It's amazing the upset that happens in schools here when one of the students steals something. Which happened apparently some time on Monday after school. Yesterday my classes were basically cancelled - my first two periods I was just there to watch the kids do their summer homework because the head teacher had to be in meetings with the kid and his/her mother and the principal and police. Today I think the police are coming to talk to all the teachers - or maybe even the whole school.

Back home I don't even think I would have heard about it if somebody had stolen something except through rumors.

In other news I am supposed to have training with the other ALTs in Maebashi. My attendence at this meeting depends entirely on Giovanni. I will not be surprised if I don't make it.

Aaaaand. It's almost time for vacation. All I have to do now is wait for a week to watch videos for four hours. 8D

Man, this week's Himitsu is like Matsujun's Day From Hell. Sho's face is twenty kinds of awesome though.

*Gave Right Back to You an update with chapter ten - which has been sitting on my harddrive, complete, forever.

*Found out the hard way that my Microsoft Word is retarded in more ways than one - the work I did yesterday on chapter eleven I had to retype when I got home because it wouldn't let me copy it. Something about needing to type a product registry key that I don't have. I hate you, Word, and all your ridiculous pre-sets.

*Got soaking wet this morning. Yeah, teaching and dripping all over the classroom is fun times. Especially when your pants get all stiff and make it hard to move. And my socks are still not dry.

*Checked over some papers for the second years.

*Am fantastically bored. Clearly need a bored-to-death icon.

*Am going to Niigata this weekend. Am looking forward to it.

*Do not want to go to computerless elementary school tomorrow and Friday. Not looking forward to it.

*Must immediately run to the mall to buy a spare futon after work today. Giovanni, despite promising to help (he is the one with the car) on Monday, disappeared promptly upon returning from work both Monday and yesterday. I have no doubt he'll do it again. Besides, I need to stock up on Lady Grey again.

Tomorrow the classes I'm supposed to have are going to all be doing nothing but demonstrations. I have no idea what this means for me, but I'm willing to bet that it will mean a lot of sitting around in the teacher's room. Joy.

Perhaps I will see about bringing my external harddrive with me and work on Right Back to You. God knows ye olde twisted Victorian romance novel could certainly use an update.

PS: Wahahahahahahaha! Sho!Wa! Skip!!! poster ゲット！ And signed by three of five. It is most awesome.

Some random thoughts...

*Tried my chicken Francese recipe again. Still had to use watered down dashi-stock for the broth, which I think detracted from it. But the proportion of garlic was much better this time around. And better yet, it was much easier to make the second time around.

*There are four sumo wrestlers on Tokyo Friend's Park II right now. It's hilarious watching them try the wall crash.

*Am so ready for summer vacation. Want it right now.

I sometimes for seriously love the guys in my school.

A bunch of the younger teachers apparently went out and took a photo of themselves in idol-group pose formation. They then made a poster of it and titled themselves Sho!Wa!Skip!

This poster is now up in the teacher's room. It is awesome.

Not that anybody cares, but have some tl;dr. Because I am in a curious state right now, with no work to do at the moment, and feel like whining writing about it.

So yes. My weird state of being.

It's not so much writer's block, I don't think, because I finished my JE Fuh-q-fest just fine. It's more like I feel idea-less. Like I can't write without getting prompts from somewhere outside of myself. Watching things doesn't spawn the feeling of 'that needs fic' anymore and I can't just sit down and start writing porn because I can't come up with a scenario that hasn't been done fifty million times. The few ideas that I do have I don't think anybody will be interested in reading.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, or what it makes me as a writer. Probably a bad one who should stop. And if I stopped writing entirely I doubt anybody would notice at this point. When was the last time I posted anything...? >.>; Especially when other people are posting out of the woodwork, and I get the singularly irrational feeling that nobody actually reads what I post anymore.

Ugh. This is what happens when I have two periods in a row free. I need more work.


And because dragons make everything better...

My awesome weekend was awesome and productive. Ikebana was done Saturday morning, and then capncosmo and I spent the rest of the day on a trip into Tokyo. Since her computer died, the main purpose was to visit Akihabara and get her a new one. And since we were thus going to be in Tokyo anyway, we decided to hunt down Surya - that Indian restaurant that was on Himitsu last week, since the guy's chosen dish looked amazingly delicious. We found it via the Himitsu website and google. The restaurant is in Minato-ku (Sailor Moon fans giggle here) and within walking distance from Zojoji and Tokyo Tower.

There is a reason why Zurya is that guy's favorite restaurant. (They've also been featured on Hanamaru Market, and Ousama no Buranchi twice.) The food there is amazing. On the expensive side, but amazing. If the other celebrities have as good taste as this, I definitely will have to start a food tour of the featured Himitsu restaurants.

I came home to find the Early Summer special Arashi fanclub thing and my ballot for the Kokuritsu concerts. I have no idea how it works. 8D

Oh hey, look at this. More complaining about work. What - you mean I have better things to do?

I walked into school with a lovely case of drowned cat syndrome. If I get a cold I will be unhappy. T^T And once again, I have to wonder. WTF did Joytalk think they were doing, putting someone in GUNMA with nothing but a goddamn bycicle. How did their reasoning work? "This person doesn't want a car and in fact specifically asked to be put in walking distance from her schools. I know! Let's put her in a place where walking distance means 'if you start walking at 7 you'll get there by 8:30!'"?

Yesterday's so-called training was ridiculous, perhaps as much as Joytalk's so-called training. In my contract there is a stipulation that the Gunma Board of Education can tell me what to do. (i.e.: Quarantine for a week.) So apparently they like to have a monthly meeting with all the ALTs in Maebashi. Basically we sat there for an hour and a half and stared at each other, listening to the BoE guy speak in broken English. Funny this, but the big point of the meeting was a summer seminar to be held in August. Specifically August 21st, with a big prep meeting on the 20th. These would be the exact days when Joytalk is having the second half of their summer training for us.

Such a conundrum - who do I go to? After all, Joytalk's training is mandatory. But the BoE has the right to tell me where to be. Tsk. Good planning, Joytalk.

So, Wednesday to Friday is all-day testing at Kisechuu. Accordingly, they've been reviewing and preparing since Monday. Yesterday was the last day of an attempt at 'class' - today is nothing but studying and prep time. Which means that my work in the classroom is unnecessary, so I'll be sitting in the teacher's room until 13:30, when I have to leave for random training that will happen from 14:30 to 16:30.

Hopefully things are on time enough that I'll be able to get to the city office and pick up my new gaijin card - my old one is out of date and though they were supposed to call Giovanni, that never happened. Since we have to go in his car (because the training is happening at a place neither of us have ever been to) I'm going to force him to drive me over.

Also. It is a bad idea to look up places like Saitama on Wikipedia. It just makes me angrier to have gotten stuck in Maebashi.

Oh Japan, you are so full of special snowflake crazy.

For whatever reason, the uniform at Kisechuu is a t-shirt and shorts worn under a track suit. Today, because the temperature is reaching whatever high, there was an announcement made during first period that all kids are to strip off their outer layer and wear only the t-shirt and shorts. There was much protesting and complaining to be had.

Happy Father's Day.

It rained all morning - how fitting. I celebrated by drinking hot chocolate and staring at my dad's picture for a bit. Then I cleaned my apartment and went out to finally buy a cutting board - which, go figure, doesn't fit over my sink. Much displeasure. Otherwise I've been watching all the Can!Jani I can get my hands on.

I know, I'm an exciting person.

Yesterday I got my hair cut and splurged on two tea mugs and a Royal Albert three-piece set from Takashimaya (they were on sale!). I also have a wallet that has a coin purse that stays closed now (also on sale), and a new bag for school (also on sale, but from Itsdemo).

Then I submitted my porn fest 'fic. It's not perfect, but it'll do, I think. There will also probably be many more installments of it, because that's how I do things. orz

All in all not a bad day.

Lookit me, I've refrained from posting for a whole five days.

... Feels a lot longer. orz

Somehow I made it through Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week.

Kisechuu didn't actually plan on having me go to class on Wed., even though it was my first day back. I was so jet lagged I didn't realize it was first period until it was half done, so I wound up going to only two of three classes.

Komagata shou was great, because it was two classes of third graders and one of fifth and sixth each. The third graders are freaking adorable, and Rikachan in my fifth grade class was so happy to see me she nearly sent us both flying down the stairs when she tackled me. Eimei was Eimei. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great. At least both the fifth grade classes are on the same page now.

Friday I went immediately from school to the apartment, grabbed my bag and ran for the 18:00 bus to make the next train (19:00) to go to capncosmos's place. Three hours of train ride, and most of it full of high schoolers. I got myself a nap for lack of anything better to do. I also got a cold and I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM. I didn't have it Thursday and I didn't have it Friday morning. WTH body?!

On Saturday I tagged along to capncosmos's ikebana class. It is awesome, taught by an appropriately awesome little old lady. Though I'm not sure how many times I'll get to go, I found myself walking out with a nearly complete set of ikebana equipment. This means I feel like I should be going every week, but three hours on a train, not to mention I'd be crashing capncosmos's party every time.

I've started RPing again via livejournal. It's quite fun so far, and it's a nicely structured set up which, but sadly the sempai of Johnny's are sorely under represented. And by that I mean we have Nakai and that's it.

Now. Kanjani8 media. WHERE ARE YOUR DOWNLOADING COMMS? WHY DO THEY HIDE FROM ME!?!

OH!

And I totally almost forgot the real purpose of this post: At Kisechuu, Nakamura-sensei totally used Johnny's to explain the vocabulary today. The word was new, and she related it to NewS - I don't remember the exact words but it went something like:

"Because the news is all the new things happening in the world and being explained to the viewer. It's a lot of 'new', so it's news, like Johnny's NewS."

She then proceeded to use Hey!Say! in a similar fashion, telling the kids to remember the word 'say'.

Oh, Nakamura-sensei. For awesome.

I have been awake since 4:30, and I have to work 'til 5:00 today.
I hate myself.

So I go back to work tomorrow for the first time in, uh... four weeks. 8D I seriously have so little concept of what the days are anymore - it's amazing what random vacation will do to you. Now we'll have to see if I can actually get up tomorrow.

Also I am NOT happy about the summer training schedule, which I had to find out from capncosmo when we met on Saturday, who found out only because it was let slip in a meeting. (They still haven't sent the rest of us who don't work in Tochigi an e-mail.) The days are 7/21 and 7/22 and then 8/20 and 8/21. SO RETARDED, because apparently each day is a go-home-at-night deal, and uh, it takes me two and a half hours to get to Ujiie. Not to mention that the training will be no different from what we did in March, and then in four hours in April, aaaaaaand 7/21 is the day I'm balloted for Nino's butai. I HATE YOU JOYTALK.

I am getting my summer futon and plastic dresser today. 8D Not having a car meant that I had to get it delivered so... better three days later than never. I am excited for my summer futon: It means I won't overheat every night now. I am not excited for the rainy season. I knew I forgot to do one thing when I was in New York - I have no rain boots, and the only rain coat I have is a hyaku-en thin layer of plastic that doesn't breathe. I am considering buying boots from the internets, but I dislike buying shoes without being able to try them on. Oh well.

Oh, and. So. Who wants to look over 9 pages of porn for me (probably longer by the time I finish)?

Ah, the joys of jet lag: After doing fairly well for myself sleep-wise on both Thursday and Friday night - waking up Friday and Saturday at 10 and 9:00 respectively - Saturday night decided I should be thrown off. I found myself in bed at 01:00 on Sunday morning, and proceeded to sleep 12 hours, waking at 13:00. Attempting to go to sleep at 00:00 last night has allowed me a 2 and a half hour nap, there about. I'm not certain what woke me up, but I am as wide awake as I will ever be.

Sigh.

Time to tuck in with Alexander Hamilton's biography, I think.

The eggs need the views. Also, I have nothing interesting to say today.

On May 31st, 2009, we buried my father. (Thank you to everyone who offered their condolences! They were very much appreciated.) Over 30 people came for the funeral - then nearly all went back to have ridiculous amounts of food at my mom's friend's apartment. This is what happens at Jewish funerals. The following day was spent sitting shiva as people who hadn't come to lunch the day before, and some who had, came in and out of the apartment.

Now I'm back in Japan again. Hopefully, this time, for longer than a week before I have to go back - and when I do go back again hopefully it won't be for another funeral. I really don't need another funeral in my life right now. Two in two weeks was more than enough for the next fifty years.

I would also like it if this time I was allowed to get over my jet lag instead of just getting more confused.

My father is dead. He died late last night.
I love you dad.