V's Birthday, Pics Edition

V opens her present from Angie...


Chocolate and a vibrator, happy birthday, indeed!


Dirrty


K, kinda blurry, but hello, food!


I doubt Pete will appreciate me posting this pic, but it's the only semi-group pic from the night


Emily, Minako, Mami and Theresa


Jenny and Sean


NOW do you understand how huge these beers are?! No wonder I was drunk enough to make out with a girl (but V, I'm always up for a repeat performance...)

Shougakkou=tsukareta!

I woke up today feeling really genki for being drunk-as the night before, but I am definitely ready for a little nap-ski (Kris, I don’t know how to spell that word?) right about now! I have had a vitamin drink, four cups of coffee and two cups of tea and I am still worn down! Bad news bears!

Anyway, classes have gone well today; the kids are so cute! I have all of the 3nensei, and two classes of 1nensei combined into one today. I am doing the same lesson for ALL of them, which gets tiring, but it makes it better when they are so happy to see me. After my jikoshoukai (self-intro) I let them ask as many questions as they want to, and a bunch of them were writing down what I said. So cute!!!

I ALWAYS get asked if I have a girlfriend, to which I respond, “I have many” (the “I have seven; one for every day of the week” is saved for the junior high kids). After being asked that in one class today, the follow-up question was, “Do you have a boyfriend?” All of the kids were like “Haha, he’s a boy, he doesn’t have a boyfriend!” to which I assured them I wouldn’t take part in such disgusting activities! Hee hee hee. I do believe I blushed a little bit at that question. What kind of person do they think I am ;)

I ate lunch with a 3nensei class today, which was fun but SO tiring. I can only handle being the gaijin monkey for so long! Yes, I’m tall, huge, big, etc, let’s move on! Hehehe. But they were cool. They asked if I wanted to play with them during recess, and I did, tho I shouldn’t have expelled the extra energy, yo! I fear I may fall over in my next (last) class. Hmmm. Dammit, I’m a sucker for them lil’ kids! Which is weird since I hate kids. On that swell note, time to go teach some 3nensei!

V’s Birthday

Yesterday was Veronica’s birthday (happy birthday, V!), so we all went into Ota for dinner and drinks at Ikkyuu. Ikkyuu is an izakaya, which means they serve yummy-as food that you’re meant to share while drinking. We got sooooooo much yummy food, mmmmm, so good! While Ikkyuu is a bit expensive, it’s worth it for the food and for the HUGE beers. Their daijokkii are 700 yen, which sounds expensive until you see the damn beers! They are literally bigger than your head! So, nothing like having three of those on a school night! Hee hee.

Anyway, the whole night was a TON of fun. My darling Angie was kind enough to get Veronica chocolate and a vibrator (what more do you need in life?), and Emily picked up the yummiest birthday cake ever! Might I add that all of these gifts are perfectly fine for me come February 22nd, folks!

Highlights of the night include:

-V and I getting a bit drunk and slipping each other a lil’ tongue (happy birthday, indeed!)

-While describing Ikkyuu’s salmon salad, I apparently made up a new word, “amawesome.” I sadly didn’t even realize that I mixed amazing and awesome until everyone was like “um, HUH?” but it’s okay, as Veronica had just called the salad “that salmon sandwich thing.” Hee hee. Did I mention we had three beers the size of our heads?! Amawesome, indeed!

-Cindy and I talking about our water heaters and how much we missed them, like thirty times.

-Everyone being completely full but still wanting to eat anything that was put in front of them. And really, isn’t that what Japan is all about?

Dirrty Boggle

So, this week I only have real classes on Monday and Tuesday, so I had to make lesson plans that were interesting, but not too hardcore, since half of the students won’t have the pleasure of experiencing them. For 2nensei classes I planned like four games, but we only ended up playing two in each class because the kids LOVE them some Boggle, apparently! I thought it’d only last like 10-15 minutes, but every class did it for 30. Craziness! Anyway, I was really happy that the kids were excited about playing and thinking of lots of words, but I felt really bad when they’d read them out loud to me ‘cause I couldn’t understand half of them. They’d have to repeat each one like ten times, and finally just spell it at times. I’m sure that helped their confidence! Sad!

Anyway, in the last class I had, I was getting a long list of words, when all of a sudden a student excitedly yells, “COCK!” I bulged my eyes, paused for a second, and calmly said, “What?” as normally as one could in the situation. “COCK!” To this I couldn’t remain calm anymore and started giggling like a schoolgirl to myself until he was like “oh…COOK!” For the rest of the list I couldn’t think of anything else, but apparently the students didn’t notice. I do believe it affected my next list of words that I thought of, however, as the list included: head, rim, ram, hard, and wet. Damn kids are making me dirrtier, if such a thing is possible!

Expenses since Friday

Um, I’m not liking how much money I have spent since payday! Spent 4000 yen on groceries on Friday, 48000 on rent, 19000 on who-knows-what while shopping, 4500 on Disneyland ticket for Friday, and now 70600 today for my Thailand ticket. K, I’m not allowed to eat, go out, or have fun for the rest of the month! Bad news bears.

Rather than making another post, I must link you to an amusing story (thanks, Granto-san!). Check this shit out. How fucking gay is Ken these days?! I don’t think he’s getting together with Barbie any time soon, although she does look rather fag hag-ish. Hmmmm.

Menopause at AEON

So on Sunday I went to AEON (the mall) with Granto, Shindy, Jenny, Anna, Emily and Ann. It was fun, but weird? I don’t know what was wrong with all of us but halfway through the day we decided we were all overly-emotional and depressed for no reason? I literally felt like I was going to start randomly crying a few times. What the hell? At first we decided we are all on the same cycle (hehehe), but after Shindy and I kept having hot flashes throughout the mall, it was decided that we are all going through menopause. Sad!

To add to the 50 year-old woman thing, the most exciting purchase of the day for Shindy and I was a water heater for tea. Yep! I will pretend not to be very excited about it, but we may have chatted about them for an hour last night online (I will refrain from saying the dorkier parts, but believe me, they exist!). But yeah, they kick ass ‘cause they keep water hot for as long as you want, which is good considering I drink about ten gallons of tea at work, followed by ten gallons when I get home. Gas (for the stove) is so expensive here that it’ll save me a bunch of money. BUT, I must tell you about the best deal of the week! So we didn’t want to spend more than about 3000 yen on ‘em, but the only ones for that price were heinous flower-print ones that you would only find at schools that are too cheap to buy the cool ones. They had these cool metallic ones, but they were like 7000 yen and more. Disappointed, we started leaving the store, when we found a sale table of display models of random shit. They had two of the metallic water heaters on ‘em! It said “5waribiki” so I was like “oh, only 5 percent off, meh,” but then I remembered that means fucking 50% off! So, we got them for 3500 yen, and they look cool (no flowers, woot!), and we don’t have to worry about recycling the damn box we would have gotten with the full price one. Yay for Japanese people being snobby about opened things!

Oh, I also got The Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD, as well as a kick-ass British charity compilation album, but I am far more excited about my water heater.

To add to the gaijin-ness of the weekend, I had Starbucks for a second time (I barely have it once a month, let alone twice in 2 days!), AND the cute Starbucks boy was working! Sadly some others don’t share our love for him, but he is cute, dammit!

Woke up to a phone call at 6 in the bloody morning today, and it was my mother, who thought it was 6 PM! Um, I was NOT amused by this at all! Perhaps I should make a timetable to prevent further incidents in the future!

Anyway, first class of the day starts in a few, time to get genki!

Catching up on the week…

So I have been a bad blogger lately, but I think it’s an epidemic ‘cause everyone else is leaving me with no reading entertainment. Blog, people, blog away! Anyway, highlights of the week….

On Wednesday night Jenny, Grant and I went to Darin’s house for a yummy-as dinner. We had chicken tacos, guacamole, salad, etc. It had been SO long since I had anything remotely Mexican that I am afraid I devoured everything in front of me (what else is new). After that we had ice cream bars, and Darin, Jenny and I each ate a third of a pumpkin pie. Um, yeah. Definitely regret that decision! I was tired at 9 am that day, but after eating that much food (and drinking a bit too much wine) I was wandering my house at midnight with more energy than I’d had all day. Whoops! J

Friday was FINALLY the end of the longest and most boring work week EVER! I went to Nacchan’s restaurant for dinner, then Mami, Minako and Grant came over to my place late at night and stayed over. It was fun, but the whole only-3-hours-of-sleep thing definitely bit me in the ass on Saturday!

Saturday was the most American day EVER. Well, I guess Sunday was, too. K, this was the most American weekend ever! On Saturday I went with Emily, Ann and Shindy to the Sano outlet mall, which is exactly like American outlet malls. They even have the same stores (tho, sadly, no Dress Barn or Vitamin World. I refuse to buy my clothes from anywhere that is NOT a barn, thank you). It was the day after payday so I totally expected to come back with tons of bags and no money, but I didn’t buy anything? What the hell? I was ready to spend my salary at the Diesel store, but it was just……weird shit. Like……weird shit, yo! Not funky/cool-weird, just fucking WEIRD. I was surprised to find semi-helpful workers at a Diesel store, though, considering in the States they are like “We’re hot and you’re not, fuck you!” Oh, yeah, at Sano I had my first McDonald’s meal since coming here. Sadly, it was rather yummy!

After Sano we went to Corona and went to Mr. Max, which is like Target or Wal-Mart or somesuch. I got boring house shit. We then went to the HUGEST 100 yen store ever, but it was just too overwhelming, I didn’t even know where to start. Then we finished our American day by having “tacos” from a cart. I question whether or not they were tacos, but they were good, and that’s all that matters!

Shindy caught a train before me (since I have the fucking inaka line and three trains come on her line before one comes on mine;I’m not bitter!), and right when I got the train she texted me saying “Man, I’m glad I just missed the rain!” It wasn’t raining in Ota yet, so I was hoping I’d be okay, when all of a sudden HUGE rain drops start pounding on the train windows. I get off at the Yabbers stop and it is fucking CRAZY. It was literally the craziest thunder/lightning/rain crazy-as storm I have ever seen, and I’m not exaggerating. Holly, you would have died. At first I wanted to wait it out, as it would surely calm down, but after waiting about 10 minutes it only started raining harder. I refused to spend my night at the damn station, so I got on my mamachari and rode like the wind. Well, not really, considering the road was covered in a permanent sheet of water. Not only that, but you could see where the fucking lightning was. It was above the fields and the sounds came IMMEDIATELY after seeing the flashes, which is never a good sign. While fearing for my life (and after getting the saddest “KAWAISOU!” look from a lady in her comfy, warm car), I had the following conversation with myself: “Fuck Japan! Fuck this country! Fuck bikes! Fuck having no car! Fuck anything that has to do with anything! FUCK THIS RAIN! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUCK YOU! FUCK JAPAN!!!!” I’m sure the neighbors thought I had Torette’s (sp) or something. Of course as I reached home it started lightly sprinkling, which only helped my love of the world, hehe. I stripped off my soaking clothes, took a shower in 45 degree water (mmm (might I add that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit, crazy Americans), then stayed in my ofuro (Japanese bath) until I was lightheaded from the heat. ‘Twas great! Might I add that Muji honey bath essence kicks ass!

K, this post is long. I will post about Sunday latah.