The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

I've been in contact with the fellow who will be moving into my apartment and taking over at Nichu in August. It's pretty weird getting ready to pass all this on; he seems like a decent guy, and as much as possible I want him to be able to pick up where I'm leaving off in some ways. A common tendency among ALTs is to dump the successor in a totally clean slate, but for me that meant spending nearly a year getting to know people who could tell me where the neat stuff was to do. I don't quite understand the point of that, besides laziness.

This is my last week at Icchu, which makes me very very sad. I already finished my last visit to Fujigaoka Elementary, and was pretty choked when I finally left there for the last time (not literally since I want to head back tomorrow after school and say a proper goodbye to all the teachers). For a farewell present, Jen wrapped up some maple cream cookies in a lovely little bundle, and I handwrote thank you cards for all the teachers. They went over quite well, so I'll do the same at icchu. I can't believe this is my last week here.

As a going away project, yesterday I posted a challenge for the whole school, even the teachers. Don't post the answer, I know this is a popular riddle in Canada.
Rich men need me.
Poor men have me.
If you eat me, you will die.
I did not translate the riddle, but I did give vocab hints in Japanese. I also gave the warning that in Japanese it is a very difficult riddle, but possible to solve, while if they think in English it will be easier. The first person from each class who answers correctly will get a compilation CD of my favourite canadian music, which means it will basically be a Tegan and Sara CD. Working on that.

Aside from the leaving thing, it's business as usual. I made a delicious meal of baked salmon and pasta with white wine sauce last night. Apparently delicious enough to write home about! Odd. Jen and I have been playing a bit of Mario Kart on the wii, and we had Masaru and Kei over along with our friends Andy and Jen from Quesnel this weekend. In other words, as stated, business as usual. It's a good life here, and I'm going to miss it a lot - especially my friends - but I also can't say I'm not looking forward to going home.