Been a while....
I've been too busy/tired/sick to post in the last few weeks. Mostly busy or tired as a result of being busy. Tis the season!
Soki and Kairi did really well at the speech contest, but didn't place. However, they both did their best performance and I couldn't be prouder. Sanae and I treated them to cake afterwards. Soki loved the cake...then complained that he was missing baseball practice. I guess you can't win them all, lol!
The Halloween party at Morgans was, in a word, CRAZY! A very late arrival (alternate replacing someone who left a week after they got here) named Gracie stirred things up. The details are nearly soap opera worthy...but then again a lot of things right now seem to be soap opera worthy. Drives me crazy sometimes so I've actually started spending time at home...just by myself. I'd forgotten how relaxing that can be!
Anyway, Grace is a cool girl. Somewhat eccentric but very self aware and sure of herself, she's fun to be around, although I wouldn't move in with her any time soon. That much energy can be exhausting to be around! We found her a quick convert to onsens (hot springs) and she even went hiking with us up to the waterfall last Sunday. A fun, spunky girl.
The Midyear Conference was interesting...and that's all I'll say about that. Sanae and I managed to get through our presentation (whew!). Unfortunately we geared it toward 1st years and JTE's so the 2nd & 3rd years were probably bored out of their minds. AND people made a lot of assumptions...as usual. Oh well, if putting their two cents in makes them feel better about themselves, who am I to trample on someone's attempt to inflate their own ego?
This weekend is a YETI meeting. We have to bring up all the shit that's happening before winter break (fun times), what we're going to do....and they have to convince me that a $400 budget for a holiday party is reasonable. (That's not paying for the food or restaurant...just for table decorations, prizes etc) Since I'm the one with the bank card, they're going to have to make a pretty convincing argument.
The weekend after that is another 3 day weekend (yeah for Prefectural Holiday...a holiday just for Yamanashi!). Saturday night we have the Pub Quiz, Sunday is a trip to Tokyo to celebrate Renee's birthday, Monday will be recoup day, then back to teaching my kiddies! This year Labour Thanksgiving Day (Japanese holiday) is on the same day as America's Thanksgiving Day so we're holding a charity dinner. Proceeds will go to the group going to Thailand to help with the Orphanage this December. Am I going to Thailand? Nope...totally caved, I'm going home.
I haven't been home for Xmas in 3 years...man how time flies!
We also have the holiday party in December. Tina is sending me wonderful opera gloves to go with my dress (yeah Tina!!). With the current drop in temperatures (it was in the 60's on Sunday, now it's somewhere in the 40's) I just hope I don't freeze in the damn dress. I might have to bust out that full length winter coat. And def no to the open toed shoes...brrrr!
Other than that life's been pretty usual. A lot of the first years are super friendly so I get invited to some sort of dinner/social thing/something at least once a week. Sometimes I go, sometimes I cry off (long drive or whatnot). Olivia and Jessica are my two current favs. Those two are awesome...and make some super yummy Chinese food! They recently went to Tokyo and bought Harajuku outfits....oh my!
Hmm, it's getting cold enough I might actually have to go down and buy kerosene today...and maybe bust out the kotatsu table (heated table with rug and blanket for cold days). Currently I've just been using the air con unit heating and wearing extra clothes. A big diff from last year. And while I've got the cold passing itself around the office, I'm nowhere near as sick as I was last year at this time. Hopefully it'll be a mild winter!
Soki and Kairi did really well at the speech contest, but didn't place. However, they both did their best performance and I couldn't be prouder. Sanae and I treated them to cake afterwards. Soki loved the cake...then complained that he was missing baseball practice. I guess you can't win them all, lol!
The Halloween party at Morgans was, in a word, CRAZY! A very late arrival (alternate replacing someone who left a week after they got here) named Gracie stirred things up. The details are nearly soap opera worthy...but then again a lot of things right now seem to be soap opera worthy. Drives me crazy sometimes so I've actually started spending time at home...just by myself. I'd forgotten how relaxing that can be!
Anyway, Grace is a cool girl. Somewhat eccentric but very self aware and sure of herself, she's fun to be around, although I wouldn't move in with her any time soon. That much energy can be exhausting to be around! We found her a quick convert to onsens (hot springs) and she even went hiking with us up to the waterfall last Sunday. A fun, spunky girl.
The Midyear Conference was interesting...and that's all I'll say about that. Sanae and I managed to get through our presentation (whew!). Unfortunately we geared it toward 1st years and JTE's so the 2nd & 3rd years were probably bored out of their minds. AND people made a lot of assumptions...as usual. Oh well, if putting their two cents in makes them feel better about themselves, who am I to trample on someone's attempt to inflate their own ego?
This weekend is a YETI meeting. We have to bring up all the shit that's happening before winter break (fun times), what we're going to do....and they have to convince me that a $400 budget for a holiday party is reasonable. (That's not paying for the food or restaurant...just for table decorations, prizes etc) Since I'm the one with the bank card, they're going to have to make a pretty convincing argument.
The weekend after that is another 3 day weekend (yeah for Prefectural Holiday...a holiday just for Yamanashi!). Saturday night we have the Pub Quiz, Sunday is a trip to Tokyo to celebrate Renee's birthday, Monday will be recoup day, then back to teaching my kiddies! This year Labour Thanksgiving Day (Japanese holiday) is on the same day as America's Thanksgiving Day so we're holding a charity dinner. Proceeds will go to the group going to Thailand to help with the Orphanage this December. Am I going to Thailand? Nope...totally caved, I'm going home.
I haven't been home for Xmas in 3 years...man how time flies!
We also have the holiday party in December. Tina is sending me wonderful opera gloves to go with my dress (yeah Tina!!). With the current drop in temperatures (it was in the 60's on Sunday, now it's somewhere in the 40's) I just hope I don't freeze in the damn dress. I might have to bust out that full length winter coat. And def no to the open toed shoes...brrrr!
Other than that life's been pretty usual. A lot of the first years are super friendly so I get invited to some sort of dinner/social thing/something at least once a week. Sometimes I go, sometimes I cry off (long drive or whatnot). Olivia and Jessica are my two current favs. Those two are awesome...and make some super yummy Chinese food! They recently went to Tokyo and bought Harajuku outfits....oh my!
Hmm, it's getting cold enough I might actually have to go down and buy kerosene today...and maybe bust out the kotatsu table (heated table with rug and blanket for cold days). Currently I've just been using the air con unit heating and wearing extra clothes. A big diff from last year. And while I've got the cold passing itself around the office, I'm nowhere near as sick as I was last year at this time. Hopefully it'll be a mild winter!