The Japanese work ethic is pretty intense. There are exceptions, but most of the teachers in my school work every weekend, they work holidays, and they work long hours during the regular work week. A surprising amount of those hours revolve around supervising club activities, which almost every teacher has to do.

The history teacher came to talk to me today. He was complaining that he would have to work the whole weekend, even Monday, which is a holiday in Japan. I asked him why he had to work, and he said that he had to write an examination for one of his classes.

That’s where the fun began. I asked him why he didn’t use his free time today instead of chatting with me to write the exam. He looked a little embarrassed, and then one of the English teachers that had been eavesdropping asked him the same question in Japanese. His face turned red and he laughed, but I think we caught him unaware.

There is a difference between working smart and working hard. Most of the teachers at my school haven’t figured out where the line is between the two.

One of the teachers didn’t show up for school today, and they mysteriously announced in the morning meeting that they would explain why in the afternoon meeting. Turns out he had an infarction, blocking an artery fairly close to his heart, and so he went to the hospital for surgery tomorrow. He’s a heavy smoker, and Mr. Hayashi was eager to tell the other smokers on the staff that they were in for the same thing if they don’t quit.

After school I went over to Azusa’s to tutor her in business English. We spent an hour going over some conversations and new vocabulary. The lesson went well, but I’m definitely going to have to work with her on the pronunciation of R, V, and L.

On the way home I got some supplies at Carrefour. Azusa tells me that there are very few customers there. The local people are pretty rural, and they certainly don’t buy a lot of first growth Bordeaux or imported cheese. She said that most people are driving right past Carrefour to go to the new Ito Yokado next to my house. It’s more of a Japanese store. Interesting.

Tomorrow is an easy day at school, and then hopefully a relaxing evening at home. Friday night a couple of teachers are taking me out for my birthday. There is a rumor that there is a pound of steak somewhere – that’s a lot of meat in Japan.

Today was a relatively easy day at school. The students in one of my classes were so noisy and disruptive that the teacher was moved to apologize for them. One of my students figured out that I speak a little Japanese and we had the longest conversation I’ve ever had in Japanese. The history teacher continued his campaign to use up all my free time by asking me to teach another class of his next month.

I still managed to get in almost two hours of studying though. It’s always nice to get in a couple of hours at school, and I try to lay off the studying a little more that night.

For dinner I made a noodle soup that turned out pretty nicely. It was a combination of Mexican and Japanese, but in the end it worked out great. Low fat, too.

I’ve been having a strange night at home. About an hour ago, someone put a key in my door and tried to open it. I froze where I was. Kuniko has my spare key, but she was supposed to be at work in Osaka – a whole bunch of scary scenarios flashed through my head before whoever was at the door realized they were trying to get in the wrong apartment and left.

I got a phone call from some lady. It was weird because she didn’t try to identify herself, and she asked whether I was married, what country I was from, and other personal information. I couldn’t follow exactly why she wanted the information. She offered to give me a pamphlet, but I turned her down. She kept lingering on the phone, even though I’m sure she could tell that I didn’t have a clue. Finally I asked what her name was, in very direct Japanese. That got her attention, and she wrapped up the call really quick. Was it a stalker? A telemarketer? Strange.

It seems that I’m settling into a routine based around my apartment and weekend trips to Osaka. Although I’ve been hiking occasionally, I’ve been getting the urge to see some stuff maybe a little farther off. I’ve been trying to save money lately by spending less, but maybe I should plan a little trip one of these weekends.

Today I had a full schedule, with four classes, two Japanese lessons, and lots of papers to grade. The classes went just fine, with a pretty good mix of boredom and enthusiasm from the students.

While grading papers one of my students came in with a late assignment for me. He is having a tough time. I’m getting this all secondhand, but apparently he was diagnosed with some kind of rare disease, and he’s slowly losing his hearing and some of his vision. It started over summer vacation, and he’s missed lots of school since then going to various specialists around Japan. The topic of the assignment was about summer vacation. It was a very sad essay to read.

You could feel the frustration from the student as his life is turned upside down by something that he doesn’t really understand. He wrote quite a bit in broken English and I could feel his anger. I was surprised that he did the assignment. Here his life is falling apart and he still sat down and wrote an English essay. It was the best essay I’ve read since I’ve been there, because it was full of real feelings.

This evening I tried to relax a little, since I was running full speed all day. I’m going to do a little studying before I go to bed. I’m tired out and it’s only Monday!

Sunday is the only day of the week for Kuniko to sleep in. I slept in with her and were able to sleep until almost 11 a.m. After that we got organized, had breakfast, and headed into Osaka.

We started with a visit to McDonald’s. I had mentioned the documentary “Super Size Me” to Kuniko a couple of weeks ago, and that had her craving fast food. Kind of the opposite effect of what the filmmaker intended, I think. I like going to McDonald’s in Japan because the menu is different. I had the ‘月見バーガー’, literally translated, the “See The Moon Burger”. It’s a regular burger with some ham and a fried egg on top.

Kuniko had to get some new clothes for work, and I had a few errands to run. We started by going to some of the department stores in the Hankyu building.

Shopping in these department stores is always amazing to me. First, the stores are jam packed. The clothes are super expensive – a blouse starts at $50, and jackets run around $300 or more. I had a lot of time to browse, and it’s easy to see all these high prices and think prices are out of control in Japan. When you think about it, we were shopping in downtown Osaka, the third largest city in Japan. We were in the glamour district, and these prices wouldn’t be much higher than shopping department stores in downtown Los Angeles or San Francisco.

As usual I got lots of looks walking around there. The place was crawling with women, and it’s a little unnerving to have them all looking at you. I earned a couple of joking punches from Kuniko because I said hello to some people that couldn’t stop staring. It’s all in good fun, though. I’m the nice foreigner!

Kuniko made some hard decisions and came out with a new blouse and skirt. The skirt is a great print – we were looking at it on the hanger, and I said that it reminds me of a 3D picture. She laughed and shook it in from of my face, saying “3D, 3D”, and that’s when the clerk came over to see what the crazy mixed couple were doing to her merchandise. I think my “out-of-the-box” nature is starting to rub off on Kuniko a little bit. She’s always been pretty independent, and gradually she is doing more little things that are not typical Japanese behavior.

After shopping hard, we went back to Kuniko’s place, and she cooked us a comparatively healthy meal – pasta alfredo. Dinner turned out great, and for dessert we had a cup of yogurt. The flavor was one I couldn’t recognize, though. The name of it wasn’t in our dictionaries, so I have no idea. It had pictures of palm trees on it – that was my only clue.

Kuniko sent me home with some habanero cheese that she had found, and also some Spongebob Squarepants macaroni and cheese that she had bought at an imported goods store. I guess she knows what I like.

I left her place a little earlier than usual so that I could go home and finish my weekly laundry, get organized for tomorrow, and write the words that you are reading right now. She walked me to the station, and even gave me a kiss goodbye in front of the main gates of JR Shin Osaka station as hundreds of people walked around us. That’s definitely not typical Japanese behavior!

On the train ride home a lady from Phoenix, Arizona chatted with me a little bit. She had been in Japan for a month, working on a teaching program supported by a sister city system. We chatted about what we missed most, and everything came back to food. She was one month into her year assignment, and she had already went crazy at Costco.

I’m getting ready to hit the sack. I’ll be busy tomorrow with a full day of classes, and two Japanese lessons.

Today I slept in nicely until around 8:30, and then got up to get cleaned up and make breakfast. Today I had no real plans other than watching my high school’s basketball team play at the nearby Akashi Nishi school. Before I left for the game I was doing laundry, cleaning the house, and listening to Lenny Kravitz. Somebody knocked on the door, and I figured it was Jane from upstairs coming by to say hello.

Instead it was a wiry Caucasian guy with glasses. He said hello and asked me where Jane lived – except he asked me in Japanese. I smiled and told him that she lived upstairs, in English. He kind of figured out that I was indeed a foreigner like him, and so we chatted for a bit. He had just gotten the apartment number wrong. Later he came back down because Jane wasn’t there. He seemed a little nervous, but a nice enough guy.

I went over to catch the basketball game just before lunchtime. I’d never been to Akashi Nishi high school before, but the layout is generally the same as any other Japanese high school and I had no trouble finding the gymnasium. I stuck my head in one of the doors, but I couldn’t I.D. my team among all the teams present. I started to walk around the building when the two captains called my name and came running.

They were surprised to see me – and pretty excited, too. We went inside and they showed me where the best seats were. I went up there along with the third string basketball team members, and we cheered the team on to victory.

The other team didn’t stand a chance. We kept our first stringers in for three periods, but by then they had a forty point lead, so they put in the second string guys. I was impressed with how physical our team was. They outmuscled the other guys and had no problem getting under the basket for rebounds. A couple of times their players would end up on the floor. Probably the other school is a bit more academic, though. They probably speak great English.

After a thorough victory I congratulated the team and went home to have some lunch and do some studying. Around six o’clock I heard from Kuniko – she invited me to head over in the evening to spend some time this weekend. I packed up a few things, and headed her way. I stopped on the way at Ito Yokado and got her a package of her favorite cookies from Australia – Tim Tams. An hour later I was walking through the station at Shin-Osaka.

As I walked through the station a group of men in black suits came out of the bullet train section and hurried across the terminal to get in a limo. They moved so fast that I figure it was somebody important. The only guy I would recognize is the prime minister, and it wasn’t him. I tend to see a lot of famous people (famous in Japan, that is) in Shin-Osaka station.

It was good to see Kuniko again. She was exhausted from working six long days in a row, so we took it easy and watched some TV, caught up on each other’s week, and went to bed early.

After a long day full of classes for students, I had my Friday afternoon class for teachers. Depending on what teachers show up, the vibe is different. Today was a weird one. We talked about the history teacher most of the time. The word in Japanese for what we were doing is called ‘悪口’, waruguchi. Literally it means ‘bad mouth’, which is pretty much the same as what you would call it in English.

I learned a lot about the history teacher and some of his antics over the years. He’s got quite a history. I’ve already heard some other stories through various younger teachers, including Kuniko. We spent almost 40 minutes talking about him, and we didn’t ever really get to the lesson.

Since I didn’t have any plans on Friday night, I stopped in and got a six pack of beer and some Calpis popsicles. Look out!

The beer was good – it’s a fall brew that’s just a little different from the regular stuff. 99% of all the types of beer in Japan are brewed by just four breweries. There’s not a lot of variety – you have to buy imports to get anything different. The fall beer was a nice change. They are just starting to figure out seasonal brews around here.

I had a big can of beer when I got home, and since I had skipped lunch today it hit me pretty fast. I decided to get rid of some leftovers by making a giant pan of fried rice. It had everything in there – mushrooms, eggs, kimchee, onions, garlic, and lots of hot sauce. Antoine called while I was cooking it, and I tried to get him to come over and help me eat it. He didn’t take me seriously, actually, and we just talked for about an hour. The rice was awesome – I kept raving about it over the phone. I’ve got leftovers, so we’ll see if it’s as delicious tomorrow, or if it’s just the beer talking.

For a mellow Friday night it was pretty fun. I watched Survivor, and then went to bed around 10:30 in the evening. Tomorrow is a surprise visit to watch the Takasago Minami basketball team compete in a tournament.

Apparently there is a Japanese proverb that says that the day after a typhoon the weather will be beautiful. It was true today. As I walked to school the skies were blue, a soft breeze was blowing, and everyone seemed to be upbeat.

I did my first three classes without a problem. Mr. Hayashi kept commenting that the students in his classes rarely pay attention. I watched him teach today and I noticed why I think that’s the case, but I don’t know if I’ll tell him or not.

During his class he often talks to two students in the front of the class. He talks to them in normal tones, but most other students can’t hear, and since he’s not talking to them anyway, they get bored and do other things. I’m not going to tell him how to teach a class, but maybe if he pays more attention to everyone and less to specific students, he’ll have a little more interest.

Normally I am through with my classes at lunchtime, but today I had agreed to be a guest lecturer for a history class. The history teacher had asked me if I was game, since today’s topic was California’s history. I spent a couple of days preparing, and I gave an outline and notes to the teacher for him to review. He got permission from the English department, and I taught the class. In English, of course.

The history teacher rode shotgun and did some ad-hoc translation, and I mainly spoke in English, with a bit of Japanese here and there. The students are not expected to understand English in this class, but it was a good exercise for them.

Some of the students I teach already, and some have never had me as a teacher before. It was nice to see some new faces and I got a pretty positive reaction when I was through. We had a question and answer period afterwards, and the students asked me questions in Japanese. Although the main topic was California, most of the questions were about me personally. They were fun. I answered as best I could in Japanese and English, and the students seemed satisfied.

The questions themselves were great – some of them:

“What are the main characteristics of your family?”

“Do you own a gun?”

“Do you like George Bush?”

“Is everything big in America?”

During the class another history teacher took pictures of me in action – I’m not sure what those are for. Anyway, I think it was a success. Now the history teacher owes me big time.

After school the ESS club met for the first time in a long time. We ate snacks and chatted about this and that. The students filtered in and out – but I introduced a new project (an English bulletin board) and also we decided to throw a Halloween party. I’m trying to think of a way to do “bobbing for apples” – I told a class about that a few weeks ago and they were intrigued. Apples are expensive here, but maybe I can come up with a variation.

On my way home I did some much-needed shopping at Ito Yokado. I got some goodies to put in the freezer so next time I’m caught in a storm I’ll be able to eat something tasty. For dinner I had carne asada tacos – I had a meat craving after the last few days of vegetarian meals.

Now I’m getting ready to do a little studying and maybe call Kuniko. It would be great if we’re able to meet up sometime this weekend.

Wednesday was merely a normal day at work for me. Although the typhoon that was heading our direction threatened to send our students home early, we ended up finishing up the day as usual. There was a narrow chance of skipping my afternoon classes, but it didn’t happen – I was doing a rain dance in hopes of bringing the storm, but no luck. At least not right then.

I’ve been simplifying my lunch diet. I try to bring leftovers from home, and failing that, I go to the cafeteria and order up plain rice and soup. It costs 120 yen (about a dollar) and you get a bowl of white rice, a big cup of miso or dashi soup, and all the tea you can drink. To me it’s a sensible midday meal, but to the kitchen staff, it’s a little weird. I guess it’s the equivalent of somebody having two pieces of bread for their lunch. Not very exciting, I guess. The staff today offered to pour curry over the top – I think they think I’m out of money and I’m doing it because I’m poor. I explained that it’s because of a diet. They think I’m just strange.

After school they sent all the students home right away. Usually they linger for hours doing sports clubs and activities, but they had to leave today. I could tell some of the teachers were disappointed, because they wanted the students to be practicing for one event or another.

Since the students were gone, and the storm was approaching, I took the opportunity to skeedaddle a little early. I had my first teaching session with Azusa-chan, a student referred to me by Ms. Miyake.

I met Azusa at Carrefour, and it was starting to rain pretty hard. We walked about ten minutes to her house, and I met her father who had just come home from work. I also met her two dogs, who were very excited to have someone new in the house.

We worked for about an hour on business English, and we also worked out an hourly rate that seemed equitable, about $30 an hour.

By the time we finished the lesson, the rain was coming down in buckets. Her father offered to drive me back. At first I declined, but he insisted. Once I looked outside, I could see why. Just getting into his car I was completely soaked. He dropped me off at Ito Yokado, and I walked home from there. The streets were starting to flood, and I walked in ankle-deep water to my doorstep. Luckily, I’m on the second floor.

I had planned on doing some shopping, but since the weather was so violent, I just went inside and had some emergency rations that I had reserved. Tomorrow I’ll try to go shopping and stock up the freezer with the Japanese equivalent of TV dinners.

Today was a busy day for me, and I saw no reason to sit it out due to my throat pains. I had a reasonably good day, and I played a fun game in three of my classes. The students tried to guess what I had hidden in a bag, and the winner got a prize. The prize was always something goofy – I gave out a wrestling mask, a skull rattle, and a pair of cheesy sunglasses.

The teacher wasn’t so happy that I gave out the rattle. Sorry! When I left the classroom for my next class the student was happily rattling away.

I got in lots of study time today, and also made it home between rain showers. The temperature has dropped to a much more pleasant level, and it’s great to leave the windows open and let the cool air come through the house. I’ve upgraded my blanket to the big thick one, but I haven’t yet had to pull out the electric one.

I made up some sushi at home for dinner, and afterwards invited Jane over for a beer. We sat and caught up, and then realized that we were only a few steps away from a 31 Flavors. For the first time we walked over to Ito Yokado together, and exchanged shopping tips while we ate ice cream and walked around. It was fun, but I definitely don’t want to make it a habit. There’s too much ice cream for the amount of exercise we expended to get it.

Now I’m back at home and getting ready for bed. Tomorrow night another typhoon is coming, but it will hit late at night, so I probably won’t miss any school. Bummer!

I was on the train to work this morning nursing the beginnings of a sore throat and I had the very strong wish that Kuniko was there sitting next to me. When we ride the train together sometimes she kind of leans against me and rests her head on my shoulder. Unfortunately she was already at work far away in Osaka, and so I was left with the hung over salarymen, whose heads I don’t want anywhere near my shoulder.

I arrived at school without my umbrella after carefully observing the weather forecast, and an hour after school started it began to pour rain. Cats and dogs. Luckily it finished by the time I left, so I didn’t need the umbrella. It really pays to check the weather forecast every morning. The have the day cut into 3 hour increments, so it’s easy to see when the rain will move in and out.

Today was a busy day, three first year lessons. It’s the “I Love Bryan” crowd on Monday and I contend with around five flirting girls over three classes. At least they pay attention.

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS AHEAD!

Towards the end of the day my sore throat really started feeling worse. When I run my tongue around the back of my mouth it feels rough, like there are blisters or something back there. When I swallow it kind of hurts, and when I took a look in the mirror there were areas that had turned white and looked like canker sores. Yuck!

GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OVER!

I decided to cancel my after school lesson with Tsuji-san. I walked over and told her, and she agreed it was best to go home and rest. She did get me some omiyage from her trip to Hokkaido. It was a KitKat – melon flavor! It’s only sold in Hokkaido. Did you know they have lots of different flavors of KitKat here? Lemon Cheesecake, Strawberry, and Vanilla? Oh yeah.

Back home I gargled several glasses of hot saltwater, and took a few aspirin. For dinner I cooked up a spicy kimchee yakisoba, with garlic and mushrooms. After dinner I felt better, and I’m hoping that tomorrow morning that feeling will continue.

This morning I woke up with the irresistible urge to hike, so I threw on some old clothes, grabbed my backpack, and went out the door smelly and unshowered. I caught the train at Nishi Futami, and ended up at Suma, several express stops away.

I climbed the base of Suma mountain, and it’s a pretty aggressive start. After I got the top, things flatten out a bit, and then it loops back into town. The whole trip took about an hour and a half, and then I went to the beach in Suma to look around. They’ve packed up all the temporary summer buildings, and now it’s just a beach.

On the train ride home I made funny faces at some kids sitting across from me. The mom looked alarmed at first, but she kind of relaxed after I made no move to attack.

I spoke to my parents on the phone this afternoon, and the evening has been spent lounging around reading Japanese kid’s books and making flashcards. Dinner tonight was a very simple affair, some rice and kimchee with some weird Korean veggies that I picked up at Ito Yokado.

Well, I’m off to bed. Next week is a regular week, no holidays, so I’ll be plenty busy.

Today Kuniko left early to pick up her car, and meet a friend for an early lunch. I walked her to the Tsuchiyama station, and on the way back I took a peek at the Sports Day that was going on at the local junior high school. The lady out front meeting cars was wearing a T-shirt that said “DRUG STORE BODY”.

Back home I relaxed and did some studying until around 3:30, when Kuniko came to pick me up. We went to meet Tamura sensei and Yuri so that we could go bowling.

I’m terrible at bowling, but we still had a great time. Yuri and Tamura sensei seem to feed off each other in a way that makes the energy level jump. Yuri bowled the best game of her life – she took a picture of the screen to capture the moment.

Bowling is expensive in Japan – we had to pay about $20 each for two games. They gave us some freebies, but still, a little pricey. It’s not going to be my daily hobby.

After bowling we played around in the arcades – they had lots of strange games. One game was about walking a dog. You could choose the dog, and then walk it around the neighborhood. That’s it. Strange.

Next door we had dinner at a Korean restaurant. The food was great – Kuniko ordered everything and we all chowed down. I’m getting to be a big fan of Korean food. Way back when I lived in San Jose I had a bad Korean food experience, but now I’m definitely a huge fan. I’m going to try to cook some of this stuff in the future. I’m not sure if I can get the spices right, but I’ll give it a shot.

Kuniko dropped me off at my place afterwards, and I went to bed soon after. It was a good Saturday – tomorrow is free for me so I’ll see what adventures I can drum up.

Although the weather has been gradually cooling overall, day to day it seems to be jumping around quite a bit. Today it was a warm day, which meant that we were sweating again during our classes.

I had two new lessons today, and they both went fairly well. One is about the weather, and I rigged up some magnetic weather icons that I use on the blackboard on a cheesy map of Japan that I draw. I try to encourage the students to come up and give a weather forecast – I give them an umbrella to hold so it feels legitimate.

After school I went over to the ping pong club to play with the gang. I played a different guy today, and we had some fun. He was taking it slow and we played for about half an hour. It was fun. I’m not sure I’m improving, but it’s fun.

At 5:00, Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Komuri, Mr. Kimura and I left for Kakogawa. We met up with Miss Yamamoto and went to Amuse, a bar that I haven’t been to in a long time. Mr. Komuri was celebrating his 50th birthday, so we made a lot of jokes at his expense. We spent several hours there drinking and speaking English and Japanese. Mostly English, though.

They kept bringing food – somebody had arranged something before hand because I never saw anybody really ordering anything, but food arrived nonetheless. Finally around ten o’clock we set out for the train station. Mr. Kimura walked along with me from Tsuchiyama station, and the time flew while we walked and talked together. I got home around 10:40, just in time to get a message from Kuniko that she was heading my way. I walked down to the Higashi Futami station and met her train there, and we walked back together. At home I caught her up on the events of the day, and all the fun stories that we told at Amuse. We didn’t get to bed until around 1:00 a.m. – it was a long day for both of us.

We woke up in Osaka this morning and had a nice easy breakfast. Outside it was sunny and warming up – the cool weather didn’t last very long at all. I helped Kuniko with her English transcription by checking it against the tape she had transcribed. She did really well – there were only a few tricky parts.

For lunch we went to the Indian food place near her house. They had an all-you-can-eat lunch special, but to keep you from eating too much they kicked up the spiciness. I ate my fill and only asked for a couple more tandoori chicken drumsticks. So good.

One of the reasons that I went to Osaka in the first place was to pick up some kanji flashcards that I had seen last time I was in the big bookstore there. We went over to the bookstore and I picked those up, and we also went across the street to Yodobashi camera to look around. They had some candles that I picked up cheap, and I compared the price of the Star Wars box set – it was almost $90 there. I got it for $47 via Amazon. Of course, I don’t have Japanese subtitles on my copies, but still – what a huge difference.

Kuniko was hosting four of her friends at her place, so we separated at Umeda station and headed back. I got back to Futami and spent the afternoon ironing shirts, studying, and watching the pilot for a new TV show called “Lost”. It was OK, maybe I’ll watch another episode or two and see what happens.

A couple of things I should mention about Ito Yokado. One thing is that the grocery store has electronic price tags – there are digital displays for each product. Employees walk around with electronic pads and I’m sure they can change the price instantly on the computer. I don’t think they do price changes in the middle of the day, but it’s a cool idea. Do they have those in America now?

An advantage to living so close to Ito Yokado is the late night price tags. In Japan food is marked down increasingly throughout the day as it gets less fresh. The other day I was in there around 9 p.m., and they had marked down their roast beef by 30%. I’m planning on going over there tonight about a half hour before closing time to see if there is anything dramatic marked down.

That’s about it for today – tomorrow is Friday and I have a busy day. In the evening I’m going to go drinking with a group of teachers, so that should be fun. There’s an outside chance that Kuniko will come over tomorrow night. I’m planning on going bowling with her and some friends on Saturday. I’ve been watching The Big Lebowski looking for pointers.

Today was almost like a Friday, because tomorrow is a holiday here in Japan. It’s the holiday celebrating the autumnal equinox, and today’s weather is starting to reflect the change in season. I was enjoying nice cool, cloudy weather today. They turned off the air conditioning in the school, and the classes I taught were sweat-free. One student even closed a window because of the cool wind blowing through.

Today at lunch I sat with a couple of teachers that I don’t usually hang out with, and we spoke for a while in Japanese. One of the teachers said that my Japanese was really getting better. He said that my predecessor couldn’t speak much Japanese at all. Later on in the day Mr. Hayashi was helping me by checking my translations, and he said that I’m showing some progress. His exact words were, “I can easily tell that you are climbing the ladder”. A little encouragement goes a long ways!

After school I stopped in at the store to buy some cheese and flour tortillas. At home I made a big pan of taco stuff – beans, meat, sour cream, cheese, salsa, and onions. I cut off a square and filled a couple of tortillas with it. Excellent!

While Kuniko and I were messaging each other, she invited me to come visit her the next day, since we both have a holiday. Even though it was late I decided to head over there this evening. On the train I listened to White Zombie and tried memorizing vocabulary, but the music didn’t seem to help much.

I pulled into Osaka and met up with Kuniko at her place. I was dead tired, but since she had the whole day off to sleep and study she was just getting started. I stayed up for an hour or so, and then passed out.