My mission to Toys R Us in Akashi was a success. Here’s some pictures of some of the fun stuff they had there.

The last picture is of a tiny remote control car that you use your cellphone to control. They had a lot of cars to choose from – I thought it was kind of a cool idea.

Warning: The following content may contain material that is gross. If unusually large nasal activity is something you’d rather not read about, you should skip the next section.

Holy crap! It’s as if somebody left the snot generator in my nose on the highest setting and then left. I’m home from school hacking and spitting up a variety of phlegm colors, kind of a green tinted rainbow of nose grease. I’m writing this down because someday I’m going to look back at this entry and I want to remember the sheer amount of snot my nose is producing.

OK, I feel better venting about that. Today Mr. Hayashi and I graded exams during the day, while I sniffed and coughed in the corner. He felt bad and let me go home early, so I went over to the store to buy more vitamin C, some orange juice, and some noodles for dinner later on.

At home I went right to bed after dosing up on the C – I probably have 10 grams of the stuff running through my body. I woke up around four o’clock, made some kimchee ramen for dinner, and now I’m sipping some hot vitamin C drink and downloading the latest Survivor. I had a nice easy week this week, and I was hoping to go into Akashi and throw some darts. Now I’m thinking I’m going to have to stay in tonight and rest.

This weekend is looking to be very quiet. I originally was going hiking tomorrow, but if I’m sick I’ll have to skip it. Sunday I might join Miss Kageyama and two of her friends on a shopping trip in Sannomiya. It’s in the planning stages, so I’m not for sure on that yet.

Tonight I may get proactive and go out to Akashi and check out Toys R Us – I think the Japanese version might be very interesting. It seems like I was just sick, and as I recall, it ruined a perfectly good weekend. I might have to play through this one.

If I go to Toys R Us I’ll take lots of pictures and post them here – we’ll see how it goes!

Last night I broke one of my cardinal rules again – I went drinking with Melanie. My rule is not specific about Melanie, actually, more about Englishwomen in general. I had a short day at school, and I came home to do chores and study. Around six o’clock Melanie dropped by and said “Do you fancy a beer?”. I can’t think of any other way to answer that question.

We walked over to the yakitori where the master was working alone. The master was fighting a cold – he said that he picked it up overnight but he’s doing OK. He sounded terrible though. Melanie and I looked at her pictures from Sapporo and Nagano. She made a trip to see the snow monkeys that bathe in the hot springs, and the pictures turned out great. The monkeys had kind of a “I’ve seen it all” look on their faces as they soaked in the hot water surrounded by snow and tourists.

We were ordering beers – I had one before I left for the yakitori, and Melanie and I were matching each other drink for drink. We ended up pretty drunk. At about eight o’clock we called it quits and staggered home. Melanie went up to watch some DVDs she had rented, and I went inside to drink lots of water, take some aspirin and hit the hay.

At about three in the morning I woke up with a completely congested head. My nose was stuffed up, my ears were plugged – I was a mess. I finally went back to sleep after some Vitamin C and more aspirin, but when I got up in the morning I was still all stuffed up. I’m sure I didn’t catch it from the master – it was way to fast for that to happen. Bummer!

I’ve been running a day behind, so I’ve put in two entries to catch up. Today I rolled out of bed a little tired from my late night but still feeling OK. When I got to work Mr. Kimura asked me all about why I had disappeared early yesterday – I think he was wondering why I got the free ticket. I explained that Mr. Hayashi had given me the go-ahead, so I’ll let him take it up with Mr. Hayashi if there is a problem. I just act stupid… which is pretty easy for me to do.

Today the history teacher, Mr. Urakami, had invited me and Mr. Kawamura to his favorite ramen place. We drove over there and I was very happy to notice that Mr. Urakami didn’t smoke a single cigarette while we were driving. The last time he went through two cigarettes before we even got to the restaurant, and I got out of his car reeking of smoke.

The ramen place was actually pretty good. The price was reasonable, and the style of ramen is similar to the Hiroshima style of ramen – thin handmade noodles. Good stuff! On the way back Mr. Urakami and Mr. Kawamura both lit up in the car, and I was practically hanging my head out the window gasping for air. I think next time I get invited to lunch I’m going to have to decline for my lungs’ sake.

After lunch I studied Japanese for a couple of hours, just waiting for three o’clock when the school librarian picked me up and took me to her house. She had invited me to celebrate Hina Matsuri (The Doll Festival). In households with girls, dolls are set up in a special arrangement. The dolls at her house were beautiful. There were about twenty dolls, each with their own swords, bows, tea sets, and flowing gowns. This would be a perfect place to put a picture that I took, but somehow I got out of there without a single picture. Doh!

Japanese people don’t usually invite people to their house – the home is a private place, and socializing usually goes on in public places. That is why it was such a treat to be invited to celebrate with them. I met their family – she has a son that is eleven, and a daughter that is twenty. Her husband came back from work late, and he was a really nice guy. The boys were both shy, but the daughter was more brave. We talked in English and Japanese about all kinds of things. I met the family cat, who looked at me with a bemused expression when I tried to speak English with it.

Some friends of the family came by to introduce themselves and speak English with me, and then we ate some cake to celebrate the day. The librarian showed me how to do a small part of the Japanese tea ceremony, which is no small task. Talk about etiquette and protocol. People could go nuts trying to remember something like that. I practiced serving the tea, and then I practiced receiving the tea. The tea itself was really good – and the way you prepare it makes it frothy and delicious.

We also made homemade sushi rolls for dinner – the librarian had heard that I liked sushi rolls, so she offered to teach me how to do it. Her daughter also didn’t know how, so we learned together. The first one wasn’t too great, but after a while I got the hang of it. As it turned out we had way too much, so I took two big sushi logs home with me.

For dinner we had a sushi dish made without a roll – with salmon eggs sprinkled all over the top of egg, sushi rice, mushroom, and eel. There was some tofu on the side with some strange pickled topping on top – I didn’t care much for that. The centerpiece was a salted fish. First, she had wrapped a raw fish in basil leaves, and then covered the whole thing with salt. The entire fish was buried under a mountain of salt. Then she put a little soy sauce over the top and baked the salt pile. Afterwards, she put the slightly brown mountain of salt on the table, and everyone took turns trying to break the salt. It had cooked itself into a solid chunk, and it took a lot of effort to break in. Once we got in, the fish was inside all cooked, having absorbed some of the salt through the basil leaves. The flavor was great and the meat was tender – no fishy taste at all. She just peeled the meat off the bones and passed it around. The other traditional dish was a clam soup – clams in a clear broth with watercress that had been tied into little knots. What a spread!

With dinner we had some homemade plum liqueur and some beer – the kids drank orange soda. Finally we finished as much as we could, so we went out to the living room to chat and relax. We talked for about an hour, and it was fun. I didn’t want to be “The Guest That Wouldn’t Leave”, so I watched my hosts carefully for hints or body language that meant that I should go. The first time it came I missed it – she asked me if I was OK to stay a little longer, and I said sure, no problem, thinking that they wanted me to stay and I have nothing else going on – why not? The second time came twenty minutes later when she asked again, and then I apologized profusely and said that I have to get up early the next day and please excuse me for inconveniencing them, etc. The hints here are more subtle than what I’m used to, so you have to really be paying attention.

After dinner she gave me a ride home, and when I checked my e-mail I found out that Miss Kageyama had passed her exam! This is great news for her, because she was hired for her new job in Osaka contingent upon the successful passing of the STEP test 1st grade. She has passed that, so there is no higher level – she is the same level as Mr. Hayashi. In typical Japanese fashion Miss Kageyama insisted that it was a fluke and she’ll need to study even harder. I called her up and congratulated her – I could hear the relief and happiness in her voice.

Well, I’m off to bed, but it feels good to catch up on the journal. More soon!

Tuesday I spent at school working hard on wrapping up my grades and also killing time. Mr. Hayashi was on another one of his guilt sessions, and he said that I could go home anytime I wanted. They have a sneaky way of handling it – I fill out a time off request sheet, and then we put it in Mr. Hayashi’s desk drawer. Then I go off and enjoy. If anything happens to me while I’m out, Mr. Hayashi just says to the principal that he has the form, and then I’m covered financially as if I was on company business. If nothing happens, then Mr. Hayashi and I throw away the sheet the next day. Cool.

At 11 a.m. I was out the door, and by 11:30 I was at home with some delicious sushi that I had purchased at 50% off on the way home. I threw down my sleeping bag on my leather couch in the living room, opened the curtains so the sunshine was streaming in, and took a nice mid-afternoon nap.

I woke up an hour later with that pleasant kind of buzz that comes with having a full stomach and lying in a nice warm bed on Tuesday when everyone else is working. A little while later I talked to Miss Kageyama, and she was game for catching a movie. We decided to see Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King. I offered to scrounge up a meal at my place so we didn’t have to get ramen with backfat, and so I ran over to Carrefour to do some shopping. I came home with some goodies that I arranged on a couple of big plates, and when Miss Kageyama arrived we snacked and snacked, and then finally hit the road for the movie.

This was the second time that I’ve seen the movie, and as I expected I caught a little bit more detail this time around. There is so much going on that it was nice to sit back and look at the detail. The movie finished at midnight, and at 12:30 I was tucked into bed and gone.

A while back Mr. Komuri had invited me to a traditional Japanese lunch in Sasaiyama. He said it was about an hour drive away, so it’s not exactly convenient to get there – it’s more for special occasions. He invited me along, and so we traveled out there with Miss Yamamoto and Ms. Mizuta, the school nurse.

School is only a half day this week because of examinations, so we left the school around 12:30. It turns out that Mr. Komuri is a poor judge of distance – the trip took two hours, rather than one. Before we left I had asked Mr. Komuri if we would be back by 5 o’clock, and he assured me that we’d be back in plenty of time. Miss Kageyama and I had made plans the previous day to see a movie and have dinner, and the movie started at 6:30 – If we were back by five then I should be fine. After the long drive there, I wasn’t so sure if we’d make it, but since Miss Kageyama and I are doing these things in “stealth mode” I couldn’t really explain why I had to be back by five.

Anyway, everything was pretty much out of my power anyway, so I decided to relax and try to enjoy the experience. The restaurant was located in the cradle of a steep valley surrounded by terraced rice paddies. The weather was cloudy and wet, with kind of a light mist of rain falling down on us as we walked into a fairly nondescript wooden building. The inside was decorated beautifully, and we went in and sat down at the only western style table they had. Everything else was set up on traditional tatami mats and short tables. Mr. Komuri said that they women had requested the table because their legs get tired out, and I was very happy to hear that.

The food started to come out, and they explained what everything was – unfortunately it was all in Japanese. I took some pictures to refer to later, and then dug in. Everything was great – and I tried some strange things. We had a total of seven courses and dessert. The middle courses came with sake and we also had a beer with our food. Very good.

The big attraction at this restaurant is the soba noodles, made out of buckwheat. Four of the courses were buckwheat based, some sweet, some salty, all very good.

Mr. Komuri kept looking at his watch while we ate, but I tried not to think about it. He explained to everyone else that I was hoping to get back to my place by five, and everyone wanted to know why I needed to be back. Yikes! I explained that a girl was going to meet me at my apartment at five, and told them that it was an ALT that I met a while back, just to throw them off the track a little. I could tell that Mr. Komuri started to feel really bad then. Miss Yamamoto offered me the use of her phone, but it would have been a dead giveaway to call Miss Kageyama from her phone, so I declined saying that I didn’t know the number.

Finally the last course arrived, and we packed up and headed out around 4:30. Mr. Komuri drove us into town so that everyone could buy souvenirs from Sasaiyama – kind of a sweet paste that is made out of nuts and stuffed into cookies and pastries.

After the quick trip we drove by another restaurant that Mr. Komuri likes, and then we hit the road. On the way back he said that we’d be back to Akashi station around 6:30 – is that OK? I had visions of my phone ringing off the hook with Miss Kageyama wondering what the heck happened to me. It’s definitely not cool to be late in Japan, but I was kind of stuck, with no way to tell her what’s going on.

I made my exit at Akashi, took the limited express to Higashi Futami, and then ran from the station to my apartment in five minutes. When I got home there was a note on my door from Miss Kageyama – she was concerned about me and had dropped by to check on me. I gave her a call and explained, but she was still a little upset.

The lunch was great, and it was a good traditional Japanese food experience. Next time, I need to do a better job of planning my time.

Last night Miss Kageyama and I tried a variation on the old dinner and a movie thing that we’ve been doing for the last few months. This time she came over and brought a DVD and we cooked up dinner together.

The movie was “Meet The Parents”, which was good for some laughs, and dinner was shrimp tacos. I bought lots of shrimp at the store and peeled them this morning, so they were ready to go when she arrived. Miss Kageyama sliced up the tomatos and lettuce, and I cooked up tortillas and the shrimp. We combined the ingredients and then put on some hot sauce from my vast selection of deadly bottled heat. I went with the Crystal Extra Hot and the Habanero Yucateca, and she went with Tapatio and Guacamaya. With dinner we each had a Negra Modelo, my favorite Mexican beer that I found in the Carrefour store. After dinner we had Tim Tams for dessert – a cookie that I discovered while visiting Australia.

Afterwards we watched the movie on my computer, and it played the Japanese subtitles perfectly, so it was just fine.

Today it was raining when I woke up, so my big plan to go hiking got cancelled. The good news is that I don’t have to walk to work in the rain, so I’ve got to look at the bright side. I’m kicking around some ideas, but the safest bet (and cheapest) may be to do a load or two of laundry and study Japanese here at home. Besides, I’ve got some great leftovers that I’ll get to enjoy today.

Friday was graduation day at my school, and the third year students could finally leave their school uniform wearing days behind them. When I got to school in the morning the staff was putting the finishing touches on clean up, and cars were already starting to line up for the commencement ceremony.

First I went to my classroom and met Mie Satomi, one of my second year ESS members, and we decorated the room for the party later on. Mie wrote a big message for the students in English in the front of the class, and we hung up some balloons and streamers. Once we were finished I walked over to the gym and started taking pictures. The first year students aren’t invited, and the third year students were not there yet, but the second year students were happy to ham it up for the camera.

As a teacher I was required to sit with all the other teachers, and we observed the ceremony from the side of the gym. The ceremony was very formal, and each homeroom teacher introduced their class as a whole. They called off the name of each student, and the student would rise and say “Hai!” in a loud voice. One of the teachers almost lost it while she was reading names, and barely pulled it off.

There were many speeches, by the students, for the students, by the PTA, for the teachers, etc. I lost track, and since I couldn’t understand the speeches it was that much harded to know what was going on. Miss Yamamoto sat next to me and she told me when to stand up and when to sit down – it was very organized. I probably stood up and sat down 20-30 times during the hour and a half ceremony. Without her help I would have stood out even more than I already did.

After the ceremony was complete, each graduating homeroom stood up and made a quick tribute to their teacher. Some fired off handheld noisemakers, some had brought roses in and showered their teachers, others said something all together that I didn’t understand.

Most of the girl students were crying as they left, and the boys just looked happy to be leaving. The students left first, and everyone in the place gave them a big hand as they left. Overall it was a lot more formal and organized than what I’m used to in the States, but certainly not unexpected given what I know about Japanese culture now.

Just when I thought it was over, one of the parents stood up and made a speech to the teachers to thank then for everything, and then we did a lot more bowing and nodding. I’ve done a lot of bowing since my arrival in Japan, but I still don’t think I have the hang of it.

After the ceremony I went back to the staffroom and had a great bento lunch that they catered for us. The bento was excellent, filled with sashimi, shrimp tempura, vegetables, and some fresh fruit.

At one o’clock I went up to my classroom, and Mie and I sat around waiting for the third years to show up. A few minutes later everyone showed up, including Mrs. Tsutsumi, who helped us eat all the junkfood I had brought. We took lots of pictures, and I signed everyone’s yearbook. It was good to see the students again, and Harada-san even came by with her friend to join us.

I think the party was a success. The classic moment was when one of the girls picked up the wasabi peas that I had brought and asked in Japanese – “Who brought the old man food?”. Everyone laughed and pointed to me, and I was surprised that I understood it. The poor girl was really embarrassed. I pulled up one leg of my pants and showed them my long underwear, which got big laughs, too. Long johns are also considered “old man clothes”, so it’s always a laugh riot when I show people that I’m wearing them. The kids are probably going to go home and say “Mom, Bryan threw a big party and gave us drinks and food and showed us his underwear.”

The students presented Miss Tsutsumi and I with flowers to thank us for our efforts with ESS, and so I got to carry flowers home… nice!

After the party I cleaned up and then we got the go-ahead to go home early. On my way home I bumped into the master of the yakitori, and he gave me a ride home. I changed out of my monkey suit, and then went into Kobe to do some tortilla shopping and meet Antoine for dinner. The trip was a success, and it was fun to walk around Kobe a bit. We ate all you can eat Indian food and had a couple of Hoegaarden Whites at a bar that I know in that area. It was a pretty busy day, and now I”m gearing up for the weekend!

Today started out being a nice easy day, and turning into a jam-packed day full of madcap adventures. I only had two classes, and they both were review classes for the listening test next week. The students were upbeat about it, and it went very well. Everyone was paying attention, so I gave out a few answers outright in English – if anyone could understand me then they’d have some freebies.

In between classes I went shopping for my ESS party tomorrow, collected journal assignments from nervous kids, and even recorded two listening tests. Miss Yamamoto and I recorded the listening test for the first year students right before lunch, but it took longer than we expected. At one point her stomach growled loudly enough to show up on the tape and give me the giggles. We had to take a twenty minute break to compose ourselves and have lunch. After lunch Mr. Kawamura and I recorded the second year test. He was really nervous, but he did a good job. He has a great attitude about it, despite being kind of the low man on the totem pole for the second year English teachers. He’s a really nice guy, though, and I want to go drinking with him sometime. I can tell he’d be a wild man with a couple of cups of sake in him.

I was leafing through my Asia guidebook today while waiting for school to end, and I found a section that recommended avoiding eye contact in most Asian countries. They said that eye contact is often construed as a “blatant come-on”.

This explains so much… no wonder I’m fighting off all these girls. Maybe I’m sending the wrong cultural message. And what do the guys think? So confusing, but I’m going to stick to my gameplan and just be as nice as possible to everyone I meet.

I met Harada-san in the library today and we practiced pronunciation. She did a good job with the words, and she can pronounce her R’s and L’s perfectly. If she reads too fast she sometimes gets tripped up and switches them, but if she takes her time she nails it. This is a great sign – some of our English teachers can’t do the L’s and R’s.

Tomorrow is the graduation ceremony. I’ve heard that it’s very formal and very boring – it will be held entirely in Japanese, so unless my language skills make a huge jump overnight I’ll be reduced to making goofy faces at the students and trying to make them laugh. All their parents will be there, and it’s a big deal – they’ve been cleaning the school for the last month in preparation. I’ll bring my camera and try to get some pics.

Today I continued to gather late homework and journal assignments from my students, most of whom were as surprised as I was to find out the that term is ending. The students have to flag me down to hand in the assignment, and the different approaches that they take are amusing – some in Japanese, some in broken English, some get another teacher to translate. Still, I’m happy to get the assignments, because that is one less student that risks failing my class.

Miss Kageyama was eager to see “Seabiscuit” which opened here in Japan a couple of weeks ago. The only show available was the 9:30 p.m. show, so I went home after school and took a nap. Miss Kageyama doesn’t have any classes tomorrow so she went home and studied, and then we went met up at my place in the evening and went out to catch the movie.

A new food court opened up in the shopping center that has the cinemas, so we went there and walked through. The floor is painted to resemble water, and there are ships and harbors that serve as small restaurants. Each restaurant has a specialty ramen dish from a certain part of Japan. We picked one and sat down, and were served some large bowls of delicious ramen. Our dishes were served in the Shikoku style, an island to the south of us. There were flavorful chunks floating around in the soup, and we were wondering what it was. Miss Kageyama asked the waitress, and she said it was fat. Actually, she said it was “back fat”. I’m not sure whose back it came from, but I stopped drinking the broth right there. I finished up the noodles and the pork, though – it tasted great. Back fat, indeed.

Afterwards we went into the arcade to kill a little time, and we did Taiko drumming, which was more fun than I thought it would be. We also had some pictures taken and drank a coffee at Starbucks while waiting for the movie to start. We bumped into some other JETs that I know somewhat, so I talked a little with them. They had just finished karate practice and were out having a good time.

The movie itself was quite good, and I really enjoyed the story. As Miss Kageyama said afterwards, “I was moved”. It’s about 1 a.m. on a school night, so I ought to hit the sack! G’night!

Just when I thought the cold was gone, things have gotten back to zero degrees. Once again I was walking to work seeing ice on the cars and my breath in the air. It seems like the little glimpse of spring that we saw the last few days was only a sneak preview of things to come.

I spent today with the first year students doing three classes and preparing them for their listening test. I stood up in the front of the room and gave them about half the answers in English. Judging from their attitude and attention, they might have picked up one or two clues but I think they’ll be on their own when the time comes. I hope they do well – I don’t want anyone to fail my class.

Tonight I picked up some goodies at the store and had some fried noodles – they turned out pretty good. I spent almost an hour studying Japanese – learning new conjugations of verbs. The conjugations are pretty complex, and to use them in conversation I need to do them in my head almost instantly. I have a long way to go before I get there, so I’m trying to think up a good way to practice them. I may end up filling out flashcards – that seems to work best for me.

On Friday we are doing graduation, and I’m hoping to have a small party for the third year ESS students. The trick is letting them know about it – they aren’t at school, so it’s a little tough. Hopefully they’ll be able to attend.

I’m spending my free time at school planning a trip to South Korea. It’s in the early planning stages right now but I think I’ve got enough to go on to start seriously thinking about it. I’m up for some spicy food in the land of kimchee.

For the longest time I’ve been wondering about the schedule of classes. With graduation on Friday of this week I was trying to figure out what we do for almost a solid month afterwards. There is a big block of time there, but today Mr. Kimura showed me a schedule in English and I was able to see what’s going on. It looks like there is a strange mix of classes that don’t count, half days, and staff meetings. I’m not sure how much of these I’m responsible for, but I hope to find that out in the next few weeks.

On Friday Harada-san, my new ESS student, invited me to watch a dance routine put on by the dance class today. I walked over there and went inside, and there were a couple of other teachers there, also recruited to be an audience. The class was divided in thirds and the students did three routines. Miss Kotera was running it, and she was dancing along with the music as she watched her class bouncing around. She danced exactly like the scene in Boogie Nights where John C. Reilly danced in the booth to the terrible music they were making.

The girls danced up a storm – they did a great job. I had a good time watching, and Miss Kotera was really happy that I was there to lend some support. It was an unusual way to spend first period.

The rest of the day was pretty mellow – no classes except for last period. I went to lunch with the history teacher, who smokes like a chimney. We were gone for an hour, and when I got back my clothes reeked of smoke. Yuck.

This evening was pretty relaxing – listening to music, cooking a big dinner, and finishing up some laundry. Another wild night at home!

So I had a pretty good weekend, and it was as fairly relaxing as weekends get around here. I’m recharged and ready for next week.

Saturday morning I spent some time on the phone with my parents and brother, and we chatted for quite a while. Afterwards I wrapped up some laundry, and then geared up and walked out to the Tsuchiyama station – from there it was only two stops to get to Okubo, and there I saw Lord Of The Rings: Return of The King. The movie was great, and it was a very satisfying ending to a great series of movies.

Seeing the movie alone was not really my original plan, but due to circumstances well within my control, other options weren’t available. To make a long story short I promised to see the movie with three different people, some of whom would not be happy to find out that I had seen the movie with any of the other people. Some of the people know about the other people, some of the people don’t. Confused? Me, too. This is a taste of my social life in Japan. Ultimately, the best option was to go and see it alone, and see it again as many times as circumstances warrant.

Anyway, I came back with a load of groceries – there was a sale on sushi that was reaching the end of it’s shelf-life, so I stocked up and ate like a king when I got home.

Sunday morning I went in to school and was an interviewer for the STEP English proficiency test. I’ve done it once before and it’s a nice gig. It pays around $200 for a half day’s work. Easy money.

During lunch Mr. Hayashi’s daughter practiced English with me. She is fairly good at English, and she is a demanding girl – she had Mr. Hayashi whipped big time. She is going to make some poor Japanese guy very submissive someday. I talked with some recent graduates of Takasago Minami High School over lunch – they had classes with Andy, my predecessor, and so between giggles and blushes we talked about what they are doing nowadays. Afterwards we finished interviewing one of them asked for my cell phone number, and lucky I don’t have a cell phone, otherwise I would have been stuck. Whew!

As for the interviews themselves, they went really well, and for the most part the interviewees did great. I had four of my students come in and take the test, and they were very relieved when they walked in the door and found me inside. One of my students absolutely aced the test, and I wanted to get up and give her a high-five, but decorum prevented it. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Per tradition we jumped into Mr. Hayashi’s car and went for dinner at Graciani’s. The feature this time was rabbit, but I skipped it and went with veal. The veal was OK, but a little too delicate for my taste. I guess I just prefer hot and spicy BBQ beef.

One thing about Graciani’s is that they always fuss over which utensil you should use at each course, and it tends to fluster the people eating there. I guess it is an expensive restaurant, and people like to think that there is a proper way to do things. If I ran a restaurant I wouldn’t worry about what utensils people used – the most important thing is that they are having a good time. Strangely, in Japan people don’t usually look at value – if something is expensive, then it must be good. If people fuss over the utensils, then it must be important. Tonight they opened a German Riesling (very sweet) and fussed over that, but Mr. Hayashi has long ago learned that he should keep me from offering my opinion on it. If I told people at the table that the wine isn’t that great, it’s like exposing the man behind the curtain… very embarrassing. Anyway, I had beer, and it was delicious.

Most of the conversation was in Japanese, so I felt a little more left out than normal. I’m thinking that I might skip the next one. It is expensive (almost $50), but when Mr. Hayashi has just handed you the easiest $300 you’ve ever made it is tough to say no. Still, I would be just as happy with a $5 bowl of ramen and have $45 left to put towards more important things. I’ll have to think about it.

Anyway, a big storm came rolling in while we were riding the train home, so I had to walk home without an umbrella – luckily I was wearing my waterproof jacket. I didn’t wear my rainpants today – so my bottom half got wet again. Tomorrow I will be more prepared – even now the thunder is rolling and the wind is blowing pretty well. Tomorrow’s weather will hopefully be mild. The good news is that the temperature has gone up with the storm coming through.

Today I wrapped up a heavy week – all sixteen classes in one week. On top of all the classes, I was sick for most of the week, so it feels good to finish it up.

I had four classes today, including my adult class. The classes went well, and it is fun to watch the students skidding around the classroom trying to solve the puzzle in time. We had a couple of collisions today, and so for my last class I advised the students to “be careful out there”. I don’t think they understood.

Yesterday I mentioned that I have a second year student that is interested in joining ESS, and I was very happy because it seems like she is not after me, but rather she wants to improve her English. Turns out, she’s after me. I ate lunch in the cafeteria today, and she and a friend came to sit next to me. She asked me all kinds of questions, and her English was pretty good – which makes it harder for me to play stupid.

She said that she had gotten a haircut, and asked me if I had noticed. I said yes, which wasn’t the truth, but seemed like the right thing to say. Then she asked me if I liked long hair or short hair. Since she had short hair, I went with long hair. She nodded her head and said that she would start growing her hair long. Yikes!

Later, when correcting English journals, she made some interesting comments. I asked the students what they would do with a million yen. Buy soda? Buy Bryan a present? She wrote a long essay about helping the poor, taking care of her family, and then said that she had a present for me – herself. Yikes! Through all of this, her English is really good, and I can’t help but have an out-of-body experience where I observe that she is doing great. I guess it’s all about the right motivation.

I was definitely dragging by the end of the day today, and when Mr. Hayashi said that there was a staff meeting, I was pretty happy. I got the go-ahead to leave at four o’clock… one hour early. Miss Kageyama was leaving at about the same time, so she gave me a ride home. That was a good opportunity to give her her birthday presents. I got her “Where’s Waldo?” in Japanese, a magazine, a half bottle of champagne, some cheese from Carrefour, some crackers, and a CD. She was pretty happy with the gifts. She drove off with all her loot, and I decided that I’ve earned a dinner at the yakitori.

The yakitori was absolutely hopping – cars were overflowing into the street, and it was tough to find a place to sit. I ordered up some food and since the place was crowded everyone was checking me out. A couple of crazy drunk girls were there, and they promptly started hitting on me. A group of women in the corner were asking the master about me and giving me looks across the room. I ate quickly and got the check – I told the ladies that I was hiking tomorrow at 5 a.m., which was a good enough excuse to get me out of there. I’ve never seen the place crawling with people like that. Since it was so busy I didn’t get to ask the master about the recent murder in Futami.

Speaking of murders, there was another one last night in Kakogawa, a couple of miles from my apartment in Futami. This is the second murder in a week. I asked Mr. Hayashi today and he said that before the last two killings there hadn’t been a murder in three or four years. I don’t know why people are getting violent – but everyone is following all the details around here.

I’m off to bed – I’m not going hiking at five tomorrow morning. Rather, I’m relaxing tomorrow and then doing the test on Sunday.

On Friday of next week the third years will graduate from our high school, and with them go five of my eight English Speaking Society members. These last few months have been really slow in ESS, because most of the third years have been preparing to graduate. Today only my first year student showed up, and she told me that she can’t come next week because she is studying for year-end exams.

I’ve had interest from some other students, but it seems more like the physical attraction kind of interest, rather than the English learning interest. That made my day that much better when one of my favorite second year students came in to tell me that she wants to join ESS. This is one of the students that I helped with the speech contest – she is really mature, friendly, and not at all shy.

After graduation it looks like I will have four ESS members, and that’s before the new first years show up next term. I’m hoping I can hook a few of them and get them involved. Now if I could just come up with some activities to keep them happy other than cooking and throwing parties.

Today is Miss Kageyama’s birthday. She was working at her other school today, and so I didn’t get a chance to wish her a Happy B-day until I called her tonight. Mr. Hayashi took her out for some birthday cake after work, so she’s been getting the royal treatment today. She’s studying hard for the STEP test on Sunday. She’s going to be interviewing in Himeji, and she’s pretty nervous about it. I think she’ll do fine, though. She’s had lots of good experience speaking English with native speakers lately, and that should help a lot.

My cold is starting to wear off. I’m off to do some stretches and try to get some flexibility back in my body – I’ve been doing nothing but eating and resting for a week, so I want to start limbering up again. Tomorrow is Friday – the end of a long week at school. I’ll be glad to coast into the weekend.