August 9, 2004

• NEW FOUND DELICIOUS TREAT: i went for an evening bike ride last night to see the town when it wasnt sizzling and i went to the combini to get a treat on the way home.  i ventured and bought this strange looking bar.  it turned out to be green tea ice cream with red beans in it all covered with vanilla ice cream.  yummmmmmmm.  i didnt want to loiter around the combini to eat it so i got on the bike on hand style.  bad idea.  me, on a bike, with a melting ice cream, weaving down the street in the dark.  but im alive.  i actually had to stop about half way home because it was just too dangerous.  i almost went to the rice paddies at one point. 

  
  

  WRONG SIDE: so today im ready to cross the street in front of my apt to be riding with traffic, when a school girl rides by on her bike against traffic.  so if she can do it, i guess i can.  also wearing a skirt for the first time with the bike.  stretch- luckily.  there`s not much traffic coming my way, but the point of going with traffic is that they can tell when you are going to have to go around something and you dont pop out from behind parked cars and such.  well i did.  there was one car that was about to pull back onto the  road, i thought he saw me, he started going, i wobbled and looked scared.  he did an inside-car bow and i did a bike-bow and i went around.  well after that and the ice cream, im pretty much scared off riding against traffic. 

  
  

  TEACHERS` MTG: so i was told that i needed to come it to school today for a teachers mtg. right.  got here about 15 before.  there s a schedule on my desk, in kanji.  so i ask kitahara if i need to know anything on there and she says yes even tho i already know the mtg part.  then she says i need to make a speech.  WAIT, the principal is making a speech? no.  me.  !!!  short tho.  so i rush back to my desk, write something up, and then ask her is its ok.  then they start the mtg.  i thought we would go to another room, but they just started.  and im kind of on display at the front and with a short intro from a VP, they hand me a mic.  i had heard that impromptu speeches are sometimes required, and that for some reason the japanese dont think that notice for such things is as important as we westerners would think.  but it was a jolt. no big tho, im ok with public speaking.  so this is what i said:

  Ohaiyo gozaimasu minna-sama.  Hajimemashite.  My name is Joanna Giordano.  I am from New Jersey in the United States. I have enjoyed my time in Japan so far and I am looking forward to working with all of you.  Please forgive me because there are many of your names to learn.      I want to continue my study of nihongo while I am here, so I am going to ask a lot of questions.  Thank you in advance for answering these questions.  You are all my teachers.       Doozo yoroshiku onegai-shimasu. 
  

  not bad if i do say so for 5 mins notice.  go me. 

  
  

  DORAEMON: i got a kanji grid book to practice my kanji.  it has doraemon ....and stickers!  im psyched.  and that s what i did for several hrs at my desk yesterday and that s what i will do today as well until my hunger gets too bad.  i feel like if i spend at least as many hrs at the computer as at my desk, its somehow more acceptable.  to me at least. 

  • 8:09 pm
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