Hey, where did April go?

Gah! I hate technology. I spent ages writing a witty, insightful blog entry (well, something like that) only for the computer to eat it. Grr. So, one more time with feeling.
Iain's dad came out for a couple of weeks, and I got to meet the man himself. I met Iain and his dad, Michael, for a couple of beers at Coffee Pub Mango, an oddly named jazz cave near my house. I think we were all nervous and on our best behaviour. Not having had dinner and drinking quickly to compensate for nerves, I ended up getting quite drunk on four beers. Then I went home and made noodles and burnt my tongue and wanted to die at work the following day. I love meeting the parents.
Jen had a huge leaving party that week, so we met up with a crowd of drunken Nova teachers at a bar and it quickly descended into insanity and bad karaoke, with added toxic hangovers for some the following morning.
I had kids training a couple of weeks ago and that was mostly uneventful. Having taught kids for a year, I didn't feel like I learnt much. I met Jo and Thom for a couple of lethal cocktails at Misfits and we staggered onto the last subway at half past eleven. I was ok at Chibiko training (for teaching toddlers) the next day, but judging by their "I hate myself and I want to die" expressions as they sang the Hello Song, I would say that some of the other teachers there hadn't been so careful. They didn't even do the actions. Tsk. The school I work at, Takabata, has lots of kids, so sure enough a couple of days later I had my first kids classes. So far no-one has cried or puked on me, but maybe they're saving it for next week. I did have one kid sneeze on the ball we were playing catch with then wipe his nose on it. Eew. The two other teachers at my school seem nice, Dan and Caroline. I hardly ever see Caroline because we have completely different days off and she works in Kanayama on Saturday.
I've been trying to get to meet more people here (despite Iain's protestation that a boyfriend is all the company a girl needs) but it's difficult. I think last year it was much easier because I was working for such a small company, all the teachers knew each other, lived close together and congregated at the same local. Here there are hundreds of Nova teachers in the city and it's weirdly difficult to meet people outside your flat and your branch school. There was a 'new teachers get together', but that was an odd toe-curling evening and I didn't make any progress. I've replied to a couple of adverts I saw that were looking for people to do language exchanges, so it would be nice to make a Japanese friend or two.
Iain came to Nagoya last Tuesday after he'd dropped his dad off at the airport and we wandered around Kanayama and Asunal (the local shopping centre) until Iain homed in on a huge shop selling an odd mix of cheap CDs. He frequently leafs through my CD collection shaking his head in disbelief at some of my choices, so he began the long process of re-education by giving me a Camera Obscura EP. It's really good. Don't tell him I said that.
I finally managed to buy a bike (I swear the guy who runs the bike shop was shutting up every time he saw me come down the street) and suddenly the city makes sense. I'm actually really close to everything. I can cycle to Nagoya station in about half an hour, Sakae in about 15 minutes, and Osu Cannon (where all the cool kids hang out) in about 5 minutes. I can now stand on a main street and vaguely know where I am without having to get out a map (more or less - I am still pretty rubbish with that kind of thing). I want to see if I can cycle to work, but as my collegue Dan pointed out, that's maybe best kept for a day off. Everyone cycles on the pavement here (very weird), but since the pavements are at least 3 metres wide there's usually enough space for pedestrians and cyclists. They still hate each other, but that was never going to change. I wouldn't like to chance cycling on the roads here, the traffic moves very quickly. It's funny to see business men in suits riding tiny fold-up bikes with mini wheels.
On Monday night a big crowd of us went to Red Rock for Francis' birthday, a rowdy affair that would have involved drinking games had Mitchell been able to count to three. I was knackered, so Iain and I came away at half twelve. It sounds like we got off lightly. Francis woke up the next morning unable to move his leg, and with no idea of what had happened.
Its now Thursday and I'm really tired from sitting out in the sun in the park this afternoon, listening to the wind blowing through the grass and the homeless people snoring and a helicopter overhead. It was the first time I'd been able to laze in the sunshine since last November, so naturally I'm a bit pink now but it was worth it. And then I went to the internet place and wrote a witty and insightful blog entry which the computer ate, and that's us more or less up to date.