For the past week, I’ve been sick and slowly recovering. Not super sick or anything like that, but a really sore throat and of course, super lack of energy. I haven’t been coughing too much, but last week my voice was strained at best. Teaching all day doesn’t exactly help improve that condition, but after a good weekend of R&R I’ve been feeling much better and a lot less scratchy.

My students are cute, as always.
Last week, since I obviously wasn’t 100% and sounded like an old man, I had a couple kids who were extra sweet. Aside from almost everyone understanding that they needed to tone it down a little bit, I had Ikkun (which is what we’ll just call him to avoid being creepy and using names) act as my side kick. The other kids in the class (it’s a young class; four and five year olds) were a little rowdy. So, he would be the enforcer, and tell them to sit down, be quiet and do the activities properly, haha.

The following class (which is older kids; mostly 7 – 9), my voice was even more hoarse, from trying to get my younger ones to listen. I guess it sounded pretty bad, so KG told me that I should go take a sip of the drink I had on my desk.

Along with having sweet students, my friends (and co-workers) Angi and Meg were awesome.
Aside from getting me all drugged up (on medicine) they got me a care package from the import store — good old fashioned Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, saltine crackers and some cough drops. They also helped me on my search to find the Valentine’s Day present that I wanted to give.

So despite feeling like poop last week, everyone really helped me get better, which I really am grateful for.
And here I am.

Feeling better.
So for lack of a better word, w00t!

We had level checks at school, which as always, were fun. Lots of paper work to go with it, but the level checks themselves are a lot of fun to do.

One of my students, when I was giving his parents the results (he was in the room too), kept doing victory dances, haha. It was pretty awesome.

Other than that…

Halloween is coming up. We’re having an event at school on the 30th, so I need to find some costume to wear. Last year I wore a pumpkin costume.
I might just do that again this year.

Or maybe try to find something else.

I dunno. I actually don’t really like dressing up to be honest.

Booked tickets for Christmas, to go back to Canada. So, it’s back to Canada from December 19th until the 3rd.
This will be my first Christmas without Watson.
That realization came to me the other day, and now it’s hard not to think about it.

On the other hand, it’ll be my first Christmas spending it with someone other than just my family.
And I’m looking forward to that.

Also might do a little road trip to Quebec City and Montreal.

I really have to get practicing those Christmas songs on the piano…

Every year I say that I’ll master these few pieces, but I never seem to get around to it.
This year, I want to.
I always end up playing something on Christmas for my family after dinner, so I really want not to suck this time around. Haha.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Typhoon came, everything is fine. It just kept me up until the wee hours of the morning on Thursday. My mornin class was cancelled that day, so even though I was at work early, it gave me time to get some paperwork done. So that was kind of nice, even though I really do enjoy teaching that class.

It’s getting cold, and I’m getting a bit sick. Although, I do feel better today than I did yesterday, so that’s a bonus.

I feel like lately I haven’t really talked to that many people. It’s kind of disappointing, in a way, because there are a lot of people I enjoy talking to. I always get worried that I’ll message someone or e-mail someone and be annoying them, so I generally don’t do it.

I also really hate Bob.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

But yes.

Bev sent me a letter the other day. I feel really bad that I haven’t called her or anything recently. She sent some photos of the festival, of Chayan. Oh my god is he tall now, haha. I think I still see him as a little boy, like when I first met him. But he did really well at the festival! So I’m really proud at him about that.

But, Bev also told me something interesting. One of the teachers (we’ll call her H) left the conservatory. Okay, it happens. But when she left, she tried to take as many of her students with her as she could.

THAT IS AWFUL.
It also goes against the unwritten ‘rule’ I guess. Maybe it’s in the contract, actually. I’m not sure. I never signed a contract there or anything. It was more, hey, you’ve been here forever, wanna job? Haha.

But yes. So, H left the conservatory, and is trying to take as many students as she can. That’s just so low and disrespectful. She was so sweet too, and I thought she was a really nice lady. But… guess not. I guess you really can’t tell who you can and can’t trust.

It just majorly sucks when you go out on a limb for some one, by offering them a job (and anytime you do that, you are doing just that… wow redundancy) and they turn around to bite you in the ass. It’s happened to me a few times… not on the same level, but it definitely is not cool.

I haven’t updated for a while, because… I guess, I don’t really have that much to say. Things at work are going well though, and I had a talk with my boss and he said the same. So, I was definitely relieved to hear that. I get paranoid that they won’t want me to stay, or that the students or parents will complain about me. I try my best to make classes fun, and to make sure the kids learn what they’re supposed to, but you know… what you think you’re doing, and what you’re actually doing don’t always end up being the same.

Oh! One of my three year olds made some origami and drew a picture for me! Haha. It’s super cute, and I was so touched. I also have another who always goes, “Adrienne先生, 見て見て！！” (LOOK AT ME!) and then she’ll twirl or something, haha. It kind of makes me think of Stuart from MadTV, except she’s like… super cute and Stuart (as awesome as he is) is kinda creepy.

Things at S-T are a bit crazy right now, but luckily we’re going to get all the wrinkles smoothed out. Let’s just say the site has greatly veered from the path it originally started on, and because of that we’ve been kind of in this weird limbo for a while. We’re fixing that up. There’s (hopefully) lots of changes coming up soon, so I hope that our readers will enjoy it! I love S-T and I think we all work really hard, so I hope we can make it live up to its potential. Mija and I have been working, I’ve been talking a lot to Inka and Shintomo about what we could do, and Hitomi and I have been working on stuff on this end. So, that’s something to look forward to.

This isn’t it, but FINALLY the weather isn’t trying to kill everyone living in Nagoya anymore (yay). It’s actually cool tonight! Well, cooler. This evening walking home from work I was actually kind of cold… and after wishing for coldness for so long, I kind of wish it wasn’t going to turn cold. Typical, right?

On a random note, my shoulder is peeling. O_O
Like, sunburn peeling.
No, for real. Because I know you’re doubting me right now, haha.

Oh, I also called Grammy tonight. She’s doing well, so that’s good to hear. My family never has much drama, so there’s never much to report, haha. It’s usually oh, the house looks good, the flowers are doing nicely, the dog ate a pound of butter… you know.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Both yesterday and today it was sunny one minute, and pouring the next. Today we got thunder and lightening to accompany it as well. Nice. What a lovely day.

Other than that, not much is new. My bed came, so my apartment is almost all set up.

Tomorrow we’re going to the mountains for the day… which means I have to get up super early. I have to catch the 7:03am subway, and I have to stop by the conbini on my way, so I’ll have to leave at about 6:50am. Okay, some people don’t think that’s super early, but I do! I go to bed at around 3:00am, so 6:00am comes pretty damn fast.

In a couple of weeks, Kat will be here! I’m really looking forward to that.

Then we have Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
I have decided that’s what I will call them.
For no other reason than I can. Except I haven’t quite decided who’s who.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: