it's cold. i think i'll drive.

i can [legally] drive my car now! i went for a test run last night, and it went really smoothly. spending time in cars as a passenger has helped me acclimate to left-side-of-the-road driving. the thing i had the most trouble with, actually, was remembering which side of the steering wheel the turn signal was on -- i turned on the windshield wipers three times. (it wasn't raining.)

it's getting colder here. i bought slippers today. i'll need to get some more blankets pretty soon, plug in the kotatsu, maybe buy a second heater.

that's really all i have to say for now. here's a photo of me with a giant totoro:

general update & apartment photos

car update: it's starting to look like i might be able to drive in the next week or two. i got an insurance quote for 6900 yen per month, and it looks like they will allow me to drive the car before i legally own it. this is fortunate, because apparently transferring ownership is a laborious process that requires going to the police stations several times during working hours for the sole purpose of proving you have a parking space. my employer found a japanese person who will do all this for me, but it could cost up to 30,000 yen (almost $300), so i may try to undertake the process myself -- or as much of it as i am able to undertake.

life update: i've been busy! i'm teaching a beginner adult english every other tuesday, and tutoring a family every other saturday. additionally, i'm doing some telecommuting for about an an hour a day, five days a week. the family i tutor is great (an early thirties couple and their two-year-old daughter), and the telecommuting is easy (it's work i've been doing for years -- it's like second nature) but the adult class on top of it all might prove to be a little much. i may not continue doing it after this term ends. for now though, it's a good challenge, and i need the money to pay taxes on my car in a few months. who knows, maybe it'll be second nature too, come january.

what else? i'm making more friends, settling in, growing more used to being a teacher. i've been a little stressed out and a little homesick lately, but most days i can't believe my luck. my rent is dirt cheap. i live an hour from tokyo. apart from wednesdays, i only teach three or four classes per day, which leaves me three or four hours of time in which i'm free to study, read at my desk, and prepare for my elementary school lessons.

the better my japanese gets, the easier life gets. classes go more smoothly when you know what your co-teacher is saying. the lunch room is more comfortable when you can laugh along with your colleagues' jokes. i still feel like i'm light-years away from being able to understand what happens at the morning staff meetings or being able to read a newspaper, but i'm definitely making progress. i'm taking a japanese language placement test this december, and i plan to take the next level the following december. having a goal like that is really good; it gives me set vocabulary and grammar to master, and a reason to do it.

my parents are coming to visit the day after christmas. they'll only be here for a week, so it's going to be a bit of a whirlwind. there's no way we'll be able to fit in everything i want to show them, but i'm really looking forward to it. kansai region, i'm coming back!

in closing, here are some pictures of my apartment:

when you're buying a used fridge on a budget, and the best one they have happens to be pink, you buy it anyway.

that weird thing in the middle is my hot water heater.



i sat on top of my tv to take this shot. a little blurry, but you get the idea. this is my main living space. it's six tatami mats big, which makes it 360 cm long by 270 cm wide, or about 9 x 12 feet. i sleep on a futon, which i fold up and put in the closet during the day (most days).



i hate this shower.

not all rain is created equal

i grew up in oregon, where it rains nine or ten months a year. i stopped using an umbrella when i was in grade school. the closest thing i have to a raincoat is an old worn out leather jacket i got from my parents' closest. the rain doesn't really bother me.

er, so i thought. when the sky is still bawling its eyes out and you have to spend the first 35 minutes of your day walking around in a typhoon, it's kind of not nice. in fact, it rather sucks.

the thing is, as my dear friend serena pointed out to me, the rain here seems to fall in all directions at once, so there's really no avoiding it. it comes from underneath and all sides in addition to above. and the wind? well, it turns cheap umbrellas inside out.

after spending all day at work studying (i'm not kidding, there was no reason for me to go to work today), i went back out into the typhoon and spent another forty minutes getting drenched to go to the city office for our weekly meeting.

you take the good, you take the bad...