update
So since one person expressed interest, here's an update on a few things.
-I got my schedule for the next year, and I will be staying at Kannon, my base school, every day now. That's a good thing! During the next year I'll have six one-shot visits to a correspondence school downtown, but other than that it's all Kannon all the time. Maybe now, spending a year with the same students every day, I can learn more than 15% of their names! I'll be in charge of all 14 Oral Communication 1 classes, as well as teaching in a variety of English electives for the upper classmen. My ESS club also requested that we meet two days per week instead of one, which is cool with me because I love those kids.
-I moved to a new office at school today. It's ugly, dirty, and has no air conditioner or computer for me to use. And I can't connect my laptop to the school network. So all in all, this was a pretty crappy development!
-Sakura are blooming! They're really pretty, even though the weather has been crap lately. Hoping to do some hanami this weekend.
-Bear with me here, because I'm going to sort out the situation with THE LADIES, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. First and foremost there's Ichikawa-sensei(http://www.heavymetaltotoro.com/school/slides/P3150006.html). I like her, a whole hell of a lot. Not just because she's cute, which she is, but because we have a ton in common. Whenever I'm with her conversation comes so easily, and we talk about all kinds of things...it's really rare that I'm able to converse with someone so easily, so naturally, without taking a really long time to get to know them. Of course there's a giant-ass asterisk on Ichikawa-sensei, which is that she has a boyfriend. I don't know anything about him, or how long they've been going out or if she's really happy with him...but regardless, I hate his guts. The other day I told her exactly how I feel, because she kept bugging me to go out to dinner with her and her boyfriend. I have yet to go into a great amount of detail with her about how I feel, or try to find out more about her current relationship, but I hope to meet up with her for dinner sometime soon and get that all sorted out. At that point I can (hopefully) either begin to bury my feelings, because I'd much rather be friends with her than nothing, or...I dunno. Wait?
Next up is the home-ec teacher I mentioned previously. She's just a couple years older than me and is quite beautiful, so I asked her out a couple times and tried to get something going there. We hung out and had a good time, and now we have friendly chats at school and exchange emails regularly, but I get the pretty clear impression that, at this point, she doesn't want anything more than a casual friendship. Friendships are great and everything, but I'm disappointed that that doesn't seem to be heading anywhere particularly special, especially because I'd love someone to take my mind off of Ichikawa-sensei right about now.
And finally...this doesn't even warrant reporting, but I saw a great local band a few days ago. They had a nice, accessible post-rock sound (I'm not too sure what post-rock is but I think this band is probably it), and a drop-dead gorgeous lead singer. And I'm going to try to pursue her, because what the hell else do I have to lose at this point. She smiled at me when I met the band before the show, and that was all it took. I got the keitai info of one of the guys in the band and have been sending him messages, and I'm going to try and see them perform again soon. So my foot's in the door, I guess. Aiming high is good, right?
This whole thing would be easier if I had some male Japanese friends in the city, who could then organize some group dates and help me meet girls my age (i.e. not students or teachers). But I don't! All my friends are girls or gaijin...what's up with that? I'm coming up on two years with no relationship of any kind, and that's a pretty long time. I keep giving myself deadlines...first I was going to get a girl by Christmas, then the end of the school year. Obviously I missed both of those. Next up is the summer, before my sister visits.
Anyway, that was kind of all over the place. I guess sometimes you just need to get this stuff out, however it comes.
-I got my schedule for the next year, and I will be staying at Kannon, my base school, every day now. That's a good thing! During the next year I'll have six one-shot visits to a correspondence school downtown, but other than that it's all Kannon all the time. Maybe now, spending a year with the same students every day, I can learn more than 15% of their names! I'll be in charge of all 14 Oral Communication 1 classes, as well as teaching in a variety of English electives for the upper classmen. My ESS club also requested that we meet two days per week instead of one, which is cool with me because I love those kids.
-I moved to a new office at school today. It's ugly, dirty, and has no air conditioner or computer for me to use. And I can't connect my laptop to the school network. So all in all, this was a pretty crappy development!
-Sakura are blooming! They're really pretty, even though the weather has been crap lately. Hoping to do some hanami this weekend.
-Bear with me here, because I'm going to sort out the situation with THE LADIES, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's. First and foremost there's Ichikawa-sensei(http://www.heavymetaltotoro.com/school/slides/P3150006.html). I like her, a whole hell of a lot. Not just because she's cute, which she is, but because we have a ton in common. Whenever I'm with her conversation comes so easily, and we talk about all kinds of things...it's really rare that I'm able to converse with someone so easily, so naturally, without taking a really long time to get to know them. Of course there's a giant-ass asterisk on Ichikawa-sensei, which is that she has a boyfriend. I don't know anything about him, or how long they've been going out or if she's really happy with him...but regardless, I hate his guts. The other day I told her exactly how I feel, because she kept bugging me to go out to dinner with her and her boyfriend. I have yet to go into a great amount of detail with her about how I feel, or try to find out more about her current relationship, but I hope to meet up with her for dinner sometime soon and get that all sorted out. At that point I can (hopefully) either begin to bury my feelings, because I'd much rather be friends with her than nothing, or...I dunno. Wait?
Next up is the home-ec teacher I mentioned previously. She's just a couple years older than me and is quite beautiful, so I asked her out a couple times and tried to get something going there. We hung out and had a good time, and now we have friendly chats at school and exchange emails regularly, but I get the pretty clear impression that, at this point, she doesn't want anything more than a casual friendship. Friendships are great and everything, but I'm disappointed that that doesn't seem to be heading anywhere particularly special, especially because I'd love someone to take my mind off of Ichikawa-sensei right about now.
And finally...this doesn't even warrant reporting, but I saw a great local band a few days ago. They had a nice, accessible post-rock sound (I'm not too sure what post-rock is but I think this band is probably it), and a drop-dead gorgeous lead singer. And I'm going to try to pursue her, because what the hell else do I have to lose at this point. She smiled at me when I met the band before the show, and that was all it took. I got the keitai info of one of the guys in the band and have been sending him messages, and I'm going to try and see them perform again soon. So my foot's in the door, I guess. Aiming high is good, right?
This whole thing would be easier if I had some male Japanese friends in the city, who could then organize some group dates and help me meet girls my age (i.e. not students or teachers). But I don't! All my friends are girls or gaijin...what's up with that? I'm coming up on two years with no relationship of any kind, and that's a pretty long time. I keep giving myself deadlines...first I was going to get a girl by Christmas, then the end of the school year. Obviously I missed both of those. Next up is the summer, before my sister visits.
Anyway, that was kind of all over the place. I guess sometimes you just need to get this stuff out, however it comes.