Tuesday August 15, 2006

Happy Birthday Mrs. Veratti!

Yosco picked me up around 9:30 am today and we went into Sendai to a museum. It was featuring the Pompeii exhibit was really cool. She really liked it, but I liked the regular exhibit even better – that was the exhibit of Japanese history. We were there until about 2:00pm. It was very nice of her to take me there. Afterwards, we went grocery shopping for dinner. I picked up a few things I needed too. Then, we went back to her house. She let me use her internet while she cooked dinner. I was sooooo grateful. I've felt so isolated lately with no contact with the outside world. Thank you everyone for sending e-mails! Even though I can't respond to them right away – I appreciate it and will as soon as I get the internet (which i will have if you are actually reading this).

Yosco took me to another street festival in her town, but there were not a lot of people there because it has been raining a lot from some Typhoon that hit recently. Not like I know what is going on – i can't understand my tv, a newspaper and I don't have the internet. I knew what was going on up until Saturday, but not after that. Hiromi often gives me her old newspapers that are written in English but not lately. The festival was much smaller than the one she took me to the other day. There was a karaoke stage and i saw quite a bit of karaoke. I was asked to perform but i politely declined. If I'm doing karaoke, you need to get like 6 beers in me. I did this one goldfish game and won two goldfish. Well, I actually only one once but I think since I'm a gaijin, I got two. I have them chilling in one of my cooking bowls until I can get to the store to get some stuff for them to live in. I hope they survive while I am gone in Sendai for the next 3 days. I put bread into their bowl for food – they didn't eat it. Hopefully, they become hungry enough that they eat it and don't die. I want fish for companionship. Other than that, it was just a bunch of food booths.

There is another ALT about a 20 minute drive from me. I have been wishing I could contact him so we could hang out but again, I have no phone, internet or anything. Today, when I checked my email at Yoscos – he sent me an email saying he'd like to get together and gave me his phone number. I called him and it was so good to talk to someone that i could speak normal speed with and could understand what I was saying. Then, my phone died. I was so upset. I will meet him tomorrow at my orientation, maybe we can set up something to hang out. I get to see all the ALTs tomorrow. I am really excited. I want to get drunk – really drunk and be loud and talk and be stupid and be 22 again.

I'll be in Sendai the next few days doing more workshops and crap that like. Blah. Okay, I'm sick of writing. I hope people are actually reading this!