Somewhat unusually I found myself working in Yonezawa on a Friday a couple of weeks ago. One of the teachers had taken the week off from work so I got the assignment to cover his lessons. The last class of the day was an adult class made u…

The way things turned out I hadn't taught my Friday evening class in three weeks. Though no students showed up for class last week. One of the students was unable to attend because she had to attend to her mother who had broken her foot an…

Yes, I still do watch anime. Recently I've started catching up on old series buried in my pile of "Shows to watch" and "Things to resume watching". Of course, I've found a few entries on those lists which I've given a second thought to and…

After a weekend of no precipitation we got some Tuesday with a bit of wintertime bite courtesy of Mother Nature. Actually, it started coming down while I was Dr. Eyes to pick up my new glasses. What came down did so in a bit of a hurry. In…

A couple of Mondays ago I went to the local Doctor Eyes shop to order a new pair of glasses. I expressed interest in contact lenses and was told they don't sell them. Okay.... Carrying over to last night; I laid down after driving home, (g…

Mostly from shovelling snow. Since I'm not in Tendo on weekends, typically I trudge over to the rented parking spot I use on Tuesdays, snow shovel in hand, to reclaim the spot from whatever snow fell over the weekend. Yesterday there was j…

My office manager sent me a message about my lesson schedule for tomorrow. I asked for one change and he was okay with that. Then he sent a message saying "Have a good Sunday". Uh, buddy, it's Monday today. It's also "Seijin no Hi", Coming…

Early on Thursday afternoon my co-worker wasn't looking too hot. She actually looked fairly run down. At one point she dug up the thermometer we have stashed in the office and took her temperature. It was 38C. So, she got our office manage…

I was advised today that the Ou line will be shut down between Yamagata and Shinjou tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The reason for this being a weather forecast calling for a blizzard to hit Yamagata prefecture on its Sea of Japan fac…

On Sunday afternoon I spotted a delivery notice in my mailslot. I pulled it out, glanced at it quickly, and noted that it was for a package from overseas. Using the QR code on the slip, I noticed that there were delivery times available th…

Back in November I met up with a bunch of my former students for a "nomikai" (drinking party, eh) and at one point the topic of skiing came up. Someone suggested going to Zao and there was interest around the table in that. There was brief…

This year's New Year's Eve was a very quiet affair. I had gone out the day before for an afternoon of bowling and then a meal. With nothing lined up on the calendar, I spent the day lounging about, munching on snacks, and watching some ani…

I believe I wrote about my co-worker's inability to think of a miracle from the Bible when he was challenged by a student. In exasperation he blurted out something about "Shooting laser beams from the eyes". That one certainly didn't fill …