Nothing Better Than A Morning Coffee

I am not gonna lie, we are really bad at blogging, but the best news is that we have all FINALLY been granted with the powers that are 1999 HP laptops!!! Now that we are almost hooked up with Y2K technology, we can blog on this Internet that takes 12 minutes to load! Hooray! Blogging is better when you know are getting paid whilst doing it.

So August marks the end of the JET year and it is always quite an emotional time for us. Everyone comes and leaves and I always find myself making a New Years Resolution of sorts for school and life in general. This next year will be my third and last year in Japan. What makes my life apart from America so challenging is the complete separation that has ensued. I think perhaps I am freak anomaly of the Internet World and the Generation NOW, but I don't Skype or call my family or friends, nor do they me, and we just go on the basis of "the rarer the contact, the more special" or something twisted like that. But what will make my release back into American life more challenging is that I have changed in so many ways that my loved ones don't know yet. Language and culture and things that are essentially American: I never REALLY possessed them like other Americans, but now I am so turned around that I am quite convinced coming back to America will be the most difficult part about JET. And that is scary.

In any case, we have been going to pre-school every day this week and doing an hour English lesson with 3-5 year old kids. It's been a new part of our summer program and besides it being fun and hyper and HOT, it's honestly quite tiring. The kids are adorable and surprisingly have a great level of English but as I perfect napping with my eyes open for 30 minutes before we leave... I can't help but think THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN A MORNING COFFEE. And I never thought I'd be the type to say that. Sometimes, I feel old and wrinkly.

In Matsubaby news, Erin just informed me that she used to play the flute and practice on waterbottles, thanks to Marilyn, and I found that to be an AMAZING fact that I didn't know about Erin yet. I say that because once when I was 11, I was messing around trying to play my cousin's flute and I couldn't get a single sound to come out of that thing for like 2 years. So actually, Erin having been an ex-flute player is pretty impressive.

Jessica is back at work after a long and sad absence due to her back. It's great to see her up and moving again and we hope that this next year will be painfree. We are all here at the Board of Education using our nifty old school laptops and wondering, what did we do before Internet?

In my world, my best friend since the plane ride over from San Francisco is leaving. Matt and I have done everything together from the day we set foot in Kumamoto and losing him will be a huge shift in my Japan experience. Despite feeling like everything as I know it will change, I am going to look ahead and focus on my goals. Erin and I have been researching graduate schools and I am going to focus less on my Japanese and more on those horrible standardized tests that supposedly measure my ability to succeed. Since I have thus decided to kick the LSAT's ASS, I am trying to figure out if I really want to sell my soul for $120,000 worth of school loans and if I reallllly want to go to law school. The depressing part of this new goal oriented lifestyle is that I can't figure most of this important stuff out until I return to America. But in the meantime, I am going to bring down the Iron Curtain. Yes, I said Iron Curtain.

So, now that we all have Internet at work we will probably start blogging more. I even heard through the whispers of the wind that Jessica McGrath might post for the first time!!! Also, we desperately need to show you some more photos of our recent adventures.

Oh and since we are well-known celebrities in our town, our calligraphy will be on exhibit in the Shiranuhi Art Museum, alongside Japanese shodo shihans -Japanese calligraphy masters. Exciting! Pictures from the exhibit to follow.

Off to preschool, then elementary school. Busy, busy, busy.

Shannon