Summer Plans

After two weeks of correspondence with WWOOF hosts in Japan, I finally found one who had space available for me to stay. Its a strawberry farm in the suburbs of Okayama, West of Osaka. When I told this to my friend Yuka at school, she grew very excited. I asked her why she was so happy for me, and she told me the story of Momotaro, the Peach Boy of Japan. I hear he is very famous, so I will have to go and look for him while I am there ;)

There's still a lot of work to do here at school, however. It will all be over when I get on that plane to Tokyo on May 28th. Whew. What a semester!

Strike Two

I'm trying to find a host family for my stay in Japan in June through WWOOF, willing workers on organic farms. My helpful Japanese friends at school have been helping me to type personalized emails in Japanese. But so far I'm 0 for 2: too full or too full. Now I'm looking at the month I have left to find a place, thinking I can only have 20 more tries, and needing to devote more time to finishing up my studies, too. It has been helping my Japanese, I even translated enough of the email response that I got from one host to understand it. My friend Nicole translated it for me and I got the gist. All from self-study, this is a new language learning experience. I was wigging out tonight about how overstimulated I'll be with technology and the new language system I'll be illiterate in. Breath in. Breath out. I'll find some simple arrangement that can work. Any of you readers have any comments to share? ;]

Jefe at The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas

Jefé at The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas,
originally uploaded by fuzzyjefe.

Despite a rough schedule of meetings and working on my portfolio, I took time to see The Alamo, which is just 2 blocks from the convention center. Good urban planners down there in SA: they knew that visitors would want to see the Alamo when they go to the convention center. 3 minutes after this photo was taken, I tried to catch a bus to the airport. Missed it. Next bus was 5 blocks away and as you can see I'm in my suit (so I don't have to pack it in a bulky garment bag). So I huffed it over to the bus stop and took the 45 minute trip to the airport. Making it just 2 minutes before boarding. The closest shave I ever got at the airport, but I made it.

There's a whole lota pride of Texans for the Alamo. Many monuments by local organizations. Interpreters who can give you the minute by minute accounts of the 13-day seige. the famous fresco or top of the alamo wasn't even there when it was under seige by Santa Ana. It first was a Mission, they they made it into a fort with cannons on top of the Alamo building we know today.

Ok, well, that's some good history fixin' for you today. Stay tuned for more travels!

Figuring it out

Ok, now I've got this thing figured out. Turns out to be that my cache needed to be cleared because my browser was going to the old page after the new one had reloaded. Well, the 3 months absence from my blogging was because of Portfolio. That's the exit mechanism for my MA TESOL program and its a great way to show the quality of what I've learned. The hard part is putting it all together and remembering all the little details. But I'm done, I'm finished. And I have 3 weeks until I need to see it again. What a relief. I went to Carmel beach yesterday. Wow, so beautiful with rocky coastline, golf courses, and million dolla homes.

Went to a memorial service on Sunday for a woman at my church. Someone read a beautiful poem, "The Rose Still Grows Beyond the Wall" by A. L. Frink. It was a beautiful image and gave me a good perspective that life is more than meeting deadlines and writing papers. Pfew! I needed that.

Now I'm just chillin' for a few days. Should get back to work. Now that I've experienced the overdrive of working on this portfolio, I can do a lot more things at normal capacity. It all seems easier now!

Testing

Well, I haven't worked on this blog for months. Now I'm trying to change the skin but it won't switch. What gives? Now I've got the free time, where's the love blogger?