January 17, 2008 - Thursday

A little snowy and a bit cold.

This morning I went to bed really late. How late? After 4 am. I woke up around 9, and got up a few minutes later. Fumihiko was off work today and got up a bit after me. I watched the news and then a documentary about Ethiopia. Very interesting. An African journalist was living the life of an Ethiopian for a month. He wasn't supposed to get any food or help from anyone else. Sadly, although the documentary was largely in English, when people spoke the native dialects the subtitles were only in Japanese.

Fumihiko left for his appointment and I finished watching the documentary I ate a bagel and felt guilty during the programme. I made the bed, showered, dressed and was doing some computer stuff when Fumihiko came back.

We spent a bit of time together and then went to Moku-Moku for a rather late lunch. Fumihiko had a mish-mash of stuff and I had pasta. I think I had the best deal! It was nice. Mine included salad, coffee and dessert.

We drove to my school via a drug store to get some oolong tea for me. I got a big bottle today. Since I was going by car, I didn't have to worry about carrying all that weight. Fumihiko dropped me off at my school. I dumped my stuff, grabbed the shovel and went out to face the snow.

Good gravy. There was a LOT of snow in my space. In fact, there was so much that I have a sneaking suspicion that the neighbours to my parking space dumped the snow from their cars onto my space. I realized that some of the ground is pretty open there so the wind may have blown it, but since my space had a lot of snow and my neighbours hardly any, I think I may be right. I shoveled the snow, but the problem was where to put the snow? I added it to the pile at the back of the space, but the snow jutted out from the wall a good metre. It was also more than a metre high I think. To make matters worse, I even had to shovel outside my space because the snow in front of my space was really deep. I know that I'm sort of supposed to stick the snow down one of the drains that run beside the road, but I didn't think I'd be able to lift a cement block cover and I'd have to shovel just to find one of those. Also, with only a shovel it'd take a long time. Sigh.

After 30 minutes I gave up finished and went into my school again. I was covered in snow so shed my outer clothing to hang in the shower and then changed and got to work. I had planned to do a lot of planning, but I was so tired I just didn't get around to it. Sigh.

My lesson today was quite good. The student was late and said that her vehicle just fit into the space. It may actually have stuck out a bit. Oh dear.

After she left I did my paper work and did do a bit of prep for tomorrow's classes. The last two were basically fine, but the first one I had to find cards for it. That can be a pain, but it wasn't too bad this time. Around 9 I called Fumihiko to say I was just starting the dishes and he could come and get me if he wanted. He took a long time to come, so I was finished the dishes. Hurray. He told me that he took a long time because he'd had to clear the car off. I wanted to cry when I heard that. I asked him to go and see the parking space with me, so he did. Sure enough, more snow was there. It wasn't too bad, though, certainly not as bad as what I found today. I just hope we don't get "gifted" with a lot more tonight.

At home, Fumihiko went into high gear. He was cooking dinner. Bless him! He made us a pork stirfry, chawanmushi and miso soup. He (over)cooked the chawanmushi in the microwave and covered the tops of the dishes with tin foil. That freaked me out! I've never used aluminum foil in the microwave, and thought you weren't supposed to. He said that if it wasn't tight against the dish it was okay. I'm still not sure. Things were quite good. It was really nice to have dinner cooked for me, and then he did the dishes too. I think he felt guilty about not helping me with the snow shovelling as he had promised to earlier.

Anyway, we had a quiet evening at home after that. I watched an episode from season four of The 4400. It was great, but I felt a bit lost in the story. They took some big leaps since the last episodes I saw. I think I must have missed one or two episodes.

And that's finally it. My day. It was long and now I'm really tired! I hope to get to bed soon. No 4 am for me tonight. I'll have to walk to the school tomorrow and may have to shovel again too. Wish me luck please!

Night.