Make it stop, make it stoooooop...

Yes the rollercoaster etched itself up another notch this week with what felt like a constant stream of activity at work and in the evenings. This is not something I would normally be even slightly bothered by, but my cold has come back and it's made it a bit of a drag at times.

The week started with the regular Monday JoyFull evening, where Nickname Pending, Adam and I met in Takahashi to enjoy our regular choices (our dietary requirements mean we always eat the same meals, but hey, it's cheap and it tastes good) and already I was feeling a bit low-energy from the weekend's exertions, but hey-ho, it's elementary school for the next three days, so I'll have to power-up somehow...

At elementary school on Tuesday I did the lesson I hate most (the make a face game- fukuwarai- where blindfolded students place face parts on a head with their friends guiding them in English) but thanks to the teachers at a different school I managed to organise it differently and it finally worked well. And after school I had plans: I was to go to the Riverside hotel in Ochiai to prepare for Saturday's upcoming teacing session. Only I was supposed to go dinner with Take-chan first, but I couldn't remember where or what time. But in a stroke of luck I bumped into Papa-san's sister in the supermarket and she regaled me with the details. And then apparently told everyone that I'd forgotten which led to Nao-chan and Take-chan telling everyone that I always forget everything. I forgot once! D'oh! But dinner was tasty and I didn't have to pay for it, so hey, it all works out...

The rehearsal worked well although they kept asking me to "energy-up" as I was rather quiet (read: tired and slightly unwell) and I assured them that I would "energy-up", while at the same time wondering how I could manage 30 different responses to the members reading out one line of writing. Hmm...

Wednesday was another "exciting" day at elementary school where I agreed to take on another conversation class, and afterwards Nao-chan came to my house for important conversations but lightened the mood by bringing copious amounts of non-chocolate based snacks. Yay for Nao-chan.

Thursday was just awkward in every way. I did my favourite lesson with fifth and sixth grade, a lesson that has never failed yet, and the only class in which it worked properly was the one where the teacher wandered out and left me alone. D'oh. And whilst walking to that class I had a six year old boy try and sexually assault me repeatedly with a broom handle. And while he was doing it another was taking flying kicks at my thighs. Fortunately a teacher saw the incident and made the flying kick boy apologise. Clearly sexually asaulting the Assistant Language Teacher is OK.

And if things had been difficult at school I had the evening to look forward to. A short while ago the warden of my apartment block (nice woman, my age, 2 cute kids, friendly husband) told me her friend wanted to meet me. Bear in mind I was having a dumb day. I said, "OK". She said her friend wanted to be my friend and is that ok? "Sure, ok", I replied. So she invited me to hers so that we could all dine together. Yay. And three hours after this conversation (and possibly as a result of the emails from GWEHF) I realised that "she wants to be your friend often means a bit more here. So at 7 I headed off to dinner, and fortunately this girl doesn't eat her feelings but did look like she ate enough. And the food was great, but the conversation tended towards the usual lines- "what do you think of Japanese girls?", "what is your type?", "are you single (because I am)?" to which I gave the standard responses, "Japanese girls are friendly and stylish", "I don't know" and "I'm always single because I am selfish and like to do what I want to do". The latter response, with the use of a dictionary, got expanded to "stubborn and obstinate" to which I readily agreed as it seemed to make me less dateable. She on the other hand seemed like a very nice, considerate and caring girl, who was quite good looking and had an unfortunate obsession with Korea and Bae-Yon Joon, my Korean look-alike. The night ended with us agreeing to go out for drinks with mutual friends (not alone- I'm not sooo stupid).

Friday came with a sigh of relief- I was at Junior high and could do nothing all day. Except I ended up in two classes and then managed to gatecrash a cookery class for the first graders (I think I was only supposed to observe but somehow managed to muscle in and join one of the groups). And the evening was spent doing a blissful nothing. Except for having hot baths and relaxing to try and feel better for the excitment that was to come on Saturday.

All I'll say for now about Saturday is that it was 17 degrees in the daytime. Lovely t-shirt weather. And today? Today it's snowing again. Blizzards. Even the weather's like a rollercoaster...