additional snippets

I saw the new 007 movie last night. It was subtitled in Japanese so I got to get the real experience of it. It was enjoyable, for sure. I also dug the throwback to goldfinger's eye candy lady covered in gold only souped up for the 21st century - the chick coated in crude. sexy. almost made the 20$ ticket worth it. :P

unfortunately, the economic downturn has been hitting japan as well. As in most countries, the ethnic minorities are hit first, resulting in all three brazilian students having to leave becuase their families are returning to Brazil. The last one had her going away party on Monday. :(

In addition, the brazilian school we had visited a couple of weeks ago is going to be hitting really hard times, having already lost 50% of it's students, and its expectin got shrink further.

I found out yesterday that JET's are eligable to recieve a stipend check as part of the economic stimulus plan here in Japan. yay.

I've been playing several games lately with the students for classes, and while it's been a bit of a whirlwind trying to come up with them, things have gone well and it's been lots of fun.

I got to have kappa-zushi for the first time last night - sushi on the conveyer belts, with the awesome additional bonus of having the option of ordering it and having it delivered on miniature bullet-trains to our seat. pretty much the coolest thing ever.