a not so wild weekend,

Well, I have a few things I would hope to outline about my weekend -about the weekend and how things have been going lately. But somehow Monday climbed up onto my desk and has tackled me out of work workplace chair and onto the floor. My responsibilities for today (Monday!) have overcome the best of me.

Literally in this minute I finished drafting a lesson plan for Friday. Friday will involve hosting a class at our multiplex centre here in town, part of a series running for retirees. I have been asked to present some simple English and to entertain (crudely speaking) the bunch from mid-morning to afternoon.

On top of such mini-projects and already teaching at highschool today I am truly saddened to have my [blog] posting pushed to such a small block of time! It was well before noon hour that I had plannned to begin a ‘dashing of words’ immediately following my noodles and veggies at lunch. But lo, post office, banking, and the aforementioned tasks checked me out of step and caught me off guard.

Okay, no one likes to read blabbering..

So I will put it this way, I am only minutes away from joining our town team at an after-work baseball match at a nearby location. To be elaborated on tomorrow along with the following-

On Friday, I had hoped to re-join taiko practice after a healthy absence, but was shocked to find no members at our practice venue, and instead was invited to join a post-discussion dinner and snack-

Saturday morning I boarded a bus, which I thought had no bathroom (to my demise, in order to ride and go shopping in Asahikawa. Surprise me, the bus had both a bathroom and an elementary school-aged girl who unlike many Japanese students of mine up and began trying her English with me (a complete stranger) as we neared our bus-ride shopping destination-

I have re-taken up listening to both Japanese music (listening to the music like there is no other music on earth -I love Japanese music), and watching Japanese films on my internet-based television service whilst I am still in Japan. I am filling my headspace with so much of what the country has to offer before I return to a safe and North American Canada in the summer-

Stop. So I have all but run out of time (working hours, you see) to post and tell you about my weekend, share a few pictures, and to parse words on the above topics!

But if you will join me -between today and tomorrow- I will not only share photos but complete this post! You can read not just one post but two! My time-up crisis having now turned into a unique opportunity.
(An aside, I am a little beleaguered at my not being able to really set and study my Japanese text today. Knowing myself I can always punish myself with a hearty study session tomorrow).

And of course I always have time to write about coffee… On the weekend I found myself a hand-mill coffee-mill. I have recently been gifted a whole KONA pound of coffee from a dear friend and can now enjoy both milling my whole bean coffee by hand, that sweet crackle-and-snap sound in the morning, followed by boiled water being spouted over a pour-over filter (all by hand)! This heavenly routine now has become a part of my morning. And I say, if I had to evaluate my coffee journey from the outset of my time here abroad I have surely upgraded from instant comeby the roadway coffee, to a fine and religious coffee experience.

The same can be said for my journey thus far in Japan. I have come by much instant gratification (food, fun, friends and other ‘honeymoon excitements’), I have seen those ‘instant things’ melt away and after much scrounging and attnetion my experience has become refined, whole, and religious?

Well, maybe you catch my drift. But the coffee still works.

(the eki-ben, or train station bento box that I enjoyed on the bus ride home. A delicious combination of Hokkaido seafoods i.e., crab, scallop, dried sea urchin, etc., all for a great price of about ten dollars).

Ciao