Busy busy busy = isogashii

I am so tired right now...

Sunday was more of the "hometown festival", which was again a lot of fun. There was yosokoi dancing -- a very fast Japanese dance, that kind of looks like Japanese cheerleading. Everyone wears very cool costumes, and props like clappers and fans. I hear there's a big yosokoi festival in Sapporo in June -- I'll have to try to make it to that. There was also a performance by the Junior High "brass band". They were actually really good -- and I have heard a lot of really bad Junior high school bands. Sunday, I competed in the team tug-o-war. We lost miserably, but it was definitely entertaining.

There was other stuff going on too. I bought a load of cheap vegetables, as it was Sunday and I still hadn't stocked my fridge after Sapporo. I've been living off of fair food. But it turns out buying vegetables was a bad idea. I got a big bag of corn and potatoes delivered to my door by my friend Watanabe-san. He's such a sweet old guy. So now I have to eat corn and potatoes until I explode. Harvest season in Hokkaido is really great.

What else?

Monday, I started at the high school. There are three English teachers there, and they all seem pretty cool. Especially Morimoto-sensei. She is from Sapporo, and is a really good teacher, and very keen to make use of my native speaking skills. It works well, because if I learned anything in grad school it's how to talk for way too long about anything. I ended up doing my self introduction three times -- doing most of the talking for the whole class. I really have to work on getting the students to talk more, and me to talk less! Especially since my voice is STILL croaky.

I had planned to take it easy and relax last night, but the ALT from the next town over invited me to dinner. I was beat, but too lazy to cook, so it worked out okay. But then of course, we had to stop in at Romance (the best bar ever!) and say hi to the mamma there, and the next thing I know I'm doing more karaoke.

Today I was at the junior high, and I also did a conversation "class" with some high school students who are heading to Canada next month. There is a really cool science program at the High School. They are monitoring water quality of the local river, and while they are in Canada they will be taking some samples too! This year, they are adding Niagara Falls to their sample. The program is called GLOBE, and gets high school students to do environmental research, and encourages English study. I'll hunt down some websites later.

Tommorow I start calligraphy lessons (my sensei dropped by with some non-white bread! I'm so excited! Now I can find out where to get whole wheat flour and make my own!). I've also tracked down the local kendo teacher, but this week I'm too busy to go -- there was class tonight, but I'm too exhausted!