Au gust of wind...please

WARNING: Due to the long absence, this post is...as long as the absence.

Sayonara...mata ne:
1st - Ears left for Spain and Max left for an internship in Cambodia a few days earlier, both to return in a month and 3 months respectively, Tokyo without my two confidantes/tour-guides/translators/rock/sanity hubs will be interesting indeed.

Several good friends who began their Japan adventure with me left this month (most very reluctantly) having been on a one-year-only exchange programme... Good times, good people...and now several couches to crash on all over the world.

3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 12, 14th - Painstakingly spent dragging my either exhausted or hungover (or both!) arse to an otherwise awesome summer class. If only the 'off-days' were not filled with farewell parties and just random summer fiestas at the dorm...where the rest of the party DIDN'T have class the next day >< But the class itself turned out to be well worth it...giving me a taste of the 'article writing' blood yet again...reiterating...that I really need to get back into that.

And how about when...
Spent several days reminiscing life in the islands with another fellow islander (also due to leave at the end of the month) crashing on my spare futon. We even had a 'tea-break' one afternoon ...sitting on the floor of my cramped little dorm room, having tea (ofcourse!) and FMF breakfast crackers with lots of butter (alas, Hokkaido butter and not Rewa) and had many a laughs over how many times we got asked whether people in our country still wore grass-skirts. Yes, ignorance is bliss...but only for the ignorant.

SUMMER HOLIDAYS!!!!
It hath begun! Shorter than normal because of the summer classes but still quite long...one and a half months of bliss! I have a stack of books, a folder full of movies, places to visit, people to meet/email, naps to take, and an ever growing list of things to do...Yes, with this much excitement, I am afraid of spontaneously combusting each waking hour!

Toilet training
Well...in a way...yeah. Had a trial lesson today teaching business conversation in English to a bunch of guys from the toilet company TOTO...number one manufacturers of the coolest toilets in Japan and half way around the world. And I got the job! One lesson a week, pretty good pay and a bunch of delightful students, and even some eye candy in the form of a young gentleman with a sense of humour and 40 countries crossed off his backpacking list. Yes, this is strictly professional, but a girl can look!

WWOOFing...woohoo!
Membership got activated today and now looking through possible places to visit in Hokkaido...difficult when every option seems so inviting!! /happy dance! Can't wait to head off 1st week of September after signing for my monthly allowance. Whoever came up with the whole WWOOF system needs several grateful hugs from me.

Polishing my non-existent editing skills
Got a job editing a thesis paper for a Japanese girl for a small fee and quite liked getting back into the groove of things...which then led to me imposing my meager editing skills on proofreading the already perfect first few chapters of the novel of Joni. I am actually doing it as a favor to myself as I have random panic attacks from time to time when I (don't?) hear my diminishing vocabulary and realise that I might actually harm my English in the pursuit of this new language where advance is pronounced adbansu and journalism = jaanaarizumu.

ok, perhaps I shall save a bit for another post instead of putting both the reader and writer to sleep.

oh yeah, the au gust of wind is dedicated to the hot Japanese concrete summer...if it weren't for the parks my brains would be splattered on some pavement somewhere. Speaking of which, results just in...17,076 people killed themselves in Japan in the first half of this year..an average of 100 people a day...1 every 15 minutes, yup...one person died while you were reading this long goddamn post.

moral of the story: you should stop reading.