See you when?

I generally stop by the 7/11 on my way home from work each night to pick up a packet of tofu (when I am being good) or ice cream (when I am being bad). There is an elementary education major who works behind the counter every night named Hideto. Hideto likes to practice his English with me when I come in, so I always say "hi" and he always says, "May I help you?" Then I generally ask how his studies are coming and he tells me about the big test he just took and is waiting to hear about. Then he tries to get me to buy some oden which sits floating in a subdivided metal heating pan filled with broth.

A couple weeks ago he was really hard-selling the oden because of a sale they were having. He gestured to the oden and said "Seven day sale. Sale start yesterday. You can eat oden?" "Yes," I replied, "I can eat oden. It's delicious." Then I looked at the sign and the date indicated that it started not yesterday, but tomorrow. "So the sale starts tomorrow?" I asked. Hideto smiled and said nothing, so I took this to mean that he either didn't understand that bit, or that yes, the sale did indeed start tomorrow. I was a little confused. I paid for my tofu (okay, it WAS ice cream this time) and said good night. Hideto smiled and waved and said. "Bye, Matt. See you yesterday!"

And that statement put to rest my confusion.

***

Anyway, I thought since I hadn't posted in a while on happenings in Japan, I would. I also have a couple of pictures I took at the Miya Matsuri - our town's summer festival - that I am pretty proud of. These were taken the day before I left for India:


Two other items to report:

First, my brother Eric and his family left Japan last week and I am already missing them tons. It was always have family to visit at the end of a long week. They also were a great help to me whenever I had a question. Thanks Eric, Maki, Ethan, Ranelle, and Dominic - I'll miss you guys.

The second piece of news is that I have renewed my contract for an additional three months. I decided to dodge another Minnesota winter and come home in April (or May, if I do some traveling). I'm glad I renewed - I am seeing so much improvement with many of my students and it's fun to see them progress over the months. I am going to miss everyone, but those months will go fast I'm sure. I can't believe how quickly things have gone already. I've also been thinking of moving from Victorian lit to American lit for my PhD studies. I really like the American playwright Horton Foote and am considering doing my dissertation on him.

Scott's Farewell and Sanja Matsuri

This weekend, we threw a party at AEON for our young scamp, Scott. He leaves today to head back to Australia and we're gonna miss him. Here's Scott singing away with some students at karaoke after the party:

Here's Kanako sensei with a couple of students.

On Sunday I met up with a couple of teachers from my training, Kevin and Kenny, in Asakusa and we saw this huge festival called Sanja Matsuri - I don't really understand it, but the gist of it is that these guys carry a portable shrine around the streets and there's a lot of drumming and flutes and street vendors selling lots of food. I have some footage that I clipped together with some pictures I took. The first half is mostly footage of the food tents and a couple of really impressive buddha statues. I added music by Pizzacato Five (one of the few J-Pop bands I know) to the beginning, but left the sound on the second half so you can hear the music from the carriage behind the shrine that came through. It was a pretty amazing experience. As the shrine came through, we were all pressed back against the shop walls by the participants who'd locked arms to give the shrine carriers room to get through. I'm not really sure what all of it was about, but it was completely unlike anything I'd ever seen before: