July 19th, 2006

I'm sure you have noticed that my journal is different now. Yay! The other one was ugly and boring. I also uploaded some user pictures to reflect my mood. One of them is really old, but it is kinda cute all cropped and stuff. Its from my sophmore year of college! Eek!

See, this is what happens when I am procrastinating. Why am I procrastinating? Because I should be cleaning the apartment and getting ready to pack. Instead, Im screwing around with my livejournal and watching Spongebob. I did manage to clean the spare room today, because that is where I want to pile stuff up to pack. How interesting! Tomorrow I will definitely have to get off my duff and clean clean clean. Friday is reserved for packing (technically, making piles to pack on Saturday).

Anyways! Lets move on to more interesting things. On our balcony, we have this ugly net to keep the pidgeons away. We have never taken pictures from the balacony because it would just focus on the netting. Anyways, the netting, it fails to serve its purpose. Well, I guess it keeps the pidgeons from coming all the way onto our porch. But the little flying rats still land on our satellite dish and cling to the edge. They are persistent buggers! We have a new toy that keeps the pidgeons running scared, but I will discuss that in a moment. Anyways, somehow, this weekend, a pidgeon got caught in Mark's (who lives below us) net. Mark's net has been torn since before Chris and I got here and he never got it fixed. It turns out that he didn't get it fixed because two pidgeons laid an egg and it hatched on his porch. Awww...>.< So he had to wait for it to get old enough to fly away before he could fix the net. Unfortunately, the day after the baby pidgeon flew away, another pidgeon (or possibly the baby) got caught in the next, getting stuck between apartments. It hollered and flapped around for a really long time. We thought it was dead at first, but then we saw it move (from the parking lot, not our apartment). Scary. So, like the chilvarous animal lovers we are, we went to Mark and told him about it. He proceeded to cut the nasty bugger down. It was really sad though because it was screaming and crying the entire time. Stupid bird. Now its limping down around the parking lot (he still has net in his wing) and we figure it will get eaten by a cat soon. Nature, she is a harsh mistress. Mark fixed his net though. So the pidgeons won't be as bad from now on (they would land on his porch and then make pidgeon noises the ENTIRE time. They are no crows, but pidgeons are loud little rats).

Now, onto the new pidgeon scaring toy. Let me first show you a picture that sums up what life is like for me right now:

Thats right. This Sunday, Chris and I invested in an Airzooka. It looks like a bucket with a hole cut out the bottom and plastic covering the hole. There is a rubberband attached and you pull it back and let it go. Then, it shoots a big ball of air at the intended target. It shoots up to something like 30 feet! It's really funny to get hit by it. But I find myself innocently reading or using a computer and then "foomp!"...I've been hit by a big ball of air. Just know, toys like this are really dangerous in the hands of a playful male. Although, I do shoot him back when he's not expecting! It's great for the pidgeons though. We don't have to go outside to chase them anymore. Plus, it has the added bonus of really freaking them out! They land here a lot less now (likely due to Mark fixing his net, but whatever)!

Hey! Im on Summer Vacation now. Aren't you jealous? I dont think I go back to work until September 6th. That's quite a break! Well, I hope to start the English school in Unnan before then, but I dont have anything scheduled until then. Yesterday was my last day at Nishi (West Izumo High). My kids were completely rotten to me though. I'm very glad I don't have to see them for a month. Little poopheads! They like to make fun of me because they think I'm stupid because I don't speak Japanese. This is a terrible mindset. It's really unfair and frustrating. Boo. Stupid kids. I was bad yesterday, though. I was doing an activity, but none of the kids were doing it, so I switched to hangman. I made it super hard for them and was relentless. Everytime they hanged the guy, I would give myself a point. If they got the word right, they got a point. I made sure to do hard words and I wouldn't always give the category. I won. Then I got to make fun of them until class was over. It was great! It sounds like a horrible thing for a teacher to do, but I was frustrated and I needed to show them that they shouldn't assumed Im dumb because I can't do well in their language. Because, turns out, they are way worse at English than I am at Japanese. I think I drove the point home. Then I told them all, in Japanese slang, that I was a genius and they were dumb. Best. Teacher. Ever. But again, I was kinda proving a point. I doubt they will be nicer when I go back to school...but at least I can take a little satisfaction from it. See...Im completely not cut out for being a teacher. My patience runs out very quickly!

So...yay for summer vacation! Boo for tatami mights though. I have been getting bit a lot during the night. I have about 10 super scratchy bugbites on me. I thought it was just mosquitos that I couldn't see. Turns out...tatami mites! They are like bedbugs for tatami and like to bite you while you sleep on your legs and waist. The bumps are also super itchy compared to mosquito bites. It sucks. We have some spray that we will use soon. I guess its good that we figured out the problem before it got much worse. It's still gross. Microscopic bugs are eating me in my sleep! Egads!

So thats that. I hope to remember to update one more time before we come home. We leave for Tokyo in four days and its likely that nothing interesting will happen. But we shall see!