Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Sara-Gyms, Nanowrimo, JLPT, General catchup

Well, sadly I have many things to post but I haven't. One day I promise I will. Since August I have seen and done many things, that I will later put up, but for now I will just give a very brief update of a few things that I have been doing.

I have changed schools. I am now at Kita-Matsuzono JHS in suburbia. It's about a 45 min bus ride with a 15 min walk to the bus station. That said, I shall now skip over to a briefing of the most current events.

Over the months, I have come to face the fact that I need to exercise. This became more clear when one day I was acting out the story of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree to third grade elementary students. As I read and acted out the picture book, I realized that Pooh and I had many things in common. One, we like food. Two, we always are thinking about food, and three, we often find ways of getting that last dessert that might turn out to be a disaster.

After having read the story three times, I was beginning to feel a little guilty. Pooh, after all, went out and exercised...or tried anyway. So I went out to look at some swimming pools and gyms.

There are several swimming pools and gyms around Morioka. There's a gym called WoW'd, that stands for something like World of Workout'ed or something strange like that. That is in the new AEON mall that is close to us. However, the entrance reminds me of some sort of posh lounge for a restaurant. The walls are black and they have white leather back like couches and chairs. The people weren't all that friendly either and it was rather expensive. So my travels went to a gym called Central.

Central is not even a five minute walk from the train station bus center. And since you can hop on a bus to the station bus center from almost any where, it is very convenient. It has a swimming pool and gym with two studios where they have yoga, Pilate's, aerobics, Taibo (For those who remember the fad) and other fun lessons. They go by different monthly plans so you get to pick the plan that best fits you. I decided to go to Central because the bus from work ends up at the bus station. It was also cheaper than WoW'd and the people are very friendly. The plan that I got was about 9,700 yen a month, but this meant that I could use the gym or pool any time day or night (between 10am-11pm) Mon-Sat. as well as on Sundays and Holidays and they give me a towel for the shower so I never have to bring one. I can also join in any of the classes for no additional charge, and I can come and go to them as I please. They also have a squash court and lessons, but I never was a big fan. Anyway, more on the Gym later.

Besides the gym, I am participating yet again in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month-www.nanowrimo.org). Right now I'm at 28,043 words and roughly 40 single spaced, times new roman, 12 point font, pages. So for future ALTs who want to do it, it is possible...I'm just very lazy. Also, there are several other people participating in it around the Tohoku region, so it is also possible to meet up and do write-ins or word wars, though the timing may be difficult.

Besides Nanowrimo, I'm also doing the JLPT. Last year I believe the choices were Sendai or Tokyo. This year, however, Iwate University (that's not more than maybe a twenty minute bike ride?) will be hosting as well. So, though Patrick and I were getting ready to go down to Sendai on Dec 7th, we have been assigned to the University site.

Next on the things to write about:
A trip to Yamagata (where they sell pears that are over 600 yen)
Archery festival thing (Held back in Sept. and may not be written about till next year...)
Schools (May not be written about)
And other events that I have, at the moment, forgotten about.

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