World Traveler: I'm soo vain! I bet these pictures are almost all of me! :D

(But seriously, I got lots of great pictures today! Posted below.) Have I said before how much I love working with Kawai-sensei?? I do! She's so awesome. We always chat and laugh. But to back up, insect count: 0 (mmm)! This morning was good. I got out the door later than I wanted, but when I got to the bus it hadn't started its engine yet. The bus ride was nice, I got to message my best friend (mmm - technology is awesome!), and I got rained on. A lot! :D When I got up to the school I arrived pretty well (even though I had my umbrella), and I was exclaiming how much I love the rain. Kawai-sensei said I was rare and that she didn't like the rain. I can't remember everything in order, but today I made Kawai-sensei and Sugita-sensei laugh because I stared a sentence, "Sukina senbei.." What the!? I was trying to say "My favorite senbei (cracker) is..." but they kept laughing at me. I'm not sure why it was funny. They said there are many, many senbei. Ok... I can still stay, my favorite of that group is ______. *shrug* It was funny to see them laugh. Oh! I forgot to mention last week one thing the principal said to me. He said he liked my desk (I decorated it with pictures the jhs and elem kids drew). :D I remembered that because he came to the hs teacher's room today and I said hello to him. Kawai-sensei helped me learn some new Japanese phrases and I tried out some of the Japanese I've been studying. I made her laugh really hard when I practiced passive voice. I said "I was eaten by a bear." ("Kuma ni taberaremashita.") I gave her a sudoku puzzle and we raced for 5 minutes (neither of us finished). She said it was really hard. (I guess so. I didn't feel like it was hard, but I didn't finish it in 5 minutes, so maybe it could be classified as such.) She gave me a green tea chocolate. It was interesting. (It wasn't bad.) The middle she described as bitter but for me it just wasn't sweet. It was jellied/gummied green tea and the chocolate on the outside balanced the non sweet center. I got pictures because the chocolate was pretty and also the color was crazy! I wish I could record us! We have so much fun together. When we were in the principal's office last week, he asked if I had made any friends in Morioka. I said yes, church friends and I turned and said, "To Kawai-sensei!" (And Kawai-sensei!) She looked surprised that I said that, but I consider her my friend. :) Today I brought her and the teacher who gave me wakame (fresh from her husband's farm) soap nuts. :D I hope they like them as much as I do. (For those of you who don't know what they are, they are a nut that produces saponins. I use them instead of any laundry detergent or soap. So no perfumes, dyes, etc! All natural! :D)

As far as my classes, oh man! AHAHAHA! For my junior high school girl (who is SUPER shy), I made a game (I'm skipping to the end of the lesson). We were practicing commands/simple sentences. So I made dice that had simple verbs and another with nouns. For example: the verb dice had: walk to, jump to, run to, pick up, put down, dance to, write on, etc. There were 2 of those. The noun die had: a chair, a door, the board, a desk, a book, a window. The person who rolled would give the command to the other person. I went first. I rolled, "Dance to/a book." You should have seen Rena's face. She was like, "No. No, no, no." I did it first and then did it again. Then Kanako-sensei (Ito-sensei) and I modeled the game and then she played. She rolled, "Pick up/a door" for me. That was funny. She also rolled, "Play with/a chair." I wasn't sure what to do, so I picked it up and held it on my hip and skipped around the room with it. LOL I rolled, "play with/a window" for her so she went and opened and closed it several times. I also rolled, "Pick up/a book." Then she rolled, "Pick up/a desk." And I made a big show of rolling up my sleeves and heaved a desk into the air. LOL I had SO much fun. She giggled quietly a few times but wasn't TOO overly excited (maybe some of my activities were too hard :/) but the game turned out to be really great. At least, she SAID she had fun. Oh! She also rolled, "Dance to/the board" for me. And so I really hammed it up. No shame. :D Kanako-sensei kept laughing and laughing at us. :) Good times.

My second lesson... oh man. I was so embarrassed. The way the SLP was written, I thought it was a different class, but it was the same class. So I took the same lesson (in my defense the SLP said, "Same lesson") that I taught last week. DOH! So we did the same worksheet but with a new girl. I made the students who had already done it pick new verbs for the sentence practice. Then we sang our primary song again. :) Today, the boy who hates school was in a VERY bad mood. He was so belligerent to Sugita-sensei and Kamada-sensei (the helper) that he was escorted out of class. In the hall he started throwing things. Mainly his chair. That was SLIGHTLY alarming for me. I wasn't worried about myself, but I was worried about the school's property and about the boy. :( Why was his day so awful he had to throw a chair? I was excited to see him in class because he had done half his worksheet last time so I thought he would find it much easier to just finish it and he would be on par with the rest of us. :/ Guess not. Poor kid. -- One of the girls wrote a really funny sentence. "Ms. Kamada cleans my room." My reply? "Lucky!" We called her over to see and she got a laugh out of it too. :) She was in our song! :D

During lunch, I went to go visit the jhs office. I love them! Anpo-sensei (the VP I scared last week) is such a fun lady! They were asking me about Jerod (Kanako-sensei had told them about him) and about my wedding ring and my wedding. We talked about pirates and then Nagano-sensei asked me the difference between Vikings and Pirates. I drew their hats as he speaks only a few phrases in English. How the heck did he expect me to explain when we don't really have a language in common!? LOL I also talked about time periods and origin. One of the teachers told me we were the same age and when Anpo-s heard me say my age she got all excited. "My daughter is 30 years old too! You are my son! Aah! Chigau! Daughter! Daughter! Sorry! Sorry!" I laughed really hard. I told her, "All it took was scaring you? I scare you, you adopt me! Japan is great!" I had to ask Kanako-sensei to translate "adopt" for me. :) Then I told them the story about Dr. Packer (German professor at UVU) seeing my wedding announcement (he didn't know I was in the room and said, "You know there are two sets of really embarrassed parents out there." I chimed in, "Actually my mom thinks they're really cute!" He was mortified. LOL I didn't take offense though). Kanako-sensei had to translate my whole story because there was no way I could begin to tell it. Nagano-sensei gave us all some bread he brought in (he's always going on trips and the custom in Japan is to bring back a treat from that place for everyone in the office ~ I want to do that but don't know how to afford it!). I love being at CS! I mean, I love my students and the teachers at MM but I spend a lot less time at CS and feel a lot closer to them. I really do love both places. :)

After school I had a ton of errands to do. I got a letter in the mail the day before yesterday and found out when I took it to MM and asked Saki-sensei that it was my residence tax. Well, the only day I get home early enough to go to the bank is Friday. Next Friday I will get home very late though so it had to be today. So when I got off the bus, I first headed to my bank (the post office). I found out I couldn't pay it there, but I was able to pay my tithing. I had to grab some cash as I needed to get a bus pass too (and had enough for that but not that AND my taxes). So I walked to the Kita Nippon Bank (the name of the bank I had forgotten to which Suzuki-sensei took me before). Well, they only had atms in that branch. Luckily the Bank of Iwate was only 5-6 blocks away so I walked there (all in the rain :D). Well, at that bank they referred me to City Hall. So I walked back to City Hall (I had passed it on the way), and then was sent to the building next door. But hey, third time was indeed the charm. (All along the way I got to ask for help and speak a teeny bit of Japanese and understand the simple directions. lol Anything else I just said, "Gomen, wakarimasen." I got to the right place, grabbed a number and waited. It seemed like I would have to wait a very long time (which was stressing me out as I needed to turn in a work report by 1700), but once the line got going it went pretty quickly. I waited maybe ten minutes and then my number was called. The poor guy was freaked out when he saw me. He knew, I speak very little Japanese. I told him, though, in Japanese that I understood a little and that helped. I tried to ask if I could pay my next taxes today as well but either the answer was no and he couldn't explain why or he didn't understand my question because he got a panicked look on his face and asked me to wait. I told him it was okay and paid the amount due for this month. (The next taxes are due in September but I figured if I can do them now, it will save me the trip later! Ya, not allowed. Oh well. I tried.) After that I wanted to go home but I walked the 8 blocks to the bus station and grabbed my bus pass. Monday is a holiday that in English we call "Marine Day." I know the kanji for it but now how to say it in Japanese. LOL So I can write it! :D So theoretically I could have waited until Monday but didn't want to bank on my memory over the weekend. :) That's weird, for a second there I thought the end of the month was near. It's not even half over! - But it IS a third over! And that's exciting for me! Summer is not my favorite so I'm eager to get to the fall (my favorite season)!

Oh! Side note: I found out yesterday... or the day before yesterday that Amber is coming to Japan too! I will have the McDonald sisters with me for my summer break! YAY :D! I'm so excited for them to come. :D!!!

Sorry, back to my day, I went to the bus station, got my card and home I went. Today's weather was awesome! The only time I took out my fan was when I first got to the school (the small hike to get there heats me up some), and when I was at that office -- I think they had the heater on. Yuck! But today I actually left my hair down at school. It's the first time I've been able to do that in a month and a half! :D (mmm!) The rain messed up my fringe though. But it's ok. I still looked fabulous! I took pictures to prove it! (enjoy them below)

(Hey Nod! I'm listening to Bebot and thinking of you - earlier was Lady Sovereign that made me think of you and Ang. :D) When I got home I cleaned my bathroom and then relaxed for a bit. Suddenly I have tummy troubles. :( I'm not sure from where, but thank goodness it's over the weekend (mmm). I'm determined to keep my record of never taking a sick day from work (ever). :D ~ I have been sent home for being sick and told to stay home (I had strep), but I have never called and said I wasn't going in. :) This evening has been nice but I have been fighting tooth and nail to keep my eyes open. I almost didn't write this tonight I'm so exhausted. I had freaky dreams last night - and I was frustrated because I got into bed early but then laid awake for almost 2 hours! Come on body/brain! Get with the program! Oh I also did laundry when I got home. This is the most laundry I've ever done as I washed all my shirts (summer is sweaty after all). I ended up laying socks everywhere, lol. But everything is hung up to dry. One of my towels ripped though and has a hole. I have no idea how that happened but it's one of my rented ones. *sigh* So I will be paying for the towel and the chair. Sheesh! I swear I take care of my things! I didn't know the seat could melt and that just washing a towel would make it get holes (!?). It's not like I washed them with cutlery! Oh well. I'll deal with that when it comes.

So I need to practice Sansa and guitar though I think I will not do my regular 30 mins on each since I am exhausted. Hope you are all very well. XOXO, A

(sorry some photos removed)