So I’ve been pretty busy lately.

Work has been pretty fun. I’m getting it down. I have had to submit lesson plans to my boss since I started. He told me today that after next week, I won’t have to do that anymore. My orientation is scheduled for September 11. It’s strange that they don’t have it before we start, but I guess they want us to get into our groove before they start critiquing us.

The last couple weekends have been just as busy. Two weekends ago was the fireworks festival in Sukakawa. It was beautiful. It wasn’t much like the fireworks display in Tulsa on Independence Day. This lasted much longer. It was actually a fireworks competition. It was beautiful, and it was very crowded. They made a whole festival out of it.

That Sunday, we went to Lake Inawashiro. It was just beautiful. We went at around 10:00am. I didn’t think the sun was too bad, so I didn’t wear any sunscreen for the first half hour. BIG MISTAKE!!! I got burned pretty bad. We ended up staying until around 5:00pm. I should have known better.

Then, this last weekend, we had a going away party for the person that I am replacing. There was eating, drinking, and karaoke. It was hilarious. She got trashed, so my boss and I had to carry her back home. I’m sure she felt great when she woke up the next morning and realized that she had to get to Tokyo.

We went to Lake Inawashiro again on Sunday. This time I was much smarter. First of all, we went a little later. The morning sun can be deceiving, so we left at around 11:30. We stayed until 5:00, but I didn’t forget to wear sunscreen before getting into the water. I still got a little burned, but it wasn’t nearly as bad this time.

I have been studying Japanese every chance I get. I am currently learning the Katakana alphabet. It is identical to hiragana as far as sounds are concerned, but it is only used for foreign words. In Japan, the way the differentiate foreign words is through the use of the katakana alphabet. They don’t try to translate the words either, so a Big Mac in the US, is still a Big Mac in Japan. It’s just written in katakana. Of course, there are some sounds that aren’t used in the Japanese alphabets (for instance, R is used in place of L because they don’t use either sound the same way we do), so some words sound a bit different, but once you know what to look for, it starts to get easy.

I think I’m getting the hang of the train system. It was extremely confusing at first, but after using it for a month, I think I can safely navigate it without many problems.

Hope everyone in Tulsa is enjoying themselves.