前教育長の送る会

Tomorrow is the previous Kyouikucho's farewell party. The BOE just pulled out this long ass banner that they made for the event. I guess I didn't realize just how important this event was... there will be 80 people there. The BOE, I'm sure tons of people from the Shiyakusho, principals and vice principals from all the schools in Aki, and a bunch of different sensei. Why does this have to happen the night I decide to go to Kyoto for the weekend?! I totally wanna get wasted with the kyoikucho and (omgwhatifmountainsenseiwasthere) go to the nijikai!!!! :<<< oh well. Let's see how this thing plays out...

ドラマ to the max

Man, life has been dramatic lately. For once, I'm not creating the drama for myself (although, Saturday night I really didn't help the situation. I just facilitated for silly-ness). Maybe this'll all settle down soon, but who knows. We have an awful dramatic crew of people over here in Kochi-ken.

Finally getting back to some studying of the Japanese. I picked up どもう and have been going over old grammar and vocab, making sentences out of words I don't know and making sentences for the grammar points I'm trying to review. Hopefully this helps some. Getting through the new vocab that I have in the back of each chapter will take a LOONG time to memorize but hopefully there is some useful stuff in there.

Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Muffin Recipe (adapted)

1 3/4 cups  flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
OPTIONAL: 1 cup finely chopped walnuts (kurumi)

(makes 20 muffins)
200 C, 18 min

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C (400 F).
2. Pour the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and spices into a separate bowl.
3. In your main bowl, whisk together the pureed pumpkin, soy milk, oil, and maple syrup.
4. Sift the dry ingredients into the wet and mix until smooth. (OPTIONAL: Lastly, add the walnuts.)
5. Pour into muffin papers 3/4 of the way full and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Decided to make some cupcakes for Sea's little birthday party~

Easy Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted)

1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

(Makes a dozen cupcakes)
180 C, 18-20 min

Peanut Butter Frosting

1 cup of peanut butter (I used crunchy type)
1 cup powdered sugar
3 tablespoons soy milk (add more for a smoother, thinner frosting)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F).
2. Pour the cup of soy milk and teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in there so it can curdle.
3. Prepare the dry ingredients in another bowl. Pour in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. The sugar will go in separately.
4. Add the oil, vanilla and sugar to the soy milk mix and whisk until foamy and thoroughly mixed.
5. Sift the dry bowl into the wet ingredients bowl and mix well.
6. Fill cupcake papers 3/4 full of batter, and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Slowly mix (with a fork) the sugar into the peanut butter. Add soy milk little by little as you stir.
8. Add vanilla.
9. Carefully frost the cupcakes since the frosting is thick.

The Monday Fundays, "Stawks, Unplugged"

http://www.mediafire.com/?75i43vw787316h3

Joyless

I thought today was going to be dreaded... I didn't have 打ち合わせ with Makoto sensei and the fifth graders are hate faces.... but really, the worst thing that happened today was that my first graders were absolutely joyless. For such small kids, they had no fun with making monster faces. I don't know wtf was going on :( It was really quite sad.

In other news. I have a cute new "fiance" and plays in the band Pall Mall. He came to Matto's b-day party at my house on Friday and it was magical~ haha Well, at least we talked. :)

OH MY PASTA

OH NO! MY COLA!

 

明けましておめでとうございます！

A happy new year and second day of work! The first day back wasn't so bad, but I'm starting to feel the drag of not getting my adequate sleep already. Whatever. Two days and Matto's punk-face party. ;)

Monday Funday, the Tuesday edition was a great way to start off this year. Seriously though. I don't think I could love my friends more than I do. When I got back from Thailand on Friday evening, I'd looked around to see if anything seemed out of place, if they had left a mark of their coming over.. but the signs were subtle and I didn't put them together until last night when De- and Matto presented their AMAZING "slide show" of Polaroids to us. They had made a story out of Polaroids of their "monday funday" alone in my FUCKING COLD apartment. They'd even made curry (with a Matto-sized spoon) and used my rice cooker! Hahaha I love them <3

This last weekend was also amazing. Saturday night, I just couldn't stop smiling. The show was good, I got to go out for drinks with Mall and Hiro and Matto (calling Mall a Thai Bird apparently..... I shouldn't EVER voice the junk that flies around in my head) and even though it was freezing and a complete 180 from Thailand, I was happy~ I don't know how many people have reactions like that to coming back to the cold, depressing, Japan winter... but I'm fucking estatic to be back to routine, back to laughing with my favorite people, and back to life (of course, coming home to a nengajo from mountain sensei wasn't so bad either~)