I am sitting at school now plotting my escape. We have human rights class all morning so there have been a lot of cancellations and my stomach isn’t feeling very good today. I think the flu is going around at school. It is at the elementary school anyways. I will have time today to entertain myself at home then. That should be nice. I would like to play some tennis but I don’t think that will be happening. I can hear Nishimura fiddling around with the recording station and getting lots of feed back from the microphone. I have to set the English exam before I can leave and I think it is going to be one of those agonizing times where technical difficulties make us re-record it about a million times. Nishimura usually spends the whole time encouraging me to shout into the mic also. He is apparently unaware that there is a volume control on the player and we could just turn it up if he wants it to be louder. So usually I end up shouting some ridiculous dialogue about traveling or daily life so the whole staff can hear it. “Mark gets up at 6 every morning!” or “He is very interested in Australia!”. Sometimes, I broadcast the exam live to the exam hall. That always makes me giggle and I have to fight the urge to laugh out loud during their “very serious” exams. Oh, now it would appear that he doesn’t know how to use the MD player. Who even uses mini discs? He has just solicited the help of someone who has just said to him, “I have never used an MD player”. This is going to take a while. I shouldn’t make fun of his English but he just came up to me and said “April I am troubling, please wait a minute.” Hahaha. You bet you are. Sometimes this place is too funny but I’m not allowed to laugh. Oh well, I do anyways.
While that little comedy of errors plays out, I can write about recent events. To start things off, Tom and I recently dug a great hole beside the house and then burned things in it. We now have an excellent fire pit much to our neighbour’s dismay. They must think we are like cave people. We got rid of all the cardboard that has been accumulating and any of the garbage that has been rejected in the past few months that we just put in the shed. We are lucky that we live right beside a cemetery where they are always burning little fires. This was a Viking sized pyre though so I can see how it could have attracted attention. When I came to school the next day I told my co-worker about it but she didn’t understand me and just assumed I had a house fire. She just kept asking me if anyone was hurt. Sigh. She is currently my supervisor, too. In general, I like her though.
This past week, Dec’s parents were visiting and I saw them on the weekends. They were lovely people. I think they had a good time in Japan. I saw a few local sites with them in Kiso and Matsumoto. I hadn’t been to Matsumoto castle for a long time. I didn’t actually go in it in the end anways. We just sat on the grass and enjoyed the weather while they went in and checked it out.
Oh the MD player is working. I just heard him saying the introduction to the exam. He warns the kids in Japanese that from this point they will hear my voice and I will be speaking in English. Is that entirely necessary? Are they going to be sitting there in shock wondering who the random foreigner is booming over the loud speakers? Is that Carla, Jennifer, or Brenda? Oh wait, we only know one foreign person on this planet. It must be April.
Ok the test is finished. True to form, Nishimura spent the whole recording raising his hands in the air like a member of a gospel choir trying to make me speak louder. Thank God this only needs to be done twice a month. I’m heading for the car.

So I slept all day yesterday and am feeling much better for it. Every time something goes around at school I get it. I couldn’t really think of what had happened recently yesterday so here it is in brief. Emi came down and stayed with me and she brought her little dog too. That would be Cookie, the mini dachshund. The cats weren’t really big on that but Cookie was pretty excited. Also, we had a group of opera singers from a Tokyo company come to the school. I think a lot of people were sleeping through that one but I liked it. They were a little bit too dramatic for my liking. I think they have to do that show about 100 times a day at all area schools so I bet they get tired of doing it. There is something about performing in a school gym that takes all the romance out of it too. We didn’t even dim the lights. There was a big storm while they were performing and a nice rainbow showed up over the other side of the valley soon after they performed so I guess nature provided its own lovely backdrop for them. Luke recently quit his job and he met me and told me so at the city gymnasium. I like to hit tennis balls again the side of the building so he sat and ate bread and told me about how it went down. I am not really surprised that he did so. I think he is quite relieved. This place really wasn’t a good fit for him. He's more into translation then event co-ordination. So today's photos are pretty self explanitory. There is one of all the boys sleeping in the opera assembly. There is a cat walking just above the mote of Matsumoto Castle in one of the photos. It don't know how it got out there. It was probably wondering the same thing. The photo with all the flowers in front of city hall are for the employees to plant around the city. I love how they have to do that and not some grounds keeping company. I bet they love getting out of the office to do that. I know I would. The last one is of Jack lounging with "Uncle Tom". What a suck.

The kids are in exams today and I have to give a presentation to the education centre on Monday about our proposed changes to elementary school english education so I think I had better get to work on that. Sounds really interesting I know. I hope it goes well though. It is officially summer here and it is quite hot in the school. I am hoping it cools down for tennis later tonight. Congrats to Karie and Reid on their wedding this weekend, I hope it goes well for you both. Talk to you all soon.