What a nice weekend.

Well, we sure had a nice weekend. Friday was kinda cool. I went to Enya and played a game with my 6th graders. It was PTA Parent Day so I had to teach in front of all the students parents. I hope they enjoyed seeing me teach. We have a big important parents day in December coming up so I think this was a good warm up. The upcoming parent's day is kinda overwelming to think about because we are starting to plan for it now. I am not sure what's up. Im going to talk to Mihara-san on Wednesday and see what she has to say. I bet she would be willing to help me (since I have no concept of Parent's Day in Japan).

Saturday was a really fun and LONG day. I woke up around 8:30, got ready for Saturday English Class, kissed my husband good-bye, and headed off to a really fun class. You see, we have a Halloween part coming up on the 28th where we are going to decorate, make and wear costumes, and chat to foreigners. But to do that, we have to invite the foreigners! So it was the day to make invitations. It wasn't the most fun class we had, but it was pretty close. Chatting with the students and making stuff.

After class, Chris met me at Sea Jack (sushi restaurant) and we had some yummy sushi. I picked this weird crableg sushi thing. It was REAL crab. Unfortunately, it was RAW crab. Bleh. That was pretty gross. It would have been much better if it were cooked. It wasn't..so bleh.

After that we watched a little bit of Season 1 LOST and then napped because we were anticipating a busy weekend. You see, we had organized a game night. We sent out a mass email to all the Izumo area ALTs (including the townlets attached to Izumo) and some English School teachers and invited everyone to come play boardgames and poker with us. In also mentioned that they could invite friends. Last year, we had a few of these game nights and they went really well. So we wanted to get that going again. So we went to the Friendship House party room and cleaned up and got everything set up.

At 8:00 people started to trickle in slowly. Miymi (my friend and teaching partner from Saturday English class) came which was a real treat for me. We started up a game of Apples to Apples (a word/party game) and played for about an hour. It was pretty fun but everyone was chatting and not paying so much attention to the game. Ang won. The guys started up poker in the other room. Jason is kinda the Poker Master so we let him lead the poker room since he seems to know what he's doing.

Around 9:00 there were a LOT of people there. The English School People came. Every ALT showed up. And some friends that had been invited showed up. Also, they ALL brought snacks and drinks. Heh. There was a lot of food and stuff around.

The reason poker/game nights were so successful last year, was because there were enough people to fill out the poker room and there were enough people to get a board game going. However, it just doesn't work if there are too many people there! It was so crowded. It was hard to play games because there were so many people. One room was a poker room and the other room kinda turned into a small party room. We got a game of Settler's of Catan off the
ground, but it wasn't so great. No one really played games while there was a mass of people around.

Around midnight, people started heading out. Even though they didn't get to play games, everyone seemed to have a good time. After a big hunk of people left, things quieted down. We got to play a couple other games and it seemed to be a really good way to wind the evening down.

Chris was successful in poker. He didn't win any cash, but he came out with exactly what he put in. So hurray for having fun and not losing any money. One guy lost about $20 but someone made out very well. He's a good poker player though. I think I would rate the evening as a successful even though it got a little stressful for me when so many people showed up. People had fun and that's what it's all about really. I think people want to get a bi-weekly poker game going so thats kinda cool.

We ended up getting home around 2:15 am. Yikes thats a lot of gaming! Since we organized it, we felt we needed to stay to the end. We actually ended up leaving before the last game was over but that's because it was SO LATE and I was too tired to stay up much longer.

Sunday was nice and relaxing. We didnt' do anything. It was good rest from the night before. We've been rewatching the first season of LOST because we were expecting to get Season 2 in soon. And indeed, we got Season 2 yesterday! Woo! So we are trying to book it through the first season so we can go ahead and see the next. We also got season 2 of House, M.D. Hooray!

Today is rather nice, as well. I had tea and four people showed up. We discussed what we could do to make the tea even better and more helpful towards their goals of speaking English. So thats exciting for me. I may try to get a second tea going on Wednesday. Right now, Im baking a cake!

No really! I am! It has 4 minutes left before it done. I will edit this and post a picture if it looks like its going to be a yummy cake. Cross your fingers for me! It smells yummy. :)