I'm having a very ho-hum week. The school festival is next Tuesday and Wednesday, so our classes have been shortened to 45 min. (from 50min- its amazing what a difference 5 minutes makes!!). Then, since we finish the academic day early, the kids have extra time for assembling all their assorted projects (the festival is less of a festival and more of a gigantic open house, science fair type thing... with no relation to science) and practice their homeroom songs and other presentations. Each class will perform one song during the music section, and there will be awards given for the top 3 classes (hence it will really stink to be the 4th of 4 first grade classes...). ANYway... my point is that since I am neither a student nor a "real" teacher... I have a ton of guilt-inducing time on my hands. I keep getting side-ways looks from the other teachers (who are crazy busy)... but I haven't the faintest idea what the heck I should be doing. So I'm just ignoring them (on the surface, anyway) and studying Japanese. I feel like a slacker though... a feeling that pretty much comes hand in hand with this job since I have almost none of the other responsibilities that other teachers have. I definitely enjoy being able to leave at four pm, but I doubt any of the other teachers understand that my position is totally different and that I am supposed to leave then. Add that to the huge guilt trips one is given for asking to take your vacation time or stay home when one is sick (things written into everyone's contracts)... and its perma-guilt for me. sigh.

The festival will be fun, so I am looking forward to that. Like last year, I will be running a leg of the female teachers' relay, during which we compete with all the club teams (tennis, basketball, art, science, judo, etc.). They will all be running in their sports uniforms, so its a pretty funny race (I am particularly impressed with the kendo-ists running with full armor and the judo-ists running barefoot!). The teachers also sing a song as part of the music competition (although we don't get any prizes... and shouldn't). Our song this year is so fast that I'm having trouble keeping up with the Japanese words. Finally, I've also been asked to turn something in that I've made, the PTA organizes a teacher/parent room with "things we've made" (I don't know how else to explain it). Last year I showed off a scarf I'd crocheted, but since Jaclyn's blanket is still only half-way finished, I begged my Shodo sensei to help me come up with something tonight. I had less than two hours to get all the kanji right, and only one chance to get it "perfect" on the final paper. It's not my best, but I think it meets minimum standards.

I'm tired. Friday I'm teaching 45 minutes of Intermediate Japanese to 8 other JETs at one of our annual meetings... and I've been really stressing about it. I've been asked to teach a hell of a lot more than I would cram into such a short, one-time workshop... so I'm overwhelmed. I'm also leading a discussion group on JHS lesson planning, but compared with teaching grammar... I'm not even thinking about that segment.

And when that's over... Tom and I will hold our breaths again and see what the weather looks like. If there are any signs of typhoons, thunder storms or even heavy cloud cover... I will go to Tokyo for the weekend. If, on Friday, at the last possible chance, they are still predicting sun... Tom will head this direction and we'll try to go hiking/camping in the mountains of Chino (Nagano). So watch your papers for news of some unprecedented weather swings in Asia this weekend... Mr. Weather is working something nasty up, I am sure.