Today at work they had to cut the power for about three hours in the morning.  I had come in at my regular time, that is, early.  I managed to get a lot of electronic studying done in the air conditioned well-lighted room, and so when they cut the power around nine o’clock I was already ahead of the game.

The room stayed cool for a surprising amount of time.  I took a seat near the window, and studied by sunlight.  I had a few visitors – the vice principal came by to ask me how many classes I had in a week.  I saw the paper he was filling out and it was a board of education evaluation.  Even though I’m scheduled for 15 classes a week officially, I skip three of those classes by teacher request, and I have ESS and three other periods marked off for meetings and for teaching English to other teachers like Miyake sensei and Mori sensei.   I made it sound like I’m slammed with classes, in the hopes that my successor catches an easier schedule next year when he/she arrives.  In reality I have the easiest schedule ever, and I’m taking advantage of it to hit the books hard.

Another visitor was Kobayashi-san, the cute office lady that I’ve rarely spoken to.  She tends to avoid me, and if I catch her looking at me and smile she turns away quickly and rushes off.  So, I was surprised to see her show up at my desk.

She had some mail for me, since the regular mail lady wasn’t in today.  It was just junk mail but I confirmed it was for me and said thanks in Japanese.  She smiled and left – a much calmer exit than she usually makes.  Later I was in the office and I talked to her a little more, admiring the lunch bento that she had brought.  It wasn’t half as cool as mine, but I didn’t mention that.  She actually seems pretty nice; I think she’s just a little gun-shy because of all the attention she gets from certain male teachers.  

In the afternoon I went over to Tsuji-san’s place and we talked.  I paid careful attention and found that most of our discussion was held in English.  I’d like to use more Japanese, but either I can’t say what I want in Japanese or things fall quickly back into English at the first sign of miscommunication.  I might have to think about getting a little more strict, maybe cutting the session in half and trying hard to speak only one language at a time.

You’d think that since Kuniko and I are living together I’d have a lot more chances to speak Japanese, but we’ve got a weird kind of communication scheme going.   I speak my mind freely in English, Kuniko generally speaks in Japanese for small daily things, and English when we’re talking more in depth.  If Kuniko is talking in Japanese, I tend to respond in kind, but not always.  It’s hard to explain, but it works well for us.  Anyway, I think we’ll get the chance to use more Japanese once Kuniko’s exam is over next week.  I want to make sure that she’s in an English frame of mind these days.

Tonight I’m heading into Akashi to meet up with Struan.  It’s been a long time, and we need to catch up and see what’s going on.  Struan is starting his third year of his JET contract, the same as me.  He was pretty hesitant on whether to re-contract, but in the end he decided to stick around.   I don’t know what we’ll be up to tonight, I’ll report more later.

Kuniko was feeling better last night, and she seemed OK this morning.  She cancelled plans to go meet her co-workers in Umeda tonight, but I’m not sure if she’s going to uncancel them or not.  I was happy to see her feeling better though.  

Summer is just flying by.  It has still been hot, but it’s just a tiny bit cooler these days.  The cicadas are getting more and more scarce, and soon enough they’ll be gone altogether.  Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I’m looking forward to the days where I don’t have to carry a sweatrag wherever I go.

At school I returned to my study schedule.  I’ve downloaded some old exams from the previous years proficiency tests, and it looks pretty grim.  Things for me are starting to slowly come together, but I doubt everything will be clear by the day of the test.  

The place was really quiet today, and even the vice principal was out the door at 12:30.  I lasted until one o’clock before I followed him out the door.

Kuniko had taken the day off to go into Kobe and visit a friend of hers for lunch, and she came back around five p.m. looking exhausted.  It turns out she got sick while in Sannomiya, and so she still wasn’t feeling very well.  She brought a bottle of Amino Supli, and so she drank that, I cooked up some udon noodles, and after dinner she seemed to be getting better.  We’ll see how a night of sleep helps.    

I’m glad that I decided to go into work today. Even though I skipped yesterday nobody seemed to have noticed. Today was payday, though, and I went in and stamped my pay slip. If I wasn’t around to do that, it would have been pretty conspicuous. Other teachers showed up for that and then disappeared. I stuck around until about 1:30, and then took off.

At lunch time the history noticed that I hadn’t brought a lunch to work, and so he invited me to go out for some lunch. I was hoping to be out of there and heading home for lunch, but he had caught me. I went with him to a chinese food place near Seiyu, and we talked and ate. He only smoked two cigarettes while we were eating, and so I feel like I got off easy.

Today I checked out the vocabulary that I’ve been working on, and I found some interesting statistics. I’ve memorized about 2800 words, but at any given time I retain only 80% of them. What 80% I retain is always shifting around, so words that I thought I knew last week may slip away and need review. There is a solid core of words that I use over and over, and those are the ones that I tend to use in conversations. It’s the more obscure words that I have trouble retaining. Words that are about obscure or intangible things like “moral education” and “prejudice” are tough to keep in my head.

If you could peek into my head you’d see me thinking in English, with Japanese words flying around like tomatoes in a food fight. I can string together nice messy Japanese sentences, tiptoeing around words or themes that I don’t know how to express. Flashcards help me keep things in my head, but at more 2500 words, it gets tough to find time to review them all in a timely manner. I’m using some pretty advanced flashcard software on my old iPAQ PocketPC to rotate through the words that are the toughest for me. So far is has been much more effective than traditional flashcards, but it’s still a challenge to keep all those words.

Now I’m home, and I’ve got some time to myself to clean, do laundry, repot a plant, wash dishes and other fun stuff like that. I’m playing the stereo loud and enjoying some brain relaxation time. Tonight we are going to put the deep fryer back into action and make fried chicken. I’m looking forward to some unhealthy food tonight – I weighed in this morning at 173 pounds. My goal is 167 pounds (76 kilos), so I’ll make it extra tough by eating lots of fried chicken tonight.

My fried food diet

Today was a pretty relaxing day at home. I ended up skipping work today, and I have a feeling that all the other teachers did the same thing. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Kuniko also had the day off, so we alternated between studying and doing fun things. We went to a nearby video place and opened up a new account, so now we can rent out videos and DVDs now and then for a lot cheaper than the movie theater.

Today we rented “A Few Good Men” and watched that. We had a simple lunch of chirashizushi that Kuniko’s mom had made. All in all a very mellow day.

Rather than go over again to Kuniko’s parents house, we decided to stick around here tonight. The last few nights they have cooked up big meals and I was feeling kind of bad – like we were imposing on them. Next Friday is Kuniko’s mom’s birthday, so we’ll probably take her out to a sushi restaurant and eat big next weekend.

We just wrapped up a leftover dinner – we had leftover pumpkin wrapped in pork (hard to imagine, but very good), soumen noodles (I added jalapenos to the dipping sauce for me), leftover guacamole and chips, and finally some camenbert cheese on ritz crackers. I’m still stuffed.

Tomorrow it’s back to work, kind of. I’m going in but I’ve heard that they may still be doing work in my office. I’ll go check it out, though. Kuniko has a regular day at work, so at least one of us is back on a schedule.

We’re back from the second night in front of the gravestone. Today we spent relaxing around the house, eating fresh guacamole, and studying here and there. Around five o’clock Kuniko’s sister dropped by after shopping in Osaka, and all three of us went to Kuniko’s parents’ house, and then on to the gravesite.

This time it was still light out, so it was easier to get there. I was a bit more familiar with the routine so I was able to hold my end up OK, and after paying our respects at the gravesite, we headed back to the aunt and uncle’s house to pay our respects at the altar.

After we took care of that, the uncle produced two big trays of sushi out of nowhere, and insisted that we sit and eat. It was apparent that nobody else had known about this, so it threw our dinner plans off track. He was quite insistent, too – making sure that we couldn’t escape.

We sat down, and he kept coming in with more food and drink for us, and once we got started eating he left to sit with his wife in the other room – they were eating dinner in there and watching TV.

It was an odd bit of hospitality, but the sushi was pretty good and the beer was cold, so we enjoyed it. We ate a lot, and finally got up to go. They came out to say goodbye and to pack up the food that we couldn’t eat so that we could take it with us.

From there we went back to Kuniko’s parents’ place and ate some of what our original dinner was supposed to be, and Kuniko and I took home some leftovers to help out. We watched a little baseball on TV, and then had some cake and hit the road.

Tomorrow is kind of a weird day for me – I’m supposed to go to work technically, but actually I think I’m not really expected there. Not only is it still kind of a holiday, but they are waxing the floors, so if I do go I won’t be able to sit anywhere and I’ll be unable to take advantage of the air conditioning. On Thursday Mr. Yamamoto said that I shouldn’t come in, but technically he’s not really in authority. So, I think I decided to stick around here and hope for the best. We’ll see how it works out.

Last evening we drove over to Kuniko’s parents’ house to meet up before the trip to the family gravesite. Kuniko and I were running a little late, but we stopped in at Ito Yokado to pick up some pears in a very fancy box to bring over for the family. We also brought over the remains of the rolled cake that Kuniko’s friend Kayo had brought over to us.

Once we arrived we marshalled our forces and took off. Kuniko drove with her sister in the passenger seat, and me and her mom in the backseat. A funny moment happened on the way – Kuniko was listening to a CD that I had made for her a long time ago, and her sister commented in Japanese that it was a really strange song being played. Kuniko pointed out to her that it was from me, and I teased her by saying it was my favorite song. She was a little embarrassed.

Once we got to the area we parked the car outside Kuniko’s aunt and uncle’s house, and then went inside. Kuniko’s dad was already there trying to fix their television that was affected by the big thunderstorm that came through.

Kuniko’s aunt and uncle seemed to be in a bit of a rush, and they didn’t seem to be surprised that we showed up or that there was a foreigner coming along. We went inside and they served us tea, and a cold beer for me. We sat in a room dominated by an altar, with lots of fruit and other goods lined in front as an offering. There were two large pictures of the grandfather and grandmother, and Kuniko and her sister performed the prayer rituals under the watchful eyes of the family and the portraits.

I would have been really nervous if it everyone knew the ceremony perfectly, but Kuniko and her sister had to get some help, and in turn Kuniko helped me do it. I lit some incense (two sticks, not one or three) rang a bell, and prayed for the dead folks. Everybody took a turn, and then we left to walk down the street towards the local temple.

It was a few blocks away. We turned away from the main road and then walked uphill through a quiet neighborhood until we came to the gate of an old temple. By now it was dark and pretty quiet – and as we walked around the temple you could see the fairly large graveyard, with candles and dim lights burning at various places. We stopped and got some water to wash the gravestone, and then went inside.

We walked around until we found the Kageyama gravestone, and then we repeated the incense ritual, lit some candles, and washed the gravestone in turn. It was very beautiful to see all the candles and gravestones on a dark, warm night like that.

Once we finished we all headed back, and jumped back into the car. From there we went back to the parents’ house, and we had a big feast of hamburg, sashimi, salad, and rice. For dessert we worked on the roll cake, and Kuniko’s dad even opened a bottle of brandy (Remy Martin!) that he had gotten as a gift. It was really good, and I sipped on it at room temperature. The flavors were great – good vanilla and toasty flavors that covered your tongue and lingered for a long time.

Finally we hit the road and came back here. Next to the yakitori, which is about a three minute walk away) they opened a new Lawson convenience store. Convenience stores in Japan are everywhere. They are open 24 hours, they are brightly lit, and you can get anything you need at any hour of the day. So now our lives will be much more convenient with the new store. We walked over there and looked around, and got some snacks and goodies for Sunday.

No big plans for Sunday really. We’ll go back to the gravesite in the evening, but during the day we’ll probably both be studying and relaxing. I promised Kuniko that I’d make some guacamole, so we’ll be sure to have bad breath at the gravestone.

It’s the middle of the weekend, and I’ve been so busy running around lately that I’ve not been able to post in the last few days. Thursday I had a short day at work. The highlight was going into the principal’s office and explaining to him that because Kuniko had passed the first stage of the Hyogo teacher’s test, I’ll have to be pulled off interview duty.

He took it really well. He called up the board of education and chatted with them, and we’re all set. Now there is no conflict of interest. I had to look up that phrase in Japanese to explain to the principal – it was a tough one.

That evening we went over to Kuniko’s parent’s house to visit. Her sister was in town, and we had dinner together and caught up with her. We watched TV, I listened very carefully to the conversations to follow what was going on, and we played with the cats quite a bit.

Friday we slept in. I had taken the day off and Kuniko was free, so we could sleep until almost nine. Kuniko made croquettes for lunch with the deep frying pan that we bought recently. They turned out great – she made some potato ones and some pumpkin ones. There was a lot of preparation time, and it was hard work, but in the end they were delicious.

Friday night we went into Kobe to meet up with Antoine and Miwako. Antoine just got back from his sister’s wedding in France, and he had a great time there. He had lots of good stories, and we ate a huge dinner of dim sum and shabu shabu at Asian Days. It was all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink, and we got out of there for about $25 each. Nice!

Afterwards we went to the European beer place and had a few to celebrate Friday night and then took some pictures in a nearby purikura booth. Miwako is starting to get more and more comfortable with us – and the more relaxed she is the more fun we have.

Today we had a college friend of Kuniko’s come over for lunch. We had a salad and an udon noodle dish served cold with cabbage and spicy pork. This was my first time meeting Kayo – she seemed just a little shy, but really nice, and even though I struggled with the Japanese I think we did OK.

A huge thunderstorm just blew through here, with the thunder sounding like it was happening directly over our heads. The rain came down hard, and we stayed inside watching the fireworks.

Later on tonight we’re heading to the Kageyama family grave to pay our respects as part of Obon. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’ll go with an open mind and see what it’s like. The thunderstorms have moved on, leaving it hot, wet and sticky.

Kuniko has the rest of this week off from work – I guess they have some kind of construction going on at her school, so they can’t have teachers sitting around doing nothing. Yesterday Kuniko got to sleep in, but today she got up with me, drove me to school, and then came home and slept in. Nice!

I got considerably less studying done than normal because I had some teachers coming to visit and chat with me. First I spent an hour with Ms. Tsutsumi reliving her adventures in Australia. She said that it was a lot of fun, and she had many chances to speak English. I think that people studying English here in Japan can sometimes lose touch with the fact that there is a reason to study English. It’s good to study it, but it’s even better to use it.

Ms. Tsutsumi really enjoyed visiting some of the houses in the country, and she had a chance to try some of the local wines, which she said were delicious. I’m jealous!

She showed me some pictures of downtown Perth, and the city had many large parks along the waterfront, with lots of green mixed in among the buildings. I thought it was a refreshing change from the concrete of Japan, but she said that it was a waste. I asked her to explain a little more, and she said that the people living there didn’t use the parks, so that space was wasted as a green area. She agreed that it was beautiful, but she felt that it would be nicer if it was being used. Interesting.

My other visitor was Mori sensei, who is getting ready to travel to America to discuss education with schools and administrators along the east coast coming up in a few weeks. She’s nervous because of the amount of translation she will be doing, and I’ll be honest here and say that I don’t think she’s the right person for the job. While she does have the conviction to get it done – she’s not shy – she doesn’t have the skill. It’ll be tough for her, but I think the people in America will adjust accordingly and everything will be OK. We spent almost an hour talking about her plans and discussing possible questions that could come up during her time there.

Say what you like about equality and women’s liberation and gender roles – it is really nice to come home to a delicious lunch ready to go. Kuniko had made a vegetable salad with tofu, and we cooked up the leftover takoyaki from last night, and together they made a really good lunch.

At around three o’clock Kuniko logged onto the Hyogo Board of Education website to check on the results from her teacher’s exam that she took a couple of weeks ago. She had an interview in Japanese the first week, and then the next week she took a comprehensive written exam. She checked the results, and it turned out that she passed the first stage! This is a big deal – for the last six years she has taken the exam and hasn’t been able to pass the first stage… it’s really tough.

Now things get really complicated. The final stage is an interview in English with a native speaker of English – and that will be on the 24th of this month. Because she passed the first stage, a whole chain of events is being set into motion. First, we had tentative plans to go to Brunei to attend the wedding of Kuniko’s friend Risa. Since she’ll be studying for the exam, we have to change those plans and miss the wedding. Next, I am scheduled to be one of the aforementioned native speakers of English interviewing prospective teachers. Obviously there is a conflict if I should end up interviewing my wife for the job.

Last year I participated in this, and it’s really an interesting process. Apparently it’s a new format this year. I’m going to talk to my principal tomorrow at school and get in touch with the board of education so that we can sort this out. In all likelihood I’ll be sitting this one out. That’s probably the safest bet for them.

However, I do have some inside information on how it works, at least with last year’s format. Also, I might know some of the board of education people that are hiring, and maybe if they know about Kuniko it might help her cause a little bit. I’m not sure – but I don’t think it can hurt. Anyway, I’ll be working with Kuniko right up until the exam telling her everything I know, and doing practice interviews.

Right now Kuniko is in Osaka drinking with her co-workers from her old school – now she has a lot to celebrate with them. She made up a dish of tofu lasagne for me to eat for dinner. She covered all my meals today, so I’m a very lucky guy. The tofu lasgne was really good – it was pan-fried tofu, tomato sauce, eggplant, tomatoes, and of course lots of cheese on top. Interesting, healthy recipe.

It’s getting startlingly close to Friday – the summer is flying by.

Today I got up to go to work, and I had to convince Kuniko to stay in bed and relax on her day off. I made up my own bento lunch, and then went off to work in the morning heat. I put in another solid study session in at school, avoiding the heat by cowering over my desk through the day.

When it was lunchtime I pulled out my bento, and some teachers that hadn’t seen me eating my own bento lunch got really excited. They asked who made it, and were shocked when I said that I did. I explained that Kuniko had been working all weekend, so the last thing I wanted her to do was get up in the morning to make me a lunch. Tanaka sensei (female) thought it was great, and she complained that her husband would never do that for her. Yamamoto sensei (male) said that was really nice but gave me a look that clearly conveyed that he thought I was a pussy.

Yamada sensei (female) came over and inspected my lunch closely, paying close attention to layout and distribution of the food groups, and finally gave it her grudging stamp of approval. I was surprised with all the attention, but I guess they’ll get used to it.

I left around two in the afternoon, and came home to find Kuniko studying hard. We decided to cook up the octopus that we had received from her parents last night. It was sitting in our freezer, and when we defrosted it we found that we had four little octopi ready to eat.

Once they warmed up we pulled them apart from their frozen embrace and boiled those suckers up. As Kuniko slowly dropped them in the boiling water tentacle first the arms would curl up in different directions. After boiling for a few minutes we took each one out, cooled them off, and then chopped off their arms and cut them into little pieces.

Once all the octopi pieces were in the fridge, we headed over to Carrefour to do some shopping. We got lots of little cheap stuff, and then came back to make dinner. We ended up having takoyaki, and also some octopus sashimi with a thick dark sauce and wasabi. Yum.

Tomorrow night Kuniko is going to a drinking party with her ex-coworkers from her previous school. I’m going to stay home tomorrow and drink some Guinness that we got on sale at Carrefour, and probably work on leftovers for dinner. Not a very wild Wednesday for me…

Today it was back to work, and I went in at the normal time to hit the books. I experimented with a new approach to studying. I reviewed vocabulary on the train ride in, and then reviewed new vocabulary that I had learned yesterday for about half an hour when I arrived. Next I did grammar review of new grammar points for about 45 minutes, and then I did 30 minutes of kanji and listening practice. Finally I spent 45 minutes learning new vocabulary, 15 minutes of data entry of new words that I need to learn, and then the last hour was spent reading “Holes” in Japanese. I took me an hour to read three pages.

After all of that I found that I had missed lunch, but since I was going home soon I didn’t worry about it. The group from Australia was back, and Tsutsumi sensei told me all about her trip. She hinted about some interesting stories to tell me later on. I can’t wait!

The principal of the school also went on that trip, and he called me in to give me some paperwork relating to next year’s contract, and some secret documents for the new teacher interviews that I’ll be helping with later this month. He gave me his insights into the trip and I think it was a good way for him to realize how valuable it is to be multi-lingual. He was helpless in Australia, and at the mercy of his translators – Ms. Tsutsumi and Mr. Hayashi.

When I got home Kuniko was already there – back from her school seminar. We got caught up and then had a really healthy dinner of tofu and soumen noodles, with some kimchee on the side to spice it up. It was a seriously healthy meal – and really delicious. We were both full afterwards, but not so full that we couldn’t pick some 31 Flavors ice cream and take it to Kuniko’s folks house in Kakogawa. We spent some time with them and I focused really hard on the conversations to pick up what was going on.

As usual we couldn’t leave the place without lots of gifts – food, fruits and vegetables from their farm, even an entire frozen octopus. Wow. I wondered about the cryogenic effects on the ride home with the frozen block of octopus wrapped in newspaper in the back seat – would it reanimate as it warmed up? I can scientifically answer that “no”, it wouldn’t. Lucky the air conditioning was on.

Kuniko is lucky enough to have the rest of the week off, and I’ll get a chance to take some time off later this week. It’s the bon festival coming up soon – the Japanese day to remember the dead. We’ll likely go over to Kuniko’s folks place for dinner on later this week to celebrate.

Last night I spent a few hours at the Yakitori chatting with Atsuji-san, and also some of the other regulars. It was a lot of fun – we talked about all kinds of stuff, and everyone kept the drinks and food coming. Atsuji-san is a really cool guy, and the more he drinks the less English he speaks. That makes it more of a challenge for me, but I really enjoyed it.

I was up fairly early this morning, and I got cleaned up and spent some time cleaning house and studying. I bought a new textbook on Japanese kanji at the bookstore next door – I’m hoping to focus a little more on reading and writing kanji.

Last night at the yakitori the master had invited me to join him for a late okonomiyaki lunch today before he goes into work. I met him in front of Denya around 3 p.m., and we drove out to a restaurant near Higashi Futami station, where I used to walk every day.

It was a tiny little place that also was selling shaved ice. There were about five other people in there just hanging out, and they were really surprised when we walked in. We ordered up some okonomiyaki from a huge menu – for such a small place they had a great selection. I ordered a kimchee and shrimp okonomiyaki, and the master had an egg and pork one. We had a couple of beers with it, and had a good talk in between bites of the food.

We finished up, and on the way home the master pulled into the liquor store to pick up a bottle of shochu for the yakitori. Atsuji-san came out from the back and said hello, and we talked about the fun from last night and I described my okonomiyaki to him in detail.

Soon enough the master came back out from the shop and then he gave me a ride home. This evening I didn’t need dinner, since the late lunch kind of did me in. I’m getting geared up for tomorrow, and I’ll take my new textbook into school so I can work on it there. Also, Kuniko will be back in town tomorrow – she’s been out of town for her club retreat, so it will be good to see her. This is the second weekend in a row that she’s had to work. No doubt she’ll be exhausted.

I’m spending my single weekend trying to keep cool and study in different ways. Today I got up early and went into Akashi to enjoy a walk through the Akashi park. I spent a few hours in the library when it got hot, and took advantage of their air conditioning.

The library had an area full of tables, with signs on each one that said they were not for studying. Since I was kind of studying and kind of reading at the same time, I was a little worried that someone would tell me to move along. The tables were full of people reading library books. Some old guys were there slumped over the table sleeping, too. I felt pretty sure that nobody would bug me if they’ve got people sleeping there.

After studying for a few hours I walked around the lake and got a frozen orange juice to work on. The side of the lake has benches here and there, so I sat and one and watched the paddleboats scooting around the lake. After about half an hour I started to hear thunder coming from the north, and the clouds in that direction looked kind of dark. I figured it was time to head back to the station for shelter.

On my way back I passed on old man on a bench singing some old Japanese tune – it was slow and a little creepy, and combined with the thunder rumbling to the north and sound of the cicadas in the bushes it gave me a really otherworld kind of feel.

Back in town I did some shopping for a few things, and couldn’t resist stopping in at Starbucks to have an iced frappucino and to study. I’ve heard that Starbucks in Japan are often used by foreigners to pick up clients or girlfriends, and I’ve seen foreigners in this particular Starbucks once or twice working on somebody. I kept to myself, though – enjoyed my drink and read more of my book.

I had chili shrimp for an early dinner, and then watched Jerry Macguire on my computer to make it a nice relaxed evening. Atsuji-san sent me a message and wants to hook up at the yakitori for a couple of drinks, so I’m headed that way pretty soon. I thought I’d get this entry in while I’m still sober.

Well, I’m back to updating after an extended break. What happened?

The server that hosts my website, all of fredricks.net, my dad’s stuff, my brother’s stuff, everything – it died. There was no warning, and it left me and my hosting company standing around looking confused. My hosting company is still standing around looking confused, but in the meantime we’ve moved to another server and things should run a little smoother now.

The nice thing about all this was that I got a couple of weeks break from blogging. I’ll try to sum up all the highlights here, although I’m sure I’m going to miss some stuff.

The biggest change is that now Kuniko has completely moved into my place, and now it’s not my place anymore but our place. We’ve been getting along pretty well, and settling into a daily routine that works for both of us. Right now we’re both on a summer schedule, which is always variable and hard to predict. Some days Kuniko goes into work late and some days she comes home early. My schedule is pretty much from 7:30 in the morning until sometime in the afternoon – I do like the nice air conditioned environment at school.

As for living space, we’ve both had to make some adjustments. Kuniko doesn’t have that much stuff, so it’s been fairly easy finding places to put things. Still, I seem to have a lot of junk leftover from the previous occupant, and I didn’t get rid of it because I was wondering if Kuniko would have some use for it. As we start to go through stuff we’ll make more room.

This past week we started to bring bento lunches to school. It was Kuniko’s idea for us to save money, and it’s a good idea. Right now at school my cafeteria is closed, so I would always go out and buy a sandwich or sushi or something cheap. Still, it’s a lot cheaper to bring your own lunch, and so Kuniko wanted to do ours Japanese style.

In Japan it’s a man’s world, and around here if you are married your wife will often make you a bento lunch in the morning before you go to work. Kuniko wanted to make one for both of us, and I felt (and still feel) pretty guilty about her getting up early to make the lunches. There are some things I can do to help out though, so I’m getting up at the same time to help out.

I’ve always been impressed with the lunches that other teachers bring to school, and Kuniko has made some really good ones for us. We picked up a bento box at her parents’ house, and it has several layers. The bottom level is for rice, the top is split three ways and you can put whatever you like in there. Little hot dogs, tamagoyaki, pumpkin, cabbage and pork, bacon-wrapped asparagus, fried chicken, tomatoes, salads – all kinds of good stuff.

My work schedule is very easy. I study around four to six hours a day, and then head home to do some chores and relax. At work the vice principal is in charge of my schedule, and he enjoys dropping hints during the day on when I can leave, even though I already know that anytime after lunch is OK. There are hardly any teachers here at all, so it’s a quiet and cool place to study.

One interesting development at work is that Yamamoto sensei, the head of the English department, asked me if I would be interested in doing a weblog in English for the school’s website. I thought that was a great idea, so he’s going to check with the school to get approval. I’ll probably update it once a week at first, and if it’s fun I’ll do it more, and if not I’ll scale it back to twice a month or so. I couldn’t imagine doing it in Japanese, but maybe the parents will be interested to see some English on the website.

Speaking of Japanese, I think I’m marginally improving. I’m starting to read more Japanese books, and even though I’m very slow and spend a lot of time looking up words it is a great way to learn vocabulary and grammar structures. Right now I’m reading “Holes” in Japanese, and it is a really good choice because I’ve read the English version and I’ve also seen the movie.

I’m getting more comfortable speaking Japanese, and I think it’s just a matter of knowing your limits and to a certain extent, just going for it. There are lots of times when I say something and people look at me like they completely don’t understand. If you say a word tentatively, often it is hard for them to understand. If you say it confidently, they will very often understand it, or at least pick up on your confidence and pretend they do. I’m also starting to build useful phrases and structures in my head – I just mentally switch out words and then they pop out more or less intact.

We caught a pretty good movie last week called “Team America: World Police”. It just arrived here in Japan and it’s only playing at small theaters – it’s not getting a big run. We really enjoyed seeing it, and I downloaded the soundtrack to listen to while we are hanging around the house. There are some really catchy (and raunchy) tunes on there, and it is one of the great joys of my life to see Kuniko walking by singing “America, Fuck Yeah!” or “Everyone’s got AIDS!” Hard to explain without seeing the movie, I guess. Never mind, moving right along…

Last week we went into Kobe to spend some time at the wedding place planning the ceremony. We made a few big decisions, and some of them were surprisingly tough. For dinner afterwards we went to a Spanish restaurant that served tapas, and we had an assortment with some good draft beer. The sirloin steak on top of the cheese risotto was mind-blowing. It was a really good place, and it’s right along the road to the wedding chapel, so we’ll have plenty of chances to be tempted by it again.

Kuniko and I have been splitting the cooking duties this summer. Once school starts, I’ll probably be doing the cooking during the week, since she’ll be getting home pretty late every night. I’m the one with the easy work schedule, at least for the next year, so I’ll be taking care of dinner. Once we both are working tough schedules, then it’ll be a little tricky to figure out.

Finally, this weekend Kuniko has a seminar (in Japanese: 合宿) for the weekend, and so she’ll be living with her students in Nishinomiya for the next few days. She’ll get to come home on Monday, but that leaves me with an empty house for the weekend. I’ll spend this weekend studying, cleaning, and staying out of the hot, humid weather.

Well, that’s all I can think of right now. I’ll get back in the routine of writing daily, and hopefully there will be some interesting things to say during this slow, hot month of August.

I’m in the middle of getting this thing up and running again. Why was it down? Long story. I’ll update more after work today!

Today I went into work to help out the students who are going to Australia in a few weeks. Mr. Hayashi had organized a “summer camp” where the students would come and prepare for their trip. He asked me to come almost a month ago, and he also invited two other ALTs from the area.

I went upstairs to the work room, and sat with the students. We started off listening to a lecture about Australia from the history teacher, and then we had a lunchbreak. According to the schedule that someone had written on the board, the ALTs would be helping with the next part – making a map to present to the governor of Western Australia. Since it was lunchbreak I went to look for Mr. Hayashi and ask him what we should do to help.

When I got downstairs I saw Mr. Hayashi’s car pulling out of school and leaving, so I asked the history teacher what the plan was, and he was surprised – he said he didn’t know and he thought that I already did. It was right about then that the other ALTs arrived, and so we got busy with introductions, and we all had sandwiches for lunch and chatted, along with the principal and vice principal.

I got a chance to meet Lisa for the first time. She is an ALT from Australia, and so it was nice to have a real live Australian at the event to help out the students. We talked for a little bit and the history teacher listened eagerly, hoping to pick up some English from us.

I asked around and it turned out that Mr. Hayashi had forgotten an Australian calendar at his house. He was still gone when lunch was over, and so we all went upstairs and nobody knew exactly what we were supposed to do. The ALTs introduced themselves to the students, and after that everyone was kind of looking around waiting for something to happen.

After a few minutes I realized that nobody was going to really step forward and take charge, so I did. I found some paper that was in a pile of Mr. Hayashi’s stuff and I had Tsutsumi sensei pass it out to people. We split the group into three smaller groups, and then we talked with each group to give them some ideas about what to do. Sometimes I had to come up with ideas completely off the top of my head, but it served to get people talking amongst themselves. I think people were so grateful for any kind of leadership that they were willing to try anything.

I set up the other two ALTs with two groups, and then some Japanese English teachers with the other group, and then I rotated around the three groups getting ideas flowing and providing encouragement and correct English spelling.

The history teacher told me that Mr. Hayashi is very relaxed, so that is why they didn’t have much of a plan. He complained that he disappeared at a crucial time. I just said that now we are doing fine – everything is going OK. A few minutes later the vice principal pulled me aside and thanked me. He told me very sternly that Mr. Hayashi was not very prepared, and he didn’t look happy about it. Privately, I agree with him, but I didn’t mention it.

Finally about halfway through the project Mr. Hayashi made it back, and he checked out the progress. He thought things were going well, and he walked around helping with spelling and explanations.

After the students finished their projects we did practice presentations, and the students pretended to present them to the governor in English. They did a good job – I think they will be impressed in Australia.

We wrapped it up after that. Mr. Hayashi thanked us for helping out, and so we were free to go. It nice to chat with Jamie and Lisa – it had been a long time since I had seen Jamie. He is wrapping up his contract on the JET program, and is looking to stay around in the future. I’ll be interested to see how his job search goes.

I shared a train home with lots of the students from the camp, and I passed around a picture of Kuniko, and she got very good reviews from the students. I haven’t told them that we’re getting married in November, but I will sometime next term. It would be fun for the ESS students to be able to come to the ceremony.

I’m back home now, staying inside out of the heat. It’s a quiet night of TV and studying, since I went out last night to the yakitori. Tomorrow I have the whole day absolutely, positively, 100% free. What should I do?