quick update..hopefully i:ll get internet soon

Wow, so much to catch up on! The nightlife here is crazy, the last train is at midnight, and they don’t start running again until 5am, so if you miss the train you are stuck out! Sarah and I met up with my friend Jonathan from Orlando one night and went to a Pub. We met a few people (out of the 3 Floridians I’ve met, 2 of them were from UCF!) and had a blast drinking with a couple Japanese guys who told us that everyone wants to practice their English when their drunk, haha. They all wanted to take pictures with me and Sarah, lol. Sarah and I moved into our apartment on the 22nd. We live in Sagamihara, which is really far from where we work. We found a 100 Yen shop (like a $1.00 tree) and got cleaning supplies and I scrubbed the hell out of our apt, which looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the last people moved out. We didn’t bring shower towels and couldn’t find them ANYWHERE, we had to settle with dish towels, haha, we had to dry off with a tiny dish towel for almost a week. I finally found real towels at a department store near the train station. My commute is about an hour and a half each way, BLAH! The trains are SO crowded, I’m lucky if I get to sit down for 10 minutes, everyone is packed in like sardines. People will seriously shove everyone in so they can fit too, it’s crazy! (Think NYC times 10!) One of our neighbors can speak a little bit of English, so she has been a big help to us. No other Nova employees live around us, which pretty much sucks! Our refrigerator wasn’t working for a while but we finally got it fixed..I have lost so much weight but I’m starting to get my appetite back so I’m sure I’ll gain it all back soon.On the last day of training, Sarah, Sara, David and I went out with a couple of teachers to get a few beers. When they invited us out we expected to go to a bar…but no, they scouted out a place near a vending machine! Haha, we seriously drank beer out of a vending maching in the middle of the sidewalk near the train station, it was so weird, but it was fun. Then we had this bright to miss the trains and stay up all night, we thought it was a good idea…until we wanted to go to sleep!! We went to a restaurant to get food and apparently you have to buy a drink too AND pay a cover charge, which was weird, b/c they didn’t tell us about the cover charge until we were leaving.. Then we’re like, what the heck are we gonna do for 4 more hours?! Karaoke is HUGE in Japan, so we decided to check it out. Well the one that we went to charged 3800 Yen (about $38) per person! Usually they are only like 10 bucks, so we found this dart bar, which was 300 yen per person and decided to just go in to sit down since we had so long until the trains started. Then when we were leaving they show us a small sign that says everyone had to buy a drink, haha, of course! Damn all these extra charges on EVERYTHING here!! So by now it’s about 4am and we still have an hour before the trains start, we decide to go find an internet café. Outside was crazy, I was shocked at how many people were out and about, even a hair salon was open and in business!! There were at least 3 people getting their hair done at 4am!! The internet café was insane…it was like a hotel, there were showers and each booth had a computer, a couch, a tv and a door. WIERDD! When Sarah and I walked back to our apartment (it’s a 10-15 min walk from the station) it was completely light out. I still can’t get used to how early it gets dark here since they don’t have daylight savings. Training went well, it lasted for 3 days, Sarah and I had it together (even though we work at different branches) along with our friends Sara and David. Work was a bit overwhelming at first, but after the second day I felt a lot better about it. Each lesson starts with an assessment, then consists of sections that deal with main language, pronouncing certain sounds, listening, activities, application and a wrap up. The classes are all 40 minutes long and range from 1-4 people at a time. We have a 10 minute break in between each lesson to assess the previous students and prepare for our next lesson. It really isn’t enough time considering all the lessons are different; there are hundreds of different levels we choose from. We usually teach 4 lessons, then get a 40 minute break for “lunch” then teach 4 more lessons. Once a day we teach a voice lesson, which pretty much consists of a few people wanting to converse in English. I pretty much go in and just chat about anything for 40 minutes. We are finally registered aliens ;), we have yet to set up our bank accounts and get internet but we did get cell phones!Russell’s words of the Blog…Please-Kudasai (Koo-dah-sigh)Yes-Hai (Hi)
the subways get soooo packed!!!