Over the Hump?

If I am, it doesn't feel like it yet. But despite my utter exhaustion, I'm comforted by several facts. First, tomorrow is Friday, and even though our weekend is pretty jam packed, the opportunity for sleep is still there. Second, it's a three day weekend. I'm not sure how old the emperor will be on Monday, but his birthday comes at a great time for me. And last, next week is a mere three day affair before we break for New Years, starting Friday. If you run those numbers through your head you will surmise that yes, I will be working on Christmas. This is the first year since I came to Japan that I don't really care about that reality. It could be that I'm out of my gourd busy and haven't had time to consider it, or that after four working Christmas's under my belt since coming to Japan, I've just accepted it. Either way, I'm more happy about having ten days off, during which I'll go into a sort of micro-hibernation. We'll head to Chieko's folk's for New Years, and upon arrival I will promptly crawl under the kotatsu, where I will remain until it's time to leave. I may be lured out to take a few turns on a snowboard, however.

Kanazawa has been nutty this week in the weather department. We've been on about a 20 minute rain/sleet/thunder/sun cycle here (still no snow). This results in a sky that generally has ominously dark clouds on one part, and blue skies in another (I saw two rainbows today). Couple that with the rising sun and it's quite a surreal atmosphere, especially out my office window at 7:30 in the morning, when I don't have nearly enough coffee in me.



Yesterday I had my English workshop at school. This is something we have to do every other term or so, and my number was up. I mentioned on the old blog that I was planning to dress up like Bob Dylan, play some tunes on the guitar, and have students interview me/Bob. Then my life went insane and I never had the necessary time to accumulate a proper Dylan costume, plan the lesson, practice the songs, etc. So I ended up going with a tried and true poetry writing activity that I've used with success in the past, though Dylan WILL make an appearance at a future workshop.

The workshop was only an hour, though we stretched it out a bit because it turned out some of the guys either really loved making their poems, or were really slow. Or both. I had them write poems about themselves, describing their personality and appearance, their loves, fears, wants, needs, desires and such. Then I set them loose on a pile of construction paper, scissors, and glue, so they could create a representative piece of art on which to showcase their poems.

They followed the directions to varying extents and displayed a range of artistic ability. And while I couldn't help check the trash can outside of class when I left, I was happy that no one had ditched their poems after they left (at least not in that trash can). Some of the more successful efforts:




And then there was this guy. I'm not sure what the hell he was doing the entire hour, because it couldn't have taken him that long to make this. Poignant.



OK, off to bed for me.