Tokidoki Kodomo ga Watashi no Hige Daikirai

it's 4am. i've been up since 11pm because my sleeping schedule's gotten all twisted during the break. last night i wandered around the library plucking books off the shelves in the english language room in the back, a hot, mostly aluminum and iron cube with a 5 foot ceiling and stacks of unused furniture next to the shelves.

i managed to have a decent schedule for half the day on saturday, getting up for another egg brick, fish, rice, fermented bean breakfast and then heading off in a pair of taxis with six other students to a kindergarten in akita city. there, we met about 20 people from 12 countries and ranging in age from around 20 to mid 50's, mostly students from akita university in the city, and some foriegn languace instructors living and teaching in the region. i got bear hugged by a russian woman, because she thinks i look like the ideal russian man or somesuch. apparently, this was the 20th annual international meeting at this school. we introduced ourselves by country, played a few games and sang some songs with the 80 or so kids, then made mochi by helping the kids pound rice with a huge heavy wooden mallet while someone else kneaded the giant rice ball and added water. we ate the mochi, which had been rolled in bean paste or sugar, with the kids in little groups, and i tried my damndest to come up with conversation topics. we talked about my beard and how they'd rather not have one, favorite foods, and my watch. that's about as far as i got. otherwise, making faces seemed the most effective form of communication.

i thought i had my waking/sleeping schedule in order, but i came back from that stuff around 1pm, fell asleep almost immediately, and now i'm in this ass-backwards quandry. not so terrible, i guess, being the only person wandering around in the entire school, i feel like the whole place is mine.

got my classes for winter - about 11 hours of japanese a week, and one other class called "traditional japanese performing arts". guess there are a few big field trips planned for this one, so should be a damn delight. there are also some rumblings about a trip to taiwan with m'ladies on the other end of the winter term, but let's not jinx anything with too much blather.