ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

It always amazes me how kind people are. Just this week I was given a bag of vegetables from my friend and her family and last night I came home to a bag of produce on my door knob from my neighbor. People are so kind! I want to spread the kindness! I am making an active promise to help anyone I see who needs it and to be generous with all that I have! I encourage you to do the same! We can always use more kindness in the world so if you can help someone, please do so!  

Life is good when you’ve got a microwave or pizza or a bowl. If you have all three then everything is great! Pictured below is the monster combination of all three ingredients for quality living. Please gather all the ingredients yourself and attempt what is pictured. You will find your quality of life increased threefold if you complete for yourself the pictured pizza of perfection. Seriously speaking, though, it’s not a bad way to dine! As you might have imagined, all the cheese and sauces and oils melt into a pool in the middle. Once the heating is done and the cooling of the pizza is done to a bearable level, you can fold the thing in half and enjoy an oozing, dripping pizza taco. Or even an oozing, dripping pizza burrito! Or, if you have a spare hotdog around, you can heat that up separately and put it in its completed state in the middle of the bowl-heated pizza to make an oozing, dripping pizza hotdog. In fact, it would be an oozing, dripping pizza hotdog TACO or BURRITO, depending on how you hold it. Oh, the expatriate American life! But you know if I had a plate, and not just a bowl, I would be talking about pizza sandwiches instead...


  

This weekend I did my nails for the first time in a long time and it really reminded me of how much I loved doing it in my last year of university. I've always loved doing my nails, but about two years ago it became an almost obsessive hobby of mine. I was going through a difficult time and it was so relaxing and distracting to sit down and paint my nails with detailed designs. Sometimes I'd spend up to 4 hours painting my nails, and I changed the design every three days. After I graduated university and moved away from home I started feeling better and I got much busier so I never really had time to do them and fell out of the habit.
Since I had so much fun doing my nails this weekend I thought I'd share a picture from the a few years ago, I want to start doing my nails like this again soon, but it's so much work!




I hope I have the time and patience to try this again soon!  

  

I recently had the chance to attend a local gymkhana event at Seto Naikai circuit in Saijo.

Gymkhana is a racing discipline in which drivers race around a short course against the clock. It is sometimes held in parking lots, but this event was at a cart circuit.




This was also a classic car event, so there was a ton of old Japanese steel rolling around. It was awesome.




My favorite car there was this Fairlady Z. It was really loud, and really fast.

I wasn't able to drive this time, but hopefully in the future I'll be able to join in the fun.   

Hello!

Last week I wrote about what got me to this point in my life, and some of the factors that went into my making the decision to become a teacher of English in Japan. Today, I want to talk a little about what perhaps my plans for the future are, and explore some possibilities.

It is a well known fact that English teacher positions in schools such as ours are term positions. At the end of these terms, whether they're three months or a year, or what have you, you have to make the decision to stay on again (if it's offered), or try and find another position. The downside to this system is that it is a very nomadic lifestyle, making it very difficult to make relationships that last longer than the terms of your contract. The upside to this is that it makes exploring the world a very real and very possible plan of action. You have to get over your fear of the unknown very quickly, as it is a constant companion. Not knowing where you'll be living in a year, and not being able to plan accordingly is a pretty scary proposition for someone like me, who needs to have at least a little bit of control over those kinds of issues.

However, my lack of control and the anxiety that produces is offset by the amazing adventure that I have every day. Sometimes I have to remember that a year ago, I was living in Canada working two jobs, and now I'm on the opposite side of the world doing exactly what I planned on doing. It's a humbling thought, and I hope I never lose my excitement of it.

I don't know if my future will keep me here in Japan for longer than a year. Certainly there is more of the world to see, and I want to live in as much of it as I can. The amazing thing about this line of work is that there are always people interested in learning and bettering their English, and the longer I am a teacher, the more effective at teaching I will become. It's a reciprocal relationship that I can't wait to build and want to do my very best at no matter where I am. I can't say for certain what I'll be doing this time next year, but I know I'm going to be excited and grateful for every adventure I get to have.  

  

This week I tried making home-made gyoza! I bought the gyoza wrappers and everything I needed to make the filling. making the filling was the easy part! The part I found difficult to do was pleating the edges of the gyoza together. It took me a couple of tries to get it figured out, but I managed. It took a little longer to make 16 gyoza than I thought it would, but It was really fun! I managed to fry them in the pan fine, but when I added the water to steam them, I added a bit too much! They were still pretty tasty, and I look forward to trying to make them again!
  

I love to read. My preference is fiction, but I love other types of readings as well. I enjoy the creative aspect of fictitious novels, it allows my mind to immerse itself into a world of wonder. I have been reading since a very young age and for a time did not enjoy reading due to the education system in America practically forcing certain books on you year after year as if you were set on repeat, but I have grown a love for reading which I am happy for. Books can take you places that you never thought could exist, but your mind is a wonderful thing and allows you to become a part of any story that you read as long as you let your creative side take control. Reading is exciting and I much prefer it over watching a film or tv show. My preference is using books, but I do own a kindle. Both ways are convenience, though books can pile up quickly if you are buying them, and the battery on the kindle and the storage space could run out quickly depending on how much you read. There are many pros and cons to both. What is your preference? Do you prefer reading a physical book or do you prefer using a kindle or other e reading device?

Thank you for reading!

Leigh   

Recently, I noticed that there was a cat hanging around near my apartment. I barely saw it and never heard it, so I didn't care. I'm highly allergic to cats, so we've always had a bad relationship. Now, I'm in the worst relationship with a cat, ever!

It's the time of the year when cats are in heat, which means that they are looking for a mate to make babies with. In the last week, this cat that I never bothered with, has become a MONSTER. It meows (and not in a cute way) for HOURS, usually waking me up much earlier than I need to be. It's hot and stuffy in my loft unless I open the window, so I've been having trouble sleeping because of trying to block out the sound. It makes me miserable and annoyed, and I'm sure that I will start getting angry. Plus, there are other cats that have moved in. A cat with 3 kittens has been seen near the bushes by my door! But the kittens together are not even half as loud as this demon cat.

Unless I can scare the cat away (loud noises have helped a little), I will seriously consider asking someone to call a shelter to come and take ALL of the cats away. I don't see my neighbors much, and I don't hear them yelling at the cats like me, but I bet I will be doing everyone a favor by getting rid of that darn cat.  

My favorite Japanese food is... OKONOMIYAKI!!!

I really like it a lot. I often make it at home for dinner. It is so many of my favorite things mixed together like vegetables, eggs and pork. It is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Sometimes I like to go out to a restaurant and eat it also. There are many places to eat okonomiyaka it Saijo!

What is your favorite food?

Thank you for reading,

Kristen  

I really like blue. It is my favorite color. I often find that I choose so many blue things that sometimes I choose another color just to change things up a bit. What about you? What is your favorite color? How many things do you own that are that color?

My favorite blue item is a purse I bought in Boston with my friend Brent. It is one of my favorite blue items. What is your favorite item that is your favorite color?

Thanks for reading,

Kristen  

Everybody loves funny cat pictures, right?... Right?... Ok, not everyone loves funny cats pictures, but I like to think that most people do. I like to refer to this one as dastardly cat. Dastardly means sneaky in a bad way. The word 'sneaky' can be good or bad, but 'dastardly' is always bad. This cat seems like it's making some sort of evil plans. He just looks so dastardly. Don't you agree? What are you planning, dastardly cat? Leave me out of it.

  

  

Hello everyone! Recently I have been doing some experimental cooking! Things like rice in pasta or chili in fried rice! I always love trying to make new things to try. I especially like fusing culture foods such as Indian curry with a complimentary Mexican dish. It works out so well most of the time! Admittedly, sometimes it does not turn out well at all but that just lets me grow in my cooking experiments. I hope you guys try different things every now and then! Getting out of your food comfort zone is a wonderful experience!

  

I recently bought a chair, as pictured. It is quite light and has a nice warm and light color to it. It came at an alright price, at around 10,000¥ to start but closing at less than that thanks to an employee being kind enough to give me a discount since the store could not ship it to my house anytime soon and because the display model was all that was in stock of this particular chair. Now I hope that it has not been sat in by too many people between my discovering it and the week since before making up my mind to purchase it, or that it has not been sat in too often before even my own discovering it! I for one had to spend a lot of time sitting in several models side by side, in fact I have spent maybe two hours total in testing out the comfort of various seats and chairs before making my decision. I tested my chairs by reading in them, by sitting with my feet up on the seat in crosslegged fashion, by sitting in them sideways with my legs and back over the armrests, by writing on notebooks with support below by the armrest, everything to ensure that I was making a smart decision. Now that I have made my decision my studies have accelerated, all while saving lots of cash on the various drinks I would buy to reserve for myself a seat at certain cafes! This new condition enabling my studies makes me wish I had spent the serious cash on a nice reading chair much sooner!


  

Last weekend I was able to visit one of the most amazing fabric stores I've ever seen. I went together with Taylor and Jay to buy fabric for our summer tour costumes and ended up buying much more than I'd expected to. Even in the small fabric stores in my hometown in Canada I've always loved fabric shopping, the possibilities are so exciting, but this store is the most amazing store I've ever been to. it was piled high with fabric all the way to the ceiling, with treasures hidden everywhere. Our boss and aome of our co-workers reccomended it to us and I'm so glad they did.

Here's a picture of what I bought at the store, I can't show you the fabric for my costume, so I covered it up. :p




I really love my blue striped fabric, I want to use it for a summer dress.  

  

A few weeks ago I popped into the Books Miyawaki by the 7-11 on route 6. I like to walk around and just look at the books- and wish that I could read them all!!! I was so lucky that day, I found the section for foreigners learning Japanese, and I found a beginners textbook for under 3500 yen! I was super excited, and bought it immediately! I have been using it fairly often, and it has been great. It isn't the same one that many of my co-workers are using, but it is still pretty good. I found a wonderful website as well, that is teaching me words,a nd making practice reading the kana. I am super excited to study with both the book and website!
  

Last night I was cutting up a bell pepper and decided to keep the rings of the bell peppers to make "Sunflowers" for breakfast. The actual name of this dish is "Fried Eggs in a Bell Pepper Ring" but that's not very imaginative so I decided to call them "Sunflowers". This is a super simple dish to make for any meal of the day. It goes well on it's own or over rice. Add some bacon to it and you have breakfast. Below are the steps I used to make this meal.

1. Cut a large bell pepper (any color) into .75cm thick rings.

2. Heat a pan with a light coat of extra virgin olive oil on medium high until hot and place the rings in the pan.




3. Cook until your desired softness, be sure to flip the rings after a few minutes to avoid burning. Making them a bit golden brown is nice.

4. Drop an uncooked egg in the center of the ring, once you have reached your desired softness, and cook until your desired egg type. You can scramble your eggs to add to this also. I personally like over easy eggs.




5. Remove excess egg from the outside of the ring to give it a clean flower shape. Don't be wasteful. Eat the excess with your meal.

6. Enjoy!

Season how you like (I use either herbal salt or some habanero sauce on mine) and enjoy this cute and tasty meal anytime of the day.

I hope you enjoy it!

Leigh