shake shake shake!

This part of the country has been shaking quite a bit recently (unfortunately my blogging hands have not ... sorry Dad!). We had another big earthquake last week, but all is fine in my neck of the woods.

I've officially started my fourth year on the JET program and everything has changed once again. I had to say good-bye to all (except one) of my schools. I only almost cried once and that was because a girl was crying in the front row when the whole school was singing a song for me. But the kids were sweet and wrote me letters and gave me small gifts.

I've gone around to my new schools, but since it's summer vacation there are no classes. However, I'm now based at a junior high school instead of the BOE and it is absolutely fantastic (so far). One of the first things my supervisor said to me was, "Everyone says I'm a bit abnormal. But I just consider it different. I'm normal, but a little different." I know we are going to get along well! The other English teachers (there are 4) seem really cool too. All women and relatively young (I'm a day older than one of them!), so now we are the English sisters.



There's tons of stuff (much more interesting) I want to blog about, but have seem to encountered a brain freeze, so here are some recent pics:

My last class with one of my 4th grade classes after a game of English Dodgeball



For 3 weeks, all of my schools made marshmallow popcorn balls. The kids loved them but the people at the store must have thought I really liked marshmallows and popcorn because I think I bought nearly 50 bags of marshmallows and 20 bags of popcorn kernels!


Maiko disovers the "joy" of cleaning up the marshmallow goo

Nori and I went hiking up to see the Black Bear Waterfalls ... it was purdy!

me and Nori :)