Glasses are back! They got them back early so I am once again forcing my eyes to adjust to their new windows. Given that things are actually sharp and in focus this time, I have higher hopes for success.

So it looks like winter is going to come after all. I had been trying to avoid the thought of it, but on Tuesday night the temperature dropped suddenly and I went from barely needing one blanket to needing two. There has also been some rather frantic fumbling in the closet for fleecy things that are still in storage bags. Tuesday morning I was still running around in a tank top and sandals and now it is all long sleeves and boots.

And not even the nice boots, noooooo. There is a typhoon a-coming and today was wellies weather. Mysteriously, it is supposed to be nice tomorrow before dumping rain again on Saturday. I suppose Saturday is better than Sunday, since I need to catch the train to Tokyo and I would hate to be derailed.

Oh dear.

So, I have this student. She is 14 and very, very smart. She also has a batshit crazy mother who has decided that she is going to be, like, a doctor and also that free time and social skills are less important than studying every free moment. She has been coming to MI since she was about 6 and I can honestly say that as a young girl she was downright insufferable. She has since mellowed/matured into a very nice young lady who actually gets along with people now. When asked if she prefers school or vacation, she answers school because at least then she gets to hang out with her friends while studying. Because physical development is also important, her father built her a space to practice riding the unicycle. ON THE ROOF OF THEIR HOUSE.

She recently took the TOEIC test, which is normally aimed at businessmen. A perfect score is 990, she got 820. Previously the record at our school had been held by an engineer in his 50s at 800. Hitomi, who works with me on Mondays and has lived abroad, got something like 690 when she took that test. This girl is crazy smart and studies all the time, is what I'm saying.

For about the past year, she has been taking private lessons (group lessons were not advanced enough for her mother's tastes) and we have been studying events in world history over the past 100 years. But since she studied each unit to death at home, there really wasn't much for me to do at school. So when we got to the end of that book, I suggested that maybe she would like to read a book in English. There are modified versions of random books, mostly classics, that you can get for classes here. I love them because the include questions/assignments in the back, so if I ever get stuck for teaching material it's right there. Somewhat to my surprise, she chose the book version of Love Actually. Normally this would make me wince a bit, but choosing a fluffy love story is just so refreshingly normal that I am delighted. Anyway, I promised her that for Halloween we could watch the first 30 minutes or so of the movie, so she could see who all the people are and get a better idea of what they look like/how they act. (The book version is basically a script, lots of dialogue, not much description.)

Today I decided to upload my dvd to the computer and watch the first bit to see how far we would get.

Um, yes. I had forgotten all about how much swearing there is in this movie. Also forgotten? The porn stars plotline, which has been excised from the book. I am now spending the evening with a notebook and pen, taking note of the times I will have to pause and fast forward.

I was patient. I waited a week to give my eyes time to adjust. I avoided putting on my sunglasses to hasten the training. I resisted the urge to dig out the old specs. But by yesterday there was no improvement, so I got them out, put them on, and bang! The world snapped into focus.

So back to the glasses shop today, where it turns out the left lens is slightly off. New glasses have been sent back for regrinding and I am back on the old ones for another week. Of course now I have to readjust to these lenses, but in general everything is much clearer.

I have at least made a stab at Halloween baking. Cookies took a bit longer than I had hoped, since yesterday I had pre-cold exhaustion and could not be bothered to do anything. But they are almost finished and then it will be time for cupcakes. I might get around to them tonight, but I also want to make perogies, so we'll see. I have a "no more dishes" limit that perogies AND cupcakes might exceed.

Pushups were not as bad as I had feared. This is a good thing, as I get to do them again tomorrow. Whee!

My eyes have not adjusted to the glasses yet. If I focus on something it is ok, but just glancing around makes everything look faintly off again. I'm giving it a few more days, though. I haven't had any headaches, at least, just tired eyes at the end of the day.

I also have not really adjusted yet to how the glasses look on my face. Every time I look in the mirror it takes me aback. Objectively I know they look fine, and it's not that I think they look bad, it's just...well, it's like I replaced part of my face with a different model.

I have finally made a start towards Halloween baking. Cookie dough is chilling in the fridge as we speak, although I probably won't get to it tonight. I was busy after work making this. The chili is merely ok, but that is probably because I couldn't get my hands on tomato paste and subbed diced tomatoes instead, resulting in a rather soupy chili. The biscuits, on the other hand, are simply divine and if it weren't for the high cost of cheddar and sour cream, I would consider making them with every meal.

The yoga thingy yesterday was nice. Very interesting. I will clearly never be a yogi, given my utter inability to do headstands or meditate, but getting beyond the gym aspect of "just stretch like this, now hook your arm around your leg like so" was informative. Satoe and Julia are opening their own yoga studio from November. I'd like to go and take classes, but I suspect my schedule may interfere. We shall see. In the meantime I will continue to enjoy the free lessons Satoe is giving me and Stuart on Thursdays in exchange for correcting her English.

There was one girl at the workshop who was wearing short shorts and matching over-the-knee leggings. This look fascinates me. It seems an overly complicated alternative to pants. Are there people for whom that bit of upper thigh is just unbearably hot at all times, and so they must work around it? Clearly I am doomed by my lack of avant garde-ness to a lifetime of wearing regular pants.

I cannot believe that next week is the start of our Halloween party week already! And I haven't baked a thing! It's been quite warm up until now and I just haven't been motivated to get my ass in gear. But I need to make cookies this week so that I have the weekend free to make mummy cupcakes. I know that once I get going I will have fun with it, and then probably be an unstoppable baking machine for the next few months. Letitia has demanded that I give a muffin tutorial one of these days, which I guess means I need to unearth the kitchen table. Probably this needs to take place in November, as by December the apartment has usually reached "too cold for most normal human beings" mode.

I decided to shake up my gym routine and am looking into a highly recommended book called The New Rules of Lifting For Women. I start the program tomorrow and am rather nervous. My gym is all about the machines, and there isn't a lot of space in the free weights area. Also, there are pushups. If you do not hear from me for a week, it is because my arms no longer work. This is a very real possibility.

And on an end note, day three of new glasses still has my vision being all wonky. I sure hope I like these glasses, because it is going to be a long, long while before I put myself through this again.

Augh, new glasses adjustment period! I had managed to repress that memory for the most part. I knew it would suck at first but I forgot just how much. Hello, a week's worth of headaches.

Other than the not being able to see very well (depth perception, who needs it?), the glasses are nice. It's probably just as well I didn't go for a more dramatic colour or I would be doing double takes every time I passed by a mirror.

It is another ridiculously warm and beautiful day here in mid-October, although it has finally gone under 30. I think next week is supposed to be a little cooler. You know, 25ish. Brrr!

Tomorrow should be interesting. One of Satoe's yoga instructors from India (well, he's actually English) is coming to Japan to give some workshops and she managed to persuade him to come to Hamamatsu for a day. So tomorrow I am packing up my brand new mat and spending three hours learning about/doing yoga. There are around 22 people coming, so hopefully I can hide in the back as I attempt to not fall over.

The phone bill has been resolved. They are charging me more than what I should be paying, but I am getting 33 000 yen back as credit, so hopefully that means I won't actually be paying a bill for about five months. I will, however, be bookmarking the bill site so I can keep an eye on it and I'll look into changing the payment methods so that it doesn't come directly out of my account. Damn you, convenience. Why must you come with a price?

This year has been a pretty good year in terms of not spotting roaches, so imagine my dismay when I found one scuttling about in the sink last night. I drowned it good with dish soap, but it lasted longer than I would have thought. Then I went on Facebook and found that Stuart had found one in their place that day, too. I think this means they have united and are staging a takeover. All hail our new roachy overlords!

It is technically a long weekend here (today being the traditional holiday of Sports Day) but I work today and had to cover for Andrew on Saturday, so it's not been very long. The weather has not gotten the "it's October!" memo and it is 30 degrees out. Actually, it's 33 in here but it feels a lot nicer than 33 did a month ago. I needed to buy some cords yesterday since I need new winter pants and they were on sale at Uniqlo, but it was hard making myself care about/try on winter pants in this kind of weather. The entire store was filled with fleece and wool, but since I haven't even started wearing long pants or socks on a regular basis yet, I was able to resist the siren call of cuddly warm goodness.

And now I'd best go get ready for the gym. They always change the schedule on holidays so my yoga class is an hour earlier than normal. And it's not my yoga class, it's the newest yoga they have, called "Queen's Yoga". In my head, it is taught by a big ol' queen and we all wear tiaras, but I suspect I am doomed to disappointment.

The Softbank rep called me back yesterday to helpfully inform me that no progress had been made yet. Um, thanks?

Eiken test time is fast approaching which means a fair bit of my older classes are devoted to boring studying. I hate teaching the higher levels of Eiken as it is basically vocabulary at that point, and the kids just kind of have to know it. I also hate that the higher levels are aimed at adults...I have quite a few students who could probably pass if the stories were aimed more at their age group. I feel rather strongly that there should be a version for teens, but since I am unwilling to actually write the test myself, I guess they're stuck with what is available.

This time I've only got one student doing pre-1 (the second highest level). Today we practiced some of the reading bit, which was a story about locusts and how a group of researchers are studying them to see if, essentially, they can stick locust-type brains in cars to help avoid collisions. Awesomely, part of their research involved attaching electrodes to the locusts' brains, tethering them, and then making them watch Star Wars.

I will pause for a moment to let you enjoy that mental image.

I mean, can you imagine coming home from work and answering "So, what did you do today?"

Sadly, most of the stories are not filled with fun facts like that.

The pre-1 test ends with what I have dubbed Emails From Weirdos, which involves the student reading an email and writing a response. The emails always follow the same socially awkward format:

Dear Hitomi,

How are you doing?

Last night I saw a tv program that said Japanese people eat Japanese food less these days. Why do you think this is happening?

The program also said that the number of Japanese families who buy groceries from online supermarkets is increasing. In your opinion, is this a good way to buy food?

When I visited Japan last year, I was surprised that people didn't give tips in restaurants. Do you think giving tips is a good custom?

I look forward to your reply,

Neil.

I just get the kids to give me an oral answer as we don't have a lot of time for writing, but their answers tend to be along the lines of "Dear Neil, thank you for your last email. Stop bothering me with these weird questions. What is wrong with you? Sincerely, K." Or "Dear Neil, what the heck? I'm just a kid. I don't know or care about any of that. Bye!"

Which is probably how I would answer actual emails like that, but is less good for getting a good mark on the test.

Finally talked to a Softbank representative today. The upshot is no one knows what happened, they're going to look into it and call me back in a few days. Oh, and she "can't promise" I won't have to pay the bills, but if that happens, I think I will sic Masami on them. She took me through the sudden swell in text messages, mentioning that a few days cost 7000 yen. Hand to God, I don't even know HOW to spend 7000 yen on text messages in one day. I just kept repeating that my phone usage has not varied at all from the norm, I have not gotten or sent any particularly long messages (at 7000 yen, I assume I would have to text the entire copy of Ulysses or something), and that basically, these charges are not on me. It was not until I hung up that it finally dawned on me that there is a good chance that my email address was hacked. Hopefully they will not take too long to get back to me. SIGH.

In cuter news, let us discuss how Ewan, unlike most infants, is totally cool with me making him wear funny hats as long as he gets to see himself, too.

Not much progress on either of my quests today, alas. We drove to the Softbank shop but they were closed today. Instead of driving to one of the other zillion shops scattered about, we decided it was best if Masami phoned them first to see if maybe the problem could be resolved over the phone. If not, I will try again at a store nearby.

Then we hit up the glasses shop. I must be really annoying to go glasses shopping with, all "yeah, I have NO CLUE, tell me how these look!" I did find another pair in grown up glasses that I think looked ok, but the colour was a sort of metallic lilac and rather blah, so the lady is going to order another pair in brown and I'll see how they compare to the kidlet ones. The grown up ones were made of metal and just felt a bit more reassuring, although I'm sure that's just because it's what I'm used to. The price is the same, though, so I might as well wait a few more days before making my purchase. Sunglasses may be harder, the frames and lens are separate so more pricey, and all the frames are the oversized bug eyed style. I may shop around a bit more.

Ewan came with, but he wasn't very helpful. He kept handing me frames and then laughing when I put them on.

Yesterday was the monthly beach cleaning/yoga shinding. We picked up approximately 84635761830 pieces of styrofoam and got 40 minutes into yoga before the rain started. I am still nursing a deep and personal hatred for styrofoam...why must it break down into teeny tiny pieces that are so difficult to pick up? And do we really need to be using this much styrofoam in the world anyway? I say no. Hear that, world? Use less styrofoam.


Also, someone found an aircon unit and a fridge. I almost wish I could find something nice and big like that, it would be a lot more satisfying than a bag filled with tiny bits and pieces.

Fall appears to definitely be here. Sure, I still don't need a blanket at night for the most part, but I caved today and bought some early mikans and also I think my toes are cold. (I have only vague memories at this point as to what "cold" feels like.)

Yelling at Softbank/buying glasses was postponed today, hopefully both of those will be happening tomorrow.

After I mentioned the phone bill problem thing to Masami, she remembered that her last bill was higher than normal, too, so we are going to go talk to the Softbank people bright and early Monday morning. I did the math and these last two bills total about what I normally spend in nearly a year, so that is very much not cool.

In happier news, the weather is very nice. It's been rollercoasting between sunny and warm and rainy and cold all week, and we seem to be on the sunny part of the ride today. I just hope that lasts until tomorrow, as it is time for a beach clean/yoga/bbq day.

And it is October! How did that happen? Where did September go? We are going to be putting up Halloween decorations any day now and I have started asking the kids what they are going to be for Halloween. (Answer: mostly witches. SIGH. Welcome to MI Hogwarts.) Personally, I am being lazy and revisiting an old costume, although I have a shiny new tiara from China to liven it up a bit. I did come across a costume site with some of the most (unintentionally?) hilarious "sexy" costumes I have ever seen. Sexy skunk? Sexy Finding Nemo?? Who watched Finding Nemo and thought "that fish could be sexier!"?