I'm turning Japanese I really think so

So we had Peter Pan practice over this way for a change and that was really relieving. It was the last one before the holidays, which I start in about a week. So Becky, who is Peter Pan came over to stay with me, but first we got together with Victoria and did some er...light weight shopping....Jusco department store, the foreign food store, the Recycle shop (I got a great hat!), even the grocery store. I decided it was time to dye my hair and Becky said I should try the brand she just dyed her hair with. So we went back to Victoria's and there we proceeded to try to turn my hair a chocolate brown but somehow it came out some shade of red?? Not so happy, I remembered that I had some hair dye at my apartment that I had been afraid was hair bleach. Luckily it really was brown hair dye so we tried again while watching anime and I talked to Phil. I left the stuff on for a long time in attempt to cover up the red and as a result my hair came out rather dark. I just left the tufts sticking out from under my hat at practice the next day because it was such a shock to see all of it so completely un-blonde. Everybody said they liked it though. When I got home and took off my hat I decided I just couldn't wait for my hair to grow out and that I looked like a long lost member of the Beatles....so something had to be done. Pulling from memory of a movie and some of my students hair styles I chopped a good deal of it short just leaving a little bit longer around the sides and the back and well, it pretty much takes everyone by surprise but I've got alot of compiments, one student told me it looks kakko ii, which is really cool, so at least I don't feel insecure about this thoroughly different look.

Otherwise things are good and busy...teaching and planning for my trip to Tokyo next Tuesday night. I can't wait! There've been a coupla times I've gotten really homesick hearing people talk about going home and seeing all the people and places and even foods they have missed. So I figure I just have to have the most fun in my life ever, so as to make it worth being here instead of back home with all of the people I miss. Okay don't go feeling too sorry for me or anything! Phil is coming to visit me for about a month and we're going to the studio Ghibli museum and Tokyo Disney and have a little informal x-mas dinner with some good Oshima folks. There's a good chance it'll be a white Christmas at that. I'll build a snowfamily for everyone back home. Hmmm. ..maybe some snow elephants.

Okay what else has been going on...after practice on Sunday I didn't have any money and I thought I could make it home on my empty gas tank...well I couldn't. Luckily Shiga sensei and her boyfriend who was in town, came to my rescue. Talk about feeling like a baka.
I was so tired on Monday I forgot all about the violin concert for Yasazuka and didn't bring my fiddle with me....so they actually drove me back to get it. The whole school was assembled in the lunchroom to watch me. I played about 4 tunes and then decided that was enough to keep it interesting before all my material started to sound the same. I let a few kids play my fiddle under careful guidance and they were very careful. Tomorow I will give another performance at a Christmas party at Oshima Elementary school. I really should work up some Christmas tunes. After that I go to Joetsu BOE for a meeting to find out if I work at another school after the New year and find out if anything else might change.I'm just hangin' tight for now.