the fall frenzy begins

Wow. Meant to type this up last night, but I zonked at 8:30 and only woke up around midnight to turn off the kitchen light. Such is JET-lag (hurrhurr see whut I did there).

After getting back from a tanfastic vacation in America-land (getting TO 'Merika was a different story entirely, but it worked out in the end, obvs.) I found myself waking up at 5 in the morning to typhoon warnings, earthquake dispersions (although apparently I'm the only doof who didn't feel a thing even though it was a 3.0 in my area), and Orientation for my prefecture's newbies. Suddenly I am a sempai lolwhut?

It's kind of amusing how the process of giving advice makes you feel like you actually know things. And at the same time it seems like this year's group is so much more on top of stuff than I remember being. Still and all, going into Orientation as a second-year was actually a good experience. Listening to the general talks a second time provided a way better setting for reflecting on my performance over the past year than that done-in-10-minutes evaluation sheet the supervisors hand out in February at the office. And when I got bored I could outline this term's classes on the back sides of handouts :b And then I took the bunch from my area out to lunch and it was good tiems, they're all very relaxed & groovy.

So, first day back at work today. We're still on "break," but from now 'til December it's the busiest part of the year, and I'ma have to stay on top of lessons, fun things like sumo tournaments, paperwork, etc. I will probably be a little crazy manic/short-fused for a while, especially during the next abominable two months of heat & humidity. I don't have the glamour of Japan-novelty to protect my spirits this time, so my plan is basically to stay indoors as much as possible until October and then get a ginormous infusion of genki from the cooling-down of everything.

At least now sunburn isn't such a big concern - the weather pattern from here on out looks something like Typhoon --> rain, Post-Rainy Season Rain --> rain, Humid As Hell --> clouds & mist, Another Typhoon --> torrential rain, repeat repeat repeat, Autumn (read: last week of October / first week of November) --> rain