spacealien_vamp | Keeping busy

Today was my first day back at work. Classes won't start until tomorrow, though (and even then, I don't have any classes tomorrow either), so that mainly meant sitting at my desk and reading for eight hours.

I did get a chance to meet the new exchange student from Michigan who arrived last night. She was quite homesick. I hope she feels better once she has a chance to get used to things here.

She went over her self-introduction speech (which she'll present at the opening ceremony tomorrow) with her homeroom teacher. Afterward, the teacher came to consult with me, because the student had mentioned having a step-father when talking about her family. The teacher wanted to know if it was okay to translate "step-father" into Japanese for the other students. She explained that most Japanese people try to keep step-parents a secret, so she didn't know if she should "spill the beans" to the other students. (The divorce rate is quite low here, and I guess it's considered rather embarrassing to have step-parents.)

After I came home, I decided that the photo on my home page was rather outdated, so I worked a couple hours on designing a new one. I intend to revise the look of the page overall...eventually. I made a few tweaks to it tonight, but I spent so much time on the picture that I couldn't finish everything I had planned.