Oh third years. Today they are off sweating it out writing their big entrance exams. This means a considerable break for me in terms of classes. I think that should do away with three of them today. Delightful! I will have time for planning, prepping, general relaxation and all the rest. Super! First of all, the weekend round up. By Friday night I was so completely exhausted from the week that I didn’t do much of anything. I went out for dinner with my co-worker chicks and had a lovely time but struggled to stay awake in the car on the way home. I was in bed and sleeping by about 11 on a Friday night. Saturday morning, I was feeling rested and spent most of my morning on the phone. I had a very good chat with Mr Matty Hayes. Around midday, I motivated myself to shower and made a carrot cake. Gisela came over and we puddled about for a bit and then headed down to Kiso for a weekend of frivolity with all of the Shio kids united again for the first time in a while. The original four of us loaded into the cars and headed out. We had drinks, saw a snow festival, had some snacks and watched a rugby game on the internet (England vs Scotland). I didn’t stay up to watch it though as it didn’t start until 1 am. It was interesting though, it is a lot more action packed than American football which seems to start and stop too much. The next day we all lazed around a bit and then got going. I decided to give winter sports another crack this year and was pleasantly surprised. This year I gave skiing a shot. We went out to Mt. Ontake which is about 45 minutes from Dec’s place. The view was very beautiful and the day was clear. Ontake is actually an active volcano. It had a small eruption last week but we were skiing a bit away from that area. We went for a half day and it was quite nice. Dec gave me a quick lesson and then I fiddled around for a bit trying to learn snow plough. After that we had a drink in the chalet and then I went up with the rest of them. I did a bit of falling but it wasn’t too bad. That slope is quite wide and not too steep. My body is quite sore today but is nothing compared to the post snow boarding accident of last year. I remember waking up in the morning and not being able to swallow or turn my head. It was pretty damn sore. I had a soak in the tub last night and I feel pretty good today. Essentially, like I rode a horse for a long time yesterday. I am so glad I enjoyed it because I really want to go out with everyone else when they all go skiing and snow boarding without being a lame tagalong.
The snow festival was good as well. I love going to events in Kiso Fukushima. There are always loads of fun people around and cool stuff to see. I wish the pictures came out better of the snow festival but I have to use an incredibly slow shutter speed for night photos of snow. There was a really bit dragon with candles all around it but I didn’t get a very good shot of it. We drank rice sweets and ate crispy grilled pink bread. It was probably also made out of rice as well. That would make sense. We sat around a hibachi grill and turned them with our hands. It kept us all warm. Then we went to a nice sake bar and chilled out with a big group of people. It was very laid back after such a crazy hectic week. The festival was for Setsubon, the bean throwing festival. You throw the beans out of your windows to cleanse it of devils. We cleansed Dec’s house after the sake bar. There were a few guys dressed up like Oni-san. It is a clownish red devil that the children are invited to beat with oversized baseball bats and whip beans at. We celebrated at school on Friday with the kids. All the teachers were asked to dress up as devils and the special ed. Class was invited to throw beans at us. Unfortunately it was a bit to scary for some of them and one little girl mainly cried throughout the experience. At lunch, we got a package of beans to eat. I ate with the first graders. You would be surprised how many beans can fit in the noses of such small children. They are masters of their craft. Sick. Anyways, it was fun as always. I have been a little cranky about lunches this past week and had a bit of a tantrum in one of my lunch classes and refused to eat any of it. I have been given some truly awful lunches this week and one really good one. We had a picnic and which I got a hamburger, an orange, and a juice box. That was one of the best lunches I have ever had. It counter balanced the bowl of cubed whale meat I was given the previous day. I taught all of my classes the word immoral that day. Scientific catch my ass! They tried to explain to me that whale meat is like beef to the Japanese people. Hmmm. No. It’s nothing like a cow in any way and catching them to feed to kids at school lunch is so wrong. It is just another method of indoctrination to convince another generation of Japanese people that it is perfectly natural to eat an endangered species. I am not a raving tree hugger but for a country that seems to have such a balanced respect for natural and the world around them, this is clearly way out of line. Anyways, I was grateful for hamburger day. There was also a lagre school wide karuta challenge. It a game where a very long poem is read out to the school and they must identify the missing lines and take that card before anyone else in their group. These are first year studets playing inthe freezing cold gym.

In other news, congrats to Tom's karate class for successfully passing their first grading and getting their red belts. They looked really cool! You guys are killing machines! I just watched and took loads of pictures. Tom is a great teacher. He really knows how to convey what he wants everyone to do and he gives quality feedback. That is such an important skill. I think about teaching practise quite a lot here and he is really good at what he does. I haven't seen him in the classroom but I can only assume that this carries through to his work at school. He teaches me math in the evenings as well and he is very patient and really knows his stuff. He is one of those people who gives you confidence in what you are doing but still gives honest feed back for improvement. I should probably tell him all of this stuff in person.

Nothing much further to report here. I have not signed any papers to say if I am staying or going but I am most likely quitting in July. Let the job hunt begin!