You... eto... Have... eto... Very Beautiful.

The weather's amazing right now- sunny and breezy and about 25 degrees c. I'm giving myself excuses to walk around town just so I can bask. I feel like I have to store it up for once the rainy season comes. I'm not looking forward to a solid month of rain, I have to admit. Ick.

It was yet another friend's birthday this past week- there's been some sort of major event every weekend since I moved here it seems. This was the last one for a bit, partially because we have no real excuse to get together but mostly because we're all counting our yen. That's what moving to a new country, going to Nagoya three out of four weekends, and not getting paid for two months will do for you.
Tsushima has a gorgeous park. It's so restful... we ended up hanging out there for hours, watching turtles and blowing bubbles and entertaining small children. Between that and eating awesome food and screaming ourselves hoarse at karaoke, it was a pretty wonderful weekend.

I finally get to make the game I've been working out! I'm test-running it on Friday, so keep your fingers crossed for me. I think it'll go over well, but there's no real way to know until I try it. AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa suspense! Hopefully my ni nensei will like it as much as I do. I'm making a few different character sets to use so there's some variety if we end up doing it every class (which is what my JTE would like to do).

I got invited to chatsumi- tea harvesting- with some of the teachers at my shogakko, but I can't go and that sucks. Turns out I'm only working the morning with them and then switching over to another school and they'll be gone before I get off work. Grr! That would have been kinda cool. Oh well, maybe next time.

Alright, I'mma go work on the characters for my game- there are six sumo wrestlers and one piece of cake that are patiently waiting to be drawn.

Can you show me the way to the way?

I am probably the only person in the history of ever who actually enjoys grading papers. It helps that my students have such awesome translations... one of my personal favorites is the title for this post. There's a poster in one of my 3yr classes that states that it belongs to the "Best Groop". I have to stifle giggles every time I see it... gotta admit it's hard to look professional when you're snickering at the front of the class.

I'm kinda slowly putting down roots here. I feel like I'm sorting out who I am and what I need... and right at the front of those things is learning katakana, because I freakin need to know it. This is getting ridiculous- I can only read a third of the language currently. I'd like to at least be able to figure out the damn menu with some facility. In pursuit of this lofty goal, I'm getting together with one of the other ALTs and we're gonna drink coffee and learn this second alphabet and hopefully remember it and not get distracted (too much).

Another awesome quote from today's papers: "I mast have the way i happy. arong from you, from japan across is this."