...
Isn't it beautiful?
Sigh....
It's all gone now.
The lady who grows my school Halloween pumpkins for me gave me a huge box of kabocha squash, carrots and Inca Gold potatoes along with the pumpkins.
The potatoes really are that yellow, and they make the most BEAUTIFUL chips, both in looks and taste. Egg and chips, and a cup of really hot, strong tea. The best!!!
Yoshi came home today at about 11am - sent back for ANOTHER week. First the entire school was closed for a week, then he got flu along with most of the boys in his class. Just his class closed that time, (but that was OK because he was sick anyway!) and then today most of the girls are sick so his class are under house arrest yet again. They are supposed to be having tests early next month but what on earth are they going to find to test the kids on???
Scream.
I don't teach on Mondays but I have had six phone calls today with either sick kids or kids whose classes closed today who won't be able to come to English classes this week. It's madness.
.... Hmmmmm....
I have been honest and updated the weight loss ticker. I have put on 1.2kg in the past three weeks, sadly. It is entirely deserved. I've been doing little to no exercise apart from my twice weekly aerobics class, (and missing that a lot thanks to Yoshi's flu and work commitments) and have been eating far too much, including a lot of sweet stuff. I have fallen right off the wagon, which is sad. I've also taken down the steps ticker for a while because I've gotten out of the habit of wearing my step counter so have been unable to update it accurately. I'll get back in the habit then maybe put it back up.
So, today I said to myself that I would pick myself up and get right back on the wagon. Just after I said that, I went and did a 3 mile walking DVD. And just after THAT..... I made scones with my junior high school kids (as a reward for plodding through the eiken practice with me for the past six weeks or so) and ended up eating about four of them with jam and cream piled on top. Oh yum! But there goes that exercise and more...
REALLY back on the WHOLE wagon tomorrow!
Yoshi did the next level of Eiken - 2 kyu this time - at school. It is the highest level that his school offers, and he was the only kid taking it. He just came back and said he feels good about it. I do hope so because a certain teacher will be crowing if he fails.... If he passes then surely they will have to take it into account. Not holding my breath though.
Harry is taking a break this year. We did actually pay for him to take the test on Sunday at the usual college we take it at, BUT..... in all his practice tests the most he's been able to get has been 40%. He can read everything but he simply doesn't have the experience yet to understand it. I would put him in anyway just for the practice BUT..... it's flu season! The trouble is that this exam session is the last one that students can use to add these certificates to their high school and university applications, and Eiken 2 kyu is equivalent to university application level. Yoshi's letter home from school had a little note: "If you need masks and or fever medicine, make sure to bring your own." The kids will NOT miss the exam unless they are incapable of sitting up. So Seiju and I decided that there is little point in Harry sitting in a room full of spitty snotty people for three hours when there is little to no hope of him passing. He's only nine - plenty of time yet!! (Like another nine years before he needs it!)
Yoshi just brought his school report home and I found he's been graded 3 out of 5 for English, and get this, was given a B (out of only ABC, C being unacceptable) for "understanding of English and International culture".
I am tempted to write a letter to the school asking where exactly he failed, and what exactly we can do to remedy this, seeing that:
MAIN POINT: HE HOLDS BRITISH NATIONALITY!!!!!
In addition:
a) We only speak English at home, even his Japanese dad, and have done since he was born,
b) He's been to England 11 times in his 13 years, for a total time of slightly less than two years,
c) He's also been to France, and if you want to get picky, Wales (they speak another language there, too!)
d) He falls asleep every night listening to such audio books as Harry Potter, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Terry Pratchett books, and so on.
e) We have friends with kids of American, Vietnamese, British, Australian, Russian and Estonian extract.
I am not going to write the letter of course. There is no point. We have been to the school over much more serious problems than this three times now, and three times he has been further punished for us having gone to the school in the first place. We've learned that there is nothing to be done about this. But I'd love to know what secret all the little Katakana-speaking A students did to get that A.....
Seiju came home on Friday night for the three day weekend. He's been very overworked lately and he's barely made it home one weekend a month. So, we were looking forward to three days together.
Yesterday morning we decided to go back to his work town (slightly more than two hours drive away) to pick up his motorbike, as the weather was good. We set off in brilliant sunshine, and arrived in a massive lightening storm! Still, the bike needed bringing back so Seiju got done up in all his waterproofs and I followed him back, wincing as the lightening struck all around us, the rain poured down, and trucks just about knocked him off the bike with spray as they passed him.... The storm followed us home, so we were driving/riding in heavy rain almost all the way back.
We got back safely, wrapped the bike up for the winter, and decided to reward ourselves with ¥100 sushi in the next town over. While we were there, the storm caught up with us, so we were eating while the rain lashed down and the lightening struck around us again - no gap between flashes and bangs! And to cap it all off there was an earthquake too! A very apocalyptic dinner....
Got home, all got into bed, satisfied that the stuff we had to do was done and looking forward to a happy couple of days off when at nearly midnight, Seiju gets a phone call saying he's got to go back because some old biddy went off into the mountains IN THAT STORM to collect mountain vegetables and never came back. He said he'd leave in the early morning as the storm was still raging here, so he was gone at four o'clock.
He called at midday to say the woman still hasn't been found but that he'd been released and would be coming home. Halfway home on the expressway, he calls to say he's been recalled YET AGAIN as the situation has suddenly got worse (dunno why yet) and that sorry, he's got to turn round and go back.
I am livid. I know it's selfish but what the hell are these mad old people doing scratting about in bear-infested forests, during great big lightening storms, for bitter weeds that nobody needs in any way?? Of course I do hope that she will be found safe, though I think it unlikely being that it's now over 24 hours since she went missing, but really people that do such things are ultimately very stupid and very selfish. The entire police, fire, mountain rescue and army of the area are out there looking for her, along with a lot of volunteers from the town. Grrrr.
Oh, and just to add to it, this was Seiju's last day off till some time in November. Lovely.
.... almost nothing.
Apart from the garden and a bit of basic cleaning and laundry I have completely lost the week I had off from classes thanks to Yoshi's flu (only Tuesday and Wednesday were actually cancelled as Thursday and Friday were the autumn break here. Thanks Yoshi!)
The first few days we were both tired, but I seem to have caught the habit of lethargy and become nocturnal. I've got to make an effort to sort the house out before Monday. Gah! I still haven't finished putting the books back in the big bookcase, nor the shelves up properly in the boys' rooms.
Nor have I exercised in ages and my weight is creeping back up.
The yellow rose's last hurrah! It is still trying to flower! It's done so well this year.
The chocolate vine has produced fruit this year! Wierd looking things.... Apparently you can eat them but I think I'll pass.
I forgot to take before pictures of the car park flowerbed, but it was neck-high in old cosmos flowers!
Before.
After.
Before.
After.We put the stove on for an hour tonight - first time this season! It wasn't that cold but our hands were chilly and Yoshi's still recovering. I am wondering what our fuel bills will be like this year with the new upstairs and roof.....
I spent a couple of hours in the garden today as it was nice pre-typhoon weather, very blustery with high blue skies and big black clouds scudding by. I tied up the climbing roses in the back garden so that Horrible Old Man wouldn't be tempted to yank them down again, and also to protect them from the coming storm, and then did a few bits of weeding. The past few days have been like a bad dream, with nothing getting accomplished in the house or garden or at work. Yuck! Getting a bit of work done in the garden and cleaning the kitchen made me feel a lot better.
Yoshi's better now, he just has to stop feeling tired. I took him for a little walk around the neighbourhood before I got down to the gardening - the first time he's been out since last Saturday!
Yoshi's fever broke last night, but not before it got up to 40.5C (105F) which was pretty scary. Seiju of course had gone back to work....
Anyway, this morning Yoshi is very much better - he still has a sore throat and red weepy eyes. His chest is very congested too but he is SO MUCH better! Now it's just in the realms of a heavy cold.
Harry is climbing the walls with boredom and I've spent most of the past two days half asleep on the sofa, feeling like a zombie with the two nights of utterly broken sleep.
Harry is allowed to go to school tomorrow (for one whole day, before the autumn break....) and he's raring to go. Yoshi can't go out until Friday but he's so tired and limp that he probably won't be wanting to.
All day we've had the "I'm bored...." "Well, why don't you go and do xxx?" "No, I don't feel like it." Or, "I'm hungry." "OK, shall I make you xxx?" "No, I can't eat it." Or worse, "Yes please." and five minutes later, "I'm sorry, I can't eat this...." Poor kid doesn't know what he wants. He has lost FOUR KILOS! Mostly water by the looks of the amount he was sweating. He also didn't eat anything from Saturday lunchtime till Monday evening, which is quite a long time really, and even now he's probably not consuming more than 500 calories a day. He'll soon be making up for lost time, I'll bet!
Yoshi (and I!) had a horrible night. He woke me up every hour or 90 minutes throughout the night, very agitated and talking a mile a minute. The medicines only seemed to drop his temperature by a degree for a couple of hours or so, so there were long periods when he was incoherent and miserable. He drank a lot of water which was good. In the end I pulled out a futon and slept in his room, rather than keep getting up and going to him.
This morning his temperature is never less than 39.5C no matter what medicines he takes. He's drinking Coke and water but can't eat anything without feeling sick. I cleaned up his room and got new sheets on the bed while he sat on the floor and shivered, poor kid. He's now just lying there like a zombie, neither asleep nor awake. His eyes are really red and weepy, and he's shivering and his eyeballs are rolling as he sleeps.
He's always this way when he's got a high temperature but it worries me every single time. Last night if I didn't get to him within about 30 seconds of his calling for me, he started wandering about. He's so big now that he's hard to steer back to bed!
I think that today and tonight will be horrible and then he'll start getting better. That seems to have been the pattern the other times he's had flu.
In the meantime I think I'm going to try to have a nap. I don't relish tonight's wanderings and gibberings....
Seiju is home for the weekend but is insistent that he has to go back to work this evening. I'm really cross with him. He's been helpful in that he's done laundry and cut the grass, and has totally taken Harry over (not that Harry needs a lot of looking after now) for the weekend, but I have noticed that he's staying well away from Yoshi in an effort not to catch it. OK, it makes sense that just one of us puts ourselves in the line of snot, and Yoshi is calling for me exclusively. But still, it feels a bit cold to me.... Sigh. It just shows again that in Japanese culture, the Holy Work comes before everything, and family is way, way waaaaaay down the list.
Yoshi's got swine flu.
39.7 C (103.5 F) temperature, chills, bone and eye aches, the lot. Went to the hospital and got tested and loaded up with medcations. A local boy died here last week so the hospitals are really hammering the fever now in an attempt to stop it happening again.
Yoshi's had one dose of everything and is already feeling much better, and his temperature has dropped a degree so he's not feeling so achy. I hope it stays that way and that the rest of us don't get it...
The past two weeks have been very choppy as far as teaching English goes, as five or more schools have been fully closed, or had classes in quarantine. This means that the kids affected can't go out at all, and of course I agree, I don't want them in my class if they are incubating the flu. The trouble is that each week, it's a different couple of kids out each time, which has meant that progress has ground to a halt.
It's getting serious here now, though, as an elementary school student died of the flu this past week. It's such a tragedy. I've been thinking of the family ever since I heard the news. My heart breaks for them....
Yoshi's school was closed for five days, and today he came home to tell me that the second grade is out for a further five days as the flu has broken out again among them. Their school festival was supposed to be last weekend, but it was put off till this weekend. Now it's been curtailed to Sunday only, and the second graders are not to go.
It's all very tiring and really I'm beginning to feel quite worried. I know that most people get the flu and get over it easily, but the death this week has brought it home again that there is no guarantee of that.
I went to my aerobics class last night, and as I rode my bike back into our driveway I fell off! I have no idea why as there were no bumps. I just fell off, right over the bike, hitting it and then the road.
My knee has two huge purple bruises on it and my elbow is banged up too. I seem to be bent on smashing myself up lately!
Ouchy ouchy. A good hot bath helped last night, but in bed it began to swell and throb, so I thought I might have done some real damage. I had trouble sleeping, it hurt that much. This morning though it's gone down mostly and the pain is just back to a bruised level so it's OK.
I'm having a very clumsy couple of days. Yesterday the reform company came to take one of our sofas that we don't want any more. We asked if we could chuck it in their skip but they asked if they could have it for dressing their open houses, as it's an American style sofa. We agreed happily, (better than making rubbish!) and they came to take it yesterday. As I was bending over to take the cushions off it, one of the men yanked it right up, and the corner of the metal frame smashed into my face. There are now four scratches on the left lens, right where I look through. Gah!
They were very apologetic and said they'd pay for a new pair of glasses. I went yesterday to the shop and just ordered a new lens. With my complicated eyesight (I've had cataract operations in both eyes and have glaucoma now too) my lenses are very expensive. The cheapest I could get away with was ¥37,000 for one lens. I will be taking the bill to them and I hope they don't balk at it. It's all very embarassing though, and just one more thing that I have to do. I could have done without it really.
The new lens will be ready on the 12th October, so until then I'll be hobbling around in a mist!
