I was briefly popular at school the other day with the other teachers when I led them to the owl I had discovered. The whole staff stopped marking exams to see and harass it with their cell phone cameras until it had a go at Hanaoka sensei and flew majestically across the school. It looks much bigger than it is in the photos. I would say it is only about 8 inches high. I am not credited with the discovery of the owl on the schools website where these pictures were featured so I think my 5 minutes of interest from the other staff members are officially at a close. Maybe I’ll make some Christmas cookies to renew my place in their hearts. I am doing a whole bunch of cooking classes both privately and at schools this month. I like baking so it should be fun. We made a trial batch of the candy cane cookies everyone will be making. We offered a piece to the grade one teacher who proceeded to give 15 minutes of suggestions and opinions on the cookies. By the end of the conversation she had suggested a different recipe and method for making the same cookies but she was quite excited that I would be coming to her class to give it a shot. I had extreme heart burn at the time because Kana (my co-worker) and I had eaten a lot of the dough which is mainly butter. I am trying to decide what other things to bake because I am doing a class at city hall for my private students and whoever they might like to invite. It will be our bonenkai as well which is like a year end wrap up party. That should be nice. There is always lots of great food at those types of events.
Speaking of Christmas, my plans have changed yet again. It would appear Fiji is having some kind of coup so I have redirected my hopes towards the Philippines. It looks quite nice there and it will be hot enough for swimming. I will still only go for about 5 or 6 days but it sounds delightful. I have just recently sent in my request for the plane tickets, which I know is pretty late. I hate making plans. I like the trips but hate the prep. That is why I haven’t traveled very much in Japan. Unless someone else has organized it in its entirety or it is some kind of last minute plan then I don’t get much done. I just want to go somewhere hot! My house is freezing and the school has only just recently turned the heat on but it is still sparingly done. It was 6 degrees outside the staffroom today. Some union nutcase would have had us all march out of the place by now if I were in Canada. Here, I just put on more layers and try never to sit at my desk. There is also this annoying habit that the schools have of leaving all the windows open in the halls to circulate the air. That’s ok until snow blows in the windows. We haven’t had much in the way of snow yet. There was a bit when I came up from Kiso on the weekend but that’s it. The north of the prefecture has recently got a bunch though and ski season is underway. I have planned to not go skiing or snow boarding despite ridiculing from my friends. I know it is one of those things that will end in injury (again) and I would rather not have that happen. Instead I will stick to the winter sports that I have had moderate success at in the past. These are ice skating and bowling. I count bowling as a winter sport. I don’t know why. There is a skating rink not far from here and my friend Hitomi has expressed interest. I wanted to buy skates the other day but couldn’t find any. By the time we were close to another sports store, I didn’t feel like shopping anymore and just wanted to go for coffee.
Last week I went to the annual Mid Year JET conference. It is usually a very enjoyable time with a big party and lots of friends to hang out with. It is composed of all the JETs from our prefecture (about 100 I think). This year though, most of the junior high people were new and they were somewhat lame. The giant party we had last year didn’t really happen. I still had a good time though. I played about an hours worth of ping pong and went to the hot springs for a lovely outdoor bath under the stars. It was so nice I had another one in the morning. I didn’t like the onsen when I first got here but I like them well enough now. We stayed at a ryokan (Japanese style inn) and the high school teachers stayed in relative lockdown in the Sogo Kyoiku Centre. They ended up having the better party in the end. It was good that we didn’t stay up too late as I had to sit through fairly boring meetings and give a speech myself that was no doubt equally as boring. Actually it wasn’t too bad of a speech because I knew my topic fairly well. It was on English education in elementary schools.
This weekend, I think I will go to a club and get my hair cut. The kittens are growing like bad weeds and are generally maniacs. I really enjoy them though. Today's photos are first and foremost of the wee owl. The remaining photos are from the conference and the surrounding area. They have some nice looking very japanese trees and a prison like dormitory where the high shcool people stayed. Coincidentally this is where Gisela works which explains why she doesn't like her job. And the final picture is of me singing the praises of a hot lemon drink I got from the vending machine before escaping the conference and running into the surrounding forests. My escape was short lived at best.