Below are the most recent 2 friends' journal entries.

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
watercircle	July 14, 2009	Tuesday Maintenance I cleared the storage room today, which means that the cardboard mountain is no more! I broke down a total of 22 boxes and tied them properly for disposal on cardboard day. I meant to take a before and after picture of all the work it involved, but I started and kinda went into a cleaning trance. It only took about two hours from total disaster to complete cleanliness. I'm very proud of myself. I also made pie crusts. For my last class at Kuroiwa, we are making apple pies. However, we don't have enough time in one period to make the crust too, so I did it beforehand. I hope the kids have fun. They seemed excited when I suggested it last week. I had my last classes at Ogawa on Monday. I gave a clumsy speech in Japanese (I hadn't practiced at all!) and the students all gave me a little memory board with their pictures and a sentence or two saying how much they enjoyed my lessons and such. Then the staff gave me a couple of gifts: a very cute little handbag, the traditional parting handkerchief, and a big collage of photos! The collage was professionally printed and is just gorgeous (it's a shuffle print, for those of you who know what that is.) I can't wait to show everyone at home. Oh, and the 5th years all wrote me letters of appreciation and bound them together in a notebook. So sweet! I cried my eyes out when they were all telling me how much they enjoyed my classes. And that made them cry and then the teachers were crying... it was very emotional. And I have to go through it all over again tomorrow, which is my last class for real. It's actually a lot to handle emotionally. Despite my complete lack of motivation, this apartment is getting clean little by little. I'm throwing my own farewell party here this weekend (hey, there's no rule that says I can't!) so I have to pick up the pace on the cleaning, but I'm confident that I can get it all cozy by Saturday evening. Now, if only I could get my hands on a grill... Tomorrow there's only one period of classes at Sakawa. ONE! It's so ridiculous. Why make the kids get out of bed just to make them go to school for one class? Oh well. Maybe that'll mean I can duck out early. I'm pretty sure I have the vacation time, anyway. Oh, and speaking of vacation time, I have the whole week off next week! Mostly I mean to spend it cleaning and stuff, but there will be a solar eclipse on July 22nd that I want to join up with people to view. In Kochi, there will be close to 90% totality! I've seen two or three lunar eclipses, but this is my first (and maybe last, given how rare they are in North America) solar eclipse! Neat stuff! The amateur astronomer in me just can't wait. Current Mood: sleepy
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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
watercircle	July 05, 2009	Productive Solitude I had a very relaxing weekend. A little too relaxing, maybe, but that's why I get for self-inflicted isolation. I spent my time packing and cleaning, but also played around seven hours of Okami, a video game for the PS2 that I bought in 2005 but never finished. I'm 50 hours in now and still have a good 25% of the game left. I'm surprised that it's such a long game. There are a ton of little side quests too. But the big news of the weekend is that I finished up chapter eight of my book. On to chapter nine! Things are really starting to get good now. I think I'll have a lot of editing to do, though. Chapter six is way too short and goes nowhere. Maybe it'll come more into focus once I write more. Writing is a fluid process. It's funny how my story has bloomed into its very own living, breathing entity since I began writing it. It's gone in a completely different direction than I intended, but I'm just going with it. I haven't even gotten to the scene yet that first prompted the idea and I think I may even throw it out. The story line has changed so much since that first little spark. I love this aspect of creativity. I live for it. Even now I'm embarrassed to talk about the fact that I'm writing a book. I don't know why. I almost deleted those last two paragraphs. I'm so weird and paranoid, I swear. I have no idea what I'm going to talk about for guided conversation tomorrow. Usually I talk about my action-filled weekends spent traveling somewhere or meeting up with someone, but I was so very boring this weekend. Hardly anything to talk about at all. Maybe I'll make up something exciting. Current Mood: blah
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