Howdy!

Sorry it's been so long since I have updated anything. I had Monday and Tuesday off so I was able to watch a lot of NFL football. Thanks to NFL gamepass. I was able to watch any games Sunday and Monday. It was great to see the Giants win, and that amazing pass by Favre to win in Over time. Look out freaking Cowboys, the Giants and Packers are on your arse! :)

School is going really well, I seem to have a great relationship with my students especially after the school festival. They are all really happy and talk. It makes things so much easier when you have a good relationship.

I don't know if I told you but remember the Happy Times parties? Well I was selected to throw the next happy time party!!! Yeah thats pretty crazy I know. Today I had my friend call up a restaurant that I found to reserve a room. Now I'm making the invitations on my computer. This is pretty funny. I am going to put English and Japanese(with help) on the invitation. I'm also changing some things, usually they like to have a Happy Time party close to school or whatever. I am going to throw a party in Namba, which is like downtown Osaka. It's one of the hippest areas of Osaka, right next to the river. I really hope a lot of people will go. I need this to go well since eyes will be on me this time! :) The flyer is looking awesome and I will post it up soon when I finish it tomorrow. WOOOHOOOO!!!

Well how was everyone's Halloween? Well mine was uneventful, since nobody really does anything for Halloween. Anyway Halloween is on a weekday. Whenever Halloween is on a weekday, nobody wins! I had a few lessons about Halloween today, I gave out candy and all that nonsense so it was pretty sweet. Geez, I can't even walk down the hall in my school without getting all sorts of comments. It's pretty crazy, all my teachers laugh at me. Hhaha It's cool though, I don't mind the comments anymore. I mean what would I do when I was High School, that's all I have to think about.

Well anyway I just wanted to give a quick update. OH YEAH!!! I got my HALO 3 and FIFA 08 on Tuesday so it's on!!! If you want to play with me on xbox live add my gamertag binsu 1

OK, I will talk to you all soon. Take care and give me some updates on your life eh!
miss you

vince

Impressed!

Time for tons of pics and videoS!!!! Wow today was such a fun day! I think today was probably the best day I have had in Japan, besides that day I went rafting. Today was the first day of the Matsubara High School Bunkasai (school festival)! It was raining today so I was kinda sad for the students, but they sure weren't sad because they were so positive.

The morning started off with the teacher (including me) singing a Japanese song to all the students! It was so fun, and I didn't know the song that well but they really appreciated the effort. There was 3 places where events were happening, the center garden outside, the basketball arena stage, and a few classrooms for exhibitions. I ran to the gym to check out my students dance routine. It was a blast, I got some of it on video. I didn't even recognize them in regular clothes. I went along to all my students shows and events. The drama plays were just awesome. There was, Notre Dame, Saiyuki, Princess Mononoke, Sister Act, and Wicked. The students just worked their asses off for this and I was so happy to see it. In the garden area there was food too, wow it was good stuff.

All in all today was amazing, I am so happy that I was able to experience this. The good thing is that there is the second day tomorrow!!! :) (sunday) There is not a festival like this in the USA, so this was very interesting. People from the community came too so it was open to the public. Well I hope you like the pics and videos. I will take more tomorrow!! see you!

vince

A few new pictures

Today I had brought my camera to my classes! And I completely forgot to take some pictures, except for the last class. So here a few pictures I took today. One is the flyer of the school festival this weekend! I'll take more pictures tomorrow!! see you

Rainy Monday

Well today had a mixture of ups and downs! I went to work this morning feeling kinda lackluster. I woke up at 3am to watch my Giants DESTROY THE CRAPPY 49ers!! So that was good, and after 4 cups of coffee I was good to go. Right as I pulled up to school in my bike I was greeted by my always cheerful and shy students. Damn they know how to bring a smile to a guys face. So thats always something I have to look forward to. At first period my team teacher decided to show about 10 mins late to class so I basically started whatever I wanted to do. I just gathered my students in a circle and we just started to talk about whatever. I think it's good for them to be able to conversate in a more relaxed environment. My teacher finally walked in 10 mins later, and he wanted to start his whack lesson. I just told him I already started one and we were doing good. He was kinda mad but I had complete control of the students, which are usually out of control in his class. We just talked and had a good time. They really enjoyed the class so I'm hoping we can do it again.

At about 2pm I went to the office and what do you know... my fedex box came in!! It was so nice to see it. It gave me some good and not so good memories thanks to someone!! anyway... I have to say thanx to my Dad and the person at the front counter who was nice enough to give him a discount. I guess you can never really know who your real friends are right! Anyway I really appreciate it A LOT!!! ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!!!

I came home so happy to play my game and finally get some home back. I went online to check my message on the space and I stubbornly stumbled upon some whack photos. They were a bit unnerving but hey I knew it all along. It's all good though because life will always come back to you. I have learned many things about myself here with my short time in Japan. I have grown, and I guess to quote Bill Murray in my favorite movie "Lost in Translation" "The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you." Nuff said eh!

Well lets just say I blasted my way through a few levels of Call of Duty 3. (i'm sure to the dismay of my neighbor) haha I ordered Halo 3 and Fifa 08 yesterday so soon we will all play online together people!!! :) I'm excited!!

I called both my grandfathers tonight and it was good to hear their voice. They are really strong people and I just wish I will be that strong in my life in the future. I talked to my good buddy in Sweden too! Chatted a bit about footy and life in general. Wow life just flies by huh!? It's kinda crazy now that I think about it.

I sent my pops a birthday present today at the local post office. I also sent chibi a present too! Who is chibi??? Oh that person knows who they are :)

So did I tell you I met a girl that looks so stunning, I can't even describe it if I wanted to. Well believe it or not, she actually is talking to me and I got a phone call tonight from her!!! whoa!! More on that another day haha ;)

Hey well I think that is enough of my random rants, I'm sorry if I sound mean sometimes I just write what happens in my life here. No lies, fluffs or BS! It's all good. Hey if you want to leave a comment, please do so. It's nice to hear from people. I know I have my frequent readers, but if you want drop in a message! :) Well until next time, take care, miss you all xx ^_^

vince



Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

Good times

Hello all! It's a really nice Sunday morning in Osaka. I woke up a bit late today because I was quite tired from last night. I went to my friend Aya and Nao's house warming party. It was really nice, and they have an amazing apartment. It was a bit far from my apartment again. I'm starting to think if I stay another year, I will move out of this stupid place in Matsubara. Anyway, there was a lot of food and a lot of drinks. Japanese people really know how to throw a party. My other friend Alex is from Holland, he works for Panasonic in Japan. I also met this really nice girl Mayuko. I thought she was a model or something, crazy!!! Well I just wanted to update you whats going on over here. This week will be really busy at school, because the Matsubara High School Festival is this coming weekend. The students will be going nuts trying to finish preparations. I hope you all are doing good, take care and leave a few comments if you would like to.

vince

p.s xbox is coming on monday!!!!! it's almost time to finish the fight everybody!! if you want to play on xbox live with me leave a message so you can get my gamertag! see you!!

mar- oh man those jibjab videos are freaking hilarious! more more more!!!

Some videos

HEY!

It's time for some new pics and videos of my bike ride home from school! Its a bit of a bumpy ride but what do you expect I was carrying my camera, navigating, and avoiding cars all at the same time.

Hey everybody!

Well this week is blowing by! It's good though because this Friday is another "Happy Time" party. I am going with the home economics teacher so thats pretty crazy!?! haha I am really looking forward to it. On Saturday I'm invited to a housewarming party of my friend Nao and Ami. It should be really cool, just like the party last week. I'm starting to meet a lot of Japanese people which is making life here a lot better.
At school, things are getting really busy. Next weekend is the Matsubara High School Festival. The students are absolutely trying their hardest to work on their presentations. A couple of girls want me to go see their dance routine, I definitely will. I am guessing that the school festival is something for the students to produce themselves and express themselves. It's really great, except for the fact it is on a Saturday and Sunday. Well I guess the good thing is that we get the following Monday and Tuesday off.
Today I was trying to take a video of my bike ride home from school on my cell phone. I was able to but the file is apparently too large to upload. So I took a couple of pictures of the way. Another picture is my desk at school. Tomorrow I will try to take a video again, with my camera this time. I just hope I dont destroy my camera or something! Anyway I just wanted to give a great big Texas howdy to everybody out there! I miss you all, and I hope life is treating you well. Leave a comment if you would like! They are always appreciated you know! Well see you :)

Bad timing

Hello everyone! Well yesterday I was about to watch the utep game online. I turned on the computer and guess what? Yeah the free internet was gone! Damn that really sucked especially since i had paid 4 the game. I even missed the patriots and cowboys game! Only one more week till i get internet installed.

My day was crap until I got a phone call from the japanese people i met last week! They invited me to a house party! It was far but i didnt care! I want to meet Japanese people. It was a great night! Got to see some friends. They even invited me to a party next saturday! I hope this will enable me to speak Japanese more. Right now I am relaxing in my apartment. I didnt work today because I had to work on Saturday. After work on Saturday I was so ti
red and just crashed out. It was good to catch up on sleep. Any way I just wanted to update you on the happenings here. Im typing this on my cell phone so it takes forever. talk to you soon! i get internet oct 24th oh man...

vince

ps thanks for the message val! sucks i missed u in ep! are u coming to asia any time soon?

chibi- how did ur mom like the game?

mar- maybe this week i will get the box dude. i preordered COD 4 here. how about them lsu tigers haha

mom- did u go to the game with pops?

lynn- damn i miss the miner maniacs

Back from Gamba Match!

Hey everybody! So I had a fine evening! I went out with my friends to see a Gamba Osaka match tonight. It was the semi-final of the Nabisco cup, which is similar to the US open cup in American Soccer. Gamba pulled off another victory off the feet of ENDO. It was a penalty kick but it was still a great goal. It was a good way to finish off a rather bland Wednesday.

Everything is going well here in Osaka right now. The weather is becoming more and more agreeable, and school is coming together. I think my students are really going to like the music thing. I gave the cd's to my last class today and they were so happy that I took the time to make them cd's. Which really wasn't a big deal to me but to them it was great. I think they are glad that there is some new stuff coming through. I have so many ideas in my head of what to do, and I really hope I can do them. I guess that Education degree is coming in handy eh!? Anyway, just wanted to give y'all a bit of an update. It's all good. Take care and comment if you would like. Oh and the people that voted "why would I want to visit you!?" wankers haha! Anyway cheers all!

*marcel* i will "finish the fight" with you dude just give me a few more days to get my xbox in! next week= payday!


peace

vince


i dont know if you have heard this song but it is really amazing... its from a band called melee

Hello on a rainy Tuesday!

Well this morning was a bit gloomy. It has been raining in Osaka for about 3 days straight. It's not a strong rain, just a really constant one that doesn't stop.

Anyway this weekend was ok. On Monday I had to be an MC at a conference at my school. I wasn't really nervous at all because standing up in front of people is no problem for me. The conference went good and I saw a lot of cute Japanese kids! WOW I WANT ONE! haha They are really good in English too. After that I was invited to a small gathering at this oh so typical trendy crap Italian restaurant. It was the typical contemporary metallic interior. Anyway, it was ok but not worth the money we spent. I met some really nice Japanese people and I hope I made some new friends. Unfortunately I didn't know we were going out after the conference so I didn't bring my camera. Other than that my weekend was quite bland, I went out with some of my friends on Saturday night, did a bit of Karaoke and Dinner.

Last Friday, I called my Grandpa to ask him how he was doing, and he told me that his Sister had died. I felt really sad for him, because I could tell he was hurting a lot. He is such a good man, and he has gone through a lot in his life. I just hope he will be ok. I regret that I never really knew my Grandfathers sister, but I told my Grandfather, that at least she was in a better place with no pain anymore. He agreed with me.

This week I hope will be good. I really want to try and make the most of my time here in Japan. I just don't know what to do to make the most of my time.

Oh yeah, if anyone is wanting to come down during this winter to Japan. Please let me know, if not I will probably go to China or somewhere in Japan. Maybe visit Makiko if she comes back. I was thinking about coming home but it may be too expensive, I looked and its about 1580 US dollars... ehhhhh.... anyway let me know.

Gotta go now, talk to you soon. Please let me know how you are doing!

vince

Wish me luck!

So it's about 930am and I will have my first attempt at the music challenge lesson that I going to start. If you didnt read about it go back through the posts its in there somewhere. Anyway, I hope it goes well. I made 66 cds so I hope the kids appreciate how much freaking work I put into this damn thing. I'm a bit nervous but I will try.

"So Vince, how are things in your life going?" Well hell thanks for asking. Everything else is going good. Had a few bumps in the road this week but I'm sure we will get through them. This weekend I have no clue what to do. One of my teachers invited me to a buddhist shrine tomorrow in Kyoto. So I may just do that, go see all the cultural things. Is any one planning on coming over anytime soon? If so let me know, because if nobody comes on winter break I think I will try to go to Hong Kong or something like that. Well take care everybody.

vince

*Marcel* are you still alive dude? i hope halo 3 didnt eat you.
*Lynn* hey only a few months till you graduate eh? sweet
*Neil* stop using the internet in class ok! damnit!! haha j/k i think im bring back binsu the brave. the world needs him, i hear the calling every night...
*Mom* u showed utep garbage education department whats up! they aint got nuthing on u congrats.
*Manny* the postcard thing whats up with that??
*People in South America that look at my blog* HOLA! comentario por favor!
*every one else* hello

Staring into space...

At the moment I am so bored that my legs are starting to ache, my eyes are as dry as a barren desert and arms are restless. Yesterday and today the students have another break, this time its autumn break. Whatever the hell that is. I being a "teacher" or せんせい, I have to be here. It might not seem like such a bad thing. I was thinking, "OK I will do lesson plans with my teachers, and talk about the coming weeks!". It all seemed like a marvelous idea at the time. Then I come to school yesterday and almost all the teachers took Tuesday and Wednesday off, including all the teachers I work with. So basically I have absolutely nothing to do. Very very boring.... OK OK enough with my whining and complaining about doing absolutely nothing.

Tomorrow I start my Music Challenge lesson thing with my first classes. I hope that it works. I made 68 Cd's last weekend so they are all good to go. By the way Manny I know you are going to copy my idea in your class but at least give me some props OK! haha Don't pick top 40 music crap either because they will know the songs already, you gotta think outside of the box. I'll let you know how that goes in the coming days.

My bro said that he would send me my Xbox 360! That is awesome because I am so dying to play some games. Especially Halo 3!!! You know the game that I have been bitching about the past few weeks. ****random side note alert**** (I'm sitting here looking at this teacher a few seats in front of me and he is completely enthralled in his nose. He might as well grab a pick axe and go away on his nose! I mean come on, I know everybody picks their nose! But that should be illegal, because it looks quite deadly.) Sorry about that I just had to write about it.

My friend Jayne's parents came into Osaka yesterday, I think she actually went to go pick them up at the airport. I think its really cool that her parents came all the way to freaking Japan to visit. I hope some people will be able to make it down to Japan to visit me. I know its probably loads of money but I'm sure some discounts are out there if you look for them.

Right now I hate myself! "VINCE, why would you say something like that?" Why, you ask, I'll tell you why! I was so bored right now that I just ate my lunch at 9:30am. That's right, I ate my lunch I brought from home, for breakfast because I didn't have anything better to than eat. I though it would burn a few minutes and it sure did. Now I will have to pay the consequences of my actions at 1pm when I get hungry again. LOL :)

Well I guess I will stop writing for now. This really has nothing to do with Japan but hey it's something to read right?? Ok talk to you soon take care.

vince


p.s. Thanks to Vero for sending me a comment! Hey family leave some comments! Phil,Paul,Mel how u doing eh?
p.s.s. Marcel, dude did you ehem "Finish the Fight"?
p.s.s.s. Sasha, Hi
p.s.s.s.s. Utep Miners: will you bring that same intensity this weekend? oh do you think you could possibly bring some run defense along too?!
p.s.s.s.s.s. Mom, it's all good.
p.s.s.s.s.s.s. Millie and Jigga, stop peeing in the living room, we all know you do it!!!! haha

thats all,
oh ok it's not, dont forget to watch the Champions League!! I do but I have to get up at 3:45am to do it in Japan.



here is another new jam in japan, one of my favorite singers ken hirai, hooking up with some westerner girl haha

Japanese Pizza Hut!?!?!

So I had some pizza delivered the other day, it was Pizza Hut. I was craving pizza so damn bad. It wasn't like casa pizza back home but it was pizza...enjoy the lame pics haha im going to sleep take care

vince

New Week New Month

Top of the morning to you all. I'm currently eating an oh so western breakfast right now in my apartment before work. Raisin bagel and a cup of coffee, damn its good. I found a wee shop yesterday when I was exploring that sold all sorts of goodies. Bagels, spam, doritos, salsa and yes I found TORTILLAS! The first thing I did when I got home was throw one in the microwave, and I must say they were pretty good. I wanted to try and put one on the stove to see if would smell the same as when my dad would over heat them on the oven back home! (the tortilla smell) Unfortunately, I don't have fire on my stove, just a pathetic electric burner thing. Anyway I was happy. To top it off it was raining all day, which I love. It was nice and cool, and almost no humidity. I even picked up some cd's at HMV, so over all the day was great.

Well, back to work today. I'm not complaining but I'm just not looking forward to it. Seriously the job itself is quite easy, but it's just the language things that makes it hard to actually do the job with my co-workers. I don't know it's just quite frustrating I guess. I can't really complain though, I'm getting paid pretty decent, and I live in Japan so yeah I guess it makes up for the garbage. Speaking of garbage I have to take mine out today. haha D

Tonight I think I might meet up with my friend Sarah to do something, I'm not sure but we talked about it. Anyway I have to finish here and get going to work (on my bike). It's still cloudy so it should be a nice day. Anyway have a good day, talk to you soon.

vince

p.s. go miners!!

p.s.s. leave a comment

p.s.s.s. .....must.....have......hhh..hh.hh...halo...3......with.....drawal... hahah ;)

here is some more japanese music that is quite popular over here right now.
this song is the theme to the new final fantasy 7 game out here