| Okay, I know I said 2 weeks or so between updates, but I've been really busy. So here's a month of stuff for your enjoyment. We'll start from this past week and move backwards.
November 25, 2004
Today I spent a lovely morning at the hospital. So on Tuesday the 23rd I played softball with the Fuji-jo teachers in a tournament between 8 different highschool staffs from around Gunma. It was a great time and I think I played pretty well. So we were in our last game and we were up in the end of a 20 run inning and I was on 3rd. It was a fly into short center and I though it would drop so I led off halfway to home plate (softball bases are really close together), but the centerfielder caught the ball and tried to throw me out at 3rd. Instead of getting out I got pegged in the side just under my ribs. I thought I'd be ok, but after a few days I noticed there was a little blood in my pee. Turns out I bruised my kidney and possibly cracked a rib. I'm ok now though and as a bonus I got to see my kidneys and liver on ultrasound. The moral of this story? There is none.
  
Thats me at bat on the left. And a Super Bruise on my right.
The nice thing is that there were a bunch of Fuji-jo students from the track and softball teams who were like our crew the entire morning. They fetched foul balls, were batboys (yea yea... batgirls), served gatorade, carried around all the gear, and cleaned up and groomed the field. It was great. I need to get a little elementary school kid to follow me around and be my pocket dictionary and helper. I'll call him Poketo Dikushun-chan and reward him for his hard work with oreos and peanutbutter.
November 22, 2004
Today was the prefectural speech contest. I had 4 students participate (one from each of my schools and another from Fujioka H.S.) and they all did very well. One girl, Ayaka Yamada, who was also in my group at summer camp, did very well and won 4th place in the original speech portion of the competition.
 
Left: Thats Ayaka giving her speech. Right: Ayaka is the girl on the left.
 That night the other JETs in Fujioka met at the Kobayashi's with the Yamaguchi's for another dinner party. The last one was October 16th and that time the Chinese friends of ours made a ton of chinese food. It was delicious, and the party was great and afterwards we went to karaoke till 3AM. This time it was the ALTs' turn to cook. We decided to do a bbq. I made hawaiian chicken, salsa, and ceasar salad dressing. Others made apple cobbler, Thai chicken and pork with peanut sauce, poke (a hawaiian friend Brant made this), potatos, macaroni salad, egg salad, different homemade kimchees, and "korean pizza." It was all very delicious and we all had a great time.
  
Left: Look at all that good food, and thats only half of it. Middle: Almost everyone. Right: Kyoko-sensei teaching me to loiter like a yakuza. (she also teaches us Japanese)
November 13, 2004
This was a random parade. I hear what I thought was a marching band and I look outside and there's a parade walkin past my apartment. They were playing Smap btw.
  
November 5, 2004
Today I went on a field trip with the Fuji-jo 1st years. We went to a little artisan village called Takuminosato where they do all kinds of old Japanese crafts. It was fun times, but I think it was kind of a pity trip because the 2nd years went to Okinawa.
  
These are from the bus ride over. They have Karaoke on the bus which keeps the kids busy. Many of the girls wear sweatsuits, and when I asked them why they said its cause its easier.
  
Here's me with some of the girls. They love taking pictures. The middle one is one of the artisans working on his lathe. He made some beautiful things.
 
Left: Me and one of the teachers. He's 26 and teaches math. Right: On the way home the bus stopped at an apple orchard and everyone got out and ate apples. They were delicious and huge.
October 28, 2004
Today I went on a trip to Tokyo Disneyland with ECC. ECC is a tutoring school that I and a few other JETs have become friends with the head teacher and her daughter. In fact we sometimes play tennis with the daughter, Mayu. Its kinda funny cause she's 12 or 13 or something and she just beats the crap outta us 23-24 yr olds. Anyway, the JETs in my area were invited to go to Tokyo Disneyland with the school. They even payed for our bus ride, park ticket, and gave us food money. So I thought that I'd have to lead a group of kids around the park all day which had the potential to be a total nightmare. Me, whose Japanese consists of: "where's the bathroom?" "how much does this cost?" and "shut the hell up you stupid airhead," leading around a group of elementary school kids who have about the equivalent english skills. I just knew I was gonna lose some kids that day. But it turned out that all we had to do was play a game on the bus ride down (after sleeping half the bus ride), and then play bingo on the bus ride back home. We even got to go off on our own all day. Anyway, I was pleasantly suprised, it was great fun, and here's some pics to describe the day.
 
  
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