Good evening faithful readers of my blog.  My festering rage and resentment has settled since last week so this entry should be more light hearted.  It's just coming up to 1am and I'm unable to get to sleep because my sleeping pattern has been destroyed since the World Cup started.  There were only six games available on free Japanese telly so I had to get myself a satellite dish installed.  It was a long and gruelling process with lots of forms and Japanese.  Still, with the aid of my socceroo buddy, the pair of us have had access to every single game (there have been some awful games so it hasn't been all good). At the last World Cup I quit my job, moved home for the summer and didn't miss one match.  Sadly, with the time difference and a day full of entertaining students in boiling classrooms... the lack of sleep has started to catch up with me.  I spend every early morning and late afternoon in a complete coma of exhausted apathy as a result.  I was hoping that I could catch up on sleep today and tomorrow as there is a break in the tournament.  However, my mind is still busy and I needed to clean my house because I have some French couchsurfers coming to stay tomorrow.  I was hoping for a day or two of peace and quiet but I've found recently that I'm more content when I have a lot to do.

Anyway, the point of this entry was nothing more than a classic, personal blog post.  I was kept quite active today as I had to drive to Kochi City to get my new visa application started.  After a few meetings in the morning I set off on the 3 hour return trip.  I listened to some barely audible podcasts about the football and only stopped to check for directions.  I then bolted back for the end of work, headed off to Muroto to get help with my new car details and then went straight to taiko practice.  As I was driving back tonight in the silent darkness on the deserted coastal road of route 55;  I realised that I hadn't spoken a single word of English for the entire day and I still haven't.  It's not uncommon for this to happen I guess but it was only today that I noticed it.  On a weekday I'll occasionally talk to the other foreigner in my office, talk to the other English teacher at school and often see Naomi and some other friends in the evening.  It's quite a strange feeling not to have spoken your native language all day but the majority of people living abrod in English speaking countries probably do it all the time.  The most surprisng thing about today was that all of my Japanese was easy enough that I spoke it in an almost natural way; from the immigration worker to the petrol station bloke.

It's the first time in a long while that my brain has had so much time to itself.  I guess when I was a student I had a lot of time to sit in silence and study.  It's actually in my nature to sit with a cup of tea and have a think whilst reading a paper or a book.  Perhaps that is what has been missing in the past few weeks as my free time has been lost to many interesting things.  In saying that, the lack of anyone to talk to and release the pressue in my brain has made me feel somewhat lonely today and this evening.  I must have driven and sweated for about 4-5 hours in my car today and despite enjoying the views it was quite boring.  I had a rubbish dinner and my scrubbed the humidity diseased shower until I couldn't move my arms above my head.  That's about it for my day.  Here's a picture of me in my kilt again.  The girl with the broken arm has been asking me every week since March when I was going to wear my skirt.