Broken windshield

Today I returned back to the teacher's room from 4th period a little earlier than usual. I was relieved that the class finished early because those 2nd graders were a very rowdy bunch and I kind of wanted a little bit of recovery time before rejoining the same kids for lunch.

No sooner than when I walked in the room with my mind on washing my hands and helping the teacher set up the lunch trays, I was asked to go to the principal's office. The principal started talking to me about my car and I assumed at first that I parked somewhere wrong or something.

When it dawned on me that what he was trying to explain to me was that my windshield was broken, I was really surprised.

It turned out, from what I understood, a student was trying to hit something in a tree with a stone and it accidentally fell on my windshield instead.

I wasn't mad at the student because kids make careless mistakes all of the time.

Anyway, they called the student in to come in and apologize- which he did. But then, the principal, vice principal, and his teacher were all trying to get him to tell us what exactly happened. This poor kid obviously was really upset and he could hardly say anything. I felt really bad for him. I mean, my windshield will be repaired and it will be no big deal for me in the soon to be future, but I think this situation will bother the kid a lot more.

The whole situation was entirely uncomfortable to me- witnessing and having this child's guilt directed towards me as if I were angry about it and, a little while later, all of his mother's apologizes.

Luckily I don't have to pay for anything. The repair place has my car until Saturday or Sunday and they let me borrow a car in the meantime.

Man, today was a crazy, crazy day.

New title

I was kind of hesitant to put a Japanese title on this blog. Especially since I don't think anyone who reads this knows Japanese.

But this has a story.

It was last Tuesday and I was in Hotto Motto, a bento place, buying dinner because I had a Japanese lesson later on and I don't have a lot of time to get dinner together on those days.

So I ordered and then, as always, looked at all of the ads while I was waiting for my food.

I'd seen this ad before many, many times, but I hadn't noticed before.

It advertised a new bento meal as "390円のしあわせ," which basically means "390 yen happiness." I decided it was funny on many levels, especially in that it sounds like a title of a Japanese book or a drama. I was thinking I wanted to use it as a title for something and decided to stick it here in the meantime.

So that's the story. No more confusion! Yay!

Power walk

So I started exercising recently. This was inspired by a number of things.

One of those things was standing in a dressing room trying on a shirt and realizing that sitting around sick most of Golden Week gave me a little more of a tummy than what I had before. I've actually first realized that I had a little bit of one senior year of high school and sort of wanted to actively try to get rid of it since then.

Umm... wow, there were other things that inspired this, but I can't remember what they are right now. I totally listed them to Bethany the other day via AIM, but it's gone now.

Anyway, these are the things that I thought of-

1) This time I will start easy: My first semester at CSUMB, I had decided that for my fitness goal for my health class, I would take up jogging. But, unfortunately, that was probably one of the most unhealthiest periods of my life. I wasn't eating very well and I was under lots of stress. I felt really dizzy and sick after trying and I couldn't keep it up. It was really discouraging. I realize now that I was aiming too high, too quickly, and at the wrong time. When I exercised at Curves about a year later, it was really nice because I could pretty much pace myself however I wanted.

2) I don't need to spend money: Because I am starting easy, there is no need for me to get a gym membership or to buy any equipment. I can just do things that I can do easily in and around my apartment building. I will spend money on my habits I have, rather than spend money on habits I WANT to have like many other people do.

So with this healthy and realistic mindset, I started exercising.

I started last week and so far it's been 2 times a week. I aim for everyday except for the day I have my Japanese lesson, but naturally feeling icky and having plans get in the way. I figure that 6 times a week is a tad too much, but if I intend to do that much, but allow myself little excuses not to, I'll average 3-4 times.

Like I said before, I'm start off really easy.

First of all, I go for a power walk around the neighborhood of building. I usually do this after dark because I kind of just want to exercise and not think about being "the foreigner". Plus, I've already preferred working out later in the day because I don't worry about saving energy for the rest of the day. Plus, I don't mind sweating because I will jump into my nightly shower right after.

I figure this power walk will turn into a jog eventually, but I want to make sure that I can actually jog the whole distance without tiring myself out first. If I let that happen, it would all be pointless, right?

I get home and I do crunches (sit ups for wimps) and then I do a wimpy version of push ups (my arms need work!). Then I stretch for a little while and then run in place until the song I am listening to ends. Then I enjoy a nice shower.

Sounds good, right? :) I feel good about it.

The 3～4 days I liked House M.D.

I am not really sure how/why that happened.

I don't remember the exact day, but it was near the beginning of the five day weekend I had from May 2nd to the 6th. Knowing that there will be no new episodes of The Office for a while in my not-too-far future, I decided to take a look at other shows that are currently popular.

And I guess that's how it happened. I found myself watching House M.D.

I was really enjoying the episodes I was watching, but the show really disturbed me at the same time.

The patients in this show have like the most disturbing, unreal illnesses known to mankind.

So I kept watching episodes online of this show, but I kept wanting to stop because it was making me think of the gross things that happened to the patients.

Then, on Tuesday, I watched the new episode.

I was relieved to find that I was completely unamused by the show.

"YES!" I thought, "the spell is broken!"

I am not going to allow myself to watch medical shows anymore. Except maybe episodes of Scrubs (I heard that show ended, btw).

I don't remember disliking high school...

I have a notebook for a specific purpose. Well, actually, it's more of a folder because it fell apart.

Strange opening sentence to this blog, but I couldn't think of a better way to start it.

I wrote three pages in it as a semi-troubled high school senior in 2004. Then I forgot about it, found it again, and wrote a two page reply in 2006. The same thing happened again in 2008. The interesting thing about reading these pages over time is that every time it's a little more interesting. Each time the way of thinking and the setting becomes more foreign to me.

I read the notebook/folder last night trying to take my mind off of crazy things that I was obsessing over. There was one part of my 2004 entry that kind of surprised me. I wrote something along the lines of "if I have to be in high school much longer, I'll claw my eyes out". It surprised me because I don't remember disliking high school that much. It also surprises me that I don't recall finding that part strange in 2006 or 2008.

Maybe my vague memory of what my impressions were as a high school student have been transformed a little by the fact that I teach now. *gigantic shrug*

Did I dislike high school? Obviously, I was kind of tired of it near the end, but I don't quite remember that either. Was it all having to do with friend drama or was that just part of it?

Knowing me, the fact that I don't remember just means that it probably sucked.

:D