gomen gomen (sorry sorry)

has it really been this long since the last time i've blogged?! sorry everyone ... well at least to those who check into my blog regularly waiting for updates!

anyways, lots and lots has happened and i think the onset of summer has turned me into a very busy girl!

last week i became famous, i'm known all around the ken (Aomori prefecture) as Accha (or granny in Tsugaru-ben) and people come up to me left and right asking for autographs and impersonations of my Accha. well not really ... but this is what happened. 2 weeks ago, the local television crew came to my school and filmed me talking to students during lunch recess, in class, in my car driving after school, in the store shopping talking to students, then at my groups rehearsal. they must have got hours of footage, well at least it seemed like it! then the following saturday was the actual event that brought about this tv crew, the tsugaru-ben taikai. that was loads of fun! there were 4 groups. one did a rendition of a very famous japanese folk tale in tsugaru-ben, another guy did a speech about his father in tsugaru-ben, and another group did a short hilarious skit about the tv guy coming to the house asking for money. my group was last, and probably the shortest ... but it went really well. i was a granny in a restaurant and two foreigners came into my shop and because i only speak tsugaru-ben and they only speak a limited amount of regular japanese, misunderstandings happen and result in me expecting a massage from a customer who only wanted to drink tea. anyways, everyone was laughing and said they really liked it and my group received the "idebashicha" award meaning great job! in tsugaru-ben and it was said our tsugaru-ben was better than actual grannies who grew up here. HAHA! yeah right! but thanks! well the following monday was my big television debut and it turned into 5 minutes focused pretty much on me, a bit embarassing because there was 11 other people who also participated in the taikai, but i guess it didnt turn out too bad ... at least that's what everyone else said. a picture of my group was also in a local newspaper! here's a picture of me in the taikai , i don't have one of my group on my comp yet, but as soon as i do, i'll post one. i got the costume from one of my gakkai friends in kanagi, real authentic granny clothes too!











well after the taikai, i participated in one of the local festivals with quite a few other jets. it was the bug and fire festival that i think is supposed to kick off the start of summer. we all had to get dressed up in festivals clothes and carry around these floats, then watched them burn at the end of the parade, followed by a decent display of fireworks. it was a lot of fun! here's a pic from the festival













this last weekend was spent at a ryokan with a bunch of other jets from aomori and surrouding prefrectures for an everest of apples fundraising event. a bunch of teams competed for prizes by showing off their random knowledge of trivia and i contributed by knowing that J is the only letter not featured on the table of elements (and i was able to prove it too!). it was a lot of fun, got quite roudy as is expected from all jet functions, but we were able to have good food and good fun, just wish it hadn't rained so much! here's a pic from the event as well ... hitomi, nobuko, meredith and i at dinner.











other than that my days have been pretty busy. mondays at japanese class, tuesdays at volleyball (woo hoo, finally started again), wednesday at taiko practice, thursday usually resting although i should go play tennis, and friday and the weekends usually hanging out with friends (as much as i can before a lot of them leave at the end of this month) or at meetings or cleaning like i did today. its now july, but it's still a little chilly (as you can see with the sweater in above picture) ranging from low 70s during the day and low 60s at night. but im not complaining, soon enough it will become miserably hot and humid but it wont last long as im realizing summers in aomori are very very short! unlike summers in cali ... miss all of u guys! hope all is going well wherever u r :)

oh yeah ... i've finally uploaded some new pics on pics site so please enjoy!