English, Japanese, vision, weather, books, and friends = this blog post :)

I've been sitting here trying to think of something interesting to write. It seems that my lack of blogging lately might be due to the fact that things have gotten very routine for me so things don't seem as interesting to me anymore. I need to remind myself that that's not the case for most of the people who read this and also remind myself that I need to really appreciate what's around me. So anyway, here are soem random snippets from recent days.

• I had my school's English camp a few weeks ago. It was the ichi-nensei International course class - 41 students. There were ten ALTs there altogether including Kelly. We were in Gotemba which is on the other side of Mt. Fuji from here but still in Shizuoka prefecture. It was a lot of fun and very tiring as I was pretty much in charge of running the camp since I planned the whole thing. I was really proud of the kids and I even told them so. They did great and tried really hard and we all had a lot of fun. I absolutely love this group of students. I've found that at the end of the day, the one thing I love more than anything here is my students. Pretty different from before, huh?
• I started taking Japanese one-on-one tutorials last month at FILS, a place for international sharing here in Fuji. I meet once a week with a guy named Wake (wah-kay.) It's been pretty interesting although I wouldn't say my conversational Japanese has gotten much better. He teaches me a lot, but we never practice what he's taught me. I think I might ask him next week if we can practice a bit more. I'll also be starting the Intermediate Japanese language course soon which will get me back into studying. I'm planning to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in December. I'll probably take the level 4 (the easiest one) although I'd like to shoot for level 3. But I've got a ton of kanji to learn if I want to try for level 3 so I probably should just keep my expectations realistic.
• I've been on my last pair of contact lenses for quite a while now, but I can't order new ones because my doctor refused to let 1-800 Contacts send them to me because my prescription is old. So I'm kind of in limbo right now. I've started wearing my contacts while I ride my bike to work since I can't handle being outside without sunglasses on and then I change into my glasses when I get to work. This is the first time I've worn my glasses at work here so a lot of people have been very surprised. The students notice, but when they can't think of how to ask me why I'm wearing glasses they just hold their fingers in circles up to their eyes to look like glasses. This is my cue to explain why I'm wearing glasses. I've gotten good at recognizing these visual cues.
• The weather has been cooling down over the last week. It's not what I would consider fall weather but it's definitely not hot summer weather anymore. I only fan myself for 5 minutes when I get to work now instead of 10. I'm very ready for fall.
• I'm currently reading a book called The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. He's one of Japan's most respected authors. This is the 2nd book by him that I've read. It's a slow read and I'm a slow reader so since I checked it out, I've re-checked it once and am about to have to re-check it again. I'm not even close to being halfway through. In the meantime, Kelly has read 6 books.
• I've had a recent bout of homesickness earlier this week after talking to my two best friends James and Adam on Skype last week. Adam was in Corpus Christi visiting James so I called them up and got to talk to them. It was the first time I had actually talked to Adam since before we left and only the second time for James. So that was fun and a good reminder of some good times and good friends.

I suppose that's it for now. Gwynn suggested that I set a weekly blog day like Kelly did. I haven't decided what day that will be yet, so I guess I'll surprise you.

See you!