Sorry, still no internet at home, thus the long hiatus. I would've liked to be in touch will more people back at home by now, but getting internet and long-distance hooked up has been taking me a while...

I started at Tamana Girl's School on September 1st. Today I'll give my last self-introduction class. There are 21 classes in total, and I team-teach about 13 of them. I see some twice or three times a week, therefore my total number of classes is 17. That's about four a day, which is reasonable.

Class is surprisingly similar to the middle school classes I team-taught before, down to the textbook itself. The three grades(1,2, and 3, equivalent to our 10th, 11th, and 12th grades) all use the same English textbook. I don't really understand why that is yet. The book's really only about 70 pages long.

I teach with four very different teachers. More on that to come.

So far, this job is much more reasonable and satifying than the one I had last year. I'm very happy to have arrived in such a place.

My house is turning out to be nice! It's pretty stinking hot and humid here, but I like to curl up on my couch and watch movies, or play violin with the cool air from my air conditioner blowing on my face. I've read a lot recently too. It's still incredibly lonely sometimes, you know, but that's part of the challenge of being here.

I stayed at my landlord's house for the day and night of the big typhoon that hit us last Tuesday. He's got these cool soundproof walls and windows that don't let in the wind or cold. His family, including his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and two grandkids had a welcome party for me at their house last Friday night. Since I'm so hesitant with my Japanese, I became very shy when I was first around them. By the end of the evening, they were showing me the family scrolls, paper dolls made by the landlord's wife, and the new wooden nameplate the landlord had carved for me in characters. I left with a paper doll, two wrapping clothes, a new summer kimono, and the next morning, the landlord attached the nameplate to my door. So I guess I've made a few new friends. :)