Every year, Japanese people can vote for which kanji (Chinese character) they feel should be Kanji of the Year ( Read more... )

Saturday night had dinner at some fancy restaurant with the ladies who taught and helped run the koto club at my junior high school. It was bit scary.. if they weren't suggesting each other as girlfriends for me they were offering their daughters in marriage. Also went for coffee afterwards which was nice. The fancy restauarnt was a bit annoying ( Read more... )

Recently came back from a long-overdue 5-day trip to .... Okinawa!

Weather was crummy but we made do and had a memorable time with lots of laughs and lots of photos!

Here are mine:

Okinawa!

( samples )

On Saturday afternoon went on a cycling adventure with fellow adventurist Ashley. We rode up .. and up, and up.. into the mountains behind our suburb. Eventually we found ourselves at the top of of a mountain range that I realised I had climbed earlier this year, in the cold of January when the grass on the slopes had been covered with unexpected ( Read more... )

Our school held it's culture festival yesterday. Sadly I have no pics or anything, but with any luck will get hold of some eventually. The third performance in the morning was the koto ensemble. The culmination of months of practise! 20 kotos, about as many singers, flutes, projected visual displays, conductor.. it was quite a show. But .. it ( Read more... )

It's Sunday night but I feel like it's Thursday night. I usually prefer to do stuff on Saturday then have a relaxing Sunday, but this weekend worked out in reverse. Thankfully I should have a pretty low-stress week at school, culminating in the koto performance on Thursday's school culture festival, and rounded off with a three-day weekend. I don't ( Read more... )

Last year's Halloween was ..( memorable )

Fun quiz of Latin used in English. I got a lucky 9/10 - and of course the mistake I made just happened to be something that I'd taught a class recently!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4232665.stm

Try it!

I put up some pics from the Autumn festival at my photoblog, courtesy of thorny_rose.


( Read more... )

Today I finally finished hours of preparations for an elementary school visit, with about thirty mins until I had to leave to go there from the junior high where I work. I went to make some final photocopies and said to another teacher, "Ah, finally, I've finished ( Read more... )