happy thanksgiving

hey all,
Hope that everyone had a great thanksgiving holiday. Its hard to believe its the end of november already! I had a good holiday over here. last sunday we had a thanksgiving dinner at a fellow ALT's apartment, she made turkey in her microwave/oven, and we had mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and numerous other yummy dishes.. it was great! Really nice to have a break from Japanese food. I made pan roasted apples with cinammin sugar syrup and brandy.. yummy! and I had another Thanksgiving dinner on Friday! at another apt. It was really nice too.
I was really tired all day cause I woke up at about 5:30 am my time to call home and talk to everyone at my house for thanksgiving dinner. But it was so great to talk with everyone and to hear voices from home.
It was a slow yet busy week at work last week, and this week is going to be pretty crazy... I have to grade a crap load of papers, and I have to finish writing the final for my oral communications classes, plus I have to prepare a lesson to turn in for the Toyama Jets hand book. I have 2 full days of meetings on wed/thurs and finals start on friday.. so i'm cutting everything a little close. Monday I have 5 classes in a row.. so not excited about that one.. but oh well.

Its getting really cold here!! it snowed briefly the other day but it hasn't accumulated to anything yet.. just wet and cold. Here they use water to melt the snow.. they have pipes that run under all the main roads and most of the sidewalks.. and when it rains these things that look like little sprinkler heads pour out water to melt the snow.. its weird.. and it means that the roads are really wet all winter long. I'm working on finding ways to stay warm in my uninsulated apartment.. apparently they don't really believe in insulation here... so my apt gets cold at night... so far I'm making alot of use of my hot carpet.. an electric carpet.. and my electric blanket that I can sleep on top of. I also have a heater.. its my AC unit and also does heat.. but apparently its really expensive to use.. so sometime soon i need to go buy a small electric heater.

well thats it really.. not much going on as of now. I'm really starting to look forward to my christmas trip to sunny and hot Thailand!
hope everyone is doing well! miss and love yall

me