I am feeling a little sad now but it is probably by design. I just had my last class with my favourite third year students. We had to listen to a sappy Mariah Carey song for most of the class and everyone was a little weepy. Plus it is raining. That doesn’t help. The whole time leading up to graduation is a very sad time in the lives of students. I think it is raining because I bought a tennis racquet yesterday. The whole weekend was beautiful spring weather so I felt like doing spring things. I was thinking of riding my bike to work today. Good thing I wanted o sleep more than I wanted exercise! I had a lovely weekend of activities though so I feel like I got a bit anyways. I went to Sky Park outside of town which is a massive park complex beside the airport. I played a bit of soccer with Dec and we later watched a film. It was the first thing I have seen in ages, called Perfume. It was a bit weird and slightly under developed but it was engrossing at the time. On Friday night I went out with Luke for a lovely evening of dinner, wine bar and karaoke. He knew some nice little spots in Matsumoto that I hadn’t been to before. Yesterday, I went out to lunch with Sachiko and some people I didn’t know. It turned out the Sachiko didn’t really know them either so all in all it was a very strange lunch. They were nice enough though. Then I went for a 15 km bike ride to locate the tennis racquet that I eventually purchased. As a result I have a sore bum today. I also studied for a Japanese test I have on Wednesday and filled out job applications. Oh yes, I also went to Tom’s Iaido test. (Some kind of sword fighting that goes with karate). It was really interesting to see.

In the last few weeks I have had various adventures of varying quality and appeal. Two weeks ago, I was off school for about three days with kidney stones. I was pretty sick so I spent two day of that in hospital before returning to work on Thursday. I had a bit of tonsillitis at the same time so I wasn’t spending too much time being awake. On the first day of illness, I threw up for several hours and as a result tore a muscle in my back. It is still sore but on the whole much better. As a result of this I had to sleep in the living room because I couldn’t get up my stairs with ease. After this I went back to work for two days. I was quite tired still on the Thursday and had to cancel a class to sleep in the health room. By Friday though I felt sufficiently recovered and joined the Seba staff ping pong tournament called the Lettuce Cup. My pair did pretty well despite my partner and I both having terrible backs. It later turned out he had a hernia so perhaps neither of us should have played. We then went to a drinking party with the teachers. It is so annoying to go to those events and not drink. Everyone else is letting loose with reckless abandon and I have to try and have a conversation with them. I am hoping to go out on a date with my ping pong partner though so I thought I would turn up anyways and try and have chit chat with him. He speaks less than no English and he is incredibly nervous around girls so this was a difficult thing to accomplish. He told the other teachers before we played together that he felt so nervous he thought he would be sick. I thought this was sweet in the beginning but it turns out that it may be more of a liability than anything. Recently though, other male staff members at that school have admitted to being somewhat afraid of me or at least to nervous to speak with me at the coffee table. One nice guy who I really enjoy speaking with (although it rarely happens) said he often looks at his feet instead of speaking with me if he gets too nervous. What is wrong with you people? They said that even though they felt that way, they thought I was yasashi, which is gentle/kind/friendly.
This leads me back to the horror that was Valentines Day. My goodness that turned out to be embarrassing. In Japan, girls are supposed to give something to the guy they like, so I thought I would do the Japanese thing and give him something. I made a small chocolate torte. Then a letter and gift bag were constructed out of origami by Sachiko who is very much in favour of my going out with him. I think the whole staff would like that very much. They frequently encourage us to get married at the coffee table. Thus, we have both started avoiding the coffee table. Anyways I asked him if I could have lunch with his class that day so I could give him the gift undetected by the other people I work with. This attempt at secrecy was a complete waste of time as it turned out as one of my co-workers asked me in a loud voice if I had made him anything for valentines. I said yes and she told everyone and demanded that I present it to him then, so everyone could see it. No, you loon! So I gave it to him at lunch when all his crazy students were running around. I though no one was paying attention but as soon as I gave it to him at his desk the students stopped immediately and started chanting “You love her! I know it!” Little buggers. This was compounded by the fact that a few of my co-workers had been waiting in the hallway to take a photo of the exchange. They printed the pictures in A4 and left them on our desks. Needless to say, he fled the lunch as quickly as possible as did I. Sigh. So I thought after all of this that the ping pong tournie would provide an opportunity to speak under normal conditions. Basically though he was too nervous and got ridiculously drunk at the after party. I was even more irritated by this because being drunk should make it easier to talk to me not more difficult. We did eventually get to talking but I don’t know about that boy. He is changing schools in March so we should probably go out on a date soon if we are going to do it at all. My hopes aren’t high for him at the moment.
His awkwardness was emphasized in my mind the next day went to an international event at the Culture Centre. I met a load of Brazilian and Indonesian guys who were more than will to try and bridge the language gap in anyway possible. I met some very cool people and ate some great food. I was interviewed by the Matsumoto newspaper about what I thought about the event. Then we went through to Matsumoto for a lovely dinner at the Old Rock. I had been craving fish and chips.
The next morning I woke up early and went to Yokohama for a three day conference for those people leaving the JET programme. I didn’t actually attend many seminars though because I wanted to see the city and have the occasional nap in the hotel. I have been there once before but not when I had any free time. So I made free time and enjoyed the beautiful harbour and took a stroll through the weird Japanese China Town. It is not like China town in Toronto at all. It is a completely manufactured place that was probably originally Chinese but is now what Japanese people wish China was like. Being by the sea was so nice. The sky just opened up completely. At the end of one of the seminars, they opened the blinds on a large window and all of a sudden there was this incredible view of the harbour. The blue of the sky and red of the ships was stunning. It made my heart ache a little bit at the thought of leaving that place. I feel that way about Japan in general these days. I was offered a new job that was a rather tempting but they wanted me to start in April and I can’t bear to leave this place just yet. I’m sure I’ll find something else just as good. These pictures are of Iaido, various spots around Yokohama and one of Valentine's Day.