Had my second Japanese class today. It was pretty good but my Japanese wasn't. Man I was really squirming to answer the simplest of questions. The teacher is from Nagoya but she's been living in Ireland for three years. I don't think she appreciated my attempts to mangle some Osaka-ben. But despite that, by the end I really felt like I'd achieved something. Not that I'd learned anything, but just that I'd done something useful. Unfortunattely, as of next week the school will be closed in the evenings for the summer and I'll have to go somewhere else with the teacher. In Kobe, you could to see people doing lessons or language exchange in practically every Starbucks and Doutor, as well as students studying or reading or whatever - lacking these places in Ireland I've no feckin idea where's good to have a class. But speaking of cafes, I've now seen two signs up for planning permission to build Starbucks. One right smack in the city centre, just outside Trinity College, and the other out in the soulless but relatively-scanger-free Dundrum shopping centre. During last week there was an evening for a few farewell beers for one of my co-workers. This guy is in his mid-forties but he looks like he's in his early 30's. I briefly saw some middle aged lady pop her head into the office during the day and both of them went out to lunch. So when it came time to having my final polite conversation with him (I didn't exactly get to know him much in the month I've been at work) I said "..I saw you went out for lunch this afternoon. Is your mother over for a couple of days?" to which he replied "you mean my wife?"..uggh, thank feck that was the last time I'll have to see him. Here's a pic of santa stuck in a chimney in July.. And the glorious Irish summer just keeps on chuggin' .. I certainly don't miss the humidity and heat from Japan, but I wish we had just an ickle ickle bit of sunshine or blue sky to remind us that it was summer here. And if the weather is going to continue on its drab and dreary way, why can't we have the odd typhoon just to shake things up. I miss Japanese music. Not in the "man, Japanese music is really good" kind of way. More in the "man, this music is really bad but the videos are so weird and cheesy" and "man, this is so weird = Japan is so cool" kind of ways. I miss watching visual-kei music videos. Each day going to work I get Dublin's new tram, the Luas, to work. Its run by a private company and everybody was hoping this would mean it would run on time, the drivers would show some sort of professionalism, and everything would be nice. So I was surprised to stand at a station platform the other week and watch a big argument between two drivers of two different trams, one of which had broken down and needed to be shunted onto another track so the other could get past. Watching them argue in front of a platform full or disgruntled passengers (half of whom had to get off the tram that just broke down) was surreal.

Had my first week of classes for the new kids year and got to meet all of the kids that I'll be teaching/babysitting for the next 35 odd weeks - 10 hours of classes. Unfortunatly, because it was the first class, all the eager parents have their faces pressed against the glass and pretty much watch everything that I do. Of course to make me feel better the school staff did this as well. I was not pleased as this did nothing to ease my nerves. Neither did the fact that in one of the classes a kid fell asleep on his cushion. I tried to wake him up, and all the other kids were shouting at him to wake up but nothing worked. I looked pleadingly out the class window for help and no one came in. Man, how boring was the class if he fell asleep? On Thursday I had the youngest kids of all - 3 years old - and in this one the parents actually sit in on it and do all the jumping and running around along with me in an effort to keep the kids amused. For this class there were only two students - one boy who just kept wandering around and lifting stuff up and one girl who actually got in on the act and began to take part. I was soo feckin' knackered after it despite the fact that it was only two students for half an hour. That's going to be a tough class when its over 30 degrees and theres rivers of sweat coming out of my shirt. On a better note had my first tiny bit exercise since I got here yesterday. Went out to Osaka-jo where there are actually small parks around the castle with, wait for it, actual grass! Grass, I tells ya! Thats an actual treat Played frisbee for a few hours while the light lasted. It was probably the hottest day since I've been here and was still 21 degrees after 10pm. Of course this is nowt compared to what its going to be like when summer comes. Going to have my first proper Japanese class this evening after having a short model lesson last week to see what it was all about. I wasn't very impressed by the free model lesson - it consisted of the teacher shouting "Kore wa A des!!!" while pointing at the whiteboard like some fascist salute while I was the only one in class. Hopefully this evening it'll be a little more involved and a little less like some military drill. For two hours and the crap load of money I'm paying it better be...