Busy week, want sleeeepp......

It's been so crazy lately with stuff to do, and sometimes it seems like there is no time for sleep other than falling asleep briefly at work. The performance at the open mic night went really well. Okada, Tamura and I got all our cues down and really rocked the stage, at least everyone told us so. It was noticably queit as we grabbed attention with our high energy music. We hope to play at the next one, so maybe things will quiet down and we can practice. Pictures will follow when Victoia sends the 2 she got with her digi cam. No snowboarding happened this weekend, but the mountains basically had a white out and I and other parties were just too tired to tackle it. I did go to Yasazuka's cupid valley onsen though, and it was pretty good and busy with the snowfestivals, but still I prefer the one with all kinds of fun outdoor stuff by Jusco. Everything was all done up for the snowfestival in both Yasazuka and Oshima. There were candles everywhere and giant snow roosters (for the Chinese zodiac new year). There was even a snow elephant I posed in front of for a quick shot with some of my elementary students hanging off of it. Several other ALTs came and discovered the joy of Oshima people, watched fireworks, ate udon noodles in a house made of snow with candles to light it, watched traditional dances and heard shamisen (which I also heard some of at open mic night....Okada sensei is taking lessons in Joetsu, and now I'm determined to get one as well). I met the mayor of Joetsu briefly and Alexi (the cool Joetsu ALT who runs open mic night and his wife Carolyn rocks the mic on Tuesday night Karaoke and teaches at the University in Joetsu)..well he smoozed several locals who gave him free sake and home brewed stuff and made impressions on my students working the booths. Fukiyama-san was working the noodle booth, and Yukihito sat in the ice house with me, Akemi, Chuck and some of his Japanese friends, and ask Chuck if he wanted to set up a blind date with some girls together cause they are both single (and Chuck's japanese is beyond good). We were supposed to go back for a Tsunami charity dance party in Joetsu but we all kind of wiped out, actually I think Chuck went, but Akemi went to bed and me and Victoria stayed in and watched Lilo and Stitch. We got up the next morning and went to an early showing of Howl's Moving Castle ( I saw before with Phil, but I like Ghibli so I didn't mind seeing it again). I've been back to Joetsu the last 2 nights in a row for some reason or another...paying phone bills, out for dinner...went to book off (a used book and movie store) and got #3 of my favorite new manga series "Ichigo Mashimaro....which means strawberry marshmallow". I have yet to get #2. I'm hoping that it will encourage me to study enough in order to be able to read most of it in Japanese, but it's pretty tough.
I got a plane ticket yesterday to go home for almost 2 weeks coming up as May starts. I'll be really glad to visit Phil and my family, haven't seen my mom dad and brothers since I left and they aren't much for sending pictures or keeping up the blog. It'll also be nice to eat some real breakfast food again, maybe a tuna sandwich on bunny bread, even watch an English movie without subtitles!
Anyhow, today I am doing nothing of importance when I get home but sleep, maybe hang up the laundry to dry out, but that's about it. Sleeepppp......