Car Jam!

This is my sweet K car! I absolutely love it! It has a CD player!! and is not made in the 90's!

It's Friday night, which means I am pretty tired from the week. Unless there is a party in Nagai or drinking event at Lesley, usually I just chill out in my apartment after chatroom. Sometimes I get to catch up with Mandy and Rodney on scype which is always really nice to have home friends to talk with! Anyways, this week was unusually stressful and long I think due to the rain and strange circumstances going on at my school. The school will be going from two teachers to one. I am the lucky one who keeps a job (because of contract start/end time) and will be the lone survivor in this game we call English teaching in rural Japan. My current situations feels more like a burden...to be the only teacher in a small town, small school in a foreign country. The way my school is, no set curriculum, no real guidance at either school, means I kind of will be running the show. Cool maybe...but in Nagai it might feel like being the last person left on earth. This week we've been preparing and talking about class changes and and I am getting a little disheartened, not feeling so up to the challenge. To add probably 6 new privatenclasses, and three kindergarten classes to my regular week schedule is a lot of extra work. Now I am lonely and go crazy during the week for real conversation, someone to really listen, understand and respond to my thoughts and opinions. So when my coworker Wilfred leaves I really don't know what I will do. Only time will tell. It will be interesting to see how I react in August when yeah, I will be forced to really do everything on my own, and with no help from Wilfred and his mad Japanese skills.

So rainy days, thinking about change, loneliness got me down. When I saw the surveillance camera in my classroom yesterday I was in total shock! I couldn't believe it was there. Why was it there? Did they really need to spy on me?!....my mood worsened. I was ready to pack up and leave.

In the end, after my temper cooled, I asked about the cameras and apparently they are there so parents can watch classes in the near future. All I have to do is try to forget they exist, and avoid picking my wedgies in that corner of the room and all is well!

To end the long week I wanted to relax and watch a movie. Wilfred and I went to the video store to get a rental card. I needed or sort of needed his help, but life is easier when he does the conversing and I get less embarrassed. After dropping him off I ended up going down this alley that got smaller and smaller until I could no longer fit. After a 15 point turn I was going back the way I came and tried to squeeze through until....kkkkkkrrrrrr, I heard a scratching noise. My car was too close on the left side. I ran to Wilfred's apartment to get his help. We ended up lifting the car over a bit then he directed me through. A small scratch was left, but no serious harm done. My adrenaline level was so high. How could I think to take it down such a narrow alley...I'm not the brightest person and maybe too risky??

I love my car and need to take care of it and be more cautious.

I also LOVE that last weekend I was riding my bike so fast and vigorously that my front tire popped and was flat in a second. Yeah I'm a biking machine. I was pretty far out in the country and had a long walk back to the road.

This kid below, Hiroo is my ultimate favorite. He is so smiley all the time I can not get enough of his bright attitude. I love his shirt, his younger sister also has one in pink, they wear them on the same day. It's hilarious, especially because she has snot running down her nose, ALWAYS. The double shirts, funny caption plus snotty nose are just too much for me to handle sometimes!

Last but not least, I love the crowd spirit at the baseball game I watched last weekend. The game was relatively boring, we lost, in total there were only three runs but I had a good time...people watching. It was interesting to see the Japanese version of a ball game! Here's a video I captured of their favorite chant!