feb recap!

haddo! as promised, here's a rather frothy, perfunctory account of this past month. i know i haven't been good about updating regularly, but i kind of like the abbreviated, date-by-date format. hope it's to your fancy, too!

february 6 - jessica alba sensei is sick with a sore throat, lolling around and moaning in his chair. i decide to give him my american "throat coat" tea, which apparently worked like a charm, seeing as that afternoon he was on his feet, happily screaming at the top of his lungs to surrounding teachers about gyoza dumplings and tonkatsu ramen.

feb 8 - got my evaluation results for my midyear presentation. was relieved to see i got lovely reviews from my dear friends who attended. pretty sure they were just being kind on the evaluation.

feb 10 - nothing to do in school, so i took a bunch of practice AP tests online in various subjects. use it or lose it, baby! that night, i made a huge pot of thai curry, and jordy drove up from miyakonojo to partake. trots came too, and we cracked open the champagne and chowed down on my spicy, messy curry. love girls' nights!

feb 11 - unceremoniously booted jordy outta my house (after making her a romantic breakfast of eggy mcmuffin and coffee), then hit the road with trotsky and our friend abe-chan to go to a ceramics class up in the mountains of mukabaki, a town north of nobeoka.

we arrived at the little shack-like studio, and a man and his assistant greeted us. it was so cold, so we were glad to hustle into the dusty workroom, which had a few wooden tables and benches, shelves full of pottery of all kinds, and a few wheels. the man very deliberately and gracefully showed us how to make our mugs, step by step, and i enjoyed working in the peaceful silence. it was so isolated up there in the woodsy mountains, the air was smoky and cool, and it was very serene yet fun.

after our mugs were finished, we got to watch the artist at his wheel. he made two perfectly balanced, beautifully simple bowls in less than 2 minutes. makes me wonder...what am i doing with my life?! and why don't i got no skills?!

the lovely artisan pair bowed us out of the joint about a million times, then tracey and i headed down to miyakonojo with a coupla other peeps for PROM!

the night was good. at the first place, the music was poppin' and i was guzzling wine, so i was having a dandy time! at the second place, however, there were a bunch of sketchy japanese dudes who were really irritating me with their shenanigans, and finally at about 2:30 tracey and i peaced out to our hotel, and proceeded to eat onigiri out of a trash can. ~classy~

feb 13 - sick. everyone babies me at school when i'm under the weather, and i soak it up like a sponge.

feb 14 - valentine's day! i brought a bowl of chocolates in an effort to win "miss foreign popularity," and i won bigtime!

feb 15 - lady teachers' night out! one of the sensei is pregnant, so it was kind of a farewell dinner for her maternity leave. we went to a lovely chinese restaurant in town, drank a lot, ate a veritable truckload, and gossiped like fiends.

feb 17 - my valentine's package from mattsy arrived! complete with tons of candy, brit glamour mag, and kitteh card. i was shrieking with glee! then tracey came over for our traditional "bootleg pasta" night, a night in which i make whole wheat spaghetti with pesto. supreme noms!

feb 18 - leisurely saturday. did laundry, ran 4 miles, and watched movies.

feb 19 - oita trip!

feb 20 - went out to a new indian restaurant with a buncha ALT lady friends. it was so scarfalicious, i downed a humongous nan with multiple curries, drank some mango lassi, and chatted it up with the great gals of nobeoka. unfortunately, i slept terribly, constantly waking up with severe stomach pains that ended up lasting the entire week. BISHNU, THIS IS OVER.

feb 21 - stomach knotted beyond belief. couldn't eat. worst fat tuesday OF ALL TIME.

feb 22 - stomach still contorted in pain. easiest ash wednesday fast OF ALL TIME.

also, my office friend imamura-san came to tell me how much she loves swiss miss hot chocolate. we began to talk about desserts, and she told me how much she loved the ritter chocolate i gave her for valentine's day. she then asked me how many calories a bar had. when i told her, "about 500?" her eyes bugged out. i asked, "did you eat the whole thing?! i usually eat like 4 squares," and she whispers frantically, "I ATE TWO ENTIRE BARS!!!" i DIED laughing!

i updated my "international blackboard" to write about ash wednesday. i wrote some kanji translations, since the english was tough, and multiple teachers walking by tried to help me write the correct japanese. i always crack up when i walk by my board and see that someone has kindly erased my abysmal kanji and rewritten it correctly for me!

feb 23 - tutored my friend satomi for her english literature assignment. she has to analyze a passage from "hamlet" and an excerpt from "the wasteland." we went to joyfull, a diner-type restaurant, to soak up the drink bar (all you can drink of sodas and coffees for 300 yen) while we worked. i was so absorbed in it that i didn't notice we were there for an hour and a half! it was such a welcome, rewarding change to be able to teach some interesting english to a super smart and motivated "student"! after, we went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and made absolutely BOMB cheese&mochi okonomiyaki, then yakisoba. feast!

and then, this past weekend, we had our english department trip to fukuoka. but you'll have to stay tuned, it's coming in the next post!

but before i go, please allow me to leave you with this gem. it encapsulates so much of what we ALTs experience here in japan:

(email exchange)
me: "i want to create a secret nook at my school that i can sleep in."
anonymous ALT: "i already did that, it's called the backseat of my car."

working hard, hardly working,
lilly