spendin' time with pops

friday nite's dinner was really good. it was a small little restaurant near bunka hall where you cook your food on this hot stone. of course, they had grilled salmon, a bowl of rice and reishuu for my pops.

got to meet takasaki san, an erai hito (vip) with the board of education. i also requested to my boss on the schools i would like to go to next year. i think the situation was just right, my pops, his friends, the other city people and my boss' boss there. as tri put it, "the planets are in perfect alignment".

had to leave to early to go meet up with ko. was surprised to see that marty actually came out too. then headed out to meet up with nao and her friend tara, an alt from ottawa, canada. a little while later, reiko, another one of nao's friends came thru. this place that we went to is called sala. it's like a tent and i would probably say that 80% of the crowd were gaijin. miyazaki came thru later just after sendin' me a text askin' me if they were cute. it's always a pleasure to hang around miyazaki when he's a little yopparai...he becomes a very bold person with an increased ability to speak in english. btw, this was also the first time i saw ko drink a lot. he was almost hangin' with me, couldn't believe him. with ko, when starts drinkin', he becomes a ghetto comedian. pretty damn funny guy. crashed @ ko's house that night.

since it was pourin' rain the next day, ko's soccer game got cancelled so we planned on doin' the live draft at this house. him on his desktop, me on his ultra portable notebook. man, that notebook is dope. it's a dell and it's so light and thin. probably half the weight of my pb. before the draft, headed to the soba/udon place and then went to the convenience store for some snacks to last us thru the draft. i went with a new strategy with this draft, pickin' up a lot of japanese players. i tried not to draft the same guys but i ended up takin' about 4 of the same players from my other draft.

headed back home to shower and change, stopped by ikko cuz mama had some homemade snacks for me. then headed back to funabashi for the exchange student dinner. met up with my pops, ray & setsu @ sazanka satchan (the meetin' spot @ funabashi station). first student to arrive was noriko. she was one of the first students to come about 10 years ago. all i remember was that we were tryin' to hook her up with my bball coach. then came: nao, emi, mayumi, mariko, hiroki, mitsushiro, shinsuke, daisuke, yuta, asako, satchi, ono, junji, haruna and ken. the older students i don't remember that much but they all say that i've grown up a lot since they were there whereas the more recent students i remember. the dinner was really good...had all kinds of different food and got to catch up with a lot of the students i haven't seen in years. the funny thing about the night was when setsu gave a speech and announced her age to everybody! at first, the students didn't pick up on it, but a few moments later, in chorus, "eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!?!?!?". most of them...no, probably all of them didn't know her age. after all the food and drinks, pops came back with me to yakuendai/takinoi. we headed to serenade and was surprised to see ito san and mina san there. so i introduced them as well as mama and master san. partied there pretty late. somehow made it home and pops instantly passed out. tried to chat with peeps but it didn't really work out as planned, due to the inebriated state that i was in.

woke up to the sound of my father tellin' me he wanted to take a walk and get some coffee. it was way too early to be doin' any of that but i my pops seemed pretty determined. so i sucked it up even though i was futsuka yoi, i got dressed and we proceeded to walk to mcdonalds for some coffee and some food. as we were walkin', noticed that ikko's shutters were open so we went to check it out. kobi san was there cleanin' up. he told me that mama is out and bout and that i should give her a call. after mcdonalds, called mama and she said to meet up at the park. mama came with chi mama and ezure san and i introduced everybody and we then headed out to the keisei rose garden in yachiyo. since it's still a little early, the roses aren't close to bloomin', but they did have a lot of other plants, trees, bushes, etc... as usual, pops was able to tell by just lookin' at the plants what its latin name was. he even surprised me that he knew the japanese name as well. we went to get some ice cream and coffee there. didn't get any ice cream cuz my stomach was churnin' still but i will definitely try their rose flavored ice cream next time. we then headed back to yakuendai and had some tea @ mama's. found out that sensei and yuasa sensei came by to help clean ikko. they turned the place upside down...this all for when i bring my dad on tuesday. went back home to take a shower, didn't have much time cuz we were goin' to meet tomo @ mcdonalds @ 1300.

met up with tomo and she drove us to her house which is pretty close to my place actually. as tomo was tryin' to park the car, she totally scraped up the front as she was backin' in. finally got to meet tomo's father for the first time. their house is really nice. the livin' room is not like any room i've been in japan. it has all kinds of stuff from europe in it. they did live in london for 3 years so i guess that was probably the reason why. lunch was really good. we had some gyoza, marinated beef and yaki soba. i even tried this beer that tomo brought back from taiwan which was aite. the snack that she brought back was really mazui (nasty). after lunch, tomo's dad took us out to his garden and showed us all his plants. we stayed at chatted til about 1600 before tomo's mom drove us back to my place.

pops took a little powernap while i got all the omiyage ready to go to makuhari. @ yakuendai station, saw some of my students and told them my dad was with me. they told me that i don't look like my father, hmmm....everyone seems to say that.

sho picked us up from makuharihongo station and we were greeted by mama, ami and futoshi (ami's younger brother). mama had a feast lined up which consisted of sukiyaki, sashimi (mostly for sho and i cuz everyone else doesn't really eat it), tenpura soramame, salad and many other side dishes. futoshi and sho were really diggin' on the petit sirah and even mama liked it too. we had a very good conversation and pops seemed to be able to get along quite well.

it was interestin' to hear about mama and papa's trip to egypt. since they didn't serve any alcohol on the flight, they bought their own @ the airport so they could have something while in the air. papa came thru a little bit later cuz he had to go a memorial service in tokyo. we only stayed a little later before ami took us back to the station. pops was on his own cuz we took different trains home. but he got in just fine.


an interestin' thing this weekend that was a nice change was whenever we met people. since i'm always introduced as my father's son, it was nice to hear people saying that this is kevin's father.

i'm really fortunate and happy that my father was able to spend the weekend with me. i know that he's really, really busy but i hope now he knows that he doesn't really have to worry bout me (not that he did before, maybe for my mom's sake). i feel a little bit bad cuz i put my father thru a lot this weekend. with him bein' a little sick, all the drinkin' we did and being constantly on the go, he put all those aside in order to take hang out with his son.

let's just hope he survives tonite @ ikko ;b

kaz out....

wednesday

another shortened class schedule. the days are finally counting down.

the weather was awesome today. nice and warm but unfortunately windy as hell.

for dinner, i cooked up some spaghetti and played some ut2k4 (unreal tournament 2004) with tri. need to practice...i'm really rusty.

got a lot of cleanin' done...well actually just pickin' up all my $h!et from the floor.

thursday.

was really busy at school today. not much free time. had leftover spaghettin for lunch with all the teachers askin' me if my (/makes a fist with only the pinky finger extended which means girlfriend) "girlfriend" made it? i was like, uh no...i can cook my damn self (well...i didn't really say damn)

i also bought my license code for uplink, so no more warnin' messages and now i can continue and advance to higher levels.

japan has got some funky weather. yesterday is was nice, but today it's cold, rainy and windy! wtf!?!?

anyhow...after school, headed over to oshima san's for dinner. i brought over this bottle of australian shiraz (australia makes the best shiraz) so my pops could try it. when i got there, all of oshima's friends were settin' up the feast, so not to be in the way, i took a seat on the couch. noticed that oshima had a wireless pcmcia card in her desktop, so i busted out my pb and tried to see if i could piggyback the signal. within a couple of seconds, voila, internet access baby.

pops, setsu and ray came by shortly after and we started dinner. man, man, man...grubbin' food. there was tonkatsu, sukiyaki, kinpira, oshinko and many drinks. for the first time that i could remember, ray and i had a serious conversation about life, politics and can you believe this one...girls! i'll let ya'll imagine the details we talked about. after killin' 2 bottles of wine with pops and tajima, i went to take a break on the couch...which turned out to be a nice nap. woke up when everyone was leavin' on got on my bike and headed home.

friday

for some reason, left extremely late for school today. the whole way to school, i was thinkin' of what i'm gonna have to say to the vice principal. thank god that my ketai clock is faster than the school clock. i got to school in about 3.5 min (due to waitin' @ narita kaido) and arrived @ school with like 3 min to spare! woo hoo!!!

it's payday today!!!

so after the mornin' meetin', honda sensei comes up to me and asks,

honda sensei: "kebin, kesa wa, jitensha kita no?" (kevin, this mornin', did you come by bike?)
me: "eee...hai" (hmmm...yup)
honda sensei: "kashite? ii desu ka?" (can i borrow it? is it ok?)
- pause while i'm tryin' to make sure that he just asked me if he could borrow my bike -
me:"hai, dozo....nande?" (sure, go right ahead...why?)
honda sensei: "yakuendai sho no sotsugyo shiki" (for yakuendai elementry's graduation ceremony)
me: "ahhh, wakarimashita. mondanai yo" (oh, i understand. it's not a problem)

i guess ya'll had to have been there and know how honda sensei is. my students got a kick out of it.

so durin' cleanin' time, one of the girls from 2-2, uchida, gives me a letter from another girl from that class, horie. horie is the same girl that double flipped me off while i was goin' home the other day...this girl is a trip.

tonite i have dinner w/ihato sensei, miyazaki, some other big wigs from the city, ray, setsu and pops. then, ko & i are meetin' up my friend nao and some of her friends @ sala.

my .02

here's a new section that i will sometimes post. whether you agree or disagree, i would like to hear from you, so leave some comments, k?

so i got this little...ummm...pet peeve. it really hasn't bugged me that much and i can honestly say that there have been a few times that i'm guilty of this. what i'm talkin' bout is chat etiquette. if you're in front of your computer and have your chat programs open that's koo. if you leave your computer for an extended period, either put up an away message or shut down your chat program. is that too much to ask for? it's like havin' a cell phone, but not bringin' it with you.

another thing is when you do have your away message up (in plain sight) and you get an im from somebody with only the words, "yo", "hey", "sup", etc...thinking they're gonna get a fast reply. hello...i have an away message up, therefore i'm not here to read your one word greeting. in aim: there's a nice little piece of paper next to the name (in ichat, their (default)color icon is red). in yim: their status is the most clearest of places...after the person's name!!

another thing is if you're havin' a conversation with somebody, unless: your boss is comin', please at least say bye. do you just hang up on the phone in the middle of when you're talkin' to somebody? i didn't think so. i know a lot (if not all) of you probably think that i'm overractin' about this trivial issue, but i'm just tryin' to lay a common foundation because in the future, (like the telephone and email have already done) chattin' will be an integral part of our lives, especially to those of who don't really use it that much right now.

/my .02

friday five

if you...

1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?

japanese, chinese, korean bbq & vietnamese

2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?

buddhapparel, shoes, computers, video games, electronics

3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be?

techy/computer/sci-fi

4. ...ran a school, what would you teach?

hmmm...technology

5. ....recorded an album, what kind of music would it be?

hip-hop

hokkaido

wow, wow, wow is all i gotta say bout this weekend. i thought 2 weekends ago was great...but this past weekend surpasses it by far.

da crew: rick, bryan, sean, scott, eugene, jon, junji, bnose

the weekend started off as planned with 2 totally agendas takin' place at once. the first is what rick thinks is goin' on and the second bein' the surprise. from showin' up late, stallin' @ da airport and the other little but essential events were made possible due to the great plannin' of b and junji with the help of ketai mail once the "plan" was in effect.

started the day off by meetin' up nose @ funabashi eki. then went to matsuya for breakfast, headed to haneda and got there right as planned. "the plan" was for the married guys (the ones who said that they couldn't make it) to get on the plane first, sit in the back and then meet us at the hotel.

when i asked rick @ the airport, "man, kinda sucks that the other guys couldn't make it, huh?" he broke down his reply, first startin' with eugene's (nikkei from LA, married to japanese girl, engineer for sony) excuse, then scott's and finally sean's. he seemed so down that they couldn't make and it was really hard to keep from laughin' and stayin' composed.

what helped out a lot was that our flight was cancelled, so the other guys got on a later flight. we got 1000yen vouchers for food which was kinda koo. the surprise worked as plan and it was great to see rick overjoyed that "some of the key players" actually did make it.

junji hooked it up on the dinner we had. all i gotta say is ddddaaaammmnnnn dat ishhhh was off da hoooookkk!!! we started with some sashimi: grubbin'. then it was the crab: omg, that was da bomb. then it was the hokke & sake: man...that salmon was one of the best i've ever had! then it was ikura don: this is the highlight. normally, i despise ikura (fish eggs) but junji told me that i have to try it even though i don't like it. so i did, and the taste was out of this world. it was so fresh, that i had 3 more scoops! there wasn't any fishy taste to it!

after dinner, we went walkin' around, stoppin' @ some places to kick it. later on that night, we went to go eat some ramen, cuz everyone says that you have to eat the ramen in hokkaido, so we did and it was pretty good. we came back to hotel after that and can ya guess what was on? the lakers/wolves game, so we watched that and joked around some more.

the next day, we chilled, then decided to go to an ofuro (public bath). this one was really nice. the had a salt sauna (where you put salt all over your body which is supposed to make your skin soft), a normal sauna, and a couple of other pools. the highlight was the rotenburo (outdoor bath). since it was snowin' @ that time (and most of the weekend, i might add), lookin' up and seein' the steam rise up and the snowflakes fall while loungin' in a hot pool was so relaxin'!!! afterwards we went up to have some drinks and food. a nice cold nama biru (draft beer) is the best thing when you get out of the bath. we also ate some: edamame, karaage, kushikatsu (like yakitori) & sake/ume ochazuke (salmon/plum & rice with hot tea poured over). it's been sometime since i've had ochazuke, but this one was hella good! we chilled and then headed back to the hotel to pick up our bags and then we were off to the station, not before buyin' tons and tons of shiroi koibito for my omiyage.

it was a long 36 hours, but it'll be something that i'll never forget. congratulations rick, this past weekend was for ya.

monday

wanted to give out a birthday shout to my boy russ back home. happy 29th bday big bro!!!

first class of the day, takeuchi sensei wasn't feelin' well, so i had to take over for the rest of the day. the second class bein' 2-4, aka. the jungle; went rather well. it's amazin' the respect you get one you threaten to give them "checks". the students still haven't learned to let me finish the question before they raise their hand. it was fun to get hikaru with it this time, she was totally caught off guard, but she managed to pull it off quite well. she's one of my best students.

went to ikko for dinner & to drop off the shiroi koibito. tried mama's tonkatsu for the very first time. it was quite good, especially with addin' the extra karashi (spicy mustard) to the sauce. also had some grubbin' ninniku negi udon (garlic, green onion udon) which totally hit the spot. kicked it with: sensei, kobi, kita, yoko, hashimoto & kohiyama.

came home and d/l'd unreal tournament 2004 demo. it runs quite nice on my machine (i sure hope so, it is a gamin' rig) and there are so much new stuff in this game that makes it pretty impressive. from da vehicles to the graphics, the game is definitely somethin' i might get. played for about 2 hours and called it a night.

tuesday

don & jookie called me early in the morning @ around 0615 and we talked bout the trip a little bit more. it's gonna turn out to be really, really busy. a lot busier than i had planned but should be fun nonetheless.

was busy today, had 4 classes in a row. today was our last kyushoku (school lunch), it's was a little sad not to be able to eat with the students anymore. internet was down for most of the day, so durin' my free time, i was able to catch up on some uplink. i'm stuck at this one part where i have to change a record in the social security database, but i can't seem to get it search correctly.

went to matsukiyo for some grocery shoppin' (was gonna make spaghetti) and saw yuasa sensei and jomi san. they invited me over for dinner which i couldn't refuse cuz yuasa sensei makes grubbin' food. came home and was too tired to do laundry. even fell asleep with my contacts on!?!?


news

- since the ski dome in funabashi is now officially torn down, can you guess what's replacin' it? the asian hq of ikea!!! woot!!!

- espn mlb baseball is delayed til april! aaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!!

- splinter cell pandora tomorrow is delayed til the 27th! daaaaammmnnnnnn!!!!

- konami's new interactive game, lifeline, uses a headset mic and voice-recognition software to deliver an interestin' gamin' experience.

- new book titled the shellcoder's handbook: discovering and exploiting security holes that is aimed towards keepin' out hackers, might actually be helpin' them.

- intel heads towards 4mb cache in desktop processors

- the eagle has finally landed: terrel owens is an eagle now...but for how long???

the past few days

sup ya'll. sorry for the little hiatus but i'm back.

right now in japan, the only thing really safe is fish and vegetables. i still eat meat, but a lot of people in japan have taken a stand with all the bird flu and bse goin' around. a couple who owned a chicken farm and tried to cover up an outbreak of bird flu, hanged themselves. read the full article

on wednesday, it was my school's graduation and i must say that it was totally different from ceremonies back home. i was impressed @ how formal and traditional it was. shiga sensei wore a kimono and hakuma (a type of over pants that goes all the way to cover the obi) which was really beautiful. it's amazin' how when the students enter to take their seats, their teach leads them in and the teacher goes to front and waits while the students file in. then with a slight hand gesture and all the students sit down, in'sync. there's a lot of songs, speeches and when the actual time for the students to receive their diplomas (which are the real ones, not the fake ones we get and have to wait for our real diploma). they all have to bow, accept & fold their diploma and bow again to either the special guests or the teachers. another interestin' thing is when their name is called, some students yell, haaaiiii!!!! before acceptin' their diploma. we played the minidisc takahashi sensei and i made durin' each class' turn which surprised them a bit, especially durin' the songs they sang while they were 8th graders. durin' all the songs that followed, a lot of the girls were in tears and even some of the boys. right before the the students leave the buildin', all the 9th grade teachers get in front and the ichi kumi (first class) stands up and all together say arigato gozaimasu!!! and instantly, one of the more strict teachers broke down...a truly emotional experience. all in all, it was something that i would never forget.

afterwards, the 9th graders have one last home room time (which i've seen on many japanese school-based dramas) and afterwards everyone gets together for pictures with their other teachers and friends. pepe chan and miyuki chan came by and wanted to take some pics and i even signed in miyuki chan's yearbook. later, all the faculty got together for a bento luncheon and the 9th grade teachers gave little speeches.

later that evenin', pops, takahashi sensei and i went out to dinner @ the place where takahashi sensei took me long, long time ago. takahashi sensei was surprised that my dad knew so much and been to so many places in japan. pops ordered this one kind of nihon shu called matsu which was pretty darn good. it came in this nice decanter that was made from bamboo.

afterwards, i headed over to ikko cuz dad can't make it to the party on the 15th and right as i go in, i tell mama and she says it's all good. that we have telepathy...i was like, huh? she said that the 15th isn't good anymore too. phew...i was relieved, i felt bad that mama setup this big ol reception for pops and now he can't go. but we have rescheduled for the 23rd. shoul....will be good times for sure! then headed with hashimoto to a new place, right near the station, right next to serenade. met the mama there, real cool. then went to serenade, then went home.

the next day, had a couple classes on thursday and then headed to the alt meeting. i'm glad that i'm already signed on thru for the next year cuz all the other alts are stressin' cuz they'll be out of work for almost a month without a 100% guarantee that they have a new contract next year. there were rumors last year that my salary would drastically get cut...so i was gonna be a little stressin'. there's good and bad news. bad news = my salary did get cut. good news = only about $30/month. and i think they're still payin' half my rent...(crossin' fingers)

as for friday, i had to run a class by myself for most of the time. but now, i can do it with no problems. we also had a fire drill and we also got to use the emergency chutes from the 3rd floor. pretty interestin'.

tonite, gots dinner with mikie, jun chan and na chan. not stayin' out too late cuz i'm goin' to hokkaido early in da mornin'. goin' with da bozy and should be a great time! unfortunately it'll be snowin'!?!? ishihara sensei just told me that sapporo is gonna be freezin'! even if it's not snowin', the average temp is in the minus!!!!!

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friday five

1. what was the last song you heard?

outkast - flip flop rock feat. killer mike

2. what were the last 2 movies you saw?

laputa & princess mononoke

3. what were the last 3 things you purchased?

shamoji (non stick rice scoopers), incense, katsu sando (tonkatsu sandwich)

4. what 4 things do you need to do this weekend?

make sure i make my flight, get some shiroi koibito (hokkaido special chocolate), not party too hard, get rick jacked up

5. who are the last 5 people you talked to?

takahashi sensei, ishihara sensei, miyakawa sensei, takeuchi sensei & asuka chan

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news

- plextor unveils 12x dvd burner

- hitachi introduces new 400gb drive

- are there drugs in my cornflakes?

- bleex, a type of exo-skeleton which allows you to carry heavier loads than normal

- apple head steve jobs goes another year with a salary of $1

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ok...sorry for the laggy update. just know that i'm typin' this entry on my brand new powerbook 12" 1ghz, 768mb ram, 60gb, super drive, airport extreme and bluetooth mouse!

friday

pops came in today and yu did too. met up with yu @ funabashi eki so he can give me my "baby". his parents gave me a ride to tajima's. met up with pops, ray and setsu. kazue and atsuko were there too. ate some food while we tried to schedule the dinners that he needs come to. brought pops a bottle of glenfiddich and had to pay him for my pb. kazue also made for me this kind of ramen that i've never seen before. tajima came home a little bit later and we continued to drink and figure out their schedule. so far i'm penciled in for 3-4 days. atsuko took me home and i went to sleep right when i got in.

saturday

woke up @ 0430 so i have time to get ready for the live draft in eric's work league. when 0500 hit, no draft. i was chattin' with eric about it and i guess there weren't enough ppl logged in, plus we had an odd number of guys. so he rescheduled it for 0730! man...do i go to sleep and run the risk of not bein' able to get up or just stay up and tough it out. i decided on the latter and the extra research i did in that time helped out a lot durin' the draft. 0730 comes around and i got the 1st pick. here's my team:

1. a.rodriguez
2. v.guerrero
3. m.tejada
4. j.posada
5. m.mulder
6. r.oswalt
7. o.dotel
8. m.giles
9. c.sabathia
10. a.rhodes
11. c.zambrano
12. m.cabrera
13. c.crawford
14. a.berroa
15. r.baldelli
16. g.meche
17. m.lecroy
18. m.teixeira
19. je.gonzalez
20. j.burnitz
21. s.burroughs
22. s.chacon
23. r.klesko
24. e.jackson
25. r.wagner

thought i did quite well even though i had the 1st pick. we'll see how the season goes...i'm in 2 head-to-head leagues and a market based leauge. after the draft, took a 2 hour nap and then headed to shibuya sports center for bball. met up with ai-chan who wanted to play, but she didn't bring any shoes. the regulars were there with the exception of this new guy name hide. he's half flip/half so his english was really good. his game complements mine really well. he's a big guy who's game resembles lawrence funderburke. the highlight of the day was when the old guys (sean, bryan & ken = 32+), hide (28) and me(26) took on the young guys who's average age is 26. we shut them down 7-0 in da beginnin'. we brought out this solid zone d that they didn't know how to react to. we ended up winnin' 11-5.

afterwards, headed to shibuya to meet up with a-chan. we headed over to torikaku for some food and drink. dogma joined us later as well as ai-chan. makko came around 2200ish and then we headed over to doma doma. was surprised to find out that a-chan has her own bottle of tantakatan there. dogma and ai-chan we puttin' it down on the desserts. yu and hide came a little bit later. i had a-chan spike yu's oolong tea = oolong hi. hee hee. yu and i had to take off to catch the last train. good thing we caught the sobu sen in shinagawa. had seats the whole way.

on my way home, i noticed ikko had only one slide rail down and the lights were still on. this was around 0030ish. so i went in and to see what was up. there were three peeps with mama: an old guy and a boy & girl around 20ish. found out that the man "hangs out" with otsuka sensei and that the kids' parents are mama's friends. ended up stayin' there til like 0130ish and then went home.

sunday

today is the exchange student interviews @ city hall. the other alt that was goin' to interview with me was this girl named mehves. she's from turkey but her english is good and her so is her japanese. if i were to close my eyes, i would guess that she was japanese. she even got props from setsu & miyazaki. of the 4 girls, 2 of them didn't get a high enough toefl score, so we ended up just interviewin' 2. the first girl was really nervous. she seems very majime though and since she studied spanish in college as well, she would easily get used to livin' in hayward. the second girl's english was very good. i think they'll both have a good experience in hayward.

afterwards, we had a sushi bento and afterwards headed back to tajima's house in miyazaki's new car. well..not really new car, but he won this contest to test drive the new audi a3 for one month. all he has to do is pay the insurance for 1 month and write a summary of the whole experience. the a3 is a pretty dope car. clean inside and out. on our way to tajima's, it started to snow a bit but it was the kind of snow that melts right as it touches the ground.

pops and ray made lunch. ray's ramen looked more like chow mein. since miyazaki wants to drive as much as he can, he volunteered to take my pops, ray and setsu to tokyo. i declined cuz i wanted to go home and relax.

on my way back home, stopped off @ laox and picked up a zeroshock sleeve for my pb. came home and did some cleanin' and laundry and i even set up the webcam tri (packaged with my pb). showed nikki, rita and tony my place...well as far as my usb cord could go. headed to ikko for dinner. came home and crashed out.

monday

school was pretty slack today. there were only 2 classes and then graduation practice. played bball and durin' the full court scrimmage...i subplexed my bad shoulder again. all my students were surprised and they didn't really know what to do. at first thought, i was like...oh man...it's been a long time since i've reset my shoulder myself. of course, abiru sensei asked me if i needed to go the hospital and he even called wakamoto sensei to come and check things out. after about 5 min of bein' paralyzed and gainin' the confidence, i reset my shoulder but held my agony in 'til i went outside the gym.

went to ikko for some kusuri (medicine) and was surprised to see that mama put up this flyer for my dad's reception party. it's gonna be a big thing i guess...dancing, food and drinks. ni-chan (sakamoto san) came thru cuz he worked in matsudo. it was the first time i seen him in a suit! looks like your normal sarari man. the whole crew came thru last night. there was a cople that committed suicide in kyoto so i asked everyone, if you wanted to committ suicide, how would you do it? sensei and yoko both said that they would want to go to the forests at the foot of mt. fujii. that forest is famous for people to commit suicide. for some reason, cell phones to get any signal there and there's quite a few ppl every year that go there to commit suicide. crazy japanese...

tuesday

it was another light day. pretty much just preparin' for the graduation ceremony tomorrow. we had a full scale cleanin' and a teacher's pep talk/assessment meetin'. should be really fun tomorrow. hope all goes as planned.

well..i'm dedicatin' tonite to my pb and of course my tuesday nite tv shows.

oh yeah...btw...ya'll get on yim (yahoo instant messenger)...i gots my webcam now...so we can video chat

aite...i'm off to do some other stuff now.

kaz out...

tuesday

talked to pops on da phone. figurin' out what's goin' down when he comes to town. gotta get him a bottle of glenfiddich.

handed some more tests back and pretty much chilled. went to the dentist, which only took like 5 min. went home to get a s-video cable so that ishifuna kun could use his notebook for the slideshow.

came home and cooked up some spam, rice and eggs. yum yum yum.

wednesday

today was the 9th grade farewell ceremony. the 7th & 8th grade classes put together a program thankin' their senpai's (seniors) and wishin' them good luck. all the new club captains said something and each class sang songs and played music. then there was a slideshow from the time the 9th graders were 7th graders. pretty funny to see how much some of them changed. then there was video message from the past music teacher. this sort of thing is nowhere to be found back home.

after many big events such as this, the teachers planned a nomikai (drinkin' party). we went to this place called isseji near kita narashino. a small place but the food was pretty good. had some nore sore which is baby eel. got to talk to kocho sensei for a bit and but really didn't get a chance to speak to nakamura san. oh well.... i also got a chance to talk to nio sensei and was surprised to hear that his english pronunciation is pretty good. i love these dinners/drinkin' parties, it allows me to get to know some teachers that i really never have the opportunity to while in school. after we finished eatin', takahashi sensei called the designated driver service but we had to wait for a half and hour. so we went into this one surf/skate shop and for some reason, we ended up buyin' silver rings. don't ask...it had to be the alcohol.

anyhow...they dropped me off @ yakuendai station and i called mama to see if it was ok to come by and have some tea. upon arrivin', i see shacho, noboru, kobi, junko and ozaki. i met a new man named ishikawa. and as usual, shacho ordered me drink when i insisted that i only wanted tea...but shacho is very persistent and i couldn't disrespect him. came home and went to sleep.

thursday

woke up a little late (and a little buzzed still), got ready and headed to 7-11 for some food before school. i was shocked not to see my pizza bread!!! so i settled for a korokke sandwich and an onigiri. if they only had this kind of food @ 7-11's in da states!?!

got to school and found out that takahashi sensei was still recoverin' from last night too. luckily we only had 1 class. another chillin' day. gonna play bball today (i hope there's practice) and run some errands after.

kaz out...
-----------------------------------------------
here's a thing my mom sent me a while back.

THE UMBRELLA
A 90-year-old man said to his doctor, "I've never felt better. I have an 18-year-old bride who is pregnant with my child. What do you think about that?"

The doctor considered his question for a minute and then said, "I have an elderly friend who is a hunter and never misses a season. One day when he was going out in a bit of a hurry, he accidentally picked up his umbrella instead of his gun. When he got to the Creek, he saw a beaver sitting beside the stream. He raised his umbrella and went, 'bang, bang' and the beaver fell dead. What do you think of that?"

The 90-year-old said, "I'd say somebody else shot that beaver."

The doctor replied, "My point exactly."

well...sorry for the lack of updates lately. been kinda busy and a little lazy. i'll briefly recap the past couple of dayz...

thursday

hmmm...takahashi sensei showed up today!!!

final exams started today: japanese, math, social studies and music. tomorrow is: science, english, p.e. and industrial sciences.

recorded the listenin' test for both the 7th and 8th grade. had to use this old school recordin' walkman. natsukashii yo

was chillin' @ home, bout to cook dinner and then i get a call from kohiyama san. so i went to ikko to meet up with him. had some bomb rosemary grilled salmon.

friday

english final exam. stayed after school to help takahashi sensei correct the exams. ha san made some stupid mistakes. mikamiyama and kinouchi also made some careless errors.

natsuyo, junko and mikie came over for dai ni nabe paati (nabe party #2). we made some chige nabe (kimchee flavored nabe).

saturday

woke up and did some cleanin' and laundry. ko & marty came over and we made a feast. ko grilled up some sanma and made some of his salad. i made corn beef hash and eggs. we also had some karaage from matsukiyo. we had some juice bars and they enjoyed playin' all da games on da xbox. my mac panther book also came in.

went to kinshicho, met up with ko's g/f rieko, marty's friend yasuko and my boy mike. we had to wait for a lane so i played some golgo 13 while everyone else played some other arcade games. we bowled 2 games...first game i bowled like crap...but the second game i won. marty and yasuko went home while mike, ko, rieko and i headed over to doma doma to get something to eat. rieko and i hit up the tantakatan.

on the way back...rieko, ko and i headed to media cafe to kill time. i had a miyazaki marathon: watched tenku no shiro laputa (castle in the sky: laputa) and monono ke hime (princess mononoke). i really liked laputa...mononoke was aite. next up to watch is: tonari no totoro (my neighbor totoro) and sen to chihiro no kamikakushi (spirited away). stayed there til like 0630 and headed home.

sunday

slept in pretty late. finally went to the mos burger near my house. got a teriyaki burger, mos cheeseburger and a large fries. man...it's been a while since i had fast food. that stuff went right thru me!!!

was determined to get some readin' in and i finished snow crash. the final 150 pages were intense...but, like cryptonomicon, the last 2 pages sucked @$$!!!!!! but all in all...it was a great book. i recommend it to anybody who likes computers.

monday

was sprinklin' on da way to school. @ around 0900 it started to light snow. all da students went to look out the windows. for about an hour it was pretty light...then all of sudden it started to come down. i captured some pics and vids of it. then it was gone...but @ around lunch time, it started to come down hard again!!!

played bball and was surprised to see all the 9th grade girls come out: hirazuka, honda, makino, sato, furuhata, watanabe m & watanabe f. for da guyz; ryo, tsukasa and taira came out too.

headed to ikko for dinner. had some salmon, nasu miso and curry. mama is planni'n this big 'ol reception for when my father comes. pretty crazy...

aite then...i'm kinda tired.

kaz out...


links

- with technology playin' more of a role in our lives these days, here's an interestin' article that talks about tech etiquette.

- sony delays it's psp launch in the us to 2005

- here's a page i came across for those of you who are interested in anything japanese. quirky japan