My Birthday, Recontracting

So my birthday was a little over a week ago.  I turned 29.  It's crazy to think about how I decided I was going to try for the JET when I was, what... 27?  And I'll be done with the program when I'm half past 30.  It was a hard decision actually but I decided to stick around a 3rd year so I can study for the JLPT (Japanese Language and Proficiency Test) Level 2.  I have a year and a half to do it.  I think I can!

There is this girl at Niitsuki who I teach and she is the sweetest girl ever.  She is the only student who remembered my birthday and made this card for me.  I met her when I she was a 1st year, and now that I've decided to stay for a 3rd year I'll watch her graduate in a little over a year.  Sometimes the students do the coolest things.  I'm glad I decided to stay for this.

On the other side of things, there's a bar that's a 30 second walk from my place (that's right, 30 seconds!).  Stray Sheep.  It has an awesome ambiance and can't complain with the travel time to it.  I went there on my birthday with Kevin and Frisa, and the owner, Toro-san, told me to come back again Saturday for a b-day party there.  We did, and he bought me a cake.  Those things cost around $25-$30!  I love that bar.  I'll miss it when I finally leave.


So the final year and a half of my stay in Japan is on!  Soon I need to start planning things for the entire rest of my time here.  Budgeting out the money I want when I go back home (the yen is getting weaker... NO!), where I want to go for vacation, and how I'm going to study for the JLPT Level 2.

I just found out my friend Diana, who I "met" back in middle school, is now engaged.  Time has passed so quickly, it makes me a little sad.  It's also not like I have anything going on in that department either haha...

In other random news, the other day, while eating lunch with my 4th graders, I looked up just in time to see a kid vomit his tasty school lunch back onto his tray.  I wasn't hungry after that.

誕生日【たんじょうび】 (tan/jou/bi) birthday

New Year's, Volunteering

We had a good new year!  We spent it at Stray Sheep drinking and playing N64.  Man that N64 brings back some memories.  I remember playing Smash Bros. at Ike's back when he still lived at his parents, and playing Mario Golf when we used to have sleep overs at my house all the time.  Seems like yesterday but I know already it was many years ago.  Time sure flies.  I'm sure it won't be all that long before I'm talking about this entire trip to Japan as if it were in the past.

The weekend after I went to volunteer for Kesennuma.  It was an awesome experience.  The whole organizational side of it wasn't put together so well, and we ended up not doing a whole lot of work, but that's ok.  I went, I did.  That's what matters.  Seeing how much we got done that day vs how much there is left to do, and I can see that cleaning up Kesennuma will take the better part of many, many years.  We went to Iwaisaki, a famous place in Kesennuma with a blowhole thing near the ocean.  We cleaned it for a while and then met up with some of the other volunteers afterwards for dinner and drinks.  Met some awesome people and had a really good time.  Definitely planning to go again!

I feel like I've already made a decision on staying another year or not.  The thing is to see how people on the other side react to it.  It's not an easy decision by any means.  I'm still thinking about it actually.  Why do I have to be on the verge of 29 right now??

光陰矢のごとし【こういんやのごとし】 (kouinya/no/gotoshi)(idiom) time flies