Tuesday, July 3

I was pretty sure this would happen, but now that I have started teaching time is really flying by. My second graders keep me hopping at all times. Phew. I learned a new Japanese/Okinawan word: "Natsubate." It means the fatigue that comes from summer heat and humidity. I claim to have that, but I am pretty sure my fatigue is coming from 21 active 7 - 8 year olds. We are really having a VERY hard time following directions and thinking independently. However, I am stilly trying to learn what I can expect from them. I am not sure how much is natsubate for them vs. English language barrier. A lot is probably that English barrier. It is hard to follow directions, no matter how simple they may be, if you don't understand English.

My roommate has been sick for quite a while. She got a cold about 3 weeks ago and it continues to hang on. I have selfishly been praying that I wouldn't get sick too. I have felt great until today. I have a very sore throat today, but I am hoping that if I load up on vitamin C or something like that I will conquer it. Maybe I will take a little nap this afternoon too.

With school going on, I don't have any fun little adventures to share with you. Oh, well, maybe some of you will relate with this. I tried to ship home a couple of boxes yesterday. I wanted the curriculum that I had written before AND I bought some little trinkets for my students and friends back in America. I thought it would be a fast project to get that together and mail out. HA! I forgot about the Japanese system for anything. At 4:45 last night, 4 hours into the process, my boxes were finally in the mail. However, I had made several trips to the post office in the meantime, called my credit card company to try to get the card working AGAIN, exchanged money some other way . . . . The post office wasn't actually the problem, the money was. Oh well. My boxes are on their way and I can relax some now.

We don't have school tomorrow for the 4th of July. A lot of the missionaries are going up North to a resort, "Kanucha Bay." I used to work for Okinawa Times teaching english years ago. A perk of that was that I could reserve their cabin for only 2,000 yen a night. Someone we know, still has those connections, so we get a $750 room for 2,000 yen -- that is less than $18.00. Split that 5 ways and it is a very inexpensive yet luxurious outing! The weather is great, so I look forward to my time in the pool! We are leaving today at 3:30, when we are all done with school.