Entries this day: Do_Today EV Gaijin_card Well_seated_ride_home

Do Today

3:09pm JST Friday 18 August 2006

Not necessarily today, but I just need some self-guidance on getting the maps thing done:

1. verify existance of all important coords on local machine

2. if they exist, just copy high precision points from day 1 ending at river

3. else, copy all coords in maps to local machine

4. convert coords to SQL format, with 10+ route number as routeID, and sort variable included (good use for gimme-digits)

   1. route 1
   2. route 2
   3. route 3

5. write coords into SQL

6. write route info for new routes into SQL

7. test new routes

8. remove unsorted data from SQL

9. rewrite route numbers (subtract 10)

10. update route info data

EV

5:09pm JST Friday 18 August 2006

On break right now after my first two students: Riho and Aya.

Riho is 14 and doing pretty darn well: huge retention and I'm expanding well beyond the source material in the book. I played a game of hang man with her to teach her what letters are. (She was trying to recall a word and wanted to ask me what was the first letter, but she didn't know the word "letter") This was an idea of genius, but in the end I forgot to confirm she got the new vocabulary word (letter, the word).

After Riho, Aya, who was quite .... shy, though it was only her second lesson. I discovered she's the owner(?) of a hot yoga studio and wanted to learn English to help her foreign clientelle. So I ditched the book altogether and did some roleplays of me as a customer and she starring as herself telling me what was what in the studio.

- - - -

hahahahahah

ゆう and めぐみ are hilarious. They definitely don't study, and are hardly serious in the lesson, chattering away in Japanese, but they sure were a lot of fun, and ゆう has a cute diamond stud on her upper left lateral incisor.

After their lesson, I met a guy whose English was worse, but who seemed way way more interested in studying; unless it's just a whim, he will rocket past them. I gave him a ton of ideas for ways to study.

Met a woman named ひろこ with pretty good speakin' skills who captured my thoughts when she was like, "but I don't know what I want to do in the world." Me neither.

I told her how awesome PB was; I hope she checks it out.

- - - -

Tomorrow I work in 吉祥寺。

Gaijin card

5:19pm JST Friday 18 August 2006

Tried to open a bank account today, but they were quite hesitant when I told them I don't have an gaijin card (alien registration). I don't know if it was them "politely" not telling me that I must have a card, or if it was just plain ol' racism (which happens a lot around here).

I grabbed a new account form and plan to perhaps go back once I have a card. Reiko helped me fill out the form. I could likely have gotten a lot of it right, but even with her help, I accidentally wrote 区 instead of ク in the フリガナ box for my work address. Ah well. It's pretty funny in a way.

Well seated ride home

11:01pm JST Friday 18 August 2006

Today I took the unpopular trains the wrong ways so I could sit down on the way home. First up Hanzomon from Shibuya until the crowds thinned out, and then back into Shibuya where I enjoyed my seat on a crowded train.

But then my train turned out to be express, so I went past my station to Futakotamagawa where I got a seat on the vaguely used train back toward Shibuya.

Wrote journal entries and played Marble Blast all the way..