Weekword – Forgotten

Forgotten is a great word for this week considering I signed up and promptly forgot about it (again!). It was chosen this week by Jenna at Timballoo. Check out the other posts on her blog.

I’m just about to run out the door to take part in a local festival so this post will be a little short but I thought I would show you what life is like sometimes as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). I work in a Japanese school and my Japanese is basic at best so obviously I don’t understand a lot of what goes on in the staffroom. The teachers tend to only translate memos about things that are really important (end of year ceremonies etc.) so it is quite normal for me to be working happily away and look up to this:

Forgotten in the empty staffroom

I’ve never missed anything very important and usually it’s a long talk or meeting that I wouldn’t have understood anyway but it is a bit disconcerting!

ただいま! (I’m back!)

Sorry for the blogging blackout. Hong Kong was great (I even managed to do a bit of C25K Week 3 before I left) but I managed to pick up a stomach bug just after I got back. I stopped doing almost everything except going to work and since it also involved fainting I put C25K on hold. However, enough with the pity party. I’m feeling good again and provided my gym is open tomorrow (it’s been closed all this week due to the Golden Week public holidays) I will be back on that wagon.

I’ll also start trying to do Weekword again. Since my mother has been e-mailing me to tell me what the word is I know at least one person has been missing them!

Weekword – Sunshine

I hope your week has been full of lovely sunshine. I picked this week’s word as I thought everyone in the UK would be able to relate due to the lovely weather you’ve been having. Here in Japan it has been pretty cold and we even had some snow earlier in the week! However today the sun gods seem to be shining on us and the temperature rose to 20C! Perfect for a post about sunshine!

Sunshine is  always guaranteed to lift my mood. I do love snow and cold crisp days but nothing beats a bit of sunshine to make you feel upbeat. It may seem cheesy but the one song that I can’t help but feel happy when I listen to is ‘Walking on Sunshine’ by Katrina and the Waves. I listen to it when I have to do things I don’t like such as cleaning and I instantly feel better. I’ve even got it on my gym playlist set to kick in around the time I start feeling demotivated. It’s an instant burst of sunshine and I love it!

Be sure to check out this week’s other participants:

Jen at Timballoo

Emma at The Gift Shed

Katy at Creating Misericordia   (I tag Katy for next week!)

P.S I’m heading off to lovely Hong Kong tomorrow for a little holiday. I can’t wait for a little bit of warmer weather and some sunshine!

Weekword: Sunshine

My turn to choose this week and I pick ‘Sunshine’. Leave a comment below if you would like to take part and I’ll link you in the Friday Weekword post.

Weekword: Panoply

Seriously Jen? You chose ‘Panoply’ as this week’s weekword?! Aaaah! So difficult. (You can check out if how everyone else faced this word over at Jen’s blog) Panoply can be defined as ‘a full suit of armor’, ‘something forming a protective covering’ or ‘a magnificent or impressive array’. When I read this word earlier in the week I had a complete blank. I was sure I’d be able to think of something by Friday but nope! (that’s why this is posted on a Saturday!)

So anyway, I decided to go with the full suit of armor  definition and I’ll tell you about the armor of Date Masamune (bare with me). Date was a legendary warrior and leader during the early Edo period (he died in 1636) and founded the city of Sendai where I live. However it is his armor that is most interesting today.

This is a replica of his armor. Ignoring the giant yellow thing on this head does it remind you of anyone? It should...

Yes Date’s armor was apparently used as part of the inspiration for some of the most famous armor in movie history. The character was designed to have a wide brimmed helmet similar to a medieval samurai and the samurai that was used was Date Masamune. Have you figured it out yet?

Date Masamune is the original Darth Vader.

Weekword: Sleep

What you do think of when you hear the word ‘sleep’? For me it brings up happy, warm, safe feelings. This week’s Weekword ‘Sleep’ was chosen by Sally at Sow and Sew (be sure to check out her blog to see the other participants). Today I’m just going to show you one of my favourite pictures of my Dad and me. Whenever I look at this picture I feel safe. It’s like that feeling when you are wrapped up in bed with a storm raging outside and you lie listening to the rain battering the window. The feeling when you’re small and you can’t sleep because you’re scared of monsters in your cupboard but you know they can’t get you when you’re in your bed. The moment when someone tucks you up in bed with the covers up to your chin. The warm fuzzy feeling when someone thinks you are sleeping and quietly kisses you goodnight so as not to wake you. The feeling at the end of a stressful long day when you are aching and tired and so glad to finally leave everything else behind and  fall asleep. The way you feel when you are worried about having earthquake dreams but your mum promises you don’t have to fall asleep alone.

Ok, so maybe that last one is just me but I do associate sleep with feeling safe, warm, comforted and happy. I feel all those things when I look at this picture.

Dad and baby me sleeping.

 

Weekword : Leap

It’s a leap year! Barely a mention of it this week as well. I think the only people that said anything about it were foreigners like me. To be fair though March 1st is High School graduation day so my colleagues at school were focused on other things!  Leap was chosen this week by the lovely Jen over at Timballoo. Be sure to check out the rest of the participants on her blog.

I think I’m developing a bad habit for completely avoiding common associations with weekwords. It’s not intentional, my mind is just that random! My first thought on reading the word ‘leap’ was the song Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked (see a video here) which tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. I haven’t even seen the musical myself but my sister and one of my uni flatmates were both obsessed with it so I’ve heard the music a lot.  The specific lyrics I’m thinking of are the lines:

Too late for second-guessing

Too late to go back to sleep

It’s time to trust my instincts

Close my eyes…..and leap!

I love this song! It’s all about following your dreams and refusing to believe that it’s impossible. In life, it’s easy to go with the crowd and accept when people tell you that you can’t do something. It’s difficult to break out of your comfort zone and take that first step.  There are so many experiences in my life that would never have happened if I stuck to my comfortable world: I’d never have lived in four different countries, I’d never have gone on a safari alone, I’d never have continued to work in Sendai following the quake, to name a few!  One of my favourite sayings has a similar message : ‘Limitations are for people that have them, excuses are for people that need them’. If we take my moving to Japan as an example: there are so many ‘limitations’ that I could have used to stop me from coming (I didn’t speak Japanese, I didn’t have any teaching English qualifications, I’d never lived outside Europe, I didn’t know much about Japanese culture…I could go on!) but it was something I really wanted to do so I trusted myself and went for it.

That is why this specific song is rings so true for me. You never know where your life could take you until you close your eyes and leap.

Weekword : Journey

I’m a bit late this week, sorry! Emma at The Gift Shed picked ‘Journey’. Go check out her post to see her take on the word and that of others taking part too.

My first thought when I read this word wasn’t about a physical journey (or even a mental one!) but instead about the 80s band Journey ( of Don’t Stop Believin’ fame). One of my favourite things to do in Japan with my friends is to go to Karaoke. It is very different from the karaoke I was used to in the UK which was sung in a pub or bar in front of a room of people. In Japan karaoke is sung in small rooms for just your group so it is a much more comfortable and fun experience (for me!). I actually find myself missing it if we go for too many weeks without spending 3 or 4 hours at a time singing. Listening to my friends sining too has helped to introduce me to a lot of Japanese artists I would otherwise be unaware of and I’m going to see one group, introduced to me at karaoke, in concert in May (Funky Monkey Babys). So for your viewing pleasure I present my idea of Journey:

Karaoke!

Actually singing (although not looking at the screen! I obviously knew the song well!)

Karaoke is best with friends!

Me. Loving the karaoke.

 

Weekword – Love

I was tagged by Erika to pick this week’s word and I chose ‘Love’ to go along with the Valentine’s Day theme. Please be sure to check out the other participants blogs on the theme of ‘Love’ at the end of this post.

So once again I’ve done a weekend where I’ve thought ‘I wish I didn’t make that blog post about school two days ago. That would have been great for weekword!’. Feel free to check out my Valentine’s English Board all the same. Instead of this I decided to post a ‘Top 10 Things I Love Today’.

1. Snow – I woke up this morning to a lovely winter wonderland. I still have yet to lose my child-like love of all this white, cold and fluffy.

Snowy Day at work today

2. Fridays – Today is Friday. The whole weekend is ahead of me. I love it!

3. Successful lessons – It is quite difficult sometimes to think of ways to make lessons interesting and exciting for students. However, you know you’ve had a successful lesson when it keeps being referenced by the students weeks later!

Gromit appears in random English homework. I'm calling my Wallace and Gromit themed class a success!!

4. Good news – always great to hear. (Even if you are woken up in the middle of a night with a text telling you said good news. Got to love time zones.)

5. Blankets – oh blankets! How I love you and how warm you keep me during Japanese winter.

I may or may not have taken this picture 30 second ago. Note the TWO different blankets (one blue, one yellow).

6. Students who want to talk – when a (1st year!) student that catches the same bus as me waited for me to cross the road so we could walk there together I think it was a very big sign she wanted to talk English and I was happy to oblige.

7. Fun hats – I love hats. Enough said. (I’m sensing a keeping warm theme!)

HAT!

8. Funny student work – oh how my students never fail to amuse me. Here is an example that I found yesterday:

The sentence above my pen made me laugh.

9. Letters – hint hint. Nothing beats having post that is not a bill!

10. Valentines themed food – I was lucky this year. Lots of lovely chocolate from co-workers, students and even some freebies from reps that visit the school.

Valentine's Day sweets! (I might have already eaten some before I took the picture...ooops!)

Even my local bakery got in on the Valentine's action

So that was my Top 10. There are lots of other lovely people taking part this week in Weekword. Be sure to check them out and thanks for playing everyone!

Emma  at The Gift Shed   - also tagged for next week’s post!

John at The Healing Seed

Carmen at Tail of a Biomouse

Jen at Timballoo

Anna at Up ‘anley Duck

Helen at Autistic Inner Space

Weekword – Love

So I have been tagged by Erika  to choose this week’s Weekword. If you’d like to join in just leave and comment here and post something on your blog on Friday. I look forward to seeing your posts.

Since this week has Valentine’s Day it’s only fitting to choose something along this theme so this week’s word is ‘Love’.