Tom and Osaka

Tom had his last day of work yesterday (Sunday the 8th). He decided to add insult to injury and not shave for his last week either. Way back in February I got talked to by Cathryn because I forgot to shave one morning. She really chewed me out for it, so I think quite a few people noticed when he started showing up for work looking homeless. On his next to last day our quasi-boss Alan called him on the phone to make sure he would be clean-shaven for his last day (a student complained that he looked 'dirty'). Nothing happened and he wasn't sent home, so I guess it was a victory.

Amy's boyfriend is still visiting and she's called out sick for the past 4 days in a row. Apparently she caught something in Tokyo because she's actually sick and not just calling out to spend time with her boyfriend. The fact that Handa has to do without her is probably why nobody did anything about Tom's appearance.

I'm going to Osaka for the weekend with Tom because I told him that I would a while back. I don't know where we're going to stay yet, but I'm sure it will work itself out. Tom also wanted to go to Tokyo on the following weekend but I'm so confident that he's going to be broke by then that I've double-booked that weekend. Yuka and I are going to Hikone Castle on Lake Biwa. Hikone is one of the four national treasure castles, so it should be interesting, and pretty and... and... ... well, almost identical to Matsumoto I imagine.

I agreed to do a shift swap with Shannon for the end of the month so if I can get rid of a half-day on a Tuesday, I'll have a four-day weekend. I've been playing with the idea of going to South Korea or Taiwan since its so cheap to fly right now.

Lastly, with Tom leaving and the three girls on the other side of the tracks all disappearing, there's going to be a changing of the guard again in Kyowa. Carmen is moving into Freebell, Amy might leave the country at Christmas time, and The Mudge is moving to Tokyo but no one is going to miss her. The five of us (Tom, David, Carmen, Amy and me) agree on little, but we all hate The Mudge. That'll leave just me and David as the foreign population of Kyowa (not counting all the Brazilians) so hopefully we'll get some quality people to replace them.

Oh yeah, and we found a student's blog. This high school girl named Mamiko told one of the Japanese staff about it, so we were able to get part of it translated. I was especially interested in her entry talking about each teacher individually. She said that I'm polite, but distracted by something. Pat and Jerod think they're awesome and David seems older and more like an adult. She also has a psycho stalker crush on our quasi-boss Alan. His entry was the only one in English and it said 'I want to be your #1.'