Earlier this evening I wrote a nice wrap up of today, but somehow it got lost when I tried to post. Bummer. This is the second attempt – I hope it works!
Snow fell twice today at school, once in the morning and once just before lunchtime. The morning snow was lots of small flakes sprinkling everywhere, and the lunchtime snow was big gigantic flakes. The big ones fell slowly, and there was something beautiful about watching them come down on the school on an otherwise sunny day. I’ve never been much of a snow guy, but as long as it doesn’t end up in piles all over the place, it’s not bad.
The wind was blowing big time today after lunch, and at one point it blew right through one of the exhaust ports of the teacher’s room heaters. The result was a huge bang, causing the lid and protection screen to go flying in different directions. Mr. Hayashi joked that I didn’t have to go to Iraq to get bombed – it’s just as dangerous here in Japan.
I only had two classes today – the last two Valentine’s Day classes. Tomorrow I only have my adult class, so I will spend most of the day putting the finishing touches on my next two lessons. After school I’m going to Himeji to have dinner with Mr. Urikami.
For dinner tonight I went over to the yakitori. I haven’t been in a long time, and it was good to catch up with the master. We talked about all kinds of things, including next weekend – he’s going to be practicing softball. He invited me to come – I think he wants me to try out for the team, but I said that I’d see what happens (a polite way of saying no, thanks). I put myself on the mercy of the court and had the master order two items for me. It turned out that I ate beef heart (心), and then I had an interesting one – chicken wrapped in basil leaves with a sour plum sauce smothered on top. It was actually pretty good, and since the master had a 50% discount on beer I got out of there cheaply.
One thing he commented on was that my Japanese seemed to be improving. He asked if I had been studying more lately, and I told him that I had. After putting in quite a few hours, it felt good to find someone that noticed the difference. Mostly I speak English with people at school, so they wouldn’t really notice. Woo-hoo!
