Despite my school's policy (well, the manager`s policy) of no socializing,
I`m determined to get to know my Japanese co-workers and have become
friends with a couple of them. Last week, the assistant manager
(my manager) went skating with me, and it was so fun! Maybe I've
said this before, but it's so nice to get to know people outside
of work, because you get to see the real them and not their work
personalities (which are often very different). Plus, knowing them
outside of work makes working with them at work so much more
enjoyable.
As for teaching itself, it's going well. I can already see some
improvements in many of my students, and lesson planning is becoming
easier and faster with each week that goes by, so all is well. I'm
starting to get sick of UNO though, 'cause I've played it more in the
last 8 weeks than I have in my life! I also sometimes go to sleep at
night with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in my head...LOL
Anyway, what else...I feel like I'm totally missing out on the skating
season, 'cause I haven't seen any of the major events! Hopefully, I
will get some tapes in the mail soon. I read that Michelle Kwan just
her 7th US National title with Sarah Hughes in 2nd and Sasha Cohen in
3rd, so I can't wait to watch that competition!
Payday is tomorrow and my birthday is in 2 weeks, so I'm heavily leaning
towards getting a digital camera. I really want to put some pictures
on this site!
By the way, they are big on KitKat here and have not only regular
KitKat, but also strawberry, banana, and white chocolate flavored
KitKat. Yum! :-) This afternoon, I will attempt to make chocolate chip
cookies for the first time here. My microwave also has an "oven" setting
that makes baking possible.
That's all for now. Until next time,
Kelly
Thursday, January 9, 2003
First of all, Happy New Year! Sorry it's been so long since
I last wrote. Vacation from work started on Sun., December 29.
That night, I took an overnight bus from Kurashiki to Nagoya.
(I almost missed the bus, 'cause it left from a different side
of Kurashiki Station than I expected.) Didn't really sleep at
all on the bus, so I was pretty tired when we got to Nagoya
at about 5:50 in the morning. From there, I took the local
train to Ogaki, where a friend of mine from training lives.
Another training friend had arrived the night before and was
still tired, so after I got to the apartment, we all crashed
'til about noon. :-)
That afternoon, we saw Ogaki Castle, then went to Gifu, the
nearest big city. Didn't do anything terribly exciting; we
just walked around and stopped in some stores we were interested
in. We also went to a print club, which was fun. At print
clubs, there are a bunch of little photo stands where you
can take pictures and write on them and change the background
and stuff. There were also costumes to put on, if you wanted
to. We didn't dress up, but we still had fun posing. The end
results turned out cute but a little funny, 'cause we didn't
know how to correct our mistakes in adding little designs to
the prints, LOL!
The next morning, Tuesday, my training friends left for Kyoto
and I met one of my Japanese friends in Nagoya. Nagoya Station
is very big, but most of the shops were closed 'cause it was
the 31st. (Some stores are closed the whole week!) The big
department store there, Takashimaya, was open, though, and
the basement level was PACKED with people buying food for
that day and the 1st. I could hardly make my way through there!
We spent the day walking around Nagoya. We first tried to go to
Nagoya Castle, but unfortunately, it was closed for the holiday.
However, on the castle grounds, we saw about 5 adorable kittens
wandering around! They were SO CUTE! And so playful and friendly,
too. They all let me pet them and scratch behind their ears,
and a couple rubbed against my legs. I wanted to take them home!
Tuesday night wasn`t anything special. We were both kinda tired,
so we stayed at my friend`s house, watched a TV special, and
drank chuuhai (a type of drink here) at midnight. :-) On Wed.,
New Year`s Day, we went to a shrine in Nagoya. It felt like a
fair, `cause it was packed and there was food stall after food
stall after souvenir shop! I ate a corn dog, LOL! Yum!
More later...