October 8, 2001 - Monday
Well, today was very long for me. I didn't go to bed last night. Nope, I didn't.
My manager told me that even though it was a holiday there would be garbage pick-up
so I stayed up all night cleaning and packing and throwing things out. I took out
all of my bags, but they are still there. Sigh. I hope no one has a hankering to go
through my old clothes!
Basically, I stayed up all night packing. I finished around 10 this morning and decided
to have a nap. As soon as I put my head down the phone rang! It was the moving
company telling me that they'd be at my house around 5. Argh! So I took a nap,
but with a train going past every 6 or 7 minutes I didn't sleep well.
I felt so sorry for the poor guy when he came. He had to do all of the moving himself.
I had tons of boxes. Tons! Yikes.
Anyway, after he left I took a shower and then went out for supper. I wanted to go
somewhere different, but I didn't manage that. Oh well. I went to ....McDonalds.
I came home and cleaned. My apartment looks pretty good now, I hope that the new
teacher won't hate me for the bags of garbage that I'm leaving behind.
Anyway, that's it for tonight. Later!
October 9, 2001
I'm in the smallest hotel room that I've ever been in in my life. It's about 2 feet
away from being a capsule hotel. It's just a long thin room with a single bed, and
a dinky little bathroom. However, it does look quite clean and I have no complaints
about noise, so I think that it's okay.
As usual I'm getting ahead of myself!
This morning I got up after about 7 hours of great sleep and did a few last things
around my apartment. My old apartment. I washed the sheets, vacuumed again and
finished cleaning everything that I missed before.
The manager came to my apartment and checked everything out and I think it was okay.
We took a taxi back to the school. I was a bit sad to leave that apartment. I
had some good times and lots of great telephone conversations there.
School was good today. I did counselling in 2 classes and I did up a bunch of my
children's forms. Classes went quite well and I was really busy...five classes plus
all those forms meant I didn't have a lot of time to do things.
It was Cosmo Day too so I went to buy my airplane ticket for Sunday and then out for
lunch. It was a bit rushed, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
After work, I stayed late and worked for a while, then I realized that I could knock
off and do some of it in the hotel, so I did. I checked in and then grabbed a bit
of food and called my beloved. He was at a party so he couldn't hear me too well.
I came back to my hotel room and worked for about an hour and a half. Poor me! Still,
it was nice to get everything done. Now, I'm going to go to bed and maybe read a
bit of my Cosmo.
Night!
October 10, 2001
When my telephone rang this morning (wake-up call) I couldn't believe that it was
morning already. I thought I'd just gone to bed. But, I did feel well rested, so
that was good.
My cunning plan this morning was to go to Mr. Donuts for breakfast, which I did.
However, there were about 8 people in line before me, all buying lots of doughnuts
for their offices. Sigh. I asked for a menu, but she gave me one for drinks only,
I wanted some real food, so I ended up only getting a bowl of wonton soup. Not a real breakfast!
Most classes went really well today and I had a lot of fun in them. I counselled
in one lesson and should have in another, but only one student came so it wasn't
fair really. It was hard saying goodbye to some of my students. It was the mischievous
little boy's turn today and he had a present for me. Unfortunately, he kept waving it
around during class and I winced a few times as the present got close to my clock,
books and head! However, the lesson itself was fine and he even gave me a hug after
class so that was nice.
I called my husband tonight after class. That still half freaks me out. My Husband.
Two years ago I never would have thought that I'd be married. I keep expecting someone
to tell me that I dreamed the whole thing a là Pam in Dallas! He's fine and my boxes have arrived. He said that there were 34 boxes. That's almost double the number
I came to Otaru with. What happened? Hmm.
I came back to the hotel room and ate a lovely bento from Seicomart and did some counselling
sheets. I think I'm going to try and get to sleep soon. I'm quite tired still.
Hasta la vista, baby.
October 11, 2001 - Thursday
A pretty good day. I went out for breakfast today, to a little bakery. It had a
few chairs and tables in the back so that I could sit and eat.
I got to the office around 11:15 and met Seonaid a few minutes later. She seems very
nice and we spent most of the day together. I think the students are going to enjoy
working with her.
We went out for lunch today, and actually supper too after work. That was nice.
We were going to go to an Italian place I knew, but it closed down so we went to
Columbia. We each had a Doria, which was very nice, and just what we needed on this
cold and rainy day. After we paid I explained to the lady that always helped me that I was
transferring to Yamagata-ken. She was very sad. Actually, me too. That was one
of the places that I felt comfortable going to in Otaru, and the people were very
friendly there.
I walked back to the hotel and plugged in my computer and began to write. That's
about it for today. Tomorrow, Seonaid will teach another lesson and I'll teach a
few. I want to give her time to start preparing for next week.
And, so ends this day's report. Good night!
October 12, 2001 - Friday
I'm not sure if I should tell you what time I actually left the office tonight. Oh,
what the heck, it was 1:40 am. I had a lot of work to do. I wanted to put my lessons
back together in their files, then I had to pack everything up in my room. I got
most things done, I left a few bits and bobs, just because I might need them tomorrow.
I'll have to courier the boxes to my new school. Sigh. More money!
Today was good though. Seonaid taught one lesson, and I taught the rest. They went
surprisingly well. Even the little girls worked well today.
Michiyo helped me close my bank account before work. That was really nice of her
because I know she's very busy.
Hmm. What else? Seonaid and I went out for lunch. I had tempura soba which was
just lovely. I really enjoyed it. Supper tonight was some sandwiches eaten in my
room.
It's funny, I still like this hotel. I don't suppose I'd like to spend a whole month
here or anything, but it's clean, quiet and comfortable. It's a veritable bargain
at 3500 a night! (Which I don't pay!)
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to bed I go! Night.
October 13, 2001 - Saturday
A very busy and good day!
In the morning I allowed myself to sleep in longer than I would normally, got up and
did all the morning stuff, then went to a bakery before work. I took some sandwiches
to the office and started to get ready for my classes.
Saturday was always a busy day, 7 hours of teaching. And I had to do counselling
in 3 classes so a lot of talking for me. Good thing that I'm used to talking!
I had a ton of paperwork when I finished at the end of the day, so Seonaid helped
me by doing some photocopying, and the manager helped by sealing my boxes and moving
them to another room. We weren't able to leave until after 10:00 pm. I gave Seonaid
my keys...that was a sad moment, and left for the party.
Along the way I phoned my beloved because I couldn't talk to him last night...too
late to call. He wanted me to talk longer, but I couldn't, I was already an hour
late. Oops.
The party at the izakaya was great. There was a lot of good food and people came
over and talked to me. Quite a few people came to the party that don't usually come,
and a lot of David's students came too. It was a good bunch.
We left around midnight to go to karaoke. Oh my gosh, what a blast! I started the
party by singing "I love Rock and Roll", but the music didn't come on at first and
the mike didn't work either. After it was sorted things went well! My favourite
song of the evening was when I sang "I Will Survive". I did it very dramatically and I had
everyone cheering and singing along. Sometimes there are times when everything goes
well and the song goes just as you planned, well, this was that time. It was so
fun.
I was very impressed with the students too. They sang a lot of songs in English.
One of my students tackled a lot of hard English songs and another one tried a song
in English for the first time. They were both great.
David and Seonaid even sang...well it wasn't surprising that David should sing, but
Seonaid said that she couldn't sing, so it was good for her!
The last song of the evening was mine....what else but "Livin' La Vida Loca". Everyone
got up and danced. What a hoot. I just had a great time. It was really hard after
the party to leave and there were a lot of hugs which was very nice! And unusual
too.
I walked back to the hotel, with a few students who had to go separate ways. I came
up to my room and went to bed. I slept really well.
What a great party. I just had the best time! I told them that if it wasn't for
my husband I'd stay! It's sort of true.
I'll always have a soft spot for Otaru. It's the place where Fumihiko and I had our
first date, we got engaged here (okay so that was on the telephone) and I was working
here when I got married. It took me a long time to get used to it, but I'm really
going to miss my Otaru students.
And now I should go and check out of the hotel and have breakfast. I'll try to write
later!
October 14, 2001 - Sunday
I went to McDonalds for breakfast. It was rather nice. After breakfast I had hours
to kill so I decided to just go to the airport and hang out.
I caught the train and read all the way to the airport. I wandered around the airport,
did a lot of shopping and finally went to the restaurant that I'd chickened out of
going to many times.
I got on the plane with all of my bags and got to the back of the plane. I was sitting
in the second last row. Sigh. I tried to put some of my shopping up in the overhead
compartment, but one of my boxes fell out on to the floor. Unfortunately it was
glass. I don't know if it broke or not, I hope not! The flight attendant gave me a
hand and made me put all of my stuff up there. I was a bit worried because it was
my laptop and it was darn heavy, but I figured she knew what she was doing.
The plane took off and the flight was uneventful. The sky was clear and we could
see the coast and many cities along the way. At one point I even saw a small plane
flying below us, way below. However, the peacefulness changed.
Just as we were starting to descend to Shonai airport, the turbulence started. It
was pretty bad. It was much scarier than riding a rollercoaster. The lady sitting
next to me even grabbed my arm. I was glad that I had my seat belt on to be honest.
It was nasty.
We finally broke through the clouds and the turbulence eased a bit. The lady and
I got to talking, me in my mangled Japanese, and her in some not too bad English.
It was a nice way to finish the flight.
Of course, since I had so much stuff in the overhead, I had to wait until everyone
else got off before I could get it out. It seemed to survive the trip. I was also
the last one (it seemed) to get my suitcase. Finally I was home!
Fumihiko and I ended up going to a party for Gabrielle and then coming home to get
our wedding pictures. They weren't bad at all, although I do think that some of
the amateur photographers were better!
And that's it. I'm back in Tsuruoka. A generally good day, Sunday was, except for
the early morning and the awful plane ride.
Bye bye!
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