Follow Feet

 Tea on the roof sounds great! It was, in fact, brilliant. Some friends and I decided to celebrate the approaching typhoon buy a tea party on the roof of our apartment building, but we didn't have any tea. It sounds like a problem, but it was easily solved. All we had to do was borrow a guitar. One of the teachers conveniently left his guitar at school on Friday, and knowing he would miss it by Typhoon Monday, we decided to give it back to him... for tea. Kidnapping a guitar is not as easy as it sounds. Problem 1: They do not photograph well. With three hooded hooligans and dark lighting, it is difficult to see the outline of a guitar. Problem 2: Ransom notes start to sound a bit cheesy. "If you ever want to hear from it again, bring tea to the roof no later than midnight tonight!" Problem 3: Guitars are bulky and not easily carried to the roof of apartment buildings. Long story short, we watched the typhoon clouds roll in while sipping tea with a ransomed guita...

This week was teacher training and orientation which is a fanciful melody of meetings and preparing classrooms. For those of you who do not teach, preparing classrooms turns into trash piles taller than you, desks in 500 arrangements before you find the one you like, making posters, organizing bookshelves, rethinking everything you ever thought or did with teaching your class last year, and otherwise preparing for battle by building your defenses. Without fail, there is a crud-ton of junk leftover from years past that you consider paying people to get rid of. The massive piles of free unwantables began their growth outside the doors of classrooms Monday morning. If you wanted books, shelves, baskets, dominoes, shells, or a trashcan sporting Felix the Cat on the front, all you needed to do was put your name on it. By Tuesday, everything had a tag that read "Dozo." As I walked by everyday this week, I racked my brain to figure out who Dozo was and why they wanted piles cons...

My expectations of living on Okinawa have been shattered. Here I was thinking that living here would be difficult; not the case! Don't get me wrong, it has its challenges; however, I can only think of how incredibly blessed I am in my environment. Housing: I am on campus at OCSI (my new school) and have to walk less than 100 meters to my classroom. Laziness is knocking at my door, screaming that the alarm clock can be ignored, and wrapping the sheets more tightly around my legs, but I can't listen because I have to run. There is a .5 mile track just across the soccer field from my front door. It is GORGEOUS! Due to the .1 mile downhill and .4 mile uphill, my long runs are becoming easier and easier. Speaking of long runs, I can run to the beach in five different directions with five different mileage options ranging from 2 to 13 mile round-trips. Roommates: I have two wonderful ladies sharing the apartment. One is a built-in translator and the other is a laid-ba...