A lazy Sunday over here. Just sitting around, eating noodles and rice, and enjoying a few minutes to myself. Amy is out shopping. I think she's looking for a couple things for her temple. Should be back soon.
My neck is feeling much better. Still not perfect but then again, it never was. One of these days I'm gonna have to see someone about it. But now is not the time. Don't really want to have to try to explain what's going on to a Japanese doctor. Perhaps acupuncture is in my future. I don't know. But the cuts and brusies are all healing up nicely and the scabs are peeling off. So that's all fine and good.

Had to teach a few more classes by myself again this week. Tuesday I taught all three classes by myself due to Yamashita-sensei at Sundai junior high having to be somewhere. He said wherever he was going was going to be boring but that he had to go. Think it was a teacher's meeting or something like that. He was happy that I would be able to handle things myself. It really was no problem as he had warned me two weeks earlier and I was ready. Just played a couple games and laughed a lot with the kids. I think just about all my students are finally getting used to me because they actually flag me down during group games to ask me about certain words and things. They used to always ask the Japanese teachers instead of me. But now, it seems that I have been accepted.
Also had one class on Friday by myself. Turns out that the teacher for that class had to go take part in some diciplinary action for one of the high school students (this school is both high school and junior high, I teach the junior high kids). She told me he had been "violent in the classroom" and that some of the teachers and the kid's parents were going to have a meeting. Not really sure what "violent in the classroom" means; could be a fight, throwing something, attacking the teacher...no idea. Anyway, she asked me if I could handle the class alone about five minutes before class was to begin, and I assured her it wouldn't be a problem. Actually the kids and I had fun. I walked in and told them it would just be me and them to which they all appluded and then I asked them if they'd rather take a test or play a game. They answered in the way that probably all kids the world over would answer, so we played and laughed at each other and generally had fun. Luckily their English is good enough to be able to handle most everything I tell them. Certain individuals struggle but the smarter kids jump in and help. So that is good and makes it a bit easier for me. At one point they all had a major laugh at my expense and I proved to them that I wasn't faultless. We were playing "Categories" where they have to come up with words that begin with a certain letter. The letter was D and the group had written down donuts for the Food category. Well, they had written it out of order from the way that I had the categories listed on the board and I wrote donuts under Animals. They all had a good laugh at that.
On Wednesday (Yuda high--all girls) during my first class (Tanoguchi-sensei--the old guy), we did a little lesson out of the book about complaining at a restaurant. Lesson has a waiter and a lady at the table, and she says something to the effect of "this is not what I ordered" and then after the waiter comes back "it is cold in here, can you do something about the air conditioner?" Anyway, it's pretty easy stuff as far as vocabulary and grammer are concerned, so the kids are really working on their pronounciation. So we are just about done with it when Tanoguchi asks me what the proper way is to get a waiter's or waitress's attention in America. So I hold up a finger and say something like "Excuse me" or "Pardon me" to which the kids all laugh at me and mimic what I am doing. So we all have fun with that for a minute and then it is just about time to go when Tanoguchi says something to them (in Japanese) and they all start batting their eyes at me and waving bye in that little coy manner. "Bye-bye, Mr. Marcus." "Bye-bye, Marcus-sensei." All this said in little high voices, with a little wave and fluttering eyelids. Very strange stuff. I love this class.
Anyway, schools are going great.

This next week I have Minobusan, Shizen Gakuen, and Yuda on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday respectively, and then Thursday and Friday all the JETs in Yamanashi have our mid-year seminar. Technically it is about mid-year in the Japanese school year, course I still feel like I just got here. But anyway, it might be interesting and fun. Amy is having to give a presentation on "team-teaching" since she was found out by the Japanese guy responsible for all the JETs in Yamanashi. He went to her school to view some of the classes and by chance happened to see one of the classes Amy taught. He came back to his office here in Kofu and told our prefectural advisor (Robin--from Texas) that he had been impressed by what he saw and that she (Amy) and her JTE (Japanese teacher of English) should do a presentation at the upcoming seminar together. So now she is. It's always the good ones who get the extra work. That is why I never get extra work. I try to make it appear that I have no idea what I am doing.

Bike woes continue. Crappy Kencho bike got a flat tire. Amy had ridden it down to the train station on Sunday evening to go home and also with the intent of leaving it there so that on Monday evening when she came back up for our Japanese lesson, she'd have a bike immediately availiable. We decided that it would be better to leave the crap bike there overnight rather than her brand new one, just in case. Well, she came back up on Monday evening and I rode to the station to meet her, but when she mounted the bike we noticed that the rear tire was flat. I seem to be having more trouble keeping all three bikes and myself healthy here than I ever had keeping a car healthy back home. Strange.

Ok, that's it. Amy's back and my peace and quiet has gone. Hope everyone is well and I'll try writing in here a few days if possible.