I can't have Obama's election win as the top entry on the blog, he'll actually be president before I update again it would seem. So time to write about something else.
The students finished having their school festivals a few weeks ago. Every year, the kids put on plays, sing songs, do musical performances, have a charity bazaar or crafts and other such activities. It's a good chance for the kids to work on something other than just studying stuff all of the time. On the flipside, it can be pretty time consuming with all of the stuff that needs to be done, the preparations and cleaning up, etc. This year, a lot of the plays focused on serious topics, such as Minamata disease or discrimination, but a few managed to be a little more fun, like for example in one play a student was secretly a kappa (water imp) disguised as a human, leading to some humorous situations.
My car keeps messing up, again. It's old and is unreliable, but it works just enough to keep me from justyfing purchasing a different car for the reminaing few months that I plan to be here. Again, this time, I'm having problems with the radiator overheating, and it won't start either. Where I live though, I've gotta have that car. It would be great to live in a place where there was mass transit to speak of, but that just isn't the case. In the meantime, got to keep an eye on the car and call JAF (like AAA) to bail me out if there are any problems.
The big news is the JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test, is finally coming up. I planned on taking it last year, but things didn't quite work out as planned and I actually spent the day going to watch sumo. Yeah. Truth is, I wouldn't have gotten close to passing it either. This year, I'm really going for it. Reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary, kanji recognition, a lot of fun stuff in there. The test I'm taking, Level 2, is pushing right up against the limits of my Japanese ability, so it's going to be a close call. But having a good challenge every now and then is a good thing especially if you want to improve on something.
The test this year is in Kurume, a few hours away by car, so we're going to stay there at a hotel overnight, get a good night's rest, and then get ready to go in the morning. No problems and no excuses is the goal.
Other than that, it's cold! A long way to go until springtime, that's for sure.