It's been awhile

... since I've gone and fucked things up, just like I always do! And it's been awhile but all that shit seems to disappear when I'm with you!!

Aaaaaah one of my fave karaoke songs!! Awww just one of my fave songs... The title of this post just brought the song to mind!

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while, I been busy man! I have loads of pics... A couple of weeks ago Anna had a housewarming party, but loads of other people have pics of that on their blogs, so I won't add any (check Justine or Johanna's blogs for those). Anyway it's been an interesting couple of weeks... some of our PNG guides came to Japan to perform, which was cool! We took them out drinking and to karaoke! Also had rehearsals in Sanjo, which was also cool. Anyway, here are some pics...

Sanjo Rehearsal Weekend
Friday Night with the PNG Guys




Saturday Night
Can you tell Ashleigh from me?! Fairly easy to tell Johanna apart. Though God knows what she's doing!!



















Testing Joel's Stubble

Deccy's Director Face
Pamela and me (aaaawwwwww)I nicked this one off of Johanna's blog! It's hilarious!!
Giving it our all...All of us (again courtesyof Johanna)The morning after - in my crowded aparto
Deccy and Pat turning my bra into a catapult and my toy dog
into a projectile (childish much?!)
Joel and his girlfriend

A moment of silence please...

As I contemplate the short, joyless lives of my ten goldfish.

Some Sanjo pics

I took these (while out cycling) a couple of Fridays ago before they cut down all the rice!

Self -portrait

I'm a goldfish mass murderer

Last Saturday I, quite unfortunately, won about ten goldfish at one of my visit schools' festivals. The kids dragged me into their classrooms and made me compete. I usually play along because they'd be disappointed if I refuse but I ALWAYS hope I'll lose! Only this time I just kept winning. I ended up with 10 goldfish - it would have been more, only I stopped playing!! So I brought the poor little devils home and, remembering back to my first year and three OTHER goldfish unfortunate enough to be won by me (Jaws 1, 2 and 3 all died within a week), I immediately headed out and bought a tank, fish food and a bubbly thing, as well as some stones and plastic tree things for the bottom!
The ungrateful little bastards - 6 of them have already floated belly up to the top of the tank!! SIX!! Can you believe it?! I feel like a mass murderer... what the hell else do they want from me? I gave them a nice home, bought them toys and food and they repay me by DYING?! It was a mini goldfish death fest. Every day I'd come home to find another dead or dying one in the tank. Am hoping the remaining four ganbarre their way through. So far they seem genki and even come swimming to glass whenever I come home from school, they immediately head to the top of the tank and blow bubbles, begging for food. So cute!

I tell you, dogs are a lot less maintenance than frikking goldfish! Give me a doggy any day!

Doh!

The idea was to review a lesson on shopping. The kids had to think of what kind of shop they wanted, what their products would be and what their shop would be called! Then they would go around the class, to different "shops" practising the dialogue they'd learned.

This particular drawing is of a doll for sale in a toy shop. It's called The Natasha Doll and was the most expensive item for sale at this shop. Note all the zeroes behind that 5! And these are kids who haven't even mastered the 100's yet. Hehehehe... she's rather unrealistically proportioned, but she is sporting the same outfit and hairdo as I was today!

The kids always crack me up man!

Super Sanjo Social

Guess I'm the first one to blog about this then. Everybody else has pictures, but haven't seen them up on Johanna or Ros's blogs yet (thank GOD!! Some of those pics are total porn. I blame Johanna for that - she kept wanting pictures of boobs). On Friday night we had the welcome party for all the newbies in the Sanjo area, that would include Sam and me. It was a good one, nice evening. Here are some pics (carefully edited because Johanna will probably have the x-rated stuff on her blog, AGAIN!!).

James - a typical pose for him

Sam and Hanna-chan

James, Joey et moi

Jenny, Melissa and Paul

Phil doing some unspeakable things with that sausage-type thing

Kristen, Toshimi and me

Naughty naughty!

The gals

Kristen, Ros and Jenny - looking lovely!

Boys doing kawaiiiiiiii

Looking all coy and what-not

FGS

I kept feeling these tremors, which I dismissed as my imagination playing tricks on me. But twice now it's been so strong that I could even hear my flat creaking slightly - so I KNEW it wasn't my imagination... however, after a few wicked flashbacks to October 2004 and the "Big Niigata Jishin", I've come to realise that the frikking trains are making my flat sway... and the two so-called Big Ones?! Freight trains... I feel rather stupid now (*sulk*).

Guess what I'm supposed to be doing?!

That's riiiiiiight... planning a lesson for tomorrow (didn't have time to do it at school today). Guess what I'm doing instead?! That's riiiiiiiiight again: pfaffing around on my blog, sending fan mail to some photographer dude who takes cool pics of fish and sharks and stuff. I suck... I really do!

Anyway, here's some pics of my new English Board, at my new base school. I've started a weekly quiz (well technically, it will run every second week). A "Try to guess..." quiz. As I haven't had the opportunity to introduce myself to a lot of the kids I teach at this school (we just had to leap right in there with the actual teaching. Sheesh), I've started this quiz thing! So the first question was "Try to guess... what Natasha's home town is (hint: it has a very famous mountain). Answers: a) Johannesburg b) Pretoria c) Cape Town d) Durban" Then I directed them to the map on my self-intro poster! See the map has a pic of Table Mountain, on the border, with a number corresponding with Cape Town. Ballsing up the explanation, aren't I?! Okay, well, the aim is to get kids to guess. A small prize is offered to the winner (lucky draw... if I get more than one entry of course - which this week, I did, cos I accosted the kids in the hall with strips of paper and MADE them enter! I got nearly twenty entries). Today I put up the answer, the winner's name and tons of pics and random facts about Cape Town! Next week, I'll put up a new question. I've had kids coming up to me and asking me why THEY didn't win, so I blamed the teacher I asked to draw the winner (HAH! I don't do it myself, that way I can't be blamed for it).

K... I should probably stop this procrastinating, else I'll never get to bed!

South African Health Minister...

"Dr" (I'm beginning to wonder where she bought her medical degree) Manto Tshabala-Msimang is an IDIOT!! Our people are dying in droves and she wants to combat AIDS with beetroot and African potatoes?! Catch a wake up call woman!! You're not helping matters!

Hehehe

Chez Natasha's... uh Take Three!

So, here it is, my third apartment in three years. After three different apartments, I know exactly how I want things. I changed things rather a lot in here, so it looks quite different. You've all seen pics of my old aparto in Niitsu (if you haven't check the archives for my Bye Bye Niitsu entry), so am sure you're seeing PLENTY of similarities in decor (I pretty much just transplanted my old flat - furniture, curtains, niknaks and all - into my new flat)... So now it feels like home! Yayyyyyyyyy!!

Entrance

I still wanna put pics up in this hall. I hate empty wall space!!

Bathroom

Bedroom - I moved my bedroom from the other room! I prefer it here, it gets more sun.

Kitchen - moved the table against the wall to make more room for my desk.

Living room

Desk

Student English Camp

Student English Camp flag raising ceremony (at 6 in the MORNING!!!). After this we did aerobics (grimace).

Pic of the weekend

One of the many dragonflies that can be found all over Niigata lately! This pic was taken at the student English Camp last week.

New Glasses. Yayyyyy!

6 months after breaking my glasses, I have FINALLY gotten around to replacing them! Good thing too, my poor eyes were getting sick of nothing but contacts!

Noh! Noh! Noh!

Rosalind, Johanna and I went to check the Japanese-ified version of Othello at the Noh theatre in Niigata last Tuesday! A couple of students from the Niigata Women's college where we (female ALTs) sometimes go for English day, were a part of the company performing the play. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm grateful I know the story, else I would have been a bit lost, but it was a visual treat and I was pretty excited about being there!!

Johanna has a MUCH better reportback on her blog! So have a read through, I'm being typically lazy - but there ya go!

Hugs
PS. The dude playing Iago (centre pic on the right) was brilliant and Othello was totally sexy (top pic on the right)!
PPS. First pic shamelessly stolen from Hanna's blog!