Update

Woke up to really bad neck pain, nothing else still hurt from snowboarding, so I knew it wasn't related. On a happy note - it's the fastest I've bounced back so far! 

Got the email just before second period that, as I thought, my insurance didn't cover my car. Sadly, I've had it less than 6 months. I spent most of second period trying not to cry (the neck thing really didn't help). 

After my last class, my supervisor and I went to the hospital in the big town. They took x-rays and everything in  my neck is fine. He basically gave me a prescription version of what I had been doing - Salonopas patches of amazing and pain reliever. 

Then we headed out to my car to collect my stuff. The minute I saw it I had to hold back the tears again. More than anything it's frustrating. And the whole pile of "what if I had . . ." questions wanted to jump back in. 

Thankfully my supervisor was then willing to head back into town to give a friend a box for an upcoming ALT meet, so I don't have to try to get it on the train (or in a car with friends). 

Now I'm back and feeling loads better with just the patch on my neck . . . kinda wishing I had refused the pain meds and only taken these.

Yesterday

I’ll start this post off, by saying I’m ok. 私は元気です。

You probably realize something not so happy is coming after that.

The short version of the story is yesterday I hit some ice, lost control of my car and it’s pretty badly damaged. But, as I addressed before, I’m ok.

For the longer version of the story, read on.

Last week a friend had come out and so we did a bit of shopping, went to an onsen and rented movies. I had exactly a week to watch them and return them. Meaning, they were due on Saturday.

When Saturday rolled around, I was tired and let myself sleep in. I decided I’d go to the movie store after boarding with some students (which was awesome and I intend to blog about it later). Off I went, with a mug of chai in one hand and a purse in the other.

Though we’d had a pretty good blizzard while my students and I were boarding, the weather had cleared up. The roads in my area and the farm-y next bit were perfect.

When I got to the forest-y bit of the drive, the weather turned horrible again. It was snowing so badly that the visibility was really low and the cars ahead of me were kicking up tons of snow. I got through that just fine and after the forest-y bit of the drive it was pretty good weather again. Because of this I took the back road into town, instead of the slow road filled with lights.

I realized that when other cars drove past, I would suddenly lose visibility and suddenly. So I kept pretty close to the speed limit – 60k (around 35mph). Not fast by any means.

Along that road, my car slipped and suddenly wasn’t going straight any more (this was a long, straight road). Instead, I was headed across the other lane and for the snow covered fields on the other side. I tried to slow down, but my car wasn’t to be deterred. I saw the power pole coming, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Thoughts flashed through my mind of what the outcome might be of this one.

I hit on the left passenger side, right about the same place as that wheel and did a 180. My car stopped facing the road. I turned on my hazard lights, in hopes that someone would stop, as people have every time

I’ve gotten myself into a snow jam.

I decided it was time to get out and see how bad the damage was. I couldn’t open my door. I decided to crawl out the window, because sitting and not knowing was going to make me even more nervous about what happened.

Outside I discovered that my door was just jammed in the snow my car had jammed itself into. I walked around to the other side. I found that I had smashed in the panel above the wheel and the wheel was at about a 30-45 degree angle. I didn’t know whether my wheels were turned so I wasn’t sure whether to be worried or not yet.

After sitting there for a minute I finally managed to wave someone down from within the car – surprisingly a few cars passed. That car and one more stopped to help. The guys who got out called the police for me, gave a description of where I was and passed on my number. Then they headed off.

I waited. When L texted me back from my “please pray” text. I decided to call and talk to a familiar voice. L was good company in something like this. She has a super calming voice and wouldn’t let me regret what would happen, with all of my “if only I had done . . . instead” comments, she came back with you never know when these things might happen.

After a few minutes on the phone with her I saw emergency lights getting closer and closer. Suddenly, about a quarter mile from where I was, they stopped. Then another one came. I didn’t know why they weren’t coming, but I could only imagine something worse had happened on the road.

After about 25 minutes on the phone with L, I decided I needed to call the police and see what was happening. L looked up the numbers for me and I was about to get off when another car pulled over. It was another guy who seemed to have a car full of people. This time though, when he spoke, I realized I knew the voice (he was wearing glasses that I’ve never seen). He’s one of the men in my eikaiwa and his family (all of whom I teach at eikaiwa or elementary school), the S family, were in the car.

He and I talked for a few minutes, when the tow truck showed up. The tow truck guy helped me out of the car and then suggested I wait with the S family in the car. I discovered that his kids who I adore were in the back. Mrs. S asked me what had happened and I told her.

As I was telling her, the phone rang, it was the police, telling me there had been an accident down the road and they’d be along soon (probably 40 minutes after they had been called).

The tow truck looked at it for a while, but I suspect they weren’t allowed to do anything until the police came, since they were called. They came a few minutes later.

The police man climbed into the car (he was invited) and took my name and info and then asked me questions. Mrs. S helped for the bits of Japanese I didn’t understand.

After he left, Mrs. S told me she’d call a name I didn’t recognize at the BOE. Just as she was telling me this, my supervisor Mrs. K called. Mrs. S took the phone and explained what happened in Japanese for me. 

Then they finally began to pull my car out. Initially it was thought I’d be able to drive my car, but when they pulled it out, it was increasingly obvious that the tire was not in the direction it should have been. It turns out that the hit not only damaged that panel but my axle as well.

The S family followed the tow truck and my car to the shop in the big town. We retrieved my stuff and a few things I thought I might need in the next week. I left loads of stuff in my car and figured I’d get it out later.

The mechanic estimated it costing 50-60 man ($5-6,000) to fix it. Mrs. S said something about insurance and when I said I didn’t think it covered my car, she said Mrs. K had said something. I’m not sure what will be the result of that, but I’ll find out tomorrow at school.

In the end the S family stayed with me through the ordeal with the tow truck and then to take my videos back (most expensive video rental ever!) and to grab something to eat (I had expected to eat dinner in Furano and it was past 9 pm at this point).

The funniest part of the whole thing is that during the combini food stop, Mrs. S and I headed in, walked past the mat for wiping your feet and hit a wet spot, I could see her lose her balance and couldn’t do anything as I lost mine too. We both went down on the floor hard.

After the whole thing we drove back into town together. I’m so thankful that God provided someone to help me with all the Japanese and all the details. I’m not sure I could have explained what had happened or done any of it as well as the S family helped me with it.

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.

An accident

It was a cold morning and despite my gloves, hat and scarf I was cold on my walk to the BOE (Board of Education, like a school district). I had to pick up the car so I could use it to get to some of my schools that are outside the area where I actually live.

My mittens are a little bit big for my hands and despite being size small, I often feel like I’m trying to do things while wearing oven mitts – big and awkward.

As I began to open the garage door, my purse began to slip down my arm. With an oven mitt-ed hand, I tried to save it. Despite my attempt, my mittens did not want to go with it.

My purse hit the ground.

I didn’t think anything of it, because I didn’t hear any crashes or cracks. Then I stopped outside to take a photo of this mail box, I mean how often, in Portland, do we need to dig our mailboxes out of a pile of snow that is twice as tall?



As I spun the zoom to get just the right angle, I noticed a shadow that seemed to move with my lens. Why, I wondered, was there a shadow on the lens? (see photo above)

And then I realized that in dropping my purse this morning, I also dropped my camera! < insert thoughts of: "I haven't even had this camera for a year!", "Do I replace the lens or get a 50mm prime to make up for the small amount of lost range?", etc. >

I headed inside to inspect the damage. It seemed, from me looking at the camera, that the only thing I did was destroy the filter.



As I left, I went to take some more pictures. It was a gorgeous day and I was in one of the prettiest areas of town. I went to zoom in and my once 18-55 mm lens had decided it wanted to be a 18-47mm lens – it wouldn't zoom all the way in.

After another small panic, I zoomed all the way out and then back in. Thankfully, when I zoomed back in, it fixe the problem and I haven’t had a problem since.

So glad I followed my friend, N’s advice and kept a filter on my camera!



Inspecting the damage:



In the end, it seems the only thing I really damaged was a filter. Thankfully, I had a mix up in lens sizes when I bought my camera and accidentally bought two in the size my camera calls for. I was back in business after a quick stop at home!

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.

366 Project–Week 1

I decided to start a 366 project this year (same as a 365 project, but plus a day for leap year). This project consists of taking a photo everyday over the course of a year and posting them.

I started on January 1, but due to the fact that I had a very limited 3 weeks at home, I didn’t get around to doing any editing/sorting of photos done while I was at home.



(1/366) First photo taken of the new year. These are my friends who we’ve deemed “The Crazies.” Our favorite kind of New Year’s Party consists of playing lots of games.



(2/366) A visit to the world’s largest book store! Powells, nick named “the City of Books” takes up an entire city block for it’s main store. It also claims that it’s the world’s largest new, used, rare and out of print book store. It also has a nice little spot across the street – that section is filled with the nerdy, science books. And I looked very smart walking in to find a book about Lightroom.



(3/366) A family favorite, sausage spinach loaf. Not sure where my mom got this recipe, but she’s been making it since I was a kid. It’s pretty simple – roll out a rhodes bread dough (you could probably even make your own dough); layer spinach, jack cheese and sausage on it; roll it back up into a loaf shape and bake!



(4/366) Tacos al pastor from the taco stand in my college town. The taco stand might be my favorite restaurant in the world.



(5/366) My sister and brother-in-law took me out for breakfast. J’s cocoa came with more whip than I’ve ever seen on a mug of cocoa.



(6/366) For his Christmas present, I took my dad to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. My dad is a Vietnam Vet (as you can tell by the stripes on his hat) and wanted to see helicopters, of which they only had a few in the main museum. Thankfully we asked before we went over to the space part and they told us that they were in the space museum’s area.



(7/366) Took my littlest sister for a “sister date” shortly before I left. We played lots of games and went for ice cream. This game was our favorite. It was in Japanese and I could understand a lot of what it said, but they also had good pictures so E had no problem understanding either.

Where did the time go?

I'm sitting here and it's January 7th in one minute. Where did the time go?

I thought 3 weeks would be so much time with my family and yet, here I am almost at the end! I'm not ready to leave yet.

Guess it's another lesson in having to remember to live in the present and enjoy every moment!

More about my travels soon. I've taken tons of pictures with family and friends this year. I'm sure lots of them will end up back on my blog when I get back.