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hello world hisashiburi!!! I’ve been up to lots of fun stuff since my last entry!

none of that fun stuff involves getting past week 0 of cs50! i’ve been wrestling with scratch trying to get platformer movements to work.. i kinda got it down thanks to many tutorials and andrew’s help but now i have to make the other several 30% chunks of the game i have in mind!!! i looove getting ambitious and running myself into more problems… i can’t help it….!

i’ve been wrapping up the semester at work which takes a lot of mental capacity that i’d like to turn into working through more cs50 once i’m freed up. the first years have all finished up watching turning red– i’d say majority of them finally started paying attention instead of dozing off when things got more fun in the latter half of the movie and i’d even go so far as to say some kids even enjoyed it! yaayyy… they’ll be giving me their reviews in which i told them to be honest, i got 11HR’s already and i love reading the ones that gave it like 2-3 stars cause they’re like “eh… it wasn’t bad…” cos idk it kills me HAHA. but some students even wrote specific parts that they enjoyed and their favorite characters and all so that’s fun! i went into this semester thinking that if even just one student thinks it’s interesting i’d be happy so!

i got to teach the 3rd years at mitsuke bunko and i’d lowkey spent a lot of time working through this pokemon lesson that i stole from altopedia but basically had to redo and make all the tiny little flashcards for. ……holy i was adjusting table margins for hours. and cutting all the tiny little papers for hours. but wow IT WAS SO FUN!! IDGAF IF I PUT ALL THAT EFFORT INTO ONE CLASS even the kids who didn’t seem familiar with pokemon got super into it and they were all walking around practicing the english phrases i gave them and even trying to read the english pokemon names… they got excited when they could evolve their mon and got super into the battling part too HAHAHA and the teachers seemed really happy with the lesson as well since the kids were up and moving and using english like they requested this class to consist of. love you mitsuke bunko kids… i appreciate the chorus of ohayos when theyre out picking up trash as bike up the hill to be 10 mins late to work… i’m hoping to go to their graduation ceremony!!

23HR had their zine festival class and as much as i rag on them they’re honestly pretty fun during the conversation lessons… like omggg that’s what yall’s voices sound like! a lot of recipe zines and some interesting ones like “how to tame [her friend]”, one kid who just copied camping instructions from a website, and another that did an incredibly detailed paper airplane folding tutorial… but ngl this was a such a fun assignment HAHA it was nice seeing them walk around and look at everyone else’s zines as well. and at the end of class i broke the news that this was their last team teaching with me ever and while they were a little aback by my suddenly announcing that as the bell rung, the funny girls i like from this HR were excited to hear i was going back to open a cafe LOL….

i had my last class with 24HR which was more or less the same but this time i actually had a proper finish to the class because i like them more. HAHA so since it was a zine semester i made my own called “messages to my high school self!” I wanted to give them a bit more of a useful? meaningful? lesson so i just wrote down some things that i might have liked to hear when i was their age. just a cute send-off gift!! i will miss teaching them so much u_u fortunately they’re still the students i supervise during cleaning but still… aw maneeee

after that, fukukocho sensei approached me in the staff room to let me know that my final contract day was confirmed and miyazaki sensei overheard and was like ohhhhhh?? really??? time flies… i still remember your first day! and that put me in a bit of a sentimental mood so i stared at my laptop for a few periods’ worth instead of working!

also i ran a 10k!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ISNT THAT GREAT!!!! it was super cold in the morning, we had to do a long ass bus commute just to transfer to a train that we were late for which made me unable to try to find my JTE before his race time and have some pre-run amazake. but it’s okay… i had some after the run and i think it’s a little thick for me to have before running so all is well. the run itself was good too, my goal time was 1:15 and i beat that by like 11 minutes so maybe i rly underestimated myself but idc I’M HAPPY!!! thank you to andrew for running it with me, to sofia and kotaro for taking us to an onsen after, and then to joel and chris for joining all of us for ramen after that. it felt like the best bath and meal i have ever had in my life. perhaps it will be…. until after the half marathon in may?!?

anyways because i’m a sucker and couldn’t actually quit BJJ i’ve been attending!! it’s mostly cos as i’ve been weight training, yukari-sensei will just come up to greet me and tell me to go to class and honestly yall idk how to say no without being able to pad it with all my excuses and the double language barrier between us is just no bueno… and also if you do the math anyway it’s only an extra 1000 yen a month for me to keep the bjj membership (which is at a discounted price that she gave me anyway) so i figured i’ll just continue and go when i feel up for it. definitely have to work towards achieving the mindset where i can just go and take it lightly and enjoy it instead of feeling like i need to be progressing and keeping up with the class… like this shit is on hard mode and i have a lot of other things that require mental load for example being on the other side of the world from my home and people and a language that i understand. if i can try to approach this bjj era as just getting familiar with the movements and struggling then i think i can keep it up… and then get more serious when i go back home and can dedicate more brain capacity to it!!!! AND BOXING

i will try to update this more regularly since i’ll be entering deskwarming season!!! though idk cos i lowkey gave myself so much stuff to mark with these zines and reviews... anyway see you!