fine chez

so according to chez I am bad at updating my blog.. I guess thats a hint.
Schools been crazy this week because all the students are getting ready for the school festival which starts tomorrow and is also on saturday. all week we have had a shortened schedule to give students time to get ready, and today we didn't even have afternoon classes.. which was no fun for me, cause i spent the morning at my special school and came back to Kureha and have nothing to do at work all afternoon. But tomorrow instead of classes we have the festival, and on saturday, technically I am required to be here on saturday for the festival. Which I was planning on attending anyway. but because teachers and students come to school saturday we get what is called Daikyu.. or a make up holiday. Monday is a holiday so i have no school, but now thanks to Daikyu i also have no school on Tuesday...

I have been able to go to a bunch of other festivals in the area so far, and am planning on hitting up one or 2 more this weekend. Last week we took the train for about an hour and went to the Mugiya festival or rice festival. It has people doing the traditional japanese dance, but also groups doing much more modern dance.. traditional moves to like hip hop music. it was pretty good. Plus I am really starting to love Japanese Festival food I think it might be even better than fair food back home.. except for the no fried dough thing. Still pretty good.

I finally got internet in my apartment so a few of you should be getting some phone calls soon. I am using skype to call and its really convinient not to mention really cheap to use, 2 cents a minute to the U.S. land or cell phone. If you have a skype account let me know that means I can call you for free!! i'm all about free.
Work is starting to pick up, I think I understand better what the teachers want me to do.. so once we get back on a normal schedule I hope things work well. As it is mid terms are only like 2 weeks away, which is strange cause I've only been teaching like 3 weeks. they have mid-terms after 5 weeks.. even though the semester is about 13 weeks long.

Whats been really great are all the people I am meeting, there are some really awesome JET's and I love just being able to hang out with people.. it never fails that we are busy on the weekends, and even during the week. Last night after my japanese class a group of us ended up going out to dinner and having a great time. I am already planning trips to go on with JET.. in a few weeks a group is going for a 3 day weekend to Kyoto, and I am hoping to get to a castle in Nagano sometime in October.
Plus best of all is my trip at christmas/new years. I am going to THAILAND for 10 days.. I am so excited. I am going with another ALT and one of her friends from the states.. we are going on a 10 day tour.. run by some travel company. I am really excited!! and I will still have about 4 days of my christmasbreak left once I get back.. so I'm going to spend the day/night in Tokyo and probalby go to Tokyo Disney Sea for the day and wander around. I know I will be a little bummed to not be going home for the holidays, but I don't think I could have turned this trip down.. a little pricey but very worth it.

allright thats all the news for now.. I still have another 3 hours of sitting at work with nothing to do.

Pictures are coming.. i just need to update my flickr account, now that I have internet at home it shouldn't be a problem.

Lissie