A Basket Full of Wishes

Today, my girl students asked if I could teach them some Japanese instead of stale old English, so I ended up giving an impromptu lesson on very basic Japanese. Doing it, I realized intensely that I really, really, really love teaching JSL. I don't care for ESL very much, although I'll do it, but since I've been a native English speaker all my life, I don't actually understand the structure and logic of the language as much as I should -- also, it's just not particularly interesting to me. Japanese, however... my God, I love the language, I love how it is structured, I love how it sounds, I really love everything about it. I love how it makes my brain work. And teaching it, even for a really brief time, was more fun than almost anything else I'd done since I came here. I know I'm here to teach ESL, so I'll continue to teach ESL, but it was a nice little eye-opener.

Maybe I chose the right path after all.

I really think, with my particular temperament, teaching is one of the few things I could actually consider a calling. I always wanted to be a writer, but writing is such a solitary practice; I used to be a very solitary person, but that's changed a lot in recent years, and now I find myself constantly craving company. I love to learn, and, when I love the subject, I love to share what I've learned, or discuss ideas I've gotten from my learning.

I can't believe I have a five year plan now. I never used to be this sort of person. (There is, admittedly, something very comforting about it, however.)

My 23 DAY PLAN, however, includes:
- finish reading freaken Wizard and Glass, my Lord, this book never ends!
- start reading Wolves of the Calla
- ...finally, finally, finally finish Final Fantasy 3/6 for the SNES, my Lord, I hope my emulator doesn't screw me over THIS time. Every time I've ever gotten close to the end of the game, both on my SNES and on my PC emulators, the game always glitches! I will never get to see the half hour long ending.
- watch some of the stuff I've downloaded, including an embarrassing amount of movies everyone else in the entire world has already seen a thousand times but I've never seen once (like, uh, Shrek. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I suck.)
- keep up with watching Canadian Idol? Thanks, Internet!

I've been losing a really stupid amount of weight here. I think it has more to do with actually spending a lot of time outside than what I've been eating, since I've been eating a lot of fried crap here (noodles and dumplings are the only things I can successfully identify and ask for here, so there you go!) I don't really care, but it's a little frustrating because now all my pants are starting to fall off of my waist. I wish I'd thought to bring a belt. You can't really tell by looking at me, but it's a little annoying to be losing a size when you're still ten sizes larger than any stores carry in the area. I'm sure PIZZA AND MEATBALL SUBS will solve this problem right away once I return to America, mmmm.

Pizza, meatball subs, and A THOUSAND TUBS OF BEN AND JERRY.

I hope you're all writing this down!