Friday I taught 3^rd grade Halloween.  I dressed up and had a great time. I will be posting that separately with some pictures from my two schools.

Friday night Kiyoko came to get me and we went to the Peace Centre in Izumi to watch a video of an SGI meeting to commemorate the 80 anniversary of the Soka Gakkai. President Ikeda gave a small speech as well which was special because he hasn’t been going to the meeting because he is preparing everyone for when he is no longer around.  He’s getting very old now.  But for this occasion he came and presented his speech instead of having someone else read it.  The video was about 90 minutes of various people talking about their life experiences with Soka Gakkai and giving words of encouragement.

At the end of the video, next year’s theme was introduced.  I haven’t translated it exactly but it is basically international friendships.

After the meeting I bought a book.  The book was written by president Ikeda and has to do with Buddhism and the universe.  I love this theme. It’s also in Japanese so it will take me a while to get through but I am looking forward to it!

That night I went home and watched a movie….I have no idea what it was called but it was an animated movie about a girl who saves a cat from getting hit by a truck. The cat turns out to be a prince from the Cat Country and his father wants to marry the girl (he’s crazy!) and so has the girl kidnapped and brought to the cat country where she starts to turn into a cat.  It was a fun movie.

Saturday I got up early and went to my base school to watch the kids perform in the school recital.  I think all the schools were given a theme for each grade because my base school’s recital was very similar to that of my visit school’s recital.  I’ll have a separate entry for that too, complete with pictures.

After the recital I went to Taira to meet up with Sam and Susan and Chelsea.   Chelsea was really late so I didn’t hang out with her as she got there as I was heading back home.  Sam, Susan and I all went Saty to get some Baskin Robins ice cream and we each got a Halloween Sunday. It was about $6 for 2 scoops of ice cream, a white chocolate ghost, a mint chocolate bat, about 6 pieces of brownie, a cookie pretending to be an ice cream cone and a bit of whipped cream and chocolate sauce.  It was so good!

Then we went to Kojima so I could once again check if my points had come in.  I was promised about $200 worth of points for signing up for internet there.  Everyone else got their points over a week ago.  I planned to use my points to buy a Pioneer BlueRay DVD player.  My points still aren’t in. So I went to get the money I needed to buy the DVD player instead of waiting.  Good thing too because I got the last on in the store.  They had none left so I asked for the floor model.  There was no box for it so they guy just wrapped it up in bubble wrap for me and put it in a shopping bag.  He put all the cords and booklets in a separate bag and then put them all in a big bag for me.  It all just barely fit into my schoolbag.

I got it home and managed to get it hooked up to my tv ok and turned it on to find everything in working order!  I got a pretty cook DVD player that also has a USB port in the front that I can hook up to my computer and stream youtube and netlix videos through to my tv!  That makes me pretty happy!  I can also watch American/Canadian BlueRay DVD’s on it since they are the same region as Japan.  All for the low price of $180.80.  I got no tax because it was the floor model.  Apparently this model is going for about $240 on Amazon.com.

Sunday I didn’t do anything.  I got hit by the lazy bus and took and nap and read and watched tv.  That was about it.  So because of that I didn’t get any groceries done.  So I went to 7/11.  I bought enough food to get me to Wednesday because for some reason I thought I had this Wednesday off…I don’t.  I have next Wednesday off.  SO I will have to go back to 7/11 soon and buy more food!  Tonight I think I will have Spaghetti and Edemame beans and maybe some carrot sticks.  I have no milk..so I might buy some juice from the 7/11.

Tomorrow night I am going to Dan’s birthday down in Taira and a restaurant called Baba’s.   Baba loves all the JETs so he often stays open late for us and will make stuff more or less spicy for us upon request.  I like no spice so I’m happy about that!  So in exchange for having a birthday party in his restaurant we have to help clean up afterwards, but that’s it.  We get the place to ourselves.  It will be fun!!

Today I only had 3 classes so I was finished teaching by 11am.  Thursday I only have two classes, 2^nd period and 5^th period.  So I will be bringing my laptop to school to keep me busy….for as long as the battery lasts. I can’t plug in my laptop without an adapter and there isn’t room on the power bar to plug it in. lol 

I came in to school today to find a bag full of sweets and sembe crackers.  Apparently they are from last year’s teachers…or maybe from the teachers this year who won’t be here next year.  The English was  a bit funny so I’m not exactly sure.  But there is quite a bit of stuff for me to eat throughout the week J  and an energy drink…not sure I want it…will take it home and put it in the fridge.

I think that’s it J