New Bike!

One day last week I was riding my bike to work and the back wheel went completely flat... and the rim did something rims shouldn't do. It might have had something to do with the fact that I'd been riding it with flat tires for a good 3+ months... but it was also a really old bike. The seat was wobbly - really wobbly, the basket was majorly dented, the kick stand barely worked, and the lock was tricky. I ended up pushing my bike the rest of the way to work that day... it also happened to be raining. My supervisor told me that the guy before the guy that I replaced rode around on my (now old) bike for 3 years and he weighed over 100kg (over 200 pounds). It was a pretty old bike that served its purpose. The school said they would buy me a new bike, but they had to temporarily fix the wheel until the next day. It got me home that day, but by morning the tire was flat again and I had to walk to work - making me late for the 2nd day in a row. I'd never been late before those 2 days - and it was fine because it wasn't my fault. I went to the store with my supervisor and this is the bike we ended up with:

Besides getting a new bike, nothing too exciting has happened. Work is beyond boring. Last week was exam week for the 1st and 2nd years, so I had nothing to do. Beginning this week is spring vacation - for students, not teachers. It's kind of stupid. Nobody has anything to do - I swear everyone is just pretending to be busy... some people flat out sleep at their desks. The new school year begins April 8th. Until then, I will go to work everyday and try to keep myself busy - mostly with some self study books that I have. This Friday there's a prefectural seminar for Yamaguchi JETs in Yamaguchi city. It's the last one. I guess people who are finishing out their contract and not renewing get information about departure. I'm glad I get a day off from doing nothing! Self study gets boring after the first 4 hours.

This past weekend was really nice. My friend Saranne had a nabe party at her house. Nabe is cooked in this big pan on the table and there's a base soup and you put in veggies and meat and eat it - it was delicious! It was a really nice time. Sunday night I went to dinner with my new friend Jimmy. We met randomly at YouMe Town the same day I had my party - Feb 27th. He's actually in the 1st picture I posted from my March 2nd post - the white guy in the middle. He lives closer to me than any of the other foreigners in my area which is really nice. Anyway, we went to this yakiniku place. It was good. Good food, good time.