Step

Well after the flurry of activity yesterday, today seems like a regular old weekend! I’m at small elementary again, and of course it’s a picture-perfect day of moderate temperatures (it got genuinely warm for a moment there, but alas) and bright sunshine on the gardens and mountainsides.

Yesterday, I wrote my essay for Shorinji Kempo, first typed, then by hand on the paper they had given me. This after I rushed to finish my Tokyo Orientation Assistant application form, but before I sent out the March issue of the Hyogo Times for publication (which I did after going to Shorinji to practice and turn in my essay, test form, and okane). All of which was after teaching five classes to 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th grades.

When I list it out like that, it seems like a lot! Okay, so it was a lot.

I’m almost ready to start studying Japanese again (especially after writing a presentation on “Independent Japanese Study for JETs” for Tokyo Orientation..), and I peer hopefully toward the end of the semester (and school year) at least in terms of hanging out at my desk, re-making those ABC letters that are absolutely falling apart now (kids are rough on things). I’m still sad that the Cats are leaving, but it’s the way of things. My VP asked me to explain “beloved ruffians” as used in my farewell note to graduates in the school newsletter and I had to think for a long moment. If I knew an easier phrase to convey that, I would have used it, I think.

Right now, I feel sleepy and out of it.. I think this is because I am sitting next to the heater, which lulls you with warmth and drugs you with carbon monoxide.. whee!

I’m going to start writing about Hokkaido soon, but unlike other trips, I’m going to write it by theme instead of chronologically. I might give a brief overview of the timeline up front, though, just because I am obsessed with time (no, it’s true.. my apartment is blanketed in calendars and clocks, and I did my Rome report on the Fasti.. part of why I want to write my novel is because I am interested in the way that culture will measure the seasons into their religious calendar..!).

So until then, yoroshiku, and check out the latest HT here.