Tuesday and Wednesday the 18th and 19th
Tuesday - stressful, nothing really happened. I felt homesick at night and wanted to do something after work to get my mind off it but nobody was trying to have fun. I went home and went to sleep early.
Wednesday - work was long again, I have class for 5 hrs straight. One of my students was significantly late though, so the break was nice. I let him stay past 10 to get more speaking practice and because I was trying to learn things about the surrounding area. So I learned there are 2 movie theaters in Utsunomiya, and one is showing a new Keroro Gunsou movie - the guy took his son to it last weekend. Take note, Steve, you like things that 10 year old kids like. Um, so do I, though. He was totally surprised that I knew what Keroro Gunsou was. I’m so not going to the movie without a kid in tow, though. After work, I went to COCO’S, a ‘family style restaurant’, with Scott and Takuya (teacher who has the lower level adult students). They had a lot of things to say about GEOS that I am not going to repeat on the internet, not all bad, but not all good either, like you would expect from long-term employees. I ate the most amazing strawberry parfait, and found out that this area is known for strawberries (take note, Erin!). I found out earlier in the week that all the fields here are in fact rice paddies, and there is some (read: a lot of) rice in my kitchen left from the last teacher which was grown right here in town, so I can’t wait to get a rice cooker and eat it! J
It started raining really hard during this eating and talking, but since we drove there in Takuya’s car and he drank, we all walked home. His place was close and mine and Scott’s weren’t, so we stopped at work (about halfway) to unfreeze and pick up his bike, then went back out in the cold rain. His girlfriend called him and I guess started flipping out or something, so he pulled over at 7-11 to talk to her and I went home. I fell into bed and died for like 10 hrs, and Thursday is a nat’l holiday, so here I am at home with no plans except to plan lessons and write about my week.