would bring it up to hopefully motivate him, but it didn't really. Now, finally winning one has. He was so happy and excited the rest of the day yesterday.

Its a long day though.. 730am-2pm, just waiting on our part. The other parents were shocked as many of them were waiting around JUST for us. The whole group stays until everyone is done. So most of them were finished by like noon... We have another tournament on the 24th.. I REALLY hope it doesn't last that long. lol Its a much smaller one though, so hopefully it will be ok.

Other than that I was fairly productive though. We are in the process of making our next years entrance exam materials. Its pretty rough. I did my part this weekend and we have a meeting on Wednesday to go over it. I also graded 1 classes mid terms and have 1 left to go. I guess thats what I will start doing now. I don't have class for neary 2 hours. I should get a good chunk done by then.

[Squeekness]

I remember summer days in school. We never had AC in our town just open windows hoping for a breeze. I am sure it sucks for the teachers but I recall as a student that the heat just makes me drowse. I am not fully focused in class and I would miss stuff. You need to be comfortable in class on both sides of the desk for a class to be worth its time. Hopefully they will have the AC on when you teach your summer classes so that no one is caught napping, lol.

I would be amazed if you don't like the Avengers movie. It was really good and well, if my sister really liked it has to be great. I can't wait for the DVD to come out so I can see it again. We just saw Snow White and the Huntsman and it was kinda meh. I am thinking Avengers might be the movie of the year for me. but I won't know until I see Batman. It might steal that prize, I don't know. Got a while for that one yet, though.

The Wolvie comics have been kinda so so lately, but it might just be me. I am wondering if maybe I am getting bored with them but I can't quite stop yet. I have cut way back. I only get two X-men major books because Gambit is in them. I get Wolverine and one Avengers book that he is in. I like the New Avengers because Spiderman is in it too and the Thing, he's the best FF guy, you ask me. I don't read any Ultimate stuff at all any more. Since Disney bought Marvel the prices have gone up sharply so that just made it all the more easy to cut titles. If you buy a special edition one shot it can cost $5. For a comic book that's a lot. Most books are hanging in there at $4. I don't know how kids afford to read them. My boss still gets about 30 titles a month or more. I'm down to 10. I don't know he pays for it. I've been spending my money more on eBooks, they last longer, lol.

I was happy to see about Ken's Kendo match, he must have been thrilled. It's always nice to see the kids get rewarded for their hard work. I am sure he must have practiced a lot. Plus any exercise you can get kids involved with is a really good for them to get good habits as adults.

My gran is officially home, she was released on Tuesday. It's only been one day but so far it seems like things are working out all right. She has someone with her three hours in the morning and then three at night to get her in bed. There are nurses and physical therapy people in and out all wekk too. She shouldn't be having extended periods of being alone except overnight but she'll be sleeping. We'll just have to see how it goes long term and tweak things as they happen. She seems happy about it anyways, lo. She finally has a TV all to herself.

[coldfire22]

lol... Having a tv to yourself is priceless. Imagine what life was like before the boobtube. Man that must have been boring!! lol Its good that your gran won't be alone much. Still I am a worrier. The first few nights would drive me nuts.

I'm the type that would watch my son as he went off to school and stay hidden so he didn't see me following him, just to make sure he was ok.

Speaking of him, yeah he was so happy about winning, but interestingly he was actually more upset that he lost his 2nd match. I know that pressuring your kids to be good at stuff isn't good... But I still do. Its really hard not to. Its not like I wouldn't love him if he sucked at everything he did, but at the same time I like that he is finally starting to TRY and WANT to be better. He didn't have that sort of drive before. He was just like, "Meh.. I lost, oh well. I'm going to go play now" Instead of wanting to be better at it. I think as a guy I like seeing him want to get stronger at his sport.

This past weekend we went to a ceramics place my friend goes to. My friend made us something a few months back and Ken really liked it. That gave me the idea that for kens summer vacation homework project, he could do some ceramics with my friend. He made two pokemon characters. Pretty good for a first timer AND a kid. lol

Im feeling pretty tired.. I woke up an hour early today and went for a jog. I'm going to try to do that daily now... losing sleep, but I need to up my cardio. I have been slacking on it this past year and next month I have a health check. lol I want to make sure I am healthy.

Avengers is August 17th.. I thought it was July... I have to wait 2 months still!! Its killing me!!! lol I can't wait though. Im sure I will like it.

Well I should get back to work. I was installing a new printer and setting it up most of the morning. Im a bit backed up now. Talk to you later:)