Oh, And...

I just realized I used the term "lo and behold" in each of my last posts. Strange. I don't actually say that often at all.

Last night I had such a hard time falling asleep. I got to talk to a few people back home over the weekend and now I'm kind of worried about them. Once I finally did fall asleep, I had less than five hours to go before my alarm clock went off, and then I proceeded to dream that my boss bought an English teaching robot to replace me. She gave me 3 days notice before I had to get the hell out of my apartment. Apparently the robot was going to live in my pad. I was very angry, but I was lucky, though, because I got a new job right away, detailing the inside of Britney Spears's SUV. She wanted the whole interior covered in red and gold sparkly metallic flames.

Go figure.

See You Later Summer!

Well, I haven't had too much to say these days. I'm looking forward to the end of the month as it will mean the end of special summer classes and the end of me having to get up in the morning and be puffy eyed and yawn filled all day. Finally, toward the end of last week I stopped feeling so fatigued from that bout with ebola-malaria I had awhile back. Not I've got a bit more pep, but am lacking the vim and vigor. Or the piss and vinegar. As we near the end of the month, though, it only reminds me I've procrastinated on my "phone teaching," so have to make 2,967 phone calls to my students in the next 2 days. Well, not THAT many, but still.

I went tonight and had this

at T.G.I.Fridays. That's one big mofo burger, but it was pretty deelish. Elizabeth, just after the food arrived, asked me if I minded if she prayed, and I said, "uh, no - be my guest." She made the sign of the cross and bowed her head for a few moments, and once she finished I asked, "did you pray that I get a lot of money?" She said no, but told me she prays I will meet a wonderful man. That's nice of her!

Last summer, while I was sweating and suffering in my 34 degree celcius apartment, my mother told me my grandmother had been praying I get an air conditioner. Lo and behold, this past May, I had two HVAC technicians appear to install a brand spanking new "air-con," so I am a believer in the power of prayer. Thanks Gramma!

I'm anticipating Prince Charming will knock on my door any day now.

Hello Again, Hello.

I know it seems impossible, but the only logical explanation of what happened to my computer is that it caught my ebola, and its insides liquefied. Right?!? So, I went more than 5 days without access at my house. I don't have enough time at work to do much more than check my e-mails, and not even reply to them. (Not that junk necessitates a reply, but still!)

So Mister Computer Man came to my house Tuesday evening and tried to turn on my PC and tsk tsk'd and then muttered something in Korean (that sure sounded like "ebola") and unplugged everything and took it away. I trusted he was far more skilled than I, as he didn't turn it on and off 500 times like I had on Sunday before figuring out it was kaput.

He returned with my computer tonight, and lo and behold, here I am back online! I got Windows loaded in English this time around, so I may not be as utterly useless as I have been. I lost everything that was stored before, favourite links and pictures and the like. No real worries, a lot of my photos are in e-mail attachments or on photobucket, so all is well.

It was very quiet at my apartment, and I lost count of the number of times I went to turn on the computer, only to remember it wasn't there. It's amazing how many times my mind comes up with a request for some kind of information that I only have to push a few buttons to satisfy. It got me wondering what people used to DO with themselves before the internet?! I know what I was up to, I was busy being a kid. What did the adults do? Like, talk to one another? Face to face? Really!!???

I have to say, 5 days without the computer left me feeling pretty lonely. I have to think more about that, too, as I don't think it's good to have a social life that only involves children trying to climb me. It might be time to seriously consider hitting the road again.

Anyhow. Speaking of kids, I actually convinced a class of eight 10 and 11 year olds that this animal:

lives in Canada. I drew it on the board and labeled it "Bearmonkeychickenbird." I told them there were many many of them in Canada, that they were very slow, and very very delicious. The kids had a lot of questions about this creature. I told them we don't cook the bearmonkeychickenbird, we sneak up on it, pounce, rip it's head off, and eat it. I circled the head of the creature I'd drawn on the board and said "delicious!" in English and Korean, and then circled the rest of it and said "not delicious."

The kids said "really?" and the Korean equivalent "jinja?" about 200 times, to which I replied absolutely straightfaced, "yes."

There is also a couple dozen small children in Japan who think Canadians and Americans have only four toes. The slippers I used to wear at work hid my baby toes, so the kids could only count four digits on each of my feet. I told them that was normal and acted all shocked that they all had 5 toes. "Do your mother and father have 5 toes too?" I would ask all wide eyed! Really!!!

Kids are fun.

Adieu!

My computer is broken. The computer guy is going to stop by my apartment sometime tonight and hopefully fix it. Or, he might whisk it away to his magical workshop and return it sometime. Who knows? Meanwhile, keep the world wide web warm for me!

Webs

I like spiders.

I do.

I like how hard they work making their webs and catching their food and repairing the damage their food makes in their webs. I like how they eat other bugs, especially mosquitoes. I hate mosquitoes. They have no redeeming qualities. They suck my blood, and bother me by squealing their high pitched whine in my ear just as I'm trying to go to sleep.

Even though spiders have bitten me while I sleep, I still like them, and have rescued many of them from the classrooms and the slipper wielding students bent on squashing them into little spider pancakes.

I don't understand, therefore, why there is a group of spiders living outside my apartment door who are conspiring to catch me an consume me. Everytime I open the door (which strangely opens inward) I walk into a network of newly constructed webs. Gross. A face full of web on the way to work doesn't make for the best start of a day. What the hell?

Apparently word hasn't gotten around Spider-Town that I am their admirer, friend, and hero. Apparently they'd rather try and eat me for lunch. Ungrateful bastards!

Ask Oprah

My co-workers have become very comfortable with me, almost, maybe TOO comfortable. Now that they realize I'm very open about things, they ask me all kinds of crazy stuff! It used to make me a bit sad that the only time they would speak English to me was to ask questions about grammar or pronunciation, but these days they've opened up many other cans of worms.



Oprah airs here in the mornings and repeats again after midnight. I like watching it, and Elizabeth's started watching it as well on my recommendation. Some days, the tapes up a piece of paper to cover the subtitles, and tries to follow the whole thing on her own as a means of studying English. Often at some point or another, we end up talking about what happened the previous day on the show.

"Jenny, if dere are two resbeeans, how do dey make rove?"

"Uhhhhh, what?" I heard her, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't mistaken, and buy a little time on how to answer that question. She repeated, and I stood there looking at her, smirking, and trying to come up with something to tell her.

"Viblatoh?" she asked.

"Ohhh jeeze, Liz!" I said, "I don't know, maybe they use that, maybe they use other things!"

"Like what?" she asked. She looked all puzzled. Maybe she was praying I wasn't going to start listing household objects.

"Ummmm, fingers?"

(Lightbulb.) "Ohhhhh!"

These subjects, I think, are fairly taboo in Korea. Elizabeth told me she can't believe how many times they said the word "vagina" on one episode of Oprah. I said "well, what do you call it in Korea?"

"On television, nothing!" It's just not talked about, which I guess is fair enough! Meanwhile, my co-workers are learning things with Ms. Winfrey every day, and I, in turn, am learning things about them!

Jeepers Creepers

Make your own eyes at http://www.flash-gear.com/eye/

I Need Cheese with my Whine

I'm going to bitch and whine. Turn away while you still can.

I wasn't very nice today. I still didn't feel extremely well, even though the fever's gone. I slept ALL DAY Sunday, and most of the day Monday. Going back to work irritated me, because it was going to mess with my required 14-16 hours of sleep. I had a piercing corkscrew kind of headache behind my left eye and back into my poor brain. My muscles still ache, and so I went to the doctor before work for another couple days of medicine and another ass-injection. My mother pointed out that in Canada, a doctor would have probably taken a blood test by now. I've been away so long, I hadn't even thought of that. I was almost late for work, arriving just as the first bell was going off, impressing no one (myself included.)

It was HOT today, and I sweated, without stopping, from the time I left my apartment until I arrived home and sat under a combination of blasting fan and air conditioner. Sick.

I yelled at my co-workers. Well, not yelled, but I guess the volume - to my sensitive head, sounded like yelling. I was pretty annoyed though. I'm an asshole. I know maybe it's petty, but I was disappointed NO ONE called me to see if I was okay over the weekend. They're not obliged to but it would have made me feel better. That's not what I didn't-yell about, though. I just got snappish after an ice cube tray I had just filled fell out of the freezer (which is in dire need of a defrost, it's like one block of snow with a tiny slot to hold a tray) with one minute before the bell rang for class. My co-workers sat there eating ice cream and watched me blankly as I scrambled to mop up the floor. I thanked them for being so helpful.

I don't know why I bothered with the ice, the school's water machine has been spitting out only warm and hot water on and off for 2 weeks. Today, the hottest day thus far, was one of those days. Whatever bug I had has left me thoroughly dehydrated, so I sucked on warm water while sweating in wet slippers.

Anyhow. I'm going to put this miserable day behind me and try to get my bloody act together for tomorrow. Off to sleep.

Oh, good news, looks like the block has been lifted. Good.

Some Notes

I found this bulletin interesting. It speaks about South Korea's, or rather, the MIC's practice of blocking what it perceives to be threatening websites under the Cold War-era National Security Law of 1948. The article notes:

"South Korea's blocking clearly demonstrates one of the important, unintended consequences of implementing Internet filtering: thousands of websites that were never intended to be blocked, and that are completely unrelated to North Korea, have been filtered. Thus, South Korea is preventing its citizens from accessing thousands of sites as a byproduct of its efforts to filter out those that support North Korea. This incident has prompted renewed calls in South Korea for the reform or repeal the 1948 National Security Law."

Smells Like China

Blogspot and some typepad blogs continue to be blocked for some people in Korea. Still, no one seems to know why, though some surmise its because of today's Independence Day festivities.

I'm not American, but have figured out the U.S.'s Independence Day celebrates freedom. In Korea it celebrates censorship? What gives? Now that I'm feeling a bit better it's pissing me off. I pay for my internet access. How come sites that were okay to view last Wednesday night, were not ok by Thursday night? What right does the government have to hand out blanket blackouts that don't even affect everyone equally? Some people are experiencing the blockage here, and some are having no trouble at all. Others are all blocked up. Constipated. Again, speculation seems to be that it depends in ones ISP. I haven't done a lot of surfing around, but I think other sites may be blocked as well. I was looking up symptoms and got a big red error message, saying my ISP was blocking a government medical site. Maybe it's related, maybe not.

What really sucks is that there doesn't seem to be any information as to why this is happening, and who is doing the blocking! Kevin, at the Big Hominid website suspects it's the work of the MIC's - (The Ministry of Information and Communication) doing, and I suspect he's right. Check out his site for some addresses to write to regarding the censorship. I've already sent off a couple letters, which were polite and more along the lines of, "excuse me, sirs, are you the ones repressing me?" rather than Kevin's (hilarious) "even my dick hates the MIC." Really, check out his site if you don't feel fired up already. Also, please visit the Nomad, and Joel, for more insight. Joel's internet service provider thinks he's a potato-loving little girl, and is blocking sites for his own protection. How sweet!

Read this article, about the Communist cyber-block in China, and see if what's happening here doesn't smack of China's censorship policies. Democracy, my ass. What is South Korea so concerned about people seeing? Why is this happening? What do you think would happen if this kind of blockage occurred in North America? Maybe it's not the MIC, maybe it's just some kind of glitch, but how are we to know? Zey are sayeeing nuzzzzing. Nuuuuuzing!

Now quick, get out of here, lest you see something you shouldn't!

Blocked

I don't know why, but Blogger accounts are currently blocked in Korea. At least they seem to be on quite a few PC's. As Kevin and The Nomad note, I can still access sites through Unipeak.com. They both speculate as to what's going on as well.

Right now I can't really drum up enough energy to care. I went to work yesterday and lasted the whole day, despite resolving I was going to teach my special summer classes, hit the doctor's office, and then head on home. I'm a superstar, pushing through.

Actually, the doctor set me up with another ass-injection and a days' worth of medicine. The medicine was very effective, and by the end of the day I actually felt fairly good! As it wore off, though, my fever increased, my muscles atrophied, and my insides resumed the liquification process. I have to disagree with the Doc's diagnosis of a "common cold." I have a high fever, muscle ache, dry persistent cough, crazy headache, and for some reason, my eyes feel like they're bugging out of my head. It hurts to push them back in. Until fairly recently, I thought people only had the flu if they were puking, (i.e stomach flu,) but I've learned different. Check out this handy symptom wheel and tell me I don't have the flu. I got two shoes, and I got the flu. Common cold, my ass.

It's HOT here today - and I was late in visiting the doc for another ass-injection and 2 days worth of medicine. I was concerned, because even though I was speed walking, I was freezing, and did not sweat one drop. Once I got back home, I took my temperature and it was 39.5C (103.1F.) I took my medicine and NOW I'm totally sweating.

This BITES.

Forgive me for whining, but that's how I get.

And now, I'm going to get back into bed.

Omens

Last night, a snake slithered alongside me for about 5 minutes on my way home. Seems we were headed in the same direction. I asked him what sort of snake he was, but he didn't respond. I asked him if he was at all dangerous, and he didn't attack me, so maybe that was a non-verbal "no." I wondered if it was auspicious to walk along with a snake. I hoped so.

Now, I'm thinking maybe NOT.

The moment I left my apartment this morning it started to rain, and I was running too late to climb back up the four stories to get my umbrella. On the way, I saw a cute puppy ahead who sometimes lets me pet him. He was lying on the side of the road in the rain. I noticed he wasn't breathing just as I saw his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his eyes glazed over.

I should have turned around and went home, but I couldn't.

The three advil I took in the morning battled my crazy-achey lower back and LOST, and as they wore off, that ache spread to every muscle in my body. By my 5:00 o'clock class I was shivering, but radiating heat like the sun.

I remembered yesterday, when one of my students sitting beside me was being a smart-ass and over-emphasized his "T" when I corrected him. He spat all over my face, and right in my eye.

Obviously we can come to the logical assumption I now have either spinal meningitis, or ebola. I think I can feel my insides liquefying, and I expect to start bleeding from my eyes and ears shortly.

If ever a snake slithers up to "walk" with you, run away and take some vitamin C.

Zzzzzzz.

*Edit: (10:21)I just took my temperature. It's 39.1C (102.4F.) Yep, definite liquification going on!

Play Misty for Me

Well, I mentioned in an earlier post that my weekend away in Japan was the same weekend of the big kick-ass 3 day-long party at my family's cottage in Canada. When in Canada, the 1st weekend in August is my favourite of the whole year. Let's compare and contrast weekend activities halfway around the world from one another. See if you can spot any differences!

In Japan, my friends pose for me before the sun sets and the fireworks begin:


And in Canada, on the dock, people don't pose, (so much,) before they have a swim, go waterskiing, eat a hot dog, or take their next swig of frosty beer:


Pretty much the same, eh?

Or not. At least everyone looks pretty happy all around the world.

I'll tell you straight up, I love Japan. I love the people and the food and the culture. I loved sitting on a beach, smelling the salty sea air and drinking a nice Kirin beer. I had a great time, however, somewhere in the back of my mind there was a gnawing sense that I'd rather be somewhere else.

I have a deep love for my family's cottage. It's where I spent my summers as a child, swimming in the lake for hours, catching frogs and going fishing. I recall my brother and I sliding around the back of my grandfather's pickup listening to The Monks' "Bad Habits," and Trooper's "Hot Shots" on his ghetto blaster, driving into town to get the daily newspaper, peanuts, and licorice.

We had the cottage moved back from the waterfront and perched atop a new foundation, and we built on an addition, giving us 3 more bedrooms and another bathroom as well as a basement. My brother and I straightened nails and laughed our asses off as our Uncle Dave slid down hills into wheelbarrows filled with cement. Okay, that only happened once, but it's been replaying in my brain ever since.

Our summers were speckled with the usual, summer loves, being bad and getting in trouble for it, family fights and drama, and encounters with the wildlife. More recently, I remember watching the most brilliant display of Aurora Borealis I've ever seen from the dock just a few years back. It lasted for hours, and it looked like angels dancing in the night sky.

The cottage is where I took a summer off from university in '92 and it's where I was when I heard the news my friend Dave had passed away, news that changed my life.

It's where my grandfather retired to, after the cottage had been raised and enlarged and winterized. It's where he died suddenly just a few years ago before I came overseas. This piece of heaven, the lake, the little forest beside us, the looming hills that enclose everything, is where my mom eventually wants her ashes to be scattered, and where I hope mine will be as well.

So you can understand how, as I happily and gratefully sat watching fireworks erupt in the sky over the sea in Japan, I got quite misty thinking of the place where I was not. Hopefully, next year.

Hanabi

Last Sunday night I was on a beach by the sea in Japan, watching fireworks. One thing I really miss about Japan is the festivals. In the spring there are cherry blossom festivals (hanami,) and every shrine has its own festival throughout the year, so every month there's some kind of happening you can attend and experience the culture of Japan.

So, luckily my visit coincided with a hanabi festival in the city I used to live! I've been to this one before, and really loved it. All around me were pretty girls dressed in their traditional summer kimonos (called yukata) and all around were stalls selling food, candy, beer, and other things.



The fireworks are really impressive, and lasted about an hour or so. I sat on the beach with friends, drinking beers and chu-hi's (fizzy fruit flavoured alcohol bevvies) watching the night sky explode with brilliant colours. It was a really great time. My only complaint was that it was HOT, but the sea-breeze was decent, and I cooled down from our 30 minute trek from the subway to the beach eventually.

At least I was wearing a good pair of comfy sandals. My friend Toshi wore his male yukata and traditional geta sandals

which are hard to walk on. He was a trooper though! I would have whined the whole way, "My feet hurt! Why are these sandals so uncomfortable?" My friend Toshi is a good guy. He actually came back to Canada with me last year and we had a great time! He also has a ridiculously long tongue.

Sign Language

I've figured out why the video store in my little neighbourhood is so CRAP! It's because the owner (and surely orderer of videos and DVD's) is an action-movie/horror-flick kind of guy. The shelves are stocked with absolute shit movies. I've mentioned this before. There are 5 copies of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," and one copy of the multi-Academy-Award winning "Million Dollar Baby." There are 3 copies of a surely straight-to-video movie called "Down" here, but called something else in other markets (I can't figure it out, and I've googled a bunch of words) but yet still no "Finding Neverland" or (insert good movie title here.)

The owner, when he greets me, either reaches his arms out and pulls me into a hug, (which is highly odd behaviour in South Korea) or he offers his hand for a handshake. But it's not your ordinary handshake. He uses one of his fingers to scratch the palm of my hand while he shakes it. Know what I mean? (nudge nudge wink wink!) I truly thought that was a North American thing. Now I'm wondering if it's a secret worldwide code of "let's get it on?"

And speaking of signs, I led my class of little 8 year olds in a song the other day. The Korean teacher has been working on it, so they were familiar with the easy words and melody. I incorporated hand gestures. Here, each of the fingers are assumed a family rank! (We have thumb, pointer, middle, ring and baby.) In Korea, it's daddy, mommy, sister, brother, baby, respectively. The song goes:

"Father finger, father finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am, how do you do?"

I hid my fingers during the "where are you" part, and then revealed them during the "here I am" part.

Once we got to the "sister (middle) finger" part, my smart little student Emily tugged on my sleeve, stuck her "sister" finger up in my face and proudly proclaimed,
"Teacha! Fuck You!" (She even did it with a clear "F" sound, that we've been working on - most Koreans use a "P" sound.) Emily demonstrated very bad manners, but excellent pronunciation and comprehension.

Signs, signs, everywhere are signs!

Not a Good Idea

Someone I was just speaking with online used the phrase "not a good idea." That sentiment automatically yanks me back a few years and makes me think of my brother.

Once, while we were in highschool and our parents were away on some trip, my brother and I were left to our own devices for a few days. I walked into the kitchen at some point and found my brother with the fridge door open, just about to drop a whole slice of ham into his mouth. I said, "Whoa! That's not a good idea man!"

The ham was this crazy shade of olive-green my brother's colour-blind eyes couldn't register.

The other time I uttered that phrase was when my brother was living on his own, and I was visiting him on a break from university. He had just gotten his first cat. I walked into the apartment and saw him down the hall, in the open doorway of his bathroom, dumping the whole contents of a kitty litter box filled with clumping litter, into the toilet.

"Yo! That's DEFINITELY not a good idea!"

"Why?" he asked.

"Ummmm, because water makes that clumping-shit turn to cement?"

It took hours of plunging and flushing and overflowing to fix his stupid toilet.

Live and learn, man.

Jinja Jinja

A couple months ago, my co-worker's told me about some Korean woman who was upset after the death of her husband, and found herself with no appetite. So she drank coffee. For 10 years. And ate nothing. The doctors checked her out and confirmed this fact, and concluded that she was healthier than most people.

Ok.

I asked a lot of questions, because I'm like that. To start, they were mostly just reiterating the facts as they'd been laid out before me. "Just coffee?" "Yes."

"Only coffee?" "Yes."

"For 10 years?" "Yes."

"Just coffee? Nothing else?" "Oh, she had some sugar in her coffee."

"Ohhhhhhh! Ok! Sugar! Well, that explains it!"

I asked another bunch of questions. Where was this woman? Where did they hear this? Really? Did they believe this? "I don't know. It was in the news. Yes. Yes."

Today, Elizabeth told me about Koreans in America paying 100,000 dollars an hour for tutoring lessons to pass essay tests. I responded with a not-very-polite "BULLSHIT!!" followed by, "Where did you hear this? What state? Where? Who? What?? One hundred thousand dollars? A HUNDRED thousand? Dollars? One zero zero, zero zero zero? An hour? Really?"

I reminded Elizabeth of the coffee drinking lady and how I wouldn't/couldn't believe that story. I told her I need facts. I need details. I need phone numbers I can call to confirm the validity of such crazy-ass stories.

Elizabeth responded by telling me that things, these days, are very expensive. There are teddy bears being sold here in Korea for 5,000,000 won (about $5,000 US.) My eyes rolled so far back into my head I just about lost consciousness.

"Where? Why? What are these bears made of? Gold? Are they huge? Are they robots? Where did you hear this?"

Again, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Ha ha, maybe! It was in the news."

I think maybe my co-workers are reading the Korean equivalent of such trash tabloids as the National Enquirer, The Star, or The Globe, and they believe every word of it! (I had to 'google' those last two tabloid names and I was a bit surprised they share the same name as the two most popular daily Toronto newspapers!)

In a similar vein, of absolutely true but hard to believe news items, my cat has challenged Kevin at the Big Hominid's blog, to a SUMO match. The Big Ho is SO going to get his ass handed to him!

So Eager!

Just wanted to share a picture of my students, as they anxiously await me learnin' them some English!

Aren't they DARLING?!?!

Yep, I'm fairly BLAH!

I intended to post something tonight. And I suppose I AM posting something. But not too much. I'm still decompressing from being on vacation. For whatever reason, while I was absent, my life here seemed a million miles away and I wasn't really thinking too much about it. Or I wasn't "feeling" it. I did constantly compare Japan to Korea. Most comparisons were more "logos" based than "pathos" oriented. Just like, "here is like this, whereas there is like that." I'll go into details soon when I feel more chatty.

I met, on the hydrofoil back, a woman who was on her visa run after having only been living and working in Korea 2 weeks. She was positively ranty about everything, and already had her mind on a runner after she gets her first pay. She was enthralled by her short visit to Fukuoka, and pumped me for information on what it's like to live there. As a good balance to her heavy negativity, there was also a nice fellow who has lived in both places, and agreed that Japan is excellent (and expensive) but also told me happily how he now lives in Seoul and loves it! Yin and Yang on a boat.

My life is yin and yang anyhow. I am constantly overjoyed and saddened. Interested and bored. Encouraged and dismayed. I guess that's the way it goes with everyone? An old 'Talk Talk' song runs through my head while in these funks: "Baby, life's what you make it, celebrate it, anticipate it, yesterday's faded, nothing can change it, life's what you make it!"

I guess, maybe, nothing CAN change the past. But if one changes their perceptions about what happened, say, yesterday,...then I guess they've changed their present thought about the past, rather than the actual past? (Of course, dumbass!) I'm talking circles because I'm tired.

For now, I'll spare the details on everything else. I'd like to share a couple of photos I took while away when I write about it, but I'm waiting for them to be e-mailed to me.

Meanwhile, behold my beast who survived my absence with only a massive (intentional?) crap on the rug, and a not so massive (but DEFINITELY intentional) piss in the middle of the bed. I think it was a territorial pee of defiance. The girls who came to feed him set up camp on my (*ahem* HIS) bed to watch some telly and eat some snacks. Kamikaze sure showed them who's boss! "Here - sit in my urine next time!" Check out the "nippleage!"

I'm Back!

But I kinda wish I wasn't. I had a great great time. Now I have the "post-vacation blues." Hopefully I'll get over it soon, but the fact I've got a 10-hour day at school tomorrow doesn't bode well for me regaining my cheery sunshiny attitude.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about Japan. Now I will sleep!