10-1-06 Sun, Mon & Tues "The Calm Before The Storm"

"The Calm Before The Storm"
Wow - I have sooooooooooooo much stuff to bring with me, but the problem is, I can only bring enough to fit in one small suitcase -because there is a size limitation to Japan. QUANDARY... What gets the cut?

I am looking in front of me now at two TONS of clothing, a loquacious leather jacket, a dreadfully delightful dress jacket, an old school Run-DMC adidas jacket, a bee's-knees DVD camera from school, my neat and sweet digital camera, my passport -sporting a styling profiling "bringing sexy back" photo, a luscious laptop computer, a welly web cam, a bodasious bag of gifts including NY City T-shirts and New York Yankee baseball caps to give to the family that will host me, a fabulous few hundred rubber bracelet for students I meet, a thousand goofy business cards written in Japanese, my language map (a menu of key phrases listed for easy access), some styling old yearbooks and course guides from my school, a Japanese/English Dictionary, three precious pairs of nikey sneakers, a crocodile karaoke CD (my favorite), $500 in cash (word up!), a yen-US dollar converter table, $40 for Mr. Boswell's fancy dancy Japanese soccer whistle request, my 100 yen club wish list of students who want something from the most dominating dollar stores in the world, a pair of headphones for the massive movie I hope that they play on the plane (it is a 17 hour trip out of San Francisco), some various Xena DVDs to pass the time, a few packs of extremely minty gum, an extra roll of toilet paper -and an endearing list of friends and family to write to.

What would you cut?


10/1/06 Sunday – “Sunday in San Fran”

Ok. I am off. So far, it has all ready been a little bit crazy. I got to Albany International Airport on time, 5:30 AM (which means I had to wake up at about 4:30). I checked in an enormous super-sized bag that was so wonderfully stuffed it was bulging at the seams. The reason I did not pack two is because The Japanese Fulbright Memorial Fund (JFMF) has a suitcase limitation; one case with a total of 62 inches (length + width + height), one traditional carry on, and one personal item that in this case is my laptop.

Well anyhow, I had a bottle of water in my carry on that had to be moved over to my checked bag at check-in, due to raised level of terrorist awareness from security. Trying to squeeze the bottle into the already tightly-packed case was like trying to fit a monkey into a Kleenex box.

So finally, I get into the longest line I have ever seen at Albany International; now dubbed international, I believe, because we finally have a plane who’s right wing momentarily extends over the US/Canadian border for about three minutes of flight. I wait in the line that moves the slowest, of course and decide to put my Fulbright name tag on. Curiously enough, the woman in front of me was Julie from Schenectady High, someone whom I had never met, but had talked to through email. She too coincidentally is making the Japanese journey and was awarded as I by JFM and the Japanese Government -all expenses paid. Being from Schenectady, she only lives about a half an hour to 45 minutes from me, and we found it kind of funny that two people in such a close radius could have won the three-week scholarship trip.

Going through the security check, I was informed that I had yet ANOTHER forgotten bottle of water in my carry on (which too was packed thicker than London fog.) I wonder how many free beverages the security guys have been able to enjoy since that terrorist scare a few weeks ago? The dastardly man in black took my precious dragon-fruit vitamin water and I was left parched.

Finally making it to gate A-2, rushed a bit due to my second beverage incident of the morning, I was happy to see the ON TIME status below Dulles Washington – United Airways Express. However, the sign was not updated. I caught up with Julie again and learned that there was a problem with the left wing flap. Not knowing planes flapped their wings, I soon learned that a problem like this can hold you up for an hour and a half. This would have been fine, BUT… I had to be to Washington for a connecting flight to San Francisco in precisely an hour and a half!

Let me digress for a moment… I have been fortunate enough this past year to take advantage of a number of professional development trips across the states. It seems being one of the few academic teachers in my mostly vocational school, I luck out and get cool “vacation-site” trips. Last year alone, they flew me to Nashville for “High Schools That Work” Chicago for the ASCD conference and Santa Barbara, CA for a preparatory workshop for a new class that I am teaching called “Pre Tech”.

In returning from my journey to Santa Barbara, the dinky little airport which primarily only flies to Arizona International, got us to the desert airport a few minutes too late. Tom Slovic, a social studies teacher, and I rushed off our blue-light special plane held together incidentally with duct tape and ran down seemingly miles of souvenir, magazine and coffee shops only to learn that our connecting flight home was still in fact there, but had shut their doors. With the 4th of July weekend approaching, US Air could do seemingly nothing to get us on a connecting flight to Detroit, which would then take us to Albany. In desperation, we tried a few stand-by deals, and actually got on one! However, it too was late to Detroit and we ended up having a 15 hour lay-over!!!

Back to Bevan’s journey to Japan... I slept about the entire flight to Dulles/Washington and was awoken by the pilot’s voice telling us that we would gate with about 10 minutes lee weigh to get me on my flight to San Fran.

When I got off that plan, I moved as swiftly as a cheetah. Hopped on a shuttle to the D concourse and found D-8 just as they were shutting the doors.

Julie didn’t make it…

Survival of the fittest. We will have to see in future postings what happened to the teacher from Schenectady. As for me, getting on the plane late had its advantages. Instead of sitting squished between two heavy boom-booms, I took an empty seat in “Economy PLUS” which was $40 more, had plenty of leg space and was WAY more comfortable than if I were to have sat in my regular seat on time.



Sunday, Oct 1,2006 At the Sheraton Gateway Hotel

I checked in. Nice little room. I have a roommate tonight, but will be flying solo for the rest of the trip.

Being Communications Coordinator bugged some people in my group. They thought I work for JFM, but didn’t realize I am the same as them. My only real duties are reporting to the officials and distributing information to our teammates. So when people asked me some “burning questions” and I didn’t have answers, a few faces looked angry as I wrote the questions down. Oh well… Give a group of people a free 20,000 trip and they will still find stuff to bitch about.

I found Laurie from Schenectady. She did in fact miss the flight, but thanked me for trying to get the gate keepers to hold the plane for her. I guess they told her I tried. She missed ALL of the orientation and rolled in around 6:30, just before dinner.

I met up with my group. There are three or four of us who kicked it off pretty well. During dinner we talked about silly stuff we had read about on the Internet like eating “basashi” (raw horse meat) and “kanchu” an Asian wedgie-like prank that is rumored to be all over Japanese television and schools.

A cool panel of old JMFers showed some digital pictures and talked about what to do. I will definitely staying Tokyo for my free time off now I think.