Yo!
Things have only gotten better in the last couple days at work and in general I'd say everything seems to have turned up a bit.

I suppose it really started getting interesting with the big music festival in Nagasaki on Sunday. It was a bunch of Japanese rock banks coming on in about 45 min sets and they were pretty good. It was quite a scorcher on the field, but someone brought a cooler and all was well. Got to jump around and do a little moshing, and even got lifted up and crowd surfed over a throng of Japanese people! Security didn't seem to be too fond of it, but all they did was lead me around the barrier and back into the crowd :) All in all quite a blast, still not sure why all the cool things you can do here in Japan seem to be on a work night though...

At work as well things are getting more interesting. On Monday I got to do some work, which is actually much more exciting than it sounds as I write this. But yeah, the kids had English writing assignments over the summer where they had to write 20 pages of repeated sentences and my teacher at the school had me check them over and make corrections. It wasn't the work which was fun, more that I finally have work, and that I got to see their English level a little which was neat too. I also get to interact more with teachers now that they're back and especially my two English teachers.

This was followed up by a solo visit to one of my elementary schools which went surprisingly well. Previously at all my school visits I had either Peter (neighboring ALT who's been here a while) or my supervisor with me helping to smooth things over or try to explain stuff. I found that when I have someone else to do the talking for me, I really clam up and don't try very hard to understand on my own or be understood. But all alone I got to get out of that and the communication was great! Primarily in Japanese we managed to discuss what the first couple visits will look like, taught eachother a handful of useful words, and then took a tour of the school. Next Monday I'll do the same type of visit at the other elementary school.

But it still gets better! During the day my supervisor came over to the school and helped me go through the mail and figure out what they were asking me to pay for (ugh, the crazy mail that doesn't even make sense to Japanese people!) and we set up a bunch of auto payment accounts with most of my utilities and such. I also had to pay her for my iphone finally, because on Friday I got paid! It's totally different from jobs I've had in the U.S. as I actually receive all the money I would earn in the month, before the month is even over, instead of like 3-4 weeks after I finished working that pay period. And then she told me that the car title was changed into my name, and helped me choose an insurance plan, so it is totally driveable as of today! I'm thinking it's about time for a short road trip up to Fukuoka (the big city here in Kyushu) and check it out. I even hear they have a Costco, so I wanna stock up on some of those foods I'm missing.

Then in the evening the Board of Education people took Peter, Spike and I out for a welcome dinner party. There was good food, fun conversations, and lots and lots of sake. I got to learn the very humbling styles of offering drinks to the boss peoples from Peter who has apparently been taken through the ropes on etiquette and proved a valuable teacher, and not only did my boss drink out of my cup, but he even fed me half his own dumpling with his chopsticks! The concept of all-you-can-drink is quite popular here and you can get it at almost any bar if you discuss it before hand and tell them how many people you'll bring, then they'll give you a room and as much as you want for about two hours. Again, not sure why everyone loves to get their party on after the weekend is over, they're crazy hardcore like that out here! The shot of us in this bar is actually from last week with the taiko guys, I forgot to take pictures last night.

In general all is well. I'd say it's been crazy busy and I could probably really use a down day to relax and catch up on some sleep, but it's just been too much fun to pass stuff up. I also feel that while my Japanese is coming back and improving, what's really getting better is my confidence in it. They even gave us a list of most of the important things that are said differently here as a result of the Hougen (which is basically an accent, but it usually implies that entire words change). It's kind of like you wouldn't hear somebody call someone a hoser down in the U.S., unless your my sister of course, cus she's cool like that. And there is your Japanese vocab word for the day!