Expect Me When You See Me

Kickboxing tonight was surprisingly intense but also kinda relaxing. Probably cause it was just training for me and no real fighting with the first half devoted to punching and the second half to kicking (and damn was my second instructor hot!). Need to work on my left kicks since they're crap compared to my right. Also ripped holes in both my big toes again. Must remember to wrap them completely from now on. Would also like to stop injuring the muscles on the top of my right foot, though I have to admit that Japanese cooling strips are really neat, even if I have no idea if they're doing any good.

M., K. and I are going to Hiroshima on Sunday. Our plan is to stop at Miwajima on the way and basically spend the day there (since it's on our way), then head into Hiroshima for the night and spend Monday in the city (since it's a holiday). Should be a fun time. Any recs?

I've been reading Hellblazer in actual chronological order. It's such a pleasure to do so since those damn graphic novels are rather disjointed in places and I read them out of order anyway. (Sandman started surprisingly early in Hellblazer's run btw.) I keep alternating with issues of early Spiderman when I want a change, but those are more to be skim read for back story than taken seriously while Hellblazer takes itself too seriously at times. And how weird is it that I never knew it was classified as a "horror" comic? Maybe reading Lucifer desensitized me?

I've been really tired lately and only barely working on my book, though reading Fables definately got my imagination going again. I'd forgotten what it was like to read a good book methinks. Not that the book I'm reading atm is bad, it's just extremely odd (I do love that they actually repeated the "crocodiles in the sewers" story in a Japanese book. Talk about a story crossing cultural barriers.

And I have kindergarten to teach in the morning so I'll say g'nite. Ja ne!

I kinda feel sorry for those of you who have to read my drunken posts since I type quite well while inebriated (even if I can't spell, but I can't do that while sober so...). Oh well. Today was a lovely day with less classes than usual and they all went well. I even got my ADHD kid to participate and admit she wasn't as sleepy as she pretended to be. Oh, and I sang Simon and Garfunkle's Sound of Silence a few times and chatted about onsen. Gotta love the singing lady.

After my last class, I headed to kickboxing where there were surprisingly few people and I was taught how to properly do a left hook or whatever it was. Then i got to fight and was told that my kicks were very good which was kinda amusing since I think I suck, though I probably will be much better in a few months once I learn all the different punches and kicks. Left early telling them I had a party to go too, which I kinda did.

We (meaning the teachers here) all headed to Tonga which is a Phillipino transvestite bar (and I just typed that 'b' as a 'v' - may have been living in Japan for too long). And, no, we can't figure out why you can't find an international grocery here, but you can find a Phillipino transvestite bar... Anyway, it was pretty weird inside. It was all you could drink and there was karaoke and a show. Quite a fun show with the drag queen's singing and doing impressions though the ABC song with the penis was... very weird (Edit: Discovered that "ABC" is the equivalent of first, second and third base here... So now you know.). We had a great time and good drinks even if it was very hard to decide whether to speak in English or Japanese since they barely understood either. We were the favourites of quite a few Japanese drunks who convinced us to do karaoke, which may or may not be why my first karaoke experience ever was singing "Like a Virgin" tonight in front of a Japaense crowd *L* Wasn't quite drunk enough to do it, but forced myself anyway since when else do you get a chance like that? *L* There was a drunk Japaense guy at the next table who really wanted us to karaoke which was fine at first though it got annoying later.

Those from Edinburgh anime society will be amused that they sang the Cutie Honey song not once but twice. It was during that time that the karaoke guy told me (after I told him I'd seen the anime) that I was "very sexy" like Cutie Honey. *L* Near the end, we were entertained by a drag queen named Kei who had very nice legs and was very pleased to memorize our names. She/he also managed to cop a feel of my breasts and kiss them *shakes head* Afterwards, we visited McDonald's because we could.

I'd like the state for the record that I don't speak better Japanese while drunk, but I'm a lot less embarassed by how bad my Japanese is *L*

Er, and it's really late and I really should be drinking lots of water and getting some sleep. Horay for drunken nights out. Was called a party girl though. Am amused by that since while I'm a good socializer, I don't tend to like parties. Oh well. Will stop rambling and get some sleep. Ja ne!

Am having one of those days where all the children love me. It was so bad that I had trouble getting out of the kindergarten cause the kiddies followed me through the whole school. The kids were especially cute today though and even the special kid thought I was the one to come to with all their problems ("I don't have a red marker!" "I didn't finish drawing!"). I gotta admit I adore the kid who turns every single worksheet I give him into a drawing of a hoard of bug monsters, even if he does tend to lick every single flashcard I hand out...

Later on the kiddie love extended into my final class where the girl was pretty enthusiastic with waving me goodbye and such. I think she was thrilled I was able to tell her that Pumba from the Lion King was a warthog in English. *L*

On Thursday, I think I shocked my class when I had read more Death Note than they had *L* Found out the movie only goes up to Light and L's first meeting and that there's a second part coming out. In the meantime, I have to read more. Amusingly, one of the guys there spent the weekend reading the series and had the same problem I've had with getting bogged down by the plot in the second part.

Weather here is the rainy season, or so my students keep warning me, and yet it's not all that bad. It does rain pretty heavily for a day or two, but I can't say it fazes me after living in Edinburgh for so long. It's also the coolest June I've experienced outside of Edinburgh. I'm used to having an air conditioner running full tilt by this point. As it is, I've only had to turn mine on a few times and on the dehumidfier setting.

Tomorrow, I can book the Shinkansen tickets for my trip to Kyoto/Nara in August. I dearly hope I can get it all worked out and such using my limited Japanese... Other than that, it's an easy day since I don't have my early morning class which is good since I'm planning on going to kickboxing then out to a club with the girls. I shall have to describe more of it after the fact since I've been forbidden to give out details beforehand *L* It promises to be humid so kickboxing will be a bitch, but I refuse to let that stop me.

I suppose I didn't bother to post about it, but I ripped off a layer or two of skin on both my toes at kickboxing on Wends. and also pulled the muscle on the top of my right foot (from kicking) so now I'm going to have to seriously wrap my toes up before training and try not to reinjure the right foot muscle (which is kinda stiff atm, but only barely twinges and should be all right for tomorrow). They had me fighting a lot near the end, I think because everyone else was tired from the first half hour I missed, and also cause there were new members and they wanted to show off their one female/foreign member. Even if I'm quite slow and I suck compared to any of them.

I love the latest issue of Amazing Spiderman, and all the latest issues of Civil War for that matter. I'm in a state of post-revelation glee even if I think the whole situation is contrived and poorly defined, not to mention the various authors could afford to talk to each other a bit more.

In the meantime, I've been reading through Spider-man from the beginning and I'm afraid I've had to stop reading through all the narration parts and just stick to dialogue so I don't break into peals of laughter from the campiness. I was kinda surprised by how many classic spidey villians show up in the first twenty issues. Somehow in a series with so much history, I expected the villians everyone knows to be introduced over a much longer time period.

Yesterday was probably one of the nicest days of my life. The weather was warm and clear. My nursing school class went well, and I even got them involved in a game of word chains afterwards that we all enjoyed. Afterwards, I made myself bruchetta for lunch, and settled down in my tatami room with the screen door open and the fan on. I worked on my book, read fic, made icons and generally relaxed. Also made myself vanilla tea and read a book of modern-written Japanese fairy tales which is excellent. Later, I went for a quick walk around my neighborhood.

Classes went well, and I introduced my last class to the Apples to Apples cards I made, and it went tolerably well even if I had to spend a lot of time explaining adjectives. Then I helped K. get on msn messenger. Had another lovely pasta dinner and spent the evening making icons and reading House fic. Oh, and I found out that the kickboxing class is ridiculously cheap (works out to about $2 a class...) which makes it worth going whenever possible.

So, life is good, and I'm off to work on my book more and read House fic. Ja ne.

Well, yesterday was a rather full day. My classes went well and I did get to relax and enjoy myself. It was something of a surprise to find that one of my new conversation students does exactly the same thing I do of keeping a notebook of words that she encounters and writes them down, only mine had kanji and hers had English *L* Rushed out after my final class to go to the marital arts class, only it turned out not to be martial arts, but boxing!

I was kinda disconcerted but I went with it, having done boxing once or twice when my sensei was bored and wanted to hit people. It was easy enough to slip into despite having to curb my instincts to step through the punches, and the kicks were really easy. What surprised me was how friendly everyone was and how informal. It was really nice and reminded me of Bujinkan training. The sensei was so eager to please trying to speak English even when I knew what he was saying (and even if I didn't, that's the beauty of physical arts, you just demonstrate and have the person watch). I got some excellent exercise (am very sore around the shoulders and my weak knee now) and had a relaxing, if a bit disconcerting time. Also had a very nice view of some very fit men *g*

So I can't decide if I want to continue doing it or not. I had a lot of fun yet it's not really what I'm looking for, and it's a pain for me to get to the classes since I always miss the first half hour no matter how you look at it. I can see myself enjoying the classes though and I know I'm not going to have as much fun doing karate oddly enough since it's usually very formal and I tend to have complaints with certain methods and everything. I need to find out how much the class costs before I make any sort of decision, but still... *sigh*

Afterwards, I headed over to K.'s apartment for some delicious food and good conversation (which is where the topic of tentacle porn came up...). I'm not sure if it was a really good idea since I stayed up really late after a really full day, but oh well. Today, I have a random Japanese barbecue, which should be... interesting. Ja ne!