Last night we both got home at a reasonable hour, so it was nice to work on leftovers and have a slow evening after the drink-a-thon on Monday night. We took a bath together and then crashed out early – about 9:30 pm.

Today after work I’m going to meet up with some ex-students and have some beers. The month of parties continues… We’re planning on sticking around Hyogo station tonight, and we’ll be drinking with one of the inspectors. He’s involved with the latest project that they are working on, so it should be interesting to talk a little work with our beer. Those guys are into the technical side, while I’m reduced to asking simple layman questions. Still, interesting for me.

Kind of weird – we ordered some wine online for a party this weekend, and when it arrived the bottles were wrapped with the Sonoma County Gazette, which I’m not familiar with but it appears to be some kind of free local newspaper. How it got all the way to Japan is beyond me, but it was fun to read through the news from six months ago. With columns like “Meanwhile in Graton…” and “Geyserville Grapevine” it reminds me of the “It’s News in Glen Ellen” column in the Sonoma I-T. Good memories!

Last night Kuniko hosted a party at home for her coworkers. It was the second time for me to meet most of the coworkers, but the first time to meet one new coworker. He turned out to be kind of a crazy guy but it was fun to hang out with everybody and now we’re both pretty tired. That’ll teach us to have a party on a weeknight. Luckily Kuniko can get off a little bit early today so she can finish cleaning up the house this afternoon.

By the way I updated this homepage completely by voice. I used the WordPress application on my iPhone and it can recognize voice and convert it to text. It’s not perfect and sometimes I have to edit small errors but it still saves a lot of time. I definitely wouldn’t want to do it on a quiet train on my way to work however.

Okay I’m outta here!

The temperature is continuing to drop, with the added bonus of a little bit of rain yesterday. Today it is windy, and next week has even colder temperatures in the forecast. It might be time to bust out the electric blanket.

Kuniko and I will be a little busy with parties this weekend. Tonight I’ll go drinking with a couple of my irregular drinking buddies – one is an ex-student and one is a current one. They’ve got a interesting chemistry when they are together, and it is kind of like drinking with a couple of deadpan comedians. Usually we switch between English and Japanese which makes it good for my speaking and listening practice as well.

Tomorrow Kuniko invited me to join her in walking through the Kobe Luminaries. They light up the streets and people line up for hours to walk through and take lots of pictures. It’s considered pretty romantic, but I always knock it for the time it takes to get through the line. I’m putting my cynicism behind me tomorrow, and we’ll go out and enjoy it. I think we’ll hit a bar before to fortify ourselves for a long wait in the cold.

Yesterday during one of my classes a student showed me pictures from his recent wedding. He got married in the Shinto style, and the ceremony itself is only attended by family members. That means that I have a very, very small chance of ever seeing the ceremony myself. He showed me in pictures every step of the relatively short ceremony, and described it all in English, which I thought was particularly impressive. He and his bride both looked very happy, and the shot of their wedding cake had to be seen to be believed.

We’re already approaching the weekend, and it should be a pretty busy one for Kuniko – she’s got two parties this weekend, and I have only one. Recently the holiday invitations have ramped up, and it looks like I have six more parties before the end of the year. I hope my liver (and my wallet) can handle it.

After a conversation with one of my ex-students I’ve got an assignment that I have to work on for the next couple of weeks. Kind of a like a homework assignment for the teacher. It should be a little difficult to do the research that he requested, but I think it will end up helping us both out. Time to polish up my Japanese skills and start digging!

The temperature around here is steadily dropping, and we’re starting to shiver in the mornings getting out of bed. It’s just a matter of time before we start setting the heated floors to go on automatically every morning and evening. We also have put a few more holiday parties on our calendar – one with Kuniko’s coworkers next Monday, and one with Kuniko’s family on Christmas day. Kuniko’s parents, sister and brother-in-law will come over for Christmas lunch, and we’re going to go ahead and serve turkey for them to give them a unique experience. Maybe I’ll take on stuffing this time around…

I was able to enjoy a very long weekend, thanks to a day off that I had set up months ago. I used the extra day to pack up and ship all our Christmas presents to various places. Now it’s December 6th, and Christmas preparation is all done. We set up the Christmas tree on Sunday night, and we’re ready for the holidays. It’s a good feeling.

Speaking of Christmas, we’ll be hosting a total of three parties here before December 25th, so last night we ran off to Costco to stock up on party supplies. We’re going to serve roast turkey for Kuniko’s parents – I’m looking forward to seeing their reaction to the other white meat.

Since I had a long weekend, this week should be quite short. I’ve got a year-end party scheduled for Friday night, and an outside chance of a party on Wednesday night (with Kuniko this time), so it should be a lively week.

Today may or may not be a big day. I pulled out some steaks from the freezer, just in case. But there are a lot of factors that could change whether or not we celebrate with steaks. One big factor is the weather – if it is pouring, we’ll have to push the steaks to Sunday. And there is rain in the forecast for the evening.

At work today I’ve got a pretty full schedule of classes and meetings. Friday is usually my easy day, but not this week. Luckily, I’ve got a three day weekend coming up. This is an artificial long weekend – I took the time off of work back at the beginning of the contract, figuring that I probably need the time to get to the post office and ship off some Xmas presents.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news to post next week!

After a great dinner last night at Baan Thai with my students I’m thinking about making some more Thai food for dinner tonight when I get home. Bring out the coconut milk! On top of that, Saturday night I’m meeting Yoshi in Sannomiya and we’re headed to an Indonesian restaurant that I’ve been wanting to try. I met the owner last night, and he seemed pretty cool – hopefully his food is good, too. I’m not sure why I’ve suddenly got all the emphasis on Asian food, but it could have something to do with the turkey-fest we enjoyed last weekend. That was a lot of Americana packed into three days.

Last night at dinner I could speak with some ex-students who I hadn’t seen in a long time, and we talked about the changes in their lives. One had gotten married, and one is still trying but hasn’t found the right partner. You could sense the stress and desperation from across the table – it was palpable. If I can sense it in a relaxed, casual setting, I’m sure that potential partners get it right away. And I don’t think desperation is at the top of most desirability rankings in Japan.

OK – quick post today. Hopefully more tomorrow!

Kuniko and I will both attend separate “bonenkai” parties tonight. This is the start of the season, and from here on we’ll be busy attending various parties and functions through December (and even January). Bonenkai means forgetting the previous year, and getting psyched up for the upcoming new year. It’s a good idea, actually. I like the idea of always moving forward, and dwelling too long on the past. The only problem is that there is a separate party for each one of your “groups” that you are a member of, and that means a lot of partying. The rest of the week should be pretty uneventful, which is a very good thing.

Yesterday at work I had a funny experience while working at a big company. I noticed that in my office, the carpet was getting a little dirty, since my students often come in to the classroom from the factory, trailing in little pieces of steel, plastic, and dirt. So I sent an email to the guy in charge of my class to casually ask if he could arrange to have the room cleaned maybe once every couple of weeks.

And then the gears started turning.

First, the guy called the cleaning crew and told them to put my room on the schedule for cleaning daily. They asked when it would be best to clean, and he told them to consult with me. At lunchtime I bumped into the person in charge of cleaning my room, and she asked about my class schedule. I explained it to her, and we soon found out that there really isn’t a great time that works for her schedule. She said she’d think about it. Then the security crew had to change the security level of the room, since the cleaning staff don’t have security passes for the rooms on my floor. So they have to change the procedure for my students to enter the room, and the staff created a printout explaining the new procedures to students entering my room. Since the room will be “open” from 8-6pm each day, they want to put my office under lock and key, so they are looking into finding a physical key to lock my office door. They’ll try to get me the key before the week is out.

All because I’ve got a dirty carpet.

Today will be interesting – a lot of stuff is happening, and I wonder when exactly the carpet will be vacuumed.

Every now and then one of my students comes to class looking exhausted, and my frequent comment is, “you look tired”.

The reaction is usually pretty extreme. “What? Really?” They are shocked that they look tired. Everyone at this company works hard, everyone (except me) works long hours of overtime. I’m sure just about everyone is tired. But the trick is to hide it. To look like despite the long hours, you are ready to put in more. So when I observe that they look exhausted, they are pretty disappointed that it is showing through their facade.

Last night I put together some leftovers for dinner – rice, miso soup, salad and soy sauce soaked beans. It turned out OK enough, but certainly could have been better. Despite a pretty heavy eating weekend, my weight seems to have dropped a little bit. These days I’m running at around 86 kg (190 pounds), which is about ten pounds over what I’d like to be. Recently I’ve had very little opportunity for hiking and outdoor activities, so I need to find a way to go hit the trail. Especially with drinking party season coming up…

…I’m gonna eat it up because that was delicious. We’ve had turkey for the last three days straight, and it was excellent. Halfway into Thanksgiving dinner we started considering going out to Costco the next day on the chance that it is only a seasonal item. It was a simple Thanksgiving dinner, but I guess sometimes those are best.

Saturday we did some Christmas shopping (almost done!) and then chilled out the rest of the day. Sunday Kuniko had to work and I got my Skyrim on at home. That game is dangerously good.

This week should be a pretty busy one for me at work. I’ve got a dinner with some ex-students on Wednesday which I’m looking forward to. We’re heading to my favorite Thai restaurant in Kobe, Baan Thai. I can also reconnect with some students I haven’t spoken to in almost a year. The season for year-end parties has officially begun.

It is Friday, and we’re both pretty happy about that. Kuniko and I both have a day off tomorrow, and a Saturday off for Kuniko is like finding a turkey in Japan – a very rare thing. Luckily, we’ll have both. Tonight we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving after work. I’m going to cook (heat up) a turkey breast from Costco, open a can of cranberry sauce, and bust out the mashed potatoes and gravy. We’ll get home around 6-7 pm, so it’ll be a late start, but it should be nice just the same.

This weekend we’ll be working on some Christmas shopping, and also taking it easy around the house. And probably eating a lot of turkey sandwiches. Hopefully we won’t be completely sick of turkey by the end of next week.

To everybody else celebrating Thanksgiving – happy turkey day, and let the holiday season begin!

Last night after we were safely at home the sky opened up and dumped a huge amount of water on us. It sounded like they used a giant bucket of water – it hit suddenly and hard, and lasted about an hour. Afterwards it has been extremely windy. We woke up a couple of times in the night from the noise of the wind. It’s still blowing this morning, so it should make the commute interesting.

Although yesterday was a completely normal day for me, Kuniko spent most of the time at home working on schoolwork. I guess she got a lot done, and she could rest a while at home which should recharge her batteries a little. This Saturday it looks like she’ll have a day off too – good news.

Last night on the way home I upgraded my old iPhone 3GS to a 4S, and so today I’ll probably spend a lot of time trying to get it just the way I like it. Hopefully it’ll work OK eventually.

Today is another one of those days where my factory is working, and the rest of Japan is on holiday. Because they don’t like to shut down the factory mid-week and then fire it all up again the next day. They are banking the holiday and we’ll get to enjoy it later on down the line connected to some other holidays that have been shifted. That means today I’ll go to work and ride the train on the holiday schedule, and I’m sure to get a seat. It is a weird feeling going to work on a holiday – it is like a ghost town – but as you get closer to the factory things get more and more normal.

Kuniko has the day off today, and she’ll likely be working on paperwork at home and doing some relaxation. She’s certainly earned it. I’m not sure why, but she is up and about at 6 am this morning drinking coffee and enjoying morning TV. Lucky girl.

I’m having my first year students at work put together an extended dialog of all the skills they’ve learned so far in my class. I imagined when planning the first lesson that they would remember everything and just string things together and be ready to go next class, but after my first class I was a little disappointed. The students spent their practice time writing a giant new script that they could memorize and then follow. I’m hoping that my other classes today don’t do the same thing, and I’m thinking about expressly forbidding it. We’ll see how it goes in class today. Unfortunately the skills that they pick up in my class don’t last long because they have no opportunity to use English at work outside of my class.

Last night we had some stew that I made up using the new food processor. There is a lot of power in that thing – I annihilated an onion in seconds and used the slicer to take care of three carrots in about the same time. It saved me some time – good news. The stew turned out OK, but still a bit watery. Next time I’ve got to thicken it up a little bit more. We used some baguette to soak up the sauce and it was delicious – especially on these cold evenings.