Got Lost

Again! This weekend I went for a short run (about 4mi). I thought I knew the route I was taking, I had run it before...

But when I ran it before I had gotten a little lost and very luckily ended up where I need to be. Very lucky, since I expected my house to be on the right side of the road but it on the left up hill!

Back to this run... I thought I would get luckily lost again but nothing looked familiar. I was confused but didn't want to stop running to figure it out. Usually when I get lost I go though some magic vortex and end up where I need to be so I wasn't all that worried. Finally when I was reached the end of the 4mi I stopped to really look around. Turns out I had taken a wrong turn WAY back and had ended up running away from home almost the whole way. My little 40min run turned into a 2hr adventure.

That's life in Japan, you never know what to expect and getting lost is the norm.

500 miles

As of today I have officially run 500 miles with my Nike+ tracker. YAY ME!
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/v1/html/milestones/print_certif.html?id=618738622&region=us&language=en&locale=en_us&dateFormat=MM/DD/YY

This weekend

Sunday isn't even over yet and this weekend has been very eventful!

Friday night I planned on making enchiladas for my friends and then stay the night so I could wake up on base for the Sakura 5k race. I arrived around 5pm to begin cooking, everything was going just fine by 6 with dinner being on the table at 6:30. But at 6 there was an emergency, one of the twins suddenly got sick. It was very sudden, and very scary. My friends rushed her to the hospital, thank God I was there to stay with the other baby while they ran out quickly. I was very worried and the baby was confused, she just kept saying "Sister make mess". She didn't seem worried just a little unsure about what was going on. I tried to keep things fun for her, we watched cartoons, danced, read books, took a bath, sang (poor baby), and got to bed. My friends returned just before 9pm, it felt like forever for all of us. Turns out everything is okay, there was spike in fever and now she should be okay, this was hopefully a once in a lifetime thing. Thank you Lord.

Saturday I wasn't sure if we were still going to race but since the babies were both doing okay and we weren't actually going far to race (about one block away) the two of went. I reached my goal of finishing in less than 35 min, very slow but I have to start (or restart) somewhere. That night I watched one of the worst movies, New in Town, even Harry couldn't save that one. Afterwards we went for yakiniku, slightly unusual for a vegetarian since the whole premise is to grill meat. But I was able to grill veggies, have some soup and salad.

Sunday I went to Church to celebrate Palm Sunday and then went to the worst breakfast ever. Chili's should definitely not be making breakfast and for reason 5 total tables is very busy(?). The base is having an open base celebration to allow the local Japanese in for the day. I really wish I had my camera with me, how often do you see a group of elderly Japanese ladies in cowboy hats and boots? Sometimes things are just a little odd.

Spring break has now started. For the remainder of the break my only plan is to not go onto base. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Really wants an iPod touch now! I am so excited Skype can be downloaded!

Life since Pi Day

I am the worst host ever! I forgot all kinds of things, but luckily I have some great friends who are easily contacted. Davia called Jim and Martha to ask them to bring a cake cutter and server. We called James (not Brackett) to bring flower cutters. And then upstairs from the party was Karen who brought down an extension cord and scissors. It's like I wasn't planning on a party at all!! But it in the end it went very well and there were plenty of people to wish Jill and James best wishes on their wedding.

6 days, 5 school days, 4 student days until SPRING BREAK!!

I realized I never reported on my great Pi day party. It went very well, surprisingly well actually. There were many more people than I was expecting, honestly I only thought 10 people would show (my friends humoring me!). But instead there were probably about 30 people there with lots of round food. We then played Pi-ctionary and everyone had fun trying to guess all the pictures of words that begin with pi-. I say it all the time but I have some really great friends here and there are some truly wonderful people I am still learning to know.

Happy Pi Day!!

There are many sites dedicated to the celebration of Pi!! Instead of posting all the cool stuff, there is WAY too much I just gave a few links to sites you might want to check out.

PiDay.Org
Pi Raps
Celebrate Pi Day and Einstein’s Birthday

Have fun and let me know what you did to celebrate Pi Day!!!

Happy Pi Day Eve!

‘Twas the Night Before Pi Day
Written by Jenny & Amanda

‘Twas the night before pi day
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
The pies were all out

Topped with cherries,
Blueberries and peach
In hopes of pleasing
Our favorite math teach

I was lulled to sleep
By the scent of the cream
Vision of math men
Danced in my dream

When out on the lawn
There arose such a plop
I dashed outside
To see 3 pi men plop

The moon glowing brightly
The stars would reveal
3.14, were my eyes forsaking me?
Were they actually real?

3 was the leader
And 1 stood behind
Followed by four
This all boggled my mind

But that was not all
There appeared to be more
One, five, and nine
Were behind the door

Two, six, and 5
Were behind the tree
What do I do?
The pi men have surrounded me!

Intimidated by the numbers
They all formed to one
A strange looking symbol
This did not look fun!

The symbol approached me
Then muttered strange words
About solving equations
It all sounded absurd

“Pi r squared, solve for the circle”
I started to run
I did not wish to solve,
My brain hurt a ton

Its squiggly legs
Came bouncing behind,
Chanting along
“The answer you must find”

Hiding proved
To be in vein
He always found me
He even knew my name

I finally gave in
To his evil grasp
I solve the equation
As he had asked

Pleased by my actions
He gathered all of the numbers behind
They started to leave
It unclogged my mind

And before they’d depart
It had one last thing to say
“Happy Pi celebration to all
And to all a great day!”

Running On Base

After school Monica and I went for a run around base. The first 45 min were completely uneventful. Then suddenly we were in the middle of some kind of drill. The Japanese military who share our base were setting up posts, patrolling, and overall acting like we were being attacked. (We are not being attacked.) I ran into a group of soldiers first, for me they moved aside and apologized for being in my way. Monica came along and they made her stop, but then waved her through. Finally some actual Navy officers came running along they were stopped and frisked! The captain was very upset that they let me pass right though but HE was forced to take part in their little scenario. Continuing on for the lat 20 min of the run we were passed by many trucks filled with soldiers and temporary posts they set up along the road.

Guess that's life on a military base. Never dull.

Wicked

Saturday I went into Tokyo to watch the Broadway musical "Wicked." The show was identical to the one I got to see in London with one small difference. The entire thing was in Japanese, okay not the entire thing -- they said "Wicked" in English. There were a few other words that they left in English, apparently there is no adequate translation for a few phrases. It was a little strange to suddenly hear English in the middle, like wonderful, my dear, sentimental, etc. . . Overall it was a very good show.

This Week

This week was pretty normal, for Japan. I found out I can run to base in the same amount of time it takes the drive there and in less time than it takes to drive home from there. And I run REALLY SLOW. I found it interesting that it is not at all unusual to anyone here that 8 women took a bath together (actually a couple more, but we didn't know them). On Friday night some of us went to a near-by onsen to relax after our "short" week. I love onsens, sitting around in a bathtub with very hot steamy water is great, especially when that tub is outside under the stars. It was pretty cold outside so it felt even better to in that water and then step out and see our skin steaming. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, if you can call those two things events.