EP success; less dizziness; Christmas prep
FINALLY, we are now over Thanksgiving along with the English Performance (EP) that has been stressing me out like no other!! XD
just as the subject stated, the EP was a success...well in the eyes of the Shyacho-san. she literally said "very well done" in Japanese after the performance, but i don't take praise well, so mentally i just brushed it off as her being polite. :P i personally would give it a 7 out of 10, and there were some hick-ups and even outright changes here and there through the WHOLE thing. although, i was actually more stressed out the night before the EP than i was on the actual day. hence the melt down that i had Thursday night, which eventually made me feel better because i got all that stress off my chest along with half a box of tissues... ^_^;; one thing that i like about me is that a good cry really does wonders for my mental health. no matter what is bothering me, the moment i let it all out and purge all those pent up feelings and anxieties, i'm back to my happy go lucky self right afterward :)
even if i was feeling a lot better afterward, that didn't mean my mind wasn't trying to figure out what to do if plan A failed or if something else happened. i wouldn't say i was "worrying", but more like strategizing on a plan B or C...or D. although, my timing for that was awful, because i tend to start thinking right after my head hits the pillow and the lights go off. ~_~;; didn't get to sleep until like 1:30 AM that night. :P
the next morning, Kay and i had to be there at 9:00, which meant that we had to leave the house around 8:15 in order to catch a bus that would take us to the daycare. since it was a holiday (ironically, it was Labor Day :P) on Friday, there were fewer bus times, so we had to be a bit early. we actually got there at 8:30 to find the daycare still closed. :P once it started getting closer to 9:00, my other coworkers came but only S-sensei has a key to the place, so we all waited for him to show up. 9:05 came around and he's the last one to come while we were all waiting outside in the lobby. ^_^;;
we immediately started setting up and getting people up to date on the changes and everything to the program. kids started showing up at around 9:30 and there was a pretty decent crowd this year. granted we asked that only immediate family members were allowed to come, there were some single parent families that came with grandparent(s) in tow. ^_^; no matter who came, it was still nice to see the daycare full of people there to watch their kids :)
remember when i said that there were a few kids who wouldn't be attending? well turned out, Kay's class only had two other kids that came out of the original 6 ~_~;; the other younger kids all came and even M-kun (the kid who got scared stiff from the Halloween Party), which was a big relief because it kinda gives a bad image when you have a performance with like four teachers and only have like 6 students... ykwim? :P so, there were a total of 10 kids, which was really reaching our minimum ^_^;;
when it was finally time to start, the kids didn't behave as well at first, but later when they got used to things and the shyer ones were accompanied by their parents (yay for cooperative and understanding parents!!), things started to fall into place! the kids sang as well as they could and danced their best ^_^ they weren't all staying in place and making things look all formal, which i was actually glad about, because it wouldn't seem their "style" if they did. so they smiled, laughed, goofed off while singing and dancing, and the parents didn't seem to mind much. :) although, i didn't see their faces, but the Shyacho-san was in the crowd the whole time and she didn't seem upset at the end. so... *shrug* :)
all in all, the kids tried their best, the parents had fun and the best part was IT WAS FINALLY OVER!!!! XDDDDDDDDDDD
last year, the shyacho-san took us out to lunch, but this year, she had to go to a 七五三 (Shichi-Go-San) of her granddaughter, so she left right after the performance. although, the rest of us stayed for the next two hours having a meeting and cleaning up. i verbally expressed that i did NOT want to do a "performance" next year since our number of students was borderline embarrassing that day imo. :P everyone agreed.
everyone left at around 2:00 and i had the rest of the day to spend with Kay :) instead of taking the bus like usual, we decided to walk home and found a nice soba restaurant to have a late lunch in. although, i didn't realize it was a soba place until after we ate and i talked to hubs ^_^;; we ended up having some donburi instead, which was still really yummy. the prices were reasonable too. here's a pic of my かつ丼 (katsu don 750 yen) and Kay's 親子丼 (oyako don 600 yen).
next time, i plan on trying their udon or soba noodles, and their rice balls were HUGE!! so definitely going back there when we get a chance :)
so, that was Friday. on Saturday, hubs took Kay to the Fukuoka garbage disposal plant and toured the place. while i was looking at the pictures, i had only one thing going through my mind: Toy Story 3! i kept on seeing the ending climax of Toy Story 3 where they were stuck in the garbage disposal place and about to be incinerated. ^_^;;
the CLAW....!!!
then she and hubs went for a bit of free golf :)
i was at work this whole time of course. it was actually an ideal day for me teaching-wise since a lot of kids ended up absent, so i had small classes of 1 or 2 students each, which was perfect for the game "What time is it, Mr. Wolf?" :D i think it would have been more difficult to manage the kids if there were my usual 5-6 in a class while we played that game. i did mention before that they are like monkeys and having 5-6 monkeys run around while the "wolf" chased them would have been for an "interesting" scene ^_^;; so very ideal that day for me.
also, my dizziness has gotten better now that i don't have to stress about the EP anymore. i'm still going to get my head checked on Monday since it still happens every now and then, but i'm going to guess that the really bad dizziness was due to irregular blood pressure. :P we'll see what the doc says on Monday.
today, i finally got into the Christmas spirit because of all the decorations that have gone up everywhere. they were actually up quite early in November, but i prefer to wait for Thanksgiving to be over before actually appreciating them. hubs also wanted to take Kay to the Fukuoka Tower and watch a robot soccer game. basically, the robots were built by elementary school children and they were pitted against robots of other kids in a soccer game. it sounded quite interesting so i decided to tag along. although when we got there, the robots all looked like they were from the same robot assembly kit, not custom made at all, and the games were interesting for the first few minutes, but when you saw that the robots were NOT remote controlled and were presumably "automatic", which meant that they just blindly went after the ball, we lost interest kinda fast. :T hubs went home early due to work, and i stayed around with Kay to walk and hang around that area. we ended up having a light lunch on the boardwalk of Momochi Beach which is next to the Tower, and it was surprisingly very warm today even if it was 15 degrees centigrade. :P i guess the clear skies and lack of wind kind of helped warm things up a bit around noon ^_^
as we were getting ready to head on home, we stopped to take a couple of pictures by the Christmas tree at the entrance to the TNC building, which i was really happy about ^_^ we were just in time to catch a bus that took us back to where we lived, so yay for not waiting 20 min for a bus!! on the way home, we stopped by the Mister Donut which was having a 100 yen sale at that time! :D we got five doughnuts and enjoyed them at home ^_^ i was actually really happy to have some of their donuts because i think they're the best, and it's been mooooonths since my last Mister Donut fix! there's another chain called Southern Maid that's around where i work and i frequent that place a lot, but i still think nothing beats the taste of the french cruller and the pon de ring. :D i also like their churros, but Kay got the last one in the store. lol, she offered to share half of it with me when we got home, but i told her she could have it ^_^ less calories for me :P here are some pics from the day.
that last pic of me was taken by Kay. it took her a couple of tries to figure out the camera, but she did it! :D
one more week before December and less than a month to go before we head on off to Taipei!! my itinerary is pretty much done, and all i need to do now is finish my packing list and shop for some souvenirs to bring back to Taipei for all my family and friends :) hubs has already given me the OK to go ahead and watch the three movies (Rise of the Guardians, The Hobbit, Wreck It Ralph). although, i think i might skip The Hobbit, because i dunno if i'd want to see it alone and leave Kay at home with the grandparents and hubs. we'll see ^_^