I woke up yesterday morning with a hint of a sore throat, and it continued all through yesterday. This morning it was a little bit worse, despite all the vitamin C, medicine and gargling iodine that I threw at it. Ugh – sick on a Monday. Maybe it is good to get it out of my system before any travel.

This weekend we are hoping to see Toy Story 3, but there are a lot of hurdles to overcome. The first is that Kuniko will be coming home from the study camp on Saturday, so we’ll try to time it so that we meet in Kobe to see the movie. The reason we’re seeing it in Kobe rather than Okubo is that pretty much every animated movie these days gets a Japanese dubbing, so it is difficult for us to see it with the original voices. Luckily, one theater in Sannomiya still shows the original version so we just have to travel a bit to see it. Or we can wait for the blu-ray.

I’m off to work – hopefully a day of speaking with students won’t cause too much wear and tear on my throat.

Halfway through a tough work week. My sore throat is a little better thanks to plenty of cough drops, hot tea and honey and my usual iodine gargling medicine. Ugh. The good news is that I’ll be able to at least speak with my students today at work. Yesterday I sounded like the Godfather – “I want you to do me a favor… conjugate this verb for me.”

After work I’m joining a small party – one of my students wants to take me out for dinner, and he invited some other students, and then some other people heard about it. In the end it will be about eight people. Nobody knows what language we will be speaking, but I’m betting it’ll be a mix of Japanese and English. Seniority and confidence play a big part in how the evening will go. Luckily, alcohol may also play a role as well – and that always helps.

It is a beautiful day outside, although in much of Japan it is storming pretty good. It’ll be nice to leave the umbrella behind today.