As Of Lately

Monday October 18, 2010

It has been a couple of weeks since I have updated my blog.  Not a whole lot of exciting things are happening anymore.  Things have calmed down enough where I don’t feel as though I should do a day by day blog.  I will try to just hit some of the highlights of the past 2 weeks.

I am still waiting to hear back about substitute teaching, but I am expecting to hear from them within a week or so.  I am very ready to start working a little bit so I am not as bored as I feel some days. 

Our 6 month wedding anniversary was last week, which for me was a mini-milestone.  It’s hard to believe we have been married for 6 months, but with everything that has happened in the 6 months, it feels like a lifetime!

Slowly, Brian and I have been adding things to our apartment to make it more homey feeling.  We have purchased a lamp for the living room, curtains for the kitchen or back door, and curtains for the living room and our bedroom.  Putting curtains up provided quite a challenge for us.  Our windows are quite large and not many of the rods were long enough to fit, and then we had to decide on the curtains we liked best.  Brian’s pick got to stay in the living room while mine are in the bedroom.  The ones in the bedroom are a bit too small, so they might not be there for long.  One of my favorite purchases lately has been the patio set we got!  It is black wrought iron, a circle table with four chairs.  Now we are almost ready to entertain!  We just need to get a grill for Brian!

Our second shipment of things will be coming in about two weeks, which we are both pretty anxious to get.  That will definitely complete our home.

Last week, Brian’s work had a beach party cookout for someone who was leaving to go back to the states.  That was pretty fun for us because that allowed us an easy way to meet new people.  Also last Monday, we decided to venture out in town to go eat as well as walk along the “strip”.  We had a really good time and can’t wait to go and explore different parts of the island like that.

Last Friday, I went out with a friend to go dress shopping for the Marine Birthday-Ball on November 2^nd.  This was a lot of fun and I found a dress that I can’t wait to wear!!  Of course, all good things come with a little complication.  That day, I ran over a screw in the road and had to get a new tire put on.  That wasn’t a major ordeal, but I definitely could have gone on in life if it hadn’t happened!!

Sunday was our one month mark for being in Okinawa!  It is slightly hard to believe we have been here for that long already, in some sense, it seems like we just got here!  On Sunday, me and Brian went out to the beach.  Brian bought some flippers, goggles and a snorkel (I just got goggles and a snorkel) to explore some of the ocean with.  The water is pretty clear, but where we swam at, there wasn’t much to see.  It was pretty crazy how far off the ocean dropped.  There was a netted swimming area, but once you went outside of that, the ocean dropped off deeper than we could see!  I wasn’t a huge fan of this, but it was still a fun and new experience for us.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Once again, I have put off writing my blog and putting it online.  Once again, there really isn’t a whole lot of excitement going on.  Last weekend, we went to a comedy show with some friends.  It was pretty funny and a nice way to get out of the house!  It is really cool all of the opportunities that we have over here.  The comedy show was free for us which made it even nicer!  On Sunday, Brian and I decided to try snorkeling again.  We were supposed to meet someone who was going to show us to a really cool snorkeling place, but that didn’t work out.  Eventually, we found the place on our own.  Once we got to the parking lot, it was another adventure trying to figure out where to snorkel at!  We walked down a couple of trails and up on a huge rock and finally found where we needed to go.  Unfortunately by that time, the sun was starting to go down so we just decided we would come back early in the day another time.

On Monday, I volunteered at the Elementary School.  It has been Red Ribbon Week for schools here (and back home) and on Monday, all of the students participated in a parade with the Marine Corps band leading them off.  Afterwards, I helped some students in a fourth grade classroom.  Overall, it was not the experience I was looking for, but it was only my first time at the school.

On Tuesday, some interesting news was brought to my attention.  One of our neighbors informed me that a Typhoon was headed our way and was due to hit in a couple of days.  There wasn’t much for us to prepare for.  Our apartment is a very sturdy building, as it has to be because of all the bad weather they get here throughout the summer and fall months.  We had plenty of water and food to eat as well.  Tuesday there were many gusts of wind coming and by Wednesday, there was rain added on to an increase in the wind gusts.  Thursday morning, Brian left for work, but about 5 minutes later, was back home because his higher-ups didn’t want him traveling to work since we live on a different base from his work.  If he had gone to work and the weather had gotten bad really fast, he may have been stuck there throughout the storm.  Therefore, Brian stayed at home and we just relaxed all day and listened to the whistling wind and the down pour of rain.  By this morning, the storm was basically all gone.  This shocked everybody, we all figured it wouldn’t be over until maybe tonight or tomorrow morning.  Sure enough though, there hasn’t been any rain so far today, there are only mild gusts of wind every now and then.

After Brian got ready for work, we both headed over to set up an appointment to get our second (and last) shipment of our belongings!  We were able to make an appointment for it to be dropped off on Monday which made both of us very happy.  After this, Brian headed off to work, and I headed off to volunteer again.  I worked with the school nurse to help her organize some papers.  While this again isn’t the experience I was looking for, I was okay with it.  When you start out somewhere new, you have to start at the bottom, and it certainly won’t hurt to make connections with all employees at the school.

Speaking of the school, I STILL am waiting to hear back about substitute teaching.  When they told me it takes a while for the papers to get processed, they were not joking around.  For now, I’ll keep volunteering so people will know who I am.