Oh, Wow

I’m really sorry for being such a lazy blogger lately. Please forgive me!

Lately, work has been heavy… next week looks even worse on paper, and I don’t know how that will translate to actual classes.

Last night I got stood up by the Heart Tokushima folks AGAIN. I’m getting really tired of waiting at that stupid arch in the park. Sitting on a stone wall, waiting for people who don’t show up = not comfortable AT ALL. Logic says that I should just bike to the place myself, but for some reason I keep going to wait, and every time nobody shows up, I just feel like going home, and so I do. What is up with that?

This past weekend I climbed up the mountain behind my house. I thought, Oh, it won’t be so bad. The reason is, that from my house, you can only see part of the mountain. You can’t see that it’s actually a really tall mountain because of lack of perspective. It was over an hour later, when I finally dragged myself up and over the top, that I remembered that the Bizan actually WAS a mountain.

Later, when I got back down, I walked away for a couple of blocks and then turned to look. “Yup, that’s a mountain alright.”

On the Bizan, I didn’t see any tanuki (raccoon dogs) although if I’m honest, I’ll tell you that I don’t have the slightest idea what a tanuki actually looks like. There are statues of them everywhere, but for some reason all the statues are wearing little hats and sitting like huge furry Buddhas with really terrifying demented grins on their faces. I was chased by a carpenter bee the size of a cocktail weenie (the scientific name, according to my students, is Killer Bee).

I learned to play a song on my ukulele, and now I practice it every night.

Phew. Mostly I’m just running from one place to another, trying to keep up with lessons and grading papers. I’m starting to settle into my schedule (class, class, Japanese class, dinner, sleep, plan, freak out, etc) but I have yet to find my groove. I did find Monte Blanc cakes though, and they are very delicious.