Days 23 & 24

I feel better than I did before, but I still feel the same way about being rootedly bored. I don't have enough to do here and not enough people to do it with. You'd think it'd be miraculous to have such free time, and in theory it is, but in practice I'm not used to it. I'm not used to having to physically plan so much to do ALONE and not have any external pressure or motivation (no one else's expectations to meet) in order to do it. In these instances, my laziness nearly always gets the best of me. After work today it wasn't even raining too hard, just misting really, so I was thinking about going out to see all the temples near the river, but decided to take a "tiny catnap" and ended up sleeping until 7PM. Womp womp (sad trombone.) Waste of good "daylight" (more like cloudlight.)

I actually wish I could see my students more. What I'm doing with them is so fun. Today was one of the best days ever. During our 10-minute breaks in between classes, we chilled in the library with them. The first time it was the first-graders who were in there. I wish I had pictures. (I have some on my cell phone but I can't send them to the internet until I get back to the states.) RIN. RIN IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. And Miku. And they were like grabbing onto my arms and pulling me places. They think I don't know Japanese so one of them was like "she doesn't understand Japanese, let's take her to the English books" and they pulled out a Peanuts book for me. And the next time it was the 3rd graders. Tomoko pulled me over and started pointing to me the English words she knew. "mouse" "hat" "monkey" etc. And I taught her some. She called an ornament "ball" and a lamppost "light." Hehe. In our classes, we invented the game of animal charades which they go absolutely nuts over. One of them acts like an animal and they guess what animal (in English) it is. Man, the 4th and 5th graders are really good. I love the enthusiasm of the elementary schoolers. The middle schoolers are developing that "I have the ability to judge the activities and laugh at them" thing. But they're still cool. :)

I wish I could spend all day at school with them and get paid more. I totally would. It's tiring, but fulfilling and inspiring.

If it's not too rainy tomorrow I am going to go to an island called Iojima (and I don't care who goes with me!), but if it's rainy I'll save it for another day, but I definitely want to do something. I can't believe another weekend is going by without me planning anything. There's only 4 weekends left until I start traveling and evaluating the camps, and that 4th one is going to be spent in Beppu with liz. I better start planning trips around Kyushu and to Osaka, even if they are solo! I JUST HAVE TO DO IT!

Traveling alone. With no one to take pictures of and with. No one to talk to. TRUST YOUR STRUGGLE. TRUST IT. YOU ARE LEARNING WHAT YOU NEED TO BE LEARNING.