Does anyone else follow Naruto: Shippuuden? I never finished watching the original series but got into Shippuuden when I came to Japan again. It's really addictive; especially the current arc. Last week they did a two hour special Kakashi side-story set 10 years in the past that actually moved me to tears. That's gotta be at least the second time I've cried while watching Naruto! Haha, it's kind of sad. But Kakashi was such a bad-ass even when he was a kid.

Right now the kids in Japan are on Summer vacation until September September 1st. The Nagasaki City ALTs have been given the task of planning the Juunenken, a one-day workshop for teachers in their 10th year of service. The only real guideline we have is that it has to be in English and the teachers must speak English too. For this reason we're to meet at the Citizen's hall every day from 9am-12pm and talk about what we're going to do for the workshop. But since we have a ridiculous amount of time to do it in and the new ALTs haven't arrived in the city yet (four arrive today and will attend from tomorrow), we spend the three hours relaxing and doing activities ranging from studying Japanese to playing cards (our favourite game is called 'asshole') and eating. In the afternoon, we're free to do whatever we want. I can't complain. During the school term my job is actually quite demanding, not because I have to use a lot of brain power, but from the sheer amount of work I have, including but not limited to stuff like marking papers, photocopying and planning class activities. I teach at two elementary schools on top of the other two Junior High Schools and one of them has asked me to translate the Japanese lesson plans into English. The other school had no proper English curriculum in place so before I arrived they had no lesson materials other than flashcards for fruit and vegetables, colours, etc. There's only so much you can do with those. When I got to the school, I immediately noticed how low the level of English ability was compared to my other elementary school. Granted they are an island school but once they go to Junior High some of them might have to go into the city.

Anyway, I recently acquired an oven from an outgoing ALT and decided to test it today. I made chocolate brownies, using a brownie pre-mix and adding butter, eggs, milk, walnuts and chocolate. It came out a little weird... like almost cake-like; not dense enough and quite spongy. My mum's brownie recipe makes these really chewy ones, which are the best! I'll have to buy more ingredients and make them from scratch next time.

Is anyone going to the Sydney Film Festival? It's going to be held from 4 - 22 June. I've already bought a FlexiPass 10 - redeemable for any 10 movies. I'm already watching Crows: Episode 0 and Sukiyaki Western Django (both directed by Takashi Miike) with my sister and have bought two tickets to A Gentle Breeze In The Village for my mum, so I still have four tickets. I can't decide what other films to watch, but I might be going with my friends from high school to see a couple of French Films. I like French movies, but I just don't know what's good.

I'm totally stoked about watching Crows on the big screen and I wouldn't have known about it if I wasn't a member of the Oguri Shun LJ community - how sad. I've watched it twice and just love it. I need to make more Crows icons to spread the love. Apparently Oguri Shun is now dating his co-star from Bimbo Danshi, actress/model Yamada Yu. She kind of has masculine facial features.

I called up the JET desk in Sydney and it turns out they received both my Certificate of Health and Criminal History Record Check documents and have forwarded them onto Tokyo. If there's any problem with my dodgy Certificate of Health, the JET desk said they would contact me. The final step is to wait for a Contracting Organisation to offer me a place, which is the case with almost all participants on the shortlist and happens around the end of May, Early June. I've been reading forums about current and former JETs and apparently Hokkaido (my first placement choice) is one of the most popular placement requests, so my chances of getting placed there are slim. But then, after watching an episode of Cartoon KAT-TUN, where Akanishi and Nakamaru were sent to the town of Rikubetsu, the coldest town in Japan as part of a batsu game, I've started to think twice about wanting to go there. I don't know if I'll be able to survive in  -13 degree weather and apparently some of the JETs living in Hokkaido have problems with their pipes freezing.

I had a customer at work today who sounded just like Kermit the Frog. He was asking me about ACT! Licenses and I just couldn't take him seriously. All I could think of was: "Why are there so many... songs about rainbows?"

I'm going to my cousin's book launch tomorrow.  That's right, she wrote a children's book. It's called Byron and the Chairs. I'm very busy and important.

I got a voicemail from my Manager while I was away at corporate sales training last week saying that the HTML newsletter I created using CSS "wasn't working anymore" and she couldn't figure out why. It was working fine when I left work the Friday before, so I was wondering what she did to somehow make it stop working.

I get to work Monday morning only to discover that she's installed Outlook 2007 on her machine, which made my HTML newsletter "break". I'm probably really late voicing my opinion on this, but what was Microsoft thinking with Outlook 2007 using the Word 2007 engine to render HTML emails instead of Internet Explorer?

She's since insisted that I use tables to design all e-marketing materials. I have to resort to using simple CSS as I can't float layers or use background images in my layouts anymore. So much for creating table-less layouts for better web standards. The Campaign monitor blog is totally right in saying that Microsoft has taken design back 5 years as email designers HAVE to adhere to Outlook standards in fear of ostracizing too many recipients if they don't.

On a happier note, I got my YesAsia shipment today. I bought the Oguri Shun photobook 'High', Otsuka Ai's new album 'Love Piece', which is pretty good so far and Arashi's latest movie 'Kiiroi Namida'. I have a new HanaKimi moodtheme thanks to the lovely chochajin. I was getting tired of the Supernatural one.

I went to karaoke with Lisa yesterday at Echo Point on Park St. It was surprisingly cheap, just $5 per hour. They had a fair selection of Japanese songs, too. It made me miss Japan again. I love going to karaoke with Lisa because both of us sing well enough that there's no terrible warbling going on. Terrible singing is my pet peeve and going to group karaoke sessions, well, that's something I have to deal with.