My Week Before My Weekend

Yo,
I think it’s been so long I forgot some of the stuff that has happened since last time I updated.

What happened.. hmm

The past weekend was somewhat eventful. I stayed busy but nothing major or great happened. Sunday I was supposed to go shopping with Grant and Carrie, but Carrie wanted to get drunk early haha but I’ll get to that in a second.

That morning I agreed to help Grant pick up some bikes from the Outlets and bike them back to his place to save some money instead of having them be delivered. I woke up pretty early and ate some breakfast then headed out to Grahams. From his place we walked to the station and took the bus to the outlets.

After we got there we saw some of his students for the first time out of school (he’s never seen his students outside of school because they all live like a 30 min drive north). He said it was cool to meet his students but they were weird because when we saw them they said I looked cool then they wanted to know if I thought they were cute, but they’re 9th graders… I pretended I didn’t know what they were saying and just said thanks haha. After talking to them for a bit they said they wanted to come with us, but that’s DANGER ZONE, and we were just picking up the bikes anyways. Before we got the bikes we got some McDonalds. I got a mega mac of course:

Of course it was great. Although made me feel sick afterward haha.

Then we got the bikes headed back and that was taken care of. I was jealous because their bikes have speeds, mine doesn't!

After that we were supposed to shopping but Carrie’s need to get drunk overwrote her shopping needs. So we met up and headed to Tochigi Beer Festival again at about 1pm. On the way there I saw this guy on the train I had to take a picture of. He looked ridiculous: You'll have to click on the image to make it big, zoom in on his face and his socks...


Once we got there we met up with Sean, and Robb/Company there. It wasn’t to happening so we decided to leave and we went to this bar called the Crows nest. I met a couple Japanese people there but didn’t exchange any phone numbers or anything so yeah. It was fun we sung karaoke for about 2 hrs. After that I called it a night because I figured I spent enough money. Watched a movie at home and took it easy.

Monday was a national holiday here. In the morning we all met at a train station then biked to a local coffee shop thats supposed to be really good, but I don't really drink coffee so I can't tell. Its a nice place though. They have good cake.



I went with Becky and Carrie to the outlets again, this time to get some Halloween candy to give to our teachers as a gift. When we first got there I saw some of my students, and of course they were 8th Grade girls. They asked if Becky or Carrie were my girlfriend, I told them no. For some reason the girls here are obsessed with knowing whether or not you have a girlfriend. They wanted to talk for a while but it started to get awkward so I ended the conversation a little early. After that Becky, Carrie and I went into a pet store just to check it out. There was tons of cute dogs there, and dog clothing (all of which angered me). After that we searched at Toys’R’Us because we heard they had cheap candy there. I also found some cheap versions of games we have in America:

Who needs connect four when you can Joint four!

Hungry Hungry Hippos, I think not, Flip Flap Chicken!

Jenga? Hell no lets put some sexy inuendos in there Woody Unbalance!

We didn’t really see anything worth buying so we decided to go to the international market near by. We went to the international market and bought some candy, where I spent about 20 dollars on candy which is a lot and I didn’t get that much haha. After that I helped Carrie get all of her stuff she had lost the night before, like her alien registration card, driver’s license and other stuff that fell out of her wallet. It was funny because the people at the taxi place knew her by name.. They said in Japanese were you drunk last night? Ahha….

Wednesday night we had movie night at Matt’s place. This week we watched three ninjas, which is a freekin awesome movie. HIYA! Kristine has that movie quoted down to about every line, it’s almost scary. I think next week is Good Burger which I’m excited for!

Last night I spoke with Halston for like 2 hours about. It was nice to catch up with him and just talk. I told him my goal of learning 2042 Kanji by Dec. 4th. (Which is a lot to learn in just a short time) He was surprised and told me to do my best. I also inspired a few people online to learn at my pace. I pushed Halston to set some goals and I want him to achieve them like I will with mine. I set my latest deadline by the end of this year for the Kanji goal.

As far as teaching goes this week has been mostly normal/easy teaching. I spent the whole week at Ueno. I gave the teachers the Halloween candy and they were very thankful. They’re all such nice people I wish I could speak more Japanese. After I finish the Kanji I will start studying sentences and I will be able to get a real grip on the language. The crappy part is that by the time I get really good at it I’ll probably be leaving. I think the time to figure out if I want to renew my contract comes in January… whether I am or not I don’t know yet. As of now I’m leaning towards coming home. I met a good group of people here though and I do like the schools I teach at. The thing about moving here after being in Tokyo is at first it was a super downgrade, but as time goes on Sano gets better and better. If I were to stay here longer it would get really nice.

I think if my friends/family at home knew this they’d be like WHO CARES COME HOME! I think just about every week someone from back home asks, so when are you coming home again? Even though they are suffering it’s nice to hear and know my friends really miss me. I miss them too, but I’m having a good time here.

I also bought a puzzle and finished it in like 2 days.

I feel an intense motivation to get better at Japanese, specifically the Kanji. After watching some of Randy Pausch’s lectures one of the notes I took from it was -- Do the nastiest thing first. I think with Japanese Kanji is the nastiest part. It’s like setting the playing field, by doing kanji first you’re putting yourself on a hill, and everything else after that is downhill, so you don’t have to push so hard. I’m also learning them in a weird way, by memorizing how to write them and what the meaning in English of each is (like learning a key word for each). I’m not learning how to say them in Japanese because that will come with experience here, like just walking around or shopping at the grocery store for example hah.