Hi Ben!!! I got her to smile by saying this picture was for Ben... will send it to him next! ;-)  

Some more dancing yesterday... 

Here's the dancing we did yesterday...  

BEST DAY!!

So... yesterday was my last dance day in Yuza. There was a big festival in Yuza yesterday. It was indoors since it was pissing it down all day. That was SO much fun. But the real fun began at the after-party.

HOLY COW!! Japanese people are NUTS!!! We kicked things off at about 6... and as people got increasingly drunk... things got more and more interesting. Things that happened: one of the visiting team members is studying English at University... so when it was my turn to talk they made him translate (poor guy), the men (and a couple women) carried a guy on their shoulders... just like what they do in festivals with huge portable shrines (mikoshi!), they did the Matsu-Ken samba (a dance craze that has swept this nation...), and everytime someone was introduced or had to speak a huge chorus of "hey, hey, hey!" (think of when you try to get someone to chug a beer). CRAZY fun!!

They also almost made me cry because they made me do a "thank you" speech. That was hard... lucky for me... they said that I could speak in English... which for some reason makes it a lot easier for me to hold things together. Go figure!?!

Anyway... yesterday was really great! I hope you had a great day too!

And these are my 3nensei boys at my FAVE school!! I managed to grab them for a pic before leaving... :-(  

Weird picture of the week... What is going on there?? ;-) 

EDDIE IZZARD!!

Now, for anyone who's never heard of Eddie Izzard... I must give him a BIG o-su-su-me (recommendation). I'm sitting in my house... listening to Eddie Izzard: Dress to Kill. Holy Cow!! I'm pissing myself here. :-) So... if you need a pick-me-up... rent it if you can. He's hilarious!!

More later on my last day at my favorite elementary school...

The hiking...

On Sunday, Lauren, Kim and I went hiking at Yudonosan. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and a pretty good hike... even if there were some treacherous bits (tiny nearly vertical ladders and a small river!) to get through. We still had a LOT of fun! And some of the pictures are really quite good.

The river near where the trail began was quite full and rushing... from snow melt-off. Which is why a little later we encounter a bit of trail covered with a mini-river! haha...

I didn't get any pictures of people (Lauren's camera's more handy for that!)... but I'll try to get a copy of some of the funny pics we took. :-)

Have a great day!

Happy 4th of July!!

I know it's not really the 4th of July in America yet... but I've been preparing a presentation on America for today... and since it's the 4th of July I've been doing a lot of thinking about America. And I've gathered some quotes from some really great sources; my fellow Americans. And you know what? I've realized that no matter how much I dog on America sometimes... there's no other place I'd rather be from. This will probably make my parents very happy... as they get to hear a LOT of my anti-American sentiments. ;-)

Other than that, it's been a slow day. The only thing I have on the agenda is this presentation, but it's not until this afternoon. So, I've been preparing things... but that's about it. Not terribly exciting I know.

I did go hiking yesterday so I'll be posting some really cool pics from that later on this evening. TTFN!

I could have sworn...

I could have SWORN that I'd written a blog semi-recently. But I guess I haven't... sorry!! This week has been pretty good. Despite the fact that it wasa test week and I had two days of not doing too much... it ended up being ok. One of the days we even had a cherry-pit spitting contest... I took the bronze medal! *bows* No need for applause. ;-)
Yesterday was pretty sad. I don't get to go back to Tachikawa junior high for 2 weeks and the next time I'm there is the last time I'll ever go. I have to prepare some sort of speech... which I know will just make me cry whatever I do. I know this because I started crying while I was talking to Tomomi yesterday. EEEK!!
On a funnier note... Japanese boys have NO clue about modesty!! My baseball boys were sitting having a bit of a snack before practice, so I went in (before the taxi arrived) and sat down and had a bit of a chat... and what do you think forced me out of there?? The fact that there were a bunch of half-naked junior high school boys around me!! The boys I was talking to hadn't started changing so I hadn't noticed!! GEESH!! Haha...
Talk to y'all later...

funny stuff

This is just a short...

Yesterday at school I took loads of pics of my kids... and one of my buddies, Junpei, begged me to put one of the pictures of him on the my student website (it's in Japanese and in English!). So I did... now when I went to bed... there'd been 290 hits (which included the posting of all the pics!). This morning... 306!! My kids are really nuts... I love them, but they're NUTS!!! Just for pics... haha... I'm chuffed to bits by all this of course!

Have a great day... I KNOW I will!!

Tests are OVER!

So, today was the last day of testing! It was pretty easy... I think. Though, I saw the funniest thing on my way to school... Haruki, as he walked to school, was studying. I asked him what he was studying... PE!! All the boys know how to play the sports, etc... but remembering silly stretches (which is what he was studying!) is not their strong suit. Can't say that I blame them!

At cleaning time I went to find Ryusuke... my brother... but what kind of mood do you think he was in?? A STINKY one!! Man, I've never seen a Japanese (well, he's Chinese, but you know what I mean...) kid quite that moody! SHEESH! Wanted to kick him in the butt - BIG TIME!! Oh, well...

At the end of cleaning time... Tatsuya had something to show everyone. So I went to take a look... as he put a HUGE spider on the floor!! EEEK! I promptly ran, which made him then CHASE me with the spider... I managed to hide behind several of my students... but man... I'm telling ya, that thing was GIANORMOUS!!! yuck.

Anyway... that's the tales from Tachikawa for today.

My girls... Misaki and Nozomi... how cute are they??  

FINALLY... a smile from Ryusuke... during the afternoon he was MOODY!! Not becoming... (as my mom would say!) 

Hmmmm.... what am I trying to think of??  

PEEK - A - 

BOO!! 

The 1st year boys... see ya later!  

Picture 2: Kazuhiko... too cool for school, Yuto still lookin' good... and the umbrella! Geez I love junior high kids! 

Picture 1: Kazuhiko hiding, Yuto smiling... and Junpei with the umbrella! Yuto is my FAVE baseball boy... Shhh... I don't really have favorites! ;-)