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.
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.
7/23/2012 10:13:00 PM |
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