practice

For the last 15 minutes or so, there have been fireworks going off at the beach. At first, I thought the town was being bombed, but then I realized that was a stupid thought, because Kumano is too insignificant to be a target for anything. I looked out of my bedroom doors, but didn't see anything, and it's hard to tell where sounds originate here, since everything echoes off the mountains.

Then I went out my front door, I saw that the noise was coming from random fireworks. We stood out and watched them for a while, and then the lady next to Catherine came out, and when I asked if there was a festival or something, she said it was just practice. Practice for what? I guess the big summer spectacular, but that's not until August. Weird.

We finally had our scheduling meeting for this semester. I'm only partially busy, but it looks like a decent school-to-office ratio this time around. And I only have one elementary school visit and it's to Ido, the only big school without horrible, horrible children (now that the 6th graders have graduated).

It was stupid, however, that I start class on Monday, but the meeting was at 4pm today. Thanks for giving us planning time, Sato-sensei. At least my first class is at Isato, where I plan all the lessons, so I planned them out before lunch. Still. A pain.

Also a pain was the fact that we only work until 4:30, but the meeting didn't end until 4:50. I expect to be able to get off work 20 minutes early sometime soon. I know that's kind of dickish, but after being around the office a-holes for three-and-a-half weeks, I don't care. If they were nice, I'd let it slide.

Anyway, seeing my schedule for the next 3 months all laid out in front of me made me very happy, because that's all I have left. After those classes are out of the way, I am going home, and I am thrilled.

My parents are thrilled too. I think Mama mentions in every email how many months it is until I go home. It's pretty sweet. Also pretty sweet is that my parents have been planning on paying my rent while I'm in school. I wasn't expecting that. Thanks, Mama and Daddy!

After spending several days looking at apartments, I have moved on to looking for furniture. So yesterday, I spent most of my time at the office on the Ikea website. I'm so happy that I'll finally be able to buy something from there. The one item I want the most is the Malm bed; I've been wanting that for years, and soon, it will be mine.

I can already tell that I'm going to have a hard time picking out color schemes. I'm liking green a lot lately, and also dark purple. Blue is a longtime favorite. And dark brown is very nice too, especially combined with blue or pink. Argh.

In addition to checking out furnishings, I also did some cell phone and plan research. I want to stick with T-Mobile, because they haven't done me wrong yet. They have these "myFaves" plans that give you unlimited minutes to call up to 5 numbers. I already know what 3 of those would be: parents, Ali, and Michelle. The other two are up for grabs. And text and internet plans are a lot cheaper than I'd anticipated ($4.99/month and $5.99/month, respectively). I also looked at Blackberry plans, since I'm considering getting one of those. Whichever way I decide, I'll be spending between $50 and $60 a month, which is exactly what I pay now. Not bad.

Did I mention there were hot guys at Mosburger the other day? Because there were. HOT. And tall. And they were in suits. God I hope they live/work here, if only so I can see them around town. Too bad one of them was wearing these god-awful blindingly orange Crocs. Crocs make me want to amputate the feet of the people wearing them, that's how much I hate them. What hideous shoes.