This morning it was below 20 degrees for the first time this season, and it was that much harder to get out of bed. I can see a trend here – the difference in temperature between the inside of my bed and the outside is getting bigger and bigger. Almost time for the electric blanket. Several weeks ago I was wiping the sweat off my face during class.

Speaking of class, I did a couple of new lessons today on movies. Movies are one of my favorite things to talk about. I love them so much, and the difference between watching movies in America and Japan are many, so it makes for an interesting topic. In my class we watch a couple of scenes from the first Harry Potter movie, and also we do a bit of drawing.

I’m on this thing where I have students draw, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a popular activity among the English teachers. They may think it’s a waste of time, but when I walk around and point at things that would take an hour to describe, the students are eager to find the English word. It’s fun, and it gets everyone involved, even if they’re not so great at English. Today’s lessons were a success in that regard – we had some great pictures.

The latest on the music teacher with the heart surgery is that he is going to be OK. He’ll be in the hospital for a couple of months, and so we had a new teacher come in to take over his music classes. Mr. Hayashi is still stuck with taking over his homeroom class, and the big joke around the staffroom seems to be that Mr. Hayashi is finally going to have to earn his keep. He’s been busy running around and we’ve exchanged only a few words all day.

I met with some of the students from ESS and we worked a little bit on the English bulletin board. I came up with a word of the week “junk”, and we put up some comics. I had cut out an English comic to post, but the students want to redraw the comic in a bigger size. Pretty ambitious, but it’s their project so I’ll let them do what they want.

After school I went straight to Ito Yokado and had a quick dinner of donburi and a “twister” from KFC, which is just a couple of pieces of chicken wrapped in a tortilla with lettuce and some sauce. Then I was off to Azusa’s for an English lesson. She did much better this time around, and I gave her some limericks to work on her L’s and R’s. Even after the practice that we did for an hour I could notice some improvement. She said she’ll practice them every morning on the train – which should make for some interesting situations.

I came home and stopped by the yakitori to arrange for dinner on Friday for the poker game. The master quoted me a great price on some food – now I won’t have to spend my time cooking – I can play poker more. I also dropped by to visit with Jane, who is doing well. She’s been super busy and is wondering whether there is an end in sight. I told her that it’s bound to slow down soon, but she has two schools and all the staff from both of them to invite her out – she’ll be busy for a while. We’re going to have a late night beer at the yakitori tomorrow night and catch up a little more.

Well, off to bed. My schedule tomorrow should be really easy – I need to clean up the place tomorrow and get ready for cards.

Some days seem like normal days, and some days seem like everyone is staring at me. Today was one of those days where everywhere I looked, someone was looking back. It’s all a matter of how I perceive it, because I realize of course that nothing has changed. I have no major pimples on my face and my clothes seem to be free of dirt and chalk.

On the train one of the ladies that sits across from me every day smiled at me, but instead of looking away like she normally does she held the smile and kept watching me. It was a little uncomfortable, and for once I could feel what it’s like for the Japanese people that I smile at all the time.

At school I had four classes. Three were classes for the second year students. A week or so ago while I was planning the lesson I was having trouble coming up with an activity. I hit upon an idea while thumbing through the JET manual – it was talking about life insurance and I thought, “Let’s write our own wills in class!”

I’m a freaking genius! I wrote a quick will, mainly pulling words from TV shows that I watched when I was a kid, and when I was done, it looked great. I drew a little headstone with my name on it, and then put a big R.I.P. on it. It worked really well – the picture got the student’s attention right away, and then everybody was bequeathing their possessions to their loved and unloved ones.

I walked around and tried to get the students to leave me stuff, but they were pretty adamant about giving me nothing. So adamant, in fact, that I was afraid that they might have misunderstood and thought this was a legally binding document. I was tempted to collect the worksheet after class as a joke, but decided not to.

The best part was when we had the students read their wills at the end of the class. We’d pick a student, and they’d stand up and solemnly (because that’s the only way they know how to read English) say, “I, Akiko Matsuda, leave this document as my last will and testament. I leave my room to my mother. I leave my dog to my brother…”

After school the history teacher was sitting at the desk next to mine waiting to talk to me. He’s actually staking me out, now. Yikes. We talked about how much fun last Friday night was, and he was eager to discuss the merits of “Deep Space Nine” with me. Lucky I know a little Star Trek lingo to teach him. This is how you pronounce “port nacelle”…

Next week exams start, so we’re prohibiting students from entering the teacher’s office. The first few days are tough because the students don’t read the big sign at the door and walk in. The first person they meet is me. I know they are about to get screamed at, but there isn’t much I can do. Lately I’ve been trying to get their attention, and I saved a few students from an auditory ambush today. If they are students that misbehave in my class, I just let them go through. Karma, man.

I’m off to do a little studying and hit the sack. Tomorrow I’m going to be teaching Azusa again. This week is flying by – pretty soon it’ll be the weekend again!

Today after about thirty minutes and several signatures I am a cell phone carrying person once again. It’s going to end up costing me around $30/month to be carrying one around, but I hope the convenience is worth it. Japan’s social culture is married to portable phones, and now I’m part of that.

I’m pleased with the phone – I’ve been fooling around with it this afternoon and it’s pretty complicated. I has a camera and it does web and mail and you can even watch TV on the thing. Kuniko sent me a couple of messages and I sent some back, in English and Japanese. Actually, it’s easier to mail in Japanese, so I’ll probably stick to that. Maybe I can budget it as a study tool?

After getting the phone I walked Kuniko back to the train station so she could go visit her family. We said our goodbyes there in front of the station, and I walked back alone to my apartment. I cleaned up a bit after having company for the whole weekend, and now I can enjoy the rest of my day. Luckily today is a national holiday, so I can do whatever I want. I’m thinking about celebrating my birthday with a $50 bottle of wine that I bought in Australia, and cooking up a katsu donburi bowl.

Maybe I’ll curl around my phone to watch some TV…

I spent today in Kobe with Kuniko, and we made the most of the beautiful weather and open schedule. We started by going into town and hitting the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. There were two special exhibitions going on there, one about Louis Vuitton and it’s brand’s history, and the other about how clothes worn by the nomadic cultures along the silk road in eastern Asia helped influence fashions of today.

In the permanent collection of the museum they had some disturbing artwork by Yokoo Tadanori – lots of angst, kittens, nudity, and blood. We walked through the entire museum, taking our time and completing the building in about two hours.

After walking all over the place we decided to rest over some coffee and sandwiches. The back part of the museum opens out on part of the Kobe Harbor, so we could enjoy some sea breezes as we sat in the shade. From there we plotted our next move.

We went into Sannomiya to wander around, do some shopping, and kill some time. We explored Tokyu Hands, and then walked around the eastern part of Kobe to sneak up on the Kitano district. Near Shin-Kobe station we bumped into an NHK marketing group who took our picture with some of the mascots from the station.

We walked the mountainside towards Kitano and spent some time among the old western style buildings there. They are kind of a tourist attraction – not many big western style buildings can be found in Japan. The area is also known as kind of a romantic lover’s walk around place, and there was evidence in the bridal shops and wedding planning services all over the place. This is like ground zero for overpriced Japanese wedding services.

Finally we headed to the restaurant where I had made reservations – Graciani’s. Kuniko and I hadn’t been there in a long time – almost six months. Mr. Hayashi stopped inviting her to places since she was so busy with work, and for some reason he wasn’t too keen on going to Graciani with me around.

The waiter recognized us immediately, and if he noticed that we appeared to be in at least a dating situation, he said nothing about it. He did (as is his job) approve of my wine selection, telling Kuniko in Japanese that it’s a pity that Mr. Hayashi won’t let me order wine there for fear of embarrassment on somebody’s behalf. The wine turned out to be quite good – a French Cote du Rhone that was easy to drink. Our meal was roasted beef, the salad was a risotto and seafood mixture, the soup was a purple sweet potato, and the dessert was chocolate mousse.

After a brief skirmish Kuniko insisted on picking up the bill, and so we walked back to the station with full stomachs. They were so full, in fact, that we decided to walk along Motomachi to the Kobe station and save a little money and burn a few calories.

Since we ended up at the Kobe station, I bought Kuniko a drink at Like, Like – one of the places that Antoine, Nel and I used to visit fairly often many months ago. The bartender was the same guy I remembered, and he had a funny conversation with Kuniko about Antoine and his antics from day gone by. We’ve definitely got to the gang back together and head over there.

We got off the train in Futami and cut through Ito Yokado. Kuniko has been researching good deals on cell phones for me – after three or four mishaps where I didn’t have any way to reach the people I was meeting, I was considering getting one. Especially since I’m on foot all the time, it might be a good idea.

We looked around and found a likely phone. I couldn’t believe how many things it can do free of charge – cell phones have come a long way since I last had one. I guess being in Japan helps. The phone guys had already gone home, so we went back to my place talking about maybe getting one the next day.

Kuniko has to leave tomorrow morning to go visit her family, so we made today my official birthday celebration. It was a great day – we’re both exhausted from walking all over the place, but we more than made up for that in calories from dinner.

I woke up this morning a little tired, but doing OK considering the amount of food and drink I had the night before. I did a quick check of the weather forecast, and the typhoon that was approaching was apparently going to miss my area of Japan. The day was cloudy, but not rainy, and it looked like I’d be able to do some fun stuff.

To start I talked to my brother and parents on the phone. We spent some time talking about Mark’s birthday, and their plans for the weekend. They’re still without a kitchen, so that definitely affects their entertaining options.

I spent most of the morning cleaning my house. The place needed some serious help. I also went into Akashi, where I found out, much to my dismay, that I had missed the deadline for the Japanese exam I was hoping to take in December. In fact, I had missed it by a whole month!

Fortunately, they have late registration available and there is an outside chance that I can get registered this week. Still, oops!

Back home I did a little pleasure reading, and had a fairly boring dinner of plain white rice. Around six o’clock, Kuniko messaged me to say that she was on her way to my place.

We spent the evening exchanging gifts (she got me a wallet, my parents got her some Elmo socks and a set of Judy Blume books). We ate niku-man for dinner, and went to bed early. Tomorrow we’re planning to spend the day in Kobe to celebrate my birthday.

The weather today was rainy, ahead of a big typhoon that is supposed to hit this weekend. I was looking forward to teaching two new lessons, one for the first year students and one for the third year students.

The third year lesson was first. It was a class that I came up with after reading through some old teacher’s handbooks from other JET participants. The idea was to teach the students how to greet someone in the western style.

I started by doing a greeting Japanese style with a volunteer from the audience, in Japanese with the bows and everything. Then I showed them how to do it in English, with a handshake. The handshake was tough – I must have shaken everyone’s hand two or three times. I had them practicing with each other, which was amusing to a certain degree. Boys don’t shake hands with girls, and vice versa. I was the only exception, but I think it made some of the girls nervous to shake hands with me.

Eye contact was a real problem for everyone, so I tried to show them how to shake hands and still have eye contact. They caught on eventually, but it was pretty tough for some of them. It was a little harder for the girls, but that is probably because I am a boy, and eye contact is a bit like flirting in Japan.

Overall the class went well, I declared it a moderate success. Much more successful was my first year class about movies. I love movies, and I poured a lot of that energy into the lesson. We talked about why I love movies so much, I told them about my favorite movies, and we even watched a few scenes from a Harry Potter DVD. The students wrote as much as they could about the scenes that they saw, and it was a good way for them to struggle for vocabulary. It had everyone digging through their dictionaries, which is always a good sign.

The Japanese teacher that did the class with me, Mr. Oshita, was a little disappointed that the students didn’t do better, but I assured him that I wasn’t expecting much, and just the act of stretching their minds for the right words – and making sentences with words that they did know – was a positive English lesson.

After school we had an assembly for all the students to describe the overseas trip to Australia. I put in a brief cameo to ask a question in English of the students that went (they had the answer already, but don’t tell anyone). The students did a great job – they weren’t nervous at all. Mr. Hayashi brought in a tape that he recorded from one of the teachers in Australia – he had called her and asked her to give a message to everyone. The only problem was that Mr. Hayashi played the whole tape, so everyone had to sit through all his chit-chat before and after, and since it was in English almost nobody could understand it.

Afterwards I went over to the table tennis club and hit the ball around with some of the members. I’ve been playing the first year girls, and they do a rotation, so that I’m always playing and there’s no lag time. They’re really good – we haven’t really played a game, we just rally back and forth. After, they asked me to translate some of the English comments that I had made on their homework, so I explained those to them – they were very happy with the results.

Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Komuri, Mr. Kimura, and Mr. Urakami (the history teacher) all took me out to a birthday dinner at Amuse. We were just there a couple of weeks ago, but they decided to go back. The food was great. They had splurged on a couple of Kobe steaks for me. I was the only one having steak, and I felt a little guilty so I cut it up and shared it with everyone, but they had another one on standby, just in case. So I ate that one myself. Very tender, and very delicious. We had lots of beers and told lots of stories. In the end they all split the bill, and from the amount that they split the total was around $300. Yikes!

I walked home with Mr. Kimura, and he went onward to his house near Higashi Futami station. I’m settled in for the evening – tomorrow is supposed to be a typhoon, so I’ve got supplies and I’m ready to clean house and stay inside all day. It could be a wet and windy day.

Thursday is my easy day. It comes at the perfect time, too. After wrapping up three classes in the morning, I was all set to relax and study in the afternoon. I declined an invitation today to join the PTA on a trip to Okayama prefecture to do some wine tasting (!) and eat lunch at a French restaurant. It sounded like fun, but the price tag was around $60, so I think I’ll skip it. Still, the wine tasting might have been fun. I’m going to file away that idea for later on.

We still haven’t heard how the teacher is doing that is in the hospital. The students are being kept in the dark, and the teachers aren’t allowed to tell them what’s going on. I’m not sure why – but hopefully he’ll be better soon.

Today we had a rehearsal for a presentation that the students that went on the Australia trip are doing. I have a small part – I’m supposed to ask them (in Japanese) if they plan on going back to Australia. The students were nervous and excited – they are making the presentation in front of the whole school tomorrow.

When I got home I had a package notice in my mailbox, the second one in two days. Since I had the evening free, I walked to the train station to pick them up at the post office.

As I was walking to the station it started raining, and I was totally unprepared. I had to stop in at Carrefour to buy an umbrella. As soon as I went outside with my new umbrella the rain stopped. It didn’t rain again the whole night. I can control the weather, apparently, for the cost of a mere umbrella.

I picked up my packages and brought them home, and my folks came through in a big way for my birthday. A warm pullover sweater, cookies, a jumping monkey toy, tortillas, some books, a salame, and lots of hot sauce. My brother sent a T-shirt from his radio station, so I can advertise that around Japan. I had a great time opening presents, even though it’s before my birthday. I used the tortillas as an excuse to open things up, and then I just went nuts. It was great!

Tomorrow we’re going out to celebrate my birthday. It’ll be me, Mr. Komuri, the history teacher, Mr. Hayashi, and Mr. Kimura. As Mr. Komuri says, it’s a “sausage party”. I taught them that expression a while back and it’s really catching on. They love saying it loudly in English in the middle of the staff room – nobody else, not even the English teachers, have a clue about what it might mean.

This weekend another typhoon is coming through to coincide with my birthday. I don’t know how big it will be, but I’ll have to spend some time on Saturday tying things down on the porch.

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.