Sugoku Taisetsu da kara Yoku Oboite

well, yes... it's time to try and figure out where i've been for the last few weeks. no big trips or special school events or anything, but they've been pretty dang decent, making little spur of the moment plans and hanging out in various rooms with various peoples.

took another short trip to a middle school in the area which had a total of around thirty students. played some english games and ate lunch with them. asked some of the simple questions i can manage about their families and the things that they like or have done recently. there was also a middle school that came here for a tour and some group english discussion. one of my groups was lagging a little, so i spiced it up by asking if they new any bad words in english, and about four 12 year olds excitedly yelled "fuck!", but i don't think anyone else heard.

a few days later, a japanese friend who is in the middle of her study abroad year in america came back for a visit during her summer break, so folks that know her here spent a few nights going out on the town or hanging out in dorm rooms drinking and talking 'till we couldn't manage to stay awake anymore.

there have also been a rash of birthday parties lately, so i've been out to an all you can eat itallian place, had an indoor picnic, and ingested more cake and plum sake than my bowels can contend with. for some reason, all you can eat places are called "viking" here. did vikings eat more than any group in the history of the world? really, though, like five or six birthdays in 3 weeks.

one of the study abroad students has gotten his hands on a car, so we can do things like decide we want to go get chocolate and donuts after dinner, and then just head off to the damn mall and stock up on junk, and last week, because of the depressing cafeteria food, a group went out to ichi no tori, the really great yakitori place in the cramped, cool area of akita city, for piles of the most wonderful damn chicken i've ever gnawed off the end of a stick, and a big, hot bowl of confoundingly satisfying nabe.

also went to the zoo for a little while somewhere in there. we got there pretty late, so we had to rush through a little bit, guided by scent to the monkey mountain section, where we watched the pissed off, bored chimps lay around and half heartedly groom eachother. we were also grunted at by a giant, frothing, horned thing from africa and stared at by some prarie dogs, turtles and lions. i likes me some aminils, but zoos can be pretty solemn places sometimes.

yup. so i guess that's where i've been... eating pasta and sitting crosslegged on people's floors. i'll scrape together some decent pictures from the last few weeks.