Yellowcard ROCKS!!!

Wow, I just got back from the Yellowcard/Just Surrender concert in Downtown Osaka! It was so awesome! My friends and I were the only foreigners in the whole place. It was a pretty small show so we were right in front of the bands. They didn't allow us to take pictures or videos it really sucked! Just trust me the show was sick! About halfway through Ryan from Yellowcard stopped and said that he noticed there were some "American Looking people" there. And we just screamed even though 2 of us were from England!! He dedicated a song to us! It was soooooooooooooo awesome! After the show we went to talk to the guys from Just Surrender, they were really nice and I took a pic with the singer and one of the guitar players! Oh man it was nice. I bought my brother and I a Tshirt so NaneO expect a Yellowcard shirt in the mail dude! :) OK well enjoy the pics. I will be back tomorrow to write something OK! Miss you all thanks for the visits and comments! take care

peace

vince

What a sad time

I don't know if you have heard about this but, Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor died this morning. He was shot during an attempted robbery at his house yesterday. He was shot in the leg and his artery was hit. I don't follow the Redskins, or know too much about this guy but damn it saddens me to hear something so horrible. The guy was 24 years old. Somethings I will never understand, damn damn damn damn! Just tragic.....

Other than that news tonight I had a great day. I will give another exam tomorrow to my seniors. I think they are really prepared for it so it should be good! Ok I'm out tonight, going to hang out with my friend. take care everybody I miss you.

here is the story link yall


http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3129406

Grading exams!

Hey all! At the moment Im grading my students 3rd term exams. They really did a great job. I told them to write anything on the back of the test to me in Japanese or English. Here are some photos of them.

YO!

Hey everybody! Wow it's been a while eh? Well life has been a bit bland lately. I was engulfed in college football this past weekend. I was a bit dissappointed about the Kansas loss but hey it's all good. I love the underdogs in the championship! Today I was thinking about heading back to EP for christmas, so I called up a local travel agency and the cheapest I can get a ticket is about $1,400! It's a tad bit pricey I think. Oh well, I will have to just sit around in Osaka.

I found out today that there is a giant party for the teachers at my school on December 21st. This is called an "enkai". Supposedly all the teachers will go to this party and it will be at a hotel in Namba(where I through the happy time party). I guess I will look forward to this, since I have no idea what to do around xmas. I will figure something out!

Ok, so I went to go eat with my amazingly kawaii friend Fumiko right now. I was trying to get her to take a photo but she said she looked bad (like that is even possible). I will get one though OK! :) We ate some yakitori and some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches! haha :) GOOD TIMES! Not to mention we had a few beers, so it all went down nice. She is a really cool girl. Actually she is the first local girl that I met in my area. Plus we live about 2 blocks away so it's cool. Anyway, I put a few more random pics I took with my cell phone last week and today. Another is the place where we were at eating.

School business... Well today I suggested to the English department to allow me to create an English club. I want my own room and just time to hang out. I know I can get some students in there to speak English, trade English music, watch movies, and just hang out. It will be a cool place to be, also if the students need help with English homework they have a great resource! ME!! I just want to try and do something for myself here. I sometimes feel that they think I am just a kid with no idea how to teach. When in fact I spent 5 years in Uni studying about education... Oh well...

Alright, tomorrow I am going try and hit up a Temple or something to take some photos after work. I hope it's not too dark though, because lately the sun has been going down around 4:30pm. Yes, I know Marcel you are dying to see more pictures haha :)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, I missed the snow in El Paso during the holiday weekend. It must have been really nice, any EP people send me some pics of the snow. I'm sure "BEN SWANN" and the rest of the ridiculous "KFOX TV" were out there sliding around. (storm 2006) hahaha ;)

Ok, I'm out everybody take care and keep in touch. I'll talk to you soon and don't laugh at my buzzed self done haircut ok! haha see ya !!

peace

vince

oh by the way I'm going to go see YELLOWCARD on Wednesday night IN OSAKA!!!!!!!!!!! ROCK ON!!! :)

Remember that picture?

Hello all! I was on another marathon space stuff hunt online tonight and I thought I would share this video. It is about that picture that I posted a few days ago, remember? The hubble space photo! Well here is a video that explains it all!

Thanks to the people who have commented lately! :)
peace

vince

mrs.b- i sure you have some time for some turkey action in big bend :)

lynn- i miss you too :( ill call ya soon k

Same old

So I was thinking about what to write about the past few days. I really have nothing write actually. This week so far has been quite uneventful. I guess that could be a good thing too. Things are pretty normal over here right now, as normal as things can get for a foreigner in Japan.

Today I had two girls come to my desk and randomly ask me "Do you like peanut butter?". I happily replied yes of course. Apparently most Japanese people don't like peanut butter or something. I never thought I would randomly be asked that during school. They laughed and ran away...... yeah.

Right now it is really cold over here. Last night I had to bust out the portable space heater. There is no gas heater in my apartment. I don't think Japanese people ever thought about weather when they built the first buildings. It's freaking hellish hot inside in the summer, and deathly cold in the winter. Maybe I should tell them to import some of that pink insulation stuff from the Home Depot (or Lowes). hahah Oh well, I will get used to it... sometime.

So this week in the USA is Thanksgiving. I will be missing all the lovely fried turkey and the typical food stuffs that my mom makes back home. I will miss my grandfather complaining about the smallest things and eating everything before we even start.haha I will also miss giving my awesome dogs their left-over turkey. It's all good though, I will be there in spirit. I think on Thursday here I will go to KFC to eat some chicken! :) good times yo!

Hey how about those HOUSTON DYNAMO from MLS!!! Two time champions back to back baby!!! That's what it's all about!! I know you probably don't care about MLS but I love it. Thanks Houston for another amazing season you are the best and you showed it!!! Now, HOUSTON BUILD THEM A DAMN STADIUM! :) Well I hope you all are doing good. I hope that I will have some more news this week ok. Stay tuned to the most un-amazing blog on the planet!! Thanks everybody! miss you !! and take care! :)

vince



watch this lovely video of my team!!! HOUSTON DYNAMO!!! HELL YEAH!! it was worth getting up at 3am to watch :)

What a great night!

Hey every body! I just woke up a few minutes ago and I have a bit of a headache and it is freezing in my room. Anyway, last night was the happy time party that I made. It was a real success! Only one person didn't show up that said they would. So there were a total of 20 people I think. The place was really nice, the only thing that sucked was that the tables were separated. We would just move around to different table though. The food was great, we had unlimited Asahi Super Dry beer, and any other drink. I was able to use Japanese all night, and I was quite impressed with myself! It was not so good but I was really trying. I started to talk to the nurse at my school, she is so cool! She likes rock just like me and skateboarding! How crazy is that? Anyway, after the restaurant I asked every body if they wanted to go to a cool bar that I knew around the area. I thought they would all say no, but they all said YES! It was great, I was leading the way to a place they didn't even know in Osaka. So strange! haha We got to the bar and had a blast, talking laughing and just having a good time!

All in all, it was a real special night. All my colleagues thanked me for the night. They said they had a blast, and all that. I was really happy about it. Next week I'm supposed to go with the nurse to a rock club so thats awesome.

Anyway, on the 28th I'm going to go see Yellowcard! I'm going with my friends Tom and Becky. I can't wait! Ok, well I hope every one is doing good. Send me a comment if you wish. Take care and I miss you!

peace

vince

Today is the day!

Hey everybody! How are you doing today, tonight or whenever you are reading this? Well as I said a few weeks ago today is "happy time". It's my first party in Osaka! So far I have had about 21 people rsvp, I was actually expecting about 12 but 21 is great! It will start tonight at 7:30pm downtown. I hope it goes well haha!

Other than that everything is going pretty well over here. Just been working like usual. I will be back soon with some pics! Take care everybody and I will talk to you soon!

vince

I miss the heavens!

For those of you who know me, know that I have a special love for star gazing. Last night I was chilling on my balcony looking up at the clear night sky and I realized. I cannot even see one star in the great Osaka sky. Sure I understand that I live in a gigantic city with so much light pollution, but a city with no stars in the sky seems like a city with no soul. That may sound crazy, I know. Sometimes I think that we all get too caught up in the world today to understand how insignificant we(including me) really are. Just one look at the sky you can see this as proof. What wonders lie beyond our deteriorating o-zone? How many wonderful planets like Earth are there just hanging out? Who lives on those "other" Earths? It blows my mind to think about it. Sure I'm no scientist or physicist but does it mean I cannot wonder? I wish more people would become educated about the universe, I think that would be a way to stop all our meaningless quarries with each other. If you follow soccer and soccer news in the world know about the tragedy in Italy this past weekend. Riots erupted across Italy on Sunday as fans attacked police stations after a policeman fatally shot a Lazio (soccer team) fan at a highway rest stop where Lazio fans were fighting with rival fans of the football club Juventus. I just don't understand what goes through these people minds that they have to cause more violence to react to violence. This is a great example of our quarries that are completely meaningless. This is just one example, and there are so many more to name but I digress. I only wish that someday we can put all the effort that we do into fighting each other and use that energy to find something bigger than ourselves i.e. the great unknown...space. Anyway that's enough of my blabbing on this post. I just wanted to let you know what I'm thinking. Take care everybody and thanks again for reading my blog! You're the best! take care y'all!

p.s. download this photo of the Hubble Ultra Deep Space Field... zoom in on it and look at how many galaxies and stars are in that picture... just imagine what is out there... mind blowing stuff.. c-ya

Check out my music player

Hey everybody, I put a music player on the bottom of the page. It has some of the music that I like right now. I hope you enjoy it. All credit goes to June, since I stole her idea! :) Thanks nana-gatsu (o^-^0)

Sorry for the wait!

Hello all my blog readers! I truly appreciate all the people that read my blog! It's nice to know that I'm reaching people with this thing. I have hit almost 2,500 hits so far. Thats a lot in about 3.5 months. Thank you

To start things off I want people to vote on the poll on the left side of the blog page. I want to know what readers want to see on my blog. Vote there and I will get an idea of what to put up. If you don't see a choice you would like, then please leave a comment and tell me what you want to see. I will try my best to put more content on the site as much as possible. Please let me know ok! :)

Now, today I had to work. It wasn't too bad because I had to work at an elementary school. I played the 7up game with the kids. Japanese elementary school kids are so funny. They are very smart too. Many of them knew a good amount of English so it was cool. They enjoyed the game and they had a great time. When I got out of school I went to go eat with 2 of my students. We were riding our bikes looking for a new place to go. I turned the corner on one of the streets by my apartment and there was this Indian restaurant. WOW, I had no clue it was there. So we went inside and had some excellent curry rice and Nan. Nan is Indian bread which is delicious. The Indian guys that were in there told me to drop by whenever I wanted just to talk or hang out. I was happy to make some new friends. Afterwards, I went to the mall with Natsu and Erika. I went to that whack mall with the "Sonic the Hedgehog" type name, Diamond City. We bought some ice cream and I bought a cd. We parted ways and I came home.

Actually I didn't come straight home because I wanted to explore on my trusty bike more. I wanted to see what else I could find. Unfortunately I didn't find too much new stuff. It was just nice to ride my bike for a while. I dropped by the 100 yen shop to buy some candy for my students as a prize at school. I give them candy or school stuff if they actually try to speak English and answer questions. It seems to work pretty well. It's a small investment but it's worth it I believe. When I arrived home I jumped online and my brother was playing some Xbox 360. So we played some Halo 3 online. We are almost going to beat the game together so it's pretty fun. Thanks brother, and if any other people want to play let me know.

As for tonight, I am going to have some dinner with this girl Saki. She is really nice and funny. She also happens to be really pretty, so good times. We will go to a Sukiyaki shop, then maybe some karaoke. I'm not too sure yet but we will see what happens. Lately I've been enjoying my time in Matsubara. At first I thought that it wasn't cool or fun. I thought that in order to have fun in Japan was to go and drink at Foreigner bars in Downtown Osaka. I have realized that there is really nice stuff to do around in the south (Matsubara). Nice people, small shops, and a home like feel. It's hard to explain, but I hope you understand my pathetic attempt at explanation.

This past week I have been studying a lot of Japanese. Some of my students come to talk to me after school and just ask me random questions in Japanese to see what I know. It's good practice, but sometimes I have no clue what the hell they are talking about. haha I have to do a test in a couple of weeks in Japanese to see what I have learned so far.

I will check out the UTEP football game tomorrow morning. I just hope that they won't disappoint again. Ahh that team is so frustrating sometimes. The NY Giants play those damn Cowboys on Sunday. I won't be able to see the game because I will be at work most likely. I hope NY makes Tony Romo hit the ground many, many times! :) Sorry Cowboy lovers...actually I'm not sorry because I hate the COWBOYS! :)

So how is everybody doing? Give a bit of an update if you have the time, which you probably won't since this giant blog post is taking up all your time! :) I will leave you now, I gotta get ready for tonight. I think I will bust out the El Paso Times Spelling Bee shirt! You know that will impress the ladies! haha Those of you who know that shirt know what I'm talking about! hahaha Take care and I miss you!

peace

vince

Makiko - I'm really happy you will finally get to graduate! Celebration time! YAY! :)
Danny - You need to stop trying to Rambo on Halo 3! We die too much! hahah j/k :)

Val - Thanks for being a fan! I hope you are doing good! :)

Mar - Oh man get online sometime dude! :)

Lynn - Hey, relax it takes time to make these amazing (not) posts! hahah

Manny - Dude did you still want to do the postcard thing??

Mom + Mrs. B - Are those port-a-potties still sitting outside? haha tell them to stop tipping them, they will find a suprise! (o^_^o)

Family - hey you all! say hi sometime !!! :)

The ground is shaking!

Whoa man! Today was really really interesting! So I went to school this morning in the Osaka drizzle. It was nice because coming from the desert rain is lovely I must say. Today the students were going to see this bizarre traditional comedy in Fujidera. That's about 3 stops away from me. I went to school to hitch a ride with one of the teachers. We arrived and were sitting down ready for the show. All of a sudden I felt a small rumbling. I thought it was part of the show, but then it became stronger and stronger. Yeah, it was a freaking earthquake. Oh man, I've never felt that before and it was absolutely insane. It was about 10 seconds but wow it felt like ages. Everything was shaking and all the students were laughing, yes laughing. For me it was crazy but for them it was just another day in Japan. I guess this happens a lot, just small tremors or whatever. Nothing dangerous happened it was just mind blowing. You have a feeling of helplessness, because there is absolutely nothing you can do. I was sitting next to my Canadian exchange student and she was tripped out as much as me. Don't worry, it was fine and it was no problem at all. I just needed to tell you that I have had my first small earthquake experience.

So, on to the rest of the day. I was able to understand bits and pieces of the comedy so it was funny. There was a magic show afterwards with a pseudo looking Japanese David Copperfield guy. I must say it was pretty cool what he was doing. He pulled a student to help him with a trick. Of course he pulled the student with the shortest skirt available. Which I'm sure was quite unflattering for the timid student. You know, I think that the colder it gets, the shorter the skirts become or something. I don't understand! (^_^)

After the show I went to go eat some ramen with a couple of my students. It was great! They said that the ramen was so spicy and hot. I ate it and was quite unimpressed with the spice. The ramen was absolutely delicious but the spice was not very small. I guess eating Jalapenos and pizza with my Dad helped me train! Thanks DAD! :)

All in all, the day was great. I came home early and played a bit of Halo 3 online. It was fun, and now I'm getting ready to go to sleep. Hey EP people, the time difference from Osaka and El Paso is now +16 hours. This is due to the fact that Japan doesn't do the whole daylight savings and all that jazz. So just letting you know.

Ok well this is enough for today, I will be back soon with some news and updates! Comment if you wish. Thanks to the people who have commented lately, like vero and lynn. See you soon!

peace

vince

I'm Back! (^-^)

Hey everybody! Well here are some pictures of the new Happy Time party flyer that I made this week. It isn't in color so it doesn't look that cool. I put random pictures that I'm sure Japanese people won't understand but it's still funny. Enjoy!

This morning I woke up at 4am to listen to the UTEP vs. Rice football game. Wow, another dissapointment! It seems that they don't know how to finish games! How can you be up by 20 points in the fourth quarter and lose? Oh man, that really sucked. Well the Houston Dynamo advanced yesterday to the Conference finals in the MLS playoffs. They beat FC Dallas 4-1 so I was happy about that.

Well I haven't really done much this weekend, just been hanging out. I can't wait to go back to work because it's actually becoming fun! Anyway let's play XBOX live people! If you want to play let me know. Well take care and I'll be back soon.

vince