25 things

I have had many Friends do this 25 things about them page and I found it so fun to read about them and their randomness that I did it as well. So I thought I would share it with you all.
1. I was raised Mormon.
2. I have the lowest IQ in my family except for my mother.
3. I started my first real job when I was 13 years old.
4. I was the only male in my graduating class.
5. I was a Veterinary Technician when I was 17.
6. I started teaching high school when I was 19 and stopped when I was 23.
7. The FBI has my finger prints.
8. I have been to Australia and New Zealand.
9. I am learning Japanese To teach English in Japan.
10. I make sculptural furniture.
11. I have 2 tattoos and 1 brand on my back.
12. I have very crooked pinky's that I inherited from my mother.
13. I have part of a pencil lodged in my right knee.
14. I spent my last day "off" buying beer and lotto tickets.
15. I have had 16 different room mates over 7 years in one house. 2 of which lived in the kitchen.
16. I was an intern at sloss furnace.
17. It took me 7 years to graduate from college.
18. I am dyslexic.
19. I become obsessed and consumed by what ever I want to learn at the time.
20. My girl Friend is 15 inches shorter than I am.
21. John Watters once stared at me for 45 minutes.
22. My favorite color is red.
23. I have been bestowed the priest hood from two different religions but I am an atheist.
24. my eyes are the same color scheme as my brothers only backwards.
25. when I was a kid I was some times called the Kissing Bandit.

Hulu Halarious!

curry soup

Yay I made curry soup and it was great! though it was my rendition of curry soup and probably tastes nothing like the curry soup that I have been reading about tastes. Perhaps next time I will look up a recipe and attempt it that way. oh by the way, in case you didnt figure it out already, it was an American bastardization and was flavored surf and turf curry flavor mmmmmm. sorry about the odd colorization of the image. I didnt have my camera with me and had to use my girlfrends and I dont know where the white balance is on it.

american cooking

I have been racking my brain to decide what American food is and I have decided that America doesn't have any cuisine of its own. Most of Americas food is derived from bastardizations of other countries food. On one had this is great, we have some really delicious food that makes us a culinary adventure anytime that you want to try something new. On the other hand it is really difficult to pin down a recipe that I would take to Japan to describe American cuisine. Sure I live in the south and I could technically make grits, collard greens, cornbread, black eyed peas and other stereotypes but I don't think that is a good representation of who we really are. Please put in your vote on what American cuisine really is and Ill keep working on it. I leave you with a recipe that I designed and that I currently am eating.
noodles in butter sauce:
1 large package of egg noodles (I prefer the spiral kind)
24 oz chicken stock
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of green olives
1 can artichoke hearts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
12 oz mushrooms of your preference
mix together butter and chicken stock boil until it has reduced by half volume. next add olives, artichoke hearts, cream of mushroom soup, and mushrooms. simmer for 5 minutes. combine with very well drained prepared noodles then serve.
I have found that pork goes very well with this so feel free to add diced ham, bacon, or prosciutto.
I can not stop thinking about curry soup I think I am going to attempt a rendition of that tonight. Ill be sure to post the results.

dark beer....

In response to a comment from my last post. as my Friend Keelie pointed out, Sapporo beer is a light beer and lightighter beer is on the other end of the spectrum from where the beer that I like it so... out of curiosity has anyone found a dark Japanese beer? If so I need to try it out... please post any that you all have heard of!!!

places to live

When applying for the JET program, every one gets to name a place that they would like to be sent to. Not that it is a guarantee that you would be put there but it is still nice to be able to have a say in it. I have done a little research into interesting cities and have found a ton of them. In the next few posts I would like to introduce them starting with my first choice Sapporo. I like living in a city with the population density of Birmingham, it seems to be a nice balance. Birmingham and its metro area contain about 1,100,000 people and the city is about 150 sq miles. Sapporo on the other hand has about 1,800,000 people and is about 3X’s the size of Birmingham. Though it is larger than Birmingham its population density is still probably higher in reality because the cities size includes mountains that are not often inhabited by large numbers of people. Also, I like the cold and the average annual temperature in Sapporo is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. More over Sapporo gets 190 inches of snow a year. I have only experienced “real” snow (more than a 2 or 3 inches) 3 times in my life that I can remember. I have been told that it doesn’t take long to get tired of snow but I am willing to give it a shot. Speaking of snow Sapporo has an annual snow festival every year which includes ice sculptures! Sounds like a blast to me.
Good food is a huge necessity for me and Sapporo is known for Curry soup and miso ramen both sound super tasty to me. It also doesn’t hurt that they have a famous brewery there that makes Sapporo beer and that they have an annual festival that includes beer gardens and food during the summer. All and all this place sounds ideal for me. Next post Ill get off the north island and talk about a place that is a little warmer.

New furnature

I have a show coming up in a little more than a month and I have made nothing for it so far.... So I guess I need to get cracking on it. I need to make about six pieces two of which need to be lounge chairs because they sell really well. I have been thinking a whole lot about Japan, its culture and its language so I think it would be fun to draw from that to make a few of the pieces. For some reason I am attracted to the idea of making furnature from the shapes of Hiragana I assume because that is all that I have been studying for the last week. So what is the most comfortable Hiragana symbol to you all? please leave a comment with your opinion! Dont worry if the symbol has parts that are not connected it will be part of the fun to design to get around those problems! For those of you who do not know what it looks like see the image below.

What would I bring

So I was reading another JET hopefuls blog Flying sound. He has just finished the interview process of the application and recounted some of the questions that they asked him. This has given me a ton to think about. The most worry some question was "what would you bring to Japan to teach people about America?" After a few days of thinking about what I would do I decided that I would bring my cooking skills. Several great advantages of this; first is that taking a skill instead of an item takes up much less space in my luggage, second is that every one like food! Thinking about it food is one of the biggest defining factors of any and all culture,s so it seems like one of the easiest ways to teach about America.

Japanese progress

It has been a month sense I have started going back to college to learn Japanese and I must say that I love it! It is such a logical language. So far I think I am keeping up fairly well with the curriculum and i have been studying other aspects of Japanese in my free time so hopefully one day my several ways of learning it will converge and I will jump ahead of my current standing as a Japanese 101 student. I have employed several methods to study outside of class. I have been using Rosetta stone software to learn straight up expressions and sentences. I spent some time reading the Japanese for Dummies book and though it was fun and it helped a little. More over I bought a Nintendo DS and the Japanese Coach game. It is really great to learn tons of vocabulary and I can use it anywhere which is a huge plus. I watch anime with no subtitles just to listen to them talk and then I re watch it with sub Oh yah and I make note cards ... hundreds and hundreds of them :( I think at the rate that I am going, if I can keep up the pace, I will be ready to apply for the JET program next December. Often times I think about the large amount of money, effort, and time that I am putting into this and I wonder if I am foolish for doing so just on a bet that I may get in to the program. Its very discouraging to think about it so I usually put it out of my mind and think about alternatives if I don't get in. oh well here are some pictures of my study material as well as a look at how some of my hiragana is going. I personally think it has improved and looks much less like a 5 year old's hand writing and more like a 13 year old's hand writing. I am getting better at recognizing the writing but I still have a long way to go be for I stop sounding like a hooked on phonics commercial.

mmmm soooo good!

I want to announce to the world that their are some things that America Bastardized from other countries (including Japan) that turn out bad... BUT I have found one of the things that turned out great! and it is pure gold baby! I was in Walmart spending the last of my cash on food for the coming week when I walked past the ethnic food section much to my suprise I found Golden brand curry mix making me jump for joy in the middle of the isle. Upon closer inspection I noticed that there were some very dirty bottles that looked like they had been on the shelf for half of an eternity. I was shocked at what I saw, Tabasco Soy Sauce. I snatched up one of the sticky and dust covered bottles and tossed it in the buggy with partal glee and partal horror. So when I made it back to my girlfrends house I took it to the sink and gave it a nice scrubbing befor opening it up. After that I ripped of the seal, poured some into the palm of my hand, and tasted it woah moma is it good! I should have guessed that spicy soy sauce would be good due to my love to Wisabi and soy sauce mixed to gether for sushi. I was just suprised at how well tabasco did it. so to all the people out there who like spicy food and soy sauce you should try it out. you wont be sorry!

I know I know I should post more often but I have an excuse!

So I have not added a post in a very long time. Life has been very hectic and I have been with out a sure form of internet for more than a day at a time as of late. Things are starting to get back to normal now... Thankfully! I just moved from my home of seven years and relocated back to my fathers house in order to save money in the event that I am accepted into the JET program. I would really like to save enough to pay for my plane ticket and have enough left over to auto pay my Student loans for at least two years. There are other benefits that come with this move the fist is that I don't have to worry about covering others rent which I have had to do numerous times with the 17 room mates that I have had at various times in that house over the years. It gives me a great quiet place to go to study Japanese a few days a week. More over my direct family members are my most trusted friends so it is nice to live with one of them again, they are always good company! I only stay at my fathers about 2 days out of the week because he lives 15 miles away from my job so the rest of the time I spend at my girlfriend's new apartment that is about 2 miles away from my work and 3 blocks from the school that I am taking Japanese from. hopefully everything will continue smoothing out and life will get back to or become less busy than it was before :)