Dartboard

Having a day off makes me wanna jump, jump!

I got the day off ‘cause I had to go to the hospital again. Although I only needed about 6 hours (praise be to state health care) they gave me the whole day. I originally planned going in really early so to get a good spot in line, but sleeping in on a weekday was too tempting to resist. I left my house about 9:30 and actually my wait today was even shorter than the last time. To beat the crowds you gotta go LATE! I brought students’ homework with me and finished correcting every notebook—most weeks the pile of notebooks sit on my desk haunting me all week and I plow through them two and three at a time. Today I got them all finished in one sitting without distractions. I feel great.

Now I’m just sitting on the beach, enjoying the sunshine, crashing waves, and a quiet lunch. Eventually, I’ll get to the gym, but for now I’m content.

My Aokata eikaiwa officially loves me. They gave me $100 worth of gift certificates good at any of the major places I shop for groceries, movies rentals, books and even Aqua Blue, my gym! They aren’t allowed to pay me cold, hard cash because of my contract, but this is virtually the same thing. I was surprised and happy about this unexpected little gift. Now I feel I should actually plan activities for them! Ha!

Oh, last week we played Charades and it was so much fun. Mizorogi-san kept saying, “Oh, this game so good for your acting skills,”—and I’m all, “Yeah. It’s Charades.” Eventually we worked out that they don’t DO this game in Japan. They had never heard of it! Vicky and I dropped our jaws in shock. Charades is, like, the best game ever!!! So that explained why it took them some warming up to act out even easy things like “book” and “fly” and why one guy thought “menu” was impossible. We’re definitely playing again.

Even my neck is sore. I love yoga.

Love, Sierra