blodeuedd

Hello, world. You're looking mighty pretty tonight! ^_~

Ballet rehearsals started last night. 30 minutes after class? HAHAHAHA. I left at 11. Contrary to last year's, this year's piece is much more typically classical, which means I can actually remember the steps; it's much easier to drill "pas-de-chat, développé écarté, tombé passe 2è arabesque" than "left arm up, bend knees, twist sort of left, head down and UP, turn drop shoulders".

"This year's word is 'elegance'," Inui-sensei said, looking pointedly at me. orz

Since there are only two of us, he spent nearly an hour correcting our starting poses and the first twelve counts. I kind of felt like a mannequin at times, like when, after having rearranged me to his satisfaction, he stood back and uttered a pleased little, "いいじゃん！" And later on, I was up on my toes but not high enough for him, so he came up behind me, grabbed my ribcage and lifted it, then walked me around the studio. I had a hard time not bursting out laughing, because it looked pretty funny. I laughed when he finally let me down. XD

Still, it was encouraging to get a "見て、きれいじゃん、これ。" when I finally managed to do the initial preparation pose (about two seconds of the piece, go me! :D) relatively gracefully.



The new JLPT, which I did on Sunday, is quite different! I did the old 2級 a year and a half ago, and barely made it out alive. With the the new N2, the kanji, reading, grammar and vocab are in one 105-minute block (instead of the same amount of time but split into two parts) and with only 75 questions, that was just a bit more than half as many as last time. No wonder I had time to finish all the questions! I may have read the last couple of texts pretty fast, but I closed my exam booklet with a minute to spare. Also, the listening section seemed pretty easy. Was it really? I'll find out in a couple of months!



I've been meaning to share this for a while: behold, one of the funniest texts I've ever received!

[Context: Eda and I had tickets for a U-KISS concert that was cancelled.]

I wrote: They should let us exchange the ticket for a couple of hours with the boy of our choice!

Eda: I agree! So for 9500 yen, that should be redeemable for:

- 2hrs with Kevin OR Kiseop
- 45 minutes with Kevin AND Kiseop
- 3.5 hours with Dongho (must show id)
- 4 hours with AJ or Soohyun
- 6 hours with Hoon (comes with free parfait)
- one month with Eli ["Because it would take him two weeks to even notice you; "Durr durr derp, a chick! 8D"]

Free parfait!!! When I read that I lost it and started snorting with laughter in the changing room at the ballet studio. XDDD



Arguably the best part of teaching the afternoon advanced class, apart from the fact that the kids are bright and sweet and hilarious, is correcting their homework. Comedy gold! A big part of their homework is reading, and we ask them to write a book report for each book they read, as well as choose five words from the story and write down the definitions in their notebooks. Then they have to come up with an example sentence of their own for each word.

This week's batch yielded some great sentences. (These kids are all six or seven; five of them graduated from our preschool program, and the other two are returnees.)

My friend has a Revolutionary War picture so she likes wars.

Raccoons are stinky.

I want give a survive to the daddy.

If someone kills an animal the animal cannot survive.

Animals don't play snow and animals don't make snowboll. [This was from the "What I learned" section of a book report on hibernation.]

Male: Male is cute?

Things: I like things.

Diesel: My dad diesels so much he buys it every day.

When some bear is going to the forest then I don't go.

... tends to stay at rest. Or rather, a girl who doesn't update her lj tends to not update her lj.

Not like I have anything spectacularly interesting to write, but I thought I'd let you all know that the last few weeks have had my sense of time all askew, thanks to Señor Really Big Earthquake. Or should I say, Really Big Earthquake-san?

Anyway, my work schedule was supposed to look like this:

7th-11th: preschool and afternoon lessons;
14th-18th: preschool and afternoon lessons;
19th: graduation day;
21st-23rd: no preschool, afternoon lessons;
24th, 25th, 28th-30th: Spring School, no afternoon lessons;
31st & 1st: holiday

What ended up happening was:

11th: preschool, but afternoon lessons VERY VERY CANCELLED;
14th: came in early, left early (classes cancelled);
15th: came in at 10:30, boss sent us home after lunch;
16th-18th: school closed;
21st-23rd: no preschool, but we had afternoon classes;
24th & 25th: preschool (Spring School = cancelled) and afternoon lessons;
26th: graduation day;
28th-30th: preschool (Spring School = cancelled) and afternoon lessons;
31st: teachers' prep day (no classes);
1st: teachers' prep day, afternoon lessons.

So, yeah. Last weekend wasn't really a proper weekend, since we had the graduation ceremony in the morning, then the parents had rented the party room at Shidax and we spent the whole afternoon eating, drinking and singing. It was lots of fun, and it was really cute to watch and listen to the kids sing the Doraemon theme song over and over and over and over again. And then a Pokemon opening song at least 348904 times. And then Hyo sang at least half of Michael Jackson's discography. XD

Speaking of Hyo, I solemnly promise to share with you the Star Wars story he wrote on his last day of school. I took pictures of it (he illustrated it), which I haven't uploaded yet, and it's the funniest thing I've read in years. I should tell him to send it to George Lucas, because it's a way better script than the actual movies. XDDD

Since yesterday we had no classes, I took half the day off to get some stuff dealt with, namely sending in my application to take the JLPT in July, get my city taxes sorted out, and renew my international driver's license. All this took longer than expected because I dropped my bike off to get the flat tire fixed before going to city hall; the guy told me it would take about an hour, as they had lots of other bikes to fix before mine. Two hours later, they still hadn't called me, so I went back to the store and asked whether my bike was done. My "But two hours ago I was told it would take an hour..." did the trick, and a different guy fixed it right away. I was kind of relieved that I didn't have to pull the tearful "But I'm going to be late for work!" card -- my bike was ready in ten minutes. But as I was on my way to the drivers' license bureau, it suddenly started to pour and I took refuge in the entrance of an apartment building. An older lady was doing the same thing, and we ended up chatting about travelling and sakura and she kept showing my pictures she'd taken with her phone, of Shakespeare's house and of sakura in a nearby park. Finally the rain let up, I got my license, and was caught in another downpour on the way back. This time I was near a conbini, so I bought an umbrella a cycled to work in the rain.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'm sure there's other stuff I wanted to share with you, but it'll have to wait until at least tomorrow. I'm tired.

Say, has anyone been friended by any random Russians lately? I got a notifications the other day that someone I'd never heard of had friended me, so I went and took a look at their lj. It's all in Russian, and there are a bunch of photos of different places, some of which seem to be stock photos (watermark and all XD). It's happened before, though one of them seemed to be an actual person who pmed me asking if it was all right to friend me. I said sure, but that I wouldn't friend her back, since I can't read Russian. Anyway, has this happened to you? *curious*



Lately, I've been feeling tired, stressed, indecisive, and insecure. Last weekend's Thanksgiving party made me feel at least 100% better, it was so much fun. Thank you, my friends, for making the time I spend with you so memorable. (Yes, there are pictures, I just have to scan our masterpieces and then I'll post everything at once.)

Part of the stress is from my upcoming ballet recital. At least Inui-sensei's been messing with the choreography, so that the parts I wasn't able to remember very well have been reworked, so I'm not lagging behind. I'm starting to think that I won't stick out like a sore thumb on stage after all! Well, I will, but hopefully not because of my dancing. XD;;;

Another annoyance, and I think it's related to the changing weather, is that the flesh around the scar on my back has been... not aching, exactly, but feeling sort of swollen. Like, "Hey! I'm a scar in the middle of your back! Just wanted to let you know I'm still here! :D"

This weekend, I really need to start work on my Halloween costume. I've got all the fabric, and I know what I want to do; I just need to measure myself vs. Brunhilde to make sure I make it my size, and not hers.



The kids are starting to get really excited about our Halloween party. This week, Hina kept asking all the teachers what their costumes would be. When she got to me, she announced, "Ms. Adele, you'll be a banana!"

"No, I won't."

"Then what?"

"Guess."

"Pineapple!" She stuck with the fruit theme until I told her I wasn't going to be any sort of fruit. Then she switched to "[random object]-man!" Finally, one of the other kids guessed that I'd be a flower. Hina looked up at me with a big smile. "A boy flower?" (This was after it was determined, by my two youngest girls, that I couldn't be a princess because princesses have long hair.)



In other Halloween news, I received a parcel of sugar sweets from Emily yesterday. She wanted to know whether Halloween goodies are traditionally the same in Canada as in the U.S., so here's what I have to say about that:

Tootsie Rolls: I always got a few of these when trick-or-treating, but to me they were in the same category as the toffee -- what you eat when everything else is gone. XDDD
Hershey's Milk Chocolate: Yup, we have these in Canada, along with the dark chocolate ones and (my favourite!) the cookies 'n' cream ones.
Butterfinger: We have these, though I've never seen/tried pumpking flavoured ones! Small chocolate bars given to trick-or-treaters (at least in my area) tended toward Snickers, Mars, KitKat, Smarties*, and Oh! Henry, though this could have changed in recent years.
PayDay: I had never seen or heard of this before! Very salty on the outside and very sweet on the inside, it's like the perfect answer for a sudden craving. I like this, though one per day is more than enough! ^o^
Pumpkin cookie: You gave us some of these last year, didn't you?
Sugary pumpkins: I might have seen these back home, but I can't recall ever having eaten any.
Candy Corn: The first time I ever ate candy corn was two years ago, because my boss buys seasonal decorations and things from American party supply stores. I'd most likely heard of it before then, but it was probably one of those things, like homecoming dances and temperatures expressed in degrees Fahrenheit, that only came up in American books and that I dismissed as a weird foreign thing.

As far as I can remember, my Halloween haul usually had a good deal of suckers (lollipops), Rockets*, Halloween toffee, various small chocolate bars, a few small packages of Nerds, Skittles, jellybeans, etc., and always some non-candy items, such as pencils or juice boxes.

Now I'm curious as well. How about the rest of you? What are the most popular goodies where you're from? Is candy corn common in other areas of Canada?

* This year, I learned that Americans have this strange idea that Smarties are little fruity candies. I just found out why: oh Wikipedia, what would we do without you?

I just took the first tablet of anti-malaria medication. This, coupled with yesterday's shot, the fact that I'm flying solo today (co-teacher is already on vacation), and the fact that I'm already tired from having a million things to do this week, will make it an interesting day... And I can't take the kids swimming because of the weather, but since my period just started, it's kind of perfect timing, isn't it?

But who cares? I'm going to China tomorrow! :D

I think I'll leave work early today, because I still need to... let's see. Buy new earphones, get extra kitty litter, withdraw more cash, and probably do a couple of other things. And once I get home, I need to finish packing (got clothes mostly done last night, now I just need to figure out everything else!), write my Travelpod post and hopefully get one or two done in advancce for posting while I'm on the road, post the pictures from Emily's birthday, write down names of places I want to see (Beijing Fabric Market, I am coming for you! <3), finish my dress, finish the last chapter in my Chinese textbook... Oh, and maybe get some sleep? XD;;;

But first, I need to shower and go to work. Woohoo, just one day left, and no afternoon classes!

I'm sitting in a net cafe right now, but I'll get to that later.

It's summer school now, so the pool is out, and I can join the kids in trying to cool off as best we can. Seriously, Tokyo? A whole week at 35 degrees? *melts into a little puddle of sweat*

Monday, I left my brain at home, along with my bathing suit and towel, so no swimming for me. Tuesday I was good to go, and got changed as soon as I'd finished eating. Hyo was waiting to use the toilet when I stepped out of the bathroom, and he looked up at me and laughed.

"You're like Lady Gaga!" he exclaimed. His mother is big into music, so he knows his stuff. Still, I wasn't wearing a dress made out of balloons, or shoes with platforms two feet high, or a lobster on my head.

"I do? Why?"

"No pants!" he answered, delighted.

I must add that "Ms. Adele has no pants!" is always a great hit with the kids. A few months ago, I spilled my soup on my jeans, and changed into my ballet clothes (which I luckily had with me that day) to let the jeans dry out. The kids thought this was the funniest thing they'd ever seen, and they still bring it up on occasion.

"Remember one time Ms. Adele knocked over her soup? No pants!" And they all start laughing, even the ones who weren't there at the time. XDDD

Hmm, there's a guy snoring a few booths over, but otherwise it's nice and quiet in here.

Right, so I'm at a net cafe because my hair appointment was possibly the quickest ever, in spite of the fact that I got a full dye job. I was in and out of there in under 2 1/2 hours, for reals! Since I'd not planned on going home before going out again for those scrumptious desserts, and had lugged all my things into Kichijouji, I figured I might as well update my Travelpod -- which I didn't do last night because I was too exhausted -- and stay where it's cool.

Anyway, I told the stylist that I wanted really short, and the colourist that I wanted really blonde, and that's what I got!

I absolutely love the cut; it's exactly what I wanted. The stylist got it perfectly just with my explanation (I couldn't find a reference picture close enough to what I wanted), and he seemed really excited about giving someone a super short cut (there was a lot of "Cute! So cool for summer! ... Do you mind if I cut this bit a little shorter?" going on).

As for the colour, well, I asked for "kinpatsu" and I am definitely "kinpatsu" now. XDDD I suppose that since I didn't specify that I wanted a shade of blonde actually found in nature, I shouldn't be too surprised. It was quite a shock to see myself in the mirror, like, "Is that really coming out of my head?!" I'll be doing double takes for days, but I think, on the whole, I like it a lot. It's certainly dramatic! Though I feel like I should wear equally dramatic make-up with it, or at least some better powder/foundation than what I use now. And dangly earrings, definitely!

Kimberly's reaction was, "O_____O Wow, now you really look like Lady Gaga! Can I touch it? XD"

I'll post pictures, I promise.

All right, now I've got to decide what to do with the rest of my afternoon. I have my Chinese stuff, so I need to find a place to study. Doutor was too crowded earlier, and probably will still be, but I don't want to have a family restaurant smell clinging to me for the rest of the day... But I should eat, because so far today I've only eaten two very thick blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and bananas, and I don't want to eat too close to the Time of Dessert.

Oh god, those desserts are going to be amazing. *___*

It's becoming clearer and clearer that I fail at remembering anniversaries, so this one is nearly a week late: last Monday marked the date that I'd been living in this apartment for two years.

Two years! Incredible. You know how when you start something, or go through a change, and everything seems so new and fresh and the days ahead seem to stretch out forever? Then, suddenly, you've blinked and it's two years later and you can't imagine how you initially thought, "Well, I have two years here, then who knows?" because you're so comfortable and why on earth would you want to change anything now? You're just getting started!



Friday night, I was in bed by 11:30 and slept until 9, I was so exhausted. Sometime between yesterday morning's brief awakenings and further bouts of sleep, I dreamt that I had signed up for a ballet competition, but I couldn't find the venue. Once I found it, I couldn't find the dressing room and kept walking into the auditorium by mistake. When I finally found the dressing room, I realised I had no idea of when I was supposed to perform, and the weird way the order of the performances was listed on the wall wasn't helping. Oh, and also it turned out that I had signed up not for one dance, but two! Then I couldn't find my costumes. And I had no idea what music I was dancing to, and I'd forgotten all the steps.

Gee, you think I might have been stressed about something? XD

Actually, it's post-traumatic stress of sorts, after a crazy week at work. I tend to sublimate immediate stress so that I can function, and my body reacts by either developing a cold sore or storing it up and releasing it after the event, so that after Friday's ballet class, I was nothing but a little blob of spent muscles and liquified brains.



The reason work was so crazy was that we had Culture Day on Friday. The parents were invited, and each kid had to dress in the traditional outfit of the country of their (read: their mother's) choice, and bring some sort of food from that country. We had the kids sing a song in four languages (Tagalog, Spanish, French, and English), and presented a dance performance. We had a ballet troupe (I led that, of course, and had made their costumes), a hip hop crew and a hula group. OMG the kids were so adorable! Some of the mothers really put a lot of efforts into the costumes, and the food was great. We'd told the kids, who had brought their lunch as usual, that they had to try the special foods before their could open their lunch boxes. I was so proud that only one out of ten kids was even interested in her bento! It helped that the mothers had chosen to make things that kids would like, but it wasn't all desserts. The Swiss rösti was extremely popular, as were the Korean sweets and the French bread with cheese.



I really like Friday's ballet teacher. She's kind of like a female version of Inui-sensei, but I need to find a good nickname for her; it seems disrespectful to think of her as Perfect Ass-sensei, no? Anyway, she's not so much hands-on, but she's really precise in her corrections and pinpoints exactly what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it, so that it feels like a revelation. "Ooooooh! That's why my position looked off! :O" The only trouble I have is that she sometimes uses imagery in her explanations that I have trouble following. Friday, she resorted to English (her English is quite good) when I wasn't understanding why she was holding her hand out while saying something about my fingers. I do appreciate that she asked me if it was okay to use English, because I'd told her during my first lesson with her that I was fine with just Japanese.

The windows in the studio were open, and near the end of the class, a wasp flew in. At first it hovered around the lights, then started inspecting us. It landed in my hair, and I brushed it away, but it came back.

"Wasps like bright/light-coloured things, don't they?" someone said. The wasp, grown tired of my rebuffs, flew over to the only grey-haired woman in the room. Then, somebody had the idea to turn off all the lights and open the door to the hallway; the wasp flew right out.



It seems unfair that breasts as small as mine are should become this sore when my period is about to start. Or maybe because they're small, the swelling is proportionally more severe, thus more painful? Bloh.

My period has been doing its usual thing again, i.e. timing itself to come at the most inconvenient times. I'm pretty lucky in that I don't get severe cramps or anything, and I'm fairly regular, but it's nearly a given that whenever I travel, I'll have my period. Last year, it happened a whole three days early, right in the middle of my Hawaiian vacation; it started on the night Emily and I left for our Great Train Adventure; it started the day before I left for Europe this year; and guess what was happening over my weekend in Seoul?! Naturally, the timing for my trip to China is perfect, and I won't even need to be early or late for my period to coincide with my travels. Given that I haven't travelled for more than two weeks at a time in years, and my cycle is an even 28 to 29 days, this seems suspicious.



I was astonishingly productive yesterday, even though I didn't take a shower. I earned three stickers for my sewing page. THREE! :D I made myself privacy curtains -- I've always found that term funny, because hello, they're sheer! though I understand why they're called that -- for my bedroom window, and then another little curtain for my bedroom doorway using the same fabric, thus using up a whole sari. Do you know how long those things are? I think it was the very first sari I bought off Ebay, so that would have been back in... 2004, possibly 2003. Now the light coming into my room is pretty and green. <3

My third sticker was for finally finishing the curtains I started back in... before Christmas, I think. They just needed to be hemmed, but for some reason I'd thrown them aside in disgust (over my inability to measure stuff properly and cut in a straight line, most likely) and hadn't touched them since. They're woefully out of season now, though, because when I think summer in Tokyo, bare trees are not the first things that come to mind. But at least they're something! It turns out the way to get myself to make curtains is to wash the only ones I have, so that I'm forced to put up something before it gets dark and I want to change my clothes.

Tabitha did her usual thing. Because she wouldn't be a true cat if, faced with nearly 2m of fabric laid out on the floor, she didn't sit right in the middle of the six inches I was trying to cut off.



When the weather gets hot, my vacuum cleaner has this annoying habit of overheating and shutting off, then taking at least a quarter of an hour to cool down enough to start working again. Last weekend, this happened after I'd only vacuumed half a room, which is bad even by Ion-kun standards, so I was worried. I emptied it, left to cool down for over half an hour, then tried plugging it in again. Nothing, not even the green "I'm plugged in!" light. Uh oh. Hoping I wouldn't need to try to get it fixed, or buy a replacement, I did other stuff for another half hour, then tried again. Still no green light! Sighing in frustration, I looked up at my ironing board and noticed that though the vacuum didn't seem to have any power, the iron was plugged in and working fine. XD;;;

Yesterday, I managed to vacuum the whole apartment in only three "sessions", which is much better than I'd expected. Not that it did much good, because Tabitha made sure there was fur over everything again before the day was half done. But it was nice while it lasted!

* * *

Today I hope to be just as productive. I've already studied for an hour (sticker! yeah!) and written this long post; next, I've got a Travelpod post to finish (the last of Team Okinawa's adventure down south). Afterward, I need to shower (definitely!), then decide what I'll do with the rest of my day.

Have a good Sunday, people! *kisses*

I'm not sure why, but these past few months have seen me feeling things more intensely. I've always been d'humeur égale, prone neither to extreme highs or lows of mood (not without a good reason, anyway), but today I've been full of so much love for everything that I feel warm and mushy and I just want to hug the world. I don't know if it was waking up to Tabitha being incredibly affectionate, cute and cuddly and purring like a tractor, but the rest of the day was lovely. I got up early to cook lunch and it turned out really well; I discovered my new favourite song* and beat my record time for walking to work; the kids were just so adorable and bright and funny today that I wanted to hug them and gnaw on their cute round cheeks forever; after work I met up with Eda and Jamie and we parked ourselves at Coco's to study (Korean for Eda, Mandarin for me) and draw (Jamie); I got home to a postcard that Jill sent me from Thailand, informing me that even the ladyboys have larger boobs than I do.

Well, if they didn't, I'd say that they'd really wasted their money!

* Lady Gaga's "Optimist" which I love and makes me stomp fiercely through the streets, mouthing the words.

Your responses to my last post were encouraging, so let's do this!

At my school, at the end of each day, we give a sticker to each kid who's been good and has followed the class rules all day. They put that sticker on their sticker sheet, and when it's completed, we give them a certificate and let them put a coin in the Anpanman capsule machine we have (which we fill with Anpanman stickers). The 2- and 3-year-olds especially get excited about "Anpanman gacha-gacha! :D".

I'm not suggesting Anpanman stickers as a reward for reaching personal goals -- though far be it from me to deny you such a thing, should you be a closet Anpanman fan! XD -- but cute stickers for small goals and a big reward (left up to each participant's discretion) after having earned x number of stickers? And a certificate, of course, that goes without saying!

So, your thoughts? Create a lj community specifically for this? Elect officers? Have a special badge and a secret handshake? 8D

Now I'm off to complete a simple goal for this evening: be in bed before 12:30.

To get this post off to a cheerful start, an amusing exchange with a student:

Him: Ms. Adele, why is your hair brown?
Me: Uh... it just is. What colour do you think it should be?
Him: Black.
Me: Black? But I'm not Japanese.
Him: Yes, you are.
Me: XD Actually, no.

I believe there is partial confusion here due to the fact that the younger kids take a while understand the difference between Japanese-meaning-nationality and Japanese-meaning-language and which verb to use in which context. I often hear things like "Sakura is Japanese!" when they mean she's speaking Japanese. My response is always, "Yeah, so are you!" which confuses them. And then I laugh.

Anyway, the next day I asked Taiga:

Me: So, why did you say my hair should be black?
Him: *looking at me as though explaining that water is wet* Because hair is black.

This was even funnier because this kid's hair isn't black, it's truly brown. It made me wonder, though, whether any of the kids think that K (who is fairer than I am) and I dye our hair.



I meant to post something interesting about Okinawa, or at least answer the meme questions I was asked, but I really don't feel up to the task. Still, I forced myself to at least try to catch up with my studying this evening, and got more done than I'd hoped. Funny how I actually kept up in Okinawa, it's in the days since I've been back that I've completely slacked off, for no reason I can discern except that I'm damn tired.

( Self-pity goes here )

While I'm really looking forward to the test being over, I also wonder what I'm going to do with my time once it's free. I want to keep studying, so I'll have to think up a way to get myself motivated for that, and I also want to settle on some other goals. Anyone have any suggestions on how to do this? Advice? Want to start a Goal of the Month club with me so we can be slave-drivers to each other? :D [offer valid only after the 6th of December]

Re: 12月6日, Eda and I are going to meet up after the test and we're going to get drunk. Anyone else want to join in? :D

And then she went to bed.

I was up at 8 this morning for some good ol' nihongo taimu. I've taken to having the tv on with the volume down low as background noise while I study, because who knows? It might reinforce what I'm reading. XD It being Sunday morning, I fell on that silly kiddy show about two guys in one suit, which I hear some of you people like. It was pretty hilarious, I must admit. Since I wasn't giving it my full attention, I didn't quite get some bits. Like why did Dance-Boy -- his actual character name, of course! -- suddenly run through a police cordon, set up his boom box and start dancing in the middle of what was presumably an off-limits area?

This was also research, in a way, because to be a good teacher, one should try to be in touch with what interests the students, and my preschool kids love this show. They adore it with the passion of four- and five-year-olds who think that guys running around in weird armour suits are the coolest thing ever. At least three times a week, they ask me (since the other teachers just look at them blankly when the subject comes up) if I like Philippe. The colour drawings half in one colour, half in another. During playtime, they argue over who gets to be which character (Kid A: "Me is Shoutarou!" Kid B: "No, me!" Me: "How about you both be Shoutarou? XD" Kids: "Okay! :D"), then jump around, striking poses and shouting "Dabburu!"

"It's 'Double'," I correct them. " 'Dabburu' is Japanese."

"Double! Metaru! Toriggaa!"

"Metal. Trigger."

"Metal! Trigger!"

Since I've been correcting them, they're starting to catch on that those cool-sounding names are, in fact, English words. The other day, during a writing activity, Chikara suddenly asked me, "What's 'cyclone'?"

Wondering where he'd heard the word, and thinking it might have been some nature program or book (he's interested in science), I answered that it was a storm with very strong winds. He nodded and went back to his worksheet. Ten seconds later, he asked me, "What's 'Joker'?" Ah, now I see where this is going, thought I with a grin.

The weekend is over, which I think is very unfair. I did a lot, though, so at least I didn't waste any time! Friday was art_house_queen's and chimericalyours's joint birthday celebration at everyone's favourite cheap izakaya, and I got to take my fantabulous sequined shoes out on the town while meeting some very nice people. Yesterday, K and I nearly finished the Halloween costumes -- save mine, which I really need to get working on! -- and my apartment looks like a princess factory exploded in it. It's rather disturbing. Today I met up with akahannah and lizstarsky for some studying at Saizeriya, and we were kicked out! Well, we were very politely told that it was peak meal time, and if we were only studying and not ordering any more food... That's the first time that's ever happened to me, and I could only think, "This would never happen at Skylark!" XD

lizstarsky and I needed to head over to Shinjuku anyway, because we were meeting later_uk and nekonezumi to book ourselves a trip to Okinawa, which we did with minimal difficulty, since the flights and hotel we'd kimeta-ed (<-- actual English verb, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise!) were all available. So we're going to have ourselves a girly resort trip! I've never done that before, so I'm very excited! Afterwards, we met up with nekonezumi's parents, who are visiting for the week, and had Korean food for supper. Her parents are so sweet! I hope they have a lovely time in Japan.

Anyway, I've got some more benkyouing to do this evening to keep abreast of things. So far I'm doing quite well with my study plan, though I've not been able to manage as much as I'd like regarding kanji. That's the section that's going to slay me come test time. If they're shown in context, I might manage, but otherwise I'm afraid I'll be relying a great deal on my super wild guessing skillz.