Cleaning at the Baha'i center

The Hirahara's and Daryl came over from Kumamoto to help do some yard work at the Baha'i center today.

We got a good amount of work done, but man there's so much more to be done!

The Baha'i center has so much potential...it just needs a caretaker. I wonder if David would be willing to help out getting it a little more cleaned up..

Recently, I've become so used to the Japanese level of English that when I meet non-Japanese for whom English is not their native tongue, I'm always impressed with how well they can express themselves. Many Japanese send their kids to cram schools to improve their English skills, but despite this, people's ability to communicate in English is very low in Japan.

I met up downtown with Sunny, a Korean exchange student. We wandered around and did a little bit of siteseeing.

Roxy has been talking about all the clothes that she's dyed and made look completely new. I thought I would give it a try and Sunny helped me find some dye and translate how to use it.

I will give it a try and we'll see how it goes!

I got a chance to do a lot of catching up on sleep during the day, so felt almost back to normal come the evening.

We went out for dinner before heading to see 'Pirates of the Caribbean 3'. What a convoluted storyline... Everyone double and triple crossing each other, it's impossible to keep track of what's happening in the movie.

Afterwards we drove up to tachiyama (I think that's what it was called) from where there's a beautiful night view of Isahaya city.

While standing at the rails, I suddenly felt something crawling on my foot and looked down to find a HUGE mukade (poisoneous centipede) on my foot. Those things can put you in the hospital...!!

We ended the evening with drinks at Alex's place. It was a nice laid back kinda of evening!

School Camps (June 12-15)

I just got back from 2 consecutive two-day camps. Man, do I ever feel pooped...but had a good time!

The biggest worm I've ever seen.

Update

My feet have finally healed enough that I can wear shoes properly again.

I bought a wireless router with the $100 gift certificate I received this morning from BBIQ. Woohoo! I could do with fewer wires/cables running around my apartment.

We had a movie night here last night. 'the devil wears prada' isn't worth seeing unless it's watched in good company.

The weather has started getting really warm, but still pleasant. That is, as long as you don`t have to do any physical activity. On the days when I have several classes in a row, the Oral Communication room starts feeling like a sauna. But good news! A few days ago, the secretary and some construction workers were in the room checking out the place in order to install an AC. I hope they get around to installing it before the summer!

Wedding at school

During the morning meeting, the vice principal announced that a couple who had graduated from Seiryo were getting married and were going to be coming to take pictures at the school. It seemed a little strange so I wasn’t sure if I had understood correctly what was said.

But it turns out that they were indeed coming to get their wedding pictures done at school.

They must have had a lot of good memories from high school!

Who knew..

..that mixing lemon juice with sugar and leaving it in the fridge would look like this after a couple of month?..


Kinda looks like a brain...

Ouch

For the past couple of weeks, I've been jogging almost every other day. I thought I would go for a walk today instead.

I went for a 3 hour walk wearing flip flops.…not a good idea.

My feet hurt.

Kosotai (June 2-3)

The last couple of days I spent driving back and forth between Nagasaki and Sasebo where some of the sporting events were held for the kosostai (prefectural inter-high school sports competition).

On the first day, Amber and I drove up together. It was nice to have company for the 2.5 hour ride! Once in Sasebo, we went out separate ways to watch our respective schools. Both the girls and boys volleyball teams won!

Since Ryo has moved to Sasebo since the beginning of the school year (April), this was a nice chance to catch up with him. We spent most of the afternoon going to different sporting events, dropped by the kyudo (Japanese archery) game. We met back up with Amber later in the afternoon, and treated ourselves to a nice Indian restaurant.

The next day, I drove back up on my own. Unfortunately the girls lost the first game. The boy’s went on to make it to ‘best 16’. The last team that they played (and lost to) turned out to be against Ozaki sensei’s new school! It was nice to run into him at the game. The games were very intense and exciting to watch..but it’s a pity they lost!