Midnight Bike Racing!

Every weeknight, I have a class from 8:00 to 9:30, and by the time I
finish cleaning up after class and/or talking to Ryan about how classes
went, it's 10:00 or 10:30pm. Then we ride our bikes home (about 8 minutes).

Tonight we finished at 10:30, started off for home, and for the first
time since living in Japan together, we spontaneously burst into a
high-speed, high-stakes, death-defying, all-out bike sprint through the
silent streets and alleys of Yokkaichi.

It was great! The adrenaline was flowing and the competative spirit was
fierce. It was a familiar feeling, but I couldn't remember how long it
had been since I had really pushed myself that hard for the sake of
competition. なつかしい！

Sorry I embellished the title of this post; "10:30pm Bike Racing"
sounded less dramatic, and it's drama I'm going for here.

Yokkaichi International Association

My city has an "International Association" for foreigners like me. And foreigners not like me.
At the Yokkaichi International Association (YIA), I have a private Japanese lesson every Thursday with a volunteer teacher. It's very kind of him to use his time to teach me Japanese every week without pay. He's an interesting retired man who has always traveled a lot and is still an avid outdoorsman (mountain-climbing, canoeing, hiking).
Another function of the YIA is to ask me to correct the English in their publications. Usually, I stick around the office after my Japanese lesson and talk to the two office ladies: Tamami and Yuri. That's when I am asked to correct various announcements and fliers. I enjoy it. Also, each month they have a different foreigner give a presentation about his home country, and they have asked me to give the December or January presentation. I've never attended one of these functions because they are usually on Sunday mornings. But for mine, we'll do it on Saturday afternoon.
SO...If you have any ideas for what kinds of things I should say about America, please leave me a quick comment here. With your ideas, you can vicariously contribute to the Japanese conception of America.

New Blogging Resolution

I resolve to write shorter entries and to write more frequently than I have so far. So here's my first post-resolution entry:

Today is Ryan's birthday. Happy Birthday!
We just got back from swimming in mountain river pools.
For pictures, click...