I woke up this morning bright and early and was immediately relieved that I hadn’t spent half the night tossing and turning. I had a little trouble getting up, though. My knee (actually, the muscles just above it) looks a little like Stallone’s face at the end of Rocky, but after some stretches and more ice, it could support weight. The more I walked around the house, the better it felt.

Kuniko called me from her work, and I gave her a status report. She was a little worried after last night. I decided that I was going to go to work, so I got organized and headed out the door.

The first challange was the steps. I can’t believe how many steps I climb up and down in a day. I felt every one of them. When I was on flat ground, I had no problem, but up and down were a challenge.

I made it to school limping noticeably, but nobody made any comment at school. I explained to my classes that I was a bit sore from carrying mikoshi, and they seemed to understand. The classes went really well, and in between I did lots of stretches and downed aspirin that I brought along.

Finally, my last class came, and we had a guest speaker from an English college near Himeji. He talked about communication to our students, who tried hard not to fall asleep but were clearly bored with the lecture. I was bored too, since it was only in Japanese and on the dry side. The principal and vice-principal were sitting in on the lecture though, so I stayed awake.

After the lecture we had a cup of coffee with the guest speaker. Most of the conversation was in Japanese but I figured since the guy is an English professor I should make him work a little. We spoke in English for a while, and he did fairly well.

At five o’clock I headed across the street to Tsuji-san’s place to practice my Japanese conversation. We chatted for about an hour in both English and Japanese, and caught up with each other’s escapades. Even though I was sitting on the floor my knee was doing just fine, and I walked home with a much smaller limp.

Now I’m back home and my knee is feeling pretty good. I bought some disinfectant type medicine to put on the scratches and the swelling is way down. I’m thinking that by tomorrow it will be black and blue but I should be able to move it more comfortably.

I slept in a bit this morning and got up to make myself a gigantic frozen yogurt and pineapple drink. As I was congratulating myself on the flavor of the improvised morning cocktail, the yakitori master called me up and said, “let’s go”.

I jumped in the shower, and headed out towards the temple. People were starting to gather and things were just getting started. The first portable shrine (mikoshi) was already through the gate, and the master and his posse were helping carry it. As soon as they saw me they gave me an orange happi to wear, and I shouldered some of the burden.

Carrying a mikoshi is hard work. Each one weighs around 5 tons. My approach this year was to just support the weight across my back as best I could, and get the hell out of the way if it started to fall. I quickly learned the chants and knew when we would be lifting the mikoshi up on our outstretched arms, and when we would be putting it down. We actually covered a lot of ground when it was up that high, but eventually we’d lose control and then everyone would just kind of control the fall. Five tons comes down pretty hard and pretty fast.

Some of the other mikoshi teams had special moves where they would lift the mikoshi, and then drop it on purpose, only to lift it right back up as soon as it touched the ground. Our group didn’t want to drop it, because we didn’t want to pick it up again.

Inside the mikoshi there is a big taiko drum with a little kid banging away at it. Around the little kid are four other kids who watch and chant. They also trade off on the drums. When the mikoshi goes flying, they have little ropes to hold on for dear life.

I get stared at a lot, but when I’m the only foreigner at an event like this, and I’m actually carrying a shrine, it’s really an eyeful. I’m not sure how they choose who carries the shrines, but the master had vouched for me and earned me a place (of honor?) carrying. Some of the looks I got were interesting – some people were pleasantly surprised, and some looked like maybe they didn’t think much of having a foreigner helping. I just lifted and did my best, and we made it all the way around the temple.

After the first lap they still had seven other mikoshi to bring in, so we relaxed for a while and watched the other guys sweat. Some of our gang took off their robes and helped other teams. As long as they weren’t wearing our colors while carrying some other mikoshi, everything was fine.

Like I said, as I walked around I got a lot of attention. I stuck close to the master’s part time worker, and we had some snacks and scouted the crowd. He explained some of the stranger foods to me, and later when Jane and Jennifer came by, I introduced them.

Jane and Jennifer only stayed for a little while, and they were the last foreigners I saw that day. Usually you see at least somebody walk through, but nope, just me. I found that people were kind of following me around. Later I noticed that people would walk up to me, and then look around, find somebody, and leave. I realized later that I was kind of a human landmark of sorts – they’d tell their friends and family to meet them near the foreigner. No kidding!

The master’s wife and baby made an appearance, so we spent lots of time catching up. She’s looking good and healthy, and his baby was all smiles. Some of the other yakitori friends came up and I found myself holding babies a lot. I held a one month old baby for a while, and that was amazing. She took one look at me and then cried and cried.

Just before lunch we took the mikoshi for another sweaty spin around the temple, and then they took out the golden mikoshi from inside the temple and did some ceremonial carrying of that one. People would rotate into the group carrying it, representatives from the other groups mainly. Lots of white-robed priests officiated that one, and I was definitely not getting near the holy gold shrine. It kind of reminded me of the Ark from the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

We took a break for a late lunch/early dinner, and I had a couple of beers. The master bought me some dinner, so I bought him some beers. We had a nice little arrangement going. Afterwards we went across the street to loiter on a street corner and wait for the last mikoshi carry – the one where we carry it outside the temple grounds.

Finally we decided that it was about time to go back in, and after some more yakisoba we joined the group carrying our mikoshi and took it to the front of the temple. One by one the mikoshi left, and to occupy our time as we waited in line we picked ours up and bounced it around. All through the day we had been accidentally dropping the mikoshi and everyone would scatter out of the way. It became second nature to be aware and move, because five tons would squish a human body pretty quick. Unfortunately, me and another guy were slightly injured.

We were on the front corner of the mikoshi, and as it dropped it teetered over on it’s side. I felt it coming down on me and kind of ducked out and away, but the guy next to me wasn’t as fast and kind of slowed my escape. The front edge of the mikoshi frame caught the top on my left knee, and the side of his leg. We both were knocked down and we both got right back up. I wasn’t bleeding, just a little scuffed up, and the other guy was fine. We kept right on throwing around the mikoshi, and about thirty minutes later we finished for the night.

I said my goodbyes to everyone and walked home. When I got home I relaxed on the couch and when I looked down at my knee I realized there was a big shiny lump forming there.

I broke out the frozen vegetables and iced it down, took four aspirin, and cleaned up the scratches. Then I sat back on my bed and rested my aching shoulders. What a day – the bruises on my back look like hieroglypics and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow. No matter what I’ll have a more colorful body tomorrow morning.

Kuniko and I slept in late on Saturday morning, and then we hit the road for Tsuchiyama station so that Kuniko could pick up her car. She came back with it after lunch and together we went to catch a movie in Okubo.

The movie was Collateral. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’ve really enjoyed other movies (and TV shows) directed by Michael Mann. This was stylish and well done, but some of the characters were just too hard to buy – I wasn’t impressed. There was a lot more shooting than I expected – less thriller and more killer.

One good thing I took out of there was a great soundtrack. Good stuff mixed in there, some original songs for the movie were really catchy.

We left the movie place and went over to Carrefour so I could do a little shopping for the Halloween party at my school later in the week. After that we made a trip to Kakogawa to meet up with a former ALT from Kuniko’s former school in Kakogawa.

Kuniko had said that he was a strange guy, but she wasn’t too specific. She said that occasionally his behavior was childish, but that was all I could get out of her. When we picked up Colin at the station he jumped in the car and we took off. After some quick introductions partially in English and partially in Japanese, he spoke to us in Japanese most of the time after that. He speaks Chinese and English as well, and he uses mainly Chinese and Japanese now for his job at a Japanese company in Hong Kong.

At first I had trouble catching what he was saying – his Japanese was rapidfire and hard to catch. Soon I got used to the rhythm of it, and I could understand what was going on. We spoke a little in English, but Colin confessed that his English was pretty rusty, so we stuck to Japanese the rest of the night.

We ate at a restaurant that I had seen a couple of times and always wanted to visit – “Bikkuri Donkey”. It’s a hamburger place, aimed at a younger crowd. In Japan, they serve hamburgers in a big size, call them Hamburg, and there is no bun. Just a fried patty with various things on top. Kuniko had one with cheese and onions on top, Colin had one with mushrooms, and I had one with a fried egg. They were great tasting, but the puddle of grease on the bottom of your plate is pretty alarming when you see it. Colin finished his entire plate in about a minute and a half, before we had even really gotten started. Then he just kind of fooled around with the stuff at the table while talking. Later Kuniko pointed to that as a good example of acting like a child – wolfing everything down instead of eating with us.

While we were eating I noticed two girls at the next table checking me out, and I did a double-take… one of them was one of my students. She waved to me from her table and then madly started to gab with her friend. This was the first time that I had been publicly spotted with Kuniko, and we were both sure that we would be the talk of my school on Monday.

Kuniko offered to drive Colin to his next destination, Murphy’s Irish Pub in Akashi. I went along for the ride and we had a long quiet ride to Akashi. Colin wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and preferred to kind of space out. To be fair, he was at the end of a long, busy trip, so it must have been nice for him to relax.

He invited us to join him at Murphy’s, but Kuniko and I made our regrets and said our goodbyes. Since we were in Akashi we went down to the waterfront near the Akashi bridge and walked along enjoying the lights on the bridge as they changed colors. The weather is starting to cool off, and we had to stay close to each other to keep warm. The last time we were out here it was our first date, almost a year ago.

Kuniko dropped me off at my place, and she went home to be with her family. Her father goes in for surgery on Tuesday, so she wants to spend some time with them before she goes back to Osaka on Sunday night. As for me, tomorrow is the Futami matsuri.

My last easy day today – the last day of exams. Mr. Hayashi stopped by and helped me with my Japanese, and mainly I studied through the morning. After the exams finished the students were running through the halls, very happy to be done. Some even came by to visit me. At lunchtime we gathered the usual suspects and had lunch at the coffee shop across the street.

When we got back everyone was making motions to leave, and kind of a mass exodus began with the teachers trying to be subtle as they snuck out for an early weekend. It was funny to watch, they’d stretch, quietly gather their bags, and pretend to walk outside to see a student or look out the window. And then they were gone.

I was looking to do the same thing, but a couple of my ESS students dropped by and wanted to work on the English bulletin board. I set them up but told them that I had to be going. They looked a little disappointed.

I returned home and did a quick clean up around the house, and just kind of relaxed until Kuniko showed up around five. We went out to dinner at one of the restaurants in Ito Yokado – there are a group of restaurants tucked away on the third floor, so it was cool to explore those a bit.

Finally we came back and got caught up on the last two weeks – it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. We’re hoping to catch a movie on Saturday, and then afterwards we’re going out to dinner with one of her friends from Hong Kong. Should be interesting!

That was a serious typhoon! It was consistently windy and rainy for a long time, and a lot of stuff was damaged around my neighborhood. It’s not exactly a war zone out there, but pretty messy by Japanese standards.

I’ve been on a new routine where I wake up an hour early to have some time to myself, instead of rushing out to catch the train. I hardly miss the sleep, and it’s nice to wander around my place with tons of time to spare. This morning I made a nice big egg sandwich for breakfast, had a cup of tea in the living room, and did some stretching to loosen up my muscles for the day. Uh oh, break out the granola and the meditation books!

The students were back at their exams, and I enjoyed a few hours of studying in the teacher’s office. We decided to go over to visit Mr. Harada in the hospital. He’s recovering little by little, and so Mr. Hayashi arranged a visit for us. Japanese tradition is to give somebody an envelope of money when you visit them in the hospital apparently, and I contributed what everyone else did, 2500 yen (around $25).

Mr. Harada was looking really good, actually. He’s off smoking and salty foods – two of his favorite things. Really simple decision about smoking – the doctors said that if he smokes again, he’ll die. The way it was translated to me made it sound like the first puff and his heart would explode. I’m not sure it would be that serious, but I’m no doctor.

Mr. Harada was really happy to see everyone and spent a little time talking to each person. He even talked to me a bit, half in Japanese and half in English. What a nice guy – we didn’t talk very much at school, but he always had a big smile on his face. He’s about my age, but looks about ten years older. Maybe the cessation of smoking will help.

Afterwards I came home, and on the way through Ito Yokado found a steak at a low low price, so I had that and fried up some potatoes that Kuniko’s mom had sent over a couple of weeks ago. It was delicious. She also sent some yams, but I have no idea what to do with those. I’m not a big yam fan.

When I had finished dinner Jane knocked on my door and invited me over to Ito Yokado for dinner. I went along and got a dessert and watched her eat some pepper rice and steak – it looked great. After dinner we bumped into two other new ALTs, and they had me do some translation with the clerk about delivering some merchandise. They are a quirky Canadian couple – they always seem to share a little too much information about their private lives. Tonight they complained that the boyfriend was so weak from a recent sickness that he can’t pick her up and take her to the bedroom anymore. Oh, thanks for the info.

To wrap up the evening I went along with Jane as she shopped for supplies, and even had a free sample or two of the food from the friendly vendors. Then we headed back and I’ve been cleaning up a little for Kuniko’s visit this weekend. It’s also the Futami matsuri on Sunday, so I’m looking forward to that. This week has flown by!

I went into work today with the rain pouring and the wind blowing. My new umbrella bent under the force of the wind, but I think I can repair it. Once I got to school I noticed that there were no students, which had a very good meaning for me, in a couple of different ways.

Since today’s exams were cancelled, the students will have their exams from today rescheduled to Friday. Friday’s classes will be cancelled. That means that I don’t have another class the rest of this week, and in all likelihood, I’ll be able to go home early on Friday. Woo-hoo!

I spent the day studying Japanese at my desk. Mr. Hayashi came by to help me by correcting some of my work. Afterwards we sat back and relaxed, waiting for noon when they’d send us home.

Around noon they did a final meeting to tell everyone that we were free, and off we went. Mr. Komuri gave me a ride home, and I was glad for that, since the weather was blowing really strongly by lunchtime. I went inside and I haven’t left since.

Throughout the afternoon the rain was falling consistently, and according to the website I check daily, we got about six inches of rain throughout the day. The wind blew it all over the place, so I’ll be washing windows this weekend. I stuffed a towel in my mailslot since the wind was blowing in so hard through there that it was creating a cold breeze in my house, even with all the other windows closed. It was a strong storm.

After the biggest part of it passed, Yasu came over to study some English. We sat and chatted for a while, and I helped identify some music that he had recorded, but he didn’t know the name of the band. I listened to the lyrics and then researched it on the internet. What would I do without it?

Simple dinner tonight, curry and rice. I need to whittle down my pantry a bit before my next trip to Ito Yokado.

The rain has really started to come down lately, and tomorrow a new typhoon is threatening Japan. This year has had an unseasonable amount of typhoons, and I’ve gotten two days off work from them. That’s pretty nice.

The bad news is I have to take an umbrella in to work every day. Today somebody swiped my umbrella from the rack in front of the school, which is apparently a common occurrence. This is the first time it happened to me. I’m trying to think of a diabolical scheme to keep it from happening again.

After classes finished today Mr. Komuri had invited me to join him in making homemade soba noodles. We gathered a group of teachers, did some shopping at the local grocery, and made them from scratch. The base is a buckwheat flour that Mr. Komuri buys in Nagano. It was fun to watch, and amazing that noodles actually came out of so much kneading and hard work.

Afterwards we ate the soba in the traditional style, served cold and dipped in a soba sauce that we spiked with various vegetables and wasabi. It was great – an awesome meal. The key is having all the materials to do it – you need a big board, rolling pin, special buckwheat flour, etc, etc. I’d like to do it at home, but I think I’ll just wait until Mr. Komuri wants to make it again.

I came back home using a spare umbrella that I had stashed away for such an occasion, and bought some ground beef at Ito Yokado. I had a big taco meal with a couple of beers – they’ve started carrying Anchor Steam beers next door. At almost $4 for a bottle of the beer, it’s pretty pricey.

I did a little bit of studying, and then watched “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” on my computer, downloaded via the web. I also cleared off my back porch in preparation for the big one tomorrow. We’ll see if it lives up to the hype.

Examinations have started today for my students, and they’re busy working hard during the first half of the day. I’m quite free during the day to study or relax, and I’ve been studying most of the time.

Today we had a free lunch brought in, and it was one of the better bento lunches that we’ve had. The food was a good mix of fish and meat, and the rice was sushi rice, rather than the traditional white rice you normally get.

Mr. Hayashi and I cut out of school early today and we went home. I spent the morning taking a nice nap, trying to shop for shoes at Ito Yokado (sorry, your feet are too big), and doing some housework.

Jane had invited me to dinner with some of her friends, and so I joined her and three other people for a big chili and rice dinner. It was awesome – great salad, the chili was excellent, and we had Haagen Dasz ice cream for dessert. Yum. Two of her friends were also new ALTs here in Japan, and one was the nice lady from the bookstore that speaks such great English.

I think the highlight was when one of the new ALT’s had used the expression “packing fudge”, and then had to explain herself to the poor Japanese lady. It was a classic moment.

I’m back home now and getting ready for school tomorrow. I received my correspondence course materials for my Japanese language course, so I’m reviewing that here at home and then studying at school.

Today I got all dressed up and trundled off to my school to make the easiest money I’ve ever made – working the STEP test. When I got there my contact lenses were bugging me just a bit. My vision was cloudy, even though I put brand new ones in this morning.

I took them out and rinsed them in clear tap water, and that cleared up my vision nicely. And then my eyes started burning. They didn’t stop burning for four hours. Oh, my, god.

The good news was that the most visible part of my job was taken care of before the burning eyes, which is the meet and greet thing I do. I stand in the hallway as people go up to the test room, and I make sure they don’t walk the wrong direction. Today I decided to pretend I didn’t speak Japanese and so I just spoke English with everyone. These are people that are testing for English proficiency, so it’s a good experience for them. Some spoke in Japanese anyway, and some were too nervous to even return my “Good morning!”.

Anyway, after everyone was settled I rinsed off the contacts and was in agony for four hours. Finally at lunchtime to pain abated somewhat, and I survived the rest of the day with just a little discomfort. Maybe something was in the water?

At the end of the day I collected 14,000 yen from Mr. Hayashi and went home. Easy money.

While I was at work I finished a book that my parents had sent for my birthday, Dove. It’s an autobiographical book about a boy that set off to sail around the world alone at sixteen years old. The book was great and even though it happened back in the late sixties, it was still a great read. A lot has changed in the world since his adventure. Anyway, I recommend the book. If I could figure out why books like Dove and this seem to call to me, maybe I can figure out what my next adventure will be.

Today I woke up with a diabolical hangover, an open schedule, and a pocket full of cash. I used the free schedule to work on the hangover, taking aspirin and sleeping throughout the morning. I won’t bore you with the details – hangovers suck.

I gathered the surprising amount of empty bottles and cans and took them to the recycling bin at Ito Yokado, and then tried to pick up some dry cleaning there. Unfortunately, it hadn’t arrived yet, so I was a little worried about whether it would make it in time for the STEP test on Sunday.

I did get a chance to talk to my grandparents and parents on the phone, and everybody sounded great.

Around four o’clock I went to Akashi and met up with Mr. Komuri to go to the Miki matsuri. Matsuri means festival in Japanese, and almost every town has one. I went to this one last year, and this time it was just as fun. We enjoyed the matsuri from a different location this time around, at the top of the hill where they pull up the mikoshi with rope to help the poor guys trying to carry them.

One thing I noticed was that I was understanding what was going on a lot better, and it made it that much more interesting to watch. I got lots of people that said hello to me, just to try out their English. Lots of girls flirting and giggling, lots of little boys just giggling.

We bought some fried chicken and some beer and watched all the action from the side of the temple, underneath a platform. At one point a lady was trying to get her daughter down from the platform, so I helped ferry the little girl down. Then the lady surprised me by asking me to do the same for herself. Mr. Komuri just laughed and laughed.

Mr. Komuri’s friend was supposed to be there this year, but there were so many people that we couldn’t find him, and since he’s from America he didn’t have a cellphone that worked in Japan.

On the way out of there I stopped to play a traditional game – you try to scoop little rubber balls out of the water using a plastic loop with paper stretched over it. Eventually the paper gets wet enough to rip, so you need to just get as many balls as you can before it does. I did well for a beginner, 54 balls. I got a cheesy prize (some super-rubber-balls), woo-hoo.

On the drive back Mr. Komuri and I decided that we were hungry. A couple of months ago he taught me an expression that is used in Japan. When somebody pays you a compliment, you tell them “I’ll buy you sushi”. Apparently you don’t really do that, it’s just an expression.

In the car he asked me, “Am I handsome?”

I was a little nervous when I told him “Of course”. But then he said, “I’ll buy you sushi!” And he did.

We went to the great little underground sushi place in Akashi. The place was full when we arrived but quickly a few spaces opened up. Mr. Komuri did the ordering – I had some great sushi there, and even some beef – grilled beef on sushi rice. Excellent.

Mr. Komuri was telling the sushi master about how so many girls at school and at the matsuri think I’m great looking. The sushi master was commenting that I must be very popular. The master asked me what I thought about all the Japanese girls’ reaction to me, and I told him that I’d have to buy them a lot of sushi. The line brought the house down, mainly because nobody expected me to know it, and certainly didn’t expect me to say it.

We got out of there and headed home, Mr. Komuri to his place and I took the train back to Futami. A quick stop at the dry cleaners and then I was home safe.

Today’s classes went really well, and I was busy studying Japanese in the afternoon, so the day went by quickly. One interesting thing that happened was that I got called into the principal’s office. There the principal and vice-principal gave me another secret mission. Once again, the board of education supervisor had called my school and asked for me specifically to help coordinate the mid-year conference in Hyogo. This means that I’ll be plenty busy, but I’m not sure what my responsibilities are yet.

Since I had to stay late the day before, I took off early today and went home to get ready for poker night.

We had four people for poker this time, and I had the master of the yakitori make a bunch of food so that I could take it home and serve it. The food turned out great. Antoine and Struan found their way to my place after walking through Ito Yokado, and Yasu came over from next door.

We played lots of games, starting out slow for Yasu’s benefit, since he hadn’t played in a long time. We soon made our way into other more exotic games like “Screw Your Neighbor” and “Roll Your Own”. We started with beer but moved quickly to the red wine. The selection was great – we had a Chilean Cab Sauv, an Italian Chianti, a California Pinot Noir, and an Australian Shiraz.

The last hand of the night had by far the biggest pot. I was in a lucky position by being guaranteed from the first card that I would split the pot, so I raised and raised. Antoine was putting down big money, too, for some reason – probably because it was the last game. In the end Yasu and I split the pot – it was a big haul and made for a great end to the game. I said good night to everybody at the train station and then I went home and went right to sleep – I was exhausted!

Today was much like any other, except that I had a lot more time to study. My classes flew by without a hitch, and I concentrated on studying in the afternoon. Mr. Hayashi had me bring in my books into one of our team teaching classes. He had the students studying for their exam next week, so we used the time to brush up on my Japanese.

I brought in one of my textbooks that I had bought, and asked Mr. Hayashi a few questions. They were multiple choice, and strangely, he said that on some of the problems, all of the choices were correct. He demonstrated by calling up a couple of students, who all picked two or three of the four possible answers. It was a real eye opener for me. I had been studying this book looking for some kind of rule or method to know when to use certain words, and in the end it there was no right answer – they were all right.

I got roped into attending the teacher seminar. The topic was how to get student’s Japanese language ability to improve. The seminar was a classic scene – one poor consultant up front trying to lead a discussion, and forty teachers falling asleep and not really paying any attention. Ironically, the speaker’s topic centered around the idea that unless you engage the student’s attention, you won’t be able to teach them better Japanese. Most of our teachers were engaged in snoring.

The speaker at one point had some English as part of his presentation, and I perked up for that. As far as I could tell, he was encouraging teachers to pay more attention to the students, and I swear he told us to touch the students. Mr. Hayashi was joking around afterwards about sexual harassment and I think the speaker might have lost his credibility at that point.

I went home around six o’clock, and stopped in at Ito Yokado for some supplies for dinner. I made up a rice bowl of Korean BBQ beef with some Korean veggies that they sell there, and a side of kimchee. I was sweating at the end of the meal which must be a sign of quality.

I chatted with Kuniko via my cellphone. She’s so much faster than I am so I imagine that it’s a bit frustrating for her to wait for my slow responses, but it’s cheap and easy, and great practice for my Japanese.

Now I’m getting ready to go out with Jane for a beer at the yakitori. She’s getting back from a late night class, and then we’ll head out. It’ll be nice to catch up with her.

This morning it was below 20 degrees for the first time this season, and it was that much harder to get out of bed. I can see a trend here – the difference in temperature between the inside of my bed and the outside is getting bigger and bigger. Almost time for the electric blanket. Several weeks ago I was wiping the sweat off my face during class.

Speaking of class, I did a couple of new lessons today on movies. Movies are one of my favorite things to talk about. I love them so much, and the difference between watching movies in America and Japan are many, so it makes for an interesting topic. In my class we watch a couple of scenes from the first Harry Potter movie, and also we do a bit of drawing.

I’m on this thing where I have students draw, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a popular activity among the English teachers. They may think it’s a waste of time, but when I walk around and point at things that would take an hour to describe, the students are eager to find the English word. It’s fun, and it gets everyone involved, even if they’re not so great at English. Today’s lessons were a success in that regard – we had some great pictures.

The latest on the music teacher with the heart surgery is that he is going to be OK. He’ll be in the hospital for a couple of months, and so we had a new teacher come in to take over his music classes. Mr. Hayashi is still stuck with taking over his homeroom class, and the big joke around the staffroom seems to be that Mr. Hayashi is finally going to have to earn his keep. He’s been busy running around and we’ve exchanged only a few words all day.

I met with some of the students from ESS and we worked a little bit on the English bulletin board. I came up with a word of the week “junk”, and we put up some comics. I had cut out an English comic to post, but the students want to redraw the comic in a bigger size. Pretty ambitious, but it’s their project so I’ll let them do what they want.

After school I went straight to Ito Yokado and had a quick dinner of donburi and a “twister” from KFC, which is just a couple of pieces of chicken wrapped in a tortilla with lettuce and some sauce. Then I was off to Azusa’s for an English lesson. She did much better this time around, and I gave her some limericks to work on her L’s and R’s. Even after the practice that we did for an hour I could notice some improvement. She said she’ll practice them every morning on the train – which should make for some interesting situations.

I came home and stopped by the yakitori to arrange for dinner on Friday for the poker game. The master quoted me a great price on some food – now I won’t have to spend my time cooking – I can play poker more. I also dropped by to visit with Jane, who is doing well. She’s been super busy and is wondering whether there is an end in sight. I told her that it’s bound to slow down soon, but she has two schools and all the staff from both of them to invite her out – she’ll be busy for a while. We’re going to have a late night beer at the yakitori tomorrow night and catch up a little more.

Well, off to bed. My schedule tomorrow should be really easy – I need to clean up the place tomorrow and get ready for cards.

Some days seem like normal days, and some days seem like everyone is staring at me. Today was one of those days where everywhere I looked, someone was looking back. It’s all a matter of how I perceive it, because I realize of course that nothing has changed. I have no major pimples on my face and my clothes seem to be free of dirt and chalk.

On the train one of the ladies that sits across from me every day smiled at me, but instead of looking away like she normally does she held the smile and kept watching me. It was a little uncomfortable, and for once I could feel what it’s like for the Japanese people that I smile at all the time.

At school I had four classes. Three were classes for the second year students. A week or so ago while I was planning the lesson I was having trouble coming up with an activity. I hit upon an idea while thumbing through the JET manual – it was talking about life insurance and I thought, “Let’s write our own wills in class!”

I’m a freaking genius! I wrote a quick will, mainly pulling words from TV shows that I watched when I was a kid, and when I was done, it looked great. I drew a little headstone with my name on it, and then put a big R.I.P. on it. It worked really well – the picture got the student’s attention right away, and then everybody was bequeathing their possessions to their loved and unloved ones.

I walked around and tried to get the students to leave me stuff, but they were pretty adamant about giving me nothing. So adamant, in fact, that I was afraid that they might have misunderstood and thought this was a legally binding document. I was tempted to collect the worksheet after class as a joke, but decided not to.

The best part was when we had the students read their wills at the end of the class. We’d pick a student, and they’d stand up and solemnly (because that’s the only way they know how to read English) say, “I, Akiko Matsuda, leave this document as my last will and testament. I leave my room to my mother. I leave my dog to my brother…”

After school the history teacher was sitting at the desk next to mine waiting to talk to me. He’s actually staking me out, now. Yikes. We talked about how much fun last Friday night was, and he was eager to discuss the merits of “Deep Space Nine” with me. Lucky I know a little Star Trek lingo to teach him. This is how you pronounce “port nacelle”…

Next week exams start, so we’re prohibiting students from entering the teacher’s office. The first few days are tough because the students don’t read the big sign at the door and walk in. The first person they meet is me. I know they are about to get screamed at, but there isn’t much I can do. Lately I’ve been trying to get their attention, and I saved a few students from an auditory ambush today. If they are students that misbehave in my class, I just let them go through. Karma, man.

I’m off to do a little studying and hit the sack. Tomorrow I’m going to be teaching Azusa again. This week is flying by – pretty soon it’ll be the weekend again!

Today after about thirty minutes and several signatures I am a cell phone carrying person once again. It’s going to end up costing me around $30/month to be carrying one around, but I hope the convenience is worth it. Japan’s social culture is married to portable phones, and now I’m part of that.

I’m pleased with the phone – I’ve been fooling around with it this afternoon and it’s pretty complicated. I has a camera and it does web and mail and you can even watch TV on the thing. Kuniko sent me a couple of messages and I sent some back, in English and Japanese. Actually, it’s easier to mail in Japanese, so I’ll probably stick to that. Maybe I can budget it as a study tool?

After getting the phone I walked Kuniko back to the train station so she could go visit her family. We said our goodbyes there in front of the station, and I walked back alone to my apartment. I cleaned up a bit after having company for the whole weekend, and now I can enjoy the rest of my day. Luckily today is a national holiday, so I can do whatever I want. I’m thinking about celebrating my birthday with a $50 bottle of wine that I bought in Australia, and cooking up a katsu donburi bowl.

Maybe I’ll curl around my phone to watch some TV…