The first three images here are of autumn leaves on the campus of the school at which I teach. The autumn leaves (momiji, 紅葉) are particularly beautiful in November. Click on any of the photos in this section to see a bigger version.
	The goldfish pond outside—kids often knock on the door of the teachers' room and ask for goldfish food. Sometimes, they try to scam us and get a second round of goldfish food when the goldfish have already been fed by asking a different adult for the goldfish food!
A Chili Pepper Plant Growing Outside the Elementary School

30 Kilometers to Oyama	23 Kilometers to Oyama
A Dealership Somewhere Between Oyama and Utsunomiya Specializing in El Caminos	20 Kilometers to Oyama
18 Kilometers to Oyama

The entire way to Oyama has bike paths/side walks, pretty much, so yes, I think it would be feasible to ride a bike there. Plus, I picked up an incredibly cheap Wii remote en route from a used video game store along the highway (I had no Wii remote until that day, and needed one to play the Zelda game). It was only ¥420 after tax because it was missing a battery cover, and it can no longer vibrate. Neither thing matters to me.

I have cooked a lot over the past month. I cooked some Korean food.

Kimchi Jeon (김치전)—I don't have a plate, so I used an empty bentō container:

Jeyuk (제육):

At the school, we had two English club sessions (one Thanksgiving-themed, the other Christmas-themed). I also had the monthly theme for November (up to December 4) be ocean animals, and made some big flash cards for those... Click on the images to see bigger versions...

For the Thanksgiving English Club, we made Mayflower pen/pencil holders out of milk cartons...	...we covered them in brown paper...
...made masts out of straws, and decorated the sails.	Here is my finished one from another angle. The head of the English department also made one, by the way.
Some Ocean Animal Flash Cards that I Made and Laminated (November's theme)	Directions that I made on how to make an advent calendar for the Christmas English Club (in early December).
My Demonstration Advent Calendar

The last month or so has been very active in terms of gaming. The biggest thing was playing all the way through The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (a classic Super Famicom/Super Nintendo game). I have been playing this game since at least 1998. I have beaten Link's Awakening/DX twice, but had not beaten A Link to the Past until December 7 (December 8 was the first anniversary of the Wii U being released in Japan). I beat it on Wii U Virtual Console. It has three levels in the Light World and eight levels in the Dark World.

In first dungeon of the Dark World, there is a little bit of early 90s Japanese humor that did not get translated into the English version of the game. When Link obtains the hammer, the game refers to it as the "M.C. hammer."

Here, I am rescuing Princess Zelda from the crystal in which she was trapped by Aghanim. Freeing her occurs after Dark World Level 7. Level 8 is defeating Aghanim himself and then Ganon, the classic Zelda final boss.

Here is my Link character (which I named CHW for my initials, Charles Henry Wetzel) outside of Level 8, Ganon's Tower. The seal is being broken, because I have obtained the crystals in which all seven daughters of the sages from the ancient Hylian civilization were trapped...

This has nothing to do with Zelda, but does have something to do with gaming. This is Sa·Ga 3, known in America as "Final Fantasy Legend III." It is the only Sa·Ga game on Game Boy that I haven't beaten, yet. Marco and I went to a used video game store last week and went hunting for bargains. This was sure a bargain—I paid only ¥262 for it (I have been looking for this game at Japanese video game stores for a long time).

...and we're back to Zelda again. This is my Link character about to face off against Ganon.

I was unsuccessful the first time because I didn't have silver arrows. So I upgraded my inventory and fought him again. Here is my end-of-game inventory. I have all the best items/equipment except the red boomerang and two heart containers.

Here, I have just defeated Ganon. I am meeting the Triforce. They are speaking to me. A 15-year journey, which began in 1998 (after watching my friend play it as early as 1997), when I first played this game on Super Nintendo, has come to an end!

Here, we have proof that I suck at Zelda! I died a total of 86 times (or maybe 85, not sure whether that "86" means that I died 86 times, or that I died 85 times and was on my 86th game when I won). That was for the whole game, of course.

Here is one of Square-Enix's latest Nintendo DS programs. Square-Enix is the company that makes Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. So what is it? A blockbuster RPG? An action adventure game? Nope... This program is called "Kikenbutsu Toriatsukaisha Otsu Shu 4 Rui"—literally "Hazardous Materials Handler Second Grade, 4th Type." It is not a game, but a study tool for people to pass a rather esoteric national exam... The text below the title translates to "the national certification for the men who protect lives."

I have translated the sign above the urinal into English:
"Please do not defecate into the urinal. [If you do,] the next person will not be able to use it."

The first great thing about this sign on the urinal of the Trial grocery store's bathroom is that for it to have been posted, someone must have tried it. The second great thing about this sign is that some smartass wrote たまたま onto the sign. This changes the meaning to "Please do not accidentally defecate into the urinal."

Literal translation of this box in the teachers' room at my school: "Magic for Use at the Long Distance Running Competition."




Magic? Huh?




...Japanese people use "magic" (majikku, マジック) to refer to markers.

This monkey's head in a jar is prominently displayed outside one of the stores downtown. I asked Chris, one of the other UEC teachers, about it. He said that all the teachers he knew were too scared to go inside the store (which also prominently displays jars of dead snakes suspended in liquid), but the weird shop is infamous enough among the UEC teachers that they often use it as a landmark when giving directions.

Here, we have a giant vending machine almost the size of a gas station that sells 10 kilogram bags of rice. It also sells powder for making soba (そば) noodles.

=YES?

And here, we have someone's attempt at English gangsta graffiti (this is spray painted somewhere in Tsuruta-machi [鶴田町]). By looking at this picture, we can see that the graffiti "artist" started to draw the Batman logo, but got scared off before completing it. And that the artist attempted to make a stupid pun—"TAIMA is money." Taima (大麻) is one of the Japanese words for marijuana...

Finally, there is lots of new news regarding UMUC. Here is the news:

1. I got an official evaluation for a second bachelor's degree in Computer & Information Science. It will only require 30 more credit hours. I have decided to go for it for many reasons. First of all, both Computer Science AND Computer & Information Science degrees are okay for becoming a programmer (the university says so, Google searches say so, and both my programmer friends who have worked in Asia say so—actually, one of those guys is telling me to just skip the second degree and go ahead with becoming a programmer, and the other guy is telling me that he got his job with a degree in Sociology). I won't have to take calculus for the degree in Computer & Information Science, either, and I expect there will be about two of the major courses for it offered on-site here in Japan (versus zero for the Computer Science degree). Through the Computer & Information Science program, I will learn more Java, more C++, UNIX shell programming, MySQL, PHP, and XML, as well, which I'm sure will be really cool.
2. I think the best way to proceed is to take one course towards the degree each "session." There are six sessions a year, so if I start in January (Spring Session 1), I can finish by the end of Summer Session 2 in 2015. I will be 28 then.
3. The class UNIX with Shell Programming (CMIS 325) will probably be my first course. I will probably start taking it in mid-January. As for the order of the classes that I take, that is TBA, because although I have a rough idea of the order, I am not sure yet when CMIS 102 and CMIS 320 will be offered on-site. When they are offered on-site near me, they will be what I take. Anyways, to digress, UNIX with Shell Programming will hopefully also prepare me for the CompTIA Linux+ certification exam so that only minimal additional study is required.
4. For the first three sessions (Spring Session 1, Spring Session 2, and Summer Session 1), I should try to bias in favor of easy courses (like CMIS 102 or the C++ course, CMIS 315—I've already had C++ before and got a B for it, but UMUC didn't accept that credit, so this introductory course is basically just repeating material I already had [albeit five years ago], so the C++ course shouldn't be that difficult). The reason I should bias in favor of easy courses is that I will be preparing for the JLPT N2, which I plan to take July 6, 2014.
5. Once I am done with the degree, I can work on publishing an Android app. Android uses both Java and XML. I know a little bit of Java, but only elementary Java. I don't know any XML, but UMUC will cover it. I figure it is better to do the Android app after finishing my coursework.
6. I may or may not continue to pursue the AS in IT from NOVA. It will require six extra credit hours not included in the UMUC degree program, and will also require me to review precalculus since one of those courses is a calculus course. Basically, the AS in IT would take an additional 370 study hours. I'm not sure yet whether it's worth it, considering I'll have a BS (though I think a BS in Computer & Information Science and an AS in IT do not entirely overlap in their scope and would be a nice combo, especially since they are from different schools).
7. Technically, I have taken and passed my first UMUC course already, UMUC411, which is just a basic orientation course that is offered for free over WebTycho. One of the TAs for the course is an American who has been living in Japan for 20 years, and also spent three years in Korea. She was very interested by my posts on the course conference board. Anyways, I finished UMUC411 yesterday.