60th post

hi blog,
it rained a lot last night.
what do you do when a japanese elementary school student starts crying? you have a few options. some would say that your best bet is to just ignore him or her. elementary school in japan is a tough place and you might want to let these kids adjust on their own. maybe you want to run over, interrupt the lesson, and provide some comfort. when there is another teacher in the room, this usually becomes their job. if you play any kind of game with winners and losers in a 4th grade or younger class, it's basically a surefire bet that someone isn't going to be able to take the heat and is going to weep. but life is tough, and you can't always win, especially at bingo! so i try to not let it get to me, but it does anyway.
i hurt my foot at karate practice yesterday. robbie, another american english teacher, sustained the same wound last week when he got his kick blocked by sensei's knee. so when i went to kick robbie, he "payed it forward", and now i am limping around. I am taking tylenol and keeping some ice on my foot, but i am basically a handicapped person for the next few days. it is good that i dont have to work until monday. i think it will be back to functioning walking capability by then. so don't worry about me. the only problem is that i had this long list of things to do this weekend. let me share some of it with you:
- clean house
- set up kotatsu
- gather recycling
- study japanese
- buy tissues
- put new cds in car
- read paradise lost
the only one of these i can still easily do is study japanese, which is not fun. i can't read paradise lost because i accidentally left it at the elementary school around the block, which wouldnt be a problem if i could walk, and if i knew whether or not the school was open today. i ran out of tissues when i had a cold last week, and a tissue is a very important thing to have in japan. i will probably be able to get some of these things done tomorrrow, which is sunday.
obama is supposed to give a speech from tokyo about american asian relations today. if you catch it, let me know what you thought. i am watching it right now.
great!