poor birds

this year, the weather is just really confused. for the last few weeks it had been like spring, all the snow melted and it was warm enough to not turn my heater on until after sunset.

but i wake up this morning, and all my windows are practically white, my pipes are frozen, and there are 5-10 inch drifts of snow outside. we had quite the blizzard last night (in order for the windows to get like that) and it's not giving up. but it's all good because in a weeks time i'll be in hawaii!!

anyways, no english class today, so i figured i'd blog :)

i went to sapporo the weekend before last to see the host family. it was nice catching up with them. they'll always be my 1st second family in Japan, but i realized that Aomori has really turned into my home here. and there's no denying it considering my host family said my japanese has turned into tsugaru-ben ... eeek!

ooohhhh, while i was in sapporo i won a grand prize in one of those lottery things at the store. i spent enough money (buying an outfit for the wedding in sapporo) to enter those lottery things, well more like the bingo machine where your turn the handle and out pops a ball, and the color of the ball determines your prize. well as the store clerk was explaining the prizes i went for it, and right as she said "and the grand prize is the red (as she said red, out popped the red ball) ... she stopped mid-sentence and looked shocked. i still didnt know what i had won and they started ringing the bell and making an announcement throughout the store. i had won a fancy dinner for two at a really nice hotel in sapporo. but seeing as i wasnt going to be able to use it, i gave it to my host family. but still, i was pretty jazzed!!! i'll post the picture when i get home.

other than that, i've been pretty busy (as usual) with gakkai activities, friends, eikaiwa, volleyball, and have been seeing a lot more of the boy recently. although he hasn't been feeling well so any daimoku (prayers) would be appreciated :)