October 18, 2004

  • actually i have had basically no nasty bugs in my apt.  a plus.  i did have a little salamander or gecko thing that got blown in the window tho.  cute.  at least there are no huge unkillable japanese centipedes.  mukade. yikes.


    so there was a nasty mosquito in my apt last night and i could not find it before i went to sleep.  this means it bit me thru the night nad flew near my ears freaking me out.  i now have a bite under my eye so it looks (to me) like i was in a fight.  and now i have one on my chin that i swear was not there this morning.  i even brought the AfterBite to school with me.  i m not sure why i thought that was vital for me to bring to japan, but now im glad i have it. 


    BADMINTON went so late!!  english club went til about 530, then i went to badminton and stayed til 730ish!!  they are the latest club.  i ended up not seeing ALIEN: the director's cut because i couldnt find the theater despite there being very simple directions.  i did have the PERSONAL VICTORY of calling and getting the show time on the phone.  im FLUENT ALREADY!  ha.  but it was just as well because i was pooped.  so i just went home and watched some more canadian videos.  CSI is the bomb and ER and Firefly made my night.  im glad all these good shows are being put on DVD these days.  then you can easily enjoy them again and again.  ahhh.  maybe i should be a CSI.  i think i have the stomach for that.  i love cats, but i had no real problem disecting one in anatomy class.  and i like cats better than ppl anyway. 


    HAPPILY, badminton is really chill.  there are boys and girls, the asistant coach who sucks at badminton really likes me and some of the girls like me too.  just hitting around and practicing offense/defense and then having a game.  to decide matches, you pull chopsticks with little numbers written on the hidden end like drawing straws.  i was partnered with one of the girls who is now my friend, whew! her nickname is princess.  cute.  but we had to play against the captain of the team!  oh no! he's rather good.  he went easy tho and hid his hatred for english.  he is the boyfriend of another of the girls.  really cute.  most of badminton is in english anyway.  they score in english: love, one, two, three.  they do "service over, first serve and second serve.  long clear and smash for the different strokes.  its katakana-ized of course.  "saabisu obaa"  i ended up flat on the floor at one point and one kid kept doing hard shots into my eye area, but he bowed very deeply and was sorry.  i understand, man, its war. 


    PALINDROMES: "a man, a plan, a canal, Panama"  i like that one because it tells a story.  i learned one in japanese: "takeyabuyaketa" it means the bamboo bush burned or something like that.  NEAT!  there are tons of tongue twisters too, but i can barely speak japanese as it is, so ill hold off on those.  here's a french one: "le vert ver va vers le vert verre"  the green worm goes towards the green glass.   hooray.  sorry, who's a nerd?   takeuchi sensei was wondering about something a student remembered from his oral interview for university.  it said BUFFALO about 8 times with a period.  this is not a sentence.  and some were capitalized, some not.  haha.  i theorized that maybe it was a tongue twister like "Buffalo buff a lobe OR buff a low bluff" but you cant just repeat buffalo over and over and then be asked to read and define it.   BUFFALO  BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO. sorry, you dont have the skills we are looking for in an english major here at our esteemed institution. 


    CLOSE CALL: today i was leisurely preparing for 3rd period when i found out that it was moved to 2nd.  good thing i decided to make the copies at that moment right before class! i have not had to truly wing a class yet.  i hope i never will.  normally i make all the prep for classes the day before and leave myself a note on what im doing if i have class first period.  my brain just doesnt get in the working groove til at least 2nd period. 


    GREAT CLASS: i did have two great classes today.  my more advanced first and third year students.  the first year class was the best.  they behaved and repeated when i called on them semi-drill style.  then they did the activity and did it correctly!! my world is rocked.  im still recovering....   and that class has a couple of kids who really like english secretly. and Spiderman is also in that class, but he has been good lately. he even asked a good question and figured out that he didnt know BEACH but it is another word for SEASIDE.  way to go spidey!!!


    HALLOWEEN is fast approaching.  im going to try to go to the 100yen store to scope some junk for a costume.  2000yen are at stake here for best costume at the party.  some purple balloons could make me a bunch of grapes, but thats rather inconvenient.  coveralls and a foiled covered backpack could make me a ghostbuster.  i could just wear the yukata i bought in the summer and go for a geisha look.  any clever ideas?


    the new tokushima jets forum.  i really like it.  im considering the wordtank even more now.  o no.