i dont know how to post pictures yet

maybe ill find out someday, but for now, follow this link to see how i look now at ichinomiya school, where im at on thursdays. youll have to click on the guy with the green shirt.

http://www.ecc.jp/school/chubu_area/ichinomiya/ichinomiya.php

christmas in nagoya

anybody who thought that the japanese wouldnt care about christmas would be wrong. theres tons of christmas trees and christmas lights up all over the city, many of which would dwarf the decorations youd see in vancouver. of course, most of the significance is lost and most individual familes neither celebrate christmas nor put up decorations, but its nice to see. it remains to be seen if the apartment will get a christmas tree, but we shall see.

fantasy football

a phenomenon i never really understood until i joined a league here in japan, now ill be doing it every year. probably will get into fantasy hockey too next year, but hey. the way it works is that you have a fantasy draft of offensive players (and defensive teams) before the start of the year. players get points based by productivity at position, but the most important stat is touchdowns. thus running backs are most valuable, then quarterbacks, then wide receivers, then tight ends. defenses are also big point getters but theres no one dominant defense like there is a dominant player. every week you select which players to 'start'...ie which players will play the best that week. at the end of each week you can add and drop players, trade, pick up players from the waiver wire, ect...

for example, heres my team which is currently at 6-4:

starting

qb - matt hasselbeck
rb - shaun alexander
rb - mike anderson
wr - plexico burress
wr - kevin curtis
wr - andre johnson
te - alge crumpler
k - jeff wilkins
d - pittsburgh

bench

qb - kerry collins
rb - curtis martin
rb - tj duckett
wr - ashlee lelie
wr - drew bennett
on my injured reserve...wr - darrell jackson

not a great team, not a bad one. just average. shaun alexander alone wins most of my games for me because hes a touchdown machine. it should be noted that my best wr, javon walker, had a season ending injury on the very first game of the year so that hurt.