Nate, Aya and I met up with the new Ako ALT, Louise, for our first dinner, on Monday night! We met her at her apartment so she wouldn't get lost in Ako trying to find Minato-ya, haha, and took the opportunity to check out her 'mould' room while we were there. It was totally feral, even by male standards! :/ Thankfully she seemed to be in pretty good spirits and had cleaned up everything else in the apartment really well, with the help of the Ako BoE staff. So all good I guess. From there, Aya drove us all down to Minato-ya so that we could introduce Louise to meet Minato-san and get her her first bite of the best okonomiyaki in Japan, w00t! :)

I have to say, it's totally awesome to have a new person in Ako. Someone who can communicate, especially. Phillip faded away without a word, as is his style, and I still rarely hear from the ninja Claire, so I'm nothing short of ecstatic to have another real live enthusiastic talking native English speaker around. At Minato-ya we talked about all kinds of things, from her experiences in Japan so far to how things were back in Perth, and so on. It felt like I was back home for a while, what with her Perth accent and the places she talked about being so familiar. Definitely good times.

On Saturday I caught up with Yusaku in Himeji and we zipped across to Osaka for the International Party at Pure. Thankfully we'd had the foresight to book a capsule hotel nearby, as we weren't able to get home after the party, haha. Once we arrived in Shinsaibashi, we checked into the hotel and headed down to Dotonburi to grab dinner at my favourite little garlic ramen place. After that it was party time, w00t! Unfortunately, there were a lot of other events on that night including a firework festival and a few other things I can't remember, so there weren't that many people around. Definitely still enough to be fun, although the place didn't have its normal vibrant feel.

Despite this though, most of the people I did meet were pretty interesting, especially a guy who was a firefighter in Nara, and a deaf lady from Umeda. I was absolutely fascinated by her because although she wasn't completely deaf, we had to communicate mostly through writing. This was a really interesting experience for me and it turned out that it actually suited me surprisingly well. I don't hear well in clubs at the best of times, and writing is easier than speaking :) I think the fact that I didn't have to worry about my speaking skills also made it easier for me to communicate, strangely enough! Anyway, I remember being very impressed by her, as she was quite a bit older than the usual crowd and as I mentioned, hard of hearing, so I thought she was pretty courageous to come out partying. After I'd 'talked' to her a bit, she invited me to go bowling in Osaka in late August with some of her friends ... sweet deal! :D

After the party finished, Yusaku and I wandered back to the capsule hotel and the recent heat and exhaustion caught up with me. I hadn't had all that much to drink but it hit me really suddenly, so I pretty much fell asleep as soon as I got into my little capsule. On Sunday I was still tired and Yusaku needed to head to Toyooka to see his grandparents, so we headed back to Himeji quite early, after grabbing brunch at a handy Subway. I got back to Ako around lunchtime and just mucked around doing chores and playing games for the rest of the day - pretty sweet weekend overall! :)

Last week was a rather unusual and interesting one thanks to various random summer holiday events. It started in grand style with a 'secret' business trip to the Hyogo Board of Education building in Motomachi. Enough said! After the meeting I caught up with my friend Brandon and we grabbed a cheeky beer or two in Sannomiya and then dinner in Chinatown back in Motomachi. We talked a lot about the JET Program and it was great to speak about it with someone who has enough experience and maturity to have some informed opinions.

Tuesday was a very slow day at school and then conversation class at night. I was so tired I almost didn't go to the class, but had made the committment so forced myself to. It turned out to be ok in the end, too, as my two favourite teachers, Sekiyama-san and Kubou-sensei, were there. We had a great conversation almost entirely in Japanese and I learnt quite a few new words and bits and pieces of grammar. I had hoped to see Tomoko too as I hadn't caught up with her in a long time. Admittedly I hadn't been to the class much over the past few months, and had also lost her details when I damaged my phone. I'd been meaning to ask her if she would be willing to seriously take on teaching me Japanese. She is/was studying teaching Japanese to foreigners and I figured she was pretty much my best chance at finding a qualified, bilingual teacher in Ako who could really help me accelerate my Japanese. Unfortunately, I found out just before the class that she was leaving that night, of all nights, to go on exchange to Thailand for 6 months.

I have to admit that I found myself surprisingly upset when I found that out. I know this is a hard time of year for JETs, what with so many JETs leaving, but this was something different. I pinned it down to the fact that, in my experience, local people are often at least as mobile as JETs, if not more so. A lot of the wonderful people I've met and become friends with, from Ako to Sannomiya, have left to travel either internationally or to other places within Japan. Aya went to America to study, Kyoto Junko went to Canada for a working holiday, Sannomiya Junko went to Nagoya to work, Tabe went to Kyushu to work, Kazuyo went to Australia for a working holiday, Tomoko went to Thailand on exchange as I mentioned and to top it all off, Yoko is looking for a new job that will almost definitely take her out of Ako.

I suppose I sound a little down here, and to be perfectly honest, I am. Living in Japan is awesome, but it is not without its challenges. Building friendships is not easy regardless of where you are in the world, and it's made even more complicated when you have a language barrier to overcome. To keep finding people I can connect with and then having them suddenly leave is a continuous energy and morale drain. I guess I just have to keep on fighting, though :) Keep on studying Japanese, take every opportunity to get out into the community and meet people and continue my never ending search for where the young people in Ako actually hang out :D Ganbarimasu!

Back to my week, Wednesday was another slow day and I actually left school early for once, hehe. I've started going in late too - the horror! Haha. I noticed recently that there are only ever about 10 teachers max in the staff room during summer holidays, and I know that the ones that aren't there aren't all using annual leave. So I asked Hashimoto-sensei, who was basically the only teacher there when I arrived at 8:15am on Monday morning, what was going on. He told me that the teachers usually arrive late and leave early during the summer holidays. Having heard that I knew I could do it myself. I also knew that if I had asked if I could do it, I would have been told no. Muahaha. My understanding of the way Japan works keeps on growing :)

At night on Wednesday I also had conversation class with Kometani-san. I hadn't seen her the week before, so we had lots of interesting things to talk about. Somewhat to my surprise, I found out that Phillip, the ALT in Ako who has now finished his time here, was actually staying on in Ako at Kometani-san's second house until the end of August. Not that I had seen him, of course, and it's very unlikely I will see him before he leaves on the 31st August. Anyway, after class I had badminton, and although I didn't play very well it was fun to catch up with Ewan, Daichi and the others regulars.

Thursday was another ninja-day when I was in at school late and out early. It was so quiet, in fact, that some of the teachers, seeing Kyoto-sensei was away, suggested that I make like gaijin ninja smoke and vanish even before lunch time, hehe. As they wouldn't take their own advice when I suggested it, I didn't either though, hehe. I did end up leaving about half an hour early though. Later that evening I went down to the AIFA volunteer meeting, which was quite interesting as usual. Unfortunately I was so tired that I could barely understand anything being said. Still, I'd taken in my damper recipe as promised (and even translated it into Japanese with Mitsumoto-sensei's help!) so all the other volunteers seemed happy :) Sugano-san and I traded phone details again and, as the 'International Lady' of Ako, she has invited me out to dinner at some point. I'm really looking forward to it but hopefully it's at a time when I'm not quite as tired as I am at the moment.

After that it was time for Minato-ya, woohoo! I was really surprised and happy when I walked in, as there were so many familiar faces I hadn't seen in such a long time! Aya had come back from the US for the summer holidays, where she'd been since December last year, and Yoko, Kazu, Mitsue and Nate were all there too. I hadn't seen any of them for nearly 3 or 4 weeks. Good times! After a quick check around, I realised that the new Ako ALT, Louise, wasn't there though. Nate had also noticed, so we went on a mission to find her. Which we did, in her apartment, cleaning :( Apparently Phillip had continued the JET tradition of leaving apartments a disgusting mess for the incoming ALT, much to her (and my) dismay. She said that there was an entire room just full of mould, and the fridge and bathroom had a healthy coating too. I felt really sorry for her, but it seemed like she was through the worst of it and Claire had been helping her out a lot too.

Anyway, Louise was too tired to go out so Nate and I organised to take her to dinner on Monday, and went back to Minato-ya. I grabbed a late dinner and we all talked about random stuff and caught up until around 11pm. As I didn't have to get up for work until 8am on Friday, Kazu and I headed back to my place to play some Dynasty Warriors and kill helpless minions until around midnight - good times!

Friday was another day-with-a-difference as I had another business trip to Motomachi to prepare for the Yashiro Orientation the next week. Seems I have and will continue to spend half my summer holidays on business trips! :D Thankfully, the meeting was very efficient and we were done by just after 4pm. At the end of the meeting, Oouchi-sensei inviting us all out for a dinner party. I was pretty surprised by this as I was under the impression that the BOE never did anything like that with ALTs. As Nate pointed out though, we were helping them out with a lot of things (Tokyo, Yashiro, mid year conference and a few other projects) so it was quite fitting. He also pointed out (and I'd already realised) that it was a great opportunity to do some networking and get to know our bosses in less formal circumstances, so naturally, we both agreed to go along.

The dinner was fun, as the formality of the Japanese workplace was lost and we were able to talk quite openly as we drank and ate. We talked about all kinds of things and, further to my original surprise, our opinions about various aspects of the JET Program were asked, discussed and seemingly taken seriously. I suppose I shouldn't have assumed they wouldn't be, but my feeling was always that the JET Program was considered important by the BOE but always from a sort of distant, standoffish point of view. I guess I was wrong, or at least, was wrong about it when it comes to the ALTs that the BOE chooses to trust and rely on for help. After dinner we said goodbye to everyone with plenty of bows and the usual Japanese formality (which reappeared as soon as we left the restaurant) and Nate, Miho and I went for a few quiet drinks at Chey's House in Sannomiya before calling it a night and heading home. And that was my week!

Here's a handy link to what's been going on in my life over the past month or so -> click me! Enjoy :P

Baba-sensei called me across to her desk today and asked if I could help her with her computer, as she couldn't access the Internet. So I checked out the usual things and found out that the network was 'working' according to Windows, but packets weren't going anywhere. I moved her across onto Nishitani-sensei's network connection and both the network and DNS seemed to start working ok, but no traffic could actually reach those Internet addresses when using IE. The packets would whizz away fine into the Board of Education network, but then get dropped somewhere. I assumed it was a firewall or something similar doing it, so I told Baba-sensei I couldn't fix it and suggested she talk to Tatamiya-sensei, the teacher in charge of the school computers/networks.

Anyway, Tatamiya-sensei turned up a while later and the solution turned out to be ridiculously simple. The BoE runs a proxy which Internet traffic has to go through, and for some unknown reason, Baba-sensei's IE had decided to stop using the proxy settings. I really kicked myself for not checking it, as I've hit the same problem a few times over the years (including twice here at school). Oh well, at least I was mostly right - the problem was Internet packets being dropped by a machine over in the BoE network ;) Just wish I could have gotten that little bit further to the answer being the proxy and fix being the local proxy settings!