NIke+ Number Four

Little slower, little longer.

Nike+ Number Three

Getting faster ...

Nike+ Number Two

Second run ... better, but not much :P. Ofcourse it was done after an hour of Body Combat ... but this is a "Just Do It" activity so no more excuses. I'm a slug.

Culture Day

Culture Day 2007

Culture day was today. Here are the pictures. Also my picasa account is getting very full, so if you want to have any of the pictures from the begining get them soon as I will have to start deleting the older albums to make room for the new.

First Run With Nike+

It was very sad because I am super sore from 9 days straight of working out ... but here it is.

Hike and Stuff

Hike

So today I went on a hike with Tina and Marie and our friend Thomas (Mitsubishi guy). We rode out to a local moutain around 7:40. We started up the moutain at 9. For the first 20 min it was hard going climbing maybe 200M. In the first hour and a half we climbed about 800M. It took us around 4 and a half hours to complete the circuit. My legs are hurting quite a bit, although I don't blame it solely on the hike...
As I mentioned in my previous blog my gym membership started this past week and as such I've been taking every chance I get to try out classes and such. Yesterday it was Body Combat, the day before that it was Body Healing and Body Step. Tomorrow I plan to take a Yoga class. It's busy, but I am hoping that if I make it a routine I'll be able to keep it going.
Still no idea about Eri, but I suppose that I have to wait more and see what happens. She continues to be very busy and so I have no idea about her real feelings.

Gym and stuff

So today is the first offical day of my membership to Konami. I intend to go for a run with my neighbors and then heading over there to get in a bit of weight training before going to Japanese class. Japanese class is cool so far. It is tough because some of the material is super easy cause I've learned it before, but the flip side is I've forgotten tons and so I constantly am presented with stuff that I have no idea what to do with. Hopefully this class with smooth out some of those learning wrinkles.
Work is going ok. Monday I taught all by lone some to the ni-nensei (8th graders, 2nd graders in middle school). It was an interesting experience. My job description/my experience in Japan thus far has nothing about solo teaching in middle school. JHS are soo much more scary than elementary school kids :P.
Lets see ... OH! Only 10 more days until Lepard comes out and I can finally order a replacement laptop. I have been a bit of a shop-o-holic lately ; /. It's the stupid Sports Authority... I finally found somewhere than has athletic stuff that fits western sizes. But, hopefully now that I have a swim suit, running shoes, shorts and all that I'll be satified for the moment. Well thats all for now.

Festival Photos

Shinzaike Matsuri

Yo ... Ya Sa!!!

So yesterday was Shinzaike's fall matsuri (autum festival) and it was heaps fun like last year. The day started at 8 am at our neighborhood shrine. We watched the lion dance and then carried the shrine around a bit. Ofcourse matsuri's aren't matsuri's without saké so after carrying around the shrine we each got a small bowl of saké. The parade continued around our neighborhood until about 11:30 when we stopped in a local park along with several other community shrines. During the parade one of the community leaders took a liking to my chanting so I spent the whole march calling "yo ... ya sa!"
After the parade we ate lunch in the park and then did a bit of shrine battling. Once that was complete all the ALT's headed back to the apartment to wash and rest a bit before the community dinner. A group of us went and had dinner with some of the local coordinators of the festival. There wasn't much I could eat, but it was cool to hang out with the Japanese people who made the event possible.
After dinner a group of us went out to Tiger Pub and hung out there until late. Eri showed up for a couple hours and we talked about what happend. She told me that one of the things that had her most spooked was that I reminded her of how things went with her ex-boyfriend when they started out (ie. we were on the same general path). That and she didn't know about me leaving in another 10 months or so. So we are going to try out just being friends and see how that goes.
So there is today's blog extraviganza.

Update

So Eri finally e-mailed today. Here is the scoop. Due to the fact things were going so well she wants to go back to just being friends ... makes sense to me too ?.? ... But, in reality I can see where she is coming from. She is afraid to get attached to me in case things don't work out. Not that I agree with her decision. I think since things were going so well we should continue dating and see where it leads, but I'm not the one calling the shots ;/. Anyway, there is the dirt for today.

Well ...

It seems I only post on here so that at a later date I may make a retraction. Today as is common I got a "It's not you ..." type e-mail. I am pretty sure that it means that me and Eri will no longer be dating. I've done and had done the "It's not you ..." thing before and the next step is the break up :(. I hope I am wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. I put to you readers that my Blog is cursed and that if I mention things are going well with someone then they inevitablely end up not going well anymore.