Couple items of interest:
- The school decided to filter internet access, blocking out my blog, gmail, and parts of wikipedia. This stopped me for about an hour or so before I managed to find vtunnel.com. Now it`s just annoying, but liveable.
- I have come down with some nasty cold, which knocked me out for 14 hours straight starting around 5 last night. My head is hurting, I`m coughing a lot, and generally I`m kind of irritable.
- Japanese teachers cannot understand the game Hangman. At all. I was able to explain it to the guy who`s been studying English for 16 years, and only barely. The others, even with a translated explanation (done by someone who is much better than me at Japanese), did not get it at all.
- My kids are friggin weird. Yesterday, at one of my elementary schools, some kids (maybe 8 years old) came up to me and started talking about a man in the sky who was watching them. I didn`t get all of what they were saying, but as far as I could tell, they proceeded to talk about two lovers who had committed a double suicide somewhere near my house (they kept making hanged-person motions and talking about a funeral shroud), and told me where I could see their ghosts. They proceeded to tell me which teachers were mean, and which ones they`d seen using magic. Finally, they took me to the corner of the playground they were hanging out at, and showed me their homemade Ouija Board. They asked if I wanted to play. I said, thanks, I did it a lot when I was a kid, but I don`t do it now. I did teach them the phrase `Ouija Board` though.
- That state fair festival is like two weeks away, and I am in the beginning phases of freak-out. Because I`m sick and I have no internet, I haven`t been able to bug all the Team America folks as much as I`d like. The American Embassy sent me, upon my request for `Maps, state quarters, flags, and the like`:
- A copy of the Declaration of Independence. In English.
- A book about American history. In English.
- A guidebook to Amish country. In Japanese.
- Some American flag napkins.
- A sightseeing guide for New York. In Japanese.
- Healthy Cooking with California Walnuts. Volume 2. In Japanese.
Can`t say I`m not grateful, but I was left scratching my head.
Oh, also, comments should work now. MovableType confused me a bit, but should be okay.