...exam week...

• Exam week ::sigh::. I got my JET Japanese books on Monday. I've been working on them all week because there is nothing else to do. I had ordered the intermediate books, because I didn't think I needed another book full of 'hello, my name is Sarah, I am American and 23 years old and I enjoy art.' The grammar's been kind of giving me a headache, though, because a lot of it I haven't learned yet, so everything needs to be looked up or I have to ask either Andrew or one of the JTEs. I have learned a lot, though, so maybe it will work in my favor. Anyway, Andrew said I'm doing better than Carla, the predecessor from hell, so as long as I'm better than her, I'm good. That wasn't a catty thing to say at all.
• Yesterday after exams, there was a meeting for the teachers about the AED... Asomething Esomething Defribullator. The thing they keep at schools to jump start hearts. First they taught basic CPR, which was interesting in Japanese, then the teachers had to practice on dummies. That was interesting, too. One of the teachers got really into it and, as one of the other teachers said, 'he is in a movie' (i.e. he was acting), and he was pretty hilarious. After the training thing, all the teachers played volleyball. We were divided into teams according to year. I'm pretty sure they couldn't have picked a worse sport for me to play. Okay, maybe tennis. I think tennis is the only sport I play worse than volleyball. The point is, I'm terrible. And it turns out Yamada sensei, who happened to be on my team (!!!!!), is the fricken volleyball champion of the world. Seriously, he was quite hard core. I actually missed the ball a few times because I was distracted by him throwing himself in front of me to get the ball. I think he spent the entire time diving and sliding and rolling and doing all manner of dramatic movements. I've never seen the man more animated. Now he's just chillin over there by his desk, grading math papers, just hangin out. But put him on a volleyball court... and look out. ANYway... I played horribly, as I thought I would. I seem to remember playing in high school, or middle school or something in gym class and I was actually fairly decent at serving... but not during this game. I didn't make a single one of my serves over the net. Fricken lame. One of the other teachers kept saying, 'switch, switch,' which I assume is because I was accidentally standing in a position that was relatively important and he realized that it probably wouldn't work out. Our team did win, though, thanks to Yamada sensei and other assorted athletic ichinenseisenseis. Afterwards, the principal gave the winning team pudding. Everybody else got sports drinks and canned coffee.
• This week was also my welcome party. 'Hey, you've been here for almost 3 months, but now we're gonna welcome you.' It was actually really nice. It was at this restaurant that was in a sort of conference building. They apparently had a bunch of meeting rooms and a tennis court. It was actually a pretty fancy lunch. They served bread that was really good...they had this really awesome tool for taking bread crumbs off the table as the meal progressed, and I couldn't help wanting to call up CCF and tell them that thing was probably a great idea. We first had this fantastic salad on a really awesome plate with bubbles that was made with some kind of spinachy arugula kinda lettuce (omg thank god it was something other than plain, spikey CABBAGE) with persimmon, lotus, apple, shrimp, scallops, and some kind of vinagrette. Then we had potato soup (I miss CCF loaded baked potato soup!), then some kind of fantastic mystery meat with ginger and vegetables, then soba that we had to eat with a fork, which confused everybody, myself included, and then some kind of dark chocolate mousse pastry and fig sorbet. Awesome. It took forever, though. Clearly they don't worry about shoppers in Japan.
• I have officially pwned my kitchen! I bought pots and pans a couple weeks ago, and plates (my pred had no plates..... really?), and this week I've made dinner for myself TWICE. Not just spagetti out of a jar, but like really made dinner. For the first time:) I was inspired on Tuesday night, when I was in the grocery store and saw a whole bunch of stuff on sale because it was the end of the day. I bought some kind of red meat.... not really sure what it was, but it was fantastic, and cooked it with vegetables and some kind of sesame soy sauce and it was incredible. The following night, I made pasta. I had told my friend Katie before how horrible Japanese spaghetti sauce is and she said she makes her own with tomatoes, red wine, and whatever else. So I gave it a go. I put tomatoes and wine, then onions, peppers, oregano, basil, olive oil, and garlic... then decided to just be ridiculous and I had bought some shrimp so those went in too. Holy cow I am awesome. It was such a good dinner I was so proud of myself.
• Went shopping for winter things. I found pants that fit over my butt (I had a moment in the dressing room where I seriously jumped up and down a little because I was so excited... usually I can't fit the pants over my knees), and discovered my new favorite store is this place called Honey's that's really cheap, but has awesome things, like the puffy vest I bought that has a fur lined hood, the sparkly tights, and a super cute dress. Also, I found the 'fat people' section (i.e. section for people who are greater than a US size 0) in Daiei, which means I will be able to find pants there, too. Now I need to find a big foot store and I'll be set.