Time...

Funny how when you unexpectedly get some, you don't know what to do with it.

Waiting for homework to finish, no essays to do, AFWJ business 'booked' for tomorrow morning.

An average day. Thursday is much, much better since they kicked Erica out of daycare and Kanji moved back to the main gasoline stand. Now he just turns up at home at 8:30 and I leisurely trot myself off to work, no running around trying to find the right towel, two pairs of clean knickers, the right cup, etc etc, then doing the drop-off and crossing my fingers that sensei won't have something to chat about as I watch the clock... merely preparing a bento seems like child's play after that, and even easier today since we had NOTHING in the house so I instructed K to buy her one at the combini.

Lovely bunch of new students, and I have pointedly NOT asked for a photo sheet this year. The last two years I've had one, and managed to not remember any names at all. I think I relied on the photos too much and didn't make an effort. This time, I've gone back to my old system of visual cues, mnemonics and puns. Taisuke looks like Woody Allen. Kenta has pretty eyes like the Kenta last year did. Daiki reminds me of that friend of K's who hugs him a lot. Takahiro is short and thin (while the name means tall and wide). And much less nice ones, like 'pizza-face' and 'cone-head'. But IT WORKS dammit!

I was supposed to spend the afternoon sipping tea at my computer screen and proofreading a medical academic article, but it never turned up. I'm a bit annoyed about that, because if they send it to me now, with the original Friday deadline, that means I have one awful Friday ahead of me. And if it doesn't, well, that was rude, not to mention a loss of cash!

Karate again tonight. All the other students have been upgraded to the other class, although all of them started after Erica. So it's just her and Sensei. The first half of the class is fine, when he is more gentle and instructing her. But then towards the end he starts getting tough (part of the game), she starts to cry. Can't win any fights if you burst into tears anytime someone smacks you. I wonder if he wants to kick her out, but can't because Baachan's his auntie. I'm quite determined to be the most stubborn in this fight.

Kitties are still sick. I think it's ringworm not mange now, and little Cinnamon has it worst. She doesn't eat at much as the others and is a whole 100g smaller. I hope they don't have to be shaved.... they are very very cute now belting around the room, up on the sofa, on top of the cage. They are terrified of the vacuum cleaner, no prizes for guessing that one, and happily really hate getting squirted with the water bottle, so the shoji are still in one piece - I caught Genki very delicately pulling at a tear in the paper with just one claw.

Monkey party was a success.... promise some photos from that!