IrishOboe

It was a busy week of school because though I planned the semester I hadn’t made all the handouts for it or given much thought to my OC III class. I managed to keep up at least, though some projects got put on the back burner. I’ve also been helping the ten finalists of the recitation contest prepare for the final round of the competition. It’s been nice to have individual time with the students after school. Of course, some are not so interested in the contest, but I understand that. I was also able to talk to a few students about school and life and such, which was also rewarding. I’ve got to find a way to be with the students more, and I have to learn Japanese!!! Picking up the language tapes has been helping a lot even though I’ve only been back into it for a week or so. They tapes are meant for middle aged men coming to Japan on business trips so I learn some pretty random vocabulary and it’s also the formal way of speaking which makes people laugh at me when I say something (though at least they understand) and it makes it hard for me to understand my students because they’re using different words. There are enough similarities and connections, however, to make it helpful still. I just wish they sold a “casual Japanese” Pimsleur method.

I believe it was Wednesday (Jan 11) that the principle decided to stop by our little office. He tried to talk to me some and I understood him a little. However, my tongue didn’t seem to find itself very well.

It’s been quite cold so I’ve been staying in most nights, though there hasn’t been snow again. I think it was Thursday that I went out to dinner with Adam, Mark and Meagan. The food was good and it was nice to see people after break.

Saturday (Jan. 14) was a cold, white-grey, rainy day. I cleaned up my apartment and my emails and did laundry anyway. I missed the train to badminton so I got even more stuff done and had a nice discussion about theology with Andy.

Church was at the Brown’s house again, which I like since we’re small enough. Miwako was kind enough to take me home and I talked with Sarah B., which was nice since it’d been so long and it’s tough to find a time with the time zone issue. She let me go early enough that I should have gotten to bed at a decent hour, but part of the work of the day was going through old emails (almost 500 woefully neglected ones) and I came across one from Mom with a link to Google Earth so I decided to download it and so instead of going to bed I started playing with it. The reason it held my attention so well is that it is really quite good around Kofu. You can see my apartment building and its parking lot and my school and the church and the train stations quite clearly. Once I figure out how to share it I think it would be fun for people to check out. You can also tilt the view so instead of looking down it looks like your standing up and looking at the horizon. It’s amazing how well they simulate it. Things like Big Ben can’t be seen as they are, but mountain ranges have their elevations recorded so the view around my apartment is remarkably accurate in terms of mountain ranges. I can’t wait to see how good the technology will be a few years from now. Of course, I don’t really want a live cam on me in that much detail . . .

Well, the long and the not-so-short of it is that I stayed up until the ridiculous hour of 3am fooling with it!

Today (Sun. Jan. 15) I still managed to wake up at 9am and had a very productive day. It was amazingly warm and sunny in the morning (I think it was 60!) so I finally made myself do the shopping that I’ve been putting off for, well, some of it for a few months now. I bought dirt for my poor mint that has been sitting in water since the Fuji climb (there’s no dirt around my place unless I stole from a rice field), I bought longer screws for the bike light that I bought three or four months ago but abandoned since it was the second light that didn’t fit because I have a mountain bike and not a city bike. I also bought vacuum cleaner bags which has taken me a while because I didn’t know where or what kind to get. I got another pair of long underwear since mine are falling apart, and it’s at this point I realize that I’m writing about details that are truly uninteresting. I’ll stop and say that I not only finally went shopping but I took care of all the items I bought as soon as I got back. I’m very happy that the new screws worked and I now have a light on my bike so I don’t have to worry so much about staying at school until after dark. I managed to get the right kind of vacuum bag, and I only bought one thing that I didn’t really need in the whole trip. Shopping is much more rewarding when the things bought really help in some way. I’m not much of an impulse buyer, but having money made me more of one that I liked. Plus, if I’ve lived without it for six months I can live without it for six more . . .

Even when they’re productive and fun the weekend still go by too quickly. I was just reading about how Kellogg used to have a 30 hour work week. How nice. Couldn’t we go back to that?