Biological Clock on the Fritz Again

Almost everything about this weekend was cute. Well, perhaps I need to be a little more specific. Almost everything about this weekend brought out some deeply submerged but gradually emerging paternal instincts in me. I am a big believer in using examples to show what I mean, so allow me to begin.

This weekend's plan had been snowboarding, then it changed and became a trip to Placerville, then it changed again and became a trip to Sutter Creek, and then the whole plan for a trip fell apart since no one wanted to go, so we postponed it and I drove down to the ranch with Kira and Ryan to visit with the family. Family, you know who you are. Well, sure enough, within 10 minutes of arriving I was happily assisting Vincenzo to save some tadpoles who were caught in a puddle on the verge of drying up.
Thousands of tadpoles. Not having the resources to save them all, we made several trips back and forth with a cup of water and successfully saved about 50 tadpoles.
The ranch was really quite crowded this weekend. Kira, Ryan, Me, Josh, Oriana, Florence, Grandma, Grandpa, Ariane, Vincent, Luccina, Vincenzo, Heather, Carson (who, though I have known him for 8 years, spoke to me for the first time), Morea (who is, suprisingly, shy!), Coleen, Hal, CJ, Chris, and Tate (shown below). Tate and I played for the better portion of the afternoon, which creeped Kira out since Tate looks like she could easily be my daughter. Tate taught me the words "chair", "duck", "daddy", "window", "drop" and "shower". I felt very fatherly as we learned that her daddy was not a duck. It was a strange feeling.
And this is me right after I tried to smell the Stinging Nettle because I thought it was mint...
And here is a cute puppy.
Well, originally I had planned to drive back at 5 with Kira and Ryan, but after Oriana and Josh agreed to drive me home, I decided to stay. Well, dinner happened, and after dinner Oriana, Josh and I went for a nice, long walk. Then we came back and ate all of the apple pie.
And here is a tortoise that now lives in Florence's flower bed.
Me eating Oriana's hair. Why did I choose to include this picture, I wonder. Actually, I was chewing gum when Luccina decided to take this picture, so when I pulled away I realized I no longer had gum in my mouth. Near disaster.
Well, as I mentioned, Oriana and Josh were nice enough to drive me home in time to go out to lunch with Keiko. We then met up with Grace, Sohyun, Rick, Sean and Boeun and went to Arroyo Park Pool (which is awesome).
I had promised to teach Boeun how to swim, and for the amount of experience and lack of fat that she had, she did very well. Obviously, we will need to keep going to the pool, but I have high hopes for her. She tries her best and is very brave, which are two essential building blocks for swimming. Although, once again, I felt vaguely like a parent helping his daughter to learn.

I also discovered yesterday that my camera takes fantastic pictures in a pool environment. After all, that is the environment for which my camera was designed. There was one catch, however: in the place where my camera works best, no one wants to have their picture taken! Really, that shouldn't have supprisedd me. So here is all I am going to publish, a picture that doesn't show how not fat everybody is.
I had great fun swimming with everyone, and don't be supprised if I go again!

Picnic Day

Given the fact that I am a non-drinker, one would think that I would be fairly bored on Picnic Day, and that the next day I would wake up relatively guilt free...unlike most of the other student aged residents of Davis. This, however, is not the case. My picnic day was fun. Finally.

So here it is, my short rendition of Picnic Day. This is a marching band.
This is Drake.
I don't even know this girl.
People.
People watching "dog races".
Me as a cockroach.
The grass that I put in Lindsey's hair. Suprisingly, it looked good.
Boeun cooking for me, again. I will have to find some way to better show my gratitude.
Ralph with his medicinal corn bread. Boeun with her Tapokgi. The ingredients and flavors may differ, but there were other unmentionable similarities.
Heehee.
I promise my next bolg entry will depend less on images and more on text.

From Twinkie Tuesday To Easter

Last week, during dinner, Keiko brought it to my attention that she was always free on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Very free. Which means bored. So, last Tuesday Keiko and I went on a trip to Sacramento. As our tour guide we had Mr. Sacramento himself: Ralph Washington "Very Iron Man" Jr. Our first stop was Oto's Japanese Food Supermarket, and it was a total dud. No one really needed anything, and all of the cheap bento boxes were gone. So instead of eating Japanese food, we went and got pizza, the first of many unhealthy foods that we were to consume on that day.
Next, we went to Ralph's house and watched as Ralph's brother Jason's Pac-Man Frog devoured a fish. That frog is terrifying. It attacks almost anything that you put in it's tank.
Ralph's mom needed some leaves for her silk worms to eat, so we went to the grammar school where she works to get some. Ralph hopped the fence and grabbed some while I kept the security guard pacified with the power of my submissive apologies.
Next, the mall, where I got some new pants. Then, the Hostess Factory, where Keiko and I shared our first Twinkie. To my supprise, it actually tasted good while you were eating it. However, the after taste reminded me of the smell of Tilex, so I don't think I will ever eat a Twinkie again unless I have to.
Then, Costco, a must see for all exchange students.
Second to lastly, Fry's, where I played DDR and got my first D! I have never done so well!
Lastly, we went to L&L Hawaiian BBQ, where Keiko's first exposure to Hawaiian food was the most tasteless and fatty Lau Lau I have ever had.
On the car ride back to Davis, we all sang songs from The Backstreet Boys.

Skip to Friday. Well, the original plan for the weekend had been snowboarding, but it just didn't look like it was going to work. So, just before renting our equipment, I changed our plans. We'll go snowboarding some other time, but this weekend we went to the ranch. Dang it, I am getting ahead of myself. Before that happened, on Friday night Boeun, the girl on the far right of the picture below, cooked Blugolgi for us. It was quite good.
On Saturday we went to the Ranch, but not before making a lengthy stop at the Dollar Tree.
And here we are at the Ranch.
I was enlisted to cook burgers.
Which I did. See the perfect grill marks! I could qualify for a PHD in BBQ.
With all the rain we have been having, it is impossible to cross the crossing.
Oh, this is the part where I got caught in the fence, and when I asked for someone to please help me get free they laughed and took pictures. Shortly after this we saw a snake, and Keiko wasn't the same for the rest of the day.
Hal as a cowboy, posing for photographs.
Alright. Saturday complete. On to Sunday. Well, on Sunday I drove up to Napa to spend Easter with Grandma and Grandpa. I got there at 9:00am, and by 11:00am Zia, Oriana and Josh had shown up. Shortly after their arrival, we went to fetch supplies.
And cooked eggs.
And wrapped the trinkets that we were planning to hide...
Thusly.
And painted the eggs with Luccina...
And Vincezo.
The Egg that I painted.
perhaps by now you have realized what I am leading up to. This year, I was the Easter Bunny! And my goodness, Easter is waaaaay more fun for adults. Adults get to eat as much candy as they want, paint the eggs with greater skill, wrap tons of junk in tin foil, hide said junk and then act all smart because they know where everything is! I even got to make my own costume out of wire, towels and food coloring and chase my little cousins around the house pretending to be a rabid bunny! What incredible fun!
The only problem that I had this Easter was the fact that the wire that held my ears together really dug into my scalp.
Luccina looking for eggs.
We really had to help them find this one.
Uncle Vincent, who had to work, was extremely grateful that Oriana, Josh and I did this for his kids.
Vincenzo looking for something. Can you find it?
Here they both are at the end of the hunt. Very few tears this year, it was great.
Some more eggs.
This one was painted to look like Grandpa.
Me, with an entire egg in my mouth, and Vincenzo.
And here we are after dinner.
I stayed in Calistoga last night so that I could pick up Zia's tapes. I am trying to digitize everything before I go to Japan, and I start on the tapes today.

Another Mostly In Between Week

So, I have to say thank you to everybody who has been saying that JET is stupid for not taking me outright. I am flattered that you think I would be perfect for the job. However, I still want to do JET really, really badly. So I sent in my acceptance of my Alternate ALT position, and went looking for a Plan B. Plan B seems to be NOVA, a large Eikaiwa (Private English Institute) with branches all over Japan. After a lot of thinking, NOVA seems ok. It would not be my dream job, but the hours are good, housing is provided, there is more possibility for meeting people my own age, and the pay is comparable.

Anyway, aside from a lot of thinking, what happened this week? Well, here is Ralph's butt as he makes his Iron Man costume for a party on Saturday.
And here is my Coast Trip Crew over at Keiko's house after we cooked Kim Chee fried rice, Japanese home cooking, and Squid. I made the squid.
And here are all of Sung Eun's possessions! She moved today, and I helped her. I wish I had this little stuff. I am in the process of getting rid of all my things. I sold all my CDs on Tuesday and I have been organizing my books, deciding which ones to keep and which ones to sell.
So yeah, if anyone wants to buy a) a 40 GB generic iPod, b) a VCR, c) a broken scanner, d) a subwoofer, e) a 2.4 GHZ, 60GB HD, 512 MB RAM computer with 17 inch flat screen monitor or f) a 2000 Subaru Forester (maybe), please tell me.

Hey, by the way, "The 6 Billionth Voice" is nearing it's 1st birthday! One month from today it will be a year old! Be sure to check in a month from now for my Blog Birthday Extravaganza!

Is it Limbo or Purgatory

In the La Comedia Divina, Dante describes Limbo and Puratory. I can't decide which I just found myself in.

To get to the point, I heard back from JET. Here is what they had to say:

Dear Mr. McManus,
This letter is to inform you that you have been selected as an
ALTERNATE ALT short-list candidate for this year's JET Program.

Huh? Should I be happy, or should I prepare for things to get messy?