Weekend Fun!

So far good weekend. Much needed relaxation time, although maybe it wasn't all that relaxing. On Friday night, Dion cooked me dinner in return for me driving him to get groceries :) It's quite a nice system we have worked out. I tried Mabodofu for the first time - it's like hamburger and tofu and sauce that you eat on top of rice. It was good. I'm not a huge fan of hamburger, but Dion told me I had to brag it up, so it was "Oishii" - he also made gyoza, which we all already know I love. Then I made him suffer through Hitch, which I thought maybe he would think was much funnier than he actually did. Oops!

Today I slept in, and it felt amazing. But then I frantically ran around cleaning and cooking for my Mexican dinner party tonight. I had 3 friends over for dinner, and it was their first time ever eating Mexican food (apart from taco rice, which is popular in Okinawa, but I have a feeling it isn't really like Mexican tacos haha). So I made Mexican rice, refried beans and enchiladas and we had chips and salsa and guacamole. I'm not sure they were a fan of the refried beans haha, but they liked the enchiladas and guacamole, which were the two most authentic things I made, so I think it was quite successful! They also tried peanut butter, which they have here, but most people eat peanut cream, which is more sugary than salty like our PB. They didn't say much, so I think they don't like it :) Oh well. Skippy is still my friend.

Tomorrow I am headed strawberry picking with my Fuji girls that I usually go to onsen with and then having dinner and a movie with my newfound girl friend in Fujinomiya. We got together for dinner once and hung out a bit on my birthday. It will be nice having another American girl in my city to chill with.

Sometime I need to find time for my commitments to It Takes Two committee. I am the sort of final editor, so on Friday I got two emails full of attachments. Lesson plan hell, here I come :D I am excited to be busy lately though, probably because of the familiarity that comes with it :) No more falling asleep at my desk at work haha!

I have also been contemplating running for AJET Block Representative for my second year here. AJET is an organization run completely by teachers in the country. They plan events for ALTs and are the go-between for the organization that runs JET and the teachers that are in the program. If you asked me a few months ago, I would say I'm definitely running, but as busy as I have been the past few weeks, I don't know about adding something to my plate. But I think if I look at the norm of my teaching in Japan, things to fill up my worktime wouldn't be a bad idea. So I'm continuing to contemplate. One of my good friends is actually the representative right now (for Shizuoka and the surrounding prefectures), so I can get plenty of advice from him :D I'll keep you posted.

It seems I am getting more used to Japanese winter. I got an electric blanket for sleeping. It's still not so fun crawling out of the covers into the cold air in the morning, but it's starting to suck less :) I also am feeling a bit more normal about wearing so many layers to school and sometimes bringing my coat to class cuz the classrooms aren't heated. Still not used to the cold air when having to shower though...I'm a baby and preheat my shower by putting my heater in the shower for about 10 minutes to warm the air before going in and warming up the water haha.

Hope you are all having a great weekend. I tried calling like 10 of you, and no one answered :D So you must be doing something fun. Or sleeping in haha.