366 project: The End

As you read the title to this blog, you might be thinking, “366 Project: The End, what? Doesn’t a year have 52 weeks? And wasn’t the last week you posted number 9?”

The above is, of course, all true. The problem is I keep being hit with the idea, “You can be good at everything, just not all at once.” No idea if it’s quote I should be giving credit to someone for, but I’ve seen it several places around the internet lately.

God seems to be drilling in the idea that my time is finite and I only have so much, so how am I going to spend it?

I want to have time for people and less on my “To Do” list. I want to be free to share life with people and not always have other things I have to get finished before I can invite people in – this is one of the big reasons I felt like I needed to stay another year.

Anyways, the 366 project was increasingly becoming a point of stress because I was always behind – I may try starting again at a point in the year when I’m not going to end up starting out behind.

As much as that may, someday, happen. I’ve realized that I want to free up the time I was spending editing compulsory photos that I didn’t like very much, to learn how to use my new photo editing software, Lightroom. It seems like it should fit well with the 366 project, and maybe it would if I was having an easier time staying up on the project, but I wasn’t and they weren’t playing well together.

Anyways, with that no longer on my to-do list, look for more photo blogs with my random adventures.

366 Project, Week 9

(57/366) Riko’s new glove.

(58/366) A fire hydrant that I often walk past and debate whether or not to take a picture.

(59/366) The drive from one of my small schools to another. The clouds were doing a cool thing and I tried to capture it. I didn’t have much luck.

(60/366) We decorated the third year classroom the night before graduation. One teacher decided we should use birds on the window – they gave a cool affect. I captured a small part of it, so I could get them against the sunset.

(61/366) Graduation day party! The teachers always have an enkai (dinner party) after graduation. I ate shabu-shabu for the first time! This was the shabu-shabu sauce.

(62/366) Driving to another one of my tiny schools. If you look below the bank and to the left, you can see the tents for ice fishing.

(63/366) Soba shop! We had a day in Furano for winter sports and we decided to have lunch at this soba shop. I think it’s the most delicious soba that I’ve eaten since being in Japan.

366 project, week 8

(50/366) Walking home from school, since I’m currently car-less. I liked the combination of sunset and train tracks.


(51/366) I hadn’t taken any pictures that day, so I decided to take my camera to choir. During our break, I shot the keys of the piano.


(52/366) Sitting on my couch after a busy day of cooking, I hadn’t taken any pictures. I looked at the stack of books on my shelf and liked the variety of textures their pages and the iphone-connector had.


(53/366) After coming home, I noticed how nice the melted snow flakes looked on my hat.


(54/366) One teacher must have been reading my mind because as I sat at my desk wishing for a snack, she brought snacks around.


(55/366) Baking day! A near-by friend organized a baking day at her community center. It was loads of fun and they had real ovens, so we could cook about 18 cookies at a time! As opposed to the usual 6 at a time in my moven (microwave-convection oven).


(56/366) Some friends invited me for dinner and I liked the top of her teapot.

366 project, week 7

 
(43/366) Hand and foot.


(44/366) The colors really drew my eye to this, so I decided to see if I could capture it. Also, I love the falling snow signs, because I can read them!


(45/366) Not the most exciting, but one of my elementary teachers challenged all 4 of us – 2 teachers, 1 fifth grader and 1 sixth grader – to create English Doraemon comics.


(46/366) How much help is your shovel if it’s buried in the snow?

From 366 Project - 2012

(47/366) The ski hill in town.


(48/366) I couldn’t stop the reflections in the glass from impeding my photo of the lights in Sapporo, so I gave up and decided to try to capture the teachers I was with in the shot too.


(49/366) Buckle up for safety!

366 Project, Week 6

(36/366) The super tiny produce section in my local grocery store. Thankfully it was full this time when I went in. (Side note, I’m now 1/10 of the way finished with this project – wow!)



(37/366) It was bento day at the junior high school. So I packed up my lunch and put it in my cute bento box.



(38/366) Was trying to see if I could stop the snow. Not really the greatest of pictures.



(39/366) I was staring at my banana saying “I know I should eat it, but I really want something sweet.” This is the result.



(40/366) What my desk looked like that day – lots of Japanese study and tea, not a lot going on at the elementary school. This is actually what a lot of my days look like.



(41/366) My favorite buttons in the staffroom! Push the smaller of the two pink ones and then the bigger one and hot water comes out! In the winter time, they are so wonderful because a hot cup of tea is my favorite way to spend slow afternoons.



(42/366) I spent the weekend with some friends. One was trying to make Valentines Chocolate for her husband and co-workers. We were her test subjects (pretty good role to play in the making of chocolates).

366 Project, Week 5

(29/366) A sign I drive by regularly for an old rest stop that has since closed down. It has several old vending machines inside and a window that used to be for ordering Bentos (what the sign says).



(30/366) I was driving home and realized I still hadn’t taken a photo for the day. I spotted this scene and knew I wanted to capture it.


(31/366) Driving back from an elementary school, I spotted this scene. I wanted to capture it but the power poles kept getting in the way. I decided to try and embrace them and see what happened.


(32/365) I made sweet and sour chicken for dinner and wasn’t super happy with the results, so I decided to see what affect flash would have on the photo. Using my wireless flash, I was able to make my dinner stand out more and the background darker.


(33/366) After my success with the sweet and sour, I decided to see if I could isolate the strawberries. I liked the results.



(34/366) If it’s the breakfast of champions, can it also be the dinner of champions?



(35/366) This was the fun part of the day – I went snowboarding with two of my students. One is about the same height as me and the other is super, super short (and cute!).

366 Project, Week 4

What a start to a year! In the first 6 weeks, I had a whirl-wind visit home, got really sick, didn’t re-contract and crashed my car. I’ve managed to keep up with most of the 366 project photos, but I haven’t been so good about posting them.

During week four, I finished with the weird illness I had again.



(22/366) I continued to be sick and spent tons of time reading on my new Kindle. Since I was around my house, I decided to see what happened if it ran out of batteries, entirely. The photo above is the result, and the only photo I took that day.

(23/366) Continued illness and an unhelpful doctor’s visit – it was decided even after I got really sick that I had a cold.



(24/366) What does one see all day when they’re sick on the couch? Oneself, of course! Here are my jeans.



(25/366) My new winter jacket. One of the reasons I liked it was the textured pattern it had.



(26/366) Back to school – finally! This was on my beautiful drive home from the school that is the farthest from where I live and I love the drive.



(27/366) I signed my contracts today with a pen similar to this, it was a hard decision. I will be leaving the JET program in August and most likely Japan, too. I’ll be sad to leave my town, friends I’ve made here and to not be able to study Japanese so easily, but I’m super excited to be back in a place where good friends don’t live so far away.



(28/366) I met a friend in the town near mine today. The sky was so bright and the LCD screen on the back was so hard to see, I decided to shoot in raw. This is the first photo I’ve taken from start to end in editing in raw. The clouds that day were so amazing.

366 Project, week 3

During week 3/4 I got sick. So there are a few holes as I just didn’t think about getting a photo.



(15/366) The mountains on my drive home from church. I loved the combination of sky and mountains.



(16/366) My kindle cover. I had forgotten to take a picture and it got toward the end of the day. I really liked the texture of the edges.



(17/366) My students were playing karuta. Karuta is a Japanese traditional game where one person calls out a word that corresponds to various cards. These were in super stylized calligraphy, so I couldn’t read them well enough to play. For example, I looked at this one, skipped the crazy calligraphy on the left, and read it “さも” (sa-mo). One of my students had to point out the squiggle on the right which reads “し” (shi), so it actually says “しさも” (shisamo).

(18/366) I got super sick on Wednesday this week, including puking and a fever. I was barely able to keep myself going through the day, let alone remembering to be creative and take photos.

(19/366) Though I finished getting sick the night before, I continued to have a fever and very little energy on Thursday. I spent most of the day on the couch.



(20/366) On Friday, I ended up feeling good enough to move around a little. My supervisor brought me fruit and as I looked at it sitting on my table, I liked how the light caught the plastic on the bag. It took me several shots to get the variety of light the way it is now. I finally ended up bumping the exposure down while focusing on the right part of the bag. I don't really love the way I framed it, but I was finally happy with how I caught the light.



(21/366) While browsing pinterest this day, I noticed someone had made a really cute zipper pack for their headphones. I thought, “that looks cool! I should do that.” Then I realized that I didn’t need to, I had already had the non-sewing version of this idea – use a coin purse. I especially liked this shot because of the star on the silver part of the lower headphone. I kept spotting it in the camera, but couldn’t tell, in camera, if I had caught it.

366 Project–Week 2

During the second week of the year, I had my last few days at home and then returned to Japan.



(8/366) My sister and my good friend J. We had my dad’s side of the family plus a few friends over so I could see everyone while I was home. It was a blast.



(9/366) We played Family Cranium that a friend gave us for Christmas. Family Cranium was loads of fun. Here E is drawing something with her eyes closed that my dad has to guess. She’s a really great artist, even with her eyes closed.



(10/366) The view as we left LAX and headed for SFO – I loved all the lines of water in this particular shot. On the way home I got the joy of flying down to LAX and then SFO before finally flying out for Haneda (Tokyo). It was a LONG day of flying.



(11/366) This day only really existed for me on the plane. Finding the outlets that are always supposedly on planes was pretty exciting. I saw the guy in the row across from me pulling out his cord and I asked what he was going to plug it in to. Turns out they put these in a super sensible spot – under the arm rest!



(12/366) Taking off from Haneda Airport (Tokyo). After an incredibly long layover in Haneda Airport, we finally left. Haneda does not like to share their electricity – there were a couple of desk spots, for using your computer, but no other plugs. If you’re like me and have a computer with very little battery life then you’re out of luck.



(13/366) On my first day back to work, the office lady and I went out to lunch. I don’t know what the stuff in the container was – some sort of veggies that were stringy like Natto, but actually tasted good.



(14/366) My luggage came! In Japan, people rarely travel with lots of luggage. Often, they send it via the post to wherever they are heading so they don’t have to deal with it on trains. When I arrived in Haneda, I sent my luggage ahead.