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.-