Saturday, May 28, 2005

Saturday May 28, 6:23 p.m.

Got the little gifts for The Chipmunk's new kid. Her husband picked me up at the train station and brought me over to their condo. It was a good thing that I'd opted for the escort since he took me through a rather convoluted path toward his place. Mother and son were doing fine and we had a nice little hour chatting about the kid, some of the other folks in our collective sphere of influence, and her English abilities. The entire family walked me back to the station. During the walk back, I noticed that after a few minutes of her talking to me about her underconfidence concerning her pronounciation, she made a rather abrupt move to change the subject which struck me. Sure enough, I got an e-mail from her just now apologizing for talking too much about her English. I kinda figured that I wasn't all that chatty about it on the walk back but it wasn't because I was getting annoyed by it. It was pretty hot outside which lessens my communicativeness and Chipmunk tends to talk rapidly so that I must've tuned out. I made up for it my gaffe by offering my services to her if she really wants to upgrade her delivery.

My telepathy must've been working quite well today. I was thinking as I was going out the door about that final tape of Star Trek from The Entrepreneur. Sure enough, right in my mailbox was the tape. I sent him my due thanks.

It was bustling in my neighbourhood. The two elementary schools I pass on the way to the station were having their sports day. I was serenaded by the sounds of Queen's "We Will Rock You" as I stepped out while the other school had "Fanfare for Trumpets". Then as I passed the tiny dance studio, it was apparent that the dance du jour was tap.

JJ was her usual giddy self. I spent half the period starting her on her way to better pronounciation and intonation with that new text I'd gotten yesterday. Quite a bit of activity outside our Starbucks as yet another entertainer was thrilling the kids with some acrobatic derring-do.

Just had dinner at the Pepper Lunch underneath my station. I decided to take advantage of their grilled chicken and burger special. The burger was fine although I'll never really get used to the Japanese predilection of frying their steaks and burgers in butter. The chicken was another thigh meat affair. I much rather prefer breasts than thighs (cough, cough).

I got another message from my friend up in Karuizawa. This time, she got rather insistent that I come up there for a weekend since a day trip would waste the Shinkansen ticket. Well, as they do over here, once I got the third invitation I duly succumbed and said I will go for the weekend of the 25th. However, unless there is a cancellation, I'll most likely have to come up in the early evening since I do have those classes on Saturday. I just hope that there is no more of that negotiating back and forth.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Saturday May 10:05 a.m.

Realized that I'm typing this at a time where I would usually be well on my way to teach the kids or teaching the kids already. This is the second consecutive week that I haven't had to go over there. I must admit that there is a certain nice thing about not having to commute on a Saturday morning but next week I'll be over again.

However, there was something to annoy me after all. I checked my e-mail, got messages from DTE, one of the M+M and Shard. and perhaps downloaded a file from DTE. It was some sort of cute commercial involving a fish and a cat about the needs to join a certain language school. Well, maybe the file contained a bit more than the advert...just after reading the rest of the messages a few minutes later, my Internet connection froze up. There was a big angry red light on the black box representing my ADSL. I lost my access to the Net which could be akin to going through withdrawal of the digital kind. So I immediately put the computer through its paces. I activated the Norton AntiVirus, the AdAware and the Symantec diagnostics. Took me half an hour...nada. So I finally decided to push those 3 buttons on my keyboard that I've had to do frequently over the past number of months and shut the bloody thing down. Once I got the series of warning messages in Japanese and got bluescreened a few times (I've been seeing those often enough...however, Speedy gets that a lot too so I'm glad that I'm not alone), I finally went with my nuclear option and pulled the bloody plug. One time, The Bohemian, a former IBM systems engineer, winced when I did that...but I'm not one to surrender happily and since I do have a temper...

After all that poking around, I accidentally tipped over the black box. The red light went to green and all was well with the world once again. Geezus...what kind of message does this send about the computer revolution?

Anyways I'm back...I checked Movie Buddy's blog. Looks like he did take a gander at my "Doctor Who" eps. He had a ball watching them but I suspect that he didn't notice the resemblance between him and the new good Doctor.

Well, I know that summer is around the corner when I've got my malfunctioning fan on every day, I've got my top off (I've been a good neighbour and not revealing myself in the window) and I'm starting to feel the need to take 2 showers a day. Ugh!
Friday May 27, 9:56 p.m.

It was my regular Friday schedule. I taught The Teacher today at our regular cafe. And then I headed off to Maruzen where I picked up a couple of texts which could help SR and JJ. I spent quite a bit of yen on the purchases but luckily, I didn't spend too much on the miscellaneous stuff this week. Then, I had my fairly common lunch at Com Pho, that Vietnamese eatery in the basement level. I had the Bun Bi, a cold pho dish with lots of nuts, chopped pork, pickled carrots and cucumbers. I generously added fresh bean sprouts from the ready supply on the counter.

Ate quite a bit so I decided to take a bit of a walk from Maruzen over to Yurakucho. I noticed that there were a lot of junior high school classes on their annual trips to the big city. They were hunched down on designated areas (of course, being Japan, JR had zones all set up for the kids). I took the same route...go through the subway level to the Maru Bldg, took the escalator up to street level, went out and walked 5 minutes till I reached the Tokyo International Forum. It's been commonplace to see food trucks, mostly of the Asian spicy variety parked right between the two buildings that make up the Forum. I'll have to remember to try one of those places out someday.

I ended up going to HMV Yurakucho again and once again picked up a magazine. Gotta read on the train, y'know.

SR and I had another lesson surrounded by a lot of chatting. Looks like she had another sudden trip over to Hawaii with a colleague of hers. Since she works for an airline, they could get business-class seats at a huge discount. Our chats have often extended well beyond the 2 hours allotted for her lesson. I think we broke up around 6:30 tonight, a full hour extra.

Came home and fried up some mini-steaks which fit the bill quite nicely. I actually bought them at my usual supermarket...for some reason, beef there is fairly exorbitant in price but these mini-steaks were relatively painless...just 680 yen for the whole group. Usually for Aussie beef, I go to the supermarket just across the street (yes, there are two within 5 m of each other). They're much more reasonably priced.

The big news here right now is the possibility that two WWII soldiers may have been discovered living on the island of Mindanao. If that is indeed true, the two oldtimers would be in their early 80s. Man, I think they might as well just live the remainder of their lives there since they wouldn't recognize a blessed thing here.

The other interesting news is far more into pop culture. Apparently, Tokyo will have the world premiere of "Batman Begins" on May 31, a full 3 weeks before its official premiere in the States. I'm sure Ken Watanabe's name in the cast helped that situation. As far as I know, Christian Bale and Chris Nolan are set to come over here. No surprise on the venue, the Virgin Theatres at Roppongi Hills. And where will I be? Well, I'll be at the juku. Looks like The New Kid will be a no-show since he's got his school trip, so I'll start at my old time of 7.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Friday May 27, 8:35 a.m.

Forgot to mention that Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank did show up yesterday on that noontime variety show on Fuji-TV. Yup...they showed up, and that was about it. Swank gave a barely audible, "Arigato" while the towering Freeman smiled and waved and stayed mute. However, they got the job done by showing up and showing the big poster of "Million Dollar Baby". Perhaps, I may see something more relevant on the "Waratte Ii Tomo" digest on Sunday mornings; the digest often shows some of the stuff that didn't get onto the live broadcasts during the week...and the pair didn't show up until the very end.

Looks like Bruce Willis was quite busy...he not only did the Japanese premiere of "Hostage" but he had some time to get a new commercial done here. And Richard Gere has been on the tube hawking some local esthetic salon. Nice to get some of the celeb males back after having been dominated by the likes of Liv Tyler (coffee), Natalie Portman and Charlize Theron (shampoo).

The OL sent me word that she'll have to cancel her lesson tonight due to overtime. I figured that was gonna be a semi-regular thing for Fridays so I'm cool with it. Get to get home a bit early, perhaps even make a bit of dinner.
Thursday May 26, 10:18 p.m.

Pretty lazy Thursday since I only had the sisters in the evening. It will be even more lazier next week since MK re-scheduled her lesson for next week to Saturday afternoon. I'll have absolutely nothing on June 2nd.

Fridays will probably be the third busy day of the week since I've got The Teacher, SR and The OL although SR usually cancels out on the last Friday of the month due to accounting matters. However, she's due to come tomorrow, though. I'll have to pick up some new material for her since she's pretty much done with the text that we'd be using for the past several months. Not sure how much more advanced I can take her. The text that we'd just finished was getting into some pretty high stuff as it was and she'd also gone through the TOEIC Intermediate Guide. But I'll take another Friday look in Maruzen.

As I said, it was a lazy Thursday so I had decided to veg a bit before I left for the Tea Room and listened to a Yuming CD. Yuming, whose real name is Yumi Matsutoya (nee Arai), is one of J-Pop's legends. She was already well into her career even before some of today's top acts were born. I mentioned the "nee" part since she started out as one of the singers of the New Music movement...something that occurred in the early 70s after the Beach Boys-like Group Sounds trend died away. The New Music is distinguished from the mainstream idol singers and enka balladeers by the fact that Yuming and her contemporaries such as Ryuichi Sakamoto (who would start up YMO later in the decade) wrote their own eclectic brand of pop or folk stuff.

As Yumi Arai, a lot of her stuff back then had that somewhat langourous folksy vibe with a bit of country/50s/folk influence woven in. For those Hayao (Spirited Away) Yamazaki fans, you ought to watch "Kiki's Delivery Service" (my personal Yamazaki favourite). The two songs that bracket the movie are Arai hits from her first decade.

However when Yuming married her fellow new musician/turned producer, Masataka Matsutoya in the late 70s, her music veered into a more poppy and uptempo vein although she did come up with some more hit ballads. I'd say that if I were to analogize her stuff for Western audiences, she'd definitely be in the AOR genre. I mean, if there were a compilation of international AOR tunes, she'd be included with people like Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Bros and Olivia Newton-John.

Her voice also represented the line which determined whether you liked or hated her. It's obvious from what I've said so far which side of the line I'm on. But I've had fellow J-Pop listeners liken her somewhat reedy voice to scratching fingernails on the blackboard. To be honest, I haven't listened to much of her recent stuff...well, basically anything that she's put out in the last 10 years. Her voice has gone from mellow beginnings to near-Yoko Ono/Buffy Ste. Marie warbling. But it's also that a lot of her songs haven't really been all that catchy lately. I greatly prefer her old stuff but maybe that's just age on my part. Still, her longevity is amazing considering the very flavor-of-the-month nature of the J-Pop industry. Also, I gotta admit that her concerts are one level above most other pop singers' efforts. Her 1990 concert video showed a slickness on a par with anything American singers usualy throw out.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Wednesday May 25, 11:33 p.m.

Yup, I know...it's my third or fourth entry today but I keep forgetting to put these items in. If I don't...they'll just pop in and out of my head for the next several days.

1) Really strange event tomorrow on the noon show, "Waratte Ii Tomo" (It's OK to Laugh!). This is the 23-year-old variety program hosted by the Johnny Carson of Japan, Tamori. It's known for a lot of little games involving the currently popular TV personalities...a lot of hilarity. Well, things are gonna be weird when none other than Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank will be making their presence felt on the show, presumably to promote "Million Dollar Baby" which actually premieres this weekend. Talk about your incongruities: one of the most gravitas-laden actors in recent memory appearing on a program that espouses the opposite. Mind you, Freeman was Easy Reader from "The Electric Company"....perhaps his sense of humour will be intact although the usual response from Hollywood celebs doing Japanese TV shows has been one of bemused amusement. I still think the look on Harrison Ford's face when Puffy "interviewed" him is the standard bearer.

2) Continuing on the Hollywood line, Bruce Willis popped up in front of hundreds of fans in Kabukicho to promote "Hostage". Ol' Bullet Head was a fine showman, spouting a bit of Japanese greetings before thanking everyone for their patronage.

3) I've had this song rolling around in my head for the past couple of days. It's called "Thank You For The Music" by a J-Pop band called Bonobos (I'm sure there is a good story behind THAT name). A pretty rollicking though mild stomper, the music video would be the usual band-on-outside-set presentation except that throughout it, there are these Aztec architectural structures just bouncing up and down and all around the band members like demented pop-up figures.
Wednesday May 25, 11:00 p.m.

I decided to make that last entry of "jinhsin jikou" a standalone. So what about the rest of my day? Well, I did some more intonation and pronounciation work with The Hawaiian. Looks like I've got 4 more lessons with her until she takes off for Oz. I'm kinda wondering about having me and Movie Buddy take her out once before she goes.

Then it was over to Speedy's for my regular lesson with Student 001. Her Taiwan trip went pretty smoothly although she thinks that three days are just too short. I would agree. She also informed me that she had a spoonful of that infamous smelly tofu dish that could be considered to be a lethal weapon. I'm sure that the industrial-strength Dentyne was in order. She brought back a nice souvenir in the form of some local pineapple cakes. Pretty rich...needed the tea to drink it down. Looks like Speedy will be away next week on a business trip in North America. He said that he may try to catch Star Wars there but he's frankly doubtful considering his busy schedule.

One thing never to do. Don't eat a whole fried chicken bento with mayonnaise along with a salad heavy on cabbage. The combination was like setting the fuse on a particularly packed cannon. Luckily, my class was over when the strong urge to hit a toilet arrived. It cost me an extra fare, but I was lucky enough to have The Century Hyatt and its glorious Western-style toilets there on the way home.

Got back home to get a phone message from one of my former students. She asked me to call her back but I neither have her phone number or e-mail address which rather makes any contact with her moot. I can only hope she can send me some info by the Net.

Well, I've got the sisters tomorrow night but in the meantime, I also have to get that one gym outing this week out of the way.
Wednesday May 25, 10:21 p.m.

And I thought I was knackered last night. Due to another jinshin jikou on the JR, all the express trains on the Tozai Line were cancelled and there were tons of people on the subway tonight. I felt like a microscopic specimen after the glass slide had been slipped on over me. Now I know why I've training at the gym all these months. It wasn't to lose weight, it was to ensure that my legs could withstand the pressure of dozens of commuters dogpiling atop of me as the train pulled out of each station.

And what is a "jinshin jikou"? Well, the direct translation is "personal accident", an appropriately vague expression coined by the minders of the subway and JR lines to cover a mulititude of incidents from an ill passenger to a couple of drunk knuckleheads who might decide to have a little tussle on Drinkin' Fridays. However, if you've been in the city even as half as long as I have, you'll immediately assume a jumper, namely a person committing suicide. Thus, jinshin jikou takes on a a euphemistic quality as well.

It doesn't seem to happen every day but it does occur often enough. You'll hear it over the PA system and even on the built-in monitors inside the Yamanote Line trains. No details are ever given but I'm sure a lot of folks assume that someone has made that final leap into oblivion. Usually, the leaper does it on either the crosstown Sobu or Keio Lines since outside expresses exist for them. Express trains also exist on the Tozai but for some reason, I have never heard of anyone killing themselves there.

Fortunately, I've never had the bad luck to witness a leaper in action but over the years, a few students or friends have mentioned their eyewitness accounts. A decade ago, one of the staff members at the NOVA I'd been working at mentioned that she got rather nauseous when the person in front of her decided to end it all and threw himself in front of a speeding express. She also got to see the end results as well. Just yesterday, the New Kid informed me that he had been witness to one of his schoolmates (someone he hadn't been acquainted with) leaping not too long ago.

The leaper also has quite an effect on traffic. I'm still rather mystified after all these years but when a guy successfully jumps and turns into a Picasso cubist piece, the ripple effect is that not only that line is affected but all other lines connecting to it are affected as well which means delays, long waiting lines and overpacked subways. Unlike in subways of other countries, over here, commuters are more than willing to become 2-D figures since the Japanese know how to more willingly shrug it off as part of life in the big city and suffer in silence

There is also that belief that the family of the deceased is responsible for footing the bill of the cleanup operations. Recently, though, there have been reports that this is more of an urban myth.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Wednesday May 25, 8:47 a.m.

Looks like my confession to eating grasshoppers got some bites...figuratively, of course....from a couple of folks. Shard and The Professor sent back replies as if they were wondrous Grade 6'ers. I just described the subtle texture of crunchiness mixed with the teriyaki taste of stewed locust. Mmmmm....I'm channeling Homer Simpson. The little bag of the little fellas is still residing nicely in my fridge.
Tuesday May 23, 11:45 p.m.

I think the Brits say "knackered". Well, I'm knackered. Another long day with a sunny morning and afternoon, and then a rainy night. Can do a lot of warping of one's metabolism.

At the Beehive today, I was introduced to the wonders of tsukudani, or preserved soya sauce grasshoppers. You got it...those insects that seem to have never met a rice or wheat field they haven't liked. Well, I did my part in getting some revenge of the winged ones. Mrs Tea got a small bagful of the stuff for me to try out. Yup, they were indeed small grasshoppers. I could make out the multiple legs, the large compound eyes and the wings. I didn't even hesitate..I threw one of the little monsters into my mouth. Mmmm....chewy...can't even taste anything remotely grasshopperish about it. Mrs. Fashion looked somewhat green, though. I took the little packet home for snack time.

I guess the stewed locusts got my appetite going since I decided on a whim to whip up some pasta. However, it wasn't the usual meat sauce spaghetti since I didn't have any ketchup on hand. Instead, I used the remaining cod roe mayonnaise that SR had given me several weeks before as the sauce base. I threw in some chicken and scallops along with some greens. It turned out pretty well actually. I'm saving more than half of it for tomorrow's breakfast along with the remaining Campbell's Minestrone Soup that I'd bought at the supermarket.

My classes at the juku were the same ol', same ol'. The New Kid was his usual friendly self, the Beauty Pair gossiped for the majority of the lesson in Japanese, The Milds were dutifully diligent and The Bohemian did pretty well for a first taste in the wonders and intricacies of TOEIC. He didn't do too badly on the various parts.

Got some word from Paddy. Looks like my possible immigration to this country may be a whole lot easier than previously believed, although I'm very much of the too-good-to-be-true school of life. Still, if there's anyone I believe in, it's Paddy.

I also got the OK from The Chipmunk to drop by on Saturday to say hello to the newest member of their family. I'll probably do so on my way to teach JJ; I'll probably get a little Snoopy doll for the tyke.

I've still gotta fill out the reports for the juku classes tonight. And at least get something down for a lesson plan for The Hawaiian and Student 001 at Speedy's tomorrow. All that and a shower.

Later...

Monday, May 23, 2005

Tuesday May 24, 7:38 a.m.

It's sunny out there...for now. The weather girl came to her senses and said that there may be some more rain on the way later today although it won't reach the torrential heights of last night. We'll see about that.

Got the final marks on the Star Wars movie from The Entrepreneur. He gave it a 7.5...not bad but it doesn't rate up with the original or "The Empire Strikes Back". I'll take that score since I will probably have the same opinion when I see it in July...or sooner if PH can milk her connections.

Now, where were we on this little saga of Star Wars reminiscing. Ahhh...yes..."Attack of the Clones". This was a rather strange one for me since I don't remember where I first saw it. I definitely didn't go to the midnight show for that one...partially since the endurance test from catching the first prequel was still pretty fresh in my mind, and also because the reviews were even more negative. I can't even remember if I had actually seen it with anyone.

Yup, the acting was even more cringeworthy in this one than in "The Phantom Menace". There was no gravitas from a Liam Neeson to bring some dignity (well, there was that brief 1-second quip in Yoda's meditation chamber). Instead, we got Hayden Christensen. Wow! Who'da thought? Darth Vader comes from Toronto. During the leadup to the movie, I was wondering how this guy would do considering that Jake Lloyd didn't exactly endear himself to the stalwart fans. Well, after seeing his "performance" in AOTC, I was wondering if there were some way the Canadian government could revoke his citizenship. Right from one of his opening lines, "So have you...grown more beautiful, that is...", I knew we were in for a bumpy ride. Stuff like "You soothe me" and his deathless analogy comparing Padme to something that isn't sand (oh, you charmer, Anakin, you) made me grateful that I was in a Japanese theatre instead of a Canadian one. At least, 1) Japanese audiences don't traditionally react to much of anything, and 2) the language barrier acts benevolently here...you can't detect bad English-language acting if you can't understand it.

Then again, noone was really spared from the petrified forest quality of Lucas' script. I even cringed at one line that Ewan McGregor spat out during the final battle. However, there were some...a few...good moments at the end with the Jedi smackdown on Geonosis and that briefest of battles between Count Dooku and Yoda.

That's pretty much all I can sum up concerning the previous sequel. Not a good Star Wars movie...just not a good movie, period. Well, all's the better that "Revenge of the Sith" is getting much better buzz.
Monday May 23, 9:49 p.m.

A bit of rain the weather girl said...well, she was off by about a million times. We got hammered tonight with a good dousing of precipitation. Luckily, the downpour started just when I entered the station nearest The Company. I could tell that something was up meterologically when some pretty big blasts of cold air pushed their way into the warm and humid underground level via the stairways. Then at Iidabashi Station, I saw a whole bunch of commuters swarming around a stand selling cheap umbrellas...further evidence that there was a pretty steady rain going on above ground. Sure enough, when I got off my station, I saw several people waiting just inside the exits while the rains came on down. Luckily, I had my foldable with me.

The day started nicely enough, though. I made an early stop at an AM/PM convenience store around the corner from my place to send off the package filled with my training materials and report for that BULATS qualification. Not too expensive to send it by courier...just 850 yen.

It was quite warm when I got off at Shibuya to head over to teach The Class Act and SIL. Everything went well there and I got all my back pay from the Prez at The Company tonight. I had the same guy from last week; still slow as molasses at the beginning. I keep remembering back to the day when I first started with him and the others almost 2 years ago. He was the best of a low lot...I wonder what the heck happened. Perhaps, the grammar caught up with him.

I just heard back from The Entrepreneur. According to the tone of his message, he didn't seem to be as enthused about "Revenge of the Sith" as The Doctor was. Different folks, different strokes I guess. And I got word back from Betty Boop about our proposed trip to Tony Romas. Looks like she and the OL will be good to go on the 11th of June.

I'd finish off my Star Wars memories here but I gotta prep for the long tomorrow as all my Tuesdays are.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Monday May 23, 7:54 a.m.

Now, this is something you don't hear too often...a marriage between a Japanese pop singer and an American jazz guitarist. Anri and Lee Ritenour have apparently tied the knot according to the former at a concert the night before. It must've been very sudden since checking the official websites for both have shown no news of the nuptials. Neither artist is exactly at the cutting edge of the pop culture zeitgeist: Anri's name is probably recognized by everyone over the age of 20 but her time was in the 80s, and Ritenour is purely at home in the jazz/AOR genre. Still kinda nice to find out.

It's not the first instance, though, of this kinda marriage. There is the famous joining of Ono and Lennon, but the jury's been out for decades whether Yoko is still considered a singer.

I see that "Revenge of the Sith" is raking in the big bucks. $150 million in its first weekend. I'm still very skeptical of its chances to unseat "Titanic", though. However, I've heard of repeat viewings...something that I didn't really hear for the last two prequels. Still, apparently even Star Wars wasn't enough to help the declining sales overall for movies this year.
Sunday May 22, 8:30 p.m.

Got back from an afternoon with Movie Buddy and The Satyr. We caught "Kingdom of Heaven" with Orlando Bloom. Not a bad flick, though it was rather slow in parts and some suspension of disbelief was needed overall. I don't think this will be the movie to put Bloom onto the A-list quite yet although it will keep him a familiar face. Certainly, he won't be in any danger of being stereotyped as Legolas. It was good seeing Liam Neeson in what seems to be his third role as mentor-turned-martyr. Of course, he was Qui-Gonn in "The Phantom Menace" and he'll be the fight trainer for Bruce Wayne in "Batman Begins" (although I'm not sure if he dies in that one as well). My suspension of disbelief was needed when I saw this embittered young blacksmith turn into this shrewd warrior in what seemed to be a smattering of weeks. It was even more amazing that the hardened warriors under his command could accept him that quickly even with his father's pedigree. I was somewhat mystified by an uncredited Ed Norton's impersonation of Marlon Brando for the King's role...you got me in that one, but he made the most of his part. And for those Trekkies out there, Alexander "Dr. Bashir" Siddig had a fairly meaty supporting role as the Muslim warrior whose life was spared by Bloom's character. All in all, an OK flick.

Afterwards, the three of us spent a few hours in the Aussie pub in Shinjuku munching on fish n' chips while the latest K1 championships were going on. Some short and intense bouts followed by some long and somewhat tedious matches. I don't think I'll be a convert. It looks like The Satryr will become our third movie member, though. Not sure which movie we'll catch next together. Could be "Batman Begins" although we'll have to wait another month for that one.

Well, I've now got the drudgery of getting that training material filled out before sending it off tomorrow, prepping for my Monday lessons and then ironing.