water for sunsets

We finally got a car AND the insurance to drive it, so we have been trying to leave the base every day, if only for a little bit, so we can get to know our way around Misawa. It's been getting dark at 4:30 in the afternoon, so we don't have a lot of daylight once school is over, but we've have fun exploring!

Today, we had three missions. First, find the hundred yen store (which turned out to be awesome!), the McDonald's (which is WAY better than any McDonald's in the states), and the beach.

I was so proud of myself that I successfully navigated us to the store, to the McDonald's, AND to the beach...until we actually got to the beach. After the tsunami, the Japanese began building breaker walls because of the crazy undertows and the damage to the beaches. We could smell the salt air and the fish at the port, but there was no ocean in sight.

We decided to try and drive up the coast to see if we could find beach access. Twenty-eight km later, we still had no luck. We found a few areas that used to be access points, but are now closed to the public. We decided to be intrepid and continue on, and we finally found a wharf. From there, we could see the ocean! My wish to touch the Pacific Ocean from its Asian boundaries will have to wait, but at least I've seen it now!

On the way back to Misawa, we were lucky enough to be able to watch the sun set. We found a few spots that were so breathtaking, we had to pull over and shoot some photos!!

While we didn't get to walk along the beach, our day of exploration ended up being a great time!

Stupid Nevada Drivers

Among the things I love about living in Northern California is the traffic. Not that I enjoy traffic jams, but it’s amazing, after living in driving hell for so long, how a traffic jam really works. In Sacramento, the freeways get jammed because there is a lot of traffic. There are tens of thousands of people trying to get to or from work, all in a relatively small window of time.

In Reno, though, traffic would jam because two cars were trying to get on the freeway. See, Nevada drivers do not know the term, “merge.” They have heard this word, and believe it means, “Turn your signal on and wait five minutes to get into the next lane,” or, “When you see someone put their turn signal on, speed up just enough so they can’t get in front of you…or behind you.”

It doesn’t help that the intersection between the two freeways, affectionately referred to as the “Spaghetti Bowl,” was fashioned to allow 10 cars to be on it at a time, regardless of the direction you are heading. Cram any more than that, and it’s an automatic jam. Add to that the constant construction (as long as we lived there, I have never been on the freeway and not had a lane closed or a slower speed limit due to construction. I was going on 9 years prior to moving here) and you have traffic.

Then you have the California drivers. See, California drivers know how to drive. (While this may not be applicable to places such as LA or San Francisco, most California drivers drive well.) They may speed and they may refrain from using their signals. Heck, they may even cut in front of you. But here, it is expected. It is done to you, because it is a well-known fact that you’re going to do it right back to them at some point in your life. This, though seemingly chaotic, is a good thing. It keeps traffic flowing nicely. You drive, expecting that the driver next to you will cram into that small spot in front of you. But they do it nicely. You let them in, because they will let you in when you “cut” in front of them two miles down the road. See? It’s not cutting. It is etiquette.

In Nevada, drivers try to mimic this. They, however, do not really know how it’s done, having been surrounded with other NV drivers for so long. They add this to the supposed “merging” and cause accidents, which slows down traffic even more (if that’s even possible.)

The list goes on and on with bad driving techniques I’ve witnessed while living in Reno, but, thus far, I’ve only seen two problems with California drivers. The first is the rubbernecking. A California driver is literally unable to pass by an accident (or even a police car having pulled someone over) without examining it on their own. They have to be sure everything is being handled correctly, which, of course, slows traffic down. Luckily, the number of freeway accidents is small comparatively, unless it’s a weekend when all the Reno-ites come to town.

The other problem is the Acuras. I first started noticing this phenomenon years ago, when I would travel to Southern California on road trips. Since then, I’ve been counting. Statistically speaking 2.5/3 California Acura drivers mean bad news. They drive like they are alone on the freeway. I’m not sure why this is, but I would be interested to find out what insurance rates are on California Acuras compared to any other vehicle. I’d bet the results would be surprising.

Of all the stupid moves I’ve seen from drivers around the Sac area, 98% of them have either been Acuras or Nevada drivers. Need I say more?

wow

So this month has been craz-azy! I got a job. We got a new computer. Today, we are buying a car. Can life get any crazier?!

I have to say, though, that it's been crazy in a good way. I've made it through my first two weeks teaching and it's been simply amazing. To finally have my own classroom, full of what my prior employer referred to as "empty minds to fill," is just the most amazing thing I could have imagined.

Though I've got some tough kids in my class, I've really come to be attached to them...already. I see kids who have had really bad experiences in school, because they aren't quite up to par with where they should be. But what I really see is kids who need another chance. Another chance to shine, to get the answer right, to feel smart and safe and special. I see a classroom full of minds that, while not being empty, are ready to be filled with much more than they could imagine.

It's an interesting phenomenon to be teaching 5th grade. They are at the top of their school. Next year, they go on to that strange new world that is Jr. High, where things will be so different. They will go to different teachers for each subject. They will be called to a higher sense of responsibility. They won't get the second and third and fourth chances they are given in my class. They will go through social changes, family changes, and hormonal changes. Looking at each of them now, they are so unprepared for that world.

Hopefully in 9 months, though, they will face it with confidence, intelligence, and responsibility. Afterall, that's my job.

just great

This night was a complete and total disaster. Which was unfortunate, because the day started out very nicely. So my friend Marcie and I went to this Bible study thing all the way in the far end of Sparks. For those of you not quite familiar with the Reno area, this is about a half hour from my house. Since it's fairly far away, we decided to take my car, rather than both driving separately. We left around 10-ish and decided to go to Jeannine's house. She's one of the youth workers in our church and has been kind of a surrogate "mom" for Marcie lately. She lives about 5 minutes from the church we had gone to earlier, so it wasn't really out of the way to stop by again. While we were there, we went out for a while (in Jeannine's car). While we were gone, her kids (they're in jr. high and high school) decided it'd be funny to toilet paper my car. Now under normal circumstances, I would have found this amusing. The circumstances under which this happened, though, were not very amusing at all. They decided that toilet paper was not quite enough, so they poured water on it to make it stick. Again, if this were it, the whole thing would have been funny. But, it was below freezing outside so the paper froze to the car. It took about an hour to strip the car of enough toilet paper to drive home. To make matters worse, the car wouldn't start. Now, I know people whose cars sometimes decide not to start when it gets extremely cold outside, and mine has never been one of them, but we decided to jump it just in case. Of course, nothing happened. So we are sure that all the freezing water probably did something to it and it just wouldn't start because of that. I tried calling home to let my parents know..since I told them I'd be home by midnight. (My parents tend to freak out when I'm not home at the time I arranged to be home. Yes, I'm 20. Oh well.) They were already asleep. So Jeannine had the lovely task of taking us home at 1 in the morning, and I'm positive I'm going to be under scrutiny tomorrow for getting home late..and for the car being messed up. I'm still hoping that the car will start in the morning, because work calls whether it starts or not.

much ado about cars

Isn't is amazing how much we rely on our cars? I mean, we grow so attached to them that they almost seem to be a part of the family. We name them (this is Alice, by the way.) We clean them more than we clean the house or wash the dog. We get mad when someone else makes a mess in it. We are afraid to let anyone else drive it, for fear they might not handle it correctly. A car is like our safe haven. We can sing at the top of our lungs without anyone hearing. We can drive anywhere, just to be alone. We can get out of town, or have a night out on the town. We have our settings EXACTLY how WE like them. And because of this, we have a codependence with our vehicles.


It would be so nice to live in a big enough city that has reliable (and quick) public transportation. I mean, it's great to have your car, but what happens when it breaks down? You shell out 40 bucks (or more) a day to rent a car, or you just don't go to work, which loses you even more money. This doesn't even count the aggravation of having to call in or ask someone to PLEASE take you to the rental place so you can pick up your car. (And the fact that you can't rent a car unless you're 25 doesn't make matters any better for us youngin's.) This also doesn't take into consideration the hundreds to thousands of dollars it will take to repair said problems.