Confessions of the last 2 weeks

1. I really meant to update the blog last weekend.
But, it didn't happen. Sorry about that.

2. I miss getting hugs all the time!
Its not really a part of the culture here. So when I moved to California, at first I thought it was really weird how much people hugged, but I got used to it and really enjoy getting hugs. Now that I am back in Japan I miss all the hugs I used to get! We do have one kid in our class who gives awkward hugs, but I love it. He puts his face straight into your belly and then wraps his arms around you. I love watching him hug people for the first time, the reaction is always the same, one of surprise and then smiles. There is also a kindergartner who has decided to be my special friend and give me a hug every time he sees me. I don't even have him for PE and I didn't even know his name the first couple of days (I do now).

3. I don't understand the rules at Japanese swimming pools.
Some friends and I went to an outdoor pool last weekend that had a current pool and a slide, it was a pretty nice pool. But, here are some of the rules that we were told of as we broke them:

1. No shoes around the pool
2. No sunscreen
3. No sunglasses
4. No tattoos
5. No reading around the pool

Needless to say we didn't really understand why these rules were in place and why the guys trying to enforce them had such small speedos. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be a good explanation for why things are done the way they are here in Japan.

4. I am getting used to living alone.
I never thought I would like living alone, and I wouldn't say that I particularly like it now, but I am getting used to it. I still miss saying good morning to someone when I get up and being able to talk about my day with someone when I get home, but it is kind of nice to have the space to myself after the kids all day. I do really miss living in a family though. I miss the siblings, the parents and the unconditional love that goes along with it all.

5. I had a pretty bad day on Wednesday.
I woke up and it was raining outside, which isn't necessarily the start of a bad day, but when I went outside to get my bike it had a flat tire. So, I had to walk to school (which really isn't that far, maybe a 15 minute walk). Since it was raining though we had to keep the kids inside all day. It was pretty rough at lunch time. Then someone took my umbrella. PE went alright, but we had about 5 kids cry for various reasons. It was also picture day! I'm sure my picture is going to be fantastic this year. Thankfully it ended well when a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with her. We had a great time eating Japanese pasta and talking for about 2 hours.

6. I did not do a very good job coaching my first volleyball game.
Its not that I did a bad job, I just know that I could have done better. We played against Seisen International School and we lost 12-25 both sets. At this level the main thing is getting your serves over because it is really hard for them to return serves. My team actually did a good job of getting their serves over, but this week in practice we really need to work on serve receive. Hopefully our next game will be better and I know some things that I need to do better as a coach as well (like maybe calling a timeout or two).

7. I really miss playing basketball.
I can tell that it is the beginning of basketball practices at Westmont because I have this desire to shoot hoops everyday. For the last 4 years this time of year was the very beginning of our season. We would have open gyms and conditioning a few times a week. It was always exciting to get started again, to get to know my new teammates, to get to see my old teammates again everyday and just to be out on the court again! I didn't realize that I would miss it already, but I do. Thankfully I have a key to the gym and the ball room, so I can go shoot whenever the gym is not being used.

8. I love Phineas and Ferb.
This is a Disney channel cartoon that I started watching at Frank and Loriann's house with Aeson and Alysse. It is a really great show about brothers that are trying to make the best of everyday of summer vacation and they have a pet platypus that doubles as a secret agent. I love this show and miss watching it with Aeson and Alysse, so I have been watching at least one show every other day on YouTube. If you have never seen it you should watch it!

9. I have a new friend, JuShin!
She is the nurse at the school and also one of the other middle school volleyball coaches. JuShin and I get to plan and run practices together and I have really enjoyed getting to know her. She is such a fun person to be around and I find myself laughing all the time when I am with her. She is the one that took me out to dinner on that wonderful Wednesday and also the one that went with me to get my bike tire fixed. I look forward to the last hour of school each day because I have it free, so I just go to the nurses office and hang out with JuShin and plan practice.

10. I was convicted by my own journal.
I decided to read over my old journal. It is my journal for things I have learned or am still learning in the past 3 years or so. It was pretty neat to read back over a lot of the things that I had learned and how many people I had learned from and how they had touched and blessed me in that time. It was also convicting though because a lot of the things I was reading about I was having a hard time with right now. One of the main ones that stuck out was an entry from about a year and a half ago. Here is the entry:
"See what no one else sees, see what everyone else chooses not to see... see the whole world anew each day" -Patch Adams
I am realizing that sometimes it all depends on how you see something. So when we look at the world around us, we can see things differently depending on how we look at it. We can choose to "see what no one else sees" and to "see the whole world anew each day" if we want to. This applies to our faith too, we can see God at work in our lives and the lives of those around us if we look for it. In a sense we just have to be focused on looking for God and we will see him at work all around us.
I haven't been focused on God lately, so I haven't seen him at work in my life. I have been so focused on how much I miss people I left, how hard it is to get to know people again, trying to be a good teacher and trying to be a good coach, I somehow kind of lost sight of God in that mix. So, my goal for this coming week is to focus on him and to see him at work!

11. I had to add just one more for Becka :)
Becka is one of my best friends from my time at CAJ and her favorite number is 11, so I had to make it 11 for her.

I also want to share my favorite quotes from the last 2 weeks:

• We got out the overhead projector and one kid said, "Oh, I know what that is. Its an underhead!" Good try buddy :)

• Another day the principal came in to read our class a story. One boy raised his had and said, "Mrs. Wilson you look just like Miss Johnson. If you guys switched hairs you could be twins!" Shortly after this a girl in our class raised her had and asked, "Have you ever made a gingerbread house?" This was totally out of the blue and not related to anything we were talking about.

• At the beginning of the year we had the kids name tags on the tables with sticky tack, we now realize that was a pretty bad idea. So, we took their name tags off for a few days so we could laminate them and decide how to put them back on. On the second day of no name tags one of the kids said, "I can't wait for our name tags so I can play with the sticky tack again!" Well, we put tape on the back of them this time.