Happy Halloween!

We had a great time this Halloween. It was a busy weekend and loads of fun. Since Halloween was on a Sunday we had the whole weekends to prepare and party! Friday night we were invited to attend a party hosted by some friends who are in the squadron. Before that party started we decided to wear our costumes to the O-Club. I saw it advertised as being the Adult Halloween party night with a costume contest so I made Dereck come home and dress up before going. Sure enough we go into the club and there is about 3 people out of 100+ dressed up. Woops! So needless to say we stuck out like sore thumbs... however, I was okay with this because is HALLOWEEN weekend and in my opinion all the other people not dressed up looked stupid! Since there were only about 6 or 7 people prepared for the costume contest, Dereck and I had a pretty good chance. I was dressed as a Bakeneko, which is a mythical Japanese cat who is evil and devourers their mistress to steal their human form. In my case, my mistress was a cute Harajuku girl! So I got to be a kitty cat and a Harajuku girl at the same time.

Dereck's costume was a HUGE hit. There is a very popular restaurant near base called Santa Sushi. Dereck had the great idea to get a santa suit and put sushi all over it to actually BE Santa Sushi. I somehow got lucky and found a cheap Santa costume off base and made the sushi out of felt.

He ended up winning 1st prize and I got 2nd! We were a bit dissapointed because we thought the prize was cash, but ended up being gift certificates to the O-club restaurant. So now we have $150 in free meals, so that's still good! And it was a lot of fun so it all worked out.

After the costume contest we went over to our friend's party. Their house was decorated fantastically- so spooky, complete with skeletons, fake bugs, and spiderwebs. Very awesome. A lot of our friends were there and we had a great time. Here are some of the other great costumes:

 

Chelsea and George and Beer Maid/German boy! 

The Newmans as Chilean Miners (too funny...)

Sushi Santa and Kim as a piece of Sushi

The next night we went to another party hosted by our neighbors. It had a different group of people- mainly those friends from the neighborhood vs members of Dereck's squadron. Dereck went as Santa Sushi again and I got to wear my 2nd Harajuku girl costume. 

Our friends just had a new baby so it was fun to see him, and also to welcome back the proud Daddy who had been in Iraq up to a few weeks prior to the party. It was great night!

Sunday was actually Halloween and after attending church all day, we got home in time to eat dinner, carve a pumpkin and hand out candy. Dinner was very important because we actually went to Santa Sushi. Dereck was worried about how the chef would react so we initially just brought in the Santa hat. The sushi chef laughed a lot and thought it was funny, so after dinner Dereck came in with the whole costume. It was a hit!!!

 

Bake on base, we carved our pumpkin and prepared our bowl of candy. There were many many many many children because a lot of ladies who teach English off base sponsored on Japanese children. It was fun to see so many costumes and such enthusiastic children! We even did a Japanese pumpkin- its a Kappa... a mythical creature kind of like a cross between a frog and a turtle.

We hope you all had a great American Halloween as well!!!

Kamakura (The Big Budda)

This post is a bit late... but I was waiting for the pictures and I just hadn't gotten around to uploading them to the computer until tonight. So here it is- the late post about our trip to Kamakura.

After my trip to the USA, I came back to Japan just in time for a 3 day weekend. Dereck had Monday off of work for Columbus Day (yay for Govt. holidays!). The weather was beautiful and we decided to head to the coast to the town of Kamakura, to see "The Big Budda" statue.

Kamakura is about a 2 hour train ride south of us, and is an ocean town. The train ride was nice- we had seats the whole way- which is surprising because we found out it was a Japanese holiday too. We got into Kamakura around 1:30 and first things first, we got some lunch. We found a restaurant that was in one of our Japanese travel books. We never would have gone into this place if it wasn't in the book, and I'm SO glad that we found it. It was on the 2nd story and served a Japanese pancake, called Okonamiyaki. It is not a sweet breakfast pancake like in the states, but a very hearty dinner pancake filled with veggies and meat. Dereck got his with beef, and I did mine with Mochi instead (a rice dough). We had an idea of what to do, but the service was so great that they showed us how to do it- all without much English being spoken! It was pretty funny, but we appreciate their kindness. It was a moment where I wish that we could tip them.

After lunch we walked to the Budda. The real name for it is Diabutsu or Great Budda. It was built in the 1200s and lived up to its name- it was really big!  It was cool to see because nothing in America is that old. This budda has held up for 800 years through all sorts of weather, including earthquakes. Its pretty impressive! I enjoyed his serene face and peaceful presence. It was calming just to be around it. We even got to go inside it (its hollow) and see how its constructed. It was very interesting.

After the budda, we went to georgous hilltop shrine/temple (I'm terrible, but I always forget which is which! sorry to anybody I may offend...). It was built on a hill and was beautifully landscaped all the way to the top. At the top you could look out over the ocean. It was quite a view and we enjoyed resting and taking it all in.

We decided to take a hike down to the beach before heading home. It was really pretty even though it was very busy. The sand was very dark, almost black, which was a first for me to see. Dereck even got some of his favorite Green Tea ice cream on the way.

After the beach we left and headed back home. The trip home was much busier, and we actually got on the train going the wrong way for the first time in months! It made for a good laugh, and since we weren't really rushing home for anything, it was okay. It was a wonderful day and it was so fun to just explore and be with Dereck after 3 weeks of being gone! I know I'll get to go back again, because this is a great place to take visitors who want to come to Japan.

Higher Education

So lately a lot of talk around our house has been about going back to school. Dereck is required to get a masters degree in order to promote above the rank of Major, and it is best to get it before you reach the Major select point. So since he'll be a Captain this spring, it looks like a good time to get started. The spring semester also coincides with his deployment in February. A lot of people find it good to work on their schooling while deployed because during their "off days" there isn't a lot to do anyways, so working on their degree is a great way to kill two birds with one stone: boredom and knocking out a class or two. He's looking at a few online schools right now, but is definitely looking at a masters in Psychology because its something he is interested in and he already as the behavior science undergrad. Also, its pretty awesome that he can get some tuition assistance from the Air Force so he won't have to use his GI Bill to get this degree. This means he can save it for another degree in the future or even pass it on to our children one day. That's pretty awesome! Thanks USAF!

Now for me, there is no way I can allow my husband to be more educated than me- especially since we both agree that I'm the brains of the family...
I just have a few issues to resolve.
#1 is what I want to get a masters in, since I'm still unsure of my career path in the future. Right now I'm leading towards a masters in Mathematics so I can teach math at a university level (community college most likely) or even high school. I can't get certified to teach high school until I know what state I live in, but having a masters in the subject I plan to teach can only be beneficial towards getting my certification. I'm going to hold out a while longer (since I don't have the time constraint of a deployment or promoting like Dereck does) but hope to start something in about a year.
#2 is spending the money, since I sitll am paying for my undergraduate education (and will be for probably 10 more years! yikes!). Its hard to justify spending more money on educaiton without knowing if and when I'll be able to use it.... which brings us to #3.
#3 is planning a family. Do I want to wait until after we have kids to decide if I want to go to work or not... or plan to work, get the masters, and see how it goes after we start a family? I'd hate to get another degree and not use it, but I think I'd hate more to want to teach later in life, then not have the qualifications to do so. Its hard to plan around a family, because we know we want to wait longer to have children, but we don't know how much longer (and then you have to see how long it takes to actually get pregnant!). Oh life. Why are you so confusing?

For now its just time for me to think about what I want my next step to be! I'm going to continue to sub at the High School and I hope my tutoring on the side continues to grow. I have my first appointment next week to tutor geometry to a 9th grade student and I am very excited about it. I really hope that I am able to help him get his grades up! I think it will be a good way for me to determine if this teaching thing is really something I could handle.

So that's the big talk around our house as of lately!

Adventures in Substituting

    Since arriving back from my trip to the USA, I have been very busy trying to adjust to a new schedule. Currently, in addition to my two regularly schedule off-base English teaching jobs, I am now a substitute teacher at Yokota High School on base.  I really didn’t know what to expect when I started this, but so far I have been pleasantly surprised. The school is small, only 400 total students, so I’m sure by the Christmas season I will have many names, and even more faces, memorized as I make my rounds of the school. So far I have subbed in the Special Education room, for a Spanish teacher, and for a US History/Sociology teacher. I am excited to one day get placed in a math or science classroom, but for now I am enjoying what I’ve been placed in. it’s a great option for me because I can choose when I want to work. Sometimes they’ll call ahead and schedule me for a few days or a week of subbing for the same teacher. Or sometimes they call at 7:45am and say “can you come in today?”. Its great because it fills in the weeks I don’t work off base, but then gives me the flexibility to keep my off base jobs for the sporadic days I work for Hamura City.
    I’ve also realized just how many people at this base are in a similar position to me- where they have a degree and had a career before coming to Japan, but just don’t have any options to work here. So far the other substitutes I met (there are only 7 of us, so I still have to meet 3) are a certified elementary teacher, a certified HS teacher, (I guess there were no openings for them at the schools here this year), a college English professor, and a nurse. Add to the list an Aerospace Engineer, and the kids are in very educated hands when their usual teachers are out. It also makes me feel a little better about not being able to work in Engineering here-  I know that I’m not the only person struggling with working a temporary job instead of progressing in their career.
    I’m excited to work more at the high school. In fact, I even turned down an opportunity to work at another school in Hamura City (even though it pays well) because I am enjoying this job so much. I have had good reviews from the teachers I have subbed for, as well as the many smiling faces of students saying “Oh good/yay/etc, Mrs Monnier is our sub again”. That makes me feel that I am doing this new job well and might even survive working in the world of a High School in the future…