10.01.09

Today was Ususho, one of my favorites. The sixth graders played building bingo again and the turn right-turn left game where they guide their partner to a "building" in the classroom. I like the class since I can speak a lot of English and the teacher doesn't try to translate. So while we're checking answers I can say, "First, I said School. Then, I said Hospital. Then..." And so on. It doesn't seem like much but there are quite a few classes I can't use that much before it's explained.

With the fifth graders, the boy who'd broken or injured his foot last time was walking around but Elena, the lefty whose hand had been hurt, still hasn't recovered. After lunch she asked me to sign her sketchpad and draw a picture, so I drew a dragon at her request. It turns out that she loves drawing too, and is incredibly good for being so young. I know how other kids are drawing at that age and I was impressed. I asked if she wanted to become a manga-ka and she said that she can't write stories well, so probably not. She seemed happy I drew for her though, and I was awfully happy too. It made me laugh that my little boyfriend (He is a flirty little punk) was so impressed by me signing my name in my sloppy cursive. He told me before lunch about how drinking tea while eating rice was bad for you, and if, when washing your hair, you use your fingertips instead of your palms to lather the shampoo, your hair will fall out. He said he heard it on TV and reccomended the show to me. 8pm on channel 7. I also heard Arashi music for the first time during lunch. They really can't sing worth a damn, wow.

So during every little break I get lately I've been piecing together details on my story. In the last day I have rebuilt Darkbank from being a generic "This place has taverns for important people to coincidentally meet at and begin an adventure, D&D style" city to being a place rife with social conflict, built from the beginning. I figured I could tie in some of the other unconnected stories I'd written and it's worked really well. It's getting nicely fleshed out and it's kind of shocking to me how much material I've actually gathered over the years and now that I'm trying to stick it all together how well it's falling into place. I need to find some of my more recent notes to rediscover how I plotted a few key points and I could be cruising closer to real execution than ever before. So very pleased about that. Glad Julia came out and got that section of my brain working again.

Tonight's onigiri party with Yuki. Gotta clean my house since I was too busy pigging out with the Kawanishis last night. We watched more TV than anything else but there was a LOT of good food (more than I wanted to eat actually) and the show was interesting. The stunt industry in Japan looks really interesting. Who wouldn't want to be the one doing the kung fu under the power ranger (or Kamen Rider) costume?