202 days to go...

Day 157: Beautiful lavender bush on the way to school.

Day 158: The Japanese have beautiful gardens here, and make great use of the limited yard space they have, as evidenced here.

Day 159: Nada

Day 160: Yosakoi

Day 161: Picture from a poster on how to plant rice at Hitsujigaoka. I love how they painted over the faces!

Day 162: I had dinner with one of my JTEs from Hokuyo, and she gave me this. Kawaii!!

Day 163: More Yosakoi!

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• With the exception of today, June has been beautifully sunny and pleasant. Sometimes I even have to wear a jacket! Sounds like it's a lot different in the US right now. Keep cool my friends!
• Ethan has 6th grade graduation today, so I took a day off from work. It's crazy that we've almost been in Japan for a year, and Ethan's going to be in junior high!
• I've been a little frustrated at work lately. Since returning to Hitsujigaoka JH, with the exception of 2nd grade, the other teachers hardly ever use me. Which means I have LOTS of down time. Imagine only teaching 1 or 2 classes out of 6, and the rest of the time just staying at your desk - no computer, no resources. I study Japanese a lot, but I'm here to help the teachers, and I feel like - as nice as they are - they just don't know what to do with me, or don't want me. It's very frustrating, and I hope things will turn around!
• My balcony garden is doing great! I transplanted my 2 tomato plants to bigger pots (thanks, Janelda!), and they've just gotten so big, which lots of blooms! My herb garden is also doing quite well, and the lettuce greens I planted from seeds are started to take off. I also planted some zinnias, which I hope will do well. But I'm most excited for tomatoes. Grow, grow, grow, little garden!!