Wow, it’s already Monday night! How do weekends go by so quickly?

So like I mentioned, yesterday I went to an Italian restaurant with Minako. One of my teachers (coworkers? co-teachers?) works there on Sundays, so we went to check it out. The food was fantastic; the noodles and bread were made on-site! It was interesting too — even though it was Italian, it had a very distinctly Japanese feel to it. I suppose that Italian food in America is the same way, but I just don’t notice it, having not had Italian Italian food. But yeah, the food was good, and it was really nice to see Yumi-sensei on the weekend (I think she enjoyed the visit too).

My back was in excruciating paint yesterday for most of the day. I tried to compensate it by sleeping on an extra futon last night and it seems to have worked, as my back only slightly hurts today. I don’t think I could have gone through another day like yesterday. Today, I bought a new, very thick foam mattress for my futon, and I think it will help a lot. It better!

I also now have my bank card (Did I mention that a few days ago?) and my new water heater computer was installed today, so I think my hot water troubles will be over too! *crosses fingers*

My harddrive and scanner arrived from the US over the weekend, so I’m really happy to have access to all my old art files again (yippee!) and I can continue working on 100 Famous Views of Philadelphia! My parents accidentally sent me the wrong adapter though, so today on my mega shopping run, I also rode a few miles away the electronics store (drool!) and — since unfortunately they didn’t have any international adapters — bought some parts and constructed my own US-Japan power adapter. I really really hope it doesn’t burst into flames and burn down my house…

Speaking of electronics (drool!) the iPod touch will come out soon. The publicity photos of it seemed to imply it has Bluetooth. If that’s the case, I will probably buy one immediately. If that’s not the case, forget it. If it does have Bluetooth, then theoretically one could install Skype and use a headset to turn it into a virtual cellphone and web browser. Woot! Additionally, next month Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) will be released, and that makes me double-psyched because at the same time, the Ubuntu version for mobile devices will be released! When that comes out, I may finally be able to have a Ubuntu on my tablet! (I don’t think I ever posted about it, but I spent a week tweaking Ubuntu on my tablet in July, and had a lot of success after a lot of stress, but ultimately it wasn’t functional enough for me, and as I was leaving for Japan with only my tablet soon, I needed a fully functional machine… so I had to return to Windows. I really hope this version will work!)

This week, I will teach my first teachers’ lesson. That’s basically one of the perks of being a Japanese teacher at Aeon — free English lessons from the foreign teacher. It should be fun, as I like all my coworkers… but I can’t help feel a little bit of anxiety, as my teachers all also teach with the same format as I’ve learned, I’ll feel like they’re able to judge me that way.

Oh man, the Office. Holy Arabian Ice Capades! I watched all of Season 2 today, and I’m about to start on Season 3. This show is funny, and I’ve decided my new mission will be to convert my work into an Office-like circus, just as my project of Seinfield-ization during High School.

In other news, I bought some seeds and grew herbs for Pi-chan to munch on, but he only poops in them. However, he has really enjoyed playing with my desk mirror that I set up for him. He likes to leap onto it to try to get into the magical world on the other side, but that dang mirror-bird always tries to break into the magical world on this side at the same time, and they just bump into each other. Also, I think Pi-chan may be part spider. When he flies around the room looking for places to perch, he’s found some pretty amazing ones — like managing to perch on a pushpin in the wall, and then after that on the edge of a piece of paper that was pinned the wall, and then finally this morning, he perched on the wall itself! I have no idea how he was able to grip it, but he did, just like a house fly or something… Quite the acrobat!

I also found out that the plants I inherited with the house from the previous foreign teachers have names! My teachers can only remember that one is Keiko (the aloe, I think), so I’ve decided to dub the cactus Prickly Pete. That should be a healthy catalyst for some Office-like insanity at work this week. >:-D