October Seventh

A little better today. I wore my new blouse and a skirt i like and my expensive stockings held up with an inexpensive garter belt. So i felt secretly hot anyway.

School was fine. Somehow i've been very busy there lately, with preparing for future lessons (mostly at the other school) and building an inventory of games and stuff. Still it seems crazy that i can fill eight hours doing that sort of thing.

Actually i did have a class today, and helped cut out food tickets for the festival, observed a math class with the other teachers, and strolled around a few times, plus lunch.... so maybe more like four hours.

Oh and i also videotaped a fake newscast for the festival.

I got a lot of sweets as a reward

The ecobento project was almost thwarted when i sat down and read my recipe! Halfof the ingredients were supposed to be pulled out of the freezer the day before!! I thought about skipping a day, but i decided to make it work. "The day before" means night time probably, for morning assembly, to take to work to eat for lunch. So i think an hour or two and maybe a little microwave defrost will do the trick.

My house needs sweeping again, i noticed this morning, but it just seems weird cleaning when it's dark. But it gets dark so early here... it's not even six yet and it's been dark for a while.

I've got a letter and a document i must finish, and a package i need to get ready for sending for a birthday next week.

But now dinner.

10/6

I feel so fat all day then i get home and all i want to do is eat sweets. Stupid.

Also today is one of those days where i will (and have) cried at anything. But besides that emotional-ness, i am sad today. I just thought about all of the sad things... it's too sad.

I think i've defaulted to using this blog to say "today i did this..." and then reviewing my "to do" list. That was not really my original intention. I think it's good to recap the days, but that doesn't include the thoughtfulness i wanted.

Dinner tonight was good. Next i want to make my own "eco-bento" recipe series.

Last night i spent the whole evening thinking about my Halloween costume.

What can i wear (especially to work) that won't make me think "ewwwwwww" when i see myself in the mirror? It seems like no matter what, i always manage to look frumpy (and not in a cute way). Maybe dumpy is a better word. Shirt out or tucked in, it never looks effortless. My cardigan and collar always interact wrong. And my hair!! It's always a mess. Maybe i should get it cut again. It's not even tomy shoulders yet. Maybe i should let it grow more. I just don't know what to do with it.

Perhaps i'll continue this rambling later.

October Fourth

I never have the energy i imagine i will in the evening. Probably because i eat too many sweets.

I took the bus today because it was raining but half-purposely missed it this afternoon, so i walked home. It took about 45 minutes and felt very easy. I still haven't walked as much as i did shopping Saturday or Sunday... i'm under 5000 steps.

According to some online calculator, walking 45 minutes burns way more calories than biking 10 minutes. But i work harder biking...

What did i learn at school today? I learned that math is still frustrating... even fourth grade math. And i got all the way to calculus in high school, before i became an english major and never touched another math book again. I understood after teacher explained but i'm not sure i ever would have figured it out on my own.99 x 56 = (100-1) x 56 = 5600 - 56 = well here i'd want to use a calculator anyway to check myself so i might as well have used it from the beginning. Although if your was $56 and you gave me $5600 i could make change easily enough. Assuming i was working somewhere with $6000 in the drawer...

I can't say for sure i learned anything else. We had math, science, and English but all of the other periods were spent in some way rehearsing for the performance on Saturday. So i did a lot of spectating and very little interacting even though i was with the class all day.

I wrote some image snippets on my phone while walking home. It's the best i've done all month, though it's rougher than rough. It's more like a list.

As soon as i got home i finished prep for this week's meals and made the first one. It was good! And much more food than i expected. Probably because i used leftover rice and it was maybe more than one serving; plus it had sweet potatoes in it.

Today my picture is of dinner. I was going to take one of the charred rice fields but i left my camera home.

Can't say i've been studying my kanji, but i have been noticing them. I think i've been mostly ignoring them... just scanning for familiar ones, or hiragana/katakana. Today during cleaning time i looked at all the posters -- not just at the pictures, but looked closely at the kanji too. I think i'll begin to recognize more this way, even though i probably won't be able to write them. And i've been looking a few up that i recognize but don't know the meaning of. Hare. Bento and honto no "tou" -- although that meaning is still pretty vague!

I guess i should get the rice washed for morning.

October Third (buying fish, etc)

Some of my plans are off to very poor starts. Others i've been rushing into headlong.

I decided to go grocery shopping today. That's three days in a row i went to town. I'm halfway through my "public transportation" budget and the month just started!

It started raining as i was getting ready to leave, but it was light so i went anyway. I had breakfast about 9:45, and had to leave for the train at 11:45 so i wasn't hungry. But when i got to town at 12:30 i was, and i didn't want to shop hungry. So i got some yakitori (to satisfy that craving!) and i was going to get a rice ball but i couldn't decide on a type so i just got a little salad instead. Oh and a mont blanc latte. Lovely. I sat on some boring chairs by the ticket office near the station entrance to eat. Not so lovely, but it did the trick.

It's a little walk to the supermarket. Not really that far, but it's on the odd side of the station which makes it seem much farther.

I totally saw one of my co-workers leaving the supermarket while i was going in. He walked right past me. He quite ignored me! Maybe he got shy. Maaaayyyybeee he didn't notice me. Maybe he just quite ignored me!! I wouldn't bet my life that it was him, but i think it was. Overly sensitive as i am sometimes here, i felt snubbed so i started my shopping in an unpleasant mood.

However the fish department presented many new challenges and fish-buying-related insecurities to overcome, so i soon forgot about our non-encounter.

Seafood departments in Japanese grocery stores are huge. A sizeable corner, a little smaller than the produce section, is devoted to seafood. That's not shocking. But then the fish continues all along the back wall of the store! It's certainly the biggest department.

This is actually my first time buying fish here. I live in a fishing village but i am just at a loss with the fish available at the local markets and their handwritten signs. Plus i don't know how to clean a fish, nor do i want to try. And when i shop at supermarkets in town, i have to consider timing and trains. I don't want to carry around a raw fish all day.

Anyway after much deliberation and confusion i bought salmon, for my bento recipes, and sanma. I hear sanma is in season and they seemed like nice little fish, easy enough to deal with. I paid 50 yen extra to get sanma with no heads. It's my first time cooking fish in the fish drawer; no reason to overcomplicate things.

There were at least three different salmon options and they all looked the same, almost. There was a bin of frozen salmon (steaks i think) that you bought bulk style, 100 yen each. Then there were packaged salmon steaks that looked exactly the same as these for about the same price, maybe not frozen though, with something about Russia on the label. And then there were packaged salmon steaks, though a little less steaky looking, not frozen, with a little plastic grass in the package. And the kanji for "raw" on the sign. So maybe sashimi-grade? Although there was another section with sashimi.

So much fish.

Back to the station, i had over an hour to wait for my train (i did poor with timing) so i just sat on the platform and read. Someone walking past bowed to me in a way that makes me think he probably knows me but i didn't recognize him. Probably a village person.

On the train itself, i met that weird boy from the village festival who kept asking to take my picture. He tried to talk to me and then maybe realized i couldn't really understand him (unlike the lady who came to my door this morning and wanted to know if my parents were home and what grade i was in!!!! i'm 30.) so then he just showed me weird pictures he had in his bag. Pictures of pictures of Sailor Moon characters. When he got off he told me the pictures were secret... or something.

It rained all day but not hard enough to make the trip unpleasant. It was coming down harder for my walk home -- if it's going to rain hard on me, that's the best time. It's still raining steadily now, hours later. I love the rain. Maybe i'd do all right in the northwest after all.

Then i cooked the fish. It was a delicious success. The salmon was so good it seemed a shame to make "flakes" out of it as my bento recipes directed, but i obeyed. I refrained from eating all three sanma, but i could have.

I drank some local wine. It tasted like wine. I don't know anything about wine. It's red type.

So i guess i'm making my "eco-bento" this week! I did some of the prep work today but since i'm actually having them for dinner, i can do the rest of it tomorrow after school.

I scrawled a few stupid lines when i got home but i'm not sure it counts as writing a poem. Maybe i'd better read some poetry along with trying to write it.

I tried to take a nice photo but it was a discouraging thing. I could not look god. The only one i saved was the one of my "folky" bag. And then someone posted some pictures of me online and none of them are cute. So sad. What can i do? Bangs?

I haven't done yoga yet. I just saw this emoji and wanted to use it! According to the fitness thing on my phone (which i didn't realize was turned on) i walked 6,264 steps today. It's not enough though.

I made my bed. I washed the dishes. I did some laundry.

I'm not sure i really learned a new kanji today, but i looked a lot of them up to read my recipes. Useful words like "parboil." I'm gonna say i have a pretty good grasp on the kanji for sautee though. Itameru. Remembering how it's pronounced will be the biggest challenge.

I made no progress in any other area. I'd better get to bed.

10/2 wrap up

The bra and underwear ads that pop up on this page make me mad. I don't need new bras, and if i did i could buy my size at a big store, but the cute little lingerie shops do not have my size. Sad.

Another "last train" night. I went to a meeting for the charity. We got a little food afterwards, but we didn't really have time to go anywhere really good. Actually, it was just me that didn't have time. I didn't want that to influence their decision of where to go, but oh well. I was super hungry and really wanted yakitori. Anyway i got french onion soup and maron cake.

I'm tired now. I went to town around two to do some shopping and letter writing. I chose a cafe poorly... i chose based on the maron latte i wanted and not based on atmosphere. It was not good for letter writing or lingering. In fact it got crowded and i felt i shouldn't be taking up a table when i had finished my sandwich and coffee, so i left.

I made my bed today. I took a photo.
I did not write a poem or learn a kanji.

I started reading my other Agatha Christie book. Then i realized i'd already read that one. But i don't remember who did it, so i'll keep reading... wait.... maybe i do remember. The doctor's sister?

So we'll see if i'm right.