Updates

Just 2 days ago I finally started to look my age. Prior to that, I felt I looked both younger and older, but not 27. Maybe it was a good hair day, I don't know. Anyway, today in class I realized this is the age my first Japanese ALT was when he taught me in my first year of Japanese. Maybe that's why this year's sophomore class is so endearing to me (lucky for them, too, because their work ethic isn't exactly bent on English mastery of late).

Two thoughts occurred from this:

1. I should get in touch with Toyama 先生. Even though it's been a while since my last correspondence with him, I can reasonably assume he would be happy to hear something from me since I know I'd be glad to hear from some of my students in 10 years or so.
2. I should conform this blog to my original intentions, which were to post bilingually, and to keep things short, frequent, and media-rich.

The day being well spent, I'm saving item #1 for another time; concerning #2 however, I just started up a parallel blog for Japanese entries. So for anybody interested in reading (and correcting!) my Japanese, please take a look. Nouvelles de Toke in Japanese. There's not much there currently, but depending on how long my current spirit of revival holds out, I may just be able to duplicate some of the posts here in Japanese. Approximately.

And now, to keep things media-rich, my favorites of the day:

豚まん, contains pork. So why not make it look like a little piggy? I'd still eat it.

I had to take a photo of this one. Canned bottled water. Only ¥100, too.