Budgeted In

Even though I had a chance to more than double my buy in, I played it safe -- that is, I didn't play at all. Rather than forking over the 2000 yen buy-in plus transportation plus food and drinks, I stayed home on Saturday, cooking my own dinner, etc., in a end-of-pay-period conservation drive.

Sunday was not much different. I rode around on the bike for a bit, and later went to the grocery store to sustain my higher rate of eating in. We do get paid on Wednesday, though I should increase my eating in even during normal times (it does not take a financial expert to realize that I wouldn't be broke if I worked a little harder on balance).

Anyway, enough of that nonsense ...

We're entering another busy phase at work. We are in the planning stages for a day-long English seminar for our second-year students set for Dec. 1. The hardest part so far has been recruiting other ALTs to come help ... we offer them about $30 for a days work but it's on a Saturday so we've gotten a lot of "maybes" (JETs tend to be very active on their weekends ... I'm not sure where they get their cash).

Meanwhile, one of the members of the English Club is preparing to participate in a regional speech contest after qualifying at the prefectural level. If she wins again she'll go on to the national competition. Starting tomorrow we'll be working with her after school.

Speaking of the English Club, we're suppose to plan a party with Thanksgiving as the theme. Any ideas? Not sure how practical it would be to try to ... you know ... cook a turkey. What else could we do? The floor is open.