today and tomorrow are end-of-term tests for the kiddies in school– which means that most of the teachers have nothing better to do but bum around and invigilate. obviously the stupid gaijin can’t be trusted to invigilate (what if the kids have questions?) so the stupid gaijin is relegated to collecting dust (in a hopefully attractive manner :D) in the staffroom.

tei-san is this sweet old lady who likes taking care of ALTs, and she helps out in english lessons at the kindergarten near my school. she and her husband are really high up the education hierarchy (both served in the Board of Education) and their connections and influence spread far and wide. so apparently, she rang my principal up directly and insisted he give me the day off to help her at kindergarten instead of gathering dust– so, well. here i am.

we read the very hungry caterpillar to them and sang songs and did shapes karuta. all in all, it was easy, but tiring. i really don’t think i’m built to handle large numbers of midgets at one time ;____;

bidisha decided that since we were in tokyo, we ought to seize the chance to eat non-japanese food. so we embarked on a quest to find the “most famous thai restaurant in shinjuku”, as the guidebook proclaimed. however, directions to said restaurant were rather vague (to say the least). the only information we were given was that it was in kabukicho, on the third floor and surrounded by neon lights.

now, if you’ve ever been to tokyo, there’s neon lights everywhere. and if you’ve been to kabukicho– well, that place is so artificially lit-up by neon lights it feels like day even when it is night. so really– that was not helpful. we trundled around kabukicho for a while desperately scanning signboards before we found the place. though– the food really was excellent and filling. <3 i haven’t had such good thai food in a while.

so me and bidisha were flouncing down from xianna’s house to the muji at yurakucho in tokyo during the three-day weekend, and we stumbled upon a german-themed drinking hole. at first i just noticed the flag outside, but then a familiar looking logo caught my eye–

it was the logo of the hofbrauhaus. yes, my fellow germany travellers– the hofbrauhaus. of enormous 1.5 litre jugs and many merry romps through town. turns out bidisha had also been to munich before and had fond memories of the place, so we immediately roped in masato and luis (both in tokyo for the weekend too) for dinner.

and it was wonderful! i think i like the hofbrauhaus’s food much better (this is kind of watered down japanese-style german food, if you can imagine that) but the beer! the beer! there wasn’t bockbeer, but the dunkel was more than good enough. anyway, here’s a good close-up shot of masato. this bizarre come-hither look is unfortunately one of masato’s more common expressions. the boy apparently can’t smile. (we have experimented before. he can’t. his cheek muscles are just totally malfunctioned.)

i don’t really know how 2-2 ended up being as well-adjusted as they have. maybe it’s because the second-year gakuen idols are all in this class (srsly) or maybe it’s because their homeroom teacher is this really sweet 28-year-old female. or maybe somehow the nice kids made their way into the class and the bad kids feel so outnumbered they don’t assert their bastard-dom. but i do like 2-2. i halfway enjoy lessons with them. which says a lot.

anyway, the girl with bread to her face is the female gakuen idol. :) she really is gorgeous, and sweet and cute and she works hard too. she doesn’t just preen and daydream in class. girl with peace=sign is smart and bright and talkative, and i’m pretty fond of her.

i don’t actually know why i look so terrified. i quite like the two girls taking the photo with me.

this is 2-1, a kind of mixed-feelings second year class. there are some lovely girls in it, but also some truly incorrigible boys. le sigh. there isn’t much to say about ninensei classes. other than i wish they’d swop with my sannensei and graduate, and leave me with one more year with my third-years. -sniffle-

really, this is a cheaterly shot, but the game lasted well into the wee hours, so it counts!

i had mindy and joyce from annaka-shi (the neighbouring city) over to my place for dinner and a sleepover. (i know mindy and joyce through church and fellowship.) and i decided to invite derrick and bidisha as well. we had a lovely curry-filled dinner followed by monopoly. now, i have come to realise that the uber-cutthroat monopoly environment of york is actually not particularly normal. after i told the others about how yorkies play strategy (e.g. orange and reds are good, we play competition rules, sometimes louis holds on to 4 houses instead of upgrading to a hotel so others can’t build houses) they came to view me with extreme distrust. :x because i’m one of the few that can read kanji, i had to read the comm chest and chance cards (this is japanese monopoly, in case you haven’t realised. and comm chest is called challenge in the japanese set) but people often wouldn’t believe what i was reading. :( joyce actually sat out of the game because she was too turned off by the cutthroat-y, unscrupulous-ness of it all.

what was interesting though, was that it was sweet mindy who won it all. granted, she had a lucky break from a good trade with bidisha (b traded a red for a green property! bad, bad trade on b’s part) but it was a fascinating real-life illustration of how absolute power corrupts absolutely.  i was the first to be bankrupted (i plead bad luck, and bad properties) and when mindy bankrupted me, she felt so bad she wanted to leave me some pity money. but as she bankrupted more and more people on her hell stretch of red properties, we detected a distinct increase in glee with each subsequent bankruptcy. by the end when it was her versus derrick, you could tell she relished the victory.

absolute power corrupts absolutely, indeed.

after the three of us woke up in a daze in the comfort of bidisha’s warm living room, i decided that i wanted a mcdonalds’ breakfast– because i was craving a Big Breakfast (TM) like crazy. unfortunately, i had forgotten that japanese mcdonalds’ didn’t have Big Breakfasts (the barbarians!) so i settled for hotcakes instead. i like there food shots where you see my food and the other person sitting opposite me. it matches my perspective exactly.

i also think derrick looks adorable with glasses, though he seemed to take that comment with offence. what is it with men and the word ‘cute’. cute is good. hur hur. but me and bidisha think he should wear em more often cos it gives him a nice preppy touch.

hee hee hee. this is one of my favourite first-year kids. he’s just sweet and shy, unlike the other in-your-face kids. he used to clean an area close to me, and every time i walked past him, two seconds later you could hear a whispered “hello.” or when he passes me in the staffroom there’s a whispered “yo.” as he runs by. i’ve heard from mr. s. that during cleaning in the classroom he rubs his head against other kids like a cat. :<<<<<<< is that not the most adorable thing you’ve ever heard? *____*

i was originally going to post a photo of best little boy in the world, but i’ve decided to post a pic of the matsuri instead. i’ll put best little boy in a password-protected entry on the main blog instead.

so today was another matsuri at another temple. it was much smaller than the previous one, but the tori karaage… ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. it was ace. it was… brilliant. it was revolutionary. ;___; i miss it.

this photo was taken with 4 of my third-year girls whom i love, because they are remarkably gregarious and daring. and they totally struck up conversations with derrick and luis (who is a blob again. he needs to learn to be still in photos.) also notably showing up in this photo is masato with his pimped out coat.

today was fellowship at kingsley’s again– and that means spicy nigerian food courtesy of (a now extremely-pregnant) juliet. today’s dinner was a shrimp and spinach sweet potato stew, which i would ordinarily not eat, but it was actually quite tasty. :P