Right, it's that time again. let's start with straightforward things, then move into things that require more reasoning. number 1 straightforward thing - theme. i don't remember when exactly i thought of it, but my brain suggests april or earlier. my theme for this year is just one word: "healing". it's quite broad, and that's because it does refer to various aspects of my life. including the physical, obviously. i lost about 23kg from when i last measured my weight in singapore, to my most recent measurement a few days ago. that's something i'm incredibly proud of.

mentally, i feel like i'm in a much better place than i was back in singapore. my first major setback in the cruel "real world" in mid-2019 put me into a slump that lasted for more than a year. of course, that wasn't the only reason. living under the same roof with someone that i would rather not associate with was also quite a big stressor. not to mention the living conditions in singapore, which were bad enough already due to the overcrowding, and that were made worse by all the constantly-changing COVID regulations. interestingly, i have not lost my temper at all in japan. sure, i've been irritated, annoyed, even frustrated, but i've never flown off the handle at anyone or anything here. while i feel well enough mentally, i also admit that my regained mental strength is still untested - i have to be placed back into a job that requires more from me to truly see how i've recovered. i'll talk more regarding that tomorrow.

let's take stock of the present. things went well during my first year in japan! i get along well with the kids i'm teaching, i have good rapport with my colleagues, and the teachers in school see me as an asset. my predecessor said that the average stress level in this job was 3/10 to him. i feel similarly, though i might go as low as 2. most of the stress is self-inflicted. if i were to just go in and teach, without doing anything extra unless the teachers asked, i might even rate the stress level as 1. but that is also my biggest gripe with my current situation - that i'm not being utilized fully. not just because i'm not using my scientific knowledge, but even for teaching english, i am more often than not used as a glorified tape recorder. but hey - i knew that it was a possibility since many JETs report the same treatment, and my predecessor did tell me to expect it to some degree.

while i wouldn't say that i'm living my best life in japan, i would say that i'm living a good, happy life. there have been multiple avenues for growth; some necessary - speaking japanese every day, settling my own living activities (food, money, laundry, schedule, car maintenance), acclimatizing to living in a temperate climate; some optional - learning to cycle, attempting some new recipes, being present for my students beyond working hours. i'm happy that i chose to step up to most of the challenges that came my way. 

i'm not sure whether this should go here or in tomorrow's post, but i also wanted to talk about how my thoughts have changed this past year. initially, i only planned on staying for 2 years, maybe 3 at most. now, that's changed to wanting to see the current primary 6 kids graduate secondary school. maths time! they'll graduate primary 6 in march 2022. 3 years of secondary school means they'll graduate in march 2025, at which time i'd have been here for 4.5 years - or almost my full possible JET term! i'll also be 36 going on 37 by then. of course, there are intermediate solutions to explore, like finding a job elsewhere and coming back to attend their graduation ceremony...but that's for future me to figure out. the one thought i want to leave here for future reference is that however long i stay, i had better be able to justify the time and opportunity cost to myself.

on a larger scale, i wonder if i could make japan my permanent home. a year ago, i firmly said no to the thought of giving up singapore citizenship in favour of japan citizenship. now, i'm more open to the idea. not saying that i'm definitely going to do it, but it's something that i am willing to think about in the future. of course, i know that becoming a japanese citizen is not going to be easy for a number of reasons, but thinking about it now is still very premature. i am also less certain that i want to live in singapore again. previously, it was the only lifestyle i knew, so it was the only logical choice. but now, knowing that i can thrive in another country, it's cause for me to reevaluate certain core beliefs. as i've started telling people who ask me if i'm homesick, the thing i miss most about singapore right now is the food. i can reach everyone who matters online, but taste-a-vision still hasn't been invented yet.

adding on to that, there hasn't been much good news coming out of singapore. i am aware that it could be the echo chamber effect, because i tend to get my news from sources that aren't exactly pro-establishment. regardless of the news source, there's no denying that the government dropped the ball several times in the COVID effort. all the underlying problems that were swept under the rug got exposed when COVID pulled the rug out from under their feet. immigration policies and decision-making procedures were two major things that came into question. i'm more convinced now that had i taken the option to defer JET by one year, i'd be in a much worse place than the one i'm currently in.

chemical engineer cousin said that she celebrated several big events this year with steak dinners. by pure coincidence, i planned for a steak dinner tonight! i'm not really celebrating anything, though. maybe i'll take it to be for celebrating a good year. i did a reverse-seared steak with creamed vegetables (corn, spinach, broccoli) and accompanied by store-bought horseradish sauce. i accidentally bought a plant-derived cream, in which i detected a hint of coconut. not sure if i like it in this application. the steak was great though! easily the best steak i've made without a water circulator. the one modification i'd make is to dry it out for less time in the fridge - the crust turned out a little too stringy. no pictures of the final dish, unfortunately, because while it tastes good, my plating skills leave much to be desired. in fact, in a bid to do fewer dishes, i actually plated it in a lunchbox, and i'm eating out of that. it'll also be easier to store leftovers...not that i think there'll be any! i do have a picture of the steak itself though, before final slicing and assembly. do excuse the mess, i still have more cleaning to do around my kitchen area.

so, that's my year. easily one of the top 5 years i've had. i still don't believe that i'm in japan some days when i wake up. it's also only one out of a potential 4 to 5 (or more!) years that i'll spend here. i'm hopeful that subsequent years will be equally, if not more, rewarding.

-random thought of the day: Happy and content. Great feelings to end the year on!-

Clearly, i underestimated how much time i'd need to do the exercises to determine my parachute colour! i suppose the length of the book (461 pages) should have clued me in. so that's going to evolve into a longer-term project, like i'll do bits and pieces when i have downtime, and have a complete picture by the time JET is over. i suppose doing it too early isn't good either, because who knows how japan will affect my wants and expectations over the next few years. at a preliminary skim-through, i picked up a couple of important tips - to clearly ask for the job at the end of the interview, and to gauge how favourably an interview's going by the flow of questions. also, to set an odd duration for the interview. the author recommended 19 minutes, but personally i think i'd try 22 or 23.

the past few days have been relaxing, as a break should be. just have some quality of life issues with the cold (both the sickness and the weather), but i appear to be on the mend because there was less phlegm today compared to yesterday. i also got some cleaning done, but i need to vacuum a little bit more and sort through the various documents and mail that have accumulated over the past year. most are destined for the bin, which will help to reduce the feeling of clutter around the place. i'm also thinking of throwing out some of the clothes that i brought from singapore, because there are items that i have literally never worn. perhaps at a later stage. i'll give them one last chance this coming summer.

after more digging for info, i don't think that i'll do the tax-relief purchases any more. first of all, the items are grossly overpriced. like say, for sea urchin. the special site that sells products eligible for tax relief lists a 100g box for about 10000 yen. that's about SGD1.20 per gram. rakuten, on the other hand, lists a pack of two 100g boxes for about 5000 yen, so we're looking at a fourfold difference in price per gram between the two sources. the auntie in me can't justify paying the inflated price in the first case. to make things worse, the tax relief comes as a deduction from taxable income, which means that i actually only save 10% of the amount i spend, less 2000 yen for some reason. so spending about 30000 yen (the maximum claimable amount for my income) actually means that i only pay [(30000-2000)X10%] = 2800 yen less in tax. it wouldn't be that bad if the products i got in return were worth the 27200 yen difference, but as reason 1 shows, they clearly are not.

to be fair, this scheme isn't meant to help people evade tax or anything like that. it's a way for people to support local industry/businesses, with the tax savings and items received being more of tokens of appreciation than actual products. it's good for me to pass on this because i spend less overall. initially, i wanted to aim for the highest tier of the aeon credit card campaign (spend minimum 100000 yen to get 10000 points), but i think that i'll settle for the middle tier (spend minimum 50000 yen to get 5000 points). considering i have the gopro purchase scheduled for january, it seems very possible to make the 10 february campaign deadline. i just hope the promotion will still be running, and that the camera will still be in stock in time for me to buy it!

by the way, i should clarify that this isn't the year-end post. i'm still trying to figure out how i want to order it, and what i should cover vs. what i can leave for another time. that should be up before the day is over, as it always is. have to juggle that with dinner prep, where i'll be trying to reverse-sear a steak. wasn't the saying "eat like a pauper on new year's eve, eat like a king on new year's day"? or was that dinner and breakfast? i might have gotten that mixed up. it's all just superstition, anyway.

-random thought of the day: Need to preheat the oven!-

My long break was too good an opportunity for uncle murphy to pass up. i'm down with a cold, which means i'm coughing up grey phlegm in the mornings. ok, it may not actually be grey, but it sure appears that way under my orange toilet light. i started feeling symptoms on sunday night, probably, which means today is day 3. hopefully it gets better within the week. but with the cold weather (pun intended) now, i don't know. i'm grateful that (1) it's not the debilitating man-flu, and (2) i can't recall the last time i was sick, apart from the vaccine side-effects. rural life must be agreeing with me. or maybe it's so rural that even the germs are like, "nah, forget it. there's nothing to see there".

close to exam season, the kids in one of my schools will be made to come up with a daily schedule. things like "morning - school. 5pm - reach home, 5:15 - shower, 5:30 - dinner..."; basically accounting for entire days' worth of their time. i remember my dad tried to get me and my siblings to do that in secondary school. it failed terribly, for me at least. while i do appreciate the value of a precise, well-planned itinerary, i'd much rather do it for special events, like a holiday, not everyday life. that's why my regular planning focuses more on events and deadlines, instead of a detailed breakdown of every hour and minute. with that in mind, here's my more detailed plan for the next 2 weeks.

29 dec (today) - laundry, buy tax-relief stuff

30 dec - parachute, drop by supermarket, house cleaning

31 dec - regular rubbish disposal, year-end post

01 jan - new year's post, attempt french toast

02 jan - bike maintenance, grocery run (maybe)

03 jan - half day work (morning), update bank book, finances

04 jan - special rubbish disposal (paper things), raid release day

05 jan - 

06 jan - special rubbish disposal (bottles, cans, styrofoam trays)

07 jan - full day work, new year's party

08 jan - 

09 jan - 

10 jan - buy gopro and memory card (aeon double points day)

11 jan - term 3 starts

not the most taxing of schedules, which is good because this should be a time of relaxation. i'll probably be slower (both in mind and body) thanks to the cold, so having a few empty days for buffer is a nice safeguard.

for now, i'm off to browse the tax-relief items (i may blog about the entire scheme separately) and to take a nice warm shower. thinking of getting some sea urchin and tuna. then again, the 2kg increase in my weight over the past month is giving me pause. i need to reevaluate my food choices.

-random thought of the day: Less bread!-

School's out! we're entering that lazy year-end period where there isn't much to do and everyone's feeling festive/disinclined to work. well, i am, at any rate. i think my colleagues still have deadlines to rush and next january's events to prep for. as mentioned earlier, i'm only working 2 days in the period from 25 december to 11 january (2 out of 11 working days), so there's plenty of time to relax and refresh myself for the next year. just to remind myself, i'm working half days (mornings) on 28 december and 03 january, as well as a full day on 07 january. it would be bad to show up on a rest day, or worse, to not show up on a work day!

let's quickly recount what's been going on since the last post, which was...2 weeks ago? thereabouts. i had a performance review with my new supervisor (supervisor 2) and my vice-superintendent. my current (probably outgoing) supervisor (supervisor 1) was conspicuously absent. i think they're trying to get me used to not having her presence around. anyway, i thought i would only be assessed by the board of education, but it turns out each school also had to submit feedback for me. makes sense, now that i think about it. i was rated in several aspects from 1 (worst) to 4 (best). i didn't see the actual ratings, but my vice-superintendent told me that the majority were 3s and 4s. i was caught a little off-guard at the time, and didn't ask what exactly the 3s were so i could improve. later, supervisor 1 told me that the majority were 4s, and that there were like only a couple of 3s. i guess that means i'm doing something right!

quick vent about supervisor 2. she's nice enough, and probably still finding her feet in the office since she's a new hire this financial year. but unlike supervisor 1, who i feel totally comfortable with, there's a bit of distance with supervisor 2. it doesn't help that her idea of explaining things to me is to take the relevant document, throw it into google translate, then print the translated version out and ask me to read it. if that's all it took, i'd be a master at japanese! it also doesn't work perfectly for everything. example: i was supposed to write a report about the workshops i attended earlier this month. i was told that it was ok to write it in english, and that supervisor 2 would translate it into japanese for the higher-ups' understanding. wouldn't you know it - she did the google translate thing. unfortunately, google translate is quite bad at capturing nuances. one of the sentences i wrote in the report was "we had our temperatures taken". now, the implication that human readers would immediately pick up on is that the word "temperatures" here refers to body temperatures. google translate chose 気温 instead. while it does mean "temperature", it refers specifically to ambient temperature (literal translation - "temperature of the air"). supervisor 2 didn't catch that. worse, my superintendent did. so i got called into his office for a chat about the japanese report that "i wrote". i was as equally shocked as he was about the error, because it was the first time i was seeing the japanese version! side note: i was mildly offended that my superintendent thought i wouldn't know the difference between 気温 and 体温. i may not be strong at japanese, but i do know the meanings of simple kanji, especially since these 2 terms exist in chinese as well! so yes, that didn't help my impression of supervisor 2 at all. i don't think supervisor 1 trained her badly, considering how good a supervisor she's been to me and how on top of JET-related things she is, so there probably is a break in the processing somewhere. well...it's good for my learning, since it means i have to be more independent and get a better grasp of japanese to prevent any similar events from happening in the future. i just pray that my eventual successor will be somewhat decent in japanese (for their own sake) if supervisor 2 remains as the JET supervisor after i'm gone.

supervisor 1 invited me to her house for a christmas-ish get-together on friday night. maybe she thought it would be better for me to spend christmas eve with some company. considering all the JETs under her care before me were american, i can see why she might think so. but even though i don't see christmas as a big holiday where i need to be surrounded by people, i was still grateful for the invitation. i also finally got to meet her husband, who works in the city. he's really friendly (and looks really good too!). i'm happy that her family seems to like me well enough, probably helped by the fact that her usually-shy son sticks to me like anything. her dad told me to go over to their house anytime. although he was half-drunk when he said that, i don't doubt his sincerity. just that i'll probably use that card very very sparingly, or if i have an emergency that requires it.

in the upcoming 2 weeks, there are quite a few things i need to do. in no particular order, they include:

- washing the car

- buying tax-relief things

- buying the gopro

- doing my finances

- chores (cleaning, laundry, throwing rubbish out)

- reading about my parachute colour

- writing year-end and new year posts

with all the buying i'm planning to do, i suppose it's good that rakuten increased my credit limit to 500 000 yen. i just went to check, my bank account is set up with aeon for automatic bill payments, and there's a spend X amount to receive bonus points campaign going on now. i'll come up with a more detailed schedule tomorrow or the day after for my long break, but for now, it's off to the city (again) to use my 5% off discount coupons that the supermarket gave out for christmas.

-random thought of the day: It's getting even colder!-

As expected, things happened and blogging took a backseat for a while. but i figure that i should update, so that future posts don't become overly long. let's do the 10 sentences per point thing for conciseness.

the business trip was a good experience. got to meet up with other JETs and JTEs. i am so grateful that i don't face most of the problems mentioned, like not getting along with other staff, and various forms of abuse. it was also a nice reminder of what city life is like. i think that i could tolerate living in kochi city, maybe with a little less traffic and more shops open. somewhat embarrassing confession: i was kind of...jealous? when a japanese teacher that we didn't know praised an american (caucasian-looking) JET for speaking japanese while taking for granted that i could speak it. but yes, i get it - the asian-looking person is more likely to be able to speak japanese than the obviously foreign one. i also met up with the other singaporean JETs and a previous english teacher at one of my schools, who took us for great tsukemen. and i finally bought my first mcdonalds since coming to japan. 390 yen for 15-piece nuggets!

i haven't been progressing through final fantasy as fast as i'd like. ideally, i'd be finished with the story now and be working of getting raid-ready gear. but like i mentioned before, it's not a race, and that's something i have to deal with internally. externally, i was also hampered by my internet speed getting killed. you see, i didn't know that my ISP has a practice of limiting upload speeds when a user uploads more than 150gb over 3 consecutive days. between long hours of streaming the story, plus uploading the stream recordings to youtube, i accidentally crossed that limit on...monday? thankfully, the limitation period is only 3 days, and things are back to normal now. have to spread out my uploads, i guess. the story itself is great, and while i have guesses on what happens next, i don't know anything for sure beyond where i'm currently at. excited to see how it develops!

finally, aeon accepted my credit card application. the biggest positive sign was that someone actually called me to confirm some of my personal details this time, as opposed to just sending a rejection postcard via mail. the biggest difference was that i applied with  the added backing of a japanese driver's license, i think. and i may have filled out a question wrongly in my previous applications. i'm facing one more issue now, which is the linking of my bank account to automatically pay my bill. something about the name on my card account not exactly matching the name on my bank account. so i couldn't do it online, and had to send in a form. japan is really a paradox of modern and old-fashioned. it's nice for things like architecture, less so for administrative procedures. hopefully that goes through soon, though the customer service lady i spoke to said it may take up to a month.

now that end-of-term tests are over and the holidays are approaching, school will probably wind down for a bit. i have 2 more weeks of school, followed by 2 weeks of term break, then term 3 starts. decided to clear a chunk of my leave, because i can't carry over more than 20 days, and i have 36 now. i think i took about 5 days' leave in the 2 weeks that i don't have to be in school. add on the standard year-end break that civil servants get, and the result is that i'm only working for 2 days in that period. mental note: year-end would be a great time to travel back to singapore in a typical COVID-less year. as things stand now, the cost and time requirements for quarantine, plus the possibility of being denied re-entry to japan, make it totally not worthwhile. hopefully japan soon eases the travel restrictions it imposed in reaction to omicron. i'm personally not super affected by it, but i know couples who are being physically separated because of it.

i really should go and get some exercise. gaming for hours at a go is fun, but not healthy. also, i may have eaten something wrong, because my stomach has been hurting for the past few days. apparently it's not just me; some other teachers are experiencing it too. i wonder if it's a reaction to cold weather? semi-related thought - i know winter's here when i become reluctant to step out of the shower. that, and when my gas bill rises. good news is that i'm more prepared this year - fleece sleepwear, thick socks, huge heavy blanket. i haven't seen the need to activate the kotatsu yet, so perhaps i'm becoming more acclimatized?

-random thought of the day: Find time for year-end and new year posts!-

Things look like they might be getting a bit busier until year-end, so i thought i'd do a quick post before bed to sort out the mess in my head.

on the work/school (same difference) front, i have a business trip to kochi city next week, where i'll be staying overnight. i feel so grown-up, saying "business trip". it's really just to attend workshops. i'll probably bring my laptop to play final fantasy on, but i'm still debating if i should stream that night. while i'm in kochi city, i have a few errands to run - namely (1) ordering and collecting a package from uniqlo; (2) meeting up with the other JETs in my area; and (3) meeting up with the singaporean JETs who are in kochi. none of them are near me, as it turns out, so this is a good chance to meet them since we'll all be in one place. as for the uniqlo order, i'm thinking of getting a thinner pair of gloves that supposedly have the same insulating power as the regular ones. maybe a fleece jacket too, but they don't have my size in stock right now.

in personal matters, final fantasy's new content expansion is launching this coming friday. unfortunately, i have school until the 24th, so that means that i can only play at night. it's definitely more than enough time, and i'm not like, rushing for world first or anything. so the plan is to remind myself to stop and smell the roses, and that i'm playing a game to enjoy it, not make it a chore. the plan is to drop by the supermarket before friday night to stock up on snacks and other quality of life things. although i do think that i need an actual grocery run too...but i'll figure that out later.

black friday is over, and there didn't seem to be any good deals on gopros. the promotion on the official site is still the best, sadly. looks like i'll be getting it from there soon. targeting to settle this by the end of this year. apart from the gopro itself, i'll also be looking to get accessories, like various mounts and a higher-capacity memory card.

related thought - one of the people i follow on twitch has english study streams. feels like something i can do, except for japanese! with the goal of taking the JLPT N2 exam this time next year, and with the impending gopro purchase, it feels like things are coming together nicely. of course, this might be me trying to justify the gopro even more...so, i don't know.

while talking with the singapore JETs a few nights ago, the conversation somehow led to how long we each planned to stay on JET, which then led to post-JET plans. i had the idea to check out grad school courses in IP, and it doesn't seem too daunting? well in the case of japan, they asked for japanese language proficiency, which will probably kill me. but for other countries, like australia, it seems pretty doable! the other killer is the school fees, but i'm sure there's some sort of funding/scholarship available. still, it's a little too early to think about the details. besides, things might change. it's probably good for me to have knowledge of this possibility in the back of my head, because it means more doors to consider. before that though, i need to find out what colour my parachute is - something i've planned to do over winter break!

-random thought of the day: Got my thick blanket out!-

Happy one-year-in-japan anniversary to me! this time last year, i'd probably just arrived at the hotel to start quarantine. how far i've come since then...both literally and metaphorically! considering that i'm probably going to talk about a lot of the same stuff in the year-end post, i don't think i'll be talking too much about my japan experience. but in order to take some extra content away from the year-end post, i'll just mention some stuff about english in japan now.

one thing that japan has made me grateful for about my upbringing in singapore is that we were exposed to many languages since young. so, it's easier for us to switch between speaking and thinking in different languages. not to mention it got us used to the sounds of different languages. i've often said that a singaporean person can mimic any accent with decent accuracy after listening to it for a while. my kids here really seem to struggle with english pronunciation! for example, the sound of the letter "v". we've pronounced it for them more times than i care to remember, and every time we see them, they default to the standard japanese pronunciation, which sounds like "bwuee". also, they're awfully fixed in pronouncing english words in the japanese way. examples like "salad" (japanese version - sa-ra-da), or "orange" (oh-rehn-jee). these things have, on more than one occasion, made me question whether i'm really having a significant impact on their english learning. of course, it may just be that they're surrounded by the incorrect pronunciations from other people and in the media, so they forget what those words are supposed to sound like.

the state of english in japan is abysmal, considering how long the government has been pushing for english language education. it seems to me that english learning isn't being taken seriously here by the vast majority of people, despite it being one of their 5 core subjects. it can be explained by a few things, one of which is the way english is taught in schools. i was just discussing this with one of the english teachers earlier. i said that in my language-learning experience, chinese was taught only in chinese, and japanese was only taught in japanese. the problem here is that english is being taught in japanese. i get that it's necessary sometimes, for example, for vocabulary words. but it's certainly not necessary for grammar points. the largest roadblock is that students think in japanese to study english. so they write a sentence that is grammatically correct in japanese, and 90% of the time, it won't be right in english. of course, there are other factors as well, but this is one of the more significant ones.

ok, i really shouldn't be so negative on what's supposed to be an important date. after all, i think i did quite a few significant things this year. losing about 25kg, for one. learning to cycle. trying new recipes. surviving in an unfamiliar country. there are huge positives, but i think that i should sometimes acknowledge the negatives and see what i can do to improve them, just for balance. perhaps i'll adapt the compliment sandwich idea - one negative post surrounded by positive ones.

looking forward...one of the other singaporean JETs gave me an idea - to go to grad school (again) to study IP in japan! plus is that it's only two years. the downside is that i'll have to do it in japanese if i want to do it here. i'll probably plan this out in a bit more detail in the new year's post. but for now, it's something for me to think about. first step: JLPT!

-random thought of the day: Half day of work tomorrow!-

Oh! i forgot to blog about something that happened on wednesday. figured that i'd do it now while waiting for my laundry to go through the machine. the aim is to finish this post before the wash cycle ends and i have to go hang my clothes up to dry.

the sec 3 kids (i don't know whether i should call them sec 3 like kids of equivalent age in singapore, or junior high third grade as is the proper term in japan) came back from their school trip. it's a thing in japan where students get to go somewhere with their classmates and enjoy themselves for a few days - under the teachers' supervision, of course! i kind of wish i had that in secondary school, but there isn't really any point since nothing in singapore is far away enough to warrant a multi-day trip. i heard that they went to osaka and made their own udon, among other activities. i'm looking forward to reading their accounts of what they did!

back to the main point. at the end of these trips, it seems that parents will come to pick their kids up, because the kids are tired and have lots of luggage. there was a miscommunication between a kid and his parents, and he didn't have transport home. in the event that he was really stranded in school, i offered to drive him back. my mistake was asking my superintendent what he thought about the idea. his response actually kind of surprised me. it was along the lines of "it'd have been better if you didn't ask. now that i know about it, i'm going to have to say no". i feel kind of...not good about it. it was technically the right thing for me to do, and no harm was done in the end, but i feel that i should have been a bit smarter about the whole thing. also, it feels like i wasted one of my few precious chances to have ignorance on my side for not going strictly by the book. at the end of the day though, the school either called that kid's parents, and/or ensured that he got home somehow, so that's a relief.

learning experience here is that i have to be more...discerning(?) about what i let my superiors know. not that i'd outright lie to them, but there are certain grey areas that they don't necessarily need to know about because their knowledge of those things would be more inconvenient for everyone in general. well, we live and learn. at least there are no consequences this time.

next tuesday is a public holiday - labour thanksgiving day. not the best holiday placing, if you ask me. i'd much prefer it be directly after the weekend for 3 consecutive days off. and i can't really take monday off for a super-long weekend either, because i feel obligation to be in class for the students. i really wonder how teachers (in general, but especially in singapore) balance their personal lives and their work. the answer for most teachers is probably "what balance?", which further strengthens my point about not wanting to go into full-time teaching.

elsewhere, today's plans include a grocery run and a visit to the further shop to see if i can get oysters. they came back in season when the weather got cooler, but they've gotten a bit more expensive. maybe it's because the big harvest hasn't happened yet, or because prices generally went up since last year. hopefully they've got in-shell oysters in stock, instead of the pre-packaged ones!

-random thought of the day: Uniqlo holds packages in-store for 14 days from the date of delivery.-

Decided to go on a little bit of a tech detox today, although the fact that i'm blogging might not make that obvious. the definition here is that i didn't stream or log into final fantasy, and am spending some time alone with my thoughts.

streaming is going well; i'm slowly getting more followers, and there is now an average of more than 1 viewer each time i stream. it's by no means something that i can make money off of yet, but i'm not too concerned in that regard. right now, the focus is on building up a follower base and community. a bonus is i'm interacting with quite a few japanese people, so there's more chance to practise the language! the decision not to stream today came from the thought that i shouldn't overdo things, plus i need to recharge my social battery, which is expended during interaction with other people, be it in-person or virtual.

had a rare brainwave moment, and decided to put the gopro purchase off even further. you see, it's november, and there's this thing called black friday/cyber monday, where things are heavily discounted. thing is, it's mainly an american tradition, so i don't know if it's practised in japan. but i figure that there's no harm in waiting, in case a sale comes up in the next week or two. the fallback plan is to get it from the gopro shop at the discounted rate, and failing that, second-hand.

it's probably just a series of unfortunate events, but there's a colleague who i feel doesn't entirely want to cooperate with me. she's the one who handles school lunch matters, and every single request i've made to her has been turned down. first, it was not being able to get the cost of milk waived from my school lunch. that's fine, i turned it to my advantage by offering my milk carton as a prize to kids who took my english speaking challenge. next, there were multiple occasions where i took leave, and my request to have my school lunches cancelled on those days were rejected because she said that i needed to inform her 2 weeks in advance. i only know my schedule at most one week beforehand, so it's kind of impossible to plan leave that far ahead, and especially since some things came up at the last minute too. but i took it as a chance to bond with the kids by eating with them before going home. this time though...i'm scheduled to attend a workshop in kochi city for 2 days, and she said that i'd still be billed for lunch for those days because school lunches could only be cancelled under certain circumstances!? it makes no sense to me, because my attendance at the workshops is compulsory, and i can't opt out of it. so why bill me for something that isn't my fault, and that i won't be able to use anyway? of course, it could be japanese bureaucracy and policy. i think i've been fairly accommodating to those things already, but this particular instance doesn't seem right to me. yes, granted it's like 600 yen total, which is less than SGD 10, so it's not really a life or death thing. still, i'm going to casually bring this up to my supervisor to get her perspective. maybe there's something that i don't know.

speaking of the workshop, it's 2 different workshops on 2 consecutive days, so the board of education offered to put me up at a hotel in kochi city for the duration, expenses paid. i've never been on a business trip before, so it feels kind of exciting! plus, there's been zero new reported COVID cases in kochi for a week or so now, which makes me feel safer. the somewhat annoying coincidence is that those 2 days overlap with the launch of the new expansion for final fantasy! i want to stream my progress through the main story, and i guess that i still can, albeit at a lower resolution while i'm away from home. the plan is to bring my laptop and play at night while i'm in the hotel. also, the other JETs have plans to meet up, which is good. i haven't seen them since that one christmas gathering we had, almost a year ago! i'll probably also meet up with the new singaporean JET who got posted to a town near the southern tip of the prefecture (about 90 minutes away from me), but it depends on whether our schedules align.

daikon cake attempt 2 didn't go as well as the first one. due to carelessness and poor heat control, i burned the sausage and dried shrimp while sweating off the daikon, which resulted in a burnt taste. thankfully, it diminished upon cooling. lesson learnt: use the smallest flame possible for that step, stir it more, and don't leave it alone for too long. the win here was that i added dried mushrooms, which provided that familiar textural element that was missing from attempt 1. wish it tasted more of mushroom though, but i'm not sure if the perceived lack of mushroom flavour was because i got lousy dried mushrooms, or because the burnt flavour suppressed it. guess i'll find out in attempt 3!

my colleagues invited me to a wii fit 大会 this weekend. the direct translation of 大会 would be "meet" as in "sports meet", but i'd translate it more as "gathering" in this instance. honestly, i'm not sure what we'll be doing, or how much actual exercise will be involved. if i had to guess right now, i'd say it's more of an excuse to meet up and have fun. whatever the case, i'm sure it'll be a good experience!

apart from the events mentioned earlier, other upcoming big events include my 1-year anniversary in japan. don't think i'll make too big of a fuss about it here at least, because it's close enough to my traditional year-end post, and the things that i want to talk about overlap with typical year-end content to some degree. further ahead, term 2 seems to end on 24 december, which means that it's close to 4 months long. makes sense, since there are only 3 terms in the japanese academic year. the year-end break is only about 2 weeks long, and i figure that that's a good time to clear some leave.

-random thought of the day: The week is ending!-

While i didn't fulfill my main goal of getting a gopro during my city trip, i did get a few other things done instead. first of all, i got a secondhand monitor. 7000 yen for a 24.3 inch samsung LCD display. not bad! the slight downside is that there's a yellowish hue across the entire screen, and no matter how i mess with the settings, i can't get rid of it. i'm guessing that it's a result of the LCD aging. my laptop has whites that really look white. and since the screens are next to each other, the contrast is glaringly obvious. but hey, beggars can't be choosers, and i think i got a decent deal.

second thing i did was to go to uniqlo and trade in my old heattech. i ended up bringing in 2 tops and a pair of tights, which netted me a 600 yen voucher. the annoying thing is that the physical shops don't stock larger sizes, so i have to do shopping online and spend more money either on delivery fees or another trip to the store to pick up my order. at this point, i don't think that i need anything, so i'll keep the voucher for a later date. the expiry is end-february next year, so i still have a decent amount of time.

as for the gopro, i visited a few secondhand shops, but none of them had one in stock. looks like i'll have to get it online. the cheapest i've seen is about 30000 yen, which is...ok? actually, i'm half-tempted to just get a new one, because the gopro website is running a discount - 35800 yen and a year's subscription to their premium service/app/whatever. i think they're counting on people forgetting to cancel their subscriptions. so...spending an additional 5000 yen for the reassurance that i'm getting a new camera. worth it? signs point to yes, but i'll sleep on it for a bit.

i had an unexpected visitor today. the director of the human rights centre came to pass me a fishing rod and some gear. he'd messaged me on thursday to drop by the centre to collect it, but i finished late on both thursday and friday. plus, i took a day's leave today. the background to this was that during the party(?) a couple of weeks ago, i offhandedly mentioned that i wanted to pick up fishing while i was here in this placement. i was pleasantly surprised, because it was really thoughtful. plus, it's not just a rod alone. there's a pouch of other essential tools that i haven't really investigated yet. i might need to make thank you mooncakes or something involving red bean paste for him for christmas!

hmm, what else do i want to talk about? oh, the culture festival. the kids put up several good performances! there were speeches in japanese and english, chorus singing, and even a play. i didn't understand a good portion of it, but it was still entertaining regardless. the band put up a performance as well, and the cute teacher played the drums. i think people look more attractive when they're doing things that they enjoy and/or that they're passionate about. i'm half-tempted to ask a little more about his personal life, especially since he mentioned that he got dumped on his birthday once. but well...i guess i'll let nature take its course as far as conversation and potentially anything further go.

cooking updates - i made a batch of cookies with cacao nibs used to substitute chocolate chips. whoever said they were a substitute were lying. chocolate is smooth, creamy, melty. cacao nibs are hard, crunchy, and don't melt at all. still, they provided a nice bitter contrast. and i would have been neutral about them, except that i bit down on a small stone that had somehow gotten mixed in with the cacao nibs. that pushed my overall experience into the negative region. my current question is, what do i do with the remaining half a packet of nibs? i COULD try to grind them into chocolate, but i don't have the right tools. maybe i can mix them into chocolate for textural interest?

thankfully cooking experiment #2 went much better. i made turnip cake, although the thing that i made would most accurately be called daikon cake since the latter is a more easily-available substitute around here. there were a couple of mishaps, like the bowl of dried shrimp exploding in the microwave (next time, i'll microwave the water then add the shrimp); and me using a too-small wok to fry the daikon in. my flame control was probably off too, because while normal turnip cake is white, mine is brown. i've had a small taste because quality control, and i think it's good. the one addition i would make is dried mushrooms. not sure how easy they are to source here, but i guess i'll have a poke around the dried goods section on my next supermarket trip.

bedtime! it rained from afternoon into the night today, so i didn't do my laundry. should have done it yesterday before leaving for the city, but lazy. that means i'll have to wake up early tomorrow to do it before work. not a huge problem. the rain also means that it's feeling a little warmer because of the increased humidity. and while i started using my fleece sleepwear a couple of days ago, it might be too hot for that tonight. maybe i'll balance it by sleeping without a blanket.

-random thought of the day: Gopro decisions...-

Culture day is a holiday in japan. it's today, in fact. and what better way to commemorate culture day than to spend all day consuming one of japan's major cultural products - video games? i kid; i didn't spend the WHOLE day on games, but it was pretty close.

i'm starting to get a little more into the twitch streaming thing. spent some time today to write a more detailed twitch profile, plus i improved (read "complicated") my sound settings even more, by splitting my chrome audio off from the main stream audio. so what this means is that i can watch youtube videos or other streamers while i'm streaming, and that sound won't be audible on my stream feed. i did the same for discord previously, in case there are any sensitive conversations (eg. about guild matters) while i'm on stream. now all that i need to do is test it out to see if it's working the way i intended.

also today, i finally had enough of my double-clicking mouse and activated a replacement. last year, the tuition place offered all staff $100 to get things that would help them in conducting classes from home. i used the grant to get a logitech g604 mouse. i quite like it so far! only minor disadvantage was having to download the accompanying software to fully make use of the mouse's functions. for instance, you can't reprogram the 6 thumb buttons without the software. but like i said earlier, it's a minor disadvantage. more of an inconvenience, really. so...the old mouse lasted just under a year of usage before the button gave out. admittedly, the usage was on the heavier side, with all the clicking that i do while playing. hopefully this mouse lasts for as long as i'm in japan...or at least for 18 months.

games were not the only thing i did today. i did get some minor chores done, like going to the supermarket for flour (more cookies!), taking my winter wear out of storage, and identifying the heattech that i want to bring back to uniqlo. a thought occurred to me as i was getting the winter wear, and it was later reinforced by the mouse. it seems that i am very reluctant to use new things, or to change out my old things even though the new things may be better. in hokkien, you'd call it "mm gam eng". there's no logic to it either, because things are bought to be used! i guess it's my desire to prolong their lifespan, because something spoiling means that a replacement needs to be bought. i suppose i have to learn to use new things when appropriate. in that spirit, i've put on my thick heattech socks, which are doing a great job of keeping my toes warm.

my bicycle fall was a little more than a week ago, and the scab on my knee has grown smaller. instead of shrinking equally in all directions, it's remained where i have a linear scar from a previous accident. sidetrack - i'm actually still not sure how i got that scar. i know it was during a saturday evening, before going to my cousin's place. we used to go over every saturday without fail from the time i was in primary 3 or 4 to sec 4. so on one such saturday probably when i was primary 4, i had gone down ahead of everyone else, because excitable kid. there was a car with an exhaust pipe that was cut at an angle, so the top of the opening was a sharp point. i didn't feel it or anything, but i'm almost certain that i cut my knee against that pipe. i only came to know about it when i felt something (blood) running down my leg. another related memory was that i tried to use leaves to clean the blood off. anyway, the cut was deep-ish, but not serious enough to warrant an A&E trip. the scar's faded with time, and if not for the thick scab over it now, you probably wouldn't even notice it without touching it.

wouldn't it be nice if we had 4 day work weeks? i think working 2 days, resting 1 day, and working 2 days again before a 2-day weekend would be so much better for mental health. or working for 4 days straight and having a 3-day weekend works too; i'm not picky. but i think that'll be next to impossible here in japan, because even in this rural town, kids still have CCA practice on saturday mornings, and sometimes on sundays as well. looking ahead, i'm working tomorrow and friday, as well as saturday morning (see?) because the secondary schools are having their cultural festivals. on the plus side, i get half a day's off-in-lieu on monday, which i'm combining with annual leave to extend to a full day off. considering that saturday will mostly involve me being a member of the audience, that's my 3-day weekend, i guess!

-random thought of the day: Nose is getting a little sniffly.-

Kochi city plans got derailed today because i didn't sleep well last night and woke up later than i'd planned. not to mention i'm not keen on driving an hour each way while feeling less than good. the backup is going to kochi city on wednesday (public holiday), but that's contingent on what time my delivery comes. i opted for the morning delivery option, which is frustratingly vague. if it gets here before 10:30am, i figure things will fall into place. worst case, i'll go next saturday.

interestingly, or perhaps aptly since it's halloween, i had my first scary dream since coming to japan. it was about a game character that had multiple personalities, and his evil/violent personality was hunting someone down. i don't think i was the main target, but i didn't want to be collateral damage. it was weird because i had to pretend to be asleep in my dream while i was actually asleep in real life. maybe that's why i don't feel rested.

multiple personality disorder is something that scares me more than it should. the idea of someone behaving completely differently under certain circumstances, to the point of becoming another person, unsettles me. but come to think of it, some people are like that without any disorder. think of all the backstabbers you've met. guess that's the basis for something i once read, which goes along the lines of "scooby doo taught me that the real monsters are people". that, and "why waste energy being afraid of monsters that may be imaginary when you should be afraid of people, who are very real?" something for me to think about.

since my original plan was a bust, i'm going to do some chores around the house. main things to do are prepare for rubbish day tomorrow, swap my wardrobe for winter stuff, and if i'm feeling extra hardworking, clean out my car. i have a ton of supermarket receipts lying around, as well as a bag of rice from my supervisor that i really should bring indoors.

out of curiosity, i bought some cacao nibs off rakuten. 1000-ish yen for a 200g pack. that's more than double the price of processed chocolate, because the latter has had lower-cost ingredients like sugar, vegetable oil, and milk added. cacao nibs are basically crushed cacao beans, and are usually processed further to make what we know as commercial chocolate. i've had a taste, and my first two impressions were "bitter" and "gritty". both make sense, because as mentioned earlier, cacao nibs are unsweetened, and are processed into chocolate by first being ground to a fine paste. i'm thinking that they'll be a good contrast to the sweetness of the base cookie recipe. i'll probably bake another batch next week, since one of the kids requested it for the band concert. i'm also going to try freezing the excess dough, so i can have cookies within an hour if the craving strikes. see? dangerous for my diet.

actually, let's do a quick cost breakdown of my cookie recipe. some prices are estimates based on what i remember paying. still, i'll round up to the nearest 5 or 10 yen for buffer.

butter: 450-ish yen

flour: 45 yen

eggs: 45 yen

sugars: 60 + 30 yen

baking soda: 5 yen

vanilla extract: 50 yen

salt: 20 yen

total: 705 yen for about 35-40 cookies, so about 20 yen per cookie. counting electricity, gas, whatever else, maybe 30 yen per cookie maximum? wow, there's really a huge markup on the stuff sold in supermarkets! then again, it's paying for convenience, i guess.

right - i've had lunch, and should really be getting a move on. as mentioned earlier, wednesday is a public holiday (culture day), so that's a nice break in the middle of the week. hopefully this week will pass quickly too!

-random thought of the day: Time to transition back to hotpot!-

Some time ago, the other english teacher was remarking how it was a pity that we see the primary 1 and 2 kids only once or twice a term. at that point, i naively agreed. after today, i realized that it's better for my health for me to see them so little. it's bad of me to say this, but there are a few of them who i simply don't like. worst part is, i can't really be angry at them either, because it's not their fault. they're kids, and still learning social interaction. i wish they had more exposure to people who aren't japanese, because they rattle off sentences in japanese and some get upset when i don't understand what they're talking about. doesn't help that i look like a local, either!

like i've said before, i don't have the patience for kids. i'm actually surprised that i can handle primary 3 to 6 just fine. or maybe it's japanese kids, i don't know. i don't think i'd be as popular with singaporean kids of the same age. thank goodness the other teacher was there today; she was really in her element with the younger kids.

i'm planning to go into kochi city this weekend. because it's so far away, i really need to strategize and be very focused with my agenda. of course i'll budget time for free-walking and whatnot, but it's important to get the required tasks out of the way first. the main goal this time is tech shopping (monitor and gopro), while the secondary goal is uniqlo heattech trade-in. anything else (kaldi, supermarket, godiva) can be thought of as side quests. my current thought is that i'll go on sunday, because that gives me enough time tomorrow to pick out the heattech that i want to return. i'm considering applying for the aeon card again, since i'm going to be in an aeon mall anyway, but i don't know if it's a little too soon. maybe i'll do it online after my one-year anniversary in november.

this week has been kind of tiring, mostly due to school, and partly due to a dinner hosted by the board of education. since COVID is a thing, they weren't able to hold a "proper" welcome party for me and the other new hires when we actually joined, so this is our belated welcome. there was alcohol involved, and i got drunk. not completely wasted, thankfully, but drunk enough to sleep a little too well and almost be late for work the next day. kochi's reputation for having people that love their alcohol is well-deserved. i can't keep up with them! but that's also because i'm a lousy drinker to start with.

while there are many other things that i want to blog about, i think i'll end this post here because (1) it's late, and (2) they're rather heavy topics. to remind future me, these topics include: time on JET; letting the kids down in terms of teaching them english; bicycle shop inconsistencies; winter is coming.

-random thought of the day: Feeling a little down, for some reason.-

Learning each new recipe is like adding a piece of dangerous information to my arsenal. and by "dangerous", i mean dangerous for my diet and weight loss goals. today, i made cookies! it's a lot easier than i imagined it to be, although i did run into a couple of stumbling blocks that were resolved easily enough.

first, some background on cookies. i like them ok. like, i don't get cravings for them very often, if at all. even if i see them somewhere, odds are that i won't buy them. as for the type of cookie, i like mine on the chewy side. there used to be a brand called mrs. fields, which made the best cookies. i remember occasionally buying a box on fridays after school in JC for my weekly retail therapy/reward. other things i bought include sushi, the odd DVD, and various cute but useless things from mini toons and popular in junction 8. these days, the closest thing to mrs. fields cookies are the ones from subway. not sure if they're related somehow. oh, and i hate famous amos cookies. every time i come into proximity of a famous amos shop, i get a negative physical reaction just from the sickly sweet smell that emanates from the place.

nice trip down memory lane, but back to the present. you might recall that i wanted to bake cookies for the kids' halloween party this coming tuesday. i went to do some poking about online, and saw a promising recipe from america's test kitchen on youtube. unfortunately, the written recipe is paywalled, so i went trawling the internet for an alternate source. it was incredibly annoying because most of the recipes were in imperial measurements (cups, teaspoons), which are horribly inconsistent. so i went with a recipe that had ounce measurements, and converted them to grams. for my reference, i'll briefly note down the materials and methods below. by the way, this is scaled down to half for testing purposes. i'll add notes for a full-sized batch where appropriate.

makes between 15 to 24 cookies, depending on cookie size

100g butter

80g brown sugar

40g white sugar

1 egg (use 1 egg and an extra yolk if making a full batch)

~5mL vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

125g flour

2.5g baking soda

preheat the oven at 190 °C.

melt and brown the butter, then let it cool to room temperature or slightly above.

add the sugars, egg, vanilla, salt, and whisk together.

let it rest for 3 minutes, and whisk again for 30 seconds. repeat once more.

add the flour and baking soda, mix until a uniform batter forms. shouldn't take too long.

(here is where you'd add any other toppings, like chocolate chips.)

portion out the batter into balls, and place onto a baking paper-lined sheet tray. i find that the size of a quail egg worked for the size i want to make for the kids, but adjust according to your preference.

bake at 190 °C for 12 to 15 minutes. exact baking time depends on cookie size, and how chewy/crisp you want them. they'll harden up a bit once they cool, so don't worry if they're looking too soft right out of the oven.

the other stumbling block i faced was looking for baking soda. baking powder was easy, because it was rendered in katakana. but baking soda is called たんさん in japan, as i found out after some googling. the reason i wasn't immediately able to place that as being baking soda is because たんさん actually means carbonic acid. granted that baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is a carbonic acid derivative, but it's confusing when you call something by another thing's name!

anyway, the cookie experiment was a success! i made 6 + 6 + 7 = 19 cookies, although some cookies from the first batch could have been split into 2. hey, i was experimenting with size, after all. best part is that of all the sizes i tried out today, all of them remained chewy in the middle, though the edges were at varying degrees of crispiness. i must say, using browned butter was really amazing. the video kept going on about the amazing toffee-like flavour, which i thought was hype and hyperbole, but it did come through in the melted butter! way to go, maillard reaction!

of the 19 cookies i made, i taste-tested 11. different sizes at different stages of cooking. and if i'm being completely honest, i didn't necessarily NEED to eat a few, but they tasted so good! the scale told me that i'd gained about 2 kilos since my last weigh-in, so i've decided that the remaining 8 are going to be a present for my neighbour, the one whose granddaughter is a student of mine. she's the only one of my neighbours to engage me in conversation...although that may also be because i bump into her the most often. the rest of the residents in this area seem to be really good at avoiding me. or maybe our schedules just don't align. probably the second thing.

-random thought of the day: My mouse is double-clicking unintentionally.-

Regular updates will come later, but for now, i wanted to blog about something that i finally figured out. sometime earlier this year, i was doing some number-crunching on whether paying for petrol by credit card or using the straight up cash discount was cheaper. the thing that bugged me was that there were 3 variables for 2 equations, meaning that i couldn't solve for everything. but i managed to work it out and convince myself after graphing it on excel.

so it's pretty standard - total amount spent = price of petrol per litre X litres of petrol pumped. previously, i'd been doing it from an "amount spent" perspective, when i realized that i should be doing it from an "amount saved" perspective. the cash discount is straightforward, i save 2 yen per litre, so amount saved = 2 X litres of petrol. the credit card case is more convoluted. i get 1% of my amount spent back in points, and 1 point is the equivalent of 1 yen. in this case, amount saved = 0.01 X price of petrol per litre X litres of petrol.

plotting graphs of amount saved against litres of petrol, we get straight lines diverging from the origin, with gradients 2 and (0.01 X price of petrol per litre) for the cash and credit card cases respectively. so what this means is that for a given price of petrol, one will always win out regardless of volume. and the crossover point is when the gradients are equal, ie. 0.01 X price = 2. by some observation, we can see that as long as petrol price stays under 200 yen, it is always better for me to pay using cash. at 200 yen, both methods are equally good. above 200 yen, the discount from paying by credit card wins out.

this is of no serious consequence at all, and in fact may be an example of a new japanese word i picked up - 考えすぎ (overthinking), but i feel oddly satisfied/proud for having figured it out. also while doing research on this, i realized it seems that i can ask the cashier at family mart to scan the barcode on my card before paying with it to earn double points. considering that i've probably spent less than 5000 yen there, losing out on 50 points at max doesn't hurt too much. but now i know!

-random thought of the day: City trip next week, I think.-

Thinking that perhaps i spoke too soon about feeling fine despite little sleep a few days back. my energy levels dipped last night/this morning, probably also partly due to the sudden decrease in temperature. even on sunday, it was decently warm. but night temperatures dropped 10 degrees overnight. day temperatures are falling too, but at a slower rate because of the sun. good thing i'm claiming my half-day off-in-lieu for sunday, so i can get a little more rest in! i'm thinking that it might be time to break out the fleece sleepwear soon...but not yet, because i don't want to get blood on them.

partly due to lack of concentration and partly because i was trying to multitask, i had a fall off my bike yesterday while cycling home. it was the stupidest thing, too. see, i occasionally forget to take my mask off before starting the trip, and it's only when i pick up speed and find it less easy to breathe that i'm reminded of it. yes, it's ok because i'm travelling alone and am never in close proximity to people throughout my commute. the sensible thing to do would have been to stop by the side of the road, do the necessary adjustments, then move off again. my common sense obviously deserted me at that time. so i ended up falling on my right side, thankfully at an almost standstill because i braked a little beforehand. the resulting injuries are: a sore shoulder probably from bumping it on the landing; a scraped knee; and a slightly scraped/sprained right index finger. i was thinking back to the last time i fell and scraped my knee, and if my memory isn't lying to me, it might be as far back as primary school - lower primary at that! shows how not-outdoorsy i was growing up. i actually didn't even feel it, and only realized it when i took my work pants off. somehow the pants are undamaged, but the injury is still there. not sure whether to be happy or annoyed about it, but i'll just count my blessings.

of all the injuries, i think the sprained finger is causing me the most inconvenience. sprains are annoying in general, because they reduce a joint's range of motion. lucky for me, this sprain is minor enough to not affect my daily tasks, like writing or typing, but it's annoying enough because i'm reminded of its presence by the discomfort when i inadvertently bend my finger too far in. good thing is that the injuries are all minor, and should heal up fairly soon. in fact, the scrapes have more or less scabbed over already.

there was something else i wanted to blog about - something related to JET life (obviously) but which has conveniently slipped my mind right now. well, i figure it'll occur to me eventually. oh! i saw it in the sink and that jogged my memory. my sourdough starter didn't survive that well. some youtube bakers have claimed that they managed to salvage a starter that they'd neglected for up to 5 months, and bake amazing bread with it. mine went in the fridge for 2 months, maybe 2.5 at max, and it developed a red mould thing. so rather than try to use it or salvage a portion, i figured that i'd trash the whole thing and start again whenever i wanted to bake sourdough again. i filled the container with water, in hopes that the starter would soften and make disposal easier, but it seems increasingly likely that i'll end up throwing everything away, including the container. good thing daiso sells containers in various sizes for cheap! 

-random thought of the day: Might be going to the city sooner than expected.-

Even though i only slept 6 hours last night and woke up at 5:30am this morning (on my birthday, no less), i'm not too displeased by it. reason i got up early was to make mooncakes for the teachers in the last primary school to have sports day this year. i'm getting better at the whole mooncake thing; my biggest problem is that i'm still not good at eyeballing the quantities during assembly, so there was a bit of a size distribution despite me using the same mould throughout. perhaps i should pre-portion the components out by weight. maybe in future. i think that's the last batch of mooncakes i'll make in a while, don't want to keep doing the same old thing. now, the issue is what to do with the excess ingredients i bought. luckily most are powdered, so they'll keep for a good while. incidentally, have i told you all what my next culinary challenge is going to be? i haven't decided which yet, but it'll be either ondeh-ondeh or carrot (daikon) cake.

had a video call with my cousin and his family earlier, and i'm having a text conversation with chemical engineer cousin as i'm writing this. that conversation has turned to life after JET. it's a little scary, because there are tradeoffs in my professional life for staying on JET, and they become more significant with time. but i got recommended a great resource which i'll go through during winter break. also to do during winter break: figure out priorities and do some number-crunching for what's a reasonable amount of money needed for survival.

related thought to all of the above: i'm so happy that i got to attend this sports day. these primary 6 kids are really growing on me, more so than their seniors last year. it's not that i don't like their seniors, by the way. they're now my sec 1 class and we get along great as well. the difference could be due to the time spent, because i spent only one term with the seniors before they moved on to secondary school and had to "grow up". whereas i get to see the current primary 6 kids be children for a little longer.

see, this is why i'd be a great and horrible teacher at the same time. i'd bond well with most kids, and care for them. also, i think i'm good at teaching - chemistry, at least. but then when it comes time for the kids to leave school, i think i'd have more difficulty coming to terms with saying goodbye to them than they would saying goodbye to me! i don't think i could withstand going through that whole process every year or two. some JETs who are ex-MOE teachers say that it's a matter of knowing how to let go, and i suppose it is. i still don't like it, though.

all in all, today was a birthday well spent. didn't get any physical gifts, but people have given me the gift of their time, which is in many ways, more valuable. but just saying, i wouldn't mind a gopro either! yes, i'm kidding...sort of. speaking of which though, i do have to plan a trip to kochi city sometime within the next month. in addition to checking out second-hand shops for action cameras and monitors, i also need to get more stuff from kaldi, including trying to locate pandan. leaves, seeds, extract, just something. also, uniqlo is holding a collection for old heattech items. we can get a 200 yen e-coupon per item returned. that's about 10-20% of the original cost, but hey, it beats 0%. i'm definitely returning the tights (only used them once, found them unnecessary), as well as some shirts, probably those that aren't the extreme-warmth variety.

forecast for next week - same old stuff. i get half of tuesday off (as compensation for "working" today), so that's nice. it's the week after that's more exciting, because there's a halloween party thing planned for some of the kids who go for the after-school program, and i'm thinking of baking halloween-themed cookies. or maybe shortbread! something easy probably, because it's on a workday and i don't want to stress myself out with rushing for time and whatnot.

last thought. you know the quote, "necessity is the mother of invention"? i find that the reverse is true as well - things going the way they are is the cause of stagnation. so for the past X years, i've been charging my phone the usual way - via USB cable. in the last month or two though, my phone had difficulty recognizing that a cable was plugged in, and that it could use fast charging. thankfully, the issue was with the cable and not the charging port, as some testing revealed. so i decided to lessen any more potential damage to my charging port, and bought a wireless charging pad. the link back to the stagnation thing was that although my phone was capable of wireless charging from the get-go, i never bothered with it because the tried-and-true USB method worked fine. makes me think i should reexamine more things to see how else i can better use things around me.

-random thought of the day: It's becoming cold!-

Plan "cycle to/from work" was a huge success! the first week of it so far, anyway. yesterday was a bit risky because there was the lightest bit of rain falling on my morning commute. i briefly considered turning back and getting the car, but powered through in the end. everything worked out fine because it was literally a few droplets, and the rest of the day was sunny. rain is forecasted for next week though, so we'll have to see how things go.

true to expectation, yesterday was stressful...but not in the way that i'd anticipated. most of my classes were fun, but there was an incident in the primary school where for some reason, the kids in a certain grade refused to engage with the other english teacher, and she took it quite to heart. she said in her 30 years of teaching english in japan, it's the first time that she'd encountered something like that. she obviously was affected, because she excused herself for the class. before doing so though, she kind of scolded the kids (more on that later).

now for this next part, read everything before judging me. i'm going to talk about several aspects of this whole ugly scene, and how my opinion/view changed with new information i learned as the situation unfolded. initially, i didn't notice anything odd. we were doing our usual pre-class speaking time routine. i started to notice that my queue was unnaturally long, and that the other teacher wasn't at her usual spot. the japanese teacher must have asked her about it, because i heard her say "they don't want to talk to me" and then to me, "they're all yours". at this point, i thought it was a joke, so i somewhat jokingly (yet half seriously) replied, "help me out, i'm dying here!" i was genuinely swamped with waiting kids, though. furthermore, on that very morning, i was gently told off for doing the activity in small groups instead of one-on-one, because a goal was to develop individual conversational skills. in the end, i ran out of time and most of the kids came in without doing the activity. no big deal for me up to this point.

before the class started proper, though, the teacher delivered her monologue about how it was hurtful that the kids didn't want to talk to her, how it was a form of bullying, so on. i agreed with most of the things she said, except that she started with "i'm a foreigner, but..." to me, it felt like an unnecessary shoehorning in of the foreigner card to gain sympathy. the japanese teacher then took over and reprimanded them as well, mostly because of this incident, and also because they were noisy enough while waiting that i had to raise my voice to get them to STFU (no, i didn't actually say that!). for the record, i think the kids deserved it.

class proceeded on, albeit in a little subdued fashion, and without the other teacher's presence. good thing we were doing a non-demanding activity! call me selfish, but i was worrying more about how just the two of us (me and the japanese teacher) were going to handle the class. i also thought that it was a little unprofessional for the other teacher to leave like that, because i personally wouldn't leave the classroom in the middle of a class. you know, suck it up and get the class over with first. again, i want to emphasize that these were my thoughts at that time based on knowledge i had at that point.

after class, we got the full story. apparently, the kids didn't just not go to her, they actively refused to talk to her even with encouragement. that makes a big difference. with that additional bit of context, i better understood why she felt hurt. she's also convinced that someone's been spreading negative stuff about her, so as to cause the kids to behave like this. while i can't discount that possibility, the first reason i thought of for the behaviour is that kids can be asses. these kids in particular...i don't know. they're the outlier, because both their seniors and juniors are wonderful. unlike the rest of my classes, i would happily give this one up and not feel any worse about it. of course, i'd miss the two or three brighter/friendlier kids, but i wouldn't count not seeing the majority of them as a huge loss. on the bright side, it's not that they're evil-bad...the class on a whole just doesn't read social cues well and are absorbed in their own little worlds.

having explained the whole thing, time for more thoughts. initially, i'd thought that she was playing it up, to teach the kids a lesson in consideration. but as events progressed, it was apparent that she was seriously badly affected by it. she said things like, "i've got no confidence now", which - call me heartless - i think is an overreaction. i mean, she has 30 years of english teaching experience in japan. if the confidence built up over 30 years can be undone by this one incident, then it must be quite fragile, right? i was saying that maybe because i'm still new in japan (or it's my personality and way of dealing with kids), i'd have insisted more strongly that the kid talk to me after the first refusal. and even if the kid didn't want to, i wouldn't take it that hard since it's the kid's loss anyway.

what i particularly didn't like about the whole scenario was that her choice of words kind of framed it as a competition between the two foreign english teachers (me and her). like, we have to vie for the kids' friendship/admiration or something. i'll admit that the kids all queueing for me didn't help to dispel that image, although i don't know why they did that. i believe it's not a zero-sum game; the kids can like (or dislike) us both equally. i don't know why she seems to have this competitive mindset. like i mentioned before, everything about my job is fixed. nothing i do (or don't do) will affect my salary or other benefits in any way. and no matter how much the kids love me, i still have to leave after a maximum of 5 years. i wonder if it's because COVID forced us to work together. from what i understand, she hasn't worked so closely with any of my predecessors before, so it feels like i'm intruding on her territory. if anything, i'm actually happy/grateful to have her in the primary school because kids still make me nervous. and if the board of education were ever to ask, i'd definitely say that she's a reassuring presence to have.

so...that's my rant for today. of course, just because i don't see something as a big problem doesn't mean it's not a big problem for someone else. i don't know her life story, and what experiences she might have gone through that shaped her mindset into its current state. in general, foreign residents don't have it easy in japan, especially those who choose to settle down here. i only imagine that she's fought countless battles since day 1. on my part, i'm not going to change the way i interact with the kids. what i will do is look out a bit more, maybe offer a kind word here and there.

on to today's agenda: going to the next town. thinking of getting a haircut, but that can wait till next week. the main goals are to visit K's denki (more compressed air, take a look at action cameras), and to get groceries in the bigger supermarket, along with a visit to daiso for some cycling stuff - a raincoat-type thing comes to mind. hopefully the weather hold up for more cycling next week, because petrol prices just jumped again.

-random thought of the day: What's for lunch?-

Have you heard of the saying "everything in its time"? it's not new to me, but i was reminded of it under a strange set of circumstances. first strange thing: i was helping out in a secondary school maths class. stranger than that: i was explaining maths to some of the kids in japanese. granted, the content wasn't too difficult; just y=ax² graphs. midway through the class, it occurred to me that my sec 3 self would have found the content terribly repulsive...or uninteresting, at least. so i should try to empathize more with the kids who may be having a tough time. it looks easy to me even when taught in a foreign language, because (1) the benefit of maths is that numbers and notations are fairly universal no matter where you go, and (2) it's easy to figure out something that you already know, even with a language barrier.

the idea of there being a time for everything extends to other subjects too. like, maybe some kids don't see the value of english now, or are not capable of grasping the content for whatever reason. it doesn't mean that they'll be hopeless at english forever (although some may be). and honestly, if they're not using english for work, a rudimentary vocabulary aided with gestures and google translate will be enough for most situations that may crop up in daily life. not everyone i meet in the classroom is going to become fluent in english by the time they graduate, and that's ok. english isn't the core of their existence, after all. if anything, it's hovering in the periphery for most kids.

on an even grander scale, there's a time for everything in life. me coming to japan is my go-to example, but now that i'm in japan, i need something else to quote. the thing that i thought of is me being assigned to schools and meeting all my kids. i would like to think that i'm brightening up their days by making english class interesting/funny, but i'd be grateful if 30% or more of the kids are positively affected. i'm also thankful that i'm here to catch some of the kids who are developing interest in english, which i can build upon and help to maintain. it's a bonus that most of the primary school kids (and a good portion of the secondary school kids) are still at the stage where they're friendly and willing to engage with me. it probably helps that i'm not a teacher-teacher. like, i have some authority over them, but no real responsibility - which i'm totally fine with, by the way!

perfect segue into things that i'm not fine with. i think i mentioned that in one of my schools, i'm working with a teacher who's a terrific person, but who's somewhat lacking in the proficiency department. so, last week, this teacher asked me to stay back late to help with eiken practice tomorrow. a teacher in another school asked the same of me, and what i did then was to mark the kids' written component (because that's not a straightforward "correct or wrong"-type thing). thinking that it would be the same in this case, i agreed. when i asked about the plans for tomorrow, this teacher told me that i'd only be invigilating the exam. bear in mind that while this is an english exam, the instructions are in japanese. meaning i'd be next to useless if the students had questions! so after some diplomatic tai chi, another teacher got roped in to help, and i got off the hook. this is incident number 1, and an example of how resources aren't used efficiently in japan.

example 2 was during english class today. this same english teacher had an observation by the principal. and maybe because of that, or perhaps just by coincidence, this teacher arranged for it to be a computer-aided class, where students had tablets to use. this teacher uploaded the students' work to google classroom, and asked the students to comment on each other's work on the computer. fine so far. the next instruction was "now write the comments down in your notebooks, and write additional sentences according to the comments in your notebooks". and my question (after my internal screaming died down) was "WHY!!??" i mean, the documents are online! i could look past the fact that the collaborative nature of google docs and classrooms weren't used to their full potential, but why go back to the notebooks instead of doing it on the tablet? i just think that the idea was admirable, but something was missing during the planning phase. knowledge of how google docs works, probably. if my best class ever was 100%, i'd rate the observation class 55%. and it sucks even more because the kids in that class have an above-average standard of english, and i fear it may be messed up.

well, since i'm talking about the right time for things, i suppose i can see it as one of my reasons for being here is to make sure these kids in particular stay afloat for english. the odds are a little stacked, but i think they'll make it.

-random thought of the day: Plan cycle to work has been going well!-

Continuing yesterday's thought about using my time more effectively, i started looking into giving tuition this morning. honestly, i'm not too enthusiastic about it (more on that later), but it's easy money. the market rate is about $40 per hour for secondary 3 and 4. that means if i teach for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, it's an extra $400 per week - or $1600 per month. of course, i probably won't teach that much...if i even do it at all.

i've mentioned it before, so i'll just be brief - i think i'm too old to be giving tuition. i've always seen it as a thing that people in NS or undergrad do for some extra cash. yes, i know that there are full-time tutors, a good portion of whom are around my age or older, and i don't mean them any disrespect. just that it's not for me. as a side gig, sure, but i don't see it being the main part of my professional life.

having said that, a sign that tuition might be the way to go for now is the surge in demand for online tuition because of COVID. and it conveniently works out for me, because i can only do online tuition now. i've started reaching out to some people, and i guess i'll plan my next move depending on the replies.

this got me thinking - for my professional life, i'm closer to where i don't want to be than where i want to be. JET is not part of this consideration, since i knew what i was getting into when i signed up for it. but to get closer to what i currently want (scientific IP), i signed up for some free courses on the WIPO website. hopefully that will help me understand the whole process better and serve as a refresher. not to mention employers might look favourably on this initiative!

after a bit more reading on action cameras last night, i think i might go for a gopro after all. the latest model is too expensive, so i'm thinking a couple of generations back. the gopro hero 7, to be precise. it seems that that's the first generation of gopro that had the new image stabilization technology. it sells for something like above 35000 yen new, so i'm looking for used ones. i was actually half tempted to go to the second-hand shop in kochi city today to have a poke around, but then i rationalized to myself that i don't have an urgent need for it, so i could afford to wait. impulse control is hard! but when things are physically and/or financially further out of reach, it's a good skill? virtue? to cultivate.

future food forays! i started watching this youtube channel about chinese cooking, and i saw that their recipe for radish cake is doable with ingredients that i can get easily. turns out that daikon is a suitable substitute for chinese turnip. and it's easier than i thought! the main ingredients are daikon (turnip), rice flour, dried shrimp, and chinese sausage. the latter 2 are hard to find in the supermarket, but can be ordered off rakuten with free delivery! also, the supermarket was selling a 12g pack of dried shrimp for like 370 yen. no, i didn't miss a zero in the weight. rakuten has a listing - 1000 yen for 200g. that's a sixfold price difference per gram! the second thing which i want to do before this year is over is choux pastry, and by extension, cream puffs and/or eclairs. it's a pity that decent cheese is so expensive; i wanted to try making gougeres, which are savoury cheesy choux pastries. maybe i'll get a small quantity and do a few along with the sweet ones. or one jumbo one, i don't know.

next week might be interesting. i was just plotting a stress-time graph in my head, and it seems that it starts low on monday, then rises throughout the week and peaks on friday. even then, i think it still wouldn't make the top 10 (or 50) most stressful days of my life, so it's nothing i should be worrying about. hopefully my supervisor will agree to give me some time off, but i'm not counting on it. the way i see it, it's a bonus if it happens, and something which i can accept if it doesn't.

-random thought of the day: Trying to cycle to work every day next week!-

Now that my one-year anniversary in japan is approaching, i'm thinking that i should be making better use of my time. i'm basically settled in and used to life here already, so it's time to find something to stretch my horizons a little. also according to my general JET roadmap, year 1 is for acclimatization, and subsequent years are for living the "full" JET experience. i should probably qualify the use of "full" here - fuller than each previous year, and as full as the pandemic conditions allow.

perhaps it was influenced by my starting a youtube channel for gaming, but i'm planning on setting up more youtube channels. my most immediate ideas are: a channel for english pronunciation, and a channel for my life in japan. for the first one, it's actually linked to my work, because i realize that some kids, even at secondary school level, still can't read english based of off phonics. for most native english speakers, our instinct kicks in when we see a word for the first time. take the word kakorrhaphiophobia which i have never seen, and just found from google. it means "fear of failure", by the way. my brain dissects it in steps, like this: (kakorrhaphio) (phobia); (ka) (korr) haphio (phobia); (ka) (korr) (ha) (phio) (phobia); (ka) (korr) (ha) (phi) (o) (phobia). that results in a pronunciation of kuh-korr-a-fee (or fye)-o-foe-bee-uh.

this is an extreme example, of course, but i mean the kids stumble at words like "throughout", so i think they need to develop/train this sense. my reservation here would probably be having to stare at/listen to my face and voice while i edit the videos. i did float this idea by my supervisor a few days ago, and she seems enthusiastic...but i don't think i'll be receiving much support from the board of education because of IT security and finance policies. i think if i could persuade them to buy video editing software, that would already be a big win.

idea 2 comes from watching a few vloggers on youtube. i think most people's default impression of japan is that of big cities like tokyo. not enough attention is paid to towns and rural areas. and also for me in particular, i wish i had a video tour of the town before leaving singapore. not to mention taking videos is a great reason for me to go cycling! i imagine the channel to not be very focused. like, some channels upload cooking videos only, or travel videos only. my image of the channel is that it'll be about my life. so maybe a cycling/commute video one week, a cooking video the next, and maybe a rambly vlog thing sometimes (if i can stand listening to my own voice). to that end, i looked up action cameras on rakuten. the cheapest i've seen is going for about 5000 yen, while the most expensive is close to 70000, i think? while i'm tempted to just go for the cheapest one, it's from a no-name brand and that doesn't inspire confidence. at the end of the day, i'll probably get something a little pricier, but definitely within the lower third of the price bracket. i'm contemplating going to K's denki or a second-hand shop in kochi city to see if there are other options available too. should remind myself to sleep on it for a bit, and not to rush into things.

-random thought of the day: Finally started earning points from my electricity bill!-