Last night, Sara had a Halloween party at her apartment, and it was crowded but SO fun.
Most people from work came, as well as about 8 other friends. I met my manager's 5-year-old
son for the first time; he was dressed as a bat and was so cute! They and a few other people
left early, but the rest of us played two Japanese party games (nyuki nyuki and another one I
don't know the name of) for a long time. I might have mentioned these games before, I can't
remember, but each round goes pretty quickly, and if you lose a round, you either have to
drink or get slapped. Sara and Silvia (a teacher at our company in a nearby city) slapped
a couple of the guys really hard!! I'm sure it hurt but it was really funny. :-) Everyone was
cracking up and most people were a little drunk the whole night, it was very fun! LOL
This whole week I'm doing mostly Halloween lessons at school. I had so much fun with my class
of 7 5-year-olds today! I pretended to be a ghost and they were screaming their heads off
(in delight)! They also did a great job drawing jack-o-lanterns. It was one of my most fun
classes!
My dad comes in 2 days!!
Friday, October 24
Presenting my new bike!
It has a working light and brakes and a key lock! Quite an improvement over my other
bike (which I am also keeping), LOL. Good deal, too - only 6700 yen.
My other big purchase last week was a round-trip ticket to Sydney, Australia! Woo-hoo!
I'm going January 1-9. Hopefully a great way to start off the new year! Am going by
myself for the most part but may be able to meet up with a Japanese friend for a day or two.
Halloween's not even here yet, but Christmas merchandise is out in full force in stores.
Trees, ornaments, garland, cards...it's pretty odd, actually, since they don't even really
celebrate Christmas here! I bought my first Christmas card of the season the other day. :)
Oh, here are the crabs I bought on Wednesday, more for show than anything else, since I
wasn't really sure how to cook them and crack them open to eat!
(They turned nice and red after boiling but ended up being something cool to look at
rather than something cool to eat, LOL!)
Wednesday, October 15
There's a chill in the air - fall is in full force here. It's been in the low- to
mid-50s at night and in the morning, and of course that means it's not too much
warmer than that in my apartment, either. I've started to wear socks to bed again.
Fall products (food, drink, home decorations) came out at the beginning of September
but are already being replaced by winter products - Christmas trees are being sold
at the mall, as are garland and "winter version" beer and chuu-hi. Winter also means
white chocolate - "winter white" cocoa and white Kit Kat are back on the shelves, and
the joys of white chocolate M&Ms came out about 10 days ago - wonder if those are in the
States already. Well, I guess I can put my fan back in the closet now...will be asking
my managers soon to buy me a kotatsu (heated table; they told me a few months ago that
they'd buy me one).
Friday, October 10
The last week has certainly been a roller coaster ride. Matt was admitted back
into the hospital last Saturday (he's still there) and ended up quitting due
to the unknowns about his health. Managers weren't very happy at first, but
things have settled down. I taught overtime again this week, but the good news
is that we are getting an emergency teacher next week - she is only flying into
Japan on Saturday! But I'm so happy, 'cause she worked in the area until July,
and just about everyone at school knows her and likes her. Not sure if she'll stay
just this month or until a new permanent teacher comes (which, I'm assuming, won't
be until the end of November at least). I'm so happy to have a new neighbor!
Nothing much has happened outside of work, probably 'cause I've been AT work so much
lately. I did watch the movie "American Beauty" a couple nights ago. That was good.
I heard Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new governor of California. Crazy!
