The Crisp Freshness of Fall

(Did you miss me? Yeah. It turns out that juggling a full-time teaching career and two graduate courses whilst nursing an emaciated waif of a personal life doesn't leave much time or energy for blogging. Who knew?)



While the many perks of a three-month summer vacation cannot be exaggerated, I actually love the fall. Maybe this is true of everyone, or maybe it's just a sick, masochistic teacher thing, but in autumn when school starts back up, everything seems fresh and new and exciting to me. I don't know how people in other professions cope with having the same routine year after year. My job is a bit more like a kaleidoscope; even though many of the pieces remain the same -- the books, the room, my colleagues -- every fall we start a new year and I get a new group of students, a glorious spin of the kaleidoscope and a unique experience every time.

This year is no exception. In fact, this year's been quite surprising so far. As you may remember, last spring I boldly decided to hand off my apartment to a charmingly bohemian, tragically impoverished musician and his girlfriend (who sold sex toys) and move in with Jon and Jess -- two of the other young teachers in my building.

I find living with coworkers a fascinating and complex state of affairs; a delicate balance of the personal and the professional, of shared space and respect for privacy; a tragicomic exploration of the human experience ... kind of like college except with more disposable income. This was especially true during the summer when none of us were working and our days consisted of floating around in our friends' pools, pumping iron at the gym, watching Jon pitch, and hauling lots of empty beer bottles in for the deposit.

For the record, I consider this the perfect lifestyle.



But now that it's fall we have to earn our keep. My alarm blares at 5:15 and I'm off to another adventurous day shaping young minds.

Photo Blog: Lake Huron

In honor of my grandpa, who was a professional artist, we take a week out of our summer every year to go to the lake and work on our own art projects. There's no TV, no internet, no cell phone service, not even a shower -- just the fam, the lake, and the art.







My sister-in-law dyes yarn for one of her knitting projects. This batch is a U of M stripe -- blue, yellow, and white.



Who could say "no" to this face? Not me, which is why I'm an excellent aunt.



Brother matting and framing some of his photos.



For his project this year, Dad took this dragon image that Grandpa had embroidered into the cuff of his Navy uniform in the Philippines and stitched it onto a cap.



Nephew loves when his daddy doesn't have to go to work and gets to play all week instead.



Playing bubbles on the beach





Making a cuppa tea.

Fellow World Travelers

There are many great benefits to teaching English abroad that you don't realize right away. For example, you end up with very flexible ideas about English pronunciation that will allow you to understand heavy foreign accents with ease, a skill almost as valuable as actually speaking a different language.

You also become a member of a very diverse (though admittedly not very exclusive) club.



I discovered right away, of course, that the people you meet and work with abroad become very important to you. My NOVA coworkers are practically a second family to me, and even though it's been three years since I moved home, I still keep in better touch with them than I do with my high school buddies or my college roommates. In fact, anybody who's ever worked for NOVA has a special place in my heart, but it wasn't until recently that I realized that kinship extended to people who have taught English for all kinds of companies all over the world.



Through my Master's program, which is largely done online, I've met several people who are either from foreign countries studying in the US or from the US teaching in foreign countries. I always enjoy chatting with these folks, as I find that many of their experiences are not unlike my own, particularly if they are teaching in Asia. This past spring, I met one such person who was teaching in Korea, but coincidentally, he was preparing to take another teaching position in El Salvador and in the interim, came home to Detroit for a couple of weeks.



We decided he needed a bit of America's favorite pastime between Asia and Central America, so we hit up a Tigers game in D-town then spent plenty of time exchanging teaching stories and travel adventures before he was off to the airport again. I admit that reminiscing about my time in Japan and listening to his stories and future plans made me a bit jealous, but for the time being, I'll stick with the few short trips I can afford and start planning the next time I take a group of students abroad.

Last Night in Japan with my Kids

Our final night in Japan was spent in Fukuoka in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. When I lived in Kyoto, it was in an older Japanese house, so slipping my shoes off and walking through sliding wooden doors and across tatami mats in my socks was rather, well, homey.



They really packed the kids in at this stop -- five or six to a room -- and because it was a ryokan, they were expected to use the public bathing area in the neighboring onsen. However, not only did my room have a private bath, I was also given access to a private room in the onsen. O baby, o baby!



Ah, hair liquid, medicated brace up lotion, and milky lotion -- all my toilet essentials.



Curtained doorway leading into my private room in the onsen, where I headed for a brief but relaxing getaway from teacher duty.



My little pool, fed by a nearby hot spring, which I got all to myself!



My only visitor





After my little soak, I headed back to the hotel and got the kids suited up in their yukata for dinner. Kawaii desu ne? (Aren't they cute?)



Part of our evening's entertainment included a "samurai" -- who pretty much just ran around the dining hall menacing people with his katana -- and a rollicking round of karaoke during which the boys and I sang *NSYNC's ever-beloved "Bye Bye Bye". And did the dance (obviously). All the students from the other groups said, "Why isn't our teacher that cool?" Or at least, that is what I presume they were whispering to each other after our show-stopping performance.

Speaking of show-stopping, the karaoke ended abruptly when the proprietor told us our time was up and hustled us out... and then proceeded to stand alone in front of the empty dining hall and continue singing by himself. Yep.

The kids, unable to cope with the fact that our trip was coming to an end (and not anxious to go back to their sardine-style sleeping arrangements), spent the rest of the night in my room playing cards and talking about how awesome Japan is.

Second Day in Nagasaki: Glover Gardens

Nestled in the mountains, Nagasaki is a tremendously beautiful city. In some places, the roads are so steep that the houses are virtually built on top of, rather than next to, each other.



The steep streets in the old European district, called "Hollander Slopes" after the Dutch merchants who lived there, are lined with little shops, perfect for strolling and window-shopping.



Built in 1856, Oura Catholic Church in Nagasaki is the oldest Christian church in the Orient. It is also called The Church of the 26 Martyrs and faces Nishizaka hill, where twenty-six Christian martyrs were crucified by the local shogun in 1597. The church is known worldwide as a symbol of surviving religious persecution.





We also enjoyed Glover Garden, built on the estate of Scottish entrepreneur Thomas Glover. The house has been converted into a museum, and the surrounding gardens are exquisite.









My boys get into the macro zoom. Ah, they make me proud!



The same night, we walked around near our hotel, hit up a karaoke parlor, and got ourselves some takoyaki.



Gotta love those NOVA signs. O, how they haunt me!



The kids loved the octopus balls so much they bought a few more to have for fourth meal at the hotel.



We thought it appropriate to make one more stop in a pachinko parlor before we went home so that Ryan could blow the rest of his yen.