Dear Goodness! That was close!

I had already given away four oranges when I was about to give another four to our friendly neighbourhood Pure Land Buddhist priest. (Trust me, as he would say himself, he needs else in his diet besides beer and yaki niku, especially since he's trying to stop smoking.) But then I caught myself and remembered than in Japan four is an auspicious number and that gifts should be given in groups of three or five, never four. Austin might well let the first four slide but Sensei would definately noticed and thought I was trying to dis him or kill him or curse his family.

What would you do with a Sunday in Japan?

I worked like a dog yesterday; got up early and did the dishes and vacuumed all before I had breakfast, I was out the door for a run by 9AM. Did my weekly shopping in Otofuke (I wanted to make pasta tonight) and brought four wakayama oranges to some friends. My kindness was repaid with a lunch of trout sashimi and miso soup. With all my chores finished yesterday, I'm looking to doing nothing Sunday. The whole day is open. I normally wake up early so there is even more to fill of nothing. I will probably bundle up and go for a walk before the weather turns bad tonight. With naked trees, grey ground and threatening skies, it makes for a gloomy walk by the river. At least I can say it's warmer than Stony Plain is today. I also have two longish ideas for posts next week that I want to start. Happily, sandwiches for lunch today but what I am most looking forward to is burrowing into my long neglected Complete Works of Shakespeare and finishing Hamlet.

In addition, I can happily announce, it's Friday.

I guess there's really is no excuse not to post with NoNaWriMo out of the way, if you exclude that I'm tired and sore and my fingers are just bleeding stubs. It's Friday here and the office has been very busy all week with something I can't comment on until next week. Added on top of an already busy week, the Shikaoi Board of Education had yet another fire to fight: there was suppose to be a teachers' strike begin today at 5 PM. It was called off. Instead, teachers are holdings meetings tonight. Only in Japan would the proper response be to hold meetings on a Friday night. The principals and vice-principals looked jumpy and twichy and add to that guilty all week. The kids were gleefully oblivious. I'm completely on the sidelines for this since I'm contracted with the town. I feel within me the return to decent sized posts next week instead of these small fry.

My NaNoWriMo goal is complete

And The Heavens Opened! While my story is not quite finished, my pace won't be quite as prolific from here on in. I autheticed my story just a couple of minutes ago and it totaled 50,150 words; not bad for 15 days work. ....sigh....

My oranges came and I have a headache

I normally don't complain about such things but there are worst sufferers so I decided I would mention it here just this once; I have a splitting headache. At Shikaoi Elementery School they are re-doing the roof this week - with jack hammers. I guess November seemed like a better time to be on a roof in Japan than August, but it means people will be attempting to learn under a construction site. It sounded the whole time like they were about to come down on us. Even on the first floor the din can be heard. But the ones I feel most sorry for are the five and sixes that have classrooms directly under that area. The students are starting to look nervous and twitchy and the teachers are walking around like they have constant migraines. I was only there for the morning and I had to get out. I don't know how they expect kids and staff to go a whole week.

In other news, my oranges came. Before hand I had research proper orange storage on the great library known as theinternet. A cool or warm tempature doesn't matter so much as good circulation, which would take some creativity. Now they are spread all over my house, the best pictures coming from my stuffed fridge. I have another project in mind for the oranges but that will have to wait until I have more time this weekend.

Word Count: 44625

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.