HOLY CRAP.
Two whole posts in a single week!
LOOK AT THAT.

How many people want to bet that this never happens again?


Anyway.

Let's talk about Hiroshima.
As I mentioned months ago, I accepted a position at a junior/senior high school on the west side of Hiroshima City. It's a really nice school, though the current class of 8th graders makes me want to rub my face against a cheese grater on a regular basis. My supervisor seems to feel the same way. The new 7th grade class is full of awesome kids, and I've heard great things about the other four grades, though I do not teach them. I am having a blast.


Since getting here, my husband and I have made an effort to get more acquainted with Hiroshima City in general. Gifu was not nearly as big of a city, and it cost nearly twice as much to get down to Nagoya City so we never really explored as much as we probably should have.

We've been here for almost sixth months. In the past six months we've explored our little neighborhood, and have explored a small chunk of downtown. We've also been to Miyajima twice, but we still have a lot more to go. I have an unprecedented three two-day weekends this month.

Three.

I am estatic.
We're going to try to rent a car next weekend (the 16th and 17th) and drive out to Okayama to visit the Bizen Osafune Sword Museum and Token Village.
Because they have a scale model of the Lance of Longinus from Neo Genesis Evangelion.
Monday the 17th (a national holiday) is the last day, so we have to go.
I have friends who will stop talking to me if we don't go.

Ahem.
BACK ON TOPIC WE GO.

In May, Japan had it's great Golden Week, which is three days in a row of national holidays at beginning of May, plus a national holiday on April 29th. Many companies and schools give the entire period from the 29th to May 5th off, making it one of the busiest times of the year to travel.

But that's not the point.

The point is, YAY NO WORK.

The first day, we hung out at the Flower Festival down at the Peace Park. Wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't too bad. Ran into my school's baton club after they finished marching in the parade and had a lot of giggles from the girls about my being married. Didn't stay too long, but have plans to go again next year.

The second day, we headed over to Hiroshima Castle for the first time.
Now, I love castles.
I mean, love castles.
I've been to: Matsumoto, Ueda ruins, Yatsushiro Ruins, Kumamoto, Shimabara, Hirado, Gifu, Kano ruins, Gujo Hachiman, Ogaki, Ogura ruins, Nagoya, Osaka, Nijo, and Inuyama. I guess you can even include the Imperial Palace in Kyoto.
We have plans to get to Himeji (even if it will still be under restoration) while we are living in Hiroshima. And any other castle or castle ruins I can find in the neighboring prefectures.

Even if it is a rebuilt replica, if it's a castle, I want to go.
I just love walking around the grounds. I love the gardening, and I love the architecture.
The grounds around Hiroshima Castle and the moat are just lovely for a picnic, or for a quiet day in the shade with a good book. There's even a jogging course around the moat and through the adjoining park.

For only being there a few hours, I took a metric ton of photos.
I nearly maxed out my 4GB SD card. With only JPEGs. Go me.

Here are some of the best, including two I messed around with in HDR software:






















Now, as this is a full two-day weekend, I will hopefully have time to go through my photos from the last day of Golden Week and have a post of that up sometime Saturday or Sunday. When I'm not so tipsy. Have I mentioned that I've had two Suntory Strong Zero grape chu-hi? Yeah. I'm a bit tipsy.

Hi again. Been awhile hasn't it?
It always ends up like this. Oops. Maybe I should start writing blogs during my lunches at school?

I have tons of photos I'm slowly sifting through and messing around with in Lightroom, Photomatix and Photoshop. One day I'll get around to posting them. I have some I want to write posts about anyway.

However, I am not writing this to write about Japan. Hell, I don't know if anyone even reads this anymore, but what I need to say needs to be said.


This past weekend was PAX Prime in Seattle. I have never gone to PAX, though I have friends who have. My cousin Ky over at ExplodedSoda has gone to both PAX East and PAX Prime. Every time she has gone to PAX or any other convention (She's been to a few ComicCons, and has gone to other cons as well I do believe), she always raves about how awesome it was and how awesome the people she met there were. Hearing stories from both her and my other friends has always made me want to join in the festivities if I get the chance. I'm not even that big of a gamer compared to them (though I will admit that 80% of my month-long summer vacation was spent playing Age of Empires III, Ticket to Ride, and Heroes of Might and Magic V), but it just sounds a like blast.

It was much to my dismay when on Sunday evening that I found my cousin freaking out on Twitter about something that had happened at an after party away from where PAX was officially being held. Several minutes of frantic text messaging back and forth about what happened ensued.

I love my cousin. She is a very strong woman and I am proud of her for who she is and what she is doing with her life. However, I am also EXTREMELY defensive of my cousins. Maybe it's because Ky and I are the only cousins who are only children; our other 9 cousins all are in families with two or three kids. Maybe it's because I'm the oldest of the 11 of us and spent most of my life from 5th grade through graduating college baby-sitting and being the caretaker of my cousins at family gatherings.

Ky is like a sister to me, and has been since I first got back from my exchange to Japan in high school. At that point, I could count how many times I had met her face-to-face on one hand; her family was the only one of my mother's siblings not to live in the tri-state area. Once I was back in the US, we were talking CONSTANTLY on AIM. Now here was a girl who I had barely known growing up, but we were quickly turning into more sisters than cousins. I still think we were supposed to be twins but a deity somewhere screwed up and we ended up being born 4 years apart to different mothers. At least they got the family right?

Anyway. Tangent.

I am extremely proud that she had the courage to write about her experience. Not many women do. Her blog post has spread to Kotaku, reddit, 4chan, and elsewhere on the net. The creator of Minecraft (who had hosted the party where this sexual assault happened) has even publicly announced that he is upset at what happened and will look into the incident. Many of the comments on her blog and on other blogs that have given her support. As Raf's comment on her blog, states "He whipped it out. He grabbed her and made her touch it. HE DID IT." in response to Ky stating that she was plagued by guilty thoughts after the fact.

Regardless, there are many who have stated all over her blog and in comments elsewhere that she was pathetic for "trying not to cry because she saw a penis in [sic] a party", making herself a martyr, and telling her, although sometimes not outright, that it was her fault.


Seriously, people? We're still blaming the victim?

It doesn't matter if she should have kicked him in the nuts or gone to find security more quickly.
It doesn't matter if you think she shouldn't have been drinking.
It doesn't matter if you think she should have told him outright that she wanted to be alone.

What matters is it is never appropriate to whip your dick out and force some girl you do or do not know to touch it. Ever.

Doesn't matter if it was at a gaming-related after party or the Democratic National Convention. Keep your dicks in your pants. If a girl specifically asks to see it and you're okay with that, go ahead. Show it to her. If a girl asks to see it and you do not feel comfortable with a random chick asking to see your wand, don't show it to her and walk away.


There are also a lot of comments everywhere about how Ky should have screamed or yelled; should have made a big enough scene to get the guy noticed.

People, she just had been violated. Even if it hadn't completely sunk in yet, any type of violation leaves one feeling dirty and in a fight-or-flight mode. Ky obviously took the flight option, and I don't blame her.

Unless you were in the same situation you cannot know for sure how you would have reacted.

Everyone reacts differently to situations. Had this been somewhere where she had not been drinking, maybe she would have been able to scream or smack him. Maybe not. That's not the point. The point is, her emotions, her feelings of guilt and disgust, are all things that only she will ever be able to know at their core and no one has a right to tell her how she should have reacted.

The point is, the guy never should have forced her to feel his dick in the first place.

Stop saying she was at fault, or that she should have done this and that, or that she's just trying to get attention. When men and women say these things about women who have been sexually harassed, assaulted or raped, it creates a culture where victims feel they cannot raise their voices about what happened. It creates a culture where women blame themselves for actions forced onto them by others. It creates a culture where women feel that even if they are harassed/assaulted/rape, no one will ever believe them so why bother telling anyone it happened? It's sickening.

Same for men. There are many men out there who have undoubtedly been placed in a sexual situation where they were not comfortable. Be it being hit on/touched inappropriately by a female co-worker or boss, or random women coming up to them at the beach and rubbing their chests or buttocks. Men who are subjected to this may be fewer in number, but they are just as cautious about telling anyone that it happened because they feel they will get laughed at by a society which promotes men feeling empowered by being a sexual object to women.

Let's stop blaming the victim for their reactions.
Let's stop blaming the victims for their clothing.
Let's stop blaming the victims for "putting themselves in that situation".
Let's stop blaming the victims period.

And let's start addressing the main issue here:
We as a society needs to teach our children that whipping your dick out and forcing a girl you've never met before to touch it is not okay.

Hi there.

I swear, I am still alive.

Seriously, I am. Just busy as all hell.



Since my last post, life has been busy. Moving was an adventure and a half due to my credit card company randomly deciding to drop my credit limit by over $3000 to just a few hundred over what balance I still have to pay off. Not happy about that, but my new employers not only paid for my moving costs up front for me, but also helped out with most of the start-up costs for our house.

Yeah. The job is just that awesome. I had to have $550 taken out of my paycheck every month to pay back what went over the relocation allowance they had already established, but as they also give me $550 a month to cover rent on top of my paycheck, I am not complaining.

Since getting to Hiroshima, we haven't had too much time to really explore. I started training two days after we moved, then spent the next week unpacking, arranging furniture, buying needed things from the 100yen store, etc. I was nominated out of all 4 new teachers to be the one to stand in front of the entire school (2400 students) and give a speech. That was interesting, to say the least. Nerve wracking.

First real outing we finally had time for was in early April to the flower fiesta downtown at the Memorial Peace Park. My school's baton club was marching in the parade. Maybe one day I'll post some pictures.

In May, during Golden Week, a friend from Gifu came to visit and we went down to the US Marine base in Iwakuni for the yearly Friendship Day air show. It was pretty damn good. Much better than the one in Kakamigahara back in Gifu. Hubby enjoyed talking to the Marines and reminiscing about his time in the Air Force. We were both bummed that the food court was closed as we both were hoping to get some Taco Bell.

If Japan had a Taco Bell, I probably would not have a reason to leave other than family matters. Seriously.

Japan's Self Defense Force has a group of trick fighter pilots, similar to the US's Blue Angels, called the Blue Impulse. In Gifu, they'd do a few maneuvers, but never anything too amazing or over the crowd. Most likely because that base was in the middle of the city. Iwakuni, however, is in the middle of nowhere. They pulled of some pretty amazing fly-bys, sky writing, and several things directly over our heads. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died, and my extra pack weren't charged. Sadly, that resulted in no photos. I was a pretty sad Chino, because there is no way I am going back next year, unless another friend comes specifically for it. Why? Because there is only one gate where they let visitors in to the event. So it is packed, hot, and takes forever and a day to get up to the gate.


After a few months, by June I was finally starting to get into a decent rhythm with my school life, so we decided to take a day at Miyajima. It was supposed to rain, so we figured that no one would be there. However, it ended being an absolutely beautiful day. I got quite a few pictures taken (nearly 400), most of which are triple bracketed shots.

Wait, what? Triple bracketed shots?

Yeah. I've started getting into HDR photography recently, and that requires me to have minimum three different exposures of the same thing. So, when I say I took almost 400 shots, I actually only have a third of that.
 Here's the result of this screwing around:



Did I mention I got a Bamboo Touch and Pen tablet before we moved? "Used" for like 4000yen. No? Well, I did. And oh man, it is nice. This is the first time I was really able to use it for my photography. It is going to make editing so much easier. I've also done some doodling with it, but not sure how far I will get into that.


And now, as much as I would love to keep this post going, I need sleep.
Odin and Freya somehow have gotten fleas in the past few weeks, and we noticed Sunday. Vets were all closed, so we gave them a flea bath and bought flea collars to help keep some fleas off of them until we could get to the vet today.

However

I forgot how dumb Odin can be sometimes. He licked a bunch of the chemicals off of his collar and started reacting to it. Gel-like drool for a bit. I freaked, read up about horror stories of people losing cats due to flea collar reactions, freaked some more. Eventually found the number for the local emergency nighttime vet and gave them a call. Being as the vet is a 30min drive across town and I no longer have a call, I knew I couldn't bring him in, but I could at least ask what I could do at home until I could get him to the vet. By the time I felt satisfied that Odin was okay, it was nearly 2:30 in the morning. I had to get up for work at 5:30 this morning.
So yeah. I've done a full day of work (mainly planning meetings and grading as it's technically summer vacation), plus taken the cats to the vet to get real flea meds. I am EXHAUSTED. It's sleepy time for Chino.

Holy cow, stop the presses. Chino is actually making a blog post.