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.