Gunpowder and Ass Sweat

Ah, my half-packed duffel is sitting on the kitchen floor, my laundry is drying on my dining room chairs and in the distance I can see the lights of the bullet train flickering between tall buildings.  I must have made it to summer break.  It wasn’t easy this time thanks to a record setting heat wave that has seen temps pushing 100 almost every day for three straight weeks.  This week I had two extra summer lessons, which meant showing up to work at 9am with sweat dripping off my ass.  We decided it would a good idea to have a summer cram session theme this year, so the kids just sat at their desks studying vocab for 3 hours.  All I had to do was test them when they were ready, which was easy, except when I had to fail an 8 year old three times because she couldn’t remember the phrase “you’re right”.  Irony.

Yesterday I got back from English Daze, our annual teacher-student camping trip.  We went to a sprawling nature center an hour away with 40 youngsters for an overnight.  The first day it was literally 101 degrees and the students did an orienteering activity where they walked around with maps for three hours.  I just sat in a little hut in the woods and waited for the kids to find me.  I had the furthest station and nearly died before any of the kids reached me.  Somehow they all seemed to be fine in the heat.  The second day I was supposed to take my kids to a petting zoo, but it rained so I played alcohol-free beer pong and had a paper tower building contest.  This year was a little better than last year, since a few of my kids actually came but still sucked due to getting up at 6am two days in a row.  Well that one’s in the books.

Before that?  I went to the beach on lake Biwa with a couple friends two weeks ago.  It’s kind of shallow and full of jet skis, but it hit the spot on a 95 degree day.  You can also see my study abroad school from the beach.  After dark we walked around Hikone while I reminisced and my two friends caught Pokémon. 

Last week was there was big fireworks festival in Gifu city.  I went with one American and one Japanese coworker and we spent over an hour wandering through crowds trying to get to our other two friends.  Fireworks are a huge deal here, probably because you can’t buy any of the good ones legally.  The two newspapers in Gifu each sponsor one event, and always try to outdo each other on the first two weeks of August.  I hadn’t been since 2009, so it was nice to go home smelling like gun powder and fried meat again.  We never found our friends though…

Well, that’s about all that pops into mind for my summer.  I’ve been out and about more than last year which is nice (although mostly after sunset, like a heat vampire).  I’ll be attempting to return home tomorrow, although a typhoon is currently heading for Tokyo which may delay me.  Hopefully I can fill you in on my life in person soon, and also hear about any scintillating adventure you have been on!  Until then!