Today has been the worst.
1) Third grade classes at Higashi Yama no Shita. Teachers translating everything I say to the kiddies and then telling the kiddies the answers in badly accented English? I can deal with you. Young teachers with no sense of keeping their kiddie under control? I can deal with you. The poke in the asshole, though? No, I can't deal with you.
2) Japanese health insurance. From 200 yen a month to 10,000 yen a month. I'm looking at the explanation here and I think it is Japanese for, That's right, you're screwed now that you have a real job.
3) Bills? Only bills in the mailbox.
4) Oh wait, a note from my Grandmother. No, Grandma, I don't live in China. That's a whole different country now.
Please, someone hand me a jumbo juice. I think this is all karma though because the weekend rocked:
1) Mitsuki kun excited about English study? Yeah, I have no idea why that was.
2) Party on the beach with Bulgarians and Japanese and Russians? Well, you can't beat that.
3) Jazz with Satomi and her friend?
4) Driving an hour and half into the mountains on my bike? That was nice too.
5) Picking Yoko chan up at the train station and driving her home? No comment.
So it all evened out.
I bought the sexiest swimsuit a man can buy, I think. I am wearing it right now and becoming too aware that I am a fat man. Too fat.
Today, over lunch, me and some kids had an interesting conversation about the first Japanese word I learned which was, of course, konnichiwa. They proceeded to ask me about what words I had learned from two to ten. Then a little girl asked me what new word I had learned that morning. I said, I didn't think I had learned any new word that morning. She insisted that I had. I thought for a while then gave up and she said, "ah-FU-ro!" pointing to my head. Ah yes, the children had taught me the word "ah-FU-ro" earlier in the day when they saw that my hair had gotten longer. "ah-FU-ro" and "hi-ge" which means beard, but was referring to the soul patch I grew over the weekend. There's your Japanese for today: ah-FU-ro.