Lazy Days

I've been really lazy since moving into the apartment. I finally finished cleaning late on Thursday night, so Friday I spent pretty much the entire day (I got home from school around 4:30pm after hitting the bank and the 100 yen store) on the internet and reading scanlated manga. I was too lazy to even make pizza toast for dinner, so I had a bah hu (shredded pork floss) sandwich, plus Cadbury Mini Eggs.

I slept in until about 12pm today then hooked up the phone, did laundry, and looked up various Jane Austen spin-off books (sequels to her novels, completions of her fragments, etc.). I was so lazy I didn't even eat cereal (I think the milk expired yesterday anyway!), just the remainder of the Mini Eggs bag I opened yesterday. Luckily Allie sent me a message to invite to dinner with her, Juliet, Teresa, and Kelly and Ron or I probably would've skipped out on dinner too. ^^;;

Just before heading out for dinner, Crystal called to say that they were in the area, so she and Weldon and some other ALTs (they had gone out to Lake Towada) came by to pick up the intermediate Japanese course books (provided through the JET Programme) I had barely used and to view the apartment.

After dinner, everyone came over to hang out until about 11 something.

I really think that for the next couple of weeks I could be quite happy just staying at home reading manga and watching movies. (I also suspect I wouldn't eat much more than cereal and pizza, though, so it's good that I get school lunches!)

Even though I don't have the excuse of moving into/cleaning the apartment anymore, I don't think I'm going to go to church tomorrow.

It's sad to admit, but it's been over a month since I last went and I don't have any feelings of missing it at all. I do have the occasional pang of guilt for not calling and at least giving them my new contact info, but not strong enough that I'm actually planning on doing so in the near future.

Since I started thinking seriously about Christianity (i.e. junior high/high school), I've always believed in the importance of going to church, but I guess my conviction wasn't as strong as I thought it was. I hate to say it, but I'm really thinking that I prefer to not go to church rather than dragging myself to and through it every week. But since I've also been negligent in personal devos/Bible study, not going to church would probably turn me into a in-name-only Christian.

*sigh* I've always had problems with determining when the action is more important than the accompanying feelings/motivations and when the right motivations/feelings are more important than the action. Does God want me to go to church even when I'm unhappy being there, or do my negative feelings render the act (of going to church) meaningless?

It's harder than my university days because it's not simply a matter of laziness: I've tried churches here and am simply unsatisfied by them. But I don't know how much of it is real dissatisfaction and how much is me inflating the negative points to justify not going. @_@ It's all really a tangle.

But on a happier note, I finally got the official OK to go on the school trip with the ninensei in October!! I'll have to take nenkyuu (vacation) and pay for myself, and I won't be able to watch the Lion King with them (I've already seen it anyway), but I get to go!!! They were saying that it would probably be OK for a long time, but I was still a little worried that something would come up to prevent my going, so it's a relief to finally get things settled.

I am a little worried about being a burden on the teachers (they have a lot of work to do for the trip) but I really do want to do my best to be helpful and to find ways to get the students practicing their English on the trip. ^_____^

I'm also going to the big regional (?) JHS sports festival in Tohoku Machi next weekend!! It'll be a long weekend (starting at 6:50am on Saturday!), but if my students win on Sunday, I'll be able to go cheer for them on Monday (instead of going in for an office day). ^_^

One of the most meaningful compliments I've gotten from the other teachers at Kirita is that I'm like a regular teacher, and I really hope that this year I can continue improving as a teacher and increasing my role as a member of the staff at Kirita.

Admittedly, with all the moving stuff I've gotten a little lazy and less pro-active about lesson planning, but I did have some really good jishu gakushu (extra English) classes with every grade this week (everyone seemed to have fun and get the grammar points I was teaching/reviewing), so hopefully I'll be back on track next week.

So yeah, I guess that's it for today's rambling post. If you're interested, I posted five new photos of my now CLEAN apartment on Facebook here.