April 2004

Two of our Japanese teachers left the company earlier this month and two new Japanese
teachers came to replace them. The new teachers seem genki and have very good English,
so I'm happy to have them here.

The temperature has increased dramatically since about 3 weeks ago. It went from an
average of 60 degrees in my apartment to 77! I think it has hit 80 a few days outside.
This of course means that the school has gone from ridiculously cold to ridiculously
hot - and it's only April! I remember the heat and humidity last year,and how everyone
said it was nothing compared to usual, so I'm not particularly looking forward to sweating
all day again.

What I AM looking forward to is making a trip home to the USA next week! It will be my
first time back in 1.5 years...I'm quite anxious to see how things/people have changed.
I can't wait to go shopping and eat American food and hug my cat!! :-)

Wednesday, April 7
I found out last night that except for today, I have to work EVERY freakin' day
for the next 3 weeks, 'cause there is no one else available to come in and cover
for the foreign teacher who walked out recently. The extra days are only 3 or so
hours each, but it will still be a pain in the ass, especially since my normal
schedule is already pretty loaded this month. Geez. On the upside, my next paycheck
will be sweet (it should more than cover a side trip to Mt. Fuji on my way to
Yokohama in June), and both of the managers at my school bowed low to me last night,
which I found rather amusing. LOL

So how did I spend my one day off today? I had my normal Japanese lesson, ran errands,
went to a nearby park to see the cherry blossoms, did laundry, and have spent about
four hours now on the Internet updating my skating web sites and moving a site from
one server to another. Not loads of fun, but at least I got a lot done. Tonight I'm
going eating/drinking and to karaoke with a group from work, so I gotta go get ready.