Ho Hum, Photographing The Elusive Bent Fish

Today’s weather was back to blue skies and warm temperatures. One thing that’s funny about Japanese English is that people always say that sunny weather is “fine”. “The weather is fine today!”, or “It is fine outside…” It takes some getting used to.

I sit in the first year teacher’s section, but today they and all the first year students took a bus to Miki, which is a town north of Kakogawa and Futami. The students are going through an overnight orientation, but it’s really just a way for everyone to get to know each other. Today all the teachers that are usually surrounding me were gone, and so I got a chance to do some serious studying without distraction.

I had four classes today, so I was pretty busy during the latter half of the school day. Mr. Hayashi came over to visit and we talked for quite a while. I helped straighten out some English on a technical document that he was translating, and so he was very happy about that. We razzed the history teacher a little bit about chasing the women in the office around, and basically just relaxed for the afternoon. Some students came in and so we chatted with them for a while. Finally, Mr. Hayashi said that I ought to sneak out early, so I did just that.

On the way home I did some shopping, and took a picture of the “bent fish” that gives me nightmares when I see it in my food.

For dinner I made yakisoba with a side of sushi. I bought the ingredients for a frozen yogurt milkshake, since I discovered a blender in the very back of my kitchen cabinets. There’s also one of those sandwich toasters, but it’s designed for American sized bread, not the monstrous Japanese bread that is everywhere here. I think I might drop in on the local bakery next time and see if they can custom cut some bread to a “normal” sized slice.

Tonight I sent some e-mails, listened to music, and studied Japanese. I’m expecting to do the same thing for the next three nights. Nothing too exciting – I’ll leave that for the weekends.


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