World Cup or Stanley Cup?

Oh as if was even a question... of course I would choose Stanley Cup over World Cup ANY TIME!

The oil boys are doing their best to stay alive in the stanley cup final. now we're down to the game 6 with 2-3 in series... this does not look good, but if we still hang on we'll be able to enjoy the thrilling game 7. heh heh...

The world cup fever is sweeping the whole Japan, but honestly, I expected the boys of Zico Japan to play a bit better... it's a disappointment, that last match they played against Australia.

Tomorrow we're gonna head to a local sports bar to watch the game, yes on a sunday night.

maybe I'll take monday morning off :p

I know that I haven't been updating this blog and all... well, lots of things happened. first there's another big personnel change in my section, and a few new people. initially I was worried, but then now it's all worked out. we're getting along quite well.

For the golden week, I went to Kanazawa for a little trip. It was really nice. I went on the trip without any actual plan beforehand but then it went alright. I kinda relied on my keitai's EZ Navi thing too much. hence my keitei battery kept dying on me...

Then we welcomed the Korean folk dance group to our Rose Festival (our rose garden just had our grand opening after the renewal). It was really interesting experience, but I felt useless since I could count all the korean phrases I know on one hand. But to do the volunteer there at the rose garden was quite nice. Although I wish I can use my yearly passport more... damn, why am I such a pushover... should've said no when they were trying to get me to buy it...

and last night we had a little birtday bash for Wada san and Minoda san. They claimed that they never had people throwing them birthday parties... I guess Japanese people are not big on the birthday celebration... I don't know, but for my family, we always try to make an event of it. unless when we're all too busy.

Well... now enjoying a little tea break and wait for people to come and we'll do choreography for summer festival parade. we'll see how that turns out... :p

GO OILERS GO!!!!!!!

Seriously, I would soooooooooo wanna be in Edmonton right now!!!!!

I'll bet Pam is going crazy...

Oilers the western conference champ! the Stanley Cup final!!

OH, WHY AM I IN JAPAN?????

25 of them... 25 of them...

Since I got the beans from Junko sensei as gift anyways... might as well eat them...

so here it is.. the Fuku beans

I don't really like, mostly because they don't have much taste actually, but they're kinda like what you would call, a healthy snack. So oh well.

I count, and count... oops lost count... drop some beans...

Okay, now I've got them...

Man, I got 25 of them to eat... well, maybe I can put on that little fuku mask and eat the beans... kinda have a little carnival feeling going on here. :p yeah right...

Oh by the way, I'm feeling alot better right now. Other than some stuffy nose and sneezing, I'm quite well. Except that I still don't have much strength most of the time.

And... today during lunch break, I came home and found THIS in my mailbox!

It's Yuki's wedding invitation, and I'm invited to sit in her ceremony too!! heh heh!! kinda funny that I don't know her finace though... Last time with Shinmiya-san's wedding, I didn't quite know him either, so it's kinda just like attending a party. But this is different, this is Yuki's wedding, one of my good friends. Hmm... well we'll talk about it when she comes to Kagoshima with Noriko.

Oni wa Soto~~

Tomorrow is the Setsubun day for Japan, and the tradition is that people will buy beans and then do the "mame-maki" to get rid of evil spirits. The point is to throw the beans at a Oni (usually if a family is doing it, then probably the father would don a oni mask and the kids would throw the beans on him, all the while yelling:"Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! --Evil be gone! Good Fortune stays in!)" kinda thing. And also there's that part where you would have to eat the same number of beans as your age. Yesterday I got asked by a kid how many I will be eating... :p well, those beans are not my kind of food, so eating whole 25 of them isn't much fun.

Anyways, because of the Setsubun, the daycare centre I went to today did this little ball-throwing game at Oni. I just watched while they did it...(honestly, the teacher didn't even offer me if I wanted to make a ball and throw myself... I don't know... just out of politeness, maybe?) It was kinda cute though, the kids were trying so hard to get the ball into the Oni's mouth. They could do this for like hours and hours and not get tired of it. After watching for about 10 min, I was ready to walk away, away from the sun...

Well, I'm a little better now, but still kinda tired most of the time. Took the afternoon off and did some work at home before I slept the rest of afternoon away. Got up around 6pm, and made myself some nice rice porridge. Finally, I could TASTE!!

Now off to bed again.

Went to Hospital

Gee, I will definitely remember that most of the hospitals in town close or have wednesday afternoon off... Took the afternoon off and left around 2:30pm I went to the big Osumi Kanoya Hospital and got told that they will start seeing patients from 5pm. I decided to take taxi (one of the taxi company was just around the corner) to this other clinic that Minocchi suggested... the taxi driver informed me that it's close on Wed...

Just when I thought maybe I could go home and sleep this off, the taxi driver asked me if I want to go see if this other small clinic is open.. and it was! yay! The clinic is kinda small but really like a family doctor kinda clinic so no long waiting time. The receptionist was sooo nice! She came out to the waiting room sofa and sat with me. She asked me about my symptoms and wrote them down on the sheet... Thank goodness... I was so tired, and really hate writing down symptoms when in big hospitals...

The doctor was really nice and kinda funny... he kept trying to speak English to me, when I was speaking Japanese to him.. I think he probably wanted to practice his English.. heh, but then I commented that he can speak a little English and maybe I can recommend other ALTs to his place, he then said that he is not that good but the Takao Sensei who's there on Tuesday and Friday afternoon is very good. Takao Sensei can even speak French, apparently! wow....

Well, I got about 4 different kinds of meds and went home to count my meds... so many kinds and all have to be taken differently, time before food (I was told 30 min before food... duh, as if I'll be able to eat exactly 30 min after taking the med...); after food; only after breakfast and supper... geez..

Hmmm... we'll see how it goes...

And thus it begins

Okay, now I'm not so happy... very sick right now... I can't eat anything too salty, greasy, spicy, sweet... well basically, anything but the okayu rice porridge. In the beginning I thought it was not so much a big deal, just a cold... boy was I wrong... :(

Well, after this entry, I plan on just sleeping the night away...

But before that, on a lighter note.

Saw "Pride & Prejudice" the other day, and I'm glad to say that I wasn't disappointed. At first I had some problems with Keira Knightley being Lizzy, but then after 10 minutes in, I started warming up to her. Oh and the new Mr. Darcy is quite nice too :)

The new film version's cinematography is quite breathtaking, and I gotta say it's a very beautiful film (albeit a bit too hollywood at times).

okay, now that I've done praising the film.. gotta go sleep off this stupid cold...

Update in the links!

I just added the banner and link of arrested development in the "link" section.

gotta save that show!! SAVE OUR BLUTHS!

Everybody go watch Arrested Development! (oh wait.. there's no more episode?)

I can't believe it.. can you believe it?!

Thanks to all who sympathized with me about the makeup situation, that had been resolved. I had been gradually wearing less and less makeup, that now I barely put on any and nobody ever noticed anymore (or just gave up on mentioning...)

Other than that, my new office people ROCK! the Kacho is cool, and he's like a dad. Really funny though cuz I can only understand half of what he's saying (he can only speak Kagoshima ben), but he's hilarious. heh~~ And my kakari cho is really nice too! heh~~ The other day I went to a small nomikai with them and my new sup Minocchi (who is not so unfamiliar..), and I got to know them a bit better too. My kakaricho actually (after my kacho left) said that our kacho is probably one of the best boss that he has ever worked with. I gotta tell you, in my previous ka, there was no praising bosses... only making fun of them... This is a nice change.

Work had be just hectic... with the shinenkais and all. I think I had about 6 of them, all with different people. And, I'm afraid that there will be more to come... but probably not called shinenkai anymore. And because of that, and the over-scheduling of school visits and daycare visits. I think I got too exhausted, and got some germs from the kids... I got horribly sick yesterday. I was so sick that I couldn't even stand up. As soon as I try to sit straight, I felt the walls were spinning. I had to call in sick and re-schedule another whole day of school visit and evening eikaiwa.

Today I finally felt better and got to work, and it was only alright. I still felt really queasy in stomach... I had stomach flu... yeah, the flu that kids or babies get all the time, but not so much in adults... :p

Let's hope that I'll be better by tomorrow.. whew~

First day at work in 2006

And I got a not-so-subtle hint that I should probably wear makeup to work... I never thought it's necessary but then because of the merge and the change of new office.. the new ladies in the office suddenly kept looking at my face... as if trying to find out whether I put on makeup this morning or not... maybe tomorrow I'll put on some lipstick and eye makeup... sigh... I really don't know what the big deal it is...

Anyways... other than that it was fine... if you don't count the times that I tried to get my old work computer to connect to the LAN... couldn't use internet, thus couldn't do anything. I couldn't even access my old files because I put them into the network folder and deleted everything from my 2GB harddrive (which the actual space that I could use was like 700 MB...)

But today, we had our shinenkai, and the funniest thing.. our kacho has been expecting his first grandson since the expected due date Dec 24th... and today, during the enkai, a phone call to his wife's phone (yes, his wife came too hee hee) that the baby is born. It was kinda weird... this new 課 (division) ... it's like everybody knows everybody else's business... but in a nice way.

OOOh... thought I would end this entry in a kinda funny note... the other day I went to Daiwa and guess who came!! Anpan Man!!! heh heh~ There were soooo many people that it was just insane... but in a cute way :) lots and lots of kids

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you're all enjoying a great holiday!!

Since it's the new year and now that I'm in Japan... Might as well do what they do. I went to the Terukuni Shrine to do Hatsumoude to pray for the new year... (and man oh man, soooo many people! I lined up in front of the shrine for like half an hour just to get to the front and pray for like 30 seconds). I got myself a omikuji and I only got shokichi 小吉 which is like small fortune... basically I'll have some difficulties this year but then If I try hard enough (がんばる） then I'll be able to pull it through. Geez, this is like the 3rd time I've had the similar kuji... maybe they're in fact all the same.. then why do I keep paying money to get them..??

Anyways... after the hatsumoude, I went to Amu for some shopping (half because tenmonkan was not open for new year's day... :p), and look what I found!!! A pair of boots that I actually liked! and the last pair too! I'm sooo happy and after I bought them, I was already mentally planning the outfit to go with them... unfortunately I won't be able to wear them for work, but I guess perhaps I'll just wear them whenever... like when I go shopping at the Daiwa supermarket... :p