Dartboard

I am so tired. I did my bike ride yesterday—I did a new route because I’m getting kind of sick of going around the same mountain day after day. I rode to Wakamatsu and then Takaitabi (the beach with the swim) and finally around Komeyama (the mountain) once.

I hesitated before I left because my knee was really sore. I wasn’t sure if I should take a day off or push through it. I compromised and pushed for an hour and a half instead of two and half hours. It actually felt better after I warmed up.

Then I iced. With frozen corn.

I had dinner out because I’m too tired to cook a hearty meal for myself—and yesterday I felt I needed to eat a huge steak or something. I wanted to eat yakiniku, but grilling meat at your table alone is kind of sad so I settled for curry rice.

I wanted to sleep at 7, but Yuki had promised to get online for our first video chat ever. I waited (half-asleep in bed) for him, and we did get to chat. It was really fun and I’m glad we can finally do it.

The hair needs to be cut!

Other exciting news in my life. My family will be especially excited to hear! Nathan Ball randomly IMed me the other day, and since then we have been messaging all day at every chance.

Nathan and I met at a summer camp in high school and immediately attached ourselves to each other. We’ve never lived in the same city so we’ve never really gotten a chance to spend a lot of time together, but he’s one person in my life who just never seems to go away. I’m so lucky!!

We get to hang out for a day or a weekend once every year or two. Of course, it’s been two years since coming to Japan so I was in need of a Nathan-fix. The most exciting part of this is that he lives in Boston now, and the opportunity for us to finally live in the same city and become better friends is finally upon us! In the meantime we’re going to take advantage of the internet and stay in better touch.

Nathan will be a co-host on an kid’s engineering TV show for PBS and the filming begins this summer. He’s working on some prototypes here in the picture. My little genius!!

My body and mind are tired. Today is a rest day--for sure. But it's elementary school today. I'm going to my least favorite of the schools so I need to get excited about it.

P.S. Catherine is making her 7 a.m. inspirational calls now. Today I really needed her inspiration, too.