this weekend was a little annoying. Parking annoyances all around. I am getting pretty pissed off about this kind of thing. Then i failed my driving test. Have to take it next Friday.

The sports day for the kids was fun, but i got sunburned on my arms. I have pictures and vids and will post later.


Prince of Persia was a pretty good movie, but in the end, it didn't really matter.... or did it?

Taught some elective pronunciation classes today. I is going okay with those. Though i am running out of ideas of what to do for pronunciation practice. Since, i have to be the one to do it at first, i don't really know if i could leave it up to one of the other kids to do an exercise to produce the difference yet. I could try, but then pair or small group might be best, maybe for a review session, but i guess i have to teach them all at once the initial differences.

Tomorrow is the Sports day for the kids. I just hope the ground isn't too wet. The had sponges and stuff trying to soak up the ground for the kids, so they wouldn't have to cancel it. Hopefully it should be fun.

I have started to learn Hindi more and more. The verbs seem to be really regularized, and like a bunch of the verb forms seem to use the verb "to be" in it. I hope the movie below shows up. Nothing like some good Hindi music to get your grove on to.


"Hindi," the setup of Devanagari(hindi writing system)is very exciting to me. The setup for the word itself is as this

h(a)+vowel marking for short i+nasal dot = "hin"
and then dental d(a) + vowel for long i=di
नमस्ते, मेर नाम एरिख हुं.




some comedy

 My favorite flower the Ajisai(hydrangea in english)

Today was pretty okay. Good weather. Had one class at the middle school. Then i bought my plane tickets online for July, and paid for them at the convenience store. That was sort of cool to be able to pay for a whole bunch of stuff without using your credit card such at house payments and utilities and even plane tickets at the convenience store. I guess there is little credit card fraud here in Japan, or a lot since not many people use them.

Then i went to the elementary school, the fifth years were good. Then i watched them practice for their sports day coming up next month. Then lunch with the sixth graders, and class with them. Class was okay, but one of the boys grabbed my junk, and i said in Japanese kind of loudly "What the??" and moved his hands quickly. Then one of the teachers asked me what happened at the end of class and i told them. Class was okay besides that. But then the kid was crying when the teacher made him apologize to me before i left. It was sort of weird, and i felt bad. I am used to the kids grabbing at me, but the crotch is still taboo. But he was just crying so much. Not going to say that i didn't mind it-because i did mind it- but it was not this huge painful ordeal. I just hope he learns from this for next time.

I bought some stride gum yesterday that has only come to Japan a little while ago, and i don't need an air freshener for my car anymore. The whole car smells like some good mint and i only opened the package. Ha, love it.

More light rain today. I hope that the rain doesn't ruin the Sports Day on Saturday for the kids with all the moisture still in the ground.

I went to Onari Elementary today and had fun there. The kids are always cute and energetic there. I only had one class at the middle school today, but that was okay. I spent some time learning the devanagari alphabet so i can start to read some more Hindi. It is actually very interesting.

I am trying to buy tickets to go down to Tokyo soon for the summer break with some friends. I just don't want to take a long 13 hour or so train ride from here to get there.

Yesterday i walked into town to get groceries, then i drove up to Minato to look at the sea, and i drove through the tunnels to Iwanai. I didn't get to Iwanai, i just wanted to drive in the tunnels for a while. The is just something very calming about driving in long tunnels for a couple miles or so.

Today was another start to another week. There is the sports day on Saturday, so that should be fun for the kids. It rained today, so it was really windy, and i expect it to last through the night and on into tomorrow.

Had a fun time in Sapporo yesterday. Hung out with some friends and went to a buffet place in Sapporo Station. It was quite nice. There was the lilac festival going on during the day, but it didn't look that different from the autumn festival. Plus, there wasn't any lilac there that i could see. I drove home and got home late.

just another day at an elementary school. The kids were all very energetic, and it was nice to see them. Not much else is going on here. Just been raining all day here. I have a new neighbor on the first floor. and then i have started to learn Hindi by Pimsleurs lessons.

The group

Japanese people next to us

J*** is so pretty

Kenj**

F**n

Goldfish fishing

The drum and dance party people

The river park in town

Just another day today. I went to an elementary school, and it was okay. There was only two kids in the school, so it was kind of hard to do a lot of repetition and not have them be bored. Made some sort of chicken saag tonight with the spinach i bought and the mish-mash of sweet potatoes, mushrooms, onion, green peppers, and curry powder and garam masala that i had. I have been making that sort of thing for the past three weeks in an effort to just get into a better relationship with food. 

The weather has been great lately and it has been awesome.