The last day of the year

Since we had such a busy walking day yesterday, I decided to give my family a day off. This is the first real day off that they got. The day when we went to Kamakura was still a day that we left the house. We didn't even leave the house today. It was getting really cold and I think that no one really had the energy to leave.

We all woke up late today too. I didn't even get up until it was around 1pm. So most of the day was already wasted since it gets darker sooner and colder faster. I think that it was fun just to have everyone stay at home and to be talking to my family again.

My mother made a lot of food for us to eat. That was very good and since I never take the time to cook, I almost forgot how it is to have someone cook for me. It's a nice feeling to have and to know that you're taken care of.

Late at night, we watched the new year celebration on TV. We were watching channel 4 to a program where a guy was going to stop a flaming ball with ... himself. He was a scrawny little guy and we thought that he was going to die or something.

Tokyo Tower with 2005 on the side

Meiji Shrine near Harajuku station

Roppongi, Shibuya, Harajuku

We had a very busy schedule today. I think that this would be the last long adventure that we would have this year. We started off going to Shibuya. We took the Shonan-Shinjuku line to get there, so it was a very quick trip. It took about 40 minutes to get there. That's incredibly fast for me since it usually takes me about 2 hours to get there the other way that I go. We walked around for a little bit.

Then we went to Harajuku by walking. We stopped off at Meiji shrine to pray a little and to enjoy the scenery. We walked out from the main entrance and then grabbed a bite to eat at Wolfgang Puck's Express restaurant on Takeshita dori. It was very good and it tasted just like American food. I had a cheeseburger, which is probably the most expensive cheeseburger that I've ever had.

We went shopping around there for a little bit and then took the train from Harajuku to Ebisu via the Yamanote line. From there we took the Hibiya line to Roppongi. We walked straight into Roppongi Hills, which is the newest building in the area, and it attracts a lot of people. We didn't do much there, just looked around for a little bit and then we marched right on to TV Asahi. We took some pictures with Doraemon and then we left in a hurry too.

We walked around until we could find Tokyo Tower. It wasn't too far away, but it really was. It would have been easier to go by train, but I think that it was ok to walk. It took up a lot of time to get from Roppongi Hills to Tokyo Tower. It looked really close on the map though.

From Tokyo Tower, we went to the 150 meter observatory.

Then we walked over to CP's house to have dinner. The menu for the evening was duck, chicken, wild rice from California, salad and for dessert we had two kinds of cake. It had been a surprise birthday party for me. I didn't know that it was coming too since it was already after my birthday.

We had a ride to Shinagawa station and I realized half way during the drive that the driver had been drinking a little alcohol. That was probably the most dangerous thing that could have happened. I mean, the driver was a bit excited to begin with and mixed with alcohol, it couldn't be a good thing, but fortunately, we arrived to the station safely.

Kamakura Buddha

Kamakura and shabu-shabu

Today, we decided to take it easy on the travel schedule. I think that I was wearing everyone down with all the walking that we've been doing during this trip so far. I wanted to show them something interesting, but I didn't want them to walk too much. Kamakura was close by train and we could get there with a bus + train combination and not much walking.

There was another temple that I saw that I've never been too. I wanted to take my family there, but I thought that it would be better to go to the main one first and if we had time to go to the other one. But i think that the walk was too much for them so we didn't go to both. I think that when I have time, I will try to go to the other one before I leave Japan. I think that it would be pretty interesting. I never noticed it on the map before and it is very close to the station too.

When we got back, we got ready to head over to Ttki's place and get some grub. They had prepared Shabu-Shabu, which was really quite delicious. It was great to get a good meal like that after having walked all over the place. I think that my family really enjoyed it too. I think that they were having a little trouble with the smoke and drinking, but overall it was good. I think that they liked the fact that they got to meet other people and could talk a little and find out what I have been up to living in Japan. I have some pictures and the food was good. We were watching some movies on the new big screen TV they had just bought. It was pretty big and plasma screen too, so it's one of those new ones. Very impressive.

Yokohama tour with family

Today I gave my family the Yokohama tour starting from Sakuragicho station and ending at Ishikawa-cho station. That's really visiting a lot since we did a lot of walking yesterday too.

I think that afterwards they were about to die. We started at the Landmark Tower and just pretty much walked through it. We stopped to get some gelatos ice cream and then went to the pokemon store too. We also stopped at Banana Republic, but there wasn't anything that we wanted to buy.

Then we continued walking and ended up outside in cosmo world. We took some of the those Japanish pictures where you could write all over them and stuff. It was pretty interesting since we did it as a family.

Then we went to Yokohama World Porters and went around there. My mom wanted to check out the grocery stores and everything. We ended up going around the food court and up a few levels before we went back to down to get some bread from the bread store. It had such a nice smell that made you very hungry and it looked just absolutely wonderful too. So we bought some for breakfast tomorrow. From there we left and walked towards Yamashita Park. I think by this time, my mother and youngest sister were getting really tired. While my other sister and I took pictures since it was the perfect time to get some good pictures.

We stopped briefly in Yamashita park so I could show them some things. We took more pictures there too, but it was already night, so it was cold and everything was dark. I think that if we would have gotten there earlier, it would have been more beautiful.

They were very anxious to go to Chinatown so that was definitely the next stop. We took our time there and walked around and pretty much went into most of the stores too. My mother wanted to see what they had, so she could tell me what was good and what to buy so I could make my own food and make delicious food too. We bought some food there and then had dinner there too. We went to a place that I've been to on several occasions. This time it was weird because I was the one ordering in Japanese at a Chinese restaurant. My mom thought that they spoke Chinese, so she started speaking to them in Chinese. They didn't speak the same dialect though, so it was a bit difficult and it was a struggle. I think that it didn't end up being so expensive either. It was pretty good and enough to satisfy everyone.

Then we left and went through Motomachi street so we could go into another grocery store and to look around before we ended our trip at Ishikawacho station.

Tokyo Millenario at night

The last Tokyo Millenario during the day

Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan

First day out on the town

Today, the plan was to go around the Shimbashi, Tokyo and Odaiba areas. The first things we did today was get on the bus and went to Totsuka station and then I bought them a suica card. I think that it will be convenient for them to have such a thing.

We took the tokaido line to Shimbashi station and then walked around heading towards the congress building. We got some pretty good pictures outside of the congress building. Then we continued walking to the Imperial Palace since they are pretty close by. It was a nice day to be walking outside too. I really enjoyed it and it was nice to finally get some family pictures. It's weird to say that I don't have any pictures of my family or with my family. We got a good one in front of the imperial palace.

Then we walked to Tokyo Station and then around the Millenario area, where they will have the night lights on in the evening time. Then we walked to the Ginza area for a little shopping, but it was more just looking at things that we would want to buy, but not really buy. I didn't think that my family wanted to buy anything really. They weren't interested in that, they just wanted to look at everything. We got some more good pictures out on the street too. There were just many things that they took pictures of.

We walked a bit much for the first day, so instead of going much further, we went back a little to the Ginza area. We had lunch not too long ago at an Italian restaurant in the new building area next to Yurakucho station. It wasn't too expensive and it got us out of the cold blowing wind. Before we left to go to Odaiba, we went back to Tokyo station because the Millenario lights just turned on and we walked through it and got some pictures. It was cool because I have some pictures during the day time and during the evening. I got some good pictures with the family too.

Then after all that, we went to Odaiba using the Yurikamome line. It was nice because they got a good view, it was getting dark at this time. We went to Fuji TV and around that area. I was trying to get a hold of EK because we were all going to have dinner together. He was getting off of work around 7pm. We decided to have dinner at Aqua City and it was one of the places that my sister picked. It turned out to be the worst food I've ever had. And it hit me hard in the wallet too. Since I paid for everyone's meal, the total cost was $178 and no one liked it. I'll remember never to go there again. Then we left to go home.

My family arrives

Today all I did was just prepare for my family's arrival into Japan. I started the day with just cleaning a lot of things. I only finished cleaning the room that they would be staying in and my room is still very messy though. I really don't like that. The train rides were very long.

It took about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get from Totsuka to Narita Airport. I think that's a bit fast, but still that's a long time going back and forth.

My family arrived at the airport earlier than I thought that they would. I showed up around 5pm thinking that they would take a lot of time in customs and immigration, but my sister found me quite quickly. It turned out that they times that I had gotten for the arrival was off and therefore I showed up after them. I thought that was a bit weird. After that we went looking for a place to buy a voltage converter, but they didn't have the one that I was looking for, so I couldn't buy one.

Then we took the train back home. We took the Yokosuka line so that it was a straight shot to to Totsuka from the airport. I didn't want to lug around heavy suitcases from the airport my house and change at a every other station. That would have been a pain in the ass.

When we arrived back to my house, we unloaded everything and then went to Saizeria to get some dinner. I was starving at that point since I only had two donuts for lunch and breakfast today.

Then I fixed some things on the computer and then went to sleep. I wanted to work on the new year cards, but I just got so tired that I couldn't work on them. I really do need to finish that though and make a plan for tomorrow, since I haven't had that all planned out either. I have the rest of the days planned out though, so maybe we will stay somewhere close to make sure that they get enough rest so that I could show them around everywhere.

My second birthday party

I was going to meet up with a few teachers today at a teacher's house. It will be the first time that I will go to their house so I am excited. I was doing a lot of cleaning during the day and I was working on finishing up all the new year cards. I got a good chunk of them finished so that I could send them off today when I leave the house. I was very scattered with cleaning and getting things ready for tomorrow. With my mom coming to Japan, it's a bit stressful so I wanted to make everything good for when they arrive.

I left the house a little late to arrive at Omori station by 4:30pm. I missed the first bus that I wanted to take and then I missed some trains as a result of that. Overall, I was about 30 minutes late to arrive at Omori station, which is very uncharacteristic of me. It's very uncharacteristic of me when I meet up with these two teachers. It was Christmas today too. I wished a few people a Merry Christmas today. I wished that I had more time so that I could get to everyone, but some how I couldn't while I was getting everything ready.

When I arrived at the station, I couldn't find them. But after a minute of searching I located them. Then we jumped on the bus for a 10 minute ride. When we first arrived we were served with appetizers. They were really good.

Dinner was nice too. There was a lot of food from chicken, to roast beef, to salad, to sausages, cake, donuts, fried rice, cookies, and other various snacks. It was quite a great meal all prepared by a co-worker of mine. It was really nice of her to host my birthday party and a miniature Christmas party.

My first birthday party

Today, I managed to get up early. The weather has been nice recently. It was still cold this morning, but the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It's very odd that Tokyo has been spared with the winter blizzard that seems to be EVERYWHERE else in Japan. I was awakened by one of Mtki's friends that was allowing my family to borrow some of the extra blankets and futons so they could sleep on while they are here. There was a lot and I think that now I have plenty of blankets and sheets and pillows and stuff. If anyone wants to come, I have plenty of space and gear for you. Since my mother also just sent two big blankets in the mail too. I was talking with family for a little bit in the morning, but it wasn't much since we were all getting ready to go out.

I went to a new place near Kounandai that has sushi that goes on the conveyor belt with a sushi chef right in front of us. The sushi was pretty good and I ate a lot. Mtki's mother kept on pushing me to eat more and more since she would be paying for it and it was my birthday party. She thought that last year's place wasn't a very good place to go, so she wanted to make it up this year because she's nice like that. I enjoyed it, but got a little too full because of it. I ate about 11 dishes and ate more than my fair share of sushi. I also got cake and tiramisu in the fridge too at a dessert for later. I think that I'll probably eat the apple pie that I got tonight, since I forgot to eat dinner.

When I got home, we were all watching soccer on the TV at Ttki's house. It was the Kashima Antlers and Omiya... something. When I left Omiya was winning 1-0. I decided to leave because I had some more work to finish. I wanted to go to Yamada Denki and buy some ink cartridges for my printer because I need to print out the New Year Cards that I just bought a ton of from 7-11. The postcards cost a lot of money, about $35 and then the ink at Yamada Denki was another $70. So in total, just for New Year Cards, I have spent over $100. That's a bit ridiculous to me. I haven't even bought Christmas gifts for other people too, which is a bad thing. It's a very very bad thing and I will probably do it tomorrow... on Christmas when I have some time. But I have to clean up my place too. That's also a very high priority right now, since my family will becoming the day after tomorrow. I seem to be back loaded with work recently.

The problem that I'm having right now, after I had just finished with all of the 60 some cards that I made from scratch, my printer wasn't installed into my new laptop and there is a problem installing it. If need be, I'll just switch it over to my old laptop to do the cards, but then I have to figure out a way to get it to work on my new laptop, otherwise I'd have a useless printer and I just got new ink for it too. I didn't do too much other than that. One of my co-workers called me today to let me know about the birthday party that I will have tomorrow with her. I think that it will be good, and it's a bit early I think. But I think that it will be fun since I enjoy their company and we always have great conversations. I'll probably spend a few more hours working on the printer to get it fixed. I'm downloading the software for the printer now through the HP website, and I hope I'm downloading the right one since it's all in Japanese and I'm not sure which is which.

King Kong, Akihabara, Wild Boar Dinner

Today was an interesting day for me. Unlike the rest of my winter vacation, I went out and did some stuff today. I spent most of today getting ready to go out. I haven't started cleaning my apartment or even getting things ready for my family to arrive. In the morning when I was talking to them, I was working on finishing the plan for when they arrive here and what we would do. I was talking to Aly, someone I haven't talked to in a long time. She was helping us out with the voltage converter because my sisters will need that for when they come here.

Then I needed to start to make some of the New Year Cards that I will be sending out soon. I'm supposed to mail them off tomorrow, but seeing how I have about 70 more to make and I haven't made one today. I don't think that I will get them out on time.

Then I had to leave because I needed to meet up with EK today and we decided that we would go see King Kong. The trip was a bit long even though I took the fastest way there. I kept on thinking that I'd get there late, but I managed to get there with about 10 minutes to spare. I hadn't eaten lunch yet, but EK bought lunch for both of us and we ate it in the movie theater. We probably weren't supposed to, but we did anyways. I was starving at that point though so it was good timing that he bought that before we went in.

The movie was good. It wasn't great, but good. It was also rather long, but it didn't seem like it was 3 hours and 18 minutes being in the movie theater. I think Peter Jackson, just likes to make long movies. It was good though and worth seeing. So I'm happy that we saw it.

After the movie, we went to get dinner at the bear place. It was near the Ryukou station on the Sobu line. That's someplace I've never been before. The first thing that I saw when I walked out of the station was a Sumo Wrestler. They have a famous sumo arena there, so it's not uncommon to see them, but it was my first experience with that. The place that we were going to wasn't very close to the station.

When we walked in, we kinda wondered what we should do. It looked a bit strange, but we knew we were at the right place because there was a dead wild boar hanging from a rack. We went upstairs and were greeted by some old ladies in kimonos. It looked like a place you'd have to make a reservation for, but we didn't and they served us right away. The problem was that they didn't have any bears in stock though. I haven't had one all year. When asked why, they simply replied that it's dangerous to hunt bears. So we had wild boar instead. We ordered a meal set, so it included deer sushi, which I didn't eat, I had a deer steak instead, wild boar stew, and raccoon soup and a few other side dishes. It was all very delicious, but I'm not sure that it was worth the $80 a person price tag though. I mean we had whales for much less than that, and that was expensive.

I wasn't really full from the experience, but it was a good experience. After that we headed to Akihabara since they just opened a new Yodobashi camera. We wanted to check that out.

I was also looking for a blue tooth mouse, but they only had one and it was a bit more expensive than what I could find on line, so I'll have to look there.

From there we left to return home. I took a detour route back home and bought myself another bus pass so my family will be able to use the buses while they are here. On my walk home, the President of the Red Shoes group called me to wish me a Happy Birthday. Well actually he asked me if I wanted to have a party at my house, but I just got another call today from my co-worker who invited me to her house for dinner. So I think I'll do that, but I suggested to him that we have a new years' party and celebrate all the other holidays there too. Since it wouldn't be rushed and it would give me and him more time to talk about what we want to do with the organization. It was really cold walking back for some reason. Anyways, it was a good way to end a day like today. Very busy indeed.

the package arrives

My mother sent me a package of a lot of stuff for when they come here. They sent over some things like medicine and blankets, although I told them that they wouldn't need to, but they never listen to me and sent it anyways. I spent the rest of the day doing the same thing that I've been doing for some time during this vacation break and that's talking with family and friends on line, but I didn't do anything other than that.

I took a walk outside today to get some dinner at Fuji supermarket. It's about a 30 minute walk away. I wanted to make sure that I stay somewhat healthy otherwise I'd be some fat pig stuck in front of the computer all day. Not saying that I'm not, but I want to do something about it and not turn out so fat.

a leisurely day off

Today I took time off from doing too much. It was the first day of winter vacation. I didn't really accomplish too much today. I talked to family today, which was nice. I was helping with homework in Political Science. The problem that I ran into was that I didn't remember too much from school. That's really bad since I plan to go back to school and go to upper level classes, when I haven't been prepared to do that since I've been taking two years off.

I did talk to some friends today too. That was nice and I found out a little more about what's going on with them. They will throw one of my friends a birthday party, and it will be a surprise to him. I'm sure it will be. I think that he's been bummed for a little bit and he's sick this week so it will be a good thing to get him into a good spirit.

One of my other friends from England just got his green card so he could find work soon. I'm happy for him, so he could make the money to do the things that he tells people that he will be able to do. He's one of the most honest people I've ever met and he's got a good heart. He's a really good guy, but I'd like to see him accomplish more of his dreams. He deserves good things.

Another friend of mine that is studying in England, tells me that he hates it there. That's a bit sad since he was looking forward to it for a long time and now that he's there he dreads it. He's home for the holidays now and he's enjoying it there.

Another one of my friends, that I talked to recently let me know that she will go back to the U.S. After being absent for a semester. I think that it will good for her and that things will be better for her. She's one of my good friends and she's got a good heart too. I'm happy that I've stayed in touch with these people since I know that I've lost touch with a lot of people. That's partly my fault, but it's partly theirs too since we don't often have a chance to meet or talk and things in life are hectic for everyone. That's just a part of life and growing up.

I did some dry cleaning today, but the thing that I ran into was that I came a day before a big sale, so I have to go back tomorrow to save some dough, which I really need to since I know that this month I will be spending a lot of money.

I was updating a lot of my journal today too. I went over to TT's house and saw him for the first time since he came back from Australia. It's been a long time. I stayed over there till around 2am and talked about many things. Then came home and talked to EK for only a little before I fell asleep.

hyaku nin isshu tai kai and bo nen kai

Today will be an annual competition between all the classes in the school. It's based on a poem from another era, but made into a game by having the lines of the poem broken down into small cards. The point of the game is to pick up the card when it is called. So the teacher will read the poem and the students will pick them up then they hear it, and it sounds simple enough, but it's a long poem and there are many of them. It's made up of 100 peoples' poem. Most people memorize it, and some of the students were able to do that. I wouldn't have been able to since that would be lot of work. But I was thinking that this is a good game since it encourages students to study in order to win. That's a teacher's dream right there. It was pretty fun. I was following 10^th grade Kiku from the first round. They did pretty well since they beat out 11^th grade ran and 12^th grade kiku. It was sad that none of the 12^th graders made it to the semi-finals which was a big contest in the gym. The 10^th graders were good, but they lost to the 11^th grade yuri class.

After the event and clean-up, I stayed around school to help with other stuff. I had an assignment for winter vacation, but I didn't want to have work over winter vacation so I started working on it at the computer at school. It was for the speech contest in March and all I had to do was resort all the speeches in the order that they would have to go on stage. They wouldn't be going in order of class or even alphabetically, but by height. So I had to figure out the order and then rearrange them. It took a little longer than I thought it would, but I still got it finished at school and didn't need to bring it home.

There were still things that needed to be cleaned up that the male teachers needed to do. It was involving taking down the picture of the Yakumo-chan and some of the main lights before the snow came.

Rakugo

I woke up really late today. The alarm sounded at 7am and I didn't wake up till 8am. I was an hour late and I wasn't sure if I would be able to get to work on time. I didn't have to show up today at all if I didn't want to, but there was an event today called Rakugo, where it's a farce made up of a group of 5 people. I arrived at school around 10:20am, and the show was going to start at 10:30am, but I made it there on time, so I was happy about that. I even squeezed in enough time to eat breakfast before I went.

It was mainly two people, but there was a total of five. One of the guys was from the Kansai area, or the west side of Japan and there was one guy who was from the Edo area, or the Tokyo area. The other people were just assistants. They played some music that went with their skit and most of it was just jokes, but I couldn't understand most of them because they were either speaking too fast or used words that I didn't know and understand. The other thing that I couldn't understand was why it was funny. One of the English teachers had to explain that they were using word play and something that I hadn't learned or studied. They were using the different meanings of words that I knew, which made it incredibly hard for me to understand.

Over all, I wasn't very impressed with it, but I did learn how they make comedy skits. While others were laughing, I was studying what made them laugh. They used a lot of onomatopoeias to engage the audience. The one from Kansai picked on some of the audience to participate and knew some of the teachers to pick on too. His gestures were way over the top too. I think he added a very personal touch to his performance and I think that most people felt that he was the better of the two. He took up more time too. The other guy did a skit that lasted way too long and didn't get any laughs for a long time. The thing that saved him was his pantomime. He was dressed in a n orange latex suit, which showed his ... overbearing features. It was a bit nasty, but funny at the same time. Then the kansai guy came back and did his trick with a stick like object and I think that he messed up on purpose only to feed the audience to see how difficult things were for him, but he was able to do it.

After that I stayed around school for a little bit longer. I had lunch and didn't do much after. I was planning to stay to play tennis, but I decided that it would be better for me to go home early and get some of my laundry done since I don't have any clean clothes for tomorrow. So I wanted to take care of that. I also went out to buy some post cards and dinner. It was cold on the way home, which I wasn't used to because it was still daylight out. That was a very strange feeling to come home when there is still light out.

I came home and realized that I couldn't do laundry because the door was locked and no one was home. So I naturally jumped on my computer and did that for a long while. I talked to some people on line that I usually don't talk to. I found out that one of my friends is back in Japan, but will leave soon and that EK will meet with her tonight too. It's a bit suspicious since he didn't tell me about it. But he did end up telling me about it when I called him and asked him what he did yesterday because we were supposed to meet up and he didn't call back or anything. I know that he likes this type of girl and probably likes this one too, but I don't know. I talked to him again and he told me some things about when we would meet next time when he helps me to fix up my laptop for my younger sister. We plan to go eat bear on the Emperor's birthday, well it will be a bear nabe, which is very expensive about $50 a person. It's at a place near Akihabara, which is where we will go to get the computer parts. He also helped me on something today too that I was trying to figure out. I learned that AU had included a CD-ROM in the box that came with the phone. That CD happened to have the software I needed to get the music from my computer onto my cell phone. Which is great since I'll finally be able to use up all the space on my miniSD disk that I paid a lot for in Taiwan. I didn't want that to go to waste, so it was good that EK told me about it. So I'm happy that I'll be able to use that instead of the mp3 player that I have now. I could just give that one away to my younger sister too. So I think that will be good.

I need to replace my lamp too because it's flickering right now and it's very annoying. I need to buy a new one for the other room too so my family will have both working lights.

A day of nothing

It was weird because I didn't talk to anyone today. Usually on my days off I would talk to someone on line, but no one was there for some reason. I set my status as on line, which is extremely rare, but no one talked to me. I sent an e-mail to EK because we had talked before about hanging out today and going to Akihabara so he could help me find a new hard drive for my old laptop. But he never sent back anything to me. I thought that was extremely weird. He would usually call after I send an e-mail, but he didn't call or send me an e-mail back. I have a new cell phone so it's not that and I don't know what else it could be since he's pretty good with answering the phone, but I'm not.

Anyways, I just worked on the computer today and adding some more programs from the old computer to the new one. It's been taking a bit of time, but I think I'm making good progress with it. I also realized that my typing skills need to be altered since the keys on the board are a bit different from the U.S. Ones and it's hard to get used to, but it's still only the beginning and I'll be using this a lot more to type so it should be better later. It's only 9pm again and I'm thinking about watching a DVD on the computer or playing a game or something. But I would also like to update my blogger so that I won't have to worry about catching up later down the line. I'd like to be all caught up before the new year, which is rapidly approaching. What I ended up doing tonight was updating my blogger. I'm all caught up till the beginning of November, so I only have a little more to go till I'm completely caught up. I'm happy to report that.

A long Saturday

Today just took forever to get through. There was a lot going on today. I had two classes today, first and second period, which meant I had to get up at 5am today. That's so hard to do because it's very cold in the morning. I was freezing and was surprised that it wasn't snowing outside, although there was a lot a frost outside.

I felt as if I left for work late today today too, but I managed to get there pretty early. Earlier than most of the teachers. The problem was when I got to the teacher's office, I didn't have the wire that I requested from another teacher for my class. I use a projector and my laptop so I need a wire to connect both of them that I usually get from a history teacher, but she wasn't there early at school so I was in a bit of a difficult situation. But I asked another teacher to get it for me so I was all setup and ready to go before class started. It was a really close call too because it was right before class started that I finished setting up everything.

The first period was basically covering the fishes and doing a bit of review. I did get started on some new things and about how to use the information that I taught her previously. I think that learning information without learning how to use is is a waste. So my main purpose was to teach her how to use it. I started on reviewing the fishes and then how to create an effective conversation.

We didn't finish everything in the first period, so I finished up during the second period. I showed her how I used it on her and then she started to realize the effect that it had. I purposely made the lessons tailored to her and her alone, so she understood it and how it worked. I think that she will be more suspicious of things later, but I think that it will be a lesson that she learned in a way that she wouldn't soon forget. I brought up how to communicate, but next time, I'll show her how to make and retain income. I think that will be of great interest to her.

After school, I wasn't doing much. So some teachers asked me to help them carry some tatami mats from one room in the gym to the 2^nd floor. It wasn't that easy since it was all nasty and sticky and heavy. After that I played tennis with the tennis team. It was fun to play with them today. It was nice and COLD outside, but the new clothes that I bought were good enough to keep me warm. It was a good exercise. I got hit in the head today with a ball though, and I made fun of a student who hit me. But I was perfectly cool with it. It didn't even hurt, which was the weird thing since I'm sure that it was a hard hit. After club, we had to clean up the grounds, so I was talking to the students about things and how they liked the oral communication classes. Some of the students I taught and some I didn't. The ones that I taught said was good, and the ones I didn't didn't want to comment. So I'm seriously considering about changing the way that I teach some of the classes that I do. I think that it will be a good time to start to introduce Bryan style teaching. Since I only just follow along with what the other teacher does. I think that I'd like to break away and do my own thing. I only have one semester left, so it's really my last chance to do what I want.

The teachers soon left to go to eat Monjya-yaki, which is the Tokyo style of Okonomiyaki. It was pretty interesting and I liked it for the most part. The part that I didn't like too much was the too much eating. There were about 5 dishes that were cooked and then Okonomiyaki and then a anko-crepe for dessert. I was stuffed like a turkey. It was really bad since I was so full. We ate non-stop for about 3 hours from 7pm-10pm. I mention the time because once we left, it took me about 2.5 hours to get home. On the way to the station, I was talking to one of my close friends that is a teacher, and she told me that the other native teacher will stay for another year. I kinda figured that she would from the way that she was talking. So next year, I'm going to have a harder time to do things my way, but I'm still going to do it anyways. I'm a bit sad since I know that my friend will be leaving the full-time office and going to be a part-time teacher. At least she'll still be around, which is a good thing for me. I think that later she will have more time to hang out too, which will be good. The other thing about today was that I didn't sleep until 4:30am. I got home late and then jumped on the computer and took a little nap at the kotatsu before I crawled into bed after that.

The last Friday

Today would be one of the last regular classes that I would have this year. This year flew by so fast that it's a bit incomprehensible. I mean I've lived in Japan for about a year and a half already and I already need to get ready to go back home. I didn't have any of the 11^th grade classes today, which meant that I started work today at 10:50am. So, not only did a get to sleep in till it got a little bit warmer, it would also be one of the last days of classes. I didn't even realize that either.

I got to work a bit early today and ate breakfast at my desk as usual. I arrived early, so I had to kill some time at my desk not really doing anything till class started. The first class was with 7^th grade Ran. We did a little quiz, or what we call an English challenge, but it's basically a quiz on their drama to see if they understood it or not. The questions that CP made were a bit tricky for them. I'm surprised at how well they did with it. They really did understand what they were saying during their drama performances. That was a good thing to find out and I'm very impressed with their English abilities.

The next class was with 9^th grade Ran. They weren't as loud as usual, but they were still a bit loud. The loudest students weren't in class for a the beginning, but walked in late about 10 minutes into the class and the volume of the class increased incredibly. We were reviewing money today because they needed it if they were to go to Santa Barbara, which most of them will go. There are a few students who won't go in this class because of their horrible attitude towards things, mainly teachers, other students and probably on life too. Most of the time they weren't paying attention and just talking amongst themselves. I'm not sure how CP does it, but I would have lost my cool with them a long time ago. I'd have to be a hard-ass with them and just be strict as hell. I don't think they would listen any other way. Some of the students got some of the questions wrong, but overall, they got it right.

During lunch was a bit stressful. We had to give make-up oral tests for two different grades. I was finishing up 9^th graders, while CP was finishing up 10^th graders. I finished first and helped with the 10^th graders all within a 20 minute period during lunch.

5^th period with 10^th grade Yuri was pretty fun for me today. I enjoyed it. They were really into the activity and participating today, which made it better for me. We worked on a worksheet describing what they had done in the past like what was the strangest food they've ever eaten. Although that question was a bit hard for them because they already eat strange food or wouldn't eat it if they thought it was strange. Most of them put Lobster as the strangest food they've ever eaten. Isn't that interesting? We pretty much did this for the whole period since they were into it and they hadn't been too interested in anything in awhile. After they had finished, I asked some students to share, which they did. Then we finished off the class with a listening to Last Christmas by Wham. I wanted to test if they understood the meaning of the song. But that will be their homework for the winter vacation.

The last class of the day was with 7^th grade fuji. This class also did the Beauty and the Beast English Challenge and I'm surprised at how well they did. They are the lowest class in English and they were one of the highest scoring groups. They had very good comprehension of the material, which is very good. Some students in this class were wearing make-up though, which is a major violation of the school rules. Also the cabinet in the back of the room, was missing a door. That was pretty interesting to see, that a cabinet was MISSING a door. I thought at first they they didn't close it, but it was because the door was completely off the hinges. I think that they would have gotten a perfect score had it not been for one weird worded question that threw everyone off. But they did very well.

After school I had one more student in the 9^th grade do the speaking test, which she totally bombed on. I was trying to help her out, but she really had no idea what I was talking about. That's a bit sad for me, but she's always absent too, hence the make-up exam. Then I had to punch in some scores for another teacher to help her out with some stuff. I need to learn how to resort an excel spreadsheet on certain criteria again.

I left soon after that to have dinner at Matsuya, and then bought some stuff for when my family comes, like toothbrushes and towels. I need to get ready for their arrival since it will come very soon and it'll creep up on me without me knowing it.

The usual Thursday

It was pretty usual for me today. I didn't do too much today other than sit at my computer and watch Everyone loves Raymond. I saw the last episode of the 3^rd disk today, which was about meatballs and sabotage. I really like that show. I talked to my family today too using the web cam on my new laptop. It works like a charm and the speed of the computer is really great. I have a very strong connection, but at times it did slow down. I'm not sure why that happened though since I have so much more memory space than any of my previous computers. But it still handled it quite nicely and I'm not going to be too picky about that. I was browsing through a lot of websites today. I sent off comments on myspace and then set up office 2003 for my laptop. I needed to get all my preferences correct so that I won't get a ton of junk mail in my outlook. I prefer outlook over Thunder bird only because outlook offers more. But I do like thunder bird's speed. It's really fast at getting mail and doing the tasks, but then it's not a heavy in function program. I haven't added any of the plug-ins yet, so I'll try that out again before I give up on it. Not sure what I will do for the rest of the evening, since I didn't go out today, and it's only 9pm as I write this. I think I might play a game or watch a DVD on the computer to see how it handles it. I don't have to get up so early tomorrow, which is nice since getting up in 2 degrees weather is really hard, especially since my house has poor heating.

A fairly quick Wednesday

Today flew by really quickly. I'm a bit surprised at how fast today went. I woke up early today, but I left my house late. I can't believe that I did that because I left about 30 minutes late. I'm usually good with that, but somehow I managed to get on my computer and time just went right by. It was almost like a sprint to the train station, but I managed to get to school on time. I missed the teacher's meeting in the morning, but I didn't want to go to it anyways.

First period was with 11^th grade yuri and i pretty much did what I did yesterday with fuji. I gave them some time to work on their speech paper, and giving them the four questions that I had given them last week and let them work for about 20 minutes with the brochures. Then we played a little shiritori game where they have to write a word that starts with the same letter as the last letter of the previous word. I did nouns and adjectives for this class. They got stuck on adjectives that start with Y. That is a bit tricky, but overall, I think they did a very good job.

Second period was with 8^th grade yuri. They had a quiz much like the 8^th grade class before it. They performed the Blue Bird, so they had similar questions like the class I taught with kiku yesterday. Many of the student groups had high scores. They did a good job and understood a good majority of the questions and answers.

Third period was with 10^th grade fuji. This class really is something else. They have a particular talent with just spacing out. Every student in that class always seems like they are sleeping, but wide awake. It's very trippy. I'm not sure how much they understand or how much they don't understand. We do break it down to a level that's lower than junior high school, but they just don't seem to respond to anything. It's hard working with this class and we spend a lot of time today on something that was supposed to take only 5 minutes. It was on a paper that we worked on last week too. We were supposed to work on Last Christmas, a song by Wham. It's an incredibly popular song here during this time of the year. We didn't get into much of it since we spent so much time on the other things. We did start on it though and we wanted to get them thinking about what kind of song it is and what's the meaning of the song. Most could hear the words, and probably understand some of the vocabulary, but I don't believe that they could get the meaning of the song.

Fifth period, with the 9^th grade kiku class, we went over the topic of money again. They needed the practice since they will go to Santa Barbara soon. It really isn't that far away, even though it will be in March. They were struggling a little bit with the decimal point and putting the zero as a place holder for $1.06. That was the point of the lesson, so I'm glad that some of the students made that mistake so we could point it out to them.

We did the same thing for the 9^th grade Fuji class. They did a better job of recognizing the money and learned how to use it effectively. I was very proud of them, although some of the students did bother me by not paying attention. It's the usual students and the major problem that I've had since I've been teaching is that I'm not good with getting attention of the students. It's the problem that I have had since the beginning of me teaching and with all of my classes. The reason being, I'd rather be the good-liked teacher and since it's not my job to handle behavior issues, I don't. But I think next time, I'll have to go with another approach.

After school, I had to give a make-up listening test for a student. Other than that, I was home-free and left. I did wait an hour before I did leave since I would have the day off and I don't have to show up until 3^rd period on Friday.

4 class Tuesday

I ran into a few problems today at school. Nothing too serious of course, but I was just curious at how I got into that mess. I really felt unmotivated to be at school. It wasn't a good feeling to have, especially since I'm a teacher. I think that the end of the year syndrome is taking over. I managed to get through pretty well, since we were just doing fun things today on all the classes. I think it's a good way to end the year before winter vacation.

The first class today was with 8^th grade Ran. They had a quiz about the textbook and then the drama that they performed. They did very well, but they have a bit of an attitude problem.

The second class today was 8^th grade kiku, and they had a little quiz that I made for them to test their comprehension of the textbook and on their play Blue Bird. They did fairly well, and were pretty interested in the topic. I think that has been a big change from, earlier.

The third class was 7^th grade kiku. They were very quiet today too, but we also did a little quiz for them, but made it multiple choice so it was easier for them to do well. They were all on their drama, which was Beauty and the Beast. Most did very well, and I thought that they would be tricked by it, but I guess they understand a lot of the material that we go over. That really is amazing how they pick up all the language.

The last class today was with 11^th grade fuji. We just worked on getting things ready for the oral exam. I introduced some new questions for them to research on and they had time to work in partners to research where they wanted to go and all the little things that I made them work on. I think that they enjoy the fact that they have a lot of time to work and it's not a lot of lecture. I think that in the end, we will see how effective all the work has been. I hope they do well though.

After school, we didn't have English club since most of the students left.

End of the year party

I didn't do much today other than get my computer all fixed up with some more software that it needs. I've been doing that consistently lately to make sure that I have everything up to date. But I've noticed that my space on my hard drive is getting lower and lower because of it. I' m not sure what I will do about that though. I want to be able to add more stuff and I'm adding things to the D hard drive, but that's still not helping either. That's a bit weird for me since I have so much more space than I used to, but I still am running out of space. I really don't like that either. It would be easier if my C drive was just larger. It's only 20 gigabytes, which is still a lot, but not enough for me. I have a total of 100 gigabytes for this laptop, but I just don't like the way that Sony partitions their computers.

I was able to get a lot done today, which was a very good thing. I downloaded the new AIM triton, which has a ton of spy ware, but it seems ok. I haven't seen too much improvement from the last version that I've used, but I think that it will get better in time.

After I finished all that, I got ready to go to the end of the year party at the Imperial Hotel. I first needed to go to the school since I was going to get a ride to the hotel. The train ride was ok, and usual. It was a bit warm, but still very cold. When I first pulled up into school, I noticed that I recognized someone I had seen somewhere before. It was EK's younger sister. I haven't met her in person yet, I talked to her online when I was in Taiwan, but that was the closest that I've even had contact with her. I then proceeded to complete some grading of the 11^th graders listening comprehension test.

Soon after that we left to go to the Imperial Hotel. Dinner was very good, but exactly the same as last year's menu. That wasn't so interesting though.

I got tennis balls, a calculator, and a towel for my bingo gift. I think that this year, the school got cheap with gifts. I didn't get a great number, but still the quality of the gift hasn't been high recently. Even the people who got a good number only got rice cakes. Last year, I got a low number, but got really expensive class with the Keio mark on them. So, everyone's expectations of the quality was well, everyone was disappointed. You could tell.

At the after party, I had to sit next to the principal, and that seems to be usual for me.

First entry on my new laptop

So today, I got started with writing in my new laptop. I wanted to update a few things to make it very useful first. I got up today around 11am because it's usually much warmer by then, but it wasn't warmer today. It was still actually very cold. That's how it ended up today too. I thought I was going to meet up with a friend today, but that didn't end up happening. So what I did go and do was go for a walk to Yamada Denki. I needed to get some stuff for my new laptop like a USB bus port since my USB ports on the new laptop aren't positioned in a very good place. I only have two of them too, so I wanted to get more so I could add a lot more things to my laptop to make it more productive. I was looking for a new mouse too, but I didn't get one because they didn't have any that were blue tooth compatible. They had a lot of wireless ones though and they caught my attention, but still nothing that I would have bought. I need to do some more researching to find a good one for this laptop. I also got a new power cord with 7 outlets since the ones that I have now, only have 6 outlets. The new one that I have also has three prongs which is very unusual in Japan since everything here only uses 2 prongs. I had lunch today at Yoshinoya since there's one nearby. I didn't get what I usually get and got something that I only got at the beginning of my stay in Japan. It tasted great since it was nice and warm when it was freezing cold outside. I talked to some people today and found the installation information for my web cam on line. That was very convenient since I don't have to ask my family to bring it when they come here in a few weeks. I need to work on a schedule for when they come too. That will probably be next on the agenda after I finish up updating all the files for this computer and moving all the files from my laptop to my external hard drive. I almost have everything moved over and I'll have a lot more space for other junk on my laptop that I'm going to give to my younger sister. Things are moving along for me quite smoothly except for the getting a girlfriend part. That needs more work and more attention for me. I don't think that anything will happen for me in the near or even distant future. I just don't have the opportunities like I did before and then again, I'm not out there making it happen for myself like I used to do too. I'll be doing other stuff with upgrades soon, but first I wanted to get my computer up and going.

The longest day at work / English Festival

I spent about 13 hours at work today. That’s by far the longest in one day I’ve stayed at work. I started work at 9am today; it was earlier than I needed to be at work too. I was supposed to start at around 10am, but since I told some teachers that I’d be there early in case there was any problem, I would help with that. But there weren’t any problems at the beginning. I had time to sit back and to enjoy breakfast undisturbed, and I went around the school to see all the classrooms and to see what was going on. I found my room, the one that I would be working at the whole day. It was a nice setup by the students and all of it looked fun. They put a lot of work into it and I could really tell.

It didn’t start off too well though. I was working with 3 native English speakers, but one of them happened to show up late and I missed the opening ceremony. I thought that wasn’t very cool of them. But it turned out that they were there early, but they were waiting at the station for the other two who showed up even earlier than they did. I felt bad because I sent a student to look for CP who was waiting at the station, but CP came to school without the student that I sent. So that wasn’t very good, although I know that CP would have just come to school without me sending anyone to get her. My instincts were right, but I didn’t want to appear rude and not do anything about it.

I was pretty much busy from this point on. I was jumping back and forth from room 308, and the gym. I wanted to catch all the dramas, but I ended up missing a few because I needed to fill in for the native speakers and watch the tables in our room while they got lunch and such. I didn’t want to miss any, but I missed two from the same grade and I heard that I missed the best one too. So I wasn’t very happy with that. I did catch the last one, which was very good and very lively. I thought they did the best, but they had a minor mistake at the end that messed up their perfect performance. They weren’t happy because it was a technical mistake.

During the day, it was pretty warm, but later when it was time to do the gift exchange out on the field; it got really cold really fast. I’m not sure why, but it’s really starting to feel like winter now. It’s really cold and I think that it’s a bit early, even though it’s December already. Everything seemed to finish really quickly. I’m surprised at how time just flew by today.

Before I knew it, it was already time for dinner and since I didn’t find out any information till the very end that there would be a dinner for the teachers. I knew that we did something at the end of the event last year, so I stuck around for that. My instincts again were right and it was pretty much the same menu as last year too. That was a bit disturbing, but I think that’s what I can expect from every event. It was so predictable that I even called we would have a birthday celebration for two teachers. Dinner seemed to drag on forever though. It didn’t seem to go by really fast. I was really stuffed too and had eaten a lot, which seems to happen a lot after school events.

After that, the teachers cleaned up for a little bit. The male teachers did the clean up work outside, while the female teachers cleaned up the room we were in. It was just a little clean up work since the major clean up day would be on Monday. They just wanted to get rid of the things that would smell really bad if left out and things like that. Then after all the clean up work, the teachers took a look around at all the rooms and displays. They finally had a chance to enjoy it after the event was finished. We spent some time in the Santa Barbara room, looking through the scrapbooks that the students put together about their trip to America. It was really nice and the students really go all out on it. It was really great to see. Now the time was about 9pm and we were all still at school. I think the first teacher left school around 9:30pm, which is a bit late if you ask me.

I stuck around because most of the teachers stuck around too. I think we were all waiting for someone to leave before we did. I mean all the big teachers had left before I did. I was one of the last people to leave the school and I was helping another teacher with her things so that she could leave too. But we didn’t end up leaving till around 10pm. Now that’s a long day and since it takes me about 2 hours to get home, I was one of the last people to make it home. How stinky is that. But it was a good day. I enjoyed myself and that’s all that matters.

Friday, the arrival of my new computer

It was another day off for me today. It was nice since I didn’t have to go into work today. I wasn’t doing much today, but it was much like yesterday. I just talked to family and worked on my new computer. It was nice to finally have a new computer, but I was struggling through it because of the language. I could have sworn that you could change the language OS and that’s why I decided to buy my computer in Japan and not in America. But the problem that I had with that is that they don’t offer that option in Japan. I think that’s a bit ridiculous since I’m sure that some people in Japan would want to have their OS be English, since they could always change it back to Japanese if they wanted to. So how come they aren’t allowed to go from Japanese to English. That’s very weird since I would think that all other languages would be able to transpose itself into English. Microsoft has to work out those kinks in Windows Vista.

So what I did for most of the day was to get all the programs that I needed for the computer. It was really a lot of work and I didn’t even finish all of it. I wanted to move all my files from the old laptop to the new one so I could pass along the old laptop to my youngest sister, since she would need it for school and other things like that. It’s a lot of work and I have a lot of files that still need to be transferred. I think that all this will take weeks to finish and then I need to upgrade some parts of the old laptop so that it’s ready to go into the next few years without any major problems.

The first thing I did with the new laptop was bust it open to see where the memory cards go. It was a bit tricky and took me about 30 minutes to figure out where they were located. One was located underneath the laptop and the other one was underneath the keyboard. So I had to open up both sides to put in my memory cards. But I think that it will all be worth it in the end. I have the need for speed and I think that the new laptop will bring that to me. But like all things, it will end up getting slow in a few years. I was talking to my sister while doing all of this, but the computer was lagging. I think that it was because I just had so many things on my computer and the timing was perfect because my computer was literally about to die on me. It was just too full without the space to carry all the functions that I needed it to carry. From that point on, all I did was just get things ready like downloading some plug-ins and all the things that I would need from the old computer and putting it into the new computer. This took a long time since I have a lot of files scattered everywhere. I needed to organize everything first.

I didn’t have to go to work today because today they are setting up for the English festival. I don’t have to do any of the preparation work for the event, which I’m not really sure why, but something that I’m really appreciative of. If I did, I’m sure that I would probably be more tired than the teachers at the school are. They have to work so much and they don’t have as much time off as I do. It makes me feel bad that I do have so much time off, but then again, I’m only a part-time teacher.

a day at home

Like all my days off, I was at home and did laundry. I talked to family and friends. That’s usually how it goes and that’s how it went today.

I talked to some friends that I haven’t talked to in a long time. That’s also usual too.

I got a call from work about what I will have to do for Saturday, so that was a bit different. But everything else remained the same. It’s very eerie how that always works out that way. I’ve really got to work on getting out of this routine. I need to go out there and get a life away from the computer.

Wednesday

It was really hard to get up this morning. It was so freaking cold that it’s almost unbelievable. I’m still in autumn mode and not really getting ready for winter. But it’s already here and it’s here almost in full form.

I managed to get ready and out the door at the right time to get to work on time. I caught a slightly earlier train that got me to where I wanted to go on time. The first class was with 11th grade yuri. We started off with the listening test and they did fine on that. I think that it might have been too easy for them. That’s good for them though since they are at a very high level. Then I gave them some time to work on their speeches with their partner. I gave them four new questions and let them look at the pamphlets to get their work finished. Most finished really quickly, so I’ll have to figure out what I want to do with them next week.

2nd period was with 8th grade yuri. They had their performance on the Blue Bird. I was really impressed by their performance. It was really good. They nailed their lines and had the gestures and everything. It was really a good performance by them and probably the best of the 8th grade.

3rd period was with 10th grade Fuji. They were having trouble today understanding the assignment. We’ve been working on Past Participles recently and talking about what they’ve done in their past, so we had a worksheet talking about things they’ve done before. They were struggling with a question about what was the strangest thing they’ve eaten. I think this was the case because they already eat strange ass things. I mean Japanese people have the strongest stomachs of anyone on earth. Who the hell eats fermented soybeans… EVERY MORNING!!?? It’s the nastiest thing in the world.

4th period I had off, so I wanted to take that time to distribute all the souvenirs to the teachers in the teacher’s room. What I realized was that I didn’t have enough for everyone. I was only like a few short and I had to give away two separate gifts, one for the higher ranked people and one for the teachers at my level. I’m not sure, but I had a bad feeling while giving it out. I’m not why either, but I did.

5th period was with 9th grade kiku. We had to give out tests on shopping, most of the students were having trouble learning how to pay. They couldn’t understand the size difference either. They were struggling for a little bit. But I think that was only with my section of the classroom that I was grading.

6th period was with 9th grade Fuji. They were much better and it was harder for them because they had to do it in front of the class, since there weren’t any absent students, I had to use the teacher’s desk which is in the front of the room.

Tuesday

I left for work early today. It was really damn cold today for some reason. I think this winter is much colder than last year. Snow is falling in the Northern part of Japan already and I think it will come down to Tokyo within the month.

I got on a train about 10 minutes earlier than the one I usually take and it’s quite a difference. The train is actually emptier than the one I take, which I thought was a bit odd. I’m considering leaving for work earlier now, just so I could catch that train to work. But then I’d be at work much earlier than I would have to, which isn’t something that I’m really looking forward to, and I could get an extra 10 minutes of sleep.

The first class I had today was with 8th grade ran. They were really interested in performing and did a pretty good job with the Sound of Music drama. I thought it was pretty good except for a few minor details, but it doesn’t take away from the whole performance. They tend to run on with their sentences and don’t pause at the periods or commas. That’s the problem we’ve been having with all classes and I’ve got to work on a way to get rid of that.

The second class was with 8th grade Kiku. They were a bit bummed out that we couldn’t perform in the gym since they were really looking forward to it. It really reflected on their performance in the class room too. They had all the lines and all the gestures, but it was still a little flat to me. They didn’t have the oomph that they had last week when they were on stage. I’m not really worried too much about them because I know that they could do it. I think that they will do a great job too.

4th period was with 7th grade kiku. They have some difficulties in front of them. They are a really quiet bunch, well not quiet, but soft-spoken. There is one girl in the class that is so soft-spoken that the people standing right next to her couldn’t hear her lines after she had said them. That will be a big problem this Saturday. It might take away from the whole performance, so that’s something that worries me a bit.

5th period with 11th grade Fuji, was a bit harder than usual and the loudest student wasn’t even there. They had a room change so it threw things off for me, plus there was only 40 minutes in class today and we had a listening test too. So it was busy and hectic, and I think that they aren’t on task doing what they need to do. That’s not good and I know it, but I don’t know how to fix it, I think that I’m going to use one of the extra days to help them along with the process so they don’t get horrible grades on the last test of oral communication class.

After school I helped with the English dramas and just watching them to see how they could improve before the big performance on Saturday.
I watched 8th grade Fuji and 7th grade Ume and even got to see the music group playing with the handbells. It was pretty good. Over all, but they were speaking in English way too fast.

shot Monday

This week is 40 minute classes, which actually goes by really fast. Today, we had a test in the 3rd period, which is my first class of the day and we had to finish things in a hurry. I got to school a little early today to get ready for that. I wanted to make sure that things were good today and I didn’t want to look or appear confused, but I managed to fail at that.

The 9th grade Yuri class did surprisingly well on their test. Well most of them did pretty good, while there were a few that didn’t do so well. But still much better than Ran, which is a bit of a surprise to me. I think that with Ran, it’s their attitude towards things that make them not so likable. But today for the test, they found a way to weasel their way out of doing things, and I had to plug the holes or they’d exploit it more. Some students I was harder on and some weren’t. I think that some of the students didn’t think it was fair, but I did it accordingly towards their scores on the other sections to help the student. I think that I probably wasn’t as generous as CP today with this test. Even though the students did do very well, I’m not sure how she grades or what the curve should be, but it’s always going to be different and based on different standards.

11th grade Ran today had a test too. We had the listening comprehension for this class. It was their last one, so it was a bit difficult and will separate the great listeners from the good ones. I thought it was a bit difficult because there was a lot of writing involved and it was pretty fast, even for me so I think that it would be difficult for them. We had a lot of teachers in the room and that confused me for a little bit. I actually forgot which teacher I was supposed to go to the classroom with and accidentally left one of them in the teacher’s office waiting for me. I felt really bad about that. But it was also weird to have 4 teachers in the room. It was my classroom, but the listening test is administered by MW, so she came to the class even though it wasn’t her time to teach them. She did the test and then she left. There wasn’t much time left after that, so I got them started on the next 4 questions that they will need to answer for the test. I passed out the pamphlets only to get them returned to me, shortly after.

The last class of the day was with 7th grade yuri. I think that their English ability is one of the highest in the 7th grade, but they didn’t prove it today. They had a lot of trouble with pronunciation of the Aladdin play that they’ve been working on since the beginning of summer. I think that it’s the 11th hour and they shouldn’t be struggling like they are now. I’m not sure why all the teachers this semester have taken it nonchalantly either. It’s very strange, but I guess that they were busy with everything else that things slipped through the crack and this had to be one of them. I guess the students didn’t get enough practice in there, and we haven’t practiced much with them either since we’ve been preparing them to speak at the English Fun Fair. I think that this is a point where having too much events is detrimental to the student’s learning ability and they just get so spread thin that they aren’t learning much anymore. They need some more work and I’m not sure that they’ll be able to get it in time for the English festival, which is this Saturday.

After school, I helped with the male teachers to put up the Christmas lights on the 2nd floor of the main building. Tomorrow we will work on the 3rd floor doing pretty much the same thing, but probably with a different design later. I didn’t have much work to do after that, so I left school early. I didn’t want to spend too much time in the office because it’s artificially hot in there and it’s ridiculous that it’s always so extreme in that room.

I had dinner at Bamiyan tonight, but I didn’t eat Fried Rice, since that’s all I eat there. I had Ramen instead since I haven’t had that in a long time and since it was really cold outside, I thought that it would be good to have a little warm meal for the evening. It was a good way to end the day, Ramen and Gyoza.

I came home and watched some TV and worked on my computer for a little bit. I was watching SMAP x SMAP. I haven’t seen that show in a long time. Today they had a special with two people of the group doing a Triathlon. It was pretty interesting and showed me that I need to get out there and do some more exercising and I need to stay in shape or I’ll end up getting huge. I’m thinking about getting back into gear and playing more tennis since I have left over time after school.

Return back to Yokohama

I didn’t do much today. I did a lot of cleaning, or what I thought was a lot of cleaning that is. I set up my house to get ready for the winter.

We started the day really early since it was a vacation trip. The male teachers woke up at 7am and went straight to take another bath. That makes a total of three baths in 2 days. After the morning bath, we had breakfast. It was pretty good, but it was a bit weird to have some sushi for breakfast. It was good, but weird. They had a lot of other things too; it was delicious, well except for one thing that was a bit too sour for me. It had a nasty look to it too.

It was a quick breakfast and then we went to look around the place and went into the gift shop. There wasn’t anything interesting to buy so I didn’t buy anything. I didn’t think that it would be worth it to spend the money in there like that. We quickly had to go back to our rooms and get changed to go back to the city. Our train left at 9:53am, but we jumped on a Taxi around 9:15am to get to the station to look around there and so the other teachers could do some more shopping for souvenirs. I didn’t get anything because once again, nothing worth getting.

We took a limited express train that actually would have been faster for me to go home if I got off at Ofuna station, but instead I got off at Yokohama. All the teachers split soon after that and I just decided to go back home and get my house ready for winter. The days and nights have steadily been getting colder. I wanted to get my heater out and ready in case it got really cold and I want to be prepared for that. So when I jumped on the train to go back to Hongodai station, and exited the station, it started to pour. I didn’t know that it was going to rain so I had to walk home in the rain, which wasn’t very cool. It was very cold and the rain didn’t make it better. I’m sure that it will snow this winter and probably sometime in the next two weeks.
So I’m glad that I got my room ready for winter. It’s very good even though my room isn’t clean yet, but it will be soon enough. I got the oil needed for the heater and filled that sucker up and I have plenty left for the next few months. The canister that I use to carry the kerosene broke, so I was leaking a lot of oil carrying it home from the gas station. That wasn’t very cool. The caps were broken, so I’ll have to get a new canister later so I could return that to TT’s family when I leave Japan.

Going to Yugawara

In the morning, I decided that since I had some time, I would cut my hair. It was getting really long and almost uncontrollable. So I took care of that before I left. I wanted to talk to some people online, but I got distracted with other things and just never got around to it.

Today, the plan was to go with the teachers for the teachers’ trip. We went to an onsen area. We kind of left late since I wasn’t required to be at Shin-Yokohama station till 4pm. We didn’t get to the place till around 5:30pm, which wasn’t really that long, but not that short either since we took the Shinkansen. It’s in the Atami area, so there was a nice view going there.

After we arrived, we changed our clothes to wear the yukatas that they have for the guests. A lot of teachers commented that I looked very good in the yukata since I just got my hair cut and it fits my style. We went around the place for a little bit, but there wasn’t much to see, so I wasn’t surprised. We then went to take a bath. I had already taken a shower after cutting my hair so this was the second time for me to take a shower today. The baths there were pretty small in my opinion. I liked the trip though and I liked the place, I didn’t really have any problems with that. It’s just that if you’re going to an onsen, there should be more than two baths. Usually there are around 4, a hot, cold, sauna, open air ones. But they only had a hot and open air hot one. It got really busy and crowded at times too, which could put a damper on things for a little bit.

After our bath, we got ready for dinner. We had to carry our gifts for the gift exchange too. We did that during dinner. I received a nice feminine scarf and a nice CD case. I was told that it might be better for me to give it to my girlfriend. I would agree with that, so I’ll have to save another gift that I got and give it away. I might give it to my sister, when she comes here. They will probably need it since it will be so cold when they come here. The handball coach got my gift. I wasn’t sure if she liked it or not since she said that she would give most of it away to other teachers. I think that she wanted to share, but I’m not sure that she could eat all of it anyways.

I had to make a speech tonight in Japanese about something. I wasn’t prepared for it at all. It was a bit unnerving to be on the spot like that and have to say something, which is hard to begin with and then to have to do it in Japanese made it even harder. I choked, so I’ll have to be prepared for the next event that people speak at. I thought that I would be ok and not have to speak, but I should have known. I’m a bit upset at myself for not knowing and responding to it very well.

After that, we had a Karaoke night, where everyone would get involved and sing for a little bit. I sang two songs. I did one in English and one in Japanese. The English song I was actually just helping another teacher who is studying English because she will go to America next year, actually in 3 months. It was Bryan Adams – Heaven. And the Japanese one was Kobukuro – Wadachi. I wanted to sing a Mongol 800 song, but they didn’t have it. I was a bit surprised to find that out.

After all that, we went back into the bath again. It was nice and relaxing to go after dinner. It does make you sleepy, which another teacher mentioned. One of the guy teachers got a PSP from the headmaster. That was cool and I didn’t get lucky like last year. Last year, one of the teachers got a video camcorder as a gift, which is excellent. I would have liked either one of those things. The bath was nice before going to bed, but it was hard because afterwards, it was so hot. The blanket was too thick for me and I was overheating and getting really thirsty. I was playing with my cell phone a lot and sending a lot of e-mails to friends. I like that I have a new cell phone.

Fairly average Friday

I had 5 classes today, which is pretty tough to do these days. I started off the day with 11th grade Kiku. They were a pretty good class today. They didn’t give me any trouble this week and they understood the assignment pretty well. It was a bit difficult for them still, but I think that after they got started, they started to understand more and what they had to do for the assignment. I introduced the 4 questions to them and had them look at the pamphlets. This was all after the listening comprehension test. I thought the test was a bit hard, but they are the lowest level, so I didn’t expect them to do so well on it. Actually we hadn’t even gotten the answer key finished, so no one really knows how they did. It seemed that the class was running a bit short today and it was the last for this year. The next time I will see them is in 2006, which is a weird feeling since it’s still only the beginning of December.

The 3rd period class was with 7th grade ran. We had the chance to go to the gym and practice Beauty and the Beast. The girl who was Belle was really good. Everyone else was just average with their lines. There wasn’t anything that stood out above the rest, but that’s also very typical of Japan.

4th period with 9th grade ran was a test on shopping. I knew that this would be a struggle, but I didn’t know how much of a struggle it would be. Some students did ok, while others completely bombed on the test. They didn’t do very well, but that was mainly because of their bad attitudes. There was one student that I had to give 5 points out of a possible 25, which is pretty sad.

5th period was another test, I guess today turned out to be a test day, but I’m not sure that we wanted it to work out this way. They didn’t do very well either, but I think that it was mostly in the preparation part and it would be my fault and not really the students’. 10th grade yuri is a very capable class, I would say the second highest in the 10th grade, but they didn’t do very well on the test either. It was something that they should have gotten since we have covered it since they were in the 7th grade. So partly it was their fault for not understanding the question that we’ve been asking them since they were in the 7th grade. They should have done more preparation work to get ready for the test, but I’m not sure they knew what was going to be on the test.

6th period was with 7th grade Fuji. They didn’t get a chance to go to the gym and practice so we did a mini-rehearsal in the class. They performed with the line up that they have to do on the 10th. They were ok, nothing really special about their performance today. They need to memorize more and add more emphasis on a few things. They joke around too much and aren’t serious about it, but they are in the 7th grade, so that’s a bit expected of the students. I’m not getting on their case for that, but I would like to see them do better on stage next week. Since this will be the last time I see them this calendar year, I’m not sure how well they will be when it counts.

I also did an after school test. It was pretty quick and simple. I finally finished all the tests for the 11th grade, which made me pretty happy. I thought she would do so well, even though she had an extra 3 weeks to prepare compared to the other students, but her level is pretty low and I thought that she got a good score for her ability. She did make some mistakes, but I let some of them slide and some I didn’t.

After that I heard from some of the teachers that my student for tomorrow’s class will be absent, so that would mean I don’t have any class for Saturday. That’s two weeks in a row that I didn’t have my Saturday class, which is a good and bad thing at the same time. I like it because it’s my class, and there isn’t any influence from any other teacher on this class and I can do it exactly the way I want and talk about what I want to, which is personally tailored to the student. But since we don’t have many classes this semester, I think that it’s also a bit of a waste because I want to give her all the information that she requested and in a way that she’d be able to understand and to be able to use in a constructive manner.

I then decided to leave school early. I also decided that since I got off of work early, I should try to get my cell phone purchased. I went to Yokohama station and cancelled my Vodafone. I thought that was a bit weird that I cancelled first and then I went to look for a new phone. But I thought that if I left that go on for a longer time, that I wouldn’t end up getting a new phone, so I pushed myself to get one.

I went to a store near the Ishikawacho station. They were selling the W32H phone that I’ve been looking at for the past few weeks. It was at the best price I could find. It’s a $200 phone, but I bought it for only $25 since it was on a special listing, for some strange reason. But I ended up with a good deal. Things didn’t work out at first though; I ran into some trouble when I tried to buy the phone. I had the right ID and most of the forms, but I was missing just one more thing, which was proof of address. I needed to bring a bill that says I have been living in Japan and that I’ve been living at that address. So I was lucky that a seat next to the younger teachers.