Its been a good week or so : ) I wish that i would have more time to prepare for teaching as i'm in semi panic mode and i start teaching on thursday propperly and its a very very busy day. You have normal lessions which i'm fine about but you have 'seika' classes sometimes in the morning where youre basically singing and dancing infront of the kids -_-;;; . . . It'll be fine but there is so much stuff you have to remember and i dont really know much for it yet. but i guess thats half the challenge!I went out on thursday and friday night which i really liked. Got the last train home but some people i was out with missed it and had to comeback at five in themorning as trains stop here at about 11 - 12pm in the evening. So its either you either have to call it a night early or get home at 5 in the morning. There are no other ways! But there is a bar i really liked on friday and i think i'll go there a lot. Its in an area which is sort of a camden area - quite young and its 1000 yen (about £8) for all you can drink for two hours i think. I also went to a mock english pub last night which was really weird. ('how do you ask for vodka and coke *cries*)

I've been into kindergarten on thursday and friday and i had a really great time. It was only playing with the kids who are so sweet. A few

criers but oh well ^_^ Its been good to meet the kids who i'm teaching and they seem to not be too scared of me ^^;;;;; One little boy came back into the classroom after the lesson and gave me a little disney cracker thing which i was really touched about.

I'm easy to please. Give me food basically.

Oh! and i want to buy so many clothes!!!! I propperly went around some shops today and there is SO MUCH STUFF I WANT. NO! I NEED!!!!! Its quite floaty and girly and lacks the edge that british clothes has (IMO) but its so nice. Come the colder months i'll look like some forest girl as thats what it all looks like (that ive seen) Sorta forest sweedish forest woodcutter child (sorta). The style is called 'Mori girl' (forest girl) and i think its really popular here/

And so it begins...

Hello! I guess this 'blog' is going to properly start here. I'll try to limit ramblings and i;ll probberly only post when i have nothing to do...like now ^_^

Anyway the flight was okay but i was very happy to land. The hotel i'm staying in until i move into my apartment is nice and really big! It has a train station under it and a shopping centre. Its really hot and humid so i think i'm going to die in my work clothes!

Todays my second full day and i might go with the other teachers to the beach which i'm looking forwad to. Its a pretty lazy morning and i had a post breakfast nap to boot ^_^ The cleaner woke me up so i decided to go and have a little look around. I looked in the shopping centre in the hotel but i went yesterday so i was just wandering around Muji for ages looking at the scetch books. But i wandered a bit further to another shopping centre that i can see from my hotel room called Istan (sp) which is mainly clothes and an art gallery at the top which i had a look at. I waned to go and look at the make up but i can't handle the people who work there i the UK so didnt like my chances when i don't know what they are saying ^^'''' One day i'll learn!

Tomorrow is a trainng day then ive got a few days observing in the Kindergartens which i'm looking forward to. yeah.


And thats it. I'm gonna go sleep again and watch some tv. All there is on tv that ive seen is people eating pretty looking food. I'm okay with that though.

The A TEAM

Ps. I dont know what this post looks funny - i dont know how to do any of this!!!!

and continue...

I went to go and see 'The A Team' today which I actually genuinely loved. Its directed by Joe Carahan who directed 'Smokin Aces' which is one of the films that I have had my little obsessions about, but didn't know he directed it until I saw his name in the credits. At least 'The A Team' had a plot (well sort of...) but it actually follows the same reasons why I like both the films.

1) Tons of actions

2)Made me laugh

3)Brightly coloured

4)Explosions

5) Good Looking guys

I want to go and watch it again already! : D

: D

Also Arashi had a new album out a few weeks ago and it's really good. I havent really heard any of their others but its pretty good. But i'm gonna say that anyway...

This is a song i really like called 'Mada Ue o' which means....um.... 'not yet above' or something like that ...

Tom Waits

I've really liked Tom Waits for a while now but only though his film roles. I hadn't even heard his music really. I had one song on my ipod, 'Goin out west' and thats only because it was in Fight Club and i only discovered this about 4 days ago. I was given two of his albums by chaney about a year and half ago but never really got around to listening to him. I think i was a bit ' his voice is weird' about it and then my harddrive died which the albums were on, so thats that story. Anyway, on holiday i saw a book 'the life of Tom Waits' and thought i read it because 1) It wasn't very thick 2) I wanted to know about him. It was quite good as it was really just about his music which i suppose is the prime intent on a book about a musician. He seemed hardworking, funny, insanely talented and a pretty decent guy. One quote from him in the book is,

'You gotta keep Busy. After all no dogs ever pissed on a moving car'

or allong those lines. I think thats pretty good advice and one that i'll try to live by in the coming months. I asked mum and dad if he was good and i got a yes from mum and a yes but... from dad. Anyway it was this point that i discovered 'Goin out west' on my ipod where i went past the 20 second mark that i would usally stop at and ACTUALLY LISTENED TO IT. And I was 'holy crap this is actually good!'.

I got home and downloaded the albums that the book went most on about which are Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Frank's Wild Years and again I was, 'dude, this is all really good!!!'. Only mabye one or two songs of those albums i'm not to keen on but thats a pretty good track record. I prefer the more raw, bluesy songs through those such as Gun Street Girl and Clap Hands which are both on the Rain Dog album. They remind me of songs that would be played in a dark dirty bar in deep deep alabama or something. But i think that was the intention, so, yeah.


Anyway, he's really good and i think that reading the book helped understand him. Like his influseces and what he went though. For example, in 'Small Change' its quite pessemistic )or so wiki tells me) because he started dinking heavily when he went on tour which really took his toll on him.

Anyway, i've downloaded 'Bone Machine' which i will propperly losten to tomorrow. I looked up his more critcally aclaimed albums as i dont want to download a crap album then hate him. His albums are quite cheap on hmv so i may actally pay for them. But might have to wait untill japan, but i quite want to buy them.


Anyway untill then heres a taster for poeple who might not know, whiich thinking about it, is probberly not that many!

This is 'Clap Hand' and as of this moment its the one that ive listened to the most. Keeping in mind i only dwnld these albums today!

'through it all, I'll clap clap clap

hands for this treasure

a million bad dreams

in my memories

I'll never return to them

instead, I'll

clap, clap , clap hands'