resolutions and days gone by

as each new year begins i start a new list of resolutions and to-dos as most do. after ten months, this past week i finally accomplished one of my resolutions- baking in the rice cooker. it started with cake. four hours of cooking and still gooey, but oh so delicious! then tuesday evening, the brownies began to bake...three days later, in the rice cooker, they were still baking. thursday evening the baking stopped. they are now gooey centered goodness. yum. and now, the latest batch. this evening i put the blueberry muffin mix into the cooker...and while the first round is still going, I have a great feeling that this may be the only cycle! another new years resolution complete!

time in japan is flying by this year. school is consistently busy with preparations for speech contests, cultural festivals, and testing. and the 27 classes, at just one school, plus four other schools keep me running around.

this weekend there is a wonderful bamboo festival at kumamoto castle. i went last night with jessica. we met one of my elementary school JTEs, Naomi, for dinner at chill then met toshi and kat at the festival. the lanterns were amazing. bamboo and paper lanterns lined the streets. lanterns in trees, lanterns in bags, any type of lantern you can imagine, it was there!