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My friend added one of my chickens to her Cluck Cluck collection on Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=52035

Help support all of us starving artists by visiting Botodesigns:

shop: botodesigns.etsy.com
blog: botodesigns.blogspot.com
twitter: twitter.com/botodesigns
photos: flickr.com/chenreichert

Wow, the whole month has gone by and I’ve not written anything in here.

Well, too much is going on to explain it all, so I’ll sum it up as fast as I can. Hitomi’s stay in the hospital was lengthened by 2 weeks more than we had thought. She was completely bored and miserable, alone in Uchinada, and I was stressed and tired from my ridiculously busy schedule and spending my whole weekends riding trains and buses and traveling to see Hitomi. But it was worth it to see her and help her recover. Plus, during my evenings I was making the invitations for our wedding.

Finally she got out of the hospital and we thought we could relax… though we still haven’t had a chance. First thing, we finished making and mailing the invitations. It took many hours, but when we put them together they looked really great! Better than I thought they would. They really turned out to be cool handmade invitations: we got all the materials from the local paper village — all hand-made Japanese paper — and we designed, wrote, printed, and put them all together by hand. We’ve been recieving the RSVP cards all week and it’s really nice to see them.

After that was done, I had a week of work, but Hitomi rested here and at her parents house all week. So we got to spend the week together, which was great after being in the hospital for so long. And, of course, we got married on Wednesday, Earth Day, at the city hall here in Echizen. No fanfare or anything, but it was good anyway. After that, our time was consumed with making that official. Hitomi’s family name changed to mine, but in Japan it’s much more complicated than in the US due to the way Japan records families in a national register. If I had more time I’d write about the technicalities, but they’re not really that interesting anyway. So then we had to get a new hanko for her to stamp official documents, register that one, and we’re in the process of changing her passport, drivers license, insurance, bank info, and all that wonderful paperwork stuff. We’re also trying to finish up changing my residency status from “Specialist in Humanities/International Service” to “Spouse of a Japanese National,” which seemed to go well today… One reason I’m really thankful to be in less-busy Fukui than in extremely-busy Osaka or Nagoya.

We did manage to have a bit of fun this weekend. We went to see Okuribito, which is called Departures in the US, I think. It was absolutely amazing, and the more I thought about it afterwards the more it blew me away. I was worried because we saw it with no English subtitles, but I was able to understand almost the whole movie, and easily all of the major points, so that was a relief. Anyway, I highly recommend seeing it.

Today, Hitomi’s grandmother fell down and broke her hand… very horrible after breaking her back last year, though it’s not super serious. She’s become pretty depressed though, so that’s too bad. We took her to the hospital for about half of the day today, because Hitomi’s parents couldn’t be reached at work.

Work has been… well, it’s hard to say. I do like the new manager, which is great. He’s very hard-working and friendly. And for 1 week I thought I had a relatively relaxed schedule (at least it was compared to last month, though I was still working overtime every single week). However that honeymoon didn’t last. The manager went to Nagoya for a week of training, and twice the regional manager visited our school to manage, and both times he added classes to my schedule, just like way earlier when he added free classes to my schedule. What a jerk. I think it’s sort of a money-saving scheme… make the foreigners work overtime because their pay is calculated differently from the Japanese teachers, and the foreign teachers are disposable so if they get burnt out or fed up it doesn’t matter. I never get that feeling from the normal staff, of course, but when the corporate guys come down that’s the feeling that pervades everything. So now I have 3 extra private lessons per week… PRIVATE! ARGH! The most tiring kind. These students are nice, so it’s not as horrible as it could be, but in just 3 weeks I’ve reverted competely to having a schedule without a single hour of down time per week. Kanazawa school has 4 foreign teachers and sometimes they have only 1 or 2 classes per day. I have 8 classes per day, every day, and sometimes 5 more on Sunday. It’s ridiculous. Only a few more months though…

Spring has been so wonderful. By now, of course, the cherry blossoms have come and gone. And now the weather is warming up considerably and staying bright much longer. I can finally open the windows and get some fresh air into my stinky, cramped room. It feels wonderful! And, extra cool, next week is Golden Week, so I have a longish vacation. 8 days! And it will be my first vacation here where my tonsils don’t get infected and cause me to be in the hospital or in bed for 90% of the vacation! I hope I can go to a few festivals, and paint outside in the spring gardens or under the bridge… but I fear the reality may be completely consumed with wedding preparations. If that’s the case, though, at least we can get that done finally. And after that all I have to worry about is finding a job in a global recession in a country where the economy is so bad that the government is actually offering to pay $3000 to any foreigners willing leave Japan and promise never to return.

オオカミはブタを食べようと思った。

Utterly amazing stop motion!

ArcAttack Electrifies Texas Rockfest pt. 2

The Dr. Who theme played on Tesla coils. The only way this could’ve been cooler would be if they stood in between the coils and played the part on the theramin as well.

I said this about winter too, but springtime, like no other season, makes me realize how amazinly beautiful Japan is, and how happy I am to be here.

I’ll probably say it again the summer and then in the fall.