Feeling a little fluish

I felt a bit groggy today. My throat was sore from the beginning, but that wasn’t a big deal until later in the day I had a runny nose and coughing very violently. That’s when I noticed that a lot of the teachers in the office were also doing much of the same thing. I think there is something going around the office.

I didn’t have very many classes today since we don’t have any afternoon classes today, but then again, that only shaves off one class. The three other classes were ok and really quick. If I wanted to, I could have left work around 1pm. But like the hard-working person I am, I stuck around till 6pm helping the teachers get ready for the entrance exams tomorrow and then I was working on the lessons for next Monday since they will be the extra ones and I have some time to do something fun.

The first class was with 8^th grade ran. They were loud and it’s at the point that when I walk in the room, I’m already annoyed. I have a bad image of the class, even though they all like English and speak it well. Well at least for their age and at their stage in the learning process. But it’s tough working with them and the Japanese – English teacher doesn’t really do any disciplining so poor CP has to do it all on her own. I honestly don’t know how she could do it, since I would have snapped a long ass time ago and regulated on their asses. They would have known who was boss, but then I think they probably wouldn’t open their mouths and speak ANYMORE. So, that’s why I don’t do any disciplining other than to tell them to take out their diaries and to not lean their chairs back. There are other things I do, but it’s not really with the noise. At least with this class.

The second class was third period was with 8^th grade kiku. They had the same lesson as the previous class, which was to learn how to evaluate a speech and how to make a good English presentation. I noticed that introducing this topic was fitting for these students since they have to perform for a speech contest, but most of the ideas that came from it are from the classes that I’ve taught from the 11^th grade classes. So that makes me a bit happy. We had to go a bit slower for these girls. I introduced some vocabulary and then how to evaluate and then the students had a chance to evaluate CP giving her speech in Japanese. The students loved it, even though it was horrible. But it was horrible on purpose to see if the students would be able to understand what we were teaching. In this class, they were either being too nice or just not understanding.

The last class of the day 4^th period was with 7^th grade kiku. We started off with the animal slap game. We did that a few times before we moved onto a worksheet on body parts. Then we moved from that to label the animals and locate where they come from. That was a bit tough since most of the students could really argue that most of them are in the zoo, which would be true, but we were looking at where they come from. But the main problem was that many of the animals come from all over the place. Like country do monkeys come from?

After school, I really wanted to leave a bit earlier, but I sensed that some teachers wanted to talk to me. But I think they were also hesitant to speak to me because they were so busy with everything else.

It was a bit rainy today, so that added to the gloominess. I had Bamiyan for dinner again and ordered almost the same meal, except I got a little dessert to go with it. It was much smaller than last night and I finished it really quick. I bought some things at the grocery so I could cook for myself tomorrow so I wouldn’t have to go out in the rain, since it’s cold out too. Its misleading in my apartment since it’s quite cozy in here.

It’s been weird lately, but I have been reminiscing a lot lately. I have been listening to a bunch of old songs from my past and it brings up the memories attached to them. It’s weird to think that they still carry them all the way till now. I don’t judge them as good or bad, but just interesting that I could still remember them and that I haven’t forgotten what happened.

Back to normality

It was very nice to get up late today, even though I left my house late, I arrived at work about an hour early even after walking slow and taking a trip to the bank to get some cash.

The classes were usual today. There wasn’t anything special to report really.

The first class was with 9^th grade yuri and they did a dialogue and role play that the other classes did. There was one girl who was speaking a lot of English, even though she was rude and wasn’t paying attention to the class. At least she was speaking in English.

The second class today was with 11^th grade ran and they had their Oral test today too. They did a fairly good job, but had sprinkles of bad. Some of the students didn’t memorize their speeches and it showed. So some people got punished for that, but then there were some awesome speeches too, so this class was spread all over the place with their scores. They were still having trouble with want and clothes. I don’t know why, but everyone seems to say those words incorrectly.

The third class was with 7^th grade yuri and they reviewed the animals. We didn’t get around to finishing up the animal game though.

After school, I stuck around to study some Japanese. I was working on a logo for the school so we could have a letterhead for English business letters. I heard they used to have one, but then if I made a new one, it wouldn’t hurt.

I had a sore throat all day today. I don’t know what’s going on, but I was coughing a lot today. I think this isn’t good. I finally made a first move in getting a girlfriend today too. I sent an e-mail to this girl I liked to meet and talk. I had only met her twice before and we have exchanged post cards, but that’s about it. I’ll keep everyone posted as what’s going on with that.

I had dinner tonight at Bamiyan. They have the best Fried Rice, and I think I might go back for more tomorrow night. I want to make it a Chinese New Year with eating Chinese food for the first week.

Chinese New Year!

I spent today at home for the most part. I wished a few friends a Happy New Year, but for the most part just stayed in front of my computer. I got to sleep in today, which was something very nice.

I did some laundry today too, but that was all. I wanted to go out and do something, but for some reason that never materialized. I didn’t even get the dinner that I wanted to eat, so I’ll have to do that on the way home from work tomorrow. I think that will be a good thing for me to pick up. Let’s see how that will work out then. It’s already 12:30am, so I’m going to head to bed. But the weird part about today was that my stomach has been acting funny. It’s been hurting a lot today and I’m not sure what I can do about that.

The Headmaster's birthday

Today would be a very busy day at school. Not only will everyone be running around, they would be tired doing all of it too. I arrived to school very early even though I left a bit late and took the same train. It is very weird how my time-space continuum works in my life and especially going to school and leaving home. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s interesting.

When I came to school I learned that there would be more than just the Headmaster’s birthday that was making all the teachers busy. There was a meeting with all the student’s parents in the gym so most of the teachers had to work to set things up for that. Everything and everyone was a bit confused about everything. It was chaos, but I think that it always works itself out.

I taught for two classes today, but the problem that I had was that the projector that was in the Language Laboratory wasn’t working with my laptop. That was a bit frustrating since I really had a nice presentation prepared and that I was working on that all last night. I think that it was a bit of a waste to do all of that since I couldn’t even use it. I went back to using the chalkboard, and chalk. It went well for the first period, but I was going off of topic a lot. I don’t think that she minded a bit because all of the information was something that she wanted to learn. That’s what kept her interested and kept her focused. I was explaining to her the importance of McDonalds and how that company came to be. She was really interested and she knew that I was only teaching her that there are many ways to obtain a goal.

The second hour was also very good. I decided to give up on the projector and then I just went straight to using the chalkboard. I gave her the 80-20 rule and explained its importance. Then I followed along the book and gave her some reasons why and how to follow her plan. She was very captivated with everything and she seemed to light up at the sight of the information that I was giving her. I think that she realized what she is learning and she really does take it very seriously. I think that she has started to see the big picture and is becoming unlazy about it in this class. Even though I know that none of it will matter for another few more years. But she will be a very rich and successful person.

After that we had to move some things around for the parent meeting with teachers in the Gym. I really didn’t help out too much with that because I was teaching, but I did have to move some tables to the gym from the third floor, actually the room I was teaching in. I had to leave the room in a hurry because there were a lot of other students in the 10^th grade that were coming in because they had class right after, but no tables to work on. That was a bit ironic for them though.

After that I was talking with some 9^th grade students that I normally don’t talk to, they were pretty interesting. I wanted to play some tennis with the club, but I didn’t because I had to be ready to leave for the headmaster’s birthday party at a moments notice. So I didn’t want to be not ready to go. I typed up this entry as well as finish the one from yesterday. I’ll let you know how it goes tonight after the party. But for now, I’m just going to kick it at work and not do too much. I’m having a great day so far though, but I’m sure that things can turn around very quickly.

The next thing that happened was that everyone just started to leave. I was going with a math teacher to the hotel in Yokohama. It was forbidden to arrive late to the party. I really felt sorry for the other teachers because they had a lot to do today to prepare for the party. They would be like waitresses sort of waiting on the guests of the Headmaster. The drive was a bit quiet and we arrived at the hotel very early. About 2 hours early. We sat around the lobby of the intercontinental pan pacific hotel. Actually we weren’t in the lobby, we were at a café. It was pretty ok, but had a nice view. The Royal Milk Tea needed some work and wasn’t sweet enough for me. We stayed there for about an hour and then we left to the banquet hall. It was a nice room at the hotel. The party started a little early and it was made into a very big deal. A lot of the headmaster’s friends showed up and all the female teachers needed to dress really nice. There was a lot of entertainment with teachers singing, doing hand bells, playing of a video made by some teachers, gift giving, cake-cutting and I think that was it. It was nice for me because I didn’t have much to do for the event, but it was a lot of hard work for everyone else and I could tell. It went over time too for about 30 minutes.

There was an after party too, but I didn’t go to it. I went home and it was very soon. It was nice to have it in Yokohama so we wouldn’t have to go home so late. We don’t have school tomorrow, so it was ok.

A full Friday

I woke up this morning feeling great and that’s how I went through the whole day. I really had something going on today because I was just knocking things out of the way and once by one. It was a great feeling and it was just a great day. I didn’t even eat anything till lunch time and I still had a lot of energy to take me through the day. That was such an awesome feeling. I came into work today with a lot of praise. I had solved the memory stick problem and all the English teachers were happy and grateful for that. So I was stoked from the beginning. I think that everyone was impressed with it since the top computer people at the school couldn’t figure it out. I had six classes today.

First period with 7^th grade fuji was about animals. We worked on the paper from last week for a little bit and then we introduced a new paper that dealt with filling in missing letters of the animals that we knew from last week. They had to match the picture with the name too. When we finished that we played a game of snaps with the cutouts of the animal pictures.

Second period with 11^th grade kiku, was on their travel abroad test. They did surprisingly well with the exceptions of a few words. They couldn’t say clothes and want correctly, so they needed to work on that. Everything else was great. They memorized everything even though they did stumble a little bit, they were pretty good. They did a better job on this test than on any other test they have done in my class. I think that they are getting better at speeches, which is a good thing to say the least. We finished early and played a game of hangman with a word that they needed to practice. I think that they liked the game until they realized it was a way to teach them a vocabulary word, but that was as time ran out.

Third period was with 7^th grade ran and we did pretty much the same thing as the first period class today. We worked on the animal paper that they had last week, which they hadn’t finished yet either. They were supposed to, but they didn’t. So we worked on it for a little while till they finished it. Then we worked on the new worksheet and then we played the snap game. It went well in this class.

Fourth period with 9^th grade ran was about food and ordering. They of course didn’t really care too much about the topic or anything else. We made up a dialogue and they had to perform it in front of the class. They had a little example and then they had to go at it. It resembled one that they would experience in America. I think that it was ok and some of the students cared and understood, but overall it wasn’t a very pleasing experience.

Fifth period with 10^th grade yuri went extremely well. I think that after only having 7 minutes to prepare for the class and getting the lesson straightened out right before the class started wasn’t really a good way to get things going, but I guess it would be better to learn before class and in class, which has happened before. The lesson again changed from last week to this week. They are really capable of a lot more than I thought that they would be able to. They had harder questions and had to go through more information. They also had to provide reasons why things were a certain way in this class compared to the other day. The topic again was on the environment. We reviewed vocabulary and then we introduced some new ideas and if they were good or bad. Then we played the puzzle game matching pictures with verbs and seeing which goes with what. Then we did a little survey that got the students up and talking with each other. Many used Japanese, which wasn’t really recommended, but then most used English to ask each other. I thought it went well, but the Japanese English teacher thought it was better than usual. So I’m happy to hear that. I was surprised at how well the students could form their ideas about good and bad and their reasoning was interesting to hear too.

Sixth period with 9^th grade kiku was on the topic of food and ordering. We did much of the same thing in the 4^th period class today. We went over a sample dialogue, but she went a little long on the explaining the dialogue and poking fun of waitresses in California. She did a good job of getting all the nuances and I’m not sure if the students were able to follow or not. I think that they were since they are a high level class, but they didn’t pay attention to much of anything till they had to go up to the board and actually do it. Their performances were particularly good even though the dialogue itself was a little drawn out and repetitive. It did take up a lot of time too. I think that the time could have been better spent on having the student speak more.

After school I was helping out a teacher work on a letter for a student who is applying for a school in England. I will help with the correspondence from our school to their school. I started to make a business letter to respond to the school. I was looking for a way to get the logo of the school onto the letter, but I couldn’t do that at school, so I was looking at it and only working on the few things that I could at school. I was also helping some students with the reading of their speeches for the speech contest. They are getting much better and sound very good giving it. It will be tough to judge them come this March, but I think that it will be good for them.

I came home and started working on Saturday’s lesson. I really want to make it a good one and I hope that I will be able to get something going for her. I want to help to inspire her to work harder and to believe that she can accomplish her goals. I over all had a very good day. I bought dinner on the way home and ate it at home, but I was really stuffed from eating too much. I stayed up very late, for my standards, working on the lesson for tomorrow. I wanted to get something good down so I could have a lot of material to go through since we will only have a few more classes left and I want to make them worthwhile.

Working at home

I got to sleep in today, which was nice. I watched something from Tony Robbins that made sense. I know where he gets some of the things that he gets. You could always tell who the teacher was and it was pretty obvious. I like the way that he presents things though although he does get a little annoying at times. His message is the same as everyone elses but it was good for me to see it today. It made sense to me and I took some notes. I think that I will try some things that I didn’t plan to do in Japan, but while I’m here, why not right?

I was working on the memory stick restoration and just doing some website hopping around for just information like I usually do. I need to get away from that because it takes away time from me watching the DVDs that I buy and playing some games, which I really want to do because I haven’t tried it on the new computer. I want to see how good the graphics and all that other good stuff is on this computer. It really sucked that I was doing work at home, but I think that it will score some big points at work, so I think that it was worth it.

I was talking with my friends that I usually don’t get a chance to talk to online today. It was pretty good since I was talking with people that I haven’t talked to in a long time. We talked for a bit today too and we covered some things. I think that it was good because I feel like we are all stronger friends because of it. I really felt good today, which is a feeling that I haven’t had in a long time. I think that they helped me regain some lost energy that I’ve been missing recently. I have some new restored hope and I have been encouraged to do some great things that I have been putting off. I’m still in a way putting it off, but only until this weekend. It will be Chinese New Year, and it will be one that is better for me than the last. I survived the toughest year, so I think that I’m looking forward to getting things done in the new year that I thought that I didn’t want to get started last year.

There are lots of things on the agenda and I think that I will be getting on that right away after the New Year passes. I believe that I will ask a girl out and I’ll see how things turn out from there. So stay tuned.

An easy day at work

I only have four classes, which makes it easy and not at the same time. I occasionally like to start the day with me teaching, but I think that it would be easier if I didn’t have to start teaching. I’m not sure if it really makes a difference if I do or not, but I think that if I do teach first, I have the energy to make it through the class.

The first class was with 11^th yuri and we had the oral exam today. They had to give their speeches on where they wanted to go on their vacation. We’ve been working on this project for the past few weeks. This is the largest class that I teach, and probably in the school with 39 students. We usually never finish on time and have to start before class actually begins and finish after their break time is over. But today, there was something different going on. They had to give their presentations in pairs, so I think that made it go much faster, but I also think that they did a good job of memorizing because we finished in about 30 minutes. There was an extra 20 minutes that I didn’t really know what to do. They were phenomenally good. Everyone received very high scores and probably the highest I’ve given. I probably should have actually given more than what I did. I think they really enjoyed the topic and all I have left is fun and games before the year ends and all they do is study to get into a good university.

The second class was with 8^th grade yuri. They too were working on their speeches, but for the speech contest in March. They worked on their introduction and conclusion and adding that to their speech, which most students already have memorized. This is an excellent class so it didn’t surprise me that most of them have it all memorized already. Most of them will go in the fourth section which is usually reserved for the advanced students with the most likely chance of winning the big prize. Most students don’t like to do this class because it involves them rewriting their entire speech after they have already memorized most of it and it changes a few things. I think that it should actually go earlier in the writing process or something.

The third class was with 10^th grade fuji and the topic was once again environment. We reviewed from last time and went over the vocabulary with everyone. After we did that, we did an activity in groups with cards where they had to decide if one thing was good or bad for the environment. Then we arranged the cards to separate categories if it was good or bad. Then we played a little puzzle arranging things that are bad or good and made a little picture out of it. And then we did more worksheets. It was a bit crazy since we were doing a lot of things at once and it just kept going and going with different things and many things to prepare. It looked unorganized mainly because it was unorganized. I think the students enjoyed it, but it was a bit too easy for them to do. That was the thing that I didn’t like about it because I think that it will also be very easy for the Friday class that I teach.

During 4^th and 5^th periods, since I have a break in classes, I was studying Japanese and talking to another teacher about some things that I was working on. I really should study Keigo, which is the formal Japanese. I did a little studying though since it was so hot in the office that I was about to fall asleep on my desk. I also found out that we couldn’t do anything with the memory stick because of the wrong format, but I knew that the other teacher was wrong and that there was something to be done. So I managed to get the memory stick back and I would work on it at home.

Sixth period rolled around and then I taught 9^th grade fuji. I’m surprised that I didn’t switch teaching classes with kiku because of the order; we did that before with 10^th grade. I’m glad that I have the opportunity to teach them though. They are a bit on the loud and annoying side but they have the ability and I can teach them. They are a bit chatty, that’s what makes it annoying. But if I were them, I would be chatty too. The topic really isn’t that interesting and the way that it is taught is boring too. If there was something I could do about it, I would, but the organization of how it is taught isn’t very clear cut and it doesn’t flow well. We did the topic on restaurant and food today and I had to introduce a few things and then we worked on ordering at a restaurant with a simple dialogue, I know that it’s not amusing them because they really aren’t into it. I’d like to do something about it…but what??

I stayed after school for a little bit and talked with some teachers, just because I didn’t have anything to do and was just talking to teachers because they are fun to talk to. I enjoy talking to them, which is very nice. I left and went to the grocery store to buy dinner for tonight and for tomorrow too.

I worked on the memory stick restoration and I was successful, so that was good. I had missed a few calls from a co-worker, I’m a bit bummed about that to be honest with you.

I got to sleep in today

I got an extra hour worth of sleep since I started work later.

The first class was with 8^th grade ran and they were really great today. We had a substitute teacher since the other teacher was absent. They were just working on their speeches for the speech contest in March. We introduced to them an introduction and a closing. They needed to choose one that they would want to use and then they wrote it down. I don’t personally feel that it was very constructive since they already had introductions and conclusions and they just had to rewrite their speeches. They speeches at this point were already typed out and ready to be printed and bound onto a book.

We did the same thing with 8th grade kiku, but they were louder than usual. They were into it, but just loud for some reason. They liked the fact that it was their speech, but they got a little out of control. They couldn’t understand what I was trying to teach them about the introduction and I lost it, so I had to get some help from the Japanese English teacher. It worked out, but they were a bit annoyed that they had to rewrite their whole speech over again.

Fourth period was with 7^th grade kiku. They started something new today, but on the same topic. They got another worksheet with blank spots for the name of the animal. They needed to fill in the blank letters and then they needed to match the vocabulary word with the picture. After they had finished that, we moved onto a little “Snap” game. CP would call something out and they would have to find the corresponding card and pick it up. It was fun, but a little too loud that we got complaints from another teacher.

The last class today was with 11^th grade fuji who had to give their speeches for their final exam. They did ok, but much better than last time and they have improved a lot. They aren’t very great speakers, but they did try and it worked for the most part. I was a bit strict on some people though. They did very well on the listening comprehension part because they didn’t do a good job preparing for the speech.

We had English club after school and we played crazy 8s with some vocabulary cards. There were only 2 students in club today. It was fun and I think that they enjoyed it very much. They won, like usual. They are very bright young ladies, so that’s good for them.

After that I learned that there was a problem with the speeches that I had made. The problem was that they were believed to be erased or inaccessible. It dated back to before winter vacation, so I would have to start over from scratch, if I couldn’t find a way to recover the information. From what I found out when I got home, it was a problem with the format of Mac vs. Microsoft. I’ll just have to find a compatible computer to fix it.

Another extended Monday

Today started off early because I had an extra two more classes in the morning. It was ok though, but I didn’t like lugging around my laptop and then having my feet all wet because of the hole in the heel of my shoes. So I decided that I will change my shoes tomorrow and start Chinese new year with new shoes.

Today started a bit rough for me because I had to prepare for my class in the language laboratory, which is on the 3^rd floor. I had to set up a projector with a screen and my laptop and have all this done before class. I wasn’t able to because there was another class in there having their morning assembly. I also had to lug the projector and all of it’s parts and pieces from the 1^st floor which wasn’t all that fun either.

The class itself went well though. I think that the questions that I had asked were a bit too difficult for them though. That was a bit painful for me to watch, but I think that it was challenging enough for them to enjoy it and to learn some things in the process. It was meant to be a fun class and I think that goal was achieved. We did English Jeopardy, which was a game based on the TV show. I made most of the questions tailored for the 11^th grade since it was things that we have covered sometime in the year, but the 12^th graders haven’t seen any of that material so it was a bit tough.

Third period with 9^th grade yuri was a bit annoying because of the students were being very annoying. I know that most of them don’t give a crap, but it’s really bad when they bring down other people in the poor attitudes that they have. We were working on US money again and since it was review, we wanted them to look at the money and to work on a worksheet. Most weren’t able to do it, but they had done it earlier so that was a bit surprising for me.

Fourth period was with 11^th grade ran. We just did the prep for speech since it would be next week. I explained a few things for them that would be on the test and I just let them go take care of it.

The last class of the day was with 7^th grade yuri. They needed dictionaries so I had to run back and forth from the Language Laboratory to get them and put them back after class. I had opened the case up during second period because CP needed them for the other class in the morning, but then they were put back, which made it a lot of trouble for me. They did very well on the assignment though. They were really creative with the animals that they found on their papers. It was pretty interesting to see them working on it like they were.

I stayed after for club, only to find out that there won’t be any more clubs on Monday because the girls are too busy for it. I left school instead and then got dinner at Yokohama station on the basement floor. I went to a new restaurant that I found next to the horrible Chinese food place I usually go to. They were next door to each other, but I never noticed it, so I tried it out. It wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, so it was disappointing.

a day at home

I took the time today to do some laundry. I was talking with my family today, which was something that I hadn’t done in a long time it seems. The snow stopped falling, but it was still all over the place and freaking cold too. I stayed home and indoors away from the cold most of the day. I went back and forth because I needed to do laundry today and I needed to pay bills and buy some groceries so I could make dinner tonight too. I was able to do all that and with reasonable time too. I was planning to make something for work tomorrow, but I decided not to do it.

First day of snow in Tokyo

Ok, today was really cold in the morning because it was snowing!!! I’m really excited about that, but the problem I had in the morning was thinking about if I could get to work or not. I had to walk really slowly so I didn’t fall down. The heels of my shoes have developed a hole that I was unaware of and all the snow was making my socks wet, which isn’t very good since it was cold and now my feet were wet too.

The first two classes I had dealt with the same topic. I taught the student what she wanted to learn, through English and for her to learn vocabulary and how things connect with each other. I wanted her to start thinking like a person from the west and to get out of the usual just listen and absorb kind of learning. I think that she really enjoys the class because, even though it’s about 2 and half hours, she still says it goes by fast. I’m actually really happy to hear that.

Snow outside of my house

Just a long ass day

I had a total of six classes today, which meant I had to get up very early like usual. This is a tough week for me because I’ve had to get up so early all the time and it’s been getting cold.

The first class was with 7^th grade Fuji and we worked on the animal naming game. They needed a lot of help with the dictionary more than the other classes. They worked on it, but it was a bit slower than the other classes. They were able to do it though and that is good. Most of the students were almost able to finish the paper, but they all needed to find an animal for N.

The second class was with 11^th grade kiku and we worked on the test paper for their final next week. I gave out the test papers for them to work on. They went by so fast last week, but were still behind that I decided to hold back on this. They did fairly well with just moving things back onto the new paper. I explained to them what would be on their test and what exactly I would be looking for on their oral exam. We worked on large numbers with millions and thousands.

The third class was with 7^th grade ran, and they did the animal game too, but they came up with entirely different animals than all the other classes that I’ve worked with. They were very creative which was very good. They had a lot of exotic animals that weren’t found by the other classes so far. They were pretty good though and it does express that they do have their own originality and they have their own spunk.

The fourth class was with 9^th grade ran, and they were horrible like usual. Most weren’t prepared and most didn’t even care about the assignment or what was going on. We introduced food and restaurants handing out the menus for the restaurants that they will go to in Santa Barbara. They really didn’t care so much and didn’t really even look at them. They were talking and in their own world. Most of them didn’t have their school trip book or any other of the materials that they needed for class. They needed to decide what they will eat when they go, but I don’t think that many of them even looked at the menus.

The fifth class was with 10^th grade yuri and we were working on the environment topic. The problem that I had in this class was that CP was telling me how to teach the class, while I was in the front of the room, teaching the class. It’s very disrespectful that she does it in front of all the students and that she changed the lesson from Wednesdays and todays. They had an extra paper to fill out more than the class on Wednesday and that was the difference. At first since I didn’t see the paper from before, I was a bit lost at what was going on. I thought at first that I had received the wrong copies for the class and was wondering what was going on. That’s a bit bad since I was already in class and needed to know what I was doing. It really is hard to teach a class without preparation and I was doing my best to wing it and being criticized at the same time. Which to be honest with you, really sucks.

The sixth class today was with 9^th grade kiku. We worked on food and restaurants and they got to look at the menu and the school trip USA book that we have prepared for them. We started with looking at the menus first. We saw two menus in this class, while all the other classes only saw one of them. They needed to decide what they would order, but many of them were just talking amongst themselves and not really writing anything down. I think that they could have been working more, but I think that to start with something and then go to the book gets them distracted and they are bored. They have to build up to the excitement and not go the opposite way. But I think that is a difference between our styles of teaching. It was ok and I think that they understood the point of the assignment.

All day at home

I spent all day at home today. I didn’t even think about going outside, although it probably would have been nice to. I actually spent most of the day cooking or being involved with the cooking process. I woke up and started working on breakfast. Either I was doing that or on the computer. I talked to a few of my friends today and downloaded the latest version of MSN Messenger 8.0 Beta… also known as messenger live beta. There are things that I like about it, but other things that I don’t. It’s not easy to navigate through because I don’t have a mouse anymore. I think that once I buy a mouse, it will be easier to use.

I made French toast and an omelet for breakfast this morning, which was actually consumed around lunch time, so it became brunch. I took the time in between to work on my computer and just read up on news. I’m thinking about opening an investment account at a brokerage, but I need to find the right one to get started with all the online trading. I need to put my money to good use since it’s not doing anything in the bank.

I made dinner tonight too, which all cost me less than $6, so it’s not only economical, but healthier too. But there was something iffy with the dinner. The rice didn’t taste so good, and I’m not sure what the reason for that was. I made it the way I always do so I’m not sure why it was so nasty, it really ruined the taste for everything else. The main dish was ruined because of the cold. By the time I started chewing down on it, it was almost frozen solid because I had left it out for like 10 minutes to wait for the rice to finish cooking. The vegetable dish was a little watery, which was weird since I didn’t use any water. It was ok though. I think the best thing out of dinner was the hot chocolate, but that got cold fast too. I think that I’ve got to figure out a way to keep things warm for at least 10 minutes.

I did get to watch some TV during dinner though, which is usual for Thursday nights. I’ll have to get things ready for tomorrow now and I’d like to get some shut eye early tonight so I have enough energy to get me through the day tomorrow.

Getting up late

I woke up really late today even though I had originally awakened at 5am. I fell asleep and obviously that isn’t a good thing. I ended up leaving my house about an hour after the last time that I was planning to leave. Fortunately I have an alternate route that I could take that cuts the time in half. That way I arrived to work on time just like usual. Actually I was still a bit late since I should have gotten to work earlier.

The first class was with 11^th grade yuri and I think that it went very well. They are a bit excited that they will get their speeches over with next week. They have been laboring on it for a little while now. They were just taking things easy. They don’t really need to worry since I do believe that they will do the best of all the classes. I think that it will be interesting to hear them speak though since it will be in pairs.

The second class today was with 8^th grade yuri. There are still a lot of students absent today and I think that the flu really hit them bad in this class. They had to review lesson 9 in the book. We spent a little too much time working on partner work with them standing up and presenting the part that we covered in the lecture. They seemed to go slower than the other classes, which was weird. I don’t know what happened with the time. We didn’t get to the communication goal part of the chapter, which meant they didn’t get to interview each other. They will be working on their speeches for the speech contest next week.

The third class of the day was with 10^th grade fuji and they had a new papers for their assignment on the environment. We reviewed the pictures from before and asked if they were good or bad and then we worked on a paper that detailed the vocabulary about that topic. It was fairly interesting, but I think it was way too hard for them. The questions and answers weren’t very clear so they had trouble connecting everything together. They needed to work in partners and then they needed to check the answers with the ones posted around the room. They weren’t very clear, but I think that some of the students were able to get it… maybe.

The last class of the day was with 9^th grade fuji. The topic will be on restaurants and food. I didn’t do a good job teaching this class and I know it. I think that it wasn’t very organized to begin with and things didn’t seem interesting to me and to the students. I think that the topic is good, but I just couldn’t find a way for it to work with them and for me. I could tell they were getting bored since we were just going over to the things inside the School Trip book and I didn’t really need to tell them much about the things in the book because they are already in Japanese. It was something that wasn’t easy for me to do because I was afraid of getting bored too. Then I let them look at the menu for California Pizza Kitchen and they needed to pick what food looked good to them for when they go to Santa Barbara. They will be going in only 43 days. It’s coming up faster than anyone could have guessed it would. The last topic of this class will be food and restaurant so we will have to get into different things involving that, but once we finish the entire book during class, it will get interesting because we will have other activities to do.

After school, I didn’t have much to do like usual. I typed up all of this entry at school, which is one of the reasons why I brought my laptop to school. I would like to play some tennis and get out some frustration. I will see how things go though.

It was weird because I was out on the courts earlier than the girls for the tennis club. I was standing out there for like 30 minutes before they were ready to play. By the time they were ready to play, it was dark. During those 30 minutes though, I joined the soft tennis club to hit the ball around with them. They were one person short so it was perfect for me to jump in. I think they are more disciplined than the hard tennis girls. I think that there is a lot of room for improvement in the way that they train too. I suppose that’s my job, but really it’s not. There were only 5 girls playing tennis too, so most of the team wasn’t even there. I think that there were other things going on today and most of the students left home early, which is weird.

I had dinner at Jonathon’s. I got the usual, which was pretty good. It was just the perfect amount too, not too much and not too little and it was healthy. I have been worrying about that recently and I need to take into account for all of the crap I usually eat.

A fairly average Tuesday

It was a bit difficult to get up today. I slept late last night so that made it harder for me to get up. I think that I’ve got to get to sleep earlier so I could just get up in the morning. It’s been tough recently because of the cold.

The four usual classes today were all fairly usual. The first class was with 8^th grade ran and they were loud like usual. I think that the Japanese English teacher isn’t very strict with the students and that’s why they take advantage of the situation and talk throughout the whole class. I heard that the first period class with 8^th grade is worse, and it’s with the same Japanese English teacher. I wonder what could be the thing that is common. They are high level and will probably do the best in the speech contest in March and they have won a lot of events during the year, which makes them upper-level. The lesson today was with chapter 9 in the Expressways book. It was covering hobbies. We did the second half of the chapter and then we had the students continue with interviews. It was tough just to get through it.

The second class of the day was with 8^th grade kiku. They have really become delightful to teach. I used to be a bit nervous since they had a bad reputation for mis-behaving and just being loud. But they really aren’t in my class. I’ve never had to raise my voice at them and they really participate. They also had the same lesson as the previous class covering chapter 9 and it was vastly different with attitude and behavior. Many of the students participated and they really enjoyed all the work too. I think that they are getting the hang of English. They didn’t like it at the beginning of the year and that was clear, but I can see them change a little today. They were really good and able to do things that the upper-level students could do. I know that their comprehension has gotten better since we test that every week.

The third class today was with 7^th grade kiku. We worked on a new topic and new papers today. They all got a sheet of paper with letters from A – Z and they had to name an animal that fit into the category. Who would have thought that there aren’t very common ones for U, N, X, Y, there are some, but they aren’t well known. I think the students got stuck on those. They got to use their dictionary to find them out, but it took up the majority of the class time going over it and introducing it. There was supposed to be another activity too, but we didn’t have enough time to get into it.

The last class of the day was with 11^th grade fuji. They are the first in the rotation so I introduced some things that they need to be prepared for, for next week’s test. They were a bit shocked that it came so fast, but there aren’t many classes left. I just went over the problems that I saw on their papers and explained some things like large numbers and some grammar points. They weren’t really attentive, but they got their papers back and they sort of worked on it a little. I’m not sure how well they will do, but it will be interesting.

After school, I hung around for the English club. Today all the club members showed up at one point or another. There was one 7^th grade student that I have hardly seen since I have been one of the co-advisors, but she was there today. I brought my souvenir from Odaiba for them to munch on and I’m happy that I was able to do that for them. They were preparing to make a presentation for tomorrow that will be presented to the seniors who will be graduating soon. They were going to make a video so they needed to make a script and practice reading it over and how they wanted to do it. The 7^th graders left at about 5:30pm, which is about 30 minutes after they were supposed to. The 11^th grade students didn’t end up leaving till around 7pm. That’s extremely late for me and something that I didn’t want to deal with, but I think that it was good for the students to be practicing English and going over their lines. So I stayed around for them to practice and to use the room.

I was talking with another teacher that I haven’t talked to in a long while, and then I left school. I grabbed dinner at MOS burger and had to eat and go since I didn’t have much time before I needed to go to sleep. I didn’t end up going to sleep till around Midnight, and that’s very late since I have to get up early tomorrow.

Extended Monday

I have five classes today because of an addition of two. I have to teach six senior students in a special class. It should be fun since I’m leading the class and I will be the only native teacher there. I feel like I have the ability to teach the way that I really want to. Hopefully my students will enjoy the class and it will motivate them to learn English more and study harder. I think over all that it will just be a relief from the other English classes that they have during their few weeks of hard core study time. I will teach them for two hours on the topic of Role-playing.

First period went by really quick. All I did was introduce myself and what we were going to do that day. Then I let them work on it.

Second Period was the same thing, but I did a little game of scrabble for the last 10 minutes. It really wasn’t enough time, but it was good.

Third period was with 9^th grade yuri. At first they were quiet, but then got loud. I guess that they didn’t like the topic that much, but I wouldn’t blame them too much for that.

Fourth period was with 11^th grade ran. I haven’t seen them for a long time, so I just let them work on the last part of the test and to turn in their papers to me. They have all finished really. I think that they are getting tired of it and I think that it would be better to shorten the time they take to work on the projects and to give their speeches or presentations earlier.

Fifth period was with 7^th grade yuri. We work on the assignment about winter. CP read the letter written by her neighbor and she introduced that to the class. They did well on the multiple choice, but were having a bit of trouble with the other paper. That seems to be the theme of problems with all the classes.

I finished up the Speech Contest speeches and all the re-editing of them during sixth period. English club was canceled today because no one showed up. So I decided to leave early today.

I ate dinner at the curry restaurant at Yokohama station. It was pretty good. I came home and did a lot of downloading. I like to get the acoustic versions of a lot of songs, so I did that today. That was it and now it’s a little past midnight and I have to get up early, so I’m going to go to sleep now. Good Night.

Eating and on the computer

I was doing more downloading today, but then I accomplished a few other things in the process. I wanted to get some things done from before, but I guess I was just unmotivated, but now I got into the groove and wanted to get off my lazy ass.

I got more kerosene for my gas heater, did laundry, cleaned up my apartment a lot and paid my cell phone bill. My cell phone bill turned out to be more expensive than I thought it would be. I did use it a lot, but I didn’t think that it would be that much. I mean it wasn’t over $100, but still, it was about a $30 increase than it was before I made the switch.

Cooking all day

I spent a good part of the day downloading and cooking. I watched American Beauty, the VCD I got in Taiwan today. The quality isn’t very good though, but I guess that’s just how it goes. I spent a lot of time making preparations for spaghetti. I was making a lot that’s why it took me a long time. I was making enough for the weekend since I didn’t have any other plans, I would just stay home and feed myself that way.

It was very gloomy outside and raining a lot. There was actually a lot of lightning and thunder in the evening time. I haven’t seen that in a long time in Japan. It’s been months since it has rained even. But it finally came today and rained pretty hard.

A full day

I have to teach 6 classes today and have a lot of work after school to do too.

The first class today was with 7^th grade fuji. There were nine people absent today. We did a winter story which was by CP’s friend Verena. The students listened to the story and had to fill out a worksheet. They were able to do it and do it well. They had two worksheets. They finished the first one which is multiple-choice was pretty easy for them and the second one was a little interview about neighbors. They didn’t finish the second one though. They needed to do that for homework.

The second class was with 11^th grade kiku. I gave out all the questions for them to work on and they had the rest of the period to work on their speeches. They understood pretty well and didn’t have any trouble filling everything out and on all of the other questions. Most were even finished before class was over.

The third class today was with 7^th grade ran and we worked on the same thing as this morning. They listened to the story about Verena and about winter. We went over a few things and then they got the worksheets. They finished the first and didn’t have much time to finish the second one. We were running a bit behind with more of an explanation. They also had trouble understanding what gingerbread was.

The fourth period class was with 9^th grade ran. We worked on a body parts paper and the illness paper. They struggled with both and couldn’t get many answers correct. They were still talking a lot today, but were really working on the worksheets. Giving them something to do and to work on is good. They do the work, but they like to talk too. We need more physical activities for them to do rather than the lecture approach.

In fifth period we covered the topic of environment again with 10^th grade yuri. We introduced pictures and if the thing in the picture was good or bad for the environment. Then they got a partner-work activity. Then we moved on with a quiz on the environment. They were very into the environmental issue and really liked what we were talking about. I have to be careful of how I present things and my choice of words. They sounded a little disappointed when they heard that they have a presentation, which they won’t.

The last class today was with 9th grade kiku. We worked on two worksheets today. That was the only thing that we did today. One of them was on body parts, which was easy for them. The harder one for the 9^th grade students is the one on illnesses. Most of them had trouble with wrist, chilly, dizzy, fuzzy, cough. We didn’t touch the school trip book at all, so they missed out on a few things necessary for the school trip to America.

I ended up being at work for 12 hours today. That’s quite a lot especially since I had a full day of classes. Hopefully this won’t become usual.

Not really a day off

Today is my normal day off, but I really didn’t do much today other than work. That was odd that I actually took some work home to do today. In the morning I slept the whole time, but in the evening I cooked for myself and worked on some stuff that needed to be finished this month. I will finish up tomorrow at work since I was working and watching TV. There was an interesting TV show that shows contraptions that did something and it was pretty cool. It reminds me of the thing outside of McDonalds in Children’s Hospital in San Diego.

Early Wednesday

I have to get up at 5am. I haven’t gotten in the habit of going to sleep early, so this will be a challenge. I do have one less class today though, so that’s good.

The good thing about today is that my schedule has been reduced from 5 classes to 4. So I have a lot of free time in the middle of the day. I don’t really like that actually. I preferred to have just one class off on Wednesday because now I have an extra two hours where I’m at school with nothing to do really.

The first class I had today was with 11^th grade yuri. We worked on finishing up their going abroad report with me giving them the last two questions to work on and filling out the test paper for their oral exam. We spent the majority of class working on that. They got to use the travel brochures for the last time.

The second class was with 8^th grade yuri. We worked on lesson 9 in the expressways book and talked about hobbies.

The third period class was with 10^th grade fuji. We started a new topic today on the Environment. I thought that it was a pretty good topic and something different than the usual ones.

The last class of the day for me was with 9^th grade Fuji. This was actually the first time that I go before CP and lead the class. I didn’t do such a great job at it since the topic itself wasn’t very good and I didn’t have much teaching to do since it was all review and most of the things we were reviewing were in Japanese. I think that it was a tad bit easy for them and they got bored really fast. I should have changed the approach a bit more and been more fun about it, but I didn’t. I wasted time and we didn’t have enough time to work in it the right way.

I stayed after school to work on a few things and learned that I have to redo all the forms for the speech contest that I thought I had finished before winter vacation, but apparently I didn’t. I decided to take it home though since I have a computer with an English version program and it would be easier for me to navigate through.

Back to school

I only have four classes today.

The first class was with 8^th grade ran and we did a lesson out of the book. It was lesson 9 about hobbies. But first we started by asking what everyone did for winter vacation.

The second class was with 8^th grade kiku and we pretty much did the same thing as the last class. They were getting yelled at a lot by the other teachers for being loud, but I didn’t really notice it. I’m wondering if I’m just too busy doing my own thing to realize whether they are paying attention or not. Or are the other teachers just getting on the student’s cases too much?

The third class was with 7^th grade kiku, and we did a little activity that CP made about her friend and her story about winter. It wasn’t extremely exciting since it is the 7^th grade. I’m not into too much junior high school teaching so I don’t enjoy it all too much. The students do well on multiple choices, but seem to stumble when it comes to composition. We want to push the students to work more on composition than to just remember things. That’s not a good way to learn language I think.

The last class today for me was with 11^th grade fuji. They were loud like usual and I even had to speak in a loud voice just to get their attention. We worked on the final piece of the speeches that they needed to work on. I gave them the last two questions and then let them finish writing everything on a test paper that I would check over to correct their English grammar. They got to use the brochures that I have from travel agencies. It was over before I knew it and I was a bit pleased by that.

After school we had English club. I stayed around for that to work with two 7^th grade students. We played a memory game in which the teachers did a horrible job and the 7^th graders were just awesome. It was a bit embarrassing actually.

I stuck around school later than that because I needed to help other teachers too. I was helping one teacher with an application for a student whose parents want her to study in England. And then I was working with another teacher on the plan for 9^th grade for the rest of the semester. Since they moved some classes around we had to change the schedule again to meet it. It was a good time and we laughed a lot.

Then before I left, I was showing the new U.S. currency to the English teachers. It was really interesting to see all the new counterfeit proof devices on the bills. It was pretty interesting and kept me from leaving.

I finally left school around 7:30pm which is really really late for me. I quickly got dinner and went home. It’s about 11:30pm now and I tried to do everything as fast as I could. Anyways, I need to get some rest now since I have to get up really early in the morning tomorrow. I’m debating if I should bring my laptop to school tomorrow or not?

Coming of age day

I woke up earlier today than usual. I woke up at 10am. That’s still early and I need to get my sleeping patterns back in order since school will start soon. I needed a haircut badly, so I decided that I would go to Bic Camera near Yokohama station. I was looking for a power transformer, but instead I bought a new hair clipper. I decided that since I would only be living here for about 8 more months. I will only need to use it about 8 more times and it wouldn’t be worth it to buy something so expensive. There were many girls there wearing kimonos because of the coming of age day ceremonies.

I cut my hair today and then worked on updating my journal again. I haven’t quite finished it, but I will still work on it tomorrow at work. I think that it would be a good idea to bring my computer to work, if it could do it. I was also setting up all the preferences for my Google desktop.

updating blogger and meeting CShma

I spent most of the day uploading the entries to my blog onto my blogger. I wanted to get a haircut, but my watt converter broke, so I need to get a new one. It’s a bit weird that it broke and doesn’t work at all. It wasn’t so cheap, but it wasn’t so expensive either.

I left my house around 5pm to go meet CShra at 7pm in Shinjuku. We went walking around outside and since her friend was going to arrive late, we decided to pick a place to eat first. We ended up at Takashimaya Times Square and went up to the restaurant floors. CShma wanted to eat tonkatsu and I really like tontatsu so I didn’t have a problem with that. We didn’t go to the very expensive one, but an average expensive one. It was pretty good and I ate a lot.

Afterwards, CShra made a comment about the bathrooms. There is a great view from the bathroom on the female side, but in the male side there is one right next to the urinals. It’s very interesting how everything is positioned actually.

Then we went to Starbucks next to the southern lights display. It was nice and fun. I really like meeting up with my old friends when I get a chance.

Then we left pretty early so, that was the day and night.

Shinjuku Southern Lights

a rest day

Well the original plan fell through today. We were supposed to have a Red Shoes New Year party to start off the New Year, but the President was sick with the flu so we didn’t do anything today. So I was a bit confused today because I thought that it had moved to yesterday, but I guess they are two separate events with the same members. It was weird how everything worked out that way. I got an email from the chief today to let me know that it was cancelled. So I slept in until around noon.

Then I had to take care of a bunch of errands. I needed to put everything back to normal since my family has left Japan. I needed to pay rent, which was a week late. But I think that it was ok because the tenant knew that I had been busy for the first week of January taking my family around Tokyo. I also returned all the blankets and futons that I had borrowed for my family.

I also needed pick up my dry clean because this would be the last day I could pick it up before work started up again. I needed to have a suit ready before school started again. So I took care of that today too. I really needed to take care of laundry today too. I was backed up for about a week and a half, and I was really running out of clothes to wear. So it was a good thing that I didn’t go out today because there were many things at home that needed to be taken care of.

I spent the rest of the day working on the computer to get some programs uploaded from the old computer to the new computer. That actually didn’t take too long. The thing that I got interested in today was Japanese dramas. I was looking for a lot of torrents for some dramas that I had heard good things about. So I was looking around all the dramas for 2005, which there are a lot and I found a few that sounded interesting to me. I think I will get Dragon Zakura because it was about a teacher who pushes low-level students to get into Tokyo University, which is something that I’m actually aiming to do myself. I like teaching shows, partly because I’m a teacher myself. I was digging around drama.wiki and I found that one of my students is listed in a drama that showed in 2005. I thought that was cool.

I was hungry for most of the day because I didn’t eat much. It’s about 1am now, and I’m still hungry. I did eat today though, but it was the food that my mother made for me before she left. I don’t think that it would be a good idea for me to eat at this hour since I should be getting to bed soon. I need to get my sleeping schedule set up right again before school starts.

a day with some red shoes members

I woke up late today around noonish. The plan for today also changed at this time too. I received a call today around this time and my friend was a bit too ill to meet with me, so I decided to join the other group that I would be going with.

For some reason, I left the house late. I was talking to my sister who had arrived to San Diego safely and one of my friends that is living in San Francisco. She will be going to San Diego for her vacation time in January. That held me up a little, but I think that it would just be an excuse for me being late.

I arrived about 30 minutes late, but that was actually a bit early. The person before me showed up 10 minutes late, and the person after me showed up an hour and three minutes late. One person never even showed up. So we’ve got to work on showing up on time.

So we were waiting around for a long time. Then we got a bit hungry and went around the Diamond area to look for a café. We stopped off at Italian Tomato Café, and got a light snack to eat and something to drink. We then went to the new Yodabashi Camera store because AP was looking for a new digital camera. He didn’t get one, but we were just looking around.

Then another member met up with us at Yodabashi camera. We then went to Hama bowl for a little bowling session. I got second place in the first game with a score of 122. I won the second game with a score of 126. I’m just happy that I improved. It was fun to go bowling, since the last time I went bowling was in August of 2004 in Hokkaido. That’s a long long time.

Then we went to dinner at a place that I’ve been to before. We went to the Lamb pub restaurant that I went to with EK before. It was pretty good and it wasn’t as expensive as it was when I went with EK and there were four people and we ordered more food. It was good though. Then we split up and went home.

At midnight, I called one of my co-workers because it was her birthday. I wanted to wish her a Happy Birthday and wanted to see how she was because she was sick all day. We talked for about an hour after that too, and then she needed to go to sleep since it was already 1am. It’s about 2:30am now, but I’m still on the computer working on some things and typing this up. I think that some spy ware found its way onto my computer.

Going to Narita

The plan for today was to take my family back to Narita Airport so they could catch their flight back to San Diego. We took the Narita line at 12:37pm. It was great since it was a straight shot to the airport on that train line. The train ride seemed a bit long for me. Even though I’m used to the 2 hour rides on the train, this one felt a little bit long. We got to the airport just went I expected to arrive, which was about 3pm.

They checked in their baggage and then we just hung around the airport for a little longer. They did more souvenirs shopping on the 4^th floor stores. I grabbed some money from the ATM and then exchanged it into USD so I could give my mom to help pay for my laptop that I just bought. I’m really happy that I could be able to do that for her and help with the payments even though I’m living here.

We grabbed a late lunch at Big Boy restaurant. I hadn’t noticed that it was at the airport all along, and it was good to go with family to eat there. They don’t have any more of these in the states, so it’s a real treat to see them in Japan. They have a different menu, of course, but I think that many of the things are the same. They only had a light menu because it’s at the airport.

They went to the boarding gate around 5pm and that would be the last time I would see my family for another 9 months or so. I hung around the airport reading some magazines in the store and then watching CNN on the TV before my friend came out of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Bank at around 6:30pm. We left the airport after she got everything ready.

We went to Narita and went to an Izakaya. It was JiJiman, which I’m not sure if it is famous or not. We got dragon balls, which id something like sho long po, but deep fried. Then we got milk nabe, which is the store specialty. I thought that sounded very interesting, but it just tasted like normal.

We left the place around 9pm and I took the train home. It took me about 3 hours to get home from there. There wasn’t a rapid train fast enough to get me home earlier. It was a long tiring experience. I got a few calls around this time too.

This was around midnight too and the people from the red shoes organization were asking me if I could meet them tomorrow. But unfortunately I won’t be able to since I planned to meet up with another teacher tomorrow. I had originally thought that the red shoes would meet on the 7^th, but I guess that it didn’t work out that way.

I got another call around 3am and talked till 5am. It was a pretty good conversation. One of my co-worker friends got really drunk and needed someone to talk to on the phone while they went home to keep awake in a taxi ride. It was a really good conversation and I’m glad that we had the chance to do it, even though it was really late at night.

Shinjuku, School and dinner

We all woke up late today. We all woke up around 10am and then got ready to leave to go to Shinjuku. It was one of the last places that they would visit in Tokyo so I wanted to show them Kabukicho and the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Building.

From there we had a late lunch at Mos Burger right next to the school. Then we went to school and said hi to the headmaster, the Vice Principal, some of the students and some of the teachers that were there.

After that, one of the teachers that I work with invited us to her house for dinner. She would prepare something for us. We really couldn’t refuse, so we went to the supermarket to get some stuff and then went over to her house.

She made spring rolls and pot stickers with rice and soup. There was also ice cream at the end of the meal too. We had dinner at the family room and then watched TV at the same time. There was an interesting quiz show on TV. Then she took us to the station and we went home soon after that. We stopped by the supermarket on the way home to get some more water for me since we went through the stack that I had before.

Tokyo Disney Sea

So today we embarked on the trip to Chiba where the Tokyo Disney Resort is located. It wasn’t as far as I thought it would be. We woke up in the morning, much earlier than we have been recently, which was good because we wanted to get a good start on the day. I think that the rest day was good because everyone had enough energy to get up on time to leave in the morning.

We jumped on the bus to get to Totsuka and then went to Tokyo via the Tokaido line. Then we transferred to the Keiyo line to Maihama station. I haven’t been on this train or train line before so it was a first for me. The platform is located very far from the other platforms, which I thought was weird and it took a good five minute walk, just to get there and we went a few levels underground too. The trip in total took about an hour and a half, which is still faster than what it takes me to get to school. That’s a sad fact indeed.

We arrived at the station and then had to take the Disney Resort line to get to the entrance of the park. That was the tricky part about it and the location of the Maihama station. It takes up an extra 200 yen to get there, which I never read about anywhere, so I wasn’t expecting it. The monorail ride there was pleasant though. The park wasn’t very full yet, so that was good.

We hit up the good rides first and then chilled in the afternoon. We got a fast pass for Journey to the Center of the Earth first and then went to Indiana Jones. The line was about a 40 minute wait and that went by very quickly since there are many things to see around there. The ride was a bit boring, but it was the first time I had gone to any amusement park with family in ages, so it was nice to be with them for the day. I think my mom really enjoyed it too since we are all grown up now and won’t have a chance to do that probably ever again. We got a picture of us on the ride too. It was a good picture of us since we were in the front row.

Soon after we got off the ride, we quickly ran to Storm Rider, which is something similar to Honey I shrunk the audience and Star Tours combined. That was fun the first time I rode on it, but after going on it before, it seemed a bit lame for me. I’m not sure if I was just getting tired of it or if it was just lame. I mean it was good and my family had a few good laughs from it, when the ride scared the shit out of some poor kid. Although that’s not a funny thing and it’s mean to laugh at, well, I’m an asshole so it’s ok.

After the ride, it was a good time for lunch since it was already around 12:30pm. We decided to get some Mexican food at a canteen place. It wasn’t the best Mexican food place that I’ve been to. It was relatively inexpensive since I bought three dishes for four people and it was about $30 for the meal. It was good enough to get us all full and able to continue with the Disney adventure. That was all that we needed it for anyways. We ordered Fajitas Trio, Soft Tacos, and a lunch boxed set, well a scaled down version. I like the soft tacos and would recommend that for anyone who decides to eat there.

From there, our fast pass was about to start so we started to go to Journey to the center of the Earth. It was neat little ride, but a tad bit boring. I guess they needed to have a more interesting ride and something like the Matterhorn in Disneyland in Anaheim, and this would be it. It has only one mild dip in the end of the ride. But everything else is pretty boring, much like the beginnings of Splash Mountain, but without all the songs and singing and dancing. That was the end of all the rides for the day.

We wanted to catch some shows, so we walked to mermaid lagoon and saw the under the sea production. That was pretty good for my family to see. We didn’t get as great of seats as I would have liked or planned, but since the show is suspended in the air, it didn’t really matter.

From there we went to the Arabian Coast to watch the Shabon show. I really enjoyed it last time I came, but this time, it did lose a bit of its flare. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did last time. It was still funny for me and since I understood more this time, it was also much better.

It was getting really cold about this time. We wanted to watch the main New Years show and stopped half way getting there to get some mini churros and smoked turkey leg. Both were just ok and nothing that I would get too excited about. Although when I saw it, I did get a bit giddy about eating churros again.

By this time, it was getting really really cold and we decided that we would just leave the park after doing some shopping. We couldn’t handle the coldness. I was under 4 layers of the thickest clothes that I had and I was still cold. So the wind chill was a major factor as well. It was getting darker and it was too much for my family to handle. We settled inside some souvenir shops for the heat and the gifts. Soon after that, we left for home.

We stopped at the supermarket to get some stuff to cook dinner tonight. It’s really nice to have my mom around and have food prepared for me at home. It tasted very good too and I had a lot to eat tonight. We were watching the American President DVD while eating dinner. I love that movie, I really do. We watched some TV shows after that, and then went to bed. They have been sleeping for a few hours now and I can’t get to sleep for some reason. It’s already 2am, and I’m just now getting tired. I don’t know why I can’t get to sleep till late in the night. It’s bad since we will have to get up early tomorrow for the last full day that my family will be in Japan. That is kind of sad for me to say actually.

I ran into a little bit of a dilemma tonight too. I was checking my MIXI account today and one of my former students had found me on the site. I’m not sure what their motive is and how I should respond or to even handle it. I’m just thinking about what I could do. Got any ideas?

The Volcano at Disney Sea

Rest day 2

Today was the second rest day that we took this week. My family has been tired recently and I’m not sure of the reason why. We have done a lot this week and I think that since the trip is winding down, that more rest and time off is good. Today was the first day of rain in the winter in the Yokohama area. Or at least up until I remember for the winter time in this area. That was one of the reasons why we didn’t go out today and the other reason was that everyone woke up after noon today. Getting a late start and not having sunlight and feasible weather to travel through make it tough to go out. We also didn’t have many more places to visit either since the only things left to see are Shinjuku, my school and Tokyo DisneySea.

So what did we do at home you ask? Well, we watched a few DVDs and spent time on the computer. I really can’t get away from the computer at all. I don’t know what I would do without one. We watched Meet the Parents today, which was good since it was funny comedy that everyone could enjoy. Then my sisters watched the Korean DVD that I have called Love Story… in Japanese and The Classic in the Taiwan version. I think my sisters liked it and so did my mom. I was in the computer working on some stuff and getting myself some anti-virus protection. It’s nice to have my mom here because she does cook often and I always have access to food without too much work, which is great. They used up all the water that I bought for emergency reasons though. So I’ll have to get more before they leave so they could help me carry it.

We finished the day watching some Japanese TV programs on Channel 4 that had the camera follow around some kids as they tried to complete some tasks that their parents ask them to do. It is a good show and quite interesting the capabilities that kids have. By this time it was already 11:30pm and we all planned to sleep early so we could get up early to go to Tokyo DisneySea, but we all still needed to shower and clean up too. So we did that and I typed up this entry. They already started to pack to get ready to leave. It was a bit weird that in a few days they will be leaving for America. I think that now that they came here, I will miss them being around. But it is a new year and a new opportunity to take on new challenges that lie in front of me.

Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the New Year. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time, but it has come later than I thought it would. It’s supposed to snow today, but it didn’t, which was a good thing. We had plans to go out today and finish up the Tokyo Tour, at least all of the good parts that I had planned. So my plan for today was to go to Akihabara, Ueno, and Asakusa. I know that these places are very very crowded because of the temples there and everyone going there to pray for a wonderful new year. I wanted to go to these places because I wanted to do just that. I wanted to pray for a wonderful new year. I never really considered myself a very religious person or even a superstitious person, but since I’ve been living in Japan, I’ve really gotten into it.

We took the bus to Totsuka station and then traveled to Akihabara. We really didn’t do much there because most of the stores there were actually closed and there weren’t many of the attractions there anyways. I wanted to show my family the interesting part of that area of Tokyo because it has a reputation of gathering all the interesting people that are very interested in anime, computers, and other electronics. It’s very interesting to see them all gather there and all the little quirks that are just there. I think that they liked it, but it got boring really quick. It’s a tradition for my family to make a trip to the temple on New Years’ day, which I didn’t do last year since I was in Japan and on my own. But this year, we started right after the Akihabara visit. We just looked around that area and then walked straight to the Ueno area, which wasn’t very far.

At first, I didn’t know exactly where the temple was located, but we just saw mobs of people and I instinctively thought to follow them. We ended up at a temple in the Yushimanakasaka area. I’m not sure what the name of the temple was, but it was fairly busy. We had to wait in a long line just to get in. The line stretched for about a few city blocks and even down a couple of streets and hills. But after the hour long wait, we made it in. The first thing that we needed to do was to pray and donate some money. Then we looked around and I wanted to buy some arrows for the New Year. I’m not sure what their significance was, but I liked the way that they looked and thought it would be cool to have. We ended up getting four of them since my sisters wanted to give them away as gifts too. My mom was looking for something to decorate the house with as a symbol of good luck, but we were unable to find one that suited her liking.

Then we went to the Ueno Park to take a stroll around and then proceeded to the Ameya street area. It was only the second time that I have been to that area of Ueno too. I have been to the street one other time, when I met up with YSki in the summer of last year. It was pretty interesting, but most of the stores were closed because of the holiday. It was good. I saw a stand where they were selling DVDs and I saw a few that I wanted, but the problem was that they were copies and I know that they weren’t real copies and they were selling them for about $10 USD a piece. I thought that it was a rip-off and if you were going to get an illegal copy, you shouldn’t have to pay that much for it. But I think most people in Japan think that’s a deal because DVDs here are four times more than that.

We jumped on the Ginza line and then went to Asakusa. I know that this area would be really really crowded and I was correct on that guess. It was packed and the streets were closed off to cars since there were so many people there. We went through the gate first and it was pretty easy after that. It just took a long time to get to the temple part. We walked under the red lantern and then through the little mall-ish section right before the temple. That it was more interesting that the last temple that we went to because there were things to take our attention away from the long wait. It was bad for me because it gave my family a lot of opportunities to buy souvenirs. Since I was paying for everything, they were buying up a storm. Well, not that much actually, but for some reason I didn’t mind paying for it. I was really happy that I was able to do it and I still have enough saved for the rest of the trip too. I think that they finished a majority of the shopping by now. It was the first time that I have been to Asakusa temple and actually gone in.

The time we spent in the temple was just a few minutes and it was just to donate and pray again. I should mention that when I pray in Japan, I pray in Japanese. Just like when I was in Taiwan and we went to temple, I prayed in Chinese. I’m not sure if that makes a difference or not, but I think it does. You’d figure that they would be able to answer your prayers no matter what language you use and no matter where you are, but I think that it would be more appropriate to use the language of the country that you’re in.

After that, the whole area around there was all setup with a bunch of booths. I let my sisters go wander around for a little bit, while I picked up an “omikuji” fortune. I didn’t get a bad one and I didn’t get a good one. I just got a regular fortune and kept it since I didn’t expect anything bad or good to happen this year. But the fortune seemed to tune into the things that I have been waiting for and I think that keeping it will bring me the much needed luck for some things in my life.

Since there was a Family Mart next to the entrance of the Ginza subway line, we went inside and bought the tickets for Tokyo Disney Sea for January 3^rd. We did accomplish a lot this week and I think that we are generally all very tired and exhausted from my up and going schedule. We already had a few days with not so many activities and even one whole day of rest too. We then started to come home, but we needed to get dinner someplace.

When we transferred lines at Ueno station, we decided that it would be a good area to get dinner. We wanted some thing that everyone could eat and the only place was something with American food. We went to Hard Rock Café. This would be the first time that I’ve actually had food at the place. I have been to the Hard Rock Café in La Jolla, but I haven’t had anything to eat there since I was only volunteering for their run/walk. We didn’t get so many things tonight since we learned our lesson from Wolfgang Puck the other day. We only got three dishes. It was Chimichanga, Pasta, and Chicken sandwich. We all shared it and it was perfect for all of us. For some reason though, it was much more expensive than it was at Wolfgang Puck and we had more food there and we couldn’t finish it either. I think that it was weird that Hard Rock charged tax and had a large service charge. That’s not usual to any place in Japan that I’ve been too. I think that jacked up the price a little bit.

Then we stopped off at a grocery store before we came home. I’m typing this at around 3am right now, so I think I will get some shut-eye and probably update my blogger soon. I’d like to get some pictures posted as soon as I can, so please sit tight if you want to see it.