Somehow this song has really caught on in Japan. I even heard it over the loudspeakers at the supermarket.
http://www.tv-links.co.uk
is a great link with a collection of streaming tv, movies and anime.

Kuchierabu

Kuchierabu is a pretty strange island. It's one third the size of Yakushima but has a population of only 150 people. None of the teachers are from the island, they are all sent there for three year (teach on an island) stints. What's bizarre is that half the students are sent there for an island study abroad. I'm not sure which they started sending first, teachers or students, but its too late to pull out now.

Once I got out of town I began to understand why people come to the island. I stayed in the inn, which sits on a hill overlooking the ocean. The family that owns the inn has 5 small kids, lots of stray cats and kittens and a dog. Kids running around playing with the bugs and plants kinda reminded me of Totoro or Little House on the Prairie.

I'm looking forward to going back next month. Maybe I can catch one these adorable local bats and bring it home. Wingspan: a few inches short of 3 feet.

And back to Yakushima

Tuesday

I don't often draw landscapes... or buildings... or anything but people so I'm pretty bad at all those things. This is kind of a rough color I did from a photo. Not very good, but I'm gonna try to do one every day or two so I can improve.

Tomorrow I get to take a boat to work. I'm going to Kuchierabu, a small(er) island about two hours north of here. I'll teach tomorrow at the junior high, stay over one night and then teach at the elementary school the next day before coming home at night. It'll be a long couple days but should be fun.

The Office

This is the office at Issou Junior High. It's one of the four schools I go to most often. This is my desk and the particularly ridiculous paper that I'm supposed to correct. It was so funny and impossible that I had to copy out a paragraph. There were 18 pages of this.

"The mackeral that can catch in the sea off Yakushima Island by the one that the mackeral that was called MA mackeral smokes, does Cawa, and was made is said, "Yaku Saba", and has been found useful, saying that "Mackeral paragraph" from of old."

There was also a particularly funny page where child had been translated as "dwarf".

Was it the Cloooooowns?"

I'm kinda stuck, but this is as far as I've gotten...

http://www.drawergeeks.com/ has a new theme every couple weeks. I decided that I would try to keep up with them and maybe even join them someday. Last week was "clowns" so I'm working on this. I'm gonna color it but I wanted to post something today.

School is going great though its been so hot and muggy that its hard to have much energy during the day. I'm wet with sweat all the time at school (there is no AC at all). My school days are pretty free so I have time to read and draw between classes which is nice. Next weekend is another three day weekend so I really hope it stops raining... but stays cool (someone should really put me in charge of weather, the current bloke is doing a pretty shoddy job).

Taking Care

I got another good shot of one of the monsters lurking around my house.

I haven't posted for awhile but I've got lots of good excuses. First, I'm actually working now, second, Bioshock (ゲーム）, third I haven't taken any pictures at my schools yet, but I will. Today I went to the high school to help a girl with her English and had a really good time. I don't actually teach at the high school but I hope that I'm invited back often, its a great place to make friends.

The first few days

I've visited 3 different schools this week and tomorrow I'm going to the last major one. Today was a lot of fun, instead of there being only a few students in a class there were 20 or 30. The junior high school girls were pretty funny. They had me eat lunch with them, I was surrounded by about 9 girls all chatty and giggling asking me questions. It was pretty ridiculous actually. The guys are a lot of fun too but are a bit more shy.

I brought pictures of my family and friends, so now all of the students in my classes know Jovie, Emmanuel and Motoko.

Kogame

My first day of school turned out to be a lot of fun. The atmosphere was comfortable and the teachers are all easy going. Also, all the classes I've taught so far have been very small, between four and seven students. Today I'm going to a different school with all new teachers and I hope the experience will be much the same as yesterday.
The school is right next to a popular beach where sea turtles come and lay their eggs. There is a building next to the school where they keep some baby turtles for the students. They really are as cute as kittens.

Currents

It's been a slow week. I went to work from 8 30 to 4 30 every day even though I had nothing to do at the office. Everyone knew that, of coarse, so I just drew comics and studied Japanese. I've got one more day of "office work" and then I start visiting the schools. I'm a little nervous because its all new to me. I'm expected to do a self introduction with props for the first 20 minutes of class but all I've got so far is a map of the States and pictures of my family.
A character couple. I was thinking about costume design when I drew this. The outfit on the left is being scrapped in its entirety.