Tuesday

After teaching I went to my Japanese lesson. Paul and I rode down together and we met up with Sunshine. Stephen and Simon came this week and it seems like they might become regulars. After the class we all went over to a ramen place and had dinner with Anthony. It was an interesting dinner because the topic of really awful internet videos came up and they were described in detail. Hurray for grossness…

Wednesday

It was Culture Day, a national holiday, so I had the day off! Sara came out to my town from Kashiwa and we hung out for most of the day. I showed her the little bit of interestingness that could be found on the main street; then we went to my apartment to have lunch. We watched a few episodes of Bobo-bo Bo-bobobo, went for a long walk around the parts of town I had not yet been too, taking pictures of nature and the fun we had,

Having maybe to much fun

360° picture of the river near my house

then came home and tried to go out to eat at the Den Yakiniku. It was entirely too cold to walk so we turned around and went back to the apartment to make dinner. We watched a few more episodes of Bo, this time trying to translate every word of Japanese we saw on the screen. We barely made it through one episode before she had to catch a train.

Thursday

The whole day belonged to the elementary school. When I arrived I noticed one of the teachers had changed desks to accommodate the arrival of a new teacher. I also noticed the new teacher had been given my old chair. I felt kind of sorry for her because my old chair was missing a wheel so it was really wobbly and scratched up the floor pretty well. I was also happy because now I had a chair that had all its wheels. Fourth period teacher wasn’t in today, so I had the class to myself. At first they didn’t listen to me, but I scolded them and they shaped up. I did all my scolding in Japanese and it worked! Yay! During lunch, there are a few songs that play over the intercom. I really want to know what the names of the songs are, but I can’t think of how to figure it out. One is in Latin, with a flute accompaniment; a different one has no vocals but sounds like Enya. The Enya song has guitar and violin throughout. We had choco-pan with lunch today. I love choco-pan! It is so tasty! I hoped the lunch lady would let me take some home with me…
My wish was granted and then some! Kouchou-sensei bought me some Yakult from a lady that comes to the teacher’s room and sells Yakult products, and then he gave me two choco-pan rolls! The Yakult is low calorie and I was told many times by both Kouchou-sensei and the lunch lady it is a one a day kind of drink, best taken on an empty stomach. I was already aware of these instructions, having purchased Yakult many times in both America and Japan; nevertheless, I thanked them for their impartation of knowledge.

There is a young man with special needs at the elementary school who always wants to talk to me. I feel really bad because I can almost never understand what he is saying. He doesn’t have a problem with speech but I just don’t have the vocab to comprehend him. He keeps trying to talk with me, so for that I’m grateful.
I realized at the end of school I had forgotten to bring the omiyage with me for the elementary school teachers. I reigned myself to race home after school and return with the omiyage the same day, but then I foud out all the teachers leave shortly after I do. I decided to wait for the next day and do it in the morning before I went to the middle school. The sun came out but it was still very cold in the office. I couldn’t wait to get home, get in my comfy clothes, in my bed, with a big bowl of rice and curry, and watch a few movies. I planned to finally watch “Technotise”, an animated foreign film from Serbia. I saw something about it and downloaded it but have yet to watch it. The next day I would be going to get my Alien Registration Card after lunch, and I would probably go to Omiya and try to get a bank account. After completing those two tasks, I will just have to get a cell phone and then I will have enough experience points to level up!

O, what a glorious day it will be when I level up. I will have all the things a foreigner shouldn’t have because they are impermanent. I will possess them because my status is different; I, am a teacher.


The days have gotten really cold really quickly. It is said the country went from summer to winter without an autumn. I believe it! I’m glad I packed my gloves, scarves, and big winter coat. I’m going to have to bring some more winter clothes back when I go home and return to Japan. I’ll also need to buy some shoes. I get disappointed quite often on my shopping excursions because this country doesn’t make clothes to fit my height. It is also really hard to find shoes that fit. Two or three times now, I’ve found shoes I like, but they don’t make them in my size. I also found a really nice motorcycle jacket that was too small, some interesting jeans that were too small, and a really cool shirt that was too small. I can’t even lose weight to fit in these things (not that I would), because it’s not muscle or fat that keeps me from fitting, it’s bone size.