Darth Vader made it to the school festival! You should have seen him dance-- it was hilarious.
???????????????????????
The second and last day of the festival. Today the school was open to anyone, so many students from neighboring schools attended. Along with those students came many parents, which proved to be pretty funny later. After lunch, I headed down to the school's weight room-- I'm pretty much the only person who uses it. But anyway, I was in there working out and playing some music off my iPod thru an old set of PC speakers I found elsewhere in the school. I guess I drew some attention, as countless parents stepped in and watched me do a set of whatever it was I was doing at the time. A little people pressure does wonders. Knowing someone was watching me, really gave me that extra adrenaline. On Thursday, I won an informal staff chin-up competition-- also entirely due to this phenomenon. I don't win things too often, so I can boast a little. I did 16 solid, no-cheating chin-ups!
I didn't have time to write the comment for this picture right away. So for those of you who are wondering what the heck I'm doing next to a skeleton and a guitarist from the 70's, I'll let you know. Today, I had a date! We had planned to go to Yokohama (Japan's second largest city, and the home of a really really big Ferris Wheel-- There's a picture of it in the "Travel Photos / Info" section of this website), but there was a Typhoon coming so the weather wasn't congruent with our plans. So we went to Ikebukuro (a district in Tokyo) and walked around an indoor theme park. Sunshine City, I think it was called. This was in the horror section.
This picture may look quite similar to March 6th, but I assure you, this is not the same piece of bread. It's just another example of my rice-cooker culinary skills.
This was the largest gathering of grandpas to mow a lawn I've seen in a while. This lawn is used for Japanese style croquet. Old folks are out there almost every day. Can you count all six grandpas?
I'd like to tell you a little story. For the last few days, my kitchen has been smelling kinda funky. But I didn't know why. I had almost no trash in the trash bin, the sink was totally clean... "What's the deal?" I wondered. So it was getting worse and worse, but I couldn't find the source. I thought, "Oh boy-- something died in a wall, terrific." But then I had a revelation. I was in the shower this morning, going over how to explain the oil-burn on my left hand to my girlfriend in Japanese. The previous night I had cooked some bacon for a BLT, and the oil splattered on me from the pan. But I was thinking, "Will she believe that? She knows I don't like bacon." And I tried to rationalize it myself. "Why did I eat bacon last night? Didn't I have anything better to eat? I know I didn't eat the fish yet. But I don't remember seeing it in the fridge! Could it be in my backpack still?" Keep in mind at this point I'm still in the shower, and I bought the fish on Wednesday. When I finished my shower, I stepped out into the kitchen (yes, my shower opens directly into the kitchen). I peered down at my innocent looking backpack resting peacefully on the floor. I always use my backpack when I go grocery shopping, because it's easier and saves plastic. So I open it up, and BAM! A cloud of the most horrific, nasally abrasive gas consumes my wet head. I hesitantly reach in, and amid the caked on slime is the above pictured slab of molded fish. It was hidden behind an inconspicuous flap. Visually undetectable on Wednesday, but today an olfactory nightmare. I set it in the trash, and snapped a quick photo because that's just what I do. Now, being exposed to open air, my apartment smelled like the dorm room I shared with that baboon freshman year. I took out the trash, but the smell lingered. My backpack. The slime. The horror. I tried to clean it; I set it in the bathtub with a pile of laundry detergent and scrubbed away. But it is a lost cause. As I write this, it has been soaking for 16 hours to no avail.
I'm studying hard for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test this December. I'm enrolled to take the level 2 test, even though I failed the level 3 last year. (1 is the hardest, 4 the easiest) But I'll be ready this time. I'm studying out of preparation course books, instead of just randomly like I did before.
JLPT???????????????????????????????????????????
This is what the moon would look like if it were to eclipse itself.
This is a shot of the Kihara grocery store near my apartment. A nice selection of soy-sauce can be seen on the right. I don't know if you can see it, but way in the back of the store, you can buy TVs and massage chairs.
I'm trying to kill off some unwanted house guests. It didn't work. I'm going to have to go hard-core tomorrow.
One of the newest kittens to join the school grounds. You might think with our constant litters we might have a bit of a cat population problem. But these little fuzzballs are too cute to stick around long. I'd take one home too, if I was allowed.
A nice big typhoon (hurricane) flew over my area today. The wind was really strong, but it wasn't raining. The hollow sign on top of the glasses shop got torn up a bit.
Sports Day! No classes to teach, and students are actually happy! I got to study for my Japanese test for a few hours, and chat with the other teachers and students.
Today was the emergency training drill. We got to ride down the "Shooters" to evacuate. They're pretty scary to tell the truth, but a huge rush. You fall really fast, and only slow down at the last second, so you think you're going to crash into the ground and die.
Check out these spectacles. Or am I the spectacle? I finally was able to get my eyes checked for new glasses with a little help. I don't know how many years old my current glasses are. I also ordered up a new pair-- I went for fashion over sophistication. We'll see how that turns out. They're a drastic change-- so stay tuned.
It's day 1 of the English camp. Here we're cooking Japanese style curry outside. You can see two other foreign teachers in the background.
Wow, you have to check this out. For the school festival, a class created a huge Spiderman facade for the school! This isn't exactly an ink-jet printer job. We're talking 90,000 individually hand glued pixels!