Working with Grown-Ups

Hullo tharr Misters and Missies!

Well golly gee folks, things have been just plain crazy 'round here in these parts!

Just lookit what I've been up to:

I got me certified to breathe with the fishies...on their.. um..."turf" I guess you could say? Yes, 4 days (2 whole weekends) of intense training! Nah, it was actually pretty fun! But there WERE some parts that were pretty: ugh-I-don't-wan't-to-do-THAT-again!
The cool thing was, the scuba-sensei (who is an american -for those of you may have wondered...) said that our group was his rockstar class. He said we catch-on super fast! yay us! The first day was pretty shitty tho. We had this one lady in our class (about my age) who was a total downer. It's not because she just couldn't get things as quickly as the rest of the class -but it was the fact that she complained CONSTANTLY! She couldn't do the mask-off, mask-on underwater thing and kept sucking pool water up her nose. (We all know how much THAT hurts!) But after maybe her 3rd attempt, she decided to take a break and sit on the side to calm down. The whole time she sat there, she kept saying she was a retard and making all these random excuses. So I sat next to her and tried to encourage her. After all, I somehow ended up being her scuba buddy (that was a big mistake). I suggested she just try to relax and I told her that I understood how frustrated she must feel. I even told her nobody minded waiting for her, I mean we're a team right? (I know I would probably feel small-kine shame for making the rest of the class wait for me!)...Then she turned to me with her eyes rolling and said, "Uh, yah,..look...I know what you're trying to do, but you're SO full of it!"

Ooooookay! bizatch. :\

Nah nah. just kidding.... sorta ;) Of course, after that snippy remark, I decided to leave her to her misery.

After another unsuccesful attempt, she had completely given up and quit the class.

So then I got a new buddy -Doug. He was kinda on the quiet side, but 100x better than my last buddy!

From the 2nd day on, we whizzed thru the next 3 classes and ended about an hour early on each day :) One of the many cool things about scuba class was that there was a fellow Hawaii guy innit! Cheehu! He was SUPER nice too! Every morning he brought starbucks coffee for everyone and everyday he took pictures of us in training. Then he'd email them to all of us by the end of the day! We plan to all go scuba-ing as soon as the weather clears up. Right now it's been raining non-stop for the past 3 days. They say it will keep raining for the next 3 days (maybe longer!)! People say that in Sasebo, it's pretty typical for it to rain for an entire month during the summer! It's also muggy as heck. bleh.

Anywho, here's a couple of scuba shots:



On the left is Doug holding the jelly I gave him. We all had fun with that poor little thing! On the right is me, trying to walk on the pool floor :)

Anywho, I better move on to the next subject -lots of things to cover!

So if you haven't heard, I got the job in marketing! Hooray!

But first, I need to tell you about my last days at the youth center!

I gotta say, it was tough. I really grew attached to those kids! :( But as my parting gifts, I decorated a door and a wall in the center. The wall took me two nights to put together. Halfway thru, I was pretty unhappy about the way it was turning out: The paints weren't opaque enough, the paper that was lining the wall wrinked as I painted, and my jungle concept really just wasn't working out... but hey, I couldn't just stop right there and forget the whole thing right?

This is how they both turned out:

On the last day, the kids surprised me with cards they made in the craft area. They were so cute! They were made with contruction paper, markers, and whatever else they could get their hands on! One kid, Jimmy, actually made me an orange-and-blue contruction-paper camera! Okay, I couldn't really tell it was a camera -he had to tell me! ;) The messages inside each card were adorabe! "Miss Maggie, I like you! I hope you have fun at your new work." "I will miss you Miss Maggie! You are my favorite staff" One kid, Jordan, drew a picture of me holding a suitcase and leaving a bunch of sad kids... it made me chuckle. I asked him, "Haccome I have a suitcase?" and he burst out laughing ,saying, "Oh yeeaaah! Miss Maggie, you don't have a suitcase!" (as if I was the one who drew the picture!) So silly :) But after I collected what looked like a big 'ol pile of colorful scrap paper, I felt a little watery wiggle in my eyes :~( ...It was close! but I didn't cry. On the last night, I made ice cream sundaes for 2 of my co's and I, and we talked-story till about 11 p.m. Man, I'm sure gonna miss them too!

Onward to my new job! I started my full-time posish this past monday. Lucky for me, they were in full swing working on their next bi-monthly Showcase magazine. Allison, my boss is REALLY cool. In the beginning I was a bit apprehensive/worried because she is so strong minded and set in her ways, but lo and behold, by tuesday, she was asking me for my opinion on layout design and actually taking my advice! woah. Consider my mind blown. The magazine production process went smoothly and was sent to the presses right on time. I'd like to think that I helped make that happen :) also, in my humble opinion, I'd say it's the best looking one yet! ;D I also got to design ads and posters -pretty much the way I wanted- and helped put together the big employee party!

The party was pretty darn impressive. They had it at the ballroom on base. All the tables were laid out and decorated REALLY classy-cool like. The theme was Rock-n-Roll. They had rock music playing, prizes, and free food and BOOZE! As soon as we settled in, Daniel had a whole pitcher of beer handed to him! His comment on that: "I love this party!" And they had the awesomest game evar. A DDR competition! Imagine watching grown-ups jumpin' around on those dance pads!...fun right?! (the party was for peeps 18+ only). On that same token, it was no surprise to me that the DDR champions were the ones who work at the pre-teen/teen centers!
Then we had the prize drawings. There were some great prizes. It looked like everyone was winning something -except us. It came down to two prizes: a Japanese Doll in a glass case (which we crossed our fingers -hoping we WOULDN'T win it!...thankfully, we didn't. -whew! heehee) and a purty white vase with a simple, elegant painting of Mt. Fuji onnit. Daniel REALLY wanted that one. I did too. So I focused all my concentration on it. I imagined them puling a name out of the box...

But alas, some other lady won it. Waaaaah. :(

Then there was a surprise drawing -the grand prize! And you can guess what happened: They called my name!
WHAT?! Fo' REALS?! AWESOME!!!
The prize was a giant grill....Every carnivore's DREAM! Holy shishkabob. I stood up, took many-a-bow and gleefully skipped to the front stage. They now have a picture of me hugging the giant box. Then, after the euphoria subsided, we realized that this fantastic grill was just too big for our apartment! I suggested to daniel that maybe we should let someone else win it. To which he responded with, "NO WAY!! That thing is OURS!!!" ...sheesh!

The thing just barely fit in the back of our Wagon R. He returned it the next day -and got us a gift card :)

And now we reach last night! John, Megan's hubby (both buddies from Hawaii) is in Sasebo for the next couple of days. So we met up with him and took him out to our favorite bar: Yakkyu Gushi. MAN did he stick out! But the folks at Yakkyu Gushi took him in with open arms :) We all had SOOOO much fun! John is such a good sport. In the spirit of learning the language, he pretty much repeated EVERYTHING we told him to say! Two local regulars met up with us and things got even sillier. They actually could speak a pretty good amount of english, so they taught John some silly slang phrases to tell the owner, bartenders and random patrons. It was TOO FUNNY. By the end of the night, John had made friends with nearly everyone there -but thoroughly forgot ALL their names ;D

Today we had a BBQ/potluck at the house. We invited a bunch of Daniel's co-workers and their families. Good times. We played Wario Smooth Moves, Wii Play and Rock Band. Oh and one made Thai Curry! I've been craving it ever since I had it in New York! I was in heaven! Next time I'm inviting MY co's (new and old) over for a BBQ!

Whooooweee, well folks, that's it for me!
Thanks for stoppin by! but mainly, you stay classy...!

Is it summer already? Sure feels like it.

Howdy!


Alas, the hot days have arrived. Yesterday it hit the high 80's. Nasty humidity. I was out playin' with the kids -trying to move as LITTLE as possible... but still broke out a sweat! ewww. And tho I have grown to adore these kids, man, they sure get stinky after a hot day!

This past weekend was perfect tho -bright out, but nice and breezy. We went kayaking again. The breeze was good and bad. Good for the obvious reason of not dying from the heat, but bad because we had to fight against it to get to where we wanted to go! We paddled to a little island where you can camp. It was BEAUUUUUUUTIFUL! They even had a bathroom!... and someone was nice enough to leave a nice hibachi there too :) Oddly, no one else was there, so we felt like castaways. We joked about the "LOST" monster sneaking up on us as we ate our musubis and drank our Aquarius (japanese energy drink). Here's our view:

The camera's software didn't do such a good job of seamless photostiching, but you get the idea!

On the beach, there were lots of baby crabs scurrying about -digging little holes, evading the mellow tide.. I caught a really tiny one...cupped it in my hand, and ran over to show daniel -who was snacking on Pretz- in the semi-grassy area. He said "cute." And instead of putting it back where I found it (like we are all taught to do), I set it free right in front of me. But what happened next,no one could expect! As soon as that little crab hit the ground, a bug, shaped SORTA like a tick (except not as bulbus -and it had patterns on it's back) attacked it! It was a little smaller than the crab's body (sans the legs). It mounted the crab and looked like it was putting it's feelers (or whatever they were) between the gaps of the crab's shell! The crab went crazy, flipping over and spinning around, trying to get it off. It was horrifying!... but oh so fascinating! This was some crazy National Geographic s#it! But then the guilt set in, and I felt really bad for the crab (after all, it was MY fault the crab was even THERE to begin with!) so I got a small stick and separated them. But it was too late. It was curtains for the crab...and the weird bug high-tailed it outta there. To make matters worse, Daniel thinks my "stick maneuver" actually killed the crab :( I felt really bad.

On the way back, fatigue started to set in. My shoulders and arms were pretty had-it. When we hit a big area of deep aqua ocean, Daniel suddenly said, "woah..." I stopped paddling and asked him what was up. He quickly responded, "uh,..Don't stop paddling until we get close to another island..." EEEK! What did he see?!?!?! my mind was racing. Was it a shark? A scene of JAWS popped in my head. Oh gawd Oh gawd.... I forgot all about my tired arms and hit my second wind. "Just look straight ahead maggie!" I kept telling myself. I finally slowed down when we reached shallower waters where I could actually SEE the bottom! I still dont know if Daniel was just messin' with my head to motivate me to keep paddling... damn that guy.

Here's a map of our course:

Moving on...

Guess what? I got the marketing job! yay! I start tomorrow. But I gotta tell you how I found out! So my boss, Tina brings out thnext week's schedule for Ms Ruth (our lead) to review. I casually take a peek and notice I have NO hours next week! What the?! I ask Ms Ruth what was up with that, and she tells me. "Uhhh, maybe you should talk to Tina.." Were they planning to let me go? Confident that I didn't do anything wrong, I casually asked Tina. She responds with: "Aww man! you saw the schedule?! um.. yah, expect a call from marketing...you got the job, try to act surprised when they tell you okay?" Apparently Alisson (my future boss) and Tina are pretty tight -they have been discussing me ever since I applied to that job! So much for being discreet! Alisson wants me to start right away, and Tina isn't ready to let me go -so they compromised. I'll be working both places in the next week. Mornings in marketing, and affernoons at the youth center.

I'm really gonna miss the kids and my coworkers :(

Of course, I'm SUPER stoked about my new job :)

Anywho, that'd be it for this post! Oh, oh! and I'm taking scuba classes for the next 2 weekends! They say the waters here are a lot like Hawaii -lots of tropical fish! wish me luck!

Have a great week folks!