It's gonna be a cold, cold Christmas

But thank the Lord I'm heading back to a land of central heating, oven-cooked food and Christmas shopping soon. Last weekend I finally cracked open the winter coat and scarf and today I am having the grand switch-on of the... electric heater. After sitting at Rachel's last night and feeling quite toasty without a coat on I decided that I should bite the bullet and actually use some heating indoors. This combined with the fact that as my teacher drove me to school this morning the temperature signs read as -3 degrees, has led to me using the heater for a full half hour this evening...

Monday was bloody cold too. The snow fell throughout Sunday night and on Monday morning Katsuyama was beautiful- like a scene from a Christmas card (if Christmas cards traditionally featured japanese architecture). And it snowed through Monday day appearing like it was going to settle. I had plenty of time to review the situation what with having on lessons and all...

Tuesday passed in a similar fashion, with snow replaced by sleet and an evening conversation class in a lovely warm room, and Wednesday was spent at the most fun elementary school. They did however worry me when they made their request for this week's after school conversation class- "How to meet girls and how to keep the conversation going". If they'd meant talk about haircare, fashion, film stars and recipes I'd have been fine, but the implication was otherwise. Oops... Friends suggested teaching chat-up lines but only 3 of the offered examples were appropriate, so I chickened out, told the class preparation was hard and asked them for questions and we worked from there. This led to me trying to explain English grammar points with the Japanese ability of a developmentally slow Japanese 3 year old. But they're a great group of teachers and it always becomes fun, so after goodbyes I cycled into the (near freezing) sunset to tackle washing that won't dry. The evening was spent in Kibichuo at Rachel's and today was another elementary school with an opportunity to do baking-free cookery with the kids...

And having convinced them to let me go home early (they combined my classes so I was finished at 12:20, I asked them what to do for the afternoon, they had no ideas, so I suggested I got the next train home. And Happy Christmas, they said yes!) I have been cleaning and tidying (long overdue) and preparing for orphans tomorrow...