In Praise of No-Shows and Wireless Internet

Hey all,

Hope everything is going well in all the corners of your lives. Right now I'm technically supposed to be working. However, as luck would have it, my student decided not to come to her English lesson tonight. Which means I get to spend this period sitting in the Sengawa teachers' room and blog, mooching free internet off some poor soul in the general vicinity. As even more luck would have it, this is my third such free period today. And to make things even better, I'm getting paid. I tell you, this English-teaching gig really isn't so bad. It almost makes me sad to think I'll be leaving it relatively soon.

Last week I put a deposit on a flight home. I'll be back on North American soil (after 20 some odd tortuous travel hours) on July 18th. While, on the whole, I'm definitely ready to be back in my home and native land, more and more I'm discovering that I may just not hate the land of the rising sun all that much. The vast majority of the people I've met here have been stellar, the transportation system is phenomenal, even the despicable English splayed on street signs, train ads and t-shirts is becoming less annoying. I've been making a mental checklist of the things about my life I would change were I to stay here longer (1. move out of Tokyo. 2. climb the corporate ladder. 3. buy a pink scooter). Nonetheless, I know that this land is not my land, and the siren call of home (and my sister) are impossible to resist. Still, life here has been good, especially when I'm earning my yen whilst simultaneously wasting my time blogging.