October 21st-25th: Working. On Friday, Halloween Week began. I put on my Opera Vectra costume and went to work. Everyone thought my costume was hilarious.

October 26th: Today was the company Halloween party. Tomokazu was nice enough to come with me (we hung out and played Silent Hill and worked on webpages beforehand), and lots of my students came. Matthew thought we were supposed to come in costume and arrived dressed as yakuza, which was funny. There was lots of good food and we had a good time. Two of Virginia's students from her junior high class came; they're insanely crazy anyway, and somehow, they got ahold of some beer. They proceeded to go completely nuts, and one of them was sitting on the couch singing, "Kathryn is cute...give me a hug...." and I think would have crawled into my lap except that Tomo was next to me, and I had Rumi and her sister Yuma on the other side, and Yuma kicked him the one time he got too close. It turns out on Monday, they both asked the manager what happened at the party, because they couldn't remember...

October 27th: I helped my friend throw a Halloween party at her house; only a few people came but it was fun. I made cider and Rice Krispie jack-o-lanterns and pizza. While it was cooking, my friends loaned me some more Akira manga to read, which is great. When everyone arrived, I dished up the food. All of the Japanese people thought it was soup and were eating it with a spoon. This conversation occured:

Friend #1: How's the soup?

Her husband: (dismayed) It tastes like hot juice.

Me: It is hot juice! It's not soup!

Friend #2: I like the soup. (to me) Why are you laughing?

Me: It's not soup! Don't use a spoon!

Friend #2: You can't drink soup except for miso. You must use a spoon.

American friend: It's not soup.

Husband: (still dismayed): It's not like soup; it's like juice.

Me: It IS juice!

Friend #2: (bites into the cinnamon stick) This part is not delicious.

Me: *Sigh*

Still really fun though!

Back to Journals!