Time flies when you live in the future :)

First of all, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this blog! I knew it had been a while since I had last posted, but I didn't realize it had been a whole week! I knew I wouldn't have the time to update everyday, so maybe shooting for once a week will be a "happy medium" if you will.
So there's a lot of catching up to do here...let's play out the last week.
Sunday was full of downtown Sendai, Thai lunch, a Sendai professional soccer game (Go Vegalta!), and Fellowship. I love going downtown and riding the bus and the subway. Those things were never a part of my life in the States, and it's a nice reminder that I am somewhere totally different. I expected this move to bring with it many things including a huge dose of culture shock. So far, that has not happened. I feel like I was adequately prepared for the different culture and am dealing with it accordingly. With that said, I was just at the store and I told my friend, "I bought some sugar so I can make more kool-aid. Well, I think it was sugar. It might be salt." Thankfully, I used my years of deductive reasoning training and guessed correctly. This time. So far the hardest things for me to "deal with" have been doing laundry, shopping, and prioritizing my time. Laundry is difficult because it is such a long process because we have to hang everything up to dry outside and hope it doesn't rain. Shopping is difficult because what seems like a good deal sometimes isn't, and hoping you buy sugar and not salt. And we all know i haven't been very good at prioritizing my time. Ever. So no change there. Fellowship is a time when some of the teachers get together on Sunday evening, eat dinner, worship, and fellowship. I really enjoyed the closeness of the group and worshiping with people I have gotten to know. I am so blessed to have a community here to lift me up and to be a part of.
Anyway, back to my week. There was talk of camping/hiking on Monday, but that did not happen for me. Instead, I was able to relax all day and enjoy dinner and granola bar making with friends in the same apartment building. Unfortunately, Tuesday brought headaches and nausea, so I was in bed most of the day. That night for dinner, we were to meet some of the people who helped develop the curriculum MeySen uses. I felt a little better and was able to enjoy another new experience for dinner. When we ordered there, all our food came to us raw. But thankfully there was a "griddle" (or what I would equate to an American griddle...it was about 2ftx1ft) in the middle of our table. The uncooked food came to us in bowls, and mine was filled with cabbage, shrimp, egg, ginger, unidentifiable (but tasty!) food, and a batter that was the same consistency of pancake batter, but it was not sweet. We stirred the contents together and poured our dinner on the griddle, flipped, and ate our "pancakes." It was so different than anything I had ever really tasted, but I am definitely not complaining! Wednesday started early and was full of training. It was nice to have a day to learn just a few of the "whys" and "hows" behind the things we had seen in the classroom the previous Friday. The biggest part of the training included learning to "air write" which means that the teacher has to "write" the letters the students are learning backwards in the air so that when the students mimic, they are writing them correctly. And it is NOT EASY. But I will get better with time. I also hope to get better at driving with time. We got our first driving session, and it was so...backwards! I only drove on the wrong side of the street and turned on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker ONCE. Not a bad start if I do say so myself. Thursday was GREEN DAY at school, so we had Green show-and-tell, Green relay games, and Green snack-lime koolaid and popcorn dyed green using butter and food coloring. The kids get cuter and cuter the more time I spend with them. I already told my teacher that if some of them end up missing when I leave, not to come after me because I probably took them. Friday was a "normal" day at MeySen, which means nothing as there is always something special or different. The kids have so much fun at school, and I can't blame them. The school is seriously like an amusement park with some songs, stories, poems, and writing added in. Today at school there was an "Experience Day" for 3 year-olds who are new to MeySen and are interested in enrolling. We sang songs and made a craft and played with the kids for about an hour and then our work was done! Tomorrow I have laundry, cleaning, reading, and running to look forward to.


Here's a link to the pictures I have taken here so far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015860&id=1534140031&l=25127d008e

P.S.
A few quick headlines from this week:
>I got my bike!! I have been riding every chance I get. It has 6 gears, a basket on the handlebars, and is gold. Yep, GOLD.
>The process has started for me to get a new bed frame. Soon I will have to say goodbye to sleeping on the floor. I don't think it will be that difficult :)
>I saw a man with a mustache today. First one I've seen here.
>Listening to the radio via the world wide web has never seemed so cool to me. Until now.
>I have taught the girls in my class how to spider-swing. They are in love. I am also going down the slide every chance I get. I think when I have to find a new job, the length of the slides at their playground will make or break the deal. That said, if you want me to move back to the US, start finding me schools with ridiculously long slides :)