I had a supremely fun week. It started out easier than last week since last week Chester, the other American teacher, had food poisoning and I had to teach solo for the first time. Though I survived, it was a bit on the rough side and I was exhausted by the end of Tuesday! He was back and better this week and the week just flew by! I'm really starting to get into the groove with the kids. It also helped that the kids seemed to be much more "with it" this week too. Today Haruka (who is a handful and a half) was absent, Makoto seemed to have woken up with fluent English, Yuki sat down (if not still) for an entire activity, Haruko rose her hand while staying seated, Reina stopped hitting other kids with the hula hoops after only being asked 1...er... 5 times (ok, still need to work on Reina), and Kay actually volunteered to go to the bathroom at snack time! And that was only the morning!

During lunchtime, we only had little Hana- who is notoriously shy. She literally didn't say a word all morning. But then- once all the other kids had gone home, she started talking non-stop for about an hour! It was really amusing- the four of us teachers were sitting around the table eating lunch when Hana busted out with a stream of 3 year old garbled up Japanese/English. We were first stunned then just lost for words (since we couldn't quite understand what she was saying). That didn't really bother Hana though... she just kept right up with the commentary. Every few sentences, one of us would try to take a stab at what she was saying. "Park? You went to the park, Hana?" and then wait for approval. Just as I thought I'd gotten a sentence right, she turned to me and said totally clearly "I'm talking to CHESTER!". We all just burst out laughing.

Perhaps you had to be there... but we were so bowled over by the New Hana: The Speaker- that we pretty much let her run the show for the last hour. Good times. Never knew a kid could be so entertaining!!

Not much else is going on around here. I've been a bit panicked because Rara (read some of my previous entries) has been out of school with the chicken pox. The panic is more because I've developed some of my own itchy spots than it is because I miss Rara (though I do). I have had chicken pox not once but twice... so I should be beyond safe this time around. But then I started wondering, since I managed to get it twice... maybe I can get it three times! Yikes. I feel fine, so I think (knock on wood) I'm ok. But... I really need to pay up on my health insurance next week. This is a dangerous job!

Tomorrow is Japan's Nation Founding Day (Japan never fought for its independence from another country... at least not that anyone can remember), a national holiday. So I'm now on my weekend- wahoo! Tom and I are thinking about trekking out to Hakone to do this three day trip planned (so kindly) by the Japanese Tourist Organization. We considered heading out for another ski trip, but are a bit on the tired side. And all the ski resorts are likely to be packed. Hakone is only an hour and a half from Tokyo, so if we get tired, bored, or broke... we can come back and crash in front of the TV. Both options sound pretty good, actually. (What else would you do with a 3 day weekend in the middle of February, anyhow??).