1/28/07 - Well, looks like I went from one month before updating, to two months without updating. I've added some pictures of Rachel and me in Tokyo. I've got lots more of our adventures to add though. Will my next update be in three months, or follow the exponential pattern forming and take 4 months? We'll just have to wait and see. If the later, I will be home for good before I get two more updates in. Speaking of being home for good, I signed my contract for another year, so, I'll be here for another year. That means I will be coming home for about a month this summer.

So yeah, Rachel came to visit me over the holidays. We had a great time - both got to see some parts of Japan I hadn't seen yet. It was great to see her, of course. My parents and sister will be visiting in April, so now I've got that to look forward to (except my apartment should prove to be quite sleeping accommodations for the 4 of us. Oh well, I guess it not much different that when we stayed in hotels on family vacations. Well, yeah, a little different, but we'll manage. We always do, right? ;)

I've been doing some more reading at school. I've read Go Ask Alice, anonymous (not really, but whatever); The Prince, Machiavelli; Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross; and I'm reading Paradise Lost and then Paradise Regained, by Milton. I'll probably tackle The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck, next, at my mom's insistence, but she's got pretty good taste in books and knows what I'm looking for, so I plan on enjoying it. Perhaps I'll start trying to read the Bible, a little at a time, at some point. People have been reading it for years, so there ought to be something to be gained from it, right? Yeah, thought so.

Well, it's been fun, but I'm gonna (haha, I'm not gonna say what spell check told me to change this word to) leave off here for now. Still have more work to do on my web site, but just haven't had the desire to get into it too much. Perhaps one day I'll take my laptop to school and work on it there...now that I've already signed my contract ...haha. We'll see. Check out the pictures, I hope to add some more soon (hopefully before the next 4 month update.

11/19/06 - Seems it's been a while since I've updated here. I've added some pictures and such, but haven't written too much about what's been going on. Well, let's see, where to start. I hate to say, I haven't done a lot of site seeing lately, but I have been enjoying myself. We've had our school festival, pictures of which you can see in my photo gallery. Noriko, and her husband, Bumi, have been excellent surrogate parents while I've been here, which I sincerely appreciate. I've definitely been enjoying my classes as the students have gotten a little more used to me (and me them).

Also, in my spare time, I've been doing lot of reading. Since I've been in Japan I've read: If the Buddha Dated, author??(don't feel like checking, haha); Go Rin No Sho, [Book of the Five Rings] (again), Musashi; Crime and Punishment (again), Dostoyevsky, Fahrenheit 451 (again), Bradbury; Walden, Thoreau; Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut; Animal Farm (again) and 1984, Orwell; A Brave New World, Huxley; To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee; Angels & Demons, Brown. I think that is all. This is probably more than I've read in my lifetime, but I must say, I've enjoyed it. I must admit, however, that all of the thinking it has provoked has kept me on edge 24/7 (except sometimes when I'm eating, because, com'on, everything goes away then).

I have always constantly thought about such issues (political, social, religious) but lately they seem to be more profound to me. I guess that was part of the reason in wanting to come here (Japan), was to have time to think about such things, but it's been a bombardment, it seems, here lately. While I don't usually go out seeking questions and answers, I usually accept whatever comes to me, and I have definitely been receiving plenty of that sort of 'stuff' lately. I guess one of the greatest difficulties is finding where each belong together in the here and now. I've got my political views (generally liberal), I've got my social views (generally liberal), and I've got my religious views (dare I say somewhat conservative, a word that makes me shudder), and it is difficult trying to piece together and see where they all fit together in the grand scheme of things. It's easy to think about each one in their own light and say, "Yes, this is straightforward, obvious." Try to put them all together and that clarity begins to fade.

Well, haha, I guess this is a little divergent from my usual jibber jabber here, so I'll go ahead and cut it off before I get way out of the ballpark. Oh yes, one more thing. Tonight I went to the Ichihara International Festival, and had a splendid time. Among the highlights were throwing beads and candy to little kids in a mock Mardi Gras, winning a cool table cloth at Bingo, and meeting several wonderful people. Then I went out with a few people afterwards and drank probably half a bottle of wine, and here we are now (hence the flowing of thoughts ;). Thanks all for such a wonderful night!!!

10/8/06 - So yeah, I had a blast today. I went with a group to Tokyo to see the Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. It was very cool. I got to see ASIMO, the bad-ass bi-pedal robot made by Honda. I have some video of him(?), so I hope to get a video section up over the next couple of days, seeing as how I still have two more days until school starts back. I will definitely be going back to Miraikan.

There was this really cool exhibit with two hexapod robots, and one of them had 2 cameras for eyes (more on that soon). They are controlled by two Playstation controllers (one for left legs, one for right legs). I'll let you figure out how it moves as it should be pretty obvious if you think about it. So, two people control one robot. Ok, the second one is controlled by two people inside sitting in this contraption. Well, you put on your stereoscopic glasses (after you sit down), and in front of you is this dome that covers your entire field of vision. Well, you are now seeing as the robot sees, so with the vision from its two 'eyes' slightly misaligned and wearing the glasses, it would seem you are looking right through its eyes, and the two people in the front control where it goes. And as it does go, the contraption you are sitting on moves with each step, and you hear crazy robot sounds. You also see the other robot which seems massive.

Of course there is more to the whole place, but I couldn't take pictures inside where I was driving the robot. After that a group of us went walking around Odaiba, Tokyo. We went out to eat, did a lot of walking, went to some Toyota showcase, or museum, or, something. We went to the famous Fuji Television Station Building. All of the building here are very...magnificent...I guess is the best way to put it, but you can see for yourself.

10/6/06 - Well, I guess you can see that I've changed my site a bit now. I'm trying to get it into some kind of order. I'm still changing things a lot and having to go back and re-do things, but I guess that happens when there is a lack of planning (my least favorite part of a project like this). Oh well, expect things to continue to change over the next few days. I'm on vacation from today (Friday) through Tuesday, so I plan on working on my site, especially since it is storming due to that typhoon or tropical storm now, or whatever it's called around here. I'll be going to Tokyo on Sunday, so maybe I'll get around to putting some more pictures up, as well as all of the others I have yet to post.

10/1/06 - Well, I was planning on working on my site some this weekend, but I got a bit sidetracked. I walked to McDonalds yesterday. A good taste of home, with the hospitality of the Japanese business and culture model. Today I went to church. It was lightly raining, but shortly after I got home it began raining a bit harder.

Despite being stuck inside, I got caught up in a nostalgic game of "The Legend of Zelda" which I began yesterday and finished today. So, after eating dinner - some good rice and a can of chili (thanks Mom & Dad) - and watching Kill Bill 2, I decided I better get some more pictures up. I added photos from the speech contest I attended last week, and some crazy, creepy, crawly, critters from around my apartment, including my pet mantis, Hannah.

Please Enjoy.

9/23/2006 - Today I added a lot of pictures from a festival I saw in Tokyo. I also added some pictures I've taken with my keitai (cell phone) from around Ichihara.

9/20/2006 - The speech competition went very well today. All of my students did very well.
My presentation also went very well, but I'm glad it's over with. I didn't mind the presentation
part of the whole thing as much as the trouble getting it all together.

Soon I hope to get some sort of blog together. I'm going to try to design it myself (if that means
basic HTML, or some database driven page, I'm not sure yet) as opposed to one of the already designed
blog pages. Once I get more pages, I will work on a navigation bar of some sort.

I'm going to continue to upload more pictures in the meantime.

9/19/2006 - I've finally finished my presentation on Mobile, and will present it tomorrow,
so I should be able to get back to work on my site very soon!!!

More to come very soon!