Something for you...

Well, I know I haven't been posting much. I'm finally getting that feeling of being "normal" again, so that's a good thing. But yesterday I came down with the "community cold." So now I'm taking some medicine and trying to get better so I don't miss any work. Once again I don't have pictures; I still haven't bothered to download them off my camera. I will try to do that soon.

Anyway, the actual reason I am posting today is because I have something to share with you. I was involved in some interesting conversation about what's important in life. My views are radically different than some people. Many people think happiness is very important. Or relationships are important. etc. And in relationships. What do you look for? Handsome people? Kind people? Good people? At the time it was very difficult to explain. But I came home and thought about it some more, and this is what I came up with. So, if you've ever wondered why I love you (I've wondered why some of you love me...) here is your answer.

The Treasured Jewel
by Amber Stephens

Why do I love you?
Because you are good looking?
It’s good to look good. But it can never last. Will you look good tomorrow or the day after? When you grow old? Can you always look good all the time? So if I love you because you look good, then my love will be broken when you no longer look good.
So no, that’s not why I love you.

Why do I love you?
Because you have a good character?
It’s good to have a good character. But it can never last. Will you always be a pleasant person? Can you always be kind? Will you have bad days and make mistakes? Will you be mean? So if I love you because you have a good character, then my love will be broken when you slip.
So no, that’s not why I love you.

Why do I love you?
Because you are strong, or kind, or smart?
It’s good to be these things. But they can never last. Will you always be strong? Can you be kind to everyone all the time? Will you never make a mistake? Are you never a fool? So if I love you because of these things, then my love will be broken the first time you have a weak moment.
So no, that’s not why I love you.

Why do I love you?
I don’t want to love you for things that can’t last. That is not a true love, an eternal love. Instead, I choose to love you for who you are. When I look at you, I see a priceless treasure, unique, beautiful. You are not valuable to me because of your looks, or your personality or your abilities. You are valuable to me because you are a jewel. You are precious. I accept everything about you. When you are dirty. When you are broken. When you are not perfect. It’s ok, because you are a treasured jewel. All other things might change. But I love you because you are you. The good, the bad, everything you are.
Because you are.
That’s why I love you. You are my precious
TREASURED JEWEL

Catching up.

Well, it's been a while since my last short post. The thing is, it has been crazy busy here since I got off the plane. Yeah, the whole time. This past Monday was my first day to take it easy in a long time. It was nice. This week looks to start getting somewhat normal. Today, I ended sleeping way past the time I wanted to. It was strange. I guess I'm still catching up on sleep.

Anyway, I just wanted to put up a short post. I'll try to get some pictures up, I have some nice ones, but I have to download them on my computer first.

Anyway, I'll be in "recovery" mode for a little while. So if you don't here a lot of communication from me, that's why. Sorry!

Arrived!

Well, after a very long time traveling, over 20 something hours, I have arrived safely in Japan. I'll write more later. Now it's time to sleep.

Safe!

Well, I managed to arrive safely in Texas for the second time in two and a half years. Thanks to everyone who was worried. (Well, most of the worried people can't read this blog because of the English... LOL)

I arrived in Dallas and was welcomed by a very long immigrations line which had me considering my options if I missed my connecting flight. Just a note for the future... For peace of mind's sake, less than 2 hours of layover in Dallas is not enough time to ensure you will make it to your next flight... But the good news is... I've become a hard to stress traveler. I wasn't so much worried about missing my flight, instead just being mentally prepared if it did happen. I was more worried about loosing my bag in the process. But in the end, I managed to make it to my flight with 10 mins to spare, and myself and my bag arrived in Midland safely.

And for a note on travel hassles I could do without... Did you know, when you fly from an international starting point and then transfer flights in Dallas, you have to go through a security check point again. But I've learned the value of traveling light, so it was fairly painless.

I then arrived in Midland to not be met by my parents, who had suffered two blown tires on the way to get me (one on the real tire, then the donut blew as well...) We were rescued by a family friend, and then we proceeded to try to fix the tire. As we were driving into town the second time (to pick up the tire from Wal-Mart and then put it on the car, which was still on the highway) a nice big thunderstorm hits. Horray for thunderstorms you can see!!! This was a nice one with lots and lots of lightening strikes. It was beautiful. And short. It ended right before we went to put the tire on the car. So my dad didn't get too wet. And then I proceeded to drive home, (since there were two cars and my mom doesn't drive anymore, I had to drive one home). It was eventful.

Today I got to sleep in though. Maybe my first full nights sleep in quite a while. It was nice.

Now if only I could relax and stop thinking about work....

Travel Day.

So yeah, today I leave for America. In about 3 and 1/2 hours I'll start the process. I'll be travelling about a total of 17 hours with buses and trains and cars and planes. One of my students is going to pick me up today to take me to the bus. She's really really nice. And she's going to pick me up when I get home too.

Anyway. The time has been so full that I haven't even had time to think about this trip home, much less prepare for it. But now that the day is here, I'm thinking of what a good thing it is.

I really love living in Japan. And I'm really glad I'm staying for another year. But, sometimes you just need a break. You need to remove yourself from the situation, recover, process and rest before you go back. I think this is what needs to happen.

I knew I was tired, but I didn't realize until recently exactly how tired I am. I'm physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted.

So, this is not anything negative. (Don't freak out Marlo) It's just the reality of living in a country like Japan as a Christian.

Anyway, I hope that I can write some more in America. Probably without pictures.

That's all for now.

Next stop, America.

Full Weekends

It always seems like my weekends are fuller than my actual weeks. But lately, it's just been busy. I'm looking forward to April when things calm down for about half a year.

Let's see. This is the first day of my last week of class. I will go out everyday this week and have parties with my students. I will eat way too much, and all for free. (which is good because due to unexpected expenses, this month is really tight).

Last week was ok. There were a lot of ups and downs. If you care to pray for my spiritual protection, I would greatly appreciate it. (if you let me know you are praying, I can send you more details.)

I went out yesterday with my friend, the one I came to Japan with for one last time. It's sad because she is returning to America and I am staying in Japan. It's really weird. And I can't even figure out how it's already been 2 and 1/2 years! Crazy!

I thought I had more to say, but nothing is coming to mind now that I am actually typing. These are some old pictures. The first one is near my house. I wanted to put up some pictures from yesterday, but when we cleaned my house, I don't know where we put the cord for the camera. So I can't download pictures yet. I'll look for it eventually.

update...

So I haven't been writing too much lately. It's been difficult to find the energy to write. When I'm not busy, I have no energy at all. Anyway, here are some recent pictures from the band. Yeah, that's pretty much my entire life. Well, not really. I do do a lot of work for VYM and my church. But I don't really take pictures of a lot of those things.

But next year looks like it's going to be exciting. It looks like I'll get to do some fun events and stuff. But next year can also be hard. There will be a lot more work for me next year too. (oh yeah, Japanese school years start in April. So next week is my last week of classes. There is a short Spring Break, and then you move up a grade in April. This is also the time of year when many people start new jobs. It's also when the cherry blossoms bloom, so it's really symbolic of the fleeting beauty of life/youth etc.)
Anyway, in other news, I'll be flying back to Texas at the end of March. I'll spend two weeks with my family, probably running around all over Texas. I'll need to get a haircut, and buy some new clothes. I've lost weight, and a lot of my shirts and stuff are really big and don't look so nice anymore. Also, most of my jeans no longer stay up. It's really annoying to have my pants falling down all the time. I'll probably also have to pick up a pair of shoes. Some of this stuff I could do in Japan, but it's really expensive and it's hard to shop in a foreign language all the time. Like, I totally don't know the vocabulary for getting a hair cut. How do I even explain what I want? I definitely don't want a Japanese style hair cut. They usually don't have so much experience cutting foreign hair either.


Speaking of hair, mine has gone curly again. Horray! Spring is here, so now my hair once again has definite curls. Now if you don't know, I grew up with my hair totally straight. It wouldn't hold curls even when we tried. They always fell out. But now it's curling naturally! Very exciting. I'm going to get a layered cut so that it curls better.

I'm glad I'll be able to go home during Spring Break, but at the same time I'm kinda sad. I fee like I'll be missing out on a lot of the things that are happening here.

The Band will be having their first live house performance, and I'll have to miss it. I'm really really bummed about that. Funny story with the band though. I tried to tell one of the girls that I was visiting America for two weeks. She misunderstood me and thought that I was leaving for America in two weeks and was never coming back. She just started crying and it was all I could do to try to explain what was happening. (this is what comes from not being able to speak a language well...) Finally I had to get another girl who is fluent in English to explain it to her. Poor girl!

There's a lot more going on, but most of it is really complicated and hard to explain. Recently I've been learning more about prayer. We meet every week for a Prayer Meeting, and it's really good right now. I've also been learning about fasting, and prayer walking. Very interesting stuff.

My friend did come over on Monday and helped me clean. We got a lot done, but it's not finished yet. I don't know if I will have time to finish before I leave for America though. My schedule looks like it is filling up fast. But the good news is that from April the schedule slows down a bit. Fall/winter is always the busiest time here. We re-arranged the house a bit. It's nice.

Ok, I think that's about all that's interesting. And I have to go get ready for work and all that fun stuff now. I'll try to be more regular about posting.

Insane times.

And by insane, I mean insanely busy. So much has happened in the last month. I don't even know where to start.

Well, I got to tell all my students that I was staying another year. Good stuff. I would say 90% of the students are really happy. The rest probably don't care one way or the other. It's nice to be liked.

Then there was Spring retreat. It was good. The pictures are from then. It's hard saying goodbye though. Spring Retreat is always the hardest.

Umm, lets see... It was Mako's birthday, then we had English School Open House. I was really really tired last week. Sunday I could barely ride my bike to go see the band. It was so slow. I was wondering how I was going to make it home, when one of the girls and her boyfriend offered me a ride home. I was sad, because I had my bicycle, so it looked like I wouldn't be able to take it. But his car was huge (think van) and he offered to take me AND my bicycle home! How nice! It was really troublesome too. He had to fold up seats and everything. So nice! I was really really grateful.

Then another student, gave me an air pump for my bike. (same student that fixed the bike.) Very very nice.

Things have calmed down a little bit, but there are lots of things that still need to be done, so I still feel a bit rushed with it all. But, I'm trying really hard to get everything done.

And it looks like Monday I will have a friend come over and help me clean my house. Everyone is being so nice to me lately. Although I'm really ashamed of the state of my house. But I think it's at the point where I just can't recover on my own. *sigh* Anyway, that's a brief update. I have to run off to work now, so I'll try to post more again later.

Really Super Exciting Stuff!

So wow. I can't even begin to start to tell you what a week this has been. (it's only Wed!!!) Well, let's start with the mundane and move upwards shall we?

Well, I had another creativity boost. Must be because of the emotional gambit I've been running lately. Here's the latest creation.

And so in Japan, fur is definitely a fashion statement. I was never really into fur in Texas, because well, face it, there wasn't a need. But fur does turn out to be amazingly warm. Along the way, I seem to have acquired a few fur accessories. I actually did buy the multi-colored muffler thing. It was really cheap and it matches everything. So I wore it last week, and my students really loved it. Then this one student (think grandma) told me she had a bag that looked very similar. Well, yesterday, she brought me the bag and gave it to me! Crazy. So now I have this very expensive looking bag that matches my muffler thing. Who would have thought!

And today, I finally got my test results for the Japanese test I took in December! I passed! I can hardly believe it! I only passed by like 7 points, but it was basically a pass or fail type of test. I'm really excited.

And finally, for the most exciting news of all. I have a job. Actually for a week there I had two jobs. I passed the interview for the ALT position I tried for. But I turned it down. Mainly because I will continue to work in VYM for one more year at my current church. I will definitely write more details later. Actually it's time for me to go back to class now, so this is an end of this post. More coming later!!!!

New creation

Here is the product of my latest creativity spurt. I was having problems with the editing program crashing on me, but I finally managed to get it done. It's such a funny program too. You kinda have to figure out the rules as you go along. It will be really cool when I actually know how to work the silly program.

Coffee House

So it's been busy again lately. Last Saturday was Coffee House. Three of the new girls came. It was really great to have more foreginers come. The students really like to practice talking.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the event. It was pretty nice. I think it went well. Saturday was a long day though.

Two more bug bites...

the creativity bug...

So occasionally I get bit by the creativity bug. It usually comes at rather inconvenient times, but tonight was not so bad. Just kept me up a little later than I had planned.

Well, it looks like I am finally beginning to figure out Adobe Print Shop. I just have the basic program that came on my computer, but once you can work it, turns out it's a really neat program. Best photo editing program I've seen. Not like that's many, but still.

So the idea for this came from a picture I took at Kamakura. These birds were really cute. I liked the picture, but in the original, there was this person's legs in the background and it was starting to distract me. I really wanted to edit them out. But then I was thinking, I could just do a really cool editing and change the whole feel of the picture. The original idea was to put the ocean behind the birds, but then I opted for clouds instead.

I'm actually quite pleased with the final effect. This is the first time I've managed to finish something like this. I wrote the poem after looking at the picture long enough.

The thing I'm happiest about is that it's completely my creation. I took the picture, I edited the picture and I wrote the poem. I'm happy with this nights work. :-D

Kabuki

So today I got to go to Kabuki again. Let me say. I love Kabuki. If you don't know, Kabuki is old fashioned Japanese Theater (think Shakespearean style language and then add in Samurai). It's really wonderful.

I got to go twice in Orientation as part of our cultural studies. Today was the new group's turn to go. But since they were going on a Monday (every one's day off), it was open to other people who wanted to go. I jumped at the chance. My other friend came too. I got to meet her for breakfast at Denny's. (if you are thinking American style Denny's, think again. Same sign, different food.)

I had such a great time today. I got to hang out with a bunch of really cool people and watch possibly the best Kabuki play ever. It was over 4 hours long. But it was so worth it. There were a ton of set changes. You wouldn't believe how beautiful the sets are. Amazing.

They pulled out all the stops for this play. The theater was celebrating some milestone or something, so this was a big deal. There were giant cat monsters, magic rats, dancing cats (so cute) swords, fighting, comedy, and every possible setting. I don't think there was a trick that wasn't used in this play. It was wonderful. (have I mentioned it was wonderful? Didn't think so...)

Kabuki is different from Western Theater. Western Theater is concerned with reality and believability. Kabuki is not at all. It's all about show casing the actor and making beautiful scenes. Once you get over the fact that the plot usually doesn't make any sense (even with translation), it's really a great form of entertainment.

Anyway, the pictures are from the fliers I got at the theater. Enjoy.

After Kabuki I got to go karaoke for like 2 and 1/2 hours. It was a great shop, because it had so much music I knew. I was so happy. It's hard to find songs I know sometimes, but I couldn't sing all the songs I wanted to there. I'll have to find one similar that's close by.

Anyway, it was a good day.

This weekend was really busy. Got up early everyday and stayed out late every night. I'm tired. But it was really good too. Tomorrow I'm sleeping in!

Oyasumi! (night!)

Ahhh, what an exciting week! :-D

So this week has been a good week. God has been really amazing! You just don't understand how great it is.

So this week, God provided for me financially, (way more than I expected) and emotionally, and well, it gets hard to count the ways. LOL.

Let's see. The interview went well. I still haven't heard back from the company yet, but I feel very confident in God's Will. This doesn't mean I'm confident I'll get THAT job. I'm just confident I will have A job. I hope that makes sense.

I've been pretty busy this week. Several meetings and such. Normal classes. And today, I went shopping! My bike was fixed by one of my students this week, so I gave it a test run this morning. I went shopping. (a different student gave me a present of traditional New Year's money, because she said I was like her "American Daughter". I didn't have the heart to refuse her.)

The really exciting news is that since coming to Japan I have lost a lot of weight. So many of my clothes are way too big for me now. Well, I wanted a few more sweaters so I could layer better in the cold. It turns out, I can wear Men's XL size clothes now. I went to this shop that is really cheap and bought some great sweaters today. And the wonderful thing about Japan? Men's clothes often look like women's clothes. So, no one can tell I'm wearing men's clothes. It's wonderful.

I bought 6 new pieces of clothing today for less than $50. That's an amazing deal anywhere!

So yeah, that's the exciting news. I'll be busy for the next couple of days as well. Tomorrow is the beginning of a new prayer meeting, which I am really exited about. Then I'll get to hang out with some friends for the rest of the day. Sunday is the normal church, Bible Study then go out routine. The Monday I get to meet a friend, then I get to go to Kabuki. Horray for Kabuki. (traditional Japanese Theater. All the actors are male. It's really great, and they will have English headphones we can rent for translation.) Looks like it's going to be an exciting weekend!

And finally, these are just some random pictures. The first two were taken on my cell phone and are fairly recent. The last two are pretty old.

Just another update.

So here are some pictures that are in one of my web albums. They are explained there, but I thought I would post some of my favorites here.

Anyway, this past week has been crazy. There was a funeral this week at church. Quite an interesting experience. And it ended up disrupting some of my classes. We had to move one of my classes to a different room. We also ended up cleaning up my classroom on my day off. Made the week a bit busy.

I also had three of the new girls observing my classes this week. It's training for them to see how other teachers teach. I hope they got something valuable out of the experience. But it was nice to see them. We had a good time. Two were the same girls from New Years. We seem to be becoming good friends. It's exciting. I'll meet them again today. They are going to listen to the band with me again tonight. Hehe, I think I've created some more groupies.

I also had a pleasant surprise this week. I got a job interview for Monday. It's a bit of a relief, because I was beginning to get a bit antsy. Usually I don't mind not knowing, but it feels like it's getting kinda close to when I need to be making concrete decisions. Prayers for my future would be greatly appreciated.

In other good news. I finished my newsletter today. Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day, and Monday I have the job interview and then another meeting right after. Tues is back to class. Fun stuff.

Thanks for all the comments Sara! I did get your e-mail, but it was sent to Yahoo, and I don't check that one as often. I'll try to reply soon!

Ok, I think that's all for today folks!

Just another day.

Well, it's back to working again now. Yesterday's classes went fine. Two students forgot to show up, but that's to be expected. Today I will be the only one working. The office is being changed. I will no longer have a full time office worker anymore. So that means there will be some changes happening. I hope it goes well.

Here are a few random pictures. I found them yesterday on a friend's website, so I downloaded them. The first is from this summer's Kanto Church Camp. We stayed in a very nice Japanese style "hotel". Everyone had these yukata, or cotton robes to wear to bed. This is a bunch of us girls after going to the public bath. I was just excited the yukata mostly fit on me.

Next picture is us in a train station as we are going to prayer retreat. Just thought maybe I should put up some pictures that included my face too. I don't often take pictures of myself so they are hard to get. ;-)

Anyway, it's time for me to be responsible and get some stuff done. It's really annoying to be responsible... LOL.

Back to School.

Well, it's that time again. Time to go back to work. Break was nice. Got more rest than I thought I would. Spent some time with some great people. I kinda wish it would go on a little longer, but then again, I'm kinda glad to have the structure of working back in my life.

So since today was a post about going back to school, I thought I'd show some school pictures. These are pictures of Todai, or Tokyo University. I went to one of the campuses to take my Japanese test. It was really cool to say I go to go to Todai, as it is the most prestigious university in the country. I was kinda surprised at how old it was though. The classrooms were really small and a bit run down, but then again, it is a really old university. I'll get the results of my Japanese test sometime in Feb.

Anyway, it's off to work now! I hope everyone had a happy holidays!

Web Albums

I must be really motivated today. Third post. Anyway, here is the promised link for my web albums. Enjoy the pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/blueparadox

Random information

I know what you are thinking, what a strange picture. But this picture is for the purpose of explaining some things. So, let's start at the top. You see three things there. These are handy things in the winter called "hokairo." Now hokairo are really cool, or rather, warm. They heat up when exposed to air and you can put them in your pockets or hold them to keep warm in the winter. This is very important when there is no central heating (or when you are standing outside all night long.) Japan has some wonderful stuff. There are two kinds in the picture. The small white one is a "sticky" version. (an unopened package is next to it.) This sticky type you put on your clothes and it keeps you warm. This is a mini version. The orange one sticking out of the blue checkered cover is a normal version (also mini). This one you just hold. I have a cute cover to put them in that keeps in the heat and feels fuzzy. I love the stuff you find in Japan!!!

Next you see the baby blue pillow looking thing. This is actually a bottle warmer. In the winter you can buy hot drinks in plastic bottles. This came free with a bottle of hot tea I bought. If you put it over the bottle, it keeps the drink hot longer. Very nice. But today we didn't use it for drinks. When we wanted to play football today, we had the problem of no football. In the beginning, we used the Frisbee until it broke. So we had to find an alternative. So I took this bag, stuffed my gloves and a headband inside and pulled the string tight. And so you have an instant mini-football! It worked really well actually. We played with this until it was time to go.

And finally you will notice another picture of my cell phone. I seem to look like I like large things hanging from my phone. The two new girls and I had gone out to a mall like place for lunch after church. I went home early to clean and prepare and I left my cell phone with them. (remember I have other large things hanging from my cell phone, all gifts) They were of course amused with my collection of straps, so as a joke, they bought me another one. They put it on and then returned the phone. I was very surprised when I picked up the phone and found extra stuff on it! So now I have a very large, gold sequined heart hanging from my cell phone. This is very much not my style. But it was pretty funny joke. We'll see how much longer I'll tolerate all these huge things on my cell phone. It might be time for a "style change."

That's the funny thing about "my style". A lot of the really extravagant fashion stuff I have are actually gifts from other people. Because I appreciate the thought and the people who gave them to me, I usually use or wear what is given to me. But in most cases, this is all stuff that I wouldn't have ever bought myself. It's just people's opinions of my style. So because I wear them, it re-enforces people's opinions, and I get more, similar gifts. Eventually I become used to it and it really does become my style. It's a very strange phenomenon. So "my" style actually becomes other people's impression of my style. But in the end, I suppose it doesn't matter. I like 90% of what I get, so it's all good. The good news is that it's so much easier for me to wear strange or goofy fashions in Japan than in Texas.

And in other random news, people in Japan are very kind to me. For instance, I get a lot of free food. The reason I'm writing this is because just now my doorbell rang. This girl I met at a convince store (her family operates it) had just brought me a bag of food. If she doesn't see me in a long time, she will bring over just expired food from the store. Today it was a bunch of sandwiches and rice balls. It's really nice. Now I have food for tomorrow!