Yesterday I had gotten a message from Kuniko about being sick – she went to the doctor and they took care of her. This morning I went to Osaka to see if there was anything I could do to help out.

Kuniko is a little isolated in Osaka – there isn’t really anyone there to take care of her if something happens. When I got there she was up and about, but she looked exhausted. I tucked her into bed and busted out my sick supplies – Amino Suppli (the Japanese equivalent of Gatorade), orange juice, throat drops, EmergenC packets, and some chicken noodle soup.

Once Kuniko started drinking the Amino Suppli she started feeling much better. I know how that feels – I remember a horrible weekend in the dorms of Fresno State. I got a couple of bottles of Gatorade in me and I felt like I had been born again.

Since she was feeling better I cooked up some lunch for her, and we sat around eating soup and sandwiches. We spent part of the day just napping on the futon together.

Kuniko’s sister called, and she was in Okayama, and a little concerned about her. She had some extra time so she came over on the Shinkansen. It was the first time that I’ve met a member of Kuniko’s family. Her sister, Tomoko, was really nice. It was her first visit to Kuniko’s apartment and so we sat around and admired the place and talked about her job in Okayama. She is a school nurse for a high school there. I was relieved to hear that – now we had a professional on hand to take care of Kuniko.

We went out for ramen and Kuniko had no problem with the spicy noodles, so it looks like things are getting better fast. I got a few pictures of Tomoko – she was fun to hang out with and we practiced each other’s language on each other.

After dinner I left Kuniko in Tomoko’s capable hands and headed home. Once I got to Akashi I decided to drop in at Donkey and throw a few darts. There were some dart veterans there, and the bar’s top player and I played a couple of quick games of baseball. He was really good – he beat me both games with very little effort. I’m hoping that the master won’t bug me about joining the team now 🙂

Once I got home I had a little pineapple for dessert, and now I’m getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is the mystery trip to supposedly see monkeys. Whatever happens, it should be a good story.

I invited Antoine to come all the way out here for some steak, so I wanted to do things right. I started by calling my aunt and uncle and asking for advice on grilling the meat. My uncle Lynn gave me some great tips on cooking the steaks, and it helped a lot.

I bought some steaks at Carrefour – about thirty dollars worth. Steak is expensive here in Japan, so it was pricey, but something we both needed to have. I also got a couple of different beers – two Mexican beers, an Italian beer, and a Korean beer. I had some Guinness and Japanese beer at home, so we had an international selection.

I also got some garlic bread, mushrooms, and salad stuff. The meal was awesome. Antoine helped me by making the salad, and then he helped grill half the meat. Following my uncle’s advice I rubbed in some sea salt and some black pepper and garlic. I also put a couple of drops of olive oil on the steaks. The grill was super-hot, and the meat turned out perfectly. We had a Norton Malbec from Argentina, and the entire meal was a huge success.

Antoine was pretty hungry even after the steaks, so we threw on some bratwurst that I had bought at Costco. The grill was still hot, so they cooked up nicely.

After dinner we walked down to the yakitori for a beer there, and chatted with the master and some of the regulars. They were in a great mood, and asked all kinds of questions of Antoine. They were very curious about his lifestyle in Takarazuka.

Finally, we walked down to the station and Antoine headed home. We had a good time, and I’m hoping that we can do it again sometime.

Kuniko messaged me and said that she caught a serious cold. She went to the doctor with a 102 degree temperature, and ended up having a drip put in to counter the dehydration. I was worried so I called her, but she assured me that she will be fine. She asked me to stay away because she’s sick and she doesn’t want me to catch it, but I’m going to try and visit tomorrow anyway. She doesn’t have anyone to take care of her in Osaka, and I want to make sure that she has enough supplies to get her through until she feels better.

Well, I’m off to bed – the steak party was a huge success! Now I need to sleep it off….

That was tough. I went in today at work and stayed for about an hour, and then went right back out the door. Mr. Hayashi had me sign a time off request form so that if anything happens to me, I’ll be covered and on the clock. Now it’s almost 10 a.m. and I’m at home. Yes!

I’m getting ready to go over to Carrefour to do some shopping for tonight’s steak dinner. It should be a nice relaxing day!

Today was the first day of midterm exams, and so most of the teachers had it pretty easy. The teachers just administered the exam, and the students were gone by noon. We had a free bento lunch, but it wasn’t as good as the usual ones we get. No raw fish in this one – just cooked fish, shrimp, and lots of veggies.

Mr. Hayashi ducked out just before the teacher’s volleyball game. I went over to the gym and played three games. It was pretty fun, and you could tell which teachers were super-competitive, and which were there to just have fun. Somehow, a winner was determined, and the winners got a case of beer that they split up among the team.

I did pretty well, actually – I tended to screw up as many plays as I did well on, so I figure in baseball that’s batting .500, which is pretty good.

After volleyball was finished Mr. Hayashi mysteriously reappeared, and soon after we piled into his car to go to a dinner that he was hosting. During the drive over we picked up Miss Yamamoto from her house, and also Mr. Komuri came along.

Mr. Hayashi had bought a veal tenderloin from his favorite restaurant in Kitano, and so I helped him slice it up and he pan fried it outside on a portable burner, since it was raining and we couldn’t use the BBQ. The meat was great, and I had brought a bottle of Sangiovese that I had purchased at Costco. It tasted great. Mr. Hayashi also contributed a box of Franzia California red wine. I don’t think many people noticed the difference.

There were some other teachers there, and everyone was very happy to be visiting. Mr. Hayashi’s friend was there who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I guess he doesn’t have all that much longer to live, and Mr. Hayashi wanted to have a big party for him to “send him off” (his words). He was a mountain climber, so we exchanged stories as much as we could in Japanese. He’s a really nice guy, and his wife is the new P.E. teacher at our school.

After dinner they gave Mr. Komuri and I a ride to the JR station, and I took the train to Tsuchiyama station. From there it was a 20 minute walk in heavy rain to my apartment, but my new ultra large umbrella kept me dry.

This weekend should be interesting. Tomorrow I have a short day at school to try and even out all the extra hours I’ve been putting in. Antoine is planning on coming over for some steaks and vino. Saturday I’m planning on visiting Kuniko in Osaka, and Sunday the school librarian is taking me to see monkeys somewhere in Hyogo. Monday and Tuesday will also be short days, but I haven’t come up with any plans for those days yet.

I had a pretty good day, with lots of new developments on several fronts. I have no classes during the first two periods, so I locked myself in my classroom and studied Japanese.

It was helpful to sit down with a book and study without distraction. Outside the weather was rainy, and I sat at a desk facing the window watching the students and teachers move between classes. One thing I thought about was that here I was in a classroom all to myself, getting paid to study a foreign language. I can practice the language anytime I want, and everyone I meet is very supportive of my studies. What an amazing opportunity, and a great situation to be learning a language.

During a break Mr. Komuri came up to me and told me that he has great news. He got tickets to a Hanshin Tigers game! He said that he’ll take me along, so I’ll finally get to catch a baseball game in Japan. The tickets are very hard to come by, but he managed to get two singles. We’ll be separated – sitting very far away from each other, but we’re both lucky to even be at the game. The game is next Wednesday night – hopefully it won’t rain out!

My third period class went really well – I skipped a few activities because tomorrow is the beginning of mid-terms, and I wanted the students to be able to relax a little. We did drawings, and I stretched that to almost half an hour of free drawing. It was fun, and the students seemed to appreciate it. I took the chance to chat with them in English while they drew, and that seemed to make them more comfortable.

A while back a student had asked for a Radiohead CD to listen to, so last night I burned one with some of my favorite songs, and brought it in. She came down to the teacher’s room and was so happy to borrow it. She was actually jumping up and down when I gave it to her. I hope she likes the other songs… Radiohead can get pretty weird.

Mr. Hayashi came by and seemed pretty excited – he has lots of free time because he finished writing his exams, so he wants to teach me more Japanese. This is something new – usually we have been doing lessons only during the two sessions we had scheduled. The other day he brought in a tape that he recorded from NHK – a course on how to speak Japanese. I did some transcription from the tape – listening and writing as much as I could understand. Today we did some more reading and he’s helped me get a little more comfortable. I usually read to myself, so now that I’m reading out loud I make all kinds of mistakes that my brain didn’t notice before.

One of my first year classes had an ESS student in it. She is fearless – she walked right up to me and asked me about some English terms for one of her friends. She’s hoping to go to Australia this year with the group led by Mr. Hayashi, so I hope that works out.

The new student teachers came in for a meeting today. There were about eight of them, all women around twenty-two years old. The history teacher timed it perfectly so he was chatting with me in English as they all walked by my desk. He pretended to be non-chalant, but his side of the conversation drifted considerably when they walked by. Mr. Hayashi is in charge of the English student teacher, and he brought her over to meet me after their meeting. She was pretty nervous, and I didn’t dumb down my English. She did a great job – she knows her stuff. Mr. Hayashi wanted me to meet her because he said if she’s a “charming woman” he’s going to buy her dinner after their two weeks of classes end. He’s looking to me to help him decide if she’s “charming” or not. Sheesh.

After school I went shopping for some dinner items at the local grocery store. Suddenly a small boy came running up to me and said “Hello, how are you?” in English. I was startled, but answered back in English. I was thinking, who the heck is this kid? Then around a corner came his mom and sisters, and it was the Maeda family. The same Maeda family that “kidnapped” me the night of the English teacher’s party. The boy that was so shy on Friday night was the same one that chased me down today and talked with me in English. We talked a little baseball and then we said our goodbyes. What a nice family!

Back home I cooked up some ramen with pork, but somehow I screwed up the broth. I’m still not sure how the heck they do it here. I need to use a lot more salt, and maybe some stronger stock. Hmm… more research needed.

When I go into a classroom, especially one that’s not mine, the students are almost always expecting a show. I have a couple of classes with Mr. Hayashi where I just repeat a few lines for pronunciation practice and that’s it. Most of the time I’m running the show, and these kids expect entertainment.

Today I had three classes which I’ve dubbed “Anything Classes”. The teachers have me come in one day a week and I can do anything I want. I was about to say “anything I want within reason” but no such limitations have been placed upon me yet.

Some of the students see it as an opportunity to catch up on their other homework, some sit there captivated, hanging on every word, some fall asleep, and some watch me politely and wonder what the heck I’m saying.

Today Mr. Yamamoto had asked me to do a couple of things that I would consider pretty boring if I were a student there. One was dictation using the new vocabulary words that they have been memorizing. I made four sentences using the vocab and then read them off. The students dutifully tried to copy down what I said. Usually small problems with the difference between my accent and Mr. Yamamoto’s throw them off.

After that the class was all mine, so I had them read an original story that I wrote about learning how to drive and the fate of my first car. They liked the story – they couldn’t believe that you could be behind the wheel at sixteen years old. The age here is eighteen, but it’s prohibitively expensive to get a car and drive right away.

After that, I passed out a word search puzzle using their new vocabulary. As everyone was thinking about how boring this was going to be, I reached under the desk and pulled out a bag of mini-Oreos. That perks the students right up. I told them the rules and said the first one up to the front of the class with everything found would win the sugar.

The students really get into it – the class is almost humming with excitement. You can bet that no Japanese teacher has thrown down a prize during class – I know that it rarely happened to me in my high school days. For about eight minutes all the students are hunched over their papers trying to find all the words. One kid got a nosebleed but didn’t want to go to the nurse because he would miss out on the chance to win. One of my winners came up to the front of the class with shaking hands. This is high stakes stuff here. We’re talking about a bag of Oreos!

My other class was with Mr. Hayashi, and we were doing pronunciation practice. Mr. Hayashi decided to have some fun – he had me try to pronounce some Japanese words. The kids were laughing at my pronunciations – and I think it made them feel a little better. It’s easy to get discouraged, but when we were joking around trying to pronounce “Fukuoka” it was nice for them to see I was human, too.

I also spoke with Mr. Hayashi and got the low-down on Thursday. It’s the first day of mid-term examinations, and in the afternoon we are going to try to play a teacher’s softball game. After school, Mr. Hayashi invited me to a BBQ at his place. He’s going to have a veal tenderloin that he bought directly from his favorite restaurant in Kobe. We’re going to eat that with a cheap Chianti and tell stories in Japanese. It should be good practice for me.

I also managed to negotiate an abbreviated schedule on Friday, Monday and Tuesday. I will be working just a couple of hours each day and then I’ll be free to do whatever I want. Now I just have to think about what to do. None of my friends are on the same schedule, and Kuniko has to work, so whatever it is will have to be local, and solo. Hmmm… what would you do?

There was a big PTA meeting in the afternoon so I snuck out early, and came home to cook up some gyuudon. Mine never comes out like the cafeteria’s, but I’ve decided that it’s because the grade of beef that I use is probably much higher. I’ll just have to enjoy the homemade stuff.

Monday morning, and the weather is still a little wet. I have developed a small hole in the sole of one of my shoes that collects water during the rainy days, and makes obnoxious squeaking noises as I walk. After a couple of days the water dries out and then I can walk without the soundtrack.

I joked around with the teachers from the English department in the aftermath of the big party on Friday. Mr. Yamamoto had just seen me bustled into a black van and didn’t see who I got in with – he jokingly thought I was being kidnapped. I told him that I kind of was, but that I had a great time.

I had three first year classes today, and the students were full of energy. They like the shakeup of going to a new classroom, even if it means they might have to do something goofy in front of the class.

Mr. Hayashi taught me Japanese during the extra afternoon period, so before I knew it it was time to get out of there. On the way home I picked up some groceries and had a big bowl of macaroni and cheese (sent by my folks) with little weiners cut up inside. I had a decent salad alongside, and it was delicious. I also had a XXXX beer – it’s as close as I’m going to get to microbrews around here. It costs me about $2.50 a bottle, so I better enjoy it. It’s still cheaper than buying it at a bar – that’s what I have to keep in mind.

I did an hour of studying kanji, and then I hit the sack. The weather is warm enough that I’m just sleeping under a sheet now. Soon, it’ll be off with the sheet and I’ll be opening my doors and windows. It’s warming up!

Today was dedicated mainly to studying. I studied some new kanji, as well as some new grammar. I actually spent about four hours straight studying – it kept me busy.

In the evening I cracked open the Guinness Bitter and tried it out. It was actually pretty good – unusual, but nice.

While drinking the Guinness, I started up the grill with the new firestarter, and it worked great with almost no smoke. My neighbors will be happy with that development. I grilled up some chicken with the Jamaican rub that Nancy and Lynn had sent me a while back. I also grilled up some pineapple and had some rice with black pepper. The meal was great – just what I needed to wrap up a hard day of studying.

I called Antoine and talked to him for almost an hour – we compared experiences over the last couple of weeks and made plans to try and get together next weekend. I also called Kuniko and chatted with her for a while. She told me all about her dinner – the Japanese version of meat and potatoes. Afterwards I went down to the yakitori, which was packed! I had a couple of beers and some snacks and talked with the master while he tried to keep up with everyone’s order.

Now I’m back home and getting ready for bed. I might put in just a few more minutes of studying, and then I’ll be ready to head back to school tomorrow.

This morning was reasonably slow paced. I spent some time on the phone with my mom and we caught up on things. I made myself a nice breakfast of eggs, tortillas and salsa. The weather was pretty nice – with some high clouds and no rain.

Around lunchtime I walked over to Carrefour, and picked up some luxury items. They have a big machine that cuts up a fresh pineapple and leaves all the good stuff for you to buy in a bag for 400 yen. I picked up one to try – the one I got at Costco was a lot of work to cut up, but it tasted great.

I also picked up a selection of beers – Guinness Bitter, a beer that I first saw in Scotland at a grocery store there back in August 2000. It’s taken this long for me to find it again. I haven’t tasted it yet, but I’ll post a review when I do.

I got two other beers, a bottle of El Sol from Mexico, and a bottle of XXXX from Australia.

Besides beer and pineapple I got some firestarter cubes to try with my BBQ in an attempt to keep the smoke to a minimum. I also got some chicken breasts for dinner on Sunday night.

After I got back I sat down to study, but ended up giving up and taking a nap. I ended up waking around five o’clock. Twenty minutes later Kuniko called – she and some of her friends were heading my way and wanted to see if would join them for a movie.

I got organized and ran outside just as rain was starting fall. Kuniko picked me up, and behind her car was a car with her friends – a teacher from her old school and an ALT friend from Himeji that I’ve heard a lot about… Yuri.

Yuri is a Japanese American who learned Japanese as her first language. She looks Japanese, she talks Japanese, but she also speaks fluent English having been raised in Los Angeles. She has signed up for a second year on the JET program, but it sounds like she’s already getting tired of it. She’s looking to settle down somewhere.

We went to Kakogawa and saw “Big Fish”, which was a strange but pleasant experience. I enjoyed some of the visuals and the jokes – but nobody else in the theater was laughing. Maybe it was a tough translation.

After the movie Kuniko drove Yuri home to Himeji, and dropped her off there. By then it was pouring rain, and so our goodbyes were very brief. It was good to finally meet her – for a long time she was the “other ALT” that Kuniko taught with, and it was interesting to hear about her experiences through Kuniko.

Kuniko drove me back to my place, and even though it was getting late I talked her into coming up for some fresh pineapple. I had the benefit of a nap so I wasn’t so tired, but Kuniko was exhausted. The pineapple was a nice treat to cap off a relaxing day.

The weather was beautiful today, and I found myself spending a lot of time gazing out the window wishing I was climbing hills or traveling the countryside. My classes weren’t too tough, and I had a new lesson for the first years that went really well. It is a lot more about fun and games since they are studying for their midterms that are coming up soon.

During one class we were doing a drawing exercise, and one student drew me. He was actually a pretty good artist – he captured my slightly crossed eyes and five o’clock shadow perfectly. He also drew a picture of a samurai running someone through with a sword, with lots of blood. It’s an interesting contrast.

After school I lounged around the teacher’s office, helping Mr. Hayashi with some English projects that he is working on. Finally around five o’clock Mr. Kimura, Mr. Hayashi and I jumped into Mr. Hayashi’s car and took off. We had one of the new teachers, Ms. Mori, following us to park her car at Mr. Hayashi’s house. From his house we just walked over to the restaurant.

Ms. Mori has a silver Mazda (called Matsuda here in Japan) Miata. It’s a two seat sports car and it’s pretty cool. We were walking to the restaurant and I mentioned to Ms. Mori that I liked her car. She smiled and said, “Just the car? How about the driver?”.

Huh?

While I stammered and struggled to recover my composure, Mr. Hayashi chimed in and said that it’s a two seat so there’s room for one more person in there. They laughed together and Ms. Mori just kind of kept walking and didn’t say anything else.

What a weird situation. I’m not sure if there was something planned there, or complementing someone’s car is more serious in Japan than it is back home… I was a bit flustered. I have enough problems at school with Ms. Shigata – I don’t need to be chased around by someone else.

Little did I know that this wasn’t the only trick up Mr. Hayashi’s sleeve that night We got to the restaurant, the same one that I visited on my birthday. The menu was basically the same, and again it was all you can drink for 90 minutes, which was very nice. I had three big beers and three glasses of red wine with my meal. I sat next to the vice-principal for a bit, who didn’t drink much but did enjoy speaking English with me. Ms. Mori sat across from me and talked to me a bit more during the evening but didn’t bring up anything else dramatic.

Mr. Hayashi pulled me aside and told me that he is planning a BBQ during the midterm examination period. He wanted to know if I thought one of the new office workers was particularly attractive. I knew where this was going, but I was stuck. I tried the most neutral answer I could think of – “She seems like a nice person”. Mr. Hayashi said that he will invite her to the BBQ – he seems determined to get me involved with somebody, and lately his efforts have stepped up.

Finally around nice o’clock we all staggered out onto the street in Kakogawa. One of our school’s third year students was unlucky enough to be outside on her bike, and so all the teachers enjoyed the chance to chat with her while buzzing. I talked with her mom in Japanese and managed to fake my way through half the conversation.

Mr. Kimura had said that he was going to take the train home and walk back with me – we would get off at the same station. By the time everyone was finished talking with the student, he was gone. I was saying “Where’s Mr. Komuri?”, accidentally switching his name for Mr. Kimura’s. This all you can drink stuff is pretty hardcore.

Mr. Maeda wanted to give me a ride to the station – he had been drinking but his wife was waiting to pick him up. At first I said that I would take the train and not to worry, but he insisted, and dragged me over to the car. I jumped in the car and met his wife and three children, and the look of shock on their faces when I hopped in was just perfect.

His wife had a big smile and a great sense of humor, and took the whole thing in stride. I introduced myself, and the kids all sat there with their mouths wide open. They insisted on driving me home, but when we got close they said they wanted to go to a family restaurant near my place. One cool thing about their van was that when they were backing up the GPS screen turned into a video showing what was behind the car as it backed up. The outline of the van was laid over the top of the video, so she just backed up looking at the screen and didn’t even look over her shoulder. Wow.

We all went inside and ordered some snacks and drinks. I had a non-alcoholic beer, and we sat and chatted. The kids were very shy. The son hid behind his menu, and when his mom took the menu away, he sat there with his eyes closed and a big grin on his face.

After about half an hour, they insisted on driving me to my doorstep, even though it was just a short walk. They were both genuinely happy to have been able to spend time with me outside of school. Being a foreigner in Japan gives you the chance to make a lot of people very happy – they want to meet new people and whenever you spend time with someone, they will probably remember it for a long time afterwards.

Well, it’s been as wet as I’ve seen it in Japan and everyone says that it’s still a month before the rainy season starts. The strange thing about the weather lately is that one day it will be rainy and the next day full sunshine. It makes it a little harder to plan weekends.

Today was my easiest day of the week – Thursday. I have just three classes, and they are the first three periods, so I’m done by 11:30. I locked myself in my classroom after lunch and got in about two hours of studying. Afterwards I read Doraemon at my desk until the staff meeting.

All this studying seems to give me a little more insight into what people are saying around me. Now I am able to get the vague gist of a conversation, whereas before I might only catch a word or two every couple of minutes.

After school I came home and made up a big plate of nachos – I realized that I had all the fixin’s just laying around – so it came out to be a great meal. Spicy!

This evening I’m just doing a little more kanji studying, and cleaning up the house a bit. There’s a chance that Kuniko might be able to visit at some point this weekend, so I wanted to do a little caretaking around here.

Tomorrow is the teacher’s enkai after school. It should be interesting – a lot of the teachers are still a little uncomfortable with each other, and the new teachers are definitely uncomfortable with me. Then they will have to meet the old teachers… a lot of social variables in play tomorrow.

Today was a pretty warm day – the weather has been alternating between sun and rain, but it’s always warm.

I had only one class in the morning, and two in the afternoon. The classes were pretty uneventful – one student turned in her homework on a paper folded into the shape of a heart. Inside she did a pretty good job on her assignment, and even said that she loved me. Yikes.

I’ve heard rumblings about a staff softball game, which is supposed to take place during midterms next week. I think I’ve been drafted by some team – but I’m not sure. That’s how communication sometimes works around here. I catch words and phrases in Japanese, or somebody asks me a vague question in English. My prediction is that I’ll be on the softball field next week swinging away.

Back home I was still up for grilling – I fired up the grill out on the porch. The grill smokes quite a bit early on, but eventually it gets going. I’d like to find a way to cut down on the smoke – I’m sure it makes the neighbors nervous.

As for the food – I grilled shrimp on skewers, and then soaked thin-sliced pork in some sweet ginger soy sauce and grilled those. I had all of that with a big green salad and a tall glass of cold water. Oh, yeah.

The downside of the grill is that once it gets going it still has plenty of power to cook more – I feel like I’m wasting valuable energy by throwing my stuff on for fifteen minutes and then I’m done.

In the evening I spent some time studying kanji, and then called up Kuniko and chatted for a while. She sounded a little down – I think she’s pretty tired. There’s an outside chance that she’ll be able to come visit me this weekend. I’ve got a English staff party on Friday night. Mr. Hayashi had invited her to come to a second party afterwards at Amuse in Kakogawa, but she said that she probably couldn’t make it. Maybe it’s better for her just to stick close to home and rest up – we’ll just have to wait and see how she feels.

I’m off to bed – I’m reading Doraemon comics in English and Japanese.

I’ve emerged from a self-imposed media blackout until I was able to see the final episode of Survivor. For two days I carefully avoided looking at any websites that might give away the winner. Tonight I just finished watching, so now that I know I can surf the web without a problem. It was a good season – lots of spicy stuff with hurt feelings and emotions – the kind of stuff I enjoy as personal entertainment.

Today was another four class day. I was busy all day long, but it made the time fly by.

After going thirty two years without a complete stranger slapping my rear end it happened twice today. Having never played in team sports where ass-slapping is more common, it was a strange experience. As I walked to one of my classes with my CD player in one hand and handouts in the other some of the baseball team guys came by and wanted to give me their customary high five. Since I had my hands full they gave me the low five equivalent.

Two classes later one of the girl students was running past me on the way to her class and she gave me a slap on the butt as she went by. I said “watch it!” in English, so hopefully she’ll get the gist of the message. The last thing I want is to be the whipping boy for five hundred Japanese schoolgirls. That’s the kind of fate you read about in spam e-mails.

A while back I had two of my classes listen to Radiohead, and nobody got too excited at the time. As I was talking with Mr. Yamamoto in the hallway, one of the students came up and asked him if he could ask me to bring the CD in for her to listen to. I was happy to turn someone on to Radiohead.

One of the part time teachers today stopped by to encourage me while I was studying Japanese. I had spoken to her a week or so ago to break the ice. She was more comfortable walking over to talk with me, so hopefully we can talk more. The good news for me is that she knows almost no English, so it forces me to use my Japanese in a professional setting.

My leftover grilled beef made an excellent BBQ Beef sandwich for lunch today. Some of the new teachers watched with envy as I bit into this dagwood of a sandwich. I felt like I was in some kind of carnivorous Wendy’s dreamland. This was a great sandwich.

After school I went straight home and cooked a relatively mild dinner of beef curry and rice. Gradually the temperature has been getting warmer. The good news is that my apartment opens up on both sides, so I can get the breeze coming off the inland sea as it cuts right through my building. Soon it will be too hot even for that, but for now I can sit and type on the computer as a cool breeze comes through.

I’ve caught up with my posts – whew! Blogger, the company that runs the software that I use to update my site, has some new features. One of the new features is the ability for you to add comments to the site.

To add comments, there should be a link at the bottom of each entry. Click on the link, and it’ll take you to a place where you can add comments to an entry. I’m still fooling around with it, but I thought I’d let you know that it’s there.

The rain was coming down hard all last night, and so I was ready for a wet one. I put on all my gear, grabbed the extra large umbrella, and went outside in the downpour. Once I got out there it wasn’t so bad. The downside of the large umbrella is that it catches the wind easily, so I have to be more careful about holding on to it.

I had four classes today. My first class started but no Japanese teacher showed up. The class and I waited around for about five minutes, but it seemed liked nobody was going to come. I had no idea who was supposed to be there, and I didn’t want to leave the class there while I chased all over the place looking for the teacher. I made a judgement call and taught the class alone.

Some of the exercises had to be adapted because I had designed them with two teachers in mind, but really it worked out just fine. The students did pretty well – I think they were amused to see me working without a net. It was a first year class, so they haven’t been around long enough to know how abnormal the situation was. I handled things in English throughout the class, and switched to Japanese when students got confused.

After class I found out that Mr. Kimura was supposed to be there. He was pretty embarrassed that he forgot, so I think I’ve got a free beer coming from him one of these days.

Mr. Hayashi finally booked my flight back to the USA today. I fly from Osaka to San Francisco on July 16th, with a couple of hours stopover in Seoul. I get to spend about two weeks in California, and then I get back on the plane on August 2nd and fly back to Korea. I have to spend a night in Korea, which saves me some money but also costs me some money in hotel bills. I think it’s some kind of kickback system by the travel agencies, but that’s fine. It’ll give me a chance to eat some more spicy food before I get back to Osaka.

After school I met up with one of my ESS students, Harada-san. She normally takes her bike, but the rain was so heavy that she took the train today. I rode the same train back, and she sat next to me and we chatted in English only the whole time. I noticed that we were getting lots of dirty looks from other passengers. I have a feeling talking with students on the train and maybe sitting next to them is a bad idea. I’m not sure, but I took my cue from Harada-san and enjoyed the chat. A while back she asked me only to speak to her in English so that she is forced to learn, so our conversation was slow but pretty wide-ranging.

Back home I organized a couple of loads of laundry and decided to fire up my new grill. It’s just a ceramic bucket with a grill on top and a little air duct on the bottom. I tried to get the fire going, but it was pretty smoky, and there wasn’t much heat. Luckily I had a backup plan, and had a pan ready to fry up the meat if the BBQ didn’t work out.

While I was waiting for the rice to finish cooking, I peeked out the window at the barbecue, and while I was in working on other things, the charcoal had turned red, and that sucker was putting out some heat. I threw some more charcoal on the coals, and in five minutes I was grilling my meat.

The meat is really thinly sliced here, so it cooked fast and I was in business. I grilled up beef and also pork. I had marinated the beef, and the pork went on just with a dusting of black pepper and some spicy stuff my folks had sent me a couple of days ago.

The meat tasted great, and my whole back porch smelled like roasted meat. The lady next door came out of the balcony to see what was smelling good, and I gave her a big wave and a grin. She was probably getting a big cloud of smoke blowing into her place when I was trying to get the thing started – I’m lucky she didn’t call the fire department on me.