For the record, just because I can swim 1200 meters doesn't mean that I can run around for two classes playing tag without feeling like my legs are going to fall off. Which is exactly what I've done the last two days and exactly how I feel at the moment.

Told my elementary students that I'm leaving at the end of July and we only have two more classes left together. Most of them didn't seem that sad but maybe that's because they're 10 and they don't really think about the future. The teachers have been really sweet though and I know I'll be crying buckets when it's time to say goodbye.

Back at junior high school tomorrow. We have exchange students from Indiana and Kentucky visiting so it will be nice to have someone to speak English with. And two weeks from now a delegation from Georgetown is coming to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the sister city relationship with Tahara. As the year-round representative of G-town I am not only going to the ceremony/reception but I'm also singing a solo. (Amazing Grace - because that's symbolic of international cooperation...)

People from the same delegation are coming around to watch me teach at Takamatsu-sho. That means I'll have to dress up to go to elementary school, which sucks because this time of year I try to wear clothes I don't mind getting dirty and sweaty since just standing around is hot and my teaching style usually includes a lot of me jumping around and acting like a clown and then playing games that have me running until my legs feel like they're going to fall off.

With any luck they'll actually replace me with another Georgetown College graduate and I won't be the last of my kind. No one tells me anything though.

Now my main concern is convincing the Board of Education that they shouldn't charge me to haul away everything in my apartment but that it should be left to the next ALT (unlike me who had to buy everything new.) I'm trying to appeal to the Japanese dislike of wasting things. I've used the word waste at least twice in every conversation regarding this topic. So far all I've gotten is that they have to talk about it and they'll let me know. I can't decide if they are really talking about it or if this is their way of saying no. It will be nice to be back in the land of yes means yes and no means no and by that I mean America.

Only six more weeks to go!