Snow Storm?

What started out as a fun little flurry of snow has escalated into some sort of snow storm. I know people from places that get a ton of snow (like North Dakota, Wisconsin, or Alaska) are giggling, but to be fair, towns that receive a lot of snow annually have the implements to handle a snow storm. Yokosuka, which gets an inch a year, maybe, is in freak out mode because we're now up to about 3 inches.

I was going to go to base today and run some errands, but John just called and they're manning some sort of base readiness center and the schools are closing in 10 minutes. John told me not to come to base today and he'll figure out how to get home on his own. He said his car was slipping and sliding on the way into work.

Huge snowflakes won't stop.

Right outside our living room window.

Looks a little different than the previous picture.

From the bedroom window.

Snow in the hills.

Snow in Yokosuka!

I woke up this morning to a light dusting of snow, but it's now 9am and the snow has yet to subside. I took some pictures:

This was our yard early this morning.

The other side of our yard.

The snow kept coming down...

And it kept snowing...

Now our yard is covered in snow.

Some updates...

Sorry ("gomen" as they say in Japanese) for the lack of updates. As I predicted, I have been very busy. I'm doing well in my Japanese class, I think I have an A. Last night, I completed my first homework assignment completely written in Hiragana, which is one of the three Japanese alphabets. There's a lot of pressure when writing in Japanese, because the Japanese put much emphasis on penmanship. Good penmanship in Japan indicates an educated and intelligent person. In the US, you're good as long as you can write...heck, we even say the more educated you are, the worse your penmanship becomes....I mean, who can read a doctor's prescription, ammiright??

Other than that, I haven't been doing much. John and I are going home to the US to visit in March and April, so we've been hibernating and saving money for that. In March, we will go to the Tokyo Anime Fair, and I want to dedicate one whole post to explaining what that is and how it is NOT a comic/scifi/nerd convention like it would be in the US. It's actually very different....or so the Japanese would like to think.

One last interesting connection I've made. In Japanese, there is no direct word for "no." There's "iie" which translates to "not at all," but it is never used to say just flat out "no." For example, you would never turn down an invitation using "iie." So, if you want to turn down an invitation in Japanese you say something to the effect of, "That would be inconvenient for me."

At first I was a little put off by this. In the US, we value directness. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized in English, we rarely flat out refuse an invitation. For example, if your friend said, "Want to go to the movies on Friday?" it would be considered pretty rude to say, "no" and leave it at that. Instead we say, "Friday? I can't I have to...." or "I don't know my plans yet, I'll let you know." which is pretty much the same as dancing around directly declining the invitation Japanese.

Hmmm. We're not so different after all.

My roller derby bout!

Well, Sunday was my first roller derby bout, aside from a couple of bruises, I suffered skinned knuckles (from tucking my fingers under and dragging them across the floor when I fell) and a split lip, which would have been worse had I not had in a mouth guard.

My team won and it was an amazing experience. I feel like I've been talking about the bout for weeks now, so I'm pretty tired of talking about it, so I'll just share a few pictures. I have some videos on Facebook if anyone wants to see me take some big hits. Surprisingly, the hits look brutal, but they really didn't hurt me as much as tripping over fallen teammates.

I was the jammer here, the only person on my team who could score points during this round. My face looks fat thanks to my mouth guard.

My team. I'm the one on the floor on the right.

There's me in the front making room for my jammer (the girl behind me).

I spent a lot of time on the floor.

It's the little victories...

The past few weeks, they have been building a house directly in front of my parking spot. My parking spot is included in our rent and is located about a ten minute walk from our house. The big work trucks have been on-and-off blocking my parking spot for weeks. Sometimes, if I see the trucks blocking my spot, I take the road up to the house and squeeze in the best I can in our driveway in front of John's car.

Today though, the road to our house was closed for repairs and the large truck was once again blocking my spot. This has only happened once before (road being closed AND parking spot block, double whammy) and I usually sit behind the truck with my blinker on and wait for someone to notice me, assess the situation and then move their truck.

Today I really had to go to the bathroom, so I didn't have time for all that nonsense. As I sat there with my blinker on, I though....wait...I know how to say "mine" and "parking" and "excuse me." So I hurried out of my car (the guy in the truck had been watching me for a few moments trying to decide what I wanted to do). I said in my most quiet Japanese voice, "Sumi massen, watashi no parking." and then indicated with my hands for them to move forward, then I followed it with a bow and "arigato."

The truck driver quickly nodded and looked rather surprised that all that had come out of my mouth. He may have been surprised by my sunglasses. To the Japanese, sunglasses are like the American ski masks....favored by criminals....although I know they didn't think I was going to rob them, in the US you don't particularly want to talk to someone in a ski mask, it's like that here but with sunglasses.

Of course, afterwards I started analyzing my words....basically, what I said was, "Excuse me, my parking" "Thank you." Now that I think about it, I could've said "Kore wa watashi no parking desu." which is a grammatically better sentence and translates to "this is my parking." But, at least I had the courage to use what I know. At least the driver understood. It's a small start to better expressing myself in Japanese. Also, I have my college class to thank for giving me confidence in my words! :)

Wonderful day!

Today was such an amazing day! I went to Tokyo this morning and skated at the new Tokyo Dome Arena. One of the original founders of the roller games was there to coach (roller games originated in Japan, fyi). A magazine crew came to film and photograph us for yet another spread in a Japanese magazine. I swear, the photogrpaher took tons of pictures of me...probably because I had on the most makeup....We even had a few Japanese skaters join us. I got to practice whips (using someone else to help get your momentum higher) with one of the Japanese girls and she was super nice.

Afterwards, the Japanese skaters gave us gifts of rice balls, hot packs and a bag of candies for "Lady's Day" which is sort of like Valentine's day. I even got to practice my Japanese. It's amazing how much more I can understand and respond since I started taking my college class.

Then on the train back, I decided to go to skate practice that evening as well (more on that later). When I arrived back on base, I bought tickets to the Anime Fair in Tokyo, which is the largest and most "official" anime convention in the world. Anime, for those not in the know, is Japanese animation and it has a following worldwide.

I then went to the evening skate practice. While I didn't do too much, it was good to be skating with my team and joking around with them and just being with them was awesome. Then of course, I ended the day by coming home to my husband, who enjoys my company, and my dog, who just wants to sit next to me. What more could a girl ask for?!

Wonderful day!