So I did a lot of nothing on Tuesday (thank you, random Japanese holidays). I got my target word count in for my novel for that day, almost finished my knitting project, did some reading, laundry, and got some groceries. Basically it was like having an extra Saturday (I`d say Sunday, because I had to work the next day, but Saturday is the day I usually do all of those things).
Wednesday started with more of the direction marking that I`d been putting off because it was so painful, and then my one class of the day. They were the same as they always are, nothing particularly exciting to report. I also planned my conversation class lesson for the next day (Health and Advice), including a Dear Abby worksheet for them to complete.
One of the students from my conversation class told my supervisor that she wouldn`t be in class on Thursday, but not to tell the other teachers because she was going to call in sick. I told her that in English we call this "playing hooky," and told her about when I had to go into London to have my braces worked on as a teenager, and sometimes Mom and I would go shopping after before going back to school (Love you, Mom!). This led to a discussion about dental or orthodontal work, wherein Morita-sensei learned a bunch of new vocabulary and can now probably go to the dentist in an English-speaking country without a problem.
(Side note: we went over the lesson plan and I told her about Dear Abby. She`s now slightly addicted, and reading the website for English practice. I find this hilarious.)
My life has become all sorts of boring. I don`t really have much to share with you guys lately. I think a lot of it has to do with me being used to my life here now. There are probably many things that I just consider a normal, everyday occurrence, where if you were here, you would go, "Wait, what now?!" And part of it is also that I haven`t really been doing much lately.
We had English club for the first time in a couple months on Thursday. We had an open conversation meeting, so I took the chance to tell them about the novel I`m writing (with mixed success; I was telling them the bare bones version, so as not to confuse them with a lot of plot detail, but I think things still got lost in translation). I asked them what kind of novel they would write if they were going to write one, and got three very different answers! Mayu said she would write a crime/suspense novel in a contained environment like the Titanic (I told her about Murder of the Orient Express, and how it all takes place on a moving train). Haruna said she would write a high school slice-of-life kind of story (and I taught them the phrase `slice of life`). Tetsuro, the boy who I`m doing conversation lessons with and who has just decided to join the English club, said he would write a love story between two people in their 70s who have always been single and gave up on love. I`m actually really intrigued by that last idea, and might try to do something with it for next year.
Friday I had my conversation lesson with Tetsuro. Last week we chose to read an article about water on Mars (I will not think of Doctor Who, I will not think of Doctor Who), and how that increases the likelihood of life on Mars. So when we got together, he read the article out loud and then discussed it. That led to me telling him about Mars One, and then we speculated on aliens in other solar systems and galaxies. It was a really awesome half hour, and I`m looking forward to next week! We`ll pick a new article on Wednesday. He`s got quite an imagination, so I think I might suggest a short story (like, a one-page sort of deal) that we can read. I`ll have a look to see what I can find.
Saturday was spent grocery shopping, writing, and knitting. For a little while, anyway. I will admit that I spent most of the day reading on my iPad and watching YouTube videos (particularly the "mean tweets" segment from Jimmy Kimmel). Nothing particularly productive. I did manage to hit 10,000 words in my novel, though! Sunday I was like, "I'm going to crack down and crank out a huge number of words for my novel! Plus I need new running shoes, because the old ones are killing my feet. The shoe store is in the same plaza as Starbucks, so I'll bring my writing, buy my shoes, and then grab a coffee (not-actually-coffee, because I no longer allow myself to have coffee, it's a bad idea) and do some serious writing!" It rained all day. Hard. So instead, I decided I would knit and watch some Star Wars. Apparently the universe didn't like this idea, either. It took about 15 minutes of arguing with my laptop to get it to play A New Hope, and after almost a half hour of arguing with it about The Empire Strikes Back, I've given up. Part of it, I think, is that this Lenovo sucks and I never want to own one again. But I think most of it stems from the fact that I had to bring the bonus discs with me, which have enhanced CD-ROM contents, because I'm a horrible snob. I have never watched the first disc of my trilogy. This is because the first disc is the digitally remastered, "let's add things that make no sense" version. The bonus disc has the original theatrical version. I always watch the bonus disc. But usually from my DVD player at home. I didn't even know it was enhanced until I started fighting with it on here. So now I am stuck Star Wars-less until I can figure out how to win this fight.
I had one of those nights last night were I just lay there, willing myself to go to sleep, but it doesn`t really happen, so I`m utterly exhausted today. We were informed at our morning teacher`s meeting today that one of our teachers passed away suddenly on the weekend from SAH (aneurysm), so that didn`t really help my mood, either. I didn`t really know him well, but he was the first math teacher to approach me when the exchange students were here, so I did work with him. He was nice.
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