I haven`t posted anything in the past month. So much has happened though.
But since right now I`m within the confines of work (aka sitting down doing nothing at the Board of Education), I`ll try keep this short.

Life as a JET living in inaka
For those that don`t know, I`ve been placed in a tiny town called Emukae (江迎) in Nagasaki prefecture. I`m smack in the middle of the forest-filled mountains where the bugs sing all day and all night. I`ve seen spiders that are totally different than those I`ve seen in the States, both in size and color. Nobody in my town except for the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) at my jr. high speaks English.

But you know what? I love it here.

The people are VERY nice and helpful. They warm up even more when you express interest in learning the language. Also, knowing about EXILE and knowing how to sing their songs is a plus, as it has interestingly been a nice bridge that allowed me to start getting to know my co-workers (haha!). I`ve been learning the town dialect little by little, so if I come back sounding like a country bumpkin, I`ll be extremely happy.

My arrival date, I was greeted with my supervisor and my predecessor. They were really cool people. After settling into my gigantic house (2 stories, 3 huge bedrooms!), we met with the rest of the Board of Education for a welcoming dinner. Afterwards, we went out for karaoke! It was super fun!

I`m placed in two elementary schools and one jr. high. My first few days after arrival, I made rounds and introduced myself to the the teachers, in addition the Board of Education and Town Hall (I even met the mayor). On the Nagasaki bomb memorial, Sunday August 9, I made rounds once again to greet all the students.

The neighboring ALTs are all great folks. They`ve been really helpful in me getting to know my area, getting a phone, car, etc. Also, every weekend we`ve been doing things nonstop. One of my favorite outings was visiting this epic waterfall, were the path to get there was filled with slippery rocks. Near the top, close to the actual waterfall, there was a small pond and creek were folks were hanging out, swimming, jumping into the water from 30-40 ft, etc. So fun!
One thing I definitely have to get used to is being the token Asian guy.

My small town is great. I don`t get much of the `superstar` status because I`m asian and some people just mistake me for another Japanese guy. People have to ask to make sure I`m not Japanese! Though I don`t feel like my speaking has improved much, my confidence and comprehension have definitely leveled up! I guess also my conversation skills have improved as well. I can say those factors have improved because of the childrens conversation (子供英会話) class I`ve been teaching 3 days a week since last week. I`ve had to communicate to the kids in Japanese in order to explain something in English. Oh man in the beginning, EVERYBODY was extremely shy. Nobody said anything and everything I said was met with blank stares. However, little by little, the kids warmed up to me. Now I`m met with smiles!

This past Sunday and Monday (yesterday) was Sentoro Matsuri, the town`s biggest festival. It`s so big that folks from the neighboring towns and cities come down to participate. The main attraction is the Sentoro Tower, or the tower of 1000 lanterns. However, my absolute favorite part of the festival happened in day two, when Yosakoi-ish dance troupes danced on the street! Imagine, traditional Japanese music on top of hip-hop, rock, and/or swing! The music was extremely crazy and I`ve NEVER seen anything like it before! The costumes/uniforms were very cool too! Though I`ve only lived in Emukae a month, I felt town pride when my town`s Ranburyuu troupe took the stage and kicked serious ass. A few days earlier, I was asked if I wanted to participate in the dance. After watching, I`m seriously thinking of taking up the offer!
Throughout the festival, all the town`s students, whether they have already met me personally or not, greeted me with smiles and hellos. They would either say `hello` or I would hear `is that Arcega-sensei?`. Then I would turn around and reply with a `YES` and a `Hello.` Guess my bald head makes me easy to spot.

This is my last week of summer. Next week school starts up again, and then it`ll be time for real work.
More detail on adventures later on.
I miss you guys. I hope everything is going well with your lives!

I remember years ago, around the time I started studying Japanese at Sac State, just only hearing about the JET Program. The way it was made out to me made it seem to be something of legend. Something unreachable for me.

Now, in a few hours, I'm going to board a plane that will take me to Japan, as part of this program that I thought was once unreachable for me. I will be going as a JET!

A few hours ago, our Pre-Departure Orientation ended. Afterwards, I met up with Emil and he treated me out to some good mexican food, something I won't be able to eat for a long time. (Thanks Emil!)

But you know what? This "long time" hasn't sunk in yet. For some reason, I'm still in the mode that I'm going to wake up in the same bed after the weekend has ended. It still hasn't sunk in that I will not see my bed for a long time. I'm pretty sure it won't sink in until I'm situated in my new home, in Emukae-cho in Nagasaki-ken. For those who don't know where that is, it's located on Kyushu, the most South-West main island in Japan.

As far as how long I plan on staying...right now it's up in the air. I could stay for 1 and come home to my family who's dropping me off at the airport. However, after giving it some thought, it's a job. When I come back to the States, chances are there won't be a job for me. So I might as well ride this job for as long as I can. After all, I have loans and hospital bills to pay.

I'm excited. My predecessor is hyping it up for me. Friends are hyping it up for me.

I'm stoked. I'm nervous. I'm scared. I'm anxious. I'm sad. I'm happy. I'm exhausted. I'm awake. I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to jump. I want to sleep.
Now matter what I feel, I'll keep smiling.
Behind this smile is a storm of anxiety that is calmed by motivation that I will give these Japanese folks their money's worth.

And the other way to calm myself I hope to do my first day in Japan. And that's KARAOKE!

Wish me luck everyone.
I'll see everyone in a year...or 3.

"I got a call...a telephone call today.
Somebody's offering a job, a thousand miles away..."

Thursday night, (my youngest sister) Rochelle, Emil, and myself left to go to Long Beach to meet up with (my younger sister) Remilla. My sister wanted to hang out in SoCal before I leave to go to Japan.
So far it's been fun.
We arrived at Rem's apartment on Friday morning at around 5am-ish, so the three of us spent the morning resting. We met up with Rem for lunch and then spent a couple hours afterwards vegging out at Manhattan Beach. Afterwards, we cleaned up and hit up the O.C. Fair. It was alright and it was basically like the State Fair. After a few hours at the fair, we ventured to Sunset Beach to check out the Grunion Run. Basically what happens during this time, during the high tide (and at night), the grunions begin their mating rituals, but they do it on the sandy beaches. So what we see are the grunions on the beach whenever a wave washes on the shore. There were a bunch of people there too. Some were catching them for food. Some were kicking them around (or stepping on them like assholes). Some (like us) were catching them to torture others with (but we tossed them in the water after having our fun). It was fun and something new for me.

Today we hit up Disneyland. Fun times with the family.

Tomorrow (or rather, today), we're gonna meet up with our cousin Jeng and her husband James for their child's christening. Should be fun. I haven't seen Ate Jamie and Kuya Jerry in years!

Today I had the chance to hang out with my best friend Jen, who I haven't seen in at least a year. We hung out at her spot for a bit and had dinner at Wing Stop and just talked until late. We haven't talked in a long time largely because of a mix of things like changed phone numbers, miscommunication, different locations, and busy schedules.
She was actually supposed to attend my grad party in Vallejo, but because of her new phone number and her lack of checking facebook updates (and my fault for not realizing that), I couldn't get a proper hold of her and she didn't go. Because of that, I'll admit I was angry at her for a while (while meaning a couple of months).

But we cleared things up. She caught me on Yahoo mail while I was checking out why my website closed haha. We chatted for a while and decided to hang out earlier tonight. Good times! I missed that girl.
It's funny. Aparently she listens to Korean music now, which 6 years ago she made fun of me for listening to!

Hey guys. I need recommendations, since I don't read a lot.

If I like Neil Gaiman, what other authors would I might like?

Books + Authors plz. =)

Thanks.

oh man....

Kabuto (Mizushima Hiro) and Den-O (Satou Takeru), two of my favorite Kamen Riders...in the same movie?
But wait...it's not a tokusatsu film haha.

It's the live action of BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad, one of my favorite anime.

Too bad the movie's coming out next year.
Their roles are perfect too...Kabuto as Ryuusuke and Den-O as Koyuki.

If MJ returned as a zombie...Thriller style!

just a thought.

Story 1.
( Cut because it might be too gross for some (very graphic story) )

Story 2.
( My last day at work, at least on site )

Story 3.
Just like everyone else has posted.
Michael Jackson. RIP.
You were my hero growing up and I even had a punk leather jacket as a kid so I can mimic you in Bad.

So I played through FFIV The After Years. However...I realize now that it's only the 1st 3 episodes! Seeing that, and how separate "stories" are available for purchase through the Wii Shop makes me sad at how much money I'm gonna spend to get the whole entire story.

F-U to Nintendo and Square!
(But it was a cool story haha)

Friday was full of Edokko ramen, madness at Aileen's, and FFIV The After Years on Wii.

-----

Saturday started off pretty late. I wanted to go to Pista Sa Nayon at the Vallejo Waterfront before heading to my cousin Joel's birthday / high school grad party, but because every Filipino in Vallejo decided to come down it was impossible to find parking. Had to miss out in Rex Navarette too.
Ah well, Joel's party at Blue Rock Springs was cool. A lot of food and family. I can't believe Joel is graduating high school now. It seemed only yesterday that I was wrestling him and giving him wedgies.

-----

Sunday I hung out with the siblings and watched movies the whole day. Around 3pm I drove to Vacaville to have lunch with a hot nursing student (hehe) at BJ's. Good stuff.
Afterwards, headed back to Vallejo to hang out with the family for a bit; drink tea with mom, watch more movies with the siblings and whatnot. Then, drove back to Sac for our usual Sunday movie night. We've been having these for the past few months at Aileen's, but tonight we held it at Earvin's and my house. Tonight's movie was "Le Grand Chef", a Korean movie based on a popular manhwa. Pretty entertaining.

-----

Now it's time to sleep and get ready for the kids.

So my former housemate Damian posts an interesting link on Facebook.

http://www.kcra.com/news/19655104/detail.html

The significance of this article is that the culprit used to be a roommate and good friend of mine. He was part of my first group of friends at Sac State, along with Antonio, BJ, Jonas, and Earvin. Things went sour between him and us when he decided do screw us over in both the workplace (he was my store's manager for a bit) and at home. I could go forever about the shit he pulled, but I'll only mention one here.

( Cut for those interested )
And so years after not hearing about him, this news article pops up. needless to say, earvin and I were in tears laughing with tons of jokes. after all the stuff he pulled, he won't get any sympathy from us.
other than the shared story, there were more times where he kept digging himself a deeper grave. now he messed up his life forever. reading all the comments in the article made me smile.

strange huh? there are only two people in this world whom you'll hear me speak very hateful words about. this guy is one of them.

-----

back to life.
i just finished typing my letter of resignation to my job. it saddens me because all the kids really grew on me throughout my time there. also, personally, i felt i grew in my path to becoming a teacher. i'll miss this job a lot because of the kids and my hawt co-workers. ^_~

it's fine though. Japan awaits! Here we go, JET Program!

So I found out where in Japan I will be placed for the JET Program.

*drumroll*

Emukae-cho in Nagasaki-ken!
Needless to say, I'm excited! And I'm damn happy I didn't get Tokyo. I was done with Tokyo after a week during vacation. Now I'm on the opposite side of the country! RAD!
I'm pretty sure Nagasaki will grant me the one main thing I want to get out of JET:

ADVENTURE!

I needed the long weekend.

Friday was cool. Spent the morning doing a short work shift until 12pm, then met with Chris, where we proceeded to join up with others at Pyramid for Sasha and Sachiko's graduation dinner. Fun times with good people. I was happy talking with folks who I usually never see, like Brad and Garrett.

-----

Saturday was just as fun. Convinced Earvin to go (and to bring his XB360 and SFIV) to the Nan'demo Party @ Jeff's. Pretty much spent the majority of the time stuffed with food, alcohol free, basketballin', and SFIVing. Friends are funny when drunk, especially Jamie and Sachiko.

Convo went something like:
"Sachiko! You're calling me!"
"I don't have my phone!"
"But look...see! You're calling me!"

Little did they know...mwahahaha!

-----

Sunday I decided to go to Fanime and meet up with Dang, Aileen, and Nhu. Sorry for not letting that many people know. I had planned on heading to the parentals' house in Vallejo right after. Since I only went on Sunday, I missed out on the DSP performance on Saturday (sorry guys!). But I did get to see the folks I see only 1 or 2 times a year! I even made out with some cool loot from the dealers' room.
There was even an ultra cool dance circle going on in the lobby, where some cool bboys and poppers were battling it out!
My big highlight was meeting Patricia Ja Lee, otherwise known as Cassie Chan in Power Rangers Turbo / Power Rangers in Space (Pink in both series). I found out she was going to be there, with the rest of the RE5 main voice cast, the morning of, so I made sure to pack RedBuster, my Super Sentai arcade stick. She asked me "What should I write?"
I said "Anything Power Rangersy!"
And this is what she wrote:


I was a happy fan! And needless to say, in the autograph line, I skipped everybody else and went straight to her!


-----

Monday was spent in Vallejo, sleeping most of the day. Watched Grudge 3 with the little sis, and needless to say the movie was crap.

This night's party members was AJ, Earvin, Frank, Cameron, Aileen, Dang, and myself.

We spent the day prior to the 10pm concert hanging out in Japan Town, from eating crepes to hanging out under the pagoda. The day started at around 4pm, so we had 6 hours to kill.

We got to Yoshi's about 30 mins prior and the line was pretty long. Cameron didn't preorder like the rest of us, but luckily in the end he was able to find a seat at the same table on the upper floor as me, AJ, Earvin, and Frank (Aileen and Dang sat on bottom floor). At first I was pretty bummed that our spots ended up being balcony seats; this year they didn't give the option to choose seats. However, being on the balcony floor gave us a great preview of something that I didn't expect.

To be honest, I thought this performance was going to be more or less the same as last year when Gemma and I went. However, when walking in, we saw a full trap set, loaded with varieties of drums, cymbals, congas, wood and temple blocks, wind chimes, etc...a perfect percussion set up.

The brothers came out to a huge applause, bowed, and started playing. However, they were accompanied by loud rock music which blasted through the monitors. They opened with a cover of Radiohead's 'The National Anthem.' Instantly I was dumbfounded, thinking "holy crap...this is gonna be different than last year!"
After the second song, a third Japanese guy came out and sat in the trap set. Hell yes, the Yoshida Brothers had percussion accompaniment. He was playing jazzy beats utilizing every drum he had, using more than standard drum sticks such such as timpani mallets, multi rods, and brushes.
EDIT: found a pic kinda showing the set up.


The percussion did more than accompany the Brothers. In their alternate version of 'Arashi', the drummer and the younger brother had a jazz-style impromptu trade-off, where one performer would improv for a few measures, then the other performer replied with his own improv, with the allowed time getting shorter and shorter after each exchange happened.

The drummer totally enhanced the performance and definitely made the concert better than last year's. There was also one other performance (forgot which piece) were more bgm played through the monitors. I'd say 70% of the concert was material from their new album =)
My one complaint were dozens of rude people talking during the beginning of the performance, both during and between sets. Rude @$$holes. They shut up after about the 3rd or 4th piece though.

Afterwards we hit up a karaoke bar in J-Town, which was lame because it was basically a smaller Rurulala (with the same karaoke systems and everything). Oh well, still had fun. We crashed at Jason's hotel for the night.

-----

The next day was spent around and at the Metreon, where Earvin, Dang, Aileen, and I watched Star Trek at the Imax. Star Trek was EPIC! Definitely recommended even if you're not a Star Trek fan.
Afterwards, we headed over to BJ's in Sunnyvale to pic up my long awaited ETAC stick!
(http://www.electric-trouble.com)




Good times. Great birthday week/weekend.
Speaking of which, birthday was fun. Spent the day watching Jenny get close to the end of MGS4 with Alpha Chris and Beta Chris, then meeting at Beto's later on with both Chris's, Earvin, and AJ.
Now it's back to real life. Thank you everyone.

There was an excessive amount of Asians yesterday haha.
Can't blame them though. We were all there to see Epik High! Our party members were AJ, Earvin, Aileen, Dang, Sean, Jenny, and myself.

The show started off with Dumbfounded introducing himself as emcee and he brought out the opening acts: Far East Movement (who was awesome for their energy and storyline-embedded performance) and Kero One (who, because not enough people in the audience seemed to be fans of hip hop, didn't get as much love as he should've). Beatbox DG and DJ Tukutz came out on stage next. This part of the performance was sick because Tukutz would play beats of popular American music and DG would copy it and spit it back out.
Tablo, Mithra Jin, and their backup MYK came out and the fans went craaaaaaaazy!

They definitely know how to put on a show. Between songs they would talk about not only inspirations for their music, but also their outlooks on the music industry and making music in general. The name of their latest cd and tour is 'Map the Soul.' The reason, as explained by Tablo, behind the name went something along the lines of (not exactly quoted verbatum):

'When you're trying to find something or some place, you'd need a map to guide you, especially when you're having problems. When your body as problems, you take it to the gym and work it out. When your mind has problems, you go see a shrink. But when your soul has problems, what can you do? You heal it with music.'

The first half of Epik High's performance was more of their hip hop tracks, like 'Map the Soul' and 'Flow'. The second half featured their more pop songs. We all went crazy when 'One', '1 Minute 1 Second', 'Girl', and 'Love Love Love' were performaned. During sometime in the second half, Tablo got balzy and jumped off the stage and started performing the aisles, where tons of crazy fans started to rush him! Security was barely able to hold them back haha! Tablo went back on stage and EVERYBODY started rushing the stage. There was an ocean of fans surrounding the island that was the stage. Epik High welcomed it though, which was awesome, because I'm pretty sure they didn't expect this many fans to show up and they appreciated every one of them. The ocean of fans remained during the rest of the performance.

Awesome show. Now time to watch the Yoshida Brothers tonight!

For those that don't know about Epik High, now you shall know (with subtitles!):

I knew I had to catch Jake when I had the chance. He doesn't usually have many shows in our neck of CA, and lucky for me, I had 3 shows to choose from: Chico, Redding, and Santa Cruz. I opted to go to Santa Cruz because of the day and time.

So I spent the night at the parentals' in Vallejo with the intent of knocking out an hour of drive time (it would've been a 3-something hour drive). However, even though I departed the house at 3pm, i was stuck in about 3 hours of traffic getting to Santa Cruz _-_. Thankfully the show started at 730pm.

I got to the Rio Theater and saw the huge line. But after I went to the box office and got my Gold Circle ticket, I was directed to line of no more than 5 people! Gold Circle means first 6 rows of the theater. I sat right in the center of the third row. Perfect distance!
The ticket guy told me cameras weren't allowed, so I didn't really get to take any pics of Jake performing. I was confused, though, when I saw a whole bunch of other folks taking no-flash pics and recording vids of their own! However, I decided not to take any pictures, as I felt doing so would ruin the atmosphere of the music for me. So I just sat back and let the music sink in.

Jake is just one cool guy! For anyone who doesn't know, he's a ukulele virtuoso, and he's really amazing! He told the story of how he was inspired to write each song in between each piece. Just judging from his voice and tone of storytelling, I could already tell he was just a down to earth guy. And when he was playing, he moved his body along with his music, setting an atmosphere so strong that one couldn't help but be entranced and breathless. I really love it when musicians like Jake show enough strength to play so soft that it makes you lean forward to listen to the whispering melody. It was also amazing that before he started playing each piece, he would take a deep breath and close his eyes as if entering a trance.

And he even played new songs off of his new live album. He even did a ukulele cover of Michael Jackson's Thriller! Another cool thing he did was when some idiot's cell phone was ringing and it took forever for the guy to realize it was his and to turn it off. Jake just smiled and played the ringtone on his ukulele! The crowd laughed and cheered!

To show even more how cool of a guy he is, after his final piece, Jake said that he would hang out in the lobby and talk with his fans, and that he wouldn't leave until everyone has left the building! How cool is that?
So I bought a poster, his new live cd, and a shirt, and stood in line to get them autographed. Since I was closer to the end of the line, we had more time to chat. Even talking to him, he was an awesome guy! I told him I came all the way from Sac and he showed concern about whether I was gonna drive all the way back tonight. Shook his hand, took a picture with him (which is my new display pic on facebook), said goodbyes, and back to Vallejo I drove.

Wanna see how awesome he is on the ukulele? Check this vid out.

Saw this on Gilbert's faves.



She speaks good english =)

I drove over to the AIRC (I'm still here btw) a little after work just to catch up on some reading (After Dark by Haruki Murakami) for my Modern Japanese Lit class.
I originally planned on reading about half the book first and the rest tomorrow...but damn, for some reason I just couldn't put it down, so I ended up finishing it (throw in a 2 hr nap somewhere in there too). This book was as engrossing as it was just plain weird.
But now I plan on acquiring Murakami's other books with the intent on having some good reading material for passing the time when in Japan. ^^

And my new Mirrors Edge Runner's Bag is dope.

If only I checked Myspace more...I would've seen that Jake Shimabukuro will be in SF on Nov 9th...but since I don't check Myspace, I missed my chance to buy tickets, as it is sold out...T_T

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

I'd just like to inform people, in case they haven't heard yet.

http://boaamerica.com/