(no subject)

I have been getting into the habit of practising flute and whistle hardcore since my move. This is an occassion for great happiness on the part of yours truly, although it is not, perhaps, occassion for great happiness on the part of my neighbors.

It's amazing how productive one becomes when one no longer has the Internet at one's residence. (Or perhaps more to the point, it's amazing how much money one drops on cafes when one does not have the Interet at one's residence). Anyway, I am literally picking up tunes left and right these days, and my rhythm has become much more solid (it really started to suffer in Japan where there are no sessions at which to play). I also met a really sweet guy at Tokyo orientation. He was a 日系人 who'd actually grown up in Co. Clare, of all places. We immediately said 'screw this' to our boring workshop and spent the rest of the hour discussing trad music. He's brought his fiddle over with him (lucky bastard; mine's still at home), and he has plans to send me CDs of the hours of session recordings he's made. I SWOON. He lives in the prefecture to the north of me, one that apparently has an Irish pub with semi-regular sessions. I may be going up there soon. It's amazing how much I miss playing at sessions.

In other news, we attended a not compulsory but we'd really like all JETs to attend workshop on the integration of English language classes into the city's elementary schools today. The contents were boring in the manner of such workshops, but I got to interpret for the JET sitting next to me, which was totally sweet, and a huge challenge. I think I did reasonably well; at any rate, it was nice to try it with a live human test subject instead of just myself, my houseplants, and the NHK evening news. There may be hope for me yet.

That will be all.