Last day of a GREAT YEAR! (Updated)

Once again, I woke up late, but this time it was weirder than others. I don't really know why. But when I got up I mean it was snowing. A LOT. I looked out the window, of course it was freezing cold, but I couldn't tell the difference in temperature from outside and inside. Everything was covered in white. It was sooo amazing and a beautiful sight. I really like cold weather, but I don't like to be cold. At least not this cold. It was really cool though to see the snow everywhere. I took pictures of course and even recorded a little video on my digital camera. I'll have pictures up on my website soon enough.

I finally got in contact with my family. My mother figured out how to work with MSN messenger and to connect the webcam things, that's pretty cool. So I talked to my mom for the majority of the day. It was nice because I'm speaking to someone and doing so in Chinese. I really have learned to appreciate that I could speak a few different languages. I learned the importance of communication, and wished I had gone to Chinese school when I was younger when my parents pushed me to. But at least I can improve now talking to my mom.

The only plan that I had today was go over to TTki's house and have dinner. He told me to learn how to play Japanese Mahjong, so I did research on how to play. But reading it was so confusing. But when I went over to his house to have dinner at 9pm, much later than I had orginally thought that dinner would have started. Turns out they forgot about me... but they still had dinner left for me. And then for the next few hours we were watching the K-1 tournament and then playing Mahjong. It's actually a lot easier than I was reading about, all except for the scoring. That's the impossible thing to master, but if you think about it, it's a long version of poker. That's how you have to play and think about. I think it moves a lot faster than poker too. But it's really quite interesting. It lasts a long time though. It's 4:30AM right now, and I should sleep.

The NEW entry: (Jan. 4, 2005)
I wanted to end a year in reflection. This really has been an amazing year for me. It's hard to sum up an entire year in such little space and in words. I mean this year was monumental for me in the decisions I decided to make and the direction that I was heading in my life. I'll do my best to sum up things by month, so I don't really forget when I get old.

Jan. - Things last year weren't that good and my relationships with friends were rocky. I'm glad that things turned for the better this year. It took effect amost immediately. The stand out event that occured was the surprise party that I planned and went bust. But then I figured that what goes around comes around. I busted up a surprise party for me, and the same happened to me. That's why it pays to be a good person. Winter break was great because I got to spend a lot of time alone. Something that I rarely get and something which is definately needed. Stuck doing the usual things, and the idea to move to Japan became more clear. We were supposed to go on a trip somewhere for winter break, but that went bust. Everyone went home for the holidays and I kinda got stuck stranded with nothing to do. I spent time with EK and YSki on the new year for a new year dinner traditional to the Japan. It was nice to be doing something on New year.

Feb. - Chinese new year was a turning point in my life. This as in Chinese horoscope would predict would be a better year for me than last year. It would bring me great fortune and success. But I think that it did more than what I really expected. I never believed in these sort of things, but as the year progressed I started to become a believer. My mother is really into these kinds of things and prays a lot for the well-being of my family. She made me wear a charm around my neck and to be honest with you, it still hasn't left my neck. Good things started to happen for me and I had a deep sense to change the direction of my life. I had a lot of things that people work intensely hard to obtain in life, but somehow my life seemed unfulfilled. My business class, with the incredibly horrible teacher really did get me to think about what was going on. I mean sometimes its not the good thing that always counts, it's also the bad. I mean the teacher was a nice guy and had the best intentions, he just couldn't teach to save his life. But I did learn a lot about what I wanted to do and where I was going in my life.

Mar. - I applied to graduate. Something I could have done YEARS ago, since I completed all my classes ages ago. But this time I told myself I needed to leave and go on to bigger and better things. Things as I saw them weren't progressing and I shouldn't do any more than I did. I prepared people for my departure. I have partly become a staple in people's lives since I've been at the school for a whopping 4 years. What happened there? I felt too comfortable to move anywhere else. I mean I had everything set for me. Everything in my eyes was perfect, exactly the way that I would want them. I had been fairly visible as a person on campus, I had many friends - most of which were from different countries around the world, I had the nice car, a wonderful girlfriend, great family support, good grades, feeling healthy, enough money to do the things that I wanted to do, I mean everything that I would have hoped for. But somehow my life was unfulfilled. It was a very disturbing feeling that I felt. The words of Dennis kept on repeating in my mind "if you're not growing, then you're dying," and that's EXACTLY how I felt.
Apr. - I decided that if I finally needed to leave San Diego. I mean I had many offers to leave many times, but just never took them. But this year would prove to be different. Spring break came and went, and I was supposed to go on a nice trip with my friends, but something between us separated us. I found out the truth and it pierced my ears just listening to it. I mean how could I have been so dumb to not realize it. It hit me like a ton of bricks and relationships with my friends were almost non-existant. I had almost blocked everyone out of my life. Even my own family. This was troubling month, but a month that I realized what I really needed to do.
This was the month I made the decision officially to leave San Diego and move to Japan. I would have to quit everything that I would be involved with, which for me was the hardest thing. I mean I've spent so many years building everything up and it almost felt like a waste to throw it all away. But the more amazing part about how I was going to leave would be more astounding to me. I decided to take only necessities with me and practically go with only the clothes on my back. I wouldn't take that much money and then give everything away. I would really leave San Diego behind me.

May - Finals marked the end of the semester, but it meant more than that to me. Because everything in my life was coming to a finale. I had given warning to all the top people in the Key Club organization, about my departure although I had given some people a heads up awhile ago. I let the people in the San Diego - Yokohama Sister City Society know that I would be moving to Japan. I started being more open about it with the International club. I even talked to my business teacher about this. The reason I talked to my business teacher about it, was because I wanted to get a business perspective on the decision I was making. Its quite rare for a person to give up everything that they have, but it's not uncommon for someone to be unhappy with the things that he has. I mean my business teacher was a horrible teacher, but a very intelligent individual and a great business sense. He told me that the decision I made was a rare one. Very few people opt to do so because the people in our society are too wrapped up in obtaining material things and don't focus about the attainment of true happiness that comes from within. He always mentioned in class that 68% of CEO and Presidents of corporations aren't happy. It was very encouraging for me to make this step easier and for me the be able to plan what and how I'm going to do it. I wanted to make it very public that I would be leaving, in a way to force me to leave. I gave myself no reason to stay. I would even break up with my girlfriend, whom which I loved dearly. I would pass down my benz to my sister. She would even take over my room, which had been my domain for the past 14 years. I never wanted to give myself a reason to look back and to only move forward.

Jun. - Bryan graduated from Grossmont. That's a blackhole that I've seen very few people get out of in the shortest amount of time possible. I finally made it to the step where I would actually grow up and take responsibility of myself like I've never have before. I went to the final meetings of all my organizations and let people get used to the idea that I wouldn't be around anymore. Not that they would miss me or anything, but just in case they wanted to know what I was going to be up to. I solicitated the assistance of a few friends to help me build somewhat of a network in Japan. I had a few friends there already that I met when I came last year, but it never hurts to make more friends. So I crafted an incredibly detailed exit plan. It meant coordinating appointments for the next 3 months with about 20 some people on the different islands of Japan till I would come back to the United States. My plan really was well thoughtout and would impress anyone. I've always been taught that, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." So that kept playing in my mind too. I was really quite happy with the final product too. I mean I managed to put everyone into the schedule and on a day that they wanted to meet too. I would meet with people that were already in Japan as well. I would be busy almost every day for the next 3 months. So I was really getting excited to leave. But I started to look at the things that I would be leaving behind. I would meet up with some of my friends that I haven't seen in a long time. I wanted to catch up with a lot of people, but its difficult with everyone being so busy. But I had the chance to visit a few people at least. It really did feel like I was dying too.

Jul. - I moved to Japan this month. My friends threw a farewell party for me. I was kinda surprised too. I was amazed by the people who showed up, since some of them would never go to a party, but they came. So I felt really special. They dubbed me GTB, based on the popular show about a Japanese teacher, Great Teacher Onizuka. It had been my dream for a long time to become a teacher. And everyone seemed to have more confidence in me that I would be a great teacher than I did. That's one of those things that I find so weird, that everyone always believes that I could do it. So this was my chance to prove it for myself. It felt weird talking to AWs, because it was originally his dream to come to Japan and to do the things that I would be doing. It's a weird sick world how these things happen. I spent most of the evening talking to him about it. My gf at the time had already left for Taiwan, even though she was the person who put the party together. That officially ended the relationship. Then I packed my bags and off I went to Japan. I still remember the last thing that I saw when I left my house and when I left the airport looking down from the plane. It was a nice bright sunny day. My room was still a horrible mess with papers and clothes scattered everywhere. I remember the face my mom had as she left me at the airport. She was hesitant to leave even though my dad was in the car hurrying her to go. She was late for work. But she realized that she needed to let go too. Some of my friends came to the airport to see me, and the person I would be going with, off. It was nice to see them. They came a tad bit too late since I was already in the boarding area, and they were outside. The person I would be going with had soo much crap in her carry on bags that we almost missed our flight. And that was the last thing that happened to me in San Diego. LAX wasn't that horrible, except for the fact that the terminal we were at wasn't even near the one we had to be. When we arrived in Japan, my friend just ditched me and my ride was about 1.5 hours late. Kinda rough start.

Aug. - I won't go into much detail here, since it's already all documented in this journal elsewhere. But I will mention the big things. I traveled all over the country of Japan, spanning 4 islands. My plan was flawless. I made every appointment and even changed some things to do even more than I originally planned. I mean, it's quite a feat and I'm quite proud of it. I mean I traveled all throughout Japan, the size of California, visiting all major cities, and hitting all the tourist spots, seeing things that normal tourists wouldn't see, staying at a friend's house in all but two cities, doing all of these things with only $600 in cash, by train, bus, and walking. All within three weeks.

But things started to falter in my plan near the end, when I learned I didn't need to go back to San Diego to get my visa. That lead a many problems. I only packed for summer and not winter, so I didn't have any winter clothing. I only packed two suits. I already bought my return ticket to Japan from San Diego, which was about $500 and it was non-refundable. I would also waste $450 for not flying back to the United States on my return ticket since I had to buy it round trip. I only brought $2000 to have to pay for rent, souvenirs, bills, and food. So I was well short of money, clothes, and wasted a lot by NOT going back to San Diego. And I couldn't go back because I didn't get my visa yet.

Sept. - I physically started my job at Yakumo. I say physically because school already started, but I didn't have my work visa, it was on a volunteer basis. I wouldn't get paid so I still didn't have enough money for food even. Just so you know, Japanese ATMs don't work with Foreign Credit or Debit Cards, and the banks close at 3pm. The ATMs aren't 24 hours either. So I was really really really living frugally.

Oct. - I officially got my visa, therefore officially started working at Yakumo. I felt this burden just go away after I got the letter in the mail saying that I was accepted for my change of visa. I had to get a few other papers first before I could get paid. The school took care of me though, which was really a pleasant surprise. Very encouraging too. I started to teach on my own when a few of the other teachers were absent. I was able to get my shot. It went well, for the most part. But some classes were still rough around the edges.

Nov. - My first pay check, after 5 months living in Japan, only prepared to pay for 3 months of it. You have no idea how overjoyed I was to get it. For the past few months, I was eating very little, skipping meals even to live. I spent very little time and money on any entertainment, and living only because my mom sent money by mail to me. My credit card was maxed out a few times -- thank goodness for citibank. So now I could start paying it back. I was working on getting out of debt. That's not a good way to start a new life.

Dec. - All the festivals this year had been very interesting for me to see. Working at the school had been very enjoyable. And making all the friends was really wonderful. I spent my birthday with some of my collegues and celebrated it 3 times, most ever in my life. Most people spend Xmas with family, but in Japan, xmas is for couples, and New Years is for family. I really felt that this year came together for me. I've learned a lot and started to make the money to live on my own. Everything worked out for me. There are areas with room for improvement, but at least I know that I'm going in the right direction, and that's incredibly important for me. Thanks for reading, you probably think I'm some crazy person who rambles a lot, but so what? Don't read then.

But Happy New Year, looks to be a challenging one for me.

Shopping

Since yesterday it snowed and it was too cold to go out, I decided I would prepare myself for the winter. I went shopping for some new threads. First I went to get some cash from the bank. The lines were long, and I really didn't know why. But I did learn how to use the ATM right now. I didn't know that I could get a print out in my account book, and all I had to do was stick it in. That's really cool to think about it.

Then I was off to Ishikawa-cho station and Motomachi street. I grabbed some real food too. I grabbed some quick junk food at Yoshinoya, I really love that place as you could probably already tell. Now I really can tell why YYmoto really loved that place. Then I was walking down the street a little to the GAP. I really like it there. Not because I'm being totally American and only buying U.S. products. But I'm buying it because it fits and it was on sale. I mean things were priced way below what I would find at Fashion Valley. Thanks President Bush for making the U.S. Dollar close to worthless. I mean the Yen is on a 5 - year high against the dollar so moving to Japan this year was a good thing for me. All the money that I'm making really is worth a lot when I translate it to U.S. Dollars. Of course it comes at the cost of many human lives fighting in Iraq, and conflicts without resolutions. So anyways, I stayed there for about an hour because there were so many good things to buy, but I didn't want to go crazy buying everything. So I was pretty careful with what I purchased. I set a budget of under $100 or about 10,000 Yen.

When I left the store, I walked out with a sweater, a beanie, and a jacket for only $60. I think it was quite a steal, since it was good quality and I liked it, another rare thing. But I had $40 left to spend so I went and assembled my emergency kit. I bought a new backpack and loaded it with stuff. I need to get some canned food inside, but I pretty much have other things covered. I also need to print out my insurance stuff and a list of hospitals that speak English. It would be terrible to have an emergency and then realize, "oh crap, they don't speak English!" That would be a pretty defining moment in my life, to say the least. It was pretty good since the day was nice and sunny. Of course the temperature was still hovering around 3 degrees celcius, but sunny. So it wasn't that bad. It would have been worse with rain. So I'm glad I assembled my kit. Well at least started it. I feel about 10 percent safer. What would you include in an emergency kit?

Song of the Moment - Kiroro - Nagai Aida

The first day of snow

It was that cold today. My plan was go out and shop for some stuff. In the wake of the terrible Tsunamis that hit the Southern Asia region, I was inspired to start an emergency kit. I mean, Japan has the most Earthquakes in the world, and has had numerous Tsunamis hit its coast since who knows when. I mean the last devastating Tsunami that I've read about was just after the 9.5 Earthquake off the coast of Chile. I mean this was way in South America back in the 1960s. I won't forget to mention this was the largest Earthquake ever recorded. But about 20 hours later coastlines of Japan were being nailed with Tsunamis.

But today, it was only an idea since it was freaking cold. I didn't want to go out. My freakin heater didn't work very well and I just huddled inside with my kotatsu (table with a heater). That was pretty much it. I hadn't talked to my family in a long time either. Something that I just recently noticed too. It's quite odd since I usually talk to them to pass the time when there's a rainstorm, Typhoon, or a Snow Day. But not recently. I remember talking to them last right before my birthday.

So I managed to live through the day since only having my kotatsu, and many layers of clothing. I mean my hands and body were so cold that I couldn't feel anything anymore. I made frequent trips to the shower to warm up my hands since that's the only place that has warm water. Its quite tragic actually that it was colder inside my room that outside. I don't know how that happened since it was registered at 1 degrees celcius which is about 33-34 degrees ferenheit. I spent most of my time reading about the news in America, San Diego, the world, and Japan. I feel well informed about all the events occuring around the world. I downloaded a grip of new songs, but still only listening to a few... I'm not sure how that works out.

I spent some time talking to other friends that I haven't talked to in a long ass time too. So that was nice. It's always nice to keep in touch with friends. Since we always say we will but never end up having enough time for each other. That's the sad part about friendship. It reminds me of the Cake song - friends is a four letter word for ends. But once a year is better than none. So it's nice to put a good note at the end of the year. I was actually happy in December this year. That's soooo rare for me to be happy this month. Usually things just don't work out the way that I had plan things, partly my fault. But this year, I didn't expect much and I was surprised with many things. It was great too. I really do feel lucky and am glad that I left San Diego. Being a traitor and leaving my hometown is never easy, but growing up is well worth the cost.

Free Ipod

Going to make another plea:

Go here to get a free ipod. This time I've included proof if you don't believe me.
I have enclosed a link for you to enter to get a free Ipod. I have heard this is a legitimate campaign. Some people have told me about it and it was featured on Wired Magazine. I bought some ink for my printer and it counts.

If you don't believe it, go here. Its proof!
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64614,00.html
You could also sign up for a Blockbuster thing and cancel before you have a to pay anything and still get the Ipod.

Be a Friend, go here and sign up for a free iPod.http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=11461043

Pissed off

I'm fucking pissed off, I just did this whole entry and it was lost so I'm doing it again. It was the first day I didn't copy it before I added the entry. Damn!!!!! It usually takes me a whole day to type one of these things. I'm doing the best I can to type the whole thing over again, but most of it will be left out because I just won't be able to remember it all. That's why I type it out.

Late again

Today I spent writing my fucking journal entry, but it got erased as I submitted it around 7pm. What the hell!! Anyways, just gotta do it over again. Can't complain since I don't pay for it.
I woke up late again. Even though I know I got home late last night because of the movie, I didn't expect that I'd get up late late. We caught the late showing, that's why it was cheaper. But that also kept me up late, so I didn't do much for the day. I mean I woke up and only had 2 hours of daylight left. I really cherish my daylight since most of the time it's freezing here. It's not really freezing here, it's just cold for me. It'll be freezing next month and the month after though.

So I needed something to push me to get out of my house, so I went to pay some bills today. It's the first time that my bills have broke the 3 digits. I mean that's a lot since for the first 5 months it didn't cost me that much for electricity, gas, and water. But now I have a cell phone bill, which is $60 this month. I expect my bills to drop back to double digits from next month on. I went to the local CD store to look for some new CD's, but they didn't have any that I wanted. That took a long time, since they got more CD's than last time, as I was leaving, I felt a little off because my eye sight was giving way, and I felt a little imbalanced. I had a tad headache too. Which wasn't good because I still needed to go buy some food too. I only went to the closest grocery store because the others would have been too far, for what I was wearing. I got some food for the week. I plan to make spagetti soon, since I haven't cooked for myself in a long time. I think it's about time to do so again, before all my food goes bad. I mean most already has and I'll have to throw out a lot of stuff.

The Terminal

I didn't do much for the beginning of the day, because I woke up so late. I guess when you sleep late you wake up late too. I didn't see much sunlight, and it's kind of weird that I'm being nocturnal again. I really enjoy the sunlight here, since that's one of my main sources of warmth. My crappy ass heater doesn't work well to get me nice and toasty.

But before I went to see the movie, I talked to BHu. It was weird because I hadn't talk to her in a long time. It was like running into someone you haven't seen in awhile at the grocery store. You'd like to catch up, but you've got to go. She hardly goes online, and I'm not sure why. Maybe because she's been busy. But it was nice to have even a short chat. It was brief from what I felt since we normally talk for hours at a time. She had sent me a nice gift from Taiwan. I'm afraid if I will be able to see it many times since it was on a VCD format and not a DVD format. I don't know if the regional discs makes a difference or not. So actually I haven't seen much of the movies that I have. It's a shame since I love movies.

I sense that there has been a schism between my college friends. I mean at a time you couldn't separate us, and now it seems you can't get us all together anymore without upsetting someone. It's a tough situation, but since I'm no longer in the country, I think things have gotten a little more awkward. I think people have drifted their separate ways and its hard for some to let go of the past. The conversation helped me to see things more clearly. I was surprised at some news that I've heard recently from my friends. And also how everyone thinks about things.

But me and BHu only talked about my school stuff, like teaching and life. Rather than our friends and the outside world. Conversations between us haven't really ever been about everyone else, but things surrounding our immediate life. I talked about my lesson plans and my huge ass work load that I face next month. She talked about her life at school and how things have been for her. I helped guide her a little and thanked her for the nice gift. It was exactly what I wanted. She's still got a knack for that, and it's greatly appreciated. She faces some tough decisions as she returns back to her homeland. And even more when she goes back to the states. I just hope that she has the strength and courage to combat it all, and at the same time. She's lost, and hopefully she'll find her way. She's got the ability to, she's just gotta do it.

The Terminal - Review and Analysis

For being only the 3rd movie I've seen at the cinemas, because movies here cost and arm and a leg compared to the states. I got a bargin for only $12.

I think it was worth seeing at the movie theaters, but I'm not saying it was awesome or anything like that. But I wouldn't go so far to say it sucked either. At times it was funny, but at times, they could have cut a few things out. I think Tom Hanks saved the movie. If it wasn't for him, I think the movie would have completely sucked. I think he's got the incredible ability to just captivate an audience just for being him.

I mean you've got to have talent to star in a movie all on your own and make it good, speaking about Castaway. He's got a gift to transcend that to people and has a good connection. I mean to begin with, the movie concept is a stretch. It's very fictional, probably based on some abstract true story. But I like the creativity that Tom Hanks puts into it. I mean it was written well and played well too, but the whole ensemble.

Except for maybe Catherine Zeta-Jones. Her character was too much. And the Janitor too. Nice try, but didn't buy it. Catherine Zeta-Jones' character was a tough one to play. You just couldn't believe what she was saying and it didn't really connect with me. The Indian guy has some pretty cool tricks in the movie, but it couldn't save his character. Only a few parts where it was good, but other than that, it sucked for him.

The lesson learned: I can understand how he felt being where he was. I don't mean the purgatory part, but the being in a strange land and not understanding crap what people are talking about. And we are stuck waiting. That's the point, we are all waiting. Some people are waiting for other people, or perhaps something. But we are constantly in a waging war, just waiting for something to happen.

Sometimes we are just helpless to control our circumstances. Either because someone above you is watching your every move and waiting for the right moment to pull the rug right from under you. Not just to be mean, but to see if you could get yourself back up and go for another round. But we are constantly waiting to achieve something and to go somewhere. Life is all about waiting, waiting to live, waiting to die, waiting to achieve, waiting to experience. Tom Hanks played this part excellently. He in the movie was waiting to fulfill a promise, and I think that's a good story and a good motivator to why he dealt with what he did in the movie. Nothing is more powerful than the promise you keep with yourself. That's what we call resolve. Under the most adverse circumstances, a promise will keep the light at the end of the dark tunnel from going out. That's why I liked this movie.

Movie of the Moment - The Terminal - Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones

Talking to friends

I spent today talking to all my friends in San Diego. It was nice because I hadn't talked to them in a very long time. I wrote a lot of e-mails to people that will be coming back to Japan so they have my current cell phone number and my new cell e-mail address. I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas too.

It felt good to talk to some old friends because I hadn't done that in a very long time. It was weird because I can't remember the last time I had 6 conversations going on at the same time. It seems like I only contact these people a few times a year. Some once a year. And it's weird how its all at the same time too. I've got to spread it out more.

Because of the time difference from Japan to San Diego, and since I'm a day ahead, it was Christmas in San Diego. So everyone was at home enjoying the warmth, while I was freezing my ass off alone in Japan. Sad isn't it? But it's my choice, and I still choose not to go back. HAHA, that's right, I'd rather freeze. The price of freedom, I tell you...

But I didn't do anything today, meaning I didn't go out. I just stayed at home and stayed up late to talk to people. I was still having conversations with people till 7am here. Most of the talking occured at night since I hardly woke up in time to see daylight.

Movie of the Moment - The Terminal - Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones

Christmas and my Third Birthday Party

Damn, that's a record I'm sure. It's hard enough to get one party going in the U.S. but I've got 3 this week in Japan. This trip is turning out much better than I thought. Perfect cap on the year too. I got home late last night and there fore stayed up late. I woke up late this morning, but I still managed to get the gifts wrapped and delivered to my neighbors. They were surprised which was good, but since I was late, I had to rush to go to CP's house.

It took about 2 hours just to get there. Then I had to buy a drink of some sort, which I bought tea, not so Christmas like, but something anyways. I walked in about 30 minutes late, which wasn't really bad since I walked in with my boss, AOwa, too. She was also late, and there were people coming in after us too. It started off kind of slow, but we worked our way to the appetizers. It was amazing stuff, and CP prepared it all. I can even begin to name all of it, but I will try. They had a lot of cheeses, pate, crackers, asparagus wrapped with ham, chocolate truffles, salad and tomatoes. Nice stuff, and that was just the beginning.

Then we dove into the turkey dinner, with mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrot and peas, cranberry sauce, and some other stuff too. Then we started on desserts later. She made 2 cakes, tiramisu, rasberry pie, more chocolate truffles, and cookies. Afterwards we were all stuffed. It was a good Christmas, but I had to take a lot of the food home. I was the only single male in the room, a room of only 6 people might I add. At least I won't have to cook for a week.

We also did a little gift exchange, and I got a monkey that makes weird noises. My boss got my bath thingy. It's camamille scented, I heard it was good stuff. But not sure, I'll have to ask later.It took a while to get home. When I got home, I started chatting with friends. I mean it's 5am and I still haven't slept yet. It's good times, good times.

Second Birthday Party with CFri

I stayed up late for some reason that I can't remember at the moment. So I woke up a little late again. But I didn't need to get up and ready till 11:30am because TTki was going to take me out for my birthday and treat me to lunch. We went to this Chinese buffet place. It costed $10 a person, and there were 5 of us, but none of us really liked the food. Kind of a shame I think. I appreciated it, but TTki didn't like the food. Which is weird because he was the one who took us there. Anyways it was a nice gesture.

The next stop was to Citibank at Yokohama station. We both were curious about opening an account there and possibly some investments as well. When we got there, it seemed promising, but as we looked through some literature and talked to the teller, we both decided that it costs too much still comparatively and the margin of returns aren't that great. For investments and such, it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

We finished early, so we went shopping for some Christmas gifts, yes we both waited till the last minute. We went to Tokyu Hands, which is kind of a novelty store. They have some interesting stuff there, and we both bought some bath things. I bought some stuff for a gift exchange for tomorrow and a nice looking calendar for AHda because he will go to China soon. It was a really nice Chinese calendar.

After that, I walked TTki back to the station and told him that I still had some more shopping to do, actually it was shopping for his gift. I went to Yodabashi camera. I had talked to YYto on the phone earlier about the gift I was planning to get TTki. It was actually more expensive that I could have imagined. But I bought it anyways since he will be leaving for Australia soon. I bought him a new MP3 Player so he can take his tunes with him around. He just bought a brand new laptop and digital camera. He's got tons of points left on his Yamada Denki card, but he didn't have this one yet. So I was pretty happy about it. It took a little while to decide which one to get, but I think I made a pretty good choice.

After that I headed off to go to Shinjuku to meet CFri. It took a short time to get there, but a long time to find her. Shinjuku was packed, and I mean packed with tons of people. Last minute shoppers and many couples. Kinda annoying since they wouldn't get out of my way. But I was looking for El Torito, but didn't know it. I haven't been to Shinjuku that often and I couldn't find out where CFri was. She could have just told me that she was at the El Torito, it would have been more helpful, but she was at a location where there were more than one store, so I kept going back and forth to the wrong ones. But one of the service people pointed me to the right direction.

Once I finally arrived about 50 minutes later, I was freezing my ass off. But I was greeted by her and her friend. We went to El Torito and we didn't have to wait long to get in. We just beat the rush of people, which was incredibly fortunate for us. I've heard bad stories about the experiences from other people here. But to be honest, I didn't have a such a bad time. They were crappy in some areas, like no Birthday song and the food took a little while to get to us. But since we beat the rush to get into the joint, it wasn't that bad at the end. We still got our pictures taken and the food was good. All good things that I liked. AH, and Ikuko, and me and CFri were at dinner, but MTka came and joined us for Karaoke. It wasn't that much fun. Since most of them had to leave early and a few songs were sang. I did get a chance to talk to AHda more, but it was very short before we too had to leave.

When we went to pay, it ended up being $43 for me and AHda to pay because they charged such a high price for having each person in the room. Room charge will kill you, but it was ok, I didn't care. But on the way home, I found the perfect gift for MTki, I walked into the Liquor section of a store and they had all types of whiskey. It was hard to choose, but I just grabbed one and was off to the train station and back home.

Emperor's Birthday

I wanted to go shopping today, but it was a national holiday. All the stores were open, but the problem was the banks weren't open, which means I couldn't get access to my money. That's pretty important if I wanted to go shopping. So I just stayed home and chatted with my mother. I haven't talked to her for a long time in a long while. It was nice, I was talking in Chinese too, and telling her about her Christmas Present. She had received $1200 compliments of her son. But that was pretty much the day. I feel much better that I'm finally paying back my mother for my trip to Japan. She's spent a lot of money to send me my clothes and other crap. And I've still got to take care of some bills that I didn't cancel or take care of before I left to Japan. Its such a mess... damn.

First Birthday Party

After getting home from last night, I seemed a bit tired. I didn't do much during the day, but sleep. I needed to catch up on the missing sleep because of the all the running around and such. Since I woke up late, I got a late start with my chores.

I did some laundry, and then hung out at TTki's house. I stayed there for about an hour or so just to chit chat with them. I feel like I don't do that enough with them. I don't want to feel distant from them, but I don't want to intrude either. So I think today was a good time to break the ice and creat some small talk. It was kinda weird since I was sorta in my PJ's, t-shirt and shorts. Since I hadn't done laundry in a long time and I was running low on clothes to wear.

I was looking at the new born dogs that Vega just had. I was asking about what they were going to do with the dogs, and they are going to keep one, and sell off the rest. They will probably make a good buck or two doing so. They plan to name the dog they keep Mira, which is named after a star. Vega is also the name of a star too. I think its pretty interesting that they would name their dog after a star, I didn't know that they were into that kind of thing.

After a little while, I asked why we were going to have a party later that evening. I orginally thought that it was just going to be a Christmas party, but MTki told me that it was a birthday party. I was suprised to hear that. I was happy though, but still surprised. I didn't know that they knew my birthday was on Christmas, since I don't know when their birthdays are. Kind of bad for me to be in that situation. I've got to figure it out though.

I went back to my apartment after it started to get a little cold and because I wanted to put my clothes in the dryer before we left to go to Konandai.

We left the house around 6pm to Konandai station. We tried to go to the restaurant that we normally go to, but that place was really full because companies were having their end of the year party. And many people would be out drinking and such. So we checked around another place, but the same result. This would be the theme for the rest of the night. We went to about 8-10 different restaurants but ended up with the same result. So what did we do, we went to another train station.We hopped back onto the train to go to Ofuna. This area has more of a variety of stores and shops. So we were bound to find one or two that had enough room for 6 people. It was difficult and took about 2 hours later, but we found a little place around Ofuna that could accomadate us. Although they took a little long getting our orders and stuff. The food was pretty good and I was glad that Yoshiko, MTki, TTki, Mayumi, Akiko, went. I was happy, and that was only the beginning of my happiness.

Kobe 2

Since we all slept late last night, everyone got a late start. I didn't sleep incredibly well, but it wasn't horrible either. My roomie was one of the Math teachers in the school, Mr. Eto. He took me downstairs for breakfast and then we met up with Mr. Kobayashi, and we ate a Japanese breakfast. It was fairly ok, since it tasted kinda weird, but still I shouldn't complain. It was a nice buffet and I could have had a western style, but they ate Naato... gross.

Then after breakfast we went to Kobe's Chinatown, or Nankin machi. We had the best nikuman there. It was the first introduced to Japan and is really famous. I mean it's so famous that there was a line waiting to get an order when we arrived and all the other places were empty. There weren't many people in Chinatown aside from the people waiting to buy the nikuman. It was good, but really really small. After that, there wasn't much to do so we went back to the port harbor for the lunch cruise.

It was of course on the Concerto ship, which is the same one I went on for the dinner cruise in October, but I was happy that it was Chinese food. I miss high quality Chinese food at a Chinese price. It's so expensive here. So I ate all the dim sum food and even had some hot Chinese wine that's very traditional. It was a nice cruise around the area. And it's much different in the day than at night.

After the cruise, Ms. Takagi gave me a gift from Universal Studios Japan. Last night it was raining a little bit so she bought an umbrella, but when she walked out of the store, it stopped raining. So, essentially it was a brand new umbrella and unused. She told me that this umbrella is used to ward off the rain and it's a lucky umbrella. She also let me know that my Japanese is improving, which is a GREAT thing since she's the one pushing me so hard to learn. It helps to get some reassurance and at least to be pleasing the boss.

Then after the cruise many people had to go back to Tokyo right away while some people had some time to hang out for another hour or so, and another group after that left. I left in the second group, so we went to the Kobe Port Tower to look at the view of the city. It was pretty good, probably not worth the 600 yen to get up there and then come immediately back down. But still it was something to do in that very short period of time. We also stopped by the Kobe Earthquake Memorial. 10 years ago Kobe experienced a very devastating Earthquake that left a Million people injured and killed over 100,000 people. It left the city pretty messed up with a billion dollars in damage. But now it was all built up again, and the memorial was a street that used to be there and all the street lamps on it's side and roads all cracked. We could only stay for 2 minutes before we had to run to find a taxi to get us to Shin-Kobe station. The taxi driver was a menace but got us to the station on time before our Shinkansen train left for Tokyo.

On the train, I was talking to Koyaya the whole time, while everyone else slept. We had a pretty good conversation in English and in Japanese. That was a lot of fun, but it was so hard for me to learn that my head started to hurt. But it was good. We were doing some pretty difficult math translations, since he's a math teacher. We arrived back to Shin-Yokohama station around 5pm and I told everyone yoiotoshio, which means see you next year. Since I won't be seeing anyone till next year, and well they will see each other tomorrow. That was pretty much it for me, since I just went home after that. But it was quite an adventure. I was happy that I had the opportunity to go too.

Universal Studios Japan 2

This morning I had some trouble getting to the Shin-Yokohama station. I had a ticket good for any train to Shin-Yokohama given to me by the school. But as I got to Totsuka station, the subway didn't take it. Turns out the ticket was good for only JR lines. SOOO... since I only accounted for the time that it would take me to go from Totsuka to Shin-Yokohama by subway, I was glad that I left early.

I hopped onto the Tokaido line to Yokohama Station, then the Tokyu-Toyoko line to Kikuna then back to the Yokohama line to Shin-Yokohama. It was the really really long way, but I left early enough that I was the first person to arrive at the meeting point. Which was good. It was only my second time riding on the Nozomi Shinkansen, which is the faster train in the world. We got to Shin-Kobe Station in about 2 hours. Then we took a bus to a restaurant where we ate Kobe Beef - Sukiyaki style.

Lunch was quite interesting, and kinda stressful. Of course I had to sit at the table with Ms. Takagi. That always raises the stress level to everyone sitting around her. But in this case, it was more stressful than usual because she wasn't happy with the quality of the food. The lady making the beef for her was tense and under immense pressure since Ms. Takagi only expects the best, and well she wasn't given the best. So she had told the tour guide to change the person who was doing the beef cooking. That's essentially like firing her from her position and filling it in with someone who was much younger and was able to make it taste good. She was kinda disappointed that I didn't eat the sukiyaki with the raw egg as it's supposed to be eaten, but she gladly took my egg and got a new plate for me. The beef was kinda under cooked, but cooked enough to not affect me too much.

After the lunch, we jumped back onto the bus and headed to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, which was about a 40 minute drive, but ended up being about an hour because of traffic. Which only gave us 3 hours at the park before closing. Kind of a bummer since it was so rushed.
At U.S.J. I was with the male teachers. It's interesting how the teachers divide themselves up. The male teachers seem to always break apart from the women, which would probably be better in image, even though some of them are married to each other. The men went off to ride on Spiderman: the ride, first. We got into line faster than most of the other teachers. I was really recommending that ride to everyone. We were a group of 5 male teachers. Mr. Koyaya, Nozakichi, Katoda, Shimada, and me. We happened to run into the headmaster of the school while being in line. Kind of an awkward situation to say the least. We also saw another group of teachers, first year teachers, getting into line too. But the ride was awesome.
The next stop was snoopy land... because one of the teachers has an extreme liking to the character, which I believe is kind of weird for a male at the age of 25. But, hey, who am I to judge that. That in my opinion ate up the time to go ride on the rides.

The next thing we were off to was Back to the Future, which was back in the direction where we started. It was the first time I rode on Back to the Future, and it took too long in line. We were there first, yet the female group of teachers ended up going in before us. The ride is similar to the Spiderman ride, but Spiderman is much better I think. Back to the Future wasn't as realistic as the first ride was, but at the time, it was pretty good. It doesn't really get that many people in and out, which kind of makes things slower.

Then I took a picture next to the delorean, with both groups of teachers although it's dark and you really can't see anything.

From there, we just went shopping for gifts because there was no more time. Kinda crappy that in two times going to U.S.J. I only went to 4 attractions, which is what some of the teachers did in one trip. But it was cool, I think it was a good time to spend with the teachers. Since some of the teachers I've never talked to before. That's always really good.

Then it was back to the bus and onto dinner. We went to dinner at a nice fancy French restaurant. It sits near the top of Mt. Rokko, which appears to be the highest point in Kobe. You get a spectacular view of the city, which really is breathtaking. I'll show you a picture on my website to be provided next week. The dinner was interesting, since I'm not a usual of French food. It was good no less. Then we had a gift exchange with all the teachers. Ms. Fujita got my gift. She seemed to like it at first, but I'm not sure what she thought of it. In return, I not a nice private label make-up pouch and nice black gloves to go with it. Of course, they were for a female, and the teacher wasn't wrong to pick a gift for a lady since she had about 80% chance of giving it to one, but just like me, I got it.

But the big gift of the night was who was the head master's gift to. It was to Ms. Tanemura, who received a nice brand new handy cam camcorder compliments of the Principal. I'm sure the rest of the teachers was envious because we kept looking at the nice gift she got. It was really cool. Nice even though I won't be needing my gifts. It was also the first time I tasted Japanese beer, definately will be the last too. I also had various kinds of wine since I know I'd never get the chance to drink it normally.

I also got a really good lesson in Japanese provided by an English teacher. Ms. Katoda is really a great teacher, she was able to make it so simple that I would understand and put it in terms that made perfect sense to me. She did a better job than all of the teachers have that I've talked to. It's a shame I haven't talked to her more since I could have learned this about 6 months ago, but at least I know now. She told me that the most important thing about speaking Japanese is the particles, and how they are separated. It doesn't matter about location, which it does in English. The particles separate the subjects, objects, and distinguishes the verb. With that in mind, it wouldn't matter the order, although it wouldn't sound natural, it would still be correct.
The wa, and ga particles tell you the subject. The ni and he particles tell you the object, and the wo particle tells you the verb.

But putting it all together in that way is a little tough, but it makes sense to me at least. Because once you learn the basic structure everything falls into place. In English its Subject + Verb + Object. And typical Japanese is Subject + Object + Verb, but the subject could be omitted.
After that, we left the restaurant about 11pm or so, since the restaurant was closed to only our group. After that we went to an area in Kobe that had a Big Echo Karoke Box that would fit all the teachers in the room. We didn't end up going back to the Kobe Merikan Oriental Hotel till around 2am. I wasn't forced to sing anything although I was prepared to. Many teachers at this point were beyond normal. The Alcohol was flowing. But I did enjoy the time since I was sitting with the English teachers who are always great to talk to. They are the most interesting group of females in the room, but I only say that since they are usually the only people I talk to. One of the English teachers, Ms. Tanemura, sang the song that I have listed below. She did a great job and now it's stuck in my head. But I like the song, so it's cool. Then we went back to the hotel, I was the one telling the taxi driver to go to the hotel. I was happy to hear that the English teachers that I was with that my Japanese was improving. It's been tough, but I really do believe them that my Japanese is improving. I also think it's good that I'm also conversing more with the people who I haven't even spoken to.

Motomachi Street Shopping

I went shopping today for a gift for the teacher's gift exchange while we were on our trip to Kobe and Osaka. I decided to go to Motomachi since that's the only place I know of to go shopping. Unfortunately it's a tad bit on the expensive side. But I went anyways. I kind of knew exactly what I wanted to get. I don't think anyone would hate it if they got Chocolate. Since there are about 50 teachers going on this trip and 40 of them are females. But just in case the person I was going to exchange was a male, I wouldn't think they would mind.

So there were two places that I wanted to check out on Motomachi street. One was Sees Candies, which just opened probably 2 months ago. I had noticed it last time I was walking down the street. Since that's the ONLY store that I know of in Japan, I think it would be good that none of the teachers have ever had one before. The other store was Godiva also in the same area. It took a little while before I decided which one I wanted to get. I decided to go with Godiva since it has a better name and offered more for the price I was going to pay. I didn't think it was such a bad gift, since it would have been nice to get it myself. In fact, I've never had Godiva chocolate before. So I can't really comment on the quality.

Then I went walking around and found a Gap. They've got sales going on and I bought a sweater. I think I will go back before Christmas passes to get some more clothes. I took a look in my closet and realized that I don't have many casual clothes for winter. Just clothes for work. But since I'll have the next few weeks off I would probably need to get some causual clothes so I could hang out with my friends and not be wearing a suit. The prices are about the same as in San Diego, during this time of the year, so that's good for me since things tend to run on the more expensive side in Japan.

After that I went home to package my gift and pack for the trip tomorrow.

Song of the Moment - Hitomi - Love 2000

hyaku nin isshu

Today I was invited to come back to school because of an annual festival they play on the last day of school. It's called Hyaku nin isshu, which means one hundred people, something. It's a compelation of 100 songs that are read with 5,7,5,7,7 syllables. Kinda like a Haiku poem. The object of the game is to grab the 7,7 syllable card of that verse. It's interesting, to say the least. I played for a little bit, and all the characters are in hiragana, and fortunately for me I could read Hiragana. I didn't do so well because the students memorized parts of the song and grabbed the card before I could even hear the 7,7 verse.

After that I stayed in the office for a long long time. I got some stuff that I needed for some of my classes next year, so I worked to complete as much as I possibly could. I didn't end up finishing work until 8pm, which is really long since I usually leave at 5pm and that's already at a late time. Since I'm allowed to leave when I don't have any classes. The benefit of being more than part-time and less that full-time. But I'm not sure if things will be changing for next year. They will expect me to step up and to take on more classes so CP could reduce her load. Which would be nice for the both of us. But they are asking that I make my own schedule and I pick out the classes I want to do.

I'm looking at taking on 18 classes, but that would be pretty difficult considering the amount of work that I put into planning and preparation. But it's only 3 more than the minimum. I would like to maintain a Wednesday day off, and I'm afraid they will move me to the part-time office. Since it's much smaller and I would be disconnected with the teachers. But I'm pretty sure that it might happen. So that's part of the reason why, but if I'm in that office I'll also look for another part-time job to make some extra cash on the side, since I'd take full advantage that not many teachers would see me when I leave. Part of the reason why I stay so long is to keep the image of me working hard, and I wouldn't want that destroyed because I want them to take me serious that I could teach. Which I think I did pretty well so far.Anyways, they made me eat this Oshiru, which is a type of bean paste soup. The soup was interesting, but the mochi dipped in it was kinda weird. I'm not a big fan of mochi, since it just tastes plain to me. But it's not like I hate it either. Anyways, that's a fairly good update.

The Last Day of Regular Classes

Today there were no afternoon classes, but since I don't have any afternoon classes anyways, I wasn't really affected. The two classes that I had weren't that bad. The first 8th grade class was dead. I'm not sure why though. They seemed to be on vacation mode already too, but not in the sense that you might envision. They didn't talk about what they were going to do, they just sat there. Only spoke when we forced them to repeat. We played a song and they had to fill in the blanks and then do a word search. They were pretty good with the activities though. There was this one girl who found all the words in the word search faster than the teachers. I think she was doing it while we were explaining how to do it.

The 11th graders also had a song to listen to. They had different songs, actually raps. But the principle was the same, fill in the blanks and to listen. I was really surprised that most of the students couldn't do it. In my opinion this is one of the highest level classes in the whole school. They have the highest ability to speak more fluently, and highest for comprehension. But somehow they just couldn't get it. Quite surprising for me actually. And it was based on travel which was the topic of their last test. Their geography sucks too. They didn't know where many of the the places were, even though they spoke about them in their presentations. I guess that's bad points for comprehension. Well, I've got to work out the kinks for that one.

The rest of the day, I just finished up some things for the next semster. I didn't want to fall behind with all the things that I needed to get done for the senior electives. I'm really going to try to push the envelope with the activities we will be doing and raising the level of comprehension, since it will my first opportunity to get the chance with the seniors. They, in my opinion, have the lowest level in the school, both in ability to speak and comprehension. All I get is hi, how are you? out of them. But the activities I have planned will get them to think a lot more and to speak a lot more. I actually will be the main teacher for the electives. I originally only had 6 classes to teach, but since CP will be in Australia for her younger sister's wedding, I'll have to take on her classes too. Which means that I will have 7 senior classes, and a whole bunch of other classes. I will also have to administer two 11th grade oral exams, which are first period, and won't have a day off in January. Only Sundays. The workload increased a lot, to say the least.

But I'm excited that I finally get to do my own thing. I mean I volunteered to take it on, they were going to just do away with it for a little while, but I told them that I would do it and make the extra effort to get all the things done. Since I think it wouldn't help the students to just take it out. But it's turning out to be a lot of work, that I still have yet to finish. I mean I'll be working on all these things over winter break, and I'll even need to start planning for what I'm going to do for February and March even. Just so I don't fall behind like I see many of the other teachers have. I think I'll lose the efficacy if I do. So I tried to finish what I could and made myself a to do list for the rest of the January. And got some things done right away.

Tired as hell

I didn't get home till late last night, and I had a bunch of things to do today too. I decided to switch my shower schedule to take in the morning instead of at night, since it's colder in the morning than at night. But I was tired from all the walking I did at Disneyland and then having to walk home too. I didn't have much of a dinner, which was ok since I had a lot of everything else while I was at Disneyland.

Then I went to FedEx to mail off my digital camera to my little sister who has been begging me to send it since September. It was difficult to locate FedEx. It's located in a part of the city that's uncharted. You really can't look on a map and find it. Only people who know what's there can even get on the little pennisula. I didn't know it existed till I went there today. It's in a business district. It took about 1.5 hours to get there and take care of everything and find my way back out. It was a simple process, but it's still a lot of trouble to do since it's in an isolated area. But I took care of it, so I'm happy.

Then I went to work. I didn't realize when I was calculating the time when to wake up and get ready to leave my house that school started for me at 1:20pm. I had thought it started at 12:40pm. But that was last week since last week was only 40 minute classes. This week was regular, so I arrived to school an hour before I needed to be there. Which wouldn't normally be bad, but I was sleepy and tired. That's not a good thing when you're at work.

Class wasn't that bad or great either. It was the 7th grade class that has members in the English club. But the students were already on vacation, they didn't pay attention and did little to care about what was going on. We played Christmas bingo and did a word scramble. They were surprisingly good at that too. They solved it pretty quick. At the end of class though, most students weren't paying attention anymore. But it's ok since CP planned the lesson around that.
After that I sat in the office for a little bit. Actually a few hours little bit. I didn't end up leaving till 5pm. But I did get a free ticket to go to Shin-Yokohama for the Teachers trip to Osaka, and more information about the trip. And information for the school event tomorrow and Saturday. So not all was wasted. I talked to the teacher in front of me about the TV show we were supposed to watch, but she didn't. I worked with another teacher to finish up our plan for the 12th grade electives, and then helped another teacher edit her paper she was doing. So it was a productive day after all.

But the purpose of me leaving early wasn't actually so I could go home and sleep, since I'm still not sleeping at it's quarter past 11pm. It was to get myself a new digital camera. I went back to Yokohama station and to Yodabashi camera and bought one. I bought the Casio Exilim Z-55. It's the latest that Casio offers. It's not bad, but way too much for what I bought. I paid about $600 for it, but I needed to quick to get some pictures of the event this weekend and the teacher's trip next week. So I took the bullet and paid for it. I mean that's the price with a 512 mb memory card too. But still it's too much for a grab and go camera. Here's the link for the camera I bought http://www.bluetin.com/digital_cameras/casio_cameras/casio_exilim_z50-z55.html It's got a huge screen for easy viewing, and one of the best batteries on the market for a long life. That's one of the major reasons why I bought this one. It's not the prettiest, and the buttons are a little small, but it's functionally better I think. That counts for a lot for me. On the way home, I grabbed a bite to eat a a restaurant at Hongodai station.

It's something I see everyday going to work, and looks good. So I decided to try it. I'm more confident with trying new things and toughing it with the Japanese. I ordered Chashuu Ramen. It was pretty good and reminded me of a Chinese dish. And as a consellation prize I won a tissue box. Interesting mix of things, but whatever, it's nice. That leads me to now, me writing my entry and listening to Kiroro.

TOKYO DISNEYLAND

Yup, that's right. After coming home really late last night, I find out that we are leaving at 7:30am at Osaki station. I didn't sleep very well either because I didn't want to be late. And the food didn't feel good either from the night before.

I found out that it doesn't take that long to get to Osaki station from Totsuka, only about 34 minutes on the Shonan-Shinjuku line. But still at 7am isn't the warmest time of the day either. Hard to get up. But I got there on time and met Nao at the South exit.

We packed ourselves in a mini-van to go to Chiba for Disneyland resort. It was weird because I only knew a few people and every one seemed to be strangers. It was an awkward moment, but it quickly diminished. The guy sitting next to me, Hiroki was the first to try to speak English with me. I recognized one of Nao's friends from when we went to DisneySea, Miyamaru. The driver was Shun and his navigator was Fujiko. (Only putting names so I remember) And Nao's Mom.

It wasn't that long of a drive to get there. It was cold as hell when we stepped out of the car. And I had on 4 layers of clothes. That would be the continual theme for the entire day. Tickets weren't that much, only about 5,100 yen since I got a discount. It's more than the one in Anaheim though. Here's the thing that will amaze you. It's EXACTLY the same as the one in Anaheim. With the exception of a few rides and attractions.

Anaheim Disneyland has Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, and the train goes through the entire park.
Tokyo Disneyland has Winnie the Pooh hunny hunt, Buzz light year shoot-out, and you get a tour of Cinderella's castle. I'm not sure that we have that in Anaheim or not, but I didn't think so. Indiana Jones is at DisneySea though. And they have a crystal palace, not sure there's one in Anaheim. I think it's much bigger than the one in Anaheim too. Cinderella's castle is HUGE. But everything else was exactly the same. Same jokes same everything. Kinda disappointing, but since we went right before Christmas, everything was in Christmas theme. Like the Haunted Mansion was the Nightmare before Christmas. Splash mountain had Christmas themed borders on the pictures and all throughout the park. There were Christmas things everywhere, and all the shows were based off of Christmas songs. I think to a point, they were over doing it, since it's only a commerical holiday here. The one thing I liked about Tokyo Disneyland was the shorter lines. It was rare to see a ride with a wait over 90 minutes. I think actually there was only one ride, but we got a fastpass and came back to it. I'll have pictures on my website soon. All in all it was a very fun day. I think the people that I went with were pretty cool too. I think my Japanese improved a lot too. I understood more than I did before and was better at communicating with everyone. So I'm happy about that.

Special Schedule

But not for me. Today was the same because the scheduling only affected the 11th graders and I was only teaching 9th and 10th today. The 9th grade recently seems very dead, I really don't know why. I met some of them during the English Festival since we were all working in the same room. But I partly blame the lesson plan. It's just not interesting. I honestly can't remember what we did, but just know that it wasn't something that I'd get out of my chair and stand on my desk for. I'm taking a guess that we did the oral exam. The students did very well, although their scores wouldn't reflect it. CP doesn't believe in giving a student a 5/5 in a section because that would be like a native speaker. But I think it's unfair and no one would ever get an "A" if they didn't get a 5 in at least one category. I think I will say something next year when school resumes for this class.

The 10th graders on the other hand didn't have much of a difficult lesson. They were just to prepare for their presentation of the dress code of their made up school. The first class was weird because they had forgotten their papers and most were sleepy. It's not typical of the class, and it's not acceptable either. But anyways, it wasn't a big deal. After the presentations, we played Last Christmas by Yuji Oda, which is a HUGE song constantly being played on the radio and on tv. They had words from the song cut on little slips of paper and they had to arrange them in the right order. It was a tad bit on the difficult side for them. The song was too fast.

The other classes did the same activity as well, but Kiku also had a listening comprehension part to listen to and figure out. Since they only have 29 students in the class, while all the others have around 39 students. I'm not sure how that worked out. It was kinda sad because it was Erin's last day teaching the class. She even told the classes that I was going to take over. When at the beginning she didn't like the fact that I was her replacement, so I'm happy that she did that for me. It'll be weird without her, and actually being the main teacher for such a rowdy group of girls. But I think Erin is excited about having a family of her own. After classes we were talking, a lot, about things in Japan and her life and such. It's very interesting. She's a good person, and I'll miss her. I'll visit her in Chiba after she has the baby and is settled down. I plan to meet her soon because she's going to introduce someone to me so I could start private English lessons.
English club didn't start until 5pm today.

That's REALLY REALLY late since classes end at 3:10pm. Students NEVER LEAVE. When I leave, there are still students and the teachers leave later than them. We played memory with the flash cards again. We got a new member in the 7th grade. It was the 7th graders Versus 10th + Bryan. It was horrible, the 7th graders creamed us. We played best of 3 and we lost both times. They more than doubled our cards each time. But I think that's the reason why we keep getting new 7th graders and seem to be losing the 10th graders. It was weird because at the end, I told them that I was going to be their teacher starting next year, and they couldn't believe it. They were like... eeeehhh?? and making other weird noises that Japanese people make. Yeah, that's very comforting to know how they feel about me teaching. From there went home and grabbed something to eat at McDonalds... even after reading QA's journal post. Which actually made me feel sick afterwards.. THANKS QA!

No classes today

On the original schedule that I had at the beginning of the year, I would have 5 classes today, but since things have changed, quite frequently, I don't have class today. It's nice how that worked out. But there was school, all the teachers and students had to go and clean up after the school festival. But I didn't have to do that, how fortunate for me. So what did I do today. I went looking for a new digital camera. I went to Yokohama station because they have two Bic Camera stores about 100 meters from each other and a Yodabashi Camera store in between. I was comparing prices and found that they are relatively the same. There was only 100 yen difference which would really mean that I wouldn't save much money. I was ready to buy, but realized that I didn't have enough dough on me to actually pay for it. So I held off. I came back to Hongodai to get some stuff ready for when people visit me. Then had dinner. I did a lot of walking, but it's nice to get out of the house.

NOTHING

I didn't do a damn thing today. I had made a plan to go shopping for a digital camera and buying a scarf. But it was so cold that I decided to stay in the semi-warmth of my room. I finally fired up the heater and declared that it's a cold day. I didn't do laundry. I just sat at my heated table and used the computer all day. Kinda pathetic. I talked to my sister for a bit. I learned some things that were going on in SD. But tomorrow since it won't be raining, I'm going to make an strong effort to go outside tomorrow and go shopping for some stuff. I need to mail off some stuff too so I've got a list of things I need to do tomorrow. I should get some shut eye soon so I can get an early start, while things are warm outside.

English Festival

I got enough rest from yesterday and got an early start to go to school. I felt really good today and was excited to see all the festivities. When I arrived at school. It was really nicely decorated. There was a Christmas Tree in the center of the field and I noticed a room, "The Santa Center" where all the gifts were stored. It was nice since I named the room... hehe. The halls were nicely decorated with paintings from the students and the lights were hung from the ceiling.

We used all 4 floors and the gymnasium so it was a huge ordeal especially with the setup and decorations of all the rooms. I will add photos on my website later so you will be able to see. I was in charge of one of the game rooms. It was a classroom sized game board the people would have to roll a dice and walk around the room answering questions. It was pretty fun and the questions weren't too hard. Since it was targeted at elementary school kids.

Aside from that I was running back on forth to and from the gym because I was watching all the English plays that I was helping with. That's pretty much all the plays. Too bad the game room was on the 3rd floor, so that was a lot of running around.

The plays were wonderful. They all did a great job, and I'm really proud of them. There were only little mistakes that the students were doing, but I think it was because of habit and they just hadn't gotten out of it. But overall, it was great. They all did a good job. I really enjoyed the Blue Bird production from the 8th graders Kiku class. They always have the greatest amount of energy. The 7th graders did a great job too, and it was cool watching the slideshow of Peter Pan being presented behind them. As if you were watching the movie right then. I felt sorry for most of the audience because they didn't understand. It was all in English... hahahahahaha. Good for me, and shows that they all need to study and improve their English. Well, I'm under the assumption they don't understand, but I think for the most part they do. Parents are actually pretty good with English, which is something I'm quite surprised about. Many parents would come up to me and ask me something in Japanese, and I would say, I'm the English teacher and they would ask me in English... Kinda puts me on the spot, even though I don't have any idea about what's going on. So I just showed them my schedule, and they got the idea.

Pretty convenient to carry around papers like that. There were many rooms with different displays that were interesting. There were two classrooms that were decorated with "American" stuff and one of Canadian stuff. Then there were some food rooms. They served Frankfurters and soups. Their clam chowder needs a little more umph, but nevertheless, it was still good.

At the end of the day, there was a huge gift exchange with all the students on the field. It was kind of creative how they did the exchange and did the song. It was pretty good ending for the event, but I could see the stress level of all the teachers amount. It wasn't over yet because then there was the large amount of clean-up left. Then next week is testing and more school events. These things never end.

After a little bit of clean up, there was a staff Christmas party on the 4th floor and out on the patio area too. It was nice, I was sitting next to two English teachers, the really nice ones too. So conversation was easier, and I was with fun teachers so it was enjoyable. The food was a high class Domino's Pizza with some minestrone soup, and konyaku. There was also some spagetti and a birthday cake. There was also other food too. I had enough to not be hungry, yet still not full. Then it was onto clean up. I mean these parties seem to end really fast, and there isn't enough time to eat. I mean there is a lot of food, but not enough time to eat it all. Kinda frustrating at times.

After that was the clean-up of the staff dinner and some of the decorations. This was around 8:30pm and when I went back into office after doing some cleaning. I found Takagi sensei sitting at my chair selling christmas cards. She had a stack of about 100 or so and was selling them to the staff. I bought 12 for 600 yen, and others had to buy as well. Kinda sucked since everyone was sitting and I was the only one standing. Everyone was telling me I should go sit at the front table where Takagi's sensei seat is, but that would definately not be a good idea.

After getting conned out of my money and my seat, she finally sold them all and I was allowed to get my stuff. Then I was trying to sell it to the teacher who sits next to me, but she wouldn't budge. I was resorting to exchange some 2004 christmas cards for her cake, but I think she was happy with the cake.

I didn't leave till around 9-9:30pm. I left with Mr. Katoda. He's a good person and we were having a good conversation going to the train station and on the train. I learned that he was an English teacher at a Juku when he was younger and that he used to teach Economics and world history. He only teaches Japanese history now. The teacher that sits next to me, Ms. Katsuyama teaches world history. I heard she graduated from a really high university in Tokyo, but her English ability is rather low for such a high institution. I didn't get home till very late so I couldn't grab anything to eat. Kinda hungry at this point.

No classes

Today I got a day off because the school was just rehearsing for the English festival. I didn't do much today. I just slept in, really late and then was talking to family for a majority of the day. Then I took a trip to the grocery store to get some grub. Nothing special, but I need to get more motivated to get out of the house. I know it's unhealthy to stay in here all day. It's really depressing now that I think about it.

One class Thursday

It's really nice to have a late class on Thursdays. I mean I get enough sleep so I'm refreshed to be able to teach a class. But then again, there are two other teachers there too so I really don't have much work to do. Then I get a chance to eat lunch before I head into work, which is nice because I'm often eating breakfast walking to school. In Japan that's a big no-no, you should not walk and eat at the same time, but I don't get much of a chance to sit and eat. So I often get something at a convenient store and eat it before I get to the school.

But today I got lunch at Yoshinoya since I was a little late. I didn't have that much time to get something else to eat. I also took the chance to take out some money from the bank. I'll be needing to do that more often soon since I've got some things to pay for.

Well it was a nice day, and the only thing we had planned for the class was the last rehearsal of Peter Pan before the big English festival on Saturday. The other teachers told me in class that they almost missed the class today because it was only 40 minutes. And they forgot about that. And for them, it was their only class as well. It went well, this is one of the better 7th grade classes so we didn't have much to worry about.

I stuck around school till pretty late because some teachers were asking me to check some of their English. For signs, and posters, and many other things. And since CP took off right after class, I stuck around. I didn't leave till around 7pm, but told the teachers that I would be leaving around 4pm. I was running low on things to do while I was there. I punched up a new plan to teach the 10th graders and gave it to the teacher that I needed to. She seems extremely stressed out lately. It's really sad to see, since she's one of the sweetest person I've ever met. But she's having problems with some students in her home room class. I wouldn't blame her, if I had that homeroom class, I'd be in the same situation. Probably.

I think I broke one of the printers at work too. I caused a paper jam, and then it never worked after that. The teachers say it's pretty common, but if it was so common, how come it's still broken? Well, anyways, I let the other teachers take care of that, since they seem to know what they are doing and I just watched.

It's starting to get hella cold. It was the first time that CP admitted it was cold and not just quite cool. I was going to comment that it wasn't cold, it was freezing, but I think that's still coming. Freezing will be a term for the coming months. I'm excited, yet, terrified.

On the way home, I decided to go exploring. I stopped at Kikuna station, a station I've never been to before, just passed by. Well I got off and took a look around. I saw the west side, which really didn't have much. I would have thought that this was a big station since there are two different lines, but it didn't appear that way. At least I think so, but I should have looked at the other side to get a better picture. But I wanted to save that for another day. I think that it would be better to start exploring since I'm getting bored easier. I went into a curry shop and ordered Katsu curry. It was pretty good. It was a hole in the wall shop, but looked good from the outside even though it was a hole in the wall. It was much better than the other places around it and it did taste good.

Song of the Moment - Kiroro - Nagai Aida

Lots of sleep

Somehow I managed to get a lot of sleep. I think I got 12 hours or so. Which is great since I didn't get much the night before and when I woke up it was hot. I think that's what woke me up. Since I looked at the clock and noticed it was already in the afternoon, I got started on my usual cleaning schedule with my futons, and then the laundry. I took care of that quite quickly and started talking to my family. I didn't need to vaccum today and I finally got my heater to work.

So I'm now officially ready for the cold season. I hope that I won't have to use it too much since my electricity bill will skyrocket and I might lose power if I use too much. I might have to turn off my computer and such. Today was pretty chill. I even talked to my "stalker" to try to annoy her, but it wasn't convincing and didn't work well. She was really starting to bug me a lot too. But that's about the time I started typing my xanga entry, which was about 6 hours ago, and I'm still going on till now. I'll keep you updated.

Sleep Deprived

Well, I got up earlier than usual and caught an earlier train, but the problem was that I got to school around the same time. Quite weird. The first class was on shopping. It was a ninth grade class. The class just went over a dialogue in the booklet they made a while ago. It's about shopping and how it will be like when they go shopping in America in a few months. It was a tad bit on the boring side, but much better than last week. Next week they will have an oral test, which really came to me as a surprise.

Then it was the 10th grade next. The activity for the day was the students had to invent a school and make up 4 dress code rules for their students to follow. Some of the classes were incredibly creative and most of them were crazy. But it should be interesting next week when we hear them present their schools with pictures. One of the classes, Kiku, has a school in Hawaii that with 3 students. And the students must wear very short short pants and have no hair. That will be interesting to hear about next week. I look forward to their presentations. I think that it's kinda sad because Erin will be leaving. Next week will be her last class, and then it's up to me to take care of the 10th grade. Kinda scary for me. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do to take care of that too. The format from last year was to do a debate, but I feel they need to get to a higher level for it to be effective. And the other teachers are incredibly busy now because of the English festival, so I'm on my own for the moment.

After school I was talking to Erin about this and then I met with Ms. Arai. We still needed to plan what we were going to do for the Senior classes in January. We decided we would do a baseball game and play snap cards, and do a form of sentence forming. The last class or the last 50 minutes we will need to talk to another teacher and find more resources. But it sounds like it will be fun. And I'm excited to get started working on it. It will be interesting I feel. This lasted to be a long conversation that didn't end until around 6:30pm. I stuck around till 7pm because another teacher wanted to eat Nikuman, and I would support her if she wanted more teachers to eat, but by 7pm nothing was happening and I was starving. So I left and grabbed dinner at MOS burger in Ishikawa cho station. It was great, expensive though and I ordered everything in Japanese. How wonderful, that really has been a challenge for me since I've been in Japan. But it looks like that's over now.

End of the year party

I realized that I only have 3 classes today. I forgot that I don't teach seniors anymore, at least not until next month where I'll be teaching a lot of classes for seniors.

I had two 8th grade classes with a 7th grade class sandwiched in between. The first class was The Sound of Music displayed in the gym. Actually we were in the gym all day. All of them were great. They only had minor problems, but they were all fixed in the second round of performing. It was great. The 7th graders also improved greatly too. It was nice to see that none of them were goofing off anymore too. It went pretty smoothly too. The Blue Bird with the props was interesting. At least it makes sense now.

After my classes I still had to stick around for the end of the year party. That wasn't going to be around 5pm tonight. So I had a few hours to kill before that. So then I started working on a new plan for the 10th graders. I made a pretty decent plan, but I know things need to be changed in order to make it work. And I need to talk to the top people in the grade in charge of the curriculum to see what they think so. Then at 5pm, we took off to the Imperial Hotel, http://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/cgi-bin/imperial_hp/index_e.cgi It's a very nice hotel. It was a nice location to have our end of the year party.

There were actually 2 different parties. The first one was mainly for dinner. A nice buffet style meal, with steak, ribs, and a whole bunch of things. But I didn't eat much since I was going to have to perform later. I was called upon to play a game first. The game was picking up beans with chopsticks from one bowl to another. It was really quite sad. There was 4 people competiting, 2 Japanese teachers, and 2 Americans. I ranked only 3rd, but the other American won, which puts us all to shame because we are all Asians and have grown up eating with chopsticks. The other American was the person before me teaching English Conversation. His Japanese is almost perfect though, which puts pressure on me to learn more and learn faster.
After a few more games, the new teachers had to do a performance. The Japanese history teachers had to sing a song in English. It was Mariah Carey's version of All I want for Christmas. They didn't get many words out, which was bad, but made me feel better because I was going to go next and I was pretty much on my own. I was going to sing a very famous Japanese song called Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana by Smap. They had the words to follow along while I only had the karoke music. Fortunately I recruited some backup dancers to help me with the lyrics. But I was able to get out most of the words and even did part of the dance. As nerve-racking as it was, it's over. I'm glad I did it and know that each of them knows exactly how it feels to do something in another language, without being profiencient at it.

Afterwards, I wanted to get some more food. But didn't get a chance to. We did a few more activities and then played BINGO. I won an incredible prize. I got very valuable cups engraved with the mark of Keio University. That university is ranked the second highest in Japan and VERY reputable. It's an equivolent of Harvard or Yale in the U.S. here in Japan. The symbol is two pens that shape and "X" shape. The saying "The pen is mightier than the sword" is the philosophy behind the symbol and is located at the Keio Medical facility in Tokyo. The best thing about it is that I've got two of them. Such a nice gift. I love working at Yakumo Academy.
Then after that we moved upstairs for the second party. It was more for drinks and casual socializing, but it was more difficult because I was sitting with the headmaster of the school. I was fortunate that most of the people at my table were also able to speak English. I was accompanied by a few English teachers, and one of the people who held my position a few years ago. It was interesting. I think I understood more Japanese then than I ever did before. I feel my Japanese is finally improving and that I need to make more an effort to learn than I am right at the moment.

I made an agreement with one of the English teachers that I would ask her more help on Japanese, and she'd ask more about English. I have motivated her to study English more since she sees me study Japanese during work hours. That's good, at least someone is being influenced by me. The second party was more interesting, but less fun. I mean it was a more intimate atmosphere. It seemed very weird because no one had taken our orders for food but all the teachers at the other tables were already eating, which was weird because you'd think the boss would be the first one to order and get some food. But we were last. They had ordered Escargo, and some cheeses with crackers for us. Which really wouldn't go well with the nothing that I had at the first party. I actually ate ESCARGO for the first time in my life. Luke, the native English speaker, told me the truth. Snails don't taste like much because of the garlic that is covered all over it. It was interesting, it wasn't bad, and it's typical French cuisine, and I'm glad I'm doing somethings for the first time. That's something I always want to be doing; things for the first time.

The party wasn't over until 10pm and I hitched a ride back with Mr. Kyaya. I feel bad that I'm bumming rides off on him, but I'm always riding with the same people. This time there was another teacher with us too. So it was a full car. It was nice to have an English teacher with us to help us communicate. And it's nice to sit next to a group of good looking females. You could never complain about that. But communication is a bit of a problem, so I've got to work at that for a bit. I didn't get home till around 12:30 am. Which isn't good since I teach 5 lessons on Tuesday. To be honest with you, I couldn't sleep until around 4am and my alarm was set for 6:30am.

As you could probably see, I didn't get much sleep.

Song of the Moment - SMAP - Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana

Yoke Meeting

Last night there was a little pow-wow at TT's house and it kinda lasted a long time. So I left a little early around 2am to get some sleep. But when I got home, I checked my e-mail on my cell phone and my friend told me that the meeting wasn't until 1:30pm, so I had plenty of time to sleep and get ready.

I got up around 10am to just be awake and take care of some stuff. It was nice to finally get some stuff done around the house and to get ready for the meeting. I left my place around noon to go to Sakuragicho station, and got there around 1pm. When I was leaving the station, I saw TT and his brother HT going the other way to the station. It was weird to run into them on the next day since I didn't know they were going to go there at all. It was kinda random, but it was good. I haven't seen TT in a long while, and i just found out that he has a job. He'll be leaving for Australia next month for the next 6 years. We'll have to hang out some more and I will give him something nice.

The meeting of course was rather boring. It was all in Japanese. I wouldn't expect anything else, it's just that certain individuals like to talk, and talk a lot at such a rapid speed that it's impossible to comprehend. So the next few hours were just a blur. I didn't understand much and I was starving. I needed some food since I didn't eat anything all day. I've been assigned to write an article for the publication for the YOKE something. It's a page introduction of my life here in Japan. I'll need to try to make it interesting, as well as informative.

After the meeting a group of us went to go to a cafe to sit and drink some stuff. But all the places around Queens Square and Landmark tower are packed because of the holiday season for shopping. So we settled on Jonathons. But the girls wanted to get some coffee and by that time, it was getting a little late so they decided to go home. So the Boys will be ambitious and went to Jonathons. They all got something small while I order beef stew omlette rice. It was good and it came after everyone else finished their drinks and desserts. But I really didn't care, they didn't wait for me so they were all sitting watching me eat. They were hungry afterwards.
That was the night.

Song of the Moment - SMAP - Sekai ni hitotsu dake no hana (The one and only flower in the world)

Party with Hiro Tki's Friends

Tonight, I was invited to a party over at the host family's house. It was fun, and I'm glad that the people were talking to me. They were making an effort to speak in English and to communicate with me. I'm glad that I've made some new friends even though I know only a few of them are out to seek my help to pass the Entrance Exam test for English. I figure that if I help them to pass, that will be good for me because then I'll know exactly what they need to pass and I'll be able to help my students at school in the meantime. It's an education for all. I mean we were eating a lot. I think that's typical for these kinds of partys, I mean I left at 2am and the party was still going. I mean I was called over around 8pm and started to eat and they are still going. I mean it was with kimchi nabe, and then there were a grand variety of meats and other great tasting food. It was too much to eat actually, I didn't even get a chance to try all the different foods either. And I thought that my meeting was going to start at 10am, but it actually starts at 1:30pm, so I've got to some time to sleep.

I was asked to write an article for the YOKE newsletter or a publication about the exchange. We will work on it more tomorrow I'm sure, but I'll have a copy ready for them. I just gotta remember to do it before I leave. But for now, good night.

Another Easy Day

Today I only had two classes. The first was an 8th grade class so once again we were doing a play. This was the blue bird, but this time we were in the gymnasium and using props. It's a lower level class, so I had to intervene a little to correct some of their English. They really don't get into it and it's sometimes hard to hear what they are saying. But I think that's the best we can get out of them. They haven't memorized the songs yet, so that might be a part that I'd look for when I see the plays.

Which actually I might not be able to see the plays because I'll be working the attraction rooms all day, so I might not be able to see it. Which will be a big bummer for me. That's my only job for the day, just to administer the rooms to help with the English games.

The second class was my only 11th grade class. Today they were performing their oral exams. They weren't as good as I had originally thought. They are much higher level than the 12th graders, but they didn't perform at that level. It was very sad to see and it was reflected in their scores. They didn't have much time to prepare, but I think they still could have done better than what I saw.

After that, we had to wait around to hear some make-ups from the 12th graders that were absent when it was their time to do their speeches. It took up the whole lunch time, and then some. We had to move locations because the room we were using was being used for something else, but the speeches were utterly horrible. I mean they had extra time, but I don't know what caused them to be absent in the first place and it seemed like I was being a hard ass to the students, but still I think they got what they deserved. Only a few managed to pass, but the last person to give their speech only had half of it done and from the half that was written only half was actually said. She got under 50% as her score, quite a sad thing.

After school, I was working on studying some Japanese. I've finally moved onto chapter 7. I need to get a move on it and cram like crazy so I can be almost finished with the book by the end of the year. If I'm able to do that, I'll be able to understand more Japanese an hopefully be able to speak much better too. And the sooner that happens, the better. I'm happy that I'm working on my Japanese.

One class

Since I don't have anymore senior classes I only go to school to teach one lesson. Which is a little ridiculous because it takes me about 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to come home, and I'm only working 50 minutes. And in the 50 minutes we were practicing the play Peter Pan. They needed the practice too. It was weird because as I was walking into the office, it was lunch time. Usually people see me in the morning, but today I arrived in the afternoon. People were still saying good morning to me.

Before I got to school I got some grub at sukiya, it was good beef bowl meal. Then after that I headed off to school. I stayed after my class to work on some stuff. I got caught up and didn't end up leaving till much later. It wasn't a bad thing, I mean I did have things to do for other teachers, so much that I didn't have enough time to study my Japanese which I really wanted to do before I started to forget all the words that I've been studying.

SLee's Birthday

My dear friend from wisconsin is celebrating her birthday today. I've known her for like 5-6 years now and we met online. I've never met her in person, but she' s an incredible person and I'm glad that we became friends and stayed friends for so long.

It's my day off today, so I decided to chill a little. I did my best to complete somethings that I've been working on. More like cleaning my room. I did so successfully so I'm happy about that. It's really freakin cold now. I stayed up late last night working on my website too and doing a lot of research for my classes. I also tried to explore another weird thing. I met a complete stranger for a conversation too. We went to starbucks to have a conversation. The point of the meeting was to practice English and Japanese, although it just turned out be only a conversation in English. Interesting and I'd like to meet more people randomly to do that. It's good to get out of the house.