Quote of the day

From a teacher in training at my school right now:

“Tony I have been with many ALTs before, but you are the most powerful.”

Truly, words to live by.

Guess who's back.

To be sung in a Backstreet Boys style:

Everybody......yeah---ah.

Rock your body......Yeah----ah.

Everybody, rock your body right.....Atkins is back ALRIGHT!


That’s right baby. Back on the Atkins horse, and already down a cool 9 lbs after a couple of weeks of meat. Keep in mind that I always fill my pockets with rocks and wear big boots and a jacket for the first weigh in, but even still I’m very happy with the hard earned weight-loss. All week it was like people were coming out of the woodwork to offer me carb-loaded foods, but I was good, and I didn’t cheat once, even when presented with a chocolate chip muffin and some deliciuos looking cream cheese cake* in a five minute period. I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. Current weight = 84 kgs – 185 lbs. If I can get below 180, I’ll be happy. I think I’ll be able to do it before the ides of June.


Caught Star Wars over the weekend. I loved it. I don’t like to use the term “orgasmic” to describe many things…so I won’t use it here. But if I were a fan of the term, I would use it to describe how good the second half of the movie was. Since I’m not a fan of the term, I’ll go with my standard all-caps “AWESOME”.


I’ve been reading about/playing a lot of poker recently. This may scare some of my readers. I’m actually not too bad and am really seeing some profits in my recent play. (I believe anyone can get lucky and win money, but I have been slowly, and steadily building my bankroll.) Right now I’m hovering around $400, but applying some of the stuff I learned in the latest book I’ve read, I really felt my game was way better this past weekend than at any other point. It’s nice when you try new things and they work right away.



* (Should this read cream cheescake? Or maybe creamcheese cake? I feeling very anxious about my final decision.)

Lots to talk about...

So, this past weekend I participated in one of Sendai's largest parades. A bunch of teachers and I pulled the mayor's float...it was pretty sweet, and I thought I was doing a good job until one of the supervisors (a cute girl) told me that I was "weak" in Japanese.

Here's a pic from a previous year...sorry I don't have any pics of me in my cute brown outfit.





Lots of people dancing and taiko drums playing...it was a fun day.



In other news I got to play a hero at school this week. There is an insane mother of a former student who comes in periodically to yell at the teachers - she seriously has a screw loose and I feel awful for her daughter. The teachers just sit and take it as she comes into the staff room and curses them out. Well, on this fateful day I walked into the staffroom and she was using the phone which is beside my desk. I sat down and a few minutes later a couple of students came in and said hello. I was joking with them and got them a little wound up, so they were pretty noisy considering they were in the staff room, let alone with the crazy woman on the phone. When she got off, I apologized for the noise (in Japanese), and she said, "Come over, and let's talk." (in English). I went over and we talked for a minute or 2, about nothing, and then she left. She didn't even really yell at anyone...all of the teachers were saying, "Thank you" and "gokorosam" for the rest of the day. BOOYAH. My kind of place, lots of credit for minimal effort.

Somebody wipe the drool off my face....

A real post coming soon. Honestly.

I don't like cats.

They don't like me.

I'm a dork.

If you like this, you probably are too.

(I am loving these one sentence posts!)

I'm not sure why....

This cracked me up:

An uncomfortable moment at 7/11

So I was in 7/11 tonight paying bills, and had quite a moment with one of their emplyees. I was fiddling with my wallet to get change, and the sleeves of my hoodie were in the way. I straightened my arm to free my hand, and in straightening my arm, I managed to reach across the counter and run my fingers through his hair. HOLY CRAP! I don't think I will be going to 7/11 anytime soon. I couldn't really explain myself, I just apologized and got the heck out of there.

AWKWARD!


EDIT:

Apparently there is some confusion (B2K) about how this happened....luckily I was able to secure a picture from the 7/11 security camera.

Hope this explains it...

My house stinks...

Today I missed my fourth garbage day in a row. All is not well at #205 Mezon Nakanosakae. I'm going to get proactive about my problem. (Or hold my nose until Thrusday.)

A little bit about my job

From the “Things that may only be amusing to Tony” file:

Today in class, the students had to practice making sentences into questions, the one that amused me was this:

Ken’s pen is on the desk.

So, in question form:

Is Ken’s pen on the desk?

The problem was at least half a dozen students wrote this:

Is Ken’s pen is on the desk.

The problem is that some of the students didn’t put a space between the third and fourth word of the sentence.

Hilarity ensued.