Gone to Naha to pick up Natalie. *SQWEE!!!*

Gone to Naha to pick up Natalie. *SQWEE!!!*

Will be back on Sunday. Have phone, no internet. Again, if you need to get in touch with me, and it's an emergency (or you just want to be nice during normal I'm awake hours) you can email me at cailement at ezweb dot ne dot jp. But as this will go directly to my cell phone, which I leave on even at night, please use it sparingly and carefully. I am 14 hours ahead.

To leave you with Kim-Happiness as I go, this week I uploaded a metric ton of pictures from my Osaka trip. Enjoy.

Today I had interesting experiances

1) I had a kid throw up in my class while the teacher was MIA.

2) A student grabbed my breasts.

More exposition:

1) I have no idea why the kid was sick, and apparently the Japanese response is to have everyone rush up and comfort him. I was worried that the attention would a) make him feel worse, and b) make other kids throw up so I told one kid to find the teacher and continued the class. Maybe they:ll think me heartless now, but I hope not.

2) At least she was a 1st grader and was probably just curious that they are so much bigger than everyone elses here. I told her *dame* (bad) and then just moved on like nothing had happened. So long as it doesn:t happen again all good.

I really don:t like putting on my monsterface.

クリスマスだよ！

Okay, so I plan excellent starting points for a Christmas lesson for next week, and I:m all prepared to finish out this week with regular lessons and go pick up Natalie in Okinawa Honto. So I clean a bit last night (okay, my dishes are still unwashed and I have to bleach the bathroom, and vacuum, but I got everything else put away or in nice orderly piles) and then sat down (or I started to while I was cleaning and then ran out of steam) and watched the first two parts of that SciFi special Tin Man. So I go to bed at a (somewhat) reasonable hours and have a horrible night's sleep (I:ve been sleeping badly lately, I:m wondering if it:s the heat, because while I was shivering under my 4 layers of blankets, I actually would pass out for hours as uppose to tossing and turning all night).

So, my alarm goes off and I go, oh yay, another day at Seijo and I won:t get to see them next week, which is too bad because it:s one of my favorite schools and Natalie won:t get to--wait, I won:t get to see them next week. That means They:ll MISS CHRISTMAS!!!!

This was no good. No good at all. So, in the 15 minutes that I had to leave the house after getting decent and all, and during the 30 minute ride to work, I make a Christmas lesson. Woot. It went like this:

1) Introduce Christmasy vocabulary while telling (what I know) of the story of the Original Nicholas. Vocabulary includes: Santa Claus, presents, toys, sled (I guess I could use sleigh, but sled is more universally useful and they mean the same thing, right? Sleigh is just fancier?) reindeer, elves, Christmas tree, snowman, bells.

2) We make dorum bells. Those origami bells that I learned how to make in the 4th grade (thank you Ms. Aubrecht). This went rather well, up until the 6th grade, who found it too hard and too easy all at the same time. It was rather difficult, and I think from now on I:ll use tape instead of glue (the kids just couldn:t get the hang of being gentle with them).

3) We play reindeer games. Not really. We do a huge vocabulary review. I devided the class into two teams and had each team pick one of the living things from today:s vocabulary. (Santa, snowman, reindeer, and elves in order of preference) Then they have to race to say the answer to my english question, who ever answers correctly first their person moves one step closer to the christmas tree I drew in chalk at the end of the classroom. Depending on how much time we had left after the bells, I:d make 5-7 lines on the board for steps, crossing sweeping hills of snow (two large squiggly lines) that the game piece (my flashcard with magnets on the back) will travel down. Then, as I asked the questions *who:s this? What is it? Etc* I:d show them the flashcard. It went well. Again, until 6th grade. But whatever. I had about 15 min to plan the lesson, what do you want from me?

So yeah, that went well. Now, I:m sitting here chatting to my parents who are up waaaay too late helping Natalie last minute pack and get everything together because she:ll be flighing out in about 10 hours. I:ll be flighing out to meet her in 28 hours.

In other, less happy news, the 5th grade teacher at Seijo (who has somewhat adopted me :D ) just invited me to Seijo:s New Year Party. It:s tomorrow night. So yeah, I:ll be in Naha. 残念, but what can you do? She said that she:ll definatly invite me to the next party though.

Speaking of Seijo and school. I realized that I haven:t given you all the culture lessons like I should be (or I have, and in my sleep deprived stupor (I did say I didn:t really sleep last night) I:ve just forgotten). Let:s talk about lunch.

I mean school lunch, or 給食　and how different kyuushoku is from american school lunch.

In America, everyone has their set time to show up at the lunch room (or shokudou　食堂) and then the lunch ladies serve you while you scream loudly to your neighbor, and when your class:s lunch time is done, then you go to whatever you have next, usually Teacher Supervised Outdoor Activity (ie: recess, although I loved the way that Mrs. Marsili put it). All good.

In Japan, everyone shows up to the shokudou after 4th period (unless they:re like Heiichi, where they don:t have a lunchroom right now due to renevations and they all eat in their classrooms). At the shokudou, today:s lunches have already been placed, sorted by grade, in large metal bins that the students take from the storage rooms and bring to the tables. There is a serving table, where the students line up and the students dish out the appropriet serving sizes into the appropriet bowls or dishes for everyone in the class. Then the students sit down at their tables and wait. Two students, usually 6th years, will come on the microphone at one end of the shokudou. They will say *静かにしてください* until everyone is silent. Then they will read off what is for lunch (which might be very specific, like curry rice, or very vauge, like today:s fruit, which turned out to be a fourth of an orange), say something that I can never understand, then tell everyone to put their hands together (a loud clap is heard), and then they tell us to enjoy the *delicious* kyushoku, which everyone then repeats *いただきます！* (itadakimasu, which litterally translates I accept or something like that, but it means thank you for the meal). Then everyone, at the same time, begins to eat.

After a set period of time, the same student will go back to the mic and ask everyone to raise their hand if they:re done eating (it doesn:t matter weither you:re done or not because time is up at that point), then they say for this delicious (although Sunagawa says interesting) lunch *ごちそうさまでした* (gochisousama deshita, litterally it was a feast), the last of which is repeated by Everyone, and then nothing is heard under the malestrom of chairs being put away (they actually have an extra shelf so that the stools can be slid under the table off of the floor to make sweeping easier) and kids talking as they take their dishes back to the surving tables, clean their plates, sort their garbage, and then head back to their classrooms for *cleaning time* (but I don:t think everyone does the cleaning, they rotate between jobs and days off).

I would also like to take this time to say that the kids clean the school. There is no janitor. This means that the bathrooms don:t get cleaned with anything stronger than soap, because the kids can:t be responsible for chemicals.

Cleaning time lasts as long as the kids take to do their job, then they have hiruyasumi　昼休み or afternoon break. Starting from the end of kyushoku, this can last for up to an hour and a half. Yeah, yay vacations.

Okay, I:m done for now. Until next time.

Okay, let's put off cleaning for just a few more minutes.

I fly to meet Natalie on Friday in Naha (yay!!!), so I have to pack on Thursday, which means cleaning must be done by today (buuu).

I was very happy went I came home today to Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas Card in my mailbox. I love getting letters from home, thank you.

I'll post a better update as soon as I figure out what I'm doing next week with my Christmas lessons. My big down times happen at school and today (and this week, really) they were taken up by "What the heck am I doing tomorrow?" (that was today's lesson, it went really well. They all got to be cockroaches :) ) and now it's turned into "What the heck am I doing next week for Christmas and with Natalie there?"

So far I've done (I hope) everything that I need to in advance for half of the schools for next week to work correctly.

I've asked if Natalie can come. 3 of 4.
I've asked if Natalie can eat the school lunch. 2 of 4.
I've asked if I can gank the computer lab and made sure the speakers work. 1 of 4.

Tomorrow I have to stop by Miyahara on the way home and ask about all three of those.

Okay, Kim, clean like a mad woman. Come on now, you can do it!

I've been boring lately

And I appologize for it. I've been writing some very impersonal and not very important stuff. I'll try to do better.

Today, you wouldn't believe how many times I was asked *Is he your boyfriend?*

David came over from Ueno to have my students make lanterns for his German Illumination Festival that he's having on the 23rd (Natalie, you do realize where you'll be on that day and yes we're going). So, that's what I did all day. He came out, and brought so much stuff from the Ueno Kanjikanjikanji (wherever he works, I can never remember the name and can't read the Japanese) and all of my kids 3-6th year made lanterns out of milk cartons (they sell the 1 liter variety here) and glass containers. They look sooooo pretty. It turns out that the kids need about 2 class periods to make them though, so he's coming again next Tuesday (Natalie, note where you'll be, again). It should be even more fun.

I need to come up with some good Christmas lesson ideas . . .

I would like to give a shout out to Milton, who just saved me money.

Now, I'm used to having Bundschu raise a few eyebrows, but this is the first time that I've ever been told that Kimberly is a weird name. This coming from the NHK guy who came by to collect my "I have a TV" money. Now, I told him that I didn't have a TV, because apparently having a TV means that you must watch NHK, and there for own them money for the privilege. Now, I don't watch TV on my TV. There is no reception in my apartment, and I haven't even turned it on since Veronica came by a few months ago and then we watched a movie on my Playstation. If I had said yes I own a TV, they would have kept coming and asking for (I believe) 2000yen every month or so. So I told them no. I don't have a TV. Thank you Milton for that handy dandy knowledge.

On an unrelated note. I haven't actually watched any television today. This is highly rare because I follow that with I didn't read a book today either. I just sat down and wrote from the time I got home (about 4:30) until around now. Yay for me. Too bad I didn't get more written, but at least I've written most of what I had plans for. Now for the trying to fit the Everything Else into the story. That should be interesting.

Other things of note. I didn't get invited to the end of year party for my main school. I think there are several things that attributed to this. 1) I didn't go to the Monday morning meeting where it is assumed I might have been informed of this party (I had to make copies instead, and I wouldn't have understood it anyway), 2) I'm situated in the 3-4th grade teacher's room this month. If I had been in the 5-6th grade teacher room, I think they might have made the effort to invite me, because they're a little more friendly with me (not nicer, more friendly, difference) and I think they would have thought about it on Friday. And 3) I'm in a different teacher's room every month, so just when I'm starting to get really friendly with a group of teachers, I'm moved to a different group of teachers where I have to start all over again becoming friendly to them. I'm not really upset. I just feel a bit left out. At least next month we get our brand new school and one giant teachers room, which may or may not be a good thing.

And now I'm going to bed, because I missed all of after lunch break due to a massive case of the passed out and I apparently need the more sleep.

However, just so that all of you know exactly how much of a geek I am.


And now I'm so happy. I'm waiting with eagerness for that Christmas episode.

Two things.

1) Went for an hour long walk today. It rocked. Found Painagama Beach. Sunayama is still a mystery, that might be for next week. Apparently we're all doing a group "run" this Saturday, and y'all know my ideas about giving my muscles recovery time.

2) From wolven

glumbert - Best wedding first dance ever

I love it when people have a good sense of humor.

Now, off to soak that hour long walk away :) Need to remember bath supplies next time I'm at the store.

Yesterday I . . .

Had four classes where I didn't fully know what I was doing with the first one until I walked in the door, and have since not written down so I can't quite remember what I did do.

Didn't use the restroom all day even though I REALLY needed to for the last hour or so because that school does not have teacher restrooms and for some reason I'm just not comfortable with using the kid's restrooms.

Drove my scooter all the way to Shimoji to try to get signed up for karate classes. I found the dojo, but it was empty. I'm going to try again on Friday.

Figured since I was out, should try to find speakers so that I can play my IPOD as a music player in class. Found some at Best Denki for 20 bucks. They looked cheap so I'm planning to continue my search. Not that there are many places I CAN search. I did find some nice looking ones for 40 bucks, but that's a bit nicer than I wanted to spend.

Tried to change the broken lightbulb over the toilet. This is just a day after the one over my shower went out. Unfortunatly, the one over the toilet seemed to have been cemented into the ceiling and it took me putting a chair above the toilet to get me high enough to have the leverage needed to unscrew the dang thing. I had to pretend I was trying to break someone's neck, it was so tight. And when I finally got it off, I didn't have the right watt bulb for it. *Sigh*

Cleaned out my showerhead. I've mentioned how the water here is so hard and full of minerals that you can't drink it, right? Or you can if you don't mind the kidney stones. So yeah, my shower head has been spraying me in the face lately, no matter where I was standing, so I took it off and took it apart and used a needle to punch through the junk in all of the . . . probably 200 or so holes. Took about 15 minutes and hurt my fingers. My shower was lovely last night.

Watched the 2 most recent episodes of America's Next Top Model. Wow, is it fluff, but good growth and emotional betterment. And really pretty images. I'm get to download the season finalie tonight (I've decided against downloading the old episodes that I've missed because it is such fluff, but I think I'll continue watching the show in the future. I love how Tyra views the world). I cried.

Had another night where I was dead tired all day (I mean you should SEE the bags under my eyes) and I just ended up tossing and turning all night. Stupid.

So yeah, stuff happend, but it all seems kinda boring to reflect on. And that was an exciting day for me. Hmmmm, I think my problem with living here is not my job (which I love and could easily do forever), but is with what my afternoons and evenings entail. I miss y'all.

An hour and a half walk and I still couldn't find Sunayama beach :(

But now I'm gonna soak it off and be much happier.

Weakness

I just gave in a bought a bathtub. I'll upload the pictures later to show y'all how much is DOES NOT fit in my bathroom. It's funny.

At least I got it on sale. Off to have a good soak . . . ooooo! I can buy bath products now! Sqweee!

OSAKA!!!

Just a warning, this might be another long one.


I didn’t pack for this trip until the day of. Mostly because my laundry wasn’t dry yet. And then, for reasons forgotten, I stayed up later than I should have, and so I slept in a bit. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if I could just get it through my head that the time I have to be at the airport is not the same as the time I need to leave for the airport. *sigh* So yeah, I almost missed my plane. Like, I run up to the counter to check in 9:44 and the lady calls upstairs to hold the plane so it doesn’t depart at 9:45 like it’s suppose to. *sigh* But I did make it. And it was okay. Then I had a bit of a layover, not too bad, in Naha. I didn’t fly directly to Osaka because of that free ticket that I won a while back, so I had to transfer through Naha both ways. Both flights are without major incident and I get to the airport only to realize exactly how far Kansai is from Osaka. It took me about an hour on the train. Grrrr. But I FINALY get to the hotel and see Tiffany, who arrived with me on Wednesday, and we go out to eat dinner. Lemon Beef with potatoes and miso soup. Happiness.

After “lunch” we head over to Universal City, I can’t even remember why we headed that way in the first place, but it was fun. We found out that there is now a City Walk at Universal City (and yes, this is the station for Universal Studios Osaka, so Natalie, did you want to ride roller coasters for your birthday? We could) and did a bit of shopping. We found a used shop where we bought thermal shirts (it was freakin’ cold!) and I got a cheap Indian style over dress. Silk. We also found the Takoyaki museum and several American restaurants. We went in for a drink/desert and were waited on a beautiful Japanese man who couldn’t understand us even when we were talking Japanese.

This day was my first taste of the Osaka subway system. Which I have decided is on crack. Just getting to Universal City and back, we missed our stop (twice), got on the wrong train (because we were in the right place, just 3 different trains stop on that track), and got really frustrated. It was not happy. Honestly my gross impressions of the city is “I like Osaka, but I hate the subway.” But that’s not quite accurate. I like the subway okay, it’s the JR rails that they have here that I hate. It’s just not pleasant.

Okay, Thursday is the day that Marnie and Chris were suppose to meet us in Osaka, but Marnie was feeling sick, so she stayed home an extra day, and it took Chris forever to get to Osaka from Murakami, so Tiffany and I had some time to kill. So we went to Kyoto. It was about senen (1000yen) and took all of 30-40 minutes on the rapid train. We didn’t have a whole lot of time once we got there, so we hopped a bus to the Golden Temple and just did that one temple before hopping the bus/train back to ShinOsaka to meet Chris and to eat Indian food (oh, the curry!). The owner was really nice, we each wanted only one samosa, but they were sold in sets of two, so we asked if we could just get three, and he said “anything is possible,” which was really nice, and not something you are taught to expect in Japan.

After lunch we went back to the hotel (which is really nice, by the way. Private access, our own bathroom, kitchenette, and no curfew) to drop off Chris’s stuff before heading back out to Amerika-mura (American village) to go window shopping (I got a name brand jacket, for half the original asking price, and it’s cute!). We found bubble tea, and then karaoke (so much fun!) We also got picked up by some cute boys. They got us into a club for cheaper, and then we found out that they were actually performing at the club, which was why they were trying to sell tickets. We had just enough time to go get dinner (pasta and pizza) before seeing their set, and they were surprisingly good for Japanese Hip-hop. Afterwards we asked them for a cd, and got one for free, then when we told them that we’re gonna pass it along to our friends in music production and radio shows (which I’m not lying, between the three of us, we’re pretty connected) suddenly 2 more cds appeared and we were able to get a picture with the boys. It was a great night.

The next morning started really slowly, so we decided to go to Nara for the afternoon. Again, tickets were about senen and it took about 45 minutes to get there on the rapid. We had time to go see the Big Buddha just before it closed, and then head back to meet up with Marnie for dinner. We called it an early night, and went to bed around 10.

The next morning Chris and Marnie went to the Maritime Museum and Tiffany and I went to Tennoji Station. We ate okonomiyaki at the station, my first actual okonomiyaki, and it was really nice. The guy made it bigger for us because we were sharing, and he chatted to us a small bit. We sat at the bar, right where they were making it, so we could see how they did it. On our way to the famous Shintennoji Temple we were distracted by a museum holding a special exhibit called Binimbo (or something like that, I’ll look it up later), Japanese gold painting. It was relatively cheap, so we went to the museum. It’s perminate collection was a bunch of old Buddhas, and then we saw all of the old paintings from the 16th-18th centuries. It was really neat to see the progression of subject matter and style as Japan went through some if it’s radical political changes. I bought the book that went with the exhibit.

Then we headed to the temple, looked around for a bit, and happened to sit in on a Japanese funeral (not an actual one, but when someone dies, they morn for a year, so we saw some of the prayers and chanting and stuff), which was really neat. And then we headed back towards Universal City for more Takoyaki and stupid shopping (I bought silly things) before heading back home.

In the morning, I got up with Chris and Marnie and accompanied Chris to Shinosaka where she got on her shinkansen to go home (she actually missed her train because of the stupid subway system, but the guy was so nice when she was freaking out and changed her ticket), then I went back and met Tiffany at a different station to go to church.

Tiffany knows Elysha through the JETs of African Decent group, and Elysha invited us to the church’s service and Thanksgiving dinner. It was really interesting to see the International Church of Christ’s service, and good to meet the nice people there. And dinner was “not too shabby” either. I need to get Elysha’s recipe for her cranberry sauce. And they went to Cosco’s for the Pumpkin Pie and turkey. It was excellent.

While we were there we met Dominique, from Montreal, Canada, on JET in Gifu, middle of nowhere in Gifu. Her train didn’t leave until 7, so we traveled together to Umeda Station (or Osaka station, depending on what line of the subway you’re on) and just hung out and talked. I braved the holiday crowds at the Yodobashi department store and got Leo his stupid ps3 dual shock controller, white, just like he asked for. And then when we dropped her off we headed back to the hotel.

Tiffany’s bus didn’t leave until 11pm that night, so we watched the new episode of Heroes (I got her hooked :P ) and went out for an awesome pasta dinner at a place around the corner from our hotel and right next to the station. The lady there was so nice too, they gave us “service” (free stuff), roasted garlic in a dressing. Then I said goodbye to Tiffany at the station and went back to my now lonely and empty hotel to have a bath and call Leo (who was asleep, I miscounted the time change, but he talked to me for 2 minutes anyway), and Mom for about half an hour, where I showed her what I got Natalie and Dad for Christmas (heheheh), and just generally conversed happily. Then bed.

Now I’m sitting at Kansai airport (after not quite getting lost getting here) waiting for my play that wont leave for another hour and 15. I even had time to sit down and eat tendon for lunch. And get my omiyage for my schools. Now I just don’t know what to do with myself. I might go ahead and watch smallville. I mean, I am just sitting here. No internet . . .

And I just got home to it raining cats and dogs and a message from my grandma on my phone :D

I'll post pictures later, I have over 500 to go through . . .

Today:s snapshot

As I was walking to school from the parking lot, a cop car drove past the 6th years doing crosswalk duty, with it:s lights on. It slowed down and said over the loud speaker *good morning* and *keep up the hard work.* It was pretty neat. And the kids burst out laughing too, so I don:t feel so bad.

As a reminder

I'll be in Osaka this weekend, so this weekend as well, I will be out of contact. I think I'm gonna bring my puter, but the internet at the place we're staying is coin operated, and that sounds like bad times. I might just bring it to clean off my memory sticks. I like taking pictures some bad.

Tokashiki

Was made of win. Soooo much fun.

We get up early and catch a cab to the port. We have some confusion about where we're suppose to meet and almost miss the ferry, but whatever. We all made it in the end.

The sea was nice and I got some nice pictures of the scenery. We got there in about an hour and headed out to the campsite. It was . . . primitive. Just metal skeletons for large "tents." But all good. At least I found the real bathrooms, not the hallowed out shack that I seriously thought were the bathrooms for a good minute.

I went wandering and found a sign that said beware of habu, the highly venomous snake in Okinawa (that Miyako doesn't have ^_^ ) so I was very cautious as I walked around the sign to find the beach (where I thought everyone was, but wasn't) that was completely deserted, beautiful, and had a buddha. Yay. I then back tracked and found the beach that everyone was one.

We rented some snorkeling gear and went out. It was a bit cold, but only because the sun wasn't out from behind the haze. We saw nemo (again), and a starfish, and clams, and a fish that was brown and had leopard spots, and a sea slug that was purple with orange spots, and lots and lots and lots of schools of fish. The sea was very calm because there's another island in the mouth of the bay, and I think it blocks the nasty waves. It was awesome.

After, I was feeling famished, so I went in search of food. I found three noodle places and went in the third one, which turned out to be a good idea. I had yoshidofu soba, which is soba with tons of tofu on it. Kinda tasteless if you don't like tofu very much, but I love the stuff. It was great.

Then back to the beach for long beachy things. Some of the boys went out on a wake board, I took a nap and so did other people. Some more swimming, some Frisbee (I'm so bad at it), some more sitting and roasting (I didn't put on lotion except for my face and my arms and legs are a nice golden brown tinged with red now--doesn't hurt at all.

After we meandered towards dinner and got there a couple hours later. We tried to go to the "big" restaurant, but it was full, they had a large reservation, so we ended up going back to the same place I happened to have lunch at. Some people ordered individual meals, but my table decided to go izukaya style, and we ordered a bunch of different things and split the bill. We also ordered one of those HUGE bottles of awamori, and I was very surprised that we finished it before we left. (at some point I caught my sweet tooth and ordered a mango shake, which wasn't very shaky, so I poured some of my awamori in it, and it was better).

We headed back down to the campsite and beach and proceeded to have a very fun night. Turns out at midnight it was Yan's birthday, so he taught us a Gaelic birthday song, we met Kim, Jeff's predecessor, also randomly down in Tokashiki for the weekend, and she and her friends were really fun to talk to. Much stumbling around on the beach, and no body got hurt or burned or anything. Great fun. We only lost John once. But we found him again shortly after. Would have been even better if my crimson friend hadn't shown up in the middle of the party, but eh, she'd been threatening to come all week, and I wasn't really surprised she showed up.

In the morning I actually sat up (didn't get up for about an hour after waking) because the ants had found me. They weren't biting, but it was annoying to be crawled upon. I woke up to find I'd shared my "tent" with Kirsty, Ollie, Lynette, Lynn, and Ryan. Kirsty actually got up, and Sam moved from the beach where she'd passed out with a very drunk Guy on her lap and took Kirsty's place. She said the only reason she'd gotten up was because it had turned cold. And it had. The rain had moved in and while it didn't actually "rain" on us, it sprinkled a bunch.

While we were repacking a nice Tokashiki man came by and offered us FRESH clams that he'd gotten out of the ocean himself. I would have, but raw shellfish and I don't make the happiest of couples when I haven't been drinking the night before. I didn't think they'd go down very well. We slowly packed up and 17 of us (I did a head count on the bus) headed back to the early ferry, which us Miyakans had to take because we would have missed our 4~ flight if we'd taken the 5 o'clock ferry. The ferry was rough, but Cameron was nice and let Ollie and me watch his "media," Ollie watched South Park with me until the sea became too rough and he had to close his eyes. I kept the earplugs in and mostly watched the horizon after that, trying not to think of the waves.

We caught a cab back in Naha, and Sam, Kirsty and I went to the airport. They wanted to get lunch and I couldn't really stand the idea of food, so we all checked in and checked our luggage and I bumped my flight up to the 1:30 flight, giving me 2 hours. We tried to find the Starbucks in the airport, but were told that it was inside the gate, and the girls wanted to do a little shopping before leaving, so they left and I got my omiyage, a christmas present for curi, my mocha frappachino with whipped cream, a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie and a mini quiche. Starbucks is the happy, I want one here. And I'm happy we don't have one, all at the same time.

On the flight, I just happened to be sat next to one of the office ladies from the iinkai, which was nice, and stunk all at the same time. Because I stunk and was kinda embarrassed by it. There weren't any hot water showers at the beach, so I hadn't washed the snorkeling off, let alone a day of walking around and then laying down drunk on the beach. But she didn't say anything about it and slept the whole flight.

Oh! I forgot to mention! While I was in Naha we found a bookstore. An ENGLISH book store. It was small and very overpriced, but I was finishing up my book and wanted one to read on the plane coming back. So I picked up Peter Pan. I think I might want to write a thesis on this book. It's awesome. Just. Plain. Awesome. If I actually get my degree in literature, yep, that'll be it. How Peter Pan is his own god. And the influence of fairy lore. Or something like that. So much fun.

Yeah, so I get home and I'm still not feeling very perfectly well, so I go out in search of food. I was planing to go down to Lillians and get some yaki niku, because they actually have veggies with their meat, and veggies sounded like a really good idea. But it was raining and I was feeling bad, so I didn't even make it to the end of the block before going in a random izukaya. Turns out to be one of my best decisions ever. I sat there for 10 minutes studying the menu, trying to read what they had to figure out what I though my stomach could handle, when the chef/owner came over and asked me what I wanted. I told him the truth, that I'd drunk a lot the night before and wanted easy to digest food. He then tells me that he will make me a set, charge me 1000 yen, and put on it only things I like. It was probably the best food I could have had right then. Sooooooooo very good.

And then I get back home and experience my first earthquake. Fun times. It lasted less than 4 seconds. I mostly heard a weird rumbling, then the house shook for a moment. Then by the time I was thinking, should I get off my bum and get under a doorway? It was over. Not that I have any real doorways anyway.

Today I was so tired, and I had to teach 5 classes, which was awful. And my nose is acting like it's trying to be sick. So I slept through the break after lunch, and left early to go get my re-entry permit and drop my omiyage off at the iinkai. Since then I've been typing up this and uploading my metric ton of pictures. You should look at them. The photo sets used in this weekend were MYC, Tokashiki, and Airplane pics, or you could just look at them in order starting here (continues to the right). Fun times. Fun times. Bed now.

MYC

The Mid Year Conference for this year was in Okinawa City, for financial reasons as well as easier access to the conference for people who live in the north as OkiCity is in the middle of Okinawa, while Naha is towards the south-ish. The problem for us islanders is that we had to fly in early, get a bus up to OkiCity, and then get a hotel because there was no possible way for us to get there earlier.

So yeah, I was suppose to leave around 6 on Wednesday and get to Oki City really freaking late. But I get to work and they've changed my schedule around so that I can leave before lunch. So I do and catch a 2~ flight. Weee!

But because of the time that my plane landed, I got there just in time to Miss the bus, and there was a 2 hour wait for the next one. So I caught the monorail over to the bus terminal and caught a different bus up and still got there 40 minutes earlier than I would have. Yay.

Then sleep and conferences. Which weren't too bad. I had fun, at least.

The conferences lasted 2 days, which was nice, because we got out early enough to go eat (Jamaican followed by Mexican. Heaven!!!) and early enough that when we got to Naha Friday night after the conference was over, that we could go to Indian. I had lamb curry with samosa. I died with happiness.

Then Saturday morning we got up early and caught a ferry . . .

Geez, I'm late. Pantu.

These are gonna have to be several posts. Because I can't do this in one giant one. Not an pack and stuff.

Okay, LAST Monday was really fun. I'd just gotten back from not sleeping in Ishigaki the night before and was looking forward to a nice quiet evening and going to bed early. Then Amy sends out a mail saying that today was Pantu. I had my camera, so there are a few pictures, but the rest will have to wait until I can get them off my phone as my camera died. And I didn't want it covered in mud, cuz I certainly was. My clothes still don't smell right. After two washings. But I had soooo much fun.

Well, yep, that was an earthquake.

Earthquake Information (Information about Seismic Intensity at each site)
Issued at 21:07 JST 18 Nov 2007

Occurred at (JST)	Latitude (degree)	Longitude (degree)	Depth	Magnitude	Region Name
21:02 JST 18 Nov 2007	24.7N	125.4E	40km	3.5	NEAR MIYAKOJIMA ISLAND

Seismic Intensity at each station
(* mark: Local Governments' or NIED's station)

Prefecture	JMA Seismic Intensity	Station Name
OKINAWA	1	MIYAKOJIMASHIHIRARASHIMOZATO
		MIYAKOJIMASHIHIRARANISHINAKASONE
		MIYAKOJIMASHIGUSUKUBEFUKUKITA
		MIYAKOJIMASHIGUSUKUBEFUKUSEI*

No Tsunami threat by this earthquake.

Ishigaki and back, or how I didn't sleep this weekend.

Ishigaki and back, or how I didn’t sleep this weekend.

Okay, so, this is gonna be a long one, please bare with me. But you’ll want to read it. Especially you, Raoin. Especially you.

So, I go to work at Miyahara (my smallest school) for Friday before coming home, throwing my not packed pile into my school bag (after taking my school things out of it, of course), and get my happy self to the airport.

The smallest flight ever. Which is not quite true. But we take off, have the “it’s okay to stand up” announcement within 5 minutes, the stewardesses come down the aisle offering blankets, no drinks, then we’re told to put on our seatbelts again cuz we’ll be landing in 10 minutes. Woo. 30 minutes, take off to landing. And when we get there? Yeah, I had to walk off the plane onto the pavement. Fun!

Veronica picked me up in a taxi, because the Ishigaki gang had already started drinking, and we went to her apartment to drop off bags and talk for a bit before going out to a nice izukaya, where we had dinner and met a bunch of the Ishigaki peeps (continues to the left). It was really fun (continues to the left). My favorite bits being the rice with squid ink, no really, very good, and the fried cheese. Heavenly. And the people were fun too :P

Then we went home while everybody else went out because we were really tired and wanted to actually get up and see the island the next day.

We did get up, but not until 10, when we sat around and talked, and called Veronica’s mom, and talked some more and finally left the house for lunch around 2 or 3. When I got a chance to meet the most adorable kittens EVER (just that one)! They were born in Veronica’s garden, which has a gate so no dogs. They were very cautious, but I used my kitten loving whiles, and I was able to coax them out to play with me. Veronica was really surprised because usually they wouldn’t come close to new people and it took me about 5 minutes? Not even? It. Was. Awesome.

We ate the Yaeyama soba (their own style of soba, apparently Ishigaki and the surrounding islands are called the Yaeyama islands, while the islands surrounding Miyako are called the Miyako Islands), which was very very yummy and then we drove around up to the eastern lighthouse (continues to left). It was VERY windy. But fun. Then we continued up the coast and drove to Kariba Bay (continues to left), which was gorgeous and would have been more so if it hadn’t been almost dark and rainy on top of it.

Then back to town to buy Mom the Perfect Christmas Gift. We finished up just in time to go to Yakiniku (continues to RIGHT!). It was my first yakiniku experience, and it was Ishigaki beef, that they raise right out back. It was SOOOOOOOO delicious. After the carnage, we went for a little karaoke, which was alright, but you had to buy a drink XP and Matt’s girlfriend called with bad times, so he was pretty depressed. After karaoke, we found ice cream at the Hot Spar, found a very drunk French guy who lives on the island and wanted to talk to us in the little bit of English that he knew. Fun times. After, we said good night to Matt and went back to Veronica’s to talk, me, Veronica, and Kat.

We get to talking, and talking, and around 1am we hear a cat fight. We worry, but think nothing of it, as it is settled quickly and continue to talk.

Then, a little while later, we hear a knock on the door, and it’s Lina, the upstairs neighbor, with Puma, one of the kittens, bleeding from a wound on her neck and she just says “doushioo?” What do we do? I ask if there’s an emergency vet, and there isn’t. We take the kitten into the kitchen, and try to clean her up a bit. She goes from being very energetic and wanting to run away, to very very lethargic. We clean her up as best we can, but figure we’ll just hurt her worst if we try to get all of the blood off, and as it’s not gushing new blood, we should let nature do it’s course and take her to the vet the next morning. We also let her mother inside for a bit, but she didn’t seem to really know what to do with her either, and we let her back outside to protect her other kittens. It was not a very happy night.

Lina eventually goes home, and so does Kat, but we keep Puma wrapped up in a towel for warmth with water nearby (which she did drink some of during the night). We went out and tried to find the other kittens, but couldn’t until just before Kat left, and they were up high on a wall, with no way of getting them and brining them inside. And we only saw Tora and Ashes, not Yuki.

At about 7am there’s another cat fight and we go out to not see anything. But all three kittens are up on the wall. We coax them down (we went kitten fishing with a stick and caught 3!) and take them inside and Mama follows us. We let them look around, check on Puma (who has moved a bit during the night), and then go back to sleep for a bit.

We wake up to them all sleeping comfortably around the room, get up, and go with Lina to the vet. Let me impress that this was not easy. Veronica picked up Puma, who did not want to be touched, and she cried. And Mama, was immediately right in front of her. And when Veronica stood up and Puma cried again, Mama climbed Veronica in order to get her. I took Puma while Lina extracted Mama. I sat down on the bed and let Mama see that I wasn’t hurting Puma, while I used my considerable kitty holding skills to not let Puma jump from my arms, and after a bit we left for the vet. Holding a kitty that doesn't want to be held for it's first car ride is not a very easy thing to do, let me tell you. At one point Puma tried to jump out the window, and hit her head on the glass. Fun times.

The vet let us stay in the room while he cleaned the wound, which is apparently standard procedure in Japan, and he finally found that the source of All That Blood was this teeny tiny puncture wound on the back of her neck. They cleaned it, took her temperature, told us she was a girl, and decided to keep her there overnight because she wasn’t very energetic and gave her an iv drip. We left her there and went back home to check on the other babies.

Lina came in and we chatted for about an hour about all kinds of things, and her English is very good, but she has no confidence. And Veronica’s speaking isn’t so good, so it was great practice for her because when she didn’t know how to say something, I usually did, and we had a very good conversation while the kittens (to the left)ate breakfast and napped around us (on my lap :D ).

Then we had lunch with Kat at a deli (bagel with cream cheese and cream potato soup = happiness), went shopping at what I swear would have been Little Five Points (to the left)if it wasn’t for the Japanese customers, walked around in the beautiful summer-like weather (nice summer, not Okinawa summer), before going back to the house and playing with the kittens some more before getting back on the plane.

Afterwards, I was ded, so I stopped by KFC to pick up dinner. And I see the Cornel dressed up as Santa. I forgot to upload the picture, I'll do it in a bit. But I had Origninal Recipe chicken (HEAVEN!), the smallest side of coal slaw you've ever seen, a bisket with a hole in the middle with honey and maple, and an egg custard pie. It was awesome.

I’m so tired. I’m going to take my shower and crash. Pictures are up. Enjoy

100th post

So, I'm gonna start this 100th post off to a kinda weird start.

So today while I was sitting there in the teacher's room, cutting out cards that I realized half way through I wouldn't need until next week, not tomorrow (although I don't have ANYthing for the 2nd grade lesson, that IS actually tomorrow), suddenly all of the teachers at Shimoji sit down and start having a meeting around me.

Now, meetings such as these usually happen before or after school. The fact that it was the middle of the day seemed a little odd, but I figured I'd just been left out of the loop again and whatever. Then the fourth grade teacher says that she found a note and proceeds to read the note, in which one of my girls is telling another girl to *please die.* Ah, so emergency meeting. Gotcha. I couldn't understand much more than that, and that both of the girls were friends and on the basketball team together. So why? and what's gonna be done about it? I have no idea. But yeah. Afternoon.

In other unhappy news. I'm now 14 hours ahead of you. Stupid daylight savings. If I ever thought it was just mildly annoying before, now it's downright a hated thing. This means that the occasional nights when Leo calls me on his way to work, are now well after my bedtime. That if I get up and call him in the morning, he's without question, still at work. And when I get off work and get home, it's now 3am. This sucks so bad.

In happier news. I worked my tush off for my Halloween costume, and pictures are now up. That's totally a lie, of course. I sat on my tush, vaguely, occasionally, working on my Halloween costume for 2 weeks, and then when I thought I had enough time to get up early on Saturday and finish, it turned out that I didn't. Mostly because the collar turned out to be a pain in the. But it didn't fall off of me (one of my worries), and it held up well enough that I can probably use it again. Although if I undertake something like this again (I would like to point out that this was my first Halloween costume/outfit in general that I've made for myself and by myself. Another *I've grown up* moments) I'm not doing it without a sewing machine again. That would have made it so much easier. And quicker. As was, I watched Stardust, and 2 episodes of Bionic Woman, and the entire new season of Avatar. And was done JUST in time for the party. But Did Not have time to do my headdress. Turned out okay though.

*Speaking* of Avatar. Has anyone else noticed that it:s not Avatar: the Last Airbender anymore? It's now Avatar: the Legend of Aang? I wonder when it changed. I think I would have noticed it before now, but it took me until the 8th or so episode to notice. *Really* good show, if anyone is interested.

In the past few days I've also read a bunch of manga that Curi gave me, ate the end of the Word and the Void series, and cleaned up my apartment a bit to the tune of Transformers. The apartment has to be done this week, before Friday. Because for the next 3 weekends I'm going out of town. First to Ishigaki, to visit Veronica. Then to Naha, for the mid-year conference (I need a skirt for that). Then to Osaka with Marnie, Curi, and Tiffany. Because I'm not a cancer who likes to hole up in her house and never see people. Because I don't feel the need to sleep in and rejuvenate myself, by myself, at least once a week. Because I don't need any *down time* days. Or any *clean up the place* days. Really, swear. At least I should have tons of fun.

Oh, also a Grandmotts update. Didn't really give one before now because I hadn't heard one way or the other defiantly until recently. She's still in the hospital. Extremely tired. But slowly improving. I hope she gets better enough to go home soon. Maybe next week. I'll be very happy when she's well enough to come home.

And to leave on an extremely happy note. I have a picture for you. I was sitting in Heiichi's 6th year class (which one, I don't remember, maybe 1?) waiting for class to begin, because there's no point for me to walk down three flights of stairs to the first floor teacher's room when class starts again in 10 minutes. So I got my stuff arranged on the desk and then sat down. The kids (as almost always) asked to use my ball (or they just take it, whichever) and three boys were passing the ball back and forth between them, volleyball style, occasionally hitting it towards me where I'd join in from my seated position. Now, one of my favorite kids was sitting in the front row waiting for class, reading. Now, I don't like this kid because he's good at English (which he is, fairly), nor because he's one of those charismatic jerks (which he is not). I like him because he reminds me of myself. Quietly reading a fantasy book while he waits for class. He's one of those quiet types, but he'll actually talk to me, which is rare for the quiet types here. So yeah, they're playing ball in front of him, and it occasionally hits him. He IS sitting on the front row. Even one of mine hits him, and I say sorry, and he says okay. But this one time, the first kid who borrowed my ball, hits him on purpose. One too many times. And this quiet little 6th grade boy, stands up, walks over to him, and starts wailing on him. Like has the other kid on the ground, he's smacking him so hard. I would have stopped it, but the first kid was laughing his tushy off. So I didn't. Because that's the rule. If the kid getting smacked is laughing, it's not bullying, it's just playing. And I was kinda okay with that because the quiet kid who was kinda getting picked on stood up for himself. And then sat back down to read his book and the incident was completely over. Go kid.

Killing time

and







Visited Countries Map from TravelBlog

and



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

I'm really upset by how much of those maps are not red. I'll have to do something about that. *nods*

Fixed my camera, kinda

Apparently the reason that my camera was saying that I had no space in my memory card is that when I delete them from my camera through my computer it keeps a ghost image of the picture in the cache. So, to completely delete the pictures off of my memory card, I need to pull the pictures off the card, delete them, and while the camera is still hooked up to the computer, empty the trash. Yay! Suddenly I have about 700 pictures I can take now :D Note, this does not fix the loose wire problem that makes the screen go out sometimes. But so far a good smack has fixed that every time it:s happened.

So yeah, the rest of the pictures (not on the phone) are up, starting here. This includes some pictures from when Suzy came to the island and we drove around, and some beach pics. Yay fun.

More Pictures

Uploaded at flickr. There were more taken, but their all on my phone. When I get them off, I'll post them. As was, those were taken by Curi's phone. Mine's still not acting right . . .

Oh, and I stopped by Miyako Terebi on the way home and upped my internet speed for just another 1000yen a month. I want to cry my pics are uploading so quickly. Why didn't I do this sooner!?!? And I'm hoping this will fix my problems with Skype . . .

Down with the Man

From raoin and mech_angel

"In March 2007, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), the body that regulates postal policy in the United States, voted to drastically hike postal rates on small and independent periodicals.

"The new rates — based on a plan submitted by Time Warner — shift the burden of postal costs from magazines like Time and People with large circulations and heavy advertising onto smaller magazines like The Nation and The National Review.

"As a result, these smaller publications — a vital source of political opinion and ideas — are facing crippling rate increases that may force many of them to make significant cutbacks or even go out of business."

Doesn't seem like such a good Idea to me. I like the Idea of doing something about it.

Niigata and Back

I realized a little while ago, I'm taking a trip by myself, for myself, for the first time EVER. This is not a great feeling. But everything WILL be OKAY.

(written while scared on the plane leaving Miyako)

but that was then, this is now.

[Thursday]

I actually had enough time after work to do everything that I NEEDED to do before leaving. I didn't have time to finish cleaning. Or start cleaning, for that matter. At least the dishes got done. And the laundry.

So I ate (Mr. Doughnuts is having a Massive sale, so I ate pastries for dinner), got the airbed and pump and headed to the airport. I got there early, but better to be. Even if the entirety of check in and security took all of 10 minutes. And that’s cuz I took my time.

While waiting I dig into my new book, Terry Brooks’ Running with the Demon. Remember, I bought a Terry Brooks book on my first Amazon order, because it was on the best sellers list, and the review was “If you’ve never read a Terry Brooks book, The Genesis of Shannara is a great place to start.” So I thought, why not? And it was right. It was a highly enjoyable post apocalyptic magical read. Unfortunately it was 1) the first of a trilogy, and 2) newly published.

So I looked online during my last (2nd and most recent) Amazon order, and he has this trilogy, The Word and the Void that comes right before the Genesis trilogy and the characters in the Word trilogy are mentioned Heavily in the Gen tril. So I figured, why not? And yeah. So I started eating.

Also, while I’m waiting, there is this crackheaded gameshow on the TV where these two teams compete in a game of shiritori for REALLY good food. Shiritori, or head and tales, is a really good game for beginners as well as higher level learners of (just about) any language (although Japanese is easier to play then say, English). You start with a word (the game show was using 3 syllabul words while dancing and singing. And the Afro. Oh the Afro on the Japanese host . . . ) so, KitsuNE (fox) NEzuMI (mouse) MIruKU (milk), you get the idea? So, ya, very fun. And one of the contestants was so hot! Good to watch.

So I get on the plane, and my seat is next to this nice couple, the lady of which is pregnant. Not a lot, but enough for me to worry about her getting sick and the plane going down. It was not a very good flight. Mostly because of my brain and it’s irrational thoughts. But I ate more than half of my book (totally teared up when the main character talked about her childhood dog dying of cancer, remembering BJ, too clearly) and got to Tokyo without incident.

On the train I met this REALLY nice Korean lady who married a Japanese man and has houses in Soeul, Tokyo, and San Fransicso. We talked about my new life, and her kids in college (her son is at a Japanese school and struggling, mostly because of all of the kanji he hadn’t learned since he was 9 and how it was still a good experience and her daughter working in Fukuoka). She was even nice enough to wait fro me and transfer trains with me until we got to the Yamanote line and I had to go to Ueno and she had to go to Shinjuku.

I got to Ueno (and was feeling really tired by this point) but found the Oak Hotel easily. Checked in. Took my first bath In Japan (since I got here). And crashed.

[Friday]

The next morning I was woken up by Tiffany asking when and how we’re gonna meet up at 8:20 in an email. I email her that I’m sleeping til 9 and will contact her later after going to the Tourist Center. And she’s lucky she got that much.

By 9:20 I’m out the door, eating my cinnamon roll, taking pictures of the temple I passed on the way to the hotel the night before. I also prayed, rang the bell and everything. I wish I could find a temple in Miyako, they’re so peaceful. I like the idea of not praying to any One in particular, just the Universe in General. That’s when Tiffany emails me saying I’m a lazy a… The nerve.

So I get to the Tokyo Tourist Center (on the 10th floor of the Tokyo Kotsukaikan building, right in front of the JR Yamanote line’s Yarakucho station (just south of Tokyo station), phone number 0332013331) and they gave me a highway map and were very helpful. Then I took about an hour on the subway to get to Tiffany’s school (after enlisting the help of 2 station workers and a random nice lady who speaks English to help me figure out where I was going) and I eat lunch with her and together (attempt) to direct Chris, who was driving down from Murakami, Niigata-ken, to come pick me up. Theory was that yes, I could spend the 10,000en to take the shinkansen up to meet Chris at her city’s train station. Or she could drive down (she likes driving, and her rental car doesn’t count mileage) and we’d have 5 hours of talking to spend together. Theory worked. We met up and I said bye to Tiffany and found Chris, just with enough time for me to realize that Tiffany kept the map, but Chris remembered where to go and we got back, no problem, for (one way) cheaper than the shinkansen and we talked the whole 5 hours. It. Was. Awesome.

In Murakami we met up with Joel (their RA, like our Block Heads, just not as interesting an name) and ate really good Ramen (I had Sapporo style) then we played darts (I don’t stick, I’m not good, but I don’t stick enough to win or place 2nd each game), and had drinks with Joel, Shan (or Sean, I don’t know), Katrina, and Katrina’s friend Becca who was also up for the weekend. Good evening. Then we went home and crashed.


[Saturday]

The next day, we got up, made pancakes, watched all of the new episodes of Avatar (except the one the Just aired, like 4 hours ago, Friday night), did some sight seeing in the rain, so we didn’t see much, but I met 2 of the 20 (?) buddhas that protect Murakami. We had lunch at the Sukiya, cuz Miyako doesn’t have them, and I missed it, where I ate nikudon covered in 3 cheeses. Heavenly.

Then we drove to Shibata (45 min or so) and went shopping at the mall. Because they have one. I bought a Wonka bar, some Christmas presents, some tosey socks, a new hematite necklace, among other stuff. Then we stopped at the Book Off (because we SERIOUSLY don’t have one) and I got some art books. Two by Yoshitaka Amano, my favorite artist, and some anime/manga art books. They make me happy. And an xmas present for Leo.

Then back home in time to go to the famous Senagawa (?) Onsen, which had 1 indoor bath, and 4 outdoor ones. Kinda cool (temperature wise), but fun and relaxing. Then we finish just in time to MISS kaitenzushi (sushi on a conveyer belt) and eat pizza and French fries at a diner. Then home to make a cheese cake and watch the NEW Avatar and the first ep of Hana Kimi. We were so full, so no cheese cake that night, but the next morning . . .

[Sunday]

We got up and had cheese cake for breakfast followed by kaitenzushi for lunch (one right after the other) (Oh! The salmon was awesome! Just like I imagined!!) then popped over to Jusco to buy some happy toys and some Final Fantasy Potions. And here’s where I really get to see how much Leo reads my journal. Cuz he’s getting one for Christmas, and we’ll see how much of a surprise it is. Then to bank and Curi’s main school, Higachuu for a bit of their something or another festival. The kids had decorated their classrooms and then each of the 3 grades competed in a chorus contest. They were soooo good. So much better than my shogakkusei. And the 3rd years were the best of all. I guess by 9th grade your voice kinda balances out.

Then we (im)politely excused ourselves and went for a drive around the (now sunny) Murakami and surrounding area. Will post pictures in a bit. It’s just gorgeous.

We even found a “park” that had trials. And yes, those stairs were practically vertical, but I Climbed A Mountain! (or part of it anyway) and I Felt Good.

Then we made it back to Higabhuu for the Otsukare party, which was a nomihodai (all you can drink) but there was an awesome selection of Japanese style food too, and we had some good converstions with Curi’s supervisor (who seemed a lot more comfortable when I started talking Japanese to her, Chris has been told not to talk Japanese to her English teachers, but I’d forgotten that in the all you can drinking), Curi’s principal, and the Math teacher, Maruyama-sensei, who had the misfortune to be sat next to me, but warmed up nicely after (drinking a lot) and some polite Japanese conversation. He was adorable!

Then we politely (for real this time) excused ourselves to go to a different onsen, which was more expensive, smaller, but the outdoor bath was on the 3rd floor, which had a really nice view of the night lights that neither of us could see without our glasses. But we could imagine. And the massage chairs were free at this onsen. Very nice time.

We left, because we were getting tired, and on our way out I bought my omiyage (“souveniers” but more like obligatory gifts to coworkers), because Niigata is famous for it’s rice, I got some mochi snacks, which are made from rice, and easy to distribute around the office. Then we got home, shared some files (pictures, shows, etc) and got to bed waaaay too late to . . .

[Monday]

Wake up at 5 in the morning. Chris drove me to the station, I caught my train. Slept a bit, transferred to the shinkansen, slept some more. Got some good pictures on my phone (that I can’t get off without a micro SD card), transferred at Tokyo Station, transferred again at Hamamatsucho and got off at Haneda airport.

I finally had breakfast, which was a toasted ham and brie sandwich on a baguette. Envy me that sandwich. It was very, very tasty.

After I checked in I tried to find an English magazine and failed. So I went through security in less than 3 minutes and actually got to my gate in time for the earlier flight. But was told I’d bough such a cheap ticket that I couldn’t transfer it, even earlier. So ya, ate more of my book. Wrote a few emails from my keitai. Finnaly got on the plane to Naha, which took almost as long as flying to Miyao directly, where I had a row of seats all to myself, where I saw a perfect view of Mt. Fuji that just kept going as we went around it, no camera though :( During the flight we passed over another island I hadn’t previously known existed. It was gorgeous. Mountains straight up to the sea, but not cliffs. Really beautiful.

I killed the first Word and the Void book and began the second. Then another layover in Naha (which was so warm I changed out of my jeans into my pajama capris and I’m still hot).

I ate a nikumon that wasn’t called that. Aguichi (kanji) mon. Or something. But I asked and yeah, pork inside. Tastey, but not enough.

And then I wrote this accounting by hand. I just finished and we just got high enough on my Naha-Miyako flight for me to take a picture out of the window. I hope it comes out, the clouds are gorgeous.

So yeah. 14 one sided, handwritten pages. And I’m going back to my book :D

Okay

Not bringing puter. Might be on this weekend, will definitely post when I get back, or shortly thereafter, as I'm not bringing my computer, I can't really work on Wednesday's lesson . . .

Anyway, let's escape from this heat a bit! *she says as sweat literally drips down her face*

Let's learn new Japanese!

I learned a new Okinawan saying today. Jyuugatsu natsu. Yes, that is in standard Japanese. Yes, it means October summer. It:s 31 degrees right now. And yes, I mean degrees C. So yeah, about 88 degrees F. No wonder sweat was dripping down the back of my Green Acres teeshirt. And no, no one:s commented that I:m not allowed to wear a big teeshirt with a giant green alligator on it. The kids have actually smiled, pointed, and said the Japanese word for it. Which I can:t remember right now.

Another little snapshot of how the Japanese language works so simply (I love Japanese spoken, it:s really easy to learn once you wrap your head around the backwardsness of it). The kids in 5-1 were talking about Kita Chuu (Kita Chuugakko, or middle school), and they were saying how there are a lot of gang-like people there. I know these kids aren:t actually in a gang, but they act that way and talk that way because they want to appear tough. I think it:s just kinda cute and am glad I don:t work with those kids. (On Tuesday I had to teach the 6th years, and they Just Weren:t Listening and I said in my broken Japanese, Look, if we don:t practice the vocabulary, we won:t play the game, we can do boring practice the whole class, and they were quiet, did exactly as I said, and had fun. I don:t think the ganguro kids would react so easily.) But they were talking about how scary the kids were, and after I clarified what they were talking about, I said *un, chotto kowai* *yeah, a little scary,* and the boy next to me said *chotto jya nai yo* *not a little, I assure you* or as I translated it in my head, because it seems to me that spoken English is generally more complex than spoken Japanese *nothin' little about it* which I found just so cute. I mean, yeah, it stinks that this kid is scared of the other kids, and I feel kinda helpless because I don:t know how to say to the kid, don:t worry, they:re all just bluff. But I liked the exchange.

It was a good lunch.

Not that the food was all that tasty, but the conversation was good.

A snapshot for you

I gave out a crossword puzzle to the 6th years as they finished the word search (together they were alotted 10 minutes, not a bad low key way to end a lesson), and I was asking them if they could do it, and if they looked nervous, I actually explained it. Specifically, when I asked one of my boys, he said *dekiru hazu.* SEEEE!?!?!?!? You can use it like that!!!! :P (dekiru = to be able to do, hazu = it is expected that, so *it:s expected that I can do it* for example kuru hazu = it is expected that I can come, (but something may come up))

An update before I run away

This weekend I:m running away to Niigata. This trip was planned a little before I figured out the best ways of getting around in Japan, so it:s not planned so thouroughly as I would like, and I:m spending more money than I inteded, but I:ll get to see curi, and hopefully eat some sushi that:s not grown in warm water. Some salmon would be nice. They don:t have that here. And it:s kinda a specialty in Niigata, so I hear.

My plan is to fly out tomorrow evening and get to my hotel in Tokyo before they close the doors. I *shouldn:t* have to run. Then the next day I will maybe meet up with Tiffany for a little bit before curi drives down from Niigata to meet me and we both drive back.

Then I run around Yuki-kuni for two days and head back on the shinkansen on Monday to Tokyo to catch my plane back to the island life. I hope it:s WARM here when I get back. My kids are all still wearing shorts and I had that sweat is dripping down my back sensation today. It:s nice. Weird, but for the latitude, normal, which is nice.

I still don:t have my costume done, my house is a mess, and I have to take the trash out on my way to the airport tomorrow (hopefully noone will mind it being out there from 5:00pm the night before, hopefully the dogs won:t get into it). I don:t even know yet if I:m bringing my computer or leaving it at home. I:ll probably end up bringing it, but that:s just because i want to write, which is silly, I should be able to write by hand, and probably will on the plane. (Oh God, I just realized I:m going to be flying in a plane. I:d forgotten that part of this plan. Gods, I hate flying) But the computer allows me to think so much quicker, and allows me to go back and edit works, something that I hate doing by hand. And my voice is different. It:s funny how I can tell if I:ve written something by hand or by computer just by the tone of voice. And that I repeat words and make shorter sentences by hand. Because they look longer on the notebook page than on the computer screen, so I cut them off sooner. And I repeat words more often because there are fewer words on each page, so I can:t see how often I:ve used a particular word. And having a thesaurus at your fingertips is amazing.

So yeah, I:ll probably bring it. That doesn:t mean I:ll be happy about it. It:s heavy. Hopefully I won:t have to run. I don:t like the idea of my computer bouncy on my back as I run down an unfamiliar tokyo street. But I have the number of the hotel. If I:m running late I will call them.

In other news, I:ve finished the book I started 2 days ago. I ate it yesterday. Mostly because I really needed to. I was HUNGRY for good reading, my last book, as you well know, was really hard for me, and the fact that this one slid down my throat so easily was not just pleasurable, it was tasty. Moon Called, Patricia Briggs. Werewolves in Washington (state). Modern day, but the fae have *come out of the closet,* as it were. Main character is not a werewolf, but was raised by them. Really good reading. So good I:m looking into her other books for my next order. But it seems like the other books are high fantasy, and not modern fantasy, which I like a whole lot better. But I liked her characters and writing style enough that I might read them anyway. And the fact that she:s one of those who makes me really like a character before killing him/her off. That makes me respect her.

Oh, and my Grandmotts is in the hospital again. You know, she:s my poster child for anti-smoking, she:s been dying of emphazema for, what, 5 years now? Which is pretty good, she:s a tough one. She was a high school principal for a very long time before she retired. She:s where the phrase, By the Book Bundschu comes from (and yes, you know how much I fit that bill). So yeah, in the hospital again, and not looking really bad, but bad enough to be in the hospital again. I called her a bit last night. She was tired from talking after 2 minutes. Literally, skype times the calls. She:s actually one of the reasons I was worried about coming to Japan in the first place. I:m worried that she:ll die while I:m over here and won:t be able to go to the funeral. I mean, I:m worried that she:ll die anyway, but this just makes it worse that I won:t be there for/with my family.

So yeah, that was me expressing. Don:t smoke, kids. It:ll kill you. And hurt everyone you love while it does it.

So tonight I plan to clean, pack, cook the last of my tofu, collect my garbage (so I just have to come home, grab my suitcase and chuck the garbage at the curb), and run away to see my best friend on this side of the planet for the weekend. I:m soooo looking forward to this weekend, you would not believe.

Beach clean up and Halloween craziness

So today I Woke Up to the sound of my alarm clock telling me to get out of bed. I'd like to remind you all that this was a Sunday Morning. But I got up, got out of the house in 30 minutes, and arrived at Yoshino beach only 15 minutes late because I got lost (I followed one sign to Yoshino, and it passed Aragusuku, which is just north of Yoshino, but then all of a sudden I was at the road to go to the cape. Grrrr), but then I met up with David (DAH-vid, the Germen CIR), Teresa, Kirsty, Jonathan, and a bunch of Japanese people I didn't know to clean up the beach. They provided us with gloves and bags and we got to. I didn't fill up a single bag, but I did 3 half bags. The first one was half filled with little bits of broken glass and it was getting heavy and I was worried that the bag would tear. The second one was half filled with Styrofoam, but I also found a beach blanket type thing under the trees (right after I found the spider inside the small flotation ball, that was fun), and it was heavy, so I headed back. And the third one was truthfully 3/4 of the way full of debree, Styrofoam, glass, and all kinds of plastic bits, and I found a large sheet of plastic in (I think it was) a natrual spring that flowed down from the cliffs into the beach, and that was REALLY heavy so I dragged it back and then they told me it was okay to stop. I was out there for about 3 hours. Then we sat down under the canopy of the trees in this kinda tent and one of the ladies made us Dango (dumplings) in a "sweet soup" that had red beans in it. It was So Good. I was really surprised when they said that there was sea water in it, but that was because the recipe calls for salt (to bring out the sweet flavor, don't ask me how), and they didn't have enough, so they added some salt water. It was perfect.

After, I Could have just gone home, but I decided why not and went to Maehama. There was a volleyball tourny going on, but I don't want to play in those until I get better (with how little I'm playing, I don't think I'll actually get to the point of wanting to play in the tournys) because I don't want to be the reason my team loses. So I watched Teresa, Jeff, Justin, and Jason play and then went for a 500m swim. Yes, I went to the beach and had a swim on October 21st. This is awesome. It was really cold, the water, I mean, because as soon as I decided to swim the sun ran away. But as soon as I was moving I was fine. And then I was cold again when I got out because the sun was still away and the wind was blowing, but I was fine after I dried off a bit. I love my island.

After my kester was dry enough to not soak my car seat, I drove over to Sazan to try to find some face paint, which I did, but it's the clown type, and was kinda expensive for only wanting to use white. So I'm still thinking if I wanna go back an buy it. I'm gonna ask Chris and Tiffany if they can find some at a better price for what I want to do. Then I went over to San-e and bought the fabric to make the darn thing, which was much more expensive than I thought (48yen apparently means 480yen per meter), but I'm commited to doing it now. Even if noone seems to have a sewing mashine and I have to do it all by hand. Wooo!

By the way, I've decided to be a yurei. So, information here. Pictures here, here, here, here, here, and here.

So yeah, I have about 4 days to make a kimono by hand. Yep, this week's gonna be interesting.

Halloween

I've figured out what I'm doing for my Halloween costume. Now I just need find a fabric store to make it.

Of course the weekend we decide to go to Osaka is the weekend that Scott and Makiko are having Thanksgiving dinner with real turkey.

I feel so accomplished

This is me, feeling accomplished.

Nenkyuu, asked for and gotten.

Plane for Naha to meet Natalie in December, reserved and paid for. (had to pay cash, machine wouldn't take card).

Plane to Osaka, reserved and paid for.

Amazon.co.jp order paid for (at Family Mart. It was hard. 3 people had to help me).

Hotel in Oki City, reserved.

Now I just need to reserve my hotel in Naha for Friday of the mid year conference (myc, if I refer to it later), in Osaka, and in Naha for Natalie and me.

But still, I feel like I got a lot done in the last 2 hours. And I feel so po' now. No more spending. I'm gonna have to get these trips' expenses all out today's pay check, and man, is that gonna have to stretch.

Now for the big glass of OJ that loves me.

So, about those free plane tickets I won

I:ve decided to use them to go to Osaka. Not that this will make my Osaka trip with my parents boring, just different, because when the family goes we:ll be spacing it out between Osaka, Nara, Kyoto and the like. This trip is with friends (Curi, Maru-ne, and Tiffany (I feel weird calling her Tiffy-chan, she might just turn into Chifu, but I haven:t decided yet) and will be for that weird Friday holiday that we in November. I:m taking (an ungodly amount) 3 days of nenkyuu for this trip, just so that I can use the free tickets (which black out during holidays, of course) because when you break it down, which costs more, an extra night at a hotel or a full plane flight? This:ll mean that I:ll have taken 6 days of my 20 for one semester of work. Which I guess is less than 1/3, and (knock on wood) so long as nothing bad happens, I should be working out okay.

So yeah, decided this last night. So today I:ve gotten approved for 2.5 days of nenkyuu, and will go book my plane tonight after school if I get that last bit approved (I asked my supervisor, which is 1\2 of what I need for each day, and I:ve asked Heiichi, cuz I:m taking two of their days, but I have to drive to Sunagawa after I get off work to ask for their permission too, that last 1/2 of one day). I:ve also looked up a bunch of possible hotels and sent them off to the other 3 girls for final review. I feel all kinds of accomplished.

I guess if other people want to come on the trip too, I won:t say no, but I:m really looking forward to the close friend time, you know? Honestly I think I would be happy if we didn:t go anywhere and just stayed in the hotel talking. But if we:re in a great city, then we do need to go around, you know? I guess what I:m saying is if people ask to come too, great, although while I:m there I might not hang out with you as much, and if not, that:s good too.

Stupid free ticket making me all kinds of stressed out. But I:m still happy that I won it. I should save me about 25000yen. I hope, anyway.

I:ve been feeling a bit depressed/stressed this week. Not figuring out what I was doing with my lesson til Tuesday didn:t help, and then getting everything ready for the Mid Year Conference didn:t help (although why I got it in my head that I Had to do that this week, I don:t know, but it:s almost done, I just have to call the hotels I want to stay at and reserve my room). And I:ve just been feeling lonely. No really reason behind it, I don:t think, just one of those "I:m on the other side of the planet from most of my friends and family and not feeling the love that I know everyone is sending me" moments. Which is why I:m really glad I get to go see Curi next weekend, and I get to see her again in November along with Maru-ne and Tiffany, and I get to see Veronica in early Nov too. And I get to see Natalie for week and a half just the two of us (although I might kill her or she me, for that long, but eh), and I get to see my Marmy and Daddy shortly after. And in March I get to see Leo, who when I was talking to him earlier this week (go me for actually taking that hour long nap so I was awake enough to talk to him), I asked where he wanted to go, besides my island, because I didn:t want him to get bored, and he said "I don:t really care, we can just stay on your island. I just want to see you." And yes, I cried. Just a little bit, but yeah.

Oh, and I asked some of my teachers about the weather the past few days. Apparently it:s been freakishly cold here for October. And it:s only been in the mid 70:s. I:m hoping to get several more visits to the beach in this season. I hope it warms back up.

Oh, and if everyone could (while I:m thinking about weather) take a moment and pray, send good thoughts to, ask the universe nicely (whatever you believe in) for there to be rain in Georgia, I:d really appreciate it. It needs to happen, now lets use that power of positive thinking and think/pray rainclouds. Big thick rainclouds that hang in the bottom they are so full of torrentual downpoars. Big, think, black omnious rain clouds that cover the horizon from east to west, north to south, that won:t go away until the earth has drunk it:s fill and can:t take any more. Let:s all think something like that.

Hmmm. In other news. Other than school work, I:ve caught up to the Japanese release in Bleach, started reading Moon Called (Patricia Briggs, another random I:m trying), started reading Zombie Powder (only 4 volumes, and I:ve read the first . . . 2? already), watched the first 2 episodes of Reaper (not bad, reminds me of Psych, in writing style and direction), watched the first 4 episodes of Heroes (I:ve caught up with the American release), watched Smallville as it came out, and yeah. Cleaned my apartment a bit at a time (the mess just moves around as I clean one section and the other sections get messy, then I clean the next and the last section becomes no longer prestine). Which I was hoping to have completely clean by Saturday, when I:m hosting a dinner party, but seeing how I:ve only gotten one resounding maybe, if I don:t hear from anyone by tonight, I:m just gonna send the email out saying never mind, maybe in December. Because next week I:m out of town, the week after I:m here, but I:ll be recovering, then Ishigaki, then Naha, then Osaka, then break. Then on the 14th (of December we:re talking) Naha again for Natalie, then family until January. I wonder if people will wonder where I:ve gone to . . .

Oh, I just remembered, it:s Pizza tonight. I haven:t been the last two weeks because of other Fuctions, but now I can finally go. But I think I:m gonna go home when I:m done eating (or slightly after), I usually eat really slowly and wait for other people to show up, but I:ve been really tired this week (stress, and depression, never a good Go Get Em combination) so I think I:ll try to go home early-ish.

Oh, and I:m planning to dye my hair this weekend. I love the henna stuff I use, it doesn:t really grow out and leave awful roots (or at least I don:t notice if it does), it just "fades gracefully," which is nice. But this:ll be the last box of it that I brough with me, so I:ll either need to order some more, or have Natalie bring me some when she comes in December. (I figure once every two months is not too much of a budget expendature, and it makes me feel all pretty). And it did seem to fade a little quicker this time, so I think I:ll actually use the stupid cap (I didn:t last time cuz it was Just Too Hot) when I keep it on for those 7 hours. Because it works, and I don:t feel like sleeping in the stupid cap.

Hmmm, I:m running out of things, but school still has time. And I:m caught up on my lesson plans (for the next 2 weeks, actually ^_^) so I could be doing this, reading, or web surfing, (or studying Japanese, but my heads not in the right headspace for that), and I feel like this is being slightly more productive. As I am doing the thing that they:ve told us to do when we:re feeling down. Write a letter to someone back home. And looky, I:m writing to how many people? All at once! Because I:m talented (or kinda lazy, if you wanna look at it that way, but I prefer to think about talented).

Hmmm, but yeah, really don:t feel like talking about the shapes the clouds make (because they make really interesting ones here, I:ve actually seen one of those "eviloution of man" things), or about how the teachers seem to want me to become fat (I honestly don:t know how they stay thin with all of the snacking), or how the road work on the iinkai street is really annoying and causing lots of traffic (a back up of more than 5 cars, I:m telling you, it:s crazy). So yeah, I:ll think I:ll just sign off. Ah well.

Take care!

Oh and

I think I'm allergic to kiwis. They're so tasty, but my mouth burns when I eat them . . .

Dark chocolate and orange KitKat. That's what I'm eating right now. And that's all I have to say about that.

Muzu muzu

Today's lesson went great; thank you for everyone who sent me ideas. Excellent.

Today was also the second day in a row that I had curry for lunch. Because Shimoji (Tues) is on a separate lunch schedule than my other schools. And I was planning to have curry for dinner last night, which was circumvented, and then tonight, which is again circumvented, so now I don't know what I'll eat. Hmmm, I don't wanna go to the store again.

It's finally getting cool here. Like, I could have worn jeans today and have been fine. The teachers were saying that it got down to 23 degrees this morning. Maybe 73 degrees would feel nice and warm back home, but compared to all of the beautiful weather we've been having up til now, it just feels kinda cold. I'm living in fear of the temperatures in Niigata next weekend (not this, next). But that should be fun.

Speaking of next weekend, I need a Halloween costume for our Halloween party. As many of you know, I'm not very creative on a tight budget. Suggestions would be nice. Japanese themed would be preferable. I'm fine after I decide, I just need to decide before this weekend so that I can make it this weekend because next weekend I'll be in Niigata. Weeee.

And I guess that's it. Fun fun.

Did I mention yet

That they have raw milk here? And that the teachers sometimes use left overs from the school lunches to make their own yogurt? And that it's so creamy and delicious? If only raw milk wasn't illegal in Georgia . . .

. . . back to cutting out laminated cards for my dates lessons (whistles and dances off) . . .

This weekend and a cry for help.

I desperately need an interesting way to teach 5th graders the Days of the Week in English. I need this by tomorrow morning because my class is on Wednesday, and I have to have a lesson planned and prepared by then. If you have any ideas. I:d also take game ideas that are good for the upper grades. Bingo is hard when you:re not necessarily using numbers . . . And veggies are hard to draw . . . but those are the 4th graders . . .

In better news, this weekend was awesome. Friday you:ve heard about. Saturday I got up and was suppose to go straight to the beach so that I could come home early and clean up my apt (school supplies everywhere and the like), but then Rosie called and I didn:t leave the house until after 2, at which point I tried to go find some fins for snorkling, but the two places I tried didn:t have any (it:s kinda the end of the season, I guess), so I gave up and went to the beach. I got there all by my lonesome, although I ran into Scott with Nick shortly thereafter, and went for a swim. I swam about 620 meters, which is from volleyball to the port and back, and then half way there again, but my foot was hurting (for some unknown reason), so I laid back and floated the way back to volley ball. I could have easily fallen asleep just floating in the water. There is so much salt that it really makes one as . . . padded . . . as me very bouent. But falling asleep in the water is a bit dangerous, so I didn:t. I might have ended up on Irabu and had to take the ferry back. Not to mention sharks.

So I finished my swim and laid on the beach for about 15 minutes (and this time I really did fall asleep) before Suzy (visiting from Ishigaki), Sam, and Amy showed up, followed by Xia, Tien Chen, and Xia:s cousin from China whose name I didn:t quite catch. I stayed with them for a bit, and then went back into town to Sea Dancer (where I bought my surf shorts) and paid a little too much for fins, which was good because on Saturday . . .

I woke up early and Suzy, Sam, Kirsty, and I went for a drive around the island (along the south coast and to the cape) before going to Aragusuku to go diving. We got there a little late and the tide was going out, which made it kinda scary (all of the fish were literally Right There, because the coral was about 1 foot to 6 inches under you, in the places where coral wasn:t, we could easily stand up and be up to our shoulders or less), but it was really cool. We saw Nemo (actually nemo, with the 2 white stripes) and sea urchins, and anemememe, and tons of fish (at one point Kirsty and I had a moment with this fat brown fish, who stopped. Looked at Kirsty. Looked at me. And looked at Kirsty. We both laughed about it later). Sam and Kirsty saw a sea snake, but it swam away before I could come over to see. All kinds of neat stuff. (Suzy thought the water looked too cold, so she took a nap on the beach instead.) The way back was a little scary, because the tide had gone out so much you couldn:t really kick to move yourself forward, just little kicks from your hips and put your hand out in front of you. Sam even showed us how to use our fingers to move ourselves over the really shallow coral (two fingers down and push yourself over, because your much less likely to hurt yourself with 2 fingers than with your, say, stomach), even so, it was so close that I accedentaly bashed my hand on a piece of coral. I:ve got a bandaid on it with Polysporin, so don:t worry. I:ll let people know if my thumb rots off.

After Aragusuku, we went to the German Cultural Village, which Suzy found very surreal (which it totally is) and we did some omiyage shopping (souveneir). I bought a very nice mango soft serve icecream for only 100yen. It rocked. We met up with David, who was doing a reading of The Never Ending Story in Japanese (I didn:t listen, because I was pretty sure the vocab was above me), but when he was done I sat and chatted with one of the nice ladies he works with, and we (us Gaijin) went over to David:s apartment for tea and coffee. It was largely decided that David:s apartment is the nicest in Miyako. He has tatami only in the bedroom, and hardwood throughout the rest of the apt. He has an actual kitchen with a bar, a living room, a dining area, and a study. Very, very shwank. And he:s on the 3rd floor, so he has a wonderful view of the south coast and a great breaze. I would be jealous, if they didn:t play the same German music cd every day over and over and over.

After we convinced him to come with us to Maehama for a little bit, where we swam and I played volleyball with Mitchan a bit. Mitchan is so good. Oh, I forgot to say, on Saturday night we went to Mitchan:s resturant, which is soooo tastey and surves Egyptian food. So, very very good. I must go back. So back to Sunday, he helped me with a bit of my technique (which before lets just say that I don:t really have much of a volley ball technique, so that he helped me make one is good). We got creamed, but it was still fun. And I seriously noticed a definate change in how much I was Not out of breath by the end of the game. Much improved. Must be all of that excersise that I:m not really doing. It:s more like I:m just upping the about of activity I try to do in a day. Like walking to school today. Because I:d be lame if I didn:t. And after work I:m gonna walk to the post office and mail off Curi:s present and the first of my stationary. Because it:s only like 2 blocks away from here, and walking home from there is no big deal. I should also go to the iinkai and talk to Noriko-san about that Nenkyuu I want to take in January, but I don:t know if I:ll make it by the time she leaves. Not that I know when she leaves . . . I should just send her an email I think. Or I don:t know. Seems like that would be rude or less formal or something.

Ah well. Today will be filled with cleaning and panic about my new lessons on Wednesday. It seems weird that I:ve been here two months and I only have 4 lessons to show for it. But that:s the way it goes. And if it goes that way, who am I to not go with the flow.

Peace.