NOTE TO SELF: PAY INTERNET BILL
Ok, so I haven't written for a while. My internet company shut off my internet, it happens. Somehow, I didn't pay my internet bill, so I was "off the grid" for a little bit. Sorry if you were waiting for China pictures, I promise if I ever go to China again while on the JET program I will certainly remember to pay my internet bill when I get back ASAP. Ok. Now that is out of the way, on to the pictures. For now, I'm just posting them to my photo page at photo.xanga.com/delafro and I'll work on them more as time allows. So go ahead and check them out and let me know what you think.

As for around here, it is certainly getting colder. That definitely matters in a place like Japan where the houses are made from little more than plywood, old newsprint, and stale chewing gum. What I'm trying to say is, the temperature outside is more or less the same as the temperature inside. It's cold, and your feet and hands suffer the most. This year, I decided to take action. I set up my kotatsu (a heated table thing), bought plenty of thick wool socks, those little hand warmer packets, got out the electric blanket, many many layers of clothes, will shower before bed, etc. So hopefully I will be able to cope with it better now than in the past. Because knowing is half the battle.

Also, both of my schools had their culture festivals recently. Essentially, it's a way to put on plays, sing, have little charity events, make displays showing off school activities, and so forth. The community can get involved in the school, and the kids have projects they can work on outside of the normal academic routine. One school even had a great lunch cooked up for everyone as well. One thing I was surprised of was the seriousness of the play topics. They covered: AIDS, school bullying, treatment of Okinawans by Japanese troops in WWII, and discrimination of people with Hansen's disease (leprosy). Not exactly lighthearted stuff. But there were important lessons to be learned from the plays, so I guess that was the point.