Hinomatsi

This week has been quite up and down. After a night ruined by too much gin and not enough dinner, Monday started off in misery - everything emotional seems to be heightened here, so the Booze Blues are monumentally miserable. In a way it`s good though, it means I can treat myself to all sorts of nice food and feel I `deserve` it so I have been eating my way to happiness for the rest of the week. Aki and I had roast beef sandwiches on Tuesday and ogled the handsome barman in the Suraj bar and on Wednesday Sean and I overate at Wara-Wara`s, a budget izakaya chain that does the best pizza and deep-fried squid I`ve ever tasted. Sean wasn`t so taken with the lemon steak, but that left more for great big, greedy me!

Wednesday night was also Ito`s birthday - he`s a Japanese salaryman with a penchant for the Eagles and more than enough gins. He helped get me over my depression by telling me I didn`t need to feel embarrassed about my behaviour on Saturday, I am a `great boozer`. That, and a phonecall to Jo, were surprisingly therapeutic.

All week I`ve been giving the kids tests, which basically involves handing out papers and coloured pencils and pressing play on a cassette player (Shane is not at the forefront of Japanese technology), which has given me plenty of time for attempting to revise Japanese. I can now request a room for two people with a Japanese bath. Useful, and quite roomy as it would only be for me.

I finally managed to get some pictures of Ayano, although she was shy because she`s just recovered from Chicken Pox and her face still has the scars to prove it. She`s so cute and we spent 30 minutes throwing a ball around pretending that I was teaching her `catch` and `throw`. She already knows everything, so I don`t have to teach her until next month, when she starts a new book, so it`s all play at the moment.

Wednesday, I had two cancellations, so got out of work at six - a wonderfully rare thing, and only taught around five minutes in the whole day. I had three lessons, one of which was Ayano`s, another was a 40 minute test followed by dodgeball and I had a chat with an old lady about the Olympics. Sometimes this job is a killer...

On Friday I did cover at a different school, more tests and very little teaching, although three eight-year-old boys made sure I earned my money. Last week, they were mildly naughty and one of them said `bugger` which endeared me to them, but this week they gave me a better insight into what the previous teacher had had to cope with. They were still relatively well-behaved and are very good at English, so finished their tests early. To fill in the time, I had them doing run and draw, but it quickly descended into bedlam and the board was covered with monkeys, boys and elephants with chinchins (penises) of all sizes.

Last night I went over to Pamela`s to pick up her rice cooker and say goodbye, we ended up getting drunk on fizzy wine and taking lots of awful pictures of ourselves (this one is the best one...). We had to take her rubbish to the convenience store, but on the way, Pamela dropped the sack at the top of the stairs and all her gomi bounced down in front of us. I couldn`t stand for laughing. I eventually left, insisting I could direct a taxi without help, rice cooker-less and making it home purely by chance. Shouting `near the byouin` didn`t really help much, but the driver got me there.

Unfortunately, I had Cafe Lamp this morning, which meant an early start, but Pamela had to get up and clean her flat, finish packing and get to Omiya train station by 7am so I can hardly complain. Cafe Lamp was actually less effort today than it has been the last couple of times, people are obviously opening up a bit more. I also chanced to have a real `wacky` student on my first table who led most of the discussions, including a short round of Bohemian Rhapsody, which he claimed not to know when we were discussing people`s favourite music. A very dubious man gave me some gifts, potentially in exchange for free English lessons, which I am loathe to give him. Perhaps I should return the guide book, scarf and mobile - although I am told this would be rude and he has apparently had them in his bag for a month, in case he should bump into me unexpectedly. I may have my first stalker.

I`ve been showed with lots of gifts this week. A student on my cover day brought in some cherry blossom sweets, but no one else wanted to eat them, so I was sent home with the box and an African necklace. She had just got back from Tanzinia and brought a sackful of the things as gifts for everyone. I was made to choose, but really, really didn`t want to have one so just opted for the one she had most of, then some poor, young student was advised to have the same one as the teacher so now two of us have these ungainly things. One of my old ladies made the hino dolls for Hinomatsi, the Girl`s Festival. I must take them down before March 3rd or I will never marry.