mother do not read this post!

whoa! kochi made the news . . . international news none the less!

** japan plane in emergency landing **
a japanese plane completes a dramatic emergency landing, sliding along kochi runway on its nose.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6444819.stm
here's the story from the national news. . .
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20070314a2.html
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070314a4.html

(if you ignored the title and read the post anyway, please note that it made a perfect emergency landing and no one was injured)

まだ？いやだろ！

i’m going to save myself some time . . .

go to stephen's blog (stephen is the alt in the town next to me . . . which is technically part of my town since we all merged last year):
http://www.golly-in-inaka.blogspot.com/
find the post called ‘pissed off’ written on march 8th . . . remove / read past the bad language, and you have our current situation. . . the two of us are not too happy about it. . . especially since we already signed the papers to stay a third year. . .

while you are on his blog, take a look at the cherry blossoms. . . i like the last one with the river and mountains in the background. . .

february showers bring march flowers?

this weather is insane. . . the lady on the radio this morning was talking about the cute cherry blossoms that were already coming out in parts of kochi. . . we never even had winter (aside from a thin layer of snow one morning that melted by noon). . .

guess it is only appropriate that i went to see 'an inconvenient truth' (al gore's documentary on global warming) last weekend. . . i thought he did a pretty good job of presenting the facts on a level that everyone could understand and clearly see what was happening. . .

i didn't actually realize there were so many people out there who still thought this whole thing was a myth. . . and then there are all the people who have the knowledge and can see what is happening but just don't change their ways (i'm guessing we all fall into this category). . .

living in japan has made me more aware of my actions. . . i'm sure i have mentioned how insanely hot the classrooms are in the summer and how insanely cold they are in the winter. . . while i still don't fully agree with making my students suffer like that, i have learned to adjust my clothing before adjusting the thermostat. . .

it is also mandatory that people sort their garbage (and therefore recycle). . . t/th/s are for burnable garbage, every sat for plastics, 1st and 3rd thurs for PET bottles, other days for metals and old appliances. . . the list goes on (i was so confused when i first got to japan that i couldn't throw my garbage out for over a week). . .

i am required to walk or ride my bike to work every day, as are all city employees who live within one kilometer of the office. . . many areas of japan have excellent public transportation (somehow kahoku got left out of that system. . . guess it's too rural??). . .

my house has no dishwasher and no drier (this is common to most houses in japan). . . the dishes are washed by hand and the clothes are hung outside. . . takes a bit more time, but it's the japanese way. . .

so, yeah. . .these people have some good ideas. . . they still have their downfalls (like tons of excess packaging on everything), but they are way ahead of americans. . .

anyway, if you haven't yet, go see 'an inconvenient truth' . . . here's the website: climatecrisis.net . . .

don't just watch it and then forget about it the next morning. . . do something about it. . . oh, and look for the line during the credits that includes 'tell your parents to stop ruining the world you live in' as one of the solutions (i found that to be rather amusing wording) . . .　じゃね