Kia ora, folks!
How's things?
Been up to a bit of this that as of late. Weekend jogged by pretty quick but it was good. On Friday we had band practice at the Shimizu studio, as the roads have finally been cleared. Way easier to concentrate when there and get some good practice done. Even though we can now use the full drums again, we're thinking we're probably going to stick to a pretty acoustic line-up with Chiaki just playing snare. It's probably what we're best at. We practiced a new song I wrote and it's coming along well. I seem to have come down with a bit of a cold though, so that's a bit on the annoying side.

On Saturday, Chie and I went out to the onsen, rammen and supermarket. We then went out to Ippuku to hang with Taka a bit an he ended up coming over for pizza and pasta. We watched Boy, too. Was a pretty choice evening.

On Sunday, Chie and I went out to see her parents. We explained about the wedding and he won't be coming in January. It's a little bit of a relief, though I do really want to introduce the heads of the two families to each other. Was thinking about maybe organising a Skype thing sometime...

After that, Chie went to a baking class with Caroline and Sakura, while I hung out with Caroline's boyfriend, Andy. I don't know if I've mentioned him on the blog yet, but he came over recently. He's a pro-skater and a builder. We pretty much just got a couple of 6 packs and hung out on my veranda shooting the breeze for a few hours. From there, we went to Sakura's apartment and we all watched the ruggers. There was an American guy there as well, who's pretty cool. The rugby game wasn't exactly the most interesting game in the world, but we won and I guess that's all that counts. After the game we pretty much just hung out listening to Dave Dobbyn and Hello Sailor and stuff.

The rest of the week was alright. I've been chugging away at this uni thing and had a online session where I had to present my progress so far. I seem to be on the right track, but have to finish it off before Friday. Pressures on a tad.
Other than that, it was English conversation class on Tuesday with a little drink after, which was alright. A pile of classes at school, which keep me busy. Not too much else to report. I finished reading Norwegian Wood in Japanese and am now reading a book by Joe Bennet called Where Do Underpants Come From or something like that. It's a pretty easy book to read and is a look at production in China. I'll be doing another Murakami Haruki book after, so it's a good little break from reading Japanese stuff. Also, Chie and I are now halfway through the second season of Outrageous Fortune. Chie really digs it.

Hope all is well with y'all
Jim