Today I was feeling much better – lots less coughing, and less bodily fluids to hack out in the morning. Kuniko got up early and made lunches for us, and then together we marched off to the train station in the cold morning.

I had only two classes today, mainly to balance out the busy day I had yesterday. The classes were a lot of fun, with students that I don’t see very often. In my third year class we are studying a little bit about sign language, and the teacher had thoughtfully provided a chart detailing Japanese sign language and how to do the Japanese characters by signing.

One of the sounds in the alphabet – “se” – had a very surprising gesture. You signed “se” by extending your middle finger only. While the students were working on something else I quietly mentioned to the teacher that “se” would not be a good sign to use in America. She figured it out pretty quick, and then announced to the students that they shouldn’t sign “se” in America. Immediately after that, everybody in the class was flipping each other off. Oops.

The other class was with Matsunaga sensei’s class. She is the homeroom teacher for the class. You would think that since she is the boss of the class, when she happens to come in there and teach English that the students would be quiet and orderly, but actually, the opposite is the case. The students are really comfortable around her and really let it loose. We had a really good time today, and I think it was one of my better classes lately.

Also, the end is near for my term at Hamawaki. I saw on the schedule that I will be saying my goodbyes to the students on February 28th. I don’t rate a ceremony in the gym. Instead I’ll be doing a farewell speech over the TV system with a video camera. It’ll be my television debut.

In kind of a bittersweet coincidence, my last day at Hamawaki coincides with graduation day at Takasago Minami. That means I can’t attend the graduation at my old school. I really wanted to congratulate all my old students on their big day, but it looks like I’ll have to leave that to Brenda, my successor.

Tonight I cooked up pork steaks and seasoned them with some Mexican spices that we had sitting around. That and a cabbage salad and we were all set for dinner. I picked up a couple of bottles of wine at the Hanshin department store, and so we are working on a bottle of Italian red while we sit around the kotatsu and relax.

Tomorrow is Friday, but for Kuniko it is just another day. She’s going to be working this weekend, making it three weekends in a row. This article really scared Kuniko and me. How many more hours can she work in a week?

Today I had a full schedule – five classes out of six. The only break that I had was during second period, and I was busy marking papers. Lots of stuff to do today.

Still, anytime you have tons of classes that means more time to chat with students, and that’s my favorite part of my job. My conversations with them are generally pretty simple, but the excitement that they get out of it is really cool to see.

One of the problem students in Kuroda sensei’s class was asking me over and over in Japanese if I spoke Japanese. I played stupid and pretended that I didn’t. He was so sure that I did that he enlisted the help of the students around him and asked me in English. He didn’t really notice that I had motivated/tricked him into speaking English unprompted for the first time in his life. Kuroda sensei couldn’t believe it when she looked over and saw her worst student asking me quesitons in English.

Tonight I made roast beef sandwiches with the amazingly low priced roast beef that we got at IY the other day. I brushed olive oil on french bread and toasted them, and then put on avocado, garlic salt, tomato, and then some cheese on top of the hot roast beef slices. It turned out pretty good.

The bed is calling, so I’m going to go hit the rack pretty soon. Tomorrow I have just two classes, so I’ll have lots of time to study. That’s something to look forward to.

I got up this morning pretty tired out, and Kuniko even commented that I looked terrible. Every morning lately has been full of nose blowing and loogie hocking, and so I’m sure I look pretty bad. But, I’m feeling a little better day to day, so I guess that’s what matters.

When I got to school I found out that the two teachers I had infected had both lost their voices. I only teach with one of them, so I had to do all the talking in her two classes today. Sorry!

In a somewhat embarrassing story, I think I pulled a muscle playing a video game. That’s right – my first Wii injury. My shoulder was a little sore yesterday, and again a little today. It’s from swinging away at Wii baseball – when you bat during the game you hold the remote like a baseball bat and swing for the fences. Maybe I’m getting a little carried away, but it’s just so much fun. I’m always sweating and panting after a video game session, so I figured nothing bad could happen. Maybe I should start doing some warmups and stretches before playing the game.

Tonight when I got home I went to work making the ramen that we got from Yasu. When Kuniko got home it was ready, and we ate it while Kuniko told me about her day. I guess one of her coworker’s brothers died of lung cancer, and he was only 34. Scary to think that someone so young could die like that.

Tomorrow is already Wednesday and the week is moving along at a pretty good rate. I’m looking forward to resting up on the weekend, and maybe enjoying some fresh air outside. Maybe a break from all these high-impact sports in the living room.

It was back to work on Monday, and my classes were spread out throughout the whole day. The good news was that my voice was much better, and I celebrated by belting out my English during the classes.

The bad news was that apparently I had spread my disease to some other teachers. Two others were losing their voices, and it was pretty clear who they got it from. I tiptoed around them, but I think they were a little mad at me. That’s what I get for fighting through illness and coming to work – angry infected coworkers.

I was talking with another teacher, Kuroda sensei, and she told me that they had some problems with the captain of the table tennis club. During a match he apparently was laughing at a boy who had lost – I’m not sure which school he was from. The other table tennis club teacher scolded him for doing that, and the captain was pretty upset with the teacher afterwards. He decided to boycott the club for a while, and even though the right thing to do was to apologize to the teacher and the boy he laughed at, he wasn’t able to see that. He was only able to be mad at the teacher that scolded him. There is a little bit of ego at stake here – the boy is the champion table tennis player in the whole prefecture, so he thinks he’s a little above everyone else. I think this will end up being a good lesson for him.

Yasu got in touch today and let me know that he had bought some take home ramen from a really good ramen restaurant, and he wanted to give us some. He stopped by in the evening and gave us some raw ramen noodles and a kit so that we could make it ourselves. We had already eaten our dinner so we couldn’t have it tonight, but we’ll definitely get to it tomorrow.

After Yasu left we took a drive over to Futami to return some movies that Kuniko had rented for her school and to hit Ito Yokado for a little shopping down memory lane. We scored some really cheap (I think they mispriced it) roast beef, and some other goodies for the week ahead. After that we came home and hit the rack early. Kuniko is pretty tired out from working so many consecutive days, so we want to get all the rest we can.

On Friday I was feeling a little bit better, and I was confident going into my classes. It was a rare day when I have all my classes with one teacher, but luckily it was Kuroda sensei. She is an easy teacher to teach with – very flexible and supportive. Teaching with her is the closest thing to actual team teaching that I do at my school.

Kuroda sensei really helped today by acting as my voice most of the time, and with her help I was able to get to the end of the day without too many problems. I was tired afterwards, though, and I spent the afternoon marking papers and staying warm in the staff room.

The big event at our school on Friday was the Karuta competition. It’s a little hard to explain, but I’ll try. Karuta is made up of 100 poems. The poems are several sentences long. 100 cards are spread out in front of the players (in our case today, six students) on a tatami mat. Each card has the last sentence written in easy Japanese. Then, a teacher would read (or sing) the poem. Good Karuta players have memorized many of the poems, and the person that can recognize the poem, find the card with the last part of the poem written on it, and slap their hand down on the correct one wins.

It was a serious competition, something like a spelling bee in the United States. I really enjoyed walking around and seeing the various levels of play. The top students would hear maybe only the first word or two, and then find the card and take it. It was a cool thing to see.

Kuniko was home late Friday night, so she ended up having to cook lasgna late into the night, but the results were worth it. I sampled a little bit of the sauce and it was really good. She’s really tired from working so hard, and she’s got to work both days this weekend for the entrance exam for her school.

Saturday night Tomo-chan and her husband Masaki came over to have dinner and visit. It was just what we needed. With the dinner already made we had more time to sit with them and talk. We talked about movies, travel, ate lots of food, and played plenty of Wii. Maski turned out to be a pretty good bowler, and Tomo-chan beat up Kuniko in boxing. We played until we were physically exhausted.

We sent some leftover lasagna home with them, and then walked them to the station to say goodbye. It was really nice to have them over – they were a great couple and fun to spend time with.

Now it’s Sunday afternoon. Kuniko went off to school early this morning, and I spent the morning relaxing, and straightening up a little bit after the party. There’s a chance that Kuniko will come home in the afternoon, but she is going to the Osaka airport tonight to see off one of her Japanese students who is going to homestay in Australia. She’ll be out late tonight, and I hope she has some energy left for work tomorrow.

I had a rough couple of classes today – the students loved laughing at my weird voice. I managed to survive all my classes (some of them barely) and I gave my voice a rest in the afternoon. Everyone was still concerned, so they sent me home a little bit early. On the way home, I noticed that my voice was starting to come back.

I still have a cold and a cough, but I’d be really happy if I got my voice back for tomorrow’s classes. I never really realized how important your voice is to teaching.

Kuniko cooked up hamburg for dinner, and we’re just going to rest up for the evening.

I was still sick this morning, but I was lucky enough to catch a ride with Kuniko. She had to bring some heavy supplies in to work, and so she drove and I was in the passenger seat. That got me to work a little earlier than usual.

Despite being sick, I worked hard to keep my voice loud and understandable during the four classes. The students were giggling at my Barry White voice, and it was funny to me, too. It was really funny up until the middle of my fourth class when I started to lose my voice altogether. Higuchi sensei alertly noticed and steered the lesson away from my pronunciation and more towards reading and translation. I thanked her later as we were walking back.

By the time I had finished lunch my voice was really starting to fade, and soon I was unable to speak at all. I talked with another teacher and we decided that I should just go ahead and go home to rest my voice. Tomorrow I’ve got another four classes, and I wanted to be as ready as I can. If I can’t speak, I can’t teach.

When I left there were no other teachers to consult with, and so I decided to just go ahead and go home. Technically I’m supposed to tell my staffing agency when I leave early, but they have a really weird structure that makes me do all kinds of paperwork and phone calls before I can leave, and in the end I lose pay for the hour I left early. It makes a lot more sense to just go and worry about them if they find out.

I got home and just rested, and now Kuniko is in the kitchen making us dinner. I think she’s enjoying the peace and quiet. Hopefully I’ll be better for tomorrow!

I’m still limping through my cold. Today I was at the phlegm stage, and tomorrow or the next day I should be at the coughing and hacking stage. Something to look forward to!

At school I had four classes in the morning. In one of my classes, Harada sensei, the slight crazy teacher, had attached name cards to the students’ desks so that I could call them by name. We were talking about it while the students were working on a project, and she said that a professor friend of hers from America said that “real teachers call their students by name”, and Harada sensei wanted me to try it out. I thought it was great – and I wish that I had this system back when I started instead of having it a month before I leave the school.

I’ve always had a tough time remembering names, and this school is especially difficult because they don’t have a picture/name chart laying around. The students aren’t used to be being called by their first names – and so it made for a very interesting class.

On the way home I was walking through the Hanshin department store because of the rain outside, and a couple of people working the shumai booth were quick with a toothpick and offered me a free sample, in English. He even translated the ingredient (shrimp). They were really happy to offer some free food to a foreigner, and I was happy to get it. It’s experiences like these that make me really happy to be living in Japan. I could have broken into Japanese, but since they started it in English I went along with it and everyone was happy.

During the commute home I was thinking a little bit about the people walking around me. When I’m going home I have to walk pretty briskly through Sannomiya station and I’m always dodging people and moving around people going slower than I am. I’m not running or anything, but everyone else seems to be going slower than me.

It makes me think about a lecturer I heard a couple of years ago. He was a foreigner that had lived in Japan thirty years or so, and he was lecturing JETs on long term life in Japan, and getting used to it. He said that whenever he’s walking up the stairs and he gets mad because people are walking down the wrong side – that’s when he knows it’s time to relax a little bit and relieve the tension.

Today I had to dodge and weave a little more than normal. People would stop on the escalator, blocking the stream of people trying to walk up, an old lady walked through the ticket gate and then stopped right in the way to put away her ticket blocking all the people behind, and there were several people walking around with their head in the clouds not noticing what is happening around them.

The trick is not to get frustrated about it. Japan is an aging population, and it’s only going to get older. I’m going to be putting up with bumbling old people for a while to come. Maybe I’ll even be the bumbling old guy someday.

Back home I made up my first batch of oyakodon – and Kuniko was nice enough to give it a positive review. I’m off to take a bath and try to steam out the cold.

It looks like I caught a little bit of a cold, probably from Kuniko who caught one a couple of days ago. I’m feeling OK still, but I could tell my condition was getting worse as the day went on.

Back at school I had three classes – two first year classes and one third year class. The third year students were pretty worn out from the weekend, and weren’t really up for speaking much English. My first year students were full of energy, and it was fun to teach and goof around with them.

Lots of people commented on my haircut – I got it trimmed up on Saturday. The barber got a little carried away, and it seemed pretty drastic to everyone. Overall the reviews were positive, though.

Kuniko and I finished off the lasagna tonight, and we also cracked the giant citrus and ate a small portion of it. Full of vitamin C. It was like a sweet grapefruit – it tasted really good. For some reason it reminded me of a pomegranate… the mouthfeel reminded me of pomegranate seeds.

and afterwards we went on a wild goose chase trying to rent “Whale Rider” to show her students. They are getting ready to go to New Zealand in a few months, and that’s a good movie to give them a little insight into Maori culture. Unfortunately nobody had it, and Kuniko had to go looking for it all the way over in Futami.

The crazy thing is that we have the DVD here at home. It is an American DVD, so it won’t play in Japanese players. I’ve chalked it all up to a conspiracy on the part of the Motion Picture Association of America. The prices of DVDs here are so high, and people are stuck paying the prices because they can’t play other region DVDs. I offered to loan Kuniko the region-free DVD player to use at her school, but it’s a little bulky to lug all the way there.

I’d like to write more but I’m tired out. I need to remember to write a little bit about Zelda on the Wii sometime.

We’re putting the wraps on a pretty nice weekend. Kuniko had to work on Saturday, but Sunday was free for both of us. Kuniko got her hair done, and she did some serious work in the kitchen. She made us shrimp risotto for lunch, and a test run of lasagne for dinner. The lasagne is in the oven now, and we’re looking forward to giving it a try.

I didn’t write about it earlier, but it was a pretty impressive thing to see. Friday I was going to work, the day after the matsuri finished. When I got to Nishinomiya, the stands were all gone, but in their place were heaps and heaps of garbage. The trash was piled up everywhere, and the ground was dusted with a layer of grime from all the foot traffic.

So, I was pretty impressed when I came back after school to find the place cleaned up nicely. All the trash was gone, and the layer of dirt was cleaned off, too.

This week should be a pretty easy one. I’ve got lots of classes at school, but they’re all in the morning. That makes it really nice – I can eat lunch and be done with my workday.

I was so tired writing last night that I forgot that Kuniko and I made a big score in Kobe – we found ricotta cheese in an import food shop. Now we’re full speed ahead on plans to make lasagne for some friends when they come over later this month.

Not much to report from school. Everything went pretty quietly, and it’s just starting to sink in that I’ll be out of there in a month and a half and looking for another job. I’m trying to enjoy every moment that I’m there – who knows when I’ll be back.

Tonight Kuniko is working late, so we’ll just have a simple light dinner when she gets home. Tomorrow is already Friday, and we’ll have to see how things go this weekend. I think she’ll be working a little bit, so I might be free to do some hiking and get out of the house.

While I was running some errands tonight I went into a 7-11 and found three new Kit Kat flavors – Blood Orange, Chocolate Banana, and Musk Melon. Kit Kat is really stepping things up for the high school entrance exams coming up. Some students in Japan think that Kit Kats are good luck for passing the big test.

I was back teaching classes today – and it felt really good to be back in front of the students. I’m sure the students weren’t as thrilled as I was – but they coped with it just fine.

One of the things that happens at the start of a new term is a new seating assignment for everyone. The teachers today posted new seats, and everyone started moaning and groaning about where they got stuck or who they got stuck sitting with. The way they reacted you’d think the students had to marry the new person.

Since the festival was still in full swing, I had invited Kuniko to come over after work and walk around with me eating festival food and to buy a replacement lucky tree branch. The last one seemed to do a pretty good job for us.

Kuniko showed up after school and together we walked around picking foods to try. We bought a lucky branch after tossing the old branch into a giant pile of other old lucky branches. Armed with our lucky branch we ate a couple of different things – a unique version of a gyro (made by a foreign guy in a booth), a hot dog wrapped in egg with “habanero” sauce (really just a mild hot sauce – it wasn’t hot enough to be habanero), fried cheese balls (not much cheese, mostly just fried), and some dessert at the end – a pastry stuffed with white anko.

Kuniko was coughing pretty good, so we made our way to the station and back to Sannomiya. We did just a little bit of shopping there, and then came on home. Now Kuniko is in the kitchen making some interesting foods to snack on over the next few days, and I’m parked in the kotatsu writing up my day.

Just two more days until the weekend. I’m starting to feel the energy drain from work, and I’m sure I’ll be ready for lots of sleep come Saturday and Sunday.

It’s easy to get used to living in Japan when you are here every day for months at a time. I’ve noticed that since I’ve come back to Japan from a brief vacation in California, things seem a little more strange and interesting.

Today Kuniko and I were back to school. Neither of us had classes, just an opening ceremony. For me, the day was pretty relaxed, with the most pressing issue being how to distribute all the omiyage from my trip. I dealt out candies like poker cards, and everyone seemed really happy with the hand that they got.

After the opening ceremony I was free, so I changed clothes and spent about an hour shooting baskets in the gym. The basketball teams (boys and girls) were both practicing in there, so I practiced with them a little and had a good time. The students would occasionally come by and tell me how great I was at basketball. They were really just trying to use English, and I was happy to speak with them a little bit. I know I’m not great at basketball.

I studied a couple of newspaper articles that a teacher had cut out for me, and then in the afternoon I left school. Before leaving I had the vice-principal stamp my time sheet, and I noticed that he had taken the opportunity during the long vacation to dye his hair a shade darker. I have a feeling that there is a lot of hair dyeing going on in Japan.

On the way to school I noticed that they were setting up hundreds of tiny stands around the Nishinomiya shrine, and sure enough, at the end of the day there was a big festival going on. I found out that it is a three day festival. Since Antoine and I were going to meet up in Imazu, I went over there and brought him back to the festival instead.

The festival was packed – the city had closed many roads and people were walking all over the place. Everyone was carrying a lucky tree branch – the main attraction of this festival – and it reminded me that I had a lucky tree branch from a few years ago at home. I wanted to buy a new one, but I first have to bring back the old one and replace it. I guess the luck doesn’t accumulate the more branches you buy.

Antoine and I walked around the place and enjoyed all the sights and sounds. We walked into the shrine, bowing underneath big paper waterfalls that priests waved around to bless visitors. Inside the shrine was a huge tuna fish, and people placed money all over its surface for some sort of good luck.

On the way out of the shrine we walked through a huge sales area. Like I said, the main item was the lucky tree branches. The boths were manned by girls dressed in religious robes and wearing special headdresses. The girls watched us as we walked by, smiling in our direction in the hope that maybe we’d stop by and buy a branch.

After walking around we pulled into a booth and ate some okonimiyaki and had some beer. Antoine told me all the stories about his trip to America with Miwako. He made their engagement official over there, and his family was very excited. He also found out that his sister is pregnant, so there was a lot of happy family members around his household.

The more we walked around the more I bumped into my students. They all wanted to chat with me and Antoine, and it started to become really hard to make any progress through the crowds. We ducked into a yakitori to get away for a while and have a beer. The people were really excited to have some foreigners in the restaurant, and so we talked with them a little bit and ordered some chicken cartilage off the menu to go with our beers.

I’ve been in Japan for more than three years, but I still like to see how excited people get when a foreigner is around. They try hard to speak English, and they are genuinely curious about you and where you are from. It was nice to get a little bit of that tonight.

Finally we finished up there, and then fought through the crowds at the train station and went our separate ways. Now I’m home and I’ve got the place in pretty good shape. Kuniko is at a school event tonight and won’t get home until late. I’m looking forward to tomorrow – I can start to teach some classes again.

Kuniko and I are continuing to slowly get back into the swing of things around here. We’ve got things cleaned up and organized and we’re just resting up for the week ahead.

The wind over the last two days has been really strong. We’re on the third floor, so it’s that much stronger up here. Right now the laundry is barely hanging on outside on the laundry poles. We’ve got to check it every few minutes to make sure that nothing has blown off onto the street below.

One of Kuniko’s co-workers came by yesterday to drop off some ice wine and a giant citrus for us. The citrus is huge – and it’s amazing to see it sitting on our table. It’s bigger than Kuniko’s head.

Today we’re going to go over in the afternoon to pick up our houseplants from Kuniko’s folks’ house, and then go to Mikuriya shrine to do the first prayers of the New Year. The shrine is the same one we went to last year, and the one where I did the matsuri in the past.

Tonight should be quiet – we’ll stay in and try to stay warm. Last night we watched a movie, and ate some okayu that Kuniko made. It’s a special dish – nanakusagayu. It’s to be eaten on the seventh of January, so we had that for a healthy dinner. More later as the week begins!

We’re back safely from our holiday trip to California. It was a great trip, and we’re busy this morning sifting through all the stuff that came back with us. We’re both doing fine and getting ready to do some shopping to stock the empty fridge and buy some supplies for the work week ahead. The good news is that we have today and tomorrow off from work, so it gives us a little time to relax and get ready.

Once I get a little time I’ll post pictures from the trip!