:Japan )

This week I haven’t had a single class to teach. I believe both my junior high schools are on their annual field trips. I know at least one of them went to Tokyo among many other cool things. So that has left me with a lot of deskwork days and with the weekend being the 19th Annual Largest in Japan Salmon Festival there has been a bit of helping with the prepatory work for said event, not to mention getting the house ready to potential host many JETs. (Sadly the housework hasn’t gotten enough attention) Today I got to go to the Salmon Catching area which has already been populated with the salmon. The poor little suckers. There were quite a lot of salmon just dropping dead from the exhaustion of trying to escape. I don’t know why they didn’t wait until Friday evening or real early Saturday morning to populate the pond. If the salmon is gonna die I rather it die in a way that can be eaten (and they all are going to die come weekend’s end)

Though I was so looking forward to being able to catch a salmon with my hands, I’ve been tapped for staff duty. So I’ll be working on a stage translating all the games and raffles so the American’s from Misawa Airbase can understand where to put their damn bingo chips. But I’m not bitter. No, I’m sure I’m gonna have a great time either way, especially since it looks like Saturday has a nice display of fireworks scheduled. Looking forward to the weekend…

Firefox has finally hit 1.0! Since their site is being hammered right now it is highly recommended you use your favorite bittorrent client to grab it. Here is the windows English version and the Japanese version.

If you aren’t using Firefox as your main web browser yet… well you either love pop-ups, spyware, and virii or hopefully you just haven’t been informed. Surely it’s not because you’re too lazy to download it >:| It is after all available for windows, mac, and linux.

I’ve been reading some headlines that says an earthquake hitting north Japan….rest assured, I’m much further North than what the news is reporting. However, this is the same area that was hit with a 6 point something earthquake toward the end of October.

Well this weekend started out semi planned but had a nice random element inserted which got things fired up even better. At our last little rollerblading outing Lorraine had mentioned she was planning to go to Lake Towada for some sightseeing and general weather enjoyment. If the weather was bad the plan was to go to Hachinohe for some christmas tree shopping. Sounded like a plan so Ewen and I decided to go along. However these plans started to unravel when all three of us decided to sleep in until 11, 11:30ish. The weather had been a little dismal before the weekend started so the traveling started out with Hachinohe in mind, by the time the carpool had arrived at my house it was decided the weather was good enough for a Towadako run…all the way back in the direction of Lorraine’s house. Doh! Evironmentalist awards all around please.
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Just woke up to an IM from Mom saying Tabbo died. Luckily it looks like she’s the first cat we’ve owned that has died of old age without having to be put to sleep. She was 15 years young.

Well the day started with my mood in the pits but things got progressively better as the day went on. Today I had 2 periods of 60 - 70 elementary school students. First period with 1 - 3 grade and second with 4-6th grade. Had a decent time going over the alphabet but it looks like they already knew it all so that could have been boring for them. Then we had the classics B-I-N-G-O and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The kids generally started to get a little more excited finally when the HSKT song started picking up speed. I was happy to see that. After all that I still had 5 minutes to kill. I had to think up something quick and Old McDonald was not appealing so I sprung some Hokey Pokey on the little crazies. I didn’t have a song for it so I had to do the best I could with my vocals. But they really did enjoy that particular bit. Even the 6th graders who were trying to be too cool for everything.

Afterwards I did speed skating club which was mainly a physical exercise day…no skating. Very similar to the physical training for karate I used to do. But it was still a little of a let down not to get to skate some seeing how as a beginner I need all the help I can get. Luckily Ewen, Lorraine, and I began our first night of semi regular late night parking lot skating. Well I guess it wasn’t the first night as Ewen and I had already began last week but it’s good to get more people to join…especially if they are better than us and can give tips. Plus it’s always fun to skate around in these lots where couples have gone for a little neckin action and skate around their cars like sharks looking for blood.

We topped all our hard work and effort off with none other than some Baskin Robbins Ice cream. Good Times.

Well spent the night of the 2nd and day of the 3rd at Reed’s house. Many Americans and non-Americans gathered for what we hoped would be Bush’s grand ouster. The night began with me and Ewen getting lost several times on the way to Reed’s house and finally arriving at 23:00 or there about. In relative short fashion we transfered much of the JD to some water bottles and hit downtown Misawa bars to increase our banter and toxicity. A great time I have no idea what time we all finally made it back and hit the sack

The morning started with a royal hangover while watching the election coverage on ABC. The reception sucked but I was happy we got to see anything at all…as were most of the others there. Everyone’s spirits start out pretty jovial ..or as jovial as the hangovers would allow and slowy went down hill as we watch the Red creap across the map of the U.S. After all the lead up to this race I can’t believe that the young people (18-25) still only had like a 10% turn out.

I go to bed tonight with a loss of confidence in the collective American Intelligence and utter fear at what we will have to endure for the next four years. Who knows… I might do my damnest to stay out of the country….The only silver lining is what the UK people here are telling me: 4 more years of Bush will have a unification effect on Europe who then will hopefully get a backbone to stop the foreign policy lies coming out of Washington.

Now I pray more than ever that my cousin who just entered the Marines, and who I haven’t seen in maybe 4 years, will not have to see the sands of Iraq and that I will talk to him again.

Well it’s finally down to the last day. I hope everyone has plans to make it to the polls or has already done so. As for myself, I’ve received my ballot in the mail around October 1 and had it back in the mail shortly thereafter. My opinion of Bush has never been favorable and he has done nothing in the past four years to change that… in fact he’s only made it worse. From the lies about weapons of mass destruction, the idiocy of the secretary of defense (which Bush appointed and is thus responsible) claiming “we will be greeted as liberators,” to the blatant destruction of the Constitution by claiming we can hold people indefinitely because they are “enemy combatants.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, they make official memos that “change” the definition of torture so that it’s “okay.” That is just a short list of my complaints but they are abhorrable enough to remove anyone from elected office…(even though he wasn’t elected the first time grrr)

What in the last four years has been compassionate conservatism? What in the past four years has restored honor to the Presidency that supposedly was lost with Clinton? What in the past four years has restored, or even maintained, the honor of United States?

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