TEFL Certified and other shenanigans

I made a wonderful discovery recently. My camera, the Pentax Optio WPi, takes the best macro zoom photos of any camera I have ever seen, even though it's distance shots tend to really suck. As a result, I have been rediscovering the wonderful universe of very close up. This is a picture of Green Tea ice cream (one of my favorites) that I took at Osaka sushi when I went with my family on Thursday night.
I have been spending money far more than I am comfortable with this quarter, but it has all been on very worth while things. Mostly my health, education or friends. Except for one thing. So, I went to dinner with Tomoko on Friday night. Well, during my drive to pick Tomoko up I drove through a yellow light. Suddenly, there was a huge flash behind me, which startled me. I realized immediately that it was probably one of Davis' new red light cameras, which fine you...$370!! If I am actually fined $370 I am going to be very confused. I distinctly remember thinking as I went through the yellow light that stopping would be impossible and that I was obeying the law. I think I will contest the ticket. $370 is how much it costs for me to eat for a month and a half. Anyway, I was not upset by the possibility of going to court at the time, and I went and had a good Thai meal with Tomoko anyway.
Brought home what was left of the Thai food to Ed'd. Thai food "makes his toes curl".
The next day was my second to last TEFL class, and at lunch time we had a fantastic potluck. It was the only potluck I have ever been to where every single food was good.
Although, it may have not been a very good idea to have such a large lunch, since my brain did not work very well for the rest of the day. Here is me with some of my classmates after lunch.
The moon when I left class.
So, on Sunday we had our "practicum", which was sort of like a final exam. Everyone in the course had to teach an English class for 10 minutes. The night before I was very stressed out. So much so, in fact, that I got a head ache and a sore throat. I finally decided to play a modified game of 20 questions where I turned guessing what was in a box into an lesson in describing objects. The Santa hat was the final touch. At the end of the class, whoever guessed what was under the Santa hat won the object.
The actual teaching part was not stressful at all, an interesting contrast with the planning stage. After I sat down the instructor came up to me and said "That was really good. No, I'm serious. For a guy who didn't know what he was doing yesterday, I'm really astounded. You should keep at this." These were the marks he gave me.
And here is the certificate I got. It probably isn't worth much, but hey, I got my money's worth of knowledge out of the course.
The final shot of the class.
After class I went over and visited grandpa Jim.
Then went to Ryan's family's house for dinner. Which was also really good, although I was on the verge of sleep for half of the time I was there.
So what is next? Well, I still want to learn how to do massage, mom wants me to take accounting, I'd like to do EMT training, volunteer locally and travel around California a little. So this week I am back to my plan making. TTFN.

Jerry Reveals His Wisdom

So, first of all, a shout out to Nick, who would have featured much more prominently if I had actually remembered to bring my camera when I went to sushi with him yesterday. Your stalking is greatly appreciated, even though it cuts the number of stories I can tell you in half. Oh well. We'll just have to go for sushi again so that I can get a picture.

The rest of the bolg is philosophy. As always, in purple so you can't take it too seriously.

So I met with Chih-I (Jerry), my Taiwanese PAL partner from last quarter today, and we started to talk about empathy. I defined empathy for him as "when I feel something, you feel something". We then got into a long discussion of times when we had felt empathy with other people. About an hour into the discussion I remarked that I would love to know what people think. "Why?" he replied, "that is the worst thing you can know. Peoples minds change all of the time". He went on to explain that knowing the thought of another person is almost worthless in comparison to knowing your own thoughts. After all, there is so little in the world that one can actually control. We cannot change the weather. We cannot become a rock. We cannot even control our heart beat. Sometimes, we cannot even muster the strength to get out of bed in the morning. But we can affect our 'self'. We can try to become what we want to be, and if we do this the rest of it will fall as it is meant to. Things happen, and the most you can do is be strong when things do happen. Sometimes, the happenings of things can even work to make you stronger. Fighting the happenings of things will probably make you weaker.

I had no response. I had no response because the majority of what he said I held to be true at one time. I realized that I had forgotten it. In my time at college I have been trying to develop human relationships. This is not a bad thing. But in the process I have severely neglected my own development as a person. I have become a better person socially, but have not improved much as a person because I have not thought about 'self' for a while.

There is more, but I don't want to share it. Don't worry, I am happy, balanced and not in any danger of suffering a nervous breakdown. I just like to think.

Left with nothing I could say I responded by telling Jerry he was very wise.

"I'm older than you," he said.

Transition

So, spring is coming. Here is proof. Soon this will be a beautiful flower.
So, like I promised in my last entry, here is the news. On Friday Mom, Koki, Manabu, Takaya and I went shopping for my first suit.
Suit shopping was supprisingly fun, but I realized I am going to need to get hair cuts more often and shave daily.
I was supprised at the selection of suits.
After shopping we had lunch and I taught Manabu, Koki and Takaya how to check their voice mail. They had messages on their phone from October, which is why I could hardly ever get hold of them before.
Then Coffee for Mocha Jet Max.
And a short walk to the Taffy Shops in Old Town Sac.
I returned to Davis for Diego's Birthday.
It was at Cafe Italia.
The next day I went to class, stopped by Sakakibara Sensei's houe for lunch, when back to class, went back to Sakakibara Sensei's house and drank coffee with Takaya and Koki, then went to dinner with Koki, Ralph, Takaya and Mom. Then we picked up Tomoko and some of Takaya's Korean friends and went to what had been described to me as a "drinking party". And it was indeed, a drinking party. There was very little to do but drink. Luckily, I was able to talk to Tomoko for part of the time, so I was entertained. I have many pictures, but frankly, I find pictures of drunk people who I barely know as boring as I find drinking itself. Here is a picture of a fan.
This is my class. I was supposed to do a presentation about myself, so I took a photo of them to show that I like to take photos.
Then today I got up at 5:30 and went to the extention center to say goodbye to everyone. Unfortunately, Takaya gave me the wrong time, and everyone else showed up at 6:30. So by the time the people who I wanted to see showed up I was freezing and kind of craby from sitting in the car for an hour.
Me an Manabu with the sunrise.
Takaya getting on the bus.
And that is it. Takaya, Manabu and Koki have gone home to Japan. But I know that I will see them again, so while I was a little sad, I mostly felt at peace.

Besides, this week is too important for me to dwell on anything. While every second you live affects the course of your entire life, the next two weeks in particular are crucial for me.

The First Day of Feb.

It is a good thing that I never decided to peruse a career as a supervillian. The type of dedicated planning and plotting that goes through my head on a daily basis is, quite frankly, terrifying. This is even more common around birthdays and holidays. When I special even approaches I concoct numerous plans, visualize their execution, the (most of the time) scrap them all for lack of resources or skill.

Yesterday was one such day. It was Diego's Birthday. Sure enough, my grand scheme to cook Diego a fantastic multi-course breakfast was foiled by the fact that we only had eggs and frozen bread. We didn't even have butter. Lots and lots of yogurt, to be sure, but no one eats that but me.
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. I met up with my new PAL, Haksoo, and then waited for Takaya's last "Hosei Conversation Hour" to start at 5. This is a pretty picture.
So at 5 I went over to the Silo and joined the standing-room-only crowd in breaking fire code on the second floor. I would guess that about 30 people showed up. By the way, I am slowly, slowly getting better at socializing in large crowds of people I do not know. I am very pleased about this. It is a very useful skill to be able to make small talk with people you don't know until the person you really want to talk to shows up. Speak of the devil, here is Tomoko taking a look at Takaya's rented porn.
At some future date this may become my profile picture. Future English Teacher?
And no room full of Japanese people and people learning Japanese would be complete without the part where one person takes a picture with everyone's camera. Again, I was sunburned by all of the flashes. I decide to take my own picture, and I am very happy at how it turned out. It looks like the poster for a T.V. show staring Minoru. In the background are the secondary characters.
The Hosei students will be leaving on Monday. Fortunately, I will get to spend time with them before that.

Next time, on the 6 Billionth Voice: Trenton goes suit shopping. Ed'd has a birthday! Trenton suprises his TESL class. And "Dinner?", Trenton reveals his plans. Tune in next week and hear more of my attempts to live an extraordinary life!

Opposite Weekends, a.k.a I Really Like Being Busy

So, last weekend I did very little. Well, let me clarify, I had very little to do. I cleaned my room and thought too much.

This Weekend was great because I was so busy. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights combined I was only able to get 5 hours of sleep (I just had a 5 hour nap to recover). So, in standard fashion, let me give you all the chonological run down of the weekend.

Thursday: Ok, time for a little background. Takaya, Sung Eun and I had, in total, invited 20 people to come to Karaoke. There was a little bit of an issue with having enough cars (it took a long time to round up enough cars, by the way, thanks to everyone who came!). However, a larger issue existed. Takaya had told me that the Karaoke shop was called "Ururara". As hard as I looked, I could not find it on the phone book or on google. I even tried searching using Hangul and Katakana. Nothing. Finally, on Friday night I called up Ralph and together we drove to Sacramento to look for the Karaoke shop in what I guess is Sacramento's Korean neighborhood. Of course, no trip down Folsom road would be complete without a stop at Hana Market, my favorite Korean store.
Ralph had the brilliant idea to ask the people who worked in the supermarket where the Karaoke place was, and sure enough, they told us it was about a block away.
It was then that I understood. "Rurulala" can easily become "Ururara" if you are Japanese and not being very careful with your pronunciation. Oops. I shoud have known. Anyway, we went inside and made reservations for 20 on Saturday. Afterwards, feeling a bit hungry, Ralph and I stopped by a restaurant for some Bi Bim Bap.
I believe that this was Ralph's first exposure to Korean food. From what I could gather, he was impressed.
Then it was off to Ralph's house to pick up a heater.
Friday: I woke up Friday morning and spent all day writing a paper that was due at 5. After 5 I went to the MST office hours that I promised I would have, but since no one came even though they said they would, I was quite bored and sad.
Well, when I got home Kira and Ryan came and picked me up and we went to see Macbeth. It was by far the best rendition of Macbeth that I have ever seen. Even though Macbeth was female, the actor did such a great job that you forgot she was not a medieval Scottish tyrant.
Even though Macbeth is my least favorite Shakespeare play, I enjoyed it. I think the reason I do not like Macbeth is the fact that I never feel any connection or sympathy for Macbeth. What I liked about this version is it emphasized the prophecy (which is really well worded) rather than the insanity (which is always overdone).
Saturday:I have signed up for a Teaching English as a Foreign Language course . I really want to become a good teacher. I was worried that this class was going to be an 18 hour waste of time every weekend, but, aside from being locked outside of the classroom in 40 degree weather for an hour on our first day (shown below), so far it has been great. It is not boring, I learn something new and useful every 5 minutes, my classmates all seem to be good people, and the instructor is very, very good. I doubt that the certificate I receive from this course will be worth very much, but the knowledge will be very useful.
Well, my TEFL class went from 9-6, and afterwards I immediately drove back to Davis and began to prepare for Karaoke. Here are Sung Eun and Tazuko waiting with me in Game Stop for everyone else to show up.
It was just after I took that picture that Ralph called me and told me Ed'd's car would not start. This was very bad news. Even though Kira had been kind enough to loan me her car (thank you Kira!), Drake was comming (thank you Drake!), and Ralph was taking my car (thank you Ralph!) I would still have only 11 seats for 15 passengers. It was then that a very welcome mistake was realized: Takaya had forgotten to call 5 people who he had invited to tell them the gathering place and time. Sad to leave our friends, but relieved that we did not have to stack people in the back of the car, we set off.

Everything else from the night went wonderfully, I thought. I would have liked to have been able to talk to people more, but conversation is basically impossible in a Karaoke booth. Oh, well. Here we are in the booth at Karaoke.
My first song was "Cryin'" by Areosmith. Not a good choice for the first song. Lindsey, Sung Eun and Soh-Hyun sang the most songs in the beginning, including a Korean song in which the English chorus was "I love you long time", which made the jaws of most of the Americans in the booth drop to the floor in embarrassed amazement. We never explained our surprise, although we probably should.
Lindsey, Soh-Hyun and Sung Eun.
Tazuko and Tomoko on the left, searching for a song for themselves. Koki, Lindsey and Soh-Hyun on the right.
Tomoko and Tazuko singing their song. And dancing, might I add.
Me and Drake butchering "Lean on Me".
Ralph looks for a song.
The Mic.
The Crew.
We'll have to do that again sometime.

Sunday consisted of more class, followed by the Star Wars RPG that Rick, Sean, Diego, Ralph and I play on Sundays. For those of you who do not know about our game, think of it as our "Poker Night".

I have two conclusions from this weekend. 1) I am getting better at manageing my time. 2) If you were to open a Karaoke shop in Davis, you would make so much money.

The JET Program Wants to Interview Me!

So, last night I got an e-mail saying that my application had been reviewed and that I had made it to the interview stage. I am supposed to interview in San Francisco sometime between Feb. 17th and 22nd. I am very happy about this. Now to spend the next month preparing for this (my first) job interview...

I have 253 books!

How did I ever get that many books?! Lets say I have been at college for 4.5 years. 4.5x365=1642.5 days. Divide that by 253 and you get 6.492. In other words, during my time at college I have bought, on average, 1 book per-week. Pathetic.

It has not been a problem until now, however. Here is the thing: if I get i to the JET program I only plan on taking 3 or 4 of my most important books to Japan. So what do I do with the other 249? Take them to Hawaii? Their combined weight must be about 300 pounds. Sell them? If I had a yard sale, even if I sold a book a minute it would still take over 4 hours of constant selling to sell them all! Give them away? Who of my friends is going to want to read "Barron's Japanese Grammar: Second Edition". E-bay? It would take an entire tree to make the cardboard boxes to ship 249 books. Burn? Out of the question.

This leaves me with only one logical answer. Become president so that I can retire and get a presidential library in which to store them.

There have been other important developments and funny stories in my life recently, but they are firmly in the realm of things I am not willing to share on this blog. Just know that I am well.

Here are some random pictures which I took at some point and I thought should be posted even though they have almost no story behind them. In that respect, they are just like the rest of this particular post.


Oh yeah, check this out.

The Plans Slowly Unfold

So, on the weekends of Jan. 28,29 and Feb. 4,5,13,and 14 I am registered to take a TOFEL certification course. As for travel plans, I will be in Hawaii from May 22nd to June 1st. I am going to try to find the cheapest fare possible for leaving sometime in June and returning mid-July. Then I will see who is in on this endeavor. Sadly, I may not have acted soon enough (cursed cold), because I missed the lowest fares on Hawaiian Airlines for June. But I will be acting very soon.

Trenton Concocts His Plan

I have been thinking a great deal about my plans for after graduation. It is beginning to look like I will probably be in Hawaii twice. Once in May to see Nick graduate and do what I can to get back in touch with people I knew in High School before we progress so far in life that we forget eachother, and once in mid to late June so that I can be there one more time before I need to commit all my time to working. Plans are still very flexible.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? What did I do last week? Well, to tell you the truth, most of it I won't remember in a week because it was so run-of-the-mill. I'll give you the highlights. I started an aerobics class because in 30 years I'll be lucky if I am as healthy as my parents. Was sore all week. I was also sick all week with a low level cold which didn't stop me from going to my aerobics class. David came up from L.A. to visit, and I got to see his films and learn about his trip to China. Went to Sac with Sung Eun and visited the Korean market, then went to dinner and a movie the Friday before last. Met her again for lunch last Thursday. Got a new camera, much smaller than my last. Had sushi with Kira and Ryan and got $2 for eating an ounce of wasabi. Went to the quarterly astronomy club meeting and FINALLY was able to step down from my unasked for appointment as treasurer.

And then Friday came. So Drake and I, having seen eachother only once Fall quarter, decided that we really needed to go skiing together and catch up. So we did. We started our drive at 6:00 on Friday morning and were quite pleased by the fact that there was no traffic.
We decided to go to Kirkwood. Now, I have many problems with Kirkwood. Having lived in Kirkwood for some time, I am very turned off by the development that they have done recently. However, they do have a deal where university students can get a lift ticket for $31. And I know the mountain very well. It is practially the only mountain I have ever skied. So Kirkwood it was. We arrived at 9:00 am to find that we had been beaten there by the UCB marching band.
The Band-uh (UC Davis' band) is much better. Anyway, everything went easily, and we were making runs by 10:00.
Here is Drake on Shortspoke. As you can see, almost nobody was on the mountain. It was great. And the texture of the snow was perfect for me. Not icy, not slush.
We skied for about 5 hours strait.
Then got very cold, decided we had had a great time and called it a day. Drake had a GPS speedometer that tracked our max speed at 63 miles per hour. I wonder if we actually went that fast.
After skiing we drove to Tahoe, found a hamburger place that sold food cheaper than you can get it in Davis and restored our energy. I ordered a $3 garden salad that weighed in at about a kilogram. Very impressive amount of food, and not bad tasting.
So that is my latest adventure. I had a great time skiing, which kind of surprised me, to be honest. Drake and I now plan to return to Kirkwood to ski again, but next time we will also be paying a visit to Grover Hot Springs when we are done, and hopefully we will be able to convince more people to come.