Milestones

In the past six months, I've taught a total of four child development and two lifespan development classes.  We talk quite a bit about milestones.  It's probably a good thing my poor kiddos don't know how many times they come to class with me!  But because they do, I've thought quite a bit about the last 16 years I've been a parent.

For the most part, my kids have made it through their milestones better than their mama did!  They ran to each new development with excitement and smiles while I was dragging my heels with sniffles and tears.   That wasn't quite the case last night!  My oldest two shared another milestone together: their first high school game as a participant.

Okay, so it's not a typical, textbook milestone, but what an exciting event to share!

August 31, 2012--Yokota High School, Japan.  I watched my son make some fantastic tackles, score another TD, and call plays as quarterback!  I watched my daughter cheer on the sidelines and perform at halftime as a Varsity cheerleader for the very first time!

This was a milestone for me too!  I still had my camera and still took hundreds(!) of pictures but instead of sniffles and tears, it was my turn for smiles and cheers! Great job, Kaleigh and NZ!!  I am proud of you both!


**pictures to come at a later date**

Dear Diary er I mean Dear Blog

The motivation behind the creation of this blog almost doesn’t seem appropriate any longer.  I’ve been stupid-free for months!  :)   Not that I’m complaining—I’m okay with not being subjected to all the stupid things that plagued me almost daily there for a good long while.  However, that left me wondering what exactly one does with a blog when there’s nothing funny, as the saying goes, to “write home about.”

I’ve been thinking about blogs lately, and what to do with mine, when it dawned on me that for all intents and purposes, a blog is really nothing more than a public diary.  Instead of starting off intimate descriptions of the things that happened that day with “Dear Diary” and expecting it to stay private, the stories that make up one’s life are displayed for all the world to see and—haha—read like a book!

As stupid things will no doubt find me once again, I will continue to share the fully stories but in the mean time, indulge me as I use this blog to keep a sort of diary of the every-day, often unspectacular events that keep us busy here in Japan.  So, on that note: 

Dear Blog,

I’ll start with the Friendship Festival.  I’d heard all about it from lots of different folks, yet I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  It looked an awful lot like a two-day Air Show to me!  It's a big fund raiser for the various squadrons because the flight line is open to the public.  And boy did they all come out to play!   It rained most of Saturday, but that didn't stop folks from standing in line for hours to see the planes or grab a bite to eat.  AMXS sold hamburgers and hotdogs, chips and drinks--pretty cool set-up, huh?  

I think lots of folks must've agreed with me because we ran out(!) of meat by lunchtime on Sunday!  I guess a few of the guys ran to the commissary and bought them out of burgers and dogs and kept selling 'till 3-ish, then we were down to just chips and drinks. 

So here's the thing about the Friendship Festival...Saturday Nick and I had various receptions to go to so we didn't really walk around the flight line and see the sights.  On Sunday, it was me and thousands of my closest friends hanging out all day.  The kids complained it was too hot to do anything outside and Nick had to work.  -__-    

No worries though, I wasn't about to let the bad attitudes of my kids and the misfortune of my husband ruin my day!  Here's just a glimpse of the festivities.  

 

I watched a ton of folks do a little skydiving, opted not to stand in some of the longer lines, and listed to some legitimately good music!  I put the flags here because the picture of the stage was taken during an amazing rendition of our National Anthem by a man with an electric guitar.  I get chills even thinking about it!

I keep forgetting to ask Nick what the final dollar amount was that we made from the burger burn.  I have a side bet going so I'd better remember to ask!

The next festival I attended was the Fire Festival.  But I'm already ahead of myself.  I moved around a lot as a child and when I was little I remember my mom would ask me if I found a friend at each new school when I'd come home that first day.  I have to chuckle because I'm about to write something similar.  

So, I found a friend.  *smile*  Her name is Monica and her hubby is a CC in the MXG as well.  I feel bad that I benefited from misfortune, but there's really no other way to describe what happened.  In true MX fashion, plans changed and our friend Tom had to work.  They already bought tickets to take the bus to the Fire Festival and what to do with an extra one?  Did I mention I found a friend?  (hee hee)  Monica invited me to go with her to Yoshido for the Fire Festival.  I have to be honest, I had a moment's pause because it was the last day of summer vacation for the kids, I hadn't seen a lot of Nick in the past couple of days (that whole work thing again)...the moment passed.  Thanks for the invite and off we go to the bus stop! 

The way I understood the story might not be 100% accurate, so don't go and Google it to find any errors!  I'm sure there probably there but hey!  The story was kind of interesting so I didn't look it up for myself. 

This particular festival is hundreds of years old.  Mt. Fuji is an active volcano (and don't think I didn't have a moment's pause over that very fact off and on that day!), and the festival is way to appease the fire gods and provide protection for the upcoming year.  They line the streets with fire and burn torches down to nothing.  Then they take the ash and spread in on the doorstep of homes and businesses so that if the volcano erupts it won't harm their buildings. So, true, not true?  You decide!  It was a beautiful town and I can tell you that when the entire street was literally on fire, it was H O T!  

So our bus guide gave us a few stats on Mt. Fuji.  I guess it hasn't erupted since the 1700s.  I don't know if that reassured me or made me wonder if it's 'due'.  As I snapped over 600(!) pictures that day I couldn't help but offer my own little word of prayer for the volcano to stay dormant.  I didn't want to be some future archeologist's Pompei-like discovery: "Look how she cradles the oddly shaped black box to her eye..."

At any rate, here are just a few of those 600 photos: 

                                                                       

                                                                       

I'd be remiss if I didn't tell at least one funny story. 

So my friend Monica has big boobs...

...I do not have big boobs.

This sweet looking old man came up and started chatting with us.  Interesting thing to chat with a person who doesn't speak your language.  Lots of hand gestures are involved.  

After a few minutes he outlines my friend's bust with his hands and with a big goofy grin on his face says "COCO ICHIBAN".  He turns to me, outlines my apparent lack of bust and says "NO ichiban."  

At this point we're both laughing and looking at each other like, what in the world does Ichiban really mean?  That was the name of Nick and I's favorite sushi restaurant in Rapid City, so what, we're dining twice a week at a place entitled breasts?

He apparently thought it was funny because he went on and on about COCO and NO.  

For you with acquiring minds, ichiban apparently means "the best".  Coco means "this right here".  Monica and I are apparently poster girls for the best and not the best!  

He saw my camera and wanted to take a picture with each of us.  Sounds innocent enough.  I take the picture of him and Monica and at the last second he kisses her cheek (can't find that snapshot!).  My turn.  He stands by me to take his picture and I kind of expected him to kiss my cheek--oh how I wish that's what he did! 

Here is Mr. Ichiban, right after he licked my face!!

Sayonara!! 

                            

Hour

Just one more hour...that's been the story of my life this past week.

I had this mistaken impression when I was younger that when we all grew up, we'd all act like adults!  I'm not sure if I'm naive or if I simply have a short memory span but I am consistently surprised by the fact that grown adults act like petty, spoiled, small-minded, junior high students.

I was surprised this week.

One of my colleagues consistently throws me under the proverbial bus.  Most of the time the efforts of this person are not worthy of my time or energy to address.  Unfortunately this behavior appears to be escalating.

Early last month I was marked down in a performance review because I did not have X in my syllabi.  X comes directly from my colleague who neglected to (a) tell me I needed to include this in my syllabi (which is a part of that position's job description!) and (b) send me X to put in the syllabi!  I politely listened to the feedback from our boss but if I'm truthful I was seething on the inside.  I questioned where I should have found this information and through the course of our discussion he corrected my feedback when he realized I never had access to this information.

It's entirely possible that my beloved husband needed to shower after I verbally vomited all over him when that particular phone conversation was over.

I waited a few days and then emailed this colleague--I've still never received a response.

A new semester starts on Monday.  I found out from a forwarded email that we have a new textbook for a certain class I teach.  (My colleague is in charge of choosing the text and creating course objectives for all of the psychology classes available.)

um, W H A T?!?

I had this particular class finished before we left South Dakota.  I had to wait for the class to 'make' and be added to my portal before I could upload the content.  So here we are with less than a week to the start of the fall semester and I find out through the grapevine that the book has changed?

I cannot reach for the phone because of the time difference, but I promptly set my alarm and marched myself to bed.  The alarm went off in the dead middle of the night and in less time than it took for my Keurig to brew me a cup of coffee I was on the phone.  Of course, our boss wasn't in his office; however his secretary found me a book at the library and personally took it to the post office to try to get it here to Japan as quickly as possible.

A few more cups of coffee and a couple of phone calls later my colleague's response was "Ooops, I thought you knew I chose a new textbook.  Guess you won't be ready for Monday."

-__-

Thankfully I have contacts with several publishing companies from my years of working as an independent contractor.  A couple more phone calls and emails later I have an electronic copy of the text in question, the instructor's manual, and the test bank.  It took me two solid days but I have the entire semester's worth of assignments and assessments completed.

It's small of me, I know, but I truly want to holler out "IN YOUR FACE, ___" while doing a happy booty dance.

And on that note I'll end this entry because I truly think I'm down to needing just one more hour before I'm completely ready for my next set of students!

So, it's been a while since I've written and thinking about all that's happened and what I could write is daunting, so I'll just go ahead and start and see where we end up.

Lots of changes over the last month!  We finally got all of our household goods packed and crated and headed for Japan.  That was seriously stressful!  We chose to clean the house ourselves because the going rate was too much for what the pre-inspection indicated needed to be done.  And of course, if you know us, nothing is ever that simple!

We actually already had a TLF room.  That's how this story starts. It was our last Thursday night and we'd promised the kids a final Summer Nights with their friends (and--twist our arms--that meant we HAD to wait for them at the Tinderbox and HAD to choke down one last beer--the things we suffer through for our kids!  OY! Parenthood is such a trial!).  As it turned out, NZ wanted his two best friends to spend the night.  The only thing stopping us was the TLF room--it was already crowded with the 5 of us, adding two more teenage boys to the mix didn't sound pleasant.  But, we had the house complete with all our stuff so why not!  We decided that I'd stay with the boys at home and Nick would stay with the girls at TLF.  So, home we went.  Nick dropped me and all the boys off.  I dorked around with them for a bit then took myself and my Kindle to my room for some peace and quiet--that actually didn't happen but I did read until I fell asleep!

So, the next day comes and I'm out with the packers in the garage.  It smelled overwhelmingly like sunscreen.  Odd. Found out why after everything was moved out.  The boys decided to graffiti the garage floor with sunscreen.  We had a giant Miami Heat imprint on the garage floor.  In hindsight I guess we should have taken a picture so I could add a visual aid here.  Apparently the boys tried to wash it off with soap and water--no luck.  So, instead of helping me clean as planned, this meant Nick was off to Lowes for concrete cleaner.  To keep a very long and very frustrating story short I'll just say that two days, multiple trips to Lowes, and $80 in product later we had a bright orange Miami Heat logo proudly displayed on the floor.  Are you kidding me?  We went from darker colored concrete (original after the sunscreen) to dark grey/almost black lettering, to red lettering, back to grey lettering and ended up with the blaze orange.  How on earth are we going to pass inspection?

This takes us to Sunday--we had the inspection Monday morning.  I was finalizing cleaning stuff in the house and boxed up all the last of the cleaning supplies.  We had about half a gallon of bleach left.  Nick looks at me and says, "Should I just dump the rest of the bleach on the Heat?"  Sure why not.  It simply cannot get any worse.  And wonder of all wonders the bleach takes it all out.  All of it, no trace left.  I believe this is where my kids would put SMH...

We left bright and early Tuesday morning for Dallas.  We managed to survive the 13 hour flight from DFW to Narita with all 5 Pedersens and all 10 bags present and accounted for!

The hardest part of the trip was the 2 hour bus ride to Yokota.  Nick was busy talking shop with his Ops O and Shirt so it was up to me to (a) not nod off and (b) not let the kids nod off.  That first night sleep was just about the best I've had since we got here!   First things first! Nick and I were off to take the driving class/test for our licenses here.  (Ask me who got the perfect test score) And after a month in, I can tell you that driving on the wrong side of the road isn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be!

Nick's Assumption of Command happened bright and early Friday morning. 

                                                                        And can I just say that I loved the 9am piece of chocolate cake!!!  I could get used to that! 

We got our house (YAY!) and bought a minivan (GULP) and somehow got our bodies used to living in this time zone just in time for another 8 hour plane ride back across the international date line!  

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Nick and I had (here's that word again...what a hard life we lead!) to go to Hawaii for a commander's course.  Dilemma: we have three kids and no friends to leave them with yet.  (...and do we really want to do that to our friends??  hmmmmm)  We either take them with us or I stay here.  I'm NOT okay with the second option so the plan was to take them with us.  SATO told Nick back in Rapid that they'd go ahead and get the kids tickets to match ours and we could just pay for them when we got here.  All well and good except that our tickets cost one amount and the kids tickets would come to a grand total of just under ten thousand dollars.  Are you kidding me?? See, nothing's ever easy.

Now we're back to option 2--which did I mention I wasn't too happy with?  I sat down to do a little digging and found cheap flights for the kids with one tiny little snag--they'd be on a foreign carrier with a layover in Korea...alone.

The dinner table conversation went a little something like this: 

So how bad do you want to go to Hawaii?

Really bad!

Are you willing to go alone on Korean Air and find your way through customs without us?

...

...

YES!!!!!!!!

Now this is a significant emotional event for Nick and I.  Sometimes our kids do not get along with each other--at all.  Nasty fights are not unheard of.  Are we seriously considering trusting them to go alone and not cause an international incident?  Big sigh. 

We parted in Tokyo...

                                   ...lived large in first class......

                                                                                        .....and met back up in Hawaii!

Hawaii itself wasn't a bad gig...especially since I got to hang out with my very dear friend Toni all week!!!  However, a vacation it was NOT.  See, my bosses don't believe in time off. Are you kidding me?  There are 24 whole hours in each and every day.  Because I have the privilege of working from home with no set schedule they fully expect me to find some time during those 24 hours to sit at a computer and get my work done.  My time in Hawaii, while filled with completely fun and memorable moments, was flat out exhausting! 

In order to remain gainfully employed I got up early to work before it was time to dress and be at the conference center at 7am for breakfast...sat through classes until 4:30-5 (which is a whole other blog entry!), ran back to the room to change clothes, grab the kids, and go do all the vacationy things, come back to the room to shower and sit at my computer long into the early morning hours.  I can't help but feel a song coming on...

...second verse, same as the first!

Each day was a repeat of the day before!  Work, class, play, work, nap...work, class, play, work, nap...

Don't feel too badly for me, after all the view from my virtual office was spectacular!   

Who can be too sad knowing this is right outside??

That brings us back to the future.  (okay, that's just NOT going to get old for a while!)  We made it back to Japan with no international incidents AND our first shipment of household goods was waiting for us!  If we're still a bit jet lagged it's only natural--we've put our bodies through the ringer these past few weeks.  I'm looking forward to finding our new normal in the heat and humidity that is now home.