I Need Another Vacation

I am getting worn out and the fun has not even started yet.

I am not sure why, but long train rides really start to take it out of me if I get a bunch of them all together. Between the business trips I have been on, the train rides to and from Toyooka, and the classes I have been teaching, I am worn out. Put the fact that I have a cold/flu/allergy thing going on to top everything off, and that does not make anything better. Oh yeah, I pulled my shoulder tonight and that means I have a killer headache at the moment, despite having downed three aspirin.

On the upside, its raining pretty good right now and I know the railroads still haven't totally recovered from the rain that came two nights ago. Here's to hoping for another rain day tomorrow. If it happens, I am keeping all weight off of my right shoulder and will probably crash for most of the day. If I can get one easy day, I know my shoulder pain will subside and everything will be kosher. I need that shoulder to be good to go because I know next week, there will be no rest.

Next week, I am out of town again on Monday and will probably be in a hotel that night. The following day is an office day but I have a feeling I will be teaching somewhere, more on that in a sec. On Wednesday, summer school starts. What that means is, I am in a new town every other day, I am teaching three new curriculi, and I do not get a break for at least eight days. To add to the joy, for the youngest kids, their parents will be attending the lessons and interacting with the kids during the lesson. I am usually pretty good with the parents and most of them love me, but they really are a burden for the most part. When parents are around, the kids are different, and usually, not in a good way. The upside is each class is ten minutes shorter than usual and in theory, the kids I am teaching, all want to be there. The thing that cracks me up is I have one class I know for sure where there is only one kid attending and one where there are only two. That will be interesting. Smaller classes mean quicker lessons. I know by the end of those classes, I will be doing card tricks. The best part of summer school is that I found out that I do not have to teach my Miyazu classes during that time. Miyazu is my hell school and I will not miss them one bit. Out of maybe forty kids that I teach there, there are about ten that I like, ten that I do not mind, nineteen that I wish would go away, and one that I wish would get kidnapped by monkeys and forced to live in a cave for the rest of his life. Odds are, the monkeys would get sick of him too and drown him in an onsen or something. Yeah, that sounds bad but I would hate him a lot less if I never had to see him again starting three months ago.

To add to all of this fun, my group of teachers got a new member a few weeks ago and she has proven to be a tad...trying. She has already been late twice, she has cancelled one class for stupid reasons, and she has been sick multiple times. Tonight, my boss had to teach her classes for that very reason. She also did not do well at the big meeting we had to go to the other day. She was my partner and both of us had to give demonstrations. My lessons rocked and the big boss liked my performance. Her's were less than stellar and the big boss was not impressed by her. I tried to help her out but the ship was sinking faster than I could bail water, but my boss noticed I was trying to give her a hand and was glad that I was trying to be a team player. Basically, none of the rest of us think she will be around much longer. Which sucks because if she gets fired, it will take them another couple of months to replace her and that means that all of us will have to pick up classes. Other than my vacation, I have not had two days off in a row in a couple of months. I am not the only one that has this problem though, so I don't feel too bad. There are not too many redeeming features about the new teacher for me to miss. She is not cute, she kind of gets on my nerves, and she has no idea how to be on time for anything, let alone her classes. I hate lateness. If you cannot be on time to go drinking, what good are you?

Anywho, that pretty much sums up my mood and how the next couple of weeks are going to go. They will probably be kind of fun but they will be tiring. I will be glad for September and the little break I am trying to pull together then. We'll see. I also remembered that I did not post rice pics on Sunday. That is my bad but you aren't missing much. The rice has grown some but looks pretty much the same. I will try to get some pics on here very soon. Speaking of pics, I need to update the official picture site. I know I have not done much since I started it and its been because I have been busy. Just know that I am planning on updating it, it just may be a while. On my days off, I have not been wanting to sort and rename pictures. I haven't been sorting my mp3s properly either so everything is getting neglected equally.

As for right now, I am done. I am going to sleep early tonight. Wish me luck for the upcoming weeks and for getting more cool dreams like the ones I have been having the past couple of nights. They are really messed up but fun. :)