Got an email with a picture this past week. My sister thinks I look like Ed Grimley.
You be the judge.

Time to write about nothing which will tell you everything about me. Or at least what I let on, I guess. Take from it what you will, I'm tired. That's pretty much why I'm just writing gibberish. If you feel so inclined, stop reading now before you get sucked in. The days are long, my head spins with new words learned in Japanese while English words, simple ones, take their leave. Teaching children words like happy, sad, hungry, monday, pig, arm, me too... oh the list goes on and now that is how my mind operates: with no real reason or rhyme. Exercise has taken the rest of my being so that I'm now a zombie, operating in a kind of automatic mode.

Next thought, I hope to always smile. Why you ask? Well, have you seen those old people with the perma frown? I don't want to become like them. I especially feel sorry for those kids who all ready have a perma frown, they never seem to smile. Even in my English class, it's hard to get some kids to crack a smile and my class is freaking fun, gosh darn it! What will happen to those kids when they get old? Will their lips fall off from all those years of hanging? Oh, so many questions, not enough answers.
Well, enough of this, I've got to get back to practicing for the Village reading thingie tonight. I will be reading a German book called Freunde by Helme Heine which I only have the Japanese version which I translated into English. So there I'll be reading first in English and then in Japanese. It's a good book about a rat, a rooster, and a pig. If it was an adult novel, it'd probably be about the mafia. You know, Johnny the Rat, Franz Cock, and Fat Waldemar. I tell you what, those 3 were inseparable. But I digress...
Back to me ending this blog. What's amazing is I've told some Japanese people about this blog and boy are they in for a ride. I'm a native English speaker and I'm clueless about what's just been written. No need for a dictionary my Japanese friends, you can't look up this kind of randomness, try looking up gibberish. Actually I did it for you, it means
Unintelligible or nonsensical talk or writing.
Highly technical or esoteric language.
Unnecessarily pretentious or vague language.

On March 11, 2006 There was a charity event held by some of us who went to India over break. We gave a presentation on the trip, sold cookies, sold ourselves, took donations, and had a grand ole time. I started the night off strong but the day's exercise got the best of me and I had to call it a night before everybody else was ready to go. In the end, I spoke some Japanese, had a couple drinks, was bought in an auction, returned her money, and slept. It was 2:30 and I just wanted to go home. The group was going on to karaoke and so I gave back the girl back the money she paid. For those of you who are confused, 5 of us guys were auctioned off at the party to be somebody's "slave", "manservant", whatnot. Well, I felt bad because I wasn't going to the 2nd party and so I returned the money she paid. All in all the turnout was pretty low but we still ended up raising about 8 man (800 dollars) which will go to the orphans and school we visited in India.

Terrible Tuesday

It's been a while so I thought I'd share. As August gets closer more and more people are asking about my plans for Post JET. I wish I had this grand plan for my future but I don't. I do know I'll be going home for a little bit to see family, friends, and America. Coming back to Okinawa is definitely something I'd like to do but it's all about timing and job opportunities. Maybe I'll head down to South America or Europe for a little bit.
Ok, moving on...
This week has been awful in terms of training. On Tuesday I had a camera inserted into my stomach via my throat. It was part of my annual health check up and my first time, and hopefully last time, that a camera was used to look at the inside of my stomach. First, i got a shot in my arm, then had to hold anisthetic gel stuff at the back of my throat while it all numbed, next was the spray anisthetic that I swallowed (yuck). Finally, good ole doc slipped a camera thru my mouth, down my throat, into my stomach. Whilst this was happening I was choking, gagging, burping, crying. I could feel it move around! That lasted about 10 minutes. Also, I wasn't allowed to eat from 8 P.M. the previous night and then couldn't eat for 2 hours after the procedure which totaled 17 hours. Tuesday night I played softball with my board of education. I think I did something wrong because my back is very sore and this is all very bad because I'm currently training for a strongman triathlon that is going to take place in a month and a half. Please pray for healing and my future. Well, I was planning on going over the past couple weeks but apparently I only filled you in on Tuesday.