Seriously, go away rain. I know it’s the rainy season, but you have to stop sometime. Lots of things have happened since I last did a general life update, so buckle up! First, the highlights:

• Last week, during cleaning, I was sweeping in the teacher’s room when a student came over and urgently gestured for me to follow. She pointed underneath a printer… where there was a chunk of snake skin. Not okay. I got another teacher, and luckily it turned out that it was from the Principal’s office; some third graders had been playing with it and probably dropped it accidentally. The teacher who reached under to grab it flinched backwards and yelled like he got bit, causing the nearby students to all jump back. Classic.
• We’ve been teaching the elementary kids body parts in English for the past few weeks. In one class, I held up a picture of an arm and all the boys yelled 「パワアアアア！！！」(Powerrrrrrr!). Now I can’t get them to say anything else haha.
• I took the JLPT two weeks ago! I tested for N3, because even though I passed it a couple years ago, I barely passed. Want to make sure I’ve got a decent grasp on everything before I start studying for N2. Overall, I feel like I did good! I’ll find out the results in early September.
• Had our annual intruder drill at school a couple weeks ago. It was much faster and less stressful than last year’s, but apparently it really freaked out the first graders. I’ll put more details in another post!
• Went blueberry picking at a blueberry farm with Hunter this past weekend! There were tons on the bushes that weren’t ripe yet, but those that were were sweet and delicious. Keep an eye out for a post about it!

Now, for the big stuff. At the beginning of last month, I’m happy to announce, Hunter and I got married in Hawai’i! It was just the two of us and we didn’t have a ceremony, but it was wonderful ❤ . We stayed for a total of four days (super short, I know) on Oahu. We did so much and saw so many beautiful things during our trip, but we both agree our favorite moment was doing a guided sunset hike up Pu’u O Hulu on the west side. I struggled a bit to get up there; it was SO. HOT. Didn’t realize how acclimatized I’d become to Nagano weather haha. I’m also out of shape, so there’s that. It was absolutely breathtaking at the top, and our guides even took pictures of us!

After we got back from Hawai’i, we spent another four days fooling around in Akita and Yamagata Prefectures, further up north on the main island of Japan than where I am. Our favorite part of that trip was probably visiting Tamagawa Onsen, a place with the most acidic onsen waters in Japan and home to a type of radioactive rock that is said to cure many different ailments. Look forward to a more detailed post later!

In other news, Hunter and I will be going in a group with my friend Nikita to climb Mt. Fuji later this week! It is RAPIDLY approaching, and I’m both terrified and excited about it. Hunter and I hiked Mt. Izuna last weekend, and I struggled to make it up — that’s a two hour hike. This one is two days. Whatever happens, it’ll certainly be an adventure.

As for work, it’s busy. A bit more than usual, but it’s fine. I just found out that the textbooks for 5th and 6th grade are changing again (they just changed like… two years ago), and while I knew this was going to happen, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I have start from scratch all over again. I know I’ll be able to use a lot of it, but ugh, it’s just more curriculum planning, early mornings and late nights ahead. しょうがない。がんばります!

To finish off this post, I leave you with a picture of our school lunch from a couple weeks ago. Main dish: swordfish!

Until next time!