Pop It Like It's Hot

Reading: Crowning the Nice Girl, Christine R. Yano
Listening: "Shake It," Metro Station / "Bust It Baby, Pt. 2 (feat. Ne-Yo)," Plies
Craving: chocolate gateau
Mood: dance-y, like popcorn

Today I'm exhausted again.

In my first three classes, we practiced giving compliments in English. Judgmental as I can be, I believe that something good can be found in everyone, and I took a cheesy pleasure in encouraging my students to exercise doing so. Knowing that they would be embarrassed complimenting one another directly, I had the class role-play with cartoon character identities like Cinderella and Pikachu. They appeared to enjoy themselves, and I heard some odd praises. At the end, we made a "Snap Cup," inspired by Legally Blonde 2, for which students wrote anonymous compliments for one another.

In the afternoon, I taught a self-introduction lesson, where a boy broke my heart when he loudly groaned for having to partner with me in conversation practice. As period six drew to a close, I felt painfully tired, and I skipped tea club. I came home, washed towels, and took a very long nap. Long naps are almost always a mistake, and I woke with a headache. I had had creative plans for dinner, but feeling lazy, I merely tossed together an Asian-style chicken-broccoli stir fry over brown rice. プチ strawberries with yogurt and honey for dessert cheered me up a bit!

And though Western pills are good and well for pain, the best medicine is music. (Mom has complained that Scott and I spend more time applying ourselves to finding new songs for our iPods than to practical means.) A good beat makes me feel the dancing in my heart and ignore the pounding in my head. Amazing!

**SoulJa will perform in Hiroshima on Saturday! Unfortunately, we'll only be passing through. I would LOVE to see him live (and meet him?) before leaving the country. My time to see my favorite Japanese artists in concert is shrinking . . . **