my job

This is a part of my lesson plan for today:

Thats right. I am teaching Engrish. Now all I have to do is figure out how to speak greet and how to play fluit basket. I'm hoping it is similar to fruit basket, but I guess we will see. >_<

Why me??

Well I had a great day yesterday. Woke up at ten (come on - it was Sunday) then remembered I was going to watch Matts schools rugby team play in the Yamaguchi semi-finals. Had a leisurely shower then decided I should go and grab some food before we went, so I headed to the supermarket, leaving my apartment unlocked. 5 minutes later I got back to my apartment, tried to open the door and couldn't. At first I thought it was the soccer boys in the hall next door playing a joke, but they knew nothing about it. After attempting the old leg on the wall and pull as hard as you can, I gave up and rode around to Matts place half an hour early. When I told Matt why, I didn't get any sympathy. He thought it was hilarious! We decided to worry about it later, so we went to the rugby and, as the only gaijin there, showed everyone how we support a team. Mostly it involved screaming at the team and abusing the ref (in English, quietly). We won 89 - 0, then headed back to Hagi and back to my problem door.

After informing me that he was a champion breaker-inner, Matt went to the next-door apartment and climbed over the balcony to my balcony (did I mention I live on the 3rd floor?) where I had luckily left the balcony door unlocked! It turned out that when I had shut the door, the metal latch security thingy had swung around and locked! It is now duct-taped down and I have decided never to lock my balcony door again!

One more thing

This is an example of the photos we took last night:

Sorry it isn't very clear.

Ugh.

So I am sitting at my desk in one of my elementary schools, having just discovered they have a wireless internet connection, and I can't help but ask myself what I was thinking last night. You see, Matt, Shak and I decided to meet up for dinner. Nothing wrong with that. After hunting around Hagi for half an hour, we find a small restaurant that looks promising (and cheap, seeing as we are all broke until payday next week). We sit down and try to decide what we are going to drink, having decided that this week was going to be alcohol free. Then we noticed how cheap the drinks were. . . and that is where things went wrong.
Shak was the only smart one. After dinner (and one drink) he went home. Matt and I continued on to a 24 hour family restaurant because I was desparately in need of cheese cake! At that point, we promised each other just one more drink and then we would head home. Unfortunately, Matt had walked and we were now on the other side of Hagi from his place, so I offered to double him on my bike half way back (my house being in the opposite direction). The half way point just happens to be a bar. We felt it would be rude to stop but not go in, so we amended the promise to just one more drink. On the way to the bar, we passed our friends hair dressing salon and saw that he was still working (this is around 9:30), so we stopped to see if he wanted a drink. He was keen, but had to finish his clients hair, so we said we would wait at the bar for him.
One drink later he called and asked if we wanted to do karaoke. Matt and I were pretty relaxed and not feeling the alcohol, so we thought that didn't sound like a bad plan, but we couldn't leave the bar after just one, so we raced another one each, then went to meet our friend. The time was around 11.
Karaoke. For 3 hours. More drinks. Purikura (those photo sticker thingies). Taxi home.
I finally get home at three, and it occurs to me I have to be up in 3 and a half hours. Today, I am not as enthusiastic about school as I usually am.
So, from today, this week is a non-alcohol week. Honest.

What a week!

So Matts parents and little sister came to Japan for 2 weeks. They spent a week in Hagi and I had a blast - lots of lunches and dinners and on their last night in Hagi we hit the karaoke joint and let loose - it was awesome. Anyway, yesterday we took them to the bullet train station and on our way home we stopped at some lights and noticed this house:

I reckon they are just getting prepared for December a little early - you know Japan; always likes to be on time:)

Mum you don't need to read this post

So after a hard two hours sitting down not understanding a welcome ceremony for new teachers, Nicole and I decided we needed to chill out and unwind, which took us to our local cheap-as-chips restaurant for a couple of drinks. . . at midday.

In our defence, the alcoholic content was only 4%!

After consuming several glasses, we noticed an advertisement for part time workers:

And decided that if we worked at Joyfull we would probably look as pissed off as that chick, too. However, given time I reckon we would eventually become as indifferent as the guy. Now THAT is a good ad!