Why Paramount Pictures won't get my money.

You probably have already gotten a good picture about what I mean...

In the summer of 2008, as my husband and I were preparing for our move to Japan, we found this TV show called 'Avatar The Last Airbender' I remember hearing that the show was amazing, despite being a cartoon, originally geared toward children on the Nickelodeon station. By the time I saw it, the show had completed its run, so after returning to America in 2009, my husband and I rented the DVDs and immensely enjoyed the story Avatar told.
My interpretation of the show-
A boy name Aang from a Buddhist temple in some place like Nepal is chosen to be the next Avatar. He is the one person who is able to learn the ancient art of ‘bending’ of each of the four countries or cultures of the story’s world. The four nations each had the ability to ‘bend’ one of the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. It was clear to me from the beginning that the all the nations were representation of Asian cultures, except Water, which represented the Inuit people or Eskimos. Fire nation is clearly Chinese, Earth is Korea, Air is Nepal. Each nation had warriors gifted in the use of ‘bending’ and used martial arts, clearly another culturally Asian practice. The people in the world of the TV show all read Chinese characters as well, completing the 100% Asian vibe of the show.

When I heard about Paramount Pictures making a motion picture of the TV show I loved I was ecstatic and immediately ran to learn who would play the roles of the characters I had loved on the show. I quickly came to realize that I could not watch this clearly racist movie. You heard me right, RACIST. I learned that all of the main characters, were to be played by white people. Even worse, at one point the main ‘villain’ of the show would be played by Jesse McCarthy…blond haired blue eyes pop singer, far from the Chinese Zuko of the show. When Jesse McCarthy was able to make the shooting dates as a result of tour date conflicts, the role of the villain Zuko was given to Dev Patel of Indian ancestry. That’s right, now all the good guys were white people, NOT Asian as in the popular TV show, but also the main villain, and now in fact the entire ‘bad’ nation are the only people of color in the film. This is just horrible. Are American and international audiences unable to accept Asian actors as hero’s and main character? I don’t believe this to be true, but I believe that Paramount Pictures thinks that casting white actors would be best.

Though I really wanted to watch this movie, I can not bear to support this company's racist actions by paying to see this film. I see this movie as teaching Americans a number of wrong messages. The TV show had it all right, the movie has it all wrong, and it is a true shame.


I soon found an organization that is protesting The Last Airbender movie and hopes to show Paramount Pictures that what they have done is indeed wrong. I hope other people will choose not to support this movie as I, and those at www.racebending.com, have.

Racebending Binder

Best Buy GC anyone?

Parent Trend is working with Underwriters Laboratories to encouraging fireplace safety in the home this holiday season. After reading the helpful tips below be sure to go to Parent Trend's website and comment to win a $100 Best Buy Gift Card.

1.Do NOT hang stockings in front of a burning fire. Remove them before using the fireplace.
2. Keep combustible materials such as greenery away from possible flames.
3. Be sure that your tree is 3+ feet away from the fireplace, radiator or heater.
4. Be sure to keep out of reach of children and extinguish any time you leave the room.
5. Recycle wrapping paper, NEVER throw it in the fire place!

HP Computer Giveaway

As some of you know, my current computer is broken. It gets way to hot, has the loudest and most ineffective fan, and the broken back light often results in not being able to see anything on the screen. It is frustrating to need or want a computer but not really have the funds to buy one. Good news! There are several blogs you can sign up to possibly win a new HP computer. The new touchSmart600 from HP...very cool!

If you want to try and win one like I hope to, you can visit Totally Together Reviews or Kelly's Reviews or Boo Mama or Mckmama

Isn't that cool! Good luck to all who enter. =)

FUJI Q!!

Fuji Q! click it! They played this video all over the park.

I went to Fuji Q Highland Amusement Park in April...I know its June and I am just now talking about it...oh well.

I went with Kim and Beth, other ALTs from Hokuto, at around 9am Saturday morning. I had fun having a girls day out.


I went on this thing

Eejanaika, 249 feet tall, 78.3 mph. Opened in 2006, it is only the second "4th Dimension roller coaster" ever built (the first being X² at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California). As a "4th dimension" roller coaster its seats can rotate 360 degrees forward or backward in a controlled spin, thus allowing Eejanaika to invert 14 different times, even though the actual track inverts only three times. It surpasses the first built "4th dimension" roller coaster, X², in both height and speed. (according to Wikipedia)
...never again. I like traditional roller coasters. The ones that you sit down in a cart and they drop while your stomach reaches for your throat and you get those negative Gs going. This 4th dimension stuff was a bit out there for me. Therefore, we then went on this
Fujiyama, 259 feet tall, 80.8 mph. Opened in 1996, it was once the world's tallest roller coaster. As of 2007 it is the world's 8th tallest, 5th longest, and 10th fastest roller coaster.(Wikipedia)
Fujiyama was by far my favorite ride. It was a traditional style roller coaster with all the drops and negative Gs a girl could want, and it was EXTREME! =P

Here is a better pic

Later on we went on Dodonpa, 170 feet tall, 106.9 mph. Opened in 2001, it was then the world's fastest roller coaster. As of 2007 it is the 3rd fastest in the world but still has the highest acceleration at launch time.(Wikipedia). This was a good rush. The launch reminded me of a Jet taking off. I think, if I could ever convince my mom to get on a roller coaster, this would be the one she would like.



your looking at the tunnel you get shot out of to reach those crazy speeds, and in the background is Mt. Fuji. I wish I could have taken a picture of Fuji while on Dodonpa, it was amazingly beautiful then.

Last, but not least, let us not forget about having a nice refreshing Snow Corn while visiting Fuji Q! I haven't taken a picture of this, but in Japan corn dogs are called "American Dog". Don't know how they got Snow corn for shaved ice but this is Japan. =P

28 Days!!

Hi all three of you who read my blog. I know it has been a while since I wrote. I was planning to write about my trip to FujiQ amusement park in April....and then never did. Then I was planning to write about my trips to Tokyo and Kyoto in May...and clearly that did not happen either. When I get access to my computer and pictures (Matt is currently using my computer) I will do a quick write up on those events.
So for now you can read my ramblings on Part 1- funny Japanese commercials I get stuck in my head and Part 2- how I feel about the move from Japan in 28 days!!

PART 1

First are these Fanta commercials-working in a JHS in Japan has made these even more funny to me!
FANTA

I especially like the soap opera teacher and DJ teacher. =P

Next up are the Pretz Commercials!! The sumo guys are great but I like the creepy commerical at the end the most, the song gets stuck in my head. Oh, the girl is saying something along the lines of "open you month wide and munch" Hey AN AN!

PART 2
Matt and I will be leaving Japan in 28 days. Though I am sad to leave some of the people I have met in Japan, and I will miss some aspects of the Japanese culture, I am ready to move on to our next EPIC ADVENTURE!!! =P
Now that we have a place to live in Rochester, NY, I am more excited about the move. The neighborhood we are living in, Southwedge, appears to be the closest thing to Asheville as we can get in NY, that is a big plus for me.
I still have some fears about our move. The biggest fear I have is making friends. How does one go about making friends?!!? There are all these really fun events happening in Rochester when we get there , hopefully I will be able to meet people at these events.
This will be my first time moving to a new city, not knowing a soul, and not having an organization to integrate me into a community right away. When I moved to Asheville I had the University and all the social events as a freshman to meet people. When Matt and I moved to Japan we had the JET program and our local social organization for foreigners in Japan, YETI. In Rochester Matt will have the University, but I am an outsider there as well./(end)pity party. It is pretty intimidating moving like we are, but hopefully I will be able to find some friends in Southwedge. =)

Owarimasho (let's finish!)

Spring Cleaning

Matt has been an amazing husband lately due to his new interest in spring cleaning. He had turned our messy messy place into something presentable. I am very proud of his hard work. Matt and I had a good weekend in part because of this spring cleaning attitude, but also because we have bonded over a new television show addiction. Since scrubs moved to ABC it has been a pretty lame show, I rarely laugh at their jokes. I had heard good things about the show Chuck but the premise just seemed silly, I assumed I would not like it. Oh how I was WRONG! Chuck is hilarious and action packed, plus a good pinch of family togetherness and a good deal of romance. When I first began watching the show Matt did not care to watch, but did not mind hearing it in the back ground while he did other things. As the show progressed I began hearing more interest on the part of my husband with questions about the plot. THEN in a shocking turn of events on the show, a character that everyone thought would be out of the way for a while suddenly returns. As I gasp in shock of the events taking place and I state aloud WHO has returned to the show I hear my husband yell in anger....for he too is upset about this character....my husband had finally been sucked into the show and has been watching it with me ever since. =)

Another good thing happened this past weekend. I had a nice long lunch with Mrs. Hayashi, one of the JTEs at my JHS. We were able to bond a bit while eating at a macrobiotic restaurant in Oizumi called Serphim. I was also able to tell her about my leaving Japan at the end of July. She was sad that I was leaving but was also very excited for me.

In Takane, down the mountain from where Matt and I live, flowers are beginning to bloom in some places. Some mornings it smells like spring...and my nose reminds me I need to start taking my allergy medicine again. Then again, Friday evening, March 13th, it snowed a bit where we live. Another couple weeks and I feel that spring will take a strong hold over Hokuto. I am excited about my last 4.5 months in Japan. I know the time will pass more quickly with the weather improving and with us having so much more going on. I am going to try to live the rest of my time in Japan to the fullest.

Not so fun Friday night.

Every Monday and Friday Matt tutors two elementary school kids in English for an hour while I go to the grocery store and read a book or listen to music. This Friday was just like any other, until it wasn't.
I dropped Matt off at the boys house and then drove to the store. After buying our food I sat in my car and read Paper Towns by John Green, who is mostly responsible for my renewed interest in reading quality books. With about 10mins to go before Matt's lessons end I decide to drive over and wait in front of the students house, like normal. I had been nervous every since I dropped off Matt because if he needed me he wouldn't be able to reach me by phone. My cell phone had died at some point during the day and I just learned about this fact 2 mins after my husband left the car. I promise I charged my cell phone that very morning!
Anyway...I put my book away, moved the drivers seat back into position for driving, and turned the key in the ignition. That's right...nothing happened...well my car did make an awful "my battery is dead" noise but that's about it. Not only am I stuck in the store parking lot, I have no way of contacting anyone for help. stupid cell phone! At this point it's dark and cold and I am looking for anyone who walks by who might be willing to help a foreigner with their clearly (have the car hood up) broken car. After a few minuets of no success finding help I walk back into the store trying to figure out what I can do. My Japanese is horrible and I don't know anyone in the area. Did I mention the store is about a 35 min drive from my apartment?...closest grocery store. At this point I have begun to panic a little bit, my husband is waiting for me, I can't get in contact with him, I can't contact anyone, and I have no working mode of transportation. This was not fun.

Here is when my luck changes...and why being an English teacher is awesome! I see one of my students, a third year, well, a third-grader from Nishi Takane Elementary school. She is walking out of the store with her mother and little sister when I am walking into the store. I smile and say hello but keep walking...why would a mother with two kids, 9 and 5 I believe, want to deal with helping the foreigner with car trouble on a Friday night...she clearly has places to go and things to do. She clearly did not feel the same way. My student's mother comes walking back into the store and asks me if I need help with my car. Now I have someone who is willing to help me! What's interesting about my interactions with my student's mother (still don't know her name!!) is that I don't speak Japanese, and she doesn't speak English. We had a little bit of vocabulary in each others language but it was enough. I explained my car, my cell phone, and my husband. She explained that she didn't have what I needed (a jumper cable) but that she would call her friend and he would help. So for the next 15 mins I am sitting in this lady's Land Rover with her two children talking about where I live, where I am from, what food people eat in America, where I teach English, various ideas about the drawings her 5 year old was making in the back seat, along with drawing pictures of food with my student (also don't know her name!) Her friend eventually arrived and jumped my car back into shape at which point I did a whole lot of bowing and "Domo Arigato Gosaimashita" before I drove off to pick up my husband.
On the way to pick Matt up I see him walking down the road towards the store. I was over 30mins late to pick him up and he had begun worrying about my safety to the point of attempting to walk to the store to find me while our neighbor JD was on his way to pick him up to go check the hospital, if I was no where to be found at the store. My husband had a plan! Matt and I got to explain our stories to each other on our drive home.
It was a horrible experience I do not want to have again. But I did get to experience the kindness of strangers. Since I am an English teacher at local schools those who know that fact, though might not actually know me, are not afraid to greet me at the store, and in this case help me on a cold, dark Friday night. I often have my students and their parents see me at the store and stop to bow and say hello, though I never know their names. To be fair I have so many students at three different schools, two schools I only visit twice a month.
I feel guilty that I don't know my rescuers' names, but I already have plans to provide them with thank you gifts when I teach at Nishi Takane elementary again.
I am so glad my car trouble was only a 40 minute inconvenience. I don't know what I would have done if this mother of two, who doesn't even speak English, wasn't willing to stop and inconvenience herself by helping the local English teacher with her car on a Friday night. Thank you lady!

SNOW!!

That's right flavoury tea!



These are the two pics I was able to take in my car of the snow at our house... before the camera's batteries died.


The rest of these pics are from our little trip to Hakuba in Nagano, Japan. =) enjoy!

Culture Shock aka Culture fatigue

Everyone experiences culture shock, (or if you want to be more PC)culture fatigue. I'm sure someone out there will tell you they lived in another country for a while and didn't have culture shock AT ALL. This person just doesn't understand what culture shock really means, or was not in the country long enough to experience all the stages of culture shock. (I have a reason for preferring the name shock over fatigue which I will get to in a bit)

Quoting from the Culture Shock page of Wikipedia:
"Culture shock refers to the anxiety and feelings (of surprise, disorientation, uncertainty, confusion, etc.) felt when people have to operate within a different and unknown cultural or social environment, such as a foreign country."

I am honestly an expert on culture shock. I had several weeks training to deal with culture shock in 2004 and 2005 in preparation for my first trip to Japan. On my 2005 trip to Japan I experienced culture shock, along with the 5 people I was traveling with, though we all experienced it a bit differently.
In preparation for my return to Japan, this time being in a Japanese workplace setting, my contracting organization sent all the new ALTs to special training in Tokyo geared to help with culture shock.

With my expert knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that my husband and I are both suffering from a bad case of stage two culture shock. Stage two is "Irritation and Hostility―Gradually, your focus turns from the similarities to the differences. And these differences, which suddenly seem to be everywhere, are troubling. You blow up little, seemingly insignificant difficulties into major catastrophes. This is the stage generally identified as culture shock. People experiencing culture shock often
feel homesick and have a negative attitude toward the host culture." (JET General Information Handbook 2008)

Let's break that down a little more- the key being that this stage is all about the person's irritation with and hostility towards the new culture they are living in. With the amount of time Matt and I say "Silly Japan" or other not so nice terms, it is clear that we are finding faults in all the differences between our home culture and the culture we currently find ourselves living in. We are both HOMESICK. We have lists in our heads of things we want to do, places we want to go, and even food we want to eat when we get back to America. In case you were wondering, because we will probably be arriving in my hometown first, we will probably have McAlister's as our first real meal back in the US is all goes according to plan. =P
I miss my cat much more than I thought I would. Don't get me wrong, I knew I would miss her, but I thought with time I would miss her less...that has not happened.
I miss sleeping on a real bed. I have already begun looking at shops online to see what the going price for a decent queen sized mattress is in America.
I miss doing any daily task or errand in ENGLISH. My Japanese is not so good and I have very little faith in it ever getting much better. As a result of my lack of Japanese language skills I get frustrated by the simplest of things. Simply leaving the house is exhausting because of the cultural and language barriers.

I know I have brought some of these things up before, but I just wanted to get a summary of my culture shock symptoms. I like calling it SHOCK and not FATIGUE because I am a dramatic person and FATIGUE does not express the true emotional rollercoster this is like the word SHOCK does.

So yes, the low of culture shock has hit us both hard and we are very excited to tell everyone now that we will be moving back to America in end July/ early August!!!
None of the specifics are in place yet. Worst case scenario is still not that bad for us because of this strong desire to be home again, it beats out any financial concerns...which we still hope not to have. I will update with more information when it becomes available. =)

In case anyone is interested, here is a pic of how some people believe culture shock looks like. Though I would like the say the JET General information handbook does have a better graph with the more detailed ups and downs that an ALT feels while in Japan...I just can't post a copy of it.

I'm Sick

I have gotten sick FOUR TIMES since I have been in Japan. ugh. The last two times have actually been back to back. I was sick the Thursday before last and have been trying to recover ever since BUT got sick AGAIN this past Thursday. My JHS actually asked me to go home and rest...I had a fever =( I am still sick, though feeling better than I was Thursday or Friday of this week. I really wish I were in America dealing with my illness. In Japan EVERY illness is a doctor visit illness. I don't WANT to go see a doctor here, especially since they speak Japanese and I speak English, it's just another frustration I don't want to deal with ESPECIALLY when I am sick. In America I could just pop on over to the nearest CVS or Wallgreens or whatever and buy some over the counter medicine and that be it. It would not require a 30 plus minuet ride ONE WAY only to become frustrated that they don't use western medicines and the doses of drugs are not what I am used to...because that is what I get in Japan. SIGH. Being sick away from home is hard. I have a piece of home since my husband is with me. I honestly would be at a loss if he weren't with me. But I still miss the comforts of home.

On a different topic. I got to go on a fun ski trip with lots of other young foreigners living in my prefecture in Japan a few weeks ago. I didn't actually go skiing. I have never skied before so I didn't want my first time to be in Japan where if I hurt myself I would be in a Japanese hospital (heard too many horror stories). But I had a lot of fun just talking with people. It made me miss my friends from home. I miss nerding out and I got to do just that. =)

Happy New Year!

2009 is here now. I am amazed with how much has happened in the past year. My life has changed quite a bit. I am married now, that wasn't the case this time last year. and, oh yeah, I am living in Japan. Daily life has changed dramatically for me over the past year. I have three big things on my to-do list for 2009:
1- celebrate my 1st wedding anniversary
2- visit the US for a few weeks- most likely during the summer
3- get in shape!- since moving to Japan I have lost all my strength- I used to be able to do sit-ups and push-ups--I need to exercise.

Now, on a completely different note, here are some pictures! (admit it! that is why you are really reading this! =P )



Mixxie up Matt's shirt sleeve. eewww. =P

This is Mixie. She is the hamster Matt and I (mostly matt)are looking after while our neighbor is away. Mixxie likes crawling through tubes...its fun. I get to play with her without havint to touch her. =)

I am wearing my new winter coat I bought because my other coat is just not enough for winter here. After two days inside, due to lots of snow and icy roads, I was happy to be walking around near our house.

The roads were STILL icy two days after the snow fall. This road is covered in ice. We did not drive for a while.

Oh! one last thing! My mom suggested I mention SparkPeople It is a great website (and FREE) for those who are looking for help and support in their weight loss or fitness efforts. I would have to say it is the best site out their right now. Check it out. =)