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Lazy lazy lazy ...

Blog number ... I dunno

I have had complaints about my lack of writing, as you know, so here is another timely blog. This last weekend I went to Nagano and spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday snowboarding … needless to say my legs are a bit sore. I am also a bit crispy around the edges XD. It was heaps of fun though. When I get back to the states I intend to keep going in winter if I can. I have posted some pictures on my .Mac web gallery that you can view.
Today is the last day of the term so there is very little to do. This morning there was a closing ceremony that took about 40 minutes and that was it! Since the teachers change grades and in some cases school at the end of Spring Break I can’t even prep for next terms classes really. So instead I’m watching a bit of Alias :P.
Not much else going on. I’ll be meeting with my teacher friend’s sister tomorrow I think. I have a work party with one of my elementary school’s staff on Wednesday and on Friday an end of term party with Shosha’s staff. I am continuing to train and got some new running tights that are suppose to be top grade for my continued high level of activity. So that’s all for now.

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Surprise!

Yes here is yet again another blog not with a running graph! Wow, you must be dreaming. No actually I had a few spare moments and thought I'd post something. Nothing much going on. Tomorrow I go on my snowboarding trip, which should be fun :). Today was a holiday so I have been bumming around. Did a bit of shopping, went for a run and cleaned my room.
Still haven't heard from Aoi and my friend Yoko hasn't given me any update from her asking so who knows whats up. My teacher friend's sister had an emergency come up yesterday so we didn't meet. It looks like we'll reschedule to next Tuesday. Other than that nothing much else to report there.
Tomorrow at school we have our BIG cleaning day. The students will be cleaning the school for around 3 hours. Unlike in the states the students do the bulk of the cleaning around the school. Of course there is a grounds keeper who maintains the school and a custodian who does the cleaning in the lesser used areas, but the students spend 30 minutes each day "cleaning" their classrooms and the halls. Not much real cleaning goes on but a good amount of dust is picked up and the chalk boards are clean after each session. Anyway tomorrow the heavy cleaning will be done and the students will move to the next grade's floor. So I'll be sure to wear something that can get dirty.
My trip home is forming up. I have been looking into flights and hotels and what not. Australia seems to be out for the moment because there are no flights between the 15th and the 22nd to Adelaide. Hawaii on the other hand seems to be a sure thing the 17th-27th. I haven't bought anything yet, but if you are tossing around the idea of meeting up with me those are the dates I am looking at being there. Be sure to let me know if you are firming up travel plans.
Thats all for today. Thanks for reading :).

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Took a few days off to rest ... wasn't feeling that great, but it's back on the road today.

Just for you ...

So I have had complaints about my lack of writing. I admit I’ve been lazy about keeping you all up to date with what is happening. So here is a brief history of what is new. First we’ll start with the running aspect as that is where my blog usually is these days. I ran another half marathon this last weekend. This one was in Kyoto. My unofficial time was 1 hour 35 minutes, which is ok but not what I had hoped for the course.
Last Friday I went out with a friend of my running buddy. Her name is Aoi and she is an interesting woman. She teaches piano, doesn’t like sports, goes to cooking school twice a week but doesn’t like to cook (yeah I’m still mulling that over XD), loves to travel and go to amusement parks (A+ there ^^), loves sweets of all sorts but her favorite is strawberry cake, she lives in a temple (her family has run it for hundreds of years … she doesn’t know how long exactly), etc. However, I may have scared her off ☹. I have been trying to set a date for another date and have been very persistant. For the last few weeks she has written at least one e-mail a day, but I haven’t heard from her in two days now. So I guess we’ll see.
On that same subject one of my elementary school teachers wants me to meet her sister. So next Wednesday I’ll be getting together with the two of them for dinner. I know next to nothing about the sister, but the teacher is friendly and loves to practice English with me at school. I try my broken Japanese with her too.
Lets see, next weekend I’ll be traveling to Nagano to go snowboarding again. It should be a fun trip. I will leave Himeji at 7pm and ride the bus all night and we’ll get there about 6am. … then we’ll have all day to play and half the next day before riding back to Osaka getting there about 10pm. Unfortunately when I planned this trip I didn’t realize that school isn’t out for spring break until Tuesday, so I have work the next day ☹.
Work is good. This week was graduation for the 9th graders, which was sad. Even though I have only been here 3 months I have grown attached to them. Some of my best classes where in that grade. It will be interesting to see what the year change brings as far as new teachers and new 7th graders.
Not much else is going on in my life at the moment. Spring break starts in a little over a week. I’ll be working most of it and saving my remaining vacation time to plug in at the end of my time here. I may take a day off here or there and perhaps the whole of Golden Week in May, but we’ll see. I figure I may take a trip to Tokyo or something before leaving. Also depending on airfares or whatever it might be cheaper to fly out of Narita. Also I am considering a stop for a week (or more ☺) in Hawaii. If anyone is interested in meeting me there then I’ll firm up my plans and let you know so we can make it happen.

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Just a loosening up run ... was a bit crazy at the start, but tempered myself by the end.

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It appears the start is what killed my time. The offical race time was around 1:35.

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More of a sprint than a run ... but eh two days till Kyoto City

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Counting down to Kyoto City Half.

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