I saw the shine

This morning I saw the sunshine for the first time in possibly weeks. Who thought light could make you so happy? In the winter Joetsu is a steady blur of white, not much to look at if you could see it. With the lack of physical activities during the week(outside of elementary school days) you find yourself trying to entertain your mind with the most munane things. Yesterday, I was at a stop light, trying to get the perfect zen balance of windshield wiper speed vs. snow. You can't see much in the distance so I caught myself looking at the car in front of me and the one in my rearview just to see if they were on the same rythm or I could predict which rythm they would move in next. Sigh, I miss nice weather and biking to school, or at least from school. So yesterday I joined a gym.
Me and Megan went and signed all the little papers and got our pictures put on cards, and I fill fitter already! They had lots of interesting questions on the paper such as why did you want to join the gym. Now I thought this was kind of a given in Joetsu with the weather, but there are actually lots of reasons. I made him circle most of the words on the paper such as fitness, diet, stress (more like boredom from lack of physical activity), and because the weather here bites (or whatever choice that coincided with). He also asked us whether we sit or stand at our jobs all day. I said well I guess that depends where I'm working, I think its about the same for most Municipal ALTs, at JHS you sit alot, and at Elementary you don't just stand, you jump up and down and yell, and make funny faces with wild flailing gestures and generally are worn out before the weekend begins!
So after lunch I make my way to elementary school for 6th grade classes of play ordering at a restaurant. And tonite at 7 I have a date with a treadmill, Megan, and the fellow showing us how to use everything. And now the clouds have closed back in around Joetsu and all is a white blizzardy blur. Cheers to sports gyms and waterproof boots!