It's Monday; cold and raining.

Well, this is kind of a cute story for Monday. As I have said numerous times previously on my blog I'm fairly impressed with Japanese produce. The fruit and vegetables are always perfect and tasty; opposite of how I remember fruit from Safeway. I have been introduced during my stay to Wakayama mikan, we know them in Canada as Japanese Christmas oranges, expect that here, starting in November, we can get them for a five month period. I have eaten them before and fell in love with their sweet flavor and blemish-free appearence. The whole eating seasonally thing that continues in Japan also entertains me. Actually, the oranges almost unnaturally good flavor and perfect appearence makes me doubt their earlthly orgin. At the end of the day, I loved them enough to track down an internet shop on Rakuten.co.jp to procure my own stash and last week I ordered 5kg of oranges direct from the orchard in southern Japan (60~65 oranges). They have serveral size catagories to choose from, from extra-small to large and also a desicion has to be made in regard to the grade; household consumption grade and gift grade. Knowing the dedication of Japanese farmers I can't imagine the difference in grade is that great. I went with medium size on my coworker's opinion that it's the most popular, revered for its balance of taste and texture. The prices over the internet were very cheap but there was a slight delay in shipping my box: I got a cute note direct from the orchard informing me they only pick fruit on days corresponding to maximumal ripness; they don't mess around, and never ship under-ripened fruit. It will be picked and then overnighted to me. I should be reciving my oranges anyday now and I am happy to wait if it means fresh fruit. I appricate the farm's dedication to quality because it means my oranges will be at the height of flavor and nuitents. Too often in Alberta we settle for long distance fruit that is picked way too early and assumed to mature en route. I expect to give a fair portion of my box of oranges away.

Word Count: 40171

Friday comes again

My guilt is from not updating my blog as much as I wish I could because of my marathon writing goal this month. After pushing out 3000 words on days that are already too full, I can't sit through any more extracurricular non-essential writing. I hope to side step this dilemma today because it's Friday and I'm already way ahead of the norm and can afford to slack off this one day. This way I won't burn out.

My days are so full this week because of badminton. Tuesday was my normal badminton club, but Wednesday, Thursday, and finally tonight, my badminton club is holding a special Badminton clinic. It's a bit farcical because it's the same group of nine that come to the club twice weekly, but this time the five best teach the other advanced players and, I should add, think of really devious drills. For the clinic we do a whole bunch of formal Japanese greetings that we don't do on normal club nights. It looks absurd to me because every other time we are so casual with eachother and there are so few of us; more teachers that students. Badmintion is not exactly taking Shikaoi by storm, though we treat it like it is. Supposely these clinics were pretty popular in years past. I'm more than happy to play along, for $5 I get more of the same dedicated one-on-one coaching I'm already use to receiving at the weekly badminton club. My friends are happy to have a student that is loyal and dedicated, tries hard and never complains. It's nine hours of badminton over three days which is a bit scary but I'm in good shape and no muscle soreness, espeically in my arms, has yet materialized. I also want to repeat how horrible I am at the Japanese verison of stretching. We sort of do this counting thing as a group where we do a predefined set of stretches. "1-2-3-4, 4-5-6-7 swtich." Everyone else has been doing this since elementary school but I'm as lost as plastic famingo in a forest. I have no idea what the stretches are nor can I keep pace with the count. No one laughs at me for trying, but they can't help but crack up when I consistently fail to keep up and get that look on my face like I'm lost and confused.

Word Count: 30772

We Just keep rolling here

Halloween just kept going when celebrated again by carving pumpkins yesterday. I'm actually a bit sick of the holiday at this point but the kids were happy with any change away from a usual english class. In addition to the pumpkin I carved, I also made zillions of roasted pumpkin seeds. You can see one of my students unable to pull himself away from the task of carefully arranging seeds to dry. The roasted seeds turned out great. (Thanks recipe wiki!) The golden brown colour and satisfying crunch was impressive. A student noted that I had used the perfect amount of salt. I thought this was a rather odd compliment coming from first grader. They will be roasting seeds all week at that school because five large pumpkins produce a lot of seeds.

Word Count: 23788

Type for you life.

In the period since I last updated, we had a night of hard rain and it knocked all the leaves off the trees. This left Shikaoi looking very different from the pictures I posted last week. Now it's just grey and brown and barren. It's so nice to be writing something other than that bloody novel at the moment, though I really should be adding words there if I want to make my deadline. I admit it's been a while since I last posted, but I have not been idle, my fingers have been turned into stubs from typing, my eyes bloodshot; over 17,000 words have passed from my brain, into my hands, and onto the screen. That's a lot. To try to give my readers some idea of what a challenge NaNoWriMo is, I wanted to share some excerpts from a thread entitled "Dirty ways to reach 50k" on the NaNoWriMo forums. It won't turn the manuscript into something publishable, but many writers can identify with these tempting methods to make their total:

• Dreams. Lots and lots of dreams.


• Description. LOTS of description.


• Flashbacks. Often inserted in awkward places.


• Step 1: Grab cat around middle.
  Step 2: With a vertical stroking motion, maneuver the cat's front paws across the keyboard, producing a barrage of characters.
  Step 3: Take notes.
  Step 4: After NaNoWriMo, write a book detailing your experiences. Title it Why Cats Type. Include artistic photos.


• Introduce a hearing challenged character... and have lots of dialogue.
  "The train will be here in five minutes."
  "What?"
  "I said the train will be here in five minutes."
  "It isn't raining." etc.


• Interject character's thoughts as stream of consciousness every ten words or so.


• Chapters Titles, The longer and the more ridiculous, the better.


• Have a character try to tell a joke to a person. Except every few seconds someone comes in and wants to hear it from the start. At first the character can get annoyed, but then have them think of better and more dramatic ways of telling it and they get really enthusiastic.


• Never use contractions or acronyms.


• Famous quotes can jazz up a book. Consider starting each chapter with a relevant Shakespearean play.


• Wikipedia is your friend. "Warden, you want me to rat on my buddy? Not for all the tea in China! Which, by the way, was made from tea bricks prior to the Ming Dynasty when Emperor Hung-wu decreed that tributes of tea to the court were to be changed from brick to loose-leaf form. So fry me, cuz I ain't talkin'!"


• Public record government documents can add odd bits of randomness to your plot. Say, for example, bill H. Con. Res. 13, 'Recognizing the importance of blues music, and for other purposes,' introduced in this year's Congress, which provides a fast 425 words and an increased appreciation for what politicians do all day.


• Make sure all of your characters have at least four middle names.


• Title a chapter "One more time, only this time, with Pirates!" Then re-write the chapter, adding pirates.


• Anyone using a gadget in your book should be sure to read the instructions first, including the French and German translations. It's just good sense. Also, foods are much more interesting if your descriptions include ingredients and nutritional values


• Give a detailed life and history and character profile of everyone of your characters even if they only appear in one sentence.


• Making and eating food offer a great oppurtunity to describe a meal in detail, make sure to include the full recipe and nutritional value.


• Don't delete anything. Ever. If you end up with large chunks of plot that no longer make sense, leave 'em in and make them fever dreams and traumatic acid-trip flashbacks.

NaNoWriMo 2007 edition

With little notice I have started writing again for this year's NaNoWriMo. I completed it in 2005 and am again attempting it. For those of you not in the know, National Novel Writing Month is a global event where particpants try to finish a 50,000 word novel in one month. (You might want to give that website a little time. It's getting slammed at the moment coinciding the global start of the event. I expect it could go down completely at any moment.) It's much harder than it sounds. That's about the length of The Great Gatsby or Moby Dick. The event has also been described as a caffine and alcohol fueled exercise in futility, or conversely, a globally shared dip into insanity. What ever it is, I am well equiped this year with a better story, new CDs, a a new headphone amp, good tea, red wine, a slow month, and a reason to stay inside - a cold. Past expeience tells me proabably the most important thing will be a story that will nearly writes itself. My only worry at this point is that I don't have a title yet. It has left me directionless and restless. I will report the title to my readers as soon as I have decided on a title. People wanting to watch my run at 50,000 words in more detail can visit my profile page on the NaNoWriMo site. Anyways, I'm back to writing; I shan't waste my word count here!

Pictures Part 2

Extra Pictures

I'm going to be using extra pictures for the next couple of posts. It's been such a beautiful fall I wanted to share them. Starting with the one directly below, it was taken somewhere between the house and the car at a time I had my big camera with me. Several things came together for the image; such as the sun breaking through dark rain clouds. I never have to travel far from my house to see the seasons change dramatically. I mean, just look at that red tree, it's like it's on fire.

Fun Fun Fun Fun

Reporting on one's own birthday party objectively is a journalistic minefield. Not only because there was a huge, well attened party that I got to DJ at, but because I must admit I had such a good time! I had a handful of excited foreigners that turned a room full of "too cool" Japanese into a dancing machine. The music was a lively party mix with a focus on Canadain hip hop in the first half. I think the tracks that went off best were; Sean Paul's "Get Busy", a subwoofer-stressing Rockafella Shank remix, an 8min house burner by DJ Q and the last song before the band went on, "Hey Girl Hey Boy" by The Chemical Brothers, which I had quietly been sampling in thoughout the set in build up for the last number. Personaly, I liked Canadian MC Belly's "Pressure" and 1995's "I Wish" by Skee Lo which I recalled out of thin air from Junior High School dances. I hope that gives some of my readers that are curious but couldn't make it an idea of what I played. I was also happy to have Gwendolyn there to share her own brand of cultural exchange on happless Japanese men. (I promised not to reveal who the friend in the picture is because he has a job in a sensitive area.)



After my set and after the live band I set about smoozing with all the people I haven't seen forever; deep in conversation I missed by own birthday being announced over the PA, and nearly ignored the person I was talking to to look over there. Taken completely off guard - I had kept my birthday a tighly held secret - I stammered a couple of sincere thank you's in front of the audience before digging into my cake. In the above picture taken by my friend Chris, I can barely contain my happiness, just like my own students. I feel torn because my actual birthday the next day included a much quieter dinner with two Shikaoi teachers (and their lovely families) that had recently stayed at my house in Stony Plain. However, I won't deny how much fun it is to play your favorite music loudy for a over hundred of people at your own birthday party. (In an effort for turth, the event just happen to concide with my birthday; it was well-planned before anyone knew it was my birthday.)

Are you ready for me Weekend?!?!

Other than a couple of cold snaps it has been a very fine Fall. Slowly easing into Autumn has allowed the full glory of turning leaves been seen. There are bright orange, yellow, and red trees where ever I look with many yet to turn. It has been very clear the last couple of days and the details of the mountains, maybe not best shown in my shots, are easily visible, including, I noticed, snow on the mountains peaks today. Winter is indeed coming. There is also this one tree I pass on my way to work everyday that cracks me up; it has created a bright carpet of leaves around itself. I have also included a view from my office window that shows how nice it's been lately. It shows the wing of the building where the traditional rooms are. Lasty is a shot of some coffee milk someone gave my yesterday. I try to stay away from most sweets but it was a gift so happily drank it guilt-free and I must admit it it really hit the spot yesterday afternoon. This is my birthday weekend come up and I don't think I will be posting anything until Monday.