Halloween parties, politics, and studies!!

Hina & Hiyori
Originally uploaded by danabree.

Tomoki
Originally uploaded by danabree.

It's been a while since I wrote anything on my blog. Been sick with a bad cold on and off for the past few months, feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest. There's something about the combination of weak Japanese medicine, and the fact that the doctors only give you 4 days worth of medicine, that makes it really hard to recover from a simple cold. Very irritating; besides the fact that it hurts to breathe, I have very little energy to put into teaching or studying, or really doing anything. Normally I love Halloween, but was too tired to celebrate it. Did the party at work though, and included some piccies of some of my cutie students. Gorgeous gorgeous little munchkins!!! I dressed as a Hawaiian hula dancer, which everyone liked, especially when they realized I could actually do a little of the real dancing! My costume was also a big hit at the izakaya we went to later for our adult students party!! At least it wasn't as cold outside as it was last year in Banff - it was -24 last Halloween in Banff!! Just a little chilly in a very skimpy costume!!

Been doing lots of studying recently for my JLPT test coming up December 5. I decided to do level 3, which means spending a lot of time with my now quite large collection of Japanese textbooks. I took a practice test last month, and got 80% on it which really made me happy. I still want to study lots though, a lot of the questions on the practice test I just guessed well. I want to know I've done well, so I'm not worried for the next 2 months waiting for my test results to come in!! The test is a real stinker, they really try to make it as hard and confusing as possible, even chucking in non-existant kanji just to try to throw you! At least there's lots of old tests available to buy, so it's pretty easy to get an idea of what kind of questions will be asked. A friend is doing the level 2, and she's quite worried about how she will do. Her Japanese is so good compared to me, but level 2 is just soooo much more difficult than level 3. The levels don't increase in difficulty evenly, each level up about doubles in difficulty from the one below. Not looking forward to eventually doing level 2!!

I've been desperate for intelligent tv recently, and have been watching CNN almost constantly. Because of this, I'm thinking about doing some courses in international relations, and get a degree in that field. I think it would be really interesting, and it would be great to have a job where I feel like I am maybe helping a lot of people be safer, or at least more informed about what is happening in the world. I can't wait to see what happens with the US election, I just hope that Kerry wins!! Bush is such a redneck, and even though people don't obviously know quite what to expect with Kerry, I think his ideas about making the US less alienated internationally are great. So many Americans have no idea why they are so disliked overseas, it's only when they start to find out more about their foreign policies and past history that they start to understand why people are so angry they are willing to attack the US. I'm certainly not justifying 9/11 or anything like that, it was terrible what happened. If you look at why it happened though, there are many reasons that the Middle East really hates the US, and the US has to take some responsibility for the role it played in the past in these regions. So many people in the US don't know about the US's participation in the governments and politics of many parts of the world, it's just not talked about much on the average nightly news shows. At least with all the escalating violence and problems in the world, people are starting to become more informed about what is going on outside their own borders. I believe that the more people know about what is happening in the world, the more people will be able to try to help the problems that affect them on a local level. They say no man is an island, and I believe that to be true with issues in the world too. Problems in other parts of the world can and do affect everyone, even if it's not directly apparent.

Oh well, that's my political rampage for the day. Hopefully I will get off my butt more and add more to this blog more often!! I must say, for a few months I didn't want to add anything to this blog. I was feeling really out of place here in Japan, everything was just pissing me off, and I said on my first post on this blog that I didn't want it to become a Japan-bashing blog. So, I just didn't write anything during that period. I'm getting better now, all my friends said that after about a year in Japan, things that used to bug you just don't bother you anymore. I can feel that happening now, I'm starting to settle in more and accept things the way they are. I still think a lot of things I see are strange or pointless, but they don't irritate me to the point of wanting to leave anymore!! Hopefully things will continue to improve!!