Am siting in front of my fan with the highest speed on! Oh my gosh... maybe it's cos I cooked my bento rice for tomorrow and next week's Mon and Tues school  (having mushroom ham rice!).  And I cooked up the laksa mix that Jamie left me (cos it was expiring in September).

  Sigh... so now I am very hot!!! I think I must be nuts to want to eat laksa in summer but well, better eat than waste it. So once I'm done with it, next week, it's pasta for breakfast and somen for dinner I think. Yay cold somen ... my favorite summer food though a good salad might have just usurped its place in my stomach.

Was not in a good mood today cos it's my sucky Thurs school. So I had a really nice surprise when I got a mail from Oh-sao telling me that the 10th annivesary con dates are out!!! Yay!!!

  So the boys are having 3 days of concerts at Kokuritsu again and then Dome tours in Fukuoka, Osaka, Sapporo, Tokyo and Nagoya which will take them till next Jan. Was really happy thinking about it UNTIL I got the email from JE saying that we can only bid for 1 Kokuritsu AND 1 Dome concert! DAMN!!!! The worse thing is that I can't talk to Oh-sao this weekend cos she's going to another prefecture to study with another Singaporean for the JLPT exam. And the dates are not exactly that fantastic either. Might have to take nenkyuu but trying to avoid doing so if I can help it. And Oh-sao and I have different schedules cos she works in senior high and me junior high. So apparently our schedules are different too.

  Oh well, am not going to complain. This is what I've been waiting for, so I am damn excited!! YAY!!!! Arashi, here I come!!!!! 

So I went down to the BOE after school and spoke to my sup. The meeting actually turned out okay ... no blood was shed. Haha!

  Well, turns out that there is really some piece of paper stating the amount of summer special leave we can take and when we can take it. That's okay I guess cos rules are rules and it's not nice to bend the rules to accomodate some people.

  But to my surprise, my sup said since some of us are recontracting, we can take the full 5 days before our contract ends. No problem with that. She apparently spoke to the accounts lady about this. I get the feeling that perhaps it's difficult having to calculate the breakdown for our pay and since we are recontracting, it doesn't matter that much if we take the leave before our new contract year starts, especially if we are only going to travel once in the August break.

  So that problem is solved but I still might cut short my trip. Have a funny feeling that it's better for me to do so. :) 

  I stopped by Playguide to pick up pre-advanced tickets for the Gespard and Lisa fair. Gespard and Lisa are two French dog characters. Quite cute. Saw tickets for a Hello Kitty exhibition at the Kochi Art Museum and I think I might buy a ticket and go for that too. Should be fun cos I do like Hello Kitty and it gives me a chance to go check out the Art Museum too.

  Anyway, E and I went to 31 for an ice cream break after that. Yay, we tried the triple scoop ice-cream (pay for double scoops but get triple scoops instead!) :) That rocked! I was feeling a bit mean so I tooked a nice picture of our ice creams and mailed it to Junya (who absolutely LOVES ice-cream!) Haha! :p

So sad, I won’t be able to go for Rita and Leah’s farewell enkai on the 16^th cos I won’t be around in Kochi. Going to take the overnight bus to Fukuoka so I won’t be around.

 By the way, little dude is sitting in the park drinking beer! So was Rita’s. So we kampai-ed on behalf of our keitai friends. Haha!!

Recently I have been on a crazy salad making craze. So for the last 3 nights it has been salads all the way. So I cheat a bit cos I actually have some salad dressing on it. But I have lots of veggies … cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, corn, onions, tomatoes and either tuna or grilled chicken. I love salads cos now it’s getting hot so a cold salad really refreshes you.

 I’m glad the grilled chicken came back to Fuji Grand cos there was a period of time when they didn’t have it. I buy like 6 pieces, debone it and then split it into 4 packets and dump in the freezer.  Probably going to buy more cabbage and make another round since I have an extra carrot lying around. :)

 Went to Daikichi by myself today. Decided to go home and take a nap first cos I was really very very tired. Then made my way down by myself. Last week I asked Arisa if she wanted to go drinking but cos she had to go to Sakawa to visit her grandparents, she drove there directly after school. Elizabeth and most other ALTs went to the Sayonara Party so I was hoping that she’ll pop by Daikichi so I won’t feel so weird by myself.

 Oh it was kind of funny cos Okaasan’s friend, Kawakami-san, was there. I met this other regular customer (don’t know his name) but he was doing take-out and I chatted with him for a while. The good part was that I was sitting in front of the sink area so that means if Junya is washing the utensils, at least I can chat with him and not feel lonely. Oh well, not like he’s much of a conversationalist anyway. I asked him which fonts were better for me to make new Arashi uchiwas and he gave me the ‘you-really-have-nothing-else-better-to-do’ look cos to him, the fonts look the same! Sheesh, I don’t mean to be mean but at least my Sho-kun is both cute and smart. Junya unfortunately only has the former attribute. LOL. At least he helped me fix my sakura handphone strap back to my phone so I’ll forgive him for slighting my Arashi boys. :)

 I went to talk to Kawakami-san later in the night and she treated me to okoge-soup again! It’s actually the yaki onigiri (grilled rice ball) but dunked in chicken soup!! VERY DELICIOUS!!! So anyway, her daughter, Kasumi, came to pick her up later and we spent some time chatting. That was really fun! Kasumi invited me to stay over at her house and said she would confirm the date later with me. She was also going to Tokyo the next day and she said she would bring omiyage back for me. Yay!!!

 Poor Junya … Boss was apparently not very happy with something and kept nagging at him. Actually I was also quite annoyed with him. I emailed him earlier in the evening to remind him to bring his textbooks and notes if he had any questions. Cos last week he was asking me how to pronounce something and when I asked for the word, he couldn’t remember it.

 But he didn’t bring anything and he claims that he’s ok with his English lessons (BULLSHIT!!). So I told him that he should make good use of the chance that when Elizabeth and I are around, ask us questions and try to communicate with us. Even Boss said that he can use English when he goes overseas and Junya said he didn’t need to do so. I told him that if he said he doesn’t want to come to Singapore, I would be really angry with him. He was smart to keep quiet.

 So bloody hell, I’m not going to ask him about his English anymore. He can fail for all I care, cos I have already asked him more than once to ask questions or clarify stuff if he doesn’t understand in class. Plus my Seiko electronic dictionary is also with him. So no point in forcing the horse to drink if he doesn’t want to, even when you lead him directly to the water source! Will concentrate on helping Arisa instead cos she seems more intent on doing well in the English segment of her nursing course.

School wasn’t much better today … the most fun was surprise surprise, English Club!!! Haha, we played ‘Go Fish’ and I must say, the kids had a great time. Even the first grader who’s a special needs kid was really happy and apparently he told the teacher in charge of him that English Club was like the best part of his day. That really made me happy cos at the end of the day, even if only managed to touch the life of one kid for the day, it’s good enough.

 Someone should tell the irritating special needs boy that he’s a nuisance. He just called me a devil cos I didn’t allow him to sleep in English class and he said I was apparently quite strict in English Club too (duh, I only have like 45min with them, so I try to make it quality time spent). Anyway I agreed with the devil thing and in fact told him that I had the face of an angel but the heart of a devil!!! Didn’t bother to be really nice today and complained to the teacher sitting 2 seats away that he was being a nuisance.

 Elizabeth was very funny cos yesterday she said that I can’t leave Japan until I have said my first ‘fuck you’ to a Japanese teacher. But I told her that my first one would probably be to a kid and either one of the two special class boys at either one of my JHSes. Haha!